what is up everybody on today's episode with juel we're going to talk about all the mistakes that you make in the sales process to create a dumpster fire way of killing all of your sales stick around hi juel hi Chris I'm excited to talk to you today I'm here you're here let's do it let's do it now I believe there was something that we wanted to talk about my memory if it serves me correctly you were telling me some hilarious stories of people pitching you their services yes and I know I've actually had one of these experiences way back in the day but you have a different sort of experience going on so from what you told me you have people always coming in at a somewhat High number and then I think they're thinking to maybe use some of the techniques that you teach yes and they're using your techniques on you and so tell me what happens because I thought this was just oh man this is something we all need to hear okay I have a person reach out and this happens all the time to me and I say well how much is it going to cost to do this thing because I want to get to the money part right away and it goes all over the Spectrum right so there's a there's a guy I know he's a talented artist I like him and I like his work and he's been on our show before and I want him to do some painting of a logo I've already designed so I'm like how much is this going to cost and he's like H and he floats out a really high number I'm like dude this is too much I I'm sorry I can't afford this and I think this is happening over DMS and then he responds with like let me reduce the scope a little bit let me change the usage and he starts like doing the things I think I've asked him to do in the video but he's not doing exactly the way I've taught him how to do it and then I respond with no that's not going to work sorry I'm I'm sorry to waste your time I just can't afford this so he goes from a very high number to a m middle number he keeps just eroding away he's like Chris I will do this for free what do you want me to do and I'm just kind of laughing I'm not intentionally trying to get him to do it for free I'm not want that I just want to do it for a reasonable rate so what I what I experience is people take the information I put out there and they apply it in all the weird ways that they do and then what they don't realize is you can't out Jedi Yoda this is not going to work I got more tricks in the bag here and I haven't taught you how to respond as a client I've only taught you how to respond as a vendor because clearly whenever we do these role plays whoever is the vendor or I'm sorry whoever is the client doesn't have those same tricks so it's just battle back and forth and and that was a hilarious experience and I will work with this young person because I really do like him there's a price I'm willing to pay but beyond that it's just not worth it to me I could feel my soul just kind of cringing just shriveling up a little bit bringing some of the memories has nothing to do with this story just bringing the memories screaming back yeah tell me more about those memories well well in a second because you're describing I think an experience that many many creatives have had with you so creative sees yourself yeah I've had with you why are you pointing to yourself like you're surprise like we're here what are you talking about I'm so innocent of all crimes you can't prove it can you oh my god innocent uhuh sure but I think you know I get pitched on The Daily you must get this like times 10,000 because you're so famous now people see your YouTubes they see your Instagram your LinkedIn you're all over the place and so someone reaches out to you and I think what is happening like just from the first off from what I have heard people tell when you said the person pitches you and you're like no that's that's too much I can't afford it and the first thought in my mind is like really too much you can't afford it at the revenue you're making you can't afford it I don't believe that so what would you say you mean if they actually said that to me yeah well no one's going to say that to me but you know let's go back to an example so I've already designed a logo and and I'm not quite sure what this person is charging me for I just didn't want to paint it what I wanted to do was to have a hand look hand done look to it so I knew this person is very good at Analog art and craft and so when they F I don't remember the exact number let's just say it's five grand $5,000 everybody okay not a crazy amount of money for a logo but for somebody to paint a logo I've already designed now we get into like huh so what's going on my mind maybe because I'm a cheap bastard I don't think so is is I have to break out my paint set and my roller brushes and whatever art tools I have from from art center and I can paint it myself I just don't want to do that so the pain that it's causing me is I don't want to go reach into the drawer and do the work myself and there is a finite cost to that I'm thinking if I had done it it would probably take me two hours tops set up clean up in the whole bit I'm not asking for the design of the logo which I know is going to be costly now I do want to say this though I have commissioned lots of artists who I paid $2,500 to as a 50% deposit just because I wanted to see what they would do and I didn't like what they did so I just stopped so it's not that I won't spend the money but I have to look at compared to what compared to me painting I'm capable of painting I've already designed the logo so I just want someone else to do it so I don't have to break out the paints so that's kind of like when I say I can't afford it it's like I can't afford to pay you that much money to do something like this here's the weird part because I believe there's a lot of people who do it for a couple hundred bucks and I go buy a Louie bag what am I doing here that's when I say I can't afford it like do I want to pay you to do this thing probably not I'm not experiencing big enough pain so does that make sense when I say I can't afford no you're still shaking your head go ahead yeah I I think what you've just demonstrated is the classic you can't trust what the the client is saying is their objection okay because to you that I can't afford it doesn't actually mean you can't afford it good point it's got all this other stuff in there yeah yeah yeah yeah you're you're right maybe I didn't say I can't afford it maybe I said this is way more than I thought it was going to be oh I see now you're that moving Target start changing your story I've turned aole client overnight boom right before your eyes no I just said like this is this is like not worth it to me that's all or something like that I don't want to say in mean Spirit way I'm not be rating I'm not saying you're not worth it it's just it's not worth it to me I don't want to spend that kind of money now I do want to try this though if you were to say I'm trying to get into roleplay mode go ahead say your part and then I'll respond all right and do it in the tone that you might realistically say it okay if I were to realistically come across a client like this I would be saying it like interesting So based on the revenue ballpark that I know you're generating you're telling me you can't afford this this could you could you tell me more about this yeah and I would realistically say to you I gener I generate a lot of money that is true but relative to what the problem I'm asking you to solve it's I'm not going to pay a dime more than this just because I make a lot of money doesn't mean I'm G to pay $1,000 for a cup of water so it's relative to the pain I think this is the key right here it's the pain yes so I know if it were me I would probably be trying to dig in to so then what is the thing you're talking about a logo here but what is really the pain and I know earlier you were talking about well I don't want to have to go through the hassle of breaking out my my paints and all this and do the work the two hours so I would be looking into that and it's not like I'm going to try and change your mind but I would be exploring into that area but from what you're describing with most of the people like 99.9% of the people who are pitching themselves to you I don't think they're even doing that part right well here's what it usually sounds like hey Chris big fan by the way what are you doing for email marketing hey Chris big fan could you use more social engagement hey Chris big fan your videos aren't that good I can make better videos for you want to hire me hey Chris big fan want to give you free piece of work do you want to do a collab and they all end up exactly with the exact same response for me which is delete block and Report that's it okay but those are the let's let's call them the top of the funnel sort of they got no game okay these are the cold Outreach yeah they've established no relationship with you they've put no effort sometimes they don't even say hey Chris it's like hey friend you know it's just like a copy paste like just stupid I love that one I always like to respond to people who call me bro we don't know each other like that oh my God God yes I I'm just I'm just sitting here like next next 100 people to cold pit you I want to know how many of these people have actually like listened to this episode when it comes out like I'm I'm dying to know what changes Jo here's the one I love the most this is one of my favorites hey do you offer coaching Services because I think you can make a lot of money if you were a coach block delete report junk oh my God I get that one all the time yep I was like you know what that's a good idea never thought about being a coach this is a revolutionary business model friend where you been all my life how about you just do a quick Google search or click on a link make the minimal amount of effort people yeah it's disgusting it's like the fact that they took the effort to message you but apparently did not click into your profile and just read like the three lines in your bio it's it's just amazing right yes okay but we're not really talking about those people so those are the people they don't don't even get past the OU hello y yeah they get nothing from you we're talking about the people where they've actually managed to land on your radar in some way yes they happen to actually ask about something that you might need and so then you actually respond and so there is some level of conversation happening but then they reached a point where you're going back and forth on well here's the price they pitched you and then you've hit this point of well I'm sorry that's just not worth it to me what did they do at that point well generally speaking people who pitch me don't go anywhere at all the only ones that work on me are we have Rapport there's some kind of acquaintance familiarity and they actually offer to help me with something that they know I need help with and they're willing to do it for nothing because I can't say no to nothing they've made an irresistible offer I'm like okay and even and believe it or not people even when you try to give your services away for free people will refuse you because like I don't want to manage you I don't want to give you access to my accounts or anything like that free work is still not free so you you your offer is really poorly designed but these days it's harder and harder for people to do that with me because I plenty of people help me with stuff so I'm like I don't need another person to volunteer and I don't want the obligation the rest of procity that inherently is going to come because I know what you want at the end of this and it's not to do free work but in the past I've had multiple occasions and I'll take you back to like the late 90s early 2000s when a guy who who is a like the the brother of someone that was one of our clients who said hey my my kid brother is looking to break into the field would you mind just taking a look at his portfolio and giv him feedback no obligations so when this young man showed up in my office he showed me his work I was okay it wasn't horrible but it wasn't great and he literally said uh Chris I admire your work I love everything you've done my sister talks about you all the time and look I just want to be around you and the people who make the stuff that you do I'm willing to come in here and literally clean your house scrub your toilets just so I can be around you and what we're doing here so well it's not going to come down to that let me let me just think about this for a little bit and his dedication his willingness and he goes I'm not kidding I will do this work because I just need to get a start and this is a person who's really confident in what they can do and they want to learn and I'm a sucker for people who have a good work ethic who are humble and are willing to do anything and who are willing to kiss my feet I'm just kidding the last part everybody who are willing to just say you know what there's cool things happening around here there's greatness that's coming out of these walls and I just want to be within the vi vicinity I want to be in the room where it happens everybody so I'm like all right I'll give you a shot he want up working with us for years wow okay so if you help teach us me included here the US your audience and you listen to this like it's a story about somebody else like what would you say is going on like what did you break down the meta stuff yeah okay so here's what's going on first of all there is an introduction there's a warm introduction it's not a cold person off the street this usually works with an introduction because somebody has a vouch for your character because if it comes in cold it's going to seem like psycho stalker I'm going to be unsafe right we just don't know because there's a level of aggression and willingness to do work that you're like borderline psychotic here we we kind of have to be careful where we go with this because it came from a client's family member because it came from a professor at a university who spoke highly of this person and they don't send me randos like just to waste my time because they also know if they send me randos the next time they have somebody good I'm not going to take that call they burned their Goodwill with me right where I call them I'm like yeah you remember that sent over that person was a disaster thanks but no thanks don't do that again you know so you have to realize when somebody vouches for you there's a giant responsibility that you have on behalf of the person who vouched for you that you if you f it up you f up all their future relationships and the relationship they may have don't do that don't ask for people to make recommendations for you and not show up 1,00% because you've done yourself a disservice and that person so when that person comes in and I have to sense if they're genuine Jewel if it's slip service because people have done this with me as well they will say something like I'll do anything and it's happened and I I bring you into the company I'm like hey can you do that well uh yeah I just didn't think you were going to ask me to do that but that's literally what you said you were going to do so are they sincere are they genuine and are they fully understanding of who I am what we do and their skill set doesn't match because if it doesn't then it's not going to work for us so those are three critical things right let me quickly recap a warm introduction so I know you're not a psycho number two are you genuine and authentic number three is there an overlap between what we do and what you want to do and have a skill and passion for that this is going to lead to success now I'll give you the example where it did not work and it's a sad story it's a real story one of my good friends for March School somebody who we we collaborated on projects together we traveled uh to Canada together we spent a lot of time together and one day uh he had some kind of mental breakdown and he was working on feature films as a concept artist for some of the biggest Productions in the world Blockbuster films and he decided I don't want to work for the man anymore so he he had something snap in his brain I don't know what happened to him but he decided he doesn't want to work and he's going to suffer the consequences so he let all of his savings dwindle down to nothing to a point in which he was was actually homeless living on the street not figuratively in a car or bouncing from couch to couch but literally homeless on the street and so when I ran into him and he's like hey Chris um you know do you have any work for me and I've worked with him before I've given him freelance work and he's done a great job I said you want to do paintings what do you want to do he goes no no no I don't want to do any art related thing I feel like I'm about art prostitute I don't want to do that anymore I'm like so what do you want to do then I I'll just do minial tasks you know like janitorial level work I was like oh this was Soul crashing for me here's a guy who super talented a guy cared about who had risen to the top of the top working on just amazing things and for whatever reason had a nervous breakdown and wasn't all mentally there so I'm like really yeah I guess I could use you here's what I pay people to do this kind of work let's say 200 bucks a day it's not a lot of money and you could do that work and he goes okay great I'm so grateful and by the way can you give me in advance I'm like uh oh so I give him an advance we agreed to do two weeks worth of work and we'll see how it goes and so then I asked him to do something very menial jeel I said hey uh you you know books and I have a lot of art books and they're organized in a weird way because somebody who doesn't understand what's in the books has organized them by shape or by color or something I like I need to know where these types of books are can you go through that he and he kind of gave me a little hesitation he goes oh okay yeah yeah I think I could do that so he disappears a day later I'm thinking we should make progress I come over there and he's not done any of it I'm like hey what's going on goes yeah I just don't know if I'm well suited to do that like okay that's strike one like so you don't want to do art you don't want to do menial labor um can you help me move some stuff like yeah I'm not really into that that's when I'm like okay it's my friend I'm going to pay him for two weeks and we're done so at the end of the two weeks I gave him his money and I said okay that's it he's like what do you mean I said you know I can't this is not a welfare state I just can't pay you to sit around and do nothing so unfortunately that relationship started to shrivel away and it's so sad because I don't know where he is today and I don't think he's doing well I had to tell him you know I think I'm enabling you to think a certain way by giving you money and I I can't support that I really care about you I'd give you cash all the all the time if I knew it was being used for good things and he had broken his mind had broken in ways I didn't know what had happened to him so there are two examples there someone who says I'll do anything and does it someone who says I'll do anything but doesn't do it and is just deluding themselves and it's like and it wasn't his skills weren't aligned to organizing books but that's the job I had gez man that's that's a really hard story to hear yeah it's uh I don't think any of any of us like to see the people we know suffering and then it's even worse when you extend an opportunity because you're trying to help them and they don't actually meet you at that level they've probably not come out of whatever it is that they're actually suffering from right and so like you said it is it is more in the direction of potentially enabling them and so there's a difference though you know there are these people who I don't think are in the majority of the people so on the one hand there the people who they're not doing the work they were never meant to do the work um or maybe they had some ego come into the picture and they're like no no like I'm not I'm not doing that that's not really what I meant when I said I'll do anything yeah on the other end you have people like your friend who was probably not in the right headp space or the right space the right place period to actually work with you but you wanted to help him I do believe that the majority of the people that we're talking about today are the ones who would love to work with you they would love to work with you they would love to help you and they probably do have skills that you could put to use but there's something happening in this conversation with you where they're just dropping the ball they are not able to help you make the connection so that you're like yes I'm going to do it at this price or or even at any price because what you're describing is this process that does not make sense to me even though I'm going to admit like just upfront like I've gone down that same path with you two like three years ago and I so about that in a little bit okay we'll tease the audience stay T end and to hear what juul's actually talking about yeah but me three years ago I was a different person so looking back I can see that that whole path that you just described where they throw out a very high number then they come down to somewhere in the middle and you're like no I'm sorry I I still don't see this as being worth it and then they're they reached this point all right all right I'll I'll just do it for free there's something strange and twisty happening there so what's happening I think they watch too many of our videos don't understand how this actually works and this is where because you watch it on the internet doesn't mean you can apply it we're not all neurosurgeons because we watch ER you know it's just like we're not doctors and we're not Ghost Hunters if we watch xfiles we're just not and so we have to distinguish between learning and applying and adjusting the the and and I'm a big advocate for it for coaching for advisers for mentors because you'll hear an idea you apply it and it'll go wrong and the assumption is it didn't work no no it works it's just your application of it didn't work so this is where you need a real person like tell me how you said that again again and why why did you say that relative to this because I I call it monkey robot brain you know where robot does exactly what they're said and monkey just throws bananas and doesn't know what to do and they swing between monkey or robot and every time they do that I'm like this is not what I'm talking about so robot follows the script so tightly they don't understand context and Nuance kind of like AI actually when you ask AI to do something and it just gives you something like that's not what I asked for but because there was no context it just did what you literally said and and it didn't have the interpretive skills to do that and In This Moment here I think this person was like great Chris has a lot of money he's successful he's gonna pay top dollar and this is what I want to make off this not Chris is also an artist and a designer what is his paino relative to this thing and why does he want to do it right and this person God bless him I really like him went through this round three rounds of this and this is prob I didn't tell you before Jo where they said I said this needs to be a work for hire and if you don't know what work for hire means it means I own it I have to own it otherwise it's no good for me and then he's said well what if we do five years usage I'm like work for hire three years usage work for hire one year usage like you're wasting my time man you don't listen well okay what people don't understand is for 20 plus years working in the commercial space although they paid us a lot of money everything that we produced for them was work for higher it has to be it's a stipulation because if you do something for Microsoft they can't be going back to you later on and saying hey yeah how much is it to use it for Europe they're not going to do that they assume paying you paid you and they own the work product and it needed so he had a hard time listening to that because I don't know what was in his mind his heart it's like I'm not even asking you what are you owning it's my logo I just had you paint it imagine if a guy went to paint uh your logo on a van he says well I own the logo right I'm like no no no you just painted it on the van I need you just to paint the logo on a piece of paper what is there that you want to try to own so I was just getting the like you know two ships at the night like we don't we're not speaking the same language and this is a really frustrating thing that buyers of art have to deal with that the people that are selling the art are not sophisticated business people God bless you you're not good at business you don't understand basic business principles so I know he's a terrific artist and I really like him I will work with them but you know what to be honest I wasn't even sure if I needed this thing I was just like I I just ask a guy and give him some money and hopefully it works and oftentimes I pay people for art I never even use logos I don't even use because I I had a little brainfire I just wanted somebody to make it and I have folders of stuff I paid for that I never use so they're missing a little bit of that context well I think that was a really nice way of you saying that a little context I mean it kind of sounds like quite a bit because I don't think people actually look at you in the full picture of you like you said Chris is also an artist and a designer the space you're at today with the future with appearing on all these podcasts and on Instagram doing your Keynotes I think most of us actually see you more as a business person now you know you're the owner of this multi-million dollar company and there's something which if I think about it also doesn't make sense because it's not like you just suddenly abandoned all your prior history you know like you've won Mees like you've made these amazing commercials you've done these ads you've done so much creative work and yet the way that people are approaching you today is as if you have none of that history but the other thing that you just said like a million times is you needed this to be worked for higher and the person wasn't listening and I think the one question that you asked that I believe a lot of people listening to this like if I didn't point it out they would just gloss over it's when you said what is it that you're trying to own and when I see people at this stage they're not listening because not only is it like really all about themselves but they're trying to protect their psych their ego their identity as an artist they don't want to be taken advantage of and it's it's a strange conflict because of course like I'm not saying anybody should be taken advantage of but if you're so in the mode of protection that you cannot even listen to the words coming out of the other person's mouth then there's an issue okay so you have this person and I think this is maybe not the best example cuz it's something that you didn't even know whether you wanted plus the product is something that's actually your ownership cuz you already created the logo you just needed the person to paint it now you had another scenario that you explained to me it was something you actually did want and it was the YouTuber right like the YouTuber and I forget what they offered you to even like start the conversation but you had something very specific you wanted and again they did not listen so what happened there have to be careful about sharing all these stories cuz they all listen to the channel I'm like vud guys gals I'm sorry I'm going to keep it Anonymous but I know you'll know with to you when I'm doing this so hopefully we'll just chalk this up as a learning lesson okay I I love you all and I'm going to work with you it just it didn't work for me in a moment I just want to say that okay full disclosure now I can go back to being a jerk okay so there's a person who spends time advising coaching people on YouTube and then they asked me I want to help you I'm I'm like okay what are your priorities Chris I said well my priorities are pretty straightforward and everyone who's on our content team knows what my priorities are and I tell them all the time number one priority I want to grow our subscribers or followers however you want to call it I want to increase our subscribers number two I want to increase watch time so if they were watching five minutes as an average I want it to go to seven minutes to 9 minutes to 12 minutes to 22 minutes I want to increase watch time because it's telling me more people are seeing it and they're watching for a longer period of time that's what matters to me I said a third priority and this the lowest of the priorities is to make money on AdSense Revenue this person's like yes I got you okay so remember subscribers watch time and then add Revenue he goes Chris well I've been thinking about it uh I have lots of tips and tricks and I think we can easily increase the revenue for your channel and I was like dumbfounded I'm like like I'm going to speak like my kids BR did you hear me and I would repeat it I'm interested in subscribers watch time and then AdSense in terms of Revenue and they would talk talk talk talk talk and they would come right back there are four or five things we could do easily to help you make one and a half X 2x in terms of money here's the problem juel I know that most people are concerned about money but I'm not most people and this is going right into monkey robot brain the robot says people care about making money go into your script and sell him the fact that you're selling money but the YouTube channel has never made a significant amount of money relative to our operating capital and what we need it's not a priority for me it's the third priority so they weren't listening so I I nodded smiled and I said thanks and one day when that's important to us I'll reach out to you so I think that's the example you're talking about yes yes and again another example of someone who I think was maybe a little bit wrapped up in their skills and what they could deliver yeah and I see this you know I see this with my clients all the time is as soon as they are presented with something that a client wants that isn't actually their strongest skill set it's almost like they didn't even hear you they just default to where and they're pushing their strongest skill set at you because that's where they feel Mo most confident they try to bend whatever you're saying back to their main talking points so it's like a river and it has many estuaries like are those what we call the the side little Rivers I don't know what the technical term is somebody's going to crack me and then they want to dig a ditch and bring that path of water back into the main river and I don't get that and every time they do like I don't think you're hearing me and I want to say this to all my creative service providers out there I don't care if you're a plumber tile person make uh do repair roof repairs or car repairs when you say something that is not what I'm saying I have great concern that this is how the whole relationship is going to be that you're somewhat toned deaf and you don't understand the words like we might as well be speaking two different languages I'm speaking vienamese and you're speaking Japanese and it just it's not the same doesn't even sound the same so I'm like gosh I might have gone for this thing had you addressed what I wanted but I can't imagine how it's going to be like to work with you and this happens across a lot of creative people I talk to like when we say hey this direction isn't working or here are my goals and priorities and be mindful of these objections and they just bulldoze right ahead and they just give me exactly what they're going to give me I'm like gosh this is terrible and this is when I start to realize this Jewel and I take this for for granted the 20 or plus years that I spent in the creative service space making commercials and music videos I thought it was just naturally obvious to everybody to be a good listener to be able to build rapport to be able to play back what you heard and to make sure the other person feels seen and heard but apparently based on all the creative interactions I've been having they're terrible they're terrible at this and this is kind of why I guess so many creative people suffer because that I don't know why the client didn't pick me I don't know why they ghosted on me maybe it's because you have too much wax in the ear hole there you're not hearing what they're saying so they don't have confidence in you that's the problem especially when they spend a lot of money this is where they get much much pickier I know from a personal experience or like lots of these personal experiences every time someone ignores what I've said and they go talk about something else the first thing that pops into this into my mind is oh my God like they don't get me they don't get me and this is a waste of my time and so the urge to flee just arises and it just gets stronger and stronger the more they demonstrate that they're really not listening because I have this this whole like reaction of like why am I here like why are we here and and I don't want to be mean you know like most of us we're not out here to be mean or to be harsh with people and then when they get to the point of trying to make the sale what do we do most people are probably going to do some version of you know what I I have to go think about it or I I don't know let me go think about it and it's it's sort of like a no sometimes you get the wobbly like I don't know maybe which is like the worst place to be in and some people I think the smaller majority of the people will just be like no in the like right there in the moment most people don't have the guts to just say no to your face yeah and when the creatives or anybody out there says I don't know why these people are saying no I I don't know why I didn't get it it's like there's some investigation to be had and it's not just they're not listening they didn't explore so they're not listening which then causes them to not explore so I think even with you're a YouTuber [Music] person sometimes this tactic of where all the side rivers or the side little streams do lead back to their one ditch it can work if you demonstrate why the ad Revenue can still like their strategy with ad Revenue could still get you the subscribers and the increased average watch time if you can demonstrate that like it could potentially maybe have landed with you but again it's like if you're not exploring why because you said subscri subscribers it's like okay so why is that important and I think if we're talking about the lwh hanging fruit the easiest things that you could change today and like how you talk to your clients this would be it you're not asking enough questions and then you just keep pushing your stuff at them because your ego is on the line you're trying to convince them you're trying to change their minds you're trying to make them see that you are worth it just so that people don't think it's about these two people I know CU I know they're going to listen and like oh Chris oh my God you think I'm a jerk and you're a jerk blah blah blah I'm going to tell you a couple other versions of this so that this is not me isolating a few of my friends okay you know people who sell Instagram verification like I can get you verified they also have the same thing and by the way Mogul press if anybody's watching this please turn off all your robots I will never work with you or any of your people okay so Mogul press permanently banned for me because clearly you're employing a robot army of somebody that just doesn't care this is the world's worst PR okay back to our previously scheduled program so people reach out and say hey Chris I can get you verified and they try to show me all these things that they can do I'm like verification is important to me get me verified well you need to pay us upfront I'm like no I'm good for it man I will pay you and we could do the dance and I'm like I will pay you I promise I'll pay you you can screen capture this I have a reputation to maintain it's not even a lot of money like sometimes only want 1,000 bucks or 800 bucks or it's not a lot but I'm not paying anybody anything because I know most of them are scams or they're not qualified to do this so if I was them this is the thing that you have to realize folks every single person you sell to is a different person than the previous person you spoke to and if they knew anything about me I'm a person of Integrity I have real businesses that I'm running and I'm a person who if you were to damage my reputation by calling me a fraud and saying like he promised me money and he didn't do it and here's all the proof it would ruin my reputation something I care about way more than ,000 but these people constantly they just insist no I can't do it I can't do it which is fair if that's what they want to do but to me they just didn't get their money because I would have given it to them but they didn't understand from a point of view of a buyer these are Fly by Night sketchy operations I said you know what every person that is not your name has said the exact same things to me and how do I know any of them are real I just can't trust any of you so everybody has a friend that works at Facebook or meta or Instagram how come I'm the only guy who doesn't have a friend that works at meta it seems like yall are claiming that you can just do this and it's like I don't believe you so if you can do it do it if you don't don't that's it here's another one that bothers me juel somebody reaches out and said hey hey Chris um you mind if I ask you a couple of questions I'm like no don't sell me he goes I wouldn't sell you I said don't sell me I'll block you he goes yes okay so when it comes to what is your pain point I'm like he's like I want to do a little research okay cool he keeps asking me more and more questions I know a sales script when I see one so three or four questions in like are you going to pitch me and sell me because I feel like this is what you're doing he goes no no no and he's like acting offended said well what is the point if you ask me all these questions then where is this going and I don't have this kind of time till he stop messaging me because he was called out I know he was going to sell me and he was fishing for a problem that he could get solve and it told them at the very beginning do not ask me a question as a fake question i' rather I I so in orders to scumbaggery the person who's like hey Chris let's collab that's one level of deception the other person who promises not to sell me and then tries to sell me later on that's two levels of deception now when they insist I'm not going to sell you I already know you're going to sell me you've effed up this relationship I'm going to delete and block you I think what you've shared here is the perspective that most business owners forget they forget about the client client's perspective especially the pieces where you just said how do I know this is real I don't believe you and this is something we just don't think about like we're so stuck in our own business and so um we're we're focusing on our skills and what we can give and what we can do for the other people like we forget that hey before you can even get to that stage of showing off all the wonderful things you can do it's like you first have to establish that initial trust and trust is going to look different in different channels so sometimes with this verification thing you may have somebody like this where the person is a little bit like well prove it like show me you can actually do what you say you can do before you're demanding me to Fork over my money and and then in other modes it's it's going to look different and I think we forget that it's it's really about meeting that person where they're at so that they can establish trust with you instead of you trying to force your stuff on them and and just like you said you know we're not out here to shame anybody like I see this happening with a bunch of my clients all the time too I'll look at that I I'll look at their DMS and when I when they tell me that something didn't go through and they want to blame it on the fact that their prices they've recently raised their prices and I'm like I promise you it's almost never about like a higher price I just showed you my text message today right with my own client so not going to post this anywhere but I sent Chris a screenshot of a text message I got from one of my current clients right now and I knew that she had interviewed other coaches and I asked her hey what made you choose to work with me and she said it was really it was a combination of my vibe a similar background she just she just liked me you know she didn't think too hard on it but then she throws in this other last bit which was yeah I I went with you even though you cost more than twice as much as the other coach and I was like it is never about price like almost never there's one part of your story that you didn't share juel you mind if I share it okay hopefully I won't betray anything the first message that you sent to me was the best part which is hey I found out about you through the podcast that you're on and it was really neat that you were exploring different careers and I just enjoyed hearing that journey and there's several things I want to take away from that at least how I'm interpreting it which is for me if I was just a random listener I'm like you know what juel didn't just wake up one day and say I'm G to be a life coach or an executive coach because that's trendy right now juel had viable businesses that she deliberately walked away from assured money cash in Bank probably her count is like what did you do again and chose to do this thing chose a harder path because it was more in her in her like life purpose and are calling to do something and I think people admire that the second thing I want to peel away from this is that we often don't talk about our meanderings through life because we're like Oh I'm a failure I've changed careers I've done X Y and Z and we deprive people of finding out about our story and you never know what's going to connect with people we don't tell stories to try to connect with people we tell stories to connect with ourselves to be true to who we are that creates a filter for you to attract the right kinds of people so the people who are turned off by juwel the person who's exploring multiple careers and different path points and they're not the right person for you they're going to listen to this like no no I want laser beam Focus from day one birth coach you know college coach post colle coach coach coach coach coach I came from a line of 14 coaches I'm the fifth generation coach you know it's like if that's that's what you want ju's not the person for you but maybe you yourself have gone through different things in your life and finally found your calling your story resonates and so we keep telling folks stop hiding your story stop hiding yourself step into the light and see what happens and I love to refer to you now because you have multiple examples of how being just you being comfortable in your own skin has led to you building the unbreakable bond that emotional connection with your audience and then your clients and it's beautiful to hear time and time again please never stop sending me those stories well everybody you heard it you heard him say never stop sending him those stories and it's not just me it's all of you because what I like to do is I'll message Chris I'll be like oh my God you won't believe the thing somebody just told me today and you know that last podcast episode we did where somehow I I don't know how you um surfaced it out of me but the fact that I used to be a gamer like that one thing in of itself is what helped somebody decide that they wanted to work with me because they also worked at a gaming company and it was just wild because it's not like I was sitting here thinking oh I'm I'm ashamed of this background and I will never you know share about this but I think mostly I was just thinking you know what no one's going to care about that I'm a coach now like who's going to care about that clearly proven wrong so it's like you never know like what someone is is going to relate to you and it's that relatability that then starts to build that bridge of trust you know we're talking about trust can you do what you say you can do but that's that's the outcome part you know that's like the rational piece that we want proof the emotional side of us that is looking for safety and Trust to know that we're not going to be scammed by somebody that's the part that looks for some shared similarity something that says you understand me and therefore that means you can help me better than all these other people out there so where do you want to take it from here cuz we still haven't talking um talked about my whole dumpster fire we say that for last when we have nothing left to talk about we will talk about that okay there's this other piece of creatives not quite grasping what you teach and then twisting what you teach yeah right so one there's the part where they don't quite ful do your sales teaching methods which you've seen this even in me where um what was it that book The Phil Jones book that guy exactly what to say yes exactly what to say the book is literally called exactly what to say and what do I do I don't want to say exactly what he's telling you to say yes okay so there's the people like that which I firmly believe is probably 90% of the people cuz there's something twisty going on in our heads we hear or we see sales and we're like ick I don't want to be salesy so let me change this language to something that fits me and of course your mindset is what I don't think he's about sales and you describe as Twisted I'm like there is something that isn't firing in all cylinders for whatever reason I'm going to call it a couple of things those that know better can tell me the Neuroscience or the cultural significance of what I'm saying and in terms of like I didn't get it right let's first call it the independent Spirit of the American West Frontier Pioneer let's just call it that you know Americans are known as the people who Buck um tradition status quo and they broke away as revolutionaries to form 13 colonies and these United States of America from the British colonial Empire the the world's like mightiest power at that point to do our independent thing and to go Westward and explore country and eminent domain and everything else right there's that American Spirit and so part of that American Spirit makes us really interesting weirdos that we try new businesses we do things that no other people on the Earth do and it's like we invent things and it's cool and America generates lots of weird crazy cool ideas some of them are total hot dumpster messes but some of them are brilliant and world changing if you think about the technology you use the the hardware the software the social platforms many of them chances are are invented by Americans okay cool that's the best part the downside to this is that we don't want to follow rules You Don't Own Me you can't control me and we have that kind of mentality and so it makes it really difficult to teach people because before they can even learn the thing they want to change the thing I give you a classic example right now real time I I was running this program called the brand lab and there's a gentleman his name is Tim Francis Credit to Tim Tim's like you know I want to share something on how I Chang the structure of the way I speak and it it helped me convert from 3% not even 1% onethird of 1% to 10% which is a ginormous it's like a 3,000% increase in conversions he goes my mentor told me to do this thing and he's like it's a very simple framework ordinary extraordinary why and three things he's a just remember that ordinary extraordinary why and three things so he goes you need to tell people something that makes you super relatable because people on stage people on webinars already have an aura of like they're special they're different than us so no matter what you say I won't accept it because I think your life story is so different than mine I don't have the skill sets I don't have the charm I don't have the intelligence or the books smart the Silver Spoon whatever it is that they think you have you have to dispel that right away and he says you could do this in one or two sentences and his example was I failed at three businesses had a move back in with my mom I had no money in my bank account super relatable that's how he's ordinary but he's said you can't stay there you have to go to the extraordinary because then they're like well you're just a loser like us why are we taking advice from you that's when he says and then I discovered this thing and then allowed me to run a business that's doing $10 million and I and I I answer less than five emails a week and and I have all this free time I work less than and it's something we all want we all want that then he's like then you tell them your why and he tells the story of the why and he says here are three things that you need to know in order for you to have your own thrilling pursuit of Excellence number one it's mindset number two it's letting go number three it's like some systems or something like that so it's like this beautiful thing so I'm doing my best on every webinar that I do to literally follow his exact same process and one of my buddies was listening in he's like Chris I don't think you should tell your ordinary story I think everybody knows that I'm like yo you don't understand how to play this game you cannot try to apply a person's teachings and change it before you even do it because you won't know did it not work because you're the idiot or did it not work because the framework didn't work or your delivery we try to do it exactly the way we're taught and that's how I learn and I see this happening all the time I'll tell people do this this and then that there're no do that and then this other thing no no no do one two and three you're four 12 and 14 no no no no they just want to make it their own thing so fast and that's why I had to produce this video called shuar which is first to protect the idea the shoe part which is your master teaches you something try your best to emulate it exactly as you were taught don't improvise don't don't try and twist it and put your own spin on it just do it exactly as you were taught and this type of thinking and training has kept the human species alive for thousands of years maybe tens of thousands of years because we learned a craft from our master and we're able to build upon it and only after we mastered the original teaching that then we start to combine other teachings and then finally we make our own that's the reart of shuhari okay um so I'll admit I had never heard this concept until you mentioned it first time I ever heard it was 3 years ago you you weren't sharing it you were more complaining about you know people constantly kind of changing things before they even tried it at least even once I heard you say this on a clubhouse stage but in terms of where you say people are so in a rush like the American Spirit especially of trying to make your own I think there's some of that but I also think when I look at my clients and I see the same sort of Tendencies coming out it's a lack of trust it's like it's a lack of trust in the process that I've shared with them or any technique and they are so afraid it's not going to work that they won't even try and I'm like that's the lunacy right there it doesn't even make sense just like you said if you don't at least try it once exactly the way that you were taught how can you say for sure whether it works or doesn't but you're already like trying to make changes and you know yes I'm guilty of that okay so but yeah it's yeah but the reason why I was saying it's it especially gets twisty like in our mental head space with sales anytime there's anything sales related coming into our brains it's not just a lack of trust it's also a discomfort in a shift in our identity which I think is what's happening and so that fear of being seen as salesy like when I was trying so hard to reward one of the um the suggestions in the book exactly what to say and it was because of that I was like it feels so unnatural and what did you say you were like well hey hey dummy it's like if you don't even try it how's it ever going to feel natural like of course it's going to feel unnatural you didn't say dummy that was that was me but I implied it I'm just kidding let the audience draw their own conclusions but seriously you know there is that whole natural unnatural factor which I think is really what's shooting Us in the foot here yeah every time we turn a new Corner we turn the page and we are venturing into the unknown everything is going to feel unnatural and so why would you Veer off and just do things on your own instead of the thing you you're actually paying for yeah that coach or that program it's like here is your path to safety all you have to do is follow it but most of us don't we just kind of leap off the bridge here and there I I am so confused by this so you all will spend hard-earned money to hire a coach to enroll in a program to attend a workshop to go to a keynote and then immediately discount everything that you're told and say I don't want to be talked like that talk to like that I don't want to apply these techniques this way so you go back to doing things exactly the way you had done before I don't understand that if you are committed to doing things your own way and figuring out on your own save your money just save your money and at least save your time why make the effort energy to travel somewhere stay in a hotel give up two or three days to yourself only to then discount everything I don't get it I I was playing tennis and my wife said hey we book some time with the tennis coach and we love him and maybe he can help you play a little bit better I'm like cool what does he tell me to do he he's like he watches me play for half a second he goes oh you're holding the racket incorrectly I'm like I am I help held the racket in my hand the way I thought you're supposed to hold it cuz it was most comfortable he's like no you turn it this way you're holding it like 90° wrong I'm like oh my God this is why I suck at tennis and as unnatural it is for me to hold it this way I went hit the ball like oh my God it sounds different it feels different I'm just going to do it just like this it feels totally different number two I I I for a period of time saw a family therapist and she would tell me exactly what to say say to my wife to my children and I'm a freaking good student and I say it for btim situation happens I and my wife turns me so suspiciously she's like you've been seeing Joan again haven't you I'm like um yes why I thought I was going to get a Pat in the bag like you're working on a relationship good for you do no she's like I can tell cuz those words don't sound like you I'm like babe what do you want me to do the master Joan told me what to do I'm doing exactly what she told me to do is it working she goes yes but it doesn't sound like you it's not supposed to I'm supposed to improve my communication so if it sounds like me I didn't learn anything so I try my best to do as exactly as I'm instructed juel I have this fantasy and I'm somewhat reluctant to say but you know me I'm going to put my foot in my mouth because it's borderline cultish maybe it's full on cult I would love to have a group of students who have already pledged their undying commitment to doing exactly what I tell them so that I can help them but instead what they do is they just fight and they tell them this how to do something and they're like well I don't want to be taught this way I'm like oh my God so you don't know what to do you don't have the result that you want and you're paying me to then tell you how to tell you what to do I don't get it CU only one of us can drive do you want to drive or do you want me to drive cuz if you want me to drive you can't tell me to turn my signal on or watch my distance or hey don't go one mile per hour above 60 miles per hour like I don't get that part but people do that to me all the time and I reluctantly take their money but I'm like gosh you could do so much if you could just get out of your way and I coach and advise people all the time if you just do this you'll be really successful like wow I don't want to do that that destroys my identity I'm like that identity that you don't even like you're working so hard to protect that okay that's up to you so they like to argue because they don't want to be told what to do but when you're hiring someone to tell you what to do I don't get it oh no oh no what happened uh that's tough it's it's one of the first things that I was taught as a coach you know as a life coach is I think it might have literally been the first human rule that we were taught is people do not like to be told what to do which is why the style of coaching I do is so effective because it's not just hey you you do this it's more a series of questioning that will then let them break open that shell that protective barrier that they've built around themselves to then allow themselves to to do what I suggest but you know that's that's really tough It's like because what I'm hearing is you saying that you essentially want a bunch of students that are just like you people who are just going to do exactly prbly yes a bunch of Asian guys bald Asian guys who are like I will do anything I will do anything to be in your vicinity Shu tell us what to do yes I will you know when I went to see my therapist I said to her right away I said you know I work really well with direct clear feedback literally tell me what to do because I don't want to talk about Theory I just want you to tell me what it is I need to do and I will do exactly what you say and she looked at me like this is weird and so I tell people I love therapy I love everything about it now how long did you go I'm like 10 sessions why only 10 I didn't have anything else to do I had no more problems she solved all the problems I can bring to her and I think there must be some world record for this because people are in therapy for years I'm like what's changed like nothing I'm like exactly and I don't get it I I have uh I've hired one of our mutual friends to coach me on something right now and I'm thinking just tell me what to do I don't really need all the rationale and just tell me monkey jump monkey will jump say this monkey stop doing that monkey monkey will stop because I want to be a master by the time we're done and I would do exactly as as prescribe and so there are different flavors I suppose so please everybody if you want to do it through a long question based you know don't tell me what to do thing hire juwel Kim please just hire her be done with it and if you want amazing fast results like a ninja but you're like Master tell us tell me what to do I'll do exactly as prescribed I will be your master and you will see you will grow so fast now I always tell people there's I think four or so students in my life people I've coached that I wish the other 400 would behave just like them so I realized it's an anomaly right there there's there's there's almost always guys there are almost always military law enforcement something in there about them that they're just really good with rules and they just do exactly what you say and then they just grow so fast I'll tell a person changes position he's like it's already done I'm like what do you mean while we're talking I changed it I'm like what maybe not that fast and he's like and he calls me up the next week he's like oh my God everything in my life is so much easier why have I not been doing this before I'm like this is what I'm here for I'm here for this and so those people grow their business so fast I'm like okay I guess we're done we don't need each other let me know when the next big problem comes up and then there are people are like constantly coming back asking me the same question over and over again I don't know those people if they have that that theme of law enforcement or militaries like they've already had that Beatdown they've already been shown and taught how to put their faith in something else other than themselves and I think that's really like what you're describing yes so now there are some cool things about the military there's some horrific things about the military I'm not here to like enforce or validate or vouch for the military and some of the atrocities that have happened in the name of the military right and the might but I think what the military's done is they have a program so strong that you can take previous criminals and delinquents and put them into a program and you can make them like contributing member Society obviously not always but it's like this acceptance of you know what I don't know tell me what to do I would do exactly what it is and they find the reward in that really fast I mean you think about the military what do they do they strip away all of your personal identity shave your head you're like private 4447 two whatever it is you're known by a number you don't have a name you have no identity so they strip away all of your ego and and this is Extreme guys just keep in mind this is very extreme and if you're in the military first of all I salute you but I may not be getting all this information right okay they strip you of this you all wear the exact same clothes there's no differentiation and everything has its place there's a belt there's a tie every button every crease you keep your locker specific way you make your bed you wake up at this hour you go to sleep at this hour you eat in the hair there's so many rules and you hold yourself upright and you salute when you salute and you do everything that you're told but what happens is they have a physical a mental and sometimes a spiritual transformation that some of these people who weren't raised in ideal situations who come from broken families are able to pull themselves together and say I could do anything I set my mind to do and then later on some of them wind up becoming high ranking officials or they go into the private sector and they do really well they start companies they run divisions and they have that kind of military discipline and that my word is my bond and honor loyalty friendship all those things are very important to them and those are the admirable parts I'm kind of cleaving the conversation here because everything else might be horrible but that's the part I admire no I see it you know one of my favorite TV shows I I don't think you've ever seen it but if you have Paramount plus SEAL Team Six it's describing a lot of what you're talking about here and it is it's that transformation but it's at the end of the day you know these are a group of people where they are taught a system and they are swiftly punished for any deviation outside of that system but because they are not allowed to Stray From the Path they also reap the rewards they immediately see the results or very quickly and so that's what I think is really special about the military or systems like the military is you have no other choice like you have to stay on the program and when you do you you see everything like you get to reap the rewards and that's what keeps people motivated but when you leave it to yourself which is most people you know most of our client or students unless they're able to give up that sense of control and I think that's the scariest part but control is illusory from the ge-o like you really don't have control over most things in your life except what you think what you feel and what you do and everything else is it's a dance right like yeah you're trying to adapt but like you said when you sign up for the coach or you sign up for the program and you don't listen like what are you doing that's why one of the criteria I have in somebody asked me can you tell me how to find a suitable life coach and I kind of go through like the basic what I call the basic [ __ ] like first know what your problem is that you want to solve but really like the third and fourth things are you have to understand like do you know how you need to be talked to in a way that you will listen because if you will not listen if there's any chance that you're not going to listen don't bother you might as well set your money on fire and that's what I said in the video that's good advice by the way I'm going to make a pitch right now if you're listening to this and you're part of Netflix Amazon Prime apple plus TV Paramount Plus or Disney plus wherever you have the ability to green light a show I would love to be one part of a social experiment and I don't have to own anything I don't really care but where you take a control group and then you take a different group and you allow the the group to work with me and say you've fully committed to doing everything that Chris wants you to do and then you give the other group whatever traditional uh New Age any I don't really care but I'm willing to bet the people who commit to doing what it is I tell them to do will do exactly that before they even talk to me we will achieve more they will have greater transformation they have a greater sense of confidence and pride and the work product will be better and I'm willing to to risk public humiliation and professional embarrassment to say if they willing to do that we can achieve so much but whatever metric the show wants to do so that's my pitch there anybody that's listening to this if you want to help Greenlight this project I'd like to be a part of it give me six people give me my SE Team Six let them I don't care what shape or size to their background if they're 100% committed if I say pick up the hot hot object walk on fire let's go and they're willing to do it I would never subject them to anything like that but I think they would be able to do so much I would watch that show and I can personally attest to the fact that every time I listen to you and I just do what you say it always turns out well like no question I I don't think I can even really think of a single time where something you told me turned out poorly for me and yeah it's there's something there it's like stop thinking so hard stop the overthinking stop the questioning and the doubt it's like what do you have to lose at this point at most of us right like what do you have to lose like why are you holding so tightly on to this thing of like what if it doesn't work and I'm like but what if it does what if it does so much to gain yeah well I know what to do I'm going to tell a little personal story about something that's happening real time right now and then I want to end the episode on you telling your story about our work relationship Okay so we've teased people long enough I'll tell you something right now there's a young man who's working with me he's one part of our video content team his name is go tasa and he's a really good guy Brazilian and he's out here in my studio and I I I'm not used to an adult man being around me like this for a long time because since pandemic I just work by myself in isolation and I'm seeing a lot of the way he thinks the patterns of questions he ask what he's looking for and what he's not looking for I understand his skill set his motivations and where he needs to be guided and I've been doing a series of conversations with him I said in appreciation for you here helping me do whatever it is that I need done I want to coach you and I'm going to take you on as some protoe but you do need to do what it is I tell you to do he's like I'm all for it boss let's do it and we're talking about lots of things and he went from I'm never moving to California to like 65% I'm moving to California but just in a few short days at the beginning of the conversation he like uh I don't know there's so many headaches my life my roots everything is in Miami I want to stay there to like he's talking now in the present or future tense I'll be in California I'm getting used to this weather okay so he's already taking on the ideas I said here's how I think here's how you need to think about business and your personal relationships and I told him something I know a little bit about you you've never got full monk mode he goes what is monk mode no sex no no alcohol no nothing just focus on developing yourself he goes Chris that's all how long does this got to go for I'm like as long as we say it's got to go for until you are transformed it's like think about Uma Thurman and Kill Bill volume two and I'm P we're gonna go up these steps and you know what he's doing with me right now we're going to the gym my gym and he's in okay shape but he's not in great shape he goes Chris can do we skip today I'm like we never skip we you do exactly as like how many what's your reps right there we said 25 you don't do 23 you don't do 28 you do exactly 25 he's already getting stronger juwel new habits are developing and the last little piece which is a fun little piece he's going out on you know because he knows I have so many coaching calls today he's like I'm gonna go out with my sister I'm cool cool and he said and he's like Chris how do I look how do I make this look better I'm like show me all the components of your wardrobe right now there's not much to work with here juel and he goes Chris I didn't bring my whole luggage you I didn't bring my entire wardrobe I said you know what go upstairs I'm going to grab a few pieces that I have and we're going to do little St makeover so he comes upstairs and his sister and my wife are talking in the kitchen as they put the shirt on try this untuck that put this belt on she and I said go look in the mirror now he walks in the mirror he's like he's uncomfortable with himself Joel he's like this is so much I'm like we haven't even started you think this is too much because I feel like I'm trying too hard I said maybe you're just trying not enough so we we call Lady ladies come by and his sister standing there and my wife standing there and they kind of support him in like I'm trying to do too much with them I said just go all the way he goes no I'm not comfortable with this let me let me go remind myself what I look like so he takes all this stuff off he puts all his old clothes back on he stands in front of the mirror he goes I feel so much more comfortable I said do you want progress or do you want Comfort because progress doesn't doesn't exist in the realm of comfort he goes well maybe I just do a few things that you're saying said dgo how many times am I going to loan you my clothes how many times I've Alan anybody my clothes that would be zero so today is your day you want to walk through that door you do what you want I'm not here to tell you but live on the edge and you know what I'm not telling here to wear a pink skirt or nothing I'm just like just do what I tell you to do so after some contemplation he does mostly of what I tell him to do he goes I'm just going to go with it said go and tell me later on at the end of the day how you feel but we're just talking about clothes Jewel it's not like I'm telling him we wear a cowboy hat with some crazy like Texan necklace or any I'm not telling him to do that just go out there see how you feel Reserve judgment and I'm telling you right now I already know the outcome of this story I'm waiting for him to come back to the studio later tonight and we'll compare notes dang man I'm like I've seen pictures of dro like he's a fine looking man like it's hard for me to even conceive of him wanting sty it device or needing style like he's the kind of guy who could wear a sack and look good yes but the fact that he put on all his old clothes first and it's like this feels comfortable and it kind of reminded me of what I told you with when I was struggling like not wanting to say what like Phil Jones is saying you should say m we come back to this subconscious of it doesn't feel like me and I think that's the problem doesn't feel like me and then that keeps us from venturing into the delicious unknowns where progress lies oh man what a story I do want to say this though when somebody says this doesn't feel like me there's an identity that you associate with whatever you're doing but if we stripped you down to just being naked or in your underwear are you still you and you would say yes of course I'm still me I put a fur coat on you you're still you I'm still me I shave off all your hair are you still you yes of course I'm still me so what is somebody saying to me that wearing these clothes is not me that is just you being attached to an identity and using that as leverage to say I don't want to change it's the same argument that I had with one of my other friends Mo I said Mo you come in with like sloppy pants and a T-shirt and you don't look like a professional and when you talk to someone who is used to talking to people who look a certain way dress a certain way they're going to exclude you for better for worse they're going to exclude you because they're going to prejudge you he goes Chris I'm not willing to let go my identity I'm like okay well you stick to the identity and see where that gets you and I tested him I said and and I've told the story before if you go to a Japanese home do you take off your shoes he goes of course I said when you're in the Japanese Subway do you turn off your cell phone do you remain quiet and respectful of others he of course why would you do that because it's respect bro I see so when you go to a person's place of business you're saying I don't respect you I don't respect your rules and your customs and your protocols is that what you're saying he goes no no no I said that but that is what you're saying your need to express yourself is greater than your need to show respect to other people he didn't have a response for me after that juel I feel like that would be most people though most people have a hard time responding to some of the things you're saying I mean you do have a way with logic but also the ideas that ideas that you communicate sometimes these are the first time that we've ever heard these things so of course we can't respond it's like we got to take some time and go away and think about it but that thing you said about fur coat is it still you shave your head is it still you and the clinging to the identity as the reason to not do the things that we could be doing I think that really hit hard for me probably for everybody listening as well it's like there's the safety in our identity but I think we tend to think of our identity as something that's set when in reality your identity is a fluid yes entity it's always shifting and you have the power you have the choice you can choose to change your identity at any moment but what you're describing with some of these scenarios and you know I've experienced this too it's like every time you catch yourself thinking oh but that doesn't feel like me it's like you you got to check yourself yeah because at the end of the day like what you're describing is well here's where you are and then here's where you want to get to and you're really telling me that it's your identity that's keeping you from getting there it's like what do you want more yeah and I don't think it's your identity it's your attachment to some idea of your identity and you raised a really good point I'm so glad that you're saying this that our own identities are so fluid to begin with I'm not even talking about like over weeks months or years like in a day let's take for example when I talk to my wife I don't talk to her like I'm talking to someone I'm coaching if I want to keep if I want to stay married and I don't talk to my children like I talk to my wife and I don't talk to my team like I talk to my children sometimes I do you know I'm saying like if I'm in church or if I'm somewhere else I change fluidly throughout the day this is all of me what am I doing I'm adjusting so I meet the person where they're at I'm using a language that makes them feel safe and that we can Bond and connect as two intellectuals whether it's me and my child or me and my wife I'm doing this because this is how we socialize and I'll say this to to everybody well you're changing yourself to be accepted no I'm changing myself so that I can act with Grace and so I create safe space for others and you might say well what's the difference is it half of one or the other well I think it's all the world of difference now Joel all truth being told if I'm not on camera if but I'm filming content I'm not going to shave I may not wash my face and I would probably be sitting in like really baggy pants and like I am wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants right now but I'm just saying I don't care but I'm going to show up and so to to mow into all these other people like my identity I'm not I'm I'm changing well why don't you show up in your boxer shorts unshaven don't brush your teeth and go to your meetings this way if that's so important to you you're already doing it today you put on the clean pair of pants you wash your hair you wash your face and your hands you might have put on some deodorant why because you're sending signals to people I respect you I want to honor the commitments I want to show you that I'm not threatening or I want to show you that I'm professional or I'm meticulous about the things that I do so you're signaling all the time for that reason we don't show up to interviews in a dirty greasy t-shirt and unwashed jeans and flipflops because we're saying I don't give an f now that might be how you dress the rest of the time you work there but you don't want to do that on the first impression because you're trying to win them over on the character of who you are versus their biases against how they perceive you so you meet them more than halfway unless you're the power person which says I will not conform I have more power than you you B to me and you may not realize this but inadvertently you're signaling to them that's how this relationship is going to work that was a mic drop [Laughter] moment we'll live in the uncomfortable silence well I I know we've been on both sides of that equation right there sometimes we fall prey to our own humorous or pride and we act like the person in the position of power even when we're not and so when I sometimes r view my past Behavior Through My Lens today and I'm like oh God what was I doing but no it's I think what you just said here is it ties back into everything that we first started the conversation with right because you're talking about meeting people where they're at so we can Bond and ultimately like that's the goal we're not even saying to make a sale sometimes the correct choice is to not work with you and that's okay but at least if you can Bond on that level and you show and you move with Grace and you show them the respect that they deserve you clear all the [ __ ] out of the way and then you guys can get to get to work you guys can have a real conversation you can make a clear decision and I think that's the really important bit here okay without further Ado juel please share your story oh God I feel the sweaty armpits no that's your sickness that has nothing to do with the situation sickness you make me sound like I've got like some disease Jesus thanks okay so I do think my situation was a little bit different because I didn't just pitch myself to you like Uninvited you actually asked me because this is back in the clubhouse days I had established myself as the SEO person and you know I had business plenty of business and I kept telling you like Chris are you guys doing this and you're like no like what about this are you guys doing this and every time you like no and eventually you came to me one day and you said will you help us with our SEO and I was like what I had a freak out like meltdown moment because I didn't think you would actually ever want to work with me in my head I'm imagining you to go hire people like Neil Patel or his business partner which I think you actually did talk to his business partner right Eric yes so in my mind you're at that level so you telling me will you help us and I was like well of course I will and then I fell into that trap it's like oh F what am I supposed to charge for this and that's when all the the strange things started to happen so how much do you want me to actually share here share whatever is uh funny or interesting oh okay so I mean this is 3 years ago so it's little hard to remember but from and to be honest whatever you say I'll believe you cuz I don't remember any of this my mind's like what we had this conversation there's some fuzzy memory here and whatever you say I'm like yeah that's what happened of course but I won't know yeah so you have artistic license to tell the story any which way you want artistic license I'm I'm going to tell it like how I remember it so it's not going to be embellished at all I ended up talking to Ben so spoke to Ben a bit and he was telling me about some of your challenges and I remember I had your voice in the back of my head from your videos and your Clubhouse calls on how to sell so I'm like okay I I need to approach it from the value based selling model and you're already laughing great popcorn thanks so I'm like okay value base so I go away I get some great data from Ben he actually hooks me up with a bunch of Analytics and stuff so I go away and I do a lot of work it's it's actually quite a lot of leg work on my end I start locating keywords that you guys could go after which could actually convert to your product catalog I know how much your landing pages convert at like that rate so I'm taking a bunch of calculations like literally here's where you're at now which is not even on page one of Google for most of these keywords if I can get you to the top three spots and there's literal numbers like calculations you can attach um number one spot on page one of Google for any search term typically gets more than 50% of the clicks something crazy like that like 60% of the clicks and then spot two and spot three they also get quite a bit but you know the Steep the drop off is very steep so I remember taking a very conservative estimate I was like if I can even get you to spot three here's the amount of traffic from all the calculations you be having now based on your conversion this is the amount of bump you'd get in Revenue so I lay it all out there it's it's a beautiful chart spreadsheets and I show this to Ben and Ben says great what I did not anticipate was running into the brick wall which was you yeah you you pointing at yourself like you're surprised man I am surprised this is a good story I don't know who this is about but keep going yeah so Ben ends up telling me okay his concern is he believes in the plan he sees the logic and I've already taken a very conservative estimate so spot three and I've already cut it in half just to be sure and then I cut it in half again so I'm actually only giving you like 25% of what I think is the throughput throughput and I'm saying this is still how much you could increase your Revenue just to the products you already have some of your you know top five products and you say no you said no so like Ben's Ben's whole concern like going back to the free work you said it's never free work because you'll still have to manage things happening you'll have to manage the person project manage yes so that ended up being Ben's main objection he was like this is this is great I see the you know the plan but who's going to actually manage this and who's going to write all the content he ends up saying I want a done for you I don't want you to tell us what needs to be done I want you to just actually do it for us and I'm like okay so I come back and I revise all the estimates like in terms of the work here's how much my charge would go up by so the final number I arrive at is $155,000 I was like I will do all of the work laid in this plan for 15,000 and you won't even have to lift a finger I will manage all of it Ben ends up telling me I have to talk to you I talk to you and what do you do what do I do you say no how come you told me that it it was similar to what you were describing with the other people you told me that you just you just didn't see it as it's not a priority or something like that right or no what was it it was a combination of it's not a priority um you said your your top priority was to I forget it it was something else there was a different the story needs that that weird thing I'm about to say what is it make it up it'll be fine you you said butts and seats or something you're like I'm I'm trying to get more students into um the pr group yeah you're like I want more people in PR group and I want more people in um boot camp yes and and so you're like my priority is butts and seat seats for those two programs but you also wanted more sales and and so this is where I was stuck because I was like but the reason why you're so obsessed with butts and seats for your two programs is because you wanted to hit that $5 million Revenue Mark that yearh and and I was showing you you could increase your Revenue just from product sales in your current catalog by like 50 Grand a month and you you didn't see it though like you there was something here and so I know when I brought this up to you whenever like a month ago you were saying there there's something like the pain was not enough right yeah so it's like a combination of the unaware and also you're not like one of these people who has to make money right now so you can afford to wait but then here we are three years later you still haven't really taken the steps for SEO have it shame on me now here's the other piece too though I could tell that you were price anchored like you had a number in your mind and so I just came right out and I asked you and you said 5,000 and I was like 5,000 man like that's what I charged my clients at that time to just teach them how to SEO none of the done for you stuff and so that's where we kind of stalled out I was like I don't know what to do here you know what I'll tell you I think I don't really remember any of this so this is like a fascinating story to me about a person that kind of sounds a lot like me but I don't remember any of this so I think to tell everybody like what's on my mindset right now is when you approach an uninformed uneducated buyer of stuff it doesn't really matter how good you are they're like well I don't know did I need this I didn't wake up this morning think I needed this and so what I try to tell people is find a hungry audience who starving for your solution so anybody who was like God dang it if we were like just get our SEO and and our traffic to our page up we would be just be making hand money handle for fist that wasn't my mindset I don't remember so I'm going to make up a story here I think what was happening in my mind at that point in time is we had tried a bunch of things already and we're just burning money I'm like none of this is working it's a fairy tale we keep Reinventing things and uh one person after the other tells me here's a new idea here's a new idea and we just keep doing this I'm like guys just be quiet I'm just going to go meat and potatoes I know I can sell this thing I just want to roll people the way I want and all these things that you're talking about has not yielded any real tangible results like time and time again our Facebook ad person is like we'll do this and it doesn't work and then this other person says this and we keep trying one thing after the next I'm like what are we doing you guys what are we doing now I know I'm in a unique position because of two things number one we have healthy Runway so we don't even care we don't run our company the way a normal company runs which is always looking at the bottom line Topline and bottom line revenue all we care about is do we have enough money to play for the next year and to make consistent strides towards our goals and so when new ideas come up or things I'm not thinking about I'm like I don't know maybe maybe not all I do is I feel like I'm just writing or checks or signing checks for people's Pursuits of things I'm like what has any of it done and we had another year of doing that so it's like this year it's all like about me owning it and coming to the realization perhaps Landing exactly where we were 3 years ago I'm like we trying these things and now I see like where it doesn't work and I'm going to tweak it and I I think that was part of my mindset at that point in time because now looking back I'm like well we should have done it why didn't we do it I don't know what happened so thanks for sharing that story juel oh my God shall I share more there's another there there's more to this okay keep going yeah yeah yeah yeah so after stalling out and I could see and I'm again I hear you your voice in my head of you have to remove risk for the buyer yes so I actually this is why I said that I wasn't that different from the other people you just described on this call because I then offered to do it for free like on a contingency basis so I would do all the work although I did I think I did ask for you to actually pay for the writer so it wasn't coming out of my pocket but everything else I offered to do it for free and wait for you to get the results and you still said no what a terrible person I am why did I say no then how the heck do I know tell me what I was thinking at that point in time you're like how do I know dude how do I know it's a good story man I'm sweating reliving that you know what though there's a lot of people are listen to an episode an SEO now I just point to them even though that's not technically something that you you'll you may do on a Case by casee scenario I want to correct the record there so if people need help with SEO and you've listened to the episode I I misspoke on behalf of juel there please reach out to people love that episode and now I point to everyone's like uh you know what your problem is you need to listen to this episode right now and then talk to me after you listen to this I don't want to hear another word from your mouth hole until you listen to this episode and then and after you listen to the episode I know what's going to happen they won't apply it so I don't have to talk to them I already know it okay that's why I have no followup calls with them because otherwise they're like I did it and it worked I mean there's only two options I did it and it worked or I didn't do it and I'm ashamed to talk to you again either one's fine for me I have seen those examples in my clients yes yes uh definitely um yeah but thank you um it was it was actually really gratifying getting to talk about this with you after 3 years or something because I now realize some of the things that I should have done differently so I had geared my entire proposal to Ben when what's the number one mistake you talk to the decision maker you don't talk to the person who isn't now I know Ben was like fully in support of this he was yeah but again the other piece like number two that I failed to recognize in the moment was the position you were in so I thought you were in a much more urgent position for wanting to generate revenue and of course you were you wanted Revenue but in your mind I had not proven the case for SEO to get you there and I failed to press on the pain so you have been stuck in this constant churn of butts and seats of you having to Output effort and energy cons consistently to get revenue and if you don't go do stuff and you only just leave it to your team you take your hand off of the you know the steering wheel you don't totally get the results you want and so I failed to recognize that I could have demonstrated that SEO could have closed that gap for you so one of the best selling points I ever did for myself when I was still doing SEO as a primary business was teaching people on Instagram about SEO and then showing them you don't even have to do any of this social nonsense if you don't want to if you do SEO and it's that ability to step back set back from the thing you don't really like doing and just let this thing sort of build momentum over time and you know this like now I'm like oh my gosh there were so many missed opportunities I could have had because you do YouTube so you actually get it you do YouTube and you see how some of the content you make it continues to generate traffic like even the video that we made on content and SEO I check back every now and then I'm like huh still getting views I'm I'm surprised because I keep forgetting that YouTube is not like Instagram so YouTube being a search engine and that's the beauty of SEO work on any search engine so Pinterest your website YouTube any search engine you have that potential to keep generating traffic without doing anything you put out something good and it just keeps keeps going and that's the beauty you don't have to keep churning and grinding every single day like you would on Instagram 100% right and that episode is going to keep going and five years from now we'll look back I'm like it's still going it's still going it it has yet to hit its peak viral moment it may never but we'll see because at some point there's so many views to it and then when somebody searches for it somebody write something about it on a on a Blog somewhere that video will pop and you're like who my God where's this on this new traffic why is my phone ringing off the hook why are there so many DMS coming in with inbound leads for me I'm like oh yeah it's because of that piece of content I do want to say this thing I'm not sure you did anything wrong I mean as much as we want to reflect on this there's two things I want to say and I may be making up stories here where I think at that point in time we're going through a string of things that like initiatives that I didn't start and I'm like none of these are paid panned out so I'm like I don't want to take on another one right now everybody stop offering more solutions at me and no one seems to be taking accountability for the other missteps some of it which were my fault I'm not pointing fingers here but I was just kind of like done with people trying to like solve all our problems because everyone says it's going to work every every these guarantees and they they don't work so I think it's just mostly the timing on that was just not great and then my mind has been on other things but if the audience is interested I would be interested in rebuilding the sales conversation with with jeel about this very specific thing to see how we would sell an a-hole like myself on these various Services cuz I bet I can coach you how to sell to me and you're wiser I'm Wiser I'm in a different mindset we could probably do something like that so everybody who's watching this video on YouTube please comment below sell Chris do and we'll make that video that's my promise to you and we'll see and we'll get super met about it and if you're listening to this podcast show us somewhere on social media let us know in the DMS in in on on LinkedIn or some other social platform cuz podcasts aren't really social just say sell Chris do and we'll talk about how to do it and if you can get past me you can probably get past just about anybody in the world Joel It's been a fun conversation I believe you're going to be soon the most Revisited guest on our show this is I believe our third episode together yes yes which is awesome and I love talking to you and the people love hearing from you I think we have great conversation in chemistry together so I look forward to our next conversation thank you Chris and okay so who is the most visited or Revisited guest on your podcast then you know it it could be mo because Mo makes her content so you know he can cheat it a little bit but I think you're somewhere close to anley now having interviewed me a couple times and it's between like you're right between Mo and analie mo has a head start he's proba probably maybe five or six episodes in I'm not sure cuz I haven't counted but soon you're going to catch up to him and potentially surpass him coming for you Mo shots fired okay juel I know that you do a couple different things so this time so I don't butcher it tell people what you do and tell them how they can get in touch with you thanks Chris so my main bread and butter is being the certified EX itive coach for the aspiring executive I prefer working with people who have a similar background to myself so someone who is a person of color someone who is an immigrant to the states if you find yourself a little bit uncertain as to what the next step is you feel like you're always afraid of taking the wrong step you're not quite sure what your blind spots are work with me cuz I got you my other thing that I don't advertise except when I talk to you Chris is I do help people with their marketing sometimes it's a case-by case basis and it's just like what you were saying if you ain't going to do the work I'm not working with you you can find me on LinkedIn juel Kim or Instagram @ itj Kim but connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message I would love to hear from you beautiful thank you juel and thank you audience for listening and for joining us if you want to equip yourself with the right Community training and resources to take take your business to the next level I want to personally invite you to check out the future Pro Group and our membership specifically created for experienced business owners ready to scale [Music]