The Power of Presence in Sales and Business Success with Sam Liebowitz

Because if you are in a meeting with a group of people and you're really present. To their body language, to their tone of voice, to how they're sitting, to what they're saying. You'll pick up on things that other people in the meeting will never pick up on.

Welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast for business and personal growth. Join Harry Spaight, as he hosts sales experts and business owners who share their journeys of personal growth and business success now, here's your host, Harry.

Sam Liebowitz, the executive producer of Talkradio.nyc. Is joining me today on the Sales Made Easy podcast, sam, welcome to the program.

What's the good word? Harry, thank you so much for having me on your show. I truly appreciate it. As a fellow show host, I understand, you know, the, the delicacy with which we bring people and expose them to our audience. So I'm very honored that you agreed to have me on your show. Yes.

Well, you know, sending me massive checks like you did is one of the reasons I said yes. But you haven't deposited

them yet,

have you? No. Right. I have. I have not. I just, I like, the numbers are so big, I just, I'm framing them for now. Okay. But yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what it is you do with Talk Radio NYC. Now that I see this so clearly in the background, how do you serve people with that, Sam?

So Talkradio.nyc is an internet radio station. So most people these days know what a podcast is and they're familiar with podcasting and podcast networks. But an internet radio station is a little bit different because what we do is we stream our shows out live first. And so there's that live component. We stream the audio, we stream the video, and the video gets simulcast to all the major social platforms, YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and Twitch. And then we record it while it's live, and then the recording gets put out afterwards as the podcast. I. Hmm. And, and the reason why I am really big on this live component is because even though your live listenership is gonna be the smallest percentage of your overall listenership, they are the most loyal, the most dedicated, and, and the most evangelistic of your following out of anyone. Like I know when I do my own show each week on Thursdays. Like, I have a handful of loyal listeners. They show up each and every week. They, they're putting comments into the live stream, asking questions, and that creates a lot of engagement. And then when other people hear that and they hear me shouting them out, then that encourages them to try and join live if they can. So, so this whole world of sort of live streaming, there's a, a, a lot to be said for that. I think a lot of people who just think of a regular podcast don't realize they're missing out on.

Yeah, I, I certainly am learning what I'm missing out on, based on what you just said. I didn't really think about taking this show live until recently. I'm a little apprehensive about it. But let's, before we get into that, my own insecurities in life, what. What is the benefit of someone that you've experienced with where you say, getting your voice out, getting your brand out, or whatever it is. What should small business owners and entrepreneurs and you know, creatives be doing? Or why should they be doing this, do you think?

So, I like to say I work with Knowledgepreneurs. Ah, so these are people who make a living off of what's between their ears, their knowledge, but the benefit of, of doing a, an online show, I mean, I, I have several hosts who've been extremely successful with their shows in very different ways, and that's one of the beautiful things about doing this kind of a way of, of getting your voice out there is. You can use a show in so many different ways now, first of all, and foremost, you can use it as a way to connect to your tribe and your audience on a regular basis without having to sell them anything. Let's face it, we're all so tired of being sold to all the time, right? I mean, yes, we love to buy. We hate to be sold to. But how do you stay top of mind? There's so much noise. People are so busy. The way, the best way to stay top of mind is putting out valuable information that people actually enjoy listening to, hearing and applying. So that's number one. I. Number two, it's an excellent way to build business alliances and contacts with your potential referral sources. Like I have one gentleman who does a show specifically for small and mid-sized businesses, and who he brings on are either potential clients or potential referral partners where. Maybe it's a little hard to get their schedule. Maybe they're busy. But if you say, Hey, why don't you come on my show and talk about what you do? Most people will say, Hey, yeah, that's, that's a pretty good idea. I'm willing to do that. And so then you get'em on your show. You, you talk, you prep'em a little bit. You talk to'em for a half hour, an hour, however long your shore is show is, and, and they get to know you and you get to know them so that then when you follow up afterwards you can decide like, you know, this is a really good guy. They work with my target market. Let me now try and see the, create a, a referral relationship with them and say, and reach out to them. And now because you've just kind of given them something for free by having them come on your show and talk about what they do, expose themselves to your audience. They're much more likely to say, yeah, you know what, yeah, let's meet, let's talk about that. Y you know, it's, it's basically you're, you're offering something that you may or may not ever ask anything for in return, and people feel that and they appreciate it. So then when you go in and you're like, Hey, I really like what you do, let's have a conversation about how we work together. They're much more open to it. They're much more willing to listen to you and, and they'll be much more open to the ideas you have. So, so that's another way. And, and there are a million more ways in which you can use a show to really save time, save money, become known as a thought leader. There there are just so many things. It's more about how creative can you be with your show. Yeah,

I mean, there's so much really good in what you just described. One of the challenges that people have is that they have this knowledge. They are, they want to talk about so much. There's a lot of different things that they've learned in their life, and I was just talking to someone recently who said, I'm not even sure what my show would be about. I wanna do it. I like to talk about wellness and doing good things for yourself, and of course I've got information I've learned over the years about, you know, sales or leadership or whatever it is, and I'm really passionate about this and it's like, why can't you just create a show around those things? It's not like you're talking about those things and then you say, let's talk about science fiction. Right? I think there is, right where you've seen some of these podcasts that are, you know, we'll explore movies or we'll crime stories or rock bands history, but if you can kind of. I don't know, group your interest, your topics together, right? Is I feel like Jerry Seinfeld, is that a show? Is that a show?

Well, the way I coach people actually is to create themes. Like normally I say create like a monthly or a quarterly theme. Where you're gonna explore topics that are sort of relevant and if you can tie it to the calendar, that's great. Like normally end of year, you're doing a theme around end of year review planning for next year, the beginning of the year, starting fresh, starting new February with Valentine's Day is usually the relationship month. And, and you know, relationships is in anything. So it doesn't matter what you're talking about. You can talk about relationships. So there are a lot of different ways in which. You can touch upon a wide variety of topics. The question is, what's your core? What's your main theme? And once you know your main theme, your overarching umbrella, then you can touch upon a lot of different things. Like with my own personal show, the Conscious Consultant Hour, it's all about raising people's consciousness in different aspects of life. So because of that, I've talked about everything from. Spiritual development, healing, money, branding, building your business you know, ancient societies, psychedelics, all kinds of stuff, because it all falls under the umbrella of raising awareness, right? Yeah. If you're doing a show around now, the, the real question is, and the first question you always have to ask yourself is, who is your audience? It's not, who is your audience today? It's who do you want your audience to be? Yeah, who are you targeting? And then the key is, is what you are talking about and what you're potentially interviewing someone about. Is it relevant to your audience? If it's not relevant to your audience, don't go there. But if it is relevant to your audience, you can go there. Absolutely. But the key is always I use the anachronism. Wait, okay. Why am I talking? Because I've, I've listened to too many podcasts where it, it's a couple of co-hosts who are friends and they're blah, blah, blah, blah, about all this personal stuff that nobody in the world except for their close friends cares about. And it just a waste of time. And I just stopped listening. You know, I heard them called blabber casts. You don't want to do a blabber cast. You always want to keep in mind, who is your audience. What do they want? What do they need, and how are you giving it to them in a way that helps'em to truly connect to you and your unique way of seeing the world? Oh my goodness.

I. Where were you when I started podcasting? Sam. What? How

come? I've been here for 13 years. I don't know when you started your show, but I've been here over 13 years. You, you've been doing

it longer than I since I started, that's for sure. So helpful. I mean, I, I, you know, just getting on the sake, just getting on the, creating a show for the sake of creating a show, because you like to talk to people, there's no value in it. I've seen people do this as well, whether it be podcasting or YouTube, whatever. It's like, you, you have a following, but I don't get it. It's like there's nothing really of value. Maybe it's your personality, whatever, but there's no real benefit other than. This is an interesting person to watch. I mean, that may work, but that's not necessarily great for your business, in my opinion. But who am I to judge? I mean, we all get free airtime basically through podcasting. So it can be that. But I think, you know, what you described here is you know really what's at your core. How can you provide value for people, you know, what is it that they need? If you start answering their questions that pertain to them, then your audience is now not only liking you, but they're getting benefits. So I think there's a

twofold or more, I'll give thoughts. I'll give you a quick example of that. So one of the people who worked with me, his name was Tony. He came to me, he was a nonprofit consultant. So he was looking, I mean, of course he wanted to do it to build up his thought leadership, but primarily he wanted to do a show to serve small and mid-sized nonprofits because he saw being a consultant that the large nonprofits had the budgets to hire all the consultants and people, but the small and mid-sized nonprofits didn't have access to all that information. Hmm. So he did his show specifically to give them access to that information that the large nonprofits had. And what happened is over time he became known himself as a thought leader in the nonprofit space. He got mentioned several times in nonprofit industry blogs as a thought leader, and they said, oh yeah, and if you like the other people on our list, they've all been guests on his show. And he eventually became the number one nonprofit podcast, and he had more than double the number of subscribers, the number two nonprofit podcast. Wow. So, I mean, because he was very specific and every show he did, he always kept in mind, is this relevant to my audience? Now, again, that's, he did that for nonprofits. You could do that in any industry. You could do it for health and wellness, for business, for society, for, for, for technology, for anything for sales. As long as you're clear of like who is the, the per the who is your avatar? Who is your real key person who you just want to serve, you just want to give of yourself. And when you do that and you do it Authentically and you do it mindfully, your reputation will get out there and you'll become known as a thought leader in your industry.

Great, great stuff. How did you get started with all of this, Sam? I mean, you said you've been doing it for 13 years. You've got a voice that's like silk. I can picture you doing smooth jazz with your host Sam Lee.

It's a very New York story being talkradio.nyc. I'm a native new Yorker. I met a guy at a party. Mu I was at a friend's house over 13 years ago in this Chelsea neighborhood, and a mutual friend of ours brings this guy to the party and says, Sam, you gotta talk to my friend. I'm like, oh, okay. Like,

so do you ask someone? That's the intro. That's the

intro. So, so what do you ask someone you don't know anything about? So what do. He says, oh, I'm an acupuncturist. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. I know a bunch of different healers, but not too many acupuncturists. But in his next breath, he was like, but I've decided to become a Buddhist monk, and I'm selling off all my worldly possessions. I'm like, whoa, that's a little different. I'm like, well, did you sell your business yet goes, no, not yet. But I'm talking to some people, I'm like, well, I network a lot. I know a lot of people. Maybe I can help you sell your business. He's like, oh, that would be really good karma for you helping someone to go in the monk hood. And so we're talking a little bit more and he says, oh yeah. And I started this internet radio station last year. I'm like, wait a minute, this sounds a little familiar. Acupuncturist Radio station. I'm like, what's your name again? And he says, Giorgio Repetti. And I'm like, ah, I know who you are.'cause my friend Larry does a radio show on your network and he's told me about you, but he's never put the two of us together. There he is standing in front of me in living color. So a week later we have this meeting and I'm like, okay, if I'm gonna help you sell your business, I need to know the good, the bad, the ugly. And by the end of this two and a half hour long meeting. And of course the acupuncture side, I mean, was interesting, but not really'cause I'm not an acupuncturist. But the radio station side, I have a background in technology and a background in public speaking. So that I was really curious about. So I kind of jokingly said to him. Wow. If I can't help you sell your business, I'll buy it myself. It's like getting two businesses for the price of one. And we both kinda laughed at it, but then I went home that night and talked to my wife about it and she's like, yeah, let's just buy it ourselves. I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah, let's do that. That's what we did, and then that's how I got into it. So this is something totally not planned, not in, not really in my background. I have no broadcasting background, but it's become a true passion of mine. I love what I do. I, I learn something new every week. And, it's just, to me, a big lesson in learning to say yes to the opportunities that life puts in front of you. Oh my goodness.'cause sometimes these opportunities show up and we don't take advantage of'em. Yeah. They're like, oh, I'm, I don't know anything about that. This is something different. And it's like, no, if it's being brought to you, it's being brought to you for a reason. I mean, yes, we have to use discernment, but sometimes just saying yes to what life brings us can be the most powerful thing of all.

So, so good. I totally agree with that. It's funny there are people that view that say things like, you have to plan your life. You, I'm sure you've heard of this and I've, I've stumbled through my life and said yes to a lot of the right things. Said no to, I mean, said yes probably too many times made mistakes, but I look at it as. You are sending out, or I'm sending out vibrations. I'm sending out energy. The universe knows what I want. I may not always know it, and yet surprisingly, doors appear in front of me and I open the door and stick my head in and say, yeah, I like this. Is that kind of how you approach it, or,

i, I really laugh'cause the idea of creating a five-year or ten-year plan. I'm like, especially today, I mean more so today than ever before. It's like, I'm not even sure where things are gonna be in the world a year or six months from now, let alone five years from now. And, and yeah, it's like I've had such a bizarre, I've had businesses in a lot of different industries. Everything from aerospace to anime, to to real estate and things like involved with, I never would've imagined I thought of, and, and if you had asked me 20 years ago what I'd be doing today, I would have no clue that this is what I'd be doing. So, I, I, I, I guess I like living a more organic life. And, and a friend of mine, I really like this, A friend of mine says we're actually a walking, breathing intention and who we are and the energy we put out there. Brings to us what's in alignment with, with what and who we are more than any vision board, more than any goal setting, more than anything else. It's how are we showing up in life? And this is true even in sales when you show up and you are showing up with the intention of really serving the people on, on the other side of the table from you, and not just about, oh, how much money can I make in Iraq up this sale? But when you show up with that real intention of help people feel it, even if they don't realize it consciously, they feel it unconsciously. And you're gonna do a lot better than somebody who's just all about the numbers. All about the numbers, all about the numbers.

Yeah, I, the, the, you know, I'm thinking of what you just tied that into. I love the whole comment that you made about sending out the intention, and I completely

agree with that. No, no, no. It's not sending out the intention. Okay. You are the intention. All right. Okay. You are

Clarify that for me. He's the intention. All right, so that's, I probably need to read something on that, but help me out, help me understand that, that I am the intention, so.

You know, most people think of making an intention of like, oh, I, I, I want to make, you know, double the amount of sales this year. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Like they set that kind of conscious intention. But the thing is, if we're not in alignment, if we are not showing up every day with a certain energy, that intention's never gonna manifest. Okay. If we show up with a certain intention, not not an intention. If we show up with a certain energy in our life, if we show up with a certain posture, a certain attitude, a certain confidence, a certain desire to help that energy of how we are showing up on a daily basis, we'll create a opportunities and magic beyond anything we could imagine. Which is why I like just saying yes to life because life has a much better imagination for us than we do, and it will bring to us what is an alignment with the energy we are putting out there every day. Right? It's, we are the intention, how we live. Creates the unconscious intention, which is what brings us the things more than writing down anything on a piece of paper and, and trying to program our unconscious mind. It's not about programming our unconscious mind, it's about getting in touch with who and what we truly are deep inside, and allowing that to come forward in an authentic manner. Really being in service to what our gifts are. I remember someone once said, the purpose of life is to discover what our gifts are and our life's mission is to give that away. Yeah,

that's great. Profound. I'm thinking of Steve Chandler had had to think, I was listening to him on a podcast. He's a great author, very successful coach, and he talked about, he said, look, look, if you wanna be a musician, play the instrument. It's just, it's that simple. He says, if you wanna be a speaker speak, don't wait for it.

Absolutely. So, alright, talk to me. Truly great musicians and the truly great speakers and the true people who are truly great, the music is inside of them and they can't help but allow it to come out. It, it, it's like even beyond like saying, oh, I want to be, you know, a great, you know, rock guitarist or something. It's like there is this music inside of them that's bursting forth from their chest that they can't help but. Play music. A a, a speaker who, who is a great speaker, is someone who just loves being on stage and touching people's lives so much that even if they weren't a speaker, they'd still be speaking to people in their daily life at the bowling league or wherever. Exactly. Yeah. It it, it's something innate in us. Yeah.

And then there's the, all right, so I love what you're saying. What about the person that is dealing with, I don't wanna go to subconscious, but, but dealing with the issues of I'm not good enough, smart enough, famous enough, whatever. So some of the times those things hold them back from bringing their message or where they're, what their strikes are out to the world, to the rest of us.

What's your, you see, I have a different view of it. Okay. I, I don't say those challenges are holding them back. Okay. But those challenges are giving them lessons to learn, to overcome it so that once they do, they can actually share that message with others. You see, it's, we all have feelings of unworthiness. Even like the richest, most successful businessmen, they, they sometimes have the most feelings of imposter syndrome of our unworthiness. We all deal with that. But see, that's all about doing our own deep personal work. Mm-hmm. And when we do our own personal work, which is something in my opinion, everyone should do. Some people do it consciously. Some people it's just what life. Some people just ignore it. But life is constantly bringing us the lessons we need to learn. Hmm. And so whatever is coming up for us, if those feelings of, of being an imposter or feelings of, of, of, of not being worthy, there's a reason why that's coming up for us. It's giving us an opportunity to work on it. It's, it's showing us that like, Hey, what you're doing isn't working, so you need to try something different. And the key is, is just to keep trying different things until you find the things that actually work for you. And once you find the thing that works for you, then you are have so much agency over what you're doing then like it's not even a, a question of worthiness.'cause then you realize we're all worthy just by being here and breathing. We don't have to earn the right to be worthy. As long as we learn to value ourselves and once we start to value ourselves, we value everyone else. And people can feel that. Hmm. And that's the thing. It's how successful we are is about the feeling we generate. It's the presence we show up with in our life. You see a lot of people feel that, like especially the way society is today. That real power is in money. It's, it's in, it's in being able to hold something over people. It's, it's a power-based society, but actually the person who can show up with more presence and more presence of mind is in a much more powerful position. Because if you are in a meeting with a group of people and you're really present. To their body language, to their tone of voice, to how they're sitting, to what they're saying. You'll pick up on things that other people in the meeting will never pick up on. Sure. You'll notice who's nervous, who's bored, who's tired, who's burnt out, who maybe just had a bad day. You know, their wife yelled at them before they left for the office. You know, who's a little disheveled. You pick up on all these little subtle things, and again, it's not to manipulate them, I'm not talking about Mm-Hmm. Being an NLP practitioner to manipulate people into what you're doing. By being more present, you're more aware. So then you know how to be in service and how to really help people to bring to them what they really ultimately want anyway. And when people feel that level of pre presence from you, they think like you're almost reading their minds and you're in a much more powerful position. So quote-unquote, money and power does not have to be the dynamic by which. We measure true success. It can be presence, it can be connection, it can be service. It can be so many different things. And indeed, if you look around at society, society is changing faster than ever. It's been before and old structures are breaking down. Old ways of doing things are are not working anymore. So we need to come up with new. Better ways, more sustainable ways of showing up in the world that actually serves the world, that can help us to face the challenges of the future, not put us into more trouble by kicking the can down the road, not worrying about a problem until a year, two year, three years from now, and by then, it's too late to deal with.

Wow. This is a a deep conversation, Sam. We were going to talk about sales and getting our voice out, but I mean, it's, this is

so, but it all has to do with sales and getting your voice

out. It does, right? Sales is everywhere in life, right? If it's not selling to somebody, it's selling ourselves and our own beliefs.

It's being in service. Yeah. I truly believe in the way I always approach sales. It's about being in service to another human being. So good. And when you truly in service, right, if your solution isn't the right solution for them, you'll find a different one and they'll remember you as the person who referred them to the guy who solved their problems a hundred percent. And that will create a reputation and a brand that will support you the rest of your life. Yeah,

this, this idea of. Sales is a, I mean, sales is so warped today. It's just, it blows my mind that very few people would even go anywhere near what you just described. I believe that sales is a service to others. You may be at a different, even a greater level than that. Yet the world is just viewing sales as how we're taking from

others. Right? No, I disagree. I I, okay. That's the old way that that's the old way sales were viewed, but it's been shifting and changing and, and especially after the pandemic, all of a sudden, the, these online marketers and all these people, these gurus who were just sell, sell, sell, pressure, pressure, pressure, they all started realizing, you know what? You can't do that anymore. There's definitely a way. So I actually see people being more conscious about sales and adapting more the philosophy that you and I have, I mean, it's not totally adopted that way. There's still, there are always gonna be old people who believe in the manipulation and, and just make the number technique. But in general, if you go to a sales training, it, it, it's very different than it was 15, 20 years ago. Yeah, I, I definitely

can see that, and there's like, I am amazed that when I'm a guest on podcasts that there are so many people that believe similarly to what you just described. On the other hand, the sales is a numbers game, seems to be very prevalent just in the outreach on various social platforms. That to me is like. Eventually those people will have to wake up because they're driving away potential

opportunities. They're just not gonna be successful anymore. People aren't gonna buy from them after a while. I mean, yes, it's an old mindset, and that mindset is still out there. But it is shifting. Yeah. And, and maybe it hasn't gotten to that tipping point yet where it just becomes an unstoppable force and just moves forward in the right way, but it's moving in that direction.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I, I love what you're saying, and more people like you who are describing that way as sales, as a service, you know, you're in service. Yeah, it's just, just a great approach. Sam, you're bringing a ton of brilliant content here to this podcast. No doubt people wanna speak more to you and hear more of your insights to the world. Where can people find more of Sam Liebowitz?

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Harry. I appreciate it. So there are two places to go to find more about me. My, my internet radio station is Talkradio.nyc and the name of my show is The Conscious Consultant Hour, which airs live Thursdays 12 noon Eastern Time. And my personal brand, where I do my coaching and consulting and other work from is the conscious consultant. Com that's singulartheconsciousconsultant.com and people can always reach out to me via email at sam@talkradio.nyc.

Beautiful. We'll put all of that in the show notes as well. So if you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube, scroll down and you'll find where you can reach Sam in the show notes. Sam, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for the enlightenment today. This is great. You're

so welcome, Harry. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to have a conversation with people like yourself. Awesome. Thank you for listening to Sales Made Easy. If you found value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Remember, six. Success in sales is about serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will follow.