Unlocking Business Growth through Relationships with Scott Grates

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When you give, when you lead with a servant's heart, when you add value and you do so when expecting nothing in return, you will find that over time and it takes time you will get everything in return and you don't even have to ask for it, and that's the power of this.

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But where people fall short in the system, is they go well?

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Yeah, I tried that and it didn't work.

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Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back.

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This is the Uncommon Leader podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher.

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Today I'm joined by Scott Grates, who shares insights from his new book Referrals Done Right the Secret to Creating Infinite Opportunities to Grow your Small Business.

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Listen in as Scott reveals his secrets to building strong relationships.

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Business.

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Listen in as Scott reveals the secrets to building strong relationships, the power of handwritten notes and how giving without expecting a return can lead to long-term business success.

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Whether you're a small business owner or simply looking to optimize your personal relationships, this episode is packed with valuable lessons to keep you ahead of the curve.

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Let's get started.

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Let's get started.

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Scott Graetz, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast.

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It's great to have you on the show.

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How are you doing today?

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Thank you, John.

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I'm doing fantastic and super excited about this conversation.

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Yeah, it's going to be a blast.

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We're here to talk today about your new book Referrals Done Right, the Secret to Creating Infinite Opportunities to Grow your Small Business, and I know the listeners of the podcast will get a lot out of that, from many different perspectives, the different leaders of different organizations and homes and communities that listen in, but I'm pretty jazzed up about what's possible.

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But I'll start you off like I start all my first-time guests, and that's with the question of asking you really to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.

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Yeah, I love the question and you know so much of our adulthood is formed in childhood.

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We just don't realize it at the time.

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And for me, I'll take you back to fifth grade.

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I was a pretty good student K through four.

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And right around fifth grade I realized that I was a right good student K through four.

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Right around fifth grade I realized I was a right-sided brain kind of guy, very creative, loved reading and writing, but math and science weren't my jam.

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And it was in fifth grade.

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It was the first time I ever failed a test and I remember vividly getting a science test back and I had a 60, 60%, bright, bold, red letter you know numbers on the top and uh, and it crushed me, frankly.

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And and what happened?

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And I didn't realize that this is, you know, in in reflection time, I didn't see the test as something I failed.

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I started to see myself as a failure.

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And the big moment for me really came the next day when I'm sitting in class and the teacher asks a question.

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I don't know what the question was, but I remember knowing the answer to the question and I sat there and instead of raising my hand, I sat in silence and I allowed someone else to raise their hand and they gave the same answer I was going to give and they got the question right.

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I would have got the question right but that self-doubt, that inner critic, that negative self-talk for the first time you know was really flooding me.

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I didn't realize it at the time but looking back, so much of everything from that moment on, that, that imposter syndrome, if you will, kind of shaped me and define me and and, uh, it took years to really work through that.

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So, so I love the question and, uh, and it's an easy one for me to answer, because it was right around the age of 10 that I started dealing with that inner critic.

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Those are some of those moments that are very memorable.

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For me, fifth grade is very memorable too, growing up in the Catholic school system, sister Nicodema and some of the teaching.

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But to your point, that's when some of those things on the self-doubt side, the critic can be so, whether detrimental or again life-changing for us as we go forward and think back, think back on that as adults.

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You know, you and I are both working with an organization, being coached by a brand builders group, and they talk about us ultimately, uh, being most powerfully positioned to help the person that we used to be, and there's a little bit of that in your story.

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As you walk through the book, I can tell that, the connection with your book, and so let's let's jump into that.

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Maybe there's.

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There's a piece of referrals done right.

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Well, again, this first small business owners.

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There's, there's a lot inside of that.

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You start off the story, uh, with David and Goliath, start off the book early on.

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But who did you write this book for and why did you write this book now?

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Yeah, it's um, you know, really I'm I'm focused on becoming a champion for the small business owner or the solopreneur, the person who has big dreams but a small budget and the person who is able to take relationships and turn them into revenue.

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Because I fell into the traditional marketing trap early and I was just overspending to drive revenue, which you know doesn't help the bottom line.

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You can kind of fake it with top line numbers and then the bottom line numbers are struggling.

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So really I made a ton of mistakes early.

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I'm in the insurance industry, I was new to that industry, I had no previous background.

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I had a sales background, but not in insurance, and I'd never owned a business before.

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And you know I took a lot of wisdom from people before me that frankly didn't give the best advice and I kind of had to learn the hard way that you just you can't just overspend traditionally and the David and the Goliath.

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You know I compete with multi-billion dollar corporations and even, just at the time, local agencies that were much bigger than me and they could outspend me and they could, you know, diversify it in different marketing avenues.

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And what I learned is the first of every month you've got to write those checks again, you know.

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So if I had a $5,000 or $7,000 or $10,000 ad spend, that's great, but then in August I had to do it again, and then in September I had to do it again.

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And with referrals and relationships, once you establish them it takes time right All good relationships do but once established they go on forever infinity.

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But once established they go on forever infinity.

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And that's the idea behind the infinite referral advantage is finding those key relationships, cultivating them, nurturing them and then reaping the rewards for years to come.

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So really wrote it for the small business owner, the solopreneur who doesn't have a huge budget but wants to invest in relationship marketing.

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Well, and once again your story is in that book.

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It talks about how you experienced the other side of that with regards to some of the defects that come out by spending the way you did early on in that journey and learning the hard way, which I think is really cool, and again connecting it back to your story.

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You know, while you were that right brain creative, it's really forced you to be what it sounds like in the book.

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Be very intentional with the relationship building that you need to the referral, your system, the infinite referral advantage that you now use also to help other entrepreneurs to be successful in that space.

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Give me a story whether it's you or maybe it's another client or someone you've worked with a success story that has resulted from the utilization of the Infinite Referral Advantage.

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Yeah.

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So the best story is this is what happened to me.

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I was literally three days into my first insurance agency opening up and we started scratch.

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We had no customers.

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We were brand new and in walked a well-dressed, well-spoken, literally a salesperson.

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I thought she was there to sell me something.

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She wasn't.

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She was a business professional and she sat down and her name was Becky.

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Down and her name was Becky and she proceeded to ask me just meaningful questions about you know me and my family and my background and my goals and really getting to know me, and then started offering different thoughts and suggestions around her network and things going on in the community and things she did when she first started in business.

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Now, I still had no idea who she was or what her business was and we spent about half an hour and just had a very genuine, sincere, rich conversation and on her way out she handed me a business card and she said I own Accent Brokerage, the real estate brokerage just a town over.

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And so Becky Smith from Accent Brokerage.

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But that's not the power of the story.

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The power of the story is a few weeks later I got a nice handwritten card from her.

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A few weeks after that she stopped by with a thoughtful gift.

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We connected on social.

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She started introducing me to different networks and people that she was involved with.

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And about six months later I'm sitting down with a customer, a lady who, uh, was widowed and she was going through all of her insurance, and she mentioned that she was in the pro, about to start the process to sell her home.

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And I said do you have a realtor?

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And she says, gosh, it's been over 30 years since, uh, since I bought or sold a home.

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You know, I wouldn't even know where to where to look and I said, oh my gosh, I've got to introduce you to Becky Smith.

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And it was that moment, like Isaac Newton, with gravity, the apple fell on my head.

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You know, I didn't refer Becky because she asked me to, or she had a great referral program or she kept stoning me about it.

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I referred her because I wanted to.

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You know, it was the law of reciprocity and I was excited to give back to someone who had poured a ton of value into me.

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And you know, to this day we're great friends.

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And she says that, you know, she's not strategic and intentional with this process.

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That's just her, and really I took it and I became strategic and intentional with it and created this system where I said, hey, instead of trying to reach 10,000 people in my community, what if I can find 200 Becky Smith's to pour into?

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Who know, you know, 500 people that eventually, through time, you know, we'll get uh introduced to me and then I can organically, meaningfully, uh get in front of 10,000 people that way.

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And that's really where it was born.

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Love that and I love that success story.

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Now again, you touch on this and we're going to get a little bit deeper into that system specifically.

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But you mentioned in the book there was a quote that I wrote, or the title of a subchapter, that said success isn't always a good thing.

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So tell me about that.

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What does it, what does that mean to you when you hear that success?

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isn't always a good thing.

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Yeah, you know it really, john.

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It goes back to you know what I talked about with, uh, I, I was top of the charts with production.

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Uh, we were, we were writing business where we were, uh, you know, acquisition was high but my expenses were super high and I was buying.

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I was buying my production, and I guess that works if you can continue to buy it and if those customers stick with you.

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But the other thing that I was finding is, in my industry, when people come to you on price, they will often leave you on price, and so our retention rates weren't as good, you know, long term.

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So, while it looked like we were very successful and everyone kind of wanted to know what's the formula, the formula was wrong and it was not setting me up for long-term success, and so really what that's about is just, you know, kind of faking it right, falsifying success, if you will, short term, and this process is all about long-term retention and operating this connection economy.

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It's interesting because you mentioned some of the metrics you were using, one of those being whether it was dollars per client obtained or whatever it was in terms of the payback and some of those techniques, and you notice real quick in the book that those relationships were giving you that much more success.

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So how do you measure success?

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Whether it's key metrics, key behaviors, key habits?

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What are the ways you measure success now to keep you going forward and not rest on?

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It's a great question.

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Yeah, great question and one that a lot of business owners struggle with because they want this linear return on investment.

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If I spend this, then I get this many leads and if I can convert this many leads, then I know my ROI is this With relationships, it's nothing about, it is linear, right.

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So I may have a great relationship with someone who never.

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I have a lot of these people that just don't do business with me.

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They have a relationship with someone else and I respect that.

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But they can connect me to someone they know, who may connect me to someone they know who could become a tremendous referral source or customer for me.

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So, to answer your question, I look at leading indicators.

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So what actions and activities are we doing with consistency?

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And then it's just that leap of faith, if you will, that knowing, if I have a hundred meaningful contacts you know every single month and uh, and I'm in front of you know this many people every single month, and and and different capacities, and taking copious notes and then creating follow-ups and really just remaining consistent with the process.

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And we work in a four week cycle.

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Um, you know, and and so that is top of mind awareness, so that when someone thinks insurance.

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They think, oh yeah, you know, we should give Scott a shot.

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You know, and really the key to it is we never ask for anything.

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This is all value driven.

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How can I help you, john?

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You know what.

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What struggles or obstacles are you facing in your business?

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What goals do you have?

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You know, how can we, you know, potentially collaborate on something that's important to both of us?

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So it's all about, john, you know, as it should be.

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And so, really, what we track are the leading activities, the actions and activities leading indicators, I should say, because ultimately, we know those are going to lead to the results we want.

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Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you.

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Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations.

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If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me.

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It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team.

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Okay, let's get back to the show.

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What is a unique habit that you have that makes it uncommon?

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Now, some brokers don't like to necessarily share their secret sauce or whatever that is.

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But what is a unique habit that you have that's like if I don't do this, then I'm not going to be successful this month or this year.

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Yeah, I love the question and we're on the uncommon leader and I love the idea of being contrarian.

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Right, I look at things in my industry and I say, if everyone's doing it this way, how can I go the other way?

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And what everyone's doing in my industry, and a lot of industries, is it's digitally dominated, and so you know, really what we try to do is bring the human touch back to it.

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One of my daily habits is I have Scott Great's little Hallmark cards, if you will, little greeting cards, and I write a personal note to at least one person in my network every single day.

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So every morning I'm mailing out a personal handwritten card.

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Another little tip or trick I'll share is, if you want to get to the heart of a parent, serve their children.

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And you know, I look, I'm always on social and I'm looking for the happy, proud moments.

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Right, you and I talked before we hit record about the politics and we try to stay away from the political stuff, so I'm able to, you know, rifle through that stuff to get to the good stuff and see, you know who's posting about their kid who, just you know, performed well in a sport or did well in school or was a lead in the play and I'll write the kids a handwritten card and sometimes leave a little gift in there for them.

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And so, really, you know super simple stuff.

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What was once old is new again.

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I'm just big on handwritten cards and when it makes sense, I will, you know, share and comment and promote people on social to help them whatever they're trying to promote.

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So, yeah, that's one easy one.

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The other thing I'm doing is I'm always looking for industry articles for other industries so that I can cut and paste it and send John a quick email.

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Hey, john, I saw this, I thought about you.

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Maybe this will help you in your business.

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And again, it's just all about how can I serve you, how can I add value to you, your life, your business, and in doing so I'm staying top of mind.

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So these aren't accidental, these are very strategic four-week cycles where we have a CRM that doesn't well.

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We have a CRM that tracks our customers, but we have a separate CRM that tracks our centers of influence, right, our key relationships, and it's really the whole goose and the golden egg, the golden egg being the referral, but the goose that's laying the golden egg.

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You know, I've got all these geese, if you will, in the CRM system and we're constantly you can't trust your memory constantly taking detailed notes around every interaction.

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And then, hey, what's logical, what makes sense, where can we go next?

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And then creating a four-week follow-up where I pop in with something else of value.

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No, I appreciate all those things.

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I especially love the handwritten note myself as well, and leaders listen into this because even if you don't run a small business on your own, you're not an entrepreneur.

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This works with your employees as well, as you build those relationships their parent and letting them know something good that they did in the organization to make a difference on the team and just wanted to let the child know how proud they were of their parent, or should be.

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It creates fascinating dinner conversation.

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Again, whether it's a referral that you're looking for to ultimately lead to building a business and making an impact or making an impact on the lives of employees, they work across the board.

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And the handwritten note to your point in the advent of technology, whether it was as simple as a text message or today it's some DM on social media, the power of a handwritten note is something that they'll hold on to, they'll save it, they'll pull it out of a drawer one day, like I do when someone writes one when I'm having one of those bad days.

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It helps me out, it gets me through those things.

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So I think those are very powerful and I love the idea to your point, measuring those for success If you're being intentional and you want to write 20 of those every month and you only get to 10, what was it that got in your way of getting that done?

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So make a change that you need to to get that done.

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And that online piece that you're talking about in the world that you live in, uh, online marketing, social media, can be an easy out, uh, in terms of increasing the touches that you have.

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But you know this, this piece of the intentionality that you talk about in building relationships what does that look like in the future?

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Do you think it?

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Do you think it still remains a need in the future as you go through?

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this, I think.

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I think more than ever right, because if you're like and I'm sure you are like me in this regard it's white noise, right, when you're on LinkedIn and you see so-and-so is requested to connect and you look at their bio and you're like, okay, three, two, one inbox sales pitch coming Right and and I don't even read them.

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You know, and I'm sure you don't either.

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So how do we get introduced to different people in an organic way, where now John says well, you know, this interview is a result of it, right, this is our friend Ben says hey, you two should connect, right.

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And here we are, and you know that never would have happened, or probably wouldn't have happened, if I just blindly sent John a DM through, you know, linkedin, like everyone else does.

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So, yeah, to answer your question, I think, more than ever the contrarian approach to relationship building, getting back to basics, and the key here is truly expecting nothing in return.

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I say all the time when you give, when you lead with a servant's heart, when you add value and you do so, when you're expecting nothing in return, you will find that over time and it takes time you will get everything in return and you don't even have to ask for it, and that's the power of this.

00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:20.203
But where people fall short in the system is they go.

00:21:20.243 --> 00:21:23.107
Well, yeah, I tried that and it didn't work.

00:21:23.107 --> 00:21:24.530
Well, well, how did you try?

00:21:24.530 --> 00:21:26.298
How long did you try it for?

00:21:26.298 --> 00:21:31.159
Because you know we're we're talking about relationships and it's no different than a personal relationship.

00:21:31.159 --> 00:21:40.316
If you go on a first date and you propose a marriage before the entree arrives, that's weird, right, and it's probably not going to work out for you.

00:21:40.316 --> 00:21:49.022
But this is what we want in this microwave society that we live in, where we want instant results and be able to directly say I did this.

00:21:49.022 --> 00:21:49.825
Now I need that.

00:21:49.825 --> 00:22:02.067
Relationships don't work that way, and in business, we just have to be patient, we have to remain consistent and we have to have faith, because you are not going to see immediate results with this.

00:22:02.067 --> 00:22:10.695
It takes time to build trust and respect, and and that's what this approach is built around- I love that, scott.

00:22:10.796 --> 00:22:11.896
It's so cool because it is.

00:22:11.896 --> 00:22:15.077
I do believe it will become even more important as we go forward.

00:22:15.077 --> 00:22:17.160
Scott, folks are going to read your book.

00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:33.868
It comes out here in a couple of weeks as we talk on this podcast Maybe some listeners it's already out and I often talk about the book test One year from now.

00:22:33.868 --> 00:22:37.570
It's sitting on some of these shelf, like the books that are sitting behind me on the shelf.

00:22:37.570 --> 00:22:46.356
What do you want them to take away from your book when they see it a year later and they just see the binding that's sitting there?

00:22:46.376 --> 00:22:47.979
and say what do you want them to take away from reading your book?

00:22:47.979 --> 00:22:48.579
Yeah, that's a great question.

00:22:48.579 --> 00:22:55.250
So there's five main focuses of the book and you don't have to become a master of all five.

00:22:55.250 --> 00:23:00.207
And the five are we talked a lot about networking with key relationships with small businesses.

00:23:00.207 --> 00:23:09.921
Another piece of this is getting yourself involved with your local schools in different capacities to build relationships there and future relationships.

00:23:09.921 --> 00:23:13.028
Another one is service organizations.

00:23:13.028 --> 00:23:16.816
How to leverage your star customers is a fourth one.

00:23:16.816 --> 00:23:20.267
And then the fifth piece is bringing it all together on social media.

00:23:21.009 --> 00:23:55.988
And so our tendency is to read a book like this and want to do it all right, Like I want to become fantastic in all five of these areas, but the reality is A it's taken on probably too much at once, and then there's just certain things that you're going to be passionate about, that are going to resonate with you, that you should focus in on, and the other ones, you know, a year from now, to answer your question, you know, maybe you look at this and go, you know what, like he was talking about doing stuff with the schools and you know, at the time it just didn't hit me, but now it, you know, and stuff with the schools, and at the time it just didn't hit me.

00:23:56.008 --> 00:24:02.355
But now I want to learn more and maybe you just go back to that chapter and so I do believe it will stand the test of time, because relationships stand the test of time.

00:24:02.355 --> 00:24:20.204
And really, this five-headed monster of how to build your brand and your reputation and top-of-mind awareness for you and your business, 15, 20, 30 years from now, the, the, the lessons in this book will still be true.

00:24:20.204 --> 00:24:29.742
Some of the logistics around the, how right and and the and the way we do things will certainly have changed, but at its core, the message will remain the same.

00:24:30.974 --> 00:24:32.751
When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive.

00:24:32.751 --> 00:24:33.115
Absolutely.

00:24:33.115 --> 00:24:36.491
It's a book that, to your point, you know may not pick up all of it, but they're struggling.

00:24:36.491 --> 00:24:38.859
They look at it and say what, what was it that Scott said about this?

00:24:38.859 --> 00:24:43.958
I love that as a concept, Scott, where can they learn more about you and your book?

00:24:44.718 --> 00:24:45.839
Yeah, so me, uh.

00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:58.801
My website scottgreatscom, so that's S-C-O-T-T-G-R-A-T-E-Scom, the book is referralsdonerightbookcom and that's about it.

00:24:58.801 --> 00:25:01.884
That's all of our all my secrets are in there.

00:25:02.556 --> 00:25:05.125
I'll be sure to put links in the show note.

00:25:05.125 --> 00:25:09.226
I just got two more questions because I know your book here is going to be success, but it's not your first book.

00:25:09.226 --> 00:25:12.540
There was something that was in your LinkedIn profile that caught my attention.

00:25:12.540 --> 00:25:15.748
Now I just wanted to chat maybe a little bit kind of side topic to that.

00:25:15.748 --> 00:25:24.665
You said you have a lifelong passion to bring real-world knowledge to students prior to graduation so they are better prepared for their career after the classroom.

00:25:24.665 --> 00:25:29.258
I love the purpose behind that, and you've written a book called the Essential F-Words.

00:25:29.258 --> 00:25:31.840
Tell me a little bit about that and your passion for helping students.

00:25:32.362 --> 00:25:33.202
Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:33.202 --> 00:25:39.797
So where this came about, well, where the book came about, let me say that is so.

00:25:39.797 --> 00:25:49.517
My oldest son just graduated high school about a year ago, and it occurred to me that, you know, financially we're okay and I'm an insurance guy, so if something happens to me, there's a whole lot of life insurance.

00:25:49.517 --> 00:25:51.259
They're going to be okay financially, I said.

00:25:51.259 --> 00:26:06.147
But you know, I had this moment where I'm like, if something happens to me, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stories, a lot of lessons that that are dying with me, and I really wanted my son, as he he left high school and entered adulthood in the real world to to know some things.

00:26:06.147 --> 00:26:11.122
And so every morning I woke up and with my morning coffee, I started just journaling.

00:26:11.122 --> 00:26:29.628
Uh, and it was really like this love letter to him, and some of it was stories, some of it was bullet points, and so this went on for months and what happened was one day I realized I had about 300 pages of notes, and so I'm like I've got a book here.

00:26:29.628 --> 00:26:39.023
And so I got a hold of a publishing company and we created the essential F words for teens, the 117 things you need to know before graduation.

00:26:39.023 --> 00:26:52.106
And really it was written for my son but for all you know, kids who are transitioning, and I kind of painted myself into a corner with the teens because a lot of the lessons are really for adults too.

00:26:52.106 --> 00:27:05.647
Anytime you're transitioning, because a lot of the lessons are really for adults too, anytime you're transitioning, there's just a lot of solid advice, quick chapters, two to three pages for that age group to try to keep their attention.

00:27:05.647 --> 00:27:10.262
And really I wanted to be a teacher when I left college and I married a teacher and we've got three kids.

00:27:10.262 --> 00:27:15.516
But I couldn't deal with the teacher salary, frankly, as an entrepreneur.

00:27:15.516 --> 00:27:37.761
And so now my life has kind of gone full circle where you know, I get to do the entrepreneurship and make good money but now also teach other business professionals and upcoming leaders and really my passion is to get to these kids around their sophomore, junior year and start prepping them for the career.

00:27:37.862 --> 00:27:39.345
After classroom, what's next?

00:27:39.345 --> 00:27:44.343
And schools do a great job teaching kids what to think and how to prepare for tests.

00:27:44.343 --> 00:27:49.458
I want to teach them how to think right, critical thinking, discernment, mindsets.

00:27:49.458 --> 00:28:16.138
You know, I've seen things in the real world where, you know, when we celebrate certain achievements in the classroom, you know, I don't want to say we're celebrating the wrong thing, but you and I both know that that doesn't always translate right Just test scores, and so you know what is the real world knowledge and mindsets, that that we need to teach.

00:28:16.138 --> 00:28:19.209
Adversity, failure is where we open this conversation.

00:28:19.209 --> 00:28:24.281
Uh, reframing it, because most kids think that, uh, that failure is bad.

00:28:24.281 --> 00:28:28.415
But failure is just feedback, right and, and how to move forward.

00:28:28.997 --> 00:28:40.431
And, uh, and really going into the whole self-doubt and inner critic and negative self-talk, I did a survey at my local school.

00:28:40.431 --> 00:28:42.840
103 kids took the survey.

00:28:42.840 --> 00:28:45.768
Five questions, because I'm like, what do I know about kids?

00:28:45.768 --> 00:28:48.223
I'm 30 plus years removed from high school.

00:28:48.223 --> 00:28:54.635
So I asked them five basic questions and one of them was what, um, what do you think is holding you back?

00:28:54.635 --> 00:28:57.265
Right, what belief do you have about yourself that's holding you back?

00:28:57.265 --> 00:29:06.976
And, john, 88 out of 103 responses were around uh, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy, I'm not ready.

00:29:06.976 --> 00:29:24.722
You know just, it was heartbreaking, uh, but it was also very eyeopening and it really has fueled me to double down my efforts to get in front of these kids to help them see that this is just the early, the first couple chapters of their book and the unlimited potential they have.

00:29:24.722 --> 00:29:32.489
But they've got to start reframing the way they think and you know how they see opportunities and how they view setbacks.

00:29:32.489 --> 00:29:35.944
So that's a long answer to your question.

00:29:36.234 --> 00:29:40.564
I hear your passion, though inside of that, as you said, a lifelong passion to make that happen.

00:29:40.564 --> 00:29:44.205
So I'll be sure to put a link to that book in there as well, because parents can use help.

00:29:44.205 --> 00:29:47.143
Scott, this has been an awesome conversation.

00:29:47.143 --> 00:29:51.105
I wish you the best in the launch of the book that's coming out Referrals Done Right.

00:29:51.105 --> 00:29:53.163
We'll have a link there for folks to see as well.

00:29:53.163 --> 00:29:54.838
I book that's coming out referrals done right.

00:29:54.838 --> 00:29:55.844
We'll have a link there for folks to see as well.

00:29:55.844 --> 00:29:59.558
I'll finish our conversation with one one last question really the same question for all first-time guests, and that's I'm going to give you a billboard.

00:29:59.558 --> 00:30:02.026
You can put that billboard anywhere you want to.

00:30:02.026 --> 00:30:05.328
What's the message you're going to put on that billboard and why do you put that message there?

00:30:06.314 --> 00:30:17.578
yeah, the message is surround yourself with greatness, and you know the other, that that one, a answer would be be the dumbest person in the room, which you know.

00:30:17.578 --> 00:30:18.800
They go hand in hand.

00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:28.208
And if you're the person that everyone's looking up to and and asking questions of, and and counting down in the room, you're probably in the wrong room.

00:30:28.208 --> 00:30:30.699
And this was a big moment for me.

00:30:30.699 --> 00:30:33.343
You mentioned, mentioned brand builders earlier.

00:30:33.343 --> 00:30:42.796
Right, I had some imposter syndrome going into the first meeting there and I'm like these people are doing like real big adult stuff and who am I, you know, and.

00:30:42.796 --> 00:30:54.567
But being in that room and meeting people like yourself, you know, really motivates me and you know I learn from everybody in my network.

00:30:54.567 --> 00:30:58.905
So the billboard would be surround yourself with greatness, love that.

00:30:59.497 --> 00:31:02.501
Scott, I appreciate you sharing with the listeners the Uncommon Leader Podcast today.

00:31:02.501 --> 00:31:03.858
I wish you the best going forward.

00:31:04.501 --> 00:31:04.962
Thank you, John.

00:31:04.962 --> 00:31:07.143
I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation.

00:31:10.439 --> 00:31:13.182
And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast.

00:31:13.182 --> 00:31:14.339
Thanks for tuning in today.

00:31:14.339 --> 00:31:21.825
If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared.

00:31:21.825 --> 00:31:28.441
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00:31:28.441 --> 00:31:36.304
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00:31:36.304 --> 00:31:39.483
Until next time, go and grow champions.