WS814: The Introvert’s Edge to Networking with Matthew Pollard

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication. 

And now your host, Whitney Sewell. 

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:23.7] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today’s guest is called “The Real Deal” by Forbes. His name is Matthew Pollard. Welcome back on the show, Matthew.

[0:00:34.8] MP: I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me back on.

[0:00:37.9] WS: I’m excited to have you back. I know you are doing some big things right now. I know there’s many listeners right now that you can help and especially some books you’ve written recently, I think can relate to me for sure, personally, and many of the listeners as well, but a little about Matthew, go back and listen to show WS 309. And we talked about just using the power of storytelling during that show. That was August 26, 2019 but a great show to encourage you to get to know Matthew a little more through that, but also just in case you didn’t hear it, he’s a best-selling author of The Introvert’s Edge, Amazon’s eighth most sold book of the week and Book Authority’s number two best introvert book of all time

His soon to be released second book, The Introvert’s Edge To Networking has already received endorsements from Harvard, Princeton, Neil Patel, Michael Gerber, Dr. Ivan Misner, and Marshall Goldsmith. His humble beginnings, the adversities he faced, and his epic rise to success show anyone with the right motivation, and the right strategies can achieve anything they set their mind to.

Matthew, again, welcome to the show, always a pleasure to speak with you. I’ve learned a lot from you personally, and I know the listeners will as well. I want to jump into this thing that you are helping so many people with right now. And that’s networking, right? In our business, I know the listeners know this. I mean, it is everything, about the business is networking, putting yourself out there, being willing to go shake someone’s hand and that’s so hard for so many people. But you know, let’s jump in Matthew, get us started with maybe what’s happening with you recently, and let’s dive into this. Maybe we’ll go back a little bit to the success of your previous book and why and how that’s helped so many people move forward.

[0:02:13.4] MP: Yeah, absolutely. Well, firstly, you’ve done over 300 episodes, since we last got together. That’s impressive and I’m not sure if your audience knows that you’re an introvert, the fact that you’re an introvert, and you get up and you do this every day to provide your audience some amazing content. I mean, that’s great. I’m sure you’ve grown your network by doing this substantially, I believe.

[0:02:35.4] WS: No doubt about it.

[0:02:36.3] MP: So, I mean, the success of the first book is really, really exciting for me. I mean, a lot of people that may or may not notice if they know my brand, but I didn’t want to write this book. I had a reading speed of a sixth grader in late high school and because of that, you know, I mean, I kind of fell into sales, because I was horribly introverted. And I just learned to sell by watching YouTube videos and discovered that it was a system just like anything else. Once I succeeded and I built five multimillion-dollar businesses from the ground up and I came to the US and I started teaching people how to succeed in what I call my rapid growth system. I started sharing about step three of my system, which is around sales systemization. And people kept coming up afterwards in saying, “Matt, I loved all of your content. I had no idea I could succeed as an introvert.”

So, of course, not wanting to write a book, I started to suggest to everyone I knew that was successful in sales that they should write a book on introverted selling, and I was told, “No one’s going to buy a book on introverted selling, Matt. Nobody.” In my head because step two of my system is around niche marketing, I’m like, “This is an open niche that no – I mean, there are thousands of books, and nobody’s written about the sales. I really believe it’ll succeed.” And I believe it’s super necessary, because introverts needed a book for them, but nobody would write it. And it was really happenstance.

I worked with a ghostwriter. He was a client of mine and he made 27,000 in 2013, 12,000 by October of 2014. And within four weeks of us working together, he’d made 40,000, within six weeks, he made 80,000. By the end of the year, he made 120, and by the end of the following year, he made just shy of 300, actually he made 200, just in April, the following year. He’s like, “Matt, you’ve got to put these concepts down into a book.” And I said, “I’ve wanted to for a long time, but because of my reading and spelling issues”, I mean, I’m an award-winning blogger, but I yell at you for 1,500 words. No introvert wants to get yelled at for 50,000 words, right?

So, I wanted, if it was going to be a book, I wanted it to be this comfortable process where somebody just learns the process of selling but they learn through characters almost like a novel where they get to enjoy these people and just happen to learn selling through the process. And so, we agreed to work together on that book. As soon as we got the book out, we had people like Jeb Blount talk about his introversion. We had Tom Ziglar, the CEO of Ziglar, who talked about his dad Zig Ziglar, who was introverted and all of these amazing introverts started to come out. The book did 25,000 copies in the first year, it is now translated into well 10 languages it looks like at the moment and we keep getting new publishers that represent different languages come to us and, and talk about it.

So, we’re just really excited about what it has done for the introverted community. And we just kept getting people asked, when are we going to write the next one on networking? Why isn’t there one on networking? Gosh, I write slow, even with, with a ghostwriter. I have to go through every paragraph and for me, it’s: grab the text, listen to it in a robot voice, add comments, and it’s a horrible process. It just takes forever. But we’re launching it on January 19, Introvert’s Edge To Networking, and we’re ecstatic to hear – we’re already getting these amazing editorial reviews. So, we’re really excited about it.

[0:05:52.2] WS: So maybe you can describe a little bit of who that first book is for, what’s that going to solve for them? And then moving into the second book as well.

[0:06:00.7] MP: My primary audience is always small business owners. That’s why I love your show, because a lot of the people that are in real estate syndication, I mean, they really run their own small businesses. So, even if they’re passive investors, they have a business on side where they’re investing and you know, they’ve got to find the right deal. So, for me, I’ve always been heavily focused on the small business community. But what’s been interesting is, obviously, the book has a lot of small business stories, and it shares stories of real introverts. A lot of times, much worse off than the people that are actually reading and people with chronic stutters that have created seven figure businesses from nothing through learning a sales system. So, that’s really what it was designed for, to help small business owners realize that they actually can sell and that they can learn a sales system, just like anything else.

That really was the focus, because I think there’s so many small businesses that are stuck in this constant hustle to set themselves apart, find interested prospects and make the sale and there are so many leads that are coming in that they think are rubbish, but it’s really because they’re not closing them well. So, I wanted to stem the bleeding a little bit with that. 

What we found that was quite exciting was the corporate world, they were buying this book like crazy, especially in the world of technical sales. Technology, medical finance, I mean, these people, a lot of them are super introverted, and even the ones that aren’t are like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s so overwhelming the amount of data I’ve got to provide.” And they really gravitated to how I talk about storytelling, and how to simplify using what I call value articulated emotionally driven stories. So, it really exploded to different markets. Again, with the next book, I focused on the same thing. I mean, my primary market is always the small business community but I’ve been blown away. I mean, we’ve received endorsements from VPs of IBM, sales directors from Intel, amazingly high-level people in the corporate world. But again, it’s predominantly focused on small business to help them realize how to get out of that hamster wheel of finding interested prospects and setting themselves apart so that they don’t get stuck.

Let’s face it, when we go to networking events, either face to face, virtually, or even reach out to people on social tools like LinkedIn. So often, we introduce ourselves as – let’s say, I call myself a business coach, or a branding expert. People go, “Oh, I tried that before. It didn’t really work for me.” And now it’s a really awkward conversation. Or they say, “Oh, I need that. How much do you cost?” We’re not even talking about price, we just met them. How awkward is that?

So, for me, I created this book to really help people realize there is a way to change the balance in a networking conversation, even if it’s a virtual conversation, to getting them to lean forward and go, “Oh, well, that’s interesting. Tell me a little bit more about that.” Because they genuinely care. But then also giving people a regimented system because in my world, I mean, when you go and see networking, the way people do it, it’s either that transactional, “Do you want to buy from me?” “No.” “Do you want to buy from me?” No introvert wants to do that. Most extroverts don’t want to do that. Or you’ve got those other people that are like, “I’m not going to be that person.” So, they’re kind of aimless in their focus. They try to avoid conversations about what they do. They say it’s all about building genuine connection. But then they go home with a couple of business cards that they fostered relationships with, but no real to do list of what to do with them. They’ve already got enough friends. I mean, they struggle to spend enough time with the friends they have.

So, those cards just sit on the desk and they do nothing with them. They just say, “Oh, when they reach out to me, I’ll do something.” And of course, they never do, which makes them walk out going, “Networking’s a waste of time.” That’s not true. It works. You’re just doing it wrong. So, what I’m introducing is what I call strategic networking, which really means that 90% of the work happens before you even go in the room. Because if you aren’t prepared, if you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have stories and a way of introducing yourself that separates you, well then when you get into the room, it doesn’t really matter what you do, you’re always going to get subpar results. And then again, these days in the digital world, you can know who’s going to be in the room well before you even go and start the dialogue beforehand, so you already have a plan. Those people that plan and prepare, especially introverts who need to plan and prepare, will dominate in the networking room and even in virtual, it’s proving to be even more the case.

[0:10:22.0] WS: Awesome. Well, you mentioned so many things there. I’m typing a bunch of notes. It’s so important, on what you just said, in our business, where obviously most people listening, if they’re trying to be an active syndicator, operator, purchase commercial property, growing their base of investors is crucial. You have to have the base of investors and it is so much about knowing how to enter the room, knowing how to have that conversation, and having the follow up. I love how you talked about strategic networking, and just being prepared ahead of time, and having something that separates you. I always talk about how, if you’re going into a room, and we’ll go to conferences, there may be 400 people there, and everybody’s talking about real estate, and they’re not going to remember who you are if you just talk to him about real estate too, a week from then, right?

So, have something that separates you, our big why, our mission behind our business is what separates us and people remember that a week later, when I follow up. Let’s go back a little bit, but setting yourself apart, getting out there a little bit, that’s difficult for some, they’re scared to death to enter that room full of people and have to go up to a stranger and talk to them. How do you help people get past that?

[0:11:26.2] MP: Yeah, absolutely. So, the first thing is know how you’re going to differentiate yourself. Because everyone’s like, “Oh, maybe it’s going to be that story. Maybe I should use an elevator pitch.” Well, for most introverts an elevator pitch, if you’re like me, feels contrived and uncomfortable. And also, people that hear it know that you’re selling, so of course, they’re going to be a little bit standoffish. Actually, you know what, let’s talk about Shane, because Shane was a guest on your podcast, it probably was hundreds of episodes ago for you.

[0:11:52.7] WS: Yeah, Shane is a great friend and a great guy. He was hundreds of shows ago, but, yeah, awesome.

[0:11:58.3] MP: The advice I gave him when he went home and spoke to his wife and his father-in-law, they were like, “What are you doing? This is not going to work.” You’ve heard his story about how his business has exploded since, but when he first came to me, he had a real issue with talking about syndication. So, his father-in-law introduced him to a whole bunch of people and he got his first couple of clients that way. But anyone that didn’t come through a trusted source, people would ask him what he did, he say, “Oh, commercial real estate syndication.” But those people that have never heard of it before, even if they make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it sounds like I’m getting invited to join a Ponzi scheme.

[0:12:35.8] WS: Don’t call yourself a syndicator.

[0:12:38.6] MP: Oh, absolutely not. So, with Shane, what was interesting is when he first came to me, Shane is a very logical brain person, and amazing at what he does, but so logical, and he thought – obviously, his goal is to over explain everything so people understood everything. I mean, can you imagine, there’s a lot that goes into syndication. If you try and download all of it in the first 10 minutes of a conversation, it doesn’t matter how smart the person on the other side is, they’re going to be like, “Oh, let me think about it. I’m going to run away.” But how do you even get that dialogue happening?

So, for Shane, he found that he would say that he was in commercial real estate or he did real estate syndication, and people would like, “Oh, yeah. No, I’m not really interested in that or I’ve heard about that before.” So, what I did is, firstly, I had a look at what he was doing and I started to really analyze that some of the clients that he’d worked with were working in medical, and there were doctors that were surgeons, that sort of thing. And that was really the group that he really loved working with. And these are the people that have a small amount of time. They earn great money, but they have a tiny amount of time to actually go out and work out what to do with their money to invest it correctly.

A lot of these people kind of find themselves in these golden handcuffs. I know for a lot of us, we’re like, “Wow, these people are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, we wish we had these problems.” But they’ve got the fancy car, the fancy home, the kids at Harvard, and they’re like, “There’s no end in sight. I have to go to work every day to pay all these bills, how do I get out of it?” And they hear the stories of residential real estate and how you can make money out of residential real estate, then they end up the landlord, they don’t have time to do the due diligence, like the people earning less than $50,000 do. And they end up spending less time at home, which they’re already getting in trouble for. Because of that, they’re like, “Oh, I need a smarter way to invest my money.” And I realized that that was what Shane really specialized in, because his father-in-law was in that industry as well. He’s super passionate about helping that demographic. So, I said, “Well, what they’re really looking for is a way to be afforded opportunities because of their high salaries that other people can’t get access to, in a way that they can make amazing money.” I said, “If we were to focus just on that niche, what if we were to call you the Arbitrage Architect, instead of anything to do with syndication?”

Just so that people understand the definition of arbitrage, you buy low, sell high, right? So, the concept of arbitrage architecture is what we linked in with. I said, “What I want you to do is when you go to a networking event, and somebody asks you what you do, I want you to just say you’re the Arbitrage Architect.” Now you think about what that does in a networking event. “I’m in commercial real estate.” “Oh, I know what that is. I’m not interested.” “Oh, I’ve been thinking about that. Tell me about how you can help me and now we’re in sales.” As opposed to, “Oh, Arbitrage Architect. I’ve never really heard of that before. Tell me a little bit more about that.” Now, you‘re getting the opportunity to explain at their invitation. It changes the entire balance. 

Now, if you know your niche, like Shane did with doctors, all of a sudden, he’s going to places where medical people hang out. So, all of the things that he shares are going to be directly applicable. The way to shift everything at a networking event is not by calling yourself your functional skill, but coming up with your own version of the Arbitrage Architect. And then, when somebody asks what that is, you then talk about your passion and mission.

So, Shane talked about his passion and mission for helping medical people get out of the golden handcuffs that they got themselves stuck in by realizing that they’re afforded opportunities that most investors don’t. And then he would transition into a story. Now stories are key when you’re talking about syndication, because syndication is confusing. But also, if you don’t have their trust, they’re not going to write you a check for the amount of money it costs to get involved. So, the science behind story is key.

The first thing you need to understand is there’s a study out of Princeton that says, when I tell a story, what happens is our brains start to synchronize. What it does is activate the reticular activating system of our brain, which for the introverts out there, this allows us to create artificial rapport that we’re masters at creating deep rapport from. It’s why when I go on stage, and we were talking just before this interview, about how terrified I am before I go on stage, yet I’m one of the top 50 speakers in the world. And the reason for that is I’m preparing the introductory part of my story. As soon as I get on stage, I start with, “What a wonderful introduction. How do I live up to such a wonderful introduction? I know, let me tell you about Wendy.” And then I tell a story. And then all of a sudden, my brain synchronizes with everyone in the audience, and I feel at ease and they feel at ease and they feel engaged. And then I can then do what introverts, as I said, do amazingly, really foster that rapport.

Now, the other thing that’s great about stories is people remember 22 times more information when embedded into a story, which means all of that jargon all of a sudden becomes much more tangible to people, and they remember it. And then on top of that, I mean, the other thing, you’ve got to remember about story is it short circuits the logical brain and we speak directly to the emotional brain. No one is going to sit and listen to a two-hour lecture, but they’ll sit and watch a two-hour movie, wish it went for 30 minutes longer. So, because of that, when you share a story, instead of people going, “Why has he been talking for 30 seconds, and he hasn’t stopped explaining what he did? I’m at a networking event, I want to meet other people.” They’re like, “Oh, story time”, and they listen, and they’re engaged, and they want to hear the ending.

So, the goal is that if you start with a unified message to get their invitation to tell more, if you talk about your passion and mission for helping that demographic, your niche market, and then lead into a story of someone like them that had the problems that they had, and how you got them to an amazing result. These people are going to be hooked. And I mean, you know the story with Shane, the first time he said, “I’m going to call myself the Arbitrage Architect to his wife and father-in-law”, they thought like, “What were you on, I mean, why would you call yourself anything else?” But again, it doesn’t work with your friends and family. It doesn’t work with the people that know you. It’s like walking up to them and going, “I know you’ve known me as Matthew for my whole life, but I want you to start calling me Jason.” They’re going to look like you’ve gone mad. 

But with Shane to the new prospects, he was having dialogues, they were like, “Oh, that sounds amazing. I want to work with you. How do I work with you?” I mean, he launched a podcast, 3,000 doctors reached out to him about how they can collaborate. He created a consulting business, a six-figure business on the side, just helping other people do it because his business was doing so well. And instead of hustling to get opportunities for investors in deals, they were actually reaching out to him. It was like he got first choice at the best deal. So, his business exploded. The difference is all about not being like everyone else, but also not filling their heads with the jargon. But instead making sure that they see the value through someone else’s experience, of course, at that point, you need a great sales system, which is why I’m happy that we now have both books.

[0:19:29.7] WS: That’s awesome. I mean, creating that version like Shane did of what we call ourselves, it draws people in right, it creates that curiosity. I think it’s so helpful having a story or a few stories if you are especially an introvert, I think you’re going to be much more confident going into that conversation, feeling like you know what to say. Help us to create that story. What can the listener do to really have that story on hand that they can share with someone so they stand out?

[0:19:52.1] MP: First thing you need to realize is you don’t need many stories. Everyone when I hear you talk about story, they’re like, “Oh, I already tell great stories.” No, you don’t. Most people say, “I work with the customer, they wanted this so we gave it to them.” I’m talking a story like how you met your husband or wife. These emotional journeys about somebody’s life. It’s funny, I worked with a big tech company recently and they were like, “Oh, we moved this person to the cloud. We made all this money.” And I was like, “Okay, but you said, you’ve been chasing them for years. Why did they move into the cloud?” They didn’t know, they had to go and find out. Well, it turns out that the company server crashed just before Christmas, and they couldn’t run payroll just before the biggest spending season of the year. Can you imagine being the technologist that was their fault that no one got paid before Christmas? And also, he had to keep his whole team back so everyone got paid before New Year’s, so they all missed Christmas. That was something they never wanted to happen again.

Turns out, he got a promotion at the end of it, because he handled the situation so well. But that was because he worked with this organization. It worked with a gym franchise and they were like, “Oh, so the customer wanted to cancel. So, we gave them this fitness regimen and then they ended up losing the weight that they were looking for, so they were really happy and they’re staying.” Victory story. Great. Why were they trying to lose weight? “Well, she was trying to get pregnant, she couldn’t get pregnant.” I said, “How do you think she thought beforehand? Were her parents happy that they’re now going to be grandparents?” Those emotional triggers most people don’t talk about. And with doctors, I mean, you’ve got these people hustling to make money and then they spend money on investment opportunities quickly and lose more often than they win, because they don’t have the time to do the due diligence and they feel like they’re going to be working till they’re old and gray.

Now, all of a sudden, their life is transitioned, they can spend more time. A lot of these people with commercial real estate syndication can replace their medical income because of their medical income within four or five years. But they never saw that to be ever possible, they gave them that light at the end of the tunnel that they wouldn’t have had before. So, because of that, that’s the emotional journey of them feeling stuck, and to everyone else, they seem like a success. The last thing they want to do is share a sob story, but they are stuck. And then all of a sudden that relief, the pressure that almost leaves the chest.

So, for me a good story really has four parts. But part one and part three is the problem and the outcome and most people focus on just the real cost of the problem. I focus it on three things. You have the real cost, the opportunity cost and the emotional cost of the problem. Most people, if they talk about a problem, they’ll only talk about the real cost. They never really talk about the opportunity cost, which I mean, it’s very easy in syndication to say, “Well, the opportunity cost is by investing in the wrong things. You’re not getting yourself the ROI that you need.” The emotional cost is the thing that most people never think about, which is, “What is it doing for the doctor’s life? How are they feeling right now?” And then when you get into the transformation, “Was the real cost realized, was the opportunity cost realized? And how do they now feel?” I mean, some of these emotional stories when you change someone’s life, Derek Lewis, the ghostwriter for my books, I’ve got a testimonial from him. And sure, he wasn’t making money. Now he’s making money. That’s impressive. But when he says, “I don’t fear a bill coming in anymore. I walk outside, the sky looks brighter, the air feels cleaner, it’s a different life.” That is the thing that gives people tingles. And when you are at a networking event, those are the parts of the story you want to share, but also the part of the story that doesn’t sound salesy, right? I still get tingles down my arms when I talk about Derek, because I feel awesome about the fact that I changed his life.

If you’re in syndication, and you don’t get excited about the fact that you make an investor money, or that you make a whole new development, you get to look at this amazing thing that you were part of, you’re in the wrong business. But if you do get passionate about that, then you should be able to share those emotional parts inside your story and people will be blown away by it. So, we talked about point one and point three, obviously, point two, it’s the implementation.

Now, most people want to get into really nitty gritty details for that. The customer doesn’t care. The prospect doesn’t care. You actually should spend the least amount of time outside the moral which is point four, talking about that. You want to spend a huge amount of time, movies do this, where you talk about character development. We want to make sure that we really feel the person’s plight, then we just say there was an implementation, and then we talk about the outcome. And then we just deliver the moral of the story, because people when they hear from you, especially in networking, they don’t need to get into the jargon and the details. As a matter of fact, they are never really going to want that. What they really want to know is you worked with someone just like them who had the same problems that they have, and you can deliver the same amazing outcome for them.

[0:24:44.6] WS: And Matthew, I believe anyone that has a high level of success in business, and I’m sure you see this, but has a high level of self-discipline, how did you gain such a high level of self-discipline?

[0:24:54.0] MP: I should never have been where I am today. I mean, I had a the reading speed of sixth grader, horrible acne, I was really not confident at all. If I didn’t lose my job just before Christmas and get thrown into a [0:25:04]  sales role, I would have been probably a very happy person doing data entry my entire life. I wouldn’t have known what was possible for me. But I’d always had that grit to go and do the hard work and it was really that hard work grit, but also my willingness to think differently.

For instance, when 309, more than 300 episodes, again, almost 400 episodes ago, so if people go back and listen to that, they’ll hear the story of how my first day was after five days product training, getting thrown out on Sydney road and it taking me 93 doors of rejection to get to my first sale. And at that point, I had to make a decision. I made the first sale, I’ve made $70. I was ecstatic for 45 seconds, but I didn’t have to go, “Why don’t I do this again tomorrow?” I mean, that wasn’t okay, that second realization, so I had to make a decision. I think what happens is most people go into one of two worlds, fight or flight, they either give up and just say, “Nope, not for me”, which a lot of people in syndication do when they’re literally just days of practice away from doing amazingly well. But they give up because it’s too hard in their head, because let’s face it, life really isn’t that hard these days.

Go back 200 years ago, poor was really poor, but doing badly now still has food on the table, the lights are still on, we’ve got a roof over our head generally. So, a lot of times people give up before they need to. The other side of the coin is that fight mentality, which I mean, the world loves this, “I’m a hustler, I’m going to grind it out.” Well, grinding it out is fine as long as you’re trying to improve as well. Otherwise, if it was going to be for me, $93 the next day, 107 the next day, 45 the next day, I’d be relying on lady luck. And again, I’m not okay with that.

Most people though accept that as the two opportunities, especially when it comes to sales. For me, there has to be a smarter way and I decided that sales had to be a system. And then I went about learning the system. Now in Australia, I became very successful at sales, I got promoted a bunch of times and then built five businesses from the ground up, that all went multimillion dollar. But when I moved to the US, no one knew who I was and in Australia, the only networks I had were because of my success in business. So, I literally had to start again but I learned that there has to be a system for that. So, I went about creating one this time because I couldn’t find anything outside the elevator pitch. And I was just not okay with that. It felt uncomfortable for me. So, I went about creating a system that worked for me as an introvert. And now through the Introvert’s Edge To Networking, I teach people that system.

[0:27:36.9] WS: Nice. Is there a daily habit that you have, Matthew, that you are very disciplined about that’s helped you achieve success?

[0:27:42.8] MP: Yes, so I’ve got it right here. I have a list of must do’s today that I have to get done and everything else, because a lot of people get distracted by their email all the time. So, I write down a list, and I’ll do it the night before and I’ll do it the morning of because the mind is an amazing thing. And it thinks while we’re asleep. So, I wake up in the morning, I’ll have breakfast, and I’ll ask myself the question, “What is the things that I really need to get done today?” Because a lot of times we get stuck in this anxiety, we feel anxiety because it’s our body’s way I should say, of signaling to us, we’re not doing what we should be doing that’s aligned with the direction we want to go.

So, what I find is, in the morning or in the night before, if I write down what I want to achieve tomorrow, and in the morning, I’ll a lot of times cross out the things that I thought were important yesterday, and replace them with other things that are absolutely essential today. I find I sleep better overnight, I wake up and I’ve got a to-do list. And it’s always those things that I will do before I answer any emails or get to any of the busy work, because if I get distracted by that stuff – now, sure, if there’s some fires or things that highlight themselves as urgent, they make their way to my list. But, usually, I just give them a quick scan and end up just ticking off the things on my list, which leaves very little time for the email, but it’s the way I get through life.

[0:29:01.8] WS: What’s your way you’ve recently improved your business, Matthew, that we can apply to ours?

[0:29:05.3] MP: Well, what’s interesting is if you have looked at me before 30, I’ve talked about the success of my past businesses, but they were all bricks and mortar telemarketing direct sales. And when I moved to the US, I decided if I ever wanted to visit my family back in Australia, then I needed to have an online business. But I didn’t even know how to change the word ‘the’ to the word ‘they’ on a website. So, I decided that I was going to learn the process of being online. And what I realized is the reason why people work so hard online is because they don’t have great messaging, they don’t have a great niche. And once you have all of that you can create a system that in a lot of ways gets your ideal prospects to chase you. So, what I find is people struggle to articulate in a networking room, the value of what they provide in two, three minutes when somebody is trying to be nice to them and listen to them. In online, if you got to do it in two minutes in the networking room, think about how long your tabs got to stay open when they’re looking at you online.

So, what I realized is that today, I mean, in today’s world, you can use technology, psychology and strategy to get your ideal clients to chase you. I learned how to do what I do online and now, Global Gurus is listed as one of the top 30 sales professionals in the world. That’s all because of my online presence. I mean, my book sales are all because of my online presence. In today’s world, especially with COVID, if you don’t know how to be crystal clear with your messaging online, it’s going be a really hard time for you. I would suggest to everyone that’s listening to use this as an opportunity. I mean, my whole book to networking got a little bit of a twist at the end. The whole goal of my book on networking is to show you how you never have to go back into a networking group unless you want to, of course,

[0:30:38.9] WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success, Matthew?

[0:30:41.8] MP: I think it’s that diligence, like we spoke about. It’s my diligence to finding a system. I don’t just work hard without knowing that it’s going to get easier. I think a lot of people are just willing to accept life is difficult. And for me, I’m willing to accept life is going to be hard for time, but I’ve got to create a system that’s going to make it easy. So, for me, it’s automation. Absolutely. But it’s automation in every part of my business, and systemization in every part of my business, because if nothing’s systemized, if nothing is automated, then today’s hustle is going to be tomorrow’s hustle and I’m not okay with that.

[0:31:18.6] WS: Is there a system or something that you use to help document your systems and processes inside your business?

[0:31:24.0] MP: Yeah, I actually use [inaudible 0:31:25] is a great SOP, a place to just put all your procedures and documents. So, I like [inaudible 0:31:30] a lot with my sales scripts. Well, I have a Word document that no one else sees in a Google document that runs between my team that people are allowed to add, edit, and customize and add comments about changes and things like that. But sales scripts should always be living documents that change, but again, when you’re talking about sales scripting or you’re talking about networking scripting, or any type of scripting, first thing I know I use the word scripting, so don’t get scared. Remember, every character that you see on TV that seems so natural and authentic, actually is reading a script too, so the difference is, the people that sound robotic, when they’re cold calling you, those are the people that are reading it as for the first time or continuously because they haven’t spent the time learning it making it their own. But sales scripting, networking scripting is about going away and practicing it so you learn it.

Once you have it locked down, sales and networking scripts are like science experiments. If you change more than one thing at a time, you don’t know what’s blowing up in your face. So, just change one thing at a time, test that it works or that it didn’t work, and then change the next thing.

[0:32:33.2] WS: How do you like to give back?

[0:32:35.9] MP: So, I have a conference called Small Business Festival that didn’t run this year because of COVID, but we’ll be back next year, hopefully. I started a festival to put on hundreds of free events across America every year. Actually, it was listed by INC as the number three conference in America for small business and it’s all free for people to attend. So, that’s where I spend a lot of my time trying to help people succeed. Helping people realize that if they just break past their functional skill and focus on the elements outside that scope, then they really can have a rapid growth business that they love. It’s that focus of, “I need to improve, but I’m going to improve in what I know”, that’s costing them from succeeding in a business.

[0:33:14.2] WS: Wow, Matthew, it’s always a pleasure to have you on the show. Always enjoy our conversation and learning from you personally, I know the listeners do as well. I hope they will look up your book, The Introvert’s Edge To Networking. It’s such a common problem. It’s interesting that you mentioned so many people said, “Oh, that’s not worth writing a book on that. We’re not going to have and part of that.” But there are so many people that have that problem, right? And you’re helping them get past that. Tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you and the book.

[0:33:40.6] MP: Absolutely. So, if you go to theintrovertsedge.com, you can actually download the first chapter, The Introvert’s Edge On Selling. And if you do nothing more that will firstly get you over that whole hurdle of believing that sales isn’t possible for you as an introvert, but I actually outlined the full seven step process for how you can be an amazing salesperson. If you do nothing more than map out the first seven steps, put what you currently say in there, you’ll realize that a bunch of things don’t fit, throw that out, you shouldn’t be saying it to customers, then you’ll be able to make sure the stuff is in the right order and fill the gaps which will likely be around storytelling and asking great questions. You do nothing more than that, you’ll double your sales in the next 60 days.

And you can also go to theintrovertsedge.com/networking, and that will actually give you the first chapter of my second book. If you do want to preorder that, if you’re an introvert that’s passionate about supporting this cause, please preorder the book. And if you do, find me on LinkedIn, and send me your receipt, and I’ll make sure you get all the preorder bonuses that come with it. Every preorder really helps us support getting that message out in front of the world. Go to matthewpollard.com/growth, and if you want to create your version of the Arbitrage Architect or Rapid Growth Guy, which is what I call myself, then you can go there and there’s a five-step template that will help you work out what your niche is and discover or create your own unified message.

I did this at a National Freelance Conference, nearly 200 people in the room, 97% of the room put their hands up at the end and said they had a message that they believed would resonate and they’d identified a niche and willing to buy clients. [inaudible 0:35:11.6], I said, “Put your hand up, keep your hand up if it’s the most time you spent on marketing since you started your business.” And 85% of the room kept their hands up. So, this will absolutely work. You’ve got to spend time actually doing it.

[0:35:23.0] WS: Awesome. That’s a wrap, Matthew. Thank you so much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:35:26.3] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show. 

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