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

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

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

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.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com

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.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com

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.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com

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.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com decodinggreatnessbook.com ronfriedmanphd.com

Vanessa Van Edwards shares the science of charisma and connection and talks about how to create deeper and more authentic relationships. Learn why the Golden Rule is not the best way to work with prospects and what you should be doing instead, how to understand and use the three levels of intimacy, and the one exercise you need to identify your most important business development efforts.   Mo asks Vanessa Van Edwards: What’s your big idea on how people can grow their book of business, deepen their relationships, and enhance their career? Vanessa likes to joke that she’s a recovering awkward person. She used to believe that charisma was something you were born with, but the truth is that charisma can be taught. The research indicates that most charismatic people have honed their charisma and learned very specific interpersonal skills that help them create relationships. You don’t have to fake it until you make it to be charismatic. The most practical way to develop your own charisma Highly charismatic ranked off the charts compared to their peers in two very specific traits: warmth and competence. They need to be combined to be effective. Many professionals put too much emphasis on competence, which can actually make you intimidating, cold, or hard to talk to. Warmth alone can make you a pushover and encourage people to take advantage of you. The number thing to consider is where you fall on the balance between warmth and confidence. Over the next few weeks and months, pay attention to where you fall and if you need more of one trait or the other, that is your first step towards becoming more charismatic.   Mo asks Vanessa Van Edwards: What can people do to create more opportunities and build their book of business? Vanessa was raised on the Golden Rule but that rule actually started getting her in trouble. When she switched over to the Platinum Rule “Treat others as they would like to be treated” the game changed completely. Of the big five personality traits, Openness and Conscientiousness are the two biggest blocks to closing more deals and bonding with clients. When you’re high in Openness you like new ideas and new things. When you’re low in Openness you like things the way they are and prefer habit and routine. The thing to keep in mind in pitching situations, if you use the Golden Rule and you’re high in Openness and speaking to a prospect that is low in Openness, you’re going to completely scare them away. An easy way to figure out what sort of person you’re dealing with, ask them out to lunch. Whether they try something new or prefer their tried and true favorite will give you a hint. The Openness of your prospect should dictate your pitch. For a low Openness person, minimize the change and emphasize what isn’t changing and the proof. Conscientiousness has to do with how someone approaches details. Low Conscientiousness people are more about big ideas whereas high Conscientiousness people feel more secure knowing all the details. Openness is important for pitching, Conscientiousness is for planning. Honoring someone’s personality is one of the deepest ways we can respect our fellow human beings.   Mo asks Vanessa Van Edwards: How can people deepen their relationships? Vanessa had a lot of surface relationships in her life but she found some research that completely changed the way she interacts with people. There are three different levels of intimacy in a relationship. The first level is called general traits. At this stage, we are just trying to understand their basic personality traits. Level two is personal concerns. This level involves additional questions revolving around a person’s origin and emotions. The third level is called self-narrative and for many people, they don’t have any relationships at this stage. The self-narrative is the story someone tells themselves about themselves. Unlocking someone’s self-narrative is the most critical part of understanding someone’s motivations and why they act the way they do. If you want to deepen your relationship you have to structure your interactions around these levels of intimacy. If you’re curious about the third level, you have to start by identifying your own self-narrative. Do you see yourself as a martyr or a hero? Unlucky or lucky? A powerful yet risky question to ask if you want to dive deeper into a level 3 relationship is “So what’s your story?” If you’re going to ask it, make sure that you have a good answer yourself. Radical transparency is key. If you want to get to know someone, tell them that’s what you want to do and get them to buy in first.   Mo asks Vanessa Van Edwards: How can we hack our habits and stay focused on deepening our long-term relationships? How we manage our people and our work is just as important as how we implement the work. Vanessa’s company uses an exercise called Start, Stop, Continue. You should always be evaluating what you are starting, stopping, and continuing. Every month Vanessa’s team has an opportunity to list new ideas for things that can move the needle, identifying which tasks are working well, and perhaps most importantly, which activities need to make way for something else. Having a not-to-do list is crucial. You need to be able to say no to anything that is hampering your productivity or your success. Personally, this exercise should be done once a month. As a team, once per quarter and before jumping into it you should explain what the purpose of the exercise is. Give them a chance to think about it and then set aside two to three hours to go over everything. If you don’t think you’ll have enough time to commit to this, take the social media apps off your phone and take your time back.   Mo shares his insights from the habits of Vanessa Van Edwards. Charisma can be learned, just like business development skills. Just like anything complex, it is both learned and earned. One of the deciding factors in Mo’s father’s restaurant when he was growing up was his ability to tell a good story, and that skill rubbed off. People weren’t coming in for the prices since it is impossible to compete with the farmers, but because there was a story and connection available. The first step to learning something is the awareness that you can learn, and then putting yourself on the path to learn it. For the people that are high in Openness, you should emphasize the high level concept and the newness of your pitch. For people who are more systems and detail focused, the key thing to emphasize is the lack of change and how your pitch will streamline what they are already doing. In the Herrmann Brain Dominance model, the other opposing pair is Facts vs. Feelings. For someone who is focused on the facts you should emphasize that you are high value and worth the price you charge. It’s about being efficient with their time hitting the most important points. For Feelings, you want to emphasize trust and the relationship with the prospect. Good rainmakers shift their communication to emphasize what the other side finds important. Great rainmakers emphasize a little bit on all four quadrants and wait for the prospect to lean in on something in particular. If we are going to be efficient and effective, we are by nature, always climbing and finding better uses for our time. You should always be trying to level up what you are working on, and by definition, that means eliminating the lower value activities. The world has a status quo bias, so we need a mechanism for reevaluating things you should take off your plate and things you should begin doing. Commit some time each month to do the Start, Stop, Continue exercise that Vanessa recommended in the previous episode. If you don’t have a system for that right now, that should be your first step. If you don’t have time for this exercise, that’s an indication that you definitely need it. Eliminating even small tasks can result in hundreds of hours each year to start doing new things which could change the game for your business development efforts.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com scienceofpeople.com/pschool scienceofpeople.com/captivate

Mo shares his insights from the habits of Vanessa Van Edwards. Charisma can be learned, just like business development skills. Just like anything complex, it is both learned and earned. One of the deciding factors in Mo’s father’s restaurant when he was growing up was his ability to tell a good story, and that skill rubbed off. People weren’t coming in for the prices since it is impossible to compete with the farmers, but because there was a story and connection available. The first step to learning something is the awareness that you can learn, and then putting yourself on the path to learn it. For the people that are high in Openness, you should emphasize the high level concept and the newness of your pitch. For people who are more systems and detail focused, the key thing to emphasize is the lack of change and how your pitch will streamline what they are already doing. In the Herrmann Brain Dominance model, the other opposing pair is Facts vs. Feelings. For someone who is focused on the facts you should emphasize that you are high value and worth the price you charge. It’s about being efficient with their time hitting the most important points. For Feelings, you want to emphasize trust and the relationship with the prospect. Good rainmakers shift their communication to emphasize what the other side finds important. Great rainmakers emphasize a little bit on all four quadrants and wait for the prospect to lean in on something in particular. If we are going to be efficient and effective, we are by nature, always climbing and finding better uses for our time. You should always be trying to level up what you are working on, and by definition, that means eliminating the lower value activities. The world has a status quo bias, so we need a mechanism for reevaluating things you should take off your plate and things you should begin doing. Commit some time each month to do the Start, Stop, Continue exercise that Vanessa recommended in the previous episode. If you don’t have a system for that right now, that should be your first step. If you don’t have time for this exercise, that’s an indication that you definitely need it. Eliminating even small tasks can result in hundreds of hours each year to start doing new things which could change the game for your business development efforts.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com scienceofpeople.com/pschool scienceofpeople.com/captivate

Mo asks Vanessa Van Edwards: How can we hack our habits and stay focused on deepening our long-term relationships? How we manage our people and our work is just as important as how we implement the work. Vanessa’s company uses an exercise called Start, Stop, Continue. You should always be evaluating what you are starting, stopping, and continuing. Every month Vanessa’s team has an opportunity to list new ideas for things that can move the needle, identifying which tasks are working well, and perhaps most importantly, which activities need to make way for something else. Having a not-to-do list is crucial. You need to be able to say no to anything that is hampering your productivity or your success. Personally, this exercise should be done once a month. As a team, once per quarter and before jumping into it you should explain what the purpose of the exercise is. Give them a chance to think about it and then set aside two to three hours to go over everything. If you don’t think you’ll have enough time to commit to this, take the social media apps off your phone and take your time back.     Mentioned in this Episode: GrowBIGPlaybook.com scienceofpeople.com/pschool scienceofpeople.com/captivate