Lead With Value Featuring Tim Herriage

The topic of this episode of the Business and BBQ Podcast is leading with value. Many people go through life just looking for what they want and need, expecting everyone else to help them on their timetable while never helping others. Tim provides tips for not being this way, but instead viewing every interaction as an opportunity to provide value to someone else.

1. Don’t be a sponge – Sponges only take and never give, like someone who tells you upfront that they are only working for you so they can learn everything they need to know to start their own business. Instead, you should work as hard as you can to help and provide value for others, building their business as you work for them and then focusing on learning.
2. Don’t be selfish – Show care and concern about others’ needs. Don’t be a steamroller – rolling along the path that you want for yourself without regard for anyone else along the way. If you need help with something or want to pick someone’s brain about a topic they know well, think about what the best way would be to approach them about it that would be helpful to them as well. Think about what you can do for them before asking them for something.
3. Share the wealth – Once you have received value from someone, you have the obligation to share what you have learned with others. Be willing to talk with others who are trying to walk the path you are on and give them ideas or pointers as they find their way. People will treat you the way you treat them, so be kind, giving, and sharing.

Be sure to tune in next week for a conversation with Tim’s mentor, Ken, about personalities, team building, and learning from mistakes. And if you are in the Dallas area and you’re interested in taking your real estate investing to the next level, go to the REI Masterminds website for more information about the upcoming event in Rockwall!

Links:

ZZQ in Richmond, Virginia: https://www.zzqrva.com/ 
REI Masterminds: https://www.reimasterminds.com/

Audible trial promotional link: http://www.audibletrial.com/th
HubSpot promotional link: https://www.hubspot.com/th 

Connect with Tim:
https://timherriage.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/herriage
https://twitter.com/timherriage 
https://www.facebook.com/timherriage/ 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/timherriage/
https://www.instagram.com/timherriage/ 

With business questions: ask@timherriage.com
With BBQ questions: bbq@timherriage.com

Full Transcript

Announcer: [00:00] You are listening to the the business and barbecue podcast hosted by Tim Herriage. Tim Herriage is an active entrepreneur who built and sold six companies by the age of 40 and enjoys sharing the ups and downs of business and entrepreneur life. As for the barbecue, that’s just something he has a passion for and likes to share as well. Here’s your host, Tim Herriage.

Tim Herriage: [00:21] Alright, Alright, what’s cooking everybody. Tim Harris here with another episode of the business and Barbecue podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today I’m going to talk about leading with value. Leading with value is something that’s actually come up in probably three or four different conversations in the last week and a half and I just thought it would be a good episode to talk about because it impacted me. Today’s show is brought to you by audible. Audible is offering our listeners a free audio book with a 30 day trial membership. Just go to audibletrial.com/th and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs. Download a free toddle and start listening. It’s that easy. Go to audibletrial.com/th today get started with your free trial and claim your one free audio book. So last week if you listened to the conversation I had with John Lee Dumas and titled You are going to die, I did something on accident at the beginning of the podcast.

Tim Herriage: [01:14] I actually told people to follow JLD on Instagram at the beginning of the interview and it was on accident because I wasn’t really trying to meet some format or it wasn’t intentional, but it was just because I wanted to start off something a little different than let’s get all the information we can out of this guest. And so then today I was scrolling through Facebook in between accounting task and I saw my buddy Loe who does assisted living with Austin here in the Dallas area, Loe Hornbuckle make a post about leading with value. And it was about an occupational therapist that had contacted him into assisted living and led with, hey, can I come work for you for free and maybe you can teach me the business. And so like I just thought I would spend a little bit of time talking about some of the best ways that entrepreneurs or business people can approach other people, successful entrepreneurs, business owners, etc, to further themselves, but without being selfish.

Tim Herriage: [02:14] So we’ll start off with number one. My number one tip is don’t be a sponge. So what I mean is one time the good young employee of mine had made it known that he was going to work for me until he could actually go out on his own. And he straight up said he wanted to learn as much as he could and then he was going to go out on his own and I was like, ah, that’s great. I don’t want anyone to work for me that feels like they have to like I own them or something. In my opinion, as an entrepreneur, you’re a good boss or a good entrepreneur. If people that work for you actually do leave your company and do go find success somewhere else, that tells me that you’re actually teaching people, you’re actually helping people. You’re actually kind of empowering and trying to grow future leaders.

Tim Herriage: [02:59] What I don’t like though is the people that come in, they only want to take and don’t want to give. And so my number one advice is don’t be a sponge. And what that means is don’t go into the situation telling someone like me or someone that you’re going to work for, that you want to learn everything you can so that you can move on and start your own company. Instead maybe go into the conversation telling someone, Hey, I want to make your business better. I want to perform valuable task. I want to help you make more money. I want to provide free services in return. Can I blank? Right? So I think it’s a change of mindset because a sponge takes a sponge, sucks up everything it can get and really doesn’t give much back in return. So just my number one piece of advice is don’t be a sponge.

Tim Herriage: [03:47] The second part of leading with value, I think is be a little grounded. You don’t need to, how do you say, you don’t need to make everything about yourself, right? So really have a care and a concern for what the other person needs, have a care and concern for if you’re approaching me. And I said, it happens to me all the time. All the time people contact me. Hey Tim, I’d love to flip houses. Okay, hey Tim, I have some money. I’d love to loan it to you if you’ll teach me to flip houses or hey Tim, I’m a general contractor. I’ll fix a house for you for free if you can show me how to flip houses. Right. Like today, someone’s like, oh my gosh, they were talking about cashflow mortgages this. So they’re like, oh, I really need help understanding these mortgages. Maybe we can go to lunch.

Tim Herriage: [04:32] I mean, you didn’t even offer to buy, you know? I mean like you’re telling me you need help and you’re asking for help, but like you’re not really offering much in return. So I don’t know. Like I feel like I’ve gotten a lot in my professional career and a lot in my personal life by trying to add value wherever I can. Even if sometimes it’s at a grocery store and making someone smile. I think you really have to do your best to add value and lead with that. So there’s probably people watching this. I’ll tell them, oh, I want to get into rental properties. Okay, okay. Come to one of my events. Ah, you know, I don’t have time. Oh, okay, well listen to one of my YouTube videos, Huh? Yeah. You know, can’t you just take me to lunch and you know, it’s like, or can’t we just go grab a drink?

Tim Herriage: [05:14] And it’s like, I mean, think about it. Think about the way that sounds. Right. Ask someone, Hey, is there anything I need to do that you need? Is there anything I can help you with? Always lead with value. I think it’s just something that people just make such a mistake. Last week I had someone contact me, hey, I saw you were building a house. I said, yeah, yeah, the, well I need some subs. Could you help me? And it’s like, I mean, I’m a nice guy, I helped him, but just doesn’t make you want to help people. As much as if someone were to call and say, hey Tim, I saw you were building a house. Well, I own a carwash. Why don’t you bring your car by, let’s get it washed. And then maybe you could talk to me a little bit about what you’re building in your back.

Tim Herriage: [05:51] You know, find a way. If you’re going to ask for something, find a way to add some value or offer something up in advance before you ask for something. That is, so like last week I was actually at really good barbecue place in Richmond, Virginia of all places. I read about it online. I went and checked it out. It was Texas Barbecue in Virginia, which is a very weird thing, but it was there and I walked up to the owner, her name’s Alex and they call her orange. It’s ZZQ Barbecue in Richmond, Virginia. But I walk up and I’ll tell her, hey, I run a podcast business and barbecue podcast. I’d love to interview you one day. But for now, I’ve enjoyed the food here. Could I take a couple pictures so I can post it on social media and let people know that this is really good Texas barbecue and I’m from Texas?

Tim Herriage: [06:38] She’s like, well yeah. So it’s like I could’ve just walked up and said, hey, do you mind if I get a pit tour? Well, she may say yes, but she may not be as excited about it if I just go straight in with what I want. So instead I said, look, I’m going to take some pictures. I’ll put it on social media. Your food was really good. Can you show me around? Let me take some pictures so I can post it. She was like, absolutely. And so from there I was still asking like it helps me, it helps me to get to post these barbecue adventures on my website and now we’re getting ready to transition the podcast more towards a barbecue. Why not transition? I’m creating a second podcast that’s going to be more about only barbecue, not the business aspect. This one’s going to stay the same because I liked this one.

Tim Herriage: [07:17] I liked doing it. I like mixing in the barbecue talk. But anyway, you know, the first is don’t be a sponge. The second is don’t be selfish you right? So find a way to offer something upfront that that person may need or won’t so that you can then extract something that you need or won’t know. It’s a like kind exchange. So, and that’s number two and number three. And most importantly, once you’ve received value, I feel as if you have an obligation to share. And I think too many people that frankly, a lot of the ones that don’t lead with value are the same ones that then once they have knowledge or experience or information, they don’t share it. And I think that’s wrong. I think that you should share what you have and share what you learn and try to help others the way they’ve helped you.

Tim Herriage: [08:08] Now on the same token though, if someone approaches you in a very selfish mentality, it happens all the time. So I had, there’s a investor in the Dallas area that I taught him a lot and trained him. He actually worked for me one time. He calls me all the time to bounce things off of me, and these are smart dude, but if I have an event or something that’s about what it is, he always asked me about like he won’t come. It’s kind of funny. It’s like, okay, wait, you’ve got my cell phone. So you call me to bounce complicated situations and soak up my 20 years of experience, but when I host an event, like you don’t want to pay me to come bounce things off of me, right? I mean, people call me all the time. Why don’t I take you to lunch, Tim, I’d really like to pick your brain and my standard reply.

Tim Herriage: [08:49] This pisses people off a lot. My standard replies, no thank you. I have lunch money, right? You can watch my YouTube videos. They’re free. Just go to YouTube. Just search Tim Herriage. There are hundreds of real estate training videos out there that people have paid me thousands of dollars for. You can listen to my podcast. It’s free, right? You can watch some of my Facebook videos. They’re free. I’m working on a whole series of YouTube videos that we’re going to publish for free on cashflow and cashflow based mortgages and training. Really just trying to help landlords out, but don’t ask me to break my routine and just so you can kind of shortcut the system. Does that make sense? I hope it does. Last week had a, sales person two weeks ago wanted to catch up with me. I knew there’d be a bit of an ask at the end of the lunch, but they contacted me and here’s the way that they lead with a lot of value on this one.

Tim Herriage: [09:37] First thing they said was, hey Tim, I’d like to catch up. Is there a great barbecue place that I could take you to that would be convenient for you? So I’m like, okay. They’ve done a little research. They’ve paid attention to what I’m up to these days. They’re willing to make it convenient for me and pay, right? Not, they didn’t ask for what it was that they sell. I don’t want to say who it is, but instead they straight up just asked me is there a time where they could take me to barbecue? That was convenient for me to catch up. And that was, it was a very good approach and I felt like that was valuable to me because if you don’t know this about me, I love barbecue. And I said, absolutely. There’s this new place out here that’s only five minutes from my house that is now in the Texas top 50 they just moved, it was a new location.

Tim Herriage: [10:24] And so I said, yeah man, let’s hook it up. And so it kind of funny how it worked out as we were eating a situation arose that I needed five of what the guy sold during lunch that need arose. And so I just heard him, I said, hey, you want these five things? And he said, absolutely. So you know, I think what I’m really trying to say is you’ll get a lot more out of life if you try to give in. Cause whatever you give, you’ll get back what you put out, you will receive. And that’s, I don’t want to get all you know, Zen on you here, but that’s just what I believe. I believe that in life, if you are kind to others, they will be kind to you. If you are giving and sharing to others, they will be giving and sharing to you.

Tim Herriage: [11:03] If you are rude and arrogant to others, they will be rude and arrogant to you. And that’s just kind of my skill set. So that’s really it. For this week’s episode, I’ve got my good friend Ken Channel, my mentor gonna be on next week’s show. We’re talking about personalities, we’re talking about team building. We’re talking about how not to make the mistakes that Tim Herriage has made in the first 20 years of his company and professional career or how to make them faster and better and without as much of an impact as they have had on me. It’s kind of funny. We’ll probably end up at a, probably end up being a two part episode because when he and I get together, we turned coffee into an hour and a half meeting the other morning, which was great. Honestly a, it was good to catch up with him. It had been awhile. So what we’re going to do here is I am going to transition a little right after the break are collecting more leads in minutes.

Tim Herriage: [11:52] Not only do I use hubspot’s free CRM, but I also use their free marketing tools. Start turning visitors into leads today. Sign up for free at hubspot.com/th with hubspot marketing free. You’ll have everything you need to convert more visitors into leads. Sign up for free today and it’s free forever. No contract or credit card required. It’s a risk free way to see what inbound marketing can do for you. Start turning visitors into leads today. Sign up for free at hubspot.com/th if you are listening to this podcast cause I’m recording a podcast, well first off, if you’re listening to this live on Instagram, hit like and share. Add to your story, whatever. If you’re on Facebook, do me a favor. Just hit like and share the video. Second, if you are a landlord, if you own property and you won’t more property, we’ve got about 10 tickets left to the REI masterminds meeting, August 17th in Rockwall, Texas.

Tim Herriage: [12:43] Sign up, come on out. It’s like $1,000 you’ll be hanging out with me and some very successful, very focused, very capable landlords for the day. We will start Friday night with a happy hour and then all day Saturday we’re going to do a couple of case studies where people present their business, their landlord business, right? We’re not talking about lead generation, we’re not talking about managing contractors. This is more about taking advantage of the tax code and how to refinance and how to grow your portfolio, how to modify your acquisition criteria for your real estate business to maybe buy more houses or get a better return. We’ll be helping people with their problems and their issues and their business and we’ll be having a great time and of course we will be eating barbecue for lunch as you know with me. And then that night we’ll be going out. I think we’re doing a late cruise, if I remember correctly.

Tim Herriage: [13:34] And then the next morning we say goodbye. Go grab some Brunch, the hotel deadlines this Friday. Anyway, that’s it. Quick episode, REI masterminds, REImasterminds.com if you’re listening to the podcast version of this, go ahead and please rate, subscribe and review. That really helps me a lot in iTunes and Google play and Stitcher, Spotify, etc. Check out Tim heritage.com there is a link to ask questions and to recommend show topics and I’ve got some more barbecue reviews coming out next week. That’s it. I have to go coach football practice now. I hope you have everything you want in life and until next time, keep cookin!

Announcer: [14:11] Thanks for listening to the business and barbecue podcast. Make sure you check out our other episodes and stop by TimHerriage.com to say hi. We want to hear from you until next time, keep cookin.