Time to Talk about Building Genuine Connections, Not Managing Transactions
Chris and George B. Thomas discuss building real relationships instead of transactional ones. They share stories of firing a $7,500/month client for bad behavior and requesting $12,000 after giving unpaid value, arguing that CRM and AI should help you remember context, not replace genuine listening. High-touch automation sequences don't work; podcasts and word-of-mouth do.
Questions this video answers
Number four.
$12,000.
$7,500 per month.
Episode six.
70–80%.
Chapters
It. Good afternoon, LinkedIn friends. Value First Nation. Welcome to another episode of Value First Humans with our favorite Value First Human, George B. Thomas. How you doing man?
I'm doing good, brother. How are you doing today?
I am doing great. It helps when you're starting from a place, the place that we describe in this framework, because it's like just endless value available to you everywhere you look right now.
Yeah.
Last week we talked about stopping the manipulation tactics, trying not to manufacture urgency, pressure. And here's what happens when you remove that manipulation. You see very clearly what has been there all along and that's the genuine humans.
Yeah.
Connecting, which honestly scares the out of, out of a lot of organizations because it's harder to measure, it's harder to automate all these things.
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, without a doubt. Which, you know, like scared or fear. I believe we're moving into a world that we're going to have time because of AI assistance and agents and all the things that you might be running from now. I think we're going to have more time to unpack historically what fear for persons and fear for business meant or means because of the things that we can do and the things that will be unlocked. I am doubling down on a philosophy that I as a human have had for years, Chris, and that is false evidence appearing real. That is what fear is. And when you see more things being able to become reality, there are far less things to be fearful of again, personally and from a business standpoint as well.
Yeah. And the way that it gets in that it impedes common sense decisions like the one that we're going to talk about today basically is just at some point you inevitably, inevitably find your, your way to like fear based things happening. Because there's no rational reasons why people are choosing to be transactional to their fellow human beings. But let's get into this commitment. I'll read through it like I always do. And again, this is after the first three commitments which have been we're going to honor human wholeness instead of trying to silo everybody and, and give them specialized roles and say that's where they're supposed to be in that box. Right. Got whole human beings. Number two was enabling natural growth instead of forcing artificial process. Number three was we're going to align with purpose rather than manipulate with incentives. And today number four is we will build genuine connection rather than manage transactions. We believe human relationships develop through authentic connection, not mechanical nurturing sequences or automated follow up campaigns. We commit to creating space. We commit to creating space. For real conversations where people feel heard and understood rather than processed. This means we will prioritize authentic dialogue over scripted interactions. Preach rather than following predetermined conversation flows. I'm just gonna apologize to the whole HubSpot ecosystem like this is it. We will create opportunities for genuine human to human connection rather than automated relationship management. We will listen deeply to understand needs and context rather than just advance people through sales processes.
Oh man.
We will allow relationships to develop at their natural pace rather than forcing artificial timeline progression. And we will value the quality of relationships over the quantity of transactions instead of optimizing for conversion volume, open season. Easy, easy. Like fish in a barrel here.
I mean, the first thing I want to say is I want to go out of the business lens for a second, but you can use it for the business lens. And that's like the quality of relationship versus the amount of transactions. Look, there are so many of you right now that are living a life that you feel like the more friends you have, the more successful you are. And just let me tell you that that is such a falsality in life. I will take 2, 3, 1. One dope, deep relationship. Somebody that I can talk to my darkest, deepest secrets about than to have 20 people come over to my house and use all my stuff and walk away and not have and had surface level conversations. And. And what I want you to realize is so many times it's this business thing that happens the same. Well, we've got to have this many clients. Do you or can the clients you have actually pay you more money because you have a deeper relationship, because you care more, because you started out by adding more value. And so now your circle is actually a decreased circle that you care about but can give more to your friends in your life are a centered circle. And you're all kind of. I'll stop. I'll stop.
Oh, man. Yeah. Like this is when we talk about dehumanizing.
Yeah.
Like the process like this is at the heart of it. Like teams, the good human beings are forced to create the space for transaction instead of connection. When it's always about we need a thousand leads so that we get 100 opportunities, so that we get, you know, 10 to the finish line and we close two of them. Right. It's literally like, can we measure each transaction at each level like that? Because then we got control and we know and we have visibility. Right. It's so hard to be a human being in those moments when the person on the other side is a number. Is the difference between hitting My number and not hitting my number. Yeah, right.
Like can I, can I just take a minute to. So, so here's, here's the thing. And again, I feel like sometimes I live in a different world. I feel like sometimes I say these things and people are like, this dude is full of. But, but here's the thing. I've, I've found this to be true. Like for me it is about human first, outcome first. And what I mean is this care mindset, right? One of the core beliefs that drives everything that I do at Psychic Strategies and dare I say in my life because I, I have this like personal and business. It's not any different. It's like, hey, I'm just going to show up as a whole ass human and be like authentically GE if I'm personal or business. But at the end of the day like what I, what I care more about is the human and the outcome more than their actual opinion of me. Most organizations will, they'll not say what I'm about to say out loud, but they secretly optimize for two questions. Chris. Do they like me? And how soon will they buy from me? Like that's what they're optimizing for. And when that type of questioning or mindset runs the show, every email becomes a little beep, beep, beep, a little nudge, right? Every call is a step to try to get them one step down the funnel or one additional spin of the flywheel if you're. Or one more track of the loop, right? Like it all has this like pre designed like I'm trying to get you to do something or get something out of you. Instead of like helping them through this journey, I try to filter it a little bit differently. Like I ask what actually right now, in this moment, in this conversation, in this interview, in a conversation with a potential client, a human that I meet at the, the grocery store. I don't know why grocery store. I don't like going to grocery store, but I'll pick grocery store. Like, like what actually helps this human right now? Even if I never see them again, if they never buy for me. Like again not outcomes, human care. Like here's the thing, I have a story where and I don't share this a lot, but there's a human historically that I've helped a lot when I can't here and there with some HubSpot stuff. Was a client when I worked at another agency, but I even continue to like give them advice or answer questions along the way. Okay. And, but they weren't a client. At that point, I sent out an email. It was a very human email. It had nothing to do with business. This person that I had helped along the way, didn't care if they were a client, got this email that I sent out to a bunch of people. This was like the first year that I was in business. And they emailed me and they said, hey, I've got some end of the year budget that I need to get rid of. Can you send me an invoice for $12,000?
Oh, my gosh.
Now, now measure that. I'd like to say, put that in your pipe and smoke it, but measure that like it's unmeasurable. Like, and was I thinking, like, hey, someday they'll have extra budget and they'll be able to ask me to just send them an invoice so that I can. Which, by the way, I helped them. I didn't say, like, thanks for paying me for the historical value. I said, no. Now that I sent you this invoice, like, what are we working on? And we worked on stuff, but it's.
Yeah, but it's.
Can you see? Can you see how it's different?
It's great. And this is where, like, we. Oh, man. We focus on the activity so much. Like, the activity itself, like, forces the way that we execute it. Because what I just heard, not knowing behind the details, but knowing feeling like I have a good idea of who George B. Thomas is, where he's been since he's been adding value to my life since 2017 on the. On the hubcast.
Yeah. I miss that show, by the way. I miss getting on the mic with Marcus and, like, doing the hubcast. Anyway, I digress.
I can only imagine. Um, and so George starts a company, starts his own thing, and does a email blast to all the people. That's probably not personalized. Probably, you know, it's simply sharing.
Yep.
Like, hey, this human that has given you a lot of value and that you probably trust is now in a different position to add more value. And that person saw that I was like, I'm in because I know who this person is. They're allowed in my inbox in any channel they want to be in, because I know when they're going to be there. They will add value.
Yeah.
And so let me get out my pocketbook as soon as possible so that I ensure I get some of that value.
Like, I mean, let. Let me. Let me double down on this. And again, I say all of this humbly because I've just been created to Be this way. But you know, and, and if you don't know because you're watching this or listening to this, like, I gave value in two different organizations, three different organizations over a 10 year period in the HubSpot ecosystem, right. And it was, I didn't. What was I going to ask for? It wasn't my business. I was like, I just made tutorials, I made podcasts. I was helping those organizations grow through the content that I was creating. One of my second or third clients literally reached out because they and said this. I would like to sign up now because I know before too long you won't be able to take any more clients. And he wasn't wrong. Like, I had put these goals like, hey, I need this to exist. This would be great. We'll never reach that. But I'm gonna. I've been told through the years that I have to have a BHAG goal. So what's my big Harry at? We hit that the third month because people were like, dude, this dude has his own thing. Like. And I don't want to say they were lining up, but they were lining up enough where my small brain that thought something was absolutely unachievable was reality in like, anyway, listen, we hit gold HubSpot partner in three months. So most unheard of. Why? Value equals reciprocity equals revenue. That's why being human is a differentiator in business. Showing up because you care, not because you're just trying to connect and convert a contact of a company to create a deal. I'll stop. I'll stop.
Yeah. And that three month story, like, I know, again, because of the, the portfolio of value. I know that it wasn't in a way where we're just trying to get as many people with free onboardings in the door so that we can get points to go up the tier. Like, that's not how it happened, right?
No, it was. Am I, are we a good fit for each other? And Chris, even to the point where in the first three months I. Maybe it was in the first six months because I don't want to tell a lie. So we'll say six months. It might have been three months. To the point where in the first six months I even did something that I didn't see many of the other business owners or employees do at other agencies. I fired a client within the first six months of being in business and they were a $7,500 a month client. And I said, see you. You just treated one of my employees like shit, homie. Don't play that. You gots to go here, I'll refund your money. Like that's doing business in a human way.
Yeah, it does. It goes both ways, right? And. Oh, so many places we could go. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pass over, like why automation feels different. Like we know that we know why it feels different. Like what genuine connection actually looks like, folks. It's like, it's understanding context, timing. Like again, we come back to caring about the other person. Here's what it doesn't look like. There's a Great post on LinkedIn and props to my boy Riley Powell for responding in a great way. Where a sales rep shared an email reply that simply said, leave me alone.
Oh, geez.
And of course the only reason a sales rep is sharing something like that is because they don't feel like that was a very nice response to their breakup email in this case. So you're literally saying, first of all, the breakup email wants you to say something that you're literally like, yeah, right. You're asking me to say enough's enough. Like if I'm not interested. There's lots of times this is where it's like a double edged sword of how this stuff gets executed. The breakup emails in themselves, not they have a place like breakup, I hate that word. But like the idea of like, hey, if now's not a good time, like I get it, right? There's lots of reasons I've experienced that being good, where people are just busy. Right, but, but how you've behaved up to that point, like, have you added any value at all? Like up to this point? If not, yeah, leave me the hell alone. And you're lucky that I'm even telling you that. Right? But what you're telling me, especially if I see this post on the like, oh, oh, you clearly don't care about me. I'm supposed to care about you. Like, how does that work?
Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's funny, the graveyard of LinkedIn messages that I have not replied to even when they've messaged me seven to 17 times because I am a firm believer of silence is golden instead of being an asshole in the, in the return reply, like how, how do we live in a world where if somebody didn't reply the first two or three times, we think it's a good time to still keep them in that six step sequence. How is that where we live?
Because the place told us like 7 to 17 touches is how we. It's how we get them to convert. George.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But here's the thing. There's a difference between a loving touch and punching you in the face. And so what I want you to realize, because we're. This is literally the right place for this conversation. If your sales and marketing is 17 punches, that's probably why people aren't converting yet. Knock them the frick out. They can't even wake up to say they want your stuff. Like, and I'm waxing funny. But, like, just stop and think about, like, here's the thing. Think about that. It's a whole living, breathing human, not a contact in your tool called HubSpot or whatever CRM you use, depending on who's watching this. If it's not HubSpot, contact me or Chris. We'll help you out. Anyway. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. See, that's wrong. That's wrong. Don't go.
Not kidding. Not kidding.
Yeah, not kidding. Okay, but here's, but here's the deal. It's not a contact in a tool. It's not a list you bought. It's not the newest, like, AI integration to bring people you don't know into. Like, it's not a. It's not a numbers game. It's. It's like, this is a breathing, living human. And even that I have them in my system, I need to treat them like I would want to be treated in a system. And again, this is why I don't do this. Personal and professional hat. I wear this like, this is my human hat. Human hat. Helpful, happy human hat. Right? Because I. I don't like how it feels in LinkedIn. I don't like how it feels in CRM systems. I don't like how it feels post inbound and I get emails that I never effing signed up for. So if I don't like that, why would I do that? And again, I know not everybody watching. This is a leader, an owner lead from the back row, ladies and gentlemen, please. By all this holy. Or as they would say in my circles, lead from the back pew. Anyway, again, I'll stop. I'm very passionate about this week right here, by the way. I don't know if anybody can tell that.
Yeah, because it's sitting right there. This is another case of, like, if you felt humans on the other side of what you're doing, there's no way that you would be so transactional. It's very unlikely, at least. Right. And yeah, if, if it can't be, like, coming. Maybe you're someone who wants to learn this way and you don't necessarily know how to operate and you want to learn how to connect, so it's not as important to you. But what George has mentioned about the onslaught of emails after inbound. Right. I remember you sharing a case where your wife shared her disgust for an email that she received.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's where it's like the rest of the ecosystem is counting on you not to be a douchebag.
Yep. Yeah.
Because when I hear stories like that, I'm like, come on, ecosystem, like HubSpot, like you're giving people a reason to believe that we're not in it for the right reasons. And now every conversation I have, I have to overcome a little bit less trust on the other side. Right. And it's like you are impacting others when, when you show up in this way. And I get it, like so much of this stuff is because that's the way it's been done. We got to hit the numbers. And, and when we talk about there, there's this tension like productivity and efficiency, like versus authenticity, which is, by the way, what value first is all about. If you forgot, if you haven't heard before, it's helping you move from industrial age mindsets and thought processes into the age of AI, which enables what we're talking about at scale, both in a bad direction and a good direction. Right? So if you're pushing back, saying, chris, I can't have individual conversations with a thousand people. That's why we need automation. First of all, you're right, you probably can't, at least not in a short amount of time. But you might be surprised how many you can have. That's not what we're saying. It's about what deserves automation, right? Administrative tasks, coordination, information delivery, what requires human connection, understanding needs, building trust, getting together, rolling up your sleeves and solving problems together, that they might be able to make some progress over at GPT or quad or wherever. Right? Or even with your customer agent, if you got it. But even if the customer agent solves that problem, depending on what kind of problem it is, it's like, okay, cool. The difference between, okay, cool, I got that solved. And then. And like, oh man, George is so passionate about like helping me solve that problem. Like the difference in trust levels there, Right. So are you even aware of the different opportunities? So like, so the AI opportunity, AI can handle the coordination that used to require humans. It can surface relevant context when human connection actually happens. Right? Like we can, we talk about volume all the time. We are buried in conversation after conversation after conversation, you miss the moments where the relevant context, oh, this person either trust or distrust me at a level that I was not aware of. Right. What am I going to do with that information if I'm in the conversation? Like trying to go through playbooks and fill in CRM properties so that it can convert the way it's supposed to? Like, I'm missing that context.
Yeah. So, yeah, I want to jump in here because I love systems. I'm trying to get better at them. Historically, was not a systems guy, but I, I love systems. I, I love me some artificial intelligence. I just, I think, I think, I think about them and I think I'm using them. I'll call it in a different way. Right? So like, for me, customer relationship management, or CRM and automation, because these very much go hand in hand. It's memory and context helpers for me. Memory and context helpers, not relationship replacers. Right. I gotta be human. I gotta have a relationship with the relationship. There's understanding, there's empathy, there's context, there's. There's passion, there's. There's a purpose that we're having this conversation even has nothing to do with business. What the System does, what HubSpot does really well for me, is it. What did we talk about two weeks ago? What, what mattered to them? How do they like to learn? What promise did I make, by the way? The amount of times I go back to a voma or my ClickUp for, like, what tasks did I promise that I would get done in the next seven days? Okay, let me go do that. Because, by the way, being a human of my word and getting it done in the time that I said I would do it. Wait, an agency can do that? Oh, shit. Okay, so I. Sorry. I'm sorry. Anyway, so artificial intelligence, right? If I think about that, like, it helps me draft ideas, it. It gives me things to think about. It primes the pump. It fuels what is already in me. What, what I've already been living, what I already believe, but it helps kind of guide and build things that I might not otherwise have. And so, like, we have to think about, like, what are the jobs to be done for the CRM? The jobs to be done for AI, the jobs to be done for us, the humans. And this is why I so quickly. Chris did this. Like, humans in my portal. Opportunities in my portal. Like, like the renaming to the mindset of how we're using that system. Like.
It goes so far. Like, because even when you're sharing with others, what's going on in your portal, like you see the word humans. Like, yeah, yeah.
Well, so like here, let me, let me bring this back to the real world for a second and then bring it into the digital. Have you ever been in a scenario? And I'll go both ways here you might be the person who you're like, hi, I don't know if you remember me, but my name's George. Or you might be the person where you've had somebody say to you like, I don't know if you remember me. And immediately you can be like, yeah, you're Bob. When you do that, do you watch the facial expression of delight to the fact that you're actually enough of a human that this other human remembered you? Okay, okay. Now take that real world example and think about the fact that you now have in HubSpot CRM. Summarize this contact or summarize this organization or can you please tell me the last three things that we conversated about? And now all of a sudden, two weeks later, you have that information to your brain and you can show up as a fuller human with fuller context to give them those moments of delightion. Because not only do you remember it's Bob, but you remember it's Bob who's dealing with the headache of content creation because he's bought into that. That's how you do value, to actually do lead generation. Even though you don't want him to call it lead generation to the fact that he's trying to drive revenue because he's a non profit who's actually impacting like this part of the globe. But you remember all that. And now Bob's like, this is my guy, this is my gal. Like, why? Because it feels like you cared. Why? Because you cared how? Because you used your CRM as the context and memory machine that it freaking should be, not the automated pound you in the face with my messaging fist that it shouldn't be. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Oh yeah, no, that's exactly right. Like, and if you want to know the how to do this in CRM, like watch any of the other shows that I do because we are, yeah, we are communicating something called the value path right now, which forces you to label like the humans that are involved and where they are. Right? Because as we think about like the transitions that we're asking you to make, like again, a lot of this, if you're stuck in a system and you've got KPIs that are forcing you to like dehumanize the process to get your job done and even to get a raise, you know, sometimes like we get it. It's, it's not. Most people are institute. Nobody involved is put in a place for success because of the way that we've built these systems.
So. Hang on, hang on, hang, hang, hang. I'm gonna get hate mail. I, I don't care. I mean, I do, I do care. So send it to Chris. That KPIs key performance indicators. Do me one small favor. In your organization, if nothing else, can it be key people indicators? Can it be key purpose indicators? Can it be key passion indicators? Like, can that P be anything other than performance? Because it's not about what you do, it's about who you are. And when you show up in a way knowing that and do the things that you do because of that, you are coming from a completely different place on the planet than most organizations and most humans in the organizations that we're talking about today. And by the way, I fully realize that's not you.
And indeed, maybe a key, key value indicators. Oh, something else coming to a Q1 near you.
Oh, there we go. I like that.
So, but there are other transitions that we can make that we're actually gonna make. We already talked about the. But we need to scale, you know. Objection. Let's get into the Our team doesn't have time reality. My team is already overwhelmed. You're asking them to do more personalization. This is how you reframe that. We're not asking for more activity, we're asking for different activity. And this is something as simple of instead of an email, we're going to go touch LinkedIn somewhere, open it up for 10 minutes, right? And like find somebody we care about, right? And go just look at their profile and you'd be amazed at how many people like say, like, oh, this person was, was looking at my profile today. Let me reach out, right? Like that happens, folks. And so it's different activity than we're used to, right? One genuine conversation creates more value than a hundred automated touches. Remove the pressure to touch everyone and focus on genuine readiness signals. This is where AI can help you do that and say these are genuine readiness signals. Based on what you told me your business cares about and what you care about as a human, right? These are not, these are people just messing around on the website. This is where they're at in the journey. They're not ready yet, right? You can let all the automation and you know, giving them the right podcast recommendation and things like that. Those people who aren't ready for the human connection. Yet it's a different way to deliver it. Right. That's when it becomes. It creates this efficiency so that when it does happen, all of a sudden you have somebody paying you $12,000, and you didn't even have to give them a quote. Right? Yeah. So the other challenge here. How do we measure this challenge? Right. I can track.
Wait, can you. Can you hold on to that for one. For a second?
Yeah, because.
Because I, I. So let's say sidekick strategies. There's, like, all of the things that I'm saying is bull crap. And it burns down to the ground today. And all the people that we help, which is like, yeah, dude, busted. Psych. You're a butthead. Let's just pretend. And all of a sudden, I had to go get a job, and I went and got a job as a sales rep at an organization. Let's say it's a SaaS software somewhere. And they say, hey, okay, here's the deal. You have to send 100 emails a day. That's a lot of emails, by the way. I want you to think about that. I'm trying to keep the math simple because I'm not a big. I don't like math. But 100 emails a day and me as the person I am, I would be like, actually, I know that the product we have is amazing. I know that I can talk about the benefits, not necessarily the features, in a way that people can connect with. I know that I can tell stories, and I know people probably won't want to hear my stories in the hundred emails that I send. But let me see if I can go get on four podcasts this month, and knowing that each of those four podcasts might have 5,000, 10,000, let's say 10,000 to keep the math simple. 10,000 people that I can get a human conversation, tell my story about the benefits of the problems that we're solving. So how many emails did I actually send when I was connected with 10,000 people? Because 10,000 people now listen to me. Do I have to send the 100 emails I'm going back to, like, different things, right? If I was a sales rep, instead of sending the hundred emails, I'd make a daily video for a hundred dates. I could tell you if I made a daily video for 365 days and put it on LinkedIn or YouTube, I bet I'd be the top sales rep in the organization. If I did a video a day and four podcasts a month, let's say two podcasts a month. Do you Want to know how much my audience would grow as a sales rep? And guess what's fun is if I ended up not liking that organization and went to another organization. Do you know that audience comes with me? The email doesn't. Georgeyzcompany.com doesn't come with me. Sales people, I just gave you.
Oh, it's never been easier, right? These are the things that, that AI enables when you like, because, right, it's, it's harder to measure this stuff, but there are ways to, till it isn't, enable your team, till it isn't, to keep track of these, right? If you don't have to spend your time, like sending the 100 emails, doing the research that tries to say, oh, maybe this subject line or this subject line, like all that time spent, right, Versus what transpired in a podcast and the one, two or three people that said, man, this is what I liked about. I never heard it said that way. And then you put that qualitative signal in the cf that's better measurement than most of the thing, like opens and clicks, right?
If, if, and, and I have to lean into. If you're listening to this and you're not doing self attribution where people have to fill in like a text box that says, I heard George on a podcast or I, I got an email, you know, I watched a video on LinkedIn that George did. Like, self attribution helps you tie to this. But I gotta say, Chris, like, it's not measurable until it is. I can measure it because I, I've lived it, I've seen it, I know what it looks like, it smells like, it feels like. And until you lived through it, you, you don't understand. And so therefore you fear the gap of understanding to this other side of life and business that you could be doing. I'll. I'll shut up. I know you got a whole nother point or points that you want to get through. I'm sorry. Sorry.
No, that's exactly it. And like, that's why, like, all of the things that George just said, almost impossible. And by the way, they relate heavily to AEO and showing up in AI. You can't do any of it directly in email. Like, even if you link, even if you show me the video, like I got, usually I have to go somewhere else, like to watch the video, right? So when I say like, it shouldn't be surprising that profoundly launched without any email lists, sending no emails, and guess what? We were able to access 125,000 audience because we had a LinkedIn plan, we had a social plan. The experts and the people who started profoundly, collectively had 125,000 followers. Yeah, we had that field on our form. And guess what? Like, LinkedIn was like 80, 90%. And by the way, since it is social platform, usually there's names coming with that, right? Like, oh, I saw this post from George, I saw this post from Jason, I saw this post from Danielle.
Right.
Then it starts to become measurable. You're creating the space to measure word of mouth.
No.
Right. Which is what everybody agrees is the best source of pipeline. Yeah, Right.
It's magical. It's magical. Like, listen, and again, I say this humbly, but I want people to realize the stuff we're talking about can be reality. And I kid you not, 70 to 80% of the deals we've closed in the last four years have been word of mouth deals. Bottom line, You know how great that is? You know how less work that is because the work was done up front to get people to want to talk about who we are and what we do.
Yep. And this is where, like, this all connects and to connect it to the previous, you know, commitments. When we see people as complete humans, they're not just contacts in a CRM, they're living lives. There's context. And most times they're not hiding it. Like it's. They're living it openly on social, on Reddit, on all these places. Right. And there's a way to show up and acknowledge them in a right way, and there's a way to do it in a wrong way. Like a. A big part of the value path in why I believe it can be standardized in any industry, in any situation, is because humans, no matter what you're buying, no matter what you're investing in through that process that we all want the same thing. We want to be heard, we want to be seen, we want to be understood, and we want our expectations just met. They don't have to be exceeded. Like, if you just meet the expectations that we have worked together to come up with, or in most cases, you let me build my own expectations. So good luck with that. That's all every human wants, no matter what the business is. And if you can understand that that's happening, that's where the little moment that George shared where it's like, oh, yeah, you're Bob. And this is true, and this is true, and this is true about you. Like, so it means the world.
Chris, I'm trying not to get emotional right now because the universe is amazing. And serendipity is crazy. And usually when I'm talking to you, I try not to pay attention to messages and stuff, but for some reason, I'm being drawn, like, click on that one. Because, by the way, I feel guilty because I have, like, 12 humans that I need to connect with before I call it a day. Because half of my day was trying to get a computer up and working and a computer to Geek Squad. Because I came into my office this morning, tried to turn it on, it didn't turn on, and I've been, like, installing stuff like a madman, just trying to make it through the last half of my day and. But I clicked on this Slack message, and I'm trying not to get emotional because, Chris, I think it sums up a little bit of what we're talking about here. I won't name the person, but I love the person. I got a chance to hang out with them and another person inbound and have dinner and. And they're a client, so, like, they pay us good money every month. But she says, I'm tuned into your podcast right now. I haven't watched it before. I really like it. I've also never realized how much alike we are and how we treat people and why. You're a true gem. We're lucky to get to work with you. She says. And this is what makes me emotional, because I love humans being authentic. She says, I'm a cheeseball, but I needed to share. Come on.
Oh, man. I needed to share. Like.
That'S what we're taught. Like, what can you do that people have emotions and feelings and want to share and talk about it? It's not your hundred emails. It's not.
Oh, and it's unfortunate that we have to say that part.
Right?
But we do. And again, like, you're let off the hook a little bit because you put in situations where it's impossible to send out a hundred emails and be human about it. Like, that takes a long time, and unless you whittle everybody down to a transaction or number, you're not going to be able to hit that number. And that's where I get it. Not everybody's in the position of being able to go do a podcast and have. But you can start to talk about these things in a way where it's like, if I'm going in there and I get surprised with that, I'm like, okay, what's the real goal? We're trying to start how many conversations with these emails? Okay, this is how I think that we could do it. And I would love the opportunity. You just hired me, so hopefully you trust me to go and try this way and we can, we can look at it. Right? And that, by the way, that way is going to be like 10 connection requests on LinkedIn and a bunch of LinkedIn stuff, because there's over a billion people there. And, and if you can just speak to it from this way, like, again, it's when, when the cheese ball comments happen. It's, it's, it's, it's the best. And, but you got to be brave enough to, like, allow for that kind of perception because you have to find a way to break through the noise of the numbers. And when you do, there is a human. Whoever's next to you in the business, there's a human somewhere. Like in there. When you say things like finding other ways to say this process, I can't possibly be, I can't possibly care about this human on the other side of this email for doing a hundred per day. Like, like, can we agree on that? Okay, yes.
Yeah.
Now what do we do? Do we like that? Do we like the fact that we can't care about the other person? And that might lead to some tough conversations and some tough decisions, but if you can't have those right, like, you're not, you're probably not in the, in the right, in the right kind of business. I'll say that.
Yeah.
And that's. Again, this stuff lines up so well. Next week, we're going to be talking about remove barriers, like, instead of adding pressure. Yeah, that 100 emails per day, it's a pressure and it's a barrier. One of the most common things I used to say when I started doing content was like, if we could spend 10% of the time that we spend on email, move it over to LinkedIn, like, watch out. Right?
It's. I can't wait for this conversation. Because, Chris, you, you call it barriers. The amount of times since 2013, 2014, that I've asked people, hey, how do we remove the buyer repellent that you're spraying all over the Internet right now? Like, I can't wait for this conversation.
I know it's gonna be fun. And this is like, one of the key places that started me down this path of like, okay, we've got good people put in bad situations. When I've got, like, good humans telling me they cannot spend time on LinkedIn because they have to spend time emailing and making calls, they know how valuable they cannot do it. Like, their job will not allow that's. That's the barrier in front of them. Being a good human being, I'm like, okay, something's not this. It's not gonna work, right? So we're gonna be talking about that next week. This has been another brilliant conversation. As always.
Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.
My pleasure. I'm so thankful that we get to put this out in the world right now. I think we're hearing a lot of messages, like, messages like the one you just got are not uncommon. And that's kind of like, of course. Like, we're just saying human common sense stuff at the end of the day. And we're here to help you break out of these traps. So we hope you'll join us next week for episode six, where we'll be removing barriers instead of adding pressure. Thanks so much, George.
Thanks, Chris.
