The Future of Selling

Future Of Selling (00:01.107)
Hey, welcome back to the Future of Selling podcast where we dive into challenges, trends, innovations, anything impacting the future of sales or the sales landscape. I'm your host Rick Smith. And today we're jumping into a conversation that's part personal transformation and part modern marketing masterclass. My guest today is Steve Schmidt. Now, Steve is the chief revenue officer and co-owner at Magnetic.

Magnetic is a company that's really making some pretty serious waves in how brands turn content into cash flow. So I'm looking forward to talking about that specifically. But here's the thing, right? The conversation today isn't just about marketing. Steve's story, it's really about reinvention. It's about becoming magnetic, right? Not just in business, but also in life. He's been pretty candid about his struggles with addiction, about rebuilding his life from the inside out.

and how that journey now fuels everything he does from leading teams to helping creators and companies kind of find their voice in this extremely crowded, noisy marketplace. you know, whether you're a founder and you're trying to you're trying to break through the noise right in the marketplace or you're a seller trying to stand out or maybe you're just someone who's trying to reconnect with what really makes you come alive. You're going to want to lean into this conversation today. So, Steve.

I'm so glad you're here. So looking forward to the conversation.

Steve Schmidt (01:26.932)
Yeah, thanks for having me. Hello from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It is cold here. We're a balmy 42 degrees right now.

Future Of Selling (01:34.735)
my gosh. All right. Well, I'm in Texas. got, was a little cold this morning. As matter of fact, when I'm out walking the dogs. so we're, yeah, they were, well, so, yeah, so, so was I, but we all were, you know, anyway, well, good, man. We'll appreciate you being on. Hey, I always like to start with kind of a, a little bit of a fun fact, just to give these people a little more personal point of view of you, if that's okay. so start there, right? So,

Steve Schmidt (01:40.504)
The armadillos are tucking their tails in today.

Steve Schmidt (01:46.04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (01:57.026)
Yeah, let's do it.

Future Of Selling (02:00.851)
So you have a podcast, right? And the name of the podcast is Spotlight Sioux Falls Podcast, the intersection of commerce and culture. So that's kind of cool. I love to interview other podcasters because I'm trying to figure out, how can I be even better at this, right? So tell us about the podcast. How did they get started? What are you doing there?

Steve Schmidt (02:18.701)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (02:22.498)
We were traveling all over with Magnetic going from California to Boston to Miami. And when I say we, Melissa is the CEO and she is my partner as well. So we share children and we share a life together. So what we learned quickly was that that's not a life that we wanted. And in the services line of work, if anybody's been in that line of work, you can appreciate this. If not, kind of shedding some light there is it can be highly transactional, right? In terms of what have you done for me lately?

Future Of Selling (02:34.121)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (02:39.07)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (02:52.576)
And we found also that we weren't able to create these great relationships with people when we saw them once every never or only over zoom, right? And, and I think that we learned that whether it was, you know, when economic times got tough, they were quick to run, quick to say like, well, you know, we got to cut the budget. we also just didn't want to travel anymore, you know, like that much. And so for us, it was, it was selfishly about like being home, being with our kids.

Future Of Selling (03:15.657)
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Schmidt (03:21.346)
and not having grandma have to, you know, watch the kids 50 % of our life, even though that was awesome. but it also was like this, this little bit of a nudge that said, Hey dummy, like you've never paid attention to the place you live. As a matter of fact, you've done everything you can to like avoid even trying to sell to anybody in Sioux falls. And I really had to think about that. And ultimately it was, I didn't think the market was ready. It was a little bit of a nose in the air, kind of like they're not ready for this.

Turns out they were. I think what's interesting is, as we look at market segmentation, a lot of people aren't looking at the people right around them. I certainly wasn't, right? I was really focused on this logo over here because they meet this ISAP criteria. But when you get in front of somebody and you have the commonality of the zip code where you live, everything changes. You know, in a small town of 300,000 people, you're going to see them eventually.

at church in the grocery store, you know, out to dinner. And when you do that, there's a sense of commitment that we didn't know was ahead of us. And so what happened with Spotlight, Sioux Falls was we said we didn't want to travel anymore, but we didn't know what to do. Five days later, I woke up and I'm like, man, I always have ideas. I'm an ideas guy. 99 % of them aren't great. 1 % is. And I couldn't come up with anything. So I'm like, well, what do we do? Do we fold the company? Do we go get jobs again?

Everything was on the table. And we'd even call the investors and said, Hey, we thinking about, you know, folding up the company, like, it's just not really working out for us. And they were like, Oh, well, okay. You know, if that's what it is, it is. I said, give us a couple more days. And we woke up and one of the investors planted the idea. My idea was, well, what about Sioux Falls businesses? I that they're not ready for this. He goes, how do know that? And all of a that question kept echoing in my head. How do you know that? And it was my own assumptions.

Future Of Selling (05:17.47)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (05:17.548)
that were in the way of that. we said, I woke up and I said, what if we did a podcast with just try to get five guests and said, we're going to spotlight businesses in Sioux Falls. There's nothing going on in this town like that, where people are doing that. And then, you know, was, well, how would it work? said, we're going to go out to the businesses in their environment and go immersively into their day to day, not just

the business but we want their story. We want the business and we want to show Sioux Falls who this business is. Because when you're a community of 300,000, you're big enough to have everybody not know who you are and be small enough to remember 25 years ago, it was a who knows who business. And Sioux Falls has grown by 25 % in the last five years. So we have a lot of new businesses coming to town, a lot of new people from New York, Miami. I COVID definitely flooded a lot of people. South Dakota was like land of the free.

Future Of Selling (06:10.623)
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve Schmidt (06:12.778)
advertising it, people were coming here because you know, it's cheap, no income tax, no state income tax. And they love it, you know, and so but a lot of those people brought their businesses with them. And the good part about that is it immersed them in our community. Now, we had an overwhelming response. We put an ad out never in my life have I put an ad on meta. So we put a quick ad out of us in our podcast, and we just cut a short out of it. And we said, Hey, you know, this is this should be good. Let's see if they had 63 leads in two days.

And we had 270 leads in two weeks. And so out of that 63 episodes have been recorded since June 63 different business owners and quite frankly, that model, what it did is it allowed us to say, Oh, they need other services. And what we did is we did shed the old customers, or they shed us it was just some of this mutual agreement that like, Hey, here's what we're doing. We're still going to support you until you're ready to kick us the curb.

Future Of Selling (07:01.535)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Schmidt (07:10.586)
so then the stress was on like, how do we get this new thing up where these businesses want to do business with us? And how do we wind the old business down where it's not a disaster? And so we were able to start to support customers locally. you know, 13 or so came on board for like full support. And that would be, you know, what we do is that con content to cashflow is really what came out of all of that, which is I don't know how to create content. Great. We'll show you how.

I know that sounds foreign to people on LinkedIn, but I'm talking all the platforms of meta, TikTok, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is number four here. Facebook is at number one. Anytime you go to like Midwestern towns, cities, LinkedIn's an afterthought because everybody already knows each other. Like to them, they're like, well, I don't need to connect with, with Rick. know Rick, you know? And so it's not this automation and connect world. And so it's used differently here.

Future Of Selling (08:00.161)
Right, right, right, yeah.

Steve Schmidt (08:05.858)
Facebook has 84 % market share as the number one social app. Instagram's right behind that. And then there's a big landslide to LinkedIn and then TikTok and then YouTube, which is, we can talk about that all day, a distant fifth, right? And coming up though in the next two years to become the number one, said the data. So we said, man, none of these people have YouTube channels. None of these people have content that they're getting out. And ultimately it's taken that long form piece of content.

really putting a framework to it. So we know if there's three things we get out of that, these are the three things we need. So if we don't get it, we'll sit with them afterwards and say, Hey, here's a question a lot of people have about what you do or the problem that you help solve. Let's get this sound bite. And then what happens is those have turned into great shorts organically, great shorts on YouTube meta, where we'll write the post, announce it on Spotlight's channel, highlight them, tag the owner.

and then link to the full episode, right? That gets about 5,000 views a day on YouTube. It's about 25,000 views across all social platforms, all from Sioux Falls. And so we've created this little internet cable channel where suddenly we are, you know, getting on our network is more powerful than doing it on your own. But there's sometimes you got to say, well, now it's time for you to start your own channel. So we're really serving those businesses who want to get out in front of people they haven't yet tell a story.

Future Of Selling (09:07.818)
Yeah, that's incredible.

Steve Schmidt (09:27.052)
And then a lot of them are doing podcasts on a monthly basis now where we're some of them are doing reality TV shows that we're doing now. So it's really like we have a construction company, we go out in the middle of a field, watch them move 150 year old house across 10 miles. It's wild, man. And I would have never guessed that six months ago, that's what we would have been doing. But that spotlight Sioux Falls. It's an awesome podcast. Even if you're not from here, I think you'd appreciate it.

Future Of Selling (09:34.655)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (09:53.986)
And I think what we're doing is inspiring a lot more of these communities to start things like that. Because since we started that there's eight more here just like us suddenly that popped up overnight, you know? So we got to look at it like we were the leaders, but that's the job that we gladly accepted, you know?

Future Of Selling (10:03.594)
Really. Wow.

Future Of Selling (10:08.608)
So your podcast, so let's recap some of that, because that's a lot of information. But by the way, and you've only been doing it for like six months, which is incredible. Wow. So you're using your podcast Spotlight, Sioux Falls podcast, right? It's really your lead generator, right? So you're using that as a lead generator and you're creating and then you've got customers that are coming in. And so part of that process is

Steve Schmidt (10:15.99)
June. Yeah, June 2nd was the first episode.

Steve Schmidt (10:28.822)
Yeah, that's right.

Future Of Selling (10:38.09)
They see, well, they see your podcast or they hear your podcast and they go, Hey, I want to be a part of that. And then you'll go out and do an interview with them as well. Find out about their business, who they are, why that, why that matters and all that kind of stuff. And then see, it's almost like you're creating this, this, this really cool little, self. Yeah, exactly. Wow.

Steve Schmidt (10:56.654)
Flywheel.

It's 1500 bucks too. mean, they got to pay to be on. And so that's the hurdle that a lot of people like, it's hard to communicate that, we're like, there is immense value in this. And we're going to give you all the assets afterwards. So you get the reels, you get the shorts and you can go cut them up with whoever on Upwork you want. If that's what you want to do, I don't care. But those people who see value in what we did said, wait, I want to do more of this. And I want to come up with an intelligent content strategy. And I was

Future Of Selling (11:07.957)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (11:25.56)
Think about it like playlists on a YouTube channel. Like how can we fill the five buckets that are most interesting with your business over 12 episodes?

Future Of Selling (11:34.081)
Yeah, yeah, got it, got it. That's really cool. And really you're kind of over cut by doing that. I like the fact that you're focused in on an area, right? And I don't know that most people think about it, because just like you were saying, right, before you'd chase a logo in the Northeast, you might chase one on the West Coast or Florida, wherever, which just makes perfect sense, right? I mean, that's a strategy and a lot of companies do that. But your strategy was, hey, I wonder what's going on here.

Steve Schmidt (11:36.141)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (11:56.558)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (12:03.646)
Right. And because then you overcome that, that, you know, there, there's things that we need to be able to trust and do business. One of those is commonality. I mean, it's just a natural human kind of trait. Right. I want to know that you and I are somehow connected. We've got some, because for whatever reason that makes me trust you more. I don't know why, but you know, someone who lives in Waxhatchee, Texas, I go, seriously? You live here? How awesome is that? And all of sudden we're just a little closer than we were.

Steve Schmidt (12:04.899)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (12:13.688)
That's it.

Steve Schmidt (12:23.159)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (12:31.372)
like they know your belief systems, you know, a little bit more. And like you said, whether we want to admit it or not, people will judge you on that. And if you say, for example, like this is an example, that's maybe a little bold. If someone talks a lot about faith and that's important to them as an owner, well, they're, they're going to turn off some people and they're going to turn on some people. And we tell them, like, if you're into that, don't hold back. Right. because

Future Of Selling (12:52.213)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (12:56.554)
Right, lean into it.

Steve Schmidt (12:58.476)
lean into it like why are you hiding from it like like no, they're gonna find out eventually like so just be yourself and if we I mean we had an episode we shot last week called faith in football. The episode crushed the internet right because people got to watch this owner of a pizza shop who's spun up a deep dish pizza place in Sioux Falls that's just blowing up show like his he said there's when we interviewed him he said the foundation episode where the three most important things do he said faith family football.

And we said, well, why don't we go into your church and then we'll go over to your football practice at you coach. And we got these kids with it. We got drone shots. They thought they were the cool. mean, they were so cool. And that's, I didn't get to do that before, man. And now I get like so energized by these 10 year olds when I'm like, what's your favorite food? They're like pizza, you know, and, how's coach Tony? he yells at us, but it's, it's for the right reasons. And people just,

Future Of Selling (13:51.848)
I like that.

Steve Schmidt (13:53.976)
People get to know them and we get immersed in the community, but man, like we're really making, trying to make entertaining content at the end of the day. And inevitably their business gets either more well known or they take a short that we make for them. And then they turn that short into an ad and now they're off to the races and they didn't know how to do ads before. Right. So we kind of are the gateway drug for everything else too.

Future Of Selling (14:17.793)
Yeah. So you guys, you, so it sounds like, I think you said 1500 bucks is what you're charging for this. so is that, so that, that just one episode or do they actually get a few episodes out of that or?

Steve Schmidt (14:31.31)
Good question. One episode, they get one long form piece of content. They get to be permanently housed on the spotlight channel, which is a big benefit to them because most of them aren't even really thinking outside the box outside of their website with SEO and the power of YouTube. mean, YouTube transcripts are the number one feeder to chat GPT and AEO and where we're going with AI search.

Like it's super important and we're pretty darn good at keyword research. I mean, we just don't get vid IQ and start punching in words. You really got to research like, well, what would somebody be looking for if they needed to get their deck cleaned or their cabin de mudded, but they didn't want to sandblast it. They don't know about laser cleaning. Okay. So now we've got to take this guy who has a laser cleaning business who bought this hundred thousand dollar laser.

that can literally take and clean off graffiti off of a wall. And nobody knows about that. And, and so we say, well, how do we let people know? Because they're not searching for how can I find somebody to get lasers to clean my wall? say, they complain about graffiti. go to Reddit, they go to all these places. Well, if he can show up as a solution to those problems with the YouTube video, we now win for him. And that's graduated into, you know, I learned how to code in July because I was bored and

Future Of Selling (15:27.126)
Right.

Steve Schmidt (15:51.264)
Now we're making landing pages so that ad can go to a landing page that converts them into more video and bringing them through that funnel where now if they click, now they'll book the time with you. And so we've really built a system that's fully built around one podcast episode where we're getting all those videos that are really their sales system. And it's wild how it's just graduated into that really from just a podcast.

Future Of Selling (16:10.753)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (16:16.703)
Yeah, that's incredible. Are they mostly just smaller local businesses or do you have any that are, I guess, yeah, mean, is it kind of-

Steve Schmidt (16:27.736)
Some are 180 million, some are 60 million, some are 20 million, some are brand new. mean, the thing we found is the people who are in that like 10 to 20 million really love us because they have the budget, they need to grow, and they've never known how to do this. There's not a single agency in Sioux Falls that does YouTube, not a one. Well, we do, right? So once they understood that word got out pretty quickly. so it's podcast, YouTube,

like, what do you want to put out for video? And then it's kind of like, well, maybe it's not a podcast. Maybe we do a reality series on you. Maybe we have a camera crew and we just come and follow you around and kind of push you around and direct you and, and maybe that's the most interesting thing. And so it's really, it's, really content, but it's not, it's not content where someone's just sitting and talking to someone in a podcast booth. We're really not, we're trying almost purposely not to do that. Not that that's bad. I love watching those.

when it's interesting, which it's hard to get local business owners to be interesting unless they're doing something interesting.

Future Of Selling (17:34.114)
Right, got it, got it, yeah, makes sense. think that's, well, I didn't, so I've never gone that deep on a fun fact before. It was really cool. Yeah, no, was great, man, that was great. And I guess I did, yeah, when I asked you that, I didn't realize that the business was so, or that the podcast was so intricately connected to your business, which

Steve Schmidt (17:44.3)
Yeah, that's not that fun. We should talk about something fun.

Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (18:00.438)
It is the product growth, product lead growth for us. For sure. PLG to the bone, you know?

Future Of Selling (18:03.786)
Okay, okay, got it. Yeah, yeah, no, that's fantastic. hey, I wanted to, I kind of wanted to start with the more personal side of things, right? Because I just think that's interesting, right? Well, you know, how do people get from, you know, where they were to where they are today? So if you don't mind, just wanted to kind of back up a little bit on that, right? So, you know,

Steve Schmidt (18:15.906)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Schmidt (18:28.11)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Future Of Selling (18:31.938)
What is it that makes you kind of come alive, right? mean, what drives you? What's the passion, the purpose? However you want to rephrase that. mean, what makes you come alive personally?

Steve Schmidt (18:43.614)
I love all of building things that work. And I think that's, you know, my dad was an engineer and that I'm not an engineer. My dad tried to be a farmer and I'm trying to be a farmer too. But I did get the engineering part of my brain where I just, you know, kind of the numbers start shooting out your head and the smoke starts blowing out and can see things differently and connect systems where systems need to be. And

I think the superpower that's been given to me is to really come in and identify quickly how to, you know, what makes me come alive is that. And I say this, I'm a work in progress because I don't want to answer that in 10 years the same way. I want to say what makes me come alive is my kids, my relationship with my wife, you know, the looking at an octopus and going, that's crazy. You know, like that stuff lights me up. But like,

It is a little bit of obsession, which I'm okay with right now, because there is a window of time that I know, like I don't have an Elon Musk chip in my head. I might not live forever. I'm 48. I got about seven years that I can really be effective at doing this while still trying to balance everything else. So, you know, it's 16 hour days and I'm okay with that. And it's, that lights me up. Work does light me up and I'm okay with that. Like because

Future Of Selling (19:43.521)
Right.

Future Of Selling (20:06.08)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (20:07.382)
It's not me going out and drugging and drinking and causing a bunch of things and chaos like I used to. And I, I'm very open about that with the people in recovery that, you know, I might have a work obsession, but I'm okay with that as long as I'm not ignoring the rest of my life. Because I wasted a lot of years, man. I mean, 20 years of my life, 25 years, if you start over when you're 40, and then, you know, you have a business that you sell when you're

45 and your ego is really big and then that thing loses all your money again like you really you're faced with problems that most people don't want and I view it as an opportunity to get to know myself better and and try to do the right thing and That I want I just like the fact that I know I want to answer the question differently, but I can't Until I get this work done, you know

Future Of Selling (20:41.302)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (20:57.826)
Yeah. No, I think that's fabulous. So for you then it is right now, it is the work then, is it being a builder, as you said, right? Building something that out of nothing that just makes you kind of get up and run toward whatever that target is for that day. You mentioned you kind of talked about, you know, transformation of 40. Do you mind kind of giving us a little bit of background on the, you know, kind of

Steve Schmidt (21:04.098)
Yeah, lights me up, man.

Steve Schmidt (21:18.392)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (21:27.554)
how you got to where you're at. Clearly you had some addiction things going on. I've seen some of that in my life as well with different family members and that's a struggle. So talk to us about that journey from there to kind of where you're at now and maybe some lessons learned along the way.

Steve Schmidt (21:46.734)
from a family of drinkers and my dad was adopted so I really can say that by it just happens to be that my brother and I both got the gene and when I say that we both, God bless my brother just went into rehab today. I've been sober for seven and a half years now and went to Hazelden after just some really high reluctance. I ended up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I was not happy about it. I lived in Minneapolis.

was all about the trophies and working at big companies and being a revenue ass kicker. But I, you know, I drank all day long and I, and I, you know, drugs in my system all day long. And a lot of that was numbing out the emotion of some trauma in my life. And I don't need to go into that, but like, I never dealt with that in a healthy way. And so getting sober was great. I was still left with me and

The ego is slowly being removed still to this day because I think that's the biggest thing is like the fear and insecurity might look like an ego. And it's really just like, what are you trying to prove to people, Steve? Like you're going to be okay no matter what. And I know that that's not what I'm doing. I'm really trying to live a life where I have the opportunity to be productive now to help make other people's life better. But I don't want to forget about trying to make my own life better. And so for me, it is now

seven after you're sober, you know, I had a business that, know, again, I my ego said three years ago or whatever, build this, this agency up, you know, do three, 400 grand a month and then try and sell it. And there was a company from Israel that tried to buy us and, and it'll be in a merger and it was a nightmare. And, we had 48 employees, half of them got let go the second day of the merger. I was kind of golden handcuffed to a contract and

there was more to be revealed about myself. And I learned a lot about like, you like, what was I really trying to do? Like, thinking that I was going to sell it, make a bunch of money, and then my problems would be gone. Like, it doesn't work like that. learned and so and that caused a big rift. And so Melissa and I got divorced. I mean, who I'm with today is my ex wife and my future wife, you know. And there's a lesson there too. But like being able to really sit there it occurred to me because I started magnetic.

Steve Schmidt (24:07.822)
after the company failed, was able to start it on month seven. But now I'm across town sitting in the basement of a townhouse going, how did I end up here? You know? And you know, I was building 40K a month and it was just me and a couple of consultants on the backend that were, you know, overseas. So all the money was there. And that lasted like the facade lasted about 10 months before I just broke down, man. And I had the second awakening and it just tore me to

pieces, man, I could only ignore it for so long. And I was just like, I miss my family. I miss my wife. And then it was a lot more amends and about another year of earning trust back kind of felt like recovery 2.0. And Melissa eventually came into the business and her and I have worked together now for almost a year and a half. And so obviously that went okay, we're, we're back together, but it's not like when you move back in the house, everybody's like, do do do this is great. You know, there's so much

when a divorce happens that is so big and affects so many people were taken away slowly. And it only reminds me that business you want to move fast, right? But really the good businesses build slowly. And so I think I'm learning these things. I wish I learned them when I was 20. But at age 48, I'm learning that still today, if I have my own best interest in mind, I am a failure.

Future Of Selling (25:32.462)
Yeah. What keeps you, know, what kind of, obviously those are some pretty traumatic events, right? You know, being an alcoholic and then going through sobriety, recovery, the divorce. What is it that keeps you centered today? You know, how do you do that? Are you listening to something? Are you reading something that, you know, that kind of, you know, puts you in the right spot or how do you stay there?

Steve Schmidt (25:34.743)
so

Steve Schmidt (25:49.368)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Schmidt (26:01.752)
You know, this is a little wild, so I'll go there. So I started really exploring, you know, God and was against that whole thing my whole life, man, you know, and for one reason or another. And I think when I prayed to get, I said, God, no matter what, whatever happens with this, I just want to meet good people who I can learn from who are aligned to that. And it kind of felt like a

I was kind like, what was that? Like it came out of nowhere. And so I'm inspired and I learned from the other CEOs and founders who do business with us today. They're all, I just said it over lunch today, yesterday to the pastor I was sitting with, I said, it's crazy. I said, I said this prayer. All of a sudden, every one of these customers we're meeting with are great people in the community. You know, they're involved in their churches, you know, they're da da da. And I'm like, dang.

I'm like, couldn't design that myself, you know, and so I'm surrounded by them every day. I'm inspired and they're very value driven on, you know, in high amounts of integrity, high amounts of discipline, but high amounts of family, like a lot of them hold their families because a lot of them have family businesses very near and dear to their heart. And so I think it's really me just being like, okay, gotta give up like

It's all in front of me now. Like I asked for it. I, you know, I yelled in a cornfield to get my wife back, got her back. Geez, that wasn't an accident. I said surround me with good people. And now like all of sudden this podcast starts, didn't know where that came from. And all of I'm surrounded by great people. And so I'm a victim of my own good fortune, I think really, you know.

Future Of Selling (27:34.05)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (27:39.969)
OK, got it. Got it. Yeah. So sounds like there was a lesson to be learned there, at least part of it, right? mean, part of it is just faith. All right. And that's kind what you're talking about in it.

Steve Schmidt (27:50.924)
Yeah, it feels weird to even say that I don't ever talk about that. But yeah, it really is. It is faith. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (27:55.906)
Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then really kind of, you know, I think when you, when you ask, Hey, I want to be around good people. I mean, part of that kind of goes back to your, even your, business model, right? You're operating, you're operating within a, within a smaller location. But then there's an aspect of it where it's kind of, you you're, developing this inner circle. So if I said, what's keeping you strong, what's keeping you in that place, there's an inner circle that you're creating that of.

of know, and you better saying right, you're gonna you know, five years, you'll be like that five people you spend the most time with but there's some. Yeah, there's some there's definitely some truth in that. So that's that's all.

Steve Schmidt (28:30.85)
Yeah, I hope so, yeah.

Steve Schmidt (28:35.98)
Yeah. Yeah, they're way different people than I would have ever hung out with him by my old self. You know, it's like, you know, sitting and listening to a 65 year old guy talk about things in his business that, you know, the rocks of his business, I would have been like, this guy doesn't know he's talking about, you know, and now I just sit there and take notes and like this, this, this guy, if I had look back 100 years, like I'd love that, that small community, we all grew up in small communities before the world got big and you're really accountable to your neighbor, right?

Future Of Selling (28:51.246)
Yeah, got it.

Future Of Selling (29:03.225)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (29:06.38)
And so we're building this city with integrity and I can hang and rub elbows with those people and help them build it. I become better and, I couldn't ask for anything better because that's the lesson I needed, right? Was like, not like it's not about me, man. No one's, no one's saying Steve's great. And that's all I wanted to hear my whole life was like, Steve's so smart. Steve knows how to do everything. Steve doesn't know that much. Like Steve, Steve does know certain things that can help their business. And that's an honor.

Future Of Selling (29:21.188)
Right. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (29:35.436)
Because what they give me back and the experiences I get from working with them are tenfold what the revenue would be in terms of value to my life. For sure.

Future Of Selling (29:44.431)
Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. How do you just got another question, but I want to dig into that one just a little bit. How do you think you overcame your ego? Because, that's a that's a that's a mountain to climb. There's a great book you may you may have read. called Ego. Ego is the enemy. And anyway, it's just it's kind of yeah, Stoke philosophy. And I love that. Love the author of your bunch of stuff.

Steve Schmidt (29:53.165)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Schmidt (30:04.823)
Yeah.

Great book.

Steve Schmidt (30:12.449)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (30:13.124)
How did you, because you're where you're at and you've got the business that you have and you're doing the things you're doing, right, with purpose and intention and faith and fulfillment.

But it sounds like in order to make that step, you had to kind of compartmentalize the ego and be able to step over it and get away from it. How do you make that transition?

Steve Schmidt (30:37.386)
Well, unfortunately the lessons have been taught to me. And I think that's the thing is it's just, it's so easy to have an ego when you're good at something. And when you realize that nobody cares that you're good at it, then you realize how silly your ego is. And I think I just kind of felt stupid. Like, why do I care so much? Like they really just either want to hang out with you or they want you to do something for them. I'll take either one. I'm not no judgment, but, inevitably.

Future Of Selling (30:40.803)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (30:50.446)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (31:06.638)
when they judge me by who I am as a person versus what I can do for them for work, I realized the value is not in that. That's a job, you know, they hire you, you do it like there's an off button there and eventually you won't do that. But you can be someone who knows them for the rest of their life and has a relationship. And so I think when I did that, naturally the ego has to be removed to have good relationships. And I have never in my life been a relationship person. And I mean that, like I say that,

Future Of Selling (31:29.016)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (31:36.598)
with no shame. Like I was just like, don't care.

Future Of Selling (31:38.847)
Yeah, I mean, I'm just talking to you and I'm looking at you I'm going, man, that that that blows me away that surprises me.

Steve Schmidt (31:44.376)
Well, I just, I think it was the trauma and the hurt. Like I didn't want to get to know anybody. I didn't want to trust anybody. And I was just like, Nope, Nope. Thank you. Not interested. Never had a girlfriend that I was serious about. It was like, Nope, it's about me because I wanted to take care of me. Well, that didn't work out so well, you know? And so I think it was learning the hard way that, life is very little about the things that I'm doing. It is more about the people I'm affecting. And I can only do that if I'm showing up vulnerable.

and honest and with a high amount of integrity.

Future Of Selling (32:15.074)
Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Cool. You mentioned just now, and I wanted to transition there anyway, that it's all about the people that you're helping. Right. Do you mind? Would you mind kind of give us an example? And you kind of talked about a little bit, but maybe what's a great example of the last 30 days or 60 days of a client you've worked with that you like, I mean, big success story, right? And what exactly what you're doing. Yeah. Do you mind?

Steve Schmidt (32:16.802)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (32:41.806)
Yeah. Yeah. So I'll use an example of a donut shop just because that'll most people go donut shop. This guy does 5.8 million dollars in donuts in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and he has six stores. He went to college. was two years younger than me. We grew up on the same small little towns of 40 people in northern South Dakota. So we all know everybody's last name and your uncle and my uncle. And he came in as a lead off Facebook and has been doing involved owner of flybo and I'm like, Ooh, that's cool. That's kind of an iconic brand.

Future Of Selling (32:47.844)
Love that. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (32:57.283)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (33:04.292)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (33:12.108)
We said, well, I want to tell people my story. Nobody knows who I am. And I was like, you're right. I have no idea who you are. just was flyboy donuts are great. We go there once in a while and I try not to eat too many of them. My kids think it's amazing. And then he told me a story and I just felt floored, you know, like there's so much to this. And I was like, people have got to hear your story, man. I'm like, I'm obsessed with this. And so we've been able to peel that onion back and whether that's

he's installed a flight simulator in his donut shops because he wants to teach people how to fly because that was his childhood dream, right? But it wasn't necessarily his dream. It was his dad's dream. And so he was kind of given this guilt of fulfilling something his dad couldn't do and realized eventually like, wait, I just like this for me. It doesn't matter if my dad couldn't do it or this or that. He's like, I really just love making people happy.

Future Of Selling (33:47.747)
Wow.

Steve Schmidt (34:07.756)
And I love teaching people how to do things they didn't know that they could do. And being able to go and be on planes with him, to be able to go around and deliver hot donuts and watch how they make them at 2 30 in the morning and see exactly the intricacy of that and then film it and really be in the belly of it is now giving that story to the same people who are going to buy his donuts.

Like we did a bunch of cool stuff in the back end. We configured his domains, like did demark figure, just like things to his email address, like his newsletter's doubled in rate. But the story is so much better than another donut deal, right? It's kind of like there's donut deals, but there's also like now once a month that that those 50,000 people on his newsletter and everybody on social gets the latest episode of learning to fly, you know, like the fly boy story. And so like being able to

Future Of Selling (34:39.247)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (34:57.955)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (34:59.522)
be the person who's in charge of that is a lot of weight because everybody knows that right. And I don't go around saying hey we're doing this stuff but you hear lots of people be like that's really cool. Do you see that guy and I'm like my God. I'll be at the sauna at the gym. There's guys listening to Spotlight, Sioux Falls and their iPhone. I look over I'm like this is insane. It's really starting to be the thing that people depend on as their preferred method of like learning about people in Sioux Falls. And so like it's an honor and privilege and his brand is blowing up.

And yeah, I just think that how cool is that? You know, we're doing it all with story. That's it.

Future Of Selling (35:35.462)
Yeah. Well, it's incredible. One, it's a great story, right? It's a great success story that you're having. But it's also incredible because, you know, you look at where we're at today in the world and the end. I wrote something down. I wish I could find on my whiteboard the other day that but basically it has to do with how many people were connected to but how many people we know, you know, and other people talk that kind of stuff, too. Right. But you're kind of I don't know if you're bucking the trend or if you're

Steve Schmidt (35:59.309)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (36:04.997)
creating a trend, but you've decided you've decided to keep it just keep it local, right? Keep it by. so how do you have so if the question is, how do you break through the noise? Because there's a post on LinkedIn. I do some videos. I do some mastermind class. I do stuff like that, right? As well as a podcast. And so there's this question like on LinkedIn right now. It's like I started posting out there like 18 months ago or something like that.

Steve Schmidt (36:12.684)
Yeah, yeah, man.

Future Of Selling (36:34.793)
And either, I don't know if it's my perception or if it's just true, it's such a 18 months ago, it didn't seem as crowded out there. But now it's like this, it's like this really crowded room. feel like it anyway. I don't know if that's accurate. I've not looked at the numbers, but you're taking a different approach. mean, it's like, no, let's keep it local, man. We got, we got plenty here.

Steve Schmidt (36:43.246)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (36:47.438)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (36:55.47)
Well, even I don't even know if local I would say, you know, stop talking about yourself is the number one piece of advice because everybody's done that for years. And that used to work and every got really sick of that, you know, now they really want to hear like about like, most people will now be attracted to your brand because you have a customer on a video talking about their business, right? And they might talk about how you help them but everything goes through trends.

Future Of Selling (37:04.26)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (37:22.304)
And everything kind of works for a while until it doesn't. Like that worked really well. I posted and got 44,000 followers and had, you know, 10, 20,000 likes every day on LinkedIn. talking about how much I knew, right? All the things that could teach people and that stopped working. And when it stopped working, I was stumped and depressed, all sorts of things. And so now you, don't know if I post on LinkedIn about myself more than once a month, right? I mean, I'm probably the most boring follow on LinkedIn.

Future Of Selling (37:36.441)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (37:44.133)
Okay.

Steve Schmidt (37:51.594)
And that's okay with me, because people are talking about the thing we're producing incessantly and they don't need to know my name, right? They just need to be able to find it and go to it. And then I don't, I don't ever need to my name mentioned. And it's just like, that's new for me. And we've never been busier. And you know, it's kind of reinventing the idea that like LinkedIn posts used to work till they didn't. And they still work, but they work differently where, you know,

Future Of Selling (37:57.221)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (38:20.79)
You can do targeted posts and pay money. I encourage people to do that. Actually, like if you really want to get in for your audience, boost your post, use your ICP, do all the filters and get it just to those people. Then that's how you do it. If you really want to break through the noise, like LinkedIn's not keeping a secret, like, Hey, free times over. There's no free lunch anymore. Now you got to pay. And the same thing on Facebook, Instagram, any platform has the post boost. Like the days of organic working are long, long gone. I'm just

Future Of Selling (38:40.795)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (38:49.56)
I'm here to tell you, we study it all day and it's anybody who's going to break through the noise, it's going to be a very brief amount of time. And then you will be filtered down by the algorithm. it ask anybody who's done this, whether it's Chris Walker or, you know, go down the list of other companies. Like you're not getting business off, off posts anymore. You might get the occasional post. We got all of our business doing 300 K a month off of LinkedIn DMS. I don't know if that would be possible to get 10 K today.

Future Of Selling (39:18.64)
Right? not because it's so, I mean, I get stuff constantly, know, direct messages and it's just like, yeah, you get, because you just get overwhelmed by it and so many, it's not, I don't even want to read it.

Steve Schmidt (39:24.545)
Yep.

Steve Schmidt (39:32.182)
Well, you have other social platforms, I will remind people, the same people you're trying to get in front of on LinkedIn, or on Facebook or on Instagram, or on TikTok talking about stuff they care about, like really care about, like as people. Or they're talking about their business, but they're there too, you know, and so I've seen most of the people on like the LinkedIn crowd ignore those channels altogether. And like just go be their friend. Like hang out for a while, like get to know them and then

You know, over time, you know, you'll get enough of those people where we when we do automation now in the back end, like we do LinkedIn, it still works. We do email, it still works, but not like it used to not even close to how it used to. What does work is posting shorts to Facebook and to tick tock and to Instagram targeting the same people you're trying to get to on LinkedIn. And you're going to do that easily with like a clay data waterfall and you just get their social handles.

Future Of Selling (40:29.881)
Okay.

Steve Schmidt (40:30.028)
And now whenever Rick Smith is on Instagram or whatever his major platform is, he'll see my video over there. I don't have to worry about LinkedIn's algorithm. I can just say like, I need to really diversify. That'd be my advice to everybody is diversify and realize that most people don't go home dreaming about LinkedIn at night. They get on Facebook, they get on Instagram, they want to laugh. They want to see something. I mean, I look at nothing but Komodo dragons killing pigs.

Future Of Selling (40:37.232)
Yeah, got it.

Steve Schmidt (40:53.378)
Like it's somehow that is my whole that that's what my feed is and like National Geographic animals just like slaying each other. And then occasionally I get an ad I'm like, God, like, it's the worst. You know, I'm just like, and so that's how most people think. Like they don't want to hear about how awesome you are, but you can still get to know them by posting something interesting on that platform. And then they're like, Rick Smith. Cool. Who's this guy? He made it into the feed where I'm actually caring about what's coming up.

Future Of Selling (41:00.379)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (41:10.01)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (41:16.517)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (41:21.698)
And it's not hard to do. will tell you, it's not hard to get in someone's feed. You just got to be really good at, you know, all the technical components to video, which is like, you know, whether it's metadata on a website or metadata on a YouTube post or actually writing the right description. That's not just some AI thing that gave you like the here's the keywords, like, Nope, then you'll be successful or you pay to do it, but it is not a free lunch for anybody anymore. And I'm just saying like,

our customers succeed off of targeted ads from shorts. And that could be a link to a score app quiz. That's a big one to tell people like ask people, if you want to someone's information, know if they might be a good product, let them score themselves. Like, people love to go out and say, like, how effective am I? Are my hormones balanced? Like, when will I die? Like, let them take the quiz and then look at the quiz results and say, are they a good fit for me? Now should I go out and sequence them?

And now I have relevant information. know they're interested in the space at least. And we've done that with a lot of clients where we're integrating those ads into things that are an offer. Like they get that PDF that says, here's your score. Here's what we recommend. But you get their information and they don't want to book a meeting with you anyway. Trust me. Like they're just, they're doing, but then you'd sequence them on the backend with an email and you connect to them on LinkedIn. And now you're, you're playing with danger.

Future Of Selling (42:42.661)
Yeah, now you kind of got a multi-touch approach. Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (42:45.336)
That's right across all channels. You've given them something of value, which is the number one rule. Give them something of value first. Don't ask for something.

Future Of Selling (42:52.977)
Yeah. Yeah. Are you just taking a note here? Are you are you doing work like like if somebody listens to this like this has been a really intriguing conversation for me. I think people that will listen to this will as well. In the last 10 minutes, you just kind of dug deep into how to break through the noise. Right. One of the questions I had.

Are you only working with people in Sioux Falls? mean, if somebody wanted to contact you and say, hey man, I love what you were talking about. Can you help me? Are you good with that? Are you open to that?

Steve Schmidt (43:27.747)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we're just going to be starting. mean, there's a new something coming up here and so it's going to be. Sioux Falls will probably always be the focus, but we have a client who is in Indianapolis. We have one in Louisiana. Only requirement is we won't travel more than once a quarter. And we won't do remote video, so we have to get in front of you and shoot with a camera crew. And there's expense to that that some people aren't willing to pay or you know they don't want to pay for this. And I'm like cool, then we're good.

But we absolutely would love to work with high, you know, a handful five or 10, like really sincere people who want to have someone who frameworks out everything shows up with the production crew and goes, all right, man, Rick, I need you for two hours today. But here's what we're talking about. We've got everything in our mind already. And when we go back, we're editing videos for 10 days and we go, hey, Rick, and these guys literally last night, they're a bunch of surgeons from Indiana. We're like, we're blown away.

Cause they hated the filming session because we did some really cool long form. now I'm like, here's, here's the short, the ads we wrote for you. so saying things in a natural way in a not so natural way is really hard for people. And when we were filming the guy even said, Dr. Park said like, I would never say this. And we're like, exactly.

Future Of Selling (44:47.08)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (44:48.706)
because you did say this actually when we interviewed you, but now you're thinking about now I got to impress people. And, and he said, these are so great. Like these are, it has the hook. It delivers on the promise. It's 22 seconds long. And they couldn't have done that before. And so you're, we'd love to do that for more people. And, but it won't be likely our model. Like to be just Sioux falls or just there, we will just naturally focus on here, which

changes all your SEO plan. so trust me, if you're trying to launch into a local market and you still want to do some national, like good luck, because Google wants you to make up your mind and really wants you to know like who are your targets. Like, so it can put in like Sioux Falls businesses, for example, like if you say that that's way different than businesses. And so even picking out particular communities, like we've looked at, like if we said Sioux Falls,

Future Of Selling (45:28.486)
Right.

Future Of Selling (45:38.929)
Right.

Steve Schmidt (45:45.866)
Indianapolis and Burbank, California. Now you're going to show up in those communities. But if you just say everywhere, like now you're fighting with Gong for, you know, paying $190 for elite on Google. And so it's really hard to break through that noise. And so I would just say like people say niche down. Yes, and niche down in everything you do and how you talk about the people you serve is specific as humanly possible.

Future Of Selling (45:48.624)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (46:12.635)
Yeah. So if I said, cause I always end up kind of with some key takeaways, right? So if, if, so if we're taught, if somebody's listening, right, they're wanting to break through the noise, you've given us probably 10 things. Now, what are the, what are like the top three? If you said, Hey, here's three things to go do or start, start doing right away. This, that, and the other, what would they, I'm trying to break through the noise. would they, okay.

Steve Schmidt (46:36.728)
Get a YouTube channel for sure. Invest a lot of time to it. Don't outsource it to somebody unless you just, I mean, if they're good, yes. And if you don't have time, that thing should be your number one content. That is your content. CSM, content system management. Now you go in there and you got to pick five topics that you know people care about, right? That you're solving a problem for. And don't forget about your frequently asked questions.

Future Of Selling (46:52.774)
Okay.

Steve Schmidt (47:02.734)
playlist, right? Playlists are everything. Like get people on a 30 video playlist and they get hooked in on one man. They're yours, you know? And so like we focus a lot on YouTube, creating good playlists that have content that aligns with the topic. And so picking those five themes shouldn't be hard. mean, you can use Chatgy BT to really distill that down. Just go to your competitors who are good at it and look at them and say like, what are they doing? Because if they're successful, like they probably haven't figured out and

what you put into that can be your own, but the topic that people care about is, is often not what you would think. Like for us, we could put Sioux Falls restaurants and food, right? That's a playlist Sioux Falls healthcare. Cause we've done 10 or so episodes on every one of those people. now we have playlists in those verticals.

Future Of Selling (47:51.665)
to playlist by vertical, by topics.

Steve Schmidt (47:54.52)
topic vertical, whatever it is, like get that figured out. And that is now you can take everything from there and put it into. my second point would be now look at taking that long form, cutting it up and, and really now distributing it as ads. And I mean that like wholeheartedly like spend 10 bucks a day, whatever it is, target the people and study, especially in meta, their personal interests and behaviors. I mean, we have a chain of 112 different personal interests and behaviors before we nailed something for someone who is treating diabetic wound care.

What? Like, you can't type in diabetes, you can't type in wound care, but you have to find the people who are probably a family member of someone whose foot's about ready to fall off. And we nailed it, you know, and that came out of a long form piece of content that was housed on YouTube. So again, 10 bucks a day, 300 bucks a month, you don't have that then don't play, you know, and then target really well and adjust your targeting. The last thing would be finding a conversion system. Again, going back to LinkedIn, well, posts don't work well.

Future Of Selling (48:34.098)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (48:45.468)
Right, gotcha.

Steve Schmidt (48:54.39)
an ad works because you can target them. It doesn't have to feel like an ad and see, I know you want to call it an ad paid post, paid post. You can target it and you can have a little button that says learn more. That button matters because it sends them immediately to either a lead form or a landing page that, know, now there's and be very offer centric. Don't, don't lead them to your website where they go, what the heck is this? Like, I don't even know where to go. Like,

Future Of Selling (49:21.51)
Yeah, where they're like lost in the neighborhood, like I don't know what to do here.

Steve Schmidt (49:24.27)
here's our services. Oh, great. You know, like make it more about the problem you were talking about and more video like video behind the video, right and give them a chance to see you in three or four different ways on the same topic. That again is all done by agreeing to yourself that the market wants this topic talked about. And now I'm going to get on YouTube for evergreen and SEO and a EO and then I'm going to put it on paid social to convert leads and start start to fill my funnel.

Future Of Selling (49:50.098)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (49:51.468)
And don't be afraid to score out. They're a great partner of ours. And score app is a very simple product that you can create these, you know, quizzes that have score. And on the backend though, is a really, really cool lead engine system that you can segment and automate, you know, right as soon as they take it and they, and because it's giving them value. And so we used to talk about giving value in the post like, yes. And now we have to give them value again and again.

And if people say that sounds like a lot of work, I'm like, that's why it's not working because you're not doing all those other things.

Future Of Selling (50:26.856)
Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Man. Fantastic conversation today. Thank you so much seriously for the time today and just for putting up and you know, I love the, I love the, I love what you're doing in Sioux falls and love the discussion around kind of, you know, where you've been and where you're at now. And then just the deep dive on, on, you know, what you're doing with clients and how your business works is incredible. So.

Steve Schmidt (50:28.823)
Yeah.

Steve Schmidt (50:35.182)
Nick D rex.

Steve Schmidt (50:54.636)
Yeah, thanks Rick. It's fun, man. It's fun. It keeps the brain dizzy and keeps me out of trouble, you know?

Future Of Selling (51:00.233)
Yeah, yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Well, again, thanks for being with us today. I think this is going to be a really popular episode. And I'd love to stay connected with you. know we're on LinkedIn now. and, but, but yeah, let's keep the conversation going. So thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

Steve Schmidt (51:10.242)
Yes, sir. You can count on it.

Thanks, Rick. I appreciate having me on.

Bye.