Ikigai Leadership Podcast: Dhru and Thomas Gay Talk About Increasing Sales and Success Through Relationships

Dhru 00:00

Hey everybody, this is Dr. Dhru Bee. And I’m here to welcome you to my podcast Ikigai Leadership. We’re gonna be talking to leaders in all different industries from all different backgrounds and demographics from all over the world. And we’ll be discussing topics like leadership development, culture, DEI, content creation and marketing, and all things business and entrepreneurship.

 

Dhru 00:26

Everybody, welcome back to another edition of the Ikigai Leadership podcast. I am honored here to have my friend here, Tom Gay. He was the founder of EngagedPro among other things. Tom is a serial entrepreneur and like myself, which is why we get along, and we have similar ideas about business. But Tom’s done some amazing stuff and we want to talk to him about that and have give him a chance to share a little bit about his story with you guys. Tom, thanks so much for joining us today. 

Tom 00:49

Oh, thrilled to be with you Dhru. 

Dhru 00:51

So, tell us more about EngagedPro, and then we’ll dive a little bit under the hood later on. But I wanted to hear more about kind of what you’re doing right now and what you’re working on? 

Tom 00:58

Well, I’ve spent the last 20 years teaching professionals, coaches, consultants, professional service providers of all types, how to build a business by focusing on relationships and referrals. So, EngagePro is the extension of that background, where we’ve taken the steps that you need to follow to successfully fill your sales funnel with quality prospects. And we’ve systemized it so that you can do this easily, quickly, and in a repeatable way. Now, in training, I still train people, I just hung up the phone from a client who I’m working with. But not everyone needs that. Sometimes you just need the tool to help you stay on track, personalize your relationship, and then understand where to take that relationship so that it becomes a win-win for both parties. So EngagedPro is fairly new as a platform. I did build one, a predecessor Tool and Company that went to almost 5 million users, sold it a few years back. And as I’ve described, EngagePro, it’s now the grandson of that company, refer.com. I love teaching people how to bring relationships and bring people back into the forefront of their marketing to offset all the technology and noise that we’re dealing with every day. And I’ll guarantee you that you’ll get more business by working on relationships than you will by going out and buying ads on Facebook. 

Dhru 02:34

Yeah, no, I definitely appreciate that. And then I think that’s why I want to have you on and talk about this. Because on the one hand, you have the technology platform, EngagePro, right? But then I love that your focus is still on relationships. It’s not on the technology. It’s not on the just, I mean, obviously, we have to make money, we’re here to do business, businesses is reality, right? But like you said, you do more business building relationships than you will on focusing on some transactional situation. 

Tom 02:34

To your point, EngagePro is an enablement tool. If you buy into the principles that people do business with those who they know, like and trust, then you ask the question, well, how do I build trust with the right people at the right time, and build it consistently? So, that calls for a system. It calls for something to help you stay on track and calls for something to help you make it that you are trustworthy or trustable, and that’s where EngagePro comes in. Because once you build trust with, truthfully, a small number of people, you don’t need a lot of people to fill your sales funnel. If you can do that process with 20 people and 20 people, know 25 people that you should be meeting, you’ve got 500 people available to you to come in and see if you can help and serve their needs. So, enablement, systematic, repeatable, but still on relationships. 

Dhru 03:56

Yeah and, you know, I was thinking about this as you were talking, because I know you didn’t make it to Sajad’s call today, we have a mutual friend named Sajad’s, who I am hoping to get on here at some point. But um, you know, we were talking on that call today about the know, like, trust specifically, we talked about that. And I think, you know, the knowing is obviously relatively straightforward, right? It’s the last two I think people have challenges with is the like, and trust and they tend to tend to mix those two up, right? If you like someone doesn’t mean you necessarily trust them. And if you trust someone doesn’t necessarily mean you like them, right? And the other kind of caveat to that is do you have to like the person or do you have to just appreciate the value that they bring? 

Tom 04:36

Well, I’m gonna give you a third dimension to this that most people don’t get. Okay. So, know like and trust. The like part comes from, you’re being a giver. And by giving, you become someone that creates, in the person you’re giving to, a desire to reciprocate. The trust part comes when you establish your credentials. Your credentials really relate to your knowledge and your reputation. You get the opportunity to build that trust, when you focus on giving into the interests of the other person. When you talk about what they want to talk about or talk to them about what they do on weekends, or where their kids go to school, or what their favorite sports team is, and all that, that’s when you become likeable and trustable. Now, everybody stops there and this is the big mistake. And I can just tell you, the mistake was left uncovered today. What you have to do when you build that trusted relationship is you have to teach people how to reciprocate, how to give back. There is a perfect referral for you. If you don’t teach me what that perfect introduction or referral is, then I’m not going to be able to reciprocate in a way that brings value to you. That’s what I teach is how to teach people to refer you perfectly. And a perfect referral, I’ll give you one story. I taught people how to give me perfect referrals into my consulting practice. In 1, 30-day period, I had three people give me a perfect referral to the same person. True story, when I had those three people introduce me, independent of each other, to that one person. And I walked in the door to meet that person for the very first time, never had a conversation, didn’t know they existed, CEO of a company. In 15 minutes after our initial greetings, he had signed the agreement for us to go forward. Because trust was transferred to me. My credentials went before me, the red carpet was rolled out for me. That’s what know, like, and trust has to have added to it. Know, like, and trust teach, and then you’ll receive what you’re looking for. 

Dhru 07:19

I actually like that a lot. And I think that’s a great addition. I think people need to know that more often, obviously. So, when you teach people that what is the biggest challenge people have when it comes to learning that. 

Tom 07:31

There’s two challenges, one is getting over the fear of asking, Okay, and there is a perfect way to ask. And I have a little video that I’ve made called The Art of The Ask. It’s not high-tech, but you need to know it. If you don’t know it, you’re not going to do it. So, that’s the first thing. And the second thing, the hurdle. The hurdle is being other-centered, thinking about the other person’s interest and staying on that topic as opposed to talking about yourself. Kind of hard to be saying this here in this broadcast. But if all I do is talk about myself, and not learn about you and then relate to you, then I’m very much going to become known as being self-centered. I have a client in Washington, not far from you. He’s a young man who provides exit planning to small business people. He found out someone who he was introduced to was passionate about rugby. He learned from me that now that you know that now let’s go get some background and material on rugby to take in the doors to relate to this person. Well, after a couple of weeks of staying on point and focusing on what that other person liked, he got invited to go to a rugby game there in the DC area with one of his new best friends, who’s now introducing him to prospects for his business. That’s the hurdle. Make it about the other person. 

Dhru 09:04

That’s great. But I think the funny thing is and it’s fun, not haha, funny but ironic, right? It’s like that balance between those two things because they are they can seem like they’re at odds with each other, right? The idea of making an ask that’s, hey, I’m asking you for something for me. But then making it about the other person at the same time. I think people kind of struggle with that, right, with understanding where that line is. Where do I ask versus where do I focus on the other person? How do I balance those two things? 

Tom 09:28

Well, it’s interesting. There is a season for asking and if you’re working with a small group of people, now this is kind of the inner stuff that I teach, working with a small group of people and focusing on the right small group and you’re committed to making each of your engagements with them about them. What happens in the human emotional mind is, if I’m constantly receiving from you, because you’re giving in this know, like, trust building. If I’m constantly receiving, there’s a natural human desire to reciprocate, to give back. You know, if you keep coming to my house with an apple pie, there’s a point in time, I’m gonna say, Well, what can I do for Dhru because he keeps showing up with these wonderful apple pies. And, you know, that’s human nature. Now, if you don’t let me give back to you, I’m gonna get frustrated with you. Because I just keep receiving and you don’t let me give back, when you let me give back and maybe it’s a peach pie, let’s just stay on the example. You let me give you back a peach pie because it’s your favorite. Now, all of a sudden, the endorphins in my brain get released, because I’ve been able to do something nice for you. Now, when you teach the give back in, I’m going to link what we’ve talked about. When you teach the giving back is introducing you to the perfect referral opportunity, the perfect prospect opportunity. Now, you’ve trained them, you’ve taught them what it is that they can do to reciprocate effectively with you. And it’s beautiful, you’ll find people actually hunting, on the hunt, on the prowl for someone who they’ve been taught by you, would be the perfect introduction. And it’s beautiful. It just, you know, I’ve helped professionals build seven-figure businesses, by understanding it’s a human emotion that we’re working with. 

Dhru 09:28

Yeah, you know, and as you’re talking, I’m connecting the dots on a couple of things. One is the client story that I just had a while back, a couple months ago actually. This client, she was really successful, a very, very successful person, and she’s going through a personal challenge, right? And you know how it is when we’re coaching someone, it’s there’s a, there’s never really walls between personal and professional, It’s just kind of just bleeds into everything. So, we’re talking about this and her and her partner are having challenges because she’s going through a personal situation, and she usually one of those people who’s used to taking care of everybody all the time, right? She’s that rock for everybody but she doesn’t ever let anyone take care of her. Their arguments were about that. And when I reframed it for her to say, what happens when you can’t take care of someone and she was like, I get so frustrated. I’m like, Well, how do you think he feels, and a light bulb went off. And that is exactly what you’re talking about. Or it sounds like exactly what you’re talking about. Which is interesting.

Tom 12:26

It is. We’re wired this way. We’re wired to give and receive, we’re not just wired to receive, well some people are. Okay? You can change the word receive to take as well because they, they’re closely related. And we may be passionately wired to give but if we don’t let people give back, they’re going to eventually filter themselves out of our view and leave disappointed, frustrated, or worse. You nailed it with her. 

 

Dhru 13:00

Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking about your services with people and who has been your favorite client to work with over the last, you know, course of your career?

Tom 13:11

My favorite clients, wow. Well, I go back to my coaching business and I had one client. This gentleman was a CFO for a business that got acquired and he was out of a job because the larger requirer had a CFO, they didn’t need two. So, he went out and joined a company where he became a fractional CFO. There’s a number of large firms in the US that have filled with fractional CFOs. Now, this gentleman is probably late 50s, at the time, needed to work, had never made a sale, a sales call in his life, never ever. He was a classic, introverted financial guy. Everyone can have their own description in the word picture there. He was suffering from lack of business, three months into his new practice, and using up his resources. He came into my office, and he had heard about what I do, in those days. He sat across from me, and we learned what his problem is. And he was the most introverted person I’ve literally ever met as a prospect. I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. I said to him, if you will follow this roadmap, we will get results for you, it’ll take us about six to eight weeks. And at that time, it was going to cost him $4,000 to do it. He got his credit card out a few moments later and surprisingly to me and bought. Now the interesting thing about him because he was an accountant, he was used to following the rules. Like most accountants, they’re governed by a set of financial standards and GAAP and all these things. So, we taught, he followed, he did the work. In three months, he had three new clients, just doing things that were not natural from his career. He started about April of that year, by the end of December, his calendar was full, he had no more time to sell as a fractional CFO. Now, the reason why he was afraid of it, he became a friend, because obviously, I did something marvelous for him. He took me on fishing trips up the Salmon River, he introduced me to it, that’s an Idaho, he introduced me to his associates in other parts of the country. That set of introductions grew into 70 more clients like him. It was like a bacterial growth because they all needed a system. I guess you can say that. I didn’t say viral. We didn’t have face masks in those days to wear. But in any event, it’s a relationship-building formula, we call it a system. And the beauty of it, why it’s my favorite is because it just shows when you give it away by the slice to someone, you open up the opportunity to get it back by the loaf.

 

Dhru 16:30

I like that, phrase, give a boy about a slice, you get it back by the loaf. And I’m thinking about the client, you mentioned and first of all, that’s awesome. And then those kinds of results, or I can see why it sticks out to you. But I’m thinking about it in terms of when he came to you, right, what he was dealing with. And so many people deal with things like that, like I mean, because you said he never made a sales call his life because he’s never had to, right? He’s been a full-time employee his entire life, someone else was doing the selling for him, essentially, right for the company or for whatever, so you never had to get in front of a prospect. And when you’re transitioning to business ownership, you got to get into some level of sales, right? 

Tom 17:04

You have to. 

Dhru 17:05

And that’s a big mindset shift for people. 

Tom 17:07

Well, and today, I mean, the whole culture has changed in the last five years, between COVID, and outplacement, and job disruptions, and people wanting to freelance and be in control. The world is full of independent providers desiring to build a business or a life. And a good number of them aren’t sure how to get started. 

Dhru 17:33

You know, some of them probably shouldn’t be in business for themselves, right? I mean, because they don’t have the mindset for it. And there is nothing wrong with that. And people think they take it as a dig. It’s not a dig. 

Tom 17:43

Not at all. 

Dhru 17:44

It’s, there’s different people set up for different things, right? I mean, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’s always gonna think it’s a failure. But if you put the tree in the water, it’s not going to be able to swim.

 

Tom 17:54

Well, it’s kind of one of the reasons why I’m not playing quarterback for the New York Giants. You know, I’d love to be the quarterback, but, well, they’d be just as terrible afterwards as they were before.

 

Dhru 18:09

Well, I’m a Commander’s fan. So, unfortunately, I feel that pain.

 

Tom 18:14

Oh, hey, I got lots of examples. I didn’t say Commanders, I could have made it close at home for you. 

Dhru 18:21

That’s what I’m saying, I’m a Commander’s fan. So, I know that pain so well. We’ve had such poor leadership over the last 20 years. Really, man, it’s just but I mean, again, that’s just another example of something where it falls into the mindset of things, right, there aren’t the leader of the Commander’s thought the organization was, didn’t have the right mindset, he’s just not a good not a good person, and whatever reason, right, and his focus was not on the right things. And if you don’t focus on the right things, like to your point back to giving back full circle, if you don’t focus on the right things, you’re not gonna get the results you want, right? And people will focus on the results first, rather than the actions and the system that is set up for themselves.

 

Tom 18:57

It’s so true and you always have to focus on the pieces that need to come together to create the whole. Just like if you’re going to put, we’ll stay on the football analogy for a minute. If you’re going to put 11 people on the field, you don’t want all 11 people to be skilled in one role. Everyone’s got to play a role. And when they play it well with the right leadership, then you get over the goal line that applies to business in the exact same way. 

Dhru 19:28

Absolutely, I mean, do I care if my o-linemen can throw the ball? No, but if they can block someone from getting to the quarterback, right? 

Tom 19:34

Yeah, and keep them from breaking their Achilles heel. 

Dhru 19:38

Yeah, oh, man, that’s Jesus. I still can’t believe that happened. That’s, did you see? I don’t know if you saw, digress for a second, but I don’t know if you saw the video, where they showed that moment, it’s really kind of it’s painful to watch, painful to watch. But back getting back full circle. It’s also painful to watch business owners struggle with things that they can change, right? Whether they want to change it or not is a different story. 

Tom 20:02

There’s an interesting phrase used by one of my favorites. I call him a cowboy philosopher Jim Rohn. And Jim has passed away, but he’s famous for his speaking skills on personal growth. And he said until you change the way you think, nothing will change for you. And he’s delivering that to an audience. And that’s basically meant to shake you up and say, Okay, I have one paradigm now, what is the paradigm that I need to have if I’m going to be in a better place than I am now. 

Dhru 20:36

But that’s the thing, people don’t want to do that. They don’t want to change their mindset, because it takes work, they want to go out and get a certification. And I think part of that’s also a system and the way it’s set up, right? You go to apply for jobs or whatever, it took the employee mindset for a second, you go to apply for jobs, they’re looking for certifications, right, over experience. They’re looking for, you got to have this certification, that certification or that certification. They don’t take into account mindset, because you can’t on an application to be fair, but at the same time, they just want to minimize their own work, they don’t want to actually take the time and say, let’s have a solid interview with this person and make sure we know how to interview somebody to get good candidates in, right? 

Tom 21:11

I’m going to overlay another thread in this because it’s a powerful message you’re delivering there. And I’m working with a gentleman who has trained 1000s of insurance salespeople over his life. And he says as he’s come to the end of his career, he is now training still. But he says, what I’ve learned is that everyone who gets hired comes in with the credentials to be successful. There’s one distinction that you can’t test for objectively, but it is vital in an industry where 80% of the people are gone in their first year. And that distinction is, it’s not whether they can do the work to succeed, it’s the question of do they have the will to do the work to succeed? So, the can-do/will-do continuum is what you just described. And it’s a powerful continuum. Because you know, I can go get certified as a coach, let’s just say, and go to the International Coach Federation, and go to all the conferences and get all these letters. It doesn’t mean I’ll have anyone to talk to, if I won’t do the things to get my skills in front of. So, if my will-do doesn’t match, then I’m going to be stuck. 

Dhru 22:34

Yeah, I always say mindset is much more powerful than skill set, right? If you give someone the skills to do something doesn’t mean that they will do it. But if he gets on the mindset, they will find a way to get it done, whether they have the skills or not, right? 

Tom 22:46

They’ll knock walls down. I’d rather have a semi-skilled wall knocker-downer than somebody who’s been through 17 graduate courses. Let’s knock walls down and solve the problem. That’s where the results come in. 

Dhru 23:02

I love that. Well, as a wrap-it-up here, Jim. Tom, I think I’m thinking of Jim Rohn. Jim is in my head now.

Tom 23:09

 Yeah, that’s fine. I’d be honored to be considered like him.

 

Dhru 23:13

Well, your messaging is just as powerful, to be honest with you. So, I think you’re right there with them as far as I’m concerned. Because after all, we’re all human, right? We all make mistakes. We all have good things to say. 

Tom 23:22

And you know, absolutely. Sure. 

Dhru 23:24

So, the question I want to ask you is something I ask everybody as I come on, which is who are what are your biggest inspirations in your career as you’re coming up and creating the things you created over the years? 

Tom 23:32

Well, I have a lot of people I would consider to be mentors. I can say it started with my dad, who when he was in mid-Korea, left one, and started a company all by himself and did the entrepreneur thing. But I’m going to reference a different person very quickly in this was in my very first professional job where I finished college and working in a company and they promoted me to a regional headquarters. And the first day I started my boss, leader. When I moved from Massachusetts to New York to go to work in the big city. He gave me an article that was a reprint from the Harvard Business Review. And it’s one of their classics, and it was titled The Pygmalion Effect. And what it represented, what the article represented and what he intended, was that he was expecting me and supporting me to become the best version of me that I could be. Like in the book Pygmalion, where the subject of the book, the girl, the poor weight came into George Bernard Shaw’s scheme, came into being adopted, and she became a beautiful outcome because they saw the best in her as she grew from, you know, a char girl to a mature beautiful woman fulfilling her role in life. And that person saw that there was a best in me to bring forward and he was always going to be committed to me being the best version of me that he could be. And that’s lasted. It’s not only lasted, it’s governed how I look at people who have been in my companies, I’ve built some large businesses, I’ve had a team of almost 1000 people. And every one of them, I wanted them to be the best they could be. 

Dhru 25:39

I love that. It reminds me, back to football for a second but it reminds me of, have you ever seen the movie The Replacements with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman? 

Tom 25:45

Yeah, I have. 

Dhru 25:46

Yeah. So, that one scene where Gene Hackman tells them, tells Keanu Reeves he says, When I look at you, I see two men, I see the man you are and the man you want to be. One day those two should meet, and they’ll make one hell of a football player. I love that scene. 

Tom 25:59

That’s beautiful. I love it. 

Dhru 26:00

Right? That line is like the essence of what we do, right? Someone or a person or a business or whatever, we see two coexisting entities, right? We see who they are and then we see the potential of what they could be. And our job is to bridge that gap.

Tom 26:14

You know, and consider, not everybody sees people through that lens. Some people say, Well, I want to govern you to optimize you as the cog in the machine for the role you’re playing. And what untapped human potential there is in that. That’s a shameful waste. 

Dhru 26:32

Yeah, because you’re shaping that person to serve you, not to serve them, right? 

Tom 26:36

Exactly. Exactly. 

Dhru 26:38

I think we could have a whole nother conversation just about that, and maybe we can one day, but that’s awesome. 

Tom 26:44

We could spend a week talking about that one.

 

Dhru 26:48

Well, Tom, thanks so much, man. I really, really appreciate the time. This has been awesome. And for folks who don’t know, please reach out to Tom. His information is going to be in the description below. I really appreciate the time. 

Tom 26:56

Well, I appreciate you Dhru. And I’ll always be here because the conversation is so valuable. And I think together we’re making rain.

 

Dhru 27:09

Thank you all so much for listening to the Ikigai Leadership podcast today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a five-star review with comments, to let me know what you thought. It really helps me keep on delivering valuable and relevant content to you all. And if you want to connect with me directly, please feel free to do so on my socials. That is @dhrubee on Twitter, @dhruvabee on Instagram, and LinkedIn, it’s linkedin.com/n/dhrubee. Thank you all so much. Take care. Stay safe. Talk to you soon.