Happy Sales For Everyone (This Passed The Icky Test) with Special Guest, Robert Kennedy III

Are you stuck in a sales slump? This episode is your guide to turning things around! Learn the strategies that successful entrepreneurs use to master cold calling, close deals, and reignite their sales momentum.

What’s Covered in This Episode:

• The real reason behind most sales slumps—and how to overcome them.
• Proven cold calling techniques designed for B2B success.
• How to shift your mindset and rebuild confidence in your sales process.
• Tips for standing out in a crowded marketplace and landing more clients.
• Why consistent action is the ultimate sales game-changer.

Keywords: sales slump, B2B cold calling, sales strategies, entrepreneur tips, reignite sales momentum

Robert Kennedy III – RK3 works with leaders who need to deliver critical messages with confidence.

Robert is the Founder and CEO of Kennetik Kommunications, a leading communication and presentation training firm that is transforming the real estate industry. 

📚Roberts's Leaders Are Readers Series Pick :
The War Of Art : Break Through The Blocks And Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield https://amzn.to/3MgCyvP

📌Learn more about Robert at https://robertkennedy3.com/

🤝 Connect with Robert at https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkennedy3/

🌟Join the WAITLIST for The Faithful Founders Collective at https://reinventing-perspectives.kit.com/231f666d82

💛 Thank you for listening in! 😀

P.S. Don’t forget to leave a review! Much appreciated.

Transcript

Robert III: [00:00:00] two different experiences. . One is informational. One is transformational. We want people to be in a space where they don't stay the same. A way that you can essentially hijack the brain of the person that you are talking to is by asking them a question.

The carpet guy he's giving me the product immediately. Look at things that go viral online, clickbait, the storytelling word for that would be hook.

What is the thing that hooks you in

It's time to reinvent.

Priscilla: Welcome to the Lessons of Entrepreneurship, the Journey of Reinvention. I promised you the best. Today I have Robert Kennedy III, President of Kinetic Communications. , storytelling strategist. Robert, please tell us, Who you are and what's your [00:01:00] mission.

Robert III: One second before we do that. I'm a speaker and a trainer. And one of the things that happens is when I go on stage, there's like an introduction and I make an entrance. Can I make the entrance?

Priscilla: Please do.

Robert III: Okay. So all I need for you to do is say, ladies and gentlemen, introducing Robert Kennedy, the third.

Priscilla: Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Robert Kennedy III. 

Robert III: Hold on. We got to get some of my people. I'll bring this guy over. There we go. All right.

Priscilla: That's a nice touch, 

Robert III: Yes, how are ya?

Priscilla: Very good, Robert. How are you?

Robert III: Life is grand, I shall not complain. How about that?

Priscilla: I'd love to hear that. Robert. Please Tell us who you are and what's your mission?

Robert III: I am a speaker, as I mentioned, and I've been doing that, I would say, probably for the last eight years or so in this form. Prior to that, I was a trainer, I was an e learning developer, I was a teacher, classroom teacher for quite a few years as well, 10 years, as a matter of fact, I was in high school [00:02:00] for about seven years, and I was

on a faculty for an online university for a couple of years as well. I currently work with real estate professionals and small business owners, teaching them how to connect with their clients, sell more and communicate more confidently online and in person. 

What's my mission. To. Help others create memorable messages that transform lives.

Priscilla: This is the perfect time for this conversation because We're in an age where people are tired of people knowing things and people sharing what they know It's not enough anymore You really have to find a way to captivate and to connect in another way. So I'm so grateful to have you here because I think what you bring to the audience there will be really valuable in how they stand out and how they manage to make the message reach the people that they intend to, so that , they're not in the sea of sameness anymore.

Please tell us how you got into this specific [00:03:00] area of storytelling.

Robert III: Every time I get asked that question, people I feel are waiting for this light bulb moment. I was sitting on the couch one day and then all of a sudden the room became foggy and cloudy and the spirit came down and said, you, my friend will go into storytelling and it's nothing like that. 

It's a journey where you are asking questions, you're. taking on things, you're messing up, you're failing, and you ultimately end up at a place where you realize one day you look back and say, Oh my goodness, I absolutely love where I am, right? I love what I do. And so it's a journey of growth and faith.

Really Being courageous enough to take on some of the mistakes and errors that happen along the way so I've had several companies I had a Online promotions company my very first company was was Promoting gospel music online. And I had a radio station attached to that. And so we started [00:04:00] to get some ad revenue from that.

And then we had some artists come to us and they asked us. to promote them, but they didn't have any websites. And so we started building websites for them. And so we were doing two companies at the same time there. And then when that ended, I moved into the real estate space. I was a real estate agent for a while.

And then I started , an online course development company, and that morphed into doing technical training and that morphed into leadership training and then ultimately communication training. It's been this windy road. That's gotten me to where I am right now.

Priscilla: I've seen you've done a lot of corporate speaking, corporate training and teaching business leaders these techniques and how to tell a story.

Tell us about your first time that you were hired in the company. As a corporate trainer, like what was that like? Cause I think a lot of people who are listening, maybe you're thinking about it, maybe are like how exactly do you go about it? 

Robert III: Yeah, don't even remember what the [00:05:00] first time was or maybe I should say I didn't realize The magnitude of what had happened. I was in a space where I was just looking for work I was looking how to provide for my family. And so I started to connect with organizations that were doing training themselves.

I connected with an organization that was training on a specific software that I knew I would go into the company, and they would bring corporate clients into the company for me to train them. I would have anywhere from, 15 to 2025 people in the room from government organizations from.

Private organizations, all sorts of corporations would come into my space. And what would happen sometimes is as I was teaching them this technical software, they would ask me a couple of questions. One was, Hey, you're so inspirational. Are you a motivational speaker? And I would say, No, what are you talking about?

I didn't even realize what that [00:06:00] was. Thanks. And I kept getting that question and then the other question I would get was do you do any other training beside this technical training? So after a while, I started to answer. Yeah, do. you have in mind? Some companies, they said, Yeah we would like some leadership training. Then I connected with universities. I connected with some other training companies and I would then go and give leadership training. And then after a while I started to source some of these corporations myself and I would get to go in and do different leadership and then ultimately communication training.

Priscilla: I was on your website says Robert Kennedy, the third works with leaders who need to deliver critical messages with confidence.

Robert III: Yeah.

Priscilla: Like that. I think we all have critical messages we want to deliver and we'd like to do it with confidence.

So I'll jump right in. And have you talk us through, first of all, let's establish why people should, work on storytelling, how that can improve their business [00:07:00] before we go right into it. 

Robert III: Each business owner ultimately, they want to be able to sell, right? They want to make sure that they have a solution that they offer to their prospects and they can use that solution to solve the problem that they have. Now, a lot of companies. just talk about the facts. They just talk about the data and the information.

I'll give you an example. I was sitting in my living room. I lived in the state of Massachusetts my doorbell rang. I went to the door and there was this guy standing outside in my driveway with a big square, cardboard where I could see these little pieces of cloth at least I thought there were cloth from inside I open the door and I go outside and he says hi.

My name is Mark. I'm selling carpet I came from across the street and I wanted you to see the carpet that we have we've got Berber We've got high pile. We've got low pile. We got Gomer pile We got all the piles got these little squares on and he says come on and touch it. So I touch it And I touch about four or five of them, and we go through [00:08:00]this process for about two or three minutes.

Then I open my door, and I show him inside my house, and it's all hardwood. And he says, oh, you don't need carpet, and he walks off down the street. He came to me, and he just gave me the data. He just gave me the facts. What if he had come across the street and he said something like, Hi, my name's Mark.

I've just been walking around the neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I just visited your neighbor across the street, Judy. And I asked her, most challenging thing? And she said, she hates the oil or the heating bill. And I noticed that you have an oil tank out front here. How's your heating bill doing? So now I've got a question because he said, Judy doesn't like it. Judy's upset about this. He's trying to find out, okay, am I upset about this as well? So if he had asked me that, of course I would have been upset because sometimes our heating bill was like four or 500 a month.

And that was crazy. He could have then said, if you don't like the heating bill, have you ever thought [00:09:00] about putting carpet or space or area rugs in certain parts of the house, it could save you this amount of money. And then I would start listening. And he would say, yeah, here are about four different types of area rugs I have on this display board.

Can you check them out. So now we've had a conversation where he's walked through an emotion or an experience or feeling that I had instead of entering with just the data and the facts and too many business owners open the door with just the data and the facts and the product and they try to sell people instead of figuring out what's the emotion and the experience that people have so that they can create connection.

Priscilla: I know I've done that many times and I'm pretty sure people who are listening have done that sometimes it's just being nervous. You just want to get the information out there and get a yes or no and run because you're still getting your feet wet in trying to get that sale, , for the person who's Oh, I don't really know how to.

Craft a story or how to take that approach to connect. What would you say 

Robert III: we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we listen [00:10:00] to Aesop's fables and we listen to all of these different stories and we say, Oh my goodness, we listened to Dr. Seuss and I don't tell stories that way. When we talk about stories, it's not always about the once upon a time.

It sometimes is simply utilizing the structure of a story, and we can go into that a little bit later, but the biggest thing that I would share with people is storytelling is more about the emotion or the experience, and the best way for you to get to the experience of the emotion is to ask a question.

And then listen, right? Because if you ask a question, and then listen, you're going to get information about the state of mind of your audience, you're going to get information about their preferences, you're going to get information about what they're going through. You're going to get information about what they would like to do, what they would not like to do.

I'll go back to my history here. I was a science teacher. Science says that there's a process that our brain goes through. It's called instinctive [00:11:00] elaboration. And what that simply means is that anytime you ask a question, the brain can't help but answer it. So about this? If I were to ask you a question, I would say, Priscilla, what kind of glasses are those?

You're immediately starting to think about it in your brain. If I were to say, Priscilla, what kind of microphone is that you're using? You're immediately starting to think about it. If I said, Priscilla, how long have you had that microphone? Or what do you like about that microphone? Your brain starts to process and try to answer it.

Whether you say it out of your mouth or not, your brain starts to process it. So A way that you can essentially hijack the brain of the person that you are talking to is by asking them a question. Now, their brain starts to sift through experiences and their mind begins to say, I experienced that I didn't experience that.

I don't want to experience that. They're creating videos and images there and they will respond based on that and you are the originator or the initiator of that now you just shut up and you listen and you let them give you the information 

Priscilla: [00:12:00] the other day somebody asked me something and in my mind I was answering it, a lengthy answer to what, then I had to stop myself to say, Hey, they didn't ask you all that they just asked you a yes or no, it'd be just fine. But like you said, it's that brain that wants to respond to what's being asked.

I like what you said. The point is you want to connect, , you want to listen in for the experience and you want to listen in for the emotion. Okay. I'm listening in for the experience and the emotion. And then how do I respond next? Cause I know that somebody is thinking, okay, Oh, now I'm going through my brain to try and think what should I say now that I've heard the experience and the emotion. 

Robert III: You look for something that connects with that right in the example that I gave you the carpet salesman, says, I was talking with your neighbor and your neighbor said this, they hate this. How do you feel about this? So he already preempted the feeling.

I say, [00:13:00] I feel the same way, or I feel differently. And based on how I respond now, the salesman can say, you feel the same way about the heat that Judy does. Here's a solution, or here's a fix that I have for your problem.

Or if I say you know what? No, don't know what her problem is. She's probably just got her heat on all the time. I'm good over here. Then he can ask some different questions., do you know anybody else that feels the same way that Judy does? In the neighborhood. So now , he's almost getting referrals from me to figure out who's he should go to next.

Or he could ask me okay. , do you feel that way all year around? Is it just in the winter or in the summer now he's got different questions, follow up questions. That he can ask, right? It's not always about you having to tell a story based on the person's response. It may just be you following up and digging deeper and being even more curious.

Priscilla: On your website real estate, selling homes and creating stories that [00:14:00] stick. , in the event that you're selling something like a home, I just want people to get an idea in their mind of something else just so that the ideas are, 

Robert III: Yeah. So sometimes it's not just the story of the home. It may be the story of you. As you are leading somebody through the process of home purchase. For example, my wife and I purchased our first home when my wife was pregnant with our first child. We were in the midst of this process of looking for homes and we'd never bought a home before.

So we didn't really know all of the ins and outs of it. We thought it was, okay, yep, the agent sends you some stuff to look at, you look at it, you pick one, you go, sign some paperwork and you get in the house. But there was all this other stuff. We had to talk about inspections.

We had to talk about appraisals. What the land zoning was. What home warranties and then we had to go to the bank and we had to deal with the title company and there was all this stuff. As we're [00:15:00] freaking out about, oh my gosh, all this stuff, we have an agent that then says, you know what, when I was purchasing my first home. I did this and all of these things didn't make sense to me at all. And here's how I dealt with it. Wasn't stressed out. Some of these things you're stressed out because you don't know what to expect from it or you don't know all the information. But the agent is able to say, yeah, , I got that information.

I took it in and I let these other people deal with it. I let the attorney deal with it. And now that diminishes our stress level a bit because now we're saying, okay, we don't have to think about all of the minors or all of the specific details of this. The agent used a story their experience to be able to assuage or to get rid of some of the stresses that we had in the situation.

That's one. Another example might be if somebody is selling a house. Instead of saying, Hey, I've got a three bedroom, two bathroom house that has a pool in the [00:16:00] backyard. And it's a nice house. I might say what would it be like if next summer you could be sitting on a deck, leaning back on a lawn chair, sipping on a drink, and you had some friends around and they were jumping into a pool and everybody's splashing.

What would that feel like for you? I would say, Oh my gosh, that's so great. Great. I've got the perfect house for you to look at. Let's go look. So those are two different experiences. . One is informational. One is transformational. And so we want people to be in a space where they don't stay the same.

We want them to move or transform, go from one place to the other based on the story and the experience.

Priscilla: I'm so interested now for you to tell the structure of it, because from, maybe I'm wrong, you tell me Rob, because from my listening, I'm getting a sense that, okay, you've got question. Which invites a person into and the question is framing in a way that invites a person into the story, but not the story that you're [00:17:00] creating the story that you're allowing them to create through the answer.

For the audience, there isn't that pressure of I have to be a storyteller. So you need to invite someone. So that you listen in to them creating the story and then you engage and connect with them on that point.

in the beginning you had the one about the carpet. You have the neighbor kind of building rapport and putting the person at ease. Something, someone that they're familiar with. And then you've got the process of Oh, you're freaking out. This is the process of what you're going to have to do now that you've decided to buy this thing.

The story to put the person at ease, once again you're using it in a different way. I'm interested in the structure, cause I think you've just shown it so masterfully in so many ways. And I think people can really. Learn from that and take the pressure off and also realize that you want the other person to co create with you, to bring them in.

Robert III: Stories are essentially made up of four main elements, context, characters, conflict, and conclusion. Most of us [00:18:00] jump right to the conclusion. We jump right to what we're selling, right? we're selling the process, the product, the program, right? We jump right to that.

The carpet guy he's giving me the product immediately. Now, if you look at things that go viral online, most of the time, or let's look at articles that they want you to click on we use this term clickbait. But clickbait, the storytelling word for that would be hook.

What is the thing that hooks you in? And that hook is the tension in the story. And that is always surrounding what we call the conflict. Because the conflict is where things go wrong. Things are broken. There's opportunities inside of the conflict. Something needs to be filled.

Something needs to be fixed. That's what the conflict is. And that is especially magnetic because we're human beings. And stuff goes wrong in our lives all the time, right? More often than not, life goes [00:19:00] wrong. If it didn't happen that way, then we would never complain about anything. The hook is what is the connective tissue that says, okay, here's a problem.

Do you have this problem? This problem is like a problem that you've never seen before or something that you've experienced before. So there's the hook. Now you've got the context and the character. If I go back to the story with the carpet guy comes across the street.

And he says, Hey, your neighbor, character, told me that she hated the oil bill. Conflict. I see that you've got an oil tank out front. Context. What's happening in the world of your audience? Okay, so I've gone through those three things. And now, because I've gone through those three things, I've got the attention of the person that I'm talking to.

I didn't sell anything. I didn't speak about what the fix is. talk about any of that stuff. I just connected. spoke about [00:20:00] things or elements that they were familiar with. Their neighbor. Okay, the heat bill. Okay, cool. oil tanks. Now, once I get approval, or now once I get permission or alignment from that person by their nodding and saying, Yeah, that's terrible.

I hate that too. Now I can enter with Okay, here's the fix. Here's the conclusion. Here's the process for that. And if we begin to think in that way, it begins to make sense. All of our conversations, I'm married, right? When my wife says something to me and she wants to vent about something she's venting about a problem, which is the conflict.

If I immediately say you know what, let's do this and fix it. She doesn't want to hear that. not the way . She needs connection. As much as I am tempted as a man to immediately go to the fix of it, I need to create connection, right? So I might begin to ask some different questions or , I might agree.

I might say, [00:21:00] yeah, that's terrible. How did that happen? And I start to get some context and I start to create relatability inside of that. And after all of that is done, then I can say you know what? What do you think about this? Or maybe we can try this. But if I go there first, No, it's not going to work.

We can use that structure. Those four elements. There are a couple of other Items or, Ideas that I add in using a story structure that I call my 5c framework But those four elements are your main elements that are gonna help you to win in conversations and sales in contact Interactions

Priscilla: I like the way that you put it, . We quickly go to the conclusion. We've already cut people off and we are already way ahead and we could have got there, but because we've jumped into it, there's nothing left. Yeah. Wow. That's a really powerful framework.

Now you baited me by telling me that you've got more that you use. Now I'm like what more do you use?

Robert III: The other pieces [00:22:00] are really specific to situations. , if you look at my site says strategic storyteller. My goal with telling a story is not just to share an experience as a business owner. My goal is to lead people on a journey that can help them solve a problem that they have.

If I share with you a story and then I walk off, then I really haven't done you a service. As a business owner, I've got to have something else added. So we said that the four pillars are context, character, conflict, and conclusion. But I've got to have a call to action. I want you to do something right.

We've walked through this story. We've walked through this process. And there's a lesson inside of it. There's , a tool that you can use to solve the issue that you have. It's like telling me, you know what? holes my front yard. And I say, okay, cool.

problem are those holes causing? Okay. Then you say come outside and I don't see the holes. And all of a sudden I might step in one and I might hurt my ankle. I'm saying, [00:23:00] wow that stinks. , that hurts. And you probably have to go to the hospital and spend all this money on emergencies, et cetera, 

see how we can fix that. I've got this shovel. And if you use the shovel you get some dirt from the edge of the yard, you can fill those holes in. If I never say to you, here's how you can purchase the shovel, or here's where you can get a shovel, then you're still just a person who has the information, but you don't know what to do with it.

So I have to give you a call to action. I have to say, , here's how you fix it. Here's how you can get shovel. Here's where you can buy it. The shovel is this amount. You got to go to Home Depot or Lowe's or wherever it is. I don't know if they have those stores where you are, but I've got to go to a garden store.

To get the shovel and then you can do this. I've got to have a call to action. Now there's another element that I use. I called my catalyst statement. And that is before I give you the call to action, that's me telling you what you need to do. So I've got my context, my characters, my conflict. I have a catalyst [00:24:00] statement, which says, yeah, in order to solve the problem, you need this.

Okay, now I go into my conclusion. Here are the steps that you need to follow in order to use this, and then I'll remind you after that with a call to action. If I'm creating a video or if I'm selling a product, I'll walk through that five or six c process, that framework, and that is how I sell.

Priscilla: It's powerful. I'm seeing all the things I see online. I'm seeing all the things I've done as well. , where, you know, conclusion that's it. Whoever doesn't need the conclusion or who's not yet understanding how you got there has already been turned away.

Or telling a good story and bringing people in and then not telling them what to do. And then they're like, Oh that was really great, but okay. All the common things that we do, I'm really interested in this because, people say if you are a person who's naturally funny or you're a person who's not naturally funny, I'm thinking about humor in the sense of like business storytelling, because.

Yeah, there's so much should I try to [00:25:00] be funny or should I not try to be funny or? I don't know. I'll ask you, Rob.

Robert III: what you should try to be is you right? I think when you try to do something that is outside of what comes naturally, then it becomes forced. It becomes inauthentic. Okay. People are attracted to who you naturally are. People are attracted to you because of your passion. People are attracted because of the things that you like.

They like what you like and they like that you like the things that you like, right? Especially if you are passionate about it. There's a statement that in online marketing that says your vibe attracts your tribe, right? And so it is, if I show up and I'm talking loudly. And then when they meet me, I'm super quiet.

Then that's a little bit different. My wife says I deceived her. Because when we were dating, I would spend hours on the phone with [00:26:00] her. And then, when we got married, my true introvert nature kicked in. And I didn't talk as much. She's still here. 24 years later, she's still here.

She didn't go anywhere. But it was something that she noticed. She was like, Oh my gosh, what happened to that dude we lived in different places, different states. I lived in Massachusetts. She lived in New Jersey. So we spent a lot of time on the phone, right? She's like, where's that dude that was on the phone.

And so now I have to adjust my behavior a bit because the person that I presented at the beginning was a little bit different for her. Unless we want to have to go through the process of continually adjusting our behavior, we show up as our best selves. And sometimes we turn the volume up a little bit on who we are.

Don't change who you are. Just turn the volume up and, be authentic.

Priscilla: It's interesting that you said you're more introverted. I would have never guessed that you are more introverted. People typically. assume that if I'm going to improve my communication skills, it's because I'm naturally an [00:27:00] extrovert or it's something that, is a strength of mine and therefore I can pursue this avenue.

And they don't typically connect that with, more introverted personalities. So maybe you can speak to that a little bit.

Robert III: Yeah I think we have this misconception about what introversion is when we say introverts, people automatically equate that to shy or, oh, they don't like people. They don't like being around people, and that's not necessarily the truth. Introversion is I derive energy from being in my own space.

Or let me say it differently. People drain energy from me. My wife is the opposite of me. She's an extrovert. She gets powered up or energized by people we go to an amusement park She wants to stay there until the park shuts down until they close the gates and they're kicking us out like y'all go home she wants to be there until the end after a few hours. I'm like, Can we go home now right because i've peopled I've had my fill and I can [00:28:00] be energetic. I can be entertaining but partway through that this is all draining energy from me. And so I need to refill And my way to refill is by withdrawing, recuperating, rejuvenating, and then I can come back out.

And as a speaker, I prepare for that moment. I prepare to speak. I prepare knowing that I'm going to be in front of a bunch of people. And then I show up in the way that I need to show up to be a speaker. If I speak all week, at the end of the week I'm drained and I don't want to talk to anybody for three days. It's okay. It's just being aware of the places that you need to be and also being aware of what you need in order to be at your best. And for me, that means I need a certain amount of. Isolated time I needed a certain amount of rejuvenating and energizing time by myself in order to be in the spaces where I can show up with the energy that I want to get the results that I want.

Priscilla: Thank you for sharing [00:29:00] that because I think you've busted some myths for a lot of people who think, Oh, I can't do that. Robert, you mentioned that you prepare for your speaking event and I'm curious, what does that look like?

Oh, how would you suggest somebody who's starting out in that? What does preparation look like?

Robert III: There are a lot of pieces of it. There's the preparation where you've got to prepare with the information that you're going to share with people. And then there's the preparation of the energy that you've got to be able to share. I prepare physiologically.

So that means if I know that I'm going to be in a space where I need to give out energy, need to get my energy up to a certain space. If I'm in my car on my way, I'm playing music. That's I'm jamming. I'm like, yeah, what? And I'm jamming. I'm getting my energy up. If I'm backstage, I may be shadowboxing because I'm taking those butterflies or I'm taking that anxious or nervous energy and turning it or funneling it into a space that I can use, right?

When public [00:30:00] speaking clients come to me and they say, my gosh, Robert, I get so nervous, right? I get all these butterflies when I'm speaking. How do I get rid of the butterflies? And I tell them our job is not to , get rid of the butterflies. It's to help them fly in formation. My job is to take that energy and turn it into what I need it to do so that it can Give the audience the message that I want them to have so that's how I Physiologically prepared even people like Tony Robbins before he goes out to speak He wants the energy to be on 100 and so he's got a trampoline backstage.

He jumps on a trampoline For a little while to get his energy up and then he comes out the music is pumping the audience is raising their hands He's jumping they're jumping because he wants to create that energetic space right, and so he Physically and physiologically prepares for that

Priscilla: , mid speaking, he will say let's pump that music. , if that energy is dropping a little bit, he wants to pick up that energy so that he can deliver [00:31:00] it's really interesting because sometimes you focus on just the information and you neglect the part where there's an energy, can't remember what you said your vibe.

Robert III: Yeah, your vibe attracts your tribe. 

Priscilla: Vibe attracts your tribe. 

Robert III: Yeah, when I was in teaching, I had to be aware of the different types of learners in my room, I had to be aware of auditory learners, I had to be aware of visual learners. And I had to be aware of kinesthetic learners.

, a lot of kids in my classroom were kinesthetic learners, which means that I had to get them to touch something. I had to get them to move. I had to get them to stand up. I had to get them to be engaged physically in order for them to remember information.

So if I just came in the classroom every day and I wrote stuff on the board and I said, remember this, the majority of them would not. And the majority of learners in our world are , not fully, but in some measure, kinesthetic learners. They've got to touch things. They've got to move.

They've got to [00:32:00] engage , in order for them to remember things. , if we think about it, you go on a ride or if you smell a specific scent, it brings back specific memories for you. Okay. But if you see something on a wall, more often than not, it doesn't necessarily bring back the same feeling until a scent or something auditory is attached to it. And so we've got to think about how we want people to remember information and then , be specific with how we present that information.

Priscilla: Thank you, Robert. Holding you hostage. Robert, please. I know for those who are like, Coaches thought leaders in that space I often hear have a couple of stories , whether you're podcast guesting to share your message or to try and get clients or your video or whatever it is, but having a couple of stories of connection, what would you say to that kind of advice?

Robert III: Love that because especially if you are a speaker coach Somebody who's regularly in front of [00:33:00]people. I would suggest having what I call a signature story And a signature story is a story that you can refer to time and time again. One, especially that is not just on one thing, one that you can pull multiple lessons from.

So I'll give a quick example. I told a story to my mastermind group several years ago and they said to me, Dude, why have you never told that story before? Here's a story. When I was eight years old, I didn't know how to ride a bicycle. I was at my friend's house Canada. And I said, I want to learn how to ride a bicycle today.

And he said in order to learn how to ride a bicycle, you got to do what those kids are doing. He pointed out the window, and there were some kids out there riding their bicycles, but they had their parents behind them pushing the bicycles. Now this was back in the day when you could leave eight year olds at home by themselves.

We didn't have any parents to push us at the house, right? So I said, I want to learn how to ride. We went out into the garage. He grabbed his bicycle. I got his sister's bicycle with the basket on the front and the bell ding, ding, ding on the front. [00:34:00] And I tried to ride and I fell. I did that a few times and I kept falling, couldn't keep my balance, but I don't remember how I figured this out.

I noticed that his driveway went down on a decline underneath the house into the garage. I figured out that I could balance much easier if I let the bike coast down the hill. So I let it coast down into the garage and I did that over and over again. I did that for about 30 minutes till I felt confident that I could go out on the road.

So I went out on the road and I started to pedal a little bit and I was wiggly. I said, man this isn't working as well as I want. I noticed that at the end of the street. There was a hill So I took the bike over to the top of the hill and I pushed off And the bike started to go faster And my feet started to go faster And then the bike continued going faster until my feet flew off the pedals. And I couldn't keep up with the rotation of the pedals.

This bike is going down the hill and there's an intersection coming up. See your eyes getting [00:35:00] wider. This bike is going faster and faster down the hill. And as I get closer to the intersection, I remember there's this thing that I forgot to teach myself in the driveway.

Oh yeah, braking. How to stop the bike. I didn't know how to do that. This was those bikes where you had to push backwards on the pedals, and I didn't know that. looking how to stop this bike. I'm getting closer to the intersection, and I notice that there's a lawn on my left side. So I throw the bike over to the lawn, I fall off the bike, and I slide through the grass and end up hitting this picket fence. I look up at the top of the hill and I see my friend, he's me like, Oh my gosh! With his face covered. But I stand up and I raise my hands, I'm like, Yeah! Because I rode the bike. I tell that story as my signature story quite often, because there are a lot of lessons inside of that one lesson.

Perspectives what somebody else views as a failure can be a success for you. If you have the right vision. What about us going down the hill and the feet flying off the pedals? Have you ever been on a project at work where you thought it was going really well And then all of a sudden [00:36:00] things started to go crazy and you felt like you were losing control and you could see An intersection ahead of you could see something that was going to derail you could see something That was going to cause the entire thing to blow up explode crash.

How many of you have ever felt like that? I can talk about that story I can talk about inside of that story, me saying, I want to learn how to ride a bike. And my friend says, the only way to learn how to do it is to get your parents to push you. But I decided, nope, I wasn't going to listen to that.

I decided I was going to innovate and figure out another way. So I've got all these neat lessons inside of a simple story that isn't dramatic. Nobody exploded, right? I had all my limbs. No cars were crashing. Nothing was on fire. But I take a simple story and I pull all sorts of lessons out of it.

So for each of you, what is a story that you have in your life that you could pull multiple lessons from depending on who you're speaking to? 

Priscilla: I think that's the perfect conclusion. I'm happy that I continued asking and asking, we were going to walk away [00:37:00] without your signature story. That was not going to be acceptable. No. Thank you so much, Robin. We have a book series that we do it doesn't have to be on speaking or storytelling.

A book that you would say is. Probably your number one recommendation for someone who's in entrepreneurship.

Robert III: That is a difficult question because I have so many, I don't know if I have a number one recommendation. Entrepreneurship, the biggest thing that you've got to work on as an entrepreneur is your mindset. to, you've got to be resilient. You've got to be persevering. got to figure out how to keep going when things are messy.

I think if I were to recommend a book, it would be the war of art by Steven Pressfield. 

Priscilla: Thank you so much for sharing your time and sharing your expertise and giving us those lessons through your signature story. Thank you, Robert Kennedy.

Robert III: Thank you, Priscilla. It's been a pleasure.