Time to talk about being human in so many human ways.

Sa.

Good afternoon, LinkedIn friends. Value First Nation. Welcome to another episode of Value First Humans with our favorite Value First Human, George V. Thomas. How you doing man?

I'm doing good. How are you doing today, brother?

I am feeling grateful. Been able to spend some time with a bunch of Value First Humans today.

Nice.

Doing some good content.

How many shows did you do today?

Four, including Wake up. Yeah. So wake up. And there's been a back to, back to back this afternoon.

There you go.

Trisha Miriam talking about AI data readiness. And then Clement talking about stage seven of the value path, which is adopter stage. And guess what? When, when people don't, when people are adopting the, the value, you don't have to manipulate them with incentives to do things for you. And that's what we're going to talk about here today.

Yeah.

Is we're gonna go over commitment number three by First Humans is we will align with purpose.

Yeah.

Instead of manipulating with incentives. Before I read through it, George, like what's the first thing that, that comes to mind when you see this as the topic?

I mean some people might immediately go, that's not me. Because they are trying to be or have been good humans. But even the best of us have fallen prey or fallen into even out of the goodness of our heart in best intentions into maybe some of the stuff that we're going to talk about. Like yeah, just be careful, don't, don't say that's not me off the gate. Because then you don't have room to listen and learn and push to even be better in this kind of funky little area of being human and selling and marketing and doing business.

I am excited for this conversation for sure. So I'm going to read through the commitment that we're asking for here and then we'll dive in. So we will align with purpose rather than manipulate with incentives. We believe people are motivated by authentic purpose and meaning, not just external rewards or manufactured urgency. We commit to connecting with the intrinsic values and aspirations that drive genuine engagement. This means we will understand and connect with what truly matters to the people we serve rather than assuming universal motivations like what's in it for me. We will focus on genuine purposes that align with their goals rather than creating artificial incentives for engagement. We will communicate how our offerings serve meaningful purposes rather than manipulating fear of missing out. We will honor values based decisions even when they don't lead to immediate business, rather than applying pressure for quick conversions. And we will build relationships based on shared purpose rather than transactional advantage or competitive positioning. On, on Black Friday week.

Yeah, perfect timing. Buy one, get one free.

But let's, let's seriously use this as an example though, right? Like, yeah, there's no. It's never been easier to buy whatever you want.

Oh yeah.

Whenever you want, at the price that you want, as fast as you want. Thanks to AI. Right. So if your business and the reason, like Value first is about helping you transition from old to new. Because in this world of AI, I don't need to get up at 3am in the morning and go stand in line at Walmart or Best Buy to get a good deal on a tv.

No, my agent does that from his browser.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so what's. When you like, tell me what's behind the, like, be careful that you say this isn't you statement that you made.

Yeah. I mean a lot of us are out there trying to do good, trying to be good, trying to do business in the most human way we can, but we still kind of fall prey to these things. Like you've got to reach this number or it's a hard month and if you just said yes, then the bank would look a lot better. Like the world, the universe sometimes will, sometimes it's ourselves, by the way, will put us in a squeeze where we need to make decisions out of need. And need is not purpose. Purpose is completely different path. And so I need to have these clients. I can't tell you the amount of years when I worked for agencies, we were closing deals because we needed to be able to pay the bills, we needed to be able to keep the lights on, we needed to write everybody's paychecks. But that didn't mean that the people that we're selling to really needed us. And this is why sometimes they'd be there for two months, sometimes they'd be there for six months. But very, very rarely would we have like year and a half, two year, three year clients because it was kind of this like conveyor belt of we did a good job selling. Now pass it over to the team that implements and let's hope that that doesn't fall apart. And like, where's this guy or that gal that we thought we were going to be working with? And like now what do you mean? Like, this is just a cookie cutter strategy. Like it's not really even hitting the things that I need as a client. Well, it's hitting what we need because we can pay our bills. And, and, and I'm kind of waxing a little bit like douchebaggy as I'm saying. This but my point is like there's sometimes that you even fall into the smallest of needs. Oh I'll go ahead and put that countdown timer on my super admin training even though I know I'd let people come in a week later if they are willing to pay me 1400 bucks for a 10 week course. Like by the way ladies and gentlemen, I did a super admin training and yes I put a timer on and so it's. Sometimes we fall prey to like these things that feel harmless but they're really not to the nervous system of the other human in the journey that they're having with us.

Yeah. And this is why this pillar of value first humans is opposite of the leads trap. Right. Because I get. I challenge anybody like if the conversation starts with we need more leads.

Yeah it.

You will not be able like especially if it's in a short amount of time it is very hard to come up with strategies for conversion that are not manipulative in some way. Right. And it can be hard not only all the systems that we've created like Robert Cialdini like in the 80s like the book Influence like told everybody how to do it. Right. And you know when you have resources and you can understand this part of the human brain like we're weak to it. Right. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna go through these tactics. Right. You already mentioned a few. But something that has come up the outcome of even when these tactics work. Right. So common tactics we've all seen the offer expires this Friday when you know that you could get it on Monday.

Yeah. And don't. Don't get me started. I actually have a story about that. But let's go through the. Let's go through the things only three.

Spots left when it's a webinar. Like what. What don't. Don't miss out end of quarter special pricing because we have quarter quarterly metrics to hit if you don't act now. Some. Some fear based urgency there bonus stacking to create overwhelm and impulse decisions. That's one that gets me almost every time I've gotten better though. And some countdown timers on evergreen content.

Yeah.

And this is what it's communicating. We don't trust you to make good decisions. Our timeline matters more than your readiness. We're willing to manipulate your psychology for a sale. And ultimately this relationship is going to start with dishonesty. Yeah. Right. Like and. And tell me which relationships around you are healthy when they started with dishonesty.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, it's interesting, Chris, because where my brain goes, it goes a couple different directions. But one, it goes to the word integrity. Like if you are a human who believes that their integrity is core to who they are, then you have to continue to check back into the things that you're willing to say or do. So for instance, whenever I first meet with a potential client, I am not trying to get a yes, I'm not trying to get a purchase. What I'm trying to qualify them as is, are they going to be a good partner? Am I going to be a good partner? Because partners will last longer than purchases. Purchases are here and gone. Partners are for a time frame. And so one of the things that I'm always doing is I'm talking about like, hey, we're just getting on this call to see if we're a right fit for each other. And so they share their stuff, I share my stuff. I tell them, hey, you know what? For what you're trying to do there, we're probably not a good fit because I need to keep my integrity. I need to be able to sleep at night. And I don't sleep at night because there's more money in my bank. I sleep at night because there's less junk in my head. And like by, by not being integritous and by doing and selling and saying things that you shouldn't have. Then all of a sudden you've just got a bunch of stuff that you just shoved in your cranium that you're bouncing around at 4 o' clock in the morning wondering why did I do that? How are we going to do that? But at least the money's in my bank. No, here's. I want to kick on to one of the other things too because it's gotten really bad over the last couple years. You talked about like the time frame, whether it's like by the end of the week or by the end of the quarter. I love HubSpot, but I hate HubSpot. Let me explain. Like I love HubSpot because of all we can do with it and the good that we can put in the world and the way that we can impact humans with the tools that we have when they're used properly. The opposite of what we're talking about. To not manipulate to. You know what I mean? But over the last couple years, the sales journey that I've watched people have to go through of like, well, we can give you this price as long as you sign by Friday. Like why no your SaaS Software in the middle of an electronical box somewhere with wires and zeros and ones. No. Or like we were joking with somebody the other day, I said ah, just wait, just wait. The golden hour is approaching. And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like the end of the year and the end of the month, like if you want the best price, it's December, you know, 23rd or whatever. And like that should. That's bullcrap. Like it is manufactured bull crap. And by the way, I'm using HubSpot because I'm in the HubSpot ecosystem. But you can stop and think about a whole metric button of all other organizations that play the same game. And I've had to tell many a cam and PDMs and whatever they've been over time of like, listen, I'm going to let you know I don't play the HubSpot game. I don't care about platinum, titanium, diamond, sapphire, asphalt, whatever level. I don't care if a human comes to me and they need HubSpot because they don't have it, I'll sell it. If a human that I'm helping needs to upgrade because we truly need it, not because you're trying to hit your numbers, then we'll sell it. And, and hate me if you want to and don't give me any like special love because that's the line I draw. But ladies and gentlemen, if you don't draw the line, nobody else will.

Yeah. And, and when they don't, like it's hard for us like when we're trying to help people and we know the game like perpetuates itself. Right? Like we. Yeah, like, and that's like, that's what we're trying to kind of highlight. It's not easy to break from these at least like at a, at a market level until a bunch of us start doing it. But at an individual level and even here, like if you got KPIs, like when I'm on those calls, I can never, it never makes me feel any kind of bad way towards the salesperson. That's like telling me that because I know there's somebody else or there's some system in place. Yeah. They've got like you got to hit your KPI, you've got to hit your numbers. Right. If you don't bad things for you. So I know like that's you got a job to do. Right?

Yeah.

And so I want to dig into like the real versus manufacturing because it's not like one of the Keys is understanding where the urgency is coming from.

Yeah.

Right. And I think a simple question is this, Is this my urgency? Is this our urgency or is this theirs? Right. That should be very simple.

Right.

And so legitimate urgency, you know, actual limited inventory. Yeah, Right. Time sensitive, like regulatory changes, like real dates that we got to hit. Real resource constraints, like true event capacity. Right. But manufacturer urgency software with unlimited licenses, claiming scarcity, artificial deadlines that get extended every single time. Recurring limited time offers special pricing, special pricing that's always available.

It's real special.

And ask yourself the question, would I tell my best friend about this urgency or would I be embarrassed?

Yeah, that's. That's so. It's funny you bring that up because, you know, for me, I do think about, like, would I sell this to my friend or my family? And. And sometimes I even take it a level deeper, Chris, and I'm like, well, if I was selling this to Jesus, would these be the same words coming out of my mouth right now, or would I not do this? Like, you know what I mean? And again, I'm not everybody spiritual, but for me, I, like, I have that kind of line of like, hence why, you know, we're talking about purpose. And, you know, my purpose is to help humans. The minute that I allow my sales process to not enable them to get the help they need by eroding the trust that has to be there from the beginning, then I'm literally not achieving my purpose. And there's so many organizations that have allowed the belief of this is the way it has to be and have created a great and powerful Oz behind the curtain that is moving the. And no disrespect to anybody out there, but the marionettes of business to do the dance that they have to do to be able to survive on the planet that we're on. Because you got bills.

Yeah. And this is why, like, as soon as you ask the question of this person that you care about, basically, if you were to do, like, if would you eat? Like, it's like, no, of course. What? No, I could never do that. Okay.

Yeah.

So why are we doing it with these other humans? Because we don't see them as other humans.

No, you see them as leads, you see them as wallets, as dollar signs. You see them as your next vacation, you see them as your house payment. Like, and so that is such an inward way of, like, thinking and doing business. And you can see when this is happening, Chris, because there's more like, this is what we can do statements instead of like, this is like, what help do you need? Like, question. Like there's, there's more injection instead of extraction in the conversation, is what I'm trying to say. And so like I can sit there and I can, I can tell if somebody's trying to like manipulate in just the structure of the conversation that they're having. And if I can do it, I'm not the smartest tool in the shed, by the way. If I can do it, there's a whole lot of other humans that know what you're doing.

Right? And that's the thing. Like it's. Our brains are wired for those dopamine hits that can get activated by these situations, but they're also wired for what we're talking about, about purpose. Right. And you know, intrinsic motivation. Research shows. Right. And if you can tap into this, this is where the real relationship, value, like gets created. So people want control over their decisions. Autonomy, like, and that's where when you create scarcity in FOMO and it forces somebody to buy something they were not planned, they know, you know, you did not have control over what just happened. Right. Mastery, like people want to grow and improve purpose. People want meaningful impact, connection. People want authentic relationships and values, alignment. They, they want consistency with, with beliefs right in themselves. They want to know they can be consistent. And here's exactly what I'm talking about. When I, I knew I was in trouble as a partner, as a solutions partner. And just this, this game that I've been unwilling to play, that's why I'm building a whole damn framework and business model around it. The SaaS game of like, you know, thousand leads in 100 calls, 10 opportunities, like close to. Right?

Yeah.

I could not get advice that strayed from that path. Like, it was very hard to find people that I respected that didn't eventually get there to that message. Well, you just gotta make a list, 200 companies and then you gotta reach out. And then. Right. And it's like, I just can't, I'm not going to do it. Right. And then the moment it really like hit was. So in the HubSpot Partner Program, there's points for selling and there's points for service. Servicing customers, like spending time in the portal building stuff, helping them with HubSpot. Yeah, Right. And you have to level up both points to go to gold and tear up. My first organic client, somebody I didn't already know prior to starting the business. It was three months in, we'd gotten through a bucket of consulting hours. Right?

Yeah.

Because they knew what they were doing. With HubSpot, they just needed somebody there to say, yep, you're thinking about it the right way, or, no, maybe you should do it over here instead. Like, make this property on the deal instead of the contact, maybe, like, conversations like that. And we got through the 20 hours. Right. And I found myself looking for additional things to do inside of their HubSpot because I wanted to keep the service points so that they would stay on my. On my list. There's been similar moments like that where it's like, oh, I could use a little more money this month. Let me go find something. Right. And in both of those cases, when that happened, I was like, no, there's zero chance I might get lucky. And it happens to be in the best interest of the. Of the customer. The thing that I find. But it's so hard to. I'm not aligned with the way that I want to, you know, have relationships.

Yeah.

If. If I'm doing. That's my urgency. 100%. That's my urgency. And it makes it very hard to show up in a valuable way, in my opinion, when you're coming from that place.

Yeah, it's. It's interesting where my brain is going right now during this conversation, because urgency isn't a bad thing. It's just where it is in the relationship is a bad thing. Because, by the way, one of the things. And again, I'm not. I say this humbly, but I've heard it multiple times this week where, like. And you guys are Johnny on the spot. Like, I have this other partner I work with. Not a HubSpot partner, by the way, but she literally said, I got this other partner, and it took me, like, three weeks to get him to answer an email. And I'm like, he shouldn't be a partner. Meanwhile, she's like, yeah, Jorge. It's like two minutes, and Jorge's back to me, like, four minutes, and you're like, hit me up an email. Like, urgency is great in the right place of the relationship. Urgency at the beginning is terrible. Terrible. Like, can you im. Yeah. No, it's just terrible. I'm not even gonna go there.

Right. And this is why. I mean, ultimately, this is why we're here. Because when you. I'm thinking back to the superhuman framework, like, align with purpose. Right. Like, the word purpose.

Yeah.

Like, has been so. Just. Just drugged through the mud when it comes to, like. It's like how businesses are supposed to show up in the world, and everybody needs a purpose. Like, just all these different ways we turn these words into like meaningless fluff when if we just like accepted them for what they are, like everything gets easier to understand.

Yeah.

And as an example, you know, you have your purpose pillar, like the why that drives action, the North Star passion. Like the things that naturally energize people. Like when I started let's build.

Yeah.

My question, as I saw somebody, I respected the thought that, that they had knowledge to share that would be helpful. Right. Like what top? Like fill in the blank. Let's build blank with George B. Thomas.

Yeah.

The thing in that blank, you must be passionate about it and hopefully it has something to do with HubSpot too.

Yeah.

Right. Because there's a natural energy. You don't have to move people to create content and share when that passion is there. And then you know, the love cornerstone, like it's, I'll tell you, it's not a mistake that we, we're hitting on this every week at this point.

Yeah, yeah.

But like the genuine care.

Yeah.

That just rises above. Like even if you don't want to, if you're living in transaction, as soon as you get this is what I mean. Like when you choose, you say, oh, I'm dehumanizing this process. When you humanize it, that's you caring. And you cannot operate in these other ways anymore.

I mean, listen, the only one you forgot is persistence, which we'll talk about in a second. Because when you're navigating the world and the fundamental like cornerstone is love. Love for others, love for yourself, love for the thing that you do, you make radically different choices than you might otherwise. So let's, let's go back because you talked about let's build. Right. And earlier in this conversation you talked about it didn't take me long. And people got to this like Get a list 200 da da da. Lists aren't bad, by the way. They're just bad if they're the wrong list. Like what you don't need is a list of leads. What you do need is a list of videos you're going to create. That list is great. Right. And you hit on it. Like if you know your purpose is to help humans and you know that you need to sell something because there's gotta be a transaction. Well, the way that you're gonna get to the right transactions is through the relationship. Well, guess what? Love is relational. Love isn't transactional. So if you're navigating from love and you're creating valuable content on something that you're passionate about because it's purpose to help Humans, guess what? You've just aligned. The only piece that you need to remember is that it's going to take the long game. You're going value. You're not going viral. And so you've got to stay persistent with your list of 200, 300, 400. And then all of a sudden, the other list that you care about is the clients, the partners. Right. I literally was looking at my portal last week, and I had like a. Oh, Jesus moment where I looked at one of our clients, and I'm like, man, they've been with us for almost four years. Like three, three and three quarters of a. Of a span lifetime. And right next to that, I saw the dollar amount that that equaled, and I was like, sheesh. Like, I just. I didn't really pay attention to that. Right. Because it's every month we wake up, we do work for them. They send their invoice in. Nobody talks about it. Like, my wife sends it out, they send it in. We keep working, we keep conversating. We keep having a relationship because we like each other. But then you stop and you look at, like, what does almost four years of a monthly retainer look like? And it's like, wow, since I had the right focus, I got the right outcome. If my initial focus is how can I sell this and what's the lifetime value gonna be? I'm probably not gonna have much of a lifetime value because I'm not gonna have much of a relationship.

Oh, yeah. So let's. I need to jump to this spot, like, because, like, we get it. Like, this is ante to what you're experiencing out there. So let's go through a couple, three. Three objections here.

Yeah.

That we can already hear out there. The. But we need urgency. Objection. But George, without urgency, people will never decide. We'll lose deals to inertia. Here's the reframe. Right. Real problems create real urgency. You don't have to manufacture it if they're not ready. Now. Pressuring them creates bad customers, barriers. The deals you lose to, quote, inertia weren't real opportunities yet. Better to lose an unready prospect than gain an unhappy customer. Then trust. Like, trust that people will act when the pain or opportunity is real enough.

Yeah. Which. Which, by the way, if you want to not do surface level, if you want to in your air quote selling process, actually be of service. One of the things that you can do from, again, a fundamentally good place is they might not even know how much it's hurting them. And so part of the conversation could be like, if you don't fix this problem, how many customers does that affect? And what's the lifetime value of each of your customers? And all of a sudden, they thought something that was like, Ricky's fault in accounting becomes a thing that's like a $5 million problem. Now the pain is bigger, but only because you were able to walk them through a mental consultative process to understand the true pain that they were trying to avoid anyway because they wanted to feel like they were okay. Now. I didn't sell my shit. I helped the human realize, boy, you're in the trenches, homie. Like, you got three months left and you're out of business. Right?

Yeah.

An angle. It's a different. It's a different type of help. And right when you take that and you go to that level, people notice, and it. They're. They're different. I heard this again, like, earlier this week, and I. I'm not the one that said it. Somebody else said it. And I started giggling. And they asked, why are you giggling? Because they literally said, I don't know when being human became a differentiator in business. And I said a whole ass long time ago, brother. That's when I said, I've been feeling that for like, eight, nine years before I even started my business. And. But they realized I didn't do anything special. I just. I acted like a human. And I'm like, yeah, there's unfortunately not a lot of that out there. And we're not promoting. We're not incentivizing that side.

Right.

We're incentivizing the whole other side of it.

Yeah. Because, like, George meant, like, yeah, there needs to be urgency. It just needs to be theirs.

Yes.

And, like, you can have direct conversations. You should have direct conversations. Like, hey, I'm not. I mean, this is like a relationship closest to us too. Like, I. I feel all the time, like. But I've learned, like, my mindset needs to shift. Like, oh, this person is not feeling the same urgency that I'm feeling. I. I could. In the past, I might have tried to force them to feel that urgency, and it didn't go well when I tried to do that. Right. But helping people talk through in those moments, okay, here's where my. Here's why I think there's urgency, or here's what other customers are going through that leads to them having urgency. I see some of that same stuff here, but you also are really success, real successful over here. So it might not. You guys might not need it. So, like, tell, tell Us about, like, the urgency, right? Having conversations like that.

So things I want to throw in here real quick and then we. We can move on to the next piece you want to talk about. If you're a business person who sells or you're a salesperson who sells and you have never heard of the name Ian Altman or have you? If you've never heard of the book, same side, selling, buy all that is holy, please go get the book, Audiobook, physical book, I don't care, get that book. If you're a business owner who sells or a salesperson who sells and you haven't heard the name Marcus Sheridan or the book, they ask you answer an assignment, selling by all that is holy, go get the audiobook or the book. And let me tell you, if you put those two books together and have it be the foundational piece of a human centric value first sales process in an organization, you will wake up six months a year, six years from now, whatever, persistence, and you will be living in a way different location, mentally a way different location financially than you ever probably thought possible. And I say that because I'm living proof. Like, when I started my business, and I'm not bragging, I am telling you this a humble story, just so you know that I'm not full of crap, okay? When I started my business, I set three financial goals. There was, we need this to survive. This would be nice, and we'll probably never make that. But whatever I gotta have. Everybody tells me I gotta have a bhag. A big, hairy, audacious goal. So there's my bhag. The third month we hit the bhag. But that's because I was going at it from the place of spending five years with Marcus and time with Ian and both books. And, like, if I'm going to run my own organization, this is how I'm going to do it.

Ah, man, that goal conversation, we need to have an episode on that because I'm. Oh, man, so many thoughts. Because, like, you got to the goal because you just ran things the way that you felt was right.

Yeah, right is always right, brother.

Right? And this is what leads into the second pushback or defense here, that everyone does it. Defense. Right. But this is standard industry practice. If we don't create urgency, competitors will. Yes, everyone does it. That's why it's an opportunity for differentiation. Like, let me tell you why Profoundly was such a slam dunk. Like, we could feel this problem in. Most of the people that roll through Profoundly have already tried several avenues to get the help that they need.

Yeah.

And it has not worked out for various reasons inside and outside of this ecosystem. Right. And since the approach is like right time, right fit, right expert, or the right problem that you have, like it's fit at all costs. Like fit is so key to solving these problems. Right. Which is a different approach than what else is available. Right. It's not a race to the bottom on tactics because that equals a race at the bottom on margins. Your competitors manipulation makes your authenticity more powerful. The best customers are exhausted by pressure tactics. And now AI gets to be there for them to call all of it out, have a pow wow about it. And yeah, I don't have to deal with that. I have all these other options. Or maybe what I have right now is good enough. Help me do that better, AI. So you can be the relief.

Yeah.

Here.

Well, yeah, here's what I'll say too, Chris. Like, the everybody's doing it that way is bull crap. Like, if it was a true statement, then there wouldn't be, you know, Warby Parker, there wouldn't be Costco, there wouldn't be CarMax as an example that everybody, I mean, I remember when Marcus Zappos, like Patagonia, like all of these businesses that have kind of twisted it turned it gone in a different direction that have proven successful over time. So if that's a true philosophy of life of like everybody's doing it that way, so we have to. Then those organizations should have gone out of business. Amazon, nobody had ever done it like Amazon before. Different. What you're telling me Amazon's a failure? Like, so that that whole thing that what I feel like is happening is that whenever you step out to do something different, you're not truly afraid of the doing something different. You're afraid of the spotlight that's on you and what will happen and how you feel that you'll feel if you do fail. Therefore, you never try to be different and push in a different direction. Because you'd rather be safe and kind of human than killing it. Right. Or with egg on your face. Like, if my agency went out of business, would I feel bad? Yeah. Obviously I screwed something up, but I'm willing to step out. I'm willing to say things that maybe some people won't say. I'm willing to push against things that maybe some people won't push against. But that's because I'd rather be Sergeant Shine than hidden in a cave somewhere like.

You.

You have, you have to find your ability to be that person beyond your default you need to find a way to help your organization. The things that Chris and I are talking about over the last couple weeks, in future weeks of getting your organization past the default, become your industry's Amazon, your industry's CarMax, your industries, whatever. The only way you're going to do that is change.

Yeah. And that takes us to the hardest one. The. Our leadership demands it. Reality leadership. I agree with you. But leadership sets quotas tied to quarters and expects these tactics. The reframe. This is a systems culture problem requiring leadership conversation. You can't HubSpot your way out of this. You can't tool your way out of this. But these tools can help you show the data. Right. That manipulation creates remorse and churn among your buyers.

Yeah.

They can help you and now with AI, pilot these other approaches within the subset of opportunities. Right. Track things like time to close deal, quality implementation success, referrals. I think referrals is a huge opportunity for people right now to just grab that stuff out of a transcript that you're like, you just miss so easily. And you have to like, build the case, like, and know that you have to build the case for leadership. Like you. It's very hard to champion this from, from the ground floor. But leadership, and this is where culture comes into play. They can change. They just want to see evidence because they see all this other evidence around them of the way that they're supposed to be doing things. Right. But most leaders, I think, want to do good things and are very smart. That's why they're in the position that they're in. And they will respond when there's evidence that shows, like, this is not the best way, you know, to do things.

Yeah. Leadership and leaders, first of all, like, one of the things I love, I have a friend, his name's Mick Hunt. He has the MC Unplugged podcast is like a number one podcast.

He.

He does leadership stuff too. He. I literally been working with him on like, emotional intelligence stuff for leadership. Like, and it's, it's so good. I literally am working like on a daily basis on spiritual side of leadership and life articles that, that push against that. It's all about what you do and who you are and like, because if you, if you push against that fundamentally, some other dominoes fall and you start to think or act or interact differently. And. And so, like, I'm quietly, literally working on things on that side of like, I don't know if it's 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now that the domino will fall because there will be enough people who have read the stuff or watch the stuff or listen to the stuff that we're putting out just kind of fun of. I mean literally. That's why we did the beyond your default podcast as well for like a year and a half to help humans be better humans. Now I'm just getting a little more drilled in of like leadership in a different lens. Like, can we start to think about it, ladies and gentlemen.

We have to have.

We have the power to change. We just need to want to. Here's the thing, Chris, you said they just want proof. They just want proof that it works. The hardest thing that many people, some people, many don't factor in to their business success is faith. And I don't mean like faith in Jesus or like, I just mean faith that you're good enough, that the universe wants you to win, that because you're putting value into the world and building reciprocity. That what, what comes after reciprocity is revenue. It will be directed in your way. And you just, you have to have faith on these just core fundamentals of how it's worked through time. And so many get caught up in the metrics of the matter and not the faith of the matter. And like, listen, when I jumped off of like being an agency employee and going from like a great number two to like, oh, you mean I gotta be Batman? That, that it was a faith jump, plain and simple. And I would ask anybody watching this, like, when's the last time you jumped? When's the last time you let faith and gut and heart be a reason that you asked your sales team or your marketing team to do something or not do something?

Oh, man. Ah, good luck answering that one, folks. But if you answer it, it's going to tell you a lot about your situation. Man, we're already close to time here. How about this week's action? Audit one manipulation tactic and replace it with purpose alignment. So instead of countdown timer on the webinar registration this topic matters. Register when it fits your schedule. Recording available immediately instead of don't miss out fear based email. Based on the challenges you mentioned, this resource might help you think through X.

Pause for a second. I know you. I know you want to. I have to say something right here. I did something last night that was absolutely mind blowing. I won't tell you what site, but I was working on a site and I kept looking at the copy that my assistant was giving me and I finally said these words. From here on out, I want you to help me craft this copy in the understanding that I am not trying to sell anything and I'm only trying to educate humans. And the difference in the copy in which it returned was crazy. Okay, I'll stop.

Yeah, no, that's. Oh man, that resonates so much. One more. And these are the problems. I'm just going to throw it out there. I know these timetables, these quarterly like KPIs are so hard. But if you can. This is where belief comes in, faith comes in. Like when you approach it these ways. Like instead of artificial scarcity claims. Right. Instead of end of quarter pressure. Here's what to consider when evaluating this decision. Take the time that you need. Right. When you start approaching it from that perspective, they will come back when, when they've taken the time that they've needed. Right. Because you gave them the tools to take that time.

Yep.

And understand that need. Like, it's completely different like from trying to convert constantly. Right. And you'll see it like, and it shouldn't be that hard because we all know that this current status quo, it just feels wrong. So often conversations feel more honest and collaborative. Buyers, this is my favorite. But it also, like, they express relief just because you're not pressuring.

Yep.

Right. Like, yep. And by the way, no better signal to say that this, this relationship's. Get on. On the right track. Right?

Yeah, it's. Pause there. Quit thinking outwardly and think inwardly for a second with what Chris just said. And you answered this question. When's the last time that you interacted with a business or a human and your immediate feeling was relief? And if you can't remember when that was, then my next question for you is, well then when are you going to be that human for somebody else?

And of course, like, those are places that start with trust in all the metrics. Like all of them, they just get better right after that because you've got a strong foundation. So next week, I just love the ways that, that, that these layer on each other. Next week, episode five is build genuine connection, not manage transactions. Right. We're going to explore how mechanical nurturing sequences and automated relationship management destroy the authentic human connection that really creates these lasting partnerships. So what do you think, George?

I think we'll have a lot to say. That's what I think. And I hope that people understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. While sometimes they might feel like a two by four, I have never said anything on any of these episodes that wasn't out of my mouth.

Love. Oh man. And we thank you, brother. Talk about relief. Like, did he all just make us, like, help us feel relief? Right. Oh, just by being a good human. Funny how that works. So until then, you know, trust that people make good decisions, you know, when you create a good space around them to make those decisions on their. On their behalf and not yours. And we hope everybody has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, enjoys a little extra time off.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Some of that relief in one way or another, and we'll see. We'll see everybody next week. Thanks so much, George.

Thanks, Chris. Appreciate you.