We know what perseverance is and why it's necessary for ABM success. But since we don't exist on an island, how do we inspire this quality in the B2B communities on which we depend? Gregory Burns has inspired us with a mindset that has taken him around the world, conquering the fears and disadvantages that limit so many of us. In this final installment of the series, we'll hear from two authors on how perseverance can benefit our own business and marketing relationships.
[00:00:00] Hiromi: We know what perseverance is and why it's necessary for success. But since we don't exist on an island, how do we inspire this quality in the communities on which we depend? Gregory Burns has inspired us with a mindset that has taken him around the world, conquering the fears and disadvantages that limit so many of us. In this final installment of the series, we'll learn where perseverance is taking Gregory Burns today. We'll also hear from two authors on how his mindset can benefit our own business relationships. This is a podcast about B2B marketing and the account based mindset. This is Reach.
[00:00:43] Well, thanks so much for joining us today. My name is Hiromi and I'm joined by CEO and Agency founder, Jaycen Thorgeirson.
[00:00:49] Jaycen: Welcome. Glad to have you.
[00:00:51] Hiromi: And Chief Creative Officer, Garret Krynski.
[00:00:54] Garret: I'm excited about today.
[00:00:57] Hiromi: In the last few episodes, we've been following the life story of Paralympian, explorer, artist, speaker, everything, Gregory Burns. Gregory has accomplished things without the use of his legs that most able bodied people would never dream of. But people with this quality of perseverance so deeply ingrained in their DNA don't seem to rest of their laurels. And this mindset is still pushing him to reach out for new experiences today.
[00:01:26] Gregory Burns:
[00:01:26] In swimming and training, I think you are doing a lot of things you really don't wanna do and not doing a lot of things you really do wanna do. In a way, that's life. I'm sorry. But that is part of it. And I think with me, if I let myself down at some point along the way, the feelings I have towards myself for not doing what I've set out to do, it hurts more than the short term joy of quitting somewhere along the line.
[00:01:54] To this day, I swim 1,000 meters a day. I really don't wanna do it everyday. There'll be days when it's 10 o'clock at night, the pools gonna close soon, and I will say, "Okay, I know you don't wanna swim 1,000 but just get in and swim 500." And I know after 500, it'll be, "Okay, I'll do the other 500." And then, you know, and do the... But at the end of it, I'm happier that I did the 1,000 instead of only the 500 or not doing it at all.
[00:02:19] So I've been tricking myself the same way for 30 years and it still seems to work.
[00:02:24] What's gradually happened as we're getting older, you know, it's not about competing with others anymore. It's all about completing things and keeping an even keel and staying in shape and staying sharp and staying on point and continuing in a way to reinvent myself to keep going and keep
[00:02:45] moving.
[00:02:45] In 1992, this company called Linguaphone called me in my Hong Kong office, uh, and said, "Mr. Burns, would you speak at our conference in Macaw about resilience and perseverance?" And I was then hired as a motivational speaker because of my swimming accolades. That was what got me in the door and then I've transitioned that sports discipline work to arts. Speaking about creativity, re-engaging the right side of the brain, doing artist workshops with executives. Giving them a bunch of art supplies and have them create art.
[00:03:17] First, it's like, "You're kidding me. Aren't you?" But by the end of it, they're like kids that just kicked their first field goal. These are 30, 40, 50 year old who should know better than to get excited about making art but they're like- they're loving it. So I went back and I did my Master's and then my girlfriend at the time, Angie, my wife now, we started to do exhibitions around the world. Then started to do artists in residencies going from Morocco to Japan to China to Indonesia to Europe.
[00:03:44] We got invited by five star resorts to go and live at the resort for a month to paint and do art classes, have an exhibition. We did this 30, 40 times all over the world. So kinda doing the things I love, which is communicate through sports and art and- and now workshops. So art has been a lot of things to me as has sports. They've been my healer but they've been my bread and butter as well.
[00:04:17] Garret: With regards to Gregory, there's this thread that I'm kind of finding about purpose in this idea of perseverance and his need to give back, to be useful. He's always trying to help and if your purpose is a little bit more altruistic than just a business goal, maybe that helps you to be more successful at persevering.
[00:04:43] Hiromi: Yeah. I- I think you're right. I mean, having an overarching purpose to your perseverance is probably helpful because, as we know, our- our more specific goals have to change over time. Like, Gregory was mentioning that, of course, as he ages, he can't expect the same physical performance from his body that he may have in the past. Um, but that's not a lack of perseverance, as he said, that, you know, that's just life. He has to persevere in keeping going and keep finding ways to challenge himself. Even as we were conducting this interview, Gregory was preparing himself to fly around the world, uh, doing a series of workshops with students and Ukrainian refugees promoting a sort of healing with art. So he may not be setting new swimming records but it's clear that he's not slowing down any time soon either.
[00:05:29] Jaycen: Yeah. The goal for ourselves constantly changes but it lies in understanding where we are. All through his process, he understood who he was, what he was capable of and he pushed the boundaries. It's personal to complete something, as he said, and not compete. He wasn't going against others. He's going against himself. And now, looking back, it's probably like, oh, I can take my learnings and help others. It's a personal thing. And I think the quality of perseverance comes from deep within each and every one of us. We need to find, okay, what am I good at? Where can I stretch myself? What is my goal? What is my purpose? And those are the things that actually keep you moving. We try to figure out where can I continue to grow? You know?
[00:06:19] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:19] Jaycen: And what- what's important to me and- and will persevere?
[00:06:23] Hiromi: Yeah. And I think sometimes isolating that purpose for ourselves can be a little bit of a challenge of, you know, while we were researching this episode, I was reading a book called the Gift of Struggle. And in the first chapter of the book, the author, Bobby Herrera, he relates this experience that gave him purpose at an early age.
[00:06:41] Bobby Herrera:
[00:06:41] When I was 17, my brother, Ed, and I, we were on a return trip home from a basketball game and on the way home, the team stopped for dinner. Everybody unloaded off the bus except for me and Ed. At that point in our family story, we didn't have the means to play sports and afford dinner. It's just the way life was for us and we were well beyond the embarrassment, part of a 13 kid tribe, and struggle had been the only consistent theme in our family's journey.
[00:07:15] So a few moments after the team unloaded, this gentleman steps on board the bus. One of the dad's to the other players. And he rattles me a little bit because Ed had outscored me that night. And then he said something to me that I will never ever forget. He said, "Bobby, it would make me very happy if you would allow me to buy you dinner so that you and Ed can join the rest of the team. Nobody else has to know. All you have to do to thank me is do the same thing for another great kid just like you on this bus."
[00:07:49] And I will never ever forget the wave of gratitude that I felt at that moment. 17 years old and I can't see three feet in front of my face. But when I stepped off that bus, although I didn't know what I was gonna do, I knew why. I was gonna somehow figure out a way to create a vehicle to pay forward that act of generosity that I got from Mr. Teeg.
[00:08:18] Hiromi: It's such a compelling story and so related to what we're talking about here so we reached out to Bobby Herrera who, today, is a CEO of a very successful HR firm. And he was nice enough to spend a little time with us.
[00:08:30] Bobby Herrera: Yeah. Pleasure meeting you guys. I appreciate you all having me on.
[00:08:34] Hiromi: Thanks, Bobby. I really did enjoy your book, um, Gift of Struggle. Struggle may be not be exactly the same as perseverance but you can't have one without the other. What does perseverance mean to you?
[00:08:47] Bobby Herrera: Yeah. It's a great question. You know, uh, I mean, beyond the technical definition, for me, I think it's more of a call to action that I will self assess and ask myself if this really matters to me, I must have the perseverance. I must have more grit than quit to get to where I need to go for whatever I'm trying to accomplish here.
[00:09:07] Hiromi: Yeah. I like that. More grit than quit. What has motivated you to have more grit than quit?
[00:09:13] Bobby Herrera: Yeah. Let's agree. You'd have to be crazy to wanna struggle but you'd had to be even crazier to think that it's not going to happen.
[00:09:21] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:22] Bobby Herrera: So over the years, I've embraced it and become a student of it and that moment on the bus that I unpack in that first chapter, it became something that overtime, gave me the hope that I've needed in those moments of despair when I'm like, "I don't know if I have it in me." It ultimately helped me have some north star that maybe I, too, some day could check the ultimate box and that ultimate box for me is will my story matter?
[00:09:51] Hiromi: Yeah. That is interesting. The idea that you survive and maybe even excelled after struggle gives you the hope that the next struggle is gonna afford that same opportunity. What circumstances are you finding that you still need that same quality? That you're referring back to maybe that bus experience or other experiences and using them to motivate you to persevere today.
[00:10:18] Bobby Herrera: I have a term that I use pretty frequently that goes back to my days in the army and it's called vuca and it stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
[00:10:30] Hiromi: Okay.
[00:10:31] Bobby Herrera: And at any point in time in our life, we're gonna have a certain amount of- of vuca. You know? Things that are volatile, things that are uncertain, things that are complex, and things that are ambiguous to us. And the way that I was taught in the military and through life dealing with a lot of situations is my responsibility is to slow the game down, not only for myself but for those around me that I'm serving and I'll always do my best to, okay. How can I slow the game down? What's most important? What else can I edit out of my life that isn't aligned to what's most important? In what order do I need to do it? And even more specifically, what can I control?
[00:11:16] Because we tend to consume our minds with a lot of things that are out of our control and that leads to disappointment. Right? Uh, so back to the heart of your question, Hiromi, 2022 is vuca like many business leaders have never seen. There's a talent war out there that is like nothing that we've ever experienced. There are challenges amongst the business landscape that we've never experienced and not to mention all the things that are happening socially that are impacting everything we do on the business landscape. And I've never done that before. So I've got to really look at how I can slow the game down for myself and for other people around me and looking to simply everything that I can so that I feel like I have some sense of a grip, not only on my life but on the story that I'm trying to narrate for my business.
[00:12:15] So any conversation I'm having with a member of my executive team, I am in intense editing and encouragement mode. And our responsibility to help people through their struggle so that they can persevere is to edit and simplify their life. More often than not, good intentions get in the way and the opposite happens. Right? You're either ratcheting up accountability or you're putting more on their plate and the last thing they need is more.
[00:12:46] Hiromi: Yeah. That's interesting that you seem to take responsibility to insulate your people from the vuca. Uh, I think a lot of folks do the opposite. They expect their employees to insulate them from the vuca. [laughs] But what- what do you suppose keeps people from taking on that role as leaders?
[00:13:07] Bobby Herrera: You know, I think the biggest contributor to the unrest that we have within business and on a social landscape is we tell ourselves a story and more often than not, we run a horror movie in our minds.
[00:13:23] Hiromi: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:13:23] Bobby Herrera: And so my responsibility from a leadership perspective is to slow it down enough to make sure that we're looking at the right elements of the story, editing out what isn't true and making sure we keep in what we can really focus on.
[00:13:40] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Bobby Herrera: Does that make sense?
[00:13:41] Hiromi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:13:43] Bobby Herrera: But it's super hard to do. It's exhausting.
[00:13:45] Hiromi: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:46] Bobby Herrera: Right?
[00:13:46] Hiromi: For sure.
[00:13:46] Bobby Herrera: It's easier to let that horror movie run. And, sure, there could be elements of that that are real. However, you know, this other inspirational story is also real.
[00:13:57] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:58] Bobby Herrera: And so is this and so is this. So sometimes, it's introducing elements of the story that are unintentionally not being considered so...
[00:14:06] Hiromi: Yeah. Can you think of a time when maybe you had a potential horror story [laughs] opportunity or a vuca situation? Some time when you- you thought, ah, this isn't gonna work out but you persevered and it- and it worked out?
[00:14:22] Bobby Herrera: Yeah. Uh, you know, in this bizarre chapter that we are rudely introduced to happened and everybody had to quarantine for the first time for COVID, I mean, in a period of a month, my organization took almost a 40 percent drop in revenue in a period of- of two months and-
[00:14:40] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:41] Bobby Herrera: You know, to watch something that you've been building for 18 years all of a sudden go into what you think is a G4 tailspin-
[00:14:48] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:48] Bobby Herrera: ... that is very unsettling.
[00:14:50] Hiromi: Yeah. [laughs]
[00:14:51] Bobby Herrera: Uh. And-
[00:14:51] Hiromi: That's a horror story.
[00:14:53] Bobby Herrera: Yes. Yeah. So I mean, it was a horror movie marathon.
[00:14:57] Hiromi: Yeah. [laughs]
[00:14:58] Bobby Herrera: And going back to managing the vuca, the very first thing I did was introduce that term to my team, introduced it to my community and ever since then, I have been a broken record. Let's manage the vuca. Manage the vuca. Manage the vuca. Manage the vuca. And I always consider myself blessed that that was a lesson that was imparted on me many, many years ago that I was able to tap into.
[00:15:23] Hiromi: Yeah. In the few minutes I've known you, uh, Bobby, you exude a- a calm about you that I'm sure is infectious among your team. Um.
[00:15:31] Bobby Herrera: Thank you.
[00:15:31] Hiromi: Maybe I could ask your advice on something. You know, marketers often engage in like, a consultant capacity so you're often given a specific goal to accomplish but you're not necessarily always afforded the opportunity to wholistically understand the big picture or to absorb the culture as you, you know, you talk a lot about culture in your book, of a company and that leads to maybe persevering in the wrong things sometimes.
[00:15:59] Bobby Herrera: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:00] Hiromi: So as a leader, how would you like a consulting partner to approach that challenge?
[00:16:07] Bobby Herrera: You know, when I engage the wisdom of someone external outside of my community, several things are important to me and what I'm asking myself is how well do they understand the story that I'm narrating? Do they understand what it took to get to where I'm at now? And do they understand the story now? But more importantly, do they understand the story that I wanna continue to narrate for the next five to 10 years? Right?
[00:16:30] So I want someone to approach me with a desire to understand every element of- of that story because ultimately, every entrepreneur, there's a summit that we imagine that looks and feels better than where we are today.
[00:16:45] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:46] Bobby Herrera: Right? So I want whoever I'm working with to understand what it took me to get to that point on the mountain but like, this is the peak that I'm going to.
[00:16:56] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:16:56] Bobby Herrera: And the reason I share that is it's really hard for you to help guide someone if you don't know where they are and if you don't know where they wanna go. Because the only way you can guide someone is to really tell them to kind truth and that is, you know, what they need to hear. Not what they wanna hear.
[00:17:16] Hiromi: Right.
[00:17:16] Bobby Herrera: And I appreciate someone that is incredibly persistent around making sure that I hear that kind truth and, quite frankly, tell me where I'm wrong. Right? But do it in a way that helps me understand what I'm doing that is preventing me from getting to that summit.
[00:17:38] Hiromi: Yeah. I like that. So before offering solutions, it behooves us to understand what is the summit we're trying to reach and then talk about how we're gonna get there.
[00:17:47] Bobby Herrera: Right. I mean, every- every business leaders... Not only are they writing a story and narrating story, but they're trying to guide their organization through some form of transformation.
[00:17:56] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:17:56] Bobby Herrera: And as a consultant, if you don't know what those two storylines are, you really can't help them.
[00:18:08] Garret: And I think my takeaway from this season is that this growth mindset is also, uh, fluid.
[00:18:15] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:16] Garret: Ladder climbing is expansion and is growth but eventually, you get to the top of that thing.
[00:18:21] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:21] Jaycen: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:22] Garret: You know? Sometimes growth is lateral. Just reflect on what Bobby Herrera was saying. He's all above removing, editing.
[00:18:30] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Garret: And that can foster growth. He made this comment about people don't need more added to their plate. Maybe they just need a little less and that allows them to grow. And so continuing to grow doesn't always mean, um, bigger and better. It means expanding, sometimes laterally, sometimes in reverse, uh, but just learning.
[00:18:54] Hiromi: That's super true. Right? We do have a tendency to think that we're persevering in progress. We wanna move forward. We don't wanna go back. And so that progress, moving forward means more.
[00:19:04] Garret: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:05] Hiromi: Bigger, better. All that. But I thought that was nice too what Bobby said about sometimes like, progress is removing.
[00:19:12] Garret: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:12] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:19:13] Garret: Yeah. Absolutely. Personally, this idea of just slowing it down. It was so refreshing.
[00:19:22] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:22] Garret: You know? Just take the time to understand, as he called it, the vuca. What's volatile? What's uncertain? What's complex? What's ambiguous? And just making sure that they're- they're actually focusing on the right things 'cause maybe the things we're focusing on aren't actually real. Like, this idea about we play a horror movie in our minds.
[00:19:41] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:19:41] Garret: Right? And it's-
[00:19:42] Hiromi: Yeah. That was powerful. Right?
[00:19:43] Garret: So true. This- this is the job of the leader or, in many cases, maybe even the job of the marketer when you're in front of the client. Slow it down. Talk about the aspirational story that's also true.
[00:19:55] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:19:56] Garret: Point that out and- and as a storyteller and as an agency who focuses on stories and narratives and that's our job, is to narrate that. But we need the understanding in order to do that. And so this persisting and persevering and understanding helps us to slow the game down, focus on what's true and amplify that narrative.
[00:20:19] Hiromi: Once you can control the narrative, it's- it's kind of amazing way you can draw inspiration. We spoke with an author and a marketer who told us that we can even be inspired by weeds.
[00:20:31] Jaycen:
[00:20:31] Maybe just to start, if you can just state your name, your role, maybe a little bit about your background for our listeners. That would be great.
[00:20:38] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. Uh, hi. My name is Stu Heinecke. I'm the author of a couple of books. One is How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed. That just came out June 1st. And How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, which has been around since 2016. It's really had a great impact out in the world of B2B sales so that's pretty cool.
[00:20:54] Jaycen: Tell us a little bit about your new book.
[00:20:56] Stu Heinecke: How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed. Here's where it came from. I was driving down the freeway many years ago in LA, the Santa Monica Freeway. And so there was six lanes of traffic going one way, six lanes of traffic coming the other way and about a 40 foot wide concrete median. Well, obv- obviously, it's all concrete and-
[00:21:12] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:21:12] Stu Heinecke: ... growing out of a crack in the concrete median was this dandelion. That's a site we see all the time. Right? I mean, you... It's so common. But this time, it- it really struck me. I just thought, look at what this thing is doing. You know? It found that crack somehow in- in a sea of impossibility, really, I mean, amidst roaring tires and concrete. It's no place for any place to take root but it found the crack that allowed it to reach down into the soil below and make a living and it was just... It looked happy there. Sort of bouncing around in the turbulence. Those happy yellow flowers.
[00:21:43] And it was just running a process and it was really cool to see it. And I thought, uh, just in that moment, just a fleeting moment of just going right by it. But I was just thinking, look at that. You know? It's- it doesn't look like it's depressed because it ended up in the middle of a freeway. It didn't. You know, it's not saying, "Well, this sucks." You know?
[00:22:01] Jaycen: Right.
[00:22:01] Stu Heinecke: I really saw myself as being at the beach. It wasn't doing any of those things-
[00:22:05] Jaycen: [laughs]
[00:22:05] Stu Heinecke: ... that we do that hamper our growth. So all it was doing was focusing on its process and running it and it was running it, um, just- just very aggressively. And the other thing that's interesting is it's a- there's a dandelion growing out of a crack and it's- we're used to seeing that but there were no apple trees growing out of the crack. There were no petunias or rose bushes because those plants, they don't have what it takes to be a weed.
[00:22:28] Every weed doesn't do anything without unfair advantages and so you see that in action in a lot of ways. What is that? You know, how do they find it versus like, why didn't a petunia find it? Well, its seeds are- are built to go and probe every possibility opportunity for growth. Isn't that how we should be in business? I think it is. And- and so there are all kinds of unfair advantages that weeds build into their existence and they're just- they're miracles.
[00:22:55] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:22:56] So we're talking about this idea of perseverance and we thought your- your new book, I believe there's a chapter there that actually uses that word.
[00:23:05] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:23:05] Jaycen: What role does that play, like, in a practical way for professionals? How do they take that same mindset and apply it into their day to day?
[00:23:16] Stu Heinecke: Well, I mean, so this is part of the weed mindset and I, really, what I wanted to figure out was do weeds have a unified model? And- and if they do, what is it and can we apply it to our businesses? So they do have one. And the model is that they leverage a fierce mindset and unfair advantages against collective scale. So within the weed mindset section, perseverance is there among optimism and aggression and urgency and adaptability and resilience. But what I figured out when I was writing that section of the book is that perseverance rarely is the throttle to our success.
[00:23:50] Hiromi: Yeah. That is really interesting, Stu. The- the metaphor of a weed is an interesting one too. You know, of course, I know you had a career as a- as a humorist for the Wall Street Journal as well. I'm- I'm admiring one of your cartoons here. It's got a- a salesman that's coming into the lobby of an office and there's a woman who is pointing a gun at him and so the salesman is saying, "Oh, in that case, is there a better time to stop by?" [laughs]
[00:24:14] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. Actually, the woman is an-
[00:24:15] Hiromi: Oh.
[00:24:15] Stu Heinecke: She's an assistant. [laughs]
[00:24:17] Hiromi: An assistant. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Is that something that you talk about in your book too? Is, uh, is there a difference there between persistence and pestering or, uh, annoying someone or-
[00:24:30] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. I would say the- the difference really is are you bringing value? You know, I was just talking about this earlier this week about the- the characteristics of an effective contact campaign and they're micro focused. Jason, you know all about this. You're- we're- we're-
[00:24:43] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:24:43] Stu Heinecke: ... fellow contact marketers. But it's- it's micro focused on a handful of people who can change the scale of everything. You wanna use audacity and creativity. The next one is you've gotta bring value. Always, always, always bring value. We know tha at lot of salespeople will say, "Hey, just checking in or I just wanna bump this up to the top of your inbox."
[00:25:02] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:25:03] Stu Heinecke: Really?
[00:25:03] Hiromi: Yeah. [laughs]
[00:25:04] Stu Heinecke: How is that of value to me? Find something new, some new insight, something, uh, something that helps them. And then finally, you have to have a compelling reason for meeting. And one of the most compelling reasons I could ever think of is that you're also someone who can change their scale as well.
[00:25:20] Hiromi: Yeah. So it's almost like, in order to know how to bring value, there needs to be like, a- a two-way form of communication. You have to be listening-
[00:25:26] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. But I mean, it could just be bringing insights. You can do a profile scrape, understand what they're talking about, what they're interested in and, hey, I think you might enjoy this article at Forbes 'cause it talks about exactly what you talked about last week in your post on LinkedIn. Something like that is- it's relevant as well. Relevance also is important. But it's- it's value. It's like, you know, you would say, you'd drop everything and say, "Oh, yeah. Look at that. Yeah. That's exactly what we were talking about."
[00:25:51] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:25:51] Jaycen: Totally. Where do you see the biggest challenge to people doing this? We know this stuff. Like, the need to persevere, the need to demonstrate value. But where's the challenge with people actually doing it? Especially maybe across sales, across marketing, organizationally. Anything come to mind?
[00:26:10] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. Well, I think, uh, weeds are one of nature's great disruptive forces. They're everywhere. I'm sure you can walk 10 feet outside of your house and see weeds all over the place. Uh, maybe not in your lawn. I don't know. Maybe.
[00:26:20] Jaycen: No. No. I have- I have weeds in my lawn.
[00:26:22] Stu Heinecke: They're everywhere.
[00:26:22] Jaycen: You're- you're talking my language. [laughs]
[00:26:24] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. And you're so... And- and, you know, if- if they aren't in your lawn, then you've been working really hard at it.
[00:26:29] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:26:30] Stu Heinecke: Or you- you're cutting them down and we see them come right back. They're one of nature's great disruptive forces but they also have developed all sorts of strategies to deal with that, which is a rich source for us to look to. As we're just coming out of a pandemic and now we're heading into recession. So-
[00:26:45] Jaycen: Right.
[00:26:46] Stu Heinecke: Um, so you might just- you might think about what- what are weeds doing? And so when we go out, if we see a clump of weeds and I guess we kinda get motivated to pull them out, but most of these weeds, if you pull on the top, they're segmented and you'll just get tiny bits of them and that's part of their strategy in action. They mitigate loss and risk of disruption. So how can we do that in our businesses?
[00:27:07] I interviewed someone for the book. Uh, Paul Harrison, who is an interesting guy. He's a franchisee. Franchises, it turns out, are probably the most weed-like structure in business because they're a collective and they're all contributing to a shared knowledge base. So when one rises, all of them rise and there's this strength in numbers just like there is in weeds. Uh, like, you see a dandelion in your lawn. Look up, you'll see hundreds of them. Right? So they never do anything alone.
[00:27:34] Jaycen: Yeah. I was thinking like, maybe even another example, especially maybe around even contact campaigns given that-
[00:27:41] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:27:42] Jaycen: ... you have expertise there and we're talking to a lot of, let's say, account based marketers or B2B marketers. They understand who their most valuable audience is, they've done all the homework, they're persisting in their efforts to reach them to have some level of engagement to get them to a conversation, to drive them to a meeting. Uh, what do you say to those folks that are continuously trying to demonstrate value to that audience but maybe they're not getting it reciprocated? Any examples of things that they can do or other strategies to help them to achieve that they're- they're looking to achieve?
[00:28:18] Stu Heinecke: Yeah. I mean, when I send a cartoon to someone-
[00:28:20] Jaycen: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:20] Stu Heinecke: ... I'm expecting to have the recipient say, "Oh my god. That's really cool. Wow." If they say to themselves, "I love the way this person thinks." They're gonna be saying, "I gotta be this person." So I'm always trying for a very strong impression and response right off the first contact. But that doesn't always work for people and so if these really are dream clients or dream prospects or they're assigned accounts, we share responsibility to break in and make something happen. So it- it is a matter of- of persevering but also, bring- always bringing some new value.
[00:28:55] And it'll take some of these people quite a few touches before they sort of awaken to the fact that you're a human being, you are reaching out, you're trying to help them, you're sending things that are helpful and you just gotta hang in there and know that the more you- you offer value, um, the more welcome you are becoming and- and you will break through.
[00:29:15] Jaycen: Yeah. I love that. Of showing that value is- is key in terms of persisting in a way in which we're not going to annoy the individual. We're actually bringing something that's going to be helpful and, therefore, having a passion because you have this belief helps you to persevere.
[00:29:31] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:29:31] Jaycen: Despite these challenges along the way. So-
[00:29:34] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:29:34] Jaycen: If we rally around what's that value point, it can help us in this effort of perseverance, not giving up and it kinda, I guess, goes back to the weed mindset too is like, their value is, hey, they wanna grow. They wanna- [laughs] they wanna propagate.
[00:29:50] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:29:50] Jaycen: Right? [laughs] They wanna-
[00:29:51] Stu Heinecke: Yeah.
[00:29:51] Jaycen: ... you know, spread- spread their territory.
[00:29:53] Yeah.
[00:29:53] Stu Heinecke: You know, the- I try not to talk too much about each weed because it's not a botany class.
[00:29:57] Hiromi: [laughs]
[00:29:57] Jaycen: [laughs]
[00:29:57] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:29:58] Stu Heinecke: I couldn't teach one anyway. But-
[00:30:00] Hiromi: Sure.
[00:30:00] Stu Heinecke: But, um, but we're all familiar with dandelions and they're tough because if you see, as I've mentioned before, if you see one, look up, you'll see hundreds of them. And what a great demonstration of the power of collective scale because if it was just one, you'd dispense with it really easily. But having hundreds of- of them out there and each one produces up to 15,000 seeds per plant over their lifetimes, that's not going away really easily. You know?
[00:30:25] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:25] Stu Heinecke: But there are other weeds out there that are just a plant from hell. So one of those is waterhemp. That's- that's invading farmland across North America right now. It's an annual. So the entire population dies off every year and its continuation of the species is derived from pumping out a lot of the seeds. So remember, I told you 15,000 seeds from dandelions? And that's over a five to 10 year lifespan. Well, these live one year and they produce up to 4.8 million seeds per plant.
[00:30:53] Hiromi: Wow.
[00:30:53] Stu Heinecke: These things are never going away. Because it's producing so many seeds and it's an annual, there's this greater and greater probability of having mutations that are useful mutations. So one of the amazing things this plant has done is because of that process, it has developed immunity to Round Up and 70 percent of all other herbicides by agriculture in just four years. And it grows faster than the crop plants do it steals the sunlight and it just dominates the field. And-
[00:31:21] Hiromi: Yeah.
[00:31:22] Stu Heinecke: Okay. That's a real pain for the farmers but what a great inspiration for us. We should be- be putting out a lot of seeds. Seeds are analogous to anything that causes people to become aware of us and form the intent to do something or transact with us in some way. They might follow us. They might do business with us. They might read our books. Whatever it is. We should be more like a waterhemp than maybe even a dandelion.
[00:31:42] And you see how these seeds are highly mobile. I mean, they end up in water gutters, on your roof. They'll end up in the darnedest places because they have to probe every possible opportunity to take root, which is every bit what an entrepreneur should be doing or they way they should be thinking.
[00:32:02] Jaycen: When we asked him about what role does perseverance play and how simply he put it, that's really the throttle to our success.
[00:32:10] Garret: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:11] Jaycen: So true. If we don't persevere, in many cases, like, there's no opportunity whatsoever.
[00:32:17] Garret: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:17] Jaycen: You know, it doesn't mean that we strive to pursue something that is pointless but having that account based mindset, we have to invest in ourselves, we have to invest in our team and we have to invest in our customer long term. You know? It's all critical to have any sort of success.
[00:32:37] Hiromi: Yeah. And it's clear that this mindset also affects our view of success itself. As we were talking to Gregory, it was clear that his perseverance had driven him to see the best in life despite having maybe more obstacles than most of us experience ourselves.
[00:32:53] Gregory Burns:
[00:32:53] Being a person with a disability, I think I've experienced a lot more positivity from others than negativity. I've met some bad people like everybody but I've met a lot of good people and had a lot of good showered upon me and, um, now I've got a debt to pay and I need to give back. So I think that's been my life more recently is I'm trying to make the best of what I have and continue to not necessarily break records but maintain what I have to a good degree of- of usefulness for myself and others and- and that means sometimes going without knowing all the answers. Keep walking, keep moving, take one step at a time. (TEDxSingapore 15:50) So in- in closing, embrace and celebrate those things that challenge you. We're all on this journey in different ways. I encourage you to embrace your challenges, be grateful for them, and also for the people that have supported you along the way.
[00:34:08] Garret:
[00:34:08] Every time Gregory, James, Bobby, even Stu in this business theory, ev- every time there's a challenge that could stop the process, it's basically an opportunity to grow. You know?
[00:34:22] Hiromi: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:22] Garret: That plays into the weeds, that plays into everything we've talked about with- with any one of our contributors in this season. Persevering is about growing. We grow beyond the challenge. We grow around the challenge. We grow away from the challenge. Whatever it is, it's about expansion and that expansion is not necessarily linear and it does not always happen in the same way throughout our whole life or through the life cycle of a project or whatever. It's just about expansion. Learn something new. Grow.
[00:34:57] Hiromi: Yeah. I feel like there was an underlying message that in order to persevere and move forward, you have to be willing to let go of the past and along with that past, may be a preconception of who you are as a person. Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth mentioned that if we have a preconceived notion of who we are, this idyllic view of ourselves, we will be less likely to take the risks or accept the challenges to persevere because it puts that view of ourselves in jeopardy. And that- that tied in all the way through to what Amber Bayou was talking about. The need to be vulnerable in the community.
[00:35:44] Garret: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:44] Hiromi: That that resonates with people. So that's something that gave me pause and something that I wanna work on myself.
[00:35:54] Jaycen: Yeah.
[00:35:54] Gregory's story is just so inspirational.
[00:35:56] He's continually looking for opportunities and room to grow and I think the other bit for me was like, the self awareness, which is somewhat challenging because there is a big unknown for each individual here. Right? Like, James said, "You're 5'4 and you're persevering. You're probably not making it to the NBA." Like, there's certain limitations. We- we [laughs] need to recognize that. But by the same token, do we know what we could do if we strive to reach something?
[00:36:22] Especially in the context of account based marketing. Level setting and getting this right early and understanding the potential of something, what's the value of this opportunity? We need to start first with this vision. Let's complete like, going all in and trying to get to where we wanna go. You know? And commit to that. Right?
[00:36:54] Garret: More grit than quit.
[00:36:54] Hiromi: Well, many thanks to Bobby Herrera and Stu Heinecke for sharing their insights with us this week. Visit reachabm.com for full interview transcripts and links to their books. And, of course, we can't thank Gregory Burns enough for spending all those late nights with me from Singapore. You're a good one, Greg. It was a pleasure meeting you.
[00:37:10] You know, when we asked Stu Heinecke, what separates perseverance from pestering? He mentioned the theme of our next series. We're gonna be exploring this mindset through the story of a pop musician who channels empathy to produce music that's relevant to modern audiences. What is relevance and how can it inform the success of our communications? We're gonna find out together next time on Reach.
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