Amplify Your Relationship Capital By Serving Others

Rob Brown 00:05

If you’re trying to grow capital, you are in the right place. Because during today’s episode of the truest fan podcast, you’re going to meet Doug Greathouse. Doug is the host of the entrepreneur journey podcast. He’s a digital marketing expert. And he says in our podcasts that one of the most important types of capital to raise and to grow is relationship capital. So during our podcast today, we’re going to talk about how you can increase your relationship capital, by looking for ways to serve others that you can get all you want, if you take the time to help and to serve others. You don’t want to miss this episode.

Rob Brown 01:02

You’re listening to the truest fan podcast. And now here’s your host, Rob Brown. Welcome back to the truest fan Podcast. I’m excited to have with us today, Doug Greathouse, who is the CEO of sales site, and the host of the entrepreneur, Journey podcast. I actually met Doug by being on the entrepreneur journey podcast when I released the truest fan book out into the world. And he was gracious enough to have me on there as a guest of his show. So I thought, let’s return the favor. And so I’m finally getting a chance to do that. Welcome to the show, Doug.

Doug Greathouse 01:44

Well, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure being on here. I’ve been looking forward to

Rob Brown 01:48

this. Awesome. So I love to ask the question, Who is your favorite baseball team to get the show started?

Doug Greathouse 01:58

I have to be completely honest here. I don’t follow baseball nearly as much as I did. When I was younger. I was a raving fan of baseball in my teenage years. I had all the baseball cards even people that no one’s ever heard of kind of cards back in the day when my age the late 80s, early 90s. And my favorite team then was the Oakland Athletics when they had Rickey Henderson Jose Conseco Mark McGuire bike it was murderer’s row, the one of the best bass dealers of all time, not to mention the pitching that they had. They had Dennis Eckersley closing people out, they had some really good starting pitching. That was a dream team.

Rob Brown 02:39

Right, right. And when you think back to kind of cheering on those heroes, and by the way, Dennis Eckersley was a member of the Cleveland Indians before he was a member of the Oakland A’s. He was actually rookie of the year with the Indians. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there. What is it that you kind of learned from being a fan of a team like that to do you think of lessons that you learned from, from cheering on those guys and watching the way that they played the game and interacted with the community that maybe you carry through and some of the things that you do today?

Doug Greathouse 03:14

It’s funny, because when you look at some of the athletes, then or today, you learn lessons on things not to do as well, right. Some of the way that they carry themselves, their ego gets the best of them. Right. But then there are people that actually in the athletes that actually care about the fans and take extra time. And I think I think that means a lot and not just that, I think the commitment to excellence. I think overall, the reason that team was so good is because everyone was committed to excellent I think that goes back I think Tony La Russa was the manager very, very good manager. Right. And his, I think that might even been one of their slogans was commitment to excellence. I’m not sure. But it seems like there was something along those lines when they’re so being committed to doing your very best every time that you take the field.

Rob Brown 04:01

Right. Yeah, that’s awesome. And fact, I want to say that I was hoping that that would be your answer, because that’s what I think about when I think about that team in particular, and rookie, Rickey Henderson, who stole you know, over 100 bases, I think one season and now in baseball, the top bass dealer might steal 40 or 50. So the numbers are down, but that commitment to excellence that you can watch every day, I think that’s something to take away from it. But also, as you said, watching how they interact with the fans. I know that’s one of my favorite things to do. When I’m at the stadium before a game is watching, you know, who comes over to the to the kids and signs the baseballs and has a conversation with them. Just you can learn so much by just watching how people act out in the world, whether they’re performing on the field or they’re on the sidelines. You know, with the kids putting their pens in front of them saying hey, A sign this on that. I think it’s something that we can learn from sports. So we’re going on about being a fan, and wanting to be our best and to give our best to others in the simple ways that we’re not so good that we can’t remember who’s there watching us and loving, watching us play the game. So let’s switch gears, all of us, over the years, get lots of advice from people, some good, some bad, but some of it really sticks out to us. There’s maybe a mentor or coach or an author who says something to us, or we read and we think, you know, that’s something that I’m going to carry with me. And many things that I do is there a piece of nugget of wisdom that you have that you kind of carry over time and time again, as you’re building your business as you’re taking care of your family serving the causes that you care about?

Doug Greathouse 05:50

One of my early inspirations and one of the things that kind of started my own spirit journey was I’ve read a lot of books growing up when I was kid, I think it was pretty much baseball and reading books about entrepreneurs, right. So I read like Thomas Edison’s biography, that sort of thing. But then I picked up a book by Zig Ziglar. It was one of the first books I ever read from him. And in it Well, I think his quote was, I never get his quote, exactly right. But it’s something like you help enough people get what they want, and you can have everything you want in life. It’s just by helping enough people. So that has been intertwined through everything that I do. It’s at the forefront of my mind every time I’m doing anything in my business. So it’s all about helping others. That’s how your business grows.

Rob Brown 06:31

Yeah, I think that’s a great point. You know, too often, I find that entrepreneurs think first about what they want, and then try to do something to elicit that response. So if I want, you know, this number of sales, then I’m going to do this number of things that will most directly impact that yet, there are many other things that they could be doing out there to serve other people just to get the word out to help. And let the kind of the boomerang effect happen. Let the good stuff come back at them.

Doug Greathouse 07:08

It’s funny, because even in inception of a business, like for invention, for instance, you might create something that works for you that you want, but you haven’t gone out and done the market research to make sure the market wants it right. You’re telling me but no, if you’re really serving anyone that really wants what you were you built something for yourself, right? And when really what you need to build this for something somebody else what what the market actually wants,

Rob Brown 07:31

right? Yeah, no, that’s absolutely true. And again, it’s I guess, that’s another side of kind of putting it out there and waiting to see what back comes back. One of it’s very practical, you know, I’ve got this idea. I’m going to do some ready, fire aim. So it goes out into the wild, people get a chance to see how what I’m proposing doing works and get that feedback. But there’s also the serving side of that to say, you know, well, maybe if it just helps a couple of people, and it never become something big. Um, at least I’ve tried to do something that I thought would be helpful to other people. I think that’s part of the of that journey.

Doug Greathouse 08:13

Yeah, just like you said, I think it all comes back to you to the more good you put out in the world, the more good that comes back to you. I’m a huge believer.

Rob Brown 08:20

Yeah, yeah, me too. I mean, I think that’s the part of the golden rule. Right? You know, maybe that’s not the tagline that goes with it. But it’s certainly in the footnotes, you know, just go out there and do the best you can for others treat others the way that you want to be treated. And don’t do it because you expect to get something back. But know that you will. And sometimes it’s the most surprising things. Yeah. Do you have any kind of examples of that of like, where you’ve been working on something, or you’ve run into somebody, and you thought, you know, I just I need to serve them now, even though I don’t know exactly how it’s going to turn out. And you just kind of let the circumstances take their course.

Doug Greathouse 09:02

It’s funny that you bring this up, because I believe was actually last week and I even posted about it on social media is that to maybe provide a lesson for someone else, there is someone that reached out to me through a referral, who has a Bible study program. He basically teaches people it’s a nonprofit teaches people how to read the Bible to not make it boring. Or let’s see the word hard to read. You know, a lot of people just think the Bible is hard to read. And it’s boring. The way that he teaches people to read the Bible makes it not boring and easier to read. So he’s got a pretty good bass now, but he just wanted to reach out to me to find out how to increase his bass. In my head. I’m thinking, you know, this probably isn’t someone that’s going to be a client, but I want to help him. Right. So we met and I just poured into him everything that I knew that would help him take the next steps in growing what he was doing. And honestly, I felt really good about doing that because what he’s doing to help people is amazing, right? So and he made You know what I know what might come from that is he’s going to tell people how much I helped him. Right? Even if he isn’t a client, he’s going to tell other people how much value I gave you. Right. So I guess that’s the most recent exam.

Rob Brown 10:12

Yeah. And that’s, that’s a great example. Because, you know, sometimes as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as people who want to serve other people, we take for granted the fact that we have this body of knowledge, this wisdom that we’ve accumulated by building our own businesses, that other people just don’t have any access to that or don’t know how to get to it. And, you know, spending a half an hour or an hour having lunch with somebody, and can kind of let you say, kind of pouring out everything that you could, that you thought might help set that person in the right direction, and then you just get back a simple thank you. And then, you know, three years from now you learn that this app or this program is like, killing it. And whether he comes back to you again and says, you know, Doug, thanks for spending that time with me, you know, that you played a little part in that journey. And I think that’s, that really goes back to that whole Zig Ziglar idea of just give till you can’t give any more. But are there limits to that? You know, because you have to get paid, right? You know, there’s a point at which you have to say, um, how do I balance? How do I work? Those things that I do to help others with out expecting to get compensated with, you know, what are the things that I’m doing every day and every week that generate the revenues for my business?

Doug Greathouse 11:37

I do think there is a limit. And I think it’s situational. A lot of times you can decide on each situation, whether it’s something that you want that you feel like you can give away value for free and not expect anything in return. It’s I think it’s happens all the time. The other part of it is, is that you, when you put value out there, and you show your worth, right, you show your show what you you know what you’re talking about that draws people in, so you’re giving free information, free advice. And that’s just showing your authority. So it’ll draw people in. So you do get,

Rob Brown 12:09

yeah, no, I think maybe the way I phrased that question was a little too specific, because I think you do get paid. I know when I talk with my clients who are primarily financial advisors, who run independent businesses, so there are entrepreneurs, as well, one of the challenges is as their businesses grow, and they take on more and more clients, some of the smaller clients take more time. And they don’t have a good way of serving them. And instead of saying, I can no longer serve you the way that you want to be served and help them find someone who can help them better than the advisor. They ignore them. They kind of put them on the back shelf and cross their fingers and hope, nothing, they don’t end up needing any help. But I say, you can’t do that, because you’ve said that you’re their advisor. And so you owe it to them to continue to follow up and to follow through and, and then just think about the reputational damage that you can create, by maybe somebody gets referred to you that happens to know one of those clients that you’re serving poorly. And they say, Well, hey, do you work with Rob, I was told he’s a great advisor. And that person says, Great advisor. I haven’t heard from Robin, two years. You just made, you know, your referral to that next big client a disaster. And so I think there’s like this practical part of keeping that commitment to those people that you choose to serve and giving them or if you can’t, or are no longer able to put them in somebody else’s good hands. And you’ll get rewarded for that too, I think.

Doug Greathouse 13:56

Yeah, I’ve read a really good book that kind of speaks to that called the Pumpkin Plan. And it’s just talking about serving the clients that you want to work with. And then we’ll just like you said, letting those other clients go to where they’re going to be served better. Right. So I think that’s a great point.

Rob Brown 14:15

Yeah, yeah. Cuz it’s easy to say, Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk to them about not working together, because I don’t want them to feel like something is wrong with them. Well, there isn’t anything wrong with them. They’re just no longer a good fit for your business. I mean, if you know, if you’re trying to buy a house, you don’t need to talk to an automobile salesman. Right. You know, and that’s maybe a overly dramatic way of stating it, but but sometimes things shift and change as your business grows and changes. How do you see that kind of working on an entrepreneur’s journey as your clients and people that you’re talking to and working with are becoming more and more successful, what are some of the things you have them kind of be on the lookout for to make sure Are that their service promise to their clients continues to deliver what they need to deliver to serve that client as, as well as they possibly can? Oh,

Doug Greathouse 15:11

I could go so many directions with an answer on that just to be honest with you.

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Rob Brown 15:45

Give us a couple.

Doug Greathouse 15:45

Okay, so first, I kind of want to touch on what you were kind of just saying. And I think it also starts at the beginning, don’t just take on a client for the money, if they’re not a good fit, a lot of people will be just drawn to the money, okay, I get another client, it’s it’s, it adds more to my revenue. But if you can’t serve that client the best that you can, and it’s just a number, do not take on that client. Because in the grand scheme of thing, it’s actually going to hurt you more than it’s going to help you. Right. So that’s one thing and the not have to go back to what I was thinking before, is that continue to look for ways to add value, right? Don’t just stop at a core like if you have this is just what I do think of other ways to continue to add value to that person. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be delivered by you. If you know someone that will help them with something else. That is not something that you do refer them to that person, right, because they’re always looking and referrals if you can put and it not only helps them, it helps the person you’re referring to them to as well. Right. So I’m big on filling the needs, as you see that right now. If you can’t fill the need, find someone that can fill the need for them.

Rob Brown 16:55

Right. Yeah, that’s a that’s a great point. And again, just kind of taking it back to the the financial advice world. There’s a limited number of kinds of advice that a financial advisor can give based on their credentials. And usually they can’t give legal advice and they can’t give tax advice. And so being able to make those introductions to other people and actively try to do it, not just do it when that client comes to you and says I do know an attorney, but say based on what we’re doing. Let me ask you a question, do you have an attorney or an accountant that you work with, that you feel really comfortable with? And then that gives you the opportunity if they’re not comfortable with them to introduce them to somebody in your network that you are, you’re giving them you’re giving to that other center of influence or other important person, and inevitably something is going to come back while you’re serving that client even better? Even if it’s not something that you’re doing for them. So I’d love that is something to keep an eye out for because that expands that allows the individual relationships to expand to your whole network and creates that reciprocal opportunities.

Doug Greathouse 18:06

Yeah, totally agree. I’m so huge on relationships is one of the core things of everything that I do I think that the term is your network is your net worth right? Just to think about that scenario, that lawyer that you refer them to the person that needs the financial services. Now that comes into their path, they’re going to refer that person back to you. And it’s just building that network and building good relationships.

Rob Brown 18:33

Right. Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. I think that’s a really great point to make. And it also goes back to the very first thing, or the not the very first thing, because we talked about the Oakland A’s. But the second thing we talked about that Zig Ziglar idea about giving it’s it’s kind of, you know, I guess it may be I’m saying this, because, you know, it’s situationally, the way that we’re talking, we can try to take things back to a main point. But I think the main point really is the main point here of, of just giving, and just being out there being on the lookout whether, you know, as we’ve talked about, whether it’s looking out for that small client that you can’t help and finding the right being able to say to them, I’m not a good fit for you and in sending them off in a good direction. Or you’re talking to a big client who you’re serving really well and you want to do more for and you’re just you’re asking yourself, What can I do and then again, you’re sending them out, you’re giving something to somebody else. And that creates those those opportunities for stuff for that boomerang effect to happen at that. Everybody’s helping everybody. And I think that’s to me, that’s a big part of being a truce fan is we’re all looking for those opportunities to serve other people because we want to be served in a similar way and not because we want to get something back but because that’s just the right way to treat people.

Doug Greathouse 19:51

I could add this just real quick. Just a really good tip for any entrepreneurs listening to this. One of the first questions you ask yourself every morning is How can I better serve my client, you will have a successful business. If you constantly think of how much better out, you can serve your client better every day, your business will grow.

Rob Brown 20:09

Yeah, yeah, it’s, you know, that’s one of the things that I try to do as a as a coach, I look at my schedule for the day. And I know that I can go back and look at my notes from the last conversation I had with my clients. And we can kind of pick up where we left off. What I tried to ask myself at the beginning of the day is, I’m gonna be talking to Doug today, you know, what, is there something that that has happened or that I’m thinking about right now, that can add even more to that conversation that we’re going to have beyond just keeping the plan rolling, that we’re working on in our regular conversations, so that I’m really present for those conversations, and not kind of drifting off thinking about somebody else or thinking about the next call. So I think that’s one great example of what you’re talking about. I think another one is, I really liked the idea. And I don’t know, if you do anything like this, of, you know, thinking, you know, regularly every day, if possible, you know, who’s a person or a few people that you can, you know, send a text to or send an instant messenger to, that you haven’t talked to in a while, maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with business where you just want to let them know that you’re, you’re thinking about them. Because that because maybe they did pop into your mind, and you just want to kind of let them know, Hey, I’m thinking about you. I remember when such and such happen. Do you have any routines like that, where you kind of, I don’t know what the right word is, you know, we just kind of reach out to people kind of touch them a little bit, just to let them know that, that they’re on your mind?

Doug Greathouse 21:41

Yes, I will say that I’m not perfect about it. I do try and be very consistent. I try and block out time, every day for what I call relationship building, right? Because what you focus on happens, right? If you don’t make it part of your schedule, you kind of do it willy nilly, it’s gonna happen willy nilly, right. Like I said, I’m not perfect at it. But I try and be consistent. And when I say relationship building, I’m not just talking from a monetary perspective, it’s not just people that are going out there. And lead sourcing, right, it’s people that I just want to continue to build and grow that relationship with, and whether that’s just friends or family, or clients. Right. So

Rob Brown 22:16

Right. Yeah, that’s great. And I think that’s a great way to think about that, you know, blocking time off for relationship building, you know, which sounds very different than, you know, I’m going to spend the next hour cold calling or, you know, I’m gonna spend the next hour you know, calling my leads, you know, I’m just gonna keep building relationships, because there are those touches that you can make in business, or in life that can advance those relationships. Again, maybe without purpose, just because you want to give them a little something and letting them know that you are thinking about them that you care about them. Is there any way that you can help them? Maybe you just want to make them smile? Because you you heard a good joke that reminded you of them? Or one of those silly memes that come across our, our desks or computers all the time? Sometimes those are, those are good thing. Yeah, yeah. So we’re winding to the end of our call, Doug, I love for you to share with the audience, maybe a little bit about what you do, and kind of who you serve, because there might be some people who just resonate with the message that you’re sharing. And one wonder if there’s an opportunity to be a client of yours.

Doug Greathouse 23:26

Well, I run a digital marketing agency called sales site. And what we do is help Coaches and Consultants hit consistent five figure months and then scale from there. We offer a all in one marketing platform. In addition to that, I also have the entrepreneur journey podcast, right where I interview successful entrepreneurs, and they share their stories of things that they went through that might help entrepreneurs. And we also have the entrepreneur journey group, which is on Facebook. So that’s, I guess, everything in a nutshell.

Rob Brown 23:53

Yeah. Are there particular problems that you’re seeing folks or entrepreneurs running into today that you’re helping them with that might spark in in somebody listening to this might say, Hey, this is something Doug could help me with

Doug Greathouse 24:08

getting more leads and sales, basically, a lot of entrepreneurs and I started the agency built on brick and mortar helping brick and mortar businesses, and a lot of brick and mortars, they are very good at what they do, right? Whether they be a chiropractor, a contractor, etc. But they’re totally lost with marketing, right? And marketing is at the heart of growing any business, right? So that’s what we help people do is getting more leads and sales and particularly now, in the last three to four years, we’ve been focusing on Coaches and Consultants helping them grow their coaching and consulting businesses.

Rob Brown 24:39

And then where’s the best place for folks to go to get to know more about what you do? Obviously, the entrepreneur journey podcast is one great place to go but anyplace else you’d like to point folks at the entrepreneur

Doug Greathouse 24:52

journey group on Facebook, if they’re on Facebook, if not, they can always find us at sales site.com and sales tech has two s’s in the middle I’d like to say cuz it’s about sales site. It’s the two words sales and site.com. So they can find us there as well.

Rob Brown 25:07

Okay, awesome. And I’ll make sure I put those links in the show notes. So to finish up, you know, we’ve covered a lot of ground, we talked about the importance of giving and giving a lot, we talked about the importance of relationship, building and caring for other people, any other kind of bits of of knowledge or anything else you want to share with the audience, before we sign off.

Doug Greathouse 25:29

This is kind of like the catchphrase that I’ve been using for a long time. Now let’s just keep moving forward. Because a lot of times we entrepreneurship is hard. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s not it’s difficult, right? You will have ups and downs. And the only way that you lose is when you quit, right? So just keep moving forward, even through the tough times. As entrepreneurs, we’re problem solvers. So we’ll figure out how to get past those obstacles. You just got to keep moving forward.

Rob Brown 25:55

Yeah, that’s great advice. You know, because we live in a world where it’s easy to get distracted into the field down. Because there seems like in my years, I don’t remember a time where there’s so much negativity floating around. And sometimes that negativity is kind of floating around in the in the world, then kind of filters down to our day to day lives. And we’re thinking, well, that big problem is our problem. So we can’t take our next step. Because, you know, the world is in this horrible place. And this is a second, it’s a mindset thing. So. So just keep moving forward. Just keep moving forward, don’t quit, don’t give up. If you’ve got that thing that you want to achieve, keep it squarely focused in in your mind and move towards it. And the activities and the results that you get will bring you there just by that persistence.

Doug Greathouse 26:54

Just real quick, you can think about this. There’s it worked in inflation times right now, some of the best companies have come out of economic downturns. So don’t think of just as being inflationary periods is something that should stop you.

Rob Brown 27:10

Right? Yeah, no, that’s that’s a perfect example. And you probably said that better than what I was trying to say, just a minute ago, because there are specific things going on right now in the financial markets in the financial world with interest rates up and inflation up in business owners are wondering, you know, how is that going to impact me and maybe I should stop what I’m doing, and analyze what could happen versus saying, you know, I’m just gonna keep charging forward. And if I have to call an audible, I’ll call an audible, but I’m not going to stop my forward progress, because because the best direction to move is in a upward and forward direction. Awesome. So Doug, I think that’s it for today. Again, I appreciate your being on the truce fan podcast. I think the message that you delivered the the, the positive energy that comes from the way that you think about serving others, it’s just, it’s just all by itself a really awesome thing to be able to share with the audience today. So thanks so much.

Doug Greathouse 28:09

Well, thank you for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.