Asking the Right Questions: Mastering the Art of Relationship Building
Have you ever met someone and had those “7 Degrees of Separation” conversations where your worlds overlapped in completely random ways? My guest today and I learned about several of those connections after being introduced by a fellow entrepreneur. In this episode I speak with Jeff Blackman, speaker, author, success coach, broadcast personality and lawyer who leads Blackman & Associates, as well as my cousin’s college buddy and the uncle to my 7th grade science teacher. Join us as we discuss how to be value-driven, integrity-based, and non-manipulative in their business interactions, along with referrals, the power of trust, and the significance of being accountable in business relationships.
Listener Bonus: Get “The Sweet Sixteen of Power Probes” that you can immediately apply to your business for both short and long-term results. Email sheryl@jeffblackman.com and use the subject Erin Rocks.
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Transcribed with Descript
Erin Marcus: All right, hello, hello, and welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet? podcast. My guest today, Jeff Blackman, this was hysterical because I know we’re going to get into building relationships and how do you build relationships. But when you and I chatted, we realized, forget like seven degrees of separation.
Erin Marcus: You were in college with my cousin. Your uncle was my science teacher in seventh and eighth grade, and I think more people are more connected than they realize if they’re willing to have those conversations, right, and figure that out. So I can’t wait to talk to you about your approach to initiating conversations and or initiating relationships and how you do that.
Erin Marcus: But before we get in all that, why don’t you tell people a little officially who you are, what you do, and all the cool stuff.
Jeff Blackman: So you referenced your relationship with my uncle. Alvin, who unfortunately just passed away in December of 2023. And your first cousin, that’s my fraternity brother, Jack Orlov, who I affectionately refer to as J O, and he calls me J B.
Jeff Blackman: But I’m pretty sure if we dig deeper, Erin, you and I are probably directly related to Kevin Bacon. Right. Well,
Erin Marcus: isn’t everybody, right? Isn’t that how that works? Just
Jeff Blackman: a theory.
Erin Marcus: Just a theory. Absolutely.
Jeff Blackman: Absolutely. So to answer your question, if someone says, Jeff, so what do you do, depending upon who I’m chatting with, I’ll actually say to them, I’m a business growth specialist, and I help CEOs and entrepreneurs and the members of their senior leadership team and their sales people sleep really really well at night.
Jeff Blackman: And I pause and people go, how do you do that? And I go, everybody’s different. What’s cooking in your business? So I immediately make it about them. And I learned the value of really asking good questions based upon my background in two specific ways. One is an attorney. So I’ve actually been a lawyer since 1982.
Jeff Blackman: The good news is I really never Practiced law, because it didn’t give me the creative outlet that I wanted, undergraduate University of Illinois in advertising. And I just didn’t get creatively what I wanted from the law, so I really never practiced because I wanted to litigate. And then you quickly discover, Aaron, as you well know, litigators don’t litigate.
Jeff Blackman: No,
Erin Marcus: most people don’t
Jeff Blackman: litigate. They want to avoid court. It’s expensive, it’s tiresome, it’s exhaustive. And the other place that I really learned how to ask very good questions in terms of deepening, strengthening relationships is as a broadcaster. So I did radio and TV here in Chicago, always as a compliment to what I was doing professionally.
Jeff Blackman: So I’ve now been in business since really 1982 when I chose not to practice law. So it’s 42 years, but the background of asking questions, the people that I met, that I interviewed folks like Caitlyn Jenner. Who I knew was Bruce Jenner when I interviewed him in the 1980s, Apollo 13 astronaut, Jim Lovell, Seinfeld.
Jeff Blackman: So I learned a great deal in terms of how do you really get folks to open up.
Erin Marcus: Well, and I love this approach of asking questions. So I have a degree in journalism. I was, as a child, with no credentials whatsoever, was lucky enough to interview Paul Simon, who was, gracious enough to even give me a moment of his time, but that is one of the things he was always known for.
Erin Marcus: And I, I also interviewed Mike Madigan before he went to the federal government while he was still here. I think I was like 19.
Jeff Blackman: So let me ask you a question then, what did you learn from Paul Simon and Mike Madigan that you found especially interesting?
Erin Marcus: The thing that I learned as a reporter was a continuation of experiences I had in high school.
Erin Marcus: So I went to Chicago public high school with people from 22 different countries. Most of them didn’t speak English. None of us had any money and just learn people are people because there was such a broad array. Of types of people and yet here we all were just trying to, you know, crank out a living even as children And what I learned from paul simon and mike madigan and my I covered murder trials again as a 19 year old as a 20 year old Is that people are just people?
Erin Marcus: And that you don’t have to be intimidated by them or starstruck by them But to your point if you’re honestly curious about them, most people will respond very positively As opposed to situations where you’re being manipulatively curious or it really goes to your intention. And so it’s not just, to me, it’s not just enough to ask questions, but what is your intention with that relationship, the energy behind it, your come from energy, that is really going to make a difference between whether or not you connect with
Jeff Blackman: someone or not.
Jeff Blackman: It’s so interesting that you talk about intention when I work with clients, whether it’s one to one or working with clients in a team or a coaching or a workshop, ongoing system process. I stress to them when it comes to questions. First, they’ve got to focus on what I call relationship power.
Jeff Blackman: Relationship power has got a little art and a big art. Everyone says their business is a relationship business, Eric. But I go, that’s drivel. They go, what do you mean? I go, it’s not deep enough. You need to look at relationships from those two perspectives. The little art is your humanity. Sincerity, dignity, courtesy, in essence, your ability to be a mensch, be a good person.
Jeff Blackman: That’s important, but it’s not enough. Folks go, well, then what’s the big R and the big R is what I call being a growth specialist based upon your product or your service or your solution. It’s the ability to help others maximize gain. minimize loss, improve performance, productivity, profitability. And then when you know what’s driving the relationship, you can then elevate to the three Ps of beginning the relationship.
Jeff Blackman: Folks go, what are you talking about? What are the three Ps? And I go, one, know your purpose. Why are you engaged in the conversation? Whether it’s virtual, telephone, in writing, in person, know your purpose. What’s the goal? What’s the objective? Number two is you need to know your power probes. And power probes are open ended need development questions.
Jeff Blackman: We can explore those a little bit further soon. But the third P is often where people Stop or pause for too long. It’s the parade of progress. So what are you doing to advance to the next meeting? Conversation, whatever it might be. Know your purpose. Know your power probes. And then in addition, What’s the parade of progress to keep things moving forward that helps you avoid another p and that’s purgatory what’s going
Erin Marcus: on nothing’s happening well in the way that you describe it so in my business you know we do business strategy with a heavy emphasis on client acquisition systems which often involve a lot of marketing and I tell people the mistake I watch people make a lot in small business is I call it jumping steps because to me communication always only has one intention.
Erin Marcus: There’s only one intention every time you communicate with somebody else and that’s to invite them to take one more step with you, one more step with you. And so you see the breakdown occur when to your kind of to add your point in here, when they jump the relationship building. And they go right from introduction to ultimate end result they’re hoping might happen.
Erin Marcus: And, you know, they become a client, they want a referral, and they don’t take the steps. You’re not gonna sell somebody a 30, 000 product with your 30 second introduction, so stop trying. Just invite people to take one more step with you, and you’d be amazed how faster you get to a desirable outcome for both parties.
Jeff Blackman: Yeah. What’s so interesting and baffling and confusing and frustrating about that is folks are willing to avoid the steps. Yes. And we see it all the time. You and I might get a call out of nowhere and someone starts a pitch or spiel or presentation. People do it via email and they especially do it via LinkedIn.
Jeff Blackman: What is up
Erin Marcus: with that at this point? So here’s my analysis to this. This is how I, I don’t know how I came up with this, but one day this is how I felt. If you remember in the 80s and 90s, when you would go to the mall, you’d have to go through the department store to get into the mall. And, you always entered into the first floor into the big fancy cosmetics section with the perfume people.
Erin Marcus: Now, yes, I chose to go to the mall because I was meeting a friend for lunch. However, the perfume bandits, as soon as you walked in the door, would start assaulting you with samples of cologne and perfume, which you did not agree! To experience and that’s how LinkedIn feels to me right now. I agreed to be on the platform.
Erin Marcus: I didn’t agree. This is not a sales conversation because I never agreed to receive your pitch.
Jeff Blackman: So to combat, by the way, your mall example, I would enter that department with a super soaker that was filled with water. So that was my defense mechanism. So when I entered, they saw me, they would hide. They would just take cover.
Jeff Blackman: I got this week, someone, no idea who he is, but proceeded to explain to me why he’d be a terrific financial advisor for me. And I was going to respond, thank you so much for your kind offer, yet we’ve had a financial advisor for years, we’ve been very happy with, and then I decided. Why bother? Why bother?
Jeff Blackman: He doesn’t get it. He didn’t
Erin Marcus: get it. No, they don’t get it. And somebody’s out there clearly teaching people that this is a process because so many
Jeff Blackman: people are doing it. It’s just absurd. And I think it’s stupid. Because what it does is that it skips so many steps. In the pages of Peek Your Profits, one of my six, thankfully been fortunate, best selling books.
Jeff Blackman: In that book, in the fifth edition, we outline the six steps of the opportunity selling process. But one of the real key steps, as we’ve alluded to, is the ability to ask really good questions, what we call power probes. So I encourage folks to create what I call a dynamic dozen. And the dynamic dozen, Erin, is at least 12 open ended need development questions.
Jeff Blackman: They begin with a who. A what, a when, a where, a why, a which, a how, or here comes the TED principle, the T, tell me more about, the E, explain to me how, the D, describe for me. So who, what, when, where, why, which, how, tell me more about, explain to me, or describe for me. And I urge people, do not ask, Closed ended questions.
Jeff Blackman: They go, wait a minute. Are you telling us to never ask closed ended questions? And I go, no, didn’t say that. There are two times. What are they? Qualification purposes and decision time. Then it’s okay to seek. Yay, nay. And when I start working with so many folks in any industry, And in 42 years, I’ve worked in all different types of industries.
Jeff Blackman: If there’s a number one deficiency in terms of a skill, then execute it to a behavior. It’s the ability to ask really good questions. People go, well, like what? And I go, I can only give you some examples, but then you can apply them to your business. And then a little bit later, I’ll give people the opportunity.
Jeff Blackman: to actually get what we call a sweet 16 of power probes. But let me give you an example. Even if I get the question, Jeff, how can you help us? My immediate response is, I’m not sure if I can. First, I need to learn more about your business. And one of the things that leaders like you really appreciate is when very early we can discover Where you’re at as an organization, where would you like to be, and how do you want to get there?
Jeff Blackman: We call that the world’s fastest strategic plan. And anybody listening It’s so true, right? can adopt that. They can adopt it immediately. And I asked a client yesterday, now we’ve already done some other work for them in 2023, but in a conversation yesterday, I asked them, I go, tell me more about your key goals or strategic initiatives for this year.
Jeff Blackman: What’s top of mind? And I always ask these two questions, which most people don’t. How will we measure success and what will you value most in our relationship? They eliminate the assumption, Aaron, and they confirm the expectation. So I don’t assume because now I’ve got the ability to know. Well, the
Erin Marcus: other thing with purely selfish, right?
Erin Marcus: So, the purely selfish reason to ask questions, especially in a sales situation and with Ron, it takes all the pressure off of you. It takes, like, so I have this journalism degree, I have an MBA with a marketing focus, and I used to put all this pressure on myself to try to come up with the perfect thing to say.
Erin Marcus: to get someone to buy from me. And it’s the completely wrong approach, because there isn’t a perfect thing to say to get anyone to buy from you. And all that did was put me in my own hat. And once I switched to where my entire process is questions, questions, questions, Not only do I build these better relationships, the high, you have a higher closing rate from a sales perspective, not just a higher closing rate, but you enjoy those clients more because you know, you’re the right fit for each other before you even get that far, but it takes all the pressure
Jeff Blackman: off of you.
Jeff Blackman: And it’s so interesting when you reference closing, let’s table that for about 60 seconds. I want to come back to that because words, as we both know, you and I make our living with words, whether it’s spoken or whether it’s printed, words really matter. So we’ll come back just to the word closing soon. So want to make available a special opportunity for your listeners, reviewers, if they would like for us to send them.
Jeff Blackman: The sweet 16 of power probes that they can immediately apply to their business for both short and long term results. Really simple. Here’s all they need to do. Send an email to Cheryl s h e r y l at Jeff Blackman dot com. One more time. Cheryl at Jeff Blackman dot com. In the subject, put Aaron rocks. And if you simply put Aaron rocks, we’ll know exactly what that we will then send this sweet 16 of power probes that others have been able to use with immediate impact upon their business.
Jeff Blackman: One more time. Subject Aaron rocks to Cheryl s h e r y l at Jeff Blackman dot com and we’ll send this list. Of an initial suite 16 of power probes. Okay, let’s go back real quickly to the word closing. In the opportunity selling process, there are six steps. It’s O P R, T N, T Y. So if you take a look at that, yes, it’s an acronym, but it’s the word opportunity.
Jeff Blackman: So the final stage, what most people call the close, we call, T Y, the yes. And we urge people to seek the yes, not to close. They go. Why? And I stress that closing is a word of conclusion. It’s a word of termination. It means something is done. Ain’t true. We both know the relationship now is really just beginning.
Jeff Blackman: Yes. So the yes allows you to keep the door open. That’s the first step. O, open. P, probe. R, reveal. The solution. What problem can I help you solve? Need help you feel? Agree or goal help you get? T is translate. Not what something is, but what it does. Too often people focus on the is feature, not the does.
Jeff Blackman: Benefit. Result. Advantage. Outcome. N, negotiate. And then TY, the yes, which keeps the door open for the next opportunity. So we really urge our clients, we ain’t going to teach you how to close. And once they seek the yes, it elevates the relationship to a different level. Now let me stress the distinction.
Jeff Blackman: We help our clients become partners, not vendors, and they go, well, what’s the difference? And I stress that vendors are expendable. It’s a commodity, right? Partners are invaluable. Yeah. Vendors are expendable. Partners are invaluable, Erin. Absolutely.
Erin Marcus: Absolutely. And then one of the things that I learned back when I was in financial services, and I thought this was a great way to kind of circle back on when do you ask a closed ended question and it’s, you know, decision time.
Erin Marcus: We used to say the worst thing somebody could tell, to say to me after we have a conversation about working together is, I’m not sure. Because it means you didn’t have the conversation that you needed to have. Let me think about it. Like, anything that leaves space, I always take it upon myself, well, if you’re not sure, I didn’t answer enough of your
Jeff Blackman: questions.
Jeff Blackman: And you’ve got to isolate why they’re not sure. But if you get to decision time, and if there’s still an element of not sure, You haven’t just as you alluded to discover early. What are the key things they want to accomplish? That’s why you ask really good questions. Once again, what problem can I help you solve?
Jeff Blackman: What need can I help you fill or what dream or goal can I help you get? If one of those three does not exist, you probably do not have a prospect, at best you’ve got a suspect. And with suspects, it’s okay very early to say, Sayonara, Arrivederla, Shalom, Dosvedonia, Catch you later, I’m outta here, and that’s okay.
Jeff Blackman: Yet one other thing, even if you determine That you don’t have the ability to help somebody, or they’re not the right prospect, you can still ask for referrals. Right.
Erin Marcus: My last business, I, my number one source of referrals in the last business I owned were with prospects that I didn’t turn into clients.
Erin Marcus: Because they should have never been my client. They were people, I had a business working with families with aging parents, and there was a, there was a lot of times when I would, my services were expensive. And there was a lot of time where they just didn’t have enough work that would make sense for them to pay me.
Erin Marcus: To do what they needed to do. It was literally like a two phone call situation. And I would just give them my condo. I would literally give them the information said, listen, you don’t have to pay me to do this. Call this number. Tell them the secret words. Aaron said, yes, this is worth it. And they will just help you.
Erin Marcus: There’s no reason for me to get in the middle of that and charge them money. That group of people who never became my clients gave me more referrals than
Jeff Blackman: anybody else. Yeah, it’s remarkable when you’ve got the ego in a positive way, and ego is not about an inflated sense of self, self. It’s about your appreciation for your value, your worth, and contribution, and the willingness to walk away and urge them to have a discussion with somebody else is a very powerful strategy.
Erin Marcus: So why don’t, you know, here’s you, here’s me, I, this whole concept of Excuse me, building relationships by asking questions, closing sales by asking questions, really getting to most of the goals that we want in life by being willing to ask questions. Where’s the gap? Why don’t more people know this? Why aren’t they comfortable doing this?
Erin Marcus: Like, where are the pitfalls?
Jeff Blackman: You want me to be honest or diplomatic?
Erin Marcus: Honest, it’s
Jeff Blackman: me. So, by the way, that’s one of the questions that I ask leaders, CEOs. Presidents. I asked them that question early in our conversation. I’ll go as we work together and I learn more about you and your organization. How do you want me to communicate with you?
Jeff Blackman: And I pause and they go, what do you mean? And I go, how direct
Erin Marcus: am I allowed to be?
Jeff Blackman: I ask, I go, would you prefer I be honest or diplomatic? And what do you think they always say? They all say honest, but I don’t think a lot of people want that. So I never though use the language. Let me be honest. Let me be frank.
Jeff Blackman: Trust me, because that implies that if you don’t say it, you ain’t it.
Erin Marcus: I always give people, I, the way that I give people a warning, I don’t, I just say, look, I’m real direct. I should just give that disclaimer right up front. I’m just, I don’t have time to, you don’t want me to waste time blowing smoke up your
Jeff Blackman: skirt.
Jeff Blackman: So the greatest compliment that I ever got from a CEO is when he said to me, and we work together with multiple divisions of this financial services company. And he said to me, Blackman. What I really love about you and our relationship is you never protect your butt. And you never kiss mine. So the reason that I stress that, and whomever is listening now, whatever your business is, let me stress, it is not your role to simply do everything your decision maker wants you to do.
Jeff Blackman: Do not appease and please. And some people probably going, huh, what are you talking about? Here’s what I mean. It’s your job to challenge your decision makers in terms of how they think about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. If you appease and please, you’re only doing what they want you to do, and it may not be in their best interest.
Jeff Blackman: And over the decades, I’ve told numerous clients, I go, if you’d like to do that, that’s fine. I will not help you implement that. It’s not in your best interest. And I won’t do it.
Erin Marcus: And to not be scared to surround yourself with people who will challenge you. I mean, my CEO has done this now two or three times in just in the last six months.
Erin Marcus: Now she’s much more diplomatic than I am. And she will preface her, her comments with, how does she say it? She’s very nice. She says, Would you like me to reflect back to you what it is that I’m hearing? I’m usually a little more abrupt and just dive right in. But she’ll say that to me. And in these three different situations, she’s like, you don’t like this, you don’t like that, you’re not happy about this, you don’t want to do that.
Erin Marcus: Why are we doing XYZ? And I was so grateful because I went, you know what, you’re right, and we’re not doing it. We’re not doing it. It’s that simple. But we get into our own tailspin so much that sometimes it’s hard to observe that for ourselves. You need to surround yourself with the people who will ask you, why are we doing this?
Erin Marcus: I was hiring people when I was back in corporate. And I loved hiring people who had no experience who would follow me around asking me why we were doing everything. Because I should have to justify it. I should have to explain it. Otherwise, why are we doing it
Jeff Blackman: and when there’s a high level of trust when there’s mutual respect?
Jeff Blackman: It goes both ways. So my clients know that I will push back but I encourage them to do the same thing. I go push back, offer resistance. I say I am a Chicago Cub fan my entire life. I’m used to pain and suffering. You’re
Erin Marcus: not going to offend me if you don’t like my
Jeff Blackman: idea. Despite 2016, they’ve ripped my heart out for decades.
Jeff Blackman: Push back and that’s really the most healthy relationships because I always say it lies if you’ve got two members of your team and they’re always in agreement, one of them is not necessary. Right. You don’t need
Erin Marcus: them. So where can someone start? I know that you offered and we’ll make sure that we have all this in the show notes as well, and you offered the probing questions, but how does somebody start if they want, because both of us have that kind of base driver of relationship building which is very interesting because on my strength find, on my Clifton strength finders, there’s no relationship building in my top 10.
Erin Marcus: It’s all influencer and act and strategic thinking. So my relationships are very goal oriented. And yet, I’ve referred out millions and millions of dollars of business and excited to do so. If somebody is aware that this is something they want to really build this year and really add to their portfolio of really advantages, how do they start?
Jeff Blackman: So it’s really important to define what’s important to you. And if we go back to what I alluded to early in our conversation, you can answer the world’s fastest strategic plan with respect to yourself. Where are you? Where would you like to be? And how do you want to get there? And ultimately it’s a question of your skills, your attitudes, and your behaviors, which leads though to your ideas, your beliefs, and then your Action.
Jeff Blackman: When all is said and done, more should not be said than done. When I am working with either a team or an individual and they say, I would like to, and I go, well, super. So you will do what? By when? And they go, oh man, yeah, you’re going to hold me accountable. Aren’t you? So Jerry Seinfeld is one of the folks who I had a chance to interview on my radio show.
Jeff Blackman: And remember, he would often ask as part of his comedy routine, what’s up with that? So if a client makes a commitment to me and they don’t honor it, they know I’ll keep them accountable. And I’ll simply say, what’s up with that? You told me you were going to do X by Y and you did it. And that’s really the simple success formula.
Jeff Blackman: What will you do? By when will you do it? If not, it ain’t fact, it’s fantasy. It’s not reality, it’s rhetoric. And I’m not a fan of rhetoric, but I am a fan of another R word and that’s results. That’s why people hire me. That’s why they hire you, Erin, to help them generate the results. And this stuff works, talking about referrals.
Jeff Blackman: So we helped one financial services client generate 230 million dollars in new business. All from referrals in the span of 23 months at zero acquisition cost. And somebody could read the entire story if they simply go to jeffblackman. com and you’ll see how we did that for bank one. And the same strategies are applicable to any business.
Jeff Blackman: Let’s go back to referrals real quickly because folks will often say, Oh. I just forget to ask. So I came up with the acronym REMEMBER. R E M E N B E R. Referrals every moment, every month, bring excellent results. Or the last E R is also EXTRA REVENUE. Business doesn’t cost anything. It doesn’t cost anything.
Jeff Blackman: Because business is about what? Acquisition, satisfaction, retention. If you do those three really well, you’ll be in business a long time and profitably for a long time. And all you need to do is ask. And as long as people know that your relationship is based upon what I call the Vine philosophy, V I N, you’ve got to be value driven, integrity based, and non manipulative.
Jeff Blackman: Non negotiables. And if you’re those three things, people trust you. And I always stress, when trust is high, what’s low? Fear. When trust is high, what’s low? Fear. And if the opposite is true, if fear is high and trust is low, people do not want to work with you. They’re scared and they’ve got every reason to be scared.
Jeff Blackman: I mean,
Erin Marcus: and if anything, if you wrap this all up, asking the questions, build the relationships. showing up to those relationships in integrity, do what you said you were going to do when you said you were going to do it, brings in the referrals or the ability, or the way that I like to say it is earns you the right to be able to ask for the referrals, right?
Erin Marcus: You have to earn the right, even be able to make that ask. And now you’re talking about exponential client acquisition as a result.
Jeff Blackman: And you can earn the right, even if you haven’t helped the individual who’s making the introduction. As long as they liked you, they can trust you, you went out of your way to attempt to help them, even though it might not work, they will still make introductions.
Jeff Blackman: And I have gotten numerous clients over the decades from introductions of people who I didn’t work with. But they said, Jeff, you need to meet, and that led to business. Absolutely.
Erin Marcus: So if people want to continue this conversation with you and learn more about how you help them read your books, all of the things, what is the best way for them to find you?
Jeff Blackman: So I’m an easy guy to find. First, if they simply want to shoot me an email, they’re welcome to do that. It’s my initial jb, jb at jeffblackman. com. They can send me an email. They can call, go to the website. You’ll see there are lots of ways to be able. to reach me, but it’s always going to begin with a conversation because I really have to understand what’s it about you.
Jeff Blackman: And I stress that to folks, how many websites do we go to Aaron? And it says about us. And I urge my clients to go, you can leave it if you want, but you’re telling people that if you click here, this has got nothing to do with you. It’s all about us.
Erin Marcus: This is the page that’s all about me. And
Jeff Blackman: for that reason, we don’t have about us at our website instead of says meet Jeff, because that’s what I like to do is for you to meet me and I can meet you.
Jeff Blackman: It doesn’t even say contact. The word is connect. It says meet the team.
Erin Marcus: Okay, cool.
Jeff Blackman: I don’t even remember. So words are incredibly important. Let me show one simple strategy that anyone can apply. If someone gets the traditional question, well, why you? People get excited, and they do this data mistake. People say, well, what do I do?
Jeff Blackman: Here’s the subtlety. It’s really simple. Clients tell us. Customers appreciate how. So you deliver the success story from somebody else’s perspective. But then the key is, once you deliver it, how you help somebody else, you ask the question. How do you think those kinds of results will help you? Yes. So, there’s a process, there’s a method, methodology.
Jeff Blackman: There’s a method, there’s
Erin Marcus: a method to the method. As I tell people, your business is not about you. The more you can realize that your business is not about you, the better results you’ll
Jeff Blackman: get. And that’s the greatest juice that I’ve had for 42 years, when people tell me, hey, I did this, and here’s the result.
Jeff Blackman: Because, if people aren’t happy, they’re protected, and folks will see this at our website, Erin. We’ve got a no risk assurance. If you don’t think We’re going to help you generate dollars equal to or way in excess of whatever we did for you, whether it’s a book like Bullseye or Peak Your Profits or an entire coaching or learning system, let us know.
Jeff Blackman: We’ll give you every penny back. And we’ve never lost the bet. Never. But I’ll put my butt on the line because they know I’ve been committed to help them. So the good news is, in 42 years, I’ve never lost the bet. So far,
Erin Marcus: so good. Awesome. Well, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for your time and your approach.
Erin Marcus: I, you know, just from a learning perspective, I like having frameworks. It makes it easier for people to, you know, Kind of really hear what you’re saying and remember what you’re saying. So I love the way you’re sharing your information with us. So thank you.
Jeff Blackman: Pleasure is mine. Thank you.
