Episode 396 - More Sales Please with Sara Dalrymple

01/15/24 • 25 min

"The vast majority of business owners would happily spend 99% of their time creating and recreating and tweaking and iterating on the product side of things, because we know how to do that, we feel of service when we do that. But in order to help people, or to do the work that you love, you have to also talk about it."

For many small business owners, 'selling' feels deeply uncomfortable. So too often they don't do it, and the result is the business struggles along or even fails because not enough people know how great their product is. Sound familiar?

Sara Dalrymple sees you. Not only that, she has empowering and energising news for you: your sales skills are already better than you think, and you don't have to spend hours of you day selling. In this week's episode, she tells me why our assumptions about selling are outdated, and what effective, zero-ick, 21st-century small-business selling looks like.

(And also how she came to write a book by accident.)

(And also how she came to write a book by accident.)

Previous Episode

Episode 395 - Bright sparks & damp squibs with Sir John Tusa

'It's the stories we respond to in life. It's people's stories we respond to, and then... you can tease out the lessons. You don't go for the theory head on.'

There are many, many books about creativity: what it is, how to do it, what steps to follow. When journalist and arts administrator Sir John Tusa turned his attention to the topic, he took a rather different approach.

His book is dedicated to 'bright sparks who refuse to become damp squibs', and it tells the stories of people who match that description. Around the world, against great odds, overcoming ridicule and opposition and invariably making many people furious along the way, these individuals achieved extraordinary creative success. From these varied experiences, we see the commonalities emerge and we can't help but be inspired to do things differently. That is the power of storytelling, and this is a masterclass in how to go about it.

Next Episode

Episode 397 - The Life Brief with Bonnie Wan

'It's an uncomfortable struggle to land that title of the book, land that sharp, sticky center of the life brief, but it is so worth it.'

As a brand strategist, Bonnie Wan knows how to put together a creative brief that makes meaning out of mess, that goes straight to the essence of what a company is really about. So when she reached a moment of crisis in her own life, she reached instinctively for that skillset.

The result was The Life Brief, not a document but a 'practice of permission' she has adopted in all areas of life now for cutting through the noise and finding what really matters to you, the vision you recognise at a visceral level when you unearth it.

Along the way she discovered the power of exploratory writing, the power of developing her ideas through speaking and workshops, and the art of leading the reader step by step through an experiential book.

You're going to love this.