How To Be Your Most Influential Self With Sharí Alexander

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Sharí Alexander is a persuasion expert known for bringing the “dark arts” of influence into the light.

She’s a speaker, writer and trainer, revealing powerful secrets behind conversational influence. She teaches persuasive triggers and techniques currently used by CIA field agents, hostage negotiators, con artists, trial attorneys and many more.

Her mission is to put this powerful skills and techniques into the hands of entrepreneurs and leaders, so they can bring positive influence into their business and lives.

We’ll be discussing how Sharí landed her first CEO client at the age of 22 without any proven track record or any previous clients, whatsoever.

We’ll be discussing the best coaching advice that Sharí ever received from a mentor.

She’ll share the not-so-obvious technique that she uses every single day to create meaningful and highly valuable conversations with others and how you can actually start using this exact same technique today.

Key Points From This Episode:

• How Sharí landed her first coaching job at 22.
• Asking the right questions and making it about them.
• Learn more about Sharí’s courses and the people she has helped.
• How Sharí learnt to fight negativity and trust her own genius.
• The importance of looking back on your progress and successes.
• Allowing yourself to feel pain in order to move forward.
• Recognizing that nobody starts out as their big name brand.
• Balancing a high standard without being a perfectionist.
• Sharí shares her own personal book-writing process.
• Why a good conversationalist listens more than they talk.
• Why “should” is the most dangerous word in the world.
• Worrying about what can you ask, not what can you say.
• Sharí’s challenge: How long can you go without talking about yourself?
• The invaluable lessons from simply writing things down.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I don’t talk about myself. I make it about them.” — @sharialexander

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“Very rarely do other people have the negative demons in their mind that you have about yourself.” — @sharialexander

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[0:21:14].1]

“It’s okay to have people to model after but know at what point in their timeline you should be modeling.” — @sharialexander

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[0:26:38].1]

“You can’t jump out the gate and be Tony Robbins.” — @sharialexander

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[0:27:15].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Sharí Alexander Website – http://www.shari-alexander.com/

Sharí Alexander on Twitter – https://twitter.com/sharialexander?lang=en

Sharí Alexander Youtube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/sharialexanderspeaks

Learn to Influence Resources – http://www.shari-alexander.com/store-learning-influence/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 031

“SA: It’s okay to have people to model after but know at what point in their timeline you should be modeling. You can’t start today and be at Gary V’s end point. You need to start today and look at how did Gary V start.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:17.0] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes micro failing in a hyper focused way is the fastest way to start a business, quit your job and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this show is a platform for their stories.

Stories of how they were able to battle through failure after failure to achieve freedom in their lives. Today’s story is of Shari Alexander. Shari is a persuasion expert known for bringing the dark arts of influence into the light. She’s a speaker, writer, trainer, revealing powerful secrets behind conversational influence. She teaches persuasive triggers and techniques currently used by CIA field agents, hostage negotiators, con artists, trial attorneys and many more.

Her mission is to put this powerful skills and techniques into the hands of entrepreneurs and leaders, so they can actually bring positive influence into their business and lives.

We’ll be discussing how Shari landed her first CEO client at the age of 22 without any proven track record or any previous clients whatsoever, it’s actually in a beautiful lesson for aspiring entrepreneurs, looking to get their first sale. We’ll be discussing the best coaching advice that Shari ever received from a mentor and Shari will go into the not so obvious technique that she uses every single day to create meaningful and highly valuable conversations with others and how you can actually start using this exact same technique today yourself.

But first, I just finished three weeks of straight travel and luckily all I needed to travel with was a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of Marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

If a company can be a spirit animal, Unbound Marino would be my spirit animal. They’re doing amazing things over there and their clothes are just fantastic. Check in at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else.

If you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:58.5] RN: Welcome to the Fail On Podcast. Today I’m sitting down with Shari Alexander, welcome to the show.

[0:03:02.8] SA: Thank you for having me here.

[0:03:04.7] RN: Just for a little context, we are sitting– and actually, this might be the biggest room I’ve ever done a podcast in.

[0:03:10.5] SA: It’s definitely the biggest room I’ve ever done a podcast.

[0:03:13.7] RN: It’s the convention center in San Diego, the big hall where they’re actually doing some breakout sessions. We’re both here for Tod Herman’s 90 Day Year event but thanks for taking the time during the event to come chat.

[0:03:25.4] SA: Don’t tell them, we’re playing a little nooky.

[0:03:29.3] RN: I know. We were just talking before we got on the air. I use headsets right? That actually you have to put on your head, it’s not just a mic.

[0:03:36.6] SA: Super cool.

[0:03:37.7] RN: It’s like you’re a pilot, it’s so awesome.

[0:03:38.8] SA: Yeah, I feel like I’m in NASA.

[0:03:40.5] RN: My childhood dream come true.

[0:03:42.4] SA: They just want to talk to Houston. You’re like, “Mission control, help us.”

[0:03:45.9] RN: It’s awesome but I was just saying, because I interviewed Nicolas Kush he has the same headset on, probably no more than two hours ago and he couldn’t even put the headset on his head because he didn’t want to mess up his beautiful hair.

[0:03:57.3] SA: His frock?

[0:04:00.0] RN: Exactly. But you, you just threw it on, you’re ready to roll.

[0:04:02.5] SA: With the big curls, my hair isn’t as quite close to what they say in the south as “The bigger the hair, the closer you are to Jesus.”

[0:04:10.1] RN: I’m from Georgia, so it’s very appropriate.

[0:04:12.6] SA: Not quite as close to Jesus right now but I’ll fix it later on.

[0:04:15.3] RN: I love that. Obviously I want to go into what you do, with the persuasion and stuff and the coaching and the speaking. But before we get into that, I’d love for you to take us back to – if you can think of it, the first time that actually gave you money?

[0:04:29.6] SA: I know exactly when it was.

[0:04:30.1] RN: In exchange for a product or service.

[0:04:32.0] SA: Yeah, it was nuts.

[0:04:33.4] RN: Just in terms of the mindset, you’re like, ‘What are they doing? Why are they paying me?”

[0:04:37.9] SA: Yes and no, but that was after the fact, during the meeting itself because I had a face to face meeting with the CEO of a company and his right-hand man assistant. During the meeting, because I am – my previous life I was an actress. From the age of 14, I did a bunch of stage plays and primarily I did a lot of Shakespearian stuff. I think I just tapped in to my acting background, in the room, I totally faked my way through it. I was just like, I’m pretending like I know what the heck I’m doing.

[0:05:07.3] RN: Yeah.

[0:05:07.7] SA: Can we curse on your podcast? Or not?

[0:05:08.8] RN: Yeah, let her rip.

[0:05:09.3] SA: Okay, alright, I forgot to ask that before we started. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and it was a really great meeting. I was helping the CEO with his – he was wanting to do more speeches to get more clients. I said I’d help him through coaching and my first project was $1,500.

I was 22 at the time. The fact that my first client was $1,500 and I was 22 years old I was like – still to this day, I still can’t believe it happened.

[0:05:38.3] RN: What made you kind of go after that big target at first? Rather than like starting off with the super low hanging fruit or somebody that would just pay lower?

[0:05:46.0] SA: Well, I got connected to him through another contact of mine. I didn’t actively pursue that person, just somebody had known of me and had heard him say he’s wanting to do this and say, “You might want to talk to that curly headed chick.”

We had the meeting and it was because the meeting went so well and this ties into my whole world of influence which I know we’re getting to. But at the end of it, I remember because I became very good friends with his assistant and she told me afterwards, she said, “Yeah, after the meeting…” because they cut me a check right away, it was like on the spot.

[0:06:21.4] RN: This is amazing.

[0:06:22.0] SA: This is the best thing ever. It’s always going to be this easy, right? This is the norm.

[0:06:27.0] RN: We got to do more of these.

[0:06:29.1] SA: I don’t know why people complain all the time. She said, after the meeting, they said, we looked at each other and we said, “We feel really secure in this decision but we were also wondering, why did we make that decision?” Because the whole time and they shared this with me afterwards. The whole time I asked really solid questions.

At no point during that meeting did they ask me who my past clients were because I had none. At no point in my meeting did they ask me what my certifications, qualifications, degrees were because I had one in theater.

They didn’t ask me anything about me, it’s because I knew what to ask about them and asking questions that they hadn’t thought of and pointing things in a certain direction that they were like, “She’s an expert because she’s clearly – sees a perspective that we haven’t yet.”

[0:07:15.7] RN: And it took to focus off you, right? It was all about them.

[0:07:18.4] SA: Yeah, well, and honestly, even today, even though I can name drop and say like I’ve worked with such and such and so and so. Even to this day when I’m on calls or meetings, I don’t talk about myself. I make it about them. I do it in a way that they realize that it’s almost, like overt pushing power and then there’s subtle power. It’s like you can try to push people towards something or you can be the magnet. I 100% always choose to be the magnet.

[0:07:44.5] RN: Now that you mentioned name dropping, let’s go ahead and name drop. Who are some people you worked with?

[0:07:53.2] SA: I’ve worked with a lot of great companies and individuals. I have clients from the NFL, I have clients from the NBA, I’ve got clients from UPS, a client of mine, gosh, announcers from ESPN and HLN network. I mean those are kind of the bigger – not on certain ones of those.

[0:08:11.1] RN: Not on the Fail On Podcast?

[0:08:13.0] SA: Correct. New York time best sellers and so because in some of the work that I’ve done with them, might have been either speech writings so I ghost wrote their speeches and things like that. I’ve worked in a lot of different capacities with individuals but like for example –

[0:08:26.6] RN: Yeah, so what are they hiring you before they come to you because they have some problem. What’s that problem that they’re trying to solve?

[0:08:31.4] SA: Well, nowadays, I mean, it’s changed. I’ve been in business for, on my own for a little over 10 years now. I don’t want to think about the number anymore. A good enough long while.

Nowadays, I have like basically three verticals in my business. One is I’m a professional speaker so that’s usually like corporate, that’s sales teams, leadership teams and possibly like HR trainers and those type of things.

[0:08:56.5] RN: Speaking on persuasion.

[0:08:58.0] SA: Speaking on, influence and how to be a positive influence in your company, be the leader that people want to follow. Then the other vertical is specifically focused for entrepreneurs and that’s my online courses.

I have one that’s like self-study that’s evergreen and then I have one that I only do twice a year, that’s live.

[0:09:16.0] RN: What does that teach stuff the entrepreneur?

[0:09:18.2] SA: Yeah, that’s Persuasive Profits and basically, I created that course because I was really sick and tired of seeing so many courses and offerings out there for entrepreneurs about one little slice of the business of like, you know, like a software, saying like, “This software is the solution to everything of like…”

“If you just have click funnels, you don’t have to do everything, if you just have infusion software.” There’s nothing wrong with those softwares, I’ve used practically all of them and continued to use a few but they were selling those things as if they’re solutions, they’re not, they’re tools.

There’s so many entrepreneurs that have the tool and then throw out their hands and like – but it’s not working and they don’t understand that the reason why it’s not working is because if you don’t understand the fundamentals of creating an influential message. Then all of it is going to fall apart.

I created the course to be the base code for no matter what methodology you use in sending out your message, the message you create is always going to be based in persuasive strategies. The modules we cover like webinars, we cover speeches, we cover copy writing.

We talk about the methods but I give them the models of how to create the message that goes with that. We’ve had some fantastic successes from the groups and we’re going to tear up possibly right now just because this email came in to me just literally an hour ago.

One of our students, he hasn’t been able to...