In this 19th episode of the Fearless podcast, host John Murphy interviews Brynne Tillman, founder and CEO of Social Sales Link, about how sales professionals can shed the anxiety of being perceived as "salesy" and instead build trust‑based, relationship‑focused conversations. The dialogue opens with John’s use of an AI twin (via Fuel) to prep for the interview, highlighting the power of AI‑augmented recall. Brynne defines "making sales social" as shifting from a pitch‑first mindset to genuine curiosity and value‑creation, emphasizing listening twice as much as speaking. She introduces the CHIRP discovery framework—Challenge, History, Impact, Risk, Priority—as a structured way to move beyond superficial pitches and uncover real business problems. The conversation contrasts CHIRP with traditional BANT, illustrating how focusing on impact and risk (including the Cost of Doing Nothing and FMEA analysis) leads to stronger executive buy‑in. Brynne shares a detailed case study of a meat‑processing company that reduced turnover from 400% to 40% by applying CHIRP and systemic changes rather than quick‑fix training. Throughout, both speakers stress the importance of authenticity, warning against "professional gaslighting" and AI‑generated manipulative outreach. Brynne offers a simple mindset shift: detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect, which she frames as the antidote to feeling salesy. The episode also covers practical social‑selling tactics on LinkedIn—leveraging warm introductions, crafting personalized outreach, and positioning oneself as a value‑add rather than a product push. The interview wraps with reflections on fear, uncertainty, and the temptation to revert to old sales habits, concluding with promotional plugs for Brynne’s AI twin (brynne.ai), Fuel, and upcoming Fearless guests.
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All right, well, let's get started. Welcome to Fearless. This is our 19th episode now since launching in January, and if you've been following us, we have some phenomenal guests. including today's guest, Bryn Tillman. Bryn is so good actually that I've contracted her firm to help me with my value proposition and my branding. And she's just, she and her team are doing a phenomenal job. Bryn is the founder and CEO of Social Sales Link, an expert in helping people sell through LinkedIn, help through networks, building trust. We're gonna talk a lot about that. Overcoming fear. A lot of people in sales roles have anxiety about making their numbers and getting the deal and getting to President's Club or whatever. Brynn's also co-host, if you will, of a podcast called Making Sales Social. I'm actually going to be a guest on her podcast soon. We've got— we're building— talk about a relationship of trust.
Yeah.
and respect and credibility. I'm super excited about this. And I have to tell you something else. Before this interview, I prepare carefully with all of my guests and do quite a bit of research. And in this case, I decided I'm going to pull up Bryn's AI twin through Fuel. Bryn and I are both Fuel instructors, and this is a production of Fuel. So I pulled up her AI twin. Her twin. And now a twin, by the way, and I have one as well, is loaded with our body of work essentially. You know, in my case, it's got 38 years, hundreds of articles I've written, 20 books. It's got hundreds of interviews, podcasts, over 300 YouTube clips, things like that, loaded. So this bot, my bot, Brynn's bot, has better recall than I do actually. And it's, It's just truly a phenomenal use of AI. And so preparing for this interview, I pulled up Bryn's AI twin, we call it a twin basically, and I asked her a number of interview questions and tools and things like that. The answers were brilliant. So you could almost say I know what she's gonna say when I ask her these questions today. But with that, wow.
Thank you.
Making sales social. And, uh, Fran, we're going to ask a lot more questions around that, but just what does that mean to you?
Oh, you know, that is the first question we ask all our guests on the podcast, and you are the first person— and we have over 500 episodes— to actually ask me that question. But making sales social to me is really about relationships It's about bringing value. It's about having real conversations that are meaningful to both parties.
Right.
When you think about a salesperson traditionally, it's all about the pitch. It's all about, oh, I want to sell them something. And when you make it social, it's now about, I want to learn about them. I'm curious. I want to have a conversation that's meaningful where both parties feel like it was a great use of their time. So that's what it means to me.
Yeah, and I think when you boil it right down to interpersonal skills, I love this ancient, if you will, teaching from Socrates, which was you have 2 ears and 1 mouth, use them proportionately.
Yeah.
Essentially, yeah, listen twice as much as you speak or talk. And rather than pushing and pushing, maybe questions are a better approach. Pulling, I like to call it pulling versus pushing. And people know the difference right away, whether it's your kids that you're raising or it's a team that you're leading or it's a prospect that you're speaking with. What, start with pulling and building trust in a relationship and credibility. And you've got something called the CHIRP. Framework. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your CHIRP framework.
Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. But if I could just kind of talk about the trust piece, like our whole mission is to help people start trust-based conversations without being salesy. So the trust, and in today's world, is a challenge, especially with folks using AI. And I just want to talk for a second about how important this mindset is. And then we'll certainly go into CHIRP. But the mindset around trust-based selling is to always be honest. The— and we're watching this engineered empathy, which I call professional gaslighting, happen all day long, where you get an email that For 7 seconds, you think they looked at your LinkedIn profile or they read an article that you posted. Or, John, I really love that article that you talked about around Kaizen and how much that's really impacting leadership. We help companies just like you do X, Y, and Z. And you're like, that is so— it's just starting every conversation off with a lie. Yeah. And you can't build trust when your first impression is this, I want to manipulate you into thinking I spent time learning about you. So, that trust base is so critical. And as I'm teaching LinkedIn and social selling, this for me is the absolute foundation. Is if it's not true, don't say it. Even if you think it's going to help you make more sales. This isn't about manipulation anymore. It's about solving real problems with real human beings at real companies. And so, we have to come at that. So, I just wanted to kind of start with that perspective.
Yeah, I relate to that so well, Brynn, because I'm getting pitched every single day. I mean, I don't even know how many pitches. And one of the tricks today is that I'm getting pitched by AI. pitches, if you will. So somebody from somewhere in the world has loaded some of my work into AI, and so I'm getting emails that I know this person didn't write.
Right.
And, you know, about how they've, they've read one of my books and they've— they want to, you know, put me, uh, at some conference or things like that, and it's not real. But like, to your point, it's pushy. I don't even know who this person is. I don't know their organization. And they're pushy to get me to do something, to buy something.
Mm-hmm.
And immediately, I can relate to exactly what you're saying. There's no trust and there's no credibility. And what's interesting is sometimes I've actually responded if it looks credible enough, and I get back a non-AI-written response. And it's clearly not the same writer. Yeah, it's not the same person. There's a clue. Yeah, so challenge is the first, the C in CHIRP, if I'm not mistaken. And so, how do you uncover the challenge? What would your thoughts be on that?
Yeah, so this is interesting. And I love talking about CHIRP. CHIRP is further down the sales process, right? Most of what I do is the very First conversation, we'll often say we get you to hello, right? Like, that's with the right people at the right time. But CHIRP is now we've got a hello. We are going to get on a call. And how do I not pitch on this first call? And often that first call, we are so excited that someone's willing to jump on a Zoom with us that we are just going to tell them all the things that we do. We're going to just share how great we are. And we're going to talk about case studies. And we haven't earned the right to do that yet. And so, someone says, hey, John, I'm really interested in learning about you coming in and doing a keynote for our leadership team. You're like, excellent, there's an opportunity here. But you get on and now you just start talking about all the things you can talk to in that keynote and all the things that they're going to get out of that. And we don't even know what their goals are yet.
Mm-hmm.
Right? So we're pitching what we are assuming they want. We're pitching what we want to tell them. But we haven't really identified the reason they'd hire us in the first place. And so that's where CHIRP comes in. And CHIRP really came out of— I was taught and trained for years under BANT. And I don't know if you know BANT, but you go in and you have to figure out budget, authority, needs, and timing. Those are all discovery questions that will help me sell, not discovery questions that will help me solve.
Hmm.
And this is where CHIRP will come in, right? So instead of me saying, so, you know, so, you know, if I'm selling John's keynote, right? So I would say, hey, so what's your budget that you have for this keynote? And they're gonna say, oh, it's $5,000. And you're thinking, I charge $25,000. This is not even an opportunity now. Well, they just gave you a number. That doesn't really mean that's their only number. And now you've— they've kind of put their line in the sand and you've really killed the opportunity at any point, right? Because if the ROI they get on your keynote is $500,000 in the first 6 months, $25,000 is now an investment, not an expense on that keynote. But we're never gonna know what challenge they have that you're gonna solve in that keynote if we don't ask them what their challenge is, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's where we have to start. So if you say, so You know, tell me, so tell me about this audience that are— they're gonna be at this keynote. And, you know, what are some of the challenges they're facing that you hope by the end of this keynote they start to think differently about, that they start to, to, you know, shift the way they're handling it? What is the challenge that you're hoping gets solved? So once you identify that challenge, when it comes time to, do you have a budget for this? It's around the ROI they're going to get to solve that challenge, right? So great. So now we understand that challenge. Critically important. And by the way, I'm going to just back up for a second. The first question that you're going to say when you have this meeting is, so I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today. I kind of have the things that I'm hoping to share with you. What are you hoping you walk away with at the end of this We need to know at a big picture. They may say, look, I don't have any decision-making process. My only goal is to identify if I make the introduction to the person who's hiring the keynote. That's really important to know at the top of the call. Like, we need to know their goal of the call. So I, I, you know, so now that we understand that, what is the challenge? their team is facing. What do we need to solve? And so now you could say, I know the challenge. I can go in with the ROI. So you go, okay, well, we're going to come in and we're going to teach them about Kaizen and how to process, think through decisions, all those things. And she's thinking, we've done a lot of process work before. I don't know that this is different. So before you tell them that, you have to say, So what are some of the things you've done in the past, whether it's training or other keynotes or other initiatives that you've actually implemented to solve that challenge in the past but haven't worked? We need to know that so that we're not pitching the story that's exactly what they've done before, where you may have a differentiator, but the words you might say may sound like we've Been there, done that. And so now I'm going to lose the opportunity because I never understood what history they've had in trying to solve this challenge.
Yeah, I have a great example of that, Brenda.
Yeah, please share.
I'll quickly share. This goes back quite a few years, probably over 20 now, but it was a big client. They became a big client of mine. It was a meat processing company, you know, making bratwurst and sausage and No one got to do it. And they had a 400% employee turnover. I mean, people would start and leave their first day. Why? The conditions were tough. It was cold because of the meat processing. It was wet. It was smelly, some would say. And they just had this huge turnover. So prior, they did team-building training. They felt like that we didn't have any teamwork. And so I get invited in by the head of human resources to meet with the CEO and the COO and her. And just what you said, I asked about the challenge without knowing the CHIRP method. I said, so tell me about this challenge and why you're calling me. She had gone to one of my workshops and said, we got to bring this guy in to talk to us. So I said, and then what's your history? So what's the challenge? Well, we got 400% turnover. It's just, you know, our most experienced people are training new people rather than actually doing their real, you know, their job. So anyway, then the history was, I said, have you done any team-building training before? Oh yeah, yeah, we did it like a year ago. I said, well, okay, how'd that work? They said, it didn't. And they were asking me for team-building training. I said, well, I'm not sure that's the solution, actually. So let's find out a little bit more. And then we got to impact. You know, what's the impact of this? Well, it's costing us a ton of money. And it's just frustrating the heck out of her.
What's our I in CHIRP?
Yeah, exactly. That's right. That's the impact and the risk, you know, the R in CHIRP. And then, and then what it led to was a priority. And the priority was not training, not team-building training. I said, you have a system— systemic problem. And you can— it's team-building training is like taking a shower and thinking you never have to take a shower again. Yep, I'm clean. I'm good.
Yeah.
No, actually, that's not the real solution. Fast forward, the real solution was entirely into the design of the workplace, the design of the incentives. I'm a new person coming into a department of 40 people with no teammate, no team help. I'm not aware of the environment upfront that I'm coming into. pay for skill, which keeps me there to learn more skills. Long story short, well, first I said, unless you're willing to make some systemic changes, I'm not gonna be able to help you. I'm not the person. And they were like, they didn't know what I meant. I walked away from the deal, said, you know, it's just what you're asking me for is not going to work. And rather than fail, which costs credibility, to use your words. Absolutely. And trust. I walked away, but I left the CEO with an article of a competitor company that was really doing it right systemically and culturally. And just left it with him. I said, this might be something you read that explains exactly what I'm talking about and what my value proposition is. And a couple days later, he called me personally and he said, I need you to come back in here and talk to us. I'm willing to do what Like, whatever you tell me.
Yeah.
And so it became a priority, the P in CHIRP. And, um, I, I worked with this company for about a year, so it wasn't just a quick-fix training. It was working and, and redesigning the, the onboarding process and the whole team building and bringing people into a team of 8 people, not 40, and, uh, having incentives to stay and to grow and to cross-train and things like that.
Great.
Actually led— yeah, it actually led to, to to one of my books called Get a Real Life. And anyway, it was, uh, that turnover went within a year from 400% to 40%. Now, 40% turnover still sounds like a huge number, right?
No.
In that industry, yeah, in that industry, it was, it was benchmark. So it was game-changing and, uh, and, uh, sustainable. But it was without even knowing it, I was using your, your tricks.
I love that. I love it. I can clarify just so CHIRP, just its challenge, history, impact on the business today, risk of no change. So that for me, when people are talking about risk, so I've had a lot of folks say, what's the difference between impact and risk? Well, impact is how is it impacting you today? Risk is what happens if you don't change. And then, how is this a priority? Because sometimes we'll go in And we'll hear a big challenge that we can talk to. But then they're like, yeah, but we have 7 other priorities, 7 other challenge priorities. This is low on the list. And you need to know how important it is to them to solve that problem in order really to give them a solution that's worth investing in today.
Oh, absolutely. And we've talked about this. In fact, I had a conversation with your AI twin about this. Very thing. And I, I use the acronym CODN in my work, which is cost of doing nothing. And another tool I use is the FMEA, the failure modes and effect analysis, which is essentially saying what could go wrong and how serious is that, what's the risk, and what could we do to make sure it doesn't go wrong. But I do the FMEA not just once on the changes we intend to make— what's the risk of making these changes— but I'll get a team to say what are the risks Of not making the changes. And 9 times out of 10, probably 99 times out of 100, the risk of not changing is higher than the risk of changing. So it's a way to win support and gain commitment from senior executives who have the yeah, but problem with respect to fear. Yeah, but if we do that, the wheels could fall off. or this isn't really a good time. We should probably put that into next year's plan and budget and excuses. We're a team of very bright people who I've been working with through Kaizen events and things like that. The whole team is aligned in saying, we actually have to do this. This is essential and here's the analysis and everything. Behind the scenes, I'm coaching the executives and saying things like, be very careful To resist or say no to this team because you've commissioned them to figure out this problem and solve it. And they have, and they're aligned and they're very bright and they've got facts and data and analysis. And you're going to say, no, we're not going to do that. That's not, that's not wise leadership. So, uh, yeah. But speaking of leadership now, and back to the whole theme of fearlessness and fearless and moving through fear, I mean, you started a company. You grew up with a traditional sales kind of background.
Yeah.
Pitch, make your numbers. And your intuition, you knew, you sensed that's not really the best way to grow a business. And you've grown an amazing business. So talk to me just a little bit about some of the doubts that you had. The temptations maybe to go back to the old way, because I've experienced those. Yeah. How you got through it?
So interestingly, you say the temptations to go back— very little temptation. However, occasionally old habits would— it's not like I— there was no, oh, I want to go back to it. But when you've got some bad habits, sometimes they start showing up. So I would call it more that. And then I— so So let's go back. So I grew up having very traditional, in fact, still taught probably one of the largest sales training companies globally with very traditional sales mindset where BANT was like top of that. We've got to understand. We have to identify pretty quickly if they're a real opportunity or it's wasting my time. Right. And so often the first question we were taught to ask is, you know, before we get started, if I say anything that you don't like or you say something that I don't like, let's just agree that we can let each other know there's not a fit. Okay. So that was like where we'd start a conversation. And then you go, oh, well, that makes sense, right? You give them an opportunity to have an out. And But what happens in sales or with humans when you say, don't think of the elephant in the room? You think of the elephant in the room, right?
Right.
The moment we, in my opinion, and I'm not right by the way, this is just my evolution, right? The moment you say, if I say anything that doesn't align with how you think, you're gonna think the whole time, does that align? Does that align? Instead of just Let's have a normal conversation without really an expectation other than at the end of this call, I can answer the questions you came with. That you feel at the end of this call that it's worth another one. Right? That's the goal. The goal is not for me to get a commitment or for me to qualify you out. And so, when we're coming in with, in my opinion, very selfish agendas or a selfish agenda, a narcissistic agenda, right?
Mm-hmm.
When we're coming in and this is what I need to move the sale forward, we now fall into this trap of they are never going to feel like they can trust us. And they may buy from us down the road. But the idea of building a deeper relationship starts off with it feeling very transactional. And it's a little icky from my perspective. Again, there are many people that are listening to this. Hopefully many. There are people that'll listen to this and go, I do that and it works for me. Great! Keep doing it. This is just my journey and how I felt, right? So, I at one point was a partner in a sales training company for a few few years with an amazing woman who does a great job of teaching this. Great. And she's incredibly successful. I felt uncomfortable teaching something I would not do.
Hmm.
Right? Does cold calling work? Yes. I will never cold call, so I will never ask a client to cold call. Yeah, that doesn't mean it doesn't work, right? So, so I just— because I get a lot of hate on this stuff, right? Like, you know, there are entire companies built on training this and have great success. And by the way, have much bigger revenue than, than my little company has. So I'm not saying it's wrong or bad, but you asked like, what's my journey through this? So when I found LinkedIn, I recognized very early on the value of LinkedIn was not a lead list. The value of LinkedIn is this is my Rolodex. These are the— this is, this is my network, right? And LinkedIn gives us the ability to search and filter the connections of our network. So I had a situation— situation— I had an experience in 1992 working for Dun Bradstreet. And I was in an inbound call center, then an outbound call center. And I was sitting across— then made it to the field. And I'm sitting across a client staring at his overflowing Rolodex. And I'm thinking, I don't want to go back to the office and cold call. call. But I need new opportunities. And I thought, man, if I could get my hands on that for 20 minutes, I could identify who he knew that I wanted to meet, have a conversation, and potentially get some warm introductions. So when I saw LinkedIn 2 decades later, I went, they built this for me. I can now search and filter my connections, connections. So my happy clients, I can say, hey, John, here are the 12 people that you know that I'd love a conversation with. You know, who of these folks, knowing what I do, could you introduce me to? And you say, of those 12, I know 6 of them pretty well, 4 of them very well, and these 2 I talk to every couple of months. Great. So now I might—
Yeah.
Because I don't want to put all the work on you, my client. So, I might say, so of the 2 that you know exceptionally well, would you be open to making an introduction? I'll even write a little paragraph. And of these other folks, when I reach out, can I mention that we worked together and you thought having a conversation with them would be worthwhile? Right? And so now, I have the ability to start conversations with people I could not have gotten in front of without cold calling. But my first conversation is, hey, John Murphy and I were chatting the other day. Your name came up. He says hello. I've been working with him for the last 4 months. We're doing some great things. And he thought I might be able to bring value to your world even if we don't work together. Let's connect. I'm happy to share some insights around X, Y, and Z. And now, I'm starting all those conversations with trust and credibility. But the last thing I want to say on this is my only goal of that call. When you introduce me to Todd, when you introduce me to Alex, and they take my call, my only goal of that call is that they go back to you and say, John, thanks for introducing me to Brynn. That is my only goal. It's not to make a sale. It's not to fill my pipeline. It's to bring so much value in that first call that they Thank you for that introduction. And when you can do that on a consistent basis, you create trust-based conversations. You create trust-based relationships.
Absolutely. In fact, that's how I met Fuel. I actually— Mac Anderson, who I've written a couple of books for and with, I should say— actually, I've written 8 books for his company at the time. He's retired now from the publishing business. But Mac Uh, Todd and Alex were looking for, uh, bringing in faculty members for Fuel, and they talked to Mac, who's got a massive network, as you can imagine. And he said, you gotta, you, you gotta reach out to this Murphy guy. He, you know, he might have something to offer. So I got the introduction.
Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, went out to Las Vegas and filmed a couple of courses and then, uh, several more, and then started the Fearless Podcast and I'm also a host on Mindset Matters. It's been a ride. It's been a journey.
Yeah.
Part of the whole message here is that people have a tendency to fear uncertainty, which always exists. We can't predict everything that's going to happen. You have really a choice to make. Do I put the brakes on and stop and get paralyzed almost to be more adventuresome, more curious, more open to change and prosperity, or do I just, you know, play it safe? And that's what sometimes what I mean by the temptation. In my, you know, in my line of work, I started— actually, next week will be 38 years, June 9th. Anyway, uh, do I— there were ups and downs, especially raising a family, um, and, and being the sole breadwinner. Temptations to go back to the secure salary, you know, I left an executive position to do this. But like you, my intuition always said, no, this is what you're meant to be doing. This is your calling. This is the way you can help a whole lot of people. So stay the course, essentially. And, and, uh, so that's, that's, that's my story in a nutshell. I love it. But Bryn, yeah, and I think one of the closing messages I'd like to hear you just comment on is the whole idea of detach and attach. Yeah, simple shift.
So if you are concerned or you have fear of being too salesy, detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect. When you make that mindset shift and you're really coming in to help solve a problem, you're not going to come off as salesy. And so that's really like that bottom line. So the fear of being salesy is the The topic of today. If you can own that and live that, I'll say it one more time, detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect. You will earn the right to the conversation and the business when the time is right.
That's brilliant and so simple, Bren, to Summarize it that way. And it's actually the secret formula for my growth. I've never had a sales force. I've never— I don't like— I don't make cold calls like you, but I've been able to grow the business through referrals and credibility and networking. This is long before LinkedIn. This is before the internet. This is before YouTube and Google and all that stuff. How did you know? But it was like you said, it was people, it was relationships, it was social, if you will, and networking.
Yeah.
So Brynn, thank you so much for joining me. forward to being on your podcast soon. Yeah, but how can people reach you? And is there any final comments you want to make?
Yeah, so the— I'm on LinkedIn, so Bryn Tillman. But the best thing from my perspective is if you've got questions, try Brynne.ai. It's B-R-Y-N-N-E.ai for free for 7 days. And go in and have some fun, and no credit card required. Just go in and play with it.
Absolutely. I mean, seriously, I, I can't say— I, I was on, uh, Brynn's AI Twin this morning for, uh, probably an hour, and, uh, just such an amazing, um, tool really, uh, to support, uh, Brynn, to support me. It's just a way for people to have more access to, to our body of work. It's truly amazing. So check out Fuel, myfuel.io. Check out Brynn's twin and her courses. You can check out my own. And I urge you to share, to like and share these videos with your network because our whole mission at Fearless is to help people dealing and struggling with uncertainty, adversity, anything that's just getting in the way of their growth and their prosperity and progress. So please like and share what you've got. Next week on Fearless, we've got Dan Barczewski. Dan and I go back over 40 years, if you can believe that. He's the founder and CEO and now chairman of a company called Axios Recruitment. And I go back to the original company he started, which was called Staffing. I think it's the 2nd largest employer now in the Midwest. It's a wonderful company and wonderful story. And he's going to talk about some of the bumps in the road, if you will, the adversity that he's run into. And he'll be a wonderful guest next week on Fearless. And then next Wednesday, my Change Mastery Show through the Transformation Network is on. It's every second Wednesday of every month. And next week's show is titled When It's Time to Say Goodbye. When It's Time to Say Goodbye. Goodbye to what? Well, goodbye to just about everything. Goodbye today when it turns night. Goodbye Goodbye to lost ones who you've lost. Goodbye to the job that you love. Anything that you've lost that you value. You've got a choice essentially. Do you live with grief and looking at the past, or do you learn from it and move on? The whole theme is how do you handle goodbyes, which are happening essentially all the time? That's next week. Again, thank you for joining us on Fearless, our 19th episode. Subscribe to our audience, which is growing faster and faster, and share, share the advice that you've learned on this show. And please go and check out Brynn. She's fantastic.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
