In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Steve Jones, Chief Thinker at KillFruit Consult, about the power of social selling. Steve opens with a rugby referee story that illustrates the contrast between noisy, shouty sales tactics (Team A) and thoughtful, relationship‑focused engagement (Team B). He argues that traditional "unique selling points" are a myth, proposing instead a "unique buying point" that aligns with how customers actually research and purchase. The conversation expands to the value of word‑of‑mouth marketing, citing Seth Godin and Gary Vee’s advice to give away valuable content freely. Steve recounts his career shift from large corporate roles to independent consulting, emphasizing continuous learning and the pitfalls of tech companies losing sight of the customer. He shares personal lessons: the importance of failing early, advice he would give his younger self, and his view that happiness stems from laughter and small acts of kindness. Recommended reading includes Andy Bounds’ The Jelly Effect, which stresses focusing on the post‑interaction value for customers, and a favorite Aristotle quote about prompting thought. Steve highlights the necessity of regular reflective periods to refine strategy. The episode closes with his preferred outreach platforms—LinkedIn and Twitter (@Kilfrew)—as essential tools for modern sales professionals.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode. Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Steve Jones with us. He's the Chief Thinker at KillFruit Consult. He's a leader and speaker and has 40 years' experience experience in building and managing multidisciplined teams across international markets. He is now on a mission to convince the world to embrace social selling. So welcome to the show, man.
Thank you, Tyler.
Of course. Grateful to have you here, Steve. We'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Okay. I'm based in the UK. We follow this game called rugby. You may have heard of it. So it's a great game. Some people may disagree, but it's a fantastic game. I'm a rugby referee in my off time, okay? Um, a couple of seasons ago, I was refereeing a kids' game. The kids was probably, I don't know, 14, 15 years old. And the coaches from Team A, should we call them— there's about 3 of them all shouting, running down the line, telling different things to the kids. One coach was saying one thing, another coach would be saying something else. And of course, they would disagree with my decisions, uh, as, as, um, coaches do. So I did what I normally do in that sort of scenario. I ignored them, right? It was just noise. It just became noise after a while, and I just totally ignored it. Anyway, um, so through the game, a player went down injured from, from Team B. So the coach from Team B came on. As he came on looking after the kid, he basically gave me a drop of water and said, would you like a drink, ref? I said, yeah, thanks very much, that was, that was very kind of you, thanks. And he said, everything okay, ref? Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, good, good. And as he was turning to walk away, he turned back to me and said, can you just watch the team coming up, the opposition coming up? They're just coming up offside a little bit. Can you just keep an eye on them? Thanks, ref. And trotted off. Now, who do you think had the biggest influence on me? Was it the guy shouting on the sideline, running up and down, or the coach from Team B who asked about me first, gave me something?
B.
And then B, absolutely. I would like people to ask themselves how many, how much of this sales and marketing activity is like Team A, multiple messages, shouty, shouty, shouty, is just noise, and how much of it is like Team B, where you have a conversation with somebody, you get to know them a little bit, albeit very, very briefly in that instance, but you get to know them a little bit before you implant the message. Which do you think is more important? Which do you think has the biggest impact?
Yeah, well, you definitely would want to create the relationship and get to know them. And honestly, just even for the long term, whether they purchase or not, that's going to be better, you know. But do we do that most of the time? No. Okay, point, point made. Um, the next one I have for you is, uh, and it kind of might tie in directly, um, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Okay, um, a couple of things that are linked. There's no such thing as a USP, a unique selling point. Many, many people over years have promoted a unique selling point. There is no such unique selling point. What I would accept is a unique buying point, but everyone wants you to have a unique selling point. I'd like to think about something you've purchased recently that's cost a fair bit of money, maybe a car or a laptop or something like that. When you put— before you purchased that laptop, what did you do? You probably researched online, you asked a friend, you asked a colleague, you asked a partner for their advice. You maybe looked at a third-party review site because we don't believe what the vendors are saying, right? Because all the car emission scandals and all the rest of it, you go to the— you go to third-party site. We don't believe websites of vendors. We all have a sales process, but I'd ask you, do we have a buying process? Look at your buying process, look about how your customers buy rather than focus on how you sell as an individual. We're 4 times more likely to believe an individual than we are an organization.
Yeah, it is very interesting. I always— because one of my businesses is with helping people publishing and marketing books. And I always say the best way of marketing a book, and this is probably with any company, any sort of— or any product, service, whatever— is word-of-mouth marketing because I always say, whenever somebody, any of my friends says, "Hey, you got to check out this book," I don't even think twice. I just get the book. That is the best way. It's really weird. A lot of authors when they first start out don't understand this, but I say, "Actually, if your book is really that remarkable," as Seth Godin would say, remarkable worth remarking upon, then really the best way to sell more books is to actually give more books away for free. Because what will happen is, if it's that good, it's that significant and that valuable, then people will tell other people about it and then more purchases will come through just from word of mouth. So I think that's interesting.
Yeah, absolutely. Gary Vee, right? Listen to Gary Vee a lot. We only discovered him in the last 6 months or so. Yeah, he says give everything away. Because people won't remember it anyway and they'll come back to you for the— when they try to implement it.
100%, dude. And Gary Vee, I'm obsessed. So again, it could tie in, but maybe this next question I want to kind of reframe it a little bit. So like, tell us like, how did you get started in this? Like, from where you are now, you know, with your mission to convince the world to embrace social selling and where you like started in business. And I know that's like a pretty big timeframe, but like, tell us a little bit like how you, like, how did you get here? Like that, it's curious.
Okay. Okay. I'll cover that up in terms of the younger advice bit, but basically, um, 18 years ago, 17, 18 years ago, um, I used to get on an airplane and turn left in large corporate land. Uh, and then the dot-com bubble and I found myself getting on an airplane and started turning right. I was working for myself. So I had to learn a total different way of doing things because I didn't have that big machine behind me, right? Um, so it's evolved over time. The internet happened, technology happened. Um, always be learning. You do— nobody knows the right way of doing everything, no one sales process. But you try things, you learn things, you would try it again. You, you don't do that because it didn't work, you do that because it did work. But technology— I work a lot a lot of technology companies. Technology companies are the worst because they get so close to their problem. They get so close to their product, they forget about the customer. So I've just been doing some interim sales for a number of technology companies over the years. But basically, I think I'm unemployable now because I have too many opinions.
I am definitely unemployable. I love it. And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I've made some mistakes, right? I'm so glad they didn't have mobile phones in my teenage years. I was in school, I left school at 17. I was too busy having a great time in what we call lower six, which I think is first year of high school over in the US, right? I was having a great time partying. I failed all my exams. So I was given the option to go back to and retake my exams or leave. So at 17, I knew the answer to everything, right? So I left. And moved up to a big city, and that was a big mistake. But hey, I'm still here. So who you are at 17 does not determine who you can become. Tony Robbins is reputed to have said that most people underestimate— sorry, most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year but underestimate what they can achieve in 10. There's too much pressure on youngsters to be instantly successful. Learn to fail because especially as you're younger, right? If you've got kids, you've got mortgage, you've got family, it's more difficult. You learn to fail as a youngster because, hey, you fall off your bike, you get back on it.
Yeah, well, I think failure is literally a part of the process. Um, so yeah, I completely agree with you. Um, and the next one I have for you is, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Uh, I don't know. Everyone's different. Laughter works.
I like that.
And what other thing I found that I need to do more is random acts of kindness. Not money, just small gifts, small— your time, just giving something to somebody that's not huge but can just make you feel a little bit better.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
There's been a few, and I could reference a few, but the one that I want to focus on is a guy called— is Jelly Effect by Andy Bounds. It's B-O-U-N-D-S. Andy talked— it's called the Jelly Effect because it was polite. Basically, most marketing is you throw stuff at the wall and expect some of it to stick. The message in the book is very much focus on what you're trying to achieve, focus on who your end users are. And Andy talks about afters. What— and nobody cares how hard you work. What they're interested in is what they're left with after you've gone. So what is your after? After you've gone, what are they left with that's of value?
Okay, I like that. And what is your favorite quote and why?
Okay, go back a few years. A bloke called Aristotle, you may have heard of him. He reportedly said, I cannot teach you anything, I can only make you think. Busy, busy business people don't spend enough time thinking.
Yeah, I agree. I actually think one of my friends actually taught me this, that like every quarter, whether you have employees or not, like even if you're just a solopreneur or honestly, even if you work for a company, obviously I don't think you can vacation as much if you work for corporate. But as running my own company, every quarter I take like a week and I just like think because it's so important. It's with all my phone calls, the podcasts, like all of them are amazing and I love all of them. But sometimes you just need to think because you get so caught up in a cycle and all it takes is one tweak to a strategy and then everything you're doing could be significantly more profound. So absolutely.
I'm lucky I live on a farm, right? So if I've had that conference call or WebEx or whatever that hasn't gone very well, I can go up the field with the dogs. And just clear my head for 2, 3, 5 minutes.
Yeah, it's so very important before we respond with that email. Yes, 100%. Thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?
Okay. I'm a great proponent of LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is the best sales tool ever invented. So you can find me on LinkedIn and on Twitter @Kilfrew. That's K-I-L-F-R-E-W.
Perfect, man. Thanks again for hopping on.
No, thanks for your time. It's great. Thank you. The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor.
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