I was recently featured on What's Working in Direct Selling, the Direct Selling News (DSN) podcast hosted by Rob Sperry. Rob wanted to talk about why the long game with relationships is actually the short game. We didn't set up a single question ahead of time, so everything you hear is straight off the cuff.
In this article, you'll find an overview of the main topics we covered, a link to watch the full conversation on YouTube, and a few highlights from our chat in my own words.
Watch the full conversation below, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.
I get up every day and I am diligent about remembering people, not following up. You know, the acronym for follow up is FU for a reason. People don't like to be followed up and they don't want to follow up. Instead of that, rotations of remember is what I do. My whole philosophy of life is remember, remember, remember, ask. Instead of what 99% of the people are doing out there, which is ask, ask, ask, maybe remember.
You have got to interview two new people a day and document those people and have them set up for a rotation of remember. That is etched in stone. At the end of the month, you've got 60. You go from being this person that has nobody to talk to, to being almost overwhelmed with people to remember that are coming back to you, because you actually took the time to remember them.
Most people put the name and phone number in and that's it. It's over. You have no idea who the heck they are 6 months later. Not with me. When I put somebody in, up pops a query that says, "Do you have a picture of Rob?" Then it says, "What do you know about Rob?" Then I hit save and it goes to, when am I going to remember Rob? I've got 18,000 people in my phone, and most of those people call me before they call anybody else when they need something beyond what I've got for sale. They need a connection. I want to be that guy you go to because I know somebody.
When somebody knows they belong in your tribe, when they know you love them, when they know that they can trust you, and they know that they're safe with you, BLTS, they'll do anything with you.
When I started doing this, this started like in 1970. I was running a restaurant, and we basically contact mapped every customer that walked in the door. We put on a Dewey Decimal System type card what they loved most about themselves, and then when they came in next Sunday, we just reminded them about that. It was hard. Today it's not hard, and we're all just running from AI. I'm embracing AI. I'm using tech instead of having tech use me, to be a better human being and be a better rememberer.
I've been sober 37 years. I go to AA every day. The banner for them is attraction rather than promotion, and the banner of social media should be attraction rather than promotion. I want to be a great husband. I'm 75 years old. I want to be a great grandfather and great great grandfather. I've got to show people every day that I'm doing that, and then they're attracted. I am absolutely anti-hype.
Every human being I meet looks like that person with the cowboy hat in the corner. That's a homeless guy that I had painted that was trying to get off of alcohol. They might not look that way on the outside, but on the inside they're dying. My job is to pull out what they want out of their life, not what I want out of their life for them, and treat them like human beings, not prospects.
Stop trying to rush the process. Something's going to happen. The FTC, a leader's going to leave. But if you are strong and you know who you are and what you're building, it might slow you down, but it's not going to stop you. Almost everything I've ever gone through in my life has only made me a better man.
You can catch the entire conversation with Rob on YouTube here: Tom Chenault on What's Working in Direct Selling with Rob Sperry.
