IronCode Podcast delves into creating Business Superfans with Author Frederick Dudek

The IronCode Podcast - 007 - Creating Business Superfans -Frederick Dudek

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[00:00:00] Podcasting from Sacramento, California, the big tomato. This is the Iron Mind Code Show, a weekly podcast about peak performers and the secrets they use to create success in business and their personal lives. Hear interviews with special guests, top performers from around the world.

[00:00:24] And now here's your host. Coach, author, and Iron Mind performance expert, Rich Green.

[00:00:34] Richard Greene: Hey, it's Rich Greene. Excited for another show, and today we've got an amazing guest. Frederick Dudek is going to be joining us today and talking about, well, all kinds of things. I'm not going to spill the beans right off the bat here. But I'm excited to speak with him because he's got just a wealth of information on business building. He has an interesting story, which we're going to dig into as well. I'm super [00:01:00] fascinated by the transitions that he's made in his life. And as always, we're going to ask about his code. So Frederick. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:09] Freddy D: Hey, good morning, Rich. Excited to be here.

[00:01:11] Richard Greene: We're happy to have you here as well. So I, we were talking earlier about your experience.

[00:01:18] Richard Greene: And so you have sort of a very background, which is, I think, is unusual. Typically personality types take certain types of jobs, but you're you started your life as an engineer and you have that in your DNA, but you do a lot in sales as well. Now, tell me a little bit something about tell our audience a little something about that and. Sort of how you started out in the engineering space and then have moved your way into helping people to sell products and services. And, what was that journey like?

[00:01:51] Freddy D: Okay. Well my dad used to do drafting. And so the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. So I started doing drafting and I've worked [00:02:00] my way up to where I was picked to design the spot weld guns spot weld of the 1982 Ford Escort. So you have these weld tips that are going in that weld the body panel, and you had to do a lot of 3D. Geometry to make sure that it wasn't going to put any divots in.

[00:02:17] Freddy D: And I was doing on vertical drafting boards, full size, the car.

[00:02:21] Richard Greene: Wow.

[00:02:22] Freddy D: The company at the time got in spent about 500, 000 to buy a computer aided design system. And I was intrigued by it and say, we're asking who would be interested in training, and we had to write up some big essay of why we thought we were the chosen one, and so I raised my hand . Filled out that essay and I was one of five.

[00:02:44] Richard Greene: Selling already, right

[00:02:46] Freddy D: !In indirectly, so I was picked, I got trained. And from there, it turned out that the high school friend was working for a software company, teaching people how to do [00:03:00] engineering via computers, and they were looking for additional people that were actually from the field knew what they were doing. But I needed to put together a resume and back then I, didn't know what a resume was and so I got a buddy of mine from second grade that I had taken to Washington University to get his law degree. And so for three hours on the phone, he helped write my resume. I got an interview and got a second interview and I got a job offer and it moved me from the Detroit area to the Chicago area.

[00:03:31] Freddy D: And I started learning computer aided design. And then I, I was picked to teach computer aided design. And I'll share the unique little quick story is that I was, Pick to go teach Eaton Corporation and I went there and I did the training as I thought to do train was basically go through a manual and flip through the pages and read it first and then tell people what to do because I was completely novice [00:04:00] at this stuff and the manager came in and said, after the end of that day, he says, that's the worst blank training I've ever seen in my entire life.

[00:04:10] Freddy D: He goes, I'll give you between now and tomorrow to get yourself straightened out, or I'm calling your manager and having you fired.

[00:04:17] Richard Greene: Oh. Wow.

[00:04:19] Freddy D: So I slept real well that night.

[00:04:20] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:04:22] Freddy D: And I invented a, I invented an engagement training where I started asking like, Hey, Rich, how would you handle this particular thing?

[00:04:31] Freddy D: And Steve, do you think that this is the right way? And it was like, it was a transformation. And I started speaking in front of people, which I never was comfortable with. And, but I had to, cause it's either that or, the, adios. And that, that turned out to be where he actually wrote me up in the sense of how great my training was.

[00:04:55] Freddy D: And a few years later, the company that I was at was looking for [00:05:00] salespeople. And so I figured, I can do what these guys do because more importantly, I know what the stuff does and how to talk. And I got picked and I got sent through six months of sales training through companies like Wilson Learning, Vanguard Street, Vanguard, and Dale Carnegie classes and stuff like that.

[00:05:18] Richard Greene: That hardly happens at all today with companies. That's amazing.

[00:05:22] Freddy D: Yeah. I mean, it was six months and I got flown from Chicago to Boston for the training and back every month for a week, we were in Boston through the whole training and videotaping us and all that stuff back then, and my first year I won some sales awards and I've never looked back since.

[00:05:39] Richard Greene: That's that is fantastic. And I'll tell you what many managers out there that are listening to this. And I know I've got a lot of business executives that are listeners of the podcast. Training is everything investing your people because this is what you get when you do that. And interesting thing, I. I took a [00:06:00] note when you said something about how you changed that presentation.

[00:06:04] Richard Greene: You started asking questions, which is something that I started doing when I first became a college professor and I was teaching business classes. And I didn't necessarily have everything memorized in the book. And I found that asking questions was an interesting way to get people engaged. And also a way for me to learn how other people were absorbing the information so that I have a pause and think about it and also to maybe do a redirect for the training.

[00:06:29] Richard Greene: So I think that asking questions was genius, but it was also, as you well know, one of the number one skills. In sales.

[00:06:39] Freddy D: Yeah.

[00:06:39] Richard Greene: Being able to ask questions without looking like you're interrogating people.

[00:06:44] Freddy D: Absolutely correct. It's important to ask the questions and then more importantly, to shut up and let people answer it.

[00:06:52] Freddy D: And then the questions that you ask will direct where the conversation goes. And that's the [00:07:00] fun part.

[00:07:01] Richard Greene: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So for a lot of people that aren't in professional sales, it's not about convincing people. It's not about cajoling them or twisting their arm or tricking them or any of those kinds of things.

[00:07:14] Richard Greene: It's about drawing out information that either they know, or maybe they don't know that they know and helping people to make a decision, presenting information in a certain way so that people can see if it fits within their lives or in their businesses. So, asking questions. And then listening to the most important sales skills. Thanks for pointing that out because it's really important. So you've been in sales training. And you kind of never look back.

[00:07:42] Freddy D: Yeah, no I've worked myself up from sales. I mean, one of my stories that I share is is really, is paying attention to what's going on in a room and I was selling to a railroad car manufacturer, Chicago.

[00:07:57] Freddy D: And I've been working with the engineering [00:08:00] department and the managers. So we had all this stuff put together and now it was time to go see the CEO of the company. To for approval and we walk in huge office, and the guy sitting behind his desk, intimidating, doesn't even get up from the desk.

[00:08:17] Freddy D: We're standing, I look, he's got a glass wall and he's got a helo pad right outside of his glass wall, wind wall there, and I'm going like, Oh my gosh, this is, this guy's big time and he looks up and he goes, okay, you guys got five minutes. And that was it. And so the engineering manager, remember, looked at me and he goes, I guess I'm up, so I just looked at my watch and I started doing the presentation.

[00:08:46] Freddy D: It was concise to the point. And I looked again and it was at the five minute mark. And I says, my time is up. And I shut up and the guy just looked at me, smiled, stood up and said, okay, we start talking to the engineering manager, [00:09:00] another five, seven minutes. And he goes, okay, you guys are all happy with the deal.

[00:09:05] Freddy D: He goes, if you guys are happy, I'm happy. And everybody said, yes. He goes great and picks up his phone, says so and so please get a purchase order from Mr. Dudak and thanks guys. We shook hands and it was over. Meeting was done 15 minutes. Well, 150, 000 sale.

[00:09:21] Richard Greene: I tell you what yeah, that's a, that is a great story.

[00:09:23] Richard Greene: And it's also, I know you're a speaker and you've just been on stage and you presented and trained and the five minute ability to tell a story in five minutes, there's a lot of information that you can share in five minutes, it takes a lot of work to get good at it. But if you can do that and impress somebody like the CEO who is just didn't have a lot of time in his day, probably to hear a lot of blather it's a great skill.

[00:09:50] Freddy D: And stopping being at the five minute and telling your time is up. That was the key. 'cause that's what won the deal for me in my a hundred percent believe it is. I [00:10:00] respected his time and I said, my time is up at that moment that his whole demeanor changed.

[00:10:07] Richard Greene: It's a great lesson. You're about respecting somebody's giving respect, showing respect to somebody for their position in life for, just for the value of their time.

[00:10:17] Richard Greene: So, that's a good one. I, I think the acknowledgement part at the end is that little extra there. So definitely cool. You grew up in another country, right?

[00:10:29] Freddy D: Well, I was born in France, and I moved to this country in three months. My joke is I was screaming. I didn't want to leave. They stuck a pacifier in me and said, shut up, you're going. But I was fortunate that my parents would send me back, once I was about five, six years old, we would go back to spend time with my grandfather in France. And that was the only grandfather I really knew. And my dad's was from Poland and his grandfather was involved in war work too.

[00:10:56] Freddy D: And we'll just leave it at that. Yeah. But, I had some great [00:11:00] memories of, being out in the vineyards, my grandfather had a vineyard, and spending the summers there was just, at the time I had a blast, but now I look back and says, those are some of my most cherished memories of just doing some fun stuff with family and everything else.

[00:11:17] Freddy D: And that was different culture and it was different and I got the travel bug from that. And more importantly, I started to learn about different cultures and different people and that, I've since traveled to about 30 countries and that has given me a different perspective on life and dealing with different individuals.

[00:11:38] Richard Greene: 30 countries. Wow, that's pretty cool. I've had pretty extensive business travel, but I don't think 30 countries. We could do a whole, we could actually do a whole podcast. Or several on the differences between business and different cultures.

[00:11:52] Freddy D: Yes, that would be like got lots of stories on it.

[00:11:55] Richard Greene: Yes. I have I, I learned sort of the hard way. In many places that [00:12:00] I went to, people don't do business necessarily like americans do.

[00:12:03] Freddy D: Exactly.

[00:12:04] Richard Greene: I, yes, I have similar stories. Yeah, that's so cool. Well, I'm pretty interested in the superfans you're an author and I know you've done some sales training and the thing about, and I also, there's also a lot of solopreneurs that are my listeners, people that are looking to create fans, but that, that love what they have to offer, love their services, love their products, but it seems to be.

[00:12:29] Freddy D: A huge struggle for a lot of people and very difficult thing to do. And I'm wondering if, you've cracked that formula or not,

[00:12:38] Freddy D: I think I have. I'm not the world's greatest prospect. But I will say that I am probably one of the top attraction marketing guys. I get people to come to me.

[00:12:49] Freddy D: So, as an example, when I was selling engineering and manufacturing software years ago we would conduct a lunch and learn event back then. [00:13:00] And that would be handled in a sense that. I would send out letters back in the day to, so it could be emails today, inviting executives to this lunch and learn about how technology is transforming the manufacturing and engineering industry, those sales pitch.

[00:13:17] Freddy D: And then I got our shared executive offices, so I got the girls to contact the guys in the manufacturing world, just the way it was that. So these guys would come in and we would do a presentation. We would talk about how technology is affecting businesses and etc. We would demonstrate our software to prove the point of what we were making.

[00:13:40] Freddy D: So we were using the software as the demo vehicle without talking about selling it was just an educate how this saves you time. This improves your profile, blah, blah, blah. And what would be done is people would say, okay, can you come to our company and take a look at what we're doing and tell us how this [00:14:00] technology might help impact our business.

[00:14:02] Freddy D: So these guys were inviting me to their facilities. And it was done deal because then we would go in there and they weren't looking at any competitors. We were in there and I'd say, here's the strategy and et cetera. So the reason I go to that aspect is because I'm leading up to is there was a one company is a tool and die mold shop and in Illinois.

[00:14:23] Freddy D: And they became my biggest superfan because what happened is they were a 40 man company and I went in there and we talked and I didn't talk about how my software would make their life better. I really changed the conversation to the CEO of the company says, what do you see yourself in a few years?

[00:14:43] Freddy D: From a business perspective. Yeah. Now what's your plan to get there? And how can I help you get there? And that's how I handled the whole conversation. And, it says, okay, well, we can use this type of technology. Well, we don't do this, but here you should buy this from this guy. [00:15:00] Because, that'll help you in that area. And I became more of an advisor with them and they started to grow their business and add people and get more work. And so I would always call them up and says, Hey, I've got this company, would you mind sharing what we've done with your company? And they would be, they would absolutely say, sure.

[00:15:21] Freddy D: And they talked to my prospects. So I was no longer selling. My customer was selling on my behalf. Yeah, but the unique part was that when Bob was the who was the IT manager, I knew what his growth he wanted to control all of it was going through divorce, who was sitting at the bar with them drinking a beer listening to all the stuff that was going on to his life. This guy.

[00:15:47] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:15:47] Freddy D: And that's where I made him into my superfan to the point where, I was about to win a contest and I needed one more sale and I knew that they were [00:16:00] going to buy something in the fourth quarter. And I says, Bob, I got to get this thing done by end of June for me to win this contest.

[00:16:07] Freddy D: And I'm, I need one more sale and I've got this and I says, can you help me out? And so the conversation, the short version of it was, he goes, what can you do on the payment? I said, I can delay the payment, I'm the number one sales guy in the company, I can do whatever I want.

[00:16:23] Richard Greene: So, it

[00:16:25] Freddy D: is true, isn't it?

[00:16:27] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:16:28] Freddy D: So, I got to, so he gave me the deal. I delayed the payments to him and I won the prize because we just had a early commitment, late delivery and late payment. That was all we needed to do. So I was thinking out of the box on how to get that deal done. And so that's when I started to create superfans for my customers and everyone, I also made sure that everybody was referenceable.

[00:16:52] Freddy D: I would hand out my day timer and said, here's here, grab my phone, call anyone of these people at any time, they're all [00:17:00] referenceable.

[00:17:01] Richard Greene: That's good. I mean they're. You just listed so many things. There's a lot to unpack there. But I got excited because a lot of the strategies that I've used as well taught as well.

[00:17:11] Richard Greene: I'm starting off with the lunch and learns, which when I started coaching, I was trained by the John Maxwell company. For me, it's all about leadership. And I still believe, leadership is key to success. And that was the way that, that I would get business, coaching business and working with executives and sales executives was to give value and do a lunch and learn.

[00:17:34] Richard Greene: And and then, so it's, so folks, that's a great way to, lunch and learn is a great way to do it. Webinars that people do today are a great way to give value.

[00:17:44] Freddy D: Yep.

[00:17:44] Richard Greene: Without shamelessly pitching, which Frederick, I think that's what you did.

[00:17:50] Freddy D: Yeah. I got invited in for example, I spoke at the United States mold builders association.

[00:17:56] Freddy D: And they told me I I could talk about technology, but I [00:18:00] couldn't talk and promote my product. So what I talked about was compute speed and every owner was like dumbfounded with what I was talking about, because I talked, okay, you're doing, NC manufacturing, programming, you got mathematical stuff that gots to get calculated to generate the tool path, to machine the metal out of the particular part.

[00:18:23] Freddy D: Okay. So this is, so what's your employee doing as the computer's calculating all this math for 15, 20 minutes? Nothing. And now you tweak and then it says, and then you tweak it and then you got to rerun the code again, because, okay, it's not the way I want it. I got to make a couple of adjustments. So there's another 15, 20 minutes, another 15, 20 minutes.

[00:18:44] Freddy D: So those are loss of productivity and you're too cheap is how I worded it. Spend five, six, 7, 000 to get a new latest and greatest computer to do the math calculations so that your guy's more productive. And they were like, I [00:19:00] never even looked at it that way. And the next thing I know is I got people asking me to come to their companies to take a look at what they're doing and made sales without selling.

[00:19:09] Freddy D: I didn't sell one thing.

[00:19:11] Richard Greene: Nobody, you know what? Nobody likes to be sold either. The other things I wrote down that you do in that formula, which I think are great through your added value, right? And you didn't sell. You got in, as you said, you got invited in um, you asked a question of the CEO about his life.

[00:19:28] Richard Greene: Excuse me. And so you put him in the story. I had a friend that I was, but he's creating the story. and then the other thing that I think was great was recommending products that weren't your own, but would help. You better know a lot about the industry that you're in and your competitors or other companies that have ancillary products that are important to your customers so that you can be a good, [00:20:00] maybe a good consultant.

[00:20:01] Freddy D: It is good, because now you've shown integrity. It's not about the sale. It's about the benefit and the success. And again, that's part of building a superfan is making them successful.

[00:20:11] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:20:12] Freddy D: You're the, whether you're selling software widgets or broomsticks or whatever, those are just tools. the reality of it is where do they see themselves and how can you help them achieve the growth that they're after? And the rest of it takes care of itself. They're just mechanisms. I would tell people, in manufacturing software, they all do the job. Okay. In some way, shape, or form, otherwise they wouldn't exist.

[00:20:40] Freddy D: So I wouldn't get into the weeds of, well, we flip it this way and they flip it that way. I was more like, okay, how do we help your productivity? How do we help your profit line? How do we help you grow your business? And, that one company in Illinois, last time I was there, as a joke, they held the door closed so I couldn't get [00:21:00] in.

[00:21:00] Freddy D: This is what's up guys. This is it. Tell me through door. Every time you walk in here, it costs us 100 grand. This is yeah, but you bought the building to the left. You bought the building to the right. You're now 100 and some employees. You got a company in, Carolinas. So it was a joke, but the point was I helped them.

[00:21:20] Freddy D: I helped them grow and triple their business in a period of four years.

[00:21:25] Richard Greene: Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. And that's the value of coaching or consulting or, a combination thereof. I think the stats out there on that are, your ROI is seven times the investment. It's like, that's just, those are industry standard stats, so it could vary.

[00:21:43] Richard Greene: But that's great. The other thing that that I loved and a, one of my favorite authors many of the books that I read from him came into my mind. You're talking about the guy that was going through the divorce, the personal situation.

[00:21:54] Freddy D: Right.

[00:21:55] Richard Greene: And just listening and being there. Jim Rohn.

[00:21:58] Freddy D: Yeah, I'm familiar with him. I've read [00:22:00] all his stuff.

[00:22:00] Richard Greene: People don't care about what you have to say until they know you care about them. And and I, so I, that, that's a great thing. I say, do that. you employ that, do that sincerely from your heart. Right. Not as a trick or anything, but very powerful. You, it's hard to, it's also hard to fire friends. Right?

[00:22:21] Freddy D: Right, it's all about relationships.

[00:22:23] Richard Greene: That's super, that's super. And then , you held up your phone. and this is, I think the Superfans piece is pretty cool. So you have some sort of process where you go through to make sure everybody's referenceable?

[00:22:37] Freddy D: Yeah, I basically, yeah, well, one is, taking care of your customers is number one. I mean, it's not the love them and leave them. It's the, love them all the time. And Yeah. Thanks. So I would always reach out to my customers. I would send out letters. I mean, when I, and I still do, apply this today was the fact that, okay.

[00:22:58] Freddy D: I would hold a meeting [00:23:00] into some company. I make sure I got everybody's name and everybody gets either, an email back or I actually mail something to them through the postal service, acknowledging their time, appreciating them and all that stuff. And so, going back to the manufacturing world. I would have the guys out from the shop floor that would be coming in to take a look at the technology and everything else, because they're the guys who will be using it. And I made sure I got their names because nobody ever acknowledges them. And, but they all got a letter, thank you, Steve.

[00:23:32] Freddy D: Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Mary, for participating in our meeting and appreciate all your valuable input and blah, blah, blah. We look forward to developing a great partnership. And so I made them all feel important. And they were contributors. Yeah. I found out afterwards is okay.

[00:23:50] Freddy D: Why did you pick us? When you won the deal and all of them said, we felt that you would provide the best post sales support. But I positioned that, if [00:24:00] you think about that, I positioned that from the get go. And so, one of the things I talk about in, and this is what the cover looks like because the superfans, okay.

[00:24:10] Freddy D: Is to acknowledge and express appreciation and recognition to people. One of my quotes is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition. Tell me I'm wrong.

[00:24:23] Richard Greene: No, I can't tell you're wrong. I've seen people do crazy things for, in contests for winning a t-shirt. Things like that so that they could stand up on stage and be recognized as doing something or winning a contest or being part of something. It's people are craving recognition and it really costs nothing managers. Again, you're listening to this and you've got people. And your most valuable asset, recognizing them as their value, the organization as people goes a long ways. It's more [00:25:00] valuable. I'm going to say it's just. You have to make a good salary, but recognition in a lot of instances, once that's done, it surpasses that.

[00:25:09] Freddy D: Absolutely correct, because like I say, your team is going to know that you appreciate their extra efforts. So they're going to want to do more.

[00:25:16] Freddy D: Other co workers are going to see that and they're going to say, wow. He really, or she really cares about what we're doing and that changes the dynamics of the company. And so where the superfans comes in and where I got the idea from it is if, and that's why, if you look in the cover, our faces are painted.

[00:25:35] Freddy D: Okay, but if you think of a sports team, okay, you've got the superfans, the faces painted, the jerseys, the banner hats, everything else cheering for their team. Is the team paying them for that?

[00:25:48] Richard Greene: Yeah no.

[00:25:49] Freddy D: They're spending their own money for it, but they're promoting the team. So my idea was why can't businesses, that's why I created business superfans.

[00:25:57] Freddy D: Why can't businesses create their own team [00:26:00] of superfans? And the first place to start with is with your own internal team. Like you were just mentioning because now you get your employees, your team. To start saying, man, what a great company. These guys really love us. And they start telling their friends and it, and it starts and it grows and the same thing with customers.

[00:26:18] Freddy D: And the same thing that nobody ever talks about is complimentary businesses.

[00:26:22] Richard Greene: Yeah, right. Absolutely. That's so important because you become valuable now you're just, you're a source of information and assistance, we haven't talked about this, but you know, I know that your passion about leadership as well. And and you're also an athlete. I don't know if we'll get into that now, but, I'm did eight Ironman in my fifties and and learned a lot from it. And actually a lot of the coaching that I do is around high performance and the things that I learned. And one of the the four leadership styles of the Ironman that I developed is the fan.

[00:26:53] Richard Greene: The fan is so important. It's so critical in an organization and it's critical to, somebody that's in competition [00:27:00] because when things are tough and you've got, up to 17 hours to finish your race, if it takes that long, people that are on the sidelines that are keeping you going.

[00:27:11] Richard Greene: Yeah, creating, I, I want to dig into that to the superfans. So I'm just, again, I'm fascinated by this sort of the process that you've gotten, if you'd be willing to talk a little bit more about your book, which is creating business superfans, I think it was available on Amazon and a whole bunch of other places, correct?

[00:27:30] Richard Greene: Well, at the end, we'll make sure that we get information on that so that listeners can get access to that book. But could you talk a little bit about?

[00:27:37] Freddy D: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I looked at is when I did research on this stuff and the idea came to me was the fact that, there's a lot of people to talk about customer engagement, customer retention and all that stuff.

[00:27:50] Freddy D: But if you stop and think about it, they're talking about a silo. It's just one component of the equation. There's other people who talk about employee motivation, employee [00:28:00] engagement, employee retention, and all that kind of stuff. But that's another silo that they talk about. And nobody ever talks about your complementary business partners, like a flooring and a painting company that go together.

[00:28:15] Freddy D: It's a simple example, okay? And what I realized was that they're really all intertwined, if you stop to think about it, because, I'll give you an example, okay? You're the painting guy, and you've got an employee that's, eh, not too happy about. His job thing, he's doing it because it's a job because that's how he feels he's treated.

[00:28:38] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:28:39] Freddy D: The flooring company gives you a referral that, they just did the flooring and these people need, painting done because it doesn't match the flooring. So the employee that's not super motivated goes and does a. mediocre job on a painting. And so now you've got a situation where the flooring [00:29:00] guy that recommended you looks bad to his customer, the painting company looks bad to the customer.

[00:29:07] Freddy D: And more importantly, now the flooring guy is not happy with the painting company because he just lost himself a customer that's unhappy. And right there is a combination of all of those things all intertwined, if that employee was motivated, fired up and loved this company, they would walk in and turn around and say.

[00:29:29] Freddy D: Hey, this is I love this company and all these flooring guys, they're the best, and all that stuff. So it really reinforces the fact that a customer, they picked an outstanding flooring company and that's why they got recommended and it all, it just all intertwines and unfortunately we don't think of it that way.

[00:29:50] Richard Greene: It's like the ripple in the, it's like the pebble dropped in the pond on it and the ripple goes out and it affects so many parts of the shores and you don't even know. Correct. [00:30:00] So that's or, or I guess the other one that people talk about is the butterfly wings causing a hurricane 7, 000 miles away, right. There really are very powerful effects from things that we do or say, or just even think and then it admits some sort of energy that people pick up good or bad.

[00:30:20] Freddy D: Right. And it's like, one of the things I talk about in the book is the importance of thank you and a follow up for thank you, because I don't think we, you look at there's certain industries and I won't name them, but that are weak in that aspect. So they'll do a good job, and that's the last time that customer hears back from that company. I mean, and it's like, wait a minute, you just lost that customer. Because you, they're not talking about you. They're not promoting you. They're not saying what a great job you are because they haven't heard from you ever again.

[00:30:54] Freddy D: And the mind says, well. It was a transaction. We got it done. We serviced them [00:31:00] and all set versus, a couple months later. Hey, just checking in and making sure you know that everything is working and all is good. And if you need anything, let us know. And if you know anybody that could benefit from us, let us know as well. We'd be grateful. It's the simple stuff that is the big stuff. And, it's, like six months later or a year later, Hey, just want to reach out rich and say, hi, hope all is well, how's life treating you. And oh, by the way, here's a couple of, we've expanded because of your assistance and we value you because our company has grown because of customers like you.

[00:31:36] Freddy D: People want to know that they dealt with a successful company. So it's okay to go back to those past customers and says, Hey, because of you guys we've grown.

[00:31:47] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:31:47] Freddy D: Thank you.

[00:31:48] Richard Greene: Yeah. Right and how, and if you're not going back, how do you going back to your formula for creating superfans? If you're not going back and finding out about their business and their lives. This is a simple process of checking [00:32:00] in and saying, and again, saying, thank you.

[00:32:02] Richard Greene: But it's all part of that building the superfan process from sort of that beginning that you were talking about.

[00:32:08] Freddy D: Yeah, yeah it's recognizing, it's like I tell people I talk about birthday marketing and people look at me as birthday marketing, what, why would you do that? I says, well, cause it's an important thing.

[00:32:19] Freddy D: It says, if you send a birthday card to somebody through the mail, not an email or a text, something, it could be the only card that person has received. Number one. Number two it just shows the time that. Wow, took the time to send a card. I mean, I can show you tons of text messages I get from people saying, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe you remembered my birthday.

[00:32:41] Richard Greene: Thank you so much. It's a little things. Did it take a lot of did it take a lot of effort to do that? No, not at all.

[00:32:47] Richard Greene: I'm glad you brought you I'm so glad you brought up the US mail. Because I use the U. S. mail all the time. It still works. It works well because, guess what? People don't get mail anymore.

[00:32:58] Richard Greene: I mean, what they get, they don't [00:33:00] like. It's usually some sort of junk or maybe a bill or something like that. You're surprised to get a card.

[00:33:07] Freddy D: Or even though I still, I send out letters, I still send out letters to people in the mail because it's, they're gonna go, I mean, we all do this, we look at it junk, bill, that goes in that pile, I ain't opening that because I know they want just money, that's our mindset these days.

[00:33:21] Freddy D: Oh my God, what's this? Oh, I'm gonna open this one up and it gets opened, and I've gotten more opportunities from prospecting that way because it , whoa what's this?

[00:33:34] Richard Greene: I love your, by the way, I love your attraction marketing versus the prospecting because I think you're, again you're adding value, you're attracting people, you're, I guess you could put that prospecting term on it, but in my head, and I think a lot of other people said prospecting is a different sort of a process, sometimes not too much fun for a salespeople, and I guarantee you, not too much fun for the prospects either.

[00:33:58] Freddy D: Correct. Correct.

[00:33:59] Richard Greene: So I, the [00:34:00] other thing that I'm thinking about something that I've done frequently and for people, other authors who have books which is fun to do is to send a prospect. A copy of your book from Amazon, and if you've got prime, the shipping is free.

[00:34:14] Freddy D: Right

[00:34:15] Richard Greene: And then everybody, you get a package just from Amazon versus you can open it up, right?

[00:34:21] Freddy D: Yeah.

[00:34:22] Richard Greene: So, the U S mail or things that come to your mailbox or your door, or, if people still have the inbox where stuff sits on top and it gets opened. So that's super.

[00:34:36] Freddy D: And personalizing gifts. If you're sending a gift to somebody, make sure you got their name on it. Because if I sent somebody a coffee mug, and it's got my logo on it, who's it about?

[00:34:48] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:34:49] Freddy D: It's about me and the company. If I send that same coffee mug with my logo, but now it's got the name Rich on it, whose coffee cup is it?

[00:34:58] Richard Greene: Yeah. It's your [00:35:00] company. You are, this is sales. People have incredible power if they use it responsibly. And you are the company, you could have the, you could, the company could have the best product in the world.

[00:35:16] Richard Greene: Yeah, I could have the most clever marketing, but if they don't like the people that the prospect doesn't like, the people are dealing with

[00:35:22] Freddy D: Toast don't pass zero.

[00:35:25] Richard Greene: Oh yeah. Very cool.

[00:35:27] Freddy D: But like I say with the personalized gift, where I was going with that is okay. Now if you got that, you know I sent you a coffee cup with my logo, but your name on it, you're drinking. It's your cup. So don't touch my cup 'cause it's got your name on it. But now you're walking around with your cup. Not my cup. It's your cup. 'cause it's got your name on it. But you're promoting my company.

[00:35:49] Richard Greene: Super. I hope people that are listening to this, writing these things down because we've got so many, this talk this dialogue that we're having, there's so many gems in it. I [00:36:00] mean, so many absolute gems in it. And I guess if you wanted to be able to to grab more of those gems and you have some gifts, I think some things that you give out, actually give out for free.

[00:36:12] Richard Greene: Something called the scorecard. Could you tell me about the Superfan Scorecard?

[00:36:16] Freddy D: Yeah, the Superfan scorecard is a pretty cool thing that the creator, it's in conjunction with the book. So that's what it looks like. It's like a dart, it's like a dart board, the top spot is in the center. But it's each chapter is per the, what I did with the book is each chapter is self contained.

[00:36:34] Freddy D: So it addresses customers, employees, and business partners per each chapter. And so for each chapter, we start off with prospecting. At the end of the chapter is a question that asks you on a score of zero to ten, how do you rate yourself in your prospecting skills? And you would take your pen and put a dot there.

[00:36:53] Richard Greene: Got it.

[00:36:54] Freddy D: And go on to follow up, thank you, birthdays, appreciation, recognition, retention, [00:37:00] unexpected gifts, reviews and referrals, and gratitude is the last one. And you, then when you're all done, you connect the dots and you'll realize your wheel isn't really smooth. It's a little bit, got some flat spots in it.

[00:37:12] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:37:13] Freddy D: And so then there is some, it tells you how it works. But then at the back here, there's a whole action guide and, being a coach, you can appreciate this. Okay. Next action steps, responsible deadline, resources, barriers, and results. And I can put dates on here. What do I need to do? To make, improve my score.

[00:37:38] Richard Greene: That is very cool. And so the, on that front page, after you get done scoring yourself, you've got a visual, I guess I'm envisioning it right now. You've got a visual and you can see where the, that wheel is like, it's not going to turn, it's not going to feel good when it hits something that's, not,

[00:37:55] Richard Greene: Clunk.

[00:37:56] Richard Greene: So you would focus, I'm guessing you would, that you would use [00:38:00] that to focus on the areas that are.

[00:38:01] Freddy D: Yeah, but you find that you realize that yourself you're short with yeah, and then I'm I've got a community that people can join to it's called the business superfans accelerated community that people can join for free and it's strictly all business owners.

[00:38:15] Freddy D: I'm launching it. So there's, I'm looking to get people in there.

[00:38:19] Richard Greene: Okay.

[00:38:20] Freddy D: Start doing some stuff with it, but the whole intent is they get access to me through that community to help coach them on, okay, what are you doing? How are you doing it? And all that aspect. And the other thing that's available, it's a reduced rate is I did a lot of research and spent a few bucks and I downloaded everybody's customer avatar worksheet, and it took all the best of everybody's stuff and they send all the other stuff and we created a comprehensive ever customer avatar worksheet that you can go through, it's got, the avatar deep dive, etc. And then we get into talking [00:39:00] about you. And about, your KPIs and what you need to be doing for that aspect.

[00:39:06] Freddy D: And then, what's your unique selling proposition, your elevator pitch. All that stuff so that you first define who you want to be pursuing and then what's going to be your messaging for that particular group.

[00:39:20] Richard Greene: I tell you what there's all sorts of stuff on creating avatars, but all of the follow up, it's rare that you find something all put together like that. But now you just mentioned KPIs and the things that you want to be able to measure, being able to have all of that at your fingertips is, is.

[00:39:35] Freddy D: Yeah, that's what I said. I spent months downloading everybody's stuff. It's part of sales, you got to know what your competition's got and then we reworked it and now, it's got some really cool stuff that a great team helped me put this together. And again, it's all about helping people.

[00:39:52] Richard Greene: Yeah, adding value, adding value. And that's the way we grow our business. That's the way we grow our [00:40:00] superfans. Super Frederick. Thank you so much for being a guest of the show. I've enjoyed our time together. I'd love to have you back and talk more about this and I hope you come back.

[00:40:11] Freddy D: Yeah, I would love to come back. I think we had a great conversation. Thank you for the invite. This was very enjoyable and, we could deep dive into, like we talked about some international sales and.

[00:40:20] Richard Greene: Yeah. Yeah. Great stories there.

[00:40:23] Freddy D: Yep.

[00:40:23] Richard Greene: So if we'd be willing to share, I'd be willing to share my learning stories if you'd be willing to share your learning stories.

[00:40:30] Freddy D: Oh, yeah.

[00:40:30] Richard Greene: Yeah. the how can people get access to to the book and to the other materials that you talked about, the scorecard.

[00:40:37] Freddy D: Okay. The book, easiest place is go to Amazon, search for creating business superfans.

[00:40:43] Richard Greene: Okay.

[00:40:43] Freddy D: And this is what the cover looks like of the book and then they can also go to business superfans. com and that's where they can get the scorecard for free and they can buy the avatar. And I'm [00:41:00] actually slowly creating documents that people can purchase to help them with follow up verbiage, thank you verbiage appreciation verbiage, and stuff like that, because one of the things that, you know, and I think you would agree, you give somebody a blank sheet of paper, and they go I don't know what to write, I don't know what to start with, you give somebody a document that's got, verbiage on it, they're going to find everything that's wrong with it.

[00:41:24] Freddy D: They're going to want to change everything else, and so what I'm doing is I'm creating templates that people can purchase for reasonable dollars. And it gives them a starting point of, here's some followup strategy and verbology that they can utilize, to thank you. How to ask for a referral.

[00:41:43] Freddy D: And those are add on products that I'm creating in conjunction with the book.

[00:41:48] Richard Greene: That's great. I mean, if the statistics are this in sales, if you follow a process that is equivalent to 52 percent of getting the sale. Now we're not talking about any skills or your [00:42:00] personality or anything else. We're just talking about feeling, following a process.

[00:42:04] Richard Greene: Which is better than flipping a coin. Yep. So it's great that you've got that available for people. Again, Frederick, thank you so much. Before we go, , I want to know what your code is. What's the code that you use, your motto your faith your credo? What is it you use to get through the tough times?

[00:42:21] Freddy D: Perseverance.

[00:42:22] Richard Greene: Perseverance.

[00:42:24] Freddy D: Perseverance. Because we're all going to go to, life is like this.

[00:42:29] Richard Greene: Yeah.

[00:42:29] Freddy D: If you stay on mission and you believe in yourself, and that's the other thing is belief in yourself. It is everything and I'll just share the public to prove the point, our garage door broke and I had a meeting and I had to get the power out and I couldn't pull the handle stuff. I mean, all the cabling broke.

[00:42:52] Richard Greene: Oh, no. Oh,

[00:42:53] Freddy D: I got that garage door off by myself with my partner. She helped a bit, but I, finished getting it up. And she [00:43:00] said, we got to call the neighbors. Everything else is noise is I can get this done. We just got to use our heads. And we've got it done. And so it's perseverance and persistence.

[00:43:09] Richard Greene: Perseverance and persistence. Beautiful. Again, Federick, thank you so much until next time, folks know your code.

[00:43:18] Freddy D: All right. Thank you, Rich.

[00:43:20] Thanks for listening to the iron mind code show with Rich Greene. Make sure to visit our website. Join us next time for another edition of the iron mind code show.