Journey to the Helm: The Art of Selling Sleep with Stew Segura

Prepare to be captivated by the story of Stew Segura. From the throes of severe drug addiction to the helm of a successful mattress business, Stew's journey is as inspiring as it is illuminating. As the owner of Mattress Doctor, he opens up about his unique methods to encourage employee growth and his passion for educating customers about the importance of a good night's sleep.

In our deep-dive conversation, we explore the art of an impactful elevator pitch. Stew not only tells us about his pitch, which has been a crucial part of his success but also shares tips on creating one that stands out. Who knew that offering advice, referrals, and even an eBook about restful sleep could set you apart from the crowd? But Stew's story doesn't end there.

Join us as Stew unravels his strategies for approaching potential customers and helping them navigate the sea of product choices without feeling overwhelmed. His approach of respect, humor, and engagement is a breath of fresh air in the world of sales. Furthermore, we delve into online business presence and the strategic use of social media for creating meaningful connections with our customers. Buckle up for a fascinating journey into the world of business, marketing, and yes, mattresses!

NOTABLE QUOTES
"I’m just a guy who’s on the journey to become a better man and to help other men as well" – Stew
"Public speaking is having the ability to spread your message effectively and lettering people know who you are and what you’re about." – Stew
"Think about what kind of message you want to present and the kind of company you want to be." – Stew
"Elevator pitch is 30-second or less of what you do for a living and what you’re about in your business." – Stew
"I’m not really selling them the mattress, I’m solving their sleep issue." – Stew
"You tend to be a little bit selfish when you haven’t thought about [your elevator pitch]." – Stew
“Nobody can remember the 3, 5, 500 products and services that you have, especially if you try and spit them out in 30 seconds." – Philip
"If you’re somebody that they can relate to, they’ll usually do business with you." – Stew
"If you don’t listen and you’re just waiting to say your part, people can tell that." – Philip
"It’s not about selling the biggest and the most expensive, it’s about selling the best product for that customer, and it could be the cheapest thing in the showroom." – Philip
"The best version of everybody is somebody who’s never stopped learning and never stopped growing.." – Stew

RESOURCES
Stew
Website: https://www.mattresseslafayette.com/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattressdoctorlafayette 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stewsegura    
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MattressDoctorLafayette 
Philip
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Philip Sessions: 0:15

Have you ever wondered about how to make your elevator pitch better? Well, I'm here today with Stu Segura. He is, I would consider, a guy that's doing elevator pitches all the time because he is an owner of mattress doctor, which is a mattress company, a Specializes in mattresses and furniture store serving clients get their best nights rest. So he is constantly in front of clients pitching them on different products that they have and we're gonna dive into that, because that's one thing that I see a lot of people struggle with. But a little bit more about Stu here before I turn it over to him.

Philip Sessions: 0:53

Stu has overcome severe drug addiction and turn his life around for the better, has a background in IT Consulting and selling on Amazon professionally. Stu has a fiancee, three wonderful children and two dogs. That are like family and I'm excited to talk to Stu today. We've been trying to have this happen for a while. But, stu, tell us a little bit more about yourself, man. I know you had a little bit more, but I try to not vomit a whole bunch of stuff in the intro, because sometimes they get really long and people don't like to hear about Me. They want to hear from you.

Stew Segura: 1:25

Hey, phillip. Well, thanks for having me, man. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here. So, man, I'm just the guy who's on, who's on the journey to become a better man and to help other men as well. You know, I'm really focused on my business, but also Something that really inspires me too is like to to try to bring other people up with me, like you know.

Stew Segura: 1:45

Take, for example, like my employee, I love to pour into him the last guy who who left here. He actually calls me every now and then for like advice and stuff like that. I help them. You know, fix him, fix his credit, taught him a lot about sales and I still support him to this day and what he does, and I just think that's like a really cool thing to do. You know, empower others. You know I buy my employees like lunch and and I give them books and things like that to read. I let them read on the clock because I think it's really important. I know that reading has helped me a lot. I just found that it's, you know, it's really important to like challenge my brain with new information. It allows me to expand my thinking and to become a better man.

Philip Sessions: 2:26

Yeah, that's awesome. I'd like to you let your employees read on the clock, which actually is really smart, because in your industry, there's some downtime there Not everybody's coming in every single minute to come check out some furniture, or you get a mattress or anything like that so, rather than paying them to sit there and do nothing, you're paying them really to educate them and so which helps you in the end, which I think is really smart. And so, before we really dive into what we're gonna talk about today, stu, I want to ask you what is your definition of public speaking?

Stew Segura: 2:57

I would say public speaking to me is having the ability to spread your message effectively to the point of you know to where you're wanting to benefit the audience and not yourself. And For me, that's something that I have to practice all the time, you know, because when for the for the average person, when they think of public speaking, if they first think of fear and they tense up, they start sweating and things like that, and there's usually no way to come across effective. You know if you're worried about that and I know for me personally, just practicing, and I'm getting better, you know, every single day, by just doing videos, by, like you said, doing the elevator pitches every day. But I think it's just like spreading your message and and letting other people know who you are and what you're about.

Philip Sessions: 3:48

I like that and you're exactly right, and that's to me, the power behind public speaking, especially when we think of the General term that most people think about is that you're on a stage or in front of an audience and everything. That is a powerful way because everybody's paying attention to you at that point. But, as you mentioned, doing videos daily, social media is another powerful tool with public speaking and too many people don't think of that as public speaking. Or even the podcast we're on right now, which is also on YouTube. People are gonna watch and hear this later and that is a form of public speaking.

Philip Sessions: 4:21

It may not be the definition you would see in Webster's dictionary or anything like that, but it's still a form of public speaking because, like you said, it's about spreading Information, especially around your business, sort of the things that you just want to talk about and share with others. So I really like that definition and so I want us to really just dive in real quick to that a little bit. We're talking offline about marketing and some operations and everything, and a lot of businesses really struggle with those operations and those processes and everything. So I like you, just I don't keep it super broad, but just bring a little bit of that out for the audience here of business owners to Maybe something that you think would be a good tip for them to be able to learn about when it comes to Operations and marketing, to help them be able to move forward and spread their message of their business and grow that business.

Stew Segura: 5:10

So, philip, I think that it's very important to Constantly have some form of a message that you're sending out and Like for. For me, especially in my mattress business, the number one thing that I enjoy doing that helps the customer the most because you have to think about, you know, benefiting them. You know I can't be thinking about, like, what am I gonna sell today? What am I gonna sell today? It's more about educating them and for me, it's about sleep. So, you know, I'm wanting to talk about REM sleep, wanted to talk about, you know, sleeping cool, providing tips on how them to get the best night's sleep so they can sleep better and perform better for not only for their family, but for their business as well and also for their health.

Stew Segura: 5:53

A lot of people, you know, when they go into a store, the people working there aren't really educated about the sleep systems or the mattresses and they're just kind of like picking one kind of like off the rack or, like I call it, like on the back of the baseball card stats, and you know, there it goes a whole lot more dive into that and I feel like that is what has helped me. A lot is just by having mentors, by paying for education if you need to, or some of it could be just on, like YouTube and reading books. But I feel like you can do the same thing in any business. You just want to become an expert in your field. But as far as your message goes, it needs to be consistent. But you don't want to get too overwhelming, like you don't want to post a sale every single day, especially in my industry. It just looks really bad. It looks like you're just out for money.

Stew Segura: 6:42

Now, if you're posting about some new information or like a sleep app or like even like a sleep tracker, like I use a Garmin, you know something like that might be helpful because it can also benefit them. You know, for things like fitness, they may have already been looking about that, looking online for something like that as a gift for them or for somebody else. So I just encourage you guys to think about what kind of message you want to present to your potential audience, to your, your future employees, and Also the kind of company that you want to be. You know, as far as like your core values, you want to. You want to portray that kind of at all times, and I also like to have a little bit of fun with it too. Like I don't try to be too too serious on that. Every now and then I'll throw like a like a little joke or a meme or something like that. But I usually don't let that get too out of hand because then it can get like way off topic, you know.

Stew Segura: 7:34

But yeah that's one thing I think I'll help.

Philip Sessions: 7:36

Okay, yeah, I like that a lot, man, I'm really spreading that information. I think that's something a lot of people don't think about is trying to find complementary things to what they do. And going back to what you mentioned with the Garmin, it's not like you're sponsored by them, and if you are or you have some kind of affiliate program, maybe you're transparent about that. I would suggest being a little transparent about it if you're really trying to sell somebody on it. But if you're just like, hey, you know this helps you, it's a sleep tracker, but you can do any sleep tracker, it's just, I just happen to use the Garmin, kind of thing, I think that's cool and it's a great way for people to keep you personally top of mind. So think about your business and what you can do that's a complementary business to you. So we can use another example like real estate. Well, something that's a complementary business is a home inspector. So you can talk about, hey, make sure that you're getting a home inspection. Or hey, make sure that every six months that you're getting your roof inspected, because that's I have a couple of roofing friends I don't know how you do it too and that's what they usually say it's about every six months, so you can bring up something like that, so it keeps you top of mind, but you're also educating just slightly different about something that's in your industry, which I think is something that's really underused. So I think that's a great tip that you shared there.

Philip Sessions: 8:52

And so I really want to go into the other part. You kind of alluded to it that a lot of people it's just all about the sale, sale, sale, sale, and with elevator pitches, I think that's where people sell the most. And so to explain this process and again, we talked offline before actually come out of podcasts like what are we going to talk about? And that's what I really wanted to get into and we talked specifically about B&I. But I've been to all sorts of networking events, different groups, that weren't B&I related, so it's not just B&I or anything like that. So I don't think we're bashing one particular networking group, but all these networking groups to go to, or even the groups we're in, that we're paying to be in, they also have people that when they go in for their elevator pitch, they're literally pitching. So what do you think an elevator pitch really is in the first place? Let's kind of go broad and we're going to go in as we talk about this.

Stew Segura: 9:48

Okay. So I feel like an elevator pitch is 30 seconds or less of what you do for a living and what you're about in your business, and for me I feel like I like to kind of summarize it down to where it might be, like 15 to 20 seconds. Like, for example, my elevator pitch is that I'm a sleep specialist and that I help people having problems that are sleeping poorly, and that's usually all I say. I used to go a lot more into detail about it, but it kind of gets a little bit confusing and usually when I tell somebody that I'm a sleep specialist over, let's say, a mattress store owner, they're a little bit more intrigued, because if I'm just a mattress store owner, then they just assume that I have what everybody else has. And even if, let's say, I have the same product, I don't have the same knowledge, and that is one thing that will help you stand out as well.

Stew Segura: 10:48

But you're right, I elevator pitch. It can be anywhere from five to 10 times a day, or even on the phone. Even on the phone is an elevator pitch, and it just goes with experience. And now it's something that's really important. You got to take that fear out of, like you know what they're going to think like just kind of out of your mind. Because if you say nothing like, let's say, in an actual elevator, to somebody you know you've never met, like you know that could be somebody that your partner's with down the road on something else, or it could be like one of your best clients. So I encourage you know everybody to just kind of like throw those nerves to the side and and just have like a brief quick chat.

Philip Sessions: 11:30

Nice, and I definitely want to dive into that. But let's go back real quick. So you mentioned about being a sleeping specialist, and then I'm forgetting the other part. Okay, can you repeat your elevator pitch? I kind of want to break it down a little bit.

Stew Segura: 11:41

Okay. So yeah, I'm a sleep specialist and I help people solve their their sleeping problems. Like, for example, I get a lot of people that have either back, neck, hip issues, things like that, that can't sleep all night. They'll end up on their couch and they'll go through these scenarios where they're buying four or five mattresses from these different companies and they're just never the right one, and it's because they're not properly fitted. So that's that's what I do, to kind of elaborate just a little, just a little bit more. So I just educate them on the, on how to select the perfect mattress and how to resolve their issues. So I'm not really selling them the mattress, I'm solving their sleep issue.

Philip Sessions: 12:30

I like that. That's what I wanted to break apart. So you talked about your sleep specialist, which you mentioned earlier. That creates this unique proposition. They're like, oh, what is that exactly? And then you add in there I help solve people's sleep problems, essentially, and so that as well. It's not like, oh yeah, I'm a sleep specialist, I help people find the right mattress. Okay, so you're just selling mattresses essentially.

Philip Sessions: 12:52

So you're actually going in and now you've identified who you work with, so I can know right away well, hey, I'm good, I can sleep on a rock, have no problems, no neck issues. I'm not the person that is gonna work with you or gonna wanna talk with you, and that's fine. We can identify that together, that we wouldn't work together and I wouldn't buy a mattress from you. But, man, I had neck problems all the time. Now I'm intrigued. I wanna know more about what it is that you can do to help me resolve these problems. So I think that's a really good elevator pitch, because it gets me intrigued at what a sleep specialist is. And then you identify who it is that you work with as a sleep specialist, so that way I know whether we could work together or not.

Philip Sessions: 13:38

Or maybe I've got an uncle that's older, that he's got a lot of back problems, neck problems, and you know what they need to talk to, stu. So I think that's a really great way, and so I bring this out for the audience to understand more about that elevator pitch and what that actually means behind it, because too often times like and you were guilty of that, I've been guilty of that at the beginning where it's just like, oh, yeah, hey, this is what I do, this is who I help, or yeah, okay, I'm a mattress store owner. I sell mattresses. Like you said, it's everybody does that. There's plenty of people that do that, but what makes you unique? And then you also use it in a way that's like I actually am the sleep specialist, so I have that education as well, which I think is really awesome.

Stew Segura: 14:20

Yeah, no, another thing that I like to do as well that might help the audience a little bit, is, like I also have some people that I can refer out as far as, like, I've got some associates that are chiropractors that do like physiotherapy, as far as like dry and everything like that, cause there are some issues that I come across that aren't related to like their mattress, that they might have need to.

Stew Segura: 14:48

They might need to take care of that. They might've just been kind of avoiding, cause I get a lot of people that I mean nobody really loves to go to the doctor, yeah. But yeah, there's other things too, man, like I actually have an ebook out for how to get the best nights rest as well, and there's a lot of tips in there that have nothing to do with spending money in my store, and so I find that providing some free value like that also helps as well, cause they're all. It also lets them know that I'm not just, they're not just like a number to me, and I just want to help them in any way that I can.

Philip Sessions: 15:26

I like that, and so what are maybe some things that you've seen with people doing an elevator pitch that have been really bad. I know you got a couple of stories, so you care to share any of those.

Stew Segura: 15:37

Sure, sure. So this woman will remain nameless, but I was in a local meeting and she gets up to do her elevator pitch and she says, blah, blah, blah, I'm the commercial real estate agent. I've got this house, 237 on Antigua, it's 5,000 square feet commercial building and they're asking $700,000. And it's funny, cause, like some other people are writing this down and then she reels off two more properties like that and I'm thinking like how is anybody like gonna actually do this? Everybody is writing this down. Nobody's like, cause you're almost asking somebody to like go find your client for you, and that's kind of usually not the case. You know what I'm saying. I would have probably pitched it more like you know, hey, if you know anybody that's looking to start a business or looking to move, or looking to reduce their rent or looking to mitigate you know their tax situation, looking to save on taxes, you know this is my phone number, or put them in touch with me.

Stew Segura: 16:47

Every time I do a different elevator pitch, I try to change it up a little bit. I don't like to say the same thing. Especially I like my local B&I. Like one week I might talk about like cooling products, because right now it's like 100 degrees outside, so that's like a perfect time to talk about it. And then another one I might talk about, like like you're talking about neck pillows, like, or neck pain, something like that. So I like to change it up a little bit, but not to get too detailed into it, just like mentioned, like hey, just to let you know, you know, I offer these products and I can offer some helpful advice as well on this, and I try to not get too complicated.

Philip Sessions: 17:25

Yeah, that makes sense.

Stew Segura: 17:26

Yeah, I think it's just, I think it's just some people and I used to do this as well you tend to be a little bit selfish when you haven't really thought about it and if you haven't seen. I think sometimes if people would see themselves give the pitch to be like, oh you know, that wasn't, that wasn't my best, that wasn't my best.

Philip Sessions: 17:47

I agree with that and it's funny you mentioned about. I mean, first of all, it's a ridiculous story. I can't believe somebody actually did that because that's so specific and you never that's gonna change too. Like why in the world one would you bring that up in these specific properties? Because it's not like you're always gonna be doing those properties unless it happens to be your own rental property perhaps, especially if it's like an Airbnb or something. I don't know. It's kind of crazy.

Philip Sessions: 18:13

But I did have somebody that I know here locally. They do point of sale stuff and their merchant advisor, whatever you wanna call them, and everything, and they actually were going to these meetings and they were kind of going down the list because they were trying to get in touch with business owners. So they kind of would do one at a time and one time and they've had this client, I think, for like three or four years now. If they went to a meeting they're like hey, who knows such and such owner of this restaurant and somebody's like oh, I know him and they're able to connect. But he was very specific. So it's specific, but in a little bit different way. So it's kind of cool how he was able to do that, but sometimes it doesn't work. So it just kind of depends.

Philip Sessions: 18:51

But definitely you gotta pick and choose what you're gonna be specific about. Like this guy was trying to hey, this is who I'm looking for, this is it. But it's part of what he's trying to do for prospecting versus this, which is like hey, here's a random property, here's some details on it. Yeah, like you helped me find this person, he was just like hey, does anybody have a connection? That's all I need. I can do the work from there. So they definitely don't use a elevator pitch or any kind of networking event to try and help people do your business for sure.

Philip Sessions: 19:22

And then the other part you mentioned about how you talk about a different product every time.

Philip Sessions: 19:26

I think that's another thing that too many of us as business owners do, where we have either multiple businesses or we have multiple products or multiple services and we wanna talk about them all. Nobody can remember the three, five, 500 products and services that you have, especially if you try and spit them out in 30 seconds. So talk about one, maybe two if it's very closely related to it in that elevator pitch, but I really would suggest just one is. Then people can remember that and it helps them identify hey, is this somebody I wanna work with or is this somebody that I can refer them to? But if you name off five different products and services that you do, they can't identify with what you do at all and then you're not gonna get any business, because at the end of the day, while you shouldn't pitch in your elevator pitch, you still need to talk about what it is that you do, and making it simple for the person listening or the people listening helps them be able to figure out how they can help you, because that's the point of networking.

Stew Segura: 20:34

No, definitely, Cause most people like if you asked me what I ate for breakfast yesterday, I'd have to sit for a second and think about it. So if you tell me five different things, it's gonna be hard for me to remember one of them. Whereas if you just focus on one and elaborate a little more on it. I think people can retain that just a little bit, a little bit better.

Philip Sessions: 21:47

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So let's move into your store now. So we've been kind of talking about networking events and everything how we need to do with that, but let's move back into your store. You mentioned this a little bit, but let's imagine like I or a customer, a potential customer, comes into the store. They're obviously looking for something, so they're kind of a warm lead. They're not that cold lead, and in your situation you I guess you're lucky with that cause you get people that are interested or at least shopping around. They may still be cold, but they come in to your store. How do you approach them and what does this process look like? Because I can see where you could just vomit out every single product you have, which wouldn't work, but how do you go about doing that?

Stew Segura: 22:30

So the first thing I like to do is just greet them, and I usually try to do it like a little bit from a distance, like I don't want to be like in their space, but I'm just like hey, how are you doing today? My name is Stu, I'm the owner here, and they'll usually, you know, like say their name and more often than not they'll either tell me why they're here or if not. I'll just start asking like a few different questions Like you know what, what brings you in today? And if I'm lucky, they'll just start talking and I'll just sit there and listen, cause, like my favorite ones are, like this mattress is killing me. It's way too old. I should have replaced this three years ago.

Stew Segura: 23:16

And I just kind of like let them talk and then, after I asked them, you know, like a few different questions, then I'll kind of walk them over to like what I would like to call one of my middle ground mattresses. Like, let's say, I know that they're looking for something that is like a firm, I'll throw them on one that's really popular, and then I'll kind of like, you know, if they don't like it, we'll move one way. If they love it, we can possibly stay on that one or move another way, because you're right, if I put them on 30 something different mattresses, it's gonna get very, very confusing. So I need to remember to not vomit out everything that I'm having on sale, because selecting the proper product usually doesn't matter about the price. Now, usually, when they find the right one, I might have like two or three that can fit in.

Stew Segura: 24:09

You know to like different budgets, but for the most part I usually have people lay on maybe like four to five different models and typically that's usually it once we find the right one Cause it does, it can get kind of overwhelming. And I'm not there to confuse anybody, I'm there to educate and I think somebody mentioned the other day like almost be like a buyer's assistant and I've never used that word, but I thought that was like a cool phrase and so like, in a way, I feel like, even though I'm in sales, I don't really. I feel like I'm more of like a, like an expert or an educator when it comes to that, because then in the end the customer is actually, you know, has to be the one to make the decision. I'm just kind of providing all of the options and you know different ways to get that done, and so that's kind of how I like to.

Stew Segura: 24:56

I like to approach things and I also, you know, build a little bit of rapport. I like to crack jokes. I like to if they break, if they got kids, I'm high fiving the kids like what's up y'all, if y'all want to go lay on the couch, or whatever. I got a TV in the showroom in case we got rowdy kids I can put on YouTube or whatever. So yeah, I just like I love kids and I just find that, like you know, if you're, if you're somebody that they can relate to and they, like you know they'll use, as long as you know you're not like full of it, you know they'll usually, they'll usually do business with you If you know if, if it matches up with you know, your, your information and your confidence and your knowledge. That's just kind of how I like to approach things.

Philip Sessions: 25:40

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, definitely not. Not pushy, not salesy as we think, especially the notorious car salesman that use car salesman kind of thing, or hey we're going to get you in here.

Philip Sessions: 25:50

Oh, let's try this one out, try this one out, like, yeah, you go in, you ask, you ask those questions If they're not already telling you what it is. And those are the best people to talk to and work with and help them with their problem, to create a solution for them, because they're telling you everything that's going on. You're not having to interrogate them almost, because I've had some of those people that I've had to have those sales conversations with and, oh man, it is a nightmare, Cause you don't want to keep asking a question after a question after a question. But, man, that's tough and maybe we'll have to get into that in a second. But I like that you work on building rapport.

Philip Sessions: 26:29

You have the different ways. Yeah, if you've got the kids, like, hey, let's get you over here to the couch, there's a TV, let you have fun. That way the parents get a little bit of relief, they can go focus on finding a bed, because that's a. I mean, let's face it, it's really not fun for anybody, cause you know you're going to go spend a good amount of money. You got to go awkwardly lay on a couple of beds and then you're like crap, I hope my shoes aren't dirty. I know they've got this thing here, but I still might get it dirty. Am I going to believe in? Am I going to have to hop up here? Am I going to need a step stool, like there's? All these things that make it a little awkward for the consumer.

Philip Sessions: 27:03

But I like that you talk with them and you kind of bring them to a certain area that you know and, based on the questions that you've asked them or what they've told you, to be able to help them out and which is such an important thing, that we really need to listen. We need to build that rapport, that no, like and trust. And then listen is too often we don't listen. And, going back to elevator pitches a little bit, we don't listen to somebody's elevator pitch either, and that's such an important thing to do. Whether it be sales, whether it be a networking event, whether it be an elevator pitch.

Philip Sessions: 27:34

If you don't listen and you're just waiting to say your part, people can tell that too. And so if you went into this conversation with this customer that came in and you just were waiting to be able to sell them or tell them how great your stuff is or what new sell. You got going on. They're not going to listen, they're going to be like all right, that's cool. Well, let us think about it. We'll get back to you, I'm sure you know what that means.

Stew Segura: 27:58

We have a few other stores that we want to go look at.

Philip Sessions: 28:01

No.

Stew Segura: 28:02

I've done that, I've made that mistake before, and yeah, it just doesn't work. Like it just doesn't work. Like they say listen twice as much as you talk. I think Ryan Stuman in one of his books says like the quiet salesman that only speaks when he has to speak is usually the one that does the best. That's obviously. It isn't a challenge, but it works, it works.

Philip Sessions: 28:30

Mm-hmm, yeah, so how do you let's go a little bit more into this like elevator pitch, because there's times where you're talking about one product and you got to switch to another product, and that's tough. So how do you make that transition from one product to the next?

Stew Segura: 28:44

So usually I'll make the transition. Usually for me, like so I've got different brands in the store and there's a lot of different brands that I carry that the products feel wildly different, even if, let's say, they're the same firmness or made of very similar materials. And so I will just talk about the benefits of, let's say, like the next model, and I usually talk about more about the brand. Then we try like I've got one brand in particular called Puffy, and I'll usually mention that like they'll come with a 101 night sleep trial, they do free shipping to your doorstep, they come with a free sleep bundle and it also has a lifetime warranty and that's one of the few brands that does that.

Stew Segura: 29:30

It doesn't matter which model you buy. You know you've got your soft, your medium and your firm, and I just talk like little bit in detail about each one and I'll let the customer let me know what they think about each one. And typically when somebody lays on a product like mine, you know almost immediately, especially if you hate it, you know I don't like this, and so that's just kind of how I go from one to the other, and if it's something that I know that they're not gonna like, like I won't even, like, I won't even. It's almost like that model's not even there.

Philip Sessions: 30:09

Yeah, that's good, I like that. You kind of talk about each one of them a little briefly and then, yeah, as they start to say, I don't like that one, yeah, you just, all right, we're not talking about anymore, it doesn't exist, and we move on to the next one. Or they really like one, you just go in and talk about that, which goes back to the listening which we mentioned earlier. You're listening to what they want and you're not going in there trying to look for the one that's gonna give you the biggest commission or the one that costs the most. Oh, I can sell that, so my sales numbers can be up and obviously you're the owner, so then that's more money in your pocket at the end of the day too.

Philip Sessions: 30:43

But you know, for our people that are doing sales, that's something to think about. It's not about selling the biggest and the most expensive. It's about selling the best product for that customer, and it could be the cheapest thing in the showroom or in the lot or wherever that is and everything, but it's what the customer wanted. They're gonna be happy and that's gonna create more sales. So well, stu man, this has been awesome. I've enjoyed kind of talking about elevator pitches and really kind of going to that sales process as well, kind of diving through and navigating what it looks like to have that conversation, be kind of customer centric, focusing on the customer and being simplistic at the end of the day. But I wanna get to our last question that I like to ask every guest, and that is if you only had one message that you could share for the rest of your life, what would that message be?

Stew Segura: 31:33

If I only had one message, it would be that you're capable of doing anything in life that you want. You just have to be willing to sacrifice for it and to work for it. I see myself and others as kind of like a work of art that never is. It's never finished, and so I think that the best version of everybody is somebody who's never stopped learning and never stopped growing.

Stew Segura: 32:03

And I believe that in order to live your best life and to be fulfilled, that that's kind of like a stance that you have to live Like you can't read, you can't go one year and read 10 books and then go the next 10 years of life and kind of watch Netflix all the time, like I don't think you'll be fulfilled, even if you have money.

Stew Segura: 32:24

So I think that stuff like that is very, very important for everybody to know and to lead a fulfilled life. And that's something I believe is that I wanna leave behind in my legacy, and my legacy is not gonna be financial. It's gonna be about the drive that I have and the giving back to others and wanting to leave behind not only like a better America, but just like a better life for my family, and it's gonna come with like values and just a better way of living, not to mention like having a better attitude just about every situation and just learning to be better every single day. And that's kind of what I wanna leave behind and that's what I hope gets talked about when I pass one day.

Philip Sessions: 33:19

Hi, man, and I think you're living that out right now. I see it from the posts that you do on social media, the interactions, the conversations that we have. I definitely see that already. So it's definitely a legacy that you're already working on building. So just keep it up, man. You're on the right path for that for sure. Appreciate it. Thank you, of course. Well, stu man. Again, I appreciate you coming on sharing your value here. If people wanna follow you, get to know you more, first of all, you can tell us where you're located at. I forgot to mention that. So you've been talking about mattresses. I know you can do it online as well, but if people do wanna come in person to your store, where are you located at? And then, if not in person, where can they find you at online?

Stew Segura: 34:01

Okay, so my store is located in Youngsville, louisiana, which is right outside of Lafayette, louisiana. Lafayette's kind of like the bigger city. Youngsville is kind of like a little outskirt town right next to it. But you can find me either at my Facebook store, which is facebookcom slash mattressdoctorlafayette, or I encourage you to actually follow me or add me as a friend on social media, and it's facebookcom slash StuSegura, and I'll be sharing a bunch of different things like we talked about on this podcast, like not only some business tips, sleep tips, but also some encouraging posts as well. Yeah, that's how they can find me.

Philip Sessions: 34:46

Awesome. Well, Stu, thanks again for coming on. I appreciate it.

Stew Segura: 34:48

No, I'm really glad you have me man. I appreciate it. I love this show.