The Uncommon Leader Podcast

Episode 202: Is Your Network Drifting? Barb Betts Reveals the "5x5" Relationship System

• John Gallagher • Episode 202

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If you’ve ever wondered why good relationships quietly fade, this conversation will change how you lead, sell, and show up. We sit down with speaker and author Barb Betts to unpack a simple truth: relationships don’t fail overnight—they drift when we stop being intentional. Starting with the inner game, Barb reframes self-doubt and imposter syndrome as signs you’re stretching into growth, not proof that you’re a fraud. By 85, you’ll spend roughly 44 million minutes with yourself; the way you speak to you becomes the template for every other connection.

We move from mindset to method with Barb’s VVR factor: visibility, vulnerability, and relatability. Show up consistently, be human without oversharing, and find a real point of common ground. Then apply a Relationship Operating System that ranks your most important people, sets a contact cadence, and uses the five by five method—five genuine, no-ask messages to five people a day—to prevent drift. Barb shares a personal story of nearly losing a 24-year friendship and how simple, consistent touchpoints would have saved months of hurt.

• redefining self-doubt and imposter syndrome as growth signals
• VVR factor: visibility, vulnerability, relatability
• preventing drift with a relationship operating system
• five by five daily outreach method with no asks
• ranking relationships and setting contact frequency
• why everyone is in sales because sales is influence
• building trust accounts and making deposits before withdrawals
• making people feel known, not just counted
• where AI helps and where it can’t
• practical tools: CRM, sheets, top 100 list

Sales leaders will appreciate her broader frame: sales is influence, and everyone sells. The goal isn’t how many people you know; it’s how many feel known by you. That shift boosts referrals, deepens trust, and turns your name on someone’s phone into a call they can’t wait to answer. We also get practical about tools—CRMs, Google Sheets, even AI for drafting and organizing—while drawing a hard line where tech can’t replace a voice note, phone call, or handwritten card.

If you’re ready to stop relying on “let’s get together soon” and start building relationships before you need them, this episode offers a playbook you can use today. If it resonates, follow Barb, send those five messages, and tell us who you’re reconnecting with. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this nudge, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 Barb Betts:👇
➡️ 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 (primary): https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbbetts/
➡️ 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐓𝐮𝐛𝐞: https://www.youtube.com/@BarbBetts
➡️ 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞: https://www.barbbetts.com/
➡️ 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤: https://www.barbbetts.com/book-barb

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SPEAKER_00:

Listen guys, I don't like the direction the company's going in either, but this is the card we've been dealt and we need to work with it. That's a level of vulnerability that a leader is able to say, I don't like this either, right? And then the third, and I think the piece that we forget the most is relatability. Right? It's okay to not have something in common with another human and not want to be friends with them. But I promise you, if you think to every relationship you have, there's something you have in common. There's something that you guys can relate to each other on.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, Uncommon Leaders. Welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher, and I've got a great guest for you today. You may notice a name from a couple years ago, Barb Betts. She's the host of the Relationships Are Your Superpower podcast. But she's here to talk to us really today about the relationship advantage. It's a new book she's got coming out that I think you're gonna love. I know you're gonna want to have a copy of it. And when you listen in, here's what you're gonna learn right off the bat the most important relationship you need to be aware of when we get started. So don't go anywhere. She's gonna talk to you pretty quick about that. Barb, welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you for having me, John. I am doing absolutely wonderful, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

SPEAKER_01:

I am excited about it as well, and I know it's gonna be great. I've already gotten plenty of notes to get us ready, and we were talking about this and said, don't wait to hit record button because we'll talk about too much. We'll miss some of the good stuff. But let's jump right into that first question. You say that there's a specific relationship that's the most important relationship we have to be successful. What is that relationship?

SPEAKER_00:

That is a relationship with yourself. You know, we focus so much on these external relationships and they're incredibly important. And we worry about every other relationship in our life and we forget, um, which I have uh not only believed, but actually seen play out in my life and in the lives of the, you know, hundreds and thousands of people that I work with and speak to, is that the most important relationship we're ever gonna have is the one we have with ourselves, and that in this concept of how do we build authentic relationships with others, you cannot build a real relationship with someone else until you have that real relationship yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

So it sounds if I'm like I get an engineer background, like I have to have a relationship with myself. I've often been told I'll talk to myself and I'm not supposed to answer how that works. But I mean, you've actually got some math behind it. I've listened to a couple other podcasts that you've done and ones that you've talked about on your podcast, where you're talking about how much time we spend with ourselves compared to with others. I mean, I think that's a pretty powerful one, the percentage of time that we spend with our kids.

SPEAKER_00:

So I like to share in my messaging that if you live until you are 85 years old, which we all know someone in our life that's lived to 85 years old. I'm not saying 100, I'm just saying 85, which frankly in 2025 is 2026, it's not that old. Um, you will have spent 44 million minutes with yourself. And it's actually technically closer to 45. I just say 44 because you know, we round down. Um give and take a few minutes, right? But 44 million minutes with you. And I like to say, think about it this way. Imagine this is why the relationship with yourself is so important. So imagine you're trapped in an elevator with someone for 44 million minutes. And imagine that person is not nice to you. That person doesn't believe in you, that person speaks awful to you, right? That person tells you to be somebody you're not. We would call that a toxic relationship. And yet that's the relationship that most of us are living with ourselves every day.

SPEAKER_01:

I won't even try to convert that over to seconds, but it's so powerful. You know, and you're exactly right in terms of the time that we spend with ourselves. Uh really cool. Well, listen, uh, I wanted to get that one right out of the way, right off the bat, because it is the most important relationship that we have. It's been a couple of years, almost two and a half years, since you were a guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast last. What's been going on in your life? You're a speaker, you're a podcast host. Tell me all the good stuff was going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So uh speaking on as many stages as I can, right? Really have enjoyed stepping out into other industries. You know, primarily I built my speaking career inside the real estate space. Um, that is where I spent uh 14 years I've spent speaking and training and educating in that space. And as you know, we met, you know, four years ago when I stepped into a new community of like, I have this passion to take my message other places, but I don't know how to do it. And so that's how you and I met. And uh I've enjoyed the last four years and since we've last spoke on the podcast, the last two and a half years, really stepping into other industries, other spaces, new stages. I still am very passionate about my podcast, although I'm gonna put it on hold for the beginning of 2026 so I can get passionate about uh what I've recently done this year, which is wrote a book. And I, you know, one of those things about being an author is I've talked about it for I don't know how many years. I've said it from stage. I'm doing research for a book. And every time I would say it towards the end, I would just kind of catch my husband's eye giggling because he's like, Yeah, the book you've been talking about. And something about 2025, actually, there was one specific thing that happened, but that caused me to finally do it. And I didn't think I really could put together 250 pages of thoughts and ideas. It turns out I could. And it's just proof that when you have a message on your heart that you need to share, uh, you and I talked about this. You know, are you ready to write the book or not, John? And we all, you don't know when you're gonna be ready, but I promise you, you will you will know when you're ready. And this was the year to write it. So I've just written the book, it's gonna be published in May of 2026. Super excited about that. And yeah, that's what's been going on. Speaking and speaking and authoring.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'm excited about that for you as well. And I'd like to get a chance actually just about that speaker journey just a little bit, but we're here to talk about the book first. The Relationship Advantage is the name of the book. You've got some techniques in here that you like to share with individuals. I'm curious, before we jump into the content of the book, is there a writer that you like to emulate or that you know really admire and how you might have written this book?

SPEAKER_00:

You know what's crazy is I I don't know that there was someone I was trying to write it like because I I truthfully did not think I could be an author. And so what I will tell you is the feedback I've gotten. So when my publisher first read it, my project manager, um, he said to me, Wow, Barb, he's like, this is very much Mel Robbins plus strategy. And I was like, Wow, I'll take that all day long because that's really who I am, right? When I speak, a lot of bureau agents that I work with and a lot of people out in the speaking world say to me, like, it's so interesting that you have this range. Like most speakers are either very strategy-based, very technical, very how-to, or they're inspiration, motivation. Um very few can do both. And I do do both. I can go in and talk about authenticity and confidence and my personal journey and story and get you feeling the goosies and getting audiences and tears and all that type of stuff. And then I can also go in heavy sales strategy, because that's what I did for 20, you know, plus years. And so the book ended up being that. And so I wouldn't say there's an author that I emulated, but I'm glad that what I intended, which is all parts of me to come out in the book. Because so many people tell you you have to niche down in a book. So many people tell you it can only be about one thing. And that was where my light bulbs went off was I was fighting that. I was like, no, it can be everything. And that's what I did. And so I'm proud of that because that's the feedback I've been getting, is it's you know, inspiration and strategy.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love that right off the bat because I think there's a level of I want to hear kind of that inspiration. I want to be motivated, I want to leave, like I want to run through a wall, but I also want to feel that I've been given frameworks or tactics that I can do to be successful. So let's play in that tactic and strategy uh space for here just a little bit in terms of conversation. And let's go to one of the three points that you talk about in the book in the order, and that's the V VR factor. Look, we're not gonna be able to share everything in the book. That's why we want folks to go out and buy the works so they can get all these. But what's the the V VR factor?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the V VR factor is my concept behind the three factors or the three pieces that you need to have a relationship with anybody, and that includes the relationship with yourself. And this is something that I've really done a lot of reflection and thoughts on and reading and evaluating my own relationships. And I'm like, what are the things that I have with every relationship that I have in my life? And um, it really comes down to again, what I've kind of coined the V VR, which is visibility, vulnerability, and relatability. And when you think about this from a tactical standpoint, right? And you think about all the people you meet in the world from networking events to groups that you're involved in to clients. If you don't have all three of these, you can't have a relationship, right? So when we talk about visibility, you have to be present. You have to actually show up, you have to actually be involved in someone's life, business, whatever it may be. You and I both come from the same uh community that we met in. And how many times have you ever heard another community member say, Oh, brand builder's group didn't work for me? The first question I'm gonna ask you, did you actually show up? Did you actually come to the events in Nashville? Did you show up on the calls? Did you show up in the community? Did you actually make yourself visible? The answer is usually no, if it didn't work for you, right? So visibility is key, whether that's showing up in front of clients, whether that's with friendships, whether that's with your own family. The second is vulnerability. And this is the piece people have a lot of problems with, especially like when we talk about leadership. You have to have some level of vulnerability with another human. Now, when I say level, I don't mean you have to throw up your life and tell your deepest, darkest secrets to every human you know. But if you don't have some level of humanity and vulnerability with another person, you can't have a real relationship. And it can be as simple as saying, I'm having a bad day. It can be as simple as saying, I don't know the answer to that. It can be as simple as saying, if you're a team leader or someone that manages other people, listen, guys, I don't like the direction the company's going in either, but this is the card we've been dealt and we need to work with it. That's a level of vulnerability that a leader is able to say, I don't like this either, right? And then the third, and I think the piece that we forget the most is relatability, right? It's okay to not have something in common with another human and not want to be friends with them. But I promise you, if you think to every relationship you have, there's something you have in common. There's something that you guys can relate to each other on. Like you and I built a relationship because we're both on a personal growth and development path and building a brand. We don't have to like the same things, we don't have to have the same political views, but we have a point of relatability. We both love brand builders group, we both love Rory and AJ. That's our relatability. And so if you don't have, if any pieces of those are missing, that's why you don't have an actual relationship with somebody else. And so it's and it's something that you can work on, it's something that you can think about. And then it's also we can go, we can get nerd out, and we can also talk about how if you want to improve your relationship with someone else, you might need to go deeper on one of those wrongs, right? You may need to be more present, be more vulnerable, or learn more about someone else where you might find some things in common you didn't know you had.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I love that. And I've heard you share before some of the stories specifically with regards to visibility and vulnerability in our own world, self-deprecation to some point is a good thing ultimately, but if we overuse it, it can be a really bad thing. And you end up being a victim in terms of inside of that space. I think some of the things that keep us as leaders from being visible or vulnerable are those past stories that we've had, and they may be, you know, ultimately we have self-doubt. You mentioned in your book that you should have permission to embrace that self-doubt, and that actually sometimes that's a sign of growth and not uh inadequacy. Tell me about that a little bit. How can self-doubt be a sign of growth?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it is one of my uh you think it's this, but it's really this. And the reason I'm so passionate about this giving you permission to start embracing self-doubt is that's really one of the key factors in building that relationship with yourself, right? I truly believe that self-doubt is the space where your confidence is born, right? You cannot build more confidence without doubt, right? You can't, if you don't feel ever feel any ounce of doubt in your life, then you're just you're not growing. You're not pushing, you're not stretching, right? And then it flows right into the concept of imposter syndrome, which is one of my beefs in the world, is I am so tired of the world being told that imposter syndrome means you're a fraud or you're a fake, right? And that's all we've ever heard. And my reaction and answer to that is imposter syndrome does not mean you're a fraud or you're fake. Imposter syndrome means and is a sign when you feel it that you are growing. You are stepping into a new space, you are stepping into a new uh chapter, you are stepping into a new version. All of those things require some doubt and imposture to be there. When people tell you they never doubt themselves, I'm not gonna call them out and say they're all lying, but I don't believe they're all being truthful to themselves, or they're not recognizing what it really is. And what I like to tell people is that show me a successful person and you would be so surprised to know that you think they're confident, you think they have it all together. And what they've really done is they're okay being imperfect and they still step forward, anyways, right? And so they do have the doubt, they just keep stepping forward, and that's why I say the doubt is where your confidence is born.

SPEAKER_01:

So cool. I mean, if I thought about what uh my word was, sometimes people talk about that for 2025. I'm not a big fan, but like the word that has, in my reflection at the end of this year, and as you know, as we record this at the end of 2025, uh comes out early 2026, is this word uncomfortable. And we have other friends in BBG, Jill Shulman, who wrote the book, The Bravery Effect. And one of the quotes that I truly remember that is that usually something great is on the other side of doing something hard. And inside of that space in terms of vulnerability or overcoming that self-doubt is a lot of what it's all about inside of growth. When you can recognize that you have it, but you're able to overcome it and do something about it, can be really cool. I love that you invested so much time in the self-recognition or the relationship with yourself inside of your book. And we got to keep going in terms of the time. The other side of that is in your relationship with others in terms of the second part of the book. And one of the things that you talk about is the relationship operating system, an approach to preventing drift, another big word, complacency, drift falling aside in terms of what we're doing. What is the relationship operating system? Put it on the bottom shelf here for some of the listeners who know they need to build relationships.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the first point you said it is the drift, right? This really is about the fact, and it's a fact, that most relationships, now this isn't true for all relationships, some relationships do need to just end. Some relationships have served their purpose. Some relationships just were never a good fit for you, right? But most relationships, especially when we talk about sales or leadership, most relationships have not ended. They've just drifted away, right? And they've drifted away because the number one thing I've learned about relationships is you have to be intentional about them. They don't happen by accident. And what happens is we take our relationships for granted. And so the relationship operating system is all about being systematic and how you approach relationships and not in a transactional way. There is zero transaction in my world, right? But how do you apply some kind of simple system so that you don't let these most important people in your life drift away? And the problem is when relationships drift away intentionally or unintentionally, it causes this gap where people start to make up stories, tell themselves their own version of what they think is going on. And then you sit back and think, wow, John doesn't like me anymore. No, John probably thinks you just don't care about him anymore, which is why John's distanced himself. And so this relationship operating system is a simple formula and it includes various different things. But the most important concept of the relationship operating system is that you rank your relationships or prioritize your relationships, whatever word you want to use, in a way that you know who the most important people are in your life, down to the different rungs of relationships, because we all have different levels of relationships with everyone we know. Then you apply some kind of frequency formula in how often you're gonna stay in touch with them, right? Because that's the problem. If you have really important people in your life and you're constantly thinking, wow, I should reach out to John, wow, I should call John, wow, John and I should have a cup of coffee. And then you never actually do those things. That's when the distance between you and John grows. And you don't do it intentionally, it just ends up happening. And so when you rank your relationships, you apply some kind of frequency formula, and then you apply a very simple strategy that I teach in the book. And it's called the five by five method. And it's simply five messages a day to five people you care about. And I do it every single morning, and I've done it every single morning for almost my entire life and career. And I'm telling you, it will transform your relationships. And when you pair that with this frequency formula, it's impossible to let John fall to the wayside because John's important to you.

SPEAKER_01:

He's gonna be triggered in your CRM or your calendar or whatever system you're using, and you're gonna constantly be nurturing and developing and being intentional with that relationship that you have with.com slash BBG, as in brand builders group. Schedule your free call and take the first step toward building a personal brand that gets you noticed for all the right reasons. That's CoachJongGallagher.com slash BBG. Now, let's get back to the episode. I could stay like right in that space because I'm that's I could nerd out on frameworks like that, five by five uh prioritization uh and the methodology you use to rank your relationships. I can hear some people in the background in my ear, and I don't have a producer in my ear, but somebody else in my ear saying, Yeah, but like they're relationships and they can't be that mechanical where they get to be out. Like, come on, somebody has told that to you on stage somewhere.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course they have.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_00:

I respond to it by you can't treat everyone in your life you're the same, right? Look what's happening to Southwest Airlines. Okay. They're changing their entire business model because they cannot continue to treat everyone the same. You have a different level of relationship with everyone in your life. And all this simply does is ensure that the most important people in your life hear from you often, right? And it doesn't mean that you're showing up calculated. It doesn't mean that you're showing, and again, when you read the book, you're gonna learn that these five by five messages cannot be transactional. There's no agenda, no ask, no asking for a referral, no asking for business, no asking for help, right? It's the trigger and the reminder that, oh my goodness, I love John and I haven't talked to John in a while. Let me give you a real story. And this story actually isn't in the book. I wish it was. And the reason it's not in the book is it just happened to me. Literally within the last 60 days happened to me. One of my dearest friends, we have known each other since our children were babies. Those children are now 24 and 25. Okay. So that's how long I've known this woman and her husband and her family, and we've done life together. And as the kids were younger, we did a lot of life together. They were, again, relatability. They were in the same, you know, uh groups and played the same sports and all the things. We have remained friends, and her and I are part of a larger group of friends, and so we see each other often. Um, but I'll be transparent, Pam and I's relationship, because I wasn't applying my own system and I wasn't being intentional outside of the just girlfriend get togethers for a period of time. I didn't even pay attention and realize that I haven't made Pam a priority. Because of that, because that drift happened, because Pam's now only seeing me. At forced gatherings, and there's no more Barb reaching out or checking in on Pam. Pam started telling herself her own story. I didn't even realize it was happening, and Pam started telling herself her own story. And this relational drift drifted so far that a big event happened in her life and we didn't get invited. And it crushed me. And it made me wake up and realize, oh my gosh, Pam's a five-star relationship in my life, and I haven't been treating her like one. And so the reason I share that is we did have a conversation about it. We came together, we've cleared the air. I admitted where I had right some effect on this relationship. We talked about her stories she told herself that weren't true. But all of that could have been fixed if I had been more aware that, you know what, Pam's important to me. And I haven't been as good as communication with her as I can, as I should be. And here's the problem: the problem with Pam and I is that as I transitioned from being in my real estate world to my speaking world, I'm busy. I'm now focused on generating business and getting, and this is why relational drift isn't important just for business. It's important for your personal life. And sometimes we get so hyper-fixated on our business and our sales and all the things we need to do over here that we forget these foundational friendships and relationships that are just as important. And this drift caused so much pain in both of our lives, right? That and it had some trailing effects, and all of that could have been solved if I had actually worked my system with my own friends too. And so there's power in it, and it's not transactional. It's called we're human, and we let this relationship drift away. And it caused so much heartache and conflict that it almost ended a 24-year friendship that did not need to end and should not end.

SPEAKER_01:

You are uh unfortunately for me, uh there are faces popping up in my brain now of those five-star relationships that I've let drift. Uh reminds me of you know one of my own quotes here. Good intention without discipline leads to excuses, but good discipline with good intention will be excellence. And I think how this drift make up for me, how the drift happens for me is let's get together soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

We need to get together someday. No, no, no. Right. Some is not a number, soon is not a time. Put it on the calendar. Yeah, get it on the calendar before you leave. And again, I think I almost need to collect myself in terms of what I can again see those faces and names that when I get off of this uh recording, I'm gonna have to uh send a couple of text messages and that intentionality. And I don't know if I have nine months or six months to wait until get your book in terms of when we're recording this. But either way, we'll get there because I like the systems inside of that. I mean, and now you mentioned another word uh when I listen through in terms of being intentional and I can hear people talking about it as well is sales. And you were in sales before real estate, very important. Uh, and I can almost hear some people saying, well, you know, yeah, it's very important for salespeople to have a relationship operating system. But you also say uh in your book that everybody has sales in their responsibility. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I always say sales is influence, right? Everybody is in sales because sales is convincing someone else to buy your product, your service, or buy into your philosophy, right? That is sales. Well, think about the last time you really tried to convince a friend to like a TV show, or the last time you tried to convince a friend to buy a product that you love, or when you went into a restaurant and you were like, you know, the best tables by the window. So you gave the hostess a sales pitch on why you needed to be by the window, or getting your toddler to tie their shoes is sales. And we are all in the business of influence, whether we want to admit it or not. It's just some people make an income off of the sales, but we all live our life through influence. That's a fact. And the more influential you are, the more connected to humans you're gonna be, the more you're gonna be the go-to person, the more people are gonna be attracted to being around you. And it just has this ripple effect that affects our entire lives.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you talk about bank account balances, but you know, inside of that sales space, you're also talking about relationship account balances that we have to continue to build and make deposits in as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, I the relational deposit is so important. And I talk about this in the perspective of obviously you have a relational trust account with every human that you know, and you have to make deposits in that trust account before you can ask for anything. So I go back to Pam, right? Like reflect back on what happened. And let's say I needed something from Pam two months ago before we identified this was all going on. If I needed to call Pam, I probably would have gone, man, I haven't talked to Pam outside of our girlfriend dinners. I don't have any right to call her and ask her for help right now. And when you really have that awareness, like the people you're thinking about right now, that maybe some of the closest people in your life, if you needed something from them right now, you probably would have this knee-jerk reaction of, uh-oh, the last time I needed something from them was the last time I talked to them. Right. And so you really have to be aware that whether it's your children, the people that live in your home, your neighbors, your friends, or clients and customers, you've got some kind of relational trust account with everyone you know. The question is, are you aware of it or not? And are you being intentional about making those deposits? And those deposits can be as simple as, and in your world, right, these people that you're like, I haven't talked to them in so long. I always say just rip the band-aid off. Just be admit it. Be like, oh my God, it has been so long since we've chatted. That's ridiculous. I'm calling a spade a spade right now. Let's grab a cup of coffee next week, right? I mean, just admit it. Admit you haven't been in touch. You've been on my mind constantly. I should have texted you three months ago. I didn't. I am now. Let's hop on the phone. Let's have a cup of coffee. Let's get together. And I promise you, the person on the other end, if you have a real relationship with them, will respond so excited and happy and relieved. And you can just start from square one again. And nothing has to be a big because people always tell me, well, that's weird. I haven't talked to him in six years. I can't call him. Yes, you can. And if you can't, then maybe you don't have a relationship anymore. And that's okay too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you can't call him five star if you're not willing to reach out to him. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

You're just fooling yourself as you look at it. Interestingly, uh, another one more quote inside your book in terms of this uh section as well in in life and in leadership. Uh, you say it's not the number of people that you know, but the number of people who feel known by you. That yeah, that sounds like something I really need to know about. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, it's it's all about this mantra of um you get so caught up, especially in sales, right? We get so caught up in how many people are in our database, how many people are in our pipeline, our downline, insert whatever it is. And we forget that's not what it's about, right? What it's about is how many people actually can say that you know them, right? That they actually feel known by you. And not that you just have their contact information, but that you actually know their goals, their life, their family, their dreams, their hopes, their favorite things, right? And if you want to make one massive change in your relationships in your life, is make more people, and I don't necessarily like the word seen, which is why it's known. Because I feel like seen can be so passive, can be so like, oh yeah, I see you. It can almost come off a little negative. Letting someone know that you truly know them is a whole nother level, right? It's knowing that they're not saying what they need to say. It's knowing that they're not giving you the whole story. It's knowing that you saw something and you thought of them, and you're the only person on the planet that would know to reach out and be like, hey, you know, I was watching this show tonight and I just immediately thought of you and I thought of that vacation we took years ago and you know, whatever. It's showing people that you actually know them. And I teach a connection loop formula and how to actually really show people that you know them and it's a lot of steps and all the things. But at the end of the day, the simple concept is quit focusing on the number of followers, the number of likes, how many people in your database, your contact list, your mailing list, whatever it may be, and start really focusing on if I were to call this person and my name pops up on the phone, are they excited to answer the call?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00:

Just think about it and it'll change your intentionality with all these people that you're thinking about.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What do they think when they see your name pop up? Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Do they slide or do they Do they say, oh, John needs something again? Oh, John's just calling, you know, and I reflect it back to, you know, my real estate days and those days where I would have to be doing my lead generation and my check-ins and all the things. And I would go to call somebody and I would be like, Oh man, I can't call them. Right? They're gonna, they're gonna think that I just want something from them. Instead of like, oh my God, I'm so excited. Barb's calling. I wonder what, wonder what she wonder what she wants to talk about, right? Or I'm so excited to answer the call. And and we all do the same thing. There's phone calls you get where you're like, eh, not excited to answer that call. And then there's other calls where you'll like stop what you're doing or get distracted, or you know, text them under the table because you're at lunch with a friend and be like, I'll call you as soon as I get in the car, right? It's like, how are people feeling when you show up on their phone? And more importantly, are you even showing up on their phone? Because are you taking the intention to even call them to begin with, which is a whole nother conversation?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that is so cool. That is, I mean, I can't, I'm so I'm not gonna have you talk about that. You got to get the book just for that one and uh framework that you talk about. So I look at time. I mean, and as we go through this, I could spend another hour talking about this, uh, not even having read it yet, but thinking of some of the frameworks. When someone reads a book, this is the book test that I learned from one of our friends, Bob Wheatley, uh, at Brand Builders Group as well. He talked about when folks are done with the book, like those who are watching on YouTube, they can see the books behind you, they can see the books behind me in terms of ones that I've read, but they're gonna put your book up on a shelf, they're gonna see the binding, and I love the bindings of books. I think they look really cool. Even without the covers, I think they look prettier that without the covers than they do with that. Doesn't really matter. When they see your binding on the bookshelf after they've read that book six months later, nine months later, what do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel when they see that book?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really great question. Way to stomp the author. So, a couple things. I want them to have it as a reminder and something I talk about and kind of the whole premise or message in BBG land of the book, which is build the relationships before you need them. Um, that has been something I have said for years and years and years and years, right? Is we all need relationships in our life. We all need people in our life to help us, right? How do you build the relationship to a point where you build it and it has depth and complexity and love and support and all of these things built into it so that when you do need to call on that relationship for something, they answer, right? So build the relationships before you need them, build the relationships before you need them for business, you know, for life, for sales, for leadership, or just for humanity. So that's one of the big overarching uh messages that I I want people. I also want people to look at it as this is a book I need to pick up every year, right? Because this is we're humans, we're constantly a work in progress. And so that's why I specifically wrote the book in three sections. And the three sections for everyone listening is the first section is the relationship with yourself, the most important one you have. The second section is how do you build effective relationships with others, which is very systematic and also very thought-provoking of like, how do we show up in digital lands and how do we have these, you know, make sure we have all these three, you know, important factors for a relationship. And then the third section is I didn't want this to just be a book on sales. I wanted this to be a book my girlfriend Pam, who happens to be an elementary school teacher, could pick up, right? A business owner could pick up, a leader could pick up. And so the third section is all about how relationships make an impact in our life, right? Through sales, through leadership, through community, and then ultimately how relationships are our legacy factor. And so I want this to be almost like the relationship Bible, like the book you pick up every year to reorient yourself, go back to ground zero and check yourself. How am I doing with myself? How am I doing with others? And then how am I really making an impact in the world? Because last time I checked, humans are going to be around forever. And I know it feels like robots are gonna take over and robots probably will be part of our lives, right? But that human-to-human relationship is going to be something that's not gonna go away. And so, how do we just be intentional about it so that these relationships truly do become our legacy fact? And uh, the last chapter has something special in it, and I won't spoil it, but it does get really reflective of what happens when we leave this earth and what happens to those relationships that we've left behind.

SPEAKER_01:

Can't wait to read that as well. I love that. Sorry, I do like to stump the author just a little bit. Uh, I feel like there's one more tactical question I want to have, and ultimately from an order standpoint. So you mentioned this um grading system, the five-star system that you have. A couple tactical questions. Do you need a CRM to take care of this? And that's you mentioned it. How does it work?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a CR a CRM is great, but but a Google Sheet works just as well. Or you know what, frankly, like I always say, you know, it depends on what you're doing. If you're a business owner, yeah, you need a CRM. Yes, you can set it up very strategically. I actually partnered in building software for small businesses that is part of the book launch bonuses. So if you're interested, go order the book and it's part of the bonuses so that people can maybe try out a software that would really help them organize all the people that they know. You could technically do it in the contact record on your phone, right? You could take everyone's name and put a number in front of it or an A, B, and C, or a you know, red light, yellow light, green light. I don't really care what system you use. I just use five star because it's easy and everyone knows what a five star is from a one-star. Uh, but you know, transparently, a CRM is the best for business. A Google Sheet works too. Or another strategy is just go through your phone and start at the top, right? And if the person's important to you, send them a message and then go to the next one. If the person's important to you, send them a message. And of course you're gonna scroll past people that you kept their contact information, but they're not a real relationship. I understand all of that. My best advice for someone starting out is make your top 100 people. Okay. You know, take get to your top 100 people. And where I say to always start is who would you send a holiday card to? We're in holiday season right now. Who would you send a holiday card to? Or who would you invite to your baby shower, your wedding, right? Some big, big important thing in your life. That's your top 100 people. Whether you're in business or not, we all have a list of our top 100 people. Start there so it's not overwhelming. Write them down, rank them, and start at the top. And even if you have to write it down in a notebook, it doesn't matter. It's just how can you now make awareness around these relationships that you've let drift away, or simply start with the five people you're thinking about that you're like, oh my goodness, they're really important to me. They may not know it. And it's been a long time since I've talked.

SPEAKER_01:

I know it's not a sales book, but I listened to your stuff as well. You, I mean, you and this is important because 84%, you mentioned 84% of sales start with a referral. They don't start with a cold call.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's and what's crazy about that stat is it's in the 90s, right? For consumers, that 84% stat is B2B because I always have people that are like, oh, well, that worked in your real estate career. You're in a B2C business, and you know, it's all kissy kissy. And no, 84%. Harvard business study, B2B. That's copy salespeople, that's you know, contractors, that's I mean, it works everywhere because people are looking for people that they can trust. And the people who know how to prioritize authentic human relationships are going to win over AI every single day.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen. How do you buy by the way? You said AI. How are you using AI to help you with this as well? Can you?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I'm using, and I always tell people I'm using AI every single day in my business. You'd be crazy not to use AI in your business, right? AI helps me create more content, create more strategy, organize my systems. Well, AI can't replace this human relationship. So how would I use AI to help me in this world? Well, the reality is AI can't rank your relationships only, you can, right? But AI could create a Google, you know, sheet grid to you program to be able to, you know, when I reach out to John and I connect with him and I change the date to today, okay, schedule it 30 days because he's a five-star. Now, if you know how to program a Google sheet, you can do that too, but not everyone knows how to program a Google Sheet. So how I would use AI is I would ask AI to create a system for me that works for me or my way of my technology, what I like to use. So AI can't help you with the relationships. Sorry. Now, what AI can do, hey, I haven't talked to my friend John in a really long time. The last time I talked to John, this is how we know each other. These are all the things I know about John. Help me craft a few not weird messages to help me authentically reach out to John. Because sometimes you're just stuck. Sometimes you don't know what to say. Now, I am not saying copy and paste what ChatGPT tells you, okay? But ChatGPT is really good at putting things in, especially if it knows you play that sounds authentic and real, and then you massage it and create it yourself. That's another way I would use it. Or hey, I need to send an email to a past client that I haven't talked to in six years. Right? How would you craft this email? So it sounds like me and I admit that I haven't been in touch, but I don't make it a big deal. Sometimes you just need a little help and support, right? I'm not telling you because I what I don't want people to do is just send a bunch of messages saying just checking in, just checking in. Right? So use AI in the way that it's built, which is to help you think bigger, think differently, think strategically, but it can't help you with the relationships that it can't do. And no, it cannot auto-dial, it cannot handwrite a note for you. Um, yes, I know there's a bunch of systems out there to do that. That is not relational.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I I tend to agree with you 100%. I tried those systems out before. And there's to me, there's frankly, well, a text message is really good, and I think those are there, but uh there's not a whole lot that replaces a handwritten card and handwritten note and phone calls are the two most lost arts out there.

SPEAKER_00:

And let's face it, even in today's world, you know, people don't pick up their phone, blah, blah, blah, then at least send a voice note or a video so they actually hear you can make all the difference in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

I gotta need to learn how to do that. That's another technology that my folks are trying to teach me. So, all right, Barb. I mean, the book's going to be coming out. I need folks to follow you so they can continue to get more information to be ready for some of these free resources. Where do you want them to go to follow you so that when the book comes out, they're ready to go and they can get this in their hands?

SPEAKER_00:

So on Instagram, it's where I love to have hang out. So it's just LinkedIn, Barbets, just my simply my name, uh my website, barbetz.com, will have all the information on it as well. Um, and also you can simply go to my e or go to my website and uh there's a let's be friends button and put your email in there, and then you'll get all the information when it comes to it.

SPEAKER_01:

Great, excellent. We'll be sure those links are in the show notes uh for everyone to see. Barb, this has been a lot of fun. I knew it was going to be a great conversation. I've probably overused my time uh in terms of going through that, but I think the conversation has been really good. I wish you the best in getting ready for the book launch as it comes out. Uh, you know, if that bestseller status is what you're looking for, I know you're gonna be working hard for that. Uh that's my hope that you get there for that as well. But uh, but ultimately, let's stay connected. Uh let's stay uh not soon, not soon, but when we get this thing uh getting out there, I'm looking forward to being at the party.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, folks, listen up. I think this conversation is one, A, that you need to go out and follow Barb's information when the book comes out in May. That's gonna be really exciting. The second thing is I'm quite sure, first of all, heard of a person like me, you've earned heard of a person you need to get in touch with. Hey, get in touch with them now. But when this when this show's over, get in touch with them as soon as you hit the stop button. But more importantly, share this episode with someone else who needs to hear it. And it may be that person, that Pam that you need to uh build a relationship back with who needs to hear this message and knows that there's a system out there to maintain relationships. Ultimately, if you share this podcast with someone, it'd be great if you could go out there and give it a five star review as well. That helps us get it into the hands of even more listeners. Until next time, go and grow champions.

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