Resources in this Episode:

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. Welcome to Episode 085. Today we are back on the show with the amazing, Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [0:12]
Hi, this is Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk and you are listening to, Heart Sells! Podcast by Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:19]
I’m so excited to have another conversation with the wonderful, Mary Ann Thompson Fren. Today, we are talking about the most important element to understand when you are making your offers. If you have not yet subscribed to Heart Sells! Podcast, please do. Also, hop on over to iTunes, leave a rating and a review if you like what you hear and tell all your friends about it. At https://christineschlonski.com/previewtrue/podcast/, you find all the show notes, the transcripts, the resources, and the links to these amazing guests. So you can learn more, you can connect and engage and yeah, just be connected with these wonderful speakers. So, Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk has a bio where you might ask yourself, “Well, is this really just one person?”, and I can assure you, yes, it is. I had the honor of meeting her in person when I was in London at a conference where she spoke. I had to really ask her to share her knowledge here at Heart Sells! Podcast and she’s doing such a wonderful job. So I’m really looking forward to tuning into this second episode. Let me give you a brief review of her bio in a nutshell. Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk is the President and Co-founder of the Memnosyne Institute. She is a humanitarian, a conscious capitalist, a published writer, an internationally award-winning sculpture, a human rights and environmental activist, social, responsible investor and a frequently requested international speaker. In 2018, she was presented the Inspiring Award at Harvard University, and the Civic Pioneer Award at the UN, which is actually being one of the highest award of female citizen in the US can receive, also entered into the congressional records. I’m so happy to have Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk back on the show, and I can’t wait for all the amazing wisdom she’s going to share today. Well, I am so so excited to have you back on the show. Mary Ann, welcome to, Heart Sells! Podcast.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [2:46]
Thank you. I’m excited to be back.

Christine Schlonski [2:48]
Yeah, I loved our first interview, and you talked a lot about being like on that global scale. I feel it could be kind of intimidating for one or the other listener. I like thinking well, “Wow, that sounds like complicated or difficult to go global to put myself out there.” Well, I personally think it’s exciting and it can be pretty easy. So do you have some advice around that?

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [3:16]
Yes, absolutely. Number one thing is have confidence. It’s a big, big world out there. So know that you have what you have to offer somewhat, and that huge world needs it. Okay. So first of all, you take that in. Second of all, really understand where other people are coming from. Empathy is always a tool. It’s a practical tool. So what I tell people is, you really need to take a time to analyze and go, “Where is my community? Where I met? What is it providing for people? What are other places not providing for people? How can I have that I need so the purpose someone over there?”, whoever over there is, and in order to do that, for me, one of the tools to spend spiraled dynamics, and to give people a little background on what that is. Many people have seen the movie, Invictus. They know a little bit about Nelson Mandela’s life. But we see the results of history, we don’t necessarily see what happened behind the curtain. When the African community wanted to end Apartheid, he hired a man by the name of Dr. Don Edward Beck. He brought him in to interview six different prisoners, and to decide who among these prisoners would be the right people to help lead the throw of, the overthrow of Apartheid. Don Beck was hard to go in and among six he interviewed was Nelson Mandela. He hand picked Nelson Mandela. Then he became Nelson Mandela’s main advisor, over the years of how do you take care of this group of people, that group of people, the fears that different groups would be having, and it was so complicated, you have businesses that were invested in maintaining the status quo, you had families that were struggling of different races, that were both terrified of what could happen when this thing happened, or that thing happened. In order to communicate without being accused of racism, he couldn’t say, well, it’s a black and white issue, he had to break it down into different colors. If you think of, what I tell people, think of like a funnel, and you’d subdivided that funnel into different layers, you would have a color scheme on each. What he talked about was it each layer represented the motivations and the needs for people. The bottom you had beige, which is just like, “I need clean water. I need a roof over my head. I need to feel safe. I need food”, there’s the survival. The one after that, you have people, that it’s called purple. Again, there’s no meaning behind them, except that it was helpful to clarify, the purple layer was about, more superstition, “Okay, well, if I do this, will that happen?”, think the witch burning trials, that kind of mentality. After that, you have the red layer, and that was, “This is mine”, and it’s where we get into a lot of more warfare over that. Then you had, the blue layer and that is a theocracy kind of thing, mentality, that there’s both positive and negative in that. Every one of these has a good and bad version of themselves. After that, you get into a basically a, an orange layer, and that orange layer is all about profit, “How can I make the most money?” Again, a lot of people like to demonize these, they’re not evil unto themselves. After that you have a green layer, and the green layer is all about, caring for the whole of humanity. A lot of people with the green mentality want to demonize orange mentality. But when you get up to the yellow layer, that’s when you start realizing, “I have a hammer, I can kill you with it, or I can build something with it”, the hammer is not evil. Economics, being hammer isn’t evil, what I do with it, is what matters. If you are in that yellow layer, you have the mentality and the ethics of that green layer but you have the tools of the orange layer. In fact, you have the tools of everything underneath it. When you don’t see all the these individual motivations is when we get into the extremes, we get into people hating somebody, loathing somebody because you’re a different religion. You get into where you’re scared of allowing people to participate on the world stage by financially, those are those kinds of things. So when you start looking at things from spiral dynamics, you start realizing it’s more like a barcode. So if you’ve ever gotten in and scanned an item out, and if you look at that barcode, it looks like you have certain amounts of little black lines. Well, if you could imagine those lines being different color codes, that’s more like what an individual society is, we all have certain amounts in our society, of blue, of green, even have purple, I mean, we have all of that, in the United States, Flint with its water, such crisis, that having clean water there in a beige. So you can have modern first world countries dealing with beige issues. This is something that exists. Now, what’s been fascinating is that, Ross Perot, got together with, don Edward Beck, back in the 80s and said, “Let’s computerize some of this”, and when they went through it, they were able to start putting data in, but what I call it, it’s like an old fashioned Polaroid snapshot, because they might have economic data from 1985, environmental data from 19, you know, 81. It wasn’t like a real hard-hitting thing, it was just that moment in time. They found that all this information came together and ended up computerized not being forced, almost like a spiral of DNA. But it was really the first photograph of shared human consciousness that had been taken in the world if you really think about that. I did that for the city of Dallas. So now, what we’re doing within the Memnosyne Institute, is, we’re saying, “Well, why don’t we take the kind of technology that you have for the stock market of ongoing data”, but we take the ongoing data that’s now available within demographic systems within environmental systems, etc, etc. Suddenly, you have an ongoing, up to date, to the second accurate is being designed by Thomas John’s, he’s an engineer and it’s showing to the minute that an individual society is going through. They use this kind of thing in order up in Norway with the Nobel Peace Prize committee, they were actually looking at it and went, “Oh, my goodness, we’re going to end up having a shooting”, and they were able to predict the shooting that happened in Norway, places like Singapore, Egypt, they use this to predict terrorism bioterrorism. But Don Beck is saying, “We’re much more as human beings and terrorism, we are creative, we build systems, we do things. We can now do this and predict it in all sorts of ways and all aspects of whether that is our economics, our environment.” So what this means for the everyday person, what it would mean for you, is that if you just begin to understand spiral dynamics, you can go into a community into a boardroom, into a society and say, “Where are they at?”, and really help your mind go, “Oh, I’m trying to sell them a solution at this level, when they need something at that level.” A good example is like when I was in Rwanda, I tell people about, there’s a woman she was carrying buckets up a mountain at 6am and we came back at 6pm and I said, “Oh, my goodness. Is she been doing that all day, going back and forth?” She said, “No, no, that was one trip”, she spent from 6am to 6pm, to get clean water. But we have people with us who wanted to invest and help them become entrepreneurs. Well, if they weren’t taking care of that beige level of having access to clean water, and less than a 6am to 6pm, there’s no way that woman could begin a business, even if they gave her a million dollars. What they need to do is help her get clean water, and then she could have a business. That’s a very easy way to break it down. You have to know where people are at and make sure that what you’re offering is right next to them or that one step beyond where they are so that they can get to where they need to go to receive what you can give them. But don’t try and get something that’s out of sync with. I hope, I know that was a lot but I hope that kind of summarizes,

Christine Schlonski [11:10]
Yeah, it totally makes sense to me, I hope for the listeners as well. So what I would like to take out of this piece is like the practical things for the solopreneur or small business who are listening right now How can they take that piece into their sales activity? What I’ve heard is that, because when we are really in our gifts, and we, we are so excited about what we do, and we see the value, and we see the power of what we’re bringing to the world, the client we might be talking to is just seeing his or her need.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [11:50]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [11:51]
Right? So when we come with like maybe a too big of a vision, they might not get what they get out of it, and then they might not even buy. So what I heard from what you just explained is, it’s really crucial to understand all these different layers and to understand how to communicate with your potential client, know that their needs are really truly max.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [12:19]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [12:20]
And if your product provides any, any bonuses, any extra benefits, that is even more of what they need to not just make it about the huge package, but like getting it down to the basic need that needs to be fulfilled, to then be able to say, “All right, now we got”, for example, the woman was the water, “Now she has all of a sudden, 12 more hours in her day.” Right? “Now, she can move to her next level.”

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [12:49]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [12:50]
So it’s the same as a business. Once we figure out what the client exactly needs, by knowing who our client is, by knowing how to express our services in a way that they understand, then we’re able to make more impact because there’s a deeper connection and understanding.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [13:11]
Absolutely. Today we have, we’re all inundated by mass media, we have people that are going, “Oh my goodness, look at that political issue.” There’s an issue of interfaith relations, an issue of interracial relations, an issue of how this demographic growing is hurting that demographic that was already there, the introduction, this product could hurt the existing economy and that product. It can just be overwhelming because we see it all the time. The helpfulness and something, the spiral dynamics that you’re able to go in and say, “Okay, this particular area of society is operating from an orange mentality of how do we make the most money, that area society is operating from beige, and that they need to survive. This area over here, red is feeling very territorial. This area over here, and blue is via the their theology is a huge part of what motivates their whole society.” If you can analyze all those different things, which most of us do unconsciously, because we just read the news, and we start compartmentalizing. But when you have something like spiral dynamics, it allows you to compartmentalize a little more objectively and a little more in an organized way. And you go, “Okay, I want to do business in Dubai, because what I’m offering is something that would be perfect for them, I’m going to make something up, like, a lot of them, women wear burqas, so it can be hot over there.” So one of the things that might be ideal if there was a woman, she was selling fabric that was very cool, or it ended up helping to keep them cool underneath the burqa, “Okay, how do I get there?”, well, I need to understand that their theology is a huge part of their motivation. I need to understand, so blue is a huge part of it. I need to understand that they are a major buying society, orangee is very much in there. I need to understand that for them, survival means staying cool, so there’s a beige factor in there. I could go on down the list. When I start understanding all these different factors, suddenly I can go, “This is how I need to advertise. This is how, what I offer matches with each of those things?”, and my message needs to be this, “Whereas if I was taking it to Dallas, Texas, another place where people aren’t covering, but they’re still get very, very hot.” Then I would say “Okay, well, the theology component doesn’t need to be in there but I would need to, meet still on these other components.” So this is the way we need to think. If we’re able to convey this to our staff, to our production team, and in our own minds, then suddenly we’re sharing a vocabulary that can help us analyze and go, “This is the most strategic way to able to move into this particular area.”

Christine Schlonski [15:53]
Yeah. So when we break that down to like, let’s say a single sales conversation, like if you and I would have a sales conversation right now. How would you go about to to analyze my needs?

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [16:09]
Well, what I would first do is I like to always tell people start with empathy. I would be asking you questions, I always trying to tell people, “Get out of yourself.” Most people want to launch into, “I’m going to sell this. I’m going to offer this”, and said, “Don’t do that. Sit down and push yourself to the side.” Actually, shove your agenda to the side and say, “Where are you coming from? What is motivates you? What is most passionate for you? What are your struggles?”, and really start understanding the emotion. I think a lot of people neglect that, trying to understand the emotion of who you’re talking to. When you start seeing where are they most aligned. Because also, a lot of people will intellectually say, “I’m with a”, but when you start talking to them, you’ve seen their emotion reveals they’re more focused on be. So really get into that conversation. When you get into that conversation, then you have the data that you can start compartmentalizing in your mind, as I was suggesting with biodynamics, and you go, “Okay, so out of all the repertoire, but I have to offer, the thing is going to get you further along is this”, and you need to also be humble enough to go, “Okay, I’d love to sell you A, B, C, D, E, F, G, but what you really need is x” and that’s the one thing that can help get you further and if you stay focused on what the other person needs to move further, then you’re making a service because people forget service is serving the other, is going to serve the other. If you do that, then you’re most likely going to make a connection.

Christine Schlonski [17:39]
Yeah, oh, I so agree. Asking questions is so important because that’s the only way you will understand the motivation of the other person, you will understand where they’re coming from, and where they really struggle. Sometimes, when I talk about sales and selling from the heart and being authentic, that’s kind of the declaration, right? So when people come in, there’s so much more, there’s a confidence piece, there’s the self-worth piece, the money mindset piece, there’s so much more coming together. But if you market that all at once, and you just have this big ocean of solutions, and nobody would feel talked to, but when you say, “Well, that’s the sales piece”, if you feel, if you love what you do, but you feel, don’t feel great when selling or you even hate sales, or you choke when you make an offer, then it’s like, “Oh, now I can identify.”

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [18:39]
A really good example of this, one of the projects, because as I mentioned before I see me and Terry, and I don’t just do philanthropy, I look at conscious capitalism, social sponsor, but sitting in activism, and one of my SRI right now is Dakia, it’s a hotel chain that’s about to launch. They wanted to have a spot. They wanted the spot, offer a lot of things that no one else could find. I have an amazing friend of mine named Qunyh Chau Stone, she’s a remarkable woman living in Dallas. She has taken this ancient cupping modality. That’s where people, take cups, and traditionally, they put a little fire in there, and they put on the back and they pull out the toxins. It’s amazing, as someone who has seizures, it actually helped reduce my pain seizures by a month. What I was wanting to do is help bring her to their attention. Well, she invented a machine that does this without fire, without anything. Meanwhile, she also offers all these spa products, everything. If I had gone in with what she was saying, “Sell the shampoos, sell this lotion”, nothing would have happened. But when I listened to what this chain was saying, they want more than anything, things that no one has seen before, like she’s been been at this machine and you hone in on what it is they’re looking for. Now, it looks like they want her machine, every one of their spas and ever all over the world. That is what it took, though, because he wanted to go in, a lot of times, mostly, “I have this. I have this. I have that”, listen to what they have. Now that they want that machine everywhere, then there’s an opportunity to introduce other things. Think of it like a wedge, you can go in with that one thing that the other person wants, but it opens a door. But if you go in with everything else, and you’re not really hearing what the other needs, then you know that door is shut before anything else happens.

Christine Schlonski [20:34]
Yeah, such a valuable, valuable advice. Thank you so much. So finishing off this amazing episode, I’d love to continue. I just love this mission with you. It’s so amazing. So would there be like a mantra or a quote that inspires you, that motivates you that you would love to share?

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [20:58]
Well, I only sign off by saying, “Stay inspired.” I sign all my emails, everything that were people kind of teased me about it. But I’d like to bring that back to what it originally meant, to inspire used to mean in ancient times to basically inhale something greater than oneself, Spirit God, whatever you talk about. It really means to be jacked into source. A lot of us we separate what we do in our day to day life from that greater source and people often ask me, “How did this opportunity fall into your lap? Why this synchronicity, why that?”, but when you remain open to that source, it is remarkable the kinds of synchronicities that occur, the opportunities that occur. A lot of times, things that you thought you could never do, suddenly you go, “Oh, I can do that”, and you don’t know why or where that comes from. But when you trust it, and allows you to move forward, amazing things happen. So I want to tell anyone, especially women, but anyone that might be listening to this, if you have something even willing to try and you think is just out of your reach, go for it, you know. There is no one that can offer what you offer, the way you offer it to the world. You’re not giving anybody a service by holding back. Become your fullest capacity for who you are. So truly stay inspired.

Christine Schlonski [22:18]
Beautiful. Thank you so, so much. I just want to make sure that people can find you. I will have all the links in the show notes at https://christineschlonski.com. But tell us real quick what people need to do to get connected to you.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [22:34]
Please find us on Facebook, it’s the best way to find us, the Memnosyne Institute. You can also find me Mary Ann Thompson-Fren on both my public and in my private Facebook, my private still open. If you’re interested in spiral dynamics and learning more, we’re going to be building in the new Dallas Smart Corridor, we’re going to be having a building for the center for outreach and the vital signs monitored, I discussed with Don Beck and everything. We’re having a holographic and virtual reality interface, it’s going to be in there. We’re going to be designing it so that other people, whether it’s businesses, societies, communities, could have whole vital sites, monitors run on them and what they’re doing. Or you could just come and learn more about it. So we’re looking to empower as many people in the world with understanding these modalities as possible.

Christine Schlonski [23:22]
Beautiful. Thank you so so much for all the wisdom you shared today, Mary Ann.

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [23:27]
Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [23:28]
Thank you for having been on Heart Sells!

Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk [23:30]
Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [23:31]
Well, what a big lesson around sales, around offering, around really meeting people’s needs wherever they are. So if somebody does not have an open mind, because they’re so busy fulfilling their basic needs, you cannot come this philosophical ideas. There’s just no space for that. So make sure that you really tune into what is it that your ideal client actually needs. Where do you have to meet them so you can make your offer and you can make a sale with ease, grace and confidence. I think Mary Ann presented it in such a beautiful way that you will be able to take these thoughts and think about them yourself to have actionable steps in your own business. Thank you so much for being here for tuning in for making this podcast, Heart Sells! such a success and really starting to be a movement of heart sellers who want to deliver value who want to serve and at the same time, create a business and life they just love. So I’m so excited that you are here. Please subscribe if you have not already. Leave a rating and review and tune in to the next amazing episode. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this amazing world. I’m saying, bye for now.