Speaker 1 (00:02):

Welcome to she sales radio. I am so excited for today’s conversation because I know that I personally am gonna get to learn a ton about building and leading a powerful sales team. And you will too. And our guest today is one of the very best in the industry in this field and his specialties, helping company scale from zero to 25 million annual recurring revenue. So I will say yes, please to that, but I want you to listen in regardless of where you are on the scale. And even if you’re an individual sales contributor, especially if you’re a sales leader, which I know a ton of our listeners are, this conversation is gonna be hugely impactful for you. And I’ll share a quick personal anecdote about my guest today, Scott Lee, and then I’ll share some of his formal background. So you’ve got a better sense of who you’re learning from today.

Speaker 1 (00:50):

So last week I had the pleasure of going on the podcast that Scott cohost with Richard Harris. So the Spen sales podcast, go check it out if you, uh, if you haven’t listened yet. And after the show, Scott quoted something that I said on LinkedIn, and I cannot tell you the volume of messages and outreach I got from people who follow him from his huge community saying, oh my gosh, Scott quoted you. This is a big deal. Like we listen to Scott adamantly, we trust anything he says. And so that just goes to show the power of who this man is, his personal character, and also the power of the branded reputation that he’s built in his space. So let me share just a quick personal bio and credentials, and then we’re gonna dive into the interview. Scott Lee is one of the top startup sales leaders in the country through domestic and international consulting. As a strategic advisor, he’s trained an army of sales people and sales leaders. Thousands strong Scott put is nearly two decades of sales and leadership experience to use as the CEO and founder of Scott Lee’s consulting surf sales and Thursday night sales based in Austin, Texas. Scott is a three time winner of the top 25 inside sales professionals by the American association of inside sales, a three time author and a highly sought after consultant advisor, leader and sales trainer. Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:11):

Hi there. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:12):

Hi, we’re so excited to have you now, are you still, as I was reading that, I was like, I know you just moved. Are you still in Austin?

Speaker 2 (02:19):

I still live in Austin. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:20):

Got it. Been here

Speaker 2 (02:21):

For, uh, 11 years or so now after leaving San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (02:25):

Oh, nice. Nice, awesome. So I’m actually, this is just a purely personal question because I love the concept behind surf and sales. And I wanna dive into everything you do today with Scott Lee’s consulting and in the leadership side, but what was the inspiration behind surf and sales specifically? I just think that’s such a cool niche and brand. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (02:44):

This was back in 2017 and, and I was kind of teasing Richard Harris, my, my now partner, but we were on a family vacation together in Costa Rica and I was giving him grief because he had to go to this conference in St. Louis and this one here. And, and I was just like, oh my God, this sounds horrible. You know, the big conference scene is like, it’s not for me. You wander the halls and scan your badge. And it’s just this big pitch Fest and you really make all these superficial kind of connections. And I’m a little bit of a wallflower by nature. So I don’t like all that. I’m much more introverted. I’d rather go someplace with a smaller group of people and really get to know them and have the kind of impact of those conversations. Be a little more heartfelt and a little stronger maybe.

Speaker 2 (03:33):

Yeah. So I said, how come nobody has a conference in a cool place like this? And we were in Costa Rica surfing at the time. And he was like, well, you know, why don’t you build one? And I said, well, why don’t you help me? It’s better two, you know, brands and two people than one. And he said, fine. If you decide to put it together, I’ll do it. And that was in November. And, and by February we had, you know, launched the, the business in may, I think was our, our first official event. So we take about 20 people at a time, a couple times a year down to Costa Rica and teach them how to surf and get cooks and cleaners and surf instructors and the whole like five star treatment. And we rent these villas right on the beach and kind of split the day with fun as well as, uh, content and, and education. And, you know, it’s, it’s been going on a few years strong and we get sponsors for it and we sell it out all the time. And, uh, it’s a good little, you know, side business.

Speaker 1 (04:31):

Wow. Wow. That’s so cool. And I love that. And I so agree with what you said about like, and, and, and to me, and it’s like, you know, you and I are just getting to know each other, which is fun, but I feel already, like, from what I know of you, like so much of what you do is about pushing the needle a bit in the sales world, like in a good way, like helping people think deeper, helping people, not just do things the same way that they’ve always done, just because it’s how they’ve done it. Right. And whether it’s the old conference scene where you just wander the halls and like you said, you build superficial relationships. It’s like, let, how can we do that differently? How can we do that better? But I wanna go deeper on something you said that I think is so interesting.

Speaker 1 (05:08):

Cuz you mentioned like that you you’re a little bit more of an introvert, right? You identify more that way. And one of the things that you’re great at is recruiting and team building. And so I wanna really lean into that for today’s conversation because we actually haven’t talked about that a ton on the podcast. So this is like hugely important. We’re a hundred and we’re, we’re 180 episodes now. So it’s like, we gotta dive into this and talk about this more. And um, and I think it’s gonna be helpful for people to hear, like you don’t have to be, you know, the typical extroverted person necessarily to be great at team building and recruiting. So tell, tell me a little bit, like, have you always been great at team building and recruiting? Was it just natural for you? How did it become one of your core superpowers?

Speaker 2 (05:58):

Well, I think some of it for whatever reason was a bit innate. I, I, I grew up playing every sport you could think of. And I played a bunch of sports in high school and played two sports in college and I was always kind of the, the captain or, or the kid organizing the games and that kind of thing. And I had, I think enough confidence in that realm, in that arena to be a little more outspoken and, and it got, you know, more pronounced, the older that I, that I got, but socially like you take me out of that environment and I would lean, you know, way back the other way. And I tend to have a bunch of friends who are really outgoing and gregarious and I just sort of like hang out and laugh at whatever they’re doing and whoever they’re attracting to the, to the group and all that. So when I, when I got into business, I, I thought, well, I don’t wanna hire a bunch of people like me

Speaker 2 (06:52):

Because I’m used to being surrounded by these different types of folks and kind of putting them all together and, and more like just kind of helping them and telling them what to do a little bit kind, kind of thinking about being on the field and like barking instructions at everybody go here, at least go left, go. Right. Right. So I kind of constructed my teams in a different way originally than other people would, you know, in early two thousands, when I was getting started, it was like, the feedback would be hire everybody. Like you, you know, Scott, you’re an athlete, you’re super competitive. You’re this you’re that you’ll get everybody like you. And I just somehow innately was like, no, I don’t wanna do that. I, I need people who are more outgoing than me. I need people who have more energy than me. I need people who think differently than me.

Speaker 2 (07:41):

I need somebody who’s more humble than me. I need somebody who wants to be coached more than me. And so I constructed these teams that were diverse, but nobody was talking about diversity back then. I just did it. And so I had more women on my team. I had ex-cons on my team. I had people of color on my team and I was this gang of misfits at the time. And I just kind of kept that philosophy rolling. And when you are a bit of an introvert, one of the things that I was natural for me at least is if I elevate everybody else up around me, the spotlight goes away from me. Mm. And I’m like, this is perfect. Like I will win and get what the results that I’m looking for and the, you know, comp that I’m looking for and all that stuff. But everybody else gets the spotlight. Yeah. So I just need to do things to make them shine. And I can just kind of hang out here smiling and be happy for them. Um, and so, you know, it just, nobody taught it to me. There wasn’t all these resources that there are now, there was no podcast. There was no LinkedIn. I just did it. And, and, you know, got lucky with it, frankly.

Speaker 1 (08:53):

So I wanna, I, I wanna ask a little more about a few things you said there that I think are so important. So as you were talking through those examples of like, I wanna look for people who are more, this than me, more that than me more, it was so interesting. And it made me think like, and maybe it’s not this systematized. Right. Cuz some of this stuff is just, it’s like sometimes it’s just our gift and it’s artell and it’s organic. But are there, if, if we are thinking about building and scaling out a sales team, like whether you’re an early stage entrepreneur listening to this and you’re like, at some point I know I’m gonna need people to sell for me. Maybe you’re a sales leader and you’re in charge of recruiting. Um, are there prompt? Are there like certain prompts you take people through to think through, like you need this type of person, you need that type of person like to help us just kind of start to think differently or is it just super organic and you kind of just let it flow like that? Well,

Speaker 2 (09:43):

What, what I didn’t say was in the beginning, it was really organic. But as you get older and get more experience and perspective, you create systems out of these things that have worked.

Speaker 1 (09:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:54):

So if you were to, you know, hire me now as your VP of sales, I got a whole system and a whole process. It’s like, okay, we need the outgoing person. We need somebody who used to be a teacher. We need somebody who used to sell drugs and got arrested and is a little bit wild.

Speaker 1 (10:10):

<laugh> I love that that’s in list by way.

Speaker 2 (10:13):

It is. I’m just being

Speaker 1 (10:14):

Honest. This is the secret. SI. No, I love it. I’m just being honest.

Speaker 2 (10:17):

We need, I need somebody who comb from, uh, SMB sales. I need somebody from midmarket. I need somebody from enterprise and, and this is how we get started. And we then optimize for what’s working best. And for whatever reason, each sale is a little bit different. This type of person might not work. Okay. We don’t want that anymore. We optimize for this. And then over time we really got it, you know, dialed in. And one thing that I learned over the years about building a team like this is if you’re not careful and uh, intentional, it can all fall apart. Like if I stop thinking about with intentionality, having these different types of people, I can fall into a trap of, Ooh, I just found, you know, five D one athletes in a row, they’re all white males in their thirties. And it’s like, oh, how did that happen? Now I look at my team and I’m like, oh, oh, it doesn’t look the same as I’ve always kind of wanted it. So you have to keep the intentionality up front. And you’re just looking to find people that are bits and pieces of you maybe rather than hiring just you

Speaker 1 (11:26):

Got it. And did you have a situation where that happened, where it was like, oh my gosh, like I forgot to, oh, it happens.

Speaker 2 (11:32):

It happens. It happens all the time, all the time to everybody, even when you’re intentional about it, you can fall into the trap. You know, one place you fall into the trap is before you know, it, the sales team looks right. But the sales leadership team doesn’t

Speaker 1 (11:46):

Ah, mm right. Makes sense. Yeah. And

Speaker 2 (11:49):

Like this person emerged and now we’re ready to hire our third and fourth manager and I’m like, oh, oh, the best candidates. I think, look all the same. Yeah. And know if this is the right, the right move and, and whatnot. Right. Yeah. And so one wave that I got around that is I started optimizing a lot more for people who can do instead of people who have done meaning

Speaker 1 (12:13):

Say more about that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:14):

I’m a big fan of giving people their first opportunity to do something. So I can go hire somebody. Who’s got five years sales, leadership experience and bring them in as my sales manager or I can hire you Elise mm-hmm <affirmative>, who’s sold pretty well, if not fantastic, but pretty well, but who has innate charisma and leadership abilities and is process oriented and data driven. And I’m just like, I can teach her how to be a sales manager. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I started promoting people that had never done it before and growing a team kind of organically like that. Right. Um, and that was one of the ways that I would kind of get around it is I, I didn’t care as much about what somebody had on their resume. I cared a lot more about kind of who they are and their capacity to grow into something so long as I put in the right amount of effort to help them get there.

Speaker 1 (13:07):

That makes sense. And it’s kind of the same as what people say about hiring for culture rather than skill set necessarily and like yeah. Emphasizing that more. Yeah. Okay. Ah, that makes total sense. And I love that. So can do versus have done, I’m just taking mental notes here. Okay. Awesome. Tell, tell me about this was so interesting cuz when you had me on your show last week and Richard, your, um, co-host was talking about one of your superpowers. I think the way he said it was close, at least was that Scott is a collector of people, which sounds when I say all it’s like that sound, I dunno. That could sound weird. <laugh> you don’t have the context <laugh>

Speaker 2 (13:45):

Yeah. I mean outta context,

Speaker 1 (13:47):

It sounds

Speaker 2 (13:48):

Out of context, it sounds like a little bit manipulative or something,

Speaker 1 (13:52):

Which is not, which is not at all. Cuz that’s not who you are. Um, but when he said that, I was like, that’s an amazing skill set. And obviously you’ve got, I mean, it really blew me away last week when I had so many people reach out to me unprompted, but it was just because you had quoted me and they were like, oh my gosh, like we love Scott. We’re loyal to him. We listen to what he says. If he mentions you, like we wanna know you. So thank you by the way, for, for the, um, for the share. But it was like, this man knows how to do it. Like, which is so important for team building for recruiting. So you shared a little bit on the show last week, but I’d love if you could share with our listeners, how do you do that? How do you build such loyal relationships? How do you build this almost army of people who like they’re there when you need ’em they wanna join you on the projects that you’re part of? Tell us a little bit about that. Cuz I think that’s such an incredible skill.

Speaker 2 (14:45):

Well, for one year you have to be willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and energy and effort to show up for them.

Speaker 1 (14:52):

Mm.

Speaker 2 (14:54):

So even if they’re not on your, your team per se and they’re just people in your, your network, it, it appears by being responsive. So all these messages that you get, I respond to all of them doesn’t matter what platform or what mechanism of communication could be text could be slack, could be LinkedIn, whatever. I reply to everybody other than the like bot spammy kinda things. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:21):

Yeah. I wanna just cause you super, super quick on that if I can, because that is to me, like that is such an amazing skill. And how do you manage that? Cuz even this morning, like I needed something from you, you wrote me back right away. How do you manage to be so responsive and still build and grow your company this like, I wanna just pause on a moment for that cuz I think that is a real talent. So,

Speaker 2 (15:43):

Well see, I don’t look at it as a, as a talent and, and I’m open to being wrong. Sure. Maybe it is, but I don’t look at it as a talent. I just look at it as intentionality. Like that is a priority for me. My priority is when somebody reaches out and asks me for something, my priority is to give them what they want or what they need as fast as possible. So I am not a blocker and I am always considered helpful and I’m always like, okay, Scott needs to be in my top five speed dial because if I need this thing, I know I’m gonna get it preferably within this amount of time. And I’m not perfect at it. You know, at the time I just happened to be sitting at my computer in between calls, saw your note, come in. And I knew that I was, you know, scheduled to be working with you later. So I’m like, I need to reply to that instantaneously. Yeah. And so I did, so I monitor all of these things. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I’m not somebody who turns all my notifications off.

Speaker 1 (16:45):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:46):

Like my notifications are on. Got it. Now that requires tremendous amount of focus in being able to look at the notification and cipher real quick respond now respond later. Yeah. But I look at all of all of those things. I don’t overthink my response. I don’t write a massive paragraph. I don’t remember. I probably wrote like five or six words and I was like, you can pull from my LinkedIn profile or here’s another picture.

Speaker 1 (17:11):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:12):

Fairly like abrupt, not super professional. Super casual. Yeah. Right. So my, my responses are often that way it’s like a thought off the cuff rather than a deep, you know, passage like dear release. I was thinking deeply about your request. No, I don’t write like that.

Speaker 1 (17:33):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:34):

Um, I kind of respond to people the way I would text to somebody that I’m already friends with. So that helps me move very quickly.

Speaker 1 (17:41):

Yeah. Right. I, I love yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love it. And, and to your point of like, you don’t wanna be a blocker. I think that’s a, it’s a, a good mindset and it’s something that was a, a selfish question for me, but I kind of, I go back and forth. I’m big on like focus time and notifications off and chunks of time to process inboxes. But then with that, sometimes it’s like, it can take a few days to respond to things which is like something I wanna work on getting better at. So that’s why I’m always curious to talk to people like you,

Speaker 2 (18:08):

For me. Yeah. For me, I couldn’t do that. Yeah. I can’t, I can’t do that. That would give me tremendous amount of anxiety to be like, I have three days worth of emails to reply to. Yeah. I can’t do that. Now when you, when you apply this to building community and like collecting people, well, these people that reach out to you, I don’t know who they are, but most likely I have done four, five and six things for them. Mm. Over X amount of time. Yeah. I gave ’em advice on something. I talked to them about something personal or professional. I, you know, uh, share content or bring in and do coaching for them or I’ve helped. There’s all this stuff. So when I kind of send out the bat signal, if I, if I need help with something, I’ve got a bunch of people willing to step in and help and, and people who are willing to do it, you know, free of charge. Yeah. Right. Just because they’re like, I need to pay you back. Right. And this is one way that I’m gonna kind of, kind of pay you back and I’m fiercely loyal. Like once I know who somebody is, I don’t ask questions if you’re just like, Hey Scott, I need X, Y, and Z. I don’t ask questions as to why I don’t need the backstory or the context. I’m just gonna help you get what you want.

Speaker 1 (19:33):

Get it done. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:34):

I care more about the individual than I do about a company. So if you come to me for advice and you work at Salesforce, I’ll pick on them since we’re both in their right

Speaker 1 (19:44):

Group.

Speaker 2 (19:46):

I’m giving you advice. That is right for a lease. Not necessarily right. For Salesforce. Yeah. And people pick up on the sincerity of that. And when they know that you care, they’re gonna be loyal to you. So when I’m managing people, when I was an operator, they knew, I cared about their success more than mine and their success more than the companies. And I was invested in that. Wow. I ran one-on-ones differently. I didn’t talk about your pipeline and your forecast. I started, one-on-ones just with like, Hey, how’s it going? Like what’s going on in your life today? You asked me how my weekend was. Yeah. I would go for little walks with people and talk about all that kind of thing. And I would always just say, how can I make your job easier?

Speaker 1 (20:31):

Hmm.

Speaker 2 (20:31):

Wow. And maybe at the very end, I’d be like, Hey, real quick, what are you, what is it looking like? How you feeling about the rest of July? We’ve got like a week left. Yeah. Whereas most managers jump in. They’re like, okay, at least it’s a Monday, the 25th, we’ve got six business days left. Right. What are we looking at?

Speaker 1 (20:48):

Hmm.

Speaker 2 (20:48):

Yeah. I didn’t do it that way. I didn’t really care about all that stuff. I just felt like if I could help people feel good about themselves and feel like I was there to help get things, you know, out of their way, then they would in turn, perform better. And so I apply that even to people who I don’t really know and who I couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Yeah. And I think that that helps me, you know, create and sell out events like surfing sales or build a business like Thursday night sales or my Patreon group, or get people who read books that I’ve written. And then, you know, they go read reviews and they share things and all that kind of stuff. I think that’s where it comes from.

Speaker 1 (21:31):

Mm it’s such a, and I, I’m not just saying this cuz you’re on the show, but it’s like, it is, it is such a refreshing approach. And I think that question of what did you say? How can I make your job easier? Yeah. Is that like the, that’s the primary question you would ask one

Speaker 2 (21:45):

On one. I make job easier today.

Speaker 1 (21:46):

Ah, and that was like the go-to it’s like, let me just kind of like what you were saying before about let me not block things, let me like help get stuff outta your way. How can I make your job easier? That was always that’s the mindset.

Speaker 2 (21:55):

Yeah. And that’s the mindset. And then the key is obviously delivering on it. Mm. It doesn’t work. If you say, listen, Scott, uh, you know, I I’m blocked by a product team. I can’t get these particular deals. Like I’m super frustrated. Okay. I’m gonna go fight that battle for you. So you don’t have to worry about that. Mm. And then I go fight that battle and I provide an update. It’s not one of these things that, where you go to your boss and say, Hey, I’ve got an issue with product and six weeks go by and you never hear anything again. And then the rep is like, Hey, whatever happened with that? And I’m like, oh, I’m working on it. Like, no I’m telling them, like I just messaged. So, and so I’ll let you know what they say. Hey, so, and so just messaged me back. This is where we’re at. Hey, I need this thing and they can see me actively engaged on it. And that level of transparency around the work being done in the back room, in the rooms, they’re not allowed in. It’s uncommon. Now that would get me in trouble quite a bit, by the way,

Speaker 1 (22:58):

I was gonna ask about that. Cause I could see that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:00):

It would get me in trouble a lot of times with, you know, C levels and, and, and other execs in the company because they’re like, you know, you’re oversharing or whatever. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I said, no, I’m trying to create a transparent environment. I’m trying to make my people trust me. And I’m trying to make them trust you. And I’m trying to make them perform at their optimal level. And I really don’t care if it is upsetting to you that they know how slow you’re operating or they know that you missed your deadline. The product team knows when sales misses their quota. How come the sales team doesn’t get to know when the product team misses their release date? No, I don’t understand that. Yeah. So I, I, but my teams would know Scott will go fall on that sword and fight that war because he can have those arguments and conversations and survive them. And if either rep do it, I’m in big trouble. Yeah. Right. So delivering, when you say, how can I make your job easier? What’s a blocker in your way that I can get rid of today, delivering on it. Now they come to you all the time

Speaker 2 (24:02):

And they share things that they otherwise let fester and kind of eat away at them. Right. That’s the goal at least.

Speaker 1 (24:10):

Yeah. Makes total sense. It makes total sense. And I feel like you’ve already, like, we’ve, we’ve touched on some of the key things here. I wanna talk a little bit about what are some of the things that people miss when building and growing a sales team? I think you’ve already mentioned some of it, which is in that intentionality behind sourcing and recruiting people who are different from you. Um, you know, that transparent communication, the proactive communication with your team, even if it means, you know, you’re gonna have to fall on the sword for it later. Are there any other things that you see that are big, that people miss or don’t think of that really make a difference when building and recruiting a powerful sales team?

Speaker 2 (24:47):

Well, they don’t document enough things. I mean, if you come from a, a sales leadership perspective, you have got to put a process in place. This is how we reach out to people. This is how we run our demos. This is how we follow up. This is when we send contracts. This is what constitutes a opportunity. This, all these things. Yeah. The biggest mistake that that companies make when they’re first getting started, building sales is they don’t document all that stuff. There’s no process around anything at least sells one way. Scott sells a different way. Yeah. Scott, doesn’t like to take the time to put anything in the CRM. Elise has our own system in Excel. The tool that we bought doesn’t even get used. It’s just absolute wild, wild west chaos. Yeah. You can actually get to a particular level of revenue in a particular size team with everything being messy like that, you can get to a couple million dollars of, of revenue for sure. But what happens when you need to go from one or two sales people to 10, how do you onboard those people? How do you know what, what works?

Speaker 1 (25:58):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:58):

How do you know what process to, to tee them up with? So that’s one of the things that I, you know, learned in my sales leadership journey. You know, when I was a rep and I moved to sales manager for the first time, I just wrote down all the things that worked for me. And I’m like, Hey, this is what worked for me. This is our playbook. I want you all to follow this. And you know, it would work and new things that people would be trying. I’d kind of incorporate into my playbook. And the thing would become a living, breathing document. So it was never stagnant. It was never only tactics from Scott from seven months ago, it was always alive. And we were adding to it all the time, making it more and more robust. And so as new people came in, they had this plethora of information, whether it’s, you know, ICP, information, buyer, persona information, objections, and rebuttals, competitive landscape, whatever the things are.

Speaker 2 (26:57):

And now what I do in my, my job really is I help people build these sales playbooks and these sales processes and help with recruiting and help with coaching and training and executing on the playbook and strategy all around it. That’s the number one thing that people screw up when they’re building a sales org, they have no process around anything. And it’s often the founder let’s pick on you, for example. Yeah. You have your own way of getting business and getting clients that, you know, if you hired somebody in to be your first sales rep today, they are not going to be as good as you.

Speaker 1 (27:32):

Mm mm-hmm

Speaker 2 (27:33):

<affirmative> so how are you expecting them to perform at that level? You have to get what has worked for you out of your head and onto paper. Yeah. So they can follow it. And most people don’t do that. Most people in your position would be like, listen, Scott, you know, when you pitch somebody, tell them this and you know, go do it and you’ll get the hang of it. And off you go, I’m busy. And the rep is like, whoa, what the? I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do. Like, I don’t have your personality. I don’t have your connections. Nobody knows me. Uhoh right.

Speaker 1 (28:04):

Right.

Speaker 2 (28:05):

So that’s the number one thing people screw up

Speaker 1 (28:08):

That is, that is hitting home. That’s literally the world that I’m in right now is systematizing everything in our business, as we’re about to start certifying consultants and bringing people in. And it’s been very wild west to your point. And it’s like, I love what, and I was curious. It’s like, okay, what’s the number it works until. So like a couple million, it can work until, but after that I felt that for a while, like we can’t, we gotta get everything systemized and structured. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:32):

It’s instant. I don’t wanna make it sound too easy, but it’s fairly easy to do a million dollar business, this wild west way.

Speaker 1 (28:38):

I,

Speaker 2 (28:39):

I would take you wanna take your, your, uh, you know, coaching business beyond a million into like 10 million mm-hmm <affirmative> you can’t operate wild west anymore. Yeah. You have to get really tight and systematized and codify everything. It’s the only way that it works.

Speaker 1 (28:54):

When do you start do, is it like, can, is it ever too soon to start documenting that? Even if you’re, let’s say you’re a solo entrepreneur listing. It’s like, no, start documenting today. No,

Speaker 2 (29:02):

You should have a documented. Now when, when I would get hired, the, when I, let me give you a story. The last time I was hired as a operator was 2016 and I got hired by this, uh, company to come in and build the sales team out. I spent two weeks kind of just trying to figure out, you know, my head from my feet and how does this product work? How does this industry work? And I started writing all these different documents out, all this busy work. Didn’t do any selling whatsoever. Just busy work, busy work, busy work. Yeah. And I emerged after a couple weeks with like, okay, here’s who we’re gonna sell to and why here’s who these people are and how they think and what their pains are. Here’s what our outreach is gonna look like. Here’s our cold call script. Here’s our emails. Here’s how I think we’re gonna handle these objections, all this stuff. Here’s how we’re gonna track everything. And then I went out and started trying to sell it. And we close 18 deals the first month. And for the two years prior to that, they had zero paying customers zero. Wow.

Speaker 2 (30:09):

Now they were building, they spent a long time building and perfecting the product, but they had hired three reps before I ever got there who were there for months who hadn’t closed anything. Wow. But what was the difference or the differences? I put everything on paper straight away. I did all this dirty work from day one, basically that nobody wants to do. It’s not fun. It’s a lot more fun to pick up the phone and try to close deals. Yeah. The pressure is on you from day one. If you get hired as this head of sales to go close deals and chase the revenue straight away and make those reps job easier. So I resisted that urge. I had a more long term kind of vision in mind, a dollar today means nothing to me. I need to set us up to earn thousands of dollars later on. Yeah. So just get out, just let me do this. Let me build all this stuff. Now I roll this thing out to these three reps that were there and I start executing it alongside of them, myself. They see it working for me. They have a little more belief. I close a deal. I help them close one or two. Oh. This actually works. Yeah. And now you’re off,

Speaker 1 (31:18):

That’s insane. Two years with zero sales to 18 in a month. It’s like, it’s anyone who’s listening. Who’s been resistant around documenting processes. I mean, if that doesn’t get you going, um, man, that’s insane. That that’s awesome. I wanna, I wanna ask a couple more questions and then we’ll tell everyone where to connect with you. Cuz you’ve got so many great resources and places where people can, um, can go. I’m just curious from where you’re sitting, cuz you’ve got, you know, you got your finger pretty strong on the pulse. I think of just sales landscape. Um, what’s coming, you know, as we record this it’s Q3 20, 22. So obviously people are gonna be listening to this all different times, but what do you see coming in the world of sales that’s changing or that’s different or that’s something we should be thinking about. Um, as we go into 20, 23 and beyond

Speaker 2 (32:13):

There’s this is a, a difficult question, which is what

Speaker 1 (32:17):

Yeah. Get your crystal ball <laugh>

Speaker 2 (32:20):

Um, well I think that the, the old guard is kind of being replaced and ushered out a little bit. There’s more women in sales than ever before. Yeah. There’s more people of color in sales than ever before. And you see now those people starting to get in leadership roles and that’s when the real change I think starts to occur cuz you will inherently build a team different than me and somebody else who’s of a different minority group might build a team different. And the culture that you build is going to be different. So I, you can see at least from my vantage point, the landscape of who in sales is changing who’s in sales is changing the way we think about things like compensation and commission is starting to change. For example, there’s conversations all the time now about no commission in sales orgs, that conversation was never had for the last 20 years.

Speaker 2 (33:23):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> the old guard who is people like me, primarily mid to late forties and, and early sixties and whatnot. All this like pro in office, all the time stuff from these white, rich American men like, like me go to the office, no people don’t wanna go to the office anymore. Mm. People want flexibility now. Yeah. Some people wanna go to the office. I don’t know a single person who wants to commute 30 minutes each direction twice a day. So you have to, to, to provide opportunity there. You’re gonna lose the recruiting war around that. If you try to force people into an office five days a week in Austin only, you’re not gonna be able to get the same kind of talent. So I think there’s a battle brewing between the people who want flexibility and remote versus the people who want everybody in office to remain kind of in control.

Speaker 2 (34:20):

I think you’re gonna start to see a consolidation of tech. There’s no way that everybody can afford and manage 20 different vendors in their tech stack. It’s untenable. It’s insane. Yeah. It’s untenable. So you’re gonna start to see some of the bigger players, I think gobble up some of these other tech com companies and bundling their products and services. So we consolidate kind of the tech stack. And if you wanna real like wacky out of off the wall prediction. Yeah. I have this belief that artificial intelligence will progress to the point where you might not actually have to talk to a human at all to have a sales conversation and people say, no, no, no, that’ll never happen. Scott, you have to have a human to understand tone and interaction and intent and all of these kinds of things. And I’m like, well, I’ve watched a lot of science fiction movies.

Speaker 2 (35:23):

Yeah. You are coming from the perspective that the AI can’t do those things. But I actually wonder if they will be able to. So if I jump on, on a sales call, as long as I’ve programmed in exactly what somebody is supposed to say and how they’re supposed to respond, we know, and it just becomes a formula. If you ask me this question about which package makes the most sense for me, or you ask me or you give me this objection. No, no, no, no. I don’t think now is the right time. If we can load those things into some artificial intelligence, I’m not sure that a human being will be needed in a sales role a hundred years from now.

Speaker 1 (36:03):

We see maybe sooner than that. Yeah. I would say even before, I mean, as you say that, it’s like, I don’t, I don’t doubt that at all. I would imagine there’s companies working on that right now.

Speaker 2 (36:13):

I wouldn’t, people get real mad when I say that.

Speaker 1 (36:16):

Do they really?

Speaker 2 (36:17):

Yeah. And I, you know, I think it’s kind of fun to, to think about a little bit. I don’t know. I could be completely wrong. It could be a insane, you know, uh, idea, but I, I can see it being possible.

Speaker 1 (36:28):

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I’ve gotta. Yeah, absolutely. One of my clients is his whole brand is around. Like how do you build loyalty? When so much of your job is being taken over by AI, he works with a lot of realtors and mortgage lenders. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and it’s like so much of it’s already done by AI that I wouldn’t be surprised if what you’re saying.

Speaker 2 (36:46):

Yeah. And, and if we could stay there for a minute, people are educated now to the point where they ask themselves, why am I paying 6%? Why am I paying 3% to the seller’s agent and 3% to the buyer’s agent for them doing arguably not that much work. Yeah. And why is all this paperwork still in existence? Why do I have to physically sign wet ink, a mountain of paperwork to buy a home? Yeah. How, how is that possible still? So I think that these things are, you know, there’s a little bit of a, a sea change coming in, in a lot of these areas. So that’s some of my predictions.

Speaker 1 (37:27):

Oh, I like it. That guy that got good. I like where that went and to what you were talking about before, that probably kind of loops in and just ties in with the importance of, you know, none of us knows how much of what we’re doing is gonna be automated someday. None of us knows how much of it’s gonna be taken over by AI. Quite a bit of it probably will. But I think the one thing we can do is we can build relationships. We can build loyalty, we can build our brand, we can evolve, like all the things you’ve talked about today. Um, and I think when you’ve got that mindset stuff changes, things happen, but you’re, it’s like, you’ll rise above you’ll succeed. You’ll you’ll find your path. So,

Speaker 2 (38:06):

Yeah. And I think if you, if you do all those things, what you’ve created is employment security for yourself. Mm you’ll always be able to find another job. People worry too much about job security, which is how do I stay in this particular role?

Speaker 1 (38:20):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:21):

That doesn’t actually matter what matters is if this particular role you’re in today falls apart, for whatever reason, can you land another role of equal or superior value and in how fast a period of time’s the difference between employment and job security.

Speaker 1 (38:36):

Yeah. That’s a good point. That’s a good point. I wanna ask one final question. And then Scott, I want you to tell everyone where they can connect with you. So one of the things that I love doing when we have male guests on the show is just giving a, a shout out to a woman in your life. Um, and it’s, it’s not about, I know you may be thinking of like five women right now who are important. So it may be hard sometimes to pick one, but I would love to hear from you like who is a woman who’s been most influential in your life, one of the most influential in your life and what is the biggest life lesson that you’ve learned from her?

Speaker 2 (39:08):

Well, my grandmother on my mom’s side would probably be the overall most influential woman in my life. She would’ve been 98 years old, uh, a couple days ago. Oh wow. She was a tiny, like four foot, 1100% Sicilian woman who came over from Sicily on the boat to Brooklyn and then moved to Buffalo and um, fun fact, little known fact about me. My family has a deep mob ties in Italy.

Speaker 1 (39:35):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (39:36):

And she went through a lot of hell. Like her house got blown up when she was a kid. Oh my gosh, her mother, her mother died. They were coming after her father for deaths and things like that. So from a very early age, she was basically running the household.

Speaker 1 (39:53):

Oh

Speaker 2 (39:53):

My gosh. So she’s from like age 12 or 13. She was caretaking her sisters and cousins and all this kind of thing. Um, and she was a very funny kind of personality. She would always just do these little expressions, like, you know, it is what it is. And we’d say, don’t you wanna see this world before you leave it? And she said, what four? And this, you know, all this kind of stuff, we’d try to celebrate her birthday. And she’d be like, ah, an old, woman’s an old woman. <laugh> has all these funny, like little things and philosophies. But I can remember, you know, in, in my life, I, I was very, very sick in my early twenties, spent a lot of time in four years in the hospital. And when I was out finally in kind of healing, I was on a lot of medicine and a lot of drugs. And I had to kick off of all these drugs. I remember calling her up at like three in the morning. No concept of, of time and just saying, Hey, do you want to go walk the dogs? And she was at my house within five or 10 minutes. And we went for a walk in the, in the middle of the freaking night. She didn’t ask why, you know, she didn’t have some big message. She was just there. Um, so I could go on and on about her, but her name was Anton Nina de Gregorio.

Speaker 1 (41:12):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (41:12):

That’s my, uh, most influential woman.

Speaker 1 (41:15):

Oh my gosh. I love that. What’s the number one lesson you learned from her? Like the number one life lesson you learned from her

Speaker 2 (41:20):

Resiliency. Mm. And that you always have another gear no matter what. Wow. Even when you don’t think so.

Speaker 1 (41:27):

Wow. Amazing. Anton. Anita, did you say Antonina Anton Nina an yeah. Ah, wow. Sending her love. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Scott. I’ve love this conversation. Tell our listeners please. Where can they go to connect with you? I know you’ve got a lot of different ways people can get involved. So check the show notes for all the links. Um, but tell us a little bit about where they, they can go to get involved with you.

Speaker 2 (41:49):

Well, the, the easiest place to just interact with me is probably on LinkedIn. You can send me a, a direct message. I’m happy to reply to everybody. Um, my consulting website, if you’re looking for help building and scaling your sales team, if you ever want to go to one of the surfing sales events, check that out. Uh, I host two events weekly, one through a company called Thursday night sales, which is the world’s largest virtual sales happy hour. And I host a 90 minute trainings every Tuesday and I bring in guests to do some of the trainings. So it’s not just me, uh, through my patriarch group as well. So check out some of those resources and Elise will share them in the show notes. So yeah,

Speaker 1 (42:30):

Absolutely. We’ll link them all. This was amazing. Thank you, my friend for coming on and you’re welcome sharing your expertise. And I, like I said, like I knew going into this, I’d learn a ton from you and I really did. And, um, just super grateful for your time.

Speaker 2 (42:42):

You’re welcome. A lot of fun. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (42:43):

Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. All right. To you, my listener. Thank you so much for tuning in today and I know you’re gonna wanna connect with Scott. So go connect with Scott on LinkedIn. Go check out all the sites, LinkedIn, the show notes. I’m so grateful for you as a listener of she sells radio and I’ll see you on our next episode. Bye for now.