From Icky to Impactful: Redefining Sales with Heart

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Armando Prescaro and welcome to the web talk show. Today with me is Marie Mason from Business Solutions Academy. Welcome Marie. Thank you for having me. So good to see you. Wow, it's good to see you. Can you give us a brief introduction into who you are and what you do so that listeners know who we're talking with today? Sure, I'll be happy to. Um, I do a couple different things. So, I'll do the main one because I wanted to let you know what I do. Um so really really quickly um I basically am a business strategy coach with Business Solutions Academy. And what I love to do is I love to help new or existing coaches, educators or service providers to develop a business with confidence by developing their business concept, positioning their offers and pricing their packages so that they can sell their products or services. In addition, I also help them create a co a customized course and so it's ready to sell. And then I also help them with their marketing plans so that they can help prior personalize uh get really get clear and personalize marketing strategies so that they can um really focus on selling their product or service. So those are the three things that I really do in a nutshell. Nice. Nice. And we're really happy to have you because as we were talking about offline, we're having a very nice chat about the coaching space, the scaled coaching space and then the onetoone coaching space and how that differs and and I want the listeners to get a little bit of that as well. Why do you think it's important that coaching be when appropriate one- on-one? um Okay, so I'll I'll **[00:02:00]** give you a quick tip. I do both group coaching and I do 101 because everybody is at a different starting point. And so that's where when I get on um my introduction calls, I find out which one they prefer because we all have what we we talked about everyone learns differently. So sometimes getting on a one- on-one helps that person more because they need that extra guidance and they need to have that hands-on approach. Like I had to learn from somebody who's a business partner now and he guided me at the beginning and he still is guiding me today. In fact, I think we got each other now. Um so the the teacher has become teacher has not only taught the student the students also teaching the teacher sometimes in this case but the long story short of it is we all need guidance okay whether we get it from a group or from a private that's fine but if you need more handson training then the one onone is probably a better situation for that particular person but there's no one size fits all I mean in my opinion but is I mean I'm hoping that helps that you know we really like to customize in our particular program. So I hope that answers your particular question. It does and I appreciate it because there's a place for each like you were saying and I was talking with someone yesterday about executive level coaching or coaching for executives at the sea level board level etc. And at that level, a lot of times it has to be very specific, very, let's call it, bespoke for that particular person because of where they are, where they're coming from, where they want to get to, what **[00:04:00]** are their specific talents, what are their issues. And so, uh, it's very interesting that we see a lot of marketing about sort of more generalized coaching, but it's at the same time there is a space for one-on-one that is very necessary in many instances, right? Because as I said there business models, okay, so here's an example. I'm a business strategy coach. I love to specialize in in three areas, right? And I was saying that to you earlier. I like helping people with developing their business concept. I like helping them to create a product like a course so that they can sell it and make that as part of an ongoing offer. And then I also like to help them with their marketing plans and strategies so that they can sell their offer. But here's the thing, I don't do it for them. I help them to create the concepts for it. You know what I mean? Mhm. So my business development part, my web developer who is a business who's also a my business partner, he likes helping to not only he doesn't focus so much on conceptually the business development part, he helps them with creating a membership website. Okay. For their course. So he has his skill sets and I have mine. So what I do is together what I do is I help them to prepare their course so it's ready to go on their website and that way we work well together and we have a lot of synergies and that's why um just to give you an example of in a real life example in my case. So, when you're dealing with partnerships, for example, um then you really want to make sure that there's some synergies with that are **[00:06:00]** aligned with what you're doing, but don't compete with what you're doing. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a very helpful tip. Please go on. I don't know if that's connected to what he is, but I mean it just stems from it just stems from that example because I feel like that it's important to develop relationships with uh the people that you're talking to. When you're networking, it's about building a friendship, a real connection. People are who's going to who are you most likely going to be in in a business with? someone that you can relate to or someone that just slams a bunch of stuff, numbers and figures and and you know garbage at you. Which would you prefer? I'm going to ask you right now. Which one would you prefer? I would definitely not prefer the one with the numbers and figures. Right? The ones that throws, oh, I can do help you with this SEO and that nonsense and I get them all the time. The icky sales approach, right? We get that bombarded with it all the time. What we're trying to do is we're trying to help you create those authentic relationships. In fact, I have a a workshop partner. We talk a lot about networking on LinkedIn. And our biggest focus is helping you to create a proper relationship on LinkedIn and then setting your profile up so it draws and attracts the people organically without you having to go and do a lot of the sales pitches. As soon as I fixed some of the issues I was having on LinkedIn, I had it for a while. I had two people reach out to me. That's the power of what it means to have a proper a LinkedIn profile. **[00:08:00]** set up properly. And when you network properly, when you have a good message around what you do and it's all set up properly, it's going to work like clockwork. It's going to set people in front of you organically. You're still going to have to sit there and filter through the people that are icky. Uh, that's what I call the people that are the sales people that says, "Oh, if you buy my offers and blah blah blah and blah blah blah," and they talk all about them and not about you. Mhm. They show no interest in you. Those are the icky people. I'm sorry. That's my polite term for it. The goal is to not sound icky, but to sound real and authentic. One of the things I liked about Armando and talking with you on the chat was you and I had a conversation. We didn't even bring up podcasting until like third threequarters of the way into the conversation. Mhm. And it was a natural flow. And everything that I talk about with with when it comes to networking on anything I do is the natural networking. And I actually have a framework for that. Nice. I I will want to hear a little bit more about that as well. The I think you hit it right on the spot. LinkedIn, my experience has been for many years. I've had it of course since college, but it's a I just saw it as a tool that you have there. you need to have was that because I never was in the corporate world and I saw people just putting job postings and what the business was doing and things like that but it wasn't really valuable things and but now I've seen it it's **[00:10:00]** evolved dramatically there's a lot of very good content and there's a lot of very good tooling within it to connect with people and have real connections and so when I started learning about it like just like you my profile was completely generic doesn't tell people what I actually did or could do for them. And once I got some tips from someone else, I didn't figure this out on my own. I fixed my profile and I've gotten some people to actually say, "Oh, okay, cool. That's what you do." Right. And so it's I think you you hit it right right on on the nail. And it's I think more people need to hear about this. And I know you're talking you're making fun of the the icky people with that word, but it's it is true. I sometimes I'll reach out to someone. I like having genuine conversations like we're having now, like we did on the chat. But sometimes you reach out to someone and they have their guard up and they'll say, uh, I don't know, maybe you said, "Hope you're having a great day." And they'll say something, "This happened yesterday." They'll say something like, "Yeah, it's going good, but let's not spoil it with a pitch." Or something. I'm like, "Wow, this person has been stung a lot." And then we we we segue into an actual conversation. It turns out we have same interests and we had a a good chat, right? And so it's it's very interesting that many people use LinkedIn or follow approaches that may they may find tick tips or tricks or tricks or whatever and it's all salesy like you were saying and so all their outreach is salesy and all about them. So hearing you **[00:12:00]** say this I I think for people is going to be very important because if you start with the idea of I just want to build network actually engage with people and have real conversations. It changes how how you feel about LinkedIn. It changes how you feel about the conversations and it helps you get to know people and learn from them in a way that I you wouldn't expect from a platform like this. Exactly. And and we all know that with Facebook, for example, totally a social platform, right? LinkedIn's more professional, but that doesn't mean you don't treat people like a human being. Okay? AI has been so overused in the last several years. It was fresh. It was new when it started and it was had its kinks and it worked out its kinks and now still working some of those kinks out. But the long and story short of it, it's not perfect. It makes mistakes just like humans. You have to train it. Well, guess what? You also have to still show up as a human because people are going to connect more with what resonate with more and relate to more what you do as a human being than they will with an AI bot. Mhm. Um and the more that you sit there and you nailed it too part of my formula for which is called form family occupation recreation message. It's all about getting to know what you have in common interests. When you establish their common interests, you actually established their reason why they want to build their business. And if you could connect that dot between the reason why they are establishing their business and their motivation for doing so with the problem that they're having and the **[00:14:00]** offer that you solve and you do it in a genuine way and conversation and you do it in a proper way without the pitch. You don't do the pitch until very end. But you got to make sure that you peaked their interest enough during your conversation. And you got to do it in a very slow genuine way, methodical way because if you don't do it in normal pace or even a not a snail's pace, I'm saying because you're going to lose them, but in a normal conversation way like you and I are having a normal conversation. It's that kind of pace if that makes sense. But if you do it a normal genuine way, you're eventually going to get a sale. It's going to take a little bit longer, but it's not like this slam, bam, thank you, ma'am, cuz it's too quick and easy. I know it's a cookie cutter process. I don't like them. I like having a basic framework for your script. Yes, but as I was trying to train somebody today, have a basic framework. we will have that basic content. But then I told him, if you're going to do lead generation for me, you're going to also want to show up as a human being. And you can say, I am Cedric. I don't want you to say my name cuz you cannot be a female as much as I would, you know, you could try, but I wouldn't want you to be me. Um, so be yourself and say you can always introduce yourself as Marie's assistant. Mhm. You know, you can also go up there and show up as a real human being and share some of your own experiences. Be yourself. Who are people going to **[00:16:00]** be attracted to yourself? When you show up as a real human being and talk to them and chitchat with them on chat like you and I did that led in this case to a podcast. You might be surprised what other opportunities are out there that it can lead to on down the road when you show up as a human being and you are just having a normal conversation without the sales pitch that comes when you get on a discovery call or an introduction call whatever word you want to use it. Some people call it coffee or tea chat. Whatever it is that you use for your terminology, it's the same thing. It's that first Zoom meeting. Now I use Zoom. You use whatever you use a different studio platform. Whatever you use as your conference call. Um, fill in the blank for that for that link. You leave it there, you know, but whatever you use for that video call. When you get on a call, you should have had several touch points and conversational chats without much of a sales pitch. It's more of let's get on interest. Let's see what we can come up together and discuss what we can get together and talk about find out what that common interest is. So I don't know if you want me to share that framework with you or or give you a Yes, that that I mean if you could share with us that would be fantastic. I the the way you framed it, it makes it so clear that it sounds like common sense at the end of the day. And I think sometimes we lose a little bit of common sense when we get too deep into the sales process or too **[00:18:00]** deep into tools. There's something that creates a disconnect. And so it's all about trying to sell in many cases or it was sometimes we even go into and this might happen to you listeners and some might maybe it hasn't but sometimes you even think to yourself well yes I know the right way would be to establish a conversation and talk with them and and chat for a few days and then once I know them and there's rapport and I actually understand what they need then I can pitch something if it applies. maybe I don't maybe I cannot offer them anything and that's fine too but we think to ourselves at that point well before we do it we think oh but that takes too long I want to be able to run an ad and get someone in have the call and close but that's not yeah it can work but how are you feeling coming into these calls are you feeling nervous coming into these calls do you feel a lot of kickback during the call do you have to build a bunch of rapport during that discovery call versus having these initial engagement conversation, getting to know people first. Then if you jump on a discovery call because it makes sense and it's the right time, it's the most natural thing in the world and they want you to help them. Exactly. and you nailed it because when you're feeling nervous on a call, you didn't position your uh Zoom call introduction call properly and you came across you lost them at that point too cuz you came across as either being pushy or salesy and people can will run away from that. I'm being blunt. Um and I hope you're okay with **[00:20:00]** me being blunt. I'll be polite by all means. Yes, I'm tell as long as we don't use language that Spotify will ban us for, we're okay. Again, I'll try to put the polite filter on. But anyway, but at the same time, I'll be real. Um, so the long story short is if you're getting on those calls and you and it doesn't feel right, like for example, I had a call where she was very generally showing interest of me and the the conversation flow naturally. We got on a call and then it was to be on my podcast and then she started selling to me with her concept. I'm like, "This is not a discovery call for you to get on, you know, be my for me to be your on your um business model. It was for you to be on my podcast." And and I'm like, "You do realize that that's what we were on the call for, right?" And I'm like, and she's like, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Yeah." So, you selling on me was a little bit um surprising to say the least. So, and we didn't know how to end that call cuz it was very icky the way she brought up the company. It was like all of a sudden she went into I'm going to sell her my course, you know, and it was just not what I had brought her up on there for, right? And we were just having an introduction call. We weren't even getting on the podcast at that stage. So, the odd thing is she didn't know how to how to say face, which is a terminology some people use, which is how to talk to people properly about how to end conversations like **[00:22:00]** that that are icky. And so, she sent her secretary receptions or admin to email me saying, "I'm sorry, but you're not a good fit for the program." And I'm like, I wasn't trying to apply for the program in the first place. And I'm thinking this is just the weirdest setup. So if you're using that icky sales approach, you're going to get a lot of door slam in your face. I'm just going to say and people running away from you and say, "Don't go to that person." Okay? But if you show up as a real person and genuine because I keep I even went to my husband's boss at a at a at um one of our his work events recently and I told his boss and I told this more than once and over the last couple years I've known him says what you see is what you get. I'm going be myself all the time. I don't pretend to be me in a public setting and even in this kind of private more private setting I'm still me all the time. you could. And at home, I'm going to show up as myself, too. What you see at home is what you're going to see me in the public. Of course, the only difference is I won't be wearing pajamas when I'm in the public, unless I'm walking around my neighborhood. But cuz they've gotten used to it, me now being in the cuz I they know I work from home and I'm like have a nice shirt on and then I'm in pajama bottoms and they're like they go, "Oh, yeah, she's been on a Zoom call." Ah, yes. They're like, "Okay, we know that." So, it's like I could walk around in **[00:24:00]** someone's house in my neighborhood and in my slippers and pajamas and my my nice shirt and no one will know. No one in that neighborhood cares, which is great cuz that's how it was when my my old neighborhood. I moved recently and it's it's a nicer neighborhood personally. But the good thing is they don't care how I show up in clothing. As long as I have my personality and the attitude and the positive mental attitude and that I'm a real person and I show and I care about them, that's really what people want. They want people to show up and care about them. You know, I want to share about what I do, but I'm going to keep it short and sweet and to as much to the point as possible, which is hard to do cuz sometimes I'm a talker. Oh, that's what this is for. The idea is for people to and for those who are new to the web talk show, the whole point of the web talk show is to give you as a listener a behind the scenes speak into what happens in different industries, whether it's leadership training, uh, executive training, software development. We recently had a show about people who train for commercial exhaust hood cleaning. It's so the idea is for you as a listener to get a a better feel of the human behind all sorts of businesses. So by all means if you have something to share with us, this is this is the space for it because we really want to know what can be done in a better way, what types of frameworks exist. Um because everything we've been talking about can help someone who is in that path perhaps to find a **[00:26:00]** client, perhaps to sell their courses or whatever they want to do. And if now they realize they just need to be more human about it and it'll pan out, I that's going to be helpful. Awesome. Well, thank you. Well, I can share a simple framework and I learned it from a totally different industry. So, I cannot say that I came up with it on my own. Um, however, it's been a something I've been trying to polish up over the years. So, I've kind of made a few edits over the years, but the long story short of it is, um, again, I told you the name of it earlier, and it was called form, family, occupation, recreation, and message. So, let me go in here and go into uh form worksheet. I actually even have a form worksheet. So if anyone if you're interested in I can give it as a free little offer. So I'm going to try to put it in a conversational starting kind of mode because I feel like that's where people don't know where to start. And I think once we have a starting position, then it's just really listening to that person and continuing the conversation. as naturally as possible. And then the end part is figuring out what to do to get them to the next steps, whether it's to get on a call with you or whatever it is. So, I will try to walk you through the process as simple as possible. Mhm. So, we start with family, occupation, recreation, and message. You do not necessarily have to go in that order. because it's based on where you are in the conversation when you Right. That makes sense. Okay. So, it would be kind of icky if **[00:28:00]** I had started a conversation with you. So, what do you your family like to do for fun when we were talking about business when you wanted to when you introduced to me about business, right? So you start off you came to me first talking to me about you like the hook line on my LinkedIn profile for example. Would it be a little weird if I started off ended up following up with that? So what do you like to do for your fun with your family? Wouldn't that be a little weird? A little bit. Yeah. Okay. So you start with where you're you're at in the conversation. So, what did I say afterward? You asked me about the you liked my post and what did I say afterwards? What? What was about my post that you liked? Mhm. Specifically. Mhm. Yeah. What did I say specifically? Exactly. What did you say to that? It was the what? What was your response for the for the first when we first talked? Yes. And just yesterday we did this or the day before and you had said you liked what about my recent post? What was Oh, I well what I going Well, this this was it was a fun conversation because first you asked me about the what I liked first initially and like you were just saying what I liked was that that line that headline that you had right because your headline and I actually have it written down here because I wanted to ask you about it. turn LinkedIn connections into real business opportunities. And that spoke to me because I said, "Okay, so this sounds like someone who can help people understand what I think is very confusing for people on LinkedIn and **[00:30:00]** turn not only this, oh yeah, this is like a connection request to this one and this one and this one, but actually turn them into a real business opportunity." So that sparked my initial interest. And then you asked me what what else or why, right? And so then I I went into a little bit about the things that you posted and I told you that I really liked I got the impression that you were more of a genuine conversation type of person that it's not just a um let me just give you these tactics to to grow on LinkedIn, but instead actually get to know the person. And so that's sort of why I initially reached out. But your questions were great because they triggered what would be if it was a bot, it it wouldn't have had a good response for it, for example. And they were sort of these questions for humans, right? The the real capture, if you will. Which actually reminds me, sorry to segue here, but we had a conversation with um one of our one of our guests, Mark, he does investigative interviewing. And so he was talking about how when you want to figure out something, instead of just asking them yes or no questions, let's say your kid comes from school, you ask them they have homework, they're going to say no, or they might say no. They might say yes. But if you ask them which teacher gave you the most homework now they have to think and if they're gonna build a lie you're gonna figure it out like because they're going to be slippery really quick and so Mhm. Yeah. So, so I really like that you started with those questions because again, it **[00:32:00]** also told me that you're a human, which is good. Right. Exactly my point. And when I'm sharing this formula, it's not so that it could be cookie cutter and I was sharing with my team member. You have to customize it. You start with where the question there. You start with like in our conversation, you got a conversation starter with me and then I build it from there. I didn't throw my introduction till towards the end of that conversation, right? And you'd already seen my profile anyway. So, it really was pointless because I could tell in your introduction that you saw my first of all, you saw my blo my post and that meant you also saw my profile because you saw what I did and you mentioned what I did. And these are things I'm teaching my team members to also do is to go out there, do your research before you even connect with them. Know what they do. Know where they're from. That way those basic conversation starters don't even have to play a part in your conversation. And it doesn't sound like a bot. Yes. Cuz they're overused. Go in and do like Armano just did with me. He actually read my bothered to read something I wrote or my or one of my workshop partners I wrote and I posted and then I added a little information on the top of that. So, if he bothered to write it and then commented on and show me one or two sentences that he liked, that was our best conversation and it was a great conversation starter and it kept going because I gave him questions that was related to the topic we talked about and it led into being on a podcast **[00:34:00]** in this particular case. Here's what I and and I'm going to give you a couple more things and afterwards, but I wanted to one the biggest mistake I see and yes, you and here's one one of the things you should do is yes, you should have an end in mind with a call to action. Yes, you should. But what I find people make the mistake of is they constantly are steering people in the one direction that that person is not always ready for and they need to pick up on those signals. Mhm. And you could tell during a conversation if they're not, especially if you're on a video conversation because you could do and watch their hand signals and they're like if they're leaning into it versus if they're kind of like fidgety and kind of like h you know, you have to be able to watch for those subtle cues. Mhm. As well as their words. So if they say, "Oh, yes, I'm interested." In a very enthusiastic way that they are, "Oh, yeah. Let's see how it goes. That's sort of more they're on the fence and then not really interested or usually pretty obvious. Sometimes they're not. I have people give me lip service saying, "Oh yeah, let's get on another call." And if you don't book a call from a call, you're most likely funnel because one of the things I learned in the different business model is you book a call from a call. That way you're at least guaranteed to get on the calendar because I can tell you that sometimes my calendar fills up fast. And it's not just with business stuff either. My family pretty much on my toes between a 19-year-old in college. My mom is **[00:36:00]** this part senior and she has her knees and then my husband and then a furry cat named Smokey creature. But they all have their needs in various different forms at various different times of the day. and they're not always convenient, trust me. So, I have a busy family schedule. I have a busy business schedule. I just launched and published my second children's book. I also am a podcast host myself, which has been on hold for a while because I've gotten all this other stuff I had to take care of with life. Um, eventually I'll pick it back up before the end of the year, but not right away. Um, and then I do my business academy, which is what I'm main focused on right now. So, building that up with students that I want to teach and want to help. So, I guess prioritizing what's important is a key. Mhm. And calendar management, I'm sure, time management, all that plays a factor. I digress. So, going back and circling back to But that that's a very that's a very good point. People forget and we get reminded if you're doing any sort of like good sales stuff. Always booking from a call. I think that is that is excellent advice all the time because a lot of times we are afraid to do it. We feel it might be pushy but but it's not. It's at the end of the day, if you're having a good positive conversation and you said, you would speak about it later, why not try to book it right then when you both have your calendars open and you're right there and like you were just saying, life is not in the way. That's a perfect time to book the **[00:38:00]** next call so that you can look at next steps, whatever they may be. Exactly. And that's the whole point. So, um, and I'm kind of kind of jumping ahead, so let me just circle back a little bit. Um, and I'm glad that you like that because I feel like that's better than letting chances happen when you're dealing with those um, call to actions and stuff. Instead of just giving them the link and having them do it themselves, offer to do it for them. And don't be pushy about it. Naturally say, "Would you like me to schedule a call? I can just, you know, if you if if you already have if they've already have a conversation with you in chat and you know how to get their email, just confirm their email." Otherwise, ask for a better email than what they have listed on there that they will check on a frequent basis and then get that email and put it up there because sometimes their profiles are not current. I'm just going to let you know that up front. We want to double check your information whether you had them on the call. Just tip there. So, another good tip. So, family occupation recreation message. So, you and I had a good occupation. um we were talking about the LinkedIn profiles and the networking. So we were talking about really a topic that people were interested in, right? So that we established a common ground and then we did lead a little bit into family. We talked about you know you know and and also location. We asked where each other from because I had not I had not had time to do research for you because I just started messaging you or vice **[00:40:00]** versa. And so I got to learn a little about you and then we talked a little bit about family and kids and then the recreation was what did I say I was baked and gardened and all this stuff and then you found something that was interesting in what I had said to that and we had a conversation and it continued well that's how natural it is and again you don't have to be so cookie cutter where you do do it in the right order family and occupation recreation that's all to give you conversation starters So you can establish common ground, so you can start to build that genuine friendship. Mhm. And then it's the message and that message is your call to action. It's more of, you know, in this particular case, you had a podcast. You wanted to invite me onto the podcast. So that was your message. My message would have probably invited you on to an introduction call so we can maybe or a collaboration call to see if we had something we wanted to work on as a project together. Mhm. Mhm. To see if we were even going to be a good fit or we could have been referral partners, right, or accountability partners. You know, it could lead into a million different directions. But you won't know until you do it. And then on the call, right, you well, we were chatting over Messenger, that's when you gave me the link to calendar and it took me a little while, but I did get it booked. But the point is, if you do it from if you book a call from a call, you're less likely going to have people fall through the cracks. So, and networking is invaluable. **[00:42:00]** You build your net worth, it equals your net worth. I heard it a hundred times from other people as well. Maybe not exact words, but pretty darn close. You build a net worth, it eventually builds your net worth? It's a mindset. H I like it. So, and building genuine connections with others and showing a genuine interest in their lives as well as their work and establishing their common ground. And you do that by actively listening and just very thoughtful in questions that just keep it natural in their in the flow of conversation. You don't want to sound like an icky icky sales Mhm. You want to be real just like you would if you would go up to somebody at the grocery store. Trust me, I'm no different going up to somebody in the grocery store than I am talking to you. That is a picture that I I can I actually can. You're the perfect example of what you see is what you get. And and not everyone is like that unfortunately, but with you I see that's the case. the I I have a good example if I may of something that happened yesterday. So I met I was I I do outreach as you know and try to get to know people because I'm very interested in what people do and the different industries. And so I I reached out to a retired colonel, very smart man. He works in the executive leadership space but he's obviously retired from the military and very interesting trajectory. Very different age groups, right? very different industries, very different everything. But I reach out and we start chatting like you were saying, just having a regular conversation. I don't want to sell him anything. I know **[00:44:00]** there's like not the things I do are not but but sometimes you just want to really actually get to know people and in this case we started talking. He says yesterday morning he says call me. Um and so I think yeah of course maybe he's he doesn't want to talk on the on the chat or whatever. I should of course I call him. We start chatting and we have an hour and a half long amazing conversation of leadership, the military structure, how things are done here and in Mexico. It's just it went all sorts of ways. And I'm thinking to myself after the conversation, how valuable I mean obviously learning from someone in in that space and with that experience, but just how valuable a conversation can be getting to know one in a genuine way and how much sometimes we lose that possibility. We see like someone meets someone else at a party or at a bar or wherever and they're just doing chitchat. They just talk about the weather and what sports happen, what and that's it. They don't they don't know how to engage a conversation. It can happen to all of us of course but the fact that I was able to have this hour and a half long conversation serious in-depth conversation with someone that I met a few moments earlier through a LinkedIn chat just reminded me of like we're humans at the end of the day. These are just tools that can get us to actually connect, but but the human aspect is still there and we cannot lose sight of it. Right. I agree. And one of the things that and I'm glad you brought that up cuz I was at my husband's um we had some **[00:46:00]** sort of lunchon with some of his co-workers and there was with three ladies and my husband and I and my husband's kind of shy to begin with. So, but he's worked with these people more than I have been around them, but I hang out with them occasionally. So um at these gatherings so I started having some questions to get to know you questions and I didn't follow the exact formula because this was not for business this was for pleasure. So I asked them things like what is her favorite book, you know, what is her favorite? One of them doesn't like to read anything because she's in high school and friend and textbooks are all she has times for. And then I like I can relate to that cuz I had that problem when I was in high school, you know. And then um I found out like their favorite movies, their favorite color that you know these are the kinds of questions that you just want to sit there and maybe ask especially when you're in a social setting. maybe not necessarily in chat because they're more focused on business, but um it's more of getting to know you. I actually did a post recently and and I talked about my favorite hobbies and that's another question to ask. What are your favorite hobbies? And I said that my favorite hobbies that I've gr I mean I love baking and gardening and knitting. Typical women ones, right? Well, I also threw one out there that really grabbed somebody's attention, and that was Pokemon. My son and I used to play Pokémon together. We recently stopped because when we moved, we just didn't have time to go to the Pokémon League, which was and once my **[00:48:00]** mom moved this year, um that time was occupied by working with her. So, I just don't have time to go devote to it anymore. But we it was something we used to love doing together, and it was a great social time for us, too. And so the guy said, "I love the fact that you play Pokemon." He says, "Well, I used to, but I don't anymore. But I still like the cards, you know, I still like the um the characters because you get to learn about the different characters and all the different things that relate to that card." And um we had a great conversation. Now, unfortunately, when I got connected with him on social media, he became a little more salesperson. So, I called him out on it and said, "Look, you were genuine when we had a conversation. That's the only reason why I agreed to be be with you on social media. But if you're going to be with me on social media and you're going to pitch to me, then we need to have a conversation. This is not a good way of doing it." And once he realized his mistake, we had a good conversation again. And then I steered that around and made sure that he understood. Let's continue that other conversation. and I'm not ready to hire anybody at this stage of my business. But if you continued on the other path, if he continued down the wrong path, I would have blocked him. Mhm. That's because he was not doing that the right way. He was having a really good genuine conversation like you and I did. But as soon as he steered and veered off to the wrong direction with icky sales pitch part, I was **[00:50:00]** done. So, that's something we got to keep in mind when we're trying to approach people on social media because I can tell you if I can spot them a mile away and I'm blunting out there, so can somebody else who may be more civil than me. Mhm. Or more quieter me. So, that's something to think about. So you it's all about your approach and positioning your offers and and it doesn't so a lot of times one might think it ends in that pitch, right? Or whatever pitch it is, whatever stage it is, you made the pitch, maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. Oh, it didn't work. Bye-bye. Where maybe no, maybe that's just the start of a conversation. So if you actually had these whole everything we've been talking about the cas the the genuine conversation you're just know getting to know each other you share what you do you might even get to a point where there's a discovery call you find that you're not the right fit but if you don't stop there and you actually continue that genuine conversation and build a relationship through time or business relationship then maybe they'll get to a point in the business or change to another business when the time comes that they might actually need what you offer and they're going to come back. Or if they don't need it, they can tell someone who does need it to come with you. Whereas if like in this case, if they hadn't course corrected, then you might have blocked them and they would have lost any opportunities. But now that you stayed in touch now, you might refer someone to them if the need arises. Exactly. And and you nailed it perfectly. And then what you **[00:52:00]** also do in cases like that is you when you build enough of rapport and you build that um bridge which is um finding out their that common interest that you both share and love and have a passion for and a key thing is passion. Okay. Um it's going to build that friendship and you can continue that friendship with that. It doesn't always have to lead down a business hole. I'm just going to say that up front. Maybe it leads down to, oh, let's get together and if you're, especially if you're local. Now, if you're long distance, that might a little hard. You might have to do that on a Zoom call. But anyway, let's get to a Zoom call and do a social gathering kind of thing. You know, you know, we could do stuff like that, too. And I've had that, too. I've had some parties on on Zoom before. Um, I had my birthday party on Zoom because I wanted to zoom my mother in on it. So, and I on Zoom. You never know. You'd be surprised what you could do socially, but the point is that it's building that rapport should lead down to some common interests and eventually like you said, you might have a forall. So, here's something what I'm going to also mention. I was trying to say and I veered off, but when you build it properly and you build that relationship properly, yes, you can get referrals. Um, I had it in the tip of my tongue and I hate it when I goes out the window and out the left field and down another door. Um, anyone else relate? So, you like I said, you don't have to be perfect building a business, okay? Or **[00:54:00]** even on the podcast. But the point is, you need to be able to develop that genuine relationship because it will eventually lead to referrals. I have a student that started with me the beginning of this year because she was a guest on my podcast in 2022, 2025. She reached out and said, "I'm ready to get started. Are you still building it?" I'm like, "Yes, I'm still building it, but I haven't changed it a little bit." So, your timing is perfect. So, there's a reason for everything. So, you have to be ready for when the students are ready to show up or when your clients are ready to show up. And you have to understand that when you're building genuine relationships, sometimes that takes sales. Quick sales are great for quick bucks, but they don't give you that genuine relationships builds a long-term relationship. And that's my point. And it took me almost 15 minutes to share that point, but I gave you lots of good examples and formulates and so forth. And hopefully it was helpful somewhere along the line. It was very helpful, Maria. I really appreciate. There's a lot of golden nuggets in here that I'm sure we can take out into little shorter videos that we'll put on social and on LinkedIn so people can get a glimpse and then come and listen to the full episode. Everything has been so helpful and even though this has been a casual conversation, at the end of the day, we're talking about real things that happen in real life and experiences and you have that experience. So that's why I wanted to bring you on the show because it looked like from afar and now I can see that that's correct that you trust **[00:56:00]** genuine relationship building and then that's the way to go or at least that's the way we would like it to go. So Marie, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really had a lot of fun chatting with you today and I would like if you could share with us where people can find you, where they can find your books because I know you do a lot of different things. So, where can people find you and what can they find so that they can learn more from you. Thank you for that um for that in um leadin to that particular part of this show. So, I will I am all over the place literally. I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn, so Marie Mason for Facebook. Um, I also have a business page as well for Business Solutions Academy. Um, I also am in Virginia. So, make sure you make sure that Marie Mason is not like from Ohio or other places because if you look up Marie Mason, there's a lot of us called that, by the way. So, Marie Van Dorne Mason is another Facebook name that I haven't used since my son was a year, probably three and a half. So, um that so I'm I do have pages out there that are unusual. So, um but if you want I will make sure you get those links to make sure that I'm clear because I don't have a unique name anymore. Um I do have Business Solutions Academy on LinkedIn. It's the only business page I have up there, but it's not business. It's so just to be clear. And then I also have um a books uh two books out. I have a bubble bear special problem by Marie **[00:58:00]** Van Doran Mason and then I have a one called just released actually this past week and end of April. Very excited about it. Congratulations. Thank you. Claire Bear's big be battle and it's actually a spelling bee, not a bumblebee. Just to make sure I'm clear on it. Nice. So there's a lot of tips. It's all about um my book series is all about um helping people destigmatize u the idea of what concepts of learning disabilities helping us see it through the viewpoint of the child so you as the reader can also see what they walk through and experience. It's getting a fresh perspective on it and helping people to redefine it and helping people to understand that acceptance is a choice. Let's say tolerance didn't get us anywhere back in that decade. So now I'm focused on helping getting that message out where acceptance is and choice. It's accepting about our unique skills and what we can bring to the table and less about what we can't do. The world tells us what we can't do. I'm sharing what you can do. We paint the good stuff that that those children do in the stories as well as we showcase their strengths. We also showcases what their challenges are and we give them solutions on how to accomplish and overcome it. Amazing. I'm looking forward to that. Yes. Can you Yes. If you can share those links, I will make sure we can put them in the show notes as well. You can share them through the chat and I think a lot of people will enjoy that as well. Fantastic stuff, Mari. Again, I really want to thank you again for coming on the show for agreeing on such a short term because we **[01:00:00]** just started speaking and I really appreciate you coming on short notice. It was a great show. I was I really had a lot of fun and you did provide great insights that I'm sure our listeners are going to love. Thanks again. My pleasure. I'm always happy to