Dan: I can't think of something that has a stronger ROI on your time. And if you're missional, and ultimately, if it feels like grinding or some form of sacrifice to invest and focus on these systems, it's worth it if the message that you're trying to get out into the world is worth it. If that message is worth it, this work on these systems that allow you to be more present at home, that allow you to be more diligent in your follow-up, that allow you to love and serve people better, it's worth it.
Austin: Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Dan: Hey, thanks for having me.
Austin: I was just mentioning this before we officially started recording, but you had one of the most eye-opening circumstances when I met you, where we were talking about how the Trust Edge organization runs the show over there. And rather than starting to talk about a built-out spreadsheet or whatever, you literally picked up a colored piece of paper. And that color actually mattered: the yellow sheet, if I remember correctly. And you're like, "Yeah, so whenever we get a call, we write all of this information down and then we hand it off to another person who may or may not type it into a centralized thing." And so, yeah, I think you were my first who was truly running things on pen and paper. And that is a wild situation, dude. I'm sorry.
Dan: You're already giving me PTSD right now. Yeah, that was a thing to walk into. And there's been a legacy of really talented people who've been a part of this institute, and that system worked. It worked for them, and they were diligent about it. And then as some turnover took place for life's reasons, it became more difficult to maintain.
Dan: We really just operated strictly on paper for our lead all the way through event execution process. We were using SharePoint for all sorts of documents that we were tracking, and Dropbox and Google Drive. And so we were spread out across all these places, and employees were creating their own workflows in any given one of those online spaces, including in the sales process. We were tracking what we would now refer to as stages in various spreadsheets across all these online spots. So we didn't just have the physical paper yellow sheet process, where we were recording a bunch of information and then praying that it ended up in the event folder for David as he prepped for delivering his customized keynote or workshop, but we were even dancing with the digital world a little bit as well in conjunction with that, which complicated it even more than if we'd have just been on paper from the start and throughout the whole process. PTSD, here it is.
Austin: I'm sorry that I had to bring that back up. Just to paint a picture of the circumstances, though, when I met you.
Dan: Painted it well.
Austin: We're gonna unpack that. For the listeners of this show, this is a really special episode as far as I'm concerned. Partially because Dan here is one of my favorite humans that I've ever met in my life. There are very few people that I get on with and am just so sad when the conversation ends. So anyways, everybody is gonna love Dan. But also, this is a different perspective than we normally hear from. Typically I'm either talking to the business owner themselves, the speaker, the coach, the consultant, the person that's actually doing the fulfillment, the work for the client. Or I'm talking to another expert that's in this industry, so a different vendor, somebody who's got a different skill set than I do that can add value to how people run this type of business.
Austin: But you are a proper... I don't even know how to describe your role. I'm gonna have you explain this in just a second, but a proper COO type of person. You are running the business of this business. You're not the person getting up on stage and delivering the events. You're managing, operating, keeping tabs on the person doing that, so that David can go out there and do his best work. And I think in some ways, being in David's position is what most of the people that do this business foresee in their future. That's what they want: for them to be able to just get up on stage and do the thing and not have to be so bogged down in the details that we're shifting gears out of that client fulfillment, client success headspace. And so what that means is that you're unbiased in a different way from people that I talk to, because you truly are just focused on making this a business.
Austin: And it's funny, actually, as you were describing that process that you had followed up until this point, it made me think about McDonald's, and how McDonald's runs a million-plus-dollar location with a bunch of greasy 16-year-olds, because everything is so standardized and procedural that literally anybody can just read the checklist and do it. It's not like you guys were on the exact opposite end of that spectrum, but it definitely was not standardized to the point where anybody could plug in and do it. It required expert-level knowledge of how the business is running and how the team operated to be able to go and do the thing. And then over the last, what has it been, two years that we've been working with you guys now or something like that, I've just seen you go on this journey to where things are much more standardized and operational.
Austin: So anyways, you've got unique perspective, and you've really been through this whole journey of taking a very successful business that was already killing it. Hall of Fame speaker by the time that I had met you guys already. So clearly you had earned your stripes, but still needing that backbone, the operational backbone to support you guys as a team. So anyways, for all those reasons, you're a special guy. I'm super excited about that. But for those of you that have not met you, which is probably most of the people listening, can you just talk a little bit about how your role fits in the organization and what you guys do? Give us some context for what type of business we're talking about.
Dan: Yeah, everything we do centers around one thing, and that's trust. All of David's work, his writing, his keynoting, his workshops, it all centers around trust. And our mission is to develop trusted leaders and organizations. That's what we do: develop trusted leaders and develop trusted organizations. And so my role in that is to operate as David's Chief of Staff and then to operate as his chief operating officer. Those are the two primary hats that I wear.
Dan: David focuses most of his time on keynotes, on workshops, on content creation, writing books. And then out of the Institute, we have all of our assessments. We have courses, we have a certification community. We do an annual research project every year. This one for 2026 is a big global study. And we do executive coaching as well. So the Institute is doing all of those things, and David is out there, really the tip of our spear, driving interest and awareness and inspiring people on what happens if you invest in building higher levels of trust in your teams, in your leadership, in your organization. And so that's what we do. And it really is an honor to get to spend my time helping people become more trustworthy, helping organizations, helping brands, helping places, but ultimately just people, helping people become more trustworthy.
Dan: And we have an eight-pillar framework. There are eight Cs, which isn't a cutesy pastoralist. They're the result of eight distinct funnels from research David did when he was doing some collegiate work. And I've just come to really believe wholeheartedly in this framework. I actually used the framework before I ever knew David was even local in Minnesota here. I had used that book in my first job out of undergrad, and it really changed my paradigm for working with young adults who came from a place that I didn't come from, who saw the world in a way and experienced the world in a way that I hadn't experienced or seen. And so by shifting my attempt to connect with these young adults to first and foremost, "How do I build trust with them?" and then let the rest of it come after that, it just totally upended and reoriented my approach to doing my job.
Dan: And I was 23 at that time, 24 maybe, and a mentor of mine had given me David's first book, The Trust Edge. And then it was, I don't know, over 10 years before that same mentor asked if I was interested in connecting with David. I asked my wife, "Do you remember that trust book that I read?" And she was like, "The white cover." Yeah, the white cover. So I had talked about it enough that even my wife, 10 years later, had fond memories of it. So that's how I got here, through that path. And I've just continued to deeply believe in the framework and the impact and what it can do for both individuals, teams, all the way up to organizations.
Austin: Dude, I had no idea. That was great.
Dan: That went all over. This is getting cut, maybe, maybe not, you decide. I don't know if I landed that plane, but the plane came down somewhere.
Austin: It's great. Thank you. And I had no idea that you knew David through his work before you knew him personally. That is wild. Was it a crazy moment when you met him for the first time?
Dan: It's so funny. Things have always been really, really busy around here. And so my first connection with him was literally, I think he had been behind the curtain for a third of a second before I just happened to call him. I could hear he was still exiting the stage as he answered my phone call. He was clearly out of view of the audience, but he hadn't even gotten all the way off yet. He's just a fast-moving guy. And so it was a little surreal to be on the phone with him. And between learning about him and setting up this call, I had heard from a few folks who knew him. And so I had a good feel for just who he was as a human and the type of person he was. So I was excited to connect with him, but it was a little surreal.
Austin: Yeah, I can imagine. Dude has presence. The first time I met him in person, I shook his hand and was like, "I'm slightly intimidated by you." In the best of ways, out of respect. But the guy, you can tell, he really knows his stuff. It's so cool. I really respect David. I'm sure many of you listening to this know David's work. He's one of the best examples I can think of of how this business can be run and how it should be run, and the type of impact that it can have on the folks that you're working with. And that's the whole point. It's why we do this. Obviously it's a great business model. It can make tons of money. You can run really lean with huge margins. There's so many reasons why this business model is great. But the pure in heart are the ones that see it as just a huge opportunity to serve and help people. And I really respect how seriously y'all take that. So thank you. Thank you for leading the way in that.
Austin: Now, I do want to talk about systems. I could talk about trust for this entire conversation, because honestly I think most of our clients would do well to think through how effective they are at building trust with their clients before and after a sale. I'm curious, though: when I met you, there was something happening in the organization that made you feel like the old way of keeping track of things, which, may I emphasize one more time, was unbelievably successful... It's not like you guys were on the struggle bus here. You guys were huge revenues, big influence, big platform, all of that was happening. But something must have been going on that triggered the conversation internally that we've got to operationalize this one step further, at least take one step down the path. So what was going on that triggered that switch in the psychology of the organization to say, "We need to do things differently than we've been doing so far"?
Dan: I love that question. We really are a people-oriented business. It really matters a great deal to us how well we serve and care for people. And after years and years and years of being so busy, it became harder and harder to stay in touch with and to continue to care for and to continue to check in on all the people who had made their way into our ecosystem. And we were losing sleep at night. We were waking up in the middle of the night: "I haven't connected with so-and-so in so long. Did I follow up with that person who I had meant to?" And I really think, I told you as I was just thinking about the systems that have helped us do well here, one of the results of that is sleep. That systems equal better sleep. I don't wake up anymore wondering if we remembered one of the 37 things that we do for every single event.
Dan: And that was what was happening. There was too much activity at too fast a pace, paired with a deep care for serving people and loving people well, to not change, so that we could sleep better and we could have a higher level of confidence that who we wanted to be, we had a chance to be for those people who were interested in hearing and learning and understanding: Can trust help? Can trust take us from really good to great? Can trust heal this thing that happened? What impact can trust have? I'm open and curious to hearing about trust. Now, if we drop the ball in keeping that conversation alive, because everybody else is busy too, that's on us. And so it really became: if we are going to see our hope of and our mission to love people well, we're going to have to do things differently. And having too many systems spread out across too many places made that an unnecessary challenge.
Dan: And so that's when I think people started to perk up around here that, hey, if we make this switch... I don't know if we're going to talk about the CRM I used to be on. I won't name it, but I believe there were over 1,300 individual tags that were meant to make it easy for us to recall and reference who to love and serve, and that had just completely devastated our ability to actually use it in a functional, meaningful way. And I read every single one of those and passed along a monster of a spreadsheet to you and your team of, "Here are the things that we have to replicate," or, "Here are the things that we need a new way for, making it easy to pull this group of folks up so that we can continue to serve them well." And so yeah, that hope and that goal of doing that part of our work better, loving and serving people, and doing it more efficiently while we sleep better at night, that was really what drove us to you guys.
Austin: It's so interesting to think about a meta level that's happening here, because you were focused on helping people strengthen their ability to build trust and to trust. And it was almost like you were noticing that you didn't trust your own systems. There was a lack of trust, not in terms of interpersonal trust, but in the process that made it so that you could do it. I don't know if that was part of the discussion, but it seems like that was what you were describing right there: that there was a lack of trust that, in all the hustle and bustle and chaos of serving your clients well and loving them well, you weren't certain that you were staying on top of it adequately enough. Am I hearing that right?
Dan: Yeah, just times 10. We say we drink our own medicine around here. A lack of trust is everyone's greatest expense. It's everybody's greatest cost. It's mine. It's yours. It's David's. And it was costing us here in the Institute: a lack of trust in whether or not we followed up. How well did we follow up? Did we get each of the things done that we need to do for every single event that David is booked for? It was a lack of trust in our systems, which meant we didn't have trust that we were going to follow through on our commitments. That kept us up at night.
Dan: And as an ops guy, as somebody who just believes in the intersection of people and their natural talents and the technology and systems, at that intersection is where mission and vision is accomplished most effectively and most efficiently. And if we don't have the systems and the technology supporting the people who we found who have the natural skills to help accomplish this work, then we're undermining our own ability to accomplish the mission and the vision. And so, yeah, there was an absolute lack of trust in the infrastructure, and not just the infrastructure itself, but what happens when life pulls people in and out of this place. That part is really where we were vulnerable.
Dan: And so now, it doesn't matter how big we grow this team, there is a single place where the systems that allow them to be successful at their job exist. Our task template, which is one of the biggest gifts you've given this place: a new lead, there's a task template. Event booked, there's a task template. Lost event, there's a task template. And that guides us and tells us, at the exact right point in time, when do we follow up with them next? At the exact right point in time, what activity needs to take place? What do we need to send them? The description, all of that is built so well that if I get hit by a milk truck and David needs to stick somebody in here in my role, there now would not be this lag in the training and the buildup and getting their feet underneath them, because they just have to learn our ecosystem inside Zoho and then execute and follow that. And that's where we were vulnerable before: our systems, the ones that did exist, were not easily trainable and not easily recallable. And so that lack of trust in those things is ultimately totally what drove us to you guys.
Austin: Well, thanks for the shout-out there. It reminds me of this horror story that I heard years ago. Very successful, Hall of Fame, 20-plus years in the business speaker had an ops person that ran the show, similar to what you're describing as your role. And the guy literally got hit by a bus and died. Sad story.
Dan: Ugh, terrible story.
Austin: It's so crazy. But the business collapsed. It literally went from over a million dollars a year in revenue to a quarter of that almost overnight, because literally everything fell apart. There was no way to stay in touch with people. The data was an absolute mess. It was all over the place. It was all in that person's head. And it took years for her to rebuild. It sucks to think about planning for a circumstance that awful, but it's just the reality of it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us. And if you're the person delivering the content, that's one thing. But if you have a team that's helping you run things, we just have no idea what could happen. It could be something as tragic as that situation. It could be that another opportunity comes along for that person that is impossible to pass up. But either way, if everything is stored in somebody's brain, it does not give you a lot of leniency to be able to pivot and adapt when circumstance shows up.
Austin: And back to my McDonald's point: you can take any greasy 16-year-old and have them follow the checklist, and the business will continue to operate almost exactly as efficiently as it did before, because all you have to do is just follow the checklist. And you were describing that a little bit with the task template. I want to get into some of the specific things that you found have been helpful, and I'm gonna have you talk a little bit about what those types of checklists look like for yourselves. But I'm curious about the internals of your team and what was going on in your heads as this transition started happening. You made the case for why it became relevant. You made the decision to actually do the thing. I thank God constantly that you chose us to help you with that. So in front of everybody in the world, thank you for the opportunity to be able to serve such an awesome organization.
Austin: But it's not an easy change. There's a headspace element here. There's a habits and discipline element here. There's fear related to learning something new. Every time change happens, you're going to lose some efficiency for a little while, so there's a dip in productivity as you're adapting. So it's not an easy thing to make the change, and it certainly doesn't happen overnight. So you've made the decision, we've started to shift in the direction of using some more systems. What was happening inside of the Trust Edge organization as that was unfolding?
Dan: Yeah, there was certainly fear, but I think there was also quite a bit of hope. Our team was feeling our lack of ability to trust our systems. And so it wasn't too challenging to paint a vision of what could be if we were all operating out of one ecosystem, if we had all of those notes and we had all of that in one centralized place. There was certainly fear of, right, it's not like the plane can come down for maintenance. We're not taking six months off of work to go and build the internal guts. We had to rebuild the plane while the plane was in the air. And that's a daunting task for a lot of people, to unbuckle from the seat that they feel safely and securely buckled in, to go and do some work below the deck while keeping that plane in the air.
Dan: So there was some anxiousness, there was some fear, but ultimately they saw the vision. They saw the possibility of what would be true: What would their day-to-day look like? What would their ability to sleep look like? What would their ability to confidently serve people well look like, if we were all there? That wasn't a hard picture to paint. And once they understood how tasks work, and how you can program them to come into your queue at certain times with ultimate clarity on what to do and when to do it, people were pretty willing to get behind that.
Austin: I'm asking you to recall a while ago, so it's okay if the answer is no, but do you remember one of the first moments where that hope was actualized, where you were like, "My gosh, this actually is doing what we were wanting it to"?
Dan: Well, there's been a lot of those, because by having everything in one spot and being able to pull lists in different ways and at different times from different eras, we have recaptured relationships with significant organizations by reaching out and saying hello without any ask, just saying hello. And I think some of your research that you guys put out this year spoke to this. It was having access to it in an organized way, being able to go into that space and say, "Who should we touch base with? Who should we reach out to?" The revenues have followed. There are a number of significant clients today that we are working with as a result of making this switch over to operating out of Zoho. So there's a whole lineup of those.
Dan: We brought in a new team member recently, and it's always been a bit of a task to help them understand, from a logistics perspective, everything that has to happen, because David will go four cities in five days and do keynote events. So the logistics of that, with flights and backup flights, and he'll speak in big ag, and then he'll speak in tech, and then he'll speak in investing, and then healthcare. Those are four of the five days. And so he has to switch his mindset so intensely that our goal is to make sure that he doesn't have to think about the logistics of the travel at all. He just has to execute what's on his itinerary. And there's a lot at stake. One number off on your confirmation number, or on the contact number on his itinerary, can have really, really significant consequences.
Dan: And so when we bring a new person into the fold for logistics, getting them both to understand that level of significance and to be totally competent in performing each of those activities, and to the preferences that set David up for success, that is a very intensive process. And when we had this new team member join our logistics group, we had the ability to create a login for them, guide them through something very formalized, and then basically be able to focus on the contextual why around each of those tasks. You don't have to memorize anything. You don't have to have your own note system for how to perform these things. It's all there for you. Now what we're gonna focus on is the critical nature of each one of these, so you understand what's at stake if we don't give these our full time and attention when we're performing them. That person has performed better than anyone else has been allowed to perform because of what they walked into. What they came into was something that was ready to set them up for success. And the task template, most specifically for our logistics, is what I'm describing here: helping somebody get their feet under them and then get to sprinting with us much quicker than we've been able to help others do.
Austin: All right. So you've talked about this task template more than once, so it's time. We're gonna talk about this now. When we were preparing for this, one of the things that you mentioned was that this was one of the things that has made the biggest impact. So I knew we were gonna get here eventually. Help the listeners understand what you mean by a task template. What is happening inside of your system that's making this difference?
Dan: Yeah, happily, and you should have them if you don't. Not should on you, but you should. They are the pre-described, predetermined sequence of activities that need to happen, with clarifying notes included in each one of the individual actions, for certain circumstances or certain clients at each of the stages that they're moving through in the pipeline. And so the easiest one for us is once we have a signed contract, signed agreement, you need to remember to do one thing on our team. And that is to go to the task template field and click apply, and then select the agreement signed task template. And that then immediately sends certain notifications to accounting, certain notifications to David's executive assistant, certain notifications to our logistics folks, certain notifications to me that this agreement has been signed and that we are locked and loaded and going with these folks. And then not just those momentary notifications, but then it sets alive the cadence in which certain activities trigger and land in people's queues to perform and to complete.
Dan: So we don't book flights until about six weeks out from our events. So if we book somebody 18 months out, like we did yesterday, we don't want to start worrying about booking flights until six weeks ahead of that event. So we don't have to put any calendar reminders anywhere. We don't have to put any sticky notes on our desk. We just have to do one thing, which is every single morning, check that task queue. What are the most important things that have to get done today related to serving our clients well? Six weeks ahead of that event that we're gonna do in 18 months, a task will fire to Emily's inbox that says, "Book David's flight for client X." The ability to show up and be present on exactly what task is in front of you is what's changed everything, right? You don't have to hold anything in your head anymore. You can just count and trust and rely on that task template to tell you what to do, when to do it, and even how to do it in the description. So that's been an absolute and total game changer for us, and for the effectiveness with which we set David up for success. That one function of the task template has done that.
Austin: Yeah, I think what you said in there that stood out to me is the point that I try to make for so many of our clients, which is that maybe the number one benefit to standardizing the way that you do your work like this is that you don't have to store it in your brain. It lets you delete that information from your brain so that you can focus on the other things that are pertinent right now. And I think the danger that people run into... You're describing this from the perspective of a team, right? It's more than David. Most of the people that we work with, over half, are solo operators. And if we're constantly questioning what we need to get done in a day, at minimum it can cause paralysis analysis. At worst, balls get dropped, and you show up with cake on your face, or you don't show up. And that's a huge problem.
Austin: And I think the standard of excellence for the people that do this type of business is higher than average, and probably it's partially because their personal reputation is on the line. So these are people that care deeply. If you're listening to this, I'm sure you care deeply about doing great work and fulfilling on the commitments that you've made. And so oftentimes things will get done, but the cost of that is stress and anxiety and questioning and the lack of sleep, as you said. I think that's such a good way to summarize what the headspace looks like in a day. And if we can get all of that noise out of our head, what it leaves room for is focusing on relationships, the human beings that are in front of you, and being able to be actually present and real with them. Or focusing on the craft: creating content, practicing what it is that you're delivering, doing research in your case, the things that give the person running this business the authority to run this business. So you get to focus on people, and you get to focus on doing the work that makes you able to run this type of business.
Austin: And it doesn't mean that that work doesn't get done and that it doesn't take time. The reality is that it's a business, it has to be operated, it is going to take time. One of the tropes that you hear in the space is that the business isn't getting up on stage, it's everything that it takes to be able to get up on that stage. So that's where the majority of the time goes. But I don't want to have to spend a moment beyond what is absolutely necessary doing those things. I want to be able to spend every moment that I possibly can on building relationships and being a thought leader. And it is literally impossible to maximize that time if there's clutter in your brain all day long. And so I imagine the sense of relief there... Again, this is for you guys as a team, but for the solo operator who's doing all of it on their own, it's priceless. And that's not even to mention the personal side of this, right? Most of you have families. You have kids, you have a spouse, you have passions and hobbies and interests that are not work, and all of that tends to get thrown out the window because of the obligations and the responsibilities. And if we're not efficient, it just doesn't leave a lot of mental energy or time to actually do any of those things. So you can hit it from five different angles, but that is the core thing, I think.
Dan: Yeah, if you're operating in emergency mode all the time, there are systems that need to be found and implemented. We took our first stab at those task templates, right? We thought through it, we reviewed clients, we reviewed sequences, and then a ball got dropped. A little one, but a ball, a ping pong ball, right? A little ball got dropped. Then we went and we just added that to the task template. And so now our task template is so polished. We're so confident in it because we've run it probably 35 to 40 times at this point. Gosh, even more than that, we've been with you for a couple of years now. So we're probably at 150 times that we've run this task template. We have absolute and total faith.
Dan: And I think what you made me think of was, we often create a system coming out of a failure. If a ball gets dropped, the first question in my mind is, what would have prevented that from getting dropped? What notification, what process, what standardization, what needed to happen that, had it existed, would have prevented this thing that we've now experienced or found ourselves in? And that's especially in adding people and in adding positions in growth. Of course, I'm trying to anticipate those things before they take place. But ultimately, when we go to pick up the pieces and restore and resolve something, the first action, after that person has been taken care of and everything around that very specific spot has been resolved, the very next thing that's prioritized is the system that's going to prevent this from happening again in the future. Systems grow out of failures. And if you're in emergency mode all the time, these have an opportunity to pull you out of that and let you be more present, focus on your content, focus on your people. And I think we've seen that in our own institute.
Austin: Ugh. Yeah, you bring up an interesting point here too, because I think it's really easy as you start going down this path to think that there's a time where you never think about your systems ever again, you just do the thing. And the reality is that it's an iterative thing. It always has the ability to be improved, and we're always learning, and the landscape is always changing, and the business is always changing. There's all these variables here where it's always being improved on. And it reminds me of this idea I heard a while ago, in the context of selling, where for thought leadership specifically, if you're selling yourself, a rejection of the offer is felt as a rejection of the person. It hurts because I'm the failure, right?
Austin: But what's so cool about having a system is that it takes the pressure off of you as a human and puts the pressure on the system, and it lets you be more objective. If the system is failing, that's something to be improved on, and it's not something that we have to get emotionally wrapped around the axle on. We might feel bad if we drop a ball, obviously. That's okay. We can feel a little bit bad, because it's an indicator that something needs to be improved. But it doesn't mean that you as a human are a failure. It just means that this thing needs to get improved. In the context of sales, I didn't even connect the dots here, but when you're selling something, if you're being rejected, it's way easier to sell a model. It's way easier to sell a system. It's way easier to sell a process that unfolds. Because if they reject you, you don't have to feel the personal rejection. It's a rejection of the system, and so it hurts less. And I think that just shows up in the internal guilt and shame spiral that we can go on too, where if something is a failure, we can objectively look at the failure and just incrementally tweak the system to improve it.
Austin: And the reality is that might happen more than once. You talked about one dropped ball. That's amazing that it was one dropped ball. Maybe there are others, but probably it's a bunch of dropped balls, and that's okay. I actually think that one of the best ways to look at building systems is just do it badly. Be okay with a bad system initially, because in doing the bad system, you'll be able to notice specific things. Another thing this reminds me of, I'm painting one more piece of context and then we can go a different direction, ask you another deeper question. When it comes to sales, if you don't have a well-defined sales process, it's impossible to improve it, because it's always just this knee-jerk reaction that's happening. But when a process is standardized, we can measure where things are breaking, where it's falling apart. Where is the conversion not happening? Where am I always getting the no? And if you can point to that specific moment in time, we can look at the moment right before that and optimize for it. And if we do that consistently, then all of a sudden your sales process is significantly better, because we've removed all these little barriers. But it's literally impossible to optimize for those things if it's not standardized. I see a big smile on your face. What's the smile for?
Dan: Yeah, when we're just so missional about this work, we lose the opportunity for people to shift their thinking about how fundamentally trust is a root issue, and what happens if they address the trust issue at play. And I'm just thinking of one of the clients that we worked with recently who came through after a tweak to our sales process, that we would not have had the opportunity to partner alongside if we hadn't adjusted and fixed a spot where there was a pothole. There was a pothole in our sales process that we kept tripping on. But when we fixed it, because we could identify exactly what you were describing, I get to work with and alongside these really amazing people who otherwise we wouldn't have gotten to. Because of what you were saying, they came to mind, which just makes me very happy that we get to journey alongside them.
Austin: Man, that's so special. I love that. All right, so I've got one more strategic question, and then we can wrap this up. What are some of the other use cases that you found for these checklists? You said the one that was most obvious was this logistics setup when you close a deal and now we're focused on fulfilling for the client. What are some other circumstances where you found that a checklist has been really helpful?
Dan: Yeah, I think the most obvious one for us is when we get that, "No, we're gonna go another direction right now." So we have this cadence that we run every time we get a no, where in three months we send a gift, in six months we do this, we follow up. Often what we hear is, "We already booked our speaker, but thank you for reaching out." Or, "We're actually running this organizational assessment, but hey, that's renewing next August, so let's have a conversation before that." We lost that deal. Now it's really a nurture sequence, right? We've outlined what it looks like for us to care for people, to provide value, to stay in touch after we hear no. And so it's actually changed the visceral experience of no to not being defeat, but, "All right, we're gonna know these people for another year ahead," because we're gonna stay in touch with them, and we're gonna send them research, and we're gonna send them stuff without making any asks at all. Just things that we think might be helpful based on what we've learned in the sales process with them.
Dan: We got to know this senior leader who's struggling with this particular thing. Hey, I come across that in a Harvard Business Review in three months, and I just send that article over to him: "Hey, this made me think of you." But I only get that reminder because that task template that we put on that deal that we lost sends me a note in three months that says, "Send a piece of value to so-and-so." That's how I'm able to remember to go and find something that makes me offer something of value to them. So how we follow up and maintain relationships after we hear no, it's a very strategic process now that we do, and that we can live very humanly inside of, right? You have four, five, six conversations with somebody and then the drop-off happens, but it doesn't need to happen anymore, right? It's no longer the end of anything. It's just one more lily pad on the sequence of lily pads that we walk until they say yes and they go deeper with us.
Austin: I can promise you that one percent of my clients and one percent of the listeners have any sort of concept for following up with lost deals. They just get forgotten about. And I even heard you say that you send a gift to deals that you lost. Did I hear that right?
Dan: Yeah, absolutely.
Austin: Man, imagine.
Dan: Yeah, and it's not right after. It's not like we hear, "We went in another direction," or, "We went with another theme," or, "We already booked somebody," and, "Hey, here's some flowers and some apples." It's a small gift of something personalized that we learn along the way. One client had her pet ferret climb on the call while we were talking with her, right? And so then somebody on our team happened upon this coffee mug that had a ferret on it, and she was like, "My gosh, this person, we need to send them this." And it was a no-brainer. So we sent them a nice little coffee mug. But it varies. It's always personal.
Austin: Ugh, the surprise and delight.
Dan: Yeah, right, exactly.
Austin: All right. So there's some people listening to this, I'm sure, that are like, "I want what you're describing here." What words of encouragement might you give somebody, from the operator standpoint, about going down this journey of systemizing the business?
Dan: Depending on where you're at, if you're gonna work on the business and not just in it, I can't think of something that has a stronger ROI on your time. And if you're missional, and ultimately, if it feels like grinding or some form of sacrifice to invest and focus on these systems, it's worth it if the message that you're trying to get out into the world is worth it. If that message is worth it, this work on these systems that allow you to be more present at home, that allow you to be more diligent in your follow-up, that allow you to love and serve people better, it's worth it. If your mission is worth it.
Austin: Dan, you're a gem. Thanks for coming on the show, man. I appreciate you.
Dan: Thanks for having me. I appreciate the heck out of you.
