0:00

Welcome to

0:00

rainmakers. I'm Carl Grant. And

0:08

let me tell you a little bit

0:08

about what rainmakers is, if

0:11

this is the first podcast you're

0:11

listening to of our series, this

0:14

is a podcast about business

0:14

development. When I started out

0:18

in business development, nobody

0:18

was there to teach me how to do

0:21

what I do today. And so I want

0:21

to give back and teach others

0:25

how this is done. But not just

0:25

for me, I want to talk to the

0:28

best of the best. And today I

0:28

have mobinil I knew I was gonna

0:33

not spit that out. Right, Bo,

0:33

Mo. But Mo was referred to me by

0:38

Tyler Sweat and other guests of

0:38

mine who said that he received

0:42

most training, and he said that

0:42

it was some of the best in the

0:45

world. Now, moe is CEO of Bonell

0:45

Idea Group. He is the author of

0:49

the snowball system. And he's a

0:49

host of his own podcast called

0:53

real relationships, real

0:53

revenue. Welcome out.

0:57

Hey, Carl, thanks

0:57

for having me. I'm excited about

1:00

the chat today.

1:01

Absolutely. I was

1:01

reading through your bio and

1:03

listening to some of your book

1:03

and your podcast. And you didn't

1:07

start out as a business

1:07

development guru. You started

1:10

out as an actuarial analyst. How

1:10

in the world did you go from

1:14

doing that to figuring out that

1:14

this was your calling in life?

1:17

Well, I'm laughing.

1:17

I don't know that I've shared

1:19

this with many people. But I can

1:19

remember being a junior or

1:23

senior in college, the school I

1:23

went to actually had an

1:26

actuarial science program. So I

1:26

was getting a major to be an

1:29

actuary major in actuarial

1:29

science. And most of the guys in

1:32

my fraternity, were going on to

1:32

be salespeople. And one of those

1:36

guys was walking as walking down

1:36

the road. And he said, Hey, Mo,

1:39

what your you've been voted best

1:39

rusher, you know, for three

1:42

years in a row or something like

1:42

that, basically, like sales in

1:45

the fraternity world, if you

1:45

will, in college, it was the

1:48

rush the rush chairman.

1:50

Wait, go ahead. Were you the rush chairman?

1:52

No, but I was I was

1:52

the guy that people would put me

1:55

in a corner with somebody that

1:55

was a high potential. So they

1:59

voted best rusher. Right. And I

1:59

got it, I think three years in a

2:03

row or something like that.

2:04

That's when I was

2:04

rushed, chairman for two years.

2:06

And we're both in delta delta in

2:06

in college. So we should bring

2:11

that out.

2:11

I love it, man. And

2:11

when we saw that I was just

2:14

grinning ear to ear because I've

2:14

been went to your school as a

2:16

chapter leadership consultant

2:16

for the fraternity.

2:19

So right. So you did

2:19

that after being an actuarial

2:21

and, and so but at what point it

2:21

what juncture in your life, did

2:25

you realize I'm really good at

2:25

this, I'm going to teach others.

2:29

Ah, well, I was

2:29

rising up through the ranks at

2:32

HR consulting firm, and I really

2:32

fell in love with not just doing

2:37

business development, because

2:37

after I had a system after it

2:40

sort of cobbled to science and

2:40

steps together a little bit,

2:42

nothing like we have now but it

2:42

was working at the time, 20

2:45

years ago. And I fell in love

2:45

with not just the BD part, but

2:49

the teaching of others. And

2:49

Carl, that's when I really

2:53

realized this is the thing I

2:53

want to do the rest of my life.

2:56

I talk a little bit

2:56

about the snowball system,

2:58

you've developed a methodology

2:58

for doing this and high level,

3:02

what is that?

3:03

Yeah, so what we

3:03

wanted is we wanted to have a

3:06

comprehensive system for

3:06

business development, literally,

3:09

I wanted somebody to be able to

3:09

grab that book, go through our

3:12

trading or grab the snowball

3:12

system and say this has every

3:16

single thing I need to be

3:16

successful. So it's over 92,000

3:20

words about double the size of a

3:20

normal business word book, in

3:23

it's got 30 or 40 different of

3:23

the most important scientific

3:27

citations. So what we try to do

3:27

in snowball system is give

3:30

somebody a comprehensive system

3:30

that's based on science, and

3:34

that this is the most important

3:34

part that is authentic. It's all

3:38

about helping other people. It's

3:38

about always doing the right

3:41

things for your clients and

3:41

prospects, just done in a

3:43

proactive way that happens to

3:43

grow your relationships and your

3:46

book of business.

3:47

And you have a bunch

3:47

of worksheets, I haven't pulled

3:50

those down yet, but it seems

3:50

really comprehensive. Talk a

3:53

little bit about the worksheets

3:53

and the need for those types of

3:56

things.

3:57

Yeah, so what we

3:57

find with business development

3:59

is it's complicated enough, you

3:59

just can't use metaphors all the

4:02

time and say it's like this, or

4:02

just treat the client right or

4:05

go to dinners, you know, you

4:05

need to think through it in

4:08

detail a little bit more. So

4:08

what we try to do with over 20

4:12

worksheets that accompany the

4:12

book is if somebody gets the

4:15

snowball system, and let's say

4:15

they're giving a speech, but

4:17

they want to, they're not doing

4:17

it for fun. They want to do it

4:20

in a way that generates new

4:20

potential clients. Well, there's

4:24

various steps to that. If

4:24

somebody asks for a referral,

4:26

there's four steps to that. If

4:26

somebody is offering their

4:30

content on their dime, to try to

4:30

try to woo a client help them

4:34

but also create interest or

4:34

create demand for their

4:36

services, their steps for that.

4:36

So what all the worksheets do is

4:40

they take every piece of the

4:40

business development system and

4:44

break it down into steps just

4:44

like any normal project would be

4:48

broken down into steps.

4:49

And some of those

4:49

initial steps that I caught this

4:52

morning listening to some of the

4:52

chapters were rituals and

4:55

rewards. Talk to us about those.

4:58

Well, it's super

4:58

important Carl, I know you You

5:00

believe in this to the the thing

5:00

about behavioral science and

5:03

habits that's an interesting is

5:03

we tend to do things that we get

5:07

immediate gratification for. And

5:07

I think the reason business

5:10

development is so hard for

5:10

people is man, you can work for

5:14

years, trying to stay in touch,

5:14

stay top of mind add value be

5:18

helpful to a prospect, and you

5:18

don't hear anything back or they

5:22

haven't been able to hire you

5:22

yet, or whatever. But you've got

5:25

to stick with it. So what we do

5:25

is in this, this is actually

5:28

throughout and especially near

5:28

the end of snowball system,

5:32

where we teach the very specific

5:32

ways to sort of hack your own

5:35

habits. So you can pull back,

5:35

focus on the things you can

5:38

control and reward yourself for

5:38

those. And if you continue to do

5:42

the right things week, over

5:42

week, we have various ways to

5:45

sort of hack your own habits.

5:45

But if you keep doing those

5:47

things, week, after week, you

5:47

will end up bringing in work.

5:50

But you've got to do that.

5:50

Because if you're waiting for

5:52

the universe to tell you You did

5:52

a good thing, you're just not

5:55

going to get it in this in the

5:55

world of business development.

5:58

And what are your

5:58

top few habits?

6:01

Gosh, probably the

6:01

biggest one that our clients

6:03

app, absolutely love is what we

6:03

call an MIT process. MIT, which

6:08

is a little code word we use,

6:08

that means most important

6:11

things. And the simplest way to

6:11

do it is to pick 15 minutes,

6:15

once a week, I'm a four o'clock

6:15

on Friday, eastern time kind of

6:19

guy, but other people choose

6:19

Saturday morning, Sunday night,

6:21

you know, Monday afternoon,

6:21

whatever, but you pick 15

6:24

minutes once a week, and you

6:24

pick three things that you want

6:28

to accomplish next week that are

6:28

specifically around bringing it

6:33

you know, they're gonna make a

6:33

big difference that are in your

6:36

control. And they're growth

6:36

oriented big, they're going to

6:38

make a big impact. They're in

6:38

your control. They're growth

6:40

oriented. So you pick three

6:40

things once a week. And then you

6:44

measure if you do those three

6:44

proactive, helpful things every

6:47

week, you do three weeks, it's

6:47

about 150 a year 1500 over a

6:50

decade. And that adds up and

6:50

builds momentum over time.

6:54

Now the snowball

6:54

system, when I when I saw that

6:57

title, I was thinking of my life

6:57

as head of business development

7:01

for a law firm. So I've been out

7:01

doing habits, I guess I didn't

7:05

think of him in these terms, but

7:05

doing these things that you talk

7:08

about in your book over, you

7:08

know, 20 plus years. And what's

7:13

happened is my network is is

7:13

really snowballed. I mean I it

7:17

if I could just get through my

7:17

emails in a day, there's there's

7:20

gold in my, in my emails, right?

7:20

And so it's like it's snowballed

7:24

over the years. And now it's

7:24

almost out of control.

7:28

Yeah, and that's

7:28

because you've, you've built

7:30

that momentum. There's a bunch

7:30

of research on psychological

7:34

momentum, Dr. Sipo. So he saw a

7:34

whole is probably the most my

7:37

favorite, he study sports

7:37

psychology, and we can apply his

7:41

learnings to business

7:41

development, there's a lot of

7:43

similarities in the super quick

7:43

version that you're now reaping

7:47

the benefits of Carl, is that if

7:47

what a lot of people do is

7:50

they'll set really big lofty

7:50

goals, like I'm gonna go run a

7:53

marathon and they got the first

7:53

weekend and try to run 10 miles

7:56

Well, they end up really sore

7:56

and they quit. But what doctor

8:00

so hola finds is that actually

8:00

setting your initial goals very

8:04

small, but doing them

8:04

consistently over time. And then

8:08

as you build that skill, you're

8:08

able to handle more of a load to

8:11

your point now where the leads

8:11

in the business comes in and

8:14

just drops in your lap. Because

8:14

you've had the right habits for

8:17

so long, you've been focused on

8:17

helping others you've been

8:20

proactive. So that's sort of the

8:20

end game for folks. But how they

8:24

get started just doing three

8:24

simple things a week, but never

8:27

missing a week.

8:28

Now, when you were

8:28

starting out in setting goals,

8:31

give us an idea of some of the

8:31

types of goals you've set for

8:34

yourself, what are those look like?

8:37

You know, I can

8:37

remember one specific time I

8:39

flew to Denver to meet a client

8:39

and I flew back, we had a we had

8:45

meetings all day, you know,

8:45

breakfast and throughout the

8:47

organization, things like that

8:47

it was a CHRO of a big

8:50

organization that we called on.

8:50

This is back when I worked at

8:53

the big HR consulting firm, in

8:53

my goal was to come back from

8:57

that meeting with so many

8:57

things. To do that it would fill

9:01

up my entire flight back from

9:01

Denver to Atlanta, and

9:04

accomplish that I was typing the

9:04

entire time long email that was

9:09

about introducing our head of

9:09

talent to her to his he was

9:12

willing to do something on his

9:12

dime in a way that would be

9:14

helpful her and and to do this

9:14

to set up an HR strategy project

9:18

that we were going to do our

9:18

dime on our dime to to help her

9:21

move forward. Almost everything

9:21

in that email was on our dime.

9:25

But it pulled in almost every

9:25

single practice area we had at

9:29

the firm, which is a billion

9:29

dollar consulting firm at the

9:32

time. So it was literally dozens

9:32

of introductions I was making to

9:36

help her accomplish her goal and

9:36

introduce her to some of the

9:39

best talent that we had all over

9:39

the world. And I can remember

9:42

sending that off. And somebody

9:42

replying. It was on the you

9:46

know, one of the people involved

9:46

and said this is exactly what

9:48

folks should be doing in this

9:48

role. I was 100% focused on

9:52

helping her and I wanted to do

9:52

it so much. I'd be busy for an

9:56

entire three hours typing it all

9:56

up, and I and that turned turned

10:00

into just millions and millions

10:00

of dollars of consulting work.

10:03

But it wasn't focused on selling

10:03

it was focused on helping. Carl,

10:07

is that where you were going?

10:08

Absolutely! that's

10:08

my whole focus to doing this is

10:12

I never sell, I'm always I'm

10:12

always helping. Sometimes I have

10:15

to remind people what I do sell,

10:15

so that they don't take

10:20

advantage of me, but, but that's

10:20

my whole focus. So another thing

10:25

that you talked about early on

10:25

in your book is prioritizing

10:28

relationships. And so when I,

10:28

when I first started listening

10:32

to that part, I was thinking

10:32

about early on in my Business

10:36

Development Career, I was at

10:36

Price Waterhouse Coopers and I

10:39

was burning the midnight oil, I

10:39

would, you know, do events late

10:42

at night, and I didn't, I hadn't

10:42

figured out how to organize my

10:46

life. I was doing emails in the

10:46

middle of the night, and I was

10:49

30 in the

10:49

morning, breakfast the next

10:51

morning, and I realized this is

10:51

not sustainable. And, and so I

10:55

figured out that there were like

10:55

four other people in the

10:58

marketplace, that four or five,

10:58

that if I just got on the phone

11:01

with them each week, and shared,

11:01

shared leads with them. I never

11:06

had to leave my office. But

11:06

those are the types of

11:08

relationships you're talking

11:08

about, or is it different?

11:11

No, you nailed it.

11:11

It's almost like a lot of people

11:14

feel like just the more people

11:14

that keep up with the better.

11:17

But the problem with that is it

11:17

doesn't allow any depth for the

11:20

most important people. So we can

11:20

tie back to our our adult

11:23

fraternity days if you if you

11:23

won. If you're a top 10 chapter

11:27

in the country, there was an

11:27

award called the Hugh Shields

11:30

Award. And there was one word on

11:30

it other than our Greek letters,

11:33

and it was protomous. And I

11:33

worked really hard as a as a

11:38

chapter president to win that

11:38

award. When when I was in school

11:41

right around the time you were

11:41

in that protomous word is Greek

11:44

it means First Among Equals,

11:44

it's going to tie back to the

11:47

relationship idea. So one of the

11:47

tools in the snowball system is

11:51

called a protomous list, who are

11:51

your first among equals when it

11:54

comes to relationships, and what

11:54

we find in our, in our practice

11:58

of now we trained over 15,000

11:58

people that for most folks,

12:02

having eight or 10 relationships

12:02

that are your a number one

12:06

relationships that you're going

12:06

to make sure you proactively

12:09

help them at least like once a

12:09

month, and you're going to have

12:13

an outreach to them, you're

12:13

going to do something helpful,

12:15

you're going to personalize it, you're going to make it all about them. If you focus on

12:17

eight or 10 relationships, for

12:21

most professionals, that's

12:21

enough to just blow the doors

12:24

off their book of business. And

12:24

it's to your point, it's far

12:27

superior to go deep with the the

12:27

ones that are going to have the

12:32

biggest impact than just try to

12:32

react to everybody who comes to

12:36

you. If that makes sense.

12:39

No, it does. Most of

12:39

my time is I'm in reactive mode.

12:43

Fortunately, they're all good,

12:43

good. You know, it's no longer

12:47

have the five a relationships,

12:47

I've got, you know, hundreds of

12:50

them. But it's hard to it's hard

12:50

to manage at this stage.

12:53

So to point out

12:53

something there. That's because

12:56

you're you're now achieving at

12:56

such a high level. In a lot of

13:00

times when people start out they

13:00

think oh, I should do what Carl

13:02

does he you know, he keeps in

13:02

touch with all these people.

13:05

That's not the place to start,

13:05

we want to start with eight or

13:07

10 really, really great ones.

13:07

And people that could really

13:11

bring a lot of business your way

13:11

whether they do business with

13:13

you now. And then as you do that

13:13

over time, you start to get to

13:17

the point where you are now.

13:18

Yeah, it's

13:18

unpredictable, where the next

13:20

big clients gonna come from, I

13:20

found them coming from the

13:23

strangest of places or places I

13:23

don't expect them to come from

13:27

just because I've managed to

13:27

stay loosely in touch with

13:30

somebody. I don't I mean, this

13:30

is not this is not these are not

13:33

people I have lunch with, you

13:33

know, every month. These are

13:35

people I you know, can I connect

13:35

with on LinkedIn, and I may, you

13:40

know, wish them good wishes and

13:40

get a new job or have a birthday

13:44

or something like that.

13:45

Yeah

13:46

Yep. So So another

13:46

thing you talk about is target

13:48

lists. What is the importance of

13:48

target lists? And how does that

13:51

work?

13:52

Yeah, the key here

13:52

is that a lot of professionals

13:54

don't, I was just I was just

13:54

doing a session last week on

13:58

this, but a lot of professionals

13:58

don't get really clear on who

14:01

they're for. And then that puts

14:01

them in reactive mode. So if

14:06

you're a lawyer, and you really

14:06

focused on big pharma companies,

14:09

because you've you filed

14:09

patents, you're a chemical

14:11

engineer, and a JD and all these

14:11

other things. Well, there's

14:15

there's some specific

14:15

organizations that if you got in

14:18

there, I could just keep you

14:18

busy for decades. And having a

14:21

real defined list typically

14:21

three things that define your

14:25

perfect client. And writing

14:25

those down usually takes about

14:29

30 minutes. If you read snowball

14:29

system, there's a specific

14:32

process to arrive at these

14:32

three, three things. But you

14:36

want to get a really clear list

14:36

of the determinants or the sort

14:39

of the things that correlate to

14:39

your perfect clientele. Once you

14:43

know that you can steer

14:43

everything to meet those people,

14:47

your LinkedIn updates, you're

14:47

engaging online content,

14:50

content, you're the speech that

14:50

you're going to give it the HLA

14:54

conference, you know, virtually

14:54

or whatever. But once you're

14:57

clear on who you're for, then

14:57

you can get clear On what

15:01

content you create in for whom?

15:01

And how do you get in front of

15:04

the right people, and then

15:04

everything's aligned. And what a

15:07

lot of professionals do is

15:07

almost the opposite. They just

15:10

do stuff and hope that the right

15:10

people will see them. But the

15:13

problem with that is that people

15:13

see, it might be more, they

15:16

might view your work more as a

15:16

commodity, it's not the meaty

15:19

stuff you really want to do. And

15:19

a lot of times, there's a lot of

15:22

effort without a lot of return.

15:24

Alright, so up till now, we've been kind of down in the weeds with with how this

15:25

stuff works. And that's great

15:28

for the person who's out in the

15:28

marketplace already. And doing

15:31

it. But I mentioned to you

15:31

before we got on the on the

15:34

recording, there are some

15:34

students that listen to this

15:36

podcast, college students, even

15:36

high school students, and what

15:40

would you besides reading your

15:40

book and listening to your

15:42

podcast and maybe taking one of

15:42

your courses? What are some

15:44

things they could be doing to

15:44

prepare themselves to be able to

15:47

do what you've done?

15:49

Oh, that's awesome.

15:49

Well, you know, I'll give a

15:51

little free thing that people

15:51

can do, it's even cheaper than

15:54

the book because it doesn't cost

15:54

anything. And it's a there's a

15:59

free course we've got called BB

15:59

habits calm. So if people go to

16:03

beat V for business, and D for

16:03

development, so BD habits calm.

16:06

If people go there with a

16:06

student, a high stakes,

16:09

litigator, anybody in between,

16:09

there's a little series of

16:13

videos that accompany that, that

16:13

course. And it takes a couple

16:17

hours to go through the content,

16:17

it's got free worksheets, it's

16:21

got me giving the How to the

16:21

focus on this, avoid that kind

16:25

of pro level tips. In to your

16:25

point, Carl, somebody that's a

16:29

student, they don't have a lot

16:29

of cash, you know, their drink,

16:32

they're eating ramen noodles

16:32

every night, they can go out to

16:35

that bat habits calm course. And

16:35

it is really phenomenal, we

16:38

packed a lot of value into it,

16:38

and they would be able to get a

16:41

really good way to start

16:41

focusing on the things that they

16:45

want to accomplish. It's called

16:45

those opportunities, they get

16:48

really clear on who their

16:48

protocol list is, who are the

16:50

relationships that that they

16:50

really want to invest in. And

16:54

then the major part of it is

16:54

then lining the habits behind

16:58

that. So you're always focused

16:58

on proactively building the life

17:01

you want. And those kind of

17:01

things are every bit as true for

17:05

somebody that's a junior in

17:05

college as they are for a high

17:08

stakes senior partner litigator

17:08

that's trying to build his or

17:11

her book of business.

17:12

Well, thanks, Mo. That's a great takeaway. And I thank you for joining me today

17:14

on Rainmakers. It's Mo Bunnell,

17:18

CEO of the bundle idea group and

17:18

author of this Snowball System.

17:22

Thank you.

17:23

Thanks, Carl.