← Travis Makes Money
Travis Makes Money
SOLO | Make Money by Mastering High-Level Conversations (Even If Networking Terrifies You)
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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the show. Today it's just me, you and the mic. We're just talking, just us. We're talking a little bit about the unspoken rules of high level conversations. So I have been very blessed in the last few years to have conversations with anybody from billionaires to New York Times bestsellers to celebrities, athletes, influencers, you name it, sort of the whole gamut, everybody in between. And I was not good at it at first. Surprise, surprise. You do something for the first time and you're not any good at it. But it is something that I feel like I've gotten better at over the years and it's just through repetition because at first I definitely was in a couple situations where I embarrassed myself. Now luckily it was with sort of like micro famous people where the stakes weren't as high. There were still obviously people who were important to me and it was still an embarrassing thing. And I ultimately, funny enough, I ended up being able to tell the story to the people that were involved in an awkward setting on stage because I was a speaker at the same event that they were speakers at. So it was sort of like, okay, now we can all have a good laugh about this. But at the time I remember it being like, well, that did not go well. And I stuck my foot in my mouth one too many times and started figuring out, okay, if I don't, I don't know what I'm doing here, I should probably get better at this. And so the first thing that I did is I just shut up and, and stopped talking. So I would do my best to find my way into rooms that I did not necessarily belong in. And then I wouldn't say anything to basically anybody. Not, not, not to say that I would just shy away in a corner and, and sit by myself or, and sulk. It's just that I, I would have an initial conversation we presentation, but I would not say much about me or what I did. I would only answer their questions and then try to revert back or defer back to them and ask them more questions. So it sort of just became like I'm here just to observe more than I am to, you know, wow everybody with this amazing story that I have. So there's a few things that I've noticed that are really helpful when it comes to having high level conversations with high caliber folks. And this obviously presupposes that you've already done the work to get into the room, which is a whole nother podcast episode hunter conversation. Probably something we'll talk about here on the show soon. But I've seen just, I've firsthand witnessed one too many people destroy an opportunity to, to genuinely connect with somebody who I can tell they have the highest regard for because they just butchered the actual conversation itself. They butchered the actual interaction. So there's a few things that I've noticed that have been helpful for me over the years. Do with them. What will number one, preparation. The more you know, the bigger the advantage that you have inside of the context of the conversation. Now, this is not something that you can always plan for, right, because if you randomly run into somebody that you would love to meet out and about in, you know, Universal Studios, then you're, you will not have been able to be prepped leading up to that. And it's sort of inconsequential. But for the purpose of this show, for the majority of people are listening, we're not necessarily even talking about a list celebrities. We're not talking about meeting, you know, your childhood hero here. We're more talking about who are the movers and shakers inside of your industry. Who are the people who are the thought leaders, the people who are speaking on stage, people who are writing the books, people are hosting the podcast, sort of the, the, the connectors, the, the super connectors inside of the world that you want to be involved in. And chances are, if you see those people, it's probably not a random interaction at an airport. It's probably because you are. If it isn't, if it is an interaction at the airport, it's probably because you're in the same town, going to the same conference type of a thing, you know, so the, those, those, those connections are much more purposeful and so you can prepare for them before you go to the event. So this is what I used to do. If I know I'm going to an event, I pull the whole speaker lineup for the event and I do a little bit of research about all the speakers, even the ones that I didn't really know, like trust, recognize or any of those things beforehand. I want to come prepared just to be like, okay, if I happen to run across this person, I can bring this up. If I happen to run across this person, I can bring this up and I'll be As prepped as I can be without taking it to a whole new level where it just becomes almost creepy. Like you don't want to, you don't want to give out stalker vibes, especially depending on the context of the initial connection point. But you do want to have a little bit of prep, just have something you can fall back on, even if it's just sort of brief familiarity with their content or maybe they wrote a book, just some. Something that, where you could be able to ask a question and dive further into a topic than most people would be able to. And I don't know why, but the first example that that popped in my mind, popped up in my mind about this is movie Groundhog Day. You guys ever seen that with Bill Murray? And the. Basically the, the movie turns into this sort of, you know, romance thing where he's trying to date this girl and does not having luck on the first couple of tries. And then eventually he basically just knows so much about her and that he can engineer whatever conversation that he wants to engineer or he can set up, you know, this, the beginning point to a conversation, or he knows her drink order, so he knows how to get in touch with her because they happen to order the same drink, you know, like sweet vermouth on the rocks of the twist and they both say it at the same time and then they, you know, start connecting. It's like the more prepped he was, the easier it was for him to be able to make a lasting impression on that person because he just knew more about that person. So it's not rocket science. And again, you don't, you don't want to come in with this like stalker level information type of a thing. But knowing something will take you a lot further than knowing nothing. So number one, preparation. Number two, frame. You need to control the frame at least as much as this episode of.
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Out, and it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this. When I started my podcast, I wasn't even sure what I was doing, to be honest with you. What if nobody listens? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I'm embarrassed? You know, what if nobody buys stuff.
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That I put out there?
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You can again, not much of a chance to control the frame. You run into somebody at the airport or something, but other Than that you try to control the frame as much you can. So I'll give you just a specific example here on this one. I. When I first got started in the space, I remember I was at an event that a mentor of mine was speaking at, and I. He invited me to the event to help him sell some of his products at his booth in the back. So basically, I think. I think what it was is he was friends with the event organizer, but they weren't paying him to speak. So because they weren't paying him to speak, they allowed him to sell a bunch of his, like, merch and stuff like that in the, sort of the lobby area. And so I volunteered to sell a bunch of stuff for him, mainly because I just wanted to go get around him, build a better relationship and add value in whatever way that I possibly could. Which at that time meant volunteering three days of time to go work an event for free. And while I was at that event, I remember this guy got recognized for being the top affiliate for the event. And I remember watching that from the back of the. Of the back of the. The event venue and thinking, that can't be that difficult. I'm going to do that and I'm going to be back next year and I'm going to. I'm going to win that. And so I ended up winning. I have two, two years in a row I ended up winning. But the reason that I wanted to win it was not for, like, the trophy that they gave me. It was because if you became the top affiliate, top ambassador for the event, then you got a backstage pass for the remainder of the event. And so two years in a row, I got to be backstage meeting all of the speakers that were coming through the event, some of whom I had a relationship with. And so it was. It was easier for me to talk to this person who I knew, and then this person would up who's also speaking at the event. And then it was like, oh, this person, Meet this person. And then they would introduce me to them. So this is what I mean by controlling the frame. The reason it became so important to me, and I worked really hard to sell a bunch of tickets to somebody's event that I got paid next to nothing for the re. Like, I didn't do it because of the affiliate commissions, and I didn't do it because I just really wanted to sell this event out. It was that it gave me a strategic advantage to connect with a bunch of people because I could control the frame of the connection. Now I'm not Just a random person in the audience that's coming up to them at the step and repeat, taking a picture and talking to them for 30 seconds in a line of, you know, 75 people. Now I'm backstage at the event that they're speaking at and the only other people that are back there are the event organizers and other speakers of at the event and then me. So it was an initial conversation of like, well, who is this guy? What is it? And so. So actually one of my good friends who actually ended up passing recently. Rest in peace, Steve, Steve Sims. He. He came up to me at, at the, in backstage at this event and we built a great relationship. It lasts for. For a really long time as somebody I looked at as a big mentor of mine. But I remember he came up to me because I was talking to one of the other influential speakers at that event who I had already built a connection with because of my podcast. And we, we had done a podcast swap. He was speaking at the event, I was talking to him. We were just kind of cutting up and like laughing, having a good time. And Steve comes up to me and was just like, hey, I wanted to introduce myself because it seems like, it seems like everybody back here just likes you. And he's like, you, you, you seem, you seem to have like a good, you know, energy about you, a good relationship with those people, which if you know, Steve is sort of like anti Steve energy. Like, Steve's not, Steve's not like a woo woo, you know, energy reader type of a guy. But. But he was basically just saying like, you seem like a likable person because these other people who I also know, like trust, respect and am friends with, are like seemingly friends with you. And I don't really know you, so maybe I should know you. And so we start, you know, having conversations. And that happened with multiple people backstage at this event. So I did it again for the second year and then the second year I actually recommended a speaker who is a friend of mine that I built off relationship from the podcast. And then I sort of. So I was backstage because I was top affiliate and then they had like a super VIP secret experience event, you know, like a dinner one night for, for like VIP ticket holders or inner circle ticket holders, which like general admission was like 300 bucks, VIP was 800 bucks, and inner circle was like 3500 bucks because they basically just had a, you know, really small room with all of the speakers at the event and like, you know, two dozen other people who paid the 3,500 bucks to be there. And I got invited to that because now I was backstage because of all these other things. And then I got to know the event organizers, and I got to know this other person of value, and I introduced that person to the event organizers. They hired her to speak. And then because they hired her to speak, speak, and because she liked me and trusted me more than anybody else at that event, she brought me along with her to all these other things. So then I'm into this other room where now I meet some other people. So I guess my, my, my whole point of bringing that up is like the frame, the, the frame of meeting these people backstage was so much more powerful than just being another person in the audience. And then the frame of being introduced to those people from somebody that I already knew, that I already knew from my podcast who had good things to say about me, that was another, another powerful frame to meet another person from. And so it, it's, it's, it works wonders when you go from, you know, meeting somebody in the line at Starbucks to, to now I'm backstage and another authoritative, credible person is introducing me to that person. So control the frame as, as long as it's within your ability to control. And I had, I, I had this happen recently with a client of mine, and we're having the fan versus peer conversation. I was just like, look, when you are talking to anybody who's highly influential, somebody who has a lot of demands on their time, they're either famous or they're well known within the niche that they're in, or they're an author. Like they, they have done something well, when you're having that conversation, you are telling them whether or not to put you in the fan bucket or to put you in the peer bucket. And it is possible to be both. By the way, a lot of my friends I'm big fans of, but they're also peers of mine because we've built actual friendships and relationships at this point. So the fan bucket looks like somebody who goes up to them at the step and repeat after they're done speaking to say like, oh my gosh, your talk was so amazing. I've read all your books, I listen to all your podcasts. It's so good. And they like, they, they, they vomit their admiration for this person because they think that's going to establish a great connection when it's really basically just the same thing that's been said from the previous 30 people that they spoke to in line. And so there's no way for them to remember that interaction action. So if you come across with this peer attitude, which again, being backstage and being introduced by another peer is like, now I'm in the peer bucket, not the fan bucket, even though I might be a fan. And so this happened with, with a client recently where I was coaching her on, on connecting, on networking, essentially on how to have, how to, how to meet and sustain high valuable people as relationships in your life. And she, she had sent a pitch, like a cold video pitch, which was one of the things I was helping her through. And she sent it over to me to critique and basically say, hey, check this out before I send it to this person. And I first of all love that she took the action to actually send the video like I had told her to. But as soon as, as soon as she started talking on the video, the very first thing that I thought was like, you're immediately a fan. You've auto. You've automatically put yourself in the fan bucket. And it's a difficult line to ride because you want to give them the idea that, like, hey, I know your Stu. I've read your book. It was impactful to me. This one piece was extremely valuable and I appreciate you for taking the time to distill that and give that information out into the world. So you want to, like, give that, you know, perception across, but without coming, but without being like this. Oh my gosh, it would be, it would be the most amazing thing if you would just get back to me, like, just to hear your voice and if you just like this message or see it, that would mean the world to me, like, to come across with that type of energy. You're immediately just telling them, put me in the fan bucket and never treat me like a peer. So try to avoid that as much as possible. So I sent, sent the message back to her just like, hey, video's good, energy's good, but you, you sound way too much like a fan. So let's trim that part down. Let's take down the, the, you know, high fangirl type energy and come across a little bit more authoritative. Still give a compliment because you respect this person and you like their content. Obviously you wouldn't be reaching out to them to be a guest on your podcast, but let's take the, the fandom down, you know, a little bit. And she ended up getting the yes. She. She sent it over and she reached out to me a week or two later to say that he ended up saying yes and he's coming to my show now. And it was like her dream guest for her podcast. So you cannot, you, you cannot put yourself into the fan bucket. You want to try to be the peer. So that's, that's kind of what I mean by the frame is you got to control the frame through which the introduction to you is made, as much as it's within your ability to control. So number one, preparation. Number two, frame number three, conversation. Once you get into the actual conversation, whether it's backstage, whether it is at the step and repeat, or whether it's after the event or wherever, you end up getting to meet this person or talk to this person, listen more than you talk. Stop word vomiting on these people, man. Like you, you got to think about, especially in these, in these contexts of being at an event, they're being hit up by so many people. Like everybody's coming to them, talking to them. If they just got off stage, everybody's gonna want some of their time, so everybody just starts vomiting. All I get the idea is that you're trying to make an impact, so you're trying to say something that's gonna, that's gonna massively impact them. And in reality, if you would just listen more than you talked and ask a couple good questions, you're much more likely to be remembered at that point than somebody else who just came in, word vomited and tried to go through a list of bulleted items and points as to why they're worthy of being connected with. And I watched this play out actually at that same event, the one I referenced earlier, where I was there with my, a mentor of mine. I was working the booth for him, and so I watched people, you know, I was actively selling his stuff for him. But then sometimes he would come to the booth and especially after his, his spot on stage, when, after he spoke, he came to the booth and he was talking to people, he was signing books and, you know, stuff like that. And I just remember watching just person after person after person come up and talk to him in this line that was forming at the booth and, and just the most egregious word vomiting storms you can imagine where people are just posturing their positioning. They're trying to make it seem like they're a badass. And they're, they're, they're talking about all the things, amazing things that they've done. And then I'm watching the, my mentor, the person that I'm there with, who everybody's trying to connect with and get some time from and make an impact on, and he's just standing there for three minutes of silence. Just kind of like shaking his head and being like, like, wow, great. Okay, cool. Thanks for coming up. See you later. And then he'd just kick him out of line and talk to the next person, because you can't just talk for forever when there's a. When there's a line behind him. And I just watched people fumble so many times where I was like, I am not going to do that. When I get the opportunity to connect with somebody that I want to connect with, I am going to ask the best questions that I possibly can and then just shut up, up and. And just listen. Let them talk. Let them. Let them give some sort of information or give some wisdom or, like, let me glean something from this interaction rather than trying to make it seem like I'm awesome and that you should connect with me. And counterintuitively, what happens is they remember those interactions more because they felt like they genuinely could have an impact on me. Like, they felt like I was genuinely somebody who was willing to listen and learn, rather than somebody who is being like, I have nothing to learn from you. We're actually same. And in fact, I'm better than you, really, if you think about it, you know, like, that's the perception that people are trying to give off on that in that frame. And I'm over here just trying to be a sponge, and I just want to learn as much as I can. And those interactions will give you much more of an ability to make an impact. Because what happens is when I ask a question. Now we're into the conversation part, right? So the conversation part. Now I can start searching for commonalities that we have, like, other core commonalities qualities, because the more ties you can gain with the person, the more likely they are to become a friend of yours. Meaning that, like, okay, we met at a business conference, so that. So we know that we're both interested in at least this one thing, right? So you're interested in business, I'm interested in business. That's great. But if we have another thing that we have in common, like eating healthy or going to the gym or biohacking or something like that, and we have another thing in common, like we both have a podcast. We have another thing in common. Like we both have kids, we have another thing in common, like we both both are fans of the same sports team or something like that, those. Those things, those ties start to glue the connection a little bit more in a more solidified way where it's not just one string that's holding us together, but it's sort of like becoming this rope of, of multiple strings woven together as a bunch of different connection points that are allowing me then to be able to.
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To.
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To. To use those commonalities as a way to continue to form a friendship. Especially after the event's done. Done is that afterwards you can shoot them a follow up email or something if they can give you some contact information, shoot them a follow up email, shoot them a DM or something like that. And then you only mention the things that you have in common with them that have nothing to do with the core thing that everybody has in common with them. Like we're both in business, whatever that thing was. And then you can mention those things later on. You're much more likely to get them to actually remember the interaction even though they were the ones talking for the majority of the time. So listen more than talking. Be an be. Be an observer man. Just, just observe the room. Observe the social dynamics. I learned so much, much from getting myself and again getting myself into rooms I did not belong in and just watching, just watching what people did, watching the way that this person entered the room and the rest of the room turned and looked at that person, started talking about that person or, or watching the way that these three people interacted with this person or watching this group of people avoid this person because this person is a networking ned word vomit artist who's just going to come cannibalize the conversation. Like I watched all of the. These social dynamics at hand and I learned so much by just being there that almost informed my own playbook that I used to go better connect with people that were in the room. So listen more than you talk, observe the room and have as much. And this to be fair is just an advantage of my personality type is that I tend to just be chill for the most part. And in those type of environments where there's a lot of type A personality, there's a lot of go getter mentality, there's a lot of word vomiting, networking neds. In those contexts, the chill personality type tends to. Tends to win the the connection game because it's just different. It's different in a sea of people that are trying to posture and trying to have this high energy that can come across fake and authentic. Sometimes when I would connect with those people, I just would shake their hand like they're a normal freaking person, look them in the eye and ask a generic like regular question. Like I would talk to a buddy at a bar and just that one thing. It breaks down the barriers. You Know, it's the same thing of like you're doing door to door sales. You knock on somebody's door, the trust barrier is so high because they know that you're there to sell them something. And in these contexts it's sort of the same thing. It's like they know that every person talking to them want, want something from them. So if I can immediately break that tension at the very beginning of the interaction by coming across with this more like chill tonality and overall energy, then I'll have much, again, a much easier time building that connection because they, they don't get that initial ick vibe that I'm only there to talk to them because I want something from them. So listen when you talk, observe the room and have a chill tonality when you're in conversation with these people. And then lastly, this is something that comes from my friend and mentor, Sharon Srivatsa. He has the acronym BAM fam, which basically just means book a meeting from a meeting. And it's in the sales context. So he's, you know, talking about talking to a prospect. And if you know that it's not going to close on that round, you've already gone through some objections, whatever, then you always, you never want to leave that initial meeting without booking another meeting. So it's not enough just to say that like, okay, well let's talk next week. It's like, okay, on Tuesday next week, I have a 10 o' clock and 11 o' clock open. Which one works better for you? Always book the meeting before you finish the previous meeting. So it says bam fam. So in this context, I, I say this sounds gross. Honestly, I've thought about changing it, but it is what it is back. I don't know what it is about that, but it sounds, it sounds like some, it sounds like a sexual position or something, but backpack. Build a connection from a connection. So meaning that this is a hu. Reason why I love having my podcast because it, it gives me an excuse to build, to further build on the connection from our initial connection by just asking them to come on the show. If I'm talking to somebody again, if it's backstage or, you know, I'm at an event or something like that and I meet somebody and I've really enjoyed the conversation and I want to find an excuse to continue the conversation later on. The podcast is just a perfect excuse to build a connection from the connection. So while I'm there, I'm just gonna be like, hey, I have this podcast, you know, we. And it. And it probably has already come up in conversation at that point just because it's a huge part of what I do personally. And it may not. If you are an entrepreneur listening to this and you do a bunch of other stuff in the pot and you do a podcast as sort of like as a, you know, lead gen tool or authority building tool or content generating tool or something like that, it may not come up naturally in the conversation, but this is the time where you can bring it up and I just ask like, hey, is there a time that we could, you know, have an, have another conversation or we can dive into, dive further into this one thing that we were talking about Because I think that we could have a great conversation on the podcast. So try if you can, to build a connection from your initial connection, find an excuse to continue working on opening up that, that the doors of friendship, so to speak. But you won't be able to get to that point if you do everything else terribly. And you're definitely not going to get a good result if you do everything else. Like you might, you might have, you might have gotten into the room, you might have made the connection, you might know a lot about them, you might have had a decent frame. But if you suck at having the conversation and you cannibalize it and you talk about yourself and you and you make them feel bad about the interaction overall, they're probably not eager to continue the interaction at another day. But if you can do the things that we've already talked about and nail those parts of it, then it's sort of like the natural conclusion to this is like, hey, you know, we both were sort of vibing here, we've had a good conversation, we agree on a number of things. So maybe it'd be great for us to continue this conversation later. And I found that that typically will work out better for you. So unspoken rules of high level interactions with high caliber people. Preparation frame conversation and remember backfac. If you can remember that in a non sexual way, I don't know why it sounds like that to me. Anyway, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll catch you guys next time. Peace out.