Mastering Training Excellence with Jason Helfenbaum

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This show is sponsored by dn tenInsurance Services, helping businesses get the right
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dent ten, you're giving back ona global scale. Hello all, my

(00:22):
entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcometo the Michael Esposito Show, where I
interview titans of industry in order toinform, educate, and inspire you to
be great. My guest today hasbuilt a business on the foundation of relationships.
He spends his time cultivating relationships andcreating value for any who interact with

(00:44):
him. His business Click Knowledge focuseson helping businesses and business owners find more
time through documenting processes and creating plansfor others to follow. This helps company
culture, which in turn creates strongrelationships. Please welcome my guest and friend,

(01:07):
Jason hell Forerbaum. Thanks so much, thanks for having me. Welcome.
So this is always really cool forme. Was I've been doing these
Instagram lives every morning now. I'vebeen doing this since February second, Groundhogs
Day, and it was kind oflike because I did on Groundhogs Day because
it was like complete, it wasrepeating over and over and over again that

(01:30):
I needed to do this. SoI finally on Groundhog Day, I was
like, I gotta stop the cycle. That's literally how the Instagram live started.
It was like, I got tostop the cycle. I'm doing it
today. And this morning I didone and I was talking about I always
talk about on Fridays my show hereat iHeart, and I'm like, how
fortunate I am and how cool itis. And I was like, what's

(01:52):
really cool is my show is likean international show. Now you're up in
Canada. I mean, you're inCanada. The other person I had on
was in Canada, Bob, andI had somebody in India. So it's
really cool. It's so exciting forme when I have a guest on that's
from a whole other continent, awhole other country. It's so cool.

(02:15):
So so tell me how how didthings start for you early on in your
journey as an entrepreneur. You know, I think it's kind of funny.
I think I was not an entrepreneurfor a long time. You know,
I think you hear all these storiesthese guys who are like very entrepreneurial from

(02:36):
like six seven years old. Iprobably wasn't entrepreneurial into my twenties. I
was very much a latent entrepreneur.But once I started, I couldn't stop,
you know, I really I hearda quote once which doesn't resonate for
me just to a large extent,but maybe for some people. It was
someone who said, I can't bemanaged, I can only be frustrated.

(02:58):
Huh. And I don't quite followit to that extent, but I think
sort of, once I got ataste of charting my own destiny, I
couldn't look back. You know.It's sort of the genie came out of
the bottle and I realized there's certainthings I wanted to do and I really

(03:19):
wanted to affect change in people.Yeah, I you know, it's interesting
that that kind of I would say. I also feel the same way about
this whole like late entrepreneur, exceptI was much older for me, you
know, I worked in the corporatesetting for years and it wasn't until what
like two years ago that I waslike, I'm going to go off on

(03:40):
my own. But I think thatthere's little things along the way, like
breadcrumbs of being an entrepreneur that Ican look back in my story and say,
you know what, I did tryto start a business. You know,
I was working at a job,but I did start. I remember
my very first year actually at yellowBook back in two thousands. I had

(04:01):
several meetings with my cousin and areally close friend to the point where we
actually met with an accountant and wewere developing this like online business together.
So I guess where I'm going withthat is I feel like, even though
for you it was until like yourlate twenties thirties that you became an entrepreneur,
but I feel like there's like littlebreadcrumbs along the way, and I'm

(04:21):
interested to find out if there's anythinglike that you could think back on that
you can look and go, youknow what, that was like a breadcrumb
for me. Yeah, it's prettyfunny you say that, and I'll comment
on that in a different way inthinking I didn't really see the breadcrumbs.
But you know, for myself personally, I don't like to sort of draw

(04:43):
that line of sand, make itblack and white. You're other entrepreneur,
You're not. One thing I wishI had done more of it when I
was younger was head mentors and regardlessif you're entrepreneur or not, I think
mentorship is really important, and soI'm really encouraging my kids now to you
know, get involved, meet people, get a taste of what it is,

(05:05):
and people are so happy and anxiousto give back. And just tell
you a quick anecdotal story. Thereis my daughter, one of my daughters
is moving into tech and I'm amember of a tech organization and they have
different meetups and stuff like that,and so I encourage her to join and
hang out. And she asked afew questions and they serve kibbitts with me

(05:27):
and kid with me, and theysay, you know what, your daughter
asks better questions than you. Let'shave her come instead of you from now
on because she's much better than you. But away, everyone laugh. But
the point is is she got thatentree into all these people who are willing
to give back to her. Andso, you know, whether you label
the surf as an entrepreneur or not, I would really highly encourage everyone to

(05:48):
have a mentor. And the truthis is I try to view every person
I meet as a mentor in fulldisclosure. Sometimes it's how to live and
sometimes it's how not to live.Yeah. And you know what's funny about
the kids, though, is whenyou said that she asked better questions.

(06:08):
One, we know that they're kindof joking to kind of like, you
know, kind of give you somea good ribbing of sorts, and it's
kind of like just a way ofbuilding camaraderie sometimes. But you know,
I am interested in the question partbecause I think that kids do ask really
good questions, and I think it'sbecause they're willing to just be careless or

(06:29):
care free, I mean to say, about whether what others think of them
right where it's you know, you'rethinking, maybe I should know that,
so I'm not going to ask thequestion, whereas she's like, I don't
know that, and so I'm goingto ask. Yeah. It's interesting I'm
guilty of that. You know,someone will ask you say like do you
know about so and so, andyou really don't, and you feel uncomfortable

(06:53):
saying I don't know, right,so you kind of go yeah, and
you hope they don't ask another questionor anything like that. But to your
point, you know, a goodfriend of mine who will remain anonymous,
has done very very well in businessand has always been very successful, never
really known failure. And I rememberI was walking with him once and at

(07:16):
the time, I think eight yearold son was just dance like an absolute
idiot, and he looked at him, started to smile and said, I
wish I could do that. AndI said, do what he says,
dance like an idiot and not reallycare what people think. And I said,
well, why don't you He says, well, because I can't look
bad in front of everyone. I'vealways succeeded. I can't have that failure.
Wow. And I think, togo back to the original thing,

(07:38):
I think the reason why we're notas curious, we don't ask as many
questions, is because we wan't lookbad and we don't want to fail or
be perceived as failing. And it'sI think it's changing the entrepreneurial world as
we understand failure is a good thing. But I think we really need to
in em brace failure more right andto that point, you know, like

(07:58):
whenever we're doing an engage and whenI've talked to my clients, when we're
talking internally, one of the mattresswe have is to check the ego at
the door. And what we thereforedo is when we have a post mortar
or a discussion or a strategic chat. It's all about direction and ideas as
opposed to who said it and who'sright and who's wrong. And to that
end as well, it's great becausewe can have a conversation with our clients

(08:22):
where we could say, hey,we messed up, we're going to fix
it, and here's why we messedup. And there's no shame or embarrassment.
It's just like, yeah, noone's perfect, right. I like
the embracing failure. I think it'syou know, there's I just again my
IG live, These ig lives,I mean, they're part of my life
there every morning. Now, Ijust did one on Walt Disney, and

(08:46):
I didn't know this about Walt Disney. I knew that there was some failures
in his in his existence, andthat's why I had looked him up for
this ig Live that I was doingon failure, and I didn't realize that.
You know, he had gone throughbank he had gone through a mental
breakdown, he had gone through justa bunch of things, a strike and
all sorts of different things. Butyet it's like he's Walt Disney and it's

(09:09):
Disneyland and it's all these amazing things, and I think that you know,
when we can embrace failure and learnfrom it, there's there's so much more
that we can do. In yourexperience. What kind of failures have you
experienced that you can share, ofcourse, and that you've you've really learned
from and have seen maybe propel youand your business or even your family or

(09:33):
your community forward. You know whatI mean. I'm trying to think of
something I'm not trampled back, butI'll tell you, like, for example,
arguably every day I fail as afather, I feel it as a
husband, But you know, youdon't, like you fail in the sense

(09:56):
that you're not at the optimal levelyou want to be. But you know,
to speak just to speak to thatfor a minute, it's I think
that's the problem is we see failureas all or nothing. You did it
or you didn't. In some kindof times that is the case, right,
Sometimes you sort of do need tobe black and white that way.
But I think it's not so absolute. I think in some cases failure is

(10:18):
just being not optimal and going backon and you know, getting back on
that horse. I would say,you know, also just you know,
without going to too much detail.I would say, from my sales and
marketing perspective, you know, whatI thought was going to be successful,
what made so much sense on paperwas great, and when you actually executed

(10:39):
it, realized it wasn't going towork. And so you don't serve,
pump out that paper and say screwit. You sort of look at the
metrics and say, Okay, whatworked, what didn't work, Why did
it work, why did it not? And you go to version two point
zero. You know. Like threeHoffman, who founded LinkedIn, had a
great quote. I think that's applicablein life. He said, if you

(11:01):
go back and look at your firstrelease of your product and you don't cringe,
you release too late. I actuallyI used to listen to one of
his podcasts, and I feel likehe says that pretty often because I kind
of remember that of like, ifyou look back and you don't feel like
there's anything to fix, then yeah, you didn't you didn't release properly or
something. He's it's very interesting thatperspective. I really appreciate it in terms

(11:26):
of the sales and marketing. Ithink that that's something that can really help
our audience here when you think aboutsome of the mistakes that you made,
and of course they're in context towhat you do and the services you offer.
I'm interested in what those looked likefor you. Sure, I mean,
I'll share a recent mistake for you, as you said, and I

(11:46):
thank you for that compliment. Ireally do see myself as a relationship oriented
person. And for example, youknow we talked about LinkedIn. I think
there's this big distinction between a connectionand a relationship. Just to get up
on that soapbox for half a second, most people on LinkedIn are about connections
and not about relationships, and itcan be frustrating when you're trying to have

(12:07):
a relationship with someone who just wantsto be a connection. But to that
point, what I've found very effectiveis almost everyone I connect with I invite
to have a fifteen minute chat.It's amazing what you can offer and what
you can uncover within fifteen minutes ifboth parties really want to get deep really
quickly. And so I've had amazingchats, and the lesson learned is this

(12:30):
is I would listen to someone,I would understand how I could help,
and I would make three, fouror five introductions to them and they'd be
very grateful, and then they'd say, well, I'd love to help you,
and they said great, and Iexplained what I do and they'd say,
yeah, I can't think of anyone. And so I realized I was

(12:50):
sort of giving away the store forfree in the sense that, you know,
if I have ten connections to makefor you, I'm more than happy
to do them. But quite frankly, I'm only willing to make one or
two if you're unless you're willing toreciprocate. If you're going to reciprocate,
and there's more in that store,but that has to be earned as opposed
to be given away for free.The LinkedIn, the social media world,

(13:13):
but specifically the LinkedIn world is iscertainly a interesting place to form relationships.
Speaking of of LinkedIn here, becauseyou're you're one hundred percent right, it's
it's so often I'm certainly guilty ofit. It's you know, connections.
Connections bring value, I think,or credibility to some extent for your persona

(13:39):
online, but it doesn't necessarily meanthat you bring value. So it's it's
kind of like a weird balance.What so I like that you brought up
to your strategy of making connections andhaving that fifteen minute chat and then and
then you're connected and then you kindof know each other. I've done that
too, where I put in mycalendar link and I've had a few people.

(14:01):
Actually I have a good interaction toshare with you. I think,
I think maybe I think many willappreciate this. I actually so I put
in my calendar link when I whenI meet with people, and I do
the same thing. I have thisfifteen minute chat because I'm like you,
I'm very relationship driven, and I'mlike, you know, you know,
what value can I offer you?What value can you offer me? You
know, you know, why arewe connected? Kind of thing? Right?

(14:22):
Like why why does this make sensefor us to be connected? We
both know that it helps our linkedand numbers great, but why else does
it make sense? Right? Sothis, this gentleman meets with me,
he puts his puts me on acalender link, and I think I was
like five minutes behind or whatever onon the link, which which by the
way, I totally get, like, you know, we're when we're when

(14:45):
we're meeting with people, we needto be on time. But the reason
why I was five minutes was behindwas because I had just sent out a
life application to a friend but alsoa client. But he's also a friend,
and he was calling me with somequestions about it, and he was
really kind of of like he wasreally in it. He was like really
in the weeds, like concerned,like because he was getting a life policy,

(15:05):
because this was something that was veryimportant to protect his family, and
so he was really worried about howhe was answering the questions. It was
some medical stuff coming up, andhe was really really worried. And so
it wasn't one of those conversations whereI could have just said, you know
what, I got to call youback. I got a meeting right now.
It was one of those conversations whereyou're a friend, you're also a
client. I got to serve you, right, And if it means that

(15:26):
I just need to like take fiveminutes, you know, shave it off.
I'm sure whoever on the other endwe'll understand that when I explain it,
right, And Jason's nodding along,so he agrees with me, if
you're listening. So anyway, soI show up to the meeting late.
I show up five minutes late,and I still have my friend on the
other line, because I did haveto. I did tell my friend.
I said, listen, I gota meeting starting now, but I'm going

(15:48):
to stay with you. Let mejust explain to the other person that,
you know, I'm going to jumpback to you in a minute. So
I jump into the meeting and theperson I could just tell is like fuming,
and I'm like, you know,all right, I get it.
I understand that, right. Wejust met for the first time. I'm
five minutes later, I get it. And he says to me, I've
been waiting fifteen minutes. And Isaid, oh, I'm sorry. I

(16:11):
thought our meeting started at eleven o'clock. I'm just making up a time right
now. He goes, well,it did, but I'm on Lombardi time,
And I went, what you know, Vince Lombardi being famous for like
if you're not early or late,and you know, that could have been
funny, that could have been areally great ice breaker for me being late
and everything. And I tried tolaugh it off with him. He wasn't

(16:33):
laughing. So I started explaining tohim my case, and I said,
you know, you know, Iwas just working with a friend on his
life app and everything, and hegoes, oh, you sell life insurance,
and I said, well, yeah, And now I knew who I
was meeting with, and I knewhe sold life insurance. But to me,
I don't view anybody as competition.I just look at it as another

(16:53):
relationship of another person where maybe wecould help each other out somewhere along the
lines. And he goes, oh, you sell life insurance, and I
said, well, yeah, yeah, I sell life insurance. We do
you know, home and auto andlife and business and everything. He goes,
well, I don't see how thisconversation is beneficial for either of us.

(17:15):
I was like, yeah, neitherdo I. Man. I was
like, have a great day.We'll connect another time. And I'm just
you know, at the end ofthis, you know, the part of
why I bring this up is youreally learn, you know, like,
imagine, this person's in my rolodexnow. And I've kind of taken the
dust off of that word rolodex.I kind of I've been using it in

(17:36):
some of my emails. I youknow, you think about it now.
Imagine if if I never met himand somebody said to me, hey,
Michael, can you do this lifepolicy? And I said, actually,
I can't but I just got connectedwith this guy over you know, does
this, and I refer them andthen it come back to me and they're
gonna be like, Michael, thisguy was a jerk, Like, why'd
you refer me? I didn't knowhim. I was just connected with him.

(17:57):
So I think it just brings inthe whole vas value of relationships and
getting to know somebody on a personallevel, even if it's through LinkedIn.
I think it is really really importantall that long story to only ask you
another simple question along the lines hereof what are some other ways or some
other techniques that you use on LinkedInlet's stay there for a minute, or

(18:19):
or on social media to extend thisrelationship because as you both as you and
I both know, not everybody takesus up on this fifteen minute meeting,
and it's very far and few between, quite honestly. So I mean specifically
on social how are you using socialmedia to leverage that? Yeah, because
you are very good on LinkedIn.Actually, you know, I've I've witnessed

(18:41):
a lot of your LinkedIn like savviness. By we've done that exchange of let's
meet these different people, let's let'ssit down together and go through contacts.
I've done that with you, andand I've attended the other thing we'll get
into in a second here is aboutyour networking event that you put on your
your service networking event, and Iremember some of them came out of LinkedIn

(19:03):
connection. So I feel that youdo something more than just connecting through having
a fifteen minute get to know eachother. You do a little bit more
in terms of your messaging, interms of how you like people's comments or
posts. So I'm just interested ifyou could share some of that with our
audience. Yeah. Sure, I'llshare a secret weapon with you. So
speak for those of you who areinto networking, I'll tell you something really

(19:27):
really obvious that isn't so parent.And actually i'd say maybe five percent of
the people I talk to do it'sif you have a fifteen minute conversation,
focus on them. If I have, when I have a ten minute conversation,
even with a prospect, I amdoing very little talking for the first

(19:48):
ten minutes because I am making aboutthem. Everyone's favorite topic of conversation is
themselves, right, And so ifI'm talking to what I would call a
center of influence, And for thoseof you are not familiar with the term
it's someone I'm not going to sellto, but they have access to people
I would want to sell to.If I'm talking to a center of influencer

(20:10):
COI and I'm making all about them, I'm building trust and I'm building a
relationship with them, and I'm understanding, you know, how I can be
of service to them. And that'sone of my mattresses. How can I
be of service and just expand uponthat. It serves me really well because,
especially when I'm talking to a prospectiveclient, if they understand I'm trying

(20:32):
to just be of service to them, it means I'm not trying to sell
them, right. And if I'mtalking to them and it comes in conversation
that they have issues with insurance,well I obviously can't help them, and
it may even be that they don'tneed me. But I'd say, you
know what, Mike Esposito can helpyou. He's a great guy. I'm
going to afford you as contact andlet them know to expect a call from
you, et cetera, et cetera. And people are at ease that way.

(20:56):
And so if I have a fifteenminute window and spending ten minutes talking
about them, there's two things thatare happening. Number One, I feel
great. Number Two, when thoseten minutes are up, it's human nature.
They want to reciprocate. They wantto know about me, and they're
actively listening because they've been actively listenedto. And I'm just saying this very

(21:18):
matter of factly. I mean thisan integrist, not in a malicious way
or a malintent way. As peopleare talking, I'm obviously gathering intel and
so as a result, I'm neverpitching. I'm addressing what they're talking about.
Right, So rather than say,well you need me because I don't

(21:40):
know, but as I talk tothem and I learn more about them.
If I'm talking to COI, Ican explain in thirty seconds, based on
what they said prior, why we'restrategic good fits and why it makes sense
for you to introduce me to yourclients, right and just to sort of
just to put context to this andnot to try and sell. The first

(22:02):
thing I do with prospects is Ioffer a complimentary consult and right, so
when I'm speaking to COI, whatI'm leveraging is saying, look, I'm
giving them something that would cost hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars for free.
And if you make that introduction,that is leveraging our relationship to make
you look good in your colleagues,friends, customers' eyes. So why would

(22:25):
you not do that right? Andsimilarly, I'm just saying, matter of
factly to someone i'm talking to,look, I want to offer this to
you. But ties back to beingof service. It ties back to being
in a relationship oriented person and justgetting to know the person and just understanding
how can we have service to you. Yeah, it's something that I like

(22:48):
I said, experience with you.And then the other thing that you do
really well with that because these centersof influences are really great because they know
so many people that could that youcould serve, and that's wonderful and all.
But the other thing that you doreally well is you follow up about
it. Because it's one thing tojust say here's some contacts. You also

(23:10):
follow up with the center of influence. And I've experienced that with you.
That's how we've gotten to know eachother better. Where you reached out to
me and said, hey, youknow, just catch up with you,
but also, hey, what's goingon with this one person that you referred
to me? I can't get ahold of them, or maybe what's the
best way. And I think thatthat's really a smart thing to do,
because rather than bugging the other person, the prospect, let's call them,

(23:33):
you're actually going back to the personthat trusts you and that you trust and
having a conversation, a full roundedconversation about it and better understanding what's the
best way for me to access thisperson again, what's a better way?
And to your point, people wantto help people, and so I remember

(23:53):
this conversation with you, and I'msure you know who I'm talking about,
and you know when you brought thatup to me, I go, okay,
well, you know what this isgoing on in their business, this
is going on in their life,and it might not be the right time
to reach out to them. Maybewait a little while. And you know
that's because I want to help you. And you know, it kind of
like comes full circle, which isreally nice. I really want to just

(24:15):
add that to what you just saidthere is that whole follow up piece is
very important. What's interesting make aquick comment on that actually, ye within
so yeah, I serve segment myfifteen minute meetings, and what I usually
do is I put a fifteen minutebuffer, So if we go over the
fifteen minutes, no problem. ButI at least want to release them from

(24:37):
my jail after fifteen minutes if they'vehad enough. But usually what I do
is I will speak, let themspeak for the first ten minutes, and
of the remaining five, I'll probablyspend about four on myself if appropriate.
And the last minute I always concretelyasked is what are next steps? And
I think a lot of times nextsteps are implied, and it's really helpful

(25:00):
to spell it out right. AndI have weekly status updates meetings with my
clients. We schedule half hour.We aim to be done in ten because
if we're communicating effectively throughout the week, we don't really need the time.
But the last question there as wellis what our next steps. Just make
sure everyone understands who's responsible for whator what the expectation is, et cetera,

(25:22):
et cetera. I think it's justreally helpful to say, Okay,
you know I'm going to email youBob and make that warm introduction, or
you know it sounds like now isnot a good time, I will reach
out to you in six months,Okay, great, thank you, very
much done. It's really very important, I think, to punctuate that end
and make sure we're all on thesame page, you know, when we're

(25:45):
talking about this, these relationships,I'm kind of like reminded of the beginning
of our conversation where you were talkingabout mentors and finding mentors and the importance
of mentors and how you are amentor and you all so are a mentee
in life. I'm interested in wheredid you learn the importance of relationships again,

(26:08):
because you say that you didn't receivereally mentorship until later on in life,
But for some reason, it soundsto me like you learned about relationships
very early on. You know what, I'll sort of maybe reveal more than
I normally would. I would arguethat when I was younger, I was

(26:29):
very much an angry person, hada lot of anger. And my wife,
God love her, is just oneof these people who loves the world,
and so through osmosis or whatever,I just gradually learned to love the
world like you just genuine loves everyoneand not just like in a superficial way,
like genuine way, and I kindof inherited that from her, Like

(26:53):
I think through her, I gainedan appreciation of just how fascinating and in
it people are. Right. Yeah, there's bad aspects of people this and
that, but I think the goodoutweighs the bad by far. And I
think also you have a choice ofhow you want to view someone, right.

(27:14):
I think you know, if someonehas ninety five percent good qualities and
five percent bad, it's really easyto see those five percent bad qualities and
let it overshadow everything. Or youcould say, okay, recognize your work
in progress, their work in progress, and sort of accept to go with
the bad. And I'm not sayingyou leave yourself, you know, stupid
and vulnerable and get walked all over. Obviously you protect yourself whatever that means

(27:37):
however you see fit. But Ithink it's really easy, especially for insecureing
ourselves, to sort of put downthe other person. And it's more advantageous
if you have that strength to sortof see the positive and see the working
progress in the other person. Yeah, I I enjoy cultivating new relationships or

(28:00):
forming new relationships and cultivating them.I think for me, the line that
I that I've heard and kind oftry to live by is to see the
best in others and to you know, it's so easy to assume or take
on something personally. Is what I'mtrying to say here, is that you
know, someone gives you a dirtylook or a rude comment, or doesn't

(28:25):
hold the door for you, andyou go, oh, that person is
so rude or whatever. But ifyou see the best in everyone and you
don't personalize things, you realize thatwasn't even meant for you. That door
slam, or that that mal intentor whatever, it wasn't even meant for
you. And if you can lookpast that, like you just said,
right, if you can look pastthat and extend your hand to shake their

(28:47):
hand or smile at them, you'lllearn that they actually will smile back.
They'll be like, you know,what are you so happy about? And
you might tell them and you mightmake their day. And it's really cool
when that happens. For me.Sometimes it happens at the supermarket, you
know, with the cashier or withsomebody in line, and I had these
these two guys behind me. Actuallyjust yesterday, very rarely go in any

(29:11):
longer because we just do the shoponline thing and it just all comes out
to the car, which is reallycool. But yesterday I had to stop
in just for a few little things. And I had these guys behind me,
and two big burly guys like justthey they certainly did not look like
you want to mess with them kindof guys. And and and me,

(29:33):
I'm not the kind of mess withanyone anymore in my life, so I
don't want to mess with anybody either. But you know, I had put
stuff down and they had taken theyou know that that that divider thing,
which I always hate that divider thing, but I get it, and he
took it and they put it likeright right at the cashier, and I
had stepped away, is what happened. I stepped away to just grab something

(29:55):
off the side, because you know, they always have those little items to
sell to you while you're there.And it was a honey mango and I
was like, oh, my daughtermight really like that songo. I get
it. I popped offline to goget it, and I saw them put
the divider down. Now I havethe mindset of see the best in everyone,
so when I walked back, Ididn't even pay attention to the divider,
and honestly didn't even this wasn't evenconsciously happening. I just went along

(30:21):
of just passing my produce onto thecashier, and let me tell you,
these boat both these guys kind oflooked over and went, oh, I'm
so sorry about that, sir.Nicest guys in the world. The divider
back and we start laughing. Westarted talking about something. We start laughing,
and I think I mentioned something aboutthe honey mango and they started something
and we're having this banter and we'relaughing and talking to each other. You

(30:45):
know. But if I had likewhat we just talked about, had looked
at them and been like, oh, look at them pushing the thing up
front, trying to push me outof the way, we would have never
had that fun little banter and like, hey, have a great day,
you have a great day kind ofthing. You know, I would have
just judged them based off of whatthey look like, of like these quite
honest, these two big, scaryguys. But meanwhile they were the nicest

(31:08):
guys in the world. You know, Yeah, totally thanks for sharing that.
That's beautiful and you just don't knowwhere those relationships go. It's it's
interesting that it's also how we met. Jason. I don't remember. I
don't know if you remember who introducedus Howie. Yeah, yeah, we
met met through a mentor. SoI want to get back to the whole
mentee and mentor thing in your existenceand in your life. What do you

(31:33):
view as a mentor? What isyour definition of those terms? That's really
interesting. I never thought to defineit. I think, first of all,
it's someone who's willing to be openand to share. I'm probably going
to butcher the quote Mark Twin.I think said experience is a very good,

(31:59):
but very afficient teacher. In otherwords, you know, you learn
from experience, but it's a lotmore efficient to someone just tells you not
to do something or to do something, rather than you have to jump off
that cliff yourself. It's better tohave someone say, yeah, I spent
a month in a hospital. Youdon't want to do that, right,
And So I think a mentor issomeone who's willing to take his or her

(32:22):
experiences and share. But also Ithink i'm you know, I think the
best leaders are those who make otherleaders, and so a good mentor isn't
trying to make you in his orher mold. A A mentor, I
think, is someone who recognize everyonehas their path in life, and we

(32:45):
just happen to cross paths, andI'm here to help you along yours.
Right. I think also, I'mgoing to define this a little differently,
but I'm going to use the termhumility. And when I say humility,
I mean you don't don't have tomake a lot of noise to state who
you are, but you know whoyou are right that there's a certain sense

(33:07):
of It's not arrogance at all.You just don't need to be flashy,
but you matter factly know you excelin this aaria, you excel in that
area, you're weak in that area, and you have no qualms about it.
Yeah. The the mentor mentee relationshipis I think so important as we

(33:29):
I think anywhere in life, notjust as entrepreneurs or business leaders or community
leaders. I think it's like youjust said, there, you know,
you're you're taking from somebody else's experienceand you're applying it to your life,
and you're applying it so that Idon't think it's so you don't make the
same mistakes, but I think it'sso that maybe if you do, at
least you're a little more educated onthat mistake and maybe maybe you pull back

(33:52):
a little bit faster than you mayhave normal and I you know, for
me, I had somebody share withme like, hey, don't don't do
those that kind of advertisement and insurancedoesn't work. And I was like,
well, what do you know?Well it wasn't working, and if it
wasn't for those two cents that thatperson added to me, which they weren't

(34:12):
a mentor to me, They werejust somebody just sharing their information with me,
which was still very similar. Ithink a mentor is somebody who you
have a longer standing relationship with andhave built trust with and meet with over
time regularly. So I wouldn't callthis this person who said that to me
as a mentor. But what Iwould say is that while I didn't listen
to him, it did stick withme to not double down on when I

(34:34):
saw a failure in what I wasdoing. And I was like, you
know what, maybe he was right. Who has been some of your mentors
in your life wherever you have experiencedthat? It's interesting. I'll name people.
Play One of my first breaks withthe guy named Frank and Kewan,

(34:58):
and Frank was a very sharpest andI've told this to his face, so
I don't mind telling everyone The thingI used to love about him is there'd
be a boardroom and they'd be likea side counter where they had like coffee
and stuff like that. And hewould never sit at the board table.
He'd hop up on that counter andlet his legs swing up and down,
sort of like an eight year oldkid. And he was pulling in his

(35:21):
forties or fifties at the time.And what I realized is he had this
childlike fascination with everything. And Iremember he would, you know, back
in the nineties and whatnot. Hewould sell businesses left right and center.
And one year he decided he soldhis business. And to describe what he
did, he stayed home for ayear and made people peanut butter and jelly

(35:43):
sandwiches for his kids as they wentto school. He stayed home and was
mister mom and was very happy.But he was also just very in touch
with himself, and it really resonatedwith me. Sean Calgi is another of
Unblinded, is another mentor of mind. Sean's a great guy. I've learned
a lot through him. More recently, I've met someone named Jason Himenez who's

(36:07):
based out of Houston, also doesinsurance and is doing something called landing blue
whales, sorry landing big whales,pardon me for that, and has really
spoken to me as well. Iwould also say, like to get more
personal, so to speak. RabbiJonathan Sachs is someone who passed away recently

(36:31):
but straddled many worlds and was ableto have many conversations. And the last
one I'll share, I'm probably butcheringhis name even though he is very special
place in my heart is a guynamed I believe Chris Nikic if I'm not
mispronouncing it, and he is thefirst person with Down syndrome to have completed

(36:52):
the Iron Man. Wow. Andthe reason why he was spoke to me
so much was because his father,when he decided he was going to do
the Iron Man, apparently he coulddo a lap and a half in the
pool at most, and his fathersaid to him, what can we do
one percent better this week than wedid last week? And so obviously,

(37:15):
if you take that attitude, inone hundred weeks, you're gonna be one
hundred percent better than you were,if not more. Wow. So that's
really the message, is not justthat perseverance to have completed the Iron Man,
which I you know, maybe oneday, maybe in seven lifetimes,
they'll do it. But that attitudeof what can I whether it's you know,
as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a father, or a husband,

(37:36):
whatever, what can I do onepercent better this week than I did
last week? Yeah, those smallincrements are really what move things. It's
it's all about those small increments.I think some fascinating mentors that you've listed
there, and I love all thedifferent qualities that you're enjoying them. It
sounds like you enjoy childlike behaviors andall of peanut butter and jelly sandwich is.

(38:01):
I'd like to talk a little bitabout your friend Sean, because Unblinded
is part of how we met.It was how he was part of Unblinded.
He met you and we were atat an event together. I think
you were a judge, and that'show our relationship started. So I'm interested
in this Unblinded and the impact thatit has as well, because it's very

(38:24):
it is a very impactful organization,and I'd like if you could share a
little bit more about it. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll give
a bit of an overview and thensort of talk about how it impacted me.
Sean, just to give you abit of background for those who don't

(38:44):
know him and why it's called unblinded. Sean many moons ago as a very
promising young baseball player and played atthe collegiate level and unfortunately has a genetic
condition which is making him blind.So I think he saw the writing in
the wall and it actually ended upgoing to law school, became a lawyer,

(39:07):
and he did this crazy thing wherehe went worked for a law firm,
hated it, took out about onehundred thousand dollars from credit card debt
in his early twenties, and openedhis own law firm, and everywhere around
him told me he was insane.I'm doing a bad job telling the story,
but suffices to say that he basicallywas able to sell it, and
then went back again and started hisown law firm, and he realized he

(39:30):
had certain for lack of better wordtechniques or knowledge that he was able to
use in order to gain success inhis life. Just one little story about
him, I'm probably again going tobutcher it, So Sean, if you're
listening, apologies. He's very involvedin the Tony Robbins world, and he

(39:51):
was asked by Tony to speak onthe stage to sort of promote the platinum
lie in packages that they have availableand if my mistake, and those are
about a hundred that dollars per year. And Sean got up on stage and
spoke and did an okay job,and then Tony asked him again and he
said, if you don't mind,I'd like to do it my way,

(40:12):
if you don't mind, And Tonysays, okay. So Seanna got up
on stage and not only did hesell the most packages ever in the history
of Tony Robbins, but he soldit by a factor of four, so
the second place was only twenty fivepercent of was he was able to sell.
And basically what Sean does is hehas three areas of focus. One

(40:36):
of which is process mastery, whichis how do you get done what you
need to get done a day inthe most efficient way possible. Everyone always
says all the time, there's onlytwenty four hours in a day. Everyone
has the same you know, timeslots, but some people are more successful
and more efficient than others. Selfmastery, which is sort of working on

(40:57):
yourself and making sure you're an offermore performance. And the third one,
which is sort of what we focuson more when we do those Unblinded events
is influence mastery, and the assertationis that every conversation is a form of
influence, and whether it's your talkto your spouse, to your child,
a colleague, a prospect, you'retrying to influence them to say yes to

(41:20):
something. So it's really about beingintegrists but also finding the most efficient way
possible to get someone from hello toyes. Right. And I'm really indebted
to Sean because I used to sortof I'll be honest, I used to
say to myself half jokingly that ifI'd hired myself as a salesperson, I'd

(41:43):
fire myself. But I've gained afew superpowers with him, and I feel
when I was in Unblinded, theyused to jokingly call it the dojo where
we used to have practices all thetime. And I guess if I can
flatter myself and like myself to amartial artist who has a black belt,
I was scared the dojo, butnow I'm pretty fearless in the real world,

(42:07):
like I could talk to everyone abouteverything and anything, and I you
know, I'm very grateful for Seanand the Unblinded team for giving me those
skills that I've been able to employsince then. Yeah, and what is
your personal experience there is that isthat the dojo? Is that what you
were saying referring to, Yeah,I mean they would have morning huddles where

(42:29):
people would role play and get together. And so if you're you know,
if you're a martial artist and you'redoing with other martial artists, you know,
you can get a few bruises.But if you're just walking down the
street and someone tries to pick afight, you know, good chance that
they're gonna one is going to endup on the ground and not you.
Right, So, And I makethat sound like it's it's a rough and
tumble, it's I just mean it'sa real good learning experience. It's a

(42:53):
very loving environment. And I guessthat's one thing I look for in ecosystems
is that people that are driven butare kind and a lot of times,
unfortunately what happens is you have theseidyllic ecosystems and then you have people who
have agendas that take it over.And I've been very blessed that I've been

(43:15):
around number of ecosystems that never happens. Yeah, that kindness is so important.
I think I feel the same waybecause that kindness is also like genuineness
in that you're not just sharing.You know, when you talk about self
mastery, I mean self mastery isI think having a lot of gratitude.

(43:36):
It's a lot of appreciation. Andwhile you could be a really good presenter
and a really good public speaker andshare all of that, if you're not
exemplifying it through your actions and throughthe way that you hold a group or
hold people accountable, then it kindof falls flat. You know, you
can talk about gratitude all day long, but if you're not showing that you're

(43:57):
gracious, and if you're not beinggracious with your community, then it disappears.
And so I love that you sharethat that he, you know,
he and everybody in that community isvery kind and shows that kind of kindness,
which is really really important. Whenwe go back to relationships, is
you know, think about the bestrelationships we have, they're the ones who

(44:17):
are complimentary, who are grateful forthe relationship, are the ones who appreciate
the time that we spend together oror the things that we do, And
you know, it speaks to alot to it. Yeah, I want
to. I want to just gointo the process mastery in Unblinded. And
the reason why I want to bringa process mastery is that's something that your
business focuses on as processes. SoI'm interested in in how that has maybe

(44:42):
helped the business or how you mayhave been able to bring value to Unblinded
through your experience as a company thatactually does that for others. That's an
interesting question. It's a really interestingquestion. I mean, I haven't been
Unblinded for about a year, butone thing I did pick up from Sean
that I found very helpful is tosort of bookend my week. Is to

(45:06):
sort of use my Monday to planout my week and seat of establish what
I'm going to do every day,and then use my Friday to understand what
did I do this week and howis that going to leap frog into the
next week the Monday. So that'sone thing that's been very effective. But
I would argue that, you know, what we're doing is a little different

(45:31):
because arguably what Seawan is doing islooking for process mastery on the individual level,
like how can I be more effective? Right? And really what we're
doing, funny enough, is theway I describe us to our clients in
the world is that we don't haveany expertise whatsoever. What we do have,

(45:57):
though, is the ability to takeyour expertise and repurpose in such a
way that other people can use andapply it. Right. And so you
know, just to go on thattangent for a second, when we're talking
to someone about their sales process,we're going to sort of take it out
of them and make it, galvanizeit and make it more digestible and actionable

(46:17):
than if they would do it themselvesor just speak to it. Right.
Having said that, if I'm dealingwith a company that has sub part areas
that we feel that is not withinour abilities, it gets back to how
can we give service to you?So a classic example is dealing with the

(46:38):
startup. They've grown, they've grown, they've grown, and the bookkeeper has
evolved become the CFO, and thisCFO does not have CFO training, so
they're suffering because they don't have thatstrength in that area. We would strongly
advocate for bringing a fractional CFO onboard, or a fractional COO, or

(47:00):
for actual CMO whatever that is.Again, it's about being of service and
having relationship. But really, forus, process is sort of really about
understanding what is the expertise, whatare you trying to accomplish, How do
we reverse engineer from your outcome toyour input, and how do we optimize

(47:20):
it so that other people can useand apply it. Where have you seen
the greatest success in that? Well, that's a good question. One story
I like to tell, and Iwon't say who it is for now,
but I was doing sales process withthis person and the person said, I

(47:46):
extracted the information from the salesperson Andhe said, I can't wait to use
and apply this. And I saidto this person, what do you mean
you use and apply it? Itcame from your head? And he said,
yeah, but you made it,solidified it in such a way that
I can use it better than itwas in my head. It was my
subconscious But now I can actually applywhat you're saying. I feel like that

(48:12):
sounds very familiar. Yeah, Ithink it does sound familiar. That was
our work together. Yeah, Ido. I Actually I remember exactly where
I was standing actually when I saidall that, because we did we went
through the sales process and it's it'svery funny, like and IM and I'm
happy that you brought that up becauseit speaks to the work that you do,

(48:32):
is that there's so much in ourhead and that we don't even know
is there if that comes out right, and that you know, if you
asked me when I first started mycompany, Michael, what's your sales process?
Which you did by the way,I'd say, I don't know.
I don't know what my sales processis. I don't have a sales process.
But by by the questions that youasked and allowing the space for me

(48:55):
to share, you know what aclient interaction like, what I perceive it
to look like after they sign onand everything. Then I started downloading to
you what was going on in mymind, and it was all there.
The process was there, It justwas stuck in my head. And the
other story that I was hoping thatyou might bring up, or that I
hope that you will bring up afterthis is one that I remember you telling

(49:19):
me when we were going through thatprocess together, of you were working with
a company and there was something abouta Porsche. I don't know if you
know which story I'm talking about.You might use it as a very often
an example about taking the company wherethey said, you know what, You've
made it like a Porsche for me, where it moves fast or something like
that. I don't know if youremember the story. I'm waiting for your

(49:42):
facial reaction. Quite honestly, rightnow, I'm buying myself time, So
just interrupt if you do, butI'll keep going here. And you were
working with them, I think thatthey had like put the project on pause,
and they kind of like got caughtup in other things and realized that
it was taking them longer to dothings. I think maybe I had to

(50:02):
do with they was taking them longerto do things, and they kind of
called you back up and they said, you know, I need you to
run my business like a Porsche orsomething like that. I remember a Porsche
being involved. Okay, that doesn'tresonate. I mean, like so just
to sort of like if I goback a few years ago, for example,
I used to work with a lotof Fortune five hundred companies and one

(50:24):
of the things I did for themis I worked with the arguably the largest
investment house in Canada where I'm based, and we overhauled the training program for
their investment advisors to the point wherethey said as far as we're concerned.
This is one of the best programsin its time in North America, where
they were just ecstatic. Right,I've done all kinds of things. Really,

(50:47):
what I'm just trying to do ismove the needle from my client.
Yeah, that's and that's what youdo. I mean, that's that's really
it like when you're when you startputting the processes down, then the client
can actually see what they are.I wish I could remember this story for
you because it was really it's kindof like the beginning of our relationship,

(51:12):
the client client relationship where I wasyour client. It's just really solidified what
you do and how important processes are, and that this person, from what
I remember the story was they werepretty much stuck in the day to day
stuff and that by downloading their processeseventually finally like understanding what you did and

(51:34):
download their processes, they were ableto pass that stuff on. Yeah.
So I can talk about a highlevel and I'll try and think of some
concrete examples that will support what I'msaying is is when you look at the
business owners, the challenge is thatthe informations in their head, right,
and what I'm constantly asking people thatI deal with is what could you do

(51:57):
versus what should you do? Andreally, what I am helping companies do
is take all the information that isin people's heads and institutionalize it so it
happens on a few levels. SoI was I'll give you a bit of
a horror story that I was dealingwith, and I definitely will not say

(52:19):
who the client was, but amultinational food company. I was dealing with
the Canadian arm of it, andbasically one of the techies there had built
a what i'll call a black box, which is extracting information from their systems
and outputting it as Excel files todifferent departments. Anything that was dynamic that

(52:39):
people relied on, such as youknow, logistics, pricing, anything,
marketing and intel, stuff like thathe was sending them and they realized he
was retiring in a few months andif this thing went down, no one'll
be able to fix it, andno one will be able to get their
info. So this could kind ofbring the company to its knees, right,

(53:00):
And that's no different than argument's sake. You're having a right hand man
or woman and they suddenly leave,and all of a sudden, all that
information's gone and or quite frankly,business owners. And I'm guilty. This
is as as far as the nextperson goes. Business owners getting in their
own way because they are the companyand they're not allowing the company to grow

(53:21):
and expand and scale and or offappropriate exit. So really, what I'm
doing, I'm doing a few things. I'm arguably applying a franchise model to
a small business because when you buya Starbucks or McDonald's or I don't care
what, it's not so much ofa restaurant ass much of a system because
it doesn't just teach you how tomake burgers or coffee. It teaches you

(53:43):
how to clean toilets, how toservice customers, how to market, how
to everything. And businesses are wellserved by having that same sort of systems
in place. And the truth is, in most cases they have those systems,
they just exist in their head.And it's kind of lopsided in a
sense that a lot of it isrest on ownership and management. And there's
no reason why we can't right sideit and have that information sharing going to

(54:06):
the employees so employees can grow within the company. There's expectations, there's
competencies, and everything's right sided peopledo in the right seat, doing the
right job. And that's really whatI'm helping companies do. What's what's one
way that a company, small business, or entrepreneur can start doing. What's
something they can start doing today tostart that process that you're speaking. I

(54:31):
mean, yeah, I mean onething I would suggest, especially on a
management level, is just to keepa little diary and just look at every
task you do and ask yourself,is this something I should be doing or
could be doing? Is this somethingWhenever I have a task, I always
like to see can I automate thisor delegate this? Right? Right?

(54:52):
So, Like, for example,if I have to send a bunch of
emails, should I invest in emailsequencing software if it's just you know,
a copy paste, or is itsomething needs to be personalized? Is it
something that someone can send on mybehalf or is it something that No,
this is a very important relationship tome, and I need to invest in
that relationship. Yeah, right,And so just go through and look at

(55:15):
and ask yourself what could I doingversus what should I do be doing?
And be honest with yourself and askyourself what significance do I get from doing
this? Right? Right, Andto what extent is it very important to
you? And to what extent isit just ego? Ego? Meaning that

(55:37):
you're hanging on to this this thisjob, this this task because you don't
want to release it to somebody else? Do you want to release it?
And I'm going to say something thatpeople might vociferously disagree with is you'll say,
but I'm the only one who coulddo it this well. And that's

(55:59):
fine. But the question is,let's say you know, I one hundred
percent, someone else to do eightypercent. Well, in some cases maybe
eighty percent is good enough, ormaybe some cases you can mention this person
to get to one hundred percent andthen you don't need to do it anymore,
right, Right, But in everycase there are things that we are

(56:20):
doing that we really have no businessdoing. But just by road, by
habit, we just keep doing itright. I would also the other thing
I would say is is too manytimes there's really great ideas that come from
lower down, and just because ofhierarchical setups, they're not open to feedback

(56:44):
from employees. I think there's alot of intel that isn't necessarily at the
strategic but more the tactical level,and if there was methodologies to get that
information and feedback from people, Ithink it would serve the company. Well,
you know. A concrete example ofthat also, I find is to

(57:07):
my mind, sales and marketing shouldbe in a symbiotic relationship, right.
Marketing is there to support sales isgetting all kinds of intel they can give
back to marketing of how to optimizemarketing. But often they don't communicate and
they operate in the dark from eachother, which is really unfortunate. And
that's just just by simply communicating andsort of having a common goal, a

(57:30):
common vision of calmon understanding and communicatingeffectively, you can save each other and
not just a lot of heartache,but be more optimal in what you're trying
to accomplish. Yeah, I thinkthe documenting of processes and all of that
is very, very beneficial to anybusiness out there. And I like that

(57:53):
you also kind of like make itvery simple and bringing it down to just
a journal, because I think Ithink that could also make your job a
lot easier if somebody comes to youwith their journal and say, hey,
I got this little journal here thatI've been doing for the last three years.
Can you get this down for usand create some kind of infrastructure?
I think it helps. Yeah,it's interesting Like when I talk to people

(58:19):
a lot of times, they'll sayI don't need you, I just need
someone to clone three of me.And my response that is, okay,
I can't do that. I don'tknow how to do that. But what
if we could, you know,take thirty percent off your plate per person
that we bring on board who takesthings on and is trained to do it.
Would that be worth your while?You see? So, like I

(58:44):
have served two parts of my brain. One of them is training and knowledge
management and thinking about pedagogy and knowledgetransfer. But at the end of the
day, I'm also a business owner, and so the three letters I care
the most about our ROI. Right, how how are we going to leverage
whatever we're doing to drive ROI.It's got to be more sales, gain

(59:07):
deficiency, more time something. It'snot just a nice to have, right,
Yeah, it has to have somekind of return on investment. It's
funny we were you and I spokeabout that just the other day about my
program that I'm doing and trying tofigure out what's the ROI. The other
thing that you do very good withROI is that you were saying. It's

(59:27):
something that it's not just about thebig ROI of you know this cost X
and you're going to get this thisin return. But it's that constant check
in that you brought up to me, of constantly checking in with the client
and with others of does this makesense? Is this? Is this still?
Is this still giving you the returnthat you were looking for. I
thought that was very smart as well. Yeah. Absolutely, it's an ongoing

(59:52):
conversation, right, absolutely, wellto switch gears a little bit here and
to try to get a little bitinsight in what's going on in the processes
in your mind. One of thethings that I noticed that you wrote down
was about if you could speak toyourself ten years from now and what you

(01:00:15):
would remind yourself. And I'm interestedin bringing this up because I want to
bring this up before we wrap upthe show, because I think it's so
nice when I and refreshing when Isee what you wrote. And I'd be
happy to share it for you ifyou'd like, but i'd rather you share
it. Oh do you want?Do you want me to write? I
remember what I said. Yeah,I'd prefer that. Yeah, it's a

(01:00:37):
destination. Yeah. I think it'sso important to hear that because you know,
in this conversation we're speaking about relationships, we're speaking about uh, we're
speaking about processes and all this otherstuff. But at the end of the
day, I think you encapsulate itreally nice with looking at your life ten
years from now of what it reallyis. And I'd love for you to
share that with our audience. Yeah, what I said, I was basically

(01:01:01):
saying that I think it's important tohave your eye on the destination, but
to look out the window once awhile and admire the scenery. Yeah,
you know, I think it's reallyimportant. You know, we are driven
to do certain things that you know, I'm going to make us lightly strong
statement, but I think one ofthe secrets of success I've seen the successful

(01:01:22):
people is the ability to delay gratification. You know, those who want it
instant payoff on something, want itnow, and then consume it and it's
gone. That's very temporary. Butpeople who are willing to whether it's invested
in education or invest in a business, or invest in something, they understand

(01:01:42):
it's a long game, right,and the payoff is not in the in
the immediate it's down the road.But I think you have to balance that
out is you have to sort ofhave your eye on that ball and understand
what I'm doing it for myself anddo it for my kids, doing it
from my wife. But if youdon't spend the time with your wife,

(01:02:02):
your kids, yourself, then what'sthe point of it? You know,
What's I hate to say it,but what's the point if you work really
hard for all that and your divorceand your kids don't talk to you,
but now you have ten million dollarsright right? You lost? You sort
of kept your eye on the balland you hit the destination, but you
didn't check out the scenery on theway. And I think it's you know,

(01:02:25):
I think I'm a beginner at thisand it's becoming very trendy. But
mindfulness, I think mindfulness is reallyimportant, whether you you know, are
constioantly doing it or not. Ithink you have to be just mindful of
what you have presently as well aswhat you want in the future. You
have to have that balance. Ireally liked the analogy of seeing the scenery

(01:02:47):
along the way because I feel likeit's it's painting a picture you know,
and to bring you to your salestraining days, paint a picture for the
customer. And when I think aboutthat, I see it and it goes
into everything that we just spoke aboutof how do you form a relationship.
Well, you don't just shoot forthe relationship. You don't just shoot for

(01:03:07):
the let's become best friends and letme go through your contact list. I
think it's about enjoying the scenery togetherin terms of that of let's get to
know each other and you know,let's create value for each other as we
go along. And it's not necessarilyjust about what context you have for me
or can you buy my product?But it's about that journey together. And

(01:03:29):
it's the same with business and entrepreneurshipand the processes. It's like, not
just figure out the process so thatI can sell more product or I can
duplicate or clone myself. It's let'sgo enjoy the scenery. What what in
that process do you like? Whatin that process helps gets us to the
final point. And so when youwhen you wrote that in there, I

(01:03:50):
thought, wow, you know,really I was really able to see it
and enjoy the scenery along the way. And I think that that also relieves
so much stress and anxiety that somuch of us experience in terms of like
the pressure of time. Is thatwhen we look at it and we go,
all right, there's this destination,there's this end point somewhere, we
don't We could put dates on it, we could put times on it and

(01:04:13):
everything. But if we're enjoying thescenery, and it's so funny because it
reminds me of car rides with thekids, and you know this, it's
like, you know, if thekid is sitting back there, you know
it's a two to three hour longcar ride, and the kids sitting back
there and is going are we thereyet? Are we there yet? Are
there yet? Well, the ridefeels like it's forever. But when you
tell the kids, hey, youknow what, why don't you just look

(01:04:34):
at the window. Why don't youcount how many blue cars are passing.
Why don't you, like, youknow, tell us about the trees,
tell us about the scenery that yousee, tell us what's going on out
there? They're like, whoa,this was the fastest trip in the world.
It was the same amount of timeas last time. It's just that
you started enjoying the scenery along theway right. Yeah, it's beautiful.

(01:04:56):
Well you said it. You saidit, not me. I just I
just I just embraced it because Ireally spoke to me when when I read
that thank you. I always liketo try to get into, you know,
different mantras or quotes as we conclude, and how you could expand on
them for us, and you puttwo in here. But what was interesting

(01:05:19):
about your two is typically when Iasked for mantras or quotes, they come
in with quotation marks around it.Yours came with questions, And I thought
that was interesting because I guess asa process guy, you do ask yourself
a lot of questions as you goalong. So I'll share with everybody your
questions, and I'm interested if youcould expand on these and how they help
inspire you and your day to day, which are how can I be of

(01:05:42):
service? And number you wrote numberone, how can I be of service?
And number two is the honeymoon over? Yeah, so I guess I'm
sort of sharing a little secret onthe second one. But the first one,
like I said, it's how canyou with service? We talked without
that, it's not how can Isell you this? How can I that?
How can we be of service,And it just changes the conversation entirely

(01:06:08):
when people realize I'm being genuine becauseI think that at first when you sort
of ask that question, people sortof like, Okay, that's really you
asking or how you can sell me. No, I'm asking how I keep
your service right, And it justchanged the conversation. And I think also
I have a plenitude mentality. IfI had scarcely mentality, I wouldn't be
able to ask that question right.Because I'm a man of faith. I'm

(01:06:30):
convinced that what I need is outthere and it may be here, it
may not, but I'll just findout how it can be a service to
you along the way. Again,you know, you're the scenery. I
guess as I'm talking to as I'min that destination, and I can start
say yeah, yeah, whatever,I can't sell you, so we get
out of here, or no,this is a beautiful person. Let's sit
and talk to them, and they'vehad some pretty amazing conversations that you know

(01:06:53):
has resulted in life changing insights orbusiness that was generated directly or indirectly,
and whatnot. With regard to thesecond one, we this this is an
internal manchar we have with dealing withour clients is the honeymoon over. We
never want our clients to sort offeel like, Okay, we're sort of

(01:07:15):
bored and tired and we were romancingat first, but now we're just hanging
around our underwear, watching we runson TV, drinking beer, right,
And I think that's speaking as aman's that's the temptations. Once you're married,
you can quote unquote get comfortable andstop dating your wife and stop being
interested in your wife and stuff likethat. And it's really important to sort
of still, you know, seduceyour wife, so to speak, on

(01:07:39):
a constant based I mean in nestleysexually. I just mean, you know,
engage with her. And I thinkit's important with a client if we
feel they're not getting warm fuzzies,we want to know. And that's part
of what those status update meetings arefor, is if we sense is not
a warm fuzzy going on, wewant to hit that puzzant that pause button
and say, okay, hey,what's going on? Like is everything cool?

(01:08:00):
Is there anything we can do?Is there any issues we should be
aware of and put that out inthe open as opposed to just sort of
sweeping under the carpet or whatever.I find between those two things. When
people understand you're there to be ofservice to them and you really want them
to have those warm fuzzies and you'lldo things within reason to help, they're

(01:08:21):
very open and very respectful. Yeah, and I think it's becoming more common
to here salespeople or business owners orentrepreneurs or anybody out there who's selling something
to bring up service or to serve. But it's not always the case,

(01:08:44):
and so it's a qua. Andalso, like you just said, is
the I think the trueness behind it, right that, the authenticity behind it
of you really do want to servethe other person. And I think that
also comes from you know, youmentioned your complimentary consultation, which I encourage
anybody to take up right now.Again, another thing people say, free

(01:09:08):
this, free that. Yeah,we get it, but it's about what
value are you getting out of thatfree that complementary meeting? What value are
you getting out of that salesperson whosays, how can I serve you?
And you'll know very quickly if they'rejust saying it because they heard it as
like a really good catchphrase, becausethey won't have anything of value to offer

(01:09:30):
you. They'll just be taking.They'll say how can I serve you?
But they'll just be taking versus likemy meetings with you and what we do
at Denten, and a lot ofpeople in your network and in my network,
like Howie and so many others whotruly mean, you know, how
can I serve you? And presentvalue upfront and say how can I serve

(01:09:50):
you? Here's who I know,here are some people I think could help
you, Here's some information I canshare with you. And that's true service
because then the other person you don'tyou don't you almost never you don't even
have to say how can I serveyou? Because as soon as you meet
them, you're telling them, hey, you know, I came across this
one profile and I saw you yousell insurance, and I thought they might

(01:10:11):
be a good fit for you.Or I came across this other profile and
I know you do processes, andI thought you might be a good fit
Boom Service, you know. SoI encourage everybody out there that if you're
gonna use that line of how canI serve you? Is make sure that
you have something of value to sharewith them right away from the onset.
Absolutely, Absolutely, Yeah, Ithink it's just to riff off of that

(01:10:35):
for a second. I think youknow, if you if you look at
your offering, you know, obviouslyit's something you you take great pride in
and you're there to serve the world. Again again, that's that term serve,
and therefore you're being of service byoffering it. But conversely, if
you realize that in this particular case, you're not being of service to the

(01:10:56):
person by offering it, there areother ways to be a service, right.
It's just it's just obvious to me. You know, it's it's either
or both, you know, arewhat you have is going to serve them
and not serve your bank account,but serve them. And here's why,
and that becomes the basis relationship andor base on what they said, here's

(01:11:18):
how you can help people. Andguess what I mean if you help two
people, I mean, if youwant, if you want to look at
it from a non altruistic perspective,there's two people who are now indebted to
you, and you've strengthened that relationship. And even if you're looking at from
a strict business building perspective, younow have two people who really are indebted

(01:11:38):
to you and somehow want to helpyou and serve you. Yeah, And
I think it's a really great wayfor several things here And I kind of
want to stay here for a secondbecause I think it's just really important because
I learned this from other mentors inthat one. It's a really great way
for if the service isn't right foryou. I think people have a hard
time saying no, especially when theylike somebody like like you or you know,

(01:12:00):
have a charismatic personality. They havea hard time saying no. So
they might they might start ghosting them, they might start blowing them off,
they might start being a little abrupt, when meanwhile they would like to have
a relationship with that salesperson. Theyjust don't know how to say no to
them. And I think that withwhat we're talking about about service, and
there's other ways than just buying theproduct as well. Is Hey, you

(01:12:23):
know what you know, I thinkyour process is. I think your business
is really great, and I likeyou and I like the relationship. You
know, this isn't right for me, But here's two people that it might
be right for. Why don't yougive them a call and then boom,
immediately the attention has shifted from youas the focus to sell to to these
other two people. But you're doingit in and off like again in a

(01:12:45):
way where it's true, like you'renot just passing it handing them off.
You're saying, these two people couldprobably you know, get some value out
of your service, which I thinkis important. And the other one that
was taught to me with what youwere just saying is I had a panel
that we had put toge other andone of the panelists dropped off. And
but what I learned from him washe dropped off and he texted me and

(01:13:08):
he said, hey, listen,I hate to do this to you,
but I'm not going to be ableto make it. I have a conflict
that day that just came up andI got to do it. And he's
a government official, so it waslike, I get it right. Literally
the government would come for him,ha ha ha. So anyway, but
what he did was he offered mesomebody else of value and he said,

(01:13:30):
you know, this other person isgoing to be a tremendous value to your
panel, and reach out to him. Let him know that I that I
introduced you. Whatever, I'll givehim my heads up, and I did,
and I ended up forming a relationshipwith that person and it was really
really valuable to that relationship and thatpanelist. But more so, it taught

(01:13:50):
me that if you're not able todo something, if if you're being asked
to do something, sometimes it's hardto say no. Refer or somebody you
know you can offer value just bysharing your network, right, yeah,
absolutely, And just I know we'regoing in a different direction when I say

(01:14:10):
this, but I think it's importanttoo for your own sake. Make it
easy for people to say no.Yeah, right, and that adds value
of itself. It's it's funny thatyou bring that up because it's part of
your sales process. I noticed yourcheck in and I noticed that, and
it gets me every time whenever somebodydoes it to me. Your check in

(01:14:34):
is like, and this might notbe right for you, and I'm like,
it sure is right for me,darn it. But yeah, but
I don't realize I say that.Okay, I don't know. Yeah,
you might have just been It's probablypart of this philosophy that you have of
make it easy for them to sayno. Is you know, like,

(01:14:56):
is everything I'm saying? Does itmake sense for you, it might not
be right for you, or somethinglike that along those lines. Well,
you know, so people who arenew to sales think that when someone says,
okay, send me a proposal,it's yes, right, it's quite
no, it's I don't feel comfortsaying no. I'll pretend I read something.
You're gonna spend twenty hours putting somethingtogether I'm never gonna look at and

(01:15:18):
so i'd rather just you know,have a solid no, even I'll share
this with you. And it's worked. Is we're all received it and been
guilty of it. Is what Icall radio silent. You have a really
good conversation, they say, okay, just bad timing, followed me in
two months, and you fall upin two months, and of course they
don't say anything. You fall uptwo weeks later and just say just checking

(01:15:40):
in. I've actually done this before. I make like make makeshift check boxes
with the bracket signs, and Isay, hey, Mike, Kevin heard
Michael, haven't heard for you fora while. Which one is it?
Thanks? Just not interested, reallyinterested, just bad time whatever, And
I just sort of let them checkthe box. But the point is I'm
giving them an out right and it'ssort of like a last ditch effort just

(01:16:03):
to see what's going on. Andit's not rude for my part, and
I don't mind what they say,and it's funny. It works most times,
so they'll just get back to checkone of the box. Really really
sorry, either you know, notinterested anymore or really am interested but still
crazy. Let's circle back in twomonths. So story, I haven't heard
from you, but at least Ican answer, which is all I want.

(01:16:26):
I love that one. I'm gonnahave to borrow that one. That
one's really cool. I mean,I feel like it's just really cool because
how many people are doing that?Right? Yeah, I don't know,
not too many. I think that'spretty neat. I wouldn't do that as
a second email. But it's likeif we're talking like the eighth ninth when
we had, like I said,we've actually had a really good conversation,
and then you're ghosting me. Iwant to know what's going on, right,

(01:16:48):
It's funny. I was going rightin with the second email. Why
are you ghosting me? Oh?Man? Well, this has been really
wonderful. I'm I'm really happy thatwe were able to connect on this and
that we were able to make thiswork. Like I said, it's always
cool to have a guest join theshow from another country, but it's also

(01:17:12):
always cool to have a guest jointhat I've gotten to know over time and
have built a relationship with and andreally value you know, your expertise and
your knowledge. And I also valuethe time that that we've spent together where
it wasn't necessarily about my business oryour business, but it was just kind
of getting to know each other.And so I think that you are a

(01:17:33):
master in relationship building and are alsoa master in helping people you know,
really understand your value and helping themunderstand their value, which plays into the
whole relationship thing. So I'm verygrateful for having you on the show today.
I'm very grateful for meeting you solong ago. And we got to
give a big shout out to Howiefor introducing us and everything else. Is

(01:17:56):
there anything new happening in your worldthat you'd like to share with anybody?
I think one thing I want toshare before I say what's new happening in
my world? Is I realized thatsomething as we're talking, Michael is is
in many respects, you're my mentorbecause when I look at your definition of
service, your heart is so big. You're looking to impact not necessarily just

(01:18:18):
your community, which you are,but the world. Like you're very philanthropically
involved to make positive change in theworld in a concrete, not just one
day but now kind of way.And you do it through action, you
do it through thought and love,and I just really want to commend you

(01:18:38):
for doing what you do. Thankyou. I think it's really important.
I appreciate that. And it's,uh, I know a lot of people
talk about it, but it's it'sit's it's a it's a challenging thing,
but you know, it's as longas we keep moving forward and we keep

(01:18:59):
trying and trying and trying and tryingand helping as many people as we can,
you know, eventually, you know, it's it's kind of like that
trickle effect of like if I canhelp one person, that person can help
two people, and those two peoplecan help two people themselves. You know,
it's it's really what it's all about. But I appreciate you you witnessing
that and being a part of itas well, by the way, So
thank you very much. So whatis new with you? Are you doing

(01:19:23):
any more of those at your serviceevents at your services on hold for now.
Okay, I'm just focusing internally.We're we're you know, really excited.
We're One thing I love is I'ma want to be geek, and
as I want to be geek,I'm learning something new every day and I'm
interested agnostics. So, you know, like our clients are all over the

(01:19:44):
map, and it's just so muchfun to be delving in different things.
Like right now, we're dealing witha nonprofit that deals helps African nations.
We're dealing with an m and afirm. We're dealing with a art school
slash preschool slash petting zoo, andyou know others people in the wings as
well. It's just fun. Ijust love learning something new every day and

(01:20:08):
being able to share knowledge and bestpractices that we have to help people grow.
So I kind of feel like,you know, not only am I
just extracting information, we're purposing it, but I'm also feeling to some ways
I'm humbled to be a conduit whereI'm sort of sharing information to absorb from
other places and then giving back toother clients. Still, so it's it's

(01:20:28):
it's a wonderful and blessed place tobe in. Yeah, that's cool.
That's it's it's really cool when youget to learn about all different industries and
businesses when you brought up to thezoo. I'm kind of like laughing here
because on my Instagram lives, there'sa woman who joins almost all the time
from Australia. Her name is Holly. She's she's terrific, she's so cool.

(01:20:49):
She's part of that community. Andh and my daughters like to come
on the live and say hi,and Holly and my daughters have formed this
like relationship through the lens kind ofthe thing because we don't even see Holly.
We just we just see her comments. She just will comment things of
like high beautiful girls or something likethat, which is really really nice.
And so my daughter, my daughtermade a koala art piece at school and

(01:21:15):
in kindergarten and was writing different factsabout koalas and in it it's like Koala's
you know, climb trees, Koalaeat leaves, and it says Koalas live
in the zoo. And Holly's onthe other end, she's in Australia.
She's like, no, Koalas don'tlive in the zoo here they live in
the wild. It's it was prettyneat. It was funny. That's great,
it's funny. What do we whatwe view as zoo animals? Right?

(01:21:39):
Exactly? Jason? How can peoplethis will of course all be in
the show notes, But how canpeople get a hold of you? How
can they connect with you on LinkedIn? How can they find you to learn
more about your services and and forma relationship with you? Sure? So
they could reach me at jasonatclicknoledge dotcom, click and knowledge one word,

(01:22:00):
one K my last name. ActuallyI just fell out the company, so
you can search for me on LinkedInas well, c l I c K
and ow l edge. You canalso reach me on LinkedIn and I don't
have URL's handy, which I shouldhave, but maybe I could send them

(01:22:23):
to you that you can post after. Yes, they'll be in the show
notes. They'll be in the shownotes, so I'll leave links as far
as people can book complimentary consolets withme or just reach out for a fifteen
minute chat if they want. Yep, And that's Jason A health health and
bomb H E L F E NB A U M And you could certainly
find them on LinkedIn and comes rightup. You got like six thousand connections

(01:22:45):
on there. It's pretty cool coolwith this. This has been an awesome
show. Thank you so much forcoming on today. Thanks so much.
Thank you for listening to The MichaelEsposito Show. For show notes, video
clips, and more episodes, goto Michael Esposito Inc. Dot com backslash
podcast. Thank you again to oursponsor dn ten Insurance Services helping businesses get

(01:23:09):
the right insurance for all their insuranceneeds. Visit Denten dot io to get
a quote that's d E n tendot io and remember when you buy an
insurance policy from Denten, you're givingback on a global scale. This episode
was produced by Uncle Mike at theiHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special thanks to

(01:23:30):
Lara Rodrian for the opportunity and myteam at Michaelsposito, Inc.

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