2 Sales Gurus: Don Hutson & Jim Cathcart
When a person takes the initiative to connect with you, that is your opportunity to open a lifetime of value.
We are not talking about click funnels. I’m talking about big high-value connections that 90% or more of people just completely overlook.
- Say you put up a billboard advertisement by a busy highway and only one person calls you. Let’s go one further, the person who calls misunderstood the offer and isn’t really a prospect for you. Was your billboard a total loss? Most would say Yes. I say no. Your billboard worked. It produced an inquiry. Thousands of others saw it too but haven’t reached out to you…yet. We never know what we have started unless we abandon it and ignore the echo we initiated. Think Ripples in a pond. The same would apply if you bought a Facebook ad and got only a few likes. Find a way to serve them.
Your offer might not be suited to billboard advertising, but something about it worked. It got you a call that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. Learn from that. Was it the offer, the timing, the images, the wording, the highway placement, or what? And stay in touch with the person who called. Find a way to serve them even for free.
- You offer to “host” the guest speaker at a training conference by doing airport pickup and being his guide while in town for the day. Afterward, you get a nice thank you letter and you reply in kind. End of transaction. But, end of relationship? No.
My friend and colleague Don Hutson was the speaker for the Tulsa, Oklahoma Society for Training & Development. ASTD chapter. I was his “handler” and we hit it off nicely as friends. A year later Don was the emcee for a huge motivational rally, 11,700 attendees, in Tulsa. I saw that he was on the program and reached out to say “Hello.” He remembered me and invited me backstage to meet some of the celebrity speakers. One of them was my personal guru and hero Earl Nightingale, the Dean of Personal Motivation. My rapport with Don grew and I joined the National Speakers Association in 1976. (Fast Forward: Don and I are still best friends today and we have both served as the National President of NSA and been inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame.) Don keynoted the 2025 Speakers convention in Arizona last week. We’ve stayed in each others homes, spent countless times together and are glad to know each other.
- You hold a charity fund raiser and 409 people show up. 100 of them are in your data base and are known to you. 309 were either guests (“plus ones”) or came just to meet some celebrities, have a fun meal and buy a few silent auction items. How many of the 409 are valuable to you?
When I chaired the annual Boys & Girls Clubs fundraiser “Stand Up for Kids” at the newly opened Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s “Air Force One Pavilion” in 2005, we had a volunteer team of 70 people. Some were really involved with the clubs but most were just helping out with the big event and happy to be the first to see this new facility. We managed to raise more than $248,000 that night and of the 409 attendees, only about 100 were involved with the clubs in some way. But, by building upon all 409 of those connections the clubs now have over 600 at their annual gala and the most recent one raised over one million dollars!
- You get a call to fill in for a last minute speaker cancellation. It’s in a city 125 miles away but you do it anyway. No fee, just a favor for a friend. It’s not a group you were targeting for business, just an association who needed a speaker. Free lunch, nice experience, hand out a few biz cards, finis. Right?
The group was the Oklahoma City Public Relations Society and their speaker bailed, so someone called me in Tulsa and I drove to Oklahoma City for the luncheon. Ben Blackstock was my contact. It went well, and I returned to Tulsa. Many years later, while I was living in La Jolla, California, I got a call from Belgium. A man named Michael Redwine wanted his boss to visit me on an upcoming US trip. Michael was the soon to be son-in-law of Ben Blackstock and the company was based in Belgium and Monte Carlo. This resulted in half a dozen trips to Europe where I trained their agents and managers in Scotland, Belgium, France and Monaco. I am still in touch with the owner of Michael’s company and he’s hired me multiple times to return and help them.
We can never know how many connections are just one contact away from the answer to our dreams. To assure that we don’t lose these connections I suggest that you lead with the act of Gratitude. Find ways to Thank everybody. And do it creatively. Become known as the most grateful person or company they’ve ever dealt with. Not gushing “thank you, thank you, thank you”, but finding a way to appreciate them directly.
Thank them until they Feel Thanked! My recommendation is to identify the way in which each person feels thanked. It is like their “love language.” Some want a call, others a handwritten note, some prefer a visit, a firm handshake, some like a token or gift. Some want to feel like an insider, some want VIP privileges. Learn to “read the need if you want to succeed”. One Gratitude Campaign can teach your team “people reading” skills they can use forever. Also one campaign can cement some connections that otherwise would have quickly faded.
Who should you take time to thank? How do they prefer to be thanked? What else could you do for them to show that you care? (No need to spend money on this, some of it can be done without cost.) Just become The Most Grateful Person they’ve ever known. Quiet, sincere, gratitude. Mean it.
Todd Duncan said to me today: “You already know everyone you need to know”. Do they know that you are grateful to know them?