Episode 351: Say Less, Get More with Fotini Iconomopoulos

Welcome to another episode of the Above the Business podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Fotini Economopoulos. So she's the person that Fortune 50 companies call to help them through their high-stakes negotiations or train them to upgrade their negotiation, communication, and persuasion skills. HarperCollins noticed her frequent media appearances on Forbes and CNBC, Harvard Business Review, et cetera. And they asked her to write her first and now bestselling book, Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want. I loved this conversation. I learned so many different things. I don't know if many of you can see— you're listening, probably can't— my page of notes that I took away from this conversation. So many one-liners, and one that I think you're going to love, but the more you say, the more you give away. I'll just leave it there and then you'll hear in the episode itself. So whether it's in sales or whether you're negotiating a business deal, I think you're going to get a ton out of this conversation with Fotini. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Fotini Economopoulos. Fotini, welcome to the Above the Business podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited about this conversation.

Me as well. Well, we always start with background and origin stories. Why don't you take our listeners back to kind of where you began and how you got to where you are today?

I mean, I could go way, way back and tell you that my dad is the one that nicknamed me the negotiator when I was a kid. So that gives you an inkling of what my personality was like as a child, or maybe just the circumstances that I was raised in. Because if you've ever seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that was my life. So you have to negotiate your way out of the house. Um, and then I ended up starting a business with him when I was in high school. So I actually was working in a leather boutique back in my hometown, and he told me, you need to quit your job, um, next month. And I said, why? And I said, because— he goes, because we're opening up our own leather boutique. And I go, what do you know about leather and fur? And he said, I know I have a smart kid, so why should you be making money for someone else? Because I was raised in the restaurant industry. I literally went to the kitchen after school instead of home because we just waited for my parents to close up shop. Um, so the entrepreneurial part of my life started really, really early, and then I kind of rejected it and went to school. I went to university and, uh, got a degree in everything and ended up with an MBA in organizational behavior and started working for a company called L'Oréal where I was negotiating with Walmart on a regular basis. So that was my job, was to increase the flow of goods from my company to theirs. And I did that for a number of years. And then I was poached by Smucker's, a food company, and I was working for them for a little bit. And very early in my career there, an outside firm was hired to train us to be more effective negotiators. And so I really enjoyed the training and I did really well on it. And my facilitator said, you should really be doing what we do. And I was like, yeah, sure, someday when I have more experience, because I hadn't even turned 30 yet. I did a lot of this stuff early. And he said, no, seriously. You should be doing what we do. And about a year later, that's how long it took him to convince me to join the company. And I was crisscrossing the globe, training everybody from the CEO of an oil and gas company down to a junior account manager at Nestlé and everybody in between. And so I was working with them on training them for upskilling them for any type of negotiation. And then they'd go, oh, well, it's great that you trained our team, but we have $100 million on the line and we have a billion on the line. What do we do? What do we say? And so then I started working with them on their real life negotiations and advising them and sitting in the war room with them and plotting things out on whiteboards and who's gonna say what and when and how. And that became really fun. And then about 5 years into that, my values and my company's values were shifting in different directions and I decided to quit. And my clients went, so when are you gonna come back and work with us again? I said, I don't work for that company. And they said, we didn't hire the company, we hired Fotini, we wanna keep working with you. And I was like, oh, I guess I'll, I didn't have, I had no plan, which is a weird thing for me, but I had no plan. I just knew I had really great relationships all over my network. And I said, oh, I'll just do this favor to a friend because that's my clients had become friends until I have to get a real job. And 9 years later, it's become this— it's morphed into this really strange universe of, hey, can you do this bespoke training for us? Hey, can you help us on this real-life negotiation? Hey, can you speak at our national sales meeting? And then HarperCollins came knocking on my door and said, we saw you on video and we think you have a book in you. And my alma mater knocked on my door and said, can you come back and teach MBA students? And so it's been this weird evolution of mishmash of everything that I can do to put messages out into the universe to help people get what they want.

Oh, that's fantastic. What a great story. Well, I want to go back. I'm, I'm, I'm curious if you could share whenever you were, um, at L'Oréal and you were put in that environment to be negotiating then, but that was before you really had official training, it sounds like. I'm, I'm sure that they gave you some training. What are some of the things maybe mistakes or things that happened during that time that you look back on that really helped you, but in the moment were probably not as, as, as great of experiences when you were thrown into the fire negotiating, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts.

So it, it was such a weird experience because I was one of the youngest people calling on Walmart. So when you sat in that lobby and you're looking around and you're like 25 and everybody else is, has been doing this for decades. It's a weird thing. And to get someone who's been doing this— my buyer in the cosmetics department had been doing it for 30 years. So to get her to trust you is really hard. And when I shifted from cosmetics to food, it was the same thing. Like, I'm starting from scratch with brand new relationships and this older woman going, what do you know about my business? Kind of thing. So it was a weird scenario. But what I found was I didn't know it at the time. In hindsight, I realized I was just building really great relationships. And I, something that I was doing made them trust me because I could remember one meeting where I sat with my manager and Walmart has a very specific way of doing business. And so they have a scorecard, literally their software spits this thing out and in the grid, they like to point to very specific cells and go, your number here sucks. You need to do something about it and your number over here needs to be better and so on. So we had just done a launch that was awful. Like, there was— we thought it was gonna be great. We had supply chain issues and stock wasn't there. Consumers weren't buying it up the way they thought they would. So I made all these promises when we negotiated this deal and they weren't coming to fruition. And I sat there in the meeting and I was meant to be there not only to take on the bad news where they were about to point at this document and tell me all the things that I was doing poorly, but I'm supposed to sell to them the next launch that's coming in because every 6 months in cosmetics, it's fashion, right? So it's moving quickly. And, um, I— my manager was with me, and not only was it my buyer, but it was the head of the entire area of the business. And so he— it was just— it was just bad news all around. And I said, yep, totally hear that. So here's what we have coming down the pipe. We're going to take this number, we're going to move it here, we're going to do this, and so on. And look at this number over here that shows really promising. And at the end of it, they were all really happy. We walked out of that meeting, we got commitments to whatever it was that we needed to do next for this next big launch, and we walked out of that meeting and my boss said to me, and my boss had been in the business for a number of decades too. She goes, I don't know how you did that. I go, what do you mean? She goes, I don't know how you took bad stuff. There was nothing good in there and you managed to get them to commit to this thing. That is, how did we even do that? And I said, I don't know. But in hindsight, you know, on reflection many years later, because this story stays with me many years later, it really was the relationships. That they went, okay, if Fotini's telling me she's doing everything she can to correct that, I believe her. And as a result of that, I'm going to trust that she's going to do all these things that she's going to do next. And that also translated to other relationships. So I had a number of categories under my belt. So it was, you know, women's stuff. And then I had a tiny little men's skincare line. I'm pretty sure it still exists today, but it was impossible to even get a meeting with that buyer because the same buyer did razor blades. So you can imagine, like, that's a massive, a massive category for him. He's like, I'm dealing with Gillette and all these guys. I don't need to deal with you, one tiny little corner of my giant wall of razor blades. And so I couldn't even get a meeting when I took on that category. He wouldn't answer my emails. He wouldn't respond to anything. I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to save this business because clearly he doesn't want it on shelf if he's not even giving me the time of day. And I sat in that, that vendor waiting area one day to go speak to my sun care buyer because that was another one of the categories I managed. And as the buyer was coming out, he goes, oh hey Fotini, I'm just on my way to lunch, I'll see you when I come back. And following him was the men's skincare buyer who wouldn't answer my emails, didn't give me any kind of acknowledgement whatsoever. But with the sun care buyer, like, we had the whole warm hello and all of that kind of stuff and lovely to see you and all of those things. That afternoon I got an email from the skincare buyer saying, so-and-so said great things, I'll meet with you tomorrow at 7 AM. So those relationships, that network that I had built inside the walls of Walmart, are what got me in the door for some of the other new relationships. So that trust, right, that, that ability to go, she's the real deal, she's gonna do what she says she's gonna do, that she's in there fighting for me in her own head office. That made a world of difference in terms of my success with that brand, with that other person who had no idea who I was, who was revolting against having me in his office. But I managed to turn it around because of the social smell of what other people were experiencing with me. So for me, it was those relationships that made a world of difference when the news was bad.

I'm going to come back to relationships and trust because I think in that you shared and used the word trust about 4 or 5 times. So I want to come back to that specifically about how to build trust in negotiation. But before I get there, there was a prevailing thought that I had. It was almost an underlying thought in my career for a long time in business, is that some people are just naturally born really strong business owners or entrepreneurs. They are just naturally gifted and have these skills. And then I began to realize, no, actually being a business owner, being an entrepreneur is really a combination of a lot of different skills. And sure, some of the things may be, may come hardwired. But the good news is for me, as I began to realize, no, I can actually acquire these skills. I can go read the books, I can put myself in the, in the rooms and at the tables with people who know these things and I can learn them. Can negotiation be learned? Because whenever you were talking about that, like you just stepped into that room, it kind of becomes— I'm sure you've been told that you're a natural, you're a natural in these situations. But can negotiation and being a really good negotiator be learned?

100%. And in fact, there's studies to show that too. There's a really great book, um, talking about what you just touched on by Carol Dweck called— I think it's called Growth Mindset. And so when you go in there knowing that you can actually achieve something or that you can learn something, you actually do learn. You expand your horizons. But if you— and this is one of the reasons why even as kids, if you say to somebody, oh, you're really good at math, that's actually a limiting belief. So it sounds absurd because they're going to go, okay, well, this is either I don't have to study for it, then I'm just good at it, or I'm good at math and I'm by default, my brain's hearing that I'm not good at other things. Whereas we can learn all of these things. And I see it with my MBA students too. And in week 1 of 12, that's the first thing I tell them is that you're not born a great negotiator. Some of us may naturally have an inclination towards some of these things, but you can actually build those skill sets as well. So it's really just practice makes progress for part of it and being able to open your mind. Mindset is the other thing because people tell me all the time too, they're like, can't I just put a little bug in my ear and you can tell me what to do and say when I get in there? I'm like, that would be so much fun for me. But the reality is unless you get your mindset right, anything that comes outta your mouth is gonna come out a jumbled mess. Even though I'm telling you what to say, it's not gonna be believable. It's not gonna be something that people believe in because of how you delivered it. And that all comes with your brain first. Then we can translate it into what comes out of your mouth. So yes, there's a lot of neuroscience behind how we learn and what we learn. And I have seen massive transformations from people who have, who have been in my classes for 12 weeks, who have sat in a training with me for 3 days, or I get these lovely messages from people who say, I was in your audience for 20 minutes and this one thing you said changed my world. I started approaching conversations this way. I had a difficult conversation with my boss. I fired a client and I have way more confidence and more time in my schedule to take on new ones. There's all of these really amazing stories just from people opening up their minds a little bit to doing something maybe a little bit different.

You know, one of the benefits of having this podcast for me personally, in my own personal growth, has been to learn to shut up and ask better questions and listen. And that has helped me in other aspects of business. And so your book, Say Less, Get More— when I think about negotiation, I think about my— because Before I went up, the hour or so before we hopped on this call, I was thinking to myself, how do I actually think about negotiation? And like, what are the limiting beliefs that I have? And it is, I will say too much. It's about what I say. And the literal title of your book is Say Less and Get More. And we'll kind of go dive into some aspects of that. Can you just talk about, um, what you mean by say less and get more?

So it's a few different reasons for this. There's a number of meanings behind it. One is just saying less to get your head on straight. Take a moment. We tend to be very reactive. And when it comes to negotiating, when things are very stressful, when you have to have a negotiation, you have to get somebody to come on board with your idea or proposal. That's when you enter this fight or flight mode, right? That's when you enter this elevated stress mode. If we didn't have to negotiate, I wouldn't be stressed. So when you enter that mode, we tend to get overactive in our brains and we tend to get very reactive. And thinking and talking at the same time can get you into trouble. So you don't want to— and the other thing to think about too is I think we've all heard the old adage that knowledge is power. So the more you say, the more you give away, the more you collect from information from people, the more power you have. But if you're the one doing all the talking, When are you going to be able to get that information that you need, that gold that you need in order to understand what's going on with them, to understand what's important to them? What are the solutions that could solve some of these things? What's the real underlying problem that they haven't told me yet? It's being able to say less, to observe what's going on too. So say less to calm your brain and give yourself the clarity that you need in order to be successful at what's about to happen. Say less so that you're not giving away power, and say less so that you can actually take on the power that's being given to you. Because if you're so busy in your overactive brain thinking, what do I say next? What do I say next? What do I say next? You're missing all of the wonderful clues and the power that they're giving you in order to have a successful negotiation. So I just tell people, learn to press your pause button. In fact, I don't know if for those, those who can't see, don't You can't see me putting this pause button in the camera, but I actually give out these little cards at all of my events, and it's a little tiny pause button. And if you can imagine a pause button on your forehead, if you could just press that every time you get yourself into a stressful situation to just slow down and shut up for a moment, to take it all in, to think about what to say, to give them the space to, to feel as though they're being heard and acknowledged. Because we talked about trust earlier, we talked about relationships. One of the things that people want is to feel acknowledged. But if you're steamrolling over them, how are they ever going to feel like you're listening to them? That they feel like they have space in this room, that they feel as though they have some autonomy here versus being forced into something. So it's interesting to hear your perception of negotiation or your first inkling of negotiation. A lot of the feedback I get from my audience is, oh, I'm not a great negotiator. I'm not like those guys on Suits with the slicked back hair and the power suits who are fast talking and so on. The fast talkers aren't the ones who get stuff done. The fast talker, that's fiction. That was created for television. It's great entertainment, but people don't actually operate that way in most circumstances. The really effective negotiators are the ones who sit back, who take everything on board, and maybe even those fast talkers too. They've been sitting back for a really long time and observing. They've been taking it all in so that when their moment comes, they've been doing so much saying less, they get a lot more when they do choose to open their mouths and finally say something.

Before we hit record, or before we got started, I mentioned to you that I was— I've actually been in the last few weeks in some negotiations myself, uh, with a business venture. And one of the times I can look back on, as you were talking about, I was even reflecting on times where I was talking out my ideas real time with the person that I was negotiating with. And I can look back on that and say, oh my goodness, I should have just Paused and held back so much of that because whenever you say the more you say, the more you give away, that is a fantastic one-liner there. Uh, and something I wish that I would have done, but luckily we still have more negotiations to go. So I'm definitely going to be using some of these techniques. All right. I have a question. Your subtitle is Unconventional Negotiation Techniques. What are some of the common, common negotiation techniques or common things that people do and probably the mistakes that we made. Obviously, you just gave us one of them, but what are some of the other ones? And then we can talk about, okay, what's the inverse of that? What are some of the unconventional ways that you actually view negotiation?

So the first one definitely is just shutting up. It's assuming that I have to do all the talking and be in control of the conversation. The way people are actually in control of conversations is by asking great questions. And it's not about asking yes or no questions because that is about asking for permission. That's giving the other, the other party an opportunity to shut things down. I'm going to be asking questions that are how or what style questions because those are going to force us into a problem-solving way of going about the solution versus yes or no. It's very binary. It's a very small way. It's, it's condensing the conversation, whereas I want to expand the conversation. So most people assume, but if I'm asking questions, I'm going to appear weak. So that's another one of those misconceptions that you must appear strong, you must bang your fist on the table. This is like the old school way of thinking from some of those books that have been around for a really long time. There's some really wonderful books, by the way, on negotiation, like Getting to Yes, Getting Past No, all of those William Ury books, fantastic. But some of the, let's call them pop culture bestsellers, that the art of style books that tell you, you need to be strong and you need to puff out your chest, that is nonsense. Because the truth of the matter is today things have changed. Those who did those types of techniques in the past got away with them because of privilege, not because they were really effective. And today, the way society is moving and the way that we are working towards more collaborative styles of things, whether it may seem polarized at times, especially when you think about politics. But the truth of the matter is I don't want someone shoving something down my throat. I want to feel as though I had some say in the matter. I want to feel as though I had autonomy. And so as a result of that, if people want autonomy, the weird way to give them that is by asking them questions. So, one of the things that we talk about in negotiation is in the scientific terms, it's MISOs, Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers. It just means options. So, if you think about a kid, right? For those who have children or spend time with children in their lives, you know that they're the greatest negotiators. They will wear you down. And so, if you were imagining trying to force a child to have vegetables, It probably won't go very well, but you could, you could ask them, so which of these is your favorite vegetable, the broccoli, the carrots, or the cauliflower? And now you're asking them a question to A, get more information and learn something about them rather than fighting them in an argument. B, they feel as though they have some choice in the matter, but truly the choices are all yours. They're all vegetables, the broccoli, the cauliflower, or whatever else I put out there. I'm choosing to stay in the world of vegetables. They don't have a chance. I'm using their subconscious brain to land them and anchor them in this vegetable world before they have a chance to go somewhere else. And so they feel as though that they chose their own destiny, even though really I'm the one mapping out the routes to get there in the first place. So asking those questions, providing those options, sitting quietly and allowing them to give you that information, those are some of the ways that might feel as though I'm— I feel like I'm giving them the power. It feels counterintuitive, But the truth is, you're the one in the driver's seat because you're steering the conversation in the direction that you want it to go. You're the one providing the options. It's like if you had Google Maps in front of you, you're choosing the routes. They don't get to choose a different scenic route to get there. And so by just putting up those little guardrails in the form of questions, you're actually steering it where you want them to go. So those are some of the things like— and people also assume, well, if I'm quiet, especially because I work with a lot of disadvantaged groups, I work with women's groups, immigrants, you know, that kind of stuff. And we know that there's a lot of bias in negotiation if you belong to a disadvantaged group. And so when you don't have that privilege, people say, but if I'm quiet, they're going to steamroll over me. They're going to interrupt me and so on. But it's how you show up, how you use that quiet confidence. Can you frame it and say, I need a moment to think about that, and force them in a very polite way to give you space? Or say, that's an interesting way of thinking about it. Tell me more about this and force them to go down a road perhaps they weren't thinking about going down or hadn't thought about sharing with you. And you get to now sit back. It's not about being quiet and being a wallflower and disappearing into the background. It's physically showing up and using your nonverbal communication. If you're sitting in a room with someone, maybe it's leaning forward, maybe it's sitting back and taking up more physical space. But if you're hiding behind a computer and taking notes, you're gonna be perceived as the secretary in the room as opposed to the person who's here and part of the conversation and the problem-solving opportunity. So it's those little unconventional ways that we probably hadn't thought about where we can still show up and say less and have an impact and be imposing in that room. You know, one of the pieces of feedback I give folks when I was running longer workshops and spending like 4 days with people locked up in a room with them, I would give them one word at the end of the workshop to tell a strength and a weakness. And one of the weaknesses I came up with a lot of people was unimposing. So you can be there and you can say nothing. But if no one's listening to you, no one's paying attention to you and so on, then it's going to go wasted. The say less thing is going to backfire. But if you can show up and make sure that they know you're there, maybe framing your silence, maybe asking that question, maybe even asking for someone to introduce you instead of you introducing yourself, because now there's this social smell this, this societal bias that is actually being used to our advantage. Because if so-and-so is talking about her, if, well, if Bradley talks about her, then she must be great. So those little things that can go a long way that allow you to say less and get others to do the work for you. There's so many interesting ways that we can approach conversations outside of thinking and talking, which can get us into trouble.

You know, I don't think I would have gotten here, but as you were talking, are you familiar with Amy Cuddy's book Presence?

Yeah, I referenced her in the book as well. I love it.

Yeah, it feels that that was— that's where I was kind of going about how you show up, like body language specifically in those that prepares you. Like, you— are you saying social smell, by the way? I've never heard that. That's interesting.

There's two terms, social proof and social smell, that they're interchangeable depending on the behavioral science group that you're with.

Okay.

Okay.

That's great. No, that's great. I mean, it makes total sense for sure. So I wanted to come back around to this and you just kind of teed it up because when you were talking about collaborative collaboration and being collaborative, I wanted to come back around to trust. And I think that especially with AI the last year and a half or so really coming up, it seems like I think AI is going to make more things to where people are going to be more skeptical of what we see online, even on social media, et cetera, about like, wait a minute, is this Is this really Bettini? Is this really Bradley? Or is this the AI version of that? And, and so how do we build trust both, okay, in an online setting situation, but also I'm also specifically thinking about when you were in the boardroom with Walmart, maybe you've met these people just recently. Maybe that's the first time to shake their hand. How do you build trust in a very short period of time? So for instance, the, the situation I was referring to earlier, I have a long relationship with this person. So we have years of trust with one another and building of a, of a relationship. Okay, so there's a lot of underlying trust with that. But in some other situations, you're building trust in a very short amount of time. And so how do we do that the right way in these negotiations?

Yeah, I mean, when I think about even how I show up to a lot of events, people have never heard of me and I'm showing up to take up an hour of their time. That's a negotiation in itself when I'm showing up to do a keynote, right?

Sure.

And I have been in situations where I tell some of these colorful stories in the book where I show up and older men will go, what are you going to teach me, little girl? So in that first 30 seconds of meeting me, they're like, you, you're the one that's the guru who's going to tell us how to change our business? I don't think so. So there's some shortcuts that you can take, and I mentioned one of them already is, is using, using that social proof. Just in the act of having someone else introduce you, that's massive. So you're now using their credit with that individual, for one. You can even drop their names, and I'm not talking in a in an arrogant, hey, I know everybody and look at all the famous people I know, but name dropping someone they know and doing it in the form of a compliment. Right. So Jake said such wonderful things about you. I'm very excited about this conversation. So now it's going, oh, well, if you know Jake and I know Jake, I'm not going to be a jerk because that's going to get back to Jake. And I want to make sure that my reputation with him is still intact.

Sure.

So now there's this other accountability that's going to be had on the other side. And this is one of the ones I tell my folks, my students, all the time when they're negotiating for job offers. If there's been a third party that they both know, then they're more likely to not get a lowball offer if they have— if they mention that other person's name. Like, so-and-so said wonderful things about working for this company. Oh, they know so-and-so, so they must know something about our salaries. I need to make sure I'm not coming— I'm not giving a bad impression in this one. So those are, those are a few of the really easy shortcuts you can take when you know somebody in the mix. If you don't know somebody, then I would, I would borrow from Robert Cialdini, is the godfather of all things persuasion. And so he talks about the likability factor. And so likability comes from generally 3 things. It comes from, we like people we have something in common with. So I could say, I could say, oh, you look like you've been to the Masters, you're wearing a Masters hat. My friends just got back from that. In fact, one of my clients last year asked me for advice on helping him negotiate a package to go to the Masters this year. And so now, you know, we have a laugh, we have something in common, we have something to talk about together. There's a, there's a draw that makes us want to work together to keep this conversation going. Maybe not to agree to everything about to say, but there's an interest in something that we have in common one another because I even— so I, I have, um, clients who are matchmakers. I've spoken at matchmaker conferences and they become some of my friends. And so I, I know a lot about the dating world, not only as a single woman navigating it, but also as a behavioral scientist paying attention to some of those things. And one of the things that I read about recently when they talked about hacking dating apps— so how do you make an impression? Talk about building trust quickly, right? Um, so hacking dating apps is using the prompts that say something like, I'm looking for, not in a selfish way. But when you tell someone, I'm looking for someone who does this, this, and this interest that we share, now that other person goes, oh, I feel seen, I feel acknowledged. People want to be acknowledged. And that's why that likability, that having something in common that Cialdini talks about, that's why this works so nicely for so many people.

So Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, Create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee, or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. That will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm. Ambition is the first step towards success. It's time to level up your agency, and Coach P Consulting will help you do just that by using the same strategies he used to sell over 7 $1,200,000 life insurance policies in 2021 alone. Now, this is not your regular one-and-done type coaching. You'll get personalized coaching 2 days a week, every week of the month, and you'll get a live look behind the scenes of his team training and an office that's performing at the highest level. There's a reason Coach P Consulting is the fastest growing coaching company for insurance agency owners in the country. Coach P will train your team alongside his own and show you the exact steps they're taking to achieve Chairman Circle, Exotic travel and multi-line presence club and be one of the few agents to be selected to have a third office. So whether your goal is to be at the top of your local market or amongst the best in the country, this training will give you the strategies and the tactics to get there. For just $250 a month, you'll get high-level coaching each week from someone who is already getting it done at that level, and his strategies work, and it's time to put them to work for you. Sign up at coachpconsulting.com and get your first full month for free when you mention the Club Capital leadership podcast.

We want to know that we are acknowledged, and that's why, again, asking questions works so nicely too. I want to learn something about you. I'm curious about you. I'm acknowledging you and your presence. I'm allowing your voice to be heard versus steamrolling over you with my USPs, my unique selling points, right? I see a lot— I meet a lot of salespeople that I work with on a day-to-day basis. I've sat amongst them as well. I can still remember when I was, um, When I was a new consultant in the business I used to work for, and I went on the road with our other sales guys to learn how to do the selling. And at some point I had to like nudge my, my colleague who was doing the pitch and I was there observing. I had to like stamp his foot to get him to stop talking because I noticed on the other side of the table, the woman in HR who we were selling training to was trying to say something like you could see her like slightly opened her mouth a little bit, that moment where you go, I can tell someone wants to say something, but I'm not gonna stop talking to allow them that space to say it because I wanna make sure I get my pitch out there. There's these 5 things I want people to know about my business. And so I had to like stomp his foot under the table to get him to shut up. And then I'd go, it sounds like you wanna say something. What is it you wanna share with us? So just to give that person that space, that acknowledgement is huge in terms of building trust. I know that we go in there so well prepared. And we want to tell them all the wonderful things about us and our business and so on. But we need to take the time to learn about them, to make them feel acknowledged. So it's, it's that likability factor of finding something in common. It's paying a genuine compliment before business begins. Because if you start paying them compliments in the middle of the negotiation, they're gonna go, this clearly feels like a manipulation tactic. Like, what are you trying to get out of me type of thing. But we like to feel good. We like to get those compliments. And then it's that cooperative behavior. We like cooperative people. If you're going to come in here making demands and banging your fist on the table and say, look, we only work with people who do this, this, and this, I'm going to be like, well, maybe I don't want to work with you then, even if I fill those criteria, because I don't like someone coming in here and being demanding. But if you go, tell me about your values, and then they tell you about your values and how they work, and you go, oh, That's so in line with what we do too. Look at all the wonderful things we have in common. That level of curiosity says to people, they wanna know about me. They're not just going to force me into something I don't want. They're willing to, to work with me versus against me. Those are the elements that are going to speed up things. So even when I'm working with a new client, even when they've booked me, like, I know I'm gonna show up to this keynote. I know they spoke to my agents and I'm going to be there that day, we always do a debrief call before I go in there so that I can make sure that I'm going to knock it out of the park. And the first thing I say is, tell me a little bit about the folks in your audience. Tell me who's in the room and what are the things that keep them up at night? What are the things that you're trying to get out of this conference or whatever that I'm going to be speaking at? And as soon as they start telling me those things, I go, got it. It sounds like these are some of the things that are of interest to you. And then they go, yes. And I'm really just repeating back what they just told me, but they feel acknowledged and that doesn't take a lot of time. So yes, it's important to introduce yourself and share with them, here's what I'm capable of and pitch yourself and all of those things. But if you don't know anything about them, how are you going to frame up your pitch in a way that's going to sound appealing to them? So it's really just that really quick ways of getting to know people, of finding that little thing in common, of asking them a really great question, of just dropping that other name to, to ensure that you have something in common, to build on somebody else's banked trust. Those little things can go a really long way.

You know, there's so much you said there that I love. For people that don't know, obviously none of our listeners know, Jake Thompson, who we've had on the podcast twice, recommended you. And so to your point about being introduced, that had a lot of credence to me, right? Because if he recommended— he's, he's bumped into you a number of times. I don't know how much you guys know each other, but I mean, it felt, you know, very, uh, important to me. Like, I was excited to be able to have you, have you on through his recommendation. I also love the likability, the genuine curiosity, um, whenever you're meeting with someone and actually saying, oh yeah, I actually really love those shoes, and You know, you and I had a talk before we got started about, you know, you live in Toronto and I'm in Alabama and, you know, we had travels up there. So I think all of those make sense. I'm curious, just in general, is a— I'm going to go into this negotiation attempting for it to be a win-win. Is that, is that the right mindset to have that, hey, let's, let's come to a place where it's a win-win like that? Those words actually just came out of my mouth. In the last 24 hours is, let's find a way for this to be a win-win. Is that detrimental in negotiation?

In a utopia, it would be ideal. The reality is we don't live in a utopia. And so there are some circumstances where there is an opportunity for a win-win. But there are other circumstances where that's just not going to be the case. And so we need to make the— if it's going to be a win-lose type of scenario, we need to help manage that scenario. And so I think it's too idyllic to assume that everything can be a win-win. And when I talk to my groups when I'm teaching, I talk to people about the spectrum of negotiation. And so there's the win-lose side of the spectrum where it's zero-sum gain. Whatever I take, you lose. Whatever you take, I lose. So if it's just about cash, if it's an eBay auction, if it's that kind of scenario, there's no win-win in it because I want to win as much money as I can and you want to save as much money as you can. So what is the win there that you got rid of whatever it was that you were selling? I don't know. You could, I guess it depends on how you define win-win. But in my world, win-win is truly defined by there's something of value that I got out of this and there's something of value that you got out of this beyond the fact that we just got to some type of agreement. The fact that I didn't lose my shirt or I didn't lose my home or whatever else is going to come up. So when it comes to those win-wins, I would love to find those opportunities because I do think the big mistake a lot of folks make, and again, this goes back to the old way of thinking of negotiation, is that I need to win at all costs. And that is an erroneous way of thinking too, because we might be limiting— I'm going to use a cliché, grow the pie type of scenario. If you only think about cash or only think about profitability, and I've been involved in a lot of these negotiations, both in my Walmart days and involved in helping my clients through those types of negotiations where basically the big giant global retailer says, I want you to transfer your P&L down to my P&L. Really, that's not— there's no win-win in that, but we could turn it into a win-win if they have the capability to do that. So we could say, look, there are ways that you can help me grow my business, and there are ways that I can help you grow your business. And if there's opportunity for those types of conversations, great. And it could be teeny tiny ways just to create the smallest of wins to make everybody feel a little bit better and walk away a little bit more satisfied. But there are some scenarios and some not even scenarios, but negotiators who are just not capable of that. I could speak about a polarizing political figure. I'm not gonna name names here because it has nothing to do with my politics. But there are some types of people who just aren't capable of seeing the long term. They're very short-term, win-lose type of people. They don't care about the consequences. There are consequences to those win-lose scenarios. And even when I'm dealing with clients, I'm working on a price increase, um, with a client this week, and like, this is something that comes up over and over again, and that there's no winning in that for the other party. My client needs to increase their prices, Supply chain issues have gone up. Raw materials have gone up. All of these things. There is no win on the other side for the person who's receiving this price increase. And so we are aware of the fact that this is gonna cause some relational damage short-term. And so as part of the process, we know when we deliver that bad news, we know we need to do it at a time where there's gonna be a repair timeline. We literally map it out on a wall. On a strategic timeline and go, when is the ideal time to drop this? If there's a really big promotion I need to hit right after that, if there's something I need their commitment on immediately after their follow-through, whatever, this is not the time for me to do that because if they're pissed off at me, they're not going to do their best when it's time to execute this other thing. So I need to build in that repair time. And what am I going to do during that repair time in order to make this okay with them? Maybe it's giving them space, maybe it's taking them to a game, maybe it's dining, wining and dining them, maybe it's sharing some good news about a new launch coming up or a new opportunity that's coming once they've had some space to cool off. You know, I need to factor that into this win-lose type of scenario because when it's just focused on price and there's, there are circumstances where that's the case, there's no win in it for the other party. They're gonna lose something. If you can find ways to expand the pie and go, hey, it might seem like a loss now, but here's what we're gonna do with that level of investment. We're gonna reinvest it back with you. And if you can get them to see that timeline on the horizon, then maybe we can turn it into a win-win. But the error is in assuming that it's a win-win. I would like to find it. That is my goal. Ultimately, it's gonna be a much more pleasant negotiation if we can find the win-win. But the assumption that the other person is capable of that or that there is opportunity for that is a dangerous one. So it takes a lot of work and homework, and it also takes a lot of work on the other party to get them to open up to the opportunity because I have worked with lots of clients who are working with very close-minded counterparts. And it takes, you know, months of working on them to get them to open up to some of those opportunities. And that's why I'm usually called in so early on these very high-level and high-value strategic negotiations.

You know, it also makes me think that win-win doesn't mean it's equal either. It doesn't mean it's 50/50.

Yeah.

A win doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be exactly the same for both parties. And the second, and really the last question, Also, um, I think it was a great segue is that through negotiation, that the fear can be, well, because of these high stakes, it could damage our relationship. But you mentioned that it actually, done correctly, can build relationships. Can you speak to that?

So when, when I, even in that dating world scenario, um, when you can say, when you can tap into something that makes people go, oh, they listened to me, they acknowledged me, they found that little thing that I didn't— I completely forgot about that would be valuable. Now all of a sudden they're going, if you're listening to me, then I trust you. And as a result of trusting you, I'm probably gonna open up more. And as a result of opening up more, I'm gonna open up more opportunities with you to find new ways to work together. So for example, I had a client who reached out. Somebody was in an audience at a keynote that I was giving and they wanted to do. They're like, you still do training? And I said, yeah, I do. And so they wanted to train their team and they were a small company and, but they're a lovely group of people. And they, when I told them my pricing, they were like, you're clearly worth it because that's why we're having the conversation, but we don't have that kind of budget. And I said, well, I don't want to turn this into a win-lose scenario. Let's talk about where other value could come from. I need to achieve X amount of value. Now that could come from your wallet. It could come from your bank account. Or it can come from you helping me make money from other folks. So referrals. I said, what's important to me is to be on lots of stages, is to get introduced to lots of new clients, is to get my book into the hands of a lot more people and so on. And they said, oh, we have ways to do that. We have this software that's going to introduce you that has all of these listings that you're going to need and so on and so forth. We have these connections to a million different conferences and so on. I go, fantastic. And we started having this really creative conversation. Where they were giving me things that would help me achieve that, you know, that bank account number that I needed from them without it having to come from their bank account. So now all of a sudden we can have this really cool conversation. And it kind of goes back to where you and I started this conversation, where I did say, saying less, you don't want to just give away all this information. But when you build trust, you do need to start sharing information. So you don't— you— it's about being measured about it, though, and doing it carefully versus just giving it away willy-nilly. And so when I know I can trust you, now I'm going to feel a little bit more open to give you enough information that we can actually create more value together. Because if I stay closed-lipped the whole time, you're not going to know what's important to me. So how could you possibly come up with a proposal that's valuable to me if you don't know what's valuable to me? That doesn't mean I'm going to share all of my weaknesses with you. But I'm gonna be much more measured and much more considered when I think about what I'm gonna share versus being reactive and just sharing too much too quickly. And so now I've got control over how I'm going to be sharing. And now, based on how we start to build that trust together and how we start sharing information, we create this reciprocity. Because when you share a little bit, I share a little bit, and then we start sharing more. And that's when we find this really cool way of finding more things in common. Finding more values that overlap, finding those really cool win-wins that we didn't think were possible. And I have seen this play out time and time again with the clients that I work with when I send them into those really tough negotiation rooms and they come out the other side and they go, we thought this was going to be so confrontational, but when we started that conversation, we started to tap into things that were important to both of us. We came up with this really cool long-term program together. We came up with this really cool solution that they're going to roll out to the rest of their departments, and so on and so forth. All because we had a really great conversation, because we built enough trust to want to share information with one another, and because we also recognize that we have some values that we wanted to work on. Or maybe it was the conversation that helped us to realize, you know what, our values are going in different directions. Maybe this isn't a great match, and that's okay too. Um, so in, in businesses, sometimes we need to you know, disentangle ourselves to make room for other people who come in as well. But you can't do that until you start to explore those relationships a little bit further.

Oh, that's so good. You know, I was thinking as you were sharing that there's been times where I've been tight-lipped. And you get to a point whenever you have built that trust that they're waiting for you to say something, it's the time to say something. And if you stay too tight-lipped, then it creates tension. And now it's gone the other way. Because it was the opportunity to actually begin to, to speak. I think that was really good. I love the word measured as well. Measured in whenever you give, not just like you said earlier, the more you say, the more you give away. But at some point it does come around to where it's okay, now we've built trust, now it's time to begin to actually share. This has been fantastic.

One thing to, to build on that is it— and this comes back to like, how do you build trust quickly? Sometimes if, if you don't want to share something just in the act of sharing something they already know. So it might be something they read on your website or they heard from your mutual friend or whatever. Just in the act of sharing something they already know, they're going, oh, here's somebody who appears to be open, even though you haven't shared anything new. Or maybe they don't know that you already know kind of thing. But just in that act of going, well, here, I can't tell you that. I can't tell you the secret recipe, but here's what I can share with you. And even if it's something that they already know, they go, oh, well, she's trying or he's trying to share something with me. So therefore this is somebody who's trying to work with me versus against me. Just those little tiny things and how we frame stuff can go a really long way.

Well, that's fantastic. How can people find you? Where would you point them to if they want to connect with you? Learn obviously about you and your book and speaking.

The easiest spot is my website. I've shortened the name so you don't get it wrong. It's fotiniaykon.com. And I'm also the only Fotini Aykon on LinkedIn. So I call them opolis there, of course. Um, I'm on the Instagrams and stuff too. I like sharing on stories when an idea pops into my head. Uh, but those are the easiest spots to, to find me is my website and LinkedIn.

Awesome. All right, last question. The name of the podcast is Above the Business. What do you think being able to work above the business actually means? How does that resonate with you?

It totally— I feel like this is the first year I've, I've stopped focusing solely working in the business and working above the the business, or in my world, on the business. And that really is about being able to take space mentally to go, okay, I'm immersed in stuff. Like when we get off this call, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start preparing for tomorrow's group. I'm doing this price increase stuff and I gotta immerse myself in PowerPoints and all that kind of stuff and learn about them and plan my stuff. But I need those days where, or maybe even just hours sometimes, where I can block and go, where's the business going? Where do I see myself in 5 years? What skills do I need to build for myself in order to get to that place? Or what recovery time do I need? But I need to get that high-level view because I have found myself in burnout mode way too many times where I'm working in the business so much and then I can barely come up for air and I'm like, it's been 5 years since I've taken a real vacation. What the hell just happened? Um, so I, I have been much, much better at working on the long-term goals of the business, not just, you know, saying yes to everything that comes along all the time because I have a lot of fun. Fun saying yes, but I also need to balance it a little bit more with, well, if I'm going to be better at this in the long term and I'm going to keep serving clients really well, here are the things that I need to put into practice, both in terms of my personal skill set, the structure of the business, the timing of things, and so on. And who do I bring in to support me in some of that stuff? Um, you— I need that space. I need to create that space in order to do that, that higher level of thinking.

Oh, what a great answer. This has been fantastic, Fotini. Thank you so much. Hope to have you back on in the future.

I would love that.

All right, that was awesome. That was great. Um, 3 quick questions and I'll let you go. One is, how can I help you? Obviously, the— your podcast is a really quick turnaround. We usually don't have that quick of a turnaround. Yours is dropping Monday, as a matter of fact, so it's turning around pretty quickly. Um, but other than that, how can we support you? How can I help you?

Oh, that's a great question. I wish I had a better answer. I mean, I love to be on stages. I love to do more of these conversations. So if you know anybody who I should be introduced to, I would absolutely adore that.

Okay. All right. Fantastic. I'll think through some people that I think would be great for you to, to speak to and get connected with for sure. Who else do you— just as I asked Jay, do you know of one or two other people that you think would be great fits to come on this podcast?

I can think of one person in particular who— I mean, I'm sure I can think of lots of them if I, if I spend some time on it, but immediately the name that comes to mind is a friend of mine, um, for small businesses and, and even that, like, the bigger size of businesses as well. She's a customer experience expert.

Oh, great.

And so she helps everybody from tiny little businesses. She, she grew up in Niagara, where I was born and raised, and, um, so she helps tiny little businesses there, and then she goes globally and helps businesses all over the place at different sizes. And so it's helping people understand the difference between customer experience and customer uh, in customer service. Like, people assume customer service, I've got that covered, I've got someone who answers the phone and so on. But she helps them think about the journey to help really blow up their businesses and what they're known for and so on. So I think for your audience, yes, that would be ideal. So her name is Crystal D'Acuna. I'll, um, I'll send you— D'Acuna is spelled D apostrophe C-U-N-H-A. Um, I'm trying to remember the name of her The Inside View is the name of her business. Um, so she's a lovely human and just so like brilliant at what it is that she does.

Fantastic. That's great. Um, personal, uh, thought. If down the road, I asked Jake this too, um, in the next probably 2025 or so, I personally am going to work to try to get on stages as well to speak, to do that. I'm first working on my book that would come out, or I'm working on to get finished by the end of this year. And then I want to kind of begin the book and, and speaking tours. Would it be okay if I reached out to you in a year or so to just pick your brain for 5 minutes to give maybe some input into, you know, that world, which I don't know of obviously at all? That would be great if I could do that.

Absolutely. I'm— and there's so much I can share both about the book world and the Jake and I had very different experiences with book writing. So I went through HarperCollins, they asked me to write a book. So I didn't plan it. And I learned a lot of mistakes along the way. And I don't know if Jake's introduced you to our friend Henna, Henna Prior.

Yes, yes. As a matter of fact, yes, I have got her coming on the podcast coming up soon. Yes.

Yeah. So she— so I met Jake through Hena. Hena just had a really great book launch. She did the, let's call it hybrid publishing route, whereas I did the traditional dinosaur route, which I would not recommend to folks. But she had a great launch, so she'd be a great person to talk to about that. Jake had a good launch too. Jake's launched a few books, but Hena had a unique experience with Idea Press, who I really like down in the States, because Rohit, who owns Idea Press, is a marketer. So she'll have some really good insights about book publishing down that road. And if you ever want to learn about, about the traditional publisher, which I don't recommend, I'm happy to talk to you about it, but I don't think you should go there. But when it comes to the speaking stuff, I've gotten so much more involved in the National Speakers Association in the last year because I've been doing this just by request for such a long time and getting in with agencies just because of natural organic growth. But I'm now really taking that time to work above the business and go, what do I need to put in place? What are the foundational elements that I need to make sure I've got going on and so on. So there's a lot to learn about the speaking world too that will get you up to speed really quickly. But honestly, the number one thing I would tell you to do now before you even want to get paid for it is get the experience. Go to, you know, Chambers of Commerce, whatever it is who need free speakers, just to get that experience under your belt, to play with material, to see what's resonating with people. Because the last thing you want to do is play when you're getting paid and then bombing. I mean, there's a lot to learn from bombing too, but there's a lot of low-risk places where you could really fine-tune your material.

Oh, great feedback there. Thank you so much. Yeah, actually, uh, uh, Hannah is coming on the podcast today. I'll be here later on today, so that's how I say hi. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for that. I really do appreciate that.

And the other thing too, to expedite your work in the speaking space too, is there's some phenomenal speaking coaches that I have now worked with. Like, and I wrote my own speeches while I was getting started, but in the last year I feel like I've elevated my game. By working with a couple of people. And so there's some very expensive ways to go, which I don't recommend. And there's some very value-focused ways to go, which are amazing at really just launching forward. So when you're ready to make investments like that, let me know and I'm happy to give you some advice.

I honestly will. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate that. You were fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, have a great day and enjoy your chat with Hena.

All right. Will do. Thanks. Have a good day.

Bye-bye.

You know, I mentioned in the intro that I really love that conversation and I love the one-liner. The more you say, the more you give away. Just do not give away power. But when you've built trust, then be measured in whenever you're sharing. I wrote so many different things down that I thought were really poignant for me, things that I'll take away. That was one of them. Another one was that I did want to ask the question around, you know, do you go into negotiations with a win-win?

Attitude.

I think for whatever reason in my mind, I was thinking around negotiations being it's a win-win, but it becomes 50-50. And that's not always the case. She said, you know, in a utopia world, then it would be a win-win and maybe equal on either side. But that's not always the case. Also loved things like quiet confidence, how you physically show up. If you've not read the book. um, uh, by Amy Cuddy, uh, Presence. That is a fantastic book where she talks around a lot around body language and how you show up, etc., and how, um, you can— like, the way that you are, um, through nonverbal cues— that's what I was trying to think through— um, how that has an impact into the conversations and negotiation and persuasion, whether it's in the boardroom or even today, obviously on Zoom. I thought the discussion around collaboration and trust building in the little things— have someone else to be able to introduce you, uh, the likability factor, genuine curiosity, paying other people compliments, etc. Those little things. Uh, also a big one, maybe you should have said this one first, but pausing. Pausing. I tend to in conversations will be quick to want to talk my thoughts out as I'm thinking them, as opposed to pausing. Uh, even in just within my team, having conversations with the different team members, at times I will begin to talk my thoughts out loud. Well, that can be fine if we're in a brainstorming session, but if we're in a high stakes— but in a conversation where Um, maybe I shouldn't be talking things out loud as, as much. I've heard Dan Sullivan say, you know, the worst thing, uh, for an entrepreneur is to brainstorm out loud to the team because the team starts taking that of like, oh, he or she is going to now start to spin up these new, uh, crazy ideas. And I've certainly been guilty of, of doing that as well. So fantastic conversation. Check out her website, fotiniicon.com, fotiniicon.com, and pick up her book. Say Less, Get More. At the time of this dropping, we're just— gosh, this is dropping on a Monday, Monday the 22nd, and it is tomorrow. So if you're listening to this podcast on a Monday, tomorrow and Wednesday, Tuesday and Wednesday, April 23rd and 24th, we're having a 2-day intensive. We're talking about all things team. If you build the team and the team builds the business, I'd love to have you come join us. 2 days, 4 hours, 2 hours on Tuesday, 2 hours on Wednesday. We're going to begin to build things all about the team. How do we try to develop and retain A-players? Go to abovethebusiness.co. You can register for free if you would. Take that last, if you would, part out, team, if you don't mind. Love to have you join us at our 2-day intensive, abovethebusiness.co. Shout out to our podcast partners and our sponsors: Autopilot Recruiting, Coach P Consulting, Today App, and Club Capital. We've just came out of tax season. So did you get hit with a big tax bill? Did you get a bigger refund than you— what you expected? Were there some surprises whenever you ran your corporate and/or your personal tax returns? If so, Club Capital can help you. Go to club.capital, book a no-obligation demo with somebody on the team, and see how they, they can take it from maybe a budget on a spreadsheet or the situation you may have with your local accountant and work with somebody who knows your industry really well. Club Dot Capital. I mentioned that we've got the 2-day intensive all about team. And if you're wanting to build a team, the feedback we've gotten from the experiences that our listeners have had with Autopilot has been fantastic. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com. Autopilotrecruiting.com. Alex has built an incredible organization and team that are dedicated to help you to be able to find and attract great talent to your organization. They are absolutely fantastic in their onboarding and just giving you the different tools that you need to be able not when, not just find people, when you onboard them, how do you onboard team members really, really well and can connect you with the different suppliers for licensing, et cetera. They are fantastic. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com. I think of the all the different hats we have to wear as a small business owner, one of the ones that for most of us is difficult. Now, some of you— and I have a know a few people that are fantastic trainers, they love the sales training, the coaching, the developing— but for some of us, it's maybe not as easy, or maybe we just don't have the time to do it. And so how do we develop ourselves and also to be able to develop our team? And those things feel two different things. But with Coach P, you get both, okay? You can develop yourself and be around a community of like-minded insurance agency owners that are trying to do the exact same thing that you are, as well as being able to have development for your team. So go to coachpconsulting.com. coachpconsulting.com. I love technology. I love the software. I love— it's a Maybe a dream of mine down the road to be able to have a software company. I know nothing about software, but I love interacting with beautiful software and easy-to-use software. That's exactly what you'll get if you work with TodayApp, bro. You'll have an incredible experience. It's corporate approved, going to sync obviously with your corporate approved CRM, plus you get to customize it with different word tracks that you already use or your team. It puts it all in one. Your bonus and your compensation plans, tracking, etc., all in one place. Go to todayapppro.com. Todayapppro.com. Big appreciation to all of our podcast sponsors, allow us to be able to bring on fantastic guests like Fotini. All right, everyone, enjoyed this episode. Hope you did as well. Till next time, lead well.

Yeah!