S. 3 Ep. 6 – Knowledge + Preparation = Confidence When Selling

Intro: You know those moments when you’re doing what you love in your business, maybe it’s standing on stage or creating content, whatever it is, you’re totally immersed, and time just seems to slip by? This is called the flow state. At Speaker Flow, we’re obsessed with how to get you there more often. Each week we’re joined by a new expert where we share stories, strategies, and systems to help craft a business you love. Welcome to Technically Speaking.

Taylorr: And we are live. Another episode. This is our first recording of the year. 23, very exciting. You ready for this?

Austin: I am. Yeah. Thank you for gracing us with your presence today, Ramona. Very exciting.

Ramona: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure. You have an incredible background. We like to do our research before our episodes and it’s not hard to find that you were a world champion of public speaking in 2018. So, I’m just curious about that backstory, tell us from just starting out to that whole thing unfolding, what was that like? How did you get there?

Ramona: Well, first of all, happy belated birthday to me. My birthday was on the ninth.

Taylorr: Nice.

Austin: Oh wow.

Taylorr: Happy birthday.

Austin: Happy birthday.

Ramona: Thank you. 23 again. Don’t ask Google, though. Well public speaking for me, as a young person, when I was much younger, I didn’t know it was a thing. I never knew it was something that you could do, I only saw politicians do it or people of religious leadership roles, and I didn’t know that you could be a public speaker. But I knew that I had this passion to be onstage and every time I sat in the audience at an event or a function, I just had this antsy feeling like, no, I want to be the person onstage, and it just never, it never left. 

So, I moved to LA for a little bit because I thought I wanted to be a supermodel and go to LA and become this famous runway, Tyra Banks, but, of course, that didn’t happen because everybody goes to LA to do that. And so, when I realized that that market was saturated, I said, let me focus more on the public speaking so I can actually use my voice. And my sister, actually, told me about this organization called Toastmasters International that I had never heard of before. She was like, well, if you want to be a speaker, you need to learn how to speak. You need to learn how to create content. You need to learn how to stay on time. You need to learn how to get that polished delivery and presentation, and this organization is going to help you do that. 

So, I joined Toastmasters in Hawthorne, California, and there are, oh, hundreds of thousands of clubs all over the world and each one has a different culture. This, particular, club was very creative and eccentric and it just fed my artistic soul. And I learned a lot there. And I loved the program so much that when I moved back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, I joined another club there. Now, this club was completely different, this was a corporate club, so it was with the Regional Transit Authority and it was with their employees and they met every Thursday and it was very up and down, cut and dry, business casual, like business people. And I’m like, okay, cool. So, I’m, kind of, getting the best of both worlds. 

And then I was introduced to the contest. They have an international speech contest every single year. So, I had sharpened my skills, I knew I had this natural ability to speak and I said, well, if I want to get better, I have to go against the best of the best. And so, I competed for the first time and in total there are about 30,000 people who compete all over the world. And in 2015, I made it very far because we have to go through certain levels, but I didn’t win the big shebang-bang, and so I was very discouraged. But I tried again in 2016 and I lost again and I was very discouraged and I walked away. 

But then I moved to Houston and I joined another club, which was a merge of these two other clubs; it fed my creativity, it fed my professionalism, and I competed again. And that year I continued to ascend to all of the different levels and took it all the way.

Austin: Wow.

Taylorr: Wow.

Austin: Man, congratulations.

Taylorr: Tenacity.

Ramona: Thank you.

Austin: Yes, that’s what I was going to say. Persistence. That’s not a skill everybody has. So, well done.

Ramona: Thank you.

Austin: It’s, kind of, necessary in any, sort of, craft too, nothing ever happens overnight. There’s that whole iceberg analogy, right? Where you see like, yes, world champion of professional speaking. What you don’t see are all of the other things that it took to get to that point, you know? So, good job and thanks for breaking that down for us.

Ramona: There are levels to it. So, you start at the club level and then you have to, whoever is competing in your club, you compete against them; it’s, usually, maybe two or three people. And then from there you go to the area. So, all of the clubs who competed, those winners from those clubs go to the area. And then after the area, you go to the divisional level and then at the division level you compete against all of the areas. And then you go to the district level, where you compete against all of the divisions, and then from there you go to the semi-finals, where all of the people all over the world compete. And then the top 9 or 10 from the semi-finals, actually, hit the world stage. 

So, there’s a lot of speaking and preparation and competition, it’s not just, I joined the random contest one day, I gave a speech and I won. It’s a couple of months of a process; lots of travel, lots of feedback, lots of editing, lots of sleepless nights and pacing. But it’s my passion, it was well worth it, and I was blessed to take it in 2018, because only a handful of women have ever had the title and only two black women, myself and LaShunda Rundles, who passed away from Lupus in I want to say 20, when did she pass away from Lupus? She passed away in 2012, I believe, from Lupus, but she won in 2008. So, a woman hadn’t won in 10 years between 08 and 18. And then I brought the title back to the ladies.

Taylorr: That’s incredible.

Austin: Nice. Well done. I’m curious about Toastmasters, just generally speaking, actually, we have, obviously, lots of people that we’ve interacted with that have worked with Toastmasters. In fact, one of our clients is another one of the world champions, Mike Carr. So, Mike, if you’re listening to this, shout out to you, buddy.

Ramona: What, in 2020, I think he won.

Austin: Yeah, recently. Yes. So, yeah, really awesome thing. I’m curious, from the inside of Toastmasters, what do the meetings look like? What, sort of, value have you received from that outside of the competition itself? I’m sure there are a bunch of listeners here that are having some of these same questions. So, can you, kind of, speak to that? What did Toastmasters do for you?

Ramona: Oh my goodness. Toastmasters is an amazing non-profit organization. It was started by a guy named Ralph Smedley way back in the day. And, at first, it was only for men and they would meet at this YMCA club to just go over speeches and how to be better speakers. So, ultimately, the goal of Toastmasters, the mission is to create more effective leaders and speakers. So, it’s not just about the speaking, they want to build leadership as well. So, the meetings, they all look different. 

So, if you went to a meeting in Houston, it would look much different than a meeting from Dallas, probably. If you went to a meeting in Singapore, it would look much different from a meeting in Miami. So, every club has a different culture, however, it’s the same, kind of, format, we call it PIE, P I E. So, the P is for prepared speeches. The I is for impromptu speeches, and the E is for the evaluation portion of the meeting. Every meeting has different roles and that’s where the term Toastmaster comes from. So, whomever is the Toastmaster that day is the host of the meeting; they make sure the meeting flows smoothly, they make sure the meeting is on time and they make sure everybody is entertained and having a great experience. 

It’s a club, so if you want to visit clubs, you can visit freely, but, ultimately, there is a membership fee if you want to join us, very small, though, it’s less than a hundred bucks a year. And every meeting you, if you want to sign up for a speaking role or if you want to sign up just for a supportive role like grammarian, then you have the opportunity to sharpen your skills. So, for example, if you come to my weekly club and you sign up to give a prepared speech, you’ll give that prepared speech. You have a certain time to give that speech. There is a timer, so that you don’t go over time. There will be a green light for the minimum time, a yellow light for midway. And once you see that red light, that means wrap it up.

So, it’s a very safe space, it’s great for people who don’t speak English as a first language to learn how to improve their English speaking skills. It’s great for people who have to do a lot of presentations and podcasts, like for you guys, if you wanted to practice your interviewing skills there. And then during that evaluation portion of the meeting, someone will evaluate your speech, give you some feedback, give you some tips, tell you what they like, tell you what they didn’t like, not about you, but about your speech. And the more you do it, the sharper you become. 

And there are levels of rewards, so there are always some incentives. It’s a lot, I’ve been a part of the organization for 11 years now, but I highly recommend going to toastmasters.org and selecting, find a club near me and just popping in. It’s free to visit as often as you like to visit.

Taylorr: Yeah, very cool. Man, it’s a craft, there’s no doubt about it. You took an incredible amount of time and effort to get to that world championship stage, so I think there’s just a beautiful message about persistence there. So, what I’m curious about, though, is you have this, kind of, focus in selling, building confidence in selling, and, particularly, also helping women with that as a skillset. Was that always a passion of yours? How did you discover that as a niche, of a way to help people? What was that journey like for you in building your own confidence and selling and why did that become important to you?

Ramona: I was not a confident kid. So, as a kid, I lacked a lot of self-confidence, I wasn’t very self-aware. And when I grew up, I met a guy named Joshua Trentini, and he introduced me to all of these new concepts about mindset and how your thoughts become things, and he introduced me to the movie called The Secret. I know you guys have seen The Secret or read the book, and I was completely oblivious. But once Josh introduced me to this new way of thinking and to people like Abraham Hicks and Wayne Dyer, I was transformed and I was so empowered within myself and I was so excited about it that I started to explore it and I wanted to share that same reality and realization of just this new rebirth of loving who I am. I know it sounds so Oprah. 

I wanted other people to feel that way because I feel like we are down on ourselves so much and there is so much about ourselves that we haven’t been able to enjoy and explore. And once I tapped into that with myself, I wanted to share that with other people, especially figuring out my passion and my purpose. And once I figured out my passion and my purpose and I knew it full-well, my confidence was just limitless. Like there is no way anyone can take away how good I feel about myself. 

And I don’t want it to come off as arrogant, because a lot of people say, well, you always brag and you always talk about these things and these things and that, I’m not trying to brag or be arrogant about it, but it is such a liberating feeling when you know what you’re good at and you know that you have these gifts and talents and skills and you just want to share it with humanity.

Austin: Yeah, man, that’s definitely the truth. I think a lot of people, especially those that we serve, thought leaders, the visionaries of the world, there’s a sense of humility that I feel it tends to be built into that, or at least it’s looked at like we should be humble as thought leaders. And I completely agree with that, I’m not saying be an asshole, nobody’s saying that that’s the right move, obviously. But there’s a difference between sharing your successes for the purpose of making yourself seem bigger or better or bringing other people down, making them feel less, versus just being proud of the achievements that you have. 

There’s nothing wrong with being proud of the hard work that you’ve put in, partially because that can lead to inspiring other people to go and do amazing things, right? Some people don’t even know what’s possible unless they hear the anecdote that they connect with, and now all of a sudden they feel empowered to go and step into the fullest version of themselves too. And so, I like what you’re saying, I think that not enough people talk about this fine balance between being arrogant and being proud of your hard work. And those two things are not the same thing, you can be proud and wear your achievements openly and also not be a jerk, you know?

Ramona: Yes.

Austin: So, good on you. And I think a lot of people struggle with sales for that reason, because it feels like you have to be arrogant, I guess, in order to be persuasive, but I don’t think that’s true, do you?

Ramona: No, not at all. I think that the word, sales. It’s just makes you feel all yucky. Especially if you are a person who you really want to be genuine and you really want to be authentic and you just have so much to give and you know it’s this amazing product or service and you really just want to give it. You don’t want people to think it’s a gimmick and you don’t want people to think that you’re just trying to get them for their money or use them or try to get over on them. Because a lot of us, we don’t like that feeling, we don’t like to be sold by the vacuum cleaner man, or I’m so old, but the vacuum cleaner man, nobody comes to your house.

Austin: Oh, I get it.

Ramona: And doing sales. But we don’t want.

Austin: Those Kirby’s.

Ramona: Right?

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Ramona: We don’t want people trying to sell us because it’s like, I don’t know you, I have no connection with you, you just want my money, you don’t really care about me. And so, we don’t want to give off that same vibe. And I had to overcome that as someone who is a very friendly and creative person who just wants other people to feel good, but you don’t go into business without making a profit. Even if you do have a non-profit, the purpose of going into business is to give this great product or service in exchange for some type of monetary value. 

So, I try to tell a lot of my female clients like, Hey, I understand you want to be nice and great, but you have to figure out, do you want to do this as a business or a hobby? If you want to keep it as a hobby, you don’t have to charge anybody, give it away, do it. It’s charity. But if you are starting a business, you have to make a profit or else it’s not a business.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s a hard lesson, but a necessary one. It’s not the easiest to navigate too. And when we were, kind of, reviewing our notes and things, one of the things we really liked is that you have, kind of, identified two keys to being good at sales, confidence and preparation. And so, from your perspective, why are those the two things?

Ramona: Well, my formula for confidence is preparation and knowledge, especially with speaking. You cannot get on a stage without being prepared and without knowing what you’re talking about, that’s not going to happen. And I feel like that’s anything, even with you guys, you had to prepare to get me on the show, it’d been so weird if you’d have been like, so, hey, Ramona, what do you do again? I’d be like, you did no preparation. And if you had zero knowledge about public speaking, or zero knowledge about thought leaders and innovative people, and you just said, Hey, let’s just go with flow. Like, no, it doesn’t work like that. 

In order for you to show up and show out, as we say, show up and show out, you have to be prepared and you have to be knowledgeable and that equals confidence. And with sales, and I, can we use another word? Because I don’t want people to get turned off with that word, can we? I don’t know. What’s another word? With winning the hearts of people, how about that instead of that word?

Austin: Sure. I’ll take that.

Ramona: When we’re trying to win the heart of people and get their support, they want you to know what you’re talking about, for one. Nobody wants you to get up there and present whatever lovely items or whatever lovely service you have, and you’re looking down or you’re stumbling over your words or they don’t feel that energy or that passion behind what it is that you’re presenting to them. It’s just a psychology thing. People want to see you smiling, they want to see your eye contact, they want to see those gestures, and they want you to be able to give them this pitch and it’s smooth. 

Not, uh, well, I have these things and I would like you to buy my fruit from me because they’re good. That’s not going to make anyone interested in anything that you’re saying. So, confidence, for me, is you showing up, knowing what you’re talking about, being passionate, being energetic in order to persuade people, in order to wow them, in order to get them interested and in order to create that connection.

Austin: Yeah. I totally agree. This conjures a saying that Taylorr and I have been passing around for a long time since it was originally introduced to us by Dr. Tharaka Gunarathne, shout out Dr. T, if you’re listening to this. But the Latin root of the word, sales, is to give. And that is so contradictory to the way that people talk about sales, because it feels like sales means that we have to manipulate somebody into taking something for us and giving us money in return. And, though, I guess, anything is just about the way that you look at it, so that’s true. 

It’s a transaction that’s happening, there’s no doubt about it, but sales only feels icky if you don’t think that what you have is truly valuable or you’re not communicating with the person in a way that’s focused on that value creation, right? Because if you have something awesome, then you want to share it with the world. Let’s think about a doctor for example. If you’re going to have a surgery or something and you go meet with the surgeon beforehand, technically speaking, they’re selling you on them being the surgeon, right? But nobody feels gross about that, because it’s, obviously, apparent that the surgeon is performing an extremely high level of value for you, they’re saving your life potentially, right? 

So, nobody’s worried about feeling like the doctor’s manipulating you, or at least I hope not. I Imagine that’s not super common. And it’s the same thing with any other type of business, especially a thought leadership business, that’s a service business. And so, if you’re providing a service, so long as you know that you’re providing a level of value that is truly solving a problem that is causing intense pain for the person that you’re discussing.

It shouldn’t be this thing where you feel like you have to manipulate them into doing something, you should just be excited to share the fact that you can take away their pain, that’s just a good human being thing. And, yeah, they’re going to pay you for it, but you have to, you can’t just give away all of your time and energy for free; you have to make a living. It’s 2023, this is just the world that we live in, you have to make money. So, it only feels icky, I think, if somebody is not fully confident that they’re creating an amount of value that’s worth the money that they’re asking for. 

And, ideally, it supersedes that. If you’re creating so much value, then the money should just be secondary. The money should just be about making sure that you can continue doing this in the future. But I don’t know if people talk about it that way, especially in the world that we live in today, the internet has just countless YouTube videos filled with people talking about the perfect phrase that you can use when selling, that’s going to win the deal every time. And that’s just not true, that’s not the point. The point is creating value. And if people thought more about that, sales, I feel like would be a lot less of an icky subject.

Ramona: Well said. Very well said. I’m taking a whole lot of business courses with a whole lot of people who have a great idea, but the numbers are just not their thing. So, I love the business model canvas, where you have these, I think it’s eight blocks of the why of your service. And that the middle part, the most important piece is value proposition. What are you providing to these people that they absolutely need? It’s not just about you. I think a lot of business owners; we try to make it about us. We try to make it about what we like and what we have to offer, and we often forget that, what is it, the favorite radio station of our consumers? WIIFM, What’s In It For Me.

Taylorr: This one is funny.

Austin: I haven’t heard that before.

Ramona: Yes. We often forget, what’s in it for me? What are you giving to the people? What are you providing to them to find that need and fill it? Yes, you may have this wonderful idea or this wonderful service, and you may do it better than anybody else, but if people don’t like you, you can have the best product or service in the world. But if they don’t like you because you’re not speaking their language, or you’re not speaking to your audience in the way that they can receive it, and they can feel some type of, I don’t want to say greatness, but if they can feel some type of connection with you as a person, it’s going to make it more difficult for you to win. 

So, not just your product or service, but your company, your mission, your values and all of these different pieces are so important to starting a business. Because, as you said, the internet makes it so easy. Anybody can start a business. You start a business, you start a business, anybody can start a business; my 10 year old son has a business, Little Hands Academy. Check him out, he was just on NBC Nightly News, Ryan Russell.

Taylorr: Very cool.

Ramona: But he does.

Austin: Shout out, Ryan. Good job.

Ramona: a 10 year old can start a business, but how can you sustain this business? And one way of sustainability is be able to have the right mindset and skillset and communication skills to be able to create that connection.

Taylorr: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I want to unpack a little bit more like your breakdown of confidence; I thought that was pretty unique. It’s preparation and knowledge, that’s what helps you build your confidence. And I think, at least from our rcs, having sold a bunch and marketed and being business owners; preparation can be a couple of things, right? It can be preparing for the conversation you’re about to have, let’s say with an upcoming client of yours. If you have a sales call booked, you want to, obviously, be researched and prepared for that person, but also the preparation of knowing your product and communication of that product well enough to be able to show its value to somebody, right? 

And so, I’m curious, if somebody wants to build their confidence, obviously preparation and knowledge need to be a part of that, but how would you help somebody become more prepared and more knowledgeable, especially, let’s put this in the context of a business owner, right? Another speaker, coach, consultant. They know their value intrinsically, that’s why they’re trying to get it out there, it’s not like they’re selling on behalf of somebody else and need product knowledge and these types of things, but they’re still not really confident in being able to communicate their value or request the fees that they want to get out of the value that they’re providing. How does somebody build up that preparation component and, maybe, knowledge, if it’s applicable, to become more confident?

Ramona: That’s a great question. So, the, and mostly women gravitate toward me as far as coaching. And primarily I do accountability coaching, but I do a little bit of business coaching as well. So, I will use one of my clients for example. The one thing that I noticed about a lot of new entrepreneurs is they have to build that business acumen. You have to understand what business is first and foremost. You have to understand the basics of business, you have to understand the different terms and the different, not so much as jargon, but you have to understand what gross sales and gross margins and bottom lines and financial statements and things like that. 

So, depending on where they are as far as their business acumen, I will start there, because if you’re going into this entrepreneurial industry and you’re going into this state of entrepreneurship, you have to know what that means first. What does an entrepreneur even, what does that even look like? What does it mean to be a small business owner? So, first of all, identifying what that even looks like. What even is that? Remember, as I said, things like, what even is that? But identifying what is that and what does that mean to you? And then figuring out who you want to be and who your business is. 

So, that brand identity and shout out to HubSpot, because they have so many free resources and tools for people who want to learn about the different ways to market and to understand the basics of brand identity. But what do you stand on? What are your values? What are your core values? I know a lot of small business owners; they don’t even have core values. And the core values of Toastmasters are, we use acronym, RISE. Respect, Integrity, Service and Excellence. Very similar to the military. 

I did a little bit of time in the Air Force. But they all had these core values. What are your core values? What do you stand on? Who are you? Because if you don’t know who you are as a person or as a business, other people are not going to know how to perceive you. And if they don’t know how to perceive you, it’s just going to be like; you’re going to get lost in all of these other brands and other businesses. 

So, figuring out who you are, who you want to be, what you stand on, what you want to represent, and what does this company mean to you outside of just the product or service. And I feel like that builds confidence because you then know, hey, I’m a motivational speaker; I’m a public speaker because I want people to be more excited about speaking. I want to eliminate glossophobia. I want to empower people to get on these stages and tell their stories without anxiety. 

Okay, boom. That makes me feel more confident then, because I know exactly why I’m here. I know my why. And I think I said all of that to, kind of, get down to, we have to figure out the why and the preparation with figuring out the why is just doing things like the business model canvas, which you can find online for free, you can just Google it. Which is going to small business series and workshops and webinars and seminars, and that’s a part of the preparation. And then the knowledge of not just who you are or what you want to do, but doing the SWOT, and I know that’s so ancient and traditional, but doing a simple SWOT Analysis. 

And if you can’t do it, hire somebody on Fiverr to do it. Do a SWOT Analysis. What are those Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. So, now you have a bigger picture of what’s going on around you and how you can better put yourself in a position to help more people. And some of those different personality tests. What is it the DISC? And what are some of the other ones? What’s the other one?

Austin: 16 personalities. And that one developed by the Air Force, I can’t even remember the name of it. There are a bunch of them, though. So many.

Ramona: It’s a very common one, it’s slipping my mind right now, but those personality quizzes or whatever, so you can figure out who you, oh, yeah, yeah. What I was going to say is narrowing down your target audience; I think that helps as far as preparation and knowledge as well. And a lot of people don’t do that. The main thing people say when you say, well, who can benefit from your product or service? Everyone. Everyone can benefit from my pro, right? You’re shaking your head, Taylorr. When people come to me and say that, I say, okay honey, we got some work to do. 

So, we have to narrow it down and really niche, niche, niche, niche all the way down as far as we can, because as much as what you have to say and what you have to offer is great, everyone doesn’t need it, and everyone doesn’t want it. So, I know I said a lot there, but getting to know what his business is.

Taylorr: That was awesome.

Ramona: Getting to know who you are, what’s your brand identity, doing some research on the other people in your field, figuring out what type of personality you are and narrowing down that target audience; I think all of those things are a foundation to building up that confidence. Because then you don’t have too many gaps and too many things that are missing. When someone comes to you and says, okay, well, who does your?… And think about Shark Tank, I know you guys watch Shark Tank. Just think about Shark Tank, when they come and ask you these questions, and if you don’t have the answer, how humiliating or embarrassing or you’re like, man, I should have did a little bit more research. 

So, being able to answer all of these questions; who is your target audience? What is your brand identity? Who is your target market? What do you guys stand on? Why are you here? I think just the knowing about all of those things, it just increases your confidence so very much as a person and as a business owner. Mouthful.

Taylorr: Beautiful. No.

Austin: Lots of truth there. Yeah.

Taylorr: That’s right. What I love about that is you’re focusing on the basics of business, to Austin’s point earlier, there’s no YouTube video that you’re going to watch, it’s going to give you a magical phrase that allows somebody to buy at infinite number of dollars for whatever you’re selling. It’s understanding the basics of your business and who you’re selling to and why you’re selling it, and why you believe in what you do and what your values are. And this is what builds the confidence in you and translates that confidence into somebody who’s thinking about partnering up with you. There’s no rocket science about this. It’s just the basics, which is what I love about that. 

Okay. So, I’m going to put you on the spot for a second. Okay. So, one thing that we hear, oh, I don’t even know how many times a week, it drives us up a wall, but business owners are notorious for this. Often highly creative, highly visionary types. We see this a ton in the thought leadership space. But what do you have to say to business owners who go, I don’t want to sell, I just want to focus on my content?

Ramona: I would say, well, then become a YouTuber.

Austin: That’s actually a good point.

Taylorr: That’s a great answer. I’m blindsided by that one.

Ramona: You won’t have to do much. All you have to do is create content and do Twitch and I don’t know, I’m old, I don’t know all of the other platforms, but do something where you don’t have to really sell too much, where people can just watch your videos and then you get a check. Because even if you are a business owner and you say, I hate selling, how can you even train somebody how to sell your product if you don’t know how to sell it yourself? And so, I’m going to be the bad guy here and I’m going to say to all of you people who are these amazing visionaries, and we need your vision, and we need your thoughts and we need that creativity. 

But to all of you who have these amazing ideas and these gifts and talents, but you don’t want to sell. You have to. I’m going to tell you that you have to. Now, we don’t have to call it sales, we don’t have to call it trying to convince people. We can call it winning, okay? If you don’t like the word sales, let’s just call it winning. If you want to win and you want to scale and you want to grow and you want to be that next Steve Jobs or that next person who is out here being wildly successful, you are going to have to, maybe, take some courses, maybe get with a coach, maybe practice in the mirror, but you are going to have to accept the fact that you have to win. You’re going to have to get out here and present what you do and know your numbers. 

So, it’s not just all about you giving us fancy words and fancy terms and talking about all of these great things. People want to see the numbers; you want investors, they want numbers; you want partners, they want numbers; you want funding, they want numbers. So, you have to get into a business owner mindset. You have to. And you don’t have to take it from Taylorr or Austin because they can be nice, this is their show. I’m just a guest, so I’ll be the bad guy, right? You have to learn how to sell.