FOREWORD

I hate networking—it’s icky and manipulative.

This is ironic, as I’m ranked as one of the top networkers in the world by Forbes, Fast Company, and Bloomberg, among others. But I don’t think of what I do as networking. I see myself as a “connector.” I love introducing two people who need to know each other. As soon as I meet someone, I begin thinking about how what they do could help someone I know. To me, I’m just connecting two people in an intentional way that serves their strategic purposes.

I get a special thrill at meeting unwitting geniuses. For some reason, incredibly skilled people—technicians, creatives, inventors, thinkers—are the last to recognize their talent. I enjoy helping these people craft investment pitches, nurturing them through the process, seeing them access exactly what they need, and watching the success that comes from them discovering their own magic. I love helping people promote themselves.

Again, it’s ironic, because I hate promoting myself.

Despite growing up in a small town of three hundred people in rural Idaho, I was still incredibly shy. I was so introverted in my Napoleon Dynamite-like high school that I was bullied. Calling attention to myself was something I never did.

I’ve been the CEO of successful public and private companies, but when I went into business for myself, I was at a disadvantage. I knew how to promote everyone and everything except myself.

Like networking, “sales” was an icky, manipulative thing practiced by used-car salesmen and late-night infomercial hosts. I didn’t sell myself, nor did I want to. I thought if I was smart, a good person, and really helpful to people that I would get paid.

How naïve.

I wanted that to be true, but it was a fairy tale. After the success of my book, How to Be a Power Connector—one of Inc.’s top ten in 2014—I started getting call after call asking me to speak. I was new to paid speaking, so I vastly undervalued, underpriced, and overworked myself. When someone would ask my rate, I’d freeze, then mention what I thought was a big number (it wasn’t) for “just” talking for forty-five minutes.

My clients appreciated what I did. They loved me, and I loved them. But no matter how much I helped, my bank account never seemed to match the value I delivered.

One day, I happened across an article on how to do a soft sales close. It was one of the best articles on how to approach sales authentically that I’d ever read. The byline: Matthew Pollard.

From reading Matthew’s other articles and then speaking with him directly, I felt I could trust him. Here was a sales professional who wasn’t trying to fast-talk me into . . . well, anything. He didn’t want to use people. He didn’t want to deceive people. He genuinely wanted to help. He did business the way I liked to do business—centered around connecting people with what they really needed.

Matthew challenged my basic beliefs about sales. For example, what I looked at as a forty-five-minute speech, I should have seen as days of preparation to create or customize a keynote speech, at least two days of travel, and the opportunity costs of working with other clients during the trip. That doesn’t even take into account the value of the insights and experience shared in the presentation itself or the one-on-one discussions with participants afterwards.

No wonder nobody wanted to hire me—I was too cheap!

As an introvert, and especially as a woman who was always taught to put others ahead of myself, I instinctively shied away from the question, “How much do you charge?” Here I was, a former executive of multiple companies, and I couldn’t confidently answer a basic question about my own business.

Matthew suggested one line that changed everything.

Instead of waiting for someone to bring up price, I preempted it by asking, “Now, when you thought about reaching out to me or considered having me speak at your event, I’m sure you had an idea of what working with me would cost. What kind of budget did you have in mind?”

I could feel the energy of the conversation change. Instead of me timidly presenting my fee, all of a sudden, they were trying to prove they had the budget to work with me.

I began hearing such answers as:

“I’m assuming I wouldn’t get much change from $X.”

“We really can’t extend our budget past $Y.”

“I know you probably charge more than this, but I was hoping you’d be willing to speak for $Z.”

The prices they quoted were three to four times what I had been charging. Best of all, I didn’t feel icky. I didn’t feel deceptive. I didn’t feel that I had somehow cheated these people out of their money. It was pretty validating, to be quite honest.

Barbara Jordan said, “If you’re going to play the game properly, you’d better know every rule.” I was in the game, helping everyone win . . . except myself. Matthew showed me the rules I’d missed. I learned how to sell my skills while still feeling as genuine, authentic, and helpful as I had before reading that article . . . except now, I also feel like I’m winning, too.

In short, Matthew’s sales system pulled everything together and handed me my dream business. Trust his process, and see what it can do for you.

—Judy Robinett, author of How to Be a Power Connector