Tell me about your vision.
My vision is for me to help other professionals, entrepreneurs, people just in middle management
and below, how to communicate with one another.
And you know, after you network and communicate more effectively and efficiently, it's going
to increase your profits dramatically.
So and my goal is to help everyone succeed.
What is effective communication for you?
Effective communication is really just what I said.
It's that one to one communication.
It's knowing how to put the other person on a pedestal, you know, let them think that
they have 100% of your attention, respond to them, what they're talking about.
A lot of people try to get in what they want to say, and they don't let the other person
communicate to them.
And you respond to them what should be responded to.
Okay, so it's really different.
And once you start doing it, once it becomes part of the way that you network, it's it's
old hat.
How did you get started with this?
I know the pandemic was where it came from.
But then how did you get into coaching about it?
Well, I started networking way back 100 years ago, when I was in the Air Force.
You know, I was a young guy with I had a high rank, and I was trying to tell people what
to do, people that were older than I was, and telling them what to do.
And I figured out how to do that without pissing them off.
Okay, so from there, I went into my own business.
I went into a graphic design studio.
I had a pizzeria, restaurants, you know, all that was self proprietorship.
But then after that, I got out of that went into mortgages.
And everything that I went through from the Air Force to the mortgages to the businesses
in the team, I learned to network differently.
Okay, when I was an owner, I had to talk to my employees differently, and have my employees
to the customers differently.
I had to speak to them on some sort of a level where, listen, I have to respect my employees,
because a happy employee will mean your customers will be happy.
If you're nasty to your employees, your customers aren't going to get happiness from your employees.
Okay, so there's a little bit of a train there.
So what really did it was when I went through the pandemic, I saw the need for this.
Because I go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting, I go to after hours meetings, I go to networking
meetings all the time.
And you see people at first, rather rigid.
And then when they start to talk to you, they're not listening to you.
They're just talking to you.
Some of it is nerves, some of it's not.
But there's a way to go about it.
And after you meet with the person, and you okay, your interests align, what do you do
from that point on?
Now, that's, there's a lot of questions I think I have in my mind about what you just
said.
So the journey from you starting and introducing a program and talking about speaking, how
did that come about?
I know you saw the need.
What did you do to get started on that path?
Well, when I was working full time, I did it part time.
After I jumped into speaking full time, I started small, my home area, think of concentric
circles and going out and out and out.
But I just look, I started speaking about this for free.
I started to go to meetings and talk about this for free.
And I had to build up to where I'm charging, of course.
But it's so much better.
Because when you walk in somewhere, and people understand, and they expect you to help guide
them.
Look, nobody has 100% surefire way of networking, communicating and everything else.
This is what's worked best for me and the people that I teach.
That's amazing.
Now I want to get to the meat and potatoes of your vision.
What tips do you have for leaders or entrepreneurs when it comes to effectively communicating
in their space?
Again, it's pretty simple.
You have to first go out and try to meet new people.
You always have to expand the people that you're talking to.
Now you can do it by advertising, by social media, by whatever else.
But you have to go out there and meet the people.
Then after you meet the people, there's a certain way you have to handle that.
And you have to understand where they're coming from.
You have to understand that first, if you go out and look for business like, oh, you're
going to buy three widgets from me, and that's it.
You're missing the point.
You have to understand your clients or future clients.
You have to let them speak, let them talk about anything and everything.
And most importantly, you have to listen.
Listen to them.
OK, but that response you give them should be what they're talking about and not the
next thing that you want to talk about.
Right?
So then here's a very important concept.
Whenever you go to a networking event or anything like that, always look to give, not receive.
What I mean by that, you're looking to help everybody else build their business.
You're not looking for customers, clients, things like that.
You're not going to walk up and say, hey, I sell widgets.
And how many do you want to buy?
You want to see what they're about and say, you know something?
I like what you're doing.
I like how you're doing it.
How can I be the best referral source for you?
And they usually tell you, if you do your job correctly, then they'll ask you for your
card.
But that is the point which you have to, that's your deciding point.
You have to get their business card.
On the back of their business card, you write down today's date, the name of the function
and something you spoke about.
His son, his daughter, his wife, something that will resonate with him.
And you're going to take that and you're going to put that away because that will come very
handy with my follow up.
And a follow up is key.
The follow up is probably more important than actually meeting the person themselves.
That's amazing.
Tell me about the follow up.
Follow up is simple.
And what I found, and this is after years and years and years and years of following
up incorrectly, wrong.
So the way that I do it and the way that I teach it is, let's say after the event, a
three or four hour event, you have 15 business cards, 20.
I mean, I used to come home with a shoe box full of business cards.
Look at all the business cards that I have.
It's not worth anything.
You have that business card, about 15 business cards.
And that night you write an email.
Thank you for your time.
Great to meet you, Michael.
That's it.
Business, no time, no date, nothing.
Just a thank you email.
Give about a 20% chance of them responding to that email.
Now here's the kicker.
The next morning, take out thank you cards.
Handwritten thank you card.
Dear Harry, this is Mike.
I met you on such and such dates, such and such times.
We spoke about your wife.
She hurt her leg.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I hope to meet you soon, Michael.
That's it.
This is a soft sell.
No date, no time, no business.
That's it.
So now I just raised the probability of you getting a response from about 20% to about
50%.
Because imagine when you're sitting in your office, you get this thank you note, this
thank you card.
No bills, no anything, just happy.
There's my business card again, that thank you note.
Like wow, he must have really cared what we talked about.
So wait three or four days.
If you don't get a response, you send another email.
Hey, Harry, this is Mike.
I met you on such and such dates, such and such times.
You know, I'm really happy to meet you.
Listen, I just saw that on my calendar, free Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, would
one of those days be good to meet with you?
And that was it.
So you wait two or three more days.
Now I just upped your 50% response rate to about 65%.
So now you still, you're a stick in the mud.
You still haven't responded to me.
I hate you for that, but I'm going to write you one more email.
I'm going to write you an email.
Hey, Harry, this is Michael.
I met you on such and such dates, such and such times.
Everything is, I'm saying everything again, because it's going to help you remember me.
Okay.
So, hey, look, I told you that Tuesday and Wednesday, my calendar was free.
Tuesday kind of, you know, I got too busy.
But how's Wednesday at three?
Does that work for you?
Now that's 65%, probably raised it to about 70%, 75%.
And I don't think I can go above that because nobody can guarantee your returning of an
email.
But if you do, that's great.
You schedule a time, a little bagel place, a little sandwich place, a little something
for coffee that you can talk about.
And you can go, I can go into what you talk about once you get there.
But if you still don't get a response, that probably means they took your card and they
really don't want to talk to you.
Very simple.
Take that card, their card, put the information in your CRM, put it in your drip campaign,
and once a month, send them something just to keep you in their thoughts.
And that way, I want to tell you, it's a very effective way to follow up.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.