121: Three Stories Your Business Already Has (That Win More Customers) With Stephen Steers

Title: Three Stories Your Business Already Has (That Win More Customers) With Stephen Steers

Guest: Stephen Steers

Peter: [00:00:00] My guest is Stephen Steers.

He is the president of Steers consulting group, and I’m going to let him give a little bit of background. We’re going to talk about his book, superpower storytelling, Stephen. Welcome.

Stephen: Hey, Peter, thank you so much for having me. I’m the president of the Steers Consulting Group, we work with professional services and software companies to help them improve sales.

So I’m a stand up comedian, I’m a sales consultant, and I’m a storyteller, and my firm belief in everything that I do is that stories close the sale, never the conversation. And I’m here to share a few frameworks on how you can use storytelling, hopefully, to do what you do best, even better.

Peter: Excellent.

Excellent. I’m looking forward to this. So Stephen, what got you into this? What motivated you to even begin this journey and put this book out?

Stephen: You want the short or the long story? I’ll give you a really quick one. Well, it all started my journey in sales. I was the kind of kid just selling ice pops and buying stuff at garage sales and flipping it.

[00:01:00] And during the last recession in 2008 or so I found a job in the construction business and I almost died on site.

Peter: Oh, no.

Stephen: So I had a falling cement block that nearly hit me and I started thinking about all things life. And death and everything else. And I said, you know what? I’m going to die one day.

And if I’m going to die, I’m going to die doing something that I want to do. And I’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I said, what skill do I currently have that could lend itself to that? And I was like, I like people, maybe sales is the thing for me. So that got me on the journey. I’d got a bottom of the barrel job at a software company in New York.

And I’ve worked my way up to where I am now working for myself. Like I always wanted.

Peter: So bottom of the barrel what were you doing?

Stephen: I was doing all the cold calling, all the cold emailing, setting up the deals and getting nothing when they closed just learning the difficulties or rather the opportunities of what it’s like to actually build a business.

So I’d say it was. Certainly a not the easiest of [00:02:00] skill sets to learn, especially when, as in most startups, they don’t train you at all. They just say, Hey, here’s the list of companies, get us some meetings. Well, what do I say? Figure it out. And thankfully I have a mind where I could figure it out, but that’s kind of part and parcel to why I do what I do now.

Why would you hire someone into your company and not teach them the right way to do it? So that they could take it and make it better and produce for you faster. I just don’t understand that. And so seeing that in lots of companies that I’ve worked with over the years, it’s like, you know what, people need this.

Let me help them help themselves by helping them get to the outcome they’re looking for, which is reps that produce faster reps that stay longer and shorter sales cycles.

Peter: So what we’re primarily talking about. Business to business sales where a business is selling something to another business. Is there a particular area?

Did you, did I hear you mention software?

Stephen: Yeah, I work with software and professional services companies. So that would be agencies, consulting firms, and stuff like that.

Peter: Got it. Most of the people we [00:03:00] work with are B2C or business to consumer type sales.

We work with a lot of home service contractors they’re working with a residential homeowner that would be considered B2C. So B2B has some of its particular. Challenges. Some of this obviously does relate to B2C as well. I would imagine what we’re going to talk about. It definitely

Stephen: does.

So, we talked a little bit off, off off camera, off recording about what I call the magnificent seven reasons why people buy. And so. Part and parcel to storytelling, which we’ll get to. There’s potentially seven different stories you can tell to anybody.

I’ll start with the consumer side because that’s what we’re talking about right now.

So for consumers, there’s three reasons they buy anything. The first is for better health. The 2nd is for more wealth, and the 3rd is for stronger relationships. So, if we’re talking about a home services person, if they’re going to get a new roof, that’s going to potentially help the value of their house go up and maybe improve their relationships because maybe their [00:04:00] spouse isn’t nagging them about fixing the roof.

Peter: If

Stephen: we could talk about those end outcomes, we’ve potentially got something that’s more resonant with where they are instead of just, oh, I need to buy this expensive roof. It’s, hey, when the roof’s on. Here’s what’s going to be happening.

Peter: Those are

Stephen: quick examples on the business side of things.

Peter: Yeah, we

Stephen: are talking about how to help make the business more money, save the money, increase their efficiency, or mitigate their risk.

That’s why the business stakeholders want to buy something. And depending on who you’re selling to inside of the business, They’re going to need to hear those particular pieces of a story in order to know that you understand where their needs are. Now, you can combine the both of those in B2B because at the end of the day, the business has its needs, but they’re talking to a human.

We’re human solving human problems in a business context. So if I know how I can help you in your role as the business, But by helping the business, I can increase your personal wealth, get you more help because you’re not at the office as long and increase the relationships with maybe that new child you had and your spouse.

Now I’ve got something that resonates specifically [00:05:00] with you and helps me be a seer of you and potentially helps us do business better and faster.

Peter: Got it. So in the context of It seems like focusing on the needs of the business is obvious. It’s not that obvious to people, though, should see some of the emails I get some days, but overlooking the needs of the human that you are actually conversing with can happen, you know, where you forget, Hey, this is actually a human on the other side who has, you know, fears, want, desires.

And all of these needs that need to be addressed or taken care of. And so when, in the B2B context, that just kind of adds this whole, it’s like two layers here, really, that you

Stephen: have to work with. It’s definitely some layering for sure, and I think the key there is establishing the context. So if you do your research on a prospect and you know that they went to a certain school and that gives you a reason to get in touch because we [00:06:00] just won the championship or whatever that is that you can help the person be seen and have, because this is the thing with B2B with outreach specifically, people get so many people trying to contact them to sell things.

And I think one of the opportunities a lot of people miss. Is yes, it may take you 1520 minutes to do some real research on a person, but when you get that outreach that says, oh, I read this, I saw this, I listened to this, you know, that person actually spent some time. And before they even bother getting in touch with you, so they have a reason to share something with you.

And I think most people forget that little investment says a lot about what your potential future relationship can look like. So that’s the subtext of the narrative you’re giving to someone. It’s like, Hey, I did a ton of research on you. Here’s why I’m reaching out to you. Is that worth a conversation?

And I can’t tell you the amount of times that’s paid off and got people to want to talk to me. They didn’t necessarily think they needed what I had to offer, but they’re like, I have to talk to someone that does this much research [00:07:00] and some I was able to convince. That’s why

Peter: I that’s why we got in touch.

I received an email. You had referenced one of my podcast episodes. And and made a comment about it and then said, Hey, I, you know, think. If there’s an opportunity here, I’d like to get in touch. And that resonated with me. That’s what I,

Stephen: and again, I appreciate you landing well. And I appreciate what you’re doing here with your podcast and for your audience, and I’m grateful to be a part of it again, though, that’s the device.

That’s the difference maker. A lot of people are. Talking about just setting out huge volumes of things that are not personal and aren’t valuable to anybody and it’s good that stuff isn’t working. It’s a great opportunity for you to differentiate yourself and potentially the story you plan to tell to a person based on their needs is a great way to start a conversation and open a relationship.

So, I’m more of the build a relationship first. If there’s something for us to work on, let’s work on it together for sure. But let’s meet each other and maybe I can help you. Maybe you can help me but let’s meet each other first.

Peter: So part of this is enabled [00:08:00] through the beauty of LinkedIn.

I’m imagining you’re a huge fan of LinkedIn.

Stephen: Some ways, other ways, no.

Peter: Okay.

Stephen: Yeah. I like LinkedIn and I can’t stand LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn because when it’s done correctly, there’s an, I’ve met some incredible, like, especially this year, I’ve met probably five people. I’ve only known on LinkedIn for the past five years.

And they’re some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in my business career. Awesome. Awesome people. I’ve got clients off LinkedIn, but it’s kind of descending into a business Facebook. Where I think there’s some topics we shouldn’t be really bringing into the business arena that are just way too popular right now that I’m not getting any knowledge for.

And it’s like, I want to be here and learn how to be a better business person and have a business conversation. Why are we talking about this?

Peter: Yeah.

Stephen: And so that I don’t love about LinkedIn

Peter: and

Stephen: then their algorithms are constantly changing and you never know why this post you poured an hour of your time into gets 200 views.

And yeah, so those are some of the things I don’t like, but it’s a [00:09:00] platform I use and LinkedIn don’t ding me for saying anything.

Peter: I love hating on them. So, so you’ve got you’ve got these this approach that you talked about and the, when we were talking before you were talking about three audiences that I’ll encounter.

And who are those audiences?

Stephen: Yeah. The first is going to be your prospects, right? So people you want to talk to inside of your business that you want to potentially do work with. The second is going to be your team. This could be your employees. It could also be your co founders if you have them. And then even your vendors, a lot of people don’t think about vendors as being part of the team.

Let’s say you want more favorable payment terms or something’s a little bit late. How are you working with that person and that team to help them know who you are and. help them feel more human with you.

Peter: And

Stephen: then the third is life in the stage. So how to answer the dreaded question, what is, what do you do?

Or if you’re talking at a keynote or you’re going on podcasts, those are the three [00:10:00] general places you’re going to need to have stories for and be prepared to talk and build relationships.

Peter: Interesting. Well, I’d love to hear a few of your love, love to hear a little bit of the story or how you develop story.

Let’s say that I am a Prospect, we’ve made a contact. You’ve taken the time to get to know me. You reached out. I responded. Maybe there’s a need. Yeah. What now? What

Stephen: now? So many what nows, but briefly, the way I would think about this is There’s four questions I ask generally before I do outreach, but especially before I tell somebody a story at all.

Right. So taking one bigger step back before we go forward here, do you know the reason that you tell a story,

Peter: Peter? Because they are relatable and we remember stories. All of the above,

Stephen: yes, but the other one is telling a story better helps a person tell their own story.

Peter: Okay, tell me more.

Stephen: [00:11:00] Okay, so if I’m giving you an example of how I’ve helped other, if you’re a lawyer and I’ve given you an example of how I’ve helped other lawyers who are experiencing the exact same problems as you, now, I’ve helped you tell your own story better as a lawyer who no longer experiences those problems because you can see what a good results we’ve helped other lawyers to get.

That’s a quick example without talking about me as the purveyor of said

Peter: situation. Right. So you put your, you put the people who you helped as the focal point.

Stephen: Correct. So that helps them better see themselves as the hero in the hero’s journey.

Peter: Yeah.

Stephen: So instead of saying, Oh, I work with these lawyers, I got them these results.

It would be, we recently started working with a lawyer named John. John runs a practice of about five lawyers in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. And before John. Started working with us. John was experiencing these three major problems inside of his business and with his team, et cetera, and down the line.

And it’s, those are similar problems to [00:12:00] the problems that you’ve mentioned to me before. And so I thought it was really present that we talk about how John was able to flip his mindset and also change some of the ways he was running his business to get the great results that you said you also want to, and I’m happy to share more as well.

Peter: Got it. But that’s not about me. That’s brilliant. Very engaging powerful approach. So, so what are the biggest mistakes that you see companies doing at that stage of is it basically like you just said, here’s a client. I helped them do this. I helped them do that. I, I. That’s the biggest mistake you see there.

Stephen: I think that’s a, that’s definitely one of them. And I think, for example, I talked about, I’m a relationship first guy. I don’t, I definitely would love to sell lots of widgets and services and everything else, but that’s not why I’m on the phone with you.

Peter: I want to

Stephen: know if there’s something we could do together and understand what that looks like.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of, hey, this person booked [00:13:00] a call, it’s time to sell them. So I learned from one of my mentors, he says, if it feels like you’re selling, you’re doing it wrong. It should always feel like we’re opening doors. And so slight, small tangent here is this is one of the reasons where I teach a discovery call framework that’s very specific in its order, its content, and everything else.

Okay. So it really feels like we’re having a conversation together. And by the time we get to the end of that conversation, it’s very clear where we should be taking next steps. And so for anybody that’s curious I’ll provide a resource at the end of the show where you can download it for free. That’s one.

The second thing is I think they don’t answer the four questions you need to ask before you tell any stories. And I’ll share those with everybody here. The first is what’s at stake. So if you’re working with. Franchisees like you do, Peter, what are the big things that they’re not looking at in the marketplace that they need to be concerned with if they want to grow their business?

Frame that properly. So, you know, hey, if you don’t [00:14:00] optimize your operations, if you don’t have automations and systems or a phone number where people can call you that automatically sends a message when you’re out in the field, you’re going to lose business. These are small things and these add up even if it’s two, three calls a month, right?

At a 10 percent close rate, that could be the difference between you having an incredibly profitable year and you being in the red, if you just don’t have these small things. So frame, first and foremost, what’s at stake for the people in the market that you serve. The second thing is you need to outline what your prospects need, want to learn or achieve about that thing that’s at stake.

So sure, I’m missing calls. I’m not as profitable as I need to be on the jobs. I’m going back and forth to Home Depot to get supplies when I didn’t properly make a checklist. How can you and your company teach people to say, hey, here’s 3 steps that you can take to optimize your back end of your company to be increasing the number of calls that you get.

And the number of opportunities you can close each year, just as an example, join our webinar to learn how or download this [00:15:00] guide. Oh, that’s a problem. I want to learn about this and you’re speaking to the problem that they need solve for themselves. The third question is, and this is where I think a lot of people make mistakes, and why storytelling is really powerful.

You want to label how you want your prospects to feel. A lot of businesses do not take into account how important emotion is to the sale. So, as you mentioned earlier, Peter, stories are really memorable. The other thing is, they help people feel emotion. And so 95 percent of purchasing decisions are made emotionally.

We talked a little earlier, if I’m going to get my roof fixed, yeah, I’m going to have a better relationship with my spouse maybe, and I’ll increase the value of my home. That’s an emotional tie I have to that outcome. You have to help me feel that to put me in that extra 5 percent of logic to say, all right, you know what, I’m going to go forward with this.

But if you can’t make somebody feel something you’re not there. And so I think a lot of people miss the fact of labeling what emotion or knowing what story to tell that gives the appropriate emotion to help [00:16:00] someone be in the frame to make a decision. Now, I’m not saying to buy, we want them to buy, but you want someone to be in an emotional decision place where they’re like, yes or no versus, Oh, let me think about it.

Cause that’s the death of most sales.

Peter: Oh my God. Yeah, absolutely. The maybe the toughest of places I can take. No, I can take. Yes. But the maybe maybe is where we all fall

Stephen: for sure. And then the last question to answer here, Peter is once we know what’s at stake for the audience, we know what they want to learn or achieve about it.

And we’ve labeled how we want them to feel. We need to clearly articulate what we want them to do next. This is where most people fall down the farthest articulate what the call to action is that makes it clear how that person can take a step, receive an action, or make some type of decision that’s going to help them get towards that outcome because confused people don’t buy anything.

And so if you can have a nice through line, nice framework, nice, clear way to help them [00:17:00] understand. It’s much easier for them to say, Hey, what, you know, I need this. And Peter and his team understand exactly where I’m at and where I need to go. I need to book a time with them.

Peter: So have a clear next step

Stephen: of a very clear next step.

Yep. Cause they won’t know what to do next. They’re emotional now.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): How do you recommend setting up that initial call with a client or a prospect who could be a customer or a client?

Stephen: The key place to start a call besides rapport, Hey, how are you doing? What’s going on? And how’s everything start with an agenda. So for example, Hey, Peter, great to be here with you today. I have a really small structure for today’s call. I want to learn a little bit about you and your business.

I want to share about us and what we’re up to and answer any questions you have. And then if there is room for us to have a conversation about working together based on anything we discussed today, let’s schedule some more time. Does that sound good? And now we’ve got them to agree to some type of a contract, for lack of a better term, for what’s going to happen next as a result of this call.

[00:18:00] Almost no one will ever say, no, I don’t want that. And then when it comes time for you to make your offer or talk about what happens next, It’s much lighter and easier because you’ve already agreed to it at the beginning of the conversation.

Peter: Well, and you’ve already gotten them to say yes to something.

Correct. So they’re kind of used to saying yes to or agreeing and that sort of thing. Yeah, that’s true. I like that. That’s brilliant. Yeah. That’s something that we’re kind of doing half the time.

Stephen: I think you, I mean, it sounds like your close rates are great, so I don’t think you necessarily need to change a ton of things, but that’s one of the things I’ve seen add a lot of fluidity to a call.

So that’s one of the things I recommend. The next thing I say is I call it the kryptonite question. You may ask a version of this. So what made you hop on the phone with us today? Or why is now the time to talk about growing your business? Some version of that. And I love that question for a couple of reasons.

First is it’s like an open book test for but on a sales calls perspective, you [00:19:00] know, exactly what they’re looking for. And you could speak to that. And you could think of what examples or other things you have to share with them that make it more relevant for their specific need. So, what I usually recommend is after they’ve answered that.

Kryptonite question. That’s the first place you can run into with a very short story. And you could say, totally makes sense. We’ve worked with another couple of franchisees experiencing similar problems as you. I’m going to share a little bit more about that later, but you’re definitely in the right place to have a conversation with us about that today.

Feel seen. So within the first three, four or five minutes of the call, we’ve not only established good rapport, we’ve got them to agree that we’re not here to sell them something. We’re here to understand where they are. And then we’ve shown them that they’re in the right place to have that conversation before we’ve ever gotten to a single question about their actual business.

And now, hopefully, cortisol is down, which is going to be the chemical that produces sales resistance. And now we can just talk to each other. So tell me a little bit about your business. And then we go through the phases of the rest of the framework, which is basically [00:20:00] where do you want to go? Right? Take them to the farthest place.

How much do you want to grow in your case? Where are you now? Some version of what’s in the way. And then, or why don’t you have that? Again, more specific questions around your specific business model to get the information you need. And then from there, you go into a summary. This is where I see a lot of people miss.

Summarize your findings. You needed X, you needed Y and Z was missing. So that’s hurting you with this. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Boom. Now, once we have that, we can jump up with another story more specific and say, hey, so based on what you’ve said today, this exact same thing we’ve worked with Scheherazade over at her legal firm.

And here’s how we were able to help her do this. Here’s what she was feeling before. Here’s what we found. Here’s how she felt afterwards. Right? Straight ahead. Are those results you’d like to see as well in your business? Yes. So now we’ve solved for the fit objection because there’s three different sales objections.

Is, well, is this a fit for me? Is now the right time? And can I afford this? They come [00:21:00] masked in different ways, different titles, different kinds of questions, but they generally all boil down. to some version of those objections. And so if you prep yourself and your team with the right stories to tell about those three objections, now you have something that really works well, that’s personal, that’s specific, and that isn’t about you, it’s about other people you’ve served and other situations you’ve seen.

Peter: That’s powerful.

When you are working with an organization how do you work with an organization? What types of services do you provide?

Stephen: Yeah, thank you for the question. The first thing I do is I start with what I call a sales elevation roadmap. This is where I go through every sales asset.

I talk to every person on the sales team and understand where there’s gaps from there. I build out a workshop that we go over together and inside of that workshop, we’ll reveal all the gaps and the biggest opportunities for growth for the things that you want out of your business. Once I have that, I do a couple of different services.

One of our popular ones is [00:22:00] sales call reviews. So literally have myself or my team members will listen through some of your sales calls. We’ll grade them. And then we will coach your reps specifically on the right ways to run a call. And how to improve across the call so that they’re having those conversations and always driving through towards the next steps that we all want.

And in one of the recent cases, I was able to help the top rep at a company go from 22 percent close rate to a 36 percent close rate in six months, which is pretty sweet for them. Wow. So for those, I do. Straight ahead consulting and help build out playbooks and also do things like sales kickoffs for companies that need those types of things as well.

But generally all sales, all training in effort to be the help that I didn’t have when I was starting out here, because if you’re going to make an investment in hiring somebody into your team should also invest in making them the best, most possibly productive person on set team. And I think consistent training is important and helps.

Companies be a place where people want to stay and see themselves [00:23:00] there for the long term,

Peter: My previous life I was in sales before I started doing marketing and , a hundred percent commission situation. I always felt like,, the company is like this machine, and sales puts the gas in the gas tank.

If there’s no gas in the tank, we’re not going anywhere,

I have , an admiration for sales in general as a skill and as an important function in organization, not everybody feels that way about sales though. , sales has a Has a bad reputation.

Stephen: Yeah, it definitely still does. And I think with reason, right? For example, we talked about all the terrible emails we all get every day that are tone deaf. And I literally had somebody send me an email that says, as a fellow tax professional, I’m not a tax professional, like, at all.

Like, that’s so far from anything that I’ve ever done in my entire life. I’ve never even worked at it or had an accounting firm as a client. Right. Do three seconds of research before you send an email. I get [00:24:00] stuff like that all the time. Come on, you don’t deserve to win. Come on, do better. So stuff like that I think is really a missed opportunity for folks.

And it’s so simple to, like, I just don’t understand how people don’t do it. So

Peter: are there any particular organizations that you prefer to work with what’s your ideal client?

Stephen: My ideal client is either a software firm with five, six, at least five, six sales folks or a professional services company.

That’s similar or about to hire for sales. So, another 1 of my taglines is I help founders fire themselves from sales. So, if you’re a, a. a founding member of the team, and you’re doing sales, whether you want to quit selling or not, you may want to have another asset in your company that can sell for you if you wanted to take a vacation or something.

And so I help people build the systems that they’re going to need to have a good candidate in and the right type of learning arc for them to learn your [00:25:00] business and sell it the right way. So, generally, I would say I work with companies between Five to 25 million in that range right now. And then obviously looking to go up market for the rec companies as well, but that’s generally the range I play in right now.

Peter: Okay. What is one what’s one story you could tell us about.

Stephen: So one of the, my favorite things is just when I see people’s lights go on, like, oh, that’s so obvious. Like, why wouldn’t I tell it that way? Why wouldn’t I share that story? It’s like, yes. And so to your point here too there’s three stories I think you already have will work across your business, depending on the conversations you’re having.

That’s the story of your mission. So this is not what your company does. This is why your company does what it does. This is the why it’s completely different. I please, please don’t get those twisted. Like what made you say that this was the thing I’m going to do? What was the moment we got there? This is a great thing to handle an objection as well.

So I was like, Oh, I’m not sure this is the right thing for me. I’m experiencing this problem. Well, [00:26:00] that’s exactly why we started this company. Because when I was a sales rep, these are the situations that I found myself in time and time again, to the point where I had to go seek out people to teach me.

And then I took those teachings, wrote down those teachings, studied those teachings, saw success, and then codified my learnings into this framework right now. That’s built for people just like you experiencing the exact same problems I have.

Now that’s different than, oh, we help X do Y and Z

Peter: time.

Sure. So that’s the first of the three stories that I already have as a company. What are the other two?

Stephen: The other two are your vision. So vision is what does it look like when your mission is complete? What’s the big thing? The bigger your vision, the bigger draw and bigger attention it can get because this helps people see themselves as part of the action, the hero and getting their vision stories are particularly useful for attracting talent.

I want to lend my skill, my time, my blood, my sweat, my tears to this big thing. Share what that looks like. We have a vision to help. 500, [00:27:00] 000 franchisees quintuple their revenue in the next 20 years, something of such nature or make it more specific for you, but a vision story, big picture. Here’s what we’re going towards.

We started the company for this reason. Here’s what we’re going towards in the future.

Peter: Okay.

Stephen: And then the 3rd story. These are the most human of them all. You can think of these in 2 ways. These are milestones. So these could be for you personally as an entrepreneur again, read the room and know if it’s the right story to tell.

These work very well on things like podcasts or on the stage. And then also what your clients experience. So we talked about inside of the sales call, the example of what somebody else in a similar situation was feeling or doing. Sharing those milestones and outlining the inputs and the emotions inside of those can help a lot with people feeling and seeing how you can get there and feeling that inside of themselves to be able to make a decision.

So yes, we want the yes all day. We’ll take as many yeses as we can. Until we get to the plateau where we need Peter’s help [00:28:00] to help us unstuck ourselves if we grow too fast, but we’d rather have a yes or no than a, oh, I’m not sure and a story will hopefully put the person in that right emotion to see, like, you know what?

Yes, I need this or no. Now’s not the right time. And that can save us a lot of chasing, which we all want to avoid unless we’re playing tag. Of course.

Peter: This is powerful. I’m really really impressed with with what you’ve got here. This book is amazing.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-1: Superpower Storytelling by you, Stephen Steers. A tactical guide to telling the stories you need to lead, sell, and inspire.

Peter: Where where can we where can we get it? And you can get it on the

Stephen: Amazon superpower storytelling by Stephen Steers. It’s a lot of S’s should be pretty simple for you to find, or if you want, you can get it directly on my own website at stephensteers.

com.

Peter: You mentioned a free resource that you’re going to mention it towards the end of our podcast. Thank you for the

Stephen: reminder. The resource I have is around the call script template. So we talked about how to run a sales call in [00:29:00] light frameworks earlier today. I have a free template that anybody who wants it could go to Stephen steers.

That’s Stephen with a P H. steers. com slash podcast. And you will see the link to download that and a bevy of other potential resources that may be of use to you. And if you like, I will even review one of your sales calls 100 percent for free and grade it with my framework so that you can see how to improve for yourself.

So that can work for B2C or B2B, depending on what you do, but I’m happy to give that to your listeners as well.

Peter: Wow. That’s very generous.

Stephen: One other piece to that too, marketing does a great job of getting the phone to ring, which means that marketing’s done something that helps people see something in the story the brand has or the outcomes that we get to.

If I get on the phone with you, and that isn’t consistent when I get on the phone with you, I’m probably not going to buy. No matter how well you did a good job of marketing.

Peter: And so

Stephen: I see that as a potential gap and that’s kind of where I play. And it’s like, you got all [00:30:00] these people talking to you. Are we giving them the proper experience?

That we promised them before they got on the phone and most people don’t see or understand how that’s directly a gap until their close rates are in the toilet. And they’re like, what’s happening? We got more leads than ever. We’re closing fewer than ever. And that’s a place I like to play in. And it’s great to see when it works and how much less friction people have because we’re open indoors here.

That’s what we’re here to do. And I think when it’s done right, sales can be a pleasurable experience. Thanks. For both and everybody involved

Peter: Agreed. Well Stephen, thanks again for your time today. Thank you Again, let’s get your domain name one more time

Stephen: Absolutely.

It’s Stephen. S t e p h e n s t e r s dot com Podcast you can find all the information on me All of the resources that you could ever want from me. And if you want a sales call review, you can also do it there right on that page. And also say hi to me on LinkedIn. If you’re curious, I’d love

Peter: [00:31:00] to meet you.

Thanks again for having me, Peter.