Mastering the Digital Game of Business and Money with Ted McGrath

0:28Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? online and on stages, and then how to close from the stage, digital money, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ted and our sponsors. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

1:12Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you. Ted, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? I think as a successful person, the number one thing is to actually realize you don't know it all. It's easy to be a no best. I know this, I know that, I know that. And in today's world where technology and things are changing so fast, it's important to be able to change super quickly with things and really just have the attitude of like, I don't really know.

2:00Let me look and figure it out. Ted, today we're talking about mastering the digital game of business and money, things that you've already done. And I want to start the conversation with the power of storytelling. Tell us more. One of my passions about a decade ago was I was speaking on stages, telling my life story. And I decided, you know, I'd like to turn this into a one man stage play. So I decided to write a stage play on my life story and play, you know, about 12 to 15 different characters on the stage. And the whole idea was, um, I'd love to tell a story that was super raw and super vulnerable and super honest, um, where, you know, maybe in business and things like that, you get to get into your results and your successes, but you don't really get to go deep into the trials and the tribulations and the failures in the pit moment where you're down in the pit and the dragon's breathing down your throat, fires about to incinerate you, you know, like, what is that like?

3:01And I felt like in a 65 minute stage play, I could give it all to people, the ups and the downs. And then at the end, you know, send them away with a message, you know, the message of my life story, uh, the show is called good enough. And it's the messages, you know, you're good enough to live your dreams. Story is such a powerful word. I mean, there's a reason why history is his story, her story. We as humans, we resonate with stories. When we hear once upon a time, you kind of lean in a little bit. You're like, oh, a story is coming and you want to hear more. So I love the stories. It helps us connect, resonate, and so much value can be shared within a story.

3:42And I want to talk about speaking. You mentioned the stage, both online and live on stages. What do you want to share about that, about speaking both online and on stages? Number one, one of the keys to speaking and communicating is storytelling. And so, you know, part of speaking online or speaking in person is, yeah, you want to share content, but one of the best ways to get your point across on content is to share a story with it. and so, you know, when I was 22, I started speaking professionally when I was in the life insurance business, and I remember, you know, I got the opportunity to go do a seminar, and my boss was like, who wants to go do a seminar?

4:24I'm like, I'll do it, you know, and I was young enough and dumb enough and green enough to do it at that age, and I remember going to do it, and my third one, where I started to build up kind of a little bit of confidence, even though I was, like, so green and raw, I was like, okay, I've got this script memorized, I know exactly what to say. I'm going to, I'm going to nail this thing. And so I walked up in front of about 10 CPAs, like, you know, certified public accountants in a room. And I remember walking in and getting up on stage and going to deliver my talk. And about like two minutes into the talk, I went completely blank and like completely forgot my lines.

5:02And the more I tried to remember my lines, uh, the worst it got. And two beads of sweat just started like dripping down my forehead. And the more I tried to talk faster and gain my composure and like tried to think of the lines because I was scripted and had no idea what was coming next. Um, because I forgot it, uh, it just started pouring the sweat and I had this light blue shirt on and the sweat was started to drip down my shirt. And so I took off my black blazer and I took it out and put it down. And at the time of 22, I didn't wear any undershirts. And there's just like this light blue shirt and it's getting like coated in this sweat.

5:40And it, within like two minutes, I was almost waterlogged, man. And so I did the only smart move you could do at that time, which is I literally sat down in the front row with the audience and we're watching nobody on the freaking stage. And for 30 seconds, it was like, or 60 seconds, it was like an eternity of nobody saying a thing and just looking at me waterlogged and soaking wet. And so after 60 seconds, I was like, all right, I'm going to get back on the stage. And I walked back up on the stage and I finished the talk in a soaking wet shirt, deliver the worst talk ever period ever in the history of speaking.

6:21And, uh, the whole way home faked with my boss that I was like sick and there was something wrong with me. And at that point I was like, I'm never, ever going to get back up on a stage. Um, and it took me like a couple of weeks to then decide, you know what, I'm going to get back up on a stage. Let's set another seminar a month from now. And sure enough, I went and did another seminar and I drilled and I practiced and I drilled and I practiced and got up there and I, and I crushed it and I regained my confidence to do it. So, you know, the thing to tell you about speaking or storytelling online or in person is, uh, You know, you can bring, you know, lessons to life by talking about the tough moments and the successes really are a small part of it.

7:07It's like, what was the tough moment like? And the tough moment relates to people. And then the success is like, and then I went off and did this and got the result, you know? And I think that brings content to life. I think it brings video to life. I think it brings podcasts to life. I think it brings shows to life, storytelling. going. Fire Nation, if you weren't living in that story that Ted was sharing, I don't know what you were doing. Check your pulse because I mean, I was feeling the beads of sweat. I mean, I'm in a cool air conditioned room right now. I think I started sweating a little bit because I'm like, man, that is so embarrassing.

7:39And it actually did bring me back to my first ever public speech when I was at John Hancock, which was in financial services. And I had to give a speech about things that I was doing that were kind of working really well. So I kind of went up and I was very confident to give the talk because I was crushing it sales-wise. And I got up there and I looked at all my peers and I just went blank. And it was so bad. And we all have that. When you get on stage, there's always that moment of like during the headlights because you don't really know what it's like to speak in front of hundreds and hundreds of people.

8:10And now I've spoken in front of thousands and thousands of people at one time until you actually do it. It's just like, it's crazy. So such a powerful story. And I was there living that with Ted and it brought me back to my crazy moment as well. And we're going to be talking a lot more about these topics when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Online safety and security is more important than ever. And as business owners who market and promote online, we need to be hyper aware. Unfortunately, our personal information is being compiled by data brokers and sold online every single day. That's why I personally recommend DeleteMe, a subscription service that removes your personal information from hundreds of data brokers.

8:47What I appreciate about DeleteMe is how simple the process is all you have to do is sign up, provide Delete.me with exactly what info you want deleted, and their experts will get straight to work. Get personalized privacy reports and rest assured, Delete.me is always working for you. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, today get 20 % off your Delete.me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash EOFire and enter code EOFire at checkout.

9:24That's joindeleteme.com slash EOFire, code EOFire. Question for you, Fire Nation. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For me, mentorship was everything from when I was just getting started in podcasting, webinars, course creation, book writing, You name it, I hired a mentor to guide me every step of the way. For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level. It's a three-month program, and together we will achieve massive results. If you're interested in learning more, email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor, and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program to see if it's the right fit for you.

10:15That's john, J-O-H-N, at eofire.com, but only if you're prepared to ignite. So, Ted, we talked about the power of storytelling. We talked about speaking online, on stages, and the reality is this. If we're going to spend time speaking, getting on stage, traveling, we want to obviously deliver value and have a message and a mission to share within that. but we also want to generate revenue because hello, like we're living a life, like life is not free. So how do we close from the stage? What does that even mean? What does that look like? How do we do it? Stages first off to like define what a stage is to me, there's many forms of it.

10:53So it's like the one to many model, right? So for those of you want to ditch the one to one sales model and you're interested more in how to close five, 10, 50, or even a hundred people at once, that's what a stage is. And so the stages I grew up on initially were like in a seminar room, leading, you know, three day events or four day events at a time and then closing from the stage. And then also I grew up on getting booked on other people's stages and then closing in 90 minute presentations on their stage. And that was my world initially before, obviously, the internet became very popular. And then I was like, wow, I could actually, you know, go do a webinar presentation that's 60 minutes long and close people.

11:32I could do a live stream and close people. I could get booked on a podcast and close people for the next action, whether it's go take a free action or a free offer or what have you. I could go do a YouTube show today and I could close people on the next action that I want them to take. So closing is really how do you close people, many people at one time. And that's what a stage is, many people at one time. And the art of closing, it basically comes through the whole structure of a presentation. So when you're doing a presentation that's structured, you know, you want to obviously lead off with a headline that makes sense of what you're here to talk about today.

12:09And then it's important to get into the problem that somebody is facing, because if you were to try and sell somebody something without indicating to them what the problem is, then it would be a really tough thing to do. So you got to tell them, hey, you know, the challenge is maybe, you know, maybe you're you're you're chained to the one to one sales model and you're tired of being on the phone and you're tired of all the energy and the time that that sucks from you. And you're like, man, can I just get more customers at once? Well, stages would be great for you. Or maybe you're in a place and you're like, you know, I'm just like, I don't know that I could communicate and speak from a stage.

12:42I got stage fright. And the reality is, I mean, you communicate every single day, whether it's one-on-one to your spouse or one-on-one to a client or one-on-one to the door guy, you're always communicating. So a stage is really just communicating to many people at once. Or the problem might be that, um, you know, I've tried this before and I failed. And the reality is you probably didn't have one stage to focus on first, and you didn't have one presentation and you didn't have one offer that could convert and get you clients. So you notice what I just did there. It's like, I'm going into the problem and then also telling you the solution at the same time to kind of set up the content of what I would share in a presentation.

13:23And so if you're creating your own presentation, you would do the same thing. Headline, hit the problem real quick, get into the solution. And the beautiful thing about this is whether you have 60 minutes to do it, whether you have 10 minutes to do it in a presentation, You can do it fast or you can do it slowly, meaning you could go deep into the problem and solution or you could just boom, hit it, hit it, hit it. And you're done in 60 seconds, you know, and then people are ready for your content and what you have to say. So a great presentation is headline problem solution, just glossing over the solution and then get into the content.

13:57Here's three things I want to teach you today. And then inside those three things, you want to you want to drip little success stories of people who've done it, not just you. but little relatable success stories of people who've done it. And you drip those throughout as kind of matter of fact, Hey, David did X, Y, Z or Alex at X, Y, Z and you drip them. And then all of that then sets you up to make the offer. But like the whole presentation is really the close when you're, especially when you're doing a 60 to 90 minute presentation, because if you don't do the setup, right, then when you go to make the offer, you're going to bomb.

14:31And, and I, I, I remember being on a stage with somebody and I had gotten off and I just crushed it and closed a large percentage of the room. And then a peer of mine, a peer of mine got on the stage afterwards and they got up and they gave this amazing content, like amazing content. And he gets off the stage. He's like, yo dude, like that must've been the worst presentation ever. Like dude, like one person bought and there was a room full of like 150 and 50 people. Right. And I said, your presentation was amazing. It was incredible. And he says, well, how come nobody bought? And I said, dude, I said, when you make the first call to action, meaning like you're done with your presentation, you start to go into here's what I'm offering up to you.

15:14And you explain like you're going to get X, Y and Z. And all you said was like, if you want this, go back to the room, go to the back of the room. And that first call to action, meaning calling them into action to go to the back of the room and you say it once the people in the audience are turning around and they're like is he talking to me like you say at one time like is he talking to me they're literally looking at the people behind maybe it's maybe he's talking to the person behind me it's he's not talking to me right they don't know that you're talking to them they don't get it the first time and i go and even if you do it the second time and you go hey yeah yeah so like you i'm talking to you they turn around they look for their father or their maybe Maybe he's talking to my, maybe he's not talking to Ted McGrath.

15:53Maybe he's talking to my father, you know, so-and-so McGrath. They don't even know the second time. And I said, if you're really good and your intention's really good on the first and second, you might get the fast movers, which is 10 % of the room. But if you do it right, man, you can get 40, 50, 60 % of the room. And I said, so the key to the close is many, many, many calls to action and varying those call to actions in different ways. and an example of varying might be I make the second call to action, which is pretty direct because I've earned that right. The first and the second, because it's like the whole presentation, I gave great content.

16:32I told my life story in the beginning, and that's a very important part. And so when you get to the end, um, you can do the first and the second. Um, and you can really like dive into the first and the second and be very direct because you earned that you gave him great content. You gave him a great story and, and you crushed it. Right. So it's like, great. So go to the back of the room. Then the second hold action, like, yeah, like I'm actually talking to you. So if you're thinking, sitting in the audience said like, this isn't for you, like whether you're this person, this person brand new, whether you're this, whether you're that, whether you're that, and you go through all the types of people, this is definitely for you.

17:05You should stand up and go to the back of the room. So now you've got the direct call to actions there. And so at that point to, to kind of hit them over the head again, a third and a fourth time doesn't really make sense. So there you would drop and you go, let me tell you about Alex and you drop in and you tell a story. And in the storytelling of the closing, in the stories, you're then handling the objections that people would have. So you tell a story about Alex who had fear. Then you tell a story about David who couldn't find the money. Then you tell a story about so-and-so who had to think about it.

17:34And through the storytelling, which is soft selling and story selling, you get the rest of the room to move. Make sense? Makes sense to me, Ted. I think Fire Nation is nodding along as well. I mean, the reality is this. We talked a lot today about storytelling. We talked about speaking both online and on stages. You and I actually both shared a personal story. And then we talked about what's something that a lot of people can't do, which is close correctly from stage. Because listen, revenue is lifeblood. And if you're not able to close, then you're going to be able to keep doing what you want to do.

18:07So if Fire Nation would walk away from our chat today with just one takeaway, just one value bomb, what would that be? The value bomb on closing would be that you have to make multiple calls to action to get the highest closing percentage possible. And one is not enough. And if you're in a seminar room, the value bomb is you can keep going until you move the whole room because you can see them. Okay. So when I'm in a seminar room, I can see and I'm getting people to stand. So I I know I've got 10%, 20%, 30%. So I can keep working it till I get the great majority of the room moving. So that's the first.

18:52It's always multiple calls to action. And even if you're online, same thing. You can just imagine that you got to work to get people to move. So you should have multiple calls to action. And the value bomb is simple. Couple that are direct, hey, go click on the link, go sign up. And then a couple that are story-based that handle the objections within the storytelling. And then when you do that, At the end, another direct last chance call to action, and you'll get the majority of the room to move. Ted, we've talked about a lot today, and you have a lot going on. If Fire Nation wanted to connect with you, wanted to learn more from you, what is your call to action for our listeners today?

19:30They can just go to at Ted McGrath Show on YouTube. And on there, I've started to create a lot of content on there. And you'll start to see a lot of content that's in the area of the one-to-many stage model. Um, and you'll start to learn, um, on that show where I'm talking about closing multiple people at once, five, 10, 50 people at once through stages. And so if you have an interest to, uh, close through the one to many model, which I call stages, um, whether you want to do it in person or whether you want to do it virtually online, uh, you'll love the content on that show. and I'll be sharing deep dive content that has to do with storytelling, that has to do with the correct presentation, that has to do with making the close.

20:21And those are the fundamentals you'll need to really get in this game and start winning. So at Ted McGrath Show, you can go there on YouTube and then you can just subscribe and you can start getting some of my content that I'll be producing in this area. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, You've been hanging out with TM and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything that we've talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Ted in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop right up. He was actually on the show back on April 26, 2015 as well.

20:53So if you want to listen to that episode. Oh, my God. Ten years ago, brother. I wonder what we were talking about then. Well done on you, your consistency of doing this. I know this has become a top podcast. Way to kick butt. They're amazing. Seriously. Incredible. Yeah, we started rocking in 2012. We still haven't stopped. And Ted, thank you for sharing your truth, brother, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Ted for sponsoring today's episode.

21:24And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The common path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me.

22:01Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level. Email me at john at EOfire.com with a subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you.