Money Matters Episode 300- Crafting Connections: Beyond Small Talk with Josh Thomas

Josh Thomas: Money Matters Podcast Interview

November 15, 2023 . 9:57 AM . ID: 775376845

Transcript

00:01 - 00:03
[speaker unknown]
This conference will now be recorded.

00:05 - 00:11
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Good, morning, you're listening to Money Matters, I'm Chris Hensley, we have a great show lined up for you today.

00:11 - 00:18
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
We have Josh Thomas, who is an accomplished business consultant coach and founder of Factor one.

00:19 - 00:23
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
First of all, Josh, thank you so much for being on the show today.

00:23 - 00:25
Josh Thomas
Yeah, I'm excited to be here, mand money does matter.

00:27 - 00:28
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
It's certainly done.

00:29 - 00:40
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Now, and I can uniquely say that you're actually here in Texas, because we've been interviewing, I've interviewed somebody Canada yesterday, we've been kind of getting people from all over the place recently, but you're here, and you're up in Austin, right?

00:42 - 00:43
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Nice, nice.

00:43 - 00:50
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, so a neighbor here, so we'll get some, some local listeners, but we also have international listeners as well.

00:50 - 00:59
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
But, we'll, well great, well, I'm glad to have you on the show today, and I'm going to share a little bit more on your bio for listeners to get to know you a little bit better.

01:00 - 01:13
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
You are, the, as I mentioned, the Founder of Vector one, and that's a unique advisory for service based entrepreneurs, with over 15 years of experience and a track record of helping clients double their business growth in 90 days.

01:13 - 01:18
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Josh is known for his fancy pants approach to business consulting, will learn about that here in a moment.

01:19 - 01:27
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
He's also the host of the do zone podcasts and runs, BYOB Lunch club, a weekly discussion panel for entrepreneurs, Whew!

01:27 - 01:28
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
That's a lot, Josh.

01:29 - 01:30
Josh Thomas
I got a lot going on it.

01:31 - 01:32
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
That is a lot.

01:32 - 01:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So we and before we started recording, we were talking about the Bill BYOB lunch club, And then you also have the ...

01:38 - 01:39
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Zone podcast.

01:39 - 01:42
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, we'll kind of get into that and kind of see what the differences there.

01:42 - 01:44
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I know we have a lot of people who are business owners.

01:44 - 01:50
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And entrepreneurs, who listen to the show as, well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

01:50 - 01:55
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Maybe something outside of the bio, so listeners can get to know you a little bit better.

01:57 - 01:57
Josh Thomas
Yeah.

01:57 - 02:00
Josh Thomas
So, I actually have a degree in music.

02:01 - 02:01
Josh Thomas
And.

02:01 - 02:02
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I used.

02:02 - 02:07
Josh Thomas
To be a high school teacher a long time ago, like 100 years ago, and it was great.

02:07 - 02:12
Josh Thomas
It does get burned out real fast and sighted I needed to do something else.

02:12 - 02:24
Josh Thomas
And then, you know, like Moses, I wandered around in the desert for 40 years and, and eventually kind of like, found the, you know, found the mother land of milk and honey or whatever it was.

02:25 - 02:28
Josh Thomas
And entrepreneurship, but gosh, it was a long road.

02:30 - 02:30
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love it.

02:30 - 02:35
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Yeah, I noticed the symbol in the background, My brother-in-law's a drummer so I can I can.

02:35 - 02:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I don't know if your neighbors will appreciate it but I can appreciate.

02:40 - 02:41
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Drumming is loud.

02:41 - 02:44
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Right, Well, good, good, good.

02:44 - 02:45
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So that's, that's a great place to start.

02:45 - 02:47
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Let's just dive right into it.

02:47 - 02:50
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
What inspired you to become a business consultant?

02:50 - 02:54
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And how did you develop your unique what we call fancy pants approach?

02:55 - 03:01
Josh Thomas
The wording on that was interesting, I think somebody, I think somebody like mixed up the words on that.

03:01 - 03:11
Josh Thomas
I, I would just say, I'm a fancy pants consultant because, here's the thing, when you're at a networking meeting, and you're going around and people are as, oh, hey, what do you do?

03:11 - 03:12
Josh Thomas
What do you do?

03:12 - 03:17
Josh Thomas
If you really want to end the conversation, just tell him you're a consultant.

03:18 - 03:22
Josh Thomas
And they're like, oh, well, you know, and they're, they're out.

03:23 - 03:27
Josh Thomas
And so it's just kinda one of those gooey terms that like what does that even mean?

03:27 - 03:32
Josh Thomas
So, I just say, like, I'm going to do a little bit of self deprecation.

03:32 - 03:33
Josh Thomas
Hey, I'm a fancy pants, can sell that.

03:33 - 03:42
Josh Thomas
You know, ironically, I own zero, fancy pants, I should actually start buying so that I can fit it.

03:42 - 03:50
Josh Thomas
But the idea is this, I worked with giant consulting firms for a long time, and I've also worked independently.

03:50 - 03:53
Josh Thomas
And I've actually worked with more than 5000 clients.

03:53 - 04:00
Josh Thomas
And so, the reason I say fancy pants is to take the pressure off and they'd say something a little more interesting than me.

04:00 - 04:21
Josh Thomas
I'm a business consultant because nobody really cares about business consultants, right, and so as far as what works, I think, I think this ties in very, very specifically to your podcast because the number one problem that every entrepreneur I've ever met is facing, is.

04:22 - 04:23
Josh Thomas
They don't have enough cash.

04:24 - 04:28
Josh Thomas
And if you don't have enough cash, it creates all kinds of other problems.

04:29 - 04:35
Josh Thomas
And so we think that we have a positioning problem.

04:35 - 04:44
Josh Thomas
We think that we have, you know, a marketing problem, or we think that maybe there's too much competition, or all the economy, We think all of these things.

04:45 - 04:51
Josh Thomas
But they're just symptoms of a deeper problem, And that deeper problem is, you don't have enough cash flow in your business.

04:52 - 05:02
Josh Thomas
Because if you have enough cash flow and sales in your business, if you have healthy sales and cash flow, you don't actually have a problem.

05:02 - 05:05
Josh Thomas
You have misallocation of resources.

05:06 - 05:15
Josh Thomas
Because if you have cash, you can point some of that cash at the problem at the perceived problem, and like, feel like annihilated, right?

05:15 - 05:16
Josh Thomas
Because the cache will solve the problem.

05:17 - 05:24
Josh Thomas
And so the number one thing that I focus on all the time with any client is to solve the cache problem first.

05:24 - 05:28
Josh Thomas
And once we solve the cash problem, everything else gets easier.

05:28 - 05:33
Josh Thomas
Then we can go into the mindset things then we can go and set some clear goals.

05:33 - 05:39
Josh Thomas
Then we can build some SLPs and systems in and hire a CFO.

05:39 - 05:47
Josh Thomas
And all these other things that are really cool, that we love talking about, shiny objects, AI, chatbots that'll sell for you, and like, squeeze your orange juice.

05:47 - 05:49
Josh Thomas
We can do all that cool stuff.

05:49 - 05:51
Josh Thomas
Let's get you some cash first.

05:53 - 05:54
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Wow, that's a lot.

05:54 - 05:58
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, you just said a lot of really good information in a little bit of time.

05:58 - 06:03
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, let me, let me kind of, You know, extrapolate a little bit on that.

06:03 - 06:12
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, one of the things you mentioned right away was the first thing is not enough cash for business owners And really focusing on solving that problem first.

06:12 - 06:21
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
You talked about all the other things we'll probably get into those systems and things that we can do to, to, to improve and in, you know, work up the chain, right?

06:21 - 06:24
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
But, if you don't have enough cash, this is, this is where you start.

06:24 - 06:26
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, I love that that's really good.

06:26 - 06:29
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
We talked about fancy pants, you know.

06:29 - 06:33
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Approach here talked about the 5000 clients that you work with in the past.

06:33 - 06:44
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And, really, the idea of just giving a general terms, I'm thinking about when, you know, before the pandemic when I was an avid networker, and we're going out exchanging business cards, and you have your elevator speech and you introduce yourself.

06:44 - 06:50
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
If you use a general term like consultant, it's really hard for people to know what you're talking about.

06:50 - 06:58
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, the fancy pants, that unique approach, that setting yourself apart, that is just a great actionable ideal for listeners there.

06:59 - 07:05
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Let's, let's keep moving here, Can you go ahead, it looks like you got, I'll give.

07:05 - 07:08
Josh Thomas
You one, Since you mentioned that, like the networking meetings.

07:09 - 07:17
Josh Thomas
Yes, here's, here's one thing that, like, if, if you can, if you can follow my instructions on this, it will change things for you immediately, OK?

07:18 - 07:26
Josh Thomas
Next time you go to a networking meeting, I want you to eliminate this question from your vocabulary.

07:27 - 07:28
Josh Thomas
What do you do?

07:29 - 07:31
Josh Thomas
Stop asking people what they do.

07:33 - 07:39
Josh Thomas
Here's why, Ah, I personally do not define myself by what I do.

07:40 - 07:41
Josh Thomas
I am me.

07:41 - 07:51
Josh Thomas
I'm a person, I have things that I can talk about, I've traveled, I've experienced things, speak a couple of languages, like I feel like I'm a pretty interesting, dude.

07:52 - 08:03
Josh Thomas
If you're going to define me by, I'm a consultant, then you're really not seeing more than half a percent of, and so stop asking people what they do because people are not defined by what they do.

08:04 - 08:06
Josh Thomas
They're defined by what they care about.

08:07 - 08:13
Josh Thomas
So here's a better question, next time you're at a networking meeting, avoid the urge to say, Oh, what do you do?

08:14 - 08:18
Josh Thomas
And instead, ask them 1 or two questions.

08:19 - 08:25
Josh Thomas
First, the first one, I love, tell me something, that's getting you excited right now.

08:25 - 08:30
Josh Thomas
Tell me something you're excited about right now, OK, what is something you're really excited about right now?

08:31 - 08:33
Josh Thomas
And they're not going to be ready for that.

08:34 - 08:36
Josh Thomas
They're gonna be like, Well, you mean, like, about my job?

08:37 - 08:38
Josh Thomas
All right, that's going to be the natural reaction.

08:38 - 08:40
Josh Thomas
Like, well, you mean, like, about what I do?

08:40 - 08:42
Josh Thomas
Like, Hey, it's an open-ended question.

08:43 - 08:48
Josh Thomas
If that's what you want to talk about, cool, talk about it, but, I just want to know what is exciting to you.

08:48 - 08:51
Josh Thomas
The other very variation of that is, Tell me something good.

08:52 - 08:53
Josh Thomas
Hey, man, nice to meet.

08:53 - 08:53
Josh Thomas
You.

08:53 - 08:54
Josh Thomas
Tell me something good.

08:54 - 08:55
Josh Thomas
People aren't used to that.

08:57 - 09:00
Josh Thomas
And so you walk up to them, and you say, Hey, what's something you're excited about right now?

09:01 - 09:04
Josh Thomas
And then they're like, what you mean like, about my job or career or what?

09:04 - 09:06
Josh Thomas
Like, not do it, it's an open-ended question.

09:06 - 09:08
Josh Thomas
Oh, well, you know, I'll tell you.

09:08 - 09:13
Josh Thomas
What I'm excited about right now is, you know, my daughter is about to graduate high school.

09:14 - 09:20
Josh Thomas
And we just got her into this college and she's going to study biochemistry and man, that's just so exciting to me.

09:21 - 09:22
Josh Thomas
Wow, that's awesome.

09:22 - 09:28
Josh Thomas
I got a daughter to, she's 16 years old and now we're talking about stuff that matters immediately.

09:28 - 09:29
Josh Thomas
Immediately.

09:29 - 09:30
Josh Thomas
We're talking about stuff that matters.

09:30 - 09:30
Josh Thomas
You're fine.

09:30 - 09:33
Josh Thomas
You're gonna find a way to relate to whatever it is that they said.

09:34 - 09:35
Josh Thomas
And just be a human being.

09:37 - 09:46
Josh Thomas
Now, all of a sudden, you have separated yourself from everybody else, who's standing there, like holding the holding the drink in the stale cookie, and being like, hey, so what do you do?

09:46 - 09:48
Josh Thomas
Because nobody cares what you do.

09:48 - 09:49
Josh Thomas
They care what you care about.

09:50 - 09:55
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love it now, you're exactly right, anytime somebody asked me, you know, what do you do?

09:55 - 09:57
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I feel kinda pigeonhole because I'm more than my job.

09:58 - 10:01
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, so, that's that's that's fantastic.

10:01 - 10:03
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
You gave us two really good questions to.

10:03 - 10:04
Josh Thomas
Ask You.

10:04 - 10:10
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Know, what something that gets you excited that's getting you excited and then tell me something good.

10:10 - 10:13
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Who, who wouldn't want to hear something good, right?

10:13 - 10:16
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Get news every day as war in the Middle East all that stuff.

10:16 - 10:17
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Tell me something good.

10:17 - 10:19
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I want to know something good.

10:19 - 10:19
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So.

10:19 - 10:19
Josh Thomas
Let me say.

10:19 - 10:22
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
What a great, what a great question to ask there.

10:23 - 10:30
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So let's talk about, can you share a success story, where your advice has led to a client's rapid business growth?

10:32 - 10:36
Josh Thomas
Yeah, I got a bunch of those, but I'll give you, I'll give you one of my favorites.

10:37 - 10:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Ok, OK.

10:39 - 10:49
Josh Thomas
My very first client I am terrified because here's a guy that I'm just like shaken on the phone.

10:49 - 10:51
Josh Thomas
And I think it's this many dollars.

10:51 - 10:53
Josh Thomas
You know, I'm like, and he said yes.

10:54 - 10:55
Josh Thomas
And I'm like, oh, ****.

10:59 - 11:10
Josh Thomas
And so, I was really worried that I was going to let him down, and that I was not going to, you know, get them results in that he was going to like, Sue me, or something.

11:11 - 11:14
Josh Thomas
And so, I had to ask myself a question, like, What?

11:15 - 11:21
Josh Thomas
What can I do to make sure that this guy is really happy no matter what happens?

11:23 - 11:36
Josh Thomas
And the way, the way that I could answer that question is, a quick win, an immediate roi, something that moves the needle, and here's business, all right, cool.

11:36 - 11:43
Josh Thomas
It had to be really easy, and it had to be really obvious that I contributed to that.

11:45 - 11:53
Josh Thomas
And so, I got in there, and I started kinda poking around and asking some questions, and, and I realized, I found my answer.

11:55 - 11:59
Josh Thomas
And it was, it was way easier than I thought it was going to be.

12:00 - 12:09
Josh Thomas
And a lot of times, as entrepreneurs, we overcomplicate stuff tremendously and sometimes, we just, it's not that we aren't smart.

12:10 - 12:23
Josh Thomas
We just need that new perspective from somebody else coming in and saying, Hey, I don't know if you know this, but, that wall that you're holding up, it's, you can just walk around it, you don't have to keep holding it up.

12:23 - 12:31
Josh Thomas
Like, like, sometimes, we just need somebody with a better vantage point to say, why don't you just, like, go this way instead, right?

12:31 - 12:39
Josh Thomas
And so, what I realized, was, this guy had a, this guy had a call center, and he had 12 sales reps.

12:39 - 12:54
Josh Thomas
All women, by the way, he had centers and closers, and, and he was selling a high-end tours to Europe and, and they were not using a sales script at all.

12:55 - 13:03
Josh Thomas
And, but we did have recordings, and so I listened to some of the recordings and I realized you guys are just winging it every time.

13:03 - 13:07
Josh Thomas
And then we get to the end of the call and it's like, yeah, you know, let me know when you're ready.

13:08 - 13:08
Josh Thomas
We'll be happy to send.

13:08 - 13:10
Josh Thomas
We'll send you some e-mails, some information, or whatever.

13:10 - 13:12
Josh Thomas
Like, oh, OK.

13:12 - 13:15
Josh Thomas
So here's what's going to happen.

13:16 - 13:21
Josh Thomas
I'm going to write you a sales script, and then we're going to use the sales script.

13:21 - 13:23
Josh Thomas
And that's what's going to move the needle.

13:23 - 13:23
Josh Thomas
All right.

13:23 - 13:24
Josh Thomas
All right.

13:24 - 13:24
Josh Thomas
Cool.

13:24 - 13:25
Josh Thomas
He's into it.

13:25 - 13:30
Josh Thomas
Right, and so I right sales script, and I'm way better at writing sales scripts now than I was at that time.

13:31 - 13:40
Josh Thomas
But it's not that hard, you know, like, there's, there's some steps that you can take, like I can literally scratch out on a napkin, your sales script, anybody that reaches out to me.

13:40 - 13:43
Josh Thomas
I'll give you sales script for free, no problem.

13:43 - 13:46
Josh Thomas
You know, just tell me what you sell and I'll show you exactly how to sell it.

13:47 - 13:56
Josh Thomas
But, so, I write the sales script and then I go in and it's like, I'm a dude, and it's 12 women, and they don't know me.

13:57 - 14:00
Josh Thomas
I'm an outsider and it was just like immediate backlash.

14:00 - 14:04
Josh Thomas
Like sales scripts that stupid, I'm not salesy, you know.

14:05 - 14:07
Josh Thomas
It was like a ton of resistance time.

14:09 - 14:19
Josh Thomas
But I'm like, hey look, I wasn't ready for it and I traveled for this, like I flew to another state, you know, I'm sitting there in this room, like, oh, ****, what did I get myself into.

14:20 - 14:23
Josh Thomas
And there was a ton of resistance, and they were fighting me on at the hallway.

14:24 - 14:33
Josh Thomas
And I'm like, All right, cool, Listen, I went and I went and pulled $100 out of the ATM, and if this story is getting too long, I'm yeah.

14:33 - 14:36
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
No, no, this is I'm fascinated kiko.

14:37 - 14:46
Josh Thomas
So so I won't pull $100 out of the ATM, 100 crisp, $100 bill and I walked in after lunch, because this was all this.

14:46 - 14:47
Josh Thomas
All this happened before lunch.

14:48 - 14:51
Josh Thomas
And I walked in after lunch and I said, OK.

14:51 - 14:52
Josh Thomas
Look.

14:53 - 15:04
Josh Thomas
The first person to use my script and get a deposit today gets this $100 bill, they're like Yeah.

15:06 - 15:16
Josh Thomas
And then and then like the the smallest, me kissed mousey as girl in the corner name I.

15:16 - 15:16
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Love it.

15:19 - 15:20
Josh Thomas
Sweet, sweet, Barbara.

15:21 - 15:24
Josh Thomas
She's like, I'll do it.

15:25 - 15:28
Josh Thomas
And she goes, and you're like, all right, get on the phone, so let's go.

15:28 - 15:35
Josh Thomas
So we go, when we get on the phones, Barbara starts reading my script, word for word?

15:36 - 15:40
Josh Thomas
She's going, and she's going, and she's going, Barbara is gonna get a deposit?

15:41 - 15:41
Josh Thomas
No.

15:41 - 15:49
Josh Thomas
And she's just following the process that she just did, what I told her to do, And then at the end, she said, well, OK, so we're gonna put this plan together for you.

15:49 - 15:59
Josh Thomas
All we ask is $100 deposit, it's fully refundable, so that we can go and work on this and then we're gonna set up a follow up call to go over the plan with you in a couple of days, We have everything together.

15:59 - 16:00
Josh Thomas
Is that OK?

16:01 - 16:04
Josh Thomas
And then they said, Yeah, sure, let's do it.

16:05 - 16:06
Josh Thomas
She gets the credit card number.

16:06 - 16:08
Josh Thomas
She hangs up the phone.

16:08 - 16:09
Josh Thomas
And it's like, Hi, five?

16:12 - 16:13
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Hundred.

16:13 - 16:14
Josh Thomas
Dollars, no.

16:14 - 16:18
Josh Thomas
And then everybody else was, like, Huh.

16:20 - 16:21
Josh Thomas
It works.

16:21 - 16:22
Josh Thomas
I don't like that guy.

16:23 - 16:25
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
But they.

16:25 - 16:27
Josh Thomas
Followed the sales script.

16:28 - 16:31
Josh Thomas
In that month, doubled their sales.

16:32 - 16:36
Josh Thomas
They make twice as much money that month than they did the month before.

16:36 - 16:42
Josh Thomas
And then we kept working on it, and eventually, they became an eight figure company.

16:42 - 16:44
Josh Thomas
They crossed $12 million this year.

16:45 - 16:46
Josh Thomas
Wow.

16:46 - 16:49
Josh Thomas
And I think they were like at 3 or 4, or something, when we started?

16:49 - 16:51
Josh Thomas
And so they crossed $12 million.

16:53 - 16:56
Josh Thomas
Why making one tiny change?

16:56 - 16:57
Josh Thomas
That was simple?

16:58 - 17:01
Josh Thomas
It wasn't like some weird back alley.

17:01 - 17:02
Josh Thomas
No consulting voodoo.

17:03 - 17:07
Josh Thomas
It was just somebody who had the perspective to be able to say, Well, hey.

17:07 - 17:12
Josh Thomas
Well, why don't you guys just say the words that are gonna get people to pay you money.

17:13 - 17:21
Josh Thomas
It's not that you don't know those words, it's just that maybe you're not following a process that that consistently executes.

17:21 - 17:33
Josh Thomas
And that was the one thing they needed to do in order to blast ahead and be an eight figure company and now they're crushing it, and also one last thing.

17:34 - 17:44
Josh Thomas
In addition to selling way more tours, they're now charging almost three times as much as they did at that point.

17:45 - 17:49
Josh Thomas
Because of the confidence they've gained by just following the process.

17:49 - 17:51
Josh Thomas
Look, you either use this or you don't.

17:52 - 17:54
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love them and I love that and that.

17:55 - 17:58
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
It's a, it's a self fulfilling prophecy when you see that it works.

17:58 - 18:02
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
That gives you the confidence to get some momentum going in to keep it going.

18:03 - 18:05
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And I love how you mentioned that.

18:05 - 18:06
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
You started with winging it, right?

18:06 - 18:09
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Winging it usually is a bad idea, right?

18:09 - 18:15
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Coming from the music background, we think of improv improvisation, improvisational, jazz, something like that, right?

18:15 - 18:18
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
But, those guys had the fundamentals that.

18:18 - 18:23
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
By the time you're ready to do the improvisation, you've already done the scripts you've done.

18:23 - 18:26
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
The the habits that you need to do.

18:26 - 18:28
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So this is, that's a fantastic story to share.

18:28 - 18:34
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
We saw the growth, the, you, know, monumental growth with this company from just doing some of these things.

18:34 - 18:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Here we are, we know we're getting towards the end of the half-hour.

18:38 - 18:39
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Got about eight minutes left.

18:39 - 18:42
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So let me, I've gotta kinda pick and choose what I want to ask here.

18:45 - 18:46
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Here's one.

18:46 - 18:51
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
How do you incorporate human psychology and behavior into your business strategies?

18:54 - 19:03
Josh Thomas
As human beings, we all operate on four primary hormones and chemical responses.

19:04 - 19:10
Josh Thomas
Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, and they all do different things.

19:11 - 19:20
Josh Thomas
And so, a, the, the ones that we use the most though in a business setting are dopamine and serotonin.

19:21 - 19:25
Josh Thomas
So just a quick rundown, I won't get to science on this.

19:25 - 19:27
Josh Thomas
Dopamine is the reward chemical, OK.

19:27 - 19:32
Josh Thomas
When, when somebody, when somebody thumbs up our post on Facebook, we get a rush of dopamine.

19:32 - 19:34
Josh Thomas
Yay, I win, OK.

19:35 - 19:38
Josh Thomas
Serotonin is the community chemical.

19:38 - 19:52
Josh Thomas
It is something that happens when, when we, we are part of a group, when we go and we see our family, when we join a mastermind, that feeling that we get, that serotonin.

19:53 - 19:59
Josh Thomas
Oxytocin is about intimacy in relationships, kind of like like with your husband or wife or something like that.

19:59 - 20:12
Josh Thomas
And then endorphins are basically just kind of like a painkiller that that that kind of distract you from, you know, if like your leg gets cut off or something, then you get a rush of endorphins so that you're not thinking about like getting cut off and how much it hurts.

20:14 - 20:21
Josh Thomas
And so, kind of in that order, right, and the reason that those chemicals exist is because they're essential to our survival.

20:23 - 20:31
Josh Thomas
Dopamine comes out and rewards us when we exercise, when we do behaviors that are, that are helping us survive, like we get a rush of dopamine.

20:31 - 20:37
Josh Thomas
When we eat high carb, high fat foods, because back in the day, we're running around on the prairie.

20:37 - 20:58
Josh Thomas
We never knew, when we were going to eat again and so our brain had to reward us, whenever we were eating stuff that like pack the fat on just in case of famine, OK serotonin, Out in the prairie, they're saber toothed tigers everywhere you're much safer in packs than out there by yourself and so you get a rush of serotonin when you go and you get around other people.

20:59 - 21:02
Josh Thomas
And we could, I mean, gosh, I could talk about that for hours.

21:02 - 21:04
Josh Thomas
But the point of it is.

21:05 - 21:05
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Yeah, what.

21:05 - 21:06
Josh Thomas
Do you understand?

21:06 - 21:08
Josh Thomas
That's how you're wired as a human being.

21:09 - 21:27
Josh Thomas
Now you can start paying attention to the decisions that you're making and realizing that, are most of the decisions you're making, are, in order to, get that next hit of dopamine, or get that next day to serotonin, and if you have relationship, stuff going on, you're looking for that next hit oxytocin.

21:28 - 21:28
Josh Thomas
Alright.

21:28 - 21:46
Josh Thomas
And we could go deeper into that but I want to maximize the opportunities to create dopamine and serotonin in somebody else's life, because that's going to make them gravitate towards me and my solutions.

21:47 - 21:47
Josh Thomas
All right.

21:47 - 21:48
Josh Thomas
I'm not manipulating anybody.

21:48 - 21:51
Josh Thomas
I'm just giving you what you want, my friend, Joshua Lee.

21:53 - 21:54
Josh Thomas
He, he calls him.

21:54 - 21:57
Josh Thomas
He calls himself the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn.

21:58 - 21:59
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And nice.

22:00 - 22:03
Josh Thomas
Directly what he does, he's just wants to make people feel good.

22:04 - 22:05
Josh Thomas
And that's how it grows his business.

22:05 - 22:07
Josh Thomas
Right, and so you can incorporate that.

22:08 - 22:20
Josh Thomas
And whatever it is that you do or sell, by understanding what is the chemical response that what you say provides to somebody else and then I'll, I know we're short on time.

22:20 - 22:23
Josh Thomas
I want you to understand the flip side of that is cortisol.

22:24 - 22:32
Josh Thomas
Cortisol, is the stress hormone, cortisol, fruit's into your body, and makes you like one track mind.

22:32 - 22:40
Josh Thomas
Whenever you're standing somewhere and you turn around and there's a bear, your body is full of adrenaline and cortisol.

22:40 - 22:43
Josh Thomas
What it's doing is, it's blocking out everything else.

22:43 - 22:45
Josh Thomas
So that all you're thinking about is survival.

22:46 - 22:47
Josh Thomas
Because you're not going to you.

22:47 - 22:50
Josh Thomas
If you see a bear, you're not worried about what you're eating tonight.

22:51 - 23:03
Josh Thomas
You're not worried about who's, who's gossiping about you, or if somebody's going to like your presentation tomorrow, you're only worried about getting away from the bear because cortisol bloch's every other thought out, understand that as well.

23:03 - 23:12
Josh Thomas
Because when you trigger cortisol and your prospect's mind, they are no longer thinking about the logic or emotional rewards they get from buying your product.

23:12 - 23:14
Josh Thomas
They're just thinking about getting away from you.

23:15 - 23:15
Josh Thomas
Right?

23:16 - 23:16
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So.

23:16 - 23:19
Josh Thomas
We have to understand, that's how human beings are.

23:19 - 23:20
Josh Thomas
You're not going to change that.

23:21 - 23:30
Josh Thomas
Embrace it and make sure that you're fitting into that and you're maximizing reward and you're minimizing those cortisol response.

23:31 - 23:32
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love it.

23:32 - 23:32
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love it.

23:32 - 23:33
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So embrace that.

23:34 - 23:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Know that we are a chemical run machine.

23:38 - 23:40
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And we've got those four chemicals.

23:40 - 23:42
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And then we've even got the cortisol one that works.

23:42 - 23:43
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
That's the , right?

23:43 - 23:47
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
That gives us stress and feeds into all that, that anxiety.

23:48 - 23:48
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Fantastic.

23:48 - 23:50
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
We arrived here towards the end of the show.

23:50 - 23:51
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I've got one more question for you.

23:52 - 23:54
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
What are your future plans?

23:54 - 23:58
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
With the do zone podcasts You are here in Texas.

23:58 - 23:59
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I know we're gonna get some of the same listeners.

24:00 - 24:03
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And how do you see the dusan podcast evolving?

24:04 - 24:06
Josh Thomas
You know, it already has kind of evolved.

24:06 - 24:07
Josh Thomas
I, I created this a couple of years ago.

24:07 - 24:11
Josh Thomas
I'm almost at 200 episodes now and the ...

24:11 - 24:23
Josh Thomas
Zone was an idea about keeping entrepreneurs in this kind of zone of maximum productivity and that that evolved into multiple things.

24:23 - 24:30
Josh Thomas
One of them was my company factor one, which is very much focused on you are a factor one for your own success.

24:31 - 24:34
Josh Thomas
And you have to do the things, you have to do the work.

24:34 - 24:39
Josh Thomas
You have to do productive work, that's going to actually get the results and you can't just keep spinning your wheels.

24:40 - 24:46
Josh Thomas
The other thing it evolved into is, I put together a personality profile test called The Flow State DNA.

24:48 - 25:03
Josh Thomas
And that is designed for entrepreneurs to help help you understand your kind of entrepreneurial hard wiring, or how you operate against time against your environment, other people, and your execution style.

25:04 - 25:17
Josh Thomas
And so that you can get that information in front of you, and say, oh, OK, now that I know how I operate, I can make little tweaks and changes in my environment so that I can maximize my productivity and hit that flow state, and really get more done.

25:18 - 25:23
Josh Thomas
And so I just read, just recently finished that, and launched that, But that's where the ...

25:23 - 25:26
Josh Thomas
Zone kinda started as this thing, and it's turned into this.

25:26 - 25:27
Josh Thomas
This whole other giant.

25:28 - 25:28
Josh Thomas
But yeah, that flows.

25:29 - 25:29
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
In a, you.

25:29 - 25:31
Josh Thomas
Can, you can go to flow state DNA dot com.

25:31 - 25:34
Josh Thomas
It's a free test, takes two minutes, you can get your results real quick.

25:35 - 25:35
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Perfect.

25:35 - 25:37
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I love it, flow state.

25:37 - 25:39
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
We've had Steven Kotler on the show before.

25:39 - 25:45
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
And so when I think flow state, I think of the rise of the Superman, it sounds like it's in the same vein there.

25:45 - 25:51
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So I will point listeners to that you gave us that the website address we're bumping right here towards the end of the show.

25:51 - 25:55
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Is there anything that I forgot to ask that you'd like to share with listeners today?

25:57 - 26:03
Josh Thomas
You gotta go out there and be intentional about what it, whatever it is that you're doing?

26:03 - 26:07
Josh Thomas
If you're an entrepreneur, and you're struggling right now, keep this in mind.

26:08 - 26:11
Josh Thomas
If, if you feel like, gosh, I wish I could go and do this.

26:11 - 26:13
Josh Thomas
I wish I could do that, but I'm just so busy.

26:13 - 26:16
Josh Thomas
I'm just so slammed right now, I just don't have time to go and focus on this.

26:17 - 26:24
Josh Thomas
Understand, if you are not where you want to be right now and you're feeling busy, you're doing the wrong things, stop doing those things.

26:25 - 26:27
Josh Thomas
Start doing the things that are going to get you the results that you want.

26:29 - 26:31
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
What a good message to leave with today?

26:31 - 26:35
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
I know everybody feels like the crushing weight of their schedules.

26:35 - 26:38
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
So, that is such a good, positive thing to leave with today.

26:39 - 26:44
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Josh, for listeners who want to find out more, where can they go to find you?

26:46 - 26:58
Josh Thomas
Yep, you got it, on social media, at J T literally, and if you are an entrepreneur and something that I said resonated with you and you're like, hey, man, I need some help with this.

26:58 - 27:00
Josh Thomas
I'd love to talk to you.

27:00 - 27:06
Josh Thomas
Go watch a six minute video on a website called I am factor one dot com.

27:06 - 27:09
Josh Thomas
That's I am factor one dot com, There's six minute video.

27:10 - 27:15
Josh Thomas
If that video resonates with you, let's have a conversation and we'll see if there's something that we can do together.

27:15 - 27:16
Josh Thomas
I'm pretty straight up.

27:17 - 27:18
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Fantastic!

27:18 - 27:20
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Well, thank you, Josh, so much.

27:20 - 27:22
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Have a good rest of the day there.

27:22 - 27:23
Christopher Hensley, RICP®
Thanks for being on the show.