The Bear Necessities of Entrepreneurship

Ep 71: Making Friends vs Making Sales as a Founder with Walker McKay

Episode Summary

This episode of #TBNE brings back a real one in Walker McKay, Host of The No BS Sales Podcast as we get into the topic of Making Friends vs. Making Sales and how you should focus on your relationship building and selling as an early founder or anyone at any stage of your entrepreneurial or sales journey. And if you haven’t, check out Walker’s episode about his entrepreneurial journey here: Ep 40: Jumping In Your Canoe and Owning Your Journey with Walker McKay, Founder of No BS Sales Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.

Episode Notes

This episode of #TBNE brings back a real one in Walker McKay, Host of The No BS Sales Podcast as we get into the topic of Making Friends vs. Making Sales and how you should focus on your relationship building and selling as an early founder or anyone at any stage of your entrepreneurial or sales journey. 

And if you haven’t, check out Walker’s episode about his entrepreneurial journey here: Ep 40: Jumping In Your Canoe and Owning Your Journey with Walker McKay, Founder of No BS Sales

Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.

Connect with Walker:

Connect with Rob:

Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com

Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com 

Special offer for #BearNation listeners who are interested in trying Brilliantly Warm (https://www.brilliantly.co/), use this 10% off discount code WELCOME10.

We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit:

 https://www.phinforgood.com/

Episode Transcription

EPISODE 71 with Walter Mckay

INTRO

00;00;01;00 - 00;00;30;02

Rob Napoli

how we doing bear nation. We are back again for another episode of the Bare Necessities podcast and I brought back one of my favorite people, Walker McKay. Walker is edgy. He has been around the sales game for a long time. He has an incredible story, how he got into entrepreneurship, which we get in early pods.

00;00;30;02 - 00;00;41;29

Rob Napoli

So I'll link that in the show notes you can learn about. If you haven't listened to that episode and heard of Walker, go listen. But I wanted to bring him back to discuss a very specific topic before we get to a topic. Walker How are you doing, my friend?

MAIN VIDEO

00;00;42;20 - 00;00;58;21

Walker McKay

And I'm great and I want to thank you so much for inviting me back. I love your podcast and I'm so glad that we met each other and have become friends. And you are really somebody has helped me along the way and those of you that are listening just know Rob Napoli's a damn great guy and you're smart to be listening as podcast.

00;00;59;03 - 00;01;20;12

Rob Napoli

I appreciate you, Walker. And you know, I still think back to when Casey Jones introduced us and it's like Rob, like you and Walker would get along great, like I'm an interest the two of you and see what happens. And since then our friendship has been born. And you know, Walker, you've been a go to for a lot of things that I've shared with you.

00;01;21;07 - 00;01;44;15

Rob Napoli

And we've talked about in my own journey as being an entrepreneur and what I've dealt with. So I appreciate you all the same. And that's why this episode to me it was to me fun is I've I get asked a lot of times about selling for our founders, right? A lot of the coaching and work that I do is working with entrepreneurs and founders and how to sell, especially when you know English is not your native language.

00;01;44;23 - 00;02;09;28

Rob Napoli

Sales is not what you did in any previous life. All these things and there's so much content out there about how to sell, especially for salespeople, but it's really hard to digest. That's that's coming. I get the heart of it. But there's an episode on your podcast, No BS sales that I listen to and I want to talk about because I, the honest, have a little bit of a bone to pick based on some of my process around it.

00;02;10;23 - 00;02;29;25

Rob Napoli

The book I wrote, so the episode is called Making Friends versus Making Sales. And so this stood out to me was you don't really need to build a relationship with their prospect to sell them something. So I want you to kind of explain I explain this this episode and this concept to the listeners to kick things off.

00;02;30;12 - 00;02;50;29

Walker McKay

All right. So I'm going to challenge you right back. Right. So, yes, you must build a relationship to sell. I think you. Absolutely. But what I want to talk about is what kind of relationship now Rob you? When we first got on the show a minute ago, you said Walker and our friends, we've been da da da Rob.

00;02;50;29 - 00;03;13;10

Walker McKay

I couldn't find out where you live other than New York City, right? I don't know your wife's name. I don't know. I know some of your story, but I couldn't repeat it back. What I tell my prospects to look for in their clients are their prospects. Excuse me, but I tell my clients look for in their prospects is not friendship but a healthy business relationship.

00;03;14;12 - 00;03;26;20

Walker McKay

The difference, right? A friendship, if you think about it, Rob, what is what's an ideal? What's the goal of a friendship? What is the goal of a friendship, Rob? What would you think?

00;03;27;15 - 00;03;28;17

Rob Napoli

I mean, camaraderie.

00;03;29;22 - 00;03;57;16

Walker McKay

To keep it short. Right. The goal for friendship is nothing more than the friendship itself. If you have outside objectives, if you say, I'm going to become friends, this guy, so he'll spend $1,000,000 with me, then that's you're going into a friendship in a deceptive manner. So what I'd rather us focus on, and a lot of people like oh and it's weird the same people that say I want to make friends with my prospects would say the other side of mouth, you can't do business for friends.

00;03;58;13 - 00;04;28;09

Walker McKay

And what they're really saying is, I don't want to have to sell anybody anything. I want them just to come to me and buy it, which is neat. But if you've got to go grow your business, unless you're selling dollar bills for $0.85, that don't happen much. So what I want is to look at a healthy business relationship as two or more people that are knowingly helping each other grow their business, make their lives better, interesting.

00;04;28;14 - 00;04;29;20

Walker McKay

Two or more people.

00;04;29;20 - 00;04;49;23

Rob Napoli

That's very interesting because, you know, one of the things I talk a lot about, I wrote a book called The Social Soul, which is all about the why to build that person professional brand so that when you when you use value out and you put that content out, you can receive it, right? People see you as somebody who is smart, trustworthy, credible.

00;04;50;03 - 00;04;51;10

Rob Napoli

Right. Oh, God, my, my.

00;04;51;16 - 00;04;52;22

Walker McKay

And a real human being.

00;04;52;22 - 00;05;22;20

Rob Napoli

Yeah. So and I look at that as building a relationship and I and so I think that's a really good clarification. Building a relationship, building a friendship. And there's a lot of people that do a lot of networking and yeah, out kind of comments and the review like we got to go and do networking again. So when you talk about building a business relationship, how does that I think maybe even myself kind of got really caught up in this idea of relationship, friendship thing.

00;05;22;20 - 00;05;31;09

Rob Napoli

And then I always say, how do you go about developing good, strong relationships in that friendships tip to be sold to sell and do that transaction.

00;05;33;06 - 00;05;53;17

Walker McKay

It's funny and it's a it's a great question to ask, but it's an it's kind of simple is what you're talking about with people is business and you and you want to find out what's their business journey. It's not so much. Hey, I hope I can meet this person. We can go to football games together, we can do all these things together.

00;05;53;17 - 00;06;11;07

Walker McKay

It's what are the how can I get to know this person, know about their business, what they think about their business, what they think they need help with, what are the things then that I can help them with? If it's introduce them to somebody else, right where I say, Gosh, I know people you need to know because they're going to be customers of yours.

00;06;11;07 - 00;06;30;15

Walker McKay

They can help you with something else that to me, and if the other person says, Hey, let me do the same for you, or even if it's as simple as I'm going to sell you a product that will help you grow your business. You know, it's helping me by selling it to you, and I know it's helping you by you buying it.

00;06;31;05 - 00;06;44;01

Walker McKay

Awesome. But if we never end up having dinner together, it's fine, right? Our goal should not be that we know each other's kids. If we end up doing that, that's awesome, but don't have to do that.

00;06;44;16 - 00;06;45;28

Rob Napoli

Interesting.

00;06;45;28 - 00;06;46;08

Walker McKay

Does that makes.

00;06;46;08 - 00;07;04;00

Rob Napoli

Sense? It makes a lot of sense because like in my early days when I was selling, I was doing a lot of account based selling, right? I had two large big corporate accounts with a few clients and I had to work my way through it. And one of things for me, I do like desk drop bias and bagels and coffee and, you know, go by their desk.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;28;15

Rob Napoli

I would look on their desk and see like what sports teams they like if they had pictures of kids or golf, our sport or they had something. And I would use that to build a relationship as a as a conversation starter, right? Sure. And I always made sure I was memorable by being kind of like, you know, I guess what you'd think at 23, I won a semiprofessional football national championship and I had this, like, kind of big, gaudy ring.

00;07;28;26 - 00;07;43;09

Rob Napoli

And so I'd shake when I shake hands, I'd do the kind of hand over so they could see the ring and shake their hand. And it was a way, like I was breaking into the space against some big incumbents, like the people that I was going up against in this account have been in the game for ten years and I'm 23.

00;07;43;09 - 00;08;04;29

Rob Napoli

Yeah. Barely know it. So like I needed to be memorable and that's how I leverage using relationships and building relationships to sell. So I think that's why. But you know, many of them did become my friends, although there were a few clients I'd take out for golf or dinner and things like that. So how do you balance so if you are starting to make a friendship or have those things with clients?

00;08;04;29 - 00;08;11;09

Rob Napoli

Because you're right, it's hard as hell to sell to friends. How do you like balance the business side and the personal?

00;08;11;15 - 00;08;13;06

Walker McKay

So here's what I will tell.

00;08;13;06 - 00;08;14;15

Rob Napoli

You really blurred.

00;08;14;15 - 00;08;32;25

Walker McKay

Yeah. So so couple of things when you and I'm I address a couple things you said and then we'll get right there. When you're in high school and college and newly out of college, you often people often measure their own success by how many friends they have. Right. Because that's how you've got I've got thousands of friends and hundreds of friends.

00;08;32;25 - 00;08;46;08

Walker McKay

That's how you measure. But when you get out and you record and rob, you move on with life a little bit and you get married, right? And you begin to have a family or your business grows. You don't have time to keep up with friends. There were some of your best buds from college that you probably talked to in five years.

00;08;46;08 - 00;09;03;13

Walker McKay

You might pick up with them just like that. Just know the people you're calling on. They're the same way. They don't have time for more friendships for somebody else to go dinner with. Now you may end up being friends. You may reward a customer who's doing good business. You may take them out for golf. You may take them out to dinner.

00;09;03;13 - 00;09;22;05

Walker McKay

Here's a conversation I would suggest you have. And listen, it's fine to talk about their family, but what you may do, it's a simple thing. I call present, past, future. Tell me about your current role. What do you really do? Ask them about what they're doing today. What does that look like? And then past, how did you get here?

00;09;22;05 - 00;09;38;01

Walker McKay

Tell me your story. You can ask a thousand questions around that and then you can say, let's pretend things are going well. It's two or three years in the future and you say, Man, this is great. What does that look like? And it's a great way to understand somebody's journey. It's a great way to have a business conversation.

00;09;38;24 - 00;09;56;11

Walker McKay

How many salespeople do you think come into some his office and go, Oh, is that your wife or your daughter or Hey, look at that fish. I call you got a £10 bass. I got a £10 bass. Right. And the thing about a professional relationship, I would say, is it's never about you. And the only thing I would challenge you on about the ring is when you were saying, hey, look at my ring.

00;09;57;02 - 00;10;11;23

Walker McKay

What would be better is if you notice something about them and you dug in, and even if you've caught a £12 bass and they've got £8 bass in their wall, don't talk about your fish. They don't give a shit about your fish. Understand them. Does that make sense?

00;10;11;23 - 00;10;30;09

Rob Napoli

100%. And it's something that I've talked about in my book and on podcast before. I've always been a good networker, but there was a time when I was a taker versus when I became a giver, right? And that kind of go giver mentality. And that is making it about them always. Because I did used to bring it back to me.

00;10;30;09 - 00;10;47;16

Rob Napoli

And I you know, it's interesting cause I had a really strong book of business and all these things. But as I grew and especially when I left, that's I was a big fish in a small pond. And I went over to New York. I realized I had to like really expand that. And I have a large network and it's really hard to keep up with everybody.

00;10;47;16 - 00;11;09;08

Rob Napoli

Like, I have a thing that I learned from Larry Long JR on Fridays where like I pick like one or two or three people that I haven't heard from. Wow, I should have a message. That's great. And I just like you. Just a text message or a voice message or something just to say hi. I check in and it's a way to, like, help me keep my network and remember people.

00;11;09;08 - 00;11;17;20

Rob Napoli

I just have conversation ends, but it's it's also a challenge because it takes up a lot of time, too, to send you engage.

00;11;17;20 - 00;11;39;08

Walker McKay

With somebody and you engage with somebody. And it's hard. And so focus on what you can focus on, make it about the other person. If we're ever if we're ever making about ourselves or screwing up, be memorable because quick story. My father was known as a great conversationalist. If you ever watched my dad talk, my dad spoke about 10% of the time.

00;11;39;08 - 00;11;56;05

Walker McKay

He would ask people questions. They would answer. He would say, That's interesting. Tell me more about that. And he would just and he rarely said anything other than asking people. And people would say charming, fascinating. It's all about the other person in sales. It's never about you.

00;11;56;16 - 00;12;14;06

Rob Napoli

Yeah. When you usually people remember conversations where they talk the most about them and they're like, Oh, I had a great conversation with that guy or gal because they were asking questions about me and I felt like there was a connection versus like, But Rob, ever shut up? Like, I don't care that he did this or that and that happens a lot.

00;12;15;04 - 00;12;35;22

Rob Napoli

And so this is where I want to switch this because founder place. So because I want to take these concepts and, and I want to talk about how I use the founders because founders have a lot of pressure as an entrepreneur early in your business. Oh yeah, you are not a native seller. If you're trying to sell on a new market, that's not your native language.

00;12;35;23 - 00;12;55;24

Rob Napoli

All these challenges and it's really easy to do the exact thing you're talking about, not to do it, just make it about me. I practice this. I can save you time. I can save you money. I can do this. So how do we take what we just talked about and turn that into action items for those that are trying to sell and get their businesses off the ground?

00;12;57;09 - 00;13;18;29

Walker McKay

Yeah, so it's a great question. It's $1,000,000,000 question, right, is how do we do that? And so the first part is the first thing is to identify who's your ideal prospect is to figure out who is who is that persona that's most likely to spend money with you? What is the size of the business? How would somebody recognize one?

00;13;19;05 - 00;13;32;12

Walker McKay

What are the kind of problems that they have if we but you got to fit and maybe if it's a brand new product that takes a little while, maybe the person you think that's the ideal prospect is not the ideal prospect, right? Maybe we create it for this group of people. Maybe it's that.

00;13;32;26 - 00;13;52;07

Rob Napoli

That happens a lot. Am I wrong? You think like I see so many times that Oh, I made it for this market segment. This is my CPA. It's like, wait a second, did you fucking about it? And have you talked to them? Have you ask them questions? No, we shared some information. They like the idea and it's like, no, no.

00;13;53;00 - 00;14;16;10

Rob Napoli

So I love to talk about this. And so how many? I have a number on my mind that I kind of put up, but how many conversations do you need to have in the field to understand that? Like what? What do you think that kind of reputation? If you if somebody asked, like Mark, like, I don't know, it's either this or this, what advice would you give them on ongoing a talking to the market and what is that kind of like number they need to know to kind of validated.

00;14;17;13 - 00;14;33;01

Walker McKay

I mean I would say somewhere between ten and 20. And I think you should always be in the marketplace validating your idea. I mean, I think because the world changes every flick and day and the market can change and there could be different needs that come up and maybe you find a thin vein that you're all down the pipe with.

00;14;33;01 - 00;14;48;15

Walker McKay

And maybe there's a whole nother river over here. You know, we could talk about blue ocean versus red ocean, all that kind of stuff. But it's continuing to have those conversations and make sure you know what people are talking about, what they're struggling with.

00;14;49;15 - 00;15;26;09

Rob Napoli

I absolutely love that. And I and I tell whenever a company comes through an exciting program that I'm coaching, I always tell them that, your gosh, you got to get 30 Discovery calls that meeting you should talk to, you should get 30 conversations in the next 60 days. If you can get to that number, even if you don't hit it, you get close, ten, 20, whatever you're going to understand, if you have a market fit that can that can be validated, you need to have that many conversations that is focused on them, their pains and their problems that you can help solve before you can kind of start off that you're solving these things.

00;15;26;22 - 00;15;48;26

Rob Napoli

And then the second thing you said that I absolutely loved, I think founders fall trap to this show. You have to always be listening to your customer. Once you find that and you stop listening, you start iterating all these things. You can iterate away from the customers, which I see happen all the time. You need to stay and have one ear to the ground with your customers and understanding the market because it changes so fast.

00;15;48;28 - 00;15;51;11

Rob Napoli

So I loved that.

00;15;51;11 - 00;16;10;14

Walker McKay

I think one of the first things you and I talked about when we first talked a year or two ago was Lean Startup, was the book Lean Startup, right? Was to create a beta version and then see how it goes and see what happens and see what sticks and what doesn't. And but you said something that I think people mess up, too, when they have these 30 calls.

00;16;10;14 - 00;16;29;11

Walker McKay

They want to go blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you about the features, the benefits of my product. And in in those conversations, what we need to be doing is asking questions. So do you have this kind of problem? What do you do about it now? How bad of a problem is it? How much money is it costing you to spend time?

00;16;29;11 - 00;16;53;24

Walker McKay

Just in the basic sense, before you tell about all the good stuff, your thing does find out how bad that problem is because everybody's got a million problems. But there's only a few. They've got bandwidth, time, money, effort, energy to fix. And you got to see, is your product something that they there's enough pain around it for to use industry jargon for people to spend money to fix it.

00;16;54;08 - 00;17;16;10

Rob Napoli

I love that. And I think that is crucial for so many entrepreneurs and founders out there. When the company is your baby, it's really easy to want to just like talk and talk and talk about it. But you have to know when to stop and listen and you preshow you brought up three kind of things that founders should be thinking about mindsets as you walk around selling.

00;17;16;10 - 00;17;24;24

Rob Napoli

I want you to share that with our listeners because I when you said those, they are just like, Oh, man, this is great and so many people need to hear this. So would you mind sharing us?

00;17;25;03 - 00;17;43;01

Walker McKay

Sure. I'm happy to be. The first one is ask, don't tell. It's what we were just talking about, right? Instead of telling someone what their problems are, ask them. And when they give you an answer, say, tell me more about that. Give me an example. Well, how often does that happen? How long has it been going on? Be sincerely curious.

00;17;43;01 - 00;18;04;29

Walker McKay

Instead of saying, Here's your problem, here's how I'm going to fix it, ask them, Don't assume you know. Right. So that's number one. Number two is know that you have equal business stature with everybody you talk to. You are the same. You don't have to give stuff away for free. If somebody says to you, jump, you don't say how high.

00;18;04;29 - 00;18;30;25

Walker McKay

You can ask why. Be sure when you give something. If you give somebody something, including pricing or a demo. No. What happens next? If I do this for you or you do this for me, right? If I'm okay giving you a demo, would you tell me at the end what you think about it? If I let you use this thing for a certain period of time, will you tell me whether or not you want to move forward equal biz

00;18;30;25 - 00;18;48;03

Walker McKay

You don't have to give and give and give. You can get something in return in a negotiation. If you ever give something without getting something in return that people think they got screwed. If you say it's $1,000, they say, I'll give you a 900. You say, okay. They think, Damn, I should have said 800. That's instead I refer not her, but go ahead.

00;18;48;13 - 00;19;10;10

Rob Napoli

I said, that's really hard. It is when you're a new founder and you're fighting for every dollar, you're just trying to get something in to show a sale or to make some revenue. And I think this is something that every founder almost needs to like, say, as a mantra every day doesn't matter how big or small the company you're selling to is, you have the same stature as them.

00;19;10;10 - 00;19;25;06

Rob Napoli

We're both humans trying to run a business and we can help each other. And it doesn't mean cutting the best deal or the biggest discount, or it means what can we do to help each other and how do we pass that along back and forth. I love that if.

00;19;25;06 - 00;19;46;10

Walker McKay

Somebody doesn't want to play in that and if they don't want to play that, if the person you're talking to just wants to cut your ass, that's not the right guy. Right? That's not there. So it's part of equal business that you're going to wrap this in is you're not the right fit for everybody. Even if they match your ideal customer profile and have exactly the problems you think that they would fix.

00;19;46;28 - 00;20;01;03

Walker McKay

They may be an asshole. They may not have any money. They may be just use your free information. Be willing to walk away. It's okay. If you had ten more meetings with people who are very well qualified, which is stress over this one. Yeah, that's right. The answer is no.

00;20;01;16 - 00;20;19;09

Rob Napoli

No, absolutely not. And it's those things that one bad client can eat up so much of your time that you don't have the ability, the capacity to to sell two more of those really good ones because you're so stuck on dealing with this one and you're limiting yourself. So know when to walk away. I love that. What's number three?

00;20;20;06 - 00;20;41;01

Walker McKay

Number three is be the guide and not the hero. And I got this from you. I know you read story two Story Brand by Donald Miller. He talks about characters in every story and he talks about it. Just use the Star Wars example to, you know, the hero, Luke Skywalker versus the guide who is Yoda. And the hero is one that has a problem, saves the day.

00;20;41;18 - 00;20;57;29

Walker McKay

A lot of people go into sales to be the hero. They want to close the deal, ring the bell, get the check. Hell yeah. The problem with trying to be the hero all the time is that if you don't close the sale, by definition, you're not the hero, you're the loser. Well, sometimes not everybody's going to close. It's not.

00;20;57;29 - 00;21;21;26

Walker McKay

You can control 50% of the process at best. So a guide is one who's determining is this the right fit? Do I want to work with this person? Can I help them? Will they pay me? Does it make sense for me to move forward? A hero has to save everybody a guide picks and chooses who they work with and you're having a conversation and your ego's not on the line for every sale.

00;21;22;10 - 00;21;39;26

Rob Napoli

Well, and I say, just by definition, being the hero makes it about you because you're acting as the hero. Yes. And and not you know, it's the same thing that we talk about with like Ally Ship, right. It's like instead of you want to be the ally you want to be of to help, not the hero. Like I saved your I did this for you.

00;21;40;09 - 00;21;52;27

Rob Napoli

That. That's right. You're seeing the whole issue wrong. And by definition, trying to be the hero makes it inherently about you and not about those you serve, which is the name of the game when you're selling to address.

00;21;52;27 - 00;22;09;23

Walker McKay

Absolutely. Or to a prospect. Right. So, yeah. So if we could and again, those are easy to say. You talked about how this is so hard. Everything is hard when you're a founder. It's the only reason you would do it and go through that kind of brain damage is if you feel like it would hurt so badly if you didn't put that out in the world.

00;22;10;10 - 00;22;17;12

Walker McKay

And if you don't feel that way, what you're doing, get a job. And I don't mean that as any kind of put down is too hard.

00;22;19;01 - 00;22;30;10

Rob Napoli

It's not fucking easy. And that's why I call this the bear necessities. Part of this podcast is to discuss these things about entrepreneurship, who I love to.

00;22;30;10 - 00;22;50;28

Walker McKay

Ask it every day, every day and you know, shit, it's hard and it's and I learned this is something I read was that don't ask for it to get easier. Just ask to get better at it. And that's what I ask for every day. How can I get better at this to get myself in bigger problems instead of smaller problems?

00;22;50;28 - 00;23;13;19

Rob Napoli

Right. I love that. You know, and I respect your time. I know we're going to wrap this up, but one of the things you also brought up to the point number one is just ask and don't tell. Yeah, I really love about that piece as well as that. I think because we live in a influencer based world, everyone wants to be a thought leader, an influencer, a content creator.

00;23;13;19 - 00;23;26;25

Rob Napoli

We all have to speak the loudest and be the loudest shouting. And again, that makes it about us. We need to stop yelling at people, telling people what they shouldn't, and by ask those questions.

00;23;27;19 - 00;23;29;24

Walker McKay

And so I might go ahead.

00;23;30;18 - 00;23;30;28

Rob Napoli

I was going to.

00;23;30;28 - 00;23;31;15

Walker McKay

Say you talk.

00;23;31;15 - 00;23;31;28

Rob Napoli

About. Yes.

00;23;32;18 - 00;23;56;08

Walker McKay

It does. Brand building is sharing your message, selling is listening. Brand building is talking about me, me, me, me, me. Put it out there. Selling is about you, you, you about the prospect. And that's the difference. That's when you turn on you listen. You know, your LinkedIn post is how smart you are and how cool your family is, all the cool things you're doing and everything else.

00;23;56;18 - 00;24;02;27

Walker McKay

But when you're in a sales call, it's never about you. That's the brand building is what got you there. Now shut the hell up and learn.

00;24;04;10 - 00;24;25;24

Rob Napoli

I love that. And it's really funny because I never until we had this conversation, it I was I was like I was going to push back on a lot. And you've kind of brought me over to this idea of like there's building relationships, but within our relationships that are separate, what's a business relationship, what's, you know, a friendship and whatever, and then where do we kind of draw those lines?

00;24;25;24 - 00;24;46;18

Rob Napoli

And I think the more that you can be, especially if you have a clients or a prospect you're becoming friends with, that's really important to talk about that and like where does one end and began because we become friends and you don't buy from me like am I going to be not be friends with you anymore because you screwed me over and I was counting on you to, like, hit my quota for the month.

00;24;46;18 - 00;24;47;27

Walker McKay

And I think all the.

00;24;47;27 - 00;25;08;02

Rob Napoli

Time it does. And sometimes, you know, I've had this happen where like clients became really good friends of mine and we had actually had to end our coaching relationship because we got to good friends and I was okay with that and that was what needed to happen. And that just happens. That's okay. But we had our thought to discuss that and make those decisions.

00;25;08;02 - 00;25;20;02

Rob Napoli

So those out there listening, it's important to to be transparent, have those honest conversations and know when to kind of like discuss those things. And this lawyer says no one to walk away on, you know, things that maybe come up.

00;25;20;23 - 00;25;47;03

Walker McKay

One last thought when you're dealing with a friend and you want to know, how can I do business with a friend is ask permission, which can sound like, Hey, John, do you mind if we have lunch? I want to catch up with you and I also want to have a business conversation. Is that okay? Or Hey, do you mind if we have a business conversation so that they have the they can then switch their lens to business and then you can have these conversations.

00;25;47;03 - 00;26;06;02

Walker McKay

And with a friend you say, look, this is so important, your friendship is more important than any business deal. So I want to ask permission, are you okay if we talk business? And then you got to give the friend permission to tell you no and you can't take it personally, because if you do, that's your own damn fault.

00;26;06;02 - 00;26;15;28

Rob Napoli

Walker That is awesome. An awesome final point and appreciate you sharing that with me. Where can my listeners find you? How do they get to talk?

00;26;15;28 - 00;26;37;14

Walker McKay

So WalkerMckay.com is my website is got contact information there. I've got a podcast, nobody, a sales call podcast ever where you listen to podcasts. And so that's as good a place as any walkermckay.com If you do a link to a Google search on Walker McKay, you'll find out all kinds of shit about me. So it's something I will.

00;26;37;18 - 00;26;53;08

Rob Napoli

I'll make sure to have your website, your LinkedIn and your podcast link in the show notes so they can easily one click it. Walker Thank you so much for for jumping on the pod again with me. I really appreciate you and your time and your energy. Much appreciate it. My guy.

00;26;53;23 - 00;27;03;07

Walker McKay

Y'all, if you all have not subscribed to Rob's podcast, if you have not shared that with a friend, do so now. That's the way that you can pay him back for all the great content he shares.

00;27;03;16 - 00;27;17;21

Rob Napoli

Walker I love that. Thank you for that bear nation. As Walker said, Be a tier one like subscribe and subscribe. Subscribe the way you do that all helps. I appreciate ya'll until next time stay a while and rise up.

00;27;18;13 - 00;27;19;06

Walker McKay

To the.

OUTRO

00;27;20;15 - 00;27;30;05

Rob Napoli

Bear Nation. Thanks for listening to the bare necessities of entrepreneurship. We enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe and leave us a review.