March 19, 2024 • 51 mins
Episode 4 of The Last Sale features sales leader, 6x founder, surfer and lover of sparkling water, Scott Leese. In addition to stories from Scott's career in sales, we touch on how soft skills and restaurant work, Scott's favorite surf spots, and the importance of matching the right personality type to the right sales role. Enjoy!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here we are, episode four of the Last Sale Welcome.
This is a good one, kevin ScottLease.
You've probably seen him onLinkedIn and on the internet.
He's quite the vocal voice inthe sales community.
He has a lot of good things tosay.
(00:20):
I enjoyed this conversation.
You know the thing that came tomind when, in the middle of the
conversation, after thisconversation, he was talking
about personality types and howsome people are more suited for
the fast pace, closing lots ofdeals every day, and other
people are more suited for theenterprise world where you have
(00:44):
things that are coming in everyI don't know, once a year or
maybe once every two years, andit's a different type of mindset
and mentality for both of those.
And he was talking through that.
And maybe think about restaurantwork and I worked at a
breakfast restaurant once whereit was fast paced.
(01:05):
People are in and out coffeewhat do you want?
Eggs, how do you need them?
Over easy toast.
Boom, here you go and you'rejust taking care of hundreds of
people in every hour.
I mean there is in and out andyou never stop moving.
And I bartended in places thatwere like that too, kind of
nightclub sort of atmosphere,where it was just I need a butt
(01:28):
light, go go and it's all volume.
You're just go go.
How fast and efficient can yoube?
But then I've also worked finedining.
I mean, you've got two or threetables for the whole evening
and you want to make thosetables very special.
You want to be very attentive.
Everything is about detail.
(01:49):
You're wanting to be likable,but not too much.
You don't want to be tooconversational where you're
ruining their evening, but youdon't want to be dead silent
either.
There's so much more nuance andspace in that kind of slow fine
dining restaurant world andit's a very different mentality.
It made me think of that.
So it was a really coolconversation.
(02:11):
His stories are very good.
I don't want to give too muchaway, but very, very much worth
listening into for some of thestories that he shared as well.
But yeah, what were yourtakeaways, what were your
thoughts after that conversation?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, it was a great conversation.
Scott's a really good guy,really good salesperson, really
good sales philosophy.
And you're talking about justthe guess to define your
personality type, right, Becauseyou have to have a sales cycle
and a job that fits yourpersonality types.
(02:46):
I think we have two differentones.
You love enterprise sales, thatlong sales cycle where you
don't really get much feedbackfor weeks at a time, sometimes
months at a time, and you workvery large deals.
I'm more I don't want to saytransactional, but I like daily
activity.
I like bringing in loweramounts of money constantly.
(03:09):
That's feedback that I desireand that's what my personality
is suited for.
And you can work on the bigaccounts, but you have to have
that daily activity and thatdaily hustle.
So I'm a busy bore type ofperson.
Instead of fine dining, I justlike a burger and a beer at the
(03:31):
bar.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's a different thing.
Hey, just because we're anenterprise roll, kevin, doesn't
mean that we're not busy, busyevery day, hey, we're doing
things.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's just that you don't get the feedback.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
We don't get the feedback.
And that's what we're talkingabout getting the wins.
You have to get any constantwins.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yep, I understand, yeah, and it's a different type
of mindset and your busy work isvery different and it was
interesting.
I feel like I was the oddball.
I felt like you and Scott werelike we need the feedback and
I'm like, give me all theuncertainty, I'll just bathe in
it and who knows what's going tohappen.
(04:12):
But yeah, it was a coolconversation for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I like simple things and I think enterprise is
just too much complexity for mea lot of times.
I like a simple offer, a simpleyes or no and a simple move
forward a lot of times.
One of the other key takeawaysis kind of and we heard about it
a little bit in our lastepisode with Kevin Nolan right
(04:37):
is kind of like last sell orgetting back to the roots, and
you have to stack your wins.
No matter what sales gameyou're in, you have to stack
your wins and sometimes thoseaha moments come in smaller
deals where you're testing yourlimits, where you're learning
things.
It's disconnected from thegrand results of life sometimes,
(05:01):
and sometimes those hard dealsmake a lot of difference.
Or those first deals make ahuge impact on saying, oh, I can
do this, so, and those areoftentimes the most important
cells that you make.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
For sure.
I mean, getting the snowballstarted is the most important
part of the snowball, regardlessof how big or how fast it gets
going.
It's figuring out that you canmake one and roll it.
That's a big, big part of it.
So, yeah, super coolconversation, let us know what
(05:38):
you think Like.
Subscribe, check out oursponsor, go Payhawk, be sure to
go give them some love.
And, yeah, enjoy theconversation and catch you next
time.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
How long have you been in Austin?
I'm just up the road in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Dallas or Fort Worth.
I moved to Austin from SanFrancisco in 2011.
So I got here a little bitahead of the curve of everybody
you did.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
You did.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
That is ahead of the curve.
So back when Austin was juststarting to pop right.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, that's why I came here now that it's kind of
popped, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
No, I mean, I don't know how long I should stay.
I know it's so expensive downthere.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah it's just it's still cheaper than where I come
from originally, but it isdefinitely not the same as it
used to be.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So you were, you a 49ers fan first or a bills fan
first, like what came first onthe good question.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And my family is from the Niagara Falls Buffalo area
originally, and when I was ababy you know that's kind of
where I was, where I was at mygrandfather was a big Buffalo
bills fan.
But we moved to NorthernCalifornia this town called
Chico, which is about threehours north of San Francisco,
(07:02):
when I was like a year, year anda half, something like that.
So I kind of grew up, you know,with 49ers games on TV and
everybody in town being 49ersfans and then also my
grandfather telling me you needto be a bills fan, this is your
roots.
So I grew up caring about bothteams more or less equally.
(07:24):
And you know the 49ers had goodruns.
When I was a kid, bills had anamazing run.
Never could finish it off.
Then there was about 25 yearsof darkness for both teams that
we don't need to talk about, andnow both have been very
relevant for the last five yearsand just have basically ripped
(07:46):
my heart and soul out everyseason.
So yeah, follow me for morepainful sports experiences.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I grew up in Atlanta so I can understand like painful
sports, Like I feel likeAtlanta does that well.
So yeah, I feel you, yeah youhave.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You have done that well.
I mean, you know the Braves wonthe division, like you know, 12
years in a row and only oneonce.
Right, that kind of thing, Iget it.
You have the biggest Super Bowlcollapse in NFL history.
So yeah, if we stay on thistopic long enough, I'll try to
belittle you enough to makemyself feel better.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And you know what, I would be used to it and
accustomed to it, and you knowthe heart's been pounded so much
that I'd probably be fine withit, you know, yeah, I think you
probably would.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I'm kind of OK.
I'm kind of OK with it as well.
It just comes with theterritory.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So question what is your favorite?
This is just going to take aright hand, turn just into a
different topic, but what isyour all time favorite vacation
spot?
Scott's going on one morevacation.
Where is he going?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Man.
I went to this random surf townwith about 10 of my buddies for
one of the guys' bachelor party.
This must have been 10 yearsago now, maybe more than that,
and there was nobody there.
And when I say nobody, I meanlike nobody.
(09:21):
We had the beach and the wavesto ourselves for a week.
It's I'm going to screw up thepronunciation, but it's like
playa ashun shilo or somethinglike that, and it was.
I mean, all of us talk about itto this day, like how did that
happen?
You know, how did we haveperfect waves, nobody else
(09:41):
around, good weather, so I'venever gone back, but that would
be on the list of places to go.
You have this like cool drivethrough the jungle, it seems,
and then all of a sudden boomopens up to the beach.
So that that's my idea of avacation these days.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
These days it was disappearing like that.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Where was that at?
It's in Nicaragua, actually.
Okay, on the Pacific coast ofNicaragua, nice, I'm not asking
you, in Shilo, I think is thename.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And what's your favorite beverage Could be
alcoholic, non-alcoholic, Like.
Just what are you reaching forif you're?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
through Thursdays.
Well, these days I literallyonly drink three things, that's
it.
Regular water, tap water, youknow, still water, I should say
sparkling water, which Ipossibly have an addiction to,
and then and then tequila.
That's it.
And every now and then I mightmix sparkling water with tequila
(10:44):
and get real crazy, but that'sit.
I don't drink anything else.
I don't drink juice, I don'tdrink soda, I don't drink beer,
I don't drink any other alcohol,that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So let's, let's fast forward, and you, you've taken
this crazy drive through ajungle.
You've arrived on this beach inNicaragua that I can't
pronounce.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I won't drive.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And and you're there with your friends.
There's no one else there, butsome kind of way, even though
there's nobody else on the beach, there's tequila everywhere and
little bottles of sparklingwater that are like coming up
out of the sand and you'rewondering.
You're scratching your headlike, is this heaven?
Is this some sort of weird hell?
Like what's going on?
But you do notice that you knowyou're older, you might have a
(11:27):
few wrinkles and you'redefinitely done.
Working like work is completelyover.
What?
What if you're looking back intime, what was the last thing
you sold?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
The last thing I sold .
It would have been a consultingcontract.
You know I run my ownconsulting business right now,
so it would have been a sixfigure consulting gig.
Why six figures?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Instead of five or seven or eight or four.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, the four and five is easy to answer Easier to
answer than the why not seven?
You know I've been doing thisfor a while now and I think I've
got my niche and my, my kind ofICP and sweet spot down and I
primarily help early stage kindof series a, series B companies
(12:21):
trying to go from zero to ahundred, so to speak, and those
types of companies who've raiseda few million bucks but, you
know, haven't hit scale and someof them barely even have a
million dollars of ARR art rightnow.
They're not spending a milliondollars on me as or anyone as a
consultant.
So seven figure deals are notreally happening in my kind of
(12:45):
arena that I play in.
Why not five figures or fourfigures?
You know I've worked a long timeprior to even being a
consultant to learn theknowledge and effectiveness to
get stuff done to help people.
So that's just where I havevalued my time and my work and
my, my effort.
So I usually work with peoplefor about six months.
Those contracts are usually sixfigures.
(13:06):
Yeah, that would be the.
So that would be the last thingthat I sold.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So you seem to have your, your ICP, your, your idea
of customer profile down to ascience?
Yeah, I guess it's a science?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I don't really think of it that way necessarily.
But I, you know, I, when you'refirst getting started, I think a
lot of people just say yes toanybody who's willing to pay
them Right, and then you startto realize, well, I maybe can't
have the right to do that, well,I maybe can't have the right
kind of impact with this type ofclient, or this type of client
(13:47):
is actually problematic for meand I don't like dealing with
them and they, I don't know,they can't do what I'm asking
them to do or they have a highprobability of going under and
therefore they don't pay me orthey don't pay me on time, all
this kind of stuff.
So you, you, you realize, like,you know, who maybe do I not
want to work with because Idon't think it's going to be a
(14:09):
good experience for me, and whodo I maybe not want to work with
because maybe I can't deliverthe best experience for them?
And you know, for me I try toget kind of tighter and tighter
with what I think is my idealcustomer profile where they'll
treat me well and I'll be ableto deliver, you know, kind of
maximum impact for them.
And I try to get, you know asmany of those as I can and avoid
(14:33):
the others.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
For this fictitious last sale.
Apart from the deal size, what?
What do you envision or imaginethat customer being like?
And you know, the last customerthat you consult?
What is that experience like ifyou were to think about it?
What would be the nice, thenice last sale, the nice, last
consulting before you?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean the big dream is they go off and have a
liquidity event of some kind.
You know they grow and scaleand get acquired or get
profitable and IPO or somethinglike that.
I mean those are the big winsfor me.
I think I've worked withsomewhere between 100 and 200
(15:18):
different companies in the lastcouple of years and I'm over a
dozen exits of those companies.
So you know I'm shooting around, I don't know, for simplicity
let's call it 10%.
So one out of every 10companies that I've worked with
the last couple of years insideof the last few years has had an
exit.
So hopefully more more to come,but that's that would be my.
(15:41):
My hope would be this group thatI'm working with now.
You know we're able to put theright systems and processes in
place, get the right people inthere and kind of tee them up
for success.
And then you know they run withit the rest of the way, they
run the last mile, so to speak.
And, and you know it's just agood success story you know
(16:02):
Scottcom went on to, you know,sell for a billion dollars or
whatever.
Those, those kind of successstories, those, those are the
wins that that feel really good,feels like everybody benefited,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It does, it does.
And 10% is about about thegoing right right Of success in
in the startup or early stage.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I don't know.
10% feels pretty high to me.
It does.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It sounds, sounds good it sounds really good.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, I think.
I don't know the number anymore, but I remember it being very
small.
It is yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It is very small.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, I don't know the number of time I had either
10% is the percentage of minorleague baseball players that
make it to the major leagueswhen they sign a contract.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, there you go, I'm at the very least.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I'm like a AAA middle reliever, oh you get the AAA,
you get a double A, you have a33% chance.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Oh, okay, so 10% is single A, that's signing rookie
ball.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You sign a contract to go to rookie ball.
You have a 10% shot.
You get the double A, you get a33%.
Well, I'm in rookie ball, butit's still tough odds out there,
no matter how you cut it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Whatever they are, I don't think the math for
startups is the same as forbaseball, so I'm going to give
myself a little bit more credit.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So, um, and before that, I saw last night after the
, after the Super Bowl andeverything, that Corey Kluber
announced his retirement.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Really.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You got a really good story about that that we might
get into here in seconds.
But going along those lines,scott.
When was your first scut?
So?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
My first sale Well, my first sale in this kind of
you know, technology, saasservices type industry, that
would be 2004.
Probably would have been Augustof 2004.
So roughly 20 years ago or so,my first sale of anything was
(18:15):
probably like baseball cardswhen I was a little kid, you
know, selling cards to the shopor or to friends, that type of
thing.
Oh, that would have probablybeen in like 1982, something
like that Any notable baseballcard sales.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh, man, like make a man or rookie or something like
that.
No none of the like historicalstuff.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
You know, my, my grandfather grew up in in Italy
and then moved to New York andhe was a big like Brooklyn
Dodgers fan back in the day.
Anyway, he had, as he used tocall it, you know, garbage bags
of like old baseball cards fromthe, from bubblegum packs and
(19:02):
stuff like that right and fromfrom that era, and when they
moved to California from Buffalo, my grandmother God bless her
soul threw it all out and mygrandfather never, never,
forgave her for it and neverneglected to tell us the story
(19:22):
of, you know, all these cardsthat he thought that he he had
that were quote probably worthsomething, something.
Yeah, for context, some ofthese cards are probably worth,
you know, five to six figures atthis point in time.
Uh, if they were in any goodcondition.
But, yeah, my, my grandmotherchucked it, didn't deem it
(19:45):
necessary to, uh, make thecross-country move.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Little little.
Did she know that there was aseason sales professional right
there who could have?
Yeah, those cards.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I could have repurposed that stuff and uh,
raised my own series a you knowyou could have.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You could have it's good experience trading and
selling and buying and sellingbaseball cards.
Growing up, I I did the samething.
I.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I, you certainly don't think about it.
At least I didn't think aboutit back then.
I didn't grow up in a family,you know, full of business
people or sales people oranything like that.
So there was there was nocoaching or nobody telling me
You're gonna, this skill isgonna serve you later in life.
But you know, you look back onand you're like, okay, I was
negotiating, there was somethingof value that I was trying to
(20:31):
present in exchange for thisother thing of value.
And you know, it's a yeah.
The things that you did whenyou were little and I was never
one of those people that hadlike a lemonade stand or you
know door, knocked theneighborhood, running my own
grass, cutting business.
I didn't do any of that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So that that baseball card selling stuff is as close
as I must have got to Practicingsales skills as a, as a youth
that's awesome Thinking backthrough your career, what was
the most difficult or thehardest sales cycle and you
(21:10):
don't have to share like all thespecifics, but is there one
sale cycle or one sale that youthink back to and you're like,
wow, that was Much moredifficult than I thought it was
going to be?
Um, is there anything thatsticks out in that?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
in that regard, um, I don't know about more difficult
than I expected.
But you know, we I did aseven-figure deal with with my
team, with the state governmentof Iowa years ago and it was
just kind of a good reminder ofhow slow moving certain
(21:48):
industries are, how much redtape there is, how everybody can
kind of Agree that there's aproblem and want to change this
thing, but nobody's willing tostick their neck out To get it
done and be the fall guy, if youknow, if it goes wrong, or
something like that.
So I'm not really built forthat kind of world.
(22:13):
I couldn't do that.
Only I need positivereinforcement.
So, said differently, I'm notthe guy who's going to go home
happy if I close one mega deal ayear.
That's not for me.
I can't imagine coming home.
You know, if we were allroommates and I'd come home and
one day out of 365 days I tellyou guys I closed the fucking
(22:35):
deal today.
I can't do it.
It's 364 other days.
What am I supposed to say?
Oh, we pushed that deal forwardfrom stage eight to stage nine.
Today I got reallymulti-threaded today.
That doesn't do it for me.
I got no problem working one ofone or two of those kind of
deals, but I need, like you know, I want to go home feeling like
(22:57):
I won or lost every single day,really, every single day,
really.
You know, what did we close?
What did I, what did I Closelost today?
What did we lose?
That's, that's the kind ofstuff that always made me feel
alive.
So, you know, you get into a 18month kind of government deal
and it's just like, oh man,that's that was really difficult
(23:20):
for me.
I'm not a super patient personand, uh, I just don't.
I have a struggle with likeinefficiency and you run into
all those things in that kind ofworld right.
But it's an important, importantlesson.
Actually.
You think about it because Oneof the mistakes that I think
salespeople and and sellersoften make, especially earlier
(23:41):
in their careers they're notself-aware enough to put
themselves in the right positionto succeed and to enjoy it.
They'll be like, oh, I need toget an enterprise sales job Just
because, like somebody toldthem that that's the career path
.
But if you're a super kind ofimpatient person who needs
(24:06):
positive reinforcement every day, needs to close deals to stay
hyped up and stuff, that's thewrong arena for you.
So I spent the first part of mycareer really in like
transactional sales environmentswhere you could close deals
every single day legitimately,like even one call closes.
I sold stuff to real estateagents and brokers, automotive
(24:29):
dealerships, contractors, all ofthese kind of services type
small businesses, restaurants,bars, all this kind of stuff.
And only later in my career didI kind of start to move up into
kind of mid-market and kind ofdabbling in these larger kind of
deals and stuff like that.
(24:49):
And even then it was kind oftough for me mentally and
emotionally.
So I think people should paymore attention actually to who
they are and what type of systemis gonna suit them best.
If you move real slow, youprobably shouldn't go into a
(25:10):
transactional arena.
If you move super, super fastand you're super impatient and
you get affected when dealsdon't close right away, you
might wanna think about whetheryou should go into an enterprise
arena.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm on that scale, I'm more toward you At the
enterprise.
Sales is difficult I think it'dbe difficult to manage as well,
just because months go by.
And how do you judge if thatdeal's getting closer or not?
There's just a lot of unknownsout there.
(25:44):
But I like to wake up every dayand think that, hey, I can make
a deal today.
Yeah, I can make a deal today.
It doesn't matter, and that'sthe kind of, I guess, patience I
have too.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, I'm the weirdo introvert here, huh, that just
wants to play chess with 30minute clock, like 30 minute
moves, and drag it out and justoveranalyze everything to death
and take my time and just liveask in the ambiguity and the
unknown.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, I'm not built that way, man, I'm not built
that way, yep, yep, no.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It reminds me of the difference when I was playing
ball, between a relief pitchingand starting, you know, and when
you're a relief pitcher, you'rein the bullpen, you're playing
games and joking and having agood time.
Phone rings.
In a matter of minutes you'rein the game Like it's just boom,
it happens, it's fast.
It could be any time.
When you're a starter, you gotfour days to think about your
(26:46):
next start.
So you're watching tape, you'restudying film, you're studying
I mean, you do all that as areliever too.
But there's all this prep timeand sometimes guys overthink it,
they overprep it and they'rebetter just getting thrown in
without having much leadway oryou know much preparation.
So yeah, that's kind of asimilar sort of dynamic I feel
(27:10):
like with baseball.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, I never thought about that before, but that
definitely resonates for me.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yep and Kevin just so you know, I did notice that
Corey Gloober retired and Scott.
So you know, when I gotreleased from minor league
baseball there was one guy onthe team whose ERA was worse
than mine and I knew it wasgonna be me or him that was
gonna get cut.
We were both having kind ofrough seasons in the California
league and I'm like I'm doingI'm a full point better than
(27:38):
this other guy, like surelythey're gonna let him go.
But I was wrong.
They let me go and the otherguy's name was Corey Gloober.
They kept him and I didn't know,you know pretty good voice, wow
, because I don't know if Iwould have been able to meet
like match that career from thatpoint forward.
That's incredible, oh my God.
(27:59):
So that was.
Yeah, I noticed that I was likethat's the end of an year, like
all the guys that I've playedagainst and with are slowly
fading out of the game at thispoint, so it's a little
bittersweet to see.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Happens to all of us.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It does.
It still stings, though, right.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yes, it does.
Especially, you know, if youhave kids and all of a sudden
they're bigger, stronger, fasterthan you and you're like what
has happened?
This is not okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Fortunately, I'm a two years older than that.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I have a one year old and a three year old.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So, yeah, you got a ways.
Mine are 16 and 14.
And is it ever ahead or on thecusp of being ahead of me on
just about every category?
At this point, tides areturning.
Yeah, it's not a good feeling,not gonna lie.
This gotta be mixed.
There's some pride there, likeoh, you know, my kids are
(29:05):
begging, grown and doing someamazing things.
But then there's a flip side ofthat pride, which is like
bruised ego, like holy shit, my16 year old, I think, is taller
than me almost.
Or my 14 year old, I can't beathim any more shooting baskets.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
There would be more three pointers than me now
There'd be mixed emotions on theflip of that too, like if they
get to be 18 and 16 and they'restill smaller and weaker and
you're just dominating themstill, like sure you're ego.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, that wouldn't feel good either, I suppose.
Yeah, True, true.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, thinking back to you know notable sales in your
career, is there a sale thatcomes to mind that was emotional
, Like your emotions got reallyheightened, or it wasn't just
normal business, but it impactedyou emotionally and it?
(30:03):
Could be, positive or negative,but is there something that
generated a stronger emotionalresponse than the normal sales
process?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
You know, the only thing I can think of is really
is my very first sale, because Igot hired with a group of I
don't know, let's call it 20.
It was like a pretty big class,but it was all at once and
brand new.
This company was a startup andthey were gonna sell to real
(30:34):
estate agents for the first time.
So we got kind of thrown intothe deep end, so to speak.
I think we had about three orfour hours of training in the
morning the very first day andthen off you go.
And I'd never sold anythingbefore my life, never had any
kind of office job like this.
And by the end of the firstweek I think I was the last guy
(30:58):
that I either had not alreadymade a sale or hadn't quit or
gotten fired already that kindof boiler room type situation,
right, and I was 27 years old.
I had just come off of beinghospitalized for four years and
before that playing soccer andbeing in grad school and stuff.
(31:20):
So I had no frame of referencefor winning, losing in a
business sense, like what'snormal, what's not.
I was just terrified, like I'mgonna get fired at any moment.
That's what I was thinking.
It's for sure gonna happen.
So when I got that very firstdeal, it was like a relief more
(31:44):
than joy, like okay, I justbought myself maybe some more
time to kind of see if I canfigure this thing out.
And then I remember a littlebit of a light bulb going on,
like well, that felt pretty goodactually when I closed that
deal.
Like that was kind of a coolfeeling.
(32:04):
I could get used to thatfeeling.
I think I would maybe want thatfeeling again, so not really,
you know, not tons of sorrow oremotion or joy, but more just
like relief, and then a littlebit of maybe hope or a spark of
ambition started of some sort,where it's like that was awesome
(32:26):
.
I need more of that.
That's really the one sale thatI feel like I've talked about
the most over the years, I thinkabout or remember the most.
You know, I still remember itwas a real estate agent in
Hawaii and it was at like 930California time on a Friday
night and I was still in theoffice because I was paranoid
(32:50):
that I was gonna get, you know,fired if I didn't get something
done.
So I'm using the time zone tomy advantage, calling Hawaii,
you know.
So it's like I still rememberthose details 20 years ago.
I can't say the same aboutother sales that I've done, so
that would be the one.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Does it feel like?
Maybe I'm taking a stab here,but it's almost like it was a
sign of affirmation, right, thatyou could do this.
You could be successful here.
Maybe there was some sort ofdoubt there.
You know you're worried aboutgetting out.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, there definitely was doubt prior to
that.
For sure, I don't think it was.
It wasn't affirmation in thesense of like oh, now I'm
confirming, I know I can do thisnow, or let me show those
people I know what I'm doing.
Because it was like this relief, like okay, I got one, thank
(33:43):
God I did that one, but more oflike affirmation of hope, like I
might be able to do this, maybeI'll figure this out, maybe
I'll get good at this right, andjust creating that.
(34:03):
And that was enough to kind ofget me hooked, to want that
feeling again.
And so I learned a few thingsand you know, one of the things
was I'm not as good as everybodyelse because I've never done
this before.
So, just like in sports, as youprobably know, you're not as
good as somebody.
What do you have to do?
You have to outwork people orcompete harder, want it more
(34:27):
right.
So you know, I kind of lookedaround the room and I'm like,
well, I'm the only one here onFriday night at 9.30, I'm 27
years old.
A lot of 27 year olds are doingsomething different on Friday
night at 9.30.
And that I kind of just pausedand thought you know, the only
(34:49):
reason that probably happened isbecause I was willing to
outwork people and outwork myboss.
You know he can't fire me ifI'm still in the office at 9.30
working, can't be mad, right.
And so I just kind of decidedthat that's what I was gonna do
and I kind of changed myapproach a little bit.
And you know it's not verypopular to say nowadays, but
(35:13):
like I was the first guy in theoffice to the obsessive point
where if somebody beat me oneday I moved my arrival time back
15 minutes earlier and it waslike no way.
Mentally I was like looking foran advantage and I started
doing the same thing at night,because I'm not letting Richie
leave, you know, after me I'lljust sit there and pretend to
(35:36):
work.
Even I just mentally need thisadvantage, you know.
And then I did something thatended up being really good for
me and a couple of folks.
But I had a couple buddies thatI had kind of made at work and
they were of the same age andsame kind of mindset, you know.
First kind of corporate salesjob and I started telling them,
(35:58):
you know, like hey, real estateagents and brokers work every
weekend.
Man, like we're stupid for notworking on the weekend, like I
know you don't wanna go to theoffice, but you know what, if we
go to the office from like 10am to one pm, like every
Saturday, religiously, you know,three extra hours, 12 hours
(36:19):
extra a month, minimum, right.
And then let's go surfafterwards and grab a drink and,
you know, get some food andkind of make a routine out of it
.
So none of that would havehappened without that first deal
, kind of arriving in the mannerin which it showed up for me
and me kind of paying attentionand leaning into that and saying
(36:42):
, well, I guess I have to dothese kinds of things in order
to get good.
And you know, luckily for me itworked.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Scott, just out of curiosity, how much was that
first deal worth?
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Oh, God 3 to 5k probably yeah nothing, yeah,
yeah nothing.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So I mean it kind of goes back to you know your most
memorable cells, the, the, the,the ones that really impact you
the most.
The dollar matter dollar, yeah,I mean doesn't matter, right
it's.
It's about what you can do,what, what, what doors that
opens for you, right?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah and in and the, the Ability to allow that,
to adjust and change yourentire Mentality.
No, how you think your mindsetRight.
Yeah, I know, cuz I assure youin those first five days that I
was selling, I wasn't Thinkingabout Outwork somebody or where
(37:41):
can I?
Where can I get an advantage?
Where can I squeeze 12 extrahours of of a work month?
Nobody was teaching me that.
I wasn't.
There was no podcast back then.
So it's not like I'm listeningto somebody tell me this kind of
stuff, right.
But that one deal which wasagain, I think it was like $300
(38:01):
a month for like six to twelvemonth contracts somewhere in
there.
It's like nothing right but the, but winning.
That had an impact on me and howI looked at things and thought
about things and the effort Igave and I restructured, you
know, a lot of my life to Leaninto that and try to turn this
(38:23):
into a career that would be, youknow, long lasting and have a
future.
And I Wasn't looking at it interms of like I'm gonna make
millions of dollars off of thisone day.
I was just like, okay, I haveto do this if I want to keep my
job and just be a you know, keepmy, keep paying the rent and
(38:48):
keep food on my plate and thatkind of stuff like this is what
it's gonna take.
And then you know all thosesuccesses kind of compound and
you start reaching new levels ofinsight in terms of mindset,
approach.
What's possible?
Now I'm not closing one deal.
I'm like how do I close onedeal every day?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
You know, and then you prove you can do that in
that kind of arena You're like Iwonder if I could close two or
three every day.
Can I close 60 deals in a month?
This shit was like thought tobe impossible at the time.
You know, and then all of asudden you're finding ways to do
it and people are like how'dthat happen?
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Oh, what I love about this is, you know, you know,
having been a lifelongCompetitor of sorts whether it's
baseball or racing, mountainbikes or sales or whatever I'm
fascinated by underdogs andunderdog stories and this whole
underdog mindset and this growthmindset.
And like listening to you Tellthat story about landing that
(39:47):
one sale.
And it wasn't so much Affirmingthat, haha, have arrived on my
success, but it was moreaffirming that you're not a
definitive like a new, you'renot a definite failure.
At that point there's hope, andso now you're.
It's what I'm hearing from youis like You're in this mental
place of curiosity About what'spossible, what's next, what?
(40:11):
What can I do?
I don't.
I feel like I'm not as good asthe rest of the team, but I
cannot.
Can I figure out a way tooperate in this space?
And what's possible if I justgive it my all, knowing that
what's the worst that couldhappen at this point?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, you're trying to find your, your home in the
team, or your role maybe in theteam.
You know, first it's like, okay, maybe I, maybe I do belong
here.
And then it becomes how can IStick and be here, you know, for
a long term.
(40:45):
And then it's like, okay,here's my role.
You know this rule of maybe I'm, maybe I'm a little too good
for this role, maybe there's abigger role, you know, for me
you just keep, you know, goingfrom there right and I and I
think having that kind ofOutlook, I'm trying to find what
can I do differently here, howcan I optimize this, what can I
(41:09):
do better at that?
I Think I've tried to keep thatKind of mentality for the last
20 years and looking at all thethings that I'm, that I'm doing,
you know, not necessarily witha mindset.
Today, at 46 years old, of youknow how do I work 9,000 extra
(41:29):
hours over everybody else, butthat flips from 27 to 47 and now
almost 47.
It's like, how do I continue toearn what I've been earning
while working less, not more?
And it's at the differentperspective I wasn't trying to
think that way at 27 Was like Igot the time and energy, I got a
(41:51):
put in the hours.
But now I'm like I Don't wantto be in the office for 12 hours
.
I'm not being the office at 930 at night on a Friday, like
that's not what I want to do.
But how do I succeed stillWithout putting in those those
kind of hours, right?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
The commonality there is, impact right, like whether
you were 27 wanting to burn allthe hours first and last out, or
today Wanting to be moremindful of how you're using your
time.
It seems like you're stilltrying to maximize the impact
you can have.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
I Think I'm trying to maximize the impact I'm not
just on myself, but on others aswell.
You know that could be clients,that could be colleagues, that
could be loved ones, and thenimpact on myself more.
(42:45):
Personal stuff is like Could bemy actual income, could be the
Actual number of days and hoursI work, could be my ability to
do certain things like Take thatvacation, or, you know, by this
house or something like that,or, and then just the feeling
(43:06):
and the emotion of you know, nolonger trying to prove
necessarily that you're asuccess, but get comfortable
with the fact that you are asuccess.
Try to find ways and not beatyourself up and feel like a
failure if you didn't do betterthan yesterday, every single day
.
You know.
(43:28):
I don't know if these arethings that just come with age
and experience and everybodygoes through them, or or they're
Any way, shape or form unique.
I would imagine they're notthat unique, but my first time
through this that I'm aware of.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
So I Don't think it's .
I think it's a naturalregression, right, so you spend
your early days you know, doingthose Blame the foundation,
getting that, that, what?
10 to 10,000 hours to become anexpert at something, and
oftentimes you have to do itthree or four times and being be
kind of an expert at, or pro it, two or three different things
(44:08):
to be able to Then flip theswitch once you get into your,
your 40s, and be able to makethe same amount of impact for
yourself and others While doingless, because that foundation is
already there, so there's lesswork to be done each time.
Make a scaling Would be part ofit, as part of the thought
(44:28):
process as well.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
I think that's you got more work to do in other
areas of your life, depending onhow your life went, but you
know you got Partner.
You know relationships.
You've got parenting stuff,duties, you know.
I mean, I don't know about yougot.
You're not there yet, but youwill be.
(44:51):
But you know, my kids haveSoccer practice, basketball
practice, track practice, bandpractice.
They used to have baseballpractice on top of everything
else.
It's like I'm doing something.
I'm like an Uber driver from430 to 10 pm Every night.
You know I Can't be working,even if I want to.
(45:11):
Right, and that's the season oflife that Some of us, you know,
go through, chose to go through, and you have to adjust, you
know.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah, well, let's, let's finish off with the
funniest cell, Though, the onethat that really strikes your
funny bone, your funniest cellthat you ever done that you
really enjoy looking back on thefirst thing that comes to my
mind is I close a deal one timea hundred percent over email,
(45:45):
and this is 2004 or 2005, maybe.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
So before it was like fashionable, you know, before
there was some 23 year oldTikToker saying all you have to
do is email people to closedeals.
Yeah, I was.
You know, it was like Outlookwas probably the email tool and
I got some email requests forinformation or whatever and I
(46:13):
just started responding back andasking like one question and
there must have been like 47emails flying around and at one
point I remember thinking itfeels like this person is
actually getting serious to thepoint where they might buy
something.
You know, and the environmentthat I came from it was you have
to close a deal on the phone,you have to talk to somebody.
(46:36):
It's stupid to just, you know,fax somebody over an agreement
and expect it to get signed andfaxed back, Cause, yes, we had
to use fax machines in order toclose deals back then.
But the person eventually waslike you know, send me over the
agreement so I can take a lookat it.
I said, fuck it, fill out theagreement, I'm gonna fax this
(46:59):
thing.
I've never talked to thisperson before Same type of same
product that I was selling asthe story, by the way, with my
first deal.
And sure enough, they signed itand it came back like three or
four X bigger than my first deal.
So it was like a pretty decentsize deal for that sale and what
(47:19):
our normal average contractvalue was and I just kind of was
laughing.
I still kind of laughed to thisday Like how is that possible,
you know.
But it's kind of that personwas a kudos to them.
They were ahead of the game.
They wanted to buy somethingwithout talking to a salesperson
way before.
That was the norm.
That never happened in that job, ever again.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Total like rarity for me at that time it was a good
deal deal that stuck and didn'thave any problems with it down
the line, Not that I rememberthat's good.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Maybe I blacked that part out, I don't know.
I don't remember anything badhappening.
I remember back in like yeah,2004, 2005,.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
You know, I mean like email really didn't, didn't
start doing deals until just afew years ago, maybe like 10
years ago.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You know what that funny deal did teach me, though?
It did teach me that emailingpeople worked.
And so back then this is likebefore spam laws existed, these
real estate websites if you wentto real estate websites, if you
clicked on the person's emailaddress, which was, on the main,
(48:37):
like homepage on real-addedcomor whatever you would like, auto
populate and outlook message,and so I've, like, made my
signature file some template,you know, prospecting email and
I had this whole rhythm whereit'd be like copy paste, alt
send, just with my fingers, I'mlike clicking, and it was this
(49:00):
whole rhythmic thing, and Iwould just sit there at night
watching you know games orwhatever.
I would just send off hundredsof emails at that time and
people would, you know, writeback, buzz off, unsubscribe, but
then I'd get all these actualpositive messages back.
So you know, I guess I wasemail prospecting before.
(49:22):
That was really a thing.
The original cadence, yeah well,also known as spam, but it
worked.
But it worked back then therewasn't that many people doing it
.
It was a brief moment in time,you know, less than a year
probably where it was gloriousand people like me ended up
(49:46):
ruining it, probably foreverybody after that.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Scott, thanks for your time and joining us today.
Like where can our listenersfind you?
Where can they go and learnmore about what you do?
And find you in the internet.
Not that they're wanting yourspam, but if they're actually.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah, those days are gone.
You won't get that anymore.
You know, I run my ownconsulting business, like I said
, working with primarily likeseries A, series B companies at
scottlesconsultingcom, and I doa lot of other things.
Got a couple other businesses,communities that I run, events
that I run.
Best place to learn about thatstuff and message me is just go
(50:27):
to LinkedIn and shoot me a DM orconnection requests.
I respond to every single oneof those that I see that isn't
spammy, so hope to hear fromanybody out there who wants to
have a chat about something.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Awesome.
Any last words of wisdom beforewe depart.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Thank God football season's over, because I need a
break from the pain.
I need about eight months torecover and then come August,
you know, I'll be feeling realoptimistic again, like an idiot,
delusional optimistic idiot.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Optimism is often a good thing, you just keep coming
back.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Keeps us coming back.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah, thanks again for your time, scott.
Okay, guys, cheers, cheers.
Here we are, episode four of the Last Sale Welcome.
This is a good one, kevin ScottLease.
You've probably seen him onLinkedIn and on the internet.
He's quite the vocal voice inthe sales community.
He has a lot of good things tosay.
(00:20):
I enjoyed this conversation.
You know the thing that came tomind when, in the middle of the
conversation, after thisconversation, he was talking
about personality types and howsome people are more suited for
the fast pace, closing lots ofdeals every day, and other
people are more suited for theenterprise world where you have
(00:44):
things that are coming in everyI don't know, once a year or
maybe once every two years, andit's a different type of mindset
and mentality for both of those.
And he was talking through that.
And maybe think about restaurantwork and I worked at a
breakfast restaurant once whereit was fast paced.
(01:05):
People are in and out coffeewhat do you want?
Eggs, how do you need them?
Over easy toast.
Boom, here you go and you'rejust taking care of hundreds of
people in every hour.
I mean there is in and out andyou never stop moving.
And I bartended in places thatwere like that too, kind of
nightclub sort of atmosphere,where it was just I need a butt
(01:28):
light, go go and it's all volume.
You're just go go.
How fast and efficient can yoube?
But then I've also worked finedining.
I mean, you've got two or threetables for the whole evening
and you want to make thosetables very special.
You want to be very attentive.
Everything is about detail.
(01:49):
You're wanting to be likable,but not too much.
You don't want to be tooconversational where you're
ruining their evening, but youdon't want to be dead silent
either.
There's so much more nuance andspace in that kind of slow fine
dining restaurant world andit's a very different mentality.
It made me think of that.
So it was a really coolconversation.
(02:11):
His stories are very good.
I don't want to give too muchaway, but very, very much worth
listening into for some of thestories that he shared as well.
But yeah, what were yourtakeaways, what were your
thoughts after that conversation?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, it was a great conversation.
Scott's a really good guy,really good salesperson, really
good sales philosophy.
And you're talking about justthe guess to define your
personality type, right, Becauseyou have to have a sales cycle
and a job that fits yourpersonality types.
(02:46):
I think we have two differentones.
You love enterprise sales, thatlong sales cycle where you
don't really get much feedbackfor weeks at a time, sometimes
months at a time, and you workvery large deals.
I'm more I don't want to saytransactional, but I like daily
activity.
I like bringing in loweramounts of money constantly.
(03:09):
That's feedback that I desireand that's what my personality
is suited for.
And you can work on the bigaccounts, but you have to have
that daily activity and thatdaily hustle.
So I'm a busy bore type ofperson.
Instead of fine dining, I justlike a burger and a beer at the
(03:31):
bar.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's a different thing.
Hey, just because we're anenterprise roll, kevin, doesn't
mean that we're not busy, busyevery day, hey, we're doing
things.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
It's just that you don't get the feedback.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
We don't get the feedback.
And that's what we're talkingabout getting the wins.
You have to get any constantwins.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yep, I understand, yeah, and it's a different type
of mindset and your busy work isvery different and it was
interesting.
I feel like I was the oddball.
I felt like you and Scott werelike we need the feedback and
I'm like, give me all theuncertainty, I'll just bathe in
it and who knows what's going tohappen.
(04:12):
But yeah, it was a coolconversation for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, I like simple things and I think enterprise is
just too much complexity for mea lot of times.
I like a simple offer, a simpleyes or no and a simple move
forward a lot of times.
One of the other key takeawaysis kind of and we heard about it
a little bit in our lastepisode with Kevin Nolan right
(04:37):
is kind of like last sell orgetting back to the roots, and
you have to stack your wins.
No matter what sales gameyou're in, you have to stack
your wins and sometimes thoseaha moments come in smaller
deals where you're testing yourlimits, where you're learning
things.
It's disconnected from thegrand results of life sometimes,
(05:01):
and sometimes those hard dealsmake a lot of difference.
Or those first deals make ahuge impact on saying, oh, I can
do this, so, and those areoftentimes the most important
cells that you make.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
For sure.
I mean, getting the snowballstarted is the most important
part of the snowball, regardlessof how big or how fast it gets
going.
It's figuring out that you canmake one and roll it.
That's a big, big part of it.
So, yeah, super coolconversation, let us know what
(05:38):
you think Like.
Subscribe, check out oursponsor, go Payhawk, be sure to
go give them some love.
And, yeah, enjoy theconversation and catch you next
time.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
How long have you been in Austin?
I'm just up the road in.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Dallas or Fort Worth.
I moved to Austin from SanFrancisco in 2011.
So I got here a little bitahead of the curve of everybody
you did.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
You did.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
That is ahead of the curve.
So back when Austin was juststarting to pop right.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, that's why I came here now that it's kind of
popped, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
No, I mean, I don't know how long I should stay.
I know it's so expensive downthere.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah it's just it's still cheaper than where I come
from originally, but it isdefinitely not the same as it
used to be.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So you were, you a 49ers fan first or a bills fan
first, like what came first onthe good question.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And my family is from the Niagara Falls Buffalo area
originally, and when I was ababy you know that's kind of
where I was, where I was at mygrandfather was a big Buffalo
bills fan.
But we moved to NorthernCalifornia this town called
Chico, which is about threehours north of San Francisco,
(07:02):
when I was like a year, year anda half, something like that.
So I kind of grew up, you know,with 49ers games on TV and
everybody in town being 49ersfans and then also my
grandfather telling me you needto be a bills fan, this is your
roots.
So I grew up caring about bothteams more or less equally.
(07:24):
And you know the 49ers had goodruns.
When I was a kid, bills had anamazing run.
Never could finish it off.
Then there was about 25 yearsof darkness for both teams that
we don't need to talk about, andnow both have been very
relevant for the last five yearsand just have basically ripped
(07:46):
my heart and soul out everyseason.
So yeah, follow me for morepainful sports experiences.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I grew up in Atlanta so I can understand like painful
sports, Like I feel likeAtlanta does that well.
So yeah, I feel you, yeah youhave.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You have done that well.
I mean, you know the Braves wonthe division, like you know, 12
years in a row and only oneonce.
Right, that kind of thing, Iget it.
You have the biggest Super Bowlcollapse in NFL history.
So yeah, if we stay on thistopic long enough, I'll try to
belittle you enough to makemyself feel better.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And you know what, I would be used to it and
accustomed to it, and you knowthe heart's been pounded so much
that I'd probably be fine withit, you know, yeah, I think you
probably would.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I'm kind of OK.
I'm kind of OK with it as well.
It just comes with theterritory.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So question what is your favorite?
This is just going to take aright hand, turn just into a
different topic, but what isyour all time favorite vacation
spot?
Scott's going on one morevacation.
Where is he going?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Man.
I went to this random surf townwith about 10 of my buddies for
one of the guys' bachelor party.
This must have been 10 yearsago now, maybe more than that,
and there was nobody there.
And when I say nobody, I meanlike nobody.
(09:21):
We had the beach and the wavesto ourselves for a week.
It's I'm going to screw up thepronunciation, but it's like
playa ashun shilo or somethinglike that, and it was.
I mean, all of us talk about itto this day, like how did that
happen?
You know, how did we haveperfect waves, nobody else
(09:41):
around, good weather, so I'venever gone back, but that would
be on the list of places to go.
You have this like cool drivethrough the jungle, it seems,
and then all of a sudden boomopens up to the beach.
So that that's my idea of avacation these days.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
These days it was disappearing like that.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Where was that at?
It's in Nicaragua, actually.
Okay, on the Pacific coast ofNicaragua, nice, I'm not asking
you, in Shilo, I think is thename.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
And what's your favorite beverage Could be
alcoholic, non-alcoholic, Like.
Just what are you reaching forif you're?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
through Thursdays.
Well, these days I literallyonly drink three things, that's
it.
Regular water, tap water, youknow, still water, I should say
sparkling water, which Ipossibly have an addiction to,
and then and then tequila.
That's it.
And every now and then I mightmix sparkling water with tequila
(10:44):
and get real crazy, but that'sit.
I don't drink anything else.
I don't drink juice, I don'tdrink soda, I don't drink beer,
I don't drink any other alcohol,that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So let's, let's fast forward, and you, you've taken
this crazy drive through ajungle.
You've arrived on this beach inNicaragua that I can't
pronounce.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I won't drive.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And and you're there with your friends.
There's no one else there, butsome kind of way, even though
there's nobody else on the beach, there's tequila everywhere and
little bottles of sparklingwater that are like coming up
out of the sand and you'rewondering.
You're scratching your headlike, is this heaven?
Is this some sort of weird hell?
Like what's going on?
But you do notice that you knowyou're older, you might have a
(11:27):
few wrinkles and you'redefinitely done.
Working like work is completelyover.
What?
What if you're looking back intime, what was the last thing
you sold?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
The last thing I sold .
It would have been a consultingcontract.
You know I run my ownconsulting business right now,
so it would have been a sixfigure consulting gig.
Why six figures?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Instead of five or seven or eight or four.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, the four and five is easy to answer Easier to
answer than the why not seven?
You know I've been doing thisfor a while now and I think I've
got my niche and my, my kind ofICP and sweet spot down and I
primarily help early stage kindof series a, series B companies
(12:21):
trying to go from zero to ahundred, so to speak, and those
types of companies who've raiseda few million bucks but, you
know, haven't hit scale and someof them barely even have a
million dollars of ARR art rightnow.
They're not spending a milliondollars on me as or anyone as a
consultant.
So seven figure deals are notreally happening in my kind of
(12:45):
arena that I play in.
Why not five figures or fourfigures?
You know I've worked a long timeprior to even being a
consultant to learn theknowledge and effectiveness to
get stuff done to help people.
So that's just where I havevalued my time and my work and
my, my effort.
So I usually work with peoplefor about six months.
Those contracts are usually sixfigures.
(13:06):
Yeah, that would be the.
So that would be the last thingthat I sold.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
So you seem to have your, your ICP, your, your idea
of customer profile down to ascience?
Yeah, I guess it's a science?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I don't really think of it that way necessarily.
But I, you know, I, when you'refirst getting started, I think a
lot of people just say yes toanybody who's willing to pay
them Right, and then you startto realize, well, I maybe can't
have the right to do that, well,I maybe can't have the right
kind of impact with this type ofclient, or this type of client
(13:47):
is actually problematic for meand I don't like dealing with
them and they, I don't know,they can't do what I'm asking
them to do or they have a highprobability of going under and
therefore they don't pay me orthey don't pay me on time, all
this kind of stuff.
So you, you, you realize, like,you know, who maybe do I not
want to work with because Idon't think it's going to be a
(14:09):
good experience for me, and whodo I maybe not want to work with
because maybe I can't deliverthe best experience for them?
And you know, for me I try toget kind of tighter and tighter
with what I think is my idealcustomer profile where they'll
treat me well and I'll be ableto deliver, you know, kind of
maximum impact for them.
And I try to get, you know asmany of those as I can and avoid
(14:33):
the others.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
For this fictitious last sale.
Apart from the deal size, what?
What do you envision or imaginethat customer being like?
And you know, the last customerthat you consult?
What is that experience like ifyou were to think about it?
What would be the nice, thenice last sale, the nice, last
consulting before you?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean the big dream is they go off and have a
liquidity event of some kind.
You know they grow and scaleand get acquired or get
profitable and IPO or somethinglike that.
I mean those are the big winsfor me.
I think I've worked withsomewhere between 100 and 200
(15:18):
different companies in the lastcouple of years and I'm over a
dozen exits of those companies.
So you know I'm shooting around, I don't know, for simplicity
let's call it 10%.
So one out of every 10companies that I've worked with
the last couple of years insideof the last few years has had an
exit.
So hopefully more more to come,but that's that would be my.
(15:41):
My hope would be this group thatI'm working with now.
You know we're able to put theright systems and processes in
place, get the right people inthere and kind of tee them up
for success.
And then you know they run withit the rest of the way, they
run the last mile, so to speak.
And, and you know it's just agood success story you know
(16:02):
Scottcom went on to, you know,sell for a billion dollars or
whatever.
Those, those kind of successstories, those, those are the
wins that that feel really good,feels like everybody benefited,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It does, it does.
And 10% is about about thegoing right right Of success in
in the startup or early stage.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I don't know.
10% feels pretty high to me.
It does.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
It sounds, sounds good it sounds really good.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, I think.
I don't know the number anymore, but I remember it being very
small.
It is yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It is very small.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, I don't know the number of time I had either
10% is the percentage of minorleague baseball players that
make it to the major leagueswhen they sign a contract.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, there you go, I'm at the very least.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I'm like a AAA middle reliever, oh you get the AAA,
you get a double A, you have a33% chance.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Oh, okay, so 10% is single A, that's signing rookie
ball.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You sign a contract to go to rookie ball.
You have a 10% shot.
You get the double A, you get a33%.
Well, I'm in rookie ball, butit's still tough odds out there,
no matter how you cut it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Whatever they are, I don't think the math for
startups is the same as forbaseball, so I'm going to give
myself a little bit more credit.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So, um, and before that, I saw last night after the
, after the Super Bowl andeverything, that Corey Kluber
announced his retirement.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Really.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You got a really good story about that that we might
get into here in seconds.
But going along those lines,scott.
When was your first scut?
So?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
My first sale Well, my first sale in this kind of
you know, technology, saasservices type industry, that
would be 2004.
Probably would have been Augustof 2004.
So roughly 20 years ago or so,my first sale of anything was
(18:15):
probably like baseball cardswhen I was a little kid, you
know, selling cards to the shopor or to friends, that type of
thing.
Oh, that would have probablybeen in like 1982, something
like that Any notable baseballcard sales.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh, man, like make a man or rookie or something like
that.
No none of the like historicalstuff.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
You know, my, my grandfather grew up in in Italy
and then moved to New York andhe was a big like Brooklyn
Dodgers fan back in the day.
Anyway, he had, as he used tocall it, you know, garbage bags
of like old baseball cards fromthe, from bubblegum packs and
(19:02):
stuff like that right and fromfrom that era, and when they
moved to California from Buffalo, my grandmother God bless her
soul threw it all out and mygrandfather never, never,
forgave her for it and neverneglected to tell us the story
(19:22):
of, you know, all these cardsthat he thought that he he had
that were quote probably worthsomething, something.
Yeah, for context, some ofthese cards are probably worth,
you know, five to six figures atthis point in time.
Uh, if they were in any goodcondition.
But, yeah, my, my grandmotherchucked it, didn't deem it
(19:45):
necessary to, uh, make thecross-country move.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Little little.
Did she know that there was aseason sales professional right
there who could have?
Yeah, those cards.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I could have repurposed that stuff and uh,
raised my own series a you knowyou could have.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You could have it's good experience trading and
selling and buying and sellingbaseball cards.
Growing up, I I did the samething.
I.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I, you certainly don't think about it.
At least I didn't think aboutit back then.
I didn't grow up in a family,you know, full of business
people or sales people oranything like that.
So there was there was nocoaching or nobody telling me
You're gonna, this skill isgonna serve you later in life.
But you know, you look back onand you're like, okay, I was
negotiating, there was somethingof value that I was trying to
(20:31):
present in exchange for thisother thing of value.
And you know, it's a yeah.
The things that you did whenyou were little and I was never
one of those people that hadlike a lemonade stand or you
know door, knocked theneighborhood, running my own
grass, cutting business.
I didn't do any of that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So that that baseball card selling stuff is as close
as I must have got to Practicingsales skills as a, as a youth
that's awesome Thinking backthrough your career, what was
the most difficult or thehardest sales cycle and you
(21:10):
don't have to share like all thespecifics, but is there one
sale cycle or one sale that youthink back to and you're like,
wow, that was Much moredifficult than I thought it was
going to be?
Um, is there anything thatsticks out in that?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
in that regard, um, I don't know about more difficult
than I expected.
But you know, we I did aseven-figure deal with with my
team, with the state governmentof Iowa years ago and it was
just kind of a good reminder ofhow slow moving certain
(21:48):
industries are, how much redtape there is, how everybody can
kind of Agree that there's aproblem and want to change this
thing, but nobody's willing tostick their neck out To get it
done and be the fall guy, if youknow, if it goes wrong, or
something like that.
So I'm not really built forthat kind of world.
(22:13):
I couldn't do that.
Only I need positivereinforcement.
So, said differently, I'm notthe guy who's going to go home
happy if I close one mega deal ayear.
That's not for me.
I can't imagine coming home.
You know, if we were allroommates and I'd come home and
one day out of 365 days I tellyou guys I closed the fucking
(22:35):
deal today.
I can't do it.
It's 364 other days.
What am I supposed to say?
Oh, we pushed that deal forwardfrom stage eight to stage nine.
Today I got reallymulti-threaded today.
That doesn't do it for me.
I got no problem working one ofone or two of those kind of
deals, but I need, like you know, I want to go home feeling like
(22:57):
I won or lost every single day,really, every single day,
really.
You know, what did we close?
What did I, what did I Closelost today?
What did we lose?
That's, that's the kind ofstuff that always made me feel
alive.
So, you know, you get into a 18month kind of government deal
and it's just like, oh man,that's that was really difficult
(23:20):
for me.
I'm not a super patient personand, uh, I just don't.
I have a struggle with likeinefficiency and you run into
all those things in that kind ofworld right.
But it's an important, importantlesson.
Actually.
You think about it because Oneof the mistakes that I think
salespeople and and sellersoften make, especially earlier
(23:41):
in their careers they're notself-aware enough to put
themselves in the right positionto succeed and to enjoy it.
They'll be like, oh, I need toget an enterprise sales job Just
because, like somebody toldthem that that's the career path
.
But if you're a super kind ofimpatient person who needs
(24:06):
positive reinforcement every day, needs to close deals to stay
hyped up and stuff, that's thewrong arena for you.
So I spent the first part of mycareer really in like
transactional sales environmentswhere you could close deals
every single day legitimately,like even one call closes.
I sold stuff to real estateagents and brokers, automotive
(24:29):
dealerships, contractors, all ofthese kind of services type
small businesses, restaurants,bars, all this kind of stuff.
And only later in my career didI kind of start to move up into
kind of mid-market and kind ofdabbling in these larger kind of
deals and stuff like that.
(24:49):
And even then it was kind oftough for me mentally and
emotionally.
So I think people should paymore attention actually to who
they are and what type of systemis gonna suit them best.
If you move real slow, youprobably shouldn't go into a
(25:10):
transactional arena.
If you move super, super fastand you're super impatient and
you get affected when dealsdon't close right away, you
might wanna think about whetheryou should go into an enterprise
arena.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm on that scale, I'm more toward you At the
enterprise.
Sales is difficult I think it'dbe difficult to manage as well,
just because months go by.
And how do you judge if thatdeal's getting closer or not?
There's just a lot of unknownsout there.
(25:44):
But I like to wake up every dayand think that, hey, I can make
a deal today.
Yeah, I can make a deal today.
It doesn't matter, and that'sthe kind of, I guess, patience I
have too.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, I'm the weirdo introvert here, huh, that just
wants to play chess with 30minute clock, like 30 minute
moves, and drag it out and justoveranalyze everything to death
and take my time and just liveask in the ambiguity and the
unknown.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, I'm not built that way, man, I'm not built
that way, yep, yep, no.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
It reminds me of the difference when I was playing
ball, between a relief pitchingand starting, you know, and when
you're a relief pitcher, you'rein the bullpen, you're playing
games and joking and having agood time.
Phone rings.
In a matter of minutes you'rein the game Like it's just boom,
it happens, it's fast.
It could be any time.
When you're a starter, you gotfour days to think about your
(26:46):
next start.
So you're watching tape, you'restudying film, you're studying
I mean, you do all that as areliever too.
But there's all this prep timeand sometimes guys overthink it,
they overprep it and they'rebetter just getting thrown in
without having much leadway oryou know much preparation.
So yeah, that's kind of asimilar sort of dynamic I feel
(27:10):
like with baseball.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, I never thought about that before, but that
definitely resonates for me.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yep and Kevin just so you know, I did notice that
Corey Gloober retired and Scott.
So you know, when I gotreleased from minor league
baseball there was one guy onthe team whose ERA was worse
than mine and I knew it wasgonna be me or him that was
gonna get cut.
We were both having kind ofrough seasons in the California
league and I'm like I'm doingI'm a full point better than
(27:38):
this other guy, like surelythey're gonna let him go.
But I was wrong.
They let me go and the otherguy's name was Corey Gloober.
They kept him and I didn't know,you know pretty good voice, wow
, because I don't know if Iwould have been able to meet
like match that career from thatpoint forward.
That's incredible, oh my God.
(27:59):
So that was.
Yeah, I noticed that I was likethat's the end of an year, like
all the guys that I've playedagainst and with are slowly
fading out of the game at thispoint, so it's a little
bittersweet to see.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Happens to all of us.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It does.
It still stings, though, right.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yes, it does.
Especially, you know, if youhave kids and all of a sudden
they're bigger, stronger, fasterthan you and you're like what
has happened?
This is not okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Fortunately, I'm a two years older than that.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I have a one year old and a three year old.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So, yeah, you got a ways.
Mine are 16 and 14.
And is it ever ahead or on thecusp of being ahead of me on
just about every category?
At this point, tides areturning.
Yeah, it's not a good feeling,not gonna lie.
This gotta be mixed.
There's some pride there, likeoh, you know, my kids are
(29:05):
begging, grown and doing someamazing things.
But then there's a flip side ofthat pride, which is like
bruised ego, like holy shit, my16 year old, I think, is taller
than me almost.
Or my 14 year old, I can't beathim any more shooting baskets.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
There would be more three pointers than me now
There'd be mixed emotions on theflip of that too, like if they
get to be 18 and 16 and they'restill smaller and weaker and
you're just dominating themstill, like sure you're ego.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, that wouldn't feel good either, I suppose.
Yeah, True, true.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, thinking back to you know notable sales in your
career, is there a sale thatcomes to mind that was emotional
, Like your emotions got reallyheightened, or it wasn't just
normal business, but it impactedyou emotionally and it?
(30:03):
Could be, positive or negative,but is there something that
generated a stronger emotionalresponse than the normal sales
process?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
You know, the only thing I can think of is really
is my very first sale, because Igot hired with a group of I
don't know, let's call it 20.
It was like a pretty big class,but it was all at once and
brand new.
This company was a startup andthey were gonna sell to real
(30:34):
estate agents for the first time.
So we got kind of thrown intothe deep end, so to speak.
I think we had about three orfour hours of training in the
morning the very first day andthen off you go.
And I'd never sold anythingbefore my life, never had any
kind of office job like this.
And by the end of the firstweek I think I was the last guy
(30:58):
that I either had not alreadymade a sale or hadn't quit or
gotten fired already that kindof boiler room type situation,
right, and I was 27 years old.
I had just come off of beinghospitalized for four years and
before that playing soccer andbeing in grad school and stuff.
(31:20):
So I had no frame of referencefor winning, losing in a
business sense, like what'snormal, what's not.
I was just terrified, like I'mgonna get fired at any moment.
That's what I was thinking.
It's for sure gonna happen.
So when I got that very firstdeal, it was like a relief more
(31:44):
than joy, like okay, I justbought myself maybe some more
time to kind of see if I canfigure this thing out.
And then I remember a littlebit of a light bulb going on,
like well, that felt pretty goodactually when I closed that
deal.
Like that was kind of a coolfeeling.
(32:04):
I could get used to thatfeeling.
I think I would maybe want thatfeeling again, so not really,
you know, not tons of sorrow oremotion or joy, but more just
like relief, and then a littlebit of maybe hope or a spark of
ambition started of some sort,where it's like that was awesome
(32:26):
.
I need more of that.
That's really the one sale thatI feel like I've talked about
the most over the years, I thinkabout or remember the most.
You know, I still remember itwas a real estate agent in
Hawaii and it was at like 930California time on a Friday
night and I was still in theoffice because I was paranoid
(32:50):
that I was gonna get, you know,fired if I didn't get something
done.
So I'm using the time zone tomy advantage, calling Hawaii,
you know.
So it's like I still rememberthose details 20 years ago.
I can't say the same aboutother sales that I've done, so
that would be the one.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Does it feel like?
Maybe I'm taking a stab here,but it's almost like it was a
sign of affirmation, right, thatyou could do this.
You could be successful here.
Maybe there was some sort ofdoubt there.
You know you're worried aboutgetting out.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, there definitely was doubt prior to
that.
For sure, I don't think it was.
It wasn't affirmation in thesense of like oh, now I'm
confirming, I know I can do thisnow, or let me show those
people I know what I'm doing.
Because it was like this relief, like okay, I got one, thank
(33:43):
God I did that one, but more oflike affirmation of hope, like I
might be able to do this, maybeI'll figure this out, maybe
I'll get good at this right, andjust creating that.
(34:03):
And that was enough to kind ofget me hooked, to want that
feeling again.
And so I learned a few thingsand you know, one of the things
was I'm not as good as everybodyelse because I've never done
this before.
So, just like in sports, as youprobably know, you're not as
good as somebody.
What do you have to do?
You have to outwork people orcompete harder, want it more
(34:27):
right.
So you know, I kind of lookedaround the room and I'm like,
well, I'm the only one here onFriday night at 9.30, I'm 27
years old.
A lot of 27 year olds are doingsomething different on Friday
night at 9.30.
And that I kind of just pausedand thought you know, the only
(34:49):
reason that probably happened isbecause I was willing to
outwork people and outwork myboss.
You know he can't fire me ifI'm still in the office at 9.30
working, can't be mad, right.
And so I just kind of decidedthat that's what I was gonna do
and I kind of changed myapproach a little bit.
And you know it's not verypopular to say nowadays, but
(35:13):
like I was the first guy in theoffice to the obsessive point
where if somebody beat me oneday I moved my arrival time back
15 minutes earlier and it waslike no way.
Mentally I was like looking foran advantage and I started
doing the same thing at night,because I'm not letting Richie
leave, you know, after me I'lljust sit there and pretend to
(35:36):
work.
Even I just mentally need thisadvantage, you know.
And then I did something thatended up being really good for
me and a couple of folks.
But I had a couple buddies thatI had kind of made at work and
they were of the same age andsame kind of mindset, you know.
First kind of corporate salesjob and I started telling them,
(35:58):
you know, like hey, real estateagents and brokers work every
weekend.
Man, like we're stupid for notworking on the weekend, like I
know you don't wanna go to theoffice, but you know what, if we
go to the office from like 10am to one pm, like every
Saturday, religiously, you know,three extra hours, 12 hours
(36:19):
extra a month, minimum, right.
And then let's go surfafterwards and grab a drink and,
you know, get some food andkind of make a routine out of it
.
So none of that would havehappened without that first deal
, kind of arriving in the mannerin which it showed up for me
and me kind of paying attentionand leaning into that and saying
(36:42):
, well, I guess I have to dothese kinds of things in order
to get good.
And you know, luckily for me itworked.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Scott, just out of curiosity, how much was that
first deal worth?
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Oh, God 3 to 5k probably yeah nothing, yeah,
yeah nothing.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So I mean it kind of goes back to you know your most
memorable cells, the, the, the,the ones that really impact you
the most.
The dollar matter dollar, yeah,I mean doesn't matter, right
it's.
It's about what you can do,what, what, what doors that
opens for you, right?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah and in and the, the Ability to allow that,
to adjust and change yourentire Mentality.
No, how you think your mindsetRight.
Yeah, I know, cuz I assure youin those first five days that I
was selling, I wasn't Thinkingabout Outwork somebody or where
(37:41):
can I?
Where can I get an advantage?
Where can I squeeze 12 extrahours of of a work month?
Nobody was teaching me that.
I wasn't.
There was no podcast back then.
So it's not like I'm listeningto somebody tell me this kind of
stuff, right.
But that one deal which wasagain, I think it was like $300
(38:01):
a month for like six to twelvemonth contracts somewhere in
there.
It's like nothing right but the, but winning.
That had an impact on me and howI looked at things and thought
about things and the effort Igave and I restructured, you
know, a lot of my life to Leaninto that and try to turn this
(38:23):
into a career that would be, youknow, long lasting and have a
future.
And I Wasn't looking at it interms of like I'm gonna make
millions of dollars off of thisone day.
I was just like, okay, I haveto do this if I want to keep my
job and just be a you know, keepmy, keep paying the rent and
(38:48):
keep food on my plate and thatkind of stuff like this is what
it's gonna take.
And then you know all thosesuccesses kind of compound and
you start reaching new levels ofinsight in terms of mindset,
approach.
What's possible?
Now I'm not closing one deal.
I'm like how do I close onedeal every day?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
You know, and then you prove you can do that in
that kind of arena You're like Iwonder if I could close two or
three every day.
Can I close 60 deals in a month?
This shit was like thought tobe impossible at the time.
You know, and then all of asudden you're finding ways to do
it and people are like how'dthat happen?
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Oh, what I love about this is, you know, you know,
having been a lifelongCompetitor of sorts whether it's
baseball or racing, mountainbikes or sales or whatever I'm
fascinated by underdogs andunderdog stories and this whole
underdog mindset and this growthmindset.
And like listening to you Tellthat story about landing that
(39:47):
one sale.
And it wasn't so much Affirmingthat, haha, have arrived on my
success, but it was moreaffirming that you're not a
definitive like a new, you'renot a definite failure.
At that point there's hope, andso now you're.
It's what I'm hearing from youis like You're in this mental
place of curiosity About what'spossible, what's next, what?
(40:11):
What can I do?
I don't.
I feel like I'm not as good asthe rest of the team, but I
cannot.
Can I figure out a way tooperate in this space?
And what's possible if I justgive it my all, knowing that
what's the worst that couldhappen at this point?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, you're trying to find your, your home in the
team, or your role maybe in theteam.
You know, first it's like, okay, maybe I, maybe I do belong
here.
And then it becomes how can IStick and be here, you know, for
a long term.
(40:45):
And then it's like, okay,here's my role.
You know this rule of maybe I'm, maybe I'm a little too good
for this role, maybe there's abigger role, you know, for me
you just keep, you know, goingfrom there right and I and I
think having that kind ofOutlook, I'm trying to find what
can I do differently here, howcan I optimize this, what can I
(41:09):
do better at that?
I Think I've tried to keep thatKind of mentality for the last
20 years and looking at all thethings that I'm, that I'm doing,
you know, not necessarily witha mindset.
Today, at 46 years old, of youknow how do I work 9,000 extra
(41:29):
hours over everybody else, butthat flips from 27 to 47 and now
almost 47.
It's like, how do I continue toearn what I've been earning
while working less, not more?
And it's at the differentperspective I wasn't trying to
think that way at 27 Was like Igot the time and energy, I got a
(41:51):
put in the hours.
But now I'm like I Don't wantto be in the office for 12 hours
.
I'm not being the office at 930 at night on a Friday, like
that's not what I want to do.
But how do I succeed stillWithout putting in those those
kind of hours, right?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
The commonality there is, impact right, like whether
you were 27 wanting to burn allthe hours first and last out, or
today Wanting to be moremindful of how you're using your
time.
It seems like you're stilltrying to maximize the impact
you can have.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
I Think I'm trying to maximize the impact I'm not
just on myself, but on others aswell.
You know that could be clients,that could be colleagues, that
could be loved ones, and thenimpact on myself more.
(42:45):
Personal stuff is like Could bemy actual income, could be the
Actual number of days and hoursI work, could be my ability to
do certain things like Take thatvacation, or, you know, by this
house or something like that,or, and then just the feeling
(43:06):
and the emotion of you know, nolonger trying to prove
necessarily that you're asuccess, but get comfortable
with the fact that you are asuccess.
Try to find ways and not beatyourself up and feel like a
failure if you didn't do betterthan yesterday, every single day
.
You know.
(43:28):
I don't know if these arethings that just come with age
and experience and everybodygoes through them, or or they're
Any way, shape or form unique.
I would imagine they're notthat unique, but my first time
through this that I'm aware of.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
So I Don't think it's .
I think it's a naturalregression, right, so you spend
your early days you know, doingthose Blame the foundation,
getting that, that, what?
10 to 10,000 hours to become anexpert at something, and
oftentimes you have to do itthree or four times and being be
kind of an expert at, or pro it, two or three different things
(44:08):
to be able to Then flip theswitch once you get into your,
your 40s, and be able to makethe same amount of impact for
yourself and others While doingless, because that foundation is
already there, so there's lesswork to be done each time.
Make a scaling Would be part ofit, as part of the thought
(44:28):
process as well.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
I think that's you got more work to do in other
areas of your life, depending onhow your life went, but you
know you got Partner.
You know relationships.
You've got parenting stuff,duties, you know.
I mean, I don't know about yougot.
You're not there yet, but youwill be.
(44:51):
But you know, my kids haveSoccer practice, basketball
practice, track practice, bandpractice.
They used to have baseballpractice on top of everything
else.
It's like I'm doing something.
I'm like an Uber driver from430 to 10 pm Every night.
You know I Can't be working,even if I want to.
(45:11):
Right, and that's the season oflife that Some of us, you know,
go through, chose to go through, and you have to adjust, you
know.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yeah, well, let's, let's finish off with the
funniest cell, Though, the onethat that really strikes your
funny bone, your funniest cellthat you ever done that you
really enjoy looking back on thefirst thing that comes to my
mind is I close a deal one timea hundred percent over email,
(45:45):
and this is 2004 or 2005, maybe.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
So before it was like fashionable, you know, before
there was some 23 year oldTikToker saying all you have to
do is email people to closedeals.
Yeah, I was.
You know, it was like Outlookwas probably the email tool and
I got some email requests forinformation or whatever and I
(46:13):
just started responding back andasking like one question and
there must have been like 47emails flying around and at one
point I remember thinking itfeels like this person is
actually getting serious to thepoint where they might buy
something.
You know, and the environmentthat I came from it was you have
to close a deal on the phone,you have to talk to somebody.
(46:36):
It's stupid to just, you know,fax somebody over an agreement
and expect it to get signed andfaxed back, Cause, yes, we had
to use fax machines in order toclose deals back then.
But the person eventually waslike you know, send me over the
agreement so I can take a lookat it.
I said, fuck it, fill out theagreement, I'm gonna fax this
(46:59):
thing.
I've never talked to thisperson before Same type of same
product that I was selling asthe story, by the way, with my
first deal.
And sure enough, they signed itand it came back like three or
four X bigger than my first deal.
So it was like a pretty decentsize deal for that sale and what
(47:19):
our normal average contractvalue was and I just kind of was
laughing.
I still kind of laughed to thisday Like how is that possible,
you know.
But it's kind of that personwas a kudos to them.
They were ahead of the game.
They wanted to buy somethingwithout talking to a salesperson
way before.
That was the norm.
That never happened in that job, ever again.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Total like rarity for me at that time it was a good
deal deal that stuck and didn'thave any problems with it down
the line, Not that I rememberthat's good.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Maybe I blacked that part out, I don't know.
I don't remember anything badhappening.
I remember back in like yeah,2004, 2005,.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
You know, I mean like email really didn't, didn't
start doing deals until just afew years ago, maybe like 10
years ago.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
You know what that funny deal did teach me, though?
It did teach me that emailingpeople worked.
And so back then this is likebefore spam laws existed, these
real estate websites if you wentto real estate websites, if you
clicked on the person's emailaddress, which was, on the main,
(48:37):
like homepage on real-addedcomor whatever you would like, auto
populate and outlook message,and so I've, like, made my
signature file some template,you know, prospecting email and
I had this whole rhythm whereit'd be like copy paste, alt
send, just with my fingers, I'mlike clicking, and it was this
(49:00):
whole rhythmic thing, and Iwould just sit there at night
watching you know games orwhatever.
I would just send off hundredsof emails at that time and
people would, you know, writeback, buzz off, unsubscribe, but
then I'd get all these actualpositive messages back.
So you know, I guess I wasemail prospecting before.
(49:22):
That was really a thing.
The original cadence, yeah well,also known as spam, but it
worked.
But it worked back then therewasn't that many people doing it
.
It was a brief moment in time,you know, less than a year
probably where it was gloriousand people like me ended up
(49:46):
ruining it, probably foreverybody after that.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Scott, thanks for your time and joining us today.
Like where can our listenersfind you?
Where can they go and learnmore about what you do?
And find you in the internet.
Not that they're wanting yourspam, but if they're actually.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Yeah, those days are gone.
You won't get that anymore.
You know, I run my ownconsulting business, like I said
, working with primarily likeseries A, series B companies at
scottlesconsultingcom, and I doa lot of other things.
Got a couple other businesses,communities that I run, events
that I run.
Best place to learn about thatstuff and message me is just go
(50:27):
to LinkedIn and shoot me a DM orconnection requests.
I respond to every single oneof those that I see that isn't
spammy, so hope to hear fromanybody out there who wants to
have a chat about something.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Awesome.
Any last words of wisdom beforewe depart.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Thank God football season's over, because I need a
break from the pain.
I need about eight months torecover and then come August,
you know, I'll be feeling realoptimistic again, like an idiot,
delusional optimistic idiot.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Optimism is often a good thing, you just keep coming
back.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Keeps us coming back.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah, thanks again for your time, scott.
Okay, guys, cheers, cheers.
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