Trademark Battles and Selling Like A Human w/ Sarah Santacroce

While her new book, Selling Like We’re Human, isn’t about trademark issues, it was a trademark dispute the Swiss Sarah Santacroce got dragged into that led to the title. In this episode, you’ll hear how Sarah chose her first title and then had to rebrand her book, herself, and her business received a letter from a US-based trademark lawyer (those darn, litigious Americans!).

Lesson #1—do a Google and trademark search for your book title or any special terms you want to use. However, once that story’s out of the way, Sarah tells us about what it means to sell like a human, and how she wrote a book full of permission slips for those who don’t like selling so they can sell a different, better way. You’ll also see how Sarah’s community helped her write her book, and how her book is helping her build her community.

Sarah’s Links:

https://twitter.com/sarahsantacroce

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahsantacroce/

https://sarahsantacroce.com/

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Josh Steimle:  Welcome to the Published Author podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle.

Josh Steimle: Today, my guest is Sarah Santacroce. Sarah ran a successful LinkedIn coaching business before deciding it was time for a new approach to marketing. Once a declared hippie, Sarah is now a business coach working with heart-centered entrepreneurs to help them question their assumptions about marketing, and market their business the gentle way. Her clients sometimes refer to her as the female Seth Godin. And Sarah doesn't shy away from calling things out that are that no longer work for many of us when it comes to the current marketing model. Her new book "Selling Like We're Human" was recently released. Sarah is a frequent speaker at conferences, and she also hosts her own podcast show "Humane Marketing". Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah Santacroce: So glad to be here, Josh, thank you for having me.

Josh Steimle: And, you know, maybe we should dive into this trademark thing just right off the bat because some people know you for your books that came out with a slightly different name. And now you've had to go through kind of a rebranding process. Because of this trademark issue. This is kind of a unique story for an author. But maybe just before we dive into that, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background and who you are and who you work with.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, thank you. And yes, totally open to sharing that story because it was new to me. And so, I'm sure, hopefully, it will help some other authors not get into those troubles. But yeah, here's a bit about me. So, I was born and raised in Switzerland. That's where I currently live. And I like you said in the intro, I built a LinkedIn consulting business over the last decade and a bit more. And so about five years ago, or so, I really kind of had this breakdown that luckily led to a breakthrough. But it was kind of this moment. And yes, it coincided with me turning 40. But that's beside the point here, it was really like this moment of growing up in this online marketing world. I started my business in 2006. Back in California, we used to live in California then.

And so, kind of grew up in this online marketing world. And as an introvert and kind of highly sensitive person, it always felt like this is so much work so much pushing energy and, and yet, this is just how we were taught, that's how marketing work. And then on this therapist chair, five years ago, I was like, well, I can't do it anymore, there's got to be a better way, there's got to be another way, or I have to give up. And so that's when this dis term came to me, it was kind of like one of these moments of this term, the gentle business revolution came to me. And I realized that's what we need, we need a new way of doing business, we need a more gentle way, we need a more humane way, a more human way. And in a way, it also coincided with me and my story coming full circle, because I kind of went back to, you know, as you usually do, when working with a therapist, I went back to my origin story.

And I grew up in a hippie commune. And so, kind of this co-living, collaborating community, stay out, stay living was part of me, it's part of my DNA. And yet, during the whole LinkedIn consulting business years, I was really hiding it, it was like, never bring that up. That's not professional. Let me hide that behind the mask. And so, it was only then five years ago, I was like, no, this is so much part of me, I need to bring this forward. And in fact, it then kind of was brought into the way I think marketing needs to be done today. And that means showing up as who we are bringing much more of us into our marketing. So yeah, that's kind of the backstory. And that led them to a book and the rest is history.

Josh Steimle: That's so interesting that I mean, I can see why you might be sensitive about that or say I want to hide it. And yet it's such a unique thing. I mean, how many people can say I grew up on a hippie commune? Or was that by the way? Was that California? Switzerland?

Sarah Santacroce: No, it was in Switzerland. There was yeah, it was even here is like very rare, right that like, it's not that maybe the typical, you know, TV series kind of hit becoming but by parents, they bought an apartment building with six other families. And so, we each had their own apartment, but there was a lot of common living spaces, and you know, we just spent a lot of time together and that really teaches you something about finding compromises and living with other people and, and therefore also, yeah, having to make decisions in common. And so, it does really, also kind of go into business, because it's just kind of a different way of relating to each other.

Josh Steimle: Yeah. But so unique. I'm sure there are some rich experiences and lessons that came out of that.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, yeah. So that then kind of leads into the story about the book. So, the first term, or the first title of the book was "The Gentle Business Revolution" because again, sorry, "The Gentle Marketing Revolution", I kind of messed up. So, the idea was to really bring this revolution to the online business world. And that's why I called it "The Gentle Marketing Revolution." And I wanted to, of course, a gentle book launch. And believe it or not, that was this year, so February 2021, it feels like everything kind of in this COVID years is all a bit lost in space. I feel like it was 10 years ago, but no, it was this year. And so, in February, two weeks after the book launch, I was contacted by US lawyer telling me about this trademark issue. So, telling me, you know, the word gentle had just been trademarked in January, since the same year in January, it had just been trademarked. And that I can't use that term in any of my online presence or in my book anymore. So obviously, that was a big blow. Like I was devastated.

Josh Steimle: And I'm sure that when you came up with a book title, you just thought, "Hey, like this is pretty generic wording" right? I mean, gentle marketing, gentles a generic word, marketing is a generic word, I'm going to put them together.

Sarah Santacroce: Exactly!

Josh Steimle: You know, who would think that this is something that's going to get you a letter from a lawyer?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, exactly. And to add to that, in Europe, it's not as common this trademark law, as in the US. Especially among entrepreneurs. Like if you're Nestle, or you know, Coca-Cola? Yes, of course, you have your own lawyers and all of that, but here we're like, among entrepreneurs, it was just me, blowing my mind that this would be happening. But it did happen. And so, you know, first I wanted to talk to the person and see if we could not just, you know. I did want a revolution. And so, then I'm like, well, that's great. There are more people talking about gentle marketing, that's a good thing. So that didn't work out. And so, we kind of made an agreement. And in the end, I said, you know what, okay, fine, I'm not going to fight it. That would be so counter to everything I believe in. It's just, you know, it's not gentle first, to go and fight about something in a court. So, it definitely didn't want to go that route. And so that meant I had to rebrand everything, because my whole website by that time was all about gentle marketing in general.

Josh Steimle: Ugh!

Sarah Santacroce: So yeah, if like, if that story kind of helps any other authors, you know, avoid any of those problems, then I really hope that's the case. Do your trademark research before you put out a book.

Josh Steimle: Now in your case with them having trademarked it so recently, if you had done a search would that even really have shown up?

Sarah Santacroce: I think if you search it in the US trademark directory, you will see the minute it's filed. So yes, it will show up. It won't say accepted yet because obviously it wasn't accepted yet. But what I've learned that once it's filed, that gives that person kind of like priority over everything. So, and even that even before she had already used it in her business for much longer before without having filed it. And even then, she would have still a priority over it.

Josh Steimle: Okay, so she was already using this for a few years before?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, she was using it even though you couldn't see anything online and that's usually where these things show up right if you do a search, but she was using it with her clients or whatever so yeah.

Josh Steimle: Got it.

Sarah Santacroce: You know, the only thing to kind of wrap this up with the only thing just this week I shared on LinkedIn, I think it's funny because I don't know if you heard the story with Facebook and meta. And there's this. There's the startup in Arizona that already had the term meta, and they registered it as a trademark. So, I'm like you see, even Facebook doesn't do their proper trademark research. So that kind of made me feel better.

Josh Steimle: Yeah or Facebook just figures we can just bulldoze over anybody or anything that way. Right? They could just buy out that company just to get rid of the trademark issue, which might be great for that company. Who knows? Maybe it might mean a big payday for them.

Sarah Santacroce: I think, yeah, I can't remember how much they asked for. But they did ask for quite a bit.

Josh Steimle: So, it's not enough to just do a Google search, because somebody might have a trademark to the term or your book title that you want to use, you really must go through those trademark databases. And I guess the other lesson learned here is beware of Americans who are ‘sue-happy’, which our societies here in the US certainly does seem to be more litigious than other countries and other places. And it takes all but a few seconds. And it's free to do that trademark search. Right?

Sarah Santacroce: Right. Yeah. And again, I'm coming from the outside. So obviously, you need to inform yourself where your lawyer is. Because I have heard also, other people say, well, that law doesn't apply to books. So please don't take my word for it, do your own research, and hire your own lawyers. But for me, it would have meant fighting it in court. If I wanted to keep that book title.

Josh Steimle: Yeah, I guess there's another good lesson here, which is, even if somebody doesn't have the trademark to your book title or the term that you want to use in your marketing and your promotional activities, it might be worth you are getting the trademark yourself too, to make sure that somebody else doesn't come along, register it, and then sue you. And you're saying, wait a second, I had this first or something. But one of the things I've learned about going to court is it's not about justice, it's about getting your way, in typical people who have more money tend to get their way. I mean, like Facebook that we're talking about, they're going to get their way, one way or another because they've got the money to back it up. And so, I went through this recently, with a book that I'm putting out, but it's also a company I'm starting. And so I went through LegalZoom, and I'm registering the trademark right now, which turns out, especially during COVID, to be a pretty lengthy process. I think I started about six, seven months ago. And it's still ongoing, I'm just waiting to hear back from the trademark office to make sure that it's all clear, I know that nobody's using it, they've already done the check on it. But it takes a while to go through this process. So, if anybody's listening to this thinking, oh, I've got this great term, and I'm going to build a business around this term or this phrase, go and get it trademarked so that you don't get in trouble down the road. And it's just a couple 100 bucks to do in the US. So alright, well, let's leave that behind. Sarah let's talk more about you and about your book and what's actually in it. So, when you came up with the idea for this book, like we were talking about, it was this different approach to marketing. And now the title of the book that's coming out once again, is going to be...?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, so the interesting thing here is that I re-published the first book, "The Gentle Marketing Revolution", under marketing, like we're human. So that's the first book, the book we're talking about, that's coming out soon, or will be a newly released is a second book called "Selling Like We're Human". And so, what happened in this year, the crazy 2021 is this complete rebranding that I had to do. But also, what happened is in my community, the humane marketing circle, people kept confusing marketing and selling. So, they're like, well, which one is which, or they were bringing up selling examples when it was actually marketing or vice versa. And so over and over again, this kept coming up. And I'm like, isn't that interesting? It feels almost like, you know, this does known marketing principle of sell them what they want, and then give them what they need. So almost like I did this wrong, again for myself, and I wrote the marketing book, which is not what they wanted. What they wanted was the sales book. And then what they needed was marketing. And so never in a million years did I think I was going to write a book about sales, but that's that kept coming up and so I'm like, okay, I surrender. I'm going to write a book about selling because you that's what you want, and also decided I don't want to do it alone. And so again, went to my community, I said, if you want me to write this book, let's do it together. And so about six people said, yes, we want to be part of the gentle sales lab, and kind of come up with the content for the book together so that, you know, we, we know that what's in the book is actually for the reader. It's, it's what the reader wants. And so, we did that over three months. And then I sat down and wrote the book. And that second book is now called selling like we're human as a sequel to marketing like we're human.

Josh Steimle: I love that you involved your community in helping you choose what to write about and getting that second book out. Where did that community come from? How did you build that community up in the first place?

Sarah Santacroce: So, it's part of my existing community from the LinkedIn consulting business. So they've just been on my email list for years and years. But then also, for the first book, I started that with a Kickstarter, I did a Kickstarter campaign. And that, again, is a community project. It's, I noticed you had someone else on your podcast recently talk about a Kickstarter campaign. And it's a beautiful way to get your community involved and have them say, yes, we want you to write this book. And so, they basically helped me raise money to write the first book, again, gentle marketing revolution, that's now called marketing like we're human. And so, from that I had a community of people who have, you know, we've been getting into monthly calls. And so that's how this community grew and keeps growing now.

Josh Steimle: Got it. Did you see a bump up in that community? When you published your first book? Did that help get the word out there more?

Sarah Santacroce: It did. Yes, it did. I'm self-publishing. So, both books are self-published. So, I think it's a slower process, probably. It's also something, you know, completely new. And so, people are still learning about this different way of marketing. So, I can't with all honesty, say, Yeah, you know, I have like, 1000s of people. No, that's not what happened just because I've published a book. But it did get word of mouth out there. And more and more people are now hearing about it. And I feel like with the second book, there's also going to probably be more interest again, because, again, I believe that's what people want is the selling and then hopefully don't read the second book after.

Josh Steimle: Alright. So, let's dive into the actual book "Selling Like We're Human", what are some of the highlights or the key points that you covered in the book?

Sarah Santacroce: So, I structured it around three phases. The first one is being then knowing and then doing. So, the being has a lot to do with your mindset, and what do you think about sales. And it has a lot to do with throwing everything out that you ever heard or learned about sales and just restarting, gaining that confidence knowing that you can sell and not the pushy, hype way that we've been taught. So that's the being part.

And then the second part is about knowing so knowing your offer, knowing your value, knowing your worth as well and your unique value proposition, knowing your ideal client as well getting really into their heads. We've talked about the antihero. So really figuring out well, who is this ideal client and not just who's their hero, but most importantly, who, who's their antiheroes so that you can take their perspective. So that really you they feel like you're on their side. And then in the doing I really kind of revamped that typical sales funnel that I think we're all just kind of getting tired of and transform it into a gentle sales path that ends up in a serene garden.

So really, in a place where you make the rules, you're comfortable and you're just having a human conversation between two human beings and there is no right answer, you know, it doesn't have to get to a yes. It can also be a no. And that is okay. So just, a lot of permission slips in the book, I would say to say yes, I can sell and yes, I can sell my way, I can throw up, throw out that script and, and kind of rip sales funnel and hello gentle sales path.

Josh Steimle: Tell us a bit more about your community and the type of people who have gravitated to what you're teaching them.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, I call them the quiet revolutionaries. They are heart-centered people, who are, you know, in this online space, for some reason, they probably all have some kind of online business, but not the typical, you know, let's scale and sell it, sell all these online courses, but more like, let's help people with my craft. And I love what I do. And I want to sell more of that. But at the same time in a very heart-centered way. And the reason I like to, I like this transition from, you know, using the word gentle to now using the word humane, is because it really includes everyone where before gentle. Some guys were like, well, are you sure this is for me? You know, this sounds a bit rude sound a bit feminine? Well, humane marketing or humane selling really includes everyone I give includes everyone Who feels like we need more empathy and kindness, we need more compassion, we need more humans in our business world. So that's typically who comes to my community.

Josh Steimle: I think there are so many people who are tired of the way that sales works, but they're not sure what the better way is. I mean, we all recognize bad sales when we see it. I had somebody call me up the other day trying to sell me on something. And he spoke to me for I think 35 minutes and didn't ask any questions and didn't let me get a word in edgewise. He just talked for 35 minutes.

Sarah Santacroce: ow!

Josh Steimle:  I was kind of just interested to see how long he would go. So, I'm just letting him talk. And I just thought, this guy isn't learning anything about me. He's not finding out what my pain points are or what I want or what I need. He's just talking, talking, talking, trying to get everything out. And then at the end, I was just like, okay, well, we'll be in touch maybe.

Sarah Santacroce: Haha- maybe not!

Josh Steimle: Maybe not. And I just thought, boy there's got to be a better way than this. And yet, so many people are selling that way still, and neglecting to figure out what really makes people tick and what people really want. It's not like people don't want to buy stuff, everybody wants to buy things. Everybody needs things and are looking for solutions to their problems. And yet we have this we have people who get in the middle and sell and actually make it harder for us to buy sometimes.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, I'm pretty sure this guy probably had some kind of script, you know, some checkmarks he had to go through and say, you know, all these things that we're trained to do and in sales and again, you didn't feel human, you're like, oh, is this a robot talking to me? It just doesn't work. It has to be, you know, not uni directionally has to be a conversation otherwise, it Yeah, one person definitely doesn't feel human.

Josh Steimle: Yeah, I mean, I could have been an answering machine for all seem to care. And it would have been the same type of conversation because it was pretty much 100% One way. Yeah. So, let's get a little bit "Meta" here to bring up that word again. How are you using human-centered marketing to sell your book to sell your ideas?

Sarah Santacroce: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So really, Kickstarter is probably the first thing that I wanted to make sure that it's a gentle launch that it's not, you know, all about me, but it's about the bigger idea. I think that really matters a lot to me. And now. So that so that was the first book. And now in this book, what I'm doing is I'm again, evolving the community a lot. And so, I have, like 40 beta readers, from my community that I reached out to and ask them, would you be willing to read the book and give me a review? And so, I'm just kind of like working with them. And it's all very personalized. So, it's not like all these 40 people are on the list and I just send them you know, an email, a mass email, I'm really communicating with them one on one sending them videos and I feel like it's less about me but more about the idea and really about this revolution and, and that can, you know, you can do that about any kind of topic or a book title. So, I think this idea of involving other people and making it a common thing that has really worked for me. I find it more fun; I would find it very frustrating and lonely to just, you know, go out there and say read my book, read my book. So, this way I feel supported as well by these other people.

Josh Steimle: How are you measuring success with your book? What is it? What type of feedback do you get back that you say, okay, that makes it worth it to have written this book and put it out there?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, I don't write 'How-To' books. You know, there are tools in there. But it's a lot of it is permission-based. Because that's really what I'm preaching is not like, here's one step 123. Follow that. And you'll be successful. It's more like, figure out what works for you and give yourself permission to do it that way. Yes, I'll share all my personal stories and how what works for me, but you need to go figure out what works for you. And so, a lot of the notes that I'm getting, and people that are writing to me, they are talking or they're sharing about their own journey, and how my book has helped them give themselves that permission. Like permission is like, the biggest thing for people is like, Finally, someone is telling me that this is okay to do it.

And, and a lot of people have maybe already been doing it, but now they feel like, wow, it's good to see because I have a lot of stories in the book of people who have successful, great businesses based on these strategies are the more humane marketing and selling approaches. And so that also gives them confirmation seeing, wow, okay, there are business owners out there who have built entire big businesses on these tactics. So yeah, that's, that's success for me hearing from people.

Josh Steimle: So, it's almost more like a book about changing your mindset, or attitude or perspective, it sounds like versus exact tactics. There's another sales book out there that the title is "Exactly What to Say". And that's what the book is, it tells you exactly what to say. And it's a great book. But your book sounds like it's coming in at a much higher level and saying, here's a new way of seeing the world.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, exactly. It really is. Both books are talking about a new business world. So that new business world has a lot to do with personal awareness. I think if we want to change the world, we need to start by changing ourselves. And that means, you know, increasing our personal responsibility. I'm sure the guy who talked to you for 30 minutes, he's not a bad person, he's probably a really, good decent human being. Yes, he's a great to have that permission to do sales his way. Because if he did some of that inner work and really felt like, pie, I wonder how Josh felt after I talked to him for 30 minutes, just like, you know, like I was taught, maybe that would give him the permission to change and do it differently. And he would be much more successful as well.

Josh Steimle: Yeah. So how are you tying the book to your business? How to how do you make money? And how does the book fit in with that?

Sarah Santacroce: I never wanted to write a lead generator book. So, they're both the sales book is a bit shorter is 200 pages. The first one is almost 300 pages. So, they're complete books, like you can walk away with the book, and you can implement. It has exercises and all of that. However, of course, what I also say is that a lot of this new business world has to do with doing it with other people who think the same. And so, it really kind of leads into the community. And I have several references to the community. You mentioned the links at the end of the book. And so, the plan is that people start coming to my list and then eventually end up on in the humane marketing circle.

Josh Steimle: Is your community a paid community then?

Sarah Santacroce:  It's a paid community. Yes.

Josh Steimle: Okay. And so, the book helps people to get into the community and it reinforces the mindset and perspective that people in that community have. And so that's how you're generating the funds from the book. Do you still do any LinkedIn work, or did you totally leave that behind?

Sarah Santacroce: It's something that you know, once you learn it, you have it, of course, I need to stay up to date. So, I do that, and I have an assistant who kind of helps me with that. staying up to date part because as you know, always changes so I still do it for my business one-on-one coaching clients when they ask for it. But I don't sell it anymore as a standalone product. So, it's something that often comes up because people know me via this LinkedIn, coaching business, but it's not something I'm actively selling anymore.

Josh Steimle: Got it. And now you do the one-on-one coaching to do most of your coaching clients come from the community first, or do some of them just come directly to you to some of them read the book and call you up and say, hey, I love what you wrote, I want you to coach me, how do you get those clients?

Sarah Santacroce: It's a bit of both. It's a bit of both. For some people, they also just listen to the podcast, and then come for coaching. So yeah, it's a bit of both. Part of my business that I'm still developing is also humane marketing for organizations. So, kind of smaller organizations and in the business for good sphere. So, B corp, smaller B corp. That's a part of that activity, where I feel like, yes, of course, you can have some impact with entrepreneurs. But eventually, I would like to expand humane marketing, also to the organizations that are a bit bigger, but that is already interested in the leverage of business for good.

Josh Steimle: Talk to us a little bit more about your podcast, what was the inspiration for starting that? Because that's a lot more work, right? I mean, doing a book is enough work? What was the motivation to say, hey, I want to do a podcast as well.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, so the podcast has been around in different forms, different names since 2016. So, I've been doing that for a while now. And it's just something that gives me a lot of satisfaction and joy. And I've learned so much every time I talk to a new guest. And it's just something that I couldn't give up. You know, is there a return on investment? It's hard to measure to be quite honest with you. Of course, some people go from the podcast and sign up to the, to the email list, and then hopefully read the book etc. But I can't measure that exactly where they convert. But it's just a lot of fun for me to have these conversations with other people. And it also helps me with the seventh p of humane marketing, which is partnership. So really partnering with other business owners and having them as my guests helps me develop relationships and partnerships with other people.

Josh Steimle: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask about next is have you been able to use the podcast or leverage that to help you with the books in terms of getting content or quotes or case studies that you could put in the book?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, totally, that's exactly I did. It's a tool that, if I think about it, now, it's almost like I get visibility to another level of people, because I have a podcast and I can tell them, you know, do you want to come as my guest on my show? And then of course, from there you develop a relationship. If you do, and I try to do that. And then you get people to give you quotes for your book, or you get them to host you on their show. So, it's that peer to peer kind of relationship building that. I don't know if I would have it if I didn't have the podcast for all these years. Yeah,

Josh Steimle: I've seen the same thing. On my end, when I launched the published author podcast that we're talking here on. It was amazing how easy it was to meet people that I had wanted to meet for years. And it's I mean, it's kind of funny, like, you get, I mean, I'm meeting you, which is great. And I've met, there's so many interesting people I've met that I've never heard of before. Number one, that's great. I love meeting. I mean, it's so great to meet somebody that has something has knowledge has experienced that I want. And they weren't even on my radar. So that's one of the benefits. But I'm amazed that I can reach out to huge bestselling authors and say, hey, do you want to be on my podcast? And they never ask, oh, how many listeners do you have? Or how many downloads? Are you getting there? Just say, they just say, Yeah, I'll be on it. I'm like, that was easy. If I tried to hire this person to give me an hour of advice. There's no way I would get an hour, or I couldn't afford it. It'd be $5,000. But hey, you want to be on my podcast? Sure. And there we go.

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, yeah. No, it's quite amazing for that. So, I wouldn't miss it.

Josh Steimle: Yeah. All right. So, if people want to learn more about your community and what you've got going on there, where's the best place for them to get that information?

Sarah Santacroce: Yeah, they can come over to my website humane marketing. And probably the first thing to kind of get familiar with humane marketing, and what that all is about, is to download the one-page marketing plan in the shape of the Humane Marketing Mandela. And it comes with the seven P's of humane marketing. So I just kind of looked at the seven P's of marketing and reshuffled them and kicked out some of the old ones and brought in some new ones. And so that's at humane marketing/1page. And otherwise, listen to my podcast, Humane Marketing. And if you do want to find out more about the community, that's a HumaneMarketing/circle. So that's the humane marketing circle. So yeah, lots of different ways to kind of get into my world. And again, I tried to walk my talk and none of the pushy sales funnel, you are free and you are free to kind of walk this path with me or, you know, if you feel like it's not my thing, well, then you can be free and go somewhere else.

Josh Steimle: Well, Sarah, thank you so much for being with us here on the show today and everybody. If you're looking for a different way to sell a more human-centered approach, go get Sarah's new book "Selling Like We're Human", and check out her community. Sarah, thank you so much for being a guest here on the published author podcast.

Sarah Santacroce: I loved our conversation. Thank you, Josh, for having me.