GlobalEdgeTalk

Kate Gaffin: A Lifelong Entrepreneur on Making Selling Comfortable and Moving to Bali

June 22, 2020 Alex Romanovich
GlobalEdgeTalk
Kate Gaffin: A Lifelong Entrepreneur on Making Selling Comfortable and Moving to Bali
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode of Global Edge Talk we're joined by the wonderful Kate Gaffin! Kate is a Trainer, Consultant, Network/Community Builder, Speaker, and Founder of Human to Human Selling. 

Alex Romanovich (00:00):
Hi everybody. This is Alex Romanovich with GlobalEdgeTalk. And today we have a wonderful guest, Kate Gaffin, calling from Bali. Hello, Kate.

Kate Gaffin (00:10):
Hi, Alex. Nice to be here.

Alex Romanovich (00:14):
Wonderful. We're going to talk about you. And so I'm not going to steal a lot of thunder and only to give you a little bit of an introduction. Today's 18th of June, 2020, I'm in New York City. You're in Bali, halfway around the world, which is incredible. We're going to talk about entrepreneurship. You've escaped to the other part of the world from Manhattan, from New York, from the United States, your lifestyle, the lifestyle of your friends, what you're doing out there, and our entrepreneurs and followers are going to really enjoy this. So welcome.

Kate Gaffin (00:48):
Thank you.

Alex Romanovich (00:48):
Well, let's talk a little bit about your past, how it all started. From what I understand, you had a very interesting career. You're a New York-born and raised, NYU grad, worked with wonderful companies like Princeton Review, and C Technologies, and HP, and a few others. And one day you were entrepreneurial inside of large corporations. You were a corporate person as well. And one day you decided, I've had enough of it. I decided to open something of my own. Your latest venture is 'human to human' selling, which is what you're doing right now, all over the world, literally, and putting together some really incredible sales trading modules and workshops for people who travel or people who don't travel, who can reach out to you virtually. Tell us what happened.

Kate Gaffin (01:47):
Well, I'm telling you upfront, I was a diehard New York City person. I never thought, that I would live anywhere else. My family never retired to Florida. We were all diehard New Yorkers. I didn't think anybody would want to live anywhere else but in New York, I thought it had it all. But it started feeling really crowded and crazy expensive. And I had a very prestigious networking group, business networking group. I ran it for seven years and I started teaching. I started presenting at the meetings and then I started doing it online. And within about eight or nine months, I realized, wow, this is a steady source of income here. And I don't need to be sitting in this teensy-weensy, overprice New York City apartment anymore. And literally 30 days later, I was in Bali and I've come here a lot, but I also spent a lot of time in Europe, and New Zealand Australia.

Kate Gaffin (02:37):
So, I'm traveling where my heart leads me and where is the halfway decent wifi. And that's really what the decision was. If you can do something like that today, why not? We have so many resources at our fingertips with the internet and everything is so connected. It's not really as difficult as it was in the old days, calling up travel agents and getting faxes, and waiting five days to book anything. You can book a trip like this in seven minutes. And that's really how it started. I didn't know how long I would be gone, but I just started going to one country, to the next, to the next. And lo and behold, I'm just starting my fourth year in this lifestyle.

Alex Romanovich (03:16):
I just want to tell our audience that would be what's behind you is not a virtual Zoom background. It is real. You're in Bali. Look at this. This is amazing. So tell me, how does this work? I mean, you and this is prior to COVID, we'll talk more about COVID and what that has done to the overall, traveling and workshopping and so forth. But, prior to COVID, you would put together a sales training curriculum, I guess, and a module. And then you would hold that training retreat, I guess, somewhere in an exotic place like this. And how does this work? Tell us more about this.

Kate Gaffin (03:56):
Yeah. My trainings are all virtual, so I'm not doing any in-person trainings. I mean, there have been some countries where just through networking, I've met people, headed up check groups and other entrepreneurial groups, and they've invited me to present on certain topics, but that's not the norm. So I do webinars and I teach on a topic and then I offer a course at the end and it's a typical final. It's a lower priced course. And then you start romancing people along. Some people will move into more expensive types of programs. So they're all virtual type programs done over Zoom, and I hosted on an online course. I just have an umbrella because it's raining a little just for everybody wondering what that thing over my head is. So yeah, it's about 95% virtual. And again, the resources are there, the tech has gotten much easier. I market to seven English-speaking countries and my focus is on small businesses and that's about 90%. The other portion is people that work in sales for bigger companies. So now I have quite a lot of subscribers and I have a big community and I can put out courses when I get inspired to do so. That's how I'm earning my income now. It's very cool. And there's quite a lot of people doing it around the world with courses

Alex Romanovich (05:14):
So much to discuss with you. So let's enter COVID now. What has happened? I mean, you've been doing this virtually, so I guess not much has changed, has it? In terms of COVID and how did sort of impacted your interaction with your audience and your community, or did it change?

Kate Gaffin (05:34):
It changed a little bit because my customers are small business owners. A lot of them are affected and the people that are, there are a lot of salespeople that have gotten laid off as well, even though that's what a company needs. So there's been in the first month or two, there's been a lot of discussions about uncertainty and fear and how long will this go on? And I didn't do any selling in that time period. I'm just about to launch a new course because we have to get back into the groove mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you just can't sit around and do nothing. So there are a lot of people making money now. You have to get out of that mindset that nobody's buying, there's no market out there. You being entrepreneurial as well. Probably know how many businesses were started during the Great Depression that are still around today.

Kate Gaffin (06:21):
So my role now is really getting people just into action when they've been sitting around, paralyzed by fear, a lot of them for the last two or three months. So that's what this new course is going to be about, staying visible, and exposure, and how you are energetically to go out there and put yourself out there if you've got this mindset of like, Oh my God, nobody's buying. People are buying it. We all need products and services, and the world is moving forward.

Alex Romanovich (06:53):
I agree. We just did a workshop with a partner of mine, a virtual workshop. And it was about sales and it's about doing proposals and so forth. People are buying and there are some amazing, tremendous tools out there, digital online tools that tell you more about what their buying behavior is, and how they're buying and why they're not buying, or why they're buying more of, less of and so forth. But I totally agree with you that it's very subjective and you really have to, first of all, you have to know your existing customer very well, number one. If you don't know your existing customer very well, now's the time to get to know them even better. They're not really traveling much at the moment, so they have a lot more time, right? And if it's new customers, there have been, especially for people who have e-commerce businesses, this is a recent data that I've seen, that there are so many new customers that are coming on board for e-commerce and buying online, brand new customers that have never shopped before online, almost 10 to 11% of old purchases, brand new clients.

Alex Romanovich (08:04):
So it's a wonderful time to maybe simplify a message, maybe rethink your product line, your service line, what have you. Tell us who are your customers, who are the salespeople, or travelers, or virtual salespeople, who are actually signing up for your courses? What are these people like, and why are they interested in your training?

Kate Gaffin (08:35):
That's a good question. So my customers are more in the realm of face-to-face selling. That's a big part of their business. I mean, everybody has to have an online presence. So I've always focused on selling as a conversation. And what people have said to me ever since, I was in my late teens when I started selling seriously, is that we never thought that you were selling us. And because of that, I've managed to get into extraordinary doors. So people always want to know, how did you sell to MTV? How did you sell to the National Army Guard? I just had conversations and I thought everybody sold like that. So my focus is on just getting more natural, doing a lot of listening. We all hear that. But also watching out for the emotional cues and the psychological cues. And silence is very powerful when it comes to selling.

Kate Gaffin (09:22):
So that's really what the core when companies hire me to train for their sales staffs, which still happens. And we do virtual trainings on, it's always about moving people out of a transactional type of selling and just human to human selling. Just let's have a conversation, first. And let's, we're going to buy from the people that we have a good feeling about, that make us feel good. Even if the other person might be cheaper, might have bigger promises that we're happy. We want to have a good buying experience. So once you understand that, that's a big part of what I teach, sorry, the umbrella has to go up again, on conversational selling. And I picked specific topics, and sometimes I'll go a whole-whole, like A to Z, how to get the customer, how to move them along, how to move them into saying, yeah, I want to work with you. But it's always weird to me, how many people hate the topic of selling. I love it. It's just a conversation. That's all it is. So it's just removing barriers and changing the way people view it. That's really what my main topics are about.

Alex Romanovich (10:27):
That's amazing. That's great. Let's talk about your lifestyle a little bit. You're traveling. I follow you on Facebook, I follow you on Instagram, on social media. You're in New Zealand, you're in Australia, you're in Bali, you're in Croatia. You are all over the place. Some of the most amazing, incredible places, you meet, these wonderful people. You stay in some of the most amazing locations. And yet you deliver a very powerful message, very powerful training. How does it all come together with all the travel, and time zones, I mean, how do you sort of, what do you get out of this lifestyle? Tell us.

Kate Gaffin (11:10):
To tell you the truth, in the first six or seven months, it was crazy. I mean, I was up in the middle of the night. I was catering to the Northern Hemisphere. I was in the Southern Hemisphere, complete of its own time zones. The wifi wasn't that great, webinars would go down. I mean, it was chaotic in the first six or seven months. But I always have this thing that things are going to get better if I just stick with it. So, after about six or seven months, I started getting better with the tech, I started figuring out how to have backups on the wifi and I still have to stay up late. I mean, I do webinars sometimes at one in the morning. That's one of the things that you do if you want to be here and work with American, Canadian, UK customers, just the way it is.

Kate Gaffin (11:52):
So I've to sync with most other people when I'm in mode of selling and teaching, but that's the trade-off. So, you just sort of get used to it. I prefer to do live webinars over automated webinars because I think that I sell more. So I might transition at some point. So yeah, it's chaotic until you start getting into a routine with it. And I travel differently now. I used to just go where my heart said, okay, you have to go here. Now I tend to go to countries where I have a good friend there, and this way, the experience is so much richer when you get there, you see places that are just off the grid, and it's nice to have somebody there to kind of show you around. So, but all of the countries that I've been to the goal has never been, let's see 27 countries in eight months, the goal has been let's hang out for two or three months.

Kate Gaffin (12:43):
Let's have a very local experience. Let's make local friends. Let's not do the tourist thing the whole time. And with the internet you can literally get on it and find Facebook groups for women travelers, 30 to 40, or vegan travelers, or travelers with families. I mean, whatever you can think of, you will find resources and you can always ask about places to stay in, areas, and food, and SIM cards and all that kind of thing. So it's incredibly easy. I know people think it's this whole huge thing, but the mechanics of it is quite easy.

Alex Romanovich (13:17):
Incredible. from what I understand, you told me a couple of times that you're not the only one that is doing all this traveling, and there are a number of professionals or ex-professionals who have basically adapted to this lifestyle. And then not only they're traveling by themselves, they're dragging their loved ones or their children, their families. They're providing for education, they're providing for long-term stays. Is this some kind of a movement that I'm not aware of, that people actually migrating from place to place or living abroad, and becoming sort of instant ex-pats? Tell us more.

Kate Gaffin (13:59):
Yeah. So there are a lot of families out here doing what I'm doing. Particularly in Bali, there are schools cater to international kids, and I think it's really on parents deciding that they want their children growing up with a different experience, and maybe being a little disillusioned with the way the current school system is. And it not really preparing you for the real world, which is communication, and meeting, diversity. And I'm learning how to plan things and not sitting in a classroom for seven hours a day. So I think a lot of parents just want to give their kids a different experience. For the single people like me, I mean, you see all ages from 20 all the way up to 70 and above, and there are even hostels now where you see elderly people that are staying in the hostels.

Kate Gaffin (14:45):
So an Airbnb has just opened up a whole universe to travel and to make sure the place that you're going to if it's well-reviewed, you can travel anywhere and feel like you're home. The diversity of people is really anything that you can think of. Certain countries tend to attract certain clusters of nationalities at certain times of the year, but it's been fascinating for me to see how many different reasons people are doing it, but mostly it's because it's gotten easier, it's gotten less expensive and people are just more adventurous and want to have a different experience in life. So, yeah, it's been wonderful.

Alex Romanovich (15:28):
What an interesting lifestyle. Let's talk about a very sensitive topic right now. You've traveled all over the world. I've been to many, many countries myself, and of course, it's very tragic, what's going on right now in the United States at many different levels. I belong to a very interesting community of chief marketing officers. We discussed diversity, today we discussed racism, we discussed what's really going on in the United States and how companies and individuals are embracing this, or how are they dealing with this? What is the perception of us, of the United States of Americans in other countries? They're looking at us and feel what? Tell us more.

Kate Gaffin (16:15):
Yeah, it's a good question. When I left is when our president had just gotten elected and because he had gone through a series of kind of insulting world leaders, I thought, Oh my God, I'm going to get out there and everyone's going to hate me. But the truth is that they don't hate Americans. They're a little kind of baffled by the leader of the country. And I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but what I have found over the last couple of years is that people really have viewed it starting to change, but they have viewed America as the dream country. You can achieve anything. You can make money. Everybody has a shot. And in my mind what happened recently with the George Floyd murder and that on video was seen, I think I mentioned this to you, the woman that takes care of my property doesn't have the internet, doesn't have a computer. But her next-door neighbor showed her that clip on his cell phone.

Kate Gaffin (17:12):
And that's when I realized, like, I think this video is being seen by like every single person on the planet. That's what it feels like. And that, in my mind, has really created a shift of wow, what the hell is going on there? So I don't think that it's really perceived as the dream country so much anymore. I think it's kind of perceived a little bit scary. For years we have not been number one in education, and in the environment, and all the things that America was known for, but when you see something like a police officer doing such, committing such a terrible, terrible crime, right in front of your eyes, when you see that it's much different than being told it.

Kate Gaffin (17:55):
And I think more people are starting to think, maybe the ideal of what we've seen in the movies and what we've heard about, and everybody has a chance is just not happening anymore. So to me it's taken a big shift, especially in the last. I also think that a lot of people, when we've talked about America, have not wanted to insult me in the last couple of years. In Thailand somebody said to me, well, we think your president is not polite. And I thought that doesn't sound too bad until I found out for a Thai person that's a big insult. But I think people kind of tippy-toe around you in talking about their true feelings. But I think this past video has changed the game quite a bit. That's my sense of it. It was horrific, so we might've felt it on the inside, but I think that the perception of people around the world is really starting to shift.

Alex Romanovich (18:50):
Not that looting and crime are justified or anybody should support that, but certainly, I've received very similar feedback from my friends all over the world, asking me what is going on, why there's so much chaos and so forth. They're also asking me about COVID, how come America, we thought that America is a leader in the world, in terms of medicine, in terms of healthcare, in terms of education, in terms of understanding how important it is to care for the individuals, especially elderly. And this has been such a disappointment. I mean, now we're seeing it's June 18, 2020. We're seeing big spikes in the states like Florida, and Arizona, and Kentucky, and few others, where people are basically saying, look, I've had enough of this, I don't want to wear a mask. I want my freedoms, I want my liberties, I want my constitutional rights. And then you look at some of the Asian countries, you look at Japan, you look at Singapore, you look at South Korea where wearing a mask is not only a big deal, wearing a mask is a necessity, when you enter a subway car, when you enter a restaurant and so forth, and it's not necessarily because they are afraid of you, is they did not want to give you what they have necessarily. So talk about that.

Kate Gaffin (20:25):
That's really interesting because the first time I was in Asia, it was in Japan about 20 years ago. And I noticed some people were wearing face masks. So I just assumed that it was because there's pollution in the city. And then I found out it's because when they have a cold, as a courtesy to other people to not spread the germs, they wear a mask. And when I think back on that from 20 years ago and I look at America and we have it here in Bali too with the Westerners who are like anti-maskers. it's very discouraging. I'm an American, and I hate to criticize my own country, but there is a difference in this part of the world about thinking about the community more and in America, which has always promoted individualism, and independence, and any single person can go out there and make it, I think to some degree that's taken a lot of people away from caring about their neighbors.

Kate Gaffin (21:22):
And in Bali most of the volunteers are wearing masks. Most of the Westerners are not, even though they're a guest in somebody else's country. So that's very sad to me, I mean, of course, we have a leader who's promoting not wearing, people will follow the leader. Our leader in the United States is not promoting masks and caring about others and so forth. That's a whole different topic, but there's a big difference in the Asian community about caring for family and neighbors. And it's not even questioned whether they should, sorry, I have to put the umbrella, whether they should wear a mask or not, it's just more society oriented. So that to me is it's not a good thing about America. There are a lot of great things about America, but that kind of me-me-me, I don't think it's sustainable. This is a world where, especially with the environment, we all have to watch out for each other and it's just not sustainable. So that makes me very sad. It's depressing. It's depressing to see it here in Bali with Westerners, honestly, as well. I feel like it's disrespectful.

Alex Romanovich (22:32):
I shared the same feelings and again, I love America dearly. It's our wonderful country. We love it. We respect it. We want it to do extremely well. But at the same time, I agree with you, we need to be more humble. We need to be more open. We need to be more understanding of other cultures. And I think it's really important for us to give more than to take, to really understand other cultures and other cultural differences where we can probably learn something from those differences. We always beat ourselves in the chest saying, hey, we're the leader of the world. And we certainly are the leader of the world in COVID cases, that's for sure at the moment. And it's not something we want to be in that type of a situation.

Alex Romanovich (23:33):
Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about entrepreneurship. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that follow this podcast, and a lot of women entrepreneurs, and they're looking at you and they're wondering, oh my goodness, this must be really incredible traveling to all these exotic places, do what you exactly what you want to do, not being concerned with corporate politics, having a wonderful lifestyle and a completely open schedule and total control of that schedule and so forth. How do you accomplish that? How do you do that? What is the path to such freedom, if you will, right? And talk about that a little bit, but also let's talk about what are some of the advice that you would like to give to young entrepreneurs who are entering the business world, who were trying to do well. They have a great idea, they have a wonderful technology, or innovation, or something like this, and not quite sure yet how to break through the ceiling, how to knock on that door and get to that person, get to that decisionmaker, if you will. So, talk more about that.

Kate Gaffin (24:50):
There's something that I did to get into MTV that I still do many, many years later. At that time I had a gift item and I had a patent pending on it. And it actually did come through and I didn't know anybody at MTV, and everybody said, too big, you'll never get in. If you get in, they'll never buy. If they buy, you'll have a hard time getting paid. So, I literally just called up and I said, hi, I really don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I have something that MTV might be interested in. Do you think you can point me in the right direction? And it was pure in a sense, pure, humble, and purely truthful. And the woman said, sure, you should talk to dadadada and marketing, and I'll put you through. And in a couple of days I had a meeting, and a couple of days later I got the purchase order, and I made the product, and they paid right on time.

Kate Gaffin (25:40):
And I actually teach people to do that, just to say like, hey, I really don't have, I really don't know what I'm doing. Do you have a minute? Do you think you can point me in the right direction? And you disarm people. And when you ask for help in a really nice, humbling way, you would be blown away, how many people just swing the doors right up. But everybody thinks that they have to be so perfect and they have to have this script and, oh my God, I can't like stumble or trip over my words, anything like that. They're going to hang up the phone on me. So, you talked about being humble. We are as a country in America have to be more humble. If you can get into incredible doors just by asking for a little help, instead of slamming people with how great you are, how they need, what you have, how it's the best thing since sliced bread, yada-yada-yyada, and then you just go step-by-step.

Kate Gaffin (26:29):
So I got into AIG, which at the time was like 70,000 employees. And I did the same thing. And people say like, how did you get into AIG? Because you focused on connecting with one person. I don't care what you're doing. I don't care if you're looking for investors, are looking for to sell something, whatever it is, you're just having a conversation with one person. And if you just act differently than everybody else, because everybody else is doing that slam on when the sales pitch crap. It's amazing how magical it is. So I still do it to this day. Do you have a minute? Would you mind pointing me in the right direction? And then I just stopped talking. \.

Kate Gaffin (27:05):
So people really have to get over this, like talking too much because they're nervous and thinking they have to be perfect, and oh my God, what if they say 'no', I doubt that. And you do this on email, you can do this on private messages and social media. I do everywhere, amazing results. So that's how I, that's my secret to getting into the door. I had breakfast, coffee with the CEO of Prete a Manger, because I love their oatmeal. And I just emailed them a story, about how I loved their oatmeal. And the CEO got back to me, we were having coffee in New York, multimillion dollar, billion-dollar company. And people want to know how to do it. Just exactly how as I told you. So there's really no secrets. You have to start before you're fully ready, and you just have to get out there and start connecting with people. So that's what I teach as a way of getting in the door.

Alex Romanovich (28:00):
That's a great advice. The modern marketing techniques right now, or talking about account-based marketing, and focusing on 20 or 30 products, or 20 or 30 accounts, if you will. And it boils down to what, I guess you and I know, we did 20-25 years ago when we had to build the relationship, we had to build a personal connection. We had to personalize our message. And it's all coming back now, except that it's obviously blended with digital and it's all integrated, and automated, and personalized and so forth. But in reality, I totally agree with you, it's about being very humble, being very personable, and getting to the right person, and sometimes asking for help. Yeah, I totally agree with you.

Kate Gaffin (28:50):
You do it on social media. You and I met on social media, because we engaged in each other's posts and it wasn't just like, like, like everything, we would throw comments on each other's posts. And then when somebody does that, you sort of click in and you see what they're about out of curiosity, like there's this new person saying something nice on my posts. You create phenomenal connections on LinkedIn by engaging in people's posts. When they have their algorithms set up, so that you'll get your profile, you'd more depending on the length of the post, and there are all these kinds of things that go along with it. But LinkedIn's a hot property right now. And if you just get on there and you pick 10 people every day and you do nothing but very sincerely and authentically engage in people's posts, that's a huge way to open doors as well.

Kate Gaffin (29:37):
You don't just send a message saying, oh, we have people in common, I want to connect. You don't do that crap. You get in there and you engage with people. And before I went on the road to do this trip that I'm on, I met phenomenal people all over the world on Facebook and they were my friends that I visited with, some of them I stayed with on this trip. They were people that I just engaged with on Facebook. So it's holistic. You just make it your practice to engage out of curiosity with people and your whole life changes personally and business-wise.

Alex Romanovich (30:10):
It's also not just that. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's also not just about asking for help. It's also helping somebody and paying forward, right? It's maybe somebody is looking for some advice or I love to mentor. LinkedIn actually has a very interesting new, relatively new function called mentoring, right? Where you can engage with a young professional and provide some mentoring advice or something like that. But in reality, you can learn a lot as well. Maybe they're from a different country, maybe they're from a different industry or something like this. A lot of startups are reaching out to me sometimes over the LinkedIn, by the way, and saying, hey, listen, can you take a look at our pitch? And I love to do that once or twice a week, just to set aside an hour to two hours to look at a presentation. I'm learning so much, there's just so much innovation right now because people are wired differently. They think differently. We all think very differently. We'll look at different things for different lands and that's what's really exciting about it. So all you have to do is really get out of that mindset or more traditional mindset and really open yourself up to those types of opportunities.

Kate Gaffin (31:25):
Yes. And to be naturally curious, which is, I think that you are naturally curious. I think those make the best people on the best salespeople, whatever the product or services.

Alex Romanovich (31:36):
I so agree with you. I think the curiosity. I just recently made a post about a doctor greeting a cat in the waiting room and saying basically, yes, it's terminal, curiosity's terminal and so forth. But it's absolutely true. I think curiosity in this particular case is actually a big plus to all of us who are trying to either expand or help companies expand clearly with the COVID and the situation we have right now. Expansion is one thing, but I am on the topic of relevance. Now let's talk maybe a little bit about that. I maintain that being relevant. The resilient obviously is extremely important. And we see a lot of the companies trying to retrofit where they're manufacturing and trying to be more resilient with doing different products, maybe pricing things differently and so forth, maybe selling a different mix of products. But relevance, such an important factor right now. And if you're not relevant, you're not going to make it. You really have to be relevant in the not only during the time of crisis, but in general. Talk a little bit about that.

Kate Gaffin (32:59):
Yeah, it's so true. And that's where staying open and staying engaged and not thinking that, you know everything and you're the person who has all the answers. I mean, you've got to really practice like Zen, the sort of state of mind, when you've got to listen to people of all ages. I had my nephew who has a marketing agency in Boulder, Colorado. And he came to me for help. And I was like, do it this way, and do it this way, and do it this way. And he was trying to, and then I stopped hearing from him and I realized that he had to go out on his own and do it his own way. And his own way to me was like, oh, that might not work, but it is working.

Kate Gaffin (33:38):
And I had to realize like this kid of 24 is building up something that's very heartfelt. I think, turning a profit is very respected and he's got, he's paying attention to a lot of the same mentors online than I am, but he's younger than I am. And he's got a whole different spirit and energy, that I do. So I was really hurt that I stopped hearing from him, but after a couple of weeks, I totally got it. He's young and he's making his own mark and he's found his own way. So he got out of this like, oh, I have to kind of please my aunt Katie, which we went back and forth a lot for two weeks. So, you have to put your ego aside and really pay attention to people of all ages, all ethnicities, like all levels and interesting, very open.

Kate Gaffin (34:20):
And I find a lot of people can't do that. And those are the people that find themselves with dwindling client lists and not able to cope in this environment. So when COVID first broke out I sent a video message to my subscribers and I just said, you know what? Just send out emails, call people to say, hi, how are you doing? And that's it, leave it at that. And the few people that took my advice said, oh my God, people got back to me in five minutes. And somebody invited me to do a presentation. And another person asked for a proposal and only did, was just say, hi, how are you doing? I'm here if you want to chat. So sometimes in this type of atmosphere just be a human and just be real. I think in this environment, people are always looking for real. We want to cut through the BS. We don't want, again, not to get political, but there's so much misinformation and what do I believe and who do I trust? And if you can be that person that just talk straight, even if it's not always great news, I think at the end of the day, you will be the one.

Alex Romanovich (35:22):
I totally agree with you. I think the simplicity of the message. I totally agree. I did the same thing with some of my clients, and partners, and friends and my message on LinkedIn on the email was just, hey, are you still at the same company? How are you doing? What's going on? Just give me a shout. And some people came back and says, I so wish I could have coffee with you right now. It's just so much to tell you, or I hope you're doing great. I mean, I went through COVID myself and my family. And a lot of people are curious, how you're doing, I was very appreciative of that. And a lot of folks are out there. They might be going through some hardships, through some very difficult time.

Alex Romanovich (36:08):
I heard from a friend today who works for a very large company, in the break and click space. And they had to close 110-120 stores, which is devastating. They're going to have to lay off a lot of people and so forth. So a lot of people are not interested right now in these long messages, marketing automation, chain letters and so forth. They're just interested in, hi, how are you doing? Let's talk a little bit about it, before we leave this wonderful call. Let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the intergenerational type of sales, marketing, business development, collaboration. There are a lot of startups out there, a lot of scale-ups, a lot of people from corporate, all working together. It's one big interesting mess if you will. I'm sure you have people of different generations, different ages coming to your workshops and so forth. How do you see these different generations working together?

Kate Gaffin (37:10):
I think millennials have gotten a bad rap. There's been a lot of sweeping statements about how they're all spoiled and they're all entitled and all that. And as I mentioned earlier, I had a networking group in New York City and we had maybe like 20% were in that 20 to 30 age range. And I never once felt that with any of the millennials that attended my events, certainly not the case with my nephew. I'm finding that they're more heart-centered in what they're doing. When I was that age and selling, I almost didn't care what I was selling. Sometimes I just wanted to be the best, and sell the most, and make money, and buy a car, and go traveling and all that kind of stuff. But I think the kids today are really more heart-centered and they want to get over that stereotype that they're all spoiled and entitled.

Kate Gaffin (37:56):
I'm sure some are, but some in our generation are too, right? So I think there really has to be, again, a lot of listening from both sides. I think that all sides have things to teach each other, so if you're leading a meeting and you've got all ages, or all ethnicities or whatever, it really has to be coming from a place of let's give everybody a chance to talk and let's listen. Because, I mean, these kids are so much freaking, smarter than I was that age. And they've got everything at their fingertips. I used to have to go to the library and pull out books and research companies, and write down phone numbers, and everything is at their chips. And I think this, in my view, there's a lot more concerned about their environment in the world than I had at that age.

Kate Gaffin (38:38):
So I think that whoever is leading that type of situation to just give everybody a chance to speak and to teach deep listening skills, let's try to create things. We can create what's better for the world. And, again, like I had to, I had a big lesson when my nephew stopped calling me or stopped emailing me, we're emailing like 20 times a day for about two weeks, and then it just stopped. So for me, that was a big lesson that sometimes you have to back off and give people their space as well, my generation to that generation. So, yeah, I just think it's just a lot of listening and letting people talk, and deep listening. And you probably know a lot of people have a hard time listening. They're not listening, they're too busy thinking about what they're going to say when the other person stops talking. So that's a skill I think we can all get a little bit better at. So that's the way I see it.

Alex Romanovich (39:36):
I totally agree. I think it's about listening. It's about really understanding the other side and making a little bit of an effort to understand the other side if you will, your companion, your partner, your client. Age or generation should not be a barrier in any of this. Communications have to be open and understanding. So I totally agree. Kate, thank you so much for being with us today. I hope the rain stops in Bali and you're going to have a wonderful weather out there, and it's been a pleasure. We hope to have you here with us again in the near future, but it's been a pleasure talking to you and we're going to post for our audience your information about your workshops, and your training, and a little bit about yourself, the links to your site and so forth. So we'll have a lot more information about you as well. Thank you so much.

Kate Gaffin (40:41):
I appreciate. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Alex Romanovich (40:43):
Thanks.


The decision to move out of NYC and start a business
Traveling lifestyle
COVID in America and around the world
How to do what you love and become successful entrepreneur
Importance of being relevant
Intergenerational type of collaboration