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A podcast companion for Josh Baron's book, The Lunch Manifesto.
Mark Butler: This is the
Lunch Manifesto podcast.
I'm Mark Butler here with Josh Baron.
Hi Josh.
Josh Baron: What's up, mark?
Mark Butler: How are you?
I'm great.
How are you?
Josh Baron: I'm good.
Mark Butler: I'm impressed
that when I said, how are you?
You didn't say I'm sick
because you are sick and sick.
I had a mentor.
25 years ago who would teach us
those that he was mentoring, what
he called his pearls of wisdom.
And one of his pearls of wisdom
is when you're sick, never say
you're sick and don't act sick.
And I have succeeded at that
pearl of wisdom zero times in my
Josh Baron: life.
Same.
I'm a very wissy sick person.
Mark Butler: if you look up man flu in
the dictionary, there is a picture of me.
I am afflicted by the smallest of
head colds, but you showed up here.
I appreciate it.
We are gonna talk today about
starting with who you already know.
your lunch journey,
your networking journey.
You start with who you already
know well, where does this
conversation start for you?
Josh Baron: one of my earliest memories
about this that I might have told about
a different topic too, but I think
it's a good one, is that my mom created
this one call a day program for my dad.
he went from being a real estate
guy to being an institute teacher,
making much less money, and she
said, Hey, you did some more deals.
And he said, I have a full-time job.
when would I do that?
And she ordered the Wall Street
Journal to come to his office every
day and said, you're not allowed
to come home until you've paged
through the Wall Street Journal.
Found a story that'd be interesting
to someone you already know, and then
call them, not to ask for anything.
Not to just to say hi and hey, I saw
this thing and I was thinking of you.
And like within two weeks, this guy
that he had done some deals with, He was
like, oh, Ross, I'm so glad you called.
I sold this apartment complex and we
thought we had this tax advantage deal
ready to go, but it fell through and now
I've got a really short deadline to close.
Can you help me find a deal so I don't
have to pay all this money in taxes?
And I was like, great.
And he found the deal and he got a nice
little finder's fee and my mom said yes.
I think that sometimes, we want to have.
big outcome changes.
Like we want to go from half a
million in revenue to 3 million in
revenue, or, something like that.
And we sometimes think we
have to do some huge thing.
we have to start advertising,
we have to be on tv.
We have to do something really unusual.
I've heard this attributed to lots
of people, but something that's
helpful to me is the things we do
most frequently, if we change how we
do them, it has the biggest impact.
rather than trying to get lunch
with people that, it's just,
they're not in your circle.
stay in touch with the
people you already know.
They'll introduce you to more people.
you'll have fun speaking with
them and spending time with
them, and it'll feed itself.
I think a lot of times it's
much simpler than we make it.
We try to make it some
complicated, project.
Mark Butler: what principles underpin
the truth of this principle, of this
idea that you already know enough
people and that they are the best
place to put your relationship,
building and maintenance energy?
Josh Baron: one principle is that the
strategy doesn't matter as much as the
consistency over a long period of time.
There's probably lots of strategies that
will get you where you wanna go, but a
lot of them would be difficult to maintain
for the years that you need to do it for.
for me, lunch is a joy and if I
don't enjoy going to some lunch with
someone, then I take them off the list
and I stop going to lunch with them.
I give myself permission to
do that and there's plenty of
people to go to lunch with.
I'm never gonna run out.
And so I think one of the
principles is you've got to choose.
A networking activity that you
can sustain for the long term.
It probably doesn't have to be lunch,
but lunch is so powerful compared
to a lot of the other options.
so much easier.
I read this amazing book on
gifts called Giftology by, a guy,
Jay Ruwan, I think is his name.
Really great book.
I think he passed away recently, suddenly.
but he was sold on the idea that
you just need to be doing gifts.
Gifts are the key, and I found myself
second guessing the gifts I attend.
Like I would have an idea,
I wanna send a gift to this
person, what should I send them?
And he's got like checklists
and principles in his book.
But it would just, I would spend so much
energy trying to figure out what the right
gift was, and it just wasn't sustainable.
I couldn't think of really good gifts
that weren't creepy consistently
over a long period of time.
So it's not that I never send
gifts, but if I had, so if I have
an idea for a gift, I send it.
Some people hate it, some people complain
and say, don't send me any more books.
but it's nice to get mail and it's
nice to get little tokens and I never
want it to seem like it's quid pro quo.
there's a big difference between a
sincere relationship and a trade.
anytime we feel like we're using
spam or we feel like we're being
manipulative or we feel like we're.
Being a used car salesman, like all
those need to be signals that we're
not doing it right and there's a
patient kind, generous way to do it.
Mark Butler: I find it very interesting
that you are confident or are able to
maintain confidence that lunch will
be effective when many of your lunches are
with the same people you've already had.
lunches with.
Josh Baron: Yeah,
Mark Butler: in fact, I had a conversation
with a client yesterday where she and
I were talking about the fact that
we share a certain flavor of anxiety.
She articulated it well.
She called it hoarding opportunity
or hoarding possibility.
And here's what she meant.
We both talked about the idea that
you can always develop a list of
people that you believe are the most
likely to accept a given invitation.
She finds herself, and I relate to
this, not wanting to invite those
people because she feels once she's
extended the invitation, then the
possible outcomes from that invitation
will then be exhausted and then
she'll have a blank sheet of paper,
no one to invite, no more possibility.
So she hoards the possibility and
takes no action on the possibility.
But you not only don't hoard the
possibility, you just look at
that original list and say, no,
I'm just gonna spend time here.
These, the possibilities are never
exhausted with this list of people because
we already like and trust each other.
Josh Baron: And I can always add
people or take them away, or, there's
one guy that I really sincerely
love, but he's such a bummer when
I hang out with him that I cut him.
He doesn't know, I didn't send
him an email saying he was cut,
but I was just like, I can't.
Maintain this.
Like it's exhausting and I still
care about him and if he needed
help, I would be happy to help him.
But I don't wanna spend
two hours with him.
I leave exhausted.
Yeah.
Most people, It's so great.
And I can always add people, I can always
meet somebody in a lot of situations.
if I go to a six person lunch, I don't
have any hopes for the six person
lunch in terms of a deep connection.
Other than that, I might find somebody
that I wanna have one-on-one lunch with
a six person lunch for my personality.
It's just not set up to have
the kind of, interaction that's
like the gold that I need.
But, so I'll go if I'm invited.
I don't like to say no to
invitations if I can say yes.
and it's not worthless, but, what
I, my jam is one-on-one lunches.
I love one-on-one lunches.
Mark Butler: what are the dynamics
of a six person lunch that
make it less appealing to you?
Josh Baron: So last week
I had lunch with this guy.
He used to be a prosecutor.
I really only remember
one case we had together.
It was pretty contentious.
But it was years ago and he left
and went to a company as an in-house
lawyer, and now he's thinking
of starting a small law firm.
And he reached out and was
like, Hey, can we get lunch?
honestly I had hard
feelings from this old case.
but we go to this one-on-one lunch
The first part's very technical.
he's asking me like, what can I
expect to make in the first year?
And, how much can I do?
I have to spend on this and that?
And it's just very technical questions.
Happy to answer them.
No, no concerns.
and then we got into like kids
and religion and it was intense.
Like it was intense.
Like we were talking about stuff like,
kids struggling and faith issues and.
And so I love that.
not every lunch has that, not every
lunch gets that like intense and deep.
but I like to be available for that.
If the other person wants to be, if
there's six people, it's very difficult
to have that kind of conversation.
'cause then me and this person are having
this very, we might have like tears.
We might have like very like
intense conversation about
like our kids or something.
And then next to us there's two people
talking about like the BYA football game.
It's fine.
And again, I'll go, but
it's not my favorite.
My favorite is one-on-one.
Mark Butler: I would add to that, that I
think that a six person lunch is usually
going to end up being somewhere between
two and three parallel conversations.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: But with spillover.
Josh Baron: With, yeah,
so it's uncomfortable.
if I am talking about my kids and you
wanna talk about your kids, and then this
guy is just not on that vibe, it's really
hard to have that deep of conversation
while they're being silly or something.
it's, again, it's not wrong, it's just.
it's hard to get everybody on the,
so it tends to be more superficial.
It's allowed, it's, and, another principal
that, so a personal injury friend of mine
said he tracked, I don't really know how
he would, so I'm a little bit skeptical
of this number, but it feels right.
He said that they tried to track the
probability of receiving a referral
from any particular referral source.
And, they found that there was
a huge spike if they spent time
with a person in the week before.
So even people that you know really well
and you would think, they would think of
you when they run into the kind of problem
that you solve, even those people need to
be reminded and they need to have you at
the front of their mind to be available.
I just went to lunch with
a person two months ago.
I love going to lunch with
this person, but is it selfish?
Am I just doing this for fun?
what is the, but I remember
that statistic, and I'm like,
yeah, I think it's okay.
it'll work out.
I need to be mindful and make sure
that I'm not just going to lunch with
the same three people every week.
But, it doesn't have to be 200 people.
Right now my list is right around a
hundred and there's probably 20 people
I need to take off the list I have a
little, like one through three rating
system, and I have some threes on
there, and I just need to take them off.
Like I have plenty of ones and twos.
Why am I wasting time with threes?
Mark Butler: imagine I haven't been in
this habit, and so I haven't had a chance
to really become converted to the habit,
into the philosophy that drives it.
What if I come to you with a more.
quote, unquote scaled mindset, a
more transactional mindset where I
say, okay, the lunch thing is good.
So what I've gotta do is I've
gotta go to lunch with three
new people every week or month.
And that's how this works.
And then if you tell me, no, I
have a hundred people on my list.
I need to cut at least
20 of them right now.
What would you say to me
about why I can trust.
That investing in those 80
relationships is a better plan than
trying to invest in 800 relationships.
Josh Baron: so there's anthropological
research about tribe size, and
apparently, tribes tend not
to be bigger than 150 people.
the hypothesis is that, when you
add one person to the tribe, You
exponentially increase the number
of relationships in the tribe.
So when I add the hundred 51st
person, that's actually 151 new
relationships because they have to
get to know everybody in the tribe
and be fully integrated in the tribe.
And then I add somebody else and it's 152.
Gore-Tex, I think I read,
tries to have business units
that're not bigger than 150.
so there is a cap on the number
of relationships you can maintain.
It's probably not the same for everyone,
like in the tipping point, Malcolm
Gladwell talks about people who are
really good at cultivating weak ties.
And, so somebody else
might say, it's 200 for me.
And I'd be like, yeah, that could
be, or it's 40 for me, or it's
90, or, all of that could be.
but if somebody said 800,
I'd say probably not.
that's a different strategy.
It'll probably work.
It won't.
It'll be hard to maintain
the depth of a relationship.
Mark Butler: this is seriously
anecdotal, so we should probably just
call this a made up story that might
have some relationship to a true story.
I have a friend who was moving in certain
circles where he was encountering more
people with more influence, and he
met a person that he says, this is the
greatest networker I will ever know.
We talked to another friend of
ours and that friend said, you guys
think I have a PhD in networking?
I'm in kindergarten compared to the
other guy you two are talking about.
And apparently my friend who
interacted with his super networker
said He is incredible at making you
feel like special in the moment.
got that Bill Clinton sort of vibe.
But he said as I've
interacted with him, I.
Have come to the opinion that he
sends maybe hundreds of texts per
day of the, Hey, how you doing?
Variety.
So it's your dad's Wall Street
Journal strategy, but he's doing it
at a crazy scale that requires his
phone to be in his hand at all times.
Constant outbound, constant inbound.
To your point, it does seem to be working.
I think he's outrageously successful.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: Yeah.
You gotta decide which version
of this you're gonna be.
Josh Baron: Right.
years ago we decided we wanted to start a
personal injury firm and advertising costs
for personal injury firms are ridiculous.
Like so bad.
And so I was the marketing guy and
I was like, okay, we're just gonna
go to lunch with chiropractors.
So we just cold call chiropractors.
We'd probably go to two lunches a
week with chiropractors, and in four
months or so, we had 15 or 20 cases.
and then I realized I hate going
to lunch with chiropractors.
I do not like talking to them
my sister, had this training
that has really stuck with me.
I didn't see it.
Obviously I heard her secondhand account
of it, but she's a social worker.
They trained her that,
compassion is not fatiguing.
Sometimes we talk about
compassion fatigue and burnout.
Compassion is not fatiguing,
faking compassion is fatiguing.
And so I think most people have a
number of relationships that they can
maintain in a sincere way where they
don't have to fake it and then they, and
this guy might have, five times as many
available to him that I do it again.
It seems high, if it's working
for him, he should keep doing it.
there's a good book on this called the
Seven Levels of Communication and that
guy's a big fan of sending lots and lots
of texts and yeah, I think it can work.
again, the question is what can
you maintain over the long term?
What will make you actually happier?
'cause before COVID even, I realized
that the amount of money I make will
not increase my happiness anymore.
That doesn't mean I shouldn't strive
to make more in order to grow and serve
more people and be able to do more good.
And so there's reasons to make more money,
but I'm not actually gonna be happier.
And so I choose a version of lunches
that is just like joyful where I'm just
like so excited to go to these lunches.
And somebody else might say,
I need to make more money to
be able to care for my family.
And so I'm gonna tolerate some
people that I don't love as much, but
that can be helpful to my business.
And again, I don't think one's wrong.
Mark Butler: Where would you point
a person who, wants to try this idea
that I already know enough people?
How would you have them start and
what mindset would you give them?
If you could give them a mindset?
Josh Baron: Step one would be, search
your calendar for the word lunch.
Write down the name of everyone
that you've gone to lunch with
in the last five years if they've
already gone to lunch with you.
If you're not selling some unknown thing,
they're like, they're already in the club.
They're already on board.
Some of them, it might have been a
few years, some of 'em, maybe their
situation's changed and they won't
come, but most of them will come.
And then I would send a very short
yes or no invitation, like then
to be by your office on the 24th.
Can I buy you lunch?
That's the whole message.
you don't have to explain why.
if they say no, that day doesn't
work and they don't suggest
another day, that's okay.
We'll wait a few weeks
before we reach out again.
If they say, no, I can't that day,
but what about this other day?
Then you know we're golden.
Mark Butler: this
Josh Baron: Yeah,
Mark Butler: there may be some wisdom that
we might, a person might miss in the fact
that you said it's a very short message.
If a person has an inclination
to send a longer message than.
Do you want to go to lunch?
I think it's because they are bringing
the wrong mindset to the lunch and to
the invitation where they think they've
gotta pre-sell something because the
intent actually is transactional.
They want something that isn't just lunch.
They want to let them know about
an exciting new opportunity
and something like that.
Josh Baron: I think about it
like meditation, where I know my
brain is going to think of ways
that this person can help me.
Like it's really good at that and
I'm not gonna feel guilty about that.
I'm gonna notice it, but then I'm
gonna choose not to focus on that.
So during the lunch, I'm not gonna
ask for anything, even when my body
is let's ask for referrals, I'm gonna
say nobody, we're not doing that.
We're just having a good lunch.
They know what I do.
That's fine.
Mark Butler: okay, go on.
Short messages.
Go on.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Short message.
I get like an 80 to 90% yes.
Rate.
So I don't know that I
have the personality where
I could do like a 5% yes.
Rate, just taking my shock.
it's very reputationally risky
to not respond to another lawyer.
So almost everybody responds.
Most of them say yes.
Most of them are like, you
don't need to pay for food.
And I'm like, I would
love to pay for your food.
I'm very happy to pay for your food.
there's no price for the meal that
would be too high for the value
of the relationship, but it's just
taking a long view of I'm not gonna
pursue the referrals directly.
I'm gonna pursue it indirectly.
I'm gonna build this relationship.
I'm gonna focus on this other person.
When I notice my thoughts drifting
to myself, I'm gonna consciously
deposit them back on the other person.
I'm gonna try to make sure they
have an i, I think I'm gonna
think of myself as a host.
Not as, somebody who needs to be
entertained by this person and then I
think as time goes on and I've done a
few lunches with them and they get my
vibe, then it can be more reciprocal.
I think that's something that I've
struggled with a little bit, is
letting the other person, help
me with a problem or make an
introduction or pay for the food
I don't think people like to
be in one way relationships.
Mark Butler: I was gonna say you, I'm
sure you've heard about the psychology
that a person feels a stronger bond
to you after they do something for you
than after you do something for them.
Josh Baron: Right.
So I think you need to come
in with costly signaling.
You need to come in and say
this is how I'm going to be.
You don't have to, you don't have to fear
me that I'm gonna come in and be a taker.
Yeah.
But again, like it's gotta
be a balanced relationship.
And personally, I don't reach out to
people to go to lunch with that are
like way ahead of me in their careers.
And I don't love going with
people that are super, super
far behind me in their career.
like I'm happy to do
a phone call with 'em.
I'll go to lunch if they want to.
I'm fine, but I'm usually not
gonna put them on my list.
Mark Butler: Do you think you could
speak to what is less appealing about
both of those extremes, way ahead of you
or way behind you and your perception?
Josh Baron: so when I was in law
school, I went to this reception and
Utah's senior senator at the time
was there and I ended up in like this
circle talking to him or eating hor
d'oeuvres or whatever off of the plates.
And chatting with this guy,
I did not like who I was.
I was like, a little panicked puppy.
I was so excited to be talking
to him and I wanted to.
You know, and I don't like
that version of myself.
and so I wish I could say I don't care
about, no, I care way too much about
being with those kinds of people.
Like I am.
I am like Dwight, shrewd about it.
Like I'm like sycophantic a
little bit and I don't like it.
And then with people who are way behind
me, it depends on their attitude.
If they treat me like an
equal, I'm happy to do it.
we can have lunch as much as they
want, but if they're like, oh,
you're so far ahead of me and you're
so great, and all the things I'm
I don't like this.
There's this other
lawyer, I really like him.
He is over the top when he, he, if he sees
me talking to a client in court, he'll
stop like holding the other person's face
in his hands and be like, you have the
greatest lawyer in the history of lawyers.
This man walks on water and
it makes me uncomfortable.
I don't like it.
Of course, I don't like it.
And so I think he's trying to do a
nice thing and I try to accept it in
that spirit, but it's not my favorite.
Mark Butler: in those kinds of situations,
I think it's hard to trust the sincerity.
Josh Baron: Right.
Mark Butler: Some people are that
Josh Baron: they probably are.
It's hard for me to believe it.
Mark Butler: I don't think it's the norm.
Okay.
So that's why you like to go to lunch
with people who you perceive to be,
similar in their, career progress to you.
how does a person who is not on the
lunch list get on the lunch list?
How do you decide to run the
experiment with a new person?
Josh Baron: if they reach
out, I'll always go once.
I'll always try.
And I have relatively low
expectations for a first lunch.
Like I don't really
expect it to be amazing.
It's a little bit first date ish.
so I'm trying to moderate that.
but I also have lots of first
lunches that are everything I wanted.
I just loved it.
so that's one way for
somebody else to reach out.
I'll see somebody in court The only
type of referral that I'll ask for
if I go to lunch with somebody,
I'll never ask for client referrals.
But I might say, Hey, I'm looking to make
pickleball playing lawyers who are divorce
lawyers in South Jordan, like Aaron Lar.
Do you know anybody like that?
So, yeah, like this week I had lunch
with a friend who is a financial
planner and I was like, Hey, I'd
love to meet more divorce lawyers.
Do you know anybody?
And she set up a lunch and the three
of us went to lunch and it was great.
Again, I wasn't asking for
anything, just getting to know them.
and then the lunch ends and I go
and I look for a way to leave them
a Google review or to send them
a thank you note or, some way to
just show Hey, I appreciated this
That's great.
And it just like simple, repeatable, and
the list is generally growing with people.
I'm just delighted to go to lunch with,
Mark Butler: but I'm not getting
the impression that you are metric
driven as it relates to x new people
on the list per period of time.
Josh Baron: I do try to
have 10 lunches a month, and
Paralegal, Matt tracks it, and he
recently started breaking them up
between personal lunches and not
personal lunches, which hurt my feelings.
because I was getting credit for going to
lunch with you and going, and now he's no,
mark, you go to lunch with Mark too much.
I'm not counting that anymore.
I was like, you're not totally wrong.
I haven't decided.
Maybe I'll tell 'em to put it back.
but yeah, If my mental health is
great, I'll naturally go to lunches.
If my mental health is like in the
middle or I have a lot of stress, or
I'm exhausted, then I'll not do as many
lunches as I should unless I count them.
So again, that's anecdotal, that's me.
somebody else, me say,
I only wanna do one.
Oh, great.
what can you sustain over
a long period of time?
but yeah, you're just showing up
for these people over and over
again, and it leads to really great
positive relationships that bring joy.
Independent of any business outcome.
And then occasionally they'll
be like, Hey, I got this case.
I can't take it.
Do you want it?
And it'll be amazing.
And I'll be like, I'm buying you
jazz tickets I was talking to
somebody and they kept thinking
that I was going to jazz club.
But I mean, NBA jazz
tickets, nobody wants jazz.
Mark Butler: The Utah Jazz,
Josh Baron: NBA team, nobody
wants jazz music tickets.
Mark Butler: Some people do,
Josh Baron: Don't get people, jazz music.
Mark Butler: final thoughts to
encourage people to believe that
they already know enough people.
Josh Baron: just try it.
Let go and see how it feels
and I think it'll feel good.
And you might have some ideas
of some people that wanna add
to your list and that's great.
but it doesn't have to be this
like panicky, needy thing.
It can be patient generous and,
Hey, do you wanna go to lunch?
Mark Butler: Cool,
Josh Baron: there's 10,000 Utah
lawyers, I'm never gonna run out.
Yeah.
Mark Butler: All right, Josh.
Good talk.
Thanks everybody for listening.
We'll be back soon with more
conversations about lunch.
Josh Baron: I'm off to court.
Thanks,
Mark Butler: mark.
Off to court.
Okay, talk to you soon.
Josh Baron: See you.
Mark Butler: Bye.