Episode 129: Steve Sims – Showing Up as Yourself

Steve Sims  00:00

Not what you supply, not what you solve, not what you provide but what you look like. So far too many times we pay attention to that. I didn’t realize it at the time but I did know I was a big, ugly biker and so I knew that I had that going against me. So the way to get over it was to focus on what I bring to the party.

Bob Woods  00:22

Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast, featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients, so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman  00:47

Welcome back to Making Sales Social, I’m excited because we are here with Steve D. Sims, the real life Wizard of Oz, especially in the business building world. Steve helps us build and leverage our relationships for maximum impact and we know that social selling really comes down to those relationships. So I am really deeply excited to learn from Steve about how to build those relationships, so that we can grow our business. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve Sims  01:22

It’s a pleasure and an honor. Thank you for having me.

Brynne Tillman  01:24

I can’t wait. Before the show started, you started sharing all these things that you’ve done, and I can’t wait for the listeners to learn about that but before we jump into that, we ask all of our guests one question, which is what does making sales social mean to you?

Steve Sims  01:42

Wow! Transparency, clarity, and being impossible to misunderstand.

Brynne Tillman  01:50

That’s a new one. And I love that because we’re (Steve Do I get a prize?) Yeah, we win. Because I love that. I mean, you can kind of like an onion, kind of pull back so many layers on that. But all day long, you could get lots of engagement but if no one knows how you can help them, no one’s gonna hire you. (Steve:Yep) that’s great.

Oh, I’m so excited about this interview. Whoo! So why don’t you share before we dive into some of your tactics, which I think are going to blow the listeners mind. Share a little bit about you and some of the incredible experiences that you’ve had that have impacted people we all know.

Steve Sims  02:34

Wow. Well, I was born a bricklayer in London.

Brynne Tillman  02:38

You were brick laying at birth? 

Steve Sims  02:41

 I think so my old mum and dad were. I was born into Brick Lane, firm, and family. So bottom line of it is, I never knew what other options there were for me, other than the fact that I had no money. My family didn’t have any money. My uncle didn’t have any money. So I just thought, is this it? I went out to try and find rich people. Because bear in mind, I’m a little bit older than 21. So I didn’t have the internet to show me how inadequate my life was. And I didn’t have videos. I didn’t have podcasts like this. 

So I wanted to have conversations with rich people. So how did I have those conversations, I had to bring something that rich people wanted. Quite simply, I wanted to make them more interesting. So I started getting them into parties, getting them into clubs, getting them into Garland’s, getting them into premieres and it just grew. And it went from getting them into a movie premiere, to getting them into a Formula1 racing car, to getting them a guitar lesson by ZZ Top, walk in the white carpet [inaudible] Oscar party. And as we mentioned earlier, I had a couple that wanted to get married in the Vatican by the Pope, play drums with Guns and Roses, not the same couple but I became the Make a Wish Foundation for people with really big checkbooks. And as I always used to say, I can make your next cocktail story more interesting. 

And that’s what I did for 25 plus years, and wrote a book on it about five years ago called Blue Fishing, kinda took off. And now I literally just roll around the planet, teaching training and speaking on how you can do these things.

Brynne Tillman  04:21

I love that. I know Entrepreneur Magazine, labeled you as the real life Wizard of Oz, which is how we open this up. And it’s because you know how to develop a reputation and develop a reputation or because you have developed a reputation for making the impossible possible. And it sounds like you’ve done this for so many years. And one gentleman said if you can dream it, Steve Sims is the guy that make it happen. So I love that. 

So if you could share with our audience of primarily B2B business developers, people that are selling into either businesses, or some or even selling in like financial services and into consumers. And they have big dreams. You know, what are some of the advice that you give them? Or, you know, how do you build these relationships and create this magic?

Steve Sims  05:17

Wow. So there’s a few questions in there. How do I create the relationship? Far too much today, especially with the word that you used live at the begin, social and social networks and the visualization of a person that we consume, before we actually meet them, far too much in today’s world is based on what she looked like, not what you supply, not what you solve, not what you provide but what you look like. So far too many times we pay attention to that. I didn’t realize it at the time but I did know I was a big, ugly biker. And so I knew that I had that going against me. So the way to get over it was to focus on what I bring to the party. 

So in building up any kind of relationship, and I’m gonna play this game with you, and I challenge everyone, this is your first tactic. Try this with your team. Try this with your people. Okay, I’ll try this just on friends. This is the game. Alright…

Brynne Tillman  06:18

I am ready.

Steve Sims  06:20

I’m having a barbecue this Saturday night and I say, “Hey, I’d love you to come along. You in the area?” And you say, “Yes, I’m gonna come to your barbecue party.” What is the first question you asked me?

Brynne Tillman  06:33

What can I bring? 

Steve Sims  06:35

Now do you know here was a problem when I started that game, because I know women always I don’t know why. If you want to yell at me about being sexist, or something later, knock yourself out. Women always get it right. Men always get it wrong. Men always ask, Where’s he going to be? Who’s going to be there? What should I wear? Who else is going to be there? Can I bring a friend? Ladies, the first question has ever asked is “What can I bring?” 

Now? Take that example, and think of a relationship as a party that you’re trying to enter? What can you bring to the relationship? What can you bring to the party? So every time I see someone, and this can be the head of a company that you’re trying to infiltrate? It could be I know someone in the PTA, it could be your next door neighbor. What can I bring into that conversation that would bring value to you? That would have you compelled to keep me in the conversation, and more importantly, in your world. 

So I would literally look at clients and I go, Okay, what have you got? You’ve got this, you’ve got this, you’ve got this? Eh, You haven’t got that? So I would always look for the chink in the armor, what they’ve got, or what they haven’t got. And I would show up, go in eh blah, blah, blah, and we go into the introduction a second, I’ve noticed you’re working, I’ve got an idea would this be of benefit to you? Straight away with a value. And that’s how you build up relationships, not on what you look like, not on what you sound like, but what value you bring to the party each and every time.

 Brynne Tillman  08:08

I love that we always say what are the gaps, but I like either the chink in the armor or the concept ultimately, is when you can find the need. If you have insights and value to bring to the party, you get invited a lot more.

Steve Sims  08:27

You absolutely do. And you do that by listening and looking and not talking. So whenever you see someone you actually just focus on, okay, what am I hearing from their social aspect?  You’ve probably done this already but I run a media company. So we have a breakdown, we look at the website, that’s your trophy chest. That’s where you look perfect. That’s where the best pictures, I’ve got pictures up there where I even look good on my website. But then when you go to social, hey, that’s real life. People believe whether or not you fabricate it or not, though your website is your trophy chest,  a banner of how glorious you are, as seen on ABC. I’ve done this, I’ve won this award, blah, blah, blah, your trophy chest.

Social, that’s where you show that you love little dogs walking down the street, you know, holding your wife’s hand on the beach, that’s where you show your real life, what you’re really interested in. So watch that, look at that, pay attention to that, and then see how you can bring something to the people that they’re already in love with.

Brynne Tillman  09:37

That’s great insight. I think that’s awesome. So, you know, we call it social listening, right? So if you’re out there, you know, what are you doing that hear the triggers? What are some of the things you look for when it comes to doing that discovery, essentially? 

Steve Sims  09:57

Well, the beautiful thing is we’re all walking around and we’re probably not… anyone listening to this, you’re probably not more than a couple of feet away from this thing, a phone. There’s more information on this phone than NASA had in the 80s. And so what I do is if I want to meet you, okay, I will Google you. Okay. And then what I’ll do is I’ll straightaway go to the images, the images will pick up on not only images from your website, but press, but also from your social. I’ll get a bigger dynamic spread of what you look like, who you’re interacting with, where you’re showing up from an image you search, then I will from a text search, okay? And I look at that, and let’s just say for argument’s sake, I see you rolling around a question. 

Every picture I see you with horses, I know you like a question, I can do a little bit more digging to find out how much of your passion is within the equestrian sport and I can turn up to help that I can go hey, and this is an important fact, this, tactic number two, as they say, whenever you meet someone, I want you to do this. Okay? Two things, hold your head up and your shoulders up. That sounds dumb and daft but if you have watched the Oscars, if you ever watch someone that rich and I’ve seen it firsthand, so many times, I’ve been with Richard Branson, Elon Musk, when someone comes up to meet them, they put their hand out to shake their hand. And then they automatically subconsciously, they bow, they lower the head, if you may want to see this, watch the Oscars. When people are calling from the side and people step over to get an autograph. They offered them the thing and they bow. Now, I don’t know how many centuries ago we stopped doing that because subconsciously, we bow to people that we think are greater than us. 

If you’re going to commence in a relationship, why start the relationship by putting them on a pedestal does not make sense. You can’t reach someone, if the first thing you do is distance yourself from them. So the first thing you do is whoever you’re gonna meet, head up, shoulders back, straight on. And then you do this. “Hey, how you doing? My name is Steve Sims. You don’t know me?” And I pause there for that reason. 

How many times Brynne have people listen to your show, come up to you in the street? And going “Oh, I really love that.” And they start conversing with you and you’re stood there going? “Who the hell is this person? Are they a friend of a friend? Did I meet him at a party?” And it puts you in a bad position, doesn’t it? But how about if they came up to you? And they went, “Hey, I love you. You don’t know me. I’m just a great fan. I really liked that episode, you did with Steve Sims” by them turning around saying “you don’t know him” you can now relax. 

So stand up, right? confront the person and say, ”Hey, my name is Steve Sims. You don’t know me but I did notice you were working on XYZ. I saw you’re an equestrian fan. I saw you working on podcasts, I loved the distribution with your podcast, would getting  into a wider audience be a benefit to you?” “Hey, would getting backstage, not backstage, but getting into the stables at the Kentucky Derby, would that be of excitement to you?” bring something to the party, that they go, “Oh, that would be… What do I need to do for me to get that?” That’s what they’re thinking in their head. So that’s how you do it. First of all, stand up. Secondly, tell the person you don’t know me. And then straight away, what can I bring to the party? What can I bring to the value of this conversation and this relationship?

Brynne Tillman  13:42

So I love the authenticity of you don’t know me too. And I understand what we’re doing is we’re making that person feel comfortable, that they’re not supposed to know. And I will just share with you one of the things that we do on LinkedIn that fits perfectly in what you’re talking about, is if we you know, we take inventory of our existing connections to see who we’ve been ignoring that we want to re-engage. And how do we do that? So we will look under their contact information at the date we connected. And we will reach out saying “Hey, Steve, not sure if you recall, we connected on LinkedIn back in December of 2017. And we haven’t really talked since but I wanted to reach out because of XY and Z.” When we do that, first of all giving them permission to not remember us, right. Like you have permission. “I’m not sure if you recall but…” but the other thing we’re doing and you talked about, the other thing we’re doing is we’re making them feel so honored that you remember that you connected back in December 2017. Yeah, even though you did the research to find that out. They don’t know that. All they know is that you remember we connected to them five years ago, so I love that and that falls right into what we teach around how to re engage people that you’ve been ignoring.

Steve Sims  15:06

Perfect. Well played.

Brynne Tillman  15:08

Yeah, I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. So this has been great. I’ve, we’ve really pulled out some gems from you today. Well, first thing if you know if someone came up to you and said, Steve, I listened to you, you’re on so many podcasts, you bring so much value. If there’s one thing that I should change, what I’m doing, what would that one thing be?

Steve Sims  15:30

Wow. And they were asking me what they should change?

Brynne Tillman  15:33

What they should change. So what’s the first question you’d ask them?

Steve Sims  15:37

How do you show up? And is it you? I want to know, is the person really good at marketing? Or are they really good at marketing themselves? Far too many times you show up as a different person as to who you are. And boy, that’s got to get tiring sooner or later. So we’re all imperfect. We all go to the toilet. We all have bad days, start showing up as yourself and showing people the solution to what you actually bring and have people that have that problem. Want you in their world?

Brynne Tillman  16:08

I’m going to say the same thing, but my mother used to always say, and it’s not. She say even the Queen of England gets diarrhea every once in a while.

Steve Sims  16:17

Yeah, yeah, yes. Why diarrhea but yes, it’s still…

Brynne Tillman  16:22

I just always remember like, if you’re, you know, anyway, that’s just wonderful, crazy things. But this was a great show, be authentic, show up as yourself. We say this over and over if you’re not showing up with your voice online, and we’ll never convert offline because they’re showing up for the person they read about that they learned that they saw on that video. So it’s got to be a consistent voice. So I love that you’re saying this. This is so great. How can people get in touch with you? And how did they get your new book?

Steve Sims  16:51

So thanks very much. I just happen to have it here because I did a podcast earlier on it. The new book is calle, “Go For Stupid” comes out on October the 18th. You’ll be able to find it on Amazon then Go For Stupid by me, Steve D Sims, or you can just visit Steve D Sims, anywhere. I don’t care where you’re, where you consume your media, stevedsims.com, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. I’m Steve D Sims. absolutely everywhere. D for Dashing. And only 1am in Sims, Steve D Sims.

Brynne Tillman  17:21

I love it. So give us a one line takeaway from Go For Stupid, what are you gonna get?

Steve Sims  17:27

You are gonna get way more tactics, you are gonna get a lot of interaction from people that I am able to call friends. Quotes from Elon Musk, Elton John, people like that. Basically getting you out of the way of yourself and stop worrying about everybody else’s cynicism and more importantly, everyone else’s laughter. We’re in a gotcha society where we’re actually not frightened of trying something and failing. We’re actually frightened of trying something failing, and having see someone see us and laugh at us. You imagine what you could do if you had no fear of someone laughing at you. And this book is going to help you reveal it and give you tactics on how to set ridiculous goals and to go for stupid and then actually achieve them.

Brynne Tillman  18:14

Oh my gosh, I can’t wait. Thank you so much, Steve D Sims for being a wonderful guest offering such great insights.

Steve Sims  18:24

Good. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Brynne Tillman  18:26

Terrific. Thanks so much. Have a wonderful day and everybody when you are, to our listeners when you are out and about. Don’t forget to make your sales social.

Bob Woods  18:36

Thanks for watching and join us again for more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales training, and social selling strategies that will set you apart. Hit the Subscribe button below to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social podcast. Give this video a thumbs up and comment down below on what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.

Resources Mentioned:

Go for Stupid – amazon.com/Go-Stupid-Achieving-Ridiculous-Goals/dp/1544535600/