Most businesses that struggle to attract the right clients don't actually have a business problem — they have a message that's doing the opposite of what they think it is. 

In this episode of Sales as Service, Tam sits down with Kay McKenzie, founder of Women in Alignment, to explore how positioning, messaging, and relationship building work together to create steady business growth. Rather than chasing algorithms or trying to sound more impressive, Kay explains why the strongest brands are the ones people immediately recognize, remember, and confidently recommend.

Together, they unpack why women founders often hesitate to put themselves forward, how perfectionism quietly weakens sales efforts, and why referrals aren't passive at all—they're the result of consistently investing in people long before anyone is ready to buy. The conversation also explores how AI fits into relationship-driven businesses and why authentic human connection is becoming even more valuable as technology evolves.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why weak messaging focuses on you instead of your audience
• How positioning helps the right clients recognize you immediately
• Why referrals are earned through consistent relationship building
• How perfectionism keeps many founders from becoming visible
• Why trust is built through consistency across every customer touchpoint

Find the complete show notes here →https://studiothree49.com/podcast/

Sales as Service Challenge — Start Now!

Choose five people already in your network.

People you've already built some level of relationship with.

Spend the next week intentionally reconnecting. Send a quick check-in message. Comment thoughtfully on something they've shared. Make an introduction. Celebrate a win. Offer help without expecting anything in return.

The goal isn't to generate a sale.

The goal is to become someone who stays top of mind by consistently showing up.

As Kay says, "Your network is good when you're good to your network." Relationships grow through consistent investment—not occasional outreach.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Women in Alignment
• Connect with Kay on Facebook and LinkedIn
• Join the Women in Alignment Facebook Group. 

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

Persuasion has a reputation problem. 

For many founders and service professionals, it brings to mind pressure tactics, scripted sales pitches, and convincing someone to say yes. Danny Bobrow sees it differently.

In this episode, Danny shares the framework behind the Persuasion Blueprint, a practical approach built around three principles: signaling care, earning trust, and collaborating with the person in front of you. Rather than teaching people how to become more persuasive for their own benefit, Danny explains how better communication helps buyers feel understood, confident, and empowered to make the right decision.

Together, we explore why so many sales conversations stall after a promising start, how to avoid "expert override," and why listening may be the most overlooked sales skill of all. Whether you're having conversations in person, over Zoom, in your DMs, or through email, this episode will challenge the way you think about persuasion—and show you how to make every conversation feel more human.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why persuasion is an act of service—not manipulation.
• Danny's three pillars of persuasive communication: signaling care, earning trust, and collaboration.
• The "10-second rule" for creating an immediate sense of care and connection.
• How "expert override" quietly sabotages sales conversations.
• Why listening is one of the greatest gifts you can give another person—and how it changes the way people experience working with you.

Find the complete show notes here →https://studiothree49.com/podcast/

Sales as Service Challenge — Start Now!

Do a listening audit on one recent sales conversation.

If you're already recording your discovery calls, pull up your most recent conversation. If not, think back to one you remember clearly.

Ask yourself three questions:

• Did you signal care within the first 10 seconds, or did you jump straight into your agenda?
• Were there moments where you slipped into explaining your solution before fully understanding the problem?
• Did the conversation feel collaborative—or did it feel like you were presenting while the other person simply listened?

The goal isn't to get better at selling everyone. It's to get better at serving the people you're uniquely equipped to help when there's a genuine fit.

And the only way to do that is through consistent, intentional practice.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Danny Bobrow. 
• Access your Persuasion Score. 
• Connect with Danny on LinkedIn and Facebook. 

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

Most small business owners wrestle with the same question: is it a sales problem or a marketing problem?

I recently recorded our very first Sales as Service LIVE office hours - and Shannon Kinney, Founder & CEO of Dream Local Digital, joined me to dig into exactly that. Shannon brings more than 30 years of leadership experience building scalable digital strategies for brands like LinkedIn, Google, eBay, and Microsoft. Since founding Dream Local Digital in 2009, she’s helped thousands of small businesses and media companies develop marketing strategies designed to grow and scale.

This episode is the full replay of that live conversation. We talk about why sales and marketing aren’t interchangeable, how to tell which one is holding your business back, and the practical systems that help the two work together - so you’re not stuck waiting on referrals or random inbound leads.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Do I need more leads, or do I just need to get better at closing the ones I have?” - this conversation will give you a clear way to answer that.

Key Takeaways

• The simple way to know if you have a sales problem or a marketing problem - and why the fix is rarely “do more of everything”
• Why marketing generates attention, but sales is what turns that attention into revenue
• The risks of relying only on referrals and inbound interest (and how to break the waiting game)
• Practical first steps to build consistency without a full sales and marketing team
• The small, repeatable actions that keep your pipeline full month after month

Sales as Service Challenge — Join Now!

This week, run a quick 30-day audit to find out if you’re facing a marketing gap or a sales gap:

1. Look back at the past 30 days:
   • How many new leads or opportunities came in?
   • Where did those leads come from?
2. Of those leads, how many converted into paying clients?
3. Diagnose the gap:
   • Low new leads? That’s a marketing problem. Time to revisit your audience, offer, or messaging.
   • Lots of leads, low conversions? That’s a sales problem. Focus on follow-up, qualification, and guiding prospects to a decision.
   • Stuck waiting on referrals or the occasional inbound? That’s not a growth strategy. Make space for intentional, proactive outreach. 

Run this audit monthly and use what you find to focus your efforts where it matters most.

Share your audit results or next step with the hashtag #SalesAsService so I can cheer you on.

Links & Resources

• Join us for the next SAS LIVE Office Hours Event!
• Check out the LinkedIn Lead Generator to learn how to turn simple daily actions into real conversations with potential clients. 
• Grab your free 5-Minute Sales Audit for a quick scan to show what’s working, what’s not—and one thing you can improve right away.
• Learn more about Shannon:
  • Dream Local Digital
  • LinkedIn

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

You don’t need more leads - you need the right ones. 

In this episode, I sat down with Jamie Cox, a Nashville-based brand and marketing strategist who helps B2B service providers get off the content hamster wheel by getting crystal clear on who they serve - and just as importantly, who they don’t.

Jamie’s approach to brand strategy isn’t about logos or color palettes. It’s about making your brand a filter. One that calls in the work you actually want to do and creates enough of a point of view to repel the rest. Because when your brand is built to be felt - not just seen - it naturally supports your sales process.

If you’ve ever found yourself spiraling over your messaging or stuck trying to “do it all” on social, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

Key Takeaways

• Why brand clarity isn’t just about visuals - it’s the foundation of a sales strategy that attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones
• How to define your not-for list to get clearer on your actual niche
• The referral engine that clarity creates - and how to make it easier for people to talk about your work in rooms you're not in
• A simple mindset shift that makes visibility feel more like connection and less like performance
• The rhythms and systems that help solopreneurs stay consistent—even when client work takes over

SaS Challenge — Join Now!

This week, let’s focus on filtering for fit - so your brand can do more of the heavy lifting in your sales process.

• Pick one platform where you want to build a more consistent presence—whether it’s LinkedIn, your email list, or your website.
• Set a timer for 30 minutes. Jot down 3 characteristics of your best-fit clients - and 3 warning signs that someone’s not for you.
• Publish one piece of content this week that speaks directly to the client you want more of.

Share with the hashtag #SalesAsService, so I can cheer you on.

Links & Resources:

• Join us for the next SAS LIVE Office Hours Event!
• Check out the LinkedIn Lead Generator to learn how to turn simple daily actions into real conversations with potential clients. 
• Download the VIP Power Hour free guide.
• Learn more about Jamie: jamiercox.com; newsletter.jamiercox.com; linkedin.com/in/jamiercox13
• Resources mentioned in this episode: Jamie’s Brand Clarity Lab: jamiercox.com/brand-clarity-lab 

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

In this episode, I talk with Nelson Dickson, founder of C3 Creations, about the power of relationships in sales.

Nelson shares how he built his marketing brokerage by focusing on genuine connections rather than transactions. As a self-described introvert, he changed his approach to networking by asking "How can I help?" instead of "What can I get?"

Key takeaways:

• 60-70% of Nelson's business comes from referrals
• Shift your mindset from collecting business cards to making real connections
• Give more value than you gain
• Be authentic - people can spot "quota breath" from a mile away
• Don't be afraid to stand out (like wearing silly Christmas suits!)

Nelson also recommends consistent content posting and doing a yearly "relationship audit" to strengthen connections that matter.

This week's challenge: Take 15 minutes to reconnect with one contact - no pitch, no agenda, just genuine connection.

Want to connect with Nelson? Find him on LinkedIn or visit c3creations.com.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Simply sales with the VIP Power Hour - download the FREE guide.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Have an episode idea? DM me on LinkedIn and let me know!

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

In this episode, I talk with Devin Lee, systems strategist and the Founder behind helping overwhelmed business owners create custom processes that simplify operations. Devin specializes in transforming chaos into clarity, enabling businesses to scale efficiently without hitting plateaus. She shares her expertise in streamlining workflows, automating tasks, and implementing effective delegation strategies to enhance client experience and boost revenue.

Devin dives into her journey from professional organizing and virtual assisting to becoming a sought-after business management expert, explaining why efficient systems are essential for growth. She also highlights common inefficiencies in service-based businesses, the critical role of first impressions in sales, and the importance of automating client onboarding to create lasting positive experiences.

Key takeaways:

• Effective systems are foundational to scaling a business without burnout.
• Overly manual processes can harm sales, client relationships, and retention.
• Automating routine tasks and delegating effectively frees up creative space for strategic growth.
• Business owners often become bottlenecks by holding onto tasks rather than empowering their teams.
• Regularly mapping out processes helps identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement.

Sales as Service Challenge - Join In! 

This week’s Sales as Service Challenge is to do a 15-minute Process Audit in your business.

Here’s how to do it: 

Choose one core process - this could be client onboarding, scheduling sales calls, or delivering your service. Write down every single step in that process. (You’re likely doing more than you realize!)

Identify:

- What can be automated?

- What can be delegated?

- What do you actually need to own?

Streamlining even one process can save you time, create a better client experience, and remove unnecessary friction from your sales cycle. Take the challenge and let me know how it goes - DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram! #SASChallenge

Want to connect with Devin? Visit her website at DevinLee.com, where you can subscribe to her highly recommended newsletter, or find her on LinkedIn to explore more insights into systematizing your business for sustainable growth.

Resources Mentioned in this week’s episode:

Airtable Relationship Management Template: https://devinlee6.gumroad.com/l/relationship-database-auto

Airtable (Recommended Tool): https://www.airtable.com

Zapier (Automation Tool): https://zapier.com

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

Too many founders hold back from selling because they think they’re just not cut out for it. But today’s guest, Joshua Schulman, is here to challenge that belief. 

As a communication coach with a background in public speaking, acting, and even poker, Joshua helps entrepreneurs ditch the “natural salesperson” myth—and replace it with real, repeatable skill.

In this episode, we dig into why performance, not personality, drives sales confidence. Whether you're leading discovery calls, pitching investors, or just trying to get through outreach without freezing, Joshua shares practical ways to rehearse your way to clarity—and even enjoy the process.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why being “bad at sales” is just a lack of practice—not a fixed identity
• How to gamify key moments in your sales process to reduce pressure
• What acting, chess, and poker teach us about handling objections and staying present
• The Sales Process Flow method that helps founders ditch guesswork
• One challenge you can take this week to build communication muscle memory

Sales as Service Challenge — Start Now!

Pick one moment in your sales process—and rehearse it.

That’s it. Just one.

It could be:
 — How you open a discovery call
 — The way you introduce your offer
 — Or how you handle a common objection

Write it down. Say it out loud. Try it a few different ways. Play with tone, pacing, and delivery.

The goal isn’t to memorize—it’s to practice being present, so you feel more confident and less reactive in the moment.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Schulman Communications Interactive (SCi)
• Connect with Joshua on LinkedIn
• Join us for the next SAS LIVE Office Hours Event!
• Check out the LinkedIn Lead Generator to learn how to turn simple daily actions into real conversations with potential clients. 
• Grab your 5-Minute Sales Audit for a quick scan to show what’s working, what’s not—and one thing you can improve right away.

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

In this re-release episode, I talk with Elizabeth Howell, owner of Howell Media, about the power of organic marketing for small business owners and solopreneurs.

Elizabeth shares how she helps entrepreneurs fight marketing indecision by focusing on just two powerful strategies: LinkedIn and podcast guesting. As someone with extensive media experience, she discovered this combination gives the biggest return on time investment without requiring a massive budget.

Key takeaways:

• Combine podcast guesting with LinkedIn to maximize your marketing ROI
• One podcast appearance can generate multiple content pieces across platforms
• Make marketing fun by leaning into formats that energize you
• Real results: one guest generated $50,000 in coaching sales from a single podcast
• Comments on LinkedIn can drive more growth than daily posting

Elizabeth also shares her "Goals + Actions" exercise for creating LinkedIn content, where you map client goals against what they need to know, giving you endless content ideas.

This week's challenge: Create five LinkedIn post ideas using Elizabeth's goals + actions exercise.

Want to connect with Elizabeth? Find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/euh24/

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

There's a point in every founder's journey where doing great work stops being enough. The habits that built the business — staying close to delivery, saying yes, solving every problem — quietly become the ceiling.

In this episode, Sarah Still, COO and Enterprise Value and Exit Strategist with RAYNE IX, joins Tam to talk about what it actually takes to build an agency that doesn't depend entirely on the founder. Sarah brings close to a decade of experience scaling a women-led agency to nearly $10 million, and the conversation gets specific fast — from how values get operationalized into daily systems, to why most founders are still unknowingly showing up like employees in their own businesses.

This one is for any founder who has ever felt like they built a very demanding job instead of a scalable business — and wants a clearer picture of what changes when they start leading it differently.

In this episode:

• Why defining your values means nothing if they aren't embedded into your operations and communications
• The decision-making framework Sarah used to stop every problem from filtering back to the founder
• How the way you show up in a sales conversation is a direct preview of how you'll show up inside the client relationship
• The mindset shift from employee order-taker to expert who leads outcomes — and why it's about reconditioning, not confidence
• What to do when you've outgrown the version of the business you originally built

Find the complete show notes here →https://studiothree49.com/podcast/ep-50-sarah-still

Sales as Service Challenge — Start Now!

Identify one place where you're still showing up like a service provider instead of a strategic partner.

Maybe it's overexplaining instead of making a recommendation. Waiting for permission before leading the conversation. Reacting to client requests instead of guiding outcomes. Or staying so buried in delivery that you're not thinking strategically about the business itself.

Then ask yourself: What would this look like if I approached it as the expert in the room?

Practice leading one client conversation differently this week. Be more direct. Make the recommendation. Guide the next step. Own your expertise.

If that feels uncomfortable — that's worth paying attention to. This isn't about confidence. It's about reconditioning.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about RAYNE IX
• Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn
• Your next client - calculate what it takes 
• Simply sales with the VIP Power Hour - download the FREE guide
• Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.

Natasha Golinsky is the founder of On Purpose Projects, a certified women-owned full-stack web development agency specializing in complex, custom builds — Shopify, WooCommerce, web apps, and API integrations. She's been running it for over 11 years, built it entirely by accident, and has never written a single line of code herself.

In 2024, a stage two breast cancer diagnosis forced her to step away from her business entirely. What she found when she came back changed how she understood her own role — and cracked open years of work she'd been quietly doing on the patterns that kept her stuck as a founder. That work is now the foundation of her coaching practice, where she helps female founders identify and move through the trauma blocks showing up in their businesses.

In this conversation, Natasha gets honest about what those blocks actually look like in practice — not the dramatic, obvious kind, but the quiet ones that show up as avoidance, perfectionism, and the persistent inability to do the thing you know you need to do.

In this episode:

• Why the standard advice to "list your limiting beliefs" misses the point entirely
• The one question Natasha uses to surface what's actually blocking a goal
• How her own trauma block around visibility kept her from creating content until age 43 — and what finally shifted
• Where trauma blocks show up beyond visibility: pricing, hiring, sales conversations, and team building
• Why mental health and physical health deserve the same level of attention, full stop

Find the complete show notes here →https://studiothree49.com/podcast/ep-49-natasha-golinsky

Sales as Service Challenge — Start Now!

This week's challenge is simple — but it will tell you something.

Pick one business development action you've been consistently avoiding. Not the thing you're procrastinating on — the thing that creates a specific, almost physical resistance every time it comes up. Sending a connection request. Following up after a discovery call. Posting something on LinkedIn that actually says something.

Got it? Now ask Natasha's question: why can't I have this?

Don't filter it. Don't clean it up. Write down whatever comes up first — because that's usually the thing worth looking at.

Then take the action anyway. One time.

Confidence doesn't come from feeling ready. It comes from doing the thing before you feel ready and learning that you survived it.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about On Purpose Projects
• Connect with Natasha on LinkedIn
• Follow Natasha on Substack
• Your next client - Calculate what it takes 
• Simply sales with the VIP Power Hour - Download the FREE guide
• Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - Book an Alignment Call

Tam Smith is the founder of Studio Three 49 and a professional conversation starter. She helps service-based founders stop waiting for referrals and start creating opportunities through genuine conversations.

Your next client - calculate what it takes.

Learn how to consistently book 3–5 sales-qualified meetings each week - book an Alignment Call. 

Connect with Tam on LinkedIn. 

Produced by KNWN Media. Executive Producer: Jess Milanes.