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Occasionally I read a book and think, “Damn! I WISH I had written this book!!” This is one of them. It’s called Give to Grow and author Mo Bunnell is the guest on this week’s episode of the Creating Superfans podcast! Mo is the founder and CEO of a global business development consulting firm, Bunnell Idea Group (BIG). Through his trademarked, science-backed system, Mo has helped tens of thousands of professionals at over 400 organizations grow their book of business efficiently and effectively.
Mo and I chat about….
- His hacks for demonstrating curiosity and helpfulness to cultivate stronger relationships
- The power of reciprocity
- The delicate balance between “winning the work” and “doing the work”
- How to overcome the toxic lies that are inhibiting our business development goals
By the end of the episode, you’ll walk away with actionable strategies to nurture valuable relationships and drive positive change in both your personal and professional lives.
Get a copy of Mo’s new book, Give to Grow, and check out the accompanying free resources here.
Listen to Brittany’s episode on Mo’s podcast, Real Relationships Real Revenue (season 5 episode 10).
Follow Mo Bunnell on LinkedIn.
Listen to the Episode
Transcription
Brittany Hodak:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Creating Superfans podcast. Here’s the deal: if your customers aren’t telling their friends how awesome you are, you’re in trouble. But don’t worry, by the end of this episode, you’ll have some brand new ideas for to get them talking about exactly that.
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Mo Bunnell, a business development guru, who’s written the book, “The Snowball System,” and one of my very favorite new books called “Give to Grow.”
He’s the host of the Real Relationships Real Revenue Podcast, and founder of Bunnell Idea Group.
Mo knows that relationships are the foundation of our long-term business success. He shares simple and actionable tips for overcoming mental roadblocks so we can build and nurture the relationships we need to make the impact we want.
Let’s get into it!
Brittany Hodak:
Mo, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Mo Bunnell:
Brittany, I’m a fan. I’m a super fan of your work. You know, you’ve been on our podcast, so we should put that in the show notes. But I’m excited to talk to you about today because I just think our content mashes up just so nicely.
Brittany Hodak:
It really does. And the book is brand new, but you’re kind enough to send me in in advance several months ago, and I have been so excited for this book to come out in the world and so excited to do this podcast. Honestly, selfishly, just so I can send it to people, just so I can share this book because this book is so good. It is not often that I read a book and think, ah, man, and have those little tinges of jealousy because of how good the content and the layout and the design and all of it is. But first, I just wanna say thank you for writing this book. This is a book the world needs.
Mo Bunnell:
Well, thank you. I I think so too. Well, I and I have all these things I wanna say about your book, but I’m gonna, like, I’m gonna zip it. I’m gonna let you guide things. You’re the guru. Because, like, you know your audience so well, and you’ve read the book, Give to Grow so well that you know that. So why don’t you guide us? Well, why don’t you tell me in your words what this book
Brittany Hodak:
is about? Give to grow. It’s a great phrase. It’s one of those phrases that you hear and you think, oh, I wonder what that means. I wonder what that’s about. Why don’t you tell us the log line, what this book is about, and why you wrote it?
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you a story. The, years so we started started with my publisher. He only does one book a year, Bard Press, super interesting model. And a couple years ago, two and a half years ago, we started on this project. And Todd asked me a question and it was one of those questions where you’re like, I’m not even sure I know the answer. I have to think about it. I had to get back to him the next day.
Mo Bunnell:
He said, what’s the difference now between what’s the difference between when you started teaching people business development and growth skills 20 years ago, trained 50,000 people in the in the meantime, between then and now. And overnight, it hit me. 20 years ago, people were talking about, I want to learn how to build a book of business or grow a business or bring in revenue or whatever. And maybe relationships are mentioned, maybe they’re not. Today, what is really exciting about gift to grow is that the headline is relationships. And gift to grow is all about how do you deepen relationships that just happen to grow a business or a book of business. And that’s something you can get up in the morning and be excited about. It’s all about authenticity, helpfulness, proactiveness, things that you can just keep doing forever, and you just happen to do things that help you too.
Brittany Hodak:
Yeah. And I think one of the through lines of this book is curiosity.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah.
Brittany Hodak:
Right? And if you are truly curious about getting to know people so that you can find ways to help them to show up with that value before you have to ask, it makes everything more fun. Right? It makes it makes your job more fun, but it also makes your life more fun because you’re meeting these fantastic people. You’re building these truly authentic relationships that transcend work boundaries.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. You nailed it. And I’ll give you a framework for the for the audience. I’ll give the audience framework. There’s something to worry about and avoid and something to lean into. The worry about and avoid is that there’s a a mental heuristic, a mental shortcut in all of our brains. It was discovered by a researcher and his name Victor Otadi, and it’s called earned dogmatism. And what earned dogmatism says, which is universally true on humans, the more you view yourself as an expert in something, the more closed minded you become.
Mo Bunnell:
Or in other words, the less curious you become to tie back to your question. So we’ve got to fight to avoid that. Well, how do you do it? Well, then this is what we can lean into. There’s a line in the book that I just hundreds of people have mentioned to me that they read in the advanced copy and said, gosh, that sticks with me all the time. And it’s real simple. It’s always your move and it’s always a chance to be helpful. And if we remember, it’s always our move and it’s always a chance to be helpful, we can lean into curiosity. We can curiosity.
Mo Bunnell:
We can ask questions. We can dig into a client. We can fall in love with the client’s problem, figure out what’s going on in their lives, both at work and maybe even personally, and just find helpful follow ups. And when we do that, we deepen relationships. People remember us forever, and it might just happen to help our bottom line too.
Brittany Hodak:
Yeah. Which is such an awesome opportunity to be known as the person who’s helpful and something that this is not in the book, but I do wanna take a moment because I feel like it, is worth talking about the nuance. Being helpful is not the same thing as being critical. And I I’ve heard several different frameworks of, I I know, like, growing up in the south, there are plenty of people in my family who think they’re being helpful. They are being wildly offensively critical, like, all the time. Right? Offering unsolicited feedback about what they perceive as the wrong way that something is happening that they that they encounter. That is not being helpful. There’s a difference between being helpful and being critical, and that curiosity leads to the helpfulness of some of the examples that you talk in the book of suggesting a next great step for someone.
Brittany Hodak:
You could read this book. You could listen to this podcast. You could check this out. So you’re you’re not saying, hey. I wanna help you by telling you to change this thing you’ve been doing wrong to a different way, but by saying, here’s something that I think you might enjoy. Because you said x, I am responding with y.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. Exactly. And there’s you you saw this, and there’s a whole chapter in the book basically on how to offer helpfulness. But a real real quick way to think about it, of course, there’s a lot more in the in the book Give to Grow, but is to think of a phrase, would it be helpful if and that’s always a great opening to what the next step could be. We found it works better in our practice practical experience in training, you know, these tens of 1,000 of of experts is it’s a lot more effective than saying, do you want me to, or would you like me to? That to people feels like they’re putting you out, so there’s a high chance of a no or even guilt associated with it. Would it be helpful if I just changes the whole context? And then if we think of, well, what goes at the end of that? Well, there’s 4 major ways to be helpful. And this is, like, based on some neuroscience on how people think. I’ll skip over all that.
Mo Bunnell:
But the basic things are, can I give you technical advice or research or data? Or is there something technically I know that you don’t know? Maybe it’s in maybe it’s a some data or benchmarking or an analysis I would do. That’s thing 1. Thing 2 is something procedural. Is there something I can take off your plate? Can we brainstorm about the process? Like, you think about customer experience and all the amazing things you do, like, actually thinking with empathy of what are the steps to do a thing that’s incredibly powerful. So if somebody was a CX expert, you you know some of those people like yourself. Like, I could imagine you going to a CMO and say, would it be helpful if I actually, secret shopped your app and took a look at it and gave you some thoughts high level? What might only take you 20 minutes, but to a CMO, Brittany Hodak doing that would be, like, worth 1,000,000. You know? So that that’s the second thing is process. The third thing is relationships.
Mo Bunnell:
Would it be helpful if I introduced you to somebody that that would be helpful to your network? And then the 4th thing is coming up with new ideas. Would it be helpful if we brainstorm on that? Would it be helpful if we had a a dinner or a coffee chat just to think that through with you? That’s those four things are ridiculously valuable. And, of course, in anybody’s line of work, they have very specific versions of that whether you’re a financial adviser, a lawyer, or a salesperson, or account executive at a big health care company. But if we’re always thinking, would it be helpful if I and then what can I insert at the end of that? We’re gonna have great meetings. We’re gonna have great follow ups, and we’re gonna create momentum to people wanting to grow their business with us.
Brittany Hodak:
So good. And for for you listening right now, would it be helpful if when’s the last time we said that phrase? Have you said that phrase? If not, how can you start incorporating that? Who is someone that you can say, would it be helpful if to right now? Whether that’s someone you already have a meeting with on your calendar or somebody who you are reaching out to that you haven’t spoken to in several weeks or months. I love, Moe, that you talk in this book about how to reignite those relationships and how to stay top of mind with people. And I think the would it be helpful if framework is such a wonderful jumping off point. That is homework for listening right now. Like, write that down. Would it be helpful if and start to think about ways to use that as part of your everyday language because it’s so simple, but it’s so good.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. And it’s it’s one of those neat things where you can just remember it. So in the middle of a meeting when somebody’s, like, feeling stressed, like, I’m not sure this is going well, or maybe I talked about myself too much, or I’m not sure what I should do, something that can completely change the trajectory of meeting is offering something at no charge. It triggers reciprocity. Like you saw in Brittany, you know, we we go back to Cialdini’s 6 levers of influence in the book and apply that to giving away people’s expertise. And the the of all 6 of those things, they’re all important. They’re all influential. They can all be used for positive change.
Mo Bunnell:
The master key, I think, to all 6 is reciprocity, is giving first. When you give first, you become more likable. You’re able to show your authority. You’re able to mention other clients you work with, triggering social proof. You’re able to share, like, I don’t have a ton of time, but I wanna do this for you. So we’ve triggered scarcity in our time and means that it lands better on their side. It has more value to them. It triggers commitment, a next step.
Mo Bunnell:
I mean, that was just like all 6 of the Cialdini levers of influence. And you can’t start with scarcity. Like, I’m really busy. Like, where’s that gonna go? Like, it’s it’s a powerful influential thing, but it’s not what to start with. Reciprocity and offering something of value first, giving first. It’s the master key to see it master key to all these other positive things, and Yeah. And it’s fun to do.
Brittany Hodak:
It is fun to do. And, you know, I’m so curious because I know you’ve trained tens of thousands pea of people over over the past couple of decades. What are some of the mental roadblocks that you’ve found, and how did you write this book to address them? Because if somebody is not used to leading with reciprocity, if somebody is not not not because, you know, they’re miserly or anything, but just because, this is a framework that if you haven’t experienced the benefits of it, either as the person leading with the generosity or the person who’s been the recipient, you could be doing biz dev in a completely opposite way to this. Right? Like, there are the people who do not have that generosity mindset, and I know you’ve probably helped train a lot of people through that. So I’m curious, what are some of those hurdles that you’ve experienced over the years, and how did you take those into account when you were writing this book? Because, again, I everybody listening to this needs to buy Give to Grow. It is such a wonderful book, and one of the things that I love about it is its simplicity. But I know from being friends with tons of authors and writing a book that simplicity is incredibly deceptive, and you must have gone through so many, you know, revisions and layers of stripping things away, especially since your partner publishes only that one book a year. I know it took so long on the back end to strip down to just the essentials and get this to its simplest form.
Brittany Hodak:
So I would love for you to talk about some of those blocks that you’ve seen of people that don’t have this as the way that they’ve traditionally been doing, not just business development, but but corporate leadership, everything that they’re doing in their job, and how you have written this book to help coach people through those things that could have been holding them back knowingly or unknowingly from embracing a model like this in the past.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. It’s a great such a great question. And and what’s interesting about it is while the book is while Give to Grow is written and the stories are around developing a business or a book of business or growth, basically, all these things apply to your point to any kind of leader. What the book’s really about and I’ve gotten just hundreds of people that written back that wrote that read advanced copies is like, man, what this really this book is really about is how to live your life. It’s about how did anybody who wants to have a positive impact on the world. Those skills are what Give to Grow is about. So one of the things we had to do to answer your question is we had to do a bunch of proprietary research to figure out what gets in the way of people acting with agency around driving the proactive change that they want, whether it’s for business growth, leading their companies, maybe they volunteer for a major nonprofit or their development officer. Anywhere somebody’s at, a lot of people wanna have a big lasting legacy and positive impact.
Mo Bunnell:
So, anyway, through a bunch of proprietary research, we found 5 things that get in people’s way. And we titled these in the book. We wrote a whole section about it called the 5 lies. And the 5 are simply this. 1, I can’t do that. What happens there is somebody says, well, I I just, it can be really specific. Like, I can’t go to dinner. I don’t because I’m an introvert, or I can’t speak at conferences, or I can’t do this whole development thing in total.
Mo Bunnell:
Usually, early in somebody’s career, it’s the whole thing. I I didn’t become a lawyer to sell. And usually later in somebody’s career, it’s very narrow. Like, I can’t talk about the big deals our companies have. Well, there’s a solve for that. We can talk about it if you want. It’s in the book. I don’t know what to do is the second one.
Mo Bunnell:
That is where somebody can feel like I wanna reach out to Suzanne, the CMO, but I’m not sure what she wants. There’s a solve for that. The third one is I might do it wrong. This is where our perfectionism creeps in. The 4th one is I’m too busy, which
Brittany Hodak:
it’s No one has ever. I’ve never heard anyone say that before.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. No one said that. And, we’ve got specific solves for that. And then the last one is the fear of rejection, but we title it because it’s to to land in the reader, I’m going to look bad. The fear of looking bad. The fear of rejection. So, anyway, you can tell, like, each one of those go in order. Like, you’ve gotta get through the first four to to reveal the 5th one, and it might be standing there and you gotta find a way through it.
Mo Bunnell:
But the key is if we can figure out when those thoughts come in our head, those lies that we’re the only one that hears them so we think they’re a 100% true, when we can learn to dissect, oh, wow. I just said I’m too busy to reach out with Suzanne. That’s a lie. You know, maybe I can just take 30 seconds and shoot a text that says, hey, Suzanne. Really slammed right now, but would love to have dinner maybe in a couple months. Can we set it up? Like, a 32nd action could unlock that relationship, and we didn’t fall for the I’m too busy trap. So, Brittany, I spoke way too long about the lies. So take
Brittany Hodak:
me back to you. I I would love to know what what do you think is the most common lie from your years of coaching people? What’s the one and I know they’re a little bit like nesting dolls, and it’s often a a complex lie or a series of lies. But what is the one that you find seems to plague most people most often?
Mo Bunnell:
Probably I’m too busy, at least at a headline level. Yeah. What we what we did in the book, and you saw this because I know you comment on the the beauty of the graphic design and our graphic design was amazing amazing. We put we created, like, thought bubbles for the most common lies that we heard of in our actual research. They’re literally the verbatims that people heard. So, like, I gave a speech to 100 of people a month or so ago, and and the headlines, everybody thought that I’m too busy lie is what they’d say. But when they actually saw the verbatims, I was walking around the the plenary section and while people are doing that table activity to talk about how how the lies impact them and what they can do to overcome them. And I asked somebody, who’s one of their most senior rainmakers? I mean, she is a she’s literally looked up to and revered in the organization as being the best of the best.
Mo Bunnell:
And she’s like, we can’t pick one that hits us all because they all hit us now that we read what the actual lies are. So so it’s hard to answer the question because they all hit us in all ways, but you almost have to read the verbatim level to realize, oh, yeah. I heard that one last Tuesday.
Brittany Hodak:
Yeah. And I and I I I turned to one of the pages because you’re right. The the graphic design is just so striking. So, for let’s take the the second lie. I don’t know what to do. The things I need to wait until this happens. I might be bothering someone. I don’t know what their priorities are.
Brittany Hodak:
I’m not sure what they need. So you’re right. We have so many different ways of phrasing it, but these are all lies, and they’re all traps that we put up to to give ourself the easy out. Right? To say, like, well, I can’t do this. So and I love that for each of these lies, as you said, you you present the solution. And and some of them are almost, like, gut punch simple. When you read it Yeah. Like, oh, alright.
Brittany Hodak:
Well, I guess I can’t do that anymore because I have now been given the solution to this thing that some some of them unconsciously holding us back, but a lot of them consciously. A lot of them, we know that we do it. And to to have someone say, hey, stop making this excuse because you’re sabotaging not just your work, but all of the people who are out there who need your brilliance, who need what you have to offer.
Mo Bunnell:
Brittney, you nailed it. And how ironic is it that maybe the top thing we can do to have a bigger impact on the world is not believe the words in our head? I mean, because, you know, the rest of the book is how to make the change and orchestrate the conversation and stay on track and, you know, that’s all that in sections 34. And section 2 is so darn important because any book that doesn’t have that, here’s here’s how to get your own darn self out of your way. And I think it’s maybe the most important part of the book is removing the negative. Because if you do that, you’re unlocked to have the big positive impact that you want.
Brittany Hodak:
Yeah. Well so, Moe, I know you you are in front of a lot of audiences. I am in front of a lot of audiences, and something that I always hear ahead of an event is make it actionable. Make it actionable. Give me something that I can do. Give me takeaways that I can go implement right now. May I read chapter 6 of your book aloud?
Mo Bunnell:
Do it. The whole thing.
Brittany Hodak:
I I I I I I think this is my favorite chapter. This is this is the this is the first time I’ve ever read a chapter of the book. For anybody watching right now, this is what chapter 6 looks like.
Mo Bunnell:
Chapter 6 great, by the way, because you emailed or texted me when you’d got the book. And it was like, we had just sent them out the day before, and you’re like, TAC chapter 6 is my favorite.
Brittany Hodak:
I did. Yeah. I I went through it, and I was like, oh my gosh. I love this so much. That’s when I was like, Mo, I am all in. What can I do to help? I need to tell everybody about this. So okay. Don’t worry, you guys.
Brittany Hodak:
It’s not gonna it’s not gonna take that long. There are 6 main bullet points in chapter 6. Chapter 6, do this now. Number 1, think of someone you’ve been meaning to reach out to. Number 2, open your email. Number 3, type your version of the following. Hi, Jonathan. It’s been a long time.
Brittany Hodak:
Would love to hear what’s been going on in your world. Maybe I can find some ways to be helpful. There it is, what you told us about. Are you free Thursday at 2 PM? No. PS, can’t wait to share what’s going on with the family. Opening that personal curiosity loop. So that’s the version. Alright.
Brittany Hodak:
Number 4, press send. Number 5, do not overthink it. Number 6, press send. Though, I don’t know if they give away Pulitzers for business books. I don’t think they do, but, like, this this is award worthy, my friend.
Mo Bunnell:
Well and I think you have a future on Broadway. I mean, that was great. Like, even the intonation changed during the email part. We’re we we were, so some clients wanted this book so bad that they bought advanced reader copies for their events. And I my like, people in the industry had never heard of that. So because they had a huge event. They didn’t wanna wait till August when it comes out, say this is last May or whatever. So I actually went through that exact chapter in front of a live off audience of, like, 500 people or whatever.
Mo Bunnell:
And about 10 minutes after we did that, we were on to another topic. So we literally I’m I’m giving a speech. This is not interaction. There’s, you know, hundreds of people. And a guy in the front right stands up and just starts waving his hand. I’m like, somebody having a heart attack? You know, what’s going on? He’s like, hey, everybody. I just wanted to tell you this. We’re like, what is going on? Like, am I being hijacked? What’s happening? And he said, I just wanna tell you, I hadn’t reached out to this person in 10 years.
Mo Bunnell:
They just got promoted to CEO. I emailed them based on what Moe said, and we’re having breakfast tomorrow morning. So, like, just getting ourselves out of the way and making emails short and offering helpfulness and saying, I care. I see you. I wanna invest. Like, the more we do that, the more success we’re gonna have.
Brittany Hodak:
Well and I love that story because I know one of the lies I will tell myself sometimes is it’s been too long. They don’t wanna hear from me. I’m gonna be bothering them. Just last night, my husband and son were out in an event, and there was somebody there who used to be, like, a really close business contact of mine. And, he’s become super, uber successful. And as I’ve, like, changed a little bit, I like, I didn’t even send him a copy of my book because I was like, oh, is he gonna be, like, why is Brittany sending me this? I haven’t, you know, talked to her in a while. And my husband and son said hi. And, of course, the reception was as if we, you know, had had been in contact the whole time, and and now I’m excited because he and I are getting together.
Brittany Hodak:
Yay. But it is that it’s, like, so easy to tell ourselves, oh, they’re too busy, or they don’t wanna catch up with me, or they don’t this or that or the other thing, and then we all know because we’ve all done it. When you actually get together with that person, you think, a, I am so glad I did this, and b, I wish we hadn’t wasted all this time, all these years, all these months, whatever it is. So I love Yep. That that experience happened when you were talking live. And, I mean, I don’t know, Moe. Do you feel like you should challenge everybody listening right now to do that, to follow the advice of chapter 6 even before they read the rest of the book?
Mo Bunnell:
Let’s do it. And let me give you a pro tip. Like, actually, write up the email just like Brittany read it. You do not need to overthink it. 2 pro tips 2 pro tips for everybody. 1 is keep your email to 50 words or less. Why would we say that? Well, that’s one email screen on an iPhone in Outlook or any email client. What that does is when the email is really short and it’s nicely personal just like Brittany got the you know, you won like an academy award for that reading.
Mo Bunnell:
When you keep something to 50 words or less, you don’t take 2 hours writing it and the 17 things you wanted to say and have your mom proofread it so you can just act. And the second thing on the recipient side, even if you just meant to skim the email, you almost can’t help but read the whole thing and go, sure. Yes. Let’s do it. You know, so fast you get the reply. So short emails work work, so much better than long emails when when you’re doing things like this. The second thing, I’ll say is audience, you do not win when they reply. I mean, of course you do, but the real win is when you hit send.
Mo Bunnell:
Whether they reply or not. The reason we say things like it’s the gift that counts. Even the perf is a person slammed, even if they’re out on some kind of medical leave, even if they don’t read your email for 2 weeks because they’re not in the office, you win when you hit send because you reached out, you offered helpfulness and it will land well even if they never reply. So Yeah. Pull back yeah. So anyway, I’ll I’ll get off the soapbox. But
Brittany Hodak:
No. I I love that. And you’re right. It’s you and not just you win because you’ve, like, put these good vibes out into the universe. And if you’re one one of the people who believes in, you know, energies and that you’ve now, like, created this good ripple because you’ve you’ve offered to be helpful, I I don’t know a lot about, you know, any of the the energetic vibes that attached to that, but I have a lot of friends who are who will tell you, like, there is a measurable win that comes from that. But even, like, the dopamine hit that you get, right, of, like, oh, I I just did that. I just accomplished it, which then, of course, propels you to to do the next thing. I love the short email because something that happens a lot to me when I get a long email is the overwhelm, where you’re like, I can’t reply to this right away because I’ve gotta look up 4 things.
Brittany Hodak:
I’ve gotta cross reference 9 other things. I’ve gotta talk to 3 people. And then what does it become? It becomes like a task, something on the to do list that just lingers in the inbox. So 50 words or less, beautiful framework, and who who was it Mark Twain, who’s the one that’s credited with saying, like, sorry. I wrote you a long letter. I didn’t have time to write you the short letter. Like, if you cannot get your email under 50 words, a, you haven’t thought about it long enough, or, b, that’s an email that needs to be a phone call. Like, let’s be honest.
Brittany Hodak:
There are very few emails that should be over 50 words ever.
Mo Bunnell:
Yep. You nailed it. And and there’s actually a broader point around that. You know, one of the one of the, I think you had commented on this, with me too. One of the pages in the books that people have liked more than any other is a little 2 page spread that shows the difference between doing the work and winning the work. Yes. Doing the work. How do we handle things after we’ve gotten the yes winning the work? How do we get the yes? And how do we how do we think about that? And what we realized as we were really getting into the copy of the book is actually later after a lot of it was written is we realized that, wow, not only are things different when you’re trying to get the yes versus when you already got the yes, doing the work, winning the work, but they’re the exact opposite.
Mo Bunnell:
So, like, clients respond always when you’re doing the work, rarely when you’re winning the work, and you have to get ready for that. Not everybody’s gonna respond. Emails should be long and offer clarity when you’re doing the work. Put everything in one place. Ask the 7 questions that you need to get the thing done by Thursday. But when you’re winning the work, 50 words or less. And it goes on and on and on. The the one that I’ll I’ll hit on just for a moment is when you’re doing the work, you win with the best answers.
Mo Bunnell:
You’ve been hired. You’re running the project internally, whatever it is. You are driving to certainty. When you’re winning the work, when you’re trying to get the yes, you win with the best questions. You’re trying to fall in love with the client’s problem. You’re trying to figure out what’s needed. You’re providing, you’re creating possibility in their mind about something that could be achieved better with you. And I just think that’s a really neat framework too is to realize we’ve gotta be able to quickly toggle between which mode are we in Yeah.
Mo Bunnell:
Because the the moves aren’t just different. They are opposites.
Brittany Hodak:
Well and you are very likely in different modes every single day because of the different clients you’re interfacing with. So to have that presence of mind to switch between I’m in do the work mode, I’m in win the work mode, perhaps 5 or 6 times a day depending on what your job is, depending on the clients and the prospects that you’re talking to. So you’re right. That’s a really great thing to to even ask yourself before you jump on the Zoom meeting or, jump into the conference room. Okay. Is this a win to work, or is this a do the work moment?
Mo Bunnell:
Yep. Yep. That’s exactly right. In fact, one of the things we we didn’t have room to put in the book, so we created this big training course that’s no charge. Sidebar, Brittany, you know, if you write a book called Give to Grow, you better give away a lot of free stuff to the readers. So we created this free training course that if somebody’s a college student, they don’t even have $20 to buy the book. We created the free training course in a way that it would work without the book. It’s better with the book, but you could even take without it.
Brittany Hodak:
And you may have to be a college student just to just to clarify. Like, you can absolutely dump any of your college students. But this is not a course for college students.
Mo Bunnell:
Yeah. It’s not. It’s not. Although, we did hear from a major university that wants to make it a class yesterday. So that’s cool. But that’s another thing. Yeah. So one of the things that we thought would be really helpful, there wasn’t actually room in the book, so we put it in this free course and along with a bunch of videos for me and John downloads, job aids, all kinds of things, was 50 plus go to questions.
Mo Bunnell:
What are what are the best 50 plus questions that we’ve ever seen that can help us fall in love with the client’s problem? Look for ways to be helpful, invest in both the business and the personal relationship, and people can get that in the course. And that’s at Give to Grow dot info. Give to grow dot inf0. And it’s, people get that even now, even before the book’s out. And it’s just really exciting to give all these tools for people, and I think those 50 plus go to questions are gonna be one of the most valuable pieces of that.
Brittany Hodak:
What’s one of your favorite questions from that list?
Mo Bunnell:
Well, I’ll I’ll give you a framework, because I think it’s contextually dependent. But a researcher named Diana Tamir and her stuff is gold. She should be one of those researchers that’s famous, but but she’s sort of famous in research y world, but not in the normal world. She hooks people up to functional MRI machines, and she can measure blood oxygenation in the brain. And that what she found is when people ask questions where the the person answering, it’s something only they know, their own personal perspective, those types of questions fire the pleasure center in the brain. Same air of the brain that fires if we drink a red bowl, have a great dessert at dinner, things like that. Pleasure center rules the roost for short term behavior. And so if we can ask questions that make it clear that we’re looking for that person’s personal perspective, like like, Brittany, what’s the number one thing you’re most excited about as you think about your next book? Hey, Brittany.
Mo Bunnell:
As you work with CMOs around creating this amazing customer experience, like only know how to do, what’s the top trend you’re seeing now that people better get in front of or they’re gonna fall behind over the next 3 years? Like, those are things only you know. I actually wanna know the answers to those, but you can you can imagine, like, if you’re asking those types of questions to people, they get pretty fired up, and they like you even more as they answer them. So is that helpful to go framework more than exact question?
Brittany Hodak:
That is brilliant. And, everybody, you need to buy the book. The book is incredible, but go get these freebies right now. If you haven’t already paused this to send the email, that’s step number 1. Send send the email to someone to check-in, but then go immediately to Give to Grow dot info and download these resources. I mean, Moe, what you’re giving away for free, you could tell for 1,000 of dollars. I mean, there is so much value packed into all of this. So, anybody listening right now, you are costing your future self money and heartache if you don’t go get these free tools right now because they are incredible.
Mo Bunnell:
You know what’s especially cool about that is I and I’ll even hold it up. Like, creating superfans, like, people are listening because they love your content. It’s so good. When I read this book and had you on our show, I was just learning so so much. Like, are 2 books even look cool next to each other? Like They
Brittany Hodak:
do look like good friends.
Mo Bunnell:
They do. They’re just brother and sister. They’re just so happy. They’re just gonna sit on the shelf right next to each other. You know, one’s about how do I get how do I get the business and deepen the relationship when I get it? And then one’s about how do I provide an amazing customer client experience after I get it or as when somebody’s looking at us. Like, they just they just work in hand in hand so well, and I’m just proud to be your friend and be a part of this.
Brittany Hodak:
Oh, well, thank you so much, Moe. I feel exactly the same way. The book is incredible. I mean, I know the stakes are high for a publisher when you have one shot a year, when you publish one book a year to be able to put everything behind it and say this is the one. But I know everybody at Bard is so proud of you and this book and the work that you’ve put out into the world. It truly is a gift. You I know it’s you know, you you wrote this in in a way to to walk the talk to show people that you do it, and and this truly is a gift as are all of the tools that you’re giving away. So thank you for writing the book.
Brittany Hodak:
Thank you for coming on the show. Any closing thoughts beyond everybody needs to go to GivetoGrow.info?
Mo Bunnell:
I would just say use these tools to make a positive impact on the world that you wanna make. So I’ll close I’ll close with this. If the audience can think of one change that they really want to drive forward proactively, it could be a change with a client maybe purchasing more services. It could be a change within their organization. It could be a change in their family. It could be a change in the nonprofit that they’re really passionate about. Figure out what that thing is that you really want to, like, grab the reins and drive forward. And then by the time give to go lands on your on your doorstep because you buy it or you sign up for all the free tools and get get all the videos and downloads and all the stuff at GivetoGrow.Info
Mo Bunnell:
By the time you start devouring the content, you’ll already have in mind what this thing is that you wanna create. What’s the positive change you wanna have in the world? And I just say, everybody figure out what that is right now. And then when you get the content, you’re just gonna be teed up for success.
Brittany Hodak:
Amazing. Moe, thank you so much. Come back soon.
Mo Bunnell:
Thanks, Brittany. Yes. Let’s do it. And everybody, if you like this, don’t forget to watch Brittany’s episode on our channel because
Brittany Hodak:
it’s really good. Yes. Linked in the show. No. It’s a great show. Alright. Talk soon, Mo.
Mo Bunnell:
Bye.
