Losing or never establishing real credibility

Episode 8. 8. 8, 8. 8. Episode There you go. 8. Episode 8. Of the 20 biggest mistakes that most presenters and salespeople and teachers and leaders make, every time they make a presentation that blows up their presentation, bores people to tears, gets horrible results and drives people away. And how to avoid it and how to avoid it and be a rock star. Okay, so this is episode eight. Step 15. This is my. If there's one. If you don't do listen to any of the other ones, listen to this one. I've talked about it several times in some of the other episodes. If you're a presenter and you're presenting anything, a sales presentation, teaching something, teaching kids, I don't care who you are. Step 15. Not necessarily in this order, but the biggest mistake people make is not setting the rules of engagement up front. Not setting the rules of engagement up front. In other words, you have to set the context, set the environment of what's going to be expected. When I start a program, I always start by asking a couple of questions. Why? Because I'm setting the expectation that I'm going to be asking lots of questions. And then I even ask for permission. How many of you notice that I ask a lot of questions? How many are sick of the questions already? How many of you are sick of the last three questions I just asked? Give me a thumbs up or type in the chat box. I'm sick of it already, whatever it is. What am I doing? I'm setting the expectation, I'm letting them know that I'm going to be asking questions and then I ask for permission if it's okay and if they're willing to engage. If you don't do that, you're going to fight an uphill battle, particularly on Zoom, because people are not used to engaging and they don't want to engage. They're in the privacy of their own home, they want to do what they want and they don't want you to grab them and pull them into it. But you're the teacher, you're the leader, you're the person that's going to help them change their lives and learn. So you're going to get that. You want to get their agreement up front of the rules of the game. What are the rules of engagement? Give you an example. You're going to take regular breaks, let's say 5 minute breaks, 10 minute breaks online or offline. So the rule is we have a 10 minute break, okay? And what we want you to do is we want you to be back on time. Because in most Cases. If we go to a break, we say it's 10 minutes, people come wandering back. 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes later, people are milling around. It delays the program. It gets chaotic. Look, if you want a participatory environment, there's good news and bad news. The good news is it's a lot of energy. Bad news is it can get out of control unless you set the parameters around it and set up the rules of engagement. Okay, so you'll be back in 10 minutes, for example. So at eight minutes, we have a countdown clock, and you'll see that you can go get a break, go to your refrigerator, whatever you need to do. But you're going to see a countdown clock, and we're going to be playing music. And when that music starts getting loud, you know it's time, okay? And we expect you when it counts down to zero, you're in front of your camera, your camera switched on, and we're ready to rock and roll. Does everybody agree to do that? Give me a thumbs up if you do. Give me a thumbs down if you don't. Okay, I need 100% cooperation. I got to get a yes or a no. So type in the chat box. Yes, I agree. No, I don't. And what I actually do, you don't need to do this. But in our programs, because. And I don't expect you to do this, but we impose fines. If you're late, it's five bucks, and it goes to a charity because being on time, sales is critical. It's a discipline, it's courtesy to other people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you use no phones, if you're multitasking, if you're multitasking and we can see. And I got staff that are watching the zoom, watching all the zoom windows, if we see somebody that looks like they're multitasking, somebody's going to send them a text and we're going to send them a link to go pay the fine to help the kids in Tanzania. Now, again, you don't need to do that. And, you know, it could be a dollar, whatever it is, but we get the agreement up front that this is the way we're going to do it. And if you don't want to do it that way, we suggest that you don't be on this call. But you gotta make it enticing, you gotta make it fun, you gotta make it to their benefit to do these things, okay? But you must set the rules of engagement. Okay? Rules like everybody's willing to be 100% responsible. No blame, no justification. We're gonna be doing activities and games, all kinds of fun stuff. But how many wanna maximize your learning? Okay, good. If you wanna do that, no finger pointing. Okay. There's gonna be a lot of great learning here. And I'm gonna work with some of you. Very intense. Intimately. Closely and intimately. But I can't have you bail out on me. I need your attention. Do I have your agreement, yes or no? Okay. Usually I do that just before the first break. I go through the setup, what we're going to be talking about. And I don't set the rules of engagement until after they've spent a good hour with me. So they kind of understand where we're coming from. They're bought into what we're doing. I've allowed them to see what they're going to learn, get them excited. And at that point, we give the rules. If you start off and say, welcome to the program before we get started, here are the rules. You're going to lose everybody because people don't like that. People don't want to be. What are the rules? Warm them into it a little bit. Okay. I had a trainer that worked with me. She couldn't understand why people fighting with me through the whole program. I said, so what are you doing? She gave me the rundown. She goes, and in the first two minutes, the first two minutes, she's giving them the rules and being real hard ass about it. I'm going, well, of course, you're creating an adversarial position to begin with. Sell them on the concept, Sell them on what you want to do. Okay, all right. Number 16. Not walking the talk. Not walking the talk. Now, let me ask you something. How receptive would you be if there was a coach, a life coach, standing on stage or standing in front of the camera that says, I help people change their lives, get all the health, wealth and happiness they want. And you're looking at this person and you can clearly tell that they're like 3 to 400 pounds, massively overweight, and they're not even dressed that well. What are you thinking? You're thinking, wait a minute, something's wrong here. How does this person get a life coach? But they don't quit quite walk the talk. They don't look it. Now, I'm not saying that they don't, but what I am saying, in this day and age, we've talked about it before. How long does it take for somebody to make a decision about you? Seconds. When are you the most nervous in the beginning. Bad combination. Bad combination. So you need to walk the talk, not just in your appearance, but in the way you do things in your experiences. That's why part of the opening sequence is a section that we teach called Earning the Right. There's a specific format for doing that that will eliminate the skeptical little voices in people's minds and allow them to love and trust you within minutes. If you know how to structure it together. Beware of teachers that have no teachers, or coaches that have no coaches, or investment advisors that don't have successful investments or business speakers that are broke. An intelligent, perceptive person in the audience can smell that lack of congruence. If you're trying to pretend to walk the talk, you will lose credibility and trust. The solution? Be 100% honest. You don't have to be the best person, best real estate investor. You don't have to be a multi, multi millionaire to talk about entrepreneurship. You don't need to do any. You don't need to be perfect. You need to be honest and authentic and let people know where you're at. Don't demean yourself, but where you're at. I've been in property development. I've been investing in real estate for the last four or five years. We're building our portfolio. Our goal is to have 50 properties. We're up to about 35 right now. I'm going to teach you everything that I've learned so far. We've got good, positive cash flow. We're looking to double, triple over the next couple of years. What's wrong with that? People, people. At least you're telling the truth. Say, look, I'm going to talk to you about how to build championship teams. Now, I wish I could tell you that every team I've had has been sterling and high performance. And that's just not true. I've been on as many dysfunctional teams and probably been the most dysfunctional leader of that team. And that's why I'm here, because I can tell you clearly what works and what doesn't work. And I think over all these years, we've gotten a lot wiser. How many of you would like to learn to avoid the pitfalls? I can tell you some great stories. Here are some good stories. Make your stories look like nothing. So what I just do. I'm doing my best to let people know I'm human. Be 100% authentic. People trust people that are real. People trust people that are vulnerable. People don't want to hear your sob story. They don't Want to hear all your trials and tribulations and move them to tears. I mean, some people do that. I'm not an advocate of that, but. But I am an advocate of being honest and being straightforward. Any disaster that you've had has been a gift. And if you can pull the meaning and the gift out of the disaster, you're a great teacher, leader and facilitator. Okay? So here's a little hint. Get coach from people who have successfully accomplished what it is that you're trying to teach and keep track of your successes. Okay? So again, if you want, there's nothing more credible, there's nothing more credible than being able to stand on stage or stand in a zoom and say, look, I'm getting coached on this too. I have three coaches helping me. Is that going to make you look stupid or am I going to make you look professional? I go, whoa, man, this person's got three coaches. That's pretty awesome, man. I don't have any yet. Maybe I should get one. So you see the very thing you're afraid of, you should. Don't be afraid of, but don't let your ego. Don't sit there and try to boast about what you've done. Here are my accomplishments. The minute you start listing your list of accomplishments, people start getting skeptical. People are going, oh my God, who cares? Remember, it's all about them. It's not about you. And you're going to list all these. I've had people, I have people say, I wrote this book, I was published here, I was published there, published there. And I go, I'm coaching. I go, stop, nobody cares. Well, it's my credibility. Nobody cares. You could talk about that later. Right now, just tell them what you're going to be able to offer them. Give them a couple of examples, but don't be listing credentials. That's not how you earn the right. That's old school way. Walk the talk. And walking the talk is not just about your accomplishments. It's mostly who you are as a person. I'm going to say it again. Walking the talk is mostly who you are as a person. How you learn, your vulnerabilities, your resiliency, your courage, your fears and your acknowledgments and all of those things that go with it. That's walking the talk. Being human. And hopefully if you're in a position of leadership that you exhibited certain levels of courage, whether you did it purposely or not, or maybe you just felt like it was a good idea at the time and got yourself in a mess, and you had to figure your way out. That's all good, too. Share that with people. You are a courageous person. If you're listening to this, and if you want to be a speaker, you don't have to be the best at it yet, but you should be striving to be the best that you can be and surrounding yourself with a team the same way. And the other thing, another great way of walking the talk is to give credit to your teammates. Because if you've got a team around you, which I do, I will tell you that my team has pulled my butt out of the fire more times than I can ever count in every single business I've been in. And so, while I wish I could say I'm a great leader, I'm a great business person, I've just been very blessed to recruit great people to be on my teams. And if you can do that, give them the acknowledgment, and that will earn you the right with the people you're talking to. Okay? So walk the talk at all costs. Be awesome.