Going For Stupid With Steve Sims

Andy Splichal 0:00

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. And today I believe you are in for a great show, because I have a very special guest. This guest was dubbed the real life Wizard of Oz by Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine. He is the best selling author of the book blue fishing, the art of making things happen. He is the host of the art of making things happen podcast, he's a sought after coach and speaker in a variety of networks, groups and associations as well as the Pentagon and Harvard twice. In addition, he is a repeat guest here at the making each count podcast, a big welcome to Steve Sims. How have you been, Steve?

Steve Sims 0:39

I've been good and busy. But thanks for having me.

Andy Splichal 0:42

You know, that is one of our first questions is that you've been really busy. I follow you on social media and I I see you speaking all over the place. Is there an underlying message at the different places you speak? It's an underlying theme or is it just different everywhere you go?

Steve Sims 1:03

To? That's a fantastic question. And the answer is there's always going to be an underlying theme and thread. And that is how good we are. Or sadly, just how atrocious we are at the ability to communicate today. And so whether I'm at a real estate convention, a marketing, a branding, a motivational thing, whatever it is always comes down to our ability and inability to communicate.

Andy Splichal 1:36

And do you have you know, some speakers have a set number of speeches. Some just have one? Do you customize it for the audience? Or is it really the same topic just just kind of geared for who's who's listening.

Steve Sims 1:53

So the basic premise is always the same. But they are always tailored and tweaked and edited. Not only for the audience, but for the temperature. And that's what a lot of speakers don't always pay attention to. Actually Funny enough, the best groups to pay attention to temperature of a room are comedians, okay? Comedians always have to have a damn good warm up act first. So that any jokes they give afterwards land really easily. Speakers very rarely they they say, oh, no, your audience, but no the temperature of the room pay attention as to who's going on before you. So whenever I get a gig, I'll always be like, well, that's great. Okay, who are the people? What are the demographics? Why are they there? And who's on before me? Who are the like the three speakers prior to me? And what are they going to be taught and being given. So I know what the temperature is going to be, if they get up there. And all of a sudden, the person before me, gave a very heartfelt speech, and the entire audience is crying. Me coming on going, Hey, didn't you have a great time, I'm gonna sound like a moron. So I think it's very important for you to understand who you're talking to understand what they need to know. But also understand the temperature that they're currently in.

Andy Splichal 3:15

Now speak at a temperature, we're in a different changing economic environment. Where do you feel the biggest opportunity is right now for somebody looking to expand their influence online?

Steve Sims 3:30

There has never been a better time than now. It's, you know, COVID was a precious gift to people trying to get that message out there. You see, temperature is something I talk about a lot. In today's temperature, we're not tolerant. Now. Would you say you're a salesman?

Andy Splichal 3:50

I'm a salesman? Yes.

Steve Sims 3:52

Right. Okay, anyone that's got a product that goes out or voice whenever there are some form of salesman now, how many times in your past years, have you been trying to buy something and the salesman has suddenly gone down a funnel with you? And you know, you're going down, you almost can't avoid it. But you kind of go, I don't want to buy these hair products. But wow, this is a slick line I've read they always say no one's easier to sell to than a salesman. But how many times have you been down that that flow and those one liners and you've gone? Well, I kind of respect the eye here. This is a bit slick. Have you ever had that? I've had that right. Now, we don't like it. Today. We're not tolerant on it because today, we've been fed with one liners since the beginning of COVID. We've had everything from me to Black Lives, Asian hate, politics, war, disease, controversy, all of these different things. We as a as a species have never been More, don't dilute with that probably not the right term with noise. So we have no tolerance anymore. I need clarity, I've got a toilet that needs to be fixed, fix it, I've got a problem with my marketing, fix it, I've got this, I need this. Now because of that, we're searching for that clarity. We're not tolerant to any of the Bs, and a pretty little people leaning up against cars they don't own. So when you go online, and you can be crystally clear, you, you make it very easy for someone out there to go. Now this is a person I like. So in today's game, you want to get a head start of marketing branding, expanding your company, clearly and concisely explain the solution you provide to which market and you'll find no better growth than today.

Andy Splichal 5:57

Now, most of the listeners on this show are ecommerce, business owners, ecommerce marketers, but what advice would you give to somebody just starting an E commerce business compared to somebody say doing 2 million a year already.

Steve Sims 6:14

Um, the advice is the same. You see the data often today is the playing field changes every three months. You know, you look at COVID, you look at politics, you look at the device, you look at all of these things, everything cause that temperature to change. A lot of marketers are brilliant at knowing the audience. Crap or understanding the temperature. You see, let's see. Let's say for argument's sake, something happens tomorrow. We've got inflation coming at us recession, depression, all of these different things. Let's say for argument's sake, there was news that the aliens had landed, that would be something else for us to be bothered about. It would alter our temperature, let's just say for argument's sake, tomorrow, the war ended, inflation stopped, again, our temperature would change, the audience would stay the same. But the temperature to change, really, I don't care if you're starting off in EA marketing. I don't care if you've been around for 50 years and the thing, you've got to focus not only your community, but what mood are they in?

Andy Splichal 7:20

Now you've you've touched on a lot of things, it's happening now. And I hate to put you on the spot. But if you had a magic ball, where you could see the business environment, next 12 or 18 months, where do you foresee things going?

Steve Sims 7:32

What business environment? Do you want to join nailed down? Or do we want to talk generic?

Andy Splichal 7:37

Let's, let's talk to Derrick, where do you see people buying online is do you see people returning to the stores more now that COVID is getting by us? Do you see online getting bigger and bigger? Just continuing on the same trajectory? Where do you see that going?

Steve Sims 7:53

So I see the I see E commerce becoming bigger. I see more people buying on that I know me personally, I like to buy as much as I can online. But let's understand why we actually go in a store. Nine times out of 10 people go into to the store to understand the quality, the brand, what it stands for, and then they buy it online. For me, I'll often go in there as well, because of the communication. I'll go into like a bike store, because of the camaraderie, you know, buying bike parts from a bike shop, from a dude that likes bikes, you know. So there's a camaraderie, you got to understand. When it gets down to the basic principles of us being human. We like to connect there will be I believe, a revolt. And I think that everyone's trying to get online because it's convenient. But then we miss out on the whole. What's the point of a Saturday afternoon? No, I think the world of the malls are going. But look at Tesla. Tesla sell cars in malls because they want to give you the experience. They went to where people were on a Saturday afternoon, and they were the first car company to ever do that. I think that there's going to be just as much online growth. I think that's not going to slow down. But I think there's also a requirement and a lot of people I've seen doing this for pop ups, even Amazon are doing pop ups now there's a motorcycle store online have done incredibly well called Revzilla. They've now started pop ups. There are companies to do jewelry online, start doing pop ups here in Malibu. So I think the pop up store where people can actually go in and interact. Just get a little bit of a feeling on it. I think that's gonna grow.

Andy Splichal 9:36

Let's switch gears now and talk about your new book. Go for Stupid: The art of achieving ridiculous goals. What's the book about and when will it be available?

Steve Sims 9:47

Well, that's easy, but it's available on October the 18th. And I've got to tell you where it came from before I can tell you what it's about. On March. I forget what the exact date was on March when COVID told Lawson Angeles and we began to be clamped down. I actually was a bit happy because I was always on flights. And the one thing that we got from COVID was more time, it was like us being given a nine day week, we had more time, we didn't have to go out, we didn't have to see people, it was more time for us to create impact. But it was also the period of great excuse. And I really hate the fact that everyone was the AR COVID. It's I can't connect, I can't meet people. I can't go to the gym. It really made me smile, when people were stood there going, Oh, I can't go to the gym when they would never go into the gym before. But we found it as a great excuse. And you remember seeing the amount of people on social going well, what can I binge watch on Netflix? Yeah, this was a phenomenal opportunity to us and again, understand what it did to us as as a species. We're pack animals, when you stick an animal in a cage for a long time. And then you go and try and pet it. What does it do? It bites you, it doesn't reward you for coming in to say, Hi, it's got anguished, he's got angry, it's got annoyed, it's got pent up all of that frustration, and then it'll bite your hand as you come into that pain cage. Now, we had that in a time where for two years, we couldn't connect. What did we start doing, we started biting each other. The gotcha society was suddenly developed, the cancer cultural culture was developed. I don't want that anymore. Oh, look at him, he dressed up as a penguin in 1967. That's biased to penguins, he should be canceled forever. We had protests marches that came about because we were pent up and frustrated. Go for stupid actually started off because I started posting on my Instagram pages, I suppose slightly harsh attacks at these kinds of people that were blaming other people for them in efficiencies. And then I started delving into a bit more and I realized that in today's world, we're not find of trying, we're actually not even find a failing, we find people seeing us fail, and given them ammunition to be canceled on some kind of Instagram post. Now, if you look at all of the people we revere, you look at Elon Musk, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, name someone they you review and admire. And they went for stupid goals. They went for goals that were literally laughable until they were achieved. And then we applauded them. And I couldn't understand why we're in a society where we actually want to build people up and then quite simply drag them down. So I started looking at my life, I started looking at how I deal with, with people, how I deal with relationships, how I deal with connections, and then I started having conversations with some of the greatest people I know. And there's quotes in there from Elon Musk, and Jay Abraham and Elton John, where we've actually been able to converse about what is going on in today's world. And what you can do to change your mindset, because 99% of the problems today, start off in your head. And if you can change the mindset of which you receive this information, let them let me give you a perfect example. You know, when someone comes over to your house one time they bought a new car, and let's say for argument's sake, it's a funny shade of mustardy, yellow, and you look at this car and you think, I have never seen that color car before. In my life. It's ridiculously bloody ugly. When you're driving down the road, what's the only color car color of a car you can see? It's gonna be the yellow. Now, just imagine if that was your mindset tuned for opportunity at the moment, or we can see his negativity, negativity, conspiracy, politics, you know, hatred. And so what do we see? But if all of a sudden you start looking at that yellow car and go, Hey, that's opportunity. What do you see every day, and entrepreneurs became hugely successful in a bad market, because they trained their mind to be receptive to opportunity. And my old dad used to say he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He said, The riches guy on a rainy day. Is the guy selling the umbrellas. I honestly welcome what's going on because people aren't gonna stop spending money. They're gonna question where they spend money. And if your value then you're gonna get more of these clowns now.

So is the book. Is it like, is it more of a how to, here's how you create the goals is what you do next, or is it a bunch of inspirational stories? What's the layout of the book?

I'm always concerned when I use the word inspirational. You can be great because As you know, I don't know if you can. But there is a lot of little stories in there. What I've got up to over my years and who I've dealt with, says a lot of little stories. I've talked now about some of the relationships, some of the amazing things I pulled off for some very powerful people, but then how they view the mindset, how they view. So it's got the antidotes, it's got stories, but it's also got tactics and tips in how to be able to train it. So it's no good me sitting down and going, well, you know, Elon Musk, and myself, you know, mindset, blah, blah, blah, without going, and this is what you need to do. And we've actually done it, so that at the end of every chapter, there's actually a little worksheet there. So that worksheet is there for you to be able to tweak how you actually see things and hopefully get you seen those must have car versions of opportunities from each chapter.

Now, your first book, Blue Fish - the art of making things happen? I mean, it was fantastic. It's one of my favorite business books, I've read it two times. Is this new book? Does it expand on the first book? Or is it a completely separate thought?

I don't think it's a separate thought, because it's still from the mind of a below average bricklayer from East London that just happens to be doing this. So I don't think it's a completely new thought. I do believe it's a complete standalone. So it's not one of these books where you got to go, well, I'll get go for stupid, but I better get blue fish. And first, you can do both. You can do either or blue fish had my origins, my stories how I did it. But as hopefully you would agree it gave some ideas of how you could stand out and a very noisy environment. This takes that theme a lot further, how to identify what your unicorn is, and how to really surpass all of your competition by purely just showing up as you and really focusing on the sole thing you need to today, which is the two C's cloudy and communication.

Which book is better?

Wow, which poll which book answers which problem? That's That's like asking is, you know, can you do a hair cut with a lawnmower? I don't know. I will say this, my wife would read blue fish. And we didn't expect blue fishing to actually be successful, certainly than expected to be a worldwide bestseller. When I wrote this book, I was very nervous, but also aggravated, which is how a lot of people write their books. I was activated enough to hopefully to help people to change. So I get a bit more of the kind of world I want to live in. My wife read it. And that she came into the bedroom one night, she said I finished the book and I looked at it. I was like, yeah, and she went, was actually a lot better than bluefish. And I was like, wow, but I don't know what that means. I reckon somebody could read this, and find that it gets them in the right mindset, and then look at Blue Fish and go without some nice little stories. And then I reckon other people could read blue fish and and get more energy from it from go from stupid, but I think you've really got to focus on what are you today? Do you want to increase your standards? Do you want to learn how not to settle all those people out there trying to fit in? Do you realize you're not supposed to? Therefore, this is how you're supposed to go forward? You have all those aggravated people that want more from the life, I would definitely say go for stupid.

If you ever think you'd be writing a second book,

oh, my God, I never thought I'd write the first one. And my dad still loves. honestly never thought I'd do do a book one. And when it came out, I was like, woof, wow. And I say I'm an author never do that. Again. It was annoyance and aggravation that made me go Oh, hang on a minute, do I need to bring this out. And of course, I spoke to a few people in my coaching groups and in the media, and I said that this is annoying. And I got it. You need to put this out. You know, I've got obviously I've got connections, I've got stories. So if it can get people to get out of the way of their own selves, then I hate to sound kind of blase, but I almost was obligated to release it. But no, I really, really never had any idea to be a second book.

Do you have plans for a third book or beyond? Did anything else come out while you were looking at this? And you know that so I'll put that on the backburner for later. Maybe maybe that's another idea.

Oh, rest and sleep. I've been doing a lot of podcasts, a lot of speaking gigs, getting ready for the launch of this book. So I would say this moment in time. Do I have any idea of a third book? I think the raging answer will be like a hell no. But I don't know Is something going to aggravate me and piss me off in the future that needs attention. Maybe I'm an easily aggravated guy. But at this moment in time, no. I had also thought of not doing the audio version for This book because for anyone that's ever done an audio version of a book, it's not a nice thing. You're in usually a soundproof room. No scene, I love scenery, all of my house has natural light. So doing an audio book and a little thing that's like the size of a port, a cabin, a little port toilet is horrible. So the idea of me doing an audio version was like, nope, not doing it. And there's been such an onslaught from people going, Hey, you don't an audio version. I now have to do that. So I hated it. But it did very well. For me. More importantly, it did very well for people listening to it. So we'll do an audio version. But that's the only thing that I'm focused on now doing the audio version, and relaxing.

Now, with this new book, Go for Stupid. Are you going to need to change some of your branding that you've already done around your first book Blue Fishing?

No, no, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. You see, I think I've always been very transparent. I've always been very obvious. And I've always been impossible to misunderstand. I think this is an extension of that. I think we're in a world today where we go online, and the first thing we do is to pretend to be somebody that we're not. So we don't look too silly. And I'm there to say, Hey, show up as you walks in all be you make it impossible for me to misunderstand who you are what you're about. So now none of my branding or marketing would change. And knowing what I know now, would I have still written blue fishing away? It was absolutely.

What do you think, would be the biggest piece of actionable advice that somebody is going to take away from the new book?

So I would like to see people think twice before they deer point and giggle. You see, we see people online, they buy a new car, and they will post it on Instagram. There's maybe a ton of people that won't even dare do that. And what do we do we are looking at sports or midlife crisis, or you've got a small p p here, and we laugh. Well, how about just applaud it? How about going hey, you worked your tits off for that car? Well done. Congratulations. You enjoy it. You know, why don't we start focusing on that kind of positivity rather than looking for an angle to actually hate and put just perpetuate hate and negativity? Why don't we actually support and challenge someone when someone's got a podcast like yours? If someone's got a podcast? Why don't we start sharing other people's podcasts? We can't have too much positivity in this planet, but we've got too much negativity in it. So I would like people to challenge to support to be open. It's like you, you see a mate and you go, Hey, how are you doing? And they go, Hey, I'm great. I'm fine. Why don't you just stop, catch your breath? Look him in the eye and go right. Now that we got that out of the way? How are you doing? Why don't we actually pursue to find out what's going on in someone that we care about life that we could possibly add to and assist.

That's great advice. With your book, how can an interested listener? Find out more about it and where can they purchase it.

So head over to Steve D Sims. You can even follow me on Instagram. I'm Steve D Sims D for dashing and only 1 M in Sims, I'm Steve D Sims, any way you consume your media, I'm the exact same on Twitter, LinkedIn, anywhere Instagram, I'm at SteveDSims.com. subscribe to the newsletter or follow me on one of those, it comes out on 18th of October. But if you want to be one of the first superduper people to know about it, text the word Sims to 233777. Now sadly, that's only available for US carriers. But if you text me, you'll be the first person to know when it comes out. And it comes out on Amazon on the 18th of October.

And if someone is interested in connecting with you further regarding to being a speaker or a coach or consultant, how should they contact you that way?

Well, if you head over to SteveDSims.com. I try to make my life very easy. You can find out about everything from Sims distillery, coaching, speaking anything. It's all there. In fact, I've got the links up at the top. And there's one out there that just quite simply says, speaker and that will give you all the information you need to know if you want to light you audience up.

Fantastic. Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Yes, do not buy the book. If you just want to read it for a giggle. I want people to implement an action. Otherwise it's a waste of our time.

Well, this has been great. Thank you again for joining us, Steve.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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