The 30-Second Story That Gets You Referrals | 052

Welcome back. I am so excited for our guest today. Jeff Klein is someone that I've known for quite a while, and I'm so excited that he agreed to be a guest today because we've got some really cool stuff to talk about that is going to benefit you and your business today and in the

future. Let me introduce my friend Jeff. Jeff Klein guides people to the right words for each situation. As a speaker, Speaker coach, business networking guru, author and frequent media guest, he has received rave reviews, speaking over 2000 times, reaching 10s of 1000s of business professionals.

Jeff is the founder of speaker co op.com and has grown it from a local lunch to with 50 attendees to an international community reaching over 20,000 people. Jeff's teaches speaking and networking and speaks to trade associations, sales organizations, conventions and business groups. Welcome Jeff.

Hi, Sharon. I'm so glad to be here.

Yay. And I am excited because before we got we started the recording, we talked about some exciting things that we're going to chat about today. And the first thing that I want to talk about your your your intro talks about your speaker expertise, and I want to get into that. But the first thing

that I wanted to talk about a little bit was networking, because you have some really cool things that can benefit business owners. I think one of the hardest things to do is to walk into a group of people and you know, you want to introduce yourself and have a good connection, and you've got 30

seconds or a minute to make an impression. And sometimes that's just that that's a hurdle to even keeping people from going out networking and introducing themselves. So Jeff, talk to us about some networking tips.

Thank you. Well, and what's this is actually how I became a speaker. Was teaching the elevator pitch. I did third talk about the 32nd commercial and all over Dallas Fort Worth for several years, I spoke 350 times, or 250 times over a three year period, once a week for a year and twice a week for two

years, about how you can improve your elevator pitch to get results. And I started teaching a class. It's funny what happens in the marketplace. I I was speaking as an owner of an ad agency, because networking is your most basic form of advertising, right? And somebody called and said, Hey, we want

you to come back and do a workshop, just four of us, and we'll pay you. And I went, Okay, sold. So I started teaching a workshop based on the speech, and then the speech turned into a way to sell more workshops. Now I'm talking about speaking instead of networking. So networking is, is the and those

are the two best shoe leather forms to promote your business networking and speaking. Networking is all about helping other people so that you get help from them.

We I use this term. You use this term. So let's define it, just in case people don't know what elevator pitch means.

Sure, absolutely. The term was coined at IBM back in the day, because they taught the sales people how to make an offer between the ground floor and the executive level in the elevator. That's where the term comes from. So what it means?

What 30 seconds to a minute at most?

Yeah, actually, probably elevators were probably slower back then, so you probably had a minute. That is true. Yeah. So what it means to us now, and the elevator pitch I teach is the formal 32nd pitch you make at a networking group or Chamber of Commerce or what have you, a business meeting

where they go around the room and everybody does a 32nd offer or introduction. It's not really an offer, because you don't want to be pitching during your elevator pitch. It's, it's, and the other, the other big use for elevator pitch is for fundraisers. People who are raising money have a pitch, and

that's that's what that that's all about for them, is meeting the right investor and why they want to spend money with them. But the way the the format I teach, is to go into a room, speak for 30 seconds and get people to make introductions for you, to help you with your business.

So what do you some things that I notice whenever I go out into the world where there where people are giving their 32nd pitches and and introducing themselves, is the first thing that I notice is that they say their name and the name of their business very, very quickly. So if it's the

first time you're hearing them, I. I will stand around going, what did he say? What did she say? What was that? And by that time, I've missed them. The next thing that they have to say. So what do you have? What kind of advice do you have that part?

Such a great point. Sharon, you get, you get an A plus and a and a smiley face and a gold star all in one for that, because I teach not to do that. I teach don't start with your name and business like everybody else teaches. Everybody else says, Start with your name and business and end with your name

and business. And I teach to do neither. You start with a story about how you help, who you help, and how you help them. Uh huh. So you talk about the problem you solve and who you solve it for,

and why? Just give me a little psychology on the other side, like, if I'm going into a networking event, I want everyone to know what I do. I want them to come to me and want to do business with me, right? That's the mindset of most people when they work at walk into a networking group,

right? Why is it that a story is more important than I you know, as I do HVAC, and I'll clean out your ducks and I will install the n1 6254 heater, you know, that's, that's the kind of, that's the kind of commercials, elevator pitches that I hear at networking events, and why is that the least effective way to

do it?

Well, ever since we sat in caves around the fire, we've told stories to each other as human beings and and we, also, most of us, don't care about the process. We care about the results. So what

you do? You're talking about the listeners in, the

people in, yeah, people in general, business people, but really, potential customers. They don't care about how you get it done. They just care about what you get done for them. How do you make their life better? How do you make their business better. How do you increase their sales, or help

them go home and and see their kids soccer game? And you know all those other things. You know when you don't have enough time, you don't get to do or you don't make you know if you're if you're just working and you don't have time to do everything else. How do you help me improve my life by improving my

business? And that's what you want to tell people. You don't we just don't care about how it gets done. We care about the result, and the story is the result. Yeah.

So for example, saying that the part number of the machine I'm going to put in your house, I want to talk about how the Smiths on the hottest day of the year, their air conditioning went out, and I was able to go in and, you know, tell a story about this and how they were suffering on the

hottest day of the year, and their air conditioning went out. That's much more relatable than giving me the part number of the piece of equipment you're going to install in my house, right?

And for like, for example, for a coach talking about your modality and your bloody blah, as opposed to saying, I help you get home to your kids soccer game, then that's, that's what people care

about, right? Yeah, and I think that's what whenever that we're the business owners aren't taught that that communicating with the clients, communicating with the customers, communicating with other business owners who might refer us, it's important for them to know what's what's that

transformational experience? What's the difference? What's the problem that you solve? Because that's really what people care about, right?

Well, and whether it's, I have a new business, how do I promote it, or I want to be a speaker, what do I do first? The first question is, what do you who's what problem do you solve?

Yeah, yeah, what? And I, and that's that is the crux of everything. Like when I work with my clients, one of the things that I tell them is it's everybody in the world has the exact same business model. You're solving a problem for someone else. You're You're resolving something that they

have a need in their in their lives, in their business, in their whatever, and you have the thing that will fill that need or solve that problem. And so that's really the main thing that we need to think about as business owners, when we're communicating what we do and how, yeah.

And the next step is, if you can solve their problem, they will pay you to do that, yeah?

And will they pay a little bit or a lot? Jeff,

they will pay as much as they need to alleviate the pain.

Yeah, yeah. And another thing that that people will do, and I find this particularly with women business owners, not as much with men, though men do this as well, is if they think that something is easy for them to do, then they devalue it's. They're not. They don't value it as highly as they

should, because it's an easy thing for me to do, so therefore I can't charge a lot of money for it, not understanding that the problem is actually people will pay to solve that problem, even if it's easy for you to do.

Yeah, well, we each have our own unique skills and talents, and we didn't I did not know that my skill with words was something everybody didn't have.

Oh, go into that a little bit more. Jeff,

sure. So I had to learn this. But I sat, I went, had a colleague and a mentor who did strategic planning, and he asked me to come and sit on his side as well. We met because I sat on the other side of the table, the client side during one of his strategic planning retreats. And I helped write a

mission statement and vision statements and things for my friend's business. And he said, Jeff, you're a genius at that. You don't people don't know how to do that. We come sit on my side of the table with me, and let's go to my clients. And so I started doing retreats with him, and I would listen to somebody,

they would spend all day with us talking about what they wanted to do and their vision for their business and all their plans. And at the end of the day, when we went back to the hotel, I would write a vision statement and a mission statement, and the next morning, people would cry when they read them, wow. It was

like, Wow. I had no idea that that was a talent. You know, I can tell me about your business, and I can help you do a 32nd commercial to help you get more business, because I have a unique talent to take your words and what you want to say and tell you what you really meant to say. So people care.

That's That's incredible. First of all, that's an incredible talent, and not everyone does it does have the capacity to do that. So I recognize your talent and your gift there. And also we don't that's, that's a perfect example of not seeing in yourself something that's valuable to

somebody else and and I think a lot of times, business owners will do that, they'll be like, well, you know, it's first of all, either I don't know, of course, everyone can do that, or it's easy for me. And so, you know, like, for example, I met a woman who made quilts. And if you know anything about quilt

making, especially hand making quilts, it's a labor intensive, it's a very, it's a very highly skilled thing, and because this woman was really good at it and could do it really quickly. She wasn't charging very much for her quilts. And we asked her, like, well, you know, you really should be charging hundreds of

dollars for these quilts, and she was charging, like, 20 or $30 she said, Well, it's easy for me. It doesn't take me very long. And I think sometimes, whenever we get that whole time, effort equals money. Confused, because just because it doesn't take time and effort for you to do doesn't mean it has a high

value.

Well, and we don't. We should not charge for how long it takes us to do something when it's something it took us 30 years to learn how to do exactly, exactly you're charging for the 30 years.

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's a really salient point, because we, you know, we have that skill, so it seems easy to us, but yeah, it took us a long time to get there. And I think that that's really important to remember that your skill, your gift, your accomplishments, are as valuable

as a technique or something that somebody else taught you, that you're now teaching someone else. There really is a lot of value in yourself and what you bring to the table,

you have a story around that. I used to be in the film business, and we were doing a video I was in the art department, which meant if it went on front of the camera and it wasn't breathing, I put it there. So not everything, but actors and pets, I put there. So we were doing an interview shoot

with Mary Kay Ash. As a matter of fact, it was a shoot for her company, and they were talking about, who

is Mary Kay Ash, for those who don't know, the makeup

guru, the makeup well, actually she was a multi level marketing genius, Mary Kay.

Mary Kay Cosmetics

founder, yes, the founder of Mary Kay and I live here in Dallas, and forget that not everybody knows who she

is, but anyway, younger folks out there,

yeah, yes. So we were on a sound stage, and I had brought in a chair and a lamp and, you know, all that stuff, and the guys who were the cameraman. Lit it. And so we had all these lights and flags and all kinds of stuff around this set. And the people who ran the sound stage came in in the

afternoon and said, You guys don't have to put this stuff away at the end of the day. Just leave it all set up. We've got a client coming in tomorrow. We want to shoot. And the cameraman said, then you'll if we leave all this stuff up, you'll be paying me, my my day rate for setting it up. Because this is

26 years of experience. This is why Mary Kay called me personally. I'm the guy who likes her. She's 80 something years old, and she likes the way she looks when I when I work, when I'm her cameraman. So no, we won't be leaving this setup for your client tomorrow unless you pay me for being the

lighting guy for your setup. Mm, hmm. And so, yeah,

that's that's really, it's really great whenever people understand their value and what they bring to the table.

Right now, that afternoon, the guys at the sound stage were drawing maps and making notes and writing everything down. So there's little you can do to stop that right lack of, what I would say is a little bit of a lack of integrity. They probably should have paid him something for

that, but at any rate, but yes, Chuck understood his value.

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so back to the elevator, yeah. So we, so we now know that start with a story. Be really confident in the value that you're bringing to the table. And sometimes I'll find this with people who are starting new businesses that they don't always know that while I don't

have any testimonials or don't have a good story, and the fact of the matter is that you can actually borrow stories. It doesn't have to be your client necessarily. It could be a client who worked with that. It got the result from using what you do, absolutely,

if you just bought a if you just bought an insurance agency, or you just bought a franchise, you talk about how many years to come the business, the company has been in business, you don't have to be. It doesn't matter about your years of business, right? Matters the company that you

around. Or, you know, if you're a new company, you've got your your employees probably have 50 years of experience in what you're doing, yeah, and that's the kind of the language that you use. You know, we have 50 years of experience in it, or in whatever. Two people doing it for 20 years or 10, five people

doing it for 10 years each. That's 50 years of experience, right?

And why is that important? Why is it important to say things around that sort of thing?

Well, we all value experience. What's important is to be truthful, to stay in integrity and talk about how good you are at something because you have the right people on the right team. The other thing I tell people for their value proposition, if you're super passionate about

something that's valuable to your clients, so you don't have to say, I've been doing this for 50 years, you can say I am super passionate about this. That's why I started this business of chimney sweeping or whatever, the whatever business you're in, if you're passionate about what you're doing, people can see it

when you say it, and then, well, that's those are kind of things we care about, and those are the kind of things that that determine our buying decisions. Excellent.

Okay, so then, now we've talked about who we are. I was told the story we we're talking about our value. What else? What other things do we need to consider when in that amount of time

that we so what's very important to do is make a specific request that can get you results. So you're going to pick a job title of someone that you work with and share referrals with. You're not asking for customers. You're going to tell everybody what you do and how you solve a problem

for somebody, but you're not going to ask to meet that somebody. You're going to ask to meet somebody else who works with them so you can partner and share referrals and create referral partner relationships. So for example, if you're a real so is the people who are the most guilty realtors, roofers.

They come in and say, I'm looking for somebody who wants to buy it, or anybody who's buying or selling a house, yeah. Okay. First of all, most so what? And that's what all the other realtors are saying, right? But second of all, in that room of 2030, even 50 people, the odds of somebody

knowing about a real estate transaction early enough for you to get the business are pretty slim. That's true. On the other hand, if you ask to meet a maid service a fencer, fencing is not a fence or fencing is. A fencing service, a landscaper, a pet groomer, somebody who goes into 10 clients homes every day,

they're going to find out if that client selling going to buy or sell a house that's early.

I love that strategy. So so instead of asking for that, that this the level at which you would step into the transaction. You're asking for referrals from somebody who is two or three steps before they get to that point correct.

So they're, they're doing the why, you know, why are you having your carpets done? Mr. Smith, well, we're thinking about selling the house. Oh, I have a wonderful realtor. I would if you, if you need an introduction, I know a realtor I can introduce you to,

yeah, that's Wow. That's a really elegant way of doing it

well and and if you just and then the each of those people who services the home has a, I will say, Rolodex, haha, has a database of people that they can call on for different services related to what they do. The pool company needs a fence company. They need a they need a tree service to be able

to refer to so you need to meet those people. And as a realtor, that whole home team, the home service team, are your potential referral partners?

I really love this approach, because now we're at, we're not at, we're at go words. We're going from asking for a single entry point to creating an environment where you can have, not only get referrals from the people who are in those related fields, but you're able to refer back to

them. And now you've created an ecosystem that are an ecosystem where you guys can refer one another and actually help you have a continual referral system, as opposed to a one point entry from one person at one time, exactly.

And that's the whole point. Is, the way to win at the game of networking is to create a bunch of referral partner relationships. Which are people that you talk to once a week, once a month. Whenever you have enough new client you know some new clients to have a conversation and making and

making consistent introductions to each other. This is the reason you join a networking group, is to meet those people. That's you can go to the you can go to the Board of Realtors meeting and meet other realtors and some of the home service people. But you join a networking group to meet people

that are not in your not in that related field, but that are still connecting to the same people you connect to, you know, so a realtor and a financial advisor want to meet the same person, yeah, and those, they're not going to meet a financial advisor at the Board of Realty. They'll meet they might meet

roofers and fool people and those other folks, but, but you want to build relationships with people that are similar to what you do, and people who do something completely different, but they have the same target customer. Yeah, and the pressure's off in the networking Well, I don't want to introduce

you to my friend so you can sell them something. God forbid we do that because a lot of us have, you know, and people don't do that because of sole psychology thing. But I want you to meet. I want to introduce you to your to my friend, so you can each help each other grow your businesses. Yeah, that's that's an easier

introduction for people to make

absolutely and it feels better because you're now, you're helping each other, help each other, as opposed to, I feel like I'm putting somebody on the spot, right? Love that. I totally love that. And that's not it. That's really this isn't a conversation that we've had on our podcast yet about about

networking in this way. So I really am enjoying this conversation and really getting into how to transition from I call them networking ninjas, where they come in. Here's my business card, do business Here's my card. Do business with me. Here's my card. Do business with me, as opposed to creating,

creating a networking circle, a group of people who can refer one another and build together, and that feels so much better on every level.

And here's the thing, the person who comes home from the networking meeting with the most business cards is not the winner.

Why not?

Like you just said, that business card has no value unless you have a reason to contact that person, right? The person who comes home from the networking meeting with two or three cards with notes on them saying, schedule a coffee, to have a conversation, to see if we can be referral partners,

that's the winner. Absolutely.

Because when you just have your, like you said, having a bunch of business cards, it does not mean that you have a bunch of connections. And I think, like for me, networking, you know, I used to say networking is a contact sport. And I say networking is a connection sport. It's you. It's

about making connections. And if you meet two really great connections at a networking group, as opposed to 25 people that you just got their business card from you like you said, you're so much further ahead.

Yeah, you You are absolutely a winner in that situation. Awesome.

So I have a question, Jeff, because now we've told a story. We've talked about our value, we talked about who we want to connect with, but as of yet, we've not said who we are or what we do, or anything like that. Where in this mix do we do we

introduce so we do problem solution. The method I teach is six steps. So we do problem solution, then we introduce ourselves in the middle of the story with where we're the best. You know, we clean pools like nobody cleans pools, or whatever your value proposition. And then you say,

who you want to meet. You say, you know, I've just told this story, but I work with tree services to make sure that that their clients pools are clean, and the tree service refers us to clean their clients pools. Then you introduce yourself. Number five of six, you actually say your name and your company.

And then number six, when you say your name and your company, please slow down so people can understand you, right.

Well. And the beauty of doing it later is people can write it down and remember it,

yeah, so quickly sometimes that I literally don't know what they said, right? And I have to infer from the rest of what they said, what they're talking about. So, yeah,

well, if you have a last name like you, you don't necessarily need your last name, right? Well, yeah, you can be sharing the sharing, the amazing coach, and as long as the people write your spell your name right on the check, it's okay if in 30 seconds you don't share your name, your full name, share what

people can remember.

I like that. Share what people can remember.

Okay, so then you've introduced yourself. Number five. Number six is your call to action. What is a call to action? Jeff, you tell people what to do next to give you that introduction. So you just asked to meet tree services. Your call to action is, please write the name of the tree service you

thought of on your business card and pass it to me so we can arrange an introduction.

I love that. I love that that is so so smart, because you have them doing it in the moment with their own business card, and they're passing it to you so now you have their information and the and the connection that you want to make with them amazing. Thank you. What great tips. I hope

everybody's been taking notes

well, and I teach this in a 6090, minute workshop where everybody leaves with new a new commercial, and the tools to build infinite commercials to build more.

I love that, and it's it's really important whenever we it's not important. It's not important at all. I'm not putting pressure on you. However, if you don't prepare before you walk into that kind of a scenario, a networking event or chamber event or a charity event, and you are

called upon to share information. If you don't have it prepared already, then you are going to be very stressed out. You may not say what you wanted to say. You'll draw on the drive home going, Oh, I should have said this so you don't have to do this. And if you do it, it not only will

center you, it will give you confidence, because you know what you want to say, you will already be there. And the other thing that it will alleviate, it will alleviate the stress of it. It's my turn to talk soon, so I'm not going to listen to what anybody else has to say, because I'm focused on my 30 seconds, or

what my one minute. When you're fully prepared, you can actually listen to the other people. So you get even more value out of that time.

You are so spot on. Sharon, you you only get referrals when you give referrals, and if you're in your head about what you're going to say, you're not going to hear anybody else talking. You're not going to be able to give any referrals.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's so true, too, and it's so funny, because somebody, some people, will be like, Well, nobody's listening to anybody because they're thinking about because they're thinking about what they want to say while you're done saying your thing. That's very true. And if you can

be fully prepared and go in and just nail it and be there present for everybody else's then you're going to be, you're going to, you're going to get a lot of value, but also you're going to become that person who knows what. Everybody else does, and then you become the person everybody goes to for

information, because you have paid attention to all of that. So I

want to be that person, yeah, at the end of the meeting you're you want to be that person that half the room has said thank you to Yeah.

Oh, I like that too. Well, Jeff, you said that you have this workshop that people can attend, and I'm going to make that information available in our community. And you also said that you had a free gift for our audience. Can you tell

us about that? Absolutely. So Sharon will show the share the link to get some free stuff at my networking website, which has some free recordings on more to learn about networking and more tools to be a better networker at that site, on that page, awesome.

So, yeah, what we'll do is we will put all of Jeff's cool connections. He's giving you a couple of freebies, and we'll also give you some information about that class that will be in our portal, the profit connectors dot club. That's profit connectors dot c, l, u, B, that's the URL. So you

go to profit connect, profit connectors dot club, and you can join for free. You go in there, and all of Jeff's information will be there, how you can contact him, and all of his free resources, and also a link to his class, because he mentioned that we will have that available and and you can just go there

get all the information for Jeff. And in addition, all of our free gifts from all of our other speakers will be there, and that is the place to go to be part of our community and get all of the resources that we have here on the profit connections podcast, Jeff, thank you so much for being our guest

today. My pleasure. We really enjoyed it. I got some really good tips, and I've been networking for decades, and I got some new tips today. So there is something for everyone. Thank you for listening, thank you for continuing to show up. You know your future self will thank you for that, and remember

it's your impact. Go and make it matter.