Pink Headphones: Up-leveling Relationships and Referrals w/Matt Ward

In today's Pink Headphones issue we're recapping the Dreamers Succeed Podcast epic-sode with Matt Ward. By trade, Matt is a marketing and business growth specialist. He is the word of mouth referral guy. He is the “it” man. He is an expert networker, author, professional speaker, and the reason him and I hit it off so well is because he is a big-time chocolate lover.

Matt

Hey, everybody! Nice to be here.

Berta

I want to give him a proper introduction even though I know it will not do him justice. Since I know you’re going to get to know him through the episode, I know you’re in for a real treat.

Welcome, Matt. I’m so happy you’re here.

Matt

Berta, thank you so much for having me. I’m honored to be on your show and your podcast.

Berta

This is one of those beautiful things about LinkedIn and mutual introductions. I was introduced to Matt several weeks ago and just immediately fell in love with his spirit, his authenticity, and his passion for helping connect people and make the world a better place. I’m as excited as can be. Let’s get started, dude! You ready?

Matt

I’m ready. Do you have a spirit animal, by the way? Do you have one?

Berta

I think it’s a horse.

Matt

I was thinking it might be a zebra. Mine’s a tiger.

Berta

Is it really?

Matt

They call me tiger king.

Berta

Are you watching that? Have you watched that?!

(uncontrollable laughter)

Matt

Sadly I’ve watched that.

Berta

Me too. I have no shame in my game. I admit it. My husband watched the first two episodes, and I was like, “you’re crazy getting into something crazy.” He said, “just sit down for five minutes.” It’s like crack!

Matt

For sure. It’s crazy. So, just a shoutout for all you cool cats and kittens, welcome to the show.

Berta

There you go! Alright, Matt. Let’s get started. I love the flow that we’re going to have today, just because I know you’re so much fun. Can you tell us about how you got started in this reality of really committing yourself to be a connector and making sure that you help people’s businesses grow with this word of mouth referral?

Matt

I owned a digital marketing agency for over 16 years. As part of my responsibilities in the role of the owner – I didn’t do any programming, any designing – I was doing sales and marketing and networking. I hated cold-calls, so I was doing more networking than anything. To be perfectly honest, I think I was doing networking because it felt easier for me and it was more successful for me.

As I look back now, that was much more of a superpower for me. I’m a connector and I feel very at home building relationships with other people. But at the time I would go to networking events and I would be looking for my clients. But I was also looking for things in return. I would give a business card and expect one in return. I would give a referral and expect one in return. What changed the whole game for me was actually digging deep into a book by Keith Ferrazzi called “Never Eat Alone.” Conceptually, it’s the idea that – if you have to eat – you might as well invite people to lunch or to coffee to eat with you.

That’s not really what I took away from it. What I took away from it was the point that we need to give without the expectation of getting anything in return. That is a habit and a muscle that you build over time. Even to this day, I do get that thought (but wait, when’s my turn?), and all I tell people now is, “Look… there’s no solution for that thought. You need to understand it happens to everybody and just recognize it but don’t act on it.” Know it’s there. Be cognizant it’s there. Say to yourself it’s there and then just keep doing what you’re doing. Eventually, what you’re doing is going to be way more beneficial anyway than trying to turn this around and act like it’s your turn.

Once I started putting that into practice, Berta, it changed everything for me. I was really all about the relationship, touching base with other people. Even as the web guy, I was trying to make sure their business was doing okay. And if they had needs, could I connect them with other people I knew.

That really changed the game for me. It’s funny because that was probably thirty years after my grandfather told me that business is about who you know, not what you know. I didn’t believe him and I fought with him over that. I’ll never forget him saying to me, “Boy… let me tell you it’s who you know, not what you know.”

I used to think it was like… we get into a relationship with somebody, a business relationship, a conversation… and if we can’t hold our conversation because we don’t know what we’re talking about that we’re going to look stupid and people are going to look down upon us.

That’s not really the case at all. I’m a guy that doesn’t have a college degree. I tell people I went to the university of Google. Everything I pretty much know I Googled. At the highest level of education, I have a high school degree with a semester of college that just wasn’t for me. In fact, I failed broccoli and cheese sauce class. And people, if you’re watching on the video… I’m fat! But broccoli and cheese sauce class. I’m not a patient man. I failed that and I’m out. So I didn’t know then what I know now. If I could go back and rewind the clock, I think I would change so much in the sense that I would build better relationships – deeper, earlier. That’s the key.

Berta

And that’s really a great observation. When we stop keeping score and we just do it for the sake of doing it… I know how you are and I’m like that as well. I like to think of myself like that. It just becomes part of your DNA. We’re not paying attention. You, I know, serve for the sake of serving. As Bob Burg, in the Go-Giver, says, “Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. It’s not that we’re waiting to receive, it’s that we have to be open to receive.”

Matt

Isn’t he such a genius?

Berta

He’s just amazing. I love Bob. We get into that giving mode, and even if we’re not keeping score, one day we look back and we say, man, I’m just burning the candle at both ends and nothing is coming in. But it always comes back.

Matt

When we say those things, I don’t think it’s wrong to even say or think those things. Like I said before, I just think it’s something we need to just recognize, notice that it’s there, know that it’s human nature to feel that way, and then just not act on it. Be positive.

Oftentimes, by the way, positivity changes the outlook of how all of this works, right? If we’re positive, we’re looking forward to helping the next person. It’s when we think about why we didn’t receive something that we turn into the negative. If we let the negative thoughts drive our actions, now we’re just another sleazy salesperson that no one wants to talk to.

Berta

So, Matt, what was the biggest change when you started to live your life that way? It has to be in your DNA already for you to be able to comfortably morph into looking at it from that perspective. What changed? I’m sure it was subtle, but what do you think changed in your business and in your personal life?

Matt

I think ultimately I was a happier person. I had a lot of changes in my life in 2009 and 2010, which is now ten years from the time we’re recording this. I probably started implementing those practices in late 2008 when the economy was crashing. At the time, you don’t realize “I’m doing these things is it really going to work? Things take a long time, referrals take a long time, the reciprocity effect takes a long time.”

At the time, I probably was counting referrals. Are they coming back? I’m giving them. I think once I got past the struggles of the business challenges with the economy of 2008, difficulties with managing a company and trying to stay afloat at that time and then personal issues and health issues in 2009 and 2010. You move into 2012 and I’m a much happier person. That takes time, though, right?

What happens is you start to surround yourself with people that up-level you and people that just bring you joy. That’s the type of thing that I’m just a firm believer in. We should all do more business with people that bring us joy. I think too oftentimes we say we need 10,000 clients. Very few companies need 10,000 clients.

If they are, it’s not a relationship driven sale; it’s a transaction. An airline needs 10,000 clients or more. That’s a transaction. There’s no relationship there. In the world of service-based businesses and small businesses, people do business with the person, not with the brand. So that’s relationship driven. That takes time.

Berta

I’m glad you mentioned that. That’s one of the things that a lot of times when I’m out there teaching and working on Becoming Competition Proof’s process, the last part of Networking with Heart is “Time.”

You’re talking about the fern vs the bamboo. But holy moly, when that kicks in, it’s really exponential, so thanks for mentioning that, Matt. You and I had a conversation some time ago. Sometimes, it’s doing something small for someone that really makes a big impact. I truly believe that. I know that many of our listeners feel that way too. Sometimes, we’re not paying attention. Talk to me a little bit about those little touches and those little things that you do that may seem small but to the person on the other end is just a huge impact for them.

Matt

Sure. So one of the things that I do in my professional speaking business is – when I travel (which isn’t current at the moment due to Covid-19) – I take five postcards with me. I address them and mail them with a short little note on the postcard. Obviously a postcard doesn’t have a lot of space. The postcard is a postcard that I purchased in that city or for that city that I’ve been in before. Perhaps I even bought them on Amazon. There’s a great little hack. You pre-buy, address, stamp, and write the note. Then when you land in the city you drop them in the mailbox. You’re touching base with people that maybe haven’t heard from you in 2-3 months. Maybe six months.

But you’re staying in touch. You’re saying hello. You’re checking on them. Think about, for a moment, how you feel when you walk out to your mailbox and you get junk mail, junk mail, junk mail. Bill, bill, bill. Oh, wait! Hand-written postcard!

You can change that up. It doesn’t matter what the message is. It’s just a matter of having a process in place that reminds you to touch base with people. That’s all it really is about. And if you can do these small little touches from time to time it works absolute wonders. One of the things I can do is simple Facebook message – a simple text message. People’s birthdays. Most people go to Facebook and write happy birthday on their wall. That gets lost in 250 other Facebook wall messages. A person has to sit there and hit like and thank you to every single one. If they change their birthday next week, no one would even know… they’d do the same thing. What I do on people’s birthdays is I’ll go into the Facebook messenger, I’ll slide over the photo app to video, and I’ll record a little happy birthday song for them.

No one else is doing that so it stands out, makes them feel special. It’s their birthday, we should make them feel special. I’m silly – I’m a silly person – I’ll do crazy things. I’ll put weird hats on and I might even put a happy birthday little hat on from a birthday package from the dollar tree. Covid-19 is going around. I’ll put a mask on or something and sing. I’m just trying to brighten their day, right?

People don’t remember what you said; they remember how you made them feel. This is something that we need to do much more of. That’s what a postcard does. That’s what a hand-written card does. That’s what a video message does to somebody. It makes them feel super special. You don’t have to do this every day, every week, every month. But if you are just staying in touch from time to time and you find reasons to do these things, and you pay attention to who people are, then you can find a way to cut through the noise and stand out in a way that matters to the other party. That’s beneficial for you as a business-owner, to be perfectly frank. They’ll start caring about you as well.

Berta

And I agree with you, Matt. It’s about making the people feel special. Making them feel heard; making them feel important.

The way that you described it when you said, “A process.” Really… it’s something that we should be figuring out how to make that a process – not automate it – but make it a process that’s easy to remember. I’ll put little notes in the back of business cards if I had a nice conversation with someone. I’ll come in and populate my calendar with the important dates that we’ve talked about.

I reach out to them and they’ll realize that I was really listening. Nobody is listening anymore! Right, Matt?

Matt

Right! And people love to talk.

Berta

Matt… I know you do something really cool when it comes to LinkedIn when you have a new connection.

Matt

I do it about 80% of the time. So LinkedIn in and of itself can be a real challenge sometimes because people want to sales pitch you. They come at you hard sometimes. It’s not all about the relationship or the networking. I want to make it very clear if they haven’t read my profile – especially if they haven’t sent me some sort of custom message…

I record a video using a video email tool. The tool is called BombBomb. You can check it out at bombbomb.com right now. What I do is record a short little video – 30 seconds – and then I’ll accept the connection and put the share link for the video from the tool into LinkedIn messenger. Then the person clicks on the message. I use a white board that has their name on it. The number one pleasing sound in the English sound in the English language is the sound of an individual’s first name. So we use their name on them because that’s going to create the click because they know it’s personalized. The message says, “Hey! It’s Matt Ward from Breakthrough Champion. Thanks so much for connecting with me, Berta. I greatly appreciate it. Not sure how you found out about me…”

Most likely the person didn’t put a message in. I said, “Maybe it’s the mutual connections we have or maybe it’s my book. I’m not sure what it was, but I’m super happy that you connected. I’m all about relationships and I’d love to learn more about you without any kind of sales pitch. So until next time don’t forget to live happy, smile a lot, and high five everyone around you.”

Then I send it. 80-90% of time, they reply with “Wow!” Nobody sends them a video message. In the last year, I’ve probably done 800 of those. Video message of any kind. Probably not 800 LinkedIn ones specifically. I also use it for my public speaking business so that people can get a real flair of my humor or whatever if they’re considering me for a talk or something like that.

I can use the video tool for a lot of different reasons, but I’ve implemented it in my LinkedIn process like we were talking about before. So when people say, “I’m going to send videos to 500 people!” That’s not going to work. “I’m going to send cards to 400 people!” That’s not going to work. Can you send videos to 5 people and a card to 4? Why do we have to bite off more than we can chew? That’s not going to be a sustainable process. It’s not going to be a sustainable habit. We want to start with one and move to two and to three and to four. M biggest challenge is getting people to understand that we want to insert these touch points into systems and processes in their company that already exist without causing upheaval, right?

So I look at what you’re doing now to communicate with people. How are you effectively networking with people? If you go to a chamber networking event, when you come home, what do you do? I want to hear what you do and what you do with those cards and how are you connecting? I want to know if you have twelve cards or four. I’d much rather you have four than twelve, right?

Who are you asking for at that event? Where does the data go? Oh, you’re too busy so you don’t have time to do it? But do you have an assistant – an office manager that can help you? Why don’t you mail cards? I don’t have any… can your office manager buy a dozen off Amazon and you buy bulk after that?

How does your system and process work so we don’t mess up the company and create this upheaval situation where nothing is going to work. Then we just say, okay, let’s drop this one thing in here and see how that goes for the next two months. Then we add one more thing. Then we up the quantity levels once people get comfortable with certain things.

We start introducing tools that they can use to make their life a little bit easier to manage. So, for instance, if they don’t have a CRM, then I’m trying to get them into some sort of CRM system that they’re comfortable with just to start logging emails they send to clients and prospects and referral partners, you know?

So we look at all the tools that can help them streamline their business as well because those things are going to help because we talked right here about two tools. We talked about the BombBomb tool, but we also talked about LinkedIn. If they’re not talking about either one of those… I can’t get them to use BombBomb if they’re not using LinkedIn. I have to get them to see the value of that. That’s a struggle sometimes because people don’t see the value because long-term relationship building takes time to produce results.

A lot of times if I’m working with people, they understand that they’re missing their referrals and they know that there’s a better way, but they’re stuck. They don’t know how to get more of them. They get them,, but they don’t know why them come. They say, “Oh, my customers refer people. That’s where I get my referrals from.” But when you talk to them about it, that’s not really who is referring them. That’s just a large assumption.

Berta

So, Matt, when you go in to work with a company who needs that sort of hand-holding, how long would you say… I think with you the proof is in the pudding and I’ve seen your presentation and it’s beautiful how you’re able to articulate and convey the message in a presentation that lets people know, listen, this is doable, this can be done, if you implement it and you do it these can be the results. How does that work for a company that maybe says, “I don’t have anything in place right now. I’m going to call Matt and see how we can change that.”

Matt

So we start with one or two items to put in place – things that are not going to upturn the apple cart. We don’t want their current business to have problems created because we’re trying to install a new piece of software or something that nobody is going to be able to understand or manage. We’re going to have a conversation with them about what they’re comfortable with. Then we’re going to slowly improve what they currently have. So the biggest realization that people make is that they’re talking to the wrong people and asking for the wrong introductions, right?

They’re talking to customers and asking for customers. People want to buy – they don’t want to be sold anything. They want to buy. They want to discover things for themselves. Yes they have problems and they need your solutions, but they don’t want to be sold anything. We all despise that car salesman mentality that people always talk about behind the car salesman’s back. What we want to do is not ever ask anybody for a referral. We should never do that. That comes across as begging – I need the business, I need introductions… that doesn’t work.

Instead, what we want is introductions to the referral source, which is the person who is in a position to refer the business for new business. So an example might be a commercial real estate agent and a commercial cleaning company. Two great referral sources for each other. They’re both talking to the same economic buyer. The commercial leasing agent or sales agent is leasing commercial space to a small business who ultimately needs cleaning services. The cleaning company is working in a company when a company decides to move can have a conversation. Generally speaking, they’re probably going to be dealing with the owner or the office manager who is involved in the decision making regarding either service.

So we need people to understand that the reason that referral efforts aren’t working or their networking efforts aren’t working is because they’re walking in and they’re saying, for instance, if I’m a chiropractor, a good referral for me is someone with a spine. That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. People will only travel so far to get a chiropractic adjustment. People will only go to certain offices whether or not you’re taking their health care or not. Not everybody with a spine needs a chiropractor or wants a chiropractor. There are people who don’t want their body to be touched in any way possible – the have phobias around that. Just to say that statement is confusing to the people hearing it. Instead, I would work with a chiropractor to understand really who their ideal client is and who serves that ideal client. Then we go searching for that person that serves the ideal client and find more of those.

So when I had my web agency, we’re always looking for IT providers – people who fixed computers and did managed services because they were always in a position to refer us and we were always in a position to refer them. I’d walk into a chamber networking event and I’d meet a lot of people – the promo people, the real estate person, the banker, the mortgage professional, the credit card processor person… all the same people we always see. Every single time they asked me who they could introduce me to or how they could help me, I would say, “Do you know an IT guy?”

I’d walk out of there with four or five names. Sometimes the same person. Sometimes they’d walk me over to the corner to the IT guy standing in the corner. Sometimes it was somebody we were already partnering with, which was fine. I’d spend time with them. But at the time at which I sold my company, I had 35 partners. They were referring us on average one new website a year, which is a fairly – we only did 36 websites a year. 35 of them were coming on average from our partners, which means we only needed one new website from some other source, right?

I think that if people can really think about that concept of how much a referral partner network could bring you – your centers of influence, your ideal referral sources… the money that they could generate off of that, they would be very satisfied. They would never have to think about more money and the growth of the company anymore. They would focus their efforts on those partners.

Berta

All those things that you said really resonated with me. I think that people know this, they’re just not maybe applying it. It’s just a matter of seeing it from the other side. Once they understand it, they change and everything goes from a transactional referral to a referral that could be a relationship that then becomes a business relationship for life or however long.

As busy as you are, I know you had a good speaking calendar. You’re authoring, you’re running your business, and you’re coaching amazing companies and you’ve taken it a step further to now help other people grow and build their own networks. Can you talk a little bit into that?

Matt

I think that people need to really just understand that however they want to grow their business is up to them. I’m just there to guide and advise them on the next step of whatever that might be. For some people, it’s, “How do I create a mastermind of people that I can call upon every week, every month, who are great business resources?” Sometimes people create masterminds that are the same industry professionals. It might be five realtors all over the country talking about that. Sometimes, it’s a power-team, call it, where you’ve got a realtor, a mortgage professional, a home inspector, right? All those people in the same sphere, the same center of influence. They build these really tight networking groups where they keep them very, very tight.

I think in-person networking is all the rage now. Right now with Covid, it’s a challenge. People are on stay-at-home orders. That stuff will be lifted in due time and we can get back to some of the in-person stuff. When we do that, we just want to make sure we surround ourselves with the right people. So I’m just there as a guide, pretty much, to help people understand. They might call me and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about starting a little networking thing… four or five people here. Who do I pick?”

Usually, my response is the exact same all the time: “Those in a position to refer you on a regular basis and who bring you joy.”

If you don’t get along with people, that’s not going to work, right? We want to make sure that people bring a smile to our face every time we’re working with them.

Berta

Thank you, Matt, for sharing that. What do you have coming up other than when all this is lifted you’re going to come to Florida?

Matt

I’m doing a lot of webinars: how to network virtually and those are usually with real-estate associations all over the country, chambers of commerce all over the country. And service-based business associations, so like the sign association, the paving association… people like that. So I’m doing a lot of those virtual networking (webinars). And also virtual networking events.

I post them on LinkedIn and Facebook from time to time. I get people to gather and use the breakout rooms feature of Zoom, which is really cool. We pair people up for ten minutes so you can have a quick conversation. It’s enough to say, “Let’s connect on LinkedIn and let’s do our own Zoom for a half hour.” So you can apply the techniques of networking you’d normally do in person but you do it through Zoom and you don’t have to go deeper with everybody. The idea is to find one or two people and give an hour that you might be able to carry the conversation to the next step with.”

I’m facilitating those. They’re all free. People come into them and it’s really just about helping people out right now. That’s what we’re all about. Then when we get out of the whole Covid thing, we’ll jump back into the in-person networking and we’ll ramp up. In Massachusetts we’re building that AmSpirit Massachusetts. That’s exciting. The webinars are a lot of fun, I get to have a lot of fun with those. That’s what I’m up to. Maybe some more traveling. We’ll see.

Berta

How do they find you, Matt?

Matt

So my website is mattwardspeaks.com. That’s the easiest way to find me. I’m also on LinkedIn at Mattwardspeaks and Facebook Mattwardspeaks and twitter – I tricked you – breakthrough champ.

Berta

Thanks for sharing all of that great information, Matt. I want you to show people what we talked about right before we jumped in. This is a very special part of those extra touches.

Matt

I had nothing to do with this! My staff did this for me back when… I don’t know if this even has a year on it. Oh! It sure does! 2015! So I was still three years away from selling the agency, but I think they got this for me for my birthday. So if you’re on the podcast, I’ll try to describe it. But you might want to check out YouTube. This is a – as they say – exclusively hand-crafted bobblehead of me in a suit with my 5 o’ clock shadow, my eyeglasses, my bright-blue eyes, and no hair on the top. They got the hair completely accurate, actually. That’s not just painted on. It’s actually like textured. The back of the head is textured like hair and then they painted it and whatnot. And there’s a logo on the back, which was the company.

This is a brandable product. You can purchase this at – I’m presuming allbobbleheads.com – I have no affiliation. You give them photos and they recreate the bobblehead and I guess they bought two of them. I’m not exactly sure how that worked, but yeah! It’s a pretty cool bobblehead, so now there’s two of me in the same room.

Berta

Thank you for that. I didn’t even know that existed. But I thought that was really cool.

Matt

Think about that for one second. Not even from a client perspective, though that would be a great gift. From a partner perspective. You spend the whole year, you get four or five referrals from this ideal partner who has been sending you a ton of business and it results in just a massive amount of business for your service-based business.

And you create (I would not recommend putting the logo on the back unless it’s their logo) this bobblehead for them. I just think that’s so amazing. Imagine that. By the way, what you should do when this happens (when you get a gift like this ship it to yourself first and then repackage it and ship it out with a hand-written card. It just makes a huge difference – the message). I see all the time on Facebook people posting pictures of things they received in the mail and they say, “Who on Facebook sent this to me?”

Always pay the double shipping, don’t be cheap. You’re buying a nice gift for your client or partner or whatever. Think about what you can do with these bobble heads. I don’t even know if they’re still in business or not. I have no idea. If they’re not, somebody else can make that. It’s a really cool item. It made me feel special that day.

Berta

Yeah! Talk about a personal touch. That’s a great way to make someone feel appreciated. It’s a big deal. So, Matt, first of all I want to thank you. I should push you on a date except nobody knows when this Covid thing is going to be over. But as soon as you get to Florida, I don’t mind driving to the west coast, we’ll just play for a day, okay?

Matt

Yeah! We’ll have lunch. They have great Italian food down there, you know that? And that Italian bread with the oil.

Berta

And the pepper! Don’t even get me started. Come on… I’m so hungry right now.

I love what you said about your grandfather and that stuck with you. It took you thirty years to figure out he was right, but that’s always how it is with our parents and grandparents, right? But other than that, what would you say is the greatest piece of advice that you’ve heard or given anyone or received that you want to share.

Matt

So… you know I grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The youngest of three boys. The first who graduated high school, the only one not to go to prison. The success I’ve had in my life I owe to a number of different people, but primarily I owe to Milton Hershey. What a lot of people don’t know is that Milton Hershey created a tuition-free boarding school for disadvantaged kids from poverty stricken homes. They’ve served over twelve-thousand students since the school was founded in 1909. I attended that school and it changed my life. One of the core components was to give back.

I was in my twenties and I didn’t see it. As I got into my thirties, I really started to see it. Now, in my forties, I live it. I find ways to give back in every which way I can. So for me, one of the greatest impacts on my life was a man I never met who put chocolate on the map and changed a lot of people’s lives. And still to this day there’s over 2500 kids in that private, tuition-free boarding school living on-campus in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And when they graduate, they get a $90k and go to college. So they don’t leave college in debt.

Milton Hershey put away his entire fortune into this thing called the deed of trust 40 years before he died. Think about that, Berta. If I told you today you were going to die in 40 years and you said, “Okay, I’m going to put everything into a trust today.”

People don’t think like that. Especially when you own Hershey’s Chocolate, right? And you’re the largest land-owner in the town of Dairy Township, which is Hershey, Pennsylvania. It’s unheard of to be a forward-thinker like that. He was such a philanthropist. Most people had no idea that he and his wife, Kitty, had a ticket to get on the Titanic and they never got on. So to this day, I wear my high school graduation ring on my ring finger and I don’t take it off. It’s a reminder of what other people did for me.; other people who never knew me. That’s what’s really changed everything and my outlook in life.

People listening now – they have their story. They have the thing that’s changed them. Maybe they’re in their 20s or 30s where I was at and don’t quite realize it yet, you know? Maybe they do! Maybe they know what that thing was that changed them – that set them off on this path that will be ever-winding moving forward. Every day I get on the stage, I’m shocked that I’m standing there, speaking to 1800 people and I am honored to be able to tell them the story of Milton Hershey, the school and how it effected my life and how it changes how they think when it comes to caring about others. That’s why I call it “Care Package.” You do for others what they would want and not what you would want.

Berta

I love that, Matt. Thank you so much for sharing that. I’m full of goosebumps over here.

Matt

Is it raining on your phone?

Berta

No, no! That is beautiful. It’s a testament to your commitment to pay it forward, as they would say and to make sure that that legacy continues and is generational impact for sure. What a blessing you are to me, to everyone who knows you, and now to all of our listeners and viewers. See what I mean, guys? I told you! I just love you heart, Matt, and, again, I can’t wait for this all to be over so you can visit. It’ll be fun.

Matt

So hey, all the listeners out there. Don’t forget to live happy, smile a lot, and high five everyone around you!

Berta

Thank you, Matt!