The Importance of Connections with Katie Bishop

0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, we're all reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

And with us right now, we've got Katie Bishop, and Katie, you along with your dad who is somewhat of a celebrity Doug Reichardt. You guys have published the book it the best selling book entitled, The best seller. It's get unstuck, grow relationships and gain access. And so I'm really excited to talk about But the principles found in the book but a way to speak that into existence the best seller.

1:06
It came in an epiphany and it was it was a good one.

1:09
Yeah. So Katie, um, a little bit of background, would you mind kind of just sharing a little bit about your legacy and and you come from a long line of sales professionals.

1:21
Yes. And actually, the story is talked about in the book, my grandfather bill Reichardt, back in the 1950s became well known from his football playing days with the Green Bay Packers, also University of Iowa MVP, big 10. And then he owned a clothing store quality clothing store for about over 40 years. And then my dad became quite the sales expert in insurance but also investing in other companies that then became unicorns and now I am learning from those before me.

1:57
Yeah, and when when you just kind of You know, kind of just casually mentioned that. But I thought you said unicorn did tell me more about that if I did.

2:08
So my dad invested in a few companies that were spin offs from his insurance agency. He knew people from them. And then he worked with them in terms of selling the idea to other investors, and brought the right people on the right teams, and just the growth was astronomical.

2:30
So Katie, and you work in the life sciences industry now. And so what was the impetus for publishing this book? What was the need that you saw in the marketplace?

2:43
I think it was pain, Josh.

2:48
I coming out of college, I thought that I knew what I needed to know to be successful. And I think a lot of us do when we come out of college and then we have life hit us in the face a few times. We recognize that Wait a second, the people who have walked through the road before me actually know a lot more than I'm giving them credit for. And so we have to start humbling ourselves and asking the right questions, being curious of those who have walked the roads before us to really understand their experience, their wisdom and what they they can really give to us so that we can both be successful going forward. In working with your dad and considering your legacy and and thinking about, I'd say, the evolution of both sales. And I'd say just generationally,

3:40
what, what have you noticed about sales today, and maybe folks that are just getting out of college and getting into the workforce? What does that intersection look like to you?

3:56
So when you ask that question, I think you're asking for a reason. Tell me Tell me why. You want to know the answer to that question?

4:02
So when you ask that question, I think you're asking for a reason. Tell me Tell me why. You want to know the answer to that question?

4:09
So ask your question one more time.

4:11
Yeah. And so, um, you know, sales has absolutely evolved over. You know, and I know that your book is more than just sales, right. It's growth, a business. It's, you know, growing relationships and, and how to grow in in areas of life. Do you see any particulars? Maybe it is, is this generation of folks that are just entering the workforce, culturally, it are there. Are there changes today that that that we could measure against maybe previous generations?

4:51
I think this is a great question. I think a number of those graduating from college today, similar to me, even though it was few decades. Go. We think that we know what we need to be successful. And unfortunately, also social media, we've created kind of a monster and that we're looking for this is my brand, this is the brand of me this is, you should all follow me because my life looks good. And we come out of college thinking that other people need to give us things and give us opportunities because we deserve it. Because we're educated because the economy is booming, and you need me as a worker, whereas I do think that that needs to be that mentality needs to be flipped on its side. I think that what this book gets at is the perspective change, that when we come out of college, it's not about us. It's actually about who we're working with who we're working for. The clients that are, they have a need, they have a want, but we have to understand them, not just ourselves. Until we have to get beyond ourselves to really understand what others want and to connect on an authentic level instead of that superficial social media level. What would you imagine are the consequences of not doing that? isolation? Truly, and I don't think that we can be successful in isolation, right? Another concept of this book, it's called a baseline. It's working with other people, which is super challenging. It's hard to work with people. I wrote this book with my dad. That was not an easy, easy thing to do. Because you're working through emotional baggage, you're working through missed expectations you're working through, I want to look good. I want to say that I know what I'm doing. But in actuality, I don't know what I'm doing. And so it's working through our weaknesses, working with our strengths and those of the other person

6:57
and so in in I think it Our economy, one thing that we're seeing much more often is that there are a lot more jobs that are virtual in nature. There's no need to go into an office with a bunch of other people. So therefore, you know, the workplace is is kind of really changing where, you know, someone might just be cooped up in their apartment all day long, and minimal interaction with people maybe in real time and everything else is just done over messaging and slack and whatever it might be. But we were missing out on that human connection and engagement. And so I think that, given that that's just the environment that we're working, how do we want to implement I guess, the reader of your book? What will they take away? If they are working in that environment? What actions do you think that they will take based on What what you share.

8:01
So the main character in the book as a young female, new in our sales career, and she doesn't understand the importance of connections, yet she gets invited to an event, which, due to certain circumstances, she gets introduced to a mentor. And at first she thinks, well, this mentor can teach me things. But what she ends up learning is that she can also add value to the people around her, both in professional but also personal ways. So it's understanding it's, we do have to push ourselves into position to meet other people, we have to push ourselves out of our comfort zone. It's it's nice and comfortable to stay in your in your apartment and do your work. But that's not where you're going to be at your best. And so we have to push ourselves outside of that comfort zone and reach out to people for real But there's a, there's a way to do that I think that those skills, those classic skills of face to face interaction, they're missing a lot in these younger generations because it is. So they're tech dependent. And they're working through virtual offices instead of that face to face. And so it's asking the right questions and asking questions is actually it's humbling because you have to be able to ask without knowing what the answer is, and you have to probe and really be curious about the other person and not just wanting to talk about yourself.

9:42
So I guess just so just showing, or not showing having a genuine interest in other people. So you know, this This, to me feels like a lot of Dale Carnegie, you know how to win friends and influence people. It's Listen, you Yeah, so so how, how is what you teach inspired by that work?

10:06
I think a lot of it is inspired by that. That was a monumental book when it came out decades and decades ago, and it's still relevant today. I think those, it's those small interactions that make the difference. It's not the big splash where everybody sees you, and wants to know you. It's actually after the fact, how do you follow up? How do you create an actual relationship after someone might know of you? So how do we build that rapport, and to be able to build that rapport we need to build trust first. And so the book talks about going from what's called general access where we know people to favorable access where people know us and trust us, and truly the way to do that is through those small interactions, those daily interactions that we have with others.

11:00
And so if we're talking, if you could illustrate this for me further, can you maybe just give an illustration of like, two interactions, one, where someone is just completely self focused, and then the other one where someone is genuinely, like, they genuinely want to serve somebody else? So I guess, what are some examples of you know, what people might say and or do I? I mean, I think this might be a little obvious, but but I'd really love to, maybe have you kind of, give us some, some, like, give us give us some assignments for our next interactions. What are some things that we can make sure to do? Like because I think a lot of times maybe we just need to remind her to, you know, look, you know, look, people, you know, look into their eyes and, you know, established like, I don't know what it is right? Do you? This is this is where I'd Katie. I'd love to hear What are the things that I should be doing when I engage in interact with other people?

12:03
The Great question i do think eye contact is very important. And sometimes, you know, when we're virtual, I might be looking at the screen versus looking at the camera. So, you know, there's that disconnect at some point. But when we sit down with someone, depending on the situation, is it a business situation is a personal situation? If it's a business situation, we want to talk about their work needs their work problems, what is it? How, what kind of questions can we ask that they? What are their daily headaches, where where could we add value in their work life, but then again, if it's personal, if we're having coffee, and we're getting to know one another, you know, it's three main things and I'm sure Dale Carnegie talked about this in his book, I don't remember but it's their health, their wealth and their relationships. So everyone walking around has some sort of pain, but we have to have that trust in order To really uncover what that is, but I think people want to talk about what's really going on. But we don't have the ability or a person wanting to listen to what's truly going on, instead of just hitting that superficial. So it's it's asking about, you know, your general questions. If it's at work, tell me, you know, what do you do every day? Tell me about what it is, why did you choose this profession? What is it that really interests you about this? How can I help you in what you do? What are some of the things that you don't like about your, your job, your position? If there were, if there were a few things that you could get rid of? What would be those certain aspects of your job and why? You know, those are super simple questions, but then on the personal side, it's, you know, how do you meet a friend? What if you think back to 10 of your friends, where did you first meet them? What connected you Why did you continue the conversation? We all know this, we can all look back to our relationships, our friendships, our family relationships, what is it that draws me to someone? And what is it that pushes me away? And we want to model and emulate those that draw us to someone.

14:19
So Zig Ziglar, of course, famously said that you can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want. Sounds like we're in that territory are

14:51
So that's my next question is how do you keep from getting commoditized because I think it could be easy to look at something like popcorn Yeah, standing and say, Oh, well, you know, I could just teach someone the basics and pay them 12 bucks an hour and call it good. How do you compete? Or, you know, and of course, there's always like, you know, overseas, you know, cheap labor overseas. And and how do you compete with that?

14:29
totally in that territory.

14:33
So good, good advice, then good advice today.

14:36
Yes, totally agree. But I think sometimes it's discounted today. Because we think that technology can do these things for us. No robot can replace a human interaction. I know we've got artificial intelligence. But you know, when you're talking to a bot online, you know when someone something is making a decision for you versus someone. And you know, when you're talking on even if it's a call center call, you know, you keep wanting to press that zero so you can talk to someone, so that will never be replaced.

15:13
And I think Katie at the end of the day, people all want what fill in the blank. What do we all want to feel?

15:22
I think we all want to feel valued. We all want some sort of a connection. And it doesn't matter if we are, you know, in the grocery store, buying a sandwich and a sandwich line at work. We want to know that we matter to someone else.

15:38
Yeah. And so to the person that we've been talking about, okay, this well this this I guess I if I show more of an interest in other people help other people get what they want. Invest in other people give first Don't be Machiavellian about life. These are all kind of illustrating A lot of the principles in the book, I mean, ultimately, you will get what you want, if you put other people first. And so, you know very much like and this is our approach to how we've been able to grow and scale our business. I mean, I started the whole thing without my influence by just doing pro bono consulting in our local startup community, working with women, minority and veteran owned business owners, and just giving them my time freely. And then I started to you know, I'm actually pretty good at teaching this. Some other people took notice of that just by virtue of me just circulating and giving that turned into Okay, well, I guess I'm going to be doing some consulting some paid consulting on this some opportunities came along and and then I got too busy for that and, but there's two things that we do, and this is how we've grown our business. Number one, is that we really, really focus on just giving away content and value the stuff that other people are charging money for. We just give it away we teach people for free. That's number one. And number two is even for our target ideal clients, like we do things like you know, well, how do what's our marketing? Our marketing is going out and serving our ideal clients. And maybe we end up doing business together. Maybe not, you know, but this podcast is a great way to serve other people, and you just never know what comes out of it. If you have, and you say, you know what, I'm going to spend X amount of my time and I'm just going to do good things for nice people, or even mean people. Not too many people, mostly nice people.

17:40
Those mean people, they need someone to be nice to them. So

17:43
y'all need someone to love. Love us. Great. And Katie, what else in the book that folks should know? And why would someone want to put this in there on their on their list?

17:57
I think another aspect of this is about mentoring, why it's important, why it matters. Again, we talked about how we can't do things alone, we need others. And when we pour into others when we serve others, good things come to us. doors are open to us. And when we approach if you're looking for a mentor, and we all should be looking for a mentor, no matter where we are in business, if we have our own business, and we've had it for 30 years, there are still others out there that can provide wisdom experience, because pain and problems come up all the time. And so we constantly need to be reaching out to be mentored, and then also to look to mentor others because we can learn from those younger than us. We can an inexperienced and also an age, but also those above us in terms of experience and age.

18:55
Well, Katie Bishop, I'm on your website right now. It's Katie bishop.us. And the I see the book right there. Yeah. And I see a red button that when I click on that red button, it allows me to download a free sample of the Yes,

19:11
yes, four chapters. Oh,

19:15
my goodness. And so, I'm gonna learn in the four chapters,

19:20
they're going to learn the premise of the book, which is a 1950s true historical account about a man who opened a sports shop got totally robbed and how he was able to turn his business around by selling one particular item in a particular way, and then going to learn about mentoring and why why it's important.

19:45
Well, Katie Bishop, I want to thank you so much. Again, you're the author along with your father. The title is the best seller get unstuck, grow relationships, and gain access. It's a novel about access relationships, and harnessing The power of a baseline to propel you forward in life and in business. Of course, you can go to Katiebishop.us. And you can download the the first four chapters there. And you jump right in. Katie, I want to thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Josh. I appreciate your time and your value.

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