Start By Asking Who’s Not In The Room

Gord Vickman: Welcome to another episode of Podcast Payoffs. We're so glad you're with us. My name's Gord Vickman here with Dan Sullivan. Dan, we just wrapped up a really fun episode where we just chose some of the headlines that had been making waves in the podcast industry. One of them I purposefully held back because I thought it had a little bit more meat on the bones that we could discuss today. And I titled it, I'll just read what I have on my impact filter, an informative chat on why it's critical to decide who's in the room. Part of who's in the room is one critical element to the success of strategic coach. And if you could just maybe touch on that a little bit. I heard you say once, it's not necessarily about who's in the room, but who's not in the room. So what does that mean?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, we're pretty selective about who's in the room in a sense. Now, the room that we're talking about is our workshop rooms, but any other rooms we would have, like the podcast room, has to be consistent with the workshop room. And, you know, we're a growth program. It's a mind-expanding growth program for entrepreneurs who have three qualities. They're successful, they're talented, and they're ambitious. And their main reason for being an entrepreneur is to constantly expand freedom, their personal freedom. And we measure that with freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship, and freedom of purpose. I've just laid out in telling you what our filter criteria are to get in is seven topics that you can have endless podcasts about. Talent, success, ambition, freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relation, freedom of purpose. You should be able to do 100 podcasts with the right people in the room on those topics.
Gord Vickman: You can niche down and you can specialize. I once caught wind of a podcast that was for optometrists who own their own practice and the building that the practice is housed in. I said, I bet he has hundreds of people listening to that, and I think he does.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Smaller the niche, the bigger the market. For my American friends, niche in Canada is pronounced niche in the United States.
 
Gord Vickman: Just like Foyer. So this popped into my mind as I was planning the shows today because I came across a little nugget online and they were looking at the top 10 podcasts by download and stream volume in the United States and they looked at them and they said they all have heritage. All these podcasts are 7 to 10 years old. How come we're not creating any new hits? every podcast that people listen to religiously that is in that top 10 is old. Well, heritage counts for a lot because brand new things typically need some time to simmer, right? Just like a nice sauce, you got to leave it on the stove. And that's what podcasts are about, too. People have to find out about you. You need some social proof that you can do this properly and not, you know, screw it up or sound stupid every time you turn on a microphone. Podcast payoffs is about the intersection of teamwork and technology. That's what we do. That's what we always have done. And that's what we are going to continue. If you want a gravy recipe, you're not going to find it here. There's plenty of podcasts that can give you one, but that's not what we're all about. Even if everybody wants one, we're not going to do that because it's about our targeted desired audience and the people that come into strategic coach. You have a very specific criteria for what you want. So you had this concept as well, Dan, it was, or it is, always be the buyer. So in terms of that relating to media content and entrepreneurs in general, Being the buyer is a way to flip that around in a mental model that people don't necessarily think of because if you're the seller, then you're sort of spraying and praying everywhere, but you've managed to turn that around and flip it. So for those who aren't familiar with that concept of always be the buyer and how that relates to targeting who you're speaking to in a podcast or in a strategic coach workshop, could you just kind of put those two jigsaw pieces together?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, the big thing, first of all, there's just coaching, the activity that's at the center of what we do. I think with the exception of things related to IT in the broadest, where information technology is the fastest growing industry on the planet. The next fastest growing industry on the planet is coaching. And it could be any kind of coaching, any kind of human activity. Coaching is a model that is to the 21st century what management was to the 20th century. You know, if you look at the images of the 20th century, there's managers who manage great empires and, you know, that's management from the top. Well, management from the top only works if the environment doesn't change very, very quickly. But once you get into the late 1970s, 80s, 90s of the 20th century, you now have an explosion of independent computer-based networks using personal computers and software. And then it becomes even more advanced with the Internet. Everything's linked up with the Internet. And then you know you have a super computer in your hand just millions of different things to attract people and connect with. The role of the manager to stay on top of that is not a good role is not a good role and i say that because. We're only interested in coaching particular types of people. They're only entrepreneurs. And they're making more than $200,000 a year just at first level of coach. $200,000, that's personal income. That's not corporate income. And they're really successful. In other words, there's a lot of profit that comes with the $200,000. And they're really ambitious, the $200,000. If that's where they are right now, it doesn't have anything to do with where they want to be. It's just the first step of 10 steps to get to 2 million. So what we're saying is that somebody with 100,000 and makes 100,000 said, I know I don't qualify for your program, but if you allowed me to attend your program even though i'm not qualified for your program i would bring hundreds of people just like me who would pay you and we said well the rules are you have to be making two hundred thousand dollars and you don't so you don't qualify for the program. And there's no exceptions there's no exception to the rule the other thing is we have corporate people who make five hundred thousand dollars a year who say well i'd like to talk to you about joining your program and i said you can't you're not an entrepreneur. What do you mean you're not an entrepreneur? I said somebody can fire you tomorrow. Nobody can fire an entrepreneur tomorrow. That's the difference between an entrepreneur and someone who isn't an entrepreneur. You may lose a contract tomorrow, but that isn't fired. You just have to go and get another contract or another project. So we've never made an exception for anybody who's not an entrepreneur to come. We're 33 years and people, you know, from nonprofit organizations come. Yeah, but we're kind of entrepreneurial. I said, if you were kind of entrepreneurial, you'd be an entrepreneur. You're not an entrepreneur, okay, so you can't join the program. So, the whole point is, we're being the buyer here. The person is actually asking if they can join the program. So, to a certain extent, they're selling, which makes us the buyer. So, that's how I look at it.
 
Gord Vickman: Let me tell you a quick story about how quickly things can go sideways when a radio station goes from buyer to seller. So this was many moons ago. I was at a radio station and on the morning show with a few co-hosts, we were doing exceptionally well. We had taken the station from, I think it was number six in the market for around 15 or 16 years at the time. And through the morning show that we did, morning show is kind of the lead horse on the radio station. That's your spearhead, right? And then you have afternoon and then you have your afternoon day parts where people are sort of, that's your bench strength. So, we had elevated the station and it took us about two and a half years and we got the ratings book in and we were number one. We were the number one radio station in southwestern Ontario. It was a big deal. They had never done that in 18 years or 17 years, I think. So we all gathered in this boardroom, and we had a new program director. I have no beef with him. He was a nice fella. I don't know how swift he was, but – It was a manager. It was a manager. Yeah. So he had the whole on-air staff and all the marketing people, and they were gathered around the table, you know. And he said, okay, now that we're the number one station, first of all, congratulations, everyone. What's the most important thing that we do? And then You know, people were sort of looking around, nobody really – it was just a trick question. And then there was some awkward silence, and then – I love feeling awkward silences. So I said, well, here's what we do. Keep doing what we've been doing, because that's what got us here in the first place. But any relationship, you think of it like a marriage, if your marriage is going swimmingly well, keep doing it. But every once in a while, buy some flowers. Buy a box of chocolate. Surprise him. Surprise her. Keep doing what you're doing, but some surprises are nice. So what does that have to do with a radio show? Keep doing what you're doing because it obviously works because we're number one. We're number one. But buy some flowers every once in a while. Do something strange. Do something unexpected. And everybody kind of said, oh yeah, that was great, Gord. That was really smart. Yeah, that's what we're doing. No, said the manager. Now that we're number one, the most important thing we have to do, we have to make sure that we never say anything that could ever be considered offensive. We don't want to risk losing even one listener. We want to hang on to them all. So we had our one-on-one about a week later and I was sitting in his office and I said, I don't know if you noticed if you read the room, but I said, some of the kids that are on there were a little perplexed by what you said. I don't know. Do you think maybe we should explain what you mean by not being offensive?" He said, no, no, no, they got it. They got it. So the result, long story short, is the younger people were so petrified of saying something offensive and getting in trouble that they stopped saying anything. And the shows got so boring and so dull that the station immediately started trending downward. I was on my way out at this point. I was coming back to Toronto to work on my own things. It wasn't that big of a concern to me, but it's one of the things even to this day, it hurts my heart a little bit. We along with our team carried the station to the top, and it just goes to show how one bad manager can petrify an entire station worth of people by trying to not be offensive as opposed to just doing what you're doing.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and it's the same thing. I mean, we talked about this on the last podcast. But the other thing is that you're just about a deep knowledge of somebody out there in the listening audience. And the more that you explore and understand the 360 degree universe that your prime listener is listening. And that would include, I mean, when I say listening, I mean, that's what you're dealing with in the workshops for the entrepreneurs. It's all about the entrepreneurs. I think that the thing is that once you lock on to what the real world, the multi-dimensional world is of your listener, you just become the master in their world of talking about things that mean a lot to them. These are really important things to talk about. You're giving them new ways to actually think about the actual reality of their life, okay? Their life, their business, how they think about things and everything like that. And you're going on the basis that they have absolutely no one else that they know or come into contact that actually deals with these things in a way that you do that turns out to be so valuable to them.
 
Gord Vickman: Dan, I was never really able to articulate or think about what had happened to that radio station that we had worked so hard to build until I met you and the concept of Always Be the Buyer. And then it kind of clicked, and I thought, overnight, after that loose-brain ramble from the nice guy who didn't know what he was doing, We went from buyers to sellers. We were doing our thing. We were talking about the things that we wanted to talk about. We were doing the kinds of things that we wanted to do, and people related to that, and it resonated. And then overnight, we became the sellers. We became that sappy guy and that sappy gal who is on their hands and knees begging, hey, please like me. Please like me. Do you like me? Will you like me if I do this? Okay, what if I do this? Should I get a haircut? Should I buy a new shirt? Nobody wants desperation. It reeks.
 
Dan Sullivan: Just do your thing. Well, it's the difference between style and fashion. Style is a statement right up front that we only have a particular type of customer, and that particular type of customer looks at life in this way, okay? And they have a style, and the style doesn't change their style. So your style doesn't change. If you don't have style, you have fashion that changes every season, okay? And it becomes much more hit or miss. And you may be stylish for a year or two years, and you have the whole thing, but then the whole style in society changes. Not interested in this stuff anymore. And then I don't know how you come back from that. If you guess wrong on a fashion, I don't know how you guess right on affection. But if you guess right on a style, you can stay with that style forever. Gord Vickman: Dan, can you identify when one of the entrepreneurs in the program is in a position where things are not going swimmingly well because they're in a position where they're the seller? Yeah. Can you pick it out just instantly? What do you do about it? Do you pull them aside?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, it comes up in their breakout groups. They'll bring it up. You know, I mean, they talk about entrepreneurs are remarkably open with other entrepreneurs that they know belong in the same room as they are. OK. You asked me before the show that our entrepreneurs want to know who's going to be in the room with them, but they also want to know who's not going to be in the room with them. They don't want people in the room who aren't at their level. And they don't want people in the room who don't have the same kind of fundamental values, you know, that they would stick with the values if it costs them money. The sign of a buyer is that you'll have certain things you'll buy, and there are certain things you won't buy, no matter how good the other side tries to make the deal. I had someone who joined the program not for a very long time. He came in and he said, you don't do any one-on-one coaching with your clients. I said, no, I don't. No, I don't. And he said, well, I'll make you an offer. He said, I've got a private jet. The private jet will pick you up in Toronto and fly you to California. I'll introduce you to people who would be fascinated with your client, but I need three or four hours on your time each day for three days to talk because I just want to do that. And I said, You know, if I did that, I'd be regressing in time to 25 years ago when I used to do that, not for $50,000 like you're offering me, but for $1,000 or $2,000. And I did it because I absolutely needed the cash. But once I stopped doing it, I said, I'll never do this again in my life, never once. And he said, yeah, about $50,000 is $50,000. I said, the way the numbers of our company work out, I make $50,000 every day. in some fashion, so I'd be losing money on your weekend, I'd be losing money. And the other thing, I wouldn't learn anything on the weekend. Oh.
 
Gord Vickman: What was his reaction?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, he said, what do you mean? I said, I learn in workshops full of people where there's all these different points of view. I learn from the multidimensionality. It's not about you. I just wouldn't learn talking to one person.
 
Gord Vickman: And the mental image in my head, as you were telling that story, of the guy who proposed this to you was the Monopoly man. You know, he had those striped, tapered pants with the top hat and the monocle. Mr. Sullivan, hmm, I'll put you on my private jet and we'll fly onto Baltic Avenue.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, somebody, you know, was a governor, a big governor of one of the big states, you know. Somebody introduced me, and I said, I don't have anything to say to a person like this. I said, politicians, even when they're most alert, only have half their attention on you. They're calculating other things. You can see their half brain while you're walking. But there's nothing I could do with him. It wouldn't lead anywhere. And he said, yeah, but he's got connections and everything. And I said, well, I've got connections. I'll just work on my connections. I'll just spend my time working on my connections. I said, I don't need this. So I've gotten to the point in my career where there's simply no one on the planet that I would want to have dinner with for the sake of having dinner with that person. There's just nobody I can think of. And they said, well, who would be the most amazing person, you know, that you would, you know, some great entrepreneurs, some great. And I said, there's nobody. There's just nobody. I said, I will meet all the people I need to meet during the normal course of how we attract really great entrepreneurs, and I'll meet them. They'll come into my program. They'll come into my workshop. I'll meet everybody I need to meet. There isn't anywhere I want to go. There isn't anywhere I want to meet. So that's part of being the buyer, too. But at the same time, I'm really, really eager to develop new ideas with the people that I have access to.
 
Gord Vickman: I'll wrap that up. I think it was Mitch Hedberg, the comedian, they asked him, if you could have dinner with anyone that you could imagine, anyone at all, alive or dead, who would it be? And I think he said, well, hopefully alive. I don't want to have dinner with a dead body.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, there's a famous story about the word skeptic. Skeptic, is that the word that's being used right now? It's like stoic. It may be stoic. And there was this famous, I might be wrong here, but he is a Greek. But I think he was a skeptic, not a stoic. I mean, skeptic, that was a major philosophical approach, just as Stoicism is. So it's not like he's a skeptic. He's a skeptic with a small s. He was a skeptic with a big S. And his name was Diogenes. And it was at the time of Alexander the Great, who was a great Alexander. I mean, he... He was a Stoic too, right? Well, I don't know what he was, because he died young. I mean, he was in his 20s when he died. And he was a visionary psychopath, you know, that's really what he was. Anyway, and he went to see Diogenes. He said, have Diogenes come and see me, and Diogenes sent word back, if he wants to talk to me, come and see me. So Alexander walked to a place in the city, not a great place, with his entourage, and he got there, and he was standing right in front of Diogenes, and he says, Diogenes, I'm Alexander the Great. Is there anything I can do for you? And he said, yes. You can step over about four feet. You're right in the way of the sun. I'm appreciating the sun. Now, who is the buyer there? You can pay powerful penalties. You have to have the courage of your convictions to do it. But I think it should be a goal in every entrepreneur's life to reach a point where they have total cash confidence, they know exactly how to make money without meeting anyone famous. In other words, one of the things that you have total cash confidence just the way you've structured and you don't need to know anybody. for the sake of more cash because you know where the cash is going to come. And you want to get across that point just because from that point forward, you will only meet and work with people because it fits into the growth of what you're doing. And that's the only reason. I'll only spend time with this person because I think just interacting with this person is going to actually grow what we're already growing, and that'll be a real pleasure.
 
Gord Vickman: And by circumstance, you perpetually remain the buyer. Dan, it's been a pleasure as always. All the links, tips, tools and resources, everything we talk about on Podcast Payoffs, if you miss something or you want to find out more, they're always in the episode notes. Go to strategicpodcasts.com, click Podcast Payoffs, click this episode. I'll dump everything in there. It will make it really easy for you to find anything or learn more about the things that we're discussing today. Dan, once again, it's been great and thanks so much. Thank you, Gord.