The Power Of One Conversation

 

What if one conversation could transform your business? 

In this episode, you’ll discover the power of a right fit conversation and the potential breakthrough you can achieve because of it.

You’ll also find out a breakthrough in my 20’s transformed my life from one 30 second conversation.  

You’re one conversation away from your next big breakthrough.

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Listen to the podcast here:

The Power Of One Conversation

What would it be worth if you could have one conversation with one person that could transform your world, life, relationships and business? What would that be worth to you? This episode and session are all about the power of one conversation. If you never want to miss an episode, you can do that at GrowthToFreedom.com/subscribe. Speaking of one magical conversation that can transform your business. If you’re in a place in your business where maybe as the Founder or CEO, you’re still at a place where you’re doing most or all of the prospecting, selling or fulfillment of your business, then we need to talk.

We can help you solve this problem so you can build a model, a method and an operating system that allows you to grow and scale with less stress. It will help you attract, build or create a rainmaker system to help you get more growth, more sales, more profitability and most importantly, get you out of the day-to-day of the business. They’ll get you out of being stuck in the mud and also giving you the freedom you deserve. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you, let’s have that one conversation. You can go to BreakthroughStrategyCall.com and get at a time. It’s low key and pretty simple. We’ll talk about your business. Where are you? Where do you want to go? We’ll give you some options of how we might recommend you get there, whether it’s through us or getting you connected to another resource that can help you slow down the game and speed up the curve. Enjoy this segment.

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This segment is something on my heart and I’d love to share a story with you. Number one, it’s unfortunate that a lot of coaches, consultants and so on have been trained on how to completely derail the idea of a strategy session or discovery session for all practical purposes, a simple conversation. It’s frustrating and I want to speak to that elephant in the room. I remember back in the 1990s not to be that guy who I was talking about years and years ago. I could sit down and get an introduction to a very high-profile expert at the time. He was somebody well-respected. He was well-regarded in the publishing industry.

You become who you hang around with, who you spend your time with. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

He was a celebrated author and speaker with a community called Nightingale-Conant. Maybe you’ve heard of it. If Damon Willis, Ethan Willis or Andy Garton are around, these guys know Nightingale-Conant well. I had the good fortune because my ex-wife’s grandmother worked for this celebrity expert and author. His name is Michael Wickett. She organized us to have the ability to sit down and have a conversation. Michael was gracious, he came and met me. I grew up in Detroit, so I was in Detroit and we met for lunch at the Renaissance Center at an event I was speaking at.

At this lunch that we had together, I sat down with Michael. I was young and hungry. I had written the manuscript for my first book called A Champion in the Making. I’m getting into my publishing business all the way back in 1998 or 1999, somewhere around there. I said, “Michael, I want to have a big success in publishing and so on.” He said, “First of all, you need to understand you’re not in the business of selling books. You’re never going to meet an author who got wealthy selling books.” That was an incredible distinction. If you’ve never heard that advice before and you’re a new aspiring author like I was, and you hear this for the first time, it might create some incredible conflict, incredible friction. The perception was the way to get wealthy in publishing is to market and sell books. He completely derailed that in 30 seconds.

If you’re in the book business like an author, an expert, a consultant, a coach or what have you, and you’ve been around publishing for a while, what is that advice worth in 30 seconds? It’s worth a small fortune. How much will it save you in time and energy if you don’t run down this rabbit hole of misconception, lies, and misunderstanding? He was able to take the glasses off very quickly. We continued the conversation. A couple of things that stood out from that conversation that I recall and I’d like to share these with you to give some perspective on the power of one conversation. What does one conversation mean for clarity, certainty, confidence, and giving you transformation, inspiration, and breakthrough?

Michael and I went on with our conversation at lunch that day. I said to him, “If you were me, who would be some of the people that you would recommend following?” He gave me a list of five names at that lunch. I don’t know if you’d like to know who those five names were. Some of them you might have heard of because they’ve now become very successful and were already successful, at least in Michael’s eyes, and some you probably never heard of. Nonetheless, I said, “What would you do?” He said, “If I were you, I would get involved in as many of the programs with them as you can and/or look to hire them as a coach in one way or another.”

 

In other words, get in their circle. We’ve all heard that. You become who you hang around and who you spend your time with. Those things, the power of five. I believe this is a Mark Victor Hansen quote, “We can tell usually someone’s net worth by their network. If we sum up the sum average of five people we hang out with the most, it’s likely to be around the average of our net worth too.” If you want to go up, go up. He recommended these five critical people. I was in my twenties at this time. He shared these five people and then he shared three other critical strategies at that lunch. Being a young and hungry guy at the time, I will say that I had a tendency way back then to take things very literally.

I’m incredibly thankful that the advice and wisdom he gave me was right on track. When Michael shared those five people and those three key strategies, I went out and immediately started looking up those experts. I started studying their work. I started finding ways to get connected with them through either coaching, support, training or otherwise. One of the five became a client much later on where we help them build and grow access to their seminars in seminar events. Back to that one conversation, number one, what did Michael saved me in that one conversation? What did he save me in time? What did he save me in energy? That idea that you’re not going to necessarily build wealth by being an author selling books.

You’ve got to look at some of the other pieces and the other things, then getting me connected to the very best in the world at those things at that time. As you think about your business world and your personal life, I challenge you to think about what would one conversation be worth to you? The right conversation or right fit conversation. The way to be thinking about this ideally is what’s the number one thing that you need the most help with? If you decide what’s the number one thing you need the most help with, you can go out and find some people that could give you that one conversation that maybe would be as valuable to you as Michael’s was with me back in my twenties.

You can usually tell someone's net worth by their network. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

This doesn’t matter whether you’re 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years old or whatever. I talked to a girl and we’ll have our interview here on GrowthToFreedom.com. Her name is Meghan Sharkus. She’s amazing, ExpressionMed.com where you can learn about what she’s doing and how she’s solving problems in diabetes and making it cooler and more fun. When I asked her about what was the one thing that’s stimulated this power of one conversation, she was in a bootcamp through this process for six weeks. That one series of events, that hyper-focus learning she got in that few weeks transformed her business life. She’s got a seven-figure business. She’s making a huge impact in the world and she’s going to be a world-changer in years to come.

The fact of the matter is you think about you. What could and would the value of one right fit conversation be? Speaking to the elephant in the room, don’t let the fact that maybe you’ve had a bad conversation. I want to call out some coaches here. I want to call out some consultants here. I want to call out some of the unfortunate models in the industry, which are nothing more than disguised sales calls. The truth of the matter is if you connect to the right organization, you’ll walk away with value. For you, coaches, consultants and advisors in the world who are offering strategy sessions, discovery sessions or breakthrough sessions. I encourage you to build components of those conversations, whether it’s you or you’ve got a team or you’ve got account executives representing you.

You go out and create a way to make it valuable for that end-user. If someone has a problem and it’s related to whatever it is that you offer and whatever niche you’re in, that you truly go out there and look to find a way to help that client, that end-user, the person on the other end of the line or face-to-face, in-person or on video have a solution option. You identify where they are and where they want to go. Perhaps some of the time your solution is the solution for them. It’s the how and likely that makes sense. Make sure to provide value regardless of whether you are the solution or not.

If you connect to the right organization, you'll walk away with value. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

Speaking to the power of one conversation, I’m going to be self-serving here. If you’re looking for a way to grow your business, to double, triple, quadruple your results without the typical stress, then I’ll have a link that will have the ability for us to connect. Let’s look at having a conversation. We call it a Breakthrough Strategy Session. It’s in the spirit of what we’re talking about here. I remember years ago I was at a mastermind event and a guy you may know who’s one of the most amazing people in the world. He’s a super-connector.

When you speak to Kevin, you get clarity on your business, what you stand for, you create value alignment in what you are, and then he helps you get connected to the potential right-fit clients. He’s amazing at what he does in his own authentic and genuine way. He’s one of my favorite people in the entire business community because of who he is. When Kevin and I were sitting down years ago at this mastermind meeting, I said, “What’s something you need some help with?” I’ve got this online model that is working okay but I’m wondering if there are some ways to do it better. We sat down and we assessed it, evaluate it, looked at it. I said, “What if you try this one little thing here and let’s see if it can help increase the sales in your business?”

I forget how long ago it was, but Kevin at the time had sent me a text. I think it was a period over a year or two or something like that since we had given that recommendation from that one single conversation. He said, “My team let me know that it wasn’t $1 million in additional revenue. It was only $640,000.” One conversation of us working together and he implemented it in this example but added $640,000 or whatever it ended up being in revenue. What’s the power of one conversation? I remember another example. Someone you may know of in his early years with one of his businesses. He’s had many businesses. I don’t want to create any false representation here.

One of his business, Dean Graziosi. I got introduced to Dean through a friend of mine named Jimmy and we sat down at a little restaurant called Boston’s. We were having lunch and we were talking about what was going on in his company and his business. I said, “I might be able to help with that.” We brought in our unique sales process and our unique sales system. We started working together. We found that we enjoyed working together at this time. Over the course of the next few months, we literally helped Dean for that particular company, double the business, double his revenue and increased his profitability. I believe within another 6 to 12 months, that momentum carried forward and continued. It was sustainable and consistent. Dean was able to sell that division of a company and created other opportunities.

 

Dean and I have since been friends for a long time. What if we would have not had that one conversation? What is the one right conversation worth for you? Sometimes like anything, you’ve got to get through a lot of bad conversations to ultimately get to a good one. As you move forward in whatever it is that you pursue, you don’t shy away and go, “These one-on-one conversations or things don’t work.” That would be like saying that if you ever had a lemon car, maybe it’s where I grew up as a kid, but I had a couple when I was in my younger years. Just because you get a lemon car doesn’t mean that all cars are lemons and won’t work.

I’m not walking everywhere I go because in my younger years that I had a couple of lemons. It’s the same thing. I encourage you, although it can be easy and I completely understand. There are a lot of coaches, consultants and advisors out there completely screwing this up for everybody because all they’ve done is created the sky sales pitches. It sucks for everybody and the people who do it right. However, get through those lemons and ultimately find the ones who are doing it right so that you can walk out of those conversations with far more clarity, certainty, transformation, breakthroughs and a whole lot more.

Ideally, this serves you if you are looking for a way to be able to double or triple your business with less stress. Not that we’re a fit for everybody, but we’ll have a link in the comments sections that you can hit. Spend the time and whether it’s me or someone on our team that helps you, we help you identify where you are, where do you want to go and get you connected to the how. We had a girl that we had on our show and after the conversation, I said, “What’s one thing that you need the most help with?” She explained it and she said, “We’re launching a book and we need help launching it and looking at what it will take to do that. We’re self-publishing and all these sorts of things.”

The long and the short of it is I immediately thought of a friend of mine, Kevin Thompson, who I was speaking to later in that day. I said, “Kevin, who do you know of that could help with doing a book campaign?” Both of us know Jeff Walker and people who worked around Jeff Walker and so on. He said, “I’ve got the perfect person. Chances are this would be the number one person I would choose if I were working. I happened to be teamed up with him. His name is Rob Kosberg.” Rob has helped over 400 authors hit bestsellers and there are a lot of people in this space.

Make sure to provide value regardless of whether you are the solution or not. - Dan Kuschell Click To Tweet

His book has translated into multimillions of dollars of business for himself. I also believe he’s done some similar things with his lucky clients, but what’s that one conversation? I had a conversation with her who asked, “Our company doesn’t do traditional book launches. We do other stuff.” We weren’t self-serving but we got her connected to Kevin and Rob to help them solve this problem. That’s what a great model will do. It’s about adding value first. If you’re a coach, a consultant, or an advisor and you’re using a model where you use a version of a strategy, discovery call, whatever, I challenge you to start adding more value. You can do it. You can add value and still enroll people at the same time. You don’t have to trade-off one to get the other. I know there are some coaches and experts who teach this nonsense. “You’ve got to create the gap and create the pain and then leave them there and then you’re the solution.”

I truly get it. That’s more of the ‘80s or ‘90s approach and it’s outdated. It’s time to stop using outdated methodologies. It’s also time to start serving at a higher level. This is a way to serve and sell at the same time because at the end of the day, what is selling? Selling is serving. You can serve. If you’re an advisor and a coach, continue to serve at a deeper level, at a higher level, at the next level. Don’t be shocked at what happens. You get more sales. You attract more right-fit clients. You get more referrals because instead of a selling culture, a selling experience someone has, they have a buyer’s experience and you know what a buyer’s experience does? It changes the game when you have that. Why do people go to Starbucks? They don’t make the best coffee. It’s a better experience. Why do we buy Apple products? Not necessarily because they’re the cheapest, not even necessarily the best. It’s the cool vibe and experience. As a coach, consultant and advisor, I encourage you to start changing. Stop using outdated techniques.

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The power of one conversation can completely transform your life, your business, and relationships. I want you to imagine, what it’d be worth for you to have that one conversation that can open the doors to freedom, massive growth, less stress, getting out of the day-to-day of your business? Also, not having to wear all the hats or wearing the hat of being someone who’s prospecting or selling or fulfilling in your business and a whole lot more, or the pressure or the stress that can sometimes come with that? It doesn’t have to be that way and you’re not alone.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you, I encourage you to schedule a conversation. We call it our Breakthrough Strategy conversation, Breakthrough Strategy call. It’s going to give you clarity. It’s going to give you the ability to get direction. We identify where you are, where you want to go, options to get there, either through us or through some of our trusted partners out in the marketplace. If you want to set that up, you can go learn more about that and how to do that at BreakthroughStrategyCall.com. We’ll see you next time.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• GrowthToFreedom.com/subscribe
• BreakthroughStrategyCall.com
• Nightingale-Conant
• A Champion in the Making
• ExpressionMed.com
• Dean Graziosi
• Rob Kosberg

About Dan Kuschell

Dan is a husband, dad, serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He’s the founder and CEO of Breakthrough3X. If you’re feeling like you’re stuck or hit a plateau with your growth he can help. He helps founders, CEO’s and business owners connect the dots, see the blind-spots, and get unstuck, by implementing unique sales and marketing systems to increase growth and profits, while making a bigger impact, reach, and contribution.

With almost 30 years of business experience, Dan has started 11 companies, coached over 5000 business owners from a variety of industries around the world, and had clients and partners like Joe Polish, Dean Graziosi, Genius Network, and more. He’s bought and sold multiple companies, is a regular media contributor, hosts his own radio show, and been a guest featured on multiple TV, radio, print, and online publications (like ESPN, NBC, Speed, Thrive, Huffington Post, and more)

He has been rated as a top 25 Influencer by Influencive, and his podcast is recommended by Forbes magazine.