How to connect with anyone in the world | Steve Sims | The 2%

I literally would say to people, hey, so how come you're rich and I'm not? If you want a big bank account, you've got to have a successful mindset. But I'm not going to dilute myself for you. And if I did, the conversation wouldn't be worth having.

I'm super excited to have on the show today. Steve Sims. Welcome to the show, Steve.

It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

And you're, you're, you're calling in. Well, this is kind of funny because just now we were talking about, well, where are you? And I?

Where are you?

And so you're in, you're in la, so it's nine o' clock for you, right?

Yep. Yeah, I'm here in Los Angeles just, just next to the beach for everyone that wants to hate me.

Yeah. And I'm five minutes from the beach, but there you go.

Yeah.

So this show, so the rest of this show, the goal should be let's get people to hate us.

We started well. We did start well.

So I'm in Lisbon, Portugal. It's 5:08 here. Neither of us are from the place that we're in, so maybe that's an interesting place to start. How'd you end up in la? And, yeah, where are you originally from?

Well, the story may sound glamorous, but it's the exact same for every entrepreneur. I left school at the age of 15, moved into my dad's construction firm, and at the age of 15, I'm sitting on a building site in East London going, is this it? Is this my entire life? You know, there were people in there on their 80s, and I'm thinking, this is it. This is where I'm going to end up. So I left the building site very abruptly to just try and find a way to make money. You know, you'd see on the movies, Wall street was the big movie of the 80s and 90s. So, you know, I'm driving around in a, in a, in a van. You know, I wanted to be driving around in a red Porsche and, you know, having a suit on and stuff and not getting dirty and cut up on a daily basis. So in order to be able to make money, I had to surround myself with money. So I tried getting jobs for, like, exotic car sales and, you know, yacht charters and air, all this kind of stuff. But for any of you not fortunate enough to see me, I don't fit the bill of someone that you really want on your doorstep trying to ask for a lot of money. You Know, I look more like a debt collector and a bouncer. 245 pound of ugly biker. It's as simple as that. I talked my way into a stock and this, this is brilliant in itself. I talked my way into a stock broker's apprenticeship in Hong Kong boiler room.

Well, sadly it wasn't. Maybe if it had been a boiler room, I'd have been all right. But this was, this was bzw. So this was a proper banking empire. But my resume, it was the greatest work of fiction. This thing was better than Harry Potter. I actually in my resume suggested I was related to royalty. You know, it was just. So I thought to myself, they're going to look at this resume and go, oh, he's got a good laugh. You know, he's got a good sense of humor. So it was, it wasn't even just a stretch on the truth, it was all out bullshit. That was just funny. You know, my dad actually started J.P. morgan, but I don't want to work in the fact it was all that kind of crap.

And they, they went for it.

No, apparently they were recruiting so many apprentices to the new tiger markets, which was the explode, they didn't even care. They just recruited in one swoop, about 60 people. So I just somehow got in the net. I flew from England to Hong Kong. I did orientation on day one, on day two, nine o' clock in the morning, was fired. So I'm, I'm now in Hong Kong. No job. They said, oh, you can stay in the apartment for three months. And because we let you go. His two months salary, which was the biggest amount of money I'd ever seen in my life, that didn't last long in Hong Kong. And the only thing I ended up doing was working on the door of a nightclub. And I went from working on the door of a nightclub to throw in my own parties. And trying to throw parties just for rich people because no point of me surrounding myself with poor people. I knew what that was like and it sucked. So I would throw these parties, I would take over nightclubs, I would take over mansions, I would take over yachts. And I went from throwing nightclub parties to working with the biggest events in the world from the New York Fashion Week, the Grammys, the Surreal and John's Oscar party Formula one in Monaco.

When are you throwing your next. When are you throwing your next party? I want to go.

It sounds great. Well, the whole, it was all, it was all a facade. It was a Trojan horse, right? I wanted to throw opulent parties for major luxury Brands and billionaires, quite simply, so I could surround myself with uber successful people to interview them. In other words, I was doing what you're now doing on a podcast, I was doing at parties in Stard and Palm Beach. So I went from Hong Kong, Bangkok, Geneva, Palm beach, and I arrived in LA 14 years ago. So I've literally just traveled around the world throwing these major events and. And without realizing it, invented the personal concierge industry, which I had for about 25 years. Only had 93 clients, but pretty much all of them were billionaires and they were from all over the world. And then of course, I wrote a book, Bluefish in the Art of Making Things Happen, about three and a half years ago, and it sent me off speaking, coaching, and doing all of this.

Palava and of course, Bluefish, which we're going to talk about. That's. That. That's your luxury concierge. And I'm sure you said I only had 93 clients and then modestly, they were almost all billionaires.

Yeah, yeah, it was very weird. There's so many people out there trying to get thousands upon thousands upon thousands of subscribers. Focus on the end goal, which is the client, and look at how much that value to you is. So, yeah, I just literally went for billionaires. And it's easy. You. And this is what annoys me. You can Google millionaires in your city and it will tell you how many millionaires are in your city and probably even through media, show you who the top 20 of them are. So why throw a party and invite a guy that's having trouble paying for the $1,000 yo. Gala prize ticket? Just invite the millionaires and billionaires and you know what? Millionaires and billionaires who their friends are most of the time millionaires and billionaires. So it ain't that hard.

Yeah. So what was the motivation for you, like, what was driving this? Was it that you thought, okay, these guys will be easy money. These guys have a lot of money to spend. So then I get to do.

I get to create and almost like live vicariously, you know, through that. Like, what was the driver for it?

Actually, all of that. No. Which sounds very arrogant to say to set up a business and not be in it for the money. I was hanging around poor people that never had cars that worked. And so I was very disgruntled. I was very aggravated. And most entrepreneurs, we do things based on aggravation. We solve a problem we have and then we sell that solution to other people that have the same problem. For me, I had no money. So what was the point of me going down to the pub and talking to all of my buddies that also never had any money about, how do you make money? You know, it just didn't make sense to me. We also were in a time of no social platform. So in the 80s and 90s, I didn't have Instagram to point how. How inadequate my life was. So I didn't have any of those things that a lot of people. I didn't have podcasts, I didn't have audiobooks. We didn't have all those things. So I literally just wanted to do something for you that got your attention, that I could then speak to you and go, hey, Jimmy, you know, I hope you enjoyed the party. I hope you enjoyed meeting Elton John. I hope you enjoyed, you know, hanging out in Formula One with Ferrari. Well, by the way, I always wanted to ask you, how come you made your money in Sunset, or how come you. And I started asking three questions, and the first question is so rude and obnoxious, but so blunt. I literally would say to people, hey, so how come you're rich and I'm not?

And that would be it. And of course, like, coming from a big thug like me and asking such a direct question, and then be so keen and leaning in almost with a pattern paper, waiting to get this kind of answer. Give me the answer.

Give me the answer.

Yeah, yeah. But it was the wrong question. And I realized very early on, if you're getting the wrong answer, you're asking the wrong question. So first of all, I was saying, how rich are you? And when I speak to you about rich, you straight away start thinking about financial. How much money is in my bank account? How much is in my portfolio? It's not the right question. You know, how come you're so tall? It's just a silly question. How do you know you look tall on that chair? It just happens. So I knew it was the wrong question, so I tweaked it to wealth. Okay, wealth, people. How come you're wealthy? And then I've got people saying, because I found God. Oh, I married my wife, and my wife is support. And I found meditation. And I found. And I'm like, hang on, I'm not going to marry your wife or join your church. You know, this doesn't help me. So again, wrong question. So the third tweak of this question was, hey, how come you're successful and I'm not?

That was it. You see, you don't get slim by buying a diet book. You get slim by action in that book. And the byproduct of those actions is you become slim. If you want a big bank account, you've got to have a successful mindset. It doesn't work the opposite way. You don't. You can't buy one, you can't order it on Amazon. If you can send me the receipt, I'll pay for it. You can't do that. So once I was able to ask these questions, people were like, well, I look at opportunities like this, Steve, or, you know, this is how I. How I work on my culture in my business. This is how I hire people. This is how I fire clients. You know, I learn and I'm taking all of these notes. And the more I was getting that was I was changing my attitude as I walked out the door from that conversation. So I was now able to kind of change the way I was now making money by product of the successful mind shift. But of course, like all entrepreneurs, we want more. So I'm talking with millionaires. And now I want to know, do billionaires do it differently? So I started working with, like, Richard Branson, Eve Branson, his mum started working with Peter Diamandis, Elon Musk, Jean Paul de Jouria. I started working with all of these famous billionaires. And then the billionaires you've never heard of the living Krakow or Korea or Russia or England or Monaco. And I started working with these people and just going. And of course, I didn't have to say, how come you're successful and I'm not? Now I would say, what do you think it is that makes you more successful than others? And it was my constant thirst for the way you looked at things, the way you actioned things. And I got great answers. And that's what it was. So it wasn't about the money. The money was a byproduct. The penthouses, the beautiful houses, you know, living by the beach, that's all been a byproduct of me changing my mindset based on the conversations I've had. Hey, if I've got to get you to have a drum lesson with Guns n Roses or walk on roll in a. In a Hollywood movie just to get your attention, then I'll do that. But that wasn't what I wanted to do. Amazing.

And. But what about the person who's like, oh, come on, you know, with these billionaires and the multimillionaires, you know, they grew up in a life of privilege. They had access to resources that the other person doesn't. They had a great Education, like what? You know, you know, that I didn't have, like. What do you say to that?

Well, I'm not quite sure I can say bullshit on this show because, you know, I don't want to swear, but Elon Musk lived in a one bedroom apartment.

You can say it three times in a row.

Perfect. Perfect. It's utter shit. Most of the. Look at Jeff Bezos, how he started. Look at, you know, now, Richard Branson. He did have a bit of capital behind him. Yes. I'm not going to shy away that all billionaires are self made. But the bottom line of it is the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk, the Jean Paul de Jong, Paul de Jurea used to sleep on the floor of a dry cleaners because he never had a home. You know, this guy's now got patron, Paul Mitchell. The biggest, most powerful people in the planet did not come from money. They did not. And my clients didn't. You see, what I could never deal with was a trust fund baby. Now I would have a real problem because I'd get introduced to like, you know, Frederick Marcus III and they'll be like, oh, I want to do this. And I'd be like, oh, great, so why do you want to. And they just had money that they wanted to spend to give them a more interesting cocktail story. And there was nothing behind it. So I was like, sorry, I don't think I can help you. So very early on I would make sure that I only took on the clients that quite simply I wanted to connect with, that had some depth, some skills, some knowledge that I could benefit from. So all of my clients borrow. A couple never had money to start with. And those couple that did have money have gone on to surge over what their family had. So I'm there to find the hustlers, the entrepreneurs and those aggravated to do.

More and.

Give us a Quick Personal Concierge 101. Right. For the person who's like, I don't fully understand exactly what a personal concierge does, let alone a luxury personal concierge.

Sure.

Give us the one on one.

Sure. So what happens is lesson number one, never give a client what they ask for, because that's called a transaction. Amazon does that all day long. So you'd have people go, oh, I want to have a. I want to have a really good. And this is a true story and it's in the book, you know, Shallow.

Plug for the book.

You know, I want to have a luxury, a dining experience in Florence, you know, make me look powerful that was the parameter that I was given by a client. So what I did was I took over the Accademia de Galleria museum, which is a museum in Florence that houses Michelangelo's David. I could have set him up in a table of a top restaurant, paid the chef to come out and go, oh, good evening sir, it's an honor. But that wouldn't have been good enough for me. May have been good enough for the client, but it wasn't good enough for me because I always like to push myself to the amazing and the stupid. I want to go for a goal so ridiculous, you're going to laugh at me just before you applaud for me making it happen. So I actually went for this museum, managed to get it through some connections I had. Again, everything's based on connections and your network. And so I got them to agree to the museum. I set up a string quartet, got a really good chef to come in. At 9 o' clock in the evening, they walked into their own museum. A table of six set up at the base of Michelangelo's David. String quartet pianist, top chef. And then as they're eating their main course, their pasta, I asked permission to bring in a local entertainer to serenade them while they at their main course. He agreed. I brought in Andrea Bocelli to serenade and while they were eating. So that's, that's what I do. I go for, you know, if you want a drum lesson, let's get it with the drummer from Guns N Roses. You want a guitar lesson? It's easy top to teach you how to play guitar. So that's what I do. I take what you want and I put my spin, my effort, my dreams on it so that you go home going, you are not going to believe what I did. And I want to introduce you to the guy and then I get to interview them again.

And how is it for you though? Is like, it sounds like it might be exhausting, right? You have to jet. You're jet setting around all these different places, doing all these different, different demands. It's like constant dream life. Like where for you is the. You know what? I'm just going to watch squid game on Netflix.

Actually, I haven't started that yet, but it is on my to do list. The funny thing is it's the concierge firm I left about four years ago. Still do a little bit for some of my closest clients. But I left that industry and as I say now, I just speak and coach on helping other entrepreneurs. It wasn't what I enjoyed Doing, you know, I like red carpets. The ego of a red carpet, if you've got two, you may not know this, but they stagger people on a red carpet. So if you've got two singers that are going on a red carpet, one singer doesn't want to be outdone by the other singer. So who's the top? Who's, who's got lead here? So they'll throw an actor in the middle or they'll know now throw a top entrepreneur or a TV star. So the ego about, oh, I can't follow them, I need to lead in front of them. All of that kind of bullshit, it can make you sick, you know, violently sick. So I never wanted to be part of that. But my client from like St. Petersburg or Moscow or Monaco wants to walk the red carpet and doesn't care who is behind or who is in front of. So I did it for them. So you very, very quickly had to go, hey, I'm not here at the front row of the Paris Fashion Week because I really give a shit what the new black is next year. I'm here because it's what my client wants. I'm doing it for my client. So tomorrow I've got an hour long conversation over breakfast on how come you're successful. You know, that's why there were many times, many times, like, I had a client that wanted to get married in the Vatican by the Pope and I was there for just over six months. You think your local motor, your local vehicle registration office in America, you call it the dmv. If you think your local government has red tape, you try and deal with the Vatican. You know, that's got red tape on red tape on red tape.

Is that possible? Is it possible to get the Pope to marry you?

Anything's possible. Anything possible. So. But I was over there for just over six months, shuffling papers, talking to the right people, making sure we had over six months. I was away. I lost an entire summer in la, away from my family. I remember leaving Rome, coming back, and it sounds all great, great hotel in the Hotel de Russie. Great room up there, you know, traveling around, having, you know, special access into the Papal Gardens. Oh, my God, it sounds brilliant for two minutes.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden you're away from your family, you're away from your friends. Okay? It was like a mini Covid. I was blocked off from all of my relationships. I didn't really care about sitting at the hotel bar and listening to how you're traveling over here from so and so and, oh, I like Roman.

Was it worth it?

Financially, yes. Mentally, no. I would never do it again. And it was one of the staples in the coffin that said, I don't want to be doing this anymore. I'm not enjoying this. And now with the people that I have on speed dial, with the conversations I've had, I don't need as many of those conversations now. So that was actually, even before the book came out, that was actually kind of like, I'm moving out of this. I've got what I needed. I'm kind of done. So it got to the point where it doesn't matter about the money. You're away from your family, you're away from your friends. And for me, I don't have a car. Okay. I haven't had a car for decades. I ride two wheels. I ride motorcycles. I've got a lovely collection of bikes. You can't phone me on a bike. I can't pick up what you want from the grocery store. I can't run through a Starbucks and get a mok, a locker fap or whatever. I am completely disconnected from the planet when I'm on two wheels. So for me, I want a barbecue, ride motorcycles, and drink old fashions in my garden. That's as exciting as I am.

When are you gonna next do the old fashions? That sounds pretty good.

Do you know I threw. I started to throw these entrepreneur events called speakeasies.

Right.

And it costs. It's already sold out, so there's no pitch. But I charge people $2,000. Yeah. To turn up in a city, they don't know the location until they arrive. And then for two days, we go through different trainings, and each night we hit a bar or we have a bar set up where we basically have way too many old fashions. And the following day, we do it again. And no one knows where they're going. They just know that they're going to go along, they're going to get challenged, they're going to get uncomfortable, and they're probably going to drink too much drink. And they've been selling out for about 23 years. So it's been a great deal of fun. And it's amazing how many people would travel around the planet just to come to one of my events where they don't know who's going to be there, who they're going to meet. They just know that they're going to meet 40 other creative disruptors in that room.

Awesome. I'm up for the next one, please.

All right, so how Long were you in the. In the concierge?

So the concierge space really kept me about 25 years. Okay.

So, I mean, listening to you, it sounds. Sounds like there was some hard work and there's some choices you had to make, but it sounds pretty glorious and lavish. But, I mean, you know, we both. We're both entrepreneurs. We know that, like, that's not how it is. Can you. Can you share some of the low moments? Like, what were. What were like, the lowest moments in building that business? And what did you go through?

Probably one of the darkest chapters I ever had was not so much losing money, because there would be. I learned how to read a contract by not reading contracts. And by not reading those contracts. Yeah. You suddenly start losing money or realizing there's extra fees involved, and you walk away thinking, I've got 150 grand on this. I'm away. And then you suddenly realize that it costs you 200 grand for licensing rights or something, and you actually just paid for the privilege to work for someone else. So those were pretty interesting moments. But I look. I always look at those as education. Okay. But probably the darkest one was when I lost something worse than money, which was me. Now, for about eight years, I was now dealing with the, you know, the most affluent people in the planet. And I got a deal with Ferrari. Great deal. Loved working there. And I was involved in some of the parties for that 50th anniversary for the Ferrari team, the Formula One team in Monaco. And I had this massive, great yacht. And the Cannes Film Festival, for anyone that doesn't know, is the week before the Monaco Formula one. So anyone that's been over there for the movies, your Brad Pitts, your Sylvester Sloan, anyone that's big in the movies would then pop over to continue that highlight at the Monaco Formula one Grand Prix. And so we had all these superstars. This was 1997. We had all these celebrities coming over. Now I had. I was living in Switzerland at the time, riding around on a Ducati, still got my earrings, still got my black T shirt, shaved head, goatee, still looking like a doorman.

And I woke up probably about three months away from this Monaco party.

Yeah.

And I thought to myself, hang on a minute. I'm going to turn up in Monaco either by taxi or on a motorbike. I would literally turn up in a country and either buy the bike or rent the bike, but I would always be on the bike. You know, it gave me my meditation space. And because I was known to always be riding bikes, a lot of the brands would lend me a bike. So I was very fortunate that I thought, I'm going to turn up on the Monaco Grand Prix on a bike in a black T shirt and jeans, which is what I always wear now. Oh, my God, what will people think now? I'd forgot the fact that it was my party, it was my yacht, it was my invitation list, you know.

Yeah.

I had that little doubt that all entrepreneurs get of that imposter syndrome. I was controlling everything. But even I still had imposter symptoms. So what did I do? I did everything bad. I went out and I bought a watch. And I'm on about. This watch was expensive. It was an Audemars pj and it was the same price as like a Range Rover. Because I wanted to impress you at that party. I went and had tailor made suits. I took my earrings out. And this is where it gets really bad. I bought a car.

Wow. So you basically undid you.

I. Well done. And I went to this party at my party and there's a picture of me that we still have in my office. There's at the time in the 90s, the biggest movies were like the Rambos and Terminator movies. Okay. There's a picture of me up against the bar having a conversation with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And on the side of it, and I don't if you remember it, the couple at the time, which was Hugh Grant and. And Elizabeth Hurley in like the dress that was in the picture. And I left the party, went back to Switzerland, got a load of photographs sent to me. Flicking through the photographs and came upon this photograph and realized I wasn't in it. This guy with a suit, this guy trying to look intelligent, this guy with an overpriced watch on, this guy was it. I never went to my own party. This facade did. And it literally busted me. It broke me. I went into a drunken. I literally saw that picture. And I went into a drunken binge for three days. I locked myself in the office. My friends actually turned up and kicked the door down to get me out. Okay. They took me to the hospital. It was that bad. It was that, I don't want to say drinking myself to death because I never thought, I never had that on my mind that I was committing suicide. But I was so gutted that I will fight anyone, but I gave up on me and I let myself go. I sold myself out. So I came back once I was all cleaned up and that we. We put the suits in the back of the cupboard. Never did Wear those ever again. They ended up going to a Goodwill store. The car and watch went that day. I hawked the watch and I put the car up for sale and. And I thought to myself, if you don't like this, if you don't want to talk to this, if you don't want to hang around, communicate with this, that's fine, but I'm not going to dilute myself for you. And if I did, the conversation wouldn't be worth having.

Fuck, yeah. Love it. Love it. I mean, yeah, it's how many times people go around trying to fit some kind of profile and be something for someone else and. But I think everyone. It's easy to say this, you know, I'm 46.

When I.

Was I doing that when I was 26? Yeah. You know, was I doing that when I was 36? Probably, yeah. Still, you know, it's. It's only like in my 40s where I'm a little bit, you know, now I'm just like, you know what? Fuck it. Like, this is, you know, this is who I am. If you like it, great. If you don't, that's fine, you know, because don't need the whole world to like you, Right?

But the downside is with social peer pressure that we have now.

A lot of people try and they actually put. We own a company called Sims Media. Sims Media. There you go. And the one thing we do is get rid of the confusion, to breed clarity. Because today in the world of your social. And I'll give you this little test, on a desktop, not on a phone, not on a tablet, on a desktop, open up all of your social feeds, open up your Twitter, your LinkedIn, your interest, your Pinterest, your Facebook, your TikTok, whatever. And then look at the bios. Is the bio the exact same on every social platform? Is the picture the exact same? And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that for 90% of people listening, it's not because on LinkedIn they'll be stood there in a suit, trying to look all suave, leaning up against a load of books. And then they go over to Facebook and it'd be Girls Gone Wild. You know, they think, oh, Facebook's like a frat party. I can, I can have a drink, I can play on Facebook, but I have to look serious on LinkedIn and ask yourself the question, is Apple different on any other platform or is it the same? Is Ford the exact same on every platform? Is Tesla the exact same on every platform? That's what you Got to start doing. You've got to make sure you to stop confusing your clients by trying to be someone who you think they want to connect with. Be you. And they will resonate me and you both know, because we're smart and we're older in our life. There are people listening to this podcast. There are people that are probably already turned off going, I can't understand what he's saying, and I don't like his attitude. And that's not going to upset either of our sleep tonight, is it?

Nope.

And then.

And then you have people like me with different profiles who are like, oh, crap, I meant to change that picture, like, three years ago, and I still haven't.

You know, I've looked at actually the exact thing that you said. I've looked at the different profiles. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, I got it. To be completely honest. It's just so, like, you know, which isn't good from a branding point of view, but it's just I haven't prioritized it. So I have, like, these different photos from. I have one photo from me, like, 10 years ago.

I got to get that sorted out. Earlier, you were talking about talking about connections and network. You said something along the lines of, your net worth is your network. You know, that whole thing. And your connect. I mean, you must be having come from East London, from the life that you talked about, to interacting with all the people that you know, all the connections that you have. You must be like a master. You could probably do a masterclass on networking and building connection. Can you give us some tips there? Like, how did you go about connecting so well to people who are so different from you?

All right, so a couple of things. I think growing up in the streets of East London, your word was your bond. You know, if you said you're gonna do it, you do it, or you get a smack on the nose. Okay, so it was that kind of life. There were those guys that you messed around with, and there were those guys that you didn't, you know, so you. You learn this kind of decorum of honor, respect, you know, tolerance. You understood those kind of things. A lot of those things are, sadly, we don't know today, but because we don't have repercussions. You know, people look at a picture of someone on Facebook and they go, well, you look fat. And then they go about that day and forget how devastating that one comment can be to the person that maybe is trying to lose weight to look good for a wedding or something. What right do you have to do that. So repercussions. We don't have that. I did back then. Okay. But I learned very early on that if I was going to enter into a conversation with someone, there needed to be a beneficial point to them. Okay. Like if I walk up to you and I knock on your door and it's 2 o' clock in the morning, and you've got kids and you've got a dog, and I've woke up your wife, and you open up the door, you're furious that I've just woke you up at 2 o' clock in the morning.

Yeah.

But if I say to you, hey, Eric, I needed a knock on your door because just around the corner, I'm having a conversation at the moment with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and I just wondered, would you like to be part of this conversation?

Yeah.

I've now gone from a aggravation to an asset.

Yeah.

So whenever I enter into a conversation, no matter what the conversation is, you know, I would walk up to someone and go, hey, I wanted to have a conversation with you, but I noticed your beer's nearly gone, so can I get you a fresh beer? And it will be as minuscule as that. I. I'm now providing a benefit. Now, of course, the more affluent people that I've dealt with, I can go up to them and I can go, hey, I know you've got a book coming out. I know you're working on a project. I know you're raising capital for this. I know you've got a charity. I know your daughter sponsors this. I've got a way that, you know, I could help with that. I want to have a conversation with you. But would you be open to us discussing that first?

If I came up to you.

And you don't know who I am, so I'm gonna give you exactly how I would get in your circle, okay? I don't make connections by chance. Don't do that. I can't be the guy that goes, hey, how are you? What are you doing here? You know, what did you watch on tv? I don't give a about that. I don't care what you ate last night. Couldn't give a. But if I want to get a conversation going with you, I'm going to research you. I'm going to find out that you've got a top podcast. I'm going to find out that you're in Portugal. So all of a sudden, I. I see you in a London event, in a bar, in a gala, and if you want to meet someone famous, stalk the galas that they go to, okay? And then buy a bloody ticket and then start. So I would find out where you're going to be, and I would walk up to you and I would say, hey, Eric, how you doing? And this is it, word for word, hey, Eric, how you doing? You don't know me.

That's the first thing I say. Because how many times have you been in an event? I know. I get it. And the famous people get it even more than us. People walk up to them, they go, eric. And you're stood there going, who the hell are you? I don't know you. You know, Are you a friend of a friend? Have we met before? Oh, my God, I'm feeling bad here because I can't remember your name and that person's causing you distress. Have you ever had that?

Oh, many times.

Yeah. Yeah. But wouldn't it be nice if I said, hey, Eric, how you doing? You don't know me. How relaxed are you now? You know? So you could go, okay, I don't know him, but what does this bloody ugly guy want? And I can go, I've listened to your podcast. It's fantastic. I've got a way that I could get you distributed to another couple of different markets. Would that be of interest to you? Yes. Great. I wanted to have a conversation with you about getting my client on your podcast. But before we get into that, let's discuss what I mentioned to you about getting you into other areas. So the things that have happened is one, I've calmed you down by telling you you don't know me. I've then given you a reason to have a conversation with me because I've given something of value to you. And I've also dropped the seed in there that I'm going to be asking you for something.

And then the next 20 minutes of the conversation is going to be about giving you all of this information about how I can get you onto those other things. Oh, and I'd mentioned I wanted to get a client onto your podcast. This is the client, you know, Would he be of interest to you now you're no longer just looking at the client. You're thinking, I want to get that client on my podcast. Because then Steve's going to get me into two other marketplaces.

Bingo. Love it.

And I've done that with award shows. I've done it with Formula One teams. I've done it with celebrity. You just go up to him, you go, my name's Steve. You don't know me. In fact, I'll give you one quick story about a good friend and client that I won't mention. His name, big, big, big Silicon Valley seed investor, okay? Pretty much owns all of the big names you can think of. Good positions in each. I wanted to work with this guy, okay? Didn't know what he wanted, but I selfishly wanted to work with this guy because I wanted to interview him in the way that I told you, I grow. So what did I do? I found out about him. I started Googling him. I looked up images, I looked up biographies. I did my research on this billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist. And as I'm doing stuff, I found that there was a new project he was working on. And I looked at this project, and I found there was something about it that I thought, oh. And I can't even remember what it was, but I wonder if they thought about this. Now, you don't need to be an engineer, you know, you just go marketing, branding, distribution, you know, client journey, website. You know, if you can go to someone's web, go up to someone to go, hey, I read your website, and I know that there's a misspelling on paragraph three. So it could be really primitive stuff that helps the person. So I did all of this, and I came up with one thing that I had noticed could potentially be a hurdle in his branding efforts on this new project he was going to do. And so then I came up with a second one. Now, here's the thing. People don't like twos. They like threes and fives. You know, the three ways you can be rich for some reason. Sounds better than the two ways you can be rich.

Yeah, yeah.

People like three and they like fives. So I went. I came up with three. The third reason, it was weak as hell, but I had to come up with three. So I went to this party that I knew he was going to be at. I bided my time. I saw him talking to about three cronies. He just came off a phone call and was facing away from these three guys that were obviously his entourage. And I took that time to walk up in front of him, and I went, hey, how you doing? You're so and so. My name's Steve Sims. You don't know me.

Okay? So he's now looking at me. He's now relaxed because he doesn't know me. But what's going through his head? He's thinking, so what do you want? I answer that question quickly before it gets any momentum in his head. So I went, hey, cyber disturbing you, but I'm very intrigued with this project that you're working on. However, I did notice three ways that there will be an. Could be an issue with actually getting out there in the market. But rather than giving you three problems, I actually came up with three solutions. Would you like me to go through what they are?

Nice.

So I'm giving him. He doesn't know me even more. He's not paying me. I'm not giving him three problems. I'm now giving him three solutions. Solutions. Yeah. So he looked to me, his three cronies are now kind of side by side next to him looking at me. And he looks at me and he's quite a tall fella, but thin. And his other cronies have all got a suit on and stuff like that. He's a little bit more relaxed dressed. I'm there in a black T shirt with a jacket on and jeans and a pair of vans because that's how I dress everywhere. Done Elton John's Oscar party looking like that. And I said to him, I said, here's the three things. And I said, the project you're working on, the number one hurdle I came up with that. I came up and I'm not privy to any of your stuff, so I haven't hacked anything. But from an outside observation, I noticed this could be a problem. Here's the solution. I would look at number two. I saw this solution number three. It was weak, but I gave him a problem and I gave him a solution. I hope that helps you.

And he looked at me and he laughed at me.

Started laughing. Now his cronies next to me also started laughing because the big man was laughing.

Right, okay, yeah.

Now I'm 240 pound. I don't want people laughing at me. This wasn't sitting too well. So I went, oh, well, you can't win them all. Obviously I did something wrong there. You know, let me go to the other end of the bar and try and work out how I screwed that up. So I turned away to go to walk away and the guy grabbed my shoulder. So now get this, four people are laughing at me and this guy's just put his hand on me. This needs to get smart real quick before someone's going down the. The East London in me is coming out quick. You better say something quick, mate, before this turns nasty. And he said to me, I'm so sorry for laughing at you, but you need to understand why I'm laughing. And I went, all right, you know, I'll listen. And he said, we shut that project down four months ago because we couldn't come up with a solution for your point number two.

We put money into that for three years. And then he turns around, he said, and these pricks couldn't come up with the answer that you did. Approaching me in a bar.

Genius.

And I was like, well, I hope it helps. And he went, no, it doesn't really, because I never go back to a project. So that's dead, that's dusted. That's. We're never reviving that. Yeah, but you're a solution provider. Would you be willing to be on a retainer to look at my other project projects? Wow.

How cool is that?

That was in. That was in 2000, I think eight or nine. And I'm still on his payroll. And every now and then I'll just get a proposal come through. He goes, what's wrong with this? And I look at. And sometimes go, nothing, you know, because it's beyond. But I will look at it with a kid eyes. How many times do you look. Do you get someone and they just go, why are you doing it like this? And you go, oh, because I've always done. They go, well, why don't you just do that? And that? You can say. And you go, oh, shit.

And that's the beauty of not being so close to the problem or the industry.

And that's why he has me. I've been to his events. I've been to, you know, I can't say what I've been to, but if I mentioned some of the things that you'd know exactly who it is. But the bottom line of it is that's how I approached. And that's how I approach every single person with a solution. When I approached the academia, the Galleria, the museum, because I wanted to have a fricking dinner party for six people, I approached them because I'd realized they were having a gala later on that year to repair the roof. So I got a very connected person in Italy to make the introduction. And then when I went in there, they knew I wanted something. When you meet someone, you know that the person you're meeting wants something. That's why there's a meeting, you know, so the. The people at the academia knew I was going to ask for something. So I surprised them by going, hey, thanks a lot for taking the time to speak with me. I noticed you've got a gala going on in October. Why are you. Look, why is the gala raising money? What is this for? What is the problem you're trying to solve. Yeah. Before he even spoke about me. And they went, oh, I moved. And I said, is a roof that expensive for a museum? And they went, well, it's got to control the humidity, it's got to control the fire. It's about four times more expensive than any other kind of move. How much is that going to cut them? Well, it was going to cost you. I said, okay, how would it be if before I left the room today, I committed to meeting a quarter of the budget you need before you've even printed a single flyer to that gala? Would that be of interest to you? They're not no longer looking at me as a guy who wants to throw a party in that museum. They're looking at me as a guy that's got to cover a quarter of that bill before they've even started the gala.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So, asking the right. Being curious enough, asking the right questions to figure out also, what are the problems that you might solve? Steve, absolutely amazing.

Final.

What's the number one thing from your entrepreneurial journey that you'd recommend others out there who are trying to level up close that gap between their current and bestsell? What's the number one thing people should be focused on that they should do?

The client. Very, very easy answer. Stop looking at your website. Stop looking at how pretty you are. Stop looking at how eloquent you are. Buck all of that. Focus on the client. When you can solve a client's problem, all of this is no longer relevant. So one focus the client.

Amazing. Amazing. And what if people want to get a hold of you? And.

How do people find you?

Well, like everyone should be. I am very easy to find. SteveD. Sims.com is the website. Steve D. Sims is my Instagram, is my Twitter, is my LinkedIn. Everywhere you can find me under Steve D. Sims. D for dashing. And there's only one M in Sims. Awesome.

And I'm. I'm just terrified that there might be a typo in the third paragraph of my website.

I'll point it out. You know I will.

All right, Steve, thanks so much for. For today. Really appreciate it. And, yeah, awesome, awesome conversation. Thank you.

Cheers, man. Look up. So be safe.