March 11, 2025 • 64 mins
What if I tell you the secret to success is getting more NOs instead of YESes? It’s not about avoiding rejection but embracing it. I’m telling you, you will learn from the best!
In this episode of The Ripple Effect Podcast, we sit down with Andrea Waltz, an engaging speaker, business consultant, Founder of Courage Crafters Inc., and co-author of the groundbreaking book Go For No!
Together with Richard Fenton, Andrea Waltz solidified the core philosophy of Go For No!
Go for No! has sold over 500,000 copies and ranked in Amazon’s top 50 sales books for over 14 years. More good news? The much-awaited second installment of this book, Go For No! The Sequel will be released soon.
Tune in to The Ripple Effect Podcast as we discuss the story and inspiration behind the Go For No! book and its philosophy, how embracing the “no” mentality redefined businesses, how it helped sales professionals of all levels, and the areas of life in which you can apply this idea.
We will uncover the power of rejection and why failing more leads to winning bigger.
Are you ready to dive deep into it?
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Learn more about Go For No!: goforno.com
Connect with Andrea Waltz: linkedin.com/in/goforno
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Andrea Waltz is one of the mostdynamic individuals I think you
could ever possibly hope tomeet. I have been a fan of hers
on social media for a while. Sheis someone that has energy
enthusiasm, and she has this gofor no approach to life, and it
informs her work and herspeaking. And I can't wait for
(00:22):
us to dig into this, because Ithink this is going to be one of
the most fun conversations Ihave this year. She is just a
Spitfire of real positivity andenthusiasm, but also gumption,
drive commitment, showing up todo the work. And I just think
you guys are going to be soabsolutely inspired and
(00:43):
motivated by this woman, becauseI know I happen. I'm so grateful
that Andrea agreed to be a partof today's podcast. So with no
further ado, let's dive in. You.
(01:10):
Andrea waltz, thank you, andwelcome to the ripple effect
podcast. How are you doingtoday?
Hey, Steve, I'm doing great. Igotta say I have
been bribing with excitement allday because I've been looking
forward to our conversation,because I have been a big fan of
yours on social media. I havenot had the pleasure of reading
your book yet, but it is on mylist. It's coming. But go for
(01:33):
No, I want to start there,because I think it is such I've
watched some of your videos andsome of the things that you do
to talk about this as a topic,but I'd, I'd love for you to
share just the principle and theconcept, maybe the inspiration
behind the
book. Yeah, so the, well, theinspiration comes from a story
that we often tell when wespeak, and it's a story that's
(01:56):
in the book, and it's a storythat happened to my husband and
business partner, Richard, wherehe learned kind of the go for
No, I guess the core go for nophilosophy. And he was selling,
he was selling suits for aliving. He was failing. He was
doing horrible. District managerwas visiting the store. Richard
thought it would give him timeto improve his sales, if he
(02:17):
could impress this guy. So heproceeds to have this fantastic
sale. And this goes back a longtime Steve, so I'm gonna, I'll
fast forward to today's dollars,and just say, let's pretend it
was like a $5,000 sale. It wasreally like 1100 but it would be
like spending 5000 today.Inflation, yeah. Inflation,
yeah. So he has this great sale.He's thinking he's gonna get
(02:38):
congratulated, but instead, thedistrict manager asks him, what
did that customer say no to, towhich Richard has to review the
sale, and thinks the customerdidn't say no to anything,
everything I put in front ofthat guy he bought. And then the
district manager asked him thereally important question was,
which was, how did you know hewas done? And it was right, it
(03:00):
was really the way he knew hewas done, was that customer had
hit his mental spending limit,that everything he laid in front
of the guy. The guy said yes tohe never heard no, but he ended
the sale. So this was the littleseed. This was the little like
starting point of, wait aminute, maybe no. Isn't so bad,
(03:21):
because this district managersaid you need to go for no. No
is the thing that's holding youback. And when Richard shared
this story with me over twodecades ago, I actually thought
I was a superstar salesperson. Ithought I was great. Customers
loved me, and then I had to gethonest. And I thought, You know
what, I don't maximize myinteractions. I hold back. I
(03:47):
make judgments on what I mightshare or what I might say right
in order to not in order toprotect myself and to not hear
no. So we decided, you know,what? Were you conscious of that
at the time, or was thatsomething you just started
thinking about after you kind ofhad this new had this new
perspective. Well,
you know, once, and this is kindof the funny thing, when we tell
that story, we always tell itas, like the foundation, and we
(04:11):
tell it a lot, it's a lot longerwe we finesse it and add the
details in. But when we tellthis story, it really is an
immediate reframe. People golike, Oh, I get it. And so I had
an immediate reframe. And Istarted looking, I started
looking at what I was doingthrough a new lens. I started
saying, like, at first I when Iheard it, I said, Now I don't, I
(04:32):
don't let no bother me. Youknow, I wasn't one of these
hardcore people who say, like,read no for breakfast, and it
doesn't bother me. And but Icertainly didn't think like I
had issues. And then I, like, Igot honest, and then I realized,
yeah, I don't, I don't like it.I, I do shy away and and
certainly I didn't want to lookpushy, and I didn't look want to
(04:53):
look aggressive. Funny part,though, is that go for Yes,
like, I. Going to do whatever Ihave to do, Steve, to make you
say yes and to buy this thing,like, I'm going to twist your
arm. That's the that's the onethat gets people in trouble. Go
for no is just no is perfectlyfine. It's a perfectly
(05:14):
acceptable answer. But theimportant part is that we ask,
that we have the courage to ask.And so. So I have spent, like,
the last two decades studyingrejection, failure, asking the
skills to ask how to get betterat asking how to deal with the
psychology behind it. And I amjust, I'm, like, obsessed with
(05:37):
it. It's definitely my passion
I love that. I'm curious when,when you were selling, and you
were kind of insulating yourselffrom the nose, what, what were
you selling at the time? So
I was, I had worked my way up toGeneral Manager at lens
crafters, and so I was running,yeah, I was running one of the
highest volume locations in thecompany. I had become a licensed
(06:01):
optician, which is, I had noplans to do that. I have a
bachelor's degree in criminaljustice. I wanted to catch bad
guys, but that, I guess that didthat wasn't in the cards for me.
Stay hot eyes, yeah. Well,exactly, exactly. Well, the you
know that all, the only thingthat was available was an unpaid
internship, and I really wasdesperate to make money at that
(06:23):
point in my after being incollege and starving, I was
tired of starving, so, so, yeah,the this, but I as a general
manager, even though I wasn'tlike a quote salesperson, I
would still sell, you know,periodically and and So I just
applied it to that my careerfundamentally, and I would
(06:43):
train, we actually, Richard waslike one of the great, best
trainers in the whole company.So he would, he was training
people on go for No, that's howhe taught me this idea. So we
eventually just quit our jobs,our corporate jobs launched
this. Launched our company. Wehad all the same sales and
management philosophies andcustomer service philosophies,
and we've honestly, we justwanted to go out, you know, they
(07:05):
don't listen to you. When youwork for a company, you're just
like, Okay, how good Could yoube? You work for us. No, we want
to go hire a consultant, right?Somebody who knows what they're
really talking about. So webecame those people like we
decided, well, we'll be peoplefrom the outside and and bring
our ideas in to companies. Andthat's what we did. So I had to
(07:26):
apply go for no to like, the Bto B sales world of cold calling
prospects and and picking up thephone and going, like, do you
hire speakers? Okay, great.Here's information. You know how
that process goes? Oh yeah, it'sso much fun.
I don't know that. I call itfun.
(07:47):
I'm kidding.
I was like, well, you being asconfident as you are. I'm sure
it's like, yeah, everybody saysyes to you, but they wouldn't
say yes to me all the time.
Oh my gosh, I got so many nos,plenty of no's, yeah and and I
was terrified to do it. I wasterrified. And I tell people all
the time to this day, like wecouldn't have written go for no.
(08:08):
We couldn't teach it if we wereone of these people who just had
the all the confidence in theworld. We're not people who get
up and say, it's easy. Yes, youknow, you just need to be
confident. No. I mean, we neededgo for no because we didn't like
it ourselves. Yeah,
yeah, you got to live it andbefore you can teach it and sell
(08:29):
it, right? So, right for sure.You know, I resonate with
Richard story, because one of myfirst jobs while I was in
college was working for a copierdealership, and I remember my
boss always walking in with 222,pieces of advice, one at the
beginning of the day and one atthe end, which was, you know,
the beginning of the day was,it's a new day. It's a new
(08:49):
chance to excel. And I kind oflived by that philosophy for a
long time, because no matterwhat happened yesterday, that's
done, it's in the past, and nowyou have an opportunity to
remake today. So if you hadyesterday was a horrible day
calling on people, make today abetter day calling on people.
And then he'd walk in at the endof the day and he would want to
know the no quota, right? Howmany knows did you get? How many
(09:10):
doors Did you have slammed inyour face? And inevitably,
whatever the number was, I couldhave just blown it out that day,
and it would still be neverenough. And what he said to me
about the no is that you you getno and no toughens you up. No
strengthens your reserve. Ittests your metal. It makes sure
that what you're doing you'recommitted to doing. And
(09:33):
eventually, once you've heardenough of those, you've
toughened up enough, then theyeses start to fall. And it was
absolutely true. I mean, it was,you know, there's a lot of
philosophies you and I have bothprobably been in these
capacities, where we've trainedsales teams and you work, you
know, with them, to help themunderstand what's the best way
to set themselves, what's up forsuccess. And there's always that
(09:54):
tried and true. It's a numbersgame. You just got to keep at
it. You got to do it. Butthere's also a lot about. About
understanding rejection and whyyou are not getting the response
that you're looking for, andthat it's okay to actually hear
that, because everyone gets youcloser to a yes, which is also
an overused, you know, you know,phrase that coaches use all the
(10:17):
time, but at the end of the day,it's very valid and true. And
there's a lot of lessons in no,there's a lot of self self
examination and introspectionthat can actually occur if you
really embrace it, as opposed totry to avoid it or look at it
with a sense of shame.
Yeah, and I love that you saidthat too, because I remember we
(10:39):
we interviewed Larry wing it. Doyou know Larry wing? It is that
Nate is really familiar? Yeah.So he, he, his tagline was, he
was really big, very, verypopular speaker, yes. And then,
like the 90s, and spokeeverywhere.
He was always on the Zig Ziglarthing, right?
Yep, probably. And he calledhimself the pit pit bull of
(11:02):
personal development. We him fora go, for no movie we did. And
he said, he said, You know,every no gets you closer to Yes.
He goes. It's one of the classiccliches. It's like one of the
oldest cliches in the book. Hegoes. But cliches are cliches
for a reason. Most of them aretrue, right? That's right, and
they work. So, yeah, you're soright.
(11:23):
Well, so as you guys move frombeing in the corporate bubble
and then deciding to start yourown thing, talk to us a little
bit about that journey. Whatwas, what was the thing that
most surprised you about doingit, and what's the thing that
has kept you going all theseyears doing it?
Oh, wow, good questions. Uh,what is this thing that? Well,
(11:45):
you know, I kind of, it's kindof like i The analogy I give to
be going from the corporateworld to being on your own is
like you, you have to get reallycomfortable with uncertainty,
and you just have to fall inlove with it, and I equate, I
equate it, because you're
not married to it, whether youlike it or not, right?
That's right, right, right? AndI know I don't love turbulence
(12:08):
on an airplane, but once I getin, and once I get settled, and
I realize, like, okay, theflight's kind of bumpy, and it's
probably going to be bumpy thewhole way, so I'm just gonna
roll with that, that's what theentrepreneurship is. Like you
just you go like, Oh, it'sbumpy, and it's going to be
bumpy basically forever. So justsettle in and get used to it.
(12:31):
That was surprising. The otherthing I think that surprised me
was that I just didn't considerit. It's a very obvious thing is
you are constantly learning, ifyou don't stay on top of what's
going on in the industries thatyou serve in your own industry,
just even in the world of likefor us, professional speaking,
(12:54):
training, writing books,publishing, marketing, you're
you are Constantly you aregetting a master's degree, like
every four years of justlearning, what's the new
technology? What's the newthing? Where are your customers
hanging out? You need to get infront of them. Then the good
thing is that, as we do it forour own business, we kind of
(13:16):
understand what our, you know,our clients and the people that
are out there in the field aregoing through, because they're
going through the same thing,right? So everybody right now,
everybody's learning, okay,what's the new thing? It's AI.
We all know it's coming. Soeverybody's looking at, how do I
apply AI to what I do, and tomake myself more effective and
(13:37):
and better? So that's, I think,the thing that you know, just
the It's a never ending journey.You're never done learning,
because everything is alwayschanging. And, I mean, it makes
it it makes it fun. Butsometimes you just go, like, can
I just relax for like, sixmonths and do nothing and just
coast just a little bit?
(13:58):
Yeah. And the answer is alwaysno, right? That's
right. The answer to that is aabsolute hard No, yeah, that is
a hard
No, and not necessarily the noyou want to get to, but it's the
reality of being an entrepreneurfor sure. That's right. So how
many years have you guys been inbusiness for yourselves? So
we started in about 1998 Okay?When we launched our company, we
(14:22):
had, you were probably, like,about 12
at that point, or what?
I was pretty young. I was prettyyoung. I like to say so today I
joke I'm a dinosaur in thisindustry, and I mean that
literally, almost literally. Butwe had two, we had two big speed
bumps. One was 911 likeeverybody had, you know, we were
(14:43):
pretty new in business, and soour business really fell off in
2001 just everybody stoppeddoing training and hiring
people. And so I took a job asthe Training Director for a pet
supply retailer in Los. Angelesat the time, that's where we
lived, and I was it was perfect,because our customers at that
(15:07):
time, our clients, were allretailers. We spoke for JC
Penney and Macy's, and anybodythat you'd see in the mall was
our customer. So I felt I fitright in there. I was there for
about two years, and thentransitioned back. Richard still
maintaining our business, butthe business was so off that he
was able to do it on his own.And then I came back, and then,
(15:31):
like, gosh, what was it? 2008did little things on the side
and and even in 2017 wasn't thatour business was off,
necessarily, but we've had ourwe've had our bright, shiny
object moments where we've tookour taken our eye off the ball,
and one of the things that we'vegotten into is publishing. So
(15:53):
we've we've ended up publishinga lot of other people's books
because we're good at it. Soit's just really interesting how
business goes. And sometimes youfind things and and we kind of
joke that we're the mostreluctant publishers on the
planet. When people ask us,like, can you publish our book?
We're always like, no, don'tmake us do it. Don't make us do
it. But we sometimes you haveknowledge that you want to
(16:18):
monetize. You're like, gosh, I'mgood at this. And one of the
mantras I know Steve, you canappreciate this is just because
you can do something doesn'tmean you should do it. Another,
yes, yes. Really importantlesson
there, but a painful lesson formany of us entrepreneurs to
learn, right? Yes, yes,
(16:38):
because you certain, you certainrealize that if you are chasing,
you are chasing two rabbits, youwill catch neither of them,
yeah, yeah, yeah, oh,absolutely, it's, it's tough.
And, you know, of course I saythat, and you know, I am living
that analogy now, because I haveripple and what I do through it.
And then I have a softwarecompany on, on, sort of my other
(16:59):
persona, right? My other, youknow, my other area of focus.
And so part of what I had tocome to realization was, you
know, yes, they're separateentities, but actually part of
what I do has the ability to becombined, which made it a little
more congruent for me. So I feellike at any given day, I'm
actually investing in theefforts, in the in the progress
(17:19):
of both. And when one works, theother one kind of is the tag
along, and then vice versa. Sothat's that's allowed me to
theoretically wrangle bothrabbits. I may not be able to
completely catch them, but I'mholding on with dear life with
the rope is while they run. ButRight,
right. Well, you it's kind oflike, if I chase this rabbit,
the other one will have nochoice but to come along. We'll
(17:40):
just drag this one. Yeah, that's
right, yeah, you're stuck.You're stuck. Absolutely I am.
I'm really curious about the theapproach that you take, you know
now, with regards to, you know,like, how you've built your
business, is the vast majorityof the organizations that you
work with, are you working withtheir sales and business
(18:01):
development team. What's themost ideal prospect or client
for you guys now as you movetowards 2025
Yeah, so we typically go in andgo out. We're not, we don't go
in and go deep and we're not.We're not consultants. We did
more of that in the retailindustry, because we really
(18:23):
specialized in that industry forseveral years. We knew it
because we were we had been init, and Richard had been in it
for years, even before we met.So he had just had so much
expertise. So we would go in andnot necessarily consult, but we
would do a lot morecustomization and a lot more
things. After we decided that weweren't going to continue
(18:47):
specializing in that industry,we really went with go for no as
our main message. Our goal is toteach individuals, teams and
organizations how tointentionally increase the
number of no's that they'regoing to hear in order to get to
yes, and all of the nuances andmindsets that go into that and
how to handle No. And I mean, wecould do a training for like,
(19:10):
two days on this material, andas a result, we ended up not
specializing with anyoneinsurance and financial planners
and recruiting organizations.And so we've we've become more
speaker focused, where we thendo a talk for 60 or 90 minutes,
maybe follow up with otherthings, but all kind of
(19:33):
superficial, not really goingdeep. So that's kind of where we
are today, although I've alsoCOVID, of course, changed
business dramatically. And oneof the things that we did during
that time, when we were justsitting around going, like, what
should we do, was we created acouple of workbooks. We created
a leadership workbook and a gofor No, 21 day challenge
(19:56):
workbook. So one of the funthings I do is something called
a go for no. 21 day challenge,where we market to individuals
and we and it's so and like thisis just like. This is not a
money maker. Like, in terms ofmy time, I probably break it
down. I probably get paid about$12.50 for doing this. It's
fine. An hour, it's fine. I loveit. And but we have individuals
(20:19):
sign up and we take them throughthis 21 day challenge where we
meet every week and doaccountability, and that's
really fun. So there's thingsthat we have just kind of added
in as we've gone. And it'sreally interesting just to see
how people sell today and howthey interact, and how go for no
fits in today's market comparedto 20 years ago, and it has
(20:43):
evolved, and technology haschanged it right? There's so
much less in in person. Peoplearen't necessarily going door to
door or dropping in B to B, likewhere they're literally visiting
a customer, although I'm goingout with a salesperson next
week, and we are literally goingout to visit customers. Wow,
(21:04):
yeah, I know, so I'm excitedabout that. So some of that
still exists, but so much of itis direct message and email and
all of these things. But I findthat the issues that people have
with rejection still apply it.You still have to have your
numbers and to your point aboutsales as a numbers game, it
really is. It is. And yet, withthat today, quality is more
(21:30):
important than ever. You talkabout building connections and
relationships, it's that's moreimportant than ever. So I find
that I am trying to weave, gofor no in with that. Know, Like
and Trust message of, Hey, you.You need to build relationships
ships. But how does thatrelationship starts? Well, it
(21:52):
starts with the courage of youoftentimes, reaching out to
somebody cold and saying, Hey,we don't really know each other.
I'd like to connect with you.Maybe it's LinkedIn, moving that
to the next step of, can we meeton Zoom? Can we have coffee?
Whatever somebody's got to buildthat relationship. And that
means somebody has to go first.It's just like, on the
playground, if you want to goplay with somebody on the on the
(22:15):
swing set, somebody's got toinvite you over, like somebody's
got to make the first move. Andso that's still, I think, very
relevant to today. I
love that. I, you know, I lovethe there's a lot to unpack
there, right? Because you and Iboth, I think, you know,
understand how vastly differentthe market space is in terms of
outside sales than it was evenmaybe 10 years ago, right?
(22:36):
Because, you know, cold callingand in the tried and true ways
that have been sort ofhistorically always there for
sales, individual salesrepresentative or business
development person is vastlydifferent because of the
different ways that peopleapproach it. Now you very rarely
actually walk into an officebuilding and see multiple sales
people working door to door todoor, because they just don't do
(22:58):
that anymore. But the tools andthe technology also make it
really more challenging foranybody in a in a business
development effort, because it'sso much easier to get ignored. I
remember my days. I told my sonthis, my oldest son the other
day, I said, you haven't reallylived until you've been thrown
out in an office buildingbecause you were cold calling,
right? And you meet, you meetpeople along the way, and you,
(23:21):
you know, they don't want totalk to you, they don't want to
have anything to do with you,and yet you still have to stand
before them, and you somehowhave to get your business card
in their hand and try to get thename of the person that might be
over whatever product or serviceyou're selling. And nothing
tests your metal more than that.And I'm, I told him, You know,
I'm shy and introverted. Thebest thing I ever did was take
(23:42):
an outside sales job because itrequired that I got beat up a
lot. And as an introverted, shyindividual, walking in and just
being berated by, you know, agatekeeper. I mean, you really
are starting to think about lifechoices at that point, right?
And, you know, Can I Can I stickhere? Can I actually make it
(24:02):
through? But when you you takethat amount amount of rejection
or that challenge, and you'reable to take it on the chin and
still continue to get up and dothe next call and and approach
it, I learned a lot about myselfas an individual doing that. I
did it for years and years. Butthe thing that I think is really
interesting in today's world,and I'm curious how you guys
(24:24):
approach this, in terms of howyou train or work with the
clients that you serve, is thatghosting is a real thing now,
right? I mean, it's like, youknow, they either a don't have
to pick up their phone. In fact,nobody picks up their phone
anymore. Nobody returns avoicemail email. There's so many
emails and so much junk thatcomes in that catching anybody's
(24:45):
eye or attention on an email isbecoming increasingly harder.
And then, of course, you haveLinkedIn, which is established
as a platform for us as businessindividuals to get to know one
another, understand ourprofessional sort of resumes.
It's it's a. Phenomenal toolthat has become like now
Facebook for business, and sothere's all this noise. So when
(25:06):
you're working with you know, oryou're in front of an audience,
or you're working with anorganization, and they're like,
I just don't know what to do. Idon't know how to get out there
and even get the opportunity toget thrown out or be told, No,
what do you what's your advicethese days? Because the
environment is so vastlydifferent than it was even 1015,
years ago,
right? Well, I think it's, it'sfunny, because it's very simple,
(25:31):
but it's, of course, not easy. Imean, one is, you've got to know
and find, find your buyer, yeah,and you need to, and once you
figure that out, you you've gotto make sure that you're
speaking to the right buyer aswell. And so our, our like,
General, I guess you'd sayoverall methodology, philosophy,
(25:52):
go for no is not really a salestraining program. We have no
process. We have no like. Hereare the steps, but one of the
philosophies is, disqualify,find the people that are not for
you. And you can do that acouple ways. One, you can do it
just top line, which means go,if you're if you're prospecting
on LinkedIn, or you're trying toconnect with people you know
(26:14):
don't go to a networking eventthat you that you haven't
vetted. And you know that youknow your prospects are not
hanging out there, or don't goon LinkedIn and just start
spamming people randomly figureout who, like, where are they?
What's the if it's a company,what's the revenue that you
want? What? What do they do? Youknow, all of those things niche
(26:36):
down as much as possible. Myfavorite example of this is
Viking Cruises. I don't know ifyou've gotten that brochure
right the breaking and they havea sales page in there, which I
absolutely love, and it's set,and it's the sales page of No,
and they list all of the thingsyou do not get on a Viking
cruise. It's like, we don't dothe photography, we don't have
(26:58):
the big, fancy dinners, no bigpool, no no big pool. You're not
going to walk around with somecrazy drink. No to that, no
casinos. So it's, it's like,this is a refined adult
experience. And if you want theother crazy, wacky experience,
there's plenty of that outthere. And so I think, as for
(27:19):
all of us, and this is, I thinkit's the one thing that I've
been happy that we've done, iswe've stayed very tight on what
our focus is, even though we'rebroad. From a customer
standpoint, it's like, hey, wecan help anybody who has to face
rejection. So that's everyone,but the topic, right? The topic
(27:39):
is really like, we don't go offinto different directions. So
one is, know your buyer bewilling to disqualify you,
willing to ask the toughquestions early and not try to
fit that square peg into thatround hole of Oh, but they might
work. And I don't know, Steve,look, he seems good, and he
seems like, you know, hissoftware company needs us. It's
(28:00):
like no, no. Just move on tosomebody who is better
qualified. And then the secondpiece is messaging, right? It's
working that message. And one ofthe biggest things, from a go,
for no standpoint, that I see,especially helping people on my
challenge, is going out withthat message. And whatever
(28:21):
platform you're doing it, a lotof people to take the challenge
are doing cold calling, and theymay follow up with emails or
whatever, but they are doingcalling, and it's like, you've
got to get that message down soit's valuable, but you've got to
make enough calls to have thedata to make the decision
whether that messaging isworking or not. And so often
(28:42):
people are like, well, thisisn't working. You may. How many
calls did you make? You madenine. That is not what we're
talking about here. You need tomake 990, or better yet, 900 and
then you can look and say, Okay,you're right. Your messaging
isn't catching on where, ormaybe the message is catching
(29:02):
on, but you're and people areinterested, but then you're not
setting an appointment, oryou're setting appointments and
you're not closing through thethroughout the funnel, it's
constantly looking at, wheredoes that fall apart? But beyond
that, the biggest thing that wefocus on when we speak or when
we teach people, is just thatmindset of that persistence and
(29:27):
being willing to hear those no'sin order to get the Yes. It's
not just about and reallywanting to. It's not just about
kind of suffering through, butit's wanting to so that, and you
said it so beautifully, you'vegot to want it so you do beat
up. You get beat up. You dolearn from them. You do grow
from them, and you figure outokay. So every time I approach
(29:51):
the gatekeeper with thismessage, I get thrown out
metaphorically. Let me try this.Let me do this a different way.
And. That is the mindset that isso important to keep people in
the game.
Yeah, well, you know, and it'skind of funny, I know you, you
say it's obviously your yourmarket is, is broader than you
might first think. Because, youknow, if, if you have rejection
(30:14):
anywhere in your life or in yourwork, they can benefit from what
you train on. It's not justsales or business development, I
can, I can see that, you know,and there's so many different
areas, right? I want ouraudience to really, you know,
sit up and pay attention tothis. Because, I mean, how many
times you get told no during theday, right? It could be from a
spouse, your kid, it could beyour neighbor, it could be a
(30:35):
community organization, withinyour organization, your own
company, you know, trying to geta project initiative off the
ground, or try to get additionalfunding for something there's
there's so many different ways.And I always like to tell people
like, you know, when I speak toan audience, depending on you
know what the topic is, but ifit's geared around leadership or
(30:56):
anything to do with sort of thepersonal responsibility of what
you do in your professionallife. I remind everybody,
everybody's in sales. We're allselling something, right? And
we're always in a position to dosomething, whether we're selling
an idea, trying to get fundingfor a startup, we're trying to
write another book, we're tryingto, you know, ask somebody out
on a on a date. We're trying toget an appointment. These are
(31:18):
all avenues where theopportunity for someone to, you
know, give you rejection or sayno, there's a high probability
of it. And the more that you canget comfortable with that, the
more that you can learn from,like you said, understand what
works what doesn't work. It isreally a science game. I don't
know how many people I've told Ithink that you know, you and I
(31:41):
kind of look at our industrykind of the same ways that you
know there's opportunity tobenefit from the data and the
knowledge that you pick up. Andif you're paying attention, and
you're you're being reallymeticulous in terms of what
you're tracking and how you'retracking it, can it can open up
a plethora of new ideas andcreativity for doing things
(32:02):
differently. And I tell I'vetold many, many leaders, one of
the movies that I like to watchis Moneyball. And I don't know
if you saw Moneyball with BradPitt and but it's it. What they
were doing was leveraging thenumbers, you know, to figure out
how to get more successful onbat opportunities, which
produces, hopefully runs right,and at the end of the day, how
(32:25):
to do that on a shoestringbudget. And what they were doing
was dealing with a problem wherethe Yankees were 100 and $40
million payroll right for theirruns to the World Series, and
these guys were more like $20million right. That it
definitely an apples and orangecomparison, but it was kind of
proof positive, that when youstart to look beyond what has
always been or what we've alwaysthought was just the way and do
(32:49):
things differently, then youoften find new paths to
different outcomes. And that'swhat I love about your all's
work, is that you are helpingpeople say, Hey, don't shy away
from the No, and don't, don't beashamed of the No. It's part of
life. We all hear it, and it'swhat we really learn from it
along the way that actuallymakes us better, that eventually
(33:10):
will get us to a lot more yeses,right?
Yeah. So perfectly sad. Andyou're and I love Moneyball. We
we've watched that more thanonce. Yeah?
Me too. Yeah. Sadly, every timeit's on TV, it's like, Rudy, I
just stop and I just watch,
right? And then you just gotsucked in, yeah,
yeah. I think that. I think whatI've what I've watched in it,
(33:32):
you know, I got to see, youknow, you guys have both a
really, a really powerful energywhen you present and you speak.
And I really love that. And Iencourage people to go out and
see some of the videos that areout there with you guys
presenting. I can see why thismessage resonates in kind of why
you were kind of more or lessgeared towards more of that
(33:52):
speaker audience, because at theend of the day, what you're
talking about is so powerful,and it can impact any
organization, no matter whatsize they are, what's what?
What's the most surprising thingabout sort of this new iteration
of your business going into2025, that then you didn't
expect maybe even pre COVID.Yeah,
(34:14):
you, that's right, you did askme about the what's the most
surprising thing
come back to it, yeah, it's allgood stuff going. So you,
you by asking that, you justtriggered the thought in my
head. I think the mostsurprising thing is I sometimes,
I was just telling Richard thisthe other day. I'm like, You
know what? We are too close tothis material sometimes, and we
(34:37):
have to remain dumb. We have toremain dumber. And this is just
like I even back in my corporatedays, I remember telling
everybody you like, the smarteryou get, the worse it is,
because you start, you stoppedexplaining things to customers,
you start getting so good thatyou think that the basics don't
(34:59):
matter. And, and even as asalesperson, you get so good you
forget the fundamentals. Yeah,and I think sometimes, in this
for go for No, I've beenteaching it so long that I
forget that sometimes thefoundation is where I need to
start. And I I will jump aheadto things that I feel like are
more advanced mindset conceptsor or things that are more like
(35:21):
philosophical or esoteric orwhatever, or even more tactical.
And then sometimes I'll post,and most of this is like social
media, just to gage reaction.And then sometimes I'll post,
like a Thomas Edison quote aboutnot giving up. Or Thomas Edison,
you know, he tried with thelight bulb, you know, 1000 times
(35:42):
and or 10,000 times until onefinally worked. And people are
like, Oh my gosh, that's soamazing. And I'm thinking, this
is the most basic idea ofThere's so much I have so much
gold here. And you are lookingat this idea, and I think like,
but the simplicity of it and thepower of it is that's where we
(36:05):
started. And I don't need to getfancy, like, I need to focus on
the fundamentals of this mindsetthat and stop. Sometimes I think
like, I need the new thing. Ineed to talk about this
differently. And it's like, no,people are still resonating with
the things that are the like,they're so fundamental. They're
(36:26):
the timeless truths, right?They're the timeless principles.
Like, begin with the end in mindStephen Covey, that is a
timeless truth. It doesn'tmatter how technology changes or
what happens. It's so powerful.And you think like, oh, I will,
will the Franklin COVIDorganization transition and
(36:46):
change that? No, I will be thereforever. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, I like what yousaid there about, you know it
sometimes you have to go back tothe basics, right, the blocking
and tackling and meet peoplewhere they are. And I think that
there is this, I do think, youknow, it's kind of funny that
you said that. Like, yeah, youstruggle with that a little bit.
(37:07):
Because I do, I have as well,because, especially for ripple,
it's like, you know, yes,relationships are important. How
you go about connecting withother people. I mean, yes,
super, super, super logical, andeverybody needs it, yet nobody's
really good at it. And so whenyou kind of, like, peel it back
and you say, Okay, I actuallylearned this a couple of years
(37:29):
ago. I had a leadership teamthat pushed back on me and said,
you know, the approach that Iwas proposing to take with their
team, it thought was just, yeah,this, this is, you know, this is
old hat. This is stuff that allof our people know. And I was
like, really? I said, Okay,that's interesting. And the guy
said, Look, we're here to learnhard skills. We're not here to
(37:51):
learn soft skills. Everybodygets soft skills. And I thought
about it for a minute, and I satthere, and I knew I was at risk
of probably getting tossed out,but it wouldn't have been the
first time, right? And I, I, Isaid, Well, let me, let me ask
you a question. You know, yousay soft skills. And I, and I
said, when you got into yourfirst job, or you actually took
(38:14):
this job here, who was theperson that took you by the hand
and said, Alright, come on, kid,I'm going to show you how to
show you how to get along withthe other kids in the sandbox.
And the one guy who is like theCOO, he just looked at me like,
well, nobody, I had to learn it.I said, so. So you learn what
you learned, and then you thinkthat is common sense, right?
(38:35):
Yep. I said, but do you thinkyour common sense differs from
your colleague that you'resitting next to and he kind of
looked at his colleague, and hiscolleague was like, Absolutely,
looks, you know, way different.And I said, you know, the thing
about hard skills, those areteachables, right? Those are
technical, tactical, we canfigure those things out. That's
the go to, but you can't do anyof the go to without people,
(38:56):
right? And the go to isimportant, but also how people
get there when they're gettingthere, is really critical. And I
said the Part, Part I have theproblem with, with what you said
is soft skills imply simple andeasy. And it's, again, goes back
to common sense. And you areassuming everybody's common
sense is at the same level yoursis. And I can tell you it's not.
(39:20):
And it was like one of thosedefining moments for me where I
realized, no, I'm not talkingabout building a network, or I'm
not talking about how to, youknow, build that rapport. So you
get somebody to say, yes, it'sabout human, you know, basic
human values, and in in helpingpeople learn how to engage.
Because none of us have beenreally, truly taught that just
(39:42):
like what you guys do as the asthe work you do, it's so
important helping people realizethat no is not a negative. It's
just a it's just a word, it'sjust a hey, maybe not right now
or maybe never, but that's okay.But the what you learn along the
way, when you get. Know, that'sthe lesson, that's the that's
(40:03):
the you know, that's the mana,that's the good stuff. And when
you use that, your nextconversation or your next 20
conversations, are going to bevastly different, because you're
now looking at it with a new setof information in through a new
lens. And it's important,
I love that. And to your pointabout the soft skills, people
get nervous, especially peoplewho lead organizations, get very
(40:24):
nervous about soft skills,because they're not easily
measured. Yeah, and they want tobe able to go to anybody who
questions them and go like,yeah, we're looking to move this
number. And it's like, well, howdoes listening what listening
skills? How is that going tomove the number? And it's like,
well, it will, but it, we're notteaching people, you know, how
to fill out this, this CRM, oryet another spreadsheet, or yet
(40:46):
another report. So, yeah, sorry,
yeah, yeah. And it, you know,they it's, it's sad, but there's
not enough emphasis on thosethings. You know, both the work
that you're doing, the work Ido, because there's this, this
assumption that everybody getsit. It's kind of inherent in
(41:07):
that, you know, somehow, someway, just because it's my, you
know, first month as a sales repselling, you know, the new
widget, and I should beautomatically bulletproof to
anybody who might reject me andor the product, service,
whatever, and I know how tohandle that and what I found,
and I'm sure you guys have aswell, and talking to so many
different sales folks over theyears, and even leadership team,
(41:31):
I mean it that piece is acontact sport, and it takes a
little piece of your soul everytime you get the result that you
didn't expect. And it takes alot for you to rebuild that back
up and then have the confidenceto walk into the ring and fight
again. Yep,
yep, it does. People ask me allthe time, how do I how and how
(41:53):
do I do that exactly? And I'mlike, if I could give you, like,
that exact formula, I'd probablynot be talking to you because
I'd be a billionaire. I wouldreally it is just about just
keep showing up over and overagain. I think there's something
to that you just learn. You justlearn how to deal with things
(42:15):
the more you experience them.That's all there is to it. You
can't think your way out of it.
No, and, and I do think thatit's, it's, it's such an
invaluable skill to learn how totake it and take it gracefully,
but not just set it off and asan isolated event, but actually
to look at it in post mortem. Ihave told the sales teams that
(42:37):
I've led in the past that youknow you want to look at why
people don't do business withyou. It isn't necessarily
because our product didn't work,or the service wasn't that
great, or whatever. There'susually something else, and the
only way that you actuallyfigure out what that reason is
is to go back to the well andsay, Hey, I know you went with
this other vendor, or I know yousaid no for right now, and I'm
(42:58):
not really going to try and cryover spilled milk, but I'm
trying to continually getbetter. So what else could I
have done differently? Or what,what might we have shown you or
said, or what, you know, whatcould we put on the table that
might have given you a differentperspective, or may have led you
down to, you know, to want toknow more or ask more questions,
or maybe, you know, do what? Dowhatever. See a demo, you know,
(43:19):
do a trial, whatever it is thatyou're doing. And I find that
all the time that for folks thateven try to sell to my
companies, like, yeah, you say,hey, no, I appreciate it. I'm
not interested. And nobody says,Why? Why you're not like, why
wouldn't you be interested? Soyou know, how do you ever learn
if you don't really understandwhat the motivation was behind
the note anyway? Yeah,
(43:41):
yeah. And, and it's interestingthat you'd bring that up,
because we addressed that lastyear. We wrote, actually,
technically, in 2023 I finallyconvinced Richard to write a
book with me. We wrote a bookcalled I forgot my own title,
that when they say when they sayno. And so it was, it was. So we
(44:02):
keep telling people, like, goout there and get No, and it's
like, well, wait a minute. Whathappens when they do say no? And
so when they say no, was ourattempt, and we did 44 things
that you should think, do orsay, brilliant. It when you get
a no, and like you said, one ofthem absolutely is ask, why or
ask, you know, be surprised.Wow, I'm I'm surprised because I
(44:24):
asked you all these questions,you gave me all these answers.
This seems perfect. This seemslike the right time. I feel like
we've knocked down everythingthat was an issue. Why not? And
yeah, it's yeah, without,without trying to put the person
on the defense, but like, I'mjust, I would love to know for
my own edification and my ownfuture learning. So I would
(44:44):
totally appreciate it. Andthat's it is so valuable.
There's a lot of value in knowgoing forward. And sometimes you
find out, like, it's just,there's some reason that has
nothing to do with you. And forthe ones that it had. Something
to do with you, and you couldn'tcontrol it. You just gotta let
that go and move on. Yeah,
(45:04):
yeah, absolutely. But you know,even letting it go, you learn
from it and see what you canadapt in the future and but
that's all you really can do.But I think, you know, one
takeaway for our audience is, nomatter what capacity you're in,
try to understand why you'regetting it. And I think, you
know, one of the things that Ithink is so valuable is all the
resources that you've put out onyour website, and we'll cover
(45:25):
that at the very end, about howpeople can get involved with
your work. But I highlyrecommend that you know they
they read your books and learnfrom these nuggets of wisdom,
because I can guarantee youthere we can always get better.
And I think one of the thingsyou said early on is as
entrepreneurs, but also justpeople right in whatever
(45:46):
profession you're in, never stoplearning, never stop investing
in yourself, because it makesyou so much more valuable. It
makes you more versatile, and itmakes you, for your
organization, a resource foreverybody else, and when you're
the resource, then you're thelast person they're looking to
(46:06):
plug when layoffs are coming.Or, you know, you're, you're,
you're generally one of the morevaluable assets from, you know,
from the team perspective. Soit's highly, highly recommended.
But, Andrea, I could talk to youall day, because you're
infinitely, infinitelyinteresting, but I want to be
respectful of your time, and Iknow we had just a short window
today, but if you're okay withit, I always like to wrap up my
(46:29):
interviews with a few rippleconnection questions or no
gotcha questions. They're justfun to ask, fun to answer. Cool
yeah and Hey, it's okay to sayno. If you
Yes, I'm not gonna give you ano. I'm not gonna I love that. I
love that.
So the we talked about yourentrepreneurial journey in sort
of the that process and thatapproach, if you weren't doing
(46:51):
what you're doing now, whatwould we find you doing? Oh, my
gosh, probably. Probably fictionwriter, really? Yeah, which
Richard and I write fiction onthe side as our side hobby
anyway, so Wow, would it? Woulddo that full time? Yeah.
So are you fiction that you'reactually producing and putting
(47:14):
into books?
Yes, fiction that we produce putin books which do not sell.
Trust me, and I make, this islike any good hobby. We make no
money. Okay, no money to bemade. Well,
one of my connections, and weneed to get you into our
community, the ripple pond, Ithink you would really enjoy.
But one of our folks that's inthere, she, she's actually a
(47:38):
professor for, oh, you, but shehas, she's actually been
writing, and she said the samething for a very long time. She
wrote romance novels, but hasfinally gotten some traction
with both lifetime and Hallmark,just kind of out of the blue,
yeah, she might be a really goodresource for you, just, you
know, to, if nothing else, toencourage you to keep doing it,
(48:00):
because eventually one of thosebooks is going to land, and then
once they land, and somebodyreally gets it, and it takes off
a popularity, then all the otherbooks that you've had out there
all of a sudden become populartoo. So don't give up. I'm not.
I'm not. I'm switching toromance Steve, because that is
where the money is.
I keep telling my wife, I thinkI can write this Hallmark stuff.
(48:21):
I walk through the room whenshe's watching it, and I'm like,
I could tell you the wholepremise of the damn
story. Yeah, you know exactlywhat's gonna happen. She claims
it.
It's, I don't know anything, butI'm like, Look, some dude comes
back to the hometown and, youknow, there's some flower shop
or some bakery that's on it's,it's about to go out of
business, and he's got to saveor help save it. And you know,
(48:42):
the woman that loved him neverexpressed it, and he left, and
he's and he's also devastatinglyhandsome and single. It's like,
it's perfect,
and he's the same guy in everysingle movie, right? It's
interesting, all right, so Ilove that perspective. So you
would be a full time fictionwriter. What did the seven year
(49:04):
old version of Andrea want to bewhen she grew up? Oh,
the seven year old me wanted toproduce movies. Oh, wow, yeah. I
was a huge I was a total it'sfunny, you have Mandalorian bind
you. I was a total Star Warsgeek at age seven, I
knew we would be friends.
I watched that movie over we hada, like, a bootleg copy back in
(49:27):
the day, like we had one of thefirst VCRs. It was like, beta,
the beta tape, yeah, size of asuitcase, yeah. Watch the movie
over and over. I loved it. IYeah, so that's what I would
Yeah. I
am. I mean, just kind of a sidenote I'm listening to, and I can
send you. I don't remember theauthor's last name, but I'm
listening to and he's writtenseveral biographies, but he
(49:50):
wrote one on George Lucas thatis just, it's probably one of
the best ones I've ever, everlistened to, because it's
talking about how George didn't.Fit in. And, you know, sort of
was kind of a geeky, nerdy kindof, but very into science and a
lot of unique, esoteric kind ofthings. But it really talks
about his career path andultimately end up, you know, at
(50:13):
the how he came about, makingthe Star Wars movies. And it's
just as a nerd like that, it'ssuper fascinating. But there's
so many lessons as anentrepreneur that I'm taking
from the book that, you know,just kind of remind you, but to
the point one of the big thingsright was how he was getting his
first, you know, his real firstfilm off the ground, and how he
(50:33):
kept getting nos and therejections, and how he had to
use that as motivation totoughen up, because rejection is
just part of the game out inHollywood. So that's
interesting. Okay, so since youyou like Star Wars favorite
character,
oh, I probably have to go withHan Solo. Yeah, yeah. Or, or,
(51:02):
ah, or maybe C, 3p, O, he's sofunny. Yeah,
I love it perfect. If you were,if you were forced to, what was
your favorite Star Wars movie?What's of all of them that have
come out? Oh,
I would have to say the NewHope, like the first the first
one, yeah, yeah,
(51:23):
yeah, me too. That's where itall started is, yeah, it's
awesome. As a successful femaleentrepreneur, if you were to
give advice to other females outthere, they're thinking about
doing something, hanging outtheir own shingle, starting
their own venture, buildingsome, some, some other aspect of
(51:48):
a business that they could do,either as a side hustle or
eventually as a full timeentrepreneur. What advice would
you give them?
I would say, don't drag yourfeet and wait. Don't keep don't
let perfection stand in yourway. For me, I was so unprepared
in every way. I learned as Iwent on, literally everything I
(52:13):
made, every mistake you couldmake. And I thank God though
that I didn't wait, becausethere was no way to prepare and
no way to see the path. And JackCanfield says this in the movie,
The Secret you know. He says,All you need to see is the
lights 200 feet, you know, yourheadlights 200 feet in front of
you. And that's so true. So Ithink, I think that the
(52:36):
majority, especially for women,we're concerned with doing it
right and having it perfect. AndI don't want to go out unless
I've got all my ducks in a row.And, yeah, I think, like,
Richard and I didn't do it agreat way. We had very little
safety net, and we were, it wascrazy. I mean, we we moved in,
(52:57):
let his house go. We moved intoa really sketchy neighborhood of
that apartment. We're like, wegot to do what we got to do. So
I know a lot of people don'twant to get uncomfortable like
that. So I get it, you've got toset yourself up for the
finances. But beyond that, gosh,don't wait.
I think that's great. And I alsothink you know, part of you
(53:18):
know, part of that littleinsight into your your
background and your history,there's, there's also some value
in that, right? When you havethat burn, your burn the boat
strategy, like sometimes failureis not an option, because you
can't allow it to be an option.You've got to keep moving
forward. So you got to figure itout. And I think that,
especially in today's worldwhere it's so easy to pick, you
know, you know, oh, all of asudden, just going to change
(53:40):
careers, or I'm going to dosomething different. And you see
a lot of people that don't justsettle in on something, I think
you know, sticking with it andbeing as committed as you
possibly can, but recognizingthat you know the you may not
necessarily have the safety net,but that's okay. You know,
believe in yourself and knowwhat you have that you know
comes of true value and offer,and if you do it right? And you
(54:01):
know, you go through thetraining Andrea will provide
you. You'll hear a lot of notes,but she'll eventually help you
get some yeses. So I thinkthat's, that's the way to go,
for sure, if, if you're going togive so, you know, you're very
similar to me. I work with mywife. She considers her work
with me. I originally said shewould only have to do this for
(54:21):
the first year we've beenmarried. Now 31 years, she's
still doing all. She's still myCFO on a couple of ventures. But
what's the, what's the one thingthat you know piece of advice
you'd give to a married couplethat are looking to go into
business together, do somethingprofessionally together.
Oh, this is so easy. Give upcontrol, give up control. Just
(54:45):
on, on the things that don'tmatter. You've gotta just that
was the biggest thing withRichard. I would butt heads. It
would be like, you know, well, Ithink it should have a red
stripe on the top of it. Well,no, I think it should have a
yellow stripe. And that would belike battle. Here's why the red,
here's why the yellow. And. Andeventually it was like, You know
what? We just have to You're theone who gets to decide how it
looks and and I and then I'll,I'll decide on something else.
(55:09):
And I remember one day he cameto the conclusion, because he
was changing up some email orsomething. And he said, You
know, I realize that I'mchanging this and I'm making it
different, but it's notnecessarily better. So he said,
I'm only going to change thingsif I really believe that I'm
going to make it better. Andeven right now, we're writing a
sequel to go for no and we'vebeen battling on one scene.
(55:32):
We've been in a total agreement.And eventually I just said, he
said, Yeah, he goes, I had tochange your scene. He goes. And
I said, really? How? Like, itwas bad. He goes, it was not
good. Said, Okay, fine, fine.Change, change my scene. That's
okay, so we just have to, so Ihad to give up, like, control
over that. Yeah,
that's, I mean, that's a greatpiece of advice. I love that.
(55:53):
Well, okay, last threequestions, I promise, um, no,
no. I love it when people uh,when people face No, when you
face No, how do you overcome it?
Yeah, you know i Well, one is I,I really work on my physiology,
because I really feel physicallythe the nose, yeah. And I know I
(56:15):
noticed one time even this was,this was not too long ago, I got
a no to a podcast, Steve, thatwas like the most, and I'm going
to say this without trying tosound snarky, inconsequential,
like, this was not a careerdefining client that I lost, and
it was weird, and I feltphysically that I was like, oh
(56:37):
that no and, and at the moment,I went, Oh my gosh, you really
can still feel physically theserejections. It's so fascinating.
So I, for me, really work. I'mso good with thinking, like, I
so value getting no but I haveto work on my physiology and
just say, oh, that's the feel.That's my brain warning me of
(56:58):
the danger of this, and thatphysical feeling will pass, and
I and I work on just lettingthat go and wreck and seeing it
and not letting that physicalfeeling spiral. My thoughts of,
oh my God, you're gonna die. Youjust got rejected for this
podcast that. But that's whatthe brain does. I've come to
(57:20):
really get that over the years.So I work on that. My thought
process is I just really valueit, and I always reward myself
mentally for good for you, forgoing after it, good for you,
for following up, for, you know,asking over and over again. Like
I really work on that, thatpatting myself on the shoulder,
(57:41):
for for trying, yeah,
for all of our listeners, thetakeaway from that, that I
heard, that I think is probablyone of the most genius pieces of
advice I've actually heard, isthat positive self talk, because
that's what continues tomotivate you, to keep you moving
forward, but most importantly,not taking rejection so personal
doesn't mean you don't learnfrom it. Doesn't mean it still
(58:03):
doesn't sting, but at the sametime, you know understanding
what you can learn from it, andthen celebrating in your own
way, your own successes. It'snot necessarily the
acknowledgement from your spouseor even the customer that you
might land or the deal that getsclosed. It's it's about, hey,
look, I showed up. I did what Ithought I should do. I made the
outcome happen the way Iexpected it to. And it's you
(58:26):
need to take that time andrecognize yourself in doing
that. So that's, that's abeautiful, beautiful statement
you've made. So thank you forthat, Allied. There's one last
question, and then I ask you thefinal two. But what is if, if,
if you could hear someone thatattended one of your events, or
a client that worked with youdirectly, or someone that's read
(58:49):
the book, what's the most? Whatwould be the one thing you would
love to hear them say about youand your work? Um,
probably that. I just care somuch to see people grow and
change, that would make me thatalways makes me feel good and
and yeah, that that I that it'sobvious how passionate I am and
(59:12):
how much I care to help them. Ilove
that that's great. Okay, soobviously I can't let you go
without asking this question,because it's an important one,
just for me and my own purposes.But when you hear the word the
ripple effect, what is that?What does that conjure up for
you? What does it mean to you?Oh, that's
such a good question. Thanks.First thing that come first
thing that comes to mind is, iskind of like the butterfly
(59:36):
effect, yeah, like, I hear theripple effect, and I go like,
Oh, the ripple effect.Everything's connected. So
everything matters. So how youtreat someone today, that
kindness Karma comes back. Thatperson treats someone else nice,
that person treats some someoneelse Nice. So what you and
really because of that, it'skind of like what you do really
(59:58):
matters, right? It actually.Actually gives meaning to small
things instead of just, doesn'tmatter how I treat the mailman
or how I how I go about this.So, yeah, it's got a lot of
meaning. I think it has. It'sgot a lot of deep meaning to it,
if you really think about it. Sothat's what came up for me. Even
(01:00:19):
when you reached out to me. Iwas like, oh. And I immediately
saw, Oh, the brand is the rippleeffect, like I could see, like
the brand throughout and andthat's kind of what I what I
thought. So when I dug deeperand it was like, oh, it's
relationships that made sense tome. It was like, okay, that
connection piece. I love
it. Well, final question is,what ripple can I create for you
and Richard,
(01:00:41):
just this podcast. This is,like, one of my I'm so excited
about this and sharing all thesequestions and and for whatever
reason, like I felt like I did agood job today.
You You did an outstanding job.Well,
thank you. Sometimes I get on,you know, and I'm, I'm, like,
not dialed in for whateverreason. I don't know. I didn't
(01:01:04):
even have any chocolate beforethis, so I don't even a lot of
fuel.
Well, hey, that's good. I mean,I'm glad you you you feel good
about it, because I feelexceptionally good about it.
You're a rock star, and you are.You are so fun to talk to, and
I've I've learned so much today.I know my audience has as well.
Whether you're watching this onYouTube or on listening to it
(01:01:28):
wherever your podcast yearsmight, you know, lead you to to
listen to on whatever platform.We definitely appreciate it. But
Andrea, before I let you go, forthe folks that definitely want
to dive in more and maybe getinvolved in, you know, just
figure out how to engage withyour work. What's the best way
for them to do that? Yeah,
they can come to go for no.com.We've got a fun no Quotient
(01:01:50):
quiz. So if they want to testsee how their no quotient is, if
it's high, moderate, low, come,take the quiz, read the blog,
hang out and connect with me onsocial media. I'm at go for No,
pretty much on everything. Soworking on doing some video, so
I'm not on tick tock. But maybesomeday
(01:02:11):
Don't say no, yeah, yeah, right,yeah. Oh, I love it. Well,
listen, I I thoroughly,thoroughly enjoyed this. I
greatly appreciate this. I cantell that we're going to be fast
friends. And if there isanything I can do to support you
guys moving forward, it'd be funto even maybe find some
opportunities to work togetherin 2025 because I think a lot of
(01:02:32):
the work that you do in the workthat I do really crosses over
really, really well, there's alot of compatibility. So we
should, you know, should talkabout that at some point, set up
a call and, you know, maybebrainstorm. But I just want to
thank you for the bottom of myheart, for the time and just the
honesty and just your enthusiasmabout what you do. It's
infectious. And I'm I'm sograteful to have you on the
(01:02:54):
show. So thank
you. Thank you, Steve, thank youso much. Alice. Was a lot of
fun. Excellent. Well, guys,we'll be
back with another episode of theripple effect very soon, but in
the meantime, don't forget to gocheck out all of Andrea's links,
and we're going to have some ofthose located in the show notes
as well. But we appreciate youlistening as always being a
supporter. You know, we wecouldn't do it without you. So
(01:03:16):
thank you from the bottom of myheart. 2025 is going to be the
best year. I hope for us and foryou, and we just want to welcome
you to a brand new year with alot of new opportunities, and as
Andrea would say, go for somemore no's, because you're gonna
eventually find your yeses. Sorip a lot you.
Andrea Waltz is one of the mostdynamic individuals I think you
could ever possibly hope tomeet. I have been a fan of hers
on social media for a while. Sheis someone that has energy
enthusiasm, and she has this gofor no approach to life, and it
informs her work and herspeaking. And I can't wait for
(00:22):
us to dig into this, because Ithink this is going to be one of
the most fun conversations Ihave this year. She is just a
Spitfire of real positivity andenthusiasm, but also gumption,
drive commitment, showing up todo the work. And I just think
you guys are going to be soabsolutely inspired and
(00:43):
motivated by this woman, becauseI know I happen. I'm so grateful
that Andrea agreed to be a partof today's podcast. So with no
further ado, let's dive in. You.
(01:10):
Andrea waltz, thank you, andwelcome to the ripple effect
podcast. How are you doingtoday?
Hey, Steve, I'm doing great. Igotta say I have
been bribing with excitement allday because I've been looking
forward to our conversation,because I have been a big fan of
yours on social media. I havenot had the pleasure of reading
your book yet, but it is on mylist. It's coming. But go for
(01:33):
No, I want to start there,because I think it is such I've
watched some of your videos andsome of the things that you do
to talk about this as a topic,but I'd, I'd love for you to
share just the principle and theconcept, maybe the inspiration
behind the
book. Yeah, so the, well, theinspiration comes from a story
that we often tell when wespeak, and it's a story that's
(01:56):
in the book, and it's a storythat happened to my husband and
business partner, Richard, wherehe learned kind of the go for
No, I guess the core go for nophilosophy. And he was selling,
he was selling suits for aliving. He was failing. He was
doing horrible. District managerwas visiting the store. Richard
thought it would give him timeto improve his sales, if he
(02:17):
could impress this guy. So heproceeds to have this fantastic
sale. And this goes back a longtime Steve, so I'm gonna, I'll
fast forward to today's dollars,and just say, let's pretend it
was like a $5,000 sale. It wasreally like 1100 but it would be
like spending 5000 today.Inflation, yeah. Inflation,
yeah. So he has this great sale.He's thinking he's gonna get
(02:38):
congratulated, but instead, thedistrict manager asks him, what
did that customer say no to, towhich Richard has to review the
sale, and thinks the customerdidn't say no to anything,
everything I put in front ofthat guy he bought. And then the
district manager asked him thereally important question was,
which was, how did you know hewas done? And it was right, it
(03:00):
was really the way he knew hewas done, was that customer had
hit his mental spending limit,that everything he laid in front
of the guy. The guy said yes tohe never heard no, but he ended
the sale. So this was the littleseed. This was the little like
starting point of, wait aminute, maybe no. Isn't so bad,
(03:21):
because this district managersaid you need to go for no. No
is the thing that's holding youback. And when Richard shared
this story with me over twodecades ago, I actually thought
I was a superstar salesperson. Ithought I was great. Customers
loved me, and then I had to gethonest. And I thought, You know
what, I don't maximize myinteractions. I hold back. I
(03:47):
make judgments on what I mightshare or what I might say right
in order to not in order toprotect myself and to not hear
no. So we decided, you know,what? Were you conscious of that
at the time, or was thatsomething you just started
thinking about after you kind ofhad this new had this new
perspective. Well,
you know, once, and this is kindof the funny thing, when we tell
that story, we always tell itas, like the foundation, and we
(04:11):
tell it a lot, it's a lot longerwe we finesse it and add the
details in. But when we tellthis story, it really is an
immediate reframe. People golike, Oh, I get it. And so I had
an immediate reframe. And Istarted looking, I started
looking at what I was doingthrough a new lens. I started
saying, like, at first I when Iheard it, I said, Now I don't, I
(04:32):
don't let no bother me. Youknow, I wasn't one of these
hardcore people who say, like,read no for breakfast, and it
doesn't bother me. And but Icertainly didn't think like I
had issues. And then I, like, Igot honest, and then I realized,
yeah, I don't, I don't like it.I, I do shy away and and
certainly I didn't want to lookpushy, and I didn't look want to
(04:53):
look aggressive. Funny part,though, is that go for Yes,
like, I. Going to do whatever Ihave to do, Steve, to make you
say yes and to buy this thing,like, I'm going to twist your
arm. That's the that's the onethat gets people in trouble. Go
for no is just no is perfectlyfine. It's a perfectly
(05:14):
acceptable answer. But theimportant part is that we ask,
that we have the courage to ask.And so. So I have spent, like,
the last two decades studyingrejection, failure, asking the
skills to ask how to get betterat asking how to deal with the
psychology behind it. And I amjust, I'm, like, obsessed with
(05:37):
it. It's definitely my passion
I love that. I'm curious when,when you were selling, and you
were kind of insulating yourselffrom the nose, what, what were
you selling at the time? So
I was, I had worked my way up toGeneral Manager at lens
crafters, and so I was running,yeah, I was running one of the
highest volume locations in thecompany. I had become a licensed
(06:01):
optician, which is, I had noplans to do that. I have a
bachelor's degree in criminaljustice. I wanted to catch bad
guys, but that, I guess that didthat wasn't in the cards for me.
Stay hot eyes, yeah. Well,exactly, exactly. Well, the you
know that all, the only thingthat was available was an unpaid
internship, and I really wasdesperate to make money at that
(06:23):
point in my after being incollege and starving, I was
tired of starving, so, so, yeah,the this, but I as a general
manager, even though I wasn'tlike a quote salesperson, I
would still sell, you know,periodically and and So I just
applied it to that my careerfundamentally, and I would
(06:43):
train, we actually, Richard waslike one of the great, best
trainers in the whole company.So he would, he was training
people on go for No, that's howhe taught me this idea. So we
eventually just quit our jobs,our corporate jobs launched
this. Launched our company. Wehad all the same sales and
management philosophies andcustomer service philosophies,
and we've honestly, we justwanted to go out, you know, they
(07:05):
don't listen to you. When youwork for a company, you're just
like, Okay, how good Could yoube? You work for us. No, we want
to go hire a consultant, right?Somebody who knows what they're
really talking about. So webecame those people like we
decided, well, we'll be peoplefrom the outside and and bring
our ideas in to companies. Andthat's what we did. So I had to
(07:26):
apply go for no to like, the Bto B sales world of cold calling
prospects and and picking up thephone and going, like, do you
hire speakers? Okay, great.Here's information. You know how
that process goes? Oh yeah, it'sso much fun.
I don't know that. I call itfun.
(07:47):
I'm kidding.
I was like, well, you being asconfident as you are. I'm sure
it's like, yeah, everybody saysyes to you, but they wouldn't
say yes to me all the time.
Oh my gosh, I got so many nos,plenty of no's, yeah and and I
was terrified to do it. I wasterrified. And I tell people all
the time to this day, like wecouldn't have written go for no.
(08:08):
We couldn't teach it if we wereone of these people who just had
the all the confidence in theworld. We're not people who get
up and say, it's easy. Yes, youknow, you just need to be
confident. No. I mean, we neededgo for no because we didn't like
it ourselves. Yeah,
yeah, you got to live it andbefore you can teach it and sell
(08:29):
it, right? So, right for sure.You know, I resonate with
Richard story, because one of myfirst jobs while I was in
college was working for a copierdealership, and I remember my
boss always walking in with 222,pieces of advice, one at the
beginning of the day and one atthe end, which was, you know,
the beginning of the day was,it's a new day. It's a new
(08:49):
chance to excel. And I kind oflived by that philosophy for a
long time, because no matterwhat happened yesterday, that's
done, it's in the past, and nowyou have an opportunity to
remake today. So if you hadyesterday was a horrible day
calling on people, make today abetter day calling on people.
And then he'd walk in at the endof the day and he would want to
know the no quota, right? Howmany knows did you get? How many
(09:10):
doors Did you have slammed inyour face? And inevitably,
whatever the number was, I couldhave just blown it out that day,
and it would still be neverenough. And what he said to me
about the no is that you you getno and no toughens you up. No
strengthens your reserve. Ittests your metal. It makes sure
that what you're doing you'recommitted to doing. And
(09:33):
eventually, once you've heardenough of those, you've
toughened up enough, then theyeses start to fall. And it was
absolutely true. I mean, it was,you know, there's a lot of
philosophies you and I have bothprobably been in these
capacities, where we've trainedsales teams and you work, you
know, with them, to help themunderstand what's the best way
to set themselves, what's up forsuccess. And there's always that
(09:54):
tried and true. It's a numbersgame. You just got to keep at
it. You got to do it. Butthere's also a lot about. About
understanding rejection and whyyou are not getting the response
that you're looking for, andthat it's okay to actually hear
that, because everyone gets youcloser to a yes, which is also
an overused, you know, you know,phrase that coaches use all the
(10:17):
time, but at the end of the day,it's very valid and true. And
there's a lot of lessons in no,there's a lot of self self
examination and introspectionthat can actually occur if you
really embrace it, as opposed totry to avoid it or look at it
with a sense of shame.
Yeah, and I love that you saidthat too, because I remember we
(10:39):
we interviewed Larry wing it. Doyou know Larry wing? It is that
Nate is really familiar? Yeah.So he, he, his tagline was, he
was really big, very, verypopular speaker, yes. And then,
like the 90s, and spokeeverywhere.
He was always on the Zig Ziglarthing, right?
Yep, probably. And he calledhimself the pit pit bull of
(11:02):
personal development. We him fora go, for no movie we did. And
he said, he said, You know,every no gets you closer to Yes.
He goes. It's one of the classiccliches. It's like one of the
oldest cliches in the book. Hegoes. But cliches are cliches
for a reason. Most of them aretrue, right? That's right, and
they work. So, yeah, you're soright.
(11:23):
Well, so as you guys move frombeing in the corporate bubble
and then deciding to start yourown thing, talk to us a little
bit about that journey. Whatwas, what was the thing that
most surprised you about doingit, and what's the thing that
has kept you going all theseyears doing it?
Oh, wow, good questions. Uh,what is this thing that? Well,
(11:45):
you know, I kind of, it's kindof like i The analogy I give to
be going from the corporateworld to being on your own is
like you, you have to get reallycomfortable with uncertainty,
and you just have to fall inlove with it, and I equate, I
equate it, because you're
not married to it, whether youlike it or not, right?
That's right, right, right? AndI know I don't love turbulence
(12:08):
on an airplane, but once I getin, and once I get settled, and
I realize, like, okay, theflight's kind of bumpy, and it's
probably going to be bumpy thewhole way, so I'm just gonna
roll with that, that's what theentrepreneurship is. Like you
just you go like, Oh, it'sbumpy, and it's going to be
bumpy basically forever. So justsettle in and get used to it.
(12:31):
That was surprising. The otherthing I think that surprised me
was that I just didn't considerit. It's a very obvious thing is
you are constantly learning, ifyou don't stay on top of what's
going on in the industries thatyou serve in your own industry,
just even in the world of likefor us, professional speaking,
(12:54):
training, writing books,publishing, marketing, you're
you are Constantly you aregetting a master's degree, like
every four years of justlearning, what's the new
technology? What's the newthing? Where are your customers
hanging out? You need to get infront of them. Then the good
thing is that, as we do it forour own business, we kind of
(13:16):
understand what our, you know,our clients and the people that
are out there in the field aregoing through, because they're
going through the same thing,right? So everybody right now,
everybody's learning, okay,what's the new thing? It's AI.
We all know it's coming. Soeverybody's looking at, how do I
apply AI to what I do, and tomake myself more effective and
(13:37):
and better? So that's, I think,the thing that you know, just
the It's a never ending journey.You're never done learning,
because everything is alwayschanging. And, I mean, it makes
it it makes it fun. Butsometimes you just go, like, can
I just relax for like, sixmonths and do nothing and just
coast just a little bit?
(13:58):
Yeah. And the answer is alwaysno, right? That's
right. The answer to that is aabsolute hard No, yeah, that is
a hard
No, and not necessarily the noyou want to get to, but it's the
reality of being an entrepreneurfor sure. That's right. So how
many years have you guys been inbusiness for yourselves? So
we started in about 1998 Okay?When we launched our company, we
(14:22):
had, you were probably, like,about 12
at that point, or what?
I was pretty young. I was prettyyoung. I like to say so today I
joke I'm a dinosaur in thisindustry, and I mean that
literally, almost literally. Butwe had two, we had two big speed
bumps. One was 911 likeeverybody had, you know, we were
(14:43):
pretty new in business, and soour business really fell off in
2001 just everybody stoppeddoing training and hiring
people. And so I took a job asthe Training Director for a pet
supply retailer in Los. Angelesat the time, that's where we
lived, and I was it was perfect,because our customers at that
(15:07):
time, our clients, were allretailers. We spoke for JC
Penney and Macy's, and anybodythat you'd see in the mall was
our customer. So I felt I fitright in there. I was there for
about two years, and thentransitioned back. Richard still
maintaining our business, butthe business was so off that he
was able to do it on his own.And then I came back, and then,
(15:31):
like, gosh, what was it? 2008did little things on the side
and and even in 2017 wasn't thatour business was off,
necessarily, but we've had ourwe've had our bright, shiny
object moments where we've tookour taken our eye off the ball,
and one of the things that we'vegotten into is publishing. So
(15:53):
we've we've ended up publishinga lot of other people's books
because we're good at it. Soit's just really interesting how
business goes. And sometimes youfind things and and we kind of
joke that we're the mostreluctant publishers on the
planet. When people ask us,like, can you publish our book?
We're always like, no, don'tmake us do it. Don't make us do
it. But we sometimes you haveknowledge that you want to
(16:18):
monetize. You're like, gosh, I'mgood at this. And one of the
mantras I know Steve, you canappreciate this is just because
you can do something doesn'tmean you should do it. Another,
yes, yes. Really importantlesson
there, but a painful lesson formany of us entrepreneurs to
learn, right? Yes, yes,
(16:38):
because you certain, you certainrealize that if you are chasing,
you are chasing two rabbits, youwill catch neither of them,
yeah, yeah, yeah, oh,absolutely, it's, it's tough.
And, you know, of course I saythat, and you know, I am living
that analogy now, because I haveripple and what I do through it.
And then I have a softwarecompany on, on, sort of my other
(16:59):
persona, right? My other, youknow, my other area of focus.
And so part of what I had tocome to realization was, you
know, yes, they're separateentities, but actually part of
what I do has the ability to becombined, which made it a little
more congruent for me. So I feellike at any given day, I'm
actually investing in theefforts, in the in the progress
(17:19):
of both. And when one works, theother one kind of is the tag
along, and then vice versa. Sothat's that's allowed me to
theoretically wrangle bothrabbits. I may not be able to
completely catch them, but I'mholding on with dear life with
the rope is while they run. ButRight,
right. Well, you it's kind oflike, if I chase this rabbit,
the other one will have nochoice but to come along. We'll
(17:40):
just drag this one. Yeah, that's
right, yeah, you're stuck.You're stuck. Absolutely I am.
I'm really curious about the theapproach that you take, you know
now, with regards to, you know,like, how you've built your
business, is the vast majorityof the organizations that you
work with, are you working withtheir sales and business
(18:01):
development team. What's themost ideal prospect or client
for you guys now as you movetowards 2025
Yeah, so we typically go in andgo out. We're not, we don't go
in and go deep and we're not.We're not consultants. We did
more of that in the retailindustry, because we really
(18:23):
specialized in that industry forseveral years. We knew it
because we were we had been init, and Richard had been in it
for years, even before we met.So he had just had so much
expertise. So we would go in andnot necessarily consult, but we
would do a lot morecustomization and a lot more
things. After we decided that weweren't going to continue
(18:47):
specializing in that industry,we really went with go for no as
our main message. Our goal is toteach individuals, teams and
organizations how tointentionally increase the
number of no's that they'regoing to hear in order to get to
yes, and all of the nuances andmindsets that go into that and
how to handle No. And I mean, wecould do a training for like,
(19:10):
two days on this material, andas a result, we ended up not
specializing with anyoneinsurance and financial planners
and recruiting organizations.And so we've we've become more
speaker focused, where we thendo a talk for 60 or 90 minutes,
maybe follow up with otherthings, but all kind of
(19:33):
superficial, not really goingdeep. So that's kind of where we
are today, although I've alsoCOVID, of course, changed
business dramatically. And oneof the things that we did during
that time, when we were justsitting around going, like, what
should we do, was we created acouple of workbooks. We created
a leadership workbook and a gofor No, 21 day challenge
(19:56):
workbook. So one of the funthings I do is something called
a go for no. 21 day challenge,where we market to individuals
and we and it's so and like thisis just like. This is not a
money maker. Like, in terms ofmy time, I probably break it
down. I probably get paid about$12.50 for doing this. It's
fine. An hour, it's fine. I loveit. And but we have individuals
(20:19):
sign up and we take them throughthis 21 day challenge where we
meet every week and doaccountability, and that's
really fun. So there's thingsthat we have just kind of added
in as we've gone. And it'sreally interesting just to see
how people sell today and howthey interact, and how go for no
fits in today's market comparedto 20 years ago, and it has
(20:43):
evolved, and technology haschanged it right? There's so
much less in in person. Peoplearen't necessarily going door to
door or dropping in B to B, likewhere they're literally visiting
a customer, although I'm goingout with a salesperson next
week, and we are literally goingout to visit customers. Wow,
(21:04):
yeah, I know, so I'm excitedabout that. So some of that
still exists, but so much of itis direct message and email and
all of these things. But I findthat the issues that people have
with rejection still apply it.You still have to have your
numbers and to your point aboutsales as a numbers game, it
really is. It is. And yet, withthat today, quality is more
(21:30):
important than ever. You talkabout building connections and
relationships, it's that's moreimportant than ever. So I find
that I am trying to weave, gofor no in with that. Know, Like
and Trust message of, Hey, you.You need to build relationships
ships. But how does thatrelationship starts? Well, it
(21:52):
starts with the courage of youoftentimes, reaching out to
somebody cold and saying, Hey,we don't really know each other.
I'd like to connect with you.Maybe it's LinkedIn, moving that
to the next step of, can we meeton Zoom? Can we have coffee?
Whatever somebody's got to buildthat relationship. And that
means somebody has to go first.It's just like, on the
playground, if you want to goplay with somebody on the on the
(22:15):
swing set, somebody's got toinvite you over, like somebody's
got to make the first move. Andso that's still, I think, very
relevant to today. I
love that. I, you know, I lovethe there's a lot to unpack
there, right? Because you and Iboth, I think, you know,
understand how vastly differentthe market space is in terms of
outside sales than it was evenmaybe 10 years ago, right?
(22:36):
Because, you know, cold callingand in the tried and true ways
that have been sort ofhistorically always there for
sales, individual salesrepresentative or business
development person is vastlydifferent because of the
different ways that peopleapproach it. Now you very rarely
actually walk into an officebuilding and see multiple sales
people working door to door todoor, because they just don't do
(22:58):
that anymore. But the tools andthe technology also make it
really more challenging foranybody in a in a business
development effort, because it'sso much easier to get ignored. I
remember my days. I told my sonthis, my oldest son the other
day, I said, you haven't reallylived until you've been thrown
out in an office buildingbecause you were cold calling,
right? And you meet, you meetpeople along the way, and you,
(23:21):
you know, they don't want totalk to you, they don't want to
have anything to do with you,and yet you still have to stand
before them, and you somehowhave to get your business card
in their hand and try to get thename of the person that might be
over whatever product or serviceyou're selling. And nothing
tests your metal more than that.And I'm, I told him, You know,
I'm shy and introverted. Thebest thing I ever did was take
(23:42):
an outside sales job because itrequired that I got beat up a
lot. And as an introverted, shyindividual, walking in and just
being berated by, you know, agatekeeper. I mean, you really
are starting to think about lifechoices at that point, right?
And, you know, Can I Can I stickhere? Can I actually make it
(24:02):
through? But when you you takethat amount amount of rejection
or that challenge, and you'reable to take it on the chin and
still continue to get up and dothe next call and and approach
it, I learned a lot about myselfas an individual doing that. I
did it for years and years. Butthe thing that I think is really
interesting in today's world,and I'm curious how you guys
(24:24):
approach this, in terms of howyou train or work with the
clients that you serve, is thatghosting is a real thing now,
right? I mean, it's like, youknow, they either a don't have
to pick up their phone. In fact,nobody picks up their phone
anymore. Nobody returns avoicemail email. There's so many
emails and so much junk thatcomes in that catching anybody's
(24:45):
eye or attention on an email isbecoming increasingly harder.
And then, of course, you haveLinkedIn, which is established
as a platform for us as businessindividuals to get to know one
another, understand ourprofessional sort of resumes.
It's it's a. Phenomenal toolthat has become like now
Facebook for business, and sothere's all this noise. So when
(25:06):
you're working with you know, oryou're in front of an audience,
or you're working with anorganization, and they're like,
I just don't know what to do. Idon't know how to get out there
and even get the opportunity toget thrown out or be told, No,
what do you what's your advicethese days? Because the
environment is so vastlydifferent than it was even 1015,
years ago,
right? Well, I think it's, it'sfunny, because it's very simple,
(25:31):
but it's, of course, not easy. Imean, one is, you've got to know
and find, find your buyer, yeah,and you need to, and once you
figure that out, you you've gotto make sure that you're
speaking to the right buyer aswell. And so our, our like,
General, I guess you'd sayoverall methodology, philosophy,
(25:52):
go for no is not really a salestraining program. We have no
process. We have no like. Hereare the steps, but one of the
philosophies is, disqualify,find the people that are not for
you. And you can do that acouple ways. One, you can do it
just top line, which means go,if you're if you're prospecting
on LinkedIn, or you're trying toconnect with people you know
(26:14):
don't go to a networking eventthat you that you haven't
vetted. And you know that youknow your prospects are not
hanging out there, or don't goon LinkedIn and just start
spamming people randomly figureout who, like, where are they?
What's the if it's a company,what's the revenue that you
want? What? What do they do? Youknow, all of those things niche
(26:36):
down as much as possible. Myfavorite example of this is
Viking Cruises. I don't know ifyou've gotten that brochure
right the breaking and they havea sales page in there, which I
absolutely love, and it's set,and it's the sales page of No,
and they list all of the thingsyou do not get on a Viking
cruise. It's like, we don't dothe photography, we don't have
(26:58):
the big, fancy dinners, no bigpool, no no big pool. You're not
going to walk around with somecrazy drink. No to that, no
casinos. So it's, it's like,this is a refined adult
experience. And if you want theother crazy, wacky experience,
there's plenty of that outthere. And so I think, as for
(27:19):
all of us, and this is, I thinkit's the one thing that I've
been happy that we've done, iswe've stayed very tight on what
our focus is, even though we'rebroad. From a customer
standpoint, it's like, hey, wecan help anybody who has to face
rejection. So that's everyone,but the topic, right? The topic
(27:39):
is really like, we don't go offinto different directions. So
one is, know your buyer bewilling to disqualify you,
willing to ask the toughquestions early and not try to
fit that square peg into thatround hole of Oh, but they might
work. And I don't know, Steve,look, he seems good, and he
seems like, you know, hissoftware company needs us. It's
(28:00):
like no, no. Just move on tosomebody who is better
qualified. And then the secondpiece is messaging, right? It's
working that message. And one ofthe biggest things, from a go,
for no standpoint, that I see,especially helping people on my
challenge, is going out withthat message. And whatever
(28:21):
platform you're doing it, a lotof people to take the challenge
are doing cold calling, and theymay follow up with emails or
whatever, but they are doingcalling, and it's like, you've
got to get that message down soit's valuable, but you've got to
make enough calls to have thedata to make the decision
whether that messaging isworking or not. And so often
(28:42):
people are like, well, thisisn't working. You may. How many
calls did you make? You madenine. That is not what we're
talking about here. You need tomake 990, or better yet, 900 and
then you can look and say, Okay,you're right. Your messaging
isn't catching on where, ormaybe the message is catching
(29:02):
on, but you're and people areinterested, but then you're not
setting an appointment, oryou're setting appointments and
you're not closing through thethroughout the funnel, it's
constantly looking at, wheredoes that fall apart? But beyond
that, the biggest thing that wefocus on when we speak or when
we teach people, is just thatmindset of that persistence and
(29:27):
being willing to hear those no'sin order to get the Yes. It's
not just about and reallywanting to. It's not just about
kind of suffering through, butit's wanting to so that, and you
said it so beautifully, you'vegot to want it so you do beat
up. You get beat up. You dolearn from them. You do grow
from them, and you figure outokay. So every time I approach
(29:51):
the gatekeeper with thismessage, I get thrown out
metaphorically. Let me try this.Let me do this a different way.
And. That is the mindset that isso important to keep people in
the game.
Yeah, well, you know, and it'skind of funny, I know you, you
say it's obviously your yourmarket is, is broader than you
might first think. Because, youknow, if, if you have rejection
(30:14):
anywhere in your life or in yourwork, they can benefit from what
you train on. It's not justsales or business development, I
can, I can see that, you know,and there's so many different
areas, right? I want ouraudience to really, you know,
sit up and pay attention tothis. Because, I mean, how many
times you get told no during theday, right? It could be from a
spouse, your kid, it could beyour neighbor, it could be a
(30:35):
community organization, withinyour organization, your own
company, you know, trying to geta project initiative off the
ground, or try to get additionalfunding for something there's
there's so many different ways.And I always like to tell people
like, you know, when I speak toan audience, depending on you
know what the topic is, but ifit's geared around leadership or
(30:56):
anything to do with sort of thepersonal responsibility of what
you do in your professionallife. I remind everybody,
everybody's in sales. We're allselling something, right? And
we're always in a position to dosomething, whether we're selling
an idea, trying to get fundingfor a startup, we're trying to
write another book, we're tryingto, you know, ask somebody out
on a on a date. We're trying toget an appointment. These are
(31:18):
all avenues where theopportunity for someone to, you
know, give you rejection or sayno, there's a high probability
of it. And the more that you canget comfortable with that, the
more that you can learn from,like you said, understand what
works what doesn't work. It isreally a science game. I don't
know how many people I've told Ithink that you know, you and I
(31:41):
kind of look at our industrykind of the same ways that you
know there's opportunity tobenefit from the data and the
knowledge that you pick up. Andif you're paying attention, and
you're you're being reallymeticulous in terms of what
you're tracking and how you'retracking it, can it can open up
a plethora of new ideas andcreativity for doing things
(32:02):
differently. And I tell I'vetold many, many leaders, one of
the movies that I like to watchis Moneyball. And I don't know
if you saw Moneyball with BradPitt and but it's it. What they
were doing was leveraging thenumbers, you know, to figure out
how to get more successful onbat opportunities, which
produces, hopefully runs right,and at the end of the day, how
(32:25):
to do that on a shoestringbudget. And what they were doing
was dealing with a problem wherethe Yankees were 100 and $40
million payroll right for theirruns to the World Series, and
these guys were more like $20million right. That it
definitely an apples and orangecomparison, but it was kind of
proof positive, that when youstart to look beyond what has
always been or what we've alwaysthought was just the way and do
(32:49):
things differently, then youoften find new paths to
different outcomes. And that'swhat I love about your all's
work, is that you are helpingpeople say, Hey, don't shy away
from the No, and don't, don't beashamed of the No. It's part of
life. We all hear it, and it'swhat we really learn from it
along the way that actuallymakes us better, that eventually
(33:10):
will get us to a lot more yeses,right?
Yeah. So perfectly sad. Andyou're and I love Moneyball. We
we've watched that more thanonce. Yeah?
Me too. Yeah. Sadly, every timeit's on TV, it's like, Rudy, I
just stop and I just watch,
right? And then you just gotsucked in, yeah,
yeah. I think that. I think whatI've what I've watched in it,
(33:32):
you know, I got to see, youknow, you guys have both a
really, a really powerful energywhen you present and you speak.
And I really love that. And Iencourage people to go out and
see some of the videos that areout there with you guys
presenting. I can see why thismessage resonates in kind of why
you were kind of more or lessgeared towards more of that
(33:52):
speaker audience, because at theend of the day, what you're
talking about is so powerful,and it can impact any
organization, no matter whatsize they are, what's what?
What's the most surprising thingabout sort of this new iteration
of your business going into2025, that then you didn't
expect maybe even pre COVID.Yeah,
(34:14):
you, that's right, you did askme about the what's the most
surprising thing
come back to it, yeah, it's allgood stuff going. So you,
you by asking that, you justtriggered the thought in my
head. I think the mostsurprising thing is I sometimes,
I was just telling Richard thisthe other day. I'm like, You
know what? We are too close tothis material sometimes, and we
(34:37):
have to remain dumb. We have toremain dumber. And this is just
like I even back in my corporatedays, I remember telling
everybody you like, the smarteryou get, the worse it is,
because you start, you stoppedexplaining things to customers,
you start getting so good thatyou think that the basics don't
(34:59):
matter. And, and even as asalesperson, you get so good you
forget the fundamentals. Yeah,and I think sometimes, in this
for go for No, I've beenteaching it so long that I
forget that sometimes thefoundation is where I need to
start. And I I will jump aheadto things that I feel like are
more advanced mindset conceptsor or things that are more like
(35:21):
philosophical or esoteric orwhatever, or even more tactical.
And then sometimes I'll post,and most of this is like social
media, just to gage reaction.And then sometimes I'll post,
like a Thomas Edison quote aboutnot giving up. Or Thomas Edison,
you know, he tried with thelight bulb, you know, 1000 times
(35:42):
and or 10,000 times until onefinally worked. And people are
like, Oh my gosh, that's soamazing. And I'm thinking, this
is the most basic idea ofThere's so much I have so much
gold here. And you are lookingat this idea, and I think like,
but the simplicity of it and thepower of it is that's where we
(36:05):
started. And I don't need to getfancy, like, I need to focus on
the fundamentals of this mindsetthat and stop. Sometimes I think
like, I need the new thing. Ineed to talk about this
differently. And it's like, no,people are still resonating with
the things that are the like,they're so fundamental. They're
(36:26):
the timeless truths, right?They're the timeless principles.
Like, begin with the end in mindStephen Covey, that is a
timeless truth. It doesn'tmatter how technology changes or
what happens. It's so powerful.And you think like, oh, I will,
will the Franklin COVIDorganization transition and
(36:46):
change that? No, I will be thereforever. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, I like what yousaid there about, you know it
sometimes you have to go back tothe basics, right, the blocking
and tackling and meet peoplewhere they are. And I think that
there is this, I do think, youknow, it's kind of funny that
you said that. Like, yeah, youstruggle with that a little bit.
(37:07):
Because I do, I have as well,because, especially for ripple,
it's like, you know, yes,relationships are important. How
you go about connecting withother people. I mean, yes,
super, super, super logical, andeverybody needs it, yet nobody's
really good at it. And so whenyou kind of, like, peel it back
and you say, Okay, I actuallylearned this a couple of years
(37:29):
ago. I had a leadership teamthat pushed back on me and said,
you know, the approach that Iwas proposing to take with their
team, it thought was just, yeah,this, this is, you know, this is
old hat. This is stuff that allof our people know. And I was
like, really? I said, Okay,that's interesting. And the guy
said, Look, we're here to learnhard skills. We're not here to
(37:51):
learn soft skills. Everybodygets soft skills. And I thought
about it for a minute, and I satthere, and I knew I was at risk
of probably getting tossed out,but it wouldn't have been the
first time, right? And I, I, Isaid, Well, let me, let me ask
you a question. You know, yousay soft skills. And I, and I
said, when you got into yourfirst job, or you actually took
(38:14):
this job here, who was theperson that took you by the hand
and said, Alright, come on, kid,I'm going to show you how to
show you how to get along withthe other kids in the sandbox.
And the one guy who is like theCOO, he just looked at me like,
well, nobody, I had to learn it.I said, so. So you learn what
you learned, and then you thinkthat is common sense, right?
(38:35):
Yep. I said, but do you thinkyour common sense differs from
your colleague that you'resitting next to and he kind of
looked at his colleague, and hiscolleague was like, Absolutely,
looks, you know, way different.And I said, you know, the thing
about hard skills, those areteachables, right? Those are
technical, tactical, we canfigure those things out. That's
the go to, but you can't do anyof the go to without people,
(38:56):
right? And the go to isimportant, but also how people
get there when they're gettingthere, is really critical. And I
said the Part, Part I have theproblem with, with what you said
is soft skills imply simple andeasy. And it's, again, goes back
to common sense. And you areassuming everybody's common
sense is at the same level yoursis. And I can tell you it's not.
(39:20):
And it was like one of thosedefining moments for me where I
realized, no, I'm not talkingabout building a network, or I'm
not talking about how to, youknow, build that rapport. So you
get somebody to say, yes, it'sabout human, you know, basic
human values, and in in helpingpeople learn how to engage.
Because none of us have beenreally, truly taught that just
(39:42):
like what you guys do as the asthe work you do, it's so
important helping people realizethat no is not a negative. It's
just a it's just a word, it'sjust a hey, maybe not right now
or maybe never, but that's okay.But the what you learn along the
way, when you get. Know, that'sthe lesson, that's the that's
(40:03):
the you know, that's the mana,that's the good stuff. And when
you use that, your nextconversation or your next 20
conversations, are going to bevastly different, because you're
now looking at it with a new setof information in through a new
lens. And it's important,
I love that. And to your pointabout the soft skills, people
get nervous, especially peoplewho lead organizations, get very
(40:24):
nervous about soft skills,because they're not easily
measured. Yeah, and they want tobe able to go to anybody who
questions them and go like,yeah, we're looking to move this
number. And it's like, well, howdoes listening what listening
skills? How is that going tomove the number? And it's like,
well, it will, but it, we're notteaching people, you know, how
to fill out this, this CRM, oryet another spreadsheet, or yet
(40:46):
another report. So, yeah, sorry,
yeah, yeah. And it, you know,they it's, it's sad, but there's
not enough emphasis on thosethings. You know, both the work
that you're doing, the work Ido, because there's this, this
assumption that everybody getsit. It's kind of inherent in
(41:07):
that, you know, somehow, someway, just because it's my, you
know, first month as a sales repselling, you know, the new
widget, and I should beautomatically bulletproof to
anybody who might reject me andor the product, service,
whatever, and I know how tohandle that and what I found,
and I'm sure you guys have aswell, and talking to so many
different sales folks over theyears, and even leadership team,
(41:31):
I mean it that piece is acontact sport, and it takes a
little piece of your soul everytime you get the result that you
didn't expect. And it takes alot for you to rebuild that back
up and then have the confidenceto walk into the ring and fight
again. Yep,
yep, it does. People ask me allthe time, how do I how and how
(41:53):
do I do that exactly? And I'mlike, if I could give you, like,
that exact formula, I'd probablynot be talking to you because
I'd be a billionaire. I wouldreally it is just about just
keep showing up over and overagain. I think there's something
to that you just learn. You justlearn how to deal with things
(42:15):
the more you experience them.That's all there is to it. You
can't think your way out of it.
No, and, and I do think thatit's, it's, it's such an
invaluable skill to learn how totake it and take it gracefully,
but not just set it off and asan isolated event, but actually
to look at it in post mortem. Ihave told the sales teams that
(42:37):
I've led in the past that youknow you want to look at why
people don't do business withyou. It isn't necessarily
because our product didn't work,or the service wasn't that
great, or whatever. There'susually something else, and the
only way that you actuallyfigure out what that reason is
is to go back to the well andsay, Hey, I know you went with
this other vendor, or I know yousaid no for right now, and I'm
(42:58):
not really going to try and cryover spilled milk, but I'm
trying to continually getbetter. So what else could I
have done differently? Or what,what might we have shown you or
said, or what, you know, whatcould we put on the table that
might have given you a differentperspective, or may have led you
down to, you know, to want toknow more or ask more questions,
or maybe, you know, do what? Dowhatever. See a demo, you know,
(43:19):
do a trial, whatever it is thatyou're doing. And I find that
all the time that for folks thateven try to sell to my
companies, like, yeah, you say,hey, no, I appreciate it. I'm
not interested. And nobody says,Why? Why you're not like, why
wouldn't you be interested? Soyou know, how do you ever learn
if you don't really understandwhat the motivation was behind
the note anyway? Yeah,
(43:41):
yeah. And, and it's interestingthat you'd bring that up,
because we addressed that lastyear. We wrote, actually,
technically, in 2023 I finallyconvinced Richard to write a
book with me. We wrote a bookcalled I forgot my own title,
that when they say when they sayno. And so it was, it was. So we
(44:02):
keep telling people, like, goout there and get No, and it's
like, well, wait a minute. Whathappens when they do say no? And
so when they say no, was ourattempt, and we did 44 things
that you should think, do orsay, brilliant. It when you get
a no, and like you said, one ofthem absolutely is ask, why or
ask, you know, be surprised.Wow, I'm I'm surprised because I
(44:24):
asked you all these questions,you gave me all these answers.
This seems perfect. This seemslike the right time. I feel like
we've knocked down everythingthat was an issue. Why not? And
yeah, it's yeah, without,without trying to put the person
on the defense, but like, I'mjust, I would love to know for
my own edification and my ownfuture learning. So I would
(44:44):
totally appreciate it. Andthat's it is so valuable.
There's a lot of value in knowgoing forward. And sometimes you
find out, like, it's just,there's some reason that has
nothing to do with you. And forthe ones that it had. Something
to do with you, and you couldn'tcontrol it. You just gotta let
that go and move on. Yeah,
(45:04):
yeah, absolutely. But you know,even letting it go, you learn
from it and see what you canadapt in the future and but
that's all you really can do.But I think, you know, one
takeaway for our audience is, nomatter what capacity you're in,
try to understand why you'regetting it. And I think, you
know, one of the things that Ithink is so valuable is all the
resources that you've put out onyour website, and we'll cover
(45:25):
that at the very end, about howpeople can get involved with
your work. But I highlyrecommend that you know they
they read your books and learnfrom these nuggets of wisdom,
because I can guarantee youthere we can always get better.
And I think one of the thingsyou said early on is as
entrepreneurs, but also justpeople right in whatever
(45:46):
profession you're in, never stoplearning, never stop investing
in yourself, because it makesyou so much more valuable. It
makes you more versatile, and itmakes you, for your
organization, a resource foreverybody else, and when you're
the resource, then you're thelast person they're looking to
(46:06):
plug when layoffs are coming.Or, you know, you're, you're,
you're generally one of the morevaluable assets from, you know,
from the team perspective. Soit's highly, highly recommended.
But, Andrea, I could talk to youall day, because you're
infinitely, infinitelyinteresting, but I want to be
respectful of your time, and Iknow we had just a short window
today, but if you're okay withit, I always like to wrap up my
(46:29):
interviews with a few rippleconnection questions or no
gotcha questions. They're justfun to ask, fun to answer. Cool
yeah and Hey, it's okay to sayno. If you
Yes, I'm not gonna give you ano. I'm not gonna I love that. I
love that.
So the we talked about yourentrepreneurial journey in sort
of the that process and thatapproach, if you weren't doing
(46:51):
what you're doing now, whatwould we find you doing? Oh, my
gosh, probably. Probably fictionwriter, really? Yeah, which
Richard and I write fiction onthe side as our side hobby
anyway, so Wow, would it? Woulddo that full time? Yeah.
So are you fiction that you'reactually producing and putting
(47:14):
into books?
Yes, fiction that we produce putin books which do not sell.
Trust me, and I make, this islike any good hobby. We make no
money. Okay, no money to bemade. Well,
one of my connections, and weneed to get you into our
community, the ripple pond, Ithink you would really enjoy.
But one of our folks that's inthere, she, she's actually a
(47:38):
professor for, oh, you, but shehas, she's actually been
writing, and she said the samething for a very long time. She
wrote romance novels, but hasfinally gotten some traction
with both lifetime and Hallmark,just kind of out of the blue,
yeah, she might be a really goodresource for you, just, you
know, to, if nothing else, toencourage you to keep doing it,
(48:00):
because eventually one of thosebooks is going to land, and then
once they land, and somebodyreally gets it, and it takes off
a popularity, then all the otherbooks that you've had out there
all of a sudden become populartoo. So don't give up. I'm not.
I'm not. I'm switching toromance Steve, because that is
where the money is.
I keep telling my wife, I thinkI can write this Hallmark stuff.
(48:21):
I walk through the room whenshe's watching it, and I'm like,
I could tell you the wholepremise of the damn
story. Yeah, you know exactlywhat's gonna happen. She claims
it.
It's, I don't know anything, butI'm like, Look, some dude comes
back to the hometown and, youknow, there's some flower shop
or some bakery that's on it's,it's about to go out of
business, and he's got to saveor help save it. And you know,
(48:42):
the woman that loved him neverexpressed it, and he left, and
he's and he's also devastatinglyhandsome and single. It's like,
it's perfect,
and he's the same guy in everysingle movie, right? It's
interesting, all right, so Ilove that perspective. So you
would be a full time fictionwriter. What did the seven year
(49:04):
old version of Andrea want to bewhen she grew up? Oh,
the seven year old me wanted toproduce movies. Oh, wow, yeah. I
was a huge I was a total it'sfunny, you have Mandalorian bind
you. I was a total Star Warsgeek at age seven, I
knew we would be friends.
I watched that movie over we hada, like, a bootleg copy back in
(49:27):
the day, like we had one of thefirst VCRs. It was like, beta,
the beta tape, yeah, size of asuitcase, yeah. Watch the movie
over and over. I loved it. IYeah, so that's what I would
Yeah. I
am. I mean, just kind of a sidenote I'm listening to, and I can
send you. I don't remember theauthor's last name, but I'm
listening to and he's writtenseveral biographies, but he
(49:50):
wrote one on George Lucas thatis just, it's probably one of
the best ones I've ever, everlistened to, because it's
talking about how George didn't.Fit in. And, you know, sort of
was kind of a geeky, nerdy kindof, but very into science and a
lot of unique, esoteric kind ofthings. But it really talks
about his career path andultimately end up, you know, at
(50:13):
the how he came about, makingthe Star Wars movies. And it's
just as a nerd like that, it'ssuper fascinating. But there's
so many lessons as anentrepreneur that I'm taking
from the book that, you know,just kind of remind you, but to
the point one of the big thingsright was how he was getting his
first, you know, his real firstfilm off the ground, and how he
(50:33):
kept getting nos and therejections, and how he had to
use that as motivation totoughen up, because rejection is
just part of the game out inHollywood. So that's
interesting. Okay, so since youyou like Star Wars favorite
character,
oh, I probably have to go withHan Solo. Yeah, yeah. Or, or,
(51:02):
ah, or maybe C, 3p, O, he's sofunny. Yeah,
I love it perfect. If you were,if you were forced to, what was
your favorite Star Wars movie?What's of all of them that have
come out? Oh,
I would have to say the NewHope, like the first the first
one, yeah, yeah,
(51:23):
yeah, me too. That's where itall started is, yeah, it's
awesome. As a successful femaleentrepreneur, if you were to
give advice to other females outthere, they're thinking about
doing something, hanging outtheir own shingle, starting
their own venture, buildingsome, some, some other aspect of
(51:48):
a business that they could do,either as a side hustle or
eventually as a full timeentrepreneur. What advice would
you give them?
I would say, don't drag yourfeet and wait. Don't keep don't
let perfection stand in yourway. For me, I was so unprepared
in every way. I learned as Iwent on, literally everything I
(52:13):
made, every mistake you couldmake. And I thank God though
that I didn't wait, becausethere was no way to prepare and
no way to see the path. And JackCanfield says this in the movie,
The Secret you know. He says,All you need to see is the
lights 200 feet, you know, yourheadlights 200 feet in front of
you. And that's so true. So Ithink, I think that the
(52:36):
majority, especially for women,we're concerned with doing it
right and having it perfect. AndI don't want to go out unless
I've got all my ducks in a row.And, yeah, I think, like,
Richard and I didn't do it agreat way. We had very little
safety net, and we were, it wascrazy. I mean, we we moved in,
(52:57):
let his house go. We moved intoa really sketchy neighborhood of
that apartment. We're like, wegot to do what we got to do. So
I know a lot of people don'twant to get uncomfortable like
that. So I get it, you've got toset yourself up for the
finances. But beyond that, gosh,don't wait.
I think that's great. And I alsothink you know, part of you
(53:18):
know, part of that littleinsight into your your
background and your history,there's, there's also some value
in that, right? When you havethat burn, your burn the boat
strategy, like sometimes failureis not an option, because you
can't allow it to be an option.You've got to keep moving
forward. So you got to figure itout. And I think that,
especially in today's worldwhere it's so easy to pick, you
know, you know, oh, all of asudden, just going to change
(53:40):
careers, or I'm going to dosomething different. And you see
a lot of people that don't justsettle in on something, I think
you know, sticking with it andbeing as committed as you
possibly can, but recognizingthat you know the you may not
necessarily have the safety net,but that's okay. You know,
believe in yourself and knowwhat you have that you know
comes of true value and offer,and if you do it right? And you
(54:01):
know, you go through thetraining Andrea will provide
you. You'll hear a lot of notes,but she'll eventually help you
get some yeses. So I thinkthat's, that's the way to go,
for sure, if, if you're going togive so, you know, you're very
similar to me. I work with mywife. She considers her work
with me. I originally said shewould only have to do this for
(54:21):
the first year we've beenmarried. Now 31 years, she's
still doing all. She's still myCFO on a couple of ventures. But
what's the, what's the one thingthat you know piece of advice
you'd give to a married couplethat are looking to go into
business together, do somethingprofessionally together.
Oh, this is so easy. Give upcontrol, give up control. Just
(54:45):
on, on the things that don'tmatter. You've gotta just that
was the biggest thing withRichard. I would butt heads. It
would be like, you know, well, Ithink it should have a red
stripe on the top of it. Well,no, I think it should have a
yellow stripe. And that would belike battle. Here's why the red,
here's why the yellow. And. Andeventually it was like, You know
what? We just have to You're theone who gets to decide how it
looks and and I and then I'll,I'll decide on something else.
(55:09):
And I remember one day he cameto the conclusion, because he
was changing up some email orsomething. And he said, You
know, I realize that I'mchanging this and I'm making it
different, but it's notnecessarily better. So he said,
I'm only going to change thingsif I really believe that I'm
going to make it better. Andeven right now, we're writing a
sequel to go for no and we'vebeen battling on one scene.
(55:32):
We've been in a total agreement.And eventually I just said, he
said, Yeah, he goes, I had tochange your scene. He goes. And
I said, really? How? Like, itwas bad. He goes, it was not
good. Said, Okay, fine, fine.Change, change my scene. That's
okay, so we just have to, so Ihad to give up, like, control
over that. Yeah,
that's, I mean, that's a greatpiece of advice. I love that.
(55:53):
Well, okay, last threequestions, I promise, um, no,
no. I love it when people uh,when people face No, when you
face No, how do you overcome it?
Yeah, you know i Well, one is I,I really work on my physiology,
because I really feel physicallythe the nose, yeah. And I know I
(56:15):
noticed one time even this was,this was not too long ago, I got
a no to a podcast, Steve, thatwas like the most, and I'm going
to say this without trying tosound snarky, inconsequential,
like, this was not a careerdefining client that I lost, and
it was weird, and I feltphysically that I was like, oh
(56:37):
that no and, and at the moment,I went, Oh my gosh, you really
can still feel physically theserejections. It's so fascinating.
So I, for me, really work. I'mso good with thinking, like, I
so value getting no but I haveto work on my physiology and
just say, oh, that's the feel.That's my brain warning me of
(56:58):
the danger of this, and thatphysical feeling will pass, and
I and I work on just lettingthat go and wreck and seeing it
and not letting that physicalfeeling spiral. My thoughts of,
oh my God, you're gonna die. Youjust got rejected for this
podcast that. But that's whatthe brain does. I've come to
(57:20):
really get that over the years.So I work on that. My thought
process is I just really valueit, and I always reward myself
mentally for good for you, forgoing after it, good for you,
for following up, for, you know,asking over and over again. Like
I really work on that, thatpatting myself on the shoulder,
(57:41):
for for trying, yeah,
for all of our listeners, thetakeaway from that, that I
heard, that I think is probablyone of the most genius pieces of
advice I've actually heard, isthat positive self talk, because
that's what continues tomotivate you, to keep you moving
forward, but most importantly,not taking rejection so personal
doesn't mean you don't learnfrom it. Doesn't mean it still
(58:03):
doesn't sting, but at the sametime, you know understanding
what you can learn from it, andthen celebrating in your own
way, your own successes. It'snot necessarily the
acknowledgement from your spouseor even the customer that you
might land or the deal that getsclosed. It's it's about, hey,
look, I showed up. I did what Ithought I should do. I made the
outcome happen the way Iexpected it to. And it's you
(58:26):
need to take that time andrecognize yourself in doing
that. So that's, that's abeautiful, beautiful statement
you've made. So thank you forthat, Allied. There's one last
question, and then I ask you thefinal two. But what is if, if,
if you could hear someone thatattended one of your events, or
a client that worked with youdirectly, or someone that's read
(58:49):
the book, what's the most? Whatwould be the one thing you would
love to hear them say about youand your work? Um,
probably that. I just care somuch to see people grow and
change, that would make me thatalways makes me feel good and
and yeah, that that I that it'sobvious how passionate I am and
(59:12):
how much I care to help them. Ilove
that that's great. Okay, soobviously I can't let you go
without asking this question,because it's an important one,
just for me and my own purposes.But when you hear the word the
ripple effect, what is that?What does that conjure up for
you? What does it mean to you?Oh, that's
such a good question. Thanks.First thing that come first
thing that comes to mind is, iskind of like the butterfly
(59:36):
effect, yeah, like, I hear theripple effect, and I go like,
Oh, the ripple effect.Everything's connected. So
everything matters. So how youtreat someone today, that
kindness Karma comes back. Thatperson treats someone else nice,
that person treats some someoneelse Nice. So what you and
really because of that, it'skind of like what you do really
(59:58):
matters, right? It actually.Actually gives meaning to small
things instead of just, doesn'tmatter how I treat the mailman
or how I how I go about this.So, yeah, it's got a lot of
meaning. I think it has. It'sgot a lot of deep meaning to it,
if you really think about it. Sothat's what came up for me. Even
(01:00:19):
when you reached out to me. Iwas like, oh. And I immediately
saw, Oh, the brand is the rippleeffect, like I could see, like
the brand throughout and andthat's kind of what I what I
thought. So when I dug deeperand it was like, oh, it's
relationships that made sense tome. It was like, okay, that
connection piece. I love
it. Well, final question is,what ripple can I create for you
and Richard,
(01:00:41):
just this podcast. This is,like, one of my I'm so excited
about this and sharing all thesequestions and and for whatever
reason, like I felt like I did agood job today.
You You did an outstanding job.Well,
thank you. Sometimes I get on,you know, and I'm, I'm, like,
not dialed in for whateverreason. I don't know. I didn't
(01:01:04):
even have any chocolate beforethis, so I don't even a lot of
fuel.
Well, hey, that's good. I mean,I'm glad you you you feel good
about it, because I feelexceptionally good about it.
You're a rock star, and you are.You are so fun to talk to, and
I've I've learned so much today.I know my audience has as well.
Whether you're watching this onYouTube or on listening to it
(01:01:28):
wherever your podcast yearsmight, you know, lead you to to
listen to on whatever platform.We definitely appreciate it. But
Andrea, before I let you go, forthe folks that definitely want
to dive in more and maybe getinvolved in, you know, just
figure out how to engage withyour work. What's the best way
for them to do that? Yeah,
they can come to go for no.com.We've got a fun no Quotient
(01:01:50):
quiz. So if they want to testsee how their no quotient is, if
it's high, moderate, low, come,take the quiz, read the blog,
hang out and connect with me onsocial media. I'm at go for No,
pretty much on everything. Soworking on doing some video, so
I'm not on tick tock. But maybesomeday
(01:02:11):
Don't say no, yeah, yeah, right,yeah. Oh, I love it. Well,
listen, I I thoroughly,thoroughly enjoyed this. I
greatly appreciate this. I cantell that we're going to be fast
friends. And if there isanything I can do to support you
guys moving forward, it'd be funto even maybe find some
opportunities to work togetherin 2025 because I think a lot of
(01:02:32):
the work that you do in the workthat I do really crosses over
really, really well, there's alot of compatibility. So we
should, you know, should talkabout that at some point, set up
a call and, you know, maybebrainstorm. But I just want to
thank you for the bottom of myheart, for the time and just the
honesty and just your enthusiasmabout what you do. It's
infectious. And I'm I'm sograteful to have you on the
(01:02:54):
show. So thank
you. Thank you, Steve, thank youso much. Alice. Was a lot of
fun. Excellent. Well, guys,we'll be
back with another episode of theripple effect very soon, but in
the meantime, don't forget to gocheck out all of Andrea's links,
and we're going to have some ofthose located in the show notes
as well. But we appreciate youlistening as always being a
supporter. You know, we wecouldn't do it without you. So
(01:03:16):
thank you from the bottom of myheart. 2025 is going to be the
best year. I hope for us and foryou, and we just want to welcome
you to a brand new year with alot of new opportunities, and as
Andrea would say, go for somemore no's, because you're gonna
eventually find your yeses. Sorip a lot you.
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