The Path to Permanent Business Success with Richard Weylman

People today want somebody that's thoughtful, somebody that's kind, someone that's caring and is empathetic. Stephen Covey said it best. When you're empathetic, defense goes down, open to solutions opens up. Okay. Kemper Heppard, he said a wonderful phrase. He said, people forget your job title. They'll never forget if you're kind though. And that's another great point. So they want thoughtfulness, caring, kind, and empathetic. That's really important for people. And when you're that, you'd begin, you naturally personalize and humanize. You want to speak with them, not at them. So when you do that, relationships are built and relationships drive revenue, nothing else. My good friend Patricia Fripp, who's a Hall of Fame speaker as well, she said, you know, the problem is when people close a sale, they think it's the end of something. Really, when you close a sale, it's the beginning of a relationship. And that's exactly Absolutely right. So as we think about where we're going here, if you really want to build a, a business that is sustainable and to move forward, I'll tell you what I'll do, Nick. You can go to richardweyelman.com and you can click on— you'll see on my website, click on book, and you can scroll down and it says learn more and click on it. And you can download the first chapter. It's free. I just want you to have it and you read the first chapter and then you decide if you really want to be in a position where you build, have permanent business success by building relationships that last.

Richard, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life Changing Books podcast. We are going to dive right into it. So here's my first question. You were orphaned at 6. You lived in 19 different foster homes, and you attended 11 different high schools. And my guess is that those experiences taught you quite a bit about communication. You're always meeting new people. You're in front of new people having to introduce yourself. So, I'm curious, how do you introduce yourself, and what did you learn from those experiences?

Well, the key thing is when you meet someone, let's come to a tactic that everybody that's listening can use. Instead of saying nice to meet you, tell them it's nice to see you, even if you've never met before. Now, why would you do that? It's more gracious. It's more kind. It puts people at ease. And try it. You just say nice to see you and they go, oh, oh, well, nice to see you too. And now it just what? It removes some of the barrier because people, everyone for the most part, has somewhat of a, shall we say, difficulty starting a conversation with someone they just meet. That's why we say nice to meet you. And then they say nice to meet you. And then they say, what do you do? And then you say, what do you do? And that's the end of everything. It's basically poll the audience to see what they do for a living. So by saying nice to see you, it engages people. And, you know, living in foster— I lived in 19 foster homes, went to 11 different schools, but it was really great training for me because when I got into sales, my first sales job was selling cookware door to door. And the guy said, now the disadvantage of this job is you're gonna have to go in strangers' houses. I'm like, well, what's the big deal? I've been living with it my whole life. I never had, I mean, you know, I didn't see that as an issue. You know, I look back now and say, how dumb was that comment? But because it was pretty remarkable. But the point was, by living in all those foster homes, I really began to understand that first, everybody's different. But there were some fundamentals, and it really helped me to survive, you know, basements, attics. I lived in a lot of different, shall we say, places in some of these foster homes. And so I think from a relational perspective, it helped me understand the importance of trying to connect with people. And much of what I've learned, you know, has come over the years of being in business. But I've looked back on reflection to say, what got me on this path? It was just trying to, you know, stay, stay in a go-forward mode and not become a victim.

I think everybody listening or watching today looks at you and they say, hey, Richard is charismatic. I just heard he had some door-to-door sales jobs. He was comfortable going right into other people's homes. But Not everybody has a predisposition for, like, you know, being comfortable in situations like that. So I love the tip, say nice to see you. What are some other tips that people who are a little socially awkward might be able to use when first connecting with people?

Well, the, the most important thing to realize, it's not about you. And the reason we're all awkward, I mean, people ask me, you know, I speak a lot and they'll say, don't you get nervous? No, I pray for the audience because I know what I'm going to say. And if I miss something or I leave something out, that's okay. I just want them to be able to capture things they can implement. So, and I've learned that frankly, sort of in the foster home environment, that it couldn't be about me because I was there for whatever reason. It might have been income, it might have been they were kind, all kinds of different situations I lived in. But I think for anybody that's in a social setting and feeling awkward, it often comes down from a lack of confidence. I don't know if I can have a conversation. What would I say? I mean, gosh, what are people going to think of me? Do I look good? Am I dressed right? And what that is, is an inward focus. And what I've learned, and perhaps it would be helpful for all of our listeners today, is to recognize that it's not about you, it's about them. So be kind, be gracious. As an example, nice to see you. Instead of asking somebody, you know, what do you do? Say, well, how long have you been involved here at the country club? Or how long have you been coming here to the theater? Or how long have you lived here in Des Moines, or get them engaged. I understand you're— I heard you're in the air conditioning business. How did you get started in that? Let them carry the conversation. One of the things I've learned there, Nick, to really make it easier for someone who perhaps a little reluctant or feels socially awkward, and many of us do because of social media, you know, we can blast away on the phone, but you got to talk to somebody. Like, that's a little more difficult. What I've learned is Like, talk— just ask them about their story. And you know what they'll say? Oh, good God, Nick, I've enjoyed being with you so much. You're so kind. So, well, all you've simply done is ask a question and allow them to tell you their story, which of course gives you lots of things you can comment on. But most importantly, it makes them feel like you're there with them, and it just changes the dynamics. One more thing: if you're at a networking event, or maybe you're hosting it, maybe you work for a company We're gonna have a big, you know, event. Great. And so I want you to work the room, George. I would never work the room. And now I know every networker that's listening to say, well, that, that's an outrage. You want to work the room? No, I don't want to work the room. I want to work the door. I want people to come in. I want to greet them. And I, and when they come in, I'm gonna say, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, so nice to see you. What are you most excited about tonight or today? I want them to say, oh, just have that moment of personal interaction. You'll see the tension drains out of their face. They feel like, oh, this is so wonderful, you know, that Nick greeted me. And then once everybody's— and you get them up with the receiving line, which is a fabulous thing. And now everybody's in the room. Now you can work the room. But I want to work the door because I want everybody to realize that personal humanized interaction, that's the secret.

I love that secret. And in a prior life, before going full-time with Book Thinkers, my agency, I worked for a software company that would send me to trade shows and conventions. And sometimes we would host a booth and we would set it up and speak to people all day. But a lot of times I was working the room and it was always a little uncomfortable. And I love that suggestion. Um, it will dive into acquiring and keeping customers for life in just a minute.

Sure.

But I wanna go a little bit deeper on the speaking side of things and, and I wanna be kind of personally coached here for a second. So I have done door-to-door sales, very comfortable. Phone sales, very comfortable. Customer presentations, very comfortable. Uh, social media, or we'll call it podcasting from behind a Zoom screen, very comfortable. But the minute that I'm in front of an audience and I'm on stage, I still feel a lot of nerves. I get pretty nervous. So you already said one thing which I love, which is I'm scared for the audience. But what other tips can you give somebody like me who still has a little bit of insecurity, or we'll call it stage fright, in front of an audience?

Well, I think from my experience, and, you know, I've done a lot of speaking for years all over the world, what I've learned is it's the preparation. Now, everybody thinks it's memorizing the presentation, but what I've learned is it's the— now, of course, you build out a program and you get your thoughts together, okay? And that might be a several-week period, whatever the case, Might be the day before. But what I've learned is the night before, before you go to bed— this works for me, it may not work for you, you may have to do it at lunch the day before— but have that time. I take— and as many times I've presented on various topics, it doesn't matter if I'm gonna spend 30 to 45 and maybe an hour going over the presentation. I'll make notes in my mind before I go to bed. And the reason I do that, then I don't wake up in the morning and say, okay, now let me just check my notes, or let me see the PowerPoint. So no, I've already gone through it in my mind, and that way when I wake up, I know that I'm— I have the confidence to know that I know what I'm going to present. Now, I may not have it down word for word, and that's not important. The audience isn't interested word for word. Here's what people look for. They look for vertical integration of knowledge. Lots of people can talk on the surface about this horizontally. But like, let's take your case, Nick. If I ask you, I want you to do a presentation on how to organize podcast and a book thinker's organization. You've got a lot of experience that you've developed over the years. You've got a lot of dos and don'ts and how you fell down a flight of stairs and you still ended up surviving it all. So you can get up and talk vertically about that in a very passionate, very deep way. What most— what I found with presenters that don't speak a lot, maybe they speak a couple of times a year, just rely on your vertical knowledge, your depth of knowledge. That's what it is. So all people want to hear is the depth of knowledge and how it can help them. So that's one. The second thing, very quickly, they don't want to say I this and I that and I this and we that and I this and I did that. A lot of times I'll sit in an audience and the person presenting has eye trouble. You know, and it's blinding to the audience because they can only put up with so much. So don't get up there and talk about I did this and I did that because with all due respect, they don't really care. What they care about is how can I do it? So here's something I've learned. Okay? Which is what? Spend 30, 45 minutes the night before, get yourself equipped mentally, get your confidence up, go to bed, good night's sleep, go knock them alive out there. Step 1. Okay? Second thing is don't worry about making a mistake. Don't worry about if you make a mistake. You're the only one that's gonna know. And then the third tip I'd give you for all of us that speak is when you get up on the, on the stage, own the stage. Don't stand behind the lectern hoping it's gonna hide you. Get out there and walk around a little bit. You say, well, I'm not a dynamic person. You don't have to be dynamic. Just engage with the audience. And I'll guess you, I'll give you one more. One of the things that I've learned is that might be helpful for anyone is when you're speaking to people. speak with them. Don't speak at them. Don't get up there and say, you people, you people, you people. It doesn't work. I mean, people are like, you know, who's this dude? Who's she? What does she do? Where does she get the nerve to say? But if you get up there and say, you know, we're all in this, like when I speak for some groups, I learned over the years, you know, don't get up and say, well, as salespeople, as millennials. I mean, who talks like that? Just get up and say, you know, As fellow entrepreneurs, as, as millennials. I mean, I'm a— I was a boomer. You're a millennial. I know you don't want to be a millennial. I don't want to be a boomer. So let's just say as people in sales, we good with that? Everybody goes nuts. Why? Because we're talking, we're having a conversation. We don't need a lecture. We need a lecture. We know where to go for those. Is that helpful?

Yeah. Yeah, it is helpful. This is one of those conversations, Richard, where I know I'll be watching it back and taking notes, but I'll stay present here for the meantime. The thing about mistakes is funny. There was— I'll just tell you a quick story. There was a presentation that I gave in college in front of a large room, hundreds of people. There was a New Hampshire state senator there. My parents were in the room, and I made a mistake, and it was being recorded. And I was so insecure, so shy, so self-defeated. And it took me a while to go back and watch the recording. It was broadcast on television and everything. And when I watched the recording back, I couldn't even tell where the— I knew where the mistake was, but you couldn't even tell that I made a mistake at all. And I, I paid for that every day for months for no reason, really no reason at all. It was so goofy.

Just forget about it. My very first, my very first speaking, I was in a high school. I don't even remember which one it was. It was upstate New York. And they asked me to announce the next song for the choir. And they wanted to recognize the choir teacher. And the principal said, you know, you're new here, but Mrs. Bowman needs to be recognized. We'd like you to announce it. You're the announcer. So I got up. I was supposed to announce the next song, and that's what everybody in the audience expected. But I got up and said, before I make an announcement, I'd like to make an announcement. And the whole place busted out laughing, and I'm like, Whoa! But you know what? From that moment on, it was like, it's not that big a deal because the audience roared. Then it gave me applause. It was wonderful. And I was like, making mistakes is like a good thing up here, I guess. But, and I only tell you that to say that we're often harder on ourselves than we need to be. So I have a little sign hangs up here. It says, start with what you have and give God something to bless. God likes risk.

Yeah.

We tend to beat ourselves up too much. And, uh, I just want to encourage everybody that's listening. Um, none of us are perfect. Nobody's gonna get it right. I've told stories and I gave the punchline before I told the final story. What am I doing? And the audience is like, did that make sense? I don't know. But just keep going because in 3 minutes later, you're on to the next topic. But the most important thing is just speak with people, just have a conversation. I hate going to meetings where you get somebody on stage who's gonna lecture me for 45 minutes. Yeah, I mean, you know, let me tell you what you people are doing wrong. Well, I didn't have a problem till you showed up there, big boy, you know. So that's how you have to look at it.

Um, some wise words from a Hall of Fame speaker. I appreciate the suggestions. You mentioned already in this discussion briefly that you started by selling cookware door-to-door, going in people's homes. Well, you ended up selling Rolls-Royces. So bridge that gap for us. How does somebody go from selling cookware to Rolls-Royces and Are they different or is it a similar sale? I'm curious.

Well, they're a different product. I'll say that for you.

Different price point, that's for sure.

Yeah, different price point too. I sold, well, I sold cookware, encyclopedias, cemetery plots, family Bibles, and vacuum cleaners. What I learned was you, you can't sell it in a box. You gotta demonstrate. You can't talk us straight. Well, you can't demonstrate cemetery plots, but, but you can certainly get through the discussion about it. And then I sold family Bibles. That was the add-on sale. They're going in the ground. You probably want to put them in a book. So, but it was always about building a level of connection with people and finding out about them. So I would say, you know, I'm a salesman, cookware. But before we get to all of that, most powerful phrase itself, before we get to all that, tell me, how long have you lived in the neighborhood? Oh, well, and now all of a sudden they're back to telling you your story. With Rolls-Royce, How did I get there? Well, I sold all those various items. I was in the military, served in the Navy for 4 years. I went to work for—

Thank you.

Sure. Xerox, etc. And I had, I was getting promoted. I had 7 promotions in 2 years at Xerox. I mean, I was on a rocket and I hated it. I was like, I can't do this. I gotta get back to selling. So I went in and resigned and they said, what are you going to do? We'll make you a counteroffer. I said, no, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I'm not gonna be in an office. I wanna go out and sell stuff. So I got the paper out and I saw I had to sell Denco rugs and dust mops door to door to small businesses. I was like, fabulous, this is gonna be great. It's snowing outside. I'm in Rochester, New York. I got a Volkswagen. I could— so I did and didn't take long. I was just calling on small businesses, little strip malls. Anyway, one of our clients was in the car business. They had a problem. I went to see her. She ended up offering me a job when she got Porsche Audi. I was like, I don't know anything about selling cars. She said, no, but you understand how to get people to connect. So anyway, that's, thank you very much. I went to work for her. We were number one worldwide for 22 straight months from the day we opened in East Rochester, New York. Rolls-Royce called me, recruited me, and I got in the Rolls-Royce business and we built the 3rd largest Rolls-Royce dealership network in the world in a town of 1,800 people in upstate New York. And people would call me on the phone and I never asked them what, I'd always ask them, so why do you want to buy a Rolls-Royce? And then they tell me, I said, well, who do you want to buy it for? Well, it's for me because I've worked my, whatever the case, except for, you know, like Kenny Rogers bought his wife Marianne Gordon one. His agent called me and he was all about price. I said, well, I'm sure there's something more important to Kenny Rogers besides price and color. He's like, yeah. I said, well, have him call me. Sure. Hung up on me. About 2, about 10 days later, I My assistant said, Richard, this guy says he's Kenny Rogers. I picked up the phone. Hey Kenny, what's up? And no, I didn't. I said, yes, this is Richard Weilman. How may I help you? And he said, this is Kenny Rogers. I understand you got an Arctic White Scarlet Hives Magnolia piping in stock. I said, yes. He said, my agent told me the price. He said, what do you really want for it? So I told him and it was like dead silence. And I said, then he said to me, he said, I'm not about to pay list. I said, well, before we get to all of that, let me ask you a question. What's more important to you besides price and color? He said, well, I promised Marianne, it's my wife, he said that I would, if I ever bought her a Rolls-Royce, I'd deliver it in a box. I said, oh, so the issue is, if I had a box built, you'd pay for it? He said, absolutely. I said, great. Where do you want the box delivered? He gave me the address. We built a box. I shipped the car out. She got up the next morning, went crazy. She saw the box in the driveway. She knew immediately what it was. And that began the journey and we exploded into several celebrity space.

Oh, that's a lot of fun. I'll have to, I have a friend who hosts a podcast out of Rochester and I'll make an introduction. Maybe he, maybe he knows where the dealership was and everything like that.

Yep. Palmyra Motors, Palmyra, New York, the home of the shady deal. That was our tagline because we were under a big shade tree.

That's awesome. Well, I love that story and I'm happy that you pronounced Porsche Porsche instead of Porsche. So let's get into the book a little bit. Why did you decide to write 100 Proven Ways to Acquire and Keep Clients for Life? I'm sitting here today with Ken Rusk, who has done hundreds of millions of dollars in business. He's also sold tens of thousands of books and changed countless lives. We're sitting here today because he is sponsoring today's episode. So Ken, tell everybody about your course.

Well, thank you. I built a course called The Path to Successful Life. It's designed around trying to get somebody unstuck. You know, sometimes you're feeling like you're kind of stuck in where you are and you're not really sure what you want your life to look like or how to go about getting it. Well, for the cost of about dinner and a movie and maybe the time you'd spend on a weekend, you can know exactly what you want your future to look like and how to go about getting it.

You know the power of vision. That's why you watch podcasts like this. So click the link below, get signed up, and let me know what your experience is like.

Well, I've written, you know, many— I've written 2 other books. The first one, Opening Closed Doors: Keys to Reaching Hard-to-Reach People. That has done very well, international bestseller. And then about 8 years, 9 years later, I wrote The Power of Why: Breaking Out in a Competitive Marketplace. And that's now in, I think it's 8 languages and continues to do great. And I didn't wanna write another book. So just to be very brief here, because I don't wanna be long-winded with you on every answer. I, it came into my, all this talk about elevating the client experience and most of the stuff I was hearing from people or seeing online. I thought it's all, you know, you need to be more centric. You need— and I'm thinking, yeah, but who, who can be centric if I don't know how to do it? So I began to think about it and noodle on it, and, and, uh, frankly, it popped into my head in, uh, uh, 2 years ago. And I really didn't want to write another book. I've written 124 video programs and workbooks in addition to the, the what's in the marketplace. So I was like, I'm just not going to write another book. But I thought about it and prayed about it and it got me crazy. And I was waking up in the middle of the night. My wife said, you know, honey, you know, that book's coming out whether you let it or not. She said, you need to think about this. So this was last year. So in March, I sat down and it just flowed out and I wrote till I was done. And when I was done, I didn't know how many I had, how many ways. I just wrote until everything I had ever learned from consumers, from all the branding work, you know, we have a huge coaching division. I'm very blessed there. Our coaches have learned from our clients. From my speaking, working with all types of companies, real estate, fast food, financial services, you know, the trades, plumbing, welders, all kinds of groups I've spoken for and things that people have told me. And so I got done. I said, just count them. And she counted. She said, there's 100 here. I said, really? She said, there's 100. I was like, well, I guess that's what I was supposed to write is 100. And, um, so that's how it all came about. And, uh, there's a whole other backstory there, but that's how it turned out to be 100 Ways Proven. And they're all proven. Every one of them has it. Here's what to do. Here's why to do it. Here's why it's important. And by the way, here's a story about somebody that did it. Here's what happened to them. Because I think people like that, you know, they like that connection. Don't you think, Nick?

I do think so. And what I appreciate about your book is that it's actionable. I think too many books in the world of business and personal development, nonfiction, there's a lot of philosophy, but there aren't action steps. And so your book is actionable. There's a heck of a lot of strategy. It's easy to implement. And so I really appreciate that you decided to write it that way.

Well, thank you. Thank you. It's, it's, I'm just, I feel privileged to be able to bring it to market. That's all. I just want people to win. And I'm sick and tired of going to meetings and being told what to do and nobody tells me how. It just gets me crazy. I just can't do it anymore. I was at a recently at another meeting and I mean, it was 45 minutes to get focused. But at the end, the question was on what and how do I do this? I mean, there's 1,200 people in the audience.

Yeah, that's, there's too much of that.

There's a break and I'm milling around because I'm on in the afternoon, I'm closing. And I just said to people, so, well, that was pretty good. They said, yeah, but, you know, you didn't really make it clear what to focus on. Just be better.

Yeah, there's too much of that. You kick off the book with this Chewy story. Oh yeah. Tell everybody the Chewy story because I think this is a really fun way to kind of introduce the book to the audience today.

Okay, just very briefly, I was speaking in Nashville, Tennessee, uh, in November a couple years ago. And is it a couple years ago now? I guess it's 2. Yeah, year and a half ago. And, uh, I had read on LinkedIn— I go to, you know, I check LinkedIn every day or so— and there was a woman that had posted an article on there about her cat. Well, I was speaking about elevating the client experience to build a business of distinction. 1,200 people in the audience. All right, so I'm I don't know, 20 minutes into a 45-minute presentation. I said, as an illustration, I said, people socialize when people do remarkable things for them. It really becomes what they want to talk about. I said, as an illustration, this woman who had a cat, she had a standing order with Chewy. And the order came every month. She got her cat food. Well, this is November. She got her cat food. She called Chewy up and said, I don't want, I want to return this cat food. And the reason is because my cat has died. And the rep at Chewy said, no, no, no, no, you cannot return that cat food under any circumstances. And the audience is like, I said, instead, the rep said, we want you to donate it to the local shelter and we'll give you 100% credit on your bill. We're sorry for your loss. Ooh, the audience goes. And then I said, but the most remarkable thing, 3 days later, she gets a bouquet of flowers and a condolence card from the rep. At Chewy, at that instant, in the middle of the 1,200 people, this woman stands up and screams, that was my cat. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I mean, I was shocked. The CEO on the front row, he was, I mean, he was like, is this a plant? I mean, it was incredible. So anyway, and I said, did you put— she said, yes, I put it on LinkedIn. That was my cat. That's what they— and then she held up her phone.

Look.

1,200 views. So I just stopped right there. I said, okay, ladies and gentlemen, what does this tell us? And the whole room starts chanting, we're switching to Chewy, we're switching to Chewy. Now, every— and I have people say, well, Richard, that's a big company, they can do that. Yet if I talk to big companies, they say our frontline people can't be screwing around building relationships. We got to have transactions out here. Yet this guy, this young guy started Chewy, and what did he focus on? Building relationships. And how's that serving them? Well, I'd say they're doing pretty well.

Yeah.

Isn't that a great story?

It is such a great story. And my wife works for a pet products company that deals a lot with Chewy. And I hear good stories all the time. You know, what you just highlighted there is one of the lessons you have in the beginning of the book, which is that people aren't buying products or services. I mean, they are, but What they're really investing in and looking for are experiences, right? They want to feel good. That's what they remember.

Yeah, you're exactly right. Most— and listen, rightly so. I mean, it's so easy for people to get up and say you shouldn't be. Well, let's stop with that. Okay, let's start from the reality. Reality is if you're in sales or you own a company or whatever marketing service, you know, you are— you appreciate and love the fact you have a product, a platform, a process, a procedure, a plan, whatever it is. one of the Ps you're selling. It's great. But what we have to recognize is it's good for us to really be passionate about it. But the bigger point is the consumer's in love with the outcome and the experience. So you better be focused on the outcome and the experience. And what does that mean? What is, you know, this elevated experience? Well, I interviewed hundreds of people and as I say, you can go to my website, richardweyelman.com, and you just look at the coaching stories there and Barbara Corcoran's story of what we've done for one of her teams and, and lots of different, you know, from fast food to the NFL, what, uh, we've had the privilege of doing. And, and I think what it really boils down to is that I began to realize elevating an experience, what does that really mean? And what it really means is people want you to personalize and humanize the interaction. They want to be treated like a person, not an account. We have a major bank that we worked with and they had, they redid their website and they sent it, Richard, final audit, what do you think? I said, it says up there, my account. They, well, yeah, that's our account. I said, why are you calling it my account? Why don't you call it, the name of the bank was Liumi. Why don't you call it my Liumi? 37% increase in people putting their information online because that's, oh, that's my Liumi. And they, well, that's mine right there. Little thing. But people want to feel like they belong to something larger than themselves. Every generation, everybody talks about disease, you know, they want to— we all want to belong to something. We all want to feel as though we're significant to you, the provider.

You, you started to touch on this. One of the questions I had written down for you today are, what are some ways that people in the audience who are business owners can Customize or personalize their communication with clients? Because in today's environment, there's a lot of automation, a lot of just templated stuff out there. And you're right, it feels really nice when, when you get that personalized communication.

Well, a lot of little things you can do, but it starts with the fundamental. And the fundamental is there are lots of CRMs out there. Well, look at Salesforce. It's a CRM and there's lots of other ones out there. But you see, I don't see them as a CRM. It's not a CRM. It should be a CXM, a client experience or customer experience manager. You can set up fields. What is, what is their name? It might be Sam and it might be Samuel, but which is it? If it's Elizabeth, she goes by Beth, Liz, or Elizabeth, or like my friend in Atlanta, her, her name's Elizabeth, but her grandfather called her Lolly because she liked lollipops. And if you call her Elizabeth, she doesn't even turn her head because everybody that knows her calls her Lolly. So I mentioned that only to say personalize and humanize. Put— get their name. Don't say, can you spell your name? I mean, most people can. I, I, I, I have a difficult last name, but it's not that hard. So you want to get their name. You know, T. Boone Pickens never went by T. He went by Boone. My first initial, C, I don't even use it, but I get emails, dear C. I don't even open those. Why would I? So my point is, what can you do to take your CRM and turn it into CXM? Capture the preferred name. with people. Secondly, when you don't write to dear customer, dear client, write and use their name. Don't say feel free to call. That went out with probably John F. Kennedy, which was like a while ago. All right, even with the other Kennedy in the game, the bottom line is don't say feel free to call. Feel welcome to call. It's far more gracious. Don't sign your emails best. Why? Because they hate it. I mean, we poll people. I mean, Some of my interns on the phone, women particularly, when you said best, they would, they would rant. Best what? Probably best for them. And I mean, my intern said, should we keep asking this question? I mean, some people are, are mad about it. I said, well, no, keep asking. We want to find out how bad they really are. Another one they don't like is sincerely yours. Far too institutional. I feel like I'm a nobody. So we then started asking, what do you like? Warm regards, kind regards, best regards, something that says what? It's a little warmer, a little more Shall we say personalized and humanized? Those are just a few things you can do with people. As I mentioned earlier, what are you most excited about, Nick, with the summer coming? It's far better than how you doing? Fine, fine, fine. Polly up fine. Everybody's fine except they're not. What I want to do is find out what you're— hey, so what are you excited about with this upcoming baseball season? Well, let me tell you about the Reds. And away we go. I got 10 minutes the next time, and he's gonna tell me every detail he ever knew about the Red Sox if he's into it. But the point is, engage with people. These are the things business owners can do. If I call your office, what do I get? Let me see if he can talk to you right now. What is that? And if I call your office, what do I get? Hi, we're open from 9 to 5. Call when we're open. That's fantastic. Don't you have an emergency hotline number? Don't you have an emergency hotline number? I mean, you look at the big air conditioning service companies and all these others. What do they have? They have an emergency number you can call, and many of them have service 24 hours now because it's not because it's a good idea. It's because it's mandatory if you're gonna be in the services business and service the consumer. If I call your restaurant, what do I get? Do I have to call a different number to make a reservation? How can you elevate? What are the little things you can do? I was in a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale and the guy's in the financial district and met the owner. He's complaining, you know, it was lunchtime and it wasn't packed. And I just said to him, so, I said, is this a normal day for you? And he said, yeah, we don't get a lot of people coming in. And I said, why is that? He said, well, I don't know. I said, well, look around. What are they doing? He said, what do you mean? I said, what are they doing? He said, they're eating lunch. I said, no, no, no. What are they doing? He said, well, they all come in here. They're on their phone. Oh, now they're on their phone, eh? I said, let me tell you something. My phone's almost dead. You know what I looked for when I came in here? To see if there was a wall socket. And he said, well, we do have those 2 tables back there and everybody likes to sit there. I said, do you think they like sitting next to the men's room over there? I don't think so. I think they're plugging their phone in. I said, what you ought to do is put a power strip all the way around the inside of this restaurant on the, on the booth walls. And he did. And he sent me a photograph about 3 weeks later. Said, Richard, it's packed. Why? Because he had his servers bring a basket, cords painted red. What kind of device do you have? We have cords if you like to charge.

Oh, that's cool.

Wow.

So it's a little thing. But see, we get all caught up in what we're doing. When I work with Freddy's Steakburger and Custard, we've just, they've just won the National Fast Restaurant Award as the best fast casual. Did the same thing, audited their stores. You know, we do a lot of auditing and And I went through and then I met with the board and they said, well, what can we make different? I said, well, I'd get rid of some of these booths. Why? I said, well, I'm sitting there in the evening, people come in, but you got the little, the Little League comes in, they're dusty and dirty, but they got to sit in booths that are yelling over the booth at each other. I said, then the church group comes in and they're stuck over here in a corner in 2 booths and they want to talk in there. I said, why don't we tear out some of these booths and put movable chairs and tables in there? First, it'd be easier to clean. And secondly, you can build a sense of community. They were like, let's do that. So they did it. Guess what? Packed in the evening. Why? People come in, the baseball league, baseball team over in this corner, church group in this corner, Girl Scouts in that corner. And it just changed the vibe in the entire place. Why? You've got to ask, what is the customer doing? Well, they're coming into the store and they're shouting over the booth. Well, why would we let them shout over the booth if we could take out the booths? They could sit and have a conversation. And then we become a destination, not just for steak burgers and custard, But a place for community. We personalize and humanize and guess what? People showed up.

So, man, you provide so much value and we're only just getting into the questions that I had outlined, but we're getting towards the end of the podcast. And before we press record, you had joked when I said, hey, anything off limits? And you said, no. You said, I'd be happy to talk about Donald Trump. When you said that, I started thinking, well, he's definitely somebody who acquires and keeps clients for life, isn't he? Um, so can you give us a couple of minutes on Donald Trump and why he is so great at acquiring and keeping clients for life?

Well, I think there are 2 things there. It's not a political statement, it's just reality. We are seeing a movement in this country just like we saw in Argentina, uh, the new president there, what we're seeing in Europe, There is a real push for more of a nationalistic. I mean, people like to throw phrases around, but there's a real sense of belonging that people trying to reignite. I belong to Argentina. I belong to Spain. I belong to France. Whatever the case, Sweden's going through it now. Italy has gone through it. And I think what's happened with President Trump is it's not about so much about President Trump as much as he's the head of the movement. He's the voice of the people. And the reason they stay connected to him— and I've listened to a lot of what he said and various things, and it's not a matter of whether he's brash or he's not. But people, you know, a lot of people vote for high school presidents when they're voting for the president. What he does is he connects with the people because he personalizes and humanizes the conversation. He doesn't preach. He doesn't get up there and say, I'm going to— he talks in real terms. And people connect with that. And I, you know, I follow— it's like Joe Kennedy. He's sort of doing the same thing. He's talking in plain language about plain things that are important to people, or Robert Kennedy Jr. So you, when you look at all of that, you begin to realize the people that are connecting with people with a message or a method that they feel as though it resonates with them, then they're interested in what else is being said. But setting aside all the stuff you're getting on the media, and you just— I look at what's really going on, and what I see is a guy who articulated the commoner's point of view. That's an English phrase. And as a result of that, the commoner said, I like what this guy's saying, so I'm going to follow this guy because he's going to be my voice in the community. The fact that the community has grown to millions of people, that's just further, shall we say, I guess, proof that people really want a voice. Very few people have a voice because nobody wants to hear their story. Yeah.

Hey, this has been a value-packed podcast today. If somebody is in the audience and they're like, hey, I love Richard's message. This book sounds like it's a good fit, but I'm still on the fence. Could you just one more time tell everybody what are some of the major lessons they're going to learn if they decide to pick up a copy?

Okay, I'll, I'll give you a couple things to think about. First one is this: people today want somebody that's thoughtful, somebody that's kind, somebody that's caring and is empathetic. Stephen Covey said it best: when you're empathetic, Defense goes down, open to solutions opens up. Okay. Kemper Heber, he said a wonderful phrase. He said, people forget your job title. I'll never forget if you're kind though. And that's another great point. So they want thoughtfulness, caring, kind, and empathetic. That's really important for people. And when you're that, you'd begin to naturally personalize and humanize. You want to speak with them, not at them. So when you do that, relationships are built and relationships drive revenue, nothing else. My good friend Patricia Fripp, who's a Hall of Fame speaker as well, she said, you know, the problem is when people close a sale, they think it's the end of something. Really, when you close a sale, it's the beginning of a relationship. And that's exactly right. So as we think about where we're going here, if you really want to build a business that is sustainable and to move forward, I'll tell you what I'll do, Nick. You can go to richardweyelman.com. And you can click on, you'll see on my website, click on book and you can scroll down and it says learn more and click on it and you can download the first chapter. It's free. I just want you to have it and you read the first chapter and then you decide if you really want to be in a position where you build, have permanent business success by building relationships that last.

I think everybody in the audience after this conversation knows they have a thing or two to learn from you. And just to share this with everybody, after I first met Richard, I changed— I was saying, please feel free to send questions my way. Now I say, you're welcome to send questions my way. It's a little bit nicer than that. And I changed best to warm regards. So these are little 1% improvements that compound throughout, you know, a year's worth of selling and customer experience and interacting with people. So again, thank Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I can't wait for this to come out. I can't wait for your book to drop, to see some of the reviews come in and for our continued relationship because just like you said, when we close a sale, it's the beginning of our relationship and I look forward to learning from you for a long time.

Well, thank you, Nick. It's a blessing to be with you. The book's out March 12th and I know I'm getting all kinds of updates from Amazon and Barnes& Noble and everybody else. So I'm just grateful that I had this opportunity to be with you today and for all of you that are listening. You know, don't weary in well-doing. People are desperate today for somebody, just somebody to care enough, to be thoughtful enough, to be kind enough and empathetic enough that they feel like they're in the right place with the right provider and they will be loyal to you forever. Truett Cathy was a dear friend of mine and he started Chick-fil-A and he's passed away now. He had skin cancer. But every time he and I would meet or we travel together, he would say, Richard, I'm not in the chicken business. I'm in the people business. And you know what's interesting? You go to Chick-fil-A and people rave about Chick-fil-A. They are closed. They are closed. Think about this. They close every Sunday. So what that means is they're open till the middle of November and then they're closed for the next 6 weeks. So just think about that. Yet they're the number one. Every one of their stores is number one in revenue. They're beating everybody else that's open 52 weeks. They're only open 40, roughly 42 weeks. They're closed every Sunday. So just do the math on that. So what does that really tell us? It tells us people go to Chick-fil-A. You say, well, it's because of the chicken sandwich. I walk the line and ask people why you're here. Because they're so kind. They make it easy for us. It's so nice to come here. They're so appreciative. What does that mean?

True.

So we're going to use kind, thank you, and my pleasure. That's going to set us apart. I'd say it's done pretty good.