EP062: The Most Important Skill to Develop in 2020 with Sachin Patel

Welcome to the Perfect Practice Podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel is a functional medicine and success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Hello my friends, this is Satchin Patel. I hope you are amazing. Happy New Year. This is going to be your best year ever. I am excited today because I get to speak to you about one of my favorite topics which is public speaking and workshops and information that helps you put your content and powerful materials out there into the world so that you could help and serve as many people as you'd love to. With today's modern technology and with all the amazing tools and resources that we have available to us, it's never been easier to get your message out there, but it's also never been more challenging mentally for people to get their message out there. So I wanted to give you some strategies and a little bit of framework in the time that I have to be able to help you hopefully spread your message so that more people can benefit from the amazing work that you do and so that more people can get healthier. This year, because ultimately your objective this year and every year moving forward as a healthcare practitioner or a coach is to help move the needle in your community. As a practitioner, I've been opened up a couple of practices and I coach a few hundred doctors on how to grow their practices. And one of the things that I've seen over and over consistently growing practices is community workshops. Community workshops are extremely powerful and what they do is they help you develop the skill of public speaking and the art of communication. Because those two things are the two highest paid skills of on the entire planet if you know how to communicate with people. Remember, communication is one of the things that separates us from all the other animals on the planet. You know, we don't have we're not the strongest animal, we're not the fastest animal, but we've got this amazing brain and our ability to communicate can get people to move mountains for us or for themselves, more importantly. So you've got to master that skill and it's if you're not mastering it or haven't mastered it yet. I mean, you never really do because it's a skill that evolves over time. You've got to work towards it. And I want to give you some strategies and some wisdom that I've accumulated over the years from the people that I've trained with and my own experiences to help you move again, your practice and your community and your patients in the right direction. The other skill that you develop along with communication is confidence. And being able to speak in front of a crowd is a very powerful skill that is transferable to any industry. Okay, so the people who speak from stages, the people who are at the front, the person holding the marker or the pointer, so so to speak, is the person that has the highest level of influence. And eventually influence leads to affluence. Now, this isn't all about making more money. It's really about serving more people. And I promise you, if you make that your primary objective, then over time, all the other areas in your life will be fulfilled. You know, including the financial aspect. So let's get into this. Let's drop some wisdom here. I've got about a dozen things I want to share with you. And, you know, if it helps you, I want you to take notes because you'll probably pick up a few things that can help you move the needle in the right direction. So whenever we speak, whenever we start anything that we're doing, we always want to know what the end is. We want to keep the end in mind. So I started this presentation knowing what the end I want for you is and what I want the end for me to be. And so that allows me to choose the right words, to choose the right framework, to choose the right vocabulary. You know, whether I'm going to use our industry jargon or not, or whether I'm going to be speaking to a layperson or not, that matters. Okay, so you want to start with the end in mind, and you also want to know, what is it that I hope to accomplish, you know, by opening my mouth. Right. Like I always say, if your mouth is open, there should be a reason that it's open and words are coming out of it. Otherwise, keep it shut. Okay? That's what I do. If you, if you know me personally, I will be the quietest person in the room. But when I say something, it will move the room. That's how you should be. Your voice should be powerful, and your voice should move people to take action. But every time you open your mouth, your voice should be saying something that's important. And as a healthcare Provider and a coach. Your voice is important. What you have to say is extremely important. Content that you're creating. You want to ask yourself, how will I use this content? Am I going to be repurposing this content? Should I stamp it with a date? Is it something that is repurposable into the future? Is it something that's repurposable as a podcast, as as a live training that I can share over and over again? Is it something that I'm going to stream? You know, start with knowing those things. When you're preparing your talk, what are the ways you're going to use this? Because sometimes certain things that we say may not make that possible. So if I say that today is January 1, 2020, which it's not, by the way, but if I were to say that, then guess what the problem with that is that if it's not January 1, 2020, then the content will seem outdated, even though the information might still be relevant. Ask yourself, how am I going to use this content? So begin with the end in mind. As Stephen Covey would say, the next thing you want to know is who is your audience? And I alluded to this a little bit, but you know, knowing your audience is very important because if you're speaking to your peers, you're going to use different language. If you're speaking to a beginner who's never heard of many of the concepts you're going to talk about, then you want to use a different language. If it's a more intermediate user of your services, or maybe it's an existing patient of yours, you can going to use a different language. So choose the right words based on your audience. And what I also encourage you to do is kind of think back to five years ago. What did you know five years ago? Or what did you not know five years ago that you wish you did? And go back to that moment and speak to who you were five years ago, because that's where the average audience member in your community probably is. So the things that you take for granted now, drinking clean water, you know, focusing on sleep, spending time in nature, you know, meditation, silence, yoga, exercise, whatever it might be. Many of the things that you've been doing for a long period of time you probably take for granted and you assume other people are doing those things. And I promise you that most people are not. So use that five year rule when you're presenting information because it makes it so much easier for you to share. It helps you realize that you've got a lot of value to offer and you can really get your message across much better. When you're speaking to your audience, you also want to use stories that are relevant to them, stories that they can resonate with. Make your stories as relatable to them as possible. So when I'm sharing a case study from a patient, for example, or a client, you know, I'm going to use language and I'm going to use a story or paint a story of that individual that has a resonant value with the audience members. So. So if I dive right into their testing and I show them their testing, well, that's not relevant to the audience member. But if I tell the story of how they're a parent, they're super busy, they don't have time to cook, they might be having challenges at work, or they might be having to take care of an aging parent, or their kids might have behavioral issues and that's creating a lot of stress, or their marriage might be falling apart. Whatever the case may be, create a story that people can actually relate to. People can't relate to results. They can relate to the frustration and that caused the need for the lab testing, for example, but they can't relate to the results. So when you're telling a story, somebody has to be able to see themselves in that story. They have to be able to say, hey, that kind of sounds like me. Because that's going to pique their interest and perk their ears, and it's going to get their attention. The other thing that you want to do is, if you are presenting an offer, is you want to seed your offer throughout whatever presentation you're doing. Now, this is literally a five to six hour training. Sometimes it might even take a weekend to put your whole talk together. I've spent a lot of money and a lot of travel and many days really learning how to deliver a signature talk. The training that we're going to do today, there's not enough time to do that. But seating your offer is something that I teach and it's something that you want to know. You want to subtly make people aware of your program that you're going to be offering. At the end, if you are making an offer. So you might tell a case study or on how somebody went through your signature program and then achieve the result that you're going to be sharing through the case study that you're offering to people. Again, know your audience, know where they're at, and then seed your offer throughout the program. And that's going to make a big impact in the outcomes that you get. The next thing is, you know, use real life examples from your experience and the more you can use real life examples to get your point across or get your message across, that's going to give you certainty and confidence and it's going to help people in the audience feel like you can understand them. And again, painting that story is going to be very critical. Another thing that you want to do is you always want to, as much as possible, record yourself. Now, you may never watch that recording. Sometimes it's hard to watch ourselves or listen to ourselves. But at least it's important to have it archived and saved. So you might watch it a year from now and say, hey, like, wow, I can see the progress I've made. Or you might have somebody else watch it and give you some honest feedback. But if you don't record either the audio or the video, then there's no room for growth and there's no room for you to say, hey, I could do this better. A lot of us might have unconscious patterns. I'm sure there's probably things that I'm doing right now that are unconscious to me. And if I go back and watch this, then I can pick up on those things, or somebody else might be able to pick up on those things. And when you record yourself, you can also repurpose. So I might do a five minute presentation. And that five minute presentation, if I post it on social media or share it with my list, or I put it on YouTube, a thousand people watch it, that five minutes turned into 5,000 minutes. But if I didn't record it, then it really doesn't do as much justice. And I can't repurpose the content. So make sure you're doing that as well. The next thing that you want to do is, you know, speak in person. You want to speak online, you want to speak at live events, you can. There's so many ways that you can put your message out there. I believe in speaking at live events because it's instant authority for you. There's really no barrier to entry, except the mental barrier to entry. Doing something on Facebook, but putting a live workshop together and hosting it and being up there in front of a group of people and speaking to them, that's powerful in terms of pr, but it's also powerful in terms of getting people to take action because you've got their attention. If they're watching online, they might only watch for 30 seconds and tune out. You really haven't captured that person's attention. Also, somebody who's willing to Take time out of their schedule and physically show up in a space that person has a challenge that they would have a need to solve. Okay, you don't just show up because you're interested in the topic. You show up because you have a problem or a challenge that you like to resolve, and that's why you're there. So people who show up to live workshops generally, I find, tend to be much more committed to solving their problem. The next thing is, as I mentioned, recording yourself. But if you can, if you're doing a live event, stream yourself, stream yourself to Facebook. You never know who's watching, never know who's listening. And if you stream to your business page or a fan page, then you can actually boost it and you can actually reach more people. I'm all about scale. I'm all about leverage. I'm all about getting the most out of the effort that you put forward. So, you know, stream yourself and you can scale yourself. Your personal page, you can't boost post. So I would definitely encourage you to use your personal page and your business page. If you want to put some ad spend behind it, then certainly use your business page. And with Facebook and really with most social platforms to get people's attention, to get in front of the right people, you really have to pay to play. When you just post something, you never know if it's getting in front of the right targeted audience. So that's going to lead to, you know, fewer outcomes that you desire. Because if random people are watching your stuff that aren't interested in it and they're just happening to get that trickle into their feed, you're not going to get a result. But if you put a little bit ad expand and strategy behind your message, then you can get thousands of people watching it and it's going to actually create an outcome for you because you're targeting specific individuals. And there's of course, more advanced strategies for retargeting and things like that that we can talk about, but that's beyond the scope of this conversation. Another thing that I find that can help you if you're doing a presentation like this, for example, is, is make sure you've got a good camera. Make sure you've got a good setup. I've got a beautiful space. I know you can see my background and stuff. I've got a good, great mic. I've got a 4K camera. I've got great lighting. I've got all the tools to help me be successful in putting my message out there and eliminating objections. Because sometimes we Might look tired or we might be having a bad face day or whatever the case may be. Good lighting makes a big difference. A good microphone makes a big difference. A good camera makes a big difference. And to have all these things set up is not that expensive, guys. And it's a very valuable investment in your business and in your practice. And it gives you a much more professional perspective for yourself and more confidence and certainty. But also the person watching your content knows that you're a professional because you're using higher quality equipment. I mean, sometimes I'll get people messaging me simply asking me, what mic are you using or what camera are you using, or what kind of lighting are you using? Where'd you get that background backdrop from? And you know, so it does make a big difference. People do notice these type of things. Next thing, aside from having good equipment is you want to make sure that you're not overthinking or over complicating things. You know, I did a webinar today and I was supposed I was scheduled to do a training for my inner circle mentorship group. And I said, what the heck? Why don't we invite our whole list and see who can attend this. This training that we were doing. And the amount of effort and time that we put into this promotion was literally one email, one little meme that my wife created for me within five minutes. And then having somebody on my team literally spend five minutes and send the email to our list. And we had more people attend that training than we would had. We planned a two week webinar, believe it or not. You know, so sometimes we over complicate things, sometimes we overthink things. Go with your intuition, go with the flow, try different things, put content out there. And a lot of times it's a divine timing. People will actually be looking for something and you'll be offering that solution to their challenge that they're facing and they'll show up. Okay? And so don't over complicate things. You know, put yourself out there, get in front of the camera, have fun, and make sure that you're doing what serves your message, your mission, and also your community. It's important to have fun. And you know, you should. I hope you can tell that I'm passionate about this topic. That should come through. You know, it should not feel like you're being, you know, that there's a gun to your head when you're delivering content. You should feel excited. It should be something that, you know, personifies your energy. People should, you know, see you on the screen and be like, man, I want to work with this person. I want to engage with this person or this person, you know, feels like somebody who can uplift me and help me move in the right direction. You should give off that feeling to individuals who are watching you. Another thing that you want to do is you want to be consistent. So consistency carves canyons, as I always say. And it's not the flood that creates the Grand Canyon. It's the consistent carving of the river that creates the Grand Canyon. And over time, some amazing, beautiful things can be created. But we have to be consistent. And when we're consistent, then we develop the skill. When we're consistent, we can do this with one take, right? When we're consistent, then we're ready for opportunities that present themselves to us. And we can get up on a stage if we need to, because we done the work. We have to be prepared if we want to intersect with success. Okay? So it's not by accident that people end up on stage. People don't trip onto the stage, they climb onto the stage. And so it's important that you recognize that developing the skill of putting your message out there publicly in whatever platform is suitable for you at whatever stage of your business you're in, is a very, very powerful skill set to have. The most important, powerful skill set to have transferable to any industry. And then one thing I also get a lot of resistance from people with or where they get nervous about is I don't know what to offer people. Well, you don't always have to make an offer, but you always have to add value. So always, always, always add value. Always leave people a little bit better than they were when, when they. When they tune before they tuned in. Give them something to action, something for them to go home with, something for them to want to watch the next video that you put out there. You know, I usually use a five to one ratio. So for every five bits of valuable content that you put out there, make one offer. But be consistent about making offers, because you don't want to train your audience that you're just going to keep giving them free education over and over again without making them an offer. This is where a lot of practitioners get stuck. They train their audiences to basically, you know, expect them to deliver free information. And then when it comes time to charging for information, you get trapped. And this has happened to me before. You know, I generously want to give, but then there's got to also be an offer that I can make people, not just because that's what puts food on my table and moves my mission forward, but also because when somebody pays you and goes through a process or a program that you offer, then guess what? They're also. They're also getting a higher level of service and a much better outcome. You're actually doing your clients a disservice. Unless you're giving everything away you do for free. You're doing your clients a disservice by giving them enough away for free where they can take action but not see results. Okay? So you have to make people offers if they want to go deeper with the work that you're doing. And then one thing that I'll say, and this applies to every area in your life, is, is that you want to hire a coach or an accountability partner, someone who can give you honest feedback and evaluate you. If you're looking to be the best at anything, even if you're just looking to be good at something, you should have a coach. Okay? So hire a speaking coach. Find someone who resonates with you. Find someone who can help you and support you, and somebody who can give you careful feedback and evaluation and help you move the needle in the right direction. I've had several speaking coaches over the years, and they've helped me all in different ways. And I'll say that you've really got to find someone that works for you. Who worked for me may not work for you. The objectives that you have have to also align with what the person can offer you. A good coach can offer you a framework that's pretty easy. That's just paperwork that you fill out. But it's practice that leads to confidence, and it's confidence that leads to certainty. And both of those go hand in hand. And then it's confidence and certainty that leads to a clear message and a clear alignment with the audience member that you're the right fit for them, that you're the person that they should be doing this amazing, beautiful work with, of getting healthy. So with love and with gratitude, I hope you got value out of this. I hope this presentation inspires you to take some sort of meaningful action in developing your speaking and communication skills so that you can get your message out to the world and make the impact that I know your brand, that your mission, that this mission and this journey that we're all on, you know, so, so, so needs right now. Love to you all. Have an amazing, amazing day. Thank you.