Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 156 with the amazing Steve Farber, who brings love into a business.

Steve Faber [0:10]
Hi, this is Steve Farber and you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:17]
Well, once I learned about today’s guest, Steve Faber, I could not wait getting him on the show because we share one big scary word, which we use in our businesses, which we teach about and this big scary word is called, ‘Love.’ Yes. And Steve is going to talk about how love turbo charges your business in today’s episode, so stay tuned, because Steve is going to share his wisdom on what he learned in all the decades of teaching and bringing this wonderful concept of love into a business. Steve is a best selling author and he is the founder and CEO of the Extreme Leadership Institute. Which is a learning and development firm devoted to helping its client, develop award-winning cultures and achieve radical results. The institute team has helped over 20 companies earning a rank in the best place to work less. And Steve is really sharing all he knows about love is just very good for business. And we’re going to talk about his new book that just came out as well. So tune in to today’s lessons with the amazing Steve Faber. Well, I’m so excited to have you on Heart Sells! Podcast today, Steve, welcome.

Steve Faber [1:41]
Thank you. Christine is great to be here with you.

Christine Schlonski [1:43]
Yeah, and I was so surprised. We were introduced by a mutual friend. And I just fell in love with your latest book and your message and so I’m so excited to share today with our listeners because they are looking for an approach, how they can sell, being authentic, giving their gifts to the world just being the good people, you know? And yeah, I can’t wait to dive in.

Steve Faber [2:11]
Well, thank you very much. Yeah, I would be surprised if you had any other reaction than what you had to that title given what you’re all about, right? It’s called kindred spirits, I believe

Christine Schlonski [2:25]
It is. So the wonderful name is, Love is Just Damn Good Business. And I always say sales is love so that goes together hand in hand. Because at the end of the day, if you don’t sell you don’t have a business, right?

Steve Faber [2:38]
That’s absolutely right. Yeah. Love is just damn good business. That’s the reality. That’s the conclusion that I’ve come to after working in the business world with leaders of all kinds of companies and just about every kind of industry and all parts of the planet. That’s the conclusion. Love is just damn good businesses, it’s the foundation of great leadership. It’s the foundation of great companies and if it is the turbocharger for anybody in a sales capacity, that’s for sure.

Christine Schlonski [3:11]
Yeah, let’s talk about the turbocharger because I had some revelations around that. So let’s hear your story. Like when did you discover that by putting love into the game, things just change?

Steve Faber [3:27]
Yeah, um, I’ve it’s been a process of discovery that’s been going on now for three decades, I have to say. So it wasn’t like I woke up one day and had this startling revelation. It said, “Oh, it’s all about love”, you know, and started playing Beatles songs and that kind of thing. It was based on a lot of observation, working with a lot of people. And just asking the question, what is it that makes these leaders, primarily in the business context, what makes them extraordinary? How do they get these phenomenal results? Even though the word love the ‘L’ word itself, isn’t used most frequently in public, it is used very frequently, one on one. When I sit down and ask executives, for example, you know, really, I mean really accomplished executives. And that’s not always true but many times, and I’ll say something like, “Tell me about your team. What do you think about your team?” And just like that, you hear, “Oh, I love it. I love it. Let me tell you why.” Take that same person, put them in public and asked the same question. They answered a little differently, “Oh, they’re great.” I know they’re great but what happened to the love thing you just told me that you know, when the doors were closed. So the beautiful thing about this Christine is that we’re not adding, trying to add something to the mix. What we’re doing is you and I, in our own ways is we’re shining a light on a reality that already exists. And we’ve been conditioned to believe I think, as business people, that for some reason love has no place in business. That love is weak and soft and squishy and it’s important in every other aspect of our lives but not in business. And that’s just absurd. Here’s the case and tell me if you agree with this from a sales perspective. Our competitive advantage as business people comes from having our customers or our clients whatever term you use, love us. I mean, it’s inarguable. If they don’t love the product, the service, the experience of doing business with us, then there are no, there’s no greater likelihood they’re going to stick around. And there’s tons of research on this. I’m not making this up. If I say I’m satisfied with you guys. Okay, I can be satisfied down the street too. But when I love you, when I love this experience, that’s where the payoff comes from. So if you have a salesperson whose clients love them, they don’t do business anywhere else, plain and simple. So we should know that. But we have to back it up from there. How do we make that happen? That’s the question. And really the only way to make that happen consistently and sustainably across an enterprise over time is to create a culture or an environment that people love working in. I don’t love working here is very different, difficult for me to create that experience for my client. Back it up one more step. I can’t create that kind of culture or a team or environment or contribute to it unless I love it myself first. So this is nothing new is just about shining the spotlight on it. We can be more intentional with it. And the payoff is there. And I’m happy to give you plenty of examples of how that works.

Christine Schlonski [7:07]
Yeah, well, I think also you got to start to love your clients first. Because they will feel that in every conversation. So when I discovered that for me, and I used it intentionally, that I thought, you know, before I did my next cold call to a person I’ve never seen, I just have the name, the number, and a little bit of background information. I just put out like, I love you. And, you know, for Germans to say that, that doesn’t come easy. And it’s, you know, it’s really used in public. I think, in the States, it’s much more often than people just say, “Oh, I love you, I love you”, when they hang up the phone, like, that’s not something I’ve seen in Germany. So for me, changing that mindset and really tapping into space where thought, okay, I love you. But before I even make the call, I don’t know. But I love you, I put out that intention that changed everything people reacted in a different way.

Steve Faber [8:11]
So to be clear, to be clear, if I’m understanding you correctly, you didn’t start a cold call, a phone call with a new prospect by saying, “Hi, this is Christine I love you”, right? You just kind of tapped into that feeling and went from there, right?

Christine Schlonski [8:32]
Yeah, exactly how would I love that relationship to be. We are excited about our friends, our family, we love spending time with them. So why not do that in business. And then the person you don’t know becomes your client or customer. And then from there, you are so awesome, and you’ll help them and serve them so well, that they potentially can be your friends.

Steve Faber [8:59]
And then the people that you do know, your customers once they become your customers. What a phenomenal opportunity to deepen that relationship. So let me give you an example of exactly what you’re talking about. So first of all, let me put it in context. The subtitle of love is just damn good business is this phrase, “Do what you love, in the service of people who love what you do.” So that’s the bigger picture. Yes, it’s important to do what you love. And you know, you’re starting with that feeling is a good example of that. But then you’re using that to serve right in the service of people in the service of your customers, your colleagues, your prospects, your community, for that matter. So I guess I’m doing what I love, I’m using that to serve you. And if I serve you in a significant way, the result is you reciprocate. You love me in return. Which looks like in business, you do more business with me, you refer me more, you talk about me all the time, you become my raving fan, my evangelist. And then once you have clients like that customers like that, oh man, that’s the foundation to really build a business. So do what you love in the service of people who love what you do. I’ve been teaching this for a long time, in some form or another. So here’s the story. I met a woman a while back, who ran a sales team for a very large multinational company. I won’t use the name, trust me that is one that you’ve heard, but I didn’t get direct permission to tell the story so I’ll use, just say, multinational company that you have heard of, and this woman ran a sales team and they were industrial, their clients were big retailers like the Walmart’s and the Targets and you know, that of the world. So this woman, her top salesperson, her name was Vicki. Her teammates referred to her as, The Original Love Doctor. That was her nickname, internally in the company. So her boss is telling me the story. She said Vicky is our top salesperson. And she is all about loving her customers. And she said to me, she read your earlier book, The Radical Leap, was my first book that came out originally in 2004, which is the first time that I wrote about love as a business practice. She read that book, and she started asking herself, “Do her customers love her?” And she loved her customers. That’s where she started. So her boss is telling me the story. Her name is Kate. She’s telling me about Vicki. So I said, “Hey, will you do me a favor? Would you mind if I called her? Just give me her cell phone number and I’ll give her a call.” And she said, “Oh sure she’d love that.” Just out of nowhere, one day I called her up. She had no idea was going to call. She didn’t know me other than my book. She answered the phone and I said, “Is this the original love doctor?” I think kind of freaked out a little bit. But anyway, once I explained who I was, I asked her to tell me her story. And that’s where it started. She said, “I asked myself, do my customers love me?” Keep in mind, this was already the top salesperson. And she said the honest answer was, no, they liked me well enough. We have a good time together with trade shows and all that. But I can’t really say that they love me. So then she said, “All right, I’ve got to get it to the point where they do. I need to make my customers love me.” Now on the surface, that sounds manipulative, but it wasn’t and here’s why. She started with something very similar to what you just said a couple of minutes ago. She asked herself, “Do I love them?” And the answer is yes, I really do love them. So how do I show them? How do I prove to them that I love them? And let’s just start with that, do what you love in the service of people. So she started and whenever she saw them at trade shows, or wherever she communicated with them, she treated them as if they were family. So when you love somebody in your personal life, you know about them, you know their kids, you know what they’re doing, you know their challenges, you know their aspirations, you know everything about them. So she just went on this campaign to learn as much as she could about these people that she loved and sure enough, the relationship started the change. She felt the difference. She saw how they were reacting with her differently. And this, of course, is the punch line for every salesperson listening to this. It should result in more sales, right? And it did. Her sales volume increased by and this is not an exaggeration, $300 million

Christine Schlonski [14:02]
Wow.

Steve Faber [14:03]
Now, she works for a big company and has big contracts. So she works with big numbers. But I don’t care. No matter how you slice it $300 million is $300 million. And that’s why her colleagues called her, The Original Love Doctor. So love is just damn good business. It is the heart and soul, no pun intended, of what great salespeople do. And they’ve been doing it that way for generations. We just haven’t talked about it.

Christine Schlonski [14:31]
Yeah, I just love the story. And you have another story. I would love for you to share what you told about the pizza delivery guy. You know who I mean. Because I want, people can say that are listening, “Well, okay, so I learned like how many kids do they have? Do they have cats? Do they have dogs? Where do they live? What are the challenges?” That’s like, that’s what a good salesperson should be doing. What can we do to do that little extra thing that makes somebody day, that really makes them see that we love them?

Steve Faber [15:08]
Yeah, that’s right. So you know that little list of inventory that you just rattled off there. There are lots of ways of approaching that information. I mean, those could just be entries into your CRM, just entries in the database, name of spouse, name of the dog, you know, that’s fine. But really what it comes from is your desire to know those things. Because it helps you learn about that person. Not because you can push those buttons when that’s necessary. So it’s really, it’s not just about gathering the information it’s about the heart with which you use that information to serve them better. So here’s the example that you were asking about. There’s a guy by the name of Joe Janeiro who I actually wrote about in the book He used to be a delivery, a pizza delivery guy from Marco’s Pizza. He was delivering pizzas in Ohio. And if you were to ask Joe back in those days, how he felt about his customers, he would tell you, he would have told you, they’ll still tell you but back then he would have told you that he loves them. Loves people

Christine Schlonski [16:18]
A pizza delivery guy, it’s just somebody who brings a pizza to your doorstep and leaves where you don’t have a deep conversation.

Steve Faber [16:33]
Think about the usual experience, very transactional. Here’s your pizza, give me my money see you later, thank you for, and then they’re off and running. So what Joe would do is he would show up at a customer’s house and if he was walking up to the door and he noticed that the bulb, the light bulb on the porch was burned out. He would change the light bulb. He’s a pizza delivery guy. He’s not a handyman, he’s a pizza delivery guy. He changes the light bulb. Now, why would you change the light bulb? Because that’s what you do when you love somebody. You help them out and change the light bulb. In Ohio, they have this thing called winter and which involves snow oftentimes. So if he was delivering a pizza in the winter and he’d go up to a client’s house and you see that the walkway was covered in snow, he would shovel the walk, cover the walk, deliver the pizza, change the light bulb, deliver the pizza, this is the kind of thing that he would do just because, not because he was trying to get a better tip just because he was, this what you do when you love somebody. He was serving them in unique ways. Unique to that, but that not unique to something you would do for a person that you love. And of course, what started to happen was people would begin calling Marco’s store that Joe worked for and they would order a pizza and they would also order Joe. “I want that pizza and have Joe deliver it please” The owner of that store obviously took notice of what Joe is doing and what the results were. And he ended up making Joe a partner in that store.

Christine Schlonski [18:09]
Wow.

Steve Faber [18:10]
And now fast forward to today. This was several years ago. Now, Joe, I’m losing track. I think he owns eight Marco stores now, eight. And in the recent store that he just opened in Florida, he made one of his employees, a partner of the store, just like was done for him. And it is the core of his career. It’s what led him to tremendous success as an entrepreneur. And the stories just roll out from there because it’s become part of their culture by him, through his example. All starting with, “How do I do what I love in the service of people who love what I do?” So there are thousands of ways to do this. You just have to let yourself be creative and come from that place that you described right at the beginning of our talk. Just ask yourself first.

Christine Schlonski [19:03]
Yeah, it makes such a big difference and how we interact with people. And you know, one of my wishes or Yeah, what I’m going for, like, was everybody I do have an interaction. I just want that they feel better afterward. I just want to give them something so they remember something good, something that uplifts them and motivates them or inspires them or whatever it is like something that they are better off than before we have met. I just love that especially in business because so many heart-centered, impact-driven entrepreneurs are having difficulties to sell because they think of the slimy, sleazy salesperson that just manipulates the sale and doesn’t really care. But I think that people can feel it. If you really care, if they feel your love, they will feel that they can work with you. That makes a huge difference.

Steve Faber [20:06]
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. This is not about faking it. It’s about, authenticity is the big buzz word of the day for all the right reasons, actually. People do have a pretty good bullshit meter. They know what we’re faking it, and therefore don’t. So, at the same time, I think there’s still a reluctance and a lot of people to really tap into this because there is this stereotype or this misconception of what love looks like. We tend to equate it oftentimes in a business context. We tend to equate it with, with being too weak or being if I love them, I’m going to be a pushover. They’re going to take advantage of me and you love this soft. Nothing could be further from the truth, this, this, this stuff is hard. And there is such a thing as tough love. And if you have any kind of a fear that says, Well, if I really embrace this love-oriented thing, I’m not going to be as driven. I’m not going to be as persistent. I’m not going to be as you know, as disciplined, because I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make somebody not love the so I’ll just really, you know, walk on eggshells and say, you know, which is how we define an ineffective salesperson. And it’s not that. If we’re really driven from the heart, the heart is courageous, the heart challenges, the heart desires for people to have greater effectiveness and joy and fulfillment in their lives. If I’m a salesperson coming from that perspective, and I really love you my prospect and I really love this product. Then I’m going to be more courageous. I’m going to be even more bold, more audacious in the way that I sell to you, because I’m not coming from a place of how can I manipulate you, not easy to say, I’m coming from a place of how can I really serve you and honestly, if I feel that I’m compromising myself, or I’m compromising you in some way, by selling you what it is that I’m selling you, then I need to move on and sell something else. Because what that means is that I don’t believe in this product that I’m selling I and your salespeople are powerful. And what we sell is part of our legacy. It speaks to who we are. So if you have a dilemma with what you’re selling, you can’t be there anymore. You have to move on and find something that you really, that you’re really in love with. And that’s going to open it up for you.

Christine Schlonski [22:50]
What a wonderful end for the first interview. I’m so happy we have another one coming up. So I want to send people to your amazing page, http://loveisgoodbiz.com/ where they not only find the book they can purchase, but also you have a really cool test like an assessment. Can you tell us about that real quick?

Steve Faber [23:13]
Yeah, so it’s http://loveisgoodbiz.com/. The assessment is a self-assessment around what I call the leap framework, which is love, energy, audacity, and proof. And I spell that out in the book as well. But it’s just a good place for you to get a sense of where you are right now. And should put into perspective, the kinds of things that you can leverage, that you’re already doing well, and some of the things that you may want to focus on in order to grow.

Christine Schlonski [23:48]
Awesome. Well, I will put everything in the show notes as well. So thank you so, so much for sharing your love on Heart Sells! Podcast, and I’m looking forward to our next interview.

Steve Faber [23:58]
Me too. Thanks so much, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [24:00]
I hope this episode really resonated with me. It did with me and you know, the thinking like, how can you be the love doctor for your clients? How can you love your clients and know that your clients love you? I think once you crack that code, your business is going to be striving and you’re going to make a lot, a lot, a lot of your dreams come true by supporting your clients to make their dreams come true. So tune in for the next episode where we even deepening the topic with Steve Faber and yeah, hope you took lots of notes. If you have any questions, reach out to info@christineschlonski.com. Otherwise, hop just over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab. There are the show notes and the transcript and also all the wonderful resources we talked about. And make sure you are taking Steve’s free assessment that he brought to us. Where you can have a check-in if you are cultivating love, generating energy, inspiring audacity, and providing proof. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and all the links to Steve are just one click away. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for tuning in, sending you lots and lots of love from Germany where I am today. Wishing you a wonderful day wherever you are in the world and saying bye for now.