Brenden Kumarasmy On How To Be A Top 1% Communicator (#149)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast. I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience.

Your liquidity event is the largest and most important financial transaction of your life.

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Let the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience and our nine-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the maximum value for your liquidity event.

At the end of this episode, take a moment to hear from business owners, just like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience.

 Brenden Kumarasamy is the founder of Master Talk. Brenden coaches ambitious executives and entrepreneurs to become the top 1% communicators in their industry. He also has a popular YouTube channel called Master Talk with the goal of providing free access to communication tools for everyone in the world.

Welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. And for all you business owners out there who are thinking of having a liquidity event, I bet dollars to donuts your worst nightmare is that when it's time to make that big presentation where your financial future, the future wellbeing of your liquidity event hinges on it that you're going to flub it.

And maybe you even have a fear of public speaking. And here's another loaded question for you. What would you do to become the top 1% communicator in your industry? Does it sound too good to be true or is there something too that is fact is stranger than fiction? So Brenden, welcome to the podcast, such a pleasure to have you with us today. There's always a story behind the story. Brenden, what's your story, what got you to where you are today?

[00:02:45] Brenden Kumarasmy: Fantastic, intro Jeffrey. Wonderful to be here. Thanks so much for having me on and yeah, absolute story. Great way to start this off. So when I was in university Jeff, I used to do these things called chase competitions. Think of it like professional sports but for nerds. So while other guys, my age were playing rugby or basketball, or football, some other sport that you probably wouldn't see me playing.

I did presentations competitively. That's where I learned how to speak. And then as I got older, I started coaching students on how to communicate ideas effectively because I realized they wanted to win these competitions and they didn't have a coach. And the last experience was when I was a venture capitalist, I was a part of a student-run VC fund called Real Ventures.

You have an arm called Front Row ventures in Canada and being a student investor I had to source a lot of deals for technology startups that the fund would invest in. And I realized a lot of the CEOs that I worked with were younger at the time were really good at building technology products, but terrible at communicating their stack in a way that someone who's non-technical when they're raising capital would understand it.

So all of those ideas led to the creation of Master Talk because I realized that a lot of the information I knew about communications wasn't available for free on the internet. So I started making videos in my basement a few years later, turned to what it is.

[00:03:55] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Hold on. Stop the presses. Did I hear you say that you're a VC?. I love that in granted in school and you're doing all that, but welcome to your home, Brenden. Like it doesn't get any better here in The Sell My Business Podcast. We're going to talk communications maybe we'll go into a little bit on the VC side.

But first on communication. So let's talk a little bit about this. So you started doing this back in school, you started helping students, then you graduated and now you're doing what you're doing. So Brenden, when you're out there and you're working with professionals, Let's look at it from two vantage points, you and I were entrepreneurs and the glass is always half full.

We don't even know what a glass that's half-empty looks like. So let's talk about that for just a moment. If you look at business owners and when they're making presentations and they're coming to you, what would be the top, maybe two or three fatal mistakes that we tend to make?

[00:04:45] Brenden Kumarasmy: Absolutely. So I would say in the context of business owners, Jeffery, the number one mistake by far with business owners is they do not make their communication skills a priority in their business. And the reason that is the case is simply because they have so many things to think about. Especially business owners who are doing under a million because they're focused on every part of the value chain and they don't have enough resources to hire employees.

So I'll give you a super easy example to help us understand this. Let's say you're a business owner doing six figures and multiple six, you're doing sales and delivery of your product or service most likely. So you're focused on getting more clients you're focusing on bringing more oxygen into the business.

You're not focused on communicating more effectively or thinking about it more proactively and then, but the problem is, especially for the business owners, who've already scaled is communication becomes much more of a burning bridge because the communication between where you started within the business versus where you are today, let's say seven figures plus essentially means you're delegating most of the work that you used to do as an entrepreneur, to people who have zero exposure or some exposure into the business and your unique way of operating some procedures within the company.

So if you don't master communication, You're not able to have those micro conversations to quickly upscale people that you're hiring to replace you in the business. So you can focus on bigger strategic work for the company's long-term success. So that's the biggest problem that I see with businesses.

They don't make it a number one priority.

[00:06:05] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Brenden I love that. And you know what, let's scale this a little bit. And for the business owners out there, I don't care if you're a six figures or if you're a nine figures, because it applies all the way through, but Brenden, with what you're saying as business owners, if we don't make communications a priority as we scale, as we grow, as we begin to hire people, it sounds like what you're saying is, as a business owner, I'm saying well, you know, what So-and-so will just speak for me. I don't really have to work on this. I can just work on the business stuff. Someone else is going to be a better speaker than me, but and this is the big one.

When it comes to liquidity event, you can't outsource that. You need to be part of that presentation. And so making communication a priority right from the beginning it just sounds like the gold standard, but what can they start doing today to make communications a priority for them that they can be that top 1%?

[00:06:52] Brenden Kumarasmy: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question. It's really about setting that burning bridge to understand what that means in the liquidity event. So I'll give you an example at the eight, nine-figure level. A lot of the companies I've seen that exited those multiples and at those numbers, they have to stay in the company for a couple of months, to even a couple of years, to make sure that the exit is smooth in the transition.

But part of that means selling your story as the CEO of the business. What is your competency? Why did you start it? What is the key around? a Great example I can give is Alex Hormozi recently when he's sold many of his companies he had to stay on and some of the business, he's not a hundred percent actively managing the company anymore, but he's still an advisor.

So part of what your saying Jeffrey like completely agree with is even if you're exiting your business, you need to know the story behind the company's origins, where it's going, and the future potential of the business so that it's attractive to a potential buyer and you have to have lead those conversations yourself because you're the one talking to the bankers.

You're the one talking to all of those relationships because you're the person selling the dream of the business to somebody else.

[00:07:57] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Brenden, when you're working with business owners and you're helping them on the communication side do you focus at all on the narrative as well or is it just on the communication side of things?

[00:08:07] Brenden Kumarasmy: Great question. So I would say it depends on the context Jeffery. So let's say someone's operating a business and they want to just become better communicators within the organizations. I would say in that context, the focus is a lot more on communication techniques because even entrepreneurs, a lot of those business owners, they don't have the foundations. The filler words, the pasting, the vocal tone variety, and the reason that's a specialty kit, that level is it's not necessarily what you're communicating. That's important too, but the perception from your employees and other stakeholders on how you're coming across is just as important.

So that's the one piece. The other piece from around narrative is I would say for me, my specialization has mostly been technology CEOs of raising capital. That's where a lot of my narrative work comes into play because when these tech CEOs are going to different VC funds, or different investment vehicles to raise capital seed Series A primarily that's mostly what I've focused on in my career.

When the raising capital, they have to sell the story of their business and specifically why they're the jockey to solve that problem moving forward because there could be, let's say 10 companies with the same thesis for where the world's going, but it's up to that one specific person to jockey to say, hey no, this is my problem to solve.

I'm going to fix this in the same way just give an easy examples people can understand this, like the founding team of Airbnb there's a lot of people had that idea, but it was their thesis, their perspective on how that business was going to scale and the timing around that business and how they resolving their own problem that really made them the jockey to solve that.

[00:09:38] Jeffrey Feldberg: What a terrific story, what a terrific narrative that you have Brenden. And for our listeners, let's look at it from the perspective of that investor or of that buyer. In the 90-day, Deep Wealth Experience, step number three, it's all about the future buyer, and for the business owners that have come out of The Deep Wealth Experience, they know, hey, I can no longer be selfish and think like a seller.

I need to start thinking like an investor, like a buyer. So Brenden let's reverse engineer it with the investors and buyers that you've spoken to. And when you're putting together that narrative and the whole communication skills side of things, what are you finding really moves the dial for a buyer to hear.

And I know you could easily say Jeffrey, it depends on the company and it can get very specific, but let's talk best practices in terms of trust and that credibility hey, you know what? I can see myself doing business with Brenden. I love what I'm hearing seems like a terrific guy. What are they looking for from your experience to have them come to that conclusion?

[00:10:33] Brenden Kumarasmy: Absolutely. I was about to respond that way, but I'm glad you jumped in with that pretext. So I'll answer it then feel free to jump in with the follow-up Jeffrey. Glad to hear from you. So I would say there's three key pieces that we want to think about as founders in that situation where we're pitching to investors.

The first one is unique founder perspective. So, What do I mean by that? I call it founder point of view. Where, what is the point of view that you have as the business owner that is unique and special that ideally the person standing in front of you, hasn't heard before, or as understood it in the way that you currently understand it.

So when you explain your business from a perspective that not many people think about you derive new types of insights, I'll give you a simple example. Let's say you take somebody like Elon Musk when he thought about his company with climate change and I'm quoting from Peter Thiel's Zero to One, which is a fantastic read on How to Build the Future.

And especially in the technology space which is my prime expertise. He talks a lot about how, why Tesla was one of the few climate-change companies that actually stood out in the marketplace. And the main reason behind that is Elon understood that climate change wasn't just about saving people's lives is about still at the core creating a product or service that people absolutely wanted.

And what Elon realized is that at the end of the day, people want to buy sexy cars at high premium prices. So before he got to a place where he could create a car that was you know, low margin that a lot of people could use in the mass market he realized earlier in the game that he had to create a high premium product at a high price points with people like Leonardo DiCaprio, feel good about themselves when they buy that car.

And what's interesting is that unique perspective. Is what allowed Elon to not only communicate his unique thunder point of view, but obviously he had a track record to prove it to from previous exits, but that was the unique ethos, the secret sauce behind Tesla's success. Whereas everyone else focused too much on solving climate change and not exactly creating a product to service that the customer actually wanted.

So that's the first piece that I want tackle. The second piece after founder point of view is traction. And this is what I tell all my level technology clients is the perspective that you want to give to any investor is that your rocket ship taking off, regardless if you get that person's money or not.

Cause I got 17 other meetings that week. So when you give that aura, that perspective, you don't need to be cocky. You don't need to be obnoxious, but you want to clearly communicate progress. And this is something I find, especially women CEOs don't do enough of. And the reason is because we're taught as individuals, not to brag about ourselves, not to showcase our accomplishments.

I'll give you a quick example here, Jeffrey, super clear and concise for people. Let's say you take Founder A. Founder A jumps in and says yeah as far as the company, you're a go, we're doing two or $3 million a year and we're poised for growth, and let's say, that's the story. You're already tuned out versus let's say founder B, it goes something like this.

We started the company in January and we've raised X number of dollars. We already have X number of users. And this is our plan for the next 18 months is our growth targets is everything that we've had so far. And we've already raised half of our round. We're already 50% subscribed. So notice how, when we're communicating that progress, it really makes us feel like we want to be invested.

And then the last piece on this is what is the number one reason why investors invest in companies. It is a hundred percent without a hint of doubt, FOMO. The Fear Of Missing Out. If one of my buddies is investing in this company and I'm not my biggest fear is the VC, especially from that context, is that I'm going to miss out because everyone has an L in that industry, everyone has a startup that was in front of them.

That was a billion-dollar company that they said no to. And your goal and your narrative, the way you're communicating an idea is to prove to them that you're the one they're going to miss out on.

[00:14:20] Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay, stop the presses. All of our listeners stop what you're doing right now. I want you to take that last clip of what Brenden just said, and just memorize that. Just listen to the 24/7 until you can say that verbatim because Brenden, wow. You just hit that out of the park and we really are talking the same language at Deep Wealth.

We use different words. But if I go back to the three areas that you're talking about the founder point of view, love that we call that WII.FM, the world's favorite radio station, the what's in it for me radio station. So you're really asking yourself, what does the buyer want to do? What's going to move the dial for the buyer.

And I love the example that you gave with Elon Musk, where you said, hey, he is doing two things. He's having the rich and the successful and the wealthy and the famous feel good about themselves or doing something for the environment. But they're driving around in this really pricey, snazzy kind of car.

 And then with the traction, the traction, and the FOMO to me, I grouped together because you're talking about scarcity, as humans, we always want what we can't have.. And so I just love how, when you build into your narrative eloquently, so you're not putting it in someone's face, you just happened to be mentioning it.

The subtext is, hey, if you miss out on this don't think too long here, because if you don't do it, somebody else is and you're going to regret it. We're already in your example, hey, we're 50% subscribed and moving quickly.

So you've given us from the flip side of what buyers are looking for with the founder point of view, the traction, and the FOMO.

I love it. Those are our three strategies we should all be incorporating in what we're doing. Let's now flip it. So let's go to the business owner side of things. So they've done the homework. They've even worked with you, Brenden and they've got these strategies down path, the delivery side of things, because you gave the two examples and the first example that you gave, I was falling asleep and I had to wake up when you started saying, okay, speaker number two.

Ah, okay the guy's done. Let's listen to what this other guy is doing. What kind of techniques or strategies do we need to do for ourselves to become dynamic speakers at top 1% in the industry? Can you share a little bit of your secret sauce?

[00:16:23] Brenden Kumarasmy: Oh, I can share all of it. Jeffery don't worry information is always free, that's the key. So here's the way I think about this, especially in the context of your audience. Let me point out a few things. Number one is everything that me and Jeffrey just shared, don't be worried about it. This should actually be a joke for you if you're already a successful business owner.

And the reason it's a joke is because your business is already successful. It's not a question of, oh my goodness. Do I have all of the right components? No. The question is I have all the right ideas. I have the answers, but am I framing those answers? Am I packaging those answers in the right way?

So I want to make sure that context is understood. So everyone listening to this, especially if you're doing 7, 8, 9, your business is working. You have the leverage of that meeting, not the person who's buying your business. You're the one who knows the business better than them. You've spent more hours. And then do you understand the core customers better?

You just need to show that certainty show that power that you do with your employees, the people you're managing, the people already believe in you to strangers you don't yet know. It's how do you bring, how do you transfer the trust that your employees already have in you, that all of your initial buyers, all of your investors, the people, or your customers already trust and believe in you and how do you just transfer that equal amount of certainty into people you don't know?

It's just a question about transferring, not creating something new. That's the first piece, the second piece to delivery and this is my ethos whenever I coach people is do the harder thing. So one exercise that I go through that people can just implement is called question drills.

Question drills are very simple and I'll use myself as an example here. As we've always been in a situation, even if we know our businesses inside out where somebody asks us a question that we don't hundred percent know the answer to, or the different way of looking at the problem that we didn't initially think of question drills, help us bulletproof our presentations in the sense that every time you're preparing for a meeting or you have high stakes communication situations, which in this case, raising capital would be one of them exiting, liquidating, having conversations with bankers would be another one. Since it's a small world and word spreads fast, you want to make sure that when you get into those meetings, you're get hitting the home run. So what does that mean? That means sit down with the most critical people you know. I like mean better. People are nice in the sense that they want to see you mean, but they're rude like I like people are critical.

And what you do is you spend time with them. And their only goal when you're pitching your business is to break you. They try and find questions. They just throw at you. What about this? What about this? What about this? You think about this, what's your go-to market five years from now, what's this? And they start drilling you with a bunch of questions and here's the secret sauce. You won't know the answer to 50% of those questions if you do the extras correctly, but since you're in a safe environment where there's no investors in there, these are your buddies, your trusted friends, or, you know, the people that you're coaching, that safe environment where no one is judged.

What happens is you start to get an answer for everything. Why? Because if you don't know the answer, all you gotta do is ask Jeffrey. Cause if Jeffery is in front of you and he's the one doing the drills and example, let's say if he was in the room. If you're asking, let's say and I'm the CEO being attacked on with questions.

If I don't know the answer, I just ask you, hey Jeffrey, that's a great question. How would you approach this if you were me? And then you start giving me your insights and I take notes on this, and then I'll give you a killer strategy with question drills that nobody does, especially in the tech space, like bothers me so much to an extent is if you have an answer to a question, just make a backup slide on it.

So that way you don't forget it. So let's say we're going through a question and we figure out an answer, make a backup slide. You don't need to present all of that to investors, but if you're in a situation where you forget like your memories is not as clear with one of the questions you practice, you can bring up slide 367, and boom, the answers right there.

And it helps you paraphrase and you look way answer is professional. Third piece that I'll go through cause I don't like excuses. Think about me and Jeffrey. I started coaching CEOs when I was 22 years old. And I was like mentioning that cause it sets like a burning platform. And the reason I mentioned that is why am I so proficient at communication?

Why am I able to communicate at a level that someone who's 50 would be communicating with that long experience? It's because when I started my business, I had my friends asked me 5, 600 questions about communication. It's because not because I'm smart than anyone not because I'm unique. It's because I drilled more than anyone else in my industry.

And that's why I'm able to communicate at the same level as you on this podcast. And that's what I encourage all of you. I always like saying that story, because if I'm willing to do that my age, imagine what you can all do, who are listening to this. All of you have so much more experience. You have so much more wisdom.

You've already spent 10, 15 years painstakingly building your businesses. So you can do a simple question drill for 30 minutes a day.

[00:21:07] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow Brenden, there is so much to unpack there with those three points, but man, you've just been doling out, not the goal, the platinum, as I like to say on the podcast here, it's amazing what you're putting out there and for our listeners, the takeaways are just one after the other. And the first point that you talk about hey, business owner, you have a successful business. So why are you worrying so much about this? Have fun and if it doesn't work out, you're going back to your amazing business. And so you're coming from a position of strength, but Brenden, you also mentioned the T word or the currency because currency in business it's not money they're currency it's trust. Can I trust you? Can you trust me? Because if you don't have trust, nothing's going to happen you're not going to get new clients. You're not going to be able to get any deals that are done. So getting that trust to come out through the communications and how you're telling that narrative is key.

But then I like what you said for steps two and steps three for the question drill and just preparation. And as you're talking about that and for all the listeners out there, pick your favorite action movie or your favorite superhero, whatever it is that moves the dial for you.

 I'm just picturing that superhero, just practicing in the gym, out, climbing the mountains, or, climbing and doing the pushups and the pull-ups and all those things just practicing and becoming better internally. So when you're out there doing your thing, you're just rocking it. But really when all is said and done Brenden, hearing you say is it's all in the preparation that you're doing. And the other big takeaway, who are you hanging around with? Are you hanging around really smart and successful people who know the questions to ask you that you can learn from? Or are you just wasting your time with people who just aren't doing that?

So let's talk about when you're seeing business owners who are coming to you and they're saying, okay, you know what, Brenden, yeah, I heard you on the podcast. I'm doing most of what you're saying. I just want to take it to the next level. You know, I'm pretty good.

Help refine me. Just get me to that from maybe I'm in the top 20% of the top 1% now. So when you see business owners that are like, yeah, I've done a gazillion presentations, come on, I've bought and sold companies and it's not a big deal. I do this all day long. Brenden, tell me something. I don't know?

What is it that we don't know that you can share with us?

[00:23:11] Brenden Kumarasmy: That's a beautiful question, Jeffrey. I love that. So let's go ahead and define top 1% because I love what you said is fact or fiction. So I guess we're going to find out right now. So there's three quality is on how I define top 1% communicator your industry. So that means to keep the simple, let's say you're the CEO of an accounting firm.

If there's 99, other CEOs who are also running accounting firms, how are you the number one communicator within the scope that you're plugging in within the Fort that you're playing in? So how do I define that three areas? Motivation, direction, and technique. So the first one is motivation.

Simple question, both fleeing the meeting since this audience is a bit more mature than most is when we think about motivation, it goes back to priority. The reason why a lot of us don't work on our communication skills is because we're successful. It's because we don't see it as a priority. So the question we need to ask ourselves and take very seriously is how would our lives change if we were exceptional communicator?

And we're already great communicators, but reflecting more of that. And I would argue on top of that since a lot of you might be liquidating high multiples and they might want to create more impact in the world. Not necessarily start another business, perhaps. Everyone's different. I would flip that question to the one I ask myself all the time.

How would the world change if you were an exceptional communicator. And don't just reflect on that question from one angle. I could just grow my business. No, it's so much more to that. A lot of you have already grown your businesses. Think about the way you communicate to your families to think about the way that you communicate to investors.

Think about the way that you're meeting people when you travel. Communication is so much more than just giving a speech. It's every area of our lives. That's the first thing I would say is reflecting on that question helps us play bigger. And if we don't play bigger, we don't have an incentive to communicate better, which brings me to number two. Direction.

So you're right. Jeffrey. Absolutely. All of the people who are listening to this are already successful. And the way I define communication is super simple. It's for you to achieve a specific outcome for a specific audience. So I repeat that again. Communication is achieving a specific outcome for specific audience.

So if your goal is to sell a hundred thousand dollars of product in a presentation and you suck at communication, but you get your a hundred, I don't have any feedback for you. I don't because you had saved the outcome that you want, but now the question becomes, do you just want to stay in that category? Do you want to play a bigger game?

And that's what the one-percenters are always thinking about towards working on themselves. And I would argue a lot of people listening to this are the top 1%. Cause that's where the listening to this episode, they're working on themselves. So this comes back to direction.

A lot of us have goals in many areas of our life, Jeffrey, whether it's health, whether it's relationships, whether it's career, but almost nobody has communication goals for our communication. And the reason a lot of people don't think about this is because communications is a very big subject. What does being a great communicator, even in mean? Does it mean being on a stage? Doesn't mean giving a Ted talk? It's not very well-defined and that's the problem.

When you get vague outcomes or results, you get vague goals or rather because you have vague goals, you get vague results. So now the question becomes, how do you come up with very specific intangible communication tools?

And the way that I've found that has worked really well for me and my client based on people I coach is being very specific about the human being that you want to be.

Give you a super easy example. Let's say you're a technology CEO that I can speak to really well. And you want to communicate really well. Make a list of three tech CEOs in your industry that are just absolutely killing it at presentations. There's so good at communication. Marc Benioff from Salesforce, Satya Nadella, I love them for Microsoft I think he's really solid as well.

Just picking speakers that you, really admire and asking yourself, what is the gap between them and you. And don't just analyze that from a presentation perspective, watch their interviews. Watch the way they show up on podcasts. Look, I'll give you an example.

Peter Thiel is terrible at speaking. He's not very good at presentation skills, but when it comes to being a fireside chat where he's being asked questions, he's much better. He's much more, proficient there. And the last technique is just how consistently are you practicing your communication skills?

I'll give you a super simple example. I'll throw it back to you I know I've been rambling for a while now let's take the random word exercise. Pick a random word presented out of thin air. That sounds like a child's exercise for an eight-figure entrepreneurial I prove to you why it isn't. The reason this is so effective is that help you make sense out of nonsense.

So they just give you avocado. You might think it's stupid, but for the top one-percenters, they'll figure out how to make it work. Because if you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything.

[00:27:46] Jeffrey Feldberg: Just more gold, more platinum there, Brenden, just to start on unpacking, but really, my big takeaway and for the listeners, I hope you're hearing what I'm hearing and it really, it comes down to I'll call it mindset, but also really preparation because look, I've spoken to business owners that I know they're going to be successful, but they just started out or they're in a startup and I've spoken to billionaires and the one thing that they all have in common, the billionaires.

I mean, they could have stopped a long time ago, but they're always learning. They're pushing themselves to the next level. It doesn't matter how many zeros are in the bank account. It's a personal challenge and that's really, that's the rocket fuel to take them to the next level and the ones that are in the startups that, you know, we're going to be successful and you'd track their progress and they break through and they make it. It's just, they're always practicing.

So, Brenden, I'm hearing you loud and clear, communication make communication part of what you practice, part of what you focus on, what gets measured is what gets done.

So let's look at it from this perspective and I'm thinking of a scenario where we're going to put all of this together. So we have a presentation coming up and so we've done the preparation.

We've been practicing Brenden, all these strategies that you've been teaching us, we've tuned into WII.FM, and we know what's in it for the buyers. So there we're going to be speaking to them on that narrative. How do we keep our cool, when we're coming up with those big presentations? And then what should we be thinking as we head into that presentation, just to come out the other side, achieving our objective?

[00:29:12] Brenden Kumarasmy: Absolutely. I wish I could give you a breathing exercise that would help Jeffery, but unfortunately, that's not how I roll. I would say for me, rather, the way that we overcome this, the way that we do this is a couple of things. The first one is realizing that confidence is not an accident. It is not an accident.

And one of my coaches tells me this all the time. He says competence leads to confidence. So the reason why a lot of CEOs aren't stressed out in some of these meetings that they have with investors is because when they practice outside of that boardroom, that scenario, that simulation was 10 times harder.

So I'll give you an example. Let's say, CEO comes up to us and says, Brenden, Jeffrey I'm worried about this presentation now with investors. We're raising like a million dollar round, let's say, or 5 million, whatever the number is and I'm really worried. I say, perfect. So you're going to come tomorrow and I'm going to bring a bunch of people who've already raised 10, 15, and they're going to be much worst and we're going to make their life a living nightmare. So that when they walk into that three three-hour meeting, wow, that meeting was really easy. So that's the way I think about, I feel that's the only way. And the reason I'm speaking in a very aggressive ways because of the specific audience we're speaking to.

If we were speaking to executives and companies, I wouldn't say it that way. And the reason I say it this way for the 7, 8, 9 figure, whatever the business owners here is because we need to get the urgency. People don't get this and I'm sure you coach them a lot on this as well Jeffrey and your programs and what you're doing, the work that you're doing with them is people need to understand how important it is to ace this meeting as it's a do or die meeting.

Cause those, all those bankers, whether it's Deutsche, whether it's Goldman, was Morgan Stanley doesn't matter. They all know each other. It's not like some isolated room where none of the bankers know each other. They all talk to each other. They're all keeping in touch because the community is so small.

So when you have that level of urgency, we'll do whatever it takes to win and the same way that you did, whatever it took to win for your business. And the same way you did whatever it took to win, to hire the right person. It's the same analogy. It's just what I find, which honestly surprised me a lot in my years of doing this is nobody is applied that same level of urgency in a meeting with investors to sell the business and realizing they only got one shot at this thing.

They got multiple thoughts, but you get what I mean? So that's the key. Competence leads to confidence with the first piece so that they can keep their cool. Second one is always do the harder thing outside of that boardroom. But the third thing, and this is more for my mission-driven business owners who are listening to this who feel that sense of mission within them at this might help.

One thing that I always talk about is this idea of message versus fear. So let's say we take a boxing match, Jeffery, one side of the ring is the fear, and the other side is the message. The goal is not to remove the fear from the ring. And the reason why I say this is because even the most polished experts in the world of communication have some level of fear.

And I'm not saying I'm one of those people I'm still trying to get better. I always have a lot more room to grow for myself, but I'll give you a quick example. Let's say me and you are having a conversation let's say we're at a restaurant and somebody calls.

And it's Elon Musk and he says, hey, Brenden, I just need you to coach me on my communication for a few hours tomorrow.

Do you mind coming down to the Giga Factory or something? I'd probably my pants. It doesn't matter how many clients I've worked with. There's always a level that scares all of us. So the goal is not to remove the fear or the uneasiness or something society that we might have in that boardroom with the investor, but rather making sure that when the fear and the message meet in the middle of that boxing ring, that your message wins the match, that your message gets the knockout punch. Going back to me, the reason I like using myself as an example is if I can do it, people are listening to this should have zero excuses. I had every excuse in the book, not to start YouTube.

You don't have to start my business, not to start Master Talk. I could have waited till I had a mortgage or something. I could have waited until anything society would've cut me some slack because I was still getting started, but why did I press record? Why did I spend the years honing my craft?

I did it for the 15-year-old girl who couldn't afford me. Sure. I love my executive clients, my business owners they're all great. But the reason why you take Master Talk so seriously is because I know, there's a 13-year-old Elon Musk right now in the world a surprising girl in Utah who can't afford a communication coach.

So I use a lot of the money I'm make in coaching to make my media, which is the real end game for me, more accessible to people. So I could be the next Dale Carnegie in my space, so I can make all of these tools available for the world. That mission drives me so much that there's nothing that's going to get in my way.

What is that mission for you and your business? And when you have that same level of clarity, there's no investor that will get in your way.

[00:33:56] Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, Brenden, whoever said business is not personal, never owned a business. And I just love that passion that's just oozing out of you and how you're paying it forward and making a difference. Why don't you talk to us about Master Talk?

How are you changing the world? What is it? If I came to you now as a business owner, what can I expect?

[00:34:13] Brenden Kumarasmy: So for me, I would think Master Talk, my mission in life is to help every human being on earth become exceptional communicators, especially the next geniuses of our society. I think the next Elon Musk is probably some seven-year-old girl in Cambodia. Somebody that we don't fear here, but because that person doesn't have access to tools, like imagine this Jeffrey this is what gets me out of bed is, you know, when Elon was 15 years old, nobody cared about him.

Nobody's spending any time helping that person succeed. And that's really what lights a fire in what I do. So my mission is really to help everyone else. But now the goal is how do I achieve that? And I would say the first part of that mission is through my coaching business. So I help a lot of executives, primarily in the technology space and some entrepreneurs level up their communication skills.

So I can leverage a lot of the incredible resources I get from them to make the media side more accessible to everyone else. So that's the mission of what I do.

[00:35:09] Jeffrey Feldberg: Congratulations with that Brenden. You don't always see it. You don't always hear it. And what a way to just be able to put that all together and to do it. You know Brenden, I could talk hours, days of all of these techniques and strategies we're starting to bump up against some time.

So let's do this. As we begin to wrap up the episode, I have a question for you. It's a bit of a thought experiment. And the question is this think about the movie Back to the Future. In the movie, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So, Brenden, it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, and there it is.

The DeLorean car is not only there, but the door is opened. It's waiting for you to hop on in. And you now get to go to any point in your life. Brenden, as a young child or a teenager, whatever the point in time would be. What are you telling yourself, Brenden, in terms of life lessons or, hey, do this, but don't do that?

What does that sound like?

[00:36:03] Brenden Kumarasmy: Yeah, there's a couple of things I could say there, Jeffery. So, I'll give you three, if you keep it simple. So the first one is I would say I would take a quote from Tony Robbins he's one of my biggest mentors in life and he says it best, the quality of your life is totally determined by the quality of the questions.

And I would add that you dare to ask. When you ask yourself powerful questions about life, clarity, and sues, and that's the first piece of advice I would give is wake up every morning and ask yourself one hard question about life. And I'll give you a couple of, to get started. If you could only accomplish three things before you die, what would you want those three things to be in and why? If you only had three lessons to share with the world, what would you share and why? And the third question would be if you had all the money in the world, if I gave everyone on this podcast, a billion dollars, which unfortunately I won't be able to today, it's a good thought experiment is what would you do with your time?

You don't have to work anymore. You don't have to build a business. What would you do with your time? These are questions that give us insights and clarity that no statement could ever give us. That's the first piece of advice. The second piece of advice is realized who the enemy is. The enemy is not, the neighbor was yelling at us.

It's not the person in traffic. It is time. Time is the finite resource we can never buy back. We can never build leverage against in the same way that we can do with capital or any other means of resource that we might have. So understand that if you're young, especially if you're under 40, you are what one of my mentors calls a time billionaire. Right. So even if you're 80 years old, you've got all the money in the bank, you can't buy the time backs. So once you realize that time is the true enemy that you're always clocking against, want to make sure that, you're very intentional about how you spend every minute for the rest of your life.

And the third piece of advice that I would share is my favorite for those committed to the end of this episode, which I say, congratulations, you're included in the top one percentage in Jeffrey's audience is be insane or be the same. Do you want to be like everyone else that's totally fine? But if you want to do something special, like everyone else's listening to, this has already have based on your audience and how you've described them.

Jeffrey, you already know that the way to do that is to be crazy. Don't you find it odd that I started a YouTube channel, not on pranks, not on music, not unwrapping, but on public speaking and executive communication? And then it went to coach those same executives for money. Things I never thought I'd be able to do yet

I still live in my mother's space. I don't own a car. I'm in the 0.5, not 5%. I'm in the 0.5% of top listeners on Spotify for Justin Bieber. And I can karaoke in eight languages. How does any of this make any sense at all? And that my friend is the point when every decision in your life makes sense to the only person that it should, which is you you're probably making the right decisions.

So be insane or be the same.

[00:38:46] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Brenden, a man of many talents, and lots of wisdom. You are a wise old soul. And not only did you give one point, you gave three points. So you tripled up there, talk about value and paying that forward. So, Brenden, we're going to have in the show notes, we're going to make it really easy for all of our listeners. It'll be point and click. If somebody would like to reach you online, what would be the best place?

[00:39:07] Brenden Kumarasmy: Absolutely. What a wonderful conversation. Jeff, I love your questions. I love the space. So thanks for facilitating this is great. Yes, the two easy ways to keep in touch, the first one is definitely the YouTube channel Mastertalk in one word, they'll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to communicate ideas effectively.

And the second way for those who are interested in coaching, you can come to one of my free interactive live trainings on effective cons. It's not a webinar. I'm coaching people on that call. It's a lot of fun. I do it every few weeks. And if you want to register for that, it's rockstarcommunicator.com.

[00:39:37] Jeffrey Feldberg: Love it. rockstarcommunicator.com and Mastertalk on YouTube. We'll have all those links and for audience again, just come to the show notes point and click and you're there. Well, you know what Brenden, we are officially wrapping up and a heartfelt thank you for spending part of your day with us here on The Deep Wealth Sell My Business Podcast.

And as always, please say healthy and safe.

[00:39:56] Brenden Kumarasmy: Thank you, bro.

[00:39:56] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:40:00] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:40:10] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:40:14] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:40:21] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:40:36] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:40:58] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:41:09] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:41:22] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:41:40] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:42:07] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:42:26] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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As we close out this episode, a heartfelt thank you for your time. And as always, please stay healthy and safe.

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