In this episode, Simon welcomes Reuben Swartz, the founder of Mimiran CRM, the Chief Nerd on the Sales for Nerds podcast. He has a computer science background but spends most of his time helping clients with sales and marketing. Listen to Reuben’s sharing on sales for introverts.

3 Valuable Insights

• Make sure you have good positioning
• Get yourself out of your shell and go talk to people
• Selling and marketing should be considered as helping, teaching and connecting with other human beings

Show Notes

(00:15) Simon: Welcome back, everybody, to the strategy sprints podcast, I'm your host, Simon Severino. And today my guest is founder of Mimi ran, the CRM for solo consultants who hate selling hosts and chief nerd on the saints for nerds podcast that has bent dog owner. Welcome everybody. Reuben S wartz.

(00:38) Reuben: Great to be here, Simon.

(00:40) Simon: So cool to have you here. And you have brought with you some super interesting stuff because in this funky year, everybody is thinking about how to get more healthy revenues and you have this super cool insights and tools about sales and CRM. So we are super excited, but first Rubin, what are you currently creating?

(01:11) Reuben: Well, I'm always creating my CRM. It's never done. I just released some new tools to help you go through and really nail down your positioning. And that's actually part of the free version. You don't even have to pay to do that. Uh, really excited cause I, I found so many people were stuck at getting good positioning. And of course, if you don't have that foundation, everything else gets exponentially harder and I'm all about let's make this easier rather than harder. I spent over a decade making sales way harder than it needed to be. And I hated every second of that process. So I'm here to help people, uh, actually learn to enjoy selling and marketing and connecting by not doing sort of the traditional icky sales marketing networking's off, but think of it as helping and teaching and connecting with other human beings. So I'm sort of building a tool, I'm building a community and I hope I'm part of a movement that lets people be their authentic sales and share their gifts with the world without having to feel like they have to then switch into sales mode or marketing mode or networking mode and impersonate a sales person to do that and to be effective and grow their business.

(02:20) Simon: Oh, that's strong because many people really think they have to put their arm around. Now it's sales time. I have to go into this role and of course they hate it. And uh, and, and the other, the other side also hates it because it's and so, wow. I'm, I'm excited to go in there, but you said positioning that's super cool. I never heard that the CRM makes it easy for you at the beginning to sort out your positioning. How, how do you do that?

(02:50) Reuben: Well, it just kind of walks you through who's your ideal client. And then it makes you get more and more specific and asks you what you do for what, what do you solve for them and how is that different than what they might do traditionally? Because a lot of people, myself included, right? We all get nervous when we start really narrowing our market because we feel like we're leaving people behind and I've been through this, even though I coach my clients on it all the time, we all feel that negative human emotion of, Oh no, I'm, I'm leaving something out. And the way that I've learned to think of it is we're not leaving things out. We're making sales and marketing easier and wouldn't, we like it to be easier. The more we can have those amazing conversations with the right people, the ones that we remember like, Oh, we had the meeting, we had a great referral.

They couldn't wait to get started. We had a great project. It was super successful. I love working with them. Why don't we want to get more of those instead of let's just spray and pray across everybody. And what I found with my CRM was a lot of people would say, great, I love this tool. It really helps me get more leads. It helps me have conversations, but I don't know what to say because I don't really know who I'm talking to. So I realized that we needed to help people get very specific about who they're talking to so that the conversations get easier. So you can make your website, have a conversation on your behalf more easily. So you can make your lead magnets have a conversation for you on your behalf and so on. And so you don't have to feel in authentic because you're really serving your highest purpose instead of trying to be everything to everybody, right? The folks that I work with, they're not trying to land a million clients this year. They that's just not the game. So why are we playing that game? Let's try to get the five best or the 20 best or the one best client that you could possibly get in your life is going to be better. You're going to have more fun. You're going to make more income. You're going to get more referrals and so on.

(04:45) Simon: Oh, I can resonate on so many levels. And one is also that at some point, I remember like five years ago, I said to myself, I was doing the same in my company. And if we were a startup and I said, Hey, we don't have to get 1000. We have to get one a hundred times, a hundred times. And that's changed my mindset. And exactly as you, as you as your do it with the, the ideal client is that this is the area of client. We are going to talk to this person 39 years old is in that city and has this situation, this pain point, this longing that's what keeps them awake. And I was just talking to this person. I had a name for the person. I was just talking to this person and it changed everything. It, it, it made everything easier and more enjoyable. It's just like a natural conversation between humans.

(05:45) Reuben: That's exactly right. And I had a coach tell me the same thing, right? I was drawing up some spreadsheet with annual planning and a bunch of numbers that didn't necessarily mean anything. And he's like, well, where are you going to find the next customer? Oh, that's a really good question. And I spent a long time doing ironically enough sales and marketing consulting for fortune 500 companies. Some of the biggest, most successful companies on the planet. And the irony was I was really, really bad at sales and marketing for my own little firm. And we relied on word of mouth cause I was bad at sales and marketing. And part of that was I had internalized a lot of bad habits or myths about what sales and marketing meant. And I also, in some ways I was knew that I wasn't good at it. So I was trying to pick up the lessons from my clients, but what you're doing, if you have a 5,000 person sales team and you have an established market and all this stuff is totally different than what you're doing.

If you're a boutique firm or you're a solo person, and you're just trying to get, like you say, where's the next client. And so I, I had a lot of misunderstandings to begin with. And then I layered over the top, a lot of bad habits, not necessarily bad habits for my clients, but things that didn't apply well to me. And it took me a long time to undo that thinking. And then I realized that I wasn't the only one who had made these mistakes, that there are natural reasons why people fall into these traps. And I thought I had a few conversations with people and it turns out that I was actually helpful in sort of liberating them from some of the same things. I was like, Oh, it turns out there's a lot of us who really love what we do. And we hate, as you say, putting on the armor and the necessary evil of going and doing business development. And I realized that I had got out of that mindset and wouldn't it be great if all these other amazing people who do great work and really help the world could do the same thing.

(07:37) Simon: And you are also host of a podcast dedicated to sales. What is the community around you? What are, what are, what are they, um, preoccupied with? What are their topics right now around selling?

(07:52) Reuben: Well, I think a lot of it is some of the stuff that we talked about, how do I make sales and marketing? How do I, how do I make business development, a holistic part of my service mission rather than this kind of slimy thing that I forced myself to do, or I pay someone else to do? That's the big thing that I think so many people are working on. And a lot of folks prior to COVID would kind of skate by if they would go to a bunch of networking events and it was sporadic and it was feast or famine, but the referrals would come in here and there. And they, it was enough that they didn't have to go further outside their comfort zone. And now with that traditional Avenue kind of closed off, people are realizing they have to be more systematic about it.

They have to be more pro proactive, but on the plus side, this means they actually can take much more control of their business destiny, but also sort of their psychological state, because they can do it in the way that, that feels nice to them. I'm really introverted. It's part of why I started the whole sales for nerds podcast, just to get me out of my shell and go talk to people. Uh, but you can have conversations as an introvert, especially if you kind of set the terms for those conversations. And that's one of the most liberating things that I, as an introvert who don't, doesn't like selling, I, I came to understand, I actually really like talking to people if they're right, nice people that we talk about, interesting stuff with. And I really like helping people. So if I can arrange my marketing and my positioning to bring in the right people to have the right conversations and some of them become customers, I, I still remember when I used to force myself to make quote unquote sales calls and I would have, I would have like that tension in my back at the end of the day and the headache.

And I just hated it. And now I spend much of my day either on zoom or on the phone talking to people. And it's great. I love it. It's crazy.

(09:48) Simon: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, I remember when I started using my first CRM system to track these conversations, just to track, uh, what my relations are and which one I should contact again. And when he changed everything and I was like, why don't we teach these in the business schools? Because I teach at business schools, I teach strategy there, but nobody tells you, you need a CRM system and it should be simple, right? Nobody does this with those words analysis and Porter's five forces and benchmarks, but we do not teach, Hey, you need a simple CRM system. Followup is King, just be yourself and do at least five calls per day, five conversations per day. You will be fine in your first three years of your startup. And that's what you should do genuinely care about what they say, really listen. And at the end, tell your stuff. Okay.

(10:49) Reuben: That's exactly right. What helped me was realizing when I forgot that I was in a quote unquote sales conversation, and I was just talking to somebody, I had a great time. I was natural. They could tell that I cared. They could tell that I knew what I knew. And I would admit that I didn't know what I didn't know. And it all flowed very easily and they would want to work with us. But then if I thought of it as a sales conversation, I get all tense and try to remember my checklists and you know, my closes and my objection handling and all that stuff. And it went all sideways because they were like, what's wrong with this guy? I feel like I'm being sold to no one wants to be sold to, but everyone wants to buy. That's why they're talking to you. They have a problem they want to solve.

(11:31) Simon: Absolutely. So I want to know your three favorite books on sales can be also your own. And, uh, I will ask you one second after the sponsors.

(11:54) Simon: Which books do you recommend?

(11:56) Reuben: Well, it's funny cause I should be recommending Sales for Nerds. The book because originally sales for nerds was supposed to be a book. Cause I realized people were asking me the same questions again and again. And I thought that sounds like a lot of work. I'm going to do a podcast and a ton of work and no book later, I still need to write sales, foreigners the book. So I can't recommend that because it's not here. Um, I think, uh, million dollar consulting by Alan Weiss is a really good one and it's not technically a sales book, but it talks a lot about relationships and how you handle them and how you think about value. And Alan's going to be an upcoming guest on sales for nerds. I'm really excited. Uh, another past guest on sales for nerds who wrote a great book, uh, as Chalmers brothers who wrote language in the pursuit of happiness, which is also not a sales book at all, but it talks about how we construct stories in our own heads and how we interpret stories coming from other people's heads and how all these things kind of sometimes get mixed up in a way that isn't helpful for us and how to get a lot more clarity around our thinking and our communication with other people.

And along those same lines, there's a book called deep listening by Oscar Trimboli, which really talks about listening as an activity. We've kind of think of it as passive or a lot of people you can tell. They're not really listening. They're just thinking about what they're going to say next. And we really can't connect with people if we're not listening. And that those three books I think are great, even though none of them are technically sales books. Now there are a lot of great sales books out there. I have a bunch on the shelf behind me. Thing that I realized was I read a lot of sales books and a lot of them are targeted at salespeople and it's different. And if you're a sales person, by all means, you should read, spin selling. You should read all the classics. And I'm not saying that they're bad, but for me, I wanted, I needed something more psychologically fundamental because I was, it was like, if you took me out on the ski slope and I hated skiing, like first, you got to really understand what you're doing and you got to love it. And the books that I mentioned, I found much more helpful in letting me get inside my own psychology and letting myself be myself

(14:13) Simon: Beautiful. And the strategy award question, you see many people out there. If you can pick only one person when everybody zigs, this person is zagging, who would you pick?

(14:26) Reuben: Well, it's funny because I knew this question was coming and I had an answer that I thought was really great. I was going to talk about the guys at 37 signals and then I listened to a couple more episodes and I know that that somebody else suggested them as well. Um, but they're, I think they do a great job of running a business that's profitable and is for them and not, uh, necessarily, uh, subject to some of the other myths we have about investing and money and, and killing yourself at work and so on. So if I had to take a backup, I think maybe talk to Aaron Franklin here at Franklin barbecue in Austin who, uh, has done things with brisket that I don't think anyone knew where possible. And he's one of those sort of crazy guys who gets up in the middle of the night to start the fire and he cooks the brisket and then there's a line out the door, or at least there used to be before COVID.

Now it's all just a line of cars, but you know, they, they sell their brisket till it runs out and then it runs out. And if you waited, you know, you can only wait three hours in line and you didn't get the brisket, then you're out of luck, but he's obsessive about quality, not quantity. And I think in this age of mass manufacturing and software and very low marginal costs, it's easy to get wrapped up in the quantity side of things. And that's fine for certain folks, but not, you don't necessarily have to go down that path. So I admire that he's not focused on quantity at all. He's much more focused on quality.

(15:55) Simon: Beautiful. And so you have this CRM system and you consult also on how to sell. Tell us more about what can people do right now to get into business again, or to strengthen their sales?

(16:11) Reuben: Well, first thing I would say is make sure you have good positioning. And if you don't go through the free positioning generator thing, that'll, we'll ask you a bunch of questions and throw out some sample homepage about page LinkedIn, profile, blog topics, lead magnets, et cetera. Um, and you know, you'll have to edit it and, and, and whatnot, but I find most people get stuck on that initial phase. So make sure you have that story and you can always change it. You're not carving it in stone, but have a story stand for something and stand against something. And then probably the big thing that I would say is talk to people. And you mentioned this earlier, right? If you're having five conversations a day, you're going to be in a good place. The problem most people have with business development is that they don't talk to people.

And I know this because I was guilty of it. And I'm a technologist, I'm an introvert. And I have email and I have all these other tools and I'm like, this is great. I never have to pick up the phone. Isn't this wonderful. No, it's actually terrible. There is no replacement for conversation. That is the fundamental building block of human connection. And I think in this age with email and SMS and social media, we have sort of been eating a fast food diet of connection, which is cheap and convenient, but it's not very nourishing. And we need to have those one-on-one conversations. And I realized this a couple of years ago, and one of the things that caused me to build out a bunch of stuff in my tool was Rubin really sucks at this, make it so easy that Rubin's going to do it.

Cause I knew if I could do it for me, I could do it for other people. I was like, literally go in and block out time in your calendar, hit that button, start call mode, call the person, have the conversation, take the notes, hit, save, talk to the next person and just connect. Don't have, you're not trying to sell them. If they're trying to buy, that's fine. You help them buy. Uh, but you just have normal human conversations and you never know it's a little bit like quantum mechanics. You can't predict necessarily whether this conversation or that conversation is going to lead to business or referral or some insight about life. But over time, those referrals, the business, the, the tips about life, the universe and everything come in and your life gets richer. And you also contribute back to them. You hook them up, you connect them, you make introductions and referrals and you just feel good.

And before you know it, people are crediting you with being great at following up and talking to people. And you're like, what is going on here? So make sure that everyone around you who cares about you, who already wants you to succeed, knows what the heck you're doing. And I don't mean just send out an email, that's fine, but talk to them and you don't have to sell them. You don't have to pitch them. You're just telling your story. Kind of goes back to that whole thing, language and the art of, uh, the pursuit of happiness. It's we humans communicate via stories. And so much of that. I think we have technologized out of the picture and it's to our detriment.

(19:08) Simon: And it's so funny that you say follow up, because this was my key key learning in this last couple of years. For example, I am approached a lot by cool startups that have great stuff going on and they want me to invest. And I have my usual criteria that I look at the scalability and the, and the real need out there for that and the differentiation. But now I also look a lot at the founding team and how they structure the, the process of, of having conversations, following up on conversations. And really one thing that I check is if they have a CRM process going on, I don't mean the tools, but really the, the, the, the practice of it, which usually is done with it. But this practice and I, I never say yes, even if I love the story right away, I watched them for months, how they follow up, how they structure, how they report, if they get their sales reports every seven days or 30 days, because if they get it every seven days and if they are good at following up, I trust them that they will make it. So first you need a great idea, but then I watch how you execute. And this, the CRM is exactly where I see execution.

(20:36) Reuben: So, absolutely. And it's funny because it's like so many companies, and I I'll say that I've been guilty of this myself. It's like, you do so much hard, hard work, and you struggle so much. And then there's some really simple, low-hanging fruit that you're just so flustered or busy, or you got your head in the clouds or whatever, or you don't have the right tool. And you, you work 10 times harder than you have to for half the results. So let's make it easier.

(21:05) Simon: Absolutely. And for example, you are now I think my, uh, 190 F guest and, uh, I am so glad that I have a CRM where I track my guests because I told myself when we have 200 guests, we will do a big party with all 200. And now without the CRM system, how would I possibly remember them? So now it's easy. They have a tag guest on my podcast and then whipping by then when we have a great party and we have a, this is one of the many things that the CRM can do for you. So people, if you are listening and you are sort of entrepreneurs or have a team and you don't have a CRM, please call Ruben, check it out. CRM is a major game changer. And I don't say this lightly, because relationship what you know and who, you know, that's, that's basically the basics

(22:02) Reuben: Now. Thank you. And I don't mean to toot my own horn too much here, but I know that there's a lot of people out there who are saying, I've tried this CRM. I tried that CRM. I hated it. I did the same thing. And I'm not saying whether memory is necessarily right for you or not, but it's a very different take on traditional CRM. That's built for people who are spending most of their time with clients and still have to do the selling. It's not built for the VP of sales.

(22:27) Simon: Yeah. And let's talk, let's talk about good and bad CRN, because my first attempt was with a very big one. I won't say the name, but it's the biggest one. It's

(22:39) Reuben: I, I I've tried that several times. Yeah.

(22:42) Simon: Yeah. And that, you know what, I, it felt fancy. And I had this one for pipeline and I felt like, Oh my God, this is a poor sheet. And then of course, like every fancy app, after a couple of weeks, you just stop using it. It's too much. It doesn't end. It doesn't become a simple daily habit. And, uh, and then four years, no CRM at all. Then I picked up a simple one. I will also not say that name, but it's just a simple one. It has a pipeline overview. And then just very simple. Well, who are the warm leads where the hot leads, what's the next step? That's it. And I have for every step of my relation funnel, six stages, right? Awareness, interesting engagement, high engagement, ready to buy, et cetera. Uh, for everyone, I have one now one email template that I put in there. I click that template most of the time. So it's a simple one now, but I'm using it every day. And that's the difference.

(23:44) Reuben: Absolutely. So I also struggled with certain, very popular CRMs that a lot of my big clients used. And I realized later that one, a lot of them didn't really use it either because their sales teams hated it. Uh, but it also, it's a very powerful tool for the right folks. And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right tool for you. And so having something simple that you can make a daily habit out of is so important. And I think there, there's lots of different tools out there for a long time. I fought my customers when they told me they wanted to make member in a full CRM. And I said, the world doesn't need another CRM. And finally, I realized that they were right, that this market just wasn't served very well. But I think that habit is the important thing. And how can you have a tool that helps you? I think of it, get to the gym. So you work out as opposed to, it could be the nicest gym in the world, but if it's intimidating or the machines aren't calibrated, right. For you, you don't work out and you don't get healthier.

(24:46) Simon: I think the analogy is perfect,

(24:48) Reuben: Except we can't go to the gym right now. So

(24:52) Simon: Yeah, but we have to train, we still have to train, you know, I, my CrossFit gym is closed, but I took a private, a private trainer. And now I have, of course here a, in my home, the dumbbells and the, and the kettlebells and whatever, and at least a minimum of daily practice. And I cannot wait nine months for or three years for the pandemic to be over. Uh, that would be, uh, a very bad habit. So we need to keep rolling and the entrepreneurs need to keep rolling and stuff will come up. And this is, this is why I often say goals. Won't help you when, when it's hard, but your systems will help you. And the CRM system is definitely one of the core systems that you can have. And, um, for example, we have a lot of entrepreneurs in our accelerator every week from all over the globe, from Australia to Toronto. And, uh, and then we ask them, okay, do you have a CRM? Yeah. Sure. Okay. Tell me how many discovery calls did you have last week? How many discovery calls will you have next week? Oh, well, I don't know. So what is the CRM doing? Uh, well, you know, it's it's, and then they, they explained a lot of technical stuff, but they don't know what they really should know. Who is interested. Who should you talk with? How many talks did you have? What did you learn?

(26:24) Reuben: Yeah, it's so interesting. And you know, my, my serum is very simple, but one of the key metrics is how many conversations did you have over a certain amount of time and how many conversations are overdue? And it's kind of, like you said earlier, if you have those five conversations a day, you're going to be in good shape. And I realized that when I sort of tried to break out of my introverted shell and actually talk to people, I was like, Oh, when I have sustained conversations, good things happen. And when I don't, that's when you get to the famine part of the feast or famine cycle, and it's just that simple. And it's so fundamental that I kind of made it the heart of the tool. Let's make it easier to have more conversations with the right people. And then because so many people I work with are the only ones selling in their organization, or maybe the only person in their organization, you can actually connect with other users and have a little leaderboard that shows how many conversations are you having and how many conversations are, is Simon having. And so on again, just to get that psychological motivation, because it's all about, as you say, building the habit, once you get in the habit of, I actually like talking to people, then it becomes easy block off time in your calendar, make sure you preserve that time, have conversations, good things will happen, but you got to got to get that initial, get off the couch and get to the gym and get in a routine

(27:43) Simon: By the way, leaderboard is I think a wonderful idea. Now it might sound like, Oh no, I create competition in my team. And that might create a, a harsh culture. But my experience from, from CrossFit and from disciplines where the leaderboard is center of everything, it creates a positive reinforcement, a positive culture and alignment and transparency. And yes, of course there is an element of competition, but it's, co-opetition, you know, the competition that we all have and that we, and that every high performer wants and needs.

(28:23) Reuben: That's one of the things I realized was missing w when you're working by yourself, right? We often think about the big sales teams as being coin operated and all this other stuff that may or may not be true. But the big thing that you get as part of a sales team is that friendly competition. And so I wanted a way that people working by themselves, right? My tribe, service people, not salespeople don't have that, that psychological competition. And it's easy to kind of just hide from it and say, well, you know, I haven't been to the gym in three months. Why start now? But if you can see, and I know that a lot of before introduced this feature, there were people who believed absolutely in the power of conversations, they just couldn't pick up the phone. Right. It was just psychologically hard. It's like that first time going to the gym.

But when they saw that so-and-so and so-and-so, who are also introverted, were going to the gym and having those conversations, I'm like, Oh, okay, well, if Ruben can do it, how hard can it be? Right. And that's the whole idea. I think you raised a great point. I I'm a little bit competitive and there are some weeks where I'm on top and some weeks where I'm not, but the important thing for me is, am I doing the best that I can, even if I'm not winning, right. There are days where I'm just tired. And there's part of my mind that knows once I devote this time to calling people, instead of, you know, looking at the latest COVID numbers or whatever else I can be doing that I'm going to have a good time, but it's just like, gosh, even I still have to get right. It's like, it's cold out. I don't want to go to the gym. I'd rather stay in bed. Well, this is just that little extra tug to get you there.

(29:55) Simon: I love it. And yeah, let's go, let's go to the tough side. We, we explain the technical side, people know what to do, but the tough part, the emotional part, uh, you say you were an introvert. I am an introvert and you are, and, and, and, and yet you are, you are speaking on a podcast that you are host of a podcast. So there was a journey. Tell us about this journey.

(30:23) Reuben: Sure. I think some of it is when you're introverted, you absorb certain notions of what that means, right? Like, I, I tend not to like big gatherings. I don't like big conferences, et cetera, et cetera. I don't necessarily like networking with strangers, but I love having interesting conversations with people. And even though you and I have never had a conversation before, I feel like I know a little bit about you from your podcast, you know, a little about me from mine. So it's not like I know we're going to have a good conversation. Um, and I think there's a myth that introverts don't like talking to people. We do, we just kind of like doing it. One-on-one we might like talking about certain things and not others. So if I can do it on my terms, then I'm, I'm excited to talk to people all day long. And that was the thing I realized. Like I've put myself in a box and it's not really what I need, and I have the power to get out of it. Right. I have the power to, to set things up so that I can talk to people that I want to talk to. And I have the technological ability to create the tools and, and literally the buttons and screens that will make it so easy that even I have to do it, and even I will enjoy it.

(31:38) Simon: I love it. And also, why did you start the podcast in the first place?

(31:44) Reuben: Well, it's funny. I mentioned that originally I was going to write a book because I had all these people who would say, Oh, you know, I heard from so-and-so, you guys had a great conversation and really helped them. Can I buy you coffee and pick your brain? And it's not that I don't want to do that. I would love to do that, but I don't one has time for that kind of thing. So I thought, well, gosh, you know, a lot of these questions are pretty similar. It turns out that my experience might be useful to some people. I should sum it up in a book and create the book sales for nerds. And then, uh, you know, I'm already so busy. I don't have time to do that. And I was on an annual planning retreat with some other business owners. And we were kind of at the end of our day, and we're having some drinks and talking about stuff.

And somebody mentioned that if we were millennials, we would figure out how to just stream this on YouTube and make a bunch of money. And I thought I kinda had some, some notions and I thought, gosh, why don't I just make salesforce a podcast, and then I don't have to do all the work. And I can actually have interesting conversations with people that I probably wouldn't get to talk to otherwise. And I thought, because it's my podcast, what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring a bottle of wine to the interview and we'll just drink it and have a conversation and it'll be fun. And I really wanted it to be important and helpful, but I also just wanted, it was like, why, why does everything have to be such a grind? I was feeling a little bit stuck in a rut at that point.

And so like any good overthinking engineer, I thought this is a great idea. I'm going to prevaricate and think about it and try to figure out what to do. And six months went by and I was like, this is ridiculous. Right? I'm doing it again. I'm thinking overthinking. So I sent an email over to Jason Cohen, who would be a great person to have on your podcast. Actually, he's the founder of WP engine and a great WordPress hosting site that I use here in Austin. And I was like, Hey, Jason, you know, long-time customer, blah, blah, blah. I have this idea for a podcast sales for nerds. I bring a bottle of wine and we talk and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, here's why I think you'd be a great guest. I've been following your career. And you're a great speaker and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right. And there was a bunch of kissing up. It was all true. And he wrote back three minutes later, you had me at wine. Here's a link to my calendar. And I thought, gosh, you know, like I can't get a meeting with Jason co-ed if, if, if I just asked for a meeting, but here he is like really happy to sit down with me. We sat down for two hours and we only stopped because we ran out of wine and you know, the audio quality is not quite awesome and all that other stuff, we had a great time and people say it's really helpful. And I thought, this is, this is actually really fun. And I've had all these wonderful conversations with people that I probably wouldn't get to have otherwise. And I hear from listeners that, you know, this is something for them because there's lot of great sales and business podcasts out there, but most of them are aimed at the people like you say, who actually likes sales, not the people who think they hate it.

(34:42) Simon: It's true. It's true. And it's beautiful. And it's great that there is this resource out there. So if you are listening and you don't like sales people, this is the resource. And, um, Rubin, you said you have a guest for me, who should be my next guest?

(35:00) Reuben: Gosh. Um, so many good guests. I mean, you could certainly talk to Jason Cohen, but the person that I was thinking you might want to have on is, uh, Stacey Brown Randall. She is an expert at generating referrals systematically, and I'm a big believer in referrals, right? I have all this automation and lead gen stuff, but there's nothing that beats a good referral. So, uh, I think for a lot of folks who do rely a lot on referrals, but don't systematize it, she would be a great guest.

(35:30) Simon: Absolutely. And Stacey, she was on the show and she was amazing. I will have her again on the show. Cause.

(35:38) Reuben: I apologize I scrolled through and I apparently I didn't scroll far enough. She right.

(35:42) Simon: She's amazing. And it's a good reminder to have her on the show. And again, she's amazing. Stacey, shout out beautiful, man. Stacey. Yeah.

(35:52) Reuben: I was hooking you up, but you're already hooked up. Of course you are.

(35:57) Simon: The, the, the world becomes smaller when you have a podcast. Uh, what's your experience. I know more people now in Australia than I know here in my street.

(36:09) Reuben: It's amazing. Right. And the thing that I find so interesting is when I have conversations with people, some of them tell me, you know, I feel like I've been listening to you for so long. It's like, I already know you. And it's a little spooky because you know, I don't necessarily know them unless they have a podcast. And then I feel like I know them really well, but it is a really intimate medium. And I think like we were talking about earlier, conversation is really where it starts. And we're built as human beings for oral storytelling telling and, and listening, not for the way we consume most of our information. And that's why so much sales and marketing just passes straight through because it doesn't resonate with people.

(36:59) Simon: This is so true. This is so true. Our culture comes from telling first and listening first and then became, became a Britain country. Absolutely. Oh, I could go on for hours, but yeah, let's do a second one, uh, various, uh, wet your books out. I want to promote it here.

(37:22) Reuben: Well, I’m so overdue.

(37:24) Simon: It now. It will be easier. You have all the materials, you can even get some help, somebody transcribing it and you have it then 70% on the page, then it's easier just to refine it.

(37:35) Reuben: Yeah. Yeah.

(37:39) Simon: Wonderful book made off made of podcast interviews, just basically my last hundred guests. It was done by rich roll. Uh, it's called the rich roll podcast and he made a book out of his last guests just basically to give away for friends, Christmas present, but it's a beautiful book. And um, yeah, the rich roll podcast, maybe, maybe that can also be a creative way of getting that book out.

(38:10) Reuben: Well, it's funny. One of the books I have behind me is, is a guy Scott Ingram here in Austin who does a great sales podcast. And I've been on that and he's been on sales for nerds and he published a book just like that. He he's like, well, you know what, I need to publish a book, but I don't want to write it. I'll have my guests write it, which I thought was very clever. Okay.

(38:28) Simon: Very clever. The best way. All right. Thank you so much for being the show.

(38:36) Simon: Please come back soon.