Music:
Speaker1: Hello and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from StartupRate.io,
Speaker1: your gateway to the world of startups, tech and innovation across Germany,
Speaker1: Switzerland and Austria with a global perspective.
Speaker1: Today's guest brings a razor sharp mind, FBI level training and a whole lot
Speaker1: of real world wisdom to the microphone.
Speaker1: Matthias Buhlmann is one of Germany's leading voices in safe psychology,
Speaker1: crisis negotiations and strategic communications for founders and executives.
Speaker1: He has been trained by the former head of FBI hostage negotiation unit,
Speaker1: holds a TÜV certification in Verkaufspsychologie,
Speaker1: meaning sales psychology, and is a certified storytelling coach whose methods
Speaker1: have helped startups, corporates, and solopreneurs alike turn cold leads into
Speaker1: powerful connections without manipulation, hopefully.
Speaker1: He's the creator of the podcast Psychologie, die verkauft und Skagel,
Speaker1: so meaning psychology that sells. And what is Skagel?
Speaker0: Skagel is about scaling agile. So also I'm an interim manager and support large
Speaker0: companies with agile digital transformation.
Speaker0: And I was funding an own department within Accenture where I worked seven years,
Speaker0: which combines large SAP programs and scaling agile.
Speaker1: Great. And in this podcast, you break down the science of influence and sales,
Speaker1: leadership and large scale agile transformation, whether you're advising executive
Speaker1: teams, preparing founders for high stakes investor talks or teaching emotional
Speaker1: triggered strategies for Gen Z buyers.
Speaker1: Matisse always leads with clarity, authenticity and results.
Speaker1: Today, we'll uncover how founders can negotiate like pros, how messaging psychology
Speaker1: can drive real growth, and what startups can learn from FBI playbooks,
Speaker1: motivational hormone models, and Netflix-worthy storytelling frameworks.
Speaker1: Matthias, welcome to the show and a real pleasure to have you here with us.
Speaker0: Jörn, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here and I can add one thing.
Speaker0: I was also trained before three weeks by the ex-director of Crisis and Hostess
Speaker0: Negotiation from Scotland Yard, from Nicky Perfect also.
Speaker1: That is a great name for a trainer, Nicky Perfect.
Speaker0: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker1: Amazing. I was wondering, let's open with a bold prediction.
Speaker1: What bold prediction do you have for the future of communication,
Speaker1: negotiation or sales psychology for 2030? you
Speaker0: It's the same like in the last 10, 15 years, 1 million years,
Speaker0: people buying from people.
Speaker0: And for sure, we can use K-I-A-I and so on.
Speaker0: But at the end of the day, on the bottom line, it's about emotions.
Speaker0: And it's about my own emotions to get them under control and also to trigger
Speaker0: the positive emotions from the opposite at the end of the day.
Speaker1: I see. But I get the feeling you cannot sell necessarily with AI,
Speaker1: but you can really work on the funnel that brings a potential lead to you.
Speaker0: Absolutely. You see that LinkedIn currently, a lot of KI stuff is out there, also commands from KI.
Speaker0: And I see it that's a little bit heartless.
Speaker0: And this is what I really see and feel then. and this person doesn't have so
Speaker0: much success. For sure, I work also in the preparation and for my funnels also with KI.
Speaker0: But at the end of the day, I look over it and I really do copywriting by myself
Speaker0: at the end of the day also.
Speaker0: Ideas I get from the KI sometimes because brain is empty. I'm a knowledge worker, you know.
Speaker0: But at the end of the day, I have a hands-on mentality And at the end of the
Speaker0: day, I will do things by my own.
Speaker1: Let's start at the beginning. What was the aha moment that led you to study
Speaker1: FBI style negotiation and psychology for business?
Speaker0: My aha moment and greetings going out to my ex-boss Malte at Accenture.
Speaker0: He told me, Matthias, what you do is good, but you can do it better because
Speaker0: you are not trained in negotiation.
Speaker0: It was in 2020, two, three months before we had the first lockdown in Germany with Corona.
Speaker0: And I had a really good training, the first time that I had a negotiation training.
Speaker0: And the outcome was, Matthias, you're one of the best guys we ever trained,
Speaker0: but now you're much more better than before because you got a lot of practices
Speaker0: and knowledge from experienced trainers.
Speaker0: And after two years, I asked myself, okay, is this all with negotiation or can I do something else?
Speaker0: And then I was informed myself about negotiation trainings. There's a lot of
Speaker0: negotiations, negotiation trainings out there.
Speaker0: And I found a really, really good trainer.
Speaker0: And I had five or six classes with him.
Speaker0: He's since 25 years with the Harvard professors and do a lot of scientific things,
Speaker0: which his training is based on.
Speaker0: And on one day he said, Matthias, I have an offer for you. I get the ex-FBI
Speaker0: chef boss from the negotiation unit, Gary Nusner.
Speaker0: Are you willing to have a training with him? I directly say yes.
Speaker0: And this was my way to the crazy thing that I had a training with the ex-FBI
Speaker0: crisis negotiation unit boss, Gary Nusner.
Speaker0: My aha moment was at Accenture, where I was doing a lot of sales,
Speaker0: recruiting, and my boss see that there's much more in me, but I need to uncover
Speaker0: it with the professional training.
Speaker1: Many people still associate selling with manipulation how do you define ethical
Speaker1: sales psychology and why the founders need it more than ever
Speaker0: We see other people two times in our life so i was an ex-sales professional
Speaker0: before 15 and 20 years before i study after my my apprenticeship in the early 2000s.
Speaker0: And from the beginning, I saw a lot of salespeople who sell more than they can.
Speaker0: At the end of the day, and I was in the software divisions selling software,
Speaker0: I saw that a lot of IT technicans and developers need to do something what they
Speaker0: cannot do because salespeople promised, declined, they can do it.
Speaker0: And for me from the first day it was really clear i don't sell things which i cannot deliver,
Speaker0: full stop and for sure i didn't do i didn't make all the deals what i can in
Speaker0: the past but at the end of the day when i see the persons a second time.
Speaker0: I can i can go out and get a drink with them so they are not angry to me and
Speaker0: i had it one time in my life,
Speaker0: Joe, because I was a professional chief entertainer.
Speaker0: And in this time at Fuerteventura, I met an old client for me.
Speaker0: And he said, Matthias, it was the best sales that I ever had because you only
Speaker0: promised what you can deliver.
Speaker0: The people after you from your company promised me more but didn't deliver or
Speaker0: are really late. And this is what I really appreciate.
Speaker0: And at the end of the day, when I'm a founder, and I have a lot of contacts
Speaker0: to founders in Zoling and also in Düsseldorf, where I support,
Speaker0: and they're really loving their solutions.
Speaker0: And they need to make more clear what the boundaries are.
Speaker0: Don't promise what you can't deliver. At the end of the day,
Speaker0: a lot of startups failed, and it's totally okay.
Speaker0: A girlfriend of mine said, I found it 12 times. 11 times doesn't work.
Speaker0: And this is in Germany, we know, Almonds, it's not okay.
Speaker0: But in the other world, it's okay if you fail and if you learn out of it.
Speaker0: But don't promise what you can't deliver.
Speaker0: Because at the end of the day, if you then be a new founder for another product
Speaker0: and it's the same target group,
Speaker0: maybe you come back to the old client and there doesn't will be a new client. So don't promise.
Speaker0: And the ethical thing is a really big thing in the negotiation also.
Speaker0: There are a lot of studies out of it.
Speaker0: But at the end of the day, if you're a friendly person in sales or negotiation,
Speaker0: be sure at the end of the day, the other person will be friendly also.
Speaker0: Or if not, then the other person maybe is not the right target person for a
Speaker0: product or for a company.
Speaker1: We're getting straight into the next question. By the way, most people won't
Speaker1: see it, but I have seen that you have a cat in the background.
Speaker1: What's the name of the anonymous guest?
Speaker0: This is Tia. She's now laying here. And the other one is easy.
Speaker0: They're both British shorthairs. And the other one is a real big British shorthair
Speaker0: cat. They're my ladies here.
Speaker0: They're the most agile and most trade negotiation cats in the world.
Speaker0: They don't want to do my job so that I can lay on a beach.
Speaker1: I see. We are already getting a little bit into the tactical deep dive frameworks and tools.
Speaker1: And I was wondering, what do you think is the biggest misconception startup
Speaker1: leaders have about negotiating, especially under pressure, like the BATNA framework for founders?
Speaker0: They often have no BATNA. So for the people outside, what is a BATNA?
Speaker0: It's the best alternative to negotiated agreement.
Speaker0: It's our best plan B. So for sure, we work here with a plan B.
Speaker0: And if you don't have a plan B, so if you don't can make it in another way,
Speaker0: then the only way to make sales, to make a deal, is now on this table.
Speaker0: And this brings you sometimes not in the best situation. So you give up earlier,
Speaker0: you give a lot of rebates, etc.
Speaker0: So be sure that you have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement.
Speaker0: So the question is, what can I do? when I go out of the table and have no result here.
Speaker0: That's a question. And often enough, people think for sure we can negotiate.
Speaker0: I was a negotiator in the school. I was doing the Abibal or some other things
Speaker0: that are organized for other pupils in my school.
Speaker0: You call it negotiation. And I was five and a half years in a child and youth
Speaker0: psychiatry as I was 11 until 16 years. and I was negotiating for my life a lot.
Speaker0: But this has nothing to do with the same things what I did after a professional training.
Speaker0: And this doesn't mean that you need to do six, seven trainings like me and FBI
Speaker0: and Scotland Yard trainings.
Speaker0: It's absolutely enough when you do two days of professional training,
Speaker0: for example, Harvard Concept or with trainers who are really experienced and
Speaker0: also have professional trainings, etc.
Speaker0: Two days are enough. And there are two studies out there from 2010,
Speaker0: which prove this also, that people who are trained two days with the Harvard
Speaker0: negotiation concept, basic training, nothing special,
Speaker0: that they are much more effective than people who are not trained.
Speaker0: It's really easy. It's not that difficult, to be honest. And it doesn't need to cost 10,000 euros.
Speaker0: If you have a good trainer, you can make it with a group, two days,
Speaker0: 5,000 to 10,000 people. If you have a big group of 10,000, 12 people,
Speaker0: so per person around 1,000, 2,000 euros maximum.
Speaker1: And how can startup founders use the either VATNA or SOPA framework to improve
Speaker1: their investor negotiations or enterprise deals?
Speaker0: So first of all, you need to zoom out and don't be emotional because it's your
Speaker0: child at the end of the day.
Speaker0: If you are a founder, then it's your child.
Speaker0: And some people say, yeah, the first thing what I killed is my child, but not my human child.
Speaker0: So my professional business child.
Speaker0: And think about if it's the only way to make a deal here. Is this the only way
Speaker0: to go on or do I have another option?
Speaker0: And the first thing what you really need to do is zoom out and be not emotional.
Speaker0: And this is the most critical thing.
Speaker0: And I'm a really emotional guy to do it by myself.
Speaker0: And now what I say, Jörn, it's really, really, really difficult.
Speaker0: And in this situation, it can help to have one,
Speaker0: two, three hours of a professional coach, trainer, consultant in the negotiation
Speaker0: area to ask him or her to help you to zoom out and don't be emotional.
Speaker0: Ask the right questions. Because the answer, I swear you, it's inside the mouth of the founders.
Speaker0: But they need a sparrings partner who helps them to zoom out and go out of the emotional area.
Speaker0: And to be honest, emotions are 99% of the reasons why people take hostages.
Speaker0: Almost men's and almost because of emotional situations, they are not planned.
Speaker0: So emotions is a basic for everyone to learn about your triggers, your emotions.
Speaker0: And this is more than 50% of the negotiation process.
Speaker0: And then we take care of the other side, of the triggers, emotionals,
Speaker0: and how we can help them to say yes. And you ask questions about ethics.
Speaker0: And I call it white and dark sales psychology. or what I teach the people,
Speaker0: I show them, you can use in the good world and in the bad world.
Speaker0: It's like a knife. And with a knife, you can slice some apples or you can kill people.
Speaker0: It's really simple. It's a knife. And negotiation and psychology skills are a really sharp knife.
Speaker0: And I make clear to my clients that I'm not going into negotiation or don't
Speaker0: will support them as if they do bad things. Really simple.
Speaker1: That actually does make sense. Tell us about, we're talking about MotivCompass,
Speaker1: something like the motivational compass.
Speaker1: How can founders or marketers use it to sell effectively without selling out?
Speaker0: Yeah, thank you very much. Really simple. This is a neuroscience model from Dirk Eilert.
Speaker0: I don't know if you ever heard the name.
Speaker0: It's one of the leading micro-expressions experts in Germany or in the DACH
Speaker0: region and the German-speaking region in Europe.
Speaker0: And he and a professor, doctor, were founding this MotivCompass for another thing.
Speaker0: So they ask themselves, okay, if people we coached and they have traumatized,
Speaker0: they have blockers, how can we help them more effectively?
Speaker0: And then they build up this motif compass. So it's like a disc.
Speaker0: It's extended disc model, like red, blue, green, and yellow,
Speaker0: where we say, okay, red is like people like Trump. What's in for me?
Speaker0: I need power. I need fast cars. I need status, etc.
Speaker0: Blue is like financial offices, people, data and facts.
Speaker0: Green people are like kindergartner, like people who are working in the social jobs and the yellow one.
Speaker0: It's like chief entertainers. It's really simple what I say now,
Speaker0: but at the end of the day, it's like this.
Speaker0: And all these people need other pictures, other words.
Speaker0: If I would like to sell something to Mr. Trump, I would only have him in my
Speaker0: picture and say, you will be the number one.
Speaker0: This product will help you to be the number one of the number one.
Speaker0: No one will come after you. If I go with the blue one, I say,
Speaker0: or the green one, I will say, okay, I will save you to have issues in the future
Speaker0: and the community will support you also with questions.
Speaker0: So it's really another thing how I tell the people about my product or in the negotiations.
Speaker0: Yeah so red and
Speaker0: yellow is like i would like
Speaker0: to reach something at the target and green and
Speaker0: blue for example they would like to saved yeah they are not really happy when
Speaker0: i say hey with this product you can do more more more they say okay i'm not
Speaker0: really sure but when i tell them hey with this product i can help you that you
Speaker0: are doesn't got bankrupt that you don't lose your.
Speaker0: Friends, lose your clients, whatever. They would like to be protected.
Speaker0: And red and blue, for example, they are target orientated.
Speaker0: So they are not, I don't want to say they are not taking care about humans, but less humans,
Speaker0: more objects and yellow and green are more influenced by humans, not by objects.
Speaker0: So the human is in the middle point. Yeah.
Speaker0: And this is what I tell them really quickly. And we can sharpen our messages with a Motive Compass.
Speaker0: And it's not really, really, really difficult.
Speaker0: I had a client, a C-suite, and she told me, Matthias, I have a blue and a yellow one in the meeting.
Speaker0: I said, yeah, then we will do sentences where we combine this both.
Speaker0: And we tried it and she said yeah
Speaker0: it works yeah and this was really nice to
Speaker0: hear because it was for me also the first time
Speaker0: that i do it for a client and i was sweating a little bit uh during the day
Speaker0: and at the evening she called me told me i got more money and all the things
Speaker0: what i want and a little bit more um all the conditions are accepted and it worked and.
Speaker1: Before we go into a short head break, what are the three killer words that read
Speaker1: most pitches, LinkedIn posts, or sales messages?
Speaker0: Learn, work, and,
Speaker0: I forgot the third one. I spoke about it today. Learn, work, and,
Speaker0: I forgot the third one.
Speaker1: I make a suggestion we'll be on a short ad break and when we come back you'll remember okay
Speaker1: Hey, guys, thanks for sticking around. I'm talking with Matthias Buhlmann about
Speaker1: high stakes negotiation, how you can get the best out of it and some frameworks.
Speaker1: And we were just talking about three killer words that were in most pitches.
Speaker1: What was the last one you forgot?
Speaker1: And please tell them all, all three.
Speaker0: I forgot the word which I every time tell to my clients.
Speaker0: Don't use it. The rest is maybe a little bit not good, but this is a killer word, is helping.
Speaker0: Helping, learning, and working. Because at the end of the day,
Speaker0: helping, I was doing a civil job with 80-year-old people, for sure.
Speaker0: They need help. But a C-suite, a founder, he or she doesn't need help. He or she needs support.
Speaker0: Find other words. Learn. We are back in the school. Did you like the school,
Speaker0: to be honest, Jörn, at all?
Speaker0: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I was not really happy in my school time, and the rest is work.
Speaker0: At the end of the day, we think hard work, and we don't want to have hard work.
Speaker0: We would like to have it easy and quickly.
Speaker0: So there are our base needings also in sales psychology. What's in for me?
Speaker0: Fast and easy solutions we would like to have.
Speaker0: But today, to be honest, I had a discussion with one guy and he said, Matthias, I'm with you.
Speaker0: But when I heard learn, then I'm more happy to buy because when I buy,
Speaker0: I buy really complex systems.
Speaker0: And I'm really happy when they tell me you have to learn it before you can use
Speaker0: it. So there is someone out there, maybe, who likes the word learn.
Speaker0: And this is really important that you know anything and everything about your customer.
Speaker0: Because in general, it's correct, but sometimes...
Speaker0: Maybe it's the right word for your target group.
Speaker1: I was wondering, I was talking to a lot of people in the past.
Speaker1: This is almost my 700th interview in English.
Speaker1: So I was wondering, before we get into real-world applications,
Speaker1: I heard from a lot of people, sales work when you listen, when you're not aggressive,
Speaker1: and when you build trust. Would you agree to these three pieces?
Speaker0: Absolutely, fully. Absolutely. It's a first step from the FBI negotiation concept also.
Speaker0: Active listening for the Germans, hinhören, not zuhören.
Speaker0: So active listening, 80% is listening.
Speaker1: Okay. Some real-world applications where you can learn a little bit from stories from the startup lens.
Speaker1: Can you share a moment where your psychological approach helped close a tough
Speaker1: deal or win over a difficult client?
Speaker0: Absolutely. I had a client. It was two years before, one and a half years before,
Speaker0: something like this. I met him three weeks before.
Speaker0: And he does something in the ecological area with the black fly for feeding cows, etc.
Speaker0: And he wasn't produced his first batch, but he was going to a large investor
Speaker0: to Gelsenkirchen, Western Germany, Ruhrpott, Ruhrgebiet.
Speaker0: And he said, Matthias, can we have quick counseling about this meeting? I said, yes, no worries.
Speaker0: And then I was preparing myself because I found a lot of things in the Internet.
Speaker0: And this guy was more red, orange guy.
Speaker0: And I helped him, supported him with some sentences. We tested it.
Speaker0: So I was the upcoming investor playing a quick role play.
Speaker0: And he called me back three hours later and said, Matthias, he now said I didn't
Speaker0: produce the first batch, but he bought the first batch at all without seeing anything.
Speaker0: And this makes me really proud yeah.
Speaker1: I see um when
Speaker1: we talked about real world examples we also talk about your uh scaggle podcasts
Speaker1: and courses we emphasize structure why is structure so essential for successful
Speaker1: communications and scaling agile in enterprises.
Speaker0: What I had yesterday, a similar discussion, and I told my upside person, I said, hey,
Speaker0: to be honest, the clients out there doesn't need to have a scaling,
Speaker0: agile training, whatever.
Speaker0: They need all the communication training.
Speaker0: Because it exists often enough, or in general, we have five steps of reclamation.
Speaker0: So in level one, I didn't know anything about that I have an issue.
Speaker0: In five, I only need a trigger to buy now.
Speaker0: And when I see this, also with C-Suites and big automotive companies,
Speaker0: also where I was supporting C-Suite and also the level below the C-Suite,
Speaker0: I saw that there was three, five, six steps in front of information and they communicated.
Speaker0: But they didn't take the people with them and they didn't, they was confused,
Speaker0: they had no change management and said, hey, you need to start with zero.
Speaker0: It's like you have small babies and they didn't know that they can run alone.
Speaker0: So they're things, they need your hand.
Speaker0: But you need to start much more before with the communication.
Speaker0: So first of all, please check in which status of this five.
Speaker0: Your client or your opposite side person is where you would like to talk to,
Speaker0: because at the end of the day if you talk Chinese but there are Italians everyone
Speaker0: would say yeah for some materials it's really clear but this is what,
Speaker0: happens every day also in the transformation business on C-suite level on apprenticeship,
Speaker0: level on all levels please take care of the status of the opposite person because
Speaker0: it doesn't value the other person.
Speaker0: And if the other person doesn't feel valued, you have a negotiation issue also.
Speaker0: And we all negotiate every day. There are statistics out there from another negotiation expert.
Speaker0: He said, statistics say that we negotiate every week 40 hours.
Speaker0: So maybe it makes sense, Jörn, to have a communication slash negotiation training.
Speaker0: And my negotiation trainings are often enough communication trainings also.
Speaker0: And valuing the other person is a basic thing. If the other person doesn't feel valued...
Speaker0: Then you have a big issue. It has nothing to do with being smart,
Speaker0: knowing the product, knowing the company, knowing the system,
Speaker0: nothing to do with this. Take care of the other person.
Speaker1: I see because if you don't appreciate the other person, they'll never, ever buy from you.
Speaker1: You've also worked in large-scale agile transformations.
Speaker1: 600-plus teams, 600-plus people in the team, what are the top two psychological
Speaker1: blockers to agility that no one talks about?
Speaker0: I had a podcast interview similar about this topic.
Speaker0: There are three. The first of all, we are elements. We are not agile.
Speaker0: We wait until someone will tell us what we have to do.
Speaker0: It's a little bit of a running gag, but often enough, it is like this.
Speaker0: But the first thing is, mostly we have no change management and the people doesn't know what happens now.
Speaker0: So with agile transformation, we have new practices, new organizations,
Speaker0: maybe new responsibilities and the people are not aware what happens now.
Speaker0: They are scared of the future. It's a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker0: So, therefore, we need to help them. Really, now we need to help them to understand
Speaker0: why we do it, for what we do it, and how the way is until the transformation ends.
Speaker0: Transformation is coming from status A into status B.
Speaker0: You know it. It's really simple. It's like a system update, system upgrade.
Speaker0: System A, upgrade, system B.
Speaker0: It's the same like with the transformation. But now we talk about humans and
Speaker0: we need to take them with us.
Speaker0: That's really important. And therefore, a lot of communication runs really not well.
Speaker0: And the people are scared. And at the end of the day, when we are scared.
Speaker0: As humans, what are we doing?
Speaker0: We go back into the system, into the behaviors, which we now and which we are
Speaker0: safe in. What means no transformation at all?
Speaker0: Because we should have new practices, new responsibilities, etc.
Speaker0: But if I'm scared, I go back into the rooms, into the systems,
Speaker0: into the habits, which make me safe.
Speaker0: This is one of the most things. and he was publishing in Springer Gabler also
Speaker0: a book about it or a chapter in a book and the second one is,
Speaker0: mostly for what are we doing with this,
Speaker0: Because, again, communication, the people are not aware of it for what is it good.
Speaker0: So my last project was in the public services, and the people asked me from
Speaker0: two teams, Matthias, we are not sure for what we are doing. It doesn't make sense for us.
Speaker0: At the end of the day, for these both teams, they are right.
Speaker0: But it was pressure from top and the department needs to do it etc and then they felt,
Speaker0: that they didn't know for what they're doing so make clear for what you are doing.
Speaker1: Exactly and when you talked about uncertainty I do believe that's one of the
Speaker1: big differences if you look for a corporate job or if you look for an employment
Speaker1: Because the people who are not looking for one of these careers,
Speaker1: the ones who can embrace uncertainty, they are very likely to be freelancers or entrepreneurs.
Speaker1: I was wondering for our audience, if they could go back in time,
Speaker1: what was one thing you'd coach your past self before launching your first product team or podcast?
Speaker1: I'm interested in what comments do
Speaker1: we get um let us look a little bit into the last piece um the future lens and
Speaker1: founder advice what role will psychology play in startup growth strategies post
Speaker1: 2025 especially in an ai saturated noisy market
Speaker0: Which role within the founder's team?
Speaker1: Yes, especially about sales, about negotiations, because you could basically use AI for anything.
Speaker1: What role will psychology play?
Speaker0: It's one of my favorite things, what I say, people, buying from people.
Speaker0: What means at the end of the day the other person or the group of person needs
Speaker0: to have the feeling that the word's coming from you,
Speaker0: and for sure I need KI for my LinkedIn posts also but at the end of the day
Speaker0: I 60% of these recommendations from KI I will write new and the people see it
Speaker0: and now that it's the Matthias source,
Speaker0: Andreas Wienheller one of my mentors said Matthias because I made a KI test before half a year.
Speaker0: One month, every day, two posts only with KI.
Speaker0: And he came back to me and said, Matthias, I know you. And the Matthias source is missing.
Speaker0: So the other persons will know when you do only playbooks, selling books,
Speaker0: PowerPoints, only with KI.
Speaker0: For sure, KI can help you. I use Gamma.ai also for PowerPoints because I'm not a PowerPoint friend.
Speaker0: And they give me a lot of good recommendations. But at the end of the day,
Speaker0: I need to step in and do copywriting and change the picture.
Speaker0: So what I don't want to see out there….
Speaker0: Maybe other people from the Generation Z are different here.
Speaker0: I don't want to see KI pictures.
Speaker0: I really like it when they do a lot of nice paintings and graphics of KI,
Speaker0: but I don't use it because I don't buy when I see something like this.
Speaker1: Oh, too bad. The cover graphic of this interview will be with the assistance of AI.
Speaker1: But what you've been talking about, I did have something that came back to my
Speaker1: mind because you said people buy from people.
Speaker1: I do have an increasing, increasing amount of people out there who think they generate
Speaker1: random people, random names, almost random URLs that have something to do with
Speaker1: AI and then get a lot of paying clients.
Speaker1: And you write with those AI agents to as many podcasts as possible.
Speaker1: I even wrote an article about it because you just check the URL.
Speaker1: There's nothing behind it. You look up the person.
Speaker1: They're not on the net. They are nowhere to be found in the people search engines,
Speaker1: in LinkedIn, Xing, wherever, Facebook.
Speaker1: So you instantly realize that is not a valid approach.
Speaker1: You cannot simply spam me. The top URL will go in my spam folder and I'll never
Speaker1: look at it again. I get more than a hundred emails a day and a lot of them are pitches.
Speaker1: Do you think a lot of other people who are not as exposed to AI will have the
Speaker1: same behavior in the future?
Speaker0: I heard a lot of this tactics with agents, etc.
Speaker0: And I'm really curious to hear about that it works.
Speaker0: A lot of people say, yeah, for sure it works. Buy my product for 1,000 euros.
Speaker1: Honestly, I can tell you there are a lot of usual suspects here where it doesn't work.
Speaker1: For example, I had once the case where they sent out emails on a Saturday,
Speaker1: on a Sunday, And the next day I came in, the exact same email,
Speaker1: the exact same headline of the email,
Speaker1: two different people, one minute apart,
Speaker1: two different names, one minute apart.
Speaker1: And I was going, okay, we got two more candidates for spam.
Speaker1: By now, I do have a bigger spam folder than a normal folder because there's
Speaker1: a lot of people out there who think they can get into top 20 tech podcasts with
Speaker1: just spamming me. That doesn't work.
Speaker0: But it's like phishing. There are people out there because it works with some people, so they do it.
Speaker0: If people do it, if we see it constantly, then in the world exist people who buy it.
Speaker0: I don't know why I wouldn't buy it.
Speaker0: One time I got an AI call from an agent, and this was a really good call.
Speaker0: I didn't recognize it in the first three minutes that this was an AI agent from
Speaker0: the voice, from how quick she was answering my questions and was reacting.
Speaker0: And then there were some things where I felt, okay, I think this is a KI agent.
Speaker0: It was really funny to see, and I know a lot of people who say we have since
Speaker0: a couple of years AI agents and it works.
Speaker0: I doesn't see the numbers.
Speaker0: But I think support with KI, AI in the future will be more.
Speaker0: And for sure with KI. And I did my apprenticeship at Dativ in 1997.
Speaker0: So there was a beginning of the public internet, let's say, like this.
Speaker0: And this is what KI is currently. It's like 1997.
Speaker0: And I'm really sure that we see in the next year a lot of things coming up.
Speaker0: I'm really, really curious about, but at the end of the day,
Speaker0: you need to know your target group and people buying from people.
Speaker0: So what they do is I have a lot of impressions from my Impresso because people
Speaker0: would like to see if I'm a real person.
Speaker0: And for sure, I used KI agents in the past for Instagram, for finding new people
Speaker0: and sending them automated mails like Kaltakwiese.
Speaker0: I know it's forbidden in Germany, but I tested it also.
Speaker0: It wasn't successful. And I used a lot of templates for myself,
Speaker0: which worked when I do it, when I really look for the presence itself.
Speaker0: And then I send the contact invitation.
Speaker0: This works much more better than the automated thing.
Speaker0: But I have people who brought me to this agent who said, I made 30K per month only with this agent.
Speaker0: I cannot prove it, but I'm really sure that we get much more major agents in
Speaker0: the future and selling over KI will be more.
Speaker0: But the texts and everything needs to fit to your target group.
Speaker0: The Motif Compass can help you.
Speaker1: I see. The thing is, I do believe I'm here, unfortunately, on the forefront
Speaker1: of getting emailed and spammed, but I've now put out only my landline and you
Speaker1: know what my landline does?
Speaker1: There is an AI agent answering. You just need to say two words and you get put
Speaker1: through to my mobile phone.
Speaker1: But actually, all, all AI calling agents, all dumb calling machines have been
Speaker1: failing. Otherwise, my phone wouldn't stop anymore.
Speaker1: So, sorry, we got completely sidetracked there. Sorry, guys.
Speaker0: Then there are stupid pay eyes, I think. It's only automated shit.
Speaker1: Yeah. What's one simple yet powerful technique startup founders can implement
Speaker1: tomorrow to boost sales or influence?
Speaker0: Avoid the three magic words. Think about that people would like to have a quick
Speaker0: and easy solution and they every time ask themselves, what's in for me?
Speaker0: And if you start with these two things, probably, yeah, with these two things.
Speaker0: You will have more success directly because I see a lot of LinkedIn posts.
Speaker0: I'm helping people. I do this and this. And no, come to the point directly.
Speaker0: Come to the point. What's in for me?
Speaker1: Yeah, I know. In Germany, you say put that by the fissure.
Speaker0: Get to the point.
Speaker1: Last but not least, what's the single biggest mistake you see founders make
Speaker1: in their messaging and how can they fix it?
Speaker0: What I saw in the past was mostly that they are really emotional.
Speaker0: They love their babies, their products, their company. And this is how they sell it.
Speaker0: If you are in person and the other person can feel the emotions and how you
Speaker0: stand behind your product, it's really important.
Speaker0: But within a direct message or an email, don't write sides of letters.
Speaker0: Don't do it. We have the primary and I did my – yesterday in your podcast chapter
Speaker0: was published with exactly this topic.
Speaker0: This is something what I recommend.
Speaker0: Primary and secondary things, what describes your products.
Speaker0: The primary things are not –.
Speaker0: Paying on the first brain system.
Speaker0: The first, you need to know, we have two systems in our brain.
Speaker0: The first is really quick and the second one is slow.
Speaker0: So, and when I go with the primary, so with the facts, data, facts, et cetera.
Speaker0: That's really cool. But at the end of the day, I didn't recognize it in the
Speaker0: first brain system, in the fast system.
Speaker0: The secondary are more emotional. What is the end status, what I can reach with
Speaker0: your product? What is this for?
Speaker0: And this is really important. The second, a system needs the secondary items.
Speaker0: Really important.
Speaker0: It's like your podcast. I can say, okay, it's the biggest one,
Speaker0: text number three, et cetera.
Speaker0: I have a lot of facts, 700 interviews, what you have,
Speaker0: a lot of facts what i have about it okay does it
Speaker0: catch me i find it cool but
Speaker0: to listen it i don't know but at
Speaker0: the end of the day when i say hey in my
Speaker0: podcast you get the best people out there who give you tips you never heard
Speaker0: about in linkedin etc in 45 minutes you had the biggest uh biggest founders
Speaker0: with the biggest fails and the most of the tips what I can give you.
Speaker0: Okay, this is what I would like to hear.
Speaker0: I can do facts also about it.
Speaker0: But facts tell.
Speaker0: Stories sell.
Speaker0: So learn storytelling also, please. It helps you.
Speaker1: We usually say our claim to fame is you've likely never heard of our guests,
Speaker1: but you will in the future.
Speaker0: Nice. That's nice, yeah.
Speaker1: Matthias, it was a pleasure talking to you. We will be back for our premium
Speaker1: subscribers on YouTube and Substack and we'll have a premium Q&A session.
Speaker1: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure having you.
Speaker0: Thank you very much, Johan. All the best out there.
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