[RTB:E29] How Billionaires See Failure & Entrepreneurial Mindset w/ Best-Selling Author Steve Sims

Hey, you're listening to the Road to a Billion podcast. I'm your host Stefan Georgi and I'm glad to have you with me here today. The Road to a Billion is a call in radio show style podcast where you can ask myself and my guest questions about freelancing, entrepreneurship, scaling funnels, copywriting, relationships, money and more. The reason for the name is because I will, I guess I've just hit around a billion dollars in sales at the end of last year, start of this year for copy that I've written for myself and for clients and other sales funnels I built and, and because I want to make an impact in the lives of a billion people over the next 10 years, whether that is emotional, mental, financial, spiritual, mental, or something else. We'll start taking calls in about 30 minutes from now and the way that works is that you'll put your questions into the Q and A section in Zoom and then I will go through and review those questions. And if your question's selected, you'll be put live onto the show and you'll be able to ask it to myself and my guests and you know, go and put your questions in the Q and A. Now as you're doing that, I will go introduce my guest today who is Steve D. Sims. I'm super excited to have Steve on. Was introduced to me through a mutual friend. Dave Ryan, who was on, attends these shows regularly and I didn't know a lot about Steve and then started looking into him and it was like, just blown away because sometimes people are like, oh, you should have my friend on the show and somebody who like, you know, just just doesn't seem like it's not really a good fit or whatever. But in the case of Steve, he's certainly a good fit. I don't even know how Steve would describe himself and let him do a lot of the intro. But essentially he has makes dreams come true for a list of kind of ultra famous and exclusive clientele. So everything from sending people down to see the wreck of the Titanic to closing the museum in Florence so that people can be serenaded by Andrea Bocelli. And as they eat pasta and dinner. Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine have referred to Steve as the real life wizard of Oz. And he's the visionary founder of Bluefish, which is the world's first luxury concierge that delivers the highest level of personalized travel. And he's the best selling author of Blue Fishing the Art of Making Things Happen, which I saw that somebody else already put it in the chat that they had Read. So wildly excited to have Steve on. Steve, thanks for joining us today.

I appreciate it. I hope you can hear me. Okay, My head headphone decided to die 3Ns before I came on. Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, I can hear you. Great. It's coming in nice and clear here. So, Steve, I'm thrilled to have you on and you've had such an amazing career and I wrote a little bit about you to my email list today. And taking from your bio, I mean, from what I understand, right, you dropped out of high school at the age of 15, looked at becoming a bricklayer and then got a job in finance, which lasted for all like a day, basically.

Right.

And then from there started throwing parties and that sort of was parlayed into what you do today. Is that an accurate kind of depiction of the journey?

Yeah. So I was raised in East London. The shitty end. And bottom line of it is, you know, school's slightly different in England, you finish at like 16 and then you go to college, whereas it's different in America. But I didn't have any idea of college. So at the age of 15, because I was young for my year, I finished school, got turfed out. My dad owned a bricklaying firm. He allowed me to sleep in for one day, the following day, kicked the bed at 4:30 and said, right, you're on the building site with me. And that was it. That was my life.

Well, so. And then. And how did you go from that to finance? Because if you didn't, I didn't have like a background in finance. But you, you got a job, right? Was it in Hong Kong?

I think that's that It's. Yeah, I did. So bottom line of it is, while the stories may sound different, the people you mentioned, the locations, the places, as entrepreneurs, we're all the same. I believe if you were, you know, horrible enough to dissect an entrepreneur, you'd find there's like this little purple cell or something. It's like a DNA strand that connects all entrepreneurs together. You can be in a room full of entrepreneurs in totally different businesses and you've all got that common thread, and I call it the aggravation thread. I think we're all aggravated into conquering or establishing or solving or proving. But as a guy in East London with just looking at my life going, hey, I'm riding around on a motorcycle, I'm broke, I'm a bricklayer, Is this it? You know, is this my life now? In the 80s and the 90s, I didn't have the fortune of Instagram to tell me how inadequate my life was. I just knew it deep down that this can't be it. Surely not. So I decided to leave the bricklaying world and go on a journey to find something that was more me. And of course, in the 80s and 90s, it was the time of the red Porsches on Wall street and the telephones that won the top of a briefcase. It was all that kind of life. And I'm getting rained on on a daily basis and getting into pub fights on a Friday night. I thought, I don't want this. And a friend of mine, and it's a funny story, but a friend of mine that I knew from school, I saved him getting a beat in one year. Didn't even know the guy very well, but he recognized me on a train once when I was on my way to a building site, and he was a stockbroker. And he started talking to me, and he goes, oh, we knew each other from school. Couldn't even remember the guy. But he told me about the bank that he was with, was transporting people or transferring a bunch of them over to Hong Kong to set up this new branch. And I said, oh, I've always wanted. He said, look, we're taking on apprentices as well. Do you want me to put a word in for you? So he did. So I went along for a day to do this, like, training exercise, and in the room next to me, they were actually given a presentation for the established stockbrokers that were going to Hong Kong. Now, when I looked at the room I was in, they were all, like, graduates from Eton and Oxford, and they had all this. There was no way in the world this bricklayer wearing his dad's suit where the shoulders are falling off his shoulders was going to get a job. So I went in the next room just to listen, but also to eat the buffet because they had a really good breakfast in there. And while I was in there, the guy up on stage turned around and said, and just make sure the ladies in the back of the room have got your details so we can send you the welcome pack. So I thought to myself, all right, I'm gonna get. Here's a shot. You know, here's a blank. So I put my breakfast plate down, I walked up to this girl, and I'm, you know, I'm a big fella, okay? But I walked up to this girl, and I went, hey, how you doing? Steve Sims? I just want to make sure I'm on your list now. Of course, it Was there was no way in the world I was on that list. But she went, oh, let me just check. So she's just going through it and she's like, oh, oh, I can't. And so I started going into full drama mode. I could have got an Oscar for this. I'm like, oh, my God, it's happening. I can't believe this. How many times is this gonna. She's like, no, no, no. So she wrote my name down in my address. She said, it's down there. Now it's down. You're good. And I'm like, all right, thank you very much. I went back home, got out of my suit, went to the building site. Two weeks later, I'm on the building site, and I get a phone call into the. The cafeteria. So one of the girls comes running out like, steve, Steve, you got a phone call. And I went back into it, completely forgot about this day that I had at the buffet. And I heard those words from my girlfriend, who is now my wife, that no man ever wants to hear. So I took the phone and I went, hey, Clay, you know what's up? And she went, is there something you want to tell me? No, man. And I'm like, everything's going through your head. And I'm like, oh, God, you know, what is she. What has she heard? What has she discovered? What's going on? And then she says the next set of words that strikes fear into any man. She said, we'll discuss this when you get home, you know? So that was the longest afternoon of my life. But when I got home, her mom and dad was sitting in our little apartment that we invented. And I'm like, what is happening in my life? There's some suitcases by the front door. And I'm thinking, is she leaving me? You know, what's going on? But on the coffee table was a package I had slipped through the net. I actually had a welcome package from bzw, one of the largest banks in the world, okay, With a return flight, open ended return flight to Hong Kong to start the new. The new banking chapter that they had over in Hong Kong in, like, 93. Now, this was pre 9 11, so you didn't have to worry about TSA or any of those kind of things. But I got through it. And she's like, what are you going to do?

And.

And I told her the whole story about the breakfast buffet. And I said, well, I don't know how to do it. She said, well, look, you're faced with two opportunities. You can ignore it and you've lost nothing or you can take a shot. Now I'm kind of thinking the parents at the time wanted me to just bugger off. So they had turned up with a couple of their suitcases and they had got a thousand pound out to give me some little petty cash if I took it. And so I took it, I went, I tried it, and I actually went off to Hong Kong, landed on the Saturday, got drunk the Saturday night because I was qualified to do that, got drunk on the Sunday night with them all again, qualified to do that on the Monday, went to orientation, had no idea what was going on, and on the Tuesday morning, got invited into the boardroom and was fired. So I lasted one day in Hong Kong and that was it. But the guys turned around and went, we brought you here, so you've now you can stay in the apartment for two months and we've got to give you some severance. So they gave me, I think it was like about three or four grand, which is an ex bricklayer. I thought I was now rich, you know, and in Hong Kong that went real fast. But what was really painful was I was sharing an apartment with all these brokers from London. They look to me now like a fake and afford. And I tried to explain to him, hey, boys, I was trying to better myself. I took a risk, I took a shot, but they didn't want to talk to me. So bottom line of it is I would stay out all night in Wang Chai in Hong Kong, and then I'd go back to the apartment, sleep through the day and then go back at night, just trying to keep out of that way and at the same time, try and find a job. And the funny thing is, I ended up getting a job as a doorman. Seemed to be what God built me for. And from there, from that real dark moment, I suddenly got to see humanity. I got to see why people went out, what they were looking for when they went out, what they were celebrating, how they celebrated. I started throwing my own private parties. And I knew what being poor was like, because I was poor. So I would only invite Mitch people. And one of the things that really. And it's funny how bad things happen, that really become brilliant. My parties were not allowed to go on. I got warned by the police because I didn't have a liquor license. Okay, you don't need a liquor license if you give the drink and food away for free. So I started charging everyone 500 up front and saying, all the drink and food is free. I didn't need a liquor license, I didn't need a catering license because it's all being free. But at the same time, I'm only getting the clientele that are coming into the room that can easily spank $500 on a party. And my parties went up to being $5,000. And I started taking over penthouses and mansions and yachts. Ended up starting to throw parties all over the planet. Starred basically wherever rich people went. Because two things, One, I. I wanted to make money. But two, more importantly, I wanted to hang around with rich people because I wanted to know how come you're rich and I'm not? And I needed to have a reason to be in that world and giving them parties and access and extreme. And basically I became the make a wish foundation for people with really big checkbooks. As long as I could make you look more interesting. You would converse with me and I would get all that education along the way.

That's an amazing story. I have several questions on that because. Just incredible. So it's interesting. I get the spirit and the fearlessness to go and kind of bluff your way into this job in finance, even though it only lasted for a day. I would assume that that then is carried over with what you've done. Because a lot of what you do today is helping clientele to achieve these bucket list experiences that I'm sure otherwise upon a first ask, like, you probably hear no a lot, right? And then you don't really take no for an answer. You make it happen. So do you feel like, were you always that way or was that a sort of a defining moment for you when you, the first time you sort of went and bluffed your way into that finance job? Have you always been kind of like a good, like, I don't say bullshitter in a bad way, but you know, someone who could come in and kind of do that, or was that sort of a big risk that you took that you never had had that trait before, really?

And I don't take that I bullshitted my way through it. Um, but I didn't see it as bullshit. I saw it. Why not? Saw it, but it was stupidity. See, my wife, I had a party in my home. I live here up in L. A. And I had a party in my house. Oh, must have been about seven, eight years ago when all the Marvel movies were coming out and we had two of the lead characters that were at my house, you know, at the party, and they were playing a game. If you were a superhero, what super superpower would you have now? I was having a party in my home with people that I couldn't believe I could now call friends, okay? So I wanted to really impress them with a cool superpower. They started on the left hand side of the table. So I had about 10 people before it got to me. And I'm trying to think of something that makes me sound smart. And when it got to me and they turned around and they said, hey, Steve, what's your superpower? My wife turned around, who was my girlfriend, we met when we were 16 and 17. She turned around, she said, well, I can answer that one. And I went, go on. And baby, she went, ignorance. And I looked at her thinking, I'm getting divorced. I'm looking at all of these people in front of me who this was a table full of very well known faces. And they're all looking at me going, oh my God, this is going to be an argument tonight. And she started sensing, she went, no, no, no, wait a minute. She said, steve's ignorant to the possibility that it's going to fail or go wrong. He's ignorant to the fact that they could possibly even say no. He's ignorant to the fact that anything could go any other way than what he wants. How many times has he done something, pulled something off, got into a room, got someone to do something for him that's had you scratching your head going, how the hell did that come off? He's ignorant to any other way it could happen. And she was right. So it wasn't a case of I'm going to bullshit my way into the, into the banking job. It was a case of, I know, let me go and have a look. You don't look at a dog that just walks into the wrong room and think, oh, you know, what's he thinking? He isn't, he's just wandered in there. So with me, that was the same as me. Some of the rooms that I've got in some of the places I've worked, some of the people that I'm now able to text, you know, I've worked with Elon Musk, I've worked with the Pope, Sir Elton John, and people way wealthier that you've never even heard of. And I'm in those rooms and I'll sit there and I'll go, how the hell am I here? You know, it's just hysterical. But I've never allowed fear and I have to admit intelligence to stop me doing things. I'm the kid that's gone. Let me try. And as you say, you get the no, you get the failures, but I'm sure. Stefan, how many times have you failed in your life?

So many. Somebody.

Right, but do you remember them all?

Not really, no.

No, it's.

It.

I know it sounds a funny explanation. I apologize for the ladies here, but we forget pain, okay? And it's like childbirth. If you could really remember, hold on to the extreme pain of childbirth or losing a contract or going bankrupt. If you could physically recall all of those memories, you would never take a chance in it again. Women would never have a second child. Okay? We would never try a second business. We would never try a second contract. But the bottom line of it is, the second it succeeds, all of the failures and mistakes and mishaps and going broke and getting sued, getting jeered at, getting laughed at, they become educational stepping stones, don't they? And now they've transformed from a failure and a mistake to, ah. I couldn't get here. The big turning block for me when I wrote my book, because I didn't think it would do any well, and there's a whole story behind that. But I had the chance of doing a book. I did a book, and I thought, ah, this will be funny. I'll be an author. I was stunned at the amount of times people don't go for the ridiculous. They go for what they think they can achieve. Well, if you've never achieved much, where's your benchmark, you know? So me, I always went for stupid. I went for ridiculous. And as Elon Musk says, they laugh at you three seconds before they applaud. And so I just. It wasn't something that I designed. It wasn't bullshitting my way through life. I just literally looked at and I went, I want to talk to that rich person. What do I have to bring to the party to make him want to talk to me? And it was as blank and as blunt as that.

That's amazing. So. And I totally agree.

Yeah.

I think I did, like, a YouTube video about this where I talked about how most people don't think you're gonna succeed. And. Because a lot of people don't, but that what separates the most successful people is that they failed way more times than those who aren't successful.

Right.

Like, it's almost like a mark of, like, everyone you talked about, like, the Elon Musk of the road or whoever it is. Like, they fail more often and on a way bigger scale. And they don't look at failure as, like, a mark of them and who they are. It's not a judgment. It's not like a secret. Oh, yeah, you weren't good enough. Like, everything. All your negative self talk was Right. Right. They're like, okay, well, now I know, and I'm closer. It's like. Like it's an asset or a tool. Failure is like a weapon that you use to get closer and closer to your goal. And so it seems like you've had that mentality for, you know, a long time, which is incredible. Maybe even kind of naturally gifted with it. I have a question about.

I think something was there.

Yeah, I think so.

I'm curious in us all, though, isn't it?

I think so. I think some people. It needs to be awakened, you know, I think some people have the mindset because I never thought mindset was that important until a couple years ago. And then I realized that a lot of what stops people from succeeding really is it's mental blocks. It's not, you know, their innate ability. It's not like intelligence. It's not the school they went to. It's just all on your head and the narratives and the stories that others have told us since we were little or that we've told ourselves. And so that's why breaking free of that stuff is so valuable, you know, One thing I'm curious about, you said, you know, you want to know with the rich people, like, well, why are they rich and I'm not. Did you ever kind of come to, like, a striking realization or have a moment of clarity there? I mean, I'm sure there's a million reasons, but, like, curious. What you.

Yeah, yeah. And again, I'll name drop. I was in a party with Jean Paul de Jurea, and he's the guy behind Paul Mitchell and Patron. And we were sitting in this party, and there was Richard Branson. There was a whole bunch of people in there, and he just looked around the room and he went, oh, this is a good room. It's a room full of failures. And I thought to myself at the time, for a split second, is he having a go? But then I looked at the room and how many times has Richard Branson launched a business and it's failed? Okay, but he ain't worried about his mortgage next month, is he? So I noticed very early on. And you brought up Elon Musk. Elon Musk constantly fails. Constantly fails and then learns from that failure. That's what he does. So I noticed that there was a difference between willing to fail and running away from it. And I realized that the failures were there to refine us, not define us. So so the second you could look at where things go wrong and go, oh, my God, I fell on my ass. Throw your pity party for one minute and then turn around and go, where did it go wrong? Because it didn't all go wrong. Usually it went wrong on one little element. And if they can tweak that, it's like Elon when he realized that the most expensive part of a rocket was the fuel cell. If he could keep those fuel cells, he would save himself two thirds of the recurring price. So we invented a floating platform and then try to have these things land on the planet on those platforms in the ocean. Did you ever see those?

Yeah.

How many times did the bloody thing fall over and explode and was on the nightly news and. Oh, Elon, trunk. Oh, look at this explosion. Oh, poor lad. It blew up again. Okay. When was the last time you saw it land?

Yeah, I mean, well, recently, right? I mean, now. Now they're landing regularly. I know they just had one that failed, but I'm not sure when the last one was.

The point is they don't make the TV anymore.

Oh, yeah?

Why? Because he sussed it. He had to go through all of those failures to understand where it went wrong. Now it works. Now it's not news, so no one sees it. So I did notice that there was a. There was a temperament in the mindset that they didn't look at the failures as problematic. They looked at them as willing, engage in education. And secondly, they wanted them. They yearned for them. And that's what I really noticed about the people there. They didn't allow it to define them. They allowed it to refine them.

I love that. That's the writer down. And I know Max in the chat. Yeah, he quoted you already. Failures redefine us. They don't define us. I totally agree. That's amazing. So, Steve, I'm curious about, I guess, sticking on the theme of the rich and famous, because obviously you've gotten to meet so many of these people. And one thing that for a lot of people, when they. Maybe they want to work with somebody who is a celebrity or on a really high level, and there's always that fear of going back to mindset that maybe this person is like, not going to like me or they're better than me or from what I understand, and I've met some pretty famous people nowhere with you and your Rolodex, but I think there really are just people as well, with their own needs, wants, desires. They have good days and bad days. I mean, that seems like the thing that I've kind of noticed and it helps me if I'm meeting somebody super famous. But what would you tell somebody who wants to actually do what you've been able to do and to kind of. Hopefully not for some kind of way of trying to use them, but if they can really bring value to that person and they want to have interaction, what are the best things for somebody to keep in mind as they're trying to speak to somebody who's, I guess, really super famous, like a celebrity or something?

Well, for a start, you've got to ask yourself. Well, not ask yourself the question, but you've got to make the statement in your head that if Steve Sims can do it, I can do it. That's the first thing you got to realize. I am a blunt instrument and I just go and get things done. So if I'm doing it, you're already out of excuses. The next question is, why do you want someone famous? Now I've got famous clients and I'm telling you, they are the poorest members of my Rolodex, okay? There is for every Brad Pitt in the planet, there are 20 people around him that got him where he is, that have been taking good chunks of his money for many, many years. And other actors and actresses and entertainment, they'll walk down the street that you have absolutely no idea who they are. They just happen to be able to afford that street on that credit card without it being a ding, okay? So if you're looking for a famous person, is it because you want the distribution? Is it because you want the credibility? And I remember a little while ago, a client of mine contacted me and he wanted. He was launching a product, doesn't matter what the product is, but he was hell bent on getting Kevin Spacey to be the speaker for that, okay? And it was at the time of House of Cards, so he really badly wanted Kevin Spacey to be his spokesman and he's endorsed for that. And I said to him, don't you know there's no. You're going to pay all of this money. You could save two thirds of that money and do an amazing marketing strategy with people that don't know. But then real people using your products and service that now has real non paid testimonials, ego got in his way. He wanted to hang around with Kevin Spacey, he booked up Kevin Spacey, he paid. And then the, the MeToo campaign kicked off. You know, I picked on Kevin spacing and his stuff went to shit, okay? It's a liability. When you start picking on a face, you've really got to ask yourself, why this person? Also, when you're speaking to people that are in power and in profile, the more profile you get, the more scared they are to ask for what they want. Now this. This is a really weird revelation that I came across. If a client goes along and asks for something from someone, they're going to say yes, absolutely, they're going to say yes. But then a year later, they're going to be like, oh, hey, do you remember how I looked after you? Well, I need my child to get an interview or something. You hook that up, those freebies and favors come back with a greater interest rate than the Mafia, okay? It's better just to pay and play. So with me, I was the conjurer. I would contact people and go, hey, I've got a very powerful client. He wants to come. And they'd be like, who is it? That's irrelevant. What needs to happen in order for.

This to go on?

You know, And I would work that way. And I'd say, great, we'd be paying this out. Let me make a donation to your charity. We would pay. We would make sure you pay so that there's no reoccurring favor that's going to come down the path. And then the clients would turn up and I'd be like, why didn't you tell me? And I said, because they want to enjoy this experience. They do not want to become a part of your marketing platform. You know, and so you've got to look after. A lot of clients are very, very terrified of that. They're also petrified. Now, I've been stood next to people because when. And even. Even us, you know, us, Us, mere mortal, Stefan, me and you, we get people come up to us going, hey, Steve, how are you? And you have no idea who they are. You know, did they see me on stage? Did they see me on a TV show? Did they see me at an event? Did they see me on Instagram? You know, did they read the book? You know, did they see me with your podcast? But I have no idea who they are. So you spend, you know, like a minute going through your head going, shit, do I know this person? Where do I? And you freeze. Now you're starting to give, like, an offish kind of feeling. Now when you. A profile, like Sir Elton John or Elon Musk or someone like that, people literally walk up to them and going, hey, Elon, how are you? And they freeze. They don't want to talk to you. Because they don't know where you're coming from. So here's a tip of the day, okay? And I use this one a lot. When you're approaching someone of profile, say these words within the first five seconds. Hey, how you doing? My name's Steve Sims. You don't know me. And then go on with the conversation, okay? It relaxes them. They can now stop thinking. Now every celebrity and profile is. Is thinking, does he want a selfie? Is he going to try and get me to endorse his product? Is he going to try and get me to invest in his thing? You know, what does he want? What does he want? And that's going through every profile person out there. So if you could just walk up and go, hey, how you doing? My name's Steve Sims. You don't know me, but I saw you were involved in this charity, and I've got an angle that you could actually get. More money's coming into it and more attention. Would that be something that you would be of interest to, you know, just straight away? I hear you've got a book coming out. How's the distribution going? I hear you're doing a movie. How. How is that working out for you? But start at that beginning and then hit. The question relaxes them, and they get into a conversation. And the bad thing about people that have a profile or a status and we're talking about, you know, film stars as well as, you know, business rock stars, is they want to know what you want. And that gets them on edge. If you can get it out of the way, then they get into a conversation. And very, very few people have conversations with these people, okay? Because they're like, oh, you're so wonderful. I love you. And I saw you in this. You know what? You don't want someone walking up to you and quoting that freaking resume. They know what they were doing. They don't need you to reinforce it. So talk to people as real people. I had a client of mine that came over to me, and I was in Poland, and he told me this. This joke, and at the end of it, he kind of like. And da, da, da, da, and waiting for me to laugh. And I went, that's fucking appalling. I said, you know, I would suggest you don't tell people that joke. And he said, I have been telling people that joke all day long, and people have been crying at it. I said, you're kidding. That's not a crap. He said, no, I used it as a test to find out who's Just laughing because I did it. And who was going to stand up. He said, in the entire day, only three people have told me how bad that joke was. So people will laugh. If you want a position of strength, regardless how good of a comedian. Comedian you are, it's a shame.

That's interesting. It's interesting test. It's true. You know, you've got that. It's a good shit test for people. See, this is already just so much gold. I'm loving this. And I know everyone who's. If you're. If you're on the zoom right now and you're enjoying it, you'll put in the chat. Are you guys getting value from this? This is epic. Epic value. Massive, epic. Wicked smart. Not gonna laugh at shit jokes. Good. Big takeaway. Awesome. Ultra great conversation. Love it. Amazing storytelling purpose. Bloody brilliant. Yeah, it's fantastic. Steve, I was in that Forbes article which you have the signature for your email. They talk about, like a billionaire saying that their bucket list was wanting to detonate a nuclear warhead. And you said, no. Is that. Did someone really for that.

Yeah, I had a client in Palm beach contact me. And they said. And I said to, you know, what are you looking to do? And he was referred to me from a. From a client. So I took the call. Normally, I don't do it unless, you know, they've been referred. And he said, yeah, yeah. He said, I. I want to. I want to detonate a nuclear warhead. And I said, you want to do what? Let me make sure I'm right about this. He said, yeah, I want to push the button on a nuclear war. I want to push the button to explode the most powerful thing in the planet. And I said to him, that's. I'm not involved. I'm not going to do it now, I guarantee you, for money. There were test centers you could fly to career, for Christ's sake, give them enough money and that let you push the button, but there's enough places that this could be done. But I wasn't going to play with it because the one thing I made sure of, I wasn't going to do anything for any of my clients that allowed them to establish a sense of power or authority, and it wasn't going to be for anything more than to give them a riveting cocktail story. So, hey, you want to close down a museum in Florence, have a dinner party, and I'll get Andrea Bocelli in. Hey, that's going to make you look good and you can tell everyone about it, but you're not going to be able to hurt anyone with it. And I didn't want those kind of things. So it's always been a thin line of kind of like making sure that you get the right kind of clients. And, and bearing in mind, at the peak of bluefish, we had 93 clients. At the peak now 2/3 of those were billionaires and all of our clients were in the top 500 and 1000s in different lists. So you don't need a lot of clients when you got the right clients.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I actually think it's a really powerful lesson too. Right. It's about quality over quantity and really the 8020 principle at play. And by the way, Steve, I just put the link to your website into the chat on Zoom. I also put it into the Facebook Live and we'll share it on the YouTube replay and iTunes. But I want to make sure everybody, you know who have, they haven't read your book yet, that they go and they order it. You can get it from stevedsims.com BlueFishing I know you share a lot of your criteria and your. Actually, why don't you tell us about the book. We will get to questions in just a couple minutes here. I want to answer some questions, but I'd love to have you kind of let everyone know. Oh yeah, join Steve's newsletter too. I saw someone just joined your newsletter. There it is. Yeah. Steve, can you kind of talk about the book a little bit and what's in it and you know, who is it for?

I'll tell you. Yeah. So I was. When you've got a good network, things happen. We know that. I've always believed that you are the room you're in. And I was at a party in New York and someone had told someone my story. They came over to me and they said, hey, we want you to do a book on all the rich, famous, powerful people all over the world that you've done work for and tell us the stories. And I said to him there and then, if I did that, I'd be dead before cocktail hour. Okay, so I can't do that. And then I went to an entrepreneur event and I gave a speech on how a bricklayer ends up doing these kind of things. And they came back to me and they said, hang on, we want to do a twist. Is it possible for you to do a book not mentioning names but letting people know how a 15 year old schoolboy that came on to be a bricklayer now does this? And even we've even got Elton John that's written one of the, the testimonials on the back of the book. So I thought that'd be fun. But no one's going to buy it, no one's going to believe it. Okay. I thought it'd be too ridiculous. So. And I will be honest with you, I had a slight kind of hang up about it because I was probably one of the most connected unknown guys out there. You know, just no one knew who I was. I was looking. I've been at people's parties where people have literally given me car keys thinking I'm either security or valet, okay? And I've been like, that's fine. You know, it's never bothered me. I never really cared about getting likes on Facebook. So I thought the book would be a bit cool and I'm going to send you somewhere. In fact, you wrote down that website steved sims.com when you visit that page and don't, you know, don't do it yet. But when you scroll down, you'll see a video of my book launch and I'm, I want to bring your attention to it because this should give you a example of, of how much I did not think people would believe the book. So Simon Schuster actually published a book for me and they said, you know, it's coming out on the 13th of October, you've got to do a book launch. And they sent me a two and a half grand check to buy champagne and to take over a table in the local Barnes and Noble. And they said on a Saturday afternoon, be prepared to sign books. And I'm thinking, there's me 250 pound of ugly with piercings and, you know, tattoos. You are not going to be walking your little kids around on a Saturday afternoon and then go, oh, let's go and chat with him, find out what his book about. So I'm going to end up sitting there like Billy, no mates. So I said, I'm not going to do that. The book's not going to take. We did not even have a website for the book. You know, there's all these people that do book promotions and we actually help with book promotions now, but we didn't do any of that. So what I did was I went to a whiskey bar that I tended to go to quite often. I went, look, I'll sign over this check to you. I'm going to invite about 30 people and when the check runs out, turn the lights on, kick us out. And they were like, yeah, all right, no problem. So that night, I just invited a whole bunch of people. We had Cole Hatter, Lewis Howells, Jim Quick, Caleb Maddox, Greg Reeder. Just a whole bunch of. Of people. And when you've got. Again, if you've got a good network, you've got good people, and there just happen to be quite a few faces in there. We had some Hollywood people in there as well. And there was a girl that turned up. Sonia Hatter. And Cole and Sonia Hatta run an event called Thrive in Vegas. And Cole bullshit to me. He said he needed some B roll background footage for his video. Did you mind if we just filmed a little bit and used your environment to. And your faces and your people? And I went, knock yourself out. So the night went on, we all got drunk. To be able to call it the book launch. We shoved a pile of books in the corner on, literally on the end of the bar. And they filmed what I thought was their B roll. They lied to me. They had actually done a movie on the book launch. This was. They were announcing the book launch of Bluefish in the Art of Making Things Happen. But the funny thing is, is at the beginning of the video, people are being interviewed, and it's kind of like, you know, what do you think of Steve's book? And they're like, it's an honor, Steve. It's really good. And you're getting the smoke blowing up. You've cracked that, you know, you always do, okay? But as the video goes on, everyone's getting more and more drunk. And it's a case of, I didn't even know the fat bastard could write a book. You know, I don't think he's ever really. And it gets abusive. And so they sent me this video, which is really, really funny. And then Simon Schuster, I got a note from them saying, you haven't even got a web page up announcing this book. You know, you need to be marketing under the contractual obligations. You need to have a page. So I went, all right, fine. So we shoved the website up and we put that video up there. And that was the only thing we did. We had. There you go. You can get it in Amazon. You can get it over here. But here's the book launch.

It.

It went viral. And I remember the first month we sold, like, 400 copies. And the second month, 300 and something. And then we put the video out, and it was like 8,000 copies. And it's gone stupid ever since. It was. It's been transcribed and released in Mandarin, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, and it's now being Translated to be distributed in Russia. So it's just gone worldwide. So that was the whole birth of it. But I really honestly never thought it would take off. And it has. But watch the video. It'll have you crack it up because we just get, we get more and more and more drunk as the video goes on.

That's a great story. I can't wait to watch that video.

And I guess within the book itself.

Like what are a couple of the big takeaways or I saw a couple people mentioned that they just bought it, by the way, which is, is awesome here. But yeah, what are some of the main takeaways? And obviously it's art of making things happen. And what's like one really key lesson that, I mean, obviously people should buy the book to get all the good stuff, but what's one really key lesson that you share in the book that you think would be applicable for people who are watching or listening to this?

Well, there's a couple and I'm happy to give as many away as you like. So there's a couple in there. People overthink instead of overdoing. So they build up a whole business plan which is going to have a release and something is perfect. Perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles. It just doesn't exist. So start doing things, try things, fail, but do it. You know, if you want to speak to someone, go and speak to them. Don't be fine, just go. If you up that conversation, I guarantee you just learned a lesson for the next conversation you have. So stop overthinking. Start overdoing. And I go for impact over price tag. You know, a lot of people go, oh my God, I'm going to launch this company and I've got to start with a $60,000 CRM and my website's got to be pixelated. No, start with the client. You know, get a client, find out if you can work a client, find out if you can provide a solution to that problem. The good thing is if you become a solution, you don't need to worry about any other form of branding or looking pretty. I'm a solution. I make people look more interesting. I now coach entrepreneurs. I make them more impactful. Therefore it doesn't matter what I look like. I haven't got to be prissy and pretty, put on a tie and lean up against a car I don't own. I haven't got to do any of that because I'm solution based. So I tell everyone to look at that business and stop looking at selling their product and look at what problem that product solves and then start looking for those people that have those problems. Become solution based rather than selling based. And you gotta do impactful marketing. Get ugly with it, get raw with it. Okay? Just get relatable. And what a lot of people get confused with is they try to be recognizable. They try to be leaning up against a Ferrari because it's recognizable. They try to be wearing a Rolex because it's recognizable. They try to be outside a beautiful mansion because it's recognizable. There's a difference between being recognizable and relatable. A lot of people cannot relate to a mansion, a fancy car, a fancy watch, but they can relate to the fact that they have a problem that you are the solution to. They can relate to you. I guarantee you there's a bunch of people maybe on this zoom or have already left going, I don't like that character. You know, I can't understand him and I don't like him. And that's fine. The worst people in the world are not those that don't like you. It's those fence sitters that aren't quite sure. Get them off the fence one side or the other. You can deal with that. But stop trying to be someone that you are not be you don't spend any energy on trying to be prettier or smarter or more athletic or slim or anything that you are not. Just be you and go, hey, this is me. This is as good as it gets. And I'm here to solve your problem. And the whole book goes into examples on that, go through checklists. I go through the chug test. I go through sending people hotel stationery. You know, I go through a whole bunch of stuff that basically is free and a lot of times within the book, examples, but is maximum impact. And I am well known for selling, sending billionaires letters from hotels I stay at. Okay, because if you want to get past the gatekeeper, send them a letter from a hotel with hotel stationary on it and handwritten, because the gatekeeper will go, oh, this must be personal. And they will send it through to the. To the person's desk.

That's. That's awesome. Yeah. So much gold here.

And I think it applies to everybody, whether you're. You know, I have the audience here. It's a mix of entrepreneurs, freelancers who are also entrepreneurs, you know, business owners, everything like that. But. But just like the idea of the bringing solutions and being like. I always talk about just being the best at what you do. Focus relentlessly at being the best. And the rest really does follow. That was the best advice my dad gave me when I was young and the corporate world like, and sucking at it. I lasted more than a day at some of these jobs, but it was like 60 days, you know, 90 days. And then I'd either get fired or I'd quit because I'd be impatient. But he was like, you know, in my experience, the cream tends to rise to the top. And I didn't fully understand that when I was like younger, but then as I got older I did. Because if you really do put the work in and you focus on bringing value and you know, you get great at your craft, whatever it is you do, then people come, they come to you. The success follows, the money follows, all that other stuff follows. If you try to just appear successful and sell people and you've got like a lot of style but no substance, then you can have some short term success possibly, but the longevity is gone. You don't have people coming back. I'm sure you probably have a lot of repeat clients, especially when you at the height of what you're doing. Right. And that's huge thing too. It's not like one offs of these billionaires. I'm sure they're coming back to you again and again, I would assume.

Right?

Yeah.

I have a lot of clients that repeat and the entrepreneurs I work with that will repeat. Because I'm a great believer that you want to be an asset, not an invoice. So the second that you're questioning the price, then you haven't provided the value. So always look at what you do and look, am I an asset to this person or am I an invoice? And as long as you're an asset, they keep coming back.

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Cool. Steve, this has been amazing. And let's go and answer a couple questions now. We have about three in the Q and A. If you're watching live and you want to have your question answered, pop it in there. We'll go for a little bit more here and get to that. The first question we've got is from Grant Poulson. He says, actually I'll let Grant ask it live. So it's about getting the attention of elite people. Grant, I'm going to find you here and unmute you and let you come on and actually ask a question. So there we go.

Grant, hopefully you are, you are ready. And girly said she just realized there's.

A robot behind me. There is. What's up, Grant?

How you doing? Good.

How are you?

Good. Oh, I think you just muted. There you go.

There we go. Can you hear me?

Yep, can hear you.

Sweet.

Steve, it's a. It's a pleasure. It's been awesome hearing you talk, awesome hearing your story. My question is kind of, you know, you talk about having those results for people, but when you're kind of initially getting started and you want to get in front of people, but you don't have, you know, that proof of concept kind of behind you, kind of your thoughts on the best way to go about getting in front of people and showing them that you can do what you say you can do.

So you don't have the. You may not have the proof of concept, but the problems got to be there for you to even be working on anything. So the beautiful thing about the Internet, there's a lot of bad things about it, but the beautiful thing about it is, is that for free of charge, you can find out whether or not your product's ever going to take off. You can literally go on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on any of your profiles and go, hey, do you have this problem? Do you have this issue? I'm working on something. Let me work with a couple of you, and let's see if we can solve this and have an open foreman on providing a solution. Does that make sense?

That makes total sense.

Thank you.

There you go. Sean. Sweet.

That was good advice, though. Awesome. Grant, thanks for the question, man.

Thank you. Sweet.

Yeah, I know. I talk about that too, Steve, because I've had a lot of success in what I do, if direct response, copywriting, marketing, all that. And two different things I'm messing with, doing live stream selling now. So think like qvc, but on Facebook Live and other platforms. And I have a whole team, and we're going to two friends of mine who have pretty successful businesses, and we're being, hey, we'll just do this for you for free. We'll do the campaign for free. And we're doing it because, like, even though I charge, you know, fifty thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars for like, you know, like one off client projects and all that kind of stuff, it's like, I want to get proof of concept and I want to see does this work? What does it look like? And so, you know, one thing I tell people is if I'm at a pretty high level of success, not as successful as many of the billionaires, but like a multimillionaire successful guy, whatever, But I'm still like, let me do this for free and get the proof of concept and see if it adds value and then I can turn around and market it first. And when you do that, it's a lot easier to get people to say, oh, yeah, I'll try that with you. I'd love to try it. Right. So it's just a good strategy. And to your point of even just asking the question, hey, do other people share this problem? Do you want to try and work with me to solve it? That's a brilliant insight. Cool.

Next we have Isaac Hyde.

Isaac has a question about guerrilla marketing for his, his book launch that he's working on. So I'm going to take Isaac and I'm going to put you live here. Give me one second. Give me a moment here. Usually I have my friend Ed doing the. Yeah, he's gotta find Isaac here. Where is he? Isaac, I'm trying to find you in this chat. I can't find him to read off on this. Isaac left, but. Oh, there he is.

Okay, got you. Perfect.

All right. Sweet. Isaac, what's up, man?

Hey, guys, what's up? How you doing today?

Good.

Cool. So, yeah, I'm not short and sweet. I'm long winded and sarcastic. But when it comes to the book launch, yeah, it's. We wanted to make it something more than just like another cover on the shelf because, you know, people don't care about a cover that it's how it connects to them. Right. So we were going for more of like the, the escape angle. Like, how does this book kind of give you an escape from reality? Obviously there's a lot of stress going on with the epidemic, the epidemic pandemic and everything like that. And yeah, we were just trying to do something new with it.

But.

Like I said in the Q A, we don't really have like a marketing budget. So I mean, we're gonna have to do paid advertising at some point. But I'm just trying to think of like some, some unique ideas to kind of just make it stand out so that it's not just, oh, here's another book cover, here's another whatever that you're seeing a Facebook ad for. And since you sound like a master of creative ideas, I just figured I'd, you know, ask her some advice on that.

Well, I love sarcasm. I'm British for a start. So, you know, we were born on it. We invented sarcasm. So, you know, you're in good company there. What does the book solve?

So it's ultimately about giving them an escape from like the moment they came from. So it's, it's a Novel. I don't know if I already mentioned that, but it's not like a nonfiction. It's like an educational book. But it's is basically think Harry Potter for teenagers who are sarcastic. But it's music instead of magic.

So what about instead of the pay. Yes, you are going to have to pay for marketing, but why don't you. Here's a. Here's an idea. And you could probably get it through Fiverr and you may even be able to do an online campaign about it. But get people to stand and you can get some dummy books. Have you produced a book yet?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's.

So offer a prize for the most extreme location that a review is done on the book. Because you're talking about the book being escapism, correct?

Right.

Yeah.

Right. So then offer people the. You will get a prize. You don't even have to. Entrepreneurs want to win the price. They couldn't give a shit if it's half a. Half a burger. You know, they just want to win the prize. You know, they want to win the thing. So offer a prize for a review on the book given in the most extreme location you can find. This could be on the top of a building. It could be stood next to the. The pyramids in Egypt. It could be on a. On a boat going through Venice. But get people to do locations. When you've got really good locations in the back and you've got real people giving these testimonials again, it becomes relatable because it's real people. And so try to look on the locations and run a competition. Do a crowdsourcing competition for it.

Man, that's a badass idea.

Yeah, you damn right it is.

I appreciate it, man. I don't want to, you know, cannibalize the caller or whatever, but yeah, that's what I needed to just have an idea for you. So just like to kind of put it on Fiverr. Just like. So I basically just like offer to send like a copy of the book to somebody and then like just, just pay them like to do it or something.

I would go on. I would go on any of your social feeds at the moment. Okay. Because you've got to realize that for every person that ever looks at a social feed, there's 50 to 100 people that are also watching that. So if you're talking to someone on social, there are other people looking at how the conversations going. So I would go into your social feeds for a start and say, hey, I'm going to throw this competition who Do I know here that's got some weird locations. You may get some people doing it on a factory floor. You may be getting someone to do it in the middle of an airport, you know, whatever it is. But get people to find funky locations that are escaping from the norm and get your local people to do it first. You can go on to Fiverr and find international and look up models, okay? Male and female, old and young, and say, hey, I'm looking for some interesting models to do locations. You can get a granny on the beach going, hey, I love this book from Isaac. You know, it taught me to escape and I'm escaping on the beach. You know, just stuff like that.

Oh, man, that's okay. I'm getting, like all these little explosions going off in my mind. I'm gonna sound like an idiot if I keep talking. But it's an awesome, awesome feedback. I really appreciate it.

Good. Go forth, enjoy it. I shall.

Awesome. Thanks, Isaac. Okay, cool.

So we've got Max to be in next.

Max, you put three questions in. I'm going to let you pick your top question of these three. So, Max, I'm going to go ahead and unmute you, but of your three questions, pick the one that you want answered, and I'm going to let you go ahead and ask it. Max, there you are.

Hello.

How are you?

How you doing?

It's been great, the episode so far. Steve, I was reading your book, and I really like the dedication you did to your wife at the start of it, and also the chapter on passion, too. So I'll keep reading it and going deeper on it, too. And apart from that, I'll just pick one of the three, as you said, Stefan. So I would say, okay, let me pick this one. So what would be a good approach or the best approach to get in contact with luxury businesses such as yours, Steve? Because I am committed to specializing my copywriting services like, and the luxury niche. And I was wondering, since you're in there, what would you recommend to get in contact with peers of your industry, for example?

All right, that's a good one. Because the luxury industry is in pain at the moment, and people try to avoid pain if you walk onto stage, and I've actually done this. If you walk onto stage and you go, hey, run out the back of this auditorium. There are 10 girls there with a suitcase. Each one of them's got a suitcase, and. And there's $500,000 in each suitcase. Go get them. Hardly anyone will run out of the room. Disbelief, doubt, Probably a couple of people leaning against the doors in the back. May crack the door to see if there's any real girls out there, but it's very questionable. But if you walk on stage, run up to the microphone, grab the microphone and you say one word, fire. How many people do you think are going to run out of the auditorium?

Everyone except for the one that has the money.

Yeah. The bottom line of it is we move on fear and pain faster than we move to opportunity. So if you're contacting the luxury business, you can contact them and go, hey, these are trying times. I understand your message is not getting out there to a receptive market at the moment. I, I can understand the pain that you're going through in trying to get your product in front of the appropriate people. In fact, I understand it because I've been working on it for the last four years in helping you get your message out in these painful times to get received appropriately. Would you consider having a call with me? There's your scheduler. It's always good to go out and poke the bruise. Probably one of the best marketing campaigns ever was tense, nervous, headache, Take aspirin, but I can't remember if it was aspirin or anodyn. But exposed to pain. Here's the solution. So with the luxury industry, I know the pain you're in. I know these are bad times. I know your bottom line is hurting and expose the problem before you lead into you being the solution.

That's great. And what would you say is the major pain right now in the luxury industry for all of us right here?

Well, what do you think it is, Max? You're the one that's writing a copy thing. Just come and don't think too hard. But what is the biggest problem? Any luxury provider in the planet, whether it be luxury cars, watches, hotels, dresses, shoes. What is the one problem that they are having?

I just say getting the right people.

No bollocks. Getting purchases.

Yeah.

You know, no one's buying anything. You know, we're not going out, so we're not buying dresses. We're not traveling, so we're not staying at hotels. We can't go out. So what's the point in buying a car? We're not going out, so what's the point of buying a pair of shoes? No one's buying anything. So what we've got to do is find a way. Why do you need to. Why should you be buying this? Why should you be getting involved? The downside is we've seen Covid go on for a year, every year. The Fashion industry produces two seasons, and then the next year, that stuff's out of date. It's old stock. No one's gone out. The fashion industry, for one, is one of the biggest hit industries because they've released stuff that's going to be trendy this year, but no one's been able to go out, so no one's bothered buying it. So just keep it. Don't overthink. The bottom line of it is, is if you don't have a client giving you money, you don't have a business.

True.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you.

Amazing.

Cool.

Thanks, Max.

Thanks for that question. Thank you.

Awesome.

Yeah. So true. So good. Those are just turning as a marketer, thinking about that too. I mean, it's interesting. What's the one thing that people have been spending money on? And it's like, homes, and you've seen home prices go up, but people are looking for, you know, more like luxury homes, more space, more property, your pools and things like that, because they're spending time at home.

Right.

But yes. Your point? Like fashion, like going out and getting the new collection from Armani or Gucci. Not much. Right?

They're not doing it. They're not doing it. I had. I got a client of mine from Prada in Florence, and they said that they released this line of shoes and basically just getting ready to ship them off to the outlet stores because they can't reuse them for next year, but no one's been buying them because no one's been going out.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's wild.

You just don't think of it. But that's the case.

Makes perfect sense. Cool. All right, we got a question from. From Chad Falman here. How about pivoting during COVID So, Chad, I got you up here. What's up, man?

Hey, what's going on?

Steve, you are the man. I first saw you when you interviewed Juliet Rather interviewed you, and I thought it was just spectacular. So was so excited when Stefan had you on.

Good. Thank you.

Good, good.

You know, my question is pretty straightforward. It's just, how has your industry pivoted during COVID That's it.

All right. I look at. I look at the pain. You know, what pain are we in? What pain can we remove? What pain can we avoid? So when the luxury industry, the travel stopped, there's no point in trying to push a dead elephant up a hill. So it's a case of, hey, we're not traveling at the moment, but we're at home. So what about staycations? How can we make Your home, and just stay in people's minds by saying, hey, we're going to come out of this. So start doing your top 10 list of where you want to travel, what you want to do, what you want to get up to, and just get people dreaming. During this time, within my entrepreneurial network, within my coaching there, I've been going, hey, what's your problem? Today I had a client of mine to run a plumbing organization, one of the largest plumbing companies in South California. Now, the guy that owns it, he's an ugly fucker. He's a big, you know, blockhead of a looking guy. Not. Not. I'm not attractive, but Jesus, this guy's rough. And so what we did was I turned around and I said, look, at this moment in time, you're at home, okay? So let's start working on a way that we can promote your services. People still need plumbing, even during COVID But here's the one thing. Because everyone's at home, there are more people wanting to engage in a conversation, wanting to do something. Your home improvements have been big this year. Okay? Amazon's gone through the roof. Domino's was one of the first ones to say, hey, we'll come to your house. We're safer that way. So a lot of companies pivoted.

We.

What we did with him was we started doing a video series. And the video series was like, hey, you don't want me coming to your house. So here's what you need to do to make sure I don't need to turn up. Concentrate on your U bend, don't flush certain things. And he did these little infomercials on how you can protect your piping so you never have to have this big, ugly man come to your house. It was great. It worked. But anyone that was thinking about our plumbing in the Orange county area would think about this big lump going, you don't want me to come to your house? Okay? And it was a negative affirmation. So for me, I've been focusing on the pain. What pain do my clients have? What problems do they have and how can we avoid and remove the problem? I remember a friend of mine, Peter Diamandis, said to me, the squeaky wheel doesn't get oiled. It gets removed. And so a lot of very powerful people and successful people, they don't look at improving the problem. They look at eliminating it. So within all of my clients, I've been looking at, what is your problem? Some of them, they've needed to do a lot more transition to online. Some of them have needed to do a lot more video marketing. Because the beautiful thing about video, and we've seen it with Clubhouse, is on every other form of marketing, you lose one thing. Tonality. The beautiful thing about video and even Clubhouse recently is that there's tonality. When someone's excited, you know they're excited. We were missing out on tonality. You can't, no matter how good a copywriter you are, you can't fully grab the accent and the tonality in any copy. So I've been thrusting a lot of people into audio, thrusting a lot of people into video, and doing a lot of texting. A lot of texting, okay, because your texts never land in your junk file because they haven't yet invented one. So I do a lot more text marketing than I do email marketing.

I totally agree as a direct response writer that in 2021 I see there's things that you just cannot replicate with words alone. And I'm interested in these new platforms. So my follow up question to you would be, how did you proposition this guy and say, listen, you're an ugly fucker. This is your greatest asset? Or do you just constantly take the piss out of your clients?

My wife has often wondered how I'm in business because I do actually like to nudge them a little bit. I think before, before we do anything, we've got to realize the assets we have. And being big and ugly like me is an accent. Having a funny accent, you know, is also an asset, you know, so I think when I, when I work with people, it also can relax them if you bring humor into it. But if I'm going to expose the pain you have in your business, but bring it to you in maybe a humorous manner and then expose that maybe the greatest asset is the fact that you're so ugly it actually works. So I am known. I told you earlier when we were speaking to the other guy, the British invented sarcasm. And I'm well known for taking the piss out of absolutely everyone. But what that also does is it gets rid of the snowflakes. In my circle, anyone that's coming to me wants the problem removed, wants to get on. And they don't care about, you know, saying a word that maybe offends them in a woke attitude, they're going to get it done. So I think again, it was that bit about being on the fence. If you work with me, you know, you're going to get it brutal and all. It's going to be there, it's going to be smacked in your face. It's going to be worked on, and we're going to overcome it. But if you're looking for some kind of, like, fluffy little snowflake atmosphere, you need to be going somewhere else. So that's when it comes down to being totally you, being very open that you're you and not confusing what the client's going to get. I am stunned because I can't write very good copy. Okay. If you read any of my newsletters and stuff like that, you know, my grammar's bad. I forget full stops. You know, my. My wife often says she thinks I'm fighting the punctuation because I avoid putting it in anything I write, but it's real. I don't confuse the client. When they come to me, they know exactly what they're going to get. The danger is when someone actually gets a copywriter the rights so eloquently and articulate that when they do get through to the person that's going to be looking at, looking after them, they go, who the hell are you? You're completely different to what got me in here. So you need to make sure that everything has continuity. So my emails are badly written. My videos are always here with my corrugated. You know, I'm a little bit unshaven today. My beards, God, I'm having a bad hair day. You know, it's. But this is it, and it's not confusing anyone. And if you met me at an Elton John party or you met me on stage, or you met me in a bar, you would not be surprised that I was exactly the same person as I've been on this podcast.

I can feel it. Steve, I appreciate your answer, and I hope I can have some whiskey with you someday.

I hope so. You're buying the first one.

Got it.

Cool.

Thanks, Chad.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's so true. As a copywriter, I mean, just getting. Getting the voice right is so important. I talk to people about that because you'll see where there's a huge disconnect and it immediately comes across as inauthentic. Right. And authenticity is just so vital for anything. Communication, selling, persuading, just being. And, yeah, you just. That's awesome advice. So cool we got through the questions, which was amazing. Steve, this has been so awesome. I wanted to ask you, what are the best ways for people to connect with you moving forward? I mean, I think everyone should get your book. I've linked to it. It's stevedsims.com, but in addition to that, I know you do Coaching, you do all kinds of stuff.

What.

How can people engage with you more? What's the best way for them to do that?

Well, I do have a free Facebook group called an Entrepreneur's Advantage with Steve Sims. That's a free Facebook group. I've got Sims Distillery, which is my inner circle. So I do a lot more training with my mass group there. I do private coaching, but you can find all about that on Steve D. Sims. And if any of you fancy meeting with me in Arizona, I do private events called speakeasies and our next one is in Arizona on the 10th and 11th of February.

Nice. That's awesome. I love Arizona. Where in Arizona do you do them? Tell me. Tell me.

It is in Scottsdale. We do speak easy. We do speak easy all over America and we only ever tell you the city. In fact, you've got to look at the webpage because it will make you smile. How little information we actually disclose. And then it's only open to a maximum of 40 entrepreneurs. And let's just say I bring some pretty spectacular guests in to teach you and interact with you during a two day period.

Yeah, that's good to know. I'm a big Scottsdale fan, so who knows, maybe I'll get one of those seats. But Steve, really appreciate it. Again, it's been incredible. Thank you everyone who's come and joined and who's watched or listened on Facebook Live or Zoom. For everyone who will be listening on itunes or watching on YouTube, make sure that if you enjoyed this, leave a comment on YouTube or that you subscribe on YouTube or on iTunes, hit the like button. All that good stuff. Steve, any final words of wisdom or anything else you want to share before we wrap up here?

Thank you. My dad was a bigger, thicker version of me and he would smoke like 200 cigarettes a day. When I was 15 years old. We were walking through the building site and he had a cigarette in his mouth and another one in his hand ready to light up. So that he was always constant on smoking. As we were walking down the, down the street, through the yard, he put his hand on my shoulder, never looked at me. And he said to me, son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water. They drowned by staying there. And he took his hand off my shoulder, carrying on walking. Never uttered those words ever again. Never stopped at all. And I stopped. As a 15 year old, I stopped and I'm like, the fuck was that? You know, I had no idea. I thought he'd been consumed by a fortune cookie. But I realized it is our decision as whether or not we lay in the water and drown. Our decision.

That's incredible. That's amazing advice.

Awesome.

Steve, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Everyone get Steve's book, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Steve.

Bye.