Generating leads can be difficult in a saturated market. So, how do you stand out?
By remembering the most important R in sales: relationships.
Building those relationships is no easy task, but there are plenty of community-building techniques you can put into practice. With intentional, proactive outreach, LinkedIn has a huge potential to become the place where you make those authentic connections.
On this episode of Evolved Sales LIVE, host Jonathan Fischer sits down with Larry Long Jr., a highly sought after motivational speaker and sales trainer, to explore more meaningful ways you can create real community on LinkedIn in order to build your business.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more engaging sales insights and discussions! Happy watching!
Meet Larry:
Larry Long Jr. is the CEO (Chief Energy Officer) of LLJR Enterprises, a former baseball star, an executive sales trainer, a podcast host, and a motivational speaker. He's helped many prominent corporations succeed and has been named as a top influencer on Salesforce for years now.
In his top-rated book Jolt! Get Zapped into Intentionality: Rediscover and Believe in Your Inner Greatness, Larry offers advice on how to get unstuck in business and life so that executives can unlock their talents and grow professionally and personally.
Check out the transcription of this webinar episode below!
[00:00:00] Jonathan Fischer: Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. I'm Jonathan Fisher. Well, with 900 million users, if you're in business, you're probably on LinkedIn. But are you maximizing its potential? Well, today's guest thinks you might not be. There might be some hidden potential still to be maximized for your business and professional success we're honored to have with us today, Mr.
Larry Long, Jr. Larry is a former baseball star executive sales trainer, podcast host, and highly sought after motivational speaker. He created the midweek motivational minute and authored the Amazon top rated book jolt. Get zapped into intentionality, rediscover and believe in your inner greatness. He's had many prominent corporations as clients and he is been recognized as a Salesforce top influencer for multiple years running.
Larry believes there's a huge missed opportunity for most professionals when it comes to LinkedIn and will be sharing with us more meaningful and profitable ways you can actually create community on the platform. Larry Long, jr. Welcome to the Evolve Sales Leader. Great to have you.
[00:01:05] Larry J Long Jr: I am just messing.
Gotta keep you on your toes. Is my microphone on? Can you hear me now? Happy to be here. Fantastic Friday, Jonathan. Thank you for that kind intro.
[00:01:15] Jonathan Fischer: Oh, man I love your background. I love the energy that you bring, and I love your favorite title, which is Chief Energy Officer, c e o. I mean, there's all kinds of motivational speakers out there on the circuit, but I don't know, I haven't met many like you, Larry.
You're bringing unique energy, so we're excited to have you on the program today.
[00:01:33] Larry J Long Jr: Oh man. I'm super happy to be here. Honored, privileged, and truly blessed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm ready to rock and roll and chop, chop it up and chat it up. Right
[00:01:45] Jonathan Fischer: on, right on. Well, you know, there, there's a lot of conversation about how best to use LinkedIn.
This is not the first time we've covered that topic on the show. But generally speaking, that is all around how to. Generate leads, get some interest into your business, your product or service offering. And today you've got a little different angle on us. It's more about of a community angle. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit more about that.
Do you feel like there's a need for community? What offline and online? Just in general, is there maybe something that's you know, there's, there, there may be some some of the lasting impacts of some unfortunate events that we all went through over the last couple of years. What are your thoughts on that, Larry?
[00:02:23] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah, Jonathan, I believe it's really about true relationships. I heard from a sales guru who shared with me, Hey, my 30 years of selling, what I learned is the difference between contacts, people that I know and contracts people I do business with. It's the letter R. That letter R stands for relationships, and I love it and I agree with it.
I believe in it, really the, the success that I've had. Has been due to relationships and there's a saying, you can help me out here. It's not what you know, but it's who, who you know. In my Steve Harvey Family Feud voice survey says. Nah, I'm sorry to burst your bubble. It's not what you know, and it's not even who you know.
It's who knows you, who trusts you, who believes in you, that really makes things happen. So I like to ask people, what are you doing to make sure people know you? They like you. They trust you and they believe in you. And LinkedIn is such a fantastic platform for me. It's such a fantastic playground to be known, like, trusted, and believed in.
[00:03:36] Jonathan Fischer: Yeah, it really is. I. Well, I, we've done a good tee-up for the topic we wanna discuss today, but I'd love it if you share even a little bit more about your own personal background for the listener. Some of our folks may not be as well familiar with you. You've got a really unique pathway into this corporate trainer, motivational speaker, author space that you're inhabiting so well at the moment.
Give us a little bit more about your history, if you would, leading up to today.
[00:03:59] Larry J Long Jr: Wow. I appreciate it. Jonathan moved around a lot as a youngster. Lived in Alabama, Illinois, Nebraska, Pennsylvania. I grew up in va, veterans administration's medical centers for my father and my mother's job. I played baseball at University of Maryland.
In the bat, go TURPs, thought I was gonna be a professional baseball player. But the La Dodgers, the Boston Red Sox in 2001, they had different plans. They said, thank you for coming out. God bless you and goodnight. Don't let the door hit you. Where the Good Lord's fletching, they chucked up the deuces. So I spent some time doing it consulting with Accenture.
I was there for three years. Great experience, but it wasn't my passion. So I moved from dc, Maryland, Virginia, to D M B, down the good old Raleigh Wood North Acky to open an indoor baseball and softball academy. Woo. Where that was my dream job teaching youngsters the fundamentals of the game. Baseball and softball, the fundamentals of life capital, f u n fundamentals.
But we ran outta cash. When you got more money going out the back door than you have coming in the front door, that's a problem. So I had to go out and find a job, and the first job I could find, they hired athletes, was making 150 cold calls, picking up that 500 pound phone, making 150 cold calls every day to accounting firms, CPAs, certified.
Public accountants, oh, I can barely count. So you can imagine how big of a challenge that was. But I have opportunities and experience in software sales, software sales leadership, which led me to now being able to serve software sales reps. Leaders, entrepreneurs, startup founders, really elevating taking their game to the next level with my infectious energy, giving them a jolt so they get back on track to finding and believing in their inner greatness.
[00:05:51] Jonathan Fischer: I love it. Well, giving 'em a jolt is what a lot of us need. We can get into a rutt and it's funny how it takes that third party to maybe speak into what we got going on and give us a fresh pair of eyes to see. And I wanna do that today. We're all, I mean, we're on LinkedIn every single day. I'm literally on LinkedIn every day, but one every week, six days outta the week.
And it's kind of the forest for the trees things. I'm not really getting this whole thing about creating community there. I'll be honest with you, but I love the sound of it. Would you help us out with that? What is it, first of all, what's the difference between just your conventional networking there on the platform and what you would see as more building community?
[00:06:26] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah, so for me, building community is about your actions and what you're doing to serve other people. There's a great, great quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. Life's most. Persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing? The keyword there is doing to help others. So I ask myself every day, Hey Larry, what are you going to do today to serve someone else?
And then at the end of the day, if I can answer that, and the answer is yes, that's a meaningful day. That means I'm living a fulfilled and meaningful life. LinkedIn provides that. In-person meetings provide that. I had a coffee meeting and a lunch meeting earlier today and LinkedIn provides that to 300 million plus people.
So for me it's really about those one-to-one interpersonal connections. I hear it all the time. People saying, ah people connect and pitch. Ah, people pitch slap me. Hey, do you boo boo? For me, it's about getting to know people, getting to find out how can I serve you? Actually, not waiting for them to share with me how I can serve them, but actually being proactive, being intentional, and thinking about, Hey, how can I serve Jonathan?
I know who Jonathan serves. I know what he's looking for. I can imagine and guesstimate who he is looking for. Maybe I can make a warm connection for Jonathan with Jennifer. Maybe I can connect Jonathan with Kristen. Jonathan, with Joe, Jonathan, with John. It's all about I. Giving to others. Serving others.
That's how you build community from my perspective. I know that well, there's a saying, I don't know who it's who it goes by, but people will forget what you said. They'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. So here goes the secret. That's not even a secret.
When was the last time you Yes. You, not you, Jonathan, but your listeners and viewers sent a video message on LinkedIn. Don't you think someone would enjoy seeing your smiling face, hearing a customized, personalized, tailored message for them that was heartfelt and thought out? Don't you think that they might feel good to see you with your blue blocker glasses on?
Just enjoying yourself? What was the last time you did that? Hey, if you got the face for radio like me, when was the last time you sent an audio message? You sent a funny gif to make someone feel good about themselves. You can do that each and every day. And for me, that's my secret sauce.
[00:08:55] Jonathan Fischer: Well, I love that.
And you know, obviously there's some self-interest in standing out and getting some attention that way, but the angle that you sound like you're putting, put, putting on this is, it's really, there's really truly more of an altruistic kind of energy behind that. I don't think people in business frequently have that.
I think generally, It feels like they're giving to get what are the pros and cons? And maybe you could riff on that thought just a little bit. Giving to get versus just being a servant to people that you're interacting with.
[00:09:22] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah. GI giving to give and people can smell BSS from a mile away, and it stinks.
So they can tell when you're giving because you wanna receive something. And they can also tell when you're genuinely giving from the bottom of your heart. So if you don't really care about people, You're not a go-giver. Yes, thank you Bob Berg. If you're not a go-giver, then don't try to perpetrate it.
That's the worst. That's when you try to fit into a, into someone else's steelo, their style. It, it just, it's sour. But if you truly do care about people, if. Why not show him? There's a great philosopher rapper named mystical. Show me what you're working with. Yeah. My, my mom and I actually think, oh.
Who was the quote? I can't remember who attributed, but my mom used to say, Larry, your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying. And that's so true. My wife said, I, my wife says, I hear you tell me you love me, but my love language is doing the dishes. Go ahead and show me how much you love me.
So, so many times people say they care about people. Employers say that they care about their people. But I just have one question. What did you do to show it? What actions, tangible actions did you take to actually show it? And I got a couple, I'm not wearing sleeves, but I got a couple tricks up my sleeves that your listeners can employ right now that'll set them.
It's game changers. The thing is, and I'm gonna keep it real, is that most people don't do. I won't even call it the tough stuff. They just don't do it because it's just easier to keep doing what I've been doing to kind of coast through life. You're telling me, Larry, I have to be intentional and I have to be mindful and thoughtful and deliberate.
Yes, I am. If you expect to be at the top of your game.
[00:11:10] Jonathan Fischer: Hmm. Man, that's good stuff. I mean, we, there's too much going on up here for most of us. Right. And there's this whole culture, you know, leaders are readers and we're all always taking in information, but, and it's weird because you get a little bit of a serotonin kick when you've taken an info that makes you think you've done something.
I. But you've not, I, that's what I'm hearing from you. You're reminding me and my listeners that now you actually gotta do something before you've done something. Right. I like that. That's really powerful. So
[00:11:38] Larry J Long Jr: talk to us about this quick, and I know this is your show, but I'm, I'm gonna take the microphone back.
Yeah, man. I love it when people have both a growth mindset and. An action mindset. And I just talked about this on my live show that I just got back from this conference in Orlando with 1100 plus professional speakers. I took rigorous furious notes, which is good, but I didn't come this far just to come this far.
I wanna be great. I. So now I'm challenging myself. Larry, what were the top 10 things that you learned and what are the top 10 actions that you want to take? Let's narrow it down to the top three, and let's start with number one that you're committed to taking and implementing and actually doing.
Sorry, Siri didn't get it. Most people don't get it, but I get it that I need to really be deliberate. Thoughtful, mindful, and I need accountability partners to support me along the way. Hercules. Hercules, I just met with my coach for lunch, so I don't know if you can tell, but I'm super excited to get started with taking action and applying those learnings so that I can be on my way to having even greater impact.
[00:12:48] Jonathan Fischer: I love that. So you talked about some tricks up your sleeves. I'm ready. Let's hear, let's hear some of those things we can do to stand out and start serving folks on LinkedIn.
[00:12:57] Larry J Long Jr: This is a game changer. I know my shirt might say hashtag sales love, but we're talking about hashtag three minute challenge and my wife told me You need to come up with a better name.
But I love that name. If anyone has any ideas, I'm open. But essentially, most people say, Larry, I don't have time. I don't have time. If you don't have three minutes in your day, we've got bigger fish. We, Houston, we've got bigger problems to solve. Everyone's got three minutes. So what I want you to do is to go into your Rolodex.
I'm looking at some of your viewers. They're they're youngsters. They're like Rolodex. Is that the fancy watch? Nah, that's a rol Rolex. But close enough. Go into your contact list in your phone, and I want you to take three minutes to find one person, someone that you haven't talked to, haven't communicated with in three weeks.
Three months, maybe even three years. And all I want you to do is think through. How can you surprise and delight 'em? Essentially, if I wasn't to surprise and delight you, Jonathan, I would go to my best friend Google, and I would do a search for the Ohio State. Funny gif, funny meme. It'll probably have I think his name is Buster, playing the Drum.
All crazy. I'm gonna send it to you and I'm gonna say, Hey, Jonathan, on this fantastic Friday. I was thinking about you. Wishing you a wonderful weekend. I hope you and your family are doing great. All the best. That took me three minutes. I didn't ask you for anything. I'm not expecting anything in return.
I'm just hoping a surprise to light and bring a smile to your face to know that, Hey, somebody's thinking about me today. Think about if you got that. Jonathan, how would that make you feel? I should be a lawyer because I already know the answer to it, which is why I'm an overachiever. I do the hashtag 15 minute challenge each and every day.
I send voice messages. I send funny, crazy gifs. I send audio messages. I mean, a video message. Imagine getting a video message from this ugly mug. Come on, cle this. If this face doesn't make you smile, then you don't have a post. We gotta wake your behind up. It makes a world of difference in people's lives, and they tell me that.
So I'm gonna keep going, not because I want anything in return, but I want to serve people and I'm putting my money. Imagine this, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Yeah. It can't stop, won't stop the microphones. They just yeah. I'm breaking mics over here. I mean, I dropped the mic. Come on, Cleta.
[00:15:25] Jonathan Fischer: I love it. I was wondering earlier if those are like different flavors or something. I don't the, yeah. So that's that whole notion of taking the time and being intentional on a regular basis, by the way, to the listener, I want to I wanna shout out to my guest, literally after our pre-call for this.
Immediately started connecting me to people on LinkedIn in a way that I've never had anybody do, and I've had some people do me favors, but it just altruistically connected me to folks along the lines of some personal goals I have professionally. So, Larry is the real deal. Alright, so I love it.
There's three minutes. Someone you haven't talked, you've spoken to in, you know, three weeks, three months, or three years. Surprise and delight 'em. Give us another one.
[00:16:04] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah. Oh, goodness gracious. Here goes one right here. And this, I believe that it starts with you. Leadership starts with you. I try to do this every quarter.
I'm not religious with it, but I try. I call this my priorities exercise. So we've all got balls that we juggle. When you look at your priorities, faith or spirituality? Family, friends, fun. Fitness, your health is your wealth, finances, philanthropy. I know that's not an F, but I spell phonetically and phonetically and career.
How do you prioritize them? I can tell you that my priorities were different five years ago than they are now. Then I look at how am I doing, honestly, what grade would I give myself now on my top three, those that are most important, what am I committed to doing to up level? If I'm a six, what can I do to step it up to an eight?
I can't be a seven. Seven is that safe zone. Even though that was my baseball number, no seven's allowed. I'm challenging you and myself. You're either a six or you're an eight, but what can you do to uplevel once you commit to that one action? To uplevel, I encourage you to break the brain. Figure out, what can you do to step it up even more?
I'll give you an example. My daughter, she said I was a six outta 10 as a daddy. Ooh, dagger in the heart. I said, little Lucia. Little Lulu girl. Why? She said, you come to my gymnastics dad, and they're on the first floor. Parents are on the second floor. She said, I look up at you and you're looking down, but you're not looking down at me.
Oh. Houston, we have a big problem. So I made a commitment to leave my phone in the car. I'm gonna be honest with you, I was going through withdrawals. I don't know if it's just me, but I was looking at my phone. I was out outer rains. I couldn't get my messages, but I was looking down at my baby girl, giving her two thumbs up.
But I said, there's gotta be a compromise. So essentially I bring my phone. She doesn't do gymnastics anymore, but I brought in my phone and I popped in my little earbuds. Now I can listen to my podcast. I can listen to my tunes while still keeping my eyes on little Lulu Girl. Now, I wanted to break the break.
The brain. Ooh, my brain is already broken. I said, how can I take it to the next level? Well, I'm a professional speaker. We all have these recording devices. I'm now recording and I'm giving commentary. Hey, little Lulu girl, when you ran and you jumped, I love it. Everyone else was doing the tuck position.
You were doing straight legs. You're a rebel with a cause. That's my girl. I would play it for her in the car. Trying to step my game up when it comes to my family, when it comes to me as a father. So I encourage people look for those areas that not only can you up level, but you're committed to upleveling because when you're at your best, Sorry about that.
Siri, when you're at your best, you can now your cup overfloweth, where you can come from an abundance mindset and serve others. We're talking about community and some people are like, what do. If you haven't served yourself, I, it's nothing's impossible, but that's very tough to do if you're pouring from an empty cup.
How are you gonna fill someone else's cup? So I encourage you, fill your cup, prioritize yourself in the spirit of you being able to serve others at your best. That's Community Building 1 0 1, right there.
[00:19:27] Jonathan Fischer: Man I love what you're saying. A lot of it's just more about the energy and the attitude we're bringing to it and leading to some actions that convey that, like the networking thing is, so, it's like going to a mixer and it's fine.
You know what it's for you're talking about intentionality that really is gonna kick it up a level. And I, of course, the you're getting my head spinning here because all kinds of other factors come into play. When someone does something for me, what do I wanna do? I wanna do something for them too.
And now it's all this spirit of serving one another and hey, What is community, but that Right. Being together, serving one another. Like I live in a nice neighborhood, we look out for each other, folks are on a trip, we'll kind of keep an extra eye on the house, stuff like that. And I love it. So the other thing I'm thinking too is if I'm a, a as an executive, whether the founder, whether the whether you're a manager of a team M maybe have the chutzpah to ask them to rate me as a leader.
That would probably be pretty challenging. And then listen to the answer and make some changes. Leaders are always rating their people. Why don't we reverse that and see what the result could be? I love it. All right, so this is some solid goal. Let's keep on this role, brother. What else you got?
What are some other tricks up that sleeve of yours?
[00:20:31] Larry J Long Jr: Man, they're not even tricks. I'm gonna be honest with you. We're gonna go back to basics. I don't know about you, but before I buy something on Amazon, eBay, go to a new restaurant, I try to check out the reviews. I think they call that social proof.
Third party feedback and reviews. Yeah. Well, on LinkedIn there's a, a. Section that has recommendations. So if you are serving people, if you do care for people, why not have other people vouch for you? I think I'm at 240 reviews. Someone will have to check fact check me. But I think I have 240 reviews and there's a theme that you see through there that imagine this, it's probably a surprise.
It talks about my energy, it talks about my give a dang factor that I actually. Care about people, and I care about people, not just talk is cheap, but I'm serving people. I'm actually doing that. So I encourage folks to leverage the power of your community to rally behind you beside you. Along this journey we call life and vice versa.
When was the last time that you unsolicited sent a LinkedIn recommendation to someone letting the world know? Just how amazing they are. Jonathan, from the moment that we connected and the moment that we chatted, we had so much in common. It wasn't just the lawn mowing me with lawns by Larry and you with your lawn mowing conglomerate, your enterprise, but we had that connection that you're a giver, you care about people, the company that you keep.
I'm so happy to be a part of your universe, a part of your community. What are we doing to support that? Even more. Even more, not just keeping it to ourself, but how can I shout you out to, to Kristen over here, which that's my coach, and you came up. Your ears must have been ringing because you came up during our lunch conversation.
Who else can I connect you to proactively to throw you a bone to help you not expecting anything in return? It's amazing that when you just give. And serve and give with no expectation. This is just my experience. 93% of my business hey Larry, show me the receipts. 93% of my business last year came from LinkedIn.
Inbound referrals, connections, people that consume my content, that's not a mistake. Yeah. That's, there's something there. And I'm not a huge business, but 93% think about it.
[00:23:03] Jonathan Fischer: Powerful. That's powerful. Well, Larry the biggest thing I think with a lot of our listenership is gonna be, ironically, what we already talked about at the front end of this whole thing, and that is having an action orientation.
So what could we say now to help our listener take action? Not just personally, but a lot of our listenership is gonna be leaders with teams. How can they activate their team members to get out and start to put some of this stuff? Practice.
[00:23:30] Larry J Long Jr: I love it. It starts with you. What are you activating and are you sharing that with your team?
Because essentially for you to tell me what to do, it, it's not my, my parents tried that when I was younger because we said so, well, I'm watching you mom and dad, that don't work no more. So for leaders, what are you doing to activate? What was the last book that you read? What did you apply from what you learned?
What was the last training that you went to? And now I can learn from watching you. Your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying. Now. Once you lead yourself, now you as the coach, as the leader, you have an opportunity to guide to pretty much support, to lead, truly lead, not just be one of those leaders of.
Spreadsheets. I'm looking at the spread. No. A leader of people. You gotta get to know your people. Are you asking your people questions outside of the four walls of business? Do you know anything about their pets, about their children, about their upbringing, about their goals? Do you have your reps put together a business plan that's not just internal to the company?
But also external. I'll give you an example. My man, cam Cameron Pelletier, he was one of my lead gen B D R reps at Channel Advisor. He's now a physical therapist. Way to go, cam, and I knew he wanted to be a physical therapist because it was outlined in his business plan. People say, well, what's the template?
It's your business. You put together the business plan. Where are you going? How do you plan on getting there? What support do you need and how can I help? My job as a leader is to read through that business plan and think about how can I help serve and support you with your goals, your personal goals, your professional goals, and those goals don't have to be within the organization.
I think sometimes we get selfish and we don't look at people. As people, you're an individual, Jonathan, you have individual things that you wanna accomplish. How can I help serve you while also with the time that we have together also serve the organization? But let's keep it real. I don't know about y'all, but very rarely do I see people stay at companies.
Five years, 10 years, 15 years, I think they say these pros ain't loyal. So I encourage people to make sure you get yours. And as leaders, you gotta help your reps get what they want. Why are you here in this organization? What are you hoping to get out of it? What are you hoping to learn? What skills are you hoping to develop?
What people are you hoping to meet? And how can I help you serving you while I also serve the organization? And I also serve. Myself. So I encourage people to go. I mean, I said this earlier, there's so many people out there noodling, and yeah, some people are like, what does that mean? You're noodling right now.
You've been noodling on opening up that restaurant. You've been noodling on leaving corporate America and rocking the mic full-time, like Larry Long Jr. Stop noodling and let's go. That means that you gotta take action. Right now and, and I'm speaking from experience when I get scared, when I haven't done something before, there's fud, not Elmer fud, but fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
I procrastinate. I just, I get frozen, let it go. Let it go. I get frozen. And with my coach, we determine that. Hey, Larry, on your mark. Get set, go right now. Massive action. Let's go. We're going to either, we're gonna either win or we're gonna learn. We're gonna either have great success or fail you. We're gonna learn from it.
We're gonna rejigger, reconfigure, and figure this thing out. Fifth bow, figure the freak out. So that's, I threw a lot out there for the leaders that are out there with teams. I encourage you right now, the most important thing you can do. Is, build your community, build those relationships with your reps, and then help them build their community.
Maybe you can bring them into your leadership community. Maybe you should make some connections once you know what they're trying to accomplish. Maybe you can get into their community and add value. Imagine that. Mind blown. I wrote a chapter, co-authored a book. My chapter was called The Little Things Are Really The Big Things I wanted to say.
The Little Things are Really The big things, but they said, nah, if you wanna talk like that Larry, you gotta write your own book. I said, okay, watch me. Full hilarious hss. Not grammatically correct, but hey, it made me feel good, so I. My, my leader, my, my mentor, mark Winchester, the little things that he would do from sending audio messages.
Hey, team, I'm stuck in the bunker, but I'm thinking about y'all. I know y'all are working hard. The little things. He wrote a, he wrote a handwritten note to my wife when he joined as our boss. That said, behind every good man is a great woman. Thank you, Maria, for allowing Larry to spend his time away from you and the family to work for us.
We appreciate you. When was the last time your significant other got a letter from the boss? As the boss? When was the last time you wrote a handwritten note to any of your reps, any of your employees, any of your colleagues? Those little things mean so much. We went to the Great Wolf Lodge. He called ahead, left a hundred dollars gift card.
The money was awesome, but it was the thought that he would call ahead and help my family have Great Wolf Lodge. Woo has that great Wolf Lodge. It ain't the cheapest. He certainly supported us when my father passed away. I had lunch with Mark the day before. When I shared with him he offered condolences.
He drove from North Carolina to Maryland. A day trip to be there for the wake. He didn't tell me he was gonna be there. He wasn't looking for recognition. I had to do a double take. I said, is that, is that Martin? Nah, it can't be. He came from North Carolina to be there at one of the darkest times of my life.
That's something I'll never forget. Never, ever forget. What are you doing in your folks' lives to make sure that they know that you love them, you care about 'em, and you support 'em. Your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying.
[00:29:32] Jonathan Fischer: Man that you've been dropping some solid gold today. Larry Long you open door on the Evolve sales leader.
We'll have you back anytime. Definitely I've got my jolt, but I don't know if I'm done. I'm gonna have to pick up your book and I wanna encourage the listener to do the same. It definitely, it has almost a five star rating on Amazon. Fantastic book Jolt. By Larry Long, Jr. Pretty easy to find. The easiest, best way to find it, probably Larry, would be to have folks go to to your website, right?
Then they can learn a little bit more about you and see a little bit more about what you're doing out and about to serve communities and get a link to the book there and perhaps invite you to come bring some of that. I. Energy, Mr. C e o of Chief Energy Officer to your next corporate or sales training event or what have you.
Anything you'd add to that, anything else that listener could do to go further with what you have
[00:30:20] Larry J Long Jr: to offer, what, whatever I can do to support you, please don't hesitate to reach out. I really am an open book, open Arms. I'm here to serve impact. Over income, and that's where I get energy. I've been Jonathan.
I've been so fortunate and blessed throughout my career, throughout my 45 years of life, with family, with friends, with coaches, with teachers, with colleagues, with supporters. Just so much love that if I don't pass that along to others, shame on me. And I don't want to be shamed. So I make it a point.
Whatever I can do to support you, and I'm gonna be honest. Don't be afraid to ask. Love, I've been afraid to ask before. Here goes the chapter one of my book. What story are you telling yourself? Oh, Jonathan's so busy. I don't want to bother Jonathan. Oh, Jonathan is, he's doing so many great things. I don't he's not gonna look out for Larry Long, JR.
I. Well, you don't know until you ask, and I encourage you to think about when someone asks you for help and you're able to deliver. How does that make you feel? For me, top of the world, I love serving people. I love bringing a smile to someone's face. Well, on the flip side, asking for help for me, I can only speak for me.
I feel awkward. I feel like I'm bothering someone. Hey, Larry. Stop getting in the way of allowing someone to feel that feeling of helping, of serving, of supporting, and let the ego go and ask for help. So if I can ever assist you, please. Ask for help. I'm here.
[00:31:55] Jonathan Fischer: I love it. Sometimes you have to remember that part, part of, of community is allowing others to help.
That is their allowing them to serve you and you demonstrating the humility to receive that is itself kind of a gift. So I do love that. Well, let's jump over into some q and a, my friend. We've got some nice questions here from our live listenership. I'm gonna start off with Joshua Bailey, one of my favorite humans.
He's asking this question. He says, I'm a person with high energy and love supporting my teammates. Community to be their best selves. Sometimes it can be hard to be the energy all the time. So how do you refresh and recharge so you don't lose that energy?
[00:32:31] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah I'm about to do it once we hang up here.
I don't know if you can tell Joshua, but I'm about to work on my tan. I'm going to the pool with my family. I love chilling, love seeing my kids, have fun, love hanging with my wife, just being around my people. And you're absolutely correct. I have to be intentional 'cause I'll wear myself out where I'm just tapped out.
The convention that I went to, It filled my cup surrounding myself with other people that can be that energy source for me. And then just choosing it. Every day we have a choice. We wake up, we can choose to be, woe is me. Everything sucks, or we can choose. Today is a blessing. It's an opportunity to serve someone else.
Everything is awesome. Even though everything isn't awesome. I'll be the first to tell you, Hey, I'm married. My wife's from Argentina. I'm married to a Latina. It's never all the way awesome. There's always something going on, but we're loving doing it living life together. As we learn, as we live, as we laugh, as we love, that's what it's all about.
So I would encourage you to find what you recharge. Is it yoga? I tried hot yoga. It wasn't for me. I almost died. I couldn't breathe. The instructor came and said, Mr. Long, are you okay? I said, nah, I feel like I'm gonna die. She said, just do the dead man's pose. I said, I might die if I do that. I need some fresh air.
That's not for me, but golf. Come on now. I don't know if Jonathan told y'all, but Tiger Woods is my cousin. They call me Larry, hit it in the woods. I'm his long lost cousin. That's how I recharge. Golfing with some friends, meeting new friends on the golf course, spending time with my family. So I encourage you to do you boo boo.
Great question JB.
[00:34:18] Jonathan Fischer: Good stuff. I like it related. Tiger Woods hit it in the woods. That's I must be a cousin of his as well. Given that, here's a great question from Lindy Hale. This is sort of a, maybe a practical coaching question. She says, do you have any advice for those who aren't as comfortable in front of the camera to become more comfortable with sending video messages?
It's a great question. Yeah. Excellent
[00:34:37] Larry J Long Jr: question, Lindy. And I'm here to encourage you, believe you, me. I might seem like I'm confident it comes with practice. I don't know if Alan Iversson is on here, but we're talking about practice. I still get nervous. I have a keynote on Monday in Winston-Salem. I know I'm gonna be nervous before I take the stage, but I also know breathe in through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth.
I'm gonna be okay because I practiced. I prepared and I care. If you practice, you prepare and you care. Go for it. Go for it. Don't be scurred. It's a natural feeling to be scurred, but overcoming those fears and just doing it will be amazing. You'll look back and say, wow, I get it. And when you're authentic, we're talking about being on camera.
When you're authentic, people can, they can smell bss and they can smell authenticity when you're speaking from the heart to someone to let them know how you feel, what you're looking for. Most people will recognize that most people will honor that and at least try to help you and serve you.
There's a small percentage that will tell you all the things you did wrong. That's just the way it is onto the next one. So I'm here to encourage you, and I'll share a word with you that I got in June from Dr. Willie Jolly outta dc. He was talking to a group of speakers. He said, sometimes you have to lean on someone else's belief in you until yours kicks in.
So Lindy, I'm here to let you know I believe in you. You can do this. You got this. And if you need to lean on my support until yours kicks in, by all means I've got it. If you wanna practice it, let me know. Send me a LinkedIn video. I. Practicing. I can tell you my video. I'll give you my script right now.
Hey, what's going on, Lindy? Fantastic Friday. If it was Monday, it would be marvelous Monday. Now, this is my style. I don't expect you to follow my style, but find your style. Hey, hope you're having a great day. Ready for a wonderful weekend. I was reaching out because I thought that whatever it was, my coach, Kristen Fray, who I just met with, she reminded me, Hey, Larry, healthy people ask.
For exactly what they want. I was big and beating around the bush. Well, if you hear something within your company, keep me. No, that's not what I wanted. So I'm now more direct. I wanna speak for your company. How can we make that happen instead of beating around the bush? So I hope that's a word of encouragement.
Keep asking those questions, Lindy, and at some point stop noodling. And let's go. Remember, it's not about you, it's about someone else. And if you're serving someone else, by all means you can shake those haters off. You can have a ball. I encourage you to have fun with it. Here. Here goes what? Having fun with it is when you're making 150 cold calls and you got people hanging up with you or people saying, I'm not interested.
My comeback would be not interested in what? Casey, Gallo. Casey, don't call me pico de gallo. We used to have a fun time making those 150 calls encouraging each other, laughing at each other when we flubbed up and. I had a guy tell me, Hey Larry, put on a pair of concrete shoes and jump off a bridge. I said, good googly mug.
I looked in the objection manual, I couldn't find it. I said, the first thing that came to mind, I said, God bless you two. And then I hung up on cell. That's something I can chuckle about. He was probably having a rough, rough day or rough life. It wasn't a reflection of me that was on him, and I'm just releasing it.
So, Lindy, release those fears and you can do it.
[00:38:16] Jonathan Fischer: I love that. I love it. Love it. Well, there's another great question here from Joshua. Let him follow up. So, the question is, do you think communications on LinkedIn are too tame in general? And how can I get my team to be more energized? They almost seem scared.
[00:38:31] Larry J Long Jr: Yeah. Yes, and yes, Joshua, and it starts with you as the leader. I would encourage you to create a safe space for them to practice. For them to actually go through a conversation, whether it's written, whether it's verbal, whether it's on video practice, so that they can now be comfortable. I don't know about you, but when I first started trying to ride a bike, I wasn't very good.
I, I think I got, got some scars down from skin in my knees. We all know little babies, they try to stand up and boop, they fall down, but they get back up again. They're practicing. Well, why do we all of a sudden get into a professional world? We forget to practice. We forget that perseverance. We forget to keep trying.
My encouragement is that you as the leader, and even if you don't have the leader in title, you're a leader, leadership is about your actions. You rally the troops and say, Hey, we're gonna take a dedicated 30 minutes to practice real live scenarios. We're gonna overcome objections. We're gonna open up on the phone.
Hello. This is. I'll give you, when I was making 150 calls, my first script, hello, this is Larry Long, Jr. Calling from Profit Sense. How are you today? Click. That's exactly how I'm essentially, I had one leader, I won't say his name, David, who said Larry come into my office, coming into my office. You made 148 calls yesterday.
We require you to make 150. If you don't make 150, I'll tell you like the Dodgers and the Red Sox told you, don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you. I'll never forget how he made me feel. He belittled me. He made me feel like I was trash. James Hatfield, naughty. He was another leader, wasn't my leader, but he said, come into my office.
I said, SHS, am I getting fired? He said, nah, Larry, I like you. You got potential. You got a great attitude, but you gotta get rid of the script. You gotta flip the script, tear it up. Talk to people like you're talking to your friends. I said, James, you don't know how I talk to my homeboys. That might be a HR violation.
He said, yeah, you're right. He said, find that happy medium and talk to people like you. Talk to people. You don't talk to people like, hello, I'm Larry Long, JR. Chat, G P T I'm Robot. Have a conversation and share your story. Mr. And Mrs. Accountant, do you have business owners whose eyes glaze over when you start talking about the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows?
I should have been a lawyer 'cause I already know the answer. Yes, we do. Well, I used to be that dummy c e o and business owner. Wouldn't you be interested in looking at a platform that would help you take the numbers and easily more easily? Explain what the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows means allowing your business owners a written narrative.
Hmm. I'm curious. Tell me more. Dinging. Ding, ding, ding. It was magical when I started having conversations. So for you practice. Practice in a safe environment with you leading it, you're gonna learn so much and you're gonna see your team, their confidence up level their, their performance up level because they've been there, they've done that.
When the lights come on, it's showtime. It's no time like showtime, unless it's bow time. I love me some Bojangles, but let's. Go.
[00:41:46] Jonathan Fischer: Great stuff. Well, Larry, what a treat it's been. I'm so glad that things worked out the way that they did and you're able to jump in. I think we all needed a jolt on this fantastic Friday.
And I wanna thank you for adding so much value to the listenership and me personally today. I. I
[00:42:01] Larry J Long Jr: appreciate you, Jonathan, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for hosting me. Thank you for all that you do. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but thank you for serving this community, for giving of yourself, and really providing a platform for people to send their messages.
It's appreciated. Keep up the great work.
[00:42:19] Jonathan Fischer: Well, Larry, you're too kind. I appreciate you, brother. Well, and I appreciate you, the listener, for bringing what your attention and your curiosity and your participation to our live events each and every week. You've made it such a joy to grow this show to the extent that it has, and we're gonna continue to grow.
If you enjoy the content that we have here each week with fantastic guests like Larry, hey, don't forget we've got our podcast. Go and grab your favorite. Recent episode, wherever you'd like to get 'em, whether it's Apple, Google, Spotify, or what have you. The evolved sales leader and of course we're powered by overpass, the world's best platform for quickly getting highly qualified talent that you may need to either be a virtual assistant group, maybe you need some folks to work as BDRs, anyone that you need some good professional skills.
You can get visibility on some of the best folks this planet has to offer. Hire five people, 10 people in as many days. It's super easy. Go check it out for yourself. It's free to open account for the hiring manager@overpass.com. Well, that's gonna do it for this episode. I'm excited to see what we'll have next week.
We'll see you at that same time, same station right here on LinkedIn Live for overpass, and everybody else here on our team. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.
