EP038 - How to level up your sales skills as a leader with Stephen Steers of Steers Consulting
About the episode
This episode focuses on sales as an essential leadership skill for founders of scaleups. Why do so many founders shy away from sales? How to be a more confident storyteller? When and how to hire a salesperson for your scaleup? How to manage sales teams? So many questions to talk about - to discuss, I invited veteran sales consultant Stephen Steers.
About the guest
“Hi, I’m Stephen,
They don‘t teach you sales in school. They don‘t teach you how to be confident. They don‘t teach you how to be out in the world and how to make a way for yourself.
But that’s what I’m here for.
I’ve consulted, advised and led workshops for more than 500 companies from 28 countries. And I’ve learned that, sure: the skills I teach bring financial success. But they can also have a positive impact on every other aspect of your life.
So, I’m here to change the game. I’m here to make sales compelling, interesting and even fun. Forget everything you think you know about sales. Effective sales is about listening, learning and connecting through stories.
I'll show you how.”
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
The "who you are" is the most exciting thing about "what you do." There are tons of widgets, products, and companies. But certain companies tell a better story to you that gets you to say, "Hey, that's the one I like."
If you are a founder and want to get out of selling, do this: have a documented system with at least 10 touchpoints from first contact to signed contract. Then, build that document into a resource you can teach a sales rep. Finally, tell your sales reps: "Look at this, find any gaps, and do it better." Know your numbers so you can grow your numbers.
"People do not buy a drill. They buy a hole." Founders tend to always talk about the drill. It has these functions and features, and it can do this and that. I don't care about that. Not yet. I care because you can solve my hole problem on my wall better and more efficiently than others. Now we can talk about what your drill is. Oh, it's a drill with these features? Great.
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Welcome everyone, yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today we will talk about storytelling and sales. I saw many startups struggling to find their story and even more who struggled with their sales. It is vital to figure out your story as it helps with your positioning, framing your product, and humanizing your mission. Today I'm going to discuss this topic with Stephen Steers who's helping companies to figure out their story, get better at sales, and improve their speaking and presentation skills. Hey Stephen, how are you? Thanks for joining.
What's up? What's up? What's up, Peter? Great to be here. Thank you for having me.
It's lovely. So usually the first question is all around remote work because this is about remote leadership. So tie that into your story please. What's your story? How did you end up here? We discussed this before the recording, that right now you are living in Mexico, but born and raised and lived in New York. How did you end up in Mexico City? How are you working with your clients remotely and you know, what's your journey in general?
Oh man. Thank you again. I born to raise in New York City, and I remember I got into, I could tell you the short version of the entertaining version. Which one do you want?
The entertaining one, obviously.
Okay, so super quickly, when I graduated college, my first job was in the construction business and I worked in that business for about four years, and I almost died on site, so my job was half in the office at half on construction sites and on 53rd Street and sixth Avenue there's a building called the Back Route Hotel, and I've been with this building probably about two years of time. And so the building was basically done and people were moving into their 20, 30 and 40 million apartments. Those are real prices. The penthouse was a 75 million apartment, and so...
Nice...
Yeah. Nice. If you can get it right. A lot of storytelling gonna take, get that much money. But the building was basically completed. I showed up to do an inspection just in jeans, a t and a t-shirt. Walk in the whole building with my foreman down 45 stories to the construction entrance, and I get the construction entrance with my foreman. We're having a good laugh. He taps me on the shoulder and it's like, Hey dude, let's go to lunch. And I take one step forward and a cement block fall right where I was standing. Literally twist it like that. I might not be here to you today, so...
That's crazy's wild.
Super crazy man. And then the foreman says to me, Papa, not everyone gets a chance like that. You're here for something. And so, lost my appetite. Went on a long walk in New York City and just did a lot of thinking on the way and it came to the fact that I knew I was gonna die at some point, but if I was gonna die doing something, I might as well do something I wanted to do. And so that got me, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I've always wanted to have my own thing and live life on my own terms. So I was like, what can I do that allows for that? And I said, oh, well, I'm good with people. How about sales? So then I get into startups, start grinding it out as a sdr, sales development representative to calling people on phones, sending all the emails, doing all the grunt work. I refer to SDR as you are the person who sends all the messages so someone else can get laid. You do all the work, schedule updates and somebody else gets laid when they close the deal. But a great experience. I learned a ton. It was a very tough position, but very, very thankful for all the things I learned. And then got laid off from there. And then I started working with a remote company, which I'd always wanted the whole time. Mm-hmm. So quickly about my journey here, I remember being in the office. And I sent someone a message on Slack, so if you've ever worked with salespeople, when they send information, they obviously want it as soon as possible. Cuz there that might be a deal on the line. Super fast. I'm not asking for much. Can you send me this documentation or whatever it was. And I sent it at like 8:30 in the morning. It comes to lunch, I still haven't had a response. And I see this person walking around the office. It comes to like four in the afternoon. And you know, like, I wanna send this out so I could put a contract in. And I go up to the guy and I was like, Hey dude, I sent you a message this morning. Just wanted to check, is it possible to get me that stuff anytime today? And he's like, I saw your message. I'll get your message when I'm ready. Like, you don't come and talk to me. And I was at this moment, I was like, dude, why the hell am I in an office? If it's just messages and you're gonna send it, why the heck am I commuting every day, two hours to come and sit in a room with people who I can just send a message to? This is really stupid. And so after that, I just started looking for remote stuff and then finally something happened and then I met a great CEO who's still one of my favorite people in the world named Scott Sambucci. Check him out. I learned so much working with Scott and it's one of my favorite people of all time.
Hey, hey Scott.
But when we were talking, Hey Scott, he was saying that results equal results. I don't care where you are. I don't care how long it takes you, as long as you get done what we need to get done and when somebody gets it like that.
I already love Scott by the way.
You love Scott. Everybody. You should love Scott. Scott's amazing. Check him out. Sales quality.com. But that right there was when I really got into remote completely, and we even had conversations. I was like, oh, should I travel here? He's like, dude, get the hell out of town. Go. Right now. And I've been remote ever since then. So I've lived in like seven different countries and worked from seven different countries. And I brought up in Mexico because I spent like a month here. I've been here a bunch of times, but I spent like a month here in 20 18 and I was like, huh, this is it. It feels great. The weather's amazing. The food's delicious. Mexican people are lovely. I speak Spanish, which helps. And the arbitrage is real. Yeah. Also don't come here cuz we don't need more people. But I do like it a lot and I'm grateful and blessed that I can be here and that I can take advantage of what we kind of talked about before the recording, of being able to think more macro about everything that I do as far as consulting, as far as building wealth and as far as building a life that I want in remote, I think is the only way you can take advantage of that and still maintain a great quality of life.
You should put it in a t-shirt.
I'll make tens of dollars. I can't wait.
That was an awesome journey. Thanks for sharing. Seriously. And you haven't mentioned who you are working with right now, because that's kinda like directs the conversation, I guess a little bit more. What are the clients that you're. Let me ask the question differently. What are the clients that are open for sales consulting or whatever you do, remotely? Because even today, I do think, people sometimes think that sales is people's skills, obviously, right.
Part of it.
Well, like it's part of it. Yeah, sure. Sorry. But how can you foster great relationships with others? Remotely. That's the usual questions that I get. Obviously we both know the answer, but still, you know, listeners might need some convincing. So, what are clients or types of people that you're working with or companies and how do you approach sales in a remote environment?
Absolutely. So I work with venture backed startups and founders to help them get out of founder-led sales by building the sales process that works, which certainly includes storytelling. We'll we can cover more of that in a little bit. I've been doing this since, like very consistently, since 2017, like full on remote. Haven't been back to an office, don't plan on going back. And in that time I've worked with over 700 companies from 28 different countries. Including like Nike, Google, Paris Business School, Entrepreneurs Organization. I've been really fortunate and I don't think there's really much of a change, more than like I can expand the pie and get people help in places that really need it, and we don't have to play for plane tickets. So I think for what we do, consulting, we are mentoring, we're giving advice, we're sharing expertise based on all the pain that got us to where we are. I think that really scales very well in a remote environment, and then further than that. Mm-hmm. I think like you've lived in multiple countries. I've lived in multiple countries. That really informs the work that I do because I have a good understanding of how people are and how people buy things. How do we get people excited to buy things? And I think that all starts with whether it's remote or in person as being the most human. Like if we look back at our LinkedIn conversation, we just started having a chat and it was like, dude, let's talk more.
Yes.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking remote and in person are different. And what I mean by that is, sure, the medium is different. You're not in the same room, but we're still people. How do you connect, how do you add value? How do you show you did your research and like how do you make yourself someone that somebody wants to talk to again, the principles are the same. It's just you need to be able to highlight those a little bit faster in a remote environment, but I think mostly the same.
Sure, sure. And also people are very driven as, especially in a very remote environment and very remote world, very driven to be able to connect with each other, even if it's through screens or chats or whatever. So I think that that line is blurring. Where you had, I dunno, pop talks or whatever, cafe talks screen talks all are valuable. But, you know, it's a little bit blurring. You mentioned, sorry, but I need to jump on that, founders led sales, so because I also work with a lot of startups especially like the seed funding at least.
Yeah. Yeah.
And one of the most important Problems that I see and I think we can resonate on that too. Aside from the classic product related problems that they have, obviously they're building something great and that's like product issue. But in terms of business-wise, the most important problem that they face is that fabricating their own story, which leads to sales. They don't even understand that this is a question. They usually understand how I get users, how I get revenue, how I get customers, how I get this and that. But In order to get that, you need to step back and, you know, come up with something and that's the story. And the question should be, I think, is that you mentioned founders led sales - what do you think how founders should provide any kind of input to the sales approach? Do they need to come up with the story? Do they need to come up with the initial sales revenue, like, you know, MVPing the sales or what would be the first steps to properly build out any kind of sales in the company?
Yeah. Great question. So first thing is I wanna jump on something you said too. You mentioned founders just want to get users. What a terrible way to think about your customers. That's the first problem.
That's a common question. That's a common question.
No, it's, it's, and and again, that's why I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be working a long time, is they're not users. They're people. What a terrible way to think about the people who are building, helping give you revenue to build your company like, That's insane. Like, so let's start there. There's people on the other side of things, so no matter what you sell, another human is buying that. At least for now. We'll see what happens with chat G P T six and all that other stuff that's coming up, but for now, humans still buy stuff. So let's start there. So when to add things. I have something I called the Magnificent seven. I'm writing about it in my book which is coming out probably in another, sometime this year. It's coming out soon. But that book is called Superpower Storytelling, and it's a tactical guide to telling the stories you need to lead, sell, and inspire. There are seven reasons anyone buys anything from you. I call it the Magnificent Seven. So in business it's to make money, save money, increase efficiency, and to mitigate risk. That's what the business problem has, right? Mm-hmm. So those are the four reasons. Anybody in any business is gonna buy anything quickly on sales, there's about seven or so people who need to make a decision to buy something kind of at the enterprise level, which most startups wanna sell to. Which means each of those people are gonna have a slightly different business reason why they're gonna wanna buy something. So if you can talk about how your company does those four things we talked about. You can know who to talk to about the thing that matters for them, to that human in their role. Taking it a level down, there's three reasons why people buy things. That's to have more health, more wealth, and stronger relationships. So if you can tie what your business does back to the outcomes it does for the actual person who's in the role that you're selling to now you've got something compelling and interesting. So I wanna take this back to another concept here. The who you are is the most interesting thing about what you do. Because again, there's tons of widgets. There's tons of shoe companies, but certain shoe companies tell a story better to you that gets you to say, Hey, that's the one that I like. Things are mostly the same. So as you said before we started recording, we don't need more products, right? Nobody needs more products. Everything's kind of been there. So how do we differentiate ourselves? And that's what stories so quickly here. Every founder, every leader, really. Since we're talking remote leadership, needs to have three different stories. At least three, but there's three that are really important. Mm-hmm. Those are stories of your mission. Why are we doing this? What's the incisive moment that got us to say, Hey, you know what? We're building a company to solve this problem. Tell that story. That is interesting because that helps the people who are on the other side of who you wanna serve, come closer to you because, ah, that's my story. So quickly also, the whole reason you tell a story is to better help your audience tell their own story. So if you're not telling me what you did, why you're doing it, why the heck do I care? So mission's the first one. The next is your vision. So like you, Peter, you want to help 10,000 remote leaders, right? That's helping get things way out in the future. It's a big audacious goal and that helps people wanna be a part of what you're building, to be one of those 10,000 and to help grow this future of work that we're all living in. Tell me that story. Who do you wanna help? Big visions drop big crowds. And then the third is milestones. So if you're selling, milestones are when your customer comes to you with a problem and we got them to B result in Y time. Boom. Talk to me about those things. All of those tales of adversity. If I'm a client of yours, I could probably see myself in that story. That's why case stories and case studies work so well. That's why people wanna talk about results. Have those three stories ready. You'll be able to pitch anybody you want. You've equipped your team so they know who you are and what to talk about. And you've also kept everybody in your company locked in on a singular thing. So if they're ever wondering, Hey, is what I'm doing the right thing? Hey, is what you're doing gonna help this mission and this vision come to reality? And so those are the three stories, and I think every founder should think about that because if you want to get out of selling yourself, which I think most people do, cuz they hate sales for whatever reason, you need to be able to equip people with that knowledge of why you started this thing so that they can take your baton and run it all the way around the rest of the track.
I love this, I love this approach. Seriously. It's so simple, but also tactical and effective and resonates with what I also think about this whole approach, but again, you mentioned another keyword, which I have to jump on. So everyone hates sales. Well, sorry, let me rephrase this. Founders do not love sales, and that's also one thing that I usually see personally, and I think also you can resonate to that too. So that is that, yeah, I do understand that I need sales. I need someone dedicated to that thing. But can you somehow, Make him not talk to me or operate in a distance or something because I don't understand what they are doing and I don't really care too much, but just bring in the results and revenue and we are fine. And that's it. Right? That's like the template thinking that usually need to be addressed by most sales leaders or VP of sales is, or even marketing by the way, they also hate marketing too. So how do you, first of all, why do you think that people hate this whole results driven sales approach, whatever it is, and more important, the second question following of that is how can you change that?
Yeah. This is another eternal struggle of founders, I think. Some founders like selling, you know, so that's, that's a thing too.
Yes.
I think people don't like selling because they're not sure to do. They're uncomfortable with it and they haven't figured out what to say to people that would get them excited to buy what they have. So that's the first side of it. The other thing that makes founders really not like sales is they probably hire for sales way too early. Mm-hmm. And that can wind up destroying the business. So as you mentioned, it's like, oh, here I want sales. Get this away from me. I've worked at a lot of different companies in my and founders need to be very clear on what they're hiring for. So quick question, Peter, do you know the difference between business development and sales?
I do, but I don't think the audience knows.
Okay. So in my opinion, business development is figuring out what for sale, who wants to buy it, and how we commercialize that into something that will get people moving forward. Sales is the system and process that has proved by business development that we can hire people into work because we have some data and we know exactly what's gonna move it forward. So a lot of founders think they're hiring for sales, but they're actually hiring for business development. And that's how you set people up for failure. So if you want people to figure out who's buying what and why, you know, that's cool, but just be very clear about that because it's gonna take a little longer to sell things when you don't know why people buy what you have. So I've been in that, I've been on both sides of the equation and companies that really help you understand their stories, why people have bought what the products are, and you create a clear on-ramp to get someone in. That's where you're getting success faster. That's where you have people that will stay with you and grow inside your company. So I think it's all about the phases, but I would say for any founder who wants to get out of selling, you should have a documented system at least 10 times from first contact to sign contract. And then build that into a type of resource that you could make, let's say a course for any rep that's gonna come in and it's like, Hey, I did this this way. Look at all this. Find any gaps, find out we could do it better. And then you teach them how you talk to people, what you're talking about and why. And I would always recommend recording every call because that's how you're gonna get out of there with some good learnings.
Absolutely. And also, by the way, just to chime in my, my viewpoint as well, I love that you said the documentation part, by the way, because I view it as a when you hire SDR and you have a documented process on all the things that you already did before, even as a founder or through a bdr or sometimes a marketer as well, that also helps by the way, sometimes. It's like you can freely say that, that, you know, here's the bow and arrow, go out and hunt. Don't come back until you have the mammoth in the garage. Right? So, right. It's, it's super simple because it's replicable. It's easy to, easy to do it. One other thing that I personally, and you can correct me or argue with me, usually what I recommend is that when you have a seed Funding stage, sorry if I'm using the, the VC terms of scaling a company, but everyone is kind of familiar with that. I'm not saying that it's a good approach, but still we have these terms. So if you have a seed funding usually it's the time when you need to have some sort of a business person, which is a B D R, sometimes partnership manager. That's also something a mixer of sales and BDR or something. But you only need to sales the actual dedicated SDR when you have a certain amount of revenue, which means that it's proven what you are doing is working and it is not just proven, but it can be replicated, and then you can go on the rocket ship and then scale from there.
Yeah. Something I always say to people is know your numbers so you can grow your numbers. So like, if you don't know that it takes 50 messages to get 10 replies to book two appointments to get one client. And you've done that 10, 20 times, whatever it is, you can say, all right, so if we get three salespeople in who can do double this cuz they're doing it all day cuz I'm not a founder, we can start to make revenue projections based on our total adjustable market, right? Like now we can start thinking about growing the business and be less in the business, more on the business. And then eventually we can be above the business if we're making enough revenue.
Sure, let's talk about the founders a little bit more, because I think that's also very, it's like a, you know, make or break situation, I guess. If you have a founder who is open to learn more about sales and marketing, I think you have a business destined to success a little bit more than those funders who are pretty much trying to divert themselves out from the sales and marketing side of the business. Because you mentioned founder led sales, and I also agree that during the first, you know, few weeks or months operating of the business, the founder needs to step up and do some sort of like a validation of...
Quick point on that too, like, we're talking about building out remote leaders. Mm-hmm. Being a leader is a very difficult thing because you eat last, right? You're supposed to eat last and you're supposed to show like, Hey, I've been in the trenches and I'm here, I'm your guide, right? If you haven't done this before and you're getting someone in who's to do it for you again, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody has a slightly different situation, but if you have done it before, I respect you so much more as a leader, because what you're asking me to do. You've done already. And I can come and have that parody with you to go through the experience and I have confidence that you can lead me through this and the next thing. And I think that's an opportunity lots of founders miss out on because they wanna get rid of it so fast. Mm-hmm. And yes, it's difficult, but if you're gonna have a real business that you're gonna entrust people to work in who are gonna give you their professional career in your hands, you want to earn that.
You are right on that. However I still need to bring in the reality here. Sorry, sorry. Sometimes, sorry about that. Because for example, I work with a lot of founders who are tech company founders, right? Most of the, and this is not overgeneralizing the topic, but, but still it's a sizable amount of new growing companies that are tech companies, I guess. So these founders usually are product people. So they are either developers who are actually building the product, you know, two to three people getting together, co-founding something and building out something and shipping out the two world. Or they're like, you know, product managers or something, but Usually they are not the business people. By the way, my personal job is operations consulting, right? So that's why my job exists, that I teach them how to build out the operations side of the business which is fairly hard, but still they do understand it because they do understand how to manage a project, how to ship a product. They understand that they need to do the same with the company as well and the business operations, but the sales is totally different. So sales for most of them is very, it's an alien thing. They never did it before. They built a product and their immediate peers and circles loved it. Usually. And it. But they cannot grow outside of that circle, and that's not just the lack of the sales skills or the lack of businesslike skills, but afraid because of those set skills. So how can you help them? How can you teach them? What are the main principles that that you think that would be helpful for them to, I know it's a hard question. That would be, that would be helpful for them to understand.
Okay. I'd say the first, first step is, well, let's take a step back actually. So I literally had a coaching call yesterday with a founder, series founders. Mm-hmm. And one of the folks was asking me to go over their email, so an outbound email to some people they've talked to before. And the language of super product heavy, technical, technical, technical. Yes. And I asked the same question that I asked to anybody who's like, oh, can you review this for me? And I say, would you respond to this email if you got it? And then the founder's looking at me and she's like, well, I'm not the target audience. Like, so, like they're they're this way and they're gonna be more into technical language. But I was like, okay, that's, that makes some sense, but would you respond to this email if you got it in your inbox? And she was like, no, I don't know if I would. And I was like, well, then we can't send this email. Right? And so taking that step back, I asked her, I said, what is the outcome that they're buying if they buy your products or services? And then she was like, oh, it was more secure. It's speed. It's got these feet, it's got does this, this and this for them? And I was like, but I don't know how to say that. I was like, you just did. That's what people want to buy. Remember, it's still people on the other side, technical or not. And they still have problems that they want solved. Talk to me about the outcome that you're gonna get me to. So there's a quote by, I think he's a Harvard marketing professor, I think his name is Theodore Levitt, and it says, people do not buy a drill. They buy a hole. So founders tend to always talk about the drill, the drill, the drill. Look, it's got this much revolutions, it's this size it. It could charge in a half an hour. I don't care about that. Not yet anyway, I care because, oh, you're gonna get me to the hole in my wall that I want faster and more efficiently than somebody else. Okay, cool. Now we can talk about what your drill actually is. Oh, it's a drill. Yes. Cool. Right. So what I would say to any founder is take a step back and what's the outcome that you help people to achieve? And start with that and start telling that story to people. Because that gets people affected and makes it larger than you are and larger than any product, you're helping people know. That's also part of the framework. I teach superpower storytelling. It's what's at stake here. Show me what's at stake for not taking action on the thing. And then I'll be more curious about the features and bells and whistles that you have inside of your company.
I like it. I like it. What if the, again, I don't want to push it too far, but what if the founder doesn't understand what the outcome is? Because usually they are very product feature heavy.
Then they shouldn't have a company. Then you have an idea. You don't have a company. So I always have this question with people. It's like, oh, we have like 10 customers. Like, alright, nice. Like how much revenue is that? Oh, well, like they're using a platform for free. And again, there's nothing wrong with people using your product for free if you're getting good data and stuff, sure. But customers pay for stuff. Customers are paying customers. If you have free users, you're just getting data. So if you haven't validated it, that's something someone would pay for. Like there's, I think his name is Dame Dash. He said, you need to dream so big that you're not the only one affected. And as a founder, you need to create a vision so big that you're not the only one affected. And so if you're not telling me what's at stake and what is actually here happening, why the heck do I care about this? I can get another widget. I can go get one. Yeah, sure. Everybody in the tech worlds is exact same too. That's another thing. It's like, it's the same type of we've raised all this money look cool. Like, all right, congratulations. But now you gotta build a business. You owe people money now. Yes, you got, you got work to do. But the work, it's not, the work really started like, yes.
Yes. Usually they don't understand, by the way, this is not your money. It's that that's your own, it's not your money. It's not that you, you raised it. Yes, but it's not yours. It's you owe that money to them anyway.
And they want 10 times their money back. That's why they invested in you, right? Yes. So, make it count. It's not a widget. It's a vision.
How let's talk about the management side. So let's say you are on the scale upside. Now, you know, you are growing, everything is like fine. You have the mission and vision. You do have salespeople already, or at least BDRs or something. As the founder obviously is already stepping Back from the sales and the, and the, and that side of business, but they still manage that team of the sales people, right? Mm-hmm. So what are the principles that you can share about how you can manage a successful sales team as the owner of the company?
Yeah. I think one of the most underrated things to manage a good sales team is training and coaching. And I think coaching really begins with how you onboard people to your company. Mm-hmm. So if you're hiring a rep, I think it's extremely important to have what we talked about, kind of like that course that on-ramp, here's what I've done, here's what we've gotten from it. Here's, you know, lay it out for me so I can be set up for success. Mm-hmm. That's the first thing. And then I think it's all about they call it the coaching triangle. So if we think about coaching coaching's, the foundations are situations. So if you're on the phone with somebody and you're hearing this is another reason why I say it's really important to record calls because there's a lot of learning how customers are reacting to us real time. You wanna see the situation for what it is. And then when we look at the situation and we review a call, we know what skills we need to teach or train for. So we can see the gap and say, okay we're having trouble with this objection. Maybe we need training on that. Maybe we're not sure how to explain our value proposition the right way. Maybe we need training on that. And we could bring people in from the outside, like you, myself, others who know that specific part of the funnel better. Mm-hmm. And we can say, Hey, here's how we can train the team. So we filled that gap from there. We know what systems we need to build and leverage so we can have success. And that informs our strategy so that we are most successful at executing on a strategy. So if a founder can at least take that approach in looking at what's the specific situation like on a call, I'll give you very clear indication. Mm-hmm. And you constraint, you build up from there. And then you regularly talk with your reps in form of standups and burn downs about what's happening so that they're well resourced. Mm-hmm. And that they are out there without obstructions to go and get the revenue we're all looking for.
I can't help myself, but still notice that you are very coherent and consistent on how you say things and, and form your sentences. And I also know that you help others to speak a little bit better in public speaking, right? So share some wisdom and gold nuggets. How people can learn public speaking. Is it about conquering your fear? Or is it about building up confidence or is it about articulating your voice a little bit better or bit of both?
Yes.
It's, that's, that's the best question ever and the best answer ever.
So it's a couple of different things. There's one of the most important things, especially as a founder, Or as anybody in business really is to be able to articulate your viewpoints in a way that gets people to understand what you say. Maybe get excited about what you say. Enables people to be like, yeah, I trust this person. So I think there's really, really a dearth of people who take the time to be able to properly communicate ideas. Mm-hmm. And so if you can do that well, you're ready. In the very small percentage of people who are good at doing that, which sets you apart and it's like, oh, I trust this person's brand and I'm more curious about what they're doing.
Sure.
Public speaking is the number one fear and death is the second fear.
This is so weird, by the way.
It's crazy. I don't get it, but that it is what it is. Right. And I'm not afraid of it. I actually like it a lot, which is, Why I continue to improve at it, but I would say to anybody is there's two reasons you're afraid of public speaking. It's fear of judgment and lack of preparation. One of those you have complete control over. You can prepare your ass off and be very, very clear about what's happening. The only reason you're afraid of being judged is because you think people are looking at you. And this is where we come back to storytelling in general. The whole reason you tell a story is to better help your audience tell their own, and you are telling a story about, let's say, your mission, your vision, or your milestones. You've created this space around the entirety of what it is that you build. Which allows you to take a step back from it. Even stories about you, something that happened to you or something you did, it's something for everybody else. So that gives you another little bit of a wall to put up that you shouldn't fear judgment because you're telling people more about themselves. So those would be the first pieces I would say. And then if I'm decent at public speaking and okay with my words. I value that skill so much and I practice it all the time. If you be good at something, you must put in the work for it. You wanna build a great company, you must put in the work for it, period. There's no other way around that. No matter what tools we get with AI or other things somehow the work must be applied to the right levers. And when we get those right levers, we could do great things.
Just practice, like practice, practice, practice, practice. Yeah. That's it. Seriously. Do, by the way, just, I'm just curious, do you help your clients through like practicing this? So like they practice the speaking in front of you and you correct them as well?
Yeah, so I review keynotes for some folks uhhuh, like if founders have presentations. One of my specialties is sales calls. Like I said, it's a very clear indicator of the health of a business, so I review sales calls like over tone and structure and how to build something that gets somebody excited about the possible next steps. I train on different techniques of my own advising, and I'll leave you with, you said you would a gym. I'll leave you with one if you are looking to sound like an expert and you don't know what you're talking about, or you're unprepared or you wanna handle an objection. You want to use something I call the area framework, which will enable you to sound like an expert no matter what you're talking about. Here's how it works. So a is the angle. So I give you my angle on an opinion on a thing. R is reason, the reason for having that approach to the angle E is an example, and a is restating your angle again, so you summarize it. So if we're talk about remote leadership as the topic would stay something like, I believe remote leadership is an essential skill to growing successful companies. The reason I believe that is if you look at some of the most successful companies that have ever been built, they've had a clear and decisive remote function. For example, if we look at Airbnb or we look at a invision app, or we look at, you name it, other company, if you look at the employee reviews on Glassdoor, All of them, state or site rather, that working remotely was a key influence for why they worked so hard. And that's why I think remote leadership is an extremely important thing that we should deal with a R E A area.
This is insanely working, by the way. I'm already convinced. Love it. And how do you see the future for companies in general who are building remote businesses?
I think the space is gonna grow exponentially. Mm-hmm. I think everybody should be having their own company because it gives you some autonomy and it really gives you a chance to, to own what happens next. Okay. It's not for everybody, but I think it's really important. And then I would also say that it is not the future. It is the now, and it is the forever because I'm not going back to an office. So as long as there's internet, and as long as there's people who have pain points, and I can tell a better story than you, I'm gonna be able to live and do what I want to do, and I'm gonna fight as hard and as long as I need to to get that to happen. And I know you will too, Peter.
Yeah, I like it. It's really inspirational.
But, but still, that's the truth. At one point in my life, by the way, I had a number in my head. It was around five years ago or so. That number is a number that anyone should pay me to get back to the office.
Yeah, I got mine too.
I don't have a number now, so, so seriously that like, there is no number. No one can pay enough. I would never go back. Same as you.
Yeah, I agree. Good for you, man. Congratulations to us love.
Sadly, I don't have a applause button. That was an amazing conversation. Seriously, I loved connecting with you. Where people can find you.
Find me on any social platform. Steven Steers, S t e p h e n. Steers, S T E E R S underscore, and then you can find me at stevensteers.com. And while we're talking about it, if you go to my website, I have something called the presentation planning Guide that will give you some breakouts of some of the techniques we've talked through today and how to build a compelling presentation, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a keynote, whether it's a pitch that's going to resonate with people, cuz it's based on what they want. So go ahead and pick that up for yourself. If you have questions or comments on how to leverage that or anything I've talked about today and how to actually get out of founder led sales and build a team that you're proud of, I would love to talk to you.
See, this is how you do sales. I like, this is amazing. I like it seriously. Usually consultants are not really good at that either. But congrats on that. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for your time.
Very much enjoyed it, Peter.
