Speaking and Communicating Podcast

By now, everybody else I've talked with is trying to sell me something, and this guy just showed me that he gets it, and in 30 seconds, this guy packaged it up and put a bow on it.

I would be insane if I didn't work with this guy, because I know that I won't win without him.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndlela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.

Now, let's get communicating with Jonathan Pritchard, who is a business consultant, specializing in leveraging psychology, and he's also a keynote speaker who's here to also help us with public speaking etiquette.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show.

Hi, Jonathan.

Well, hello there.

Thanks for having me on.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome to the show.

Please introduce yourself.

You got it.

My name's Jonathan Pritchard, and I've started a couple different businesses that are all focused on helping companies connect their message to their audience.

And I do that on stage, in boardrooms, in sales training, at trade shows, all sorts of different things.

And when I'm not on the road, I live in Asheville, North Carolina with my wife and daughter and our very loud cat, which I hope we won't hear.

Usually dogs are the louder ones.

How is your cat loud?

She is a talker.

And anytime that I start talking or my wife starts talking, the cat goes, oh, it's talking time.

And then she joins in.

Maybe a future keynote speaker.

It's like, oh, we're the speaking family.

Now, when you say that you help organizations tailor their message to the audience, we always ask the question, how do you know what the audience wants first?

A lot of times, you don't know until it's too late.

And then you find out for next time.

But hopefully, the organizers of the event know who their audience is, and the person who's bringing you in has a good understanding of who's going to show up and why.

What are they interested in such that they would buy a ticket to this event?

Well, that's one thing.

Or is this a company gathering, and they're employees, and they're required to be there?

That's a completely different audience.

So in my book, it's always real smart to ask the person who's booking you to bring you in, okay, who is going to be there?

What's their experience?

What are their expectations?

What do you think they want out of being here?

And then it's my job to help create experiences that get that across to the audience.

It's interesting you say that, especially since these days of hybrid work and meetings being held on Zoom, I cannot tell you how many friends, guests on the podcast I've had who said, 90% of the meetings I attend are not even relevant to the work I do, but I'm expected to attend.

Why is that?

That is usually something that we as speakers don't have a lot of control over, which is the leadership.

And sometimes I see myself as the high-paid, sacrificial lamb that is brought in because leadership has zero interest in actually changing anything, but they can say, we tried everything.

We brought in the high-priced speaker guy.

We brought in the consultant.

We've done everything, and we still have these problems.

And if that's the role you're here to play, well, I at least hope you're getting paid well for it.

So sometimes people who have to be at the meeting and the whole mission of the meeting has nothing to do with those people, then in my book, that is a failure of leadership or the organizers.

And then let's say that you sort of have an idea of what your audience is expecting.

So what are the steps that you need to take in order to craft a message that is going to resonate with them?

Part of it is knowing if we're talking about employees, what kind of company, what's your business, who do you work with?

Is this a manufacturing and textiles kind of a thing?

Is this a computer software as a service company?

Is this an investment firm?

And the ideas and the principles are all going to be the same, but the stories you use to communicate them might change.

So the details might change, the location might change, the brand might change, but the heart of the message stays the same.

So you want to make sure that your delivery matches your audience and their context and frameworks for understanding what it is that you're trying to get across.

Right.

Because here's the thing, as you said, if the message doesn't match what the audience, or whatever they tell themselves in their heads, I don't know if you've heard this when they say, speak the language that they speak to themselves in their heads.

Yep.

Yep.

Because, I mean, if you're going to talk to multimillionaires and business owners or investment firms, and you're saying, so I went to Walmart to save a couple bucks, that might not be the best example to use.

You're right.

Take their thoughts out of their head, organize them in a logical way, and then present that to them.

And then they go, wow, this guy gets me.

I love this guy.

Which then brings us to what you said earlier about leadership not changing.

And we always ask this question.

When you give coaching, training to an organization, how do we make sure that the training sticks and they don't go back to their old ways?

That's a tough part about it, which is there's not a lot you can do, weirdly.

I mean, you can have after presentation, after workshop, extended intervention.

Well, for the next six weeks, here's what we're going to be doing.

Week one, you guys are going to talk about this.

Week two, this is going to be the email that you send out to everybody.

So you can kind of have an aftercare kit for your clients, and that can be valuable to leave your message behind in a way that lasts longer.

A lot of people, they really just want results.

They really don't care how it works.

If you could guarantee results and deliver results with waving your hand and snapping your fingers, they wouldn't care.

They'd pay a lot of money to solve that problem if that's how you did it.

So the easiest way to make sure that people implement the change is to have change worth implementing.

To me, that's often a bedrock assumption is that you're good at what you do and that your stuff works.

So if that's not the case, then what are you doing selling your services to companies and trying to solve these problems when your solution doesn't fix anything?

So there doesn't need to be a lot of motivation.

There doesn't need to be a lot of cajoling.

There doesn't need to be a lot of prodding if you fix their problem.

Right.

I've been watching my daughter.

She's 17 months old right now.

I've been watching her sit down, try to sit down.

She has no clue how in the world to sit in her tiny little chair.

She'll walk up to it.

She'll put her head on the seat.

She'll crouch down so that her eyes are on the seat level.

She'll stand up.

She'll turn around, but do it in like a semi-circle.

So now she's three feet away from the chair.

Like every way you could possibly imagine not doing the thing.

I see a lot of adults who don't know the right way to do what it is that they're trying to do.

And the instant you show them, oh, here's how you get the result you're looking for.

Why are they going to keep doing the way that doesn't work?

Most of the time, unless it's a deeper issue, they're going to do the thing that works, and that becomes their standard approach.

And when your clients come to you, is it because they've identified what the real problem is, or do you also help diagnose that for them?

Yeah, I would love if everybody knew what the real problem was.

But the problem with that is, if they knew what the real problem was, they wouldn't have the problem anymore, because they would have already known what to do to fix it.

So in a way, the fact that your client has an issue means that they don't know what to do about it.

And they don't know the first thing about solving it, because they haven't solved it yet.

They come to you because they have symptoms and consequences of the root, the cause of their problems.

So what they call problems are downstream from the cause.

So they're saying, I don't have time.

We don't have good conversion rates.

We don't have a good close rate.

We don't have this, our profitability is down.

Those are all symptoms of a deeper issue that needs to be fixed.

But all they know how to put words to is I don't like what's going on.

So as the expert in that area, it's your job to hear them out and then through them explaining what their problems are, but really they're describing symptoms.

And then like a doctor, you go, based on all these symptoms, are you also experiencing this?

And they go, yeah.

And they go, what about this?

And they go, oh yeah, that too.

Are you telling me that's related?

And you go, absolutely.

Which leads me to think this other thing's happening and they're going, holy cow, this guy, he's the dude.

We have to have him.

You don't even have to fix the problem yet.

You don't even need to tell them what the problem is.

But the fact that you can describe their problem better than they can means that you understand their situation better than they do.

And that gives them confidence that you're the right person who knows how to solve this issue as well.

So there's a formula that I use, that I teach to a lot of my clients and people that I work with.

I call it the seven step persuasion formula.

If you skip a step, it will not work.

And really what you're trying to do is to persuade your client to buy into your system.

You're trying to persuade your lead into working with you if you're the best option, right?

All that caveat.

But really the first step is here's what they think is the problem.

The second step is here's why they think that's the problem.

And you don't say, think to your contact.

You don't say, think to your lead or your client.

In your head, you're saying it like they think this is the issue.

They think that is the issue.

And then you go, so why do you have those problems?

And then they say, it's because of this or that.

And now you're building your picture of their mind of what explains their situation.

It's not accurate.

It doesn't actually apply to reality, because again, if it applied to reality, then they wouldn't have the problem with the symptoms that they're describing.

Almost never do you get somebody who goes, I know exactly what the problem is.

I've been through this before.

I just need you to solve it because I don't have the time for it.

That's like a fisherman sitting in the boat, and then the biggest fish he's ever seen just jumps in.

He goes, hey, take me to shore.

That's never going to happen.

Nobody would believe you even if it did.

Yeah.

So the first two steps are, here's what they think the problem is.

Here's why they think they have the problem.

Then the third step is, well, here's the real problem.

The fourth step is, here's why this is the problem.

And then you help them understand that all the symptoms are connected to this issue for these reasons.

So that's one, two, three, four.

And then five is, well, here's what the solution is.

Six is, here's why it's the solution.

And then the solution piece, the why that's the solution, has to address every piece of here's why this is the problem.

And then show how solving that makes all of their issues go away.

And then the last step?

Is, here's the next thing to do.

That's it.

Because really, they live in a world that they know and understand.

That world is not connected to the reality of their situation.

But they're very familiar with their problems, their symptoms, their issues.

So they are completely disconnected with reality.

So then, as you work them through understanding the reality of their situation, well, now they've never been here before.

I don't recognize this place.

I don't know how I got here.

I mean, I trust that you led us here because you're the guru here, you're the guy.

But I don't know how to get around here.

What do I do now?

Here's the next thing to do.

And sometimes as a coach, it's, well, you now have this skill.

And now, as you practice that skill, you're going to develop these issues.

You're going to run into these challenges.

You're going to run into these problems.

So this is the next journey that you're going to take.

If you're a digital marketing agency, okay, well, we got your website pretty.

It looks great.

It does a great job of converting visitors.

But the next challenge is getting visitors because nobody knows your website exists.

So how are we going to get them there?

Well, now the next challenge is PPC.

So the next thing to do is to have us help you with your Google ads.

So there's always the next thing to walk them closer and closer to their idea of success.

I think that last piece of having the next action item is what will then get them away from the old ways.

Because they are now doing things differently, literally.

Right.

And this works on every level that you can think about it.

Because say you're on a call, and then you're about to hang up, you're about to end the call, and then you say, the next thing is, I will email you the recording of the conversation or whatever.

So there's always an ultra clear understanding of what the next step is and who is responsible for it by when.

So in the case of I need to deliver something to you, OK, as soon as we're off the call here, I'm going to go get that together and send it to you within the next 30 minutes.

If you don't see it, your spam folder got hungry and devoured it.

So go digging in your spam folder if you don't see it for me in 30 minutes.

So now there's a time frame that you've set that expectation.

You better fulfill it because that's how you do business with integrity.

I say I'm going to do a thing, then I do that thing.

And people go, oh, I can trust what he says because he always does what he says.

So it works at a simple point of fact level.

It works as a meeting kind of a thing.

And it also works at that broader strategy and business approach kind of a thing, too.

But yeah, you're right.

It's real useful to be able to bring somebody to the solution and then say, I've seen this a lot.

The next thing that you're going to be concerned with is this thing.

And I can help you with that as well.

Or I know five people who would be a great fit for you when you're in that situation.

So let me know and I'll make some introductions if you'd like.

Right.

When we talk about clear communication, which you mentioned earlier, why do we struggle to communicate clearly?

Or do we think we are communicating clearly, but the other person is not receiving it that way?

I think a majority of the challenge is in people thinking they're a better communicator than they are.

Because I say it doesn't mean you understand it.

And also, I'm so wrapped up in how I say it, that I don't have a good toolkit for testing how well you understood what I said.

And if you don't understand what I said, how good am I at asking you more questions to understand how you're meeting reality?

And once I understand your framework for connecting with reality, then if I'm really good, I can use different stories that tell the same message so that I can get it across.

To me, I think of it as speaking languages.

And most people speak their language and demand everybody they meet to speak their language.

And that's it.

But if you can learn every single person's language, suddenly opportunity is everywhere.

And you've got an incredible network full of people who love you because he sees me.

Like, he gets it.

So it's, in my book, incredibly more valuable to put in the work to try to understand where somebody else is coming from better than they do so that you can get your thing across better than anybody else they've ever met.

Is that also the key to be a successful sales professional?

To make your potential customers realize that you see them.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And part of my background and my work is I work with pretty large digital marketing company.

They build websites.

They sell SEO services, Google ads, social media, management, the whole shebang.

And I worked with their sales team to re-architect their entire sales process from the first conversation with a lead through diagnosing their situation, then doing the strategic homework, then building an action plan, and then scope of work, and then presenting it to executives and boards, and then going through that enterprise level negotiation process, and then signing business, and then getting them connected to delivery.

I helped architect and script that entire process.

And then they started hitting better numbers with fewer salespeople, because they didn't need everybody, because the great people were doing even better.

So it all predicates on being able to describe their situation better than they can.

And when you're really good at what you do, and your lead has a really bad problem that you understand inside and out, they're going to tell you the same story you've heard a thousand times.

Their name might be different.

The duration might be different.

The severity might be different.

But it's all the same thing to you, because this is your universe.

You know this all inside and out.

So just like the doctor that can diagnose, the lead comes to you going, I'm frustrated by this.

I'm frustrated by that.

I'm frustrated by this other thing.

And then if you can be present enough without anything in your head about, I got to try to close them.

What do I say to close this deal?

If you're just there to listen and be present with this other human being who's in pain, to not get too frou-frou with it, but you know, this person's in a bad situation.

So if you're there, and your job is to just listen to all of that, then when they're done and they say, all right, what do you think?

This is the active listening portion of the program, where you go, let me see if I have this right.

Because you put a lot out there, and then they're like, yeah, sorry, I just, I'm dealing with a lot.

I'm like, no, that's great, it's great.

So your grandpa started this business.

He handed it off to your dad.

You're the youngster in the family.

So you're familiar with all this internet stuff.

And now this company that has always worked on the Handshake Network and in-person stuff now is forced to do digital marketing stuff, but you're good at what you do.

And the marketing side of Facebook, it's like, yeah, my mom says, I post to Facebook, Jonathan, I don't see why this is a business.

So you're kind of in the same situation where the success and future of the company is resting on you, but you don't know the first thing about getting the word out on the internet.

So now you've got about nine months before the business goes under, and you either fix this now, or the third generation is a failure.

How did I do?

And then they're going to go, oh my God, you said that better than I did.

Like that took me 15 minutes, and you said that in one minute.

Yeah, okay, what do I do?

Because I'm a mind reader.

I read his mind by asking him to share his mind, to tell me what you're thinking, what are you dealing with, and him trusting me with the truth, and then he tells me everything.

When, not if, but when, I can synthesize all of that because I've had a thousand times more practice in this conversation than he's had.

This might be the second or third company that he's talked with.

He's the thousandth lead I've talked with in three months.

There's no question in my mind.

I know this, right?

So that's why I'm so good at recapping what he's saying because I've heard that guy say his version of that.

I've heard that lady say her version of this.

It's all the same conversation.

So it looks amazing to them.

It's just another day at the office for me.

Like, this is how I help people.

But everybody else on planet Earth wants to jump in about their packages, and here's our deal, and we've got a two-for-one special, and we do this and we do that.

We've got this feature.

They don't take the time to tell the person how they understand them.

Better salespeople will say, you know, Eric, I understand everything that you're saying.

Here's our package.

This will work well for you.

They said it, but they didn't show it.

But if you can demonstrate that you understand, you're not selling at that point.

The person goes, this is the expert.

This is the person that knows better than anybody else.

By now, everybody else I've talked with is trying to sell me something, and this guy just showed me that he gets it.

And it took me six months to realize what issues I was dealing with.

And in 30 seconds, this guy packaged it up and put a bow on it.

I would be insane if I didn't work with this guy.

I hope I can afford him because I know that I won't win without him.

That's it.

And my problem will not be solved without.

Right.

Exactly.

And unfortunately, that is what I see all the time, which is, well, you are twice as expensive as the next highest person I'm talking to.

I have to go with the cheaper option, and I tell them what's about to happen.

I go, I completely understand it.

Spreadsheets don't lie.

And if this can't work, I completely understand.

And having said that, I'd like to tell you what I've seen happen a lot, which is that you go with the cheaper option, you pay less for longer for no results, at which point you're out all that money, you're in a worse situation because there's been no improvement, and you've lost time, and you don't have the benefits of having solved the problem earlier, which allows you to have made more money.

So in five dimensions, that's going to be a bad time.

However, I've been in this world long enough, I'll still be here.

I sincerely wish that this is the right path for you.

I want this to work.

If it doesn't work, I'll still be here, and we can get going.

I can't tell you the number of people that eight months later, hey, everything you said would happen happened, and now I can't afford to hire you, but I also can't afford not to hire you, so we have to figure this out.

All right, cool.

Let's go.

Then the sales tell themselves, because you bring results and you're a problem solver.

Somebody made this example of, if you think of a married couple, and they have problems, and they're on the verge of divorce, and everything they could lose.

If you say to them, if I give you this, my program, it will save your marriage.

They will pay you anything.

Not that they have the money, or it stops being less about the money and more about the fact that you are going to save the marriage.

Exactly, exactly.

You spoke earlier about negotiation skills.

It sounds like what you just described as well, that part of it is actually negotiating.

It is, it is.

And a big part of my past and present is that I'm a mentalist, which is a kind of performer that specializes in doing mind reading tricks.

Like Simon Baker's TV series, The Mentalist?

Yeah, yeah.

I know the guy who that character is based on.

Oh, yeah, so it's applied psychology, it's communication skills, it's having the moxie to just pull this stuff off.

One of the most powerful techniques is that the effect that you want to have on or with someone, like with the audience, I want them to experience this thing.

Well, the planning for it and the execution of it can start hours before the audience is aware that anything is going on.

So you're starting the process before anybody knows there's a process going on.

So when you're in the beginning conversation with your client, with your lead, and you're like, tell me about your situation.

What's going on?

Tell me about that.

Well, tell me more about that.

I'm curious, why did you do this instead of that?

They're telling you everything you need for four calls from now when you get into the negotiation.

They don't know that they're giving you all the leverage.

They don't know that they're giving you all the details you need, but that's what they're doing, because they're telling you what their situation is.

And since you're the expert, you know what that situation means.

You know the consequences.

You know how this can play out, because you've seen 50 other companies that were in exactly that situation that did A, you saw how that plays out.

You saw that this company did B, and here's how that played out.

You've seen 100 companies do C, and it plays out this way 99 times.

So you know every option before they do.

So then they're saying, here's my situation, and you know the only three options that they're going to ever take before they do.

You've seen them in a thousand different lives, because you've worked with a thousand different clients that all have the same problem.

Right.

As you said, it's just that the story is different, but the principle is the same.

Right.

So now when you're in the negotiation phase, you've heard every objection.

You know exactly what they're going to say.

You know why they're going to have a problem.

You're going to know what smoke screen they're going to give you.

If you don't, you're just starting out, and you'll learn real fast.

But also, to me, there's a difference between like an obstacle to working together and an objection, which objections are usually made up reasons why I'm going to walk away now.

Because maybe it's a lack of belief, maybe it's a lack of faith in myself.

I can't believe that things could be different.

That's usually because people are like, well, I'm the smartest one in the room.

I haven't figured this out, so this guy can't figure it out when it's really a simple solution.

That's unfortunate, but it happens a lot.

I think of it as like obstacles, objections, but also confusion.

They're not clear on how you're going to deliver.

They're not clear on the timeline.

They're not clear on everything that you're going to be doing to deliver your service, because you could have an account manager, you could have the world's best experts who will fix this in two days, but nobody else does it that way.

But to you, this is the only way it works.

So of course, this is the obvious way that it gets done.

So you don't take the time to explain your process.

You don't take the time to explain the experience of your people.

You don't take time to explain it.

So your lead is only going to hear it through the context of the other people that they've talked to, which is we're just going to let AI solve everything.

And then when you don't tell them how you work, they're going to think, and he's just going to do AI.

So he's trying to charge me twice as much to do the same thing the same way as those other guys.

I'm going to go the cheap route.

So a lot of consultants, a lot of speakers, a lot of business people forget that their lead doesn't know everything that they know as the expert.

So they're not giving the lead enough information to make a fully informed decision about who to work with.

Because if you filled in all those blanks for them, it would be the blindingly obvious choice to hire you.

You assume everybody knows this is the right way to do it, so I'm not going to talk about it.

And now they go, you're too expensive.

So now you think it's an objection, you think it's an obstacle, when really you didn't do a good job of explaining it.

So most of the time, if they're objecting, they're not objecting, they're desperate for you to clarify their understanding so that they can understand that you're the best option for them.

Like they want you to be the best option.

You're just making it real hard on them because you're not giving them the information they need.

Because you sound like everybody else.

In order to stand out, basically, you need to explain your process.

You need to explain them to themselves better than they understand themselves.

Yes.

That's how you get their attention and buy in and trust.

Then you could explain your process.

Based on this, here's what I recommend.

We do this first because it will lead to this, and then in that situation, we'll do this, and we do that.

They need to be ultra clear on three things.

Your company, how it works, the service, how that works, and you, can I trust you?

How do you work?

How do you show up in life and business?

So they need to understand all of that before they can say yes to doing business with you.

So how is your company structured?

Do you have an account manager?

Is this a freelancer?

Are you building a relationship with me?

Then you're going to hand me off to somebody you just hired last week, fresh out of school.

Like, what's the deal here?

And sometimes if they have those objections, it's because it's something they've experienced with previous coaches before.

Exactly.

I call them burn victims.

I've been burned by this before.

Yeah, I hear that a lot.

80% of my clients are in the burn ward.

Like, well, we got you.

And then you can say, and they did this to you, and this happened, and that happened.

So not only are you better educated on their problem, you're also better educated on why they're mad at the last person that didn't fix the problem for them.

That makes you sound even better.

You don't have to throw them under the bus.

You just have to describe the way that they didn't solve the issue.

And you go, yeah, I've seen that a lot.

I wish it weren't that way because it would do a lot for my industry to have better people there.

But I know what you're saying.

I've got seven people last week that came to me with that exact issue.

And here are their testimonials about that kind of thing.

With the caveat of tell me more about how that person didn't solve the issue for you.

And they go, yeah, I went through six coaches.

I went through seven consultants.

I've gone through eight agencies in the last year.

Okay, well, that's a completely different situation.

That's what we like to call a huge red flag because the only common denominator there is you.

So I kind of make a joke out of it, but it's also really important to bring up where I laugh and I go, you know, I dated a lot when I was younger.

And I learned that if somebody said, all my exes are crazy, then I'm about to be the next crazy ex that she talks about to the next person.

So help me work through this.

What was it that all five of those agencies did that was not okay?

Because if we work that way, I want to save you the time.

But help me understand what's going on.

And then they're like, yeah, I know, I need it to happen now.

And you're like, well, this is not a happen now kind of a thing.

Not how we work either.

Right.

So you just dodged a bullet there of signing somebody up, investing your resources into somebody that's going to blow up your process and cause havoc and need more meetings that you could have spent closing better clients that pay twice as much.

Yeah.

Learn to recognize those red flags as soon as you can.

Don't say, we'll do better than all five of those other agencies.

You're like, okay.

Yeah, that would also sound like a desperate attempt to get the client, which then, as you said, you're now going to have big problems, because it looks like he was the common denominator if you don't dig deeper and realize what the real issues were with the other five crazy exes, so to speak.

Exactly.

Ask why at least three times about everything.

That's why I don't understand the sales conversation that lasts 20 minutes.

It's like you're just getting started.

We got too much to dig into.

We're dealing with problems that are too valuable to, oh, I've got this solved in 20 minutes.

You're like, yeesh, you're holding the success of their business in your hands.

It's a little cavalier, so take your time.

And as speakers, you need to do that about the organization that's bringing you in.

What are their challenges?

What are their situations?

What have they tried before?

Who have they brought in before?

What did they like about them?

What did they not like?

Why didn't they like it?

How did that go?

What was your thoughts about this?

You got to ask about that stuff.

Not, I'm so great, here's what I talk about.

Here's this topic, and I also do this doodad, and I also do a cartwheel, and it's very fun.

And the audience loves it.

Please hire me.

No, that's not how you do it, guys.

Please don't do that.

But in defense of most people, Jonathan, it's a tough economy.

A lot of us are looking for business, and that's why sometimes we don't take the time to dig deeper and ask those quality questions, because we are just happy to get the gig.

Right.

And then it becomes a problem later.

Yes, because you are signing up that time bomb that explodes your sanity, that explodes your availability, that explodes your process, and it's all about opportunity cost.

Because signing that client that gives you whatever dollars you need right now will blow up your chance to find that better client who's not going to make you jump through 10 hoops for one-tenth the pay.

Have you noticed that?

The clients that have the smallest budget, they need this to work the most.

So I'm going to need you to join five different meetings with seven different departments, and if one person doesn't sign off on it, I'm going to need you to do some jumping jacks for me where the clients that have the problem but also understand that you're the professional here what does it cost to solve this issue?

Okay, cool, let's go.

Call me when it's done.

Okay, you've got a lot more time, you've got a lot more energy, you like this client better.

True.

Because they're not writing you so hard, be like, did you get that thing done yet?

Did you do the thing yet?

Like, gee, just lay off me, right?

So you're going to be in a better mood.

Your family is going to like you more because you're not dealing with the people that are riding your butt all day.

The ones who pay a tenth of what you usually charge, and the reason they always chase, they keep counting the dollars versus, did you bring my result now?

And that's why it sounds like a headache versus working with a quality client.

Yep, yep, that's it.

The skill, the thing you do, doesn't really need to change.

Doesn't really need to change.

The business changes by putting your skill in front of people who have the money, that what you do has a big enough impact that it's worth it to them to pay you 10 times what the other guys can afford to pay you.

So it doesn't need to be that big a change aside from messaging, targeting, focus, communicating your value to more valuable clients.

Chasing that dollar right now costs you so much more at the operations level, at the lead flow level, at the sanity level, at the how well do I sleep level so that I wake up tomorrow feeling like a human instead of I get to deal with this guy again.

And suddenly your whole, like, that guy just paid you money for you to ruin your own life because you said yes to all of it.

I can understand, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who say yes to ruining their life that way.

It's like get another job to fund your lifestyle so that you can serve the world in a better way this way instead of you're signing on clients you hate already.

So get a job you don't care about.

You won't hate it.

At least you might like the people you're working with so that you can work with the clients that fill my cup and pay you a lot more.

And you will be a lot happier.

Be a lot happier.

You don't have to do it forever, but you can fund that push to land higher quality clients by not signing garbage clients.

Yeah, Jonathan, but I need to pay bills.

Okay, cool.

Go get another job that is within your realm of ability, and then go build your other business, not on the backs of bad clients.

It's literally not worth it.

Just isn't.

And with such powerful and strong advice, how long have you been doing this, Jonathan?

Depends on how you want to define this.

Name the coaching.

I know you said you can do shows for 20 years, but the coaching.

I weirdly don't do a lot of coaching one-on-one because the opportunity cost is very high.

And my ability to change a life is limited to one person if I work with one person.

So that's why I like doing kind of corporate level workshops and training stuff, more so than like one-on-one coaching.

And if I do coaching, it's 95% of the time going to be a cohort of people that all want to learn the same thing or all have the same problem.

And we're gonna put you all together so that way you can know you're not alone and you can talk amongst yourselves, share what you need to know, digest it with each other.

So that way they're not pinging me with everything that's on the spreadsheet already.

You're not the sacrificial lamb.

Exactly, exactly.

You're like, you guys talk through this, I'll be here for the next one, right?

I would say about five, seven years.

And that's why you've seen these patterns and you know where it's gonna lead if the conversation starts a certain way.

Right, right.

But that's also at corporate sales level, that's business to business, that's business to customer, that's conversion rate optimization for websites, because that's your audience that's coming to your website, and your website is how you're communicating with your visitor.

So how do they behave when they're on the website?

You designed it, you paid the designer to put that together, so it's your fault if they don't convert.

It's your fault if they get all the way through and they buy stuff.

So how well are you communicating to your visitor that you're the right store for them, they can trust you with your dollars because you'll send whatever it is you're selling.

It's all the same thing.

It doesn't matter because it's all about connecting with a stranger, building a connection, and helping them find the solution to their issue.

Exactly, because we are problem solvers.

Words of wisdom from Jonathan Pritchard from North Carolina who is a business consultant specializing in leveraging psychology and is also a keynote speaker.

Thank you, Jonathan, for this very insightful and eye-opening conversation.

Well, thank you very much.

It really is an honor to be invited on to share my thoughts.

So thank you so much for having me.

Thank you for being here.

It's my absolute pleasure.

And before you go, where can we find you online?

Yeah, the best place to find me is icanreadminds.com.

It will take you straight to my website where you can find out all the ways that I can help.

And if I can't help you, I absolutely know people who can.

So please stop on by, sign up for the email list where I share ideas every weekday on how to get more out of what you got between your ears.

icanreadminds.com.

The mentalist himself, Jonathan Pritchard.

Thank you for being on the show today.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

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