As a young salesman Adam Carroll got a meeting with a big executive that changed everything. But it would not have happened without getting his name right. Adam shares the story, all the good that came from that first meeting, and specific ways to remember people’s names. 

Adam’s Money Story:

Adam Carroll:
one of my very earliest jobs, I was selling suits for a clothier called Tom James, you may be familiar with it. They visit upper level executives in their offices. We had to ring up people every afternoon. We made 80 dials every single afternoon from 4 to 6:00PM.

Bobbi Rebell:
80 calls?

Adam Carroll:
80 calls.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh.

Adam Carroll:
And the goal out of 80 calls was you had to get at least 15 people on the phone and set at least 5 or 6 appointments for the following week. Well, one of the gentlemen on my list was a man named Jim and the last name was H-E-B-E-R-T. And I was young and naive and I kept calling up and asking for Jim Hiebert. They teach you all the different tactics, just ask for Jim, ask for Mr. Hiebert, it's Adam calling for Jim, those kinds of things. And at one point I said, "I'm calling for Jim this is Adam Carroll." And she said, "Mr. Hebert is not in." And I had been calling him Hiebert for months up to that point. And so, finally I went, "Ah, it's Hebert, it's French. I'm going to make sure I say, Jim Hebert next time." And the very next time I called his office and I said, "It's Adam Carroll calling for Jim Hebert is he in?"

Adam Carroll:
They said, "Oh, he is. Yeah, just a moment." So I got on the phone with Jim set an appointment, and then I got in to see him. And this is where the story gets interesting Bobbi. Jim is in this very nondescript office park in Colorado. When you pull up to the building, it's one of those old drab concrete buildings that doesn't look like it's had any work done to it over the past 20 or 30 years. Lots of luxury cars in the parking lot but when I walked in, it had that smell of musty old carpet that had not been changed in again, 20 or 30 years. I walk into the office. There's lots of oil and gas photos all over the wall and I go in to sit with Jim Hebert and he immediately starts asking me questions about myself.

Adam Carroll:
And at the time I was about to get married, so I was engaged. He just completely caught me off guard. He said, "Well, where are you going on your honeymoon?" And I said, "Well, we haven't really firmly decided, but it's likely going to be either Hawaii or Fiji." And Jim asked me, "Have you ever been to The Bahamas?" And I said, "No, I haven't." And he said, "Well, would you like to go?" And at the time Bobbi, I'm thinking, are you asking me to go to the Bahamas with you or asking if my soon to be wife and I would like to go. And he said, "No, no, no, you and your wife could go to the Bahamas. You could take my yacht." Now, keep in mind this is the first time I met him.

Bobbi Rebell:
You just met him?

Adam Carroll:
I just met him and have not even shown him my shirt fabrics or anything because he said, "I'm not a suit wearer but I'll buy some shirts." And so, he's asking me if I want to take his yacht. I said, "Jim, man, I appreciate the offer. I don't even know how to take that." I said, "What is your yacht like?" Any points over at the wall? And he goes, "Well, there's a picture of it right there." And there's this like 75 foot schooner looking yacht. And at that point I was, again, dumbfounded and I said, "Jim, I don't know the first thing about captaining or piloting a yacht, I don't even know what you call it." And he said, "Oh, don't be silly Adam, there's a full-time captain onboard." It was in that moment, Bobbi, that I realized that I have a lot to learn first of all in the business, but a lot to learn from this gentleman.

Adam Carroll:
And he and I became good friends, he invited me to his country club, we had lunch number of times. I never did take him up on his yacht offer because I just thought it was too much. But he was the one who got me started in this process of teaching people about money because he said, "There's a book I want you to read, it's called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki." So he handed me the book. He said, "When you're done with that, I want you to read the Cashflow Quadrant," and then he handed me that book. And from that point forward, I just started amassing this, as you can see behind me in my office here, just a massive library full of personal finance books. And he really was the one who got me started in the process and it was all because I knew his name.

Bobbi Rebell:
All because you knew his name properly. And why do you think he bonded with you? What was it when you look back? Because this is someone that made a huge difference and does he offer every salesman that comes to use his private yacht with his captain? I mean, why so generous? I mean, now that you got to know him, have you ever said to him, "Hey, we had just met. That was a big thing."

Adam Carroll:
I had that conversation with him and I said, "I really can't accept the offer." I had asked him at one point, "Jim, just out of curiosity, how much does it even cost to put gas in the yacht to get to the Bahamas?" And he was flippant, "I don't know, it's probably $6 or $700, I don't know." But he was nonchalant about it. And so, I don't know that he was that generous with everyone, but in some of our conversations at the country club, he kept telling me, you need to think bigger. Your mindset is as small as it is ever going to be right now and it will only get bigger, so I just want you to pay attention to that. Down the road, Bobbi, I found out that his wife was a PhD in molecular biology.

Adam Carroll:
She had invented a way, a mechanism that a vehicle would run on the inside of an oil tanker and spray this foam that would remove all of the coagulate or whatever that was on the walls of the tanker truck and then they could vacuum out the foam, clean it and use it again. So she was making millions and millions of dollars in royalties on this invention. So it occurred to me that this gentleman who had so much to teach me had also been about 25 or 30 years advanced in his career from where I was. And what I have reflected on looking back is that in the past 20 years, I've also come a long way in my career and I meet with 20 year olds and I give them advice, I don't necessarily have a yacht I can give them, but I give them advice to try and give them a leg up the same way Jim did for me.

Adam’s Money Lesson:

Adam Carroll:
Number one, mentors, find a great money mentor. Number two, we talked about names and the theme behind names. My grandfather was amazing at remembering names. He would run into people he hadn't seen in 20 years and the name was just at the top of his mind. And he told me one time, "Adam, the sweetest sound in the world to another person is their own name." And I have taught college students this and young professionals that your ability to remember people's names is one of the things that will set you apart because most people are like, "Ah, I'm just no good at remembering names, can't remember names. I hope there's a name tag."

Adam’s Money Tip:

Adam Carroll:
Get really, really good at listening intently for someone's name when they introduce themselves to you. Be more concerned about what their name is then you saying your name, because what generally happens is if you and I were meeting for the first time, Bobbi, I'd say, "Hi, what's your name?" You'd say, "Bobbi," I'd say, "My name's Adam." And I'd walk away going, I nailed my name that time. I nailed it. It was two syllables, it was super confident but instead I need to say, "Hi, what's your name?" "My name's Bobbi." "Bobbi, it's so nice to meet you. Bobbi if you don't mind me asking, where are you from?" And then you would answer and I might say Bobbi again somehow, but I'm working it into my own mind, so I will never forget your name. One other quick money tip on names, I see it spelled out over someone's head. So Bobbi, I might say, "How do you spell it? How do you spell your name Bobbi?"

Bobbi Rebell:
B-O-B-B-I.

Adam Carroll:
B-O-B-B-I. So every time I saw you I would see B-O-B-B-I spelled out over your head and I might even say, next time I saw you, "Hey Bobbi, with an I, what's going on?" And some people are endeared by that because if you are meeting a Hallie with an IE or Haley with an EY or it's H-A-I-L-E-Y, people really care about how their name is spelled. My wife's name is Jenn and it's two NN's and it bugs her when people have one N for particularly those who know her well. So there is something about your name and remembering it in my mind will get you business.

Bobbi Rebell:
Very well said. Great advice.

Bobbi’s Financial Grownup Tips:

Financial Grownup Tip #1:

Another way to remember names, association. Adam recommended this to me after we wrapped our interview. And I actually remember I had learned this in college. So this is what you do, whatever the person's name is you think of someone that you know that has that name, a similar name, or maybe someone famous that has that name and then you associate them with that person, it works. Also, using their name frequently in the conversation, yeah, it's a cliche, but it does work. And by the way, I noticed Adam was doing it during our interview.

Financial Grownup Tip #2:

I was shocked that Adam had to make 80 calls to sell that high-end clothing, but it is a reminder that this stuff is not easy. And to be successful sometimes it's both a numbers game, as well as being just a little bit better, maybe a lot better in some cases than the competition. Doing things like making sure you personalize each call and know how to pronounce the name, making sure to spell check all your written communication.

Episode Links:

• Adam’s website - www.adamspeaks.com

Follow Adam!

• Twitter - @AdamCarroll

• Facebook - @AdamSpeaks

• YouTube

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.

Author, Podcast host and Entrepreneur magazine’s Editor in Chief Jason Feifer shares specifically how he raised his speaking fees, and confesses to a massive and very un-grownup recent financial blunder.

Jason’s Money Story:

Jason Feifer:
So I had done a lot of unpaid public speaking and then felt like it was time to actually start charging for this. And I didn't know how to because I was genuinely uncomfortable saying you should pay me for this. Actually, I just hadn't really done that. It's weird. I have been very successful in my career. I have a high profile job, but the ways that I've been paid have largely been these very established methods. I get a salary and that is it.

Jason Feifer:
And now here, I am telling someone, you have asked me to do a thing, I know that I could do it for free because I've done it before, and you probably know that too. But instead I'm going to set a very high fee and expect that you pay me that. And I was so uncomfortable doing that that I kept undervaluing myself. I had a friend who's in this industry who had told me what my value would be and I just literally couldn't say it to people. And so I was telling them half or a quarter of it.

Bobbi Rebell:
How did this evolve? So someone reaches out and says, Jason, we want you to speak at our events. What happens next?

Jason Feifer:
So here's how the conversation would start at the beginning of this. Somebody would invite me to their event and I would gush over the event. And I would tell them how excited I could be, and we would talk about literally everything except for money. And then, they would bring up the money, and then I would have a number in my head that I was supposed to say and that I couldn't say it, and I said something lower. And that is not what happens now. What happens now is that, very upfront, as soon as somebody reaches out to me, I say, do you have a speaker budget for this?

Jason Feifer:
And sometimes I will also say, do you ever speak your budget for this? I would do this for free if I could, but I have two kids and a very busy job and I can only do these kinds of things if there's compensation. Sometimes they don't. But oftentimes, they do. They say they have a budget and then they'll ask me what the budget is, or what my fee is, and I'll tell them. And I'm just really upfront about it because that is my worth, and I have over time taught myself that I am worth something and that there's no shame in being worth something. But it took a long time to get there.

Bobbi Rebell:
What was the tipping point?

Jason Feifer:
The tipping point was actually my wife getting extremely annoyed that I was leaving New York to go speak at these things and not getting as much as she thought I probably could get. But honestly, it was talking to other people and seeing what they were being paid and realizing that I was doing the same work, and I was I think better than a lot of them, and yet I was getting paid less. And that told me, most importantly, that I could stand up for my own value and I wouldn't put other people off.

Jason Feifer:
The thing is you don't know what the marketplace is and so you don't know what people are willing to pay and you are afraid. Everybody's afraid, I think, of showing themselves to be too full of hubris, and say I'm worth this crazy amount of money, and that people will look at you. It'd be like, no, you're actually just a jerk. But once you understand the marketplace and you get a sense of what people actually will pay, then you realize, Oh no, wait a second, I am valuable and I'm not being obnoxious in my value. I'm just being straightforward in my value.

Bobbi Rebell:
But how do you know what the marketplace is? And for example, in the market that you're talking about, which is speaking, which is very often doing keynote speeches, moderating panels, emceeing events. There's no database where everyone says what they make. How do you know?

Jason Feifer:
No, there's no database. I wish there was a database, but there are a lot of people who do it, or there are a lot of people who work with people who do it. And so, I just started asking everybody. Every single person who I interacted with at any event or just in the course of my work, we would start talking about speaking and I would just start asking them either, are you willing to share what you make or are you willing to share what the ballpark is for people in our range or whatever.

Jason Feifer:
Because the thing is that people do not volunteer this information upfront because I think oftentimes people are uncomfortable sharing numbers and being the one to broach that subject. But if you open up the door to it, a lot of people actually are fine sharing information because they understand that information is power for everybody. And if they share something with you, you'll share something with them. And just starting that conversation and having so many of those conversations, you start to triangulate what your value is or what other people did to get more valuable, which is also so important.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what was that? What did people do to get more valuable?

Jason Feifer:
Well, one of the things that they did is that they did a lot of add ons. That was not something that was intuitive to me. So you would go to an event and you'd find some fee, but then you would start upselling people. You'd be like, I'd be happy to come in the evening before and have a dinner with your sponsors or whatever. I'm around. Is that something you'd be interested in because we could just throw on an additional fee for that? And people are happy to do it. And that's how I've upped my fee often for taking time that I would be... What would else would I be doing? I might as well be having dinner with somebody and making a little extra money.

Jason Feifer:
But yeah, it was a lot of add ons. I found that the key to the add ons is not just that you're willing to do stuff, but that you're showing them that you're invested in them and invested in helping their whatever it is be as successful as possible. And so, here they have an asset. The asset is you, and there are two ways that asset could be, it could either somebody who just blows through and doesn't really care and just collects the check or, someone who says, hey, I've invested, I care, I want to do what's great for you. It's going to cost a little bit more, but I'm there and I want to do it. And I think that they also want to pay me just because they like me and that matters.

Bobbi Rebell:
How do you handle it when someone says, I don't have the budget that you're asking for it.

Jason Feifer:
So I take it on a case by case. Is it something that I really want to do? Is there some other value that I can extract from them? Because sometimes, there is. I could, for example say, Oh, I'll do it for this lesser fee that you're offering, but can you buy copies of my book? Can you buy some subscriptions to the magazine for people who are attending? Can you give me the email addresses of everyone in attendance so that I can follow up with them and maybe get them to sign up for my newsletter or whatever. If there's something that makes sense for me for other reasons and it doesn't really put me out, I'll do it for a little less.

Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from your story?

“I have over time taught myself that I am worth something and there is no shame in being worth something but it took a long time to get there.”

Jason’s Money Lesson:

Jason Feifer:
The lesson is lead with value and be confident in your value. I hear from people a lot, if I could just turn it around as me as a recipient of people pitching, I hear from people a lot who want a lot of things from me. They're pitching me because they want me to write about their company or they're pitching me because they want me to assign them a story or whatever. And a phrase that they use all the time, I literally just read about this in the magazine, a phrase they use all the time when they write to me is, let me know if you ever need a dot dot dot. Let me know if you ever need a writer. Let me know if you ever need a good story. Let me know if you ever need a customer service solution or whatever it is.

Jason Feifer:
And that is a terrible, terrible way to pitch yourself because it actually puts the sales onus on me, the person who's supposed to be sold to. Now, I have to research them and go back to them and say, Oh, you know what I actually do. Here's the thing; nobody ever just needs a blah, blah, blah. They never do. I am full of writers. I am full of stories. I don't need any more of them. So why would I take any more of them? Because if somebody comes to me and isn't shy about their value and is instead value forward, if they understand what I'm looking for and what kind of value they can provide to me, if they're upfront about that and good at communicating that, then I see the value and I want the value.

Bobbi Rebell:
Such great advice. Let's move on to your everyday money tip because, Jason, you're being very brave. You're going to admit to having done something that you're no longer doing, right?

“I was doing the same work and I think better than they were and I was being paid less. And that told me that I could stand up for my own value and I wouldn’t put other people off.”

Jason’s Money Tip:

Bobbi Rebell:
Let's move on to your everyday money tip because, Jason, you're being very brave. You're going to admit to having done something that you're no longer doing, right?

Jason Feifer:
Right.

Bobbi Rebell:
... that costs you thousands of dollars. Tell us your everyday money. Thousands of dollars. Oh my goodness.

Jason Feifer:
I know. I'm so embarrassed and annoyed that I have done this. It is the most basic piece of advice. Look at your statements... Go through them line by line, your credit card statements. There were some services that I had signed up for that I either forgot about or in one case it was a fairly expensive service that I thought I had signed up for a month of, but it turns out it was a recurring fee.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my gosh, that's your worst nightmare. And can you get them to refund a few months back at least? Is there any recourse at that point? because you clearly weren't using it. Do you want to tell us what kind of thing it was? Was it a really expensive magazine, Jason?

Jason Feifer:
No, it was a social media management thing. It was $400 a month.

Bobbi Rebell:
Oh my God. Oh my God. How many months did this go on, Jason?

Jason Feifer:
Ten.

Bobbi Rebell:
You didn't catch a $400 charge for ten months?

Jason Feifer:
No, I didn't.

Bobbi Rebell:
Jason.

Jason Feifer:
I know, it's awful. It's awful. And now you're like, what kind of completely irresponsible financial person is this? And the answer is that I do too many things myself and I have a number of different income streams from speaking and podcasting and I'm just throwing it all into the same account and I just wasn't being mindful of where the number was. And so there was this giant hole being poked in my finances, and it was just pouring out $400 a month.

Jason Feifer:
I contacted the company and they were not really willing to be helpful, and I've gotten in touch with the head guy. And he just kept putting me off and putting me off, and I can tell what's happening, which is that he's hoping that he is going to wait me out, and that I'm going to just give up on this and forget about it. And so, I literally have on my reminders app that tells me all the things that I should be doing. One of them is to keep texting this guy.

Bobbi Rebell:
So this is unresolved right now. So you're not paying ongoing, but you've now paid 10 months, you paid $4,000 to this company?

Jason Feifer:
That's right, and I proposed a deal to them too, and I just haven't gotten the money back. I'm a little resolved to just eat it as a very, very expensive lesson in keeping tabs on your credit card forms. But I am also going to text this dude for the rest of my life demanding my money back.

Bobbi Rebell:
I think you can automate that. So Jason's going to un-automate his bill paying and he's going to automate, I'm sure there's an app you can download that can charge you another monthly fee to automatically text this guy. I'm going to text him for you, too.

“If you open up the door to it, a lot of people actually are fine sharing information because they understand that information is power for everybody. ”

Bobbi’s Financial grownup tips:

Financial grownup tip number one:

Like Jason did, work up the courage to ask, but also, as he did, keep it reasonable so you can get to the yes. People ask how I got such high profile people to be in my book, How To Be A Financial Grownup; those included Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank, designer Cynthia Rowley, and even Tony Robbins. A lot of it was simply working up the courage to ask, but I also kept the ask really simple. It was two questions, similar format to this podcast. You'll have more success if you ask for something that's easier for them to do.

Financial grownup tip number two:

Jason talks about add ons and up-selling. Not only does this bring in more money, it also provides more value for clients. Most important, it often strengthens the bond and creates a relationship where you're probably going to have a better shot at getting hired again. Play the long game.

Episode Links:

• Blinkist - The app I’m loving right now. Please use our link to support the show and get a free trial.

• Jason’s website - www.jasonfeifer.com

Follow Jason!

• Instagram - @heyfeifer

• Facebook - @jasonfeifer

• Twitter - @heyfeifer

• LinkedIn

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.