In this can’t miss episode, Matthew Pollard, international speaker and author of The Introvert’s Edge and the Introvert’s Edge to Networking, shares how he went from a scared kid in the the back office of a failing real estate office to one of the world’s top-rated speakers and on to becoming The RapidGrowth Guy.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I’m here with one of my favorite high demand coaches. That’s my my friend and colleague and coach, sir Matthew Pollard, you’re not necessarily a sir, but you’re in my book. And he’s an internationally recognized consultant, speaker, blogger, author, mentor, coach, serial entrepreneur, five time, multimillion dollar business success story, the whole thing, right, this guy’s done it all before the age of 30, I might add. He’s the founder and CEO of rapid growth LLC, which is dedicated to achieving maximum ROI for businesses of all sizes. And though his client list includes multiple fortune 500 companies whose real passion is helping small business owners and the overwhelm eliminate the stress and guesswork and get on a clear path to rapid growth. He’s been called the real deal by Forbes. And his methods have helped transform over 3500 businesses to date. I met Matthew a couple of years ago now I think, and he’s been my my Rapid Growth Guy, he’s helped me with my sales, my packaging my processes. He’s a significant portion of the reason that I’m here with a business that I have today. And Matthew, I’m so thankful for that. I’m so excited to introduce you to our guests, because I know you’ve had a massive impact on my life. And I’d love to start off with just tell us a little bit about your story. How did you get into doing what you do now?
Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. Well, first, I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me on. And I, you know, I really love the concept behind your podcast. So I think it’s gonna provide a ton of value to your audience and to your listeners. And you know, what an introduction. So first, thank you for that, my guess my my journey, it’s kind of an interesting one, because I’m probably the least likely to be the person up telling people how to run their businesses successfully, how to obtain rapid growth. So you know, I know that you definitely want to talk about what kind of drew me to coaching. But really, the thing that led to all of my success was actually kind of losing my job just before Christmas right out of high school, because I mean, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader. When I was in late high school, I was super introverted. I mean, the while I got diagnosed with this thing called Erland syndrome, which for the video listeners basically means I put on this funny pair of colored lenses and miraculously, I can learn to read not like everyone else, but it could start the process of learning to read. I mean, I felt like a slow kid my whole life. You know, now I’m the kid with funny code, lenses, horrible acne, I just, I was exhausted, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I was just felt beaten down. And I think my family knew that. So we all agreed I was going to take a year off to to find myself and I wasn’t exactly the person that was going to be able to sit on the couch and watch Oprah you know, my dad broke his back 80 hours a week kind of tried to support the family definitely didn’t have the money to travel, things like that. So I agreed that I would have a job and I took a job at a real estate agency. And before you you naturally project me as a salesperson, I wasn’t the guy in the back office doing data entry with a look on my face, like don’t speak to me here to find myself. And literally within it was really just a couple of weeks of starting that job. A manager pulls me aside. He’s like, Matt, I am so sorry to tell you this, but we just got a call down from head office, we’re shutting down this premise. Like you’re out of job like I been there three weeks, this was the job that was supposed to get me through. And now I’m leading into Christmas, which in Australia, I mean, we take our summer break and Christmas holiday at the same time, no one’s hiring. So for me, the only jobs I could get were these things called commission on the sales roles. And so I applied it for the three that were in the paper because I mean, there was no jobs to be had. And while it was terrifying, it’s more terrifying to tell my father was out of work, and I had nothing lined up. So I literally applied for all three jobs. I got three interviews, and then I got three job offers. And I’m like, maybe they see something in me that I don’t see in myself. Well, long story short, I took this job doing business to business telecommunication sales, and he quickly put that to direct my trainers like that, we just hire everyone, we’ve got the same we throw mud up against the wall, and we see what sticks which is a fun thing until you realize you’re the mud but funnily enough, a lot of business owners tend to be just throwing mud up against the wall to see what sticks as well. Right. So you know, I guess I learned early that that madness unless you have system and process and you know, for me after five days product training and not a single second of sales training, I still remember I got thrown this road it was called Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia. And it was like 1000 Junk stores on both sides and like go sell. I’m I don’t even know what to say. So take this deep breath and I go to walk into the first door. And luckily enough I have to say it was politely told to leave because shortly after that I was less politely told to leave. Then I was sworn in. But my personal favorite was always getting told to go and get a real job right? It’s the only job I could get. So door after door door that kept happening until my 93rd door where I made my first sale and I I remember I was ecstatic for about 45 seconds. I mean, I made $70 Which was great, but I have to do this again tomorrow and the next day and the next and I went you know what, I can’t do this. I’m not I’m not gonna give up. But I’m also unwilling to grind it out which I think a lot of small businesses do. We just keep hustling. It’s fine but not be there. I plan to make things better. So I went, Well, how do I make this better? How do I change this? And the answer was I agreed with myself that sales had to be a system. So how do I learn this system, I can’t exactly pick up a book, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader. But YouTube was becoming popular. So I just took a punt, I threw in the sale system in YouTube that all these videos came up. So every day I’d spend eight hours practicing what I learned the night before, and then that night, I’d go home and I’d then apply what I learned. Sorry, I didn’t learn the next step or perfect the step that I was working on for the next eight hours. Day after day I did this would probably doesn’t sound fun to anyone, especially when I tell you, I spent weekend 16 hours a day practicing that literally within the space of weeks, I got better like you soon it was 71 doors that was 43. Then it was 26. That was 19. Eventually, I got it down to making a sale on average, every three doors. About six weeks in my manager pulls me aside, he had this puzzled look on his face. Because I was the quiet guy, I handed my paperwork in downstairs, I didn’t really talk to any of the boisterous sales reps upstairs. And turns out, they got the national sales figures, which back then they got once a month. And it highlighted the number one sales rep which had me front and center at the top of that list. Which you know, to them. I mean, it blew them away. But they responded with so you’d make a great sales manager. I’ve no idea why they think because you can sell you can manage. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But literally they gave me a team mud to throw up against the wall. All 20 People quit within 24 hours, but back to YouTube learn to manage actually got pretty good at it. Well, I got promoted seven times in the space of a year, and then went out and started my own business. Fast forward just shy of the decade I’ve been responsible for five multimillion dollar success stories. So why coaching? Well, the answer was I decided that I wanted to teach other people how to do it, I wanted to show people that there are three steps to rapid growth, you have to differentiate. So you’re not always in networking rooms trying to convince people why you’re different to the other person that sounds exactly the same. You have to niche down and you have to create a sales system. And you’re a big deal for me was that I also wanted to show introverts like I was that they they’re not second class citizens, they really can succeed not only succeeds, but not only survive, but actually excel in the networking room selling public speaking, doing podcast interviews like this.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that. So much to dive in there. But I’d love first to just hit you the Rapid Growth Guy. You’ve mentioned that phrase a few times, what does what does rapid growth look like? And tell us a little bit about the steps to get there?
Matthew Pollard
Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the the important things for people to understand when it comes to growth is I think everyone’s looking for the shiny object, the silver bullet that’s going to make success. And that then gets people to gravitate to I mean, everybody might be inundated with getting LinkedIn spam messages at the moment. That’s because a lot of people saw that as a tactic originally, then more people got on the bandwagon. Other people were focused on, you know, I mean, now, right? Tick tock videos seems to be the big thing. But people go from tactic to tactic. And when they come to somebody that’s a growth coach, they expect to focus on the tactics, the silver bullets that are working right now, the problem is that that tends to lead to you to having lots of additional full time jobs. The truth is a really good strategy with average tactics can actually work better. But you put a great strategy with great tactics, all of a sudden you have rapid growth. Now, interestingly enough, when I look at rapid growth, it’s not just about the growth of the business, because the business growth is completely subject to the ability for the business owner to believe what’s possible, and actually be passionate about what they do specifically for introverts. If we can’t articulate our passion and mission in a way that excites and inspires people, then we ended up talking about our functional skill and jargon. And instead of sharing stories of excitement, we instead tried to explain and almost coach the people that we’re talking to. And that leads to the opposite of growth. So we have to focus on strategy. First, I think the best example I can give us I worked with a client. Going back quite a few years now. She was actually a language coach. She taught kids and adults Mandarin, and she, she literally charged 50 to $80 an hour for teaching Mandarin, she taught it to everybody. And it worked great for like a decade until it didn’t, which is when a whole bunch of other people were moving into California, that one of the start there are Mandarin education businesses, they were willing to charge 30 to $40 an hour to start their businesses on top of that, thanks to this new global economy we live in. There were people in China offering to do it for $12 An hour and now technology I’ll teach you Mandarin, you teach me English, we won’t charge anyone anything. So now she’s competing against free. So she comes to me and she wants sales techniques, strategies, silver bullets to get more clients. And so what we’ve got to do is sidestep the battle altogether. So what I did is looked at all the clients she worked with and what I realized is what she worked with hundreds there were two executives that what she did was kind of exciting. And what I realized is she helped these executives with three other major things. The first thing was you help them understand the poor requirements or how they’re different in China versus the Western world. For instance, Scott if I was a really bad salesperson and I was trying to sell you something the end of 45 minutes in the middle are currently up in Australia or even in Europe, I might say something horrible, like so do you want to move forward? And you would say yes know what everyone’s favorite. Let me think about it right? Well, if I fast forward a week from now and call you back and ask you the same question, you still say you’re going to think about it, I know my chances of getting that sale are going down and down. Well, in China, they’re going to want to meet with you maybe five or six times before they discuss business, they’re probably going to want to see you drunk over karaoke once or twice. Now, the reason for that, though, is they’re talking about 2500 year deals, not transactional 12 or 24 month relationships. So for them, it’s a lot more important, they understand the character of the person that they’re speaking to. On top of that, she helped them understand the difference between ecommerce in China in the Western world and the importance of respect while learning the language isn’t enough, you’ve got to reduce your accent, how to handle a business card, and why it matters so much the way you do that in China. And I’m like, Wendy, stop you doing so much more for these people than just language tuition? I mean, that’s what we found when we were working together. Scott, the the value you offer clients is so far beyond what the major focus of what you started articulating was. And that’s what we found was when I said you stuck in your functional skill, is it fair to assume as a result of the help that you give these people, they’re going to be more successful in China? And Shlomi? Yeah, I mean, that’s the point, right? The problem is that a lot of times, we overlook, we do so much more for our clients once we start working with them. But we don’t articulate that value upfront, I say, Great, let’s call you the China Success Coach, then forget about Mandarin education for a second, let’s focus on creating what we ended up calling the China Success intensive, which was a five week program that worked with the executive, the spouse and any children being relocated to China. Now, she loved this idea. But she she looked well, who do I sell it to? What he’s asking is, who do I network with? Who do I market to? And what I said to her is, well, who do you think it is? And she’s like, well, obviously, it’s the executive. Mike, that makes sense. I mean, I moved from Australia to the US. And that was terrifying for me. Imagine going to China where they speak a different language. I just don’t think it’s your ideal client. And I mean, to go networking for those would have been harder. So I said, let’s figure out a different a better group. She said, Well, maybe it’s the companies then I mean, they have a lot of times millions of dollars riding on executive being successful. Yeah, see that too. Still don’t think it’s your ideal. This point. She’s like, frustrated. She’s like, well, who then? I said, Well, I think it’s the immigration attorney. What? And I said, Well, here’s what I think I think these people’s been make five to $7,000 for doing a visa. They’ve got to do all the paperwork, all the bureaucracy that comes with that they’ve got office space, they’ve got stuff to pay for, they’ve got to get the client which isn’t cheap. They’d be lucky to make $3,000 a semester just offer them $3,000 For a successful introduction. So now she’s networking looking for immigration attorneys totally different propositions that are selling something she’s actually asking somebody to wants to refer a client of which she would then give them a renumeration, that would double their profit. They love the idea that like double my profit for simple introduction, what would I have to say? She’s a we’ve got to do is say, congratulations, you’ve now got a visa, I just want to double check that you’re ready to go to China, let’s say something simple, like Yeah, I think so. I mean, we’ve got our visa now. Thank you, we got to play sort of, we’re learning the language kids are getting pretty good at it, too. And she, they just responded with? Well, there’s actually a lot more to it than that. I think you need to speak to the China Success Coach, think about this, when he would then get on the phone with someone that’s terrified to go to China, an organization that’s motivated to pay recommended by their attorney. Now she charged $30,000 for doing this five week intensive. After three weeks after a $3,000 commission check. She made $27,000 for the easiest sale in the world. That is rapid growth, but rapid growth came from her saying, what are the skills that I do outside the scope of my functional skill for this niche, then sales becomes so much easier. So what I recommend that people do is they say, What do I do outside the scope of my functional skill? And then what is the high level benefit of that? And then what niche does that serve? So when it was ecommerce respect report, China’s success for me, I’m a Sales strategist. I’m a marketing expert, my master in neuro linguistic programming. I mean, an introvert authority, I’m too many things. Nobody cares. They don’t care how hard it was for me to learn these things, or how long it took me to learn them. But when I say I’m the Rapid Growth Guy, and I work specialized with introverted service providers to obtain rapid growth. It’s the simplicity of that message that gets me heard in a crowded marketplace. So when I look at rapid growth, you map that to great sales, all of a sudden, you get explosive growth.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so good. One of the things you picked up on this, there’s no magic. There’s no silver bullet, there’s no magic solution. Why is it that we spend so much time and money going after the tactics and the silver bullet at the expense of the strategy that really changed things?
Matthew Pollard
Because it feels like we’re moving forward, right? So if we buy something, that that’s promises to be the silver bullet to success, and we do that and it doesn’t work? Well, at least we try it and we put good energy behind it and it felt like we were moving forward quickly. On top of that, if we can then go back to what we really want to do, which I call busy procrastination doing the stuff in our business, that is predominantly our functional skill, but It doesn’t get us out of the hamster wheel. The truth is that most people feel uncomfortable selling, they don’t know how to market, right? A lot of people haven’t had the luxury of doing marketing at, you know, an MBA. And most marketing programs in MBAs talk about how big corporations can market their own talk around how to market as a founder to talk about passion and mission and driving why and creating unified messages that really allow you to have the growth that unless you’ve got the scale of a corporation, you need to have the strategies to get to a level of growth. So what happens is, what I find is people want to feel like they’re moving forward, sometimes it feels like mental torment, to stop for just a moment to catapult forward because it feels like they’re not moving forward. What I always suggest to people is that they should pause for really, and it doesn’t take that long. Think about my success in sales, having no idea how to sell to go from the worst to I mean, teaching 1000s how to do it all came from that six weeks, unified messaging can happen in a day, working out the niche, the packaging, the pricing can happen really, really quickly, as well. So you can have explosive growth, because you took this time, but it requires a different type of thought. And that requires inactivity, to slow down and really ask yourself the right questions. And sometimes even ask yourself the hard questions you don’t know the answers to so like, I could have done anything. Why this? Who am I passionate about? What mission Am I on? What change do I want to see in the world? Because when you build a business around that you get even more explosive growth. For instance, for me, I’m an introvert. I know it’s hard for people to probably believe that hearing how articulate I am on a podcast like this, at least I hope you think I’m articulate. But that comes from a lot of practice. It comes from a great structure, a great system, the power of telling what I call three dimensional stories, and then use for a passion and mission behind that you try and get me to get tired in a podcast interview. Now, of course, at the end of the day, if I do back to back podcast interviews, because I don’t draw my energy from this, I feel like I fall off a cliff. But during this time, great strategy with great passion leads to unparalleled results.
Scott Ritzheimer
And it’s fascinating how much even to turn it around for coaches. It’s fascinating. How many coaches would smile into Yes, absolutely. I wish everyone understood that, but then they don’t do it themselves. You know. So it’s, it’s one of those things. It’s just fascinating how widely it affects all of us. Second thing that really jumped out to me as you’re doing it is the power of having someone come alongside to help that pause. Particularly for founders, entrepreneurs, that pause is probably one of the hardest things that you ever have to convince them to do. Right? Because it runs against the grain of everything that it to an extent has even gotten them success so far. So what is it that that you know, as you’re working with folks, or maybe even someone just listening today? What is it that makes the pause worth it?
Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. So firstly, when you talk about coaches, coaches, and marketing consultants are actually the hardest people for them to do it for themselves. For two reasons. One is they feel uncomfortable asking for help, because they feel like they’re supposed to know all the answers. And the truth is that I you know, I coach, lots of people, as you said, I’ve worked with 1000s of people that have had rapid growth. But I don’t know the answers to everything. When I move into something new, I hire a coach, when I try and lose I scour the information sometimes to make sure. And this I think is a big thing. A lot of people hire a coach without knowing enough, I actually am the worst person for buying coaching. Because I do a so much research that I know all the questions to ask to make sure whether it’s shelf level expertise or real expertise, because I need to when I coach, I jump in I when I have a coach, I jump in with both feet, and I don’t want to be questioning whether they had the skill set to really deliver. So because of that I ask a ton of questions. I don’t ask them to provide me a testimonial or things like that. I mean, I’ve got hundreds on my website. But the truth is, people could buy those, right. So when you ask questions with a detailed enough understanding of knowledge, to really ask a question that requires more than a shelf level answer, you know, whether or not this person really knows their stuff, or whether they’re just just giving you a shelf answer. So I think that’s an important thing for a lot of markets. They believe that they have to have the answers because they call themselves a coach or a marketing specialist. The truth is marketers, a lot of times they do wonders for other people, but they struggle to do it for themselves. Because how do you separate yourself from your unique experiences and say, well, that doesn’t matter. Let’s pick the high level benefits. It’s like, well, I worked really hard for these things. So I got of course it matters. So for coaches, sometimes it’s the hardest for them. But when you talk about what makes the pause worth it, and why sometimes working with a coach is is important. It’s because they force you to do it. Like I’ll give you an example. Like when when you buy a gym membership. If you don’t actually show up to the gym, funnily enough, it doesn’t work as well as you’d think. I know. I’ve tried it for a while. It just doesn’t work as well. So you actually have to be willing to show up. Well, it’s the same thing. A lot of times people believe that having somebody that actually is their will allow them to do it. The problem is that they a lot of times feel like they need to hire a coach and therefore they say any coach Well, the truth is you can go to a Play platform like coach.me and get a coach for $20 an hour. Now I know Scott, you won’t work for that. No, no, I won’t work for that. But you can get coaching, but I was gonna get marketing coaching, it may not be from them. Right. So the thing you have to understand is you have to be specific about the type of coach because otherwise standing still even with a coach is terrifying. The other thing is that a lot of times, especially for introverts, we tend to overthink things. So when we do it by ourselves, we overcomplicate things, we say, well, no, I need to learn more before I can put this into action, right? I don’t have any validation. So we go back to what’s comfortable instead of what we may now be able to try. And so that is a really big issue as well. But the other thing is, we just don’t commit the time, right? So for the people that say, okay, yeah, and I get it, hiring a coach or hiring a mentor has value, but I just don’t have the money for that, or I feel like I can do it myself. It’s the holding yourself accountable. That’s important. Sometimes it’s just getting a coach that can just that doesn’t have any IP, they just an accountability coach can add huge value. So just so that you actually do it. Again, if you don’t want to do that, by the way, you don’t need to hire me to get your own unified message and niche, you know, all the time I tell people go to Matthew paula.com, forward slash growth there, you can download a five step template that will help you create your unified message and discover your niche. But it’s actually proof that people don’t do things on their own. Because I did this at the National freelance conference. 200 people in the room and the end of this session, I said, do me a favor, put your hand up. If you now believe you have a unified message that will excite and inspire people to want to know more your version of the China’s success coach, the Rapid Growth Guy, and you’ve identified a niche of people that are willing to buy customers, people that are willing to pay you what you’re worth, and are happy to pay a premium for your special expertise, not for your functional knowledge. And like 97% of the room put their hands up. But then I said, Look, do me a favor, keep your hand up. If this is the most time you spent actively working on your marketing since you started your business, ie not reading books, or listening to podcasts about marketing, but actually doing the work required, like 85% of the room kept their hands up. So the key is the template you can get at matthewpollard.com/growth will work but you have to spend the time doing it. So here’s what I would recommend everybody that’s just heard this is listen to Scott’s podcast, listen to it again. Then find a friend that you can share this podcast with I’m sure Scott won’t mind. Then once they’ve listened to and you’ve listened to it, download that template, and then do it together because that creates that accountability with someone else. Now, I would recommend that you do not do this with someone that has your functional skill. So if you’re a coach, deal with a graphic designer, if you’re a graphic designer, do it with a ghostwriter. Right do not do with your functional skill. Otherwise, you’ll totally bind to each other’s jargon and think it’s impossible because you both have the same experiences. And you’ll devalue each other’s unique experiences because it’s different from your own. Do you do that allocate two hours an hour each way, you will be miles further down the line than you are today.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s so true. I want to repeat that matthewpollard.com/growth. We’ll put it in the notes for everybody. I cannot recommend a better tool. And and it’s so true what you’re saying. It’s a small investment in the grand scheme of things but just massively powerful. So let’s all collectively prove Matthew wrong. And and go do it. I’d love to see that happen. All right. Last question that I have for you here and really the one I’ve been waiting for, and I know our audience as well, because they’ve they’ve heard lots of these so far. But I’d wonder if you would just take a moment to share what’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret? What’s the one thing that you hope that every founder leader introvert, everyone listening today would hear?
Matthew Pollard
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s interesting, I’m gonna confront a lie, I think is the most important thing. So I there is a thing that everybody knows to be true. That I think is the biggest piece of fake news out in the world today. And that is that introverts can’t sell. They can’t network. They can’t public speak. They can’t run successful businesses. And I’m not talking about you know, the tech businesses where Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg built something and it can be on a computer at one point, and now they’ve got this really big business. I’m talking about the actual businesses that most people run, right. I mean, if you think you can’t do small talk, then look at people like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. They seem to be pretty good at it and they’re both introverted. You think he can’t be dynamic? Well, Bill Murray, that comedian from the Groundhog Day and Ghostbusters he’s also an introvert Leonardo DiCaprio is an introvert if you think that hang on, I can’t network Ivan Meisner, the founder of BNI the world’s largest networking group in the world is an introvert Zig Ziglar the most well known sales trainer in the world is an introvert The truth is, though, that it comes down to one thing a planned presentation if an introvert has a plan presentation that allows them to leverage their natural introverted strengths. I’m not gonna say they can survive in an extroverted world because it’s not an extrovert. Well, to me, it’s an introvert world, as long as we have a plan presentation that leverages our strengths. And you know, this isn’t new stuff. Brian Tracy talks about the top 10% of all sales performers have a plan presentation, the rest, just say whatever comes out of their mouth. Well, of course, extroverts are at the bottom of that, because without a plan, presentation, a solid structure, kind of terrible at those activities, right. So the thing I want people to know is that they really can succeed at that. And the introverts aren’t second class citizens, their path to success is just different. But the thing that I wish wasn’t a secret is that introverts make the best at all of those activities, sales, networking, public speaking, they just need to embrace who they are not try and become an extrovert.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I remember the first time that revelation hit me it came from you. And it was from the introverts edge, the the first book from you that I got, and, and it really did, I mean, it set a new course for me in terms of my leadership, I was already a CEO at that point, but just redefining what I could bring to the table and getting rid of that second class thing in the world of the big Jack Welch’s and the personalities out there. I love the work that you do. It’s been such an honor to be able to be a beneficiary of that. And I’m looking forward to many more being able to achieve the same thing. So Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show today. For everyone. Again, it’s matthewpollard.com/growth. Love for you to check it out. It’s a massively helpful tool. I was so great having you here. And for everyone, again, your time and attention are the biggest honor that you could give. We thank you for spending this time with us. I hope it was as helpful for you as it was for me, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.
Contact Matthew Pollard
You can learn more about Matthew Pollard and download his powerful Rapid Growth Formula for free at https://www.matthewpollard.com/growth.