Don Hutson - Signal Moments: Turning Goosebumps Into a 40-Year Speaking Career (And Why Your Sales Team Needs Them Too)

David Bush  0:00  
How do you take motivational and inspirational principles in one of your presentations and extend the lasting capacity of

Don Hutson  0:07  
it? I like to call them signal moments. If you could say something that really gets under somebody's skin, that they never forget, that becomes a principle that they live by, that has a positive impact on their career, not for a day or two, but forever that makes a difference.

David Bush  0:25  
Welcome to the Business Builders playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind Predictable Revenue Growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by bdr.ai the AI powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. Let's get started. Well, welcome everybody. I'm so excited to get an opportunity to interview my good friend, Don Hudson. Many of you have heard of him before, as a best known speaker, best selling author, and so many things in between. And I can't wait to get caught up and to share some of the pearls of wisdom that Don has about scaling sales, being a leader, helping to understand a little bit about his background, his experiences, and where he's at today and where he's going so don thanks so much for joining me today. David, it's my pleasure. Yeah, well, I'm excited to jump on in so kind of catch us up on where you've been and where you are today.

Don Hutson  1:32  
Well, I'm still energized about professional speaking and writing and working on a new book, and just did a new sizzle video reel for my speakers bureaus and direct clients, and I'm still engaged in that part of the business. I did have an interesting thing happen. You know, when the pandemic hit, that was almost a death knell for speakers, because all the meetings cancel, of course. So we pivoted a bit and figured out ways to do some meetings online and that type thing. But it was about that time that a friend of mine called me said, Hey, I've got a vision for starting a software company, but I'm not going to do it without you. Anyway, I invested and ended up being executive VP and Chief Operating Officer of the software company. So that's been my focus, primarily for the past five years, but it filled a beautiful void since the pandemic slowed the speaking down anyway, so I've been learning new space, and it's been absolutely rejuvenating. I actually know some things about artificial intelligence, and we're seeing some really cool things happen. I'm not trying to impress you, David, I'm not writing any code or anything of that nature. We've got some brilliant people in our technical department are doing that, but we've been building this company, and it's it's been a lot of fun and very educational for me to get back into the fray of building a traditional company, rather than just being a speaker and consultant.

David Bush  3:08  
Well, I think it's great to be able to, you know, be able to be back into the the war zone, so to speak, is that you're you're not just telling people you know how to improve and how to close more sales, how to do it better. You're actually doing it yourself and probably learning some new skill sets and learning some new strategies that are going to be able to be so applicable as you continue to share inside your your writing and your speaking. So you know you've you've written quite a few books, over a dozen different books, couple of New York Times bestsellers, Wall Street Journal bestsellers, and so talk about the content of the past and where you see the content of the future. Kind of building a bridge between all of those great, amazing books that I cut my teeth on back in the 90s. And 2000s I read so many of those things, and they were so helpful. But where do you see your content in the future? Is it updating and abridging those or do you have some new ideas and strategies you want to share?

Don Hutson  4:10  
Well, great question. David, and I'm always updating. I've been a voracious reader all my adult life, and I continue to really study the craft of especially professional selling, but other aspects of business success as well. I've been primarily known as a sales trainer for many years, and have really written. I've written books about sales. I came out with the sale in 1992 which was a top selling book, and in the about 2010 I came out with my book selling value, which kind of took the sale to a more sophisticated level and had a lot of good information. Information in that book about differentiation and how we separate ourselves from the crowd and all. These things that are critical today in this competitive environment we're a part of. In addition to the you mentioned, the best seller Ken Blanchard and I wrote the one minute entrepreneur in 2008 and it was a number one bestseller New York Times and Wall Street Journal for six weeks. Couple of years later, I followed up with the one minute negotiator, which I wrote with George Lucas, it also hit the list for several weeks. So we got a good run out of that one as well. But today I'm primarily a sales and negotiation trainer. Do speaks. I'm on leadership, but that's about the extent of it. But continue to expand my horizon and all those topical areas so I could maximize my value to my clients absolutely. Well,

David Bush  5:46  
I want to jump into a couple of different questions that I have. I mean, you've delivered 1000s of presentations around the world. I mean, you've been award winner, you've been at the in the Speaker's round table. I mean, you've got all the prestigious awards and showing your credibility and edifying your experience and expertise and delivering these amazing presentations. But I'm just curious to know, for those others that are out there, what makes the difference between a good presentation and an extraordinary presentation, anything that you could share with us.

Don Hutson  6:17  
Well, I've got a couple of ideas on that, and it's so hard to work on standing out from the crowd, but it's imperative that we do that if we want to make an impact on the marketplace or just be another speaker. And there's 1000s and 1000s of speakers out there, so when we need to stand out, when we can. So I think one thing David is to continue to work on the craft of professional speaking, everything we can possibly learn that can hone the edges, even to a small degree, can make a big or a measurable difference over time. I know, years ago we we hired the acting coach from London, Ron Arden, to come to our speakers roundtable meeting and hang out with us for three days, and we each did about a 12 minute presentation, and then we all learned as we listened to him critique each of us, we learned not only from our critique, but the critique of each other. And that was an incredible learning experience. That's where I really learned how to pause I used to be such a rapid fire deliverer of my content. I know when I did my 12 minutes for Ron Arden, he got through. I got through, and I sat down and he's thinking, and he said, Don, that was masterful, but I'm exhausted from listening to it. And that's when he talked to me about the importance of the pause, because I just went too hard and fast, and I got away with it, and I was known as a very good speaker and everything, but I became better after the coaching experience. So we can never quit learning. We can never quit gaining insights into our craft, and I would say that's one of the things that really does make a difference. Also speak a good bit about differentiation, and that's important for sales people, sales organizations, but it's also important for speakers, and one of the critical things for speaking is we've got to have some really powerful trademark stories, hopefully not just one, but I've got several that I've gotten a great deal of mileage out of, that I've known for actually had an experience not too terribly long ago where I did a speech for a company and they had their 500 branch managers in the audience, and it went very well. And I told my story. I closed with my signature story of my jet trip to Kentucky, and seven years later, the Chairman of the Board of that company said to his secretary, who happened to remember my name, fortunately, he said, I don't remember his name, but get that Speaker We had a few years ago who talked about his jet trip to Kentucky. Well, she remembered my name and got in touch with me, and they hired me again. I went back and did another speech for But that's an example of how powerful a signature story can be. He remembered the story and the point of the story, he did not remember my name. So that's a critical learning point. I think for speakers, you've got to have some some things that can represent a signal moment in your delivery that really have an impact on people, and that'll make a big difference. That's one way we can be remembered and again, differentiating ourselves in every way we can to be unique, to be memorable, to be impacting. I spoke at NSA. I was the closing keynote speaker a few weeks ago, and one of the points that I'm that I made had to do. With the idea that we've got to nurture a level of excitement if we're going to be successful motivational speakers, we've got to get people to change behavior. We've got to get people to ramp up their passion factor. And if they'll do that, they'll put more skill on the street, they'll make more calls, they'll be more effective, and indeed, enjoy a greater level of success.

David Bush  10:22  
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Don Hutson  12:04  
skills? Yeah, I've got a few of those. David, of course, I want to say that I'm very thankful I was so fortunate to get our other start in this business. Right out of college, I went to work selling sales training programs, and we had to give speeches to small groups to do that. So when I was in my early 20s, I started giving 30 minute talks. I did about 1500 of them in four or five years, and that's how I really learned to speak, and that was in concert with promoting sales rallies. So I got an early start in the business and in in my business of selling, of promoting sales rallies and selling tickets to these events, I would bring in Cabot Robert, Bill Gove Zig Ziglar, Dr Kenneth McFarlane, some of the real greats who I consider all of those. Those gentlemen, my mentors now learn from each of them, for sure, but, but then Cavett Roberts said to me one day, Don, he came to hear me do a couple of those little 30 minute meetings. He said, Don, man, you're really good. And I found out later. He told a lot of people that, but nevertheless, he was the he was the prime encourager of the business. Back in those days, Kevin and I became very close. He was definitely a mentor. I learned so much from him about everything from humor to delivery to to growing your content and to marketing my services and and he did some mailings from for me to his meeting planner list and helped me get started with my early bookings in the business. But then I got another good break. I was on the original speaker staff as the emcee of the positive thinking rallies with Dr Norman, Vincent, Peale and Paul Harvey and Art Linkletter and W Clement Stone, Dr Robert Schuller. And I was introducing all these guys. I've introduced Dr peel probably 40 times, and we became close personal friends, and the same with Paul Harvey and the others, and what a great opportunity. So I was the MC for a couple of years, then I worked my way onto the main stage, and that was a great boon to my career. One of the things I would say that I've learned in my recent reading, I love the book, the one thing about prioritization by Gary Keller, and he and Jay in that book, said, We must remember that important events in our career do not happen simultaneously. They happen sequentially. Sometimes one happens because another preceded it, and it paved the way to the next level of achievement. And that's exactly what happened to me, and I didn't even realize it at the time, but when I learned that principle from Keller and papazan, I looked back and I thought, well, that's what happened to me when I got started my first decade in the business. I had. About five or six noteworthy things that happened to me, each of which boosted my career another notch, like Kevin got me in the chairs to be the third President of the National Speakers Association. I wasn't even 30 years old yet. So that's an example of some things that happened to me early that boosted my career and gave me a little punch at a time when, when I really could use it. So that helped immensely. So I learned all I could from the greats, and I enjoyed friendships with many of them. And I treasure those opportunities, though most of those guys are gone down Well,

David Bush  15:38  
I know that you do extensive research when you go out there and do a private booking and and do a presentation for an organization, but if you were to give kind of a general insight as to what you would share with a audience of sellers that need to be motivated, encouraged, edified, you know, maybe helping them with their mindset, their skill set, their action. What would be the one thing, going back to Keller's book, going, what would be the one thing that you would really feel needs to be a part of your presentation, assuming that you get customization afterwards. But what's that one thing that Don Hudson wants to transfer in to this next generation of sellers. That's a timeless truth,

Don Hutson  16:23  
sure. Well, David, I don't have to think that one over. The answer is, you got to be an absolute bear about needs analysis, about information gathering, because there's nothing worse than a than a speaker who's got lame content or tired material and goes in there and gives the same talk he's been given for many years now. Sure, there's some concepts you'll repeat and hopefully improve the delivery of some of that content over the years, but we've we've got to be absolutely energized about doing a great needs analysis with every client we serve. So I would say to the speakers who might be viewing this or actually sales people as well. When you're trying to close a sale, it all begins with the research you're going to do. So here's, here are the elements that I would ask speaker sales professionals to keep in mind as they're trying to advance their career and get yeses in the marketplace. Number one is let it be known early on that you are eager to do a needs analysis, and that tells your prospect that you know it's not about you, it's about them, and that is a critical mindset for them to have so many speakers and great sales people today have a little bit too much ego, and they put that out front and it does not serve them. Well, I've been guilty of that some through the years, so let's let it be known early that we're eager to do a needs analysis to make sure we're we're going to conscientiously tailor our message, our product, our solution, to what it is that they really want and need that's going to make a difference for so that's the mindset early on about needs analysis Next, I would suggest that you remember the principle that the better and more in depth the questions you ask, the better and more in depth the answers you will get. Take notes when you're doing a needs analysis, take diligent notes every now and then, you need to say that's interesting. Could you elaborate on that a bit? And you take the depth of information you're getting to another level, so probe and gain all the valuable information you possibly can. And as you do that, you're going to be put into position to tailor your presentation. I like to say it this way. David, a great salesperson, increases the probability of getting a yes, because if he does a really great needs analysis, he will ultimately deliver a sales presentation. His prospect helped him design, and you get better response to a presentation. Your prospect helps you design. You know our mutual friend Jim Cathcart, had a wonderful line. He said, in selling like in medicine, prescription before diagnosis is malpractice, you got to do the diagnosis. And that's our needs analysis for the salesperson or the speakers is, oh, let me tell you about you. Or let me tell you about our company. Let me tell you about me. Let me tell you about our products. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. These are speakers and sales people are setting themselves up for rejection. And the reason is, it's got to be about them and not about you. So we just say things like, well, you know, I'm pleased to be able to tell you a little bit about what I'll be able to do for you, but first, I want to learn more about you and the issues and challenges you've got right now and some of the needs that you perceive, that you and your people have, so that I can have a greater positive impact through my presentation. He says, Okay, if I ask you some. Questions. So we get permission to do the needs analysis, and then we start asking some really great questions.

David Bush  20:08  
That's so good. I love the I love the, you know, finding the you know, the why and the what and the who and the when and the where before we get into the how. And so many people are being prompted for the answer to how, how does it work and how much does it cost? And we can be very reactive to that, but flipping that around and answering a question with a question is a great strategy to move into that needs analysis or to schedule that follow up time. I'm curious, as you know,

Don Hutson  20:35  
like David and and one of the other things that is especially good for speakers is to say to the meeting planner, by the way, I'm not only eager to talk to you today, but I'm also ready, willing and able to talk to five or six of the people who will be in the audience that day. I'd like to get their take on current events as well. Is it okay if I talk to some of them? Well, they are. They're eager to have me do that because it's just going to help me get to know them and their organization better and better. Yeah.

David Bush  21:05  
So, you know, a lot of day, a lot of lot of organizations and associations that are going to bring in a speaker, they want somebody to inspire and motivate their their team. What? What unique capabilities do you bring to the table to not just give people that short term motivation, but to, you know, get it so it comes home and it and it lasts and it sticks more like principles than just this, you know, zig used to say, you know, motivations like bathing. It only works when you do it often, or if you don't do it often, life begins to stink, or something like that. So how do you take, how do you take motivational and inspirational principles in one of your presentations and extend the lasting capacity of it?

Don Hutson  21:48  
I like to call them signal moments. If you could say something that really gets under somebody's skin, that they never forget, that becomes a principle that they live by, that has a positive impact on their career, not for a day or two, but forever. That makes a difference. I gave an example of a signal moment when I was in college. Right before I graduated, I went to a sales rally where Dr Kenneth McFarlane was speaking. I don't know if you remember that name, or if you ever heard him David, but he was known as the dean of American speakers. He was unbelievably powerful from the platform, and he was six foot four, totally distinguished, eloquent in every way, profound in his content. His delivery was electrifying. I got to tell you, I'm sitting there 21 years old, and I got goose bumps like six or eight times during his speech. Man, I'm taking notes. I'm getting Writer's cramp writing down his information. I was profoundly impacted to the degree that I went out at the break and I found Dick Gardner, the guy who promoted the seminar. I walked up to him, I said, Mr. Gardner, I'm Don Hudson. I graduate in six weeks with a male major in sales from the University of Memphis. I want to go to work for you. I can help you sell people on attending your seminars. He said, Well, can you go to breakfast with me? Meet me at 7am in the morning. I said, Yes, sir, and I did, and he'd hired me by 9:30am but that's when I learned when I heard McFarland and I got those goose bumps David, that's when I learned that I was experiencing a signal moment. I learned that goose bumps never lie. That's your heart strings tugging at your soul telling you to reach up and grab the rest of your destiny now that has a lasting impact, because I didn't know what to expect going to that seminar, and I didn't have a full time job yet for when I graduated, and, man, I was primed and ready, and when I heard McFarlane, my life changed. So now that's a that's changing an audience member's life at a very high level. And I'm not suggesting everybody can achieve that kind of impact, but that's what we need to aspire to.

David Bush  24:12  
I know that those signaling signaling moments, as you mentioned earlier, sometimes those signaling moments happen in the pause, and so a skilled speaker that learns to bring those pauses in at the right time after a signaling experience can really transcend what is being shared at that particular time. And sometimes, when you're rapid fire, you don't give people to have that thought or that idea or that motivational principle that comes in and sets in in their life and and some people just need that, that opportunity, and so I'm glad you brought that to the table.

Don Hutson  24:47  
How about, yeah, we got to give them a moment to reflect and think about what they're hearing

David Bush  24:52  
Absolutely. How about, from your content, you've, you've offered over a dozen books, what? What are some. Specific principles from the books that you've written that seem to have the biggest impact on your audiences, is there one or two that you could reference

Don Hutson  25:10  
Well, in my sales negotiations material, I think you know, if you if you really consider David, all of us have to negotiate just about every day, whether it's with your dry cleaner about when your cleaning is going to be ready, or whether it's with your spouse about where you're going for dinner, or regardless of what it is, we negotiate many times every day. Yet, over 95% of the people, the adults in America today have never ever read a book or had any training on negotiations, which is a shame, because it's such a critical part of our lives, it's so important that we really need, need to have that that training. When I started researching negotiations some 25 years ago, I read just about every book that's out there, and boy, there's a great variability of opinion about how you negotiate. A lot of people are hard line negotiators. They say you got to do this, you got to do that, and it's hard line. And you know, there's a place for that. We call that competitive negotiating, and sometimes that's where you got to go. But so many people have never even really learn the skills of collaborative negotiations. And instead of a win, lose, hard line approach, it's more of a win, win. Let's figure out something's going to work well for both of us. So in the one minute negotiator, we taught collaborative skills, and that's really important, and things like I mentioned the needs analysis earlier. You know those are the things that will help you, facilitate a collaborative relationship, rather than something that's confrontational. So that's one example. There are many others, but that's one on one that comes to the top of my mind early on.

David Bush  26:58  
Yeah. Well, what's, what's one of the most memorable experiences where the audience just was transformed by something that you shared, or an experience that you had together, any anything over the years, that just is a memorable experience that you could share. I'm just curious.

Don Hutson  27:17  
David, I would think one of my attributes as a professional speaker is I'm high energy, and I seem to have the ability to transfer that energy to other people in a positive way, and that's the reason I've always gotten a lot of repeat business. I love to ask my client, how do you want your people to feel after this meeting is over? They say things like, well, I want to be pumped up ready to go to the next level. Okay, I can do that for you. So high energy is important. You know, there can be someone whose IQ is off the chart, but if they're not an energizing speaker, and they speak in a monotone, they might say some profound things, but they're not going to have as great an impact. They're not memorable. So I would say that's a key factor.

David Bush  28:12  
Yeah, I got one more question for you on the on the topic of events and speaking, and that is, if you could give a event organizer, or, you know, a leader that's putting together an event three tips that based upon your previous experience and the testimonials of the others that you've had a chance to communicate and have conversation with. What are the two or three things that event organizers should be really focusing in on to deliver an extraordinary experience for people that participate other than hiring. Don Hudson, I know that one's that's number one, but what are a couple other things that are just based on experiences?

Don Hutson  28:50  
A speaker knows what he or she needs in terms of the environment they want, and what they what and how they structure things to be their best. And I would say to a needy to a meeting planner, tell that speaker any and everything you want to tell him or her about your needs and all that sort of thing. But when it comes to creating the right environment and the idiosyncrasies of that speaker, if you want your speaker to be the best, give them the opportunity to be their best by giving them the environment they want. For example, I don't like it a totally dark house working under total spotlights where I can't see any audience members. So I say to a meeting planner, do you plan to have a dark house? Are you going to have some some house lights on. And sometimes they say, Well, we do a dark house. And sometimes they say, Well, what do you want? And what I tell them is, I'd like to have at least, you know, if you want to do 80% dark, give me 20% light so I can see the audience, and you've still got it dark enough that, you know, the videotape. Going to going to look good, and the dynamics of the whole meeting will be effective, but you don't need a totally dark house. I mean, that's that's Hollywood, and that's fine. But speakers, most speakers, like to look into the eyes of their audience members. They play off of them and everything considered, most speakers are going to do a little bit better job and come across as more powerful if they can see the eyes of their audience members. So that's an example. Give give the speaker what they need on the stage to be their best. That'd be one thing. Another thing is be ready, willing and able to get engaged in that needs analysis process, because there's some speakers like myself, I take it very seriously, and I don't develop the content I'm going to use until I've done that needs analysis. And then I know the the vignettes I'm going to deploy, I know the humor that I'm going to use, and I sometimes craft some new material for that beating based on a special need they've got. So that's kind of what I did for NSA. A couple of weeks ago. I had never given that speech before. It was like 95% new material, and it went over really well, but I gotta tell you, I worked hard on it for months, but that's what you got to do. It's this is the great speakers make their their presentation look easy, but it's usually based on a lot of research.

David Bush  31:30  
Yeah? So, yeah. Well, good takeaway would be, beware of the speaker that you talk to that doesn't ask for a needs analysis, because you're going to be prepared to be surprised, well, let's I want to dive into this new role that you've been participating in with benefits claims assistance. Is that

Don Hutson  31:50  
correct? Benefits claims intelligence? Intelligence, intelligence. Yes, yeah, it benefits claims. We develop software that can identify fraud, wasted, abuse and self insured health care plans, and the problem is rampant, and we we can spot all of the claims that are improperly adjudicated, all the monies that a company will have lost, or monies that have been misappropriated by wrongdoing, we can find every bit of it, and that's what our AI based software can do. And our sharp people in our technical department, and we provide that information for the client based on our audit that we help them recoup that money, of which we get a small percentage, and they get the bulk of the money, and that's how software works. It's been fascinating space for me, so I've been into subject sales, but also on the operational side, I've been busy with that as well. So a real learning experience for me. But I talked to one of my bureaus yesterday. I'm re engaging with he said, Don man, I know you've been out of the speaking marketplace a bit for the last five years, but what you've been doing is what our clients are looking for. They want speakers who've got a real world experience. I said, Well, man, I've got that absolutely. So that's joy. The

David Bush  33:14  
people that are talking to you about this service is that high level CFO CEOs. I mean, who's the, who's the target market for the software services

Don Hutson  33:25  
we generally call on the CFO, because they're the ones who are primarily concerned about fiduciary responsibility. And the people within a company have a there's a legal requirement and responsibility that they are involved in careful oversight of their health care plan. If they're not doing anything to assure there's no misappropriation of funds, they're violating the law. They're not following through on their fiduciary responsibility. So we start with the CFO, and sometimes they'll refer us then to their their chief HR officer, and that's who works with the third party administrators on claims adjudications and everything. So we've got it down to a science as to how we do it, and we think we do it better than anybody else, but we've helped a lot of clients. It feels really good.

David Bush  34:19  
And this software is not just for cost containment, it's actually for strategic budgeting and forecasting. I mean, there's a lot of other benefits than just collecting on some potential benefits from

Don Hutson  34:32  
Well, David, you're right in that that there's software that does that. We don't get engaged in that type of software. The software business today is is incredibly specialized, and we specialize in claims adjudication, research and audit, but we do that really well. We go very deep, and it's an exciting time, because AI is it just continues to emerge, and now we've got the convergence. Of AI with robotics, and we're going to see things in the next few years that are just absolutely amazing. We're starting to see it already. But my home base is Memphis, and Elon Musk recently opened his x ai plant here to create the Colossus computer. It's amazing this this guy, to me, is the modern day Thomas Edison, just never seen anything like his, his intelligence and his ability to go deep on these areas that he's working in, if he decides to specialize in something like rocket ships, and he could figure out how to not only launch a spaceship, but bring one back into the launch pad for continued use after being launched. I mean, that's uncanny. It's amazing. So all of these things are coming together in a manner that the technical world is. It's not going like that. It's going like that, right? And it's a really exciting time. So I've enjoyed the software business. I've learned from it. I've grown. Think it keeps me young, keeps me studying, and it's been a lot of fun.

David Bush  36:14  
Yeah? Well, I've got a couple more questions for you. So when you're in the Thralls of working with these CFOs. What are some of the common problems that you're hearing from these CFOs or the senior level directors that are like commonplace that your solution and your software is immediately going to provide a benefit to them in the very near future?

Don Hutson  36:40  
One of the most common ones, David is the unemployee of a big company who a person who's in their self, in their health care plan, will be injured, and let's say it's not a very serious injury, but enough so that they go to the emergency room. Well, emergency room visits are classified in five categories based on severity, number one being the least severe, and number five being life threatening. It's very common that somebody will go into the emergency room for what is a category two in seriousness issue and get charged for a category four. We see that every day and that over time, adds up to a tremendous amount of money. So there are people who are untoward in their objectives. And whether you call it skimming money here and there, or whether you call it theft, there are some people who are taking advantage of the opportunity to do that which is costing a health care plan. Cms.gov, the government agency who monitors this recently said that there's 13.8% fraud, waste and abuse in the typical self insured health care plan in a given year. Well, somebody's got $100 million a year spend. That's $13.8 million that's not something you want to blow off and say everything will be fine, and you want to do something about that, and we can help people get most of that money back. Fantastic.

David Bush  38:15  
That's a great solution. Yeah, that's definitely worth pursuing. So I want to wrap up today, and I want you just to give everyone that's watching this video an insight into Don Hudson's success formula. Would you mind sharing that with us?

Don Hutson  38:30  
I'd love to I developed a success formula not long ago, based on the idea that everybody has got a deviation between their potential and their performance, and conscientious managers and leaders are looking for ways to close that gap and get more out of their people, and most people want to grow and get better. So how can we be our best? Here's the formula that I developed. Now this kind of goes beyond having a good attitude. I mean, you got to have a good attitude and believe in yourself, and that's kind of the ticket to the ball game, a cynic or a pessimist is not going to do well in the marketplace. They don't expect anything good to happen, and they're seldom disappointed. So we got to assuming we've got a good, healthy, positive attitude. My formula is Vision Plus skill plus discipline. Those three in in parenthesis, they they interact with each other. Vision. We got to see the big picture. We got to see with clarity what we're trying to achieve, what our boss wants us to achieve, and we've got to be tuned into that. And then we've got to have the the appropriate skill sets. You know, none of us can perform beyond our intellect or our skill both. So we've always got to be focused on skill building. Now discipline means that, on a day to day basis, we've got to work hard, we got to work smart, we got to put our skill on the street. We got to be disciplined enough to make the calls, talk to the people and. Be the best we can be. So those three elements are all key. Now here's the rest of the formula, Vision Plus skill plus discipline and parenthesis times passion equals results. Passion David is the force multiplier. The more passion somebody's got about getting something done, the more of those skills they're going to be utilizing, the more calls they're going to be making, the harder they're going to be working, the more determined they become. So that passion factor, which I referred to earlier, if we can get that passion factor through a signal moment and a speech by a great speaker. Boy, I tell you that company is going to get a tremendous return on their investment in that speaker, because the passion factor is the force multiplier that determines the true effectiveness and general overall productivity of a person, or, for that matter, a sales organization. So Vision Plus skill plus discipline, times passion equals results. That's my success formula, and that's what I try to apply to every presentation I give. Is to is to weave the attributes of those elements into a speech or seminar.

David Bush  41:19  
That's fantastic. So if those people that are watching this video right now, if they want to increase their vision, they want to increase their skills and their discipline, and they definitely want to create the force multiplier of passion to improve their results, whether it's with an upcoming event or them personally, or if it's a company that wants to connect with you, what's the best place to reach out to you?

Don Hutson  41:43  
Don hudson.com is my website, and it's Hudson with a T, as you know, and people can reach me through that website. I'm also active on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, but I'm not that hard to find the phone number if you want it. David is 901-292-8530. One, 292, 8533, thanks for asking.

David Bush  42:04  
Yeah, you betcha. Well, it's been good to reconnect with you, my friend. I'm excited for the future. There's so many applicable things that we've shared here today in this short time together, but I'm excited for those organizations and individuals that reach out to partner with you. So many opportunities and all of your wisdom and experience and expertise, super excited to hear about what's next for you.

Don Hutson  42:27  
Thanks, David, and you keep doing your work. Well, man, you're you. You're having a real impact with all you're doing with LinkedIn and helping people in on a consulting basis. So keep up the great work, man.

David Bush  42:38  
Thanks, my man. Appreciate it. Have a great day. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind. Building Predictable Revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with bdr.ai, or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders just like you to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's Highest Paid Prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us@bdr.ai until next time, let's keep building. You.