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Sam Taggart 00:39
is Sam Taggart with the DDD podcast and I’m here with Steve Sims. He is an author of podcasts as the speaker, he has been featured in Forbes and idioms in the modern day Wizard of Oz. And he travels around the country and does crazy stuff, you know, the things that you always are like, man, it’d be sick to do this one day. He’s like, why not? Let’s just do it. And he goes in finds, scenarios and life experiences that many of us are probably like, wow, I’d love to do that. So we’re gonna dive into his whole theory of art of making things happen, which is a book he’s written bluefish art of making things happen. It’s freely available on Amazon, and you can go find him. And yeah, so super honored and privileged to have you on the show. And we’re gonna dive into what I’ve been writing a book and a concept for the last year called the achievement formula. And I’m excited to really dive into this art of making things happen. How do you accomplish things? How do you get stuff done? How do you go make your dreams come true? And then we’re also gonna be talking about communication. I mean, you know, being in sales and being in leadership and being in business and coaching businesses, Steve has a ton of knowledge to bring to our industry when it comes to selling and, and and in our world in which we live in today. So I’m super excited to have you on the show, Steve. Thanks for thanks for being out, man. It’s pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. So, so tell us a little bit in a nutshell, like who is Steve’s in like, if you had to say like, this is who I am. Who are you?

Steve Sims 02:09
Ah, God, I’m a blunt instrument. I am the guy that left school at the age of 15 onto a building site in East London, I spent most of my life working, being kicked out of every job I applied for and got ended up working on the door of a nightclub in Hong Kong, and 20 something years later, I’ve worked with people from out on john Ilan Musk, the Vatican, Andrea Bocelli, and probably richer and more unknown people in the world. So I’m the guy that goes out and makes things happen. And now I go out and spread my simple approach to people via speaking on stages or coaching them one on one.

Sam Taggart 02:55
I love it. And when you say you work with these individuals, and I think a lot of people would just be stoked just to hang out with an air shake. Elan musk hand, you didn’t just shake you on musk sand. What are the things that you do with these kind of people? Well, I’m not telling you that. Oh, yeah, the

Steve Sims 03:13
Funny thing is that, you know, we never we never say what we got up for them, and what we handled for them. The only reason I mentioned the names that I have mentioned is because I have been documented working with these guys, not from my side. So my website for argument’s sake never actually says what we did with them. And if one of our clients, we got a lot of clients that we’ve dealt with, that it’s never been publicly made aware of, that a lot of people he a lot of people are very aware of the work I’ve done with the Branson Foundation, and Richard Branson, he Branson, and Elon Musk within this, and SpaceX and so on, john, so they, they’ve seen me a lot of times with these people. So it’s carbon public knowledge, but other than that, we’ve never ever used a client to leverage us business.

Sam Taggart 03:59
So essentially, your business is what a lot of people are probably sitting there. What are you guys, what do you got alluding to? So your main business is now turned into what?

Steve Sims 04:09
So I’ve got two businesses, one of them is to give billionaires really interesting cocktail stories. So I’m the guy that they watch something on TV, and then they text me or phone me and go, Hey, Steve, I would like to race a Formula One car car, or I would like to go down to the Titanic, or I would like to hang out in the Vatican. And I’m the man that can I’m the guy that makes the impossible possible. That’s one side of my business. And because of the price tags in the invoices, I only work with documented billionaires. And the other side of my business, which is the Steve de Simmons brand, and through Sims distillery, is I work with entrepreneurs to get them back to dreaming. So the way that I work there is on one side of the fence. I spend billionaires money making them more interesting. On the other side of the fence, I focus on your communication, your message, your involvement, what is the solution you are giving? What is the problem that you want a solution for, and how to get entrepreneurs to make more money, dream big and actually go for the clients that they want and deserve, rather than the clients that they get. So I’m working on two sides of the economic fence. But I have to make the entrepreneurial ones more fun. Because spending a billionaires money. That’s great fun. But actually looking after an entrepreneur and making him successful, that looks after his wife, his kids, his employees, their families, it’s a much wider reach. And I’ve got to met at the ripe old age of 53. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, but I prefer that side.

Sam Taggart 05:47
So what came up? Like where does this idea of I’m gonna go give people incredible experiences and making the impossible possible? Where did all this come from? Like, where did I how did you start? Like, you know, obviously, being a multiple entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur. I mean, a lot of people in this podcast are probably wondering, like, why would want to do that? Like, how do I start that like, like, how did what gave you that crazy idea, and then I want to hear kind of a quick version of the journey that like, created this business out of having a crazy good time with billionaires.

06:21
So my wife says, If I had a super superhero costume, and if I was a superhero, I would have the superhero power of ignorance. The bottom line of it is, you’ve just explained why most people don’t do what I do. They overthink things. I was working on the door of a nightclub in Hong Kong, and I realized I was poor. I realized that everyone I knew was poor. I realized that whenever we went out for a beer, we could only afford a couple because no one had any money. So the old statement about you are who your friends are. And you are the average of the five people. It was obvious. I needed to find five rich people. So my goal, my one single focus was to get five rich people in my circle. And so as a doorman, I knew the best nightclubs. I knew where the best parties I know what the best premieres. Why because I was asked to be on the door of them. So what I started doing was I started building up this Rolodex of affluent clients and saying, hey, look, give me 500 bucks, I’ll get you into that premiere, give me a couple of 100 bucks, I’ll sneak you into that private party. And I started doing that, and given them a reason to speak to me now I would charge them always because I’ve always said, if they don’t pay, they don’t pay attention. So I would never give anyone a freebie. I’d never give anyone a favor, I’d say yeah, I can do that. 1000 bucks, 5000 bucks, 50 grand, 100 grand a million. I always charge people and I charge them well, to keep that attention. They don’t need the money. But they do need my attention. So that’s what I started doing. And I did it, just to be able to get them to talk to me, if I’ve got $1,000 of your money. And I call you, I can guarantee you’re going to answer my phone call. But if I’ve offered you some free of charge, and maybe somebody else who’s busy man, or you’ll call me later,

Sam Taggart 08:14
you know,

Steve Sims 08:15
How many times have you bought tickets to a concert or to the movies, and you can’t go and you give them to your mate? And then you said you made the following day? Hey, how was the concert? I didn’t make it. And you’re pissed? Because you bought it. But because you gave them away for free. That was the designated value. So if you have 100 bucks, go, Hey, you can take these tickets. 80 bucks, guess what, if you charge too many bucks, I bet you would have been in that concert. So I always charged people. And the whole goal in the early stages was just to get rich people to talk to me. I wanted to know how to make people talk, how do they communicate with each other? What kind of things do they like to do? It was basically an investigatory role to find out what was the life of these rich and famous people like now as I started helping them without me realizing that I was getting referrals. So that introduced me to how to get referrals, you know, don’t advertise. Get your clients to be your frontline of marketing. So I was getting all of these very affluent clients go, Hey, can you do this? I can do that job. 50 grand in the account and I’ll start working on it. All of a sudden is growing and growing and growing and growing. And it just got bigger and bigger before I realized him. bluefish, which was the concierge company. It was one of the first ever concierge firms in the planet. In fact, I will arrogantly say we started the personal concierge industry. You know, we were there before all the others. All the others came to us for supplies and access, help and guidance and we’ve worked from everyone from the big companies to small companies and from they just grew and I ended up working not only with the big names that I’ve just mentioned, I’ve worked with the Grammys the Kentucky Derby, the New York Fashion Week. Bridgehampton, Polo, Palm Beach Art Fair Formula One Monaco, I’ve worked with some of the biggest events in the planet. And all the time. I just wanted to speak to rich people. And without realizing that I invented my own industry.

Sam Taggart 10:28
That is so cool. So you created like, a whole new category. And I think a lot of times, you know, everybody’s always kind of trying to just copy whatever other successful people are doing. But I think thinking through like, what’s the new ocean I can create? What’s the new category? What’s the new industry that doesn’t really exist, but I can go create it and Pioneer it. And being sometimes being that first guy that really pioneer like you said, the old cantiere the whole, you know, that whole industry now looks up to you and says, Hey, you were the thought leader, the pioneer, the one that like, took the risk. And obviously, you probably have the biggest reward right now. Because those people you’re probably sought after just by the billionaire’s, where you’re turning people away? Because you’re like, Yeah, not even interesting for me to go jam with you. You know what I mean? Like, you go call this other company that’s begging for business. So that’s kind of that’s, that’s, that’s cool, man. That is, that is really cool. So talk to me, talk to me about this whole book, The art of making things happen. bluefish art of making these happen. What is your theory of like, when you say, art of making things happen? Is there a formula to that? Is there a, you know, like, what have you had? What are the key components that it takes to make something happen?

Steve Sims 11:40
So I don’t want to correct you, but it’s actually called Blue fishing. The moon fishing, okay. Yeah, it is a formula, there’s a structure. But there’s more than anything a mindset. Okay, and so the whole book goes through. And you’ve got to understand how the book came about. First of all, I was approached by Simon Schuster, one of the largest publishing houses in America, to write a book, naming all the rich and famous people that I dealt with, and what did they spend money on. And if I did that, I’d be dead by cocktail hour. So I knew I couldn’t do that. I gave a speech, I think it was on a Joe polishes stage Genius Network. And someone heard it passed out of the Simon Schuster. And they came back to me and they similar considered line a book on who you do this for? Could you write a book on how you do it, and what you do to make these things happen, ignore the clients focus on actually getting what’s necessary. So we decided to write a how to book and it was very good because like anyone likes a book, they learn a lot more about their in their internal process than they first acknowledged. So I suddenly started noticing the habit that I had, the format’s the formulas, the structures that I’ve never really paid attention to before. And I realized that most people don’t actually ask for what they want. They dilute things, they’re a little bit cowardly, they’re a little bit scared. If you want to hang out with someone, you’ll go, Oh, I’d really like to, I’d really like to meet them. You won’t actually say what you want. Because you’ll find that if I said to you, how you can meet anyone in the world and have an hour with them. Who would it be, you’re not gonna immediately want to tell me because that’s revealing things about you. And some people may want to meet that mama get, you know, just for another hour with their mum, they may want to meet the Pope, they may want to meet a rock star, you know, but whoever it is, it means something to them. And people like to disclose things too close to them. So I wrote the book to get people to learn how to communicate to learn how to uncover, and I joke, I call it your inner Sherlock, how to actually start peeling away what someone is saying, to finally get to the root of what they mean. Because once you get to the core of why they want to do something and what it means to them, you can achieve anything and I’m going to give you a story on this. We were in Palm Beach I finished this year 2020 was the end of like an eight year contract with sir elton john. And so I worked with him for a long time. And I had a client contact. Actually, let me rephrase that. I had a prospect I had somebody contact me a friend of a friend. And they said, Hey, I want to meet so elton john. So I said, Okay, why is that? And he said, Oh, because you know, he’s great. He’s famous. One of the greatest performers in the planet. He’s gonna be dead one day and I want to photograph with him. That was honestly what he said. I was like, Oh, Okay, then. Well, yeah. Thank you very much. I’ll come back here. And as you can imagine, I never did. There was no meat there. So then we get a phone call. One of my girls got it in the office. I think maybe about a month, six weeks later, this guy on the phone, and he wants to meet sir elton john. And one of the girls said to me, I don’t know. But it sounds like the other guy. You know, or maybe it’s a friend of his because you haven’t got back to him that he’s trying a different angle. So can you talk to him? So I get on the phone like, Hey, dude, he’s like, Hi. I’d like to meet sir elton john. So like, Okay, why? And the guy said, well, because he’s one of the greatest singers ever planet. He’s an icon. He’s been around forever.

Sam Taggart 15:41
And

Steve Sims 15:42
There’s things. And it was the way he got uncomfortable at the end of it that I realized it wasn’t the same guy. So I’ll send you one of those things. I got very quiet, real pause. And he came back to me and he said, when I was a kid, my dad used to take me to school. And he used to pick me up from school, never my mum, always my dad, it was our thing as a young lad, all the way through into high school, my dad would take me to school, and my dad would bring me back from school. Now in the early stages in the car, we had, we had a cassette player, and there was a cassette stuck in the car. And we would play it all the way there on all the way back. And it was elton john. He said, and we would sing elton john all the way. Then when sing all the way back. He said now, as the cars got better throughout the years, my dad kept this trend going by putting a CD in and would sing elton john. And it was our thing. And in my teenage years, I was so embarrassed, I hated it. But we still did it. So my dad been dead about 20 years. He said, But whenever I’m driving down the road, and sir elton john comes on the radio. My dad is sat next to me in the car singing. He said, so for three to five minutes every time out and sings my dad’s back with me. Now, that’s a core reason that’s me. And had we just done what he wanted in the first place and gone. Oh, Barry, this is our one, you know, that would have been there. But once we had that meet, I could then go to surrounding john and go, Hey, listen to this story. Now they met, they chatted, they hugged, everything was great. The first guy we ignored because there was no core reason there was no driving force, it was a superficial request. For when you’re working at this level, you don’t want to listen to what the clients are asking for. You want to hear what they need, what they lust for what they desire. And that’s just by using your damn is in your brain to try and decipher what are they trying to get to? And uncovering the core reason behind it. I

Sam Taggart 17:59
love that. And I appreciate you sharing the story. I think oftentimes we don’t get what we want simply because we’re afraid to actually open up and tell the story. He might have been embarrassed. He’s like, I don’t want to tell you, it might be embarrassing. I don’t want it you know what I mean? Like he could have had this whole element of like, nerves, and you would have never probably fulfilled you know, the first guy might have had the same story, or what have you had the same story. It just was too afraid to bring that up, you know what I mean? Like he, he wasn’t authentic enough to say, let me show you my story. Let me let me talk about the realness and, and what it means to me. And, you know, I think a lot of times it’s just their fear to communicate what they want, like you said earlier, and it’s like, I think the biggest, like when you said what’s the components of art of getting what you want, or making things happen and overcoming that fear of saying, This is what I want, you know, and I think even applying that to a sales world, even with the customer, it’s kind of like sometimes sales reps are even afraid to say, I want your business. Like I’m here because I’m trying to provide for my family. I want your business and they walk into the sale being like, man, I couldn’t close I was like, did you even ask for like, did the customer even know you were trying to close them? Like, you know, I mean, like, did they even they wasn’t even clearly conveyed? Or like you know, you’re talking in a business situation or recruitment situation. I mean, this comes up so much in our lives where there’s no core purpose and there’s no true authentic share of your is clearly what I’m trying to go after. And here’s the meat in the why I’m trying to go after that. I love I love that. So what else what else is in the in the components of making things happen? Like in order to make something happen, what else do you need?

Steve Sims 19:45
You need to know you need to know the reason if I phoned you up at eight o’clock tonight, before you answer the phone, and before you get terrified because you don’t know why I don’t know your your phone number. But if I phone you out There’s one thing that you can guarantee. Now it doesn’t matter. If it’s me, if it’s your mum, if it’s your best mate, if someone finds you at eight o’clock tonight, they want something guaranteed, it could be a conversation, it could be a cup of sugar, it could be an appointment to be on your podcast, it could be a chat about coaching, could be anything, it could be that they heard a great joke, whatever it is, they want something because they’ve contacted you. That’s an obvious when you contact someone, people don’t realize that you don’t realize that is that bloody obvious. So when you contact someone, and you want something, you’ve got to do two things. One, you’ve got to explain straightaway, very quickly, why you’re involved in that conversation. And here’s the most important thing, why they need to keep you on the line, why they need to keep you in the in the communication. So whenever you contact anybody, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what’s in it for them? If I contact elton john and say, Hey, Elton, I want this, this, this this this? Why does he need to give it to me? Why? Why should he even keep me on the phone? Why should he even answer the phone. So you’ve got to and it doesn’t matter if it’s one john or someone that you’re trying to sell a house to, or someone you’re trying to sell some encyclopedias to, you’ve got to give them a reason. To keep you in that conversation. People don’t do that. So if you’re a salesman, and you sell something, identify the five myths in that business and identify the five problems. The you stove, let’s say pharmasave you’re selling, you know, diet tablets, you know, you walk up to someone to go, Hey, you’re in great shape. Would you like to be in better shape? Now, I haven’t sold you the tablet, but I’ve got you thinking is this something you would consider? If you do want to be in better shape, and it’d be easier to maintain? I’ve got a blue pill. Now you use a solution. So you identified the problem, mortgage and real estate, hey, I you probably don’t want to apply for mortgages, because let’s be blunt, those mortgage forms

Sam Taggart 22:30
are horrible.

22:32
But I have a solution. So you’ve identified the problem, you how many times you see on TV, when they identified a problem, then they give you the solution. But most sales people just go up and go Hey, hi. Would you like some books? No, because you identified what the problem is, you know, hey, what do you do all day? Did you watch a lot of TV? How do you educate? How do you stimulate? How do you grow? Well, I don’t get much chance to do that, well, I have an answer for you, I have an encyclopedia, you know, you’ve got to identify the problem. Anyone that I’ve gone to big or small, on the social or power scale, every conversation I’ve gotten involved in, I’ve got to understand what’s in it for you, this podcast, I’m here hoping to give your people some inspiration to make some action to make you look really sharp by getting me on your podcast. In turn, they get to hear about me, maybe they buy the book, whatever. But the point is never walk into a conversation, or visualize it as a room. never walk into a room without identifying two things, what you want, and what you bring to the party that’s gonna make you irresistible to the person that

Sam Taggart 23:49
love that. And I think a lot of times, we’re pretty dependent on maybe a training manual, or we’re pretty dependent on you know, somebody hires us, or, or tells us to go do something or a manager is like, hey, I need you to go do this. And, and we kind of show up to the party like Well, I’m just kind of doing my job, or I’m just kind of like carrying the message. And they’re not putting that conscious effort to say, wait a minute, before I lead, like you said, hey, I’ve got these awesome books. It’s like, hey, there’s a deficit of books, and I’ve got awesome books like or whatever. You know what I mean? I’m just saying in your example. So I think that I see this over and over and over again. And it brings me back to when I wrote I wrote a book called ABCs of closing. And I remember a guy was kind of coaching me through some writing techniques, then nursing myself as a writer. I mean, you were a frickin doorman at a club. Did you ever think of yourself as like writing a book, you know? Yeah, like I’m the same way. I’m like, dude, I failed out of English and I wrote a book. Anyway, I got some coaching and he said, Take the last line in your chapter and put it at the very first. He’s like, that should be Usually your ending paragraph of a chapter is where you’re kind of summing up the point you’re kind of talking about, here’s the important nugget of like the chapter. He’s like put that at the front. And I noticed that I watched myself and the in the chapters got much more interesting when I lead with here is what I want you to get here is what I’m bringing to the table in this chapter so that the person kept reading. And you know, happens in books that happens in video that happens in the podcast, I haven’t been in sales techniques that happens in life is where we oftentimes think we need to finish with the punch, instead of start with the lead with here’s what I’m going to bring. And this is why you want to keep listening to me. I love that. So so let’s kind of shift gears a little bit. Communication seems to be one of your big messages. And obviously you talk you know, you you’re you’ve got an ear eye piercing and your eyebrows and a beard and you’re this bald dude from London. Yet you’re jammin in the clubs hanging out with you on musk to the world see that high, high level of conversation? And then you probably hung out with some pretty weird people, I’m assuming in life. I’m sure there’s some stories there. What’s your take on the world and communication today? Like, you seem pretty passionate about the concept of where the world’s going with communication and and what the problems are. Give us kind of your your philosophy on communication?

Steve Sims 26:25
Well, in a simple, simple answer, it’s crap. We are all crying because of this social distancing. Yeah, the simple fact is we started doing this nearly 20 years ago, we stopped having conversations with our next door neighbor, and started putting on tweets, you know, we joined every kind of social platform, just stop us being social, it’s got worse, if you want to be arrested, then going to a coffee store, going to your local Starbucks, stand behind the person ordering the coffee, order your coffee, and then when they walk to the right to wait for that coffee, try and strike up a conversation with that person. Because this is what happens. I call it a cappuccino shuffle. They order that coffee, they take two steps to the right, God forbid they can be quiet or alone. For those two seconds, the first thing they do is they pull out that phone, hold it with both hands like in a boxing stance and stare into it like a defensive mechanism. If you try and strike up a conversation with them, that elbows, them in that the knuckles of up the fact that they’re holding the phone, that body posture is telling them I’m in a defensive position and they will react to you defensively, they will look at you trying to I understand why you are trying to get into their to their defense, and it will bother them you cannot do it. It’s very, very hard to do. I think we’re getting bad at communicating. I am praying,

Sam Taggart 27:56
praying

Steve Sims 27:59
That this virus that we’ve all gone through, will reset how we interact with people I am praying we will have conversations, I’m praying we’ll put the fucking phone down and talk to someone when we meet them that we will shake hands that we will hug someone. That’s what I want. I want the 80s a good friend of mine, Jay Abraham. He wrote some phenomenal books in the in the in the 80s and 90s on communication and closing. And then Joe in the early 2000s. Everyone went well no, it’s that’s a different world. We’re in a digital world now. No, we’re not. We’re in a person world. We have not changed how we get toilet rolls, we get them on Amazon. We don’t need a bloody conversation on how we get toilet rolls. But we do need a conversation when we’re buying cars, boats, yachts, travel, houses, watches, we need conversations and we need people. And if you want to look at how bad we are at evolving, then look in the mirror with the slowest evolving technology in the bloody planet. We’ve only just got over frickin standing up. We are doing everything to replace us. Yet deep inside. We don’t want to be replaced. We’re pack animals. That’s why we join things like Facebook groups, because we want to be part of a group we want to belong. We want to we want to unify with each other. So I’m hoping that we can get back to it. I’m hoping this virus has taught us that we need it. If not, we’re going on a slippery slope.

Sam Taggart 29:40
you’re you’re you’re preaching to the choir. I mean, you’re you’re dealing with a tribe. And you know we have a Facebook group of 10,000 people and we’ve got an event where we found her chest and we’ve kind of fight the whole digital world in the sense of this is the face to face selling world like you know how many digital marketing agencies and how many Quick get rich, let me get you leads via my magic million dollar funnel is out there. Well the people you’re speaking to right now they’re sitting there going, I’m belly to belly knocking on your door, kicking it in. And then let’s make a transaction like a real person, you know what I mean? And so that’s what it’s it’s fun and refreshing to hear somebody be like, guide, like, we’re still in the people world. And I think a lot of people in the door to door space, they get kind of nervous, they’re like, Man is a social media taking my job and I go, you’ll your, your job is so secure. Because as long as you can show up to somebody’s door, or somebody, you know, sit there belly to belly and be personable, and communicate and talk to them and build a friend, they will buy from you over some Facebook quick funnel, you know what I mean? They’re gonna buy from somebody they like, every time. So yeah, nobody’s going to innovate you out of a job, like, as long as they’re sitting in their home, you talk to him, and you can get a deal like, and that’s one of the you know, we started this nonprofit called the door to door Association and, and one of the big emissions of this is to share with the world like door to door is a very viable way to market door to door is a very important skill set to learn from a young age, just from the simple communication skills that come from it, versus just sitting behind the video game and social media, and then trying to create relationships, you know what I mean? Like, the things learned in door to door people are things that are very needed in communication. But I think what why people in door to door struggle, like especially the younger generation coming into door to door and giving it a shot, because they were never put in a situation where they had to like face confrontation, they had to face rejection, they had to have a hard conversation, they had to have a good conversation. You know, they were still relying on a text or a tweet or a Facebook post, you know, I’m saying. So I think that subtracting the fact that you’re singing the song like Dude, one of the missions that we have is to advocate face to face selling amongst the younger generation to help get them out of the frickin house and say, let’s go learn a good trade. So I’m glad you’re I’m glad you’re sitting in my family, man. And I’m definitely in the younger generation, I just happened to see the problem where society’s going, like you said, it’s communication is one of the biggest problems and it’s crap right now. And I think a lot of people that are on the fence and like, maybe this would be smarter if we just did this online. Yes, less work, less headache. Maybe it doesn’t mean better results. It just mean, yeah, you’re shying away, you’re going back into your frickin turtle shell, you’re going back into like recluse mode of like, I think I’m communicating. But I’m really not like, I don’t know, I just, I you hit a nerve. Man, you hit a nerve that you that. That gets me passionate. So I guess yeah, like, what would you tell the rep. So let’s just let’s just identify who I’m gonna speak to. There’s a rep, that is conflicted. I can do this better. If I, you know, just did a Facebook ad. And maybe door to door is too challenging. I don’t like getting out here in the hot sun, dealing with all these stupid people that keep yelling at me. What would you tell that guy that sitting there just getting his face kicked in and kind of conflicted? What should I do? What advice would you do? What would you do

Steve Sims 33:21
Two things, if someone’s looking for an escape and an excuse, let them but if someone’s really passionate, but just getting beaten up and hasn’t found that flow, that’s a different person. Now, here’s the bottom line, the world is turning transactional. And believe it or not, we don’t like that. The world has turned into a transaction where you can bark orders at your car, your phone, you know, Alexa, Siri, Amazon, if you don’t believe me phone up Amazon and go, Hey, I’m thinking of changing my brand of toilet on which one should I get? There’s no phone number to be able to code is no one to be able to ask that question. The thing is, as human beings, when we see value in something, we want to understand it and then make the purchase based on education. You see, clients don’t know what they don’t know. That’s your job. I can go and buy toilet roll. And then I can go well, I bloody hate this one. Now I’m educated. And I go and buy another one. I go, I like this one. Now I’m going to stick with this brand because that’s the one I prefer. We as salespeople are there to answer the questions and answer the problems that the client doesn’t even know exist yet. So they need us we need to evaluate and to expose, Hey, have you considered what’s gonna happen in two years time when you still own this XYZ product? Hey, have you considered the ramifications of going With an alternative, hey, you can get this today. And it will save you 60% of the other one that I’m talking about, hey, and in two years time, I’ve come back and I’ll sell you the cheap option again. Oh, and in another two years, I’ll come back, and I’ll sell you the chip. Or we can do it today. And I’ll never see you again. Because your pay once and be happy forever. So have you ever thought, you’ve got to educate your client, and you’ve got to educate them by understanding two things. One, what’s the problem that they’re trying to solve? And to by exposing? Did you’re credible, and you care about the solution? Not the checkbook.

Sam Taggart 35:47
Love that. Love that? nugget. Um, so we got to kind of wrap up, Steve, I honestly, this has been, heck, I’m not a billionaire, not like, we’re definitely at least a year or two way. So I figured I’m gonna plant that seed, though. You know, I’m saying see. So when you’re, if you’re still around, when I when I had, I don’t have a goal that make a billion dollars. But I do feel like there’s a, there’s a lot of people out there that really are trying to figure out how to achieve more in life. And there’s a lot of people out there that are saying that are living small, that you know, have their own element of writing in the Formula One car, everybody has their own bucket list. And it’s interesting that you say that because I’ve started kind of checking off my bucket list recently, like I just ran a marathon. Now I’m training to dunk a basketball. I’m doing my own little like, elements of like, I’ve always wanted to dunk, but I’ve never done what’s required to go dunk. You know what I mean? I’m 510, some white guy that’s a little overweight. You know what I mean? Like, I gotta, I gotta go. I gotta go figure that out. So I’m trying to make my own little like bucket list checks. And, you know, I also found by networking like what you’ve done by being the doorman, I think a lot of people underestimate the power of building that network. I mean, the network equity that you had to create from prior years making these little micro connections and little like favors, and little, you know, hey, let me get you into this. Let me get you into this. I think a lot of people underestimate the power of a network. So I love that you, you brought that up and, and said, I’m going to find five rich people and surround myself with I’m going to get to know these types of people. And I think a lot of people, they undervalue that, you know, we have a mastermind group called the expert circle. And I’ve been like, you know, people pay me to be in my mastermind. But at the time, I’m like, dude, these people are way cooler than me. I just like hanging out with them. Like this is like, I’m like, heck, I do this for free. Don’t tell anybody I said that. But like, I’m like, I’m like, I technically should be paying my own dues. But you know, I’m basically the host. And it’s a privilege just to be in a circle a bunch of high level CEOs, you know, what I’m saying? And I found it to be true, that that is a huge key to achieving what you want is your network. And then like you said, asking for what you want. And, and, and having a true meat of why you would want that. And, you know, these are just simple components that I think so many people don’t think through, and as well as kind of just how you’ve mapped that out in the story about elton john. That’s it. Hit on a lot. So a any last? Any last advice? Like if you had to give our industries? Have you ever knocked doors? I guess I never asked you that. Like, yeah.

Steve Sims 38:26
Believe it or not, I did encyclopedias, which is that? Yeah, I dated classes. And I did dumb cake sales for a British cake company called lions. And we would pick neighborhoods and go around the neighborhoods going, Hey, you know, we’re doing a special on these cakes. And you know, would you like us to live to deliver them once a month. And, you know, it’s those kinds of things. So I’ve done, I’ve done a few door to door, door to door. I’ve done a lot of tele sales. And I will now I will I will still today, I will talk to a client and I’ll be like, hey, let’s go spend time on the phone. I can be in your doorstep in an hour. And I will jump on a motorbike and I will walk down to see them all I will say that I’m in Chicago. I’ve done this before where I found out clients going, Hey, whenever you’ve got time, let me know because I’m often in your area. I know my clients go well, I’ve got time next week, and I’ll be like, hey, that’s amazing. I’m in your area. And I’m not but I’ll jump on a plane and be in that area for that because the bottom line of it is you get more out of a face to face than you ever will with a phone call and ever will on an email

Sam Taggart 39:39
100% I love it. So if you could give advice to our industry and maybe the sales rep, maybe the owner maybe the manager you pick what one piece of advice would you give

Steve Sims 39:51
Understand the power you have with good communication. You know, I teach this in Sims distillery, which is my online membership you think But I think communication is and will always be the only skill that you can’t download an app for

Sam Taggart 40:11
100% on or not get good. You got started firsthand. Excuse me. If you guys want to find more about Steve, go to his website, do Sam’s comm blue fishing art of making things happen. And go buy that online and check out his podcast check out Steve. he’s a he’s an interesting man I have loved. I’ve loved just doing my homework on you and being like, okay, when I’m in the area, you’re down in So Cal right? Yeah, I might happen to just oh, I’m happened to be in telco. I might hit you. I might hit you. Uh, okay, dude, you’re the man. Thanks for thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it.