← The Futur with Chris Do
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- [00:00]
A
Creative people are just funny like this. Something great happens and we don't want to do it again. Something horrible happens, we refuse to change. So like, are we destined to suffer.
- [00:10]
B
All of our lives when someone feel desperate and have a fixated agenda and chasing after the money, they end up pushing away the sales, even if the client is right for them.
- [00:20]
A
Think of money as a thank you note that the more thank you notes you get, the more you know the clients appreciate what you do. And who here does not want to be appreciated?
- [00:28]
B
My name is Victoria Dior Wang and you're listening to the future.
- [00:35]
A
Hey everybody. This episode's a little bit different because I'm talking to my friend Victoria Dior Wang, somebody I met recently, earlier this year, first time in Singapore, and her and her husband Harrison put together an amazing event. They said, let's run it back, let's run it back again just days after finishing. And so for those of you who are like you were in Singapore. What? What? Okay, look, I asked you to come to me, but sometimes I'll come to you. I'll be in your time zone. And so if you're curious about the kinds of things that we talk about, if you're curious about wanting to learn more, I think this episode's for you. So without further ado, I have asked Victoria to kind of come at me with a bunch of questions, especially to highlight some of the belief systems that might persist in that part of the world. And we're, we're going to do our best to break them apart and hopefully answer those questions. So Victoria, for people who don't know who you are, just briefly tell us your story.
- [01:31]
B
So my name is Victoria Diowe and I'm the CEO of the GoZone Group. One of my biggest passion is education and one of our business is a running educational program. And we create immersive learning experiences to help leaders, business owners as well as a professionals to go beyond success and live an extraordinary life. So you can hear from my introduction, that's why we are, we resonate with Chris so much and we want to bring him to Singapore.
- [02:00]
A
Yes. So what's real interesting to me, just for some background context, is people do reach out to me all the time and said, hey, come to our city, come to our country, come, let's do something together. And most of them are not super credible. Most of them are not built to accommodate me and to be able to do whatever it is I need done. And Victoria, to your credit and to Harrison, who I didn't know at the time, you Put together a plan, there's a spreadsheet. Everything was above board. And you said, we're going to do this super professionally. And to your credit, you did exactly that. You met me at the airport with flowers and a private car. I'm like, hey, I feel like I'm in Hawaii. There's a vacation here. And this feels a little bit different. And from the beginning to the end, it was first class all the way. And so you do things differently in Singapore, that's for sure. And I think I didn't have a whole lot of expectations coming in, but leaving I was like, this is a pretty cool place in the world. Quite unique in that there's like a highest earning per capita, oftentimes number one, two or three in the world. In terms of education, I'm passionate about education and it's awesome for me to go to a place where people like to learn and to do self development. This might be my new thing, I don't know. Singapore, let's go.
- [03:19]
B
The interesting thing is what my intention is to create an experience so that you want to come back again and again.
- [03:25]
A
I had a good time.
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B
Awesome.
- [03:27]
A
We had a good time, right?
- [03:28]
B
We had a great time.
- [03:30]
A
Let's kick it off. All right. Some of the things you want to talk about.
- [03:33]
B
So one of the first thing I want to ask you is since we are going to do personal branding and sales workshop, which are the key things and a lot of business owners and professionals have a lot of challenge in that area. And I want to this the first question I'd like to ask you is how does personal branding supercharge conversational sales? And I say conversational sales because it differentiates you and many other people will talk about sales. And why is this the secret sauce most people might overlook?
- [04:05]
A
Very good way to kick it off. So we'll talk about brand for a second. Brand is the accelerant to almost everything that you do. And that's not to say that all brands are created equally. So you and I, we both have brands and everyone listening has a brand. But not all of us are able to leverage that brand to create opportunities for us to make things move faster. I'll give you an example, real life example. A buddy of mine who is putting together an event in Las Vegas which I'm involved in. He told me he's 89% tickets sold already for a thousand person event. He said last year it would have taken me another two months of selling to close and finish this thing. He thinks he'll be sold out in a week or two and he goes. Because every year his brand becomes more powerful and he can leverage it more. I think this is pretty awesome. So he did one webinar that was a multi hour long webinar, had a bunch of guests on and he opened up the doors and people just streamed in and purchased tickets. And then he would then follow up with a few people and retarget the people who attended. And the tickets are almost sold out at this point. And he was just remarking this is possible because of brand. So if you're an event organizer, if you have a coaching or sales program and you want more people to volunteer to join without having to twist their arm, start to think about how you show up in the world, whether you give people an opportunity to connect with you beyond the business aspect and you'll start to see that this is like the accelerant to everything that you want.
- [05:45]
B
That's a very great story about branding and I do agree because when people recognize your brand, it makes it easier for them to want to move towards you. And it's very hard when there's no branding. And you're right about the leverage because I think people don't think about leverage as much. And in fact that's one of the mindset that Asian and I believe to a certain extent American, Asian American has similar thing. We're so used to working hard, we feel that working hard is what gives us the value and we feel more worthwhile when we work hard. And having leverage seems to be something that is not in people's top of the mind.
- [06:24]
A
Yeah, I want to, I want to say something here so we, we know that Singapore is a rich country and quite brand conscious. If you go shopping in Singapore, okay, everything's here and what is happening here. And this is something I want to talk to the potential local listeners about, which is why are we as Singaporeans, Asian Americans, expats, whatever, so ready to give extra money to Western or European brands over the local alternative? It bothers me a little bit that there aren't as many, not even close by a factor of a hundred of Asian brands that have translated into markets outside their local market.
- [07:07]
B
We become too compliant, too blending, too much, too much desire to fit in, that we just don't stand out and we become frustrated and we feel like we don't have a voice because, oh, I got to, I gotta cater to the society, I gotta cater to my parents, I gotta cater to everyone else except for myself.
- [07:26]
A
Since you're such a well traveled person, have you seen somewhere in the world where there's traditional Asian cultures or culture and values that are blended with Western ideas in harmony.
- [07:41]
B
Honestly, not much. I would say probably American. Asian American is the closest, but still very much indulated with Asian culture underlying the driving. I'm talking about what's really driving us beneath the surface.
- [07:58]
A
I think I may have an answer to that question, which is Japan.
- [08:03]
B
Japan. All right.
- [08:04]
A
You go to Tokyo or Kyoto, you'll see men wear traditional kimonos and, and suit, dress. Walking in one of the most modern cities in the world, taking the subway, and I'm like, oh my God. And they're wearing like traditional shoes too, which don't look that comfortable, like those wooden shoes, like, so you're in a metropolitan, like, fast moving city and you're bringing traditional values and dress into it. And so Japan is a really great mix of tradition and modernity and preserving culture. And they're very good at preserving culture. I don't know if this is true, but in, in, in a time when Japan is being modernized, they kicked out all the Westerners and drove out all the missionaries and said, you know what? We need to preserve our culture because we can see it slipping away. And so for a period of time, Japan develops in isolation with some trade with the West. But it's kind of interesting how they're able to hold on to so many Japanese traditions and have done a really good job up until recently about exporting Japanese concepts. If you ask a lot of young people in America, what do you like? Manga, anime, and they'll list all the things they like. Transformers and robots. Those are all Japanese concepts, right? Japanese ideas originally. And the most successful comics now follow a very Japanese model of developing storylines that don't take issues but take years to play out. So I think there's something really beautiful and it's referenced in Soft power, the ability to influence culture. Currently, right now, the country that has the most soft power I think is Korea. K, pop, K drama, everything K. So we, we can see that there is a slow emergence of Asian influence that will then be integrated into Western culture.
- [10:00]
B
Yeah, you're right, you're right. In terms of their, you know, how they preserve the culture while still being a very modernized city. Like when I first went to Japan, I was very surprised by how advanced their technology is. In fact, like you said, they are very self contained. The challenge with that isolation is that they lose a lot of opportunities and economy has been going down over the years. So that, that's part of the challenge of being too isolated while trying to Preserve themselves. They are also losing out to the rest of the world. The question now is, since you mentioned that, how do we help people understand if they were to join us in the workshop, we can help them to blend in more of the both so that they don't feel like they are losing out. One of the biggest challenge with a lot of people is the idea of changing something really freaked them out. If I go to a workshop, do I need to change anything? Is that your experience too?
- [10:52]
A
No, I would say don't show up. Why? Go to a workshop and promise yourself you'll learn nothing and change nothing. Why? I mean, we'll take your money, but I wouldn't show up. It's like saying, I'm gonna go watch this new movie, but I'm gonna keep my eyes closed. Okay, that's one way to experience it. But why would you do that? When we go and seek out instruction, coaching, mentoring, tutoring, whatever it is that you're seeking out, there's a future state that we think we can achieve. And the only reason why anybody does anything is they're motivated to change. So sales is about change management. So I'm trying to help you go from where you are to where you would like to be. So first and foremost you have to identify, do I have a need? If you have no need, stay home. Additionally, if clients are electing to pay you a premium, you get no pushback. They're, they're, they'll willingly wait for you to be open and available so that they can have the privilege of paying you the most amount of money. And when you introduce an idea, they're like, yes, I love that. And what else? And you get no pushback on ideas. Well, also stay home. Or maybe don't stay home. Start a course, create a conference and teach people how you've done this. Because this is amazing. So we, we say this right. Creative people are just funny like this. Something great happens and we don't want to do it again. Something horrible happens, we refuse to change. So, like, are we destined to suffer all of our lives? And I do want to say this, Victoria, I'm not a sales professional. I've had zero sales training. I've taken zero courses in sales. I've gone to see zero gurus teach me about sales. So I have a little bit, tiny little bit of self doubt when it comes to, am I the person to teach people sales? I could get customers, I can create content and they're happy to seemingly pay me whatever it is I ask for. What is it that I know. So I'm in Dubai and I'm doing a talk on how to sell less and close more clients. But I'm standing in the lobby of the hotel, and this gentleman, older gentleman, walks over to me. He goes, chris, didn't know who you were. Sorry about that. I'm like, you don't need to be sorry. I don't know who you are either. I'm not apologizing because I was at your thing. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. He goes, I've been doing sales training for. For two decades. I'm like, oh, here it comes. He's going to say, what you say doesn't work. It won't work here. He says, I learned some new things, and that was good. He said, I share that story with you because I find it really fascinating that people who are so called, quote, unquote, sales training, professional ninja wizards, teach sales in a way that I find disagreeable, distasteful, and dishonest. And the reason why a lot of people, especially creative folk, don't like sales is because they've seen so many bad examples, have been taught bad ways of doing it, and they've kind of resigned to say, I don't want to do this. And of course, if something is grossing you out, creating that feeling of ick and you keep doing it well, it's not going to turn out well because you're holding on to negative feelings about it.
- [14:09]
B
I think part of what gets us jaded is, you know, a lot of the people use very manipulative sales tactics just to. Just to get their agenda met. And we are becoming more and more sophisticated, and we can tell. We just can't feel it. And most of us don't want to be like that. So we become from jaded to costing ourselves. And that's why your workshop makes such a big difference, in my opinion. And I can honestly say I'm a sales veteran, and I know exactly what you mean. I've been in sales and entrepreneurship because in entrepreneurship, you are selling all the time. You're selling people why they should do the job, why they should. You know, whether we like it or not, as a leader even, we need to sell people our vision. We need to sell our team our vision so that they feel more engaged with what we are doing and they can be more productive and perform better. And then, not to mention, we need to sell to our clients why they should engage with us if there's a fit. But people get so resistant to the word sales. And this is the other part In Asia. I can say that for Singapore and I believe that's probably applicable to the rest of Asia too. Sales is deemed as if someone gets a sales job or go into a sales profession is deemed as a lower end kind of profession because you are not a lawyer, you are not a doctor, or you can't get a job. That's why you go to sell something. So there's a lot of challenge with the word sales and how people look at it.
- [15:47]
A
Okay, let's, let's, let's clarify here. If you're an attorney and you're trying to get a client, what are you doing? I believe that's called sales.
- [15:57]
B
Yes.
- [15:58]
A
If you do cosmetic dentistry and you need to get clients, what are you doing? You need to believe that's called sales.
- [16:06]
B
Yes, exactly.
- [16:08]
A
If you're a coach and you want to help people be better, their partners to their spouses or whoever, or their children, what are you doing? I believe that's called sales. So I think sales has a bad rap because there are so many poor practitioners, poor examples, the Wolf of Wall street, all, all these kinds of the Jordan Belforts of the world, kind of like sleazy cheating people out of their retirement, those kinds of things. And we think sales, we think of used car salesperson, we think of timeshare salespeople, telemarketers who are bothering us while we're trying to have dinner with our family. Yeah, if that's sales, it deserves all the spit and fire that it's getting. But we're all in the same business and sales is about influence. Sales is about transference of energy. A friend of mine and an art center professor, his name is Errol Garrison, he said something like this. He believes sales is. I'm excited about something. My job is to see if you're excited about the same thing. And if you are, then we could do business together. But if we're not, then I'm, I'm happy to go my way part ways and we're good.
- [17:18]
B
I love that.
- [17:18]
A
The problem is when we do it, as a third party, neutral, objective observer, I have nothing to gain from this. I'm just telling you about a great restaurant or hotel car service. And since I have no horse in this race, I can full throatedly say it objectively because there's no self interest involved. When we, when we flip it and it's like, oh, I, I do logo design and if I full throatedly express what I think it's going to do for you, oh, that's distasteful. That's so self centric and there's a reason why. What we need to do is to have one conversation, not two conversations. So when we talk about third party, we speak about it very objectively. We ask great questions, we listen to what the other person wants. And only if they're interested in eating a certain type of food or seeing a certain type of site would we then recommend something to them. Because there's no point in us telling them, you must visit this place where we're like, you know what, I'm tired. I don't really want to see any tourist traps. I'm good. And what we do is we switch gears and we go into selling, pitching, justifying mode and having an agenda. But if we adopt the first mindset and have only one kind of conversation, not two kinds, which is, I'm curious what you're interested in. Where are you in your business? What do you need help with? What have you tried and failed? Who has wronged you? What outcome would you like? Oh my gosh. It just so happens that what you want is something that I potentially could provide to you. And then it's a marriage of a want with a solution. But we never do it this way. And we watch people crash and burn all the time. Victoria yes. They go up on stage, they pitch each other and they're just going back to their old what's in it for me mindset. And we're trying to break that, we're trying to change that a hundred percent.
- [19:08]
B
Yeah, that. What's that? What's in in it for me mindset is what. Yeah. Create a lot of challenges for people. And I thought, you know, a lot of the role play you do in the workshop really makes a difference to bring that awareness up. Like someone from the workshop did a really great carousel and talk about how what he thought about sales was so different. He really shifted the mindset around what's in the way of his sales result before the workshop versus after the workshop. And the what's in it for me when you feel desperate, that's the worst. That really cost a lot of people. When someone feel desperate and and have a fixated agenda and chasing after the money, they end up pushing away the sales. Even if that's the right fit, even if the client is right for them.
- [20:02]
A
That's right. I want to go back to a question that you brought up earlier about cultural differences, east and west. Now, I was born in Vietnam, but I grew up in America. English is my second language. I know some people are bothered when I say that, but it's literally true. And I struggled for some period of my life pronouncing polysyllabic words, multiple syllable words, because Vietnamese language is single syllable. That's why it sounds so choppy. And I've. I grew up in America as a first generation immigrant refugee, so I still have deep ties and connection to my culture, my original culture, while having the benefit of being raised in America and seeing this, the, the kind of Socrates approach to life, exceptionalism, individualism, understanding, ego, and what drives me. So I straddle two worlds. I'm not saying I'm the only, but I'm one of the few who can come in and be a day walker. That's a reference to Blade. What I'm able to do, I think, is to understand Asian culture, our habits, our routines, our need to be respectful while also bringing in Western concepts in your face kind of style, teaching, putting people in the spotlight a little bit and blending these two things. And I think what I enjoyed so much about our time together in the workshop, Victoria, was I was given time and space to be the me as me I could be. And to me, that is pure joy. And if, if your teacher, your instructor is having a good time, there's a chance, not a guarantee, that you'll have a good time. And what, what better way to learn than. Than to have a good time? If I'm doing my job correctly, you'll look up and you'll look down and you realize eight hours are gone. I'll make it fun. Hopefully I'll make you laugh. You're either gonna laugh with me or people are laughing at you, but there will be some laughter. And I like that part. I like that we can play, we can push and we can pull, and we can straddle that line between east and west, traditional and modern. I, I think I'm able to do that. But you'll have to be the judge.
- [22:23]
B
Well, I can attest to that. Yeah, it's true. And that's why you get. That's why you have a lot of Asian fans and followers who are really inspired by you to be an Asian. And yes, you're Asian America, but you're still Asian. And to stand out in the world stage is really very hard, very tough for Asian community. And to address your. One of your question that you. Or one of the comment that you made about why are we. So why do we put pedestal on Western branding? Yeah, Yeah, I think it's quite. I think it's a. It's part of what. Well, you know, I like to say to my Asian friends that one thing about American is that you guys are really great at marketing. Whether you're confident. I'm talking in general. Right. Whether you're confident or not, you can market yourself so well. The opposite is true for Asian. So we are human being, and I believe, from my experience is that we tend to buy into the surface star, that as long as it's popular, it looks good. If everybody else like it, it must be good. Which I don't think is true all the time, but that's how we are. That's our default. We are more geared towards popular, popularity, and anything popular. We listen to it, so we put more attention to it. And the challenge with Asian is that we can do a lot of good work, but we have such a hard time marketing ourselves and promoting ourselves. And that's the part that I feel that we can blend in with more of the Western culture, where by feeling more comfortable in sharing of ourselves and with no shame. So shame is a big cultural problem from Confucius, that we are being shamed into doing a lot of things, that the shame end up costing us in other areas that we where we can excel. But, you know, we are human being. We are one. We are a whole person. We can't have shame in one area and not have shame in another area. So promoting ourselves is like a big taboo. Would you agree with that?
- [24:33]
A
It is. We have a couple thousand years of Confucianism to unpack here.
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B
Yeah.
- [24:39]
A
So how much time do we have for this podcast and how long is the workshop again? Okay, but here's the cool part. The minute you decide you don't want to do anything or do it the same way before it's a minute, your life can change. My life has been full of moments like that where the road or my lifeline branches. Like that sacred timeline in the multiverse. It branched, and I chose the branch that was most optimal for me. So can you unpack 2000 years of Confucianism in a day? And the answer is, it depends. And you're like, what does it depend on? Well, it depends on that person that you see every day. Twice a day, the person looks back at you in the mirror. It depends on you.
- [25:26]
B
You know, I wanted to say that more people need to go through the same process as you, because it is through that process that we ask ourselves those questions. Do I want my future to look the same? No. And the people who say no are the people who take action. On the other hand, the people who give up are the people who just don't do anything.
- [25:50]
A
There's a scene in Good Will Hunting. So when Robin Williams says to Matt Damon's character, it's not your fault, because I know it's not your fault. I know it's not your fault. I know it's not your fault. You might experience one of those moments with me where I look you in the eye and I'll say, you're enough. And you'll say, I know you're enough. I know you're enough. So I, I, I, I jokingly say, I know everybody's about creating safe space. I create unsafe space because in the unsafe space there's friction, there's tension, and I don't know another way to make a diamond. Diamonds are made under a lot of pressure and heat.
- [26:44]
B
I agree it takes tension and pressure to change. And can I say just from my point of view, even though you say it takes unsafe space, but what you are doing is actually very safe. The reason why it's safe is because it might feel, the feeling might be, oh no, I'm going to go through this. Oh, Chris is going to roast me. Which is, you know, people like to, your followers like to joke about that. They love it by the way. They love the fact that you roast them. So it's not a negative anyway. And they also know that because of what you do, because of how you do it, they get to transform. And it is through the tension that people transform. Nothing happen if there's no tension. Too comfortable. That's why learning online has a problem. They are too comfortable. They are just listening passively. There's no real change because there's no tension. No one challenged them. And in my experience, my biggest transformation come when someone challenges me because it breaks me out of my, I call that it's like a zombie mode where I keep doing the same thing and I thought that I should know I'm doing it right. Why is it not happening? Why am I not, why am I not getting the result I'm getting? And it's a little bit like a, I don't know how to describe that. It's like I'm being trapped in my own ego of thinking that I know, but I'm just not getting it. And I can't change it until someone come and challenge me. And I suddenly, it's like a wake up call for me. And that's what you, I feel that that's what you do with people that, that scramble them so that they, they are not in their default mode. It's our default mode. That's the problem. And that's why they keep getting the same result. And they can't be challenged online. You can't, they can't, they can't get it online.
- [28:35]
A
I mean, if you can go get it. There are people who, I'm not, I'm not here to prescribe to anybody what's going to work, what's not going to work. I almost think it's better that people go to workshops or try things online with lots of different people so that when they experience something that we bring to the table, they'll have a point of reference. I heard this from somebody I would like to coach people who've been coached before, not someone who's never gone to see a coach, because they'll know the difference. They can see it and they can feel it, and they'll be able to say, oh, the last coach I talked to didn't say any of this. It wasn't doing any of this. And so I'm, I'm kind of a little bit more bought in, in this moment. Whereas a person who's never been coached, never gone to workshop, never worked on themselves, never got any kind of training, they're like, oh, yeah, this is how everything works. I'm like, let me tell you, it's not true. Harrison said this after the event. It's like, there's no pitch. You know, what people don't understand is people invite you to go to a workshop, and the reason why they want you to go to the workshop is because they have some exclusive mastermind. And then you go to exclusive mastermind, then they have a platinum one on one program, and then after that they have another program. So it seems like they're just designed to extract more and more money from you versus creating more value for you. I, I, I take what I do very seriously, even though how I do it is not at all, which is you've placed a certain amount of trust in us, made a commitment, and I need to honor that as a teacher first and foremost. So I want to make sure that you're having a good time. That's important to me. I want to make sure that there are things that you, you want to get resolved in your life and to learn relative to the subject that we're teaching, to make progress. Maybe it won't be perfect, but you're going to make progress. And to walk away saying to yourself, I enjoyed my time, I learned something, and I can apply something moving forward, that it's going to have material impact on My life and in my business, that's the first order, first principles, whatever we want to call it, I got to make sure of that. And outside of that, everything else is good.
- [30:48]
B
And that's one of the main reason why we decided to work with you. That's why we want to bring you to Singapore. Because we are very, very aligned with how you do that. We don't like pitch too. And we know because we have been in education industry for a long time, close to 30 years. And there are so many workshops or program out there that really. That do that, everything. They even do it during break time, before, after. And it's just. It's just distasteful. And that's the part that makes it unsafe because I'm supposed to. I just paid money to come here and learn so that I can apply what I learned to get the result. But here you are. Every single session, you are trying to pitch me the next thing. And how am I supposed to feel safe to open up myself to learn the real stuff?
- [31:38]
A
Yeah. Where else do we go with this conversation?
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B
I want to talk about value. What makes this experience in Singapore command a premium? And why are people still saying it's worth every single center?
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A
It's hard for me to tell you why it's worth whatever you're going to pay. And it's because in. In alignment with the things I try and teach you. It's not my job to prove to you, to justify as to what the value is. The price is the price. If you feel like if you got some of your problem solved, if you can capture that value back, that's on you. Like when I read a book, books are in general here in America, about $30 each. Some are a lot cheaper, some are a little bit more. But on average, I think it's about $30. Every time I read a book, I think I can make 30 grand. And that's conservative in terms of the investment. So you see all these books behind me. If I were to read and be able to apply and teach all the things I've learned in my life, I'd be sitting on a giant mountain of money. And so when we go to workshops and when we hire a coach and a consultant, my number one question is, will I be able to turn this into value for me? I think Jim Rohn said something like this, that wealth is. And I'm modifying it a little bit. Wealth is your ability to convert knowledge and experience into capital. I can become wealthy if I can take what I've learned and convert it into some kind of capital or currency or something else. And that's what I do. So I've read the books so you don't have to. And if you want to read all the books and learn the way I learn, go do that. It's a lot cheaper. But if you want to do it through the lens of someone who's applied it and sort of figured it out and can share in those experiences to create a fun, dynamic learning experience, and you think I'm the person to do it for you, then I'd be happy to be your teacher and your guide for all of this. Not somebody else will be or no one will be. That's up to you. I'm not overly invested in convincing you to come to this thing. Now, the best person to answer that question are people who've come to the workshop who can say, here's what I got from it, here's why I would come back, and here's why I want more.
- [33:46]
B
Well, I know you have a no convincing policy. So do we. It's not up to us to convince people. And I would say that, you know, at the end of the day, like you say, they have to decide for themselves what value and what return do they want for themselves if they were to join us and what are they willing to the price they're willing to pay. And yes, it's an investment, it's an investment in oneself, but it's really not up to us to decide. And we are confident that we are going to do the best job.
- [34:14]
A
It's perfect. Okay, so imagine that you show up to a Mercedes dealership and we see the S class in America. S class is probably between 80 to 120ish k, depending on what you add to it, right? Maybe a little bit more, I'm not sure. And you walk into the dealership like, why should I pay this? Why is it worth this much? And if I were running the dealership, I'm like, I don't know. Tell me what brings you into the dealership? We just have a conversation about it. It's not their job to convince you at the point in which you walk into the dealership to say, why is this worth it? Their job is to tell you about a story about who they are, what they stand for and who the customers are so that you make that decision before you even walk into the store. That's called branding, everybody. So why are we teaching branding and sales? Like, what are. What do these two things have to do with each other? Well, everything, friend. Because if your Brand is really strong. You won't have to sell at all.
- [35:16]
B
Okay, I have a question. Let's talk about money. You know how a lot of people, when it comes to talking about money, they feel a little bit awkward?
- [35:24]
A
Yes.
- [35:25]
B
And if you. Awkward, uncomfortable. Oh, you know, what do I say? How do I say it? How does this experience help them turn talking about money from something awkward into something natural and not to. Not just natural. They feel empowered.
- [35:42]
A
I think money for a lot of people in a lot of cultures, dirties the conversation. It creates a lot of tension for us because it takes something that's more relational and turns into transactional thing. But I think what money does is it takes away a lot of the ambiguity. I heard Simon Sinek explain this, and I love his explanation of this. Like, what is money really? So we just rewind the tape. I invite you over for dinner. I'll cook. And part of the bargain is you'll do the dishes. I cook, you do the dishes. Pretty fair, right? And this has been going on for some time. We're cool. And then one day you're like, hey, I have to run my cool. I owe you. So, okay, I cooked and I'll do the dishes. So next time you come over, it's like, let me make good on that iou. I will cook and also do the dishes. And so money has become an abstraction of this promise of an iou, and it's much more convenient and transportable than I brought two chickens to the dinner so that we're all even, Right? And once we move into this abstraction, we start to get away from the feeling of what is our will, that what is the goodwill that we're creating here? What is the promise that are made? So what I do is I give you money because I didn't do the dishes, but you can use that money to then have someone so close for you. And so someone who's not part of the original deal can fulfill that end of the deal. And that's how we move as society. So the problem has been, I think too many of us have negative associations with money. If you think back to your earliest childhood memories around money, there's a good chance that one of your parents handled money in a way that you found to be distasteful. I can speak to this. I think you correct me if I'm wrong. So I have memories of my mom taking me to the flea market swap meet and her negotiating with other vendors and using certain kind of negotiation practices that I thought were dishonest, distasteful. And somewhat manipulative. Now, my mom's a beautiful human being. She's like a saint. But in Asian culture, that's how we feel like we're getting our money's worth by negotiating and hemming and hawing about price. And it's very much a cultural thing, right? Especially in the Middle east, too. There's this idea that if you paid full price, you're stupid. So as a Westerner, I'm like, no, it's not. I'm not negotiating with you. This is not how we do it. I gave you a fair price, and if you don't like it, you don't have to buy. I didn't artificially jack the price up so that you can negotiate me down to the price in which I wanted to pay. But this happens a lot in the east and the Middle East. So if you're a little child and you see this happening, like, oh, this feels dishonest. It feels gross. Okay? That's the one thing. And money all of a sudden then has certain power. Like, if you want to buy a toy or outfit, a dress, something, shoot, I gotta go make money. And someone controls the money. I don't have the ability to make money. So we take these two powerful things. The concept of what money can do in terms of liberating us, giving us what we want, and while simultaneously saying the. The negotiation, the transactional part of money is very, very distasteful and has all kind of tension built in. What we don't know is that when we're little kids, we don't have the ability to process complicated emotional experiences. So we all put it into two categories. One, it was good, or two, it was bad, Right? If you see your mom or dad yell at somebody, you're, ooh, bad. Don't want that. Now, we're adults. We. We have the ability to transact. We're carrying around old stories with us. And so I think also, if you're an artist or a creative person, you're like, well, I just want to make art. I want to get back to the IOU system. But instead we have this monetary transactional system that I just don't like. It feels cheap. Feels like this heart, this soul, this energy I put into the making of this thing is now reduced down to an abstract thing that can be transferred to someone else. It doesn't feel right. So I think the first thing we need to do is understand what money is and have a new relationship with it. And I think I heard this from Blair Enns, the writer of The Win without Pitching manifesto. He said, think of money as a thank you note. That the more thank you notes you get, the more you know the clients appreciate what you do. And who here does not want to be appreciated? Well, everyone wants to be appreciated. We may not want to charge a lot, but we want to be appreciated a lot. And so I think the bigger the stack of thank you notes, the happier I am, the more I know I found the right client to do the best work of my life for and that I know that I'm being appreciated. And if you'd like not to be appreciated, charge a few bucks and see what happens. They will tell you they will not even pay you enough to buy a sandwich. So we have to have a different relationship with money. And what happens with all of us is we feel a lot of tension. And instead of focalizing what we're feeling, we internalize it. And he just gets worse and worse inside of us that. That negative energy compounds inside of us. And so what a lot of creative people do, even business types, they delay the money conversation to the very, very end and they awkwardly cause time's running out. Oh, yeah, by the way, it might cost this. You can't just blurt that out. Then it's super awkward. Really freaking awkward, man. So your inability to talk about money signals to the other person you're not a good business person. And conversely, your comfort in talking about money is a sign of good business acumen. And all I ask everyone to do is to relate it back to an experience in your life. When you walked into a business and you wanted to buy something, but they're really uncomfortable telling you what it costs. No price tags, long process. At some point you're probably going to punch somebody and you're going to leave. When I go into a store, I want to know exactly how much it costs. If you want to do me a giant favor, tell me what it's been selling for three months ago and what it might sell for in three months. So I know when I want to buy this.
- [42:08]
B
So since you mentioned that, because a lot of the conversational sales that we do that you. You help people with, it's about pricing and how do you position yourself, how you charge premium. And this is, I know this is especially for the creative industry, but I think the Inc. Many business owner have a similar challenge. So it applies quite across the board. Like how do people know whether they are charging the right price and feel great about it? Because that's part of what gets in the way of people asking for the price they want, am I charging too high, too low, or is it, you know, that or they feel good about what they are charging because if they don't, they know they are doing good work, but they don't necessarily know whether it's the right price or not.
- [42:58]
A
Right. Well, we're, we're kind of introducing some concepts here that I want people to be aware of. The, the processes of sales to me, leads naturally to a pricing conversation. When you're not good at having the conversational, the conversation around sales, the pricing conversation is really, really awkward. If you do this correctly, the price will present itself. I don't want to get into value based pricing because that's a whole nother workshop, a whole nother day. But what I will tell everyone is this is if you can do a few simple things. Let me lay it out for you, okay? Number one, if you could help to determine what a person's desired future state is like where they'd like to be X days, weeks, months from now. Where are they now? What's getting in their way? You've done a lot of good things already. So where are you now in your business? Where would you like to be? What's getting in your way? What if you tried, what has worked, what hasn't? Tell me about that. And you start to understand and unpack all this information with the, with the client. What do you think will solve this problem? A lot of questions, basically. So if you got this solution and it got you this result, it would be worth this amount of money to you? It's a lot of questions. And then you said yes. Am I missing anything? No. Okay, so if you were presented with a solution that costs a fraction of the value that was created, would you be excited to move forward? And their answer, if you've done this correctly, yes. Well, I have good news for you. May I share some insights? Yes. Why Notice X, Y and Z. And instead of doing A, you did B, you would get there twice as fast. Would you like to move forward? They say yes. So the reason why you don't know what is fair is because you don't get to decide what's fair. The person you're selling to decides what is fair. You can decide what's fair for you. So what you want to do is you just want to have a conversation. So all of us say, say it doesn't have to be complicated. Let's say you sell a $10,000 coaching package. That's a pretty good amount, right? $10,000 coaching package. If you don't have a conversation about the value, the impact that you create. 10,000 is a lot of money. That's like two and a half Louis Vuitton bags. I think that's a lot or that's a fifth of a down payment towards a 3 or 5 series now fully loaded. It's a lot of money. And I learned this from my business coach many, many years ago is value is contextual. Nothing is too expensive or too cheap. Against nothing you need context. So the part that most people don't understand is how to structure the conversation around what is the context. They're so focused on the sale and the ask and the pitch that they forget about all this other stuff. What's the context? And that's all I try to do is I try to teach people how to ask the questions to get the context. And by the end of the conversation, you know, it's a good fit or it's a terrible fit. And that's totally okay.
- [46:15]
B
One last question because this is a very common Asian mindset, especially in Singapore, because you, you asked me before about Singapore mindset and since we are going to do the workshop, workshop in Singapore, I'm going to address that. You might laugh at me because you know, in Singapore, fear is one of the predominant emotion that drive everything. Okay, so we have this saying in, in Chinese that says that in Singapore we are driven by fear of the government, fear of their wife, fear of, fear of losing out, which is formal and fear of death. Everything is fear based. So what would you, what would you say to these people when it comes to people being so driven around the fear of what if something goes wrong? Essentially that's what people are afraid of.
- [47:07]
A
I'm going to tackle this maybe three or four different ways again. My, my business former business coach K, he used to work as a lifeguard and he said by the poolside. He's. His job is to make sure kids don't drown. He goes, it's the weirdest thing he's ever seen. Kids in the pool, the deep end starts a panic fierce. His death is imminent. He says it's really weird. All they have to do is reach out and grab the coping of the pool. But you know what they do? They swim to the far side and of course they're going to drown. So then he has to jump in and pull their butts out. So he goes, when we're panicked, when we're operating in a place out of scarcity, when we're nervous about what other people are thinking, we're not making great Decisions. We're swimming to the wrong side of the pool. We will drown and your business will drown. Figuratively, I think. What if. What if this happens? I like what if questions, but most of the what if questions are pointed in the wrong direction. What if this doesn't work out? What if this is a waste of time or money? What if a client says no? What if they have a better option that's all pointed in one direction, the negative direction? Let's take that same thinking. Let's orient ourselves 180 degrees. What if this is a bargain? What if they've been dying to work with me? What if they had so many bad experiences that this is going to be a relief for them? What if this solution allows them to really focus on their business and grow it to a level in which they've never seen before? What if they let me drive the entire engagement? What if they refer me to all their rich friends? What if this becomes the point in my business history that is the beginning of something amazing. What if in a year from now we're celebrated for the incredible work we've done and are standing on stage accepting a lifetime achievement award? What if we're on the COVID of a prominent business or social magazine? What if our account blows up? So I like, what if it's just pointed in the right direction? Why y'all focus on so much negativity? Next one. You're afraid of negative outcomes. That's a normal human response. So when somebody asks me, should I do something? They're asking a question again in the abstract, should I invest in this property? And they don't know what to do. So I say, well, what else do you want to do with your money? Well, I could leave in a bank. Okay, that's one thing I can invest in this other kind of thing. Or there's a lot of different things where I can invest in myself. So, well, given all the possible options, what has the highest upside potential with the lowest potential for downside? Act accordingly. So people usually just ask one question, like, should I do this? I'm like, I don't know. Should you? What are the alternatives? So we consider the alternatives, and then we decide accordingly. There's a very easy answer to all this stuff, which is, what if nothing changes 3, 5, 10, 20 years from now? Do you see that version of yourself being happier than today? And if the answer is yes, don't change anything. Stay on that winning track. Very few people are motivated to change when everything's working really well. For example, if you have six pack abs. You're not going to change your diet and your workout routine because you're at peak performance physical condition right now. If you're the world champion, you might tweak a few things here and there, but you're not going to go and wholesale change everything. You're not going to. You shouldn't change your trainer, your habits, your diet, how you process the game day rituals. You don't change all that. This is why athletes have a lot of superstitions, because they wore that sock, they touched this emblem, and they said this prayer, and they counted to 55. And then they entered the field and they played the game, and they played the best game of their lives. Sports psychologists will say, what is your re. What is your winning routine? Do that again, retrace the steps. And a lot of this is mental. But as we've learned, the mind influences the body. So when you get your mind right, the body will follow. So you can imagine a negative outcome and say, well, if nothing changes, this is what I've signed up for. If you're content with that, do not change anything. It would be crazy for you to. If you're living your best life, doing your best work for the best clients, making a freaking ton of money while working less, stay on that track. So there's a. There's a quote. I don't know who said it. I'm gonna say Zig Ziglar, but it's probably not. I'm not sure everybody. And the saying is, if nothing changes, nothing changes a hundred percent. And it would be insane to think otherwise.
- [52:05]
B
That's cool. I think that's a great way to end today's session. And I really. Yeah, I think it's a, you know, really, the what if is such a great question, but it depends on where we are, how we look at the question.
- [52:19]
A
Yeah. So I will say this. The. The podcast goes out to 10, 15, 20,000 people. Some people are interested in what we're talking about. Some people aren't. That's totally cool. Some people are in a place where they'd like to come. Some people aren't. So this really is just a message for the people who are curious, who've determined that their best days are ahead of them. But it's going to require some action. I do want to say this. The workshops in Singapore, it's in June, and if you want to come, read the description in the show notes.
- [52:55]
B
We are passionate and committed to make Cristo event in Singapore the best of the best. And you are going to experience the best of the best. The the best of of the best, Chris, because that's what we want from him. And we love for you to experience him with us.
- [53:14]
A
Can't think of a better way to say that. So on that note, Victoria, thank you very much for having this conversation with me. And dear listener, thank you also for indulging me and sharing some of my thoughts and philosophies on personal branding and sales. If if you walk away with nothing else, I just want you to think about this. If your business could use a little extra boost, work on your personal brand because that accelerates everything that you do. And if your personal brand is really strong, learn how to do a little bit of sales. And if both suck, I have good news for you because I'm going to teach you both. That's the best that I can do. Until next time, take care of yourself.