An Uncommon Catalyst for Strategic Business Growth

In the latest episode of The Water Trough, I chat with Bob Musial about the power of laughter in strategic business development. Learn how humor enhances credibility and engagement. Tune in for a great discussion! #StrategicGrowth #BusinessTalks #Podcast 

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to the Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've always wanted. Hello folks, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I wanna welcome you back to the Water Trough where today I am joined by Bob Musial, who is the principal of StreetSmart Business Development Incorporated. Now I'm gonna give you a different sort of an intro here, and I'm gonna ask you a question. You know, when you had run into someone who talks but doesn't listen? They do a really, really, really bad self-serving presentation. They never follow up with you on time, and basically they're just annoying. Well, enter Bob Musial. Bob is going to help, does help business leaders enhance their strategic business development and revenue generation by addressing these issues. And he tries to have a little fun in the process too. And I gotta tell you something, Bob is hilarious. He sends out these really, really cool cartoons every time he talks to you. Well, don't worry, you don't have to get overwhelmed. They're really cool cartoons. Okay? He just makes it really exciting and fun. And he's also available to explain further how it all works on a project basis. But today I have the good fortune of being joined by my friend Bob Musial, who's gonna just have a great time with us and some great discussion. Bob, welcome. Mr. Ed this has been in the works for a while and I'm thankful for finally being able to have the opportunity to do this with you'cause we are friendly and, i'm looking forward to it. Thank you sir. This is really a great opportunity for me and I'm not gonna, in any way, shape or form dismiss the importance of the humor that you bring to the table. In fact, I'd like to start right there. Sure. You value humor as most of us do, but tell me what got you started on this? You've been at this for 50 some odd years. What the heck? Where'd the humor start? Well, I'd like to think I'm funny. My wife would probably disagree with that, but I think life's too short. And my favorite three words, Ed, are you gotta laugh, and I found that other people react the same way. Probably 25 or 30 years ago, I worked with a company that started to send out five by seven postcards with a cartoon in the front that captured the essence of a situation that a prospect would be able to relate to. On the flip side, it had the answer and it would say(I was a VP of whatever at the time) contact Bob Musial if you wanna know more. They were great, and I think maybe you and I have talked about them in the past a little bit, but these were sent out to people. People once they got them would call me back and say, do you have other ones that you could send me? I was over in Europe at one point, and my host was introducing me to his colleagues. We walked into a big room with about five or six people in it, and they were all at their workstations, and my host started out by saying this is Bob Musial. Immediately this woman got up and silenced him, and she said Bob, he's the one who sent me these things and she pointed over to the cartoons that she had in her bulletin board. I didn't have to say anything. She sold me, and I've been using them for a long time. I'm thinking about maybe sending postcards out again because while it's old school, it will be new school to some people now, and we're all inundated with internet and spam and texting and everything and to get something tactile is a little different. I use the cartoons to act as a memory anchor basically, it will typically reflect a relevant situation that the target audience will be able to relate. And then like the woman who said, Bob's the one who sent me these, they remember who sent it. When I use them in email outreach efforts, they set the stage and then people will usually read a short email and know who I am. When I use them in articles it stops people, it takes like four seconds to get it and like, oh, I get it. They remember, then they're driven to read the rest of the article and they remember who wrote it. It's just a great memory anchor and that's a long answer to your question, but that's how I got started. And there's also a qualifier for me. If somebody laughs, I'm gonna get along well with them. If they don't laugh, I don't wanna work with them anyhow, so it's a great qualifier. I think that last point is really, really important. If they laugh mm-hmm, we're gonna get along. Yeah. If they don't laugh, I don't wanna work with them. Yeah. That brings us to a really important point. We can be, those of us in business can be selective about with whom we work. Right? Right. And using a criteria criterion in this case, such as are we able to engage in humor is a really good one, because what I'm hearing you say that, that opens you up to engagement. I'm sensing that you think that they're saying they also are open to engagement as a result of their response. Tell me more about this. Yeah. They are open to it more and in my opinion, Ed, it takes away the impression that people might have a, trying to sell them something. I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to convince them to buy something, but I'm doing that based on three core communication categories that I believe impact that. It's credibility and it's trust, and its value and the humor gives me the opportunity to prove that I can do those things, that I have studied, what their issues are. I understand what problems they face because I incorporate them into the cartoons. Then when I have a recommendation for them, they trust what I'm telling them, because I invested time already in them and that whatever I'm recommending will provide some type of value, real value, ROI value to them, and when we do that on an ongoing basis, the end result is revenue for both of us. It's win, win, win, you know. I think that's fantastic. I often say that if my clients win, I win. And you're, telling us the same thing. Correct. But you're putting it upfront in an atmosphere that really encourages engagement. And I love the idea that you are also selective by that token,'cause you know that if people can't engage in that humor, that it will be a barrier to you, perhaps, doing your best job. Now, I'm not saying you would do a bad job. Maybe I should step back a bit. No, you're good. You that I'm gonna interrupt you. No, that's exactly right. Okay. I don't wanna work with them. I said before, life's too short. No, it's not worth it. And I'm not probably going to convince them of anything to buy from me anyhow, so. Mm-hmm. No, I just stopped. I mean, I'm not ignorant about it. You know, I just okay. Thanks a lot, have a nice day. Well, sure, of course you are. If you're gonna take that approach in the first place, you are going to be mindful of their response, of their feelings and sentiment. Absolutely. Yes. You know, the idea of buying from and selling to, what a powerful distinction that is. I learned that a long time ago. I was fortunate enough to work for a very exclusive sales program, a consultative sales program that focused on soft skills and hard skills, that was developed by a division of Xerox called Xerox Computer Services. Mm-hmm. I was fortunate enough to go through this program. Some of my colleagues who worked there went on to create solution selling and I mean this is really a good program. I certainly appreciated it, and I learned a lot, a thousand years ago. The things that I learned then I've been using ever since. How to qualify somebody, how to interact with them, how to get them to nod their head and importantly how to shut up and listen. Mm-hmm. Because if you're not listening you're not getting anything out of it and neither are they. I learned it a long time ago. Right. And I was appreciative. I still am. I still stay in touch with some of the people from 30 years ago that I work with. I had to turn my eyes up in my head to see how long ago it was. It was a long time ago, and it was great. It was software as a service before it was known as that. I sold software in the mid to early seventies. Nobody knew what software was, let alone hardware so it was a great experience. It sounds like your upbringing, your education in the sales process was soft skills driven. Yeah, absolutely. And to be humorous is a soft skill too, I suppose. Yes, I think so. Yeah, it's a good form of communication. I think generally speaking, people are endowed with a sense of humor. Some of them might bury it a little bit, but for the most part, like I said, if somebody's scanning, they're inundated with all the trivial stuff, the zoom meetings and blah, blah, blah, during the course of the day, this stops them and it arrests them and grabs their attention right away and that they smile. I'm working with a client right now, or I have been for the, well for years actually and I convinced him to finally include a quote in one of his openings to his colleagues and to prospects as well. And the quote went like this, it said, airline pilot to passengers. I have bad news and I have good news. The bad news is we're hopelessly lost. The good news is we're making great time. So he just, they did what you just did. They broke out laughing'cause that defined their situation that they're running everywhere. They don't know what the heck is going on, but they're making great time. So he used it and he said it was great. He had their attention right away. It took seconds. I've been in those businesses with a former boss who got up, we had a good opportunity to get in front of a pharmaceutical company. The decision makers, I think there were 15 people in the room, he got up with his PowerPoint immediately launched into talking about how great he was, and I did this, and I said that, and I'm like sitting there shaking my head and the decision makers said, pardon me. My staff and I have to go to another meeting. Could you just answer these three questions for me? He said, you know what? I'm going to get them, but I want to go through the rest of the slides first. There were 98 of them, 98. Now, what do you think happened with the decision maker after she heard that? She got up with her, colleagues and left. As opposed to the guy telling us a quickie about good news, bad news, we're hopelessly lost. Right? By doing that, he set the stage for people to be receptive, to what he was saying. The laughter just brings down barriers. In a good way. It's very disarming and, yes, it's in a very positive way because I think when faced with something funny, it's very difficult to, you know how we shoot the messenger because he or she said whatever, right? Yes. Yes. How can you say something nasty to the messenger who has a funny thing to say. And is relevant. And it gets to what the situation is. All those people in that room, when they hear the punchline about, but we're making good time, they got it. They were nodding their heads and said, okay, tell me how we're gonna fix this now. You know? And that's what it's all about. Convincing somebody to buy, because you understand what their situation is. It's not that complicated. But very rarely people do it, and it doesn't have to be humor. I mean, Will Rogers quotes, I used to do billboards on LinkedIn occasionally, a lot of different people. Bruce Springsteen, I mean, tons of people. And you can use those things in presentations And smart people I think do that and I'm sure they're successful doing it. We can relate to things, we've heard them before in some. Shape or form, correct? Not to be self-serving, but I think of The Water Trough. We can't make you drink, the horse to water. Yes. Can make you think we can't make you drink. Exactly. It's designed to capture the somewhere, somehow I heard that. What was that all about? Oh, yeah. And right then and there, your focus is retargeted. Correct. It's brought back to the place that you know, the person who's presenting, speaking, who's showing you something or what have you. I think that really is vital. And you're right, you point out it doesn't have to be humorous per se. No. But the humor adds that next layer to it that really, really attracts, and you, your humor is always targeted to that particular episode. However many conversations we've had, every last one is followed up with a nice to to chat with you, Ed, and then a cartoon, a personalized cartoon. And it relates to me and you and what we talked about. Even if we talked about much of nothing. They usually have captions as you know. Yes. And I will endeavor to include your name in the caption. I have to do every one of those individually. It's not a program that does it. Right. And does it take a lot of time to do that? Yes,'cause there's usually more than one person that responds to me. But do I think it's worth it? Sure. I never had the opportunity to do what we're doing right now. I'm sure it's been a door opener for you throughout time. Mm. And I can say as being on the receiving end, it certainly has been worth it, and I'm very grateful for it. As am I. That's exactly what we're talking about. Yeah. That's the cool stuff. Yeah. And we're talking about one of the most fundamental things here in business, and that is of course, relationships, right? Yeah. Yes. How do we work together if we don't have a sense of each other? I'm gonna share something with you. Another person who was thinking about working with me at one point, and what he did was in a conversation, he said I just want sales and I want them fast. And I said, okay, well all you have to do is remember these six words, and I could see he was holding the phone up to his ear and I could visualize getting ready to write down these six words. you're ready to go? Yeah. Okay. I said, here's the six words. Do you want fries with that? And he said, what are you talking? I said you're in a B2B environment. That's the only way you are gonna get somebody who's coming to you without being solicited for anything, who has money, who wants to buy something from you, and all you have to do is give it to them. That's not how it works. And to your point, Ed, it's ongoing relationships that get developed where you dive deeply into the relationship and people will trust and find you credible that you have the value for them. Obviously, I didn't work with him again. Well he's coming from a different place. Yes. Yeah. It really isn't fast. It's time consuming, and the ones that don't take as much time usually don't last a long amount of time either, you know. Isn't that what we're looking for? Sustainability? I wanna treat people like I like to be treated. It's not that difficult. No, it's not rocket science. No, no. And some, people will say are you a thought leader? No, I'm a thought provoker, and I told you in an article I've been referred to as a business development whisperer, and I take that as a huge compliment. You see, I'm writing down something here. Okay? Hmm. Okay. Provoker. Oh, the whisperer, of course. But the thought provoker versus thought, oh my gosh. Now you've given me a topic for a future podcast. A thought provoker rather than a thought leader. Wow. Because you're the one who has to do it. You know, the thought leader isn't gonna do it for you. You have to do it. Whatever it is, you have to do it. And I help people to do that. I try to. How does that play out when you're helping people to become the thought provokers? What are you doing here? Well, I get business from it a lot of times, and that's not my intent to do it. Mm-hmm. I'm an old Boy Scout. I try to help people whenever I can. Sometimes I spend too much time doing it. Without anything in return. I don't expect anything in return, but sometimes I spend too much time being a nice, nice guy, I guess. But reciprocity has its way of coming around somehow, I think. That's not why I do it, but it just seems to happen that way. That's all. I just try to help people whenever and however I can, and a lot of times I've ended up working for some of those same people for 20 years. Because your intention is more in depth. As you said, it is not about selling to, it's about buying from, and buying from is an investment. Selling to is just simply, you're one of many. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Correct. Mm-hmm. I totally appreciate that. I feel the very same way. When I think of selling, at large, I think of the used car salesman or the used car sales concept. Long ago, I realized there's no way on God's green earth I will ever, ever, ever fall into that position. Mm-hmm. To the extent where I have found myself saying, I don't sell, I can't sell, I don't like to sell. Maybe I've taken it to the extreme, but I Oh, but I, like you, am on the opposite side where it's an engagement process. Almost like a courtship. Well, you're right. Building and earning that trust. Yep. And then when that trust is established, yeah. Now we can sign that agreement. Now we can go forward because we have that. I realize too, and I want your thoughts on this, it may not work in every situation. Obviously there's some where our approach does not work. Right, and that's okay with me. Mm-hmm. It's sort of like the humor thing. If my approach of trying to build a relationship based on, providing you with credibility, trust, and value doesn't work, then I'm not gonna kill myself to try to make it work. I can't force that. As an example of that, my wife and I just had to replace all the windows in our house. It's funny that you brought that topic up. The salesperson came over. This was a salesperson, mm-hmm, complete with a folio of here's all the windows we have, and he took measurements from outside and pictures. He was here three hours. Mm-hmm. And my wife kept kicking me. We were standing on our countertop. She kept kicking me in the side, get rid of this guy will ya?. And then he went out and he was classic, he said look, I'll let you and your wife, this is after three hours, talk about it. I'm gonna go out on your porch and you talk about it. And when you're ready to come back in and sign something, flick the porch lights on and off, and we'll come back in. She got angry with me. Why are you doing this? I said, I wanna watch what other people do because I'm not like that and it reinforces why I am not like that, you know? But it was just amazing. He was like, yeah, flick the porch lights off and on when you're ready to decide. We obviously didn't go with him. We went with a lower energy level guy. We paid a little bit more to go with him than other competitors, but he wasn't pushy and just annoying. You gotta know your audience, and he didn't know me. He did what he was trained to do. I thought about contacting that company and said, I wanna clue you guys in on something here. Eh, maybe I still will. But they spent a lot of time training. He's a huge company. It's a very big company. All their staff have been trained to react like this, to force a sale. Right. Right. I will never do that. This window business has their idea of how things are done and Mmm-hmm. And you said they'll appeal to some people. Yeah. Another point I'd like to touch base on, you have a program called The Business Evaluator. I hope I got that right. You do, and I do. Yes. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Sure. I'd be happy to. It condenses my gazillion words, years of business development experience. During that time, I found out that most companies have four things in common. They communicate. So it's communication, reinforcing and making brand awareness and social media and email outreach, that comes under the umbrella of communication. The second one is presentations and proposals. We all do them. Some of them use templates and I know I've received proposals from people that had the prior company's name in the proposal'cause nobody proofread it. And the same thing with presentations like we talked about earlier. My boss was horrible. The third thing is account management. Once you get the business, what do you do to manage it and keep it? Do you follow up with conversations that you've had with summaries? Action items and things like that. Most people, don't I have found. And the last thing is the protection and expansion of your revenue. Are you satisfied with your proposal versus your close rate? How's your referral rate? And here's something you wanna think about. What about scope creep? Mmm. You signed something in a contract to do X amount of work with somebody, for X amount of dollars, you're gonna spend X amount of time. I can guarantee you it's usually more than X amount of time. Well, that's scope creep. What's the cost to your business of doing that? You're losing money. So this tool, it acts as a GPS for business development. There's 20 questions all related to those four categories. Five in each one. People can rank themselves and their companies on how well they deliver credibility, trust, and value in those categories. Rank themselves, one being very poor, five being excellent. If they give themselves all five, which I've never experienced that yet with 20 questions they'd get a hundred. No. So it's best to do it yourself, and I have people do it just from themselves. And then for what their perception is, how they're delivering credibility and trust and value in those four categories to their clients, and to their prospects. When the employees take it, that's an eye-opener. Now the questions act as guidelines on how to improve strengths and weaknesses, and it takes maybe three, maybe five minutes if you're a slow reader to complete it. But it acts like I said, as a GPS for business development. And the way to strengthen your strengths and improve on your weaknesses, it's right there in the questions. You just have to do it. Right. I'm not gonna do it for you. I'm not going to, but I can help you, if you would like to have me help you, you can do it yourself. That's another example of me giving things to people. I'm like, here, use it. But you have to do it. And that's where the hard part comes in. You have to do it. So you illuminate these things for them through the evaluator. Correct. But they have the option then to work with you, sure, to address things. Yeah. But your goal is at least to make them aware of things that they don't otherwise know. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly correct. When I first developed it years ago, mm-hmm. I did a sampling of 30 people who were in key upper development, business development positions, and, I thought the scores would be pretty good'cause these were successful people. The average score was 62.5 on a scale of a hundred. It was like the equivalent of a a D plus maybe, I don't know. I don't know about you, but I came home with the D plus probably when I was in school, would've been in a lot of trouble. Then I waited three years and I figured that in those three years with all the information that's out there on the internet and people had access to it, that would definitely have an impact on the score. So I used mostly the same people, a couple new ones, maybe a few more this time, and I was right. The internet did impact the scores. They went from 62.5 to 60 because there was so much information out there to get back to our earlier discussion, how people were just inundated with everything and it takes away from communicating. Yep. So anyhow, I was thinking about doing it again on a much larger audience, but it takes a fair amount of time. I still may do it, but maybe not. It really takes a lot of time and, I don't know if I wanna get involved helping people that much,'cause it's like I told you, I will sometimes spend way too much time being a nice guy and that costs me money to do that. Well, you know something though, and this is maybe a conversation for another time, but it seems to me that if you did take a look at a larger audience. There is a tremendous opportunity here to I hate to use the word book, but there's tremendous opportunity to write a book. I'll leave it at that because there's so many different ways to look at the ideas of the book, but there's some stories and lessons to be learned from this thing that are striking me, square between the eye. Well, me too. Well, I guess that's, of course it has to be, right? Yeah. No, I mean, I'm just a regular guy kept encountering all these things and I never came across anything like nobody does it, you know, they're aware of it. Yeah. But they're busy. I hear you and it's, you gotta slow down once in a while and just like, let me not be busy for a minute or two? For a minute or two. So listen, Bob, our time has come to an end. They say that when you're having fun time flies. And so it has. But before we wrap up, I was wondering if you have anything that you'd like to leave us with? Uh, yeah, you gotta laugh. That's how I started, that's how I'll end it. If anybody wants to reach out to me, they can certainly do that, and we can talk. I'm not fully retired, I still work on projects. I'll be happy to do that, if anybody wants to reach out to me. I will certainly reciprocate. I will always get back to somebody, always. So, I just think take the time to do what's right for you. That's all. Sounds great. I really appreciate this, Bob. Me too. Folks this is Ed Drozda, at The Water Trough. I am once again, very, very pleased to have been joined by my friend Bob Musial of StreetSmart Business Development, and usually at the end of my podcast episodes I say I'm wishing you a healthy business, but today I'm gonna change that for Bob and I'm going to wish you a good laugh in your business.