What Do You Do with Matthew Pollard

george grombacher 0:01
Music. Matthew Pollard is the founder of rapid growth coach. He is an award winning speaker. He is an award winning and best selling author, and a returning guest to the lifeblood podcast. Welcome back to the show, Matthew,

Matthew Pollard 0:14
I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me back.

george grombacher 0:17
Yeah, yeah. Excited to dig into it. Refresh our memory. Tell us a little about your personal lives, more about your work and why. Work and why you do what you do. Yeah,

Matthew Pollard 0:25
sure. So, I mean personal life. I’m an Australian living in America, so a lot of people are going to ask, obviously, where the accent is coming from. It’s coming from Melbourne, Australia. I moved to America when I turned 30, and, you know, it was really interesting when I first got here, because when you start and decide you want to start in a totally brand new place. I mean, I spent a lifetime awkwardly fostering a network in in Australia, and then when I moved to the United States, I pretty much had to start again. And what I realized is that so many people really struggled to articulate what it is they do. And I remember going to a networking event the first time I said, because I’ve been responsible for five multi million dollar success stories. I’ve, you know, taught a whole bunch of people. I was like, Oh, I’ll call myself a sales trainer. And the first time I said that, somebody looked at me like I was one step above a scam artist. And then I said, I’m never doing that again. I’ll say I’m in marketing. And they were like, oh, I need marketing. How much do you cost? And I’m like, Okay, so now I’m talking about price. I just met you, or you’d get that awkward. Oh, I’m working with someone in marketing, which was terrible. So I remember going to YouTube and looking for strategies in order to network more authentically. And the best I could find was this transactional elevator spiel, which is, I do this for this group of people, even if and I was like, yuck. And what I realized is that networking was just the way people did it was came out of the door to door sales world, I felt. And so I felt it was time for a change, so I actually created a new type of networking for myself, and it worked amazingly well. I mean, I went from knowing nobody in a brand new city to one of the most networked people in the city, and now I’ve got one of the largest network globally. And it all came from really talking about my passion and what I really care about, as opposed to the features and functions of what I do. So now I teach people how to do that. I teach people how to stop competing on price, because if you start with sales, you kind of already lost. And, you know, I get the opportunity to speak globally, really, across the world, around how to obtain rapid growth in a business that you love. So I, you know, I just love doing it.

george grombacher 2:24
Everything you said makes so much sense, and so has it? Has it been connecting with people? Or do old habits die hard? Both,

Matthew Pollard 2:32
you know, I so the answer is yes and yes. So yes, it definitely connects with people. Because I feel that most people would rather get a root canal than go out networking the way most people see it. And I feel like there’s transactional networking, which is the use. I mean, you see some extroverts do it. They walk around going, do you want to buy from me? No, what about you? What about you? What about you? And I’m not that person, but even a lot of extroverts aren’t that person. But what I find is a lot of people go back to what I call aimless networking, which is where you go in. And you know, somebody asked you what you do, and you’re like, Well, my day job is this. I mean, who wants to talk to someone that doesn’t even care about what they do for a living, right? So, and don’t get me wrong, people are three dimensional beings, and they there’s a lot of other things going on in their life, but strategic networking should be about conveying passion. I mean, I feel like when somebody asks you what you do, natural response is, you know, I do this and I do this and I do this, which is so I centric. And the truth is that people want to believe that you care about them before they even come close to caring about what you do. So what I’ve really structured is a way of articulating what you do from a place of passion and then leveraging story to explain what you do. The thing that’s been really interesting is it’s funny, because introverts don’t want to make anything about themselves, but when you ask them to change and start talking about why they care, that requires a level of empathy, which introverts have on in spades, but it needs to be planned and prepared. So what happens is they default back into what they have always said. And I mean, that never worked for them in the past. It’s not going to work for them now. So it’s been really interesting for the last decade. While I’ve been doing this, I mean, the people that have embraced it, it’s really transformed their lives, because they feel more authentic in the networking room. And here’s the secret, if you’re the loudest, if you have to be the loudest in the networking room, you also have to be the loudest online, because if you can’t articulate the value of what you provide someone when they’re politely listening to in a networking room for two three minutes, what chance do you have when people give you a fraction of a second? So what I learned is, if you can be the clearest, you don’t have to be the loudest in the networking room. And then, really easily, you don’t have to be the loudest in the digital world either. Because, I mean, for the average introvert listening to this, the last thing you want to do is take a be taking photos of your dog or donut for something to say on social media. But that’s what you feel like you have to do. And that’s not actually true. It’s just that, again, people are being the loudest. They’re like, Look at me. I’m still here. I’m still here, which is what people do by going to all those networking events. But if you can be the clearest you can be, you don’t have to be the loudest online, either. So what I’ve found, or what my the thesis of my new book, is, is, let me show you how to mark. Start the networking room so you never have to go back to one.

george grombacher 5:02
Yeah, okay, I love it. So can we? Can you share an example, maybe for yourself, or for for an industry that maybe you work with?

Matthew Pollard 5:15
Yeah? Absolutely. So the the thing that’s really interesting about this is it has to start from you not articulating your functional skill. And the moment that you mention your functional skill, you’ve kind of lost because they put you in this bucket, and they’re like, oh, I need that, or I don’t need that. They’re trying to qualify you or disqualify you, and it’s not something mean that they’re doing. The truth is that that’s what our brain is programmed to do. So we have to get out of that functional skill. And you know, actually, a good example is quite a while back, I worked with a language coach out of California, and she called Kids in adult Mandarin, and she was charging 50 to $80 an hour. No problem for a very long time. And then all of a sudden, she had to change the way that she was selling because people kept saying things like, oh, I can get it from somebody else that just moved into California for 30 to $40 an hour. Or, Oh, but I can. I can do that using the free apps from thanks to our friends in Silicon Valley, so she can meet the sales techniques to convince and control people. And I’m like, Look, if we start here, you’ve kind of already lost so what I want to do is avoid the battle altogether. So I looked at all the things she did, and what I realized is, for two people, specifically, she helped them with far more than just language tuition. She helped them with things like understanding rapport in China, why it’s so different, understanding that, you know, you’ve got to have multiple meetings before they even discuss business how to handle a business card, why it matters. You know, the difference between E commerce in China and the Western world. I’m like, when are you doing so much more? So much more for these people than just language tuition, what are you doing? And just like everyone listening, they’re stuck in their functional skill. That’s why they use it in the networking room. And she said, Well, they’re just a few things, you know, I’m just trying to help. And I was like, Look, is it fair to assume as a result of the assistance you’re giving these people, they’re going to be more successful in China. And she like me, yeah, I mean, that’s the point, right? I said, well, great, let’s call you the China Success Coach. Then. So when you go to a networking room, say you’re the China Success Coach, then when somebody asked, what is that? Well, we can talk about what to say in a second, but we had to really restructure our entire business. So she then said, Well, you know, okay, what do I sell them? And we ended up creating a China Success intensive, which was a five week program that worked with the executive, the spouse and any children. Then we said, Okay, well, who do we sell it? Who do we sell it to? Who’s the mark that we’re going networking to meet? And she said, Well, obviously it’s the executive, makes sense. I mean, I moved from Australia the United States. That was terrifying. Imagine going to China. But I’m like, it’s not your ideal client. Well, the companies will pay. And I’m like, yes, a lot of times they got millions of dollars writing on an executive being successful. But still, I don’t think it’s your ideal client. I said, what I think it is, is the immigration attorney. Now, she looks at me like I’m speaking a foreign language, but I’m like, think about it. They make five to 7000 for doing all the visa, the paperwork, the bureaucracy that comes with that. They’d be lucky to make $3,000 profit. I said, offer them $3,000 for a simple introduction. So she started networking for immigration attorneys. And when they, when she met them, she would talk about what I call the passion mission dialog. And I’ll explain that in a second. But they love the idea of the fact that I double my profit for a simple introduction. Because she started offer the offering them $3,000 so they started recommending her by just saying, I just want to double check you’re as ready as possible to go to China. And executive would always think they were. They got their visa, they got a place sorted, they learned the language. Kids are getting pretty good at it too, so they think they’re set. And she would just have them respond with, there’s a lot more to it than that. I think you need to speak to the China Success Coach. She get on the phone with the easiest sale in the world. These people were terrified to go. The company was motivated to pay. Recommended by their attorney. She charged 20. So she charged $30,000 for doing this. Mine is a $3,000 commission check. She made 27,000 the easiest sale in the world. And she’s networking with attorneys. So you’ve got to look at the way you target and who you target first. But once you have that, you have your version of the China Success Coach, which is as simple as saying, what are the things I do outside the scope of my functional skill for one group, and then what’s the higher level benefit of that? Then you’ve got, you can then transition into what I talk about, which is highlighting that you care. For instance, when people ask me what I do, instead of saying I’m a sales trainer or a marketing coach, I say, I’m the Rapid Growth Guy. And when people say, what is that? Because it’s like this weird thing, and they don’t know what box to put you in, so they ask, I will then say, well, one of the things I love to see more than anything in the world is an amazing, introverted service provider with enough talent, skill and belief in themselves to start a business of their own. What I just hate seeing this, is they get stuck in this endless hamster wheel of struggling to find interested, people trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale while fighting on price, which is what people only think that they care about. Do you know anyone like that? Now, of course, the answer is always going to be yes, because you should have researched which room to go to. You should have connected. With them in advance, which means when they respond yes, I say, Well, I’m on a mission to help people like yourself realize you really can obtain rapid growth doing what you love, but not by getting better at your functional skill. You’re probably amazing in that, but instead, by focusing on just three things outside the scope of that, that allow you to build a business that revolves around you, your family and your life, not the other way around. Actually, let me give you an example, and then I might tell the Wendy story, but notice what I just did. I didn’t talk about me at all. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even tell you what I do, because I don’t care what I did was I talked about what I love to see, what I hate to see in the mission that I’m on. I’m gonna let the story explain what I do in a way that attaches it to someone. And the science behind storytelling is so powerful to connect with rapport, to get them to remember what you said and for them to see themselves in that outcome and want it for themselves. That

george grombacher 10:47
is super powerful. China’s success coach. That’s a really good one.

Matthew Pollard 10:52
Well, you know, it’s really interesting. I’ve seen ghost writers that we’ve called the authority architect, videographers that we’ve called the Narrative Strategist. We’ve had people in MSP, the people that go and maintain computers, and we’ve realized their favorite or their what they’re best at is helping people go through growth, through acquisition and merging all the technology. So we’ve called them the acquisition lifeguard, because a lot of times, the person that grows through acquisition all of a sudden realizes that they didn’t take into account the licensing, the tech stack issues. They lose customers. They lose stakeholder support from everybody about growing through acquisition. So he comes in and really saves the day. There’s always a unified message that will separate you. Where people get unstuck is they start by saying, you know, well, how could I create a message for myself as an accountant? And I’m like, Well, okay, well, who do you work with? Well, I work with everybody. Well, you can’t work with everybody and have a unified message that sings true. Now that doesn’t mean, like, I call myself the Rapid Growth Guy. Now, the truth is that that could mean a bunch of different things, but it’s got to be authentic to you and the outcome that you provide a smaller group of people, because, and by the way, this sounds a lot like niching. And it is, I mean, but I call it specialization, because I feel like niching has got a bad rap, because everybody thinks everybody knows niching works. They just don’t do it for themselves. Because they’re different, and it’s unique, but they’re not different. The fact is, they’re just scared of it. What you’ve got to say is, well, firstly, if you’re worried about changing your whole business model, firstly, most of the people listening get their clients from referral or repeat business. So your current clients don’t care if you put on the website. I’m no longer an accountant. I’m a dentist. They’re not checking your website as much as you think, and they just don’t care about what you say. If they found you a dentist, they’d say, can you still help me or can you help my buddy who I’m referring you to? They just it doesn’t matter as much as you think. Specialization is really about being seen as the only logical choice to a smaller few. Think about what I talked about. I can’t really articulate my value well unless I speak directly to my avatar, which is an introvert. And originally it wasn’t even just introverted service providers, like it is now it was introverted business coaches. Once I grew that market, I then moved out to introverted coaches, then introverted professional service providers, and now service providers in general. But what people have to understand is you’ve got to say, What group do I care about most, or What group do I get the great best results for, or which group pays me well, and I get, you know, I and I get amazing reviews from them, but I will say, don’t work with the group, just because it’s practical, right? The truth is, I’ve learned you can create rapid growth out of anything, but there’s nothing worse than a rapid growth business with customers you don’t like, in a business you can’t stand so once you’ve made that choice, you then say, what are the unique things that I provide that group? And then what’s the high level benefit of that? That’s how you get to a China Success Coach or a Rapid Growth Guy. And then you just say, you know, what do I love to see? What do I hate to see? And what mission Am I on? And then you create a story. Everything else falls into place, but what I find is that most people are scared to go into a networking room, because what if I say I’m really interested in helping introverted service providers, and then the person I’m talking to is an extrovert? Well, then I would say the exact same thing. I don’t mold myself to that person. My bet is they’ve got an introverted friend that they’ll introduce me to that’s got a business, and because of that, I work with them. Like, you get MSPs that focus just on accountants. And like, well, what if the person I’m speaking to isn’t an accountant? I’m like, well, they might know an accountant and they can introduce you, but if you hedge, then you get nobody as a client, or they fight you on price, and that is not what you want. And the worst part is I see people constantly fighting on price because they’re a generalist. I see people go to BNI and they like the accountant. Example, I’m an MSP working with accountants. So you talk about your specialty, what you love to see, what you hate to see with accountants, like listening to what you say. You could really help anyone. And they respond with, well, yes, I really could. Now they get all these really bad leads for people that see them as nothing more than a commodity, as opposed to saying, well, in theory, I could, but accountants have really specific needs, and because of that, I choose to specialize. Here’s the wonderful thing about specialization, by the way, when you hear the word specialty, you. Uh, people assume that you pay premium, and they usually have to have a better general knowledge of everything in order to specialize. So people, it actually gives you an advantage, even with the lower level groups. And funnily enough, people ask me, Well, you know, don’t you miss, like, selling to all the extroverts, I’ve actually had more extroverted clients since I started specializing with introverts, because of so many I mean, I just got a client a couple of months ago that an introverted person hired me. We had great results. They got me on to speak on a stage. I then spoke on that stage, and an extroverted guy saw me speak on stage and says, I must hire you, because I want to sell my business at some point, and I’m the big out there kind of sales person, unless I build a system that other people can utilize, I’m always going to be stuck in my business, absolutely true. I have more fun enough I have. I just got named sales kickoff speaker of the Year by selling power magazine, predominantly for a keynote that I do on storytelling for my success working with big tech, SaaS firms and hardware firms. That’s not most of those people have got Bulldog sales reps and they’re selling a product. Why? Because one of the people there was very introverted read my book and suggested me as a speaker. So we even when my publisher said originally, take the word introvert off the cover, because you’re going to cut out half your audience. Like, do I really want to be the one of the 2000 books or the only book for this other 50% and that’s really been the driver of my success. Now, you know, obviously introversion. Extroversion is one of those things that’s harder than a target. Like, then say, I work with people that are growing through acquisitions. Or, you know, and mergers and acquisitions are easy to find. I work with, you know, just accountants. I, you know, I’m a videographer that works with SaaS businesses. Those are much easier to target. So people shouldn’t hide away from that. So what I find it’s funny, in my networking book, a lot of times we get by by chapter five. I’m like you probably thought this book was on networking, and at this point you’re probably wondering why everything you’ve heard is about marketing, because the truth is, if you can’t articulate your message, you’re going to fail at networking, then you’ll fail online. So every the whole second half of the book is about practically what to say in the networking room and how to navigate meeting people before you even go into the room. But if you do not know how to separate yourself from the crowd, and you’re constantly fighting on price and being seen as a commodity. Going to a networking room just means you’re going to get beaten over the head by more people that see you as nothing more than a functional provider and fighting you on price.

george grombacher 17:30
So much good stuff. Matthew, so much good stuff. This is awesome. I appreciate you coming back on. Where can people learn more about you, and if they want to, or they’re ready to dig into what you’ve just been laying out, how can they get this framework?

Matthew Pollard 17:45
Yeah, absolutely. So firstly, I mean, people don’t need to hire me for this. They can go to Matthew pollard.com forward slash growth, and there you’ll be able to download a five step template that’ll help you create your version of the China Success Coach, the Rapid Growth Guy, and identify your niche of willing and wanting to buy clients. And I will say, I did this at an event recently, 200 people in the room, and I said, look who he has got the mess, unified message, and they’ve identified the niche of people that will pay them what they’re worth. I’m like, 97% of the room put their hands up, which sounds great. And so I said, Look, do me a favor. Keep your hands up if this is the most time you’ve actively spent working on the marketing in your business. Like, I don’t mean reading books or listening to podcasts about it, like if you listen to this and then go on with your life, it ain’t going to help. I mean actively putting it to work. And about 85 odd percent of the room kept their hands up. So the key is this template at Matthew pollard.com forward slash growth will absolutely work. You just have to spend the time doing it. And I would highly recommend you get somebody else that’s not in your industry to listen to this episode and then workshop with them, get them to spend an hour on you, and then you spend an hour on them, and you’ll be you’ll get transformative results. Now, if you want to learn the networking system, I mean, I break it down step by step in the first chapter of the introverts edge to networking, you can get that at the introverts edge to networking.com.

george grombacher 18:58
Excellent. Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did. So Matthew, your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas and certainly people who are in the business of providing a service and who find themselves networking. I cannot agree with Matthew anymore. It’s one thing to hear something that sounds like a good idea, and then quite another to actually do the work and internalize it and to practice it, and just spending the hour or several hours, however long it takes, you’ll have that for the rest of your life. So I think it’s excellent. Go to Matthew pollard.com, forward slash growth and pick up that, that template, or getting started with that. If you want to dig deeper into Matthew’s methodology when it comes to networking, go to the introverts edge to networking. Com, nailed it, awesome. But go to just check out all things. Matthew Pollard, I certainly always enjoy my interactions with you, Matthew. And really enjoyed today as well. So thank you again, mate. It

Matthew Pollard 19:58
was my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on

george grombacher 20:00
again till next time, remember do your part by doing your best. You.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.