If you’re looking to sell more effectively, communicate more powerfully, and grow your business without sacrificing your soul, this episode is for you.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Steve Goodner of EQFit to explore the real game-changer in sales: emotional intelligence and mindset. Steve has 40+ years in business, consulting, and coaching.

His use of the tools of psychology in the workplace, combined with his training in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, has allowed him to create assessments, methodologies, and proven practices that have been adopted and validated.

After spending years in sales and sales management, earning President's Club (top 5%) with two different organizations and Sales Manager of the Year with another, he began Goodner Strategic Consulting LLC, dba EQFIT®, with a focus on emotional intelligence. The skills of emotional intelligence directly correlate with growth and success in every aspect of life and work.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just getting started, you’ll want to listen in as we explore why traditional sales tactics often miss the mark—and how approaching sales as an authentic, problem-solving partnership can completely transform your results.

Steve and I talk about the emotional challenges that come with being an entrepreneur or salesperson—everything from nerves and anxiety to the dreaded impostor syndrome. We look into practical, neuroscience-backed strategies for building self-trust, creating a sense of safety for your clients, and tapping into the emotional drivers that influence over 70% of all buying decisions.

You’ll pick up actionable tips for staying authentic, making deep connections, clarifying your messaging, and using tools like CRMs and AI to structure your follow-ups without losing the human touch. We also talk about why extrinsic motivation can lead you astray, and how building your business is as much about personal growth as it is about revenue.

This is a heartfelt, illuminating discussion that might just change the way you see sales—and yourself!

EQ Moments

00:00 Entrepreneurial Nerves and Salesmanship

10:27 Building Trust and Overcoming Bias

13:53 Authentic Connections Drive Sales

18:27 Intrinsic Motivation Beats Materialism

26:00 "Top Salespeople's Mindset Secrets"

27:56 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Adaptability

35:27 Managing Sales Opportunities Spreadsheet

42:20 Compelling Story vs. Credentials

46:24 "Empowering Life and Work"

53:22 "Emotionally Intelligent Living Series"

58:30 Raising Prices Through Fewer Clients

59:56 "Prioritize Clients for Better Focus"

In each episode, Jeff and Eric will talk about what emotional intelligence, or understanding your emotions, can do for you in your daily and work life. For more information, contact Eric or Jeff at info@spiritofeq.com, or go to their website, Spirit of EQ.

You can follow The Spirit of EQ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, or on your favorite podcast player.

New episodes are available on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays every month!

Please review our podcast on iTunes. Click on the link for an easy, step-by-step tutorial.

Music from Uppbeat

https://uppbeat.io/t/roo-walker/deeper

License code: PEYKDJHQNGSZXDUE

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Spirit of EQ

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Mentioned in this episode:

SEQ Development Report

The SEQ Development Report is an innovative tool that combines emotional intelligence with one's spiritual life, distinct from religious contexts. The report helps individuals understand their connections with themselves, others, and their surroundings. It aims to identify areas in their lives that may need improvement and highlight their strengths, ultimately facilitating better navigation through life. To obtain the report, individuals need to contact Spirit of EQ via email at info@spiritofeq.com and complete an online assessment that takes about 15 to 20 minutes. After the assessment, a debrief session is required to review the comprehensive information provided in the report. Spirit of EQ also offers further coaching to support individuals in their personal development journey.

Thanks for listening to Spirit of EQ

This podcast was created to be a tool to primarily help you to discover and grow your EQ. Science and our own lived experiences confirm that the better we are at managing our emotions, the better we're going to be at making decisions. Which leads to a better life. And that's something we all want. We're glad that you've taken the time today to listen. We hope that something you hear will lead to a breakthrough. We'd really appreciate a review on your podcast platform. Please leave some comments about what you heard today, as well as follow and subscribe to the podcast. That way, you won't miss a single episode as we continue this journey.

Steve Goodner.

Hey, Eric Pennington, my friend.

Good to see you again.

It's good to be here. Again, thank you for the invite. I appreciate that very much.

Well, it was selfishly motivated, Steve, and I. I'm just being right out front for you and. And for our audience. You. You wouldn't know this, but I've really had it on my heart about the sales thing. And we've had a previous guest, maybe about a year ago, who came on to talk about it, and he did a fabulous job. But I've known you for. It's probably been six, seven years now.

And when I think about someone who is able to explain and I might say demystify this sales thing, you're at the top of my list. So that was one of the reasons why I reached out to you. I said, hey, would you come on? And we can talk about that. And also, we're going to talk a little bit about some of the things related to the spiritual. And as our audience knows, Steve, those that have been following us for a while, our spiritual is connected to the SEQ program or SEQ development report that we have. And you've got some great insights on that. Regardless of where you might be on your journey, you might be someone who's deep in their faith, you may be someone who's on the fence about faith, but it does pertain, and I'm looking forward to that, too. So let's start with the sales stuff, right?

Sure.

And I always like to try to simplify, keep it basic. So you're an entrepreneur, and you're just starting out, and you're probably very aspirational, whether it's you've got a great product or potentially great product, or maybe you've got a service or maybe you've got some kind of consulting program that you really want to move the needle with. And that's awesome. But I always tell people, especially in the realm of entrepreneurism, Monday's coming.

Yeah.

And we know what that's like, right? You get up, you had your cup of coffee, you've got yourself all set and ready to go. And then you get your first five calls are, sorry, not interested, or who are you? Why are you? How'd you get my number? I mean, all that stuff.

Right.

So if I said, hey, Steve, could you give some insight and maybe even give some tips about, okay, what's the 101? What's sales 101 if I am that entrepreneur, just getting started?

Absolutely. And you hit it on the head, Eric, when you said, when we start A business, and this is my third business that I have started. You start it with a passion. You have a passion to do something. But my guess is that isn't selling.

Right?

Yeah, right. Most people don't start a business to sell. They. They start a business to solve a problem, to help other people. So now that's a nice way to think about how to approach a sales mindset is I'm not trying to sell you something, I'm trying to understand what your problem is so I can help you solve that problem. So I tend to think of sales from an entrepreneurial point of view as partnering in somebody else's success. And how can I show up and what do I bring to the table to bring that, that joint venture together to solve a problem for somebody else that they're either in unable to solve or struggling with. Or maybe they just don't have the understanding or the experience or the background.

But there's some key things for people. And it's funny because I've just recently created a free ebook, it's going to be on my website that's called Solving the seven Biggest Sales Challenges for Small Business Owners Without a Sales Team. So it's a really long title and I apologize for that.

No, that's okay.

But basically, go ahead.

You know what, Steve, I'm going to interrupt you. And it's only because you said something there that really, really kind of caught my attention. The way that you describe the role of the entrepreneur, slash entrepreneur salesperson, right? About being that partner, that joint venture and solving of a problem that's articulated so well, I can see that. I can see that entrepreneur going in, hey, I have something that could help you solve that problem. Right? But somewhere in that process, something can go south or sideways, right? And I know for me, it used to be in my younger days my nerves would be so out of whack that I wasn't able to articulate what exactly is I could do to help them solve a problem. And what I'm hoping, and this is for our audience, is that we could talk a little bit about that side of it too. Because there's an emotional component that, I mean, I know again for me, my nerves, fear, you know, oh, okay. What are they going to, what are they going to think? And what if they say no? And then I'm getting nervous and all of that stuff.

I just think that that's a big part sometimes of maybe the block between my good intention or my problem solving solution and getting that other person, maybe the buyer or the or the client, prospective client, to understand what I can do to help them. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And what I call that is. Is allowing your emotional drivers to. To get you too far in front of your own skis, okay. So that you tumble and stumble and roll down the hill and all that kind of thing. Emotional intelligence is the secret weapon here. Because if you can navigate your own emotions well, lead yourself well, then you have a much better chance of connecting with other people. So if you want to know right up front, I'll give you some.

Some hints and tips on what kills a sales conversation. Now, call it a sales conversation, call it a discovery. I use different terminology. I talk about solving problems. I talk about having a conversation instead of a sales meeting. I about how to approach a given issue. What have you tried, what have you. What's worked, what hasn't worked.

So I know for me, and emotional intelligence is a huge part of what I do. My background, my training, neuroscience, psychology, all of that. You've got to start by building your self confidence and self trust first. Because if you don't trust yourself, you will not have the confidence to present well to other people. Now, what are conversation killers? If you're trying to sell something to someone or engage them to do business with you, Fear, anxiety, stress, frustration, anger, any of those emotions are conversation killers. Why? Because our brains have these things called mirror neurons that pick up the emotional. There are emotional radar that pick up the emotions from other people. Well, the sales process is really very simple.

The individual that is wanting to sell something creates a shared mind space and invites the buyer into that mind space where they can communicate and connect with each other. Now, to have the buyer engage in that, they've got to feel safe. They have to feel comfortable. They have to feel like there's something of value, there's something of benefit. Well, where does all of that come from? It comes from emotions. It comes from emotional drivers, and that's where emotional intelligence is so important. 70% or more of buying decisions are based in emotional drivers. So if all you're doing is selling your features and benefits and the facts and all of that, you're missing 70% of the sales opportunity.

So, Steve, and I'm just going to kind of draw sort of a picture from my own experience. Is that potentially why A. And again, I know we're using terms like seller and buyer, and I don't know, it's deeper than that. But if I'm someone who has the problem, right? And if you come in and communicate with me and I get a sense that you're nervous, or I get a sense that you are kind of frustrated, something that comes up in my mind or my brain that says, wait a minute, something's not quite right.

Yes.

Okay. Yes. And I'm not going to verbalize it. Right. I'm not probably not going to say, hey, Steve, I'm feeling like you're a little frustrated, and I don't know if this is going to be good. I'm probably going to just try to find a way out.

Yes, absolutely. And it's. If you've ever been in a. An experience where you're a coach or a consultant, you're a salesperson, you're an owner of a business, whatever it happens to be. If you've ever been in a conversation and all of a sudden it goes sideways on you, something has happened that has triggered something in the mind of the buyer, the person who has the problem, that. That throws up a red flag that says unsafe. Okay? And. And now that covers a lot of ground.

They may believe that you don't trust enough in yourself to really do what you say you're going to do. They may say, well, you know, maybe they're not that professional. They're not that polished. And you and I both know, Eric, that the way that our brains work is that we have a thought, we experience something, we have a thought immediately, we attach meaning to the thought, and our meaning tends to have bias attached to it. And from those two things, emotions are generated. And then we make decisions and take action. And so we, as people wanting to sell our services to someone, have to create that safe mind space for the individual. But the funny thing is, it starts in here.

And are we in a good place so that we're making them feel comfortable? Have you ever met someone that they're just. You're just immediately comfortable with that person? Oh, yeah, certainly that is the kind of thing that we want to develop. That's a skill. That's not DNA. That is a skill we can develop. How do we make ourselves inviting, engaging, and comfortable to other people? So you're exactly right.

So when you say that about, and you said it earlier about, you know, in, in building trust inside of yourself, you know, which I know kind of connects to a confidence, a sense of like, hey, I belong. Hey, I'm. I have, I, I'm qualified, or whatever you want to use, that's not an overnight thing. Right. And more than likely there's probably some tentacles from past experiences, traumas and all of that.

Right.

I don't want to Be in that minds, that approach to say, well, before you go out and try to sell your idea, your product, your service, you need to go through the process of learning emotional intelligence and getting, dealing with past trauma. I mean, Steve, the world just doesn't stop and allow you to do that necessarily. Right? No. So maybe this is a little bit off of what we talked about previously, but what are some things you'd recommend? If I, if, if, if an entrepreneur out there, new entrepreneur, maybe in the audience and says, yeah, I agree, I do need to build that trust. What are some things they can do, do you think?

Yeah. Okay, first be authentic. And that may come across as. Wait a minute, what do you mean be authentic? Because I'm already struggling with selling stuff. No, people can, people have really good radar today. Okay, several things. People have really good radar and they can sense disingenuousness.

Yeah, I think that's a word. And you take it.

Yeah, or I just created it. But they can sense that pretty, pretty easily. So be authentic. First, be yourself. Don't try to be somebody else. You will develop over time your own personal sales approach how you will promote what you want others to, to engage with you about. You'll develop that. Be authentic about that.

Number two, understand that people buy from people. They don't buy from companies, they don't buy. They people buy from other people. So be authentic. And when you connect with people, you know, when I teach the EQ fit sales, the smart selling approach, it's very simply connection plus trust equals influence. So every deposit of connection and trust building into the influence bank account increases the influence bank account so that when you do want to influence someone you have, you can withdraw from that influence bank account. You have built this goodwill and this influence with other people. Also another thing you can do, be absolutely clear on what you want your messaging to be in what you're promoting.

So clarity sells. So be authentic and, and show up as a real person. Don't, you know, practice active listening. And I want to talk about that in a minute. But the next step is clarity sells and then we'll talk about follow up here in a minute. But really when it comes down to this, this concept of what can I do as a new entrepreneur? If you believe passionately in what you are doing, then share that with people because that is your differentiator in the marketplace. You have a passion for your solution for what you're bringing. Now be absolutely clear about it.

Be authentic about it. Realistic expectations with people don't over promise and under deliver and then Just connect and build trust. Because again, more than 70% of the buying decision is based on emotional drivers. And there, you know what, Steve?

I, I, you, you just really hit on something there as well. I, I've personal, in my personal journey as well as within spirit of EQ and in our audience of listened to previous podcasts talking a lot about intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic. Right.

Yes.

And I, I, you know, I'm, I'm the, I'm probably a case study of what happens when you are extrinsically motivated. Right. And the danger that it presents. Because for me, I got a lot from extrinsic motivation and I'm talking about a lot as in outwardly appearing success. Right. I mean, and, and you know what happens when we get a formula and we think it's working? We just keep working the formula. Right. Right now, kind of like Solomon.

You.

Come to this point where you're going, I have everything that I, but I have nothing. Right. But here's what's interesting to me now that I have shifted a bit to be more intrinsically motivated, to be able to say, you know what, that sounds like a wonderful business idea, but that's not a fit for what we do. Right. And it's not because I think your business idea is going to fail or that it's not worthwhile. It just means it doesn't work. You for, for me on into. And then we had a previous episode where I talked about car buying and Steve.

And for our audience, I bear with me as I repeat what you've probably already heard in the episode. But Steve, I used to be one of these people that I'd buy a car every two to three years because I'd get an itch, you know, something new would come out from whatever manufacturer and I, you know, extrinsic. Extrinsic. And I couldn't really tell you why I bought it. It's just I felt like I should because I'm a this or I'm a that, right? At some point along the line, I discovered the Mini Cooper. And it was like, that's me. And I remember, I think it was my son. It was like, Mini Cooper, really? You mean you don't wanna.

What about, what about Audi? What about, you know, and I'm going to.

No.

And then he asked me one day, steve, so what's your dream car? Dad, what's your dream car? And I said, I already have it. That's because it's me. And one of the things that it opened my eyes to Was the intrinsic and how important it is because it connects to what you're saying. And this is a long way around. But if you go out to someone trying to solve their problem and you're extrinsically motivated, I, in those times in my life, I think what happens is you start thinking, well, I got to make sure that I tell him that I can give him 20 off. I need to make sure that. Boy, I wonder if he thinks this suit. I gotta, I gotta.

You start acting outside of yourself and then the authentic thing goes out the window.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and what happens is within external motivators. Motivators, money, fame, likes on Facebook, I mean, you name it, whatever it is, they're very, very short lived and they're unreliable because it's, it's almost like, I hate to say it this way, it's almost like an addiction. You need more and more and more of those things to get that same feeling over time. Intrinsic motivation, though, especially in what we're focused on today, is so critical because internal intrinsic motivation comes from our deepest held beliefs about who we are and our place in the world. Our values, our standards, our goals.

Right?

That's where we derive intrinsic motivation. And from those things, we create the rules that we live by. So to give you a perfect example of this, when I work with entrepreneurs trying to grow their business and knowing they've got to sell to grow their business, I'm, I hear things like, I hate cold calling. I can't do that. This is no good. I'm no good at that. And as, as we talk about that and have that conversation, I'll say, I want you to add one word at the end of what you're saying and they'll give me a funny look and I'll say, I can't do that yet. I'm not good at that yet.

Because then you open the door to possibility. You open the door to, okay, maybe I'm not good at that yet, but it's worth investing in to get better at this. And that's so much of what I teach in my eq FIT masterminds is mindset first. Because transforming mindset will transform your outcomes.

Because to that point then, Steve, I think you just took a long way around to get to it. But you talked about this building of trust in yourself. And as you said, mindset maybe in some ways is, that is the more you work on mindset, it creates more avenues for having the better conversation that leads to the better solution. On and on and on.

Absolutely. I can tell you Today, if I can get a conversation with someone about something in my business that I would like to sell them, I can close some form of business with them 75% of the time. Now, I've been doing this 40 years and I started in sales, so maybe that's not fair. But bottom line, I want everybody to think, set the selling thing aside for a minute.

Yep.

I want you to focus on quality conversations. And quality conversations are buyer centric and they're, they're discovery conversations. You know, if you're the buyer, Eric, and, and I'm trying to sell you something that one of the first things that we're going to talk about, the question that I'm going to ask you is what is it that you would like to see transform in your life right now? Now, notice I use the word transform and not change. Change can go back and forth. Right. I'm talking caterpillar to butterfly. I want people to think in transformational terms and then it becomes almost a deeper conversation because they realize transformation is permanent, it's serious. And I'll start by just opening, questioning.

And I think of those quality conversations are, I don't talk more than 20% of the time. I just ask good questions.

Yeah. So. And I'm going to go back to the mindset thing again. And I think if nothing else, it'll connect dots in my head. You know, one of the things that entrepreneurs of all varieties probably experience. Right. Is the feeling of, okay, if I'm a new entrepreneur, you know, I've got X amount of money in my savings that I can burn through while I build this. And then the feeling of, well, my gosh, if I don't make a sale here this month, then I'm going to have to draw, I'm going to have to draw another X out of the account.

And the way I've calculated, I've really got a six month Runway or a year Runway. So again, all those external things.

Yep.

If I'm hearing you correctly, if we get the mindset thing going in the right direction, you'll be able to detect when those outside forces say, well, you, you, when are you going to make the next sale? When are you going to get them to buy? Because you've only got a certain amount of time on and on and on. Is that where the mindset is kind of the remedy?

Absolutely. The mindset is this is a sales superpower because it's, it really is. Desperation is one of the primary killers of any kind of sales process. If somebody senses you're desperate, then and what happens is trust. I have a trust equation that I use. Credibility plus reliability plus connection divided by self interest. Well what happens? And that gives you a trust score. Well, what happens is the higher your self interest.

I gotta sell something, I gotta sell it now. It has to be this week. It's end of the month. If I don't sell something, we're gonna be in trouble. That self interest number creeps up and creeps up, maybe shoots up. And what happens is the way you show up, the emotional environment that you bring to those conversations, whatever you're feeling going into those conversations is going to get exhibited to the other individ individual. You. I don't care how good you are, you're either going to come across as absolutely fake because you're really good at hiding a lot of stuff and holding stuff back, which is why the, the cure for that is authenticity or you're going to pass on what you're feeling.

So top salespeople. I have assessed hundreds and hundreds of salespeople over the years. Top salespeople do this without thinking. They have a methodology to get their mindset right before entering a conversation. Maybe their whole day isn't that, isn't that whole mindset, but they know how to get in the right mindset. Customer centric, buyer centric, focused on their needs, passionate about what you're promoting, knowledgeable, but very open to letting them lead the conversation. I literally, and I was going to share this earlier when I was a sales manager and sales director, the hardest thing for me to do is keep my mouth shut because what I would do is I would see these, these salespeople that were focused on getting this $10,000 sale and they're missing the hundred thousand dollar sale because they're so focused. And so, so I gotta do this.

And I got, and, and you know what's happening. The whole thing about active listening goes out the door. They're, they're thinking about the next thing they're gonna say while the person's talking to them. And literally in one sales call, I'll never Forget this. In one sales call I heard a buyer give 12 different opportunities for a bigger sale to the salesperson. And that salesperson missed every single one because they, their mindset was not open. So we need to have an open, solid, stable, emotionally intelligent mindset going in so that we can be adaptive and agile to whatever comes our direction.

I, you know, when you say that Steve, I have this vision in my head that that salesperson, that entrepreneur is adjusting as they go through Their day. Because as we all know, through our day, there's good events, bad events, good news, bad news. But always before going into that conversation to what you said, there's this, an adjustment, there's this, okay, I'm about ready to talk to Steve and I need to remember that the reason I'm going to talk to Steve is he has expressed X and he wants to learn more. Even though 20 minutes ago I got a call that said, sorry, the loan was not approved and it was the line of credit that we were really hoping to get. Absolutely fill in the blank with the circumstance. And Steve, this is so, I hope for our audience it's so eye opening because I think in many respects, especially new entrepreneurs, right, it can be okay, I've got this product, I need to go sell it. I need to get, I need to get people to buy this product so we can drive the revenue so we can continue to grow. And the mindset thing, it's totally out the window.

It's not even a, it's, it's not even a thought.

Absolutely. And let me, let me give you a little science behind this because I think it'll help. Number one, if you're a high I, like me, if somebody says no to you, you tend to internalize and take it personally.

As in with disc, right?

Is that as in with disc, I'm sorry? As in with a disc assessment, personality assessment. I'm a high D, high I. And so I still have the drive and all of that, the dominance with the D. But a lot of times, depending on your personality, if you're a high I or high S, where the people interaction is so important to you, then you know, getting a no from somebody you know can. If you don't have a way to navigate that, you can internalize it. Let me, let me explain what happens. So let's say we're talking about a normal entrepreneur that's going through their day and things are going pretty well and they get a no. Well, here's what happens.

Immediately. Disappointment, everything sets in. You go into this, what's called the valley of despair, where you feel disappointed, frustrated, anxious, stressed, whatever. Eventually what will happen is you'll come to acceptance and hope again so you can move forward. Here's the key. If you can leverage emotional intelligence to shorten the time span that you're in the valley of despair, then you can keep going and do more. You know what I find with sales people that I coach and, and train a lot of them, it's something like they get the first no. Of the day becomes their stopping point.

They don't go. They don't. Well, today's shot. I'm not going to do anything else. And the problem is at 2 o' clock that afternoon, they might have made the biggest sale of their life. And Steve, they're in that valley of despair.

Yeah. And your point about that, I'm referencing to just an event about three weeks ago. All right. I had someone who came up to me after a talk and was super excited and wanted to know more about how we do what we do and you know, we need to talk and, and we agreed that, you know what, once we get back to home and all the rest, I'll message you and blah, blah, blah. And I, and I'm being fair to this person. They may have had some circumstance in life that I know nothing about.

Right.

Fill in the blank. But on the whole, I, I was ghosted. I like zero response to anything. Nothing. Right. And, and I did, I was disappointed because they seemed so engaged and so excited and wanted to learn more. And I did. I went into that valley.

But here's what's interesting. And I, I'm loving this. Selfishly, Steve, I didn't stay there very long.

Good.

And I've, I've got my own. I, I call them talk tracks, mental talk tracks. And I basically whenever this kind of thing happens, because it does happen, we all are going to hear no's, we're all going to be ghosted, whatever it may be. And I just said, you know what? I'm not in the chasing business. I'm in the attraction business. And if it's not going to be a good fit for them, I don't want to force it. It's time to move on. Yeah.

And does that mean I moved on and the next call was the biggest sell of my life? No, it does not. Right. But what it means, I'm healthier by being able not to linger because I've done that. I mean, I can go back in time in my corporate life where what you described first. No. At 10am the day's over. Yeah, the days over.

Yeah, absolutely. And long time ago, as a salesperson, I made up my mind that every no I got was a not yet. Either I didn't answer something correctly or they're not ready or something. Unless somebody looked at me and said, go away and never come back. That was, to me, that was a real no. Okay. Right.

That's how you're gonna have to say that.

You're gonna have to verbalize that as Far as I'm concerned, right, you hit on something really important here, and that is the, the constructs that we create, not only to move forward, but to protect ourselves and to understand we, we are in the attraction business, not the chasing business. And so when you think about, you know, we've talked about several of these different steps. We've talked about, you know, be passionate, be authentic. You know, people buy from people first. People buy from people they like and trust. Clarity, sales. Here's the next big thing to understand. 80% or more of sales happen after the fifth contact.

So if you don't have a good followup process in place, if you give up after one or two contacts, or even three or four, you're missing out on 80% of the sales. So, and, and that's, that's hard data from, from research that I can show people. What does that mean? Well, again, as an entrepreneur, we didn't create our businesses to be full time salespeople. So what I want you to think about is liberating structures, setting up structures that free you up to do more of what you want to do. That means CRM system or a spreadsheet. I started out in my sales before CRM systems. That'll tell you how old I am.

But you don't look at and you don't act it, Steve. So, you know, thank you.

I, I am very technologically oriented today. You know, I'm using AI and I'm using all, you know, all kinds of different chann and all that.

But y.

Here's the reality. I started out with a very simple spreadsheet. Who is it? What's the opportunity? What's the expectation about when it might close? And what was the last step I took with that person? What's the next step I need to take with that person? And I would just keep going back and updating that spreadsheet over and over and over and having some kind of a structure and organization around follow. Because here's what happens if you're an entrepreneur. I guarantee you I would if I were a betting man. I put money down on this. You will get a nice big project and you'll be so focused on that project that when it gets done, you don't have the next sale.

Oh, absolutely.

Because you've been doing the project, you're doing the thing you love doing, and that's great. But the problem is if you're in business, if you're helping people, if you're a solopreneur or even small organization without a salesperson or Sales team. You are it. And so you have to create a pipeline. And that's a whole nother discussion about how to create a pipeline depending on who you are. One of the other things I want to add to this that I think is really important, do not try to be all things to all people. If you homogenize yourself, you become generic and you become irrelevant because almost like a commodity, right? Yeah. You look like everybody else out there.

I get a minimum of five LinkedIn contacts a day about wanting to do marketing for me. Okay, that's five a day, folks, every day of the year. There's only two I've ever responded to. Do you know why I respond to those two? Because what they said was so intriguing to me that I just wanted to applaud them for their approach. Now, I didn't have the money to spend with them, but I did applaud them for their approach. And that is always go back to the emotional drivers. If someone, if you can intrigue someone, that is critical. You know, I know we've got other topics to cover here, but I want to share.

Oh, this is great. This is great. Steve. I'm, I. And I have to warn our audience. I, you know, Steve and I have known each other for a long time, so sometimes it's like Eric and Steve are just having a conversation. And when. When are they going to talk about.

Here's the thing for everyone out there. I'll have Steve's information in the show notes, if you want to know, like, give me that formula. Give me that process. He'll be more than happy to interact with you, to talk to you, and, and you'll get it firm because I know we haven't gone in sequential order here. So having said that, go ahead.

Yes. And, and I would love to have a conversation with people.

Yeah.

So let me. If you're an entrepreneur, salesperson, business owner, wherever you are in your life, let me give you a proven neuroscience approach to successfully selling that has very little to do with sales techniques or tactics. You know what frustrates me more than anything is all of these big time sales trainings out there. None of them deal with what we're dealing with right here, which is the mindset and the emotional intelligence and the psychology of selling and, and how all of that works. There are four simple steps to fast track your sales success. I call it hot cognition in sales. Well, that's a whole. You can look that up.

Yep.

I actually, I used a term I promised myself I would never use today. Right. My dad always said look it up, you'll remember it longer. Well, I used it on my granddaughter the other day and I thought, oh my gosh, I've Monday. But bottom line, here's what happens. Step number one is trust, which is the release of the hormone oxytocin. Okay? Oxytocin is the familial hormone. So if, if your person you're talking to can see you as a person, a real human being who cares about them, who practices empathy with them, who, who, who is just a real human being like everybody else, if they see you that way, the trust level goes up because of this oxytocin that is released in their brain.

The second thing is what we call the reward system or dopamine.

Dopamine.

Can they see the reward of working with you? Now, human beings are amazing. We are the only animal created that can actually experience reward and joy and all of that ahead of time, ahead of the situation that actually happens. So if you can help them see the reward, dopamine gets released. And I had a friend of mine, an owner in a company who said, I get that. That's when my wife orders from Amazon today and gets it tomorrow. I said, yes, that's exactly.

You understand, and so does Amazon.

And the problem is she's looking at this, going the credit card bill, he's looking at that. She's not so.

Right.

She's getting her dopamine fix at a cost. But it's really important that they can see the reward number three step, which is really important. The person needs to enjoy being around you. Okay? You need to have enjoyable connections. That is endorphins. Endorphins are released. Endorphins are those make you feel good kinds of things. You know, you've got people in your life that you just like being around.

It's just enjoyable to be around those people. And the fourth thing that happens, we're building up to a critical fourth element here, which is when the buyer gets excited and adrenaline kicks in. Adrenaline is the action hormone where they pour their own energy into the sales process and go, oh yeah, let's do this, let's go forward. And if you do this right, closing the deal is anticlimactic. They built up this internal desire to work with you. So that's a four step process I call hot cognition in sales that anybody can do. You don't need special training.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Steve, I mean that, that's just wonderfully illustrated. And I think about it for you, you mentioned about the marketing outreaches that you get. We get probably about the same amount for the podcast for people who want to be on the show or from primary firms who are, you know, working for. Maybe it's an author or someone else. And it's interesting because like you the most of the time I don't respond to them. But the times that I have, it's when the person approached it from the perspective of I have a story, I have something that I have focused on that is going to change the world, going to improve this, going to improve that, versus an approach of I'm so and so or I represent so and so who is has done this, done this, done this, can tell your audience about this, this, this, this and this. And I go, no.

And once again, I'm not a judge, so if that's your model and that's what you're running with, then so be it. But I'm interested in something that's going to evoke and is going to connect with the audience. And I sat this conversation just this morning. It's like I realize more and more every day my clients and my audience are the reason I have to exist as it relates to this endeavor. Without them, there's no reason for me at all. And I get it. Someone could say, well, that makes sense because it's the math, Eric and revenue and profit and loss. But it's bigger than that.

It's. I mean it is. And I think you illustrated that because I think your four step process, that hot cognition and sales, what you're doing in many ways is you're helping that other person because their brain is being ignited in ways that moves them versus you trying to control them. And come on. And here's why and when would you like to start? And I mean, yeah, that's just. Oh, that's fabulous. All right. Because I'm not Andrew Huberman and do two and a half hour, three hour podcast.

Oh, I don't understand why not?

I'm going to go to the next thing which does, by the way, connect to. You mentioned CRM. So there is this part because the entrepreneurs that we've interacted with oftentimes are very aspirational. They're very passionate about what they're wanting to offer. What I wonder, Steve, is there is this sort of could be a healthy impatience. But they want to know when can.

I and when will this take off?

If I do the things that you said, the win. Now my gut tells me, Steve, you don't have some magical answer that, hey, if you do the hot cognition, you will start two weeks from today. I get that. Yeah. But answer that. But then also let's touch on why is it important to use tools like AI and a CRM system and that kind of thing as well.

Yeah, a precursor to that. Met a guy recently, Kevin McCarthy, and read his book the On Purpose Person. And I'm not going to go into all of that. Great guy, love him, wonderful man of faith and, and all of that. Really enjoy his work. But he came out of that with two words, purpose. Meaning can you define your purpose to someone in two words? If you can do that as an entrepreneur. So my two words are equip people.

I equip people to live their best life, do their best work, whatever it is, that's what I do. If you can get that clear in your mind where you can present what you can bring to people as your two word purpose, why is that important? Because there are so many distractions out there for us and we tend to gravitate to the things we're more comfortable doing, not the things that are more difficult for us, like maybe sales. Okay. And so I think what to expect is slow growth. And don't be afraid when you're first starting out or in your first couple of three years, take on some things that may be new to you. Now I got an old salesperson as a mentor when I just started in sales and he had a saying that I don't know that I completely agree with, but it actually works. Go ahead and sell it and then figure out how to do it. And you know, I thought, wait a minute, how does that work? But you know something, and I'm gonna say, please hear my heart on this.

The biggest roadblock to your success is you. It's self limitation. It is fear of this or anxiety about that or, or, or am I going to be accepted? If you're going to be an entrepreneur, it's not an easy road. Okay. It's not for the, the faint of heart, so to speak. And you're gonna have to get over the people pleasing thing pretty quickly because you're never going to please everybody. As a matter of fact, you only need to please a few people every year. And you will have a very successful business.

Because in, in, at least in what Eric and I do, it doesn't take that many clients in a year for us to have a very nice revenue stream. So get past the people pleasing thing. You don't need to please everybody. And Eric, that goes back to your attraction mode versus chasing mode. Right? We don't chase everybody.

Yeah.

The best Things that happen are when somebody's needs and our resources just fit perfectly, perfectly. And it's just a wonderful, easy, natural, organic kind of thing. So, yeah, you're looking to have those conversations with people that are attracted to what you do. Now I understand it's difficult to get those conversations when you're first starting and hey, it's still difficult for Eric and I to get those conversations. You know, economy change, the world changes and all of that. Don't expect fast growth. But here's what you can do to leverage trust building. Because here's the deal.

57 to 60% of the sales decision, the buying decision is made before they ever talk to somebody. Buyers are more informed today than ever before. Why that? We have AI, we have Google, we have all of this. They can do all kinds of research, they can do all kinds of AI work. They can, they can do all kinds of things that give them a lot of good information. So we have to be hyper focused on what our two word purpose is and what we're bringing to the table. That means niche marketing. It means focusing.

Don't try to do, I can do 28, 000 different things for people, but if I try to express that in my website or somewhere else, yeah, I'm just lost. I mean I get lost in the noise. So I think that focus is so very important. And don't be deterred by the. No, don't, don't be. Just think of it as not yet. And every, no, you get every opportunity. You get to talk to someone.

You should be journaling or taking notes somewhere and somehow about what happened, you know, what it, what worked, what didn't work, what could I try differently next time? That is a part of your growth mindset. That is a part of developing that mind, part of your mindset, which is the growth mindset. So that's the expectation. Now how do you leverage what you can, you can do LinkedIn, you can do a LinkedIn newsletter. Silly me, I didn't think about a LinkedIn newsletter till earlier this year. And this part of my, this business has been here for 10 years. I'm going, I don't know where my brain was. I went from zero subscribers to over a thousand subscribers on my newsletter in one month.

Wow.

On LinkedIn now I have 9,000 plus connections. There's another thing. Get on LinkedIn and connect with people now. Precursor to that, build an attractive profile, make it clear what you do. And there's all kinds. You don't need to hear this from me. There's all kinds of research and, and the materials online, you can learn how to build a really good profile. I, I have a YouTube channel, I have a podcast.

I have all kinds of avenues to build trust. Here's the key. Find the things that you can do with very little cost, and most of this to me is almost zero cost to find those things you can do and build trust by presenting yourself.

Yeah, I love that.

Makes sense.

Yes, totally. And I think it also speaks to, and I hate to disappoint any of the new entrepreneurs out there who are searching for the quick hit rocket ship experience. And I know there are products and services that might fit that description, but typically that's not the case. And I think if we can turn off the glamour meter that is being perpetrated about entrepreneurism, I think we, we would realize that, you know, this is a long game. It's not a, it's not short.

Absolutely. And understand you're not just building your business, you're building you.

Yeah.

Who are, who do you want to become? I think that's a really important question to answer, and that's the beauty of inviting others into your journey is I have recently started a new series on YouTube on my YouTube channel that's called Emotionally Intelligent Living Straight Talk with Steve. And I am literally going unscripted for 15 minutes, you know, just randomly, whenever I, I get the urge, which I get the urge a lot. So something wrong with me, I guess. But I love talking to people. But those are such authentic videos. It's not a teaching thing. It's not a, it's not even a podcast thing. Yeah, just I want to share my heart about something that I've been thinking about and that is very engaging.

Long form videos are, are trending much higher than short videos on YouTube. Now. The algorithms switch all the time. Do not chase the algorithms. Oh, yeah, just don't do it.

It is a losing game. It's kind of like Vegas. You are not going to beat Vegas.

Now, I have put out short videos on YouTube that have got thousands and thousands of views, and I've got zero business out of those. Okay. So people want. You don't need that many followers, that many subscribers to find 10 or 15 that you can work with and want to work with. And, and I love that.

I love that, Steve, because I think there is the perception that it must be giant numbers. It must be tons and tons of likes and tons and tons of views. But I would say to every entrepreneur, and it's one that I remind myself of in my entrepreneur Journey. Exactly how many is it that you need? I mean, really. I mean, take the average cost of your various offerings. Right. And do the math. And remember, Steve, I could talk all day long about, man, I want to.

I want to scale this thing, and I want to. I'm going to grow ten times. Well, okay, so if you're at that X level now, and it's a. And it's a. And it's a challenge to keep up, you're doing well. That's a great thing. And then you want 10 times that. So how are you gonna.

How exactly are you gonna handle it? It kind of reminds me of the lottery, right? The person has been relatively poor or relatively, you know, successful with a small amount, and they're dreaming of something ginormous. Like. So exactly what is your experience with ginormous? Yeah. Right.

And the funny thing about what you just said, Eric, the stats tell us 85% of lottery winners are bankrupt in less than 18 months.

Yeah. And that what the size of the winning is, that is the sobering side of it. And I think it has some connection into this. Right. Because I know for a fact, Steve, you know, one of the. I would say one certain way to wreck a business is to have it experience a tsunami of interest because you're not able to keep your promises anymore. You're not able to be authentic, or you. You lose sight of authenticity.

And then all of a sudden, and I'll never forget, I had this entrepreneur. This is many, many years ago, and he was in the wine business, and he started with one place, and then he. He moved to a second place. And then he got the attention of a developer who wanted to, like, open him in multiple spots, wherever the developer was going, bring him along. And he was over the moon because it was. And he was getting media attention and all the rest. And I remember I went to breakfast with him, and he was somber, and, you know, I didn't know him well enough to kind of, hey, are you doing all right? Type thing. We're out in the parking lot, Steve, and he says to me, he says, you know, Eric, you dream of being this big.

And he. For those of aren't watching the video, you dream of being this big. And then when you get this big, you dream of being back to being this small.

There's a lot of truth in that. Oh, a couple of realities. You can sell yourself out of business. I have seen fairly large organizations sell themselves out of business because they could not. They could not fulfill their promises. I'm going to give you A personal example of that, what you just said. I, in this business that I've had for about 10 years, a few years ago I really wanted to drive more one on one coaching engagements. And I got that number up to 42 people a month.

And I, I can tell you 42 one on one coaching engagements a month because there's other work that goes into that. It isn't just an hour, you better believe it. There's a lot of other work that goes into that. And I looked around and said, okay, this is insane. What idiot decided they wanted to do this? And I, I started to pare back because I, I now kind of know where my sweet spot is. And here's, here's something that I hope encourage you because I know that I'm going to limit the number of one on one engagements I have. I was able to raise my prices because I am now a valuable, you know, investment in somebody's personal development. And so where I used to charge a lesser amount for this service, I now can charge more because I'm taking less people.

I know that may sound a little.

Crazy, but it's not as work it does. Steve, I, and I, I know exactly what you're talking about. And I think that comes back to that mindset thingy and because I know there, there are entrepreneurs who they're nervous about how much they charge for. Fill in the blank. Right, right. And I think if you can get that mindset thing going. Right, yes. You can begin to go, you know what? I am going to raise my prices.

And I do realize that's going to take some people out of the market. It's going to have some people that are going to say, no, I, I'm not paying that much. But you will find those that can and will and those are the ones that you should be working with based on your model. Because I think Steve, and I know, at least my perspective was when you have multiple offerings, individual, group and whatever, you know, because I like you, I had, you know, people saying, hey, so and so referred me to you, said that you do individual and well, sure, yeah, we can. And I kept saying sure, yeah, we can. And then all of a sudden, you know, I'm looking at my calendar and, and Steve, you've known me for a while, so this is not going to shock you. But I only have so much bandwidth from a mental energy perspective and what I refuse to do, if I'm going to work with you one on one and I got to give it my all and if I'm finding Well, I can't give you my all because I'm overwhelmed with these three other things. And then it becomes a case of you'll find yourself sitting there in that one on one and you're drifting.

You'll sit there in that one on one and you'Re. And you're like, wait a minute. I think I heard what they were saying and I, I did remember. And then I thought all of the above. And ultimately, I know for certain if there's one cardinal rule that we have, we are not just going to take people's money. Not going to just. Even if you said I can afford it, even if you said I want to do it, if it's not a fit, I got to say no. I can't say yes to that kind of thing because it's.

In the long run, it's not going to be good. It's just not going to be good. Well, Steve, this has been a great conversation, and I knew it was going to be just judging by the fact that we're going past an hour. So what I would just say maybe as we close out, I know we've talked about a lot of things. Is there one thing that you might throw out to that again, that newer entrepreneur or maybe even the older entrepreneur who's just looking to refresh and to maybe refine just something that you could leave them with? And once again, for our audience, Steve's information will be in the show notes. If there's something that you specifically want to talk to him about, you'll be able to do that. But what's maybe one thing as we close out?

Yeah, I think one of the most difficult things that we all face as entrepreneurs is imposter syndrome and, you know, not trusting ourselves. Let me help you get past that as quickly as possible. You are one of one. There is no one else like you. There has never been anybody else like you. What you bring to people is unique. If you'll be authentic, if you'll figure out your. Your two word purpose, if you'll stay focused, you bring value.

So when you think about growing yourself and then growing your business, it is about bringing real value to people. And you know what that does? It builds credibility. You can be reliable and follow through with people well, because you have a clear pathway that, you know, whoever wants to join you on that journey as a client can join you on that pathway you have created for yourself.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So, Steve, once again, thank you for coming on the show and for our audience. As always, we're glad you're with us. We look forward to the next time that we're together. Take care.