[Speaker 2]
Hey now, this is the Inside BS Show. I am Nikki G and I'm here with Dave Lorenzo, the godfather of growth. Dave, how you doing?

Hey, Nicole. I'm great. How are you?

I'm doing well, thank you. Dave, I've gotten to know you well and you are very comfortable selling people. You're comfortable with convincing them and persuading them to come along with you when you're looking to make something happen.

You are comfortable trying to win them over when they have an opposing point of view. Most people hate that. So, why has it come naturally?

It does seem that it comes naturally to you. So, why do you think that most people hate to sell where you really thrive in that space? So, are you saying most people hate me?

Is that what you're saying? I'm not saying that.

[Speaker 1]
Dave, you're comfortable with all these things. Everybody hates you. Why?

[Speaker 2]
I tend to think people would like to be more comfortable and you certainly are comfortable in your space.

[Speaker 1]
I'm just having fun with you. So, here's one of the things I learned really early on in my professional career and that's nothing happens until somebody sells something, right? You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't convince someone to invest in your idea, your business is nowhere.

So, that's sales. That's selling, right? But we think of it as fundraising or raising money or raising capital for a business.

You could have the best idea in the world. You could have capital and you need to execute on that idea. So, you have to go out and find talent.

You have to find executives. You have to find managers. You have to find leaders.

You have to find team members, frontline employees. That's recruiting, but really what you're doing there is you're also selling. You want to convince your kid to clean his or her room.

You want to convince your wife to go see the movie you want to see. That's selling. Now, I do a lot of work with business leaders and we call it leadership influence because the who is always more important than the how.

So, getting people on your side is what influence is all about. Getting them to do things and aligning your goals with the goals of others. That's what influence is all about, but influence and selling in that scenario are the same thing.

So, if you want to think about sales and you want to change your mindset from the way you currently view sales or the currently view influence, the way to look at it is the old expression that was used by the sales masters in the 30s and 40s and that's that selling is not something you do to someone. It's something you do for someone. You and I have conversations all the time, Nicola, about things that you're doing in your firm, in your career.

You're smart. You're a natural leader and you are great at what you do and we have conversations all the time about the future of your firm and you know intuitively that your future, your career depends on you winning over perhaps the court. It depends on you sometimes winning over a jury.

It absolutely depends on you winning over opposing counsel to accepting something that you both find palatable and as your firm continues to grow, you know that your future is going to be dependent upon you winning over other top lawyers to join your team. So, the way to get comfortable with it is to understand that as long as your intentions are pure, as long as you want what's best for the other person, then take the gloves off and go as hard as you can to convince them to see things from your point of view because you want what's best for them. That to me is the key to embracing this mindset.

Sales is only sleazy or it's only dirty or it's only god-awful if you're trying to manipulate someone into doing something that's not in their best interests. So, anytime I come to you and I say to you, hey, have you ever thought about and we enter into a conversation about what's going on in your firm, what's going on in your career, you don't view it as me trying to pitch you on some idea or something. You view it as, hey, Dave has got an idea about what's best for me whether I agree with him or not.

If he really has conviction, he's going to come at me hard with that idea because he wants me to be successful. So, it's about purity of intent. If your intentions are pure, then there's no harm.

In fact, it's malpractice if you don't push that idea hard if it's good for the other person.

[Speaker 2]
I think that's great advice and I appreciate what you said. I think the purity of intentions really speaks to this issue because it applies to any setting. If you aren't authentic about what it is that you're after, then that's going to create roadblocks for you and make it difficult for you to sell whether it's fundraising or whether it's trying to convince your adversary of your position.

So, you absolutely have to be authentic in that position and then you can come at them strong, but you also just need to be careful of the personality that you're dealing with on the other side. But I think what it really comes down to authenticity and credibility, making sure that what you're trying to pitch is something credible and you're not trying to just pull a fast one on someone and just get them to a quick position without really demonstrating credibility to them.

[Speaker 1]
So, when we talk about sales, when we talk about influencing people, it takes place every day in every way. We label it as different things, but the first thing you have to think about is do I want what's best for everybody involved in this situation given the constraints? And I use a particularly acrimonious example to show you that even in a really tough situation, if you demonstrate purity of intent, you're more likely to get the outcome that you want.

So, if we want to take it back to recruiting for us in provisors, what do we tell people? Hey, there's three reasons why you should come to provisors. Number one, you're going to be part of a community of people that are going to be resources for you.

They're going to prioritize your work. Number two, you're going to be part of a group of people that are people of goodwill that are going to want to support you in your personal and professional life. And number three, these are people who are going to be out there thinking of you all the time, and they may connect you with your next big client because they're constantly going to be thinking of you.

All three of those things demonstrate the purity of intent that we have. We want you to be a part of this because we think you fit that criteria. Now, if the person really does fit that criteria, it's up to us to drive them as hard as we can until they give us a yes or a no because that is the best fit for us as a group and for them as a professional.

I mean, that's what we do. You do it as well as anybody.

[Speaker 2]
It doesn't feel like selling when you are demonstrating purity of intent. So it really didn't feel like we were selling anyone, but really we were. That's what it came down to is we were selling folks on this amazing organization because we saw the value in it, right?

But they're right there because we believed in the value of the organization ourselves. That came across in our conversations and selling felt easy. And maybe that's why it's so natural to you because you have that purity.

And when you are using it that way, it doesn't feel like selling. So for those who say, and I've heard this a number of times, I'm not comfortable fundraising. I'm scared to fundraise.

If you are really someone who believes in the value of what you are raising money for, and I'm sure you do, or you wouldn't even be considering it, if you get that across in your message, you will be amazed at how many people will support you.

[Speaker 1]
You know who's really good at selling? Nikki G. All right, close us out.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you for joining us. This is the Inside BS Show. Please subscribe to our podcast where you get your podcasts.

And if you've enjoyed our show today, leave us a comment. That helps us increase our subscribers. It's been great.

I'm Nikki G and you are?

[Speaker 1]
I'm the godfather of growth, Dave Lorenzo. And we will see you next week.