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Guest Podcast: How to Sell Anything to Anyone (The Wealthy Way) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  That's VA and TA dot com slash Scott for a thousand dollars off today you're going to hear me on the wealthy way podcast with Ryan Pineda make sure you subscribe on YouTube or go listen wherever you get your podcast.
• 2:05
  You know get coached on real estate or whatever the case is or invest with you they're usually going to pick the person that they trust and it's usually because you you guys share commonality in some way.
• 2:35
  And today we are going to talk about how you can sell any product how to package it and get people to buy I've got Scott Clary what's up man is going on thanks for having me man yeah so dude you are in a different field than a lot of people who probably listen to this right a lot of these guys are real estate people or B to see people very few are actually true B to be enterprise level entrepreneurs and so I know you got a ton of experience in that space and that's where I lived.
• 3:02
  So my life until I started my show yeah and even for me like all of my marketing is always B to see so whenever we have to do something B to be I'm kind of like you know I kind of know how to do it but I'm not like the most experienced in it so I find it so much easier yeah talk about that I find it so much easier than B to see.
• 3:21
  So my background is in tech so whether or not I mean I started my career in sales and then I moved to sales leadership and I managed a team and then I was managing sales and marketing and this is through variety of different companies I've worked in very large or the first company I ever worked for was Bell Canada which is like a Verizon AT&T so we're talking companies that are like thousands of thousands of billions yeah and then I moved to a smaller company that was eventually acquired by private equity which is also B to be.
• 3:51
  And then I built a company that was an older company that I joined help them move into the B to be space which eventually led to an exit and acquisition which is great but for B to be it's the process is something that I think you can take into the B to see space quite easily it doesn't really matter even if even forget B to see just talk about like even content like who are you targeting with your content like who's the avatar of the person that you're targeting with your content like who are they what do they do for a living.
• 4:21
  Why should they care about what you put out into the world same with the B to see product so the take go ahead or you're going to say something no so it's often the take to market for B to be is you have to figure out who that person is the ideal customer profile and this will apply to any business and the ideal customer profile in a B to be sense is what industry is this company and what size is this company.
• 4:49
  What's their tech stack what's the revenue what's their head count what's their geographic location that's an ideal customer profile and then within that ideal customer profile then you have a buyer persona who is the person who's actually buying this product or services CMO CTO CFO CHRO and what level are they at how big is their team what do they care about what do they need to make sure.
• 5:13
  Doesn't happen if they buy this product and what do they need to make sure does and I think that when you identify those two things it starts to really.
• 5:20
  What it helps you do in sales is you not just want to just qualify you want to disqualify you want to not waste your time on speaking with people that are not going to buy your product or service right and what this allows you to do is it allows you to disqualify a whole bunch of people and then qualify the right people that you're going to spend your time speaking with and this is just going to make any take to market any sale strategy just way more
• 5:42
  efficient so that's what I spend most of my life doing so got it so it's interesting because to me like B2B sales it seems like mostly are outbound long cycle relationship based because like for me everything's B2C so I can just run Facebook ads start making social media post send out emails text campaigns and it's like bam you know we're going to get traffic
• 6:09
  where is yours seems a lot more strategic on the marketing side to go follow these people yeah by the way all all sales includes inbound and outbound yep so what is inbound inbound is content inbound is blogs inbound is YouTube inbound is a podcast talks about stuff that the buyer cares about that's all content that's all attracting people towards me yeah and then you combine that with outbound outbound is all calling hold emailing it could be linked in DM the linked in DMs all that but
• 6:39
  you say that enterprise is not enterprise is out but it's not just outbound because the 70% in any industry 70 to 80% of the buying decision is made before they even engage with your brand in a formal capacity so what that means is there even if they see an ad from your company they're going to your social they're going to your website they're going to your Twitter feed they're going to look up the founder who's done podcasts and they're consuming consuming consuming so 70 to 80% of their decision making has already been done before they even again
• 7:07
  go to your cart and add a product and then get hit with like a retargeting email trying to get them to check out or jumping on a phone with you so most of most of b2b still includes a lot of content marketing got a lot of education and a lot of trust building before they engage with you that's interesting you still have the consumers very smart we underestimate how smart the consumer is in enterprise sales on average to take seven to 15 different touch points that somebody will say enterprise I mean b2b yep
• 7:37
  seven to 15 different touch points is someone's going to have to have with your brand before they feel comfortable enough to buy so seven to 15 touch points can include content it can include tweets it can include a white paper include case study it can include a phone call it can include an email it can include all these different things that increase trust so the point is whether or not your b2b or b2c you still have to understand who the person is what are the things that they're trying to solve for what is the friction of the the reason why they won't buy what is it
• 8:07
  the pain point that you can solve for with your product that will actually let them buy and then structure all the stuff that you put out into the world online any sort of communication interaction you have with them you structure it that it ties into these core ideas that they can do that 70 to 80% of research before they go and check out they can do the they can experience 10 different touch points across all these different mediums before they go and check out right so I don't think it's that different
• 8:33
  yeah so for me if I wanted to launch a b2b product yeah I mean I already have all the content and everything else yeah so at that point is just like I guess the way I think of outbound is like well I already have all that so now I just need to go find my buyers and probably I can't probably run Facebook ads to the CRO and into these people right no because also keep in mind you're selling a b2b product there's there's usually more than one person that makes a buying decision right so you have what's called a
• 9:03
  tactic called multi-threading this is a b2b tactic what multi-threading is is you identify the person is going to buy the product the decision maker but then you also identify all the decision influencers yeah so the decision maker could be the CTO but you know that somebody from finance is going to have to sign off on this and maybe the product also impacts the marketing department so you're going to have to get some manager or director for marketing on the call to talk about and understand it so you have multiple more you have many decision makers
• 9:33
  you have a longer buying cycle but you should still understand that the core components of finding that decision maker in that proper ICP with the right buyer persona that is that is sort of like universal business yeah so even if you're direct a consumer or or B2C you only have you only have that you know now one person who's a decision maker but the the thesis on that you generate around who that person is and the problems that they have in their life it shouldn't be that different they should still be a certain
• 10:03
  income level certain demographic certain psychographic like these things all still play into a B2C product just a lot of people don't care about them that much so ends up happening is can you achieve success without caring about all this shit yes you can but it's it's going to cost you a lot more money it's going to take you a lot more time to figure out what works and what doesn't
• 10:22
  whereas I'm saying if you spend a little bit of time researching and and on a Google doc writing out the key characteristics of this person before you even run your first asset you will have a smarter thesis and a smarter idea going into that right that makes sense so
• 10:38
  on your your most recent exit you know you said that you came in and essentially you repackaged the product yeah that was the first thing you did because they just weren't
• 10:50
  packaged properly and use a guy coming from big massive companies that have sold billions like you've probably been trained a lot on packaging and how important it is and who's going to buy what package and you know I've talked a lot
• 11:02
  in our normal business clients about offer right I mean that's what we call it and man there's so much that goes into making a great offer and your offer stack and your different price points and you know who does what so talk a little bit about how you look at packaging you know a product
• 11:22
  well it starts with what we just spoke about so it starts about it starts with who's the ICP who's buying this who's buying this yep and what's the pain point that it's actually solving for so the product that we built it was basically if you look at a news control
• 11:38
  you have all these different options to switch between camera one and camera two and you can do graphic overlays and you can switch audio and you can do all these different switching tasks in a news control room so what the product was it was taking all of that and it was putting into the cloud so we could do this live switching kind of like I mean people are very aware of like a stream yard yeah for example so kind of like that for enterprise B to be so we understood that people wanted to be but first of all COVID happened to which was a huge market shift yeah everyone's working remotely so now there's way more you
• 12:08
  to great time for this kind of business yep so first of all the ICP is is the ICP is somebody who is in a broadcast company who needs to figure out how to work remotely and has all these problems getting their team to figure out how to do a live broadcast from their homes all over all over the US so identify the ICP
• 12:29
  and then the by and then obviously we want to set the price point appropriately so we understand what these companies are already budgeting for production so we can we can price it out reasonably at between 20 to $40,000 per seat quite comfortably and also because our ICP our companies over a certain revenue threshold as well so we put all this effort into figuring out the problem that's that they're dealing with right now the size of the company and then who's the person within the company we actually want to reach out to which is the buyer persona and the offer is solving
• 12:59
  a pain point not just not just a vitamin but a painkiller a true painkiller for a problem that they're dealing with right now which is we're all remote we can't go into the office we can't figure out how to put together a news broadcast that's the problem we're actually solving for that is a true pain point
• 13:13
  and then once you bundle it up and you benchmark the price against the size of the company that's how you start to formulate an offer that's what we did because we were all over the place with our offer before that we were targeting all kinds of different customers that so
• 13:28
  so it was more so getting crystal clear on the marketing side yeah you know like hey who are we going after yeah all of this I tell people that too and I don't know how this relates to
• 13:38
  well by the way we reverse engineer the problem right so what a lot of entrepreneurs end up doing especially inexperienced entrepreneurs is they assume that there's a problem that doesn't exist yeah so we had to we had to get first of all you have to get feedback from the people that's actually your customer is a true problem yep so we spoke to lots of
• 13:57
  people that were that were in production and directors of news broadcast and they could be the decision maker for actual product and seeing like would they actually use this and then when they would say yes we'd use it if it had this feature set we would build out that feature set for that particular use case yeah that makes sense I
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  it's very simple when you say it like that but not many people actually do that yeah I've always taught there's four p's to marketing and you know they can go in order depending on where you're at but like let's assume your product is good
• 14:27
  okay and actually does address a real problem in the marketplace right so I always say okay let's first start with your product hey you know obviously we got to lead them to something with your marketing that's the end goal they buy this product okay great second thing is who's the person buying this product all right same thing like what's their customer profile who who are they how old are they what's their demographic how much income they got like you know who's buying this because we're not you know you can't go after two different demographics like let's go after the main demographic with this
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  specific product the next thing becomes what are the problems they have and you know obviously the product solves the problem but I think about problem or so for content you know so this is the marketing for
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  p's right so it's like how do I figure out what problems they have so I can make content around that and start just calling out the problems because those people will start watching and then the fourth p would be platform okay now where am I posting this content what
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  platform is this person on you know in the B2B or the B2C world you know that probably is going to be like Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and you know probably not as much LinkedIn and B2C
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  B2B is all B2B I mean B2B can be anywhere yeah exactly linked in yeah and then you have to make sure that you're tying because in B2B you're doing a lot of outbound right so you are you are identifying that decision maker you're sending them messages on LinkedIn you're sending your
• 15:50
  cold emailing them and you're making sure that when they see that cold email the content that you're posting on LinkedIn or the content that you're
• 15:56
  posting on YouTube ties that together correct yeah that's how I thought about marketing for everything we've done I mean B2B and B2C is not so different no it's just more so the because I
• 16:08
  don't do any outbound at all like we don't do cold anything everything is like yo inbound come to us we'll work it now I think we can make a lot
• 16:18
  more money building an outbound machine but there's just ways you're to just spend make another YouTube video or you know run some
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  or Facebook ads I do I do believe that when you when you're selling anything to anyone there's unlimited ways to do this right there's not
• 16:35
  like one way yes so you can figure out what is the highest return on this what activity generates the highest return and that's
• 16:43
  what you that's what you focus on and then when you get you know maybe that one activity gets you to a million dollars yeah and then once
• 16:49
  you have a million dollars remember you know you can reinvest and you can test out some new shit yep and you keep that process going
• 16:54
  it's a very iterative process to the point where if you are a hundred million dollar organization then you're just doing
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  everything anyways there's some things that you're definitely focusing on but you're just trying everything you try
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  to optimize everything so I think that you don't look at a company that's worth a hundred million dollars and say well
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  they're doing everything so let's emulate that yeah focus on what drives the needle and actually actually
• 17:13
  closes deals at the beginning I've always found that for higher ticket more expensive items a human touch is very important yeah
• 17:20
  and enterprise like I just told you how much a seat was 20 grand yeah and then if there's so we have to actually be
• 17:26
  talking to people be helping them under because then there's like also things in enterprise like there's there's friction to
• 17:31
  close a deal if they feel like the text that's going to screw with their existing processes and they're worried about
• 17:38
  security risk or they're worried about uptime like these are things that just stress decision makers out so how do you
• 17:44
  mitigate those a little bit of a little bit of content marketing a little bit of you know educating with all the stuff
• 17:49
  you post on LinkedIn or on YouTube or anywhere else but it's also going to happen on a phone call yeah that makes sense so
• 17:56
  you've worked at you know multi-billion dollar companies and also you know worked at startups like tell me about the
• 18:04
  differences you see from maybe a 10 million dollar company and a hundred million dollar company so 10
• 18:11
  million dollars 50 employees I think when companies start to break because to get to that point you can
• 18:16
  actually still have a founder and charge of most of it yeah but that's when you have to really focus on SOP
• 18:21
  systems processes um large companies have they have over indexed on systems and processes and there's a
• 18:29
  there's a system for absolutely everything almost to a fault sometimes because you say over index you're
• 18:35
  saying it's just extreme it's extreme it's it's this is why this is why large companies can get disrupted
• 18:41
  because they move slow got it and they move slow because there's so much red tape so this is why a startup has
• 18:47
  an advantage because they can move very fast so I mean there's there's benefits and drawbacks to either
• 18:53
  right yeah and a large company you will have all this support and if you want to go work at a large
• 19:00
  company um it's great for a career but it's really just going to let you do the one job that you're
• 19:05
  hired to do and there's going to be a million people supporting that one job if you work in a startup
• 19:10
  you're going to move fast you're going to break shit you have to wear multiple hats as you know yep
• 19:13
  but it'll expose you to more it'll it'll it'll it'll be the best school MBA you're ever going to go
• 19:20
  through um and then you'll have to get to a point where you understand that in this in this startup
• 19:25
  whether or not it's yours or someone else's yeah you have to build systems and processes around it
• 19:29
  so that you don't just have this very high-paying job but you actually built an actual company
• 19:33
  hmm now what about the people who are at maybe they're just thinking about starting a new business
• 19:38
  right i mean we're talking about product package um and you know one thing you brought up that
• 19:43
  i've seen people make a mistake on a lot is assuming there's a problem when there's actually not
• 19:48
  a problem they're solving they're like oh this is a problem for me everyone else must have this
• 19:52
  problem and i'm like you're the only one who thinks this is a problem so i have an interesting
• 19:58
  thought on that so if you look at if you look at the traditional sort of failure rates of entrepreneurs
• 20:05
  it's what 99% whatever it's high it's very high why is that it's because people people think
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  entrepreneurship is you know stand for dropout go build the next thing go build the next
• 20:15
  Facebook apple whatever um you know quit your job go all in at a very young age and and hopefully
• 20:23
  you'll be successful in my mind that's not the best version of entrepreneurship the best version
• 20:28
  of entrepreneurship leads to the highest success rates the best version of entrepreneur entrepreneurship
• 20:32
  you work in a company for say 10-15 years and you live in this industry and you live in this
• 20:39
  industry every single day for 15 years and then what happens after that is you start to identify
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  problems with this industry that only you can identify because you've been the only you have this
• 20:51
  unique experience living in this industry for such a long period of time and then you then you
• 20:55
  start to build a company to solve that pain point that you know exists that you're so uniquely
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  qualified to solve and that's when I see high success rates it's not it's not just hoping and
• 21:04
  praying that something's going to work hey you have this problem you have no background or why
• 21:08
  they know yeah so so find a and there's there's other ways you can become an entrepreneur too
• 21:13
  you can solve a problem in your own life that's also useful yeah so if you find something that's
• 21:18
  frustrating you about your day-to-day and you and you that's probably going to be more rare
• 21:23
  I would say that's more rare and I think that I think that it's going to be very difficult to
• 21:26
  scale something like that successfully I think that when you already have an established industry
• 21:32
  and then you you identify a problem with an established industry is a very high likelihood you're
• 21:36
  going to be successful yeah another sort of measure of what not not measure what's the word I'm
• 21:42
  looking for another strategy to build something is to go into a legacy industry industry that's been
• 21:49
  around for a long time with a very low customer satisfaction rating and build build something that
• 21:55
  innovates or disrupts or reduces friction in that into like in that industry so this is what
• 22:01
  I mean Uber did the taxis is what Airbnb did to hotels like these were not industries with
• 22:06
  great reputation yeah so you build something that reduces friction makes it easier for the consumer
• 22:11
  that's also a way to build but I would say that that's still going to be difficult for most people
• 22:16
  yeah and I think what you're describing too is people who are really looking to build something
• 22:22
  that could be big right because well I also yes to that point I also don't think that many people
• 22:27
  should be trying to build something that's my point right like because I've taught a lot of people
• 22:30
  how to become entrepreneurs just by flipping houses yeah now we're not like this isn't rocket science
• 22:35
  this isn't some new problem like clearly people need to sell their homes fast and homes are beat up
• 22:40
  and they need to get fixed up you know here you go it's kind of like a franchise in a way you know
• 22:45
  you don't have to put my name on it and pay us all these royalties but you know we're going to
• 22:49
  teach our system of finding houses getting them you know fixed up and sold I think actual
• 22:55
  franchise is another one right it's like well you know what I'm not going to reinvent the wheel I'll
• 22:58
  just go get a dominoes and you know let's go this is because people see entrepreneurship on YouTube
• 23:04
  and they see it on Twitter and they see it on Instagram and they're like oh I need to build a
• 23:08
  hundred million dollar company yeah I need to be the next you know Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk
• 23:12
  no you don't first of all you don't you have to have your personal North Star yeah you have to know
• 23:16
  what you want we spoke a lot about balance yeah hanging out before you have to know what are you
• 23:20
  optimizing for like what do you want your life to look like most people don't even eat as much
• 23:24
  money as they think they do no like think about anybody who's listening to this who is you know
• 23:29
  they're on their entrepreneurial journey they are they are I am so set on building my own thing
• 23:36
  and I need to become rich as fuck and I need to I you know I look at all these people on Instagram
• 23:42
  that have like their private jets or whatever I'm like what does your ideal life look like for
• 23:45
  most people it's like we want a travel whenever we want maybe we have like a private chef and maybe
• 23:51
  even a gardener and we live in a nice home and pick a city in US it's not New York LA or Miami
• 23:58
  yeah and you can probably afford that home to you you don't actually need that much money to
• 24:02
  live the life that you really want you need probably about 20 to 30 grand a month I was gonna say
• 24:07
  more than that but I would still say I would still say that the life that most people see on Instagram
• 24:12
  they think they have to make a million dollars a month and it's just absurd it's absolutely absurd
• 24:17
  so I mean there's a lot of myths about entrepreneurship and I think that I think that you know building
• 24:24
  a billion dollar company and and people trying to solve the biggest problems in the world that
• 24:30
  is something that has to die right now because you do not need to do that to be happy yeah to be
• 24:34
  fulfilled to live a good life to live a life where you don't really have to worry about finances
• 24:39
  or expenses and that's really what most people want yeah that's really what most people want most
• 24:44
  people do not want to be a billionaire of a publicly traded on a publicly traded company have you
• 24:49
  know three x wives kids that don't speak to them being sued every day no no one really wants that
• 24:55
  yeah yeah yeah so I think that also redefining entrepreneurship is very important yeah I
• 25:01
  thought about that a lot you know if we were ever to take a company public the amount of scrutiny
• 25:09
  the amount of freedom you lose like every you know being you essentially now work for all the
• 25:16
  investors and I told you I told you was that Todd Alts conference risk on right so how we connected
• 25:23
  it was he came on my show I went on his show and we're just shooting the shit about like the
• 25:28
  problems that he deals with as somebody who has a publicly traded company that is a holding company
• 25:34
  for a whole bunch of other companies so is he very wealthy 1000% flies private is his own jet great
• 25:42
  you know what else he has he has death threats all the time yeah he has arm guards and security at
• 25:48
  the at the front of his office ongoing like lawsuits litigation all the time he has every single
• 25:56
  day he'll have a problem that will come up that for most people would make them never want to even
• 26:02
  think about the word entrepreneur and that's his daily life so I mean again what do you and he's
• 26:08
  even said I mean he was talking to me on my show about this is all stuff that he said on the show
• 26:11
  he was saying like I don't know if I do this the same way that I did it I don't know if I'd worry
• 26:17
  about publicly traded companies anymore if I if I knew the headache that went with it because it's a
• 26:22
  lot yeah so really what are you what are you optimizing for when you listen to podcasts like this and
• 26:27
  you're so ambitious and you want to go out and build something um what what life are you setting
• 26:32
  yourself up for and I don't think people think about that enough and so they then they then they
• 26:37
  adopt this in my mind a stupid version of entrepreneurship they go raise money which causes more stress
• 26:43
  on them they don't realize that money comes with stress and they try and move quick and they try
• 26:47
  and break shit great but then all of a sudden all the rest of their life starts to fall apart
• 26:52
  yeah well let's talk about that right so he went public obviously you know I don't know what's
• 26:57
  their market cap you have an idea like you know a lot probably a lot yeah he's he's got all those
• 27:03
  things like you talked about but you know he's like maybe we should have stayed private maybe we
• 27:07
  should have sold a private equity I know you guys um couple of your exits were to private equity
• 27:11
  so the first one was the private equity yep uh the second one was the grass valley which would
• 27:16
  be considered a strategic buyer okay um and I mean it makes no difference in exits and exits
• 27:21
  it's great uh but I would say that if somebody's listening to this um when you're building something
• 27:26
  and you do want to exit it at some point if that's the goal I would say optimize for a strategic
• 27:30
  buyer okay so explain the difference between the first exit in the second well private equity is uh
• 27:37
  is a fund and they have LPs and they have an investment thesis and they're looking to buy companies
• 27:42
  to fit in within that thesis so that's fine and you'll get and you can get good multiples on either
• 27:48
  of those um but traditionally I've seen strategic buyers meaning a company that is in the same
• 27:56
  industry as you and I'll give you the example of what we did so we were a software company and we
• 28:00
  sold to a hardware company got grass valley was a hardware company they're trying to modernize
• 28:05
  they're trying to first of all they could try and build software internally but they also know
• 28:08
  they can like aqua grow and aqua hire from you know there's innovative startup that's building
• 28:13
  these software solutions that fit the same ICP buyer persona as our hardware products and um I mean
• 28:21
  that's what they they they they are but they would be considered a strategic buyer and they usually
• 28:25
  pay a premium yeah because you're worth way more to them than anyone else a thousand percent
• 28:29
  a private equity you are one of many yeah and you uh you fit a thesis but you are ultimately a
• 28:34
  spreadsheet whereas with a strategic buyer you are part of their like strategy going forward a
• 28:41
  private equity they're also making bets they want every they want every acquisition to be successful
• 28:45
  but if you look at private equity or VC uh they understand that there are going to be some
• 28:49
  acquisitions or some investments that do not succeed um for grass valley when they start to acquire
• 28:55
  software they're looking at what is the future of our company going to look like and how are we
• 29:00
  going to be what what's going to be relevant in five years or 10 years so you are more I mean
• 29:07
  I don't want to say integral to the success but ideologically you could be more integral to the future
• 29:12
  of that company than the future of a private equity firm yeah that makes sense so you know you've
• 29:17
  got private equity strategic partner you know IPO right you don't always have to sell either you
• 29:24
  should know you should think about that when I started my podcast that's a business that's a content
• 29:28
  business I don't want to sell that yeah maybe you want to build a lifestyle business maybe you
• 29:33
  want to build a business where you work 10 hours a week and you hire a CEO and you pull in two
• 29:43
  three million dollars a year maybe you're happy with that so that's a lifestyle business maybe
• 29:47
  you have no interest in selling it maybe you want to you know pass it on to your kids so they have
• 29:52
  something to to build after you you know after you're you're gone so I think that understanding all
• 29:58
  these different options and understanding again what is important to you I think that's the best
• 30:04
  way to look at entrepreneurship got it so you'd speak you spoke a little bit about raising money in
• 30:10
  the headaches to come with that so for me every business I've ever started has been you know
• 30:16
  with my own money you know I mean obviously I've raised a ton of money to do real estate by the way
• 30:21
  like the real estate fund is like the same once it is a private equity fund it's the same structure
• 30:25
  yeah we're just buying paying we're buying apartments we're buying this right so obviously I've raised
• 30:30
  I mean I've I've raised over a hundred million dollars for you know private money hard money
• 30:35
  real estate stuff but in terms of like just normal business stuff I've always self-started them
• 30:39
  what do people need to know about if they're going to take on money to start a normal business not by
• 30:44
  real estate no so the difference with well with real estate I mean if you if you take on hard money
• 30:51
  or you're taking on debt then that private equity fund doesn't own any of your business right they just
• 30:56
  you pay interest to them sorry that LP doesn't own your business or that lender doesn't own your
• 31:00
  business interest to them if you are raising money for an early stage startup first of all
• 31:05
  if you raise from VC or angel understand that you're now under the clock so they are expecting a
• 31:11
  return and you have to find a way to deliver that return to them so that's going to put pressure on
• 31:16
  you they'll put a lot of pressure on you and if you raise from somebody that does not understand
• 31:21
  your industry what's called dumb money then if things don't work out there's going to be pressure
• 31:27
  and they're not going to be able to help you at all and it's just going to be anxiety inducing and
• 31:31
  it's going to force you to grow your business or make decisions faster than you may have wanted to
• 31:35
  also if you are an inexperienced entrepreneur and you do not have a good sense of what you should
• 31:41
  value your company at you're going to give up too much equity too early on which is going to hurt
• 31:45
  you later on down the road so between raising and not raising I generally recommend for most people
• 31:52
  not to raise bootstrap is you know that's what you did because what it allows you to it allows you
• 31:56
  to build your business the way that you want to build it it allows you to make sure that
• 32:02
  the decisions that you make like I mentioned there are decisions that you actually
• 32:06
  want to make yeah you maintain control and you can move out of pace that is optimal for you yeah
• 32:12
  I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's episode now cornbread
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  and use code success at checkout that's cornbread ham dot com slash success code success for 30% off
• 33:18
  your first order of these amazing dummies if you it's like my events if I want to you know
• 33:23
  have a worship service in the middle of my event if you have angel they'd be like okay how does
• 33:28
  this contribute to the bottom line yeah how does this actually impact like it doesn't it doesn't
• 33:32
  so like don't do it if I'm an angel and I have x percent of different business I'm telling you
• 33:37
  not to do that yeah because I or if you're doing it you better make up that revenue somewhere else yeah
• 33:41
  so I think that people don't really understand that if they don't value their business properly
• 33:46
  um that means you give up too much of it too early uh and when that happens um first of all
• 33:51
  you can lose control of your business at some point or if you want to raise money in the future
• 33:55
  now future investors are gonna be like why are you such an idiot and gave up so much of this
• 33:59
  business to uh xvc x angel so you have to understand okay what's the valuation I'm gonna put on this
• 34:05
  and how do I how do I argue and sort of support that value evaluation and tell the story around
• 34:10
  that valuation so that I can retain as much of my business possible if I do want to raise money
• 34:15
  but then know even if you raise money at the proper valuation you're still going to be forced to
• 34:20
  move faster than most people want to move yeah everybody wants to see growth everybody wants
• 34:24
  what they want they want they want ROI yeah dude they want ROI and if you can't deliver that to them
• 34:28
  then you're going to be in trouble and you're going to be stressed and it's yeah you're probably
• 34:31
  not building a lifestyle business you're definitely not well if you want lifestyle business I mean
• 34:35
  like if you're raising money and you never and you don't have an idea of when you want to sell
• 34:40
  I mean they'll never get ROI no yeah well they'll they'll they'll make you sell at some point yeah
• 34:45
  they'll make you sell hey I got to get my money out of that yeah exactly they have to they have to
• 34:49
  get their money out of it at some point that's why they're investing in you and the earlier you take
• 34:52
  money the larger return they're expecting right so of course so if you raise pre-revenue
• 34:59
  or even like seed round which are small checks they're expecting like a hundred X on that
• 35:04
  where if you start to get into a series A where you're raising five or 10 or series B or 15 or
• 35:09
  20 million dollars at a time yeah they're expecting like a maybe a five to 10 X on their money
• 35:13
  or a three to five X on their money they're not expecting as much but I mean at that point
• 35:17
  the business is functioning and now you're much larger so yeah I think being aware of why you're
• 35:24
  raising money is important who you're raising it from is important so I always am a big advocate for
• 35:29
  strategic investors and what do I mean by that so first of all not just not just avoiding dumb money
• 35:35
  not just avoiding people that that don't understand your industry or your business but understanding
• 35:41
  that you should take money from people that can strategically help your business grow so what does
• 35:46
  that mean if you're a CPG company go raise money from somebody that's been an executive at Walmart
• 35:51
  or Costco somebody who can get your product into stores and onto shelves got it I bring something
• 35:56
  other than yeah of course why not yeah bring customers bring bring something to the table outside
• 36:01
  of just money because money is actually very easy to get yeah if you shop a business around long
• 36:06
  enough you'll find money for it but it's how can how can I make that money and the people that
• 36:12
  are attached to that money work for me yeah so what do you see in today and like the the exit
• 36:18
  strategy game in the multiple game because a lot of companies obviously valuations have dropped
• 36:22
  significantly they don't know how to tell a story so if I'm trying to raise money or if I'm
• 36:27
  trying to sell I want to find other stories of what's called a comp an industry comparable business
• 36:33
  that either raised at this valuation when they had this much money this much revenue that they're
• 36:37
  making or if I'm trying to sell like what was the valuation that they got what was the multiple
• 36:42
  on their top line or their EBITDA they're able to sell that and then I'm including those other
• 36:47
  case studies and stories into the story that I'm telling the buyer or the investor so you I think
• 36:54
  that you have to do a really good job of defending your value figuring out you know where where
• 37:00
  you coming up with these numbers and usually the easiest way to do that is to find other people
• 37:04
  who have already sold or already raised at a certain valuation that's a comp that you can
• 37:09
  bring in that you can use to justify what you're trying to get right and if you don't do that work
• 37:13
  and if you don't do that I mean communication is the most important tool in business storytelling
• 37:18
  is one of the most important tools in business if you don't know how to communicate you don't know
• 37:21
  how to storytell you don't know how to put together a narrative yes you will always get subpar
• 37:25
  results right that makes sense so even speaking about that right you have been a part of exits by
• 37:34
  joining on to existing companies right so you know you built most of your career starting out as
• 37:39
  an employee then somebody who was skilled enough to join companies as you know and get equity
• 37:45
  and all those things right so a lot of people are always us under the assumption they got to start
• 37:50
  their own thing and most exits are going to probably happen not being the original founder but
• 37:56
  you know whether it's an employee or you're coming on in a C-suite position or whatever well I like
• 38:01
  to de-risk yeah I just like to de-risk so for me what's the highest risk even though we spoke about
• 38:07
  smart strategies for taking a product to market for starting a company for finding product market
• 38:12
  fit for de-risking the whole entrepreneurial idea right we talked about all that shit
• 38:18
  I still like to de-risk my own career so if I know I have a certain skill set and there is a
• 38:23
  company that is deficient in said skill set and I can marry my skill set to that company and I can
• 38:28
  see the opportunity but they're not capitalizing on it that's a great way to make money so you don't
• 38:34
  have to start something new every single time yourself it's the same B2B sale yeah yeah because you're
• 38:39
  the product now yeah and you're explaining why they need you yeah and how you can solve their
• 38:43
  problem because at the end of the day if you've done sales and marketing enough you can slot yourself
• 38:48
  into a lot of different positions and a lot of different companies and you get what they're missing
• 38:53
  you get why they're selling to the wrong customer they're selling to the wrong market they're
• 38:58
  highlighting the wrong things that aren't really pain points the messaging's off the strategies off
• 39:03
  they don't have automation they don't have whatever it is but you start to see patterns like
• 39:07
  selling one B2B product in one industry is not so different than selling 100 different B2B products
• 39:11
  in a hundred different industries I could copy and paste a strategy that I did and deployed
• 39:17
  a thousand times and it would probably be quite successful in you know nine out of ten of those
• 39:23
  scenarios so this is another way to make money this is another way to build a career and to build a
• 39:28
  life and I think that that's also I mean yeah you nailed it you don't always have to start something
• 39:32
  from scratch you can if you want but it's not the only way to make money but the only way you had
• 39:36
  those skills was by working by doing it you know for a long period of time is just a normal employee
• 39:41
  and of course you know a lot of people don't really know but also normal employee but also highly
• 39:46
  ambitious so you can still be ambitious and I mean it's the term I don't know who coined this
• 39:49
  term entrepreneur somebody who was like pushing boundaries within the company that you are in
• 39:53
  yep like you you you find you take a job you absolutely destroy that job because you realize
• 40:00
  that a lot of people that are in nine to five that are your peers some of them are great a lot of
• 40:04
  them are there to collect a paycheck yeah you're an ambitious individual and you push you push
• 40:08
  yourself in that job you will get promoted and if you don't you will find work somewhere else
• 40:11
  it'll pay you a lot more money in another company and you and you aggressively pursue your
• 40:15
  career you aggressively have your own self interest when you're pursuing your career you're pushing
• 40:20
  boundaries you're you're working harder than everyone else in your department whatever it is
• 40:24
  and you're upskilling at the same time you're upskilling just as much as you would have to if
• 40:27
  you're an entrepreneur you're watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts you are you know
• 40:31
  you're following people that are just incredible at whatever it is they do and you you act as an
• 40:37
  entrepreneur within an organization and that gives you the framework to be able to then
• 40:42
  go do what I did or go start your own thing but it's like this like beautiful little like
• 40:46
  testing ground yeah real estate investors I found a brand new way to create cash flow that's better
• 40:51
  than anything else I've ever done it's better than rental properties Airbnb my flipping business
• 40:56
  multi-family it's the best thing we've done yet it is building an automated wholesale business
• 41:02
  now you might be saying Ryan how do you build an automated wholesale business well what if you
• 41:05
  have the same exactly that I get every single month what if you had a sales script that was so
• 41:09
  easy to close deals over the phone that you could do it all across the country and what if you could
• 41:14
  sell your deals directly on the MLS without a real estate license and without having to actually
• 41:19
  own the property and getting top dollar well we do that with this new method and I made an 11-minute
• 41:25
  video where I go over how it all works how you can start doing it today so if you want to go see
• 41:30
  that video go to wealthyinvestor.com go click the case study and see what I'm talking about yeah
• 41:35
  and I've always told people that you know I've got a bunch of entrepreneurs within my organization too
• 41:40
  and you know they're like super valuable they obviously have the skill set to you know do their
• 41:44
  own thing if they so choose but like for me I look at it like well I got to keep expanding my
• 41:50
  vision and everything that I want to do because if I do that you know their dreams can fit within
• 41:55
  my dream and we can all win together and do something greater than if we were both separated.
• 42:00
  So I thought about this idea a lot of like everyone has seasons of their life okay and there's
• 42:07
  a season in my life where I was an employee and there was a season of my life where I was a leader
• 42:14
  co-founder the season of my life now where I'm pure entrepreneur building something from scratch
• 42:19
  and each of those seasons served me differently but they also served the people that worked with me
• 42:24
  differently as well so what I'm saying is understand that if you are an entrepreneur and you're
• 42:29
  hiring the people that even you're bringing to your own organization could be in a season of
• 42:33
  their life where they don't want to take the risk and the bills thing from scratch yeah but they
• 42:37
  are entrepreneurial and those are the best people you should look for but also know that there will
• 42:41
  be a point in their life where maybe they've moved into a different season and now they do want to
• 42:45
  build something from scratch yeah or maybe they do want to become a C suite and they do want to
• 42:50
  have a small equity position in a company and be able to scale that and that's the perfect balance
• 42:55
  of risk and responsibility so I think that I think that we have to not be so myopic with our
• 43:00
  definitions of what we accomplish in our life and what we're looking to achieve and we can start to
• 43:04
  understand that like there's there's unlimited ways to be an entrepreneur to make money to be
• 43:11
  successful and for some reason this whole hustle culture seems to demonize everything except starting
• 43:15
  something from scratch it isn't the next like Netflix or Apple which is just stupid so again we
• 43:20
  have to sort of structure all these different we have to talk about all these different ways to make
• 43:23
  money to be successful and to upskill yourself and to live the life that you want to live because
• 43:27
  there are again unlimited ways to do it and I don't think somebody should feel bad just because
• 43:33
  at some point in their life they chose to work a work a job in air quotes yeah because that
• 43:39
  could be a useful experience for yourself but what I don't want to have happen is that person
• 43:43
  is working a job not understand that that's a stepping stone and like give up on life just because
• 43:48
  they're working a job there's still a lot of ways to leverage that opportunity for future growth
• 43:52
  and for future success if you sort of take it by the hands and run with it yeah I look at it too like
• 43:58
  so it's hard for me because I've never really had a job like yeah I always yeah I played baseball
• 44:04
  which was my only like real W2 job and then I was just an entrepreneur the whole way after that
• 44:10
  but if I was to be an employee what I would do is I wouldn't necessarily be worried about
• 44:18
  how much I was making I'd want to be in a place where I wanted to learn a skill set that I really
• 44:24
  wanted if I was a highly ambitious guy which obviously I am right I'm like hey I'm looking at this
• 44:29
  like I'm gonna learn as much as humanly possible while I'm here obviously if I can make the money I
• 44:35
  want to make while I'm here then that's a bonus but I'm really more so concerned about my skill set
• 44:40
  the early on in my life um and then I would think as I get older I would probably start looking more
• 44:48
  so as like what career is going to give me fulfillment so maybe I start my own thing and I think
• 44:53
  that that's fulfillment maybe not but well I know people that have exited companies and they go
• 44:58
  back to work for companies because they made some money but it's not a few monies that never work
• 45:02
  again and now they want stability and now they're going to have kids and now they want to raise a
• 45:06
  family so yeah I say I made five million bucks on my last exit and now I want to go back to work
• 45:12
  because I can take a C-suite position in a decent sized company and I'm going to work 40 hours a
• 45:16
  week and I'll still have some purpose in life which is important to me yeah but I also know I don't
• 45:20
  want to start another company because I don't want the headache yeah so I mean we don't have to
• 45:25
  follow this like a perfectly prescribed career path but I think that wherever you're at understand
• 45:31
  it like identify how that thing that you're doing plays into your life's objectives and your life's
• 45:38
  goals and don't do anything like haphazardly that's my biggest pet peeve like don't do anything
• 45:44
  and just be like I don't know what I want to do with my life but this is like a filler don't
• 45:48
  include filler in your life yeah that's the point right hey this this job is just paying the bills
• 45:54
  there's no other purpose beyond it it's horrible yeah absolutely horrible exact that's what I'm
• 45:58
  getting at is like I'm okay making money that I don't want to make you know my basic needs are
• 46:04
  provided for yeah and if I'm in a place where I know I'm growing however that may be right whether
• 46:10
  it's my skillset my personal life you know all those things and I'm good you know I mean you can
• 46:16
  make it if people are just optimizing for money I mean like VPs at Facebook like pull over a million
• 46:23
  dollars a year like you there's a lot of ways to optimize for money right so I think that that's
• 46:30
  I think yeah I just I feel like why do all these tech guys and corporate it seems like these
• 46:35
  corporate tech sass people they like never staying a job for more than a year to like it just seems
• 46:41
  like they're always bouncing around is that is stigma for me or is that the truth I'll tell you
• 46:48
  a story I don't know if it applies to everyone but I'll tell you a story that happened to me
• 46:50
  um so at one point uh one of the companies I was working for uh the director my director I will
• 46:57
  not name the company even though I'm sure you can deduce it if you if you figure out my career path
• 47:03
  but one of the directors for the companies that I worked for realized that if I wanted a promotion
• 47:09
  they would pay people who were external hires more for that same role as somebody who was an
• 47:14
  internal hire which is the most insane shit that's so stupid right yeah so red tape yeah that's
• 47:21
  the red tape I'm talking about yep uh so what he did is he forced me to quit and then reapplies
• 47:26
  an external hire he hired me right on the spot and I got my whatever my I think about 15
• 47:33
  thousand dollars per year more yeah as an external hire than an internal hire my point is again
• 47:39
  sometimes if you are choosing to play the nine to five w two game you have to take your own interests
• 47:46
  and you have to you have to you have to look out for you yeah because no the company is not
• 47:51
  going to look out for you yeah now I also want to be sympathetic to the business owner that's
• 47:55
  listening to me saying Scott you just encourage all my employees to give me the middle finger and
• 47:59
  to leave for someone else who's paying them more my suggestion to all business owners because whether
• 48:04
  or not you you hear it from me and you don't like it doesn't really matter it's still going to
• 48:09
  happen at some point people are not stupid they realize that sometimes jumping ships going to make
• 48:14
  them more money and if there's nothing else for them there outside of pure money that's the fault
• 48:19
  of the business owner no one has any you can't blame anyone else but yourself if you are not
• 48:23
  providing any value to your employees outside of money yeah so if the if the employee listening to
• 48:29
  this says I'm going to go switch jobs to your point which I think is sometimes strategically what
• 48:33
  they do they they jump between companies because they're literally being headhunted and saying yep
• 48:37
  I mean in fang which is Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google like they just keep jumping they keep
• 48:42
  jumping because it's like these are big pay increases so you could be like making 100 150 grand
• 48:48
  and then some of you I'll pay you uh 350 plus stock options and then you're like okay let's go
• 48:53
  and that keeps happening and like you can make a lot of money playing this game but the point is
• 48:58
  if you don't want that to happen then two two ideas first you have to provide more value
• 49:03
  and you have to understand what your employees actually care about and help them up skill and help
• 49:07
  them improve and help them get more out of the experience than just showing up and helping you build
• 49:11
  your business they're going to do that because they're being paid to do that anyways yeah but they
• 49:15
  have to be there has to be a self development personal improvement a professional development
• 49:20
  component they you help them with their ship yep and the other thing that I would say which I think
• 49:25
  is uh very useful in today's business environment where everyone is very transient in their jobs
• 49:30
  where they jump ship they don't have loyalty because they realize companies don't have loyalty to them
• 49:34
  after COVID when everyone got fired and laid off after 30 years of working for a company all of a
• 49:38
  sudden it's like oh light bulb companies don't give a shit about me so what should you do as a
• 49:42
  business owner you should say hey I know that I know when I'm hiring you what your personal goals are
• 49:49
  what your professional goals are I know that you're not going to stay with us for the next 30 years
• 49:53
  so let's commit to this let's commit to two years of your life for two years you're not
• 49:58
  bullshitting me you're not jumping on calls at lunch taking uh offers from other companies you're
• 50:03
  not looking for shit on LinkedIn you are committing me to me two years and after two two years we
• 50:08
  can renegotiate and maybe you commit to me another two years but during that two year I expect 120
• 50:13
  percent from you and in return where do you want to go you want is it a different title is it a
• 50:18
  different skill set is it more money because I'm going to craft you a plan because it's like a
• 50:22
  gentleman's agreement yeah I'm going to craft you a plan to get to where you want to be right and
• 50:27
  I think that when you when you hit it it's on you it's on you yeah so I think that these short-term
• 50:32
  commitments are more practical and they increase the likelihood of somebody giving their all to
• 50:36
  that company because not many companies do this right so if you have a boss or a manager who's saying
• 50:43
  not I'm getting you to commit two years of your life to me and at the same time I'm going to get
• 50:47
  you to where you want to be after two years we're going to agree on a reasonable path to get there
• 50:51
  great they're not going to leave early yeah but and then you also have to worry about like okay if
• 50:56
  they quit and you didn't expect it then you have all the costs associated with hiring new people yeah
• 51:02
  and all that BS and you know that all too well it's just the pain in the ass it's more expensive like
• 51:07
  and it's unexpected so now that their workload falls on some of the animals yeah yeah I call it
• 51:14
  now there's from my business coach I was talking about have the healing on your show
• 51:18
  uh it's it's it's the financial paycheck and the emotional paycheck they're both
• 51:23
  things that people value there's a reason why people will literally go volunteer to church for free
• 51:29
  yeah like literally I'll work for free because of the emotional paycheck I'll go work at a non-profit
• 51:34
  for like no money yeah because I believe in what's happening here and so every business has that
• 51:39
  I mean when you look at um you know especially startups right like hey this is our mission this is
• 51:43
  what we're gonna do this is what we're dude like there are people just fired up about it you know
• 51:47
  they'll work for very little money future promise of stock options and you know all these things down
• 51:52
  the road right so I've always said that to business owners it's like man if people are always
• 51:57
  jump in ship just for money then number one you're probably not providing any extra value like you're
• 52:03
  talking about I would call this emotional value um or you know yeah you might be underpaying them
• 52:08
  who knows right but you know I would also say for the business owners here you also need to know
• 52:15
  like the market value of a position as well you know obviously we don't want turnover we don't
• 52:19
  want churn but um you know somebody gets a crazy job offer it's like it is what it is what you're
• 52:26
  gonna do about it right um you know and then also knowing too it's like this is the hard part I
• 52:32
  struggled with was because you know as we've grown to more employees and different things you know
• 52:37
  there are people like you said the the true entrepreneurs who really want to grow and keep
• 52:42
  you know moving up and then there are people who are very content you know with life and what
• 52:46
  they do and there's you you need both because there are some positions that just this is the position
• 52:51
  somebody's got to fill it of course yeah right and it's it is what it is it's not going to pay
• 52:55
  anymore but it could be that that person values shutting off at five and not thinking about work
• 53:00
  yeah it could be or it could be that same person is doing that position that it's a tough position
• 53:05
  and um maybe they don't want to be doing it forever so then again understand that you're you're
• 53:10
  expecting them to move into something else in two years a new rule whatever and that means
• 53:15
  that you can plan for it and then you don't have disruption in your business but if they
• 53:19
  want to stay in that role for the next 10 years at least you know but you should still have the
• 53:23
  conversation yeah and I don't even think enough people have the conversation like we're talking
• 53:27
  about all these great ideas about like how to you know future proof yourself as a business you don't
• 53:31
  have all this massive disruption with turnover and whatnot and then that you help all these
• 53:35
  employees get to the like many people don't even have the conversation with their employees about
• 53:38
  what actually matters to them well I think also too and this is still even applicable for me it's like
• 53:42
  when you're still um a young growing business you don't even know what you're going to need
• 53:48
  yeah it's for or or or where things are headed or anything when you're established and yeah okay we
• 53:53
  can see a very you know inline career path your Facebook okay we we cannot understand how this
• 53:58
  is going to play out but this is why I think especially for startups the best hires are ever going to
• 54:04
  make are people that could be employees at a different that could be entrepreneurs at a different
• 54:08
  stage in their life and right now they're just choosing not to be yeah they're okay taking risk yeah
• 54:13
  and understanding you gotta grow yeah yeah you're not gonna hire some guys you know how to W2 for 20
• 54:19
  years you know big corporation like why are you actually that actually kill startups yeah when they
• 54:25
  when they look for somebody that has a big logo behind their name and they hire them because they
• 54:28
  think that they're going to take their company to the next level they the person not this is
• 54:34
  not a hard and fast rule but I've tried to do that before I've tried to hire people for startups
• 54:40
  from enterprise people that have worked in like 10,000 plus people organizations and the person
• 54:47
  that comes from a 10,000 plus person organization they have so many systems and they have so many
• 54:54
  like when I worked for Bell I had an RFP team RFP requests for proposal when you're trying to do
• 55:00
  like a large deal something you know in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a company
• 55:06
  will send it an RFP which is really just like this huge ass document that says these are all the
• 55:10
  things that you have to let us know about your company and your solution if you want to sell to us
• 55:14
  and it's annoying it's very annoying to fill out but at Bell you have a team it does it for you
• 55:19
  but when you move into startup land who's the team you do it yourself you're the one on the weekends
• 55:25
  filling out these documents trying to close these like you know six and seven figure deals so when
• 55:30
  you take somebody from enterprise that sold with his whole support team and also had an easier time
• 55:35
  selling because they had a logo behind their name because they were selling from a Facebook or
• 55:41
  Cisco or you know a Salesforce or whatever it is and you put them into a no name organization
• 55:48
  brand new with no systems no support they generally do not do great so yeah so I just mean like
• 55:56
  you got to have somebody who's scrappy who's okay jumping on the phone talking to somebody who's
• 56:01
  never heard about their company if something has to be done they own it they do it themselves yeah
• 56:05
  these are all these are what do you think about like in the startup phase so for example my
• 56:11
  nonprofit is a startup you know a little over a year old and you probably saw you know one of my
• 56:15
  guys you know he's talking to somebody about a fundraising position and so I'm looking for an
• 56:21
  experienced fundraiser who's been in the nonprofit world raised you know millions of dollars and
• 56:26
  one of my thought processes is you know they're going to come already with relationships and
• 56:33
  contacts and donors and things they've worked with like you know obviously I want them to you know
• 56:38
  hit our database and all of our resources but I'm also hoping that whoever I hire can bring in
• 56:43
  new you know resources as well right how much do you think that that plays into startups and
• 56:50
  everything else like bringing connections connections relationships like a hire yeah but what
• 56:56
  you're hiring is a very unique position right so you're hiring somebody that has to understand
• 57:01
  how to build relationship with exceptionally wealthy people like high net worth ultra high net worth
• 57:05
  yeah right I don't think that is necessary for every single job I think that somebody that is
• 57:13
  this is a special highly specialized role yeah so for example I wouldn't need that in a salesperson
• 57:18
  it'd be nice to have yeah but I don't need that in a salesperson somebody that is scrappy okay
• 57:24
  jumping on calls okay figuring out tools and tech they can support them okay jumping on a plane
• 57:31
  and going to sit down for a coffee let's use a fundraiser for that person yeah I think that
• 57:35
  would be useful I think but that's a very unique specialized position where the person in a fundraiser
• 57:40
  role they have to not only understand how to sell but they also have to understand how to build
• 57:46
  rapport with exceptionally wealthy people yeah whereas a salesperson knows how has to know how to sell
• 57:51
  but they don't generally have to know how like a billionaire likes to invest their money yeah they're
• 57:59
  talking to a decision maker at a company so it's different but I think that for your role I think
• 58:04
  that would be a very important thing somebody who is good at building those relationships it understands
• 58:08
  like a wealthy person's mindset and almost like the the environment they live in every single day
• 58:14
  because that's that's going to let them build that relationship with them all right let's
• 58:19
  good to know I'll let him know you know Trump Trump I was just reading a part of his his old book
• 58:27
  out of the deal and he I can't remember her name now but he was he was raising he was raising some money
• 58:36
  and he he looked for people outside of real estate to help him raise money people that had raised
• 58:44
  for politics because he wanted yeah those campaign guys bringing so much exactly so we wanted
• 58:49
  somebody who knew how to network and like smooth with a billionaires that's not somebody who knew
• 58:55
  real estate yeah not somebody who knew like religious faith-based nonprofit somebody who understood
• 59:03
  how to build rapport with people who had money that was one of his strategies when he was I can't
• 59:08
  remember the exact story and then you know 40 years later he he now needs them for literally what
• 59:12
  they were supposed to do yeah exactly but that was one of his first fundraising people that he hired
• 59:18
  it was a political fundraiser that makes sense yeah but it was because she had connections 100%
• 59:24
  yeah I need to look for political fundraisers now since the election seasons over
• 59:29
  if you did that I think you'd be very successful at it I think you'd be very successful at raising
• 59:33
  money because you have somebody again that knows how to raise money knows how to sell but they
• 59:36
  have connections and they know how to have connections yeah they're used to it yeah I'm gonna do
• 59:41
  that actually that's I never thought about hiring a political person but dude I mean they do it
• 59:49
  they do it and the people they raise money from I mean they're the wealthiest people in the world
• 59:53
  yeah who donate to these like packs or super packs or whatever it is yeah so right now obviously
• 59:58
  you you know yet an exit you're doing a podcast um you know that's like your main entrepreneurial
• 1:00:04
  business right now yeah what what are you trying to do with it so I think this is very important
• 1:00:10
  when you start to create content I don't know I don't know if this hits with you but when I started
• 1:00:13
  to create content I was speaking about the shit that I was doing every single day so what I mean by
• 1:00:17
  that is I was talking to CROs and CMOs and CEOs about early-stage software companies and I
• 1:00:23
  I just enjoyed chatting with these people because it gave me ideas that I could bring it to my own
• 1:00:27
  company um as the podcast has evolved as sort of like I've evolved as a person and more things interest
• 1:00:34
  me now um so not just business but you know uh physical health mental health um uh like sort of
• 1:00:43
  optimizing who you are as a person and upskilling across everything not just making money
• 1:00:49
  I've included more topics into it so I think that when I first started it it was generally just
• 1:00:54
  me being curious and me creating a platform that allowed me to have really great conversations
• 1:00:59
  with people and then when I start to you know evolve as a human being the conversations turn into
• 1:01:06
  other things that I care about and I think that's what's allowed me to really maintain it for six
• 1:01:11
  years now and and and and continuing because I enjoy every conversation that I have and they
• 1:01:16
  range from we talked about faith and God and Jesus and everything that you're doing on my show
• 1:01:21
  so obviously the range of topics is significant yeah but it's always followed like my own personal
• 1:01:27
  interests and passions and I think that for most people even if that's not all your content
• 1:01:33
  I think that should be a bucket of your content so that you still enjoy what you do yeah even if
• 1:01:37
  you have a business objective with your content I still think you should include topics that you
• 1:01:42
  care about personally because not only just to add a dimension and it it brings out who you are
• 1:01:47
  as a person into your content which I think is very important um it will it will allow you to stay
• 1:01:52
  with it for the long run because there's only so many things that I there's only so many times
• 1:01:55
  I can talk about I mean if I was selling a product or whatever I could talk about sales and marketing
• 1:01:59
  it gets boring after a while yeah it really does we tell uh um Brian who you just met
• 1:02:04
  he's though so the wealthy investor podcast and it's all real estate that's tough and he's like
• 1:02:09
  bro I you know I can only talk about you know the next fix and flip so many times and I'm like yeah
• 1:02:16
  I mean I'm thankful my podcast is we have no agenda a big thank you to indeed for supporting
• 1:02:20
  success story because hiring people is one of the hardest things you're ever going to do as an
• 1:02:26
  entrepreneur as a founder as somebody's trying to build a business because it's important to hire
• 1:02:31
  well it's important to hire and find the right person but it takes so much time it's so labor
• 1:02:36
  intensive because like most entrepreneurs you have a thousand things going on and there's a good
• 1:02:41
  chance that you just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday how can you find that
• 1:02:47
  great amazing right fit candidate fast it's easy you just use indeed because you don't have to waste
• 1:02:52
  time struggling to get your job post seen on all these other job sites if you're using indeed you
• 1:02:57
  can just use their sponsored jobs to help you stand out and hire faster post jumps right to the top
• 1:03:02
  of the page for relevant candidates so you can reach exactly who you're looking for faster and
• 1:03:07
  the results really speak for themselves according to indeed data sponsored jobs posted directly on
• 1:03:12
  indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs you know what I love most about indeed
• 1:03:17
  it really just makes hiring so fast because everything is streamlined in one place no more
• 1:03:22
  juggling multiple platforms or waiting weeks for the right candidate how fast is indeed in the
• 1:03:28
  minute I've been talking to you 23 hires were made on indeed according to indeed data worldwide
• 1:03:34
  there's no need to wait any longer speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of
• 1:03:39
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  clary just go to indeed dot com slash clary right now and support our show by saying you heard
• 1:03:51
  about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash clary terms of conditions apply if you're hiring
• 1:03:57
  indeed is all you need well that's the same with mine so I didn't I didn't have an agenda when I
• 1:04:01
  started it yeah and I was also I mean if I was going to roll out the playbook for somebody to
• 1:04:05
  start a show I would say that it does make sense to have a business objective tied to it
• 1:04:12
  because again you want to make money from this thing you're spending so much time on but I do
• 1:04:15
  believe that people again sometimes spend too much time talking about the business and they don't
• 1:04:20
  include themselves into the conversation when I tell people to write let's just say you know
• 1:04:25
  so my main business is real estate and we have real estate coaching and yeah leads and services and
• 1:04:31
  products and um obviously we're not even talking about that today no but um yeah my belief is that
• 1:04:38
  the more that you incorporate other aspects of your life the more you just show your personality
• 1:04:43
  like you said um when it does come time for that person to to want to you know get coached on
• 1:04:48
  real estate or whatever the case is or invest with you um they got lots of options you know they
• 1:04:53
  there's lots of different programs there's lots of people they can invest with but they're usually
• 1:04:57
  going to pick the person that they trust or that they um really resonate with and it's usually
• 1:05:03
  because you you guys share commonality in some way well you don't want to have happened when you
• 1:05:07
  start to put yourself out on the internet is you don't want it so that you could literally be
• 1:05:12
  replaced with a thousand other people that are subject matter experts and have and your audience will
• 1:05:16
  have the exact same experience right and there are podcasters that I listen to and I'm like I could
• 1:05:21
  just slot someone else in who ask cool questions and I really wouldn't care yeah that's not good
• 1:05:27
  that's I want to know who you are and and what what is happening in your life and why why do I
• 1:05:33
  resonate with you more than the other 100 people that I could listen to yeah and I think that that's
• 1:05:38
  I think that I think that that's probably a really great way to stand out I think it's uncomfortable
• 1:05:43
  but I think that it's something that is increasingly necessary in a in a very busy
• 1:05:49
  content heavy world where you have to compete with people's attention which is just a commodity now
• 1:05:56
  yep you have to compete and you have to attract it and it's very difficult and I think that
• 1:06:01
  bringing yourself into it is like a like a little bit of a hack yeah no one else can compete with you
• 1:06:06
  no what is it what is this saying it's like you build a you know you build a when you put your brand
• 1:06:11
  on line it's like you are one of one and like that's what you have to bring the table and I think
• 1:06:15
  that I think that's a people crave if we look at like the biggest names like there are vloggers
• 1:06:21
  now they're all streamers that just stream 24 seven and include their whole life and put their
• 1:06:25
  whole life on the internet not saying do that but I'm saying they're like do a little bit of it
• 1:06:30
  bring a little bit of your life online yeah for sure so what do you think you know is your business
• 1:06:37
  purpose for your content now because yeah you know really like the podcast is the business at
• 1:06:42
  this point podcast is the business at this point I think that what I'm doing is what I believe a
• 1:06:47
  lot of creators should do which I think the creators shouldn't always turn into operators what I
• 1:06:53
  mean by that is what a lot of creators try and do is they try and launch a brand or they launch a
• 1:06:58
  business I'm fortunate that I have business experience so I can do that but I think that most
• 1:07:03
  creators that are creatives first not business people first creatives I think that they should
• 1:07:09
  and this is what I'm going to end up doing you take small equity positions in startups where
• 1:07:15
  their product aligns with your audience and you are the take to market strategy yeah your audience
• 1:07:19
  is to take to market strategy that's what I'm going to start doing with with my podcast I think
• 1:07:23
  that's what all creators should do because then also what it allows you to do is it allows you to
• 1:07:28
  leverage your your the audience that you've built across multiple products so I don't just have
• 1:07:33
  to put all my eggs in one basket I can have you know three percent of this company three percent of
• 1:07:39
  this company and then I start to help them build their company by launching their product against
• 1:07:44
  my audience they start to get some revenue you can also help them out on the board I can help
• 1:07:49
  them out too with a couple different things because I have that experience but if you don't where
• 1:07:53
  I see creators fail a lot is they are creatives putting out content and they try and turn into
• 1:07:58
  business people yeah and then they realize it building a business is not that easy and I think
• 1:08:04
  that for most people they should leave building a business to people that are invested every single
• 1:08:09
  day every single second every single minute especially in startup land with building that business
• 1:08:14
  right and then they should just focus on what they do best which is bringing awareness to that
• 1:08:18
  business right as that's that's the goal hmm that's really the goal and then I I feel like
• 1:08:23
  I mean the podcast I can do until the day that I die I love it and you just rinse and repeat this
• 1:08:28
  process hmm so what would you say you know as we wrap up here um is the best piece of advice that
• 1:08:35
  you've ever been given on your podcast the best piece of advice that I've ever been given
• 1:08:41
  do you know the concept uh internal locus of control no I'm going to explain this concept
• 1:08:49
  it's a very important concept it's said said more simply it means ownership
• 1:08:54
  mm-hmm so it means that you have extreme ownership over the things that happen in your life
• 1:08:59
  so what an internal locus of control is is it means that you believe that everything that happens
• 1:09:06
  in your life is partly or mostly due to you and and you have to take ownership of all your problems
• 1:09:15
  and all your situations and all your circumstances and this is not I mean we could have a conversation
• 1:09:19
  about God but let's yeah remove God from this conversation for one second yeah because I think that
• 1:09:24
  most people uh do not take responsibility for their own actions they don't have an internal
• 1:09:29
  locus of control they don't believe that they they believe the world happens to them not they
• 1:09:35
  happen to the world so when you have an internal locus of control you believe that you happen
• 1:09:41
  to the world the you are responsible for all of your own outcomes and and everything that happens
• 1:09:49
  you have some part in that happening to you yeah the alternative is external locus of control
• 1:09:54
  which is what majority of people have where they believe that they are the victim of the world
• 1:09:58
  they believe they're victim of their circumstances they believe that they are the victim
• 1:10:02
  of all these horrific things that have happened to them over the years and there's nothing
• 1:10:08
  I can do about it I just I was dealt a bad hand I I think that that is the quickest way to a
• 1:10:16
  a sad subpar and unfulfilling life when you do not take responsibility for your own actions so the
• 1:10:25
  best this this piece of wisdom has come up again and again it's something that I think a lot of
• 1:10:29
  people that are successful believe they believe that and they do have an internal locus of control
• 1:10:34
  and the first person to say it actually on the show was Anthony Scaramucci who was a big
• 1:10:40
  finance guy also he was Trump's director of communication for like 12 days before he got fired
• 1:10:45
  in his first term but he said it in a story that I love and I didn't understand I didn't know
• 1:10:53
  the name of the concept at the time but what he said was referring to this concept and the story
• 1:10:58
  was I asked him you know what what gave you the confidence to go after abc xyz in your life and
• 1:11:04
  and he said well I have this idea that if I lost all my money and all my connections and all my
• 1:11:09
  friends and I was basically stripped of everything that made me me and I was put back to the condo
• 1:11:16
  I was you know transported back in time to the condo that I was living in when I was 20 years old
• 1:11:20
  in Brooklyn with no money no resources nothing at all I am confident that I could do this again
• 1:11:27
  and again and again and again and again and I could build this empire again and again and again
• 1:11:30
  and again and I don't even like it's not even I don't even for a minute second guess my own
• 1:11:37
  ability to repeat the success that I've had because I believe that I can do it I have extreme
• 1:11:41
  ownership over my outcome and everything that I want in this life I am personally responsible
• 1:11:46
  for achieving and I need to very powerful lesson because it shifts the responsibility onto you
• 1:11:51
  the good and the bad and I think that that's one thing that will help an exceptional amount of
• 1:11:55
  people I think it's been one thing that's really helped me it's everything that happens good or
• 1:12:00
  bad it's on me so let me either usually it's the bad stuff that side tracks you but let me let me
• 1:12:08
  own that and let me work through it and let me figure it out and let me never sort of be complacent
• 1:12:14
  or be lazy or be like slothish or just be miserable because that doesn't serve any purpose
• 1:12:21
  so let me take the stuff that happens to me adopt that agent that self agency that ownership
• 1:12:26
  that internal locus of control and and with that idea know that the only way to overcome hard
• 1:12:33
  obstacles and shitty circumstances and and stressful things is through my own action and that's
• 1:12:39
  a very useful that's a very useful piece of advice that I think it's helped me more than anything
• 1:12:44
  yeah I remember I was actually in stock in California playing baseball this is in 2012 and I wasn't
• 1:12:51
  getting a lot of playing time I wasn't in the lineup I was getting really discouraged because
• 1:12:56
  even when I'd have a good game I wouldn't be in the lineup the next day so super discouraging and
• 1:13:03
  you know in the minor leagues you know we play almost every day and so uh it's
• 1:13:08
  crazy yeah we play almost every day 140 games like 150 days and every Sunday they have chapel
• 1:13:16
  so like a pastor will come to the clubhouse and and give us sermon because we can't go to church
• 1:13:20
  and anything so it's really cool this is everywhere people don't really know that that happens but
• 1:13:24
  it happens for every sports team so in the NFL they have it MLB and BA they all have a chapel
• 1:13:30
  chapel leader um and so whenever city you're in that pastor in that city we'll talk to both teams
• 1:13:36
  so anyways pastor comes he gives us message that I'll never forget um and I don't even remember
• 1:13:40
  it's funny I said never free because I don't really remember 98% of it but the 2% I do remember
• 1:13:46
  was he goes you know guys at the end of the day you can't control your circumstances you know
• 1:13:53
  you're born where you're born you're in the situation you're in you can't really control your
• 1:13:57
  circumstances but you do get to control how you respond to your circumstances so you know Ryan
• 1:14:04
  you're not playing you get to choose you're gonna mope about it and say this is unfair or you
• 1:14:09
  gonna you know support your teammates be ready to contribute if if if you know you get in this game
• 1:14:14
  and your numbers called are you gonna be ready to contribute tomorrow if you are in the lineup and
• 1:14:18
  you know do the best that you can like you can't control the hand that you're dealt but you get
• 1:14:23
  to control how you react and same concept yeah and it's like yeah I mean I can't control that uh
• 1:14:30
  you know they doubled interest rates and I lost a bunch of money on flips I can't control that
• 1:14:35
  you know who's the president I can't control uh if YouTube uh you know changes the algorithm
• 1:14:40
  out of nowhere but I get to control how I act to it and react and so it's like all right well
• 1:14:45
  if they're not gonna promote that anymore we should probably switch gears and but I also think
• 1:14:48
  I think it's a level beyond that I think it's uh if you you you can't control what happens
• 1:14:55
  you control how you react to it but at the same time if YouTube shuts your channel down
• 1:15:02
  and that's stressful to you it is only your fault you have previously not diversified your
• 1:15:07
  incomes and your revenue ahead of time all right so it's like it's not only how you react to it
• 1:15:11
  but it's how you go through life just taking ownership over every result yeah and it's a hard
• 1:15:17
  feeling to sit with like it sucks when you're like you know what I should have I should have done
• 1:15:22
  shit differently six months ago yep and I knew it then and I know it now and now I'm now I'm
• 1:15:27
  suffering the consequences of that thing that action yeah but at the end of the day it's also
• 1:15:32
  freeing yeah well and I think that the concept is just that yeah you can't control like literally
• 1:15:38
  now at this point it is what it is it is what it is you screwed up whether it was justified unjust
• 1:15:43
  it doesn't matter today is today what are you gonna do about it yeah yeah so anyways dude hey where
• 1:15:49
  can people uh find out more about what you got going on uh at Scott DeClaire everywhere it's
• 1:15:54
  pretty easy to find me um you can if you like and what's the podcast call so they can search it
• 1:15:59
  success story got a success story podcast.com and we do we do this stuff too yep so I was just
• 1:16:04
  on a show so definitely go check that out guys make sure you follow Scott and hopefully you enjoyed
• 1:16:09
  this episode we'll catch you on the next one peace