Connecting with people, in order to add value to their lives.
“The problems we have today can’t be solved with the same thinking that we used when we once created them.”
My specialty in business is person to person and truly connecting with people. Your goal is to connect with people. I’ll offer some simple “How to’s” for you herein. Also know that you have most of the information you need to have a good conversation with someone. Simon Sinek is famous for his “Start With Why” TED talk (second most viewed TED talk of all time). I’ve watched his 18 minutes of brilliance 50 times. The whole talk is about rearranging the info you have in order to land with someone. He breaks this down on a biological level as well as psychological level. Sounds technical, but you’ll find it’s easy to understand and appreciate.
When you think about what happens online, it’s the same thing aside from being able to look someone in the eyes and feel the energy of the moment. I can talk to more people at one time online, but I can have higher quality of conversations in person, hence i’m talking to less and have a higher percentage of finding a yes.
To start, you first need an intent. What is your intent? Mine is simple. I want to add value to people’s lives and i’ve got three shots to do that with our delivery system (Team Beachbody-fitness, food, finance), as well as I can be a decent human being and actually care about this person’s situation, listen to them, ask questions to find out what they want and need, so I can offer some sort of solution, point in the right direction, help them with a connection to someone who can help them, ie referral, etc. The person might just need a restaurant recommendation or a realtor recommendation.
Think about what else you are knowledgeable. Also what are your family & friends knowledgeable? This matters as I know all about what my brothers and sisters do for a living. Of course no where near their degree of day to day, but i’m able to speak to it. My background is that I was an athlete growing up, played lots of team sports as well as many individual sports. If you break it down further, i played traditional sports and do extreme sports. I was a professional skater for Team Rollerblade in the 90’s and was sponsored by many other companies. I learned the most in life working in a retail store that my brother owns to this day. The people skills, the connections, relationships, the work ethic and more. Then I got into real estate. I have more than simple real estate skills, there are stories in and around why I got into real estate, how I was recruited away from my career at the time, the insane lessons I learned through my tenure as an agent and Broker. Hence the importance of cataloging what you know far beyond the technical skills of being an agent or a cop or a nurse or a musician, it’s about the life lessons woven through your life experiences. Those are the things that you have in your hip pocket, when communicating with someone, that stands to make a profound difference in a person’s life. When my friends are going to sell a house, i’ll send them a line to ask about their move, how’s it going, and encourage them to be great to each other in what can be a stressful time. Sometimes people are unrealistic with pricing and their home will sit on the market. If that’s one spouse’s idea and not the other, then marriage issues can pop up in their immediate future. I’ve lived this personally and by proxy of those I represented, so i love to send a note to those friends to offer a bit of advice and to work hard to keep their relationship of the first importance, be as unemotional about the transaction as possible and then I offer why that’s important via sharing a story. I’ll tell them about the most successful and wealthy people i ever represented were the ones who had the least amount of emotion in their deals. I realize how difficult that is, and it’s something you need to get comfortable with.
This isn’t me with a crystal ball. This is me with empathy. it takes empathy to sell anything in life. You’re simply selling people on ideas. But guess what? Everything starts with an idea! I look at the landscape of social media, and when I see a post from someone who I feel I have some value to add, i do so. I’ll like the post, then send a private message. Should I go with putting that message in the comment thread, it’s a waste of time 99 times out of 100.
In a person to person situation, i’m listening to understand, not listening to reply. You may be reading this note and thinking Mike is the master of the replies. Yes i’m good at the replies, maybe even great, and that ONLY comes from caring about that person’s situation, using empathy, and not making it about me. If I made it about me, I might be too pushy about the insights/perspectives/recommendations I have and that would NOT land with that person.
The only way you or I can land with someone is to be very authentic and relate to them. When I’m authentic, patient, which makes me grounded in the moment, I have the highest odds at landing with that person. They may not need or want what I have and that’s perfectly fine. When I was in real estate, that was 99.9% of the conversations. With Beachbody, everyone needs what we have. This is interesting and incredibly unique. The issue with this is that it enables us to talk to anyone as anyone is our future customer/client/coach, however the slippery part is that it’s easy not to niche market. What’s easy to do is easy not to do. You want to niche market. That’s one of the most important things in any type of business unless you’re selling air to a world without any.
Niche Markets: If you are getting out of medical school and you’re looking at the landscape of how you’d like to administer your new skills, expertise, and knowledge, you wouldn’t go about it like this; cardiology on Mondays, Orthopedics on Tuesdays, Oncology on Wednesdays, Pediatrics on Thursdays, and so on. You would specialize. When’s the last time you’ve ever heard of a doc who didn’t specialize? If you go to a family practitioner, and have an issues beyond their scope of things, you will be referred to a specialist. For instance, my buddy who reconstructed my shoulder is an orthopedic surgeon. He doesn’t participate in any other type of medicine than orthopedics. He also doesn’t do hands, feet, spine, neck, hips, or elbows. He does knees 30% of the time and shoulders 70% of the time. He used to be 50/50 knees/shoulders, but after having his own shoulder operated on, he became even better in his technique and is now one of the top shoulder specialists in Southern California.
Put that up against your business. What is your niche market? Who are your people? What do you love? What would you want your “tribe” to look like? (tribe in the sense that Seth Godin teaches). You can’t be all things to all people. It’s not your job to make all people happy. It can’t be done.
When my brother opened his sports shop in 1988, he specialized in bicycles as his #1, then skis and volleyball. Those were his passions in life and were all very popular things at that time. Today his store is 10 times the size from when he opened and now he’s got everything from Climbing to all aspects of cycling (road, tri, TT, BMX, cruisers, commuters) to swim, snowboard, and sunglasses. He’s grown with his market, the trends, and what he loves. He loves golf but knows that’s a stand alone store if you really want to do it right. So he doesn’t touch it. The sport/product in the middle of all this was Rollerblade. Maybe that sounds funny, but it was the most explosive sports industry in the 90’s and out shined all other categories in the sports world in terms of growth. We had races, we held hockey tourneys, we did stunt shows, we promoted every inch of that genre to create the excitement and opportunity to people. We also ended up being the #1 skate shop for sales in the country (non coastal). There were two coastal shops that did more and that was all they did. We still sold bikes and skis and snowboards. We sold snowboards as they were invented. Hence we were early adopters.
What are the top 5 things about you and what you love? At this point in the conversation, I get people all the time who reply with “family, faith, and fitness”. Faith is more of a core value than it is a hobby. I’m looking for people to focus in on their top 3–5 things they love. For me, it’s business acumen, a super dad, extreme sports. There are other things I love, those are my top 3 for communication online. I also love to travel, I love red wine, & i’m an expert in relationships & marriage (doesn’t mean i’m perfect, just studied and practiced). The deal with this is that it’s easiest to talk about what you know and love. If you’re a diehard college football fan, then it’s effortless for you to engage in a conversation about that. I was in a conversation just today as a matter of fact about the NFL draft. And I wove that story into Beachbody. The guy i’m recruiting mentioned that his wife is in the hospital recovering from surgery, when she’s sleeping he was catching up on the NFL draft a bit, and reading the info on the challenge pack i sent him. Most people would be done here. I respected his space and the seriousness of what he has going on, AND knowing that he’s able to catch some of the draft online while she’s sleeping, is an open door to discuss what we do a little bit. One of the quarterbacks drafted was from my home town, his mom is best friends with a couple coaches on my team. I mentioned that and what a small world it is. Also that the doc the NFL listens to (as well as Olympics) is the head of our medical science board, Marcus Elliott from Santa Barbara (P3). I then said that every workout that’s been made starting with P90X2 has his fingerprints all over it, which is why they all work so freaking well. Then I mentioned that Marcus talks about how we’d all be surprised how many professional and Olympic athletes are using our programs in the off season and now our nutritionals.
This related to him on the level of what he’s passionate about. He also mentioned golf but i’ll save my golf stories for another time. There’s no need to inundate him with Beachbody knowledge all in one shot. I joke that it’s like meeting someone and getting married in a day. These things take time, we don’t need to ram it down their throat. I’ve peaked his interest and curiosity about this, and the way that I connected what he loves to what I love is where the magic happens.
People need a connection. You are weaving a story, as if you’re the seamstress of their life’s work. In person, you need to be able to think on your feet. This is crucial. And you are capable of this regardless of how good you perceive yourself to be right now. What it starts with is being interested more than you’re interesting. I make sure that I take someone down a path. It’s my path. Think about it, we could sit and talk about so many different things. As much as I love funny movies or great personal development books or red wine, i’m not there to make it about me.
One of my friends in the biggest real estate companies in the world ran mergers and acquisitions and dealt in very sensitive matters. He told me that he does what I do when he’s working with a new client; he strives to relate. He said he can go into that office and be Ivy League Mark. He can be Division 1 athlete Mark. Beer drinking Mark from Philly, MBA Mark, or a son of a firefighter from Philly. He’s all those things and if his client happens to be related to a firefighter, that might be his path of connection. It doesn’t matter which one it is, he’s there to relate as that makes the rest of the rapport, relationship, & business dealings much smoother.
When you’re mindful, intentional, have clarity on what your mission is, treat your business like a business, you’re on the right track.
The right actions & behaviors over time = Success
Cheers to all of your future success!
Mike
