You know that hard work is not enough to reach the boardroom, so today you're going to learn how to re-engineer access, authority and visibility to unlock and open those career-defining doors.
Welcome back to Speak Up, the podcast for high-performing introverts, including you, social introverts where we reveal the charisma and communication secrets of A-listers so that you get the recognition and the opportunities you have earned.
I am your host, Laura Camacho, your magical executive presence coach, godmother, and strategist.
And by the end of today's great conversation with Kalem Lang, you will know a framework moving from outsider to insider in any industry.
Why connections, not self-promotion, are the real currency of influence and how to build those connections and relationships without being transactional.
And finally, how to land your first board seat even if you're not a CEO, and how this one move can 10x your authority and career options.
Well, Kalem, thank you so much for coming on the Speak Up podcast from Singapore.
It's very cool.
Guys, you are going to love this interview.
Already in the short conversation I just had before we started recording, I learned so much that's going to help all of us.
We're going to just dive right in.
From outsider to insider.
Well, of course, our teams, you know, they love us, obviously.
People that know us love us, think we're amazing.
But then, when it comes to certain boardrooms or executive leadership circles, we just feel like an outsider.
So how do we fix that?
I think, first of all, we all feel like it in some regards at some point in our lives.
I've spent a lot of time traveling around the world and sort of being a an immigrant or an expat in different countries, and you're always an outsider.
I grew up poor.
My friends all had more money than me, and I felt like an outsider there.
So we always have that.
And I think we often think of it as holding us back, whereas i tend to think of it as an opportunity to do things slightly differently.
So over the years i've sort of developed a framework which i call access engineering, and it's a cares that the framework spells, cares c-a-r-e-s, and it's really about how you can leverage what other people are doing to to get yourself into the right rooms.
And there's a, A wonderful story about a violinist called Joshua Bell, who's one of the top violinists in the world, and I think it was the Washington Post did this experiment.
They took him and they put him into busking in a Washington subway and he was there on a 35 million Stradivarius, played for 40 minutes and I think 1000 people walked past him and he made about 3260 or something.
And the very next night he was playing at some major concert hall and he got paid over 100000 for playing exactly the same set.
It's a really good illustration that it doesn't actually matter how talented you are.
If you're playing in the wrong room to the wrong people, nobody's going to appreciate your talent.
And so you really want to.
So much of the game of careers, and what we're doing is about getting into places where you're recognized for how you can contribute the most talent.
Yes.
So how does the CARES framework, like what are the, is that five letters?
Yeah, five letters.
So CARES stands for Connections, Authority, Reach, Equity, and Service.
So connections might seem like an obvious one, but ultimately getting in the right room is dependent on who we know.
For most of us, our relationships are very organic.
It's kind of who we went to school with, who we end up working with.
We're not very sort of proactive about it.
And so my argument is that you really need to get proactive about it.
And rather than focus on what you want, focus on how you can help others get what they want.
So I actually wrote a book called Progressive Partnerships about 10 years ago.
And the book was really about saying actually look, if you play this game right, most people go out looking for connections.
If you become a network leader, connections come to you and you get credibility because people assume you must know everyone if you're a network leader.
That's a huge step in making life easier is become a go-to person, a connector.
An example would be like, I meet somebody and I'm like, oh my gosh, you should know Calum.
He's also an investor and I introduce you to and like that.
Yeah.
So look, that is the easiest thing to do.
It's so valuable.
It's like buying a cheap round for people.
You introduce two people, they get value and now they owe you.
It costs you like two minutes of your time.
But also what happens is the more you do it, the more you start seeing value.
When you see people so people that you would normally kind of go i can't see any way that i would yeah, there's any value there you go oh, but somebody in my network is just looking for someone like that and you just make that connection and it just compounds and compounds and compounds and so the value isn't about you, it's about the people you know.
Once you kind of get yourself out of the picture, like take the ego out of it and just become about helping others to connect, instantly it raises your, your profile.
That's amazing, okay.
And then authority okay.
So authority basically means that you can get yourself into the right room, but if people don't respect you, it doesn't matter what you say, people aren't going to listen to you.
Now, the women listening will be very familiar with this.
Unfortunately, it happens quite a lot.
Um, so you'll be in the room, You say something.
Everyone ignores it.
The man next to you says something exactly the same.
And they're like, oh, that's so wise.
Yes.
The sky is blue.
Amazing.
Yeah.
So what you need to be doing is positioning yourself as an authority.
Now, kind of the obvious one that people know about is when you publish content, you are the author.
Therefore, you become the authority.
Huge piece on content production.
But, But.
Basically the easy way to start is just to think about what you wished you had read 10 years ago, like start publishing to you 10 years ago.
What do you wish you'd known about the industry?
But there's other ways.
I have a company called the Veblen Directors Program which helps people to get their very first board seat.
And it's often a board seat for a small company.
It's not getting you onto the board of Walmart or anything exciting like that.
But what's interesting is your network has always perceived you as the PR person or the IT person or whatever it is.
The cybersecurity person.
Exactly.
You kind of get branded with that.
And then they suddenly see that you're now sitting on the board of a biotech company in a different country.
Who is this person?
Your authority goes up massively.
And what also happens is Because your network is now viewing you in a different way.
They'll start introducing you to other people in their network.
Say, I didn't know you were sitting on board seats.
Let me introduce you to this person.
He's got really cool business.
And suddenly, it just sort of compounds on itself.
And again, it's not about necessarily you having the authority, but it's leveraging off the authority that comes from sitting on a board or publishing the book.
It's the third party validation.
And I think another way to do what you're saying would be to speak at a conference.
Yes, absolutely.
And so then I guess that brings us on to the third piece, which is reach.
So you can have great connections, you can have authority, but if nobody knows you exist, you have a very, very limited sphere of influence.
Correct.
I know lots of people are.
I hate this idea of going on LinkedIn and publishing content and being like you know who am I to say anything.
And there's so much nonsense out there.
And even if I said something, I'd be drowned out.
But this whole idea of reach to me is about increasing your surface area for luck to happen.
The average person knows about 200 people or is known by about 200 people.
The chances of one of them having the perfect job opportunity for you is very, very remote.
But if 2000 people know you or 20000 people know you or 200000 people know you, the chances of one of them having an amazing opportunity for you becomes very, very high.
And if you've got those first things so you've got those connections, you've got those authority then what happens within that big network?
There will be somebody building something and they go.
That's what I need.
And you become a component in their success.
And when they need you to be a component in their success.
You can name the terms, because that's where the value proposition shifts.
And look, anyone that's successful and honest will admit that luck plays a huge part in their success.
But I don't believe luck is something that you just leave to chance.
You try and manufacture it as much as you can.
And I used to be amazed.
You'd look at sort of Sir Richard Branson or Elon Musk and these entrepreneurs and think how are they doing so much?
They've got the same 24 hours as me.
Right.
Yes.
What's the answer?
Well, the answer is that so many people know them and so many people can see how they would be a component to help their business go.
They go to them with almost fully formed opportunities and just ask for blessing and effect.
Say, look, I've done all the work.
Right.
All you need to do is add the brand or you need to add this or do this.
And an Elon Musk or a Sir Richard Branson, they don't need to explain how they create value.
It's already there.
Right.
And that just saves you so much time.
And you can gain that by just offering value to other people.
That's kind of mind blowing to me.
Yeah.
So basically, you've now got your connections, you've got your authority, you're starting to see these opportunities come towards you.
But the difference between making a little bit of money and making a lot of money from this comes down to equity and equity.
And most of us don't have equity in the companies that we work in.
And there's generally kind of most people think that there's only two ways. to get equity.
One is to start your own business, which as we know is risky and I need it.
It's like me do it.
Or the other way is to buy equity in like Apple marketplace.
Yeah.
But actually there is increasingly lots of opportunities, especially with smaller businesses, to take what we were talking about with connections and making introductions and do that at a slightly higher level and say look,
You're a company that's looking to invest into this industry, or you are looking to expand into this region?
I know a company here that's also looking for something.
Let me put you guys together.
If you can do some business.
Is it fair if I take a small percentage of the revenue or the equity in that deal?
Now I have an MA business mergers and acquisitions business and we called Unity Group, and We do about two transactions every single month and all of them come from referrals.
And so I actually got those numbers from my CFO yesterday.
So we've paid out so far this year 780000 in cash and about three times that in stock.
To people that have just said hey look, I met a business owner that was doing this.
I think they'd be interested in what you're doing, or I've met an investor that is doing.
Might be interested and just doing an email intro.
And then we've got all of the materials and everything else.
And we're not alone.
There's lots of companies like that.
The cost of acquiring a customer now can be super expensive.
Yes.
So an introduction, most companies are willing to pay if you can do that.
And sometimes it's in equity.
And especially so a lot of our Veblen members who get their first board seats.
The business owners themselves can't afford to pay cash.
They want all the cash.
Yeah, everything's going into growth right, right.
But they're more than happy to give equity and if that person can help grow revenue, they can give a percentage of revenue, or if they can bring in investors, they can give a percentage of investment.
Love that.
So i want everybody to know that if this is piquing your interest and you're like yeah, i should get a board seat, we're going to link the veblen director program in the show notes so people can get information and find out how it works.
Okay so um, service service.
What is the take there?
Yeah, so ultimately, everything you do has got to be in the form of service.
How can you help the connections that you make achieve what they're looking for?
You know a lot of us try and retreat and, especially when things get hard, we try and get smaller and smaller, and that actually, The most successful people are the ones that say hey look, I'm going to make things better for as many people as possible.
And the sooner you start thinking about how you can contribute more, the more people will be attracted to you.
It's that underlying why of why you're doing things and having a bigger cause.
It's easy to look at these sort of very successful people and Yeah, they're giving money away to charity.
And you go, wow, yeah, I'd do that.
Yeah, when I have my millions or billions now.
Exactly.
But if you start making that commitment now to, hey look, I just want to do something.
Local neighborhood kids group, pick a cause that resonates with you.
Right.
And then make that something that becomes a part of everything you do, everything you talk about, you will find it attracts a lot more people to you.
I know you have your hands in many pies, and one of them is private equity.
A lot of people listening work for companies that are owned by private equity firms.
What is your take on the future?
Is that changing?
Is that one of the things that you're involved with?
Yeah, so we're not actually private equity, just in case anyone starts throwing things at their podcast.
So what we do is we work with small businesses, typically owner-operated businesses, and we put them into a holdco, a publicly operated holdco.
But it's co-owned by all of the business owners.
So it's like a cooperative.
What it means is they now have a bigger balance sheet so they can win bigger contracts.
They've got stock options so they can give their staff as opposed to private stock.
They can do their own acquisitions.
It basically kind of levels the playing field for smaller companies versus bigger companies.
I think private equity as an industry...
Is in a bit of trouble.
They've had free money for very low interest money for a very long time.
Yes.
So last year one third of all private equity transactions was private equity selling a business to another private equity company.
Yes.
Because what they used to do is they'd buy a company, they would fix it, apparently.
Mm-hmm.
And then try and sell it into the public markets.
And there would be the arbitrage between what they paid and public markets.
Because so many people have gone into private equity in the last 20 years.
They've bid the prices up so high that they're buying private companies at a higher multiple than public companies, which means that the liquidity premium is gone.
And so there's no arbitrage.
Plus interest rates have now gone up.
Yes.
Private equity always kind of did that thing of okay, we'll just get short-term profits by slashing costs.
If you do that and then you call up your mate at another private equity shop and say, hey look, can I sell this to you?
Because I need to show cash for my LPs, my investors, so I can then raise another round.
But that private equity company also has to slash costs.
So then you kind of just get into this horribly destructive situation.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of private equity.
I think some of them do it very well, but a lot of them are not very good at enhancing value for employees or the wider communities.
Yeah well, but here we think of them as funding all the startups that become the Facebooks and the Meta, or the Facebook is Meta, you know.
All the tech companies.
All the tech companies.
That's more venture capital than private equity.
So private equity is more sort of the bigger businesses, less glamorous.
So venture capital is another interesting one.
They're a very small part of the economy.
If you think about the global economy, it's $100 trillion, give or take.
So 50% of that is small business.
So 50% of GDP, global GDP, is small business.
90% of private sector employment is small businesses.
So when all the politicians say small businesses are the backbone of America, they're actually right.
Shockingly enough.
So venture capital and angel investing and startup actually makes up something like 1.4%.
It's tiny.
But it's a disproportionate amount of PR because there's always great stories like well, people in the garage got bought for 10 billion.
Yeah, exactly.
But it's actually a tiny, tiny fraction of the economy.
Then you've got the vast majority of the economy.
And then from 200 million market cap and up is where private equity and the public markets tend to kind of get involved.
But actually most of the real economy is private accountants.
Your restaurant, your so and most big investors have a bigger allocation to bitcoin than they do to the largest asset class in the world.
Because there's no financial instrument like you wouldn't invest in your local accountant, because they're too small, they're too risky.
Yeah, so that's why we put them all into one group in a publicly listed shell, and then people can invest in that out.
Well, everybody listening who doesn't work in finance, you're welcome.
You just got a master class in financial structures from somebody who has worked in that a long time and is a major player in the world.
Thank you so much.
I want to recap some of the super high level um ideas from this that have really blown me away.
Like the whole idea of going from outsider status to insider status.
And we all know that feeling and part of it's in your head, but part of it's not in your head.
And to connect other people or find ways to be of service to them.
And that's going to parlay you without having to make so much small talk, without worrying about what kind of first impression you're making.
Like.
All of that goes out the window once you start thinking about oh, this person should meet my other friend.
They might really hit it off or have they have this in common.
And you know, when you get an introduction like that oh Laura, I want you to meet Bob, because Bob
Yeah, you know, also is into classical education and I think you would have a lot to talk about.
That's high value to me.
So to your point the other massively Helpful tip of getting on the board of a smaller company.
I think that is like diamond studded titanium Really?
It's a win-win you get to add value, help people, get to know people and And it is so true that you will be like people's perception of you from Monday to Tuesday.
And Monday they find out, oh, Mary's on the board of XYZ company.
Who knew?
And then all of a sudden they see you through different eyes.
Thank you so much, Caleb.
I know it's late in Singapore.
It's great.
That you tuned in for us to be able to hear and learn from you.
Appreciate that so much.
Thank you.
It's been fun.
What a cool interview with Caleb.
I love how he reframed the outsider feelings as an advantage.
And I just think it's so cool to convert liabilities into assets, and the frameworks the CARES framework here he gave for building those connections that you want to travel with you was extremely helpful.
So why do we want executive presence, right?
It's because we want to have more influence and more impact to make our communities, our work, our world better right.
And if you would like a self-assessment that gives you real insight into your strengths and opportunities across the four domains of executive presence, you should take my executive presence scorecard.
And there is access to that in the second paragraph of my show notes of this episode.
Have a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next episode.
