THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hey there, passion-maker. It’s Miriam Schulman; you’re listening to episode 150 of The Inspiration Place Podcast. I am so grateful that you’re here. If you think that to sell art, you have to be pushy in sales, it’s not true. You don’t have to learn sleazy sales techniques, and you don’t have to be an extrovert. The truth is, shy artists often make the best salespeople, especially when they come armed with systems that rely on their strengths of listening. So, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Today you’re going to discover why your natural personality, even if you’re shy, is perfect for selling. You’ll learn how to overcome your fear, and you’ll learn how stories can be used to sidestep objections.
Today’s guest is a self-professed introvert, and his epic rise from humble beginnings as a door-to-door salesman to a multimillion-dollar success proves that anyone with the right inspiration and strategies can achieve anything they set their mind to. Forbes calls him “the real deal,” Global Gurus lists him as a Top 30 Sales Professional, Top Sales World Magazine named him a Top 50 Speaker, and BigSpeak lists him as an international Top 10 Sales Trainer. He’s also the bestselling author of The Introvert’s Edge series on selling and networking. We’re going to have links to both of the books in the show notes, and I can’t wait to bring on Matthew Pollard. Welcome to the show.
Matthew Pollard:
Thank you so much. I’m ecstatic to be here. Congratulations, 150 is a massive milestone.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it’s been a big commitment and a lot of work.
Matthew Pollard:
Well, I can tell, and I have to tell you, the number of people that interview me that haven’t read my book or don’t know my curriculum that well, I mean, you deep-dived into this, so you not only have done 150 episodes, you do the hustle to make sure your audience really gets value, so good for you.
Miriam Schulman:
Thank you. I try to squeeze every drop out of the lemon for my audience. You took away my banter topic. We were going to banter about Austin.
Matthew Pollard:
Well, you know, one of the things that we were talking about in the book was about having planned things to say when you first start, right?
Miriam Schulman:
100%.
Matthew Pollard:
I’m very similar to you, I like to have a plan. And luckily enough, you threw it to me, so I got to use mine. But yes, the first book that you’re talking about, The Introvert’s Edge, which focuses on sales, that, I actually worked on when I was living in Austin. And Austin’s a great city, I mean, I loved starting a brand there, it was beautiful.
Miriam Schulman:
So you’re not there anymore?
Matthew Pollard:
No, I actually live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. So, the second book, that got published in early this year. That one was published in… I think it says Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on the back now. But it was really interesting. So, Austin’s, I mean, it’s a wonderful city, I love living there, but my wife’s always wanted to live closer to the mountains. So, my brand kind of got to a point, which is weird, because everything that I had in the past was bricks and mortar, telemarketing, direct sales. I had to physically be in a location. And when I moved to the US, I didn’t even know I had to change the word [inaudible 00:04:00] on a website. Like, no clue, had no idea what online was about, just knew I didn’t want to be taking photos of donuts for something to say on Instagram. It just wasn’t me.
When, eventually, it grew to the point that… I mean, I really could be anywhere in the world, so at that point, I said to my wife, “You know, we can live anywhere as long as it’s within 40 minutes from an international airport so I can get home, and so I can speak wherever I go.” She broke the rules a little bit, we’re 42 minutes from an international airport, and we live in this really great place. I’m a runner, so it’s got this unbelievable nature reserve to run around the whole… Every day, I try to get down there. It’s wonderful.
Miriam Schulman:
That sounds terrific, Matthew. I have a lot of questions, so we’re going to move away from chit-chat very quickly. But first, before we get into my questions, I do want to take a moment to define introvert, because there’s so many people who I speak to who say, “Oh, I took the Myers-Briggs, and it says I’m an introvert, but I like people.”
Matthew Pollard:
You know, I think people have overcomplicated it way too much, and I think it’s because psychologists have needed more grant funding, so they’ve gone deeper and deeper. And truthfully, if you don’t want to spend the next five years trying to work out whether you’re an introvert or extrovert or quiet or shy or highly sensitive, you really just want to break it down to one definer. And by the way, this is not something you can change, right? A lot of people will say, “Oh, since COVID, I’ve become a lot more introverted,” or “You know, I used to be introverted, but now I’m extroverted.” It’s not something you can change. It’s really just where you draw your energy from. If you draw your energy from hanging around with people, then you’re an extrovert. If you draw your energy from being by yourself, then you’re an introvert.
Now, I will say that for me, a lot of the people I work with and myself, I actually really enjoy networking now. I love speaking from stage. I might be a little bit terrified before I get on, still can’t get beyond that, but when I’m up there, I’m having a blast. And until I get back to the hotel room and realize I’ve just been hit by a ton of bricks and I’m wiped out, I’m having a great time. And this is the difference, it’s… We still draw our energy from being by ourselves, but if we learn strategies and systems, we can learn to enjoy these so-called extroverted arenas. I’ll go as far to say, I believe that an introvert can actually out-sell, out-network, out-lead, out-public-speak any extroverted counterpart, because they wing things. And the truth is, when you wing things, you can’t re-create them, and you can’t perfect them.
Matthew Pollard:
So, introverts have an unbelievable ability, but again, if they run their energy too low, it can go horribly wrong, so you have to know, just because you’re finding it easier, because you’re enjoying it now, doesn’t mean that you still don’t draw your energy from being by yourself.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay, that’s a great definition. As we talked about before I hit record, I did read your book, and I underlined and highlighted, and I’m going right from the start, the first time I was like, “Yes, he’s totally right about this.” So, why should you never ask… And right now, I’m talking to my artists who are about to re-enter the art festival scene, the in-person selling. Why should you never ask, “Can I help you?”
Matthew Pollard:
Well, because nobody wants to be helped, right? The thing is, “Can I help you?” is literally code for “Are you sure you don’t want to be sold something? Like, I’m really here to hard sell you, if you’d like.” It terrifies anybody to hear that. Now, people love having conversations about things, people love to… They love to buy things, they love to discover things and tell the story to their friends about how they discovered it, and what was amazing about it, but they don’t like to be sold to. But people love to buy.
So, when you walk up to somebody and say, “Can I help you?” what you’re really saying is, “Hey, I’m looking for permission to sell you something,” as opposed to just coming in and starting a dialogue. If you notice they’re there looking at something, speak directly to that. Start a conversation. When I used to go out to people’s appointments, I was never really great at chit-chat. So, I used to go to people’s houses to sell telecommunications, and I would just ask if they wanted me to take my shoes off as I walked into their house. And people would look at me shocked and say, “Oh, no, you don’t need to do that,” or “Oh, yes, please.” And it didn’t matter what response; I would then get into this whole dialogue about my last girlfriend at the time had a big issue with people coming in with shoes, and because of that, I’ve just learned to ask, because some people don’t like it, some people do, and we’d have a whole conversation.
When I moved to mate tea, people would ask if I wanted a coffee, and I would just respond with, “Oh, actually, I’ve given up coffee because it gives me too many highs and lows; I’ve moved to mate tea,” and I’d talk about how I discovered it in Argentina, and then they’d have this whole dialogue about how they could never give up coffee. It was the same conversation every time, but it put me in control.
So, when you walk up to someone, if you’ve got a specific series of pieces that they’re walking up to, have some planned dialogue about that piece. If it’s a specific type of event that’s happening, then have a dialogue about that. But do not walk up and say, “Hey, would you like to be hard sold to?” Because they’re going to say no, which, by the way, is you saying, “Can I help you?”
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. And by the way, a lot of times what artists will hear, when they ask, “Can I help you?” the person will automatically say, “Oh, my house is filled, there’s no wall space.” That is most people’s go-to response to “Leave me alone, I don’t want art.” I found what works really well is I would just say, “Are you from this area?” That was always my go-to line, and either they are, and then I would talk about that, or they’re not, and I would talk about where they actually were from or whatever. Like you said, it was like a go-to thing that always led to an easy conversation.
Matthew Pollard:
You know, I think that one thing, and especially introverts, because we have this habit of overthinking things, and we make things more complicated than they need to be. Right? Just asking where they’re from, or did they fly in for this, or are they local, little things like that can be so simple to say, but it’s still not “Hey, I’d like to hard sell you.” People like having dialogue, they like to interact. Even introverts, we go to those events, and we don’t want to… You know, we don’t want to be speaking to everybody, but we do like to have a couple of conversations. So, going in and not being too inventive, but just having some dialogue, is better than none. And it’s definitely better than saying, “Hey, can I sell you something?”
So, don’t get too inventive, just have something that’s separate to say, like walking up and going, “Oh my gosh, I can see your head ticking over. I bet you your walls are covered with artwork and you’re trying to figure out where that could fit.” Right?
Miriam Schulman:
That’s awesome.
Matthew Pollard:
Just little things like that could really bring up a conversation where you can have a laugh, and again, then foster a relationship. Because their walls are full because they like to buy art, so even that isn’t an objection, it’s “Show me how I can fit this in,” or “Show me why I should have this instead of something else,” because people are moving art around all the time.
Miriam Schulman:
Completely. I mean, I always offer to come rearrange the art for them if they really need help; I’m sure I can make it fit.
All right, so, in the book, you gave a really great, I don’t want to call it even sneaky, but let’s call it stealth way to establish credibility from the start. Can you share an example of that?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, sure.
Miriam Schulman:
I think you did that with me with this podcast interview, actually.
Matthew Pollard:
Look, I do it all the time. They’re kind of like side conversations, where you just insert credibility. There’s actually an example in the book where I talk about how I had to go in and speak at an organization. It was a corporation that the head of the organization wanted me to come and speak to these salespeople, but the salespeople really did not want me there at all. It just so happened that it was just after Thanksgiving, and I got asked this innocuous question, which was, you know, no one really cares to hear your answer, but they asked me how my Thanksgiving was. And I said, “Oh, it was great, but it was cut off short,” and I stopped talking.
And they then were like, “Oh, why was it cut off short?” I said, “Oh, it’s just a long story, you know, I didn’t know how much you Americans party, because it was my first Thanksgiving. So, I planned for the next day two interviews, so I was on Fox News the following morning, I had an interview at 6:00 a.m., and then I had a follow-up interview just shortly after that on KXAN, and in short, I barely got any sleep, because they were laughing and joking while trying to be quiet up until 2:00 a.m., and I was up at 5:00 to get ready for the interviews. But, you know, it all worked out in the wash. One of the people that I met at the second interview actually saw me on TV when they were getting ready, and it happened to be one of the largest digital marketing organizations in the world, and now it looks like I’ll be speaking on their main stage, so it was all positive news.”
And at the end of that, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this person’s a big deal,” where at the start, they told me they didn’t really feel… The heads of the organization said, “We’re a little bit worried about you going in, because there’s a lot of bulldog salespeople in there. They think they know what they’re doing; they come from sales families, and they just… They’re not really open to advice.” By the time I’d had that conversation, it was like they all sat down, they’re like, “We’re here to listen.”
So, sometimes just bringing things into dialogue is really positive. Like, as you said before this interview, you said, “You know, I really enjoyed that book,” and I’m like, “I’m really excited to get to help people, and you know what, I’m really pumped about the fact that it’s just made 14 languages, and it’s about to hit 15.” And it’s a point of passion and excitement, but it also says, “Just so you know, if you think it’s a good book, lots of other people think so too,” and that’s the underlying meaning. And you can do this with every dialogue, as just a side comment, as part of the general dialogue.
Miriam Schulman:
Which, by the way, it’s great to know, since this podcast is listened to in over 50 countries. See what I just did there?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is the thing, it can happen all the time, and that doesn’t come across as braggy, it’s, “Oh, I’m so glad that you said that, because there’s so many of my listeners that I interview people about different topic matter, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I want to get that book,’ and they can’t get it. They can listen well in English, but they can’t read well in English. So, because of that, I’m so glad you said it, because we’re in like 50 countries. So, when you get the other 36, we’ll have to have you back on.” And all of a sudden, it’s I’m trying to be helpful for my audience, I’m not telling everybody how successful my podcast is.
Miriam Schulman:
So, some ways that I actually have done this is, if I have a solo show or I’ve gotten any kind of press, “Oh, how did you hear about this art show? You must have seen my article in,” whatever the newspaper is or the magazine is. So, asking them, “Did you see this?” is like a stealth way of letting them know that you were in the papers, but yet it’s conversational.
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, absolutely. You can say, “You know, great to chat with you. Don’t mind me, I’m a little bit wiped from this morning. We had an article,” or “I was just on this show,” or “This just happened,” or “We’ve had so much more interest since this exhibit, and because of that, we’ve had a lot more flow. I’m just not used to this many people.” If you’re an introvert, use that you’re an introvert. “I’m an introvert myself, so I have to admit, my batteries are a little bit more drained than usual, but I’d love to talk to you about…” Or whatever you then go into. But it’s so easy to introduce things like that, and all of a sudden get a dialogue going in a positive way.
Miriam Schulman:
So, Matthew, there’s seven steps that you talk about, mostly focusing on the first book. I did get the second one, I just haven’t finished reading it. I can read one book a week, and that’s about it. And you booked-
Matthew Pollard:
I’m impressed that you read the first one. The fact that before we started this interview, you held out both, I was impressed to see that.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, Matthew, you booked it so quickly. Most people, they take their time, it’s like “It’s three weeks out, I have plenty of time to do it all.” Okay, so, we’re going to focus right now on step six. And I know there’s a lot of people who are not fine artists who listen to this podcast; I just want to let the coaches know, anybody who does consults, there were so many a-ha’s in there for me where there were things that I used to do and kind of stopped doing, and I was like, “Oh, I need to start doing that again,” or “That’s where I’m going wrong.” I’m not going to talk too much about the consults and the coaching world, since most of my listeners are artists, but make sure you get The Introvert’s Edge. We did link it in the show notes, and Matthew also told me that you can actually pick up a free chapter, if you go to theintrovertsedge.com, you’ll find, what is it, the first chapter, Matthew?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, and I know we’re talking about the steps, so the first chapter’s great, because it will actually outline the full seven steps. And my publisher hates me when I say this, but I always tell people, “You don’t have to buy my book, just do the first chapter,” because in the first chapter, if you do nothing more than grab the seven-step outline and put what you currently say into it, a lot of, especially people that are really passionate about what they do, which artists always are, you know, if you do nothing more than put what you currently say under those headlines, first thing you’ll realize is a bunch of things that don’t fit. Throw that out; you shouldn’t be saying that to customers. Then you’ll realize there’s a bunch of gaping holes and things are out of order. Put things in order, fill in the gaps, which are always around telling great stories and asking great question. You’ll easily double your sales from just doing that. So yeah, you can access that at theintrovertsedge.com.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, but there are a lot of good stories, which we’re going to get to a few of them, which is why I read it so fast. It was an easy read; it was like I just curled up on my porch and read it on Saturday. Okay, step six, you’re talking about trial closes. Can you share some examples?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, so I think the hardest thing for somebody to ask, especially as an introvert… I mean, that’s why the book’s written more like a novel, right, because I like people to learn through stories. But introverts like authenticity, so they’re all real stories, but you get to laugh out loud and enjoy these characters. But because everything’s based on authenticity, we don’t feel comfortable a lot of the time saying, “Hey, would you like to buy this?” Right?” Or “Oh, yeah, so would you like to go and give me your credit card, and I can then organize postage?”
That feels really uncomfortable. So, you’ll notice that a lot of introverts, and gosh, extroverts do this as well sometimes, they’ll get to the point where they can see the person’s interested, and they’ll either stop talking in the hope that the person says, “Oh, can I buy this?” which always leads to, “Oh, let me think about it,” or they’ll keep talking, and they’ll actually undo the sale. The person will go from interested to “This person’s never going to ask, and I’m never going to say,” because no one wants to say, “I want to buy this.” So you have to make it easy for them.
Matthew Pollard:
And you can say things like, you know, I give an example in my old educational sales where I would say something like, “Would you prefer more of a day course or a night course?” They would say something like, “Oh, a day course,” and then I knew it was going to move forward. Or they would say, “Oh, no, no, I’m not ready to decide anything right now,” and I’d say, “Oh, no, I didn’t say that you were; I was just asking whether or not you wanted a day course or a night course, because there’s different details for each and I want to explain those to you.” And now, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry I jumped the gun.” They now feel bad, and I now know I need to step back, because I have some more work to do.
So, it’s really about creating this innocuous question to stick your toe in the water and say, “Is this deal ready, or does it need more work?” And more often than not, the trial close is 90%-95% accurate that if they say one of the options, they are going to want to move forward. So, in the artwork, they’re deciding between two pieces of art, you can say, “Do you think it’d be more this one or this one?” Or you can say, “Now, we do have a delivery service. Do you prefer delivery during the week, or do you prefer delivery on the weekend?” Whatever that option is, it’s an innocuous question that could lead to the answer allowing you to provide more details because they need more information, or, if they do answer it in one of those directions, they’re actually saying, “I would like to buy that now, please,” which means you can then move straight into what I prefer to do, which is just assume the close, assume that it’s moving forward, so we don’t have to ask that awkward question, because I’ve got a pretty good feeling it’s now moving forward.
Miriam Schulman:
My go-to phrase is I will ask them, “Where do you imagine putting this?” which is also not just kind of test closing, but it’s also future pacing them, so helping them imagine actually having ownership of it. And then I’ll usually go to something very, very easy: “How would you like to pay, cash or charge?”
Matthew Pollard:
That’s the easiest one. I mean-
Miriam Schulman:
It’s easy.
Matthew Pollard:
The reason why I try to remove the “How would you like to pay?” is because if I ask an innocuous question about details at that point, it’s really more a planning one. By the way, if you ask them two questions, as in, “Would you like it here or here? Would you like this or this?” by doing that, they’re not thinking, “Would I like it, or would I not like it?” They’re thinking, “Which one of those options would I like?” And if they’re really creative, they come up with a third option. So, if you say, “Looking at that artwork, for me, it’s something that should probably go in your living room or in your main foyer. So, which one of those can you see it being in?” And if they say, “No, no, no, I’m going to use that in my bedroom,” well, they just told you they want it and it’s going in their bedroom.
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Matthew Pollard:
So that’s not a bad scenario either. But now you get into the deliveries and things like that, and then when you get to the end, you say, “Okay, terrific, so now, to get that organized, I just need to arrange payment,” and I finish with one of those two options, right? I’ll say, “Now, would you prefer cash or charge for that, or which card would you like to use for that?” “Which card” naturally gets them to think, “Oh, I probably have two cards in my wallet; which one of those am I going to use?” So it creates another double bind, but I like doing the payment option as a double bind as well, which is what this is called. It’s offering them two solutions so the brain doesn’t think of the option we don’t want them to think about, which is “I’m not buying this today,” or our favorite line, “Let me think about it,” which leads to “I’m never going to make a decision.”
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, absolutely. One of the best parts about your book is you shared a really great story about how, on eBay, they tested using creative writing to describe all this junk and how it made so much more money than when it didn’t have the stories.
Matthew Pollard:
So, the Significant Object Project is predominantly a study that highlights that people love the story more than they love the actual item. So, people buy things because they fall in love with a story. Just think about this for a second; the science behind this is that when you tell a story, it actually short-circuits the logical mind, and you speak directly to the emotional mind. And the emotional mind, by the way, is the part of the brain that’s making all the decisions anyway, especially when you think about things like art. So, when somebody’s looking at a piece, and you can tell them the entire story behind it, people are much more likely to buy that art. This study basically was, they picked a bunch of inanimate objects like, you know, you’re just talking junk from the house, and they put it up on eBay, and they wrote these amazing stories around these items to see whether or not they would sell for more money, and they sold for a ton more money. And, you know, thank goodness all the money went to charity, because they really… Some of the prices the things went for was extortionary.
But the thing, when we’re thinking about stories, there’s a lot of reasons why stories work so well. So, yes, they short-circuit the logical mind and they speak to the emotional mind, so the powerful thing about that is when you do that, the logical part of the brain is thinking, “That’s really expensive. I don’t have time for this. There’s lots more options.” But when you tell a story, the logical mind basically just short-circuits, and the emotional brain goes, “Story time,” and it just listens. And it assumes all the detail in that story is factual, and it just listens for the moral.
Now, when you talk about art, art is a lot more connected… You know, in my Rapid Growth Academy, we had one guy whose predominant focus was to source art for people. And what he looked for was the emotional connections that they had, the things that had happened in their life and how they connect that with art so that it brings up those feelings. And he would talk about stories, about how he interviewed clients to understand what the art needed to signify. He would show them different art so that they would look at it and go, “Oh, that one I connect with because,” and then he would go and find that art for them.
And he would tell a story about someone who had been to art dealer after art dealer, and everybody would talk to them about the great investment opportunity that art is, and try to get their logical brain to make that decision, but in truth, they couldn’t ever get themselves to take the leap, because there’s lots of ways to invest money, art is just one of them. So then he started to help them understand that it’s not really about that first; it has to start from the heart, and then we involve the head later. So he started to help them realize what emotional connections they wanted to have with the art, and then, after that, they found a few pieces, and then he picked one and had a secondary, and then they did the logical “Is this a great investment opportunity?” And of course, it was, and then they purchased it, and now it’s up in their office, actually, and how wonderful that is.
Now, first thing is, what we’re doing is we’re getting the logical brain to disappear, and you can’t disagree with that person’s experience, right? So we’re not going, “No, no, that’s different for me.” We’re going, “Wow, you did that? That’s pretty impressive.” And then at the end, we’ve embedded all this credibility. And the moral of the story is “I’ll help you make the emotional and the financial decision,” which is what led him to getting a ton more clientele.
Now, here’s the other great things about stories that are really, really powerful. The first thing is when we tell a story, what actually happens is it activates our reticular activating system of our brain. This is a study out of Princeton. But what actually happens is our brains synchronize. Now, if we’re an introvert and we’re pretty awkward around people, this is pretty powerful, because all of a sudden, we’re creating artificial rapport by doing that, which we can leverage into real rapport. Also, they feel that they have a connection with us, so if we’re the art dealer or the artist ourselves, that’s super powerful.
And then, people remember up to 22 times more information embedded into a story, so when you tell them the journey of how you created the art in a story, and if it’s a series of pieces, you can tell the stories of other people, piece one, piece two, piece three, and their pleasure on how they’re displaying it. That then allows them to know all of that, and they’ll remember it so that they can tell it to their friends when somebody goes, “Oh, that’s a lovely piece. Where did you get it from?” They can then recollect that story, just like if I was to say “Chairs, porridge, and beds” at random, you wouldn’t connect it to anything, but if I said, “Tell me the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” you could automatically say, “She sat in some chairs, she ate some porridge, and she slept in some beds.”
So, stories have so much power to them, and connecting them to a piece of art not only will help them remember, not only will help them feel like they have a greater relationship with you, the story art has been scientifically proven that if you just tell a story around an item, it automatically makes somebody much more willing to pay a premium for it. So, if you don’t want to be a commoditized artist or competing against IKEA and all the mass productions that they do, every piece of art, every sculpture, everything that you do has to have a story behind it.
Miriam Schulman:
100%. I remember, now, this is going back 20 years when I first started as an artist, I was watching this little old lady out in the art fair, and all day long, she was marching her customers from her booth to the sales table, back and forth. So I decided I had to learn from her, so I went over to eavesdrop, and a customer had come up to her and said, “How long did it take you to paint that?” And a lot of artists get put off when we get asked that, and she basically went into, like you said, story mode. It was like, “Well, it was so hot that day, and I was sitting outside, and you wouldn’t believe the sunburn I got when I was painting that,” like it’s this little beach scene, blah blah blah, of course she sold it. And then later, I came up to her, and she says, “Oh, no, no, I painted it in my studio with a photograph, but nobody wants to hear that.”
Matthew Pollard:
Oh, gosh. Well, you know, it’s really interesting, though, because a lot of people think that they tell really great stories, but they don’t. They’re always so matter-of-fact. Or, especially introverts, “I’m being mindful of your time, so I’ll give you a list of factual [inaudible 00:27:04] points around the story,” which, it doesn’t ever get to our emotional mind.
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Matthew Pollard:
You know, it’s really interesting, so, when you tell stories, a lot of people say, “Oh, I had a client.” We can’t connect with a client, right? We connect with David or Sarah or John, right? So we need to really make these people individuals. And it was really interesting, you know, I had a… This was a big tech company, and I do this thing where I actually tell a story from stage, and it’s one of their own client stories, and then I’ve got people believing I must have worked there for like 10, 15 years to be able to do this, and then I admit to interviewing somebody for the story last week, writing it a few days ago, and remembering it yesterday, and telling it today. And I’m like, “If I can sound like I’ve got 30 years of experience, what excuse do you have if you’ve been here for a few weeks?” And the focal point is really about making the new people believe that they can.
So, if you’re a new artist, you’ve got to remember, if you know one, two, or three stories, all of a sudden, you come across as having so much more experience than that person that just spews data at you. You know, what was interesting is, I interviewed, for one story, I interviewed, it was seven technology professionals. And I interviewed them for like 45 minutes; it was more like an interrogation. And at the end, I told them the story back in like 45 seconds, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, that was so much more compelling. How did you do that?” And I’m like, “Well, it’s a template that’s out of chapter five of my book. But here’s the things that I don’t understand. Firstly, you keep saying the CTO, the lead technologist in the organization, had a problem. You never gave me the person’s name. Who was it?” And they’re like, “Oh, it’s David.” Well, I can’t feel David’s pain if you don’t tell me the person’s name, because how do you feel the pain of a CTO? When it comes to David, I can feel it all.
I say, “But secondly, you said you’ve been chasing them for years to move into the cloud,” which is what they were doing. And I said, “Why all of a sudden did they change their mind?” And they went, “What do you mean? They didn’t know; they had to go and find out.”
It turns out this was an organization that had this “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of mentality. It was a government organization, thousands of employees. The server crashed before Christmas; they couldn’t run payroll. No one could get paid in the organization. David was the guy that ruined Christmas for thousands of government employees. Worse than that, he had to have all of these staff working in over Christmas to make sure they fixed it so everyone could get paid by New Year’s Eve. He had his whole team, and they’re all worried about being fired, they were all worried that everyone hated them. This is a type of story arch, those emotional triggers at everything. Well, turns out, everything worked out, and he got promoted because of his ability to handle it and the way he handled it. But that’s why he went to the cloud.
I’ve worked with gym franchises that tell me the story about how they had a client that signed up for gym membership, they were going to cancel, so they signed them up for personal training, and now they’re happy. Like, why did they join the gym? “Oh, they were trying to lose weight.” Okay, fair enough. Why were they trying to lose weight? Turns out she was trying to get pregnant. I’m like, “Well, was she having trouble getting pregnant?” “Well, apparently, she couldn’t lose the weight, and that’s why we gave her personal training.” I’m like, “Well, did she get pregnant?” “Yes, turns out she did.” I’m like, “Okay, so we have this arch with a person that couldn’t get pregnant because they were overweight, doctor said, ‘You need to go lose weight,’ joins the gym. Probably feels like she’s letting the whole family down. Now she’s pregnant. How do you think her parents feel about that?”
All these emotions; completely miss the point. “We had a person that was trying to lose weight, couldn’t, we gave them personal training, and now they’re happy.” How is that the story? A lot of times, we think we tell amazing stories, but we don’t. The story that you’re supposed to be telling about these pieces, it’s like the story, if you’re married, the story of how you met your partner. You know, at the start, maybe it’s a little bit clunky. You’ve got little pieces, you’re like, “That part’s boring, people seem to gloss over it, I won’t tell that next time.” And then other times, you’ll see people get excited about certain elements. “You know, I’ll spend more time embellishing on that.” Over time, becomes a little bit of a theatrical masterpiece. And that is what you want to be able to do whenever you tell a customer a story. You want to practice the story arch.
And this may mean that you drive your wife or husband nuts sharing that story with them before you go to an event like that, but it’s okay, because that is how us as introverts can present the best version of ourselves. Not an inauthentic version, not us trying to become extroverted; it’s providing the best version of ourselves by learning a structure for what to say, practicing how we want to say it, so that when we’re in the moment, we’re not stuck in our head trying to find the words, we already know the words to say.
And sure, this may sound like scripting, but remember, every actor that you see portraying such an authentic portrayal of a character on TV or in a movie, they’re all reaching from scripts too. The difference is, they really spent time practicing it and emboldening themselves to those parts, right, becoming that character. I mean, if you created this art or if you’re selling this art, these are your stories. You just need to practice them so that when you speak to someone, they’re like, “I don’t care what it costs, I want that,” which is what you notice in the eBay study. You know, people put up items, they created these stories, they’re like, “Wow, that was impactful. You’ve provided an impact to me; I now want to buy that impact.” And if they’ll do it for a crayon on eBay, they’ll do it for a piece of art that actually they’ll display on their wall proudly.
Miriam Schulman:
100%. I’ve even had collectors say to me, “I like that, but what’s the story?” Like, if I rushed to put it on my website and I didn’t put anything else but the size and how long it takes to ship, they’re like, “What’s the story?” I love the way Matthew explained that with the weight loss client, because you would never make a movie out of, you know, Jill needed to lose weight, got personal training, lost weight. That’s not a movie. But a movie about somebody suffering with infertility, and then got the help she needed, and now she has a baby, that you could imagine as being something on Lifetime TV, for us Americans.
Matthew Pollard:
Absolutely. I mean, I can imagine walking by somebody looking at a photo of this girl holding her baby, and then me telling this story, and it’s just sitting on the wall in the gym, and I could tell this whole story. I wouldn’t need to think about how to sell gym membership; I would just tell that story, and at the end, it wouldn’t matter how much the gym membership was, that photo would’ve sold the membership for me.
Miriam Schulman:
Beautiful. This is a great place to wrap up. There were so many more stories that I could’ve asked you about, but just get the book. I love, there’s a story in his book about the piano teacher. The second book, he talks about a teenager who uses his first book to make friends, which I thought was awesome, all our introverted or on-the-spectrum teenagers, because us artists tend to have kids who are a lot like us. Matthew, can you tell us about your Rapid Growth Academy so people can find out how they can learn from you?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, absolutely. My Rapid Growth Academy was really built because I found that there were a lot of programs out there that focused on just networking or just sales or just branding, and they just let people try to piece together a lot of conflicting systems. And what I realized, and this is why I call myself the Rapid Growth guy, is because I had this ability to bring together marketing and sales, and usually those people tend to not like each other, and online and offline sales, and again, those groups don’t really understand each other.
So, Rapid Growth Academy really focuses you around creating passion and mission so that you speak from that, because if you’re in sales, especially as an introvert, and you’re not speaking from a point of authenticity and a point of true passion, it sounds like, “Oh, look, I really need you to buy that piece of art, because I’m trying to buy a Bentley, and your purchase will really help me with that.” It’s got to come from a place of care and passion.
So, it shows you how to do that, and then get beyond all the mindset hurdles that tend to… I mean, entrepreneurs tend to get in their own way when it comes to rapid growth. But then it teaches you how to build out the messaging, how to niche down, how to package and price in a way that stimulates purchasing behavior, then how to tell these great stories, and then build it into networking and into sales, and then all of the online things that you need to do. Not that you, so you end up with a full-time job online; what I realized is if you can’t be the clearest, you have to be the loudest. That’s why people podcast every day, blog every day. But if you can be the clearest, you can get your ideal clients to really chase you, if you do it the right way.
So, we built that all into a program, and then we created a community behind it, of which I do a weekly live stream to really help customize the answers as people are going through, because I have no interest in getting someone through a program. I think everyone tries to get people through programs; I want to get people to rapid growth, and that’s my focus, and that’s what the program provides.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, perfect. Okay, so we’re going to link to Rapid Growth Academy as well as both books in the show notes, which you can find at schulmanart.com/150. And don’t forget, if you liked this episode, you have to check out the Artist Incubator. It’s my private coaching program for professional and emerging artists. It is by application only, so you’ll have to see if you qualify. Go check it out, schulmanart.com/biz, that’s “biz.”
Alrighty, Matthew, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Matthew Pollard:
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that for the introverts that are listening, the important thing is to understand that sales and networking and speaking from stage, they’re all systems, and they’re all systems that, if you follow… And, you know, it doesn’t need to be my system. I mean, I’ve admired that the founder of BNI, the world’s largest networking group in the world, he’s an introvert. He’s written a few books. You know, Zig Ziglar is probably the most well-known sales trainer in the world, Jeb Blount, they’re all introverts.
The thing you need to realize is that sales, networking, all these are… They’re not like mixed martial arts, so learning multiple systems is not the key to success, it’s just going to confuse you. Pick a system, and then just focus on doing it in a step-by-step nature. The benefit for us introverts is that if we have a system, first thing is it allows us to perfect it, but secondly, it allows us to sidestep the confronting nature of feeling rejected, because all of a sudden, the system becomes something separate to us, and if we get a rejection or somebody says no, we’re like, “Oh, what part of the program didn’t work, or what part of the system didn’t work? Okay, I’ll fix that, and I’ll tinker with it.” So, it means that we can use our mad scientist brain to fix and perfect the system to deliver better results, as opposed to going, “Oh, why didn’t they like me?”
So, my suggestion would be… And again, don’t do multiple systems at once. Say, “I want to learn how to be great at sales. I want to learn how to be great at networking.” Pick one, pick one battlefield. Focus on that, pick a system, and then follow that system step by step until you feel like you’ve got a relatively okay system. The Model T car, the first car that came off the line, probably didn’t work so well, was a little bit beaten up. But over time, we now get the mass-production vehicles that we have today. Build that basic system, focus on perfecting that system until you’re like, “You know what, I can do this in my sleep,” and then, if you’re in sales, you can move to networking, you can move to speaking. But just pick one system, and know that you truly can do it.
An introvert’s path… You’re not a second-class citizen; the truth is, your path to success is just different to that of an extrovert. As soon as you embrace that, you’ll realize that there’s a whole world that you can actually not just survive in, but actually dominate in. You know, I’d love to hear from you. If you read the books and you do start to apply the strategies and dominate, let me know. Don’t feel like you can’t reach out. And as a matter of fact, there’s a ton of content I put out for free on all my social media, so I’d love to hear from you.
Miriam Schulman:
What’s your Instagram handle, since most artists are there?
Matthew Pollard:
@Matthewpollardspeaker.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Make sure you send him a message or tag him in a post, let him know how much you enjoyed the show. All right, guys, thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram at schulmanart, and of course, on schulmanart.com.
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