How To Do Business Development

The Inventive Expert
Episode #63
How To Do Business Development
w/ Emily Dessingue
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"When you think you want to venture off and work for yourself, a lot of people will try to push you or steer you away. It scares them but comes from a loving place usually. A lot of people told me with real estate it is a high turnover rate. Every year about 87% don't renew their license. And people told me it takes like two to three years to really get off the ground. I just feel like if you have that limited mindset then, of course, you won't. I feel like if you grind it out and work really hard, I did it in six months. I tripled my business in just a year's time. It's all mindset. So, don't let people with their perceived timeline of when. If you feel like you can do it, then you can totally do it. You feel like you can do it in six months, you can absolutely do it in six months."

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What Is The Inventive Journey?

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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 when you when you think you want to venture off and work for yourself a lot of people will try to push you or scare you away because it scares them and it comes from a loving place usually like oh maybe it doesn't really come with benefits and a retirement and you just hear all this stuff um so you know a lot of people told me you know with real estate it's it is a high turnover rate every two years like 87 percent of people don't renew their license um and people told me it takes like two to three years to really get off the ground and i just feel like if you have that limited mindset so that of course you won't but i just feel like if you feel you know if you grind it out and you work really hard i did it in six months um i tripled my business in just a year at a time i mean it's just it's all it's all mindset so don't let people's you know their perceived timeline of when it's i don't know it's just you feel like you can do it then you can totally do it you can do it in six months you can absolutely do it [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive expert i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great guest on the the podcast emily desingew and emily we're going to talk a lot about a few different things including you know sales and a bit maybe as to how that relates to social media business development how do you kind of take the approach of thinking out of the box or just getting out of the box and making yourself stand out i'm getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and networking and establishing some of those relationships maybe a bit on how to come up with some creative content and who knows maybe we'll even talk a little bit about real estate if we have time as well so but that much is an introduction welcome on the podcast emily yeah thanks so much for having me again i'm excited to to be here absolutely so and for those of you or for those that are listeners uh emily was on the inventive journey uh podcast series which is a sister uh podcast of this or the inventive expert so definitely if you haven't gone and checked out that episode uh certainly invite you to do so it was a great episode on that podcast series as well but for today as we're talking about a lot of the different uh areas of expertise and topics at hand um before we dive into that maybe just you know for those that haven't caught the episode or saying hey i'm too busy i just want to know a little bit about you without having to hear the whole story what's kind of the you know what introduce yourself a bit to the audience what kind of why do you have an area of expertise and why people should listen to you yeah for sure so you know i'm a real estate agent which everyone's like oh my gosh not another realtor right i mean there's so many of us um but for me you know anyone that's looking to increase their their sales or their business you know really improve their business development should really listen in and really learn how you know at least i'll tell you what i do to differentiate yourself in a in an industry that maybe it's a little bit over saturated yeah no and i think that you know the interesting thing is that one of the so i i love podcasts and both do their hosting podcast but a lot of the things that you know if i'm listening usually i go out for about a an eight or nine mile run each morning and one of the things i do is i'll either listen to a book on tape or listen to podcasts and then when i drive to and from work i'm also listening to a book on you know book on tape not really on tape but or a podcast and one of the ones i if i listen to a marketing there's a few legal ones which i think are great and definitely applicable in my industry but the other ones i'll oftentimes listen to is on the real estate side and kind of to your point the reason i listen to the real estate side isn't because they're gonna have or talk about legal aspects but i think it's an industry that is very crowded there's a lot of people who get into it people that watch the house hunting shows or watch fixer-upper or something else and they think oh i could do that that would be fun and so it gets to be a crowded market which makes it all the more important or you know and difficult to be stand out and otherwise um or market and get that following and get that traction and so for those that are successful i think there's a lot to learn from it so i definitely think there's a good reason that uh you know that if you are good at real estate you have to have figured that out so with that you know this is kind of the the initial things that kick off and we talked just a little bit about the before the podcast is the idea of sales and maybe even a little bit of overlay with social media but if you're taking okay fairly competitive marketplace a lot are crowded a lot of people as you said you know another real person in real estate but how do you kind of go about sales or marketing and or getting yourself out there and standing apart yeah yeah absolutely so you know you know i feel even if you're not interested in like just like what you do you don't have to be interested in real estate so you take what i say and apply it to your own um you know it's kind of like just take what you want and then supply it to to your career but you know i think that for me the biggest thing about sales is just your perspective on it i think how you view it is how you're gonna how you're gonna perform and when i say that it's like sales can look that to be sleazy it can look that to be annoying right like i don't want to be annoying it can look that to be daunting some people get really scared when they hear like a quota maybe they have to reach and so i feel like if you go into work every day with that mindset why would you perform well you know no i i'm totally in agreement with you but now how do you how do you deal with that in other words what are some of the ways that you go about you know addressing that yeah so like for me so how i view it is that i view i view it in a few different ways and i thought about it beforehand one i view it as just it's a numbers game right and i know i say this all the time but i just few sales as a numbers game because in order for me to get business i have to talk to people so first my first thought is okay how can i talk to as many people as possible so there's one then two it's like okay my initial thought is how can i help that person and it does not involve helping me but it's just how can i help them and i feel if you have that genuine thought right off the bat people are one gonna like you you're not gonna come off as a sleazy salesperson and business is people helping people right so i just feel and i'm sure you've had this from having people go on your podcast but if i just say hey listen how can i help you people usually naturally want to think well how can i help them you know so i mean i would love to know i mean how much business have you gotten from just promoting people on your podcast yeah i mean without getting into the numbers now we we definitely i think that you know to that point with the pod we do a lot of efforts podcasts we do free strategy meetings we're always you know looking for and putting out educational materials and that's a lot of what we do we're a lot of a good partner or a source of uh you know leads and or people that are needing help and i you know i think that having that kind of genuine feel of you know everybody understands when you're talking with whether it's an attorney event eventually it's gonna they're wanting to have you know have your business because that's why they're in business same thing with the realtor but i think if all you're doing is just pushing the sales side and you're always or all you're doing is saying here you know get your give give give to me and you're never putting out that value or establishing anything more of a relationship that makes it more difficult so i definitely think on the you know even on our side with the podcast with a lot of our other endeavors establishing that relationship that connection and providing value to them rather than saying how can you provide value to me definitely has a large impact yeah you know so so when you go and so now you know and we'll talk more about how you can creatively get in front of people but i think one is just like the mindset like okay today i'm going to talk to x amount of people and i'm just going to think how can i help them and you know comes with that networking so when i talk to someone you know i'm not saying if someone asks you for ten thousand dollars like here you go um but you know they're like listen i'm right now i'm just really looking to be connected with a plumber right that has nothing to do with me but i'm like alright you know actually i do know somebody let me make that connection people are gonna remember that they're gonna think of that like wow you know emily's she's she's a nice person because i feel when people especially see like someone like me a realtor their guard is up because they're like oh my god they're gonna sell me on something so immediately if you're just genuine like how can i help you i feel like already you break that barrier i couldn't agree more and i think that you know if they because we do and i get a lot sometimes i just say hey i don't know of anybody but if i come across anybody i'll definitely send them your way but a lot of times you know with startups and small businesses where we are helping them as an example at the law firm um with a lot of the things legal aspects of saying hey you probably work with a lot of other people that may have these connections and if you do know of anybody we'd love that introduction and you know sometimes they're saying hey i don't have any of those connections i'm sorry but if i did if you make them i'll definitely let you know but a lot of times it's like hey yeah i have those connections i'm happy to make introductions never make any promises but uh yeah i think that it's a definitely a a good place to be able to provide value and i think the more places you can provide that value to individuals the more likely they're going to one go with you for the first time but also you're going to have a good impression they're going to keep coming back and it will spread by word of mouth so i think there's a lot of benefit now to what you kind of started to hit on which is you know i think that part of the difficulty for some people and it depends on your personality depends on your industry and everything else but is making those connect or how do you go about making those connections so give me an example i hate going to the networking events where everybody you have all the and it's been less so with coven which probably fits by personality better but even more you know whatever it is where you just go and you know the event is really just a networking event where you go and talk with people and everybody knows the reason you're at that networking event is because you want to make connections to see if you can get more sales so everybody's really just trying to pitch all their products i always find them uncomfortable and i don't like going to them so i don't get out in front of people that way and that doesn't work well for me but i found other ways that work for me that i do feel comfortable and that i enjoy and then it tends to work out much better but how do people even go about kind of getting in front of people or making those connections or otherwise finding what works for them yeah so i mean so one to your point right right uh networking events i mean they really haven't been i haven't been to one in person in over a year at this point so they've all been virtual which i have you know my feels about them i have gotten business from them but i think with that it's just been you know if there's fifth i don't know like with networking events they usually give you the list of people that went because you can't talk to everyone that's at these events right so it's getting that list of people that attended and just going down the list and seeing who makes sense for you to talk to once again maybe get a virtual coffee with them set it for 30 minutes see if it's even worth going further into um but you know i have had success with networking events i know they're not everyone's favorite but um they're a great way to just get in front of people even if they don't need your service it's building that relationship because they might know someone that does if networking events just really aren't your thing um i really think it's important to almost just like do like enhance your personality i you know what do you enjoy doing what committees can you join what boards can you join i think that's another big one is is following a passion that you don't mind putting time into you know i i hear some people are on committees i'm like yeah i i don't really care for that whatever and it's like well why waste your time why not be involved with something that you're passionate about but also collab with people that think like you because then you're probably going to build a really great relationship so um and there's other ways too i mean personally i love dancing i haven't danced in a really long time so i decided what's a good way for me to meet people and do what i love so i i i got my license to becoming a zumba instructor and i'm like let's do it let's that's another way that i can really do what i enjoy doing but also meet new people so i think it takes brainstorming of what you enjoy if you if you're a sports person i know with covet i don't really know right now if you love sports and you're on a flag team do you talk to people on your flag team do you invite them to like a seminar i know seminars are big um do you create a podcast i have a girlfriend that made a podcast and she's killing it so it's it's really like asking yourself what what do i like who am i what do i enjoy doing how can i take what i like and turn it into something where i can and you know collaborate with other people no and i think that that's a good point you know one of the things i'll take it it was from the real estate podcast and uh that i listened to and for anybody that wants to know which one let's see what's called the real estate marketing dude i'll give you the one thing as he does like to use a little bit more explicit language i'm not a big percussor but if you don't buy that it has a lot of good information but one of the things he hit on i think in almost to your point um was that you know he had a and i think it was his friend so it was a friend of a friend type of a thing but was it the going out and was meeting with friends and he was talking you know he was there may have been him or his friend i can't remember which but i was talking at i think a bar at a restaurant and they were talking about you know his friend was saying hey i just you know gave this referral to this girl that i want to go date and basically going on and on and saying you know it's for real estate and for selling houses and he or looked over his friends and that's what i do like how come he didn't get me and he's like oh yeah that is what you do i just didn't think about it i forgot that that's what you do and you have their friends and they you know meet up and doing things all the time and yet it's just one of those things that if you don't you know whether it's in the sports events whether you're out and doing things you have to people have to know what you do and it doesn't mean you have to sell it doesn't have to mean you have to be pushy or ask them all the time if they have any you know things you know free to if they want to buy your product or use your services but even just giving that as a gentle reminder this is what i do this is how i can help people and offering that value and finding those ways i think is a great a great way to make those connections yeah and i think to your point you brought up something really great too so now it's like okay so now i'm talking to people i have a you know i have a genuine mindset i'm doing what i enjoy doing i'm talking to people but then also it's it's being consistent right so i can attend something and then not do anything about it so if i make an introduction for networking do you follow up in a few weeks it's a great reason to talk to them again hey how did that how did that connection go did you guys meet for coffee okay great you know how's everything else going it's a great reason to reach back out to him so then it's also following up with people too yeah absolutely and i said one of the things one of the things i like and just you know going back to the podcasting it's a natural way that you can provide value to them and yet it gives a good way for you to also make a good establish a good connection to introduction other words you're promoting them you're helping them to reach new audiences and in that in that process you're also establishing connections and so now shifting here slightly but kind of following along that one of the things that i always admire about people who do well in real estate is how they're happier how they stand out in the marketplace so one is creating the connections one is offering genuine value one is finding the places you feel comfortable but as a general rule even with all that how do you go about standing out and i think that there's you know a lot of lessons you can learn with you know across a lot of industries about how to stand out and and stand out in a good way how do you go about standing out in a crowded industry aside from just the general making connections or otherwise getting your faith here you know getting out there yeah so i mean one is and i you know it's feel how you feel about it but social media is my biggest platform to make to developing business it is what it is i mean i personally do it you know social media not everyone loves it but for business standpoints it's just where you gotta be that's where you're gonna get in front of the most people so now okay so now i'm promoting myself on social media but what am i what am i doing so for me i'm i'm a naturally fun person i like to have fun i like to have a good time and that's how i want my clients to feel when they work with me so what i did with social media you know i see a lot of realtors look post every few days about a house that they have listed which is great you should absolutely do that they'll post testimonials which is great but i wanted people when they see like my instagram story come up i wanted to be like oh my god i love emily's you know stories i can't wait to click on it so it's like what did i how can i do that so every day i have a certain segment so like yesterday was wednesday so i call it what house wednesday and i post a famous house either from tv or from a movie and i make it a quiz and i say what house is this is this the fresh principle or the nanny and then the next one how much did it sell for in 1978 and i gave him two options and i make a quiz and people love it and and does that mean i'm going to get business right away no but now i'm on top of their mind right you're like oh my god yeah i'm just real estate look at this question like questionnaire so it's being creative and thinking for me it's like how can i make people want to go to my pages and have fun you know no and i i think that you know that's that's a good that's a good point now i think they're one of the interesting thing is to kind of give the contrary point of view and not contrary really but i think you have to if you go too far and making it so fun that they completely forget what you do then it has almost a negative effect in the sense you're not it's you're not providing the value and give you the example that i was just reading on the other day is you think of some of the most iconic commercials or the funniest commercials and you know oftentimes just with the super bowl but even on you know that you regularly see on tv and if they're so far filled and they are funny and they are catchy then all you remember is the catchy part of the commercial i said hey do you see this commercial and everybody laughs at it and then you think what is that i don't know if it was for what it was about and so i think you know making that tie kind of like what you did what house is this it has that fun catchy nature but it also has a tie back into real estate in other words it gives a re or an easy reminder as to what you're doing or what industry you're in and i think that that definitely provides the value the one i always had to laugh is after i saw that there was a commercial i honestly i don't remember what it was for i'm guessing it was for insurance companies just because that's what they usually seem to be with but i have no idea but it was you know it was a guy that it was on a basketball team and they you know the mascot came in and said hey you know i got a new play for you guys to win the game and it's a half cut or half court no hook or no look hook shot and you know it was just a funny commercial and we all laughed at it and then you know after i heard that analogy i'm like i i have no idea what business that was for or what they were even selling but it was funny and so i think you know just getting you're doing something out there just to be funny doesn't necessarily have that return on the efforts but if you can i think like is your example if you're tying it into what you're doing but make it in a way that is interesting interactive people remember you and you know and build that pipeline then it has that that balance and has that that reward to it yeah no i totally you could totally go off left field and people will be like oh that was fun but you know i don't know why she really did that so yeah to your point i always tie it around real estate yep absolutely i mean i'll give you just another example something we do a lot the same and so you mentioned socials and you know i'm i'm not a big person on a lot of facebook or instagram i know why people are on there and i'm glad that they enjoyed i just it doesn't fit my persona but i do love linkedin and that's where i tend to if i'm on social media where i tend to be at but one of the things we do is we do and a lot of times it's with podcasts and occasional i'll throw in my own as we do what is your craziest idea or crazy idea that you've always wanted to pursue that yeah yeah you get feedback yeah you have feedback it's fun it's interactive and it also ties back in with what do we do we do it in inventions we do crazy ideas we help you to actually protect them and so it's a fun way to get that interaction yet it ties back to what we do without just being so blatant hey do you want to do a patent application or a trademark because it doesn't people don't want to be sold to so hard and pitched to i think a lot of the time and so i think making that connection there definitely is a great they're great uh great uh place to start one other place that we hit on and the kind of i think these all kind of tend to build on each other but is how do you come up with those kratom i mean you hit on one that you're doing i mentioned one that the you know miller ip law is doing any thoughts or ideas if you're saying i'm kind of stumped i don't have a i don't have a ready or a whole bunch of just creative thoughts and creative content that i can come up with or i don't have a pipeline and with them where do you start at or how do you even start to crack that now um honestly i'll start i think it's helpful so i'll start brainstorming and i'll start writing down things but then i immediately i'll ask my boyfriend someone that doesn't have who's just an outsider and i said listen if i did this like getting an outsider's opinion i think is really helpful so if i'm like hey like if i did this how would you feel if you saw this post how would you feel if i if i left this on your doorstep would this be weird or would this be creative you know or even getting you know just like a friend's input getting input i think is so important you know obviously ask people that support you and want to see you do well but also won't mind telling you know being honest and telling you how they will actually feel um i really value people's uh opinion when i have a new what i think is fun idea and even uh recently i i had this idea and it was a little over the top i i um i'm gonna actually start doing uh bridal trade shows because typically when people are engaged they're looking for houses kind of just goes hand in hand um so i'm i'm gonna do one and we had to think of different ways to make my boots stand out because no shaytard like i don't know um sometimes you'll see like an insurance booth and it's just kind of like some people they're not there for that so they'll kind of curve it and i don't want people to curve my table so how can i get your attention how can i not just be another realtor looking to sell it or buy a house so i've been running ideas off of people and people been open and honest and telling me when something's a great idea or no don't do that oh and i think that that's a great way to start and i think you know two things you hit on one is just the idea of bouncing it off with people now i'll i'll give you the cabinet i think a lot of times people you know a lot of times especially if it's people that you know they either go one of two directions either they are your biggest fan and they tell you every good idea every idea you have is a good idea regardless of those or not or they're your harshest critics and they just tear apart your idea and you just walk away demoralize in either case sometimes it is one or the other it is a really bad idea it's a great idea but it's hard to gauge one so i think the idea is you know you may start out there and get some feedback but even asking whether it's current clients past clients strangers or people that are in your industry and testing that out because i think that you can get some feedback you're not going to get everybody that likes it is an example we do gift boxes for our clients the vast majority of the clients like our gift boxes we've had a couple of people that complain about getting free gift boxes and i never never understood the mentality if i got a free gift box even if i didn't like what was in there i'd just be appreciative that they sent it but yeah the point i illustrate not everybody's going to like it but so you're not going to try and please everybody with an idea it's not going to kill everybody but i think you've got to say one is i don't want to offend a good or offend people and two i want to make it so that the vast majority of the people i like and engage with and if you can hit that medium i think testing out ideas crazy non-crazy as we already talked about tying it back to your business definitely makes sense no i i totally agree well this is a fun area and one that i'm sure we could uh talk on all day and we'd have a great conversation that people probably said i've done listed i gotta get back to work so as we wrap up you know i always like to end off the the podcast with the with the question which is in your area of expertise and so you can all either choose on more of the marketing the sales and some of the things we talked about or in real estate one is what is one of the biggest myths that are that are out there for me um i've heard when starting off and you know kind of tying into what we just talked about when you when you think you want to venture off and work for yourself a lot of people will try to push you or scare you away because it scares them and it comes from a loving place usually like ah maybe it doesn't really come with benefits and a retirement and you just hear all this stuff um so you know a lot of people told me you know with real estate it's it is a high turnover rate every two years like 87 percent of people don't renew their license um and people told me it takes like two to three years to really get off the ground and i just feel like if you have that limited mindset so that of course you won't but i just feel like if you feel you know if you grind it out and you work really hard i did it in six months um i tripled my business in just a year at a time i mean it's just it's all it's all mindset so don't let people's you know their perceived timeline of when it's i don't know it's just you feel like you can do it then you can totally do it if you can do it in six months you can absolutely do it in six months yeah no i think that there's a lot and i think you hit on one which is there's a lot of time that comes it comes usually from a loving place and people just have your their best events at heart but a lot of times it either comes from people or maybe wanting to do it themselves but are too scared to or they like the comfort of you know my wife is a good example and i like to think of my wife i don't really think of my wife i love her she is the opposite of me in the sense she is not an entrepreneur she does it would never want to run her own business or do her in her own thing and i get it she likes to go to work or she would like to and she's now a stay-at-home mom but when she was doing nursing for a while she liked to go work she had her things and somebody else told her what to do she went she had a definitive amount of time she was there she could do it do a good job and go home and that was all she had to think about and so for her you know i she wouldn't be the person i go to and ask for all the business ideas and or she wouldn't be encouraging not because she doesn't love me but because to her it doesn't make sense and so just because people are coming from a loving place doesn't mean that you should let them dissuade you from pursuing your own business pursuing a passion or otherwise building something that will be enjoyable and be and worthwhile to you so i think that that's a great myth to overcome because just because other people don't want to do a start for a small business or think it's not a good idea doesn't mean it's not it just means that it might not be a good fit for them or they might be otherwise fearful of it correct or if they feel doesn't mean that you would fail at it you're not the same person you're different people absolutely well as we wrap up the people excuse me if people want to reach out to you they want to connect up with you they want to be a customer they want to be a client they want you to sell their real estate they want to buy real estate from you they want to be an employee they want to be an investor they want to be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach out to you contact you find out more okay well i feel like last time we did this i tried filling out my email and it was really long so i was like let's never do that again um so yeah you know anyone's always welcome to reach out to my to my business phone um if i just say the number sir go ahead 518-396-8012 love to chat all right that was probably easy enough people can remember it or they could uh or text you or call you and get your email address if they want to hit you up there so that works out great call me whatever definitely encourage people to connect there and definitely a lot of expertise and value that you have added so well thank you again again for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you the listeners um if you can leave us a review you can share you can like whatever you can do to help us promote and it's not just for us we want to make sure that all the startups and small businesses get all this great expertise and be able to continue to learn how to grow or grow their business and make it a success and if you on that note if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else with your business feel free to go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat well thank you again emily for coming on the podcast and uh what's the next leg of your journey even better than the last thanks so much david have a wonderful day you

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