Robert Craven interviews Andy Lopata
VIDEO: 55:48 mins
AUTHOR: Robert Craven and Andy Lopata
In this GYDA Talks, Robert talks to Andy Lopata about his new book Connected Leadership. How Professional Relationships Underpin Executive Success. In the book Andy explores just how important strong relationships are and how to build a network of people who are:
In a position to support you
Want to support you
Know exactly what support you need
Why this book? Why now? How is it different from what you have done before?
How is it different from other books on the subject?
What are top 2/3 key ahas/takeaways/models?
Does covid-19 make all this even more important?
How is this all relevant to leaders of digital agencies….? How might they use this book to help grow their business?
What will sort the successful agencies from the rest in 2020?
What’s next for Andy?
To read Robert's review of Connected Leadership click here.
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:30
Hello, and welcome to the GYDA Talks and today I'm absolutely delighted to have with me, Andy, the partner, Andy, I've known for five years. And he is one of these people who is mentioned in the Financial Times independence in Forbes, as the person to talk to about networking. So who better to talk to about that? So hello, Andy.
Andy Lopata 00:59
Hello, Robert. I think we go back 15 - 20 years. Back to my Bre days.
Robert Craven 01:06
Oh no, when I say I mean, everything always seems to be much further back than you imagine it'd been. But if I actually think about it, it's quite a while. So for our watchers and viewers, just give us a four sentence introduction to how you've got to being here being quoted in the ft and Forbes?
Andy Lopata 01:31
Well, you know, I mentioned in passing my Bre days, I have been involved in networking and professional relationships for 21 years now. And that was originally as the managing director of one of the larger networking organisations in the UK at the time, sold out my share in that alone, my father, who co founded it about 13 years ago, 2007. And since then been working predominantly with organisations on their networking and professional relationship strategies.
Robert Craven 02:05
But networking is one of those phrases, I have to say. Everyone knows, and especially the people watching or listening, he's like, Oh, my God, people handing over business cards, or people doing elevator pitches while eating soggy bacon and naff sandwiches. And is that what networking is about?
Andy Lopata 02:28
Well, two things on that. Number one, no, it's not. But it is the perception. And I absolutely share the pain of anyone who perceives networking as that. I've always said that. Networking is about your network. It's about having strong relationships with people who help and support you, networking events, social networking sites, are merely tools in the process. But equally, what I've found out is that I've spent years going blue in the face trying to get that message across. And still the perception is networking as events. So very much my focus now is professional relationship strategy. And I tend to steer away from the word networking as much as I can.
Robert Craven 03:14
So networking is just a Lazy shorthand, and a why because people kind of know, people know what the purpose is, and yet the new time new book, you know, brilliant title. So it's connected leadership. And I just love that because for me that which kind of brings the whole thing together, that it's about just throughout the whole thing is about engagement, about how can we connect? How can we make that happen? So is the book if people haven't seen it? Is the book about being a leader? Or is it about using leadership? To connect? What's that mean? What's the thrust of the book?
Andy Lopata 04:05
It's neither. It's about how professional relationships make leadership easier. So it's actually coming at it from the other angle. You know, there's a lot I'm not a leadership expert, and actually the title connected leadership, even though it's a new book, I've had it as a talk for a number of years, because I guess about five or six years ago, I was invited to speak at a leadership conference in the west of Romania in Timisoara. And I said to the guy that was running it, I said, I don't talk on leadership. And he said, I know but I know what you do talk on and I know you and I know you can do this. So what I did is I went out and I interviewed leaders in my network and said, This is my approach to networking strategy. How does this fit into your world? And then I came up with the top thing connected leadership. The book is very different to that. I mean, it's evolved over that time. But it's much more about professional relationships as a resource for leaders, I think that'd be a good way to summarise it.
Robert Craven 05:09
You repeat that profession..
Andy Lopata 05:11
Professional relationships as a resource for leaders. That's the first time I've used that, and I quite like it.
Robert Craven 05:17
Okay, well, I'd copyright it as quick as you can. So you've got in the book, you've got a great selection of chapter titles from why great leaders rely on strong professional leadership, building relationships, managing the profile importance of influence how to protect reputation. My question, which I always asked people on just about anything is do we need another one? Do we need another book on this subject, or what's the difference between this book, and all the other books on influence and reputation and personal branding?
Andy Lopata 05:59
A couple of things, I would argue that there are a lot of books on leadership, there are a lot of books on, as you say, on personal branding, and on networking, and referrals, and so forth. But to my knowledge, there aren't many, if any, that take it that approach it from this angle of professional relationships, specifically, as a resource for leadership. So a lot of the ideas in the book will be reflected elsewhere, but I bought them together with a particular focus. The second thing is, I've brought in new concepts to the book that are new to me. And I believe new to the world of business. And you know, a lot of people say there is no such as a new thing. But what's interesting is I sent a preview copy of the book to the guy known as the father of modern networking, Ivan Meisner.
Robert Craven 06:51
I know, I have him telling me. He was one of my books. He wrote a review of new as absolute gentleman.
Andy Lopata 06:59
He's a great, you know, Ivan and I've done a podcast together, we've worked together. But what was interesting, because I've written and edited a number of books on networking. He came in, he said, I particularly like this, this and this, and it reflected that there were new ideas in there. And they were new to me, it's not stuff that I've been talking about for the last 10 years. And I think the third answer to the question is, there are so many books out there, but you find the ones that resonate with you. And ones where you like the author's style one way or the author seems to understand the world you live in. And I'm reflecting that my book will be the perfect fit for some people, and it will rub others up the wrong way. And I just, you know, you've just got to hope that you make the impact on enough of the former, and you minimise the latter.
Robert Craven 07:50
So who do you think it's perfect for? I mean, it's a lovely thing to say, but who do you think I mean, I guess you had an avatar in mind, someone in mind, who is the person who's gonna go, I need to buy this book?
Andy Lopata 08:04
The Avatar I have in mind, and I always struggle with avatars. I'm working on them for my new podcast series at the moment, and trying to drill down. The Avatar I have in mind is an either or which I know you break, you're breaking the rules with avatars. But it's either people who are well, progressing well along that journey to a senior leadership position in a large organisation, where they are people who are at the top, or very close to the top in smaller organisations. So owners of reasonable sized businesses, so they have, although there's something in there for the solopreneur, that's not the avatar that's not Oh, it's targeted, that is for people leading a business of people, or for people leaving a division or department of people or people who are aspiring and on the journey to those levels.
Robert Craven 09:00
And just to be clear, we're talking about engagement outside the business, or are we also talks about engagement, internally.
Andy Lopata 09:15
Both its professional relationships in all their forms. One of the things I talk a lot about in the book is the impacts of silos on organisations. And how a lack of thoughts about building professional relationships internally impacts the efficiency of things getting done. You know how someone in one department needs another department help and they just go over and say I need your help. They don't think why would they want to help me what else are their priorities? And why would they bump me up that list and then they just complain when they don't get what they need on time. So that's one of the things I talk about. I also talked about building I think it's chapter 10 or 11. One of the last chapters is about building a relationship culture within an organisation and delegating the responsibility for relationships. So, it's about relationships internally, but it's also about professional relationships strategy internally as well.
Robert Craven 10:15
Okay, so you keep teasing our fans you came to us with, there's some new things, there's some different things. So I kind of want to drill down a little bit. So these two or three new things, because I think people would be really interested. I mean, people are listening and watching because I want to take something away from this that goes, right I can. I remember what Angela Potter said, I'm going to take that away. And I'm going to go and try that. So should we just discuss two or three of those key takeaways? What would you like to discuss?
Andy Lopata 10:48
Yeah, well, let's pick this big three things. The book is split into three sections mainly. And if I take, I want to take two from the first and one from the second, just to share some new concepts. So the three areas are building professional relationships, nurturing professional relationships, and leveraging professional relationships. From the building perspective, two things I want to talk about is, first of all, what's the right mindset to take into building professional relationships? Where do you need to grow your network, and a lot of people will go too strongly one way or the other one way is to have a very strategic mindset. In other words, who do I need to know, in order to achieve my objectives, and then blanking out everyone else. And that turns people away very quickly. And the other mindset is what I call a relational mindset. And the relational is, well, I just meet people I like and you know, things happen. That's great. And the argument is that you should have a blended mindset that you need an element of the two, but you Whichever approach you favour, or whichever approach you meet someone through your entire interaction with someone, as an individual, should be relationship focused. So I might say, I need to meet Robert Craven, because he's going to help me achieve my objectives. But I don't want you to feel that when I interact with you and engage with you, I want you just to feel it's natural and authentic, which is really key. So that's one idea, the idea of a blended mindset, rather than purely strategic or purely relational. The second one is focusing in on the strategic mindset and making that work for you. And it's in the book, I call it the relationship chart, I've been using the term three i pi. For it as well. And the three i pi or the relationship chart says in any stakeholder group, there are three types of people you need strong relationships with, in order to achieve your objectives. And they are influences, intermediaries are introduces, and sources of information, ideas and insight. So if I take work I do for in the pharmaceuticals industry, as an example, if I look in within one of my major clients, GlaxoSmithKline, I have influences. So I've got if I want to introduce a new programme or suggest a new idea, I know key people who are going to be involved in those conversations. And I know that if half a dozen people are sat around a table discussing, and this proposal, at least three of those have a good relationship with me. Because if I've only got a relationship with one person, and this is a big mistake that many people make, if I've only got a relationship with one key person, and no one else around that table knows me or knows my reputation, then my chances of winning that project or getting it through have diminished severely. So you need people who are influential. I've got people who can open doors for me. So if we identify actually you need to meet so and so I've got people who will make the introduction for me. And I have people who tell me what's going on within GSK you know, what's happening in terms of their thinking at the moment? How's COVID-19 impacting them and their budget decisions, and all these types of things. So before I pitch something, I have a fairly good idea about how it's going to last. And that's one stakeholder group that's within my client. I might also look at across the pharmaceutical industry, who do I have influences intermediaries and sources of information there? And how about our shared industry Robert, you know, do I know other speakers who work with pharmaceutical companies? So I can take that three IP that relationship chart, and I can apply it to the different stakeholder groups. And then what I can say is I can fill in the blank. So here are the people who are influential here are the people who can open doors. Here are the people who have insight. And they'll be a Venn diagram, they'll there'll be overlap. And then I can say, Who do I know, but the relationship isn't strong enough? Who do I know the relationship is strong enough that I'm not asking for the right things? And who don't I know? So that's a very strategic approach to finding out, have you got the right relationships in the right places? So those are the two things from building the newer idea from nurturing, is that it is I call it the seven stages of professional relationship. And basically, people see networks as sort of a finite number, you get the question very often. How many people do you have in your network? You know, and there's been various studies that I talked about in the book on this topic. And there's an assumption that there's a perfect size of network, and that you have X number of people in your network. Networks don't work like that; they're fluid. They grow and they shrink daily. And the seven stages is basically saying that what most people do when they say, I want to build my network, they mean, I want to meet more people. And when you take that approach, what you're doing is you're bringing in people at stages one and two at best. One and two is you recognise each other. And stage two is you know each other. But if you don't build a relationship any deeper, they'll come in, they'll recognise you for a few weeks, you won't see each other again, and then they'll go out again, so in your network temporarily, and then come out again. So instead of focusing on just bringing people in and out, in and out, in and out without ever forging a relationship, focus on the people you already know, and say, Well, if the average depth of relationship is say level two or three, let's see if I can bring it to level five. Because if I have a much deeper network, and just to sort of tell you all the levels, so it's recognised know, like, trust, support, advocate, friend. Now, if you can get people to those levels of trust, support and advocate, then your network is working for you.
Robert Craven 17:08
So this is, I love this, I've always been a fan of a guy called David Meister, David Meister talks about trusted advisor and he says, You can be a supplier, you can be an advisor or support, or you can be the trusted advisor, obviously, the trusted adviser talks way more strategically, you're in the boardroom, as opposed to being a supplier where people are just saying, Can you do this work? So that's, I'm totally with you on that. But my challenge to you is that a lot of the digital agency leaders who are watching and listening. And I've said it before, so I'll say it again, have what I would describe as a pointy head. Okay, so they are, you know, they love nothing more than what they're doing because online, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they can think of nothing better than doing as much as possible, digitally or online, because you can turn the machine off. Quite a few aren't great. At social relationships, they don't have brilliant emotional intelligence. They make up for it being brilliantly technically. So is there almost like connected leadership for introverts? I mean, is there? Is it what happens if it isn't something that you're naturally?
Andy Lopata 18:35
Well, that's, you know, go back to your earlier question, that's why you buy the book. You know, and I hesitate to do that, because I'm not a shameless plug. But that's what the books intended for, you know, a lot of people do this stuff naturally. And a lot of people really struggle with it. But if you struggle with it, you have to understand the mechanics of it better and say, okay, to what degree can I apply this, you know, still, you know, within my comfort zone or just outside rather than feeling tight, it's apparent to me. So, you know, it presents this stuff in baby steps. It's 150 pages is not exactly. Warren Piece, you know, so it's quite simple, practical information. But shameless plug aside. I get asked a lot about networking for introverts. An introvert extrovert is about where you draw your energy from being an introvert unless you're an extreme introvert, doesn't mean you don't have the ability to talk to people. It means you don't want to go and stand in the middle of the room and go, Hey, everybody, look at me. Having said that, there are a number of introverts that we both know who were speakers and will do that. Then they'll go and draw back the energy by being on their own afterwards. So it's about balancing those two sources of energy, but it's also about recognising your strengths. You see people who are more extroverted in nature, we assume they make better networkers. But in fact, that's not necessarily true. Because an extrovert will talk and talk and talk, the biggest skill for anyone in engaging with someone listening. And that's an introvert strength, because you don't put yourself at the centre of the conversation. So that's a strength you can play on. And it's simply a case of breaking it down and saying, How can I make this work for me and still feel comfortable with it? And that's perfectly possible.
Robert Craven 20:36
Where are you on using something like LinkedIn to work your way through the stages?
Andy Lopata 20:51
LinkedIn is a tool. It doesn't replacing people face to face, nor does zoom. You know, which a lot of people have been asking me through the lockdown is not seeing people in person. No, we won't. But we'll feel more comfortable with video conferencing technology on the whole. But LinkedIn is a tool in the process and use sensibly. It is a fantastic way. I think one of the biggest strengths of social media is the ability to stay in sight in mind. And, you know, I'll give you a couple examples. The guy that contacted me to speak at the conference in Timisoara Romania, we met at a conference in Bucharest about three years before that, and connected on LinkedIn. And he had been tracking my updates. Now, I wouldn't have got that opportunity to speak in Timisoara. And there may not be a book on connected leadership, if we hadn't made that connection. He felt he remained connected to me, even though we hadn't been talking to each other for three years. I just had a LinkedIn Exchange today that really brought this home. So, back in 2007. And I can tell you precisely it was October the 20th 2007. It was my birthday, England were in the Rugby World Cup final in Paris. And my friend messaged me before the semi final and said, you know, if we win, we're going. And I said, Well, I guess it's my birthday. I'm gonna have to. So we train plane, an automobile that pretty much across through a trans public transport strike in France and got to Paris, no tickets. And we met up with friends there who had tickets, and they were about six or seven of us. And we went for lunch. And there was a guy in England shirts out on his own. And we got chatting to him which say, Come and join us, you're on your own. And it turned out, he was going to the fine or he was going with a member of his family who hadn't been able to go for some reason. And so he said, Look, guys, I've got a spare ticket, you can have it at face value. Now, I just heard on a podcast this week, someone who paid 1800 pound for a ticket for that match, I pay 250. So I feel I did pretty well, even though England lost. But you know, it was agreed that I would take it because it was my birthday. And I went in and we stayed in touch on social media. And we haven't seen each other since that day. And today, he posted on LinkedIn, a review of the book he posted on amazon.com as well, he lives in the States. And I dropped him a message and I said I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. And he said it was really interesting reading the book, because you talked about staying in sight in mind. We've only ever met that once and yet we're regularly in contact. And 13 years later this is happening. That's an incredible I think testimony to the strength of social media the ability to have a champion for your business, which is effectively what he's done from someone you met once 13 years before.
Robert Craven 23:57
So how do you tickle that along? I mean, we've done building and nurturing and leveraging now how do you? Well, firstly, you can watch the network's grow and I've actually reverse engineers. All my business did about three years ago. Now all roads I mean all roads lead to an our director of consulting Warwick Business School and the two everything, all the different relationships with Google with Barclays with LinkedIn with Facebook, all those relationships come back from I work with them because I work with them. I work with them because I was introduced to them by them, by them, by them, so it's kind of like a org chart upside down if that makes sense. But I'm thinking about myself because I in a way I know you need to be out there and I have a couple of deliberate every day. I will reach out to 15 people on LinkedIn. Every day I will publish on LinkedIn, we will release you know, two blogs, one newsletter, one newsletter, and blah, blah, blah, and all that all the kinds of which is all quite formal and quite mechanistic. But there's two sides isn't there, there's this kind of mechanistic thing, which is like, people just maybe I've got this wrong, I'm not sure people just saying, don't forget, I'm here with what I'm doing right now. And there's also a kind of a synchronicity type thing, which is, if I spend 10 minutes talking to you, it's one of those icebreakers, an icebreaker I sometimes do, which is going to find someone and you got five minutes to figure out how you know each other. And it always ends up with, Oh, my God, my brother in law lives in the same street as you, we went to the same school, we were both at the England football match, people just need to prod around a bit to discover the connections. So it's, I'm just trying to figure out whether is what you're saying, systems and processes? And then also allow the crazy stuff or how are you?
Andy Lopata 26:22
Yeah, and that goes back to what I was saying earlier about the blended mindset, the strategic, but also allow space, plenty of space for being authentic and natural, and letting things just happen. So Nick came into my network, through meeting him in a restaurant before a rugby match. There's nothing strategic about that whatsoever. But equally, I might turn around and say, I need to connect with certain people in a certain place. So how do I do that? Now in terms of how you said, How do I keep that ticking along? And it's the same blend? So there's a certain amount of strategic thought, Who do I need to stay in touch with? Who are my key clients? Who are the key influences that the three eyes, plus your clients and prospects? What do I need to stay to do?
Robert Craven 27:05
So what do you say to them? If that's the thing? It's like, you know, first time it's Wow, six months since we met, and it's a summer, what are you doing for holiday?
Andy Lopata 27:18
You need to be a little bit more natural on that. And I think it's just simple touch base. How are you? There's a brilliant marketing speaker, I'm pretty sure you know him grant leboff. Grant is superb, but this grant will just drop me an email every six months and say hi, and it's a while since we've opened, how are you? That's all you have to do. And think of the difference between that approach. One line. Hi, Andy, it's a while since we spoke, how are you? And the one I see all too often particularly sent to LinkedIn lists, that says, Hi, it might be a while since we spoke. So I thought I'd update you on what I've been up to for the last year. I didn't ask you. Is the difference between it being interested in other people and telling them they should be interested in you 90% of follow up should be about the other person not about you. You need to earn the right to make it about you. So yeah, did I send out copies of my book to my clients and prospects and previous clients? When inspecting the course I did, and that follow up was about me. But that's the first book I bought out since 2011. Okay, I got another one coming out later this year. But that's because my books coming. I like buses, they come twice to a year. But every other reach out has tended to be about them. So what happened at the start of COVID-19? How are you doing? How are you coping? Let me know if I can help no sale, you know, but just I'm here if you need me. A few weeks later, I recorded a panel discussion on working from home fatigue and combating it. And I sent that to a lot of my clients and contacts and said, Look, I've just recorded this. It's there for you if you want it. No charge, please feel free to share this with your team. I just know a lot of people are suffering at the moment. I reached out to a handful of my clients close to the beginning of this of the lockdown. And I said, How are you coping with your teams? Would you like me to come and do a q&a for your teams, on how they manage their professional relationships when they can't see people saying to keep the momentum going. And I was really explicit. Again, I'm not charging you for this. This is a give. So there's a lot of things like that you can do that. One of the simplest techniques is I saw this and I thought of you. So I read the week I read the times every day. I read a couple of football magazines. And if I see articles in those that I think will resonate with people in my network. I saw this and I thought of you so there was one in the week last week on it. To the British Library stock that sound archives, and I've got two friends who work in sound engineering. I saw this and I thought of you, and particularly if it's on their personal interest, rather than professional interest. So the other person I sent that article to someone else, you know, is Alan Stevens, because I just thought, well, this is something Alan, I'd be really interested in, nothing to do with his professional life. But you know, Alan, another speaker, friend of ours, he's really interested in archive footage, and, you know, media history, which is effectively what that is.
Robert Craven 30:37
Because you're making it sound, so I'm just going to push back a bit, you're making it sound this is what one does, when in fact, you've got staff and you've got customers, and you've got a job to do. And you've got financials to look at and KPIs to hit, and, oh, yeah. And then you've got to do a bit of schmoozing somewhere along the way to do get some of the business development going. So most people either squeeze in where and how they can they get invited to something and they make a decision wants to go or not decide on the day. Or alternatively, you have this what almost seems like full time. People out there kind of doing it. I mean, I'm just trying to get a sense of what the reality is, in terms of how this fits into the average agency leader who employs 10 - 20 people. Because on the one, I think what you're saying is, there's a mindset that applies to whoever you're talking to inside or outside your business, in terms of having your head up your antenna up, and helping and connecting people and being helpful and being useful and being available. But I'm also aware that there is a pressure, you know, we need to get three new clients a month an average of 10,000 pounds per month. And therefore we need to, I think what you're saying is, one, it depends or to be more sophisticated, it's blended approach that's required.
Andy Lopata 32:34
Was there's sort of a number of different things. I could say, to answer that question, I think the first thing is to acknowledge the challenge. And you know, time is the biggest challenge facing all of my clients and me, you know, exactly the same thing. And it's very easy to get distracted. And actually, it's easy to get to use this as an excuse, you know, to feel productive without being productive. And you mentioned the balanced approach. At the end, you need to recognise where sometimes you've just got to focus on the transactional work, rather than the relationship build. But having said that time is you can either see time as a cost that you can't afford, or as an investment. Now, if I said to you invest an hour a week in your relationships, and you'll add a zero to your balance sheet at the end of the year. And by the way, I'm not making that claim, every business is different, and it depends what you're doing. But just using that as an example, if I said an hour a week equals zero, and the fact that the balance sheet and the right end of the figure, at the end of the year, you're going to say well, that's a return on my investment, I'll absolutely religiously dedicate an hour a week to this. So in short, if you know what your return on investment is, and it justifies it, then you'll invest the time and you will find a way. So every hour that you invest into your business at the moment, you're doing it because of the output, some of that is a short term output and his deadline driven and in an agency world, that will be very heavy. Because there will be a lot of deadlines that you're focused on. Some of that, if you're leading a business, has to be strategic and medium to long term driven. And I would suggest that professional relationships predominantly sits in the medium to long term with a short term focus when you're leveraging so if you have the relationship and it's deep enough, you know, an hour a week picking up the phone and asking for referrals. So one of the things that I've built into my week now is every day I found three people, three people who may buy from me or may refer me and I don't have you know, if I phone three people, I get three voicemails I've ticked the task off, it's fine. So it's not a question of I have to make three connected calls and have three long conversations. I take those steps yesterday that has led to a really strong referral. So that was worth investing the time this week. And if I get another one like that this week, brilliant.
Robert Craven 35:07
Okay, so I think what most agency leaders do 95% of them as they wait, they stare at the phone and they wait. And occasionally the phone rings or it's still in business, the phone will eventually ring and someone will say, hi, someone told me I should talk to you. And then there's the next level, which I'd call farming, which is where you're schmoozing and taking people out and coffees and lunches and meeting people at networks and connecting, which I think is the territory that you're describing. And then there's another piece, which is what I call hunting, where you say, there are US pharmacists, there are 20 large pharmacy companies in the UK. And I'd like to win one of them as a client. So I'm going to find out the names of five people in each of those. And then I'm going to write a white paper that's relevant. And then part of my communication strategy is we are actively going to pursue them and whether that's given sending them lumpy gifts, or whether that's running a webinar for them, or handwritten letter, or whatever it is. But we're gonna go after five people at 10 businesses, because that's the big prize. And, you know, brackets, you know, Barclays, Google, and so on, and so forth, and probably come around, not necessarily as in such a mercenary manner, but by thinking that's where I want to go. So does that hunting mentality fit into your world? Or is that kind of at the kind of the top end of it?
Andy Lopata 36:53
It's often said that networking is farming, not hunting, but actually, hunting does fit into the world, but you do things in a slightly different way. So for me, I believe, and there are many surveys and stats that bear this out, that if you are introduced to someone through a good quality referral, you're more likely to get a meeting with them, they're more likely to listen to you, they're more likely to buy from you, they're more likely to stay with you. And they're more likely to refer you on. Therefore, I'm willing to invest the time in getting a referral, rather than the quicker potential route of a cold or direct approach. So the typical image of the hunting approach is direct selling. Whereas my version of hunting, if you like, is okay, you can do all the nice fluffy stuff, and you can build the network, but at some point, you have to leverage it. And leveraging it means asking for referrals, asking for advice, asking for support, whatever it might be. Now, in this case, if we take the business development sales angle that's asking for referrals. So what I would do is say I want to get into this organisation, find the five people, and instead of sending them something cold, I would say, right, and I might use LinkedIn to help me with this. Who do I know who knows them? How well do they know them? And how willing would they be to refer me and then my job is to make it as easy as possible for those people to give a really strong solid introduction for me. So that person wants to talk to me. And what I do by achieving that is I turn a sales conversation into a buying conversation, and you get a completely different dynamic.
Robert Craven 38:40
So you've got an intermediary place between hunting and farming, sort of, I'm not sure what it is. but you're, there's a repeat of this target in mind. But rather than going straight in for the kill, which they may well escape, you're actually leveraging.
Andy Lopata 39:01
It is farming, because what you're doing is in the early stages, I'm not a fan of the word but you use the word a couple of times schmoozing. The schmoozing stage is sowing the seeds. The stage we're talking about now is reaping the harvest. And I think a lot of business owners and agency owners fail to do that. They'll go out and sow the seeds, and they'll have their coffees and their lunches and exchange business cards and elevator pitches and so on. But when it comes to asking for the referral, asking for help, they'd rather take the cold direct approach, because they're, you know, they're too scared of a rejection from someone they know.
Robert Craven 39:44
Or not at all. So I'm, personally I'm quite a fan of what I call hardball selling which is, by the way before we get talking too long. This product is 50,000 pounds, at which point in time doesn't go 50,000 pounds, that's ridiculous. And we go well, that's fine news on, although you've just upset someone that's another story, or they go 50,000 pounds, that's what we were thinking of pain. And you know, I've been putting part of my mantra here is we will talk money. I think part of the problem for lots of agency owners is they're frightened of roughly what sort of budget were you thinking of? Or people like yourselves? What are they been spending in order to do that? Or even that conversation, which was kind of goes? Is it worth me jumping into car or jumping on a zoom call as it will be now, so that we can actually talk in a bit more detail about what you're really looking for. And I think part of the farming or the waiting for the phone to ring is it's, it feels almost safer. My thing is, selling is the best thing you can do with your clothes on. Okay, so once I've established that in my mind, you know, it's gonna be exciting, it's gonna be fun. There'll be highs, there's going to be lows. So lots of people hate that.
Andy Lopata 41:10
I agree with all of that. Robert, that's absolutely fine.
Robert Craven 41:14
You're out for the night.
Andy Lopata 41:15
You're selling to people. But the difference you see, I'm not talking about the stage, when you're in a sales conversation. One of the way I draw a difference between myself and a sales trainer is a sales training, we will predominantly focus on how you close a sale, I focus on how you open the door. So it's getting into that conversation. So when you're in that conversation, you can be talking about what's your budget, can you afford this, and all those different techniques. But you've got to get in front of them and not just get in front of them, but get in front of them in a way where they are listening to you. receptive and not defensive. And referrals are what will achieve that.
Robert Craven 41:59
Right. So how are you open the door, because if you can open the door, then you can do the closing. But if you haven't opened the door, then that assumption of motion and poor callus and you're nowhere near it and you're just singing into the wind? Does I mean we're recording this in June 2020? So yeah, the straightforward question, does everything you say become even more important in a COVID-19 world? Or does all the technology and digital stuff become more important?
Andy Lopata 42:36
The technology and digital stuff is a tools in the process. But absolutely, this is more important in a COVID-19 world. I think if you look at the uncertainty that we face going into this lockdown, if you think about the impact on sales, that we had been locked down, you got three approaches to that one is walk away, throw your hands in the air and give up. But the two positive responses are put your head down and try and work through it on your own or put your head down work through it. But ask other people for support. You know, how are you finding things what's happening for you? That market knowledge makes a difference. One of the biggest things for us was knowing where other people in our business were both in terms of how they planned to remodel, but also how that was working. If we take the speaking industry as an example, there was a flurry of enthusiasm about delivering sessions remotely. And we've probably many of us have done that over the period of lockdown. And some of us have done that before anyway. But I felt within a few weeks that okay, I am happy to deliver remotely. But that's not the business model for my business going forward. And I'm going to take a different route. What really helped me was knowing that I wasn't the only person thinking that way. And despite all the public enthusiasm about remote speaking, and some have gone down that route very successfully. Other people were looking at other routes as well. So that market knowledge gives you certainty, which helps you keep focused when things are tough. And then I've got to bring business in. And the first thing I did was pick up the phone to people who I had strong, deep relationships with levels four or five, six or seven on my seven stages of professional relationship and say, Look, my whole business model has been overturned. I've had live engagements cancelled, amounting to substantial sum of money be vulnerable, you know, which is a key message of mine. Are you able to help me? Are you willing to help me and I bought him referrals and business direct from clients by taking that approach. So having strong professional relationships has enabled me to be vulnerable and ask for help, at a time when I most needed it. One couple of the biggest things that I've learned in terms of relationships and the lockdown is, number one, the importance of empathy. I've noticed something happened more times during the last two months than I think, over the course of my career. And that is me upsetting people without, you know, really doing anything, consciously to merit it. And that's not to mean how they felt. But whenever we engage with people, we tend to speak from our own perspective with our own end in mind, if you like, during COVID-19, the people we're talking to may well be worried about their job, their business, their parents, their family, their community, I spoke to a lot of people who just are stressed and under the strain of worrying about everyone. And that feeds a level of anxiety that triggers a response, we wouldn't get normal times. But it illustrates the importance of empathy. You know, when a client doesn't ring, or doesn't return your calls for weeks, it's easy to say, they're not interested, they don't want to talk to me, they're ignoring me, when in fact, they may be under the most intense pressure in their role. But we rarely factor that into the possible reasons why. So it's dial up the empathy. And I think taking that post COVID is important. And the other is the importance of human connection. And just maintaining, I think we're learning to value it more and more, as we miss it. And it will be interesting to see how that impacts us going forward.
Robert Craven 46:54
What is math? What is the way that people would use the book in order to help them to develop a growth business? What are the benefits of the book for agency leaders? Getting out?
Andy Lopata 47:07
Yeah, I think there's a number of things there, we've been talking a lot, particularly over the last few minutes about business development, there is a chapter about leveraging your professional relationships. To be honest, if purely business development is your focus, then my third book recommended is the benefit because that's the whole focus of a much longer book. So it takes you through an entire referral strategy. Whereas connected leadership touches on it, it takes you through the basics of that. But certainly, from a business development point, there's a lot in there that will help. But there's also a lot in terms of accessing support generally, that's going to help you as a leader, be a better leader within your organisation and within your industry. And it's going to help create a more connected business. So we talked about silos earlier. Strong networks, strong relationships aren't just about getting sales. I know that's the easiest thing to focus on. But they are about getting things done more efficiently, more effectively. And in a way that is enjoyable for people to be honest. And the book will help people focus on that. I believe that whatever challenge you face as a leader, so whether it be business development, or dealing with difficult staff, or going through a merger, or a range of different areas of change, having the right relationships in place, make that journey easier. And it's looking at making sure you've got that in place. So one of the mantras that I've come out with through writing the book, and the presentation around it is that you're looking for professional relationships with people who are in a position to help you who want to help you, and who are able to know how to help you. And that's where the book will support you on that journey.
Robert Craven 49:10
That's really good. I really like that idea because we know loads of people who are influential, and we load nodes of influential people who don't know us. And so my mother knows and loves me but she's not influential. And her Google is highly influential, but doesn't really know me. So it's kind of finding and how we piece that together. That's really interesting. So in your map of the world, which is great because most people don't spend all their time thinking about how they engage and how they connect and how they develop. What do you think was set writes out the successful from the unsuccessful in terms of running a business and trying to engage in Connect.
Andy Lopata 50:10
If we look purely from a professional relationships perspective, I think at a senior level, on the whole, it's almost what separates the highly successful from the successful. I think that you get to a leadership position very often. And this isn't everyone, I'm generalising. But you get there, and you've got the basics of building some relationships, naturally, you're going to struggle otherwise. But once you get there, having a more strategic approach to it being more considered in the approach to how you build, nurture, and leverage those relationships, you know, it can be that small difference, that leads to a big jump. So I think, more senior levels, that's key, if you go further down, amongst the agency staff, you may have people who are technically brilliant, but they're not going to be leadership material unless they learn how to connect and engage. So I think it can have a bigger impact as a proportion of someone's success, when you go a little bit further down the scale. But is that considered an approach to make a difference? The other thing, because I'm very aware, if I stress a considered or strategic approach, it can encourage people to be quite mechanical in the way they do it. And it shouldn't be that I mentioned this earlier, that has to be balanced with an authentic way of engaging with people, a natural way of engaging with people. And I think what really makes people stand out is they know what they're doing. They know why they're doing it. But if you're on the receiving end, you don't feel that.
Robert Craven 51:56
And that I guess, in a nutshell, is what the book does for you.
Andy Lopata 51:58
I would hope so.
Robert Craven 52:02
Absolutely brilliant. So, two more questions. Top Tips, what would your top tips, your little golden nuggets, little one liners, you'd like to share the first question?
Andy Lopata 52:15
Well, if you want something easy to do, just pick up your phone and scroll through the address book or go through your LinkedIn contacts. And pick a couple of people a day, you haven't spoken to for too long. And just drop them a note and make it about them. And the best time to reach out to people is when you don't need something, Carol stone who produced any questions and women's hour for radio said make friends when you can not when you need them. So pick a couple of people a day you haven't spoken to for a while, invest in a good CRM that will do this for you in a more organised way. And just reach out and say we haven't spoken for a while I was thinking about you. How are you? That would I think if you want one thing that you can go away, and just apply it would be that. And then I'd repeat something I said earlier, and that is make 90% of your follow up about the other person, not about you take yourself out of the equation. You're building a network of people who be there when you need them. You know, to repeat that, quote, make friends when you can not when you need them.
Robert Craven 53:23
I love that. I've written that. Final question. You've kind of hinted at it. But what next for Andy Lopata?
Andy Lopata 53:32
Well, I do have another book coming out hopefully in November.
Robert Craven 53:39
What's that about?
Andy Lopata 53:40
That's all about vulnerability and asking for help. So, Capstone. That's a much longer term project. I've been working on that, as you know, for about four years now. And that should be coming out hopefully in November. And within that is the nightmare of the journey that we've been on. So that's coming out. I'm working at the moment on the connected leadership podcast series. So obviously, you got podcast listeners here, hope to launch that haven't set a launch date yet, but between July and September, I've already conducted a few interviews. And there's some cracking content. I'm really, really happy what we're doing so far. But I'm just being very strategic about the way I do it. I'm planning that forward. Before we launch. And I've been, as I hinted at as well. With the death of events, the temporary hopefully definitely events, live events. I've been focusing very much on developing my mentoring offering so I've got new mentees coming on board and we're focusing on working with a lot more people one to one, which I haven't really done as much as before dribs and drabs. So that's quite exciting as well.
Robert Craven 54:50
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And is URL and contact details are all going to be down underneath afterwards. Andy, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for sharing the book. I'm sure people are going to reach out and get the book. Is it both PDF and unreal or just PDF once.
Andy Lopata 55:11
They signed the contract yesterday for the physical and the audible versions. It was originally only intended as an ebook. But the response has been such that we've decided to go with the full suite of products.
Robert Craven 55:29
Fantastic, brilliant, Andy Lopata, thank you so very much indeed for your time. Thank you.
Andy Lopata 55:34
My pleasure. Thanks for having me on Robert.