447. Exactly What to Say – The Magic Words for Influence and Impact

Nikki Miller:

Hello, everyone. And welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. I'm here with the master communicator himself, Mr. Phil M. Jones. Bill is a bestselling author of seven business books and a children's book. Seven business books wasn't enough. He had to throw a children's book in there as well. He had his first business at the ripe age of 14 and is the youngest recipient of the British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award, sought after advisor to global brands, creator of the most listened to nonfiction audio book of all time and a firm believer that almost every problem could be prevented or solved if more people knew exactly what to say. He’s here today to teach us how to make more of our conversations count. Welcome Phil. I'm so excited to have you.

Phil Jones:

Thank you, Nikki. It's a joy to be here.

Nikki Miller:

Phil, I've had the pleasure now of getting to know you a bit. We've gotten to see each other at a few events. I've gotten to listen to you speak and spend a little bit of time with you now. But outside of what's listed in your very impressive bio, which is very impressive by the way. And what's not listed in there is how incredibly kind you are and how open to sharing you are. And I can tell you that I've learned equally as much from you listening to you on stage or reading your books as I have what I call in the hallway, the conversations that you and I have had on the side as to how to say this better or how to produce this better. So I just want to thank you for that for being like you are a genuinely wonderful human being and you're teaching people in the wings.

Phil Jones:

I think that that's important, right? It’s so easy in this kind of work to have a masterful message from the platform or to be seen to be awesome in the moments that matter. And if you're not what your message is about all of the time, then you're not what your message is about. That's at least the way that I view things. And we're here talking about The ONE Thing. I think how you do anything is how you do everything, right? It’s how that shows up. So caring about what comes out of people's mouth, is I believe that everything that everybody says is either helping or hurting and nothing is neutral. And I cannot turn that part of my brain off.

Nikki Miller:

I'm so curious about that because I actually was thinking about this after I walked away from our last conversation because you really are a masterful communicator. Not only when you're communicating one-on-one, but obviously when you're teaching people as well. And I'm curious to know, I think often when you're an expert in something to what you just said, you can't turn it off. So at this stage of your career in life, is it almost hard for you to communicate with just the rest of us normal people, Phil, who are not as exceptional at communication as you are? Does it get frustrating for you?

Phil Jones:

I think watching two people struggling in the conversation sometimes can be remarkably frustrating. Like you're seeing two people on the same thing that can't come to a way of being able to mediate on it or can't see things from a shared point of view. Like you're sat on the sidelines and it's like watching a sports game where you think you just want to pull on a jersey and go get the job done.

So that can have some frustrations. But more realistically than that is the body of work that we put together is actually being fueled through a relentless curiosity. It’s just being obsessed and obnoxiously curious about why things are certain ways and how things are happening in certain ways and an acceptance that there's never a right way of doing things. So because the body of work is built on it never being right, it therefore is never wrong either. So you're not really getting frustrated by the way other people are communicating, you're just learning from it. And that means that it's almost always quite either enjoyable or valuable to sit in conversations that perhaps even aren't going well because you're like, oh, what a teachable moment.

Nikki Miller:

I imagine in being an observer of conversations, you find a lot of teachable moments. And you just said something that I think is such a commonality with really successful people, which is sort of this insatiable curiosity. I have the privilege of getting to talk to a lot of really successful people like yourself and I find a common thread. People ask me often like, what's the common thread that you see in all these really successful people?

And I think a lot of people think there's going to be something that we define as sort of the social media lies success pattern, which is like they're grinders, or they do their 10-hour morning routine, or they just work 100 hours a week. And I will often share that the one commonality, the biggest one I can see is curiosity. It's exactly that.

Phil Jones:

Yeah. And if you put that into practice, it's when you see examples of excellence that you're not the kind of person that says, wow, you're the person that asked the question how. Like that's the route that I've seen on repeat through success in any area of life. And success leads clues and the people that pick those clues up quicker than others are the ones that tend to get a fair advantage.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, for sure. Well, you're known now -- I mean I know the Phil now, who's known as this masterful communicator. And you are so precise in your communication, even when it is on the sidelines, so to speak. Were you born with this? Like, did you come into the world just knowing how to do these things or did this evolve? Like, walk me through young Phil. How did we end up here?

Phil Jones:

How far back are we going with this?

Nikki Miller:

I don't know. Wherever is appropriate to start because in my head you walked into the world and you were convincing people at five years old that they should just follow you.

Phil Jones:

I think I've been curious forever. And I was very fortunate to the fact that born to two very hardworking parents that would do everything they can to create the best opportunities it was possible, and also fortunate enough to be middle child. So I got an older brother, a baby brother, and the youngest sister. So take that whole mix of things. And I'm like the middle child in the middle of all those things that is dearly loved but doesn't get the attention through early years of life that maybe some of the others did.

And I'm like, so grateful for that experience in my life because I got to be a spectator in lots of other people's success stories. And I got to also have a fair amount of time by myself or in the company of other people's parents, et cetera, to sit and watch models of excellence in a variety of different areas. And this just opened my mind up to different ways that people could live or different levels of success that could be achieved in different environments.

And I went to a great school that I probably had no right to be able to go to through some academic merit. Yeah. Almost every one of the kids in that school had more in terms of financial means or had access towards being able to achieve more for themselves than the naturally came reasonably to me. And this is, I think, what fueled early curiosity is like how do other people get to better do things? I understand hard work. I understand taking great care of people. My parents showed me that every nth of a degree.

But how does some people get leveraging results? How does some people earn more than good wages? How are some people reaching levels of influence and fame that others aren't? And what are they doing that these people are not doing? And I couldn't stop thinking about it. Like my 13th birthday gift that I wanted was I wanted Richard Branson's autobiography. And by the age of 14, I wanted to buy a pair of sneakers. Trainers is what we'd call them in my country that I couldn't afford.

And what happened was I asked my parents for the money for the trainers, and they said no. And then a friend of mine called Paul Bolter was traveling to the United States of America and could get the trainers for a lot cheaper than we can get them in the UK because the dollar to GBP conversion at the time was highly favorable and the price was less in the Nike store. I'm like, this is good. I'm going to go to dad and say, can I have the money for the sneakers? Now, they're half the money. And he said, no, but what he said is that you can come to work with me. And I said, well, how much will you pay me? And he said, I'll pay you what you're worth. And my dad is a self-employed construction worker, would do a lot of projects on re-roofs and then loft conversions, extensions, those kinds of things.

So dad said I can come to work with him. I said, how much would you pay me? And he said, how much you are worth. And I didn't get it at the time, but I agreed to get up at 6:15 AM the next morning, go to work with him and got to the job. And what the job was, was the backyard was full of the contents of the roof that had been stripped off the day prior and it needed to go into a skip, which is what here in the U.S. we would call a dumpster.

My job was to be able to fill the contents of the backyard into the dumpster, but the trouble was the pile of stuff was bigger than the hole in the skip. So I said, dad, what happens if I fill the skip? And he said, I'll pay you ₤20. Now the sneakers that I wanted were ₤40. I said, well, what happens if I fill the skip? And we said, I've left some time in the day. He said, well, I'll get the skip replaced and you can fill it again. I said, what, and you'll pay me two lots of ₤20? He said, yeah, sure. So I thought, well, if I can fill the skip twice, I can get my sneakers.

What then happened was I managed to fill the skip twice, but dad was still up on the roof doing clever stuff and there was still left time on the day. So wondering what to do, what to do, what to do is I knocked on the door of the homeowner and asked the question if there's anything I could do to be helpful. And the homeowner said, could I come in and help in the basement and clear just some other areas out. And I took a broom around and I tidied up and I moved some stuff around and at the end of the day, I was given an envelope. And the envelope I was given from the homeowner, I opened in the van on the way home and it had ₤45 in it. I thought this is a win, right? I've got money for my sneakers and some change.

Nikki Miller:

Did you tell dad that homeowner had a much better rate than he did?

Phil Jones:

Well, at the time, what I thought it was, I thought it was my money for the work plus five pounds extra. When I got home, my dad paid me the ₤40 he promised me to. So now like I'm in a great shape.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. Like I just have to do this work thing.

Phil Jones:

So what I did is I gave Paul the money for the sneakers. I then took the money that I had extra in this environment, and I went to a store nearby to us called Halford's. And I bought a bucket, a sponge, a shammy, leather, some car shampoo, and some other accoutrements. And I went knocking on the doors of my neighbors and asked them if they wanted their cars washed. Because I learned that knocking on doors made stuff happen. And I built a little car cleaning business that a year later had us making more money than most of my school teachers.

Nikki Miller:

At 15?

Phil Jones:

That's right.

Nikki Miller:

Wow. I love the story that you just shared for a number of reasons. I mean, obviously a testament to your hard work and to how many 14-year-olds would have taken that money and said, now I can go buy another pair of shoes or video game or whatever it is that they're into. But you took it and said, I'm actually -- I liked this so much, I want to go do more of it, which I think probably shows up a bit in your career, which we'll get into, but also what a gift from your dad.

I think that it's often under looked how important it is for parents who want, by the way, with the best of intentions, so many parents say, yes, here's the shoes or you work hard and here's the answer or whatever it is, but to give them the ability to problem solve and to think through and to work for what you really carry through your whole life, don't you?

Phil Jones:

And what it's also taught me, even at that early age, which I still think is one of the greatest lessons I've ever had is that it's okay to live with a do it and get paid mindset as opposed to pay me and I'll do it mindset. So many people, they want the guarantee of the outcome before they're prepared to put the effort in. And it’s the opposite of which has actually been remarkably valuable in my life is like, let's work obnoxiously hard for a sustained period of time beyond the realm of reasonable towards anybody else and pick up a greater rich later down the track because you're worth it. And there are too few people that are prepared to play that long game. They're looking for more instant gratification than that or looking for a level of certainty on what the size of the prize is before they get to work.

Nikki Miller:

And given how many salespeople especially that you work with, my bet is you see this a lot. I love what you just said. I think that's a real commonality in today's world that feels like a lot of instant gratification. I think it's just so easy to lie to people. I did an interview with Morgan Housel who in his new book shared what has now become my favorite line about social media, which is that we don't interact on social media. We perform for one another.

And it's easy to perform that I snapped my fingers and was this successful, which I think is just so detrimental to people who are trying to “make it” and whatever it is that they're trying to create. And I love that attitude around you have to do the work. And I can't think of much where you get paid and then you do the work until you're very proven. Right. And yet it almost always as you have to do the work before you get the outcome, get paid, get the status, get the contract, get the job, whatever it is, you have to become the person before you can get the results.

Phil Jones:

And the only examples where that's different is when you're in a season of your life where you're doing like a victory lap. Like if you've been a star that brings a guaranteed known outcome, but what you're doing is you're just cashing in the money from the -- if a sports player has been paid massive, massive money. And I was head of retail commercial director in two premier league soccer clubs. And I remember fans saying like that player is not worth that money. And my inside voice is like, no, no, they are. Like, let's look at the commercials of what they drive in terms of ticket revenue and merchandise. They're worth the money. Like, did they play well on Saturday? That's a different question. But are they worth the money? Yes, they are in that environment.

And it's this understanding of what truly drives value. And we both know the real estate industry remarkably well. And there's a lot of hot topic now in this year of 2024 around value proposition and are people worth things and what are they worth? And it just reminds me that value only exists when it's appreciated. And therefore, it can only exist where it's appreciated. So you don't give value. People get value. You cannot provide value. You can only receive value. Because if it's not received as valuable, it wasn't valuable.

And this is just my whole take on how I live my life with the desire to genuinely be valuable in everything that I do, which is bad to your point of why the corridor conversations useful, et cetera. It's like if I'm going to differentiate why somebody should hire me as a speaker at their event and not somebody like me is one of the things I'm hyper aware that I can bring to an event that others perhaps aren't prepared to is, I will serve the event, not my speech. I will serve the individuals that are key stakeholders in that event, not my speech. And I'll play the role of how does my expertise support the mission of that organization at that period of time, whether there's cameras on or people in the audience or whether there's two people in the side corridor conversation. Like that's the job as I see it. And the easiest part of that job is 60 minutes on stage.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. All right. I want to spend a little time on this because I think this is such an important conversation, especially we have so many people who listen to this podcast, who either are in the real estate industry or who run their own companies. And this idea of the value proposition comes up so often in any company that you run. By the way, it’s certainly a hot topic in the world of real estate right now. And I find it interesting because it's almost always in the context that's generalized.

And I think what you just said is so important because I struggle with someone who says, well, this is my value proposition. And I say, well, maybe that's your value proposition, but what does that mean to me as your potential customer? Like you can't really give me a value proposition unless you understand what I need out of this transaction or out of this relationship. What are your thoughts on that? Like, how do you explain to someone how to build a really effective value proposition?

Phil Jones:

Well, that’s a three-hour conversation, right, point of view?

Nikki Miller:

Just give us the whole book in 30 seconds. Phil, go.

Phil Jones:

None of this is actually in a book. But if we're talking about how does one go about effectively building a value prop is there are really four sharp tips to a value prop. You can pick any one of these. One would be service. Another could be pricing. Another could be experience. And another in here could be some form of contribution, some form of give back.

And let me maybe reframe these a little. We've got pricing, we've got contribution, we've got experience. And maybe rather than service, let me call it process. It's like the how you do things. And if we think about some of the brands in the world that are effective at building a value proposition, let's take the experience point of view is Dunkin Donuts or just Dunkin as they're now referred and Starbucks are both in the business of selling coffee. Yet, they have entirely different value propositions.

The tagline of Dunkin is America Runs in Dunkin, which clearly means that two Dunkin Donuts or Dunkin, coffee is fuel. Starbucks, however, have a value prop to say, come, stay a while, we know your name, how would you like your coffee? There are outlets in the wall. You can sit. You can access WiFi. But the Dunkin Donuts, here's your coffee. Now, get the heck out of here. They’re both in the business of selling the same thing, but they have demonstrably different experiences and they've articulated and package those experiences well.

You look at businesses that build their value proposition on process. People think that like Amazon is a books business or it's not, it's a logistics business that is built on having one of the most efficient processes on the planet that says we know how to do everything quicker. I mean, the ingenuity about the fact that Bezos bought the trade name, trademark to the term one click to buy back in 1980, whatever is an ingenuity that says, I knew what our value was going to be. This was going to be a process stroke convenience play from the start. We are going to be the most convenient business to do business with, and they live through that process or convenience in everything they do. So the point that if it doesn't show up, they say, no worries. Here's another one. If you need a refund, here's your money. No big deal. We'll take care of it. It’s oh, you choose the day you'd like your deliveries. Now, you want less packaging? No big deal, right?

Anything that could fall into convenience, we've got. They're not in the business of selling anything. They're in the business of selling everything as conveniently as possible. Their value prop is convenience first. And then you've got brands like Costco that are a pricing led value proposition. Costco never said they were the cheapest. What Costco say is shh, if you join our special club and you're prepared to step inside our super community, shh, don't tell anybody, but we'll give you access to wholesale pricing on anything. So you get to get wholesale pricing on all that you could possibly imagine. You just decide that's the cheapest. You never were told it was the cheapest. They just said, join a special club and you'll get access to wholesale price. That's their value prop.

So what do they do? They set the stall up, they pile it high, and they make the numbers big. And this is clearly a great value for money price point because look how big the numbers are, right? The science says that –

Nikki Miller:

They're not hiding it. They're advertising it everywhere.

Phil Jones:

They never said it's cheap. They just said it's $10.99 and they said it's loud. I mean, that's where their value prop is built from. And then you look at other brands that build the value prop around things like contribution. These are brands like Tom shoes. How do they stand out in a crowded market footwear? They say, well, there are other people in the world that don't have shoes. So if you buy shoes from me, then I'm going to buy somebody else a pair of shoes. And if you care about those type of contributions in the world, in a 50-50 gateway race, you say, I choose those as opposed to those, because I like what they believe in. I like what they stand for.

I don't know another way to build a value prop other than experience first, process or some form of efficiency first, pricing first, or contribution first. But what is also needed is one of those is the tip and the other three are the weight. And you've got to articulate which one of those are you leading with and how are you really good at that? Because Dunkin still cares about the contribution it makes. Dunkin still wants effective and valuable pricing. Dunkin still wants to have efficient service and convenience levels. But what they're really saying is, is our experience is quick and fast and tasty and it's effortless. They're not not caring about, but their lead doesn't follow us.

So what should a real estate business be doing right now if you're a buyer's agent is, are you leading with experience? Are you leading with the fact that you're the cheapest or the most expensive, or that you have clarity over your pricing that is more transparent? You’re leading with the fact that your process to get the job done is something that's hyper-efficient and more than anything else. Are you leading with the fact that if people choose you, what you go on to be able to do in the world is better than what somebody else goes and does for the world. Therefore, that's what gives you the edge. That gives you the edge, and then how you articulate the other things is what carries the weight of being able to bring this promise over the line. And it really, to me, is that simple and that hard.

Nikki Miller:

Simple, not easy as we say, right?

Phil Jones:

But if we're on the podcast called The ONE Thing, I think I would be saying, what is the one thing in your value prop that is the tip of that arrow? And then what is the one thing in all the other one things that are in the weight that allow you to actually be able to show up with a list of things that make you different? And what I find fascinating is in almost every industry I've ever worked in, I'll ask a room full of independent professionals that are competitors in the same space, what is the thing that makes you different from your competition? And what they all do is they provide me a list of things that make them the same.

Nikki Miller:

Or to me, they provide lists of things that are minimum standards. When I see this in real estate, I'll see people start saying, well, I'm an exceptional communicator and I'm really trustworthy. I'm like, yeah, that is required. Like that is the job.

Phil Jones:

Saying what everybody else would say, or they give you a catch all statement. Well, the thing that makes us unique is it's just our service. And you say to somebody else, what makes you unique? And I'm like, well, it's our service. And you're like, well, what about our service? You're like, well, it's special. And I got 39 Google reviews to prove it.

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Nikki Miller:

Well, I think what's so important about this and what I've especially learned from you, Phil, and we could have a 10-hour podcast of all of these things, but the thing that I've taken away from our conversations is the intent around your communication, that you're going into these conversations with a plan. It's not a new conversation. It always makes me laugh a bit in the world of real estate right now, the value proposition, given what's happening, in national settlement news, the basis of the conversation is, well, now we have to find figure out our value proposition. You probably should have already figured that out. Like you should probably have already known that. Right.

And yet, what I constantly see is, is people get caught in these conversations and don't know what to say. And I have to imagine they've heard these conversations before. So when did that light bulb go off for you where you just said, hey, I think it comes from this curiosity element that you've already mentioned, but I'm seeing these same conversations happening. Maybe I should just build a model so that I know what to say, know exactly what to say when it comes up.

Phil Jones:

That's exactly it. And it completely fascinates me that people have copy placed templates on their Google drive and in their drop box for the recurring written communications that they find themselves in. And they deliver highly customized presentations that look almost identical to the other highly customized, completely bespoke presentation they've delivered. And they change four or five little things in it and say, that's something I do that adds efficiency to how I show up in the way I run my business. But they don't do the same thing with building modules of spoken word that could serve them in the same way.

And the reason this is such a giant mistake is because human beings cannot write, perform, and edit at the same time. They cannot write, perform, and edit at the same time. These are three functions that have been scientifically proven that they cannot exist symbiotically. Yet, what does every human try to do in high stakes environments? They try to write the thing they're about to say whilst they're saying it whilst thinking about the thing they just said. You are setting yourself up to fail if you don't give consideration to what you're building as a set of pantry ingredients to allow you to craft dishes on demand.

And the reason people don't do it, it's because they're lazy. And what we do is we build models to support our laziness. Like, well, every scenario is different, create narratives to ourselves that give us permission to be lazy, or we applaud things like, well, he's just got the gift of the gab, or she just seems to have so much confidence to be able to deal with any scenario to empower our own incompetence because we're not prepared to put the discipline in to say that I'm going to prepare for the moment of the matter.

And this is fine unless you want to be referred to as a professional. And a professional way in almost any business environment is reliant upon their communication. And the difference between you and people like you is not just hard work and endeavor and product knowledge and experience and understanding of your marketplaces. In the moments that matter, you know exactly what to say, when to say and how to make it count.

And the mileage that comes from that last part that I've just said there is over indexing on the rest of it by a mile, but you can get the words right and the rest of it wrong. And you could probably make a decent career. You get the words wrong and the rest of it right. He's you're an expert in getting ready with a percentage or fraction of the success results that you could have achieved, and this is proven in every area of life, like the best politician does not get the best job, the person who communicates their message and their value prop to the people that care about it most gets the best job.

And in every industry isn't the most competent individual that gets rewarded with the highest price is the person that can communicate and articulate the value that they provide to those individuals, the clearest and the cleanest and the most efficient, effective way that gets the biggest price.

Nikki Miller:

I mean, I think for a number of reasons, people resist this. I think you're right. I do think some of it comes from laziness. Some of it comes from maybe I don't know how, they don't know where to look or they don't know how to create it and don't take the time to research and endeavor to just not know, therefore they don't have to take responsibility.

And it's interesting to me when I have this conversation, because I would agree that I believe that communication, that everyone should have to go to the school of communication because we are always doing it. And it's laughable to me when someone will give me some type of objection of, well, I don't sell things, so I don't need to know how to do this. I'm like, let's be clear. You are always selling. When I want to go to this restaurant over this one, I'm selling my position of choosing this restaurant over another one. So I know you've held a number of executive roles in organizations, did this start with your own trial and error? And then you took these models into teaching your sales teams. Is that how you really figured out exactly what to say? Is that how you figured out what worked and didn't?

Phil Jones:

There's a few steps to this really. And like any levels of excellence that are achieved, it's not like there was this one pivotal moment that I went from sucking to be awesome. Like that happens. I think the thing that catalyzed this as a starting point foundationally, when I get a chance to look back on it is I was in senior leadership positions in my late teens, early twenties, running large sales teams. And the challenge in that environment is like I was 21 and I looked like I was 12. So the respect I would get from colleagues that were more experienced in tenure and age than me was a challenge. I'd get a lot of pushback and friction when trying to create change through organizations that were like, all right, it wasn't helpful to me.

So I learned a leadership style that if Nikki, you were looking to be able to do better at something in your area of responsibility, and let's just use Jay, for example, as somebody that the other listeners here might know was excelling in that area at a level that was greater than what you were doing is I would be able to say to you like, Nikki, I know that one of the things that you're looking to get better is at blank, blank, and blank. And I've been watching what Jay does in that area. And we both know that his performance is higher than where yours is at this point in time. And there are three things that Jay seems to be doing that you're not doing. Would you be intrigued to know what those three things are?

And what I would do is I would lead through using models of excellence of other people's performance to raise the performance of others in the team environment. I'd never give any direct advice because my advice would get friction, but my curation of models of excellence from others would be better received. It just became a more efficient way of me creating change in organizations from which you start to see patterns.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I was just about to say, imagine you were constantly on the lookout for models of excellence, therefore.

Phil Jones:

That’s right. And then what's happened is I started a small sales training business in 2008, but I came out of my corporate career that started really by accident. That was me coming out of a real estate business that we built, but the market moved in the other direction, and we bought that business down. But I had a strong reputation through business networking groups like B&I group, Chamber of Commerce, et cetera, for helping create something out of nothing, helping non-salespeople to generate new leads, close more from the clients they've already gotten. In that recessionary time, there were a lot of independent business owners wondering where their next meal check was coming from.

So I would be delivering just presentations in those environments to give people ideas as to how they could find more clients or get more from the clients they've already got. And people would say, Phil, do you have more? Like if we wanted to come and learn more from you, what would that look like? So I said, well, what if I put on maybe a one-day program, would that be helpful? And they said, yes. And then they'd say things like, will it cover blank? And I said, yeah, sure. And then I wrote that thing down.

And that's what built my first one day sales training program. And we delivered that program three times a month for nearly three years to a group of 12 to 15 people built a coaching consulting business off the back of that. But what I got to meet was hundreds of different independent industries, plumbers, hairdressers, accountants, carpenters, the wedding dress retailers, like all these different random industries. And that provides you a really wide context of lens of applying what you know over industries you'd never even considered existed. And you start to realize that the patterns are repeating again.

Also, the marketplace gives you clues. I'd meet people that came to a workshop three years after they come to a workshop and they'd say things like, Phil, I'm still using your magic words because what people didn't want is principles. They wanted examples that they could apply and deploy straight away. I'm like, oh, success leaves clues in this. And magic words became my takeaway document that I would share with people post trainings and events. It became my lead capture download on websites. It became the 30-minute quick speech I'd do to capture leads, to sell workshops, to pick up coaching clients.

It was almost my EP of greatest hits that if I got a chance to do a showcase, I'd do something with magic words. And then started to build brand around it and then started to think about words at a level that was kind of obsessive. And that means that you don't just want to know what works. You want to know why it works, which then takes you towards the, well, let me put some of this to test. Let me fund some independent studies. Let me discuss with clinical psychologists, behavioral psychologists, and understand the method behind the madness.

And most people go to school to learn things and then try to make it work in the practical field. I've made stuff work practically and then had to go back to scholars to say, hang on, like, could someone explain to me why specifically --

Nikki Miller:

Why this works?

Phil Jones:

Because you move them from theta brainwaves to beta wave. You put them under MRI. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's just being from there. Just more of the same.

Nikki Miller:

What was so interesting to me is you shared the story with me before. And what I loved was your evolution from you perceiving these models to just giving people the solution because you said to me it was an aha in my own world unless you're unless you're specifically coaching someone this isn't a leadership principle. This is -- you said this, people aren't looking for models they want to know exactly what to say. That's where it came from, and they wanted those magic words. They don't need another model to build themselves just tell me what to do tell me how to succeed.

Well, and what's so interesting is that I've as a speaker myself, I've long watched you because I think that I'm going to curate this in a way that this is a compliment. I'm sorry if it doesn't come out that way, but you'll sometimes say hard things, what could perceive, I could hear someone else saying them in the audience going, ooh, like, that's a real truth, which doesn't always feel good when someone's upstate saying it to you on stage.

And at first, I was like, well, he's got the accent so like that just works for him. Everything sounds better coming from Phil, but it's not that. It's the way that you curate it. You do say the hard thing. And I think often when someone hears, Speaker, they'll often think of like maybe a motivational speaker. They're not really giving me any tactics. They're not really calling out anything real. They're just coming. They're going to hype everybody up and they're going to leave. And that is absolutely not what you do. You give real tactical words and real tactical things that you can go out and use that day.

I've walked away from your trainings and gone out and used it that day. It's that easy. And yet, in that process, you say the hard thing, you say what people need to hear, what you just said which is you're not succeeding like this person is, follow these models and you might. And if you can curate it the right way, what I've learned from you is that if you can curate it the right way, you can say those hard things and still make them receivable to the people that you're talking to.

Phil Jones:

Let me try and make that accessible to everybody that's listening right now. And what selling is, is earning the right to make a recommendation. It is not embellishing your idea with features and benefits, hoping something might stick. It's earning the right to make a recommendation. What that means is that you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever invite somebody to take an action that you know that might be challenging for them, unless you can say these words first.

And the words you should look to say first are the words because of the fact that you said. Because of the fact that you said blank blank and blank, then for those reasons what I'd recommend is blank blank and blank. Now that is a simple framework in theory. It's a way harder framework to deliver in practice because you have to collect the blanks.

But the same reason that I can deliver a cutting blow to an audience of 5,000 people at the exact same time to what feels like it is one person being victimized. That isn't one person being victimized. It's 5,000 people being collectively humiliated at the exact same time. It's through the evidence that's been collected prior. It's through collecting a series of truths from that audience that are all unquestionable one after the other to then make a recommendation at scale that is only true because all the other evidence that they've already agreed is true.

That's what allows it because all of the potential reasons why this could come feel like it has malice attached to it, they've all been diminished. Just like a comedian can create quite an edgy joke in an environment that is safe because of everything they did prior to it. Which is why sometimes you've got to be wary of like when that thing gets taken out of context and snapshot by itself, it's like, ooh, that guy's mean. Whereas not really when it's done with kindness, and it's done with a purpose on that.

And that's how you can say things that sometimes can come across challenging. But you could say to a teen in your life like, I think you really need to be able to get your act together. You need to get yourself a job and that what you need to be doing is earning some of your own money so that you're not just a drain on your parents’ resources. You could say that, and that's me.

Or you could say, look, because of the fact that you said that what's imperative for you to be able to do with your life is to feel truly independent and that you're frustrated by the challenge that to make any change that you'd like to be able to make in your life that you need to be able to ask for help from your parents. And the fact is that you're currently feeling like that you're not being able to make your own decisions and have your own governance about the way that you spend your time and energy. For those reasons, what you may want to consider is earning some of your own money so that you can have some more control and autonomy over how you live under this roof. It's the same advice, but it's positioned for their reasons and not yours.

Nikki Miller:

It also makes it their decision. Like the way I receive that is that you can take this or leave it. You get to decide. You can just consider it, which means that you can also not consider it.

Phil Jones:

Correct. But if you want blank, then this might be a fairly useful way for you to get closer to that, unless you've got a better idea.

Nikki Miller:

I love that. And Phil, if I'm listening to this, if I'm someone who hasn't really started on this communication journey and I say this is all great. It sounds like there's a lot that I need to work on. Is there a place that you recommend people start? I would recommend everybody start by reading your book, exactly what to say. We're reading all your books, but definitely start there. But is there a specific type of communication that you recommend people start with mastering?

Phil Jones:

Yeah. There's something that if anybody's heard me speak, they've probably heard me share from the stage almost in a jokey fashion that the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment where you're saying it. Now, we get a laugh line from that when delivered from the stage and it's positioned in that environment as if it's a joke, but it is no joke. Like, I mean it for real.

And the most important word in that statement of the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment you're saying is the word moment. It's where are the moments where your communication has the biggest of impacts. People are trying to get better at communication and that is too big of a task. This is not a skill that you master. It's a skill that you practice.

So what you should look to be able to say is where do I want to elevate my practice? I should elevate my practice in a moment that I've decided that matters more than others. My belief is that every human being on the planet should decide what their three critical conversations are that they're looking to be working on at any one time. One in their personal life, one as a leader, and one that's going to have a commercial impact on their own success.

And be hyper specific on that moment. Like a moment that I think about on repeat in my personal life is as somebody who travels as much as I travel, what comes out of my mouth in the first 15 seconds when I re-enter the home following a trip. That is a hyper important moment in my life that if I don't think about how I communicate in that moment, then I can destroy a lot of success that could exist in a decent evening, decent weekend, decent marriage, decent life. All compounding from that one moment.

Take, for example, a leadership conversation what might be a moment that you're looking to be able to bring elevated communication skills. My guess is everybody here could think about leadership moment that they could show up to better prepared with more intentionality about how they communicate. Even if that's how you lead your family. Every single one of us knows that there is a moment that occurs on repeat, that the way that we present ourselves in that moment is less than favorable. That if we just gave some more intentional intent around how we showed up in that moment, chances are we'd communicate better there.

And same for commercial reasons. We'll go back to the real estate scenario, but people say like, I need to get better at my listing presentation. I'm like, you don't. There is a moment inside your listing conversation that you are excellent. There are moments inside your listing presentation that you are fine. And there is a moment inside your listing presentation that you are losing the most momentum towards the success that you're looking to try to achieve. Where is the moment that if you improved your communication skills in that one area, that you would carry the most weight?

So the place I'd invite people to start is choose your three critical conversations. One personal, one leadership, one commercial. And already, just by deciding that you're going to bring more intent to those moments, your communication in those moments will improve with no new skills. Just intentionally deciding those moments matter more than you've given them credit for already. What you'll then get is you'll then get immediate positive returns. You'll start to say, well adding that intentionality to those moments was helpful to them and to me. Therefore, where else can I start adding intentionality to moments that matter? And you'll be elevating your practice.

Then if you do want to read a book like Exactly What to Say, take every sequence of words in the book and apply it to the moments that you've decided that matter and write your own examples. How could that word help me in that scenario? How could that word help me in that scenario? How could that word help me in that scenario? And write yourself examples so that when you show up in those moments, you've got a pantry of ingredients that you can work from. And if you work through the examples and you struggle to see how that would fit in that example, then you've just realized that that is not a scenario where that sequence of words would help you. Hence, realizing the words aren't magic. Your ability to serve the moment is where you create magic.

Nikki Miller:

Mic drop. Thank you for saying that, and for making this a little bit smaller, because I think you're right. When people go into wanting to improve anything, it's that they want to improve the whole sequence, which feels like an enormous task. And thank you, especially in the spirit of The ONE Thing, for breaking it down to one moment. And in the spirit of The ONE Thing, Phil, we always close out this podcast by asking, what's the one thing that you would want our listeners to take away from this conversation? They can only take one thing from you from this conversation, what would you want them to take?

Phil Jones:

If there was just one thing, I think it would be a challenge that I'd invite people to execute. And the challenge I'd invite you to execute is, could you live an entire day of your life, like a whole 24-hour window, delivering approximately zero advice? And by doing so, unlock more of the power of curiosity in your world from simply achieving the outcomes that you'd like to achieve in your world, through inviting other people to see things differently.

And when I say delivering zero advice, yes, that means talking in terms of questions. What it doesn't mean is disguising advice as questions with things like, have you tried, have you considered, have you thought about. That is advice disguised as a question.

Nikki Miller:

True. Phil, I thought I was going to outsmart you.

Phil Jones:

Yeah. It is what have you considered? What other options would be thought about? Of those, what might you think could possibly or potentially work best? And why do you think that would be a better solution than that? So what do you think you might choose to do? It’s reaching outcomes in five, seven or nine moves, as opposed to trying to achieve outcomes with one. And if there's one thing you want to achieve, except that slowing down might speed you up and getting there.

Nikki Miller:

So good. Thank you for again, being my teacher today, as always, and for being the teacher of all the many who will listen to this. If people want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Phil Jones:

I'm pretty easy to find if you use my middle initial. So wherever you're looking for Phil Jones, look for Phil M Jones. That way you won't find a former Premier League soccer player and philmjones.com, @PhilMJonesUK on Instagram and Instagram is the one social platform that you're most likely to be able to find and join a conversation with me personally.

Nikki Miller:

Thank you so much for being here and thank you all for listening. We will see you next time.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to The ONE Thing podcast. If you're a bold risk taker who wants to dream big and achieve a higher level of success in your life or business, visit the1thing.com. There you'll find information on one-on- one coaching our exclusive community membership program and customized workshops that will help you get your team or organization aligned and rowing in the same direction. That's T-H-E, the number 1.com to start living the life you've always dreamed of today.

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