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I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much 00:00:08.040 |
more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which 00:00:12.880 |
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Tad Fallows, join me on All The Hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative 00:00:37.920 |
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading 00:01:43.280 |
I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and each week I sit down with the world's best 00:01:47.640 |
experts to learn the strategies, tactics, and frameworks that shape their success. 00:01:52.280 |
Before we get started this week, I want to give a big shout out to Chris Van 00:01:55.640 |
Vliet, host of the fantastic podcast Insight, who introduced me to our 00:02:02.200 |
Brant is an award-winning film director and veteran television producer with 00:02:07.120 |
decades of experience working on shows like MasterChef and The Biggest Loser. 00:02:11.240 |
He's also a C-level sales and presentation coach and keynote speaker. 00:02:15.560 |
But I learned about Brant from his bestselling book, The Three Minute Rule, 00:02:19.720 |
Say Less to Get More from Any Pitch or Presentation, which teaches anyone how 00:02:25.000 |
to use Hollywood's storytelling techniques in business to persuade and succeed. 00:02:29.840 |
Today, we're going to talk about why it's critical to dial in your pitch in 00:02:34.040 |
the first three minutes, maybe even the first 10 seconds, including how to do it. 00:02:37.760 |
Why in those three minutes, you need to answer four questions so people won't 00:02:42.320 |
tune you out, and of course, what those questions are and how to answer them 00:02:46.480 |
I'm going to ask him what he thinks of my pitch for All The Hacks and how to 00:02:49.720 |
improve it, and I want to hear about his travel adventures. 00:02:53.000 |
Last year, his family sold their home and took a 48 state RV trip. 00:02:56.640 |
I want to know what he learned and whether he'd do it again. 00:03:07.280 |
So let's just jump right into this three minute rule. 00:03:10.440 |
You've said it's really a way to teach people how to use the Hollywood 00:03:13.240 |
storytelling techniques to say less and get more. 00:03:15.680 |
How did you get so good at pitching shows and persuading people? 00:03:19.200 |
And how did that lead to this three minute rule? 00:03:21.600 |
And listen, I'm a Hollywood producer by trade. 00:03:23.480 |
When I was early to the business, I was running around pitching shows and 00:03:30.800 |
I remember when this happened, I was in the lobby of CBS and getting ready to go 00:03:33.920 |
And as I was there, I walked from the pitch room, Simon Cowell. 00:03:41.200 |
And we were chatting a little bit and I was thinking to myself, Oh man, I hate 00:03:44.960 |
pitching after that guy who's not excited to hear his pitch, which is great. 00:03:48.880 |
And so as we're chatting, I can see him looking over my shoulder. 00:03:52.320 |
And when that happens, I look over and it's Mark Burnett. 00:03:56.800 |
And so Mark Burnett is coming in right after me. 00:03:59.600 |
And I'm thinking like, so now I'm wedged between these two superstars, right? 00:04:10.040 |
And I'm going into the pitch, the president of the network. 00:04:14.720 |
What sort of fun thing, small talk crap am I going to go through that makes this 00:04:20.120 |
make any sense that the president is going to want to hear? 00:04:26.520 |
And as I was in the room and we'd said, hi, and everybody sat down, I was like, I 00:04:44.680 |
And I was in and out of that minute in nine minutes. 00:04:47.800 |
And my agent was like, Oh my God, that was the best pitch we've ever done. 00:04:54.120 |
And so I started doing that more often where I was just like, okay, so what if I 00:04:58.920 |
don't tell Fox about how product placement in this show is going to work? 00:05:05.200 |
Because they do that for a living and they kind of have an entire department. 00:05:10.040 |
And I remember being an NBC and the guy who ran it was a very good producer on my 00:05:15.400 |
side of the field and went over to run the network. 00:05:17.760 |
And so I remember pitching shows and being like, why am I getting in all this crap 00:05:23.400 |
Once I gave him the basic idea, he's going to figure this stuff out. 00:05:27.160 |
So I got this reputation very quickly about having some of the best pitches in 00:05:32.480 |
And the irony was, it was like, I wasn't really doing anything. 00:05:41.840 |
I was able to get the buyers to offer more of their suggestion. 00:05:47.080 |
And so we started to develop this system that it was like what we use in the edit 00:05:53.000 |
Like you can't have a scene go more than three minutes. 00:05:54.720 |
You have to resolve all the conflict, blah, blah, blah. 00:05:56.840 |
There's a lot of science behind three minutes itself about how the human brain 00:06:01.960 |
And so I just realized I'm using this three minute rule across everything. 00:06:06.720 |
And when I started to apply that across other businesses besides television, it 00:06:11.160 |
worked even better than it did in television. 00:06:14.800 |
You also mentioned that there's like the three minute version and the 10 second 00:06:20.600 |
How do you think about the span of that three minutes? 00:06:22.760 |
Well, and then people ask me a long time, "What do I say first?" 00:06:28.120 |
The three minute rule basically says that everything about your business product or 00:06:31.080 |
service must be conveyed clearly, concisely, and accurately in three minutes or 00:06:36.320 |
The key is you need to get your audience to buy into the general concept before 00:06:41.720 |
Everybody listening to this right now has had someone come pitch or present them or 00:06:46.680 |
And in the first 10 seconds, you're already thinking, "I don't think I like 00:06:51.880 |
And that's because the person has not let you grow into that decision. 00:06:56.360 |
You have been forced to make that instantly by big statements. 00:07:00.120 |
And there's a whole bunch of things that I talk about in the book on how you get 00:07:02.480 |
people to be almost defensive, almost make a decision and then defend it. 00:07:06.600 |
As opposed to get all the information and then make a decision. 00:07:09.040 |
And so the three minute rule, if you do it really well, you could extend someone's 00:07:13.480 |
yes or no in their mind to about a maximum of three minutes if you do it really 00:07:18.680 |
But you don't need three minutes, a minute and a half, sometimes two minutes, 00:07:23.560 |
It is about what needs to be said, not what you want to be said. 00:07:33.480 |
But what's the high level of how you lay out those three minutes? 00:07:41.360 |
And that's basically the structure for any pitch or presentation, how you can 00:07:45.840 |
Anytime you want to convey something to someone or convince them to do something 00:07:49.600 |
or try to get them to your way of thinking, think of it in the WAC method. 00:08:03.360 |
Those are the first two questions anybody has on anything that's going on. 00:08:07.080 |
If you've ever had somebody droning on about something and you're like, 00:08:10.080 |
could you just tell me what this is and like how it works? 00:08:23.080 |
We got to put context to us, how it works for us. 00:08:26.000 |
And then we actualize, which is like, okay, how do I get it? 00:08:28.880 |
So what is it is literally tell me what it is. 00:08:31.880 |
I am a, I'm a personal trainer that trains Hollywood 00:08:42.720 |
And everybody listening now has a pretty good idea what my buddy Jeff does. 00:08:52.520 |
I move in to the celebrity's home and live with them for 90 days. 00:08:58.640 |
So they never break program, never break diet. 00:09:04.080 |
Now, do I really need to go into all that much? 00:09:06.840 |
Or have you already made an idea of how this works? 00:09:12.880 |
Now you're either interested, not interested, whatever, but you're there. 00:09:23.640 |
It's sort of like, wait, can you validate that? 00:09:26.880 |
I don't care about your facts and your figures until I understand what it is. 00:09:30.920 |
People want to start with their history and their stats and all the size of the 00:09:36.800 |
market and all this other crap that no one cares about until I have context and 00:09:43.000 |
So when you talk about, are you sure I'm using it as a second phase, which is I 00:09:48.880 |
have given you the basic of what I do and how it works. 00:09:51.440 |
And now I'm going to explain to you the value of it. 00:09:53.640 |
I'm going to give you some context, how it works for you. 00:10:03.240 |
Now you're like, okay, so you're pretty good at your gig. 00:10:13.800 |
I trained Hollywood actors for big action films. 00:10:19.320 |
I've trained some of the biggest actors in Hollywood, including, right. 00:10:28.840 |
Which is effectively, what do I have to do to make this happen? 00:10:39.400 |
Like all those things, all the things about the actualization of the element. 00:10:43.320 |
Come later, right after all this stuff is done. 00:10:50.920 |
The smallest piece is like, how much does it cost? 00:10:54.400 |
If I buy into everything else, I will find a way to make the, 00:10:59.880 |
If you have this great idea and all these things work, but at the end of it, 00:11:11.880 |
My booking right now is nine months in advance. 00:11:17.480 |
So now you're like, oh my God, I totally get it. 00:11:21.520 |
Now, from that point, the conversation opens up, everything starts opening up. 00:11:30.600 |
There's a million questions at a million conversations to have from that pitch. 00:11:36.040 |
You have to trust the fact that if you get people to those first basic 00:11:39.840 |
structures and get them through that, they're going to want to know more. 00:11:42.680 |
If you can't get someone to be interested in those basic structures, you have no 00:11:47.120 |
hope of getting them interested just by talking more and giving them more 00:11:54.480 |
The more you talk, the less confident you appear, the less value you convey. 00:12:01.680 |
And so after you've conveyed all that, whether it's a minute and a half, three 00:12:06.960 |
Just let people ask questions or your example, you went nine minutes. 00:12:12.960 |
One is you have somebody that's like an interactive person. 00:12:15.880 |
And that's usually where it's like questions kind of thing. 00:12:20.040 |
So you're a minute and a half in and you've got the basic points and then you 00:12:25.600 |
Like they understand asking questions, have them go through stuff. 00:12:28.800 |
A lot of times you're making a presentation to multiple people and you can't just be 00:12:32.120 |
like, okay, I'll take questions from the field. 00:12:34.080 |
So what I normally do is have a transition that feels like you would say, I'm going 00:12:39.840 |
I'm sure you probably have, because what you're doing then is let's get into the 00:12:44.320 |
Let's get into the details, the nitty gritty, the stuff that you're going to find 00:12:49.000 |
interesting and all those kinds of things that helps people get that transition 00:12:54.600 |
And now I'm informing the first step is to inform and lead. 00:12:57.240 |
And then the next stage two is engage and follow. 00:13:01.720 |
And it's the one thing I find most people get mixed up is that they try to start an 00:13:05.320 |
engagement conversation before anybody really understands what it is they're 00:13:09.720 |
When you work with people or help people, for example, is how long does it take to 00:13:15.320 |
It seems like if it's the most important thing, you should be spending the bulk of 00:13:21.920 |
It's taken me 20 years to learn how to say things in three minutes. 00:13:24.440 |
It's difficult and it's more difficult depending on how big your personality is. 00:13:30.360 |
Ironically, like I train a lot of companies and some of my best students are the 00:13:34.880 |
biotech scientist type guys with the most complex of companies and drug therapies 00:13:42.600 |
And oil and gas guys are good too, because they don't want to perform. 00:13:47.880 |
They don't want to overcome the audience with their cool awesomeness. 00:13:52.360 |
They just want to tell people what's going on. 00:13:56.720 |
I can strip all that down for them and be like, just tell these things and you'll 00:14:01.320 |
get to say all this other stuff about the gene therapy and the, you'll get there. 00:14:06.240 |
And then they'll want to talk and they love that. 00:14:10.960 |
When I wrote the book, the publisher was like, Hey, don't write the forward to the 00:14:16.680 |
Cause then you'll know all the details and you can like really nail that. 00:14:19.360 |
Cause that's how people decide they're going to read a book. 00:14:22.440 |
Turns out people in a business book read usually the first four to six pages before 00:14:28.080 |
Then the average business book has a forward of 11 pages. 00:14:31.000 |
And I was like, four pages is about three minutes to read. 00:14:37.840 |
I'm going to start the book saying that the average business book is 11 pages. 00:14:43.280 |
So I got three minutes to make you want to basically read the rest of the book. 00:14:49.480 |
So I went on vacation cause I had finished the book. 00:14:54.200 |
And I was like, gate, I'm going to take the first day or so. 00:14:56.400 |
I'm going to write this intro and send it off to publisher. 00:14:59.040 |
Then I'm going to take the rest two weeks and stay on the beach and have a good 00:15:03.080 |
First pass of writing my Ford or for the book, 14 pages long. 00:15:10.560 |
So I cut it down and I spent the next day just trying to edit it. 00:15:13.600 |
And it's 10 pages long, nine pages, eight pages. 00:15:17.840 |
I got to seven pages and then I start negotiating with myself. 00:15:26.520 |
I really need people to hear this right away. 00:15:29.560 |
Maybe this is the time when it's this good and this important that the three 00:15:36.720 |
So I even called the publisher and I asked him, it was like four pages. 00:15:45.680 |
I'm like, Oh my God, I couldn't finish it in two weeks. 00:15:53.720 |
I had to take out my sticky notes and do my entire whack method from the very 00:15:57.360 |
beginning for my own book, an expert who does this for a living. 00:16:01.640 |
And I had to take the whole thing and finally got it to my four pages. 00:16:04.800 |
It's just because I became so precious about the information. 00:16:09.280 |
And in fact, I don't tell a lot of people this, but there are drafts of the book 00:16:13.480 |
that they send around to some press and stuff like that before they print the 00:16:16.920 |
There are a few draft copies that have, I'm going to say three quarters of a 00:16:21.040 |
page from my original intro that I pushed into the first chapter because I was so 00:16:27.880 |
And it wasn't until after it all said none, I read it again. 00:16:32.840 |
And I forced my publisher to take it out and redo it. 00:16:35.600 |
I still think there's one or two sentences I probably could have cut, but 00:16:39.400 |
when you're precious about your information and when you're really 00:16:41.440 |
passionate, it's very difficult to chop the bodies away and kill the dead weight. 00:16:49.560 |
very different because I can tell you right away what's dead weight. 00:16:53.160 |
I can tell you right away what to put off to the side and wait. 00:16:55.920 |
So the book really trains you to try to find those pieces. 00:17:00.160 |
It isn't, Hey, where this certain color tie and your pitch will be better. No, 00:17:03.960 |
here's the way to find out what you should be saying first, 00:17:07.680 |
What should you be saying last and what you shouldn't be saying at all. 00:17:09.760 |
So I want to go two places, but I'll ask one quick question. 00:17:12.880 |
You said this isn't the color tie. Does it even matter what you wear to a pitch? 00:17:16.080 |
No, no, none of that matters. It doesn't matter what you say. 00:17:20.680 |
People are so inundated with information and details and all this crap. 00:17:24.120 |
They're just not interested in all those other things. None of that works. 00:17:26.600 |
We used to train salespeople to use their person's name. Hi, Dave. 00:17:31.480 |
Hi, John. Hey, John. How are you, John? Have you thought about this, John? 00:17:34.280 |
Like use your client's name over and over again. 00:17:36.240 |
Could you imagine if someone did that to you today? 00:17:38.200 |
That's the reality of a hypersensitive audience. 00:17:41.440 |
Unless you're doing something that's a detriment, 00:17:45.720 |
Everybody wants to sift through that and get to the good stuff. 00:17:48.840 |
And then the second I'm going to go in, I sent you this in advance. 00:17:54.000 |
I'm constantly talking to everyone from sponsors or shows for me to 00:17:58.760 |
go on and try to explain what we do. And I'm super passionate. 00:18:02.960 |
So if you're great because it's not your show, it knocking down the bodies, 00:18:06.720 |
to try to narrow it down. I'm curious what you thought of what I sent. 00:18:12.680 |
I'll give you that in two pieces. Your description of the show, 00:18:15.920 |
your intro of the show, what the show is, is really good. 00:18:18.440 |
Super solid because you're doing it for the consumer. 00:18:21.080 |
And there's not a lot to get into what a podcast is and what it contains. 00:18:25.920 |
I give you all the great travel hacks, save money. I got more fun stuff. 00:18:29.320 |
Like it's nice and clean. Could it be a little bit less wordy? Sure. 00:18:33.760 |
Would it make any difference? Most likely not. Like it's relatively simple. 00:18:38.360 |
I will say that your outreach email to get people like me and Chris and other 00:18:49.800 |
but conveys a sense of less value than you want to convey. Right. 00:18:54.640 |
Because you're pitching here's the size of the audience, which is impressive. 00:18:59.560 |
Here's this stuff. If Joe Rogan wanted me on the podcast, 00:19:02.320 |
do you think he'd put a paragraph in there about his show and how big it is and 00:19:06.000 |
where it is? Right? No. He'd be like, you want to be on my show? 00:19:10.360 |
And by the way, he doesn't want me on a show. I've asked him. He said, no, 00:19:14.400 |
that's the highest level, right? That's the top of the food chain. 00:19:18.320 |
The lowest end is a podcast you've never heard of. That's like just starting. 00:19:22.360 |
And they are going to inundate you with facts and figures and information and 00:19:26.240 |
pretty pleased. And these are the people I worked with. 00:19:27.840 |
And like, let me prove myself to you with words. Okay. 00:19:31.200 |
And so you're about a third too long in that. 00:19:38.240 |
Because these people are peers, your show kicks ass. 00:19:46.400 |
less. It's Hey, I got a podcast. I think you're cool. 00:19:50.880 |
I've heard you on other stuff. I'd like you to be a guest. Let's connect. 00:19:55.720 |
When you're a new brand and people probably don't know you, Joe Rogan, 00:19:58.560 |
people know him, right? So he sends a message. Everyone knows him. 00:20:00.920 |
You want to come across like you're not desperate, 00:20:02.960 |
but you also need some validation. Is it just limit the validation? 00:20:08.200 |
Because if you, if it comes across as you pitching or selling, you're dead. 00:20:11.440 |
It's over. So what would you rather have someone who's kind of curious? 00:20:16.040 |
Cause you didn't give them everything to figure out or someone who's just like 00:20:23.760 |
they move away from things that chase it. And so if you sell, 00:20:28.680 |
if you're pushing, if you're trying to convince, 00:20:31.840 |
if you're trying to influence people are repulsed by that, 00:20:39.800 |
Now sometimes what you have is so much value that you overcome that, 00:20:43.320 |
but that is not where you want to be. And if you're saying, Hey, 00:20:48.000 |
There's only a couple of things that make sense to talk to somebody about what 00:20:52.120 |
does your podcast focus on? Is it a podcast about gyms? 00:20:56.320 |
Is it a podcast about airline flights? Is it oil exploration? 00:21:00.080 |
Like you got to explain that, Hey, I do this podcast. It's called this, 00:21:04.680 |
If you have some credibility on the size and the scope and the people you've had 00:21:08.560 |
is reasonable, but unfortunately, everybody's going to say that, right? 00:21:13.400 |
Everybody's going to say it's the number one podcast in this category, right? 00:21:24.720 |
So that you just got to keep to a minimum and that's what you do. 00:21:29.960 |
If you were the number one podcast in the world, but no one knew you, 00:21:33.560 |
I guess you'd say it's the number one podcast in the world. 00:21:37.800 |
according to these things on this date by this measure. 00:21:41.320 |
Here's the link to see whether I'm the number one. 00:21:43.400 |
And like I've attached the certificate of my number one authenticity. 00:21:46.160 |
You wouldn't do that. And the irony, if you did, I'd be like, Hmm, 00:21:51.480 |
And the more things you included to explain and validate it, 00:21:55.000 |
the less I believe it. That's the irony of it. It's like, 00:21:58.200 |
the more you prove it, the less I want to accept it. Even if it's like, Oh, okay. 00:22:06.040 |
present company excluded. You have good numbers. 00:22:13.400 |
If you're reaching out for people to be as a guest, 00:22:15.880 |
that's all you really need to say from your perspective. Right. 00:22:19.960 |
imagine if you wanted to get my 16 year old son as a guest, you'd be like, Hey, 00:22:23.880 |
man, I got a podcast. It does this. Want to be a guest. Okay. 00:22:26.720 |
So there's the two extremes, right? My son's nobody. 00:22:29.080 |
He would die to be on anybody's podcast. Joe Rogan is the greatest podcast. 00:22:32.520 |
Everybody wants to be on it. Those two things in those two situations, 00:22:35.120 |
you pitch them exactly the same, very few words, 00:22:38.200 |
almost understanding that you're going to want it. 00:22:40.400 |
And if you want to get more details like when, how, why, all that kind of stuff. 00:22:44.360 |
Great. And that's normally what you'll end up getting shorter. 00:22:47.640 |
That is sort of that outreach. The more responses you'll get asking for things. 00:22:51.720 |
Do I need to do this? When I do that, how do you do this? 00:22:55.480 |
one thing that this just made me think about in a previous life, 00:22:59.960 |
I was a founder of a tech company that raised money. Right. 00:23:02.880 |
And I found that one of the most effective things was to give everyone a really 00:23:06.800 |
easy out. So I know you have a different thought on closing that a lot, 00:23:11.600 |
And I'd send an email follow up two days later and say, Hey, 00:23:14.240 |
just want to follow up and see if you need any more info. If not, no worries. 00:23:20.280 |
Give them this easy out because a lot of people struggle with the no. 00:23:24.000 |
And then you have the anxiety of them. Oh, are they going to say yes? 00:23:26.960 |
What do they say? If you just make it so easy for someone to say no, 00:23:32.400 |
Yeah. And that's part of it, right? Like you just want to make it clear. 00:23:35.640 |
If what you were offering had real value, you wouldn't desperately need them. 00:23:40.080 |
And if they didn't see the value, you wouldn't be like, 00:23:42.120 |
I need to convert your no, I need to overcome the pushback. It's like, 00:23:46.960 |
what? It's like, no, you got other people to go deal with people who will see the 00:23:51.320 |
value. That person doesn't see the value. Like a buh-bye. 00:23:55.600 |
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you had a perspective that I thought was maybe one of the most unique I've seen 00:26:34.080 |
and something that makes me want to go do an in-person pitch, 00:26:36.600 |
which is on how you shouldn't actually wrap up. 00:26:38.720 |
Yeah. I always been cringy about that kind of stuff. 00:26:42.960 |
Cause a lot of people want to wrap up their pitch with like a fancy phrase or 00:26:46.280 |
a saying. Think about when you watch shark tank and it's like, Hey sharks, 00:26:48.640 |
who wants to dive in here with me and swim? Whatever. You're like, Oh, it's like, 00:26:53.120 |
Oh yeah, you're pitching this. Oh yeah. You've rehearsed this. Oh yeah. 00:26:57.040 |
This is your stick. You basically took them out of that moment of, 00:27:00.760 |
I'm listening to your story to be like, Oh, sorry. 00:27:03.440 |
We're pausing it for commercial break. Effectively. It lets the room down. 00:27:06.880 |
I've never found a closing that makes people stand up and clap other than 00:27:11.680 |
that's it. Thanks. Kind of thing. And that's my idea. Welcome to this, 00:27:15.480 |
whatever that last piece is, which is like, I'm done. I've explained it to you. 00:27:19.240 |
We're talking or I'm leaving. That's the vibe. 00:27:22.000 |
If they have more they need from you, they will ask. 00:27:29.000 |
There was a guy who ran CBS and he's famous for the most deadpan looks, 00:27:33.640 |
no emotion. You didn't know what was going to happen. You left that room. 00:27:37.080 |
You weren't sure if he loved it, hate it. It didn't matter. That was he trained. 00:27:39.920 |
And the irony was the people who worked after him, that he worked for him. 00:27:42.760 |
They learned how to do that too. And if it didn't go well, 00:27:45.480 |
if the pitch didn't go well, again, would simply say, great. I got it. Thanks. 00:27:49.440 |
And that was it. Nothing else. So you're like, okay. 00:27:56.480 |
how are you going to deal with this in the third act? You'd be like, Oh shit. 00:27:59.480 |
Like he's got, he's interested. And then you would engage. 00:28:02.960 |
And that's the vibe that is hard to let people capture on their own. 00:28:07.440 |
You've got to find out what your audience thinks. You can't push them. 00:28:11.120 |
You got to give them the basics. Then you'll know, 00:28:17.160 |
And the amount of people that you can convert from an objection and the amount 00:28:23.680 |
of work takes and the amount of lasting sort of good that's created, 00:28:28.160 |
that is so small in today's world. It's not worth it. 00:28:30.240 |
So instead of objection handling, which I know they teach in sales, 00:28:36.080 |
It's better to go try again than to try to overcome every objection. 00:28:42.040 |
An objection is somebody that basically has said, I don't buy into this. 00:28:46.240 |
Now it's different if they don't understand it. 00:28:48.440 |
And a lot of times what I'm dealing with is I'm dealing with companies who are 00:28:53.040 |
trying to get through objections by giving the audience the information they 00:28:59.440 |
And so they're trying to handle objections and they're actually using the 00:29:03.600 |
information they should have used in the beginning as like, Oh no, no, no, 00:29:06.640 |
that's not what it means. Or, Oh no, we can do this twice for you. 00:29:08.880 |
Or whatever it is. Whereas when we retrain and go through it again, it's like, 00:29:15.200 |
And if you're talking about objections like, Hey, 00:29:17.480 |
I need to talk to my wife cause I'm not sure we can afford it. 00:29:20.040 |
And your job is to close them. A, that's not my world. 00:29:23.240 |
I don't work with that kind of piece. That's not what I do. 00:29:26.480 |
And I've been approached by a lot of companies that have that type of sales 00:29:29.320 |
And I worked with a very large company on their timeshare business. 00:29:33.600 |
I just couldn't get them to really make the big enough changes 00:29:40.800 |
And their goal is to get people in an emotional state and trick them into 00:29:45.320 |
signing. Yeah, that's not what I do. The timeshare is good for certain group, 00:29:49.240 |
a certain demographic. This actually works really well for. 00:29:51.320 |
So why don't we just tell people how it works really, really well. 00:29:53.880 |
And if they fit into the demographic, they'll let you know. And they're just like, 00:29:56.240 |
what? That's not how we, that's not how we do things. We force them into it. 00:30:01.280 |
We make them feel guilty. Like every trick in the book. It's not my world. 00:30:04.720 |
I've gone to the timeshare pitches mostly out of curiosity to see how they do it. 00:30:13.280 |
I'm curious if you've seen this or used it when it comes to objections. 00:30:16.480 |
I knew when I was raising money for my last company, 00:30:18.760 |
I knew that if someone wanted a lot of information 00:30:23.360 |
about customer acquisition, like we just hadn't done it. 00:30:25.600 |
And I knew that it was like the most common objection. 00:30:28.360 |
And I would just start the pitch. I would walk in a bag. 00:30:30.840 |
After I explained what the company did, I would say, Hey, I just want to pause. 00:30:36.480 |
We have not gone through that part of the business. 00:30:38.000 |
If that is something you guys need to see, we can just stop right now. 00:30:43.640 |
And a part of that was I wanted them to get over it because they've already 00:30:48.240 |
blocked off 30 minutes. They want to see the rest. 00:30:51.760 |
but at least makes them less focused on this thing that they might say no to. 00:30:57.680 |
And that's a big piece of storytelling is people get sucked 00:31:02.400 |
into the idea that what's negative about their pitch or what the downside is. 00:31:05.440 |
I just start every development meeting when we're talking about television shows. 00:31:07.920 |
Why is a network going to pass on this show? Tell me why. What is the reason? 00:31:12.560 |
It doesn't fit with the brand. It's too hard to produce. 00:31:15.080 |
We can't cast it properly. I don't think people are going to like it. 00:31:17.440 |
It's not going to be relatable. Okay. If I can't get past that in this room, 00:31:20.880 |
the network's never going to get and like never going to get past that. 00:31:24.040 |
If you pretend you don't know what the negative side is, 00:31:26.560 |
there's not a lot of good options. One is your audience never brings it up. 00:31:29.960 |
And so they just think that you either too dumb or you're hiding it from them. 00:31:38.080 |
And now you've got to scramble and answer it. 00:31:40.840 |
So if you end up not mentioning it and they bring it up, 00:31:44.120 |
you can answer it except for they've been thinking about it. 00:31:47.040 |
The entire time that's what they've been doing. They've been talking about it. 00:31:50.760 |
And that is a disaster. You cannot have them doing that. 00:31:53.960 |
And so the last option is you bring it up because it's not going to be, 00:31:57.320 |
they didn't figure it out. They didn't understand what could be wrong here. 00:32:04.880 |
How big it is and how much importance it has is all directly proportionate to 00:32:09.000 |
where you put it in the pitch. And by you talking about it right in front, 00:32:11.880 |
saying, Hey, we don't customer acquisition data. 00:32:13.560 |
So if that's an important thing, like, just know we don't do that. 00:32:16.040 |
We haven't done that yet. It's like, okay, that's done. 00:32:18.720 |
When we end up having storytelling in Hollywood, 00:32:22.040 |
you don't get in a moment where it's like the Shawshank Redemption, uh, 00:32:25.760 |
Andy Dufresne looks, you know, you get beaten up, 00:32:27.760 |
but he looks like he's going to die. And you're not like, Oh, what a wimp. 00:32:30.760 |
I hate him. It's over. He's a loser. Right. Rocky gets knocked down. 00:32:35.120 |
You're like, Oh, that's it. This movie sucks. He's a bum. 00:32:37.800 |
All is lost is the setup for here's what's great. 00:32:44.360 |
When you talk about not having customer acquisition, 00:32:47.080 |
and then you explain everything, your audience is then going to be like, Ooh, 00:32:51.120 |
like, I wonder how this customer acquisition could work. 00:32:54.080 |
And they'll start overlaying their own excitement to get to the result they want. 00:32:58.000 |
The negative can never hurt you. Never hurt you in a pitch. 00:33:01.240 |
So you mentioned a lot of storytelling in that response, 00:33:04.280 |
but I noticed that when you gave your example of your buddy, Jeff, 00:33:08.240 |
Is it that storytelling maybe doesn't need to be part of the first three minutes 00:33:13.520 |
No, it's that people look at storytelling as once upon a time, 00:33:18.040 |
I was here and that's not what storytelling is. That's wordsmith. 00:33:21.640 |
That is wordplay. Storytelling is here's the situation. 00:33:26.320 |
Here's what's happening. Here's what's going to happen next. Here's why. 00:33:29.680 |
Scripts are storytelling because they fill themselves with words and they flow to 00:33:35.200 |
The points are the elements of a story that lead you to the next piece. 00:33:39.960 |
How many people are listening that have a favorite movie and they watch it and 00:33:44.200 |
they know what happens and they still like it. 00:33:55.640 |
beat. And that's what makes it interesting. And that's what makes it fun. 00:33:59.480 |
And that's what leads you. So when I talk about storytelling, 00:34:02.560 |
I'm not telling people how to tell the story of how they came to be in this 00:34:07.000 |
piece and why this is going to work for someone. I see a lot of that. 00:34:10.720 |
It's a terrible idea because nobody wants your story to be wordsmith for them. 00:34:15.240 |
They want to get to the point. If I'm there to be entertained. Okay. Wordsmith. 00:34:18.240 |
Make it fun. But if I want something from you or you want something for me, 00:34:22.720 |
can we just get to the point? Here's what it is. 00:34:25.360 |
I want to know how it works. Then once you understand, 00:34:27.800 |
you want to know could that be real? Would that actually do what you think it is? 00:34:31.120 |
Oh yeah. Okay. How do I get that? That's what a story builds. 00:34:36.840 |
You inform people and lead them to the conclusion. 00:34:42.800 |
is leading people to the conclusion you want. The boat sinks in Titanic. 00:34:48.920 |
You want him to escape from the prison at Shawshank. You want it to happen. 00:34:52.560 |
We don't start that movie by saying, Andy Dufresne escapes from a very bad prison. 00:34:57.440 |
Let me tell you why he does that. That's not how you tell a story. 00:35:01.440 |
Tell a story and be like, here's where he's at in this story. Here's what he did. 00:35:05.480 |
Here's why he's in the prison. Here are the conditions. Here's his choices. 00:35:08.480 |
It looks like he's not going to make it. Then you're like, please escape. Right? 00:35:13.160 |
Is there an example of that kind of storytelling with a pitch for a product or 00:35:22.920 |
The way that I use that in a classic storytelling with wordsmithing sort of 00:35:27.280 |
idea is in what's called the intro with my reason for being. 00:35:33.000 |
where you want to explain to people the reason why they are there. 00:35:37.360 |
You are there. We are here. How did this come to be? 00:35:40.120 |
I started developing that technique when we were doing pilots and presentations 00:35:45.280 |
And sometimes you'd send it in and they would take this DVD, 00:35:49.760 |
They'd watch your pilot and then they decide if they're going to buy it or not. 00:35:52.240 |
I just couldn't live with that because there was things I wanted them to know 00:35:56.200 |
about it and things that happened along the way. 00:35:59.440 |
very good at warming the room and creating the anticipation. 00:36:07.880 |
I would be calling the head of the network. I'm saying, Hey, by the way, 00:36:10.280 |
I feel like our second act is really shallow here because I didn't have this 00:36:14.320 |
scene. I wanted to film it. So I feel like that second act drags a lot. Right. 00:36:18.560 |
And they're like, okay, so now they're anticipating. 00:36:20.560 |
So it can drag and it doesn't kill it. I would say like, Hey, 00:36:23.560 |
I would have added this longer because I love this scene so much, 00:36:26.960 |
but I know that your delivery, we need nine minutes of this act. 00:36:30.040 |
There is so much here that blank, blank, blank. I set that room tone. 00:36:34.000 |
So when they put the DVD in, they know exactly what to think, 00:36:37.000 |
exactly how to feel exactly what went into this, 00:36:39.840 |
and they can judge it on its merits. Your pitch is kind of the same. 00:36:43.400 |
How is your reason for being about why this product or service is interesting? 00:36:47.760 |
How does that translate to why you're sitting there? 00:36:52.040 |
One of my favorites from one of my favorite companies I've ever worked with is 00:36:54.720 |
a electric vehicle controller manufacturer called XROW Technologies. 00:36:58.960 |
And they had come to me, the chairman had come to me a while ago and said, Hey, 00:37:03.560 |
will you come on board? We really need some help. And I looked at the company. 00:37:06.080 |
I was like, nah, too small Canadian, small, micro cab company, 00:37:11.320 |
not my world. I really liked this guy, but not going to happen. 00:37:14.320 |
He called me back three months later and he said, Hey, listen, 00:37:19.040 |
She's moving to Calgary to head office to start this up. 00:37:22.120 |
She would really use some help. And I think you guys would hit it off. 00:37:26.520 |
she's the CEO of GE small industrial motors and she's leaving that 00:37:32.080 |
gig. And I could not get my brain around why she would do that. 00:37:35.760 |
And so when I talked to her on the phone, I said, I'd talk to her and I asked her, 00:37:42.120 |
Why would you leave one of the highest profile jobs in that business and move 00:37:46.200 |
your entire family to Calgary, Alberta for this micro cap, 00:37:49.080 |
infinitesimally small company? Why would you do that? And she said, Oh, well, 00:37:54.320 |
do you know anything about electric motors? And I said, well, like, no, 00:37:59.800 |
And I've been looking for this technology since I was 12 years old, 00:38:04.400 |
winding electric motors in my family's electric motor shop. 00:38:07.920 |
I know what this technology can do. I could not resist. 00:38:11.400 |
So when she would pitch that story, that was the reason for me. 00:38:17.000 |
Now you don't know anything about that company, 00:38:20.000 |
but I guarantee everybody listening now wants to know what that technology is. 00:38:24.600 |
I've set up that. And so when she pitches, so she would say, 00:38:28.080 |
I was CEO of GE small industrial motors. I got a call from this company. 00:38:32.320 |
I ignored them for many time until I finally said one phrase that changed my 00:38:36.480 |
life. I said, show me the technology. And they did. 00:38:42.320 |
I attended my resignation at GE and moved my entire family to Calgary, 00:38:46.240 |
Alberta to take over as the CEO of Xtro Technologies. 00:38:50.600 |
And now you're like, okay, then that's the start of the pitch. 00:38:58.200 |
We are a technology company that makes controllers for electric vehicles. 00:39:02.480 |
We use coil switching the dynamic way to be the brains behind the way electric 00:39:07.760 |
vehicle performs with our coil switching technology. 00:39:10.680 |
You can go farther and go faster on the same charge. 00:39:19.240 |
let me tell you the details of the technology. And then she gets into it. 00:39:22.520 |
The power of that story in the beginning to set up that thing is very hard to 00:39:27.600 |
ignore. That's how you lead somebody to that piece. It's not always like that. 00:39:33.000 |
Sometimes people don't want to hear your little small talk in the beginning. 00:39:35.240 |
They just want you to play it. But that's where classic, 00:39:38.600 |
let me tell you a story fits in is it should be the story of how you got there or 00:39:43.440 |
why this counts. And is that the first part of every pitch? 00:39:46.760 |
Almost every pitch has that because 90 times out of a hundred, 00:39:50.200 |
you're going to have a conversation to begin to pitch. 00:39:53.240 |
Sometimes you're just sending a deck or an email. 00:39:54.920 |
You're not going to be able to do that, but it becomes a, how did you get there? 00:39:58.200 |
Why is this interesting? What compelled you to be there? 00:40:01.040 |
Like the one I wrote in the book, this woman show jumped with her horse. 00:40:04.880 |
She had an axle problem on the way to the event. 00:40:09.600 |
the horses were freaking out and it was nine 30 at night. 00:40:13.520 |
Where do you put your horse? She's like, Oh my God. 00:40:18.640 |
there's gotta be houses everywhere that have barns and 00:40:23.120 |
stables, but no way to access them. I don't know what to know. 00:40:27.360 |
She realized that's when she came up with bed and bale, which is Airbnb, 00:40:31.400 |
but for horses. Now, do you need a lot more? Like if you were an investor, 00:40:36.720 |
now your questions are not like, Oh, what is this thing? 00:40:40.120 |
How does this app work? Or what's the driving force? It's like, okay, 00:40:44.560 |
where are you? Like, do you build the app? Like now you're engaged already. 00:40:49.240 |
Understanding is the fundamental importance for being 00:40:54.800 |
engaged. People who don't understand something can't engage with you. 00:40:57.880 |
But if it's Airbnb for horses, people travel with horses, 00:41:01.000 |
they need a place to put them. There's houses all over America with barns. 00:41:03.960 |
Unused. Yeah, I get it. But I want to know this, this, this, this, this, this, 00:41:08.800 |
this, this, this, this, this, right. Yeah. And that's really the key. 00:41:12.200 |
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One thing you mentioned is, okay, so maybe if you have to send a deck, 00:42:49.560 |
There are a lot of times where I've met people who are like, well, 00:42:54.200 |
I try to force them into having the conversation in person. 00:42:58.720 |
Do you think you should, as a business or a person selling anything, 00:43:07.440 |
you try to push somebody to do an in-person meeting. 00:43:11.480 |
But if your deck or your written material can't stand on their own, 00:43:14.560 |
you're buggered because if you think that person that you're pitching, 00:43:16.920 |
it makes the ultimate decision and isn't going to share it with someone else. 00:43:20.040 |
It doesn't have to do that. That's never going to work. 00:43:22.600 |
What's happening is we live in a sort of decision by committee world. 00:43:26.680 |
They have to rationalize why they liked it to somebody. 00:43:28.960 |
And that means they're going to have to share your deck with them and they're 00:43:33.400 |
But if I told you and I sent you the deck for bed and bail, 00:43:36.960 |
and I told you to go explain it to somebody, you'd say Airbnb for horses. 00:43:48.400 |
And the deck kind of reinforces that. In her opening of that deck, 00:43:53.280 |
it's occasionally there'll be something of a story that led her there. 00:43:57.440 |
But all I really needed from that story to get across to people is that there's 00:44:01.880 |
nowhere for people who travel with horses to put them other than a 00:44:09.080 |
It's not like a hotel where they're open for reservations all the time. 00:44:12.200 |
It's stables. Those people go home. So that's really all I needed to convey. 00:44:23.160 |
but really the part of the deck that makes the most impact 00:44:34.600 |
The phrasing around that makes people go first page, second page. Now they're, 00:44:38.440 |
like, okay, I'm going to read this. Cause I want to find things out. 00:44:42.080 |
Not I'm reading it. It's four pages. I don't really understand how many people 00:44:47.280 |
where they get a deck and they're looking through and they're like reading it. 00:44:51.600 |
And so their first question is I don't really understand how this works. 00:44:55.400 |
I don't really understand how that works. And you're like, oh no, 00:44:57.680 |
that was like page four. And the thing that happens to people all the time, 00:45:00.480 |
or you're pitching it. And someone says to you, they ask a question. You're like, 00:45:03.720 |
oh yeah, I'm getting to that in just a second here. 00:45:08.160 |
You've got your information in the wrong order because people are already having 00:45:11.880 |
Are there other signs or ways to evaluate how you're doing with whatever kind of 00:45:16.000 |
pitch you have, whether it's for business or something at work? 00:45:19.080 |
It's hard because the engagement doesn't give you what you need. 00:45:22.560 |
People pretend to be interested. They pretend to be disinterested. 00:45:25.720 |
It's really about what they engage with next. Do they ask questions? 00:45:29.960 |
Are the questions about what you're doing and the concept, 00:45:33.160 |
then you've got a problem. If the questions are like, 00:45:35.560 |
what are you doing next? How do you solve this problem? Where does this go? 00:45:39.560 |
How do we deal with this? Is there a way this happens? 00:45:41.960 |
And there are those kinds of questions. They understand the concept. 00:45:51.960 |
It'll mostly be in the questions they ask, kind of tell you how you're doing. 00:45:56.720 |
Should people be practicing this a lot and with who? 00:45:59.000 |
I do think you should practice a lot with anybody. 00:46:02.800 |
The key is you should be able to say it to anybody 00:46:07.480 |
at any time. You should have those 4 sentences pretty locked down. 00:46:13.320 |
And what you'll find is then you can start to color them and add to them and 00:46:16.800 |
make them better. And you can gauge the people that you're talking to. 00:46:20.040 |
If my buddy Jeff is talking about his personal training business, 00:46:22.400 |
and he's talking to another personal trainer, 00:46:24.000 |
he would pitch what he does a little differently, 00:46:25.520 |
but he already has the language in his repertoire. He might start with, yeah. 00:46:29.200 |
Oh, I'm personally, I do this. I do that. Like his basics are already there. 00:46:33.200 |
The framework structure is already there. It's good to rehearse, 00:46:37.560 |
but have you ever heard somebody that you know, 00:46:40.280 |
they're reading or, you know, they've memorized it, it just detracts. 00:46:44.320 |
Cause then you're like, Oh, right. This is rehearsed. 00:46:49.880 |
And it just makes it look like you're trying too hard. 00:46:52.640 |
And that's just like in a romantic relationship, 00:46:55.800 |
like somebody is trying too hard. It's just not interested. 00:46:58.720 |
My guidance has always been rehearsed as much as you need so that you don't need 00:47:04.360 |
But then part two is and get really comfortable with the fact that there's going 00:47:08.920 |
to be multiple things you forget and it's okay. Yeah. 00:47:11.920 |
Because if you rehearse it all and then you forget something, 00:47:14.960 |
you get caught up and you're like, Oh, there was one, 00:47:19.320 |
And I think it's better if you just roll with the three and forget the fourth 00:47:23.560 |
it'll probably come back later because you don't want to be searching for notes 00:47:27.520 |
in the middle of the conversation. Yeah. You talked about slides. 00:47:32.640 |
you want the slides to live on their own because you mentioned they might get 00:47:36.440 |
but you also don't want them to be distracting when you're talking. 00:47:39.080 |
Do you tell people to create two different presentations? 00:47:42.240 |
Yes. A hundred percent. Okay. Yeah. Almost always. I mean, 00:47:45.800 |
think about it. You're giving a presentation with slides. 00:47:48.200 |
What do you actually want them to do? The person, 00:47:51.480 |
the words on there and read the information? Then what are you doing there? 00:47:55.120 |
But then they're reading it. And if you don't want them to read it, 00:47:58.480 |
then why have it? Unless it's just a picture, you're describing it. 00:48:02.280 |
So there are your two things. You want them to read it or you don't. 00:48:06.480 |
then it better be something that accentuates what you're saying. Bullet points, 00:48:14.240 |
If you're put up something enough that they have to read, 00:48:17.360 |
there's no point in having it there. Because if you're talking, 00:48:20.240 |
they're not going to know what are they trying to split time on reading it, 00:48:22.440 |
doing jumping ahead. It's just, it's a disaster. 00:48:25.680 |
People want to put slides so it looks like they've done a lot of work. 00:48:28.200 |
It's like, okay, by the way, I'm not even against that. Sometimes, 00:48:32.080 |
sometimes there's graphs and charts that look good. 00:48:35.880 |
So you put it on a slide and when you're presenting in person, 00:48:40.040 |
but you're not speaking to the numbers on there. You're saying, 00:48:42.920 |
we did extensive research and I will send you this in detail. 00:48:46.520 |
So you can read what this slide says, but here's the summary, 00:48:49.640 |
as opposed to here's the market research response. As you could see here, 00:48:54.520 |
it's like your slides should accentuate what you're saying, 00:49:00.920 |
One other thing that I'll share just in case anyone's making a presentation, 00:49:04.560 |
you could tell me if you don't like this idea, 00:49:06.000 |
but every time I went and gave a pitch for my company, 00:49:08.800 |
I took notes after the fact of all the questions I was getting asked. 00:49:12.000 |
And then I took every question and I said, okay, 00:49:14.360 |
this question is either going to be a question that I think everyone needs the 00:49:18.880 |
Or it's a question that some people might have, but not everyone. 00:49:23.600 |
but I'm going to create a slide for the question. And it was basically, 00:49:29.200 |
I don't know if this was like a psychological trick, 00:49:31.560 |
but I found that someone would ask a question at the end and I would jump to a 00:49:34.840 |
slide to answer it the first time I wouldn't. And then I'd go home, 00:49:38.080 |
I'd make the slide. And the next time I would jump to it. 00:49:40.080 |
And for some reason when it was written on the slide, 00:49:43.240 |
as if I thought about it in advance, people were like, Oh, you can answer this. 00:49:46.880 |
I'm not worried anymore. But if I off the cuff answer it, I'm just like, Oh, 00:49:50.280 |
this is what we're going to do. People were a little more apprehensive. 00:49:52.520 |
Exactly. It's like what I used to say when I was pitching TV, 00:49:54.720 |
it's all in the casting. I was like, no, it's in the concept. 00:49:58.600 |
If I have to tell you that we'll figure it out in casting, 00:50:01.600 |
it means I really don't know how to make it work. 00:50:05.280 |
And that's the same thing where you asked me a question that's even tough. 00:50:08.160 |
And I just answer it. There's a chance that I may not believe you, 00:50:11.880 |
that I think you just will say anything to make the pitch good. 00:50:14.360 |
Any final tips for people obviously not pitching Hollywood and that kind of 00:50:20.480 |
It's anything. It is literally a guide for conversation in life. 00:50:26.360 |
Probably the best exercise that seemed to work the best for people is I have them 00:50:32.560 |
You had to tweet what your product or service was and that's it. 00:50:37.240 |
And not the new extended Twitter length, but the original 144 characters, 00:50:46.360 |
And if you can't get it there because you think everything is so valuable and so 00:50:53.320 |
It means that you're actually in more need of it. And it's just happened to me. 00:50:56.680 |
I have a very big client. I'm very excited about their company. 00:51:00.120 |
I've come on as an advisor. I'm really involved. 00:51:05.760 |
There are layers on layers and we are talking about it and I couldn't get a log 00:51:10.360 |
line for them because there was just so many things. Oh, 00:51:12.880 |
but we don't talk about the financing. Then we don't do that. 00:51:17.440 |
It was more important than we thought because at the beginning, you're like, Oh, 00:51:20.600 |
we got so many good things. Let's just get people in a little bit. 00:51:23.280 |
And then they'll see all the good things. And you're like, no, 00:51:25.200 |
go to the Twitter thing. And can you make it that simple? 00:51:29.840 |
Sometimes with clients I'll be like, okay, here's seven words. 00:51:44.400 |
You have to put it in such a small thing. You're like, okay, 00:51:47.040 |
if I do that TV shows, we used to do it all the time. 00:51:49.440 |
It's the amazing race for the smartest people in the world. 00:51:54.240 |
I don't really know the show, but you could get a basic idea. It's like, okay. 00:51:57.920 |
Then you add, all right, here's 10 more words. Go ahead. 00:52:00.560 |
What would you choose? And then you're adding. 00:52:05.920 |
which is could you actually explain it in 144 characters if you really had to? 00:52:14.240 |
but they don't understand what it is you sell. 00:52:16.920 |
That's basically trying to convey the four points of the whack weather or just 00:52:21.480 |
If you only have 144 characters or 15 or 25 words, just the first, 00:52:25.600 |
it is the most important. What is it is the most important. 00:52:29.320 |
Those take up 50% of everything that you need. 00:52:32.080 |
All right. And everything else people will get to. 00:52:35.240 |
They can't get to those two things on their own. 00:52:37.800 |
It's the only two things they can't get to on their own. 00:52:40.520 |
They need you to inform them. Everything else, 00:52:42.640 |
they can start to put together themselves. They can have an idea, 00:52:46.040 |
they can develop it, but until they understand what it is and how it works, 00:52:50.720 |
If they can come to their own conclusions for the second half of your pitch, 00:52:55.840 |
how much of your pitch is planned in advance versus free form based on the 00:53:00.160 |
questions people are asking and where it's going. 00:53:01.800 |
I still have pretty good structure just because they come to the conclusion. 00:53:05.880 |
They may miss things because they're focused in one 00:53:10.520 |
area, which is fine. You want all the details laid out the rest. 00:53:14.640 |
After the three minutes, you can have very loose, 00:53:17.280 |
very loose because they're already interested. They want to engage. 00:53:21.800 |
They are looking for confirmation of their predetermined bias already. 00:53:26.840 |
That's what they're looking for now. Oh, I like that idea. 00:53:34.240 |
That's what you want. You want them to be like, Ooh, this could be good. 00:53:38.200 |
But is that a good valuation? But how far are you from revenue? You want that. 00:53:48.960 |
I'm going to work on my pitch that I send out to other guests like you, 00:53:52.240 |
all kinds of people. I want to take a quick turn. 00:53:54.920 |
So we talk a lot about travel on this show and hack it up, 00:53:59.320 |
hack it up last year. You sold your house. You bought a fancy RV. 00:54:05.120 |
hit all 48 contiguous States in six months with your wife and your two kids. 00:54:13.200 |
I would be on the road right now if it wasn't for my youngest, 00:54:16.240 |
wanting to go back to real school. So I loved it. I loved every second of it. 00:54:20.480 |
I mean, I'm, I'm in a semi-retirement mode anyways. 00:54:23.240 |
I didn't know America was, I didn't know it was that good. 00:54:26.960 |
That was the one takeaway from seeing all 48 States interacted with people every 00:54:31.480 |
single day. It was part of the documentary that I was making about. 00:54:34.080 |
It was like, we got to go meet people. We got to go see people. 00:54:38.120 |
We went and just random people we met and just heard their stories. 00:54:42.400 |
And it's just shocked at how great this country is. The people, 00:54:46.560 |
I know it feels like we're tearing each other apart and there's such divide, 00:54:51.000 |
except it's not really like that. It really isn't. It's like that in the media. 00:54:56.040 |
It's like that in a few cities at certain times and it's a protest, 00:55:00.920 |
the things that humans and Americans have in common so outweigh the things we 00:55:05.280 |
don't that in the real world, people are just doing their thing. 00:55:08.520 |
They're trying to have fun. They're trying to take care of their family. 00:55:10.280 |
They're trying to make a better life. People are really, really great. 00:55:13.680 |
And I went from a relatively good size house here in Los Angeles to 00:55:18.360 |
a trailer for six months. That was smaller than my bathroom. 00:55:21.880 |
So it took some getting used to, but I loved it. 00:55:24.960 |
Any places you went that were kind of unusual and you're like, 00:55:28.680 |
I didn't think that this would be a place I'd love. 00:55:31.120 |
Yeah. Oh yeah. I'd say big surprises for us were Alabama region, 00:55:36.080 |
like Alabama, Tennessee, that area, Oklahoma, Arkansas. 00:55:40.800 |
It was just amazing. We had such a great time. People were amazing. 00:55:43.200 |
Love the scenery, that kind of stuff. That was a surprise. 00:55:46.280 |
And the other sort of big one for me was like Niagara falls. 00:55:48.680 |
Like Niagara falls was really fun. And like a great, great day. 00:55:53.920 |
That was a surprise because I expected to be very touristy and, and it was, 00:55:58.720 |
it just didn't matter because it was awesome. 00:56:00.040 |
But I found that Southern hospitality and that kind of 00:56:04.280 |
vibe, South Carolina and all that was just like, 00:56:06.880 |
it was so heartwarming and the people were amazing. And we just fell in love. 00:56:12.280 |
I think everyone I know when they're traveling loves to have the story of, Oh, 00:56:15.640 |
you met some locals in this place. You said you did it every day, 00:56:18.400 |
every single day. How did you make that happen? 00:56:20.720 |
Every day we had a few things we had to try to, you know, 00:56:25.320 |
We had to find the restaurant that sort of represented that best restaurant, 00:56:29.600 |
We had to find out what the cool adventure was whitewater rafting or downhill 00:56:33.520 |
mountain biking or whatever a cool adventure was and what the great site would 00:56:37.640 |
Do we got to go see the St. Louis arch like that kind of stuff, you know? 00:56:40.000 |
So we did a lot of the touristy things that you have to see if you've never been 00:56:43.160 |
to St. Louis, you kind of got to see the arch, that kind of stuff. 00:56:45.440 |
You're going to rock and roll hall of fame. So we did all those, 00:56:50.200 |
our goal was to find someone to interact with and be like, Hey, 00:56:54.000 |
can we take you to dinner? This is what we're doing. 00:56:56.040 |
And it was all the time, every time, every place. It happened. 00:57:03.120 |
I'll give you a great example. My kids were pulling into Kentucky, 00:57:06.400 |
big Kentucky horse park, RV place, huge place, big round. 00:57:11.080 |
And you can park on the inside or you can park on the outside. 00:57:13.920 |
The outside has these amazing views of the vistas. We felt we were driving around. 00:57:17.560 |
We found the one, you pick whatever one you want. 00:57:18.880 |
This is beautiful backed right onto a park, basically a park. 00:57:22.720 |
We could drop our door out the back of the deck. It would be amazing. 00:57:26.760 |
But on the inside was about six RVs that were clustered together and everybody 00:57:31.320 |
in their middle sort of like fire going, chatting. Right. 00:57:34.480 |
And then we drove around and I said to the kids, all right, what should we do? 00:57:39.200 |
We'll be able to back right on the park. It'll be amazing. 00:57:41.160 |
Or do you guys want to back into this group of people and just join in? 00:57:43.880 |
And my kids were like 17 and 15. We're like, yeah, let's go with the people. 00:57:49.400 |
And so we backed our RV into a site that sort of backed into them. 00:57:53.120 |
We got everything all set up and we literally walked right over their campsite. 00:57:56.560 |
It was like, Hey, where are you guys from? That was it. 00:57:59.920 |
We're playing volleyball with them all night. We're making dinner. 00:58:05.920 |
And this guy had this recumbent bike or the one that you sit on and you pedal 00:58:08.680 |
with your hands or whatever. And he's flying. 00:58:10.320 |
We get to the stoplight place waiting for the light to change. 00:58:12.880 |
And I looked down and that's not a recumbent bike. He has got no legs, no legs. 00:58:16.480 |
And I looked at him and I just made the joke. I was like, Oh man, 00:58:20.840 |
I'm on an electric bike here and you don't even have leg. Like this is, 00:58:23.440 |
you make me look at we're laughing and the kids. And now what's your name? 00:58:28.560 |
He's like, Louise. And I was like, what are you doing tonight? Louise? 00:58:30.640 |
He's like, why do you ask? Hey, we do this thing. You want to come to dinner? 00:58:33.520 |
Come down to the campsite. We'll make dinner for you. He's like, okay. 00:58:38.360 |
So we spent the night with him and we met people from all four corners of the 00:58:42.120 |
country. Every race, creed, religion. It was amazing. 00:58:46.240 |
Best thing my kids ever I've ever done for them. 00:58:48.760 |
That's amazing. Had you traveled a lot with your kids before? 00:58:51.840 |
We do a lot of adventures. Like I run an adventure club nonprofit for exactly. 00:58:57.800 |
So the kids are not unused to doing weird kooky things like my daughter and I 00:59:02.160 |
rappel down waterfalls, like silly things like that, but we're not campers. 00:59:06.640 |
We're not RV people. That's just not our world. 00:59:11.960 |
And we never been away for longer than a week or two ever. 00:59:17.040 |
we had to find the best place here and do this thing. 00:59:19.600 |
Is that published anywhere? I got all that. I got, I have all that. 00:59:22.640 |
I haven't published it all yet. I'm in the middle of trying to finalize it all. 00:59:25.360 |
Okay. Where we went, what we did, who we saw, like all that stuff. 00:59:28.360 |
I have all that stuff, but it'll be somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be killer. 00:59:31.640 |
Awesome. Yeah. That's like a coffee table book. 00:59:35.960 |
And it's basically it's called what I learned about America. That's amazing. 00:59:38.600 |
Visiting all 48 States. We jumped quickly to something totally different. 00:59:42.000 |
So first off, thanks for all of that. Of course. 00:59:45.520 |
I think people are going to want to hear all these tips because we normally end 00:59:48.200 |
every episode asking people find a place. What do you suggest they eat? 00:59:52.280 |
Do have a drink? Where do they go? I'll let you, 00:59:59.440 |
but I'm curious if there's one place that whether it was on your trip or in LA, 01:00:03.520 |
that you have some recommendations for people, maybe traveling there. 01:00:07.880 |
I think one of the best spots that I've still can't get over is still 01:00:14.320 |
It's one of my favorite spots in the world in the summer, winter, 01:00:19.560 |
everything looks like, well, so all the places are great, 01:00:21.520 |
but in the summer is a unique experience because it's like being in the middle 01:00:26.520 |
of the wilderness, but with all the trappings of everything, 01:00:29.960 |
which is just really, really cool. So that's what I would say. 01:00:33.160 |
If you've never been there, that'd be the place I would go. 01:00:34.960 |
But if you're in LA and you want great sushi, that's a whole other thing. 01:00:40.840 |
I went on a bachelor party in Whistler and I will encourage anyone going 01:00:45.600 |
there to try their mountain biking trails, which are out of this world. 01:00:49.840 |
I felt like I was biking through an Ewok village with these like elevated ramps. 01:00:53.760 |
One person is so smooth and just nonstop. You're like, wow. 01:00:57.720 |
One person did break their legs. So for him, it was not as smooth, 01:01:00.920 |
but for the rest of us, we had a good time. Thank you so much for being here. 01:01:03.600 |
Where can people stay on top of everything you're doing and find out when this 01:01:08.880 |
I'm easy to find on my socials at Brant Penvidic. 01:01:11.440 |
You can go to three minute rule.com and see all that kind of stuff. 01:01:14.440 |
My travel club, you can visit that reject average.com. 01:01:17.400 |
I'm pretty easy to find. I have a lot going on. 01:01:19.520 |
I just don't have a lot going on. I don't sell anything. I don't have a course. 01:01:23.040 |
I'm not trying to get people's money. I don't take on new clients right now. 01:01:26.120 |
I'm just out doing my thing. I love helping people find the value in their message. 01:01:31.240 |
I've had fortune 500 CEOs in almost tears because of the thing they've been 01:01:35.480 |
working on for years. They're finally able to explain it properly. 01:01:39.240 |
And it's like the frustration of having something that you really believe in, 01:01:42.400 |
that you love and you can't get people to understand it or believe in it is 01:01:45.600 |
overwhelming. And it's just, it's kind of great to be able to help people do that. 01:01:48.160 |
So, well, I appreciate it. Absolutely, buddy. Thanks for being here. 01:01:53.160 |
I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 01:01:58.000 |
Reminder to vote for all the hacks and the people's choice podcast awards by 01:02:05.440 |
If you have any feedback on the show questions for me, 01:02:08.320 |
or just want to say hi chris@allthehacks.com or DM me on Twitter or 01:02:12.760 |
Instagram. And if you haven't subscribed to the show on Amazon music, 01:02:16.320 |
they've been featuring all the hacks this week as a hidden gem podcast. 01:02:19.680 |
So definitely check it out. Okay. That's it for this week. See you next week.