I'm excited about this interview. We've got Kristen
Zhivago on the show today, and we're going to
be talking about leadership secrets in the age
of AI and the missing ingredients of relevance,
decisiveness, and embracing humanity authentically.
Guys, we have a goldmine of wisdom to be able
to dive into with Kristen. She's got decades
of experience, and she's also a revenue strategist.
So this is going to be a lot of fun. Kristen,
thanks so much for joining me on Vision Pros.
My pleasure. Thanks. Yeah, absolutely. So what
what inspired you to to set the title revenue
strategist? And how did you get into that or
how did you evolve throughout that? Feel free
to go whichever direction you want with that,
Kristen. I actually started out with an agency
with my husband in revenue in Silicon Valley.
And we did that until the Mac came out. That
tells you how long I've been around. Yeah. And
he was doing graphics. And I looked at him and
said, they're all going to take it in -house.
So you may as well retire. He made beautiful,
functional things like these speakers behind
me. And I reinvented myself. I called myself
a revenue coach, and I spent some decades doing
marketing and sales turnarounds for companies
of all sizes, all the way up to IBM. And then
in 2017, I realized that there were a lot of
midsize, successful, otherwise successful companies
who were not keeping up with the whole digital
transformation. So we opened a digital agency
and then AI wiped out our industry. Just like
that. This is the most disruptive pattern I've
ever seen in tech. So I decided that we were
going to expand our services and take advantage
of all my turnaround experience and my tech experience.
uh and so what we do now is we do a revenue growth
assessment so we find the sales stoppers because
i'm all about the buyer journey and uh remove
them find them and remove them and then build
campaigns that take advantage of uh you know
that makes it easy for the customer to buy when
they come to the company and there's all kinds
of sales stoppers Oh, yeah. I love that you talked
about that. So cool. So, OK, two quick directions.
That means that you're probably familiar with,
if not a fan of the moments of truth. And this
is a concept that so many people have forgotten
about. Google resurrected a few years ago with
the zero moments of truth and how the Internet
really disheveled the customer journey mapping
experience. But there aren't very many visionaries
who understand these concepts. And these are
core, critical, essential elements of being able
to create visions and especially when you create
a vision at scale. So I'm going to go out on
a ledge and call you my Professor McGonagall.
For those of you who are familiar with Harry
Potter, are you familiar with who that is, Kristen?
No, I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. I know everybody's
going to say, oh, wow, you missed out. That's
okay. Those who aren't are going to love you
more than me in that case. But this is the lady
who is, she's one of the professors. She's been
around for decades and she's got way more wisdom
and way more strength. People underestimate her
all the time. time. My friends, my visionaries,
do not underestimate the people who have decades
of wisdom on you. There is so much relevance
and so much that we can learn from people who've
been around the block and seen things, understand
the world that we're living in with a lens that
goes well beyond what we can see. So Kristen,
with that said, any thoughts on wisdom itself
and on your direction and what you're capable
of bringing to the table in today's world? You
know, I mean, I'm in a CEO master class right
now. I just thought it'd be an interesting thing
to do. And there's about 40 other CEOs in the
class. And I'm a little shocked at how much more
I know about marketing than the people in the
class. And it's because most people, even CEOs
that hop around for private equity companies
and so on, they work at, I don't know, four companies
in their lifetime, especially at the higher levels.
And I've actually helped hundreds of companies
get out of the way of themselves and actually
get past the politics and the old procedures
and the legacy applications and all of that and
look at everything through the buyer's lens.
money comes from buyers and people forget that
they they get vendor funding or something and
they forget and it isn't until you put on your
buyer's hat which is what i talk about in my
book i say stop selling for a second think of
your experiences as a buyer and how many times
have you been frustrated because you couldn't
find the answer or or they disappointed you somehow
And it happens a lot in software where you think
something can do something. You try it and you
just, oh, man, that's a showstopper. I needed
that thing. Or somebody says they can do it and
they can't. You know, the program can't. So it's
a disappointment laden area. And sellers don't
even come close to realizing how frustrated their
customers are. Well said. And I think it's so
important that that means that those of us who
are visionaries, we get the chance to lean in
and think, man, how frustrated might our buyers
be with our processes? And that can unleash a
whole opportunity of gold. It reminds me of Bill
Gates talking about how people who complain about
your company are some of the most important people
to listen to. What are they complaining about?
Because they probably have something that's valid
that if we fix could open an entire new stream
of opportunity. So listening and taking great
care of people. Kristen, we've got leadership
secrets in the age of AI. I think you just released
one of the biggest secrets that could possibly
be there in two ways. One, the sales stoppers,
paying attention to those. And two, paying attention
to... what might be frustrating people who are
not as excited and not as interested in our products
and services as we are ourselves. So we also
talked about how this is going to be about the
missing ingredients of relevance, decisiveness
and embracing humanity authentically. Let's go
ahead and let's go and open the door for one
of those before we take a quick break. Which
ingredient should we dove into first relevance,
decisiveness or embracing humanity authentically?
Well, you can't really. understand the relevance
and you can't make decisions that are going to
work unless you embrace the fact that your customers
are human beings and they're trying to do something.
They have a process that they're trying to, it's
on their to -do list, do this, buy this thing.
They're trying to spend money and everybody forgets
that and they start persuading them and pushing
them and getting impatient with them and sort
of ignoring their basic needs. I have to say
one thing about that. I've realized the most
important thing when you're selling is the mindset
of the customer when they set out to buy. And
it consists of their desires, their concerns,
and their questions. Those are three hoops you
have to jump through before you can make a sale.
Nobody studies this. Everybody does personas.
They develop some. A mythical character who's
their perfect customer when they've never even
talked to a customer. And that's criminal. And
I'm determined before I kick the bucket that
people finally get this concept. You need to
ask your current customers why and how they bought
from you and what was their mindset. That's what
you need. And then you can do campaigns that
work. Then you can be relevant. then you can
make good decisions based on truth. I love that.
This is, you know, first time I had learned about
what you're talking about, I was at Video Power
Marketing with Jake Larson. um he's known as
youtube ad expert of the world and he's very
very good at building campaigns and he was the
first market i saw that instead of diving into
demographics alone he also dove into the psychographics
um and started to look at some of these questions
that you're talking about but not quite with
the precision that you just mentioned so there's
opportunity to dive in even further into again
desires concerns and questions and why and how
people came in and bought from us and That along
the way, as I studied the marketing funnel, I
love that people draw the marketing funnel with
breaks in it because it reminds me of exactly
how it is. It's a horrible funnel. It doesn't
have hardly any of the things that we need to
know. And if you were to try to pour milk into
a broken funnel, you know what a disaster that
would be. I love that. I love that. That's so
good. Yeah, that is really good. I'll use that.
Kristen, I was working with. Carolyn Thomas Twaddle,
Thompson Twaddle, Carolyn Thompson Twaddle. She
wrote this great book called living in alignment
with your God -given design, living in sync with
your God -given design. It's been a while. Um,
and she is somebody who can unlock peace and
calm and people very, very easily. Her persona
does it alone and she's just amazing. And so
here I finished my session with her in the state
of peace and calm. I go and work out, I go and
shower and that shower. I got a I got a revelation
and inspiration about this. Again, awareness,
consideration, intent, et cetera. Visionaries,
this is a revelation for all of you. You will
not find this online. If you want to create relationships
with people based on healthy boundaries, sure,
you can trick anybody into Netflix and chilling
or going fast with some guarantee. And they're
going to cancel just as fast as they commit because
it's unhealthy. And they know it too. But most
people who are holistic, the people who will
buy well from you. If you would, instead of starting
with inviting and offering, you would start with
intrigue, attract, and inspire. Intrigue, attract,
and inspire. I don't ever send an invitation
to somebody if they're not inspired. They have
to be inspired enough to act and say, hey, I
want to know more about this. I'd like to be
invited. And I see the billion -dollar companies
all leaning down. I don't know how they figured
it out, but they did. That's why they're billion
-dollar companies. They understand the idea of
respecting human nature. and survival instincts
and so those are some other pieces at the core
of diving into what do we really know as leaders
about embracing humanity authentically and right
now in the age of ai if you skip that step you're
going to build a bunch of garbage and you're
going to build a bunch of garbage that can end
up Pushing you off of a cliff. Entrepreneurship
is a bloody sport. It is not an easy thing to
do. So if you're taking your vision towards the
route of entrepreneurship, then I would highly
recommend diving into what Kristen's talking
about. Dive in with her. Go with the experts.
Don't do it alone. Get them by your side and
see what you can do to inspire them to want to
help you build what you're up to. So I talked
a lot going into the break. We're going to hit
real quick. the next point we're going to make
kristen beyond the human we'll keep humanity
and authenticity with our human natures tied
to everything we talk about but do you want to
when we come back do you want to talk about the
aspect of the missing ingredient of relevance
or you want to talk about the missing ingredient
of decisiveness i think relevance is the key
thing when you're talking about marketing because
if you understand it and you're practicing you
really get it then you're going to make good
decisions your perspective is what Your perspective
is what drives your decisions. And if you understand
what's relevant to the customer, you're going
to make good decisions. That aligns perfectly
with something Dr. Todd Snyder taught me as well.
He's a peak performance expert at the highest
levels. We'll come back. We'll talk about relevance,
how to be relevant so you can unlock your own
decisiveness as a visionary. And we'll see you
guys on the next slide. All right. Welcome in
to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm
your show host. We'll be doing interviews for
visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who
are building fantastic visions out there. Hey,
what's up, everybody? Welcome in another episode
of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson
Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I am like giddy with excitement about Kristen
Chivago, who's on the show with me today. She's
a revenue strategist who's been around the block.
She was working in strategy and growth and marketing
all of this back before the Mac came out in Silicon
Valley. So she's had access to types of mentorships
and programs. She's seen what has worked, what
has failed. She's been studying this for a long
time, and she's still got that curiosity and
wonder and awe. of somebody who's kind of just
getting started. So we're in for a huge treat
with what she's bringing. And we're about to
dive right back into relevance and decisiveness.
Before I bring her back on, I always want to
expand the wealth of opportunities that we have.
We're big into networking. Your network is your
net worth. Let's go with Dr. Shannon and Dr.
Justin Pierce with Journey to Wellness. This
is so important to me because I've sent three
friends or family members to Shannon personally.
I've known her for eight years. And I heard that
she did some like miracle cure type stuff. So
I sent my three friends to them and they helped
every single one of these individuals with certain
types of illnesses or diseases that their doctors
had told them, like, you can't really get help
on this stuff. But Shannon doesn't, she doesn't
wave a magic wand to do this. She uses testing
in order to help individuals figure out what's
going on. And she also suffered a near death.
illness herself. And she suffers with some chronic
stuff that she's able to overcome. And, and again,
I don't know a whole lot about the specifics.
I'm not a doctor. That's not my role, but if
you know somebody who's struggling with health
I highly recommend checking out what they're
doing at journey wellness, because I would, I
just, I don't, I don't want to keep that to myself.
I want to give that to everybody who's able to
access them. So go check that out. And then there's
Jennifer Reed with practice makes permanent.
If you have a company that's struggling with
your culture. One of the things you may not realize
is that culture is one of the greatest, greatest
needs for driving revenue and creating stability.
If people don't feel great about coming to work
and doing the work super well and they're not
really well aligned with their individuals they're
working with, then they're probably not going
to show up super well for the people they're
supposed to be serving. And so making sure that
we figure out how to inspire people to become.
the best representatives for what we do? Well,
Jennifer Reed, that's one of her secrets. She's
worked at several government agencies for the
last 20 years. And I would say that that's one
of those environments that's probably known to
be one of the most difficult to create great
cultures in. She's been practicing that. What
I also recommend that you do is you interview
Jennifer about cultural development, how she
works as a facilitator. She's not a coach. She's
a facilitator. She's not a consultant. She's
a facilitator. But as you interview who you're
going to bring in to help with those processes,
ask them their personal connection to it what's
their why why is it that they do what they do
you can oftentimes find who's doing something
because they went to school for it or who's doing
something because they have a really strong personal
matter as to why they're doing it and that's
the type of person that i want working on my
team members because they're the people with
the conviction and the grit and the and the ones
that are going to understand how to really bring
this for the right reasons to fruition but bring
your Kleenex box when you talk to Jennifer her
story is one that will that moves mountains and
will move you to tears then there's the water
project the water project something near and
dear to my heart i could use some water right
now you know i'm podcasting and my water cup
is empty but i've never been thirsty in my life
and so this seemed really irrelevant when i found
it one of my team members actually brought it
up to me was like jackson why don't we support
this cause and as i dove into the water project
i began to see that there's children like mine
throughout the world who don't even have access
to clean drinking water and it made me stop and
think like oh gosh You know, how many people
are affected by this? There's millions in Africa
who don't have access to clean drinking water.
And these are kids who have to leave school to
get water for the school or parents. Can you
imagine having to leave work, going to get water
and your boss being like, you know, cool with
that? No, that's going to hold people back for
generations. We have the opportunity to flip
the script on that. All of us can give to this,
you know, and even if you just give $10 to the
Water Project, I'm not affiliated, by the way,
but we do give monthly to it. you actually get
to see the project come to fruition that you
contributed to and you get to pick which project
you want to help with this process now some of
you may not be in a financial position to do
that and i understand it but i just want you
to look at this picture real quick of these children
these children are celebrating water more than
most of our kids celebrate christmas day so my
hope is again if you're not in a financial position
Even if you are, bring this up over lunch or
dinner, over a quick walk with your spouse, whoever
you're going to talk to about it and let them
know about it. And maybe they end up being the
person who ends up funding several of these projects.
We never know the ripple effect and how far it
will go for the good that we do. And my friends,
we've got 8 billion people in this world to help.
So my hope is that you'll join us on that. If
you have another cause that you'd rather see
us support, something that's burning in your
heart, you got a crowdfunding project going on
for family member, friend, do me a favor. drop
it in the comments. Give me a chance to go look
at it. I will go personally look at any cause
that people put in there and see if there's some
way that we can also help and support it, whether
it's sharing about it, talking about this podcast
or contributing to ourselves. Let's go and make
that happen. So without further ado, we're gonna
get back to helping every single one of you.
Kristen, Zhivago, again, thanks for being here
on Vision Pros Live. Let's dive in to relevance.
So one of the things I need to talk about is
what marketing really is. Good. Marketing is...
The company making promises on behalf of the
company. And then the company that's branding,
by the way, the marketing makes promises for
the company. That's branding. Then we've got
an echo somewhere. Go ahead. You keep going.
All right. Then the company either keeps or breaks
those promises. And that's where their brand.
comes from. That's what builds their brand. Ooh,
it builds in both directions. I like that. These
days, you can't hide your own behavior. If you're
messing with customers and disappointing them,
it's going to appear somewhere. And it's going
to appear just when the person is in the mindset
when they set out to buy. Should I buy from these
people? Can I trust them? What's been the experience
of other people? How well have they kept their
promises? Number one. Number two, are they even
making promises that matter to me? One of the
things that changed the whole course of my career
is that as I was working with clients, mostly
tech clients, I would ask them at the beginning
of the relationship, this way back when I was
doing agency work, what's important to your customers?
And they'd give me a list and, you know, five
or 10 items. And then I would go out and interview
their customers. The list was never the same.
There might've been a few items that were shared,
but the priority was always different. And there
were definitely items at the top of the customer
list that were nowhere near on the customers,
on the client's list, the company's list. I thought,
man, oh, man, we've got a gap. This is a gap.
So they're spending all this money making promises
that don't matter to anybody. That's why you
have to talk to the people who have already bought
from you and find out. We even have a promise
spectrum that we do as part of our research work
where we're trying to find these sales stoppers.
And we can look at your brand. We're working
with a company that makes a brand. monitor, checks
AI, checks all the people out there in the groups
and everything else, and says, here's where you
are on these topics. It's a really amazing program
working some guys in Australia. They're brilliant.
The promise is the whole thing. And if you get
that wrong, they're just like, they click in,
they go, oh, they don't get me. I'm out of here.
You just blew my mind because I was only looking
at the portion of relevance and irrelevance.
But in reality, no, there's there's kind of three
prongs in this because most brands are stuck
in a category of irrelevance. And when you're
in irrelevance, it's like, well, you're just
not you're not really hitting it with anybody.
And that's a safer place to be, because if you
get yourself into a position to where you become
so relevant because of how bad you're performing
on not fulfilling promises, that's something
that's very hard to recover from. I'll pick on
Bank of America. I will never, ever, ever, ever
work with Bank of America again as an account
holder. Sure, I might do something passively.
I'm not going to reject it completely. But they
made so many grave errors in my accounts in the
past that I was like, no. They've broken so many
promises and so much trust that they will stay
there. I made that decision decades ago. I feel
the same way about Bank of America. And it stays
with us, right? It's decades, that broken promise.
has continued to reign supreme. And my friends,
we've all got companies that we're aware of that
create that environment. I'll go into the opposite
side of that. The ones that keep their promises,
Chick -fil -A. Thank you. As a single father.
Um, you know, who, when I go to see my kids and
I've only got a few hours, that's our home away
from home. That's the place that I know that
it's going to be clean. It's going to be safe.
We've got the food that like, everybody's going
to be somewhat happy with, if not super happy
with, um, you know, like it, it, it fills the
gap. It bridges it. It's always consistent like
that. And so I've never heard that definition
all my years in marketing and all my years in
trying to figure out how to define it or explain
it. That is one of the most simple. ways of looking
at it. And again, visionaries, people who can
define the complex that simply, it's because
they're an expert. It's because they know things.
I've been inside companies. You said that I observed
companies and I thought, well, yes, I have. But
from the inside, I've been a change agent. inside
companies, I became part of the leadership team.
I had people that worked for me. I will tell
you that - And you said IBM was one of them,
right? Yeah, I worked for them off and on for
about 12 years. I wrote all the instructions
for their marketing copywriters and used to go
around the world and teach them. Anyway - The
first thing I did before I started one of those
assignments is I would interview the customers
before I even started the job because I knew
I'd get so busy. I'd be answering emails until
11 o 'clock at night and things like that. And
then I brought every single person in the department
into my office one -on -one and said, what makes
you the happiest in your work and what do you
hate doing? So right away they knew I cared about
them and I listened to them and I reorganized
the whole department. So that people, the quiet
people who loved spreadsheets got to do that
all day. And the ones who were talkative and
loved people and everything, they got to do that
all day. I mean, maybe. I'm obviously the quiet
one. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Okay. So they were
happy. And then the next thing I would do is
I would fire the jerk. Wow. Good. Everybody's
praising. Everybody's excited about that. and
what is a jerk a jerk i don't care how they got
there or what happened to them in grade school
or whatever a jerk is someone who has decided
that they're going to call attention to themselves
and be the power guy or whatever by making it
harder for other people to do their work that's
what they do i don't care how they got there
everybody gets bullied so that's a great terrible
excuse but they make they that's a decision they
make and in kindergarten or something. And the
nice people do just the opposite. They try to
make it easier for everyone to do their work.
So when you fire the jerk, all the nice people
go, ah, finally, you know, and so everybody's
happy then it only takes a couple of days and
the whole team is like, all right, this is going
to go. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And I
don't have a lot of experience with that personally
because I'm a jerk. No, I'm a lot of experience
because I don't work with large companies. And
so having not been in that corporate realm. Like
I hadn't thought about that before, but that
makes perfect. That goes really well in hand
with the five dysfunctions of a team and what
Patrick Lencioni teaches and so many others.
And it's like a new secret little weapon that
people can use to reignite culture. So let's
go back to the relevance and decisiveness part
that we were talking about. Again, I know visionaries
are going to benefit so much from this. You revealed
a huge secret that. When relevance is occurring
and when we get spot on with our relevance, that
decisiveness kind of naturally occurs because
our confidence starts to boost. And Dr. Todd
Snyder, as I mentioned, he called this speed
of certainty. And when we have certainty, we
can act with speed. But if you have a race to
run with somebody, for instance, in a basketball
court and somebody turns the lights off, like
nobody's moving. It feels like all of a sudden
you can fall off a cliff and you might run into
something. But when the lights go on, it's like,
okay, now I know where I'm at. I know what's
happening. Now I know what I can do. And the
same is true when it comes to entrepreneurship,
being a visionary, growling a team and getting
them all on the same page. It's so important
to figure out. these, like, what is it that's
going to drive decisiveness? So that's one of
the keys on it. I want to dive to the opposite
direction though, and explore this from your
perspective as well, Chris. And so on the opposite
side of that, what does decisiveness look like
when information is abundant, but wisdom is scarce?
So in other words, we're in an AI age where there's
all this information and it feels like it's all
smart and it's all important, but when the wisdom
is scarce. what do the results look like related
to decisiveness well wisdom comes from two things
it comes from from hard -earned personal experience
And I have started thinking recently that your
enemies are your best friends because they tell
you things that your friends won't tell you because
they just accept you. They care about you. And,
you know, they're like, oh, that's that's Kristen.
That's Jackson. That's how they behave. You know,
it's empathy. Thank you. Radical candor. That's
what they call it there. Yeah. So the people
like you mentioned, the people who are complaining
the most may be irritating, but they have. point.
And they're probably saying the things that your
regular happy customers, there's like, oh, well,
that didn't matter that much to me. So, but it's
a real deal. It's a real showstopper. So you
really don't, until you've actually had somebody
interview your customers, it has to be a third
party because they will actually be too polite
if you do it yourself. They'll be like I just
said, they'll give you a break. They won't want
to say the hard things. So you need to have somebody
do it. And by the way, in my book, Roadmap to
Revenue, How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want
to Buy, Chapter 3 is an absolute prescription
on how to conduct these interviews. The only
thing that's different in the book, and I actually
wrote it in 2011, knowing perfectly well that
if I wasn't careful, I'd be out of date in a
year. So, you know, having been in tech, I knew
how to make it stay relevant. The only thing
there is that I talked about, you know, on the
phone interviews where now you would just do
Zoom and you would do Zoom audio only, not video,
because people get nervous about being on camera.
The goal is to find the people who've already
bought from you who appreciate what you sell
and they had their reasons for buying it. You
need to know what they are. What happens is you
become, you know, these people like friends afterwards.
I had a copywriter I was teaching at Dow Jones
when I was working for them. And I walked past
this cubicle one day and he was just sitting
there going. I said, Rob, are you OK? I just
talked to a customer. I did what you said. I
interviewed. Now I know. I know John. I was talking
to John, okay? And now I know who I'm writing
to. You suddenly respect the person. You think
this is a real person with real thoughts and
real needs, and they relate to me. So it's not
just us being relevant to our customers. It's
our customers appreciating that relevance because
it helps them. And then we, in turn, reward them
with our money and we want them to stay in business,
which is why people will take the time to do
these interviews. They want you to stick around.
So it's a win -win situation on both sides. But
you have to actually know your customers. You
can't do personas and think you know your customers.
It's a joke. I love that Michael Gerber and the
e -myth, you know, he nurtures people to a point
where. they understand the value of doing the
hard things and then he's like by the way now
you got to call 300 people um and talk by the
way you don't have to talk to 300 people i will
just say that okay the open -ended questions
that i've worked out in thousands of interviews
you only have to talk to five to seven people
of a given type so if you have three types of
customers five to seven people and you start
getting what i call bankable answers You can
trust they repeat. They say the same thing, even
though they've never met each other. They will
use the same phrase to describe you and their
experience and why they bought and what they
thought of competitors and what their challenges
are and their trends and all that. I get all
of that information from these open -ended question
interviews. It's conversation, not a survey.
Well, good. Maybe more people will dive in and
actually do this because I see so many entrepreneurs,
they say they've read the book, The E -Myth,
but if I were to ask them and I won't ask them,
have you actually done the process? I think 99
% of them will have not done it because it is
a bit overwhelming. And so it is nice to know
that maybe five to seven can do that. I do believe
that what you're talking about, the quality of
the script is a valuable point. It's like you've
got to know what you're going to say. I would
also encourage you entrepreneurs practice this
with at least three to four people first and
probably with a pretty good sales trainer or
something like Kristen or myself, because it's
one thing to have a script. It's another to deliver
it as a master. It's another to actually have
a good tone and cadence. Go ahead, Kristen. I
have to jump in. I love it. Do it. Do it. Hit
that. It's not a script, okay? It's just like
12 open -ended questions. How do you feel about
our product or service? And then you shut up
and you listen, okay? Well, that's a script.
Well, okay, fine. But I love what you're doing
because the audience needs to understand it.
Let's go with this, my friends. The alphabet
is a script. You all learned it. Nobody did not
learn. that script and it doesn't box you in.
It doesn't ruin your identity. It didn't take
away your personality. It empowered you to be
able to use your personality. Now I can say the
letter A and I can say the letter P and I can
know where I'm at because I've mastered the art
of being able to use that resource. So whether
it's a script or it's a framework, but your point,
you got to be able to shut up and listen. Yeah,
right. Like that's a big piece of it is if we
can if we can shut up and listen. And here's
other three key words on that, my friends, if
you want to maximize what Kristen's talking about,
as soon as the person finishes talking, nod your
head politely and say, tell me more about that.
Let them talk, let them dive in. But is that
part of that? Does that ruin the process, Kristen?
No, not at all. In fact, one of the things that
one of the reasons I'm still doing this work
is because I can't do it. I mean, in order for
my company to survive, I had to figure out what
AI couldn't do because AI is getting really good
at a lot of stuff. Oh my gosh, it is. And one
of this is the emotional intelligence. So if
I say, I've asked somebody and I say, how was
it? And they say, oh, it was all right. AI would
record, customer said it was all right. I would
say, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That wasn't
a resounding yes. Can you drill down on that?
And right away, the person says, oh, she was
listening to me. She picked up on my little inflection
and decided that, you know, the message I was
trying to send her is please drill down on this.
I don't want to do it unless you want it. And
so that's the truth. That is 1000 % correct.
And my friends, again, this is much harder in
today's society than it was 15 years ago. And
another big reason why that has gotten even harder
since 2020 is because when... When we give feedback
to a brand and a brand disrespects our feedback
or puts us in an automated process, we lose faith
in all the brands. And we say, you know, I don't
want to do this anymore. I don't want to talk
to them about it. And so if I have a bad experience
at a restaurant on my birthday and we do this
at Restaurant Connect, then they're not going
to talk to the waiter right there because I'm
in the middle of my birthday. I don't want to
bring it up. I'm going to lie to you and be like,
yeah, everything's great and fine, but I'm going
to go hose your brand online afterwards. Right.
That's what typically happens. And so being able
to pick them up in the right space. and the right
cadence as well. Again, I do believe that Kristen's
right. There are things that AI can't do. And
even though AI is getting smarter with this,
the bandwidth thresholds that exist prevent it
from diving right in again anyway. So we're still
a long ways away from it to be able to do it.
But as human beings, we underserve ourselves
if we don't have the ability to pick up. On the
undertones, on the cadence, on what's really
there. And emotional intelligence is the key.
I just talked to Dr. Jacqueline Campbell right
before jumping on with Kristen. And she's an
emotional intelligence expert that I highly recommend
everybody also has their eyes on and sees what
is she building in the terms of that process.
Now, I'm going to come back to this aspect of
what decisiveness looks like when information
is abundant, but wisdom is scarce. It looks like
the general playing field of business right now
where everybody's pretending they know what they're
doing and most people are suffering tremendously.
And all you have to do is ask them, give me three
case studies, give me three references and they'll
disappear because they don't have it. They don't
have the ability to provide that. They can make
things look good on paper, but we've got to be
more diligent in our own due diligence. That's
a little bit redundant, but we need to practice
our due diligence as providers. If we're going
to bring team members in who are going to help
us be truly successful. So I'm going to dive
into, there was one other point here that I really
wanted to make sure we get your wisdom on Kristen.
And that's how clarity of vision, meaning my
friends, if we have a clear vision, how that
drives confidence in uncertain markets, there
is so much uncertainty in the world. It's always
existed. It's just louder than ever. before right
now. And so with all the uncertainty that exists
in the market, what can we do to clarify our
visions to drive confidence that we've got solutions
that can help people? Well, the helping people
is the big deal, of course. I'm writing a book,
another book, and it's called Love, Leverage,
and Logistics, How You and Your Company Can Change
the World. And I define love as taking care of
someone else. And I did it for 45 years with
my husband before he died of cancer. Very sad
ending to a wonderful life. I'm sorry to hear
that. Yeah, well, it was he was my best friend
and we were in love until the last minute. But
yeah, the. No, I go back now. I've I've forgot.
Oh, yes. OK, so. Your book, Clarity and Vision,
and I just want to honor real quick. That marriage,
that is another reason to accept Kristen as an
incredible mentor. There are very few people
who have marriages that last that long, and there
are very few people who can talk about it that
honorably. I love your marriage. I'm envious.
I hope I can become a man like your husband.
Yeah, well, he was wonderful. Again, the way
I define love is just taking care of someone.
So that's why I use the L word in the book. And
I described the idea that if you're taking care
of your workers and your customers and your partners
and you're not drawing lines, a good marriage,
you don't draw a line. You don't say, oh, if
you step over that line, I'm out of here. I can't.
No way. There are no boundaries, especially once
he got he got cancer twice and very much, you
know, five percent chance of living. We made
it through the first one, but then the other
one. But you realize when you're that dedicated
to helping someone be their best and do their
best and live their best life, there are no boundaries.
You just do it. Now, obviously, if you're trying
to do that for jerks, it's not going to work.
be a good person. But if you assume that you
want to take care of your customers and partners
and workers, they're going to know it. It's one
of the things that even the baby in their first
days of their life, they know who actually cares
and who doesn't, who may act like they care,
but they really don't. They make that distinction.
And so by the time your customers get to you
and they've bought thousands or millions of products
from millions of companies they know right away
if you get them and you respect them and you're
going to be able to give them what they're looking
for that you you actually know what they're looking
for and you say it in their own words because
you've talked to your own customers and you've
used those phrases in your website or whatever
your social whatever so leverage is you do all
those things and people will take care of you.
And then logistics is all that hard stuff. The
IT backend, the website, the integration, the
communications, all of that stuff that I've been
around all my life. And I'm, I'm going to make
a living book where you get it printed on demand
so I can keep it up to date. Cool. Because that
logistics part is going to change every half
hour. I mean, That's where the world is right
now. Yeah. Absolutely. I love the way you broke
that down. The neat thing about the way that
you're teaching all this, Kristen, is most of
us as human beings, if not all of us, have this
within us. This is not abstract. This is not
something that only a doctor can master. It's
through our own practice of our life. The way
you defined love, for instance, as caring for
others and caring for someone else. It's not
that I missed out on that completely, but I didn't
fully comprehend how to embrace that definition
until one day it dawned on me. I was like, oh,
in Spanish, love is a verb. And it's easy to
see that it's a verb. you you have to change
the way that it's said and i didn't realize that
in english like love was something that i wanted
you know love was something that i could get
more of it was more of like a noun than it was
a verb but you're talking about the verb side
of it and so if it's a verb which requires action
then the more that we act in love on behalf of
others, the better the muscle becomes, right?
The greater that it grows. And so I love that
you talked about that because that's really the
essence of being a visionary and guiding people
and helping people move forward. I also love
that you talked about how with the uncertain
market aspects, I think most visionaries are
stuck in this feeling like, oh my gosh, I have
to act like I'm certain. I have to be the one
who shows. bold confidence. And you can accidentally
imitate confidence and not actually have it.
But if we're providing something that's truly
valuable to people in need, it doesn't matter
how much uncertainty exists in the world because
you're creating that certainty, which then allows
people to magnetically come to you and say, I
want to buy from you. But you have to have certainty
that's based in virtue. That would be what I
gather on that. So as we get ready to wrap up.
That's a wonderful way to say it. That's very
good. Well, I finally got one in because it was
like, man, you've been goldmine after goldmine,
super clear, poetic Shakespeare style. And I've
been like, I'm learning so much here. So this
is good. So leadership secrets in the age of
AI. We've talked about a ton of those right now
and the missing ingredients for it as well. I
want to end on this. Kristen, if this was the
last chance that you had to talk to visionary
leaders out there, what would your counsel be
for them? Get over yourself. I love it. Honestly,
I finally did that when I was about 50 and everything
changed after that. I was, I was laughing at
myself. I, I, you know, my husband, I laughed
a lot more because I was laughing at myself.
I just, everything got funny. You know, it's
like, okay, I made a mistake. Yeah, I know. I
know. But that really was when our marriage,
I was always good before then. Cause we worked
so hard on it. But that's when things became
heaven on earth. Honest to God. I just we were
free and happy and with each other. And just
it was a beautiful thing because we weren't all
worried about our image to that person or how
well we were performing or any of that. We just
accepted the truth of each other. This was a
masterclass on visionary, purposeful, legacy
-driven living. I'm so blessed by your interviewing
with me on this. My friends, visionaries, we
have the opportunity to get over ourselves. And
one of the great recipes to help us all do that
is one of my favorite quotes that I do fill it
regularly. And it's an opportunity I always remind
myself to dive into it, but it is one of my top
two favorite quotes in life. And that is, people
don't care how much we know until they know how
much we care. And in essence, that's it. Theodore
Roosevelt. Got to give him credit on that one.
I haven't heard that before. Yeah. People don't
care how much we know until they know how much
we care. Kristen, I can feel the depth of how
much you care. I'm grateful for it. Visionaries,
you can connect with Kristen Zhivago on LinkedIn
or elsewhere. You can get the books and check
the books out too. She's got another book coming
out soon to keep updated as well for us. But
more importantly, I would say if you're in a
point where you need clarity for your vision,
you need certainty for your vision, you want
to be able to bring it to more people, start
recruiting and finding the right people to be
along your side for that journey. journey and
call Kristen, put her on your lineup of people
that you want to recruit and interview. And my
friends will see on the next episode of Vision
Pros Live. Kristen, this is amazing. Thank you
for your time today. 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.