The Key to Building Powerful Relationships with Jerry Acuff and Robin Napier
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“You got to love them for what they are and not for what you wish they were. The key to greatness is actually loving the people you work with. It's not liking them. It's loving them. It's loving them enough to give them your very best.”
— Jerry Acuff
The Most Important Characteristic Of A Great Leadership Team
Trust - firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
Loyalty - Dedicated to someone or something. Putting others before oneself.
The Role Of Delta Point
Delta Point is a consulting agency specializing in improving salespeople and their coaches' performance.
The organization places a strong emphasis on relationship-building, which is not just about being friendly but involves three key aspects: access, the ability to influence, and measurable results.
Delta Point's core mission is to help sales individuals and their coaches excel in their careers by enhancing their skills and fostering effective relationships.
Why Relationships Are Important In Business
Building relationships is not only about sales but is essential for success in various roles, including leadership.
Employees want five things from their supervisor: competent job instruction, a degree of independence in doing their job, information about company actions affecting them, praise for a job well done, and leadership instead of bossiness.
Leaders need to let people be themselves, offer independence, keep employees informed, provide praise, and be true leaders rather than bosses.
Leadership involves having followers, so leaders must offer something valuable for others to want to follow them.
Introverts Being Better At Building Relationships
Introverts are often better at relationship-building because they are more interested in others, are better listeners, ask better questions, and think during conversations.
The 3-Step Process to Build Relationships
Step 1: Start with the mindset that the other person would want a relationship with you.
Step 2: Believe that you have something to offer them.
Step 2: Act on your mindset and belief by initiating contact and maintaining relationships.
Relationship Building Remotely
It remains crucial to maintain and build relationships in remote settings.
Initiating check-ins, showing genuine interest in coworkers' lives, and making people feel valued and important are essential steps in building relationships through virtual means.
As a Leader - Make Their Job Fun!
Effective leadership involves making employees' jobs meaningful and enjoyable.
Leaders should love and appreciate their team members for who they are, rather than focusing on what they wish they were.
Loving the people you work with and giving them your best is essential for greatness in leadership. Monotony and mundane tasks should be avoided in favor of engaging and enjoyable work.
Unexpected Thoughtful Actions
People never forget when you're thoughtful – thoughtful actions have a lasting impact.
Thoughtful acts can be simple, like recommending lesser-known restaurants or providing helpful information, and they convey the message that the other person is important to you, fostering stronger relationships.
Mapping Relationships
The concept of mapping relationships relates to the pyramid of relationship levels.
Mapping relationships involves understanding where you stand with a person to determine the appropriate actions to take.
For individuals you don't know well, researching and finding common ground can be an initial step in building a relationship.
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Jerry Acuff is a true leader in the realm of both sales and leadership, serving as the CEO of Delta Point with notable distinction as the author of four bestselling books. Jerry's insights have resonated with countless readers, a true legend in sales training. He holds the prestigious ranking of number
four among the world's foremost sales experts, a testament to his profound impact on the industry. Not only do we have Jerry today, we've actually got two guests. Robin Napier, also at Delta Point, is a seasoned business development professional with a track record spanning more than 25 years. Dedicated to achieving tangible results.
Robin has amassed a wealth of expertise in sales, a proven driver of sales growth. Robin is characterized by its steadfast commitment to nurturing, lasting connections. Now I know you guys heard the word sales a decent amount as I did that introduction and we may hit on some sales, but our focus today is on building relationships.
So Jerry, Robin, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
Hey, I'm really
Good to be here Mike.
Thank you, Jerry. Really excited to have you on. And I need to mention that, you know, the only thing that gets to me a little bit is the guy that introduced us all Tony Kapula, who's a great guy, other than the fact that he's a Red Sox fan, and I know I've got some listeners that are Red Sox fans.
And if you need to turn this off, because I'm a big Bronx Yankee fan, do it. But, you know, it's the only thing. So, so if I look a little angry throughout the podcast, it's thinking about the Red Sox, the fact that, you know, when this airs, the baseball season will be over. But when this is recorded, the Yankees are in last place, doing horribly.
So, if you sense an attitude, that's exactly why. But, welcome anyway, guys.
Glad to be here.
Hey, one thing I want to start with and I talked to you guys about this before, before we started the recording. I have a tradition on this show that started about 30 seconds ago, which is at the beginning of every show.
I want to know from my guests, what they believe the one most important characteristic is of a great leadership team. So Jerry, Robin, no pressure, but since this tradition is starting on this show, If it goes well, it will keep going. If it doesn't go well, you may be the reason why I don't continue this tradition.
So no pressure, but Jerry, let me start with you before we dive into the relationship stuff, or maybe this is part of diving into the relationship stuff. In one word, Jerry, what do you believe is the most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Trust.
Love it. And I'm sure as we talk about relationships, I'd be shocked if that word didn't come up a little bit more today. Robin, how about you?
Jerry, you just stole my word, but
Oh, no.
I'm going to go with from loyalty.
Trust and loyalty. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I think loyalty. I think I think the Godfather and I know there's a speaker. I know that talks about loyalty and all the stories about the Godfather. So maybe we'll talk about the Godfather today today, too. So thank you. So trust and loyalty. Great start to that. And Robin, let me just start with you.
Let me have you tell us Robin. Tell us a little bit about Delta Point and your role there.
Absolutely. So Delta point is a consulting agency that specializes in basically helping its sales people and their coaches get better at what they do. And so, you know, one of the foundations of our organization is built on relationship building. And Jerry is obviously an expert at that, so, you know, we embody the meaning of going out there and building relationships and these relationships aren't like, hey, we're buddy, buddy, we're friends.
This is a relationship that, you know, we look at in three different ways. Do you have access? to this individual. Are you able to have a conversation and influence and have them have an open mind about what you're talking to them about? And what results do you get from that relationship?
So we really hone in on the fact of how do you build those relationships? Everybody talks about how important it is, but nobody really talks about how do you go about doing so. So that's, you know, That's what Delta point, that's what we do. And we help sales individuals and we help their coaches really just be better at what they do.
So their coaches lead a better team, their sales reps go out there and, you know, put their best foot forward and excel in their career.
Great. And we'll give you a chance later to, and it'll be in the show notes to talk about how people can find out more about you and your programs. But Jerry, let me ask you, you wrote a book called the Relationship Edge.
Right.
And so, tell us a little bit about why you wrote that book and why you think relationships are so important in business.
Well it's a great question, Mike, and honestly, probably 30 years ago, a friend of mine and I were writing a book, which never got published. It was called What Mama Never Taught You. And it had chapters in it like, you know, your mother really does like your brother better. And he wrote that chapter and I wrote one that if they like you, you have an edge.
And in that I basically created a pyramid where I say there's only six kinds of relationships that you can have with another person. And so first it's, you know, people that don't know me by name. Second level is people who know me by name. Third is people who like me, which means they don't mind being around you, but doesn't necessarily mean they want to go to dinner with you.
Next is people that are friendly with you, and those are people that when you begin your discussion, you sort of start off where you left off. Then it's people who respect you, and then people respect you only because you have consistent, persistent, predictable actions over time. And it takes a long time to get to that level.
And then the very last level is called, people who value a relationship with you. So, for example, you know, I wanted a relationship with a basketball coach at Arizona state. So I got somebody to introduce me. I went there and met him. He asked me if I needed, you know, what I wanted. Said, I don't like your t shirts.
I think they're ugly you know, I don't need tickets. I got plenty of money, you know, but I'd like to teach your kids how to build relationships while they're in college. He said, well, can you do that tomorrow? Now I've been mentoring him for 16 years now, and he's one of the top basketball coaches in the country.
And I've done that for two or three. But my point is that you know, there's different levels. And when I try and get people to understand that in business, and this is business in business, I'm always trying to get more people up a level, because if I can get you up a level, then I can begin to have different conversations because my advice is, is that the relationship is really a function of how you get engaged now, why I wrote the book, I was actually.
I had a pharmaceutical company and I was meeting with a senior vice president. He asked me this question, how do we get more time with customers? Now I had been a rep and a manager and I never had any trouble getting time with customers. So I went back and I said, well, I'm going to look, I'm going to read that chapter and I did.
And then I read six books on business relationship, including Carnegie's book. And actually Paul Cherry is a good friend of mine. He calls me the Dale Carnegie of the 21st century. But what's interesting about that book, Mike is nowhere in that book, any of those books, okay, two of them were written.
One was written by Maxwell. One was written by Leo Lowndes. One was written by, obviously, you know, the guy who wrote, you know, the greatest sort of relationship book of all time, Dale Carnegie. None of them told you how to do it. They all told you what to do. And, I'm a guy who ain't that smart.
And so I need to know exactly what the hell do you know, if I want to try and build those relationships. And so I got the idea that I read all six of those books twice. And then I said, well, heck, I think I can figure out how to do it. You know, what exactly do you do? What are the actions that you take to actually get somebody to want to have a business relationship with you?
And that's why I wrote the book. And so, you know, we've trained tens of thousands of people on the concept of the relationship edge in business. And we get people to understand this is not about having Facebook friends or somebody following you on Instagram. This is how do you position yourself with somebody so that they want to have a business relationship with you.
Because here's what I've learned. If I have a business relationship with you, you will listen to me differently. And the reality is in sales, which is, you know, sort of where we spend our time sales and certainly, you know, sales leadership, obviously, because, you know, sales leadership is probably the cornerstone of what makes salespeople great.
The reality is, I want people to listen to me differently than they listen to my competitors. And, I would say to you that the average salesperson doesn't do very good at it. They are so... they're so ready to tell their story that their willingness to be non biased and their willingness to understand the customer gets wiped out by their anxiety.
So I love that, Jerry, and there's two things I want to grab onto from that. The main thing is I want to talk about the how to.
Yes.
Because when it comes to relationship building, I think most of us just believe you're either good, naturally good at that or not. I'm an introvert. So I'm not real go. I'm an extrovert.
And what I love is your perspective on it, that there's a process. So I want to spend a lot of time on that. But before I do just for those leaders, if you're a leader, that's listening and saying, Oh, these are sales guys. They're talking about building a relationship so you could sell people something.
It's about more than sales. So let's talk a little bit about for the CEO for the executive leader that may not be the salesperson. Why is understanding how to build relationships important for those folks?
Well, it's not important unless you don't give a damn about success.
I mean, the reality is if you want to be wildly successful, and I don't mean marginally successful, I mean, wildly successful you want to have great relationships with your team because you want them to trust you. And the only way that they trust you.
And then ultimately at the same time, respect you. Is when you actually help them do five things. And I learned these five things 35 years ago from a guy named David Yoho. And Yoho said, look, here's what employees want from a supervisor. Number one, they want competent job instruction. Now I can tell you for some leaders that ain't, they're not great at competent job instruction because they get so high in the atmosphere.
They lose connection with the people that are actually out making the calls and the customer. The second thing is, they want a degree of independence in doing a job. And I learned that the first time that I actually went out with my very first hire. Every time I make a call, he'd say, I can't do that.
I can't do that. I can't do that. And I'm saying, why is it that I hired this idiot? And basically what he taught me, Mike, was you're trying to make me you, I don't want to be you. I want to be me. And he taught me in my very early stages of my thing that I needed to let him be authentic. Now, let me tell you what happened.
I was running a group of eight salespeople. We just launched a product. My average sales was 5,000 a month and I was leading the country. This guy would not even make a call in front of me, and he kept saying, I can't do that. It's not my style. Can't do that. Not my style. I wanted to fire him, but I couldn't figure out how to embarrass myself to my boss because I had fought for this guy who had flunked the exam, you know, actually go to work for us.
And so I told him when I left, I said, look, I don't call me till next week because I got to figure out how to fire you. I didn't say that, but that's what I was meant. And he calls me the next week. And I, and again, my district is averaging 5,000 rev. He called me the next week. And here's what he said. What do you want me to do these orders?
I said, what do you mean? He said, well, you told me to get these orders. How much is it? 26, 000 dollars. You know what I said to him, Mike? I said, I don't like your style.
And my point is we have to let people be themselves. Now we need to give them a degree of independence in doing the job. The third thing that they want is. They want to be informed about the things that the company are doing that impact their life. And, being informed sometimes means that as a leader, I just say, I don't know, but I will try to do everything I can to find out. The next thing they want is praise for a job well done. And I will tell you the average manager stinks at this.
Go to Dollar Tree and buy a damn card. It costs you a buck, maybe a buck and a quarter. And somebody does something extraordinary. Send them that. Don't send them a text. Don't call them. Don't send them bulletin. Just actually go buy a card. And then the last thing is they want to work for a leader, not a boss.
Boss spelled backwards is double SSOB. And I don't want to work for a double SSOB. I want to work for someone who's a leader. Now what's a leader? A leader is someone who has followers. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, why would someone follow you? What characteristics do you have? What can you offer to them that's so valuable that they would want to follow you?
And if you can't do that, they ain't going to follow you. They may act like they are, but they're not following.
Jerry. I want to get into the how and whether it's leader to follower or in the case of a big part of building relationships, it may be leader to leader, right? Those peers on the leadership team, there is you guys in your workshops, I believe in the book as well.
You talk about a three step process.
Right.
To building business relationships.
Right.
So again, let's get into that how. So people don't just say, oh, I'm naturally good. Or I'm actually bad. What is that three step process?
Well, before I answer that question, I'm going to take on one of your, you know, thoughts here before, because this is true. Introverts are way better at this than extroverts, just so you know.
Why is that? Tell us, say more about that. I'm interested
Well, if you do any reading about introverts, what you find out is that introverts are far more interested in you than they are themselves.
And so they're far better listeners. They ask better questions. They think while they're actually having conversations with people. And the average person who's an extrovert doesn't do that. Now I am, I have the lowest I in my group, you know, and I'm an introvert. I'm actually an ambivert. I'm sort of right on the middle.
But the reality is if you're going to build relationships, there's three things that you have to do. And this is the, basically the formula. Number one, it starts with your mindset and your mindset has to be, this person would want a relationship with me. And oftentimes in business relation in business settings.
There's a huge gap between, let's say, you know, a sales leader and the CEO of the company, you know, when I used to work in a pharmaceutical company, I was a lonely associate director, but I tried to build relationships. Number one, I started with the HR person and honestly, what would happen in our company, they would bring these people in from other, subsidiaries.
And the people who were, you know, sort of legacy for our company would treat them like they were, you know, that they had the flu or something. And I always tried to take them in and let them understand what, you know, how did, how did things work? But it starts with your thoughts. Now, what do you have to think?
You have to think that someone would want to have a conversation with you. The second thing you have to believe is that you have something to offer them. And if you don't believe that, then you're probably going to say, well, I don't think this person wants a relationship with you. I try and teach people every time I talk to somebody, don't make decisions for other people. It's a bad idea. I cannot tell you like how many people call me ultimately. And they say, you know, I was going to call you before, but you, I know how busy you are. I said first place. You don't have a damn clue how busy I am. Okay. But that shouldn't matter. If you reach out to me and I do not respond,
then you either know I'm a jerk, which is, my guess is you'd probably like to know that because then you have to bother with me again, or you're going to find out I'm a pretty good guy.
I'm a big believer that the laws of the universe are fairly set, and one of them is what you give, you get. And so when people ask me for guidance or advice, I give it to them. Now, if they're trying to sell me something, you know, it's a whole other story. I mean, I may listen to them if I'm interested, but, you know, the average person who calls me and asks me for advice, I'll say sure I'll get on the phone with you and I'll tell you exactly what to do.
I'll tell you how to interview. I'll tell you what questions to ask. I'll tell you the big money question you ought to ask in an interview. I'll tell you all that stuff. Why? Because they asked me to and I know that if I give, I get. Now if you know where the getting's coming from, that's manipulation and I don't do that.
So it's your mindset. I mean, I used to go up to when we would have these sessions, I'd go up and I'd introduce myself to every speaker. Now, you know, we had 50 managers. I was the only person going up, talking to the speakers. And I asked every one of them, I asked them, could I stay in touch with you?
And they all said, yes, but nobody else would do that. And I don't know why they wouldn't do it. I didn't really care, but to me, my mindset was, I want a relationship with these people. So how are you going to get it? You got to go get it. As it turns out, one of the first one of my relationships was a guy named, Danny Cox, who one of the greatest speakers ever and Danny actually, I asked that the first book I wrote the relationship edge, Wiley asked me, John Wiley, the publisher said, you know, who do you know, this famous that can endorse your book?
I said, Danny Cox and Danny endorsed my book. And then he asked me to endorse his second book. So, I think one is what you think. The second is...
Before you go, Jerry, before you go to the second one, I just wanted to hit on how helpful that was for me. And, I hope I'm a proxy for the audience in that you said something really important. Is that part of that mindset. So I thought you were going to say mindset of, you know, that have a mindset that you want to build this relationship with the other person, but you didn't start there.
You started by saying, have a mindset where you truly believe that that other person wants the relationship with you. And that's so helpful because I'm someone while I can get up in front of a room of a thousand people and speak and feel comfortable. If you, if we were at a networking event or some business event and you say, Hey, Mike, you see that guy in the corner over there?
It's really important you go meet him. Because he's done amazing things. He could be helpful to you for me. It's like, all of a sudden, my feet weigh a thousand pounds. I don't want to walk over there because the first thought in my head is why do they want to meet me? So, if I could start with that mindset, and if our audience can start with that mindset of, hey, these people want that relationship
as well, all of a sudden my feet aren't so heavy and I can kind of glide over there and start the relationship. So I just wanted to stop before you went to number two. That piece of mindset I think is super helpful. So thank you for that.
Oh, you're welcome. Well, the next time when you have that reticence, just say, Hey, I'm going to go over here and say to this guy, Jerry Acuff told me I needed to meet you. And, they'll probably either say, you know who I am, but they probably won't. Or they'll say, well, who's Jerry Acuff?
Well, he wrote the bestselling book on relationship building and I read it. And so I'm coming over here and, trying to get to know him. Listen, I was on an airplane in Chicago. I'll tell you this story. I was on an airplane in Chicago, first class, and I sat next to a guy. And the first thing he said to me was I was in the window seat.
He was in the aisle. First thing he says to me is I hate to talk to people on airplanes. Then he put a book between us that said how to sue the person sitting next to you on an airplane. And so I'm sitting there thinking, okay, I've read, and I've seen this guy on TV in Phoenix. And we all lived in Phoenix at the time and I've seen this guy, and he's a very, very great speaker. And he's actually a really good guy. But I'm sure he's had a lot of annoying conversations, right? So I said to myself, okay, Jerry, you've written a best selling book on relationships. Okay, I mentally said to myself, I'm like I accept your challenge.
Because the real, the real concept of the book that I try and drive home is how do you build relationships with people that are difficult to build relationships with because you and I, you and I don't need.
I don't need a book to build a relationship with you and you don't need one to build it with me. But there are people that you meet that are important to you that you got to figure out how do I actually get to, to those things. So he started to put his, earbuds in. And when he said this, here's what I said.
Now, this is one of the questions I try and get people to, to ask. I said, say, before you do that, can I ask you a personal question? And he ripped those things out and he said, yeah, what do you want to know? Now, Brendan Kane wrote a book called a hook point. One of the things he says is that, you know, one of the ways to get people's attention is to exercise pattern interruption that makes them want to learn more.
Now, this guy was dying to know what I, you know, what I was asking. So I think he said, where'd you see me? I said, I think I saw you on television in Phoenix. He said, yeah. He said, but I got a whole big series called, Hey, big spender. And I said, really?
He said, tell me about it. Now this guy talked to me for three hours. He never asked me my name. He never asked me anything about me. And I just listened to him. And when we landed in Phoenix. He jumps up and he says, Hey, you and I got to get together. You are the most interesting person I've ever met. And so I said to myself, okay, I just proved the fact that you can actually build a relationship with somebody who doesn't want a relationship with you.
But you have to have the mindset that there may be something that this person would actually want to learn from you. I mean, if you go up and tell people that you have a podcast. Anybody with a brain is gonna say, Hey, this is somebody I probably needs to know. I mean, hell, you could be the next Joe Rogan for all I know.
So I don't try and make any judgments about what people do and who they are. But I think the key thing here is I have to have the mindset that I'm not letting this guy shut me up. I'm gonna see if I can actually get him to begin to talk to me about it. He sent me his books. He sent me a card. I still have this card that he sent me and says, Man, you know, we got to get together, etcetera.
But my point is a lot of it is I teach people if you want to get somebody to talk to you, say, say, before we get, you know, going here, can I ask you a personal question now? 95% maybe 5% won't want you to ask him a personal question, but the average person doesn't know whether you're going to ask them where they're from, where they went to college, where they went to high school.
What's their favorite team? You know, in your case, it's the Yankees. In my case, it's the Yankees and the Cardinals. Cause I grew up going to a Cardinal game, but I was Mickey Mantles, you know, Mickey Mantle was my idol, but I mean, people want to have conversations to people that they think are not biased and people who are truly interested in them and I truly am interested in people.
So to me, that's the whole concept of having the right mindset is that you have to believe you can bring some value.
So mindset's number one. And Robin, be prepared when Jerry takes us through two and three. I'm going to want to get your view and how you've seen that stuff come to life. So we're going to come back around to you. But Jerry, so mindset's number one. What's number two?
It's what you ask. I mean, you actually have to understand, you have to ask people questions to find out about them. And you know, everybody has an invisible tattoo on their chest that says, make me feel important. And the easiest way to make anybody feel important that I have found, and maybe it's not the easiest, it's certainly one of the two or three easiest, is simply listen to them.
But you can't listen to them if you're not asking them the right questions. One of the things I try and teach salespeople. is, you know, if you're in a complex sale and to me, a complex sales, anything over 100 bucks, you need to, you might want to spend two or three calls where you don't even talk about your product, where you're trying to learn something about the people that you're calling them, where you certainly try and build a relationship with a gatekeeper if there's a gatekeeper there, but it's the questions that you ask.
But if you say, say, I don't want to say anything today. What happens to sales resistance? If I'm on a sales call and I say in my, when I pit, when I have a chance to talk, say, I don't want to sell you anything today, what do you think happens to sales resistance? It's gone. Now I'm going to ask questions that lead me to an understanding of how this person thinks, because I can't change.
How they think until I know what they think, but if I take the sales pressure off by my words, and this is why everybody at Delta point has a business card on the back that says words matter, then the second thing is you ask the right questions and you get them to talking about their favorite subject.
Now, what I get people to understand is that what you want them to talk about is what they treasure. It's not what you and they have in common, it's what do they treasure. When you get people talking about what they treasure, you will almost always separate yourself from everybody.
Let me throw a challenge out to both of you. Whichever of you wants to answer maybe both of you will will have an answer is when I think about this in the environment we live in today, which in some ways is very different than the environment we lived in three or four years ago.
Right.
When a lot of us are in this remote slash hybrid environment, and let's I'm not talking about sales here. I'm talking about relationships.
Yeah, sure.
Let's say within a company three or four years ago. There were conversations, relationship building conversations that would happen in the hallway in between meetings where you might say, Hey, tell me again about your family. Hey, what do you have coming up this weekend where you're asking questions that may have nothing to do with business.
You're getting to know the other person. There was a gentleman. There's a gentleman that actually retired a few months ago, one of my clients who was the historian for the company. He had been at the company for 45 years.
Wow.
And the value he added was not, he wasn't the best sales guy. He wasn't the best technologist anymore, but the value he added is he was the guy you talk to when you had an issue.
He knew the way that company worked. He knew the history. And when you were live and in person in the office, he was the guy you wanted to have the water cooler conversation with. When things went remote and then hybrid his value to the organization, sadly diminished to almost zero because on a zoom call,
when you have a zoom call to have a discussion, you don't have the meeting before the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, the talk in the hallway, Hey, let's go out, out to lunch.
So when it comes to asking questions and building these relationships, and I know we haven't gotten to step three yet, how does it change what what do we need to think about in a remote or a hybrid environment that maybe was more natural before.
Robin, you want to take that?
Sure thing. I think it's still just as important, right? I mean, if you check it, if it has to do with your coworkers, check in with them. If you're a leader, you know, make the call to your employee, see how they're doing. Don't have it be about work. Have it be, Hey, how's life going? really get a true understanding about what's going on in that
person's world. You know, when one of the things that I did a lot of is checking with teammates, you know, really try to figure out, Hey, how's it going? You know, what are you running into? Tell me, you know, what have you been up to? You know, we, we don't get to go out, we don't get to do all these things.
What are you and your family, what have you guys been doing? It's just a really. Making somebody like Jerry said earlier, feel important. And I think it's truly, you know, it doesn't matter if it's over a zoom call. It doesn't matter if it's over a phone call, whatever it is, you know, still inquire how that person's doing, what's going on in their life and don't have it all be about work.
It's super important that people feel like they're valued and, you know, what they're doing and you know, they want to share. So if people aren't asking them, they're not giving that information. So I think it's just as important to be honest with you.
Jerry, anything to add?
Yeah, I'd say three things.I think number one is, you know, be creative. Most people, if you look at their subject line, they're not creative at all. Hey, can we, you know, catch up or something. I always try and write something. I think that they'll want to know, what the hell did this guy, why, why did he send this message here?
Because it's, I wanna know what he wants to learn. So, the other thing I try and teach people is the foremost. Powerful words. I've heard somebody say this before, and it's hard for me to argue it. The four most powerful words in the English language are, I need your help. And if you ask for somebody for help, the average person is going to want to give you help.
They don't know what to help that you need, but most people, not all, but the vast majority of people are people that are certainly willing to help people. And I think the last thing is leverage the relationships that you have, or maybe you have. I don't get on a call ordinarily with any client. If I know who's going to be on there that I don't look every single one of them up and see who, what connections do we have in common? And when I get to talk to them, I will raise up those, some of those people and say, how well do you know? You know, you know, Robin Napier, if at all, and they'll say, Oh, I know Robin really well, you know, she and I worked together, you know, three years ago, and she was terrific, etc. But whenever you, you know, find some something where people can say, okay, this person's okay, you're really good.
Most people. And the other thing is, if you have the right mindset. You can meet people that, you know, you never thought that you could meet if you actually do it the right way. I mean, I teach people the exact words that you use. If you want to, if you want to meet somebody that, you know, I've never met, you know, like this basketball coach at, Arizona state.
I just ask everybody. I knew how well do you know, you know, this guy at all. And nine people said, I don't 2 person said, I know him really well. Next question, how comfortable would you be introducing me? And he said, you want to have breakfast with him next Thursday? I said, sure. Now, what I also think is that whenever you do get an opportunity like that, you better be able to take some value to the table because they're going to want to know, why did you want to talk to me?
So, but if I do that, and I always, to me, a lot of times, I still think that I need your help is there. And, I mean, I'll call people. I drove. Six hours two weeks ago to have dinner with one person took me six hours to get up there in six hours to get back because I needed his help. And that's what I said.
I need your help. He said, Sure, come up here. Now, this is a high level person who I've known for an awful long time, and he was very, very helpful to me, people are willing to help you if you just asked for it. But I think the key is you know, to be creative if you're sending them an email and if you're not sending them an email and you send them a voice message, be creative without being stupid.
And then I think the other thing is leverage relationships. You got to try and figure out who do they know that, you know, because if I introduce you to somebody, then that person does not start at the bottom of the pyramid. You have a pyramid, you know, this relationship pyramid. If I introduce you and I say, Hey, I want you to talk to this person.
You know, there's probably an 80% chance that if I ask them to do that, they'll do it. But a lot of people won't ask, but you should.
The one thing I'll add before, I want us to get to step three. It was mindset. It was, you know, it's about what you ask. And then we'll get to the third step. But the thing I would just add on this kind of remote hybrid environment, specifically within a hybrid environment, is what I find is companies say, okay, we're going to be in the office Tuesdays and Thursdays.
RIght.
But what they do on Tuesdays and Thursdays is the same crap they do Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So people are there on Tuesday and Thursday going, you know what, I'm spending an hour and a half commuting. You know, back and forth to be in an office when I could have done the same thing at home and people resent, why do I need to be in the office if I'm just doing the same thing I could have done at home?
What most companies have not started doing yet is saying, how could we leverage the in office time to do some things that we can't do or can't do well when we're working totally remotely? And one of those things is building relationships. Because it is harder to build relationships over Zoom. So if you can take those Tuesdays and Thursdays you're in the office and say, all right, what could we do specifically to get to know each other, build some relationships, then people are actually getting value from being in the office those days.
Yeah. Well, I love your idea because the reality, what you're, this is what I hear you saying. What you're saying is that most of these people that are in situations like that have poor leadership. Because anybody who's a really good leader is going to say, if I want you to come into this office, then I expect that we're actually going to do something that you find meaningful and probably fun.
One of the things that I find that leaders, a lot of leaders forget is that if you want people to be loyal, if you want people to respect you, you better make their job fun. And one of the things I teach all the, I mentor three college basketball coaches, and here's what I tell them. And I think this is true. I talk about this for my own children.
You got to love them for what they are and not for what you wish they were. The key to greatness is actually loving the people you work with. It's not like them. It's loving them. It's loving them enough to give them your very best. And your very best is not very good. If all you're doing is asking them to do something mundane on Tuesday and Thursday that they could have done at home, that's lousy leadership. In my point, you know, from my perspective.
Agreed. Agreed. So three steps. Mindset number one, it's what you ask was number two.
Right.
Jerry, what's number three?
What do you do? I mean, relationships are all built on actions. You can take those other two things and I'm not saying that they're not important, but fundamentally our relationships are built on actions and your actions need to be consistent, persistent, predictable over time. And once they are, then I can say, okay, I know exactly what Mike Goldman's is like exactly. And I know that this is somebody I want in my life. This is somebody I want to be friendly with. This is somebody I want at the top of my pyramid, but that's based on what you do.
And I'll give you a simple example. I hired a woman years ago. Her name is Valerie Sokolosky and you ought to have her on.
She's unbelievably wonderful, terrific consultant. I wanted her, she was at that time, she just focused on manners. And I had a bunch of, you know, what I thought were people that we were taking out important people and I don't think they knew how to, I know I don't drink wine, so I didn't know what, you know, if it's red or white, what the hell do you do with it?
And so I hired her to come to a session in San Antonio. She's from Texas. She lives in Dallas. And, she came and her son had just gotten killed in a, I think a motorcycle accident and then she had another son and then she had a daughter. And so, you know, she was terrific. And so we became really good friends, still are good friends.
And she asked me one time, she says, what, what does your daughter like? And I had a 13 year old daughter at the time. I said, well, she's crazy for this television show. And it's, I think it's filmed in Canada, but she's just her favorite thing. She says, well, what is it? And I told her, she said, my son is a star of that show. And I'm like, you're so I went home and told my daughter, I said, you're not going to believe this. I said, but you know, Valerie's one of my consultants her son is actually
the guy that is your heartthrob and you know, she was all excited, you know, that she knew somebody that knew him well, Thanksgiving Day, because this was like an October Thanksgiving Day, my phone rings in New Jersey at 10a.m. And it's Valeire, and I'm asking myself, Mike, why is she calling me on Thanksgiving. Now, you know, I really hadn't met her husband that I hadn't met her kids. And then. It hit me. She said, Where's Laura? And I said, Well, she's right here. Put her on the phone. Now, why did she do that?
Because who's at her house? And so I hear my child scream. And this is the one of the highlights of her life. Now, that's a person that I will go to the end of the story that is, you know, 25 years old, but I will never forget it. That's an unexpected, thoughtful act. So we teach people, how do you do unexpected, thoughtful acts?
And they're not hard to do, but if you're a good listeners, let's say you're talking to a, you know, a colleague, tell you they're going to New Orleans for their 25th anniversary. And have you ever been to New Orleans? No. that's all I need to know. So that night I'll go home and I'll call the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans.
I said, do me a favor. I got friends coming down there. Uh, can you give me the name of two or three restaurants that are not Galatoire's? They're not Emerils. I mean, they're not the famous, famous places that, you know, ordinary people in New Orleans would go to. Can you just give me a couple of those? The concierge will do that without a blink.
And then you go, but the next time you see him, you say, Hey, you know, you told me you were going to New Orleans for your 25th anniversary. I happened to call, the Ritz Carlton and they gave me the name of these two restaurants. I thought I'd give them to you. Now, who do you know in this world that doesn't like thoughtful people? We love thoughtful people. Problem is most of us don't have the mindset that I need to be thoughtful. And so your actions, the things that you do need to be consistent, persistent, predictable over time. And, or they need to be an unexpected thoughtful act. People love thoughtful people. They don't forget them because when you're thoughtful, what you do is you transmit to this other person that they're really important to you. And I think that's how you make people want a relationship with you.
I love that. Just wrote down the phrase unexpected thoughtful acts.
Yeah, we call them UTAs. That's what we call them. Unexpected Thoughtful Acts. UTA.
That sounds too much like urinary tract infection. I'm going call it unexpected. Oh, that's UTI. That's different. That's different. Okay.
Well, you had me there, Mike.
The next thing I want to hit on you talk about, mapping, mapping relationships, right? Tell me, and I don't know if that goes back to the pyramid, you know, or it's something else, but you talk about mapping relationships. What do you mean by that? And how does that work?
Well, it's all related to the pyramid because what I want to try and understand is where am I with this person? Because where I am with that person is going to dictate what actions do I actually take next? So for example, if I'm, you know, and I mentor two very probably two to the top 20 basketball coaches in the country.
And so, you know, what do I do for them? I mean, I oftentimes think about, I listened to their press conferences and I'll call them and say, Hey, this is, here's an idea that you might have. And then they'll call me and they'll ask me a question, etcetera. If I'm somebody that I don't know very well, then the first thing I'm going to do if I want to meet them is I'm going to do some research on.
Actually, there was an author that's a Stanford professor, wrote a terrific book, and I wanted to meet her. And so, and I had done a TV show with Bob Cialdini, and Cialdini is the greatest, you know, persuasion expert in the world, and a wonderful human being. So, he and I had done a TV show on car sales people. And, I love his, you know, his stuff, but I called her office and I said, like, you know, see if I could get an appointment to talk to the doctor and I explained who I was. And of course, you know, they don't know who the hell I am. I'm sure most people don't. But, she said, well, you'll have to send her an email.
She decides based on your email. So I thought about that email for a long time. And I, read her book and I sent her a message and I said, you know, I'd love to have a conversation with you because I think you discovered something that even Dr. Cialdini missed. You think she called me? You damn right she did.
Love it.
I mean, she knows that she and Charldini are in the same basic lane, right? But she had an idea that he had not had. I thought it was genius. And we had a wonderful conversation. But my point is, it's really thinking about, you know, how can you, get access to this person if they don't know you?
If they do know you, what are some unexpected thoughtful acts that you could do that would get them to move up the pyramid? And then how, as a person in their life, can you have consistent, persistent, predictable actions over time that show to them that they can respect you and they can trust you because if you can build those things over time, then you can build relationships. And once you get people to the top of the pyramid where they value relationship with you, that's when they come to you and you go to them with sort of equal philosophy because they want your ideas because they believe that you have ideas that can help.
And Jerry, are you, are you suggesting that this pyramid and mapping people to the pyramid again, I'm thinking of a, you know, a leader on a leadership team and they've got their peers, they've got the CEO, they've got their direct reports, they've got the external vendors, maybe they are in sales, maybe they're not, but at very least they've got external vendors.
Are you literally suggesting that people kind of take every important relationship and map where are they in the on the pyramid? How am I going to move them up the pyramid? Is it more just hey think about this kind of symbolically or is it literally kind of let's map each person and what's your next step to move up the pyramid?
I think once you really understand a pyramid, you don't need a map. You don't need to write it down. You intuitively know, based on the way the other person interacts with you, where are you on the pyramid? And once you know where you are on the pyramid, then, I mean, we actually have a whole document that tells you how do you move somebody from one level to the next.
And we're not talking about salespeople. We're talking about anybody. So we created a document to give people an idea of, okay, if you feel that this person is at this level, one of the things I always tell people, if I do a session with a salespeople, a group of salespeople, let's say I've got 50 people in there and I asked this question, I said,
if you had to guess what percentage of the people that you call on, do you have a great relationship with? And that number is usually well over 80%. Then I asked this question. I said, okay, now, if I define a great relationship as access, when I need it, this person will listen to me differently and they will proactively help me succeed. That's, someone who's at the top of my pyramid. What percentage of your customers are like that?
And you know what that number goes down to 10 or 15%. And what I'm starting to say, it's hard to get people to the top, but when you get them to the top, the benefits are unbelievable.
So as we start to wrap up, I want to make sure we're leaving folks with a few more. We've already got a ton, but maybe a few more specific things that there are. Here's what I'm going to go do after, after I'm done listening to this episode. Maybe they'll listen to another episode, but they stop after this.
What are they going to go do? So when you talk about. The things you can do to move people up the pyramid. I don't necessarily want to call them shortcuts because I don't know if shortcuts the right word, but specific actions people could take. They're thinking about the relationships they have now.
What are a few specific actions that that we haven't already talked about? People ought to think about moving on today. Tomorrow.
Yeah, that's a great question. And the answer is to me, I think it's what questions you ask. Now, if you look in the book, if you read the book, there's 20 questions that you can ask anybody that'll get them to talking about themselves. And that is the almost always the catalyst for people wanting to have a better relationship with you when they realize that you're not like everybody else.
You're not trying to shove something down their throat, that you're not trying to get their job. If you're talking about it, I mean, I used to work in a very large organization and I was the VP GM and I had lots of people, but I also knew that my leadership was directly related to how much they wanted to hear what I had to say.
Well, you know what that means? That means I got to care what you say. And I used to do a Saturday chat by, you know, Jerry Acuff by the lawn. So I'd go out and cut the grass in the morning and then I'd come in and I'd do a call and I'd have 200 people on there out of five hundred and I'd say, ask me whatever questions you got, whatever you want to ask and things I can answer, I could answer.
But I think it's demonstrating that you care, genuinely care. And the only way you do that is by trying to find something out about it , you know, I'd read a thing years ago, and it said, you know, if you, if you want to be exchange information with another person and essentially whether you're working, you know, at IBM and you're working with a whole bunch of technology people, or if you're in sales, you are going to want to exchange information with people.
And this person said, look, the only reason people would exchange information with you is two things. Number one, they don't think you're biased. Now, the reality is if you're biased, then you ought to get rid of it because it's the death knell of success.
The second thing is people want to believe that you truly understand them. And the reality is most people that we talk to the conversations are not geared towards true understanding of who this person is and how they think you cannot change what somebody thinks until you know what they think. And the vast majority of us are in such a hurry to be successful that we don't step back and say, let me get to know this person.
Let me get to see how I can help them. If you do that, I think you'll be wildly successful.
So Robin, let me ask you and then and then Jerry, you may have some input as well. When I think of Jerry, when you just that was really helpful. And I think, hey, as a leader, maybe 1 of the things a leader can do, even though maybe they're not taking that they're not mapping every relationship literally as the next step.
If you are the CFO on the team or whatever, you may take your peers on the team, your direct reports, maybe the CEO and say, Hey, what is it that I can do for each of those folks to show that I care? And maybe that's the first step. But here's the question, Robin, I want to ask you, because I know what the CEOs I work with.
I know what some of them may think is, well, I'll do that for these people. This person kind of, I really don't, I don't really care about this person. You know, they've pissed me off. You know, I don't know if they're long for the team. I don't, you know, and, and that could be if you're the CEO looking your team, that could be a peer where maybe the, you know, the
uh, the COO is not real happy with the VP of sales. And, and, you know, what do you do when, when there's someone on your team that at this point you don't really care about, and maybe it goes back to mindset, but is it okay to just write somebody off and say, I don't care, or is there an action you can take to start caring.
That's a that's a great question. And at the end of the day, I think as a true leader, it's important that you care about everybody on your team. You know, everybody is going to add value one way or another. And, you know, really, Hey, maybe they just don't know about that person enough about that person.
Maybe, you know, the leader needs to get to know that person a little bit more. Maybe take the extra time to ask more questions to find out who they truly are you know, they may see one side and not know the rest. So, you know, just getting to know your team really taking the time out, to find out what makes them tick?
What's important to them? What are they passionate about? you know, and then being able to break that down, they may see this person in a whole different light, you know, other than, hey, they don't get along at work, this and that, but do they really truly know that person? So I think it's super important that leaders take the time to know their people and to get to know them.
And, you know, that pain in the butt might be the coolest person you've ever met, you know? So why not take that extra time?
Jerry, other thoughts?
No, I think she hit the nail on the head, but I'll tell you a story that we had a downsizing when I was running, you know, I was in the drug business and we had to let go. I think six of pharmacist that we had 18. And, one of my reps from Texas was number five in the country every year, top five out of 500.
I mean, unbelievable. So HR comes into my office one day and says, what are you going to do about this guy? And I said, well, what do you do? She said, read the email he sent you and me. Cause I hadn't looked at the email. And here's what he said. You people are vile and disgusting. I'd vomit in your face and I dare your response.
Firing the likes of blank, you're nuts. She said, what are we going to do with this guy? We're going to fire him for sure. And I said, we're not going to fire him. You think I'm going to fire this guy? You're crazy. Well, what are you going to do? Teach him a lesson. She said, well, what do you mean? You're going to teach him a lesson.
I said, I'm going to teach him a lesson. Well, when are you going to do it? And I said, I don't know, a couple of weeks. I said, let me ask you a question. You think he doesn't know I'm going to call him?
I want him to sweat it out a bit. I said, so I called the guy one night, his wife answers the phone and you can hear her say to him, it's Jerry Acuff. And so he gets on the phone and the first thing he says is, I'm in trouble, aren't I? I said, no Chuck, you're stupid. And I said, let me make this. You can call me an idiot anytime you want to, but call me on the phone and tell me. Do not put it in writing. You put me in a lousy position. I do not want to do anything to hurt you.
And I understand your situation because this is a horrible change. I didn't like it myself, but the reality is I need you. If you want to tell me to go to hell, you call me and tell me that don't put it in writing because if you do it again, I'm going to have no choice, but to take action I don't want to take, he said, is that it?
I said, that's it. That's it. So it's exactly what Robin said. I mean, I understood his perspective. This is one of the things that leaders, you know, Jeanie Duck wrote a great book called, it's about change called The Change Monster. It's a terrific book. Any leader should read it. But basically there's huge emotion when these organizations go through change.
And as a leader, if you don't understand those emotions and understand that people are going to have those kind of moments that this rep did then you're not the kind of leader that you ought to be. And so I think the reality is you got to, you got to try and figure out where people are coming from.
The vast majority of the people, they're not there to be disruptive. They're there to express how they feel and emotions drive almost everybody. And so I think the better you can get to know these people and the more empathetic that you can be with them, the more successful you'll be as a leader.
Love it. And I'll add something to your mindset that first step, because I think this has a lot to do with mindset is very often we automatically believe in the negative intent of other people right like somehow they wake up in the morning and say what can I screw up today?
Right.
I've never met anybody like that. I'm sure they exist in the world, but i've never personally met anyone. So I believe and I have a whole ted talk I did on this but I believe if we could shift that focus and believe in what I call the law of positive intent.
Right.
And the law of positive intent is everyone's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they have.
So when you get that horrible email or someone screws up or pisses you off or breaks your trust or whatever it is, if you ask a simple question like, you know, automatically you tell a story in your head about how they're horrible people. But if you ask yourself a simple question. What else could this mean? What else could this mean? And if you believe in their positive intent, that goes right to your first step of mindset.
And that's gonna get you curious instead of angry. That curiosity is going to cause you to ask questions, which is your second step. And, if you've got any ability to build a relationship there, that's the way you're gonna do it, is by believing that they actually have positive intent.
I think the other thing is that, and I think you really hit on probably one of the most important things we've talked about today. The reality is a lot of times the reason that people actually say things or do things that are you and I might not do ourselves is because there's something else going on in their life that we don't know about.
And I always say, look, if your performance in any way or your behavior in any way, is related to something going on in your life. I have no right to know what it is. I just need you to know that in 90 days, you'll be past it. There are things in life. I know you can't get over the death of your mother or your father in 90 days.
You never will get over it, but you can get past it. So I think what you're talking about is having true empathy, really trying to understand what's the Genesis, what's the intent. Intent is one of the most powerful words in the English language. It's my mindset at the time of a specific action.
And if I can understand what that mindset is, sometimes it doesn't bother me at all that people aren't performing. It's because they got something else going on in their life that they've got to deal with. And we all have those things. So I love what you had to say, Mike.
I love that you loved what I had to say. Jerry, Robin. This was super, super helpful as we wrap things up, where should people go? If they want to find out more about both of you, if they want to find out more about Delta point.
Well, we have a website, www.deltapoint.com. You can Google me. And if you want to listen to me yapp about something, there's probably video on YouTube or something about that, but, but it basically it's, you know, all of our you know, our employees have an email and it's, you know, it's all first letter and your last name at delta point. com. Robin can tell you how to get in touch with her. And uh, you know, she's, she does terrific work for us. And, you know, we love our employees and, we certainly are excited that she's with us. So Robin, you want to answer that
Sure thing. So yes, my email is rnapier@deltapoint.com. But one thing I want to finish with is, you know, really one of the reasons that I joined Delta point to begin with is Jerry just doesn't talk the talk. He walks the walk. And when he everything that he says is 100% what he does. And it's very rare these days.
When you join an organization, a leader, you know, they put their best foot forward in front of everybody. But when they actually do what they say that they do, and live by that, and breathe, but you know, breathe that it's a whole different ballgame. And, you know, Delta Point, we truly are a family like that.
Everybody loves each other and we all respect each other. And do we all agree on everything? And you know, everything's the same. No, it's not. But we have that mutual respect and understanding with everybody. And we genuinely care about one another. So it makes a huge difference in an organization. And Jerry is definitely a great example of that
Well, if you want a great company, you've got to have a great leadership team.
Yes.
And Jerry, Robin, thanks for helping us get there or at least a little closer there. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you for having us, Mike.
Thank you, yes.
We really appreciate you inviting us.