From Overwhelm to Authority: Steph Crowder’s Sales Strategies

In this episode of the Authority Builder podcast, Charlotte is joined by her coach, Steph Crowder, a sales and strategy coach (and former Director of Sales Training at Groupon) who helps entrepreneurs sell with courage, clarity, and confidence. 

Steph shares why business growth is rarely about doing more, and almost always about doing the right money-making activities consistently, even when it feels repetitive.

They unpack how to get out of your head and into action, including practical ways to reduce overwhelm, build sales momentum, and stop chasing novelty. Steph explains her BuzzBlitz framework for repeatable sales campaigns, plus why trust and frequency matter more than perfection in today’s noisy market. 

You will also hear why podcasts and other voice-led content are powerful authority builders in 2025 to 2026, especially for high-ticket offers.

Key topics covered:
- Prioritisation and the myth of being “done”
- Repetition, habits, and daily money-making activities
- Warm invitations and reactivating your network
- BuzzBlitz, webinars, and sustainable launches
- Authority building through podcasts, audio, and video

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:00

Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Kaffeen Authority Builder podcast, and today I'm so pleased to be joined by my own coach, Steph Crowder, who is a sales and strategy coach. Helping Entrepreneurs sell with courage clarity and confidence. She's a former director of sales training at Groupon and she's coached thousands of business owners to land clients quickly and scale into sold out group programs and not just group programs, I should say. I'm not actually using it for a group program right now in terms of the, what I'm learning from you. So I think everybody can learn from this episode. And the way she does that is using simple, authentic sales strategies. She also hosts the Courage and Clarity podcast, which I thoroughly recommend you go listen to. It is my favorite treadmill. Listen, and she runs multiple six figure business in under 24 hours a week as a mum of two, which is something else I really identify with. So after that mammoth intro, Steph, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, Charlotte. I am thrilled to be here today. I'm glad we found time to do it. And for anyone who doesn't know you already, can you share a bit about what you do and who you help through yourselves? Coaching in a bit more detail than I just, touched on there. Yes, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I have been a business coach running my own business for, I just hit 10 years in 2025. So that's really exciting. And since my own background is in sales training, well first in sales and then in sales training, I have really enjoyed the past decade figuring out how to apply some of the more. I would say traditional sales principles that I learned in that background with modern online entrepreneurs, specifically solopreneurs, you know, coaches, service providers, course creators, and I do that in two main ways, which you, you mentioned, but to go a little bit deeper, the first one is I teach people how to get really good at the. Individual sale, right? So I have a program called Same Day Sales, which teaches you to figure out how to do exactly what it sounds like, how to generate interest and start conversations and close sales all in a day, That's the goal. It doesn't always take a day, but it can absolutely be done in a day. And that's the mindset of it. And then once my clients are. Having some traction with that, we move on to figuring out how to scale that success. And so in the Mastermind, which you are a part of, and we love having you, it's called Sold Out Group programs. And we help people figure out how to create sustainable sales processes that keep their group programs. And to your point, plenty of our clients are not even using the sales systems for group programs. You can also do this for one-on-one coaching and one-on-one service providing. but that's what we do in the Mastermind. And I think one of the things that I really identify with when I was making a decision about working with you and I don't think it's a stretch to say that we both believe in this, is that business growth doesn't come from doing everything but doing the right things consistently, which is a bit like telling somebody to eat brand every day and isn't the most exciting advice. But when did that click for you and how did you realize that selling could actually be quite simple? I think. You know, if I go back to where I really started with my online business journey. I, was like you said, I was a director of sales training at Groupon and then I decided I like many of us do when we're trying to get our own businesses off the ground, I needed and wanted a bit of a half step. Some of us call this a bridge job, right? So there was this membership at the time called Fizzle fizzle.co, and I was a part of this membership. I was drinking from the fire hose. I was. Driving in Chicago to my office, listening to podcast after podcast, being what is this online business thing? I, I wanna do this. This is amazing. I knew I was gonna wanna have children. I didn't have them yet. I was trying to mentally sort out how I was gonna be able to pull this off. So I joined this membership and this membership was dedicated to really teaching you the tools of, you know, starting from scratch and having an online business. And one day these. Three amazing guys who ran fizzle posted that they were looking for a part-time customer service specialist, and me, a director of sales training at Groupon with stock options was I'm gonna, I'm gonna apply for this job. And it's funny because they, I, I ended up getting the job and I ended up helping run that company ultimately. But, I found out later from the CEO, he was we threw out your application at first because it was it made no sense. Why would somebody with this position apply for this role? It quickly became a part, a full-time role for me, but that in, in that environment, I. To your question of, when I really started to see that it's about doing the right things consistently versus doing everything. I coached that we had thousands of members in this membership and it was my job. I was the first line of defense in, in triaging their questions. And it was just the best training for learning how to be a business coach. All different kinds of businesses, all different stages, all walks of life, all around the world. And it occurred to me. The metric ton of stuff that entrepreneurs could be doing at any given moment, I would say that was one of our, maybe that was our number one question every day was, should I be doing this or should I be doing that? Should I be doing this or should I be doing that? anyone listening to this who. Lives this life knows you could have a to-do list of a hundred things. And so I quickly realized that the number, I think the number one skill you can have in business other than being great at selling, which is why I teach that, is prioritization. You have to make peace with the idea that you will never be done It's never going to be over. Your list is never done. There's always going to be more that you could be doing. And so once you make peace with that and you accept that. Which I think a lot of people struggle with. They're no, I wanna try and do it all. You start to see that a lot of it is noise and a lot of it can fall away. Yeah. And a lot of it can go on a future list. Yeah. But when you have limited time and you're in the business of trying to build a life where you have time to. Parent and travel and do whatever it is that you love to do. I think once you start to get really good at realizing there's just a few key things that really truly move the needle in business and the rest is just extra. That's where I think a simple business is the only way to be able to do it all. Yeah, absolutely. And as you were talking, I was thinking, when did that click for me? And I think as you said, it's when I became a parent probably for the second time. Yeah. And you give up the illusion of control. Mm-hmm. And you also realize that you are, it's a journey. And I truly, I had an old boss, he always used to say to me, because I'm a doer, and he was always like, Charlotte. It's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And, every day I'd be treating it like a sprint and because of because of various things about that scenario and that role and how quickly that business is growing. But, as I've got older, I've realized it really is a journey and you've gotta pace yourself and you've really gotta choose wisely. And there are no wrong answers. There are just things that are gonna take a lot more time or a lot more money. Right. And, yeah. Yeah, I completely, completely believe in all those things. And the other thing that I'm hearing you, you say there is around understanding what is gonna be the most valuable thing to do at that moment in terms of finding sales or solving the business problem that you have for A lot of people come to us when they've got cashflow issues and they want to find. Cold new business, like brand new business. I'm like, I'm not gonna lie to you, you, that is not how you're gonna get cashflow moving again in the short term. And we have what used to be called the cashflow first aid kit. We're actually, rebranding that right now. But, and I don't know'cause I've not been through same day sales, like how much overlap there is there, but it is very much about one-to-one invitations and it's about reigniting your network in eight different ways that you can do that. Very practical steps, templates, videos of exactly how you do these things. Because the, for the majority of clients that, the majority of clients, I recommend that to don't even get past that first step because they already find clients from that. But we are really reluctant to do it. And I think, I think having a sales coach, even if this is kind of my takeout from working with you, even if you do work around the area of new business and marketing and sales, I think it's valuable to have a sales coach.'cause you need that objective view of your business, as a, as a small business owner. You can ignore the obvious stuff sometimes, like you said to me a few months ago, you were like, do personal invites. And I was like, well, I tell my clients to do that every day of the week. Right? Why am I not doing that? Yeah. And then I did it and lo and behold it worked. And I. Yeah, so I think it's fascinating and I think it's, I know you have your own sales coach as well, and I think it's important to appreciate that. Mm-hmm. Just'cause you're the expert in an area doesn't mean that you don't need some objectivity and support around that. Right. And I also think the other thing in the mix here is sometimes it's a bit boring, right? And I think especially as entrepreneurs, we tend to be multi-passionate. there is, I've been thinking about this a lot lately and, and talking about it on my own show that there is so much dopamine, instant dopamine that we get from newness. Right. Yeah. It's when you pick up and move to a new house, or you go on a trip or you start a new offer, there's that rush of fresh, that's why we love the new year. It, it just feels so good. Right? And so I think our brain, I mean, temporarily, temporarily, it feels good. It feels good until it stopped, it doesn't work. The graveyard of other things that we've jumped around to that didn't work. Yeah, right. And so I think that when we are asking our brain to do what feels obvious or what feels repetitive, your brain just throws a little bit of a temper tantrum. It's like, I don't wanna do more warm invitations. I wanna do what that person's talking about on, on social media. Or I wanna do something that feels new and different. It reminds me a lot, and you know this, in my coaching I, there I find always such a parallel between business and exercise and fitness and health. Health and wellness is a big passion of mine in my personal life and keeping myself sharp and keeping my mind where I wanna be and my body working too. And it's the same thing, like getting up and going to the gym and doing your workouts, going out for the walks like. Yeah, a lot of times your brain is like, ugh, be because it's repetitive. But I think one thing we know is that repetition does get results. Repetition gets results. Whether you're talking about building muscle on your body or you're talking about getting sales. And so I think sometimes our brain wants to make it a problem. We, we wanna make repetition a problem. And one of the things I coach on a lot is yeah, you know, get on board with it being a little bit boring sometimes. And if you're a little bit bored, may I suggest a hobby? Like your business does not have to be the ultimate source of stim. In fact, I recommend that it's not the number one stimulation in your life. Do you know what? I dunno if it's hormonal or what, but I'm waking up really early this at the moment, and I woke up at five this morning. And I was like, fuck it, I may as well go work for two hours. That's probably not what I should have done between the hours of five and seven. But God, I got ahead of my list and I had a lot to do and it felt good. But yeah, I do agree, like understanding, having lots of stuff outside of work that you take your, your, your dopamine of. From, rather than just running off the thrill of cortisol in your business is a really healthy way to stick to those kind of brand flakes kind of consistent activities that you need to be doing. Yeah, and I think another really important reason for this is, is it James Clear or Adam Grant? I can never remember the one, the Atomic had a bit. Sky's James. Clear. Okay. But what is oh God, this is a terrible story because now I can't remember the number of times, but is it 45 times you need to do something before it becomes a habit? There's a certain number. Yeah. And one of the biggest challenges that I have with my own clients isn't agreeing on a strategy or creating content or creating emails or whatever. It's getting them to send them out and then doing that on a regular basis. And they will find every reason under the sun not to do it, even though the work is already done and we've agreed on it and I'm look, I know. That I know there's resistance and I understand it, but until you start doing it, until you keep repeating it, you're not gonna get comfortable with it. Right. And then it's just gonna become mundane, normal, and you'll have stretched and expanded. And I know this word expansion is woo in some people's eyes that some of the people who are gonna be listening in, but it's really true. Once something becomes, it's gained the reps in and you know, to draw the parallel back to training. And I know you're into weight training too. You know what? You, you increase your capacity when you are constantly doing the thing, when you're increasing the weight, when you're con you're doing the thing, you're getting the reps in. And so my biggest challenge isn't is, is actually just getting clients to do stuff and that's, it feels such a waste of money in terms of hiring, hiring me as a coach. It's basically just a kick your ass and keep you accountable. Right. If you are amenable to that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, when it, it, it feels if you just push back past that pain threshold, it becomes normal and then you're okay, Charlotte, know what? you move on to the next thing. I just literally had one coaching call that just now and I find it for so frustrating on their behalf'cause I've been there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the sooner you can just, we talk about this a lot, you know, this wi within my program about, we call them MMAs, money making activities. Mm-hmm. And I recommend an hour a day of MMAs kind of rhymes. And at first it's the same thing you're talking about. It's the kicking and screaming, the temper tantrum, the, I don't wanna do it. But soon enough when that, I really recommend people do an hour a day, sometimes people will ask me well, can I do five hours on one day? I really prefer my clients to do an hour a day because then it becomes built into the fabric of how you do business, right? Mm-hmm. Think about other things in your life that you do every day. Even when you don't feel like it, maybe that's brushing your teeth or putting some clothes on your brain. I know for me, especially as the months get colder, I don't wanna change into outta my pajamas, but I make myself do that because it's something that I do every day. And so once you start doing that with your sales activities, you can wire it the same way where it's yeah, whether or not you feel like doing it. It becomes a bit irrelevant, right? Mm-hmm. And it's well, we're doing this because this is part of our, it's part of our day and mm-hmm. Sure, you can miss a day here and there, but if you, same thing with going and working out or going for walks or strength training, whatever. when you get really good at going consistently and then you miss a day, it actually feels weird. You're I feel like I. I don't feel like myself, the same thing will actually happen when you start to prioritize even an hour a day of sales activities. You'll be I am, there's something in my day that I was supposed to do that I didn't do. That's what we're going for. Because for a lot of people who, most people really dread selling, it's the last thing they wanna do in their business that's always gonna, that dread is gonna be there because you don't have any momentum. So when you build up the momentum day to day, it just becomes less of a big deal. Yeah, absolutely. And this is, you know, this is neuroplasticity, this Science. And there's no arguing with it, despite the fact that the people who describe themselves as creatives and enjoying the, the referrals coming in, like to convince themselves they don't need to do sales. But yeah, so true. And, one of the reasons I love your approach so much is how you focus on people actually taking the action as we've just spoken about, instead of thinking about it. What have you learned about how, other ways in which you get people outta their heads and into motion? Hmm. Absolutely. What comes to mind right away is breaking it down as small as possible. Yeah. I coach a lot on overwhelm. It's one of my favorite topics to coach on because overwhelm is one of those things where it feels like when you're overwhelmed, it feels like it's about the list. Everybody wants to make it be about the list. You're like, oh, there's so many things on the list. But it's really never about, rarely. Occasionally it'll be about what's on the list. If there's something on there that you literally don't know how to do, for example, if you have been wanting to try Facebook ads and you have never a day in your life gone into the Ads manager, yeah, you're gonna be overwhelmed by that because you have a skill gap and we'll, we can resolve that in a number of ways, but for the most part, when people are overwhelmed by their list, it's the sheer volume of what's coming at them, And we always, we talk about this a lot in the Mastermind too, that overwhelm is a sign that somewhere you're telling yourself you're not capable. So you mentioned capacity, That means that when you're looking at your list, you're not seeing yourself as having capacity to do it all. Yeah. So I think that's always the first key is to ask. I like to, when I feel overwhelmed, which happens every week, I get overwhelmed, it doesn't go away. But now I catch it and I'm like, oh, okay. This is overwhelmed. So first name it, This is overwhelm. And then I ask myself, where am I telling myself that I'm not capable of getting this done? Because that's where the overwhelm is coming from. Overwhelm is, there's more on my list. Than I can possibly do. So that's a capability issue. And then I find it right. I find where in my list I'm telling myself it might be that I'm telling myself I don't have enough time, or I'm telling myself that I'm confused. And so the, that's the first thing is really isolating. where is that story of I'm not capable. How can I get my brain on board with no, we got this. we really are capable of, of completing the task. That's the first thing. And then the second thing would be just breaking it down into smaller steps. So for example, I have a new training class coming up, a new webinar. And for me it's really funny'cause I teach webinars as you know. And, I I think because I teach'em, sometimes people assume that it's super easy for me, it's not. It's a gargantuan task, I think, to put together a whole new live training. And so I will get overwhelmed by that because I'll be telling myself I'm not capable of sitting down and doing it from start to finish. So to make that easy on myself, I'll just break it down and be okay, what's one piece of this that I can do first? You know, for me, the way that I teach trainings, we're looking for a this key moment where we isolate the core problem. So I'll start with that and be what's the core problem that I want my training to solve? Let me just get that done in one sitting and then the next sitting will will tackle the framework. Right? So I think it's that expression of eating the elephant one bite at a time where. Especially for, maybe I would even say for parent entrepreneurs, we really just want to do as much as possible in one sitting. And I find that when I just break it down for myself, sometimes I'm up to keep going. And other times I get to just tell myself, you know what we did what we said we were gonna do today. Let's walk away and next time we'll move on to the next step. So I think it's just breaking it down smaller and. Absolutely. And I think, one of the things that can really help talking about having objective, external support is having somebody who's been there and has created a process around it. So I have to ask about Buzz Blitz because yeah, for me, that is a big part of, the attraction. Of joining your Mastermind. Mm-hmm. Was this idea that somebody has a framework, which really isn't, I mean, I hope you don't mind me saying it's not revolutionary, it's just the fact you simplified it. You've made it accessible. Yeah. And you you've given us the framework to go away and do it. So do you wanna just give us a quick summary, first of all, for anyone who's new to that phrase, what is it and what made you to decide to create that in the first place? Yes. Okay. So Buzz Blitz is my framework and my system when I talk about repeatable sales systems or a repeatable sales process, buzz Blitz is my, my take on that. It's my execution of that. So this is a process that I started developing for myself when I started doing bigger sales campaigns. Also known as launching, yep, in 2018 ish. And so I have been updating it and bringing it current. Because I still launch in my business, so I'm always building upon this process. But to your point of it's not that it's revolutionary is because it's we don't need to reinvent the wheel. it's, there's a certain way of doing this that really works. And yes, I said, we do update it and make sure that it's, taking into account. Buyer behavior in 20 25, 20 26 has really been something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. But Buzz Blitz is this core system of, really over the course of five to six weeks, it has a little bit of flexibility, but it's five to six weeks. It's really designed to warm up an audience, get people excited about. Your topic, really pour on a tremendous amount of value while also, creating a longer runway of being able to talk about your offer in a concentrated period. So in my Buzz Blitz process, there's, weeks of emails going out, weeks of compelling social media posts. And this process teaches you exactly what to say. There's email templates, there's over 55 email templates that you can use, for people who don't wanna use the templates and wanna go to the next level of writing the emails themselves. I teach, something called Provocative Thoughts, which is how to create really bold messaging that's going to stand out within this Buzz Blitz framework. But really it's this week by week calendar of exactly what you should be doing, how you should be selling. It also covers doing a a sales event, which as I touched on, I prefer a webinar for that. So we talk about exactly how to create high converting webinars using this framework I have called converts. It's all a part of Buzz bls, and it's really just designed to be this end-to-end system that you can customize and consistently sell out your offer. Whether that is a group program or like in your case, Charlotte selling out one-on-one work. Yeah, absolutely. And there's, I just wanna address something'cause I know there'll be people who li listening in who are like, well, this time launch I don't launch. Mm-hmm. So I don't have a group program. I don't think that those things should be a barrier to somebody understanding that. In this day and age, you really need to whack a prospect over the hat before yes, multiple times, before they even register what you do. The number of times I'll, I'll be like three weeks into, a launch and I'll be like feeling almost icky every time an email goes out on a daily basis, and then somebody will be replies like three weeks in and say. what do you do? Maybe we can work together. And we're like, it's literally in the email and I feel like I've been driving you crazy with this and all I've done is been waving over here and eventually you've noticed me and I hate to add to that noise, but I think, and I think that is the resistance that a lot of people have, but I think when you add to the noise in a valuable way, that's it. This, this is what's important. So what would you say to those people who are like. More. It's definitely not more for me. How do I get comfortable with speaking about myself and what I offer so much? Yes, if that, and I'm so glad you asked the question because I hear this all the time and I think it's such a fair concern. People will be like, I don't wanna be too self-promotional. I wanna be able to help my people. So if you are dear listener, if you are the person who's I like when I find my clients, I'm golden. I know that what I do is so helpful, I really struggle to be able to find them. Then these are the, I'm speaking directly to you, okay. Whether or not you launch, whether or not you have a group program. This is exactly, what you need to hear. What a lot of times people aren't thinking about when they think about sales, to your point, it's I'm bothering people. I'm, wave jumping up and down, saying the same things over and over. I think the fundamental shift is a couple things. Number one is learning how to serve through your selling. Mm-hmm. So putting out weeks of content that is actually genuinely helpful when I'm launching. I am so obsessed with what I'm creating. I repeatedly have the thought, this is my best work, my best work. I like to think to myself being when I'm launching is the best time to be on my email list. It's the best time because I'm coming up with new and revolutionary ideas because Buzz Blitz teaches you how to do this. I am answering questions. I am motivating people. I'm, I'm trying to think about how to inspire people. I'm. Every day when I wake up and I'm in, I'm actually in a buzz lists right now, so I'm, this is very top of mind for me. Every day I wake up and ask myself, how do I be a thought leader today? How do I lead my people during this period? So it, you used the word sprint earlier, right? This is a bit of a, it is a sales campaign sprint, but I also think of Buzz Blitz as a thought leadership sprint. And so what I mean by that is I really wanna create this experience. Where, and Buzz Blitz helps you do this where no matter where you're showing up, I, I wanna be everywhere without burning myself out, and I'm able to do that. So I'm in your email inbox, I'm on your Instagram feed, you open threads, there's Steph Crowder. I, she's she's everywhere. That's what we want it to feel like. There's more podcast episodes, right? And it's not just, this is important. It's not just saying the same thing over and over. It's not just buy with me, work with me. Here's my package. It's genuinely helpful, interesting, thought provoking. Like it pushes the envelope is the other thing. It's bold, it's different. And so when you start to approach your sales window like that, versus, I think what really makes us hate selling is going through the motions. Going through the motions and saying the same things and being self-promotional. None of that is what we wanna do. We really wanna create this experience of wow, look at the way she's leading. I'm gonna go with her. Mm-hmm. And so that's really what I'm trying to think of when I'm doing a campaign like this. And I have to say it's one of the reasons that, I wanted to work with you is that you come across as so natural and grounded and, and not pushy and, Not selling the earth at all. Promising the Earth rather. Yeah. And, however, still getting exceptional value even from the free stuff. and I was a long-term listener before I became a client. what do you think is one mindset shift aside from showing up as a thought leader each day that makes the biggest difference in terms of how people show up in sales conversations and by sales conversations, I mean when they're talking about what they do, whether it's on a one-to-one basis or at scale. Couple things. One of the things you mentioned, you talked about the James clear quote about, you know, 45 times to, to make a habit, right? This is, here's a, here's a different but similar stat. I think there's new, I don't even know if it's new, but something I've been certainly talking about and thinking about more marketing data tells us that on average it can take someone. 88 touchpoints with any given brand to make a buying decision. 88. And that used to be eight. That used to be eight when I did my marketing degree 20 years ago. Oh Jesus. It is literally tenfold. That is. The price. We're paying people for attention deficit created by smart devices. truly. Absolutely. And so when I think of it that way, I'm okay. and this is another, something to distinguish. It's not saying, I don't think what will work is to say the same thing 88 times. That won't work. But to have 88 different ways. because here's the thing, different angles, different. Snapshots, different stories resonate with different people. Mm-hmm. And so we, that's one big mindset shift is to think to ourselves they, someone needs me to show up this much to feel. Ready? I mean, you said it yourself, and I hear it every time. People are I was following you for a while. I was listening for a while. For my people, a lot of them will watch multiple launches of mine before deciding to become a client. Mm-hmm. And that is probably because it takes time to reach, especially when you're talking about higher price point offers, Mm-hmm. It takes time for it to hit that critical mass. And so if someone is. Taking quote a long time in my sales process, I don't really make that a problem. That's a mindset shift. I think to myself That's their sales cycle. That's their sales process. If they wanna watch me do a few rotations of this before they feel good jumping in, it's no problem. It's how it works, So I think that's a big mindset shift is to, when you have a sales process, is to learn how to trust it and know that it's doing its job. And I think to your, to, something else that comes up a lot is how do you do all of this without burning out and how do you do all this? How do you show up so much when you mention ugh, more is, more is not for me, the only way it's gonna work to be so present is to have a system for doing so, is to have a repeatable process, if you like. I, for me, I launch multiple times a year, both my offers, if I'm making it up every step of the way, from scratch every time. There's absolutely no way, right? So when you have a repeatable framework, again, we, we use something called Buzz Blitz. You are iterating on it. But I recommend that my clients, sort of recycle and, polish it up a little bit. But we recycle up to 50% of what we've created in a previous launch, and then we can, put some fresh touches and new angles for the other 50%. So. It will feel to your people, it's, you're everywhere, but you're not reinventing the wheel every single time you do a campaign. Yeah, absolutely. And I think some key points I'm taking outta that are trust the process and don't get discouraged because I think the, the biggest reason that, the biggest thing, one of the most common things that I see is people say it's not working. But actually, and my take, my clients tend to have very, very high ticket services and offers I work with. Some people who offer things, under a hundred dollars, but a lot of people who take on clients only over$100,000. it's, it's, the sales process is very different for every one of those clients and you really don't know what. Well, number one, if they're in the long term, looking out for a long, for a supplier, the no like and trust process could be exceptionally long, particularly if you don't have a, an existing relationship with them. Or you may just happen to catch'em at exactly the right moment. But most people in my experience, particularly with high ticket services, they underestimate the length of time from somebody becoming aware of you to going ahead and. Starting e even just engaging in that conversation with you, whether it's giving you a brief or asking for a proposal, not necessarily even hiring you. So I don't say that to discourage people, but I do think that having a process, as you said, it gives you a framework, it gives you a s stretcher and it removes one of my favorite phrases. It removes the mental load.'cause it's like one thing that you do not have to think about. You just have that. And then you, not that you just fill in the gaps. It's not as simple as that, but you. It's one thing you don't have to think about and it's one thing that you can share with your team and you can repeat. And, yeah. One of the key ways that I see clients self-sabotage is we'll meet, they'll leave it a really long time between coaching calls my one-to-one clients occasionally, and then they'll come and go, well, what are we doing now? And like, well then back to the strategy where this is literally mapped out week by week. And step by step down to the actual instructions for your team. Like it's not changed. And again, it comes back to that kind of the novelty of new, right? And the dopamine hit of, of trying something else out and just again, make it easy. Eat the brand. Like do the thing, like have the structure use it. so I'm really curious, like you've spoken, about webinars and there would be a lot of people here who'd be like, oh, webinars are not for my industry. I. Wanna open that up slightly more and talk about the importance of somebody hearing your voice and not just seeing you and seeing you demonstrate. But I know the podcast is important to you. Can you talk to me a bit about what the role of somebody coming into contact with you, whether it's your like audio or video, what has that had on your business? Do you mean webinars specifically, or just, it could be audio and video. Anything. Like anything where it's not just the written word. for sure. So I've been, I've definitely been coaching on this more lately. This is my, my take and not everybody will agree. That's okay. I actually think it's funny. It's become a joke in the mastermind. You've heard it, Charlotte like. I, you know that Oprah quote, that's like, and you get a car. And you get a car. It's me. But saying, and you start a podcast. And you start a podcast, I have been just encouraging so many, we have had more clients launching podcasts and it's, and I have yet to have somebody be like, oh, I regret doing that. Right. I think in 2025 into 2026, if you are not creating thought leadership in a body of work on either audio or video, so I say podcast or YouTube. I think that you're just missing such a huge opportunity to create that know, like, and trust factor. Now, even just a couple years ago we used to say, podcast, YouTube and blogging. I've taken blogging out of that. There are exceptions. There are always exceptions. If we have people that are really. Mastering, SEO that to me, would be the reason to continue blogging. And I know substack is a whole thing that a lot of people are loving and that's great, but for, at least for the, the people that I tend to work with, blogging is not really gonna get it done in today's world. And I think that's because people really do need to hear and see us. And I'm, I'm really speaking specifically about high ticket offers where you are a coach, a service provider. Course creators, those three groups, people really need to hear and see you. I think there is a lot of competition out there. There's a lot in the written word. I would e and part of this might be because now information is just at an all time cheapness, right? As far as going to chat, GPT, that's all written word as well. You can ask chat GBT to give you a blog post, right? And so what. I'm constantly thinking about for my people, is in a world that's going to become increasingly automated and increasingly impersonal. it's very hard to be personal in a, in something a blog post, right? Yeah. And so. I to think about in a world that's becoming increasingly robotic, how can you do what the robots can't? Right? Mm-hmm. And I know they can make fake videos and things that, but it, the human quality of somebody seeing and experiencing even things your mannerisms and you, you even said that your decision to work with me, feeling that vibe of groundedness and being down to earth is actually something I hear. Number one thing I hear when people tell me. why they work with me is they say something similar, right? You're just authentic, real, grounded, down to earth. I think people get that from hearing me talk and from watching me on video, and so I think that it's critical. I think in today's world, it's absolutely critical and the great news is sometimes people will be well, isn't podcasting like saturated? My answer to that is there's never been more podcast listeners, right? When I started a podcast in 2017, people were what? What even is that? It was before the serial podcast, right? It was there was I started a podcast about female entrepreneurship because there weren't any. And so that, you know, you might think to yourself, well that was really great to get to make a podcast when there wasn't a lot to listen to. But at the same time, we didn't have a lot of listeners, right? So now listening to a podcast is so. Everybody has experience with, there's no barrier to getting people onto these platforms. They're already there. And so I think it's just a huge miss, especially with how easy it is these days with all the tools available, you can get a podcast done and launched in under an hour and it's just this amazing way to decrease that trust curve and get people feeling like, you know, they understand your vibe so much sooner. Yeah, and I also think it's, it's a really. Easy and frictionless way to reduce the, the resistance to doing the damn thing, frankly. Yeah.'cause so one of the things we work with clients on, and we, we speak, you know, this is the Authority Builder podcast. We have a service called Authority Builder, where we help clients create an authority platform for some people that's a podcast. For some people it's writing a book and we offer different levels of service in delivering that. I work with a lot of people who hate looking at a blank page and they hate writing stuff. So actually this is like the win, win, win all around. Mm-hmm. Because you can be having conversations and just recording them and using the transcripts and having that as what. Filters down and creates all the other content drops down from that. So it's like a top down version that starts with a natural conversation perhaps between two people. Or perhaps you ranting on a subject. Yeah. But you are using the words you would actually use. Whereas when you're staring at a blank page, it's really easy to use language that isn't necessarily you, you're not communicating your personality. And I think another no brainer is that. In a, a world where we're increasingly understanding the many, many different ways in which people process information. You've already done the dumb work. Why wouldn't you share it out in another format for the people who like to listen to audio or the people who like to watch video? I personally, I don't have my makeup on when I record podcasts. Generally, I'm a little bit more resistant to putting things out on YouTube and, and Vimeo. But certainly on Buzzsprout, which is what we distribute our audio on, it's. Yeah, it's, it's my chosen way of absorbing information. But even if you don't appreciate that, even if you have, and I have a client that I'm negotiating this with right now, he's like, I read content. I read really long form content. It's yeah, and that's great and continue to do it, but you've gotta appreciate that. A lot of people don't. And if you've already created the thing, why not read it out loud and record yourself doing it, and then publish it? It doesn't cost, it literally costs you$12 a month. That isn't cost, well, it's no more than that. So, yeah, I think it's, it's so, it removes a lot of the resistance and it, I personally find it an incredible way to start business relationships because sometimes you'll invite people to come onto a podcast who would never dream of taking a sales call with you, and it, you can flatter their ego and it's a soft way to start a relationship. And then. You don't know what's gonna come from that. At the very least you have a connection that runs deeper than a cold dm. Right? So I completely agree with that. I actually, it's funny that you say that because that's really where my podcast began in 2017. It was very much an interview show and then over the years I wanted to get more of my own body of work out there. So I've, it's now it's, it's switched and it's mostly a solo show, but that's actually one of my goals for 2026 is to bring more guests back onto the podcast because. I attribute a lot of my success in the industry from getting to know so many people. I invited so many people onto my show. Then of course, natural consequences of that. A lot of them invited me onto their show, so I got to be in front of their audience. But then also business friendships. I mean, some of my closest relationships are because we did podcast swaps, and so that's definitely something I am. Really focused on for next year because I think I personally, looking back, I probably downplayed how I didn't even really connect that how much of an impact podcasting and, and doing guest swaps has had on my business relationships and on my audience. And it's it's such a great way to, even what we're doing right now, I find it so much easier to. Communicate my thoughts when I have somebody to go back and forth with. So I think it's such a great way to create more content, but then the relationships that come out of it are incredible too. Yeah, and I also think that when you're working in a relatively solitary space, whether you are not able, you have employees but you, maybe you're working asynchronously, they're on different time zones, or you don't feel able to communicate, the more telling part, challenging parts of business with them for fear, you scare them off and then you have a HR problem, I think, right? A lot of us are working in isolation. I know for me, if I've got a problem, I either need to talk it out or I need to walk it out, I need to move or speak. And when I'm sitting at my desk on my own, most of the time, even though I've got a team, they're all in very different places and we're rarely on calls together. it's so important to have that kind of outlet with somebody. And for me, the podcast has become that. But I would say don't. Throw the baby out with the bath water.'cause I love your solo episode, so Please, yes. I'll keep those too, too. Thank you for saying thanks for the vote of confidence. Yeah. They mean a lot to me when I'm on the treadmill. Okay. So, can you, tell me a bit more about what does authority mean to you and how do you think it's evolved as the online business space has matured? I know we've talked a little bit about the importance of that kind of human connection in a world of mm-hmm. Instability and also machines. Yes. is there anything else you'd like to add to that? Gosh, I feel it's such a important topic. I could, I could say so much. I, I genuinely, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I'm not just saying it because it's a cool thing to say. I think authority is more important in this moment than I've seen it be in a long time. I think I'd have to go back to 2020 to remember a moment where it felt so important, and I'll tell you why. And this is what I learned from being in business during that time. You know, I always laugh when we say uncertain times because when you think about it, life, the, I heard somebody say the other day, the only certain thing in life is that we're all going to die. So life is always uncertain, but let's just say in especially uncertain times, there's so much chitter chatter, there's so much gloom and doom, there's so much pandemonium of what's gonna happen. And you know, I think. It's very easy to feed into that firestorm. And I think in that firestorm to be a voice of reason and of strong leadership and of hope, oh my goodness, hope and inspiration and a way forward. Mm-hmm. Is key. It's how you stand out. It's, I referenced 2020 for obvious reasons, we did not know what was gonna happen. We're in shutdown for who knows how long. There's no toilet paper to be had, what is happening? And there was so much Fear is, everywhere. And so to be the person who is a bright light and who has something valuable to say, and for people who are listening to this, maybe there's I work with all different kinds of people. Some people are more in the arts, music arts, and they might be like, well, I'm not, I'm teaching the guitar. I'm not, I'm not like curing cancer. Right. But at the same time, that's actually my, my, my exact point is people, I think something that can be in short supply in moments like this is joy and frivolousness and just. Beauty. Right? And so to be an authority in your area and lead people to feel, I I, I've been thinking about this a lot lately about how I think people really wanna feel good, feeling good is something that a lot of people haven't been letting themselves have. And so if you can be the person. Solves those, whether it's because you're solving their pain points or because you're showing them something enjoyable. Yeah. You are naturally going to stand out and be magnetic. Yeah. Because it's so different than the overall climate. So I think authority again is, we're just at a moment where if you wanna stand out and and cut above the crowd, just focus on authority building. A lot of it's gonna take care of itself in this moment. I think online entrepreneurs do really well in moments of instability, which feels counterintuitive in the moment. It doesn't feel like it. It feels like, oh, who even has money? Who even is gonna buy? Just watch? They do. Mm-hmm. people do have money. They are buying, but they're buying from people who make them feel a certain way. Yeah, absolutely. And there I, there I'm not gonna be able to reference the economic data properly, but I do know that spend on the more frivolous things as eating out, going to the cinema, getting a manicure. Like I know these aren't necessarily the things that people listen to this are offering that spend goes up during times of economic instability because people need, they need that dopamine rush to bring it back to that again. But I also think there's something else, and I love how you are picking up authority building obviously. That's, that's our thing. But I do think there's something else. And just coming back to that kind of human connection, I think you've got the ability to, even from your megaphone shouting into the void, if you, you know, you've got a podcast, you've got this ability to form connections with people that you don't even know that you are creating if you stay the long haul and you continue to do it and offer them, you know, back to your buzz bls, this idea of, being in service. Like if you are offering them. Even just little thoughts that just help them to take, like do the building blocks. I'm, I'm doing building blocks with my hands, which is very immature of me, but like I. Just, they will remember you at the point at which they're ready to address it. And it's so weird, I, I, I met up with a friend, a relatively new friend that I've met. She's another moment nursery, and she's from Portugal. She's like incredibly talented in the world of design. And, and she, we met up for a coffee ostensibly professional. And she, she seemed ever so slightly intimidated. I don't want listening into things. I wasn't intimidated by you, but a bit like. Slightly reverential. And she was like, oh, I, I asked around about you in advance and my friend said that they love you and if they had the money, you'd be the only person they would work with. And I looked at the studio and I was oh my God. you, sometimes you do things and you put it out and you've got no idea, no idea. And, and then you hear little bits like that back and it warms you and you think, oh, it's worthwhile. mm-hmm. My time doing that is worthwhile. and for me, that's not necessarily about. It is not necessarily about business growth, and of course it has to be because I'm an entrepreneur, but it's the same reason that I do like pro bono teaching with universities. It's like if you can be in service and kind of get that warmth, it gives you your spark to continue to do something. If you can afford to do that, gives you that spark that enables you to continue even when it feels like things are really difficult because you're giving extra value. so I feel like that's a bit like my equivalent of how you feel during a buzz blitz and how you feel during launch. Yes. I call it, I call it launch magic, and it really means you don't know, you can't quantify the reach of what you're doing. There's so much happening behind the scenes that's not gonna be picked up in a dashboard or, oh my god, in your metrics. Trust me, I've tried to attribute it and same. Doesn't work like that. It's a waste of money and time. Right. I was, I was actually interviewing a client, another client for the podcast, for my podcast yesterday, and she's a client who's having tremendous success and even I hear this all the time and e every time it gets me, she was I decided to join your program. These were her exact words. She said, I don't remember if I saw a post or read an email, but something you said really resonated. And I if that's not the best example of It wa she doesn't even know if it was a, she saw me, my, me posting, she saw me in email and at some point it hit critical mass where she was this is my person. Yeah. And I don't think this client was even tapping the like button, right. So it's you put something out on Instagram or LinkedIn and you're oh my God, nobody's liking it. No, nobody cares. But sometimes they don't even take the time. But they're, I promise they're taking it in. And once you learn to trust that process, I think it's really cool. And I think there's something else that, in terms of me, the decision. That I took to work with you. When I think about the kind of moments that pushed me forward, it, it was the moments, and I dunno if this is about my personality, but I think it's important for my clients in particular to listen to who often search perfection over completion. It was the moments where you came across as really human. So it was the moments where you were like, I don't have time to sit down and record a podcast today, but I need to get my walk in, so I'm gonna walk and talk. And you were slightly breathless. Mm-hmm. And I was like, that's so relatable, because that's, I, I'd have thought, oh no, you can't do that. It needs to be more polished than that, but. Yeah, it's free content people, not that to be grateful, but just know, just be human. the more you're willing to show your humanity, I think those are sticky moments that people latch onto and yeah, I really, I really feel that was a big part of my decision making process to work with you. So, yeah. Do the damn thing. People don't think about it too much. H how cool is that? that really hadn't occurred to me that by doing something messy, that that would actually inspire somebody to be like, this is my person. Right? for me, I had the same thought publishing a podcast that I'm walking outside and I know there's bird song and I know there's cars going by, but I just had the thought, I just have to get this out there. But it never occurred to me that the very act of doing that way mm-hmm. Could turn into a client that, and thank you for sharing that with me. That's really cool. Even though that's on brand for you, because your program used to be called the Messy Middle, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. So, just to finish up, if somebody's listening today and they know they need to start selling again, but they're resisting it, what's one small step that you'd encourage them to take today? I always like to encourage people to think about who you already know. Okay. Most people, and I know this is very aligned with what you teach as well. Mm-hmm. Most people, especially online business, we think it's gonna be strangers on the internet. So we really start thinking of them marketing to them and we think it's gonna be easier. It's actually the exact opposite. If you talk to, I don't even care how big the person is, anybody you look up to, if you ask them who their first clients were, it is nine times outta 10. The best friend's sister, or the person referred me when I handed out the business card at the networking event. So you're, if you're trying to make sales. Short term, you really wanna think about the network that you already have because you have trust built with those people, whether it's friends, family, connections, school, church, et cetera. There are leads in those pools and they are going to convert better and faster and easier than people who don't know you. From a hole in the wall, you still wanna be working on getting those people, but that's gonna be longer tail. And just like we've been talking about today, those sales are not gonna pay off for three months, six months, sometimes even more. So if you're trying to prioritize short term term sales, you need to turn your attention to what you already have in your network. Absolutely. And for the people listening into that who are thinking, but that's my personal life, and that sounds a bit like pyramid scheme behavior. I'd be like, no, guys, if you've been in business longer than 10 years, you have, or even five years, you have a network that, a professional network that you need to reflect on and tap back into. So. I think that applies for literally anybody. Anybody who's no, that doesn't apply to me. I completely disagree. I've never seen it not work. And also I always think about what if you were opening up a restaurant in your neighborhood, what if you were opening, opening up a nail boutique, what's the first thing you would do? You wouldn't be No, no, no. I can't reach out to my, to my network. that would be too salesy. You'd be come get a slice of pizza. we are open, Yeah. That the first people you would go to would be your in-person network for some reason. With online business, we think it's different roles. It's definitely not. You've used that warm network to get lots of referral, or, sorry, lots of test referrals too. But testimonials, client results that will help you win the trust of strangers on the internet, but you have to have more client stories for anybody who doesn't know you to trust you. Absolutely. So I obviously fully behind anybody working with Steph. It's been a phenomenal experience so far, and I'm only three months into working with you, but who else should come and seek you out and where should they go? Yeah, so I would say anyone who, especially folks who are looking for that sort of co CEO, that partnership that, you know, if you're looking for a business coach who's going to help you scale what you already have, sell out your offers year round. help you get to a point where things are sustainable. I would definitely recommend checking out my mastermind. You can go to steph crowder.com. If you're someone who's really wanting to work on the skill of selling same day sales would be a great place to start. Also, steph crowder.com. You can check out both of my programs. My podcast is called The Courage and Clarity Podcast. thanks for giving it a few plugs, Charlotte, that's a really great place to start as well. Brilliant. And we'll link all those well, your website and the podcast up in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today, Steph. Thank you for having me. Super fun.