“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
Jeff Bezos
Check Out These Highlights:
After COVID, I thought I had to reinvent my entire business and how I approached business. It was all about learning and using technology to stay connected with my clients as well as continuing to build my community and connections.
Two years later I have realized that pre- or post-pandemic, building real business relationships has not changed. Yes, we need technology, and we need to continue to build our skills by connecting deeply with new prospects and clients using technology as a tool.
Whether it’s Zoom, LinkedIn, Instagram, or another platform, today’s technology ensures we’re always connected. And yet sometimes I can feel more alone than ever. Have we lost the art of developing genuine kinships with each other?
The Power Of Business Networking With Chris Tuff (EP. 83)
I hope as you follow me every episode, you know that I’m on a mission to change the word sales from this icky and sleazy manipulation too. You should be coming from a place of love, care, and respect. For everybody that knows me, it’s always about the relationship at the core. We have to take it seriously and we have to do a good job.
How do I help you do that? I have a free gift for you. If you go to my website, I have a Free Communication Style Assessment. You will get two reports. One, spotlighting your superpowers, own it, breathe it, live it, and use it. You will also get a report that will be your blindside, which is your lowest score. We talk to people, prospects, clients, wives, husbands, or whoever is the opposite style from us. How do we navigate that? Shining a spotlight on that can help you make more sales and grow your business. That’s my gift to you. Go to WhitmanAssoc.com/csa.
My motivational quote now is by Jeff Bezos. He says, “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things.” After COVID, I thought that I had to reinvent my entire business and how I approached business. I had been in business for many years. It was all about learning, using technology, and trying to stay connected with my existing clients as well as trying to continue to grow in this new world. A few years later, I realized that the pre or post-pandemic building of real business relationships hasn’t changed.
Yes, we need technology. We need to continue to build our skills by connecting deeply with our new prospects and clients using technology as a tool. Whether it’s Zoom, LinkedIn, Instagram, or any other platform, this tech ensures we are always connected. Yet, I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel more alone than ever.
Have we lost the art of developing a genuine kinship with each other? That’s what we are talking about now. My guess is Chris Tuff. He’s got higher energy than me, everybody. Chris was one of the first advertisers to work directly with Mark Zuckerberg in 2006 and filmed one of the first viral videos, which landed him on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Go, Chris.
Tuff’s natural ability to connect with his nearly 80% Millennial and Gen Z workforce led him to publish the national bestselling, The Millennial Whisperer in 2019. Chris is on a mission to tell business leaders, create connections that make work culture thrive, improve retention rates, and multiply sales. Chris, thank you so much for coming on and I am looking forward to our conversation.
About Chris Tuff:
Chris was one of the first advertisers to work directly with Mark Zuckerberg in 2006 and filmed one of the first “viral” videos, which landed him on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Tuff’s natural ability to connect with his nearly 80% millennial and Gen Z workforce led him to publish the national bestselling The Millennial Whisperer in 2019.
Chris is on a mission to help business leaders create connections that make work cultures thrive, improve retention rates, and multiply sales.
How to Get in Touch with Chris Tuff:
- Email: chris@christuff.me
- Website: http://www.christuff.me/
Chris was one of the first advertisers to work directly with Mark Zuckerberg in 2006 and filmed one of the first “viral” videos, which landed him on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Tuff’s natural ability to connect with his nearly 80% millennial and Gen Z workforce led him to publish the national bestselling The Millennial Whisperer in 2019.
Thanks for having me. I’m fired up. Let’s do this thing.
Let’s do it. The first question that I have. Are you Millennial or Gen Z?
I’m right on the cusp of Millennial and Gen X. I was born in 1980. Cutoff is ‘81 to ’96. What I tell audiences is that I’m more of a Millennial than most Millennials. All the stuff that they want, work flexibility, autonomy, transparency, and inspirational leadership are all things that we have all wanted. It’s astounding.
In 2019, I published the book and then the pandemic hit right as I was on the main stage at Nike and some of these super prestigious brands. I’m like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” but it only catalyzed a lot of the things that I wrote in it. What I’m doing now is marrying that with my new book Save Your Asks, which is more in the domain of connection outward.
Genuine Connections
The Millennial Whisperer was all about genuine connection inward and the importance of us, as bosses and leaders having a real mentorship and connection with our people. Now we see with the Great Quit and all the other data, a lot of people are not being met in the middle of this. That, coupled with my main prerogative as the pandemic hit, was like, “What’s the one thing that everyone goes to me for advice for?” It’s how to better network and sell. I’m a natural salesperson, as you will probably quickly find out.
I’m on the receiving end of hundreds of emails every day and people going in for their asks way too early. What if I made the title of this new book that I don’t know how long this pandemic has been around, but I’m going to interview the best networkers in the world? I’m going to make it a call to action for people to save their asks to instead go in with the intention of a genuine connection. The byproduct of that is a lot more business together.
I’m not an expert on short sales cycles. I probably have some instinct on it, but where it is that I specialize is not only looking at our longer-term sales but relationships. Even if you look at everyone’s difficulties in trying to recruit talent, it’s no different than how you would try to land a new client. Go take that person out to lunch. Ask that person, “What motivates you? What’s your dream? Tell me more about that.” As you talk about the excitement of what you are building and why they should come over, sell them on your vision and dream of what they can do to help you get there. What I found is that the applicability of some of these things transgressed into all aspects of our life.
I have two boys. One graduated in 2022 and then the older one graduated, and then the pandemic hit, the poor kid. Nobody was hiring. It is what it is. He was home. There are no bills. It’s all good. The timing couldn’t have been better. A couple of points I want to make. The networking for them. My husband and I, we have a huge network. We have been around for a long time. The idea was to reach out to the dads that know you. My kids played hockey through the years. Reach out to them. You already have the relationship. You don’t think they are going to want to help you. They love you. Where do we begin? It’s always about the relationship.
The other thing I wanted to share is that my readers for the show are getting younger because the Millennials and even the Gen Zs are starting businesses. They started maybe with a hot side hustle. Now they are trying to do that full-time. My readers are getting younger and younger, which I love because I like being around younger people. As I said at the onset, technology threw me with COVID.
I had done everything live for many years. All of a sudden, we are on Zoom all the time. What’s Zoom? How do you navigate that? How do you do breakout rooms? There’s always a learning curve. The last thing I wanted to comment on was that in my generation, I’m the tail end of the Baby Boomer, whenever I’m with peers, they will say things like, “Those Millennials.”
The Dynamic Of The Generations
It’s always with that underlying tone of condemnation. I will say to them, “What about those Millennials?” They are courageous and fearless. They are not afraid to jump in the deep end and take a shot. They are looking for community. They are worried about our environment. What can we learn from them versus, “Those Millennials? The Baby Boomers were so perfect.” This whole dynamic of the generations. If we look at the core of how we could support and help each other, mentorship, you mentioned already, it’s a beautiful thing.
You bring up a couple of important points. If you can’t get the older Millennials, good luck with the Gen Zers. They are the biggest impact that makes these generations different from technology and social media. It is not as comfortable for younger readers out there to create those genuine connections because they don’t have those interpersonal muscles.
I didn’t have a cell phone until after college. I talk about our first flirtations. I had to pick up the phone. I had to get through mom and dad. I had to then get through to mom and dad, and then they had to hold on to a conversation. You juxtapose that to younger Millennials and Gen Zers, they get a brand-new iPhone with a Snapchat account.
They do not have that interpersonal muscle. That is a muscle that we need to grow. The other key difference that I’m working with different leaders and organizations around is that the Boomer generation sees passion and profession as mutually exclusive. Generally speaking, you go to work to work and then you do your passions by playing golf or doing those hobbies.
Helping Employees Pursue Their Passions
The younger you get and just Millennials and then into Gen Zers, the more expectations, that passions, exist within your own four walls. That is a big shift. One of the more contentious things that I bring up to organizations is that I tell the leaders that it’s up to them to help their employees pursue those passions, whether by identifying them through purpose exercises or encouraging them to create side hustles.
One of the things I have in the new book Save Your Asks is that, as individuals, it’s important that we create our passions and we curate those on the side. I will put it in context. We all have our currency. Our currency, that’s what we get paid to do. What happens with life is that we end up evolving. My currency used to be I was the digital and social guy.
That’s why everyone reached out to me. They knew I was one of the first on the scene with social media. About a few years later, I’m like, “I don’t know if I’m passionate about this anymore.” What manifested as a rock bottom moment for me, I changed a handful of things. I started to focus on our almost now 90%-something Millennial and Gen Zers.
I was like, “This is the best generation to come along. It’s just you got to do it a little differently.” I introduced myself around a fire and I said, “I don’t know what I do anymore, but I’m like The Millennial Whisperer.” One of the guys in the retreat was like, “You better write that book.” I was like, “Okay.” I wrote the book and I wrote in four and a half months.
Work-Life Integration
One of the things that I’m trying to bring into more conversations and what the pandemic catalyzed was that work-life integration is a real thing. You also look at the differences even between you and I and the Millennial and Gen Z set. Our relationship with our parents was so different. It was very authoritarian. Juxtaposed to the younger Millennial set and Gen Zers, they are friends with their parents. They are playing beer pong on the weekends out back. It’s different. When people come into our organizations, they are expecting that same connection. They are like, “I’m not going to follow you on social media.” I’m like, “We have got a ways to go here.”
We have got to start moving towards this middle place where it’s like, “Let’s create this relationship that is genuine.” It’s the same thing for sales. We have all these pieces of software. We have one ask out of anyone in our network. Every single day I’m on the receiving end of someone I haven’t talked to in four years. “Chris, I see you are connected to whoever. Can you put my friend in touch with that person?” I’m like, “Are you going to waste your ask on that?” Also, “Can I get fifteen minutes of your time to sell you this software?”
You don’t even know what my pain point is. Until we have that genuine connection, you are not going to be able to uncover that pain point. I have got lots of fun stories and strategies that you will dig that are right in line with your platform and what you are trying to put out there. It’s my duty at this point to try to have the greatest impact on changing our mentality and giving us tactics to create a little bit more of that genuine connection. I now have enough data in the few years of implementing this with both my colleague, group, and friends, and it’s like, “It does work.” It makes it a lot more fun. It will make sales and networking fun again because it’s fulfilling. After all, we are humans.
This I see in sales all the time when I teach sales. The executives come down in corporations. They will say something like, “Chris, you are supposed to follow up on 10 people. You only followed up on 8. When are you going to do the other 2, and next week are you going to do 12?” It’s numbers. I told them about the numbers and said, “Talk to me. Why didn’t you get to the twelve follow-up calls? You only did the ten. Is something impeding you? Did something go wrong?” “My grandmother died.” Whatever. Instead of looking at the numbers, can we look at the humans?
That’s what happens in corporate. It’s the numbers. LinkedIn, now they say, “LinkedIn is a great tool to sell.” People connect with you, “Chris, I saw we have mutual connections. Can we connect?” “Okay, cool. I connect. I look. We do have mutual connections.” You immediately say, “I’m an HR representative and I work with small businesses and consultants.” Delete.
Let me say my perspective. LinkedIn is to be used to build relationships, not vomit and sell on people as soon as they connect with you. It’s like what you were saying. I have done a little bit of a campaign. I have been focusing more on finding my people on LinkedIn so that we can connect and I can grow that platform.
Three people. They met with me and I said, “Why did you meet with me? You chose to meet with me. Thank you for that, but why?” “I thought we had a good connection based on reviewing their profile.” Usually, it’s like, “Do you want to jump on a fifteen-minute so I can sell you?” You are not trying to sell me anything. You are trying to build a relationship. “Can we do a podcast swap? How can I support your membership thing?”
It’s a collaboration. Not, “Do you know anybody that needs my sales services?” It’s obnoxious. I have been in sales for over 40 years and over 20 years in business. It’s always been about the relationship. It’s never about the sale, which sounds funny. The sale comes. It’s about the person and who they are and can I help them. Maybe like you. You have a huge network. Can I share my network with them to help whatever the objective is that they are trying to achieve? That’s sales to me versus like, “Let me vomit on you what I could do for you,” and I don’t even know you.
The amount of people that don’t do a little bit of research. I use the example in my upfront of the keynote that I’m doing. It’s these people. I have one guy. I will use this example. One of my more famous stories from my first book was about a company out in San Francisco called Domo, which I use as an example of rewards and recognition from the top down.
What they do is for the rewards and recognition, for the number one salesperson of the month, they drag a 10-foot-tall big blue rooster to sit next to that person’s cubicle for the duration of the month. They will play that person’s at-bat song and sirens will go off. They give 0 cash rewards and 0 options. They give away a big blue rooster.
It was a guy from Domo that reached out to me five times going in for the ask. The fifth one, it was the middle of the summer and it was right as I was deliberating whether or not to write Save Your Asks. He goes, “Have you read any good books this summer?” I said, “This is too good to be true. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but if you’d done a little bit of research, you would have seen that I wrote a book that sold over 100,000 copies. The main story in it is Domo. I implore you to do a little bit of research before you reach out to people.” The other piece is that we feel so confined in any of these networking conversations to talk about work.
Do a little bit of research before you reach out to people. Find that common passion point between you two to then establish more of that open discussion. Share on XA Race To The Middle
One of the concepts I bring up is a race to the middle. It’s a race to find that common passion point between you to then establish more of that open discussion. Let’s talk about our passions. Let’s use those as ways to get a little bit more creative. If I find out someone likes mountain biking, I’m going to take them mountain biking.
I go to the Masters every year. Instead of going to the Masters, I will bring my prospects. I will rent two helicopters and we will take helicopters to the Masters, which we will be doing. How do you take it to the next level, especially these higher value and longer-term sales cycles? A byproduct of genuine relationships is you end up doing business together.
My favorite tactic. I built a lot of the stuff around social media and the infrastructure. There was a group of us that was almost like a graduated class. We met in a closed Facebook group that Facebook put together as they opened up their infrastructure to build on it. It was in 2012 that I was signing the largest software deal of my lifetime and this entrepreneur’s lifetime. I turned to him as we were sharing the state dinner with our teams there. His name is Jason Beckerman. I said, “Jason, the sales guy and me are interested in how we went from that to where we are now.”
He goes, “Do you want to know?” I was like, “Yeah.” He goes, “I Shawshanked you.” I was like, “Is Shawshank a verb? Tell me more.” He goes, “Have you ever seen The Shawshank Redemption?” I was like, “Yes.” He goes, “If you remember, in order for Andy Dufresne to get the library funded, he wrote a letter a week. It wasn’t until two years later that he got his first check for $200 to fill the library with new books. He didn’t stop there. It was ten years later that Andy Dufresne and Shawshank Prison had the nicest library in the whole prison system. I sent you a letter a week. It was on Instagram, email, and text, but I built this relationship using these tools in a genuine way. Not once did I go in for the ask and here we are now.”
I said, “Gosh.” I just got a call from the CMO of a Fortune 50 company and she reached out to me on LinkedIn and wanted to hire me as her digital and social person. I was obnoxious in my reply. I was like, “You can hire me as your agency partner.” I was like, “I’m going to get her cell phone and I’m going to start this Shawshanking thing.”
I got her cell phone and I talked to her. I said, “Let me help you not hire someone full of it. I will come down there and I will give you some of the people in my network that are awesome to talk to. I will help you with the job description. I don’t need anything to return. Let me help you.” I did that. It was so genuine and fun. It was herself and her head of marketing.
Fast forward several months later, we ended up becoming good friends. They would call me in to do these learning sessions. No money was ever exchanged, but I also never went in for an ask. It was several months later, we got our first project from this Fortune 50 company for my agency. My CEO was like, “This Shawshanking thing worked. I can’t believe you saw that all the way through.”
If you fast forward now, we have 110 employees on that one account and it’s now burgeoned into its agency. I don’t think that we approach relationships in that same way or nor do we utilize the tools that are available to us to deepen that relationship. I interviewed a woman, you may know of her, a pretty famous entrepreneur, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, for the book because she built Gilt Groupe and sold it for billions of dollars.
She’s a lot of times behind a lot of these female entrepreneurs. She’s an advisor. Bumble, Mirror to Lululemon. Our first interview on Zoom in the middle of the pandemic was super awkward. I’m like, “I don’t feel a connection.” It was months later that I introduced her to other people in my network on a Zoom call and I was like, “Don’t expect Alexandra to be like this.”
In those several months, I’d been going back and forth with her and Instagram messages like, “That place you went in Key West is so awesome. I went to this one spot.” She showed up and it was like we were best friends. My friends that were on Zoom were texting me. They are like, “What are you talking about? She rocks. This is amazing. She’s so willing to open up her network to us. What a cool relationship.” I like that for bringing to life this verb of using Shawshanking to create that genuine connection and then turning it into something bigger.
I love that phraseology. It made me crack up because most people have seen that movie. If you haven’t, you should watch that movie. It’s iconic. It’s one of the big ones, but I’m laughing because of the Shawshank. I wish I had thought of that one. I call it CPR follow-up, Consistent, Persistent, Respectful Follow-up. Same concept.
It doesn’t happen overnight. We have to touch our clients or prospects multiple times in multiple ways, add value constantly, and all of those pieces of the puzzle. By the time you are ready to ask, you don’t even have to ask. Usually, you will say something like, “I’m creating a membership library. I’m publishing a book.” “You are publishing a book. You got to come to my show. We got to promote this.” They are offering because you have proven that you are the real deal and you are not a stalker.
Leveraging Your Network Currency
The other thing I was going to say about the Shawshank is that this is my CPR follow-up. It’s stalking. We are talking about stalking. That would be bad. I have a question. You talked before. You used the phraseology network currency. How do people identify their network currency and use it to do the Shawshank or CPR follow-up? How can we leverage that?
When I talk about currencies, everyone has a currency. Your currency is what you get paid to do. If you put it into my story arc, my currency became, I was the digital and social guy. That’s why CMOs of Fortune 50 companies would reach out to me, and that’s where I would provide that value. Your currency is that thing that you get paid to do.
Everyone has a currency. Your currency is what you get paid to do. Share on XOne of the things that I implore in the book is that it’s so important as individuals at the same time understand where our currency is. We also build these passions on the side. If you look at my story arc, I was a digital and social person, and then my passion was focusing on my younger workers. I wrote a book on it and then that started to take off.
It was about a few months later that if you Google my name, even now, you’d be like, “That’s that culture guy.” My currency then became like, “How to motivate younger employees? What’s important? How to build successful cultures?” You are always building those things on the side. The exercise, so many leaders will come to me and say, “I hate to tell you this. I don’t think anyone is listening, but I’m not passionate about anything in my business. My currency is to do orders and operations. I’m the COO. How do I find my passions?”
I take them through what I call my Google Me exercise. That’s okay. There’s always room for improvement. If you are a search engine, what are all those things people are going to you for advice about? For me, kiteboarding is a huge thing. Exotic locations and cool hotels in the Caribbean and being the father of young girls. How to scale a movement out of a book and create impact for that?
I have all of these things that I can use within that networking currency. It’s not my currency is what I am being paid to do. As I create these relationships, I’m using those to find that race to the middle. In that race, anytime you meet someone, it’s how fast you can find that common passion point and let down that guard to be like, “We have something in common.”
I will watch SportsCenter in the morning because sometimes I need that to break down that barrier even though I hate sports. I will be like, “The Red Sox last night. How about in the ninth inning?” They will be like, “I love the Red Sox.” I was like, “I know that. I heard that. What an epic play they had,” and then that lets down their guard. The same is true in my speech. I use an example of how I was out at Nike. It was my first big speech at the Nike campus. This was 2019, right before the pandemic. It was the middle of winter in Oregon.
It was sleeting. It was 4:30 in the morning. I called my Uber and I raced to the Uber with my coworker, and I slammed the door behind me. The Uber driver turns back and he goes, “You do not treat my car like that. This is a brand-new Camry.” He goes on this tirade and my coworker whispers in my ears like, “This is going to be a long 40-minute drive to Nike.”
All I said to him, I go, “Watch this.” I looked in the Uber’s rearview mirror and I saw a Trinidad and Tobago flag hanging from it. I listened and I heard steel drum music. I chimed in immediately and said, “Excuse me, sir. Is that Trinidadian steel drum music?” He shifted his energy. He goes, “How do you know the Trinidadian and steel drum music?” I go, “I had been dying to get down to Trinidad and Tobago. There’s this one kiteboarding beach right near the airport.”
We ended up talking for the next 40 minutes. By the time we arrived at Nike, he had invited me and my family to go visit his family in Trinidad and Tobago. I love that as the example of how we are trying to find that middle ground. Regardless of what our currency is, that thing that we get paid to do, we use these other things to then find it. That, to me, is where it all happens. That’s when the magic happens.
You said it before. That’s the fun part. It’s only magical. It’s fun. I remember what you were saying years ago. I was referred to an accountant and I was in investment sales, so accountants and attorneys were good lead sources. I was referred to this person, somebody in my network. I was going to her office. Female also. I walk in. Maybe a little bit older than me. I walk in and my kids play hockey. My husband is Canadian. We are on the ice all the time, or they were on the ice all the time. I walk in and she has this awesome, cool picture of where the Rangers played. It was the Rangers, the red and blue and everything.
I swear to God. I walk in and she says, “How are you doing? Nice to meet you.” We shook hands and I look over and I said, “That’s a great painting, but I got to go now.” She goes, “What?” I said, “Rangers. Sorry. Devils. It’s not going to work.” She burst out laughing. She’s like, “We have tickets to the Devils. How old are your kids?” My kids were babies at the time. She goes, “We got to take the boys.” She wasn’t married and didn’t have children. “I would love that.”
Neither one of us golfed. All of her peers in the firm golfed. By the end of our conversation, I go, “Everybody golfs. I don’t golf. Is there something else that we can do maybe that you would like?” She goes, “I love a great adventure.” They used to have a safari. I don’t know if that’s open anymore here in Jersey.
She goes, “We got to bring the kids, and then we will go to the diner after. What do you think? Can we do that?” Done and done. We became best friends. I didn’t try. People go, “She had a picture out there.” It was me being my goofball self, versus, “This is an accountant and I’m a professional financial advisor. It was about Devils and Rangers. Sorry. Can’t be friends with you.” It’s as simple as those little moments when you connect deeply. Even though we didn’t like the same team, we both loved hockey. The magic starts happening. It’s simple, but we make it so complicated.
It is that same way. You found that race to the middle and then you created an experience that then created a bond. I interviewed a guy who built a multimillion-billion-dollar company out of flooring. His name is Randy Smith from Heritage Flooring out of South Florida. I was like, “If this guy can create a massive industry around a commodity, he’s doing something right as it revolves around networking and sales.” We have now since become best friends since that time. I’m helping him with his book that he was inspired to now do after reading mine. He goes, “One of the things that I learned in sales is that I am the best sales guy in the business, but it’s genuine.”
Taking Down That Personal Threshold
One of the things I learned is that when you take down that personal threshold and someone, a prospect or a customer walks into your house or you walk into theirs, they will give you a 1st chance, 2nd chance, 3rd chance, and a 97th chance as soon as that is done. I was like, “Do you know what I’m going to start doing? I’m going to start doing all of my business meetings at my house and I’m going to cater it in. I’m going to take down that personal threshold.” It drives my introverted wife crazy because I have people coming in and out all the time. It is such a profound thing that I never thought about. The same thing as, “Get out of the office. Go do that thing.” I’m an extreme example of it.
I thought it was such a great tactic. I am a freak. I call it the ask continuum. Let’s say on the far left, asks come easy to us. It’s what’s made us successful in our role because we can crank and go in for the asks. You then got, “I’m on the other side of the spectrum. I am so hesitant for the ask, I will do 30 gives before I go in for the ask, which makes me better suited for longer-term sales cycles,” but I will oftentimes let the ask pass me by.
Regardless of where we are in that ask continuum, if asks come easy to us, we are most likely an askhole. We will go in and go in. It’s our job to move closer to that middle place. My favorite tactic for those people that let the ask to pass them by is a tactic that I started practicing as I was interviewing the world’s most influential leaders, billionaires, founders, and great people that I never thought I’d get access to.
It was in one of my first Zoom meetings. It was a guy named Jason Trautwein who had massive success in the pet industry selling his pet veterinary clinics. He had hundreds of them. I said, “We had an awesome connection.” He was in his house in Hawaii. He was hanging out. I said, “I’m going to practice my new favorite tactic. Let’s see if it works, and it’s called Masking My Asking My Dream. Are you ready?” He goes, “Bring it on.”
I go, “It is my dream to create the handbook. Whether you graduated from college or are a salesperson in their 40s that feels stuck and uninspired, I want to create the handbook to make you a better salesperson and networker but also to make it a lot more fulfilling and genuine. Who in your network do I have to talk to?” He lights up. He goes, “Do you know the pro surfer Raimana?” I was like, “Yeah, I think so. I know surfing. Tell me more.”
He goes, “Raimana is the greatest connector of any billionaire or movie star on the planet. His currency is surfing. He teaches people how to surf. It was six minutes into our relationship that he was towing me in on a jet ski into a crazy wave that he put his hand on my heart. He looked into my eyes and he said, ‘I love you, brother.’ He pushed me off of the back of his jet ski into this wave. Nine years later, we have a bond that is forged for life. You have got to talk to this dude.” I was like, “For sure. Introduce me.”
It was 24 hours later, in the middle of the pandemic, I saw on my caller ID French Polynesia. I have never had thatt come up with my caller ID anymore. I’m like, “It’s Raimana.” He’s like, “What’s up? Jason told me to call you.” I’m like, “Let’s hop on a FaceTime because I’m stuck in quarantine in Atlanta. I want to live vicariously because you are in Tahiti.” He goes like, “Of course.”
We hop on FaceTime and I go, “Before we get going, Raimana. I need to live vicariously through you. Tell me about your day. Where have you been? I’m stuck in this house. We are not allowed to leave.” He goes, “I got off Sergey Brin’s yacht. I was teaching his wife how to surf Teahupo’o this great break. Wonderful lady.” I was like, “You truly are the greatest connector of billionaires. Not because you are famous, but because you have this currency that is so nuanced around surfing.”
“My second question for you is, Jason talks about this bond you guys have. He said that six minutes into your relationship, you put your hand on his heart, looked into his eyes, and said, ‘I love you, brother.’ Tell me about that.” He goes, “Yes. Don’t tell Jason this, but I tell that to everyone when they are in the back of my jet ski.”
“Two things to it. Forget about your big job. Take in this moment. The second thing is this is a gnarly wave and you might die. I want the last thing you to hear is, ‘I love you, brother.’” I’m like, “That is the greatest thing I have ever heard.” I love that as an example of what genuine connection looks like, and then also how can even the most nuanced of passions potentially become our currencies in the future by curating these things on the side.
Even the most nuanced of passions could potentially become our own currencies in the future. Share on XWe are out of time and that was a great story. It tells everybody that at that moment, Jason felt so special. It’s all about communicating. That’s why I have my Communication Style Assessment. At the core, it’s about connecting energetically and finding that common ground because, at the end of the day, we are all the same. We all bleed the same. We put our pants on the same.
Instead of looking at, “You are different than me because,” how about, “What are we the same as because?” That’s what we are talking about. Guys, you need more Chris in your life. You have to buy his books. If you go to his website, all the books are on the website. Go to ChrisTuff.me, and you will find all his goodies there. If you have a question for him, please email him directly at Chris@ChrisTuff.me.
Chris, thank you so much. I hope that everybody buys the book because everybody makes sales so much harder than it has to be and more uncomfortable than it has to be. It’s about making friends. At the core, it’s loving people, sharing experiences, and seeing if I can help you. Yes or no. If I can’t, who can I introduce you to? That’s networking. That’s mastering networking.
It’s about bringing all the peeps together and sharing the wealth. Tides rise together. The ship should rise together. We shouldn’t be hurting anyone or holding someone back because there’s not enough business for me. That’s another whole conversation. The abundance mentality. Another whole conversation that you and I could go on.
Thank you so much. Everyone, again, Chris@ChrisTuff.me or go to ChrisTuff.me for the website. Thank you again for being on, Chris. You are delightful. You are fun. I’m happy to meet you as well. More to come. Go Shawshank. My CPR seems like, “CPR, how boring. We are going to Shawshank this bad boy.” I love it.
I hope you will join me always as we question, build, and discover together, no matter where you are in your business, your career, sales, clients, or prospects. It doesn’t matter. I hope between my guests and I that we share some tips, ideas, strategies, and maybe even a new perspective like the Shawshank process that we talked about. What is it that you can take from our conversation and apply it immediately?
I know I’m a broken record. Information is a beautiful thing, but if you do nothing with it, simply information. What did you learn from Chris or from me that you can apply immediately and start to create some magic in your life and results? It’s all about creating results. Thank you, Chris, and thank you all for joining me on this episode on WebTalkRadio.net. I’m truly honored to have you on this journey with me, and I’m excited to see you next episode as we explore another topic. Have a great one, everybody.
Important Links
- Free Communication Style Assessment
- WhitmanAssoc.com/csa
- Chris Tuff
- The Millennial Whisperer
- Save Your Asks
- Chris@ChrisTuff.me
- WebTalkRadio.net
- Changing The Sales Game Resources
- All-Star Community
Stalk me online!
- Changing The Sales Game
- Connie’s #1 International Bestseller Book – ESP (Easy Sales Process): 7-Step to Sales Success
- Download Free Communication Style Assessment
- All-Star Community
Subscribe and listen to the Changing the Sales Game Podcast on your favorite podcast streaming service or on YouTube. New episodes post every week on webtalkradio.net – listen to Connie dive into new sales and business topics or problems you may have in your business.
