Unbound with Chris DuBois

Have you nailed the story you need to go to market? Today's guest can help you leader trying to get more from your business and life. Me too. So join me as I document the conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois.

Bruce shear is the CEO of inspire your buyers.com and President of the National Speakers Association Northwest he has applied and honed his go to market narrative development model with industry giants such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Google and many more. Versus a featured keynote speaker for industry and client events and has recently published a book titled inspire your buyers go to market with a story that sizzles. We are going to talk more about that today. Bruce, welcome to unbound.

Thanks a lot, Chris. I'm excited to be on the unbound podcast with you. Awesome.

Yeah, this one is going to be a lot of fun, because we are going to get very much into go to market narratives. But to open up, I would just love to hear your backstory.

My backstory? Well, Chris, I think we laughed about that a while back, I started as a young young child and then I grew up. But effectively, Chris, for the last 25 years, I've really been focused on helping revenue leaders revenue teams go to market go to market with a narrative and what I know we'll be talking about that quite a bit. And other aspects of sales enablement. What's the key play? What target audience? Who are we going after? Who's our target buyers? And how do we approach them, so a lot of that go to market strategy. And Chris narrative is kind of the cherry on the top for me. And I also think it's probably the sharpest edge of the spear, you really got to get your story straight to be effective. And that's why I've just, I love it. I've kind of camped here and as you highlighted, as you talked about my bio a little bit recently, I have a best selling book on Amazon, Chris, I don't know if I mentioned that to you. But last week was a big week. I'm still pinching myself, you might see some red mark, but best selling book across five different categories, including, and investing in the granddaddy category of all nonfiction business books. So yeah, just lovely. Lovely response so far.

Yeah, that is awesome. And this is your first book, correct?

Yeah, yeah. First, and yeah, this one's gone so well, that now I'm planning on a second one. And perhaps a third. Yeah, you gotta keep rolling.

Yeah, it's like, where do you go from here when you're already at the top?

Gotta be a two times bestseller, and then a Three Times bestseller? And then

that's and again and again. You know, you're Seth Godin. Yeah, yeah. So I think probably a good place to start would just be how you define a go to market like story that sizzles. Oh, okay.

Yeah, sizzles. Boy, oh, boy, I had a lot of fun. Thinking about that. And coming up, you know, I had talked to another friend of mine, former client, and we'd never seen a good assessment for a story, a company's story or go to market story, go to market narrative. So I wanted to build an assessment. And then funny, I was working on my book title. And, Chris, when you write your book, have you written many books, Chris are many. There's many. I got it, I got it. It's common. So what happens when you write a book and a few different coaches told me this, that you'll write your whole book, and then you'll kind of scratch your head and might fumble around and you need to come up with a title for the book. So my initial title was called big bet narrative. And I was in love with that title because you know, I've worked with revenue teams, revenue leaders and investors put together what I was calling a big bet story. And you know, that was going to you know, either keep that ship afloat and moving forward or or maybe you know, sink but there was a big bet, being placed on on go to market success, right? So I framed it around that but man, I just got so much feedback. I really believe in testing your narrative testing and, and I applied that same principle to testing the title of my book, and people are misconstruing it and gotten me I don't understand gambling, you know, that's not cool. And so we reframe the whole thing around, you know, inspire your buyers go to market with a story that sizzles. And then, funny enough, after we framed sizzles, I started thinking about it. Could sizzles be an acronym for a framework for narrative assessment? And then I started playing with that, and lo and behold, it did for me, and then I've tested it a ton, and it's really played out quite well. But the S stands for structure. What's the structure The story you're telling, and a lot of people as they go to market structures, you know, there is no structure that kind of, you know, goes all over the place, lots of inconsistency, etc. So you got to get your structure right. Then after that you need The I stands for insights. Are you being insightful as you go to your target company and target buyer and start a dialogue with them? Is their insight in that conversation with that customer see that conversation is so great, that narrative so great, that they would have been willing to pay you for that for that conversation around that narrative structure. So that's insightful and narrative insightful. And then two z's in there for sizzles. The first Z stands for zippy, is the narrative zippy. And, Chris, I don't know if I mentioned to you, but one of my best friends, we've been friends for over 30 years out in Asia. He's a senior consultant. And he constantly does this with me. Meaning and for the listening audience, Chris, you know, he's kind of waving his finger around his ear, like going, Hey, hurry up, hurry up, I get it, I get it. And next chapter, next chapter. And he's somebody that has high clock speed. And many of the buyers that we're trying to get their attention and enter into dialogue with they have high clucks being too are you being zippy? Are you moving forward in that narrative in a way that's, that's pleasing? So that Zippy zappy? Is the second Z? And are you zapping that prospect with energy? Are they excited about the problem you're portraying? Are they? Are they excited about the potential outcome that you might be promising them? And? And are? Is your narrative bringing that enthusiasm into them? Or is it zapping them with energy? So that's the second ze L is for leaving? Does the narrative lead that buyer in the right direction to make the right choice with you? And then is it engaging that narrative? Is there? Is there a nice pacing between the buyer and and, and the storyline? And then finally, the final ask is, is there a little bit of sass? And not too much sass? We don't want to be disrespectful. But is there some spiciness to this narrative? You know, some great stats? Did you know or some epiphany that you can bring them through to where there's a little bit of sass in that story? So anyways, that's the framework that I use to assess, Hey, am I listening to a good narrative? And am I having a great selling conversation is there does it sizzle? Is there sizzle Ness in that, especially with that last test the SAS. So Chris, that's the structure. That's what sizzles means.

Okay, so I love these core elements, especially because I, before picking up a copy of your book, I was like, how is he going to make these use of these twosies? But the, I'd love to dive into some of these, specifically, structure and insights. Okay. And so how do you approach the proper structure for, for crafting this narrative is, I'm sure you've seen, there's so many different ways you go about this. How do you know which one is going to be the best fit for your company? Your go to market plan?

Yeah. Chris, what? You know, many folks have talked about this, you know, who's the hero in the story? You know, kind of everything kind of starts there. And funnily enough, on LinkedIn, there's been a big wave of people talking about Ogilvy Ogilvy and Mather, the old advertising agency, and they used to advocate you know, the product is the hero. But you know, what I've learned in helping you know, revenue teams and sellers go to market with a story that sizzles, the hero really should be, wait for it. Dot dot, dot, the buyer, that target buyer, and so in, in you, you would be amazed to how many people don't get that, right. As you're looking at websites, as you know, you ask yourself, who's the speaking to? Or as the seller shows up? Who are they speaking to? Are they are they talking about themselves? Are they using the words me and we a lot? Or are they talking about you, you as buyer, you as customer and the journey are going through? So and then also who's the buyer, that that can fundamentally shift the narrative structure completely? You know, based on you know, because you want to resonate, that's the ultimate goal of the story. You want to resonate with that target buyer? Who are they? And are you resonating with them, and that very often people get fundamentally off. So that's kind of the first starting point, you know, identifying who, who's the buyer, then you start to build the narrative structure around that, Chris. And there's a few different components of the narrative structure. Chris, you You and I played a little game right? Of what you're selling at the end of the day, do you remember that are in one of our pre calls here, getting ready for the show? You know, what are we selling at the end of the day? And very often I'll ask sellers that, what are we selling? Are we selling a product? Are we selling a solution or an outcome at the end of the day? And Chris, what's the typical trap? What are we selling? Do you remember

that people are trying to sell whatever their product is? Rather than?

Yeah, they typically lead with a solution. And that that's, that's what I see day in and day out, as I as I work with revenue teams is typically it starts and stops with the solution. And all the sellers are taught on that, you know, everybody's fallen in love with their own solution. So that's what they talk about. That's not the right narrative structure. You know, at the end of the day, you know, what I asked you as a trick question, you know, you're you're selling all three, the problem, the solution out in the outcome. And, Chris, the next line of thought, you know, in what order? Do you remember on that front? Chris, what we had discussed?

Do and I don't know that we know, we got

to what order Chris? What what's, what's the right or I

guess? I mean, I would talk problem solution outcome, would you generally like, hey, let's get let's define what the problem is make sure that we're on the same page, we're aligned on let's talk about the potential well, no, actually, then I would throw in the outcome first, because then we would say, hey, but if you could achieve this, you feel pretty good. Right? And then if Cynthia say, Yes, well, here's the solution.

Chris, I'm so glad you caught yourself, man, because that got it right. 100%, right. But your your first response was probably the most normal response I hear from, from seasoned people, you know, Bruce, we're selling the problem first. And then inevitably, if they know they have a problem that they got to get out of purgatory, then we move over to the solution, kind of the how, and then we end up with the the benefit of using our solution. So that's the most normal response I get from senior people. For for superheroes, like yourself, Chris, I get what you just said, you know, hey, we start with the problem, then we move on to the outcome. And then and only then, if I got an excited prospect, then we can start easing into the how the solution. And very often I talk about the big solution, and that's kind of at a category level, you know, 123, or no more than four words. And then if I sold them there, then I can get into some more the detail about is specifically here's our aspect of the solution of this category. Here's how we solve that problem. And here's how we promise this benefit. And then here's how we're different than other people you might be talking to in this particular category. So that's at that solution level. So again, we go from problem, then we move on to outcome, and then solution. And that's for for for Master superstars, like yourself, that's awesome. The most junior people, Chris, from my experience they speak, they talk about the solution first. And then they find if if the prospect isn't excited about the solution, and most senior buyers are not, you know, but if but if they happen to, you know, be excited, great, but normally they're not. So then they move to stage number two, hey, but you know, what about the benefit of using our solution? Let's talk about the benefit. And then if that doesn't work, then the final thing they do is they throw a Hail Mary pass. And, you know, and that's the problem. But what about the problem? You know, so that's more of the junior folks that started out as carrying, you know, having those selling conversations. But again, back to the point, the narrative structure that I teach about in the book is problem, outcome solution. And then there's a final core element, Chris, that I typically see missing, and that would be dnn. It's simple. It's next steps. So you know, and you probably teach this, but as you're planning for any type of dialogue, as a seller, what's the outcome you're looking for? You know, they're not, you know, especially if it's a high consideration b2b solution that I typically work on. It's not a signed contract. It's probably the next meeting and what's that look like? What are we doing, you know, and then after that, what's the the next step and then after that, what's the next step? And what I want to do with my buyer is to set a set as set out on a journey with them. Hey, looks like we, you know, Chris, we've had a great dialogue. We've got a reason to continue our dialogue. Based on our conversation today, and based on my experience, here's what I'd like to recommend as next steps. A, B, C. And Chris, how's that sound to you? What else would you like to add into that? No, Bruce, that sounds perfect. Okay, Well, let's get a scheduled truss as soon as possible. You know, and so I'm working on the outcome and I even premeditate that before I have a selling conversation. So those are the five key elements focus on the right target buyer, and most people get that wrong. And then after, after you get that right, then go out and have those dialogues with the narrative starting problem first, then move on to outcome, then on to the solution, you know, the how land if you would, and then finally the fifth point, come forward with some concerted next steps. Don't just leave it to chance.

Right? The that next step space, I don't, I don't know how many people have completed, even like when I'm the buyer, and they don't give me that next step. And now like I completely fall out of their sales cycle, because we like they didn't give me an exit. What What am I expecting to come? I don't want to have to reach out to you. But even for leaders, this can be you're adding clarity, right into into, why would you not want

to absolutely, Chris, how do you remove that that friction from the buyer journey? Just how do you make it easy? And most organizations and I don't blame the sellers. You know, a lot of junior seller's really go, Hey, Chris, we've had a great conversation together, you know, you know, we talked about the problem that you're facing that I've we've seen others face, we're talking about the outcome that we could help you achieve, which sounds pretty cool. We've talked about the solution, crit, and then normally they'll go Hey, Chris, what do you think? What do you think are their next steps? Or the or Saturday? They might even use up all their time. But But Chris, can we schedule another meeting? Bruce, shoot me a note? Well, I'll get back to you. Or if there is enough time, you might say hey, Bruce, this does sound really information send me more information. Or even worse, you might say, hey, Bruce, good conversation, I'd like to see a proposal. And, you know, so you're driving the drug buying process and journey, not me as the seller, right? You don't know what it looks like. So you know, you hate pregnant pauses. So you're saying send me information or something like that. And we'll review it internally and get back to you. And what will happen is we'll kind of lose touch with each other, we'll lose that connection. We won't have concerted next steps, we won't have things on our calendar and we would have wasted each other's time. And the other thing Chris is in the reason I don't blame sellers for this is most organizations revenue teams do not support the seller with concerted next steps. And I spend a lot of time you know, when I started an engagement with one of my clients, I'll say, Hey, what are the next steps? Ooh, doesn't sound like there's much there. Let's make some next steps. You know, what is it is an assessment? Is it an you know, an internal buying committee alignment meeting? Is it a proof of concept of some nature? You know, is it a business case? What what are the what is the series of next steps that it's going to help your buyer buy?

Yeah, that is a great tip for listeners right now to just go do you have outline next steps for your your sales process? I mean, just with that, right, you're creating a stickier process

sounds so simple, but yeah, I borrow a phrase from an old friend simple to say you know, mastered by few you know, I just rarely seen that wears Tight, tight and concerted, just making that buyers journey easy.

I also want to go back real quick touch on something you to where people or companies are often referencing themselves a lot on their website using we are, you know, this is how we do it. And this is another super simple tip that someone could follow Ctrl F on your website and type WWE and see how many times it pops up on a page and if you're you're seeing it it's on it probably means your narrative is off right like quick quick fly that's

probably one of the top 10s And using too much eye and too much winning it's and it's rampant and then let you know your orientation are you buyer centric or self centric, solution centric if your buyer centric AI and we kind of go away it's more about you you language and then there's some neural neuro linguistic research around that you is a very powerful word for keeping attention and people like you don't like it when you talk about them less about you more about me now that's lovely.

Right? When the the number of companies I've worked with who want their about page up in the in the navigation, the top nav of their website as the very first link it's like it could be valuable someone's gonna go look at for more information right. But is that what you want to lead the buyer with more information about you or more about

the problem? Yeah, No to true. Yeah, we're right in the midst of redoing our website for National Speakers Association Northwest. And we're making it about that that new member and existing member, but it's all about them. It's not on the on the homepage, that's for darn sure. Yeah.

Yeah, make sense. Second piece, I want to go into his insights. Because right now, we have so much data at our fingertips, right. Every company has, I mean, you can even get on chat GBT and do whatever there and get a lot of answers. But I think what really differentiates and sets companies apart is how they're able to process that information and their lessons learn to provide insights, how do you go about working with companies to pull out these the insights that they should be including in these stories, and

that's probably the most fun part of my work, is help working with teams to find those insights. Because, you know, and, oh, we talked about stats, but insights are not only stats, and I think you've probably heard the term 99.5% of stats are made up. And seriously, there's so much disinformation out there now, it's wild, are kind of stats that were born, but then kind of came, you know, got their own identity and, and then we're reframed multiple times, you know, but the type of insight that I love working on, and it relates to the second element of my model of the problem domain, I work with my teams, the revenue teams on characterizing, what's the problem look like, visually. And I'll tell you, if I have to go out and pull 10 revenue teams and say, Hey, show me your pitch deck. And take me to the slide that shows the customer problem. I would imagine, I might get lucky if there was one problem slide out of those 10 pitch decks. Normally they are centered around the solution. And that's one of the sad things, you know, and even some of the smaller companies I work with, I was working with the CEO during the pandemic, and they kept on working on how do we frame our solution. I go guys, guys, guys, stop it. I want to see if I want to see a depiction of the customer problem. Let's fall in love with that first. And and what what I've witnessed is when you do that and do that, well, your customer can see the the problem that they're experiencing in a new way, a way that has more gravity, they didn't realize how costly it was how messy it was, or as one of my clients with a former client with Dell EMC is to say, or no excuse me, Informatica, he would call it the big ugly can can that prospect see the big ugly in a new way. And that's, that's really powerful insight. If you can visualize that, especially. And then you can toss some stats around that maybe they haven't seen that 72% stat and love it, and gravitate towards that. But I think even a huge insight is to visually portray the problem domain in a way that they haven't seen look like that before.

Now, you referenced a couple times on testing your message, and making sure the narrative is actually something worth putting out. How do you go about

testing? Yeah. And I've got a funny story she is we talk about this, but one of the best ways to test it is with a look alike customer. So very often, I'll work with or with Hewlett Packard, we'd go out and identify target buyers, and and go ahead and recruit them into a dialogue and share with them our perspective and get their feedback. That's hp, big budget, you know, we can go out and do that type of work because it's hard, getting a CIO on the phone, for example of a big company. And that's what who we're trying to sell to. So I'm trying to research and test against that target buyer. For smaller companies. I was working with a an early stage company here in the Northwest Seattle area where I'm based Chris, and we did a focus group and brought some of the target audience owners of small IT services firms into a, you know, a focus group room where I was the moderator. And that's where we can test that narrative structure. And I'm always asking, you know, just great questions as well, too. I'll test the structure but I'll say hey, does this visual I'm portraying of the problem space, does that mimic yours? Or how would you make this visual even out clear and very often they'll they'll kind of vote in and talk about that, how to make it even more problem centric for them. And then I'll just test the outcome, I'll test the solution, how we're characterizing that, is it simple? Is it clear, test the next steps with them. So I love to do a lot of testing. And that's kind of in a one to one one basis, virtually through through zoom or, or even physically, just dependent on the context of one recent client, I tested our the new narrative with all their board of directors, which mimicked their ideal customer profile, and that was chief compliance officers of large banks. But you know, they did have their board made up of their target customer, so it really made good sense to test with them. So that's kind of round one, a validation testing, and then we, you know, we refine, and then we lock and load, and we, you know, train the sellers and go out and have those selling conversations with the narrative. And then, or eBay enterprise, I was working with them. A couple months later, we reconvened with that revenue team and said, Hey, what's working? What's not working? So well. And I actually got to listen to a few people use the narrative, and I'm like, just going Homer Simpson moment, don't you know, you know, that's not what we meant, oh, my God, we got to change that, you know, so we kind of tighten the screws a little bit and, and found out something's fundamentally not working. So even changing visuals and language. And then And then, you know, then they're back out and using it some more. So there's kind of two levels, you know, it kind of in market, your real real revenue team people using it. And then also pre release to those guys testing with the analyst community, and those target buyers.

Are you making an assumption that you are but are you recording sales conversation? Oh,

yeah. Well, sure. Yeah. And I recently worked with one of the the folks that probably do that the best in the market right now. gong.io. But yeah, absolutely. Recording and reviewing some of those dialogues and seeing the pitfalls, how often are they using the putting smart tags in there to see if they're using the new narrative and the messaging associated with

right? I was shocked. And just beyond belief at how many companies are not recording sales conversations. And so when you go back and ask them, hey, what's working in your in your narrative? They can't answer it. They can say, Oh, well, they feel like this is happening. It's like, but can you show us the data that says, you know, this is absolutely, absolutely.

And it was pretty exciting. I can't take credit for this. But there were some new messaging. And it was, they were seeing a 30% bump in sales effectiveness on those deal cycles. When those reps were using the new messaging, and it was all data driven, which is pretty darn wild. And now Now it's way easier to see how things are going in the field at this point.

Right? So how this is great for setting up the narrative, right? Making sure you have it, how do you kind of inspire the leadership team to prioritize this and actually know that this is what they need to be working on, if they want to be able to go to market and actually be?

Boy, that's one of the probably one of the biggest issues Funny enough, you know, lately, Chris had been talking about your narrative, it needs to be clear. It needs to be compelling. And it needs to be catalyzing for your customer, where you're your customers willing to change. And that's what inspire means, why I call my company inspire your buyers to inspire to get someone to change. So does your narrative get that target buyer willing to change and they have to get through all the fear, uncertainty and doubt all that risk in order to change. So it's a hard job. Now, when you you know, craft a new narrative, and introduce that to the organization, a lot of times it will fail. And in the in the front end of my book, I do talk about that, you know, what I could do is kind of give you the three failures, I see a time and time again. And at some of the biggest organizations that will that would blow you away. But there's an executive belief that, hey, I hire good people, they should just be good in front of customers. They'll figure it out. That's why I'm paying them the big bucks. And if they don't work out, they won't be here anymore, you know, but they'll go figure it out. So it's kind of you know, no man's land everybody on their own. So that's, that's one one failure point. The next one is, hey, we need a new story. We need a new narrative. Let's get you know somebody in the marketing department to go figure that out for us. And typically, that person's a little Junior. And they work really hard and try to do all the right steps etc. And then when they're done, you know, they come forward with it on a silver platter, and they don't have any buyers, they you know, they don't have the power to, nor did they truly perhaps do the validation piece right? And build the confidence required for that to be adopted. So you know that that saddens me to no end where and I fallen in that trap before as well, you know, and working with an organization and that you don't have that adoption, just because the leadership doesn't get fully behind it. And the third one, I see this often is, hey, we need a new narrative. Let's go hire a good agency to do that for us. And what happens there, Chris, is, it's kind of like outsourcing your story. So you know, agencies, especially brand agencies, they typically don't give you back a story, they'll give you back a messaging map of what in the marketing world, you know, some key messages, they might come back with a cute catchphrase. But it's not a story. It's not a narrative. And and that doesn't get adopted, it might hit the website a little bit. But it doesn't, you know, really impact it doesn't get me in the minds of the people using it, who signed contracts. So and things break down there. So those are kind of the three pitfalls that I see most often. The best way to get to do this, though, is to have that senior executive buy in sponsorship, making sure that, hey, this is critical for us. And we really need to get on board. It's my top priority. And I've had the just good fortune to work with excellent clients that had that mindset, you'll want one, I remember a guy named Tom. Now he's a senior executive at Dell, Dell Technologies, but he just said, Hey, we need a new message. And it was just all the way at him and got behind it with us. And I've had that repeated over and over again, where if I do have that senior executive involvement and buy in, they don't have to invent it, but they have to get behind it. Oh, and Chris, this reminds me of a really good story. Sorry to go long winded with you on it, but had to ask the question, bringing up old World War stories. But this one's really fun. There's a multi billion dollar company called the Unisys, and we had built a narrative for them. And it was for one of their units. And we tested that extensively. And it was a total winner. And then the VP of marketing I was working with at the time got out a one to one meeting with the CEO to introduce it. And he thought, hey, this is my All Star moment, you know, I'm getting ready for my promotion, and the yacht is on order. And the the CEO said I don't like it. I really don't like this. And which does happen. And because we all have opinions. And so my, my client, the VP of Marketing called me back and goes, Bruce, really bad news. I brought this in front of the CEO and he doesn't like it, we need to find something else. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, man, we need to go revisit your CEO. Did you tell him that the analyst community that we've been trying to impress love it? Did you tell him that his customers, they're digging it too? Did you tell him that a sales organization is all excited about it? No, no, no. And I'm not going Oh, that's good news, then we need to go back and tell him and make sure he falls in love with it. And also let them know we didn't build it for him. He's not the buyer. We built his the whole story around his buyers. And it's funny, we did that swing back with the CEO. Not only did he appreciate it after that, you know, after he saw it play out in market, he promoted it to be their top level now narrative for the organization. They ran with that for about eight years. Yeah, which is way longer than a nor narrative normally should last, you know, normally it's a couple of years, and then there's an acquisition or a big change. And, you know, there's a change in the market. And that narrative needs to shift but that that's one of the ones that I built that literally lasted a long time.

Well, that's the value of just internal marketing and getting buy in from critical Yeah, not just a sales team. But

just like the logo that I'm showing here for the listening audience. You can see it, but my, my identities kind of centered around, you know, an arrowhead. And then there's a lot of wood behind it. So a great narrative, it is like that arrowhead is like the tip of the spear, it's the sharpest edge, I love to say. And you need to line all the wood up behind it. And when everybody's on board and delivering it in a really good way, man, you can just really accelerate revenue growth, really, you know, achieve way more. That's the outcome that's typically promised.

Cheers to that. So I am going to strongly encourage all of our listeners to go grab a copy of inspire your buyers go to market with a story that sizzles. That is a fascinating read that is almost guaranteed just to get your narrative on the right track. And so, I mean, there's no reason not to grab it.

It's a blast. Yeah, thanks for making that recommendation. I've been just enjoying the reviews that are coming in, and people reaching out to me and LinkedIn. And one of my goals originally, I work with large organizations and some scale ups in early stage. But I often get requests from people that hey, you know, Can Can you help? And this book is fabulous. Because it you know, there's smart questions around that framework that people can use to really craft their narrative. So and that would that was my goal. Could I make something that self serve? And this is playing out that way? So thanks for making the recommendation.

Yeah, no, it's an it's a heartfelt recommendation, because it is definitely worth a read. What, uh, what book would you recommend, separate from Premiere that everybody can read to?

Chris, your audience? You know, for the folks that are entrepreneurial out there, or just thinking about, you know, their careers, there's a book that I loved, called built to scale, or, excuse me, Built to Sell. And that that, that book, I'm just going to look up the title of it real fast. Yeah, Built to Sell creating a business that can thrive without you. And that one was really impactful for for me and my business and other businesses that I consult for, what's the end game? What do you envision? And and once once you have that, definitely, you know, that's a good play with my book, you got to get your story straight around that and start telling that story of what you're trying to build, but built, Built to Sell. Lovely, lovely book. Thanks for the question.

Yeah, what? What's next for you professionally now? Your Best Selling Author? What's, what's next?

Yeah, what I'll be doing more. So, you know, the consulting work that I do, Chris, is that, you know, you know, and I do see that as a big thing, you gotta get the story straight as you go to market. You also, secondly, you got to have the right selling conversations. And so you know, in the selling conversations that typically utilize that narrative is kind of the, the Mantic structures for having a great selling conversations, so you're not wasting your buyers time or your time you're having better selling conversation. The third thing that I'll be focused on for my business, especially in this down kind of economy that falls in certain sectors that people are experiencing, and also in the space that I play in kind of high consideration, sales, not transactional, but more high consideration, hey, if I buy this, it's you. I'm on the hook for quite a while, and I'm making a big investment, those types of deals, you need to have a solid business case most often. And so I'll be promoting that more in my business, how, as a seller, how can you work with your buyer to shape that business case? You know, the economic and financial underpinnings so they're able to say yes, and by, and typically now, especially now, there's a CFO hiding behind the curtain that needs to make the decision. So you do need to come forward with a business case. And when we're building our capability and capacity, probably more so on the capacity to help sellers have that conversation and quantify the value.

That's great. Bruce, thank you for joining me. We can, why don't we close with just where people can find you?

Oh, thanks, Chris. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. Be sure on LinkedIn, or head over to the website inspire your buyers.com and those are the two places I love to hang out. Yeah. Especially on LinkedIn,

those linked up in the show notes. So alright, thank you for joining me again. This has been awesome,

Chris. Thanks for the wonderful conversation. I love your show Unbound, great pod. As for everybody listening, I'm sure you love it too, but you're doing a really great job and it's pleasure being on your show.

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