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

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

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. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com training.mollyfletcher.com – $10 discount code: GAMECHANGER

Ron Friedman shares the principles of Decoding Greatness and reveals why the stories we are told about success are wrong. Learn how to reverse engineer greatness in any field by becoming a collector, how to create a scoreboard that leads to success, and a simple technique for hacking your habits and guaranteeing that you improve your skills over time. Mo asks Ron Friedman: How can the audience get better at growing their book of business, their relationships, and their career? The big idea behind Decoding Greatness is that the stories we were told about success were wrong. We were told that either people are born with special talents or that greatness comes from years of practice. The third story that most people don't know is that those at the top of a profession have most often mastered the skill of reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is simply taking the best examples within your field and working backward to see how it was achieved and what can be applied to what you're working on. Methods vary depending on the field you are in. Regardless of what field you are in, having the reverse engineering mindset of looking to decode how something is created is the key to getting better. Become a collector. Most of the great people in the world started off as collectors before they were creators. Finding greatness requires seeing greatness in others. If you see something that you want to achieve, collect examples of those things and you will begin to identify the patterns that are different from other things. Finding the differences is the first step to figuring out what makes someone or something unique. Asking great questions is another method of discovering the differences when you have the opportunity to speak to your model directly. A mindset of naive curiosity is one of the fastest ways to allow people to open up when they are with you. Contrast this reverse engineering method with the idea of practice makes perfect. Improvement through isolation is a failing strategy. You can't practice an idea you've never considered. The real path to greatness is having a systematic approach to learning from the best and applying it to your work. Simply copying someone else's formula will probably not work for you. Their value proposition may not apply to your industry or the audience expectations may have shifted. The key is to evolve what you are modeling to make it unique to you and novel to the people viewing it. One way of doing that is by combining two or three examples of greatness and taking the elements that resonate with you to create the best possible version. Mo asks Ron Friedman: How can we create and close more big opportunities and business? We know from the research that anything you want to improve on you need to keep score of. In other words, you need to track your numbers. Simply relying on closed deals is not enough. There are way more metrics that you can track that are better indicators of progressive improvement. You have to identify the metrics that indicate you are doing a good job in your field and track them over time. When you track those numbers the metrics become motivating. You tend to be more mindful of what you decide to do and it exposes wasteful effort. We are sensitive to numbers evolutionarily speaking. Numbers give us crucial information that we need to succeed in many different areas of life. Only tracking the lagging indicators like deals closed is only half the picture and they aren't directly in your control. You need to track leading indicators that are in your control as well. Your scoreboard needs a balance between short-term and long-term goals. This applies to the overall success of your career, but extends into your personal life and relationships as well. We want to avoid over-optimization of a single metric to the detriment of everything else. Metrics can be a mix of both quantity and quality. In terms of metrics that you should focus on, you need to work backward from your target audience. Not all prospects are created equal. We would all be wiser to think about the one person that you want to work with the most and how to replicate them. Subjective metrics can still be beneficial, but even within those metrics there are things to drill down on to identify what makes the metric important. In the case of meaningful conversations, did both parties speak equally? Was there self-disclosure from both sides? When you compare the ordinary to the extraordinary you will be able to identify some objective metrics that you can aim for that will enable you to be more successful. Mo asks Ron Friedman: What can we do to deepen our relationships using all of the knowledge in Decoding Greatness? Use your relationships as test markets. Test markets are often used by successful entrepreneurs to fine-tune their ideas before they go to market. This enables you to take a lot more risk and test more things before going big. When it comes to deepening your relationships with potential clients, ask for advice on a potential approach you've been considering. Avoid asking for feedback because requesting advice primes them to think about the potential ways you could improve, and you get great feedback at the same time. People love to feel like they can contribute and their opinion is valued. Ask for advice. In relationships, people want to be valued, respected, and appreciated, and what better way to honor someone than asking for their input on something that you can improve. Positioning yourself as better than your clients will work up to a point, but if you want to deepen your relationship and get them invested in your success, asking for advice is the way to do that. There is also the advantage of getting the perspective of someone that you can't see on your own specifically because of your level of expertise. Advice can open up your mind to ideas that you haven't considered and can lead the other person to suggest people that would be interested in that offering. Start a collection of people who communicate well and deepen relationships effectively. We all have people in our lives that we can emulate and create a collection that will allow you to decode and discover meaningful patterns. When communicating, start with what's important to the other person and not what's important to you. If you have established a scoreboard, you can also create a checklist to measure your communications against. Mo asks Ron Friedman: How do we hack our own habits to be successful? When most of us think about improving our skills we tend to think about a practice that's narrowly defined in the present. If we look at those who are at the top of their field, their definition includes the past, present, and future. Looking to past experiences by keeping a five-year journal is how you get an extra perspective. Reviewing our previous day alongside that same day one year before will give you additional insights, and the five-year journal automates the practice. Additional benefits of the journal are that it improves your memory and helps you recognize how often your fears are overblown in the moment, and this gives you more confidence to handle challenges going forward. Research shows that if all you do is write down what you learned today, your performance will improve by up to 25% on the following try. Reflective practice is a method that will generate improvement over time. Practicing in the future is exemplified by imagery. Athletes imagine their performance in advance using all five senses. Experts that use this technique improve faster and extend to all professions. One of the best uses of imagery is imagining that you stumble and how you recover. This teaches you that whatever comes up you can get better. This technique helps you front-load decisions and allows you to simply execute in the moment. If you write down what can go wrong in a meeting and how you would handle it, your confidence will go through the roof and it will allow you to be more present in the conversation. Mo shares his insights from the habits of Ron Friedman. Decoding is extremely powerful. Mo has had great success taking models that worked for another company and decoding it and then applying it in his own way, and has noticed that without a concrete vision or model to emulate, the odds of success go way down. If you want to decode greatness, start by becoming a collector. Having only one model can be restrictive. Combining the elements that work across models can create a synthesis of the best examples and lead to a better end result. Track your behaviors because there is no way to be successful and feel great about it without tracking something of your own. We love numbers and are intrinsically drawn to them as they indicate success in life at a very fundamental level. If all you are looking at is lagging indicators, you won't feel motivated in the short-term and it can lead to feeling defeated. We need to pull the metrics back to things that we can control instead of focusing on the outcome. What can you do today to be just a little bit better at what you do? The cumulative effect of your leading indicators is long-term success. If you don't track the metrics that matter most you can end up making missteps for months without even realizing it. When it comes to business development, think about your performance all the time. One of the benefits of the pandemic is the ability to record your Zoom calls with potential clients and review the conversation. You can look at the number of questions you asked, when the other person leaned in or checked out, and more. Practice in the past and review your past performance on a regular basis. Practice in the present and write down what you've accomplished today. Having a meeting with yourself to review your progress is incredibly valuable. Practice in the future. Focus on the imagery of the elements that are important to business development meetings. Anticipate what might happen, what questions you might receive, and what might go wrong and this will give you the confidence to deliver effectively. Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com