Transcription
****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

[intro music]
Kenneth Kinney 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 0:19
I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, keynote speaker, strategist host, and your Chief Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:24
Do you know exactly what to say? Are you using the magic words for influence and impact? It's something we all should be learning more of whether you're an email marketer or a copywriter, a b2b salesperson, or even a call center agent, mastering those moments with a spoken word can make or break much of your success. So the question is, do you know exactly what to say?

Kenneth Kinney 0:45
Phil M. Jones is an NSA Hall of Fame speaker, the author of The Best Selling exactly book series, with over 1 million copies sold producer of the most listened to nonfiction audio book of all time, a trusted adviser for some of the world's biggest brands and an entrepreneur since the age of 14.

Kenneth Kinney 1:03
And on this episode, we'll discuss exactly what to say living in London in New York never leaving launch mode with a book The Power of Three the curious questions people don't ask enough of most people sheep and safety and numbers the nose into yeses myth going fishing in the maybes, a Phil on the spot moment, soccer slash football playing Phil Jones stealing some Google rankings, magic words in Vegas Magic, The Beatles and The stones and a lot lot more. So let's tune into the author of exactly what to say with a shark who knows exactly what to say at least on this episode anyway, of A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 1:40
Phil, welcome to A Shark's Perspective. Would you give us a little bit about your background and your career today?

Phil M Jones 1:45
Yeah, absolutely. Firstly, a pleasure to be here shark it's a delight to be on the show. In terms of background, professionally speaking, I've been in business since I was like this high. So I started when I was first at 14 years of age started knocking on doors of neighbors, asking them kind of politely whether they wanted their cars washed. By the age of 15. My little car cleaning business was making me more money than my school teachers. And I built a really varied career on with from there building businesses working in corporate retail working with some major premier league soccer clubs on the sponsorship, commercial side of things, but a property business that turned over 240 million pounds at its peak. And then started a career in my mid 20s As a professional speaker trainer, in the sales training space. And between that point in time, sort of 2008 and now written what nine best selling books spoke in 59 different countries, five different continents, trained more than 2 million people and had a real fun time working from different industry to different industry, different industry really helping with just one thing, which is helping them master the art of communication, typically for commercial gain, largely focused on the area of spoken word and influence in those moments that matter.

Kenneth Kinney 2:56
And where do you call home now? It's the states are you spending half and half or one?

Phil M Jones 3:01
I remember once being a being a kid where I couldn't decide between whether I wanted like the chocolate cake, or the apple crumble, right? I couldn't decide between the two. And my answer, even as a child was Why can't I have both. And quite often I would have that dessert time when eating my meals, I want both those things. And why choose. So I have two homes, I have a home in the idyllic countryside about 30 minutes outside central London in the United Kingdom. And I have a home here in the Upper West Side in Manhattan, in New York City and my wife family and I enjoy the benefits of both those at the times to suit us. And because we have families, both sides, we strategically built our life that way around that we're never too far from home, and our homes are on either side of a little puddle called the Atlantic Ocean.

Kenneth Kinney 3:48
So where's the better place to raise those kids though?

Phil M Jones 3:51
Um, again, both. You know, we talk about diversity of thought we talk about the, the, you know, for people to have a greater understanding of different groups of people, they need to be around different groups of people. And New York City is wonderful because it is a melting pot of every type of human every type of culture is the best and worst of everything cool squeezed into a very, very sort of potent environment which which I adore. Do I adore it 365 You know, the chance to be able to get away from that and actually see a slower pace of life and meet with people who appreciate and value things in different ways that aren't necessarily money or aren't necessarily the hustle and the grind, etc. I think gives my kids perspective. And the greatest thing that I believe I can do for my children is keep providing them with choice. If they have the choice to see more and then choose who they are within those choices. They don't get pre prejudiced as much as naturally we all pre prejudiced the people that we spend time around, but they get a chance to see more and perhaps could make decisions as to who they want to be earlier in life.

Kenneth Kinney 5:02
Well, Charles Dickens said it best I believe he said it was the best of times square the worst of times square. That is New York in a nutshell. So I want to talk to you about this new little book, all the way back from 2017. Exactly what to say I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at a national speakers Association's winter conference. And you talked about something that really stood out to me as somebody who's about to launch a book that you basically talked about the number of interviews you've been doing, since this and that you treat every week or every day like its launch week? Yep, you describe what that means to you.

Phil M Jones 5:38
I think if you look at any brand, that is served the test of time that has gone on to be iconic, or had legacy status, etc. It's never left launch mode, it's always been in this indication of saying, how do we keep this idea alive? How do we keep this idea fresh? How do we keep it running forever, and you can look at, you know, even things like the Marvel comics that have been, you know, movie, upon movie upon movie upon all these different genres of ways of being able to keep that dream alive. I've taken that same viewpoint towards my book, I've then looked at it like the music industry, it's like so many clues from the music industry, is the Rolling Stones of finding new fans and writing new music. And I think what we can be doing as authors and speakers, and people who are the curators of content and the creators of content, is find new audiences as opposed to writing in material. And there's a lot of people to be able to shoot out. But what everybody's doing is diluting the potency of their message on on what everybody's doing, what many people are doing is diluting the potency of their message by trying to be too many things to too many people. So they end up being nothing to everybody. Whereas what we do with exactly what to say, the little book that we're talking about here, is I'm not given up on that, right, I'm going to be writing exactly what to say like sigh rides Gangnam Style, as being the greatest hit that will actually provide a 50 plus year career and leave legacy that sits behind that. And you do that by keep banging the same drum. Right is I'll introduce exactly what to say to audiences this week that have never heard it before. I also have people who are in conferences that I spoke about the content from exactly what to say a decade ago with others still echoing those lessons in their daily lives today. And it's the compound effect of all of those pieces as how you create something that has perennial bestseller nature to it. Because it needs to be embodied into the language of other people's every day, in order for it to better driver reputation. And you only do that by staying on track.

Kenneth Kinney 7:41
So is this your ninth book? And that's actually book four. So if you know that you're going to continuously launch this book. Yeah. Why write five more after it instead of because this one is sold? What? 1,000,005 copies? Yeah. I mean, 100? I mean, it's, that's 1,000,400 What 97,000 More than most books that are sold in Barnes and Noble. So So at what point do you decide this is the horse that you're going to ride the most? Other than it's continues to sell? Well,

Phil M Jones 8:19
we're on camera right now I know most people are listening. But here's book five, book six, exactly how to sell exactly where to start. What is the purpose of these two books, these were delivered with a major New York publishers through a traditional publishing route, where I sold the rights to actually this book is a rewrite of my book one. So exactly how to sell is a rewrite of book one that I did in the year scrappy, hungry 2007. Everybody can publish a book quickly on lulu.com. I did it again. I did it right. But also, from an advertiser marketers point of view. Does that make more sense to have three books that carry the same exactly title that look like they're from the same family? It gives weight to the fact that I'm not just the guy that wrote the tiny little book exactly what to say, the strategy and the fact that these books are the weight behind the tip of the other big book, his book seven, exactly what to say for real estate agents. Right? It's still within the same line. That's another example of remaining in Launch Mode. book eight is a children's book called The magic of words, which is a derivative of exactly what to say written for kids between the age of two and nine. So what are we doing we're actually producing new assets that continually support the core asset in order to be able to actually say the heart of the ecosystem is exactly what to say the other pieces of things that play supporting roles. So if this was a movie, exactly what to say is is leading lady the others are trying to win Best Supporting Actor roles.

Kenneth Kinney 9:59
Fair. So So knowing that you had this background in sales, and you wrote this fantastic book on exactly what to say, and with a lot of different phrases, how did knowing exactly what to say, help you in the business of becoming a successful speaker?

Phil M Jones 10:14
Okay. First things first, you get to the position of being able to write a book called exactly what to say and speak on content around word choices at the right time, because you've spent a lot of your life making a lot of mistakes. So I was fortunate enough to start a business when I was 14 years of age where I wasn't naive, I wasn't like ignorant enough to know that I shouldn't have been able to do those sort of things. I ran senior leadership positions within some of the largest department store retail groups in the UK, at 1920 21 years of age. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be able to do the things I was doing at the time. Society hadn't trained that out. And what also though, I learned that from being in those leadership roles, those high impact roles at early age, I was continuously being pre judged as to not being competent to be able to help in those given environments. So what I learned is one of the best ways I could win credibility quickly is by borrowing third person stories. So I would study the successful people in every organization that I was involved in. And when I was looking to build up the performance of others, I'd never share what I think they should do, or tell them the story of what Jim was doing, or what Sally was doing, or what I'd witnessed from happening from Sondra across the way. And I was crowdsourcing brilliance from studying the mastery of peak performers. And I didn't even know I was doing it. That's what I was doing in order to be able to influence other people. I've been since gone on in different roles to be able to have probably more one on one negotiation conversations than than most people haven't a lifetime. And I was there by my mid 20s. I've also had the joy of working in hundreds of different environments. And what I've realized is when it comes to influence, and when it comes to being able to win business from that influence, the majority of people get it wrong. Now, you mentioned a second ago, how do you master the words like in exactly what to say. So you can convince people to book you can't convince anybody to do anything. That's what you learn. The second you start to be able to try and convince somebody you've already lost, you're on the backfoot, what you're doing is you are professionally begging, which means when you when you didn't really when you got given an olive branch, which means the ratio in terms of the relationship from influence is as much as they've given you the opportunity, you still owe them in a big way. The energy is still off, if your route in is convincing. Well, people think influence is is to be pushy. How do you push your agenda? How do you push the outcomes you're looking for? How do you push towards what you're looking to try and achieve? When really when done right? Is that you should become more fully what selling is is earning the right to make a recommendation. I repeat that was said really simply what selling is is earning the right to make a recommendation. What that means is you should never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever invite anybody to do anything unless you can say these words first, which are the cause of the fact that because of the fact that you said Blank, blank and blank for those reasons, I'd recommend Blank, blank and blank. That's easy said. But what are your conversations? Really your conversations are curiosity fueled to collect the evidence to allow you to say because of the fact that you said so in the speaking world. Right. We get inquiries. You get inquiries right now shock?

Kenneth Kinney 13:33
Oh, yeah.

Phil M Jones 13:35
And inquiry comes in? And what is the typical thing that somebody's asking for at a point of inquiry about whether you can or can't speak for their event? What are they really asking?

Kenneth Kinney 13:44
Well, the date, they want to know the price that's really available? And

Phil M Jones 13:48
how much do you charge? Exactly? Right? They were about the only two questions, I can fluff it up. But really, that's what they're into. Are you available? How much do you charge? And you know, what many people do when that inquiry comes in? They go oh, I mean. And they either answer with a version of what's your budget? Or they answer with a version of it? Well, it depends. Which doesn't help either party. Here's what's missing in those conversations more often than not, and we'll use this as an example because it can serve every industry example is what you're missing is context. In your head, you're like yay, they love me. And you're also thinking, Well, I hope they can afford me what should I price this is the time to move my fee. Should I do this for exposure? Should I look to be able to try and maximize the opportunity? I don't want to short challenge myself. I don't want to miss the opportunity. I've got an empty calendar. I'd like to get to do more. Sounds like it could be a good fit might be fun. I wonder who else is speaking right? All this stuff is going through your head. So what you don't have is you don't have the ability to control the conversation. Why? Because the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment when you're saying and here you are in the moment when you're saying saying it, thinking what the heck do I say in a high stakes critical conversation? This borrow another principle from the book, the person who's asking the questions is the one who's in control of the conversation. They come to you and say, Are you available? What's your fee? We need a question to be able to position it back in the other direction. Here's the question, what is it about me and my work that makes you think I might be a good fit for your event, Zipit? Now, what happened to the energy exchange, now all of a sudden, they're selling you? A shock. I love your work. I've seen what you've been doing with other marketing audiences, other advertising audiences, the insights that you bring towards people I think are ridiculously relevant for right now. I spoke to the committee and we've already decided you're on number one pick. What happens to confidence?

Kenneth Kinney 15:46
Oh, yeah. Because well,

Phil M Jones 15:48
goes way up. Well, what happens if you say, what is it about me and my work that makes you think that might be a good fit for the event? And they say, Well, I'm not sure really, I was just browsing Google today, your name came up among a few others, which is putting, you know, a group of potential speakers together, to be able to introduce to the committee or to be able to share with our leadership, what happens to your confidence. So whatever happens, and no new context, everybody wants to insert their content, but content before context is merely noise in the world is a noisy enough place. So what we shouldn't be looking to do is to insert or content to an already confusing conversation, we should be looking to extract more context. So what we can then do is position better, you extract context, what is it about me and my work that makes you think it might be a good fit for event? They tell you? You say how long have you been running an event, this kind of nature?

Kenneth Kinney 16:39
Why is that question useful?

Phil M Jones 16:41
Because it gives you permission to ask the next question. Who are some of the speakers your audience have enjoyed most in the past?

Phil M Jones 16:51
What am I doing? I'm gaining more context. I'm learning about their ability to pay fees, I'm learning about their ability and their perception. What is your experience of working with a paid professional speaker? Catch the verbiage? What is your experience of working with a paid professional speaker? Well, all of a sudden, we've just taken free off the table, right? So this is how you convince by not trying to convince but by helping other people make informed decisions? Because if you say what is your experience of working with a paid professional speaker, they say, oh, no, we don't pay speakers. What have we just learned? Context? We've just shifted the relationship, you still might want to speak. So what is it your offer speakers outside of money to make it worth a while? Ah, now that pitching you, yeah, yeah. Game is changing. Right. Right.

Kenneth Kinney 17:47
Yeah. And I and I found myself as I was reading through this picking up on some of these phrases, thinking, you know, I'm not sure if it's for you. But you know, being open minded, what do you know, how would you feel if just imagine, and as I was reading through this, you know, from a sales perspective, I was trying to identify whether or not I thought this was a sales book or a communications book. But I think the reasons it's done so really well, is it the community, to me a communications book for salespeople, which is where so many salespeople Miss asking the right questions. Why do you think that the questions that they are asking are always geared towards those examples? You just said, I mean, where you said, where they're answering the question with the US and oz, and not answering the question, you know, with, forget how you said it, you know, how do you feel about working with professional speaker? Are these questions that open other doors? Where are they using the other questions that are not leading to the sale? Okay.

Phil M Jones 18:47
I remember once being in the communication skills course, when I was in my early 20s, and it was a Dale Carnegie program, and one of the things that we will be reminded of is that the sweetest sound to any person, any language in the entire world is the sound of their own name. Right? You know, that shock, right? You hear your name, and you're like, Haha, it's about me. And then they were teaching this quantity of different ways of memory techniques and skills to make you better at remembering other people's names. Yes, still, it then became profound, the obvious that the biggest reason that people fail to remember other people's names isn't because they haven't got the memory techniques to be able to remember other people's names just because they never chose to frickin hear it in the first place. Because they never chose to hear it in the first place. So you can't remember a thing that you didn't hear. When you were too busy thinking do I know I can trust this person? Do I find them attractive? What am I going to say that's going to be bright? So the reason that people respond with the wrong questions is because they haven't done the work before the work. They haven't actually identified what their critical conversations are in their high stakes environments in life. So when they find themselves in a critical conversation in the high stakes area of life, they're starting to do the work in that given moment. And the reality would be is if I was to ask you right now, what are your have top 10 Most high impact critical conversations in your life? You wouldn't be able to answer that with these. Yeah, most of us have high impact critical conversations that are on repeat. We should know what the most of those are. And we should do the work before the work to get ready for those conversations. So when they show up, you're like, Oh, I've got this, which is how I can do a program like how to persuade and get paid as an eight hour one man show without script where people are like, how on earth did you do that? How do you deal with all the audience real interaction? How did you do that without any nose? How did you do that in a way that wasn't scripted, and didn't have any callbacks? You didn't have to do any retakes? How did you do that? It's because of reps is because of the fact that I know that work inside out because I thought about it to an obnoxious level. And what I'm inviting people to be able to do is to do that work ahead of time. What are the critical conversations in everybody's life that they should give more consideration to before they find themselves in that moment? So when you think about sales conversation, I can ask a roomful of salespeople, what are all the things your customers or prospects say that you wish they didn't? Oh, like, give me that list? Real quick. If I say well, what are the questions you ask ahead of time to either qualify or prevent those things from being said, they look at me with blank faces. Because what people have taught is they're taught that what you should have is the the witty one liners, they're taught that what you should have is your pressure and push, push, push the top of the funnel be brilliant in the moment. See success in sales has nothing to do with applause for your sales skills. It has everything to do with the other person showing gratitude and saying thank you. Job well done in a sales environment isn't your great sales. Plus, if anybody ever says you're a great salesperson, that is not a compliment. It means they thought you were behaving sleazy, pushy that you had that like hustle about you. Which in some environments, yes, is admirable. But what is better is when you win, and they feel like they win. And everybody goes away thinking that was beneficial not I felt like I was pushed or pressured into that thing. And that's the world we now live in the world we've always lived in. Yet, what it hasn't had is it hasn't had the limelight hasn't been given the attention that it's deserved. And I think what the reason as to why people cannot respond to those moments in the way that they in my mind should do. Because they haven't done the thinking ahead of time to get themselves ready and prepared for.

Kenneth Kinney 22:32
So a lot of people, you know, grew up without, well, they grew up with email. But when you think of how people are communicating today a lot more in written word, before they get to the actual phone conversation. How do you see people either succeeding or failing, marrying the two because this is a problem for a lot of people who speak well, but write poorly and vice versa. And a lot of times just to get the introductory meetings, you may need to be a master communicator, just to get the door open, have a real conversation.

Phil M Jones 23:04
Okay. Here's the number one mistake in written communication. Is people forget that spoken communication and written communication are more similar than different in today's world. So you used to write a letter back in the day that had a beginning, middle and end and went through to some form of punch punch line. But even then, you'd leave the door open for the reply right? You go back to the 1500s 1600s 1700s people would write in order to achieve a response. Today, we've miscommunicated that then what we do is we write to make our point and then wonder why we don't get a reply. So the mistake I see in written form is people thinking that written form is demonstrably different to spoken for. It isn't. So what happens is people put too many questions in one written communication. They confuse the reader so the reader does not know what to respond to. They don't give the reader something to respond to and then wonder why they don't get replies. If your emails don't get replies, the first thing to look for is did you ask a question? And quite often, the answer is no. You just made a broadcast you finished with a period and then wondered why nobody replied. If you're thinking about written communication today, where does it show up? It shows up in Instagram DMS, it shows up on Facebook Messenger it shows up on chat bots, it shows up in the way that people's intelligent software is responding to people it shows up in email auto responders. My guess would be that everybody you interact with in your business you would like to interact with again at some point, so what we should be setting up in written communication is never ending conversations. Not sprint to finish line. to sprint to finish line, sprint to finish line that's exhausting, never ending conversations, you can pick up and keep going. So I would ask you to think more about written communication as if it's spoken communication. And give yourself the permission to move one at a time. Allow it to go to me to you allow there to be interaction from the other person. And be careful not to put too much in any one communication, if you're looking for the other person to respond.

Kenneth Kinney 25:27
Yeah, and I find that especially true when when people have just one option in their sales pitch email. But you also talk in chapter nine about having three options. Can you elaborate a little bit further because I love this chapter in particular, particular about three options.

Phil M Jones 25:43
In the book, we talk about giving people the perception of choice with the example you have three options, if you talk about from an incident marketing point of view. And there's a lot of science to be able to back this up. If you give people three options in terms of the package they choose. And you say like you know, you know, most popular or best value or you know, you highlight any one of those three options as the one that should attract more of the attention, you're looking at your shopping cart, and you can probably bet your bottom dollar that 80% of the the behavior or choices is towards that option you favored. Yet, because you gave people three options. The perception is they were in complete control, they didn't feel pressure, they didn't feel in any way cajole towards any one of these outcomes. Same is true in language. So you can give people when they're stuck in a moment of indecision, you can say things like the way I see it is you have three options. All of a sudden you feel empowered, right? The way I see it is you have three options. But what I've done is I've boxed the options, you don't have 1000 options. So out of 900 options, you don't have 632 options, you don't even have 11 options, the way I see three options, what you then do is you stack their options. So in the same way you wouldn't a webpage, you'd build a value proposition for one that is nine Mallaby, you'd build a value proposition for one that is 10 meters deep, and you build a value proposition for another that is huge and obnoxiously priced. You'd start to steer the behavior of what you want it. How do you do this for language? Well, the way I see is you have three options, is let's just talk about you and your ability to be able to actually master the art of spoken words when speaking gigs. Shark, the way I see it is you have three options. Obviously, what you can do is you can keep fumbling your way through every conversation, when somebody invites you to speak be proud and enjoying the fact that they've shown interest of you, but failed to close the quantity of gigs that you know are going to be able to support you your family, your career aspirations, you could do that. Alternatively, you could do nothing, you could give up on the business of speaking and decide that this isn't gonna work out for you. Or Thirdly, what you could do is put time, effort and energy into mastering your critical conversations ahead of time. So next time your email rings next time your phone rings and says sharp. Are you available? And how much do you charge? You're ready, ready, ready to make that conversation count? Out of those three options, which one's going to be easier for you?

Kenneth Kinney 27:59
Yeah, great point.

Phil M Jones 28:00
When you know the tools, you can then improvise in the moment. And that's what I'm looking to be able to prove in that point, right? I didn't think about how I'm going to provide three options to shark in this interview. But when you understand the principles of the work, you can bring them into day to day conversation with finesse. And without feeling like you're forcing something. But that comes from deciding this work is important. If there's one big mistake people make with the book. Like I read it. I mean, it's a 72 minute read on Audible. That's me reading it at a slow professional pace. 72 minutes, so you could read it in 40 and 35. It's not a book to read. So book to reread.

Kenneth Kinney 28:40
A great one of the chapters I really enjoyed as well talking about indecision was 14 You wrote most people, these two words, which contagious 10 letters are possibly responsible for more money negotiating success than any other single strategy I've employed in my business. elaborate a little bit further on what you meant by that.

Phil M Jones 29:01
If you are in the world of sales, which we all are all are yes. Is you find yourself in moments where you want to tell people what to do. They're looking to be led, they're looking for your advice. You want to tell people what to do, but people don't like to be told what to do, but they do want to know what to do. This is a bit of a riddle. They do want to be led. They don't want to feel like they're being pressured. But they are looking for guidance. Yikes. Right This hurts head. So how do you in moments of influence tell people what to do without them feeling like they're being told what to do? Well, what you do is you borrow some brain science from psychology. This says that human beings are a lot like sheep. We love safety in numbers. We love the confidence that other people have acted in a certain way which is why we believe 47 Strangers on Yelp more than we will any recommendation from my mother in law or on where to eat in a new city, right? There's safety in numbers thing has been proven in its entirety. We also know conversationally that we do need to tell people what to do with it. feeling like they're being told what to do. So we looking for language to be able to help that. Next time, I want to tell somebody what to do without them feeling like they're being told what to do, or simply telling them what most people will do. And when you share with somebody, here's what most people would do in your circumstances. Little Voice goes off in head and says, Uh huh, on most people. So if that's what most people would do is a good chance. I should do that too. And you choose to do it. Now it requires emotional intelligence. Let's just be real. There's at least three people listening to this show right now that are like, no way would that work on me? Because I'm not most people. Get it? Right. See, my wife is one of those people in the store that if somebody says this one's really popular, and she's looking at it, she's like, put that thing back on the rack. She doesn't want somebody to say this one's really popular that just made her like it less. Same is true with most people. There are a group of people that like that turns them off. So if you are in the group of people, there's not like most people, how do I use the words most people to be able to attract you, I just simply say, Look, don't be like most people. Don't be like most people put this to committee try and get the vanilla speaker that everybody is going to think is okay. Why don't you make your bold choice today, put your audience first. And create a decision that creates a moment for those audience members that's talked about for years to come help creating your legacy standout is the best meeting planner ever. Right. So what can I do is I can use the words most people to split any audience 9010 I need to know am I speaking to the 90 or the team?

Kenneth Kinney 31:32
You talked earlier about writing one of these in an industry exactly what to say for real estate professionals. Great when you looked at doing that, because obviously this would be great in 1000 Different industries to break it in, you're probably get master plans to do with different industries. But what did you see at least with one industry when you started looking at it and diving a little bit deeper? What did you see when going industry specific beyond just exactly what say the broader book?

Phil M Jones 32:05
I'm in summary form, what do I see this difference is? Firstly, the similarities outweigh the differences, either through line is almost identical. Why? Because we're in the business of influencing people. Yet the difference is really do matter. Because they are typically the most high impact points that exist in the industry. So what did we do to be able to produce the exactly what to say for a real estate book? I think just flip some examples around and change the word property to do something different. We did a series of deep dive workshops where the experienced real estate agents in all different walks of markets across the United States with solo broker agents, two major teams, two big brokerages put the most diverse group of real estate Pete peeps in rooms and Iran masterclasses with them around understanding their critical conversations. Even with some of the most successful Realtors on the planet, I could ask them, What are the things that buyers sellers, agents partners say back to them that they wish they didn't? They could give me that list. They say, Well, what are the things that we say in order to control conversations to mean that objection does appear again, we find ourselves lost for words again. So the starting point of being able to create any new custom version of exactly what to say, is looking at it through the lens of the people that needed to do this work. And starting with what are their high impact conversations? What are the critical conversations that matter? And then what are the things that other people say that you wish they did? And in the real estate market, one of the biggest differences that people have to navigate is things like why you as opposed to somebody like you? Why now as opposed to later. And then helping people understand all the nuances of small complexities that show up along the way. So what did I get to do I get to be able to crowdsource these scenarios through hundreds of high quality high producing agents from different areas of the country. And then feed those back into the book, creating examples, frameworks and word choices that support those high stakes moments. That's what makes it useful. Now, why do I do that? Why do I do that with real estate, and not with every other industry on the planet? Well, because let's take the real estate industry as a whole is low barrier to entry high potential earnings. These aren't highly trained individuals coming into it from a newest point of view. People building teams and brokerages are looking for training tools and frameworks in order to be able to support or accelerate the success of new agents. The market is rich and buoyant, and narrow and tight. Where specificity can actually support it in the right way. Could I write exactly what to say for internet marketers? Yeah, but the buckets so wide, how do you actually be able to channel the energy through creating precise examples? You'd end up with a wishy washy offering. So it is narrow, deep, narrow and deep is is the market and the ability to actually be able to get those people into the same space. So that what I can do is is get confidence that the book is going to deliver on brief is possible within real estate. It's not possible within every other industry with these

Kenneth Kinney 35:18
evidence, I think it's so interesting that you've delved into industry expertise with us. And you could apply this because it's the same way in sales, marketing or speaking, if you don't have the context of that expertise, a lot of the audiences don't care what you have to say if you become that vanilla speaker. So

Phil M Jones 35:36
call the show me that you know Me button. Exactly. So those that you're speaking to, you forget, it doesn't matter how valuable the content is, they've decided it's not relevant because they've decided that you don't understand their world.

Kenneth Kinney 35:48
So I've heard you say this before, but you believe that turning nose into yeses is a myth. Why sir?

Phil M Jones 35:56
Um, my belief is actually that the point of influence is maybe when people are in maybe they are impressionable, when they're impressionable, then they can land either side of that fence. When people are a heck no. What right? Do you have to start to be able to try and turn that around? Let's let's just take this example, if somebody is remarkably happily married, what are the chances of being able to get them to be able to behave in a way that is inappropriate towards that? So Heck, no. Right? You've got to get from No to maybe to Yes. Right? You can get a no to a maybe and maybe do a yes. But you can't get a no to a yes. Yet, the point, for those of us looking to find commercial success, is going fishing into maybes don't try and do the work to turn those into yeses. Because you're going to end up full of regret, it's too much hard work, there isn't enough time to be able to actually work through all of that the only thing that wins is your ego. Like is there's enough in life right now that's up hill, shooting downhill, or at least on a level playing field would be where I'd apply my effort, which is for the same reason why I do exactly what to say, for real estate, and I haven't done exactly what to say for dog rooms. Right? Is, is there's an up hill, and there's a downhill choice. Why don't we choose the downhill ones first. And there are a lot of maybes in everybody's listening to this industry, that are worth working on in pressuring towards, you know, a more positive outcome than trying to turn around all the people that think that your offering is wrong for them. Find the ones that are thinking, well, maybe find those peeps, and then show them how you can help them as opposed to trying to find the people that have said, heck no, I don't ever want to do Facebook advertising. Facebook advertising is a waste of time. You better finding somebody, it's like, maybe we can open some new doors with Facebook ads. Right? Those are the people that you're going to get to be able to make a decision quicker. Those are the people that are already impressionable. Those are the people that are worth helping make their mind up.

Kenneth Kinney 38:10
So we're going to test now to see if you know exactly what to say, because these are my series of closing questions that I ask everybody. I have all my guests and I'm never sure what anybody's exact answer is going to be. Could be because you have infant children that you're going to answer one way could be that there's an ocean between New York and London that's going to answer a different way. But what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Phil M Jones 38:35
What is my favorite kind of sharp and why? Remember, the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment when you're saying it and to every one of these questions I'm thinking about my answer for the first time in this moment. Absolutely. Exactly what to say moment, this is a fill on the spot my and favorite shark and why? I would say a hammerhead shark, okay, because everybody is too busy looking ahead of themselves and fails to look left and right as often as they could do and realize how much opportunity is within days and isn't so focused on just rushing into the future. So I'm gonna pick the hammerhead.

Kenneth Kinney 39:13
Well, no, in the age of your kids, I was wondering if you were gonna say, Baby shark. So it was it was a toss up at that point.

Phil M Jones 39:21
Let's definitely favorite that's a less than faithful least

Kenneth Kinney 39:23
favorite on the planet, which passed up Gangnam Style A long time ago on most watched video and Esposito. So, Phil is his special time this show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today? I'm ready, ready? Ready? All right, Chelsea, or Manchester United.

Phil M Jones 39:44
My true answer is neither having worked in professional soccer you can see the game from a very different lens than being a fan. But if I'm to pick I will pick Manchester United because of the legacy and what they've done to be able to build a global brand brand that is insanely impressive.

Kenneth Kinney 40:03
And Phil Jones plays there,

Phil M Jones 40:05
which is a reason to not like them.

Kenneth Kinney 40:07
Yeah, that's true. Phil Anthony Jones

Phil M Jones 40:09
Steals my Google rankings. No,

Kenneth Kinney 40:11
No, no kidding. No kidding. All right, number two. You wrote "Magic Words," another another best seller. But let's talk a little more magic. Criss Angel, or David Copperfield? Who would you rather see? The Vegas show?

Phil M Jones 40:28
I think for me, I'd go David Copperfield. I'm a little more of a traditionalist than, than the kind of Rockstar theatrical part of the show. Yet still, I would probably rather see close up magicians, like people like what David Blaine can do or what Dynamo could do, etc. would probably be the magicians that would be my favorite but but you know, again, legacy the David Copperfield for everything he's done through the years and and sustaining career over that length of time at the highest of levels, for me is admirable. And I'd love to see what he does to bring relevance at any point in time.

Kenneth Kinney 41:04
I've seen him several times. He's a master showman. Alright, number three, SF o to British music, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones

Phil M Jones 41:18
The Beatles for their music, the stones for their performances? To try semi let's choose both right.

Kenneth Kinney 41:27
Alright, number four. Who knows better exactly what to say fill in Jones or Mrs. Phil M. Jones.

Phil M Jones 41:38
depends on the context. I would like to say in some areas, me and in other areas, my wife and I think that's what is important to be able to put boundaries around a truly diplomatic

Kenneth Kinney 41:49
answer. All right, number five. And the most important question that you're going to be asked today, and we're talking American food here, American biscuits or cornbread.

Phil M Jones 42:01
I can't pick an American biscuit because that ain't a biscuit. I mean, debate about how they even get the right to be able to use that word biscuit. So I gotta pick cornbread because that is fundamentally in its own category. There is no confusion, cornbread is cornbread. Cornbread is delicious cornbread is magic. Cornbread lives in a category by itself. You know, a biscuit is trying to win attention from a biscuit and it's not a biscuit. So like this causes a whole load of global confusion. And I don't want to be somebody that brings that amount of of confusion to the world.

Kenneth Kinney 42:35
Good man. All right. So Phil, where can people find out more about you keep up with what you're doing. See your keynotes and more.

Phil M Jones 42:42
Film jones.com is a great landing place for everything you can find other links to other things that we're up to from that site, you can find social platforms. If you want to keep the conversation alive, you want to share comment about listening to shark show you want to commit connect with me directly. I'm on Instagram at Phil M. Jones, UK, and also on LinkedIn, you can find me by searching fill space M space Jones, and we'd be happy to be able to continue the conversation on either of those two platforms.

Kenneth Kinney 43:07
Awesome. Thank you very much, Phil, for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Phil M Jones 43:12
My absolute pleasure. Keep up the great work. Thank you.

Kenneth Kinney 43:20
So there was my conversation with Phil M. Jones in NSA Hall of Fame speaker, the author of The Best Selling exactly book series with over 1 million copies sold. Producer of the most listened to nonfiction audio book of all time, a trusted advisor for some of the world's biggest brands, and an entrepreneur since the age of 14. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 43:42
First, especially for authors. But just like for any brand, never leave launch mode. I love that comment. He takes clues from the music industry, with example of the Rolling Stones and how they're finding new fans but not necessarily writing new music. putting out new content all the time is something a lot of people just try to do. Phil says we should find new audiences as opposed to just writing new material. A lot of people dilute by trying to be too many things to too many people and constantly write something completely different. It's a good idea as well as to look at a series of books is a framework for example, rather than just random works, call it whatever you want. But if you find that through line, that constant theme, continue to build on it. Great content marketers take a look at content pillars and how you build on that you know, know what your tabletop is, for example, and then you can have as many legs as you want to support that same table. Too many people and brands have too many messages and they metaphorically speaking of course, start working on legs for other tables, and most importantly is the reference. Welcome Gangnam Style.

Kenneth Kinney 44:42
Second, when it comes to influence Phil says that you can't convince anyone to do anything. I'm paraphrasing a bit here but offer an olive branch instead. If your route is convincing for most people pushing doesn't work. When it's done right. It's more pulling if you will. He said in a quote selling is earning the right to make a recommendation. Love that. Be curious, ask questions that extract more context. And again, he basically said convince not by convincing people by by helping them make better informed decisions.

Kenneth Kinney 45:09
Third, great point of the written word with emails versus the spoken word. You see the same thing a lot with a lot of social media to where people post and ghosts. A lot of conversation is lost in writing today, but similar to success in sales of any kind, and especially with a written word and emails, think about whether you're setting up a conversation to keep it going, or asking the right kind of questions and allowing that dialogue to go back and forth. That doesn't resemble a lot of the dumb sales pitches I get every day. You likely get them to think about that conversation, allow it to go back and forth in a conversation that they want to have, and it's focused on them.

Kenneth Kinney 45:43
Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 45:46
Thank you again for the privilege of your time, and I am so thankful to everyone who listens.

Kenneth Kinney 45:51
Please consider writing a review and let me know your thoughts in the show.

Kenneth Kinney 45:54
Again, my friends, be curious, be fearless and dive deeper. And then if you will join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.
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