Get more ICP sales. Leading with the all-important, considered, and well-researched client avatar will help your business!
You need to establish your ICP for more sales. Get your client avatar figured out for business growth.
Are you doing ‘spray and pray’ marketing? Time to get started with ICP sales! Figuring out your client avatar is a game-changer.
After listening to or reading this episode you’ll definitely have more of an idea of who you’re talking to in your marketing!
We’re making conversations about marketing counts, count, with Paul and Shreya – Episode 90!
Paul and Shreya get us started in smarter marketing with insights and tips!
Big take-away quote from this conversation about figuring out your ideal client avatar to get more ICP sales – Paul and Shreya:
“The mindset is probably half the battle. Too many people, even in marketing, they take their advertising campaigns, they shut them down too early… discredit ideas. And sometimes you’re not following the right process. It’s not that marketing does not work. You’re not following the right process.”
Paul and Shreya from “Marketing Counts”, Making Conversations Count – (July 2022)
.(Hard of hearing? Transcript here).
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Who are Paul Counts and Shreya Banerjee? And what on earth do they know about ICP sales and the ideal client avatar?
The ICP sales approach (ideal customer profile-led sales) is all about understanding your ideal customer, their needs, and what motivates them.
It’s essential to have a clear idea of your ICP before you can create effective marketing campaigns that will resonate with them.
Paul and Shreya from Marketing Counts do this stuff at their most basic level of their offerings. So they’re more than qualified to talk us through it all.
In the episode, you’ll learn way more about what the principles are, and how you can take their ideas and apply them to your own business.
What we’ve learned from talking to them is that it’s important to remember that your ICP sales may not have the same long-term journey as your current average customer.
So you’ll need to do some market research to figure out who your ideal customer is.
The FTE framework can help with this by giving you a better understanding of where your ideal customers are spending their time online.
What’s the FTE framework? Good question.
We’ll be getting into that during this episode, too!
Scroll down to continue reading this episode in which Paul and Shreya share how you can totally nail down your ICP sales approach and really reach your ideal client avatar!
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Why most people get the basics wrong
Like most things in life, marketing can be boiled down to a few core principles.
But many business owners get these principles wrong, leading to ineffective and sometimes damaging marketing campaigns.
Here are the three most common mistakes that business owners make when it comes to marketing:
1. They don’t understand their ideal customer (meaning no chance of ICP sales at all)
Too often, business owners create marketing campaigns that target the general public, rather than their ideal customer.
This can be a costly mistake, as it’s much more expensive and time-consuming to market to everyone than it is to target your ideal customer specifically.
2. They don’t understand their ICP’s needs
Even if you know who your ideal customer is, you still need to understand their needs to create effective marketing campaigns.
Many business owners make the mistake of thinking they know what their ICP wants, without doing any research first.
This can lead to campaigns that are irrelevant or even offensive to your ICP.
3. They don’t use an ICP-led sales approach
Too many business owners try to sell their products or services to anyone who will listen, without taking the time to understand who their ideal customer is.
An ICP sales approach is much more effective, as it allows you to focus your marketing efforts on those who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
If you want to learn more about ICP sales, be sure to listen to (or read via the printable transcript) our conversation with Paul and Shreya from Marketing Counts.
They’ll be sharing their expertise on how to create effective marketing campaigns that target your ideal customer specifically.
Click the player to listen to it.
It’s possible to resonate differently with different clientsWhen it comes to ICP sales, it’s important to remember that your ideal customer may not have the same long-term journey as your current average customer.
This means that you’ll need to create different brand voices for each of your ICPs, to resonate with them effectively.
For example, if your ICP is a young, hipster artist, your brand voice should be edgy and creative.
But if your ICP is a busy housewife and mother, or a mompreneur, your brand voice should be more down-to-earth and relatable.
The key is to understand what resonates with each of your ICPs and create marketing campaigns that speak to them directly.
Paul and Shreya explain this in the episode.
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Relevant quote from episode – click here for full transcript
“One of the key concepts we teach is creating your customer avatar. ICP. Unfortunately, if you’re starting a small business, you don’t do this because you think about everything else. But you don’t start at the basic. You don’t start at the letter A. Right. So creating your customer avatar, figuring out who that person is, we actually name it. You could have like 20 different personalities. For example, maybe you sell toilet paper. Toilet paper is for everybody. So how do you market to your key person? But there are different segments even within the toilet paper market. So some people might want the cheapest out there, some people might want the most comfiest out there. Well, those are two different customer profiles, and you’re going to have to decide. We name it, name them Sally and Matt. And Matt wants the softest one and Sally wants the cheapest one. And then when you’re speaking and designing marketing materials, you’re specifically creating stuff for Matt that’s going to speak to him. And even as an individual, I could do that. Even as a solopreneur or influencer, I could talk directly in one channel to Matt and then another channel on a different page, different landing page, different part of my website. I could talk to Sally at two different approaches. They’re still getting the information.”
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Advice for entrepreneurs who are starting out!
The synergies between Wendy’s business and Paul and Shreya’s business stretch way beyond just the name.
Paul and Shreya’s teaching of ICP sales centres around the power of conversations!
We all know that conversations can help entrepreneurs gain a clear understanding of their ICP and what they need to do to reach them.
(Relevant quote from episode. Read the full transcript here).
“Everything that I’ve built over all these years, right, is starting with communications and having a conversation and making those connections. So I’m constantly out there connecting with people on a deeper level. So Sherry, I talked about for somebody that’s doing a side hustle right now the number one best thing you can do is go to live events in person events. If it’s just a zoom event, at least that’s better than nothing. You’re going to make a connection, find a Facebook friend or a LinkedIn friend or follower and somebody that you can connect with, right? So those are immense, those relationships. You just never know where they’re going to transpire, where they’re going to lead. And we’re talking it could take three, four years later. I was talking to a friend of mine that said one of the things he learned for me over all the years we’ve known each other is that you never know the value of a relationship because he had something that happened to him and four years later, now a connection he had four years ago that he’s maintained and kind of just kept the door open, is opening up the door for a conversation that’s going to drive his new business venture forward.”
Why it’s important to try to do yourself out of a job!
Like Wendy, Paul and Shreya’s KPI for measuring how successful a client campaign has been, is how quickly they’re able to stop working with that client!
Need to understand what we mean by that?
Here you go.
(Relevant quote from episode. Read the full transcript here).
“We really, truly believe in educating. So we educate them through the process on their marketing. And then one of the core things we do is build them a marketing team underneath them. So it’s an outsource team or team internally, like working with their employees so they can get the most out of them, but put in place a graphics person, a social media person, an SEO person, to really build their marketing team so that they don’t have to rely on an agency if they don’t want to. So our goal is to work ourselves out of a job, which is very unique in the agency model.”
You’ll learn….
This episode of “Making Conversations Count”, in which Paul and Shreya shares their secrets of getting your marketing right at the basic level by generating ICP sales from a well rounded client avatar, covers:
- Why most people get the basics wrong
- How to resonate differently for different clients
- Why it’s important to try to do yourself out of a job
- Paul and Shreya’s conversations that counted
- Their advice for new and recently started entrepreneurs
Wendy’s takeaway
In this week’s episode, we’re treated to Paul and Shreya talking us through the basics of marketing using more sensible planning and methods.
I loved how these two met and grew a business mutually beneficial and are still having their conversation that counts all the time.
It was also interesting to learn how scaling from a time based business can still be a challenge for them as scaling coaches.
That FTE framework though! Wow!
Talk about a piece of gold nugget insight.
In case you missed it (or didn’t listen yet!) the FTE is around
Foundation
Traffic
Engagement
All important and all vital for your business success!
And they teach marketing into high school! How cool?!
Tommy’s Links
Please do let us know your take-aways from this episode by leaving a comment at https;//makingconversations.studio/Review-Paul-and-Shreya
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“Making Conversations Count” is a podcast from WAG Associates founder and telemarketing trainer Wendy Harris.
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Spoiler alert: want to read the conversation that counted in this episode about ICP sales and identifying your client avatar with Paul and Shreya?
You like to ruin the plot twist huh? OK, not judging. Here you are.
It’s not often I get a couple and I know you’re not a couple because you’re in different time zones, but you work together and you’ve been working together for four years, but it’s not often that we get a couple that come with a conversation that counts to share and of course, I never know what that’s going to be. So are you ready to tell us a bit more about that conversation that created a turning point for you?
Yes.
We met at a live event. So Paul was speaking and networking. We are a big proponent of networking, creating relationships, going out, meeting people, even if you’re meeting online, but meet! Like, create those relationships. We did a product launch together and since then the product launch went well and we continued and said, hey, let’s start doing live events and we started doing success count live events. Then we started to decide to create Marketing Counts and that happened and the complete shift there was Paul was very, I’m a solopreneur, I’m going to do it myself. You’re coming in, that’s great. But if we want to grow because he was against growing for some reason, I don’t know why.
That was the team point of view, I wanted to always be known because I was known as a successful solopreneur. So there was my pride that was saying, oh, I want to be the solopreneur. I’ve accomplished a lot as a solo business person and I wanted to stay that way. Yeah.
So we actually have both companies outside, individual companies outside of the success counts also. So he was like, you hire them under, you get the work done. I’m still going to be known as a solopreneur.
How foolish I was, right, looking back, because it’s like, without the teams, we wouldn’t be where we are, we wouldn’t have the time, freedom that we have again. And it’s silly, because when I had my business solopreneur, I always did everything and built very successful business. I mean, it was very successful, top seller on many platforms and very well known internationally. But there was a ceiling. You reach a ceiling in your business where you can’t go any further. And I was open to that, to knowing I needed to work with somebody that knew strategy and processes. But I would say this was unfortunately for Shreya, it was a very long conversation because I was a little bull headed.
We’re still working on it because there are times where he’s doing stuff, I’m like, Why are you doing stuff? Why don’t we have somebody doing this?
It’s more like the best part about the conversation we’re constantly having is if I’m doing, she’s like, Why are you doing that? And if you are doing, do you like to do that? Or couldn’t we get a process? So I’m getting better at that, where there’s quite a bit that we are outsourcing now.
That’s got to come down to Shreya proving that her way is better than your way.
It’s way better.
And once you’ve got that proof, that actually gives you the confidence and trust to be able to lean into other things, doesn’t it? And if you’ve just been the only person that’s been in control of everything, right? I don’t think it’s ego so much. I think sometimes it’s just it does come down to that trust piece. It’s kind of like, well, I know I’m going to get it done and if I don’t, then I can give myself a kick up the bum. I don’t want to be giving anybody else a kick up the bum.
Right.
I think that’s sometimes half of the battle, isn’t it, is that none of us want those difficult conversations of going back and sort of challenging and saying, well, it didn’t go how I wanted it.
Oh, yeah, exactly. And I had those moments in my past where I tried some of the outsourcing model, it didn’t work and really come down to it. It wasn’t their fault, the person I brought in, it was my fault because I didn’t have the proper communication with them to tell them exactly what I wanted. I didn’t have the right conversation with those people. And so Shreya brings that process approach. If you have a process to the people you bring in, then they can actually do the job effectively. It’s not about that outsourcing doesn’t work. It’s not about that a certain website you outsource on doesn’t work. It does not matter. What truly counts is having the right process. So that conversation really matter, makes it.
Also to be effective to you, you cannot hire ad hoc, like, okay, if your website is down, you need somebody, yes, go get that one person. But you have to have repeatable processes within your business to say, I’m going to hire somebody to do this particular task. So I’m not sitting there explaining to them every single time and wasting my time. I think that was a big hurdle for policy. It’s much faster for me to do it rather than try to explain this to somebody else to do it. Well, if you do it 20 times a week, explain it to the one person one time, maybe twice, that person will take over from me.
That’s exactly it’s a trick that we all fall into, isn’t it? To be successful, it’s got to be on our terms, and that’s it right. To be an entrepreneur, it’s just about you. Well, do you know what? There are many influencers that started out as individuals that built teams and didn’t necessarily employ anybody. Why is it we will go to an accountant for our taxes, we will go to a solicitor for advice on contracts? So why do we not trust other people in other types of industries, like marketing or sales and just about anything that you need? Because actually, that’s your team. It’s corporate. It’s just pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
It definitely is. That’s a really good explanation of it. It really is. And it all fits together really well, especially when you follow the process and do it right.
Just because you hire somebody doesn’t mean that that person would do it right. And that’s okay. I mean, it’s a fear we all have. But what you do is you move on to the next person. And that’s why we are big into, like, rather than doing full time in the beginning, start with the contractor, and then if that person is good, then yes, eventually that person will become full time.
But sure, you could be turning somebody’s side hustle into something really magnificent.
And it’s okay to fail just because you started doing the process and you’re good at it right now. You weren’t good at it in the beginning. You’ve worked out all this all the time.
Yes. When Brad Sugars came on the show, he said, people say to me, “I’m no good at sales calls. People are just not interested.” Ok, so how many have you made? “Four or five”. Well, four or five sales calls isn’t going to be the snapshot of success for the rest of your life in your business.
Right.
You’re going to need to do about 2 million. Hello?
Paul (laughs)
Yeah, exactly.
We always focus on your strengths and manage your weaknesses.
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You’ll read about:
You’ll hear:
Blaine and his TEDx Talk (1m02s)
Chief Results Officer? (3m47s)
Observations of business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle with results (12m19s)
Change doesn’t happen quickly enough but stick at it because it’s worth it! (23m25s)
Blaines’s conversation that counts (30m13s)
Blaine and his TEDx Talk (1m02s)
We all have these little idiosyncrasies that we like to hang on to... 21 seconds... an hour. If I was to say to my daughter, you've got all day to tie to your bedroom, guess what? It takes her all day to tidy her bedroom. So it's got to be the same in business. If you tell me I've only got 20 minutes to do something, I'll get it done with spare time!
Yes. Everything from when people argue for the limitations they get to keep them, to it's the lens that you look through that actually creates your life. So I call it the lens of the future, but that is so key. And then finding practical ways to program the subconscious mind to help you. Right. I did a TEDx Talk where I asked people to change the unlock screen on their phone. And so now, for years, I've been getting great feedback from people saying that made a big difference in their life. So whatever you're trying to bring about, you put that on your unlock screen. You can also have your family stuff, and then you can make a customized image. But many people have nothing. They have, like, the default unlock screen, which is interesting, but you see that screen, you unlock your phone 60 to 150 times a day. So it's a real strong way to keep putting what you want to bring about, what you think about what you bring about. It's a way to program that subconscious, but it's super powerful, and you're so right. That how you see it creates the reality. And if people get that, that's a big breakthrough.
Confession time. I did the unlock screen on my phone, and it was a picture of myself in actual fact, when I felt that I looked the best, I was slimmer, no Covid pounds. And it has been working because initially I was looking at it and thinking, this is I really don't like this. But it has had an impact. It's changed with what I eat, the what I drink, the getting up and moving more. So I'd say to anybody, just give it a try!
Yeah. Agreed. A lot of this stuff is self evident. Just try it for a little while. And you may not see it consciously, but your subconscious mind is still seeing it. And maybe you change it. Maybe you turn it to the side or you add some words to it. You can also kind of mix it up. I like to mix mine up every couple of weeks, but it's having the same core thing on there,
Chief Results Officer? (3m47s)
No, it is interesting. So what got you to become the chief Results officer then, Blaine?
So, for me, there were two moments of dawning comprehension where the world changes almost on a single thought. And for me, the first one came in college. I went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and I've always been kind of maybe like you and the listeners. I've been a little bit of a seeker, a seeker of knowledge. How can I do better? What could I do better? And so I saw this ad for an audio cassette tape. So I'm kind of dating myself. This was back in the 80s, but when I went to college and I sent away for this audio cassette, which was an abridged version of "Think and Grow Rich", it was actually this guy Earl Nightingale reading "Think and Grow Rich". And I got that audio tape, and then I subsequently purchased the book, and I realised there that "Think and Grow Rich". Now, the book is about Think and Grow Rich, but the riches can be anything. It could be financial, he talks about that, but it could be harmonious relationships, your health. And that's where this concept of what you think about you bring about. That was where I first got that. And I realized, now, wait a second, I'm in a lot more control than I realized. And I had a lot of success because of that initial reading of that book. And actually, I met my wife. We've been married 30 years, so I met her.
Congratulations.
Yes. That was kind of the first thing that started me on the journey there and started kind of taking control of myself a little bit more. But then the big change, the big dawning comprehension moment number two. I came back from a business trip, my degree's in computer science, I was working as a software engineer, and I came back from this long business trip, and my son Beau, he was one year old, and he was, like, giving me the cold shoulder when I came back. And I said, hey, Beth, what's going on? What's wrong with Beau here? And she said, well, you were gone so long, he kind of forgot who you were. And I was like, what? I mean, that hit me emotionally pretty hard at night. And I realized when I was a kid, I'd come home to an empty house. Both my parents worked. And so that night I had this moment of dawning comprehension, and I made a clarifying decision. Now, when you make a clarifying decision, it kind of like, cuts out a lot of other decisions, cuts out a lot of noise and really focuses you almost like a laser on one thing. And that decision was that I was going to be a work from home dad. And so it took me a year. It took me a year to get there because we were kind of conservative and wanted to save up enough money and have living expenses in the bank. But anyway, a year later, my wife said, if you can make more on your side hustle thing, whatever you're doing here from home, and you make more money at that than you do from the job or even the same, then you can go, you can cut away the job. So I did that. So it took me a year, but I did that and I left my job. And that was 27 years ago. And so for the last 27 years, I've been working from home, running businesses that really have no daily operations. So I've been able to do a lot of self development and that's what led me on the course to become the Chief Results Officer. I started helping people. I created a company called Selfluence, which is really kind of the art and science of influencing yourself. But more than that, it's the power that you already have to influence yourself. You don't need any special software, you don't have to buy anything else. You have it all kind of within you. And I started helping a lot of mastermind groups and they said, hey, you're helping us get results every week. We're going to call you the Chief Results Officer. I'm like. Oh, I like that. So I like the title. I took the title and then I went to the US Patent Office and I registered the title. So now I can say I'm America's only Chief Results officer. But anyway, I've been doing that and I think that's why I'm here. I think God has me on the planet to help people take control of their lives by taking control of themselves. So that's what I've been doing. Now, pretty much 27 years from home, kids are out of the nest now, so I have a lot more time to serve clients than I did before, but I really do enjoy it.
What a benefit for Beau, really? And gosh, we say this so often on this show is that there are things that you can do that can help and aid us, but ultimately it comes back to self. It doesn't matter. So you're saying that you decided to do something. Reminds me of Rob Begg who's a past guest as well. He's also a mindset expert and he says if you decide, you've also got to commit and that's effectively what you've done. So there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that I think they decide that they're going to work for themselves, but they don't commit. Do you see that it goes hand in hand?
I do. And I think there's a third component, and that is the action right there. There's a famous joke. Three birds are sitting on a tree, one decides to fly off. How many birds are left? And the audience typically says two, but no three. One made a decision, but they didn't fly off, they didn't take the action right. So I think what you think about, you bring about that. It's a combination of you make the decision right, and then you need to commit to that decision, but your commitment shows up in action. And so it's the action steps you take that kind of determine if it's real or not. And I will say that many decisions and desires kind of die on the vine because they're not strong enough for that person. And you can tell they're not strong enough if they don't want to wake up early, stay up late, and really put the action behind it. Right? And that's where you see the people really begin to move forward, because it's even taking the action. Even if you're going in the wrong direction, at least you're moving. They say you can't steer a parked car. You got to be moving. You got to take action. And it's in the action that really you kind of learn more about it, and then it can either grow, or you might realize that you're heading in the wrong direction. But that's okay, because it's in the knowing of where you're going. That's the fun part. And I like to tell people, you can't change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction. So if you figure out where you want to go, you can point in that direction and then start to move there. But in turning and facing, like, whatever it is you really want in life, you're going to feel the energy chemically. You're going to get excited about it, you're going to feel it.
It's a bit like stepping out into the sunshine, isn't it, and feeling it on your face. It is that much of an impact. But that's great course correction, isn't it? If we have these navigation systems built in, we are also tied to the magnetic force. So why do you think we have moved away so far from what comes naturally to us? Blaine, what's your take on that?
When you can get back to these core things? It feels good, it feels right. But today, more so than any time in the history of the world, is that there are so many distractions, and the level of distractions are so high. And everybody that I know has one of these, which is a smartphone, a cell phone. And so that can be like the greatest tool of productivity or the most evil distraction machine known to man or woman. For me, it's the level of distractions number one, and the loss of think time. That would probably be number two. Of time where you are... it's almost like more shower time, where there's no phones, there's no electronics, there's no outside world. People need more of that. I tell them, your phone has airplane mode. That's not just for airplanes. You can use it during the week, too. But I think lack of Think Time and distractions are the two things that pull you away, maybe even from who you are, who you want to be, your self development. So switching, that is possible, right? So switching, removing distractions. Right. So my family isn't super happy about it, but I've removed all the rings. Dings and dings. My phone never rings. If I'm expecting a call, maybe I'll look for that. But typically, I never answer the phone, and I've really cut down the distractions, number one. And then number two is I put a lot of think time back into my day and into my life and I think that makes a big difference.
Observations of business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle with results (12m19s)
What's your observation then, Blaine, of working with entrepreneurs and business owners that are struggling with that productivity and getting the results that they need? What's the first place that you sort of get them to be doing something slightly different?
I serve primarily business owners and the number one problem is overwhelm. Too many things to do and they're typically a day behind or more than a day behind things. And so what I like to do is first of all, show them that there is something to go after and I call it a day ahead. And so I like to take entrepreneurs from being a day behind to just being behind to being caught up, to being ahead to being a day ahead. And there is this thing, I call it the day ahead lifestyle which I live most days now, not every day, but most days I'm a day ahead. So when I wake up there may be some appointments like this podcast, but all the to-do's are done. Like I have no to-do's for the day and I'm working on tomorrow's to-do's. And so this concept of moving into that just first of all know that it's possible to be a day ahead. And my wife is back in school now getting a master's degree and she likes to be a week or two weeks ahead on homework and other things so you can get there. But the first thing is you've got to handle the overwhelm. And so typically what I see that works the best is to do some kind of a mind dump of all these things that you have to do. Now if you just do a mind dump alone, you're going to be more overwhelmed but guide them through. So get out a piece of paper and start to write down what are all the things that are top of mind. They're swimming around, oh, I've got to do this for this client or I got to do that. I've got these appointments, I've got to do this with the products, whatever it is. You have all these things swimming around and write all those things down and spend at least 15 minutes doing that and then take maybe a five minute break and then come back, maybe go a little bit deeper. Also, sometimes I provide a lot of prompts, a lot of questions to kind of pull more and more stuff out of your head and get it on paper. So the last time I did that in a big way, I ended up with 453 items on my list.
Wow!
Super overwhelming. Look out. Yikes. But the key is that you must immediately process the list. So it's in the immediate processing of the list that the overwhelm begins to subside. Because what I mean by processing the list is that you put an end next to things you can do now, something that takes less than five minutes. If it's a bigger project, I also say, look, why don't you write to the right of it? What's the next step on that? It might just be scheduled meeting with so and so, send somebody an email, something that's quick and fast. But you write an N next to those things that you can do now, and then you write an S next to things that need to be scheduled. They need to be done in the next, let's say, a week or so. And then D is next to things that you can delegate, you can give to someone else. Not that you're going to do it, but you could do it. It's possible to delegate. And then L, which should be the most used letter of all, stands for later. And those are things that are not pressing, let's say, in this week. Now, sometimes people do it just for the day. Like, what am I going to do today? Some people might do it for a month or a quarter. But one of those things that you can let go a little bit, you can put on the later list. And most of the time, like out of my 400, I don't know, probably 300, something of those were later items. But they're out of my head now and they're on paper. And then what happens is then you go after you take maybe 30 minutes and do a bunch of the Ns, get a little... start winning the battle of the brain chemicals, get the dopamine going, the serotonin, you're getting stuff done, you're moving forward. Then the bigger ones, you schedule those into your calendar, maybe you see what the next small step is again, win early, win often. And that starts to get them out of the overwhelm and get them into kind of high value, productive action. That's one thing I do. The other thing is that all entrepreneurs and business owners, most people, want to compress time. And so I do have a framework called the 30 Minutes Hour. It's how to get an hour's worth of stuff done in just 30 minutes. So sometimes I walk them through that framework as well, because if they can compress time, they're winning.
Yeah, there's a lot about what you've said there that comes back to feeling in control of the situation, isn't it? And thinking is just energy, isn't it? You've got all these thoughts and they're just randomly popping in and out of your attention span... by putting them down on paper makes perfect sense because you can look and it not take up your attention of worrying about it because you've already decided how you're going to do something with it. Is it next? Is it later? Is it a big thing? But it frees your energy up to be laser focused on the tasks that you really do need to do. And there's just that feeling of striking off things off your list, isn't there? That satisfaction of done that, done that... the fact that you've gotten to the end of a list is an achievement itself. But getting into the habit of doing that on a daily basis, that's got to be where the results are coming from.
Yes, you're exactly right about those open loops and all that thing that's swimming around in your head that you have to keep remembering, right? And when you get rid of those things now you've got some more room, some more capacity and you even feel better, like you said. And then also you're right about the checking off the list. A lot of times I'll ask business owners, have you ever done something and it's not on your list but you write it on your list so you could check it off? We've all kind of done that. But that gives us the dopamine that like physically shows up. You get a little square of dopamine in your brain and it feels good. Your body, your mind, it wants you to get stuff done, right? So it rewards that. So you are right. And a lot of it is how you think and what you think about you bring about and how you think makes all the difference and actually changes your reality. I call it the lens of the future. But how you say or say to yourself or how you think the prediction of the future is going to go, that is what you're going to end up creating, right? So the story I like to tell about that is let's say that I say, Wendy, look, I'm sorry but today is going to be one of the worst days of your life. And so then you go out and you're like, I don't know if Blaine's right or not. And then you're almost hit by a car and you say, wow, look, Blaine was right. I was almost hit by the car and you're shaking and you're like, oh my, what else is going to happen? And physically, brain chemical wise and physically, you get scared and you kind of get small and you're worried about the rest of the day right? Now if the same morning I said to you, Wendy, today is going to be one of the best days of your life. You're looking through a different lens but the same thing happens. You're almost hit by the car and you go, well Blaine was right. I was saved. Like, why was I saved? God still has something for me to do on this planet. I'm still here. And then you're exuberant. Now there's a little fear from the accident almost happening but right out of that you come up and you're not down, you're up. And the brain chemicals and your physiology is all like, this is a great day, what else is going to happen? Great. And so the same circumstances happened, but you created the reality based on the lens that you're looking through, and that is some of the biggest brain science and discoveries that are happening now is that you create that world based on that lens. So have you found that to be true in your...
Yeah, all the time. For me it comes down to language and it can be habitual. It's conditioned what we pick up from other people. You know that saying of who you surround yourself with, if that's negative, then that brings you down. I'm a positive kind of person in the main and it's hard if you're the only positive person sort of bringing the negative people up as well. So yeah, for me it's an energy thing. Everything is around energy and if you use the wrong language, it's like saying, oh, I nearly got hit by a car, but Blaine said it was a good day. You go, my luck was in and yet, it's got absolutely nothing to do with that. So it reminds me a little bit of the Matrix movie series that literally you can design the life that you want. How badly do you want it?
Yeah, agreed. And you're right about the people you hang around with. And I'm all for helping people, but I don't like maybe a third of the time I can be around people that are, let's say, at a lower frequency and have issues and I want to help them. And then a third of the time I like to be around people kind of my own energy level. And then another third of the time though, I want that higher energy. Right. I want to be kind of like you said, moving up and it can be tough. The other thing is if you're stuck in that lower energy or in that I call it head trash...
It's a good term.
Yeah, everybody has head trash. Now, my head trash, because I do a lot of things, is small and it's in the corner, but it's still there. And actually I do this thing called a mind shower every morning to kind of take the head trash out. But I like to tell people who are stuck with a lot of head trash that the solution to pollution is dilution. So if you ever see like if there's a liquid, a dark liquid in a beaker, the more clear water they add, it'll get less and less and less and less and soon it will be clear. What I find is the ratio is different for everybody. Like I need maybe a five to one ratio. So if I have 1 hour around negative people and bad things, I need 5 hours of positive. I got to pour in the positive to dilute down that negative. But realize that it is a bit of a battle, but like you said, what are you pouring in? Who are the people you around? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What foods are you eating? That all has energy and vibration, too. So you can really pour in so much of the higher vibration stuff that it does begin to minimize and kind of there's this little point where it'll flip over and you'll feel like you're in control of those thoughts rather than those thoughts and that negativity being in charge of you.
Change doesn’t happen quickly enough but stick at it because it’s worth it! (23m25s)
And you're right, really. That energy, the dark water into the clear, that's like recharging a battery, isn't it? When you need to go and find some positive to sort of just, you know... and I would say that people give up too soon. You can be adding clear water in and adding positivity into that dark water. And it could just be that you're just frustrated that the change is not happening quick enough. Please just stick at it because it's worth it.
Yeah, it is worth it. And realize that there's some people that will pour the dark ink back in the water, right? So you have to start to guard the inputs of your life, guard the inputs of your brain and your body. Because sometimes people don't even mean to do it. It's unconscious to them, but they are negative towards you or low energy.. so yeah keep pouring the positive and keep pouring it in big doses. I remember my favorite mentor is this guy Jim Rohn... I don't know if you remember...
Yeah, I know Jim Rohn.
Yeah, he's my favorite guy. I got to meet him and host him at an event one time and for him, he had this series, it's called The Power of Ambition, which I listened to on audio cassettes. Again, back to the dating myself. But I listened to that program 50 times in a row because I was at a point in my life where that's what I needed and I could finish the sentences of that program, but that's what I needed. That's what I needed to really get through some tough times. I mentioned before that I broke free from my job. But if you realize at that point we had a one year old son, I had a 50 hours week job and I started two other businesses at the same time. I mean, my marriage almost didn't make it through that year. So now we made it through that year and many others. But there are times where you got to lean into something, leaning into a mentor or whatever that positive thing is for you. But today there's so much available online and through things like Audible.com and podcasts like this, I mean, fantastic stuff that you can be pouring in that positive on a constant basis and you can do it at the same time as doing something else, right? You're driving in the car, pour in the positive. You're exercising poor in the positive, doing household chores pouring the positive. My wife and I were cleaning this weekend, and I was listening to a book on tape and just pouring in the positive.
Yeah, no, Neal, the producer, he'll be laughing at this now because he basically says, Wendy, in your world, there is no room for excuses. And there isn't really, because I understand that people can get into a position or a situation and not realize that they've gotten there, but there is always something that you can do to get yourself out of that. There are no excuses.
I like to say, when I lost my excuses, I found my results. That's a little quote I like to say. And you're right. And the other thing people need to be clear on is it's all about you compared to you, not you compared to other people. Now, if you want to change your happiness, you can compare yourself. Right. So if my ego is getting too big, then my wife can say, well, how much money does Oprah make every year? Okay? Yeah. I'm very small. But the opposite is also true, is if I'm feeling down, my wife can say, how many of your friends have no job and the freedom that you have. Right. In that comparison, you can regulate your happiness, but for your results, it is best to compare you to you. Right. Let's just better your best. And for me, this definition of success is kind of you moving towards your goal, whatever that is. So it's very personal, whatever that personal goal is. And if you find yourself in this situation, you can begin to move out of that situation and celebrate just maybe those first steps out of that situation. Right, so you're comparing yourself to you. So, yes, you can change direction overnight, and then you can begin to make measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time as compared to where you are. Right. And so, yeah, I think that's a valid point on happiness. And then also, no excuses for you getting better. Now you're human, so you're going to have bad days. That's right. But you just want to ride again, get back on the horse, ride again, and ride a little bit better. Figure out some way that you can ride a little bit better. So you go a little bit longer and you get a little bit closer to where you want to be and who you want to be.
And like you said at the very beginning, Blaine, growing rich and success is not necessarily about numbers in a bank balance. It can be how you want to live and who you want to live that with. Your reasons why.
Yes. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is there. I mean, you need a certain amount of money for food and shelter and those things, and if you're struggling there, then there's a lot of help. Right? I mean, the Internet, podcasts like this, books like Think and Grow Rich, there's a lot of resources there. But you have to take the step like you have to have the desire and then, as we said earlier, make the decision, commit to the decision, but then take some action behind that decision. Right. And when you feed the decision with action, then you're going to find out, is this really something good for me or not? And most people find that it is. And then they start moving forward. And then it's funny that when you start moving forward, it's kind of a little slow and slogging in the beginning, but as you get out of the mud and you get out of that and you start to go faster and faster and faster, typically then things start to move really fast. That's exciting as I see that in people when they adopt, say, a new habit and then all of a sudden now everything else in their life is kind of taking off.
It is just about making that start. If you make the start, you're already ahead of where you were.
Yes.
Blaines’s conversation that counts (30m13s)
It seems only right, really, at this juncture, to ask you about a conversation that created a turning point for you. I've got a feeling that it may link to what you were talking about with your career change and things like that, but you might surprise me because of course I never know what's coming next.
That's exciting.
So what was that one conversation that changed your life either for business or for personal?
It started as a conversation and changed my life. And that was actually Jim Rohn. And so Jim Rohn, a friend of mine, introduced me to Jim Rohn and then I was able to actually host him at an event I was running. And I got lucky because he had a house in the Phoenix area and this event was in Phoenix and he happened to be there. So it was very easy for him to come to this event. And so he came to that event and I got to hear him and share the stage with him. But the things that he said that evening had a big impact on me. Right. And one of the things he says is it's not what happens that determines your life future, it's what you do about what happens. And that was the beginning of kind of the lens conversation as well. But he said that, so it's not what happens that determines your life future, it's what you do about what happens. And I realized in that moment, I realized that I didn't have to worry about circumstances, the economy, the pandemics, and all these different things that's going to happen to everybody actually. But it's my response to what happens that determines the outcome of my life and my businesses. And then he went on to say the other thing he said that night was don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. And I was like, Whoa, that was big. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more wisdom. And he just got me to switch it to see that praying and begging for things to be better or easier, that was just going to fix the thing one time. If I increased my wisdom and I got better, that's going to increase everything for the rest of my life. And so that started me on a nice trajectory. But it was that conversation that night with Jim Rohn that I think led me to this course of becoming the Chief Results Officer. Now, having the time to do that with my son. Having the inputs was the "Think and Grow Rich" book. But it was that conversation that night. He also said, profits are better than wages. And I was like, oh, poof, I've got to do more of my own business. So that was it.
Wow. I know, previous guest Brad Sugars, he was influenced by Jim in a big way, and he talked about that on the show as well. Isn't it interesting, because we've already kind of touched on this, that just by switching your language out just changes the end results of what you want to be creating.
Agreed. And a couple of years ago, I read this one book called The One Thing by a guy named Keller, and in there he said and some people say different ways he says, when you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. It was just that language right there. That's where I realized, now, wait a second, let me say that again. Let me hear that for real. When you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them. And so what happened is that was the trigger for me kind of processing my own language, right? So if I start to say, I'm too old, I'm too this, I'm too that, I can't this, I can't that, won't all that almost negative kind of self talk. And it was on big things and small things, I realized it was almost like the predefeated mind, I'm never going to try that thing, because I've just accepted that limitation. And then I started hearing that language in other people, and now I can't go anywhere without hearing people arguing for their limitations all the time. But it's gotten so good in our family or in some businesses, masterminds that I work with, they'll say, oh, now Blaine is going to say you're arguing for your limitations there. But that consciousness around what you say is so big, and that can be kind of that pivotal point in your life, is when you start to listen to and process that self talk. That's big.
Yeah. Awareness. Self awareness. It can be a real driving force... or not. Well, thank goodness for Jim Rohn. Honestly. Thank you, Blaine, for sharing your story and so many different productivity hacks that we can apply to our own business and go away. I'm going to just go and sort out my mind trash later. I got to do another dump.
And I will say, look... on the head trash. The thing that has helped me the most and my clients is really that concept of the mind shower. Meaning like most people take a physical shower every day, but how often do you take a Mind Shower where you kind of wash out your mind and take out the head trash? Now there's apps. I use an app called Headspace, kind of a meditation breathing app, but I do that every single day. And I've done that now because the app tracks like 1500 days in a row. I've done this Mind Shower, just a little thing like that. Now I like a ten minute Mind Shower, but if I don't have time, I'll do a three minute Mind Shower. But doing that, I do that first thing in the morning, every morning. And that's made a big difference because I feel like at the beginning of the day, I'm kind of taking control of my mind showering it out, cleaning it out a little bit, but then also getting that lens ready for the day to make the most from the day.
Yes, it fits with your computer science background as well. It's almost like you're defragging the system and every day just hit reset. And then that head trash writing everything down in such a big overwhelm. It's not going to be that big anymore, is it? Because you've already got a handle on it, right?
Agreed.
I've had an absolute blast. I know who to reach out to now when I need either some head trash or a Mind Shower. Thank you.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this and I just want to take a moment to thank you. This is not easy to put all this stuff together and put it online and you have a big results ripple, queen of conversations here. You have a big results ripple and I will bet that you are touching lives not yet born that somebody 20 or 30 years from now is going to find this stuff and it's going to make a difference. So I want to congratulate you on that and leave you with this. That the bad news. The bad news is time flies. The good news, you're the pilot. So pilot well.
Thank you. I've got to go and cry now.
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TL;dr - want the episode summarised in one paragraph, and in your own language? Here is it.
ENGLISH: “One of the key concepts we teach is creating your customer avatar. ICP. Unfortunately, if you’re starting a small business, you don’t do this because you think about everything else. But you don’t start at the basic. You don’t start at the letter A.”
ARABIC:
"أحد المفاهيم الأساسية التي نعلمها هو إنشاء الصورة الرمزية لعميلك. برنامج المقارنات الدولية. لسوء الحظ ، إذا كنت تبدأ نشاطًا تجاريًا صغيرًا ، فلن تفعل ذلك لأنك تفكر في كل شيء آخر. لكنك لا تبدأ من الأساسي. لا تبدأ بالحرف أ. "
SPANISH: ““Uno de los conceptos clave que enseñamos es crear su avatar de cliente. ICP.
Desafortunadamente, si está iniciando una pequeña empresa, no hace esto porque piensa en todo lo demás.
Pero no comienza en lo básico. No empiezas con la letra A”.
FRENCH: “L’un des concepts clés que nous enseignons est la création de votre avatar client. ICP. Malheureusement, si vous démarrez une petite entreprise, vous ne le faites pas parce que vous pensez à tout le reste. Mais vous ne commencez pas à la base. Vous ne commencez pas par la lettre A..“
GERMAN: „Eines der Schlüsselkonzepte, die wir lehren, ist das Erstellen Ihres Kunden-Avatars. ICP. Wenn Sie ein kleines Unternehmen gründen, tun Sie dies leider nicht, weil Sie an alles andere denken. Aber Sie fangen nicht bei den Grundlagen an. Du fängst nicht beim Buchstaben A an.“
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