Christos Provistali: Exploring the Power of Emotional Connection in Business

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In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.
Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Christos Provostalis, a former guest services manager at Walt Disney, turned to one of the best customer experience speakers that I have seen maybe ever in my career. And I first heard Christos at Paradiso's Mastermind in Utah.
It was a phenomenal, phenomenal presentation, phenomenal conversation. The way that he approaches customer experience made me rethink some of the things that we do at Rogue Risk, made me rethink some of the things I do with this podcast and how I deliver really anything to the marketplace.
And I took a ton of notes after Christos' presentation out in Utah, spent probably an hour with him afterwards just talking to him about what he does. And I think Chris is just a tremendous guy.

I think he's got a wonderful story.

He's got a lot of value to bring to us.

And it is such a pleasure to have him on the show.

Before we get there, I just want to give you guys a big shout out.

Appreciate you.

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Appreciate you for subscribing. Appreciate you for listening.
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be its own living, breathing thing. And that to me creates sustainability and longevity in the work.

So with all that being said, I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Christos.
My man. Christos, what's up, buddy? How are you? I'm very well.
How are you? Nice to see you. Yeah, you as well.
You as well. How's everything? I see you're making the rounds, man.
You're making it happen. You're doing all the things.
In your industry, yeah. In your industry, I'm doing all the, you know, running the circuit, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah.
Is that fun? You having a good time? Yeah, man. Just nice people I get to meet.
I was with Mr. Merrill and his son, Brett, for a couple days.
They had me there for and just good people like just I learned just as much as they learned from me I learned from them um and just nice man I'm you're talking at insurance soup yes yep I'm well I'm actually emceeing insurance soup so I'm sure I will be able to drop some nuggets but I'm not doing any presentation presentation or anything. Oh, nice, man.
Great. My mom and I will be there.
Oh, very fun. Oh, that'd be great.
Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
Insurance soup is a group that I have not spent a lot of time in or with. So it'll be a, you know, I think it'll be a new group of agents that I haven't spent a lot of time with.
So I'm excited for it because, you know, and you'll probably find this out. Like, you know, there's, I don't want to call them clicks cause that's not exactly what it is, but you know, there's kind of people that run in certain loops and those loops tend to stay together just out of the nature, you know, human nature.
And I love when you can find like a new pocket of agents or people in our industry that you haven't talked to before, maybe aren't as familiar with you or your work. And that's always a fun thing.
So I'm definitely looking forward to that. Okay.
Excellent. Yeah.
That's cool. Nice, man.
So dude, I, you know, for everyone listening at home, I was, I heard you first at Paradiso's Mastermind thing in Utah. And, you know, so everyone kind of knows.
So I'm sitting in the back and I don't know if it's my ADHD or what it is, but like I, you know, I, I like can't be right into the group and I always kind of have something else going on. And frankly, and I please don't take this personally.
A lot of times I find, and I'm sure people find this with my own, I find other speakers to be really boring. So I just, you know, so I'm kind of like half listening and all of a sudden, like you said something, I was like, Ooh, I really liked the way he put that together.
And I was like, Oh wow. Yeah, no, that's good.
And geez, that's like a really engaging story. Now, then all of a sudden, like you had 100% of my attention and I was like, geez, this guy is really good.
And I really liked the way your style and it was very authentic and real and storytelling was great. And then very tactical, practical takeaways and wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
And then, you know, we connected and backed and I'm telling the stories to the people at home now, I know you know you were there. But, like, we connected and back and we start chatting.
And, like, the rest of the conference is going on and Crystal Center just in the back rapping. And I was like, you know, I was like, dude, how much did you get paid to do this? And, you know, he told me.
And I was like, you need to, like, triple that number. I was like, you're way too good.
I was like, you're way too good. And your story is way too much power and what you're delivering for that.
And mostly because, dude, I just think you have an incredible message. So I'd love, and I know people are starting to get familiar with you a little bit in the industry, but, and I'm sure as you continue to grow, you'll interact with even more groups.
But I'd love to just start with like, you know, we don't have to do the whole thing because I want to talk to you about a lot of different topics. But maybe just like the 50 Cent Tour on a little bit of your backstory and kind of what your thing is that you are bringing to the market.
So, you know, I was a former guest service manager for the Walt Disney Company for years, and I had the pleasure of working at their flagship resort, the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. And I learned a lot working for the company through their internal education arm.
But I also learned a lot from my executives at my resort because they had to be really on top of their things. Every day we're serving, you know, a governor's coming in with their family and COO of Intel is coming in, First Lady of Mexico, Tina Fey.
Every day, someone, so we really had to be on top of what we're doing. And I learned how to think when it came to customer experience.

That's what I learned.

And my family and I own a restaurant going on in our 30th year now.

And everything I learned, I took to our family business when I rejoined.

My brother owns and operates the restaurant.

And I was able to join him for a few years. And then I had a successful exit at the end of 21.
And then that's when I was really cranking. I've been speaking for a few years, but a couple of years ago, I was speaking just in Connecticut.
Last year was New England and this year has become, you know, across the country. And I teach people what human connection really is, and how do you really connect, whether it's your customer, your employee, your family member.
And I really get to deep. The class is really deep.
You know, we talk a lot about emotion, what emotion really is. I thought I knew what it was.
And then I was like, well, I don't know what

it really meant. We talk about perception, how people see things and how people understand things.
And then I talk about self-awareness. A lot of people, Ryan, are not self-aware.
They're not aware of how they come across. Some do, some don't.
And we have to figure that piece out first before you learn how to be able to, uh, serve and take care of your clients. So, um, that's what the class is about.
Uh, I basically teach you, um, all the things that I learned, uh, working for the company and things I learned along the way in, uh, my hospitality, uh, journey. Yeah.
And, you know, I'll just give the plug now, guys, if you're, if you're looking to improve your customer experience, Chris, this is a no brainer to bring in. So just, I'm going to, I'm not going to bury the lead on, on why he's here today, but I would like to jump in because to some of the three topics that you just brought up.
And this is where I want to spend the most of my time. Because one of the things that I, I asked you a question.
And during your presentation, mostly because I can't help myself. When I have a thought, I really struggle with not expressing it.
But I said, you know, you were talking about emotion, we were talking about leadership. We were talking about self-awareness.

And I struggle with this concept of how much of yourself do you accept versus how much of yourself do you change? right like like there's there's, there's this, you know, you know, you read self love and you have to love who you are and all those things. And, and, and I believe that to be wholly true.
At the same time, I think that sometimes that's used as an excuse for, well, I'm just this way and you have to deal with it. Right.
And I always struggle with how much, how much of myself, because I tend to be a very lean forward, you know, I'm, I'm, I have pretty, pretty hardcore ADHD. I'm, I'm, I talk fast.
I think fast. I push I'm competitive.
Like that's a big part of who I am. But at the same time, those aren't always effective leadership skills or those aren't always effective leadership strategies.
And I think the question I posed to you was like, you know, I'm going to butcher the question in essence, but I was like, you know, is it okay to be an asshole? Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I got a ton of feedback on that, a ton.
People are like, people, people, and I'm talking like a 360 degree range of questions about my question. And I, and I, which made me think that it was interesting.
If not, I'm not sure if I properly posed it to you, but, but it was like that part, you know, and I think it plays into customer experience, right? Like, is this just who we are and deal with it or just, just who I am and deal with it? Or is I'm gonna love myself because it's who I am today and I'm gonna build and how do I know which pieces to build upon and change so I'm sure there's like 15 questions in there take it where you will but that's kind of where I wanted to start I remember when you asked that and if first of all I was like what's this question I, now, listen, when it comes to self-awareness, right, we're.

We all have, I think, a little bit of self-awareness and then some people that are self-aware, just like you said before, some people actually know they're an asshole and they know that they come across like that. Now that's on them, right? Now, if you're okay with that, with yourself, with your business, with your customers, and you continue to grow and you continue to flourish and your employees are happy and everything is positive in every way, you know, who is to say, do you need to change? Are you not? Are you asking for feedback from your closest people? You know, not a lot of us.

I mean, you could ask from feedback from someone you hardly know because you're going to probably get the answer that you actually want.

But when you ask it from the people that are close around you, your right hand person at work, your partner, your parent, your closest relative, that's when you get the real feedback.

Now, do you change?

Listen, that's an answer only you answer. Do you want to? Is there a benefit to it? Is there not a benefit to it? Do you enjoy the way you are? Is it a detriment to your personal life and professional life? Is it not? Do you scale it back to be assertive instead of aggressive? I would love to be able to give you an answer as to like, oh yeah, you have to, you don't, that all depends.
That all depends on all those things that I, that I mentioned to you. But, um, I have met some people that don't know how they come across.
And when you let them know they're, they think, you know, they usually thank you and they say, thank you. I didn't know that.
And then some people are like, oh, no, I know I'm that way. And I'm like, oh, OK, if it doesn't bother you to to be that, at least, you know, that's the way you come across.
So I know I didn't give you a straight answer because there isn't a straight answer. Yeah.
You know, I think I think and that's fine. I think that, you know, there probably isn't an answer.
I think that the conversation is so important, though. So much of us.
We want to be a thing and it is almost impossible to feel 100 percent that thing. And so we're always kind of striving for it, especially people who are trying to improve.
And it's very hard to know, like, even when you've had a certain amount of success, being a certain way, it is very hard to know which pieces need to, you can continue to improve on and which pieces are part of the building blocks of what's got you there. That's a very hard thing, I think, to wrap your head around, I think, especially for leaders and especially for individuals in the insurance industry.
You know, kind of my brothers and sisters in arms here because they were successful for a long time doing business a certain way. And for most of them, the world has changed during their tenure.
And by change, I mean faster communications, things like social media. You know, if you were kind of a hard ass or didn't really have much of a personality, but you were a really good insurance agent 15 years ago, that didn't matter.
People came to you because you were a really good insurance agent. Today, we live in a more touchy-feely world.
We live in a place where one social media post can change people's perspective. And we have to kind of cultivate that image to a certain extent.
And I think that's a very challenging thing for people. It is.
They have to know how they come across. So they have to know they could be great at a certain thing.
When I work with some leaders and I work with their staff, I'll, I'll say, Hey, listen, some of these people are so, they have such a high IQ and so intellectual, but they have a very, very low EQ. And they're probably meant to work on the computer in the corner of the room and not talk to anybody, at least your customer.
But maybe you can convey, you can have someone else to be able to actually be the frontline person with your client, because this person is so intellectual and so great at what they actually do, but they can't, they come across in a way with no malice, just, you tend to see this a lot with super high IQ people, very intellectual. They lack certain social skills and they lack be able to pick up on social cues on themselves and on other people.
So those people are very important in the workforce, but they're just not meant to be able to speak to the consumer. Yeah, I think the self-awareness is a very difficult thing.
I might be, it is especially difficult as well when you're interacting with someone who maybe you give feedback to or ask for feedback and you give feedback to, and they don't accept it. Right.
You're like, look, I know you see yourself as X, but you're coming off in the world as Y. And they're just like, nah, you know, I mean, it's, it's, that's a very difficult thing to work with too um especially team members or someone you're trying to mentor or build in their career um it is such a roadblock when people are unwilling to see themselves for how the world sees them and i think i think it's okay to have a a good strong self view But if that view is not based in reality, you're going to continue to run into roadblocks over and over and over again.
And it really impacts your ability to connect to people because they're, you're expressing in a way that is disconnected from what they're seeing. And it is, that's a tough thing.
It's a, it's a very, there's always a disconnect in that communication and kind of the human connection piece. 100% and 100%.
Yeah. If I was a good podcaster, I would have framed that as a question instead of a statement.
So let's talk about, let's talk about what, what emotion is. So I, in my own life talk, think, express,

emotion. Let's talk about what emotion is.
So I, in my own life, talk, think, express emotions. I'm a very expressive human being.
Emotions have been something I've struggled with. So I'm interested in what are emotions.
And really, I'm particularly interested in, you even said in your kind of your intro, that emotions were not what you thought they were. So I'd love to know both what they are and how that differs from what you originally thought they were.
You know, I didn't know that they were so emotions control the quality of your life, whether you know it or don't know it or accept it or don't accept it. I didn't know that they were so powerful.
They're really powerful. So powerful that, I mean, just over a hundred years ago, Dale Carnegie, one of the most famous self-development authors of our time said, understand when dealing with human beings, you're not dealing with creatures of logic.
You're dealing with creatures of emotion. There is no decision that we make in our life without the input of emotion.
and if you think you're making an actual logical decision,

that means you'd have to be listing a never-ending list of variables and coming up with a logical

conclusion. So us as human beings, we're taught to add emotional input in there,

whether you say it's your gut feeling or you did your research to come up with that.

Thank you. human beings were taught to add emotional input in there.
Whether you say it's your gut feeling, or you did your research to come up with that, every single decision has emotion put into it. You know, emotions, I say this in the class, you know, the receptors in our brain that are responsible for the intake of alcohol and narcotics are the same receptors in our brain that are responsible for where all of our emotions lie.
So the same way you act when you're emotional is the same way you act when you're intoxicated. You say or do something that maybe 12 to 24 hours later you regret.
You know, they're very, very powerful. And I can tell you this.
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All right, I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode. The people that have a lot of emotion in their life, they have a disproportionate amount of chaos in their life because emotion and chaos actually go hand in hand.
So I just learned and I just, you know, I learned that also that large companies like Disney sell emotion. They don't actually sell necessarily a product or service.
So large actual companies sell emotion. So you have to know and understand them.
And the emotion that Disney sells is happiness. And you have to know and understand what your company sells in order for you to sell it.
And when you figure that out, your job is to evoke the emotion that you want your client to feel. So that's my little take on emotions and what they are, what they aren't.
This was the part of your presentation when I was kind of like every single insurance agent, every single insurance organization, every single company needs to hear this, right? This, this was what like kind of pushed me over the edge when I was listening to you. And I was just like, this is, this is something that I had, I had never really wrapped my head around it in the way that you package it.
And obviously I don't want you to tell the whole thing because I want people to pay you to come do workshops for them. Um, but I, this idea that you sell emotion, I think when you hear it, you're like, yeah, that makes logical sense, but we don't, we don't do that.
Right. We're like, we sell insurance and it's protection and here's the price and you need these products.
And, or I sell t-shirts and I got all the different colors or I you know and this this this idea of figuring out what emotion your your product your service evokes and then figuring out how to position your product in a way that it actually does that. This, it feels like a fairly, it feels like absolutely what you have to do.
Like it feels wholly right. Like just intrinsically before you really dive into it, it feels intrinsically right.
And then, but it also feels very complicated. So if I'm sitting here and I'm like, wow, you know, I hadn't, what emotion does my product sell? And look, there's a lot of insurance agents listening.
There's a lot of people that don't sell insurance that listen to the podcast too. There's both.
So like when they're first sitting down, when they're first starting to wrap their head around this concept, because to me, this is the meat and potatoes. This is the really good stuff.
Like what do you start thinking? Like, where do you start with that idea? Where do you start thinking through? How can you start to get a sense for what the emotions are that your product actually evokes? So the name of my class is called, what do you sell? And that came from meeting. It wasn't even a meeting.
And when I met an executive came into my business unit at Disney when I was working there and asked me, he said, Christos, what do you sell? And I was like, you know, I was a restaurant guest service manager and I just pointed to the menu and I started going off the list. And I was like, this guy can't read the menu.
And then he's like, Christos, I can read the menu. What do we sell as a company? And I was like, oh shit, this is not going to go well.
So then I'd say, we sell theme park tickets. We sell hotel rooms.
We sell merchandise. He goes, it's not what we sell.
I was like, and he went through

his whole thing. And at the end, he's like, Chris, let's understand we sell an emotion,

but you have to know and understand what we sell in order for you to sell it. How do you,

you thought we sold flatbread pizzas and theme park tickets? And that's where your mindset is. He goes, we sell an emotion.
We sell the most desired human emotion there is. We sell the emotion of happiness.
And that's when you know and understand what you sell. Your job is to evoke the emotion you want your client to feel.
When I work with realtors, I do a lot with realtors and lenders. Let's just say a bank.
As a lender, I go, do you sell money? Or do you sell a sense of creating wealth? You ever talk to your customer and say, I just want to let you know, buying a house is one of the three biggest things we do in life. And you are able to afford to buy one.
And in 20 to 30 years, when your loan is paid off, you're either going to have an asset that really appreciated and you'll be able to keep, or you'll be able to pass it on to your family and help them create their wealth. That's what you sell.
You don't sell money. Every bank sells money.
When you actually have that one minute, simple, genuine conversation, that's what you sell. And insurance in your field, Ryan, insurance is boring, right? Like I have so many insurance policies with my family's restaurant and me personally.
And even when I talk to my insurance agent, like I'm like, oh, man, you know, I love them. That's why I'm still with them.
But their job is not to sell me insurance. Their job is to sell me, in my opinion, safety and security.
I need to hear from them. Listen, it's your job at your family's restaurant to sell as much food as possible.
It's our job to make sure that nothing happens to any of your assets. And if they do, you make sure that you're covered.
That's my job to do. That's how you sell safety and security.
Not necessarily going through the whole policy and be like, hey, listen, you should probably get this coverage and you should probably do that. Let them know that you're emotionally invested in them, because when people are emotionally invested in you, they become less critical and less objectively observant about you.
When I know that my insurance agent is so into making sure I'm protected and I feel that, I'm never switching. I feel safety insecure.
I can't feel the insurance policy. That's not what you sell.
Now, there's some companies that actually don't know what they sell. I've actually sat down with a couple of CEOs that were very, I give them a lot of credit.
I sat down with them after I did the class and they said to me, I thought we sold this. You just made me realize that we don't sell that.
And they're like, we need to change the way we think we, we sell this. And I go, yeah, your product is probably going to tend to evoke an emotion that you want your client to feel.
So you selling your product evokes some type of emotion, tap into that emotion to get that from your customer. So it's my long winded answer to, you know, and there's some insurance agencies and there's some lenders that might be just sell money and that's their thing.
And there's some of them that might sell a sense of accomplishment. Some of them might sit, say to them, Hey, listen, I just want to let you know, not too many people can afford to buy a house.
You should be really proud of yourself. Maybe that's what they sell.
Every company, even within the industry, is different. They just have to actually know and understand what they sell.
Yeah. I wrote down when I was listening to you in that moment, and this is something I'm working into my business every day now.
And I still, you just have to bang the team over the head with it over and over, and I tell stories, and we're working on it in our messaging. So I've used protection, security, all those kinds of things, and I think those are good words.
But the word that I wrote down when I was listening to you in Utah, and it kind of changed my viewpoint on insurance, And that's, I mean, I've been doing this for 17 years. That's saying a lot.
And I think it speaks to the quality of your message is I wrote down the word sustainability. And the reason I wrote down that word was when I was thinking about insurance, I was like, what does protection mean? Well, when I think about protection, I think like a shield.
I think like a bodyguard out in front of the business, right?

If the flood is coming, you know, Moses parting the water, this house, you know, stays or whatever, right?

Like, and I was like, we don't sell that because if the flood comes, the house is gone.

Okay.

If the fire happens, the building's gone. I'm not a firefighter.
Firefighters protect. We don't really protect.
And we don't really sell safety maybe a little bit. You can do risk management stuff on commercial lines.
You can help people make their business a little safer for sure. But again, safety is kind of an illusion in a sense.
The universe is going to do what it does. And you can be a little safer for sure.
Yeah, there's risk management things you can do. But again, it's kind of on the business owner to have a safe business.
So what do we do? Well, when you have the worst day, we make sure you sustain. We make sure that you get your business back.
We make sure that you get that thing back that you had. Because I'm not going to be there throwing buckets of water on your business when it's on fire.
But what I am going to do is make sure that an insurance company with a check that is appropriate shows up and hands it to you and says, rebuild. You're still in the game.
You're still in the game. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a extra life.
It's a, it's a, if there's a video game, you'd go to change. I got another life.
It's back, right? Here it is. Like you thought you were done, but it's not game over yet.
You had the right insurance, so now you have to keep playing the game. And look, sustainability is a tough word.
I don't love it from a marketing perspective. People don't necessarily think that way.
I have to think of maybe a better, easier way of describing what I just described to you, although sustainability is the actual word that I think of. I just, it's tough to market the word sustainability.
However, that concept has really changed the way that I think about insurance and really the way that I've started to position. You know, I started talking about it like we're the foundation upon which you grow your business, right? We help you sustain.
You can't branch out and put an addition on your business unless you have insurance, unless you know if something shitty happens, you're gonna get the thing back, right? You can't reach or otherwise you're going without a net. And that's fine if you wanna play that game, but that is you are rolling the dice there and that's a whole different thing, right? So like we don't protect.
We don't provide safety necessarily. I think we do in a in a ethereal sense, but not in a real sense.
Right. There's no security.
We're not I'm not an alarm company. But what we do do is we help you sustain.
We help you get through your worst times. New Orleans exists because of the insurance industry, regardless of what mainstream media writes about it.

The only reason New Orleans exists today is because of the insurance industry, regardless of what mainstream media writes about it. The only reason New Orleans exists today is because of the insurance industry.
The only way that city was put back together was because of insurance money. And we helped that community sustain.
And, you know, not me personally, but the industry as a whole. And that was wholly changed.
That is an entirely,

that is a mindset shift that I had listening to this thing that you did in Utah. Okay.
So I guess you say sustainability. Yeah.
I understand what you're saying, but in a sense, yeah, you're, you're making sure that they're going to be okay. Yeah.
You're going to make sure that they're they are safe in a way meaning like if that happens and you're you'll be back you'll be back and this is not your last day you know so in whatever way you phrase it or you know whatever verb that you use you have to let them know that this is not the end you know you have to know and in whatever whatever way you express that and show that all of us communicate in a different way. And all of us, you have different communication style than I do.
And you also will communicate different to each of your clients, depending on how they receive it and how you, you know, how you view them and what relationship you have with them. So they need to understand in your industry, because they don't want to think, I don't want to think about insurance.
That's the last thing I want to think about. I want to think about growing my business constantly.
It's the only thing I want to grow. You know, I don't want to deal with them.
You know, I've built a relationship with my insurance agent that I'm like, you do what you need to do. And you send me the email that what we did, you know, cause that's that I don't, you know, I'm not into it.
I don't understand the, well, just make sure I'm very well protected from every single angle. Um, have you had anyone push back on this idea? Have you had anybody after you do this, you, you break this concept down? What do we sell? Uh, and have them go, nah, nah, that's not it.
Have you had anybody push back or have you converted? When people hear this, do they start to think of their own buying decisions, their own buying habits, the products they use, and they kind of put themselves in that place? Or have you had anyone push back on you or question this concept? No one's really pushed back on it. There's some people that have asked questions.
I've asked them, you know, some of them that are at some point to questions, they're like, well, how did you come up with this conclusion and this and that? And I said, oh, wow, you're wearing a Rolex watch. And they're like, yeah.
And I was like, wow. I'm like, you know, I have a watch on that's about $20.
And I go, why, wow, you're wearing a Rolex watch. They're like, yeah.
I was like, wow. I'm like, I have a watch on that's about $20.
I go, why did you buy that? They're like, well, I told myself at the 10-year mark, if I still had my business and if I hit a milestone, I need to buy this for me. I want to buy this.
I said, how do you feel? He goes, I feel very accomplished. I go, well, Rolex sells status and success is what they sell and i said you bought right into it and they looked at me and they go oh shit and i go because it's how they make how it makes you feel yeah so i said you know so whatever way if you're wearing a a 10 t-shirt and all of your t-shirts have Superman on it for some reason, there's a reason that you wear that because it makes you feel a certain way.
I've had some people that are new into the workforce that just didn't get the concept, didn't really question, but they're like, and then I'm, you know, and I'm, and then I'd find out and I'm like, well, they're like, we just graduated college. My boss told me we had to be here.
Like we, we understand it, but we're like, we, and I'm like, well, you haven't experienced enough life to be able to, but I've never had anybody that said, you know, I've had someone say to me before in the middle of my, uh, in the middle of the class, uh, kind of like, uh, uh, Orion moment, uh, say, um, it's kind of easy to make people happy at Walt Disney world though. Don't you have like other examples? And I said, you know, and I have to think about this, right.
Cause I'm like, is it easy to make people happy at Walt Disney world? I mean, the expectations are this high and I can't pull Mickey and Minnie out of my pockets. Right.
So that's why, you know, I started using examples from our family business of what we did to to create such an amazing little business, small business that, you know, has revenues exceeding, you know, over a million dollars in a twelve200 square foot space. So I had to give real life examples of things we did that made them go, oh, okay.
And I said, it's not necessarily what you do for companies, right? And I can't stress this enough. It's not necessarily the product or service that you sell.
Like it almost has nothing to do with it. It's how you make your customer feel during and after the transaction.
How do they feel about you? You know, our pizzeria was in this pizza contest in our state. And one of the most popular news channels ran a pizza contest.
And they ran it according with the college basketball with brackets. And it was 800 pizzerias nominated.
And then we were at 64, 32, 16, 8, 4. We ended up third.
And it had to do with taste. It had to do with people voting.
Now, do we have the best pizza in Connecticut? I don't know. It's actually a subjective question.
People were sending us texts and emails and customers and family members and acquaintances and people across the country be like, we're voting for you. We're voting for you.
So what do we sell at a restaurant? I mean, why did that happen? It didn't happen because we have the best pizza. It almost has nothing to do with it.
It's how we make people feel when they come in. We want to make sure that they feel like they're part of our family.
Because I could tell you this, I'm not a part of their family. Our customers are a huge part of mine.
Huge part of mine, because we can't do the things we do in our life without them. And I make them and we make them understand that.
Yeah. You know, you think about Harley Davidson, right? You're a badass, you're free spirit, right? You think about you brought up the example of Rolex.
You're accomplished. You're successful.
Bentley for cars, right? You know, go to everyone's favorite guy to hate, Andrew Tate, and his popularizing Bugattis, you know what I mean? And what that means to be some elite a-hole, you know, kind of thing. like but but a status symbol at the same thing like all these things everything and you know i i

spent a lot of time thinking about this um again you're you're i've been waiting you know so everyone knows christoph is a hard guy to get on the pie he's very he's a very in-demand man no i'm kidding we just haven't hooked up yet to be on the podcast but i've been waiting for this because it was it was a very uh your presentation really was very, very meaningful to me. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about these concepts because, you know, I was like, you could almost, you could almost start a business based on the feeling you want to create for people.
And then back into the product, you could say, I want, I want people to feel patriotism. I'm going to start a t-shirt company.
I want people to feel unique and special. I'm going to start a whatever.
I mean, it literally doesn't matter. You could start a beaded bracelet company that has some sort of slogan on it that, you know, makes people say,

Hey, this is the tribe that I'm with. Like, like I, it doesn't matter.
You can, you can back into all of it. Um, if you, if you, if you understand what you're doing and I, and I hadn't wrapped my head around that.
I hadn't wrapped my head around, around that concept of it quite literally is the emotion first and the product second. And I think that it does end up happening the other way most often, right? Someone creates a product and they figure out how to create emotion around it, but you don't need the product to start the business.
You need the emotion that you want them to feel. And then the product really could be whatever could be a derivative of the emotion 100 100 you know um i use the example of nike um their slogan is just do it you know and i was asked you know at disney from my executive like what does nike sell and i go sneakers that's not what they sell.
And I go, what are you talking about? He's like, what's their slogan? I said, just do it. He goes, they sell motivation and inspiration is the only thing they sell.
They said, how do you feel when you put those on? I said, when you ever see a commercial during the Olympics made by Nike, you're on the verge of tears. It shows someone that had some type of hardship that was able to pass the finish line, that was able to do that.
They're like, that's what they sell. Why are they a leader? And I was like, okay.
And that's when he said like large companies, real large companies focus on emotions. Yeah.
You think about like that movie that just came out about Michael Jordan and Nike, the air or whatever it is. What a great movie.
Yeah. Great movie.
Great. The whole thing was awesome.
And, you know, you think about it like people wanted to fly. So they bought Jordans.
Right. I mean, that's what you did.
You wanted, you thought that if you put Jordans on and you jumped up into the air,

you were Michael Jordan.

That's what you thought.

You thought you could dunk.

You thought you could do all the things that he could do

just by having those sneakers on.

And it, sure, they were a status symbol too,

I'm sure to a certain extent.

And they showed that, you know, whatever you had taste,

but man, it didn't matter how cool you thought you were

when you had him on.

What you really thought was, I can dunk. Like I can jump.
You know what I mean? Like that's what you wanted. You wanted to be able to do the iconic flying from the foul line.
Like you're picturing yourself with the shoes on in the air as if you're Michael Jordan. And I don't care basketball fan or not.
You couldn't help yourself when you put those things on, you know, it just was,

it, uh, I, man, I think that you're so dialed in. And I think that, you know, I think in the insurance industry, the obligatory nature of some of the products allow us to get away with not, not doing this.
Right. And I don't mean that in any way other than, uh, I think that we've been able to skirt by in some regards, some of these, some of these thought experiments and some of these concepts, because some of the products are mandatory and then, you know, people just have to have them.
So, so it doesn't feel like you're selling emotion, but you know, you look at the best salesmen and women that you come across, especially in insurance.

They don't even talk about the product.

They literally, they don't even talk about the product.

They don't even, you know, you can have, you know, X mod tools and three comparison chart this. And, you know, I have this process that I take my sales team through and I've shared a little bit around.

I call it our one call close process. And we don't even talk about price.
Literally, you don't mention price. You don't mention it.
And the entire process, people are like, well, people price shop online. I'm like, no, they're not price shopping.
How many individuals in the world go, you know what I'm gonna do today, Christos? I'm gonna call to call five insurance agents today and see like what's going on. That's, that's what I feel like doing today.
That is the last thing in the world that anyone actually wants to do. They just, they don't, they, they, but they're searching for trust.
They're searching for someone that feels like they're going to deliver, right? They're, they're, they're searching for whatever that emotional connection is that they, that they particularly are looking for in that relationship.

But so much of our industry just defaults to product and price, product and price, product and price.

So, okay. So say I'm a product and pricer and let's say I have a board of directors that mandates that I install the, the, the, what do you sell method, but I'm a product and pricer.

How do you start to dig in to change my mentality,

to start to see the way the world start to see the world from your view,

assuming that there is a problem right now.

I'm not just killing my numbers and hitting a thousand percent growth every

month and figured out some, you know, I need to change.

I have to improve, but I've been a product and pricer for 30 years.

How do you start to dig in and start to break that shell and get them to understand this

process?

Getting to, in terms of like teams or like the end consumer?

Like this, this business unit, uh, leader, you know, they need to improve.

Thank you. in terms of like teams or like the end consumer? Like this, this business unit leader, you know, they need to improve.
And it's been mandated on them that they come to your class and they got to turn production around and they got to think differently. And they've been told, Hey, look, this method over here, this is the method that's going to get us there.
Being a product and pricer, it's not getting it done. How do you start to change their mentality, right, you know, to start to see this? What are some of the core concepts that you think start to crack that product and price mentality and start them thinking emotions first? First of all, they have to be open to it.
They have to be open-minded. I can tell you how to, you know, when you meet a closed-minded person because they don't stop talking and they don't let you talk at all.
They're closed-minded and uncoachable. So first of all, before I even do this class for companies, when a company will hire me, I will actually ask them because at the end of the day, my job is to make sure that the company, the leader and everyone really gets a lot out of it.
But I ask a lot of pointed questions and I ask, how long has your employees been there? How long have they been doing this? Have they been doing this for 30 years? Are they uncoachable? Are they closed minded? And I said, because if they are, I'm sorry, but you're going to pay me for no reason. So I'm not for you.
And let me tell you how much companies appreciate that. And I said, because I'm not, I don't want to just come and talk for 90 minutes.
What is it going to do? And then some of them say, I need to give you a call back. And some of them will call me back a month, two months later, be like, so you made me realize that we needed to actually change some people here.
Because if we're going to be bringing an education and constantly feeding our salespeople and giving them their tools, they have to be open to it and they have to be open to learning. So they've actually changed people around, put people in places, and then they'll end up bringing me in.
So when I'm coming in, I'm already going to be in a space that people are excited to hear me. They're excited to learn and they're excited to learn a new way of thinking on just on a deeper level, because at the end of the day, I don't want to waste the company's money on me when it's not going to.
And let me tell you, for anyone that's listening, if you're a speaker, if you do things like that, be so honest with the company that hires you. It's going to come back to you tenfold.
I promise you. And they'll tell all their friends.
So I think that's the biggest thing is just be open minded to wanting to learn a different way. Cause if you're stuck on price and you're stuck on product, there's nothing that I'm going to tell you that's gonna, you know, you have to be open to wanting to receive that information.
Yeah. What part of this conversation have we not discussed yet? What are you sitting there going, man, you know, we, we, we beat up this part, but there's a whole section of this that we haven't got to yet.
Is there anything we haven't touched on? I think, um, the, the whole class has to do with how we connect. Right.
Um, and I, I deal with a lot of salespeople that are really good at sales, right. But they're, um, some of them are assertive, some of them are aggressive, but,, but some of them are really good listeners.
Right. And I at least share, you know, I'm not going to tell you I don't provide you with scripts and oh, if someone says this, this is your that's not what I do.
I just teach you a different way to think. And one thing that I bring up in my class is when you're having a conversation with your client and they're talking, obviously listening is one thing, but there's something called, Ryan, if you've heard of this, the term called like attracts like, it's called the law of similarity, right? So people tend to want to do business or build a relationship with someone they like, someone that they have commonalities with.
And I'm not talking crazy commonalities. While they're talking, at the end, when they're done, you say, oh, wow, your son goes to karate? My son goes to karate.
Oh, you guys go to this school? My son just graduated from that school. And when all of a sudden you have commonalities, a bond starts to form, whether you know it or don't know it.
And you take that and you build from that. People really wanna work with other people that they have some similar interests and or characteristics behaviors with.
So that's the only piece that I like to talk about a little bit in terms of sales is like, not just listen, listening is great, right? And not interrupting, but also being like, oh, wow, we have this in common. Because that makes your customer realize that, oh, wow, they're a human being on top of selling me whatever product or service they're doing.
So I think it's really, really important to understand, you know, the law of similarity. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I think your lesson around choosing who to work with is very important as well.
We, we, you can, you can create this emotion driven product and all these things, but if you're, if you're marketing or trying to shove someone who doesn't appreciate that emotion or isn't looking for that particular emotion down that funnel, they're not going to be interested. They're not going to want it because it's not what they actually, you know, I think a lot of times we try to try to round peg a square hole or, and, and, and then we, you know, we, we push back on the process and it's like finding, you know, I, I always, I didn't say it the way that you said, and I think the way you positioned it is better.
But I used to say what, you know, especially with marketing, like you get out what you put back. If you put out price shoppers, if you put out price shopping content into the world, you get price shoppers back.
If you put out a certain type of emotion into the world, you get a certain type of emotion back. And we have to be very cognizant of what we're putting out into the world, because that is exactly what we get back the world, the world and individuals is going to mirror what we put out.
And if you're not getting the type of customer you want, it is most likely because you are not putting out into the world with the type of customer you want, wants. 100%.
Because like you said, you put out price tools and price tools and price tools. Guess what you're going to get? Price shoppers.
Yeah. You put out just facts and figures.
Hey, everybody, just want to let you know, make sure during a storm you do this, this, and this. Useful information.
What type of value are you adding to their life, right? You're going to get those type of people to be like, you know what, I understand your price is this opposed to that. But you're, you're constantly educating me.
You're constantly giving me information. Like, I feel a lot more safe with you than, you know, and if you even end up being a little bit more expensive, it's so much worth it, because you put out what you want to receive, right? Yeah.
And just anything in the world. I think it's tremendous.
Hey, man, I've loved our conversation. I think that what you were doing is absolutely wonderful.
I hope that more people in the insurance industry will reach out to you if they want to do that. If they've listened to this and they're like, geez, you know, I got to get one of these workshops in or I'm an event planner and I'd love to have you speak.
What is the best place to connect with you? They could just go right on my website. It's Christospeaks.com.
It's C-H-R-I-S-T-O-S-S-P-E-A-K-S.com. Or they could just call me 860-428-9314.
I'm about three months out, booked,

but I'm reserving things right now

for January, February, March of next year.

It's awesome.

Dude, I think that, like I said,

I love the work you're doing.

I love the message.

I think it's vitally important

to the insurance industry and all industries.

And if you're trying to better

the way you speak to your customers

and the way you interact with them,

I think bringing Christos in is an absolute must, guys.

I appreciate the hell out of you, and I wish you nothing but the best, my friend.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for having me.

This was really, really nice.

I'm going to shop. Thank you.
I'll see you next time. close twice as many deals by this time next week sound impossible it's not with the one call close system you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call this is the exact method we use to close 1200 clients under three years during the pandemic no fluff no endless follow-ups just results fast based in behavioral psychology and battle battle-tested, the one-call-close

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