[00:00:00] Sam foreign.
[00:00:30] Exclusivity is not about pretending to be wealthy or changing or having elevated status or treating people as though they are beneath you. It's about intentionally putting yourself into rooms, into relationships and experiences that raise your standards, they broaden your perspectives, and they create opportunities to add value. I hi, I'm William Kahn and welcome to tonight's episode of Pivotal Change. We're going to be talking about exclusivity in a few areas. That's the theme for the night and of course it'll be personal, social and business type. So I want to get you a little bit of an opening thought here. Make sure that you have your pen and paper, because we're talking about leadership, exclusivity, influence, and this is definitely going to have a lot you can take away from tonight's episode. So your environment, we've talked a lot in the past, definitely influences you and even your expectations or what people can expect from you. Your relationships also drastically influence your opportunities, or even just the opportunities that you can see. The rooms that you're repeatedly putting yourself into, whatever rooms you're entering, definitely determine many of the people that you're going to repeatedly meet and the caliber of the outcomes that those relationships are going to have.
[00:01:46] So if you want to have some different opportunities, the opportunity to level up your game or just be more exclusive in your market, you need to be intentional and make sure that you are entering different rooms.
[00:01:59] Here's a couple of ways that you can do that. Stop looking at every type of membership or subscription or access point as just an expense. A lot of these are going to have an ROI that are genuine and possibly substantial if you just use them the right way and you look at them that way.
[00:02:16] For example, you can have a more expensive or upgraded membership to various facilities and things like that. Think about, for example, going to the gym. You have all kinds of gyms, and I'm not going to name names, but some of them are very cheap, some of them are very exclusive and expensive.
[00:02:33] One of the best ways to meet high quality people is to go to a gym that has a higher membership cost, higher amenities, and a higher set of offerings. And, and what you're going to notice is that the people that are willing to spend that much more money are avoiding a lot of those, let's just say, stereotypical funny things you see on social media that occur at the gym. You're going to have people that can afford to be there, are extremely intentional about their workouts, and are really, really eager to make connections with that purely More focused group of people that are at the gym. That's just one way. There are all kinds of other memberships you can do. Try upgrading your environment not to just better gyms and wellness clubs, but find a country club or even just a golf club in general. Find some type of private dining venue. It could be something that offers like an exclusive once a week or once a month tasting or, you know, culinary experience. And if you go to those and you sit at tables and you get assigned with strangers, or you bring your plus one with you, you're going to start realizing that the people that are willing to spend an extra few bucks for that good experience, that quiet, more uppity gym, things like that, are going to be a group of people that are open to socializing and networking. And you're going to quiet a lot of the noise that you get in other places. Right. There's also other things that you can do as far as joining like a car club. Let me take a real quick tangent to tell you about this. I was extremely frugal and never really liked to spend money on toys or myself. I might have bought a gun here or there, I might have bought something to do with the kids here or there, but never really stepped out into a country club or doing that. Well, I ended up buying my first exotic car. And my favorite exotic car is probably a McLaren. And I'll just tell you this. Ever since I have owned the McLaren, the 720s, it has been a door opener. It really has offered me the opportunity to get into new places, new venues and new people.
[00:04:40] And even though that was quite the expense that I saved up for a very long time and real quick, kind of like Dave Ramsey moment, a rule for me in life is never buy toys unless you can pay cash for your toys. You never want to get into debt and get into a lease or lease or a mortgage type situation with loans and debt for toys.
[00:05:01] I'm generally opposed to debt in general. But I do believe there's good, healthy business static, especially if you're getting like commercial real estate, residential real estate. If you need a capital investment, you do have cash flow and you want to increase that cash flow. But those are conversations for another time. So make sure you have the cash available to buy your toys. But I have made more distinct business relationships by driving a nice car to nice vent. This is not my daily driver. People will come up, they'll share contact information, they'll share stories, and even if it's somebody that's up and coming and doesn't have their own car, they want to connect. And I have made a ton of great just social relationships, business partnerships and client opportunities from doing that. So that club was an exclusivity type of thing. I have a friend of ours that I'm not a huge heavy drinker. I rarely drink, if ever. In fact, 2026 is the year where I haven't had a drink of alcohol at all. But there are things you can do, like wine societies, right? Like you can get into a club where you go wine tasting once a week, once a month, whatever, in any part of the country. And what you do is you learn and you educate and you get into that finer dime. There's all kinds of etiquettes and things like that. When you get into these elite clubs, there's gonna be rules and etiquettes and just general social norms that are different than shopping at Walmart, right? It's gonna be different than going to a local town car meet where everybody has their, you know, 10 and 20 year old mustangs and Camaros and things like that. Great cars, by the way, super fast engines and stuff like that. But there are levels to this. And that's what we're talking about is getting into a level of exclusivity. Not always, but most of the time that is going to cost some money. And I want to reemphasize what I said a few moments ago.
[00:06:44] Stop seeing that as an expense, as a bottom line. And I'm not giving tax advice out on, on the air right now, but in some of these categories you can certainly have this be a business expense. Not all of these, but if it's a specific networking event, the company can sponsor that membership or that subscription. Consult your local tax advisor for that one. But there are openings to that. Sometimes you got to think maybe a little outside of what your normal box is.
[00:07:12] Getting into a travel club and people help arrange trips or help with meetings, you can swap stories. And then when you do go travel out of town, you know the exact best places to go, what airlines and hotels and rental cars and cruises and everything like that. But there's exclusive cruises, there's exclusive hotels. And yes, it will cost you more money. But let me challenge you to this. If you are a little bit tight in the budget, you're trying to move the arrow up and to the right.
[00:07:38] One or two things that you can reduce or sacrifice in order to free up the money to make an increase. So let's say you travel and you go get $100, $150 hotel, okay? There's probably not going to be a lot of high end business executives there that you can network. There's probably not going to be a conference at that hotel where when the conference lets out at night, you've heard in prior episodes, where you can go rub elbows with people and drum up relationships and business. But if you get into that higher level, let's say you say 200 bu a month by not drinking coffee, you can get that $200 room upgrade to the nicer hotel. And now you're paying $300, $350 for a hotel room at some place that has a conference. And it's where all the business executives go. Just that $200 investment making one solid relationship in the lobby pays for itself in droves. So think about those things. Travel clubs, there's things like alumni groups. Go back to people from your college and see where people are making alumni tours or alumni networking. If you just want to go back to your college and who knows, watch a homecoming game. Get into the actual alumni group, the alumni chat, the alumni, whatever social media page, start those conversations. So when you get there, you now have exclusivity with a batch of friends that you can get with executive education things. So you go into these CPE networks, you get into that kind of stuff. And there's an exclusive version of that where like we're going to meet in person. There's only 30 slots available for this course. Do that one instead of the online one, right? Get into the exclusive group that's willing to show up and then go out to dinner afterwards. You could even join a chess club or a book club. But just make sure it's one of the more exclusive versions of one that you can get. And then of course, entrepreneur groups. There's all kinds of entrepreneur groups out there. But I want you on this first segment of the show to make sure that your mindset is hearing that I need to go somewhere, do something and join something may have a cost and a fee to it. That is something that other people are not going to put the effort into. They may come and visit as a member of the public, but you as a member of the club or the group are behind the ropes, behind the scenes in the clubhouse, enjoying the amenities of the day. And that's something that's really good. And a lot of these really help charitable organizations as well. So we're going to talk about things about joining boards and organizations and stuff like that. If you become a board member of a charity, those board members are going to have special Retreats, special events, opportunities to give speeches, meet the donors, meet the people that are vendors, and offering help to the charity. And the exclusivity is not just helping a charity, but being on the board or being of the advisors to that charity. So keep thinking about that kind of stuff. Now we can make a list of 10 or 12 things. You know, country clubs, golf clubs, you know, you could do snorkeling, scuba diving, stuff like that. Travel clubs, business, entrepreneur development classes, court, all this kind of stuff. Travel clubs, art galleries. God, we didn't even talk about art and history. If you like museums and art and history, there are clubs for that. Again, where you get that executive elite level. You get behind the scenes tours. You actually might get to touch some of the artifacts. They're really cool stuff. But what you need to do, find something that aligns with you, what you enjoy, your sense of adventure, and pick one or two of those to actually invest in. Okay? Don't just go out there and scan for the biggest, richest person or the best known company and then hunt them down. Make things organic and start asking stuff. Who is interesting in this group? Who can I learn from? That's another big one. Who might I be able to help, whether just in life or through the business opportunity? And then who just seems like a genuinely good person that I can actually connect with and start a relationship. So when you do those things, you start taking advantage of that exclusive room, become the familiar face by having the same workout time. These are the same people that work out at the same time. Oh, this is the same people that come every Sunday afternoon to come golf. Maybe I'll end up joining in their group. Maybe this is the lunch spot where this group of members always has their meeting.
[00:11:43] Whatever the recurring events are, be frequent, put in the effort, and over time, these introductions become conversations. These conversations become high level familiarity. Familiarity turns into genuine friendship and friendship ultimately gives birth to business trust and cooperation. So again, don't just scan and hunt and I'll teach you some etiquette here in the next segment about how to break through some things like this. Make sure you are being genuine and authentic and make sure that you are treating it with an opportunity to build and level up exclusivity. And I'll end on this note for the first segment before we cut to commercial break is the fastest way to ruin a great room is to walk in and start treating everybody like a prospect. So put a pin in the conversation. We'll be right back after this commercial break for more pivotal change.
[00:12:36] Sam, Welcome back. To the second segment of the night. And we're going to keep talking about some exclusivity. We talked about getting in the right rooms and a good organic way to do that through gyms and memberships to art clubs, travel clubs, all kinds of things. Car clubs are another good way. But before we do that, I want to make sure that you know where to find this show and not just this episode, but every episode. Go to NowMedia TV. We are awesome on the Internet and have entire libraries listed on there in both English and Spanish. This is bilingual. You can go on there and find all the other content, media shows, leadership, news, culture, a lot of really good stuff on there, including pivotal change. Also you can find on Roku iOS, you can go on to the app and download the app and there's a podcast version as well. So there's no way that you can miss out on getting this content, including having it streamed to you on demand. So in moving with that, I ended the last segment talking about, don't just walk in there and treat everyone like a prospect. That people can smell that real quick. It's not authentic and it kind of stinks because people are trying to be in a network that is more leisurely, more organic. Relationships then develop, you know, so what I want you to do is ultimately have kind of an atmosphere of, I'm going to be in this group, I want to meet these people, I want to actually know these people. And maybe you can be the type of person that, quote, knows a guy or, hey, I know a gal. And then you can refer relationships. And that is a huge way to show that, yes, you are plugged in, you are interactive with the community, you are genuine, and you're willing to help and serve.
[00:14:33] Now, I would generally recommend trying to, if you're going to genuinely broker relationships, monetize that relationship. But don't just seek to purely not help people if it can't be monetized. Right?
[00:14:43] And especially you might have to give away one or two connections to a relationship before you realize that, okay, there is a way to quote, unquote, broker these relationships. But if you're inside an exclusive group, there's going to be, you know, ways to moderate that and not sound like, again, you're walking in there with everyone as a prospect. So a phone with a thousand or two thousand contacts in it does not mean you have a network. Okay? Having a network is not just collecting contacts and emails. And ultimately, you don't want to be the guy that just spams people with emails all the time. I do cold emails, I do warm emails. You got to live life. But that doesn't mean you have a network, okay? A real network means when you call or text them, they're going to answer, they're going to respond, there's mutual trust. They recognize who you are, what your business and what your name is and they interact backwards with you. So that allows you then having conversations with people. And I've talked in the past about how to like break the ice and bring in a little bit of humor and stuff like that. But for example, let's say somebody needs an attorney, a banker, a cpa, some type of commercial lender, realtor, physician, contractor, wealth advisor, investor, whatever it is, some type of buyer in a professional marketing IT people. You can start saving these people when I save them in my phone and I begin that contact, you've heard about my follow up process and things like that. I make sure I say what their industry is if it's not obvious, right? Because sometimes people have clever names for their businesses and it doesn't tell you exactly what they do. But get them in there and just say, hey, hold on a second. You're looking for a such and such, you need a commercial lender. Oh my gosh, I'm really good friends.
[00:16:23] I can hook you up with my guy, right? And then boom, you send them over to the commercial lender, do this warm introduction. You can even offer to get on a quick zoom call to introduce each other face to face, quote unquote, face to face, and then hand them off, right? But ultimately when people start to learn that you have taken an intentional process into making contact, establishing contact, communication, people are going to start look at you and be like, hey, you need to. And most people, my circle ultimately refer to me by my last name. So like hey, you got to call Khan. You got, you got to call him. He's going to know somebody, he'll be able to recommend somebody to you and you can become the person that knows a guy that is a ability, that is a status area where it can have some incredible social capital. And again, it can get you invited into certain rooms. Let's say people end up hitting it off with their commercial banker and they end up getting invited to, I don't know, a baseball game and they've got four tickets and they got a bonus one. I'd say there's a pretty decent chance you're getting invited to that and you're not doing it just for the rewards. But again, you go to a baseball game with these people and you Eat hot dogs and, and watch the game. You're probably going to have a better level, level of camaraderie and connection with those people. And your life just continues to elevate when you make your introductions, don't have the pure intention of monetizing them.
[00:17:47] Not every introduction needs a referral fee, okay? In fact the vast majority won't. But sometimes you're just going to get a simple return on goodwill, a simple return on trust, a simple return on satisfaction for just helping two good people find each other and be able to make assistance.
[00:18:03] Make sure you vet your people pretty well. I had a friend that got burnt really bad back when I was younger.
[00:18:10] I asked somebody to be like, hey, I can do the job, will you vet me? And he gave me a very serious speech. And this is back when we were 20, 21 years old and we were building a football field, a state of the art football field. And they needed one more worker that could keep up with the workload and the intensity of the work. So my said, hey, I would like to recommend you and you're asking me to recommend you're, and you're willing to do the work because for college kids it was really good pay. And he said, I vetted one of my friends before and he burned me. He showed up late, he didn't work super hard, took his breaks too long. I need somebody that's gonna, you know, stick to the grind and not damage my reputation. I've never really asked or put myself in a situation like that again. And so I told him, I said, hey, we'll just call this guy Steve. I said, steve, we'll, we'll see who can work harder. I think you're going to be the one trying to keep up with me. So he liked that answer. We had a great summer. We built a football stadium. We actually got halfway through the summer, we got a dollar raise for working so hard. And so in that moral of the story, know a little bit about these people before you actually say, oh man, he's the best. He's going to get the work done, he's going to be super quick.
[00:19:13] Make sure you know who they are, they have a good business reputation and they can provide because nothing puts egg on your face like your name behind somebody else and then they don't pull through.
[00:19:25] Now final caveat, double edged sword. If you are in the elevated rooms, if you are in the more private membership areas, the likelihood of somebody not belonging there and having a bad reputation for lousy work is way, way, way drastically reduced. So that's going to help you be able to determine and discern those people much quicker. Okay.
[00:19:50] When you're meeting people, don't just learn their occupation. Literally learn the person, like what makes them tick, what does their family do, what are their kids do for hobbies, what is their spouse interested in? Where do they like to eat, what restaurants do they enjoy? Ask for recommendations, what sports do they follow? I mean, you probably have music interests that are same, at least one or two popular songs, what books are they reading, what TV shows are they watching? Where do they grew up, how, what do they think about that? What hobbies do they have? What hobbies have they got that they would like to rekindle? There's all kinds of endless opportunities for that, things that matter to them. And we've said this a lot before, but people love to talk about themselves. And you don't want to make it some type of interrogation or just really broadened out interview and interrogation. You know, there should be a back and forth and of course you shouldn't be also just checking a list. You should be genuinely interested in trying to do that. And then you want to make these real friendships to where you connect later. One of my favorite, favorite relationships that I have have is I met a guy on a cruise who wasn't supposed to be there. He was actually there with like a business partner friend of his who again, same thing, had a plus one.
[00:21:00] That guy's wife had a conflict so he invited his buddy. So these two guys were going to go on this cruise and just hang out. And it was actually a business cruise and the cruise was for again an elite membership status of people. He didn't know anything about it. He literally got invited like 48 hours in advance. They had like the hustle submit passports and all that kind of stuff. But he gets on the boat, doesn't know anything that it's about, doesn't know know that there's business instruction. There's some really famous big name people there and a lot of it is financial and elite business related. Well, this guy was right at home. So I met him, we hit it off and since then we have traveled to a couple of locations together, overseas ski trips. My kids love him and his wife.
[00:21:41] He is just an absolutely fantastic person. And even if we're not always doing business together, we're calling each other and saying, hey, I saw that you post on Instagram that you went to like some shooting day and shot machine guns. Tell me about that.
[00:21:52] And we just enjoy each other. But guess what? He sent Me some business, right? He just said, I know a guy called me, I was able to service that person, he's in investments. And I said, whoa, you just exited a business and you've got a lot of money sitting around, Hey, I know a guy and I refer business to him. And guess what? Everybody wins, everybody makes money and we enjoy life together. So that's, that's a lot more of what this is about. That also allows you to then become interesting yourself. A lot of people, especially when you get in these higher groups, if you start getting where you're breaking through that category, you're the familiar face. I need to learn your name and meet you. They're going to ask you questions about that list I just offered. So you need to be prepared to answer. Nobody is a boring person, no matter how small or starting out you think you are. You have some cool stories, some cool experiences. You can comment on something that you saw, heard, tasted, whatever it is. So start to learn about that stuff. Reading and traveling really helps. And even while you're traveling, just talking to other travelers and gives you cultural insights, geographical insights, and you can learn more about art. Even if you know, don't know a whole bunch about art, you're going to immediately recognize something that like, I appreciate that. It looks pretty to me. I don't get it looks ugly to me. That's fine. But be able to recognize like one or two artists names, right? Maybe you know what your favorite medium is? Oh, it's whale on canvas or it's watercolors. Oh, I only like charcoal sketches. Whatever it is, get something that you can immediately reference and then it doesn't make you just like slick like a trivia person, but it makes it to where you can say, oh, I appreciate this artist, right?
[00:23:31] Pursue some fitness. Listen, I'm telling you right now, fitness, you know, I'm big on fitness. You know, my wrestling background, stuff like that. If you get in shape and you show up to the gym consistently, not only is it going to help your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health, all those things, but other people, when you walk in, nobody can fake muscles, right? You can fake weight loss. These days, people can get stomach surgeries and shots and stuff like that. You can force yourself to shrink, but nobody can fake muscles and the commitment and the discipline it takes to do that. When you walk into a room, people can see that there's some type of stature about you. Not all of us are going to be chiseled Greek gods, right? I mean, I obviously like ice cream. So you go in there but people can see that you have fitness, that you have discipline, that your body carries itself. That in itself is an exclusive membership. And I'll just point that out. Having some fitness about you puts you an exclusive category. And it helps people trust you more because they know that you've stuck with it for X number of years to keep and maintain that level of fitness in that body.
[00:24:31] So those experiences and those opportunities are going to have these conversational bridges help take care of themselves. And the more exclusive you make those experiences, the more exclusively you can connect with somebody on a deeper level.
[00:24:45] So just make sure that you're knowing the difference between announcing an accomplishment and letting your relevant experience surface naturally in the conversation. It's really important because we don't want to become the most important person in the room. We want to become the person who makes the room more valuable just because you're in it and offering to the conversations. So sit tight. We're at the halfway point. We're going to keep talking about exclusivity right after this.
[00:25:16] Sam.
[00:25:42] Past the halfway point, we're ready to rock and roll. And I want to make sure that you understand you need to stop looking like everybody else. If customers believe that they have five companies they can choose from that are all essentially identical, from what they can tell, they're usually just simply going to compare price, bargain shop and go with whoever's the cheapest option.
[00:26:03] Your job is to make comparison difficult. If you can do that in some exceptional capacity, you have just made yourself more exclusive. So that's what we're going for on tonight's episode. What makes your approach, your solution, your process, or even just your little end product that much different? Right. That's what's going to set you apart. There's a fun story about children selling firewood. So go back to ancient English village. Two kids set up down at the market every evening and every morning they go chop firewood and then the next morning they take it to town to sell firewood. And what happens is one kid selling firewood across the street has a slightly better position and he sells his firewood for $2. The other kid sells his firewood for $2, but guess what? He can't make the sales because just slightly better position across the street. So the kid thinks he's going to get smart and he reduces down to $1 and he sells out on some firewood he's done for the day, but he has to go cut more firewood and he created more work for himself for a lower price.
[00:27:06] That same kid that decided to cut it to a dollar, says, I'm going to change this up a little bit. Then the next day he goes home, takes some scrap of fabric from his mother's dresses and he cuts ribbons. Then he takes his bundles of sticks and he wraps a ribbon around them and he sells them for three or not $3, sells them for $5 in the market, he more than doubled the price of his competition. And for the simple convenience of having a pretty ribbon on it to take home as the people, the pretty ribbon on it to take home, and the convenience of being able to hold their bundle together without just buying a batch of firewood allowed this kid to be an entrepreneur that put the other one out of business.
[00:27:49] What makes you better, what is your ribbon is what's going to make you exclusive, right? So instead of getting into a room and just let's say you're like me saying, oh, I'm a business consultant, right? Explain who you actually help or what you do to solve their problems, how you approach them differently and what working with you actually feels like feeling that the work is getting done as well. So I'll give you a little bit of my pitch. It's like, oh, I'm a business consultant specifically for small and medium sized businesses and high net worth individuals. We train on leadership specific tax advantages that can be utilized and follow up with that leadership. And we also have a very niche area of a place where people don't realize there's a whole bunch of tax refund money waiting for them. And we unlock that money annually, every year for as long as they stay in business. So people are like, whoa, you're doing some really niche stuff. Yes, I am. I'm not like the other business consultants.
[00:28:45] So that's kind of a really short, muddy version of it. But you got to have some type of exclusivity. If I'm unlocking unknown refunds that are sitting out there for you that you're almost certainly eligible for, why would you not want to at least hear the next part of the conversation? Hopefully I can be a good salesman and hook you in there.
[00:29:03] So anybody, whether you're doing wealth advising, insurance. Oh, we provide financial consulting. No, we work with a selective and established set of business owners. Right. Where we believe we can uncover enough financial opportunity to not only justify our involvement, but produce value far beyond whatever the beneficial, the mutually beneficial relationship that we have. That changes from will you hire me, I'm a financial consultant to are we a fit for each other? One of the things that makes us exclusive is when I sit down with an introductory meeting. It's kind of like an interview process. I make the out loud statement that says I know you are inquiring upon us if we can actually offer value and do the services that you're looking for. But I want you to understand it's also mutual interview of us. We want to make sure you're a good fit for us and that you're going to fit for our organization. We're going to be able to work together and provide you the value that we're hoping to provide. Right? And immediately that puts them back in their chair and they get this, well, hold on, pick me, pick me, pick me. I want to be part of the team because we're exclusive. We do not take everyone. I do not work with everyone. There has to be an eligibility process, there has to be a communication vetting. There has to make sure that my value will be not only applicable but recognized and appreciated inside your entity. Then we can form this beautiful relationship. So make sure you're uncovering that when you're having your conversations. Are we a good fit for each other? This is in fact a two way street.
[00:30:29] Do not manufacture fake scarcity. Do not try to sell fear and things like that. If there are risks, if there are genuine things, provide market data, provide stuff like that. But don't be out there selling fear and selling scarcity. Yeah, you might get a couple of suckers to buy on and do that, but it's ultimately going to damage your relationship when they realize six months into it that it wasn't that scarce after all. And maybe they're no longer happy with you. You okay?
[00:30:57] Some things that you can really do. A lot of people are uncomfortable with this, but this is where the value conversation from prior episodes come in. Are you billing and charging enough for your actual value? Genuinely limit some stuff like your client count, limit your geography? No, we're only available in this region and here's why. Maybe you specialize in a few industries, right? You probably see that a lot with maybe attorneys or insurance companies that say hey, we only insure this, always specialize in this area. And that way I have a friend that basically only sells to faith based organizations, you know, churches and academies and church camps and stuff like that. Yes, they do insurance for everybody, but this is their specialty, right? So they, they try to limit that your engagement size. Like we're not going to let you bite off more than you can chew. In the beginning. You may have phases of advisory or phases of consultation and you got to pass Phase A, which has a price tag to it before we can really engage in these measures in Areas 2 and 3. And we've done a lot of that with the advisory.
[00:31:55] That's a really big one, is you guys probably sitting here. Listen, you've heard of crawl, walk, run, right? Well, most people, if they're really, you know, into their business and wanting to push the limits, they're trying to sprint, okay? They want to jump in there, hit the ground sprinting, and they haven't learned to crawl yet. So we will do our introductory services and maybe they bought a big package. We're still going to do these two phases. First, even though you've paid for it, even though the value is coming, you cannot appreciate we can't adequately move forward. We can't do it in the right due diligence type of way without going through these steps. And that needs to be communicated up front. But that also creates exclusivity and compliance. Hey, we're going to control the relationship. We're going to get all your feedback from us, but you can't go put the cart in front of the horse and cause things to wreck. We're going to have safeguards and boundaries in place and that's going to allow us to measure the quality of our relationship over time. If I give you the biggest golden egg secret up front, but there's still a lot of other work to. You will absolutely not appreciate any of the walk that follows. And sometimes you're not ready for that golden egg. The goose lays the golden egg yet. It's got to be substantiated, documented. There's got to be a lot that goes into place to get you that point.
[00:33:05] So that's one thing we do. We keep the client base limited. We'll create waiting lists at times, too, because I don't want to rush or I don't want to get into something without you being ready. Incomplete data. Schedule a meeting, somebody's not fully prepared and we have to kick off the meeting. And that just.
[00:33:20] That really hurts relationships in general.
[00:33:23] So don't be able to. Don't be worried about creating waiting lists or pushing people off to the exact time is right, or all the documents, all the information is available. Sometimes there's deadlines and things that banks and attorneys and court systems have to do.
[00:33:37] Don't jump the gun because inevitably that's when something's going to switch up and I got to go back and undo stuff.
[00:33:43] Don't be afraid to say, hey, I don't think we're the right Fit. I've had to say that a lot of times. And people don't usually just completely deflate because I say, hey, but, but I noticed that you're driving your revenue up into the right. But you know, I charged a highly valuable fee and I can only justify that with myself. I get to ask you for money right now, but I can only justify that fee. If I can get this much of a, of a reaction, this much of value into your situation as well, then I don't mind charging that fee and it's definitely worth it on your roi. And so if you can grow a little bit, if you can just keep doing what you're doing until your revenue gets so high or you have, have this situation occur inside your industry, we'll take you on and we'll put the pedal to the metal and all of this will make sense then, but you're just not quite ready or just not the right fit. Personality differences are good as well.
[00:34:29] We interview people that first time, we ask them some questions about their family, their business, historical partners and stuff, and they start complaining about, oh, this guy, you know, screwed me over and this happened here, and, oh, I got this. And you start picking up like, this guy or gal might bring some drama and we might, you know, maybe they're really pushy leading up to some of the meetings and demanding some stuff, or they're already asking about prices three or four times before they ever get the meeting. And you've told them when you're going to tell them what the price is.
[00:34:55] Yeah, probably not a good fit. It's okay. There can be a hundred more, right?
[00:35:00] So don't, don't be, don't be afraid to say those things, okay?
[00:35:04] You do not need to tell everyone every single thing that you have accomplished. It's okay to float out, especially if you're introducing yourself at some type of speech or halfway public venue to give some of your accolades. I hate talking about my own accolades now. I like to like talking about my funny experiences and my adventures and, you know, that kind of stuff, but I don't like talking about my accomplishments.
[00:35:27] You, you see people that have these bio pages on their, on their pre. On their presentations and stuff like that. We used to call that the I love me page because you have to sit here and put all these, smash all these accomplishments into this small space and then tell about what you did and this certification you got in this area that you went, and people just kind of roll their eyes at that or, or glance at their phone till it's Over. So pick maybe one, two, at most, three things that can come up as people ask or offer or hey, have you done this before? Or how many other companies have you worked with? Well, actually, a couple years ago, we won an award for doing it. You know, that's okay, right? So that's something that's really important to avoid, is bragging on yourself and telling about all your accomplishments.
[00:36:07] But you can tell that, like, hey, I'm vetted, I'm successful. I know what I'm doing in a very, very clear, organic way. Avoid dominating the conversation. Something historically I very much had trouble with. Try not to do constant name dropping, but somebody drops a name or something like that, you know. Oh, yeah, I've met him. I know him. Yeah, we've done some business together. Hey, I worked with one of his partners. You know, just drawing a connection is different than name dropping. So that's really important. And then just let people to discover the layers of you over time, keep the conversation going.
[00:36:35] So before we cut to the break, you know, I want to make sure you guys know how to find
[email protected] that's the number five, the word talents, plural. And then another SF5talents sf.com you can go on there. You can find me at William Khan on LinkedIn and I can start answering these questions for you, can start helping you through this process. Or we can form a network and a relationship. But when we're talking about exclusivity, we have one more segment to go before we wrap up the night exclusively is certainly not saying that I'm better than you or better than everyone else. It's being exceptionally clear about what makes working with me different or special.
[00:37:08] So find a way to identify that. And we'll kick off the end the night with this next level kickoff right after this portion break.
[00:37:40] Foreign.
[00:37:47] Welcome back. Make sure you go to NOW Media tv. Go to the website, explore the entire volume of shows, great hosts, opportunities, all the different topics of conversation, business, politics, culture. We've got good stuff, including pivotal change. With me, William Cotton. You can get iOS, you can get on Roku, you can download the app, you can get the podcast. Guys, it's all bilingual. You can take it wherever you want, download it anytime. I. It's on demand. So now Media TV is the place to go to get all that stuff. Now let's talk a little bit more about this exclusivity. Okay? A lot of people associate exclusivity with luxury. I think there's definitely some, some correlation there. But really, what you're trying to do is give some aspect of a white glove treatment, making some of the ordinary things feel extraordinary. Here's what I mean by that. Hopefully everyone here is at least familiar with lady and the Tramp, the old famous show about the two, the cartoon show about the dogs. And you remember their luxury romantic moment was literally in an alleyway behind a Italian shop eating leftovers. When they eat their pasta, they play with the meatball and then they, oh, accidentally kiss, right? That was a luxury moment. Okay, that was an exclusive moment, but it didn't cost much anything. It was set in a special way and the attention was drawn and the scene was created. So I don't want you to confuse that. Exclusivity ultimately has to mean high cost luxury, okay? What it means is somebody remembered or anticipated or responded well to something. They just made it easy. That is ultimately the heart of white glove service is the simplicity and the effortlessness of what the person receives. Now, you may be in manufacturing and everybody's sweating and dirty at the end of the day, working with the machines, carving, buzzing, chopping materials, but there's a white glove treatment that can come out of that. Maybe the glove treatment is to your own staff on how they enter and exit the day. And maybe they get, you know, like a, a good way to just cover up their car on the ride home so that dirt doesn't transfer into the seats of their vehicles. That white glove treatment means we do the final layer of sanding nice and smooth so that when it's picked up and it's delivered, there's no extra effort needed. It's polished, it's clean. You know, in the advisory services it's, you know, maybe something as simple as a follow up email that summarizes the meeting, tells you your next steps and make sure you know what we're going to be doing behind the scenes after the call is over until the next meeting. You know, maybe it's just a little design thing that you can wear it with a badge of honor, put it on your keychain so that you can represent the brand or the service or the luxury experience.
[00:40:30] There's ways to do that, to make yourself exclusive in those little, little things. Another good way to do it. And again, guys, some of this just takes a little bit more tension, a little bit more time. And in today's technology, you have zero. Excuse me for getting a new client or new relationship and not talking to your phone and setting a meeting, setting a reminder, putting it on your calendar to send a note, right?
[00:40:52] Personally call when it's appropriate. If you get some bad news about somebody lost a parent, really prefer you don't send a text message, right? Call and just say, hey, I don't want to take too much of your time. I heard about your mom, blah, blah, blah, blah. My condolences are with you. I'm gonna be thinking about you, praying for you, stuff like that, right? And just tell them you're sorry. Don't, don't ask them if you can do anything. Don't, you know, do anything like that. They'll know that you're a reliable person based on your relationship.
[00:41:19] Personalize thank yous. Personalize your welcomes. Have something prepared before they arrive. Even if it's literally just a chocolate chip cookie and a little cafeteria thing of milk. I tell you what, we, where the heck was I? But we had chocolate chip cookies and these little boxes of cafeteria milk. Or somebody just said, oh yeah, hey, we, we make these every day if anybody wants one. We're in a pretty, pretty high end place. I do remember where it is now. We're in an extremely high end place where, you know, everything's like crystal and glass and like there's 16 forks at the dinner table and stuff like that. And they walk out with a tray of cookies and, and middle school cafeteria milk. And that was, that was about my favorite part of the day because I'm a sucker for a good chocolate chip cookie. But there's just little things like that that can make you exclusive. Like only the people in that conference room and in that meeting got the ch. Chocolate chip cookies, right? Everybody else staying, staying in that building did not get it. So again, that was exclusive.
[00:42:13] Remember some of the fine details. Definitely. You want to remember their spouses and their kids names, right? Say it over and over in your head. You have a notes section in your phone. So when you save and swap that contact information, say their kids are Billy, Jimmy and Susie. Right?
[00:42:27] That'd be awesome. That next time you see me say, how's Billy, Jimmy and Susie doing? Oh, hey, did your wife ever finish that art project? Right? Like that's going to be pretty cool stuff. This builds exclusivity. So now you're in the right areas, you're making the right conversations, you've been to the right events, you're in the right rooms, and now you're remembering the right things or doing those final little white glove touch his white glove treatment. I'm telling you to remember that somebody had a opportunity. Somebody said, hey, I qualified for my first ever amateur golf tournament right and then you don't see that person for two months later and you say, hey, hey, how did you do in that amateur golf tournament? Or better yet, hey, I looked up your score and saw that you took third place in the amateur golf tournament. Holy cow, man. Is this. You're going to change your career? Are you the next Tiger Woods? And you do those things. That in itself is a white glove treatment. High level relationship building and creates more exclusivity in the depth of relationships than what you can do.
[00:43:25] Nothing says, we've been expecting you and we know and care about you and little details like that, that everybody should have some type of CRM, some type of software that is tracking and recording this stuff. And I mentioned in your phone, I actually, believe it or not, probably use my cell phone, my iPhone as my main CRM almost as much as anything because I do have a decent memory. But I'll remember the person's name and it'll have everything. I store everything the first time I meet them in there. And I also help people out too. When I share my digital business card, my contact information, I took the effort to go fill out everything. Here's my LinkedIn, my Instagram, my email, my phone number, you know, if you want a picture of me, a nickname, whatever, and you get this whole thing. So when you create that new contact, boom, you get the easy memory for me. And that helps people when I call, when I text, and we're establishing that new relationship.
[00:44:20] Why not throw people a bone, right? Why not put a little ribbon on your, on your, out the wood and let them enjoy that experience a little better. Don't just sit there and say their name, maybe the name of their company, but record those relationships and those little hobbies and go down to that note section, be like, oh my gosh, this guy likes guns too, right? Oh, this, this woman owns horses. And we talked about horses, guys, we're talking about literal 20 seconds worth of effort for an entire network that can be exclusive to the level of people that do this kind of stuff. Okay.
[00:44:56] Another something that's really fun. I'll tell you one that kind of hit home. I didn't even land the client. I still have a relationship. So I went in for a meeting and I like to do a lot of in person sales. I like to keep that as part of a routine. I'll just go in there and the receptionist had this cool looking little miniature cardinal on her, on her desk. And so while I'm waiting for my meeting, I'm asking about all the little Trinkets on her desk. I asked about the cardinal and she had a child that had died about 10 years ago at a very young age. Age and cardinal was their favorite bird. And every time. So she collects cardinals to remind her of her child. And so I had a follow up meeting and brought another little cardinal, right. And just said, hey, I remember your son. Here's this. She has it sitting on her desk right now. And we still email back and forth every once in a while. Even though that company didn't think they didn't see the value in my service, I got told no, ultimately, but that woman will always remember that. And, and I'll always have an in at that, at that place because, you know, people appreciate that and that's how you build relationships. And guess what? That is not a monetary relationship that will probably ever benefit me, but it's an emotional one that hopefully benefits her and lets her look at a cardinal every day and have a happy memory of her son. Guys, look for stuff like that, okay? Handwritten thank you notes.
[00:46:13] If you see that they're reading a book, there's a little book tucked over on the side over there. Ask them about what they're reading. If you want to be crazy slick and you know, go buy the book, read it and say, hey, I read that book too. I noticed you're reading that book. Did you like chapter seven? Right? And then, boom, you get people in these conversations and they will almost always eventually turn to business. Work is such an important part of our lives that we, that we can rarely keep it out of our conversations.
[00:46:38] Get on LinkedIn and make sure you're congratulating your friends, your networks on their promotions, on their accomplishment of a big project.
[00:46:46] Get on there and click them. They got automatic buttons. Like you literally hit one button that tells you to, to compliment this person. Or you can type out a heartfelt note or you can send something, an email says, hey, I saw that. You guys just be a little more thoughtful. I have traditionally not been good about those things. But use AI, use your phone, use your email to put on those notifications to do those follow ups. Okay? What you can do to make the client's life easier if they are your client as well, is give them a client only dinner. Hey, we're taking four of our top clients out to dinner. Boom. I want to take you guys out to dinner. Go to a nice exclusive restaurant where you got to dress nice, order some fancy food. You're going to spend a couple hundred dollars extra because it's fancy and it's not, you know, Applebee's or something like that, but it's invitation only, private. If you have events, if you're in that world, give them early access. If you're into being a vendor at various places, go invite them and say hey, stop by the vendors booth, we got a gift basket for you. We're going to buy your ticket into the vent.
[00:47:42] You're under AR name, you're one of our exclusive VIP clients. So we're giving you access to the event under, under our company's name. You know, if there's private educational sessions. One of the things we did really big during COVID is we offered a, an exclusive group of business owners private PPP loan education, right? And we had about 37 people show up out of the 50 invited. And those people got PPP loans that saved their businesses, right? Because they got that exclusive invitation. So anytime you get something exclusive limited, you're more likely to get a response, somebody to show up to RSVP and come to that event and then you're letting them network with each other. But guess what, you're the host. You're the catalyst of this relationship, which means prior segment, you become the person I know a guy and cons the guy that we know. Insert your name hopefully for the future.
[00:48:32] So you want to get stuff that they can't necessarily expect but you know they're going to appreciate. And like a lot of these swag bags and stuff like that are that exclusive. Everybody's doing them, so it might cost you a dollar or two more to get them something a little, little nicer, a little more expensive or the experience a little more special. So guys, upgrade your rooms, pay for some of those memberships. Pick one or two really good ones. Know how to upgrade your relationships with the right people. Qualify them organically before you ever do them. Business wise. Upgrade how you position yourself. You're more white glove, you're more exclusive, you do something a little different. Different. And then upgrade how you experience doing business with people with those follow ups, those lead ins and those thank yous. Because real exclusivity, honestly, it's not about making other people feel beneath you at all. I want to really make sure you emphasize that you don't want to be this pretentious person that is, you know, waving an ultra wealth flag or anything like that. Create an experience, an outcome, a reputation and a network that makes people feel like there's value or it's fortunate to know you. If you can do that, you're going to have a great experience. So don't try to become the person that everybody notices, but have the good, deep, organic relationships become the person that everybody remembers if you leave. Okay, so with that being said, I want you to go out, take all of this into observation mode, go into the world and see the change and be the change. Catch you right here. Next time on Pivotal Change.
