Full Transcript for He Quit Cold Outreach and Tripled His Business (with Jake White)

you're just checking into I hate that word, check in. I've learned to hate it. We're not checking in. Austin: Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: We're we're catching up with them and Austin: That's right. Me too. Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: and keeping the relationship alive. So Austin: I think you just said the keyword there. It's so easy, especially when you get into like a more systematic approach to doing business, is like it's easy to make people numbers or just like a box that's being checked. But it's a relationship. That's the word that you said that made me think of that. Like We can't ever lose that thread. And in fact, I think like the deeper thing there actually is that all of the systems that we use, all the processes that we follow, all the tech that we use, the team and how we train and set expectations for the team, all of it is oriented around like maximizing human connection, you know? And like I think that's Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Austin: we just released a state of the industry report, and one of the stats that we showed is that those that are using AI for operational things are earning eighty thousand dollars more. More in revenue on average than those that are using it primarily for content generation. But the vast majority of people are using it for content generation. And I think it ties back to this. Like, the point isn't to push out more content, the point is to free up your time from all this admin junk that you can spend more time on people, like the relationships, you know? So, anyways, we're gonna see where that plays out. But isn't that wild? Yeah. So. Jake White | Vive18: Yes. my gosh, that's wild. Yeah. Austin: For l for the listeners that haven't seen it yet, reach out to us, get the state of the industry report. It's awesome. yeah. Yeah, it's fun. Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Yeah. I love that y'all do that. Like I I don't I don't know how I'd ever get that data with without you guys, so appreciate that. Austin: Yeah, and I don't know how we would get all the data without all of you beautiful humans that helped us get it. So thank you to everybody who participated. it is, yeah, Jake White | Vive18: Ooh, it's symbiotic. Austin: it goes both ways. So So the reason that we set this up today, outside of the content angle that we're gonna talk about. Is that when I think about somebody who's doing this business like especially well, you come to mind every time. And here's why. Because you do an amazing job of balancing the thought leadership, the expertise that you have, the people skills that you have, the content creation that you do, like the visionary stuff. You balance the visionary stuff with like running a proper business and in all the regards as far as I'm concerned, on the client experience side, on the sales and marketing side, on the back office side, on the leadership side. Like you do it you do both sides of that really well, which is and kind of an unusual thing in this space. And I don't think that's not like

that's not not taking shots at our listeners, okay? But but I think most people that do this type of business are hyper tuned to like the visionary creative angle and really struggle with the business. It's the reason Speakerflow exists is because of that conundrum right there. But you've always stood out to me as somebody who nails both sides of it well. So when I was thinking about like who am I gonna have Jake White | Vive18: wow. Austin: on the show, it's like, I want somebody who sets the bar of like how to do this business Jake White | Vive18: Ha ha Austin: right. And so you're that guy. So that's why we're here. yeah. Jake White | Vive18: thanks Austin. That's really cool. I was reflecting, actually it was just this morning because we were doing the show and then one of my first team members, Chesca, I had the confidence to hire her because I was starting SpeakerFlow and she had experience with CRMs and all that stuff. And I think the confidence comes from when you wear your visionary hat and then you wear your maybe implementer hat when you don't have somebody else that's on your team is your like your confidence comes from your systems. And so it's cool to look back and be like, Yeah, man, I I built it all alongside you guys. You've seen me through the the very beginning all the way till now. So it's pretty sweet. Austin: Such a privilege. It's been such a privilege to work with you. Yeah. And just for proper context, like in terms of scale, how big is your team scaled to? How big is your team? You have five, four people? Jake White | Vive18: we have four full timers. and then we have I'm one of yes. Mm-hmm. Austin: Including you? Okay, one of the four full-timers okay? Jake White | Vive18: Yep. and then we have five contracted team members and then a couple just like as needed contractors. Austin: Yeah. So like nine people that you're working with regularly and then some independants as needed. That's what I just shared? Yeah. So Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Yeah. Austin: from single person business to nine human beings putting some food at some or all of their food on their table because of this thing that you build. So so Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: for all you listeners, okay, keep that in mind. This is not somebody who's Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: just getting started here. Like you've experienced the whole curve, you know, which is so cool. Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Austin: So in when I'm preparing to bring somebody into the show, I force you, thank you for being a good sport, Jake, I force you to Jake White | Vive18: Ha ha. Austin: submit my little form that's like, what are some systems that you have found valuable or that you'd like to talk through with me? And I mentioned this before we got on. I'm gonna repeat it for the listeners, but I was so thrilled to see what you put in there because it speaks to something based on a trend we saw in previous state of the industry reports that said that people that do this thing on average out earn those that don't by a huge multiplier, like one of the biggest multipliers we've ever seen. Next to being like a celebrity on social media or something, which is fascinating. And that thing is sponsoring events, like like having a a booth. being Being a sponsor. In the same way that for those of you that know SpeakerFlow because of the National Speakers Association, we go and we put up a booth and we hang out and talk to people for a couple of days. That's what I mean by sponsoring events. And that looks like different flavors. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about what that looks like for you practically here. But going in as a sponsor to an event and not exclusively a speaker, or maybe completely independently of a speaker, is a really underutilized marketing vessel. And it's interesting because this is an event based business. So it's not like people. people aren't seeing sponsors out there, you know, but I think most people, including myself, really like don't connect the dot of like how effective that could be as a thought leader. So anyways, that's the impetus of all this. Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: And I'm curious, like is it the results of that or like what is it about that that thing that you've done that that stood out as something that you feel like is worth sharing. Jake White | Vive18: Well, I I at the beginning I thought kinda like maybe you did or most people do, which is I never visit the booth anyway. So why would I even consider that? I just go to get a pen or a piece of candy or like to win a T shirt or something. But I don't remember ever buying anything. And then when I've seen now is the results from it, is th three Xing my business every year for the past three years and Honestly, tr switching our marketing where before we used to use our CRM to gauge outbound leads and we were doing all outbound marketing and we completely stopped it. Like cold turkey stop and we just do marketing through conferences, and that's when we started seeing the 3x growth. That's crazy. So Austin: Wait a minute. So you're saying it's the exclusive strategy now? Like that's the key Jake White | Vive18: It yes. Austin: thing that I mean of social media and I'm sure there's other things you do maintenance-wise, thought leadership-wise. But like as far as you actively going out to procure new clients, that's the thing that you're dumping, you're putting your eggs in that basket. Wow. Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Besides like of course referrals and repeat customers, because that's obviously if you're doing a good job, that stuff will happen and that'll be a big part of your business. But the only marketing that we're doing is that. In fact, we brought on, I remember in the beginning, we were just spamming all these school principals and counselors and it feels terrible, right? You're like, man, I shouldn't be doing this, but our program is life saving. I gotta do it. And you do it, you get a little bit of results, it

kind of just gets the wheel turning. And you're asking yourself, when can I stop this? And the reality is I have friends in the industry who still only do outbound marketing. They can never stop because that's how their business is built. But going to conferences or hosting a conference so that you're in the hub of where your your buyers live, I don't really see another option. Like if you wanted to stop outreach, I think that's it. That's what you have to do. you're building relationships somewhere or you're not. Austin: So true. There's something about the physicality of it too that just makes it such a unique way of building those relationships. Like being physically present with somebody is just radically different than an email ever possibly could be. There's just an energy exchange there that happens, you know? So I feel like there's tons of reasons why I think it's such an awesome thing. It's fascinating that like that's the main thing that you've done and the the reason for why you went that direction. Because I know so many people that have either done tons of outreach over the years with much less success than they actually want to. Or it's just a lot of work and they feel burned out by it. Or it's such an intimidating proposition that they just never even do it, but are constantly telling themselves that they should. And there's like a guilt and shame Jake White | Vive18: Ha ha Austin: spiral that can start because of that, you know? So it's like it's a hot topic. Cause like what else do you do? Jake White | Vive18: That's very true. Austin: Right? Like that really is the question. If you want new clients, like clearly posting a post on Instagram ain't gonna get you booked for $15,000 for a keynote or something. So like that's just that math don't math, you know. So what else do you do? Like Like I think the the logical thing for most people is that. So I I've two questions for you, a pseudo-question and a question. First of all, can you just like give us a like really short explainer of your expertise and the types of people that you serve? And then I'd be taught I'd be curious to learn about the impetus of this. Like what happened that triggered this idea that to break away from doing outbound for conferencing instead. Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. So yeah, to give you an overview, I'm the co founder of Vive18 and we help young people have fun and feel good without using drugs and alcohol. So K-12 schools is our primary market. the the organization, what it looks like today is a lot of speaking engagements. we also train professionals that are in the drug prevention space. we host our own events and conferences now, which we can talk more about how that came up 'cause it's It is conferences, but we host them now. and then yeah, we have a toolkit and curriculum that people use and people buy our courses and and hire us as a consultant. So just basically think about niching down on your favorite thing. That's what we did. We want to empower young people to make smart choices. and so we live in that space. So the yeah. The Yeah, thank you. Austin: I was just a big supporter of your whole thing. So let's go, man. Jake White | Vive18: I remember sending you the t-shirts. You're like, hey Jake, where do how do I represent Vive18? Yeah. Yeah. Austin: Ma changing the world. I wear Yep. Yeah, that's awesome. Yep. Jake White | Vive18: and the yeah, kind of the first moment when I realized we should be doing conferences is there's a guy named John Hunter at my church. And he is so generous, very successful sales leader running international sales. And I told him about what I did. He got really excited. And at that moment I was looking for a coach. And so we started meeting every week. And he walked me through this model of identifying who are your red light, yellow light, and green light clients. And that my my job should be to serve one client so well that they introduce me to my next clients. So it's like, all right, who's my favorite client? Cool, it's the Bilates from the Florida Keys. Like, and it's not just 'cause they live in the Florida Keys, okay? Like Austin: It might be an additional thing, but yeah. Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: Exactly. But they're like the most passionate people. Like they bring you in because they want to change lives, not because the school said they had to bring in a speaker. And so we got to help them start a drug free a drug-free club and help their students gain leadership skills and they want to do stuff year after year. Austin: Cool. Jake White | Vive18: I'm like, man, if we could have 10 of these clients, that'd be so cool. and so we just asked the question, where do you hang out? Like what's your professional conference? What things do you read if you do subscribe to things? and they said this conference that basically all these grant funded nonprofits show up twice a year to this conference and they said, Hey, why don't you come there and we're presenting this year? So if you make us a little video of how we work together, we'll put it in our presentation. And that was like a door. I just showed up to the conference to their venue and I left with more leads than I had ever had before just by doing Austin: Whoa. Jake White | Vive18: that, being in the room. wasn't a sponsor yet or anything. So then it told me, hey, this is actually the room, and all these people are doing work like they're doing. And if you're listening to this and you're like, hey, what's my what's my thing? Like you could just Google the conference in your industry, or you could ask your absolute favorite client. Where do you go and hang out through the year? Where do you meet people like you? And can I join you? Austin: That's such a good strategy. Yes, right. Just get it from the horse's mouth. Like, you know? Talk to people. It's always the relational approach is always gonna give you the best information. Always Jake White | Vive18: Mm-hmm. Austin: way above and beyond a

gut check ever could. Jake White | Vive18: yeah, yeah. You try to guess it mo ninety percent of time it's wrong 'cause it's on my limited scope and honestly I'm not a good buyer. I'm not a good consumer. So when I think about what I would do, it's usually the opposite of the people I want to reach. Austin: Sure. Self-awareness is a beautiful thing. Yeah. okay, so like this sort of happened because of chance. And it started as like you got proof of concept that these like these events, this conference setting was really good for lots of relationship, volume relationships, which is just objectively the case. All those people in one place is like s the prime breeding ground. So at what point did you say like, okay, well, instead of just pursuing this organization as a speaker, which is what I think most people would immediately start thinking, how did that turn into, well, let's sponsor it? Jake White | Vive18: I well, once once the conference was validated by s going there and getting leads without sponsoring it, the question just become how do I meet more people at this conference? And I know that because when I meet someone, if if they hear my elevator pitch and they're in the right field, they're gonna get interested and they're gonna wanna write down their email. Like that's the response. And Austin, you know this, right? I started a business in college throwing giant parties without any drugs or alcohol. And it led to hundreds of students coming and getting national sponsors like Red Bull, Pizza Hut, Subway. And then students would request this at their school. Started speaking and throwing clubs. So they're like, Whoa, I've never heard anything like that. And it took me twenty seconds to turn a stranger into a lead. So I just need to repeat that over and over and then get them into my Zoho CRM. Like That is the number one thing to do at a conference. Give as many elevator pitches as possible and then get them into the CRM so we can nurture and have a discovery call. So yeah, I feel like it was so easy to make that decision. but I also had to be like, man, I'm not used to paying to go there. I'm used to getting paid to go there. So it is a moment Austin: Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: of swallow my pride and show up in the room because they're the ones who can help me change more lives. and I do I pay a lot of money, like it's thousands to sponsor it and you buy the flight and hotel and now bringing team members and stuff, but it's totally worth it. Austin: man, I think that's so good. I think actually that's probably where the hesitation lies for most people, right? And I think th this industry in particular has this weird sort of like thorn in its side where there's this whole subset of events that are happening that are pay-to-play where like the the point is to just position you as a speaker. It's not that you're actually there to create value or whatever. It's just that like you get to be a speaker and that might be good for your demo video or like whatever it may be, right? So I think a lot of people are instantly shying away at the thought of like I'm spending money to like have presence somewhere. And I think you can even expand outside Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: the speaking engagement thing. Like think about all the PR people that are out there. I can get you published in Newsweek for six thousand dollars and in reality they like submit a form on your behalf or whatever, you know. So anyways, this this industry has the Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: potential to be taken advantage of, I think, in a way that's even different than most. You have a thought there? Jake White | Vive18: Yeah, I do because I it's bringing to mind the part I went to a conference before and I didn't have success. Like and I was I was a speaker, I had it built out my program, and you got 15 minutes of stage time. And so that should beat the elevator pitch, right? You get stage time instead of the the 15 seconds. So the I was not successful though. you know, I left I actually left with one client. So it it paid for itself, quotes, but I served them for a couple years, but that market was not tested for me. I thought that I would serve college students because that's where my story began. I didn't find traction until exploring the middle school and high school market and then realizing how funding works. So that is another thing, is like You have to consider what do I want to get out of the conference? Am I just validating myself in a new market? And am I willing to pay to do that? Or have I found my market and every client is worth X amount of dollars? It would be silly for me not to go spend at least that much to go meet a bunch of these people. Like only you can do that math, right? Austin: Dude, yeah, but this is this is what I mean about like you doing such a great job of straddling the line between visionary and business owner stuff. Because that's some business owner stuff right there. Like it was Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: justified. It was research. Like you did math to figure out whether or not you were actually gonna be Jake White | Vive18: Ha ha. Austin: able to get a return. Like this is stuff you have to pay attention to. And I actually think this is a good thing, right? Because any underutilized marketing channel, let's say, can very easily be messaged and twisted to be like some magic wand. Like just spend 20 grand a year on five different conferences and put up your booth and you'll make 20 million. Like you know so it's really easy to get your Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: expectations super high for something that isn't deserving of that necessarily. And but and Jake White | Vive18: Mm-hmm. Austin: what you just touched on there is the thing that makes this not that is that you don't just spend money on random conferences. Like there's a strategic angle and it speaks to The outcome, like that actually, might be the more important thing of what you just said.

There is that like you're going there with a specific outcome in mind. And like, yeah, we want leads, obviously, but there's these like conditions that sit underneath that. Or it's like, even if I don't can't guarantee there's leads, maybe it is a market that I have history with and that I think I could be a good fit for, and with a bunch of conversations, I could validate. So that's a totally different angle. Then I already know these are my people, and like I'm my job is just to talk to as many humans as possible to fill that funnel. funnel up, quote unquote. so yeah, the the angle, the reason, Jake White | Vive18: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Austin: the intentionality behind why you go and do it matters a lot. And then beyond that, the research to make sure that you're like positioned well to be able to get it done. I actually think it's not just a two-part process. There's a third thing that you ref you mentioned as well, which is the CRM thing, which is just like shorthand for follow-up, right? That's really what that means. Like the tool that you use to do it is arbitrary. If you'd prefer to carve it into rocks, do it with stone tablets. But like way easier Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: with software these days, you know? So you're probably gonna use a CRM. But what that What that practically translates to for you, I imagine, isn't just that they s exist in a database, but it's probably that you send follow up emails and maybe even pick up the phone and connect with them on LinkedIn. Right? Like it's a part of a bigger picture thing that's start that's the beginning of the process that's unfolding. Is that fair? Jake White | Vive18: Yeah, yeah. For sure. And Austin, we do and I don't know if you remember helping us set this up, but like you taught us how to use our templates, our email templates so that when someone does opt in, they get any free gifts that we offer them for stopping at the table. And we we call it a gift basket. So it gives us three emails to say, Hey, we're gonna send you some stuff over these. and each one will have an invitation to schedule a discovery call, things like that. But Up apart from that, it's sometimes too what's really nice is you can have a tag where you met this person. So next time you reach out, you're just in the CRM thinking, it's close to that conference again. Why don't I click that tag and send everyone an email saying, Hey, are you going to the conference again? Can't wait to see you. and so I don't know, marketing and and sales just becomes a lot easier because you've been able to create tags and have templates and do all these automations that You used to be able like you used to not do because it was too much, you know? Austin: Yep, so true. So like I'm curious that my tech brain immediately goes a direction with this. So I wanna drop like a here's a a way I think that you could do this the best. But I'd be curious before I share that, how do you get people practically from the conversation at the booth

into all of those systems? Like what's the mechanism they use to do that? Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. I'll I I'm gonna say this 'cause some people need to hear it. I hate business cards because you don't own the relationship then. So I pull out my phone or ask them to pull out their phone and then I type in vibe eighteen dot com slash intro, which is a page we made just with the Zoho form on it. They fill out the form and we ask them for their name, their state email, phone, and then we have a checklist of things they might be interested in. So it's a long form actually, but they're super qualified leads and they love us after they meet us. So we kind of have permission to do it. And if we're doing a raffle, you don't get a raffle ticket until you like we see form completed. Like and Austin: Yeah, you're serious about it. Jake White | Vive18: and we won't talk to you again. Like we're not gonna we're not gonna ask you to fill out the form and then fill you with conversation. Like You're doing the form and then we can continue. so we connect it right to Zoho Forms, which then shoots it into the CRM and automates the the email sequence that they're gonna be on. What's what are your tips? Austin: So good. I love that well, yeah, the interaction that you have there though is the thing, right? It's not just like I have a QR code sitting here, like passively scan it and then I hope that you convert. It's like we're in the conversations like take my phone and do this right now. Like we're not waiting till later. You're doing it right here. Jake White | Vive18: Yes. Mm-hmm. Austin: I think that's good. I I need to hear that sometimes too, actually, 'cause it's tempting to just like assume the more passive thing will work, but it just doesn't. It just never does. So Jake White | Vive18: Right. No, it's good to apply a little positive, I wouldn't even call it pressure, but like positive awkwardness. Cause when you're sitting there and they're filling out the form and you're like looking around and thinking, Should I fill this void? It's like, no. It's kinda like making a sale. Let like let them think about it. Let them say the next thing. you're you're making a small sale, right? From their information. Yeah. Austin: Yeah, the micro yes. Yeah, it's it's Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: a series of those that leads to the actual agreement being signed. Every interaction you look like it just like incrementally moving it forward. You know, you don't have to go fast, you don't Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: have to rush it, it takes the time that it takes, but you're always trying to move it a little bit further. I think one of the things that I love about your approach, and I'm biased because I'm pretty certain we built this whole flow for you, but like when when a form gets submitted, right, Jake White | Vive18: True. Austin: and you you have automations and things attached to it, you can be really specific about what the next steps are. Supposed to be. You can have them flow in with tasks created to process them properly. You could enroll them in a drip series. You could put them in other tools. Like you have a lot of granular stuff, but to set that up is a pretty technical venture. And this is another moment where I can mention AI, where like here's a scenario. You build a project in Claude with instructions that say, I'm at this event for these days. Here's the people that I'm talking to, here's the outcome that. I'm going for. And then every time you get handed a business card, you just take a picture of it and give it to Claude and let Claude do all the processing of that person and log everything into the system. You can even give it a voice note. It's like here's kind of the context of what went on with it, too. So, but but not yeah, but it's not quite as clean as a form. So I I would say like Jake White | Vive18: Really? Right. Austin: that's probably optimal. But Claude is a pretty it's getting Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: closer to like the next best thing in a lot of ways. So yeah. Jake White | Vive18: Yeah, yeah. Austin: So I'm curious for Jake White | Vive18: That's cool. Austin: like the on the process side of this, right? Like how does one go about this conversation? Like, are you is it just the one event that you sponsor that was just well qualified? Have you branched into others? I know you said that you mentioned or you mentioned hosting your own events as well, which I want to talk to, but before we drift to that direction, like specifically if you're gonna sponsor an event, like how does that conversation unfold? Who do you talk to? What is the what could somebody expect if they were gonna go in and start having these conversations? Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. I mean, first is if you're at a conference, I would before you go to the marketing person, look up the team and see if there's someone you can just connect with as your subject matter expertise. Ask them how you could be helpful to their audience. And you could even say, I'm considering becoming a sponsor. I know I'm gonna talk to the marketing person, but I wanna chat with you first. How do you think I could best serve your audience? Here's what I do, here's what I understand about you. they're gonna give you a lot of the good information to help kind of validate the experience and if you should be spending your money there because they're not incentivized by the marketing budget. They're just they want to help their people. So you're some way to to do that. Then when you get past to the marketing person, that's when you really want to use your leverage to say, hey, this is what I do. you know I I was thinking I'm gonna buy a booth, but can you introduce me to Someone on the content side. So like get to know as many people within the organization as you can because what happened at our industry conference is not only are we having a booth, but we're leading workshops. We did become the keynote speaker. Those

types of things will happen because you're getting to know the team and you're learning more about them and how you can help them. So yeah, again, back to what you said, Austin, it's relationships. It's it's really all about that. and then I did Austin: That's a slam dunk, by the way. Just like for all you listeners, that was genius. Never in a million years would Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: I have expected that to be your response, but it's so good. Like that's some in the trenches wisdom right there. Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: thank you. And it's I think it's because I have gone I would inquire about speaking at there was like a first year orientation for college like college market. And they told me flat out this Like I would love your money, but because we had that conversation beforehand, I say, I don't think you're gonna get the results that you want. Or our people aren't really primed to make that purchasing decision. So you're gonna get passed off to somebody else. And I knew right then the momentum would be lost. That'd be a waste of money. You need the buyer to be in the room. and I the only other one, so we have like two major ones. The first one called CADCA is the one that's with our buyers and it's twice a year. And then we go to another one called NPN, which is with like the it's almost like your buyer's bosses and they hold all the funding for the entire state, but they're still focused on the problem that you solve. so you're learning their language too, and that's really important because now when you're speaking to your client, you kinda understand their job better than they do. Like you understand their measurables and what they're gonna be judged by. And so you truly become an expert partner in that. And that's really fun for your clients. Like it's yeah, I I work with Jake every year because he understands me. Or yeah, why would I change from from Austin because he he literally knows my boss and he's gonna write my measurables for me and all these t types of things that really matter and make their lives easier. Austin: Yeah. Man, it's so interesting to hear you talk about all of this too, because what you didn't mention it at all in this entire conversation so far is how awesome you are when you're on stage. And now look, you're just a pretty humble Jake White | Vive18: He Austin: guy. So I can't actually imagine you saying that about yourself. But even outside of that, like it's not even about how good your product is. And I don't think what that says is that it it's not a good product. I think it says that like the assumption at this point is that like what you do is already so great. Right. But like what you're talking about here are the details in the customer experience. And I I love the this like topic of things that people focus on because it's not talent dependent. It's not about you being the best speaker ever. And like that's not permission to have a crappy product. Like people need to be great Jake White |

Vive18: Yeah. Austin: speakers if that's what they're selling, obviously. But like the way that you differentiate and the ways that you can incrementally get ahead of your competition or just your previous record. Or whatever is oftentimes in those little details that are just kind of looked over by most people. Because what you said, nothing about what you said was magical. It was literally just like talk to as many people as you possibly can and genuinely try to serve them and just like put yourself out there in that situation. And then opportunities come that you can say yes to in an angle that you weren't expecting. And like, but what it started with was like a value-oriented, a service-oriented relationship. And that being able to do that, develop that with people is accessible to one. 100% of the people listening to this podcast. Everybody can improve their ability to do that. And that's the thing that's Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: made the difference for you. It's not just that yes, you can improve it, so you should. It's that it actually can be the thing that makes the biggest difference. It's it's cool. It's a good aha, I think people should have. Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. And Austin, if I could offer some practical advice for people if they want to do this, it's that when you when you lead into the conversation with curiosity instead of a sale, like people just open up to you. It's amazing. So like yes, I've had conversations with like directors of statewide initiatives and government agencies and not trying to make a sale, so They were very open about what their budget is, what their priority is, what language, what dates I need to have on my calendar, because they need to spend their money by. And it's not so that they can put more money in my pocket. It's so that we can help their people better. And so if you're like thinking, well, how do I get that person who is seems too far out of my reach? Well, don't pitch them. Ask for 15 minutes of their time to share about them. Everybody loves talking about themselves. And then make it this informational interview so that you can again better learn to serve the people that they serve. Like, I I love how you made it very simple. Is you're just asking for these these meetings or appointments or relationships. There's really nothing fancy about it if you come from a posture of service and curiosity. That'll do Austin: Yeah. Jake White | Vive18: all the work for you. Austin: So true. You know, there's this I say trope, probably that's not the right word for it, but like when you're thinking Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. Austin: about marketing and messaging, every every branding expert on the planet will say that you've got to focus primarily on the problems that you're solving. Like, don't talk about features and benefits, think about the problems that you're solving. And there's this like undercurrent about with what you just described there, which is that like ultimately what we're doing is helping solve problems. The reason you're in the room with those conversations is because you have valuable expertise that helps solve. Solve a legitimate problem that those people are actively trying to solve for. You know, and so that's kind Jake White | Vive18: Mm-hmm. Austin: of the equation in some ways. It's like you have to be on you have to be clear enough about the value that you have and the problems that you solve such that you can identify the people that probably are the best people to talk to as it relates to solving that problem for whatever the demographic is, and then intentionally develop the relationship with it. And with what you said, to add it as an angle there, is don't pitch them as a part of that. That process. The angle is genuinely like informational. I'm trying to learn more about how I can better serve with the talents and skills that I've developed in whatever area that it is. And once again, like a universally applicable skill that is not based on you being an amazing speaker, it's based on like heart posture, you know? And it says something Jake White | Vive18: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Austin: in this hustle entrepreneurial culture thing that we find ourselves in as business owners, you know. Jake White | Vive18: Yeah. And the good news is if you become good at that, you will also become a great speaker. Like you can't mess it up. If you're curious and you care about them, you will become an amazing speaker. And that's the cool thing, is once those both things happen, your your efforts just compound. If you're not great yet, you can do all this work, it'll help you get better faster, but you won't see the like wild results yet. But once they start matching, then you'll see that hockey stick kind of thing happen and It's it becomes a wild ride.