Omnichannel - Phil M Jones | Master Public Speaking & Online Approach

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Send us a textPhil is a master of Influence and Persuasion -The author of Seven Best-Selling Business Books. In this episode, he covered: How to Become a Top Speaker: His Journey to Becoming an Outstanding Speaker as The Youngest to Ever Make it To The Hall of Fame of Speakers. How to approach people with your messaging online. Phil M Jones thinks and acts differently. His precise insights around communication, added to a proven personal pedigree of peak performance and a richness of real-world experience mean that Phil is the kind of thought-leader whose council is sought by other thoughtleaders. He believes with passion that the answer to increased success, in every area of life, is to ask better questions, focus on QUALITY of conversation as well as quantity and that quite often, the difference between you, and all the others, is knowing Exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make more of your conversations count. Work with Phil: https://www.philmjones.com/ Follow Phil: https://www.instagram.com/philmjonesuk/ Join his community: https://www.instagram.com/exactlywhat... #exactlywhattosay #changeyourwordsGet a FREE Copy of the High Converting Online Events Book: https://book.dominikalegrand.com/

The mistake that many people make is they treat their business like a toddler treats a cupcake. What do I mean by that? Is the only thing that they're after is the frosting and the sprinkles. It's that there are three critical ingredients to have more influence and persuasion in any moment in life. And the three critical ingredients are essential and they're essential in this precise order. The first ingredient is one of curiosity. Every great conversation should start from a position of curiosity. The reason that you should start a conversation from a position of curiosity is because if you start a conversation from a position of certainty, then what you do is you rub the other person on the wrong way.

So today I have the amazing Phil with me. I'm so glad to have you in our show. And first of all, thanks so much for saying yes to this invitation. Hey, my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. He's the author. He's the best-selling author of the book, Exactly What to Say. And to be honest with you, when I was watching you perform on stage, what I was thinking to myself, myself like you are such an engaging speaker and I don't know what was the time when was the time you realized that yourself when you speak people listen how did that come for you I don't know whether it came for me as something that I noticed in any moment of an epiphany is I'm surrounded by people in my family that when there was a

birthday, like dad would stand up and make a little speech about whoever it was. And then in my early corporate roles is I was often delivering trainings and seminars towards big groups of people and running presentations that would be involved in new store openings and for recruitments and to help educate community. And so I've been training and speaking in some way, shape or form now for over 25 years. So there's not necessarily some form of an epiphany. What there is, is the ability to be able to search from role models, to take influence and inspiration from literally thousands of other areas to be able to then practice and perform alongside other great performers to then also be able to go on detailed

trainings from masters of their craft in the world of acting or improv or comedy and my current skill set is a mash-up of experience learnings and just generally caring obnoxiously about the responsibility and role of communicating to many from stage to a level that is far higher than most people have ever considered. So when you look at even the role as a professional speaker, in my mind, it isn't about my speech to the audience. It's not about serving my message. It's about serving the moment. And serving that moment is a huge responsibility. If there's 6,000 people in an audience, it's not my one hour, it's their 6,000 hours that matter. So I'm responsible for 6,000 hours of productivity in that point of view. And you realize that you're good at this you probably don't you just live a life of

relentlessly getting better you just decide that this is a profession and that it isn't like oh what's the secret where's the answer where's the big epiphany moment it has been oh i was experienced at this 25 years ago and i've continually been more experienced on it past that point wow okay so what you're saying, that was just preparation, practice, observation. Yeah. And caring as well, Domi. I think that's something that too few people do about this, is they don't care enough about what it is that they're trying to do. Therefore, they don't prepare enough. Therefore, they don't deliver enough. Therefore, they don't give themselves the gift of growth because what they're looking for is the shortcut

the quick win or the quote-unquote best practice how do you prepare yourself when you have a speech or presentation if you can just tell us a bit yeah i mean the prep process is is almost different in a case-by-case scenario but what is always true is a detailed body of research about who's in that audience. What also is always true is a detailed piece of research about what those people in that audience are experiencing at that moment in time. There's a big difference if I'm walking into a sales conference of an organization of people that have been there for seven years and that they've just come off their best year ever and that I'm the opening keynote speaker, right? That is a different sentiment, a different moment than if it's an organization where two thirds of the group are new. Many of the long-term employees have been let go and they've just gone through a particularly turbulent time where they lost one of their biggest accounts towards a major

competitor. And I'm in the middle of the show right they're very very different experiences so i think there's a button that exists in every audience member's mind which is a button that i call a show me that you know me button and if i can trigger the show me that you know me button i can show up prepared so i do what it takes to be able to hit the show me that you know me button then the other things i do in prep is um to just make conscious decisions from a content point of view and then content map and then the other things i do in prep is to have a a very clear understanding of what my environment is like so how am i going to use the room as a prop how am i going to use the stage as a prop what am i going to be able to do to um plan my movements in the speech that affect the words I say so that I can

add engagement so where might I leave the stage and join the audience where might I move forward move back move left move right all of those things go into prep as well this is insane i have never thought of that to be to this detailed you know the way you map the audience how you move in it's incredible to me it's an art it's an art form that you mastered and what i especially like to listen to you and your speech is the fact that you're funny as hell i'm like a stand-up comedy with information that's awesome it's just like infotainment that's the goal that's the goal and quite often from a keynote speaker's point of view they are looking for intelligent entertainment they're looking for something that provides a meaningful moment inside a two-day three-day four-day event that the other stuff can be stuck to from a memory pack point of view so when people are thinking about the company change or the new body of

information on three people that they met at the event three years ago that i want them to be able to say oh that was the event where thor jones spoke right like if i can create a memorable moment that the other stuff that can be stuck to that i'm insanely more valuable to whoever the event organizer is isn't it a lot of pressure though i can imagine like i don't know if i could handle that at this point but like well it's a significant responsibility for sure which is why a lot of people that find themselves in the speaking space, they get caught short because they're not ready for the moment. They might know their content remarkably well. They might have been prepared from a speech point of view remarkably well, but they don't have the

right amount of experience in order to be able to deliver. And something that's been interesting in my career is I was training and speaking in my corporate roles. I started my first business as an independent sales training business. I was putting 12 people in the room, 85 pounds a ticket back in the UK, looking to build a small coaching business off the back of that. I had one-on-one coaching clients. I then had a handful of consulting clients. I'd then speak to fill my room to be able to bring people towards my workshops. I'd then speak to bring people into consulting clients. I'd then speak to fill my room to be able to bring people towards my workshops. I'd then speak to bring people into coaching communities. I'd then speak to be able to then find my next consulting clients.

I'd then be invited in by organizations to speak to their people. I've now been speaking for free. I've now been speaking for £500 and at £1,500 a speech and then at £2,500 and then at £5,000. And then you do your first international 5000 and then you do your first international gig and then you write your first book and and and now my fees are in line with many celebrities which still blows my mind but i've had success at every level in the professional speaking space i've had um a 90 minute speech prepared where the event organizer says, can you cut to 75? Can you cut to 60? Can you cut to 45? Can you give me your best 22? I've had fire alarms go off. I've had

cardiac arrests in the audience. I've had people heckle. I've had half full rooms. I've had doubly full rooms. I've had people leave partway through. I've had a CEO resign two minutes prior to my speech. I've had all sorts of things that happened in that career. That means that when something happens again, I'm like, I got this. And that can only exist through experience. And I think too many people want to be able to fast track experience. Experience doesn't have to be measured in years, but it can be measured in reps. It can be measured in how many times you've done something. So even when it comes down to the people listening into this, it's something as simple as making an outbound phone call or a follow-up conversation with somebody towards them buying their products

or services. If you're nervous doing it right now, then that's a good thing. You should always be nervous. Are you still nervous though? When you are? Heck yes. Heck yes. I just came off delivering a two-day certification program and we certify people in the body of work around exactly what to say. I've got 22 serious real estate professionals that I'm hosting for two days, beginning, middle, and end from first thing in the morning, right the way through the evening, right the way through the next day. I'm hosting for two days beginning middle and end from first thing in the morning right that's the way through the evening right the way through the next day I'm nervous why because I care and two because I always want to over deliver is whatever they came hoping to achieve is I want to make sure that we deliver more than that I think that same thing is true at every given speech environment and in a speech, what I normally look to do too is I'm always

trying something new. And by trying something new, that doesn't mean something dangerous and new. That doesn't mean I'm making up. It means I might use like 85% of content timing that I've done before. And then I might make just some new brave choices. Like how am I going to do that bit? Could I use a different prop there? What am I going to do with volume and noise? How am I going to be able to maybe dial up a joke or something some way? So I'm nervous about like how's that new bit going to land? I'm nervous about things like what's happening prior, what's happening after.

And I'm nervous because I give a damn. If I stop being nervous, then I'll be complacent. If I'm complacent, that's a dangerous place to be. Again, it just blows my mind, your level of preparation. Is there any way to mentally prepare yourself? You said there were cardiac arrests happening in the audience and all the curveball situations. Is there any way that you mentally prepare yourself like okay

anything can happen but i'm gonna be okay and just keep your speech going um i think the readiness comes from having considered every variation of a choose your own adventure so if you've already got experience that if this happens, then I do this. If this happens, I do this. If this happens, I do this. You don't have to think on the spot because you've already got some form of crisis management plan that is already mapped out in your head. The other thing also is if you know your work inside out, then you can be entirely present for the moment because you're not thinking, what am entirely present for the moment. Because you're not thinking, what am I going to say next? Or you're not trying to edit what you just said, you can be

entirely in that moment. Which means that if the moment presents new data, new information, etc, well, you can serve the moment that's right in front of you. Because you're there for it. You're not ahead of it or behind it. Yeah, I think that's very often happening with a lot of people. But do you do like the mental movie theater, like rehearsing how things would be, and then they never end up being like that? No.

You just tell it in the moment, right? No. More of my prep is considering what the flow of a presentation would be. And some people may even see me share this on Insta stories, et cetera. I create like almost a mind map ahead of every speech. And it makes no sense to anybody else, but it's almost like a treasure map. It's like I'm going to go from here to here to here to here. And here I'm going up and here I'm going to go from here to here to here to here and here I'm going up and here I'm going down. But in all of those components of a speech, I could tell that story or that transition, I could tell it short, medium or long.

Like many of the points I might be looking to make, I can make a 30 second version of that point, a 30 minute version of that point and a number of different timelines in between so as a time gets stretched or constrained is i can make choices on the fly that says do i do the extended cut of this or do i do the shorter cut of it and i can restack the math in my head to be able to make sure we was finished on time and and that's something that's hugely appreciated by meeting planners is is often internal speakers ran long and and things didn't go according to plan on the timeline and the number of times i've said to a meeting player planner is like do you want me to do my hour or do you want me to get you back on time you can get me back on time i'm like yeah i can get you back on time and then you deliver a

great 45 as opposed to a great 60. And you give them their 15 minutes back. And all of a sudden, there's huge relief through the organization. So the mental prep is just the I got this, whatever it takes to be I got this. And I think that means that you should always look to take opportunities that you know you can over deliver in simple forms in the speaking world is i think you should always be better than your fee so you would be remarkably better advised in my world if if you want a career in this space is to be a brilliant free speaker than an okay five thousand dollar speaker hmm yeah that's a brilliant free speaker for long enough then what you get is invited opportunities to speak and you can be 2500 bucks and you could be a brilliant 2500 bucks speaker and you'll grow your competence and your experience to then means that when you

are a five grand speaker you're a brilliant five grand speaker the last thing anybody wants in the professional speaking space is he or she was was really good but for what we paid i expected more that's a career destroyer yeah the reason why i ask you about this is because first of all you're brilliant and the way you are constructing this whole i mean the depth that you go you know how much you care is i don't think i have heard of that before from anyone else and i do think that especially like coaching consulting, they all want to do their TED Talks. You know, there's like a type of thing like,

oh yeah, my TED Talk. I had that as well in my own list. I'm like, my TED Talk, you know, one day, you know, that's like a huge milestone for a lot of people. But I don't think they can estimate the level and degree of work experience repetition that you put in that to get to that ease you know the way you speak how funny you are how engaging you are it's not gonna come overnight no no and it shouldn't though right is is if something rewards a ridiculously high

level it shouldn't be easy yeah it shouldn't be challenging it should take work it should take effort it's no different to anybody who is a professional sports person they might make it look easy but it isn't until you try to go toe-to-toe with them that you're like oh dang that is is different level different league do you think anyone can be a good speaker um yes i would say though that some people are at different you know start the journey at different points so the the evolution to get to a level of high competence is a shorter evolution than some than it would be for others the biggest thing that stands in the way of people looking to become a speaker or a better speaker communicator in any way is selfishness so lots of people enter the personal brand space because they want it to serve their ego. And they're looking to create,

look at me moments. They're looking to create like, I'm awesome. This is me, et cetera. And the result of which is they forget that it's a servant's job. You serve an audience. You serve a moment.

You are there to serve an object or objective or, or, or serve an audience, you serve a moment, you are there to serve an objective or serve an opportunity. You're not there to deliver your speech. It's not about you. It's about them and what they go on to be able to go and do afterwards. And I think if you care about that, you'll become a great speaker because you learn to develop and master your skills because you care profusely about your responsibility to all of them when you care about you then that's a dangerous place to play

yeah i do see that often in the industry as well you know like tedx and just like you know stamping the forbes whatever feature left left, right, center. And it's like someone had written them an article. It was a contribution. I can literally pay to get that tomorrow, right? So especially in the online coaching space, there's so many of the ego-driven entrepreneurs is what I observe. But I really like your approach on that, just serving your audience and just be.

Right. And what then happens is you develop a body of work that is genuine proof. There's nothing to say that you can't extend or embellish the truth is sure if you were featured or you're a contributor in a Forbes article, et cetera. And yes, you were featured in Forbes. If that's the biggest flex that you have right now for credibility, you're going to use it. I like every human being on the planet world, but it's, but don't pretend it's something that it isn't. And the same is, there's a big difference between featuring on the TED platform and delivering a TEDx, a local regional TEDx that was filmed with 17 people in the audience, of which 15 were other people there delivering their TEDx speech, right? It is what we all do

things for positioning. You're building out an online business. But if you're not backing that up with a huge amount of credibility, with credibility coming from the kinds of people that would like to pay you for the service that you're providing having being able to comment and say i got more than i bargained for this was worth it and some then that story gets found out pretty done quickly and i think too many people look to build a veneer of a brand and they don't backfill those asset creations with proof of their competence is proof that they've done it for people before proof that they've done it for people like them,

proof that they've done it consistently and proof that they've delivered at a high standard. They just want to jump straight to the, to the good stuff. And I do a lot of work in behind the scenes within the industry as a whole on, on training people to build personal brand businesses. And I try to explain to folks that the mistake that many people make is, is they treat their business like a toddler treats a cupcake.

What do I mean by that is the only thing that they're after is the, the frosting and the sprinkles. They want the sweet, sticky stuff that's on the top of a business of this nature. Whereas if by alternative, you can build the base of the cupcake, and in the base of the cupcake, then what you can do is you can build a solid, stable, sustainable business that covers all your bills that make sure that you have the long-term cash flow to be able to deliver upon all the promises that you make towards others, then when you get frosting and sprinkles, they taste like frosting

and sprinkles, but if you try and live on frostings and sprinkles, it makes you pretty sick. And too many people in the personal brand space, they're chasing frosting and sprinkles. They're not doing the hard, ugly work that sustains a business. And for me through the years is my one-on-one coaching clients in the early days were the base of my cupcake. One or two consulting retainers were the base of my cupcake. And in today's world, the base of my cupcake is my book royalties. I can feed my family and live my life on my book royalties. I cannot now stop them coming. I can see my cash flow on book royalties 18 months ahead of time. I've got

some predictability on that. It means that every keynote speaking fee is a keynote speaking fee. There is no overhead that's attached to that consulting parts of my business ip licensing parts of my business etc are now all on top of that stable base yeah but what you're saying is you can't skip and then jump into the frosting i love that analogy by the way it's it makes it so easy to understand yeah uh so basically hard work isn't sexy i mean is it well not until you get it to a point where it pays and then the hard work let's get you the ability to to deliver on on the sexiness stuff in the right way and i think as as a thought leader coach consultant speaker anybody in that

space is you cannot be who you're not yeah and one of the things I see that sabotages a lot of people's careers is congruence i.e the message they want to share with other people it's a message that they've well crafted but it isn't a message that's true to them they don don't live it in their life. They're not achieving it or experiencing it in their own life. But what they're asking to be able to do is to play with other people's money to achieve it for them. Yet they're not an example outside of what they deliver on the stage of the promise that they're packaging. So you need to be your own best client yeah i think congruence is a big issue and on top of that people can smell it i don't know why you know if you don't have that achievement you're not embodying what you're doing it's gonna come out anyway you know i don't think you can fake

it till you make it i mean i'm not sure how long you can keep that facade up if you keep finding your audiences yeah and unfortunately in the types of industries that we're talking about here is is hope will always be for sale like you can always sell five minute apps you can always know sell here's how to get rich quick there'll always be a willing buyer for for some form of offer that sounds too good to be true because people are always looking for the shortcut but i keep finding new audiences you're going to burn people you want to be okay to sleep at night but more often than not um those kind of offerings will keep popping up and it's do you want a career or do you want to make a fast buck and if you want a career then congruence is an essential ingredient yeah thank you so much for sharing that uh i don't

want to interrupt you i think you i wanted to say something else just tell us i don't know where do you want to go next what else you want to chat about i want to go next to um messaging and communication online because in my space and that's where i want to pick your brain a bit and just see if we can provide some value to the audience. When it comes to online space, obviously it's harder for a lot of people to get others to come to a conversation, come to a call, generate leads.

That's like the biggest issue of the industry, right? Like, how do I get leads? I need leads. How do I get people to come to a call with me, especially in coaching, right? That's their thing, right? Using your approach in your book, exactly what to say. How can we implement that in the online space? Because we are not face-to-face.

We are just someone online you know reaching out yeah how can i reach that motivation slash um persuasion by using your book i mean it's a it's a big question that is kind of complex to answer it's just to say like how do you yeah how do you use X to achieve Y? What I would say, though, is the online space and the in-person space have more in common than they do differences. This is people to people. And whether you are speaking to somebody via StreamYard, like we are right now, whether you're on a Zoom link, whether you're in an Instagram DM, whether it's a comment in a post, whether it's an email, whether it's a face-to-face meeting over coffee, then this is a human-to-human connection. What there then are some realizations as to how people would go on to be able to take action.

Something we don't teach in the book, but really is the core operating system in the book, is that there are three critical ingredients to have more influence and persuasion in any moment in life and the three critical ingredients are essential and they're essential in in this precise order the first ingredient is one of curiosity every great conversation should start from a position of curiosity the reason that you should start a conversation from a position of curiosity is because if you start a conversation from a position of certainty and you have that I know, I know, I know best type mentality, then what you do is you rub the other person up the wrong way. In the online space, lots of people show up with, I know I've got the answer. I know I can help you achieve blank. I know what you're doing wrong. I know, I know, I know, I know. It becomes pushy, the one thing that everybody doesn't want to believe.

If you show up first from a position of curiosity, as in you don't know if you can help somebody, you aren't certain that you have the answer, well, now all of a sudden you're insanely more attractive because what you can become is pulley and not pushy see the most important thing for every online marketer is that although you have incredible content that you want to share with people is that if you don't understand their context your content is only going to bounce because it's already noisy enough out there right if anybody is looking around online to be able to get help support advice and advice, and guidance, they're not just looking at you, they're looking at thousands of others. Everybody's pushing content, content, content, content,

content, content. It's confusing. It's noisy. It's like, ah, how do I run away? Where's trust? Trust is missing. If you start curious with all of your communications, then you get the ability to learn their context. And when you understand their context, you start to be able to see the world through their eyes. You start to be able to see if you can really truly be able to go on and help somebody. Curiosity gets you towards that piece. In my mind, what selling is, which is a lot of what people are talking about from an influence and persuasion point of view, selling is earning the right to make a recommendation. What that means is you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever invite somebody to try and buy something unless you can say these words first. And the words you should look to say first are

the words because of the fact that you said. Because of the fact that you said blank, blank, and blank, then for those reasons, what I'd recommend is blank, blank, and blank. So if we start from a position of curiosity, all of the early conversations with regards to your ability to help somebody would be better served if you said, I don't know if I can help you. I'd love to understand more about what you're trying to achieve. I'd love to understand more about what you've already tried. I'd love to learn more about what you're hoping to be able to go on and do. I'd love to get a better picture of you, your world, your circumstances. And you do that from being curious. How do you use the book?

The book is full of prefaces to allow you to ask more curious questions, to allow you to get more of that context before you start offering your content. That way, when you bring people towards a phone call, they're not coming to listen to your pitch of here's what you're going to deliver and here's everything that's in it and here's how much you're going to charge. They're coming to a conversation to see if we can explore possibilities and is there a genuine fit. When you remain curious for long enough, you get to the second ingredient. And the second ingredient is one called empathy. And empathy is like a buzzword, yet still too few people know what the word means

best definition i've heard for the word empathy comes from a speaker author friend of mine by the name of john acoff and john acoff describes empathy as to care about what the people you care about care about now the struggle with most coaches and consultants is the thing they care about most is themselves. So their communication becomes, I was just checking in. I was hoping what I can do for you, what me and my team are capable of, what we are brilliant at. It becomes this vomit of look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. I'm awesome.

Whereas in truth, when we're being empathetic, we trigger that show me that you know me button. We spoke earlier on in our discussion today about how important that is when I serve an audience. The same thing is true when anybody looking to sell to somebody is serving the audience of one that's in front of them. They're looking for you to hit the show me that you know me button. I don't care how good your product is, how good your service is, how good your offering is. I care what it might be to do for me. So if you don't know me, my world, my circumstances, you cannot hit the show me that you know me button. You're in trouble.

Most people approach a moment of influence, whether online or in person, where it's like me versus them. Did I win the business? Did I win the sale? Did I close the business? Did I win the sale? Did I close the deal? Now, if there's a winner, that also means there must have been a loser. In today's world, if somebody feels like a loser at the end of a conversation, then welcome to bias remorse, welcome to regret, welcome to unfair expectations, welcome to a struggle of a client experience. It shouldn't be you versus them. It should be you and them versus it. Like what is external outside of your relationship objective that we are trying to tackle together?

If you're curious for long enough to reach a position of empathy and then you demonstrate empathy back towards the other person, now you are reaching a position of trust. This takes time. And by time, it's number of times that you can be back and forth in a conversation. Now, you could do that over DMs. You can do that in stories. You can do that even with a series of well-structured reels over a period of time. But too many people want to get straight from, I've got the gold, you should buy it from me, look at me, aren't I awesome? Instead, we should be using our marketing metrics to be able to bring people into conversations. We should be asking more questions of people because questions start conversations. Conversations lead to relationships. From relationships, you create opportunities,

and from opportunities, you can get sales. You were talking earlier on, people like, I want more leads, more leads, more leads, more leads. Well, no, they want more opportunities, so they can make more sales. They want more opportunities, so they can make more sales. How do you do that? It's who are the people you need to be asking more questions of? What are the conversations you know you need to be having that you're not where do you hold relationships that hold untapped opportunities there are the sales so that becomes a to-do list is who are the people you need to be asking more questions of so we've got this first ingredient of curiosity this second ingredient of empathy that leads us to the third ingredient which is one of courage dummy do me this favour and finish this sentence for me.

If you do not ask... You're not given. You're not given, you do not get, you do not receive, you will not know. Know that that is true. Before we hit record today, we were even talking about this whole fear of rejection thing. Yeah.

And this reality of that our success is in direct correlation to the quantity of quality ask that you make in life. You even said to me is I'm surprised that I said yes to come on your show. But what did you do to make that happen? You just asked and you asked politely and you asked triggering the show me that you know me button by recognizing and utilizing some of my body of work in order to be able to create the ask.

And you proved that you weren't just like spamming out a list of asks to any author that was willing to come on your show. You decided that you'd like me to come on your show, and you proved it by asking with curiosity, demonstrating some empathy, and then being courageous, which is the third ingredient, to make a big bold ask. But you did it in the right order. So when I'm talking about courage, I'm talking about just the courage to ask.

But if you ask for the things that you want in life before you've been curious and before you've demonstrated empathy and then you're courageous, well, asking without those first two ingredients first, you'll push your obnoxious self-serving. Asking for the things that you want in life after being curious and after demonstrating empathy, you're kind, you're helpful, we're on the same side. So how do you use the book? Think about all the conversations that matter in your life and look to be able to write frameworks that could demonstrate that you're more curious. Use frameworks in the book to help slow you down so that you trigger moments of empathy before you make any recommendations and then use prefaces in the book to give you the confidence to make

some of the big bold asks that you're not making right now with more confidence and perhaps a touch more rejection free yeah that's just gold so thank you so much for sharing that um i wanted to ask you if there is any go-to question i mean that would totally defeat what you just said but is there anything that exactly what to say like what to ask when it comes to being curious you know i'm obviously doing some research checking the profile seeing, seeing what they're up to. Yeah, I think I know the answer to that question, but okay. Let's look at it this way, right? A really simple operating formula for when inquiries come your way.

But lots of people in your world, they get inbound inquiries, little micro flirts that says, hey, I'm interested in talking to you. I'd love to know what you might be able to do to be able to help me, right? And whether that is coming to a discovery call, whether that's somebody downloading a guide, whether that is somebody pinging a contact form on your website, lots of people in your audience are receiving inbound inquiries. And then that is leading towards an early conversation. How that conversation starts sets the tone for the business relationship that could follow. If we're looking to be more curious, then what is the first question that you ask when you find yourself in that first conversation? Let me try and share something with you that might be helpful. If, Tommy, you were calling me and looking to potentially hire me for some services towards you and your business,

my first question back would be a statement like, I'm delighted that you found the time to be able to reach out and thank you for your kind words. My question would be, well, what is it about me and my work that makes you think I would be a good fit for your circumstances? See, I'm going to let you sell me on me. Okay. That makes sense. See how it changes things, right? I just earned this giant piece of context. It could be, well, I saw you speak. I've been following your content for a while. Three of my friends have been clients of yours and they've got great results, yada, yada, yada. What does that do to my confidence?

It decreases. my friends are being clients of yours and they've got great results, yada, yada, yada. What does that do to my confidence? It decreases. Yeah, I'm like in better shape, right? Whereas my alternative is if I say, what is it about me and my work that makes you think I might be a good fit? And you say, well, I don't know, to be honest. Is I just stumbled across your details on Instagram reel and it caught my attention and you said to sign up for a discovery call. So here I am. We just earned a lot of context real quick. Yeah.

What I now do is I now stay curious with a past, present, future arc. So what do I mean by that? I mean, so tell me, what have you been up to through the years? How did you get to this point in your life? That's a question for me? Well, that's the kind of question I would ask, right? Let's go back in time. And what are you working on right now?

How well is that working out for you? What are you hoping to achieve? That very simple past, present, future arc earns me a ton of context. And without me knowing where you've come from, where you are today, and where you're hoping to go, I have no right to recommend anything. That's so true, by the way. Yeah. That's so true. I just wanted to add here, because I think that's brilliant to, first of all, map out those questions. And it's like a doctor mentality. Don't prescribe medication.

You don't know the symptoms, right? Like how do I come to you? The description before diagnosis is malpractice. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. So that's why I said, like, if we can, in our messaging, remain curious, just to resume what you're saying, and earn your trust and

empathize with them then we will be able to see if we can help because that's the ultimate goal it's not like okay i think i have something i can help you with you know and then would you be open minded to do that but it doesn't work without you having to ask those questions first and knowing if that's something you can help with. You know, it's assumption. You don't know, right? And you don't want to make promises you can't keep. So unless you have absolutely certainty

that you can deliver upon your promise, you shouldn't be making those recommendations. Remember earlier on, I said that selling is earning the right to make a recommendation and that you should never, ever, ever invite anybody to buy anything unless you can say because of the fact

that you said blank, blank, and blank. For those reasons of the fact that you said blank, blank, and blank. For those reasons, what I'd recommend is blank, blank, and blank. That is a remarkably easy framework to understand. It's a complex framework to deliver. Why? Because collecting the blanks takes time. Takes time. Right?

It is without me being curious to understand what's really going on, I can't put the right ingredients in those blanks. There's a book called Human to Human. And I just feel like your approach is so unique in a way and it makes perfect sense as a human being, but the online world has become this place of numbers and leads and just caring less about people and who they are what they are about right and trying to cookie cutter everyone under the same umbrella um but i think that's so unique about your approach is that you bring back humanity

in that conversation and not just be like you know a number right elite whoever you know, a number, a lead, whoever, you know. So that's so important. Thank you so much for sharing that. I guess my last question is for you before I let you go is what's in it, like let's say five years from here, how do you see yourself? Where do you see yourself? I'm in a very fortunate position that the career aspirations I had for myself from a young entrepreneur at 14 years of age through all of the milestones that we've jumped through then is I've already outperformed the bulk of goals and aspirations I had for myself as a young man. So I'm now not necessarily chasing giant goals. We've sold 1.7 million copies of a book. I'm inducted into the Hall of Fame of Speakers,

one of the youngest members there. I opened for Tony Robbins this year. I spoke on some of the biggest stages. I've worked in five different continents, 59 different countries. I've traveled pretty much the world. I live where I want in New York City. We have a home where we would like it to be able to be back in the UK. What am I looking to be able to achieve more in five years time is the growth in the body of work. So my next five years is all about me giving the body of work of exactly what to say away to others to champion and carry into the world. So we now have 32 certified guides. We'll have 100 certified guides by the end of next year. And they will be training the core principles of exactly what to say into a variety of different, more unique sets of environments. That really excites me. And I'm on a lifelong mission to help people grow their awareness to their

critical conversations in life and how they can show up to those conversations with more intentionality in order to be able to achieve better outcomes. I think spoken word and the art of spoken word is fast becoming forgotten in modern society. And I care passionately about the quality of spoken word is fast becoming forgotten in modern society and I care passionately about the quality of conversations people have and think it's a skill that is going to be one of the most important skills for people to have in the next century so what am I looking at is my goals in life is that if um if my tombstone was going to read anything I would love my tombstone to read like loving husband, proud father and creator of exactly what to say.

That'll do. Oh, that's great. You know, I'm so happy to to have met someone who is genuinely that I've done it. You know, I'm just going to expand from now and I don't have, you know, a massive goal. I'm just going to keep expanding. And that's you. And I really hope i can get there one day as well and so i'm not going to be terrified when i get on a plane to

think i'm going to die and i haven't lived yet so that's like that's my goal is to get into a point where i'm like i'm cool this plane can crash i'll be okay you know so that's my goal personally but i'm happy that you have the courage to go for it and do it and craft and master and expand and influence and you know so i'm so happy to to have you in the show how can um my audience can reach out to you is there any way are you taking clients or or are you doing the trainings that you just mentioned? Is there any way for them to- We have lots of things that are going on, but either stop by exactlywhattosay.com

and see all the things that are up to there. Stop by philmjones.com if you want to understand more about me and the speaking work and background. If you would like to continue a conversation in some way or just reach out and say hey probably the most active social platform i'm on is instagram and come find me on instagram i'm at phil m jones uk thank you so much phil for your time it was full of value

and i cannot wait to share with my audience and yeah i'll keep you posted thanks so much again have an awesome day real nice to connect yeah it was nice to connect you too bye bye bye