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Kickoff Sessions
#310 Matthew Dicks - How to Master the Art of Storytelling
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Guest- Matthew Dicks
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiglJWc9Ah0qNhZvbQ9Mnwg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewdicks
(00:00) Why Every Entrepreneur Must Master Storytelling
(01:46) The Psychology Behind Memorable Storytelling
(04:11) Crafting an Authentic Origin Story
(09:48) How to Use Humor Effectively
(13:45) The Role of Charisma and Energy in Storytelling
(17:29) How to Make Sales Conversations Enjoyable
(22:54) What Viral Founders Can Teach Us About Storytelling
(25:26) How to Connect With Your Audience
(29:15) Building Suspense Into Your Pitch Structure
(34:06) How to Instantly Gain Attention
(38:10) Storytelling in Sales
(42:35) How to End Your Presentation
(45:39) How to Inspire Real Action After a Talk
(50:11) Why QR Codes and Sales Pitches Break Trust
(53:16) Balancing Connection and Conversion on Stage
(56:00) Why Great Speakers Like Chris Williamson Stand Out
Why should every entrepreneur really master storytelling to draw their business? If you want to connect to customers or clients, you want to be the kind of business person that someone wakes up in the morning after having heard you speak or seen your commercial or heard your pitch, and you know, three days later they're still thinking about it, and they're like, I gotta get that thing or I gotta talk to that guy. That's what you want to be.
SPEAKER_01:How can two people tell virtually the same story, but one person connects with the heart and mind and the other person just falls slow?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, one tells a story and the other one sort of reports on their business.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, let's kick off. And uh again, big thank you, sir. You're an absolute legend, and uh let's uh let's do this. So, where I'd love to start is why should every entrepreneur really master storytelling to grow their business?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, I mean, if you want to connect to customers or clients, you can choose to present book reports on your product or service, which is what most companies do. They just sort of talk about how they made it and what it is and what it does. And there's nothing memorable or appealing or emotionally connecting to do that. I mean, the good news is most people do that. So, you know, most business people do a poor job of storytelling. So if you're doing a poor job of storytelling, you're just like everybody else. Uh, so that's the good news. The bad news is you're missing out on enormous opportunities to actually connect with customers and, you know, to land in their hearts and their minds in a way that they're thinking about you long after you're done speaking. You know, you you want to be the kind of business person that, you know, someone wakes up in the morning after having heard you speak or seen your commercial or heard your pitch, and you know, three days later they're still thinking about it and they're like, I gotta get that thing or I gotta talk to that guy. That's what you want to be.
SPEAKER_01:What's the the deeper like psychological effect there? So how can two people tell virtually the same story about growing your business or whatever, but one person connects with the heart and mind and the other person just falls flat?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, one tells a story and the other one sort of reports on their on their business. You know, a story essentially touches people in terms of their mind's eye, meaning it creates a visual that they can see. And once they can see it in their mind's eye, now it's memorable. And then ideally it touches their mind in some way, meaning it changes their mind or makes them think about, you know, the world or the product or the problem in a new way, and then touches their heart, you know, meaning they feel something about it. So that's what a storyteller does. We put images in the minds of the audience, and then we use those images to put ideas into the head and feelings into the heart. And when you do that, then suddenly you're memorable and meaningful and you know, connected to the people you're speaking to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because a lot of, let's say, successful entrepreneurs are guys that are even just a couple of steps ahead, when they're telling a story, it may not directly relate to someone who's a newbie, right? Like, how can I relate a 10 million year business to someone who's just getting started? However, there is a story in the essence of how he started it or how it came to be. So what's that relevant, what's the relevancy factor there to really tie it to the consumer?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, the number really doesn't matter. You know, I I I've worked with people who own a mom and pop shop and I've worked with the vice president of marketing sales force. And they're essentially doing the same thing. It doesn't matter if one is managing, you know, you know,$10,000 a month and one is managing$10 million a day. You know, you're still telling a story. And so quite literally, the strategies that I help, you know, to help a person who owns a pizza joint sell more pizzas, they're identical to the strategies I'm helping Microsoft use to sell their products. So you should separate the idea that just because you're new or you're you've been in business for a long time, there's no difference when it comes to storytelling. You know, the same strategies that filmmakers and authors and showrunners and you know, playwrights use to entertain audiences are exactly the same strategies we use in business. And it doesn't matter what your, you know, what your profit and loss statement looks like, it's all the same. Let's go through that, right?
SPEAKER_01:So with the origin story, which by the way, I have absolutely remaked a thousand times with all of our students, which is by the way, I think I gotta tell you about a context. It is something that they come in and they work with us on and they they read your book and they're like, this is probably the most impactful thing that uh we could ever show them, and it's literally like by reading your book. How do you how do you tell that origin story authentically, however not making it like a sob story effectively? Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's only a sob story if there's something to sob about. You know, my the first thing I'll say is if you have one origin story, you're probably failing. You know, our life is a journey, it's a bunch of steps. So if you were to ask me what's the origin story for me as a storyteller, you know, I could tell you a moment when I was 10 years old and I wrote to Steven Spielberg because I thought the movie E.T. was sort of broken. You know, and as a 10-year-old, I was watching the movie and thinking there's a bad scene in this movie, Stephen. What are you thinking? You know, and I actually told him in the letter, I said, you know, if you send me your movies ahead of time, I'll tell you where you're making mistakes so I can help you fix them. Right. But I could also tell a moment when I was 17 and I stood in front of a class for the first time on a dare from a teacher, you know, telling me that what I had written hit was not very good. And and my classmates responded brilliantly to it. And he actually acknowledged that once I spoke the words off the page, you know, they were much better than he ever imagined. That could be an origin story for me, you know, or it could be the first time I went to the moth in 2011 and stood on a stage and told a story and became a real storyteller. So, you know, depending on who I'm speaking to will, you know, will determine what my origin story at that moment is. And so, you know, as a business person, you better have a lot of stories because what you ideally want to do is to be a person like me who the problem isn't that I have a story. The problem is I have so many stories, I have to strategically choose the right story at the right moment. That's a great problem to have. So, first, identify all of those pivot moments in your life, all of those moments where your life turned in a significant way and moved forward, you know, in the direction that it's headed now, and identify all of those as origin stories. So you have a basketful people to deal with.
SPEAKER_01:You know, what's funny is because when I started, well, this business, I would say, 2020, um, the story was I started in my bedroom with a$60 microphone, and now like we've built this like multiple seven-figure, like a media company and XYZ, all the highs and lows from there. But because we're kind of pivoting away from just working with podcasters, I've had to downplay that origin story and also like emphasize more on the other stuff I do, so like the business that we build and everything that comes from there, because it was appealing too much to podcasters, whereas like that's not who we're targeting anymore. It's basically business owners who use content. So it was interesting because about 2020 in 2024, we had to dial down that emphasis on how I started and dial up maybe like the past two to three years of where like things were quote unquote successful. And it's interesting because that's still part of my journey, but it's just not what you hear anymore because it's just not as relevant anymore. And that was kind of something I kind of a belief I had to shed, right? Because you're like, oh no, like I want to I want to hold on to this, I want to protect this. I can still use that story, but maybe just in a different context.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, or just lean it. I always say lean a story and it will work for you. So, you know, what you describe as podcasting, you know, four or five years ago, you can now call it content generation. Yes, right? Hunt into the content generation business, which is what you do for businesses. Yes, you help them produce the content that they need to reach their customers. So, you know, you lean it one way, you lean it another, you say podcast one day and you say content the next day, and now your story still works.
SPEAKER_01:What I really love about Story Wordy and everything you do is about the present tense moment. And I think something that I struggle with a lot, a lot of people struggle with is how much focus should you put on that story, especially if you're doing like a presentation or a pitch or or so on. It's like if I was to tell that story of how I started it, that could arguably be 40 minutes. I get into the the nitty-gritty details, like maybe like the tactile experiences of what it was like in my bedroom and everything. But it's just not as relevant. So when there's a series of stories, how do you how do you put emphasis on the most important parts? Like is that 10 minutes? Is that 50 minutes? It's how long is a piece of string, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right. I mean, if you're telling a story about your origins as part of, let's say, your your pitch, you know, the the talk you're giving, I probably wouldn't tell a story longer than five or six minutes. To go longer than that in the actual story, you gotta be really good. You know, an eight-minute story told by an average storyteller feels like 20 minutes. And so, you know, I say your stories ideally, especially if they're like part of something larger, should probably be somewhere between two to five minutes at most, you know. And some of them are gonna be like that opening story that sort of lands you in the minds of the audience, and then you can use the other ones as examples and you know, as ways to move the story forward, uh, but you don't want to be telling something too long because honestly, unless you're really good and honestly really funny, or you understand how to like deal suspense relentlessly and constant constantly, unless you can do those things, shorter is better. The shortest version of every story is the best version of every story.
SPEAKER_01:Let's double top of that. So you mentioned suspense and humor. So it's interesting you said this because I've had a public speaking coach. I think to be honest, man, since we have had our first talk, it really kind of started to ring in my brain about how important it is for delivery. Like I've recorded, you know, tens of thousands of hours of content, but it wasn't hitting as well. So, one thing that's always recommended to me is that humor element. It's like self-deprecating when I'm doing presentations, it it almost brings down the garret of the audience. How do you kind of do that if someone is actually literally not funny? Like, is it something they tee up?
SPEAKER_02:Well, people are only not funny because they don't understand the strategies of humor. You know, I teach 26 humor strategies, which is essentially here's how to be funny. And some are easier to use than others. When you meet someone who you think is funny, what they really are is someone who has either learned or absorbed without thinking the strategies of humor. And once you start to learn the strategies, you almost can't unsee them. You know, I'll teach someone, oh, here's a way to be funny. And they suddenly they'll call me, they'll say, I just watched a comedy special. That person used that strategy 14 times in an hour. And I say, Yeah, they use it all the time. I use it all the time too. So it's not that you're not funny, it's just you don't have the you don't have the strategic awareness. It's like math, though. You couldn't multiply until someone taught you how to multiply. For some people, you can't be funny until someone teaches you how to be funny, but it's a learnable skill. And if you want to be good, you're crazy not to use it. It's like going to a job site without a hammer thinking you're going to use a rock to pound in a nail. It'll work, but it's not going to be fun. What what are some of those strategies? Well, the easiest one for business to people to use is nostalgia. The problem with humor in business is so many business people are afraid to try to crack a joke because if it fails, they feel stupid. You know, so what I like to do is teach strategies that if they use them and they feel and they fail, they still don't feel foolish in the process. So nostalgia is the idea that when we talk about the past, the way we used to live, it's often very funny. It's either funny because you laugh at the way you used to live. You're like, my God, I can't believe it, but you're right, we used to live that way. Or if you didn't live that way, if you're younger, you laugh because you can't believe the way the world used to be. And it's really useful for business people because even if people don't laugh at your jokes about nostalgia, it's also informing the audience at the same time. It's informative and funny. So, for example, I was working with a company that was sort of like a job retention and hiring company, you know, like an indeed version of, you know, the world. And the way I wanted them to open their pitch was to talk about how, you know, in 1986, if you wanted a job, you had to sit on your porch and wait for a 16-year-old on a bicycle to drive by your house and throw a newspaper at you, which was essentially at that time the internet. All the information you possibly could have on the job prospects in your area, because you could only work in your area, were in, you know, inside a newspaper being transported by a teenager to you, you know, and then you would open up that back page and there would be like 50 jobs and you would circle like four of them, and then you'd make actual phone calls to real places and talk to secretaries to try to find out something about the job, which is to say the employers had all the power back then. And if they told that story, you know, with a little more attempted amusement, that both informs the audience about how employers used to have all the power. And today, really, employees have a lot of power. They get to choose whether they're gonna work in Mississippi or Manitoba, you know, they can work anywhere. So suddenly, suddenly the newspaper is irrelevant, you know. Suddenly local is irrelevant. So you can use that to inform the client about the changing landscape of the business that you're in, but at the same time, you can be really funny doing nostalgia too. And if people don't laugh at it, it's okay because I'm still informing you of something. So that's just one of the many strategies I teach. Some are much more applicable to business than others, but you can learn them and then you can just be funny.
SPEAKER_01:This is so awesome, man. I'm even just thinking through my own example. So, like I even have a photo when I lived in Singapore at the beginning of our business where I was as myself, my wife, and my dog, we had no furniture. We were using a cardboard box inverted as our dinner table, and I was styling, like I was calling, taking sales calls and everything. And then the kind of example that I have with that is well, now with content, people come to you, right? So it's like back in the day, I was literally on the floor with a dog calling people, and I've just, of course, you can inject humor into it, and now it's easier than ever, you know. So it's that comparing kind of contrast. I think it's like having fun with it too, right? There's there's an element of like uh my coach also says to me, like, you can see in someone's face when they fucking hate it, right? When they're like they hate to be there, they're like, I hate everything about this. Uh it just shows in your face, right? Like humor, humor appears in the face, and also likability shows up. So there's a huge kind of part about being the charismatic leader. Um, I'd love to kind of get your thoughts on that. Like, how important is that that kind of have that not necessarily ego, but have that attitude that like you do really love what you're doing, and that transmutes across to your prospects. Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Volks, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025.
SPEAKER_02:Well, for sure. If you don't like what you're doing, you should definitely find someone to replace you and go do something else. You know, one of my sort of superpowers, you know, I was recently pitching a keynote to a company. I it was down to three of us. And my speaking management team said, make a video. You know, and it's a big deal, it's a big keynote for a very large company. And the two people I'm competing against, I saw their resumes and they have great resumes. Like I would have hired these guys instead of me for sure. But, you know, my secret power is I just make a video. I make a 20-minute video of me talking to the people who are making the decision. And my management team says, here's the three things that they're looking for, here's the three things they're worried about. And from, you know, I barely talk about that. I mostly just chat them up and make them laugh and tell some stories. And I got the gig. And my, you know, my speaking management person said, I never would have sent that video in the past to a company. It was like all over the place. You were talking about your uncles and how much you don't like them, like had which had nothing to do with their business in any way. But then they sent an email back and they said something like, Matt is a magical bard. We want him at our company, which is just like, I love what I'm doing. I like talking to people, I like telling stories, I demonstrate confidence, I demonstrate knowledge. And when you can do that as a leader or a salesperson or anyone, people will be drawn to you. You know, if you want good quality people working for you and you want customers and clients coming back again and again, you have to be someone who they think he's the person or she's the person in this realm that I want to be doing business with. Yeah. You know, oftentimes it's just you need to be a good hang. You know, I often say, like, if you're trying to get a job and there's like three of you left, like me, it's basically the one you want to hang out with. Yeah. You know, so true. At some point we decide everybody has the qualifications, you know, everyone can code. Good. All three of these people can code. Who are we going to hire? We're going to hire the one we want to have lunch with. We want to hire the one who, if we have a disagreement at work, they're going to be a decent human being during the disagreement. That's what we're looking for. And storytelling can get you there.
SPEAKER_01:That's so interesting, man, because a lot of time it's the litmus test is who do you want to sit on a long haul flight with? Who are you willing to sit down with for that eight hour, eight, nine-hour period of time? So, in the context of sales, it's really interesting. So, I have a full sales team, and a big feedback I always have for them is you have to make it enjoyable. Like what we're selling and what we're giving them. Yeah, it's tactical, they're gonna make money and all this kind of stuff, but it has to be fun, and like I can see it in their face review and their calls if they're like, This is how you create a video. Like, dude, I would never fucking buy that because it sounds boring as fuck, right? So, how do you inject just that excitement, especially from like a salesperson? Because not only do they have to find a problem in the pain, all that kind of stuff, but part of the pitch is not only excitement, but it's also you know, selling the mold these versus the interior of the plane effectively.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, what I would try to do is create a way that by which the salespeople could be speaking about themselves as well as what they're doing. You know, if you have a pitch that anyone can deliver, then no one should be delivering that pitch. You failed, right? Ideally, you know, what I want people to be able to do is to engage in a conversation that has some structure around it because you have some information you have to convey and you have some things you have to say to get people to consider purchasing your product. But ultimately, it's a conversation. The best door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson in America once said that he made all of his sales in the first 20 seconds he entered the building, the house. He walked into the living room, he inventoried the room, found something in the room that he could relate to, and began talking about that thing instead of encyclopedias, right? And suddenly you're talking to a person who you enjoy hanging out with. And by the way, they're selling encyclopedias too. I replaced all the windows in my house, and I have a lot of them. It was an expensive job. My wife and I interviewed five people, five companies. We didn't pick the most expensive or the least expensive. I don't even think we got the best windows, honestly. We bought Trevor Devine's windows because he walked into my house. He saw a golf club on the wall that I was using to sort of swing. And he said, Oh, you play golf? And I said, Yeah, do you? And 30 minutes later, we were still talking about golf. And Trevor said, Maybe I should go get the window now so I can bring it in so you can take a look at the sample. I said, Sure. And then as he was leaving the house to go get the window, he saw a basket of knitting. And he leaned in, he leaned into my wife who was cooking dinner. She said, He said, Do you knit? And he said, Yeah, I do. I'm knitting a hat for a friend. And he said, My wife knits too. They had a little three-minute conversation about knitting. When he went out the door, my wife said, We're getting his windows, right? I said, as long as they're made of glass, we're getting Trevor Devine's windows, right? Right. He just came in and suddenly he was a guy I wanted to hang out who also happened to sell windows. So if you can find a way to, you know, manage a sales force that has that ability to come in and have a conversation with people so they're not watching the clock and they don't feel like they're being sold to the whole time. And they and it's not just a representative of a company, but a human being who's kind of cool, all of that's gonna help a lot.
SPEAKER_01:It's just connecting on a personal level, right? Because the actual the details, like the minutiae and the mechanism and everything is kind of irrelevant. Like I do find that in the space that we're all in, um, obviously you're like a bit of a unicorn because obviously you're the category of one, but for a lot of people, they're kind of the same as other people. And it's like if if the delivery is the same and you're gonna get results and it's the same shit, what is the differentiator? It's that likability and relatability factor, and especially because the people that we work with can be anywhere from six months to three years. So if I'm gonna be in bed with someone, I'm gonna have to like them. And I think that's a huge, huge like edge that a lot of the I just think like a lot of the advice is not based on that, right? Just in general, like a lot of the feedback you get from people is not based on truly connecting with people as a human and then playing long-term games with long-term people effectively.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, it's um it's unfortunate, but true. I I just think it in many of the businesses I work with, they're essentially the same as everybody else. There isn't a lot of differentiation. I was working with a bank, and basically I said, Well, your numbers are kind of the same as everybody else. You're not like offering a greater percentage, your mortgage rates aren't better. You know, I said, What is your differentiator? And you know, the CEO said, Well, I think I like to think we have better customer service than the next guy. And I said, Well, that sounds terrible because I like to I like to think we have better customer service. How about we have the best customer service of any bank in our state? How about that? You know, how about start with that and then I'll like perk up my ears and listen. But that's what we have to do, is we have to find a differentiator. And it's often we're gonna trust someone more, we're gonna feel more connected to someone, we're gonna want to be in business for a long time with someone. And that's often done by getting to know a person and telling stories is a damn good way to do it. It also changes brain chemistry scientifically, that leverages enormous powers biologically in your favor. You should it it's stupid not to be telling a story. Five chemicals get released into the brain when you begin telling a story. As soon as the brain recognizes that a story is being told, five chemicals that all help you. They increase motivation, attention, memory, they make you feel more connected, they make you feel like part of a cohesive group. All of that happens scientifically. Why would you not tell a story? It's just stupid.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I'm curious, have you come across the young guy, Roy Lee, from Clulee? No, I have not. You will really enjoy this. So basically, the guy um, he's like 21 years old, he built a software to basically cheat on any exam. So he got kicked out of Harvard, he got kicked out of another like university, and it went super viral. And he doubled down on it. So basically, like created like an entire story arc around it. How like he's the guy that like uh basically cracked like cheating because it was like legal cheating, it was just like basically a review notes, basically. And then he doubled down on it further, and they built a software company called Cluley, and it went from zero to 120 million in valuation in four months, and now they've raised a shit ton of money. He's based in San Francisco. Obviously, San Francisco VCs love the kind of anti system kind of attitude, and you have to check out his videos, man. They're huge on Twitter. You're gonna you're gonna piss yourself. They're so so funny. Um, like he basically has this like hiring thing where like um people get bonuses when they date co-workers, and he creates a whole story arc around it, and he creates the whole thing, and the whole logic is the product itself is actually a note-taker, it's a it's an online chat GPT note taker that auto-corrects notes, auto-takes notes for exams, um meetings, sales, sales calls. But the actual message that he has is absolutely fucking brilliant, and that's why I kind of want to ask you about how to tell that company story, but in a non-just in a non-corporate way. And I think those the guys that are like 2021, he credits a lot of things to culture, society, and just just northern just trends. He's really like ahead of the wave in terms of trends. So when you see something, it's like fuck, like that's pushing the borders for sure. It's pushing that that the upper echelon uh of what's accepted, but he gets away with it, and as a result, they get millions and millions of views perfect completely organic. And look, the company's kind of like valuation is a is a testament to it, right?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it sounds like he's telling the right stories for the business that he's doing as well. Yes, yeah, you know, so that those aren't stories that necessarily would work if you're working with United Healthcare or you know, Amazon, but that is a good lesson on who is your audience and therefore what kind of a story or how are you telling the story based upon who's listening and who do you want to be listening, you know? Yeah, uh so you know that story audience fit is really important. It sounds like he's maximized that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I guess that's the most important part, like the relevancy. There's also a company called WAP, uh, which is basically an online community platform, and they tried to really really lean into the make money online space. So their promo video was all done with AI, uh, but it was Grand Theft Auto team. So they just very much leaned into that because a lot of guys who are 19, 20 watched play Grand Theft Auto growing up, want to make money online, hate the school system, and again, it was another like 75 million view video with like you know 500,000 signups. So, how important is that, right? To really dial into what is the cult culture and trend of your ICP?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, it's interesting because it worked in the two examples you gave because those are audiences that are pretty narrow in terms of who they're looking for. You know, my argument is often your story should probably be as accessible to as many human beings as possible, which means for me, I almost never use cultural references in my stories because I know that they're both fleeting. And what seems to be completely known to one person, like how could you not know that, is completely unknown to another person now that the world is fractured. When I was growing up, there were three channels. You knew every single television show that was on all the time, and that was it, right? And occasionally a band dropped an album and you had to go to the record store to get it. Like we all had the same cultural landscape, but today it's totally different. So I tell people to get rid of all the cultural references in their story if they want the largest audience. The examples you gave, though, they don't want the largest audience. They're looking for a particular slice of the pie and they're making a lot of money from it, and that's perfect. They should be doing it. Like that's great. But in general, if you want a larger audience, a more broad audience, and you're not like looking for that sliver, then you should be avoiding many of those things. Because as soon as, as soon as you say something that people don't quite know, it makes them feel like they're not part of the in-crowd anymore. You know, sadly, yesterday in the United States, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He's a right-wing uh public speaker who had a lot of attention if you were on the very right of American politics. So I was aware of him. He does his politics and mine do not align in any way, but because I'm sort of aware of politics, I knew who Charlie Kirk was. When I got to work today, I mentioned to a bunch of people, like, it's a shame that we have such political violence in America today. And they said, Yeah, I none no one knew who Charlie Kirk was. They were all like, Yes, somebody got assassinated yesterday, but I don't know who he was, right? And for me, it seems crazy not to know who Charlie Kirk is. And yet a whole bunch of people have no idea who that guy is at all unless you're following politics. So that's just the lesson of if you want a large audience, you have to avoid those references. But if you know what your audience loves and it's a smaller sliver that you need in order to make a pile of money, then then you target that. So it's just an awareness of what you want.
SPEAKER_01:Completely agree. And even in my own example, when I was at the office yesterday and I didn't know the name. I know the face when they saw it, but I didn't know the name because I don't I just don't follow it. I don't follow US politics, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I I make I we I make Shakespeare references all the time because I have read Shakespeare all my life and and I hear them all the time in television shows and movies, but it occurs to me, even though I hear them all the time, nobody knows they're Shakespeare. Like I hear it and I go, Oh wow, that's Macbeth, and nobody else knows what it is. But I'm aware that if I walk around talking about Shakespeare, nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about. So, you know, it is that idea that just because we know something doesn't mean anyone else knows anything.
SPEAKER_01:It's like the curse of granted knowledge, right? It's also funny because you could make the same reference towards Macbeth, but you could reference a line, but not that it's Macbeth, and everyone say that it's all cool and awesome. But if you say it's Macbeth, everyone said it's not cool.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:It's all contextual, you know? So you mentioned earlier about around suspense. So especially if delivering a pitch, and this is very uh relevant to me. When you're doing these longer speeches, and I find myself even in this position a lot, how do you keep that suspense if you're speaking for an hour, 45 minutes? And how do you how important is that the whole and maybe like focusing in on tone as well, tone and the relevancy and keeping that relevant too because how we say things is the most important thing, right?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I would say it's it's at least as important. Uh, you know, with suspense, it's all about the idea that we want to say some of the thing without saying all of the thing, so we want Think about it as we're dripping information rather than pouring a bucket over people's head. You know, the simplest version of this is if you're delivering a speech and let's say you have slides that you're showing as well, right? What happens all the time in business is a business person will say, Well, our company is founded on three pillars, and then the slide shows the three pillars. And at that point, you failed. You're done. Turn the slides off and go home. Right. Because what you've done is you've shown them these three things that you're about to talk about, but now they know all those three things already. So now you're talking about something that they already know. And that's the worst thing you can do. Aaron Sorkin said the worst thing you can do to an audience is tell them something they already know. So what you do instead is you say, our company is founded on three pillars, and you have the word three pillars across the top. And then there's a number one and a number two and a number three, and there's nothing there yet. And you say the first pillar is, and you click, and then we get to see the first pillar. It's suspense because we don't know the next two things. And what we've done is created a mental schema in the brain. Essentially, we've created three empty buckets in everyone's brain. And as soon as there's an empty bucket in the brain, we want it filled. So we want to hold back information. We want to use phrases like, you know, there's a really important reason why this is important to our company. And I'm going to get to it in a moment, but before that, right? Watch Steve Jobs when he presents the iPhone for the first time in 2007. One of my favorite moments, he understands all of this so clearly. We could just run through that talk and you'd learn everything you need to know. There's a moment when he has introduced the iPhone. He has said he's explained what it is, and everyone's lost their mind. And he says, and it's right here in my pocket. And he reaches into his jeans and he slides it out halfway. And then he says, But we'll get to that in a minute. And he slides it back into his jeans. So all the crazy people at Macworld who are desperate to see this new device now know that it's hidden behind a thin layer of denim. And they're basically looking at his pants now, trying to figure out the form factor based upon the shape of his pants, which is suspense, right? Which is the idea. I'm going to show you some of the thing, but not all of the thing. So what we need to do in business, if we want to hold attention for an hour, is we have to stop throwing all the information at the audience at once and then talk about it. That's what most people do. They put up a slide loaded with information that probably should be four slides instead of one. And then they begin talking about that slide. If your slide is on the screen for more than 30 seconds, you're dead. It's wallpaper at that point. It becomes utterly irrelevant to the audience. So that's a simple way to create suspense. But a lot of it is sort of just saying a little bit of the thing at a time rather than the whole thing. You know, in your example of what was the story you just said?
SPEAKER_01:You were saying for well, if in my instance, like there's a presentation that's like 45 minutes, right? Yeah. And holding that suspense, holding the audience for that duration of time.
SPEAKER_02:Are you gonna tell a story as part of that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so let me give an example. I'll give I'll give you the full example. So basically, how you love this? The title of it is how to legally create a money printing machine. I thought it was pretty pretty interesting. But we basically help business owners grow their business by content. So a part of this is there's three parts. It's helping them with the product, which is called the offer, it's helping them with the content, it's helping them with sales. And we basically do it, oh I do basically do it in a way that it's like the most important part to grow your business with content is to slow down and look at the offer, and then we focus on the offer specifically, and we'll go through the arc on that, what that means. Then it will go into the content, it's like okay, here's a different part of the content, this is the second part, but all of this means nothing without the sales process. And then we break down like that individual component. So I guess in this context, the suspenses, the following three points are exactly what you need to be able to like legally create a money printing machine. And we do this through this mechanism, and each individual point is super valuable. Like I'll I'll come back to these points as we discuss it. So that's what I'm trying to think through that lens. Like, what's your kind of thoughts on this? Because this is super applicable to everyone as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think you're probably doing it in the right way. Are you telling any personal stories along the way?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So again, like the there's the the dream outcome, which is the money printing machine, then there's my anecdote of like how I got started, how this has been effective for me, and then like the self-deprecating factor is like what I was doing in the beginning, which didn't work. So I wasted two, three years doing this the wrong way upside down. So it's all those miniature anecdotes of why it wasn't working for me and what I'd learned through that realization. And then there's also go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say, give me the beginning of your story. Just give me the first few sentences of one of those stories, your origin story there.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so we'll leave we'll lean into how I started, right? So uh when I started creating content in 2020, I was like locked in my bedroom, constantly posting, wishing to go viral, putting in more content. And then after many years, I realized that that wasn't actually the contributor to how to grow a business.
SPEAKER_02:And I was only in the okay, go ahead. So let's say let's just fix that. Okay. So what you did was you sort of said everything all at once. What I might suggest is you say something like this this is suspense. You say, I'm sitting on my bed. It's four years ago, and I'm getting desperate. There's a computer on my lap. I'm pecking away at the keys. I've been pecking away at these keys for months now, attempting to get a result, and that result is not happening. I'm trying to create content. I'm trying to create content that will drive sales. I'm sitting in my bed trying to do this and it's not working, and I'm becoming frustrated. And I need this to happen because insert some stakes. I don't know, I'm running out of money, uh, my parents don't want me in the house anymore, whatever it is. But rather than saying, I'm sitting on my bed trying to create content, I want you to be sitting on your bed, period. Then I want you to have a computer on your lap, period. Then I want you to be pecking on keys, period. Then I probably want to know what's going on in your heart, which is I'm worried because this isn't working. I still don't know what the hell you're doing, right? The goal of a storyteller is to get the audience to want to hear the next sentence. And so if you just tell us a little bit in the beginning, it creates wonder. If you say, I'm sitting on my bed, I think is someone on the bed with him, right? And then he says, I'm alone. Okay, no, he's not with somebody. He's alone. I'm frustrated. Why is he frustrated? There's a computer on my lap. Is he watching porn? What's going on? Right. I'm pecking away at the keys. Okay, he's not watching porn, right? That's what happens in the brain, right? Because we're constantly trying to predict what's going to happen next. If you don't use suspense, there's no attempt for the audience to predict. They become passive, right? We want them to be active in the story and they become active by us giving them some of the way, but not all of the way. We want them to be guessing on the next step, but they don't guess unless we create suspense.
SPEAKER_01:That's so, so valuable, man. So it's almost like bringing them into that zone, like into that specific moment. And it's it's almost all imagery, right? Like all of this is imagery in the brain.
SPEAKER_02:It's imagery on what we see, but also we want to know what's in your heart and your mind, and that creates suspense too. If you tell me you're worried, but you don't tell me what you're worried about yet, that's great. Cause now I'm wondering what you're worried about, right? And and your heart's beating, right? My palms are sweating. I'm worried about this, right? I'm thinking about my future and it doesn't look good. I'm still going, what the hell is on the computer that he's doing, right? So it is it's both creating the imagery and you start tight. You think of it as a cinematographer, right? That you are the cinematographer of your story. You're pointing the lens. You start with a narrow lens, very, very tight on one thing. And then you slowly expand that lens. So it's I'm on the couch, right? And some feelings, right? I'm sorry, I'm on the bed. I have some feelings, right? There's a computer in my lap. We widen the lens just a little bit, right? And then maybe some more feelings, right? I'm pecking at the keys. Now the lens is wider still, right? So you're constantly widening the lens until you can get tight again. The tight lens of suspense. In storytelling, the craziest thing is this what you don't say is more important than what you are saying, because what you don't say is what the audience is waiting for. So you have to make sure there are things you're not saying that drive the audience forward.
SPEAKER_01:Hmm. Let me give you another example. So so later on this week, I talk about like a big, a big part of our business is teach people sales. Like we teach them end-to-end how to run sales calls, all that kind of stuff. And a big part of it was because of this, was because for many years I would get people on calls. I would be waiting on a call for someone to join. They probably wouldn't join. And if they do join, they would say, like, what the fuck is this about? Like, why should I trust you? Why should I, why should I even put time into this? And it was about overcoming that objection that you no longer feel that people are on a call and you're sticking things down their throat. They're coming to you versus you're coming to them. Now, the example I could kind of give there is like being on a call, waiting for someone to join, having that fear in my chest, like, oh my god, what's this person gonna say to me? You know, on the back of constant rejection, constant calls, and then someone's coming in and they're they're experiencing that exact scenario. Yeah, what do you think about that in terms of like how do we contextually now obviously it's gonna be better better when I put it together, but is that is that more of kind of aligned to what you're saying in terms of the specifics?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I and again, I would try to get it as narrow as possible at first. So I'd say I'm dialing a phone, right? I'm dialing a phone number, right? This is the 19th phone call I have made today, right? That creates wonder. Why is he making 19 phone calls, right? And I'm bracing myself because the first 18 did not go well. I can't even believe that I'm about to make a 19th phone call, but I have no choice. This is what I do. This is quite literally my only way to put food on the table is to call strangers and have them yell at me, which is probably what's about to happen. I'm gonna call a stranger and I'm gonna tell him I have something to sell him, and then he's gonna yell at me and tell me to go to hell, and then I'm gonna hang up the phone and make a 20th phone call. And then the terrible thing happens. The person on the other end answers and says, hello, and I have to begin my pitch, right? Now we started with a we start with a guy dialing a phone, a lot of concern, a lot of wonder about why so many phone calls are being made that day. Eventually we get to what's actually happening in the scene, but let us get to it slowly and allow the audience again to become prediction machines. It's the same as when you're watching a murder mystery, right? The weird thing about that is the closer you get to finding out who the killer is, the more suspenseful something gets. As all the other, you know, as the possible suspects get whittled down to just a few, and you know, the the red herrings are put away, and now we really know it's like it's one of these two guys. That's when suspense is at its maximum, right? And we're doing the same thing essentially, is we're making sure that the audience is constantly trying to guess who the next bad guy is. It's not a bad guy in your story, but that's what we're really getting to do. We're just trying to get them to want to hear the next step along the journey. And part of it is holding stuff back, getting them to guess at it, predict at it, or at least go, where the hell are we? What is happening here? Right? You don't want to go too far, you don't want to frustrate them, but you don't want to give them everything all at once.
SPEAKER_01:That's so awesome, man. Have you seen that new Netflix documentary? It's kind of all over just like Twitter and stuff too. The the site, um, it's basically like bullying of like a kid. It's like a you should check it out. I forget the name of it. I watched it two days ago. Basically, it's like a boyfriend and girlfriend, they're like 13, 14, and then they're getting anonymous messages. And the whole the whole documentary, it's quite long, it's like an hour and a half, is all about who is it. So they're getting these really, really like awful messages to send to the 13-year-old. It's all from an unknown number, which by the way, apart from America, you can't numbers are public everywhere else in the world, so it's just a weird thing, but whatever. Yeah. Um, so this guy and girl, like young people, they're getting these very, very vulgar messages, and it goes on and on and on, and it gets to the point that they're getting sometimes they're getting like 600 messages a day, and they're just like very aggressive, like bullying. Check out the documentary, you'll really like it. Okay. But the whole, the whole, the whole purpose of it is who is it? So they start to eliminate who, and then the FBI come in and the local police come in, and they're eliminating, eliminating, eliminating, and it's only until the end whereby it's down to like a handful of people that suspense is at its highest. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it's gonna do that too, yeah. That's what we do as storytellers all the time. It's the stories aren't as exciting, you're just making phone calls in your story. But still, if we don't know what you're doing, it's exciting until we find out, and then we feel for you because now we're like worried for you.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. Have you given much thought into like how presentations should end? So the kind of crescendo at the end to kind of leave people basically, you know, leave people on a very big note, like whether it's positive or negative. Um, have you given much thought to that? Like, how do you how do you structure that?
SPEAKER_02:Typically, you know, if I'm telling a story, for example, the ending is I see or hear something which causes me to think something, which causes me to feel something. So I always tell people, tell it, tell me what you saw and heard that create that final thing that created the ultimate change in you. It's what you see and what you heard, and then what you thought about it, and then what you felt about it. And that's usually the story, which is something happened in my life that caused me to think differently and therefore feel differently. And that's every story in the world. That's that, you know, that's a romantic comedy, that's an adventure. All the stories are essentially a protagonist who has a problem or has a need or has a flaw, uh, you know, is on a journey, and then eventually they see something or hear something or both, and that causes them to think differently. And the thinking differently results in them feeling differently. And that's how it ends. You know, if I'm giving a keynote where I'm trying to like land a message with them, I want them to take something away, then I'm sort of landing on the idea of listen, I've just spoken to you for 55 minutes and I'm gonna spend the last five minutes telling you exactly what to do once you leave this room. Because I do not want to be the person who made you feel good for an hour and then had you forget everything about me by the time you get to the car. So let's talk about in extreme specifics what you're gonna do when you exit this room so that you can begin engaging in whatever I'm trying to teach for the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. That's so, so awesome. And do you ever leave like a kind of like a motivational end? Like what's that kind of high point, like almost like a Churchill-esque finish?
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't. Uh, I'm very tactical at the end. You know, I can be motivational for 55 minutes. It doesn't mean that if I'm not motivational in the last five minutes, I lose it all. Like that steam is still there. But at the end, I basically want people at the end of most of my talks to know the thing I've just shared with you is something I believe in and do myself, and it's changed my life, and I'm confident it can change yours. Let me talk to you about what I want you to do now. The thing I promise that if you do now, when you leave here tonight, when you leave here today, when you get home, I promise you, if you do this thing, you're gonna feel the same changes and experience the same benefits that I've experienced. So let's talk about what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's the teacher in me, 27 years of teaching kids. I can be as inspirational as possible, but in the end, I want them to be able to multiply two-digit numbers. You know, I don't end my lesson on like, so guys, you can do it. At the end, I'm like, so guys, remember, build the chart so that build the group the chart so that you don't put the numbers in the wrong place, you know, and then remember to check your multiplication tables. I give them some good tactical strategies so that they can actually go multiply a two-digit number.
SPEAKER_01:One of my last questions for you is around uh like taking action. So one of my clients is a very, very big um in-person event entrepreneur, like they do in-person events. And a big thing that they focus on is like, now is the time to take action. Like now is the time to take action. If you're ready to take action, now's time to take action. Because like their approach is well, if they're in that room and they're not gonna fucking take action, when they go home, they're definitely not gonna take action when the world hits them. So how do you how do you position that elegantly to to get people to just do shit, right? To get people to take action right now and have a lasting effect.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it depends on what you're presenting. I mean, I think that's a great thing to do if what you are pitching is possible, you know, in that moment uh to take action, as opposed to maybe like anchoring it to something, you know. So oftentimes, like if I'm teaching people homework for life, a concept that I I strongly stand behind, right? I may say when you leave the room today, you know, not now, because I never want you to take your phone out while I'm speaking, but the moment you leave the room today, you're gonna turn on your phone or look at your phone and look at emails. But before like you open an email, I want you to write down one thing that happened today that's worth holding on to. Like that's the first thing you're gonna write down. And then I say when you get home tonight, anchoring it to a moment, right? When you get home tonight, ideally, probably you're having a meal with a person you love. Maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a partner, maybe it's a kid. If it's a low, if you're alone, you can still do this. But when you get home tonight, when you're sitting there at dinner, if there's anyone at the table with you, you're gonna tell them a moment that happened today that was worth holding on to, and you're gonna add that to the list. And now you've got two homework for life moments. And then you're gonna like note the fact that you've you're on a one-day streak, right? And then tomorrow, when you do it again, you're gonna be on a two-day streak. And in seven days, you're gonna be on a seven-day streak and you're never gonna stop. You know, so but that's not always possible. Like sometimes you do genuinely teach something that can't be replicated in the room. And when that happens, I just anchor it to a moment in their life and I say the next time you blank, here's what you're going to do. And you just pick something that you know everyone is going to do eventually and a place where it fits, where it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:So interesting. Um, is there anything you do in terms of where to drive people? I think that this is kind of like widely kind of debated in terms of like you're speaking at an event or a conference or whatever. Like, do you do you give people like downloads? Do you drive them to like an action? And as you said, that you don't want taking out their phone. So, how do you how do you think about that?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, my website is MatthewDicks.com. So, you know, MatthewDicks.com is the place where you can go. And uh, you know, if you remember my name, which is probably in the program at the conference where I was speaking, you're good to go, right? So I'll say that. Also, I've written a whole bunch of books, and if you just Google Matthew Dix on the internet, you'll be able to get to all my books. You know, the thing I don't want to really do is uh how do I say this? Oh, when I started books, you know, I started writing books, I had to do book tours, right? And I watched these other authors and they would read a chapter of their book as part of their book talk, which I know no one ever wanted to hear. They felt they needed to read a chapter of the book because they wanted to sell the book, and they thought giving people a sample, the first chapter, might entice people to read the book. It doesn't. Nobody wants, no one comes to a book talk hoping that someone will read aloud to them. Right. My goal was always I can try to sell this book or I can sell myself as a person they're going to invest in forever. So that every single thing I make is something they'll consider engaging in. And I've always done it that way. I want people to go, Matthew Dix has ideas and writing and stories that I'm gonna want to be with all my life. Not that this particular day I'm selling this particular product, uh, you know, this course, I have a new book coming out. I'll mention I have a new book coming out, but I have nine books. What I'd love for them to do is to go to Amazon, look at all nine, and find the one that think that appeals the most to them at that moment. So I, you know, I see a lot of value in sort of putting a QR code up on a screen or driving people to something or giving them a download, getting getting on the newsletter is great for me because that means I can communicate with them on a regular basis. But ultimately, I want them walking out of the place thinking, I like Matthew Dix. He seems like a pretty good guy and it sounds like he makes a lot of things. Let me go peek at him when I have a chance at home and we'll see what you know what I want to indulge in.
SPEAKER_01:Do you do you think that they're obviously it's it's contextual, but there's any harm doing that? Like does that does that break the trust?
SPEAKER_02:I think it breaks the trust only if you're coming across as a salesperson. I've seen it done where in the middle of the talk, like at the 30-minute mark, a slide comes up and says, if you like what you're hearing so far, here's a QR code. Take a moment and grab it now so you don't forget later. I'm like, no, you're dead to me now. I hate you and I never want to see you again. Because now you're a salesperson. You've proven to me that the only reason you're here is to sell me something. Not share an idea, but to sell me something. If at the end of your talk you put up a slide that says, here's ways to connect with me if you want to continue, and there's a QR code there, and there's a couple websites and maybe a link to a newsletter or something, that's fine as long as you don't speak to it. I think that as soon as people speak to these things, they become, they transform from like a thought leader to a salesperson. And there's nothing wrong with being a salesperson, but not there at that moment. You know, at that moment, you're here to share an idea, demonstrate your expertise in something, help people's lives be a little bit better in some meaningful way. And then if they choose to see that QR code and go, oh, I want more, I want them to make the choice. Me saying there's a QR code is never going to drive anyone to the QR code. We all know what a QR code is. And if it's on the screen, everyone knows what to do with it if they want to do something with it. So it's sort of like just stating the obvious, except you're sort of degrading some of your trust in the process.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like you don't want it to be a trap, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's basically like it ends up being a trap, right? Right. It's like Steve Jobs when he used to say one more thing. You know, he used to do his presentation, and everyone knew there was going to be one more thing that he held back, suspense, by the way, for the record, Steve Jobs. Again, right? He'd say one more thing. We all knew one more thing was coming, which meant suspense, which means we weren't going to stop listening to him. And the one more thing was always one more amazing thing that the device he was presenting does, right? One more thing should be your QR code. It should be, I'm done talking. Oh, by the way, if you want to stay connected with me, here's some ways to do it. One more thing. And I can choose to engage or not. It's when people get specific about it that they suddenly degrade the trust. And it's just stupid to say, because if you think you have to reference a QR code that's, you know, three feet high and three feet long right behind you. Like if you think you have to say something about that, you're crazy. Like everyone sees it. They know why it's there, they know what it does. You know, if they don't know what it does, they're not technologically sufficient to be engaging with you, probably in the in the first place. So show it, but don't mention it, is um what I would suggest. Or demonstrate the confidence from I'm not gonna try to sell you a damn thing. My name is Matthew Dix, and I was so fucking good today that I don't need to show you a QR code because my name and my ideas are burned in your brain, and I am confident that if you want to find me, you're gonna remember exactly who I am. I think there's a lot of confidence behind that that is appealing to people too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because I think the the reason why I have a bit of internal what's the word? Like internal like resistance is because like that's kind of inherently what I want, right? Is like I want to which I usually do is just like really plant a good idea, uh, hopefully speak fucking well. Because I feel like a lot of the business bros don't actually speak that well. Like then that that is an edge, right? That's a real wedge if you can just speak well. And then most importantly, then is connect with people afterwards, like whether that's actually in person at the event. It's like speak to me and my team, and we're happy to speak to you afterwards. Like, grab me afterwards, we're happy to speak with you. And I feel like that's generally where we get the most success. It's just I get welcome to these split stages, similar to you. And yeah, just interesting to see like your perspective on it because I completely agree. I think that when you build the trust for 55 minutes and you burn it for the last five minutes, it's like fuck me, you may as well not have been there.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. No, I love that. Speak well. You know, I met a guy in Vancouver this summer, his name's Tuan Lee. Uh, he's uh he's a millionaire at the age of 24. He's mastered TikTok and Instagram, and he does, he he makes contact for content for huge companies. And we were at a picnic, and he had heard me speak for four days at this conference. I had been on and off the stages the whole time. And he came up to me and he was like, Why aren't you on TikTok? And I said, Oh, I've never even been on the platform. I sort of stay away from those things. And he goes, You should get on TikTok. And I said, Well, what would I say? He says, It doesn't matter what you say. You talk so good, you'd be great. And I said, Well, my stories tend to be long. They're like six minutes. I had never been on TikTok. He goes, No, that's fine. I'm like a six-minute story on TikTok, really? He goes, You talk really good. You'd be great on TikTok. So I came home, told my production manager, I met this guy. He said we should just throw a story up on TikTok and see what happens. He tells me it's gonna be great. I think he's probably crazy, but he is a millionaire or you know, multimillionaire. So I said, let's give it a try. So we put up a six-minute story of mine on TikTok and it's up to like 1.5 million views in eight days, right? And it's because I talk good, right? What you just said, like speak well and everyone will remember you, right? If you speak well, you don't need a QR code. You speak well, you don't need to like be pitching products from the stage because people will remember you. And so that was like, you know, that was something I believed. And now that I've seen what happens on TikTok, if you speak well and tell a good story, you know, uh, I I never expected a six-minute story to get 1.5 million views in a week, you know. Uh, but that guy was right. He knew what the hell he was talking about. Uh, it is a superpower. So if you can get on a stage and speak well, I think you can sell less because people are gonna remember who you are. I think the people who who throw up all that other stuff, they know that they have to throw all that stuff up because people are not gonna remember them otherwise.
SPEAKER_01:I agreed, man. I think uh like the cream always rises to the top, right? And uh finish on this note, but Chris Williamson, as most people know, I know his manager very well, like on a personal level, and he's a mentor of mine as well. And I sat down with a wonder and I said, like, like, what actually is it? Like, why is it that he is such an outlier? And he's just like, Look, he could do fucking anything, and he would be number one at it because he's just like his ability, so it's like he doesn't he didn't need any flashy videos or whatever, and now he's great production, but it's inherently that he is like a top performer, whatever he does. So the idea is a cream rises at the top. What he's done is he picked his own ingenious 100%. But like, if you were to remove a lot of the production value, he would still be amazing at speaking and delivering the message, and that's it. That's the main that's the main thing, which is like at the end of the day, we talked a lot about foundations in the beginning of this conversation, but the end of it was tactics. But the tactics is actually fucking irrelevant if the foundations are super weak, which is the exact same on your business when we're working with people. It's like you have to have the strong foundations, and yeah, tactics are important, but they're also, as you said, fleeting. They're very, very fleeting.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I I agree. My my speaking management team, you know, when we go when we got into business together, they're like, you're not even trying. Like, you know, they're like, How are you getting all this business? You're not even trying, like you're not on any social media, you don't have a reel, you know. But what happens is people hear me speak and they go, I want that guy. Uh, I I I demonstrate that I can do the job even if I'm not selling myself well enough. Right. So now I have a team of people who are gonna sell me better than I've ever sold myself before. But frankly, I'm not interested in that part of the business. I choose to be in terms of my zone of genius, videography, web design, all that, not my cup of tea. I don't want it to be. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in telling better stories, helping people tell better stories, finding new strategies that help people tell better stories. Yeah. I'll let everyone else take the rest, take the rest for me.
SPEAKER_01:And that's why you've been in the game for a long time, is because if you got caught up doing like the admin, you know, BS stuff in the background, you'd hate yourself and you'd be out at the game, which is very interesting.
SPEAKER_02:And I'd have less and I'd have less content, I'd have less knowledge because I will have spent I would have spent less time doing the job, you know.
SPEAKER_01:100%. Yeah, man. It's the it's the one piece of detail that you need to add in. It's a dentist effect, right? Like the dentist just comes in, he works on the teeth, everything else is taken care of by the admin and the secretary and everything. But man, I want to say a huge thank you. You're an absolute legend. Um, like you truly are a huge, huge inspiration to myself. And to many people that are literally close to me as well, are gonna be super excited for this. I don't think you realize it too, right? It's like I think you it's the uh it's a curse of granted knowledge. This just comes so second nature to you. Um, but it's had such a big impact on so many people already. I'm very glad. Thanks. I really appreciate that. It's really kind of you. Thank you, sir.