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Stories of people doing business and life well. We explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well.
I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them.
My guest is Stephen Steers. He is the president of Steers Consulting Group, and I'm gonna let him give a little bit of background. We're gonna talk about his book, superpower storytelling. Stephen, welcome.
Stephen:Hey, Peter. Thank you so much for having me. I'm the president of the Steers Consulting Group. We work with professional services and software companies to help them improve sales. So I'm a stand up comedian.
Stephen:I'm a sales consultant, and I'm a storyteller. And my firm belief in everything that I do is that stories close the sale, never the conversation. And I'm here to share a few frameworks of how you can use storytelling, hopefully, to do what you do best even better.
Peter:Excellent. Excellent. I'm looking forward to this. So, Steven, what got you into this? What motivated you to even begin this journey and put this book out?
Stephen:You want the short or the long story? I'll give you a really quick one. Well, it all started my journey in sales, I was a kind of kid just selling ice pops and buying stuff at garage sales and flipping it. And during the last recession in 2008 or so, I found a job in the construction business, and I almost died on-site.
Peter:Oh, no.
Stephen:So I had a falling cement block that nearly hit me, and I started thinking about all things life and death and everything else. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna die one day. And if I'm going to die, I'm gonna die doing something that I wanna do. And I'd always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Stephen:And I said, what skill do I currently have that could lend itself to that? And I was like, I like people. Maybe sales is the thing for me. So that got me on the journey. I got a bottom of the barrel job at a software company in New York, and I've worked my way up to where I am now working for myself like I always wanted.
Peter:So bottom of the barrel, what were you doing?
Stephen:I was doing all the cold calling, all the cold emailing, setting up the deals, and getting nothing when they closed. Just learning the difficulties or rather the opportunities of what it's like to actually build a business. So I'd say it was certainly a not the easiest of skill sets to learn, especially when as in most startups, they don't train you at all. They just say, hey. Here's a list of companies.
Stephen:Get us some meetings. Well, what do I say? Figure it out. And, thankfully, I have a mind where I could figure it out, but that's kind of part and parcel to why I do what I do now. Why would you hire someone into your company and not teach them the right way to do it so that they could take it and make it better and produce for you faster?
Stephen:I just don't understand that. And so seeing that in lots of companies that I've worked with over the years, it's like, know what? People need this. Let me help them help themselves by helping them get to the outcome they're looking for, which is reps that produce faster, reps that stay longer, and shorter sales cycles.
Peter:So we're primarily talking about business to business sales where a business is selling something to another business. Is there a particular area? Did you did I hear you mention software?
Stephen:Yeah. I work with software and professional services companies. So that would be agencies, consulting firms, and stuff like that.
Peter:Got it. Most of the people we work with are b to c or business to consumer type sales. We work with a lot of home service contractors. They're working with a residential homeowner that would be considered B2C. So B2B has some of its particular challenges.
Peter:Some of this obviously does relate to b to c as well, I would imagine, what we're gonna talk
Stephen:about does. So we talked a little bit off off off camera, off recording about what I call the magnificent seven reasons why people buy. And so part and parcel to storytelling, which we'll get to, there's potentially seven different stories you can tell to anybody. I'll start with the consumer side because that's what we're talking about right now. So for consumers, there's three reasons they buy anything.
Stephen:The first is for better health, the second is for more wealth, and the third is for stronger relationships. So if we're talking about a home services person, if they're gonna get a new roof, that's gonna potentially help the value of their house go up and maybe improve their relationships because maybe their spouse isn't nagging them about fixing the roof. Yeah. If we could talk about those end outcomes, we've potentially got something that's more resonant with where they are instead of just, oh, I need to buy this expensive roof. It's, hey.
Stephen:When the roof's on, here's what's gonna be happening. Those are quick examples. On the business side of things
Peter:Yeah.
Stephen:We are talking about how to help make the business more money, save them money, increase their efficiency, or mitigate their risk. That's why the business stakeholders wanna buy something. And depending on who you're selling to inside of the business, they're gonna need to hear those particular pieces of a story in order to know that you understand where their needs are. Now you can combine the both of those in b two b because at the end of the day, the business has its needs, but they're talking to a human. We're human solving human problems in a business context.
Stephen:So if I know how I can help you in your role as the business, but by helping the business, I can increase your personal wealth, get you more health because you're not at the offices long, and increase the relationships with maybe that new child you had and your spouse. Now I've got something that resonates specifically with you and helps me be a seer of you and potentially helps us do business better and faster.
Peter:Got it. So in the context of b two b, seems like focusing on the needs of the business is obvious.
Stephen:It's not that obvious to people, though. You should see some of the emails I get some days.
Peter:But overlooking the needs of the human that you are actually conversing with can happen. You know? Yeah. Where you forget, hey. This is actually a human on the other side who has, you know, fears, want, desires, and all of these needs that need to be addressed or taken care of.
Peter:And so when in the b two b context, that just kinda adds this whole it's like two layers here, really, that you have
Stephen:to work with. It's definitely some layering for sure, and I think the key there is establishing the context. So if you do your research on a prospect and you know that they went to a certain school and that gives you a reason to get in touch because we just won the the championship or whatever that is that you can help the person be seen and and have because this is the thing with b to b with outreach specifically, people get so many people trying to contact them to sell things. And I think one of the opportunities a lot of people miss is, yes, it may take you fifteen, twenty minutes to do some real research on a person. But when you get that outreach that says, oh, I read this.
Stephen:I saw this. I listened to this. You know that person actually spent some time and before they even bother getting in touch with you, so they have a reason to share something with you. And I think most people forget that little investment says a lot about what your potential future relationship can look like. So that's the subtext of the narrative you're giving to someone.
Stephen:It's like, hey. I did a ton of research on you. Here's why I'm reaching out to you. Is that worth a conversation? And I can't tell you the amount of times that's paid off and got people to wanna talk to me.
Stephen:They didn't necessarily think they needed what I had to offer, but they're like, I have to talk to someone that does this much research. And some I was able to convince
Peter:That's why I that's why we got in touch. I received an email. You had referenced one of my podcast episodes and and made a comment about it and then said, hey. I, you know, think if there's an opportunity here, I'd like to get in touch. And that resonated with me.
Stephen:That's
Peter:what I did.
Stephen:I I and, again, I appreciate you landing well, and I appreciate what you're doing here with your podcast and for your audience, and I'm grateful to be a part of it. Again, though, that's the device. That's the difference maker. A lot of people are talking about just sending out huge volumes of things that are not personal and aren't valuable to anybody, and it's good that stuff isn't working. It's a great opportunity for you to differentiate yourself, and, potentially, the story you plan to tell to a person based on their needs is a great way to start a conversation and open a relationship.
Stephen:So I I'm more of the build a relationship first. If there's something for us to work on, let's work on it together for sure. But let's meet each other, and maybe I can help you. Maybe you can help me. But let's meet each other first.
Peter:So part of this is enabled through the beauty of LinkedIn. I'm imagining you're a huge fan of LinkedIn.
Stephen:Some ways. Other ways, no.
Peter:Okay.
Stephen:Yeah. I like LinkedIn. I can't stand LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn because when it's done correctly, there's an I've met some like, especially this year, I've met probably five people I've only known on LinkedIn for the past five years, and they're some of the coolest people I've ever met in my business career. Awesome, awesome people.
Stephen:I've got clients off LinkedIn, but it's kinda descending into a business Facebook where Yeah. I think there's some topics we shouldn't be really bringing into the business arena that are just way too popular right now Yep. That I'm not getting any knowledge for. And it's like, I wanna be here and learn how to be a better business person or have a business conversation. Why are we talking about this?
Stephen:Yeah. And so that I don't love about LinkedIn. And then their algorithms are constantly changing, and you never know why this post you you port an hour of your time into gets 200 views. And yeah. So those are some of things I don't like, but it's a platform I use.
Stephen:And LinkedIn, don't ding me for saying anything. I love you.
Peter:Hating on them. So so you've got you've got these this approach that you talked about, and the when we were talking before, you were talking about three audiences that I'll encounter. And who are those audiences?
Stephen:Yeah. The first is gonna be your prospects. Right? So people you wanna talk to inside of your business that you want to potentially do work with. The second is gonna be your team.
Stephen:This could be your employees. It could also be your cofounders if you have them, and then even your vendors. A lot of people don't think about vendors as being part of the team. Let's say you want more favorable payment terms or something's a little bit late. How are you working with that person and that team to help them know who you are and help them feel more human with you?
Stephen:And then the third is life in the stage. So how to answer the dreaded question. What is what do you do? Or if you're talking, at a keynote or you're going on podcasts, those are the three general places you're gonna need to have stories for and be prepared to talk and build relationships.
Peter:Interesting. Well, I'd love to hear a few of your love love to hear a little bit of the story or how you develop story. Let's say that I am a prospect. We've made a contact. You've taken the time to get to know me.
Peter:You reached out. I responded. Maybe there's a new What now? Yeah. What now?
Peter:What now?
Stephen:So many what nows. But briefly, the way I would think about this is there's four questions I ask generally before I do outreach, but especially before I tell somebody a story at all. Right? So taking one bigger step back before we go forward here, do you know the reason that you tell a story, Peter?
Peter:Because they are relatable and we remember stories?
Stephen:All of the above, yes. But the other one is telling a story better helps a person tell their own story.
Peter:Okay. Tell me more.
Stephen:K. So if I'm giving you an example of how I've helped other if you're a lawyer and I've given you an example of how I've helped other lawyers who are experiencing exact same problems as you, now I've helped you tell your own story better as a lawyer who no longer experiences those problems because you can see what good results we've helped other lawyers to get. That's a quick example. Without talking about me as the purveyor of said situation.
Peter:Right. So you put your you put the people who you helped as the focal point.
Stephen:Correct. So that helps them better see themselves as the hero in the hero's journey. Yeah. So instead of saying, oh, I worked with these lawyers. I got them these results.
Stephen:It would be we recently started working with a lawyer named John. John runs a practice of about five lawyers in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. And before John started working with us, John was experiencing these three major problems inside of his business and with his team, etcetera, and down the line. And it's those are similar problems to the problems that you've mentioned to me before. And so I I thought it was really present that we talk about how John was able to flip his mindset and also change some of the ways he was running his business to get the great results that you said you also want to.
Stephen:And I'm happy to share more as well. Got it. But that's not about me.
Peter:That's brilliant. Very engaging, powerful approach. So so what are the biggest mistakes that you see companies doing at that stage of is it basically like you just said, here's a client. I help them do this. I help them do that.
Peter:I I the biggest mistake you see there?
Stephen:I think that's a that's definitely one of them. And I think, for example, I talked about I'm a relationship first guy. I don't I I definitely would love to to sell lots of widgets and services and everything else, but that's not why I'm on the phone with I wanna know if there's something we could do together and understand what that looks like. I think a lot of people make the mistake of, hey. This person booked a call.
Stephen:It's time to sell them. So I learned from one of my mentors. He says, if it feels like you're selling, you're doing it wrong. It should always feel like we're opening doors. And so slight small tangent here is this is one of the reasons where I teach a discovery call framework that's very specific in its order, its content, and everything else.
Stephen:So it really feels like we're having a conversation together. And by the time we get to the end of that conversation, it's very clear where we should be taking next steps. And so for anybody that's curious, I'll provide a resource at the end of the show where you can download it for free. That's one. The second thing is I think they don't answer the four questions you need to ask before you tell any stories.
Stephen:And I'll share those with everybody here. The first is what's at stake. So if you're working with franchisees like you do, Peter Mhmm. What are the big things that they're not looking at in the marketplace that they need to be concerned with if they wanna grow their business? Frame that properly so you know, hey.
Stephen:If if you don't optimize your operations, if you don't have automations and systems or a phone number where people can call you that automatically sends a message when you're out in the field, you're gonna lose business. These are small things, and these add up. Even if it's two, three calls a month at a 10% close rate, that could be the difference between you having an incredibly profitable year and you being in the red if you just don't have these small things. So frame, first and foremost, what's at stake for the people in the market that you serve. The second thing is you need to outline what your prospects need want to learn or achieve about that thing that's at stake.
Stephen:So, sure, I'm missing calls. I'm I'm not as profitable as I need to be on the jobs. I'm going back and forth to Home Depot to get supplies when I didn't properly make a checklist. How can you and your company teach people to say, hey. Here's three steps that you can take to optimize your back end of your company to be increasing the number of calls that you get and the number of opportunities you can close each year, just as an example.
Stephen:Join our webinar to learn how or download this guide. Oh, that's a problem. Wanna learn about this. And you're speaking to the problem that they need to solve for themselves. The third question is, and this is where I think a lot of people make mistakes and why storytelling is really powerful, you wanna label how you want your prospects to feel.
Stephen:A lot of businesses do not take into account how important emotion is to the sale. So as you mentioned earlier, Peter, stories are really memorable. The other thing is they're they help people feel emotions. And so 95% of purchasing decisions are made emotionally. We talked a little earlier.
Stephen:If I'm gonna get my roof fixed, yeah, I'm gonna have a better relationship with my spouse maybe, and I'll increase the value of my home. That's an emotional tie I have to that outcome. You have to help me feel that to put me in that extra 5% of logic to say, alright. You know what? I'm gonna go forward with this.
Stephen:But if you can't make somebody feel something, you're not there. And so I think a lot of people miss the fact of labeling what emotion or knowing what story to tell that gives the appropriate emotion to help someone be in the frame to make a decision. Now I'm not saying to buy. We want them to buy, but you want someone to be in an emotional decision place where they're like, yes or no versus, oh, let me think about it because that's the death of most sales.
Peter:Oh my god. Yeah. Absolutely. The maybe. Oof.
Stephen:Yeah. The toughest of places.
Peter:I can take no. I can take yes. But the maybe.
Stephen:The maybe is where we all fall for sure. Yeah. And then the last question to answer here, Peter, is once we know what's at stake for the audience, we know what they wanna learn or achieve about it, and we've labeled how we want them to feel, we need to clearly articulate what we want them to do next. This is where most people fall down the farthest. Articulate what the call to action is that makes it clear how that person can take a step, perceive an action, or make some type of decision that's gonna help them get towards that outcome because confused people don't buy anything.
Stephen:And so if you could have a nice through line, nice framework, nice clear way to help them understand, it's much easier for them to say, hey. What? You know? I need this. And Peter and his team understand exactly where I'm at and where I need to go.
Stephen:I need to book a time with them.
Peter:So have a clear next step.
Stephen:Have a very clear next step. Yep. Because they won't know what to do next. They're emotional now.
Peter:How do you recommend setting up that initial call with a client or a prospect who could be a customer or a client?
Stephen:The key place to start a call besides rapport, hey. How are you doing? What's going on? Sure. How's everything?
Stephen:Start with an agenda. So for example, hey, Peter. Great to be here with you day today. I have a really small structure for today's call. I wanna learn a little bit about you and your business.
Stephen:I wanna share about us and what we're up to and answer any questions you have. And then if there is room for us to have a conversation about working together based on anything we discussed today, let's schedule some more time. Does that sound good? And now we've got them to agree to some type of a contract, for lack of a better term, for what's going to happen next as a result of this call. Almost no one will ever say, no.
Stephen:I don't want that. And then when it comes time for you to make your offer or talk about what happens next Yeah. It's much lighter and easier because you've already agreed to it at the beginning of the conversation.
Peter:Well, and you've already gotten them to say yes to something. Correct. So they're kinda used to saying yes to or agreeing and and that sort of thing. Yeah. That's I like that.
Peter:That's brilliant. Yeah. That's something that we're kind of doing half the time.
Stephen:I think you'll I mean, it sounds like your close rates are great, so I don't think you necessarily need to change a ton of things. But that's one of the things I've seen add a lot of fluidity to a call. So that's one of the things I recommend. The thing I I say is, I call it the kryptonite question. You may ask a version of this.
Stephen:So what made you hop on the phone with us today, or why is now the time to talk about growing your business? Some version of that. And I love that question for a couple of reasons. First is it's like an open book test for but on a sales calls perspective. You know exactly what they're looking for, and you could speak to that, and you could think of what examples or other things you have to share with them that make it more relevant for their specific need.
Stephen:So what I usually recommend is after they've answered that kryptonite question, that's the first place you can run into with a very short story. And you could say, holy makes sense. We've worked with another couple of franchisees experiencing similar problems as you. I'm gonna share a little bit more about that later, but you're definitely in the right place to have a conversation with us about that today. Feel seen.
Stephen:So within the first three, four, five minutes of the call, we've not only established good rapport, we've got them to agree that we're not here to sell them something, we're here to understand where they are, and then we've shown them that they're in the right place to have that conversation before we've ever gotten to a single question about their actual business. And now, hopefully, cortisol is down, which is gonna be the chemical that produces sales resistance. And now we can just talk to each other. So tell me a little bit about your business, and then we go through the phases of the rest of the the framework, which is basically where do you wanna go. Right?
Stephen:Take them to the farthest place. How much do you wanna grow in your case? Where are you now? Some version of what's in the way, and then or why don't you have that? Again, more specific questions around your specific business model to get the information you need.
Stephen:And then from there, you go into a summary. This is where I see a lot of people miss. Summarize your findings. You needed x, you needed y, and z was missing, so that's hurting you with this. Is that right?
Stephen:Yes. Okay. Boom. Now once we have that, we could jump up with another story more specific and say, hey. So based on what you've said today, this exact same thing we've worked with Scheherazade over at her legal firm, and here's how we were able to help her do this.
Stephen:Here's what she was feeling before. Here's what we found. Here's how she felt afterwards. Right? Straight ahead.
Stephen:Are those results you'd like to see as well in your business? Yes. So now we've solved for the fit objection because there's three different sales objections. Is well, is this a fit for me? Is now the right time, and can I afford this?
Stephen:They come masked in different ways, different titles, different kind of questions, but they generally all boil down to some version of those objections. And so if you prep yourself and your team with the right stories to tell about those three objections, now you you have something that really works well, that's personal, that's specific, and that isn't about you. It's about other people you've served and other situations you've seen.
Peter:That's powerful. When you are working with an organization, how do you work with an organization? What types of services do you provide?
Stephen:Thank you for the question. The first thing I do is I start with what I call a sales elevation road map. This is where I go through every sales asset. I talk to every person on the sales team, and I understand where there's gaps. From there, I build out a workshop that we go over together.
Stephen:And inside of that workshop, we'll reveal all the gaps and the biggest opportunities for growth for the things that you want out of your business. Once I have that, I do a couple of different services. One of our popular ones is sales call reviews. So literally have myself or my team members will listen through some of your sales calls. We'll grade them, and then we will coach your reps specifically on the right ways to run a call and how to improve across the call so that they're having those conversations and always driving through towards the next steps that we all want.
Stephen:And in one of the recent cases, I was able to help with the top rep at a company go from 22% close rate to a 36% close rate in six months, is pretty sweet for them.
Peter:Wow.
Stephen:So for those, I do straight ahead consulting and help build out playbooks and also do things like sales kickoffs for companies that need those types of things as well. But, generally, all sales, all training in effort to be the help that I didn't have when I was starting out here. Because if you're gonna make an investment in hiring somebody into your team, you should also invest in making them the best, most possibly productive person on said team. And I think consistent training is important and helps companies be a place where people wanna stay and see themselves there for the long term.
Peter:My previous life, I was in sales before I started doing marketing and a 100% commission situation. I always felt like the company is like this machine and sales puts the gas in the gas tank. If there's no gas in the tank, we're not going anywhere. I have an admiration for sales in general as a skill and as an important function in our organization. Not everybody feels that way about sales, though.
Peter:Sales has a has a bad reputation.
Stephen:Yeah. It definitely still does. And I think with reason. Right? For example, we talked about all the terrible emails we all get every day that are tone deaf, and I literally had somebody send me an email that says, as a fellow tax professional I'm not a tax professional, like, at all.
Stephen:Like, that's so far from anything that I've ever done in my entire life. I've never even worked at an or had an accounting firm as a client. Like, do a do three seconds of research before
Peter:you send an email.
Stephen:Stuff like that all the time. Come on. You don't deserve to win. Come on. Do bigger.
Stephen:So stuff like that, I think, is is really a missed opportunity for folks. And it's so simple to like, I I I I just don't understand how people don't do it, but that's why.
Peter:So are there any particular organizations that you prefer to work with? What's your ideal client?
Stephen:My ideal client is either a software firm with five, six at least five, six sales folks or a professional services company that's similar or about to hire for sales. So another one of my taglines is I help founders fire themselves from sales. So if you're a a a founding member of the team and you're doing sales, whether you wanna quit selling or not, you may wanna have another asset in your company that can sell for you if you wanted to take a vacation or something. And so I help people build the systems that they're going to need to have a good candidate in and the right type of learning arc for them to learn your business and sell it the right way. So, generally, I would say I work with companies between 5 to $25,000,000 in that range right now and then obviously looking to go up market for the rec companies as well.
Stephen:But that's generally the range I play in right now.
Peter:Okay. What is one what's one story you could tell us about?
Stephen:So one of the the my favorite things is just when I see people's lights go on, like, oh, that's so obvious. Like, why wouldn't I tell it that way? Why wouldn't I share that story? It's like, yes. And so to your point here too, there's three stories I think you already have will work across your business depending on the conversations you're having.
Stephen:That's the story of your mission. So this is not what your company does. This is why your company does what it does. This is the why. It's completely different.
Stephen:Please don't get those twisted. What made you say that this was the thing I'm going to do? What was the moment we got there? This is a great thing to handle an objection as well. So I was like, oh, I'm not sure this is the right thing for me.
Stephen:I'm experiencing this problem. Well, that's exactly why we started this company. Because when I was a sales rep, these are the situations that I've found myself in time and time again to the point where I had to go seek out people to teach me. And then I took those teachings, wrote down those teachings, studied those teachings, saw success, and then codified my learnings into this framework right now that's built for people just like you experiencing the exact same problems I have. Now that's different than, oh, we help x do y in z time.
Peter:Sure. So that's the first of the three stories that I already have as a company. What are the other two?
Stephen:The other two are your vision. So vision is what does it look like when your mission is complete? What's the big thing? The bigger your vision, the bigger draw and bigger attention it can get because this helps people see themselves as part of the action, the hero in getting there. Vision stories are particularly useful for attracting talent.
Stephen:I wanna lend my skill, my time, my blood, my sweat, my tears to this big thing. Share what that looks like. We have a vision to help 500,000 franchisees quintuple their revenue in the next twenty years. Something of such nature or make it more specific for you, but a vision story, big picture. Here's what we're going towards.
Stephen:We started a company for this reason. Here's what we're going towards in the future.
Peter:Okay.
Stephen:And then the third story, these are the most human of them all. You can think of these in two ways. These are milestones. So these could be for you personally as an entrepreneur. Again, read the room and know if it's the right story to tell.
Stephen:These work very well on things like podcasts or on the stage. And then also what your clients experience. So we talked about inside of the sales call, the example of what somebody else in a similar situation was feeling or doing. Sharing those milestones and outlining the inputs and the emotions inside of those can help a lot with people feeling and seeing how you can get there and feeling that inside of themselves to be able to make a decision. So, yes, we want the yes all day.
Stephen:We'll take as many yeses as we can until we get to the plateau where we need Peter's help to help us unstuck ourselves if we grow too fast. But we'd rather have a yes or a no than a, oh, I'm not sure. And a story will hopefully put the person in that right emotion to see like, you know what? Yes. I need this or no.
Stephen:Now's not the right time. And that can save us a lot of chasing, which we all want to avoid unless we're playing tag, of course.
Peter:This is powerful. I'm really, really impressed with with what you've got here. This book is amazing. Superpower storytelling by you, Steven Steers, a tactical guide to telling the stories you need to lead, sell, and inspire. Where where
Stephen:can we
Peter:where can we get it?
Stephen:And You could get it on the Amazon's superpower storytelling by Stephen Steers. It's a lot of s's. Should be pretty simple for you to find. Or if you want, you can get it directly on my own website at stephensteers.com.
Peter:You mentioned a free resource that you were going to, mention at towards the end of our podcast.
Stephen:Thank you for the reminder. The the resource I have is around the call script template. So we talked about how to run a sales call in Light Frameworks earlier today. Yep. I have a free template that anybody who wants to could go to Steven Steers.
Stephen:That's Steven with a p h, steers.com/podcast, and you will see the link to download that and a bevy of other potential resources that may be of use to you. And if you like, I will even review one of your sales calls 100% for free and grade it with my framework so that you can see how to improve for yourself. So that can work for b to c or b to b depending on what you do, but I'm happy to give that to your your listeners as well.
Peter:Wow. That's very generous.
Stephen:One other piece to that too, marketing does a great job of getting the phone to ring, which means that marketing's done something that helps people see something in the story the brand has or the outcomes that we get to. If I get on the phone with you and that isn't consistent when I get on the phone with you, I'm probably not going to buy no matter how well you did a good job of marketing. Yeah. So I see that as a potential gap, and that's kind of where I play in. It's like, you got all these people talking to you.
Stephen:Are we giving them the proper experience that we promised them before they got on the phone? And most people don't see or understand how that's directly a gap until their close rates are in the in the toilet, And they're like, what's happening? We got more leads than ever. We're closing fewer than ever. And that's a place I like to to play in, and it's great to see when it works and how much less friction people have because we're we're we're opening doors here.
Stephen:That's what we're here to do. And I think when it's done right, sales can be a pleasurable experience for both and everybody involved.
Peter:Agreed. Well, Steven, thanks again for your time today.
Stephen:Thank you, Peter.
Peter:Thanks for having me. Again, let's get your domain name one more time.
Stephen:Absolutely. It's steven, stephensters,.compodcast. You can find all the information on me, all of the resources that you could ever want from me. And, if you want a sales call review, you can also do it there right on that page. And, also, say hi to me on LinkedIn.
Stephen:If you're curious, I'd love to meet you. Thanks again for having me, Peter.
Peter:Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We'll see you soon.