Hi, this is Mo Bunnell, your business development expert and author of “The Snowball System”. In this video, I’m gonna do something a little bit different. I’m actually gonna do a book review on a book that’s totally unrelated to business development. But gosh, did I see some amazingly powerful insights? The book is called “Joyful”. Ingrid Fatelli wrote this, and it’s so interesting. It’s about how physical items actually bring us joy. A lot of a common wisdom is that, you know, joy comes from within and it only comes from relationships or transcendence or all kinds of other things. And certainly there’s some truth to that. But she makes a case in the book, “Joyful”, that actually physical items and the way we design our homes and our workplaces and areas out in common places in the community, anything really can either dial up or dial down joy.

And she goes to the research, which of course I liked a lot. And she comes up with 10 very specific things you can do to bring more joy to yourself through physical items, and man, it is compelling. I love this book so much that I actually did an audit of our entire house, room by room. I did it room by room, looking at the 10 factors that she decodes and makes clear and thought about, “What can we do around our house that’ll bring even more joy?” Little sparks of joy here and here and there. As you walk through a room, as you entertain people, things like that. And what I’ll do next is I’m actually gonna cover these 10 things very quickly and show you the connection to how you can design experiences in your business development meetings, so that you’re bringing joy to your clients and prospects.I think it’s sort of an interesting thing to do.

So here’s what Ingrid Fatelli came up with and are 10 major things. Number one. Energy. There’s certain colors and physical items that bring energy. Brighter colors in general are going to make people feel more vibrant. So in your business development meetings, this is more of a thing you would do with them. Are you bringing energy? At the end of a meeting is someone a little bit happier because they met with you? Things like that. Are you excited about what you do? Are you excited about how you might be able to help them. These are the things that are in the body language, in your intonation and things like that. Bring energy, and bring it into your business development meeting so people want to be around you. I think that’s really important.

The second thing. Abundance. Do you have a feeling of abundance? Are you always giving more than you take? Are people better off? Not just through energy, but through gifts of insights and by connecting them with other people in your network. Is abundance a thing that you’re bringing to your, to your meetings?

The third thing. Freedom. People love freedom. In the book, she talks about how there’s certain views that people feel more comfortable about by having a view that they can see a long ways away and have freedom of movement in around it. Think of a public park you love where you can sit on top of a hill or a national park where you’re hiking. You love freedom. It brings freedom. Are you giving in meetings? Are you giving your clients freedom to choose what they want to talk about next? Still arrive at your mutual goal, but do they have some freedom within the meeting to get where they want to go?

The fourth thing. Harmony. Tons of neat things around the house that you can do here, but in meetings, are you bringing harmony to the organization? Are you helping them connect with each other in ways and with you? Are you finding ways to that your services will make people feel that calmer reach upside that they couldn’t get before?

The fifth thing. Play. I love this. Having play in your environment around the home. There’s even certain shapes that inspire play, like a ball. Well, in your business development meetings, do you have a good time? Are you bringing play? Are you sparking joy through your comments and jokes and just having a really nice playful time as you talk about the serious work that you do? I think that’s really important.

Number six. Surprise. How powerful surprise is. In a home, do you turn a corner and you see something unexpected? Well, we can design surprise in our meetings. Maybe if we bring a few gifts for the client, give some insights, a little business book they would like, whatever. Maybe we don’t unload those all at the beginning. Maybe we space them out throughout the conversation. Maybe there’s a few little ways we can use surprise in a meeting that that brings about joy in a way that we wouldn’t think about otherwise.

Transcendence is a really good one. Do we feel that what we’re doing is helping those clients, their organization, in a really meaningful way that’s much bigger than the pure services we provide? Are people better off because of what we do?

And the last three. Magic, Celebration, and Renewal. Magic. That’s a little tougher one to do in your business development meetings, but can you do some things that are interactive? Maybe instead of a static analysis, you actually put that analysis into a really robust spreadsheet where a client can tweak assumptions and see results show up right in front of them. And think of how different that experience would be. About how much upside you’re gonna give them through your work or how much savings you’re gonna provide, where they can tweak a percentage over here and see millions of dollars show up over there. There’s a little sense of magic in that. Can you give that experience to people?

Celebration. Do you celebrate the little incremental progress that you’re making with your clients? Little high fives and ‘attaboy’s that that say, “Man, we did it. You know, we landed the meeting or we got the 15 minutes at the board meeting on the agenda.” Those little things are hugely important to celebrate to show people that you’re excited and having a good time.

And lastly, renewal. I think that’s important with our clients because sometimes as external service providers, we’re the people that they can lean on to think about where they’re going. Are we providing a sense of renewal and safety in working with our clients in a way that they’re better off because they’re with us and they have a safe zone? Or they’re getting value from talking about even the non-business things, helping them reset things and achieve more than they ever thought in life.

I realize this is a bit of a stretch to take something that’s actually about concrete, physical possessions and the design of environments and then apply it to experiences like business development. But as I read the book, my number one was thinking about our house and work environment and things that I can control, physical places like the books written for. But I couldn’t help, but think of how can we bring more joy to our clients? How can we create experiences that they want to be around us? And they might even be put their finger on why we’re different. But if we do things like those 10 ideas that I just discussed in the video, people are gonna want to come to us more often than somebody who doesn’t provide those things, or things are a little bit more gray, little bit more dull if you will.

I just firmly believe that if we can bring joy to our clients while we’re also providing the services they pay for, there’s just more likelihood that they’re gonna come back to us with with all kinds of trusted advisor kind of questions. And then in the end, they’ll be these raving fans that just can’t help but tell others about us.

So with that in mind, if you enjoy this video, please share it with others. That’s that’s how they find out about us. And as always, we hope this video helps you help your clients succeed.

Well, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for watching. For more content like this, check out my most recent video and be sure to like them so other people can find out about us. But make sure you subscribe. That’s how you’ll be automatically alerted to the great content that we put out. And if you want access to a comprehensive system for business development, then just buy my book,”The Snowball System”, at Amazon. The link is in the description below. Thanks again.