Transforming Failure into Success: Communication Lessons from Crisis Experts

Richard Matthews: [: 00:00:00

crisis management

for a lot of our audience

is gonna be smaller entrepreneurs right?

They're not gonna be Fortune 500 companies

where they've may have dealt with big crisis

can you define that

and maybe even put it in terms

of what it might look like

for a smaller business?

what does crisis management

actually look like?

Adele Gambardella: Okay sure

so I think Crisis management

varies dramatically depending

on what type of business you have

as you mentioned, right?

Like what could be a crisis

to you would not be a crisis

let's say to a bigger or huge company

but a lot of the times

it's about how you're being perceived

your reputation management, right?

And so it could be something

like you may have said something wrong

and now the way your business

is perceived is gonna be

negatively impacted

from a revenue standpoint

and so you need to apologize

for that mistake

readdress your audience

reshape your brand

so that people don't see you

in that negative light

so that's like kind of

you know, small businesses

it could be you know

dealing with investors

they have one perception [: 00:01:00

but it really needs to be something else

like and for bigger companies

it's things like anywhere

from like dealing

with sexual harassment to

a board in fighting

to you know

getting up in front of

hundreds of people

and saying something

you didn't really mean

and that

doesn't really reflect

who you are as a person

and wanting to take it back

and then repairing your brand

from there

so it's so many different things

I mean crisis management

really does run the gamut

so anything that's like

feels like it's impossible to handle

from a communication standpoint

that's when you would call up

and you would say

Hey I need help

I'm out of my depth

​

[: 00:02:00

Richard Matthews: Hello welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I have the pleasure of having Adele Gambardella on the line and Chip Massey. Are you guys there?

Adele Gambardella: Yes.

We are.

Richard Matthews: Awesome glad to have you guys here. I know we were just chatting before we got on. You guys are both in different parts of the country, so Adele where's home for you?

Adele Gambardella: Yeah. So just right outside of Washington, D.C.

Richard Matthews: Nice, and Chip, how about you?

Chip Massey: Yeah. I'm outside of Manhattan. Yeah,

ou guys are both on the East [: 00:03:00

Adele Gambardella: It is still cold. I actually think expecting snow in New York, right? Yeah. Not over here, but snow in New York. Yep.

Richard Matthews: For my audience that follows us around. We are still in Southern California for, you know, the last vestiges of the holidays here. And it did snow here all weekend, but 'cause it's California, it's above the snow line, so we can see it in the mountains, but it's not on us.

Adele Gambardella: Nice. It's so pretty.

Richard Matthews: it's sunny and beautiful here. And then if we drive over to the mountains, we can go into the snow. But that's where that is so what I wanna do before we get too far into the interview is just dive into if who you guys are and we can dive into your story. So you guys are the founders of the Convincing Company, which is a crisis communication, interactive training firm with leaders, 50 years of combined experience, drawing from psychology, neuroscience, public relations, and FBI techniques.

ff with is who you guys are, [: 00:04:00

Adele Gambardella: Sure. So one of the things we do is we help people get into the news. We help people get outta the news. We help people get the spotlight and hide when necessary. That's the long and short of it. And recently we've been teaching people immersive learning techniques where you can get so much more out of your baby binge addiction to true crime and mystery shows.

And using CHiPs FBI hostage negotiations special agent background to give people pointers on how to be better at things like forensic listening, situational awareness targeted validation, getting to someone's unstated narrative. And we teach 4-500 companies how to do it.

Richard Matthews: That's really interesting and so you guys might be some of the first, like actual, at least Chip, actual like real world superheroes 'cause you're a special agent and FBI agent.

I'm more like a Mr. Bean character, if that will help your audience a little

dele Gambardella: That's not [: 00:05:00

Chip Massey: Yeah. Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: That's not true. He direction, But at least I do have the training, so yeah.

Richard Matthews: So I mean, if we're going full comic book hero, you know, we could go with I'm gonna forget the guy's name. Agent Coulson in Marvel, right? Where he's like the FBI agent.

Chip Massey: Right.

Richard Matthews: There we go. We always start the shows off talking about your guys' origin story, right? And so every good comic book hero has an origin story. It's a thing that made them into the heroes they are today. And we want to hear that story. Were you born a hero or you bit by a radioactive spider that made you wanna start building a crisis communications company? Or did you guys start in jobs?

I know Chip you were a special agent and eventually move over to becoming a an entrepreneur, basically. Where did you guys come from? And I know we got two people here, so why don't we start with Chip and then we'll move over onto you Adele, and we can talk about how you guys got here.

sis that, you find people in [: 00:06:00

And, but what I found was I still wanted to do something that was a little bit more exciting, and that's when I applied to the FBI and it just so happened they were hiring and I got in. And what I found in this Richard, was that I could use that skill set, that same skill set that I had worked on, developed studied for, became very important to my work as an agent and subsequently as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.

of violations as a result of [: 00:07:00

So, that's me in a nutshell.

Richard Matthews: That's awesome. How about you, Adele? How did you end up here?

Adele Gambardella: Well, I come from a long line of entrepreneurs and I think it just skipped my parents and then because both of their parents were entrepreneurs, right? And I bet my parents just looked at that and was like, that looks really hard. I don't think I want to do that. But then it's like three generations back, right?

And I didn't even know I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I actually have a really good villain story tied to a boss who made me.

Chip Massey: Oh yeah. This is great. Richard. You're gonna like this.

Adele Gambardella: Who wanted to make me an entrepreneur, even though I didn't know it. So, I was working for this small agency and I was very entrepreneurial, even in the small agency.

d sold it one of her biggest [: 00:08:00

Let's go take a ride. And I'm like, okay. So we take a ride and she drives me about an hour and a half and we get outta the car and it's like the frame of the lake house she is building. And she walks me through the lake house and she's like, I'm only building this lake house because of the client that you brought into my agency.

And I thought to myself, this is my lake house. This should be my lake house. Like I need to go do this for myself. Like, why am I doing that? And, you know, 20 years later I actually go up against her and we win every time when we're against her in different bids. So that's my little story.

Richard Matthews: That's [: 00:09:00

But 'cause he said I was one of his more talented students, which is always cool to hear. But that's actually where I got my start to, and a lot of the ministry training for me turned into learning how to do instructional design and learning how to do storytelling. That's how we ended up in running a podcasting agency.

Chip Massey: Oh, okay.

Richard Matthews: Storytelling has always been sort of a you know, a foundational thing for me early on, and that's, it started in my ministry training. So what I'm curious for you guys is how do you go from hostage negotiator and working in a marketing agency to starting this company here that you guys have now, where you're working with crisis management for 45 hundred companies.

Chip Massey: Well, I can take that Adele, I can start it at least.

Adele Gambardella: Please.

, how could I use what I had [: 00:10:00

And I was talking to a professor at Columbia University Business School and he said, you know, the skills that you have are, you know, really they're very marketable in business today. And so he really helped me see that. But I still didn't have a firm grasp on how I could communicate that to the marketplace.

What it was that, you know, kind of set me apart and how I could tie those skills to the world of business. And I just so happened to run across Adele at a entrepreneur's dinner. And what, you know, the way those, you know, work there is that you kind of went around the table, introduced yourself, that kind of thing.

and then as I think that was [: 00:11:00

And so she goes, you know, there's a lot here. And what she did, Richard was transferred that over to business language and it just popped. Everything just kind of made sense. And so from there it was really, it was a matter of her taking that and distilling it down. And we created a lot of IP around this.

id, yeah, absolutely. That's [: 00:12:00

And she comes up with it again. She goes, we're gonna call it "Convince Me". And we put it on three months later and sold out in New York. And we even had to add extra seats to accommodate the people that wanted to come additionally. And that became the title of our book that we just published with McGraw-Hill called "Convince Me".

years I was an agent, host, [: 00:13:00

Adele Gambardella: Yeah, so prior to meeting tip, I had my own PR agency. I had a staff you know, and I got so sick of managing people, like really, that was like just exhausting for me after a while, right? Like, I had done it for 15 years, I'd been really successful and I just was like, I really wanna do something else, something more meaningful.

I was in crisis communications, but one of the things that Chip brought to the table, I was successful in crisis communications. I had written one other book before, but then when Chip came in, he really changed my approach to dealing with people in a crisis and in such a smart and important way, like, you know, I could get on the phone like Chip says I think really quickly, right?

it's like, you know, my ADHD [: 00:14:00

had encountered. And I could [: 00:15:00

And I found that people most often resented when I was giving them the answer, 'cause I didn't move them along at the pace that they wanted to emotionally. And so what Chip brought in was that pace to be able to get the executives to not only believe in the solution, believe in our solution, believe in themselves, which is, you know, so indicative of everything that he did as a hostage negotiator, as a minister.

And so when we brought our two skill sets together, like people were excited after we had a crisis with them and they were like, wow, this is great. We have an opportunity. Like this is so cool. Like they enjoyed having us. Whereas before I always felt like a divorce attorney. I'd walk in and they'd be like, Adele is here again.

Richard Matthews: So I.

Adele Gambardella: What did we do wrong now?

is, you know, like the B in [: 00:16:00

Chip Massey: Oh, yeah. And like I can tell you it's different with Adele too. I mean, her speed is, you know, she, you know, you have 10 speeds on a bike. She's got 20 and she will go, you know, it just, once she sees a path forward, I mean, it instantly moves. Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: But Chip's really good at like being super considerate about what, you know, we talk it through and we brainstorm together. We really, you know, have a good cadence in how we come up with ideas, how we rule things out, that kind of thing. I mean, I think this really, he brought balance to my entrepreneurship journey.

So like, you know, that was certainly important.

Richard Matthews: So what I wanna do before we get too far into the rest of the interview, 'cause I think the next couple of questions are really gonna dive into what it is you guys do.

Let's start with, [: 00:17:00

What does crisis management actually look like?

Adele Gambardella: Chip, do you wanna give that a go or do you want me to? Okay, sure. So I think crisis management varies dramatically depending on what type of business you have, as you mentioned, right? Like, what could be a crisis to you would not be a crisis, let's say to a bigger, or huge company.

, reshape your brand so that [: 00:18:00

So that's like kind of, you know, small businesses. It could be, you know, dealing with investors. They have one perception of you, but it really needs to be something else. Like, and for bigger companies it's things like anywhere from like dealing with sexual harassment to a board in fighting to, you know, getting up in front of hundreds of people and saying something you didn't really mean.

And that doesn't really reflect who you are as a person and wanting to take it back and then repairing your brand from there. So it's so many different things. I mean, crisis management really does run the gamut. So anything that's like, feels like it's impossible to handle from a communication standpoint, that's when you would call up and you would say, Hey, I need help. I'm out of

Richard Matthews: my depth follow up question to that. Is this world more difficult or less difficult now that everything everywhere is recorded in perpetuity online?

you know, and what starts to [: 00:19:00

And our employees are upset with us on this site or whatever, right? And we're, what we like to say is like, you are making this decision for the first time 'cause this feels like a crisis you've never seen before. And when you call us up, what we say is, we've made this decision hundreds of times and so we know what the likely outcome is gonna be.

and especially what lawyers [: 00:20:00

Chip Massey: Yeah, I, yeah, that, and that's kind of like what I,

another kind of big learning curve for me was to understand that so much of what comes out of a company in terms of, you know, understanding and trying to explain. And apologize for what happened is first gets a layer of legalese around it. If they involved, you know, an attorney that isn't perhaps in tune with how things come across to people, it can, you know, it's the most horrible thing when you know, one of the crisis that many of the schools are dealing with right now is the crisis, right?

things that come out of the [: 00:21:00

But it lacks that. Right Adele that connection to the parent, like, well, what are you gonna do? And that's something that Adele's so good at, spotting immediately.

Adele Gambardella: Yeah. A lot of times it's about companies taking accountability for what they may have done wrong and doing it in a way that the consumer can still trust them again once that issue has passed, right? And the issue can vary tremendously. You know.

t are more CYA, right? Cover [: 00:22:00

And that's where like, that's what people are actually looking for, is like, Hey, even as a business, you're a member of our community and you're supposed to serve the community first, right? And so that the communication needs to reflect that.

Adele Gambardella: There also a lot of times lacks any emotion at all. Right? So like, you know, and lawyers think that's what is necessary to protect their legal interests. And a lot of times what it just does is just ramps the community up. It's like, okay, so you're super vague, you're not taking any responsibility.

This is in language I don't understand, or does not come across to me as feeling. And then it just continues to like snowball. And by the time they come to us, they've put out like five messages that legally are right. They're right, they're just not right for their audience.

r the course of your careers [: 00:23:00

That sets you guys apart, that allows you to slay your people's villains and help them come out on top of their own journeys. And so, what I like to frame this for my guests, if you look at your skills and that you've developed over the course of years, is probably a common thread that ties all those skills together and that common thread is where you'd find your superpower.

So let's talk about your guys's superpowers that you've developed in, you know, to build this company.

Adele Gambardella: Oh god Chip, you go first. You have worse.

, you know, interviewing me, [: 00:24:00

And that's where it really becomes exciting because I just felt like there was so much I could contribute to in the business world. But I didn't know how, you know, I didn't know how, like I said earlier, to pull that out Adele did and she just went right to it because part of her background is that she started out as a journalist and, you know, she also knew, like I did, how to interview people.

g, 'cause she also worked on [: 00:25:00

So, as a result of that, we have some really cool stuff that is just so helpful for leaders out there. Like, one of the concepts is forensic listening and I'll let a, Adele talk about that.

Adele Gambardella: Oh god. Chip, you do it.

Chip Massey: Alright. Alright. And I, I, but, but I just wanna say to answer your question, Richard, that is for me is how I feel like that came about was through Adele's ability to pull that out and extract that.

Richard Matthews: Like planet, you guys had your individual rings, but with their powers combined, that's where the really cool stuff coming out.

Chip Massey: Yes. That's it, Richard. That's it. It is the, it

Adele Gambardella: That's fun.

Chip Massey: Right, very cool.

Richard Matthews: So what is Forensic.

Adele Gambardella: What's forensic listening?

, so the ho all idea here is [: 00:26:00

If you can use these principles and tactics and strategies successfully, you'll bring that person down from a 10 to a 5, to a 1. And it's fantastic when people are heightened, when they're at their absolute worst, right? And they're just rampaging. But what is more useful in a business context is what we've developed around forensic listening because what we say is people's words leave clues.

es the nuances, the unstated [: 00:27:00

And thereby you're gonna have such a greater communication with them. You know, your business with them is going to improve as well. You, because you know them. You know them at a level that perhaps no other competitor or person has tried outside, you know, their close family. So, forensic listening is, simply that what we suggest to people, and this is something that your audience might be able to take away.

It's become such a big thing. A one of the large international banks we just recently worked with is adopting it to work out through company wide. And here it is, we ask people to divide up a paper as they're taking notes to find a space on their paper to develop a quadrant.

to, you know, next actions, [: 00:28:00

And that is, what is it that person is saying? What perhaps repeated ideas, aka themes are they putting out to you? And it might be totally separate. From what the stated objective was of their talk or speech or address, or if it's one-to-one, Hey, I'd like to talk to you about, you know, client engagement.

But really what you find is that they're trying to deal with absenteeism and the workplace, and specifically in your team. And so you start to pull on that and see that's important to them. And as they're talking the top left quadrant, we're gonna say that's the emotion. And oftentimes, as you know, Richard, when we're discussing, you know, having a conversation, one-on-one with somebody, or we're heightened on specific areas.

to us? What is it that we're [: 00:29:00

And on the bottom right, what we're gonna call that is, is the voice. And that's their pitch tone and cadence. And again, you're listening to everything. Why they, when they're saying these, you know, specific themes, what is it that the emotion is being talked about? And then their voice, is it going up, down?

Do they seem heightened when they're talking about this more rapid or they just slow? And then the bottom left quadrant, Richard, we're gonna, we're calling that body positioning and we're differentiating that from body language. Body language is, you know, more of a static event. And what we say in body positioning is that as people, we are constantly in motion.

when they're just, you know, [: 00:30:00

Now, can you imagine, Richard, is that after you've had that time and you've, you know, you've taken these quick notes and you go back to your home office, your desk, or wherever you are, and you go through that conversation, you find out that, alright, this was important to that person. This seemed they'd be really heightened here. They got very excited, you know, their body positioning was telling me that they are very engaged here and their voice went up when they were talking about this. Okay.

now, suggested that we start [: 00:31:00

Right? And so, and one of the things that Adele notices, and she says it is so true. I mean, we can count on one hand. I could probably count on two fingers the number of times that's happened to us. Right? We rarely get validated for what we're talking about, what we're dealing with, what's important to us, and if you can do that for somebody authentically, you know, not made up and not use to, you know, to just try to influence this person, but to do it in for the right reasons.

Can you imagine like the difference that you've made in that person's life, how much more connected they feel to you and that they feel heard and understood?

elling was one of the things [: 00:32:00

So you connect to people on an emotional level, right? And in a way where people feel really heard, which is natural for why you're doing podcasting, right? I mean, this all like kind of makes sense. It's all comes together.

Chip Massey: Yeah, that's true.

Richard Matthews: I just wanna push on a little bit and maybe discuss it a little bit because I think it's a really fascinating concept. And the first one I didn't realize I was doing this all the time, but you've mentioned the body positioning thing and one of the things I noticed, you probably noticed me doing this, I keep my hands visible on podcast shoulders and above.

You know, that's where we're at. I like to keep my hands visible 'cause it just gives more of the body language thing. And I just I didn't, I hadn't thought about it that, but it is the thing that I do all the time, right? And it's just 'cause it's part of how we communicate with each other.

he things set up that when I [: 00:33:00

And I just, you know, it just popped in my head while you were talking about that, that it's something that I actually actively do on calls is just try to make as much of our animated, part of our bodies available to be able to see, because it's an important part of communication. So that's just one, that's just a side note sort of point. I wanted to make for people. A lot of people are having to communicate this way nowadays. And then the other couple of things I wanted to point out and just maybe chat a bit, a little bit more about the first one is the difference between. In is between manipulation and what's the word I'm gonna look for?

Manipulation and influence. Right? And the difference between manipulation and influence, they're both persuasion, right? And so persuasion is a tool, it's like a hammer, right? You can use it to build a house or you can use it to bash someone's brain, right? Both of those things are things you.

Adele Gambardella: That is totally That what, Richard. use too. We use the same thing. Exactly.

I always talk about that is [: 00:34:00

Chip Massey: Yes.

Adele Gambardella: What's really interesting, Richard, though, is that we've been using these types of techniques at a very young age. Like, there was a study in our book called "On Judgment and Decision-Making" that said that kids develop their persuasion or convincing techniques as early as age six. And they're doing things like perceived value and supply and demand and like they're doing it when they're like candy trading on a playground for like Halloween candy.

anced. Like, I mean, my kids [: 00:35:00

Richard Matthews: As I watched a TikTok the other day and his little, like four-year-old kid and his dad. And it was obviously produced video, like the kid had been coached through this, but regardless, he gets up and the first scene is like how to persuade your parents.

And he walks up to his dad and he is like, dad, can I have ice cream, you know, before bed or whatever. And his dad's like, no, you can't have ice cream before bed. And then he, and then the kid's like, on camera, and he is like, here's how you persuade your parents, you don't have to go through this again.

Right? You can get ice cream whenever you want. And then it, it cuts to another scene where he walks up to his dad, who's still sitting on the counter in the kitchen and he goes, dad, it's been a long day and I really missed you at work today. I wanna sit down and and hear about your day. Can we uh, sit, you know, can we have ice cream at the dinner table? And, hear about your day and the at him and goes, yeah, of course that's really cool we get thet ice cream.

Chip Massey: Oh, Adele's got a great story for this Adele. Tell them.

it was horrendous. And she's [: 00:36:00

Richard Matthews: You're like, how can you even be mad? I ain't even mad, oh.

Adele Gambardella: Like even how I get mad?

Richard Matthews: My uh, I have a 4-year-old right now and she does something similar. She will go and get a, like, she'll go and get like, you know, I don't know if you like, it is just an example. Those like nutty buddies, they come with like two little like chocolate bar things and she'll go get one of those and she'll be like, I brought this nutty buddy for you. Right?

Adele Gambardella: Oh yeah.

Richard Matthews: She's like, they're really good and she wants to read. What she's trying to do is she's trying to get you to share it with her and she figures she gives you one that you'll get for the other one.

taking over the world soon. [: 00:37:00

Richard Matthews: Cracks me up. So the other thing that I wanted to touch on, right, so between the the persuasion you know, being a tool for good or evil, the other one that I wanted to touch on was the idea of active listening, right? And so, you broke it down into forensic listening and like the hostage negotiator bringing it down.

And I just wanted to share one of my ideas on active listening. One of the things that if people have watched the show for a long time, they'll watch me do it a lot. And I do it in the way that I communicate with my team when we communicate on sales calls, when we get on these podcasts. And it's a active listening technique, right?

n kind with a story of mine, [: 00:38:00

And so what happens there is that you're actually you develop a relationship based on how much of someone else's story, you know? Right? And so when you're going through, you know, and like our language reflects that. So if you have, you know, and a, stranger, if someone you don't know their name, you don't know their story, an acquaintance is someone, you know their name, but not their story.

A friend is someone, you know their name and you know some of their stories. A best friend is someone, you know their name and you know, so many of their stories that, like on a podcast you can say, Hey Adele, you have a story about this from, tell that one right. You guys know each other's stories so well that the only way to go and, you know, deepen your relationship is to create new stories together.

So in the context of a podcast like this, or in a call or communication, when you listen to someone's story and then find a story of your own and respond in kind with those stories, what you're doing is you're basically creating the friendship, right? Basically it's a relationship hacking technique to share stories with one another and that's how I've always reviewed active listening. I wanna give you thought's on that.

Adele Gambardella: Oh, I like that.

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: I like that.

of the key tenants that you [: 00:39:00

And that's something that it's so powerful that it can cut, you know, through the weeks, months, years it takes to develop a very close relationship like you were just talking about. But if you connect to somebody on an emotional level, you can shortcut that. And it was like one of our good friends, Jeff Hurt, said in a presentation, he would always say, remember Ditme and Ditme is, do I matter to you?

was important to them, man, [: 00:40:00

Right? And I agree wholeheartedly. It's so powerful.

Adele Gambardella: Yeah. Just to add to what I was saying before too, it's like kids have all these, like, you know, they have these foundational convincing and influence skills and one of the things is like most of us go through life and really don't try new techniques. Like the person who got their way sulking as a kid is going to be a boss that's gonna sulk their way into getting their employees to do what they want.

ng continuum and using fear, [: 00:41:00

There's all these different things that feel so uncomfortable to us because we're like, but everything else I've been doing has worked. But I would just say to the audiences, has it really worked or is it just, is it your default? You know, and like when we meet somebody, yeah, exactly. It's like when we meet somebody we don't like, we're like, meh, that person's a jerk. I don't like them. Not because I did anything wrong to influence their decision.

Richard Matthews: Right, like foundational I'm not sure, like qualities of humanity is that we push our society forward with this sort of like unending thought that it could be better, right? And that's where progress comes from, is we're always looking at it could be better. And we see that community like as a community of, as a species, but then individually what you're talking about is like, Hey, does it actually work?

our listening techniques or [: 00:42:00

Adele Gambardella: This is a little bit of macabre quote, but I've always thought it was really interesting. It's like at the end of your life you would meet yourself and that person would be the person that you used all your potential, and that's the person that you meet against yourself. It's like, did you reach your true potential?

Like, did you do everything you could to be the best version of yourself? And, you know, as a crazy ambitious person, and I think we all of us on this call are, and many of the listeners, right, which is why they're tuning into podcasts to better themselves. It's like, we all want to get to our best self, and you have to continue to push and things like how you influence others, how you convince others don't rest on your laurels.

convincing. I didn't think I [: 00:43:00

Richard Matthews: Like, oh, I got all sorts of things to learn. Makes me wanna read, I need to read the "Convince Me" book on that. And I, I wanna do one more thing on this before I move on to my next question, and it's just, it's something that you mentioned experimenting and kids not wanting to learn new things.

And it's one of the things that my wife and I do with our kids. We have four kids, so from like 4 to 14. And so we get lots of I always tell people our kids are our social experiments that we're sending out into the world.

Adele Gambardella: That's true.

Richard Matthews: And.

Adele Gambardella: That's great.

Richard Matthews: One of things that, like we do with our kids intentionally is we with negotiation tactics both for them and for each other. And so, like I mentioned, the nutty buddy thing. And so like we actually started buying snacks that came in pairs. This is just recently, and we started buying snacks came in pairs, and then teaching the kids, like if they wanted to snack, they needed to find someone that wanted to have a snack with them kind of thing.

a bar too kind of thing. And [: 00:44:00

And one of the things that I always am trying to do, both for myself and for my family, and then for my team, is like to give them more techniques in their toolbox to play with and to experiment with and to realize that like there's, I'm not sure why, but we always have this fear of trying new things 'cause it may not work out the way that we want. Like, but you can try again. Like you can try again if it didn't work.

Adele Gambardella: I love that.

Richard Matthews: Do it again. And so practice your stories, practice your negotiation techniques and you know, more at-bats, I guess, is you more at-bats you give yourself the more, the more freedom you have to experiment as you're going along.

Adele Gambardella: And try different things. They may surprise you, right? I mean like things that you would never have tried otherwise and you know, you take a chance on them and it was.

e this, doing sales calls or [: 00:45:00

And because you're in like, what do you call it, a low risk situation where, you know, if my active listening technique doesn't work with you guys, it's not gonna like, ruin my business or ruin our relationship.

Adele Gambardella: Great. It's just like somebody you just met. It's not gonna be a big deal. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I think is so fun is when I first started my business and I was like 31 when I started my business, right? So I was a pretty young entrepreneur and like, who am I coming onto the scene?

And I remember there was an older woman she must have been in her 50s. I mean, like I'm saying this when I was in my 30s. And I remember her walking up to me and being like, you need to become a known entity before you can talk the way you're talking about business. And I was like. No, I'm approaching her wrong, right?

off. So I actually wound up [: 00:46:00

And so I think many of us don't realize how we come across, right? And so, even like getting other people to tell us how do you perceive me, you know, and having an honest enough business partner or you know, or colleague or spouse or whatever, that person will tell you, Hey, this is how you're coming across.

Like, do you wanna come across this way? Like, do you wanna shift those perceptions? I mean, I think it's much easier to do that in business than it is in life, but you have opportunities to make those differences and make those changes. And like, if you just read our book and you change one or two or three things about how you convince people, I mean, worth the price.

, right, Richard, is that, I [: 00:47:00

And then you also, I had a similar journey with the candy arbitrage that you got into right in school, right? Where you're, you know, you had to convince your dad to get you the big box of candy so you could sell it at higher prices me too. And I think, and that's and you yourself, you know, understand that if I get a hold of different ways that I can be effective with people.

Then I know that is going to make me more successful than just about anything else in life. So I, yeah I just, I found that, so, you know, we're, the three of us really are all about a, on a convincing journey, I think. Yeah.

is one of the most important [: 00:48:00

And you put in, you gotta put the hard work with the talent together to get there. Communication is not that way. Communication you can develop. It's an exclusively developable skill, right? Because we come out of the womb has nothing to do with your body type or how tall you are and whether or not you're gonna get into the NBA or anything like that.

It's a hundred percent developable skill and it is, to my knowledge, one of the most potent skills that you can pick up. Because effective communication means that you can sell. It means that you can, you know, advance in your career. It means that you can create and you can put teams together. Like you, you're unstoppable if you learn to communicate.

is inverted pyramid. Always [: 00:49:00

Get it all out all at once so people pay attention. And actually like 40 years of convincing studies and social science say that is the absolute worst way to convince anyone of anything. Because if you start with your strongest point first all you do is make the person what dig their heels in. Yeah.

They just believe what they believe even more when you start with your, and then you have no place to go. Right? You have no place to go if you start with your strongest point. So what you really wanna do is start with the point of agreement and move the person down. So you start with their latitude of agreement and then, you know, you move them down the continuum a bit by bit.

what you wanna do is get the [: 00:50:00

And so you've gotta give them information and you've gotta question their certainty on something. And you can do that through using things like fud. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. Like certainty is one of the biggest barriers to convincing anyone of anything because they believe with the whole certainty that they know what they know.

And it's true. And what you're doing is you're coming in moving them along and you're then giving them just enough, right? And you're giving them just enough information so they're curious enough and we call that the convincing cliffhanger. They're curious enough to go look up something themselves and go find it themselves, and then all of a sudden they come back to you and the conversation changes 'cause they're looking at it from a new lens. You're unfreezing their cognitive biases.

this. And because I, I would [: 00:51:00

And the first one, the H is just like harness. It's like learning how to harness transformational systems, but it starts on the O. So the first one is observe the existing system. So if you're trying to convince something of someone new, you start with where they're at now, right? This is what you see and how you feel is the platitudes and the things that they're saying and thinking and feeling, right?

And you're starting that yes chain, right? So it's observe the existing system and then the next one is to outline the fail points, right? So like where does that existing system fail for people, right? Does it fail now? Does it fail because of technology? Does it fail for certain types of people or in certain situations, right?

So you find the fail points, then you ask a question, and the question is essentially, why does it fail? And what if we changed something, right? And so what if we change something here? What if we change something there? And then you're going to essentially offer a theoretical solution, right?

heoretical solution as the E [: 00:52:00

And then you can actually dive in and teach that system. And it's all built on that persuasive psychology of like, you're not starting with your strongest point. You're starting with the existing system, what they already know, and then moving them through that series of things. And it sounds to me like you guys are teaching something very similar probably with different names.

Adele Gambardella: It is, I think. Yeah, it certainly is. I mean, I think the convincing cliffhanger is a lot like what you talked about, where you're offering them a solution. But the interesting thing about, I think our approach there is they might be slightly different or maybe the same in some ways, is you get them to make the hypothesis and bring it back to you.

ow you even position and the [: 00:53:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. I know we spent a long time here talking about your superpowers. I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about fatal flaw. All right. And just like every Superman has this kryptonite or wonder woman can't remove her bracelets of victory without going mad, you probably have a flaw that's held you back in growing your business.

You struggled with. For me, I struggled with long time with perfectionism. Kept me from shipping product or getting things out. I also struggled with a lack of self-care, which generally came out in working too much and not having good boundaries with my clients. But I think more important than what the flaw is how have you guys worked to overcome that so you can actually build what you wanna build here with "Convince Me".

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: I know what mine is.

, this was also ingrained in [: 00:54:00

Chip Massey: You know, you don't go around boasting about your accomplishments and what you've done and so forth. And you certainly don't do that in the bureau. I mean, you keep your head down and you work, and it's a team effort. You never say I, never. And so the idea here is when I started out on my own before I met Adele man, I was having a horrible time trying to describe to people what I could do for them and why I, you know, as a result of what I went through could help them.

It just wasn't connecting because I wasn't comfortable telling the story about, well, this is why I know it works, because I did, you know, 1, 2, 3. And when I started working with Adele, she realized it like right away. Like, you got a problem that's gotta be fixed. You know? And so, because you know, her work in advertising, she just knew Instantly, this is never gonna fly unless you can get comfortable with this.

Adele Gambardella: [: 00:55:00

But he didn't

Chip Massey: No, that's the thing is that Richard, you know this, right? It's a team effort, but I had to get comfortable saying, yeah, but you were part of the team ship, right? Is what Adele would say. I'm like, yeah. So, okay, let's talk about that. Right?

Adele Gambardella: He still won't do it.

Chip Massey: Yeah, I can't stand but there are other parts that I got better at, you know, with doing that. So, any rate, was long.

Richard Matthews: So.

Chip Massey: That Adele, what do you got?

Adele Gambardella: Oh my God. I would say it is that I am too fast, right? Like I think that's one of the things. I mean, sometimes I wanna take on six projects at one time, and I am taking on six projects at one time. And like, the weird part for me is I work better that way. And I think when I used to stop myself, I used to say, okay, you can't take all these projects on at once.

you know, slow myself down. [: 00:56:00

So when I'm giving instruction to someone and I'm going like, 80 miles an hour, I'll stop and I'll be like, here's the outline of what I have in mind. Here's how I'm visually seeing this at the end, because I'm already at the end and they're in the beginning, you know?

m like, okay. I took that to [: 00:57:00

Richard Matthews: It's the flip side of your superpower, right? It's like you have the speed, but you also then have the speed and the thing that, 'cause I'm similar, right? I'm very fast paced and I'm always like my family, my wife even is like, okay, you're already like, you know, three years into the future you gotta come back to where we are today.

And I'm like, yeah, but I'm done with that.

Adele Gambardella: Bring it back.

Richard Matthews: I'm already.

Adele Gambardella: Yeah. Like I'm already good.

Richard Matthews: So yeah, I already figured it out. And like, I, this, I have a similar kind of a problem where like, once I've figured out the solution to a problem, I no longer care about solving it, even though it's not solved yet. I just solved it in my head.

Adele Gambardella: Yes. Yes, totally. I'm like, why haven't you gotten yet.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, you gotta have implementers there to help you with that. But I wanna just give you something that I think was really helpful for me in that since we sort of share that is for me it was learning how to say no first. Was a really important skill in learning how to say yes.

And if it's outside of this [: 00:58:00

And now, 'cause my problem with saying yes too much before I learned that, you know, how important the no was I was saying yes to things that didn't necessarily move us forward or didn't help us get where we to go. And so one of my good friends and mentors now he's the director of marketing for the Pokemon Company in the U.S and you know, he's added like 8 billion a month.

Adele Gambardella: Fun.

Richard Matthews: Right? So when he says things, I listen. But he said like, if you wanna grow your business. He's like, essentially, after you've learned to say no, then say yes until it hurts and then fix the pain. And so.

Adele Gambardella: Interesting. I love that.

re the people that I need to [: 00:59:00

So the pain is no longer there, but the action is still happening. And.

Adele Gambardella: Oh my god. We have the same thought process. I do the same thing. I do all those things that you're, I've had the same problems and I've solved them in similar ways. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I find with that, what you just talked about too was also like, I'm, and this is the death of the entrepreneur and Chip is like this too, right?

He's caught at a lot of things. I mean, he can help people with a lot of things. It's like deciding what the things are that you're going to focus in on, right. Is hard because we could do a lot of things right. We could do a lot of things and so, it's hard to know what to focus.

Richard Matthews: I could help people with, you know, website copywriting, writing books, building masterminds. We've built several multi-million dollar businesses over the past, the course of the last 15 years. And, you know, but, and I can say yes to all those things and still sometimes to much to my own chagrin still do.

ing in the podcasting world. [: 01:00:00

Adele Gambardella: I love that. That's amazing. Yeah, and that's the same thing for me, when I went from like communications doing all kinds of public relations work to crisis communications, I'm like, anything related to a problem that a business is occurring, I want to know about that. I don't wanna do any of the positive stuff.

And so what wound up happening me was some of the positive stuff just still came, but like it was always wrapped up in the problem. And I much preferred.

Chip Massey: That's true.

Adele Gambardella: know, I much preferred that. And I think Chip and I are, we're on the cusp too. Like we're on the edge with our business where we're really saying no to a lot of trainings that don't make sense for us.

a workshop. We'd rather do a [: 01:01:00

Right tip.

Chip Massey: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. It makes a lot of sense now with what we're experiencing. Yeah.

Richard Matthews: So I'm wanna flip in and talk a little about what you mentioned as Chip with a fatal flaw. And that was the whole bringing yourself forward in your own story. And I think, you know, we are told all the time that there's no I in team, right? Like, that's the pat answer from people.

There's no I in team and I've always hated that because first off, it's not true. A team is made up of I's, right? It's made up of individuals. And you know, I always bring this back to our, you know, our, the one thing you're not supposed to talk about in the world is politics, right? With people. But politically you have both sides of our spectrum.

perience doesn't work unless [: 01:02:00

And so that's where one of the things that we talk a lot about just on this podcast and in the stuff that we talk about with our storytelling with you know, all of our clients, is that you are important to the work that you do. Your perspective has value you. The way that you tell your story has value to other people.

And you know, whether it's politics or it's storytelling or it's team building or wherever it is, the individual is required to build the community, right? It's required to build the team. And so your thoughts, your perspective, your experiences are valuable to the community in whatever context the community comes up in.

t's all just measurements of [: 01:03:00

And so community is the same way. Community doesn't really exist, right? Community is only a collection of individuals, right? And when we get a collection of individuals on a business thing, we call that a team, right? Or they are it's a term that we use to describe a collection of individuals.

And then you realize that both are vitally important, right? You can't have teams, you can't have communities, you can't have culture without individuals. And so you have to hold both of those up. And so for people like you and I know I struggled with this for a long time 'cause I grew up with that whole mentality of, you know, there is no I in team that learning to tell your own story it's not just useful. It's vital to the success of the team and is vital to the success of whatever the community's goal is.

Chip Massey: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff.

nd nemesis. And it's a thing [: 01:04:00

So in the world of convinced me, I wanna put it in the context of your clients, people that you've worked with, and it's a mindset or a flaw that you're constantly having to fight to overcome so you can actually get them the result that they came to you for. So in your world of crisis management, what is the common enemy?

Adele Gambardella: People believe they know how to handle it and they don't.

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Whatever their instinct is wrong. Like, I mean, like it is and a lot of leaders really fall into this where they're really good at their job. They're just not good at managing a crisis. And it's not to say that they're not good at managing their team 'cause they might be, but they just don't know how to handle the issue that is presented.

[: 01:05:00

Chip Massey: Oh, it's so true. And I, again, it's one of those things I didn't know until I got into this world and Adele showed me, you know, the kinds of things that people will just raise up as an obstacle that doesn't need to be there, right? It's the of their own making. It's an impediment that they've put in place and they think it's a real thing and it's, they think it's external, but it is totally internal and it's something that they created.

And it's the only way through it is through let's drop this idea of what it's, what a Dell coins as the fairness fallacy. It's so unfair that this happened. We were doing everything right. This is just one thing and it's been blown outta proportion or whatever it is. Yeah, it sucks. You should spend about five minutes doing that and then getting to, alright, here's how we can help.

But it's that leap, right? that's

Adele Gambardella: Is [: 01:06:00

Chip Massey: Is that leap of like, alright, I'm ready to get to solve. Now how do I do it? What do I have to do? And that takes, that

Adele Gambardella: One of our clients said that he, he wanted to throw his cell phone in the ocean. When we were giving him advice, he's like, I'm so freaking pissed at you guys. I wanna throw my cell phone in the ocean. And then we finally brought him around and he solved it. Yeah. So.

Richard Matthews: Relevant or not. I'm gonna just say it and maybe it's, you know, I four kids in our last one is just finishing her toddler years. It almost sounds to me like one of the strategies we use with our toddlers is, you know, they have big emotions and, you know, you have to feel the big emotions and then get it outta your system so we can move on to the solution.

And that's take the minutes, [: 01:07:00

Chip Massey: That's so terrible.

Adele Gambardella: That's great.

Chip Massey: That's cool, Richard. Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Or if you grew up in my house, it was like, get over it. Don't feel anything. Fix your face. What's your problem?

Richard Matthews: The pity party is my favorite. It only works when they're young because then like as they get older, like my fourteen-year-old's, like, I'm not throwing a pity party with your dad. That's stupid. Like my four-year-old is so here for a pity party, right?

Adele Gambardella: I mean, if I can, I call you up and have a pity fun.

Richard Matthews: I mean, absolutely. If you need to have a pity party, I'm here for you. but for, for me, it's just,

Adele Gambardella: It's a service you honor.

Richard Matthews: It's just an acknowledgement that like, yes, we have the fields, right? They are there and you have to sort of acknowledge the feels, but then you can move on to like, what's the truth of this situation and what, how do we need to deal with it?

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Yeah.

Chip Massey: Cool.

ays part of the train. Every [: 01:08:00

So the flip side of your common enemy is your driving force, right? So just like Spider-Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights index and categorize all the world's information. What is it that you guys are fighting for with "Convince Me"? What's your mission?

Chip Massey: I think, you know, one of the things I, I, I, again, I am, and this is why I was so, you know, just excited to work with Adele is that she got excited by the same kind of concepts that I did and bringing them in into the world. And I love the fact that everything that we've been working on, either with crisis clients or the immersive training or the book on convincing strategies, everything works right.

r sales and in better client [: 01:09:00

Adele Gambardella: They're tested.

Chip Massey: Yeah. In both of our disciplines and it's, that's to me, ultimately the thing that I can be, it's both a source of pride and it's excitement because, you know, every, there's a new challenge around the corner every day, so that's for me.

Adele Gambardella: I guess I would say also that it's just so exciting to see it come to life. Yeah, right. Like what you're saying too, like in a book, in a training and people walk away and they're happy and they're excited and they're changed. That's really, you know, if we can do that just for, you know, some folks, if we come in contact with and I think we've done what we're supposed to do.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, it's the ripple effect. You're leaving with people, right? Like once they learn these skills, it changes who they are and everything that they touch from that point forward for the better.

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Great.

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Good stuff.

: That's one of the things I [: 01:10:00

We persuade people every day where it's like, which you persuading your toddler to eat their, what do you call 'em, their greens, or getting your mom to take you to the movies when you're a kid or whatever it is. There's always persuasion.

Adele Gambardella: All and stuff. Yeah. It's in everything we do.

Richard Matthews: Right? Things are not gonna go, you know, as much as we would like to go through life with rose-colored classes, shit happens. And so you're gonna have crisis at some point, learning how. Just makes, the world go round in a better place.

The hero show will be right back.

business. Doesn't have to be [: 01:11:00

You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just. Getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways cuz you know how powerful it is. Heck, you've probably even tried some of those automated solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap.

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g an audio and video podcast [: 01:12:00

Again, that's push button podcast.com/hero. See you there.

And now back to the Hero show.

Richard Matthews: So I think that's a good place to get to our last question I have for you here, which is your guiding principles, right? One of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never ever kills his enemies. I just learned recently, Spider-Man always pulls his punches. He doesn't want to kill people. So, you know, as we wrap up the interview, when I talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life maybe something that you wish you had known when you first started out on your own entrepreneurial journey.

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Oh my gosh, Chip.

it that's one of the harder [: 01:13:00

And Adele does usually within five seconds when we go, you know, and we work with a company or whatever, it's pretty evident. She knows immediately it, and part of that is gonna be, there's gonna be a big ugly frog. They're gonna have to swallow somewhere down the line that usually got them there in the first place.

And they don't wanna do that thing. And they will, you know, Richard, they'll talk about everything else under the sun, but that one thing that they absolutely must do in order to break through that obstacle. And they'll do everything, but, and Adele will keep bringing it back.

that truth. And I think that [: 01:14:00

And that cannot be understated in business because not everybody's able to do that and not able to do it quickly. And what's business based on? It's about people, right? And so if you're not able to make that connection and not able to know when that perfect time is to give someone what they maybe don't wanna hear or what they need to hear, hugely important.

And Chip can do that in really, and he can do that so well. And I've learned so much from him in that as well.

Richard Matthews: Chip, I call that super power empathy. I don't know if that's where you would put it. But that's one of the things is being able to understand the other person and then communicate and operate in ways that they understand and will accept. Not one of my skills, but one of my best friends skills, and I see it regularly.

s the thing that you need to [: 01:15:00

Chip Massey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, and

Adele Gambardella: Takes all kinds, you know?

Chip Massey: but she, she won't and, and she won't give up and back down in the face of look, you're just obviously not the right, you know, team for us, we're gonna move on. Adele's like, maybe not. I wish you luck. You know, and that's, and they.

Adele Gambardella: Which is bad.

Chip Massey: And no, no, no, it's good because ultimately they know like, dang, you know, there was a lot of money on the line and she was willing to walk away from that. They remember and respect that. And that's, the difference I think is that you know, you hold so tight to the convictions of what you know is in their best interest.

Adele Gambardella: And that's why the crisis business is lured to referral because it is other people being like, she helps me, they helped me through hell. And you need to talk to them. Right? Like it was, I mean, we, when we get a referral, it's like, you need to talk to them. It's like,

Chip Massey: how, That's how it comes out. Exactly.

Adele Gambardella: Is how comes out. Like talk to a township, like you need to call 'em immediately.

ws: So I think that's a good [: 01:16:00

Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come share their story with us on The Hero Show? First person that comes to mind for you guys.

Adele Gambardella: Oh my gosh. I think Corrine is great with her. You know, Corrine and Barry, they have a great story. They grew a business from a government contracting at a time when that was just it was a really hard time to break in. It's always been a hard time to break in, but they were able to build their business and successfully grow it really with relationships and trust.

And I think they're great. They're a great entrepreneurial team.

Richard Matthews: Well, I'll see if we can reach out afterwards and maybe get an introduction to them. We don't always get them to say yes when we do. They tend to be really good podcast interviews. So in comic books there's always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism.

signal, so to speak and say, [: 01:17:00

Adele Gambardella: Yeah, so we're focused on Fortune 500 companies. Typically companies that make over 20 million or more in revenue is about the range at which we start to talk to folks. And you can reach us on our website, ConvincingCompany.com.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us today, guys. I know it was perhaps a little hectic with three people on the interview and I, 'cause we, I don't do that often. Hopefully I did well with that managing two people. Uh,

Adele Gambardella: You were great.

Chip Massey: Yeah. We appreciate.

Richard Matthews: uh, But I really appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your story and just talking about what it is you guys do with crisis management and persuasion and just communication in general.

So what I wanna do here, we'll make sure that the links for the "Convince Me" is in the uh, thing and the links for the book. Are you guys on like Amazon? Do you guys have the Audible version done already?

Adele Gambardella: We are. And Richard, I'm gonna have to run 'cause I have to go get my kids from school 'cause it's 5:30 on the East coast. So they're,

Chip Massey: Yeah.

Adele Gambardella: Primed and ready to go. Okay. Thanks so much.

hews: Bye, Adele. So, is the [: 01:18:00

Chip Massey: Yes, it is. It's out. It's exactly. It's at Amazon. Barnes, &, Noble, wherever. Right. People can get it.

Richard Matthews: Perfect. Well then I look forward to you know, we could put the links to the book below for you guys. And again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Um, do you have any, uh, final words of wisdom for the audience for hit this uh, stop record button.

Chip Massey: No. All good, Richard. Thank you.

Richard Matthews: Okay. Thank you, Chip.

​

[: 01:19:00