Paul: 0:29

Good afternoon and welcome to this week's episode of MarketPulse's Pros and Pioneers podcast. I'm Paul, the host of the show from Javelin Content Management, and if you haven't come along before what we do in this show is try and do one of two things. We either try and help small to medium business owners Do more of the right things in their marketing practice, so that they can get themselves out of that hole that they're currently stuck in, that plateau that you've reached, and take yourself to that next level. Give you some ideas, things that work, things that don't. Or, we're trying to showcase some fantastic marketing and sales experts, who might be the right choice for you at that point where you've grown to the next level. There's lots of takeaways from the show, so please sit back, grab your coffee, and have a drink. My guest for today's show is the amazing Chris Hallett, who is Managing Director at Wave Communications Group. Hi Chris.

Chris: 1:20

Hi there, how you doing?

Paul: 1:23

We are good. We are good. It is a pleasant summer afternoon in Britain, which is unusual. I'm pleased to say. I came out of the cinema with my son earlier on and it had been pitch black and cold and air con on. And I expected to come out and have more of the same when I got out. And it was actually, it was sunny, it was beaming down and I thought, wow. Summer has finally arrived, we have that one week in England, and you've just come back from a caravan as well Chris, right?

Chris: 1:49

Yeah, I've been up in, we've got a caravan up in Havasok, so we've left it up there until October, so we can literally, we came back last night, and then we're back up there Friday night, probably till about Tuesday. It definitely is balancing life and work both my wife and I run businesses, so we're both, we're working up there and also we're enjoying life up there.

Paul: 2:09

Perfect, and something that, I grew up around that environment when I was a kid as well, and caravanning, and motorhomes, and camping, something I'm definitely big on, I think the outside is a fantastic influence, especially on the next generation as well. So to come back to, to come back to your background a little bit, Chris I'll fast forward through some of the key points. And then if you, I've got a couple of questions about how you got where you are, cause I genuinely if people are listening along to this, Chris has a very unique pathway to where he is right now. And I love it. I love it because it, I have a similar sort of not travel the same path, but I have a very similar sort of, doesn't seem to make sense until you get to the end of it all. And then you put it all together and it's a lovely story. Chris, once upon a time, was a musician in the army. And, a bit of a fun fact for everyone is, Chris played at Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding. From there, we moved into a 30 year career in corporate IT project management. Then, transitioned into coaching, which for an IT person, is There are not many people that make that leap from IT to coaching. Specializing in NLP, hypnosis and NLP coaching as well. And so Chris now specializes in helping coaches and trainers generate consistent income by combining coaching, personal development, marketing, and sales, as he now informs me as we've joined the show. So a fantastic, interesting journey that you've been on, Chris. If I can point you back to the, that, that career as a musician in the army, like how did you end up in corporate IT from that? Where did that, where did the, where's the join?

Chris: 3:44

I'll go back to before the army because I started playing trombone when I was 11. I watched the Glenn Miller story, the famous American band leader, and I thought that's the instrument for me. work for me and school didn't really get on. I was interested in playing music, listening to music. I grew up listening to, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, all the classic 70s rock bands, and listening to orchestras and. Concert band music. And I loved sailing and that was my passion. So the natural thing for me to do, not being academic was to play music. And because of, as with a lot of people in their early lives, they got told they weren't very good at things. They'd never achieve anything. And I thought music was just going to be my lot. And it was great. I did some fantastic things. Went to play in some fantastic places, but I realized I was missing something. And I got to, it was around about 1980, I think. So I'd have been early twenties. And I wanted to move away from music cause I'd really got bored with it. My hobby had become my job and I was chatting to a lady one night and she worked in it was then called computing cause it was the days of computers that were the size of most people's houses, and disk drives were like washing machines. And here we got chatting, explained my background, music, and she said, I think you should look at a career in computing. This was before it was called IT. And I said, limiting belief here. I'm no good at maths. I'm not academic. She said, it doesn't matter. Music is logical. It's ordered and it's structured. And that's exactly what things like computer programming are. And that lifts, it was like lighting the blue touch paper on a firework, cause boom, it was off. I pre, just prior to that, I'd done some correspondence courses and did some O Levels, yeah, which predate GCSEs. And that one conversation said to me, you can actually do something fantastic with your life. So that set me off on that course and I did Programming course. And it was all remote. It was on, cause we hadn't got PCs and iPads and stuff. It was done on A4 sheets of paper and you wrote all the programs and sent it off. It was really labor intensive. but what that did, it gave me a qualification in programming and it enabled me to leave the army and get a job, not as a programmer though. I was hired by a computer manufacturer, I think for a couple of reasons. One, I'd shown some aptitude I'd done a qualification that was computer related, and also the recruiting manager was ex army. And I think those three things together, that gave me the springboard. And then from there I progressed and I moved into programming. And after that, I moved into project management where I spent the, the bulk of my IT career, delivering some big projects.

Paul: 6:37

And project management's an interesting field in its own. It's almost an entire, it's not almost an entire, it is an entire industry. And I once, when I came out of the retail world about five, six years ago, somebody said to me, Oh, you'd make a good program manager. Yeah. You'd make a good project manager. And I was like they deal with IT projects, right? There, at the time, that's where I was talking to, and then I found out that you had project managers in retail, and you had project managers. And then I, but it's not something you think about. You hear the title project manager, and a lot of people shoebox it into one, one vertical that they're aware of. But actually, when you get involved in that industry, the skills and abilities that you have are widely used. Recyclable and reusable and transferable into lots of other industries. And I guess that's where you went with leadership, right?

Chris: 7:26

yeah my, my daughter spent many years, she's moved into commercial management now, but she works in the heritage sector. And she spent about seven years running historic events for a couple of organizations. And her job is managing projects. But she's, and she's running events. They're still projects, cause they have to open on time. They have a start, they have a benefit and they have a cost.

Paul: 7:49

And so I guess what triggered you to have, what was the interest? Where did the interest come from in becoming certified trainer for NLP and hypnosis then? Because that's not something a lot of people would associate with project management.

Chris: 8:03

only ever come across two other people who have made the similar jump. So I had a traumatic experience and it was one of those unique opportunities. I was doing, I'd left corporate, sorry, permanent employment and I was freelance. So I was doing a lot of consultancy projects. And to cut a long story short, I got asked by a a money man who owned a number of businesses to run a startup business for him. And he said, I don't want a consultant. I want a managing director. And a mutual friend, Philippa who had introduced me, he said, Philippa says you're the man and I want you to run this business. How much do you want? Name your price. So he gave me a blank check. Wow. And so I accepted the challenge. And about six, seven months later, he called me into the office and said, this isn't working. I'm overpaying you and you can either work for six months for free or there's the door. Wow. So I already, I made my decision on the spot, but I did consult with the directors what I should do. And so I resigned. And it affected me so much, I literally, I couldn't work. I've been very successful in project and program management. And it was the talk that was going on between this ear and this ear internally. Who do you think you are? Good, you can't do And I actually knew a lady at the time, she was an NLP master coach. She's now she's now also a certified trainer. So I went to her to do what's called a breakthrough program, which is where you release all the negative emotions that have held you back or limiting beliefs. And I came out of it feeling about three foot taller. And a big weight had been lifted and I thought this is so amazing. I have to find out how to do it myself. So then signed up to do NLP Practitioner, which is there's four things. There's NLP, hypnosis, timeline therapy, and NLP coaching. A year later. I did Master Practitioner, but I was still working as like a project management consultant as well. So I was juggling both lives. But I always wanted to go full time. And it was four and a half years ago when my first wife died. That was also like a trigger for me to say spent 30 years in corporate IT. I didn't want to do that anymore. This is now the time to go full time. So I then again, signed up to become a certified trainer of all of those four things. And cause of the pandemic, it got moved around, but lo and behold Yeah, I've got certified in all of those four disciplines as a trainer, which is, a lot of people who have done a master's actually value being certified trainer more than their degree and their master's because the amount of work that goes into it.

Paul: 11:00

It's certainly a lot of dedication to get where you want it to be. Like a lot of people sat out there listening, I'd imagine that's really what sets you apart from a lot of others and why you've managed to be a great success is that kind of tenacity and grit to go after whatever you set your mind to, right?

Chris: 11:16

Yeah, it's. I estimate to, to get to that level, you put about a thousand hours of studying and to become a cer and I always use the word certified trainer'cause there are some people who call themselves trainers who aren't. So to become a certified trainer, the route I've taken, as well as doing all that study to become a prac practitioner, master practitioner, you do a two weeks in two week intensive course on how to be a world class trainer and a world class public speaker. You then sit. Four written papers. It's handwritten. No, can't even take a smartphone in there to look up answers. It's closed book on the NLP body of knowledge. You have to get 75%. Then you have to do two presentations, which have to be spot on with the core NLP content. And then the master trainer who's going to certify you will say Chris, in my case, sell is your demo subject, now do me a demo of value solicitation with no preparation. It's intensive.

Paul: 12:21

so there's somebody who's out there that are, they're currently struggling with their own business, they're wondering how they can make a breakthrough and they have no idea what NLP is. How do you help them? Or how would somebody who was NLP trained, how would they help somebody like that? Cause obviously you work with coaches themselves of NLP. So you're the next level up, but obviously you will have worked with business owners directly and people in that sort of situation.

Chris: 12:49

I say, I do work with business owners who are not coaches, but if somebody's struggling in their business this is one of the reasons why I created the 6M growth model, because one of those core pillars in that model is mindset. Because you can have, the best marketing in the world. You can have the best sales team in the world, but if it's your business and you have a limiting belief that you can't be successful or that your team are underperforming or anything else that you're convincing yourself of, then you can bring in the best sales and marketing people in the world, but it's all down to your beliefs about what you can and you can't do and about what your team can do. So that's typically where I would start. Speaking with the person and find out what's going on in, when I say their life, both their personal life and their business life, because the two are inextricably linked and it's understanding. And I often detect this through people's their language. People say, Oh, I could never do what you've done. Oh, I can't work in, I don't understand computers. That's all a limit. Those are all limiting beliefs, and one of the biggest limiting beliefs I had is that I didn't have a degree. In November, I'll be in Westminster to graduate at the age of 66 with a degree in marketing, so anything's possible

Paul: 14:09

And that's the other

Chris: 14:09

have the right belief.

Paul: 14:10

fascinating is you have such a unique Skill set, I was going to say broad, it's not broad. It's, they're all very niche skill sets, but you've brought three skill sets together that is very unique in one person. In many businesses, if they work with a coach, they have a coach. If they work with a chief marketing officer, a fractional marketing officer, they have a marketing officer. If they have a sales team that's generally outsourced, or they have somebody who they've trained to be good at, and you're combining all three, it's very unique. What sort of results do your clients come out with once they've worked with you? I know it's an ongoing process constantly, but like what does that look like

Chris: 14:51

Some of the people I've worked with in fact, the very first client I ever worked with she was an image, she was a part time actress and an image consultant, so did all the color matching and that. And she hired me as her coach. And. We did about six sessions and after the first, I think it's the first, so there were weekly sessions, after the second session, no sorry, it was after the first month, her sales had rocketed from 1, 000 a month to 3, 000 a month and we hadn't even talked about marketing and sales. We've not even touched that area because it was all about how her beliefs had shifted. Another client of mine he grew his business to 25 million a year, 25 million revenue a year. And he's also a very successful podcast host. So the results come in many different, cause we're looking at different areas of their life and business. The results come in from different areas. And I've worked with a lot of people who have one guy I worked with he was a, he was actually an employee of a company. He wasn't even a business owner. I, with the work I did with him over six weeks, he gained a new promotion and a 25 percent pay increase.

Paul: 16:08

so to play devil's advocate then? Some people would say and I saw I'm first of all, I'm absolutely on the side of coaching. I love coaching. I have never been fortunate enough to be in that position where I can afford my own, but someday it's coming and I have a lot of friends who are coaches and I get bits of free coaching from people, right? Like I'm, I love it. But some people on the other side of the fence say that perhaps that person was already ready to break their own self limiting beliefs and came to you just to confirm all of that. So that that true with some people, would you say? Or is it a bit more drawn out than that?

Chris: 16:47

I believe everybody needs a coach. I have coaches. I've actually got a session later on today with a coach, she's an American lady. And I had this roadblock in my own mind about, should I concentrate on business owners? In fact, it was do I concentrate on business owners or people who are just NLP coaches and can't mobilize their business? And I was going round and round in circles with this, and I have all that experience and knowledge to do this. She helped me unlock that.

Paul: 17:19

Yeah,

Chris: 17:20

So my message to everybody is, it doesn't matter where you are, consider hiring a coach and hired a professional coach because a lot of people call themselves coaches and they aren't coaches. They don't actually have any accreditation and they don't have coaching skills.

Paul: 17:37

it's interesting. So how does, so obviously you built the Business Growth Accelerator and the 6M Growth Model, which you've already alluded to, in order to bring all of this together. So they, are they your own unique framework and strategy, or is that kind of something you've built upon?

Chris: 17:52

That's my own model. I created it and it was something I actually started work on many years ago because I knew that this is when I was going through my NLP certification. I knew that if every business owner, not necessarily became an NLP practitioner, but had someone who coached them in the techniques of NLP, their business would skyrocket. So when I did my, so I did a couple of things recently, I did the marketing degree, I did a growth coaching certification, which actually gave me a professional coaching certification or accreditation. It was during that whole process, it was like a light bulb moment. I thought initially there were five things that you need to look at to grow a business. You need to have a mission. It's to do with your mindset, marketing. How you manage the business. Cause a lot of people don't really have a a structure to their business and how you measure the results. And then more recently, I thought that, yeah, marketing, the thing that's missing is the sales piece. So it is a, yes, all those things exist in the public domain, but the work that sits underneath it is my own unique framework and the way that starts is with an assessment, so it's a questionnaire, we look at each of those six areas. All of it's scored and it gives you a percentage and it's overall percentage because every business is at a different stage, whether you're a startup or you've been going for 10 years. Yeah, most people I come across want to increase revenue. So it makes sense to focus on the sales and marketing. But what we do with 90 day plan that focuses on one of those specific areas that's going to have the biggest impact on their business. And then we go through the cycle again.

Paul: 20:06

it's interesting. And how would you say that your Because obviously as a coach and as a trainer, and especially with regards to that being around NLP, you obviously have quite a firm understanding of why people do some of the batshit crazy things that we do, rather than following logic, right? And I know this first hand, I love behavioural Behavioural science and NLP I think it's just that the principles and the fundamentals are fascinating. How does that impact on them then, the people that you're coaching and training? Reaching their own audience and being able to implement those ideas themselves.

Chris: 20:44

You think about everything we do is a behavior. If those, I'd say if those people aren't reaching the audience that they want, then look at look at what you're actually doing. Because, a lot of people think that behaviors are something we inherit, we're born with and they're not, they're things that we develop. And because they're behaviors, we can change them, whether that behavior is, drinking too much of a drink or eating too much food or procrastination, they're all behaviors that we can change. And so my message to people is also, if you're not getting the results that you want, then look inside of yourself first, work on yourself before you start working on everybody else around you.

Paul: 21:29

That, that, when I think back to when I first left corporate world, I had a lot of self limiting beliefs. And if Jimmy, if you're watching this, he gave me a, he gave me that opportunity. And he always tells me off for me saying that because he was like, no. You took the opportunity Paul you grasped the opportunity, you said yes, you made it happen. But for the longest time we talked on a weekly basis and he would mentor me a bit. Which is ironic cause he's my age and he's not a coach in any way, shape or form. He's just a guy from a different walk of life. And I used to come out with it all the time, I'd be like, I don't know how I do what I do in, I'm not good enough to do this. I'm just a guy from retail. I'd go on sales calls and I'd introduce myself as a guy who had no relevant background. And I still do, but I make it my strength now. Like I make it my, that's why I'm different. I'm unique. I'm out of the box, et cetera. And that mindset has completely shifted. And I think that's, when I talk to people who are successful, LinkedIn outreach is a prime example, Chris, right? When I talk to people about their LinkedIn outreach so many people come at it from a perspective, whether they realize it or not, of being desperate for the sales not to add value or be curious and those people that have made that mental shift in mindset to be curious, yes, I do need the money, but we're gonna put that to one side and I'm gonna be curious about this person first and add value to them where I can, we all come together and go why can't everybody do this? And it, it is. It's that mental mindset shift, right?

Chris: 22:59

It is. I approach sales calls as a conversation and I go into it and I say this to myself, I'm financially independent and I don't need the business. That takes the pressure off wanting the sale then. I've just developed a, the thing I've added in last is a sales process, which creates an environment where people want to buy from you. You don't have to actually, and this has happened to me a couple of times. I've done a couple of sales calls and I've not even asked them. for a decision and they've said what are your bank details? You've got three questions, question one, question two, question three, what's your bank details, I'll transfer you the money and I've not asked for the sale.

Paul: 23:36

Yeah, it

Chris: 23:37

That's a great position to be in.

Paul: 23:39

is. It's it's game changing. It's game changing. To come back to the questions that I ask every guest and it's it's fascinating to see The trends in the answers to these questions as we've gone on, gone through time over the last, you'll be guest 27 now, Chris. So we're we're getting through people quite quickly now. What's one market and practice that you wish business owners would just stop using right now? Is there something that particularly gets you go or gets you annoyed, gets you on a soapbox? I don't know. What is it you wish

Chris: 24:06

How long have you been in? Social media has been a game changer for people, but what People are just totally reliant on social media. Down to the point of, people will be signing up to do training on how to use LinkedIn and they haven't even established if that audience is on LinkedIn or, it could be Facebook, it could be TikTok, it could be YouTube. And people have gone down this tunnel of I've got to use, I've got to use this platform. What about all the other types of marketing you can use? People use, there are some great results being obtained by direct marketing, mail shots, events, networking, this, speaking doing Facebook live. Yeah, I say Facebook cause it's the easiest way to do a live, but doing a live broadcast in some way. So yeah, in answer to your question, stop focusing on one tactic and have a broad range of tactics that actually support your vision, your mission, your business goals, and your marketing goals.

Paul: 25:04

I like it. I like it. And if I'm going to flip that on its head, then what's one thing? And it can't be the opposite. That you wish people would do more with their market. And what's one thing that people are missing in their toolbox quite often?

Chris: 25:17

I think people are part it's quality content. I've seen a massive, when I first started writing I was on a platform called Easy in Articles. I think it's gone now. And the quality of the content on there was amazing. And people are posting stuff on, social media that is nonsense. I saw somebody recently who was about to quit as a coach and I looked at their content and I, I couldn't see what they did other than helping women. And that, that's a common theme with, I help people with this vague thing. There was no evidence of anything that they offered for sale or as a free download or anything. And the quality of the content is, there isn't any value there. It's about provide, I think you've got to provide, if you think about the customer journey, you've got to provide value to people to educate them before they're going to buy from you.

Paul: 26:10

It was interesting, I was listening to a podcast it was Daniel Priestley was on Stephen Bartlett's Diary of a CEO the other day, and I've had multiple clients from Daniel Priestley, I will get him on this podcast at some point, I'm determined. Daniel, I am. I've been in touch with your team, but they won't answer the bloody emails the second time after they told me to, sods. But Daniel made a great point around waiting lists, and I think this ties in nicely to your point, Chris. People go gung ho on creating an idea, but they don't actually even know whether the idea works, first of all, or not. And what he suggests is making a piece of value, a lead magnet of some sort that you give away for free. And if they enjoy that, and they think that what you're offering then would be useful, even if it's not live yet, sign up to my waitlist. And if people have signed up to your waitlist, you've tested your idea and there's value in it, you might need refining, and you've got a captive audience who want it. And I think that's a beautiful idea.

Chris: 27:06

That goes back to, sell it before you build it. And the best example of that I've ever seen, and it might be before a lot of the, our audience was born even, was when Bill Gates released the first version of Windows and he presented it in America. It was a prototype that didn't actually work properly. But he bought it, everybody was sold into the idea, and then he developed it.

Paul: 27:29

yeah. They do that with every fresh, big iteration of AI, right? Oh, look, here's a robot that talks back to you and it talks in almost perfect English. It's not pre recorded somebody talking for it at all. But look, it's genuinely thinking about it while you're doing it. No, it's not. It's not. We're not there yet. We probably are getting there now, to be fair, like six months after that happened. But, yeah, I love it. Chris, it has been a genuine pleasure, my friend. How can people reach out to you if they want to learn more?

Chris: 27:56

You can email me at chris@wavecommsgroup.co uk if you're on social media mostly. I'm mostly on Facebook and LinkedIn. Connect with me. I'm easy to find. My sort of u URL is Chris j Hallett. That's probably the easiest way. Happy to have a conversation and discuss your needs, even if it's a thank you very much and we part company, that that's one of my missions in life is to provide value to people.

Paul: 28:23

Todd Caporni said it really well. We had him on the show a couple of weeks back and one of his tenets is disqualify hard, right? And he brings in a metric of, and he comes from the sales world, so it's really interesting to bring it to a marketing practice, but what's your time to lose? Everybody focuses on time to win in their pipeline. What's your time to lose? And I think that's a, it's a great I think the biggest mission to have is, if I'm not going to be of use to you, and I'm not a good fit, then let's hold our hands up at the very beginning, and I'll try and connect you with some people who might be a good fit, but will not waste any time on each other either. And I think that's something we could all do with a lot more of in this world. There's so many time sucks and time wastes, and let's not waste time for each other. Fantastic. Thanks for being a great guest, Chris. I've really enjoyed that chat. And if you're watching along in the audience, you're listening to us on your favourite podcast directory, the important thing please remember to subscribe or give us a follow. And more importantly than that, if you know somebody who would, like Chris, be a fantastic guest, whether that's a SME business owner who has, been through pains and challenges themselves and would be happy to share some. Or a marketer who's got years of experience or a fascinating journey, then we'd love to have them on the show. Drop me an email, drop me a link and we'll get them along. Thanks very much Chris, we'll see you later.

Chris: 29:41

Thank you.