Episode 245: What DO You Have To Sell with Christos Provistalis (Encore)

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Prophet podcast, a very, very special podcast today. Because I have on the podcast the one, the only, a man that I've gotten to know over the last number of months in a big way, and he is incredible. The Unstoppable Christos Provista Lis Christos. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited to be on, I'm excited to join you at your event in October. I'm just excited to be part of your people's journey as well. So thank you very much.

My pleasure. Our honor. And we are super grateful and thankful to have you on the journey with what we affectionately call Unstoppable Nation. So I love that. Yeah. So anyway, you've already acclaimed yourself as unstoppable, so congratulations. And you, because of who you've become and who you are.

And we're going to dig into that in just a minute, you have attracted the ability to help, teach and influence very large companies in the billions now.

Yes.

You graduated up from not only million dollar companies, but now into billion dollar companies because of the message and what you bring to the table. Congratulations.

Yes, thank you very much. I started having some discovery calls with some very large international companies that have either heard of me through one way or another, through friends, through family, through social media, and just have contacted me and I've had a couple calls with them to possibly present for their leaders worldwide. So that's been really humbling, really, really exciting. And.

I'm unstoppable. You know, I. I'm unstoppable. Reading all of the things you put out and just the way that you portray yourself, your company, your people and it. And it's true. You, you have to know that you are unstoppable and you can get to wherever you want to get to. So thank you for that.

My pleasure. My goal is I get out of bed every day as we were talking about before we got started this morning. And as an organization, UPP's goal is to impact people's lives personally and professionally. And looking at it, when I think about it your mission out there, our mission out there, our journey together. There's so many similarities.

Absolutely. Absolutely there is.

That's exactly what you're doing. So, I mean, we are grateful and honored that you're going to be presenting at boot camp. And by the way, if you hear something today or if you're watching this on our YouTube channel, see something today that perks your interest or you want to learn more, please make sure be unstoppablebootcamp.com grab your ticket before they're gone, because you want to, you don't want to miss Christos and what he has. So let's dive in and help some people, shall we, Sir?

Okay, so before we dive in and give you something, you can work with Christos. People who want to know more about who Christos Provistilis is, share a little bit about who you are, where you came from, and your background.

So I grew up in the hospitality business. My family and I own a restaurant going into our 30th year now. And growing up in the hospitality business, working with my parents, who were both immigrants, and working with them made me realize the work ethic that they had and they instilled in me. And if I wasn't working at double their speed, being half their age, I was working slow. So it. It really made me work hard, work smart. And I worked through there, through high school, through college. I ended up having a couple different businesses in my 20s. And then while I was in my 30s, I decided to work for my first company ever. And I was very lucky to land an opportunity with Disney. And I was a guest service manager for them, working at their flagship resort in Orlando, and had the pleasure of serving celebrities and politicians and executives from Fortune 100 companies daily. And my job was to make sure that they left happy and whether they told me or whether I had to figure it out, because at the end of the day, they provide me with my living and I want to make sure that they have memories that I provided. Memories and experiences that no other company or no other person can provide. And after I left the company, I created and teach customer experience training class. It is a deep dive into service from the perspective of human connection, emotion, self awareness, and perception. And I started teaching the con, teaching the class throughout the country.

And that's where I first heard about you.

Yes, in Utah.

Prior to that, you may or may not know that. So there's been tricklings about you going on for a while within my eyeshot or earshot. And I heard about you. So congratulations. You're making an impact out there. So anyway, but something you just said, and this is what you, you're teaching inside the walls of the insurance agency business for those teams that want to engage with you. And by the way, your preference, because we've talked about this, to try to help some of our members as of late and you said, no, I prefer to do it live and in person. Right? Because I, I said, do you do sessions via Zoom? You go, no, I prefer to do it live and in person, just on a side.

I think if I taught anything else besides human connection and customer experience, I think I might be able to do it via Zoom or online. But if I'm trying to teach people how to connect with other people, I think my message is much better received live when I'm physically in the room with them, talking to them. My point, I feel gets across a lot better when it's live. And the last thing I'd want to do is have a company hire me and do this like this and not have them really reap the benefits of having me be live in the room with them.

I. That was kind of a loaded question as well. I agree with you 100% and you are so connectable, if you will, if that's even a word. But you said memories and services that no one else can provide is what you in part teach companies how to deliver.

Absolutely.

Us human beings, we're an interesting bunch.

And full of emotions and we'll get to that in just a minute. But you know, as much as zoom has become a verb nowadays, you know, started with phone calls. You know, there was a can and there was a line between two cans and that's how we first connected via phones. Just a little bit of a joke there. But anyway, so we had the phone and then we had the face to face and then we had Zoom and we have all the other ways we can connect in the world, whether it be email or chat, etc. Etc. And I'm going to ask you another out of left field question in just a minute based on something I learned from a mutual acquaintance of ours. But ultimately, face to face, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder is where it's at as far as the deep, meaningful, significant human connections. Would you agree?

100%. 100%. And that's why at least this class that I do, it has to be done live. And then afterwards, you know, I have companies that might do quarterly checkups. We can do those via Zoom. I don't mind that. But the initial class, getting my points across I feel is pertinent for me to be in the room with everyone and then afterwards to sit down and like, talk about scenarios or do Q A in person and be able to hear what they have to say and get some feedback. So I think it's very important that I do it in person.

I. I could not agree more. And when I saw you in person the first time in Utah, I was like, wow. And that was awesome. So, so thank you for delivering the way you did there. And I can't wait for Unstoppable Nation to experience. You live in San Diego in October. So, with that being said, the little piece I was going to circle into our conversation today, your friend and mine, Mr. Paradiso from Connecticut said, in a niches to riches training that we were recently delivering for agents, it was said that email is for information.

Phone or face to face is for communication.

Expand on that. What's your thoughts on that statement?

So email, you get a point across their words, their context, you get what you need to, but it lacks one thing, which is a. Lacks emotion. And you, you really don't know. Unless I'm writing you an email says, mike, you won the lottery. You know what I'm feeling, right? You know what I'm trying to say. Everything else that could be misconstrued, it lacks emotion. Just like some companies that have relationships with their customers send text messages, which are great for information, but you don't know how it's taken. But when you talk to someone like this, you actually get to see their face. They get to see your face. I've had some lenders that I've done this class for now. When they do their initial call, they do it only via Zoom. They stop doing it over the phone. So because they want to see them, they want to experience them, looking at them, smiling at them, feeling what they're actually saying. Right? So yes, sir.

Yeah. Fantastic. And I agree, it's that connection, because we're losing that a little bit.

We have been. We have been losing it a little bit. One, because of the pandemic. Two, because of technology. And technology is great and it should help move your business forward, but you just can't lose that human connection piece of it. Because at the end of the day, people want to be connected. They. They need to. It's one of the, one of the, one of the six human needs we all have is the need for connection and love.

I love that. So when, when I heard you say that, what went to my mind is, is Maslov's hierarchy of Needs, Right?

Okay.

I'm not sure if we're studying the same thing, but I think it's along the same line. We all have needs as humans, and one of the things that you teach so well is how to connect and ultimately what you have to sell.

Those of us in business who, you know, have a sales aspect to our business, which I'm sure everybody does, you know, what do we have to sell? So give us a little insight on what that might be that people have.

Absolutely. The. The name of my class is what do you sell? And it stems from a conversation I had with an executive that came into one of the businesses that I was running for Disney. And he comes in and said, christos, what do you sell? And at that time I was working at a restaurant, and I said, man, you can't read the menu. So I turned around, I started pointing the menu and I started reading. And he said, chris, I can read the menu. What do we sell as a company? And I said, oh. I said, we sell theme park tickets, we sell hotel rooms, we sell merchandise. He goes, that's not what we sell. And I said, what are you talking about? Because, Christos, you have to know and understand what your company sells before you attempt to sell it. And he goes, that's not what we sell. Those are all our props. He goes, we sell an emotion and we sell the most desired human emotion there is. We sell them the emotion of happiness. But you didn't know what we sold. But now that you know what you sell, your whole business changes. And when I work with a lender, when I'm like, do you sell money or do you sell the sense of creating wealth? When you, at the end of that 20 or 30 year loan, that person is going to be able to pass on some wealth to their family. That's what you sell. You don't sell money. A photographer, do they sell pictures or do they actually sell memories? They're two different things. So you have to really know and understand what you actually sell in order to sell it. Because I think a lot of people can sell pictures and a lot of people can sell houses, and a lot of people can sell insurance policies, but can you sell the emotional piece of that, which is what you actually sell? So that's the main part of the class and the whole point of it is knowing and understanding what you sell. And then I teach people on how to be able to actually connect with people so they can understand after they know what they're selling, how to sell it.

The thing that I am so Excited about. But that's a great analogy about the pictures, by the way.

Thank you.

We don't sell photographs, we sell memories.

Absolutely.

You know, picture tells a thousand words. And, you know, I know you're really close to your mom. I'm really close to my late mom as well. Just in memory. Right. And there's those memories that just bring it all back, which is fantastic. So it's great, great stuff. So that's why I'm so excited for you to help agents at the boot camp because you're going to help them learn how to connect, most importantly in today's society, because it keeps. It continues to change and you continue to up your game because you're out there helping so many companies, learning about the best way to connect and to help, you know, build that depth of relationship out there in the business world. So fantastic.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yeah. So what other strategies have you learned out there helping companies on the best ways to connect? Can you give us just like one or two gold nuggets?

Sure. I think, I mean, the biggest thing that I. When I tell. When I work with companies is you have to understand what human connection is first before we. Right. And what is it? It's the definition of it is it's an energy. Right. And it's an energy that's formed between people when they feel seen, when they feel heard, when they feel valued and when they feel understood. And when those things happen, a natural connection happens, a bond happens with people, whether they know it, don't know it, accept it, not accept it. It happens. So when I do, when I talk to companies and they're dealing with their. The sales people are dealing with their customers or the leaders dealing with their employees, listen. Understand them, hear them out, and listen to their perspective. You might not agree, but the more you put some. The more you put yourself in their shoes, the more you'll understand why they think this way. And one big thing that I tell you know, one nugget is the more someone is emotionally invested in you, the less critical and less objectively observant they become about you. So, meaning if your customer knows that you have their back, like really knows and they feel it, they don't pay attention to the little things. They don't pay attention to that text message that could be misconstrued because they know in their heart that you have them. So, and I use this example, and then I asked the crowd, I asked people, where does this happen in life? And it happens when you fall in love. Right. When you Fall in love, you're emotionally invested and sometimes you don't see the, you become less, you know, objectively observant and then you'll have a friend, six months, come up to you later, be like, hey, that person you're dating.

They'Re all pretty mean and they're, and I'm. And then you go, what? They're amazing. Because you don't see that. And it's the same thing in business. If they know your customers know that you're emotionally invested in them, they're not going to pay attention. They're going to know that you will always do right by them. So a lot of companies trying to get into people's trying to get into their customers minds. Get into their hearts. Get into their hearts and let them know that you have their back and they will never leave you. I promise you. I promise you.

Get into their hearts, not their minds.

Absolute gold nugget right there. Get into their hearts, not their minds. And that's exactly what we want in business, right? We want to have that repeat experience. We want to continue to do business with them, whatever that looks like.

Absolutely.

I love. Also, I want to circle back to something you said a couple minutes ago. When you know what you sell, your whole business changes.

Absolutely. I mean, when I was.

When I was at Disney, I knew that, you know, my job was, I worked at a restaurant, my job was to sell the food that was there and to make sure everything was good on the line in the kitchen and to make sure the customers had their proper food. But I wasn't, I didn't know what we really sold until I had that conversation. All those things, like the executive told me, are our props. That's not what we sell. So he goes, I want you to think so much bigger than your own business and that we sell happiness. And when you know that we sell happiness, your business will change dramatically when you and your team focus on that and it'll change by leaps and bounds at some point. So I think it's so important for companies to really know and understand what.

They sell and, and that's an exercise potentially. If you're an agent out there or any business entrepreneur out there or leader, which by the way, speaking of business leaders, strongly encourage you, if you're attending boot camp or going to attend boot camp and you have leadership people on your team, please bring them with you because we want them to experience Christos live because it will help them help you identifying what you sell and help your whole business change. Because that's all we want, but they won't be able to get that depth of learning all of this if they're not there live. So strongly encourage that. Had a very high performing agency mention that just the other day. They said, Mike, Blake, make sure you remind everybody out there for them to bring their teammates, their leadership teammates because the live experience is like no other.

So fantastic stuff. So yeah, your whole business changes props versus emotions. That's absolutely fantastic. And that's, that's depth, feel, seen, felt. And you mentioned something similar to that. I, I've learned that also in my training. Let me just throw something else on the table out of left field. So yesterday we were talking about family before we started this morning and we were with family yesterday. And our oldest daughter is a now 20 year.

Formerly kindergarten teacher for 19 years. Now she's in first grade. But she said something which kind of caught me and I'd love to hear your take on this just for everybody else's learning as well. Right. So they're about two weeks from going back to school.

To start the new school year. Right. She said, you know, I'm really not looking forward to going back.

I said, interesting. So you dread going back, but I thought you loved what you do. And she said, and I love this because it's really got me thinking in a lot of ways. Yeah, you can love what you do. You may not just be looking forward to actually going back.

She said, but once you get into it, you know, then the love, you know, reinvigorates, if you will. Interesting comment. Just from the educational system. Right?

Really interesting. Yeah. So.

Anyway, that was a great perspective. I, I think I understand what she's trying to say.

Yes, yeah, yeah, she, she, she loves the kids. I mean now, now because she's been in it for 20 years, they're starting to come back, they're graduating high school, going into college and they're coming back and searching her out because of the impact that she made.

So anyway, but it's, it's interesting. And back to the emotional perspective and emotions with people. Right. Get into their hearts, not their minds.

Absolutely. I feel like when you try to get to people customers minds, you're just, you're just trying to let them think that you have their best interest. But if you're a business out there, you're get into their best interest. Make them not know it, but feel it and actually understand it that you're their only person for this. Don't just try to trick them into thinking that. Let them understand that by the way you act towards Them and by your actions.

Right, right. So I remember when I saw you speak a couple of months ago, you were dropping lots of gold nuggets. As far as things that people can do in business.

To connect with their hearts, can you think of one or two more examples just to give everybody either watching or listening to this today, building on what we're going to be talking about in October?

Sure. I can. I can mention a couple things from our family business.

Yeah. And I think that's another reason we connected it, because I started working in my dad's restaurant business when he's. When I was 12. And you've got such a long history as well.

So, you know, a couple things that we. We would like to do, we like to do as our family business as much as we can. As much as we would pay attention to our, like, social media channels and our personal channels when we would find out.

Certain things were happening with our customers, say, like someone was having a baby. You know, we wanted to make sure that when they arrived at home, they might have some food for a day or two ready at their house, ready to go. So they don't have to think about cooking or they don't have to think about getting anything or arranging anything from anywhere. We wanted to make sure that they have food already. So we try to think beyond anything, beyond just being courteous at the counter and any business that you're at. What. What can you do, what can you do for your customers that make them just become a raving fan of yours? And because at the end of the day, one of the responsibilities of a business is for you to produce a customer that creates customers. And another thing that we would like to do is, like, when we would find out that somebody would pass away, we would call their spouse or their parent or their child and we would give our condolences. And we would say, hey, would you like. Would you mind if my family and I came by your house to.

Pay our respects? And we would ask how many people they're expecting. And if they're expecting 30 or 40 people, we would bring food for all 40 people from our restaurant to. To make sure that that's the last thing on their mind.

Right.

And you would never know the impact on that. But until you receive that hug from that person that just lost their partner or their parent.

That hug, Mike, that hug is everything, everything in this world that you thought about that for their family on such a deep level that they're your fan and they're your customer the rest of your life. Because at the end of the day, I'm not a part of their family. They're a huge part of mine. Huge part of mine. Because without them, we have a restaurant with restaurant equipment and a phone that doesn't ring.

So we treat them like they're actually a part of our family and they know that they are. So do things in your business, touch your customers on a level that your competition can't even comprehend or even think about. So those are a couple things that we would do at our business to make sure that our customers just knew how much we were emotionally invested in them.

And we have such great opportunity to do that already because people, you know, know, like and trust us, possibly hopefully already know, love and trust us. And when that already exists.

Touch the people that you do business with at a level that nobody else can and.

Then nobody else understands.

And that nobody else understands. Beautiful.

Absolutely.

That is just absolute gold. Christos, thank you so much. That is awesome. So these are just a few of the things that you're going to learn at the boot camp with Christos.

You know, three words that describe Christos and he's a very humble man as well. So he may not be super excited about this, but I'll go ahead and drop it for him anyway. Dynamic, impactful and empowering. And that's what his talk does. So Christos, as we begin to wrap up today, I, I don't know if I, I knew this or not. If I do, I don't remember it. Did your mom, Maria, work in the restaurant? It was a family organization, right?

Yeah. So my mom and dad started it in 1994. I remember they pulled me out of high school for a week so I could join them to start it. And then after a week I was like, I had such an appreciation for school. I'm like, get me back into school. I'm like, this is hard, hard. But yeah, we started it and we are entering in our 30th year and it's been, it's been amazing. I left the business about a year and a half ago or so to pursue this full time. And it's been, it's been a really, really great journey. It's been a lot of fun. I've met a lot of great people, great companies, great leaders that are just so open minded and wanting to learn more and they know that they don't know enough, which makes them who they are and how successful they are. So this has been a really great journey and it's been so much fun to be on here with you. Today, Mike. So thank you.

No, no, thank you. And the good news is, Christos, we've only just begun. Let's go, let's grow. 100 agree. So, Christos Provistilis. Super grateful and thank you. Thankful for you being on the podcast. And I cannot wait until you are at boot camp with Unstoppable Nation. Not only getting to know them, you know, meeting them at their heart, not their mind, so to speak. And that experience is going to be like no other. So if you haven't locked down your seat yet, be unstoppable boot camp.com just go there and grab your seat so you don't miss that opportunity to connect with Christos and he will teach you.

The thought process on what you have to sell. And it's. I've seen it myself. You're going to get a little bit of the longer version as well, which will help you even more. Grow your business, create wealth so you can have more freedom. So Christos, again, thank you for today, sir. Super appreciate you. And if there's anything more that we can do to support you in your journey. Because ladies and gentlemen, the secret is out. Christos Provista Lisa is out there impacting companies, teaching them what they really have to sell and they're growing their business because of it. So onto the billions and let's see what happens. And I can't wait to watch your journey.

Thank you very much for this and I can't wait to see you and meet all of your people at Unstoppable Nation in October. Let's grow.

Let's grow 100%. So hey everybody. Thank you and welcome. If this is your first time on the podcast, my name is Mike Stromso. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about what we do to impact people's lives personally and professionally. Go to unstoppable profit producer.com and if you're interested in again attending our live event, go to be unstoppablebootcamp.com we pour everything that we've learned over the last 36 years, 100% of the time as a proud independent insurance agent into our boot camps and all of our trainings to teach you the philosophy of the three Ps, excellent people, world class processes and systems and then you simply get to promote the heck out of it. And the effect of that will be you will grow your business, create wealth, and have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And that's all we want for all of you. So please make sure you're there and we will teach you the money making strategies. And if this podcast has been helpful to you and impactful for you, please share unstoppable profit podcast.com with anybody that you know and care about and make sure that you go to Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Go up to the top and click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode. Christos, keep making an impact, sir. I see you doing it every day. I can't wait to see you soon.

Thank you very much. Hope you have a great day and I'll see you in October.

As you know, Christos, there's no other options, right?

Let's grow.

Let's grow. And by the way, our podcast is also out there on all the channels. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel. So make sure that you connect and so we can stay connected, helping you grow your business, create wealth so you can have more freedom. And remember, you got this. We believe in you. I will see you on the next episode and see you at Boot Camp very, very soon. Take care everybody. Thanks, Chrisos.

Thank you.

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