Turn Every Personal Interaction Into a Success (Using These 5 Strategies!)

Ineffective interactions are costing you big time. Whether it's in sales, leadership, or day-to-day business, your success hinges on how you engage others. But let's face it. All too often, we have distractions, maybe some bad habits, and unchecked emotions get in the way of leaving opportunities on the table. Opportunities that we build whenever we build our relationships. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Hey, welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that our customers and our employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, we are tackling one of the most overlooked yet costly issues in business. And that is how ineffective interactions are quietly killing sales, team engagement, and leadership success. My one ask today is if this is your first time with us, please make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. And if you know anybody who could use this content, please make sure that you share a link to it. That way, you get to share the knowledge that you're gaining today. I do know that all too often, business leaders and sales professionals are sabotaging their own success without even realizing it. Maybe it's the baggage from the last bad call weighing them down. Maybe they're distracted, mentally replaying the morning email disaster instead of actually listening to what they're hearing. And maybe they don't even recognize the subtle ways that they're shutting down connections before they even start. So that brings me to our Question of the Day. So, how many opportunities have you unknowingly lost because of how you showed up in the moment? Are you sure? Because we said unknowingly. So, that means you don't really know, do you? But I'd love to get your experience, get your feedback. Go ahead and share your experience on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and share a link to this episode. And be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is someone who knows a thing or two about high-stakes business interactions because he studied what makes or breaks them at every level. John Golden is a globally recognized sales and marketing strategist, best-selling author, and the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for Pipeliner CRM. He worked with businesses worldwide to transform how they connect, communicate, and close deals. And when I say he's done the work, I mean it. John has conducted over 1,800 interviews with thought leaders dissecting habits, strategies, and blind spots that separate really the top performers from the rest of us. He's dedicated his career to helping leaders. He is the author of Winning the Battle for Sales. John, welcome to the show! It's so great to have you.

Yeah, thank you, Marc. It's great to be here. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.

So, maybe you could tell me a little bit about what you do for your clients. I know that you're working with the CRM. But as well, you also have a podcast, don't you?

Yeah. So, I mean, our core business is Pipeliner CRM, where we have the core CRM is a sales CRM. So, it's focused exclusively for salespeople. It's really aimed at midsize to large to enterprise companies, ones with sales teams who understand sales process. And we built it from a salesperson point of view perspective. So, that they found something that they could easily use, but also that actually helped them with their daily workflow and helped them close business. The other side is what I do with SalesPOP is it's our podcast. It's our give back, as you said. I look at myself as a seeker of wisdom. And I go and thankfully, with my team, they go and find. And now, podcast agencies come to us. with guests who have interesting perspectives, interesting insights, and I bring them to our audience. So, I really believe in education and give back because at the end of the day, tools are great. But you also need the theory and the skills to go with it.

Yes, yes, yes. And I appreciate you taking time out today to do this show because I know that this is a topic I think we don't talk enough about. And that is this aspect of not only communication but effective interactions. So, from your experience now, how much How much do ineffective interactions really cost businesses right now? And are we talking things like lost sales, missed opportunities, or are we talking about something bigger?

And we're talking about all of it, to be honest. And because at the end of the day, how you react with other people, how you react internally with your colleagues, how you interact externally with prospects and customers, and how you interact with the world in general. So, I think it's a bigger thing in many ways because it's how you interact with the world in general. And today we're very, very distracted. We've got our little narcissistic friend here who is always looking for our attention. We're bombarded with things coming from every direction. And so the world is telling us, whatever you do, don't focus on yourself for any length of time, right? Just distract yourself. And the problem is that we're— and I like that you always said the unaware piece because we're unaware often how we're presenting ourselves to the world and how we're interacting with the world. And then we wonder why things aren't working out our way, or our day is unfolding in a particular manner and we don't understand it. So again, we just tend to, I don't want to deal with that so I'll just distract myself. And it's kind of a vicious circle. And like I said, it can cost you business. It can cost your relationships. It can just cost you bad days. I mean, and who wants bad days?

Yeah. Well, and as you were saying that, I recalled one time when I was sitting in my office. I was running a hotel and I had my laptop up and somebody came in and go, Marc, can I talk to you for a second? It's like, yeah, absolutely. And I just kept on working on my computer as she was talking to me. And something clicked in me and said, wait, wait, wait a second. What am I doing? And so, I had to stop her and apologize. And I closed my laptop to make absolutely sure I was fully present because I just realized that I had this habit of trying to do 2 things all at the same time. And it really did that person a disservice. Do you find that this is because we're thinking more transactionally now than we should be? We should be thinking more in a relational mindset rather than transactional?

Yeah. And I think it comes down to almost that we live in this casual culture, right? Where everything, all the kind of formal rules have gone out the window. Like, I don't even know you but I can write to you and say, hey Marc, as if we've been lifelong buddies. And I feel like that We've allowed, I would say, rude and negative behaviors to creep in and we've kind of passed them off as acceptable. For instance, like what you just said there about your laptop. How many times have you had a conversation recently, just a one-on-one? It can be just a casual conversation on a Saturday afternoon or whatever. And the person you're talking to, their phone buzzes and they just drop down, look at this, look at the tank, then come back to the conversation. Now, what they've just communicated to you in that moment is, I'm just checking to make sure that there's not something more important than you and what you're saying to me. And also, I'm not 100% focused on what you're saying anyway because I'm allowing myself to get distracted. But we do it now almost unconsciously.

We do.

And the thing is, because we want to avoid conflict, we don't call it out either in other people because we're probably doing it ourselves. So we don't sort of go, Hey, Marc, that was a little rude of you. I was in the middle of talking to you, right? We don't do that because, as I said, we're probably doing it ourselves. So I think it all starts with we have to spend some time looking at ourselves and examining how we present ourselves to the world. And that begins, and I really do believe that, that begins when you wake up in the morning, right? Once upon a time, before we had our devices, you wake up in the morning, you probably say hello to the— if there's somebody sharing your bed with you, you probably would say hello to them. Then you might have to go to the bathroom or something. Anyway, what do we do today? We wake up in the morning, we reach for our phone. We won't even say hello to the person beside us. We reach for our phone. And what happens is you then do something like Maybe you go on to the news, right? And it doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum. That's irrelevant. The news is no longer there to inform you. It's there to aggravate you. It's there to get a reaction, prompt a reaction from you. It's there to provoke. I would say news is. So, right. So you go on, you look at your news. You're not probably most of the time you're angry now because it says, oh, I can't believe that. And, or perhaps it's not the news. Perhaps you go on social media. And I see Marc. Oh my goodness, look, Marc standing in front of a Lamborghini. Darn, Marc is doing really well. He's doing so much better than me. Now, it turns out it wasn't your Lamborghini, but I'm too—

You found me out.

Yeah, I did. But the fact is, like, I just slid it in. But you can just think of— and you could come up with 100,000 other examples of this. But the reality is now, think about how you're starting your day.

Hmm.

You're annoyed about the news, or you're jealous about Marc's Lamborghini, or you're just feeling frustrated and inadequate, or discombobulated in some way. Now, how is that a good way to start your day? What kind of a successful day are you going to have if you start off at a deficit and start off frustrated and riled up? You'd be so much better not to reach for your phone. Or if you're going to reach for your phone, maybe open a Zen meditation app or listen to a piece of music that always gets you in a good mood or calm. But just think about how you start your day, right? Think about how you start your day because how you start your day is often how your day is going to go.

And when you think about all the things that happen even before you get to work, like I read some statistic that said something like 76% of leaders will answer emails before they even leave for work.

Right, right, right.

And so, we're taking all this precious time of the beginning of our day and we're just throwing all this stress on us immediately before we even start working.

Yeah. And the other part too, like some people would say, well, okay, John, that all sounds fine. But like, I've got a newborn baby and they were crying all night and I've been awake all night. So, I woke up. I haven't had much sleep. And you go, yeah, Life. It's life. There are things you can't control. But what you can control is whether you are now going to inflict that on the rest of the world. And if you are, good luck to you. It's not going to work out very well for you. Because at the end of the day, when you interact with the first person in a business context that day, they're looking for something and they want that interaction to be a positive one. So, if you come in with a negative mindset and a negative attitude, Well, we know how that goes.

It's such a joy to be dealing with you. Are there any like red flags or subtle signs that indicates that someone is struggling with being really ineffective with their communications, with their interactions? Are there some cues that people should be looking out for?

Yeah, well, here's one thing that's really interesting is your body will tell. There's a lot of things that your body will tell you like physiologically, right? If you feel tense, right? If you start engaging and you're feeling tense, you should ask yourself, why am I feeling tense? Like, Marc hasn't done anything. We're like, why am I— why am I— and I've been, you know, this meeting has been on my calendar or whatever. Like, why am I tense right now? You know, why am I reacting? So your body will tell you that there's something up, right? So that's the first thing to do is to pay attention. Pay attention to the messages your body is sending you. Pay attention to what you're saying. Pay attention to how you're saying it. Pay attention to also to Am I actually listening to Marc or am I thinking of other things? Or am I even interested in talking to Marc right now? Or am I doing it because it happens to be on my calendar and it happens to be what I have next? And so, these are all little red flags that you can pick up on. You can pick up on how your body's reacting. You can pick up on how your mind is reacting. And you can just pick up on how you're feeling in that moment. Am I feeling about Oh, Marc has given me this time. Marc's got a lot of insights. Wow, what can I learn from Marc in this next while that's going to help both of us progress to whatever we're looking to talk about? And I think the other thing too is, and it's almost contradicting, but it's not, is like I said, we're so distracted by everything, but at the same time, we're also very kind of self-centered and self- focused. And it's more about, am I really focusing on what Marc is saying? Am I really trying to listen? Or am I thinking about myself? Am I thinking about what am I going to say next? What great question. Oh, I need to push this forward. Or I need to close this deal, right? This is— I need to progress this. Or I need to have something come out of this meeting or else my manager is going to be on my back. It's all self-focused. And I know that people love to talk about service and servant leadership and everything. And to the point where I think it sounds a little bit too kind of foo-foo for people. But at the end of the day, it's like, don't you want to be of service? Don't you want to make somebody else happy? Because maybe making that other person happy is actually figuring out that you can't help them, right?

Yeah.

Maybe somebody else is better suited. But isn't that a better place to be coming from to think of I'm more interested in how Marc leaves this conversation than I am about myself right now.

Yeah, it's interesting because it does shake the whole kind of self-awareness. And it forces us to be on purpose. And I don't think we're wired that way. I mean, when I talk to a lot of leaders and we talk about communication, I mean, 99% of them say, oh no, I'm a great communicator. I have a great way of communicating. And then, for the people who aren't there, there are memos. I mean, so what are some of the biggest blind spots that people have about their own interaction style and how they communicate?

Well, I think you just hit the nail on the head there at the beginning was about self-awareness. And I think self-awareness, I always say self-awareness is the greatest gift that you can give yourself. Now unfortunately, most of us don't give ourselves that gift early enough in life. And we learn the hard way. I can include myself in that. And I still have a journey to go on. But that idea of really of taking time out to be with yourself and to examine and question how you interact with the world and try and understand and then be open to some feedback. Now, I would always recommend people that go hire a coach, right? Hire a coach.

Yeah.

Because I guarantee you, and maybe you say, well, I'm not an executive-level person. I can't afford to hire a coach. Well, then I would challenge you for this. I would say, Do you have a hobby? And if you have a hobby, do you ever spend money on that hobby in terms of like, do you golf or do people play pickleball today or whatever? Have you ever hired somebody to teach you how to play better? I guarantee you have. So, you're willing to invest on a hobby that's not going to put bread on the table. But you're not willing to invest in a coach that's going to help you do your job better.

Right.

So, I would say, go find a coach and have somebody because they're invested. A coach or mentor invests Or find somebody who is detached enough from you personally that they would serve as a mentor to you. Because, and then that somebody can start to give you some real objective feedback. Now, some people say, well, could I ask a friend of mine or whatever? Yeah, you can. But if they're a friend of yours, chances are they're not going to want to really deliver the hard truths that you need to hear. Because they're your friend. So, I would say, if you're not going to hire a coach, find somebody who is removed enough from you to be a mentor. But certainly, open yourself up. Start to do a little bit of self-evaluation. And then, find somebody external who can start to give you that feedback. And then, just be open to it because, yeah, hey, we're not all good at everything. Yeah.

How can we be?

And yeah, how could we be? And we're not all talented. But if it's something that's important enough such as how you communicate, you should be willing to do some hard work on trying to improve because that's going to have such a knock-on effect not just in your business but in your life in general and in your own happiness, to be honest. Yeah.

Well, and so, we talked about the fact that when we think we communicate, we think we're terrific communicators. And so, we're kind of walking around in our bubble thinking that that's not a problem for us. And so, for us to be able to turn around and say, well, maybe I should get somebody to help me with my communication that I don't think I have a problem with. I think we can pretty much assume that if you're a human being with a pulse, you're pretty lousy at communication without help.

Yeah, yeah. And here's one good way of testing this out. I mean, they use this in In therapy, like in couples and family therapy. So next time you're having a conversation with somebody or whatever, is what they do is say, I speak and you're, you know, I'm telling you something, Marc. And then the therapist will turn to you and say, okay, Marc, I want you to explain back to John what John said. And you are not allowed make any comments or progress until John tells you that You have exactly captured what he said. So try that. So when you think you're a fantastic communicator, I would say, you know, start to do that. Start, you know, let somebody have a conversation with somebody and just say like, I'm just going to validate here, Marc, what you're saying to make sure I understood it properly and repeat it back. And don't allow yourself to go on until Marc says, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Because I guarantee you, you'll discover. that you're missing. They say, Marc, well, that's not quite what I said. And now, you left out this bit. And you know, you completely misinterpreted that. And now, you've suddenly gone from, hey, I'm the greatest communicator in the world, to going, oh, perhaps I'm not.

Well, see, I can do that now. I can paraphrase what you just said about all that ice fishing. I couldn't believe you're such a good ice fisher there, John.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I know.

So, hey, you'd be surprised how many times does that happen though. Or when somebody will send you, you know, when somebody will send you, oh, here's a follow-up. I mean, now they're using AI and tools and all that. But once upon a time, somebody would say, oh, I'm going to send you a follow-up on our meeting. And they send you some notes and you're going, okay, that was somewhat what we talked about. But it's missing a lot and some of it was not what we talked about.

Yeah, yeah. And so, I think what we need is I think we need some real solid strategies to be able to be intentional behind how we communicate. And so, I'd like to uncover some of that. And We'll get to that right after this.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will Never forget, buy Lights! Camera! Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com.

Welcome back! I am here speaking with John Golden. This is a great conversation because we're speaking and we're listening and we're communicating. And it's all really wonderful, isn't it, John?

It really is. It really is.

So John, why don't you tell us a little bit about your book?

Sure. Well, Winning the Battle for Sales was— I wrote that when I was running Huthwaite, which was a sales consultancy company that used the IP SPIN Selling and the IP of Neil Rackham, the professor of sales who had done the only proper real scientific study of sales. And so, one of the things that I always felt was that when you're in a situation, it's very hard to often remember The different tips and strategies that you can use. So, what I thought is there's a great— remembering by association is always a great tool. So, we took a lot of different sales strategies and then we found battles throughout history that kind of equated to that sales lesson so that you could, for instance, when you were in that situation, you could recall, oh, this is like the situation in the Battle of Isandlwana, say, you know, the Zulu war with the British, like, I remember that, then you could apply it. Or say, you know, we concluded like the story of David and Goliath. And, you know, when you look into the real story, David, the king was— he gave David the latest, greatest weaponry of the time, sword and shield and armor and everything. And David put it on and said, I can't fight with this. It's too heavy. It's going to weigh me down. cast it all aside and just took his trusty slingshot out. It's a great lesson in avoiding shiny new toys and making sure whatever you're going to use is actually going to be effective. Or there's another great one. It was called The Naked Duel where these 2 English gentlemen aristocrats, a couple of hundred years ago, they had an argument in a tavern the night before some horse racing. So, they challenged each other to a duel at dawn on the racecourse and everybody turned up. And one of them, his name escapes me now, but before the duel started, he stripped down to his underwear. And the other guy on the other side was like, what's going on here? Now, it turned out that he had actually served in the British Army, the British Colonial Army, and he had seen many times that when people got shot with a musket ball or whatever, when it passed through your uniform, You could extract, you know, if you were attended to in time, you could extract the bullet or whatever you call that thing, the musket ball. However, it was the fabric of your— dirty fabric of your tunic that embedded inside your body that actually would kill you because it would infect you and you'd die. So what he was doing was he was hedging. He was thinking, okay, either I'm going to win the duel, or if I get shot, I'm going to give myself the greatest chance of survival by not having any, not wearing any clothes. So, there's no dirty thing going in. So, the lesson there is always have a backup, right? And for salespeople, oftentimes you walk in and you think, I have in mind what I want to get out of this call and the next step that I want to get out. But I don't come in with the, well, what happens if I don't get that?

Right.

Why don't you know what is the next best step? Or even 3, what is the one after that? And so, that's what that lesson was about. It's just always having a backup. If things aren't going to work out the way you would like them, then make sure you have the next best positive outcome in mind.

Yeah, so cool. And then, of course, the lesson of sanitizing your musket ball is a lifelong lesson.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Or perhaps not getting into Perhaps not getting into duels in the first place.

That might be a bigger lesson. So, we started this whole conversation about how inadequate we truly are. I know that you have like 5 strategies on how we could really start to think about how we're going to shift the whole narrative around how we interact and how we communicate. Can you share some of those with us?

Yeah, yeah. So, we've covered the first one, which is choosing how you turn up. So, choosing how you start your day, choosing how you turn up, Putting aside whatever it was that happened to you on the way. Perhaps, and as I said, maybe if you're about to have your most important call of the day, maybe pick up the phone 10 minutes early. Call a friend of yours who always puts you in a good mood and somebody who always pumps you up or your significant other or whatever. But choose. Own how you show up. And so, if you know an hour before this meeting that you're not feeling good, you're distracted, you're a little bit discombobulated. Now, you have time to fix that. So, own how you show up. And the next thing is about checking your baggage, right? Because we carry around all this baggage with us, Marc. And especially if you're in sales, you're a business person. Maybe it was yesterday you went full of hope to some interaction and it just went south. And now, it's in your head. Or you walk in and I always love this other one. Sometimes you walk, maybe you're in a meeting. There's 10 people in the room and there's somebody down there and they glance at you. And you decide to interpret that glance, right? And they probably weren't even glancing at you. It could have been something behind you. But maybe that's the way your dad used to look at you when he was annoyed, or maybe something, whatever. And so, you've got all this stuff going on. So, the first thing is I would say is check all your baggage before every interaction and tell yourself, this is a brand new interaction. This is new. This is not related to anything that went before. And I'm going to approach it in the best way I can. Right now. And I'm going to go into it with a positive mindset. I'm going to go in with my head cleared of all that baggage. And it doesn't matter whether I had 25 rejections in the last few days. I'm going to put those aside for right now. And I'm going to go in with a clean slate. So, checking your baggage, it's like, you know, people always are trying to carry on their baggage onto planes, you know, like trying to sneak their bags on. Well, this is the case of don't carry on. check your baggage. And guess what? This is also a situation where hopefully, the airline will lose it too and it won't make it to the destination.

That's awesome.

So yeah. And the other one too is, I mean, and you mentioned this earlier. It kind of goes back to what you were saying about the typing on your laptop when you're talking to somebody is being present. And again, being present is something that you 100% own. This isn't something that that you have no control over. You have 100% control over being present. But being present requires some discipline.

Hmm.

It's not like, you know, put your phone on the— you know, if I'm sitting down across the desk from you and I put my phone upside down on the desk, that's the new favorite one. You know, we're all guilty of that. That's not me really being present. That's me putting it upside down. But if it starts buzzing and you see little light coming from under it, I'm still going to glance at it. I'm still going to be distracted by it. So it's like, remove anything that could be a distraction from you. And focus. And if you're doing it as most, a lot of businesses done now, if you're doing it virtually, right? Turn off those notifications. Turn off that ESPN alert for your favorite team, right? If they've signed some super duper new player, guess what? He'll still be signed in an hour's time, okay? You don't need to know. You're not part of the organization. You don't need to know immediately.

Well, and virtual I think has given us permission now to be distracted 100 different ways. Right. We have multiple monitors now. We have so many different things that you could have a game open. You could be watching something on CNN on quiet or read. And so, as people are talking, we're just pulling ourselves out of the interaction. And so, do you have any tips on like, I mean, it's easy to say be present. But how do we check ourselves? Like how do we— because it takes so much intentionality in the moment. And I would even say, it even takes willpower.

Well, I think you just knocked it on the head there. All of these things sound easy but easy doesn't— they all sound simple. Simple does not equate to easy. As you said, it takes intentionality. I like you use that word because intentionality is very, very important. So, you have to go with— you have to examine And as I said, if you're doing it remotely, you've got to examine where you are at this moment. And you say, okay, why do I have those tabs open? Why do I have those notifications on? Why do I have that on in the background? And intentionally say, okay, I don't have enough willpower to ignore them. So, the only thing I can do right now is to remove them.

Right.

And then, but I think it's also you have to go in with the mindset of saying, This person's going to get my full attention. And then you have to ask yourself, what does that mean? Does my full attention mean I'm going to be listening to them, but I'm going to be watching something else? No. Well, that's not full attention, is it? So don't be trying to be smart or cute with yourself, right? Just say full attention. And so prepare. Prepare. Remove the things that are going to distract you and realize that we're all flawed and weak human beings at the end. So anything that possibly could distract us is going to distract us because we're just not that strong.

We can aim for 100% and be 80% there, right? One of the tools that I've used now is this idea that I'm always looking. So, when I'm on a virtual call especially, I make absolutely sure I'm looking at the camera. And so, that's my intentionality because my mom always said, look people in the eye. And as counterintuitive as it is for me to be looking here when I want to be looking at you over here, For me, that's the intentionality because really at the end of the day, I want to concentrate on what you're talking about. And so, the lens has given me, gives me that focus that I can really just be pinpoint present on what you're saying. And I don't even have to really look at your body language.

Yeah. And there's one other thing that you can try doing. Like I have it. I don't use it as much as I used to, to be honest. But I mean, I have a desk here that raises up so I could stand if I wanted to. And sometimes, I think that's a good, especially in the early days, that's a good thing to do is is to stand up because you'd be amazed how harder it is to focus on other things than it is when you're sitting down and you're kind of chilled and relaxed because then you're kind of giving yourself permission to be a little distracted. When you're standing up, you're kind of almost focused on the fact that you're standing. It feels like you're more engaged like we would be if we were standing face-to-face. Say we were outside a networking event and I'm standing face-to-face. If I'm standing face to face with you and I'm starting, I'm doing this or that or whatever, you know, it's, yeah, yeah, you're going to be going, hello, what's going on here? So there's something psychological about standing that maybe if you have a real problem with focusing and concentrating when you're doing this, I would advise you maybe when you're doing virtual calls is to stand. And that alone, the The act of standing and the little bit of physical exertion you're using by standing is a great way of keeping you focused. But I go back to Marc. It's 100% intentionality. It's 100% willpower. And we're also, let's face it, we are fantastic at coming up with good excuses and exceptions and why I'm not going to do that. I'm going to have this open, but I have a really, really, really good reason for that. So, I'm not actually doing it for bad. I'm doing it for good reasons. You go, yeah, no, you're not. doing it because you just, you just said, because I always say like, you know, I mean, let's face it, what for the, for the 20, 30 minutes that you're going to be engaging with this person, what could possibly happen that you need to know about immediately?

Right.

If there's an asteroid heading towards your neighborhood, one of your, one of your neighbors will probably let you know. So have you heard about the asteroid? Right. You don't need to be online. You don't need, so you can, you can spare. And I think that's the other thing is give yourself permission to Permission to spend the time. Yes.

Yeah. And I mean, it's magical what you learn when you can spend that time. And yeah, because again, it's so interesting this whole thing because I know like my mom, everything we've talked about as far as distraction, my mom has called me out on at some point. I'll be sitting on a couch with her. Something will buzz and I'll look at my watch and she goes, do you have something you need to— No, no, I'm fine. And then something will happen again and I'll pick up the phone. She goes, are you sure? Do you need to be in a meeting or something? It's like, Mom, okay. And so then, I put the phone away. I got the message.

There's one other thing, Marc, that I firmly believe in. And that is when you're interacting with somebody for the first time, whether it's through email, or phone, or virtual, or whatever, is you will never, never ever get penalized for being too formal and too polite. But you will for being way too casual and too friendly when you haven't earned the right. You're talking about mothers. Like my mother, God rest her, anytime you should hear me say like, hey, hey, somebody, she'd go, hey is for horses, John.

Yeah.

But it was that thing about— and we get it. And as I said, we have this casual culture today where people feel that they have permission to be casual from the get-go. But I would advise people one way that you can differentiate yourself immediately today is when you engage with people for the first time is be formal, be polite, and don't be casual, over-familiar. So, it's okay to write, Dear Marc, or Hello Marc, or something more formal.

As opposed to, Hey!

As opposed to, Hey dude! Yeah, yeah. And then some stupid joke or whatever. And you're going like, Listen, I'm a business person. I'm trying to get on with my day. I don't need your silly joke. Maybe later on when we know each other. But just do that because the bar is set so low today that you will. And here's the sad part is you will stand out if you're thoughtful, if you're polite, if you're formal, if you wait to get permission to be a little bit more friendly and engaging.

Yeah, this has been brilliant. Hey John, how could people get in touch with you if this is resonating with them?

Yeah, I mean LinkedIn is probably the best place you find me. John Golden on LinkedIn. So yeah, that's probably the best place to find me. salespop.net, pipelinersales.com.

Okay. And all the links are in the show notes.

Great!

Yeah, yeah. So, we've talked about choosing how you turn up. We've talked about checking your baggage at the door and be present in the moment, of course, which is probably the biggest challenge we have. What are the other 2?

Yeah, there was one we alluded to a moment ago, just about knowing your triggers, because we all have triggers. And it's something that does so much damage in our lives. And some of these, if we don't recognize them, and a lot of triggers, like, can go back to your early childhood. It's like you could have had a teacher in school who was particularly mean to you and something that they say to you, or they humiliated you, or you were humiliated in a situation one time. And anytime something goes slightly wrong, it puts you back in that moment. And suddenly you feel like you felt when you were 5, 6, 10, whatever it is. And if you don't recognize that, if you don't start to go, hang on, why does that trigger me? And then you recognize and you say, okay, I'm going to pay attention to that. I'm going to push it to the side and go, no, no, that's something that happened years ago, whatever. It's not relevant to this situation. And again, as I said, your body will often tell you because it's like I mentioned the example earlier. You're sitting at a table of 10 people. Guy or gal down the end glances at you in a particular way and you're like suddenly you're tense. Maybe you get a little hotter. Maybe you're a little jittery or whatever. But your body will tell you at that moment rather than go, oh my, they don't like me. I'm gonna have to do something about it. My body's just telling me that I've been triggered by a glance that probably has nothing to do with me. Everything I've been saying, doing so far is fine. So I just need to set this aside. Because if you give it fuel, it'll get bigger and bigger. And suddenly triggers will be coming from everywhere.

Yeah.

And suddenly everything that happens or being said, because your body is in this heightened senses right now, you're going to react poorly to. So again, you have to really be careful about your triggers. And the last one I would say, Marc, is owning your last impression, right? That's one of the biggest. That's one where I see people fall down all the time is that maybe you have a great interaction with somebody and they say, oh, I'll follow up with you tomorrow or whatever. And you're great. And then they don't. They follow up with you a day or two later. Or they just follow up and say, or they follow up with you to tell you that they haven't followed up with you yet, but they will follow up with you and they're still working on it. And that kind of thing. And I think the best thing to do is to surprise the other person. So, rather than just follow up the next day, say, or later on with, here's the notes from our call. Here's what we agreed on, whatever, is to go a step further and say, there's something interesting, Marc, that you mentioned. It's got nothing to do with with what we were talking about. But here's an interesting blog post that I read a while ago that talks about that. I thought you might be interested in it. You know, now I have a feeling much more that we have established some kind of a relationship because I tell you, the amount of times we've come away from an interaction thinking, this is great, I like this guy, you know, we've established something great. And then, the follow-up is not great. And that's the lasting impression. It's not how we finished our call. It's how the follow-ups went. That's the lasting. So, it's almost like you're recreating a lasting impression every action you take thereafter. And I do feel like people don't pay enough attention to that. And when it comes off as kind of rushed or rote, and like I said, nowadays, we have AI tools. So, I can instantly send you a synopsis of our call. Anybody can do that now. But how about you also include something of extra interest or something that goes just a little bit—

Something that's personal.

Personal, a little bit above and beyond.

He loves dachshunds. Look what I found. I found this really cute video of dachshunds. I thought you'd appreciate it.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. Just something so that person stops for a moment and thinks, oh yeah, Yeah, it's a good person because who doesn't like—

It's interesting because who doesn't like a reminder that they are being thought of?

Oh, I mean, that's it, isn't it? I mean, it's a— why do you think— I mean, where did the greeting card industry come from in the first place, right? I mean, it became from the fact that people like to be acknowledged. You know, they like to be remembered. I mean, I mean, how many times have you— you can probably remember occasions when somebody reached out to you or did something for you out of the blue that you weren't expecting, or just literally just reached out to you out of the blue and said, hey, Marc, I was thinking about you today. Exactly what you're saying. I was thinking about you today. And then you were like, wow, like, you know, Marc's a busy guy. He's got his own life. I don't even know him that well. And he was thinking about me today. I mean, come on. Of course that makes you feel good.

Of course, it does. And it's interesting because I do know that there is also a lot of manipulation around sales and reach-outs and stuff. So, I'd like to get into some pitfalls and some cautionaries. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back. I hope you're getting tons of value from today's episode. As you can tell, John and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or someone you know might be planning a leadership retreat or a conference, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. John, you were talking about this idea of follow-up. Now, I do know that probably, I do know like in the speaking industry, one of probably the worst things that speakers do is they don't follow up enough and they don't follow up well. We just talked about making it personal. We just talked about making it relevant to the person and to your relationship. Are there any other tips that you could give us on what really matters to create that lasting impression that will really resonate even if the person turns around at the end of the day and says, nah, it's okay. I don't need you this time?

Yeah, I mean, I think the I think this word authenticity has been thrown around the last few years. I mean, it's not a new word, but it seemed to become a buzzword. And I think it was even Merriam-Webster's word of the year, either 2 years ago, I think. But I think at the end of the day, it's true. People want people to be authentic, right? So whatever I'm doing is like, don't use it as, oh, here's a tactic. It's not a tactic.

Right.

You know, when you follow up, when you, when you, you know, do something for somebody, do it because you want to do it, because you want to make that person feel good, because you think it adds something to them. Just don't do it because you think it's— you're going to get something from it, or I'm going to manipulate Marc. Marc's going to think I'm a great guy because I went this extra mile from— yeah, that's great that he does, but do it because you want to do it, because you genuinely feel that that's a good way to interact. So I So, I think authenticity and particularly because we came through the COVID period of people being so disconnected from each other and feeling so isolated that it really accentuated that need for human connection. Now, we're entering the era of AI. So again, people are starting to be more and more conscious about human connection. So, I think the more you can be real and be who you really are. I mean, I always use my favorite quote from my compatriot Oscar Wilde is like, Be yourself because everyone else is taken. So now I would say like, be your authentic self. So if you are, and don't try to adopt personas. I think that's the worst thing you can do. And you often hear it when, I mean, you probably get all the time, Marc, you know, when somebody calls to sell you something and they're talking in this strange way and it's almost robotic or it's, they're trying to be really, hey, you know, I'm this. And you can tell that that's not really who they are. And I used to say, be who you are. If you are a very analytical and maybe a quiet, introspective kind of person, be that person. Because you know what? We need those kind of people because those are the kind of people who tend to have the details and tend to really get into the weeds and really understand stuff. Also, they're the kind of people who are not going to fluff everything up. You're going to get the real from them. So be real. If you're a a big personality, like be that big personality, but don't try to be a big personality if that's not who you are. And I think that is so key. And I think the thing, Marc, is I think we are becoming better and better and better at seeing through it, right?

Yes.

Because we live in an era now that everything is so much artificial or manufactured that our antenna are up all the time. So I think it's much harder to hide. So I think that is a really, really critical piece is Be who you really are. And then once you are who you are, be consistent. What is the worst thing, the worst experiences we've had? I mean, one that's ingrained with me, I remember when I first came to the States and I was up in Silicon Valley during the dot-com era. And I could afford for the first time to buy, lease a nice car. So, I went to this particular dealership and the salesperson, he was It was great. And I was so excited about it. And so, I got the car and I brought the car home. And then, when I was driving it, every so often, there'd be a little rattle. And it didn't happen all the time, but it happened enough to like, I'm like, there's a rattle. So, I call up the sales guy and I said, listen, there's a rattle in the car. He goes, yeah, hang on a second. Let me put you through to service. That was as much as he cared.

Right. Right? Yeah.

Then when I got put through to service, they were saying, bring in the car. And they're saying, well, we can't hear it. And I said, yes, that's the point. It doesn't happen all the time. I said, it's— and, and so they said, no, there's nothing wrong. The rattle was still there. Blah, blah, blah. Cut a long story short, eventually they did. They took it out for like a 30-minute or an hour-long ride because all they'd been doing was driving it around the block and back again. And then they realized, and there was something loose and it needed repairing. My experience with that salesperson at dealership was now I wouldn't send my worst enemy there for a car. And it was all because the— and a lot of it had to do with the salesperson became a different person when I called post-sale with the credit. He was no longer this happy, friendly person who'd got me all excited. He was now, you're just— oh, I've sold it to you.

Transactional.

You're now transactional and you are now just a burden to me. Like, move on. And I think And I think consistency because we hate inconsistency. We don't like surprises. And especially, we don't like negative surprises where, oh, I thought Marc was this person but now, I'm not so sure. That's a really hard place to come back with. Consistency and remember that. And maybe you're having— and going back to what we talked about earlier, maybe you're having a bad day. It doesn't give you an excuse to react inconsistently when somebody's expecting you to be a certain way and you react a different way. You can't come back later and say, oh, I'm sorry. I was having a bad day. Yeah, because that person now does not trust you anymore.

Right, right. And to that point, like I love Stephen Covey's metaphor of the trust bank account that you put. Every time we deal with people, we're putting deposits into the trust bank account. And every once in a while, we'll do a withdrawal. But that's okay as long as we keep building. It's okay to make mistakes because we're human. But to that point of, I keep telling people that really the difference between an okay experience and a great experience is that you care this much. All you have to do is care this much each and every time you get into an interaction. Just care this much. And it's amazing how it changes things.

And it is. And it's sad. But I mean, our expectations are that low that I mean, enough of a little bit of good is going to outweigh everything. And it is. And like I said, the other thing is like, be yourself, be consistent, and don't be a chameleon. I mean, chameleons are really interesting little reptiles. It's great when you've ever seen one in person or in whatever, in lizard. It's great when you watch them change colors against whatever background they're in. It's a horrible thing to be in sales or business is to be a chameleon.

Yeah.

Because we want to believe you are who you present yourself as.

Yeah. John, this has been really fantastic. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about? Anything we didn't cover?

No, I would just again, I would just go again and remind you of Oscar Wilde, be yourself because everyone else is taken. It's a very simple piece of advice from somebody who was able to deliver fantastic life lessons in very funny I love that.

Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Yeah, John Gold. You can find me on LinkedIn or salespop.net or pipelinersales.com.

That has been absolutely brilliant. John, I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much for doing this today. I appreciate your knowledge, your expertise, your passion behind what you're talking about. And I thoroughly enjoyed this. And I know that the audience has taken a great deal of value from what we've done today.

All right. Thank you, Marc. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Thanks. Hey, if you have any questions about today's episode or you'd like to get a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes down below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you Subscribe to this podcast. Follow me on social media. I'd love to connect with you. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Thank you, Marc.