Episode 40: Straight to the C-Suite with Dan King – Transcript
Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi, folks, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money, tips, techniques, attitudes, information and provide inspiration. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. And today we've got a terrific guest. His name is Dan King. Dan used to be a Shark Tank corporate attorney, working with one of the folks on Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary. He has turned to be an executive coach and business growth strategist. He's also the co-founder of Fireside Strategic, which helps businesses grow by building warm connections with the C-suite and other hard to reach leaders. He's a big believer that your network equals your net worth. Dan, welcome to the show.
Dan King 00:58
Thank you so much for having me, Rennie. It's a pleasure.
Rennie Gabriel 01:01
Well, I mean, I look at it as exciting times from the standpoint of dealing with folks on the Shark Tank, because that is such a great show to watch. I think it provides so much education. But tell me with what you're doing now, why are you doing it?
Dan King 01:17
Yeah. So, I'm a huge believer in social mobility. I think in this pandemic moment, it's so challenging for so many people. They see chaos all around them. They see uncertainty. And I would rather people place their minds in a place of possibility. I would love to give people opportunities to see beyond where they currently see. And when you can build really great relationships with top-level leaders - C-suite leaders, other really, really senior people - and you're very young, it's very powerful. It opens up all these possibilities, right, to do incredible things in the world. And that there's an old expression that network equals net worth. I think there's a lot of truth to it if you get really, really good at the practice of relationship building. And so why do I do what I do? It's because I am so inspired by creating more social mobility. I think we really need it as a country.
Rennie Gabriel 02:09
Thank you. This is going to sound a little bit funny, but I only learned a few years ago, what C-suite means. And for any of our listeners who may be wondering, well, what's a C-suite? What it means is the executives in an organization, such as the CEO, the CFO, Chief Marketing Officer . . . The C stands for chief. And so when you have the C in front of a designation, that's what we're referring to in terms of the C-suite. Next question. Is there a particular charity you support, and tell me what they do, if that's the case?
Dan King 02:50
There is. So I grew up in Canada, before moving to the US. And when I was in Canada, I found myself one of the few - sort of - young entrepreneurs that I knew. I didn't know too many entrepreneurs, too many people who wanted to build their own companies. And I ultimately found an organization called Venture for Canada. It's an organization that helps college graduates and other young people build entrepreneurial careers. You know, there's this norm that - it's big in the US too - that when you finish a college degree, you're ready to step out into the world, you should get a job in corporate America. Venture for Canada and Venture for America, which it's based on, encourage young people to get jobs in startups and to consider building businesses and moving their careers in more entrepreneurial directions. For me, that's massive from a social mobility standpoint, because it's entrepreneurs that have the potential to rapidly build generational wealth. And I think it also adds a beautiful dose of innovation and energy to a country, Canada, that isn't especially innovative. And so I've been a strong supporter of Venture for Canada for a long time, blessed to call them a client of my current company, really inspired that they've changed the lives of thousands of young people.
Rennie Gabriel 04:03
That makes so much sense because it appears to me that our school system is designed to produce employees, and not necessarily people who have critical thinking skills, who intend to become entrepreneurs, who want to change and make an impact on the world. And that's, I love the concept between Venture for Canada and Venture for the US which it's based on. Tell me, so I'm guessing from what we've talked about who your target markets are but tell me more clearly. Who are your target markets?
Dan King 04:38
Yep. So we have two major target markets. We focused at the beginning of our business on CEOs and founders themselves. So, people who want to sell, people who run B2B businesses. They sell to other companies. Traditionally, they have to work their way up an organization's hierarchy. But if I decide that I want to sell something to the Heinz Corporation, I usually am not able to build a relationship directly with the CEO. I usually have to start lower down the hierarchy. But with our approach, we can help business owners and CEOs, we can help them build relationships directly with the C-suites of their ideal clients. That's our first target market. Our second are executive coaches who sell their services into organizations. So these are people who do leadership development work, organizational development work, they usually do wonderful, wonderful work in the world, bringing humanity into big companies. And for them, it's often very challenging to build the relationships that can get their work into those companies. So by using our approach and working with us, they can massively shorten the time it takes to bring their work into organizations. So there's really two target markets, there's founders, business owners, the CEO types, and then there's executive coaches.
Rennie Gabriel 05:53
That makes so much sense because I recall many, many years ago, when I had a book publishing company, that I did a trial program for one of their district people. And it was very successful. He referred me to their Chief Marketing Officer, who walked me into the office of the president of the insurance company, and 5000 books were purchased on the spot, because I'm talking with the person who has the ability to make all the decisions in the company. So that makes so much sense, and apparently, will move things forward much faster. Now, let me turn this around a little bit and ask what your biggest insight would be from a failure, and did you use that to create a success?
Dan King 06:46
Yeah, my biggest failure, it's . . . there have been quite a few. So it was actually a challenging question to figure out which one is sort of the biggest, but probably fair to say, from a professional perspective, that the biggest failure is that I spent years in a career path that wasn't quite the right one for me. So I grew up with everyone telling me that I should be a lawyer from a very young age, I was good at speaking and arguing, and so all of my friends and my family said, "You should be a lawyer." And I went to a Chinese restaurant one day, and I got a fortune cookie that said, you will make a great lawyer. So I followed the fortune cookie's advice, and I became a lawyer. And the reality is, before spending years in undergrad and at law school, I didn't really do the work to understand what it was to be a lawyer. I also didn't really do the work to understand myself. So I was missing two big pieces of the puzzle to career happiness. And now I can look back and say, you know, most of the work corporate attorneys do is sitting at a computer all day drafting very, very large contracts, doing tons of research. It's not me, I'm an extrovert. I like to be with people. I'm suited to a career in relationship-building. Now that I know this, well, I built a company that's all about making connections and relationship-building. Right? So, I think the failure was, I didn't really know who I was. I didn't have much self-awareness, nor did I know the career path I was getting into. But from being misaligned, I now know how to be aligned. And here we are.
Rennie Gabriel 08:19
Thank you, Dan. This is going to be two questions kind of tied together. And it has to do with what the common mistakes are, that some of your prospects make. And do you have an example of how this is been served, like, you know, a case study?
Dan King 08:37
Absolutely, yes. So, I think in terms of common mistakes, the biggest one is fear and over-complicating due to fear. We in business, spend a lot of time thinking that we need to climb massive mountains. We need to work extremely hard. The reality is if you're actually quite thoughtful about how you reach out to people, if you reach out to people in a truly value-added way, it can be easier than you think. It's one of the biggest challenges I run into with prospects when they learn about what we do, it seems really interesting, and they may even start the journey of learning to build relationships with C-suite leaders, but then fear may come up. They may think, I'm not ready. These are really powerful people. 'Am I in the headspace to be able to connect with them?' So I'd say that fear is the biggest, honestly, the biggest challenge that our customers run into. And what I would say is that in terms of case studies, you know what one great example that comes to mind is a long-term client of ours who wanted to connect with some of the top trial attorneys in America. Those were his business's prospects. And he ran into some fear because he thought, 'Man, if I use you guys to connect with them, it might work, but I had a whole sales team spend years trying to build connections with these people and they're very careful with their time.' I should know as a former lawyer. Right?
Rennie Gabriel 10:03
Yeah.
Dan King 10:03
Lawyers, their relationship to time is one of scarcity sometimes. They're very, very careful with how they spend their time. But using our approach . . . interviews, podcasts and videocasts are a big part of what we do in order to build connections with top-level leaders. The invitation to appear on a thoughtfully crafted podcast is extremely powerful, because it speaks to our storytelling nature as humans. Right? So, instead of a whole sales team spending years trying to reach out to these people, in just a couple of weeks, we connected with 15 or so of some of the top trial attorneys in America for him. And we did it fairly easily. It was a process that didn't take a ton of struggle at our end, or a ton of time, really. So all these fears that we have that it's going to be really, really hard, if you're thoughtful about it, not necessarily. So we like to bring to our customers a sense of warmth, joy, and ease and make connecting with people in business fun. It doesn't have to be this painful slog.
Rennie Gabriel 11:03
I'm just kind of like chuckling inside that a lot of times the things that we fear, when we start to take the action on it and finds out the fears weren't valid to begin with. Thank you for that. Well, we've got to start wrapping up. So let me ask you, what's one valuable free resource that you can direct people to that will further help them achieve what they want or solve their problem?
Dan King 11:27
Yes. So the valuable free resource that I'm going to point people to is - they can go to our website, which is www.firesidestrategic.com/sttcs. So again, that's www.firesidestrategic.com/sttcs. And what they're going to get . . . Oh, sorry, Rennie.
Rennie Gabriel 11:58
Yeah, no, I was going to say we're going to have it in the show notes. So someone's driving, please don't try and write it down. It'll be in our show notes. So, yes. Now, what will they be getting from that?
Dan King 12:09
They're going to be getting a link that will show them the basics of how they can go about connecting with very high-level leaders, really as soon as possible. It doesn't have to take a ton of time or pressure. It's a natural ease . . . they're going to learn a natural, easy way for how they can connect with the C-suite, senior leaders or whatever other high-level person they want to connect with - for their business, for their life, for their growth, for whatever reason it may be.
Rennie Gabriel 12:35
Thank you. And is there a question that I should have asked you, that would also provide value to our audience?
Dan King 12:44
I think these questions have been great. I think they get the basics across. Maybe one other thing I'll say just to continue to give value to the to the audience is, in under a month, you can build a world-class network of top-level leaders that trust you, they can buy from you, and you can just learn a ton from being around people. You invest your time and energy in being around extraordinary people, it's a great way to become extraordinary yourself.
Rennie Gabriel 13:11
Excellent. Thank you. And so for our listening audience, here's your opportunity to grow. Request the item that Dan has provided to you. And please listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform. And please rate, review and subscribe. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.
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