Scott Carson sits down with the wizard of getting things done and the author of Bluefishing, Steve Sims. In this episode, they discuss the difficulties of entrepreneurship, failing forward, and why failing is not a permanent situation unless you let it be. He said that to him, not taking action is scarier than taking action, and it’s something people should be more open to because by doing so, they are giving themselves the chance to fail and eventually succeed and make things happen. Join in on this conversation as you learn this very important lesson every entrepreneur must take.

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Why You Need To Experience Failure In Order To Make Things Happen With Steve Sims

I am so jacked up for our special guest this episode, somebody that I met a few years ago in San Diego. You never know who you’re going to be networked with. Showing up is half the thing. When I started looking at what I wanted to do for 2021, I usually make a shortlist of who I’d like to have. Lo and behold, ten minutes after I write my list of names, I get an email invite from somebody who says, “Do you want to have this guy on your show?” I’m like, “He was number one on my list. No joke, no bullshit. I might be having a drink but I’m not drunk.” I am honored to have somebody I shared a Manhattan with a few years back in San Diego. He’s known as the Wizard of Oz for making amazing things and dreams happen for people. He is the author of an amazing book. I wish it was a required reading for every entrepreneur out there because it covers so many great things. We will touch the tip of it on this episode. He’s the author of Bluefishing. I’m honored to have the man, the myth, the bricklaying one day banker, brothel bouncer, Mr. Steve Sims, joining us on the show. What’s going on, Steve?

Everything is good. Thanks for having me.

I’m honored to have you. You have such an interesting journey and story in many things that are relevant for entrepreneurs out there that are trying to make things happen. Our readers are many real estate entrepreneurs, investors or people that are working that full-time job. They’re in that rat race and they want to get out of it into doing something else but are often scared to pull the trigger or are scared to take that leap of faith a lot of times. When you say you’re a blunt instrument. You’re not afraid to take action and make things happen. It all goes back to that work ethic that you developed as a bricklayer.

I’m more frightened of not taking action than taking action. A lot of people are scared of the outcome. What if one of the outcomes maybe you winning, you’d be a success in? The weird thing is I’ve noticed that some of my greatest growth has come from some of my most disastrous failures, “I know how to make money from losing money. I know how to communicate and negotiate well by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and learning, that’s the wrong thing to say. You notice that the worst things you do propel you into the greatest thing.” People should be not scared of trying something they should be scared of not.

You’ve talked about paralysis by analysis and overthinking things in your book. You talk about how getting the work done versus over-preparing. You go out and make these mistakes and are ahead of the market because you’ve tried and failed versus trying to prepare for every situation.

Two quotes, a friend of mine, Jay Abraham said, “Don’t have a great I can than an IQ.” You joke about overthinking. My wife has never said I’ve over-thought anything in my life. I’d gone and done it. Ari Meisel said, “Get going and then get good.” When I thought about doing a podcast, I thought about it at 11:00 in the morning. By 3:00 in the afternoon, I did my first podcast. It was shit but just because you did it doesn’t mean you have to publish it. We binned it, deleted it and then try it again. I get going and then get good if there’s a benefit to it and if the juice is worth the squeeze.

You quote quite often throughout the book your father’s favorite sayings that you don’t drown by jumping in the water. You drown by staying in there. Especially with what’s going on in the market and COVID, a lot of people are staying in the water versus pulling themselves out. Any advice or counsel you’d be willing to give those out there that are struggling to get out of the deep end?

When I was eighteen years old, I took my wife to the movies on a Friday night. We ended up seeing a movie that is probably one of the Hall of Fame’s man movie ever, Point Break. The funny thing is I’m watching it at the shitty end of London when it’s raining. It’s all based around an area that I now live three minutes away. It’s funny how it’s come full circle on that. It’s all testosterone, girls, guys, surfing, tough and hot. All the way through, I’m engaged in the movie because as with any good movie, you want to be one of the characters. There’s Bodhisattva who is the main bad boy, good looking character and Johnny Utah, the FBI agent. Bodhisattva tells Johnny that he’s going to rob a bank.

He’s like, “I can’t do that. I’m an FBI agent.” Bodhi turns around and says, “Don’t worry. Fear causes hesitation. Hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.” I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur. This was in the ’80s when an entrepreneur meant you couldn’t get a real job. I sat there in the movie. I never saw the next ten minutes of the movie. This single statement spoke to me so much that I realized people were controlled by fear and how fear controlled them was to make them stand still. Nothing that stays still lives. It becomes stagnant and dies. I was like, “The danger isn’t in going forward and trying. The danger is in staying still. When you stay still, that’s when they’re all going to come at you.”

It was that moment that I’ve used many times in my life. It was particularly brought to my attention many years later by a friend of mine, Joe Polish, who said to me that the definition of hell is to meet the man or woman you could have been. When I heard that, I was already living a life of going for everything failing, but I would fail probably 2/3 of the attempts that I took. The third that I won put me way ahead of the game. For anyone that doesn’t know me, I’ve worked with Elton John, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Andrea Bocelli and the Pope. I’ve done some amazing things because I’ve gone for it. I failed a lot more times than I’ve succeeded. The funny thing is once you succeed, no one cares about how many times you failed. No one remembers it. Let’s pick on Elon Musk. Do you remember when he used to try and land the fuel cells on those floating platforms? Do you remember he would fall over and explode into flames? We used to see that every couple of days on the news. When was the last time you saw it?

I can’t think of it now because he’s been doing so well.

The second that fuel cell landed, stayed up point and didn’t fall over, everyone went, “It works now.” That was it. It’s never made the news again because it works. It’s irrelevant how many times he failed because it now works.

What’s relevant is that you learn more from your mistakes and from your lessons. You said it before, the stagnancy is what kills you. You start to rot and get bogged down. I love the rubber band analogy that you used throughout the book, how you’ve got to stretch yourself that you can’t go back to being that small circle of comfort. You’ve got a newly expanded circle by stretching yourself and making things happen. We know with every fuel cell that was millions, if not billions of dollars wasted for Elon Musk in a lot of ways. Failure is costing him but the peaks of success are way higher than the values of failure at any given point.

We pay for a driving lesson, college, education and courses. He didn’t waste billions of dollars on exploding fuel cells. He paid for the education of what not to do. Had he not had fuel cells that break and blow up and explode, he wouldn’t know what to do. There was one time I had a party in New York, it was in the Hamptons. There were a lot of powerful people in there from Fortune 500 companies to media to rock stars. I noticed that everyone in the room, at some point in their life, had failed. I noticed something once I realized that, that I was in a room full of serial failures. They had chosen to allow those failures to refine them and not define them. The point of failure is you’re only a failure when you stop trying. When you go, “This is it. I’m done.” That’s when you become a failure. Until that point, you’re being educated on what doesn’t work.

I love it because you do refer to that in the book. Some of the most successful names out there, the Walt Disneys, 300 times turned down. Stephen King’s Carrie was thrown in the trash before his wife dig it out there. As we grow as entrepreneurs, we get that thicker skin. No doesn’t mean no. It means more not now. I have to keep plodding forward and keep working on what I’m doing. I want your honest opinion because I get bogged down by entrepreneurs who are always looking for excuses or they want the fastest and the shortest way to success. I believe you’ve got to fail again and again to be valuable and be able to go through those ups and downs. Everybody can make money in an upmarket, but it’s when it’s a down market or struggling market. That’s when the true heroes come out.

There’s no telling. When the market’s going up, you become an order taker. Anyone can do sticky dogging there for the day. In a full market, he’ll make $1. That’s the bottom line of it is. Someone said to me on a podcast, “Steve, if you could go back to your eighteen-year-old self when he was working on a building site for his dad in East London, what would you tell him to save him?” I thought about this because I’ve never been asked that question at the time. I realized I’d only tell him to stay off the shit whiskey. That would be the only thing because the success was not in those glorious moments of walking the red carpet, living in the hills, driving the cars or being able to dine in the fanciest restaurants. All the growth came from those shitty moments where you asked yourself, “What am I going to do next?”

Those 1:00 Wednesday mornings when you know you’ve got to make payroll or pay the mortgage on a Friday. You don’t know how to run the credit card to be able to do it, who you can call, what you’ve got to do to be able to pull it in or when you suddenly lost a contract and you’re being sued for $250,000 and you go, “What do I do next?” It’s those moments that you’re suddenly revealed as to who you are. I would go out and thank 2020. I am grateful for 2020. It’s exposed my strengths, weaknesses, established a better bond within my family, strengthened the relationships in my businesses, and told me which ones I don’t need to concentrate on. 2020 has been an amplification. Anything that you were good at, you became better at, distribution, communication, online presence. Anything that you were weak at is killed.

2020 was a phenomenal time for us. It was in a dark, vulnerable period. Do you got told what you’re capable of? Exceptional sailors are not made exceptional from calm seas. Being in those moments of, “What do I do next?” To be able to realize that you have the capability. If we can survive in the year that we’ve had, it was a shit year, but if we can not only survive, but in some areas become better, then over the next few years, when the vaccine’s gone and everything’s back to whatever the new normal looks like, how dominate are we going to become?

People had learned to pivot in 2020. They’ve had to learn to do different things or delegate a lot of things. You talked heavily about your book about how getting time back is one of the most important things that you can’t buy. The biggest a-ha was when you outsourced your meal prep or your Monday through Friday dinners. Vegetables and rice, can you make that happen for me five days a week? You suddenly had ten extra hours of the week to put to your passions or your work.

It was Tim Ferriss that was telling me about this. He was talking about trying to look at what you do and then quantifying how much it costs to do that. You may be doing a deal on the phone and may make $10,000, but then when you run down to the supermarket to buy your materials to come back home and do your sandwich and that takes you two hours, including driving down and driving back. How much did it cost you for that sandwich? I wanted to see how far I could take this and test it. I and my wife worked together. There was a moment in the day that I used to hate, every single day. At about 10:00 in the morning, she would go, “What do you fancy for dinner tonight?” After that breakfast, “I don’t know. I have no idea what I fancy.” It would start this conversation. We’d be thrown off of that curveball on focusing on work, then she’d have to drive down to the supermarket, pick the stuff up and then she’d have to come home and start preparing it.

What we did was we hired a chef. I remember in the beginning thinking, “I’m spending $1,500 on a chef. Are you kidding me?” My wife never spoke to me at 10:00 about that. We spoke about other things. We suddenly found that we have time. When she was about to cook for the meal for the night, she didn’t have to. She could sit down with the kids and do their homework. We gained hours and family moments and we eat better because we weren’t suddenly thinking to ourselves, “We got to go and buy a hot dog. We got to go and get McDonald’s.” All of a sudden, none of that stuff mattered anymore. Sadly, that guy, Mitch, went to England to go back home. We would still have him here.

It was the greatest experience. It was a pure example of how I could buy back the time because Tony Robbins used to say, “Don’t get in a dollar for hour scenario because you’re going to run out.” For many years, entrepreneurs do that. We charge per hour. You’ve only got 24 of those you can sell. What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to be able to distribute it further by doing less. That was one of the tests. We did it by doing the chef. Ask yourself, what do you do that you can get somebody else to do cheaper than it’s costing you? It’s a fun test to do and a scary one.

Besides cooking, it can be dishwashing, house cleaning, doing the oil and mowing your yard. There’s a whole list of things that we could outsource and value our hour and expertise. I’m a big believer in preaching that to our audience. If it’s going to cost you $50 to go do an oil change, you’re only buying your time at $50 an hour. Let somebody else do it for you and go out make some things. Are you still looking for a chef there in LA for you?

 

My wife would jump at the chance of that. We took that to the extreme. There’s a caveat. If mowing the lawn gets you into a good, peaceful, creative state, then that’s a value. If it’s a chore, and that’s called chores for a reason, outsource it to someone that can do it better, faster and cheaper than it takes for your time. For me, I’ve got a mailbox. I live outside Malibu. My office is still in Los Angeles. The smart thing would be to move my office into the Malibu region so I don’t have to go there to get the mail because I don’t go to the office. Once a week, I jump on my motorbike, drive down the beach route, the long route to get to my mailbox. It keeps me calm for that period. Every week I have to do that drive. It’s calm for me. Creative, keep. What’s choreful, move away and delegate out.

Is that the Angel Creek Drive that you like to take on your motorcycle all the time?

We do Angel’s Crest. There’s Topanga Canyon. We do Pacific Coast Highway, which is a nice scenic ride, Latigo Canyon. I used to live in Palm Beach. I suppose this is the definition of knowing that you’re successful because it was for me. Being able to move where I wanted to, not where I needed to. When I was living in Palm Beach, I wasn’t happy there, I’m being able to go with, “Where do I want to live? What do I want from life?” Being able to decide that made me feel wealthy. I’ve always been grateful to be here in Los Angeles, not because I have to, not because I work with the studios because I don’t, not because I want to work with all the celebrities because I don’t have a lot of celebrity clients. I’m here because I want to live here because it’s the perfect weather and sunshine. It’s got a great bike club. It’s not bad for tacos either.

Speaking of some of the things you’re passionate about, with you riding your bike and working with people, you’re painting your life, painting your dreams. You talk throughout the book about passion will overcome cash any day. If you can hit on somebody’s passion, it will exceed the experience and make memories more so than anything else. That honed in with me because my father has been gone for years. He’s talking about making memories are much better than punching a clock or getting paid for if you can make a memory go there. I love what you share about how you take little things during your journeys to highlight and make a memory. Can you talk a little about how you liked to use the stationery or even the SkyMall thing? I love that as an entrepreneur and a business owner

As humans, we respond to triggers. We don’t touch things that are hot because they burn. We have triggers. You may be driving down the road and a tune may come onto the radio. All of a sudden, you’re twenty years younger with the love of your life, or you’re hanging out with your boys in that bar, or you remember this moment. It’s creating a trigger. I gave you a trigger about the movie. Not only did that movie mean a lot to me, but I remember this cinema that it was in, in a shitty area of town with the woman that I’m thrilled who became my wife in the end. All of these triggers come from there. What you want to do is no matter what your job is, try to create a trigger.

My business eventually was a concierge firm. I was traveling all over the world. Now I’m speaking and coaching, I’m still traveling over the world. A little tip and trick that I came up with was when I would be in a hotel in Poland, Ukraine, Japan, London. You can do this locally. It doesn’t even have to be a cool hotel, but go to a hotel that has stationery. Walk up to the concierge and go, “I’m going to be over there having a cup of coffee. I’m writing a few notes to my clients. Have you got any stationery?” They will give you, for free, envelopes and stationery. Write the note and then put it in the stationery. Handwrite the envelope and post it to someone.

In there, all you’ve got to say is like, “It caught my attention this afternoon that we had not spoken regarding the project. Send me a text as to when we can speak next.” Send the letter. People are going to get that envelope. If you’re worried about getting past gatekeepers, anytime an envelope comes from a hotel and it’s handwritten, the PA is going to think, “This must be a friend.” It gets through. They open up. Scott, I got a question for you. How many fingers does it take to delete an email?

One.

How many fingers does it take to open up an envelope?

Ten.

Full engagement. It’s like you’re holding the steering wheel. Here’s the thing. When you go to a nice hotel, you might get an envelope. It’s got a bit of a feel into it, a bit of a texture. It’s got a little logo on it. It may say London, Malibu or San Francisco. That’s why you can go down to wherever you live. Bear in mind, wherever you live may be different to somebody else. Even as they also live in LA and you go to an LA hotel, they’re going to go, “Who do I know at this hotel?” It creates curiosity. Whenever you get an envelope and it’s got a glass front on it, there is a typed address IEU and it’s come to you, what do you think or know that letter is?

It’s a negative response to think it’s a bill.

When was the last time you got a birthday card that came with a glass front and a typed address? If you get an envelope and it’s handwritten on the front, what do you think it could be?

An invitation, a birthday card, something personal.

It could be anything but the key is personal. You hit it smack on. I’ve now gotten your curiosity, expectation and touching the envelope. You’re then all aboard because you’re now ripping open that envelope. You’re ripping something open. You are now engaged. Your head is going, “What is this?” I’ve got you so ready to consume whatever shit I write on that letter. I’ve got you. It’s nothing more than me going, “Scott, I’m in LA. Text me because I want to have a chat with you.” That’s not the most exciting thing in the world. If I sent it to you as an email, it might get deleted by accident. You are not going, “This is so cool. He sent me an email.” Rubbish. I’ve been in restaurants, folded up the menu, shoved it in there and gone, “It’s cool here.” I’ve written on the back of the menu that note. I’ve been in restaurants where they’ve got a cocktail of the month. I’ve written on the back of that cocktail and done the same. I’ve even sprayed a bit of perfume in there.

When I went to Japan, it was cherry blossom time. There was a perfume that my wife got in Japan that smell of cherry blossoms. It wasn’t so cool when we got back here. At the time, what we did was in every envelope, I sprayed this in that. There was one time when I was in Mardi Gras, what I did was I got some tinsel. I put some light little tinsel in every envelope that I sent for Mardi Gras. The client phoned me up and he said, “Steve, I’ve got your letters from all over the world. They always make me smile and grin.” How do you think my evening went when at work I opened up your envelope to a bunch of tinsel, and then had to go home to my wife with tinsel all down my legs, trying to explain to her that it was a guy who sends me an envelope and not her thing that I’ve gone to some lap dancing parlor? That one probably wasn’t my smartest move, but did it not create a trigger? To the point that I went to his party, he introduced me to his wife and the story of the tinsel came up. Don’t you want a trigger?

I definitely want a trigger. It goes such a long way in that personal connection, especially these days. Emails get deleted. It’s so interpersonal. It also goes with that whole social media thing. Everybody thinks that connecting with people on social media, Facebook posts or Instagram posts is the way to do it. I agree with your concept that likes don’t mean shit out there. It’s that personal connection and being able to connect and identify a need, “I know you like Manhattans. Here’s a menu that I thought you’d like.”

The key you’ve got to look at, and this is what I do not because I’m a cheapskate, but try to find something that’s free or cheap that impacts the person. You mentioned SkyMall. I’m famous for being on a plane. This was before Wi-Fi. Wi-Fis have only been on planes for the last few years. SkyMall doesn’t even exist anymore. For any of you that don’t know what SkyMall is, every piece of crap that was ever produced on the planet was full sale through this SkyMall so that when you 30,000 feet up in the air and you’re on your fifteenth whiskey because you’re bored, you think a manatee postbox is a smart idea and you end up buying four. What I would do was I would get these SkyMalls and I would rip out these pages of stupid stuff.

It would be a skeleton hand that came out like a piggy bank or a bib that had a big picture of a pig on it. SkyMall was where all the stupid stuff went to die that no one would even show on QVC. It was that embarrassing. I would rip it out, shove it in an envelope and with a silver Sharpie go, “Mikey, I hear you got the penthouse in Chicago. Congratulations. You need a dolphin postbox. Here you go.” It was stupid stuff. I became well known for sending SkyMall tripe to people. People loved it. It was funny. It costs me nothing. I was on the plane and I had nothing to do. I would send it out.

It’s the little things that you’re on their mind. You’re thinking about them and it slows things down and make people be more aware versus such an electronic and such a fast-paced economy. We do have still that things, especially in all the hotel rooms, think about all the travel or all the vacationing sites they have. There are a lot of great things that you can use to share that you’re thinking about people when you’re traveling.

 

You can be down at a local cafe. You could be getting an oil change, get the local flyer and write on the back of the flyer. You’re doing something that is different to what everyone else is doing. Everyone now is pitching perfect copy. Copy that was meticulously gone through and is articular and uses words that you can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. It’s too perfect. We don’t relate to perfection. I always say that perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles. It doesn’t exist. We don’t recognize perfection. How many times have you seen a movie where the buildings were blown up? Thousands of times. When 9/11 did it, that was ugly. That had paper fall and smoke.

You couldn’t see certain things. When it started to topple down, all the smoke and debris went up. You couldn’t see it coming down. It was real. It wasn’t perfect like the way they make the movies. That’s what affected us. It was relatable. When there’s a mess, there are paper, trash, chairs, desks, it was ugly and impactful. What you’ve got to focus on now is what is impactful. Sending someone an email, a pretty newsletter, all of that stuff, they get 30,000 times a day. Why don’t you pick up this thing that you have that are probably close to you, your phone and video a message? This is gold for you people out there. All you do is record a video going, “I’m recording this video because quite simply, we have not spoken for way too long. Let me know when it’s a good time that we can jump on the phone and catch up. Especially during COVID, I want to know how you’re handling things and to see if I can help. Let’s maybe spitball some ideas to see how we can get over anything. More than anything, check in with me.”

With that video, text it to 50 people. Here’s the first thing you’ll notice. I didn’t call out your name, Scott. If you walk into a bar, I wouldn’t walk up to you and go, “Scott Carson, how are you doing? Steve Sims” Why would I do that? We already know each other. I’d run up behind, slap you on the shoulder and go, “If you buy the drinks, make sure I got one. How are you doing, buddy?” You don’t introduce yourself to a friend. You don’t have to introduce yourself in a text. That video that did not mention a first person’s name can go to 50 people. What will happen is it will suddenly pop up on that phone because there’s no junk mail for texts. There’s junk for emails, but there’s no junk for texts. It will pop up with an alert of your stupid face doing this. People will be like, “What the hell is this?” They will push it and play it on the spot. It takes that to have a 100% open rate. Your emails have an open rate of about 20% if you’re good. Let me ask you another question. I’m going to pick a new scope. If I sent you an email, what is the respectable timeframe for you to respond without me getting upset?

I always tell people to give me 24 hours in case of travel for the most part, but it’s got to be 48 hours. You’ve got to set it. I get irritated when I get those autoresponders from people all the time and they don’t follow up in 24 to 48 hours. Let’s not count the weekend if you’re off having fun and drinking.

Come Friday, If I’ve sent you an email, I may not be hearing from you until Monday or Tuesday. Fair enough. I doubt Scott has done this because he’s got an honest face on him unless you’ve seen him. Do you know someone that may say, “Sorry. I didn’t see your email. It was in the junk folder,” just to buy him extra few days to respond?

I’ve heard that.

We now know, on that example, you go 1 to 7 or 8 days on an email. How fast do you respond to a text?

That would be an hour or two.

It’s much quicker and briefer. Choose for the email, funny face, “When should we chat?” “I’m glad you liked it.” You’re in a conversation, which is all we want. There’s a new app out there that everyone’s going and it’s making me laugh. Everyone’s going nuts over at the moment on Clubhouse. Some stupid moron in one of the Clubhouse rooms that I happen to be in, I spat out my coffee when I heard this from her. She said, “It’s brilliant that I have this app now. I can push a button and talk to someone.” I hate to explain to you silly cow, but you’ve described what a phone is. It was hysterical. She said that in a room. I couldn’t get over it. I had to blurt it out.

We’ve missed a lot of things in COVID. We’ve missed kicking around with family, going to the mall, going to a restaurant, but what have we truly missed? It’s conversations and connecting with people. As I gave you the example, Scott, it’s being able to walk up to someone like at this Secret Knock event where we met. It’s being able to walk up to someone in a room, smacking them on the back and going, “Let’s grab an old fashioned. Let’s grab a whiskey. Let’s have a chat. I heard you bring this up. Let’s explore that further. I heard you had a problem with marketing. Let’s have a chat.” That’s what we’ve missed. We’ve missed the tonality, energy and passion.

No one is gagging to get into 2021 because they want to go and buy a new car. No one is desperate to get out there to buy a new watch. I’ve not seen a single post in or heard a single message about, “I can’t wait for COVID to be over so I can go buy a new Rolex.” No one gives a shit. We want to go down to the bar and hang out with each other. We want to bear hug each other. We want to go, “I’m glad I’m face to face with you. I’m glad I haven’t got a face mask on and spitting all over here. Let’s drink some beers. Let’s tell some mood jokes. Let’s connect.”

We started COVID ourselves with the invention of Friendster. We’ve been getting bad at communicating for several years. COVID has put the full stop on it, but it was several years ago that we started instead of phoning up our friends going, “Come on over. We’ve got a baby.” What did we do? We posted a picture of it on Facebook, “Here’s a baby.” There’s a picture. “Congratulations.” Did you get off your fat ass and go and see him? No. Why? She had already said congratulations on Facebook. We started disconnecting from our relationships years ago when we allowed social to outsource relationships.

Social is a poster board. It’s where you post things up. That’s why that’s called a post. Relationships are where you sit down and have a coffee and go, “Scott, you sounded a little bit strange the other day. What’s going on in your life? Scott, congratulations on the baby. Let me come over with a bottle of whiskey and we’ll drink to the new baby.” That’s what relationships are. I’m praying COVID has made us go, “That’s what I miss.” Not posting a picture of me leaning up against the car I don’t own on Instagram to make sure that everyone realizes my life is better than yours. COVID has taught us that we need each other.

I don’t know if it was on Joe Fier and Matt Wolfe’s The Hustle and Flowchart Podcast a while back or in the book as well, talking about using the social things for social audit to help you connect with people, to find out things about people so that you can help build that connection up. Can you share a little about what you mean by that?

We can cyberstalk anybody now. We don’t Google people anymore because if you Google someone, it takes you to their website and their websites always got a picture on there of when they were 20-pound lighter, probably even five years younger. It’s nothing more than a trophy chest, “Look at me. I was on CNN.” I’ve got the same. “This was when I was on CNN. This was when I was on stage here. This was what I was at a Pentagon.” It’s your trophy display. If you want to get to know the person, what do we do? We look them up on social, Facebook and Instagram feed. We see that all of those pictures consists of them with motorbikes, horses or dogs, and then we can take an assumption once we’ve seen 500 pictures of them with that dog, Bertie, that they love Bertie.

 

There’s something relatable behind there. We can use social as discovery and research, not for the relationship, but to give us something worthwhile as an entry-level to talk about. You may phone up and go, “I see your dog, Bertie. He looks like a beautiful dog.” “He died last week.” “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” You may think that’s horrible, but that’s a worst-case scenario that still engages a conversation. “How long is Bertie with you?” “We had him for fifteen years.” You’re in a conversation. People don’t realize that it’s conversational. Twitter is going up onto the Empire State Building, writing something down on a piece of paper, faxing it to a million people thrown off the top of that building and hoping someone gets it and responds to you. That is not a relationship.

You outlined a story about talking with an actor who had been bombarded in an event with a selfie, but you found out that he was interested in chair furniture.

I’ve been able to work in some brilliant places and none of it has been by luck. The people that I’m going for, I attack with precision. I bid in the NSA for it. The way that I do it is I do my research first. I found out this guy that I was going after was posting about these handmade shoes that he got from Venice. I start up a conversation because I went to a party. He was wearing the shoes. I went, “I love your shoes.” He starts telling me about everything that I already knew, but he was telling me about it. There was another guy that was a famous actor. After doing a bit of digging, he was in an article because he collected modern mid-century chairs.

I stood next to him up at a bar. Anyone that’s got any profile. I guarantee you’ve had it. I know I’ve had it. When you’re in the public eye, people come up to you and they go, “Steve.” You’ll stand there going, “Who’s this? Do I know them? Are they friends? Are they clients? Are they related to a client? Who are you?” During that moment, you’re panicking. The person hasn’t turned around and gone, “You don’t know me, Scott, but I listened to your podcast.” You’ll feel bloody uncomfortable. Celebrities get that times a million. I was stood at a bar with someone. I wanted to do business with them. I knew they’d be involved in a movie. He’s waiting for the, “Can I get a picture? I love your latest movie.” All the other shit that he gets fifteen million times. I turned around him and I went, “You like Herman Miller chairs.”

He was like, “You like chairs?” I went, “You know I do, but I only like the modern mid-century ones.” That’s what he was saying. He asks and he’s like, “I love modern.” I went, “Then go figure.” We start a whole conversation on quirky chairs. You’ve got to focus on who you’re going for. You’ve got too much information available to you now for you to be stupid enough to think you can run away with an ad hoc. If you’re trying to get a hold of someone, find out what interests them because people will talk about what they love forever. You’ll have to shoot them to shut them up. If you want to get into a conversation, find out what they love, start the conversation on it, sit back and let them go happy.

What their passion about and their charities. You gave some great advice on the other podcasts and throughout the book of finding what shares, especially the story about the guy from Journey that had a charity event with autism.

I got a client who came to me that wanted to meet the rock band Journey. That was too much of a waste of a request. I found out that the client that was asking me, his brother’s son had autism. I found out that the drummer’s son of the rock band Journey had autism. I was able to use that as a natural connection. I’d go, “I want something. Rather than having someone that can afford it, do an amazing experience with you guys because that’s easy.” By saying it, it calms the way. I was going, “We could do this for money, but no one wants to do this for money. Why don’t we do this to raise awareness of autism? Would that be of any interest?”

The drummer is like, “My son.” I knew it. That’s why I brought that up. I’m like, “Why don’t we do this and raise the profile? Anything I do, I’ll promote the fact that it’s all surrounding autism. I’m bringing awareness to autism.” We did the whole event under the umbrella of Autism Speaks. Part of the proceeds went to autism. We made it a whole big chat. Everyone got the feel-good factor. If you want to turn a celebrity away, walk up to him and go, “How much would it cost for me to do this?” That sends a former celebrity into a prostitute. No one wants to be purchased. You’ve got to walk in with, “I’ve got this dream. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did this? My client wants to do it, and you are the perfect person to bring this. Can you imagine how many years they will talk about it?” Get them into the story and the emotion. You’re going to have to pay. That’s like buying a car and knowing full well it’s got to be fueled. No one’s ever bought a car, got home and gone, “You didn’t tell me how to put fuel in it.” You know you’re going to have to do. Get them engaged in the project first. The money is a side set. That’s got to be done as a mere formality.

To find those things out, you’re asking questions. You’re diving in deeper versus being an order taker. You said this throughout the book in a couple of passions. Take it in detail. Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to go to the Playboy Mansion in the book? Why do you want to go to Napa? Why do you want to do this and finding the cause or the true colors to somebody and what buttons to push to dig that information out of them so you can build a lasting memory and event for them?

I’ll give you a little story that does identify that a bit more. I teach this when I’m coaching as well. Never give a client what they ask for. Give them what they want, lust and desire for. In order to do that, you’ve got to hit probably the most combative, confrontational word ever. That is the word why. To give you how I use it. Someone phoned up my office, got through to one of my team and wanted to get a photograph with Sir Elton John. I was working for Sir Elton John when it was his Oscar party here in Los Angeles. I did it for eight years. My team member put it through to me and said, “There’s something off about this fellow. Can you take the call?”

I said, “Put it through.” The person goes through and he said, “How are you doing?” I’ve got this New Yorker on the phone, abrupt, loud, full of himself. That’s fine. I’m not saying all New Yorkers are like that, but most of you know you are.” He was like, “I want to get a photograph with Sir Elton John.” I went, “It sounds fantastic. Why?” He’s like, “He’s an icon. He’s one of the greats. Everyone knows him by Elton. He’s famous and going to die soon. I want to get a photograph of him for my desk.” “Is that it?” “Yes.” “Thank you very much. Let me do some digging, see what I can do and I’ll come back to you. Thank you very much.” I hung up. I didn’t take his phone number and email. There was no substance to it.

About a month later, six weeks away from the event in Los Angeles, one of my team contacts me. I had told them about this person. They went, “Steve, I don’t think it’s him but we’ve got another guy on the phone. He’s another New Yorker. I’m thinking it may be his mate trying to get this picture because you never responded to him. Can you take the call?” “Put it through to me.” It was another New Yorker, equally as loud and brash. He’s like, “How are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m good.” “I hear you want to get a photograph with Sir Elton John.” “I do.” “Why do you want to do it?” He was taken back by the why and he went, “He’s great, an icon. Everyone knows Elton.” He starts going to the same list as the first guy. “There are things,” I remember that. It was that exact there are things. I said to him in a quiet voice. “What things?”

There’s a great guy out there called Chris Voss. He talks to you about never split the difference. He talks about matching the person’s voice with the same tone and then doing it in your midnight DJ voice to see if they will follow. I was only enthusiastic about this guy’s voice. I said, “Let me know. What things?” He went quiet and he said, “I’d love to tell you about my dad. My dad used to take me to school every day. He used to pick me up from school. My mom never did it once. She would always wave us off from the doorstep, but it was always my dad that would take me to school and would pick me up. It was our thing. In his car, he had a cassette. The cassette was stuck. We couldn’t get it out. It was funny. It was Elton John’s greatest hits at that time. We used to sing all the way to school, only a couple of miles. Whenever he would pick us up, we would sing Elton John all the way back on the way to school, on the way back.

He then got a new car. This one came with a CD player. He thought it’d be funny to get Elton John’s greatest hits. On the way to school and back, we’d sing out Elton John. I got into my high school years where I was so embarrassed that my dad would still be singing Elton John on the way there. I couldn’t close the door fast enough so people couldn’t hear Elton John coming out of the car. I would walk towards the car. In that, Elton John’s singing out. I couldn’t open the door, couldn’t jumping over that, try and turn it down. He would never turn it down. He would drive home with me looking out the window while he would be singing Elton John.”

He said, “My dad died about 15 or 20 years ago. Should I be driving down the road, be driving my kids to school, be with my wife, I’d be at a business meeting and I’m on my way to it, on the radio somewhere, I’ll hear Elton John. Every time that comes on the radio, my dad sat next to me in the car singing his lungs out. I want to say thank you to Elton for randomly, throughout each week, bringing my dad back to me for three minutes at a time.” It was several years ago. I still well up every time I tell that story because I can remember him telling me that. The guy had substance. He had a reason. There was a call. When he told me that, I could not wait to go to Elton John’s camp, tell them the story and see if we could get those two together. When we did get the two together at the party, the party was loud. They have to lean into each other and tell the story. By the client’s face and by Elton receiving it, I know what part of the story he had got through.

When they both go to the end and they were both welling up and then they hugged each other, that was the reason. There was the core. The money, yes there had to be a donation. People don’t do shit for free. When they do it for free, it comes back three times as expensive. We had discovered the why by asking and then we could work on it. Once we knew what the core reason was behind it, we had to position it. There was no way in the world they were going to say no when we knew what the why was. That’s strong, thick and heavy.

You’ve got many lessons. I love the fact too that you’re doing more speaking and sharing a little bit more of your lessons and the things that you’ve gone through and the things you’re teaching entrepreneurs out there. You’ve got a thing called Distillery. Can you share a little bit about that for how people plug into that a little bit more?

I screwed up. I made a course called Sims Distillery. It was a sixteen-step video course on how to communicate and build up relationships. I hate it because it was the diet book. The number of people that go into a store buy a diet book and think, “I’m going to lose weight because I bought the book.” They don’t do anything other than buying the book. That concerned me about my course. I changed it. It’s SimsDistillery.com. We have an online community. It’s got loads of videos. Every time I do a video and an AMA with one of my guests, I load it up there, but more importantly, as a member of Sims Distillery, I bring you into the conversation. When I do an expert AMA with Jim Kwik, Ken Kragen, Jay Abraham, all my Sims Distillery members in the conversation can ask questions to these experts. We hold you there accountable to grow, be challenged and benefit from these people’s wisdom. My online community is at SimsDistillery.com. It gets you not only into your own private portal but also into my private community, where you get to interact with me and my guests.

I signed up for it. I’m excited about it. I want to bring it up for everybody there. Steve, what’s the best way for people to connect with you and find more about it?

SteveDSims.com is the main website. We’ve got a free Facebook group that gives you an idea of what I’m about. If you want to sniff out a little bit more to find out if I’m full of it or whether or not I fit your vibe, we’ve got An Entrepreneur’s Advantage with Steve Sims. You can stalk me at @SteveDSims on Instagram, Twitter, Clubhouse or anywhere you like.

The two final questions I’m going to ask you to let you get back to your day. Your favorite bourbon. Is it a Bulleit Bourbon you were drinking or you had a favorite bourbon that you like? What’s that?

It’s probably Bulleit Bourbon. It works for me.

I know you’ve got a variety of motorcycles, but what’s your favorite one that you love to ride there on a nice, sunny, crisp day on the PCH or up Angel Crest?

You outlined it with the beauty of the day. I’ve got Harleys, Ducati. I’m spoiled. I’ve got quite a few motorbikes. Every now and then, I like to roll out either the 1975 Norton Commando, put my little open face helmet on and cruise the hills. I’m straight away transferred back to the 1970s with a little piece of exhaust.

Steve, thank you so much for coming to the show. I appreciate it. It’s good to reconnect after these years. I look forward to doing some more stuff together. Guys and gals, go check it out, SteveDSims.com. Check it out there, Sims Distillery. You will not be disappointed. Go out and get the book, Bluefishing. Great read. You will not want to put it down. I love the lessons and the little recaps in each chapter too, Steve.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. That’s going to wrap it up for this episode. Go out, take some action, don’t be afraid to fall down and fail. You’ll learn more from that. Guys, people don’t remember the failures. They remember the successes. Keep at it. Don’t give up and you’ll find success. We’ll see you at the top. Bye.

Important Links:

• Bluefishing
• Carrie
• The Hustle and Flowchart Podcast
• SimsDistillery.com
• SteveDSims.com
• An Entrepreneur’s Advantage with Steve Sims
• Instagram – Steve Sims
• Twitter – Steve Sims

About Steve Sims

Do you know anyone that’s worked with Sir Elton John or Elon Musk, sent people down to see the wreck of the Titanic on the sea bed or closed museums in Florence for a private dinner party and then had Andre Bocelli serenade them while they eat their pasta – you do now.

Quoted as “The Real Life Wizard of Oz” by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, Steve Sims is the best selling Author with “BLUEFISHING – the art of making things happen”, sought-after coach and a speaker at a variety of networks, groups and associations as well as the Pentagon and Harvard – twice!

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