Networking for Introverts, Mastery, and Real Connection — Ely Delaney (Part 1)

Can introverts actually be great at networking? Marketing strategist Ely Delaney says yes and proves it. In Part 1 of this conversation, Ely joins Dani Raschel Chou to unpack how to build real business relationships without faking extroversion, why mastering one skill beats dabbling in ten, and how archery became his meditation.

Ely Delaney is your Email Marketing Architect and is also known as "The People Whisperer. He's the creator of The Follow Up Rockstar System, teaching entrepreneurs how to go from surviving to thriving in any economy through the art and science of building strong relationships and following up for LIFE."

He's an Amazon bestseller with his three books "Marketing Tidbits", "Networking Tidbits", and his latest book, "The Follow Up Code: 7 Virtues for Building Trust Through Email".

With a passion for connecting people, his best-selling training course "Networking Like a Rockstar" has over 1,424 students registered globally.

And in Part 1 of this two-part conversation on With Hat and Cattle, host Dani Raschel Chou and Ely dig into the quiet skills that actually build a business: showing up, connecting, and getting deeply good at one thing.

Ely explains how an introvert can work a room by leading with "who can I help?" instead of "who can help me," why he'll spend hours at an event without stepping inside, and why a cold shoulder is never worth taking personally. He shares how archery became a form of meditation, and how becoming the #1 longbow archer in the Northwest mirrors the focus behind his work. Then he and Dani turn to mastery: Jim Rohn's rule to spend five years getting great at one thing, what ghostwriting really means (pulling out your stories, never inventing them), and why "know, like, and trust" only works when loyalty comes with it.

Mentioned in this episode: Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Bob Burg's The Go-Giver, and marketing writers Bob Bly and Dan Kennedy. This is Part 1. Part 2 goes deep on the seven virtues Ely built his life and business around, and that's dropping next week.

You can find Ely on LinkedIn and on his site. Listen to his podcast here: Meet Cool People.

And you can also buy his book The Follow Up Code: Seven Virtues for Building Trust Through Email on Amazon today!

With Hat and Cattle: Stories from people who walk the walk, and leave you better off for listening.

Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com. 

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube! 

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Transcript

Meet Ely Delaney

Ely 0:00

The best thing you can do to it grow your career, whatever that looks like, is to always be learning. How can you learn a new skill? How can you figure out how to do something just 10% better? Because that puts you at the top, top percentage. And literally, I mean, I don't even know what the stat is. I don't remember the specifics of how many people have not actually read a book since high school. Like the rest of their lives. They're not even picking up a book. And I'm like, it just blows my mind.

Dani Raschel Chou 0:31

Welcome back to With Hatt anden Cattle, where we bring you stories from people who are walking the walk and leaving you better off for listening. Today we have in the studio guest Eli Delaney, who is known as the people whisperer. He also has built an email marketing system that helps you follow up with people that you're already connected with. And he recently authored, or I wanted to say launched, I think that's just a social media marketing thing, but he recently released the book, The Follow Up Code. And as a corporate girly, I'm obsessed with the size, I'm obsessed with the color. And of course, it has great content. So, Eli, welcome to the studio.

Speaker 1:11

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2 1:13

We were just talking about how I think I thank every guest for making the over-hour drive to come out and sit here with us. As an executive assistant, I can appreciate the value of time. And so, yeah.

Speaker 1:27

Well, it's, you know, so many of us are behind our desks all

Finding your people after moving to a new city

Speaker 1:30

the time. Even for me, I run my own podcast. I do it behind my desk because then I don't really want to go anywhere and have, you know, all the extra work that goes involved with it. So it's really is nice to be able to do that once in a while. So it's kind of like, hey, it's a Friday afternoon. Let's go hang out for a bit.

Speaker 2 1:44

Yes. When we first met, we met through a networking group, Success Champions Networking. And we, I think within that next week or two had uh what we call virtual coffee.

Speaker 3 1:55

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:55

So you spoke to when you first moved to the Dallas Fort Worth area, you were looking for a group to you were looking to find your community.

Speaker 2:04

Yes.

Speaker 2 2:04

Yes. And it's interesting that this word community has come up now. I think it's the third episode we are filming today, and it seems to be a theme. Can you explain to us why it was important when you first moved here to find this community?

Speaker 2:19

Yeah. So when I moved here, I knew nobody. I literally knew two people who are very distant business acquaintances. So, yes, I could reach out to them, we could have coffee or lunch or whatever, but not people I would call friends, not people that I know very well. Um, and so for me, I have to have human interaction. I have to find people that I can be with. Um, we live in this virtual world, even most of my business is not here locally, and it hasn't been even before I moved here. But having real people to communicate with is very, very important for me, which is really funny since I'm an introvert. But that was a big one and finding a business community, because I was, you know, I was kind of starting the business over when I moved. So I was like, okay, I need to figure out who to network with and who to talk to, find people who might actually want my stuff. And so that's where it came from. And the introduction actually came to Donnie, who is the the founder of Success Champions, through a client of mine who actually is in Atlanta. She was like, Well, you're in DFW. Do you know Donnie Bovin? And I was like, Um, don't think I know any Donnies. And so she introduced us. Uh, we ended up having a chat. And I wasn't so sure at first. I was like, Yeah, I've been to a lot of these things, not so sure. And it turned out to be pretty good. And almost three and a half years later, I'm still here, and now I'm even running a chapter.

Speaker 2 3:42

You are you are the president of the chapter that I'm a part of. So quick plug for Metropolitan Business Influencers. Your background is it in communications or in marketing?

Speaker 3:52

My but my background is somewhat in in marketing. My first company was a web and graphic design agency. I started that back in 1995, um, back before we had

Burning it down: how Ely learned marketing

Speaker 4:00

all like WordPress and all the fancy stuff we have now. It's like people have no clue how easy they have it compared to back then.

Speaker 3 4:06

Yes.

Speaker 4:07

Um, and I grew that from myself by myself, you know, just by myself working on my dining room to an office. I had five employees. We were closing three to five contracts a week. And I mean, we were doing really, really good. Then I realized didn't like going to an office, and I wasn't a real fan of my employees either. So I burnt the whole thing down, started over. Um, but I learned out of necessity, I learned marketing because it's like, okay, I can build pretty websites, but I got to get people to actually pay me for them, you know. And so I picked up, I mean, I spent, if anybody remembers, Borders books, um, you know, Barnes and Noble obviously still made it through, but Borders didn't. And I mean, I was spending probably $50 to $100 a week buying books to learn marketing and learn, but get better at graphic design, get better at um web design stuff. I mean, literally anything that would help me in my business,

The $100 dinner vs. the $50 book

Speaker 5:00

I was buying and consuming as fast as possible. And so that's what actually helped me grow that business and eventually led into what I'm doing now as well.

Speaker 2 5:10

I have been obsessed about Jim Rohn over the past month, listening to anything I can get my ears on. He's a classic, yeah. And he spoke to so many of us don't bet an eye at spending a hundred dollars on dinner. And yet when it comes to buying the $50 to $100 book or course, you know, whatever it is, it's like, oh and that really put so much into perspective to me for me because I love going to Dakota Steakhouse. Yeah, and yeah, I love Dakota Steakhouse, won't bet, like he said, won't bet an eye. But that really got me thinking, oh my gosh, like that $150 could be used on a course that's gonna advance my career, my personal life. And so yeah, it really put things in perspective and you're it's good that you got that because so many people don't.

Speaker 5:59

And I've I've always been, you know, it's like, okay, the best thing you can do to it grow your career, whatever that looks like, is to always be learning. How can you learn a new skill? How can you figure out how to do something just 10% better? Because that puts you at the top, top percentage. And literally, I mean, I don't even know what the stat is. I I've heard it a hundred times, but I don't remember the specifics of how many people have not actually read a book since high school, like the rest of their lives. They're not even picking up a book. And I'm like, it just it blows my mind because I have my space here because it because I moved into a much smaller place than I have before, and my space here is not near a big, near big enough. I need a lot more bookshelves and a lot more space to put the bookshelves. I have like 10 boxes of books that I haven't pulled out of the boxes yet that I refuse to get rid of. And when I moved, I got rid of like 30 bags worth of books. Um, these are ones that I had used over my career of learning,

Networking for introverts: lead with "who can I help?"

Speaker 7:00

and eventually was like, okay, you know, I need to downsize everything because I don't really don't want to haul all this stuff across the country. And at that point, I was like, let's let's put them out in the world and let other people get use of them. But I've been since I moved here, I've been collecting even more and I'm reading consistently. And, you know, we have we are in a world of so much information. The ability to learn anything is at our fingertips. It it's scary how many people don't take advantage of that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 7:31

It's that important advice that you'll come across every now and then don't consume the content, create the content. And how can we do that? By learning. So you you wrote the book, the follow-up code, and we're and and we're gonna get into it.

Speaker 7:45

But you actually have another book that you wrote before two previous books, and those are both um from ages ago, 2013, 2014, in that range. And those were marketing books as well. First one was 50 quick and easy ways to market your business. Um, that was done with my partner at the time. And then the second one was the sequel I put literally like right after it, uh, which was 25 Quick and Easy Ways to Network Your Business. So it was networking tidbits. And those two books, we had a lot of fun with them. Um, it was a good mini-series to get going. And being a networker myself, I mean, when I first grew my my design agency, that's literally how I grew was networking with other people. So I took everything that I had learned for like the previous 15 years and put it out there.

Speaker 2 8:31

For someone who's introverted, yeah. Networking can be can be challenging. So, how did you do it?

Speaker 8:39

So, a couple of things, and I actually put this in the book because of the fact I I designed that book literally for introverts.

Speaker 2 8:46

Sounds like I need to get it.

Speaker 8:47

Yeah. Um, I even wrote a course on it, did a whole course on it too, which was I don't even remember when I put that out, but it's still relevant today. Uh, there's so many things. First and foremost, walk into a room knowing exactly

Show up early, talk to the host

Speaker 9:00

what you're looking for. And it shouldn't be who's gonna give me a credit card. It should be who can I help? Change your mindset. Who in this room can I help?

Speaker 3 9:10

Yes.

Speaker 9:10

When you do that, it takes a lot of pressure off. Second thing is that if you are going to a room where you don't know anybody, show up early. Show up early. Because if you can go get there and you can possibly get in the room and meet the host before anybody else is there, you can ask them, hey, who should I know? Who should I meet tonight? And they'll be the person that'll introduce you to that person, which is easier. Also, when more people start showing up, they're gonna kind of trickle in. So you've got the host and you, and that's easy. You add one more person, okay? That's easy because there's just three people. You can still get another one coming in. You got four people, but you're already comfortable with the first two. And it just it's kind of a slow burn as opposed to walking into a room that's got 50 people. Um, that is one of the biggest things that I always tell people is like show up early, talk to the host, ask them who they should meet, or um, who you should meet, and get that conversation started that way. Because the host introducing you to the other person and then coming in at a small, small group kind of situation makes it so much more digestible than walking into a room. I mean, sometimes I'm known to go to events where I never even actually end up walking in the room because I I'm not working outside, I just talk to people. There was an event that I did years ago. Um, I don't remember what year it was. There was 600 people there. And I was there for five hours and never stepped foot in the room.

Speaker 2 10:36

That's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 10:38

But I taught I probably talked to 100 plus people that night.

Speaker 2 10:42

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone hasn't wanted to talk to you? What do you do?

Speaker 10:50

It depends on what the what the purpose is, what their situation is. Like if they don't, if they truly don't want to talk to you, then I move on. Yeah, I'm not gonna worry about it. Um, there are so

Never take rejection personally

Speaker 11:00

many people in this world that we can meet. Um, if somebody's gonna be a snob, I don't care. They could they can be a snob on their own time. I got I got 50 other people I can talk to. Um it depends on the situation. Maybe they're not feeling it, maybe they've got something else going on in their head, whatever. Um figure out, you know, figure out maybe you could get it, get a chance to talk to them in a different situation. Uh, maybe, maybe you could have that virtual coffee instead of meeting them in person, but never take anything personal because one of two things has happened. Either they're busy and overwhelmed by all the other people, and it's not that they don't want to talk to you, it's that they're being distracted by other people. Or two, they might be a jerk and you really don't want to talk to them anyway. And I've and I've been there before. I've met those people that you know, they are the the joke of don't ever meet your heroes. Sometimes you have that happen. It does happen. Yes, don't stress about it. Again, how many millions of people are there you can talk to? Go find somebody else. Somebody's gonna be happy to talk to you.

Speaker 2 12:02

It's so refreshing to hear your just you say that can, you know, sometimes validating, especially for someone who's a recovering people pleaser and you just want everyone to like you. Right. Yeah, it you go to a networking event, and especially if it's the first person, you know, because as an introvert, it's you know, I hype myself up a little bit, you know, playing my music in the car and like I'm ready and I'm gonna go. And then the first person you talk to just doesn't want to engage for whatever reason. Yeah, it's hard not to take it personal. So, again, giving grace for that communication, and I mean you don't know what kind of day they have, right? It's 100% correct.

Speaker 12:38

And you may not realize it. A lot of times people don't realize that that person might be an introvert too. So they they might actually be terrified to talk to you, they're just showing it differently. And I've I've had that happen before. And and sometimes like people that they're just not they're not engaging, they look like they really

Know your ticks: an introvert with extrovert tendencies

Speaker 13:00

do not want to be there, and it looks like it's not because they don't want to talk to you. And then a situation changes and they just open up because maybe you catch them in the hallway instead, or they were just were having a bad night, whatever. And sometimes, especially introverts, because introverts react differently in different ways. So I always joke about the fact I'm an introvert with extrovert tendencies. Uh-huh. So I can fake extrovert really well.

Speaker 1 13:26

Yes.

Speaker 13:27

But I know, like, I know what's going on in my head, and I know where my hands are starting to shake, and all the other things that are my traits, but I have worked for years on how to deal with those. And that's one of the things. If you're an introvert, don't let that hold you back. Learn what it is, learn what your ticks are.

Speaker 2 13:52

Uh-huh. Because we all have them. We do.

Speaker 13:55

Learn what they're what they are and learn how to deal with them. Um, you may or may not remember this, but like last year at the big conference for Success Champions, Babs. Um, if you have, if you had noticed at all, and you probably didn't, because most people don't, um, anytime you see me, you're gonna see me towards the back, close to a door, because that is part of my anxiety, is being close for an easy escape.

unknown 14:21

Yeah.

Speaker 14:21

And that's and that's something I learned early on. That was something that's part of my situation. Either that or I have to be with my back to the wall so

Archery as meditation (and becoming a champion archer)

Speaker 14:30

I can see everybody around. And preferably I got both, right?

Speaker 3 14:32

Yes, yes.

Speaker 14:33

You know, I want the door right here, and I want everybody else right here. Um when I learn that about myself, I'm like, okay, I don't like being up there and that gives me anxiety. So I'll just sit back here. And I'm just, I'm perfectly fine now. And so it's you just learn what those things are. Don't let, don't let the ticks or the quirks hold you back. Figure out how you can deal with them. If you need to take regular breaks to go outside and refresh or get away from everybody, that's fine. If at times you need to take lunch away from everybody, it I mean, lunch is the best time to communicate and and have a lot of, you know, really get to connect with other people. But if your anxiety won't handle it, that's fine. Go to the hotel room, take a nap. Whatever you need to do to make yourself on okay with it, just work with that. But don't ever let it defeat you.

Speaker 2 15:32

So for people who aren't aware, you also do public speaking. You're you know, you do speaking engagements, and I just feel like we've gotten whatever your hourly hourly rate is, we just got that in abundance because that was that's such great advice to give us. And I thank you, appreciate it. That's someone definitely who's been in the trenches and has put in the reps. Yeah. So Eli, your your website lists Archer's journey as a project alongside Meet Cool People and your marketing work, but no one's really ever asked about it. And so I'm curious why.

Speaker 16:11

Why people don't ask about it, I don't know. But it is, it's an interesting, fun thing. Uh, archery is for me, it's my form of meditation. I got into it um I don't even remember how many years, probably closer to 12-ish years ago, maybe. Um, I had never really been into it before. I think I I tried it once, you know, in high school when they actually give you like one thing, one sport every week to have you try everything. So I got to shoot like three arrows and sucked at it. Um, but it was it was several years ago, and I was like, I bet that archery be is a really good form of meditation. And I and I did learn, I just went and Googled at the time and found out it's actually very well known, especially in Japanese culture. And yeah, and so I got into it. I took classes, I found out that two things. Number one, uh, I loved it, I really enjoyed it. Second thing is the place that was doing the lessons should not be allowed to be teaching anybody anything because they were very unsafe. But I I went head over heels into it, got into uh just not just shooting, but I also got into building strings, uh, which is a kind of an art form in itself. Um I did got certified as an instructor, all kinds of other stuff. I've made my own arrows and I just have a blast with it. I did tournaments, I was actually number one longbow for five years up in the Northwest. What? Yes. Um, so they do tournaments within like five or six states. And so I took the number one position multiple years in that. And for me, it is meditation. It's a lot of fun. It is, it is actually really good, especially like if you have kids that are special needs, a lot of times they are really great with it because it helps them concentrate. And for me, I learned so much about it. I learned a lot more about getting into your own mindset and relaxing and letting go. And so for me, that is the number one thing with it. Plus, if you can go someplace, especially outdoors, and just go for a walk and fling some arrows, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 18:13

I feel like I'm hosting my own episode of Meet Cool People because that's so cool. And I've never had someone tie archery to being a form of meditation coming from a small town that has a big hunting base, and that's yeah, I mean, it's part of hunting.

Speaker 18:29

Right. A lot of people, a lot of people, that's where they do equate it to. And for me, I don't hunt. I have nothing wrong, I have no problem with hunting. For me personally, I just know we have a lot of great steakhouses. I don't need to. Um, but the the cool thing is if I ever needed to, I have the skills, I have the ability. Um, I know I would be perfectly fine with that, but I don't need to. I like to shoot targets and I have fun with it. We go, I mean, I do everything from my like my bow is a long bow. So if anybody who knows anything about archery, most of them think of compounds, which are the ones with the wheels and everything on it. I literally shoot it's a stick and a string. So think Robin Hood style, right? And and the reason I do that is because I live in the world of tech and I wanted something no fancy, no sights, no wheels, nothing extra. And when I when I say it's a stick and a string, that's pretty much what it is.

Speaker 2 19:24

Hey, with I want to stay here for a minute because again, this is so fascinating. When so let me mirror back really quick. You start you tried it in high school, and then you came back to it as an adult.

Speaker 19:39

Yeah. Yes. And it was, and there was like, I mean, I barely remember the high school experience. Like I remember, yeah, we went through and we tried golf one day and baseball one day and basketball one day, and we went through all these things, and I think I maybe shot maybe five arrows total in high school. And that's the only time I remember ever doing it as a kid in any way, shape, or form.

Speaker 2 19:58

What inspired you to try

Why try something new after 40?

Speaker 2 20:00

this as an adult? And the reason I'm asking is, you know, sometimes we hear, oh my gosh, this person is over 40 years old and doing this amazing thing. It's a marvel. And we're we're fed this narrative that when we're younger, things stick better, memory and all of that. And it can feel sometimes scary to try something new, especially when some of the narrative that's pushed on you is it's you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Speaker 20:28

Right.

Speaker 2 20:28

And but you have the spirit and this, and maybe some of it's the entrepreneurial spirit, but you're not afraid to try new things and go after new things. So when it comes coming back to the archery, what was that inspiration to try something new?

Speaker 20:42

You know what's really funny is I honestly I think it was probably the rise of all the the TV and movie stuff. You had Hunger Games, you had Arrow on TV, you had Hawkeye on Marvel Avengers, all the different things like that. And I'm just watching the shows and I'm like, I bet that that's I bet that's a really good form of meditation, actually. And that's literally the thought that crossed my head. And so, and then again, like I said, I just went to the computer and searched, and I was like, hmm, lo and behold, yep, it is. And and I have always been into meditation and finding different ways that you can let the day-to-day craziness go. And which is kind of what's led me to Bushido, which is a whole different piece and um that we could talk about. But um, that was where I was like, okay, I bet that would be a great form of meditation because it's just the process of the understanding the flow of what actually happens, because there's like eight steps to loosing an arrow.

Speaker 3 21:42

Uh-huh.

Speaker 21:42

And most people don't think about it. It's like, okay, stick the arrow on the string, pull back, let go. But there is a lot more to it. And then, and if you want to get good at it, you actually have to be very conscious of those things and do them in a very fluid motion. And that's what makes you good. And so I was like, hmm, this is kind of cool. And so, like I said, I took the one class, immediately fell in love with it. I mean, it was a series of classes, but it was like a month long or something like that. Um, but I immediately fell in love with it and just got sucked in hard.

Speaker 1 22:16

And yeah, it sounds like when you go all in, you go all in. You do.

Speaker 22:21

I do. I don't go in all, I don't get into a lot of different stuff. Like I'm not somebody who does a lot of stuff. Adventure, you know, you were talking about learning new things, is like I don't have a lot of things. And I'm like, yeah, I'm super excited about learning 552 new hobbies this week, not me. And when I pick something, I stick with it forever. My daughter used to um used to joke about the fact that I'm like a dog with a bone. I won't let go once I have something.

Speaker 2 22:44

But there's a superpower in and of that, you know, again, going back to is I it is Jim Brown again. I just I've been obsessed.

Speaker 22:53

He says he has he says good stuff.

Speaker 2 22:55

He really does. And he's he spoke this last one I heard, he spoke to

Go deep, not wide: Jim Rohn's five-year rule

Speaker 2 23:00

spend five years being good at one thing. And he's like, so many people will try to balance all the things and try to and the disadvantage there is you be you become good at none of it. Right. Whereas Jack of all trades, yes, yeah, and and that's fine. You can be okay at it, but if you want to level up your life and get known at something and just excel, it it has to be one thing. Yeah. And and that was the that was the time span, it was five years.

Speaker 23:29

Yeah. Yeah. Jim Jim's always been, he's always had great stuff. I had the pleasure of seeing him speak not too long before he passed away. Yeah. So I had that that honor and it was really cool. And it wasn't even a very big room of people. I mean, there was maybe a hundred people, which if anybody knows Jim Rohn, that's like a hundred people in a room, that's tiny compared to an intimate setting. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Um, but you know, we we try to so many things, and and going back to like the entrepreneurship side, um, and even going back into like especially marketing, it's like you know, we're talking about we're gonna talk about marketing stuff. Marketing is such a wide net this day these days, and everybody and their dog in the world of marketing tries to be everything to everybody. And and I and I did that at one point. I can I can do video, yes, I can do video. Can I coach people and stuff? Yes, I can. Can I do social media? Yes, I have a cool course on how to create unlimited content creation. I have all these different things that I can do, but my specialty and the thing that I zeroed in on is email nurture for your prospects or clients and referral partners. And as soon as I did that, it's like it was a relief because I got 10 times better at the one thing and I ain't worrying about anything else. Yeah. And somebody else comes along and is like, oh, well, I do this. Uh I I guess I'm kind of like you. No, you're not. You know, it's like I I don't have much competition because of the fact that everybody else are like, Oh, yeah, we write your emails, yeah, but you're you're doing this and this and this and this and this, and writing emails, you ain't gonna be that good.

unknown 25:12

Right.

Speaker 25:12

And so that's where if you're whether it's both hobby or or your career, your um your special skills, if you can go deep on it, you can get super focused, it relieves a lot of stress, it helps you excel. And and if you can turn literally say you're in the top five percent in a certain area, that's amazing. But if you try to do everything for everybody, you'll never achieve that. I said earlier on the archery side, I hit the number one longbow in the Northwest, and to be perfectly honest, in most of those years, and I don't remember all the stats on it, so

Why email became his craft

Speaker 26:00

I I can't give you exact, but for several of those years, if you compared my region with the rest of the US, I was like second in the US. That's which is cool.

Speaker 2 26:16

It's very cool.

Speaker 26:17

Yeah, and I don't I'm not saying I'm not saying it to brag, I'm saying it because I got very ultra focused in one thing, and I can say that I had that. That's cool to be able to say that because most people can't.

Speaker 2 26:31

Yeah. That you know, I appreciate that you drove the hour, but I feel like we're done Austin already. You've left us with just so much in just a short amount of time. I just kind of want to go reflect and think about my life choices. But Eli, why did you choose to going? Let's pivot a bit to the business aspect of what you do. Yeah, because it's obvious, it's very, you're very passionate about it, and that's how I first met you. Why did you choose email marketing?

Speaker 27:04

Email is for me, it was comfortable. It was like that it was a thing that just felt right. I didn't know this at the time, but I am a writer. I enjoy writing.

Speaker 3 27:12

Uh-huh.

Speaker 27:13

And I enjoy writing short form stuff. Meaning, uh, you know, nowadays we think of short form as like your reels, right? You know, Instagram reels and YouTube stuff and all that kind of stuff. Um, but as a writer, I had no desire to write a book. I like to write blog posts, or now we do, you know, blogs aren't as big of a deal, but we do things like, you know, our LinkedIn posts or Facebook posts, and they're and you're telling a nugget of a story, and I enjoy that short form. How can you tell a story in a page or page and a half and even less? And nowadays we have the everybody has the attention span of an ad, so it has to be less. So that's where I got into it. And I and I felt I started writing for myself. And I was trying, you know, I'm teaching all these classes. I would I taught everything from like back in the day, I had a course that I actually put out called Um How to Win Friends and Influence Tweeple, because it was one of the very first courses on how to do well on Twitter. Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 28:17

Right.

Speaker 28:18

Uh, I still have a DVD of that somewhere. Um and and so we were like, okay, how do we, you know, how do I put more content out there and and especially emails? Like I want to follow up with people, but I don't like the pitchy feel that people are doing so much in their emails. So I started just writing things where I'm just sharing tips, tricks, resources, a book that I recommend, things like that. Like, you know, I know you and I have talked about this, The Go Giver by Bob Berg, um, one of my favorite books, and I love sharing that one. And I share it so much. I always joke about the fact that Bob's gonna give me a commission check one of these days and I can retire. Um, but I would take things like that and say, hey, you know, here's a book I read. This is what I got out, this is what I got out of it. Hopefully it's useful for you too. Let me know what you think. And people started replying back and thanking me for the recommendation, and they'd read the books and tend to come back to me and tell me what they got out of it. And it was very conversational, which is for me kind of important, right? It's like relationship building over this text format, only not texting, because back when I started this, texting wasn't really much of anything at that point.

Speaker 2 29:25

Uh-huh.

Speaker 29:25

Uh, we still I'm pretty sure we still had to pay per text at that day. Um, those are the days, yeah. Those are the days, yeah. I wish we could go back to those. We get a whole lot less of them. Um, but it was all about sharing something in these nuggets. And and that's what I got comfortable and got good at. And then other people started coming to me and going, alrighty, like who's your guy? Who's doing this stuff for you? I'm raising my hand, going, uh, me. And they're like, Cool, here's my credit card. How much? I'm like, no, no, I got my own thing going. And eventually they wore me down. So I started helping them. And eventually what came of it was it wasn't just helping them with the strategy and implementing, you know, in the CRM and stuff like that. But what I was doing was actually they were wanting me to write for them. And so I started ghostwriting essentially for my clients. And for anybody who doesn't understand what a ghostwriter's job really is, most people think that a ghostwriting is basically you come to me and I'm gonna just write all your stuff for you.

Speaker 3 30:22

Okay. That's what I thought.

Speaker 30:23

Yeah, it's not how it works.

Speaker 3 30:24

Okay.

Speaker 30:25

I'm gonna interview you, I'm gonna pull your stories, and I'm gonna ask deeper questions, and I'm gonna get all that stuff that's already rattling around in your head, and then I'm massaging it into a congruent story. Where the difference is I ain't making anything up.

Speaker 2 30:44

Yes.

Speaker 30:44

I am taking your stories, your personality, your experiences, everything that makes you you, and all I'm doing is just putting it into pretty words. I'm just rearranging the words, really. Um, and that's somewhat of a downplay because there is an

What ghostwriting actually is

Speaker 31:00

art to it. But the for me, like that's one reason why I have so many people like are putting a lot of bad stuff out there and they can't understand why it doesn't work, is because you're not you lost the heart. Yeah, and this is, you know, I and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole, but this is one of the problems with AI, is that so many people are they're just like, oh, AI can write all my emails for me. It's like, well, it can, doesn't mean that they don't suck. You know, it needs to be you, it needs to be your stories and your experience. And so for me, that's what I'm doing is I'm pulling all of those nuances and and looking for not just the words that you say, but how you say them, your tonality, your pacing, all the different things that make you unique. And you can tell when somebody tells a story, you can see when they get excited, you can see when they get emotional, yes, they'll slow down, their voice will go lower. And so I'm paying attention to all those details, and then I translate that into how the words sit on a page.

unknown 32:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:04

Was this formal training, or is this something you've just learned from, you know, kind of in the moment human relations?

Speaker 32:12

A little bit of both. I learned copywriting early on. I've again I was a study, you know, as a learner. So I read some great books on copywriting when I first started. I learned from people like Bob Bly, uh, copywriter's handbook, phenomenal book. Uh, Dan Kennedy is the godfather of direct response marketing. There's a lot of different people out there in the marketing world that I learned from because I was trying to figure out how to how to use all this stuff in my business, my web design business, so I can try to pay the bills, right?

Speaker 3 32:39

Of course.

Speaker 32:39

Um, and then over time, I just I found my own niche to it and my the my way of doing it. Because there's a lot of stuff that it's great stuff, but it doesn't work in certain markets. And those tend to be some of the markets that I do like to work in. Much more relational based, less transactional based. And so people that are in the B2B space where you're a founder, I'm a founder, we're and I want to talk to you, I want to make sure that you know that I'm here for you and I care about your success. You're not just a number, not just a transaction to me. And when you like for my clients, that's the type of relationship that they have as well. And so it's a very different conversation than, hey, by the way, we got to buy one, get one free sale. And so that's kind of where I went down very, very deep into that rabbit hole. And I found that it that's what works for me, and that's what works for the clients that I'm working with. We get amazing results, and it's all because of we change how the communication is done. It's all about building heart, building relationship, building trust. I always say, you know, we've always heard that business is done by people who you know, like, and trust.

Speaker 3 33:54

Yes.

Speaker 33:55

But I say it's more know, like, trust, and have loyalty

Relationships over transactions: know, like, trust — and loyalty

Speaker 34:00

with. And you can't create loyalty from somebody who just asks you for money.

Speaker 3 34:04

Yeah.

Speaker 34:04

It's just not gonna happen. And so that's where that's kind of where my whole framework and methodology comes from. I don't know a lot of people that do it. Matter of fact, I have a lot of people that tell me it's like, I I know people who write emails, but I've never heard anybody write it like you're talking about. Like, okay, cool.

Speaker 2 34:22

You know, that yeah, very unique. You're superpower. And I think for those of us who are on LinkedIn, we experience this all the time, the cold email, right? And I mean, it's and you make you make the connection with someone, like, oh, we have a couple mutual connections, okay. Right. And then the the first thing you receive is, hey, I want to sell you this. Here's my and then it's like, I want to sell you this, here's my calendar lake, schedule time. It's like one, you're you're selling, I don't know who you are. Right. You're selling me, and I have to put in the work to make the appointment. Like, come on, yeah. Does this really work for you?

Speaker 34:58

Yeah, it's and unfortunately that's happened so much both on email and on LinkedIn. Um, and I reach out to people. I mean, I I'm doing prospecting just like everybody else, but it's it I come from a place of, hey, you know, tell me more about your business. What types of clients are you working with? Who are your referral partners? Something that we you do a lot in SCN. I'm coming from that. Once the relationship has been established and I think there's a way I can help them, I will, you know, I'll say, hey, I got some ideas or I noticed something I'd like to bring up and I'd love to help you if you're interested. But I'm building the relationship first. And a lot of times I'm looking at them and they I may not be able to help them, but I'm want I want to introduce them to somebody else. Yes. And the and that's where that goes along with just some of the basics of good communication should come from.

Speaker 3 35:48

Yes.

Speaker 35:49

You know, that's that's the goal with everything we do is build a relationship so people want to do business with us. And and it's, I mean, it works on the personal level too. I mean, how many times have you had somebody where you really just don't want to go hang out with them? We've all been there, right? Well, there's a reason for that. Because maybe they're always asking for something. Maybe they never pay when you go out to drinks, you know. I mean, maybe they're just whiny all the time. You know, I mean, they we all have a billion different reasons. But if you can figure out how you can definitely not be that person, people will be attracted to that. And people will want to do business with you or they want to hang out with you. And that's just it's just communication skills. It's being self-aware and realizing the again, it goes back to the what are your what are your quirks?

Speaker 2 36:47

Yes.

Speaker 36:48

You know, what are the things that uh what are the things that you say? Stop and think about the conversation you had last night with so-and-so. You know, what did you say? How did you say it? What did that look like? You know, I mean, I've had times in my life, and one was not even that long ago, is when I moved here, um, where I realized I had to stop and realize, look at myself and go, you know what? Life was a mess. I mean, I I moved across the country to restart my entire life. And when I did that, I wasn't a very friendly person and I was a whiner. And I realized I was like, well, I don't know, I know why nobody else wants to hang out with me. I don't want to hang out with me. And you have to have that self-awareness to catch that and change that. And when you and you know, you're never gonna be perfect. I know I'm not, but when you can figure that out, now you make it about them, yes, and make the conversation is about them and how you can help them, and even sometimes just listening to them. But as long as it's about them and not about you, you change the entire dynamic of the relationship.

Make it about them

Speaker 38:00

And like from an email perspective, 95% of the emails that I send are something for them. Most of them do not talk about my business. And even when they do talk about my business, I'm telling them, hey, here's something that's worked for us. You should try it.

Speaker 2 38:19

Yes.

Speaker 38:20

So it's not even, hey, here's something that worked for us, get them a call and I'll show you how to do it. And it'll be this much money, you know. Not doing that. I'm saying, hey, here's something that worked, give it a try. Let me know how it works.

Speaker 2 38:32

I'm reading, I'm rereading right now uh how to win friends and influence people like Elka. It's a classic. It's a classic that I just got my hands on. And the the first, the very first guest on this podcast, Jeremy Lennox, recommended it last year. And I was already late to the party last year because this book has been out forever.

Speaker 38:53

Well, yeah, the book's been around forever. It's older than both of us, I think.

Speaker 2 38:57

Exactly. And one of the things that that Dell speaks to is is that listen to the other person, appreciate that there's another viewpoint and something that stuck with me, a story he told in the book that stuck with me, and I think it's especially just true for today, where so much feels divided. Before you go, my conversation with Eli was too good to fit in one sitting, so I split it in two. What you just heard was part one. And we covered a lot why finding your people matters, when you're starting over in life, how to walk into a room full of strangers, when every instinct is telling you, get out of here. By going deep on one skill meets being a little good at everything, and yes, archery as a form of meditation. But the part that I really love is still ahead. In part two, Eli gets into the why underneath all of it. The seven virtues, he's about his marketing and even his life around, where they came from, and how some very old ideas about how we treat each other hold up in a world that feels more divided by the day. It gets honest, it gets personal, and of course, I'm still thinking about it. So don't wander off. Cartou is right behind this one. I'm Danny Rochelle Chow, and this is with Hatton Cattle. Stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. As always, if this resonated, send it to someone you care about. This is how the community grows, and this is how we all rise together.