Episode 68 Transcript – Kevin Knebl

Participants:

Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Kevin Knebl

Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing. On this episode we talk with Kevin Knebl, a hippie in a suit who is desperately searching for another vowel for his last name. Kevin is an expert at leveraging social media to build relationships and attract more clients and referrals. Kevin entered the business world with no business experience, and with the good luck to be introduced to some excellent mentors, and became the top salesperson internationally for his company and then went on to become the top salesperson for three other companies in different industries, and that was before LinkedIn.

Once social media arrived, LinkedIn specifically, it meant he could establish and nurture those relationships like never before. But that’s a message many financial advisors miss and consequently get frustrated that their social media marketing campaigns fall flat. Our conversation covers all those basic principles and a lot more. And listen through to the end, when Kevin describes his high touch marketing system that can help you attract a consistent stream of people to talk to. Here now is our conversation with Kevin Knebl. Kevin Knebl, welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

Kevin Knebl:
Well, thank you Stephen, it’s an honor to be here.

Steve Wershing:
Now for anybody who’s not heard of you, who obviously is not on LinkedIn, I’d like to be able to tell everybody a little bit about where you come from. Tell us about being a hippie in a suit and a little bit about your journey.

Julie Littlechild:
Best opening line ever, Steve.

Steve Wershing:
Right? Exactly. How’s that for the beginning of a podcast?

Kevin Knebl:
That is a great opening line. Years ago, what I used to do for a living when the earth was cold, was I used to be actually a professional piano player in New York City. Completely different line of work than what I do now, and I can assure you if you’re young and single and you can play Gershwin and Cole Porter and Billy Joel and Elton John, it’s a great gig. So back in those days, my hair was 18 inches long and I was totally a hippie, and through a chain of events I got into sales, and I eventually was blessed to become the top salesperson for four separate companies in four different industries, and that morphed into a speaking career.

So, obviously when I got into sales years and years ago, 25 years ago, I cut off my hair and I looked like a normal, clean cut person. But last summer, my kids … I have three children, one of each, my kids said to me last year … my kids said to me, “Hey, dad, we know that years ago when you used to be a piano player you had really long hair and we dare you to grow your hair back.” And I’m the kind of guy that you probably shouldn’t dare me to do something, because I’ll probably do it.

I figured I would take their dare for like 30, 60 maybe 90 days max. But at 90 days in, I said, “You know what? This is fun. Let’s keep going.” And now I’m probably coming up on almost a year. I’ve also grown a beard and a mustache, so if anybody looks at my social media platforms … I haven’t updated the picture on my website yet, but if you look at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, you’ll see that my hair is quickly approaching my shoulders.

So I’ve called myself a hippie in a suit for years and years, but now I truly look like a hippie in a suit, because I walk on stage in a suit and a tie but I look like Jerry Garcia, so that’s my hippie in a suit and I’ve adopted a hashtag hippie in a suit. I initially thought that my audiences, which are primarily financial services audiences, I initially thought they would boo me off the stage and throw things at me, but actually just the opposite has happened. They have told me, “Kevin, it actually enhances kind of your message and what you talk about,”, and I’ve been told that I look like the love child of Mozart and Einstein. I’m just having a lot of fun with it, and that’s my story.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, well it’s all about differentiation, right, so I think you’re right up the right alley there. Now, you sort of glanced over this, but I’m not going to let you get away with that. So you said … you were a jazz pianist in New York City, and I’ve heard your story so I know kind of where you went with that, but you just sort of glossed over the fact that you became the top sales person at four different companies in four different industries. I think you need to go into that a little bit because I think how you did that, financial advisors in our audience could really learn something from.

Kevin Knebl:
Well, thank you for asking. When I first got into sales in 1992, when I was a piano player and then I got into sales, a sex change would have been more in my comfort zone, okay? I was completely out of my comfort zone. I was literally scared out of my mind, and I would often throw up in the morning just because I was afraid to go talk to human beings. I could talk to human beings behind the piano, but I was never, ever going to talk to human beings in the context of business. So, I was very fortunate that I had some great mentors that taught me, Kevin, once you figure out the technical aspect of your chosen profession, whatever that is, once you figure that out, your long term success is actually not going to come down to your technical proficiency. Now, that surprised me because I thought well, you know, of course it would. But no, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever because that would mean that everybody that’s excellent at what they do would be wealthy, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Steve Wershing:
Sure.

Kevin Knebl:
So I asked them, I said, “Well, if that’s not the differentiator, what is?” And they said to me, “The key is you need to actually be able to create, nurture and deepen relationships with people, and people do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.” Which I heard from Bob Burg way back in 1994. So they told me, “Kevin, you don’t necessarily need to study sales strategies. Why don’t you really study interpersonal skills and human … just common sense, basically. Just study interpersonal relationships and human nature.” So I did that, and I picked up How to Win Friends and Influence People and books like that, and I didn’t read them, I deeply studied them, and that led to an extremely successful sales career across multiple industries. I’m not the normal salesperson, I don’t think, because I really don’t have any sales strategies, I just take a real deep, sincere interest in people and that really is a huge differentiator. Does that make sense?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and what you were talking about and what you talk about when you present and when you talk about social media and things is that it’s about relationships, and it’s about the social aspect of it, and that’s a term that financial advisors throw around a lot. But I don’t know that they really appreciate it in the way that you mean it, so can you tell us a little bit more about what relationships in this context means to you, and developing them and what that meant to that sales career?

Kevin Knebl:
Yeah, absolutely. In that book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, written in 1936, there’s 30 chapters in that book and each chapter has a one-sentence summary of the end of the chapter, so there’s obviously 30 principles that Dale Carnegie was really digging into in that book. One of the key principles, and it’s really stuck out to me a lot over the last 25 or so years since I first starting reading that book, is to take a sincere interest in other people. Now prior to Al Gore inventing the internet, it would be difficult for me to learn a lot of information about Julie Littlechild. Because what would I do, would I go down to the library and look in the microfilm for … you had limited ways of taking a sincere interest in other human beings prior to the invention of the internet.

And that’s why prior to the invention of the internet, it would take three, six, nine, 12 months through normal face-to-face meetings, phone calls, interactions, to learn and take a sincere interest in the other person with whom you want to do business with, whatever do business with means. Then they invented the internet. Then, on Cinco de Mayo, Fifth of May 2003, LinkedIn was launched. Once LinkedIn was launched, I got an invitation to get on LinkedIn in July of 2003, ironically 60 days after it launched, I had already developed a deep understanding of what taking a sincere interest in other people means, prior to ever getting on LinkedIn.

So, when I got on LinkedIn, it would stand to reason that because I already was a really good driver, to use a driving analogy, because I was already a very good driver in terms of sales networking and referral creation, now that I’m presented with the world’s largest electronic Rolodex, it would stand to reason that I would be able to do something more with it than the average person. Not because I’m any smarter or more enlightened, it’s just that was my area of expertise.

Steve Wershing:
Sure, and you’d been doing it for 11 years already at that point.

Kevin Knebl:
Exactly, exactly. So when you give somebody who already knows how to drive really well, when you give them the keys to a Lamborghini, they can drive that sucker. So, I had financial advisors, insurance professionals, RIAs, OSJs, brokers, dealers, EIEIOs, they come to me every day and they say, “Show us how to LinkedIn to grow our practice.” And I say to them, “Well, I will show you how to use LinkedIn but more importantly, let’s talk about what you’re already doing in terms of creating conversations that are sincere and authentic.”

The irony here is that people think if I learn a lot about social media I’ll grow my practice. That’s like saying, “If I study the transmission of my car, I’ll be a better driver.” So, to answer your question, once I got on LinkedIn I started going, “Oh my goodness,” like right now as we are speaking, I’m sitting here looking at Julie’s LinkedIn profile and I can see that she lives in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. However, I pronounce that, right?

I can see, because she’s willingly and openly telling me she went to the University of Toronto, she has an MBA, she went there from 92 to 94. I can see whatever she’s willing to tell me, and I’m smart enough to go look at it. So, creating relationships is not about commission breath, it’s not about cleverly figuring out how to bring into the conversation with a prospect how you can help them. It’s really conveying a feeling, is really what it is, without trying to sound to woo-woo. But again, remember, I’m a hippie. When someone takes a sincere interest in you, there’s a feeling conveyed with that that you can’t fake.

And by observing people both online and offline, it is very simple to figure out what really makes them tick as a human being, and then to use that in a simple, natural conversational way without being a sales pitch. I can see looking at your website Gaylon McCormack, your daughter Clara, you’re some kind of a crazy West Coast swing dancer. All I have to do is bring that into a conversation, but not in a manipulative hidden agenda way. Just not talk about me for a couple minutes and talk about you and what’s important to you in your world, without going on for the next three hours. Does that make sense?

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, can you … I want to talk about how you use LinkedIn for sure to do that, but I think the point you made was really the critical one, that you’ve been underscoring this need for sincere curiosity and interest in the other person. And so many people would say, “Of course I’m interested. Of course I do that.” But when you look at how many people operate in our industry, is that true? Are there things that we need to be doing offline differently before any of this makes sense?

Kevin Knebl:
Well, my fast answer to that, Julie, is that people lie, knowingly and unknowingly, but results never lie. So, when somebody says, “Of course I take a sincere interest in people.” Oh really, show me the evidence. Show me the evidence. I’ll nod politely when people talk to me, but I look for results. So financial advisors, I talk to them all day long. They tell me, at least the fully functioning, rational, non insane ones say, “Yes, I’m interested in helping my clients.” And I go, “But does the client … tell me about your client. Tell me about your client and their children’s names. Tell me about what they like to do in their spare time.” Often what happens is there’s a lot of silence.

And I say, “Well in your mind, you feel like you really take an interest in your client, but if you can’t answer these questions, there’s very little evidence that the client really knows that you care about them as a person. They know you care about their portfolio, but they don’t know you care about them as a human being.” And again, it’s a simple misunderstanding of the statement, all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.

Let me say one more thing real fast and then I’ll shut up. If you were to say to me, “Kevin, what do you really do for a living?” You might be surprised at my answer. My answer would not be, “I’m a professional speaker.” My answer would not be, “I’m a LinkedIn expert.” Here’s what my answer would really be, “What I do for a living is I run around the world. I talk to individuals and organizations. I get them to agree in the first three minutes that the statement, all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust. If I get them to agree in the first three minutes that that statement is 100% accurate, and it is, and then I show them how they innocently violate it every five minutes.”

Julie Littlechild:
How do they do that?

Kevin Knebl:
That’s really what I do for a living. But I don’t make them … I don’t call them stupid. I just point out, “You’re telling me that you believe, all things being equal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah but then you do this and I can point to a couple different this’s, right?” And if you want me to answer those in a moment, I will. Once you point out to somebody that what they’re doing isn’t working, you don’t have to tell them to stop it. They will naturally stop it.

All I do is I, with humor often, I point out to them that what they’re doing is actually accomplishing the exact opposite of what they’re intending to accomplish. But I don’t call them stupid, I just point it out, and then they naturally go, “Oh my god, I never realized that these things that I’m doing are actually shooting myself in the foot.” Does that make sense, Julie?

Julie Littlechild:
It does. So yes, please do give us a couple of examples of what we innocently do to betray that.

Kevin Knebl:
Well, one of the things we innocently do is we talk about our product or service before the other person asks.

Steve Wershing:
Mm-hmm, okay. Sure.

Kevin Knebl:
Now let’s really think about this for a second. If I meet you somewhere, Julie, wherever, airport bar, conference, whatever, if I have to figure out a way to bring into the conversation what I do for a living before you ask me, which one of us is more interested in what I do for a living?

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
Yep.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Knebl:
I am, right? This is the whole concept of elevator pitches, which is a bunch of BS, because people don’t talk in elevator pitches. So, an elevator pitch is a form of manipulation. People do not like to be manipulated. People like to have conversations. I will not mention at all what I do for a living until somebody asks me, and even then, when they ask me I’ll say, “Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?” Well now, I’ve really got their attention, because nobody’s ever answered the question of what do you do for a living that way in their entire life.

So, I won’t bring into the conversation what I do. I will also make sure that I use simple little … like, I look at emails all the time from different people in business and they’re the most clinical, sterile things you could ever imagine. And then I just point out to them, “You just told me that people do business with people they know, like and trust.” What I call the know-like-trust factor, the KLT factor. I’m constantly telling people in this communication that you’re about to send to somebody, whether it’s email, voice mail, a letter, whatever it is, is there some warmth and some sincerity and some authenticity in there?

Really what I’m helping people do is maybe get a little bit out of the left side of their brain and understand that they’ve got a full brain. That I don’t care how bottom line somebody sounds, adults are just kids with long, hairy legs. That’s all they are. So we need to err on the side of being more friendly. I don’t mean be a doormat, I don’t mean give away the store. I don’t mean be naïve and innocent, but in a more and more bottom-line world, being nice is an almost unfair competitive advantage.

Julie Littlechild:
You talked about LinkedIn and I mean, that all makes perfect sense. And I’m glad you sort of raised this, because it’s different context when we talk about social media because obviously, we’re usually looking just at the tactics. But I like how you’ve bridged this, that it’s not manipulative, but let’s talk about what it is. Let’s assume for a moment that the interest is genuine, where are you seeing some of the big opportunities then really light that on fire a little with LinkedIn?

Kevin Knebl:
Well, I think there’s one thing that I’ve kind of noticed over the years that when I use this context, suddenly for the listener or the person that sees me on stage, suddenly what I’m talking about makes so much more sense. So, let me preface my answer with this. If people will look at social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is, if they will look at it like it’s a cocktail party, then it makes so much more sense than just being another narcissistic tool in a more and more increasingly narcissistic society.

Because if you look at it as a cocktail party, have you ever gone to a cocktail party, Julie, where you’ve really looked forward to somebody running into the middle of the room and going, “Hey, I’m here, let me tell you what I’m really good at and let’s make it all about me.”

Have you ever gone to a cocktail party just hoping, desperately hoping that somebody’s going to try and sell you something? No. But if you look at the way most people use social media, that is exactly what they’re doing. All they’re talking about with their commission breath is that all they’re talking about is themselves and how smart they are and look at me and I’ve gathered all together, and they’re completely missing the point that this is the world’s largest electronic cocktail party.

Now when you go to a cocktail party, the person that you enjoy talking with is the one that doesn’t talk about themselves. It’s the one that actually says, “Hey, Julie, how long have you been doing what you do? If you had known back then what you know now, might have you have made some changes over the last 10 years? How did you get into your,” these are simple questions that I learned from Bob Burg’s book Endless Referrals years ago. And again, it’s not about manipulation. It’s taking a sincere interest in the other person and letting them talk about their favorite subject, which is themselves.

Now what I find is that when you allow somebody to talk about themselves, if they’re a normal, fully functioning, rational human being, they usually then ask you about yourself. That’s just a normal interpersonal skill. So the first thing that I would advise to any advisor listening to this, is look at a platform like LinkedIn not as your shameless self-promotional pitch machine, but how can you use this tool to mingle and create conversations and start to build relationships, make introductions. And if they will go in with that mindset, then the activities that they will do, and the strategies, if you want to use that word, although I’m hesitant to use that word, the techniques and the strategies that they will use will be infinitely more effective than just trying to position themselves as the smartest person.

Steve Wershing:
And so Kevin, tell us a little bit about how someone might do that in the social media or LinkedIn kind of context. If you’re at a cocktail party, you’re all there for a common good time and so you’re going to be wandering around bumping into people, it’s a little bit different in the social media environment, so how would you initiate a conversation like that through something like LinkedIn?

Kevin Knebl:
Well, what I would do … there’s a number of ways I can do that, but knowing we have time constraints let me just hit one or two very quickly. If you’re going to go to a cocktail party, it would be smarter to be a breath of fresh air in the cocktail party than a downer. So, one of the things that I would suggest that a financial advisor do would be if you’re going to get on LinkedIn, don’t treat it like a gym that you only go to once a month and you’re going to work out for three hours once a month. That’s not going to make any impact on your body.

If you’re going to use something like LinkedIn, get on it for five minutes a day. I don’t care how busy you are. People don’t have time problems; they have priority problems. Get on LinkedIn for five minutes in the morning before you get sucked into your email vortex. Get on LinkedIn and see what your network is doing, look in your news feed, click the like button on some things that people are posting that you find interesting, make some comments where you tell them that you appreciate their posting, and then post something yourself. But don’t post something about yourself or your profound insights into the state of financial affairs. Again, that’s running into a cocktail party and saying, “Look how smart I am.”

Post something that’s maybe uplifting. Maybe a link to an uplifting story in the news that’s not about politics or religion or anything like that. Be a breath of fresh air, because now you’re positioning yourself as somebody that yes, you’re a financial advisor, yes, you’re very smart and you’re very successful, but it’s not all about you. You’re paying it forward. And you’ll start to attract like moths to a light bulb, you will start to attract people to yourself which you can then easily convert into non-sales-y conversations.

So, one strategy there, Stephen, would be to be active on LinkedIn and click the like button because it increases the algorithms that actually look at you. Post things, be a breath of fresh air. Does that make sense so far, Stephen?

Steve Wershing:
Yep.

Kevin Knebl:
That would be one thing. Another thing would be to make some introductions when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn. Don’t just accept their LinkedIn invitation, accept their LinkedIn invitation and open a conversation, not a thinly veiled sales pitch. But then also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool to look through all of the other person’s connections to identify if there’s any people that you might like a warm introduction to. Most people never even think of doing that. You see, if you and I had met 20 years ago, Stephen, we would have traded business cards, and my card would have gone into your Rolodex, your card would have gone into my Rolodex.

But neither one of us … since neither of us are psychic, neither of us had the ability to know who else was in the other person’s Rolodex. Now LinkedIn enters the picture, and all of a sudden, I go wait a minute, I’m connected to this Stephen guy. I can look at his LinkedIn profile. I can see he’s got 1,947 connections and I can sort that tens of thousands of ways based on LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool. If I want to find anybody in a particular profession, in a particular industry, in a particular geographic region, I can look through all of your connections to identify the people that I would like to meet. And then I could approach you very elegantly about the possibility of a mutually beneficial referral relationship.

So, I see so many advisors that spend so much time and effort and money on various marketing methods that have very little to any ROI, and then I just point out to them, you are sitting on a gold mine. You are a mosquito in a nudist colony of opportunity. All you need to do is know how to actually mine through your LinkedIn connections’ connections.

Steve Wershing:
Can you give us an example of how you might make that introduction to get into a mutually beneficial referral relationship?

Kevin Knebl:
Yeah, absolutely. First off, I would start … I’ll use you for an example, Stephen. When you and I connected on LinkedIn four or five years ago, I sent you a message which was the farthest thing imaginable from a sales pitch. Once we connected, my message was basically, “Hi Stephen, thanks for connecting with me here on LinkedIn. I hope things are going well for you. What’s on your mind these days? I noticed we have X number of connections in common.” And then we just start a conversation. But notice that none of that was about me or my services, right?

So, once we have some know-like-trust going between us, and once I’ve already looked through your connections to identify the people that I know I would like to meet, then I would say something like this to you, “Hey, Stephen, I was thinking, I’m connected to a lot of people and I’m constantly meeting more people, and more than likely some of the people that I’m connected to, and definitely some of the people I’ll meet down the road would be people that would be very interested in your services, and I potentially could open some doors or make some more introductions on your behalf. I was also thinking that perhaps you might be connected to some people” … wink, wink, I’ve already looked through your LinkedIn connections, I know exactly the people I want to meet but I’m not going to say that to you right yet, “and I was thinking that you might know a handful of people that might be interested in what I do.”

“Here’s my question, Stephen, would you be open to a conversation, either face to face, GoToMeeting, Skype, phone call, whatever, would you be open to a conversation to discuss the possibility of a mutually beneficial referral relationship?” Now I find that when I ask people that, there’s only maybe three answers somebody would say no to that. Number one, they hate me, which is highly unlikely because they wouldn’t be connected to me on LinkedIn if they hated me. Number two, they have more business coming in the door that they can handle. Not highly likely, but it’s a possibility. Or number three, they’re just not that smart. Because how many people have said to you recently, “By the way, I’m connected to a lot of people and I’m always meeting more, and more than likely some of these people would be very,” I’m going to predict you don’t hear that a lot, right?

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Kevin Knebl:
So really, what you and I are really good at, Stephen, is we’re really good at creating referral networks, right? But the average person doesn’t study that, therefore they’re not good at it. We tend to be good at what we study. We tend to be not so good at what we don’t study. So, because you and I have been deepening our understanding of the principles behind effective sales and networking for decades, it stands to reason that we have a lot of results that prove that we know what the heck we’re talking about.

So, my business has been 99% by invitation and referral only since the day I started. I don’t do any marketing or advertising whatsoever. But I don’t say that to be arrogant, I say it because it’s just validation of what I teach. Did that make sense?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, now one thing I’d like to dig into because it was one of the more … it was probably the most powerful thing that I saw in your presentation the first time I saw you, and then this was something that you honed in your sales career before they invented LinkedIn and now you can just use LinkedIn to put it on steroids, but it’s I think what you call your high tech high touch marketing system. And you know, sort of a systematic way of keeping in touch with people. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Kevin Knebl:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I can. You’re referring to my high-tech high touch system, or my ABC system. So, before I ever got on LinkedIn or the internet, I had kind of nailed down a very simple system to stay top of mind with the people that I want to do business with. So, there’s two things that a financial advisor needs to do in regard to the system that you just mentioned. Number one, they should be posting something on LinkedIn once a day to stay top of mind with a large number of people. We’ll call that a shotgun approach, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re just staying top of mind with a large number of people.

But you should also always be laser specific about a subset of people that you would like to do business with, and that number will vary from advisor to advisor for many different reasons. In my particular situation, I keep that subset between 30 and 75 people, and there are reasons for that, but we don’t have time to get into it right now. When I wake up in the morning, I just look at my CRM and it tells me, “Kevin, it is time to touch this particular individual.” And what I do then is I have a variety of different ways that I can touch them, but I have to define the word touch for your listeners.

Because when I touch the people that I want to do business with, I never, ever, ever, with no exception, I never mention my product or my service in the touch. Now this goes contrary to almost everything we’ve ever been taught in marketing, but I’m not trying to beat up marketing people. There’s a time and a place for marketing. There’s nothing wrong with marketing. But I am going to point out that if every interaction I had with somebody, at some point in that interaction I’m mentioning what I do, unless that person’s really an idiot, and they’re not idiots, they’re going to figure out that yes, Kevin seems like he has an interest in me, but there he is again talking about his product or service.

So when I touch my people, my A B’s and C’s, I never mention my product or service. I only touch them regarding something that I know that they have an interest in. I’ll use you as an example. Again, looking at your website, I can see your wife’s name, your daughter’s name. You’re openly and willingly telling me this. You have two other kids in college. You enjoy cooking and woodworking and dancing West Coast Swing. All I need to do if I wanted to touch you is just send you an email and say, “Hey Stephen, I saw this interesting recipe, here’s a link to it. Knowing that you love to cook, I thought you might find this interesting. Hope you’re having a great start to your May. Giants suck, go Broncos. Kev.”

Now, I would actually email that to you word for word. But that’s the way I talk. I’m not telling the advisors that they need to tell people that their football team sucks or anything like that. I’m just saying that that’s the way I talk, so that’s a sincere and authentic communication for me because I’m not trying to be anything other than me. I have countless stories of how touching people over time, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of time, how touching people differentiates yourself from everybody else that’s touching them with a thinly-veiled and not-so-thinly-veiled sales pitch.

I have a client in Connecticut that paid me over half a million dollars over five years that came from nine postcards I sent him, and I never once mentioned my product or my service. So that high-tech high touch system is just a simple way to stay top of mind with the people you want to do business with. Again, all going back to a deep understanding of the sentence that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.

Steve Wershing:
And I want to really highlight for folks that there are a couple of things built into that that you sort of touched on, that what that means is you need to know who you want to attract. You need to know what priority they have. Who are the people you most want to attract and then who’s the group that you want to attract but not as badly. And then you also need to know a bunch of individual things about them, like you were picking off of my LinkedIn profile, and so that’s kind of the homework people need to do to make a system like this work.

Kevin Knebl:
Which is ridiculously simple.

Steve Wershing:
Right, right. Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Knebl:
Because you’re openly and willingly telling me everything I need to know in order to build the relationship with you.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
LinkedIn has a real wealth of information on it. Are you using other social networks in a similar fashion?

Kevin Knebl:
Here’s the simple answer, Julie. I only do one thing, so whether I’m on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, talking to you at the airport bar, whatever … wherever, whether it’s online or offline, all I’m doing is taking a sincere interest in you. So it’s not like I’ve got one strategy for LinkedIn and a different one for Twitter and a different … no, all I have to do is provide enough evidence that I’m taking a sincere interest in you as a human and not a sincere interest in you as a commission check.

Julie Littlechild:
Right. I was just thinking that LinkedIn provides more information when it’s that cocktail party connection. So if it was Twitter, we wouldn’t know that Steve liked to dance, unless you’ve got photos up there.

Kevin Knebl:
Right, exactly. So the key is to actually make it your job to learn as much as you can about the other person without freaking them out. That’s the goal. So right now, I just typed your name into Facebook, Julie, and I’m looking at pictures of … apparently, you like to cook. But I’m not going to bring into the conversation something that would freak you out and make you think how did he know that? Because now I’ve freaked you out. But all I’m saying in a more and more interconnected world, we are literally sitting on so much information about so many people at our fingertips, if we can use that in an elegant fashion to create, nurture and deepen a relationship, we’re home free. Game’s over.

Julie Littlechild:
So let me ask you … and I feel like you’ve answered this question so it’s not that I didn’t hear it, but I really feel it’s probably worth clarifying. As we’re reaching out and we’re connecting genuinely with a lot of people, there’s some point at which they understand what you actually do for a living. But you’re suggesting that that point comes because they ask in one of those interactions, that’s where the ‘marketing,’ so to speak, happens. That’s when they begin to understand that there is work that could be done. It’s not a secret, it’s just that we’re waiting to be asked.

Kevin Knebl:
Kind of. So let me ask you a question, Julie. Are you married?

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Kevin Knebl:
What’s your spouse’s name?

Julie Littlechild:
Greg.

Kevin Knebl:
When you first met Greg, wherever that was, a bar, a fraternity party, an airport, I don’t care where it was, when you first met Greg, were you attracted to Greg?

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Kevin Knebl:
Did you reach out in the first 30 seconds and try to kiss him?

Julie Littlechild:
Well, it was a weird … no, I didn’t.

Steve Wershing:
I like how you hesitate on that one, Julie.

Kevin Knebl:
No follow me through this, because for the next 30 seconds or so, this might sound a little woo-woo, but I am not trying to be woo-woo. We are getting to the heart of the matter right now. You were attracted to Greg, but you did not try to kiss him because you just don’t kiss a cute guy named Greg in the first 30 seconds.

Julie Littlechild:
Precisely.

Kevin Knebl:
You probably started a conversation, and then at some point that probably escalated to a cup of coffee or maybe a drink and then maybe a movie. And now at some point I’m assuming a kiss transpired because you’re married. But I’m going to also predict that there was no flow chart that said on date number three, after X number of dollars have been spent on dates and doors been opened for me while I get in, at that moment, according to my flowchart, that is when I will kiss Greg.

Julie Littlechild:
Well, clearly you don’t know me.

Kevin Knebl:
What probably happened is that at some point you just felt this would be a good time to kiss. Now this is what makes sales and high-level sales and really succeeding in business an art and a science. Because if I said to you, “How would you have known the right time to kiss Greg,” you probably couldn’t give me a definitive answer other than, “I just knew.”

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Kevin Knebl:
So what I … it’s this thing … so here’s the craziest thing. Almost every single thing we’ve ever been taught in sales and marketing is a thousand variations of how to walk up to strangers and try to kiss them. And then we wonder why we get slapped. What do you mean, why we get slapped, Kevin? Let me define slapped in business. You don’t get your phone call returned. Your email’s going to a black hole. You’re spending a lot of money on marketing and you’re just wondering if it’s actually paying off. So what’s ironic about this is that in our childhood we learn all of this very naturally. It’s called making friends.

And then we go through school, we enter the business world, and we think that the rules have changed. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, because that’s the equivalent of saying that the gravity in your home works differently than the gravity in your office. That’s nuts. So what’s really ironic about all of this, and I’ll sound like Yoda for a second, but I’m not trying to be Yoda, most of my time is not helping people learn new things, it’s helping unlearn things that never served them well to begin with. But they don’t see it until I point it out.

This goes back to what I said 30 minutes ago. I just have to get people to agree that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust. And then show them how to innocently and unknowingly violate that every five minutes. Once I show them that, I don’t have to tell them to stop. They’ll naturally stop. Once you realize you have bad breath and you’re repelling everybody, you’re probably going to brush your teeth. All I have to do is show people that they have commission breath far worse than they really realize that they have.

Steve Wershing:
Well, that’s a funny image. Kevin, I love your programs and I’ve learned so much from you and I think everyone who’s listening, if you have an opportunity to see Kevin or hire him for a meeting that you’re doing or something, you should do that. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. But unfortunately we do have to wrap this up for today. If people want to learn more or find out more about what you can do with them or what kinds of materials they can get from you, where should they find you?

Kevin Knebl:
They can’t find me, man. I’m in the witness relocation program.

Steve Wershing:
Of course, you would choose Knebl to be inconspicuous.

Kevin Knebl:
Exactly. It’s like door knob, can I please buy another vowel. So thank you for asking, Stephen. I’m really easy to find. My website is kevinknebl.com. My last name is five letters, K-N-E-B-L. It really sounds like it needs another vowel. I’m active on all the socials, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. People can go to my website and sign up for my free newsletter, which is not a thinly-veiled sales pitch. It’s content that you will help you in business. I’m always a phone call or email away, they can subscribe to my YouTube channel. They can follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever. So I’m very, very easy to find and I’m more than happy to help anybody that … if you have a question, I’d be happy to answer for you. I appreciate you asking questions.

Julie Littlechild:
Thank you.

Steve Wershing:
Well, Kevin, it’s been great having you and again, you do great work and this is all stuff that financial advisors would do very well to pay attention to, and I appreciate you being generous with your time today. Thank you so much for joining us on Becoming Referable.

Kevin Knebl:
Thank you so much for having me, Julie and Stephen. I really appreciate it. God bless, and hopefully our paths will cross again soon.

Steve Wershing:
I hope so. Take care.

Julie Littlechild:
Hi, it’s Julie again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really does help. You can get all the links, show notes and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths That Limit Your Growth, and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.