Go to Market with a Story that Sizzles

Bruce Scheer [00:00:00]:
Hi. This is Bruce Scheer, and you’re listening to the ValuePros Podcast. In this episode, I’m featured with, one of my close friends in the National Speakers Association, Kenneth Kenney. And he features me on his podcast called A Shark’s Perspective. And I, I’m just excited to share this episode with you. It features my best selling book, Inspire Your Buyers, Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Shark [00:00:43]:
Welcome back, and thank you for joining a shark’s perspective. I’m Kenneth Kenny, but friends call me shark. I am a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your chief shark officer. When you introduce a new product, service, or solution, what are the costs you’re expending? I mean, after all, there are the dollars and most CFOs, banks, or investors don’t lend twice for any do overs. What about the space that story takes up in someone’s mind? There’s a lot of traffic there too, so it’s not like people are waiting for you to refine it. Most brand market stories are not afforded a second look. With all the cost being literally and figuratively expended, then how do you inspire your buyers with a go to market story that sizzles? Bruce Shear is a professional speaker and president of NSA Northwest, a CEO of a consultancy, and the author of Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles.

Shark [00:01:35]:
And on this episode, we will discuss living and studying overseas, a story that sizzles, messaging frameworks, the narrative imperative, trick questions with solutions, problems, and outcomes, the big solution, and the path to change, Developing a set of prescribed next steps, communicating your narrative through simple unforgettable visuals, the big solution, and a path to change, aligning teams, shark GPT, and a lot, lot more. So let’s tune into a CEO who takes a walk with this podcast with a shark who, of course, takes a swim on every episode of this podcast. So let’s dive into this episode of a shark’s perspective. Bruce, welcome to a shark’s perspective, if you will. Tell us a little bit about your background and your career to date.

Bruce Scheer [00:02:20]:
Oh, thanks, shark. Yeah. It’s wonderful to be on your show. I it’s one of my favorites that I actually listen to, and I I’ve got a list. I walk every morning, 10,000 steps, and I love coming into your show. I always learn something and great takeaways and a host second to none. So, Shark, just a bit about my background. I’m a CEO of your professional liar.

Shark [00:02:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. But thank you for the compliments.

Bruce Scheer [00:02:46]:
Yeah. So, anyway, CEO of Inspire Your Buyers, that dot com. So that’s a consultancy firm that helps organizations get their story straight and and, you know, very much into revenue enablement. We’ll we’ll partner with organizations to kinda bring it and help them accelerate revenue growth for some of the largest organizations in the world and scale ups and every now and then a startup or 2. So that’s on the business side. I love doing community service, and this is my year to be president of National Speakers Association Northwest. And, that’s been a lot of fun, Shark. We’re on our way to doubling our our membership.

Bruce Scheer [00:03:27]:
So kind of applying some of these principles even even in the the not for profit world of the National Speakers Association. Redid the website and working on our value proposition. Just recently, Shark, we formed the West Coast Alliance, and that’s 5 chapter presidents, including myself, up and down the the West Coast, making sure that all our members can attend each other’s sessions. So instead of just, like, one thing a a month, now you got, like, 5. So that that’s been exciting. So just, my my background, credit brokerage house. They were good for me both as an undergrad and a grad. They were good for me both as an undergrad and a grad, and, gosh, lived in Asia for 10 years, frequent Europe all the time.

Bruce Scheer [00:04:16]:
So I do a lot of international work, and I just kinda landed into, you know, this one domain. I call it the cherry on the top for me. I just love it. But it’s helping organizations get their stories straight. And I typically work with business leaders and revenue leaders to do that and then, you know, scale that with their teams, their sales and marketing and product teams. Where all

Shark [00:04:41]:
of you lived all over? I think you studied overseas as well.

Bruce Scheer [00:04:45]:
I did. Yeah. I went to University of Copenhagen, lived in Denmark for a bit. Gosh. Hawaii was like a foreign country for me, Shark back in the mid eighties. Went to Manoa for a while. Again, U of O was my credit brokerage house. Cornell, spent time over there, and then I didn’t stop doing education.

Bruce Scheer [00:05:05]:
I represented University of California Berkeley Management Education in Asia Pacific for quite a while as well. So I just kinda continued. I’d bring, props in, and I’d go act like a student and enjoy them. Both the dinners before they they were on stage, and then I’d I’d be a student in the room as well. So I I I love learning.

Shark [00:05:27]:
Well, I had a chance to read your great book, Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles. What inspired you to write the book, and who was your initial target for it?

Bruce Scheer [00:05:37]:
Absolutely. Well, I mean, it it’s kinda my story, if you would, you know, of helping business leaders over, you know, 20 years go to market successfully. One of my old bosses told me you can’t afford to go to market twice. It’s way too expensive. And time goes by, you lose an opportunity. And so that was ingrained in me a long time ago, and just thankfully, I’ve been able to do that practice working with business leaders and go to market teams across HP, Microsoft, SAP, etcetera, you know, go to market with a new product, new solution. I call them big bet shark, where my client has made a huge investment in going to market with, you know, product investment, partnerships investment, investment in building out teams. And, gosh, darn it.

Bruce Scheer [00:06:34]:
You know, they they typically blow it as it comes to going to market with a story that sizzles. So my my target audience is CEOs and revenue leaders and and entrepreneurs. I get a lot of entrepreneurs reading this and loving it, just because it helps them get their thinking oriented in the right way to build their go to market story.

Shark [00:06:58]:
Well, you focus a lot on the narrative and the story, and it’s something I was thinking about. And you said it right there with entrepreneurs. I mean, people that are, you know, at least in some startups, But the when of when you come into a company obviously will change where you fix the narrative that exists with that company. You know, you’re still when it’s an entrepreneur, often it’s early on and it’s a little bit of a blank slate versus you mentioned SAP or some big company like that. If you go in to consult with them, changing that narrative is a lot different. So I’m I’m curious if you can add any insight as to to what you see when you do this that is kind of the win you you take a look at their narrative.

Bruce Scheer [00:07:40]:
Absolutely, Shark. And and for for the listening audience, I just need to mention, I still have a pretty good full head of hair. I have lost, especially as it relates to some of those bigger organizations like SAP, etcetera.

Shark [00:07:55]:
Well, the more you listen, the grayer it gets just like mine.

Bruce Scheer [00:07:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the hair loss, especially for some of these bigger organizations, is when when you’re designing a story, a go to market story, there are lots of opinions, and that and that gets amplified in bigger organizations. And every now and then, I’ll even have a wizard behind the curtain come out and go, hey. You gotta change that. And he’s like, well, you know, we’re already a couple months down the road here, and you wanna make changes. Oh, boy.

Bruce Scheer [00:08:26]:
And, again, you know, like my boss said, you can’t afford to go to market twice, and the tax is so heavy. But, anyways, yeah, sorry. You gave me some p PSTD or what are p t PTSD. Yeah. Around, working with my bigger clients and and the opinions that surround them. But one one big winner, Shark, on all this as you’re designing your story that sizzles is focus on the buyer. That’s the opinion that matters the most. And that’s typically like when a marketing director goes, Hey, Bruce, here’s our brand guide.

Bruce Scheer [00:09:01]:
Follow this. I’m like, just going, Have you tested this with our target buyers for this particular solution that we’re betting the farm on? Well, no, no, not really. And I go, Yeah, I didn’t think so. You know, so let’s not focus on internal opinions and insular thinking. Let’s develop a narrative and go test that with our target buyers. And that opinion matters the most. That’s what drives revenue growth, that that buyer back perspective that I really drive towards with the teams that I serve.

Shark [00:09:34]:
Well and then also, you said internal, you know, the internal voices. That can include external agencies because in any bigger organization where there’s, you know, say, 20 agencies working with them, it doesn’t matter if they have nothing to do with brand messaging. They will make certain that they let you know what their opinion is and complicate their the matter more. And until they start to align that message with whatever the the true narrative and story is, it becomes a jumbled mess to your customers.

Bruce Scheer [00:10:05]:
Yeah. Shark, I won’t mention client by name, but they are a top, Fintech provider. And they had an agency that they engaged to, work on their their messaging platform, their their messaging framework. And, they also engaged me and my team, and, it was really wild. I met with the agency, you know, leader, owner, and, 3 times. And I gave them the framework I needed, which is in the book that I sent to you, around how to design a story that sizzles. And I said, hey, whatever you guys do, you know, I know you’re gonna do your messaging framework and do what you normally do, but is there any way that you could help me in my job? I need to build a narrative that sizzles. And I gave him the structure and reiterated that three times.

Bruce Scheer [00:10:57]:
Did I get that structure back from them? Hell, no. Yeah. I I literally didn’t. I got the typical messaging map and some, you know, some some, you know, you know, very intelligent, well put together, you know, message bites. But I did not get the story. And and so I had to, you know, kinda irritate my client and do do additional work. Hey. We already did all these interviews with the agency.

Bruce Scheer [00:11:22]:
What are you doing? And I’m like, well, sorry, guys. We didn’t get the answer we needed. You know? So kinda had to do some redo on that to get the narrative straight. And and so far, they’re doing really, really well with it. So very often, I try to leverage, you know, the branding work, the agency work, you know, gosh, there’s internal people in the organization that cook up stuff too. I typically talk to all the best sellers and say, hey. Send me all your stuff. And that’s completely different than anything that marketing has done.

Bruce Scheer [00:11:52]:
And so I get I get immersed in this, and then we start to craft, you know, hey, a narrative that’s gonna work really well for them.

Shark [00:11:59]:
So tell us a little bit about what is the narrative imperative.

Bruce Scheer [00:12:04]:
The narrative imperative? Jeez. You know, if if you don’t have a killer narrative, a narrative that sizzles, my gosh, you’re, you’re you’re leaving money on the table. And chances are you’re gonna take everybody down a rat hole and have a whole lot of no fun. And, when you have a great narrative, I’m telling you, you know, all boats rise, you know? You know? Yeah. You do a great job of of execution around that narrative, and that that’s why I typically work with the sales team, the marketing team, and the product team to really align with that narrative where we can put all the wood behind that arrow and really to go really go to market with impact. And when you do that, it’s, you know, more profitable. You know, the owners love it, and everybody involved with it is just having a better experience, getting better results. That to me is the narrative imperative.

Bruce Scheer [00:12:59]:
And sadly, many organizations didn’t get the memo. They still don’t have it, and there’s a lot of opportunity out there to get this right. Hence, the reason for the book, Sharpe.

Shark [00:13:10]:
Well, I want you to tell us a little bit about your trick question that you’ve tried to get me on before.

Bruce Scheer [00:13:16]:
Okay. Yeah. My typical trick question. And I I came to this question having a big argument with a president that I was serving. You know, he, you know, he so the trick question is, what are you selling at the end of the day, Shark? Are you selling a solution, a problem, or an outcome? At the end of the day, what are you selling?

Shark [00:13:42]:
Oh, I’m not doing the, pull my finger because you’ve basically gotten me on this before. So go ahead and explain this to the audience.

Bruce Scheer [00:13:50]:
So, so the answer is, as Sharq had rightly pointed out, it it’s a trick question. You know, the, you know, at the end of the day, to sell something, I argue you have to sell all 3. It’s not just 1. It’s all 3. And then the next part of my trick question is if if I have agreement there, yeah, Bruce, you’re right. You do need to sell all 3. Now in what order do you sell them to get a buyer to buy? And that’s also I I see people squirm when I ask that question chart.

Shark [00:14:25]:
So how did you come about looking at it that way?

Bruce Scheer [00:14:29]:
My my clients teach me. They they pay me to learn from them. And I got into this big fight with, one of my clients, a president. He, you know, he wanted to sell the solution, and we were putting together a a a booth for him for a trade show that he wanted to go to, and I wanted to lead with the problem on that booth. And he wanted to leave lead with his branding, his name, and the solution. And, sadly, his brand was just nothing. Nobody knew that brand. It was, you know, just a total no name brand.

Bruce Scheer [00:15:10]:
You know, they hadn’t invested their 1,000,000 and billions in building a brand. Not at all. And but that’s where he wanted to go. And I go, no chance. We really got to lead with the problem. So funny enough, he brought me into that that thinking through through that debate, then I had to prove myself. And, have you heard of a guy named Daniel Kahneman? You know, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, really wonderful. But he he coined and did a lot of research behind prospect theory and loss aversion.

Bruce Scheer [00:15:44]:
And that that’s beautiful work, Shark, because it really proved my case that if you want to disrupt a buyer status quo and get them interested in true change, not just interested, but willing to take action, you really need to break their paradigm and disrupt their status quo thinking. And the number one way to do that is leading with the problem. That’s that’s the biggest motivator to get someone to want to change. People hate pain and problem, and they wanna move away from that. The second most powerful element to get a prospect to change, to to truly desire that change and take action is to take them into the promised land, the land of gain. And that’s the land of land of outcome. You know, what does life on the beach look like when we’ve been successful, when we’ve when we’ve had a successful change? What that look like? So that’s number 2 in Bruce’s framework, if you would. You know? So, you know, lead with the pain and the problem, and then make sure you’ve nailed that before you move on.

Bruce Scheer [00:16:55]:
Next, you move on to the, you know, to envisioning the outcome with that prospect so they can see what life and, you know, looks like when they’ve been successful, and what’s their personal gain in that situation. And then if you if if you’ve got agreement there and if you’ve anchored there, then and only then do you talk about solution, but not in the way that most people do where they’re kinda, hey. Let’s look under the hood together and see what’s in this thing. No. That’s not what we do. We lead with what I call the big solution and and help them see a a path to change. And then so if you get agreement on those three key elements and those introductory dialogues or on your marketing site, for example, your website, you know, get get agreement across those dimensions, then the buyer can do some more deep, you know, introspection, tire kicking, etcetera, and decide to move forward with you. But that’s what you lead with.

Bruce Scheer [00:17:52]:
Problem, outcome, solution.

Shark [00:17:55]:
So I really like chapter 6 as well. I find this with a lot of books, and I find it with a lot of brands. They don’t really touch on what is really important, and I think you do a good job of explaining this, developing a set of prescribed next steps and how important that is because we get hits with so much information. It’s a great idea, Bruce. Now what do I do with it? And then, you know, you sometimes have to lay that out, and I think you do a great job of talking about that. So if you will elaborate on the importance of developing a set of prescribed next steps.

Bruce Scheer [00:18:26]:
Thank you, Shark. Yeah. And I’m I’m sure you’ve done this yourself, you know, either concertedly or intuitively, knowing your experience in in the world of marketing and sales. But for me, I kinda came to that epiphany, gosh, early on. Thank goodness. You know, I I got brought into a project between HP and Microsoft, and this project went all the way up to Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and every everything else in the world. But my my most stressful project in my career and, what what teased out of that project was me and my team, we were responsible for go to market stories for 8 different solution areas for between HP and Microsoft. And Mark Hurd and Steve Ballmer, they were gonna make this the strategic partnership that has never been seen before, where you have this huge system integrator and software provider really tight at the hip going to market with these 8 solutions.

Bruce Scheer [00:19:24]:
So when I started working with the each of the solution leaders, Shark, I was asking them, so, you know, once we got the buyer convinced that they need to buy, what are the next steps? And, most the solution owners kind of hemmed and hawed. Well, we could do this. We could do this, Bruce. And sometimes we do that. But it was kinda wishy washy and muddled. And I’m like, oh, guys, not good enough. We really need to have some hard concrete prescribed next steps for these buyers. And, Shark, these were multimillion dollar purchasing decisions.

Bruce Scheer [00:19:59]:
So I just believe in my heart they needed that to get it over the goal line. And just thank God I was given the remit to do this, and the solution leaders wanted to support it, wanted to be successful with these big bets. So we designed and hard coded these next steps, you know, which was typically a business case, an assessment, a proof of concept, you know, some reference checking, you know, etcetera. But we got them, you know, kind of hard coded for each of the 8 solutions. And not that the buyer had to do them, but we recommended those steps to help the buyer buy. And because of that, I won an award. And and the HP people that were part of me, part of this, they won the marketing, circle of excellence award for that year because it was a highly successful approach. Each buyer that started a a selling conversation with us, over 50% of those buyers bought those multimillion dollar decisions.

Bruce Scheer [00:21:04]:
So it was wildly successful.

Shark [00:21:07]:
Well, a French writer wrote this saying, goal without a plan is just a wish. And so it’s always been uber important for me to help get people into those next steps. Otherwise, it’s a lot of fun conversation, but it goes nowhere.

Bruce Scheer [00:21:19]:
So Yeah. And I and I found Shark that you need to kinda build those next steps. It’s not easy. It’s not just a magic wand. You know, I have to, you know, what’s that assessment look like? What are the dimensions of that assessment? What? Where’s the benchmark data against that assessment? The business case, the ROI? What’s that look like? Where’s the proof around that? How are we going to convince a CFO that that business case is valid, that it’s worth investing then and the return is going to be higher than that investment. You know, so just, you know, it might be nice to say, but I’d also say mastered by few. You’ve really got to get get that dialed in. That’s a separate effort.

Bruce Scheer [00:22:01]:
Yeah.

Shark [00:22:01]:
Well, I love doodles in books, and you get some great doodles. And I I thought it kinda reminded me of this question. The first one, when it’s in the introduction, it’s almost sort of a signal to me. This is a hand coming out of the water. There was another one where you were telling the story about your dad’s boat, and there’s a fin on top of the boat, that you’ll see. But it kinda goes back to one of the the last chapters, Talk about the importance of communicating your narrative through simple, unforgettable visuals.

Bruce Scheer [00:22:29]:
Oh, absolutely. Can I give credit where credit’s due, Shark? Sure. I asked my wife to do those doodles for me, and and that’s this book truly has been a a family project, you know, including, you know, that story about me buying my 92 year old dad’s boat

Shark [00:22:47]:
off Craigslist. Yeah.

Bruce Scheer [00:22:50]:
Deferring to my smarter brother who’s never carried a sales bag. But, anyways, yeah, the the the visuals were were a joy. Yeah. No no doubt about it. You know, in the book, there there’s lots of stats in there around the power of visuals. And, gosh, one of my really good friends, another pro in my lane, he he speaks about, Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, if you’ve read that book, Drive. So, he is a lover of organizational development motivation, and and he read that book multiple times. But where the light bulbs went off is when animate if you remember that outfit that used to animate books, you know, they made, like, a, you know, 5 minute animation of of the core of that book and and just light bulbs go off, you know, because of that visual storytelling.

Bruce Scheer [00:23:46]:
So I try to do that with, the the teams that I serve. How can we visualize the problem that we’re solving, the outcome that we’re promising, and then the solution that we’re delivering? How do we visualize that in a way that’s incredibly compelling? And if we can do that, you know, hey, you know, a 1000 words can go away, right? Like that. You know, we’ve got a picture that’s really going to help people get past their sounds simple. It sounds simple. It it’s really hard. I’m I’m working with an organization right now. The CEO’s business, you know, he’s founder of it. They’ve been in business for 30 years and doing really well, but he wants to take it to the next level.

Bruce Scheer [00:24:30]:
Visualizing their story, it’s it’s hard. It’s not easy. And and chat GPT hasn’t solved that problem for us just yet. You know, it’s it’s a challenge. And I normally start, sharp just as a bit of wisdom for the listening audience is start by trying to visualize the problem. And and, typically, when I start an engagement, I ask for, hey. Are there any visualization? Send me your slide deck. Send me this and that.

Bruce Scheer [00:25:00]:
Send me to your website. But send me to where I can see the problem you’re solving. And, typically, that’s just a loud, you know, thud sound or or or a lot of silence when I ask that question to to send me a picture of the problem. It typically does not exist, and and that’s where we need to begin. That’s where we really start thinking it through and start to visualize what’s this problem perspective look like. And I think you saw in that chapter, I gave an example of some work that I did with McKesson Technology where, which was really great. You know? Getting the team together in a room and and doing tons of doodling as a team. You know, I love to get divergent thinking, so I typically get people into groups.

Bruce Scheer [00:25:45]:
And even with SAP, we did this virtually, global groups, but get people to visualize it. Show me what they came up with in terms of, that portrayal of the problem domain in a pictorial format, just doodling. And, boy, that’s really telling. And and when we get that right, that can move mountains in terms of busting through that status quo bias.

Shark [00:26:08]:
Well, my compliments to you as well, other than just being a a good thought provoking book too, is you did it very concisely, and it doesn’t take 6 weeks to read. Like, some people’s books have come out of recent that I’ve, I I I just I don’t have the patience anymore for, you know, these these books that I can’t finish in a in a day or 2.

Bruce Scheer [00:26:33]:
Oh, man. A a guy in our, chapter sent me a copy of his book, and I just saw it. And I go, oh my goodness. This one is gonna take a lot of work to get through. And, it doesn’t have to be that way. You know, a lot of books, there’s there’s a I think there were some rules, Shark. You probably know this really well, but a typical business book, nonfiction was, oh, back in the day, probably 50 to 70,000 words. And and in this modern era, I I think the the common wisdoms between 20 5,050,000 words.

Bruce Scheer [00:27:09]:
I decided to kinda do something a little bit unconventional, but I I know, Jay Baer’s, I think, been on your podcast.

Shark [00:27:15]:
Oh, most

Bruce Scheer [00:27:16]:
He did the same thing

Shark [00:27:18]:
where, you know,

Bruce Scheer [00:27:19]:
I I I took mine down to 12,000 thinking I did mine kinda fast. And the narrated version of my book, Shark, is only, hour and a half. Jay even beat that. You know? You don’t have to go long winded on these things to create the value. And, we just buffed and buffed and buffed on this thing to to make it readable in the course of a flight. Or one of my friends and CEO of his firm shot me a photo. He was out in France and he read my book in the course of a doctor’s office visit. You know? So I’m not expecting people to to camp on this thing, and most people won’t anyways.

Bruce Scheer [00:28:01]:
I I wrote it so people could read it. That was my primary aim. Make it short and sweet.

Shark [00:28:07]:
Well, Bruce, I appreciate you also listening. And as you know, I ask everyone who appears on the show, and you do live off the Puget Sound. So where there there are some some waters, but, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Bruce Scheer [00:28:22]:
And and can I, tell you the story, shark, and your listening audience? I’m a chat GPT fan. I I’m in that app, you know, every day doing something with it personally, for business, what have you. But, I asked ChatGPT to help me with this question. You know, what is my favorite shark? And I’m not shark, and I don’t have a podcast called the shark’s perspective. So I I I needed help. And I just explained to chat, you know, typically, when you’re doing a good prompt, you need to load it up. And I just said, hey. You know, I’m an older sales and marketing consultant getting ready to go into a podcast as a guest.

Bruce Scheer [00:29:01]:
The host is gonna ask me, what’s your favorite shark? I don’t know the answer. I do know I’m an entrepreneur, have written a best selling book, have inspired thousands of sellers and marketers through my career, and love learning in different experiences. Can you ask me questions to help me determine what my favorite type of shark might be? And, chat g p t, it’s getting so clever now. Shark, it’s just getting better every day, but it responds like my best friend. Of course. Let’s dive in and find the perfect shark that aligns with your personality and experiences. So it kind of went through an entrepreneurial shark and authorship type of shark, which happens to be a blacktip reef blacktip reef shark, an inspiring shark, which might be a Mako shark, a love of learning type of shark, which is the thresher shark, and then a a unique experiences type of shark that might be the the saw shark. And, I’m, like, going, man, all these sound really cool.

Bruce Scheer [00:29:59]:
Could you take a guess for me, Chatt GPT? You know, I think mine is my favorite one is the Shresher shark because it’s literally a cutting edge shark. It uses its tail to cut into other prey and, and does pretty good. And I I like to try to be cutting edge myself. I’m I’m at consumer electronic show every year, lurk look looking for the latest cutting edge technology. It’s just a passion. And so Shark GPT, you know, responds, well played. Based on your profile as an innovative entrepreneur, your love of learning, and your appreciation for unique experiences, the Shresher shark does indeed seem to be like the fitting choice. Its unique tail adaptability in the innovative way or hunt represented it represents qualities akin to groundbreaking entrepreneurs who stand out from the crowd.

Bruce Scheer [00:30:51]:
Embracing the thresher shark as your favorite seems both apt and delightfully cutting edge. And then it follows on shark with good luck on your podcast.

Shark [00:31:02]:
Well,

Bruce Scheer [00:31:03]:
it’s like it’s like chatting with my best friend. Amazing. A very kind best friend.

Shark [00:31:08]:
You told me about this right before we get on air, and and, thresher shark’s a good choice because I’m trying to remember if anybody else has used that. Now they did leave out the hammerhead shark in the unique shark category, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thresher sharks have that big tail. They basically use it like a whip, and I’ve only seen a few. You don’t see see a ton of them.

Bruce Scheer [00:31:29]:
Wow.

Shark [00:31:29]:
But they’re mackerel sharks, and they’re they’re large sharks and spend a lot of time in tropical waters, and they can flick that tail and knock a knock a fish, you know, silly and then go get them. So that was fantastic.

Bruce Scheer [00:31:41]:
Oh, I love it, Shark. You know, in in in the work and back to the book, you know, I love helping clients find their point of differentiation and, which which many struggle so much to do. But that thresher shark just seems so different as well that, you know, it really has a different angle to the problem.

Shark [00:32:01]:
Yeah. Well, Bruce, it’s a special time in the show. Are you ready for the 5 most interesting and important questions that you’re gonna be asked today?

Bruce Scheer [00:32:07]:
Oh, no. Now it’s time to get me flat footed. Okay. Let’s go.

Shark [00:32:11]:
Alright. Number 1 because I I watch your video on your site. That’s that’s good. Do you enjoy more riding your bike through the woods and the mountains or riding your elliptical Stairmaster bicycle on the paddle board that you use out on the water.

Bruce Scheer [00:32:28]:
Oh, man. Tough choice. I would definitely if I had to choose 1, what do I like more if I was stuck on an island? Well, gosh, I gotta rethink this one. The bike might do not do me so well on the island. Maybe the the elliptical paddleboard type of thing would do best. And I was telling you, I’d said, gosh. I can do a mile in 8 minutes, so I could probably even get to to safety. But I love my bike.

Bruce Scheer [00:32:54]:
I I travel with the bike, Shark. Oh, really? Yeah. It’s a folding bike. Yeah. And I I, I I I travel around the world with that thing and just love it. I’m trying to be healthy wherever I go, and when I’m traveling, there’s rarely time to go to the gym and try to stay to my disciplines, but the bike really saves me. And, I learned from David Byrne a long time ago. There’s no better wedding, no better way to take on a new place in a new city and have more interesting experiences than from a bike.

Bruce Scheer [00:33:26]:
I just see things that people don’t see. I see the homelessness. I see statues. I, you know, I see weird stuff. You know? Just a a bike. I love it for having new experiences wherever I go.

Shark [00:33:38]:
Yeah. Wherever I go, I try to go diving. So that’s,

Bruce Scheer [00:33:42]:
you know Yeah. Yeah.

Shark [00:33:43]:
That’s why I speak so much on on the coast. Alright. Number 2, talking about inspiring your buyers, and you also do some work as a speaker, but let’s talk about who would be your favorite inspirational speaker in history,

Bruce Scheer [00:34:04]:
and, I’ve attended one of his events in Singapore back

Shark [00:34:08]:
in the day.

Bruce Scheer [00:34:09]:
Wow. He had just come out with Awaken the Giant Within and, was on was on his circuit. And and, I respected him as a speaker so much. Of course, he had us jumping into the rafters in this huge congress type thing. We were all going nuts over him, and he got us all riled up. You know, Taylor Swift music. You know, we’re just going nuts. But the thing that probably impressed me the most was his ability to connect with Singaporeans on arrivals.

Bruce Scheer [00:34:41]:
He himself and probably his team did a bunch of research and he was giving local stories and references and literally had the audience in the palm of his hand, probably within 5 minutes of being on stage where everybody’s just going, woah, he gets us. And then he just took us on a ride, you know, absolutely outstanding.

Shark [00:35:02]:
Well, a few 100,000,000 and a few gray hairs later, and he still jumping up and down to Taylor Swift music, and he’s still a Svengali with people. It’s amazing. Alright. Yeah. Number 3. Let’s say you’re leaving, and let’s say there was not a border to worry about crossing. Would you rather spend a day in Seattle, or would you rather spend a day in Vancouver?

Bruce Scheer [00:35:23]:
Seattle is probably my first choice now. And the reason is, Shark, is because we have trolls and I haven’t seen any trolls up in Vancouver. I’m going to Vancouver tomorrow, by the way. But, you know, and I I love it up there. But, yeah, we we’ve got we’ve got an edge at this point in time. We’ve got trolls.

Shark [00:35:45]:
Alright. Number 4. You live on Vashon Island. Is that how to say it?

Bruce Scheer [00:35:50]:
Vashon.

Shark [00:35:51]:
Vashon. You live on Vashon Island.

Bruce Scheer [00:35:53]:
Yeah.

Shark [00:35:53]:
If you could live on any other island in the world, where would it be?

Bruce Scheer [00:35:59]:
Gosh. I’ve lived on a few islands. I lived on, Oahu and Hawaii, lived in Singapore, an island state. Any other island. Oh, man. I’d probably head back over to Hawaii. My wife and I are heading there for a week in December, and and I I go back there every year, but I I I really love Hawaii. I got friends back there, and, yeah, I dig it.

Shark [00:36:21]:
Alright. Number 5, and the and the most important question that you’re gonna be asked today is biscuits or cornbread?

Bruce Scheer [00:36:29]:
Cornbread, please.

Shark [00:36:32]:
I really know. I don’t think about, you know, the Puget Sound and, you know, southern delicacies like that. So wasn’t wasn’t sure what you would say.

Bruce Scheer [00:36:39]:
Yeah. And it’s unusual, and I I only have it around family events. And yeah. No. It it’s a fun one.

Shark [00:36:45]:
Alright. Well, Bruce, where can people find out more about you, get a copy of this book, and so much more?

Bruce Scheer [00:36:51]:
Oh, there’s a few ways. I’d appreciate if you wanna go to the website, www.inspireyourbuyers.com. And if you’re interested in this book or another book that I was featured in, another 2023 bestseller called, bashfully, the most amazing marketing book ever, Those 2 books can be found at www.inspirebuyers.comforward/books, where you’ll see the books that I’ve been featured in this year. And, I hang out on LinkedIn as well. So, my first name is Bruce. It’s b, last name, s c h e e r. You’ll find me on LinkedIn as well, and I’d love to connect with you and continue the conversation with you there.

Shark [00:37:34]:
Alright. Well, they call him Bruce. And, Bruce, thank you so much for being with us today.

Bruce Scheer [00:37:39]:
The real Bruce.

Shark [00:37:40]:
Perspective. The real Bruce.

Bruce Scheer [00:37:42]:
Thank you, Shark.

Shark [00:37:49]:
So there was my conversation with Bruce Shearer, a professional speaker and president of NSA Northwest, a CEO of a consultancy, and the author of Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles. Let’s take a look at 3 key takeaways from our conversation with him. 1st, you can’t afford to go to market twice. That was some great advice that someone once gave Bruce. You can refine your message throughout that story, but that go to market story happens only once. Your wallet likely won’t stretch further, so whatever you do, think through that market message. 2nd, when you’re designing a story, especially at big companies, there are a lot of opinions.

Shark [00:38:24]:
Internal teams are tough to align, but then you throw in those extensions of your team, the agencies, and they’ve all got opinions, and it can become a mess trying to get everyone aligned with the same focus. The best way to narrow that target though is to test your target buyer. Bruce added, do not just focus on internal opinions and insular thinking. It’s the buyer back perspective as he described it that is the winner. 3rd, to see the success of the narrative imperative, Bruce said to leverage the sales team, the marketing team, and the product team. You’ve heard me speak about this on many shows. The more you integrate your story throughout all your teams, the better success your story will have. Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a sharks perspective.com.

Shark [00:39:06]:
Thank you again for the privilege of your time, and I am so thankful to everyone who listens. Today, I want you to find your story and make it sizzle. Just don’t burn your finger. Enjoy this on the next episode of a shark’s perspective.

Bruce Scheer [00:39:47]:
I hope you appreciated that episode, man. I loved it. Kenneth Kenny is just one of the best podcast hosts around. He really studies his audience, read my book, really prepared for that episode, talk about a great host. I hope you enjoy his podcast. All of his episodes are just fantastic. Again, thanks for listening. I look forward to catching you on the next one.