The Unsure Entrepreneur

Mark Bowden EP 39
The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast

KEYWORDS
Entrepreneurship, body language, communication, trust, nonverbal cues, first impressions, authenticity, leadership, confidence, video content, intellectual credibility, competition, behavior panel, public speaking, business networking.

SPEAKERS
Mark Bowden, Roger Pierce

Mark Bowden 00:00
It, and we mainly look at other people's behaviors to feel assured about our predictions positive or negative. We might look at your behavior and go, This isn't going to work. This isn't going to work, yeah, but my pitch was great. Look at the pictures of my product. Look at the pricing of it. I mean, brilliant pricing of it, yeah, still not going to work. Or this is going to be fantastic. I've really got a good feeling about this.

Roger Pierce 00:45
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm Roger Pierce. Today we're talking about something that affects every entrepreneur, whether you're pitching an idea, selling your services, leading a team, or just trying to be taken seriously early on communication, it's not just what you say, but what your body is saying before you even get a word out to dig into that. I'm joined by my friend Mark Bowden. Mark is a globally recognized Body Language Expert and Communication Keynote Speaker. He's a three time Global Gurus #1 body language professional, the creator of "GesturePlane" system, and the founder of TruthPlane where he works with leaders and sales teams all over the world. Now his client list is very impressive. It includes companies like Zoom, Shopify, Toyota, KPMG, American Express, the US Army, and NATO. Mark is also a best selling author, most recently, of Truth and Lies, What people are really thinking, and the co host of The Behavior Panel on YouTube, which has now more than 1.1 million subscribers. We've known each other a very long time, and his work and accomplishments continue to inspire me. Welcome Mark.
[Mark]
Thanks for having me here, Roger. We have known each other a long time. It's more than 15 years, so it's almost as long as I've been in Canada.
[Roger]
We've had some some good experiences together.
And I remember, I think I first met you when we were in the BNI business networking international organization, and we had those early morning breakfasts.
[Mark]
You know that somebody's serious when they get up at six o'clock in the morning on a cold in sub zero temperatures in Canada to attend a networking breakfast? That's just to have a networking session.
[Roger]
For those of you don't know. And it's one of those things I actually mentioned, it's in the book I just wrote, bni.com it's a networking group, peer to peer networking. Small business owners get together, and they kind of exchange leads and get to know each other pretty well, and you kind of become an ambassador for each other, right?

Mark 02:46

Yeah, yeah. There's something interesting about that kind of non verbally as as well, because I know many of the or some of the BNI groups out there now meet virtually, and you might go, Okay, well, look, hang on, you're not meeting in person, and it's got to be about meeting in person. If you really trust somebody has to be about meeting in person.
I think there's something more important there about regularity, that in fact, whether it's online or whether it's in person, or a mixture of both. It's that systematic, regular showing up in front of each other and for each other that builds trust. So I don't think trust has to be built face to face, you know, breathing the same air, physically touching, you know, skin to skin, palms to palms in a handshake. I think it absolutely can be done virtually and very well, but if it's not regular, it's not going to work. So it's not going to work for you. So there's something important in nonverbal communication about showing up regularly for somebody else.

Roger 00:40
That's fascinating. That's interesting. Yeah, at the BNI group, everyone had to stand up and give their little pitch, like a 32nd pitch every week, and then kept it fresh and engaging. And I missed those days. It was fun. So mark as a body language expert, of course, I've got to start with a conversation about why body language matters more than entrepreneurs think the show is for new entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, and I think this is a subject matter that a lot of people would want to learn more about.
So I'm going to set it up a bit here for you that maybe we've got some things we can talk about. Entrepreneurs, as you know, spend a lot of time thinking about their pitch and their pricing and their product, fussing over slides, fussing over PowerPoints probably way too much, and they don't spend enough time thinking about how they show up. And I know this is your area of expertise. So could you talk to a little bit about where entrepreneurs most often lose trust without realizing it?

Mark Bowden 05:00
Yeah, and you're talking about very much kind of new entrepreneurs as well. So let's imagine, and for our listeners and watchers here, it's probably very easy for them to imagine being a new entrepreneur, because that's, you know, undoubtedly what they're thinking of being, or they already are. So if you're new to this, that means potentially you don't have much of a reputation. And a reputation is a history that says, well, here's how you perform. You know, when we pay X amount of fee to you for your product and your service, here's what we get back, you're creating the reputation around that, and so we judge you. And you might think, Okay, I'm going to be judged on price, or I'm going to be judged on the image of the product that I'm showing, or I'm going to be judged on the description of the service that I'm giving in my pitch. And that's partially true, but more honestly, the way your product and your service is initially going to get judged and continue to be judged is on your performance in front of people when you talk to them about that product or service, it's how you're showing up that the instinct of a buyer's or a partner's mind goes, well, what's the promise of performance being given here? And how likely is that to be accurate and true? What can I predict about the future? We tend to predict the future based on what we touch, taste, smell, see here, we use these very basic senses to go How do I think Mark is going to perform? How do I think Roger is going to perform? And yes, Mark might have a product or service for me, but I can't tangibly experience that right now, and even if I am touching and tasting it right now or hearing a description of it, well, how do I know that's going to be true in the next five years working together? Well, I don't I'm going to make a prediction, and we mainly look at other people's behaviors to feel assured about our predictions, positive or negative. We might look at your behavior and go, This isn't going to work. This isn't going to work, yeah, but my pitch was great. Look at the pictures of my product. Look at the pricing of it. I mean, brilliant pricing of it. Yeah, still not going to work. Or this is going to be fantastic. I've really got a good feeling about this. Oh, it's a bit more expensive than everybody else's. But I'm going to justify that in my mind. I'm going to justify it in my mind, because look how well they're presenting. Okay, so look, Roger, it doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any rational sense, but to the irrational part of our mind that makes the majority of our decisions. It makes complete sense. And I hope that makes sense to you, Roger and the listeners.

Roger Pierce 07:46
Taming the primitive brain, I believe.

Mark Bowden 07:49
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, you've got to tame it to an extent, but you've got to understand it better and work with it rather than going, you know what? I'll give them the numbers, and the numbers will speak for themselves. It's like, No, they won't. Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work.

Roger Pierce 08:04
One of my favorite lines from one of your videos on your website, I think it's still there was you walk on stage and you say you've already made up your mind, whether you like me or not. I want to talk about that. Why are first impressions so hard to undo?

Mark Bowden 08:21
Yeah, well, here's the thing, because the first impression is all the instinct has in order to make a judgment. Now, it's not that it can't re judge, but it takes kind of what we call the primacy and the recency, the first thing it saw or the last thing it saw, in order to frame everything in between. Now, can you reframe? Yes, you can. You can continually reframe, but you have to send a very strong new, differentiated signal to that primitive brain in order to get it to do a reframe. And most people don't know how they've been framed, or they've framed themselves in the first place, and so they don't know then how they would like to reframe. And even if they do know how they'd like to reframe, they don't know exactly what to do in order to make that reframe. Now, essentially, that's the stuff that I train people in across the globe, whether it's sales people, leaders, sales, organizations, teams, leadership teams, whether it's the CEOs of Fortune, 500 political leaders as well. We're looking at what is the first image you're going to give to people? How are you going to consistently sustain that image? And if you need to do a reframe, what are you going to do? Very fast, strong in order to get that snap reaction, that new snap judgment from that audience, be it one or many, so first impressions do count. You can change them. You can leave people with a great impression as well. But it. Would be probably best to start with one better to get off on the right foot.

Roger Pierce 10:02
So on that note, you know, can you share a couple of quick body language mistakes that you see repeatedly, and say new entrepreneurs or business people?

Mark Bowden 10:11
Here's what I would say is the biggest mistake that often I would say people make is being authentic with their body language. Now that's very counter intuitive. So let me or counter cultural, actually probably a better thing to say. It's counter to what the majority of culture is telling you at the moment, which is, you know, Roger, you must be authentic. Just be you. You are good enough. Just go out there and be you, communicate as you and you'll be okay, yeah? Maybe, maybe, I mean, you Roger on your best day, you're great, you know, fantastic, yeah, what I get concerned about is what happens to you under stress and pressure, what happens to you when you walk into a situation that you hadn't experienced before. And you know, as well as I do, Roger, when you first started out in business, you would be walking into situations that you've never seen before, and you're going, Oh, what do I do here? And there's first of all that freeze response, yeah, you've just done it. There the freeze response. What do I do? Yeah, then you're going to go into fight and flight. Should I get out of this? Should I get aggressive in this? Well, now you're being authentic. That is your authentic fight and flight mechanism and common culture would go, well, you're going to be okay because you're just showing your feelings, you know? You're just being you, yeah, you're being you, showing fight and flight. And you could get very aggressive in that situation, or you could get very passive.
I mean, I don't know which way you're going to go, or you could go between one and the other. What I want for you is that when you walk into situations you've not experienced before, when, as an entrepreneur, you're walking into that room and you're looking for funding set whether it's friends or family or the bank or investors, and there's a lot on the line for you, but you're now performing the behaviors of being calm and assertive. You're not sitting back on your authentic fight and flight mechanism.
So look, first piece there, Roger is just forget about that being authentic piece. You've got to decide exactly who you want to be, the version of you you want to be, the aspect of you that you want to perform in front of that group of people or person at that time to get the result that you're looking for. And I want you to be doing that, that version of you, not the authentic version of you, which, which is many, many aspects, many aspects, you know, rather like, there's the authentic me, Roger, when I'm talking to my mum and dad, right? It's like, and that's not necessarily how I'm talking to you right now and the listeners and the viewers right now. So I'm not being like I am with my mum or dad. Well, hang on, so is this an act, or am I acting with my mum and dad like, which one is me? Well, they're all me. There's just a bias for when I'm in a certain situation. We are. We are. Our behaviors are situational, okay? And we can choose our behaviors for the situation. We can choose the aspect of us for that situation. Roger, give me your feedback on that and tell me how you, how you feel about that view.

Roger Pierce 13:49
So you're saying, develop a certain one of your personas when you're going into like a pitch or a bank situation or that kind of thing.

Mark Bowden 13:55
Yeah, absolutely. Pick an aspect of yourself. Persona theory says, roughly speaking, that we have a self, okay? And the self is quite complex, and I always liken the self to kind of like a diamond, okay? There's a lot of facets to the self, and depending how it's orientated and where the light is coming from, a certain aspect or facet of that will shine brighter than another, and it's just depending on where the light is and how we're orientated. And we can actually turn that diamond at times to get certain colorations on it and certain and hide certain flaws as well. So it's like, you're not going to see that because we're going to shine some light off that facet, and you won't see that floor, because all the diamonds. None of floors. All of them have in them. Okay, we're purposely turning the diamond to display a certain facet, to shine the light off it, to get, in some cases, quite a blinding light to the audience, going, Wow. This is fantastic. Well, yeah, I mean, you look at it from another. There's a big flaw on the other side, but you're not going to see that right now, and they can't appreciate the whole of the diamond. I mean, when have you When have you ever got a diamond and gone? Let me experience every facet of it and the floor. So it's like, no, that's for professionals. That's for analysts to do.

Roger Pierce 15:18
Great points. And I'm reminded of, you know, shows like Shark Tank and Dragon's Den. I know you're no stranger to that, but you know where the entrepreneurs come on and they've got like, 30 seconds to get their message across. It's not always about the numbers or the slideshow or or, you know, they certainly talk about sales figures and stuff, but really, those dragons and sharks are watching how the entrepreneur behaves and presents themselves and confidence, right?

Mark Bowden 15:42
Absolutely, and think about us as an audience. What we what we're looking for as an audience, is the drama of the stress and pressure to see, does their story break down? Do they, as a personality, break down during this and, and don't we all love quite rightly, those contestants, let's call them that. Come on. And one of the Dragons say, Look, you know, it's kind of a long shot on this, and I don't know whether there's a business here. Maybe there is a but I like you. I like you, and I believe in you, and isn't there something fantastic about that? Because as entrepreneurs, it's so hard for us to keep that belief, because we're up against established markets and established businesses. I mean established in that there are some, some of them out there have been there for hundreds of years, and sometimes, you know, imagine you're an entrepreneur with a food product.
You've got a you've got a nutritional bar together, or something like that. Good on you. If you have fantastic How does clients entrepreneurs who have that in the food business, they've got something nutritional, they love it. They're passionate about it, yeah. And at the same time, it's like, you're up against the sugar industry. It's like, Do you know how old that is, certainly in Canada alone, the establishment of money. Let's go to the UK. Let's talk about Tate and Lyon. Like, do you know? Do you know where they started? Do you know how the Caribbean islands that they own, the museums that they've found? You know, if you talk about one of my neighbors and you want to get yourself into the supermarket, it's like, okay, well, that guy's family put money towards a wing of the British Museum in it's just the money is the establishment, is? It is extraordinary. You are up against something extraordinary, and you've got to have incredible belief in yourself and instill belief in other people, whether it's a partner who you're engaging, or, you know, some money you're engaging, or a customer, customer who goes, Yeah, I believe you. I'll buy that fruit bar. You know, there's a moment of belief, and that's a communication job. It's not in the numbers, it's not in the in the packaging of the bar, in that person in the store, going, I love this. I made this try a bit. I believe in it.

Roger Pierce 18:11
Excellent point. It's true. Less time fussing about the slides and the numbers, more time worrying about your confidence and how you come across and being in that moment, putting the right persona at that moment on that now, what are some physical cues that help signal leadership and confidence we can learn from Mark,

Mark Bowden 18:30
yeah, confidence. So great. Word confidence with trust. What is going to signal to another human being that they can trust the future with you? Well, it's the signal that's made in the now. We judge the future instinctually by going what's happening now and to judge the future as low risk and high reward, we want to see a now with you, the human being of low risk and high reward. Therefore, what are the signals of low risk and high reward? Let me show you something. First of all is the signal of no tools, no weapons, nothing in my hands. Okay, open palms. Open palms, nothing in my hands. Okay, so I might do open palm gestures, because that shows you I don't have anything hidden from you. I don't have anything that I'm hiding from you. I'm showing you, even if I do have a tool or a product or a service or some numbers to show you, it's all very open. It's easy for you to see. The more seeable something is by your brain now, the more it goes well that will be low risk and high reward in the future. Okay, so it starts to trust you now, specifically where open palms, I would suggest open palms at navel height is the best signal for trust and credibility, because this belly area is very delicate, very easily damaged and very easy to control another human being, if you take. Control of that naval area, center of gravity. And so if I give open palm gestures at Naval height, you perceive that I'm more calm and assertive, and I feel the environment now is low risk and high reward. And therefore you start to mirror that yourself, and you start to believe that the future with me will be high reward, low risk. Now that may not be true. You'll find out. Okay, you'll find out. And if you find out that was a wrong signal, and it becomes very high risk and low reward, you will be disappointed in me, and you'll come and you'll ask for your money back, or your the contract. You're suing over the contract, because you'll go this wasn't what you promised. Your promise of performance of the future did not turn out as you portrayed it. But here's the thing we're hoping and knowing roger that we've got entrepreneurs listening to us and watching us right now, who believe in their product, they believe in their service, they really feel they have something good. They're not trying to con anybody. They think they can deliver either you will or you won't, but you believe you can, you think you can, and you're going to do your damn this to make that happen. So it is your duty to go out there and create an environment around yourself that convinces other people that that is true, because they don't know that. Yet you have the belief for this, but your customers, your colleagues, your clients, your partners, they don't know this. Yet it is your duty to convince them of the trust and credibility around you. And okay, you might disappoint them now and again, but I know you're going to make that right. You're going to correct that along the way. So many people, Roger go, look the product and service will speak for itself, like it'll be in the numbers and like it'll and they'll get and they go, but, and I'm a good person, and I'm a really good person. I'm really diligent, and that will show through. So I'll just go and be my authentic self, and it will show through. The moment you get into that situation you've never experienced before, you're going into fight and flight, and you will start to leak the signals of high risk, low reward, because that's why you've gone into fight and flight. You believe this is high risk and low reward for you. If that situation, your instinct was going, this is low risk, high reward, yeah, or even high risk, high reward, you would start behaving authentically around that, and we'd see a great version of you. But in many situations that you hit as an entrepreneur, instantly goes, Oh, this is high risk, low reward. Let's get out of here. Does that make sense?

Roger Pierce 22:49
Roger, it's fascinating stuff, and you touched upon so much there. One of my favorite expressions is nothing sells itself, even a cure for cancer. If I cured cancer tomorrow, I would still have to go out there and convince people I had a legitimate cure, I'd have to come across as a reputable supplier or inventor of it. I'd have to do all kinds of things before I could make $1 even though the product cures cancer, right, right? Nothing sells itself. So when you come along and you talk about all these wonderful things, for nonverbal communications, for verbal communications, it's so important for entrepreneurs to get a hold of that.

Mark Bowden 23:22
Yeah, and don't forget Roger the competition as well. So you come with it with a cure for cancer. Well, I've got something which suppresses the downside of that. I've got a painkiller, you know, or I've got some kind of therapy that doesn't cure it, but, I mean, it's stops it. You're a competitor to me, so I'm going to do everything I can to slow you down. Yeah, so you're not just trying to convince a customer. You're trying to counter measure my attack or slowing down of you at the same time, and imagine I've been established already for a couple of 100 years, like sugar, yeah, yeah, that's what you're up against.

Roger Pierce 24:08
That's another, another point that I often, you know, I've coached a lot of entrepreneurs over the years, and sometimes someone will come up with me and say, Oh, no one else is doing this. I've come up with this great idea, no one else is doing this? And I'm like, well, that's actually a bad sign. Why hasn't someone else in the history of the world actually come up with what you're doing? And chances are someone somewhere has come up with what you're doing. You just don't know about it. Yet, competition is a healthy thing, like you just pointed out, it's there to deal with.

Mark Bowden 24:37
Yeah, we often find an idea is already there. It was bought by a competitor and been suppressed.

Roger Pierce 24:44
Exactly when you have competition, it makes for a stronger business. It also means the marketplace is educated about what you're selling, right? You don't have to say, Hey, this is the this is what this thing does. Like, I already stand pizza. I know what pizza is. I know what to expect from pizza, and now all you have to do is convince me that your pizza is better than the other guys. I don't need to be educated on the benefits or the deliciousness of pizza.

Mark Bowden 25:08
Yeah, I agree. Competition. Obviously, we know within markets, competition is a great thing. Without competition, you got monopolists. They're a bad thing.

Roger Pierce 25:17
But I love how we're talking about communication as a competitive advantage, right? That's fantastic. It's not just about the product. It's about how you're going to present

Mark Bowden 25:27
it to the world. And obviously I'm going to say that, but I would say it's the ultimate competitive advantage. I mean, because I'm selling it, of course you would obviously I'm

Mark Bowden 25:34
going to believe in that in a massive, massive way. Because if I don't who is, but truly when everything else is equal, and everything does equal out very much. I mean, let's put it like this, and entrepreneurs maybe don't hit this as as much. But let's talk about, for example, the loaning of money. There's a set interest rate that the Bank of Canada or Bank of America, or, you know, central banks make the banks, whether it's, you know, in Canada, the green one or the blue one or the red one or the pink color, they add a certain amount to that. That's the same. They've already even that out all the criteria around how often you can pay and when can when you pay, and can you pay a little bit more, and that's all the same, long as you're in a certain bandwidth of you earn a certain amount and you've got certain amount of collateral, it's always going to be the same, okay, so all is equal. How is one bank going to sell their loans more than another bank? Okay? It's the feeling, yeah, it's the communication around it. It's the service around it, which ultimately is the way people are communicating. And that could be the communication of speed, Roger, you're working for the bank, and I give you a call and you get straight back to me.
That is nonverbal communication. You're going to say the same thing your green bank that the Red Bank would have said. It's just You said it earlier than that. Well, now I'm like, Well, I like, Roger, it's the same numbers, the same numbers. It's just the numbers showed up earlier than their numbers. When all is equal, communication is the only advantage. And I would say when all is not equal communication, because it has such a feeling behind it, and a strong feeling and a strong representation of the future that can have a massive advantage. So would I pay point 5% more on my loan for better communication? I might, I might. I might ignore some of those numbers because there's such a benefit. Okay, Roger's working with me. I feel safer. I feel more comfortable. I don't understand this, though, too well, but Roger has explained it to me in a way that I feel more comfortable with it. Well, did Roger say anything different than the Red Bank? No, we've looked at verbatim his script, and it was exactly the same. It was his tone of voice. It was the smile he had on his face. He was he was nodding his head while he was saying it. He had open body language while he was saying non verbal makes a massive difference, even when the numbers are the same, especially when the numbers are the same, and even when the numbers are different.

Roger Pierce 28:19
I want to segue a bit to the business of books. What have you got, four books?

Mark Bowden 28:23
I've got four books. I've got four books. I mean more, because they've been translated into lots of different languages, Korean, whatever. They're Spanish and Urdu and all kinds of all

Roger Pierce 28:32
kinds of stuff. That's fantastic. And your book publishing prowess has been inspirational to me. And thank you for your help along the way with my own recent book, shameless plug for the Unsure Entrepreneur. But yeah, you've been very helpful. I appreciate that my pleasure.

Mark Bowden 28:46
Well, it's always great to help people. You know, I think, as I said, probably said early on, and I keep saying people who go, Well, yeah, you know, how do I write a book? What I first of all say is, the only difference between you and me is I finished four and you haven't finished one yet. That's the difference. And the biggest difference between, I would say, somebody who's written a book and somebody who hasn't is the somebody who's written a book has finished it. Had said so the first advice I give is like, finish. Don't worry whether it's any good or not. Readers will decide,

Roger Pierce 29:21
oh my gosh, the self doubt that goes along that process. That's a whole other podcast, but I want to talk about this from a new entrepreneur perspective. I mean, a couple of comments, maybe you can explain why new entrepreneurs should not write a book first. They should wait. And how do books support an entrepreneur's career in terms of speaking and training and consulting, I would

Mark Bowden 29:43
say, this is that books still, I would say, are probably still the ultimate signal of credibility, intellectual credibility, to the major public, probably to your audience, to your buyers. Or people who influence your buyers. A book is the ultimate piece of intellectual credibility. So now you've got to go, Yeah, but do I really need Am I really looking for that? Do I need the credibility, the intellectual credibility around the idea, the product, the service? And I would probably go, yeah. Most people probably don't. Okay, most people probably don't. What you need to do is get the credibility out there of just being there, like you're there, you're there for them. And I would say the best modern way of doing that is video. And so if somebody said to me, Hey, Mark, shall I write a book? I would go, go make a video. Go make a video, first and then second, then third. Make 365 videos. Then wonder whether you need a book anymore for trust and credibility.
Books have certainly worked for me, and I know they're going to work for you, Roger, because your content is so great and so helpful, and you've already gone down the route to certain a certain way of getting in front of audiences, okay, and delivering that help, whether it's live or via podcasts or via the writing that you've done for all kinds of institutions, yeah, but There comes a point where you might be going, well, I need more institutions, more organizations that have access to more people, to be pushing me out to them so I can get my help out to more people. Because ultimately, that's what you're trying to do, Roger, is you're trying to help people. There comes a point whereby, well, will these institutions who have the channels to these people who I could help. Will they see me as trustworthy and credible? Well, the book can really help you around that, but you're not everybody. You're not every business out there. You're not every entrepreneur out there. And also, for people who really want your knowledge, that book is actually kind of a really nice way to have it, because it could feel really comforting for an entrepreneur to go. I'll go and open the book and look in the book. It is very different from I'll go on onto YouTube and see who's got some help. Now, I'll go back to Roger, open the book and see what Roger has, and take some time to read, which is a longer form of communication, different type of thinking goes on than the quick answer of the video. And I love the quick answer of the video, by the way. I use it a lot. I know most people on the planet use the quick answer of the video. The quick answer isn't the answer to everything. I think there's something in a book that can be more reflective and help people produce their own answers. And I know having read the book, Roger, that's what the book's doing. There are some quick there are some answers. Obviously there's some answers in there. But what the book's really trying to do is go, look, think about this. Have a really good thing as you're stepping in to this and come up with answers that you trust based on this knowledge that I have and experience and the stories that people have in that book. So book wouldn't be my first step. Roger, video, video, video, and we're

Roger Pierce 33:16
going to talk about video in just a minute when we get to the behavior panel, talk about the ultimate video. But before we move off books, I got to ask you any quick lessons you can share for those who aspire to write a book, lessons you've learned between maybe your first book and say truth and lies your most recent one.

Mark Bowden 33:31
So two ways that I write books. The first thing, the principles that I have, number one, is structure. I decide how many pages the book is. So I go a bookshop and I go, Well, how big are books? These like, how big is a book? So I go, Okay, so a book is about this big? Yeah, exactly that one's massively big.

Roger Pierce 33:50
It's a big book, Truth and Lies. It's a lot of pages.

Mark Bowden 33:53
This was modeled on a book that the publishers were trying to replace in many ways. And the book was about yo thick. So we were like, Okay, well, what is it? 377 pages? So it's 377 pages. And then that was split into a number of chapters. We decide how many chapters are in a book. And then, okay, what are those chapters called? And therefore, how are we going to fill up those chapters? It's as

Roger Pierce 34:26
simple as that. How does an entrepreneur, even if they don't have a book, break into the speaking and training and consulting business? Because that's what a lot of service based entrepreneurs want to do.

Mark Bowden 34:38
Okay, so the first way to break into speaking consulting is you have to tell people, that's what you do everybody and that's where people pull back. They go, Well, I'd like to be speaking. Well, you need to tell me that you're speaking. Then you can't tell me that you'd like to be doing that there's no trust and credibility. There's only trust and credibility in. This is what I'm doing right now. I speak. I help people. I'm an expert in human behavior, body language. I help people all over the world to stand out, win trust and gain credibility every time they communicate. And I do that through keynote speeches. I do that by making videos. I've written a whole bunch of books on that. I consult one on one with people. Consult to teams, there's what my end result is, which is the start of any pitch, and then there's the methodology and the channels by which I deliver that help that experience that outcome, essentially. So I must start telling people what the outcome is, what I deliver to people, and then start going, Look, one of the deliveries is I speak, rather than I'd like to be speaking. Now, if you haven't spoken, you got to get some people together in a room,

Roger Pierce 35:53
Make a video. Make a video.

Mark Bowden 35:55
Make a video. Now you're a speaker. That is the beautiful thing about video. It is absolutely free to be on YouTube. You can record it with that. You don't need to edit it. You just stick it up. And if it's good, it will rise to the top. And if it isn't, it won't. It's a complete meritocracy. So get out there and do it.

Roger Pierce 36:17
The tools available to entrepreneurs today, I wrote about it in my book. I call them entrepreneurship enablers. We've got so many tools and resources to make our jobs as entrepreneurs so much easier, and video is certainly one of the powerful ones.

Mark Bowden 36:31
Video and I just think, AI, just wow. I mean, if I'd have had it back 20 years ago, my god, yeah.

Roger Pierce 36:43
I'm just scratching the surface now, but every day it's the first thing I turn on, right? Yeah, it's definitely there as a companion. So let's segue. We talked about video YouTube, your audience long term leverage of having a YouTube channel. So for people who don't know The Behavior Panel, there's this wonderful program on YouTube. Maybe it's somewhere else, I don't know, but you've got these four body language communication experts, yourself included, and you are kind of dissecting real world incidents or happenings. Maybe you can explain what it is?

Mark Bowden 37:15
Yeah. So we look at, you know, what's happening in the public realm, whether it's politicians or celebrities, but our focus really, because is true crime on the whole, the majority of our viewers at the behavior panel are true crime fans. I mean, who knew it's a massive genre and segment.

Roger Pierce 37:34
It's all my wife watches on Netflix.

Mark Bowden 37:39
It's not unimaginable, because, you know, back in the day of just having TV, the police procedural drama were the biggest dramas in the world. This is like people love well, because entertainment and drama is mainly made up of people doing antisocial stuff, stuff they shouldn't do. And so if you want to have a lot of stuff people shouldn't do, crime is one place to go to because it will be full, because people are committing crimes. It's ultimately, you know, most things are going to be antisocial behaviors.

Roger Pierce 38:08
It's long form video, typically, right?

Mark Bowden 38:11
Like it's can be three hours long in some cases. Again, we discovered the longer you made them, the more people liked it.

Roger Pierce 38:16
But what I love about it, I've got to watch more, is the way you all take a turn. You provide your own, your own individual analysis and review of the situation, or whatever you're looking at. But the fact that there's four of you having one person, like just being the only person on a video for an entrepreneur or founder, that's kind of intimidating, right? The four of you on there, it seems to be so much more casual, more engaging. I think that would take the pressure off a lot of individuals.

Mark Bowden 38:41
Yeah. I mean, look, it called you to task because you can't talk nonsense, because somebody will go, they'll call you out. For sure, it means that we as experts in our area are being educated weekly. We've been doing this for five years now, and the difference between my abilities and understandings five years ago and now are phenomenal, because I've been given basically an education in three other experts to the extent that I could probably go I know what they're going to say, but I can't. Sometimes. I'm like, wow, you come up with something new there. I didn't expect that. That's good. And I'm sure you know what I've heard is I do the same for them, so it keeps you on point there. Well, as anybody who's an entrepreneur and they're running a larger organization, we're just an organization of four little bit more because of the help we have around stuff. But ultimately, it's still hard getting four people together regularly for five years. I was saying recently, it's like, it's the thing that I've done for the longest. I've never done anything for five years.

39:49
It's been that long five years. Wow,

Mark Bowden 39:50
Yeah, I'm
sorry, six coming up for six years.

Roger Pierce 39:53
But there's a couple takeaways. I mean, you've got the Behavior Panel that's a certain subject matter, and you touched upon this earlier, too. To the consistency, right? You're posting consistently. That's helping you build up the audience, isn't it?

Mark Bowden 40:06
Yeah, consistency is the key. That is the only when people say, Me, okay, so how do you build a successful YouTube, I don't know. Nobody knows anybody who says I know how to do that. They're talking complete nonsense, in my view. And I know this because I've seen a lot of what people write about, how to say no, that worked for them, but we don't know it'll work for you. That won't work. The only thing I can think of that is a absolute, non negotiable is consistency. Is showing up Same time, same place again and again and again and again. Sure you can do more. We show up on a Thursday 1230 and we might have some extra stuff, but consistently, Thursday 1230 we're there, which means consistently we have to show up on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday to record. And so we move heaven and earth to try and do that. People get off planes and get to their hotel and record it in their hotel. Or they're not well, they're not well, but they're there and doing it. So if there's anything to be learned about being an entrepreneur there, it's like showing up is almost 100% of the piece.

Roger Pierce 41:17
True point. And so the audience now 1.1 million. That's phenomenal. I mean, you know how many videos don't make it past a couple 1000? So how has that level of audience changed the way you do business, or has it created more opportunities?

Mark Bowden 41:32
It's interesting, because, you know, you've got the 1.1 just over million subscribers. And the reason you track subscribers is that YouTube, for some reason, decided to give out prizes for subscribers, you know. So you get these, yeah, they see one just in the oh, there it is. Okay, cool. See, you can see a prize in there. And there's that three of them. They're including the gold award for a million. The next one they give out, I think, is about 5 million. You get some kind of Ruby thing. But the reality is, what's more important is the amount of views that you get, not subscribers. So we have a phenomenal amount of views and view time. So here's view time, if you take all the time across the planet in human viewing time that our videos have been viewed in order for you as a human being, to consume that amount of viewing time, you'd have to be born in the Bronze Age. There's a stat. It's a massive amount of viewing time that humans have spent. The human race at this point in history, have a bronze age level of viewing time on earth that, for me, is astonishing. And what it does mean is that you walk out in the streets and you go through an airport, and you're anywhere in the world, and people are like, you're in the behavior panel, your mark. We do. All of us get get recognized. And that's lovely. That's great. And you've got all of that thing about going out, you know, in Toronto, or wherever you are and going, Oh, well, I will be on display. I will be recognized that somebody will will know me. That's amazing.

Roger Pierce 43:07
I hope you get a few, a few free drinks here

Mark Bowden 43:09
and there, too. Not at all for anybody out there. See me in the stream, I am open to a drink. Don't feel you can't you know, awful. I love it.

Roger Pierce 43:18
Well, congratulations on that success, and I know it's going to continue to grow. You'll get that 5 million subscriber point. I'm sure we'll get that at some point. So watching our time and heading into our rap, I've got to ask you, because I'm so curious, you've got such a varied experience, background with entrepreneurship and publishing and speaking on world's biggest stages, so much going on in your your career mark. But can you look back and give some advice to an early stage entrepreneur? Maybe a little nugget?

Mark Bowden 43:44
Yeah, I found that things really picked up for me, and early on, the moment, I realized that I shouldn't keep the product, the service to myself and wait until somebody purchases it to let them have an experience? On very early on, I was like, no, no, I can't tell you what this is, or let you have any of it until you you know we have some kind of contract, or you silver passes my palm. And then I was down at St Lawrence Market. So St Lawrence Market, and there was a guy right at the front of the of the market, and he was cooking sausages and just cutting up little pieces of them and giving them out. And it was like, and he's selling a lot of sausages, and I'm thinking, well, he's giving them away, though, but people are getting a tease, like, front and center, like he's as people walk in, so he's there earlier in people's experience of the whole market. He's way more visible. You know, he's got out with some fried sausages, cut them up a small piece, and go have some of that. People like, Oh, that's really good. Well, you go and buy them over there and that. Like, okay, that's interesting. He's not afraid at all to go have some of this for nothing. Have some of this for nothing, because he knows he's.
Passionate and trusts enough his own product and service that he knows his customers will buy a pound, and the people who were never his customers were never going to be his customer. Sure something is going to take a bit of a sausage, and they were never going to buy a sausage ever. Okay, fine. Who cares? Because the people who are in the market, or could be triggered into the market. You're first in their vision. They've got it in their mouth. It is good. And you just go, Well, you get it over there. They're not even asking the price. They're not even going, well, how much is there? They just go, that's good. I'd have some more of that. They're already in the market. It just could be right in front of the market. So look, here's what I created out of that. Is that whenever I meet somebody, yeah, I start the work immediately. And just start the work, start the job. Say, I know what I do. I know what I do. So anybody I meet, for example, in our work together today for your audience, at no point have I no point will I go, Well, look, here's how you go to my website. You know, I've got some training here. Like, oh, I can't tell you that, Roger, that's in my training. If you go to my website, Roger, you can download the training there, and that will give you all the stuff. I'm just like, No, just have it. Just have it. Just have because those listening, who are never my customers, that's okay, that's all right, you know? And in fact, the reality is, is that most of my customers are large organizations. I'm trying to train the whole leadership team or the sales team, and that probably, if you're a listener right now, that probably isn't you, but it might be your partner. It might be your aunt, it might be your son, I don't know, but if I don't start the work immediately with you and go here, have as much of the sausage as you like. Just take Yeah, you won't be able to go to that Aunt or that son or daughter or partner, your neighbor, you won't be able to go. You gotta, you gotta get into that guy. Mark, have you had Mark over? See Roger? Yeah, get in there. You won't do that if I hold back. So look, start the work immediately. And that's my the key for me, for entrepreneurs, is you might not be selling sausages, so I get that. Okay, you might have a different product that cannot be cut up into small pieces. We might have a service that cannot be cut. There is some way of doing it. If you're telling me now, oh, Mark, I can't do that. I'm already going to go, you're doomed. Then you're doomed. Because if you're saying you can't do it, I know that somebody doing it right now making a fortune. I know that. So you must find the way of starting the work immediately with people, because very soon they'll go, so how do I keep this going? What do I do? Then you go, Well, this is what a contract Well, this is what the whole piece looks like. This is what remember that with a car, I bought a rug once the rug guy went, Well, look, you know which way. We won't give me three that you like the most. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, well, that one, that one that we said, Well, let's start with that one. We'll deliver it round to you place. You put it out if you don't like it, we'll swap it for another one. If you don't like that, we'll swap. We'll keep swapping them until you find when you like first one. You get it out there, you you're on it for a week. And it's like, well, this is great. It's like, let's buy this. Well, many people will go, well, that's a risk. They might take your rug or they might. Yeah, they might. It's risky world, isn't it. They might not, like any but any of them, yeah, they might. They might do that. But it's a risky world, isn't it. So look, how do you start the work immediately? That's what I'd say to people.

Roger Pierce 48:39
That's excellent advice. And you're right. The rug guy knows most of the time someone's going to keep one of those rugs. Yeah, and buy it, right? Yeah, yeah. Put your product. Put your service in the hands of customers. Give them a tasty sample.

Mark Bowden 48:54
Yeah? And I bet, more often than not, they go, Yeah, I'll take that one. More often than not, I bet,

Roger Pierce 49:00
Well, Mark, you've given us lots of tasty samples here today, that's for sure, lots of really great insights about communication, body language, books, YouTube. I can't wait to get this podcast out there and share with people. So thank you. Thank you very much. My pleasure,

Mark Bowden 49:17
Roger, always good to speak with you and every success with the new book and the work and getting your work.

Roger Pierce 49:25
Thank you very much. But I want to tell people, where can they find your books, your work and the behavior panel.

Mark Bowden 49:30
Look just Google. Mark Bowden, and you'll you'll find me. Yeah. So you can do that or head to truth plane.com T, R, U, T, H, P, L, A, N, E, (Truthplane.com), you'll find lots of information there, lots of links to other stuff. Fantastic.

Roger Pierce 49:47
I'll put those links in the show notes too, so it's easy for people to access and for people listening today, before we wrap, if today's episode resonated with you, especially if you, if you're on the fence about entrepreneurship, I want to point you to my new book called The Unsure Entrepreneur. There it is. It's a practical decision guide for people who are thinking about starting a business and want a clearer picture of what they're really signing up for. You can find it at UnsureEntrepreneur.com Thanks again for spending time with me here. If you're feeling unsure, you're in the right place. Bye for now.