MKJ (00:01.117)
Welcome back to the conversation, CEO, Mischief Makers, MKJ here, and my amazing giving friend, Josh Elidge. Josh, we get to talk about actual tactics, things people can do. This is my favorite, really. It’s like we talk about the mindset, 30 ,000 foot, then we talk about innovation, and that’s really cool, and that’s kind of the messy middle, like you talked about last time, where you kind of have to test. You kind of have to have conversations. You have no idea where it’s going to go. That’s the messy middle part.

And now, once we’ve gone through that, now we get to go, all right, now let’s do something. Let’s actually take action. So if you haven’t listened to the conversations from Monday and Wednesday or the first two conversations, mindset and impact and innovation, I highly recommend you do that because we are going to take this and just start running. So let me just ask it straight out. You’ve talked about building relationships. You’ve talked about giving without expectation in at least in the beginning of the conversation to help people to build

those connections. How does that actually work? What are some of the steps we can take to, like you said, if I have a high ticket offer and I need experienced entrepreneurs that I need to present that to, how am going to find those people? How am I going to do

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (01:17.644)
Yeah, well, let’s think for a second MKJ about things, invitations that we get as leaders ourselves that we say yes to, right? And I think that this, again, this is really critical if we just have to be honest, right? We are competing, like if you’re thinking, well, look, I’m gonna create a bunch of content on YouTube and that’s gonna be the way that I get a bunch of business.

you can do it, but there’s a lot of other people out there. And, you know, it might feel a little frustrating that, you know, we’re just dumping a thimbles worth of water into us in an ocean of content out there. So that may or may not get it. Giving away what other marketers are giving away, that may or may not be it. So what can you give away that nobody else has the ability to give away? What do you, what resources or audience

do you have access to that other people don’t? Now what’s unique about each of us is that we all have access to platform. And I’ll give some examples of what I mean by this in a second. Okay, and you all have access to an audience, even if it’s a super, super small audience. Like if you’ve got like 20 friends that seem to really dig what you have to share, okay, that is an audience.

already you might be thinking or realizing where I’m going with this, right? When you use platform to celebrate yourself, well, that’s what everybody does, okay? Or I want you to also think about, well, wait a minute, what would happen if I used platform to celebrate other people? Well, now we start to think of the push and pull of that.

That could potentially be the workings of a very good get to know you type thing. So this is again, kind of this go -giver thing, but we’re not going to do this in a transactional way. We are going to do this for the good of the industry or your audience. Like you’re truly going to be in service to other people and you’re going to earn that trust. So if you have an ulterior motive, we all know what it is.

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (03:41.602)
You’re not fooling anybody. So your heart has to be in the right place. If your heart is not yet in the right place, go read the Go -Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann, right? And then come back to me and then we can talk. So you might be thinking, well, okay. I think what he’s saying is that use platform, but like in our case, it got my influence when I’m your fractional chief revenue officer for a season. And you know,

A lot of times I only work for a period of four months and then we get everyone kind of locked in load and then they’re off to the races and stuff, right? But if I were your chief revenue officer, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re gonna get you giving away the type of thing that your ideal customer wants. And what I know about the power of platform is that significance is, it’s pretty effective. So what you’re able to give away is essentially introductions or you’re able to say,

I would love to recognize and celebrate you. I would love to celebrate you to my audience. Is it a big audience? No, it’s not. But if you wanna be in front of 5 ,000 randos, I’m not gonna be good for you. But if you wanna be in front of 50 to 100 CEOs that are leaning forward and are interested in this particular topic, then yeah, I would love to showcase you. And it’s amazing, MKJ, how many people you can get to show up to an award show when they’re being recognized. And again, we’re leading with noble intent.

We are shining the spotlight and making other people feel good about what they do in the world. It feels so good to do this. It feels good for you. It feels good for your guests. It feels great for your audience. And the objection may be, well, I don’t have an audience. That’s okay. I’ll give you an example of how I did this recently in an instance where I had nothing to gain.

I was at a conference, it was my wife’s conference. don’t do what she does. She’s amazing. She’s a licensed marriage and family therapist. She’s a licensed sex therapist. Very good at what she does. She was speaking at a conference with her kind of specific population that she works with. MKJ, that has nothing to do with what I do. I’m just hanging out at her conference because I want to go support my amazing wife and be in the audience and yay, yay, let her know that she’s doing great and hold her hand if she’s nervous ahead of time, that sort of thing.

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (06:02.018)
So I’m just like hanging out and I’m a part of this Facebook group that this event is loosely associated with. And so I’m like, I kind of know the top a little bit here. So I went into the group and I wanted to see if it was okay that I did a live stream into this Facebook group. Okay, I’m not gonna promote anything. I’m not gonna sell anything, but I saw the founder, the director of this event.

And she was just like hanging out on her phone, taking notes or what, I don’t know what she was doing. So I went over to her and I’m like, hey, I’m just sitting around. Do you want to do a live stream to this Facebook group? And she knew the Facebook group. She’s like, yeah. And I’m like, okay, click. You know, I did a quick little post. I go live and I’m like, hey, we’re at this conference. And I’m here. You don’t know me, but you do know so -and -so, right? And so I kind of aim the phone to her and I’m like, you know, I forget her name. I’m like, tell me all about what’s going on here. And she’s like,

She like lit up and you know, it’s like people love to talk about the things that they’re really proud of. Right. And so she just started like, and this is happening. We got this going on next tonight. And then, you know, she’s kind of saying all that stuff. And I’m like, well, and I see that you’ve got some vendors here. You actually have some booths set up like I’m no dummy. I’m like, I know how this I know how our business works. Right. So I’m like, would you mind if we talk to some of these folks? She goes, yeah, let’s do it. Right. And so.

How much work am I doing right now? I’m holding a phone and I’m asking a couple of questions, right? And so now we start going from booth to booth to booth. Okay, what is Josh getting out of this? I don’t care. What is she getting out of it? Enormous, like she feels so amazing about this. Now these vendors who have invested a couple hundred dollars to set up a booth at this, you know, at this little event here, how do they feel? Like I am creating.

MKJ (07:29.555)
And having fun.

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (07:51.982)
good in the world in that moment. So we end up talking with a handful of those vendors. I say, any final thoughts? Sure. She shares some clothes. And then I say, thanks. Thanks for watching. Bye bye. Stop. You know, and at the end of the day, yeah, probably maybe 100 or 200 people watched it or whatever. But in that moment and afterwards, her reaction was just like, first off, who are you? Secondly, thank you so much for doing

And it was literally like in that order, like at this whole time, it’s like, who is this guy? Like, why is he being so nice? Right? They’ll think about that. And now compare that to most our opinion of most marketers out there in the world. Think about those two personas, you know, the bro -y marketer versus what I did. Now, was I concerned about getting anything out of it? No, not really. Like, did I get anything out of

I kind of did like it. So was like, you know, you just have to be open, right? It’s not about, you know, I don’t care what happens. But at the end of that, she’s like, who are you? I’m like, I’m nobody here, but you probably know my wife, Jenny, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I’m like, well, let me introduce me to Jenny. And then they got to know each other. And will that ever turn into anything? I don’t care. Like I’m just there to do good in the world. And if it turns into great stuff, great. And what we know about the GoGiver is that it does. Where you plant

your seeds is not necessarily where you reap your harvest, but you never stop planting seeds because as an entrepreneur, as a director of growth, someone responsible for revenue and growth and impact in the world, it’s your job to constantly be planting seeds. Generosity just happens to be the most effective way to do it consistently and

MKJ (09:45.249)
my goodness. You know, I love what I love that story and MISCHIEF Makers listening. Think about this. Every relationship you have has a component of this in it. If you have a personal relationship with a spouse or a significant other or your children or your parents, it is you are, you don’t just take that relationship for granted. You have to still continually plant seeds with that person. You still have to continually give and they give to you. And that’s how the relationship deepens and grows.

Business is no different. It’s no different if you give and I can guarantee you the best gifts I have ever given made me feel almost better than the person who got the gift. It really they did. They made me feel that when you hit it on the mark and give someone something they didn’t expect and that they were so appreciative of and so excited about that lights me up.

almost more than the person getting the gift. So if you can think of it from that perspective and actually say, the more I do that in it, it doesn’t have to be strategic, right? Where everything has to have a purpose and all.

It is giving to the appropriate audience and giving something that you have, like Josh said, that no one else has, like he had access to that Facebook group. So he’s like, well, let’s go live. Well, there, who else in that conference would have even thought about that first off and had access to that Facebook group and known how to go live on his phone and showcase these people. He gave his own ability and your expertise that you have in

relationship economy, because that’s really what this is. It’s a relationship economy. You gave what you are very, very good at. And if you listeners can do that same thing, I’m telling you the long term results. Look at what Josh was talking about over four years, over 2000 conversations, 250 clients plus think about your business.

MKJ (11:47.449)
in that four year span instead of putting all that energy in the hamster wheel of lead gen and ads and just ip addresses that’s really what you’re building relationships with when you do that is ip addresses not humans if you switch that around to humans look at the power you have and what will come back at you so any other strategic and tactical tips that you can give the audience to to start switching from that lead gen to this

this relationship development.

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (12:19.01)
Yeah. Well, again, you thinking about platform, I, you know, I use the example of going live in a group and there are, I will say this, there’s, could do this on YouTube. You could do this on LinkedIn, right? You could do the same thing. I am very, very bullish on podcasts and podcasts have some inherent baked in supply demand kind of nuances that

starting a podcast to network throughout your industry, it is just so amazing. I’ll just say, I’ll share some spacing stats here. Most podcasters don’t stick with it. 90 % don’t make it to episode 50. And I’m talking about independent podcasters. So if you can do this, and the reason that they don’t stick with it is because they’re just trying to get value from the audience. We consider that to be a secondary benefit. The most important value that you

if you want to start an interview based podcast is these relationships that you’re building with these other leaders, right? So if you can lead in noble intent, if you can give without expectation of return, then you will earn people’s trust and then they will want to do business with you. That’s what we do at Up My Influence. Now in podcasting, in the guesting and hosting world, you may not know this if you’re kind of casual to this world, but for every decent podcast that does interviews,

There are hundreds if not thousands of potential guests at any given time. And I’m talking about like really good fit type people. Most podcast guests are pretty high caliber leaders. These are the kind of people you wanna hang out with. So how do you earn that relationship with? Give them what they’re looking for. Give them what they want. Truly do them a solid. Don’t do it with a transaction in mind, cause people won’t like that.

Do that because it’s the right thing to do and it makes the world a better place. Then what do you earn? You earn all of this time and guess what? You end up earning business anyway. You just don’t have to do it in a scummy, yucky, bro -y kind of sales -y way. You just earn it because of the high value relationships. Again, you gotta have some intentionality to it. And if you need some assistance with that, I’ve got all kinds of free resources.

Josh Elledge – UpMyInfluence (14:37.87)
I don’t need your email. I don’t need you to opt in for anything. I’ve got all this stuff for free at my website. You know, if it makes sense to you and you want to have a conversation, sure, I’d love to hear about your offer. I’m always looking for great opportunities myself. you know, I love alignments where, you know, I’ve got, you know, over 6000, you know, PR agencies and podcast guest agencies and communications directors. That’s who we work with. We serve them. We serve that world because we’ve launched so many podcasts.

that whole world, which is my background in PR, they’re already repping your future clients. So help the PR people look good at their job, they’ll make connections for you. So that’s kind of one secret to how we’ve been 100 % inbound for four and a half years is just I show up consistently in generosity. So I earned that trust in those relationships and then I don’t have to work as hard anymore. I can just continue to be a good person, give.

Guessing great phenomenal experience. Anyway, so if you wanna see this in real time, you can go to my website, you can listen to my podcast where I’m building new relationships. It’s called The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. There’s about 2000 episodes depending on when you’re listening to this. I also, Mary Katherine, I hope this is okay for me to mention this. Is this cool? So I’ve got a free, it’s called my Attraction Mastery Workshop.

And again, you don’t have to opt in. I don’t need your email address. I trust you. You’re an adult, but you just go to my website and you can watch. It’s about an hour and 15 minutes long. You can play me at even faster speed than what I normally talk. If you can keep up, you’re welcome to. yeah, so you just go to this website and here it is. If you’ve got your phone, you can type this in or you I jot this down for now. You just go to this website. It’s www

Again, that’s www .upmyinfluence .com. And then when you go there, you’ll see where you watch the free video. If you want to chit chat with me or whatever, that’s completely up to you. You’re an adult. If you like me, cool. If you don’t like me, it’s okay. We all right. But happy to be of service, however that looks. Even if it’s just maybe I got some introductions for you. Maybe I can brainstorm with you. That’s totally up to