Episode Sponsored By: Death Wish Coffee
Our guest this week is Connie Pheiff,unstoppable speaker, leadership coach and host of the Up and Out Podcast.
Connie is a natural leader who spends her life helping others learn how to lead.For more than 10 years, she’s worked with some of the world’s largest brands and most well-known people as a Leadership and personal brand coach, Marketing and brand consultant, productivity, influence and business coach.
She has studied every single aspect of human behavior, leadership, personal development, marketing, branding, building and scaling a business from the garage to the boardroom.
Today she shares her story and her strategies for leadership and high performance.
This episode is brought to you by, Deathwish Coffee,the world’s strongest coffee and the only brew we drink when we do the show. It’s the only choice for the true Sell or Diehard!
On today’s show…
2:13 – The real definition of leadership
4:06 – The sea change in leadership philosophy
7:43 – How Connie developed her leadership ideas and strategies
10:23 – Connie’s utilization of high performance habits to lead and teach others to lead
15:30 – Connie’s development as a public speaker
21:16 – The advantages of leading any group
24:00 – Connie’s work with developing more female leadership
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Full Transcription
Where do we start this? Answer doesn’t matter. We’re having a good time. Right?
Speaker 2
Couldn’t help-
Jen Gluckow
He couldn’t wait to get in here.
Jeffrey Gitomer
You need sales balls to make sales calls.
Jen Gluckow
I’m tweeting that puppy.
Jeffrey Gitomer
Okay. Hi, everybody, I’m Jeffrey Gitomer, author of the world’s best-selling sales book, ‘The Little Red Book of Selling’.
Jen Gluckow
I’m Jen Gluckow, founder and CEO of Sales in a New York Minute.
Jeffrey Gitomer
We’re here today on Sell or Die to make sure that you get the information that you need in order to make more sales, more money, keep your job, fire your boss, and take over the company.
Jen Gluckow
That’s right. This show is all about you and how we can help you and all you need to do is find us in iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
Jeffrey Gitomer
Tell both your friends.
Jen Gluckow
Then, give us a five star review.
Jeffrey Gitomer
Okay, and today’s show is all about how you can improve your life. I want to make sure you get that, because when we start to talk about what happens in the sales world, we mean it.
Jen Gluckow
Oh yeah. Let’s get into it.
Jeffrey Gitomer
It’s time to Sell or Die.
Jen Gluckow
Our next guest is a speaker, author, and host of he award-winning podcast Up or Out. She’s helping executives achieve high performance habits every day. She can be heard on C-suit Radio, Sirius XM, Iheart Radio, Itunes, and 1900 analog networks in 145 countries. She’s authored over 1000 articles and five books on high performance habits, leadership, marketing, and influence. From drag racing, Harley riding, horse taming, tattoo diva, she broke the mold and is not your typical leader. Please help me welcome the great Connie Pheiff.
Jen Gluckow
Connie, you’ve written over 450 articles and 5 books on the topic of leadership. Why is that topic so important to you?
Connie Pheiff
The importance of leadership is really … I mean, you have so many organizations, culture driven organizations, but there’s many times that component missing, which is leadership, and some people forget what that real definition of leadership is. To me, leadership is that servant leader, that leader that is serving their people and not being a dictator of their people. I mean, an example is one of my positions that I’ve held over the years I was director of development, and I was working with my team, and we were crunching to get all this information done, because we were doing this major travel across the country and asking for money.
Connie Pheiff
So I stepped in, and you know, came in with a couple of trays of pizzas and said, “Okay, we’re going to get this done.” We were there until, like two o’clock in the morning. My superior, actually, I got slapped on the hand for doing that and said, “What are you doing? As a leader you don’t do that.”
Jen Gluckow
Whoa.
Connie Pheiff
Yes. Now, we’re talking maybe 10, 15 years ago, and that was probably 15 years ago when that was said to me, and that always stuck to me, because at first, that was the old way of thinking about leadership. You don’t mix with your people. You don’t hang out with them, which part of that you still want to be cautious of doing, but the point of that as a leader you sit in that ivory tower and just tell everybody else what to do. That’s not my definition of a leader. My definition is, again, jump in where you have to. Help the people that are working for you from behind and lift them up. Why I write so many articles and focus on leadership and high performance is to help today’s leader understand that in order to be that leader that people aspire to be and respect you also need to give back to them.
Jen Gluckow
Got it. It sounds like you’re saying leadership in general has changed and evolved over time. What’s contributed to making the leader change from sitting in that ivory tower to now being out there with his or her people?
Connie Pheiff
Technology has definitely changed us over the last several decades, and people are now realizing they don’t want that command and control that your people will perform greater, they will perform at a higher level if a leader is there supporting them and encouraging them to do better rather than doing the command and control. Because that has changed and again, most of it coming in through the use of technology, and of course you have all the social media pages that everybody’s on there and how you’re getting out and working with people. You need to be more flexible as a leader.
Connie Pheiff
Yet, you still want to be encouraging and help lifting people up from behind. It’s definitely changed over the past number of decades. I mean, that’s my belief, and that’s why that change is happening.
Jen Gluckow
Got you, and you help leaders all over the country, and I’m sure some of them are stuck in that old way of, “No but-“
Connie Pheiff
Yes.
Jen Gluckow
“-I’m just supposed to tell them what to do.”
Connie Pheiff
Right.
Jen Gluckow
So how do you help them evolve?
Connie Pheiff
Well, there’s a number of ways that I do that. I mean, a lot of them I’ll end up doing one on one mentor program with them on the side. I mean, it’s not unusual for somebody to just text me and say, “Can I just talk to you for five minutes?” I’ll get on the phone with them. “Okay, we have this situation, and I want to make sure I’m handling it correctly,” because again, it’s human nature, and people don’t change very easily. When a lot of today’s leaders in these corporations know they’re of the GenX age, and some still baby boomers, and they were taught that this is how you go in, and this is how you lead, and you command, you control. It’s that change, so having somebody like me to hold them accountable and talk through, “This is how you have a conversation with that person.”
Connie Pheiff
Sometimes it’s okay to let your hair down, you know, and step out there even having a little Halloween event yesterday one of my clients. Well they want to have a Halloween event, what do I do? They’re like, “Okay, I’m not going to dress up. What do I do?” I had to coach them on what to wear for Halloween. “Okay, I suggest wear all black and go in as the grim reaper.”
Jen Gluckow
There you go.
Connie Pheiff
He’s like, “Ah, that’s simple. I could do that.” It’s just funny as some of the conversations that I have with them about something as simple as that, but they need that. They need somebody else. We all do. You know, we get stuck inside of our own self, and it takes somebody else from the outside to say, “Okay, why don’t you look at it this way?” You know, just that slight change just makes a world of difference.
Jen Gluckow
So where does your leadership mentality come from? Did you grow up being a leader all the time? Did your parents teach you these things? Where did you get this way of leading?
Connie Pheiff
That’s a loaded question for me. Let’s see. Growing up. Okay, how long is the show? Okay, so growing up, I was put into leadership roles as long as I could remember. I lived with my grandmother. I was the oldest of 13 cousins. I’m sorry, 20 cousins, but 13 of them came to the house every day that we watched, and my grandmother was very old. She was sickly, overweight, so she wasn’t very mobile, so I was the one that every day would take care of them, make sure homework was done, get them off to school. I worked three job. I was an entrepreneur before I really even know what an entrepreneur was. Yeah, I was cleaning the neighbor’s houses. I was babysitting. I was doing their grocery shopping. I was ironing men’s cotton shirts so we could pay the rent.
Connie Pheiff
I did what I can do from a very young age, and you know, I mean, in today’s standards it could be child abuse, but I learned very young how to, again, manage the finances, how to manage people, and again, organizing 13 cousins, little ones, to get ready for school and get them to school and get them home, do their homework. I just, at a very young age, became that leader, and it was just always inbred in me even into my adulthood. Every job, every role that I took on I was always in a leadership position.
Jen Gluckow
That’s incredible.
Connie Pheiff
Yes.
Jen Gluckow
So any of your 13 cousins could have stood up and taken on that leadership role, but you did, and do you feel that you’re either born with it, the leadership ability, or you’re not? Do you feel it could be taught?
Connie Pheiff
Some people it comes to them naturally. They have that natural instinct to be a leader. I also believe that being a leader can be taught. It’s those skills that with your brain, or with me, was I born with those skills? Possibly, but I was thrown into it as well.
Jen Gluckow
I got you. So you talk about high performance habits, and I know that you help people achieve high performance habits. What are high performance habits?
Connie Pheiff
High performance habits, I mean, really it’s for an example how do you start your day? How do you get up in the morning? How do you start your day? Do you get up and kind of drag yourself around and okay, I’ll have my 10 cups of coffee before I can get going? High performers will get up in the morning. They’ll jump up, head off to the gym, have that morning routine that sets them off for the day. Again, that’s somebody high performance, high performance achiever. Another definition of high performance is someone that continually learns, you know? They never stop learning. I heard a quote recently. I think it was on Facebook, and it said, “The day I stop learning is the day I stop living.”
Jen Gluckow
Whoa.
Connie Pheiff
That is so true, because a high performer will continue to learn. If you look at any of the great business leaders of today, Warren Buffett, he reads, I don’t know, 10 books over a weekend. He’s like super speed reader. That’s high performance. Again, someone leading a team or in a corporation, and again, high performance from that individual is jumping and listening to what the people have to say, creating those motivators, always looking at the higher standards in an organization and what they can achieve to be. That’s a high performance person, and creating those habits. A lot of times as people we have habits. We have bad habits. It’s those habits, or those patterns, that we bring along with us from our DNA, from events that occur in our life, from different situations that creates our habits and how we behave.
Connie Pheiff
When you recognize the bad habits or the bad patterns, once you recognize them, you can easily turn them into a positive and help you to create and become a high performer.
Jen Gluckow
So … Oh, sorry.
Connie Pheiff
That’s okay, go ahead.
Jen Gluckow
What’s one high performance habit that you have that you absolutely cannot live without?
Connie Pheiff
I cannot go without going to the gym in the morning.
Jen Gluckow
Do you have a special routine?
Connie Pheiff
I do. They say do something 10 times and it becomes a habit. Well, I’ve been doing this for about 20 years. It’s a habit, so no. I get up in the morning. I get up every morning at 4:30 in the morning, and I head off to the gym, and I do spinning classes. Then, I’ll come home. I’ll do some yoga. Now, I’m not a petite little woman, I wish I was with all the exercising I do. Then, a couple of times during the week I also work out with a personal trainer as well. For me, that helps me physically. That also helps me mentally, again, develop those high performance habits. Another high performance habit I have is reading, and I have stacks of books here.
Connie Pheiff
People are always sending me books to read, to review, to give them some feedback, testimonials, so I’m always reading, and I mean, growing up, I was not a reader. Just not something that came natural to me, but by doing that, again, it helps me develop those high performance habits.
Jen Gluckow
So you travel all over the country leading teams, but you still make it to the gym every morning. That’s amazing.
Connie Pheiff
I do, whether it’s, you know, being my home base or if I’m traveling I’ll still make sure I get up. I’m either in the gym. I’ll go for a long walk. Just something to keep that fuel going, and in my suitcase, it’s why I have to pay extra for the weight, I’ll carry a couple little arm weights. I’ll take those with me as well, because when you’re traveling, you can easily … I’m always going out to dinner with a client or somebody, so you can easily put on those extra few pounds, especially with a glass of wine.
Jen Gluckow
As a fellow traveler, I know how hard it is to maintain habits on the road. What’s the key to maintaining those high performance habits no matter what?
Connie Pheiff
Well, the good thing actually I love when I’m traveling. I’ll read more. I will definitely read more when I’m traveling. You know, because an event or something going on that I need to go to, and I’m also vegan, so I’ll take some snacks or something with me as well to make sure I eat that healthy food, and just to maintain that clarity about what it is. If I’m going to a specific event, so I will focus on what that event is and who I’m going to see. Then, I prepare before I even go. I will work with a client, an event planner, whoever I’m going with. Sometimes it’s begging to give me the list of who’s going to be in attendance before I get there.
Connie Pheiff
I’ll also do that research before I get to that event, so this way again, I’m of clear mind, because sometimes you can be really tired [crosstalk 00:16:42] one to the next. This way I’m prepared, and when I get there, it’s like, “Oh, I want to talk to Jeffrey Gitomer,” so I make sure I talk to him. That’s how I network and I’ll work the room that way. People like that too. Even if it’s someone … This happened to me years and years ago. I went to an event and somebody came up to me and they’re like, “Oh, Connie, oh my gosh. I couldn’t wait to see you.” Back in my mind, I’m like, “Oh, where did I meet you before?”
Connie Pheiff
I mean, it just made me feel good. I’ve learned to [inaudible 00:17:24] back. Again, just makes people feel good that you know a little bit about them-
Jen Gluckow
Absolutely.
Connie Pheiff
-and prepared that.
Jen Gluckow
Cool. You’re a past president of the National Speaker’s Association, and you speak all over the globe. I … Oh.
Connie Pheiff
I just want to … That was along for the Los Angeles Chapter.
Jen Gluckow
Okay, so you were a past president for the National Speaker’s Association Los Angeles Chapter.
Connie Pheiff
Right.
Jen Gluckow
Got you. Got you. You speak all over the globe. I’m curious. Were you always a talented speaker?
Connie Pheiff
No. Like I talked about before, in things that we learn although, you know, growing up I learned to be a leader, but at the same time it was a very stifling environment. I grew up of the age of, again, do what you’re told. We don’t want to hear from you. Just get it done. No, I was very quiet. I was very timid. I did not speak my mind at all, and that all changed after my divorce. I married John and divorced John. Then, after that is when I went back to school and I started really searching and getting some clarity on who I was. Then, you know, at the U.S. Chamber work and there I was speaking but not into large arenas. Then, at the Girl Scouts I spoke and I started speaking to larger arenas, getting comfortable with that.
Connie Pheiff
Then, after Girl Scouts, it just became natural to me at that point, and I remember waking up to my husband still trying to figure out what I was going to do and saying, “Well, I’m going to become a professional speaker,” and my husband was like, “Okay.” All right, if that’s what you want to do. So I joined the National Speaker’s Association. At that time I also joined Toast Masters. I became a seminar junkie just learning the skills of speaking. You know, being attracted to an audience in addition to getting all of my certifications for executive coaching and so forth.
Connie Pheiff
No, so I was not a speaker early on. I really worked at developing the skills.
Jen Gluckow
What do you recommend to someone who is going into public speaking?
Connie Pheiff
I would recommend … What I see with some speakers upcoming, and I’ve coached a couple of people on this as well, but what I see when people first coming into public speak, and again, some have that natural habit, so that natural skill, but others come into it with oh, I have a story of despair, and the stage becomes their therapy. You don’t want to do that. That was something that I wanted to make sure I didn’t do, because that is not the place for it. You want to share a story, and you want to … Storytelling is powerful for speaking, so my best advice for somebody to want to go into that field is to learn. Learn from the best. Contact some of the best speakers out there and see if they would mentor you, or coach you on that.
Connie Pheiff
Trust me, it will be worth every penny that you spend on that.
Jen Gluckow
Cool. I want to go back to something you said before where you said, “I was getting into speaking, and I joined the National Speakers Association. I joined all these groups.” You said joined, but then I’m noticing this trend, because on paper, you’re the leader of all these groups. You were a past president of your chapter. You were a leader at the Chamber of Commerce. You were a leader at the Girl Scouts, so what’s the value of being a member versus a leader?
Connie Pheiff
The best example that we always hear, if you join an organization, just like joining a gym. If you join, you need to participate. I mean, I’ll talk to people and they’ll say, “Oh, I didn’t get anything out of it.” What did you do? Did you participate? Did you get involved in the organization? When you get involved, you get to learn more of the inner secrets of the organization. You really know what’s going on. Just like right now, I’m an advisor for the C-Suite Network. I’m an advisor there, and also my podcast is one of the distribution channel that the podcast is in.
Connie Pheiff
I’m involved with the Hero Club and a number of other things are Women Who Dare Council as well. I get a lot out of it, and of course, you know, there is an annual fee for it. That annual fee renewal is coming up for a lot of people, and I’ve had people calling me. “Oh, I didn’t get anything out of it, so I’m not rejoining,” and same question. What did you do? How did you get involved? The only way these organizations are going to benefit you is if you get involved. You don’t have to be a leader of the full organization. Maybe you’re just volunteer to do some marketing for them, or to connect people together, or you know, whatever need they have, or just outreach to the community for the organization.
Connie Pheiff
You get so much more from any type of association when you get involved with them. If you just join, pay the money, and do nothing, you’re going to get nothing.
Jen Gluckow
Yeah, my philosophy is the more you give the more you’re going to get.
Connie Pheiff
Exactly.
Jen Gluckow
So tell us about the Women Who Dare Council.
Connie Pheiff
The Women Who Dare Council, that’s been so exciting. I mean, I’ve been out of Girl Scouts for 11, 11 1/2 years, and I mean, I tipped my toe in doing some programs for women occasionally, but I haven’t really jumped in it head on, because you know, my work is really in the C-suite working with both men and women, but I’ve been in a mastermind group for all of these years with a group of women that I’ve known from back in the Girl Scouts some of them. At the C-suite, we’ve been talking over the last couple of years how can we help expand the C-suite by bringing more women into the group?
Connie Pheiff
You go to these events and 90% of the attendees are men. The panelists are mostly men. I’ve had many conversations with them about it. Just a couple of months ago, because I’ve still been toying with the idea, what do I do? What do I do? Where do I go with this? Last year, I took off a period of time to spend with my mom, because she was ill, and she’d passed away. While I took that time off from the business, I was still working in the business. I did some research, and got talking to my mom. She’s like, “You’ve led women groups for so long. Where are you stuck? What’s holding you back?” I was like, “Because women are so bitchy.”
Jen Gluckow
It’s true.
Connie Pheiff
It is true. You know, I just got turned off by that, so just a couple of months ago, I was visiting my step daughter in Lake Tahoe-
Jen Gluckow
By the way, men who are listening, you can’t say that. Only we can.
Connie Pheiff
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah-
Jen Gluckow
Not allowed.
Connie Pheiff
-no one else [crosstalk 00:25:54].
Jen Gluckow
We can call ourselves bitchy. You cannot call us bitchy.
Connie Pheiff
Absolutely. I’m in Lake Tahoe and there’s a headline saying, ‘Women Who Dare Water Skiers Take On This Competition’. I don’t even remember what the rest of it was, but I went, “Women Who Dare? That’s perfect. That is perfect.” I came back, I checked the URL to see what’s available. On that now, and I’ve since found that there’s a couple other version of it, but it’s something totally different from what we’re doing. I announced it just two months ago in San Jose. I was at an investor summit. The membership has been insane. The people that want to join, they want to be part of it, so I had to ask someone, “Why is this so different than any other women’s group?”
Connie Pheiff
I did another interview on another show, and I shared this story. My story was earlier this year when I’d seen millions of women marching together I thought that was so powerful until some of the things they started saying after, like wearing a vagina on their head. I was like, “No, no, no,” because that was giving the power away. That just really sparked something in me, so I went back to the drawing board. I said, “Okay, we’re going to do this women’s group, and it’s going to be the Women Who Dare council. We’re going to put that out there.” Our first event we have coming up in New York City just in a couple of weeks.
Connie Pheiff
We’re doing a glam in the city weekend, ladies are taking Manhattan. We’re going to spend a whole week together in an Airbnb that sleeps 20. That’s going to be interesting. We’re going to have some educationals throughout the week. We have one woman coming in, she used to be the VP of education for L’Oreal and from France. She’s going to be there. We’re going to talk about image makeover from the inside out.
Jen Gluckow
Cool.
Connie Pheiff
We’re going to talk about verbal communication. We will talk about personalities and we will touch on high performance habits. Then, we’re going to have a glamorous dinner, and then on Friday night we’re going to finish the week where we’re getting a professional tour, private tour, of the Sex and the City tour around New York City.
Jen Gluckow
Oh, cool.
Connie Pheiff
Yeah, so it’s going to be a fun and exciting night. That’s the first of many events. We just laid out the whole calendar yesterday. Every month we’re either doing webinars or we’re doing live events, and the media has just been insane with their interest. While we’re in New York City, we’re also going into a studio, and we’re doing a documentary.
Jen Gluckow
That’s great.
Connie Pheiff
We’re filming a documentary about Women Who Dare and the basic question I’ll be asking is what makes you a woman who dares?
Jen Gluckow
Cool.
Connie Pheiff
Yes.
Jen Gluckow
How do people find out more information if they want to about Women Who Dare?
Connie Pheiff
About Women Who Dare? Right now, they can go to womenwhodarennyc.me, m-e.
Jen Gluckow
Okay. Great, and we’ll put that in the show notes as well.
Connie Pheiff
Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. The website for women who dare will be womenwhodare.me, m-e.
Jen Gluckow
That’s great. Before you go, I just want to talk about your podcast. You have as how called Up or Out.
Connie Pheiff
Right.
Jen Gluckow
What’s up with it?
Connie Pheiff
Well, Up or Out, I’ve been doing this about five years, and initially I was doing live radio. Then, I went to a hybrid, and I was marketing master, so when I took that break with my mom last year, part of my research was when I do my coaching and my mentor programs, I’ve been asked several times from people, “How do you help me get out like you did?” I was always like, “Well, that’s an interesting question.” Yeah, I’m going to promote that to corporate America and say, “I’m going to show your executives how to get out.” No, no, that’ll work. In my program, I have put that into the program.
Connie Pheiff
I was actually getting calls from companies saying that was one of the best things that I’ve included in my mentor and training program, because people now are performing at a greater level knowing that they do have a plan B. You know, if that rug was pulled out from under them, no worries. They’re good to go.
Jen Gluckow
They’re okay.
Connie Pheiff
Yes, which was really interesting, and part of my focus, and part of the programs that I do is when I lost my corporate position I did not have my plan B. I am sharing all of that with people of how you can move up in corporate, how you can be heard in the board room, how you can have the best habits and be a great leader, and if you’re ready to go out, again, we have a full package that we’re going to show you every step of the way that you can quickly jump into launching your own business, whatever that may be for you without doing the two year, the five year hurdle like many of us do, myself included, trying to figure out what you’re doing.
Connie Pheiff
That was the whole premise of the Up or Out. Again, we’re going to help you lift you up or we’re going to help you get out and be that entrepreneurial leader that you’re still being groomed to be.
Jen Gluckow
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. If people want more information on how to work with you as a leader or book you or anything like that, where should they go?
Connie Pheiff
Well, they can just easily go to my website, which is phieffgroup.com, p-h-e-I-f-f, Pheiffgroup.com. You’ll learn about my programs on there, my mentor program, and also my speaking programs.
Jen Gluckow
Wonderful. Connie, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for all your insight.
Connie Pheiff
Oh, thank you. I love being here.
Jen Gluckow
Good. Thanks for joining us on Sell or Die. Subscribe and rate us on Itunes or wherever you get your podcast. Just search Sell or Die.
Jeffrey Gitomer
Follow us on Twitter. I’m @Gitomer. On Facebook, I’m /jeffreygitomer.
Jen Gluckow
I’m @jeninanyminute.
Jeffrey Gitomer
You follow me, you follow Jen, we tweet it, we Facebook it, you click it, you join it.
Jen Gluckow
Thanks to our amazing guest today. Our producer is Doug Branson, and our technical director is Chris Hill. Until next time, I’m Jen Gluckow.
Jeffrey Gitomer
And I’m Jeffrey Gitomer reminding you to get out there and sell something even if your ass falls off.
