Don't money, don't need time, don't need no credit card, don't need no good time. I was gonna join you then, but I just, it too good. It felt too good and I don't know the words, so we know we're gonna clash. The reason I sang that was because today's theme is about something that if we were doing a pop quiz on, you would get zero points. It's the power of genuine kindness. Right, wow. Very nasty start. The 12th of May. Kindness.

is unstoppable, but only when it's genuine, with no pretenses or fake gestures. After all, what can even the most toxic person do if you keep showing kindness and when possible, calmly point out their mistakes, especially as they're trying to hurt you? Marcus Aurelius, meditations. Curly chops. Curly chops. So this gets me thinking about the difference between nice and kind.

Do know what the difference between nice and kind is? And you could say that one's a place in France, but that's not what I'm looking for. Really good stuff there. It's nice, but I do enjoy it when you say stuff like that. I would hazard a guess, but I actually think you've got an exact answer. Yes, I do have an exact answer. Thank you for batting it straight back to me. That's very kind of you, actually. So we work a lot with consultants. We work a lot with companies as consultants and...

A lot of the time you have to, you can be nice because typically we fall into a pattern of being nice because we feel like being nice could win the business. So like if they like me and I'm telling them things, they'll probably want to work with me because they're getting their ego stroke, stuff like that. But actually it, the opposite, you've got to be kind and sometimes you've got to be a bit cruel to be kind. And that could be, ⁓ delivering some honest, hard hitting truths.

giving some hard feedback and I've done some, I've given some in some consultancy calls and I've said, I've got a few options of presentations I could probably give you. There's probably the nice option or the really kind option on a scale of one to 10, how honest can I be with you? And the people respect that. Well, yeah, I want to be honest. I want to learn more. And there's probably going to be some

Home truths, there's probably gonna be some squirmy bits. There might be some bits that make you feel uncomfortable. And I'm probably gonna tell you at points that your baby is ugly. Now remember when I'm presenting an audit, I'm not gonna talk about the good stuff. Because you know the good stuff. The good stuff is you're doing it well. You've not paid somebody or brought in somebody external to talk about why you're doing a great job. It's time to hold up the ugly mirror and say, eh, eh.

And what is the outcome of doing that? And what, what, tends to happen? You've got a recent example, haven't you? Yeah. Well, on a call recently, I gave, I gave some real critical feedback and it was taken on board really, really well, but, but you only learn from, from real honest feedback. And actually I find, especially in like the cold calling world, when people are like harsh or direct with you, if you're a bit direct back, people tend to respect you because

What a lot of people remember if you're dealing with CEOs, you're dealing with like D type personalities, ego flare ups, they're probably used to yes men and people being subservient. I've had a few examples probably this year that I can think of where actually you've said, you've given a few home truths, you've asked a few hard questions. You've said, like, why are you doing that? And like, actually, can I be honest with you? That doesn't make sense. That sounds ridiculous. And they go,

Yeah, it is bizarre. And we've been doing it for this reason or that reason. But then all of a sudden you get the respect back. I was doing one and I'd asked him, had a conversation with the CEO, multi-million pound company. And I was asking some, some hard questions and they turned around and said, right, you've been asking me questions for the last 20 minutes. I've got a question for you now. I went, yeah, of course. You went, can you get me another coffee? Cause I'm enjoying this conversation. I was like, whoa, that's a

I spoke to a guy the other week who, you know, were on Discovery call and I'm like, what problem did you solve? He told me what problem he solves. But it was like, okay. Went another level deeper. And I just said to him, imagine, imagine I'm this person that you're trying to sell to. And I go to the pub with my mate and I'm complaining about the thing that you would help me solve. How would it sound? And he sat up in his chair and he's like, what it'd sound like things were an absolute mess everywhere.

Like you, didn't, you weren't getting home on time. You were losing money. You worried about keeping your job. And you really list off these problems, but you really body language changed. And then we got to the of the course. I can I be, can I be really honest with you? Like we've come with a few different things here. That bit there where you told me A, B and C, if your website sounded like that, if the people who were doing calls for you sound like that, if all your marketing sounded like that, how much better do you think things would land? Yeah. And he was like, ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

I was like, so, so why aren't you, why aren't you doing it? He's like, no, no, you're right. You're right. needed this. I needed, and that is a classic example of that's brutal feedback. Basically go in your baby's ugly. But actually seeing it and holding it up means you can get the baby plastic surgery. And you keep texting me at weird times of the night saying your baby's not cute. And I don't know why you're doing it, but I'm not rising to it.

We'll give a bonus tip. So if you are going to if you're a seller and you're going to be giving honest, you're to be kind, you're to give that onish hard feedback. We talk about something called softening the blow. So let's call it like a little tip within the sales stoic. Could you give me a one minute masterclass in how somebody could do that? Yes. Any question that feels particularly combative, you want to soften it first or anything. You're not sure how it's going to land. You want to soften it first.

So I'll give you an example. If I say to you, was your weekend? You'd be happy to tell me how it was. I say, what did you do? You'd be happy to tell me what you did. If I say, why did you do that? Ooh, that didn't land right. That felt a bit funny. Why sit to the part of your brain where it's always going to feel like defensive to answer it. So typically if I'm going to approach a why is a great place to start, but if I'm going to approach a why question, why are you doing that? Why now? Whatever it may be, I'm going to try and soften it first.

Can I ask you a really direct question, Jack? Yeah. You sure? Yeah, please. Why now? Great question. Yeah. Really good. Or Jack, how do I ask you a question without you wanting to punch me in the face? I don't like punching people in the face. OK, I'll try. I'll shield myself. You've got a sales team who are underperforming, but you want to bring us in. Why not just get rid of the sales team and start again with people who do want to perform?

That question was flame emoji. It was, wasn't it? That was Monster Munch. Yeah, Monster Munch. God, Marcus Aurelius would have loved Monster Munch. He would. RIP Marcus. RIP Marcus. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you would die? Monster Munch Pickled Onion. Think about it.