Lou Diamond: [00:00:00] Welcome to exactly what they say about Phil M Jones. We are here with Jillian Blumberg, events and community manager at Curaytor. Jillian, how are you today?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:00:10] I’m doing well. How are you?

Lou Diamond: [00:00:12] I’m doing spectacular. Do us a favor, Jillian. Share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Jillian Blumberg: [00:00:19] Sure. So I, as you said, am the events and community manager over at Curaytor.  Which basically means I run the event and our client community.   A little bit about Curaytor is we are a digital marketing firm that specializes in sales and marketing techniques and we really specialize in real estate agents. I’ve been there for three years. And what’s been my role of running events –  a major portion of my job is researching and sourcing keynote speakers for an annual conference that we host.

Lou Diamond: [00:00:47] So for that annual conference, you obviously had to do some research to try to find a speaker. How do you go about and why did you select Phil M Jones?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:00:58] Well, easy question there. So we basically found Phil Jones through one of our co-founders, Chris Smith. Chris is the sales backbone at Curaytor. He deals with everything on the sales side of the house. When we were researching for our annual event, which is called Curaytor Excellence. Just to backtrack, it is the largest event of the year. It’s exclusive to Curaytor clients only and it is rumored to be the best real estate conference in the industry. And I’m not saying that because I plan the whole thing. I like to say that it’s a 5 percent event planning and 95 percent content. We run an amazing event. It’s beautiful. Jaw dropping. But really, what makes it the best real estate conference is our content. And within that content is all the keynote speakers.  The selection for the keynote speakers is honestly, months and months and research. Last year (2018) when we when we had Phil, it was a little easier because Chris had him on his radar and was just simply blown away by Exactly What To Say. He knew that the concept was something special and he knew it was a new way of thinking and approaching the art of sales that many of our real estate agents may not be aware of. We knew his material would resonate and be impactful to our clients and the work they perform on a daily basis as a real estate agent. And it was kind of a new way of thinking for both Curaytor and our clients and a natural extension and progression of what we already coach our clients on. So it’s one of those stars aligned moments. You know, we look for our keynote speakers. We try to find something that will be impactful and resonate with our clients. And Phil, as you know, people know he’s just enjoyable. He’s easy to listen to and he really shifts your mindset. And that’s what drew us to him through his book and really prompted us and we were really driven to have him at our excellence conference last year.

Lou Diamond: [00:02:49] So, Jillian, I’m curious to know, as the events and community manager, what was the experience like before Phil arrived at the event? The planning stages with him and  your interaction with him or your team’s interaction with him?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:03:03] Well, first off, Phil is truly wonderful to work with. When we decided we wanted to pursue Phil for our first event, I just simply did the online inquiry.   Doing this on a daily basis and we reach out to keynote speakers assumed I’d hear in a week or so. I want to say it was between 30 minutes to an hour that I got a call from a UK number. I answered, and sure enough, it was Phil Jones. I was a little confused because I know Phil lived in New York, but he said to me on the phone and he quickly filled me in that he was on holiday with his family back in England, but received my inquiry and wanted to reach out. We chatted about the event and our company, our clients, what we were looking for –  for about 30 minutes. And right off the bat, I was super impressed that he not only responded so quickly, but took the time while on holiday with his family to reach out and chat about our event. We quickly knew it was a great fit and everything to follow was just fantastic.  Phil is super accommodating. Some keynote speakers have strict contracts that they’ll only follow A, B and C. Phil truly wanted to know what our clients wanted to learn about the real estate industry and make sure his session was really specifically geared towards our audience and had the most powerful experience.   Which goes above and beyond most any other keynote speaker I’ve ever worked with. Bonnie, who works with Phil, is fantastic. Both of them are so prompt to reply. It’s always an easy response. It was never anything that was difficult or leaps and bounds to work through. But with Phil, it honestly just boils down to the content and what Phil brings to the table. His concept is revolutionary to the sales industry and it’s changing the minds and the work ethic of agents across the world. And I just can’t express how truly grateful we are that we’ve stumbled upon him and have embedded him into the Curaytor culture.

Lou Diamond: [00:04:52] Let’s talk about when he was presenting at the event. What stuck out in your mind and what was one of the things that will resonate with you for as long as you can remember.

Jillian Blumberg: [00:05:01] So there are a lot of things that stuck out with Phil. And I just want to reiterate that we had Phil last year (2018) at our fourth excellence, which was in Boston, Massachusetts. And the feedback that we received from Phil was so overwhelming that  it was an easy answer to bring them back to our fifth excellence this year (2019), which took place in Nashville. We even added on an additional workshop that was private to a limited amount of Curaytor clients. That was an all day workshop, specifically with Phil and Exactly What To Say for real estate agents. And then we had him during the regular conference. And of course, we had him the previous year. But the one thing we heard over and over again, I think the key takeaway from both myself, my colleagues and our clients was “Better Beats Best” get things done is better than trying to make them perfect. It doesn’t need to be the perfect vision every time. But as long as you do the work, that’s what counts. Phil also really showed our audience how to take questions and help you gain control of conversations.  When you don’t know what to say, you say the wrong thing. So it was all like these light bulb moments that Phil brought during his presentations over the past two years. We can’t emphasize enough on the magic words and the impact that that has had towards helping our agents craft answers, even our staff, even our co-founders will often post messaging in our group mastermind or emails and there’s always a twist to Phil Jones in there with the magic words. Because like I said, he is just embedded in the Curaytor culture now and magic words and Phil Jones is just a normal day to day banter that we have. “What If I told you” and “imagine if” – the whole concept let’s them paint a picture in their minds in regards special potential outcomes of the situation.  Everything sets off these light bulbs in the audience and it’s a new way of thinking.  Taking Control of the situation, using your words, the power of words, the power of controlling the conversation, just to name a handful of things that we’ve heard and we’ve gathered from Phil.

Lou Diamond: [00:07:06] If you were to share with another events and community manager like yourself at another company that was thinking about hiring Phil – what would you say to that individual as they are making their decision for who could speak at their event?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:07:19] Well, for starters, like I mentioned a few times, we had Phil “back to back”. he was at our fourth Excellence – he was at our fifth Excellence. He is the only keynote speaker in the history of the event, of any and all speakers, including our two co-founders – And if they listen to this, you know, they’ll probably be like “hmmm” —  Phil is the only one to ever receive a standing ovation at our event. Literally the only standing ovation to date. He was a hit on so many levels. He was engaging, resourceful, inspiring. I can’t mention enough how much he helped shift the mindset of our clients and how they think and approach sales. It’s very rare with the time that I’ve been with this company or attended conferences that you do have a keynote speaker “back to back” – Year to year that is.  They might come back after a few years later, but to have still at both 2018 at once in 2019 and have this additional sold out private workshop really sums up the fact that Phil was phenomenal and had such an impact. I can’t stop emphasizing that enough, but he truly just has this presentation and the material that is so different than anything else you receive at any other conference you go to that it it’s rewarding in itself. It’s not only for our clients but it’s also for our company. Our coworkers use the philosophy of Phil as well as our co-founders and it’s truly become all in one with how we operate as a company. And he’s truly an experience. And I know from my experience with Phil that if anyone was to bring them to their conference or event, they would experience nothing less than when I’ve spoken about him, if not more, because he brings nothing but the best to the table.

Lou Diamond: [00:09:09] So, Jillian, as I understand it, Curaytor and Phil Jones actually worked together to produce something that was really valuable for your event and actually has been very helpful, maybe even to the industry as well. Correct?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:09:23] That is correct. So the relationship between Phil and Curaytor started at Excellent Boston. And from that event, we really noticed something special between Curaytor and Phil. And over the year, the guys worked on a very special project that turned into some really exciting stuff. Our co-founders Chris and Jimmy partnered with Phil and co-authored Exactly What to Say for real estate agents.

Lou Diamond: [00:09:48] Were you able to put that content together for your specific workshop at your event?

Jillian Blumberg: [00:09:54] Yes. We actually, for the first time ever, offered an exclusive all day private workshop with Phil to a small number of Curaytor clients. And again we never repeat keynotes – so the fact that we had Phil back to back years with an additional sold out private workshop  – pretty much sums up that we’ve got some pretty amazing feedback from having Phil Jones at our event and an even better partnership that grew between Phil Jones and Curaytor that basically wrote and defined the conference that we had THIS year.

Lou Diamond: [00:10:24] Jillian Blumberg, thank you so much for sharing exactly what you experienced with Phil M Jones.

Jillian Blumberg: [00:10:30] Glad to help and glad to have worked with Phil two years in a row. And we hope to continue the relationship and partnership for many years to come.