John Corcoran 7:49
It’s funny, because we have on our roadmap to write a book called The give loop. And I love that term, the vulnerability loop. So maybe that’ll be the title of your next book, you can use that next time.
Jon Levy 8:02
I’ll be honest, I think the next one’s gonna be about how hard I worked in burnout culture. So I’m gonna leave the vulnerability to you.
John Corcoran 8:10
While we’re on the topic of who you’re connected to from last year’s recordings, at the end of April 2021, this last year, people have been limited from traveling. Whoa, yeah. Traveling is so integral or going out having dinners, social gatherings, you know, it’s limited to all of us. But you in particular, I know you love traveling, you love connecting with different people. How has the last year been on you? And then we’ll dive into how you’ve managed to maintain connections and build connections through this difficult time?
Jon Levy 8:41
Sure. So what I’m probably best known for is running the secret dining experience, right? So 12 people are invited, they’re not allowed to talk about what they do or give their last name, they cook dinner together. And when they sit down to eat, they play games to try and guess what everybody does. And they find out that it’s an editor in chief Nobel laureate and Olympic medalist, a member of royalty, stuff like that. And so, before COVID hit, I was hosting six dinners a month across New York, LA, San Francisco and Seattle, sometimes seven, and which meant that most of like one out of every six meals I was eating each month, were absolutely terrible, because these meals are awful, right? Like 12 people have no idea how to cook and prepare terrible burritos. So it was kind of funny, but I am a person who needs to engage with a lot of people. I enjoy it, I get a lot of value from it. And when COVID hit, I realized that I can’t risk getting anybody sick. And that you know, I’m a central hub for people to connect around. And so you probably noticed that every business out there started taking their in person events and just putting them online and you may have also noticed that those were absolutely miserable and terrible. And so me and my team started researching at the base level, why do we actually attend an event? Now, the general theory was that we attend events to be entertained, and to be enlightened. Right? Either I’m getting information, or I’m getting entertainment. But if that were true, then seeing a zoom concert would be enjoyable, and it’s not. So we realized that there’s actually two other essential characteristics. One is human connection. I go to an event for the possibility of being around people. Right? Do you follow a sports team? Sure. Which team devar?
John Corcoran 10:46
Well used to be called the Redskins. Now they’re called the Washington football team.
Jon Levy 10:50
Okay, so going in person two, a game is different than watching it on television. Right? If it were the same, seeing it on zoom would be great. Right. And that’s because of two things. One is being around other people the opportunity to connect or just feeling the energy around you means something to us as humans. And the second is that when you start screaming and shouting, you have an impact on the people around you, you have influence, you matter. And if you’re at the tail end of an 800, personWebEx you don’t like you could literally keel over and die. And nobody would give it in. And so we started reimagining what digital events would be. And we realized that the benefit of technology is that I can make you, John, feel like the center of attention. And so we started these digital salons, where we’d have like 200 people on and in the first five minutes, we’d welcome everybody, and then send them into breakout rooms to meet each other and have a conversation. And we’d give them games to play. So we’d have 20 teams competing over like some absurd challenge. And then because of the community, the prizes that people won were ridiculous. So let’s say your team one, John, this absurd game of just figuring out, you know, riddles or whatever it was. And you would get a year’s supply of underwear sent to you by the president of Hanes. Now, realize, like, is that particularly expensive? No, it’s not like, can all the people who are attending this in their own underwear, yeah, they all have amazon prime, right? Like it’s not. It’s not an issue. But we’re having celebrities and Nobel laureates and, and CEOs of major companies all competing, and having a fun time. And we started doing this every week. And it was a highlight of people’s weeks, and it lasted three to five hours. Wow. Yeah. It was a long time , especially after a week of Zoom. Right? It’s not like yeah, so now we do it every other week. And it’s been an absolute privilege requested, you know, 30 of these things probably by now, if not more, we invented all these games. But what we realized was that, if we can offer people an experience to connect over that is novel, like it fundamentally stands out is different. It’s interesting, ideally, right now playful, because people are so stressed that we need these moments that reduce our cortisol levels. We used to get it from like water breaks at the watercooler and having a conversation. But now those don’t exist anymore. And if we can curate interesting people, they don’t have to be like super famous celebrities, right? Just interesting. They’ll go far out of their way for.
John Corcoran 13:49
So for those who are listening, what advice do you have for them to seek out these types of experiences secretly?
Jon Levy 13:59
Number one is nobody likes to network. Networking quite literally evokes an experience that makes us feel dirty. Right? It feels like we’re trying to meet somebody just to use them. And we don’t respond well as humans to that, overall. Realize that we don’t feel that way about making friends. And when we look at what causes us to become friends with people, it’s usually that we have a shared interest. So you like football? Or maybe you have a hobby for all I know, you could be a drone racer or something. It could be a culture. So if you have a certain heritage, or religious belief or something like that, or if there’s activities, right, so like you go to CrossFit. And those are the things that people tend to really connect over And there’s this misinterpretation like, oh, the CMO of T Mobile would never want to participate in a half, you know, marathon or something like that, or in pottery painting, and I’d say you’re probably dead wrong. I would bet any buddy, who has experienced at all, probably doesn’t want to do another casino themed fundraiser. But if you’re going to curate, like, a traditional midsummer celebration, because you’re Swedish, that’s going to be super fun for them. And you could probably cold email a lot of really impressive people and say, Hey, I hear you’re wonderful. This isn’t about pitching your business. This is about people coming together to make friends. And these are the activities taking place. We’d love for you to join.
John Corcoran 15:48
How do you as a business make this profitable? Because do you charge for people to attend to these things?
Jon Levy 15:53
Nothing, but I also realized it’s not expensive, right? So in a traditional sense, the expensive part for me is the flight. Because I’m flying around constantly. So the digital world is a lot cheaper. Oh my god, it’s super cheap. The key is that with digital stuff, you have to just focus on being more novel and more playful. So what you gain is, if you can say, I’m going to give you an hour or 45 minutes of absolute fun with interesting people. That’s an easy Yes. Especially in the evening hours, right? Instead of a happy hour, nobody wants another happy hour. Like, let’s be honest. Yeah. And the truth is that I don’t need it to be propped up. Like 95% of the people who attend have no business case for me. Right? Like, I’m never going to do business with Olympia. Like, I just don’t, I’m not in that world. My businesses are, you know, I’m in the marketing and company culture and sales world. So there’s two things that you can do. First of all, there is no problem with inviting only potential customers. And the beauty of that is that, if you want to stay top of mind, if you always have something interesting to invite them to, that has interesting people at it, there’s always a reason to stay top of mind. So you’re going to increase sales, chances are just having that reason to invite them. Right? Now, will this appeal to everybody? No. But we don’t need it to appeal to 100% of people, we just need to appeal to enough people that you can have a consistent stream of business coming in. And more importantly, it allows you to build relationships as friends, rather than just that salesperson who keeps knocking at the door. And that means your chances of closing are significantly higher. Especially if you’re friendly, they’re going to recommend you to people more so than if you’re that salesperson who emails them every quarter.
John Corcoran 17:52
I agree with that so much. You know, I read a sales book a while back that talks about that. Rapport wasn’t that important. And I always feel when I read somebody that I’m always like, the reason the author’s writing this is because they don’t like, of course, it’s important, like making a personal human connection with someone, even a friendship is going to go a long way.
Jon Levy 18:16
Here’s what’s really interesting. See, none of our decisions are logical in any way, shape, or form. Right? People don’t use Mac’s because they’re quote unquote, better computers than Windows or something like that. They have an emotional response. And then they justify it with really bad logic. And the difference between you using let’s say SAP and you using Salesforce or using Adobe, or whatever it is for your corporate systems, it’s probably not going to be purely price point. It’s going to be how people feel about it. And how people feel about the sales team. And do they feel that they can trust them? And are they competent? And there’s a whole slew of other questions. If you want to break down trust, I’m happy to break down the science.
John Corcoran 19:03
That was gonna be my next question. Actually. Yeah, let’s talk about that. How you build trust with people after so once you’ve made the connection, then how you build trust, whether it’s digitally with the world where we’ve been in for the last year or in person.
Jon Levy 19:17
So there’s two things that we can look at here. One is, let’s first ask the question, what is trust made out of? And some people say it’s not a four things? I think it’s depends how you parse it, I think it’s made out of three things. And those three things are competence, your ability to perform a task. So number two is honesty or integrity. And the third is benevolence, or you have my best interests at heart. Now, so let’s, let’s run through a few examples. So competence. If I want to know how to do a successful podcast, I’ll turn to you and I’ll say, “John, which technologies should I use? You know what, what do you think of these microphones?” All this kind of stuff, right? And you’ve clearly have a phenomenal track record. So when it comes to competence, you’re in the clear. But let’s say one day, I buy the mic that you suggest in a breaks. Do I go, oh, “John’s so competent? Oh, you can’t trust him?” No, I assume I got a lemon in the mail. And I’ll just replace the mic, right. It’s not like you’re not untrustworthy, because I got a lemon. But if we found out that one of our friends lied to us, like a big lie, would you assume that was a one off? Or would you think maybe I need to question some of the other things they’ve told me?
John Corcoran 20:37
Oh, yeah, he questioned everything else at that point.
Jon Levy 20:39
Right. So we can see that a breach in honesty is a much bigger deal than a breach in competence. But there’s a weird loophole. And it works like this. So the two of us are walking down the street, it’s supposed COVID, everybody’s safe and vaccinated. And I say, hey, I need to pick something up from a friend’s house. And you’re like, Okay, no problem. And when we get there, 40 of your closest friends jump out and scream surprise. Now, I want to acknowledge something in this scenario, I’ve just lied to you. Right? Would you ever turn to me and go, Jon, you lied to me, we can’t be friends anymore. Doesn’t matter how much I hate surprises. Right. But it would be really weird. Because human beings are related to benevolence as more important than honesty. And honesty is more important than being competent. And what’s interesting about this, is that human beings, especially those in sales, and marketing, tend to lead with competence. We say, you know, our systems function perfectly, they’re 99.999% effective, or whatever it is. And that’s great. But what this demonstrates is that we actually want people to lead with benevolence. I want to know that you are clear on what matters to me, and that you care about me accomplishing that. And so if you lead with, “Hey, John, I know that what’s really important to you is helping small businesses or growing businesses really succeed with their content. How can I help you bring that to life?” That’s probably going to be a lot more meaningful than me going. Our servers are 999.99, you know, like, whatever.
John Corcoran 22:40
Right? Right. Right. Is it insecurity that leads people to focus on the competence piece first? Or is it just kind of a misguided misunderstanding of the way that you build trust?
Jon Levy 22:51
I think it’s a misguided misunderstanding. It also, I think, puts us in a more vulnerable space to talk to people about what’s important to them. But there was some research that suggested that introverts can often be better salespeople, because they asked more meaningful questions. And I think that there’s something to that, which is that, really, you know, there’s certain things that maybe can just be sold through Facebook ads, like a Netflix subscription. Right? We’re not using Netflix, because we have some deep emotional connection to the people at Netflix. Yeah. But if you want like a half million dollar contract, people have got to trust you.
John Corcoran 23:39
Right, right. Yeah, it’s so important. I mean, I just wrote an article, or article short, short piece about how I feel like the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which was written in 1936 was really written about podcasting. Because it’s about benevolence, it’s about demonstrating that you have someone’s best interests at heart. But talk about the third piece, which is a sense of community or belonging and, and how you develop that one.
Jon Levy 24:09
Sure. So it’s kind of interesting. Then, when Google looked at what makes an incredible team, you know, the general theories are like you take a bunch of super geniuses with massive IQs like Google has piles of, and you throw them into a room with a problem, and they’ll come out with a solution. But really, the greatest predictor was actually something called psychological safety. This idea that you can express your opinion without feeling like you’re going to be exiled from the group. for human beings, the greatest punishment we have in many places in the world. You know, I’m not talking capital punishment, but his exile. It’s either solitary confinement or saying you are so awful that none of us want to be around you. You know, 40,000 years ago, exile probably meant you were going to die. Because we are just not designed to be alone. Human beings are not the fastest, we’re not the strongest. What we are is better at coordinating and working together than any other species. And now we have massive buildings. And, you know, we have corporations and cruise ships and global warming all because we’re really good.
John Corcoran 25:31
Right? Working together.
Jon Levy 25:33
Right? Right. Global warming is really just a sign that we’re awesome as groups. Anyway, so
John Corcoran 25:40
well, and you know, and that, that’s, I think, what has made this pandemic so devastating is that we’ve been deprived of that sense of community. Long, we’ve not been able to get together in small or big, I mean, in many ways, it’s just such a brutal
Jon Levy 26:01
experience we’ve all been through this past year. It’s interesting, I first of all, couldn’t agree more with you. There’s this great example that, during the German blitzkrieg, right after the attacks on Britain, people were worried that the bomb shelters would overflow and that people would fight and, and hurt each other, robbed from each other. And to the best of my knowledge, there weren’t any major incidents like that. And that’s because when things get really bad, overwhelmingly, what you don’t see is looting. Overwhelmingly, what you see is people saving each other, and supporting each other, and sharing what little they have with each other. Because when we’re going through hell, what makes us feel sane is being with one another. And a pandemic is one of these, you know, major catastrophic issues. That is, the thing that’s natural to us, is the thing that’s going to hurt us. Whereas in times of war, you can, you know, group all the kids together and all their friends and let them have sleepovers together and, and it makes them feel better. We just didn’t have that this time around.
John Corcoran 27:24
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. You know, I live in Northern California, we’ve had these awful wildfires in recent years, thanks to global warming. And it just seems to be getting worse and worse. But there have been a few experiences that have been just amazingly touching, that have only really happened because of these wildfires. There was one time a year and a half, two years ago before the pandemic, where the power’s out in the whole neighborhood for like five or six days. And finally, after five or six days, one of the neighbors had a crock pot that I don’t even have a power tip on. But somehow they put together a big thing of soup. And they said, Everyone came to our house, and the whole neighborhood, which had never done this before, came together. And we had soup together at this person’s house. And it was such a powerful experience of belonging to a community. And, you know, in spite of this experience that we’re going through with all these fires, and everything, so
Jon Levy 28:20
I think one of the biggest opportunities for companies is that, and I think Salesforce has done a really good job of this is that currently they keep all their customers siloed. Right, oh, my God, if they talk to each other, then they’d find out, whatever, who knows what. But if you remember, the thing that was the predictor of longevity, number two was social ties. Number one was social integration. And so if we can actually get those customers to connect with each other, or get your friends and leads to all connect with them, then it actually increases your relationship to all of them. Because, John, if you’re friends with 25 of my closest friends, I’m going to be hearing a lot more about you. Right, and that’ll increase the probability that we’ll do business together, it’ll increase the probability that we’ll be at celebrations together and increase just our connectedness. And that’s why belonging is so critical, is that is the fundamental structure of a society. And if you can cause connections between the people that you want to engage with, then it keeps them close to you.
John Corcoran 29:40
Such a fan of that is a reason that conferences we’ve gone to, it started with small little dinners, and we eventually grew to bigger and bigger, you know, 300 person gatherings because it’s such a great way to be that connector. I want to wrap things up. That was a perfect segue into my final two questions. First, I’m a big fan. gratitude. So if you look around at you just mentioned friends, or if you look at peers, others, other authors, perhaps other others in, you know who you would consider to be contemporaries. Who do you respect? Who do you admire? That I’m sure this could be a really long list, but
Jon Levy 30:18
could be a really long list. So there’s an author by the name of Shane Snow, who wrote two phenomenal books. One’s called Smart Cuts, and the other is Dream Teams. And not only is he one of my favorite people on the entire planet, but I’m really appreciative because he also introduced me to my book agent to help me resolve this book. So I have a profound admiration for him. How many Am I allowed to say,
John Corcoran 30:44
As many as you like, until Oh, my God, I guess, you know, just the music.
Jon Levy 30:47
Yeah. So in my book, I tell the kind of crazy story of how a comic book fan ended up helping save Marvel Comics, through the creation of the modern Comic Con. And I grew up really, really geeky. And if it wasn’t for him and his team, then there would be no place no home for geeks. But it was, I’d argue that there were three things that gave geeks a place in this society. One is the iPhone. The second is Comic Con, and the third is.com billionaires. Because suddenly, technology can make you loads of money. And you could be a celebrity for it. The iPhone made programming cool, because people wanted to make apps. And Comic Con, literally gave a culture and a home for these disparate groups that loved their storylines. So people weren’t just playing Dungeons and Dragons in their basement.
John Corcoran 31:53
So belonging right there.
Jon Levy 31:56
Yeah. And so I think that that guy’s name is Gary, Seamus. And there’s several others there’s a guy named Tom desanto, who wrote and produced the x men movie, which saved Marvel Comics. And because of that, we have an entire modern mythology, right? Like the more people know who Thor is than probably any other God. So cool. Yeah, I mean, there’s a ton of people, but they’re just a few.
John Corcoran 32:23
Great. And then last question, all right, let’s pretend we’re at an awards banquet, like the Oscars or the Emmys. you’re receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award for everything you’ve done up until this point. And what we all want to know is looking even further back, maybe in your tractor trajectory, it could be childhood, could be high school, who do you think, you know, who are the mentors, who are the friends and the peers, where are the business partners who you would acknowledge in your remarks?
Jon Levy 32:48
So there was, I grew up dyslexic, which at the time, and I’m still dyslexic, but at the time, I, when I was a child, was kind of equated to, kind of lacking intelligence. And I was put in the remedial math class, not because I was not good at math, but just because I was dyslexic. And one day, my math teacher walks up to me and says, “Hey, Jon, I see you’re not doing the work. Why is that?” And I’m like, well, it’s boring. And she said, Yeah, do this. And she gave me a math problem that I shouldn’t know how to do. And I solved it. And she said, starting Monday, you’re in the main class. And then like, a month later, I was in the advanced class. And then a few months later, I was just studying on my own in the hallway. And it was the first time anybody really gave me a shot to consider. Maybe being dyslexic didn’t mean that I was stupid. Maybe it just meant that I do things differently. And I would think.
John Corcoran 33:57
That’s a great story. Thank you. Thanks, Jon for sharing that. Jon, where can people go to learn more about the book, buy a copy of the book and learn more about you?
Jon Levy 34:07
Well, there’s this wondrous place in the Amazon, where people can buy my book. And they could get it in two days. If they have prime, so you can get it Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can support your local bookshop. There’s a million different places you could get it. Also, if you want to find out more about the type of stuff I do have a website Jon Levy TLB. That’s Jon Levy. I’m Jon Levy TLB on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you know, you name it Clubhouse, if that’s still going to be a thing by the time this comes out. Right. So and I love hearing from people so please reach out.
John Corcoran 34:52
Jon, You’re Invited: The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence is the name of the new book. Thanks so much for coming on.
Jon Levy 34:57
Thanks for having me on, John. This was super fun.
Outro 35:02
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the Revolution Revolution Revolution Revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.