Relationships Win Framework

Brad: 00:00:00

Welcome to Student of the Game podcast where we help you master the fundamentals, fall in love with practice, and win at the game of Life. I'm your host, Brad Noll. Welcome to the classroom. Welcome back to another episode of Student of the Game. We're gonna get right into it.

Today we are talking and discussing the Relationships Win framework. So this is gonna be a five part series.

I'm gonna show you what our team has been working on, what I've been working on, and it's a relationships win framework. You know, we believe that relationships win in the game. Relationships win. This podcast is all about coaching small business owners up.

And I know there's a lot. If you're not a small business owner, there's a lot that, that I know you can take out of it as well.

If you're curious, if you look for clues, you're going to get something out of this podcast. So the Relationships Win framework, we start at first base. And first base is all about connecting. You got to connect with people.

You got to connect in this world of isolation, you got to connect. Today we're going to talk about conversation. Second base is conversations.

Once you connect, you got to have a conversation after second base and having conversations, then that gets into introductions, like how well you serve somebody, how well you listen.

There's an introduction that happens either either the person's giving you an introduction or you're introducing them to somebody that can make their life better. And then home plate in our world is a sale. And you can't just swing for the fences and hit homers all the time. That's not what it's about.

That's very transactional. It's about getting on base, being efficient, building relationships. That's what this podcast is about. So you're in for a treat today.

This is going to be a brief episode, but if I can convince you of one thing, if I can convince you of one thing, conversion only happens after conversation. If you're in business, we talk about conversion a lot as far as getting prospects to sales.

But I will, I will promise you conversion happens through conversation. And I think here's the problem today.

The problem today is you're sitting there posting on social media and you're wondering when business is going to show up. You're going to the office and you're wondering when business is going to show up.

You're sending DMs and you're wondering when business is going to show up. And if I can convince you that you cannot have a powerful conversation without a real Connection.

But then introductions and referrals, which are the lifeblood of most business, never happens without a meaningful conversation. And you gotta have the conversation first. And so what does this mean? What is second base? What is the getting to the conversation place? I.

I truly believe conversations are, are when trust is built. There's, there's value in trust. Like, trust is one of, one of our core values. You gotta be able to trust people, you gotta be honest.

And, and you deepen trust through conversations, doors start to open. You know, if one of the things that we say is if connection is the seed, right? We last, last time we talked about being a farmer.

If connection is the seed, then conversation is the water. Let me say that again. If conversation. Excuse me. If a connection is the seed, then the conversation is the water. Are you watering?

Are you watering right now? Are you watering your database? Are you watering your family relationships? Are you watering your friendships?

Mental health is such a big deal right now, and I'm a huge proponent of it. I'm a huge fan of mental health. I'm not a doctor, and I don't have any prescription for people. But I will tell you, one way to get.

Get past a lot of challenges is to make sure we're having meaningful conversations. It's to feel value, it's to feel valuable. Right? And, and a lot of that comes through having conversations. So what does that mean in business?

I, I truly believe a true conversation is a real result of a genuine connection. You know, we talk about at bats. We're using this baseball analogy. We're talking about at bats. You got to connect to people that leads a conversation.

You know, just, just recently, I've been connecting with people. It's leading to some conversations. And here's the cool part. Not every connection is leading me to a conversation with somebody.

You know, I have time to have conversations with a hundred people in a day. Do I have time to connect with 10 people? Yeah. Does that lead to one or two conversations? Yeah, it does.

And over time, I start to understand how to keep track of this and, and how to bring some type of analytics to, to my world. In business, you have to have connections that lead to conversations.

You have to have conversations that lead to an introduction, and you can quantify all of that.

But yeah, I just believe a true conversation is a result of a genuine connection, and then that conversation is really the gateway to everything that follows. I'll give you a quick. I don't like talking about my kids all the time on this podcast. That's not what it's about. But there's a lot of lessons, right?

We talk about being a student of the game is like everything you do, you can pick up clues that can help you out in life. And so staying curious, growing constantly, is a core value of ours in business. And so I'm curious. I'm a curious person.

My daughter's going on kind of some college recruiting visits now. She's going to be a sophomore playing basketball.

And so we're kind of doing this thing with her, kind of getting her prepped, ready for college, even though she's still several years away. But she's been connecting with some coaches that's leading to some visits, some unofficial visits to try to see where she wants to go.

And what ends up happening is when we're on these visits, conversations taking place. You know, it was funny. We were just on a visit, and the conversation kind of stemmed around, you know, what TV shows are you watching?

You know, and I can admit I'm boring. I don't watch a lot of tv. I wish I did, actually. I wish I liked it. It's kind of one of those things, like, everybody's watching a show.

Like, think about what show are you watching right now? What are you in the middle of? What season are you on? I'm not that guy. Like, don't invite me to trivia because I will not help.

But you know, my family, they like watching their programs, and that's awesome, and that's really cool. And part of. Part of getting to know somebody was having conversations asking, like, what shows are you watching? What are you into?

And then there were some similar connections. And my wife and this coach, you know, kind of started to create this bond of. Of like, oh, this is what each of us are into.

And they could talk about that. They're building trust. They're not talking about tv.

I mean, even though that's the topic, what they're doing is they're building trust, they're building rapport, they're having a conversation because eventually they're.

That's going to lead to something else, like an introduction or maybe one of my kids decides to go to school somewhere because of a connection that is made. But all trust has to happen at that conversation level. You connect, then you have the conversation. Why is it so important?

Because like I just said, conversation is the gateway for everything. All conversion happens through conversation.

I don't remember in my 20, going on 23 years now, I don't remember helping somebody buy a home without having a conversation. I just don't. I don't remember anybody in my life that has added value to me that I've not had a conversation with. Let me, let me back up.

Maybe some people that I follow on social media that have put out some good content like that added value to me. But you know, truly, like one on one value. Like we're deepening, deepening a relationship that has not happened. Couple things.

Conversations cannot be rushed. They, they cannot, they can't be rushed. You can't force a conversation on somebody.

You know, I've got somebody right now in my life that's trying to meet with me and if they're listening to this, then, then, sorry about you, but they're trying to meet with me and they're trying to pitch and they want to have a conversation. This is rushed. It's rushed.

Like, get to know me, get to know my business, get to know my family, get to know my schedule, get to know, you know, what challenges I have and then make the pitch. You know, let's not start with the pitch. You know, don't, don't start with an offer for somebody.

So it's something that just can't be rushed when you're having conversations with somebody and it comes after stacking connections. And think about that. What did I just say? We said if I'm going to make 10 connections that might lead to one conversation.

So what does greatness look like? We believe. One of my favorite books, a 12 week year and the co author Michael Lennington talks about greatness in the moment. Greatness in the moment.

Can you be great in the moment? I'm not talking about outcomes. I'm talking can you, can you make your 10 connections today? Can you make 5 connections today?

Matter of fact, you, the listener is, are there three people in your life that you just want to, that you want to connect with, that you need to connect with? Go do that today. When you're done listening to this, go, go connect with three people and then you know what you do the next day?

Go connect to three more and you stack connections that leads to conversations. The conversations can't be rushed. Focus on connecting with people. That's first base. That'll lead to the conversation.

The conversations where value is added. Without conversation, you cannot uncover the needs of the people you want to serve.

Without conversation, you cannot uncover the needs of the people you want to serve. And introductions and referrals, I believe are earned at the conversation level.

You ever been to an event and somebody's talking about themselves the whole time and then you leave and you're like, what did I get out of that? My dad and I joke. There's a.

There's a phrase that we always say, like, whenever we talk to somebody that's really kind of full of themselves, like, oh, how'd that conversation go? I was like, great. You know what they said? They said, you know what? Enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think about me?

You know, you know those people right now? You probably. Probably somebody comes to mind that you're thinking of.

When you're having a conversation with somebody and it's all about them or all about what they're doing, and they don't ask any questions. We know how that feels when it's being done to us. But. But in conversation, are we paying attention to that? Are we great in conversations?

And I believe the introductions and referrals are earned. They're earned in this phase. You don't know what introductions are going to be made. You don't. You.

You may be having a conversation with somebody and, I don't know, you just tell them how busy you are and how overwhelmed you are, and they may introduce you to a wonderful house cleaner, and they pay to get your house clean for you because they know you're under a lot of stress right now and you got a lot going on. You don't know. You don't know what introductions or connections.

I told you on the last one, like, I've been given tickets to sporting events or, you know, crazy things in my life have happened because of an introduction or connection. It's not a net result of I'm going to connect with somebody, and I want to make a home sale. I want to sell somebody a home right now.

No, that's an outcome of a process.

And I have to stack connections that lead to conversations, and then I have to stack these conversations, and I have to hold those conversations with open hands to know, like, how can I serve this person better? Like, you know, my coaches talk to me about, you know, your mindset.

But there's a deeper level to mindset, and maybe you've heard this, maybe this is the first time you're ever hearing this. But this is something that's been on my mind a long time, is my coaches talked to me about mindset. Mindset's great.

You know what's more important than mindset? Heartset. What's the posture of your heart when you're having a connection with somebody? How's your heart posturing?

Is it, what can I get from this person? Now you lead to a conversation with Them, what's your heart set? Are you wanting something from them?

I can't wait to have a conversation with a person and ask if they'll do business with me. I can't wait to have a conversation with this person and ask them how they can help me.

But how many of us change our posture of our heart and really say, how can I serve this person better when I text them? What can I say right now that's going to impact or improve their life? Think about that. There's mindset. Mindset's so important.

We're all talking about mindset right now, but have we talked about heart set enough? What's the posture of your heart? Are you positioning your heart to really serve other people?

Or are you posting on social media or are you having conversations or you're going to networking events because you're looking to gain something? I am too, by the way, but that's not the right recipe. The right recipe is not to have a conversation so that you get something.

Stephen Covey has a phenomenal quote. It says, seek first to understand, then to be understood. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. That's a posture of the heart.

If I'm seeking to understand somebody else first and then to be understood. I was texting back and forth today and yesterday with some clients who are not ready to move right now. Okay. So I've been connecting with them.

They're not ready to move right now. In my profession, when that happens, typically the realtor doesn't communicate with them until they're ready to move. That's normal.

I mean, it's, it's transactional. I get it. Right. Like most people in my industry don't have much value to offer. Um, they don't. Let me just say that a different way.

That sounds negative. They don't know the offer that they don't know the value they could offer. And so they don't offer any value.

And if you're, you're one of those people right now, it's like, I think one of the, the hardest things to know and then once you do it becomes a superpower is knowing what other people need to hear, knowing what other people need in that moment. And I think that's really important and that really happens through conversation.

But, but not just conversation where you're talking, conversation where you're listening. You're trying to understand where they're at. Most businesses, I know you'd agree with me on this.

Most businesses, their conversations are too transactional or self centered. It's funny A lot of times, you know, we get asked like, hey, how's business? And then most realtors just go into like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy.

I'm so busy. Oh, it's crazy. Right now. The market's hot. Like, they're answering in a way that serves them. Like, what if we were curious?

And when somebody said, hey, how's business? You know, whether you're a landscaper, financial advisor, painter, maybe you're starting your own business and they say, hey, how's business?

What if you return that with a question? What if you started with, you know what? I'm passionate about what I do, but do you have a specific question about real estate?

You know, is there anything that you're going through that you need some answers to? Some questions, like, what if you just turned it around a little bit versus I'm so busy. Other markets hot or selling homes in a day. It's.

It's awesome. What if that person wanted to sell their home but didn't know where they wanted to go?

You would stress me out if I, if I knew I was moving but didn't know where I was going. And I'm talking to a realtor and I'm not in the business and I say, hey, how's business?

And I really want to know, like, oh my goodness, I'm about to sell my home. Can you give me some good information? They're like, oh, homes are flying off the shelf. They're selling in a day. It's crazy.

Record times 100 offers that stressed me out. That person talking to me would not be serving me or they'd be serving themselves. So.

So I would just, I would ask you, you know, are your conversations with people self centered or are you finding that they're transactional? Student of the Game is brought to you by Knoll Team Real Estate.

Our mission is to eradicate mediocre real estate transition transactions on your largest financial purchase. You shouldn't have to deal with average.

We do this by helping you save time, reduce your stress, and helping you keep as much money in your pocket as we can.

You can help us out by introducing us to your friends or family who want to make confident real estate decisions, whether buying, selling, building or investing. At Knoll Team Real Estate, we are connected to a group of realtors who sell one in every eight homes in North America.

If you know someone moving out of your area, there's a great chance we can connect them to somebody we know like and trust. Remember, relationships win. Now back to the show. Okay, I'M going to teach you some three things here real quick. Ask, ask questions, don't pitch.

Don't pitch your service, don't pitch product, ask questions. You can't be an undercover agent. That's something we say all the time. People need to know what you do for a living, but you ask, you don't pitch.

Get curious about their world. You know, one of the things you do is get super curious. Tell me more. Oh, yeah, how did, like I always talk about, you know, great journalism.

Like, great journalism is, is hard these days. Like when I'm watching the NBA finals right now, they're on and you see these interviews.

I love, matter of fact, I love watching press conferences because there's like really bad questions and then you get really bad answers. But then there are some amazing journalists that ask some phenomenal questions. And it's usually the second question.

Have you ever noticed that, like the first question's average and then once the ATH athlete gets to talking a little bit, that second question is like, we're all leaning in. We're all, we're all leaning in. Like, oh, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Can't wait to hear what she has to say.

Get curious, get curious about the world. Ask the next question. Great journalism, great journalists. Ask the next question. Or the great follow up question.

We, we get this in our business a lot. It's like, hey, what are you looking for? You know, we talk to buyers. What are you looking for? Open floor plan. I'm looking for something affordable.

I want privacy. And we've just taught our team, like, you ask the next question. That's awesome. It sounds like you want privacy because that's how maybe you grew up.

Could you walk me through what does privacy mean to you? Or could you give me an example of what privacy means? Could you give me an example of an open floor plan? Right? Like, give me an example. Tell me more.

Like, that's a great question. Like, what are you looking for in a house? I want three bedrooms. Well, I don't know why. So ask the next question.

And then one of the things that I think is really hard for people to do, especially young kids, is what I'm trying to teach my kids is when you ask the NEC the next question, you're avoiding small talk. You gotta go a layer deeper. You gotta go layer deeper than small talk. Everybody I know, how's the weather? How you doing? Busy. Nice.

You know, it's just all small talk. But if you can avoid or not avoid, because it's tough to avoid small talk. But get past that and really, it goes back to the posture.

Posture of your heart. What's the posture of your heart? Can you.

You go to a deeper level with people when you're having those conversations, and that's when you're building trust. Here's some examples of maybe some conversation starters.

So if you're finding yourself in a networking event or you're growing your business and you're calling on, you know, a new person or you're going to coffee with somebody, here's. Here's three easy things I wrote down. What are you working on right now that excites you? Like, what are you working on right now that excites you?

I've. I have two projects right now that we're working on. Outside of helping people buy and sell homes, I got two projects we're working on. And it's.

It's really fun because these are things that are like legacy projects that are going to sustain our business and they're going to grow it for, you know, years and hopefully decades. When my kids come over and, you know, take over when. When I need to step out at some point, if I ever do. But.

But I've got some projects, I'm really excited about that. If somebody were to ask me that question, I'd probably talk too much because I'm really excited about them and I can't wait to share them with you.

I mean, we're going to release these here at some point, but we're working through these right now. What's been a big challenge for you lately? So what excites you and then what's been a big challenge for you lately? I can tell you some things.

You know, every business, every company has challenges, and if you avoid talking about them, you know, you kind of seem, you know, not normal. Everything's perfect. It's kind of what social media does. It shows every business and every person is perfect. Everybody's living their best life.

And we all know that that's not. That's not true. And then I love this question. If. If I could connect you with anyone, what kind of person would that be?

Another way that we've said this at our networking events is, who's somebody you want to meet? That tell. Listen. That tells me everything I need to know about your business. If I ask you this question and you're prepared for it, I'm engaged.

If you're not prepared for it, I don't know how to help you. Hey, who's somebody you would like to meet. I'm gonna. The microphone's on, it's hot. I'm gonna tell you who I wanna meet.

I wanna meet people going through a lifestyle change that needs to make a change in their housing.

That's who I wanna meet, you know, and those people are people that are graduating college, buying their first homes, people that are moving out of apartment, buying their first homes, first time buyers, they're getting married people. We've, we've helped a lot of people going through divorce. You know, unfortunately, that's a, that's a tough time.

And, and we need to sell a house and maybe both spouses need to buy another one. Job loss, you know, people can't make their payments anymore or they're relocating because they're going to find a new job in a new area.

We've helped a lot of people downsize, you know, with the baby boomer population. We've helped a lot of people sell their family homes and move into a villa. These are all people going through lifestyle changes.

I want to meet people going through a lifestyle change that needs to make a housing change or, or maybe they're going through a lifestyle change and they need to have a conversation at a kitchen table and they don't need to move just yet. Maybe they want to buy a vacation home, but there's some type of change in their lifestyle which then warrants a change in their housing.

Those are the people I want to meet, if you know who you want to meet. It is so much easier to network with people. It is so much easier to get what it is you're looking for, if you know what you're looking for.

A buddy of mine out in California, they moved to a new area and his family was looking for churches. And for months they just went to different church. Different church. Different church, different church. I think they're on, like, their tenth one.

All right, and this, this could be about anything. This could be about food, this could be about movies, could be about vacations. This just happens to be about churches.

They were, you know, shopping for a church for their family, and they got to the 10th one. And I remember he said, you know, we just said, we just said, pause. We just can't. Like, we, we're just not going to continue down this road.

Let's have a conversation. So they go out to brunch after church, and they said, okay, let's both write down our top 10 things we're looking for in a church.

And you know what they did?

After a conversation, they compared notes and they recognized that Most of the churches that they had attended, especially this Last one, the 10th one, had most of what they were looking for. And the moral of that story is it's amazing that you can find what you're looking for when you know what you're looking for, right?

I mean, think about that. When you don't know what you're looking for, it's hard to find when you know what you're.

I'm looking for people going through lifestyle changes that need to make a change in their housing. And then as I'm having conversations with people, I'm trying to serve them really well.

I'm trying to listen, I'm trying to understand and then to be understood.

And when I build trust with people, when I build relationship with of people, when people know that I care more about them than a transaction, because we believe relationships win, then what happens next? They, they tend to introduce us at a faster rate. And it's because we've earned that. And, and that happens through. Through conversations.

One of the things we talk about in networking events is at a networking event, instead of going handing out 20 business cards. I talked about this with Michael Yoder, my podcast coach at Truth Work Media.

And Michael talked about this, this guy that came up to him at a networking event that was handing out flyers to go to his networking event. It's like, what are we doing here?

Instead of going and handing out 20 business cards, why don't you just take three, have longer conversations with people and then invite them to a coffee or lunch afterwards to deepen that connection, to deepen that relationship. One of my favorite books is the Go Giver. If you haven't checked this out yet, check it out. There's five laws of the Go Giver.

I won't go over them here. Hopefully at some point I can interview one of the authors. It's a fantastic book. It outlines the importance of value driven conversations.

How do you build a relationship through a conversation? How do you build trust? It's through conversations.

One of the laws, the key law says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. I found that to be true in my business.

You know, after 23 years, I'm overnight success, you know. But no, it's, it's because I've had a lot of connections, a lot of conversations with people. I've built a lot of trust.

I believe conversations allow you to serve and not sell.

Back to the example I was Given a couple minutes ago is I've been reaching out to a couple clients that have been pausing on their house purchase, on their home purchase. They're not quite ready. And so a lot of times Realtors in my position, they wouldn't reach out at all.

And I reach out and I just, I specifically told one of them, I said, just want you to know our team is built to serve you really well, even when you're staying in your home. Our team is not built just to sell you a home.

Our team is built as a concierge level service that if you need something for your current home, if you're looking to save some time or reduce any stress that comes with homeownership, call us. We can help out. We know a lot of great people, a lot of great trades people.

Lindsay with Nolteam Interiors has a long list of vendors and people that she trusts that can come into your home, do a great job, help you keep more money in your pocket, not overcharge you, charge you a respectable wage so that they can feed their family and we can serve you even if you want to stay in your home. And that's kind of why we built Multi Interiors, to serve people who want to stay in their home. More about that later.

And then through, through conversations, you learn what people actually need and not what you assume. You know how many times this happens with Lindsay? All the time. But even my kids, like, I assume I know what they need and I don't.

And I have to have a conversation with them. And had a tough conversation with my oldest last night and I didn't feel like I did a great job in that conversation. And you know why?

It's because I assumed what was going on. And so I talked to her. What I should have done is ask questions. I should have had a better conversation with her.

We wouldn't have even got to the place that I felt I didn't do a great job. If I would have asked two questions before I started into what I wanted to tell her, it would have gone much better.

And yes, we've talked this morning. We've hashed it out. I apologize. And. And she's a great kid.

So super excited that she's going to be a CEO of Nolting Real Estate in about 15 years once she gets some experience. But we talked about conversation is the bridge between curiosity and contribution. Conversation is the bridge between curiosity and contribution.

You got to be curious, you stay curious, you got to grow constantly. It's not about you.

If my team members and if you out there as a business owner, if you're failing to connect with people, it's because you're selfish. I'm just going to say that you're selfish and it's because you're making the connection or the conversation about you.

When you go into it, making the connection or the conversation about other people, great things happen. We talked about the stacking effect. The stacking effect is you stack days. Athletes stack days.

I'm going to work out today and then I'm going to recover. Then I'm going to work out again and I'm going to recover and I'm going to work out again and recover. I'm going to keep stacking days.

And this is the Kobe effect.

Kobe said, I worked out three times in a day and if you only work out two times in a day, after six months, I'm gonna have 180 more workouts than you. You're never gonna catch me because I'm stacking days. That's what consistency looks like.

Consistency in connecting with people, consistency in having conversations. Play a fun game with yourself. Like, how many coffees can you schedule in 90 days? Now, I'm not saying like drink coffee five times a day.

That'd be reckless. But can. Can you schedule three a week? I don't know. Can you? A friend of mine, a Realtor from Arizona, had this, had this thing that they just did.

They said coffee across the miles and they scheduled coffee with Realtors all over the country to network, brainstorm and have a cup of coffee. 30 minutes, 30 minute Zoom session. And it was a connection that led to a conversation that got to know somebody better. It was amazing. Example.

I'll give you an example of some of the conversations that I've had.

So in, in my real estate business, there's a guy that I knew, he ran a medical group and I was friends with him, hung out with them, but never really had a conversation with him. And I remember took him to Baker street, this was several years ago, took him to Baker street.

And I asked questions, I said, hey, what are some of the challenges? Go back to the questions I had before. It's like, what are some of the challenges you guys are going through?

Well, one of them was retention, one of them was recruiting. And so it's like, how could I come alongside them and serve them?

Well, that one lunch where we built and we already had some trust and rapport, but that one lunch allowed me to uncover some of the challenges that this person had. I knew I could offer that service. We now Give community tours to physicians groups.

There are medical practices in this community that we give community tours to, and our team serves them because we understand the challenge in hiring. So if we can be an extension of the group, make hiring better, more smooth, and be a third party, that isn't part of the interview process, but can.

They can let their hair down a little bit, ride in the car, look at the. Look at the city, and then we can talk about it from, you know, a standpoint of what they like.

Now we can help teams recruit, and so that's part of the service we provide. So just by having that one meeting, understanding what their needs were. Another example is, you know, back to my athletic career.

The locker room is vital. You know, a lot of times we. People talk about the locker room is sacred.

There are conversations that took place in the locker room that I still hold close to me today. There's friendships from the locker room.

Like the conversations, like when you're competing and you're on the floor, like you're in the middle of battle. You know, things are moving fast. You're competing for a job every single day, and you get to the locker room conversations happen.

That's where relationships happen. You know, that's where great team, that's where culture is built, is in those locker rooms. It's.

It's trust, and it's those conversations that people have. A business example. I'll give you another business example. The first one is real estate specific, but here's a, Here's a business example.

A vendor that we, we. We needed to have a carpet cleaner. Okay, I was going to name names, but I'll name names here.

So we needed to have a carpet cleaner as part of our business directory so that we could offer a great referral to our clients that needed to get their carpets clean either right before they're getting ready to put their home on the market and we're trying to get the best condition for them, or they move in and they want to maybe make the home a little more fresh. They're buying it from somebody else, and nobody likes to live in somebody else's stuff. So maybe they need to get their carpet clean.

I'll never forget. I'll never forget where I was. I was driving down I69 on the southbound lane, going from the north side of town to the south side of town.

And I got on the phone with the owner of the company, and I told her, I said, what realtor right now sends you the most business? And so she proceeded to tell me what Realtor Sent them the most business that they had a relationship with.

And I said, I've heard a lot of good things about you guys. And I was introduced to you. We don't know any. We don't know each other yet, but in 12 months, no one will send you more business than me.

I want to be the person who sends you the most business you've ever seen. I remember that conversation.

And she actually brought that up about two weeks ago when we saw each other, ran into each other, and she brought that up. And she goes, that was crazy. I hung up the phone, and they were new business owners. And he.

She called her husband and was like, you're never going to guess. There's this realtor that wants to send us a bunch of business. Think about your business right now.

If somebody called you right now and said, I'm going to send you so much stinking business, like, you're going to have to hire more people, that's a great day. Like, if I made that phone call and said, hey, I'm a realtor, I want a partner.

I want to be the person that you send business to when you're cleaning somebody's home. Now, here's what I know.

I know that 40% of people who put their home on the market hire somebody in the trades into their home before they list it, whether it's a painter, a plumber, a carpet cleaner. 40% of all sellers hire people to come into their home before they list it.

It's really good for us to network with those vendors so that we can be the first one that they introduce. So it would have made logical sense for me to call and say, hey, I want to get to know you because I want you to send me business. But what did I do?

I had a conversation with her and I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you more business than anybody you know to this day.

They're somebody who has referred more people to us than the majority of our database, and we have a great friendship. So that's how conversations can lead, if you posture your heart correctly. All right. Some homework. I went a little longer.

I wanted to here than maybe you wanted me to here, but I get fired up talking about conversations because I think that's just where trust happens. And you can't sustain in this, in business at all without that character and competence piece. Can I trust you and are you good at what you do?

You have to have both. So here's a challenge for you listeners today. Identify three People. Identify three people that you want to connect with. Reach out.

Ask one of the three questions we talked about, what challenges you're going through, what are you excited about? And then ask that next question, the follow up question. But identify three people you want to connect with.

Go ask them questions about themselves, of how you can help, how you can serve them. The goal is to listen, is to learn, and it's to look for ways that you can serve them. You can't automate conversations.

You can automate some connections, right? You can have an email campaign, a drip campaign, postcards. You can automate some connections. Social media, you can automate.

You can automate some of these connections. They're not deep connections, but they're connections. But you can never automate conversations. That has to be initiated.

My encouragement to you is initiate those conversations. Don't wait. Don't wait for people. I think one of my gifts that I have is I take action, and I'm gonna encourage you to take action.

I wasn't always like that. I had to grow. I had to get out of my own way, right? Like, I was that selfish person that made it all about me.

Like, oh, they don't want to hear from me. I don't know what I'm gonna say. Well, guess what? Now I know what to say. Hey, how can I help you?

Helping others win is the single greatest tool you have in life, helping other people win. So you can't automate conversations, but you can initiate it. So if connecting is first base, then conversation is the moment the game shifts.

You can't skip it. Don't fake it. Be the kind of person who listens with intention and gives without expecting. That's really where the magic's at.

I think we've all heard the Zig Ziglar quote, but if you haven't, and this is the first time, I'm going to bless you with it. Help enough people get what they want, and you'll have everything you want. Say that again.

Help enough people get what they want, and you will have everything that you want. All right, this week, let's practice some meaningful conversations. Let's change the posture of our heart. Our heart set.

Not just change our mindset, but get into the heart set. How's your heart? Your mind can be like, I want to serve people because I get.

And once you change your heart, I'm going to serve people because I want to serve people. And then the blessings occur, then the outcomes occur. But I really believe you gotta, you gotta change that.

So we've talked about conversations today. Hopefully this has been impactful. Whether you're in business or you're not in business.

Having conversations with people, getting around second base, you know, on your way home, that's really where where winning starts. You got to connect with people. You got to take action. You know, connecting is about taking action.

Having conversations is about getting out of your own way and, and trying to understand where other people are and how to really serve them. Please read the Go Giver. It's a fantastic short read. It's a. It's a great book. It's fundamental. Conversations in the.

In the relationships win framework is what we call second base. And second base is where trust is built and needs of other people are discovered. Don't just make contact, set out to make conversations.

Thanks for listening today. Next week we're going to talk about third base, which is the power of introductions and how giving them changes the game.

A lot of people think introductions are all about referrals. I love referral referrals. I'm never too busy for referrals. A lot of people say, I love your referrals. But let's talk about introductions.

Okay, let's talk about introductions. That's going to be on the next episode. Thanks for listening. This was helpful.

Screenshot this Tag me on social media radnull and I'll make more content just like this. Remember, in the game of life, relationships win. Have a go. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to Student of the Game podcast.

Whatever game you are playing, I'm cheering for you. See you in the next class.