Unlock proven strategies to explode sales and eliminate risk in your business Achieve your sales objectives with confidence. Ron Karr with Velocity Mindset® walks you through his book highlighting How Leaders Eliminate Resistance, Gain Buy-in, and Achieve Better Results―Faster. He emphasizes the importance of purpose-driven velocity in business, highlighting the need for direction and aligning actions with purpose coupled with understanding customer needs, can lead to increased sales and market share
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Important: Brand Secrets and Strategies has been rebranded to Retail Solved. Please swap all BrandSecretsandStrategies.com URL’s with RetailSolved.com. This is now the Bulletproof Your Brand podcast. Thank you for listening! There is an easier way to satisfy customers, give retailers what they want, develop & maintain high-performance teams, close sales, accomplish key objectives & it begins with how you show up. Give your brand the edge it deserves! Listen to learn how You're right, and that's what a lot of people think, but that's not it. That's all of it and leads to burnout. Meaning, how many times are we running, money, money, doing all to do, listening. They were so exhausted, we didn't have time to eat. And then we ask ourselves the question, what did I really accomplish? We're task driven, but we're not purpose driven. The physics definition of velocity is speed with direction. And direction is the key. This is what's missing in everybody's life. That's why that direction is so key. I mean, Dan, if you went to Newark airport and you got on a plane, you asked the pilot where we're going, and he said he had no clue. Would you stay on that plane? No. No, he wouldn't. But the pilot starts with the end in sight, the direction. He wants to go to Miami. He starts in Miami. He comes back and goes, what's the three or four waypoints that I know if I pass over them? I'm on my way. Then he looks at the potential storms and winds and he comes around the path, a flight plan that gives him the safest and fastest possible way to get there. That's what we have to do because that direction is what dictates the actions you should take. Otherwise, that's purpose oriented. But if we're task oriented, we're doing a lot of things that are not germane to the direction. And that's why we get burnout. And that's why. Ready to hear more? Let's start the show. Hello, and thank you for joining us today. Welcome. So what's the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Sadly, that's the definition of exactly what we all do in business. We do the same thing that everyone else does and we expect something different. We apply the same magical theories in business and believe that somehow we're going to get different results than someone else did. Remember the comic strip, Peanuts, where Lucy would pull the football right at the last moment, and Charlie Brown go flying through the air and then land on his ass? Well, that's kind of what we all end up doing. Do you wish that there was a better way? Well, that's why we're here today. In fact, that's why this podcast exists. Let's face it, you're in an industry where you're led to believe that cash is king and that your success is tied to the size of your bank account or your checkbook. That's what we're here to change. On today's episode, you're going to learn how to apply purpose-driven velocity to drive your business forward. In fact, you're going to learn how to do more with less. You'll want to stay to the end where Ron shares a link for an assessment to help you achieve more effective leadership results. As always, I appreciate you for listening. This show is about you and it's for you. If you like this show, please help me raise the bar in natural and share it with a friend. I always include one free downloadable guide at the end of every episode to help you confidently grow and scale your brand. Now here's Ron. Ron, thank you for coming on today. Could you please start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your journey to where you're at today? Well, that's a loaded question, man. So my journey. Well, my journey is a life journey. And that's the reason for my latest book, The Velocity Mindset. But basically a quick bio. I started my sales career in a school of hard knocks selling copiers door to door. From there, I went to the computer industry and rose to the ranks into sales management. And that was about the first 10 years of my career. At which time, I started my current career 31 years ago in 1988, November, which happened right after a family tragedy. It worked out okay, but I had some significant issues that I deal with my parents' health due to a major accident. And at that time, I was working in the computer industry, and a lot of computer companies were being shaken up with the PCs coming out. And they didn't know what they were doing. So what this tragedy taught me then was that, you know, you need to create your own destiny, not be the destiny of others. And so the tragedy taught me that I can get by and survive anything if I keep my focus on it and know where I want to go. So I decided to quit my job and start my own business. If I didn't have that tragedy, I would never have started this business. And for the last 31 years, I've been doing, I started in sales training and then evolved into advisory services, the board of directors, working with C-suite personnel and trying to move their companies up to growth ladders and doing some keynote speaking and writing some books. And I enjoy doing it. Not just some, a lot. So I want to commend you on what you've accomplished. That's amazing. But being born out of tragedy and turning a negative into a positive, that's inspirational. And the reason I wanted to say that is because kudos to you, because a lot of people will curl up on a ball. And one of the points that you make is, and I don't see it right in front of me, but oh, here it is. I love your premise. What would the world look like if everyone acted like a leader and not a victim of circumstances? I absolutely love that. To me, that is something that I think is wrong with this world, is people don't take personal responsibility. Can you share your thoughts around that or how you came up with that statement? So let's unpack that a little bit. It is the premise of the book, The Velocity Mindset. So that story about the tragic car accident that I had to navigate was just one of many things since I was born that I had to deal with. In the book, I talk about a debilitating speech impediment that prevented me from enunciating the letter R, which is bad for any young boy, but when his name is Ron Karr, it's a double whammy. You can't even say your own name and you're mercilessly bullied. So I had to learn at an early age what it was like to be on the other end of bullying and how to deal with it to realize, hey, it's not their issue, it's yours, because if you don't like the reaction, change your actions. And it led me to going to get it fixed, you know, through speech pathologists and having to focus. So I learned at an early time, and what I wanted to unpack with you and what you said was, stuff does happen to us. It doesn't mean you don't get angry. It doesn't mean you don't get sad. It doesn't mean you don't get depressed a little bit. I've been through all those emotions in my life. But the question is, at some point, do you get up and realize that it's up to you to change it, not to anybody else? That's what we want everybody to acknowledge. That's what's called personal responsibility. I also grew up in a childhood that had a lot of adversity at home. You know, my father was a victim of the Holocaust. He was in a Siberian camp for two years. He witnessed horrible tragedies. And it's been known for Holocaust survivors that when they had children, there was abuse in the house, sometimes verbal, sometimes physical. We're not talking sexual, we're talking physical. Simply because, you know, they're kind of damaged and they want to protect you so much, they love you so much. All they know the world to be is what they came from. And so their reactions are kind of like over the top. And it caused me a lot of headache. And it got in the way of my relationship with that. So I learned at an early age, you know, when you have the abuse coming, you know, you crawl up in a ball as a young child. You feel there's no way out and you have to deal with it. And look, I had some helpers and I got into my dog years as a therapist, but at the end of the day, it's up to us. And what I want to say is, so I was working with a wisdom teacher a few years ago. And we went back to my father's, my experience with my father, and this was a turning point she had for me. This is why I want everybody in your show listening to understand. Like I said, it's not what happens to you, it's what you do with it. She said this to me. She goes, look, whatever your father did was for his own reasons. You really don't know his reasons why he did it. But what happens is when someone says something that does something to us, we then internalize it and we have a perception as to what we think it means. In other words, we create a story around it. And that's it. It's just a story. It's not reality. So if the story serves you, because every story is emotionally fueled, if the story serves you well, keep doing it. If the story doesn't serve you well, then the good news is whoever wrote that story, it's simple. You can rewrite the script. It's your story. So when you realize that, it takes away a lot of the emotion that you're feeling and a lot of the anger. But it took me a long time to realize that, and that's what I went on my journey. So my goal for this book, which was actually born out of another setback after my presidency of NSA, I had nine surgeries, most on my back. And I know at 57 at that time, you're not speaking, you're kind of down for a couple of years, and you think about all your successes, which they were a lot. But then you think about the things you didn't do, and you realize you didn't do them because of your own personal stories and fears. So all of a sudden, you know, the runway is getting short in my life, and I realize you want to get to these things, you better get on a saddle and get going. And so that's where Velocity mINDSET came. But when you study velocity, well, Dan, let me ask you, when you hear the word velocity, what's the first word that comes to your mind? Well, I just think of the first thing, I'm trying to think of the word I want to use, perpetual motion. I think of a rock or snowball that is going down a hill that's picking up velocity. Something that is a perpetual motion that's picking up that additional energy to speed it on its way. You're right. And that's what a lot of people think, but that's not it. That's all it is and leads to burnout. Meaning, how many times are we running, running, doing all to do lists? At the end of the day, we're so exhausted, we don't have time to eat. And then we ask ourselves the question, what did I really accomplish? We're task driven, but we're not purpose driven. The physics definition of velocity is speed with direction. And direction is the key. This is what's missing in everybody's life. You know, C-suite personnel are either going out for the direction that the CEO mandated, but they don't believe in it. They think it's the wrong direction. They have no idea how they're going to get there. And everybody thinks they're on the same page, and they're not. For a salesperson, make a sales call. And if I ask that person, you know, what's your sales cycle? Five calls to close the deal. What call is this? Number one, what's your goal? Oh, I want to close the deal. That's not an invalid goal. That means all you're going to do is puke people who have the knowledge about everything, on why you're so good. You're going to keep closing, closing, closing. You're never going to be asking questions about where that customer wants to go, and you're going to be kicked down your butt. A valid direction for that call would be to qualify the account to make sure it's a good prospect for both of you, and to identify a path forward. That's why that direction is so key. I mean, Dan, if you went to Newark Airport, and you got on a plane, you asked the pilot where we're going, and he said he had no clue. Would you stay on that plane? No. No, he wouldn't. But the pilot starts with the end in sight, the direction. He wants to go to Miami. He starts in Miami. He comes back and goes, what's the three or four waypoints that I know if I pass over them, I'm on my way. Then he looks at the potential storms and winds, and he comes around the path, a flight plan that gives him the safest and fastest possible way to get there That's what we have to do because that direction is what dictates the actions you should take. Otherwise, that's purpose oriented. But if we're task oriented, we're doing a lot of things that are not germane to the direction, and that's why we get burned out. That's why in my life, I was on that treadmill, like the mouse, you know, and doing a lot of things, but at the end of the day, saying how does this really give me the fulfillment that I want? So I learned that throughout my whole life, and the whole mission for the book was simple. It's for salespeople, it's for leaders. And by the way, who's the leader? All of us. We lead our families, we lead ourselves, we lead others, all of us lead it. So for those who accept the fact that they're a leader, and for salespeople or people of influence, this book was written out of my lifetime experiences, my successes with my clients, and how they got some significantly big deals that changed their company's fortunes. And I just wanted to leave this and put it out in the world to create a velocity movement. So that everybody, wherever they are in their lives, can get unstuck or move further along with the doing well and understand that they have the control of how far they go and what they do. It's not dependent on others and to own it, because when you do, that's when you're going to go further and be more fulfilled in life. Love that. So could you please go back and talk more about what was the origin, what was the thing that caused you to wake up and say, aha, I have a mission, I need to do this, I need to teach and share this gift, this skill, this mindset with others? Well, like I said, the origin was from day one when I grew up, you know, my family and all that. But the turning point, if you will, was when I was recuperating from those back surgeries. I was very bored. I just finished the pinnacle of my career being the president of the National Speaker Association, making friends all over the world. And it was a pretty unique and inspiring situation. And then I come back and, you know, I was known as being a sales trainer. I hate that tag. I mean, I still do it when I need to, and I'm good at it, but that's not what I do, you know. I help companies, I help individuals get to where they really want to be by looking at that direction and helping them figure out what the best thing is. One of my best skills is seeing five steps ahead for people and looking at whether it makes sense or not and what they have to look at, what they're missing. And that was, by the way, I got that from my childhood, because that would be five steps ahead of my father's so I didn't get beaten up. So whatever happens in your life can be used in a positive way in your life. Maybe you can isolate it and see if what it is. But getting back to your question. After recouping from the back surgery, I realized I needed a change in my business because I was getting bored. And I called up a friend of mine who is a well-known video guy. He's on top work. And I said, look, I'm speaking at the University of Texas. Can you come down and film my keynote? I need new footage. And I also need to rebrand. So he came down, he filmed it, and he called me the next day, Dan. And he said, I got your brand. I said, great, what is it? He goes, Velocity Mindset. And Dan, the moment he said it, it's like a bullet hit me between the eyes. And I said, I love it. But I said, how did you come up with that? He goes, dude, I didn't come up with that. That's all you talked about in your speech. In fact, go back 10 years, that's what you've written about. So I tested 10 CEOs to see if they liked the concept of marketing. They all loved it. I realized half of them thought they had an idea of what I meant by it. Half of them had no clue, but they all wanted it. So we fleshed it out. I studied it. We got into what the real definition is. And we created what I call the mad process in the velocity mindset, which means I want you to get mad about your life. I want you to get mad and not angry, but mad, meaning focused, intentional. And mad stands for your mindset, alignment with others, and your destiny. In the book, we put destiny as part too. But in the speech that we put as last part, it's so important. I want to end with it. But I want people to get mad, to get velocity. Mindset, alignment, destiny. That's what we cover. I love the way you put this together. I mean, this makes so much more sense. And I love the way that you've unpacked this, because like I suggested, this is not our topic with not in keeping with what you're trying to say. So thank you for sharing that. That's great. Now, how has that impacted the people around you? What difference have you seen that it's made? So I run a chief revenue officer mastermind group. These are a group of five to ten CEOs, VPs, and sales who come together every so often. And they used to be in Preston where COVID is not virtual. And they have to play hard. They have to be willing to be vulnerable because vulnerability sells. So they have to be vulnerable. They have to open up about what's really holding them back. Because the whole essence of the book is this. You can't really be a leader if you don't really understand yourself both deep inside what works, what doesn't work, and so forth. So they had to be vulnerable. They had to play hard. And they had to help each other. They had to learn how to take critique. And the biggest challenge that people have when they take critique is they immediately start defending. They try to take that critique, let's say it's a round peg, and put it into a square hole. That's not the way to be coached. The way to be coached is not to say a word. Just let it sit in your mind and let it ruminate over a period of time and see what opens up and you'll get more out of it. So anyway, it was peer-to-peer mentoring. They loved it. They stayed together for five years. And we've had people, the results, grow in their company significantly. One guy came in as a VP. He left as a president of the company. We had one guy that was a VP at a huge company. I'm not going to mention the name right now, but it was a publicly traded distributor of natural fruits. Two billion dollars. He controlled them. It was a power struggle. He was very successful and he decided to leave during his membership. And I said, stay in the group. He part of the group. And let's see what opens up for your next career. And the group helped him get into his consulting business, which he has been in since and hasn't looked back. So it's very powerful. It's helped people on a huge, deep level, both personally, professionally and in performing ways. So what if someone reading the book or someone that doesn't have the ability, and I'm a huge believer in groups like this, and masterminds, what if someone doesn't have a mastermind? You make the comment that you should have a board meeting with yourself. Is that what you're talking about? Well, what we talk about in the book is, so here's an odd thing. If I said that if you want to get velocity, sometimes you just have to stop. Right. You're sitting there going, what? That's true because that helps you get it off the rabbit wheel, if you will, of doing all those tasks and making sure you're on purpose. So when I mean stopping, it could be as short as, you know, you're going into a sales call, what's my direction? Take a couple minutes to ground yourself so you do the right conversation. The example that I talk about, the board meeting, was my first sales job was signing copiers. Now, I got hired in 1980 by Royal Business Machines. I came out with its first plain bond copy. I know it's no more lipid tuna that spoils your dresses or suits, but it was beautiful. They seduced me with this 15-copy-a-minute clear. I said, where's the call letter? Don't worry, I'll be here in six months. Where's the duplicate? Don't worry, I'll be here in six months. So I was psyched, I went and worked out. I mean, started working. I couldn't somehow have a paper hat, and I was a good salesperson. I mean, for four months, I got kicked out of my... I got kicked out of the offices of my butt. So I decided to have a time out, you know, and have a board meeting, me, myself, and I. What do you go in New Jersey for a board meeting? Go to a diner. So I went to the diner, had a long conversation, and said, okay, what's happening? I'm getting kicked out. Why? I'm trying to sell a copy, and they compare me to the big machine on the third floor 0 that has all these things that I can't compete with. Maybe we need to change the conversation. What does a copy do? And in my last book, I believe the seller gets it out of the way. We talk about we have to sell outcomes. A copy is nothing more than a communication vehicle. So that gave me an idea. My next call, I go in and go to the office manager, and I said, would you agree with me that a copy is nothing more than just a communication vehicle? He said. So when it comes to communications and copies, what are your three biggest challenges? Oh my God, there, the emotions started pouring out. Sally or Bob on the first floor needs one copy to get up. They talk to their friends along the way. They get upstairs to the third floor. Now they have to wait behind these big, huge jobs, you know, for an hour, an hour and a half. Then they come back and they sidestep to have all these conversations. By the time they're done, it's two hours to get one copy. I said, how often does this happen? She goes, try the equivalent of two full-time employees. I said, wow, would you like those two full-time employees back? She goes, how? I said, look, I'm not competing with that Xerox machine. It's a great machine keeper. I'm going to fill the gap for you. I'm going to save you those two full-time employees. In fact, I'm not selling you one copy. I'm going to suggest you buy three. One for every floor to handle all the little onesies and twosies jobs, and you get those two full-time employees back. Then I started selling three at a time. Now, let's look at this. Did the copier change without selling? Did my company change and come through with the other things? No. What changed? Me. I looked at the outcome that I wanted to sell, make a living. This was not working. I took that time out, that board meeting. I said, what are my selling outcomes? What did you do? I tried something different, and the results changed. Otherwise, you have the rule of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It doesn't happen. That's in our control, people. It's not anybody else's control. That's where you're looking. And we all went through this, by the way, Dan. We all went through this when COVID hit. Because we all were on that hamster, we all going, going, going. And then all of a sudden we're saying, oh, my God, the world's different. I've never seen it. What's my life like? Am I really working? And then all of a sudden you see, including me, I'm moving to Florida. I'm saying, well, I have to wait till I'm 70, I'm 63, and do all these keynotes to make up for the money I lost in the circuit. Go down to Florida, live in shorts, you know, go play golf now. And so we all changed. We all looked at that destiny we wanted and we changed what we're doing. That's why there's a huge migration out of New Jersey, I mean, out of New York to Florida. Huge migration out of LA to Florida and other areas. People going to Idaho. I mean, in a very nice state, I've been there, but it wasn't exactly on people's moving plans. Now all of a sudden, there's a huge influx. That's because people had a forced timeout. COVID was a forced timeout. But then we all re-evaluated. Companies are doing the same thing now. They're re-evaluating how they're going to get back going. You know, they want everybody in the office. Yes, we need to be physical to have creativity. But there's different things people look at now. Childcare, you know, and do I want to risk? And so while all these companies are mandating to be back, you know, we may have another surge going on right now. They're all looking at everything and saying, okay, what's the safest environment I can get for all my employees? And it will lead to changes in how companies operate. I don't know how big they will be. That's yet to be determined. But it will lead to changes. But that's what we talk about about a direction. If you have the right direction that you're passionate about, that you believe in, you want to go there, then have it in your conscious mind. And here's the other point. A lot of people get scared about going after something new, because they don't have the answers up front. Well, go ahead. I'm sorry. Please go ahead. No, that's fine. If you have a question, I'll take it. I'll come back to this point. No, well, what I was going to say is kind of circling back around to what you said and agree with you 100%. Most people are so busy thinking about themselves that they're not thinking about how they impact or what their customer needs. Their customer being even their boss or whomever. So as you said, you're thinking about the solution that you're providing for the person you're trying to sell to. And a lot of people don't take the time to think about how their interaction can benefit someone else. Please, go ahead. That's a great point. Let's go into that, because we talk about alignment in the book. Whether you're a teacher trying to influence a child, a salesperson to a customer, an employer to an employee, whatever, it's everything. And the first thing you have to do in the mindset we talked about is do you accept yourself to be a leader? If you accept yourself to be a leader, the first thing you have to accept is your job before you even start talking to the person is to create a safe environment for the one who can participate in. So you have to think ahead. So we know that if you're prospecting and calling somebody up and they don't expect you, you're an interruption to their day. What happens when you're an interruption to someone's day? They're in the middle of a thought process and you interrupt them, they have no idea who you are, they're cortisol spikes, the fight-or-flight hormone. They're agitated. And if all you do now is be all about yourself and puke all over them about everything you know about a product of which they may not even have an interest, they're spiking, spiking, spiking and just shutting down on you. But if you understand that you're a possible interruption, and you know a cortisol spike, then your job is to lower that cortisol to a level, not eliminate because you can't, lower it to a level where they're fully engaged, so they won't have a conversation. So to give you an example, I was hired by a major financial services company. They knew the numbers. It took five calls to get an investor. They wanted to bring it down to three. Their main market was the retired community because they're one-man offices, and therefore a retiree would come in, discuss the portfolio direction, leave, they come back every quarter to evaluate, but they wouldn't do all this day trading every day that would not support a one-man operation or one-woman operation. So I went to them on some cold calls because they were cold-called retirees. And we were outside Chicago, and we knocked on his door, and very polite, you know, retired couple answered the door. And the rep goes in, he's four to seven years in the field, and he spent 12 minutes trying to do the social interaction, you know, looking at all the bears, all the lousy game, right? They look at all the pictures of the grandchildren, and I can see the couples like being polite, but in their eyes rolling up like, what are you doing in my house? And after 12 minutes, he finally gets to the point, and he gets to the wrong point, and he goes, I want to talk to you about stocks and bonds. And I said, thank you, but we really have somebody. Of course they have somebody. Why are you going to that conversation? So we get kicked out. So I said to the guy, I said, look, bring it down the chit chat to half a minute. Go in, say, hey, nice home, blah, blah, blah. Say, look, you know, I'm from XYZ Company. I'm not here about your stocks and bonds. I know you have somebody already. It's not what I'm here for. I'm here about your future. And if I could ask you one question, would you mind if I asked that? And most of the time, I said, sure. And the question you ask them is, what are the three things you want your money to provide for you? Now, we unpack this because I stumbled into this, but then when the neuroscience findings started coming out, what did we do with that question? We took that agitated response. And by the way, even if you call an existing customer, and they're not expecting you, they're still interrupted. And even if they had an appointment, you don't know what's going on in their day to mean if they really got their attention or not. So this works for everything. When you ask that question upfront, you're taking that cortisol level down to the engagement area. And all of a sudden, there's a shift in them. There's a shift where all of a sudden they start thinking about where they want to go. They're no longer guarded about what you're doing here, why you're here, what are you trying to me. That's all gone, magically. And when I do this role play on the stage and I interview people, I ask them to go through the psychological feelings and say, Oh my God, you know, it was like a different world that I was in the moment of question. I started getting lost in my space, where I was going. And then invariably, because you asked for three challenges, they come up with three things. So then in the interview, I said, Well, if you didn't trust this person, would you have given that three bits of information? They said, No. I said, Well, trust is our arm. So we haven't done anything yet, but we had to do something just to release oxytocin, which is a trust hormone, just to get you to give those three things. Would you agree to go? And then are you feeling good about this conversation now? Absolutely. That's the dopamine, the feel good hormone. And dopamine provides oxytocin. So the point is we took a scientific concept, made it very simple, brought it down to show people, if you really want to engage people, this is how you do it. And that's what leaders have to do to get to your question. You have to see ahead, what are the potential environments I'm going into and what do I need to do to create a great environment, have a great conversation, and people just don't think about that. Not at all. In fact, same conversation, different vernacular. One of the challenges that I face, that I think most people face, Ron, and you want to get your thoughts on this, is that most things in our world today are commoditized, meaning that there's no real value. Everything is the same. Everything is price driven. It's about, I've got the cheapest price, and we overlook the other things that matter, where it was made, how it was made, who it was made by, etc. And the point being is that the conversation around value is overlooked. So the value that you're talking about in your situation, the value of the guy that comes in, who is going to help take care of that person who provide a future, the value of the product that you're eating, the value of the car that you're driving, etc. I mean, any car will get you from point A to point B, but one car might get you there better. So can you talk a little bit about how you apply this to that part of the conversation and go beyond a product being a commodity, a product even being an idea, a product being a commodity and talk about the value and add more value to it? So we helped a major player, in a highly commodity market, rewrite how the industry bought. It was reagents for copper mines. They always bought every three years in lowest price for volume This company was a multinational company that had different divisions. They all brought me in to speak, and then one division, the reagent division, Tucson brought me in. And then the VP came up to me and goes, look, here's what we do. We bid every three years for price. We started this industry. We came up with a new reagent, a cut in half, and of course the mining copper. We saved these big mines. You come out with something like that, your sales go straight up. Then big competitors see what you got. They want to come in, they re-engineer, they're not as good as you. Then they play the price game, and that's where we're at. So we still have 60% of the world market, but we only have 25% of the largest mining copper company in the world, and we need your help. So I flew out there, and I asked them the first question, what do you want as a result of my intervention? We want to win the bid. They said, nah, that's not what I'm talking about. We're in the wrong direction. I want you to take out a clean piece of paper. We're talking about this book. Forget about the past, what you know could and could not be. Forget, forget about what you know the world to be. If you can create your destiny and dream big, no restrictions, what would it be? They said, why do we have to bid? I said, go on. So we started this industry, and we said, we're going bank, we said, go on. We want to negotiate a deal, no bid. How long? They do three years, ten years. I want to go 25%. We want 75%. So I repeated it, and I said, look, you want to get, change the way they buy from three bid, three year bid to ten years negotiated. You want to go from 25% to 75%. I said, yeah. And I looked at them and said, well, you can do that if you really want to, but understand the first thing, it takes a different set of actions to get there than it does to want to go. So then I said, okay, so how are we going to get there? And I said, I have no clue. And I go, what? And this goes back to the not having the answer up front. If we're really pushing the envelope to do something we haven't done or to do something new from which there's no history, how can you possibly have the answers up front? Leaders learn one thing. It's not for them to have all the answers up front. It's for them to have the direction where they want to go, identify the task, and then ask the right questions which will come to them as they think about it more often so they can get the answers they need so that they can move forward. If we had the answers already, we would have been there already. But people get turned off because they don't have the answers, and I'm saying don't. They're turned on by the direction. So what we did was, every quarter, like that time, we looked at what do we know, what do we don't know, who's involved. They went out, they asked the questions we choreographed, they came back and every quarter we assessed, we tweaked, figured out what we still didn't know. The result then was at the end of 18 months, they changed the way that industry bought. They closed a 10-year, $200 million negotiated deal. And that's taking everything that we talked about in the Velocity Mindset and putting it into action. That's an example that we use to show how it works for business, but we also show how it works with the relationships with employees and how to increase productivity and so forth. Well, I think the other thing that's really interesting that we're talking about, but really not talking about, hinting at, is that it's the relationship, as you just stated, that you have with your customer, that trust. That is so critically important. It's a dialogue. It's not the, hey, buy from me because I'm a nice guy, I got a great slogan. And it's not, hey, buy from me because you need to, because everyone else does. It's how do we develop a win-win situation? Can you talk more about that? Yeah, so you asked earlier the question, you know, be value, we have to concentrate on the value. No, I would respectfully disagree because that will just lead us to puke about everything. I don't want you concentrating on your value. One of the traits that come, I tell companies to look for in the assessors we use when they want to hire salespeople and or leaders or managers is the trait of empathy. We want a higher degree of empathy. We don't want a 10 out of 10, we want an 8 out of 10. 10 out of 10 means you're so empathetic, you're dropping the price just to help the customers at your expense. And then you can't support them because you have to make cutbacks because you don't have the margin. So we want an 8. Why is empathy so important? Because it means you're going to ask questions. You're going to have an interest about them, where they're trying to go. So the way to create the value is not talk about it. The way to create the value is ask where they're trying to go. What are the gaps? So for instance, in this relationship, what we did was we called the Mind, Sight Services Program that came out of that, where we put a man on site at our expense, but it was to help them make sure they use it right, help with any problems, give guided advice that helps them with their planning. That became so powerful that in the bid, they put the Mind, Sight Services Program, which is trademark for my client. And the other two multinationals queried and said, well, what does that mean? And they said, well, if you don't have it, it means you're not qualified. And that gave the customer the right to pull the bid back and go into a negotiated agreement. So the point that I want your audience to make is you want to build value. It's not about what you have to offer. It's about what people are trying to go and the challenges they have. And then how do you pick the one, two or three things you do so well and present it in context to how it's going to help them get to where they want to be. That's how you generate value. Because if all you do is talk about all the good things you do, eight or ten of them mean nothing to that customer. And they're ready checking me out by the time you get to the two most important things. I love the way that you position them to be successful, not only that day, but well beyond. That's really cool. And then they renewed the agreement. Ten years later, they brought me in for that again, and they renewed it for another five years. And those different buyers, but they kept going. That's cool. That's really cool. So when you talk about the role of intuitive problem solving, is this what you're talking about? No, you mean intuition when I talk about intuition? No. So one of the things I also learned is, you know, when you are going after something new or a higher result you haven't got and you don't have the answers, sometimes you have to make a decision, because no decision is the worst thing you can do in terms of moving forward in your life. And look, we're going to make mistakes. You want to make the best decisions, you don't want to make critical mistakes, but we learn from our mistakes. So the intuition is something that I was exposed to in my late 90s and I thought I was fluff fluffing a hardcore business guy. As I studied it, it's not hardcore. Think about hardcore fluff, meaning think about what intuition is. It's nothing more than getting close to your subconscious. It's everything you know about the world to be, the biases you have, the experiences you have. It's in that culture of what you want to do, because you know yourself what you don't want to do, where you want to go, what's the formula. That's all there, right? And the intuition to work for you is only as good as the information you put into it, right? So I have that good information. Here's an example. COVID hit, I decided I'm not going to go after these remote presentations because they're not paying. I've got some retainers. I'm going to work with those clients and write the book The Lost in Minds Up. And when it comes out, this should be now, we should be coming out of it. And this is exactly the way I planned it. Not COVID, but you know what I'm saying. So anyway, as I started doing that, I started looking at my desk and I said, why am I sitting here? It's cold, I hate the winters, you know, I'm not closing my office and my home. I'll never walk out of here. It's about here in the winter. So I decided, let me move completely to Florida. So a year ago, September, I signed a lease for a place in Florida. I was going to move in November. And I just finished the book. Everything's going great. And then my intuition kicked in and said, no, you got this heart valve issue that you've been dealing with all your life, you're getting tighter. You better go get it checked out before you leave because you may not be going to Florida. I'm like, come on, that's ridiculous. We all had those conversations with ourselves. But then I said to myself, what am I going to do? If you wrote about intuition, your intuition is talking to. Actively. So I went to the cardiologist and sure enough, he pulled the file on. He goes, it's so severe right now that you got two years max and you could die suddenly in six months. So I had the open heart surgery in November, but the aero valve was replaced. I'm in great shape. I'm in the best cardiac shape in 30 years. But I had to cancel that agreement and I'm moving someplace else at the end of August. But that's what intuition is. And I learned from my mentor, Paul Dominguez, who's in the book. And he told me to get to the subconscious and what your true essence is. You have to learn to listen, trust and act. So when you don't have... And so I do this all the time to make it simple. So I'm driving down, I'm saying, Oh, it looks like there's traffic, but Waze is telling me to go here. What do I do? Listen to Waze and make the turn. And I'll just say intuition. And if you ask the intuition, A, it has to come from the heart, not the mind. It's by the conscious. So if you're thinking too much, it's not the intuition. And it has to come fast. So I say, do I make a turn or go straight? And I don't even debate it, I just go. That's intuition. Now, again, it's only as good as the information you put into it. So you have to do some due diligence. You have to evaluate it, especially big decisions. And at some point, you're not going to know what to do. And you're going to say, OK, well, the information, it happened what I like, what I don't like, blah, blah, blah. What's my intuition saying? And then trust it. It's not always going to be perfect. But when we lose velocity, it's in the debates. Do I, do I not? We waste two weeks, we waste two months, we waste a year. And time is so precious, we can't get it back. Now, I do believe in haste makes waste. So I don't mean to move forward at the rapid speed, but about taking that time out, about making sure where your direction is going, and about making sure your tasks are supported. When you go do those three things, usually your decisions will work out. I'm glad you said that because a lot of, I was going to circle back around to that if you didn't. A lot of people don't trust themselves. They don't know how to trust themselves. And that I think is sad. And then that game that they play with themselves, where they second-guess themselves to death, you know what I'm talking about, which is unfortunate. So when you say, you talk about becoming a leader, what do you mean by that? Because when I think of becoming a leader, that is also becoming a leader of yourself, being able to trust yourself, being able to know when to say yes to move and when to say no to move. I mean, look, I've traveled the world. I've done all the things I haven't. I've lived within 25 square miles of my life for 65 years I'm moving completely. My daughter is 27 and I love her. I'm just going to be here. I just can't have dinner with her every night like I would. But, you know, we both sat down and made the decision. This is the best thing for me. It will help me in my career, be better, more energized. It will help me in my life. It will help me in my relationships. And she wants me to do what's best for me and we'll figure it out. But I'm moving at the end of August with some trepidation, but also looking for the new lifestyle that I'm going to have. So there is the doubt. But, you know, what I did was I looked at what did I want? You know, what's that destiny? I had it very clear. It was so clear and so strong because it was so passionate for me. That's what you need. The passion is not there. That's what we vacillate back before. So I was so there and I said, OK, let's go down and went down and went through the road, drove around and found this great place and pulled the trigger. Well, you won't go until you get there. It sounds like an exciting adventure. It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it. So I'm excited for you. Thank you. That's really cool. That's really cool. I want to be respectful of your time. So what are the things have we not talked about that you want to touch on? So I remember someone saying to me, life is nothing more than a game. And it is a game. But when a game becomes too difficult for us, is when we get lost in the emotions. Every story we tell ourselves, remember everything we think someone did, did not do, we create a story around it. Every story is emotionally fueled. If you're told that you want to amount much to anything when you're young, and users are chipping your shoulder to excel in everything you do, that's great. Use it. Don't stop using it. But monitor it because if it becomes overused, like you become a worker all up and now it affects your family life, that's not necessarily making you successful. So you want to use the stories that have the right emotion, but fuel it to make sure, because every strength of its overuse becomes a weakness. On the other hand, the story is not serving you well. Like my stories in my early life, I'm no good, I'll never amount to anything, but my father told me, I got people criticizing me about my speech impediment and all that stuff, and all these physical problems because of all that emotion in my body. Rewrite it. Now it doesn't mean you're going to rewrite it the next day. I mean, for me, it was a long process. My goal is that I don't want to take as long for other people. If I can share these tools, and I apologize for my dog barking. No worries. And that's the one thing you can't control in these interviews. No, no, no, no. But yeah, if, you know, so you just don't want to... I look at all the time, I waste it. And look, we're all going to waste some time. We're human. But my passion right now is, yes, I'm going to help companies grow and help them sell and lead and all that. But what I really want to do right now, in addition to that, is start the Velocity Mindset Movement. We need it so desperately, because we're in a world where everybody's blaming everybody else. Everybody's cancelling everybody else. No one's listening. No one understands where other sides want to go. No one has empathy. I want to create the Velocity Mindset Movement, where people understand they have the power to create their destiny. I give them the tools and how they can go about doing it. And my goal is for them, my wish is for them, then, to be better listeners out there, to be better leaders of themselves, their families, and others. And when they do that, and when they help other people get to where they want to be, they themselves then will get more in return, possibly. When they have a thought, if it's possible, that's my mission, to create the velocity movements so no one wakes up after a given period of time and is despondent because they didn't achieve what they want to achieve while they're on this earth. I could not agree with you more. Thank you for sharing that. Like we started, it's all about, in my mind, personal responsibility. Stop acting like a victim and start living your life. Start owning everything around you and using it to your advantage. Right. And the copier story was one story that illustrated that really well. And there's a lot of last thing about the book. It's vulnerable. I actually hired an editor to really help me because I write on my own. But I had to make sure that the stories I use, and that's what people like about the book. It's simple. It's not a lot of theory, but the stories because it makes it easier to read. People love stories. I had to make sure I did it at the right level. It wasn't about me, so I didn't want it to be too much. The one thing is mostly about the reader getting what I intended for them to get. The point is that vulnerability cells are used right. We teach that to CEOs because they're always mandating, do this. When you start sharing about some of the struggles you've been to and how you handle the same thing when you're in, people listen to that. They see that, hey, you know, these speakers on stage, I was a president of the National Speaker Association. Speakers on the stage that come out so bubbly and say the world is great and there's never a problem and blah, blah, blah, blah. You lose the audience in that way because life is full of problems. The question is how do you handle it? That's what they want help with. They want hope. So I didn't want to be that speaker or consultant. I wanted to be able to share stories and the vulnerability so that they can see them just like them. I got the same paints and I'm just sharing some ideas. Try it. It works in your life. Great. And that's the tactic that I have taken in my career. Well, I love your illustrations. I mean, they're so inspirational. And the point, like you said, is that they're down to earth. They're believable. They're not pie in the sky. They're not something that someone else couldn't aspire to. So thank you for reaching out to me and thank you for sharing them. And I'll be certain to put a link to them in the show notes and on the podcast web page. And thank you for your time. I'm sorry, you were going to say something else? Dan, if they can, in a show notes, put down the website, velocitymindset.com. Yes, I absolutely will. What they'll get there, there's a free leadership assessment. It's five questions that they get grade themselves. But more importantly, the tips and best practices on how to move forward in all those areas. So it's absolutely free. They can get on that site, as well as they'll get out Friday videos, and if they want to order the book, they can. That's great. I appreciate it. And again, thank you so much for coming on today, and good luck in your move, and good luck on your adventure. And I'm glad you're in good health. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for having me, and thank you for all you're doing in the world. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. I want to thank Ron for coming on, for sharing his wisdom and his insights, and for also talking about his book. I've been going through the book, and I can tell you that this is definitely something that's helping me. Anything that you can do to help you help your customers is definitely a huge win. You can learn more about Ron and the book VELOCITY MINDSET at velocitymindset.com. This episode's free download is my 30-day data prosperity challenge. This free foundational mini course teaches you everything that you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand.
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