Meet Mandi Graziano

We recently connected with Mandi Graziano and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mandi , thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
I haven’t always been an optimist. I remember as a little girl being afraid of EVERYTHING–like EVERYTHING. I would whisper to my mom and ask her to say things out loud. I always had a chip on my shoulder as if someone was trying to get one over on me. I used to always look for the scam or the bad in things. I was suspicious. And then in my early 20’s I read an article in Inc Magazine. It was about Pat Croce. He was President of the Philadelphia 76ers. The whole premise his article is if say something it happens. For example, his book was called “I Feel Great and You Will Too” It was so small but that clicked for me. If I look for the good, I will find it. If I say I am awesome, well then I am. I spent the rest of my 20’s playing a game with myself where I could take the absolute worst situation and find the good in it. That is when things turned for me. And when things turned, I just kept running into positive moments. Several years later someone introduced me to The Secret. Rhonda Byrne’s book about Thoughts become words and words become actions. I think I just decided to quit being a sarcastic jerk who points out people’s flaws and saw more value in the possibility of people. I’ve been wearing that moniker ever since. I even have an inventory of people who have said “Don’t worry, your glasses won’t be so rosy when you get older” and I live to tell the story that at almost 50 and a world of experiences later–my glasses are rosier than ever before. Maybe I should dole out the books of my mid 20’s to those naysayers

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I try and elevate everyone around me my listening and educating. My whole world is sales whether I am writing about sales, sales coaching, selling, buying from sellers or promoting something or asking people for money for a fund raiser to which I belong. I am on a warpath to remove the stigma of sales. Sales is NOT a dirty word. We are all selling something whether it is an idea, a product, a service, getting your kid to eat vegetables, getting your parents to take you to a skate park–honing the sales skills as early as possible is really important. My world revolves around sales. As a sales coach I make people more memorable in the marketplace in the marketplace by helping them to prioritize personalization. Another important part of sales coaching is finding the FUN in follow up. If you’re doing the same method over and over you’ll see no results but when you vary your follow up between fun subject lines, video, online engagement, interesting phone calls and unconditional love notes not only do you 10x your response and sales, YOU have fun too. Finally, I provoke groups to digitally dominate through social selling. If you don’t have any form of online presence, you need one. You don’t have to be an influencer or a TikTok Queen but you do need to be where people are–and people are scrolling. Being in front of the scroll is important to grow your business and thought leadership. These are the top 3 concepts I stimulate in my sales coaching business 1:1 or in groups. I work with all industries virtually over the screen or on stages face to face. It’s fun. It’s my calling and I love it. Rolling my sleeves up and getting in there with a human or a sales team to solve their sales problems and then actually seeing results is so gratifying for me and them.

Two new parts of my business this year that I am really proud of and are impactful are:
Sales Tales Live! This is a 70-minute online coaching session. I speak for 40 minutes about specific curated topics that move the needle forward for the audience’s business and then we do 30 minutes of live virtual coaching. It’s total magic. We did our first session in February and it sold out. It was a mix of salespeople and business owners from different industries. My lesson learned from that first session is to niche up on the mix of humans in the session. That means my next session will be for hospitality people only and the third session will be for entrepreneurs only. I like experimenting with different sessions like this as it helps make the coaching session more dense and impactful for the audience. Delivering practical tactical tips that they can apply the very next day–as soon as they get off the call–is really important to me.

Business Bedside Manner™–this is a concept I trademarked and have lightly written about. Over the last 3 years I’ve been speaking about this to audiences in all industries and levels. I feel it’s more important now than ever before to brush on on your Business Bedside Manner™. BBM is your approach. Who are YOU in the marketplace? Who do YOU want to be? How do YOU want to show up? Once you take the time to really look inward and answer these questions for yourself your business will change, grow, evolve and your truest self is illuminated. I love this concept so much my next book is all about Business Bedside Manner™. It will be a microbook that comes out over the next couple of years. It will be a short and simple read. An old boss once said “Be Brief. Be Bright. Be Gone” This will be the structure of BBM–short, sweet, power-packed with golden nuggets that make you better in business.

A long answer to a short question: I write impactful books that make people better in business. I conduct FUN & Insightful sales coaching virtual and live sessions that grow your visibility in the marketplace. I speak on stages where the audience walks away knowing they can illuminate their best self through my many practical tactical tips.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Trust your gut. Always. I have a quote on my board from my mom in my office that says “Trust Your Gut. It’s the best compas you have and it will never lead you astray. It has no hidden motive except to get you exactly where you’re suppose d to be” Whenever I take some time in silence to ask myself “what is really going on here?” and actually listen to my gut, the answers always come. Whenever I get a twinge in my gut about something and I don’t listen to it, I always wish I would have in the first place. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself–make space for silence so you can hear the messages yourself is telling you too. We live in a loud crowded world. We’ve got to actively make space for silence to actually be lead to our highest self.

2. NO is a complete sentence. It’s OK to set boundaries and say no. You don’t want to be that “no person” or always the person that says “the problem with that is….” I hate those types of people. But, if you say YES to everything it is a big time management issue. There’s just not enough time in the day. Strengthen your No muscle. Learn what is good for you and the greater good of your world and if it isn’t just say no.

3. Make health and family a priority as early as possible. I didn’t make health a priority until my early 30’s and I wish I would have done it sooner. When your health is on the forefront everything else falls into place. When I say health I mean how you sleep, eat, exercise, think, spend/save money, spend time with people-family and friends. Your health is your wealth and if you don’t fill your cup first there won’t be anything left to pour into anyone else’s cup. Take care of yourself first and foremost–no one is going to do that for you. In tandem–build a community–whether that is your blood family or your chosen family. People that love you and that you love are important for your success personally and professionally. Giving back to them (after you’ve given to yourself first) is a hallmark of my life. I am blessed to have a crazy Croatian/Italian/mixed mut family from Cleveland Ohio and equally blessed to have a chosen family in San Diego that I have built over the last 25 years. Making time with family a priority over work, over anything else (after health) is important. We recently did a surprise party for my mom’s 75th birthday and we asked people in her world to send her cards. SO many people make time to do this. They made it a priority. They pushed work aside, and made space to write her a note or a card. This made her so happy she was floating. She didn’t think twice about the people that didn’t make space and time for this. She did however remember each and every person that made her a priority just for that one moment, Making space and time for people you love is important. It sometimes seems like a huge effort to do but always worth it in the end. Work will always be there. Your loved ones may not be.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I love this question and I always ask it of people but no one asks it of me. YES. I am always looking for people to partner and collaborate with. Here are the ideal collaborators for me right now: —If you are an expert in Amazon marketing or Ingram Publishing marketing–I want to know you. This is an area I learned a little bit about after releasing my first book but it’s an area I want to learn more about and want to hire people to grow that side of my business.

—If you are a director, VP, CSO of sales for your company. I want to help your team shatter their sales goals through my coaching sessions. Let’s talk.

—If you’re a CMO or Marketing Director that isn’t getting anywhere with your current marketing investments and are curious how a podcast/live show audience can expand your product/service visibility. I want to talk to you. Our weekly Adventures in Business podcast is fun, with a loyal audience, and we provide integrated marketing within our podcast that raises awareness about your business with a loyal/organic audience. We’re looking to partner with people that want to experiment with this way of marketing.

—If you’re an entrepreneur who is in the process of expanding your business like I am and you just want to yuck it up, share war stories, help each other grow, lift each other up. Let’s talk. I love a mutual/equal business relationship where people want to help each other be better humans in business.

—If you’re a woman going through or approaching perimenopause. Let’s talk. I am 9 years in and I wish someone would have shouted this word earlier in my life so I understood the symptoms, signs, and sheer situation of it all. I’ve got it managed now, but, love to talk about it, help and learn new tactics for this strange ailment that all women endure. If you are a man who isn’t a wimp who walks away from a conversation when the word PERIMENAPAUSE is spoken, I want to talk to you. Women need advocates, strong men who actually want to understand this process and educate other men about it so we don’t have to whisper about it anymore. Men and Women, reach out to me. Let’s normalize talking about things that we’ve had to whisper about for way to many years.

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