Chris Do: [00:00:00] What is up, everybody? Today's episode is a little bit different because I'm excited to tell you about a workshop that Jule and myself and Carlos Garcia are doing October 12th in Miami, a full day workshop, and the second one is in London. It's a two day workshop that's October 29th and 30th. And the reason why we're doing these in person experiences is because despite my best efforts on YouTube and doing multiple calls, over 10 calls on LinkedIn Live, We still feel the very best way for you to achieve the transformative change that you're looking for is to have this high friction in person experience where we can literally watch you work and have multiple skill practices, help you adjust little things that will improve your sales game.
Dramatically. And I've been committed this entire year to becoming the best teacher that I can be, hiring consultants and teachers and people who are helping me to elevate the in person experience, and I can't wait to share that with you. We saw the kind of changes that people were able to have in the [00:01:00] half day prototype in LA, and people walked away from that having transformed.
They transformed in the way that they conduct themselves, how they feel more confident. And even in changing their whole mindset around what they think sales is about and transferring those skills into their real life, into their business life, improving their communication skills. But here's the analogy I want to make for you.
You don't read a book on how to play baseball. You just go out and play baseball. And then in the swings and the practice coaches will make a little adjustments for you and you'll see your game improve. You don't read a book on how to play tennis. You just go out on the court and you hit lots of balls.
And so we're expecting ourselves to read a book on sales, to watch videos or to do role plays that are 10, 15 minutes long at best, and we think we're going to have this transformative moment. Now, a lot of you do achieve this regardless of how you, you consume the information, but the best way that you learn how to do something is just to do it.
And the only way I know how to do that. Aside from wasting potential business opportunities is to go to workshop where you can [00:02:00] get the individual attention from coaches who care about your success. So I can't wait for you to do this with us, but it requires one really small thing from you to make that commitment today.
to grab your spot because we're limiting the workshop to 30 people. We're already starting to sell a bunch of tickets. So I hope that you're not too late on this. And everybody always gets upset at me. Why didn't we know, why do you tell us? So I'm like, okay, in the past, it was my fault. I didn't do a good enough job telling you because you know me, I don't love jamming stuff down your throat.
So here it is. Hope to see you there, October 12th in Miami. And for the two day workshop in London, that's October 29th and 30th. See in the future.[00:03:00]
Okay. Hey everybody. What is up? We're having a special edition of podcasts, mostly focused on sales because there's an upcoming workshop that I'm doing with a couple of my good friends, one that's coming up in Miami, October 12th, and that's with my friend, Carlos Garcia, and then later that month, October 29th and 30th, my first Two day ever workshop on a single topic.
And I think it's necessary. I'm doing that with my good friend, Jule Kim that's happening in London. Tickets are limited. So save your seat today. And we're going to give you a little preview of the kinds of things we're gonna talk about. And we have no structure for this conversation, but we know this is an important discussion to have because you work so hard to get your leads.
They finally get on the call, on the Zoom call, or meeting face to face, and you fumble the bag, as they say. You're full of anxiety, you don't know what to say, you're stuck on certain scripts. And then afterwards, you're kind of just kicking yourself in the butt, like, Why didn't I say that? Or, Why did I say that?
It's either what you said or what you didn't say. And it's a lot of pressure, especially when you think how [00:04:00] rare it is for you to have an opportunity to sit or speak in front of a live client who has money, who needs services, who needs your help. So all you have to do is show up. So that's what we're going to talk about today.
Jule Kim: Oh man, that last part of what you said, I felt the pain. I was like, yeah, it's not like I get leads coming in every single week. And I do feel that pain, like even now I'm cringing, it's like when you don't have leads coming in every single day, or maybe not even every week, it feels like the chances at bat are few and far between.
So then that's where it gets pretty hard to not come at these calls with that like sense of desperation. You know, I've had so many people just like you say, I have to make this work. And I'm like, Oh, no. You're already starting off on the wrong foot, man.
Chris Do: Well, let's address that first, because perhaps you're listening to this podcast and you have no idea that I used to run a production company for 20 plus years where I sold creative services.
And you have to learn how to sell. Otherwise you go broke and you, you [00:05:00] starve. And so I want to talk about that a little bit and how this kind of. process shaped the way that I think, my philosophy, my approach, my tone. And so to give you some context, okay. So 1995, I'm out of school, graduated art center, and I start my business foolishly, probably a lot sooner than I should have, I guess I was filled with a lot of confidence, moxie and determination, borderline arrogance.
I think I have a good portfolio. People should just hire me. It shouldn't be any effort because we were told in school, if your work is good enough. People will just give you work. You don't have to learn how to sell. And that's a pile of crap. Let me just tell you that right now. It is important that your work is good, but being good is just the cost of entry.
You don't get to play in the game if your work isn't good. So we just say like, let's just accept that good gets you in, but good doesn't help you to win. Say it one more time, good gets you in, but good isn't what gets you the win. And so luckily for me, I was at the right time in the right place that I got a lot of at bats.
I got a lot of opportunities to swing that bat. Now, most of you [00:06:00] aren't in that situation. You're in the league, which is cool because your work is good enough. You're in the majors, but you're benched. You're not even the starting lineup. It's not until somebody gets hurt or they feel like a need to change strategies or it's late in inning and they have no hope, they put you in and you get a swing or two, but when you are so infrequent at your at bats, your practice, that every time you go up to take another swing, it's like you're starting from zero again.
You can't remember what you're supposed to do. And so you're just fumbling all the time. This is true in almost everything that you do. That's difficult for me. That was like public speaking. If I was only booked every. Three, six, nine months. I was so rusty in between. I might as well just be starting over.
It wasn't until I started accepting public speaking gigs on the regular that actually developed a system. I got really good, got confident. And those butterflies, they're still there, but they're very small butterflies now. And in fact, it's not as draining to me as it used to be. So when you're. In my case, getting probably three to five new business calls every single week for projects ranging from on [00:07:00] the low end, around 50, 000.
And on the high end, probably three, three 50, 350, 000. And so it's learned through repeated attempts at taking swings at something, being in front of new clients, trying new ideas, and then refining the process with the addition of a business coach, who was the thing that I needed to get to that breakthrough moment.
So I just want to put that out there. So that people understand that context, my confidence, my ability to speak to clients. My ease comes from hundreds of pitches that I've done over the course of my career. Just putting that out there so you all know.
Jule Kim: You know, Chris, I'm really glad you shared this because I think I've told you more than once, people will watch what you're doing.
They'll watch your videos, they'll listen to you and your LinkedIn calls, and they're probably having the same reaction that I had to you three years ago, where I was just like, how is he doing that? It's like I'm watching a magic trick. And now fast forward for me three years later, I'm like, I get it. It took a lot [00:08:00] of studying what you were doing, a lot of studying of coaching as well on my part since I'm a coach.
And suddenly it's not so inconceivable. There's still certain things you do that I've. find magical, like, don't get me wrong, even like the tone of voice you use, I'm like, holy moly, how is that guy doing this? You're able to say certain things with such warmth. And I'm like, God, it feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
It's just so annoying. You're just too good. But I think what a lot of us are sitting out there in the audience thinking, Chris can do it, but I can't. Other people can do it, but I can't. And that's kind of the purpose of the call, because I don't think I hear you share your story enough. The first two years of you running blind, how much money did you lose?
Chris Do: For clarification, blind is the name of the company, because one could listen to this and say, you're running blind, like dumb, deaf, and blind. Actually, the company name is Blind Inc. Okay, so just [00:09:00] letting everybody know, I was probably doing both, literally and figuratively, running blind. Here's the sad part.
Because I hadn't worked in a capacity where I could watch other salespeople or upper management, creative directors, talk to clients, I had no idea what you're supposed to say. So, it's like, somebody described this to me, like imagine playing chess but you don't know the rules and you're blindfolded.
That's what the sales game feels like. You think you're making moves, but you're actually committing probably career or financial suicide in the way that you move. So the first part is take off the blindfold so you can see what's going on and then learn the rules of the game. And I didn't have any of that.
So I was just fumbling and bumbling through calls left and right. I don't know to this day, looking back how I even got on some of these calls because those days we didn't have a sales rep. I don't even know how people found out about us, but I don't know if you know, but there's an agency called shy day.
They do the advertising for Apple and they've been doing it for decades. Now, the executive creative [00:10:00] director, Chris Graves calls us up along with his team for a job for Nissan. Now this is a big deal because car companies are well funded and the work that you're going to do is going to be seen by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people.
So there was a lot riding on this call. And so once the clients on that. Particular call, finished talking about what they wanted. I was just like a deer in the headlights. I didn't even know what to say. And I'm going to be fully like transparent. I just said, cool, good idea. And I'm sure they're like who the fudge scheduled a call with this idiot because the call quickly wrapped up.
I think I, for self preservation of blanked out the rest of this, but I think that was like an 85, 000 animated end tag thing that could have led to hundreds of thousands of dollars of more work. That's how this works. So opportunity after opportunity for Sun Microsystems, for Janus Funds, for I'm spacing on some of these other companies, we would pitch and just routinely lose.
And these are pitches where the jobs [00:11:00] were real. These aren't speculative projects. They were going to award it to one of five people they're talking to. And so by my estimation on the conservative side, I think we left over a million dollars of new business on the table just in the initial phase. As you know, when you work with someone, they tend to hire you over and over again.
As an example, we worked with Deutsch L. A., we did the regional Mitsubishi Motors spots. And that was, I think, like, 40, 000 or 50, 000. And that one opportunity led to the national work, which led to us working on almost all of the accounts, leading to millions of dollars. So when I say an estimate, we probably lost over a million dollars in new business.
That's just the initial wave. If I think about the second and third wave to this, it's probably five to 6 million of new business that we just lost. And it was heartbreaking. It was demoralizing because I kept looking at my team, mostly my friends, and I kept asking ourselves, like, what are we doing wrong?
How come we can't win these pitches? [00:12:00] And I felt really bad because I was thinking, I guess I'm just not good enough. Yeah.
Jule Kim: Oh man, that hit me so hard because that's another thing I've had people tell me in the DMs is when you don't get enough yeses in a row, you start to question your self worth. You start to think, Oh, maybe I'm an imposter.
Maybe I'm not so good at this, like any of this job. And that's where we start to build like what I call a false connection. It's like, what has you think that your ability to show up on the sales call has anything to do with your ability to be a designer or to do branding? It's like, the only thing that tells me is you suck at showing up on the sales call.
There's something happening there. So if you look back over these calls, what would you say is the number one mistake or the number one thing you didn't get back then?
Chris Do: I think the biggest thing that I didn't get that time, Jule, was I didn't understand that I'm supposed to ask the client's questions about what they wanted.
I just took it at face [00:13:00] value. Whatever it is they said was literally what they wanted. And I was supposed to magically understand those words without further dialogue. I also made the mistake, and this is a big one, of once they stopped talking, it was my turn to pitch ideas. So this means that, what would typically happen is, the agency would send you a script, they'd fax over, back then they would fax it over to you, did you get the boards, and you would read through the script, you would highlight with your marker, make notes, figure out what kind of questions you wanted to ask, and then you started to think about ideas.
And this was a very dangerous thing, because when they were talking, walking us through the script, I wasn't really listening. I was thinking about, it's almost my turn to talk, and my heart is racing and just pounding out of my chest. It was like, oh my god, oh my god, it's almost my turn. It feels like we're nearing the end of what they're saying, and now I have to figure out what to say.
So I had a couple options. Asked a couple like pre scripted questions, which in hindsight, I was really stupid because they had said things on the call that were more important, more relevant to what [00:14:00] they were thinking about than any stupid question I was going to come up with by just looking at the printed material.
Yes, I did need to read the script so I can familiarize myself with it, but arriving at the call with so many preconceived ideas and half baked questions, Or even fully baked questions did not allow me to listen. So oftentimes I was juggling, what am I hearing? What do I want to ask? Well, that was important, but I need to ask this question.
And so oftentimes I'd have to go retrace what was said with the question I had intended to ask to say, did they already answer this? Cause it would sound really stupid. If I asked the same question that they had already said, and this was problematic. So my brain was split into like multiple layers. And here's the third worst part.
After asking those questions, which then they answered, I wasn't even listening to those answers to my own questions, because I was thinking, I have ideas I'm supposed to pitch. And I thought that's how you're supposed to do this. So as soon as I stopped asking questions, then [00:15:00] came this awkward transition from asking to, well, so here's my vision for what we're going to do.
And people are very polite on these calls, because they know they didn't pay you. You put in your own time and energy to come up with some ideas. And because that was the case. They never gave you real feedback. So I was like, okay, they're kind of tepid in the response, but it wasn't like this is the dumbest thing ever.
They didn't ever correct you on your ideas. They just knew, I think what was happening, as I imagined in my mind, they took a marker. And they just crossed your name off that list of five people. I could almost hear the sharpie as if my name was scraped off. And I was like, Oh yeah, I'm not getting this gig.
I already know it. And so I toiled in that kind of losing job after losing job. The state of depression is demoralizing. And just trying to pick myself up by saying, Well, at least you were invited to the party. Because who we were pitching against were [00:16:00] industry standards. The teams that were pitching were bigger than our entire company put together.
So I would console myself at night and say, yeah, at least we're invited. You know, it's cool to be somewhat relevant. That's the best I could make out of a bad situation.
Jule Kim: Oh my god, there's a lot in what you just said. The first part where you said you didn't know you could ask questions, or even that really that's the thing to do, but I'm sorry I laughed.
But I only laughed because I know I did the same thing in my early on coaching calls. It's like you're so obsessed. Even once you get on the track of understanding you're supposed to ask questions, you become obsessed with asking the right questions. So you're not listening because you're like, what's the next question I'm supposed to ask?
So then it's like, what's the point of any of this? And then the other part you said, I know I've heard like a million times. You said you thought when they stopped talking, it was your turn to pitch ideas. You're supposed to pitch, and that is the number one thing I see happening in all of the role plays you and I do together.
It's like, [00:17:00] literally every person, what's the phrase? It's like, you are out there trying to turn everything into a nail for your hammer. Right? Like, I think you say, all roads lead back to you. Like, we just heard somebody the other day say, I think you're a role playing, and it was maybe like a book deal, and instead of asking, like, what's important about this book deal for you, she replied with, Oh, yeah.
See, that's why you need personal branding.
Chris Do: All roads led right back to personal branding. Coincidentally, the thing that she wants to sell me.
Jule Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Coincidentally. So I think one of the biggest themes that I've been seeing, like as I've been reflecting, because we just did role plays literally this week, two days ago.
I think we come into the sales call with this mistaken idea that we're supposed to persuade them, that we're supposed to keep saying, Hey, that's why you should hire me. Hey, you know what? I do that. Hey, I can do that. And in my mind, when [00:18:00] I'm the person as the buyer, I'm sure many people out there would think I'm like a nightmare client or a nightmare buyer, but I promise you, I'm one of those people where I'm probably buying a product every single week, if not more often than that, like, what's the thing you said to me?
Chris Do: I don't know, but you love buying things. You're addicted to learning, so you spend a lot of money.
Jule Kim: I do. So I'm actually not that hard to sell to, but what I don't tolerate are people who give me no evidence. They show me no proof that they can do what they say they can do. And that's all I keep seeing over and over in our role plays is instead of literally showing me.
Hey, here's something you might find useful. They're all running the role plays with, yeah, I can do that. Or there's a ton of interrogation. So many questions and I, I start to think, where is this going? And did they even hear me? So then the vibe check starts to fail.
Chris Do: You're pointing out a problem here that a lot of people have.
We're [00:19:00] either stuck between one or two points. Number one is we have this script. And we just stick to this script because someone told us we need to have a sales script. So it's more important for you to get through your sales questions than it is for you to listen. So that's a big problem in itself.
And I have a general problem with people who have seemingly default. Phrases that they want to use to persuade you to buy. And it feels really disingenuous. I don't think you're looking out for me. It doesn't feel authentic. And the other mistake that people have is they go in with no plans. So let's just freestyle this whole thing and we can just wing it because, you know, Chris told us be present and ask questions, but you can tell pretty clearly that there's no strategy.
They'll just ask question after question. And if I'm listening to this as a coach or it's just as a bystander, I'm thinking this is a wild goose chase. I have no idea. The questions aren't leading or scaffolding towards identifying a real problem, a real goal, a need, or a challenge, or even a business outcome.
It's just [00:20:00] all over the place. So I believe the solution is somewhere in between where you have some kind of framework where you understand, generally speaking, at this point in the conversation, I need to understand this. And if I understand this, then I can proceed to step two. If I understand step two, then I can lead to step three, but not until I can cover what is supposed to be sorted out for part one and part two.
So it's something like that.
Jule Kim: Okay, that's a really good point. So we don't want people just asking random questions that lead nowhere. But at the same time, I think unfortunately what we're seeing too much of are leading questions. Would you mind explaining what that is?
Chris Do: Yes, a leading question is one where the question is kind of fake.
It's designed to elicit the response that you want to hear. For example, you can say, where would you like to go to eat? That is assuming that you're hungry and that you want to eat with me. There's two big assumptions there. So I can tell when somebody asked me that [00:21:00] question that they're hungry and they want to eat with me, otherwise they wouldn't ask.
And so we can see that pretty clearly in this kind of example. But when we're in a sales situation, there are many leading questions that you'll ask that you're not even realizing it's the same thing. You can ask a question like, why do you think personal branding will help you? A, I don't know what personal branding is.
B, I've never said I wanted personal branding. And C, I think you're trying to sell me something right now. So whenever we do something like that, anybody who's kind of semi conscious will start to feel negative feelings about you in that moment. And we describe it as, are you building rapport or are you breaking rapport?
So rapport is like, we're in sync, we're jiving, we see eye to eye, there's a vibe that's going on. And as soon as you ask one of those questions, it pulls me out, and it makes me ask, Oh, I was caught up in an illusion? I thought you really cared, but in truth, you really don't. In cinema, There's this thing that's happening when you're immersed inside of a movie that you feel what the characters are feeling.
So if they're scared, you're [00:22:00] scared. If they're excited, then you're excited. And when you can feel an edit, it takes you out of that dreamlike sequence. Movies are described as the closest that you can get dreaming while your eyes are open. So it is the editor's job to cut the film in such a way that you don't even realize there are hundreds of cuts being made all the time.
We think of it as one continuous sequence. So the illusion is maintained. So we're immersed in the world. So in conversation, whether you're out on a date, hang out with a friend, or you're having a meeting with colleagues, when you do something that breaks that you're doing that hard cut, you're letting everybody know we're in a meeting, we're on a date and I have an objective.
And it's not just. To be in your presence, there's something else that's going on, and we're very sensitive to this right now, like your spider sense will go off, it'll start to tingle, like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what's happening here? Oh, I think you want to sell me something, and if you don't know what [00:23:00] this feels like, just look through your DMs on social media, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and your email, your inbox, to see how many of those times you've read the thing, and you know, this is fake, I can already tell.
How long is it before they get past throwing gratitude towards you or appreciating what you do as they make a hard transition to, by the way, we've just launched a new product that we think you would love. So everything else that they say before that is completely negated because now your hand has been revealed.
Jule Kim: Yeah, this part that I think you're describing, that feeling, first is the disconnect, right? The cut, as you're describing. So as soon as the disconnect happens, you're kind of jarred out of it. And then you start thinking, oh, something else is going on. Now, you may think that you come to the call, the buyer or the prospect comes to the call, and of course, it's like, what is the point of this call?
Yeah, I think we know at the end of the day, we are talking to someone like this, a service provider with perhaps the [00:24:00] intent to check them out. And if everything makes sense, it feels good, then perhaps we could proceed to working together. But there's a certain way you can go about this. And unfortunately, I think people are so intent on appearing not salesy, they become deceptive.
So then when that disconnect happens, it's like, oh, As a buyer, I'm like, you have an agenda, also known as an ulterior motive, and then that's the problem. I no longer feel like you care about me. You have my best interests at heart. And of course, I know you want to sell me something, but again, that was kind of the premise of this call, unless, like, you cloaked it in one of those coffee chats that I get, like, a million requests for.
But it's unfortunate. So there's something you've taught or you've referenced multiple times, like an accusation on it. And I think even at this point, like an accusation on it of, Hey, you might think that you're coming to this call and I'm about to pitch the heck out of you. And I just want you [00:25:00] to know that that's not going to happen.
So you may buy yourself some goodwill, but then what happens? You pitch them, you burn all of that goodwill. It's like, what the heck, man?
Chris Do: I think you go beyond burning goodwill, you just lied. So for example, saying I'll pick you up and showing up late a little bit from picking you up is burning some goodwill.
But saying I'll pick you up and going to Disneyland and totally spacing out on you, you just lied. You made a promise and you broke it immediately. And so that's a different thing. So your level of resentment, your feelings about me are going to change drastically if I tell you something and literally just a few minutes later you lie.
Because what happens is, and I really believe in this, how you do anything is how you do everything. So when you lied to me on the call, theoretically this is the best our relationship is ever going to be. We're still in the pre honeymoon phase. It's courtship right now. And if you're going to lie to me during the courtship, what's going to happen when I give you money and I have no more leverage over you and now you are going to do whatever?
So [00:26:00] you have to be really aware of this. And this is true in all relationship in life. If you're dating, if you're talking to a prospect, don't begin the relationship on a lie, because the lie compounds itself because you have to keep lying to maintain the original lie. So somebody asks you a point blank question, and we see this a lot happening because we're in a political cycle right now, is when they ask a candidate a question and they try to avoid it, it just seems like it doesn't feel right to us, like, do you have a plan?
I don't have a plan, still working on a plan. Or what are you going to do about this situation? And to say like, I have a plan, this is what it is, and be super direct. And so I think there's something to learn about how we feel about others when they're evasive, or when they tell us something that we feel like is not the whole truth.
Our feelings towards them goes way down. Now I want to address something, because I want you, the listener, to be able to walk away from this conversation more empowered, more confident in your next sales call. [00:27:00] So what I'm telling you is this, there is an implicit agreement between buyer and seller to get on a call because buyer has a problem, has money to spend, seller has a solution and wants to receive the money from the buyer.
This is implicit. So to say like I'm not going to sell you is a strange thing. You don't even need to say that, because we're getting a call to see if my problem is something you can fix, and if I determine if you're the right person to fix it for me. People are not just jumping on these calls for the hell of it.
Very few people have that kind of time, especially the people that you've now categorized as potential clients or buyers of services. The more problems they have, the more urgent that problem is, the more essential it is, the more likely that this is a very important call to them. So let's just get rid of this whole subterfuge, this deception, this chicanery that we carry, that we're not going to talk about sales today because that's just total BS.
And a lot of people argue with me on this. And I said, look, [00:28:00] if you and I are in a sales room, I'm almost confident I'd clean your clock. I'd wipe the floor with you because of the way you approach it. And the thing they argue with me about is, and listen up everybody, cause I know you're listening to this.
You want to start the conversation with small talk. That is just you setting up a smoke screen for what you really need to talk about, which is why are we having this conversation today? What is on your mind? What is the reason that we're on the call? And if you can get to that and find out what the problem is, we've done some good work together already.
So we don't need to talk to them about, Oh, how's the weather? What's going on in your world? How's your health is hot today. Isn't it? All that stuff is just delaying and stretching out. The conversation from the point of which we need to talk about. Number one rule is respect the person in front of you.
And the way you respect them is you honor the time that they've given you. So to me, cut the small talk out. After you've done the business and if there's extra time and both [00:29:00] parties are feeling really warm and friendly towards each other, talk about all the small talk you want. But now you have removed the elephant in the room and that there was business to talk about, we've taken care of that.
It's kind of like exercising in the morning or eating proper nutrition before you have dessert. You want to do the hard stuff first so that the easy stuff you don't feel guilty over.
Jule Kim: I agree with what you're saying, even despite sometimes me opening some of the calls with small talk. It kind of depends on if the other person starts that first.
I'm not going to be a robot and be like, no, no, we're only talking sales. So there's, I think we fall into the trap of. Wanting to maintain social niceties, but then giving up total control of the call. You know, I've seen so many messages from people saying that their calls last like two hours. I'm like, what the heck is going on?
You know, you and I, we did a call audit for somebody. He turned in a transcript and a recording that was 90 minutes long. And it wasn't even the full call. And I was just like, [00:30:00] holy smokes, this call could have been cut in half easily and you would have lost nothing in the first 45 minutes. So it's, it's an issue I think with the whole honoring their time, but I also think it's a balance because I recently did a role play with someone and I found the person said, I think at least three times where I want to respect your time.
And so we're not aware. I think that when we keep saying the same thing over and over, it comes off disingenuous. And so, of course, I want to work with someone who respects my time, but the fact that they keep saying it makes me question them at that point. So there are little things like all along the road, you know, these, these little blips.
Chris Do: Yeah. Well, Jule, why don't we do this? I want you to prove me wrong right now. Why don't we pretend and slip into role play when there's new business, I'm the seller, you're the buyer, and you start off with a kind of social pleasantry. Social nicety, if you will. And let me see how it would respond to that.
Okay? So this is not scripted, everybody. I have no [00:31:00] idea what Jule's going to say. And Jule doesn't even know what she's going to say until right now. And so let's see how this would go and see if she feels, after we have this little part, how she feels. So play along, everybody. Just pretend like you're one of the two of us.
Like either you're the buyer or the seller. And in this case, I'm the seller and Jule's the buyer.
Jule Kim: All right, you ready?
Chris Do: I think I'm ready.
Jule Kim: All right. Oh my god, Chris. I'm such a huge fan I've been following your YouTube channel for eight years, and I loved that last video you did.
Chris Do: Wow, that's super flattering I'm, so glad we're having this conversation.
Just out of curiosity. What was that last video you were referring to?
Jule Kim: It's the video where you're talking about imposter syndrome. You know, I feel a lot of imposter syndrome and I just The way you said that, it, it hit me. Like I watched that video like three times, man. How do you come up with these ideas?
Chris Do: So is that video related to the reason why we're having this call today, Joel?
Jule Kim: Well, I, I guess in a way you could say that, you know, um, I find myself looking for some [00:32:00] business coaching and I feel like I have some imposter syndrome.
Chris Do: Okay. I'd like to ask for your permission to run the agenda for this call.
I find that when I do, we can cover a lot of ground together, not waste a lot of each other's time. And then, time permitting, and you willing, we can talk about whatever the heck you want. Is that okay?
Jule Kim: Yeah, that sounds good.
Chris Do: Okay, so the first thing I'd like to do is timebox this conversation. And I don't want to feel rushed at the end, not knowing when you have to leave.
So, we've scheduled 30 minutes to talk together today. Is that still the case?
Jule Kim: Yeah, that sounds right.
Chris Do: Okay, and if we need a little bit more time, is there flexibility or is there a hard out at 30?
Jule Kim: There's a hard out.
Chris Do: Okay, perfect. So if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you a few questions, and if I feel like we're straying a little bit from what I need to know to help you, then I'm going to ask for your permission to kind of just cut in.
Is that okay?
Jule Kim: Yeah, I guess so. Okay,
Chris Do: I noticed some hesitation there. Do you have some reservations about me cutting you off?
Jule Kim: You know, I don't think so. Um, I think now I'm starting to worry that I [00:33:00] might ramble too much. Okay,
Chris Do: don't worry. I wouldn't consider it rambling. I just think a lot of times clients have so much that they want to share that in doing so to try to like fill in the complete picture, it's actually for someone like me, it'll fry my circuits, if you will.
My circuits were short out, but I know in previous cases with the hundreds of clients I've talked to in the past, oftentimes, if you just Follow my lead. We're going to actually cover a lot of ground. You're going to learn a lot about what it is that you want and potentially the things that stand in your way.
Is that okay?
Jule Kim: Yeah, that sounds really good.
Chris Do: Okay, fantastic. End scene. Okay. Now, Jule, I fully gave you permission to dissect that a thousand different ways. I'm sure you will. Let me know how you're feeling. Talk about what you responded to, what you didn't respond to, or if anything that I unintentionally missed in our conversation.
Jule Kim: Fudge, man, this might, this might be one of the times where I have nothing to offer you here in terms of what I would change. The [00:34:00] first point that I noticed is when, you know, I was being the overly excited fan, which I know you get all the time. And when I see you, said imposter syndrome and that I've watched this video, you're like, what video?
And I was like, perfect. And then when I kept going on and I asked you, Hey, how did you come up with these ideas? The pivot. It was so good. You were like, is that related to why you're on the call today? And I was like, Oh, shizzles. That was so good. I am. I'm taking notes right here. And then. Asking permission to time box the conversation, double checking whether we still have the 30 minutes.
Is that a hard stop or can we go over a little bit? That was perfect because I think a lot of times what happens with people is they don't ever do those checks. They look at the time, and then even when time approaches, you've got five minutes left. They still don't say anything. Hey, we've only got five minutes left.
Are we still going on time or do you have to go? But the fact that you asked about it from the [00:35:00] get go is so much better because now you know, this is how much time you actually have. So let's use it wisely. The other point where, of course, I threw this in a little intentionally with the, well, gosh, I don't want to ramble.
Like maybe I'm too much, which I also hear a ton from the creatives. You were really good. First, you dispelled the notion that I'm rambling. You're like, I wouldn't call it rambling. This is just what it is. And I like to keep things time boxed. And then you said it's for your own benefit because your circuits get fried.
So that takes the load off of me from feeling like I'm too much or I'm somehow, you know, like extra. So that was, that was really good. And I'm like, gosh, that was expert, right? Like, we don't want people to say you do this, you do this. It's. I feel this. It's because I get like this. And then you're not blaming or accusing the other people, which we unfortunately see in a lot of our role plays.
And then the last thing you picked up on my hesitation, [00:36:00] you're like, is that okay? If I sometimes cut in and I was like, Oh, I, I guess so. And you're like, what, what's going on there? So seriously, man. I got nothing to change because that was so good.
Chris Do: Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks for playing along with me. Now, I'm going to tell our audience here some of the strategic things that I was doing, okay?
Because my mind is like a little mini computer. I'm like, input, output, input, output, and I'm just figuring things out. The first thing that you said was, Oh, I'm a fan and I was watching this video on imposter syndrome. Let me break that part down. When someone is gushing about you, you need to learn how to accept a compliment.
Like, oh my God, that's so flattering because otherwise a lot of us aren't comfortable with receiving compliments. And so we sweep it under the rug. So the other person is like, huh? I wonder if you heard what I said. Because you express yourself in a moment of vulnerability by saying I'm a fan. It's not easy for people to say that.
So to not to acknowledge that for them. Either one, they're going to feel really bad or embarrassed. Or number two, they're going to feel like they need to say it [00:37:00] again so you can hear it. Notice, like, when you're in a relationship with somebody and you're getting into an argument, the first time you say it, it's, like, really pleasant, the person doesn't respond, and I'm guilty of this in my real life, so, honey, if you're listening, I'm sorry.
Then she'll amp up the volume and the veracity of what she's saying to a point in which I'm like, oh my god, you just dropped a nuclear bomb on my head, I was just, like, watching TV, what happened? She doesn't know it, but what's happened is she said it four different ways to get it through my thick skull, but I couldn't hear it.
So she's going to have to escalate. Go ahead, Joel.
Jule Kim: I'm going to hold myself back and not ask for like specific examples, but I'm so dying to know some of these, you know, she said it four different ways.
Chris Do: Yeah, we'll have to punt that for another call, right? For an episode of Unfiltered.
Jule Kim: Yeah, yeah. But in this context, when someone offers you a compliment, I think what we don't realize is that So many of us come from cultures of having been raised to be quote unquote humble, which I'm like, unfortunately, your idea of humble is probably off.
And so [00:38:00] we have this automatic habit of downplaying or even rejecting or dismissing what they just said. We don't realize they've just offered us a gift. So imagine if you were to physically offer someone a gift and they just swatted it out of your hands, how would you feel?
Chris Do: Disrespect is how I would feel.
Like, fine, last time I gave you a gift, and that's not a way we want to hold our relationships. The next thing you said was, uh, I was just watching one of your videos on imposter syndrome. I'm pretty sure I know which one you're talking about. But that is not how I want to operate. So I'll ask you which one.
And so again, this is demonstrating one of the eight elemental skills of conversational selling, which we'll go much more in depth during the workshops is evidence based followup. So I feel like you, the client are expressing things that are really important to you, and I want to demonstrate full value listening.
So every little thing that you say, I'm a fan. You're gushing a video about imposter syndrome that you watched recently. [00:39:00] So you've given me two juicy pieces of information. One, quickly acknowledged. Number two, which one was that? Now, what's happening here, and you can tell me it was different in your mind, Jule, is all of a sudden you're like, whoa, whoa.
I need to be a little bit more intentional on how I'm communicating because Chris is going to pick up on everything that I say. So now you're like, okay, it was this video. And then the follow up question was, Is this the reason why we're having a call today? Does that, is any relation to that? Because otherwise you're going to, this is subconsciously, start to edit out things that are not relevant.
Because you're going to realize really quickly, Chris is really listening. So if I tell him about a ham sandwich I ate earlier, it should have a point to this conversation. Some slowly kind of, I forget what it's called, leading and pacing or pacing and leading. So it's like, okay, we're going to have a very constructive, productive conversation together.
And I'm not going to be sitting here wasting any of your time. So rather than said, I respect your time. This call is important to me. I demonstrate that versus [00:40:00] talk about it. So do not say.
Jule Kim: Okay. That actually triggered a memory. It was over so quickly that I didn't remember it right after we ended the scene.
But that moment when you asked me which video was it, it's something I actually ask a lot of people when they come to me and they're like, I heard you on this podcast where I saw this post. I will ask which podcast episode, but it was so interesting having you ask me the same question because I've never been on the receiving end.
And I had this moment of startlement, like for like a brief second, I felt a little put on the spot, but then it made me think immediately right after that is, Oh, this guy actually is paying attention. Like, he cares. Like, he's not just, fluff is coming out of his mouth. That was the general sense that I had at that moment.
Chris Do: That's good. So, I felt that you were a little startled, too, to be honest. Because whenever somebody says, Oh, I love this book on something, I'm like, Oh, which book was that? They're like, No thanks! Now I have to be [00:41:00] accountable for the things I say. This happens all the time to my friends, right? Friends, it's just how I am.
I'm sorry. I live as if what you're saying is important to me. And so this is why I think social situations for me are completely, like, just, it fries me out. I'm so tired because people are just saying and spewing out nonsensical stuff because they just want to kill the dead air. They want to fill all the gaps in silence.
And for me, it's like, if it's not important to say, just be quiet. It's okay if we just stare at each other for a little bit. Or if we nurse our drink, it's totally okay. And that's, in fact, it's more comfortable for me to do that than to be in constant dialogue, either receiving or sharing information. So when I asked you about that video and you're like, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, great. Now I know. And then of course, the next thing I had to do is say, I wonder if there's a reason why you're sharing that with me. Is it connected to our call today? And again, a little hesitation on your part. And then you got me, well, basically what the strategy here is, [00:42:00] the way I look at it is we're on a road and maybe it's two or three lanes.
It's not infinite, maybe two lanes. And I have to put up the guardrail. So our vehicle, the conversation doesn't careen off the road. It's on an off road vehicle. I want to keep it on the road. And it's maybe dangerous to go off to the side. So what I do is when I feel like the conversation is going off road, off track, I bring it back to on track.
And I try to do that in the most gentle way possible. And sometimes I have to do it a little bit more direct. Now, all of this. in case you're picking up on this, is very consent based conversations, very permission based. May I be able to control the agenda? Can I timebox this? Are you okay with if I interrupt you?
So I'm getting a lot of little agreements with you, and if you're not okay, then I'll figure out a different way. But when you start to feel this, and hopefully you feel this, what Jule was talking about earlier in our conversation is, sometimes the conversation feels like you're being wrapped up in a warm blanket.
What's happening? [00:43:00] Strategically, it's a couple different things. Number one is, and I learned this from my family therapist, children feel safe when they know someone's in charge. Because when no one's in charge, they feel really unsafe. And this has been proven throughout my personal life. Every time we go on a quote unquote, dangerous adventure, they oftentimes do not run to mom, they just run to dad.
Even though sometimes I'm a jerk because they know commander says, go, we go. We are safe. Commander says, stop. We stop. We're safe. Commander says, stay over here while I check out the danger ahead. Cause something is dangerous ahead and they feel safe. So in a call, the client is not your child. They can't be talked to in the same commanding voice, but they still need to know this is not your first rodeo.
You understand how to talk to prospects like me, and I feel more confident and safe that someone's leading this thing, because clearly if I knew what I was doing, I would not hire you. I would not be on this call. So that's what we do. So I'm asking for your permission to at least to take [00:44:00] control of the wheel for a little bit.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Chris Do: Enjoying the conversation you're listening to right now. You're going to love what we have for you inside the future pro membership from live group calls with myself and vetted guest experts to over 600 hours of pro exclusive trainings and monthly networking. You'll have everything you need to fast track your growth.
Check it out at future. com slash pro.
The Futur: And Rebecca, welcome back to our conversation.
Jule Kim: You know what it is that I'm thinking through this one sentence interchange between us. Yes, there's permission in your entire demeanor and it's not permission as in you're submissive, it's more gracious. Like, we're in this space together, let's do this dance.
I'm going [00:45:00] to do my best not to step on your toes and I'm going to let you lead where it makes sense. Is it okay if I lead sometimes? And so it's a very respectful acknowledgement, which that's the energy that I think everyone should come to every call with. But there is something a little bit beyond, if you don't mind me sharing, like my experience.
What made that one sentence where you said something like, I think I know, I think I What video you're talking about, or, you know, imposter syndrome. And you said, is that related to why you're coming to the call today? There's a connection to what I just said. So what I find with a lot of people is there's too many abrupt turns in the conversation.
So if we think about it, like threads. or even like a game of tennis, actually, that might be a little bit better. So in my mind, I'm seeing a conversation like a game of tennis. You hit the ball over there, they hit it back and you hit it back again. But what happens with a lot of these conversations is I think most people, had I seen Yeah, I saw this video, they would either have fallen down that trap of, oh, yeah, [00:46:00] you know, I produce a lot of videos, they would answer my actual question of how do you come up with these ideas?
Oh, you know, I have a content team or I here's my content strategy. I got content pillars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or they would have been Yeah, that's great. Let's save that for another time. What brings you to the call today? And that also would have been a little bit abrupt because again, you would not have acknowledged that I'm such a fan.
Again, it's a gift. So your turn was like, especially smooth there because you had a connection. You echoed a little bit of what I said. You said, I know that video. And then it's a relation between imposter syndrome and Why you're coming to the call. That's what made that so smooth. You were still picking up on the same thread, but still guiding the thread a little bit in a different direction.
That was really good.
Chris Do: Do you know who the wolf of Wall Street is? Jordan Belfort?
Jule Kim: Yeah.
Chris Do: He tells a story in his sales program that I caught a video somewhere and I was watching it and he said, I was out to, to buy a BMW. or something. I'd go to the BMW dealership and he would [00:47:00] tell this story and it's a pretty cool story to tell and there's a point here I'm going to make in a second.
He went to the BMW dealership and he's like, I want to buy that car. And the guy's like, well, let me show you around, show me the features. And he goes, I'm out. So he goes to the Mercedes dealership and goes to the Mercedes dealership and says, I want to buy that car. And the guy's okay, let's do the paperwork.
He's like, finally, okay, we're going to do this. And then he made a comment on the photograph and the, oh, I see your son plays baseball. So he stops doing the paperwork, starts talking about baseball like, Oh yeah, we're in the leagues and we do this. And I'm, I'm like a part time assistant coach. And he goes, I'm done.
He just leaves the showroom. Finally goes to a Porsche dealership and says, I want to buy that car. They do the paperwork. He buys the car and leaves. Because you don't understand when somebody's ready to buy keep the conversation focused and don't go past the sale so we can get distracted So the trap I could have fallen down Jule, which you kind of highlighted which is oh, I love this video I'm like, oh, yeah, you know that video.
Yeah, I made that in 2014. I didn't think anybody's gonna like it and you're like, okay So now it's gone off the rails. I deliberately took the wheel [00:48:00] and careened it right off the rails and now we're going down a 30 degree descent and we don't know what's going on and it's really bumpy right now. The whole time, I would suspect depending on who it is, even though they might admit it to you, is they're like, When do we talk about business?
When do we talk about sales? When do we talk about solving my problem? Which is why I've given you so little of my precious time. And that's a problem. And a lot of people fall down that trap, so I just want to warn some folks.
Jule Kim: When I think about why we fall down those traps, Some of it is connection based.
It's like, Oh, we feel really good. Somebody said something great about our content or something that we produced or created. But then if you sit there and you ask yourself, why were you so quick to actually take the bait? It's usually because of some desire to feel like you're worth. Something to prove your worth and this is I think the fine line what causes a lot of weird energy on our sales [00:49:00] calls or the role plays that we've seen is many of the people we've worked with are depending on that buyer or that prospect to prove.
their worth to them. And so this is where a lot of the calls, like literally, if you look at your calls, if you have run them through something like Otter or any transcription service, and you look at the percent of time you're talking, if you are talking more than 50 percent of the time, you are probably in this space.
And unfortunately, a lot of the people that I've reviewed their calls, they're actually talking 70, 80, 85 percent of the time. You're definitely in that space. If that's you, if you're talking so friggin much.
Chris Do: I would suggest people follow the 80 20 rule. For the 80 percent of the conversation, you should be talking 20 percent of the time.
And towards 20%, the latter part, you could be talking 80 percent of the time because now it's time for you to connect all the dots and let the clients know you've been listening and you've identified a few things for them with them. And it's important that you sort of end the conversation in that place [00:50:00] so that they know like, oh, there was a reason why you asked all these questions.
It should be self evident to them, but in case they're a little dense or they're not following along because they're overwhelmed with. the things that you're talking about, that that's very helpful now. So I would caution anybody who's going to spend more than the first 80 percent of the call talking more than 20 percent of the time.
There's some framing, there's some setting up, but after that, you should just ask a question and shut up. There's no need for you to keep going on because when your mouth is moving, you're not learning anything. So as we progress in the call, so I said, may I have your permission to set the agenda for the call?
This is the first time I'm asking you for permission to lead. And if you said yes, and most people do say yes, in fact, whenever I've asked that question, no one's ever said no. And so now I'm setting up that if I were to interrupt you or if I'm pushing things along, it's because you told me you literally only have 30 minutes and you have a hard out that allows me to say, okay, anytime that Jule pulls this conversation out, I have permission from her to [00:51:00] say, okay, I'd love to hear more about that, but I would like to redirect you here because I think we're really close to putting our finger on what the problem is.
And you're like, of course, I can remind you of that. And here's what happens a lot of times. If you do this the right way. Jule told me she's had her heart out at 30. People will say that because they don't want to go past the 30 minute mark. But I find that a lot of times when we're really in deep and it's getting real good and juicy, you have as much time as you want.
And that's a really affirming thing. I will still respect 30 minute time limit, but to know that she has gone against her own word to say, like, you have more time means you're definitely in rapport and that she finds value in the conversation. This is a good sign.
Jule Kim: I'm smiling because this just happened to me yesterday.
This person told me they had a hard out. They only had 40 minutes. And then I looked at the phone. I'm like, wait a minute. It's already like 50 something minutes. I was like, I, I thought you had a, you had to be, you know, [00:52:00] going. He's just like, yeah, push the meeting.
Chris Do: That's a positive vote for you. Like literally in the background, they're texting their assistant, whoever I'm running late, push the meeting by 20 minutes or whatever.
Because they find this to be very valuable. So the likelihood of you, at least being seriously considered for the gig, the job, or whatever it is, is very, very high. Now, the principles that we're talking about here shouldn't sound foreign to you. Because in theory, If you have meaningful relationships in your life with friends, with partners, with colleagues, with lovers or a spouse, then you're already doing this all the time.
You're listening intently. You're asking follow up questions. You're asking for permission. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. Now we're using a lot more guidance here because oftentimes in our normal relationships, we have many opportunities to F it up and that's totally okay. That's just part of the sloppiness of life.
But when you're on a new business call. You have to show up and be on point. You [00:53:00] have to be the best conversationalist you've ever been. When you put in that kind of context, hopefully right now you're listening to this and thinking to yourself, I've been approaching this sales conversation completely wrong.
And if that's the case, I have good news for you because that means your opportunity to grow is really high. And I've said this before and I really believe this in my heart, which is life would be really boring if I thought I reached the terminal station of whatever it is I wanted to learn. Like people who get a black belt want to get a second degree black belt, a third degree black belt, or some other version, or they incorporate a different martial art, because for me, learning is life.
Don't fret everybody. The fact that you now become aware of some of the things that you're deficient in and means that you now have the capacity to learn that thing and every little thing that you learn and apply towards new business development means that you increase the percentages of you closing a client, hopefully for more money and [00:54:00] with less stress.
Jule Kim: If I know the audience, hopefully half as well as I think I do, I think the one phrase you said where you need to be the best conversationalist, you need to be like in that first conversation, probably a lot of people had a moment of freak out right there. And I want to dial it back because I'm like, no, no, no.
You got to listen to what Chris said after because it's a freaking exciting time to be you. Think of this, like you losing weight at the gym. When's the period you lose the most weight? It's in that beginning phase because it is so easy to get that lift. There's so much out there, so many low hanging fruit that if you, if you even grab like three of them, you would improve probably by 50%.
And so it's like, think about that phrase, it's an exciting time to be you because it's so easy to grow where you're at from. And then it only gets better from there. It only gets [00:55:00] better, I promise.
Chris Do: Okay, so the whole point of us slipping into roleplay was to see if it's necessary for small talk or not, and to see if my ability to move it away from small talk to the heart of the conversation made you feel like it was off putting to you.
Because people argue with me all the time, small talk is necessary, and to a degree it is. And there's a way to do it so that you can gently transition from one moment to the next. And now speaking of transitions, it's one of the most important things that I've learned in my life is transitions. So when I create a moving image, I'm trying to avoid that moment when I take you out of the sequence, right?
So I create a transition. When I'm raising my children and we're trying to move from activity to activity, like, For example, playing with Legos to time to brush your teeth. I'm trying to create a transition. So the, that isn't so jarring. And when I'm in a sales conversation or writing an article, as I talk about one thing and that I want you to think about something else, that [00:56:00] transition is really, really important.
I'll give you an example. Cause I saw it on my phone early this morning. I saw a post from Alex Ramosi and he wrote, it's only been less than one month since president candidate Trump was shot. There was an attempt made on his life. There's been two new cycles for a rather significant event. And now no one is talking about that event anymore.
He goes, When something bad happens to you, just give it a beat. No one will remember either. So it was really interesting how he took a political event, and I was like, where is Alex going with this? He transitioned it to a business concept, that you might be going through some bad stuff, you might have effed up on some gig, just give it a beat, no one will remember, and you'll be okay.
So that was a beautiful transition. So when we're on the sales call, Juul, or the prospect, may bring up certain things that go, Uh oh! It's veering off track here. I'm going to figure out how to transition back so that the guardrails go up so we're staying on track.
Jule Kim: Yeah, I [00:57:00] think that's a really key skill and I think that's why we covered, we've done like so many calls in this summer.
Like even before we did the six part webinar series that's now up on your YouTube channel, we'd already done like four calls before that. So that's crazy if you think about it, like how we got here right now is we've done at least 10 calls on sales like just this year. And having The transition, like being able to smooth the conversation, the flow is a really valuable skill.
And so in my mind, you know, when I go back to the game of tennis, it's like you want to hit the same ball back and forth, or you want to end the game. But what happens a lot of the times is you're both hitting separate balls at each other. It's like, what are you doing then? You're not playing a game together.
You're just there on the court. And that's when the person starts to feel like their time is wasted. So there's an art to this. And, you know, that's, I think what, I don't know, actually, out of all the skills that we've kind of [00:58:00] taken people through on the role plays, which skill would you consider maybe the hardest to master?
Chris Do: There are actually two skills because there are two sides of one coin. The ability to ask the question. That is open ended, yet strategic, and the ability to listen to the response. Because if you can learn how to hear, then you can learn how to ask the next question. So if you ask a really good question, which we can all learn because you can memorize a couple of them that will usually get you through any kind of tough moment, but then your ability to listen is demonstrated by the follow up question.
That's why element number three of the eight elemental skills of conversational selling is evidence based follow up. That's number three on the list. It's not in any particular order, right? So I need to be able to listen to you. And I want to clarify something for people, because they're like, wait, wait, wait.
You mean transitions are the skill? Yeah, they're a skill. Well, haven't we done this before, Chris? I'm like, no, you haven't. And here's how I know. [00:59:00] Client is talking about a problem, we're getting somewhere, and then you transition to, by the way, you need personal branding. That is not the transition I'm talking about.
The transition is get them back on track so they can identify the real problem, which happens to be number one on the list. What is the real problem? And I need to keep asking questions till I understand the problem. Then once I understand the problem or the desired outcome that you want, I can move on to the next thing.
That's the track that I'm on. What's the problem? What's the challenge? What would this mean for you? And when I figure that stuff out, pretty much you're going to sell yourself. To me, you'll say, this sounds wonderful. How do we get started? What is the cost? And then I get to talk about whatever package I may or may not have for you.
So the transition isn't to get to the point that you want, but to understand the whole point of the conversation, which is the problem, the challenge and the, and why you're doing this in the first place.
Jule Kim: I'm really glad you're saying this because I'm having an immediate flashback to one of the role plays I did [01:00:00] recently.
And the person told me she was sitting there thinking, when do I get to tell her about my packages? I'm like, as the buyer, and this is in the debrief after the role play, I was like, as the buyer, when you got to that point, I was like, why is she talking about her packages? I still don't know what I'm getting.
What's my problem? Like what's in my way? Like you've answered none of the major questions, and yet here you are talking about your packages. I'm like, stop talking. Like I want to hang up the phone right now.
Chris Do: I just got back from an amazing epic fishing trip that I wish you were there for. So I'm often to make fishing analogies to show you the absurdity of what you're doing.
Okay. Cause we're like in our process is how we do things. And we think, Oh no, this totally makes sense. When you're talking about your packages, your pricing, how it's going to work, the scheduling, the benchmarks, milestones, and all that kind of stuff, it's like you in the boat with the net ready to go.
That's you. Ready to talk about your offer, right? The problem is our lines aren't in the [01:01:00] water. We don't even know if there are fish here. And there's nothing on our line. So if you want to stand like an idiot with the net out at the ready, while we're still out in the water, kind of get into the fishing grounds, then that's on you because you like to hold things up.
It's not until that you actually have a fish on the line that you've set the hook, that you've played the fish. That means the fish is tired out and it's saying to you, I'm ready to come in the boat, that then you get the net. And it does so in a very specific way. Salmon point towards the boat when they're tired.
Where their face is not pointing towards the boat, they're not ready to be brought in. And that's you again, with that net, trying to swat at that fish. And this is how more fish are lost, and I got to witness some of that with my friends. The fish was still splashing the water, trying to make a run.
Somebody gets the net out, and then they fumble it once again, and the fish is gone. That's you. Too eager, too desperate. And I tell people this because this men are more guilty [01:02:00] of this in the fishing boat, and then you can draw its own conclusion in the real world is like, I'm a big, strong, muscular man. I have long arms.
I'm athletic. I used to play college ball, right? Something like that. So when this fish is near, I'm not going to risk. Losing the fish for my fishing partner. So they sit there and he swat at it. Like if, if their athleticism is going to be the thing, what they don't realize is when that net comes into contact with water, two things happens.
It freaks the fish out. Cause it's not, it's seeing something come in and knows it's a predator. It's going to freak the F out. Number two, what you don't realize is when the net hits the water, there's friction and resistance. It's not swatting in the middle of the air. So you hit it with certain velocity and immediately, like, you know, how like people dive.
There's a splash and it slows the thing down. So people don't anticipate that. They keep telling themselves, I'm going to bring this fish in. And what happens more often than not, fish is gone, heartbreak. All you get to have is to tell the story at camp. about the one [01:03:00] that got away, that you almost bagged a fish.
And this happens all the time.
Jule Kim: So what's the answer then?
Chris Do: To the fishing part or to the sales conversation?
Jule Kim: I mean, the fishing or the sales, you're using this as a metaphor, man.
Chris Do: Yeah, I am. So you play the fish, the fish is tired, and at some point it says, you are the better person, I'm ready to come in the boat.
When it points its face towards the boat, it is ready. At this point, it's not going anywhere, and you got a good hook in there, and you lower the net, and you swoop it out, one move. And when you do it the right way, it's actually pretty easy, and it's almost foolproof. I've missed a couple times, but very rarely have I ever caused someone to lose their fish, because I'm patient.
I'm like, you got this, I believe in you, I'm not putting this net in until I know that the fish is ready. So the person who's fishing, sometimes they start to panic, like net it, net it right now. You know, they're not playing the game and they don't have the confidence that the tension that they created will keep the fish on the line.
So now in real life, [01:04:00] when you're talking to the prospect by asking them questions, helping them to understand the problem, the challenges stand in their way, you've hooked the fish, you're bringing them in and you play it nice and slow. Every time you ask an evidence based follow up question and you get them to clarify things.
And you're getting closer to a problem. It's them swimming towards the boat. When they point their nose to the boat is when they say, this sounds exciting. I think you've nailed it. What is next? How do we proceed? What does this cost? What are the milestones? Then, you know, it's time to get out the net. Now this is where people mess up.
People will mess up this part all the time. They're ready to buy. And what they do is they let more line out. They're like, no, I want to play this game a little bit longer. And you fumble it once again, when the prospect is in a position to say, I'm ready to buy, you stop fishing, you get the net out.
Jule Kim: In this image with the fish and they point their face towards the boat, right?
They point their face towards you. I had this feeling of, ah, the fish [01:05:00] is tired. They're like, give me a place to rest. I'm ready for this struggle to be over. Let me come home. Like, give me a soft landing place. So I think number one, that's the difference. It kind of reminds me of something you said like a long time ago, where we don't realize, because you're saying, especially the men on this fishing trip, we're like, let me get the net out and it's a little too soon and I don't want to risk losing this fish.
That's the scarcity mindset. So we don't realize that the people out there have fewer options to buy from than the reverse. You have an infinite number of clients out there who you could work with, but you're coming at this with this energy of scarcity, like this desperation, I can't let this fish get away.
And that's actually what kind of kills the whole thing. And it's like, aren't you tired? Let me solve the problem for you. Come home.
Chris Do: When you described it as I'm ready for the struggle to be over. I think that was an excellent way to describe what the client or the [01:06:00] prospect feels in which I've been having an SEO problem.
I'm having a conversion problem, having a design problem or a branding problem, a marketing and messaging problem. I don't want to struggle anymore. And if you're the person I was going right to the boat, and believe it or not, unless it's a really, really big gig, 10 minutes is all you need. You don't need 30 minutes to talk to them.
It's a 10 minute fight, if you will. Now, the way we, we end the struggle is we bonk the fish in the head and bleed its gill, but that's a different story. I know that's kind of too much for people to hear. Dude, why,
Jule Kim: why you gotta go there? Why do you even have to
Chris Do: do this? Well, because when you're like, Jule, you're killing the fish.
And it's, I just want to be there to keep it real real. It is so ready. So typical you. Oh
Jule Kim: my God. So typical Chris right here. Gotta get all graphic violent. Oh my God. That second part of what you said, that people will make the mistake when the buyer's ready, right? But then you let out more line. I have had people tell me that they were like, I don't know [01:07:00] what the F happened.
Like they were the buyer. And they were like, just so ready. shut up and stop talking like I'm ready to give you my money. And the person kept asking more questions and kept putting them through more hoops. And they actually unsold themselves. I'm like, Oh no, what happened?
Chris Do: Yeah, it happens a lot, actually, when they're ready to come in and this has happened in professional places by professional people I've employed before where they go past a sale.
Because if the whole point of the conversation is, do you have a problem I can solve? It's an important and urgent problem that needs solving. And if I'm the right person, then that's what we got to. When we get to that point, we should not be inventing new problems to talk about. We got exactly what we thought we came to this call for.
And believe it or not, and I don't want to get into it, but people go past this sale all the time. All the time. Now in your real life, this happens like when your child Is developing an argument or a debate and all the reasons why you should let them do something that they think that you won't let them do, like [01:08:00] go to a party or buy something expensive and they're building up in their mind how this conversation is supposed to go and they come to you.
It's like, Dad, can I buy this thing? It's a and it's cost for whatever 100 bucks. I'm like, yeah, but you know, I really need this thing. And they keep talking and talking. I said, I already said, yeah, and they keep talking and talking. I said, if you say one more thing, I'll change my mind now. That's with my own child.
Okay. A person I brought into this world, a person I love more than my own life, that I'm willing to say that to. Imagine if it was a prospect and you just kept doing that. They're like, you know what? It's going to be miserable working with you. Never mind. I'm done. And this happens. You're like, this would never happen to me.
I guarantee you've done this. If not you, someone on your team has done this. When people say to me, I want to book you for the speaking gig. We're going to pay you whatever you want. I don't ask them, like, what are the terms? It's like, they already said, we'll do whatever you want. The rest of it can be negotiated, but right now it's about taking the deposit and booking the gig.
And that's what you're trying to do, everybody.
Jule Kim: I was laughing so hard. I was on mute. I'm laughing though, because I had a [01:09:00] call this morning with someone where he was like trying to convince me to do something and I was like, okay, and then he kept explaining, kept explaining. And I was like, dude, I already did it.
Did you not see? Like I literally implemented it right in front of you because the screen was shared. It's like, stop talking for the love of God. So there's something that I shared in a role play practice with somebody recently. I was like, you got to be careful. Like watch out for that tendency to overexplain and to keep talking.
It's like, why are you doing that? And in today's day and age, this is not the same as like when you and I were growing up, like 30 years ago. We are inundated with. so much communication and so much media on so many different platforms and channels. We have Facebook, we have TikTok, there's LinkedIn. You get like a thousand emails per week.
We don't realize that the longer and longer we keep speaking at somebody, they just tune us out. So it's likely they're not even listening to you. And sometimes like this is going [01:10:00] to sound awful for me, but I had a coaching client. I mean, I still have this client. Sometimes when he just goes off and I've already, Given him like the answer and he's just keeps talking.
I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've tuned him out. And he, he was like, yeah, like, what do you think? And I was like, I don't know, dude, I stopped listening. And he just busts out laughing. Keep that in mind.
Chris Do: There was a point three that I think you wanted to make on this. Third point was, Chris, I didn't realize how amazing fisherman you are.
That was the third feeling. Cool, no joke. What are you talking about? Why are you laughing?
Jule Kim: Oh my lord. Yeah, well, at least on your trip, you're the expert fisherman. For sure.
Chris Do: Don't say that, that's insulting to me, at least on your trip. How dare you dismiss my angling abilities?
Jule Kim: Oh my god, no, no, no, for real, for real though.
If any of you ever go on this fishing trip with Chris, and I'm probably going to be on this Olays fishing trip next year.
Chris Do: What do you mean probably? [01:11:00]
Jule Kim: See, he's going hardcore here. He's just like Mark Manson. There's no trying, just do. Yes, I will be at the fishing trip next year. But if you come to this fishing trip, just be prepared.
Chris is like the Wikipedia of how to fish on this trip. He will tell you all the little tricks and the nooks and crannies, and he'll tell you to bring like a throwaway nail clipper, so you can have a quick way to release the line. So many tips. It's, it's gonna be fun.
Chris Do: You know what? The people who listened to me, they thanked me, I got the clipper, it's ready to go.
And they were able to cut the line so fast. Versus go racing in the box for a knife. And so here's the thing, and maybe this is kind of where we end the conversation here today. Which is, there are people who have experienced The things that you want to experience. We've done the things that you hope to do one day.
So when you have an experience guide, whether in fishing or in sales or in branding or identity design, pick someone and then trust them and just follow the process. So the theme for next year, and we [01:12:00] talked about this is I'm going to make sure it's for everybody. It's going to say trust and believe.
It's something that our friend Phyllis Trotter loves to say all the, all the time, trust and believe, trust and believe, trust in the process and believe in yourself and your skills. If you do those two things, you're going to have a lot of success in life and I want to memorialize the lessons that we learn in the water, in the world, to apply back when we're on land and doing our thing.
Trust in the process and believe in yourself.
Jule Kim: I'm going to throw something in here, is at least trust us in the process, at least trust Chris, and if you can at least come to the experience, whatever that experience is, you will have your life changed. You will learn to trust and believe in yourself coming to the event.
And I know that sounds salesy, but here's the thing. If you look back over your life now, and you see where you're at right now, everything you have done so far has put you where you're at now. So isn't it time [01:13:00] to do something different? And I have been there, like I've been there, like four years ago, I felt like I could never make it as a coach.
And now with the contracts that I'm landing today. Sometimes I look back and I'm like, holy moly, how did this happen? This is insane. A lot of it has been thanks to the guidance I've received from you, the guidance I've sought out from mentor coaches, the hard work I've put in into studying coaching and studying how to talk to people, understanding people.
But there was a point where I tried to run away from all of this. I was like, oh, SEO is easier. Let me run back to what I know and what I'm comfortable with, because that's easier. And everything you're experiencing is totally normal. That is what we do as people. It is not natural to go out and seek to do the things that are hard, the things that push you out of, outside of your comfort zone.
So if this seems hard or difficult or risky in any way, Just try to [01:14:00] trust at least in Chris or whoever that guide is for you at that moment. Trust, show up, and just let it happen. And before you know it, you will see. Things will change. Like today when I look at the stuff, like I was just telling Chris, I can't believe I woke up yesterday for a 6am.
Even two years ago, I would have been like, hell no, I'm never going to that. I can't sign up for that. If you told me that I would start to be able to work out and maybe be able to do a pull up, I would have laughed in your face. I was that kid with the wet noodle arms in high school. Like they tell you to do the arm hang, they lift you into position.
And as soon as they let go, I fall like a sack of potatoes. It's like that was me and yet now I'm almost there. It's incredible if you just try it out. So just try it.
Chris Do: I would say this. Back in 1995 when I started my company, the kinds of resources that were available then pale in [01:15:00] comparison to what's available to you today.
This is kind of pre internet 1995. It's pre Google, pre YouTube, pre webinars, pre Zoom and all this kind of stuff. And so I had to struggle in the best way that I could and reach out to people the old fashioned way, pick up the phone and call someone and say, Hey, how are you doing your sales thing? Can you help me?
And I struggled to find someone who knew what they were talking about, who's willing to spend time sharing with me what it is they knew how to do. So, unfortunately no one. was able to do it. And so I just struggled through the whole process. And I keep thinking back, how much work and money did I leave on the table?
And something I learned from a mentor a while back is, he said that when, when the iron is hot, you must strike because good times don't last forever. And I didn't really heed his warning because we're in the boom time in the early 2000s making just hand over fist, just tripping on piles of money. The most money, the most profitable I've ever been in my life.
Running [01:16:00] like jobs that were 85 percent net profit margins, which is bananas. And I assume these times will last forever and they didn't. So I keep looking back and I don't live with regret. First of all, it's a useless emotion, but I wonder sometimes if I had a mentor, a coach, a guide to teach me, like if I found Keir five years before I found him at the beginning of my business life, I would have just cleaned house.
I might have been the kingpin of motion design in LA. Who knows? The only reason why I bring that up to you is you're in a different time now. You have access almost to too much information. Amazon is available now. So there's books and resources, all these things. And I now know what the new problem is.
It's overwhelming. There's just too much. It's a paradox of choice. You don't know which way to go. And so I'm not telling you that I'm your guide to this thing. Just find somebody. Find someone that you resonate with. Their style of speaking. And if they've been around for a minute. And if they haven't, Do your [01:17:00] due diligence, because a lot of you get taken advantage of.
Now, for a lot of people, my style of selling this permission consent base that's led with generosity, that's low pressure, that's designed for introverts just like myself, it might not be the right program for you, and I totally get that. If it's not, I'm not your guy. But I've made the intention this year to work on my teaching skills.
I've hired teaching coaches. I've consulted with improv teachers to show me new ways of teaching things so that you get to experience it versus listening to it. And those are two very different things. And I'm very guilty of this. I take pride in my ability to disseminate information, to take complex concepts and distill them down to simple, easy to follow things.
But I've not been as good as I want to be in the transference of those skills from me to you. And that's the intention behind all of these workshops that I'm doing right now, because I'm going to get to a point when almost every single person who's willing to do the work shows up and is drastically improved from where [01:18:00] they started from, maybe they're not a sales ninja on day one, but they're vastly improved.
And I know you're sitting there thinking, well, Chris, show us the receipts. And we have plenty of anecdotal evidence, but there's two that I want to call attention to. And so, Jule, if you don't mind, can you share some of those with us?
Jule Kim: Yes, of course, Chris. So there is somebody who texted me literally just this past Tuesday.
So two days ago, and. It was amazing because she said, so I've had two sales calls since learning from you guys, and one ended up at 60, 000. I got the sale. It's a 60, 000 annual contract. And I was like, holy shizzles. This is crazy. It's so cool. And then somebody else unexpectedly sent me a message. And this is me.
It's not like I go around asking people like, hey, are your sales up? But this. Next person who was in the pro group, [01:19:00] she said right after she did the role play with me, she actually landed a 5k client, like the week after, and I thought, this is so great, you know, so there's definitely a difference. I think maybe three years ago when I first told you, I said, Chris, I have a hard time learning from you.
You're so far ahead. It's like, I can't grasp what you're saying, like what you're saying sounds good, but I cannot grasp it. Like, it's hard for me to actually put that into practice. And now I think what we're seeing is every time we do these role plays or these sales calls, I get flooded with all these messages of people saying this one thing you shared, I did that and it changed everything.
So we're getting messages every single time we have a call. And then I forward the messages on to Chris.
Chris Do: And then I complain, why don't they ever send them to me?
Jule Kim: It's you, man. You're too scary. It's the scary Asian dad.
Chris Do: Share with me your success. I can hear the complaints, but I love hearing about your success, everybody.
I get to hear [01:20:00] about those more in person in my DMs, and I'm not so good at screen capturing them. So I just like, oh, it'll be here when I need to find it. And then 3, 000 messages later, I'm like, who said what? I can't find any of this anymore. Okay, now I do know this anecdotally that people who watch a lot of our free videos on YouTube comment like literally this changed my business, closed this size job, I'm doing 200, 000 a year, you helped me quit my job, you give me confidence and all that kind of stuff.
Here's the summation of all this. Having money is good. No doubt about it. Being affirmed in the belief that you're a good person, that you do, you bring value to the world and that the decision that you made to be this kind of gifted misfit, a term that Brian Collins shared with me, it is affirming. It's a boost of confidence and you need some vitamin C.
You need more confidence. And when you can do this and the stress starts to like fall away from your body, like you're shedding that skin. That's the most important thing. Because when you start to have that belief inside of you, this mindset that [01:21:00] I can win any job, it's just a question of if this is a good fit for both the client and for myself, that's the life changing.
So yeah, the money will come, but the money is a by product of your confidence going up and your ability to naturally have really great conversations. I will share this one thing. There's a gentleman, his name is Noro and he attended our workshop and I saw him again, He attended the half day workshop in LA.
I saw him Las Vegas at a conference. He goes, Chris, the things that you teach go way beyond sales. So I'm like, yeah, what do you mean? He goes, my relationships, my communications has improved so much because what you're talking about is how to be a better conversationalist. And I'm using it, everything. And that to me is like music to my ears.
And it's, it just warms my heart to be able to hear stuff like that. And if this is something you want to do, you have an opportunity. I don't do these workshops all the time. October 12th, Miami, we're doing a full day workshop. Myself and Carlos were the gangs getting back together. And instead of rushing through it for half a day, you're going to get a [01:22:00] full day.
We're applying the learnings that we got from the last time. Plus what I've been coached on. So new exercises, new ways to experience this. And if that wasn't good enough, Jule and I are putting together a workshop in London, October 29th and 30th. So it's a two day workshop, one day full deep dive with me, and then the second day, a lot of like follow up and like, let's do it.
Pull apart these exercises and really give you more hands on experience and more coaching so that you can walk away having been transformed. Now I know it's crazy, but we're limiting these workshops at 30 people. We've already sold a third of the tickets for London. So don't hesitate. Everybody save your spot.
I'll put the link in the description below. So check that out and it'll appear somewhere on the screen. Now, this would be crazy, but I'm kind of crazy. I know this about entrepreneurs. They know that to make money, you spend money. And I'm always learning every day from what I consider thoroughbred entrepreneurs, people like Neil Dhingra, people like Jason [01:23:00] Starr.
The amount of money they spend on personal development is insane to me. And I keep asking myself, am I an entrepreneur? Do I put money at risk for gain? And the crazy thing about these entrepreneurs is no matter what they spend, they always get a multitude ROI back on what they spend. So if you're so inclined, go to the Miami workshop, book a ticket and fly to London, we'll see you there.
So you have two and a half days or three days with us. And to me, that would be transformative and you can do that. That's it. Joel, you wanted to say something?
Jule Kim: I think when you were describing, what's his name? Is it Noro?
Chris Do: Noro.
Jule Kim: Noro. And that's at the same workshop that Brianna was at, yeah?
Chris Do: Yes.
Jule Kim: I realized I forgot to say Brianna's name.
She's the one who landed the 60k client. I love her. Anyway, when you were sharing that story of how it's like, this is affecting everything in his life. And I'm like, it goes back to that thing you were saying, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So you [01:24:00] learn what you think are just sales skills, or what you think are business skills.
And it's actually a cascading like a domino effect. So you start at any point in your life and there is stuff to gain no matter what. Yeah. So you talking about like these entrepreneurs investing in themselves. I'm like, of course. It's like, I'm the person who shows up and I'm going to get what I came for.
And it may not necessarily be what I thought I was going to get, but I'm going to get what I came for and more. And it's that at more part. It's beyond what I ever expected. If you look at me three years ago, I don't even know how much you remember me of three years ago, but you and I have known each other for about three years.
And I remember being really stuck in this place of, I don't believe in myself. I don't believe I can make it as a coach who's going to listen to me. The crazy thing is it's like, even when people were saying yes to me on my sales calls, I would then self sabotage. I would take like two weeks [01:25:00] to send them an invoice and a contract.
And it's like, who does that? It's like bananas. So the stuff you will do because you don't believe in yourself, it blows my mind. I'm like, you know what? Why don't you try letting life be easy? The fish are tired, man. They're ready for the struggle to be over.
Chris Do: Sometimes you're the fish. Come to the boat.
I'll put one bonk between your eyes. I'll make it clean and you'll be sent to fish heaven. I'm Chris Do.
Jule Kim: I'm Jule Kim.
Chris Do: And you've been listening to the future.
The Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The future podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. [01:26:00] If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple podcasts.
It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit the future. com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

It. And so I set out on a journey to enable creative people to make things, to do things. I desperately wanted businesses to understand and embrace good design, creative thinking, the creation of [00:03:00] high quality, well thought through products and experiences for consumers. As I thought this, I mean, it was kind of those days, like, look at Apple, this works.

Look at Microsoft, look at Google, look at Facebook. I mean, all these things we're having, you know, some of those companies were having their Renaissance and some of those companies were, were creating the Renaissance in the industry. And so that led me on a journey to how do I make great things? I started out as a, mostly as a freelancer and I ran into some barriers there.

I knew there was a better way to do things. I didn't have a career. I wasn't great at doing things that way. I just knew they should be done that way. I had a hard time convincing companies to do them that way. And, and also the freelance life was a bit lonely for me after some time. We didn't have the community that we have today back then.

And so it was really a lonely existence. So those things added up to me to start an agency. I said, okay, well, what do I need? I need people that are smart at various crafts. various trades within this ecosystem. I [00:04:00] need a brand that I could use to leverage. Into convincing clients to take the leap to invest in doing things the right way.

And I wanted a community around me. And so those things were starting agency. So I started an agency called handsome in late 2011, early 2012. And that was a great time. That was around the time when mobile was becoming a sophomore. Mobile apps are becoming a sophomore. I mean, it's like 2007, 2009, they launched everyone rushed to have one.

And so there was this gold rush, 2012, 2013, things were maturing just a little bit. And so was this idea of quote, designed thinking and quote, human centered design, things that we kind of take for granted now. But these were pretty new, especially in the larger corporations back then. So a lot of demand for good design in 2012, 2013, 2014.

[00:05:00] And Handsome had a great run. Over the next 10, 11 years, we grew our client base, including companies like FedEx and Visa and Audi and Meta, and just for me, again, kid from a small town in Texas. Use the public library computer to learn how to code. Now is working for the fortune 50 creating software experiences for consumers of great consequence for those companies.

It was a fantastic journey as we start rounding out. 2017, 18, 19, and heading into the COVID era, things at Handsome were booming. You know, the company was about 140, 150 people at its, at its max as a, as a design agency doing great work, loving it, great people, but I started to feel detached from. Why I got into this business in the first place, what drew me and think back to the early days of the internet and how fantastic and magical that was.

And now we were being [00:06:00] asked to scale things. We were being asked to take. Ideas and decisions and specifications that came from somewhere else in the company And implement those things. I felt like the role of design Had changed and as an agency I was kind of being especially because of our size I was kind of being pulled into that gravity And so we can get into in a minute, but that led me to metamorphosis Handsome into raw materials, which is the creative company that we are today.

So it's a bit about my journey and why, why I got started and how I got here.

**Chris Do:** Wonderful. Thanks for doing that. I have a lot of questions to ask you about your early days, because there's a lot of like parts that I have to like dig into and geek out with you. But ultimately, I want to land on all the branding stuff, the design stuff, the stuff that I get to see on your website is all the beautiful stuff that young aspiring agency owners or designers want to be able to do.

So let's split this conversation into two parts. I know that you mentioned that [00:07:00] you're interested in code and design and websites and things of that nature. What I don't know is, besides going to the public library, did you go to school for this? Did you concentrate in a specific major or is this all self taught?

**John Roescher:** All self taught. I saw things. I thought those are cool and I want to know the people who did it and I want to know how it was done and I want to make stuff that looks like that. And then I just kind of connected the dots the best I could. In fact, I said, I never was, you know, I was never very good or trained, let alone professionally trained in anyone craft or trade.

And so I looked, I quickly found my role as enabling those who were great at these things. And I think that helped me not have that professional or academic training. I just looked at myself as a, like, as a servant. Let's, let's help, let's help great creative people do great things because I know that's valuable to business.

So yeah, no, no schooling, just right into it.

**Chris Do:** That's crazy. Okay. It's even more remarkable because there are a lot of jumps here. Help me out here. So if I'm a young [00:08:00] person. I'd say I'm in my early mid twenties and I don't have access to the education that some other people have. What are the things that you can recommend looking back on your life that I need to work on so that I have a portfolio that I can even get freelance work?

Cause that's something that people are asking me all the time. Like, how do I get my first gig? Chris, look at my work. Is my work good enough? How come I can't get anything? What are they missing? What did you figure out?

**John Roescher:** There's a couple of things. So one, like I said, a couple of times, I figured out what it was and wasn't good at, and then I had to make a decision, the things that I am not, I mean, back then, I'm not good at anything, but I think there's some, some insight there too, if your portfolio is not good, it's because you're not good yet, there's a lot of information that's practice.

That's figure out what level of taste you want to be at, what level of craft and quality you want to be at, and be honest with yourself, and then just put in the time. I mean, that's as simple as put in the time, practice, cycles, reps, make things, do things. Always put yourself in a situation [00:09:00] where you have to rise to the occasion.

So there's a little bit of like, It's kind of synonymous with fake it till you make it. But that's a careful thing. If you're choosing to fake it till you make it, you got to know that's what you're doing and you got to fake it and then make it, figure it out, make it happen. So I think there's a couple of things in there, right?

It's like being honest with what I, what I'm good at, what I'm not good at really being honest about what I want to do. Like I said, I love these things. I just. I didn't like, here's something I didn't like to practice doing certain parts of the trade. So illustrating, I liked illustration. I wanted to be a good illustrator.

I didn't like practicing illustration. So that was an insightful, okay. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be there. I liked wireframing. I kind of liked practicing doing that, but I didn't really like getting into the nuts and bolts and taking it all the way through to something that works and makes sense and is, and is incredible.

Cool. Okay. I don't like practicing doing that. What do I like practicing doing? What is the actual day to [00:10:00] day, hour to hour job that I like doing? And then just run with that. I think that that helped me. And so what I liked doing in this case was helping clients understand the value of these things, masterminding what all it's going to take to do it.

And then finding the talent and enabling them to do those things. I loved practicing doing that. I felt comfortable. 25 years old in a room with a VP of product of a big company talking to them about what needs to be done Did not feel comfortable doing it. And so I just leaned into that and I think that's what I think back on When I think about that

**Chris Do:** How does one who's mostly self taught have the confidence and the acumen?

To be able to ask the right questions and to probe in ways. There's a big mystery here There's a I can't figure it out Like here it is the enigma because a lot of people who are exactly where you are at 25 Don't come to the same result or conclusion that you do. So help us unpack that, please.

**John Roescher:** I think it starts with [00:11:00] believing in whatever you're doing or talking, believing that it's needed, believing that it's valuable.

Like I said, I knew I wasn't the greatest at it, but I knew that it was the right thing to do. I tried, I got out of the military. And one of the jobs I tried was as a car salesman. I decided to do something, I had to make money. So I said, okay, I'll be a car salesman. I sold zero cars in one month and quit.

Okay. I was asked to practice by a general manager and froze up one of the only like two or three times in my life where I've had a panic attack and just frozen up because I didn't give a crap about those cars. I didn't believe in it. I didn't care about sales and I just froze up. It was impossible. But when it comes to this kind of stuff, I look at a company, I look at a brand, I look at a product and I say, I believe that there is a way to make this great.

And then if it is great, It will sell more and it will provide more value to customers. And that gives me the confidence. And I can be honest, say, I don't know all the ins and outs of this, but I do know that it's right, and I do have confidence that given the right kind of investment in, in, in focus, we [00:12:00] can find the right people to do this.

And so it really starts with that. And like, and so connecting passion with something that you really believe in, you think it's true, it becomes a lot easier to navigate stressful and high pressure situations.

**Chris Do:** Wonderful. Take me back to that time when, however you want to define it, that first big breakthrough where you're, Whatever size client doesn't really matter where you felt like, okay, this is good.

Now I'm having this meeting. And then you walk away with that gig. How did that meeting come about? What happened during the meeting and how did it turn out for you? And give us a little context. How old are you? Where are you? How did this thing come about?

**John Roescher:** That's a great question. It's forcing me to think back.

The first time that really happened was with a company in Austin called Silvercar. It doesn't exist anymore because Audi acquired them in sequence of us working with them, not because of the work we did. I mean, we had a big, we had a lot to do with it. And so Silvercar was, you know, they were setting out to disrupt the car rental industry.

So I don't know if you or [00:13:00] listeners remember the company Silvercar, a lot probably do. It was a great, you, you go to, you use an app to rent an Audi. And you get an Audi. It's, it's a beautiful car. This was before Turo, so Turo kind of solved all this. But it was a beautiful car, very seamless experience, took an industry that sucked and everyone hated, that had no pressure to, to fix themselves, the car rental industry, and they solved it.

Their slogan was car rental that doesn't suck. And I loved that. I loved going into that and saying, okay, you're doing something that is going to be successful because it is a good experience and that's your brand. Your brand and your experience don't live up to that. So here's my opportunity. Okay. Is everything that I believe in right here.

So going in and selling that we could do that connecting with their executive team, your leadership and CEO to chief product officer, CTO, I was 27, 28 years old, we had a tiny office in Austin, Texas. [00:14:00] Probably a dozen people or less, probably eight people. Everything's so bootstrapped and scrappy. Are the tables we were working on were Ikea legs with some desktop tables that we found behind a dumpster.

I mean, this is startup world as early mid twenties and getting a project with silver car to do the brand holistic user experience and in the design of the key flagship touch point, which is the mobile application into it and. That moment of selling that was great. Connecting all those dots together, having a CEO that I thought was a very smart guy, very successful, very smart guy, but more of a business builder than concerned with these things.

Get it clicked, okay, we're going to do this. That was great. And then we're off the races. Then we had to deliver it. That was kind of, I don't say fake it till we make it, but that was like, okay, here you go, there's the opportunity. And having the confidence in my team to kind of pull together, we needed to make that happen.[00:15:00]

That was a great moment. And then that led to subsequent projects with them and with Audi and gave us amazing case studies. And that, that was one of the big stepping stones for, for that agency.

**Chris Do:** Were you involved in the initial outreach to them to even get that meeting in the first place?

**John Roescher:** Great question.

Because yes, it doesn't always happen. We have organic, we have referrals, you know, our business come to us in so many different ways, but it is those times where it is that cold direct outreach that turns into a major project that feels so good because you're, it's controlling it, you know, controlling your own destiny.

Yes. That one old LinkedIn message to the CEO. Because it was a cool Austin company, a growing startup, LinkedIn message said, Hey, I think that we could help you. And that turned into that project. So yeah, I'm proud of that one.

**Chris Do:** Wow. That's awesome. Was that literally as the simple message that you sent? I think we can help you.

**John Roescher:** Something like that. Yeah. I think

**Chris Do:** what you're doing.

**John Roescher:** and I think we can

**Chris Do:** help you. Yeah. Okay. [00:16:00] Well, for people who have tried that same line of messaging and are getting no results, times are different these days because everyone is in your DM saying, Hey, we can help you. And for me currently, it's a big turnoff because it's like, I don't even know you.

Okay. How about we talk first? Like, is there any interest from you or is it your, I'm a meal ticket, you know? So it's kind of tricky these days. How would you approach it in 2024 if you've. Spot is somebody that you really genuinely believe you can help. What would your cold outreach be like today? Would it be the same or would you change something?

**John Roescher:** No, actually it would be the same. And I think it would be more effective today for the reasons that you mentioned. Everyone, and this kind of goes now into even some of the raw materials philosophy and what we're doing in design that is, that we believe in. It's a strong parallel, but It's a simple fact, but everyone's trying to over optimize.

And the answer to these things, and cold outreach is the same, let's optimize this thing, let's scale, it's power in numbers. Oh, everyone is saying you need, you need to provide value, you [00:17:00] gotta, you know, there's all these like methods and tools and tactics and things. Well, everyone's reading the same stuff.

Everyone's doing the same stuff. The human brain is wired to recognize pattern. And so you just see pattern, you see noise, you block it out. What is different is saying, Hey, bud, really cool stuff. I think we can help. How many messages do you get like that a day? Or maybe, you know, me or anyone else. So that is just one example of doing something, A, that is different, B that is personal and genuine and C that relieves the pressure of having commit to, let me give you a demo or whatever your tactic might be.

Those things, they exist because they work, but I think trying something different, trying something more genuine and personal and back to what I said before, truly believing. in what you're doing versus trying to win at a game. I think there's something in there for me. And that's a very [00:18:00] personal thing.

And that's just kind of my style in general.

**Chris Do:** Okay. Now we move forward in the timeline. You grow handsome to a point in which it's like 140, 150 people. Something doesn't feel right for you. Can you articulate? What that feeling like, what happened? Like you're the founder of the company, right? And sometimes people have a hard time understanding this is sometimes the company becomes something that you're like, wait, this doesn't feel like the way it felt when it was just me and three people.

So something happens, what were you feeling? And then how did you go about kind of morphing that into its next iteration?

**John Roescher:** So there's something that I think about a lot when trying to help clients think about strategy, which is. It's just this two part philosophy. A, necessity is the mother of invention. So there's always a reason why something new exists.

And then B, that no idea is ever as good as when it is first conceived. The problem is, [00:19:00] you have to realize an idea into a real product or whatever it might be. And then, what's even worse, is you have to scale it. And realizing an idea, always Puts that idea at risk and scaling it really puts it at risk And so the best companies in the world are companies, you know, everyone says like ideas are cheap ideas are down a dozen It's really an execution.

Okay, that horse is beaten But I think there's truth in there and like I think the insight is that what's hard Is maintaining the value and the quality of the idea as you go to realize it. And especially as you go to scale it. So back to your question, started handsome because I had an idea. It was a need in the market.

10, 12 years later, handsome existed so that handsome could grow. And so that handsome could scale, not for the reasons why we started it. And I think that's a thing that founders, you know, individual founders, companies, and the biggest companies in the world. [00:20:00] I think even companies like Facebook went through a bit of an identity crisis, lost what they were, you know, they gave up the move fast and break things.

And it turned into a extract as much as we can from what we've gotten. You kind of lose your way. Well, we're nowhere near the size of Facebook or non meta, but the same kind of thing was happening with handsome. The reason why that was happening was because I think that was happening in the design industry in general, which is.

Because that was happening in the technology and other, and some of the larger industries in general as well. And so what I felt happening to my own self and my own, as I was existing in order to, when I was, the problems I was solving was how to scale this thing. I think the reason why that was happening is because the design industry was turning into a function of implementation and scale, and that's because the design was being employed by these companies who were trying to scale as fast as possible.

And so I just kind of. Woke up and looked around and said, Hey, this is not what I wanted to do. And I, when I started out, so what is it that [00:21:00] I want to do? Well, I want to use creativity to create things that are valuable and successful because they are different and they are the right thing and they're different and the handsome wasn't really geared to do that.

So the question was, okay, well then do we just kind of reconfigure ourselves? Do we evolve ourselves into that thing? Companies can evolve and change. And we just got to a point where I said, okay, well, If we're going to be asking our clients to do this, we need to fully take. So let's completely change ourselves.

Let's start over again. Let's create a set of principles and fundamentals that we believe in and let's build a company to do that. And it took us stripping the company down to basically nothing and completely changing our name, our brand, our reason to be a philosophy. And at a certain point. You have changed so much that you are not the thing you were before.

And that's what led into, uh, to, to where we are today with raw materials. So that's why I kind of think of it as a, it is a brand new company. I call it a [00:22:00] metamorphosis because there is a lot of connective tissue or, or, or leftover kind of DNA from. That are handsome days, but it is only those core things that drove me to start back You know 12 13 years ago not a lot to do with what we were doing in the recent years

**Chris Do:** Take me through some of the strategic and emotional things that you had to process in order to go from handsome to raw materials because i've had cycles in my career where i'm like Yeah, this is not fun anymore.

I'm not sure what happened to this company. And it's not even anywhere near, it's like one 10th of the size of your company and thinking, Oh my God. First of all, the need to like, just keep things going becomes the overwhelming driving force, which is not a good reason. And you talked about that. It's like, you just feed the machine and you're like, why am I even doing this?

And I'm not getting any joy from this or very little joy. And something had happened, but even saying like, who are we going to keep? How do we phase this down? What's the external communications going to be like? There's all those things and I'll voice [00:23:00] it. Some people, myself included, feel like the fear of failure, the perception of failure.

It's like, no, it's just not right for me right now. It's not because I can't do this. But it's just, it's not what I want anymore. And if I'm going to pursue this creative life, I want to make sure it's filled with the things that give me joy. Otherwise I get a corporate job somewhere. So can you take us through a couple of things?

Like, cause you obviously had to let people go. Cause you said you, you dropped it way back down to almost nothing. So that impacts the lives of people. Let's talk about that first. Like, how do you feel about that? How do you execute that? Because that's a really tough thing to do. It really is.

**John Roescher:** And that was tough for a lot of reasons.

I mean, it was tough for the people that were affected by it. It was tough to, you know, quote, kill your darling kind of thing. It was scary. The thing that made it all make sense was coming down to a core truth principle. If you believe in it, there's a thread here that you've helped me uncover. If you really believe in something, then everything [00:24:00] exists to try to make that thing happen.

Then all that makes sense. And the people and the businesses and things that are affected kind of comes to this, this, this idea that something should exist because it is, because it's wanted and because it is needed not exist because on kind of false or fake pretenses. This thing is okay, but it exists because I'm good at selling it versus this thing really should exist.

And it's, it's level of success is, is more representative of my ability to realize it in less than my ability to keep something alive. So I think that finding that core truth, that core principle was the answer to all those questions you've just asked. And that, that was a process. That was a little bit of a journey for me.

And I, it wasn't the first step in the journey where I thought, or I looked back to why did I get into this business in the first place, there were a couple of steps before that. It was a, what kind of business do [00:25:00] I want? Wrong question. Okay. What kind of lifestyle do I want? Wrong question. Those are important questions, but later.

And I just kind of walked myself into, okay, well, I am only going to be successful if I am making something that I think truly should exist. Everything else should be just a process of helping that thing exist. And then that's what led me to think back to why I did it. Back to John Rocher in junior high at the public library being fascinated by websites, whatever those were back then.

Let's bring that energy back to today and that kind of attitude of I could go get a corporate job or I could cash out and that's a real good option for me. So let's do this exercise and only doing the thing that you really believe in and should exist. There was a moment during COVID that was very difficult for Hanson, as it was for almost everyone in the early days of COVID.

Thought the world was ending and it did kind of stop for a second. And that means [00:26:00] revenue stopped for a second, big companies pulled back on projects and budgets. And so we were faced with some very hard decisions and my COO, who still is COO of raw materials now, Jennifer Allen, helped me think principally and just saying like, you know, so the way I describe it is a business should only exist to the extent that it can generate demand for the thing that it sets out to do in the future.

Which is actually agencies and service people, service providers in general, whether you're a freelancer or an agency really are susceptible to this thing where you're doing work that quote pays the bills, not quite the work you want to be doing. And it's so easy to get lost in that. So easy to kind of lose where, who you are and where you started.

And it's so hard to pull back out of that and build a brand and build a business and build a portfolio out of the work that you really want to be doing. It's kind of a very simple business. It's like you use a portfolio to convince [00:27:00] clients that you are capable of doing that kind of work. So it makes sense that you need a portfolio that is best representative of the exact kind of work you want to be doing.

But if you're filling your time, or if you're, I mean an agency is just kind of the same thing as a freelancer, just more people, more hours. If you're filling your hours doing work that isn't what you want to be doing, sure you're making money, sure you're staying alive. But you're not helping your case.

You're not building your book, you're not building your brand. And so, anyway, long story short, that principle will only exist as a result of your ability to generate a demand for the exact thing you want to be doing. If you can't, Then a, it's not needed or wanted and you're kind of wrong, maybe wrong, bad timing.

I think the whole world needs this and like, okay, well not really, or you're not great at generating demand for it. And those two things are true. It is possible to exist without those things being true, which is what I'm saying. Some people are just really good at selling things. [00:28:00] Or some people are willing to do things that aren't what they want to be doing.

So that was a journey I had to go through with raw material to say, okay, What do I really think needs to be exist? I analyze and six in and assess the industry I worked with pablo marquez the chief creative officer of raw materials jennifer allen chief operating officer All three of us came from different parts of the industry long careers and we all came to the same conclusion There is this thing, there is this problem to solve.

It will always be a problem to solve and we should solve that problem. Raw materials should only exist as a result of our ability to generate demand to solve that problem. And so then it was a process of which of these clients do we feel like align with that, which don't thank you. Nice to work with you.

We've helped you, but we're going to do something different. And then which of our team were either up to that task. ready for that journey, suitable for that journey, or [00:29:00] were a part of those clients that worked with that. And it helped give that conviction. I don't like letting people go, of course, no one does.

But no one wants to be a part of something that's wrong. And so only what's right, that helped make, give clarity on making hard decisions and has given us the confidence to navigate the last 18 months or so of raw materials. Because it's been hard, but having that, that truth and that passion and that purpose has been, that is the answer to all your questions.

**Chris Do:** So the three of you got together, shared a vision, defined principles that you want to live by, and then made the decision, like, these are the clients we want to keep, these are the team that are most aligned with what we want to do. And is it then a gradual wind down or do you just call everybody one in at a time?

It's like, okay, this is kind of handsome going away. Thank you for your service. We're doing something different.

**John Roescher:** It's a little bit of a both. It's a gradual wind down. I think there's some tough, tough, tough but important topics. You know, I think decisiveness and clarity [00:30:00] are very important as a leader when people's lives and livelihood are on the line.

So being honest, being swift, being decisive is always the best thing, providing clarity and transparency. So with those values in mind, I think the best way to handle something like that is as many people at once as fast as possible. And no blowing smoke, no being opaque, no pretending. And so that helped, you know, these are hard things.

You got to do hard things. So having values and principles and employing those as strictly as possible, really helped you do the right thing while doing the hard thing. And that's, that's how we, we did our best.

**Chris Do:** You do and I'm right there with you. Did you have a couple of people who did not take it? Well, and how did you respond to that?

**John Roescher:** No one takes it. Well in these things I'm not equating it to the same kind of experience but as a as a freelancer who then turned into an agency owner Rejection and getting fired getting [00:31:00] rejected and getting fired is part of it's part of my job We're pitching clients. We're trying to keep business.

And so I think it's always hard. It's an emotional, hard thing. You, you, you get, you get scared, you start to doubt yourself. You get angry. You want to, you want to blame someone and all that's totally fair. I think everyone has a bit of that. That went through that process. I don't know what everyone really went through internally, but I think going back to those, those principles and trying to handle it the best way we did.

Yeah. The best way we could, I think, helped quite a bit. I think again, like having those reasons. Having them be for the right reason and then communicating that I think helps everyone, you know, stands the best chance of helping everyone deal with it in their own way. But

**The Futur:** it's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.[00:32:00]

**Chris Do:** Are you committed to making 2024 your best year in business? We want to help you make it happen. With expert guidance, a supportive community, and exclusive trainings, the Future Pro membership was created to give you everything you need to take your business to the next level. Go to thefuture. com slash pro to learn more and join us inside.

Okay, back to the conversation.

**The Futur:** And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.

**Chris Do:** Last question on this, and I'd love to talk about branding and the kinds of things that you're doing today, is from the moment in which you woke up one morning or Maybe woke up in the middle of the night and said, this isn't right. I don't want to do this this way anymore. To [00:33:00] the point in which raw materials is created.

What's the timeline on that? Like, how long does it take from this doesn't feel right in my gut. We need to do something. A lot of the planning, the definitions, and then now we're raw materials. How long did that take?

**John Roescher:** Well, the real answer is it wasn't a clean or clear process. and didn't sit down with a brief and conduct a strategy and creative exercise to figure this out.

I would be interested to, to know what would have happened if we did it that way. It was more driven by feeling, you know, there was a, there were different moments that happened. It's a journey, right? So I think there was a big moment. I believe it was in 2019 when I said I need a partner in this that that has done this at a large scale in the big leagues, Jennifer Allen came from RGA, long career at RGA and in other other types of bigger agencies.

I need someone like that who wants to build this. This [00:34:00] thing from even back then I was this is not what am I doing here? I'm building a machine It's not what I really want. Okay, so there's that kind of that feeling that happens and then we get to a point We're like, okay things are successful here from an economic perspective and from a brand building perspective.

How are we going to use this? So I think that was really, you know, at the beginning of 2022, I think we can think, you know, six to 12 months out, which is as an agency, it's hard to do that day to day week to week. I think we can just look 12 months out. Let's really start to do some vision here. So I think that is, I would say that's the moment when Jennifer and I said, all right, what are we going to do with this thing?

And so we thought, okay, well, let's, We want to be doing better work. We want to be working with better people. We want to have projects that are more true to what we believe in. Okay. What's that going to take? Well, let's find a chief creative officer, creative partner. It can be at that same level with us that has done it, done these things.

And so we set out to [00:35:00] find chief creative officer, then Pablo Marquez joins, and then that was, The moment where we're like, okay, you know, he asked some great, great, very hard questions. What the hell do you even want to do with this? Why are you doing this? I thought you said you wanted to be great. What is this?

We building a business and we doing great work in business as a result of that. This is a really good, hard questions for us to answer. That's about the time when I started thinking back to, okay, Thanks for asking me that question and being a good chief creative officer, helping us do a bit of a creative process here, existential kind of creative process.

And so I started thinking back to why I started as, as Jennifer, as Paula merged those things together. That led us to the May of 2023 when raw materials launched. So for the year before that, when is the whole time where we were defining what raw materials was going to be. In early in that process, we decided to completely change from handsome and started out as a rebrand.

Handsome, [00:36:00] as I say, we quickly found ourselves like we got to get rid of Leo, if we want something different and new, we got to not try to change what exists, truly create something new. That was about a year process. And then may of 2023 is when raw materials actually launched after a year of kind of business and brand.

defining and designing. A year before that of thinking about what we really wanted to do, what really needed to exist in the industry, what we wanted to do personally. So I would say, if I had to say, give a time frame to it, it was about a two to two and a half year process from like, something's got to change to raw materials launches.

**Chris Do:** Thank you for taking the time to kind of explain it in a more nuanced way, because a lot of times people think, Oh, It's a linear path and it didn't sound linear at all. I was going to say it took you almost four years, but something feels funny. I think I'm going to do this and that turns into this. And then I bring the right people and then they bring clarity.

And then all of a sudden we have a plan and it just, it's [00:37:00] rather amorphous, but you, you kind of had that, maybe that gut feeling I told you that this isn't right. I don't know what the answer is yet until you get there.

**John Roescher:** Yeah. So the things that made all that possible, it is, like I say, I would be really curious to see what happened if we did a more formal, rigorous, creative process, the kind that we ask our clients to go through with us, but I think the things would be true in a, in a, in a more rigorous creative process, the kind that we ask our clients to go through.

One is clarity on the goal. And that was that something feels wrong. What am I, so the goal is what I really think should exist. Let's make that thing. Okay. Then it's. Open mindedness, which is really in a, in a, in a commercial or kind of project environment means trust and faith in the process. You don't have to be too open.

You gotta be a bit open minded if you want creativity to do its job, but it's really, I could call that more kind of trust the process, have faith in the process, rigor is called for. So trust, do the rigor and trust the rigor, and then just [00:38:00] have so much conviction and belief in what you're doing that you do it to a level of highest level of greatness.

That you possibly can just go all in on that and that's what happened That's and I do think that still applies very much though to a more, uh, rigorous of fixed project environment Like what we do raw materials

**Chris Do:** Okay, you've done the very difficult thing that very few people are able to do You kind of ripped off the bandage and was like, you know what we're gonna bring this down to nothing We're gonna rebuild We're going to make more strategic decisions that are aligned with our principles, and we're going to build it back up.

So let's not jump to the future. That was the hardest part. And thank you for outlining kind of what had happened and telling us the behind the scenes look, which we very rarely get a glimpse at, at the scale in which you're operating. So what is raw materials today? How many people are involved in. Is it realized in that initial conception or the idea that you had and how does it match up to that?

**John Roescher:** So what we're setting out to do with Raw Materials is to create a creative company. And we only barely know [00:39:00] what that means, which is part of that open minded, fluid nature of things. But what we do know is that we want to build a company that exists based on the belief that creativity, when harnessed and applied in the right ways, exists.

Is I truly believe is source of the greatest potential value for any endeavor. So the idea is use creativity and a serious way to create things. And if you do that, right, those things are valuable and things that are valuable can be monetized if that's the goal. I think that as an agency, which I think what is a design agency, creative agency, it's, um, it's projects, it's SOWs with clients.

I just try to boil it down. So, so I think that that's a great vehicle for that. Clients have a need, they have resources, they have reach, they have problems to solve. So a creative company works well as an agency for clients. But really what Raw [00:40:00] Materials is, is trying to understand and explore what it means to create the environment and conditions for creativity, really create value, and then, you know, you know, make things of value and monetize that.

Raw Materials is, you know, today it is an agency, we have clients. We're doing digital product design work, largely, as well as brand work, mostly in conjunction for clients, uh, like, you know, Peacock and Netta and Google and 7 Eleven, you know, big companies, big consequences. And, but we're also doing things that are, are realizing and exploring that idea in other ways.

We're building a creative community that's in it. That's going to have its own life, its own soul. That is going to, um, you can be fueled by, by raw materials to go and explore that idea in different ways. We're doing projects and creating things that aren't for clients that are solving [00:41:00] problems that we think need to be solved, whether we monetize those or not.

And then who knows where it goes. So the number of people that are involved, you know, I think it's, it's I'm happy to say that that's a kind of a hard question to answer If you really wanted to get into some spreadsheets and say how many FTEs are doing things Which is one way to answer that question.

Let's play about 30 30 to 40 people at any given time at the moment The number of people that are involved in in a broader scale could easily easily If you double that and I think the idea is that we can help and influence and support creatives Um In ways that can kind of be larger than ourselves.

So that's why that number can kind of be hard to answer. Yeah, so that's what we're

**Chris Do:** doing. Did you have to get rid of the old space and move into a new space? Or are you still in the same space? Or how are you operating today? Well, COVID helped us out with that.

**John Roescher:** We left our space. Handsome left its space in, uh, March of 2020 and never have been back in a physical space for any permanent period of time.

So we have [00:42:00] people now that helps us have big, uh, you know, tenets of raw materials is find the best talent in the world and enable them to do the best work of their lives. And we're true to that. We do find the best talent that we possibly can, regardless of where they are. We have people working in Europe and South America, Canada, you know, all across the United States.

So, there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle on that one. So, we'll have to find other ways to be physically present.

**Chris Do:** What do you do to have that same kind of culture that That you have before when everyone's remote, we have the same problem. COVID, everybody's scattered like the wind. And we started asking ourselves, do we like to be in a commute?

Now, do we want to live in cities where the quality of life isn't matching what we want? Or we have elderly parents. And so everybody just left. Then I had this building. I'm like, what am I doing with this? Okay, well, now we got to get rid of the building. And we go through this whole process. But there is something I really do miss, John, which is, walking by the team and it's like, what are you working on?

Oh my God, that's really cool. Who did this? This is super [00:43:00] awesome. Or Hey, there's this resource that I have or this thing that might make your thing a little bit better or easier. I do miss that. I'm not sure I miss it so much that I want to create this giant operation or even have a building just to have a building.

And so what do you guys do to, even with the 40 ish people to keep that culture

**John Roescher:** alive? These are great questions, and I think mostly I don't have answers to them, which is an honest answer. And I think the reason for that is, I think there's, we're, it's kind of a paradox or a conundrum. I believe that the best work happens when people work together in the same space.

I also believe, at the same time, that all of the best people don't live and can't live in the same place. So, what do you do? Do you get the best people to work on a problem as possible anywhere they are in the world? Or do you get the best people that, to work on a problem that are within the same locale?

And I'm not, this sounds a bit facetious, I actually don't know [00:44:00] quite the answer to that one. It's a lot easier to experiment on the former, which is what we've been doing so far. I don't know that in our future we aren't going to try to experiment with the latter and try to do things to help people be physically together as much as possible.

It hasn't been our focus for the first few raw materials, but it is a great question and a problem to solve that we haven't solved yet.

**Chris Do:** Okay, I appreciate the honesty there. So then I'm going to ask you a super nerdy question, okay? If you don't want to answer or you're like, no, you need to talk to the CTO about this.

What does the tech stack look like so that you can do work remotely and still feel connected? I'm always curious. The nerd in me is like, what is the tech stack? How do you guys collaborate?

**John Roescher:** I think we're doing most of the things I would, I would imagine everyone else is doing, but let me maybe I'm wrong in that.

You know, I think we, I'll say this, I think we're fairly unsophisticated just in the sense that we like to find the most basic tools and then using the best way possible, I think. So we're Slack, [00:45:00] we're Figma. I think things like Git and things like that have helped development environments quite a bit, and that's been around for a long time, but nothing sophisticated on the kind of productivity and teamwork side of things.

And then also I think leaving it up to teams and individuals to kind of figure out what's best for them. I think that's a pretty big thing. We're pretty fluid and open. We don't impose. Everyone must. You speak jam every time, no matter what, you probably find a dozen different things being used at any given time.

It's just whatever is, I'll put it like this, it's whatever is best to solve the problem in the moment and building a culture then that's kind of strong and resilient enough to, to exist and thrive in an environment that is a bit more fluid or ambiguous. What do you do for files like shared assets?

Transcribed Again, it's pretty fluid across things. I mean, we have, if it's documentation, [00:46:00] we're fairly standardized in the Google docs. If a lot of the file work is done in in Figma. So a lot of the files and assets can exist there. So doing a lot of digital product design and then as it is other types of media.

I think it's going to mostly exist either between a file sharing and slack or storage in Google.

**Chris Do:** You mentioned something about these principles that you and Pablo and Jennifer sat down and talked about. I think you mentioned six, but maybe I wrote that down wrong, and I wanted to follow up with that.

Was it six? And what are the principles? And if that's not interesting, it's fine, but I don't want to leave that open thread because somebody's going to be yelling, Chris, why didn't you ask about the principles? And here I am asking about the principles.

**John Roescher:** Well, I, I think it's best to have a single, like I was saying before, the, the best thing you can do is have a single core principle or truth.

And for us, that is summarized best as when everything is the same. Different is [00:47:00] the greatest opportunity, and that's synonymous with creativity is the source of the greatest. Potential value in for any endeavor is kind of the same thing. One is more of a means to an end, I guess, but I think that generally is the core principle.

Then everything else is to support that. I said, finding the best talent. And enabling them to do the best work. That sounds like a nice little tagline that any agency could and should say and believe in frankly, or any creative, but what is different is that we have made it our, our work at the moment, our life's work at the moment to really explore and enable that as much as possible.

We are obsessive over those things, finding the best talent. There's a lot in there. What is the best talent? What does that even mean? Where are they? How do we find them and know that we found enable them to do the best work? What all goes into that? What is even the best work? How do we create an environment?

[00:48:00] A lot of that's, you know, Jennifer's role as the chief operating officer of a creative company. That's a lot of what is the absolute best environment for great work to happen? Not how do we scale quarter over quarter or what systems do we use so we can squeeze as much margin out as possible? Okay. I mean, we do some of that stuff cause we have to as a business, but that is the inconvenient afterthought of everything it is, what is the environment that will do the absolute best work?

So I think, you know, those are some of the core principles, but it really comes down to helping create different. For in any of the work that we're doing as a means to an end of creating value and then everything is just kind of trying to figure that out and apply that whether it be for clients or or working for ourselves or otherwise.

**Chris Do:** Well, I guess I know you're saying it kind of sounds like a. I think that every company should say the best talent, but then you have to make decisions that align with that, allowing people to work remotely because the [00:49:00] best talent don't always live in town. In fact, most likely they don't. And then being kind of agnostic about the tools that you use and not saying you have to use this tool set, whatever works for you works for us.

So you're kind of building that into this. I forgot to ask you this one question is when you have client meetings, I assume you have client meetings where you have to go somewhere. I don't know. Maybe it's a new world. We don't have to do that anymore. Do you do that? And where's the team? How does this work?

Do they, are they in town? Do they fly in and then you do the big meetings or no?

**John Roescher:** So I'll answer it in a couple of ways here too. And it's like one, like, I clearly believe in thinking this way, I'm going to go back to the principal answer. It is always going to be what is going to create the best work. For some reason, I think that that is not the first question that an agency, especially the larger you get, again back to the whole goal becomes scale.

The goal may have started out as I want to do the best work and then the goal turns into scale. But we're trying to maintain as much as [00:50:00] possible what's going to create the absolute best work. And that becomes the justification for anything, including the expensive task of flying half a dozen people from various parts of the world into a single place to meet with a client and co work together.

If that isn't going to create the absolute best work, but just seems like something that will make the client feel better or something that will help morale. It's not going to, I think a lot of times. Getting on Zoom and opening up Figma, opening up, you know, whatever the tool of the day is, we do a lot of strategy work, we do a lot of design work, a lot of development work.

It's whatever the tool of the day is. Opening that up on Figma with a client and getting to work kind of hand in hand with a client usually is going to create the best work. And that doesn't require you to be in the same space with a client. Um, asking someone to fly from Poland to New York, For kind of a political, social reasons with a client, [00:51:00] you're not going to find that here, you're, you're going to find us kind of going back to that principle.

And so then it becomes easy. Our decision becomes easy. Do we do it? Do we not do it? How do we do it? And we just kind of blindly follow those principles and it's worked out for us.

**Chris Do:** That's wonderful. I love that answer. Is this something that you walk clients or prospects through before you get involved, because some of them are like, what, what do you mean?

You're not going to meet with us.

**John Roescher:** Yeah, absolutely. You know, our work starts the very first conversation we have with the client. And I think our work starts with the brand that we build. I think that's kind of a fun kind of way to think, too. It's like, the end product, and Pablo, something Pablo's really helped me, you know, you think you understand this, How you can say it and then you find yourself not doing it.

Truly, everything that you do affects the end product. Every meeting, every email, every proposal, every edit of a spreadsheet, one way [00:52:00] or another, affects the end product. And if the principle is create the absolute best work possible, You need to think about everything that you do all the way through. And that includes the brand that you build.

That includes that first sales call. And so the easiest thing that I know what we do is we let the client in on that. One of the very first things we say, uh, you know, on the first call is like, just so you know, we're going to treat this as if we're doing the work together. So let's go on this journey starting now.

Let's talk about the problem you're solving. Let's talk about the environment that's going to need to be created to create the best work. And then there's a bit of that kind of self selection, kind of validation through the process. That's a bit of an educational process and also a bit of is like, let's get in and create that culture together starting as early as possible.

So then it's not a surprise when we come in the end and say, say, Hey, why don't you all come in and spend a couple days with us here. Why? Like, how's that? You know, honest question. How's [00:53:00] that going to help the work be better? Oh, this is why. And it might be because our stakeholders really want to see your face around here.

And if our stakeholders don't see you, then we're not going to have as easy of a time getting buy in on the things you make, which means we're going to have to make more sanitized, generic stuff that they're not afraid of. Good answer. We're going to hop on a flight. We're going to be there because it helps create the best work possible.

And as we scale as a creative company, working as an agency, We're going to maintain that that posture that culture and that will be the challenge because I again I think as you scale as you get more owners as you get, you know, you're beholden to Keeping employed dozens and dozens of people Etc. That principle gets is one of the first things that starts to degrade.

Why are you doing this? Because of a number, not because it's going to make the absolute best thing that is most successful possible. And it just keep going back. If that's always what you're doing, every [00:54:00] hard decision is going to be made much easier. You can have much more confidence and the clients are going to completely understand.

It's the, uh, that's the, really the driving answer behind everything for all materials.

**Chris Do:** For my last question for you, I'm going to ask you something I've never asked a podcast guest before. And it's the Dan Sullivan question. Are you familiar with the Dan Sullivan question?

**The Futur:** No.

**Chris Do:** Okay. He's like the, I guess the king of coaches, uh, for people and very successful and a prolific writer.

His question is this three years from now, you and I are looking back on the past three years, what has happened personally and professionally that's made you really happy? So now we're in 2027 towards the third quarter. And you started this thing, I guess it's been about 18 months or so about this idea, but living in these principles and making every decision grounded in this one core idea.

Take me to the future. Look back and tell me what's happened. What do you see? So,

**John Roescher:** [00:55:00] what would make me happy is that big things have happened. So, we've got big, iconic, legendary projects out there in the world that the industry is looking at and saying, There's a renaissance here. This is what's needed. We need more creativity in the design of our experiences and products.

We were so sick and didn't know it, of the sameness that proliferated. Digital experiences, digital products, and in a lot of cases brands. Design of our everyday things became such a saturation of sameness. And we, we didn't know it. We didn't know it. We know it now because we can see what has happened here, both by raw materials and the effects of what we've done.

And we're looking at a set of case studies or examples out there together and saying, that's it, that's what was needed that happened. And it happened because of the things that we said in this podcast interview in [00:56:00] 2024. So big things happened. It proves these ideas and you talk so much, John, about these principles and staying true to those principles.

You did stay true to them. Look at those effects. Look at what happened. That's iconic. That's legendary. Now let's go through the next three years and build on that and make things, uh, make the, make the things that we use every day better and better.

**Chris Do:** Super cool. So you have this hypothesis That you're like, I think it's going to work, but now we need to see it at a big scale.

So it's like, it really did work this, all these decisions actually led to the best possible work to be done by the very best, most talented people and in ways that kind of stayed true to that. And then everybody in the industry is looking at like, Oh, we want some of that. What has happened here? Let's let that be the beacon or the high watermark to see, like, if we can't catch up or play in that same sphere, that was a really great answer.

**John Roescher:** Boom. You got it. That's exactly it. That's a, you've been using some of my own words. I think it's raw materials [00:57:00] is. I think all business is an experiment. I like to be honest with myself about that. So what is the hypothesis? And then the whole point is to prove it. So we're looking back three years from now, we've proven it.

We've created a starting point that is much better than we are today or three years ago.

**Chris Do:** John, thank you very much for sharing so openly and tackling some of the difficult questions. I had no idea where this conversation was going to go and I feel much clearer and more enlightened about like somebody who is at a scale much bigger than I ever was to kind of hear the trials and tribulations you went through and I wish you nothing but the very best for the next three plus years.

Thanks a lot, Chris.

**John Roescher:** This was fun. My name is John Rocher. You're listening to the Future.

**The Futur:** Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already subscribed to our show on your favorite podcasting app, and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Doe and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. [00:58:00] Thank you to Adam Sandborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.

It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture. com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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