Speaker 1: (00:00) Hey guys, Biblical Selling… is that an oxymoron or can it be done? Well this week we're going to find out with my good friend, Michael pink, a master sales trainer that's going to answer that question for us. So, stay tuned. How do I bring my faith to work? How do I tap into the power of God in my work life? Paul, why am I going through this adversity? Is God mad at me? I'm also yeoman and I've been helping leaders like you enter these questions at more for over 30 years. That's what this podcast is all about. Let's learn and grow together. Welcome to TGF today. God is Herb's well, Michael, good to have you on our podcast. known each other for a long time. The first, uh, time that we met. Do you remember that? The way I remember it? You were involved in a magazine. Oh my goodness. That was 1990. Speaker 2: (00:55) Okay. That's kind of the Genesis of my memories. I'm thinking does that go back far enough? But I certainly remember the magazine days, so wow, that's, that's way back there. Yeah. you were in my pit days, you know. Speaker 2: (01:12) Well I also knew of you from a, from a, uh, a mutual friend of ours, Mark Heron, who uh, did some graphic work with you in your, when you were the, uh, had your ad agency and uh, so Speaker 1: (01:23) you have really excelled in the sales area over that time when I was on the track of all the faith and work messaging and doing workshops and so forth, then you were kind of along the a similar path but really focused on sales. Uh, give us a little bit of background on yourself in terms of kinda your sales and how you got to be such a specialist in that area. I know you were had a pro, you were professionally in sales, but uh, had it translate to equipping others around them. Speaker 2: (01:54) Well, it's, it's a good question. It started like this. Uh, I moved to this country, uh, in, um, 1985 and got a job in sales in January of 86. I had to learn to speak the language. She was a whole new language for me. How did you come from Canada? But I moved to Tennessee and you know, they had to learn me how to talk. Right. So at any rate, um, so I got down to Tennessee and I got a job selling copiers. The thing I knew OSS, you have to understand, you want to talk about the Holy spirit. I'm driving, if you know Nashville at all. I 40 goes right through the middle of the town downtown and I'm driving through there and the Holy spirit said, and just the core of my eye corner of my eyes. Hmm. Quantity to a building. So that's where you're going to work. Speaker 2: (02:40) I mean, I hadn't, I wasn't married or anything. I was just down there on a trip and it's like what? And I, you know, I saw it was copies. I said, Lord, I don't want to sell copiers. I've done that. I don't want to do that again. But he told me that's where you're going to work. So I went by, got it. And I applied. And now long story short, they wanted me and they hired me and put me out in a Murphysboro in a branch office out there. And the fact of the matter is, I want to two things. Number one, I want it to be able to glorify God. And I said, I don't want any intention or fame or anything else. I just want to be able to have enough of a platform to give you glory and credit and honor. Because what I know, we've got a lot of Christians in the marketplace who are doing not doing well. Speaker 2: (03:20) And so their reputation, they're, they're, they're, um, their messaging of the gospel isn't necessarily well-received. It can be very authentic, but a lot of times people don't regard you very highly if you ha, if you're not doing well, if you're, if that's just the reality, that's just the way it is. So I said, I want to have a platform. I want to do that. And so, and I was a little nervous to be honest, you know, getting back in sales and straight commission and all that. And so I, on the first day when the vice president said to me, Michael, we expect you to make one sale for every four or every five demonstrations that you do. The national average is one out of four. That's what we expected. And we don't expect any sales you first month, but we want to have your second month and for every month thereafter. Speaker 2: (04:01) So in 90 days they wanted me to make six sales. Now I was with the company two years off, so I didn't see anybody do that, but that's okay. But what really bothered me was selling one out of four minute failing three out of four times. And I, and I've got frustrated with that. I said, Lord, if you call me to do this, I said, what farmer plants four rows of corn and embrace the God, but just one of them come up. And I said, and I picked up my Bible and I said, I'm going to find principles and strategies. I'm going to start starter. Provers and I can apply deliberately and consciously to the sales process. And instead of selling one out of four, I tend to sell one on one. Well, they thought it was a little lofty to be put a mile late. Speaker 2: (04:36) But as it turned out, 90 days later at the first quarterly meeting that I was involved with, all your results are projected on a screen. And when it came my turn, I said, I've been here 90 days, I've, I've done 22 presentations and I had 22 sales. It was one out of one and was three and a half times a number that I never saw anybody hit. Well, they all said I'm from Mars. I finished the year at about a 90 some odd percent closing rate instead of 25% and they may be the the a sales manager. And that was to find out whether in fact it was transferable. Well, you know what, 10 months later the team that gave me the results were up not 30% for 130% in 10 months. Huge increase. That meant it was transferable. So that was the Genesis of that when I was, cause I was going into the scriptures and mining it and saying, wait a minute, there's a pathway, there's a blueprint. Speaker 2: (05:25) There's a model, there are things in scripture that are actually practical. It's not just for my marriages, not just for the most important thing, our eternity and all that was important as that is, but it's for the here and now. Even if you're calling to sales and business, there are practical things that you can apply. You can pull from scripture and do it. And so that began, that was the beginning, the Genesis of that. And when I left that and I started my own publishing company, hidden men of publishing and, and from there I went into sales training and in 1994 and I've been doing it ever since. And sharing and continuing to mine the word of and the principles from the, Speaker 1: (05:58) from the scripture and teach them to the body of Christ or anybody else who's interested. You get some pretty remarkable results. You know, when I think about sales and where we're going to focus on sales and marketing in this podcast, when I think about sales, I can hear somebody say, well, I'm not really in sales. And my answer to that is we're all in sales. We all have an idea that we have to sell. We all have somebody that we need to persuade. We're all in situations that requires certain skill set to communicate in a way that is persuasive. Um, how do you take, Speaker 2: (06:35) well, you know, it's true because the people, they don't have sales representative on their business card. They may be a CPA or an accountant or a dentist or whatever. They're in sales. Believe me, they're looking at their numbers every month. They're in sales. But it doesn't matter what my definition of selling is this, it's the transference, a passion or you could say the transference of conviction. So if you don't have anything that you're passionate about or con or, or have a deep conviction about that maybe you're not in sales. Okay. But we do have, I'm passionate about a lot of things and things that I believe in deeply. You could say it's a transference of belief. And so in that sense, if you are passionate about something, you believe deeply about something, how do you communicate that in a way, ms goin to get, um, somebody interested in, in your value proposition. So to speak and get them to want what you want. How are you going to do that? And what does the Bible teach about that? And so that's some of the stuff that I open up big time and uh, and talk about is how you [inaudible] Speaker 1: (07:32) you can actually do that based on biblical mop. Yeah. And I think that's the key distinctive here is how do we bring the kingdom of God into a professional area like sales, you know, and we constantly are teaching men and women too. How do you manifest the presence of God in the area of your calling? It if gunner also, my spiritual mentor said that wants to me, he must have said it 500 times to me, you know, how are you going to manifest the spirit of God in that area? That's what you've, you've really figured out and really saw the scriptures to help people understand that. And, uh, you know, um, when we think about selling being spiritual, um, you know, you know, how do you approach that? What, what, what's the first step in? And really getting to first base on that. Well, first of all, Speaker 2: (08:27) selling is an activity, but it's between people. It's not between me and the hospital or me and the hotel or me and the other firm. It's between me or you and another individual. And each of us have three parts to us. We know we're body, soul and spirit. And so we are communicating and all of those levels, whether we know it or not. And so it's, I think it's important when you're, you're not just in a selling situation transferring, although some people do that and they're not very good at it by the way they, they suit up, they show up and they throw up, you know, and I hope something comes out of that. But that's not the way to do that. And so you recognize that there's a whole other element there of, of my soul, of my heart, of my passion and my conviction and auction actually the spirit as well. Speaker 2: (09:15) There's, I call something I call a space between me and you, between me and a buyer, between, you know, two people. I went in a selling situation, I call it, there's the, there's the, there's the spirit of the sale, the there, there's a spiritual substance between me and you. I can't see it, but I can feel it. And so can you, and that's what happens. People say, you know, I don't know what it is. I just don't trust that guy. And the guy was, is he's saying the same thing that maybe somebody else said, but he's unaware of the fact that he's communicating with his entire being. And maybe his motivation is, I don't care about this guy. I'm just trying to get money out of his pocket and put it in mind. And the thing is, people can pick up on that. So there's a spiritual dimension to selling that I think is important. Speaker 2: (10:02) And so what I want to do is come into the selling situation with, Mmm, what it says in progress three, three and four where I'm going to write mercy and truth on my heart. Okay, I'm going to blind it around my neck and I'm going to go into a situation. Mercy to me meant never trying to get somebody to do something that wasn't in their best interest in truth was basically full disclosure because on us, you know, you've been in marketing for a long time and you're a genius at at that end of it unparalleled by almost anybody. But in that marketing thing, you know that you can tell the truth but convey a complete lie. I tell people as an example, um, I once spoke at the promise keepers meeting in when it was going big time. It was at the RCA dome and Indianapolis 60,000 men there. Speaker 2: (10:47) It was phenomenal. It was a big experience. People are going, yeah, you did. Yep. I said, no, I was in the bleachers. I wasn't on the platform. Um, but nobody could hear me. And so you can, I tell everything I said was true, but if you leave out certain things, you can convey a lie. And lying is the, is really as the intent to deceive. And so you can deceive intentionally by leaning on certain facts. And so people who have their intent open can pick up and discern those things oftentimes. And so I look at that, his interaction with people as a body, soul and spirit kind of thing. Well let's help our listeners today by getting some tools that might be useful to them in sales. And I, uh, put a question together for you. And the question is five things you've learned about sales that have impacted your life the most? Speaker 2: (11:38) Well, besides the fact that that I learned at selling is the transference of passion. When you, when you just, when you understand that, that if you're not passionate, you don't have conviction or deep belief about what it is you're selling, you really need to be find that well go find the thing that has that for you cause you're not going to do so well. Number two, this is a very big one off [inaudible] and it's so contrary to how I was trained in sales. Now I was trained by the way, as a young man, I mean I sold insurance, I sold copiers and both of those industries focused heavily on training. And so I'm, I'm familiar with that, but they don't teach what I'm about to tell you. And this one has put millions and millions of dollars in my client's pockets. And it's, it's a simple rule. It's this selling is not about telling. Speaker 2: (12:27) It's about listening. And if you're going to listen, you need to ask questions. If you're going to ask questions, you need to ask strategic questions, the right questions. So where, cause as a Christian, I'm thinking kid, God, you've called me into sales at this time in my life back when I was in my thirties. So where do I find those questions? What questions should I ask? I asked you about the ballgame last night. Do I ask about the weather? W w where do I go in this thing? And it's that kind of study that got me now to answer that question, when I'm reading the scriptures, I look for patterns. I see patterns of three. I have a pastor friend of mine, uh, that has seen now, um, 1500 of these three full progressions, body, soul and spirit, prophet, priest and King and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those. I look for those patterns. Speaker 2: (13:18) I look for patterns of seven and OS. One day I was reading numbers 13 and I noticed Moses is getting ready to send the 12 spies into the promised land, but understand this and for the people listening to this podcast or watching it, when they were going into that promised land, it wasn't like they, the people on the other side of the Jordan river were saying, Hey, I heard you were coming. Come on in. Hey, let me show you my guest house and you got my main house. Here's the keys to my Alexis. Hey, I got an SUV out back and I have all my cattle. Good luck. We're headed to the desert. No [inaudible] that wasn't it. They were going to be met and they knew this. They knew they were going to be met with resistance and if there are going to be resistance, and it wasn't like, Hey, I don't like this. Speaker 2: (13:56) No, it was resistance to the point of death. They were going to fight to this, to the death on that. So with that in mind, they knew there was risk and if they were successful, they knew there was a great reward. So resistance, risk and reward. Golly, that sounds like business, doesn't it? We, you know, we take risks all the time, all the time, and we have a resistance to our ideas. We think you think, and I think, Hey, this is something that people love. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I mean it's just the way it is. You take a look at acts chapter two you know, Peter gets up and he gives the best presentation ever and thousands of people are there and some people are saying, I don't understand this guy. I'm perplexed. And other people say, no, they're drunk. They're this. Speaker 2: (14:40) They were mocking them. And I don't see anything worth mocking. And I don't see anything perplexing look like a straight forward presentation to me. But some people said, no, wait a minute. This makes perfect sense. That 3000 of them gave their life to Christ. That's the reality. And you never know which ones you're going to get. Are they going to love it? Are they going to hate you or are they just going to, I don't understand what he's talking about. And you're always going to get those, that kind of a mixture. So they knew they were going to get some resistance. And so Moses has you read it. Number 13 you'll see that he had a verse 17 to 20 his seven questions he had to have answered. Well OS when I saw there were seven questions I that Whoa, wait a minute. That's the divine imprint of God right there. Speaker 2: (15:21) I want to dig deeper on that. And I spent two or three days reading those four verses and on my knees and at my desk praying and seeking God for what is, what are the implications and what does the application to business. Now I'm telling you, you know this Oscar, cause you're one of the very few people I know that do what I do the same kind of thing. But I know hardly anybody other than you, you and a couple other people who actually will take the time and say, how do I apply this practically in business? Right? They just read the verse and it's a story from 3000 years ago and they move on, Hey, I've checked, I read my three chapters today, or whatever their thing is, right? No, I'm not. I got to understand this thing. And so what happened is, um, I thought I had an understanding of it. Speaker 2: (16:08) And coincidentally I call this the Moses questioning strategy as it happened us within a couple of days of me getting my understanding of this, I would buy a client who was in the air conditioning wholesale business, meaning they supplied brand X to air conditioning contractors. They kind of guys are calling your house in mind, thanks our air when it goes out. And so they sold their particular line of air conditioning. And so they would call on the big contractors and say, Hey, why don't you install our equipments that are the ones who were installing? That was the business and the president. Uh, I ran into him in the parking lot. I said, Michael, I've been calling this one contractor a big contractor twice a month for six years. You said, I'm taking heat, him and his crew breakfast, lunch and dinner. My wife and I had been to his house, his wife, and he had been to our house for dinner. Speaker 2: (16:53) We'd gone to movies together, but in six years I haven't got a nickel's worth of business. What would you do? I see, well, it was me. I'd ask him seven questions. I just, I just discovered this and they looked at me like, what are your title? Seven questions? I said, well, they're not seven questions. Exactly. It's more like seven topics. And he said, can you write that out for me? So I created a, I got three or four page document and under each topic I wrote all these questions. Did not at that time disclose where I got it from and I wrote it. The kind of questions like Moses said, first question is, you know, look at the land, what it is. Okay, well what it is, man, he's looking for this. These are the general circumstantial questions, which you know, the art of war, if you, if you've ever read that book by sun Xu, you know that they looked at other box canyons are the, are there mountains or the planes are there, bogs are there, you know, different, what's the lay of the land or the swamps is their forest. Speaker 2: (17:47) They had to know the lay of the land to have a victory. So that's essentially what Moses was doing were kind of contemporaries. And he's looking at that. So those are the general circumstantial things. So in a business, that's the first question. I want to find out all the general circumstantial things, but then it goes deeper. So anyway, I wrote all this out for the guy and it was a Wednesday when he went to his call with these questions. And now this is a man who's been calling on twice a month for six years and at each other's home. But in that one call he discovered more about that man's business than he had ever known in six years. As a result, the gentleman asked him for a quote, a proposal, which he gave him on Thursday and on Friday, 48 hours afterwards, he received a purchase order for $60,000. Speaker 2: (18:31) No, he was blown away. I mean he was so blown away. He said, Michael, he speaks to us because, excuse me, it just was too amazing to him. So he called it an emergency sales meeting. Cause us the first thing that you might think and others might think, and I would think that too probably, well maybe that was just the time. Maybe it's just coincidental. Maybe. Maybe, you know, people could think that, but he put me in front of a sales force of 18 guys. He held up the sheet of paper and he said, I don't know what this is and I don't know why it works. I want every one of you using it. And Michael, I was going to tell you how to do it. So he hired me for the day and I trained to Salesforce and this was the end of March. Now this is important because it's air conditioning, so it's seasonal in terms of the demand. Speaker 2: (19:14) The preceding April, they had done 1.2 million in sales. This was the end of March. They were hoping to do 1.3 million in this April. It's a a hundred thousand dollar increase. Most people are happy with that. It's an 8% growth. I just, when people are, they just think, okay, a hundred grand, we're, we're, we're climbing our business. So that's what he was trying for. But he made them use this questioning strategy and they were reluctant because they thought it was kind of corny, even though they didn't know it came from Moses at that time. The end of the month, I checked with them, said, how'd you do? Well, it wasn't 1.2 it wasn't 1.3 or four or five or six or even seven. They did 1.75 $550,000 Pope 46% I think it is over the year before his face. I'm not exaggerating his face. When I saw him just went white, he was almost speechless. Like how, what, what is this? Speaker 2: (20:04) And he asked me, what is, what is this? And I know he's thinking, is it Zig Ziglar? Did you learn it from Tom Hopkins? Where'd you get this? I said, I learned it from Moses [inaudible] I didn't realize how that was going to land on his ears. He looked at me, like I said, like I was inferring, I just talked to Moses the other day, you know, and uh, you'd been less surprised. So I just cold cocked him or something. But anyway, uh, I tried to explain it to them as best I could. He thought it was the strangest thing, but that was the beginning of that question. The strategy, and I've taken that to corporations large and small and seeing their sales one company, Ohio, they were stuck at 22 million a year for three years. President calls me, says, Michael, can you help me? W we just can't seem to get above 22 million. Speaker 2: (20:46) We'd there for three years. Okay. I go there and I bring not only the Moses question he strategy, which is important, the other biblical principles and strategies and tactics that go along with that. Brought that to the table. Middle of the year, I think it was there in the summertime. By the end of the year, they went from 22 to $30 million. Big, huge thing. It happens over and over and over and over and over again. Is that, so that's a big thing when you say, well, some of the things I learned I learned from the Bible. Well, listen, I've been trained by Xerox, I've been trained by insurance corporations, I've had the PSS course. I almost bought a Sandler training system at one time. I understand what's out there in the world of sales. People are married to that, but I decided us, I don't know. I do know about you, but I don't know about dude watching this, but this means everything to me. Speaker 2: (21:32) And by God I can find it in here if it, if it exists, if it's there, I'm going to find it. And if I can find it and I can synthesize it and put it into project racing or do so, and to prove it, I'm going to take it out into the marketplace before I ever teach anybody. I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, before I start teaching in abroad, you know, all over the place. So a few years ago us, uh, back in, uh, I'm trying to get my timeframe here, 2015, you know, I'd been developing some new materials and really pulling out some stuff and getting a handle on things. And our friend of mine called me, he had a, a commercial real estate agency. Yeah, 12 agents. But when he called me, they were down to three and these three guys were looking for a job. Speaker 2: (22:15) He was thinking of shutting it down. He said, can you do what you do for me and what you do for all these other companies? Come in and do an analysis. It's expensive, but it's worth it. And so I went in and I did my three day analysis. He's a very good friend of mine and he said at the end of that he said, do you think you could help me for six months? Maybe we could turn this thing around. You do the front end, help me do the sales, I'll do the back end. And I said, okay. At the end of six months we had a 900 and something percent increase in sales. Well, people think that's not bad. [inaudible] he asked me to do it another year, so I extended it a year, 2016 the two year growth rate was 6,000 and something percent you said one more year please, please, please. I did it for the third year. We ended up with 11350% three year growth rate, which made him his company the fastest growing real estate brokerage in the history of the inc 500 and the 16 fastest growing privately held company in America. So that isn't a boast on anything but this boasting on this and the person that wrote this book, Jesus Christ, I'm talking about him and his word and it works. [inaudible] very practical, measurable, meaningful ways. So that's true. It's one of the things. Speaker 1: (23:27) Well, I want to transition, uh, and talk about a new resource that you've come out with called rainforest strategy. The planet's most successful business model. You talk about seven well secrets that will revolutionize your business, turn your ideas into revenue and your life. Speaker 2: (23:47) This is a new book you've come out with. Um, what's this all about? Rainforest. Well, you know that the book's been out a little bit longer than that, but the, the, the, uh, content, uh, in some of, I keep developing new content, but the rainforest is this here, here's how it came about. Very important. Nope. You remember how I told you I got the job selling copies when I first came to this country because the Holy spirit said, go there. Right. Well, I'm trying to remember the year now might've been Oh five, I'm not sure. But at some point in that era, that timeframe, I was in my living room, on my knees, praying, having my time with the Lord. And I remember asking him, I said, Lord, how'd you start your business? You know, the one that we call planet earth, not planning on Hollywood, but planet earth. Speaker 2: (24:32) I mean, how, how'd you do that? I said, I got Tom here. Just explain it to me. Okay. Hmm. And he began to do that. I think he was laughing pretty hard. Uh, and, and he gave me some incredible information, but one of the things he said to me was, and I can't say the words, but the gist of it was he invited me to go to Panama. The country. No, you have to understand something. A, I'd never been to Panama. B. I have never met anybody who had ever been to Panama and see, I never read about or knew anybody in Panama except for Noriega and he was in jail in Miami last I heard. So it wasn't completely completely left field thing. Come the panel. I'm going to show you something. I said what? What? What do you want to talk about? So it's to do with business. Speaker 2: (25:21) Oh, okay. So I thought I was going to meet some banking things or something I didn't know, but I'll say, okay, we'll go. And so I remember, Mmm. Telling some people, Hey, I'm going to do. And I said, Lord, when he said make haste right, right now, don't delay. I've got on the phone that day and I made a reservation for like a two week notice or whatever it was. And uh, I told people I'm going to Panama. He said, what force? I don't know how long you going to be gone? I'm not really sure. What are you going to say? I don't know. He just told me to go to Panama, so I don't really know. So I'm, but I'm going. So I go to Panama, I fly down there and one of the guys, that kind of mindset, well listen, I'll underwrite the entire trip if you'll, um, look for some real estate for me. Speaker 2: (26:03) Okay. So we, I got down there, rented a helicopter and his expansion, he ended up putting an offer on a three kilometer wide stretch of beach front property and you know, for 25, 30 million, whatever it was, and you know, help them do that. Because I had no agenda. I didn't know why I was down there. And one day when I was up in the mountains staying in a bed and breakfast, I'm just walking and observing the amazing beauty of the rainforest. Often the distance and the plant life and everything was just staggering to me. I was so impressed and his Holy spirit spoke to me, just spoke to me. Now how was it praying on my knees and saying, speak to me, Lord, my servant listens. I'm just taking in the beauty of it and walking to get some breakfast. And he said, so on everything you need to learn about business, you can learn in the rainforest. Speaker 2: (26:55) What are you talking about? You can learn about business in the rain forest. I, I went to the lobby, I said, are you guys having, are there any seminars in the rainforest today? I thought maybe somebody doing a business seminar in the rainforest. I didn't know. I was trying to figure this out. No, there's nothing going on. That's a strange thing. Business in the rainforest, you know, and I went and rented the car and you know, took a look around and reinforced, didn't go on a trip that particular time, but I got home after that and I Googled rainforest and the word business. It turns out there was a book written by the CEO of Mitsubishi and, uh, another gentleman and it was called what we learned in the rainforest business, lessons from nature. And I opened it up and I thought, wow, I'm not crazy. [inaudible] Speaker 2: (27:41) this whole thing. It's really there. It's a real model. I went back to Panama, I went there a total of five times. I went to uh, you know, Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica. I went, I went to the upper Amazon and Ecuador. I mean, I searched this thing out. I went to the world headquarters for tropical research research for the Smithsonian Institute. I mean, I dove in with all four feet, you know what I mean? I mean, I just don't render this thing. I was like fascinated that they got that everything I needed to learn about business I could learn in there. And so I did and I searched it and I found so many amazing things in the rainforest that apply to business and it was just nice to know that somebody else that the world respected because of his stature. Again, you got an ice statute. People pay attention to you. Speaker 2: (28:27) Give me a few, give me a few. Okay, I'll give you one just that I think is really amazing. Do you know what an an agouti is? A G. O. U. D I know. And agouti is, it's a, it's a mammal. It's, it's kind of like an Otter in terms of how it moves, but it doesn't live so much in the water, but it's probably the size of a dog. Mmm. But it moves kind of like an honor. Right. And when it runs across the land, it's got a bit of a hump to it, but it's an unusual creature. And when I'm down in the rainforest, I saw these booties. One thing I learned about them, and I call this the Brazil not effect, is that in the rainforest, only the agouti of all the creatures that live in the rainforest, the Gootee is the only one with teeth sharpen up and jaws strong enough to open up a Brazil nut. Speaker 2: (29:16) Now, most people don't know this. I didn't when I first learned it, but in Brazil, not most people are familiar with the Brazil nuts. They see them there. The shaped almost like a section of an orange. What they don't necessarily know is that they come inside a ball like this, like a size of a grapefruit with lots of Brazil nuts in them. And that outer shell is so hard. No other animal can open it except for the agouti. Now as it turns out, the agouti loves Brazil nuts and Brazil nut trees. They have a problem. They don't have legs, they don't have mobility. And so they pay the agouti [inaudible] say you can have all the Brazil nuts you want, man, it's all yours. Just do me a favor. Go down the river a little bit and plant some more, uh, nuts in the ground for me so we can expand our franchise. Speaker 2: (29:59) And they do like squirrels. They buried the nuts in the ground, so they don't always go back to them. And up comes another Brazil nut tree. So this, this example, yes. What's happening here when you analyze this is that one, one entity. The agouti is trading what it has in excess. And the excess mobility energy could go anywhere for what it didn't have any of, which was food and Brazil. Nut trees has incredible amount of food just dropping to the ground, but it has no mobility, no ability, no ability or mobility. [inaudible] a multiply the franchise. So we employs the agouti and they have this relationship. And so I'm looking at that and thinking, how can I apply that principle in business? How can I take what I have in abundance and trade it for what I don't have? So here's the best example. The first one, first one I did actually first one I did [inaudible] what I have in abundance. Speaker 2: (31:00) Well, I have knowledge. And the nice thing about this, when I give you or the listeners this knowledge, the beautiful thing is I still retain it. They have it. But I have it too. If I, if I give you my watch now you have it. And I don't if I give you my knowledge now, we both have it. So it costs me nothing to give you knowledge. So I called a friend of mine who was the a part owner and, and participant in a success magazine, been around for a hundred something years. And I said to him, he was doing the relaunch of it and everything was going fine. And they were selling ads in that magazine for $60,000 for a full page ad. And I called him up one day and I said, Hey, listen, you know, actually I got it wrong. He called me up and said, Michael, what would you charge for your training? Speaker 2: (31:48) And I said, well, I said, what's money among friends? I just learned this, this Brazil nut thing. So what are you talking about? I said, all I want is a piece of paper from you. What do you mean a piece of paper? I said, I don't even want wanna hope he spent, I just want one side of a piece of paper, the full side. And you realize, Oh, you want a full page ad? And I said, yeah, and I want it to run for the year, which at that time was a bimonthly publication. So six issues and they had it on. So see now here's the thing. They had unsold advertising space. I had time and we traded my training for a full page ad in a prominent business magazine success magazine. And the deal was for a year I was $360,000 four me doing my training now, that's the agouti effect. That's the Brazil not effect and it works and everything. I know a guy in Speaker 1: (32:40) Canada who, and you can, they can Google this if they haven't ever done it. I think it's called one red paperclip or just Google red paperclip. Have you ever heard the story? Awesome. No. It's a young guy and he was on the news, everything. He traded a paperclip. I can't really, I'm going to butcher the story, but you'll get the idea. He traded this red paperclip for a pen that somebody didn't want. They had a lot of pans. Okay. And so he basically traded up and he took the pen. Any traded it for, I don't remember what a letter opener or something and then he traded that for, you know, a little piece of furniture and then he traded that for something bigger. Then he traded it for a snowmobile. Then he traded it for a truck and then he ultimately traded it. What does way up to an Alice Cooper concert and everything else. Speaker 1: (33:25) We ultimately treated it for a house in the end of the year. He went from a paperclip to a home free and clear in someplace in the prairies of Canada, a good home, nothing wrong with it. And he traded it up and it was just, Hey, I have this in excess. I don't need you have something in excess. And he worked his way up. That principle works in business. I use it to get a, you know, incredible advertising thing, which by the way led to a publishing deal and lots of other things. So that's one. Yeah, that's just what I want to stop you for a moment. And, uh, I was looking over the chapter titles of the book. Um, but as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, you and I both been equipping leaders for 25 years and, um, you know, we're both getting in a to a winter season of our life, if you will, a little, uh, we don't want to admit it, but we are, and I see that gray hair. Speaker 1: (34:19) So, um, but, uh, I know that you still have a passion to equip leaders and so do I. And you know, um, we've been thinking about a new program that's going to come out in the next, uh, few months that, um, I think [inaudible] we'll incorporate, uh, things that you're teaching cause you'll be at probably a guest on one of my programs that I'm going to do in this, but it's a very exhaustive program for leaders. And, uh, I just want the listeners, uh, to know that that's coming and if you're interested in it to go to a webpage that we set up to get on our waiting list and that's become God's change agent.com because God's change agent.com and that's just a waiting list. You'll also get a free download of a resource that, uh, is very compatible to what Michael's talking about today. So just go to, uh, become God's change agent.com and just get on our waiting list and you'll be the first to learn about this when it comes out. Speaker 1: (35:24) So, um, yes. So this reminds me also of some of the things I see in your book. I just want to go through each chapter and the title of that chapter one is the epiphany better than gold. I assume you're kind of share what, what you just shared about the epiphany of the rainforest and then chapter two is breaking the code. The mystery unfolds. Chapter three is spontaneous. Well seeing what others, miss. Boy, is that true? A chapter four, well, secret number one, the fungus factor getting the most from the least. Uh, chapter five is practice abundance or experience scarcity. Chapter six is well, secret number two is grow towards the light powered by vision. Mmm. Chapter seven is well secret number three, enter the no pest zone. Seven natural laws to get control of your time. And chapter eight is the [inaudible] a pathogen problem, the feeding, what's been eating you. Speaker 1: (36:27) Chapter nine, well secret number four, the photo censuses. Photo synthesis of ideas. That's easy to say. Turning vision into provision. Chapter 10 deals with, well secret number five, the strangler fig phenomenon, a lesson and timing. Chapter 11 Wells circuit number six, the Brazil nut effect. Leverage through strategic relationships in chapter 12 as well. Secret number seven, the orchid element, creating irresistibility. Before we went on, I asked if you'd be willing to share a little bit, uh, of this book. And so you agreed to give away. Mmm, I, uh, first two chapters of the book just to see if people would like what they see and if they, they like it, there's information in there about ordering it, but, uh, you agreed to do that. And so we set up a webpage, a call, Michael pink, download.com Michael pink, download.com. You can go there and download the first two chapters of this book, uh, in a PDF format and, uh, it'll give you some good, good stuff there, but you're going to want the whole book. Speaker 1: (37:39) Uh, and, uh, as we, uh, close out today, Michael, I just want to talk briefly about the fact that Jesus had 12 salespeople, you know, I call them salespeople and, uh, they all were not highly qualified. Uh, in fact, they had very little training in what they were doing yet. Ah, Jesus. Turn these guys into the, um, the most incredible world movement. Uh, what are some things we can learn about how Jesus related to his disciples? Well, you know, I love all the warm and fuzzies because they're wonderful and nobody is more loving than Jesus. Nobody's more gracious than Jesus. Nobody's more humble than Jason's. He's, he's everything. He's amazing. But people sometimes lose sight of the fact that he also, yeah, he's the ultimate businessman. He's got a ruthless competitor who lies about him, who lies about their own promises, right? Who do anything to succeed and, and he's Speaker 2: (38:36) up again, but that, that competitor is against up against Jesus where everything he touches is self replicating and self duplicating. And, and so the best the devil can do is imitate what Jesus does and love. This is number one. Numbers are important is business. People are going to appreciate this. I'm going to get down to the nitty gritty, you know, in the parable of talents where it gives one guy, one talent, another guy to another guy, five. And those aren't talents like how now you can sing and chew gum. These are, these are weight measures. Uh, some estimates say, you know, 75 pounds would be a talent and it was either silver or gold was gold. It would be multi-millions, five talents of that. It would be quite a bit. Um, so it kind of depends whether we're talking gold or silver, but it doesn't matter with substantial amount of money that was given in this story. Speaker 2: (39:20) And it's illustration. But Jesus is telling it for a reason. And so he says now the, in the story, the person goes away, but when he comes back, he wants an accounting. Interesting. [inaudible] so Jesus tells a story and the only question Jesus is reported to a vast, again in his story, [inaudible] what have you done with what I gave you? He didn't say, Hey, how's your mom? How's your grandma? Do you guys have a good Christmas? No, I'm not saying those things aren't there. But the one question that a boiled down to is what I gave you this, what did you get? And so the first guy says, we gave me five, I've, I've doubled it into 10. The other guy says, you gave me two, a double that into four. And the other guy says, Hey, I knew you were a tough guy. I hit it cause I was scared. Speaker 2: (40:05) And Jesus as you know, took the talent from the guy who he considered to be a essentially faithless guy. And he took it and he gave it to the guy who had doubled the five as opposed to the guy who doubled to, for the simple fact, the doubling, doubling $1 million. It's a lot harder than doubling $100 for example. You and I can double a hundred dollars pretty quickly, but doubling 100 million, that's harder. And so the larger the amount, the harder it is. So we gave it to the guy that had accomplished more, but the thing that I really, really spoke to me was [inaudible] he's zeroed in on the numbers because salespeople have a tendency when you say, how's it going this month? They give you a story. Well there's this one guy and you know, he's got his wife sick and this and that and, and uh, and then, you know, there's other ones. Speaker 2: (40:52) And they tell stories. Jesus just cut through all that. What are the numbers? That's number one. Uh, number two, what Jesus did that I really like is you read it in Luke 10 [inaudible], he sends the 70 out. Well, the 72 depending on which it is, he sends them out and when he come back, he debriefs them and they said, you know, it says the 70 came back and he said, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And so there was a bit of a debriefing, which puts a value on them. Listen, I wonder what happened, how did it go when you're out there? So we cared about that and debrief them. And probably my third, but favorite thing about cheeses is that, I mean so much I could talk about, but he taught them by example. He didn't just say, and I'll go up there and do this. Speaker 2: (41:35) They saw him time and time again, laid his hands on people. He's healed the sick, raise the dead. They watched it firsthand, 100% successful all the time. And they, he modeled it for them so that they could actually go out and do that very thing. And so I think that's important as leaders is that people want to know, but they want to know can you do what you're saying? Oh awesome. You know, I teach what I teach. But I took that three year hiatus to see if what I had additionally learned really worked in the non forgiving, highly competitive, somewhat on ethical world of commercial real estate. Can we do that? And by the way, during that time when it became the fastest growing company in America or 16th us, his company, fastest growing real estate brokerage. Wow. A lot of new people. I personally led several of them to Christ who led other people to Christ. Speaker 2: (42:30) There are other people doing that. They started a Bible study on Wednesdays at noon. I didn't lead it. I wasn't, I didn't want to because of my, my relationship there, let them do it. And there was a revival of broke out in the office. I mean people that would or were maybe born again but had become closet Christians and weren't talking about, now they're vibrant. People that didn't know Jesus were born again and their lives were transformed. All this was happening in this business setting. And, um, so I see that kind of thing happening. I like to, uh, you know, when I learned something, I want to test it out. I want to try it. And so what, what we're sharing here today has, it's not just a good sermon. Hey, I found a verse. I bet you this works like that. It's not that I had to pay a price off three years of obscurity, three years of nothing, three years, and nobody knows anything to gamble on. Speaker 2: (43:19) Is what I'm learning really going to work? Is it really going to make a difference? Is it gonna have an eternal difference? Yes, it did. Is it going to have a financial difference to the tens of millions? Yes, it did. Is it, you know, is it going to give them a higher platform? Oh yeah. Very much so and so, but I wouldn't, I didn't know that going into it. I believed it and I thought it would. Yeah, I didn't know until I actually get it. You know, when I think of Jesus, uh, one of the things, uh, I saw in the life of Jesus as to why he was so effective with people was a heat, almost every time solved a problem in somebody's life. He served them, he engaged with them, he talked to them and on, I know a lot of the principles you talk about have all those elements in it, but you know, almost every time if you read all the stories of Jesus, he saw the problem, whether it was healing or feed 5,000 or, you know, Lazarus coming out of the grave, you know, whatever the case. And that's how influence happened then, you know, so often I think the world teaches us about sales and, uh, is go in and get that order rather Speaker 1: (44:31) than taking the first step of serving the people and seeing what need they have and try to solve that need. And, and, uh, that's what you talk about in this book, uh, rainforest strategy. And so I want to encourage our, um, listeners and those watching on YouTube to download this at Michael pink, uh, download.com and you'll get an immediate download of the first two chapters. And so, uh, Michael, thanks for being with me on this, uh, podcast. I want to remind everybody if you're listening by iTunes, uh, please, um, give us a rating on that, that'll help others find us because of the positive ratings, if it's helped you. And if you're on YouTube, uh, become part of our channel is subscribed to our channeling and leave us comments at the bottom of this page so that, uh, we know, uh, if this program has been helpful and we can improve. Speaker 1: (45:32) And, uh, so Michael, why don't you give out your website to people if they want to reach you or connect with you? Sure. Well, there's two ways of course, Michael pink.com is my, my name's sake. And selling among wolves.com is a, you know, a detailed thing on my sales training. Either one of those ways, selling among wolves.com or Michael pink.com. Either one. I'd be glad to hear from them and let me know if you reach out to me, let me know that you heard about me from us cause I want to make sure that us is it where the of the support that he sent our way. And I want to bless Austin, the process. Well you can uh, see the book behind you. Hold up the book there and behind you on the shelf there. I just self your left shoulder there. This one here. Speaker 1: (46:13) Yeah. And that's the book we've been talking about. And so really well, well done by Zig Ziglar and Mark Victor Hansen, the chicken soup for the soul guy. I mean he sold over a hundred million copies. He loved this book. He said exciting minds, mindset changing ideas and a lot of good endorses on the back from big name folks. So I don't know if I told you this story, but you'll find it interesting if you don't about Zig Ziglar. So Zig Ziglar grew up in the church. I grew up in, in Columbia, South Carolina. I didn't know, I didn't know who he was. I was a child. Uh, but I had heard that later as I left, that my pastor that, um, you know, led me to the Lord, uh, knew him and he later moved to, uh, I forget where I ended up moving to. But a few years ago, uh, somebody came to me and said, OS I was in a Zig Zig Ziglar conference and somebody asked him, what do you read? And he says, well, I, I do read this one devotional called TGI F and, uh, and that, bro, that blew my mind. Wow. Um, uh, great. A great connection there. Yeah. Well thanks Michael. We will see you next time. And, uh, guys, uh, connect with Michael if you have a need in sales training or whatever, he's a great resource, so God bless you guys. Take care. Thank you. Thank you ass. Bless you, my friend. Hey guys.