Dan Kuschell a husband, dad, serial entrepreneur and angel investor grew up in inner city of Detroit to building 11+ companies – multiple 7 and 8 figures.
He bought and sold multiple companies; helped over 200,000 clients, coached over 5,000 business owners to connect the dots, see the blind-spots, and get unstuck, by helping to implement unique sales & marketing systems to get more clients, growth, and profits and have a bigger impact, reach, and contribution.
Now, some of the top experts like Joe Polish, Dean Graziosi, Janet Attwood, Mike Agugliaro, Daniel Marcos and many more, ask Dan to help them.
Dan has been rated as a top 25 Influencer by Influencive, and his podcast is recommended by Forbes magazine.
- Could not recommend it enough!March 18, 2019 by Mindful Mel from United States
Listening to Heart Sells Podcast has felt like meeting a soulmate! That initial excitement of knowing this is exactly what you’ve been looking for, the peace of feeling completely understood and that burst of energy from knowing that anything is possible! Every episode has been chock full of awesome nuggets and beautiful reminders. The combination of incredibly successful powerhouses sharing their journey, practical and applicable tools and Christine’s heartfelt and authentic approach and energy, is an incredible gift for all heart-centered entrepreneurs!
- Dondi Scumaci - Don't let a bad experience creep into your heartJanuary 19, 2019 by WalkingInside from Canada
Loved the interview! Dondi has a great way of reminding us that we get to choose the lesson in our experiences.
- Amazing Podcast!January 5, 2019 by LaDawn Townsend from United States
I just started listening to Christine's podcast and the content is amazing! Can't wait for the next episdoe.
- Packed with Powerful & Practical Tips!December 24, 2018 by VanPavlik from United States
Love this podcast! The lifeblood of any business is sales and Christine does an amazing job of making sales something you'll fall in love with instead of dread. These podcasts are short and get staright to the point, filling you with both the knowledge and motivation to go out and bring in lots more money to your business by selling from your heart. If you want to bury the notion that sales is sleazy or avoid "gurus" who make sales sleazy and instead learn to how to sell in a way that is heart-centered, easy, win-win, and non-pushy, then look no further... you have found the right podcast!
- Mindset Makes The DifferenceDecember 17, 2018 by JanineFQ from United States
Great show about creating a business with heart. If you think it, you can achieve it and Christine show you how to use your heart and mind to find success. I'll listen again.
- Loved the JLD InterviewDecember 16, 2018 by Thehighenergygirl from United States
Wow, what a great interview with JLD. Christine your energy is great and I look forward to listening to your other episodes. Well done! BTW I love the title so much!
- Follow your heart!December 14, 2018 by The Marketing Book Podcast from United States
... and your mindset will take it from there. Yogi Berra once said "90% of the game is half mental." With your heart and mind aligned (like planets) you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish. Subsribe, listen and start selling!
- Afraid to sell? Listen here!December 13, 2018 by MizzBeeMe from United States
These are wonderful interviews with successful entrepreneurs, (including the Queen of Sales Mindset, host Christine)......who share how they began, what their difficulties were, and the sales mindsets & strategies they used to get to their top. If you've ever had that icky feeling when it come to 'selling' you or your stuff....get some great inspiration here of not only how to sell, but how to think.
- Feeling P.O.W.E.R. ful!December 10, 2018 by The Variety Artist from United States
Just listened to ep 5. Love the POWER formula. Christine explains it clearly and makes it simple for me to understand. Great podcast!
- Let’s get better at selling!December 9, 2018 by Joeb29 from United States
Let’s be honest, we can ALL be better at selling. I know I can, and I’ve been studying selling for years! Have a listen if you want to start getting better. I’d recommend it!
- Inspirational!December 8, 2018 by CCarroll1 from United States
Christine is a joy to listen to and learn from! I am so glad she now has a podcast so I can keep learning from her wisdom on sales, money, mindset, business and more. Great information!
- You had me at "hi gorgeous!"December 8, 2018 by The Chef Rock Xperiment from United States
Wonderful energy and such valuable insight! Thank you, Christine!
- Love this podcast!December 8, 2018 by Funky Sarica from United States
Christine does such an incredible job of helping her listeners to find their way with selling with love, from the heart. Her guests offer so much value—looking forward to more interviews!
- Beautifl ShowDecember 8, 2018 by Duffash from United States
Christine has a wonderful energy. She is a great coach and teacher. I love how she teaches tools for shifting our mindset into creating habits and behaviors that build our success.
- Christine is Great!December 8, 2018 by horsegirldsi from United States
Have gotten a lot of value out of the first episodes. Christine is a great host!
- We need more of this...December 7, 2018 by Stu Schaefer from United States
I'm an entrepreneur and I sell every day of my life. It's easy to neglect the heart side of things, but I think it's important to balance that since we're all humans on the same team. Christine does a great job providing really valuable insights!
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Resources: Mini Business Growth Toolkit
3 Key Points:
- Heart selling is truly being connected in alignment with, what does this really do? What does it mean? What does it give to the end-user of this with our service or clients?
- The freedom that people get by having control and having a system in place or process in place to create revenue, sales profits, not relying on them, not relying on just referrals, not relying on one to one, but one too many methods. It’s such a gift and a powerful tool.
- Liking is a value. Trust is more important. Trust and respect are far more important.
Show Notes:
[02:27] A good framework for every business owner is to think of one day that they look to sell it. Not that they have to sell it. But if they come from the mindset that plans to sell, then what ends up happening is you operate a little bit differently.
[03:15] There’s huge success traps for most founder CEOs and entrepreneurs because we learn skill sets to adapt, to cope, to get things done and that has a tendency to keep us trapped.
[05:21] A lot of ways, our typical education, traditional upbringings limit us in our ability to sell.
[05:55] Elon Musk quote, “Unlearning can be more important than learning.” We have to unlearn some of these false beliefs. Like money is the root of all evil. Then you can tie in things related to sales or business or business people. Like they’re greedy. All these kinds of false beliefs. We have to unlearn those to then get into a sweet spot.
[07:49] Dan Sullivan quote, “Selling is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that is good for them, so they can emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result.”
[08:10] Getting intellectually, first, you got to get yourself intellectually engaged in a future result. In other words, it’s solving a problem that is good for them. That’s a real key piece to this, that is good for them. You can emotionally take action to achieve that result.
[09:48] Craig Clemens quote, “The number one people, number one reason people buy from you is when they have certainty in what you do.”
[10:23] If you can solve a problem, then you can go to all ends to share with a value, what it means.
[10:39] “Selling is or making money is, is a byproduct of value creation.” What is the value you provide to the market out there? What is the value you provide to the market out there? What is the solution and the or the problem that you solve with the value you have? If you have the certainty behind that, that you deliver the very best in the world or one of the best in the world.
[11:21] What’s the number one reason they don’t buy? It’s uncertainty. If you’re delivering uncertainty in your message and your communication and your words, your languaging, linguistics, they’re not going to buy from you. Has nothing to do with the product that has nothing to do with the service.
[11:39] Gary Halbert’s famous quote, “There’s no correlation between being good and getting paid.” How many great people do we all meet? They have great ideas. They have great products. They have great services. But their ability to translate that into getting paid is low.
[13:15] If you want to build your business, look at how do you help 10 times that amount of people get an impact from it. If you want to grow your impact, you got to just get the beliefs in alignment with your messaging with your impact.
[13:37] When you do shy away from your offer, and it’s not an alignment, people will, as they smell it, even though you hope that nobody notices it. They will notice it and they will then kind of think that something is wrong with your offer.
[14:59] There’s an adage in business, it says that people must like us and trust us to buy from us. I actually think it’s one of the biggest lies in the world. I think it’s a big fault. I think it’s people that go down this road and I went down this road and this is why I speak to it.
[15:48] Liking is a value. Trust is more important. Trust and respect are far more important.
[18:57] The freedom that people get by having control and having a system in place or process in place to create revenue, sales profits, not relying on them, not relying on just referrals, not relying on one to one, but one too many methods. It’s such a gift and a powerful tool.
[21:25] Heart selling is truly being connected in alignment with, what does this really do? What does it mean? What does it give to the end-user of this with our service or clients?
[33:46] Just having the clarity that you really need to build an asset instead of building yourself a job in having better strategies in selling more, having more impact, growing your company more, having more profit at the end of the day so you have better choices when it comes in reinvesting into your business or in making your dreams come true is so, so super important.
Transcript:
For FULL Transcript click here:
Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 210 with the amazing breakthrough expert Dan Kuschell.
Dan Kuschell [0:08]
Hi, this is Dan Kuschell and you’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.
Christine Schlonski [0:15]
I’m so looking forward to this conversation with Dan. For those of you who don’t know, Dan has been on the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit, and he had an amazing presentation that provided tons and tons of value. Today, I have him back on Heart Sells! Podcast as a podcast guest because I was so impressed with all of his work. We will be talking about what selling really is today. Dan knows what he’s talking about because he ended up building 11 plus companies to the multiple seven and eight figures. He has bought and sold multiple companies. He has helped over 200,000 clients, coached over 5000 business owners to connect the dots, sees the blind spots and to get unstuck. He helped those people to implement unique sales and marketing systems so they could get more clients. They could grow. They could have better profits. Have a bigger impact reach and contribution. Some of the top experts like Joe Polish, Dean Graziosi, Janet Attwood, Daniel Marcos , and many more, come to them for his advice, and ask him for help. It’s a pleasure to have him here at Heart Sells! Podcast. Let’s dive into what Dan thinks selling is, what he has learned on the way so that you can learn from him and be supported with your business. Well, I’m so super excited to have you on the show today, Dan. Welcome.
Dan Kuschell [1:54]
It’s a pleasure to be with you, Christine. Thank you.
Christine Schlonski [1:57]
Yeah, and I love I mean, you have had so many business successes and also some failures. But you built over 11 plus companies and it’s just so fascinating. I was wondering, do you think it is important for an entrepreneur to actually know how to sell? Or is this something somebody should be able to outsource right away when they start?
Dan Kuschell [2:24]
Well, I think that a good framework for every business owner is to think of one day that they look to sell it. Not that they have to sell it. But if they come from the mindset that plans to sell, then what ends up happening is you operate a little bit differently. I think you set up better systems. I think you set up better processes. You set up the ability to free yourself from the business. One of my mistakes and I see this today with a lot of founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs are, we get stuck. I’ve gotten stuck in the business. I’ve gotten stuck wearing the hat of my own expertise and then wearing nine hats of the other things that need to happen in the business to make it successful. It’s a success trap. There are huge success traps for most founder CEOs and entrepreneurs because we learn skill sets to adapt, to cope, to get things done and that has a tendency to keep us trapped. When we start with the idea, the old Stephen Covey quote, which begins with the end in mind. If you begin with the end of the idea, the idea, “Okay, one day I’m going to sell or take it a notch down. I’m going to free myself from the business so that I can just stay in my sweet spot and in my genius zone”, it helps set the stage to have a business that runs without you. Have a business that is really an asset and it doesn’t feel like a liability. I mean, you know this Christine as well, right? We meet a lot of friends, colleagues peers that, on one side their business is solid, it’s profitable, it produces a great lifestyle in some ways they despise it because they’re in this success trap that we’re talking about right now. I think it’s one of the most critical things that someone can do, starting out whether they’re like, I had gone through multiple businesses, some failures, as you mentioned, some successes, but any business we started tuning in with the idea, begin with that, end in mind, begin with the idea that “One day I’m going to sell it or at least get free of it”, is such a gift and a blessing when you do.
Christine Schlonski [4:39]
Yeah, yeah. I love the idea that starting with the end in mind, because then you build around your idea, around your vision, and you don’t create a job for yourself.
Dan Kuschell [4:51]
That’s right.
Christine Schlonski [4:52]
As an entrepreneur, because so many people are tuning in, they have challenges when it comes to actually sell their products, their services. Do you think it’s important for an entrepreneur to know how to sell, to kind of feel-good with a sales game?
Dan Kuschell [5:13]
Oh, I think again, coming back to the mindset, it means everything. I think that a lot of ways, our typical education, traditional upbringings limit us in our ability to sell. For me, I’ll just speak to me about the elephant in the room. As a kid, I was very self-conscious. I didn’t have a lot of self-confidence other than one place, which was on the sports field or court or diamond if you will. On sports, I felt high confidence, high achiever, but anywhere else I felt very self-conscious. I was uncomfortable. These sorts of things. So I had to really unlearn some, I think this is an Elon Musk quote, “Unlearning can be more important than learning.” We have to unlearn some of these false beliefs. It is a belief system sometimes, a lot of us were brought up with false beliefs around money like money is the root of all evil. Then you can tie in things related to sales or business or business people. Like they’re greedy. All these kind of, again, false beliefs. So we have to unlearn those to then get into a sweet spot where we feel comfortable. I first learned this from a few people. Some of my first coaches were Harvey Mackay, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, Jay Abraham, and some others, but those, and Tony Robbins. Those were some of my core initials, but Jay Abraham, his psychology around selling all the way back, 25 plus years ago, really stuck with me says, “When you have a product or service that you believe in, you have an obligation to get it into the end-user. This my interpretation. That really stuck with me. Tom Hopkins has another version. He says, “All selling is, is helping people”, and like if you, think about it, as you’re listening right now, you have a belief system that is, “What I offer helps people.” Well, you’re, of course going to have a much easier time believing in it, having the conviction, having the passion to convey what it really can do for somebody, what it means for them, what, and you’ll go to all ends to compel somebody that this is a solution to solve their problem. That is so critical. Another definition now, fast forward, almost 30 some years, Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach, he has a really, probably, I feel today, probably the best definition outside of all selling is helping people, which I feel is really simple and really clean and really healthy. Dan Sullivan has an amazing definition. I think a lot of people could benefit from learning which is, “Selling is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that is good for them, so they can emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result.” Think about breaking that down. Getting intellectually, first, you got to get yourself intellectually engaged in a future result. In other words, it’s solving a problem that is good for them. That’s a real key piece to this, that is good for them. You can emotionally take action to achieve that result. Anyway, I think that when the mindset is right, especially around the belief system, when you have the belief system and the mindset matching, in alignment, Christine, and you see this because it’s what you do so well and the tribe that you’ve built, the people you serve, it’s all about being able to help somebody get a result that’s good for them.
Christine Schlonski [8:50]
Yeah, I love that definition. That’s why I also want to get people to like helping supporting others is a good thing. Asking for money is also a good thing because with that money you can build your business and you don’t have a hobby because at the end of the day if you don’t make money, you don’t have a business.
Dan Kuschell [9:11]
Yeah, I’ll speak again to the elephant in the room. In my early years, I was very, I was self-conscious. I was uncomfortable around asking for money. So I would kind of dance around and when people feel the uncertainty, now there’s a great, one of the greatest copywriters in the world today. His name’s Craig Clemens, and he says that the number one reason people buy and or the number one reason people don’t buy. In fact, as you’re listening, would you like to know the number one reason people will buy from you or not buy from you? How valuable would that be? I mean, this is, this simple one I’m going to give you and I didn’t invent it. Craig shared it at an event, it was not too long ago. He says, “The number one people, number one reason people buy from you is when they have certainty in what you do.” If you’re coming from a place like I did years ago, I was uncomfortable. I was like squeamish, I was, like, almost shy or embarrassed. But I would offer it. There’s a lot of uncertainty there. If someone feels uncertainty, lack of confidence, lack of strength or power, they’re behind it, they’re going to be like, “Ohhh, something’s off here.” On the other hand, what if you could deliver with certainty that you can solve a problem. If you can solve a problem, then you can go to all ends to share with a value, what it means. Another version I’ve heard from, I forget who I can give this credit. I like to give credit where credit’s due and I forget who this comes from, but, “Selling is or making money is, is a byproduct of value creation.” Value creation. What is the value you provide to the market out there? What is the solution and the or the problem that you solve with the value you have? If you have the certainty behind that, that you deliver the very best in the world or one of the best in the world. It makes it easier to go to your clients or your potential clients and go, “Here’s what I got. Here’s what it’ll do for you. Here’s what that’s gonna mean for you. Let’s go.” Anyway, I can spend more time on that and that’s a simple way to, oh, let me share also, I don’t want to leave an open loop. What’s the number one reason people don’t buy from you? We got the number one reason they buy but what’s the number one reason they don’t buy? It’s the opposite of that. It’s uncertainty. If you’re delivering uncertainty in your message and your communication and your words, your languaging, linguistics, they’re not going to buy from you. It has nothing to do with the product that has nothing to do with the service. Gary Halbert is famous for a quote. He says, “There’s no correlation between being good and getting paid.” Think about that. How many great people do we all meet, Christine? You know this too. They have great ideas. They have great products. They have great services. But their ability to translate that into getting paid is low. One of the simple ways is to understand the value you provide with certainty, and then deliver a message in alignment with your beliefs, with your message, in alignment with certainty, and you can increase your sales, increase your growth, increase your profits and a whole lot and most importantly, increase your impact. Naveen Jain, who I’ve gotten a chance to meet through some different communities and platforms. He’s one of the top experts in the world today in technology and a few other areas. He’s playing into the space game and hangs out with people like Elon Musk, and all these crazy, crazy tech entrepreneurs. Somebody asked him a question, I found it was so fascinating, Christine. They said, “Naveen, how do you build a billion-dollar company?” He said it, as matter of fact, as I’m gonna say it. He says, “Simple. Just help 10 billion people.” Then someone, “How do you build 100 million dollar business?” He said, “Well, help a billion people.” “How do you build a $10 million?” He said, “Help 100 million people?” “How do you build a million-dollar business?” “Help 10 million people.” In other words, if you want to build x, whatever x is for you, as you’re listening right now, simply look at how do you help 10 times that amount of people get an impact from it. If you want to grow your impact, you got to just get the beliefs in alignment with your messaging with your impact.
Christine Schlonski [13:33]
Yeah, I love it and conviction sells.
Dan Kuschell [13:36]
Yes.
Christine Schlonski [13:37]
When you don’t, when you do shy away from your offer, and it’s not an alignment, people will, as they smell it, even though you hope that nobody notices it. They will notice it and they will then kind of think that something is wrong with your offer.
Dan Kuschell [13:53]
That’s right.
Christine Schlonski [13:54]
Especially when you start out and you might not really be that self-assured that your product is the best on the market or that whatever you deliver is awesome, because you haven’t yet served so many people. Often people feel like they are an imposer. They just pretend and put something out there that’s not really that great or they are afraid that they can’t deliver. Do you have any advice about how to deal with this challenge?
Dan Kuschell [14:25]
Well, there are a few things. Number one is, start by keeping it simple and go help a couple of people get some results with your service or your product and get that feedback. What do you like most? How did it impact you? What did it do for you? What does it mean for you? What will it give you? Answering those questions and getting deep and having your clients answer those just gives you a lot of confidence. It doesn’t have to be like a money claim. In fact, the less money claim because here’s the reality, as well, from my experience anyway, people don’t believe us. There’s an adage in business, it says that people just like us and trust us to buy from us. I actually think it’s one of the biggest lies in the world. I think it’s a big fault. I think it’s people that go down this road and I went down this road and this is why I speak to it. It’s a half-truth. It’s not a full truth. People just like us and trust us to buy from us. I don’t believe that today. I did years ago, but I went down and I found myself falling in line. If you’ve ever felt as you’re listening right now, like you are inclined to be a people pleaser and falling into that trap of being a people pleaser and then be disappointed in the outcome or disappointed and I found myself on that side of the coin way too often. There’s got to be a different way of looking at this and what I found is, yes, liking is a value. Trust is more important. Trust and respect are far more important. See the magic combination and being able to connect the dots, or go through the blind spots, if you will, is to move beyond like and trust to trust and respect. If people trust us and respect us, they’re more likely to buy from us. If you go like I did for years chasing down, “Oh, if they like me, and trust me, then they’ll buy from me.” Then I found I didn’t make a lot of sales, I’m struggling. Then what I found is okay, well, when you set up a game to win, and you rig it to win, where you have trust and respect. That’s when you really create a certain sense of magic. But again, that also comes back to a belief system. The other thing, how do you build up that belief system? Well, just go help a few people. Come from contribution, add value in advance, give that feedback, “Hey, you know, I’ve got a program that I’m going to develop and create, it’s going to be X dollars. I’d like to help you in exchange for your feedback on it so I can make it even better.” Then you essentially become a scientist to go, “Here’s what it is and you get that validation. Here’s what it does for you, get that validation. Here’s what it means for you, get that validation and feedback. What does that do for you? What does it give you?” You collect that data from you know, three 5 people, 10 people. Now, that’s if you’re starting brand new. Many of you that are listening and following Christine have been following her guidance and wisdom for years. Well, what if you went to your five to 10 best clients and you got into a conversation and ask them those questions because you’ve already gotten some results with them? What do you like most about it? What does it do for you? What does it give you? What does that mean to you? You gather that feedback. Now, you can gather that information that is more coming from the heart impact than having to make a false claim because most people just don’t believe us anyway. But they will believe when it has the emotion behind it. When it has meaning. People buy emotionally not logically. Yet, so many people try to sell, they increase their income by five times, 10 times, 20 times whatever the case might be, people don’t believe it, most of the time. Especially if it doesn’t have any of the emotional impacts from it. Like one of the greatest gifts, like one of the clients we’re working with and had worked with recently. This is someone who’s an incredible influencer in the marketplace, or results leader, doing amazing things. He was, for all practical purposes, had a successful business already, to a degree his profits were solid, his revenue was solid, but something was still missing. To be able to give him a gift of creating a steady flow of clients coming in every single day. That translating into revenue. That translating into profits. Now allows him to go focus on one of his bigger missions in the world, which is to eliminate or solve the problem around the miseducation around the conversation, around addiction, for example, that’s one climb. The freedom that people get by having control and having a system in place or process in place to create revenue, sales profits, not relying on them, not relying on just referrals, not relying on one to one, but one too many methods. It’s such a gift and a powerful tool. Just think, what if you had the ability, as you’re listening right now, to connect the dots, understand the value of what you offer, gather the data from people, and get real data, ideally, emotionally, support it, what does it do, what does it give you, what will it mean for you, and then be able to offer that up in the marketplace and now you become more like a magnet attracting versus having to go sell people? There’s a huge difference between convincing and compelling people. Right. I think if you take a 360 view of this conversation, that ideally, this will give you some of the tips and strategies to be able to connect those dots to make that happen.
Christine Schlonski [20:01]
Yeah, totally. You served over 5000 business owners from all around the world, from all different kinds of industries. What does it mean for you to Heart Sell! or to sell from your heart?
Dan Kuschell [20:17]
Heart selling, I think, is everything we’ve been talking about, Christine. Knowing that you’re making an impact. That what you do matters, it’s making a bigger contribution. It’s an indirect impact as well. It’s knowing that, if we, like for our products and services, when we go out, and we can help a founder, we can help a CEO solve a problem, if they’re struggling or they’ve hit a plateau, or they’ve kind of flatlined or they’re suffering from overwhelming, or burnout or stress, which is very common, especially for the high achiever founders and CEOs we’ve worked with and we can help relieve that. Even if they stay the same and revenue and profits, but we can relieve a lot of the stress on them or taking the weight of that off the shoulder so they can spend more time with their family. It’s such an incredible gift, but that’s getting clarity around like knowing deeply what it means. What it does. What it will do for somebody. For me, heart selling is truly being connected in alignment with, what does this really do? What does it mean? What does it give to the end-user of this with our service or clients?
Christine Schlonski [21:35]
Yeah, I know that for you self-care is very important. You learn that not the easy way.
Dan Kuschell [21:44]
That’s right.
Christine Schlonski [21:45]
If somebody is really working hard to make it work right now, why should they take some time for self-care instead of hustling and making it work so then they can finally have the freedom?
Dan Kuschell [22:00]
Yeah, I would have loved to have said Christine that I figured this out ahead of time. But it took, I think God tests us. He taps us on the shoulder says, “Are you paying attention?” If you’re not, like my DNA is one, my hard-charging, type-A personality, it’s easy for me to work 100 hours a week and just burn both candles to the end. Most of the time, my vacation back years ago would be getting sick because I would just kind of break down after just working myself. For me, I went this path for 10 plus years I averaged two-plus hours. I bought the idea, you can sleep when you’re dead and almost literally did that because I ended up in a hospital for four days where I had surgery on my heart. I had to sign a disclaimer there’s a chance of dying on the table. For me, that was a wake-up call. It’s very common that I meet founders and CEOs who build a business out of passion and joy. It’s less about money than it is about like conquering the world, so to speak to a degree. Like conquering a niche or conquering an industry or just wanting to be the best in that industry. Then they build a business that in some cases, they just built, not knowing why they built it, or what they wanted to build. For me, coming out of that experience, if I were to give a gift to somebody that a coach gave me. One of my coaches, her name’s Christy Lopez, got me to really get clarity on three key questions and it’s changed the game. It changed the game, my personal life, the self-care you talk about, and a whole lot more decisions of what I say no to, what I say yes to. I’ve now discovered that although a type A DNA driven, high achieving personality type or entrepreneur, founder CEO, our gift it can be our curse. The not-to-do list becomes far more important than a to-do list. But then there’s a creative, visionary kind of person. Probably, if you’re listening you might be gone, “How do I decide? What do I say yes to and what do I say no to”, because I can take it, you probably have the gift, Christine. A lot of your followers probably have a gift, or you can take most things and make them better. That’s entrepreneurship at its core. Taking something from one level to a higher level, you have that gift. If you’re listening to Christine’s program right now. It’s probably part of your DNA. It’s part of your genius. It’s part of who you are. So for me, I went through this process and the three questions. 1.) What do I want? Without attachment. Without thinking like, “What do my kids want? What are my family want? What does my spouse want? What does my team want at the time? I had 200 employees.” It’s a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight. You have to detach from that to go, what do you want? What do you really, really, really want? Not what society says. But what do you want and get that ultimate clarity. 2.) Who are you at the core? Not labels and titles and human doing things and all the cool things that when people look at it, or the fake book, I mean Facebook posts that people post out there about how amazing their life is every day. But who are you at the core as a human being, not a human doing, but a human being. Who are you? Right? 3.) What do you stand for? At the end of the day, we’ve all heard great companies have great core values. Well, do you personally have your core values set up? Not aspirational values, but like who you, what do you really stand for? What are the three to five most important values that you live with every day that are non-negotiable, that just you, it’s your DNA? Have you gotten that clarity and when you get that sense of clarity, then what happens as it becomes much easier? What do you say no to? What do you say yes to? Another version of this Warren Buffett, I read his biography years ago, Christine, and he said, I’ve given my self, I might have this off just a little bit. I believe he says, “I’ve given myself a punch card with 20 opportunities that I can say yes to.” If Warren Buffett, like one of the wealthiest people in the world, who’s by all practical standards, like one of the most conservative people. I mean, drives a huge truck, he lives in a small home, in a local community. He’s just a real human being. He doesn’t go around flashing his money and private jets and all this nonsense that we all see out there on the marketplace. He’s just a humble guy. He’s clear on who he is, what he wants. He says, “I’ve given myself 20 opportunities that I can say yes to apparently.” If he says yes to something, it means he’s going to have to say no to something else. For you, as you’re listening right now, what do you want? Who are you with the core? What do you stand for? Those are three criteria that are really important. There are some other criteria to think about. Like one of the big mistakes, Christine and I made in my early years of business. It was saying yes to most things related to the financial reward of it. I now look for other things. I’ve come up with criteria that it’s beyond the financial opportunity, like being on the show. Like I look at it. This is a filter I picked up from Dan Sullivan, for some other piece of it, but it fits here really well. For what do you say yes to, what do you say no to, does it enhance me? Will we enhance each other? That was an easy checkmark I felt for us. Do we appreciate each other? In two ways, a.) will we go up in value together; and b.) Is there a sense of gratitude on both sides of respect? That was a checkmark. Yes. Would we utilize each other? I could see us having the ability to have a conversation. If I ever have a business problem, you have a business problem connecting to be able to help each other, refer to each other. I’ve already referred people and promoted some things to your platform. I feel like you are doing the same even having me as a guest on your show. Then there’s likely to be some financial reward. But now today, instead of this being my only and first criteria of what I say yes or no to, it’s now my fifth criteria and the other four plus the three that I mentioned earlier, the three questions give me a lot of clarity of what to do, what not to do. Why do I have a date night schedule with my wife? Why do I have the schedule for my son’s football stuff that he does? Why do I have massages scheduled? Because of me, knowing me, first of all, a personality, maybe you can relate if you’re listening. If you’re a high achieving type personality, with a little crazy tied in, you go fast if that’s your DNA. What I can say about me is, “I need boundaries to protect me from me.” A lot of this clarity has helped not create a limitation but created healthy boundaries and I think that’s what it’s all about and you know it creates a lot of clarity, gives you a lot of certainties.It also gives you far more freedom. Be able to go out and do the things that matter too.
Christine Schlonski [29:22]
I love it and what I also love, that all your experiences go into your products, help all the entrepreneurs to scale better and to really be themselves and to be authentic and to create these amazing companies. That if they wanted to, they can sell but it’s not a must. You brought an amazing gift to us as well. I want to send people to your page https://www.breakthrough3x.com/ Let us know a little bit. What’s there when I go there?
Dan Kuschell [29:57]
Well, as a business owner, we found that few key categories, Christine, that, businesses, either thrive in or not thriving in. One area, of course, is marketing. I guess you’re listening right now, how would you rate your marketing on a 1-5 scale, 5 being best 1 being lowest? Well, if you’re looking for a playbook, or a checklist of things you can be thinking about or doing, implementing with your marketing to take you to that next level, wherever you are in the scale to the next. Well, that’s one of the things we’ve got, is a marketing checklist and playbook. Hiring, a lot of people struggle with the idea of hiring and what to do or how to do it. We put together, I’ve actually interviewed over 20,000 people in my companies. I’ve had over 1000 people work for me. I’ve learned from, like what not to do, mostly a lot of the mistakes that come up with a simple checklist that we use in our company too and we made it available publicly. So there’s a hiring checklist, whether it’s hiring a full-time person that would be on your team or whether it would be an outsource person. How do you set up screening criteria to understand who would be a fit? Who would not be a fit and why? So there’s a hiring checklist, a CEO’s checklist. Why? Because as a CEO, like, truthfully, I look at myself, Christine, I’m more of a creative type. I like to build things. I’m a starter, I don’t like to finish a lot. CEOs typically actually love to complete things. They’re very process-oriented. They’re the types that implement a lot naturally. I built this initially for me, I’ve been using it for a version of it for about 15 years. I’ve got it hanging up on my wall over here for myself, but it keeps us on track of what to do, what not to do. From the running of the business. How do you run a good business and so this checklist is something that we put together. Then the last checklist and toolkit that we put together are related to productivity. When you go, we’re going to get all of that to you for free, just simply enter your name and email address, you’ll pick the one that makes the most sense for you, Between The CEOs checklist, the marketing checklist. Oh, one other checklist, how to sell more by selling less. Which has been a theme of this conversation. What we have found is the more you sell, the more you’ll push people away, the more you interview somebody, to identify if they’re fit for what you have to offer, then you really connect the dots. We’ve got a 12 step formula, literally. It’s not only for us but our clients been worth probably somewhere well in excess of $50 million. Probably a whole lot more than that. These were scripts that our teams use. We took customer service people and turn them in and to high producers using this interview method and so we’re giving that checklist away as well. So when you go to https://www.breakthrough3x.com/ you can get all that for free. Just choose which one you want and enjoy. Ideally, we’d love your feedback on it. What do you like most? What’s the value? What does it mean for you? What is it giving you when you use that?
Christine Schlonski [32:56]
Wow, I just love it. Thank you so so much. That’s an amazing, amazing gift. Obviously, on the show notes page, I will have all the links so people can connect with you. I want to make sure that you connect with Dan because you can learn a ton. He might be your next mentor, you don’t know. Definitely check them out. You coach so many people and you have such amazing success stories that I’m very grateful that we do have a second interview scheduled. Thank you so much for your time today and all the wisdom you shared. There were so many golden nuggets. I took a bunch of notes, and I hope people did as well. So thank you so much, and I’m really looking forward to the next episode.
Dan Kuschell [33:41]
Thanks, Christine.
Christine Schlonski [33:43]
What a powerful interview. Wow, just having the clarity that you really need to build an asset instead of building yourself a job in having better strategies in selling more, having more impact, growing your company more, having more profit at the end of the day so you have better choices when it comes in reinvesting into your business or in making your dreams come true is so, so super important. Dan has learned the hard way. He has also achieved so much success because he had those failures. Because he got really really clear so that today, entrepreneurs experts like Dean Graziosi, Janet Attwood, Daniel Marcos, Joe Polish, really come and seek his advice. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/podcast, find the podcast episode with Dan. These are the episodes number 210 and 211 because we will have him back on the show. All the links to Dan are right there. So it’s just one click away to connect with him. Check out his wonderful podcast, Growth to Freedom transformation. I will also link it there. Really important, his many business growth toolkits are in the resource section where you get access to some of his strategies for free, so that you have support right away, and can get to know the wonderful work that Dan does in the world. Thank you so much for being here. Once you’re over at https://christineschlonski.com/podcasts. Sign up for the empowerment notes. If you’re not already part of my tribe, I would love to give you empowerment right into your inbox, the updates of Heart Sells! Podcast, as well as amazing content that I usually do not share on social. You can get that right there. Thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. I’m saying bye for now.
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