How to BUILD RAPPORT: Secrets from Eben Pagan – Lessons in Marketing Genius

So this is my good friend Joe Polish, founder of Piranha Marketing, also creator of best selling Nightingale Conant program, Piranha Marketing. Probably best business networker that I know. Very, very smart marketer. One of the smartest marketers living and definitely the combination smartest and best connected marketer. You're going to want to talk to him if you get a chance. What's your strategy for meeting people?

I actually made notes because I was really trying to. People ask me this all the time and it's kind of like, could you.

Stand just a little further away? You want this one?

I would actually like that. It is. That would be. I would really enjoy that. I'm going to sit over here.

Like, what's funny, Joe, is because everyone's only heard me making fun of you and like busting on you, they think I'm the vicious one in this relationship.

I know. Yeah. No, me and Evan, when we hang out, I mean, people like, say to me out there, like, God, they're picking on you. I'm like, this is. That's like ingrati. I mean, they have no idea. I mean, it gets pretty vicious, but it's fun. But you know what? Honestly, what he said about demeaning people in front of your friends and this is not to be. And what I'm about to say, I'm deadly serious out of. If you can. One of the best ways to build rapport with someone is, is to identify an area of mutual suffering and pain. The reason 12 step groups work is because there's a community of people that have been through pain. And when prisoners of war would go to therapists and psychologists and stuff, and they would not get any help, but then they would take those same people and put them into a room with other people that have been through the horrible situations they've been, there'd be instant rapport. Now, to put that in a positive light, one thing that I do with a lot of people that I meet, and I've met some very famous people and I'm good friends with them. I haven't just met them, I've developed relationships with them, is I have the understanding that most human beings are just insane and completely fucked up on many different levels. And I'm not saying that to be just for effect. It's true. I mean, people are people and they have issues and they enjoy having fun. They like building rapport and I just like goofing around. I don't think that someone is like God or some messiah unless, you know, I run into God or Messiah. So Evan, you know, shoots an email over to Tony. How do you pronounce his last name? Shea Shay. Because I always say his last name. Tony Hsieh. He's the guy that's the CEO of Zappos. And I've met him before, but, you know, he had dinner with Evan, went and had dinner with him, with Joe Sugarman, who's a good friend of mine, the founder of Blue Blockers Sunglasses, and sends back an email to Tony saying, you gotta connect with Joe. And. And then he also demeaned me in the email in a very funny way. But that built instant rapport because he just knew, yeah, it's cool to talk shit, you know. And so I shoot back another email, kind of doing the same thing. And all of a sudden, you know, now we're going to do a tour, Zappos, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Going to do an interview with him. And that's just a real simple, quick connection. So when you meet other connected people, just become buddies and, you know, they'll introduce you to everybody. And one of the things, just some stuff that everyone can do. If you want to meet someone, first off, find their birthday. Know everyone's birthday that you want to meet. Send them cards, send them gifts before the holidays, send them stuff. Robert Cialdini, who's a good friend of mine, he wrote a great book called Influence, and there's a chapter on reciprocity. Learn to use reciprocity. Giving things to people will help you tremendously. But don't just give them goofy, silly things. Find out things that they really would find valuable and interesting in terms of, you know, gifts. If they have any sort of pain.

You know, hang on a sec on that. Just to give you a window inside of Joe's mind and how he thinks. Just an experience that I had with him. I was out with you. I think it was after one of your big seminars a few years ago, and you needed to buy. You needed to buy a ladder for something. And we're out driving around to find a ladder. You want to change a light bulb or something. And I'm like, why don't you just have somebody else do it? And you're like, because I want to buy a ladder and I want to change. I know it was after a seminar, so you were just winding down. And like, I just want to get out and be a regular person for a little while. So we went over to. I think we went to Costco. And do you remember this?

No. I'm trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about.

Okay, okay. No, I really want to give you, like, the model of how a genius thinks, all right? Just, like a window inside of his mind, like a perspective you wouldn't normally get. So we're walking down the aisles in Costco and trying to find a ladder, and we're looking at a bunch of different things. And, you know, whenever, like, two people that are interested in the world go out, we're talking about what's going on in Costco. And we come around one of the end caps. It's, you know, the huge piles of goods and stuff they have there. And Joe's stand there, and he's like, wow, look at that. That's like, hmm, that's awesome. And I'm looking, and it's these boxes that are. Whoa. They're probably about 2ft wide and 3ft tall and about 8 inches thick. And they're these big porcelain Dutch figurines, like, yard figurines. And it was a big box that, I mean, probably weighed, like, 40 or 50 pounds. And Joe's like, that's great. He goes, you know, that's the kind of thing that you send to someone on their birthday or for Christmas with, like, a really thoughtful card. And they go, what the hell am I going to do with this? And then when you come over, they've got to, like, put him outside on their lawn. He's like, just. He was mesmerized. He was like, I could see the wheels turning. Like, this is amazing. This is great, because they were like, 20 bucks for the whole set.

You're absolutely right. I mean, I sent Marty Edelston, one of those little samurai guys. You see those in the airplane magazines, the sumo dude. They're like, 95 bucks. I've probably sent 10 of those to People. What the hell do you do with it? You gotta. They're always forced to have to think about you. That's actually, you know, I don't remember that, but that's the sort of stuff I do all the time. So. Yeah, Marty Edelston loves that thing. He's the guy that owns Boardroom Inc. Now, he sends me a personal letter at least every three weeks and has done so for at least three years. And this is a guy that's running a $100 million a year company. That's just a great dude. But it all started with sending goofy stuff to each.

Yeah. Every three weeks, Joe gets a letter that says, where'd you get the Dutch figurines?

No, no. He writes, you should see the crazy Shit that Marty sends me. He's twisted, but yeah. So, you know, find something that they would really find interesting. Send them weird gifts, send them cool stuff if they have any sort. You know, let me do like the strategic stuff. Being a marketer, I learned a lot of. I learned marketing from Gary Halbert, who was brilliant and demonic and neurotic and weir, but just a genius. And he said that one of the things that lacks in most marketing is theater. So you want to be theatrical in the stuff that you do. So, for instance, if I wanted to meet a bigwig, I mean, I've never had a situation where I've wanted to meet someone that I've not been able to meet and it's gotten me into. I mean, the stuff that. What I would do, for example, if I wanted to meet someone and I had a message I needed to convey to them, I would get a little mini DVD player. I would shoot a video of yourself, put it in the DVD player. I would send them a mini DVD player with a post it note on the top of it that said, open this up and press play. And I would send that DVD player to them by uniform courier that they personally have to sign for. So it gets through all the gatekeepers and everything. It gets right into their hands, or at least their key, right hand person's hands, and just get it to them that way. You know, stuff like that simple to do. Might cost you 100, $200. But, you know, to me, it's a more effective use of time than calling someone 50 times. But what Evan was saying is, yeah, you know, be persistent to a point, but, you know, be persistent in a smart way. Do things, you know, send them letters with $100 bill attached to them. Always be willing to pay for someone's time. If you want to talk to somebody, sometimes just hire them, cut a check. I mean, I've always been willing to cut a check. What you said here is that you were having on the person, but you said when you were wanting to find out how to expand in foreign markets, you talked to someone and you said tens of thousands of dollars was rolling out of their mouth. I think that's something that you just said 15 minutes ago, I wrote a picture of a mouth, a head with diamonds rolling out. And I'm going to have my artist actually illustrate someone talking and all these gems just coming out of them and one conversation could be worth a million dollars to you. And people are so cheap. I mean, they're just not willing to cut a check. And if you have Enough money to solve a problem. You don't have a problem. That's what Dan Sullivan says. And so be willing to cut a check and meet the person. Another thing is, you know, people come up to me all the time and they're like, oh, let's do this, let's do that. First off my filter immediately is, well, have they ever bought anything of mine? Do they. Have they done any research whatsoever about what? They want me to sell their dog food, but do they eat my dog food? And so one of my criteria is I have a $25,000 person coaching group.

And.

And people come to me and they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to make a ton of money together. It's like, well, you know, then one of the filters is, if we're going to make so much money together, then join one of my groups and then we'll spend time together. And don't do it, because that means we're going to do a joint venture. Do it because you sincerely want to work with me. If not, then all I am is a financial target and access to a list or something. So I try to think about, do they actually really care? Like, if someone wants to meet and do something with you? You know, I mean, you're going to respect someone more. That's an actual client, someone that really appreciates you. You know, they study your work, so pay for their time. Always say please and thank you a lot. Really acknowledge people, thank them, you know, and this applies to anyone, even if you want nothing out of it. I mean, people that are rude to waiters and people that are just rude in general, they really don't get that far. You know, it's like the whole saying, be nice to the people you meet on the way up because they're going to be the same people you meet on the way down. You know, just start living your life that way. And the one thing that you have got to protect more than anything else is your reputation. Just constantly create value for people and operate and live that way. And by living that way in a very karmic way, opportunities will just present themselves to you that won't exist for people that aren't that way. So connect with their friends, with their. You know. For instance, one of the people that I want to. I met Bill Gates at All Things Digital earlier in the year, and I took a picture with me and Bill Gates, and I talked with him for just a couple minutes about doing an interview. But I know that Bill's like, in another world, as are most billionaires and so I talked to his wife, Melinda, and I'm going to do my best to set up an interview with her about the foundation that they have, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. And, and that will eventually lead to something with Bill. Very much the same way that I ended up developing the relationship with Richard Branson. I really admire what he was doing with Virgin Unite, his charity, which he fully funds and supports out of pocket. So 100% of the money from that charity goes to the front lines of all the different things they do, from homelessness in America to teaching entrepreneurism in Africa to all kinds of stuff. And I interviewed the lady that ran Virgin Unite, Jean Olwang. And of course Richard really liked that, eventually led to me doing an interview with Richard, him speaking at one of my conferences. And now we're doing trips to Necker island once a year in raising money for Virgin Unite. But find out who their top people are and do something and work with them. Another clever technique which everyone could use because it is a technique. There are some things you just sincerely do because you're talented and skilled and there's other ways to trick people into talking to you. So if you've got no ability to talk to anyone and you just want to use marketing tricks, that works to a certain point. One of the things you can do, and I learned this from Brad Anton years ago, I teach carpet cleaners how to basically sell carpet cleaning services. That's how I got into my marketing business. I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards and I needed to eat. And so I had to figure out how to learn how to sell stuff in order to survive. And all of the stuff I do today is purely an accident. It's a strategic byproduct of having to figure out how to make my carpet cleaning business work. And it's weird where life takes you, believe me, that and enough drugs, you can go anywhere in life. And so one of the things that I've taught a lot of my carpet cleaners to do, because they need to go in and do bids in commercial buildings and they need to talk to the right person. They always have these gatekeepers. So what I have them do, and I learned this from a couple of marketers from years ago named Brad and Allen Anton, is you call up their and you find out the person that you want to talk to, he or she, their shoe size and say, you know, I want to send them a pair of shoes as a gift. Can you find out the shoe size for me? Now they always, they will do this for you because they think it's kind of cool. No one calls up and says, hey, what's the shoe? They're like, all right, what the hell? And so you find out the person's shoe size, say it's like size 10. What you do is you go down to, you know, any store and you buy like a pair of Nikes or Reeboks for 70 or 100 bucks, and you take one of the shoes and you write a note that says, Dear Mr. Bigwig, Mr. And Mrs. Bigwig, I have something really important I want to share with you. And I felt the best way to get my, you know, my foot in the door was to send you a shoe, and I'd like to meet with you. And when we meet, I'll bring the other shoe. And then you send one shoe to them with a little handwritten note. Send it uniform courier, so it goes directly to them. And here's the deal. Anyone that's an entrepreneur has no one that works for them that thinks like that, and they just appreciate creativity. Isn't it true? I mean, honestly, when you go out into the regular world, not places like this, where people actually think, you know, it's like, amazing to see, like, creative people. And every carpet cleaner I've had, I've taught that to so many people. Everyone that actually does it, I say, if you send 10 pairs of shoes to any big commercial account, I guarantee you you're going to land a 10 or $20,000 job always. But here's the deal. One out of 100 people that I'll tell that to actually will ever do it. But the people that do it, they always get in, Send coffee mugs, send anything. But just that's theater. That's what I mean by being. Sending theater. Send in a DVD player, send in a little flip video with a recording of yourself saying something. You know, Bob, I wanted you to have this really cool camcorder, but press play. Every single person here could do something like that. That's. That's something. And then, of course, I have to come back to demean them in front of their friends when you can. I have built more rapport with people with very sick, twisted, really bad, very bad forms of humor in front of them. Just to know that, hey, the person's really chummy. And it instantly breaks down walls because people are constantly walking around trying to be all professional. And I know that everybody, no matter who they are, is a hosed up human being that has some area of their life that's completely dysfunctional. And the moment you can get into that, it just takes down walls and just be fun. I mean, people just love people that are fun. And be a ray of sunshine as best you can. And, Eben, I don't want to underscore.

A couple things you said. Contacting someone and saying, I'd like to hire you to do something. I'd like to buy an hour of your time. Very powerful. I can think of three people that come to mind, all of whom, you know, that I've hired to do an hour on the telephone. The lowest in the last couple years. The lowest cost one was $1,000 for an hour, and the highest one was 2,500 bucks for an hour on the phone. And you know what? They gave me great information. They gave me great advice. And you know what else? Now I can call any one of them anytime I want and talk to him because I made friends with him. Do the math. Another thing, you know, you recommended Gene Landrum's book, Profiles of Power and Success. Get Gene Landrum's book, Landrum. L A N D R U M. Gene Landrum, Profiles of Power and Success.

That's a very intense book.

It is. It's like the alternate perspective of the lives of highly successful people. He profiles a bunch of just, you know, super successful people, like Walt Disney and.

Can'T think of it, Maria Montessori, the Aviator, Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Hughes.

And you get to just see, like, all the common denominators of these people. But what you realize is that they're way more screwed up than the average person. And Joe has an intuitive sense of that. He knows that the geniuses are way more screwed up than the average person. And he goes right for the jugular.

And I mean that honestly, because I'm about as dysfunctional as a person can get.

And when I say goes right for the jugular, I mean it in the funniest way, because he makes fun of their foibles. And I mean, if you find something that they're insecure about, he just makes fun of them. I mean, it's like, amazing, but it's the most profound instant friendship formula that I've seen. Now I tend to mess with people, too. And that's why when the two of.

Us, I asked Richard Branson on tape, I said, if you were to get in a fight with Al Gore, you think you could take him. And I mean, you say, and when I talk to Rupert Murdoch at All Things Digital, you know, I'm talking to him, like, in front of a huge audience. I'M like, do you believe in God? And he's like, yes, I do. And then I had a drink with him after the speech, you know, because who the hell says shit like that to Rupert Murdoch?

Yeah, so those are just kind of underscoring a couple of your points. If you treat, if you meet one of these people and you treat them like they're some perfect high status being and you start acting weird around them and you become all formal and stilted, what are they going to do? Right? They're going to feel weird. Exactly. They're going to be like, okay, another person acting weird around me. On the other hand, if you do what this guy does and says, hi, I'm Joe Polish, do you believe in God or mess with them in any one of a million ways? It's like instant rapport.

Like one thing, which I do in elevators a lot, but you could also do it with really well known people. That everyone's always serious around them is, you know, you get. The best thing is try it here in an elevator with people you don't know. When it's all silent and there's a room, just turn around and say, can I ask you all a question? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior? Now just pause enough to say, no, I'm kidding. Because there's a difference between goofing on people and being cruel. But you know, your own version of that. Because some people, that's already offensive to them.

But you know, you know, as an alternative, you might try if the money were right and it could fit into your schedule. Do you have a minute to take a look at an opportunity? I learned that from my friend Sean back there.

And.

It'S a good one.

No, but see, the weird thing too is I've had to figure that out because by I mean I am an introvert. I am not an extrovert. I have forced myself to have to go out and have to talk to people. Especially when you get into the public speaking thing. The first time I ever had to do a public speech, I mean, now I've actually spoken. Largest crowd I've spoken in front of is 5,000 people. But man, when I first had to do it, it was just nerve wracking. And the second time I had to do it, it was nerve wracking. And it was nerve wracking. But you know, eventually you just kind of. But I realized that if I want to get checks, you got to talk to people. You know, that's what entrepreneurs have to do. So. So there's one thing that My good friend Dan Sullivan says is two things you need to be successful as an entrepreneur. You need courage and ignorance. And I had a lot of both in the very beginning, and so I still do. So first off, be willing. And I've also reframed the thing about rejection and stuff. It's not rejection. It's taking a survey of who has good taste and who doesn't. Stuff like that. But also remember the Wayne Gretzky thing. Always remember when you're thinking about it, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And just go out there and take the shots and just do it. Because, you know, the world does not reward people that don't go out there and do it, you know, and you only lose if you fail to lose the lesson. You know, stupid little cliches. But here's the other thing, too. I never ask anybody to do anything for me without creating value for them first. And sometimes that value, simply wanting to make them laugh, even with my goofy jokes and the way, I mean, it's truly. I'm just trying to be fun with people. I'm trying to make them smile. I'm trying to just have a good time. And if I can't do any of those things, at least I amuse the hell out of myself. But always create value for people. I never ask anybody to do anything for me. Give me an. Do an interview with me. And I've interviewed some great. I mean, next week I'm interviewing Hugh Downs on video. I've got a verbal agreement from Tiger woods to do a genius network interview. Part of it is. But I always think of, how can I create value for this person? And if you show up with that attitude, you know, the whole. I don't know who originally said it, you know, you can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. So always think about what is the value that you could create, provide, give, offer, link them to. And if you use that approach, you can pretty much meet a lot of people. And when you don't know anyone in the beginning as a marketer, you have to manufacture your own credibility. That's where learning marketing techniques and things can come in. But after you've interviewed someone that's really famous or, you know, someone that's really connected, it just builds upon it. So in the beginning, you're going to have to build up the momentum, but it's a lot easier to maintain momentum than it is to create it. So just be willing to spend a little bit of time creating it and doing some things in the beginning and just, you know, your life and your income and everything will grow as a result of it. And I mean, I could say more, but I don't want to hog the mic.

Thank you. Fastest, best, most efficient way to learn anything. Direct transmission from a master in a coaching and mentoring relationship. Find masters and learn from them.