066: Galvanizing Professional Relationships with Patrick Galvin

Pete Mockaitis
Patrick, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Patrick Galvin
Thank you, Pete. Looking forward to it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, I’ve been looking forward to this as well and it was Andrea who connected us, and it’s fun. We talked about networking, so networking in action.

Patrick Galvin
Absolutely, Andrea Waltz.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, the one. She was so fun. We talked about Going for No, in episode 16, which has some networking applications as well as general kind of sales and aspiring to do more than maybe you thought you could. So that was a good episode, too, so everyone check that out.
Tell us Patrick, you have a name fun for your company, The Galvanizing Group, and you are the chief galvanizer. What does all that mean?

Patrick Galvin
Well, my last name is Galvin, so you could see I am highly creative.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Patrick Galvin
I am sticking with the theme and galvanize is a fantastic word because it also means to spark and to stir action and whether we’re helping clients with brand strategy, whether we’re helping them communicate with social media, or with their ongoing customer communications newsletter, what have you, we want to spark them to a higher level. When I work with individuals and speak to individuals, I’m also trying to create that spark.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, fun. When you say spark, you’re talking about what are the implications and connotations of a spark? I’m thinking about like you’ve got some energy. What do you mean by that spark?

Patrick Galvin
Yeah, so spark, oftentimes I like to use the analogy of the outsiders eyes. When I talk to somebody whether it’s a business, whether it’s people in the business or just sort of individual, sometimes we perceive things about the other that they don’t perceive in themselves. Clarifying that what is in my mind giving them ideas based on my take, based on the feedback that I get with that person, that allows me to provide them with some insights that oftentimes we forget about when we’re just looking at the outside and not looking so much at the inside.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Could you maybe give us an example, or story or case, to bring that to life a bit?

Patrick Galvin
Well, a lot of times people will say, if you can help us just get this coverage in this particular media outlet, that would be success for us, so we have that PR wing to our company. Oftentimes, they have a great message that they want to get out there into the world but it’s a singular message. Then you look at their website or you look at their social media and it’s not congruent with that idea that they want to pitch out to the wider world. Oftentimes what we’re going to do is not just spark a single thing but really create sparks inside the organization that are going to get them to be more congruent.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, very good, very good. And so now, you’ve got a bit of a story when it comes to getting these sparks going. It’s a kind of a business fable style. It’s called the connector’s way, the story about building business one relationship at a time, so thanks so much for sending me a copy my way and signing it – that’s a nice touch. What’s the scoop here? What are some of the takeaways we should be gleaning from this one?

Patrick Galvin
Well, I am such a huge fan of relationship building. That’s the way to drive business. It’s funny I’m being interviewed by this relationship guy and I’ll tell you, I learned the lesson the hard way. I have an MBA in marketing. I thought when I got out of school, I had all the answers in terms of how to get attention for a company, work a couple of businesses, and I joined my family’s business. Then I went on a wild spending spree buying radio here, TV there, newspapers for a furniture business and I ran through my first year in the family business about $250,000 and I was waiting – yeah a lot of money – waiting for all this new traffic to come in as a result of all this fantastic advertising and crickets. Not much happened.
I was completely frustrated by the experience. I wanted to blame the advertising agency. “Give us better creatives, we would have better results. Put us in different channels, we’d have better results.” Could have tested out, didn’t have any money to throw at the wall anymore. I started to talk to friends, first in the furniture world, then a lot of other companies that I knew through the entrepreneurs organization and there was this universal feeling that people were just throwing money, hoping it would stick with a traditional marketing-type outreach through advertising. But when I dug into my own customer base at the time, I discovered the vast majority of people who bought from us were people who had bought from us before or they were being referred to us by happy customers.
That totally shifted my thinking about how do we build stronger relationships. In fact, I loved it so much that I decided this is really what I want to focus my energy on, so 12 years ago, I decided to start the Galvanizing Group with that focus of helping companies grow through relationship and also helping individuals. Whether it’s a solopreneur, whether it’s a big company, if you go the relationship approach, it’s so much cheaper than advertising and so much more effective and sustainable over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so intriguing and so I’m thinking of my own entrepreneurial desires when I ask all kinds about business building questions, but I’m trying to focus on a bit for the professional who is kind of building their own reputation. There is some loyalty and referrals and things that kind of carry over in that way. I guess I’m wondering in practice then if someone is parting with money, then they’re hiring you and your team to do some things for them and you’re not buying them TV, billboard, radio, Facebook ads, what is that translation of dollars into activities and service look like?

Patrick Galvin
Well, a lot of times it’s really talking to our customers and whether it’s a company or whether it’s an individual, I do coach a lot of solopreneurs out there is really getting them to shift their thinking from trying to sell to trying to establish relationship. Instead of trying to extract some monetary value out of each relationship, figure out first what you can give to others.
There’s a great speaker who just passed away a couple of years ago. He was in his 90s, Zig Ziglar who said, “You can get anything you want in life by helping others get what they want.” I think this is one of the wisest pieces of wisdom whether you’re thinking about it from your own standpoint or thinking about it from your company standpoint. When you do something that people aren’t necessarily expecting but you’re doing it to serve them, whether it comes from that person or the next person who’s impressed by that, ultimately you’re building the bridges that are going to turn into a better career, a better company in terms of your success.
It’s a mind shift. It doesn’t cost a lot of money and just seems like how effective can that be. But when you start translating that across an organization, there’s many, many successful case studies of companies that have done an excellent job working with their employees to develop that mindset and there’s so much more successful than the competition, so it works on an individual basis. It works on a much broader business level as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so could you give some examples of sort of means by which you can help out and start giving and building a good relationship and rapport?

Patrick Galvin
Well, the first thing is don’t make any assumptions. I think so often we assume that people’s needs are the same as ours. I think one of the best things I’ve learned from some of my business mentors over the years is you don’t have to be the most interesting person in the room, just be the most interested person in the room. Ask a lot of questions, show curiosity, show a desire to grow. I think this is very applicable to your audience, Pete, because I mean a lot of people think, “Well, you know I’m not in school. I have not been in the workforce as long as some of the other people here at this organization.”

So many people are trying to impress others, but if you’ll just honestly take interest in others and ask a lot of questions and through those questions, you figure out how you can be of service to this people, your career is just going to go on steroids because so few folks really do that the way they should.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now that makes sense, that makes sense. So what are some of the key questions or behaviors that we should sort of step up and take the time to do it that convey that level of interest, that do get people talking and unveiling the areas we can help?

Patrick Galvin
Yes, so I think you hit the nail on the head by asking questions. So often people think, “Well, I need to have this scripted questions and these are the three questions I’m going to ask.” Well, I think scripts are bad. It’s going to depend from individual to individual but to really go in there and just ask some curiosity questions: What is it that you do? How did you get into that? What do you love most about what you do? These are not yes or no answers; these are ones that really dive into someone’s passion for what it is that they do.
I think some folks who are really good listeners will follow up on these idiosyncratic things that have driven people to pursue that career and further ask questions, but too many people feel like, “Well, I’ve asked my three questions. Now, it’s about me.”
The reality is just like you’re doing this podcast, I mean you’re asking the follow-up questions and so rarely in networking do people feel comfortable enough to do that. I think they feel like, “Well, I’m here to network. I’m here for business.” But the reality is if you’re there for the relationship, the business will be a byproduct of your developing that relationship.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, and so I’m thinking now with that, you’re asking these questions, you’re showing interest, you know it’s interesting sometimes when people are interested in me, my work, “Oh, your podcast, tell me about that,” sometimes I’m in the mood to tell them all about it because the show is so much fun. I talk to so many people it’s like amazing folks have said yes to my request and I’m getting pitches from publicists and authors and it’s so cool. Sometimes I’m in the mood to really just tell you about it and just have fun and I enjoy them being interested and we form a connection as a result. In other times, I’m not just really interested in saying a whole lot.

Patrick Galvin
I totally get that.

Pete Mockaitis
Asking more questions, I kind of don’t like it, so any pro tips on weighting the room and playing that game well?

Patrick Galvin
Well, I remember actually this is a great story because when we’re starting our business, we didn’t have a marketing budget, so I was doing the chamber of commerce thing going out, meeting people. I remember one of the first people I met at my first chamber mixer he was standing back in the corner, didn’t look very happy to be there. Pro tip number 1: if you see someone standing back in the room not engaging, if you engage that person, chances are they’re going to be thrilled because it might be an introvert that doesn’t want to engage, the very first thing he said to me was, “I hate mixers.”
I say, “What are you going to be doing?”
Immediately he said, “Reading a book.”
I said, “Well, what book?”
It turned out he was an English major from UC Berkeley just graduated. He was the banquet manager for this large hotel where the event was being held. We had a conversation for 15 minutes on his favorite books. It had nothing to do with business. He really was a very well read guy. He had some interesting opinions, and at the end of the conversation, he said, “By the way, what is it that you do?”
I explained what my company did.
He said, “That’s so interesting. Right now, we’re looking at our communications. We’re looking at maybe having a PR agency to work with us. My boss was saying if I knew anyone, I didn’t, and now I do. would you mind if I recommended you?”
It turned out that was our first major client.
And that happened from someone who didn’t want to talk about business. He wanted to talk about books, so just run with what that person is interested in and don’t worry about will this result in business because you just never know.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so that’s so good. So now I’m thinking if we’re zooming into, inside of an office environment and we have internal customers there in terms of the other teams that we’re working with or folks we’re providing deliverables to of one sort or another. Can you share what are some crossover principles and practices that apply sort of with internal customers?

Patrick Galvin
Well, I think so many people especially I remember this from my early career days of working with some folks who really want to take credit for success. I remember working for the City of Los Angeles. I was in an environment with tens of thousands of employees. There were some of my coworkers who were more concerned more about taking a very public – raising their hand when something good happened that we were doing as a department. Of course, they weren’t raising when someone bad was happening.
But one of my best colleagues at this job was happy to help me succeed and happy to help others succeed and it turns out he was promoted much faster than the hand-raisers because the upper echelons of this department said, “Here is a guy who is looking at the team, not at himself.”
The word got out. It was very clear that it wasn’t circumstantial that the more successful projects, this guy was on that team and he was really a team player and a team builder as opposed to the person wanting to just do the PR for himself or herself and take the credit for it. So I think it’s really serving others without consideration of how you will benefit because ultimately there is a big reward for that.

Pete Mockaitis
Now we hear some great tips along these lines in episode 19 from Arel Moodie of the Art of Likability show, which is very cool. I’m curious then.

Patrick Galvin
I’m going to listen to that. That sounds great.

Pete Mockaitis
He offered a few tips simple things such as, “If you go into the kitchen, get a cup of water, just bring back two. Give one to someone else. Bring back an extra cup of coffee.” I’m curious. You talk about being a team player, which sounds swell, and part of it is just not always I guess thinking about yourself or doing blatantly self-serving things, but rather taking on things that are handy to others.
What are some other kind of specific behaviors that sort of gets the word going that, “Wow! That guy really hooked us up, or he really did behave in a team player-like fashion.”

Patrick Galvin
Yeah. I had one colleague that was really good about mixing up who we went out with for lunch. The typical thing at this office environment was you kind of hang with your crowd.
There was one guy there who would always invite new people to lunch, so he would just kind of hang out one-on-one. He was building rapport and one of the best ways, especially now when we’re so distracted by all of our digital tools, I think lunch is one of the forgotten opportunities in today’s workforce.
I mean you probably can’t do it every day because you’re hard-pressed but when you can, instead of going out with that person you know and like so well, why not mix it up and talk to someone on a team that you haven’t worked with or someone on another floor.
I think we have an opportunity. Keith Ferrazzi wrote a great book called Never Eat Alone, and in it that’s his main core concept is always be intermingling with people who are folks you don’t know so well. Over time, that’s going to help you out a lot and that has been something I’ve been doing quite a bit and it’s been fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Yeah, another point is that when you’re working with companies, you sort of help them kind of zero in on and articulate sort of what makes them unique or special or differentiated. I’d love to get your take on how do you go about thinking about that on an individual scale.
I guess some people use the term personal branding or whatnot but I’m thinking what are some means that individual professionals can use to zero in on what makes them unique, competitive, valuable, and focus on those sorts of things?

Patrick Galvin
I’m just think thinking a little bit differently than others and how you can serve the people you work with.
For instance, over 90 percent of all recommendations on LinkedIn are there because that person has reached out to their network, saying, “I’m working on my social media. I know LinkedIn is important. Would you recommend me?”
What if you had a coworker who you just think is fantastic? Really it’s from the heart. You believe in that person. What if you just took it upon yourself to recommend them on LinkedIn? You can connect with them. Once they’re connected to you, you just go to their little profile picture, pull down that bar that says recommend and spontaneously write a recommendation. It will take you all of about 5 minutes.
That will mean the world to the person who received it because they got something from you that probably they haven’t gotten from somebody else or maybe just a couple and you’re calling them out for the good things that they do and this is a very simple practice. If that’s all you did on social media, if you spent 5 minutes a month doing that, I think you’ll get much better tractions spending hours on Facebook, or Pinterest, or Instagram, or other platforms in which you’re trying to display how great you are by that cool selfie and the pouty lips and what have you. You’re going out into social media thinking how can I be of service to others? I mean it absolutely works because it’s fairly rare.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny. The pouty lips got me laughing. My fiancée, I don’t know where she learned it, but we have this joke. We play again and again that someone said for the duck-lipped face skinny-ing technique, the trick is to say the word, “prune.”

Patrick Galvin
I heard that too.

Pete Mockaitis
Your lips fixed at, “Prune.”

Patrick Galvin
Yes. Like this is a national meme. I heard that just recently and so that it out of the universe.

Pete Mockaitis
I may be thinking about you every time we do the prune joke is like we’re getting so much further not saying prune but instead.
Okay, writing recommendations by other people on LinkedIn. That’s so great.

Patrick Galvin
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes great sense and what’s really funny about that is we heard previously from Michelle Gielan about broadcasting happiness, and one of the most effective kind of simple practices you can do to boost your happiness is to make it a habit to be of service and do a quick little thing for someone each day.
That might be an introduction. That could just be a, “Thank you so much. This is what you mean to me.” I like this because this could also fit in right in the morning as you’re handling emails or whatever in under 5 minutes. That counts as an act of service and generosity and attitude.

Patrick Galvin
Absolutely. It is completely appreciated. I did this. I’ll be honest with you, I did it to get a PowerPoint slide, so I wanted to do a presentation on how we can be of service to others. I said, “Boy! I don’t have a picture of what that recommendation letter looks like on LinkedIn, so I’m going to write one.” I wrote it for someone whom I absolutely think the world of and hit recommend.
Within 15 minutes, I got a phone call saying, “Wow, Patrick! Thank you so much. You’re the first one who’s ever done that without my asking.”
Within a month, I had gotten a referral from him for a really nice piece of business and I would not like to think it’s a quid pro quo but you know, I’m just more top of mind because I did something that people weren’t doing for him, so it does work. But you also feel better about yourself. It’s a great way to start the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I like it. I like it. Hey, what else you got? I love little tactics and tips. They’re like candy, so that would be awesome. But what more you got?

Patrick Galvin
I think one of the best things is don’t sell necessarily what you sell. There is a friend of mine, the most successful realtor I know in Portland, Oregon. He loves talking with people about things that have nothing to do with real estate. I knew that this guy happens to be a snake collector. He had 93 snakes.

Pete Mockaitis
No way!

Patrick Galvin
His wife couldn’t get rid of 93 snakes, but this guy loves snakes. He goes to snake shows. I knew about this and a friend of mine moved into the area. She was an animal assisted therapist, looking for a snake to add to the stuff she does out there with kids. I referred him to her. He loved that. He says, “I love having conversations, rapport-building conversations about other areas of expertise than real estate because I know that it gives me an opportunity to connect with people on a much deeper level. Once they have that connection with me, well when it’s time for them to do something in the real estate world, which most people are going to do at some point, they’ll call me. They’ll think about referring me.”
And it turned out my friend had just moved into town and was going to be looking for a place to live. He was a snake expert first and now he’s a realtor, so that sort of jump, I think it’s sort of something that if we could figure out what is it that we have to offer that’s not what we’re selling or what we’re pushing but something of greater value. You just will make some connections that will ultimately at some point in line really help you out in terms of business.

Pete Mockaitis
Very nice, very nice. I know the other thing you mentioned is that there are some cool ways that you can do relationship building kind of in tandem, both online and in person and they kind of mutually reinforce and strengthen each other. Can you speak a bit to that?

Patrick Galvin
Well, you know one of the things that I think people struggle with is they see there’s face-to-face stuff that I do, the networking events and that sort of thing. Then there’s online stuff that’s LinkedIn or Facebook, or Pinterest, Instagram, whatever the platform is, and they view them as separate realities. I think the real magic and the real successful relationship builders have figured out ways to marry that.
Let’s use LinkedIn as an example. You now get these notifications that someone in your network is having a birthday, they’ve been promoted, they’ve moved to a new company. These significant life events are occurring for them, LinkedIn gives you the default of pressing the button, which says, “Congratulations!” They’ll actually fill the language for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Patrick Galvin
That’s very easy. It’s like taking a piece of candy. Now if you receive that, it’s not that you don’t appreciate it. It’s nice but what if that person use the most important feature on their smartphone, which is the voice and pick up the phone and say, “Oh my god! They finally promoted you. You’ve been deserving that for 5 years. They are so lucky that they came to their senses. Why don’t we go out and celebrate? Why don’t we meet up for drinks? Why don’t we get together for lunch?”
That really is happening. I mean people think, “Well, the default.” They make it so easy and it’s easy for all the social media platforms. They make it so easy to click a like or to send a comment that’s canned that we have all of these communication tools but we’re not really connecting with people. We’re not really furthering relationships.
When you take it to a higher level, it doesn’t necessarily have to be hard. If you see someone’s birthday is coming up next month and you can see that on any social media platform, you can look ahead and see what’s coming up, why not send them a card?
I have a realtor friend. He will actually look at all of his clients that he’s followed through Facebook and when he sees that their birthday is coming up, he calls them up and sings happy birthday to them. They usually cut him off because he’s got a lousy singing voice, but he’s the only phone call they get. He says that’s done more for his business than any form of electronic communication he’s tried. It doesn’t cost anything.
Think a little bit different. Think what you would appreciate. I mean if you follow the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” what would make you feel good? When you think along those terms, I think all of a sudden, you’ll come up with ideas to creatively marry what you’re doing online with what you’re doing in the e real world.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. I would just love some more fun stories along those lines. So happy birthday, I mean certainly that’s fun to hear and it’s true. It’s like the pecking order of birthday praise received, so I might collect maybe 200 wall posts saying happy birthday.

Patrick Galvin
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
And then maybe 20 text messages.

Patrick Galvin
How many cards?

Pete Mockaitis
Boy! Probably only family, really.

Patrick Galvin
Yeah. What if somebody who you thought well of, didn’t stand out from the crowd in terms of your connections, just dropped you a card, saying, “Hey, Pete! I know your birthday is coming up. I’m thinking about you. Wishing you the best in the coming year.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s nice. It’s really nice.

Patrick Galvin
It would I think put them on a different level with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Uh-huh.

Patrick Galvin
It’s not hard to do. I mean there’s technology out there. I use the technology that allows me to type on my computer screen or on my smartphone in my own handwriting in that card, and I could put a picture on the front of myself with that person and press a button. It’s all online but the card is actually mailed on my behalf to that individual. I can include a gift if I want to. There’s technological ways of opening the process and looks absolutely personal because it’s my handwriting. It’s my picture with that person. It’s a card in the mail. It’s not an e-card. There’s tools out there that allow us to do that, and I really think that’s where you have an opportunity to stand out.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that photo, though. It is an actual photo in your collection of photos like we’ve been in a photo together and here it is.

Patrick Galvin
Sure, or it might be a photo that I take from that individual’s Facebook wall. I’ve done something really cool saying, “Hey! Good to see you’ve been fishing a lot this year.” I’ll put down on the front of the card, “Happy birthday.” They get a card with their picture fishing if that’s their thing, and just saying, “Wishing you a lot of good catches in the coming year.” Totally customized, totally in their world. That works great, too, if you don’t have any pictures with that person.

Pete Mockaitis
That is fun. What is the name of the tool?

Patrick Galvin
It’s a company called SendOutCards, and I’ve been using it for 7 years. Love it.
So what’s really cool is you know what’s old is cool again. I like to use the voice on the smartphone, send out a card. I mean some people might be thinking, “Wow! This guy is totally analog.”
No, no. Not at all. I mean use your analog tools but we live in a digital world. The digital world is feeding us so much information but let’s leverage that in sort of the analogue ways that work because the good news is no one is using them so it stands out even more now.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. So now I want to touch base for perhaps the skeptic in terms of they’ll say, “That could be a waste of time. I don’t know if there’s sufficient ROI. That sounds like a lot of feel good lovey-dovey relationship stuff, but really isn’t it about the credentials, the offering the strength of the value proposition, etc. What would you say to the skeptic who thinks that this seems a little bit maybe gratuitous, lavish, too much, not cost effective as a means of achieving a given objective?

Patrick Galvin
Well, I love the quote, this is from a guy named Bob Burg, who wrote another business book called The Go-Giver, and he says, “All things being equal, people prefer to do business with and refer business to those they know, like, and trust.”
I can give you some data. But I think more importantly if people think about how people have come to them whether it was getting a job, whether it was getting a client, whether it was retaining a client, at the end of the day are people really buying the product or service or are they buying the individual who provides it?
I speak in a lot of different industries and whether it’s insurance or real estate, or financial services, or law, people will follow the professional if they leave a firm and go to another firm, they go from one big name real estate company to another, one big name law firm to another.
If they have a relationship with that professional, that relationship trumps the organization the professional works for.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. That has happened, absolutely.

Patrick Galvin
It’s not touchy-feely, it feels good. If you look at top performers and I was talking to a manager of Keller Williams, the largest real estate company in the country right now, and she was saying that, “Five percent of their realtors sell 95 percent of the real estate in her office.”
We started talking about, “Well, who are those 5 percent?”
And said, “You know what, they’re the great relationship builders. The other 95 percent are cold calling. They’re dropping stuff on people’s doorsteps. They’re buying lists and they’re mailing to lists, but they’re not cultivating those relationships that result to people coming back to them and that seven-year cycle that a typical person sells or buys a home. Those actions that those ineffective realtors are doing are not resulting in the referrals that relationship builders get.”
I think if you’re going to be a successful professional, you really have to think about how good am I at relationships and how can I get better?

Pete Mockaitis
All right, and so could be have a quick final note perhaps about relationship building for sort of a career management and progression. I think we hit the sales point at promotion point pretty nicely. I think it also when your objectives or long-term are more so in the individual navigating your career track world, are there any kind of additional things that you would stress there?

Patrick Galvin
Well, there are two points that I don’t think that I’ve mentioned. If you are doing things where you’re marrying the digital and the face-to-face, the analog and the digital I like to say, you’ve created a great foundation for growing through relationships but you also have to let other people know what you need from them, how they can help you succeed and we all are so time pressed.
We have a hard enough time sometimes running our own days. If there’s someone in our network who’s built a great relationship with us and they say, “Look, I would love to perhaps work for this company,” or, “I think I have a service that might be of interest to them,” and they go on LinkedIn and they find that we’re connected with them and they ask us to introduce them. We’re going to be thrilled to do it.” I’ve got five requests last year for introductions on LinkedIn. That’s just five. Every single request I made and I have discovered that the most effective for me to get in front of a new company is not to Google and try to find out all the details about that company but find out who I’m in relationship with who knows somebody in that company.
When I ask them, they always say yes because I’ve created a network with integrity and not only will they say, “Well, you should talk to this person.” They’re going to say, “Let me reach out to them and introduce you.”
Now I’ve gone from having a cold call to a warm call and whether it’s you’re selling something or simply wanting to progress in your own career, letting people know how they can help you succeed is a huge help. Then the other thing I just want to add is if you’re doing that, just have a really strong methodology of gratitude because if people are doing something for you, I think one of my biggest pet peeves when I talk to someone many people who share this with me is not saying thank you. Make sure that you’re doing that in an effective way.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s even a fun turn of a phrase, methodology of gratitude, because methodology seems  like process, optimize, establish. Gratitude is like in my heart, so yeah let’s hear what’s your methodology?

Patrick Galvin
I use it because it should be a process. It should take place every single time. My preferred means of following up with someone is if they’re in my immediate physical environment or if they’re in my town, I want to meet with them face-to-face. I love looking people in the eye and saying thank you. I think that it communicates much more than any form of electronica and I get referrals and I get introduced to people who are in different cities. I love to just pick up the phone and say, thank you so much. It’ so easy to respond to email by saying, “Hey, thanks. I’ll follow up with them, let you know what happens.”
But what if you call the person and say, “Why did you think about recommending or referring me?”
You could find out more information from that conversation than you would ever find out from Google because that person is going to tell you, “Well, Patrick, I thought this person would be a great connection for you. You really need to talk with them or they have this problem or that problem.”
Now it allows me to do some thought and when I reach out to that individual, I go in much more prepared. When I’m more prepared, I’m going to be more effective, I’m going to be more useful to them, and the chances of success are much greater, so always have the conversation, face-to-face, or over the phone and then once again, very old school. I don’t take it for granted. I will do a card, a card in the mail saying, “I really appreciate you’re thinking about me. It really means the world to me,” and it’s a methodology in that these are the steps that I follow but it’s individualized for that person and it’s from the heart.

Pete Mockaitis
So good. Well, Patrick, you tell me is there anything else you want to make sure we cover off before shifting gears and talking about some of your favorite things?

Patrick Galvin
No, I’m good. What great questions.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks! Well, all right. Let’s hear it then. Could you start us off by sharing a favorite quote?

Patrick Galvin
Well, it’s hard for me because I’ve got so many of them. But I got to tie these two together because this gets back to my gratitude point, which is, “Silent gratitude is not much use to anybody.” That’s Gertrude Stein, “and in spite of that, we live in a world of silent gratitude.”
That leads to my next quote, which is Theodore Roosevelt, who said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Pete Mockaitis
My favorite professor, Stephen C. Michael, said that many a time.

Patrick Galvin
Did he attribute it to Theodore Roosevelt?

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t remember.

Patrick Galvin
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study? Is there any sort of experiment or study or data you find interesting?

Patrick Galvin
There’s a group called The Keller Fay Group. It’s a market research company. There was a stat that I saw in the book that they put out a couple of years ago called, The Face-to-Face Book, not the Facebook, but The Face-to-Face Book. The stat that they had – these guys do really very good data work and they came up with a number that just blew me away, which is there are 2.4 million brand conversations everyday in the United States, and by that, they mean people talking to other people about products, services, and companies that they like and dislike.
What was fascinating and it might have changed just a little bit, but even just a few years ago, 92 percent of these conversations were taking place offline and only 8 percent were online. I know online has probably jumped up, but when people talk about things, people, products, services, those conversations carry so much weight.
Ogilvy, the advertising company, said 84 percent of all people trust referrals from the people they know. Here we are in this world in which there is this great conversation taking place and when you really look at what drives decision making, it’s this word of mouth. The trust level on word of mouth is 84 percent, trust levels from these conversations where people they know 68 percent, according to Nielsen, from trusted online opinions, and then you start looking at trust in advertising messages and it drops into the 40s and 50s.
Really the impact that we make on people is really what carries the water for us, whether it’s in our career, or whether it’s for our companies. Those impressions that we make reverberate down to the conversations that people have about us.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. How about a favorite book?

Patrick Galvin
You know, I love Go for No, Andrea Waltz’s book, who you had on your podcast and I’ll tell you why because it is really easy when you’re trying to grow a company to just give up sometimes and say, “You know, I haven’t heard back from that person. They must not want me.”
I read that book about 5 years ago, and once I started putting it into practice, I started seeing that it was usually on my fifth connection with that individual who I thought would be a good business connection where when things actually started happening. Before, I would stop oftentimes before that fifth step, that fifth request, just constantly looking for those opportunities for rejection. I mean it sounds so simplistic but I can give you a personal testimonial that it absolutely works.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, not so fast. Fifth step, so you reach out. You say, “Oh, I think our service might be helpful for you.” You just hear crickets.

Patrick Galvin
Crickets!

Pete Mockaitis
You’re saying like five repetitions of that is often when things get going?

Patrick Galvin
Well, yeah it’s not always to say, “Hey, I have this great service.” It’s not coming up with the same thing but maybe just finding a better hook, so setting up a Google News alert for that individual, that company saying, “Hey, I just read this thing in the Wall Street Journal that seems to be right on mark with what you’re probably facing right now. Thought you’d enjoy it.” It’s looking for an opportunity to open a conversation. Thinking a little bit more creatively than just hitting them with the same thing but just realizing that basically people sometimes have to be reminded that you have something of value to them and sometimes you come up with not with your service but with something else that would be of interest to them.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Thank you. How about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s really handy?

Patrick Galvin
About two years ago, I got into mindfulness meditation and I actually I have an app for it. It’s called Insight Timer. It’s a great meditation app, so you could set it on to whatever duration you want. I do 10 minutes because that’s pretty much all I have time for. But just being able to focus on nothing for 10 minutes a day when I’m constantly besieged by messages has done wonders for just my own happiness and it helps me focus much better when I’m done with that on the task at hand.

Pete Mockaitis
I want to follow up on that if I may.

Patrick Galvin
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
We talked with Chris Bailey earlier who has all this crazy productivity experiments including having done just hours and hours of meditation a day just to see what happens. That was episode 32, also with Dan Harris in episode 44 about meditation. It’s a theme. It’s popped up a lot.

Patrick Galvin
It’s a theme. Yeah, it’s out there in the universe right now.

Pete Mockaitis
And so I want to know both of them kind of used the metaphor of meditation strengthens your attention muscle. It’s like a bicep curl for your brain because you continually bring your attention back to your breath or whatever it is away from kind of whatever distracting thoughts pop up. I want to get your take on if this muscle metaphor analogy. You said it makes it easier for you to then focus on what you’re focusing on afterwards, so you do not find that your attention muscle is fatigued from all the reps you were just doing?

Patrick Galvin
No. it’s actually quite the contrary. When I started meditation, I thought it was one thing, and it turned out to be something totally different. I thought meditation will reflect on the things that you’re grateful for, or reflect on all the people that you’re wishing good things upon. It was kind of – I don’t know. I don’t know how I got the conception but when I started getting into the mindfulness practice of meditation, focus on nothing. That’s really hard, and I’m still working on it. But when I finish a 10-minute session and it doesn’t take more time than that were you push all this garbage out of your brain, the worries about that particular pitch or the speech that you’re giving in the following week and you can have the brain. It’s sort of like once you clean your house, you feel really good for a few days being in such a nice clean environment. For me, meditation kind of works that way. It kind of clears the cobwebs out of your brain and then when it comes back to focusing on a task, it just seems like there is more space in there.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Thank you. All right, now tell us are there any favorite tools you like to use in terms of gadgets, hardware, software, frameworks, websites? What do you find yourself using often?

Patrick Galvin
I have a great CRM system. It probably doesn’t sound too exciting to people but it allows me to stay on top of my relationships in terms of trackability. I use Zoho CRM, and they are very small to medium business friendly, very robust on their free platform, but it allows me to tweak it and customize it. I’ve tried other CRMs and just have not found that flexibility. As much as I like to build relationships based on rapport on what I know, if I don’t have track somewhere someone’s kids’ names or significant moments coming up in their life, or when I should contact them again, I’m not going to stay on top of it, so Zoho really helps me out there. It’s a really cool tool.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.

Patrick Galvin
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget or piece that you articulate when it comes to your message or your teaching or whatever and you find that it’s often re-Tweeted or Kindle book highlighted? Is there any sort of gem that seem to pop up again and again for people?

Patrick Galvin
You know I think it’s really cutting down to the most simple emotion and it’s on the back of my book, in big letters. It’s one that people have often quoted back to me, and it’s, “Great relationships are the difference between success and failure in business.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Patrick Galvin
It’s simplistic statement and it will vary according to where you are in your career or what you’re trying to do but the heart of it, it really comes down to the relationships you’re forming.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Thank you. All right. Well, what would you say would be the best place to find you if folks want to learn more and see what you’re up to?

Patrick Galvin
Best way is my personal website, which has all my speaking information, the book information, which is Patrick Galvin, that’s G-A-L-V-I-N, and Patrick with a K, dot com, patrickgalvin.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Do you have a favorite challenge or parting call to action for those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Patrick Galvin
Well, I love Henry Ford’s statement, which is, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right, very good. Patrick, thanks so much for this. I wish you lots of luck and lots of great connections and relationships that are galvanized and this has been a lot of fun.

Patrick Galvin
It’s great being connected with you, Pete.