The Perfect 100

Hello and welcome back to The Perfect 100.

I'm Tammy Zurak and I hold the business coach and training seat in the East Memphis
chapter.

Before we dive in, I wanna give a quick reminder that I'm a member too.

So if you come across a business owner, team, or even a chapter that could have some
support building their strengths, their brand, or just their results with all things

business, that would be a great referral for me.

And if you, as we get going through the podcast, if you hear some things that you think,
gosh, that would be, you know, something that I know a business owner that that would make

sense for, you know, that's what, that would be something I'd be happy to have you share.

um And also I am working towards a thousand subscribers on YouTube.

So if you're listening to this somewhere else,

I would love for you to go to YouTube and become a subscriber.

And if you don't care if you listen to it on whichever podcast meaning you like to listen
to versus YouTube, YouTube would be great because that helps me.

So please do subscribe to the channel and watch it there if you don't mind doing that.

I appreciate it.

All right, so now I'm gonna jump right in.

I'm pleased to introduce Matt Carter with HopeWorks as my guest today.

Hi, Matt, how are you?

I'm well, Tammy, how are you this morning?

I am doing wonderfully.

Thank you very much.

So tell us how long have you been a BNI member?

What chapter are you in?

What seat do you hold?

So I am in BNI Bartlett and I've been in the chapter for two years, just renewed for year
three and hold the nonprofit seat in the chapter.

OK, great.

Tell us a little bit more.

Well, actually I'll have you give your 45 seconds where you can tell us a little bit more
and I'm going to go ahead and put this timer up so you can see it.

So and I know you guys so I Matt is in a chapter that I am the coach for and you heard
last week Nick was on there in the same chapter and they only do 25 seconds.

So you're going to get a luxury of an extra 20 seconds, so feel free to use it.

But when it stops, you stop when it stops.

Alright, alright, ready to go.

Yes.

Hi, friends.

I'm Matt Carter with HopeWorks.

I'm the community engagement coordinator, and we hold the nonprofit seat.

At HopeWorks, we work with people who are chronically unemployed or underemployed.

We help them identify their barriers to employment, whether it's uh education, lack of
education, maybe they're an immigrant and don't speak English.

Maybe they've been incarcerated and have a rough background.

Maybe they just have come out of poverty and don't know how work works.

We help them identify their barriers to work, overcome those barriers, and then we work to
match them with an employer who will give them a chance to build a better life.

When we all work, the community is better.

I'm Matt Carter.

Ask me how hope works.

Awesome.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right.

So tell me more.

So you're give me kind of the gimmick because it's a unique where you're at is a little
bit more unique than I'm a you know I'm a plumber I'm a whatever.

uh Give me the journey.

How did you get to this and tell me more about why why you know why hope works for you.

Sure, sure.

Well, to give you the long version in a shorter format, spent many years in church
ministry.

I worked primarily in campus ministry with churches in university towns, working with
students, reaching out to students, helping mentor students into leaders.

And so I spent a long time doing that.

And through that, I ended up church planting in a university town.

right in 2007, which if you know your chronology, that's right before 2008, which is right
before 2009, 10, and 11.

And so as a fundraising missionary, that was a really tough time.

As churches were struggling to fund their own ministries, I was not on their top,
appropriately so, I was not on their top priority in terms of supporting our work.

And you said I have a question.

You said church planting for those that might not know what that means.

Can you can you give us more?

of course.

So we moved to a different town to try to establish a church, to specifically address the
issues of that community, to bring the Jesus perspective oh into the community and to

reach people who weren't being reached by existing churches.

There's some statistics that show that new churches are best at reaching new people and
old churches, not new people, but newer to the faith.

Gotcha.

older churches are better reaching more established Christians.

And so that was our goal there.

Gotcha.

Okay.

you and I did a little in my research, I found that you did some other things too.

you give me the little bit more of the journey because I think it's interesting when we
get to your Clifton strengths, there's your results we'll share when we get there, but you

have some interesting results that I think might be interesting to know your journey so
that we can talk a little bit more about that when we get there.

Absolutely.

So I tried all different kinds of ways to support my family as a fundraising missionary
who has no funds being raised.

And so I did a little bit of everything.

You know, they talk about one of the church planting roses barista.

So I did that.

I sold cell phones.

I got an insurance license.

I was a very bad insurance agent.

And

As I was really wrestling with these things, I had a friend say, hey, have you talked to
Everett Hufford recently?

Everett Hufford was the dean of the seminary where I had done my master's degree.

And this was on a Friday.

I said, no, I'll call him on Monday.

My friend said, Everett really helped me when I was searching for work.

So I was going to call him Monday.

On Sunday, Everett called me and said, hey, we've got a job at the school.

We'd like you to apply for it.

And I might not be the brightest bulb in the circuit.

But when all these other doors are closed and one opens, it didn't take a genius to say,
maybe I should do this.

And so that's what brought me to Memphis in 2011.

And I was the director of admissions for the seminary, which was an entire new learning
journey.

But the networking that I had done as a church planter, I was involved in a chamber of
commerce networking group as a church minister.

So the networking I'd done there as a church partnering with other nonprofits, referring
back and forth, a lot of the skills that I had learned there worked in recruiting students

for seminary.

And so I was there for a little over 10 years, 10 and a half years.

And during that time, we had the exciting journey from almost all the classes are on
campus to all the classes are online and everywhere in between.

Definitely having to be creative about how can we, who can I recruit now?

It's different.

How can I recruit?

Those kinds of things.

And the higher education world is changing and I could see some things going on and I
looked around for a new opportunity and I wasn't really seeing a whole lot.

And when the opportunity came up at HopeWorks, my wife and I had been supporters and
donors.

My wife actually worked at HopeWorks for a few years.

and the community engagement, was a new position that sounded like it was custom made for
me.

My job was to get out in the community, connect with people, find resources, referral
partners, employers, donors, volunteers, students, and so a little bit of everything.

And so that's where I am.

And I hadn't been doing that for very long when somebody said, hey, have you ever been to
BNI?

And I said, yes.

m

because I had subbed when uh I was a church planting missionary, I had subbed for friends
in the Chamber of Commerce group that I was in.

uh my friend said, this chapter I feel like would be really good, because we have people
in a lot of the trades who are looking to hire people.

And so it was just a good fit.

All right, I was curious how that one, you know, your BNI journey, I guess, to get there.

um So you've been in BNI for how long?

Two years, okay.

And tell me a little bit about, in general, how that's worked for you.

What's been successful?

What, maybe not so much?

Sure.

So a lot of what I do is finding referral sources, working back and forth as community
engagement coordinator.

I know a little bit about everything.

I don't know a lot about anything.

And we'll talk about that with my strengths.

part of, there are a couple of things about BNI that really connect with me.

One is that at HopeWorks, we talk a lot about building a better Memphis.

through hope and a job.

And the people that I interact with at BNI are people who want to build a better Memphis.

They're people who are working hard for success in their own business, but they also are
concerned about the community.

BNI is not a selfish, if you're selfish, BNI will not work for you.

uh is a giver's game.

mean, that's pretty core to who BNI is.

And so,

Connecting with people who are working to build a better Memphis has been great in terms
of connecting me.

I totally, boy, I totally did not give you my best 45 seconds there, because normally I
talk about looking for employers.

If you hear somebody that's hiring, starting a new location, those kinds of things.

Those are the kind of people I'm asking to be connected with.

And sometimes it may be a specific company.

We're looking to,

have we have somebody that we think would be a good fit for this company, can anybody
connect me to the hiring office?

And so um working with people who are in and around the business community, they know
people who are hiring.

In our chapter, somebody knows everybody.

I mean, we had a lot of people who have been in Memphis for a long time, all their lives.

And so it's been great in terms of connecting with

employers, but also everybody's involved with different nonprofits, everybody's involved
in charitable work, and there are often times when what we do connects with what somebody

else does and we can, it's very important for us to work together.

We can't do everything for our students and clients.

Other people can't do everything for their students and clients, and so when we can work
together to get the need met rather than trying to do it all ourselves, that's a benefit.

Yeah, that's the benefit of the BNI community, right, is we have that ability to do that.

shoot, I was going to ask you something and I forgot what it was.

um It'll come back to me.

ah So let's have a look at your power of one.

So your score for the last oh through June, uh this is June of 2025, because we never know
when people, I know what I was going to ask you.

I'll come back to that is I was just going to ask you because it's a

This anybody in the world can be listening to this.

So does hope works work outside of it sounds primarily like you're going to need to serve
people in the community.

But is there opportunity if somebody's listening to this that touches their heart for them
to work with you that's outside the area.

um Most of our work is actually in Shelby County.

And some of that is grant mandated that this is where we do our work.

But I am always happy to talk with somebody and see if there are ways to work.

I'm a networker.

I'm always happy to talk to people and see if there ways we can work together.

For example, I know that there are a couple of other programs in different places that
have started based on what we do.

that we've been able to partner with.

in fact, about this time last year, a young man in another state called and he was trying
to get something started.

And so I was able to coach him up a little bit on it.

Okay, and go ahead.

You want to finish?

whatever little bit I had to offer, I was happy to offer to him.

Okay, and you know, I just had a thought occur to me that we had a nonprofit um on the
podcast before, but I didn't bring it up.

you guys work with kids as part of your, you don't work with kids?

Okay.

You work with adults only?

Okay.

uh Yes.

Yes.

the state's primary teacher and tester for high school equivalency for Shelby County.

uh It's a state grant.

uh I think it's federal money, but it's a state grant.

So that's with adults who, what used to be the GED adults who don't have a high school
diploma.

We teach English to immigrants.

Again, only adults.

And then we work with people who have been incarcerated uh with holistic reentry.

If you've been incarcerated, finding a job is hard, finding a place to live is hard.

And so we work to try to help folks like that.

And then people who uh usually generational poverty, but not always people who just have
never been in the work world, and they don't know how work works.

So I mean, we're teaching as basic as you have to show up every day.

And if you didn't grow up seeing somebody go to work every day, you just you don't know
how would you know.

And so

a role model.

Right, right.

Starting, I mean, from that basic to what we call soft job skills, but again, oh only with
adults.

Okay, well, and you said the word grant, which triggered the thing in my head.

This is how BNI works, right?

Is...

there's the, what do they call it?

The, oh gosh, I can't think.

I didn't sleep well last night because we had storms here and my dog woke me up in the
middle of the night.

So I can't think of the name of the term for it.

It'll come to me later probably.

But when we say trigger words, they...

you make things happen in your head and you said grant.

And I just wanna remind if you're a BNI member, Ivan Meisner has a foundation that does
work with kids and they offer a grant.

So if you have a nonprofit that services children, helps children, you can apply for that
grant and you can just do a Google search and you'll find it.

Or I can actually, I'll drop the information in a link below wherever you're listening to
this at.

So you can find it later or you can go to BNI, the Perfect 100 podcast website and it will
be underneath this video when it's uploaded with that information.

So just a side note, because I know a lot of people don't know about that.

So I just wanted to take that opportunity to make that known if you work with kids and
you're in a nonprofit.

All right, so let's go back to where we were, the power of one.

So you have a 75, you're in the green.

in the green.

Yes, he celebrates.

So your attendance points are 20, your referrals per week you're at 10, which is in the
red.

Visitors per week you're at five points, which is in the gray.

One to ones you're at 20, which is in the green.

And CEUs per week you're at 20, which is in the green.

So what do you struggle, and I think I asked that question, but now that we have the
report, what do you struggle with most?

Obviously, showing up and doing my homework is not a struggle with the CEUs and
attendance.

I feel like I've done better with referrals.

Maybe my, this is end of June or is this end of?

It's through June, it's six months through June.

Hmm, okay.

I thought I was doing better with that, but that is a challenge.

m Is a challenge with the referrals.

um I feel like I invite a lot of visitors, but actually getting them to come uh is a
challenge as well.

um I've sponsored a couple of members, uh a couple of people who became members.

um And like I said, I do try to work with people.

But obviously making referrals uh clearly is my challenge there.

Okay.

All right.

So let's look at your Palms report and then we'll talk more about that.

your Palms report, which goes from, six months.

So there's 20, it looks like 28 meetings total on the report.

So you've had zero absences, which is great.

That means, and you've had some subs, which, know, that's if as long as you have a sub,
you're not absent.

Referrals given inside is seven.

Referrals given outside is 12.

Referrals received inside is three, referrals received outside is five.

So let's stop there for a second.

uh the referrals given outside, you working with people?

Do you have a team sort of, or you have some alliances in other chapters that you're
working with?

No, I should do that.

I do try to attend some of the area-wide events and make those connections.

And I do have people in our chapter who will say, hey, this person, can you help this
person?

And so I do have some of that going on.

And is it because you're serving those four groups that you mentioned, is that your, is
your aim?

Most nonprofits, well, that's not true.

A lot of the nonprofits are seeking funds, right?

They're looking to build funding so they can support more things.

That's their primary.

but they also have kind of what does the charity, it's, you know, the nonprofit do as a
charity or whatever that they might be doing.

So what's more important to you or is it equally as important to have funding versus
serving the community in those different aspects?

Tell me more.

In BNI, I am looking for people to hire our students and clients.

I'm looking for employers.

um You know, I do switch my 25 seconds up every now and then.

So we do have some major fundraising events each year.

And BNI has been great about that.

um Last fall, did a, we sponsored the Wizard of Oz at a local theater, community theater
here.

uh the play play slash musical not the movie.

And we did a silent auction and the BNI community really stepped up with silent auction
items.

uh In fact, I think our largest bidder was a BNI spouse.

So don't know if the BNI person knew how much their spouse was giving us, but we
appreciated it very much.

uh So.

we do have those fundraising things.

and I bought a table at our recent fundraising breakfast.

So that is an aspect of it.

But week to week, I'm really looking for employers.

Sometimes I'm looking for students.

And so I'll ask uh about connections to an immigrant community, because trust is huge in
connecting with our ESL students.

And so

There are different things, but for the most part, I'm looking for employers.

And recently, I was in a meeting and our uh staff was talking about some of our people
need day workers, which I'd always been told, yeah, we're not really looking for day hire.

But I was able to go to BNI and add that into my pitch and actually got a couple of leads
there.

They don't necessarily count as referrals because

It's not a business that we're going to make money off of it or anything like that.

So it's hard to put a dollar value on those connections, on those referrals.

to me, they are referrals.

It's what I'm there for.

Well, you know, I worked as a recruiter for five years in my past and we, you know, we
charged the company based on the salary.

So perhaps that's if you're trying to translate that into BNI dollars, so to speak, thank
you for closed business.

If you're getting someone hired, I think that would be, you know, if you, if someone has a
need and you're filling it, then I think that that certainly could be a referral.

then the dollars attached to an annual salary might be the thank you for closed business.

So I think that's a way to address both of those things that certainly sound relevant to
me.

So let's, wanna, so the referrals given outside is that, and I've mentioned this in the
previous episodes, but maybe this is somebody's first time listening, is the buttons when

you record the referrals on your phone,

in the app, there's an inside and an outside.

And I think people don't know to push one or the other referrals given inside or outside
or received, know, that we want to make sure we record it the right way because, and I

know when we get to your strength, you'll understand kind of the why behind this, but we
want to make sure we're tracking things accurately, especially because you...

It isn't your business.

You have probably an accountability up the chain, so to speak, in some regard for your
time spent in this thing needs to have value.

So that value can be translated by this is what's happening.

as long as it's accurately represented.

Now, you know what your things are, but the paper speaks to, or what's on the screen,
report.

uh speaks to that a little bit better because it's tangible, right?

And that's what we have a lot of people who, I think we have a good mix of people who have
their own business, but we also have people that work for someone else.

And this becomes sort of that justification of, it worth the person's time?

Now that's a very wide gap because is it worth your time is relative to how much you're
doing, right?

We've definitely had people that as employees have come in and not done much and not done
a great job and their return is low.

And I've had those conversations with their employers that, know, and oftentimes their
employers in another chapter and they see the value because they're getting something in

their own chapter, but they put their employee in and they don't get as much.

And that's whose fault is that?

And that's,

It depends.

But the report doesn't lie, right?

It only lies if you don't put the information in.

And that's not lying either, because it's just a result of you not doing what we ask to
help you.

if you look at, OK, so referrals received, it sounds like that's not a high number, right?

So referrals received is

eight in six months.

And, or maybe it is, because when we talked to Nick in the last episode, he said, you
know, one referral for me is, I think he said $40,000, he's happy with that, right?

But for you is, is seven, or what is it?

I guess it's eight, enough?

Or how could we get more for you?

Let me pull up my spreadsheet where I actually track these things for our executive
director because you're right, eh is a big deal.

And I'll read the rest of the report while you're doing that.

So you've had two visitors, you've had 55 one-to-ones, and again, that's in 28 weeks.

Your thank you for closed business that you've given is 11,494 and your CEUs are 63.

So, and we'll talk more about that when we get to your strengths.

Glancing through here, this in the past six months.

I've been connected with 15 requests for an employee.

Obviously, not all of those end up with a hire.

um But I mean, to me, that's good.

That's two or three a month.

And so I am using that information to share with my executive director to say why BNI is
worth it.

I know you just read the dollar amount off.

didn't quite.

uh

You were looking while I was talking.

Yeah, 11,494 is what you've given, not what you've received, but yeah.

Well, I've received.

Let me, uh again, scroll through my phone here.

um

OK, I can't do the math on this while we're talking.

I know I've probably received, well, I can look on the app.

You can, because we have an app that tells you.

Yeah.

And so if you don't know that while math's looking, you can go on your app.

So we don't share in this conversation.

I just had this conversation with somebody last week who we were talking about, thank you
for Closed Business.

there we were talking in the Power of One.

And because this is the perfect 100, we were having this conversation and his comment was,
I don't know why, you know, I've always contended that.

the thank you for closed business should be reported because it's the biggest thing.

And my response to that then and always is yes, because Nick last week is a general
contractor, one referral is $44,000.

that sounds like, if his thank you for closed business is...

$88,000, then he got two referrals.

Maybe he's happy with that.

But if I got two referrals and my average deal, let's just say it's $4,000, I might still
be happy with that, but I might need more.

But and I'll use the example I used in that episode was if you sell lipstick, two
referrals is not enough.

Right.

So it's all relative.

And that's why we don't count it because it can't be apples to apples and everything else
is and your value.

what you're getting and receiving, if you receive $100,000 but you give $4,000, that may
or may not be good.

It's hard to say.

So it's very relative.

And the only way to know that measurement works is to talk to the person.

So that's why we don't count it.

So what were your results?

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Maybe I need to look maybe I need to look for the past year.

Well, and you're not, if you may or God.

Okay.

Okay.

And that's just donation.

So if you're not recording people that are, getting hired, you know, and that's sort of a
gray area.

There is a report.

We just sent it out actually in my chapter of how to track.

Thank you for closed business because you're a nonprofit.

That's going to sound a little bit different.

And I can, I got to think about that.

I can actually, I'll add that I have documents on the

BNI Perfect 100 website that are free downloads and I can add that download to how you
track Thank You for Closed Business.

I don't know, because I haven't looked at it for nonprofits in a minute, but we can refer
to that document as to the best way, because every nonprofit's doing different things.

the dollar value associated with Thank You for Closed Business is going to be unique.

All right, so let's, um I wanted to talk about what you said earlier, which is referrals
is your struggle.

So how are you?

Why do you find that to be a struggle?

guess we'll start there.

And it's not necessarily a struggle.

You're in the red just on that one.

You're at 75 overall.

But if you were to give and wanted to do more for others, which is what it sounded like
you wanted to do, uh then what is the, let's talk a little bit, dig in there a little bit.

What would be, why do you think that's a challenge?

That is a very good question.

um And if I had an easy answer, I would have fixed it, right?

um And I know I work in my neighborhood in here at Hope Works to be known as somebody who
knows somebody who can do something.

And so, you know, our landscape crew is my neighbor moved away and is trying to sell their
house and

My BNI landscape guy is cutting their grass for them and maintaining their yard.

So I'm looking for opportunities like that.

They had somebody that they already knew who did their move and boy did they wish they had
used our mover.

I wish they'd used our mover because I ended up helping them load the U-Haul to get the
rest of the stuff.

uh And uh at Hope Works we do have uh pretty large staff and so

I haven't done this in a while, but I need to get back on this horse.

But oh I send out an occasional email reminding everybody that I'm in this networking
group and on behalf of HopeWorks and part of my responsibility is helping provide business

referrals.

So if you're looking for somebody, and then I can feature one of our partners in the

in the email that goes out to our staff, which is about 70.

And so those are some of the opportunities that I have.

But I'm not calling on people as a salesperson.

I'm not regularly calling on people.

And so I think that's not necessarily built into the major part of my work.

Yeah.

All right.

So I'm going to roll us over to the Clifton strengths because I think there's maybe an
answer in there and we can talk a little bit more about it.

Once we know, let's have the conversation about your strengths.

So Matt is the first one as a guest that has actually done his full 34, which he has
shared.

And I'm going to first start with his top five just because that's what we've been doing
with everyone.

So the end your top five is really

where you sort of play all day.

They're the major things that you rely on that you don't think about, they just happen for
you.

So let's go through them.

And we have some new ones that we haven't talked about here on the podcast, so I'm excited
about that too.

So your number one is strategic.

You create alternative ways to proceed.

Faced with any given scenario, you can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

Your number two is ideation.

You're fascinated by ideas.

You are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Number three is input, which is new for the podcast.

Input, you are inquisitive and have a craving to know more.

You might collect and archive all kinds of information.

You uh seek to know something about a lot of things, which you said earlier, right?

uh Number four is learner.

You have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve the process of learning
rather than the outcome excites you.

And number five is a maximizer, which is also new to the podcast.

see talents and strengths in others, usually before anyone else does.

Strengths fascinate you.

You love to get others excited about their potential and you seek to transform something
strong into something superb.

So let's roll over Leslie to the full report.

Matt has given me his permission to show all of the information that is so if you're only
doing your top five, which I started out, I've mentioned several times.

I've only the first two times I took this over the years, I only did the top five and then
I in 2020 did the full 34 and hired a coach and there's so much more meat on the bone here

to deal with.

So.

If you look at the left hand side, and I know some of you are just listening and not able
to see this, but if you go to YouTube and subscribe, em you can see the full report set

and I'll read the top 10.

So we add in another layer here with number six is futuristic.

Seven is intellection.

Eight is woo.

Nine is achiever.

10 is relator.

So, and we've had, I think all of those on the podcast before people that had those
strengths.

But what's cool about knowing more, and really I like to look at also 11 and 12.

11, so that on the left hand side of the report says strengthen, on the right hand side
says navigate.

So 11 and 12 is self assurance and number 12 is positivity.

As we start to roll down to the bottom, I think everyone's first inclination when they
receive this information is to look at the top and then look at the bottom.

You

say, gosh, I'm not those things.

And Matt and I have very similar strengths and we also have things that we don't use as
often.

so it's not a weakness, which is how a lot of people want to talk about this.

But the whole point of Clifton Strengths is we want to point out what your, where you
operate most often, what your superpowers are, because it doesn't mean, you know, your

harmony is 33 and my harmony is 33.

doesn't mean that we don't want harmony, doesn't mean we can't create harmony, it just
means that's not our go-to, right?

Is we have a different level of things that we look at first.

And when you look at your top four, what color do you see on the screen, Green, and that
means, yes, you're all green, okay.

Yeah, I like that correlation.

So green is strategic.

So you lead almost all, well, and you have two more in your top 10, right?

So what's interesting about that is when you do the full 34, you get a 25 page report.

And I'm gonna hold this up and people are not gonna be able to see it and that's okay.

All you really need to see at a glance, what do you see on this page as I hold it up for
you, Matt?

One side is all green and

and there's a spattering of others.

Right, yeah, so you do, because you sent it to me.

It is page 21.

So there's some very, I know, I know, right?

But now I'll hold up mine.

What do you see here?

uh You have green, but you have a lot of orange and purple.

Right, yeah, so I have, this is, so what this does is kind of highlight your main themes.

So Matt's at the top says strategic and mine says influencing, but I also have, my number
one is strategic.

I also have Maximizer in my top five, so we share those two things.

So I want to, and I also have Ideation, but Ideation's number eight for me, so.

You know, we kind of, there's a bunch of them that are overlapping, but you have far more
on the strategic side of things.

So what that often means is you're the mental guy.

You're the one that, you you're wrapping thinking around all the things that are happening
for whatever it is you're doing, whether that's BNI, what you're doing at HopeWorks,

whatever you're doing, wherever you're doing it.

you're in your head kind of strategizing things, right?

And strategic is a strong piece of that.

So, and ideation means you come up with lots of ideas.

um Now you have both input and learner, which means you not only get information, you get
enjoyment out of looking for information, but learner also likes to go deeper.

So it's kind of like the catalog for old people.

when you used go to the library, you would pull out the drawer with the catalog of things,
you know, before we had Google, that you would pull the drawer open and there would be,

you know, the card catalog of things.

But then you would go and find the thing in the shelf, you would go find the book you were
looking for and dive in deeper.

So you've got both of those things.

uh And then Maximizer, for me, how it plays out is I enjoy finding

It's kind of a, it's both a blessing and a curse.

um It is a finding of things.

You love to take good things and make them great.

um How that plays for me is I'm a coach.

I like to work with people where I see their potential and then build that to make it
stronger.

Or I like to look at a chapter and see its potential and make them stronger.

Or I like to look at a business.

Same thing, like I have a new client.

who he told me he's number eight out of 20,000 offices.

He wants, he's hiring me to take them.

They're already good.

They're really good.

Seven out of 20,000 is pretty good.

Or eight, I can't remember which one, but either way, it's still really good.

And he wants to make it better.

that plays right to my strength.

So how do all of these things, first of all, what, and I know it's been, you've done this
report a while back, but I know you looked at it again in preparation for the podcast.

So what were the things that

surprised you the most when you got your report.

Well, looking at the top five, no surprise there.

I'm an information junkie.

I'm a researcher.

um I uh

In some of my doctoral work and talking about leadership and things like that, there was
some talk about how, what do you consider the greatest way to be considered?

And when I working through that material, Sage was what I came up with.

So I like being able to have wisdom that I can share with other people.

I was surprised that discipline is number 30 because I'm a very disciplined person.

I get things done.

So that surprised me.

And Harmony, being down at 33, it reminds me that there are things that are key parts of
who we are, and then there are skills that we learn in the other places.

And so having spent 30 years in church ministry, Harmony is kind of important.

and being able to uh bring harmony.

um think looking at Wu uh and let's see Wu and Harmony.

um

My early years inclination was very little patience for people who are not...

I've explained it to you once.

That's right.

No, that's not what we want to do.

This is what we ought to do.

But so I have learned...

You know, when you're in the seminary world, which is I was director of admissions at a
seminary, everybody, all of the students are taking classes and then they're evaluating

everybody.

That's not the right word.

Pigeon-holing?

No, I don't know.

But one of our students, we were talking about the disc and he said, you're high eye,
you're high eye, uh which is true.

I tend to lead by part of that as inspiration, which is I think both Maximizer and Woo.

um But I think I'm Woo in large group settings, but I'm not great at Woo in one-to-one
settings.

um So that word, that concept.

And so woo for those that maybe are just hearing that for the first time is winning others
over.

It's not woo woo woo.

you know, yeah.

We use that term in a different way, sort of in modern society that if you're woo woo,
that means something different.

Woo is an influencing theme and maximizer is an influencing theme.

And then you also have number 11, self-assurance, which is an influencing theme.

So.

you have, so to kind of talk to that harmony being 33 for us both, doesn't mean again that
you can't create harmony.

doesn't, you probably create harmony in other ways.

uh Because your woo is so high, you're at number eight, and on any given day, your top 10
might rearrange, uh or at any given time in throughout, you if you do this periodically,

the first time I took it, ideation was my number one.

and ideation's number eight for me now.

So, depending on how you're applying your strengths can often influence the time of your
life, your experiences, they will kind of rearrange.

And some of them are so close in the report that your five and your number six could be
almost interchangeable, but if you only do your top five, you don't know what number six

is.

So at the point that you take it, so that

Having more information, for me, is always better.

uh And you're probably achieving those things.

You also have high relator.

Relator is one-to-one.

You like to go deeper one-to-one with people.

So you're probably getting to know someone more and then creating that harmony in that
way.

because you have high maximizer, you're figuring out the strategy.

to, if I need to create harmony, doesn't mean I need to be the person, you know, the
harmony person is a different person.

They're talking to lots of people, making sure everyone's needs are met, making sure
everybody's happy.

uh That isn't, I don't have that time, right?

Because I can't see as a strategic for number one, I can't make those changes by focusing
on the one to one to one.

I have to look farther down the road.

um So,

Now that we've said all of that, I want to go back to your referral conundrum.

So utilizing the strengths that you have, can you see a way, so strategic ideation, uh
maximizer in your top five, can you see a way that you might be able to find more

referrals?

I am very good at when I'm talking to somebody, I'm big picture.

I'm very good at seeing I need to introduce this person to this person.

So I do that a lot.

How do I need to make that work into referral referrals?

Yeah.

Yeah.

there's 500 and I think as of this morning the report was 508 people in our general area
where you focus that are in BNI.

So do all of them, are they all in your network?

um Technically, yes.

Realistically, no.

Right, right.

So how could you strategically figure out who might be, because I hear all the time as I'm
in my own chapter in traveling and other chapters that we need to hire such and such.

I hear it all the time, even though technically we're not supposed to say that in BNI.

And for those of you that don't know, if you have someone that is an MLM, multi-level
marketing person in your chapter,

That is in the rules that they not recruit for their MLM because that creates a conflict.

But we do have other people, I can think of insurance people, financial people, you know,
that they're always looking to build their team.

they will periodically say, I'm looking, or even the trades, like they're trying to grow,
right?

We want to keep people in BNI.

And one of the biggest struggles for trades is we grow them out of their business.

We grow them out of BNI because we give them so much work.

and they're the person doing it that they can't stay.

So they want to hire somebody.

So there's an opportunity.

You need to place people.

They need to hire people.

So what strategy might you employ, do you think?

I need to go to, I need to visit chapters.

I need to post on Facebook.

uh I heard that on if everybody did mounts how he hates her.

I do not hate Facebook because Facebook is an amazing place to mine for all the things you
need

um There are reasons that my Facebook is not a place of joy and happiness.

um Yes.

um Anyway, I know we have our...

Yeah.

all the reasons why it's not a good thing.

em But if we focus on the thing that is good for us, which is getting the word out, It's
amazing for that.

And sometimes the words are not what we want to hear.

you have positivity as number 12.

So you can spread more positivity that

So we do have a local, and not all the regions necessarily are going to have this, but you
can certainly work with your region person, whether that's the franchise owner or your uh

area director.

We have a local Facebook group and that is where all the members in theory belong as a
private group.

So you could be talking about your availability to place people.

in that group, right, because that's a service to others and it's a nonprofit.

So I think that's uh something that not everybody knows and there's a win-win if you have
people and they need people.

that's an easy way to utilize Facebook for, and that's when I look at Facebook, there's a
lot of downsides, but there's also a lot of upsides in primarily they're in groups for me

is having private groups of people that are whatever you're into.

Mm-hmm.

I belong to a baking group, belong to photography groups, I belong to this, that, and the
other that are my interests, but they're also ways to connect with people.

I have mentored and coached people worldwide by being in a private Facebook group.

And that's how I, if I can, I would never prior to Facebook been able to reach those
people and support them, which is what I love to do.

I find focusing in those areas that are good are helpful.

So.

And we can talk more offline about how to reach all the people, but I think you've got
some great opportunities and I would encourage you to, thinking about your strengths,

apply some of that mental energy towards looking at how you could maximize your
opportunities within, not maximize your strength, but that could be applicable also to how

do I reach these other 500 or so people to find what I do because...

I think you're unique in that most of our nonprofits need and are seeking the money.

You're not, that's not your main goal.

would be useful and helpful to have that, but it isn't your main thing.

So I think that's a different channel that maybe is easier because probably everybody
knows someone.

In fact, I'm trying to think, I'm in a...

There's some local city groups where I will often see people posting they need work and
you know, maybe having a resource like you to help support them would be, I hadn't thought

of that till just now, might be a good opportunity to connect people who, you know, need
that support.

So there's all of that.

All right.

So talk to me about, is there a time that you can think about where your strengths were,
you had a tough challenge and your strengths really helped you overcome that?

So being a strategic and a learner, those have been important to me in navigating changing
work environments.

I mentioned earlier that I had been in uh higher education administration, director of
admissions, and responsible for recruiting students.

And during the time that I was responsible for recruiting students, my institution went
from offering some online classes in a field where hardly anybody offered online classes

to falling behind a little bit because other institutions started offering more online
classes to the pandemic when everybody was offering online classes.

uh so uh going through that uh whole range of recruiting opportunities, as an institution,
our best recruiting has always been face-to-face.

So traveling to conferences, traveling to undergraduate schools, campuses.

recruiting students face to face had always been our biggest success.

And so during that time, oh okay, what technology are we using?

Believe it or not, I used to teach college students how to use Zoom.

So we were using Zoom well before the pandemic.

uh And so I used to teach people how to use Zoom and

So moving through there, working through that situation.

When we went to completely online for our institution, because we already used Zoom for
our distance students, we just had to say, okay, for our local students, I'm sorry, you're

in your on-campus housing, but you've got to attend on Zoom as well.

But our parent institution, it was all new to them.

trying to find their feet on Zoom.

And so I was also able to help some of my colleagues on the other campus with that.

So the fact that I love new things, I love learning, and I love maximizing, I was able to
teach people not just how to use Zoom, but how to get a lot out of it.

And so my strengths really, really played well.

in those circumstances.

um

there and I want to bring that up.

So you, when we talked before, you said that your students, you and your students both
were taking the assessment and kind of playing, walking through those kinds of things.

Talk to me a little bit about that.

Sure.

This was long ago.

I was a campus minister, so I worked, I was working with college students at Kansas State
University.

And you won't be surprised knowing my strengths.

I love campus ministry.

You know, we're answering questions, we're digging deep, we're learning, we're growing
together.

But a hallmark of my ministry was always recruiting and mentoring student leaders so that
I would be the coach.

for our student leadership who would lead the ministry.

there were, uh I always had a list of this is what I do and how much of this can I give
away to somebody else?

uh And so there are things that I needed to do sometimes.

There was teaching that they needed to hear from me, but I would also help my student
leaders teach.

so we, one year in our fall uh student leadership retreat, we did the

the uh strengths, strengths finders together.

And so I work with our student leaders to help them understand who they are and what they
bring to the table.

And it was really, it was really interesting for us as a group to look at what are we
missing as a group?

And who can, who do we know that's good at this that we, that we can bring in to, to add
their strengths?

um So it was, it was

It was very helpful for the students and for the ministry.

Yeah, and and you bring up a couple of points there, I guess.

The thing about, I wish that someone had pointed me, and back then they called it a
strengths finder.

I wish that somebody had pointed me to that earlier than the first time I found it.

I was already kind of established.

But at the young adult age, what better time to understand what your strengths are?

And they may change somewhat over time, but.

If you can go into the workforce, if you're coming out of college and going into the
workforce or you're somewhere in the middle of college looking to what am gonna do with my

life?

I know my stepson is 20, he's almost 27.

Those questions come up a lot, right?

What am I gonna do and what makes sense for me?

And if only someone had pointed out to me, this is the set of things that are your
superpowers.

What difference would that have made earlier on?

You know, I found those things and my first career in corporate, you mentioned Disk, I've
done Disk in Myersburg several times and that information is good.

Strengths, CliftonStrengths is you and I was prepping for the podcast and your slide was
up on my screen and my husband happened to walk by and he looks at the screen and he goes,

that looks like a DNA strand.

And then I said, exactly.

It is a DNA strand and it's meant to look like that because it is your unique DNA, right?

And when you look at that, if you can hand somebody that information who works, you know,
that you're trying to help uh or that you work with and you mentioned building it, you

know, who don't we have uh as a team, we want to understand if we have a gap.

We don't necessarily hire or seek that, but it's good to know the makeup of the group that
you're working with so that you can understand there may be a different way to look at it

that you're not looking at whatever you're trying to accomplish, right?

So that's where the coach piece comes in is understanding, it's good to know the
information, how you apply it is a whole nother level, would you agree?

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

And I think, and this was, what do we say, 2006?

I think everything that I had heard up until then was about how to improve your
weaknesses.

And so when I read the Strengths Finders book, it just made sense that you're going to
have more success building on your strengths.

The same amount of work on your strengths will have a much better return.

Yes.

than putting that work into your, as they would say back then, weaknesses.

We're going to say your bottom 10.

And I actually, in church consulting, there's a well-known tool that has the opposite
approach, where you identify, not to go too far in depth on this, but they say churches

that are good at all of these things tend to be growing.

So which one of these things you're not?

good at, let's let's elevate that because we know that if you're everybody's up here,
you're growing.

So then you go in and work with a church and you say, okay, let's do this assessment.

These are the areas that you identified as our weaknesses.

Why do you not like this?

And so there are people it wasn't necessarily that they didn't like it.

But now with this process, you're kind of asking people to nitpick.

And it was uh

I have had a very negative experience approaching the less look at our less focus in on
our weaknesses.

uh So focusing in on our strengths, of course, positivity number 12.

So

But it's actual research.

So Gallup, Gallup owns CliftonStrengths and that's all they do is research.

They do data analytics for companies essentially.

And their analytics show that if we focus on what's right about people, which is the whole
reason Don Clifton came up with the initial concept is he wanted to look at what was good

about people is that exponential growth is significantly better when you focus on what
you're already good at.

versus what you're not great at.

There's marginal growth in the things you don't do well, which is always, I've been in the
business world for a long time and I came up in during times where we always looked at

what you're bad at.

And that isn't motivational when you're told you've got to go spend more time doing that
thing that you're not great at because you're only going to make tiny gains and they

don't.

not enjoyable because they're not your superpower, but somebody else would revel in that,
right?

In that thing.

So wouldn't it make more sense to focus me on what I am already doing well and give me
more of it and let me take the gains and it's true, the percentages are significant.

And it also reduces turnover and increases wellbeing.

And that today, the millennials today have impacted how we're

gets done because they're not going to put up with the things we used to.

Rightly so.

It's a good thing that they're focusing on.

I want my work to matter and I want my work to be something I enjoy.

I only want to work certain hours that I'm going to have a balance in what I want to do in
my own time to make a difference in other places.

That's all good stuff.

Awesome.

Recap the students, so students are a great way to, can even be high school seniors maybe,
you can go as low as age nine, but I think for me, I would prefer to hit that as a

college, if they're in college or post high school kind of situation so you can get a
kickstart into how, if you're interviewing, these are my things, this is what I offer you

and I'm really good at, right?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

also mentioned the church and that's also, you we have coaches that specialize in working
with churches because it's sort of, and BNI is another place, you know, BNI chapter is a

microcosm of any of those situations is within that chapter, there's a variety of
different makeups of people and we don't have to look at what we're not good at.

I mean, we do have to know it.

But we can work through, if we knew what everybody in the chapter strengths were, we would
have a much easier time applying those things to the people, giving people things that you

enjoy doing.

I know in your chapter, you're the education coordinator and you're a visitor host, right?

Okay, you were last year, okay, all right.

So, and I'm imagining that was enjoyable to you based on.

I was really surprised that it was enjoyable because I thought, I'm not a business person
like everybody else is, but the principles that I was teaching, and of course being a

preacher, I'm very comfortable standing in front of people uh and being, well, being an
inspiring leader.

Yes, well, and part of uh input and learn, well, more so input is you want to, and you
said this earlier, I know a little bit about a lot of things.

And that's part of that input is because you've done research across, but learner and then
maximizer, you want to, you do want to be in front of people and you do want to share that

information because it's going to help other people you need.

have a vast array of accumulated knowledge that you want to utilize in

giving it to others, you need people to give this information to or else it's not helpful
to you.

It's fun for you to do the deep dive into things and learn more, not giving it to anybody
is less fun, probably.

And with ideation and strategic thinking, seeing connections and being able to help people
make those connections.

Yeah.

so, and that speaks to you have connectedness is number 13.

And you said earlier, you like to be the person who connects people and you have 13 is
pretty, you know, pretty up there in terms of connecting people to one another.

just look at as, and I think that people forget to do this.

And that's why I wanted to talk about it is we apply these things to what we do for work.

whether it's our own business or you work for someone else, we look at all these things
and think, I need to, this is what I can add value to where I am, but we forget to do it

for ourselves within BNI or in BNI as a chapter, we forget to do those things.

don't look at holistically that the chapter is a microcosm.

is a business.

is a, you know, it is, it's, we are the...

employees, so to speak, of the chapter, you know, and there are leaders and there is HR,
which is membership committee, you know, we act like a business, sort of.

uh We have all of the structure and all of the processes, but not everybody treats it that
way.

So the results vary because we don't apply top to bottom all the strengths of the people
within it.

And that's

when people go to visit different chapters, everybody always comments on how they see it
looks different, right?

It's a different, it's all the same seats, so to speak, and all the same processes in
theory, but it is a very different, even if you had two highly functioning chapters, it

would be two different experiences because of the people that are in it, right?

absolutely.

Yes.

to see that.

Go ahead.

All right.

what, imagine you were talking to somebody who had never discovered their strengths.

What would you say to inspire them to want to unlock their true potential, their
superpowers?

um I think this is really important because you are finding when you discover your
strengths, you're giving yourself permission to work in this area.

And when you see the areas that we're navigating down toward the bottom, you also see, OK,
I can do this, but I need tools here.

And so by learning.

by learning your strengths, it really does empower you to be the person, sorry, I'm a
Christian, the person God made you to be.

And so I think that that's crucial to being comfortable in your own skin, comfortable in
who you are.

And as a leader, as a business person,

If I'm trying to force my business into a, if I'm around whole square peg, if I'm trying
to force my business to look like something that's not me, I need permission to say either

I need to do this differently or maybe I'm not in the right place.

But by having permission to say I'm not great at everything, let me find,

Let me find tools.

Let me find help.

Let me find people.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much it is learning to build on your strengths and then then
recruiting tools to work on the other thing.

I am a believer.

Okay.

Well, and I think that it's also, cause you said, give yourself permission, which I love
uh to work in what you're good at.

think there's a, the other side of that is not being apologetic for being who you are.

uh You know, cause if you look at, cause again, we share some things, think Maximizer
sometimes can, the blind spot can be nothing is ever good enough.

uh

because we can always improve on the thing, whatever it is, whatever the challenge,
maximizers natural skill set is to take good things and make them great.

What is great?

What is great?

know, because no matter how good we are, we can always make it for a maximizer.

It can always be better.

And that is a strength.

But if we're not sharing it with others that I, this is me, right?

I am gonna always be looking for.

the next level, even when I feel like, you know, my chapter, I'll give us a little brag.

We're at 85 as a whole, as a chapter, we're the highest in all of the region.

And that is a strong suit because we can recruit people with that when we do, we say
people, we've added nine people in the last six months and we're talking about because

we're good.

And people are seeing the good, so to speak, when they come and visit, but where does the
good end?

for me, it doesn't, right?

is, we can always take it.

We're at 85, that means we can go to 90, you know?

We're at the top of the charts and we're gonna get higher.

You know what I mean?

But that's me, but being able to communicate to the people that you're with, whether it's
at BNI or at work or the team that you're working with, whatever it is, what is, it's

almost a perfection, right?

Is we seek that perfection that may never happen.

And we need to give ourselves permission to say it's good enough.

Mm-hmm.

enough here, right?

This is, Tammy, it's good enough.

Matt, it's good enough, you know, but also people seek that out.

They want that, like the client I mentioned, they're at seven or eight out of 20,000 and
they want to be higher.

yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and I love that, right?

That excites me because that's my strength.

That's my superpowers taking that and making it, getting you there, helping you see the
light to get to that next step.

So, you know, the,

working with somebody like a coach like me, that's where we look at those things and say,
okay, upside down side, it's how you, sorry, I a little froggy.

It's how you communicate that to others, how you work with other people is this is how I
am.

I can't change, but I can communicate to you why I am asking these things or doing these
things or want to give you this information because that's who, what my strengths are.

All right, so cool.

So absolutely, yes.

Recognizing, I talked about being okay, having permission to be comfortable with who I am,
but also recognizing that this is how I'm built.

It's not how everybody else is built.

Those people aren't fools.

They're not lazy.

They're not my problem.

As a leader, I need to be able to communicate with people where they are and how they
think.

and in a way that's going to empower them to be who they are and give them permission to
be who they are so that together we can help our organization be what it needs to be.

Yes, and some of the other assessments give you kind of the bigger view of that is, I'm an
ENTJ, I'm the, okay.

So they called that the field marshal, which sounds, again, how these perception is, that
sounds bad to me, but I am that.

am helping people charge the hill and helping them get over it, right?

So that's a good thing if I know that, but.

how I uniquely do that is me.

And that's why I love Collective Strengths is my individual set of, if we're similar, you
have different things than I do, there's strengths in there that need to be considered.

And when I tell you, I need information on something we're gonna work on together, you're
gonna love going and digging deep into that, I am not.

It just depends.

It depends on what it is.

My input is 19.

And let's see, uh learner, where's my learner?

My learner's 18.

So, you know, those are in the middle of the pack for me.

They're not my...

Right.

And if we work together, you would be like, yes, you know, and then I can talk to you
about the praise I would give you for if we were working on a project together would be

this, you know, you would revel in the fact that I would love what you found for me.

and that then we would work together well because we have high strategic themes to create
based on what you've found, that information.

And I have different set of things that would help us get there.

So, you know, so that's the fun of this.

All right, so we've talked a lot today.

I am going to ask you one last question, then we'll call it for the day.

So what's next for you?

What are you excited about?

What are you hoping to make an impact in personally and professionally?

What's up?

So I'm at a point in my life where I'm comfortable with who I am.

If I wasn't, it's too late to do anything about it, right?

To a degree.

But I'm comfortable with who I am.

I have experience.

I have passions.

I have self-awareness.

And I feel like all of these things, I'm at a point in my life where I am able to

mentor and coach and encourage other people coming along.

And so I'm not excited to be getting older, uh but I am excited about the opportunities
that that's giving me in the lives of other people to be able to to be that that mentor

that that coach that encourager, not necessarily coaching the way that you're a coach, but
but

but just walking alongside people and uh helping them uh maximize who God made them to be.

Right, yeah, you have lots to give based on all things we talked about, was each in our
own way we give back and that's the cool thing about us all being unique individuals that

walk the earth.

So, all right, well, thank you so much, Matt.

I appreciate it having you here today on The Perfect 100 and I'm gonna remind you one more
time, if you're listening, please go and subscribe and we'll catch you next time on The

Perfect 100.