[00:00:00] Hala Taha: What's going on YAP fam? You are listening to part two of my conversation with Scott Clary. Scott is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, investor, and host of the popular Entrepreneurship podcast Success Story. He's also a well-known sales and marketing expert. In part two of my conversation with Scott, we focus on sales.

[00:00:32] Namely had to define a buyer's persona, pricing strategies, and the psychology of sales. If you haven't heard part one yet, we talk about Scott's come up story and how he was able to kickstart his career by launching a side hustle and a personal brand via LinkedIn and his podcast. Without further delay, here's part two of my conversation with Scott Clary.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:04] So let's move on beyond just podcasts, sales and email strategy. You talk about an email strategy called Pattern Disruption. I use this hack too. I love it. Could you break it down for us? 

[00:01:16] Scott D. Clary: Pattern Disruption in any marketing or sales context means that you are stopping. Standing out, excuse me, from the crowd.

[00:01:24] So I'm gonna give you like a very tangible marketing example of how this was used. One that you would probably know and it's not a good guy, but he did it well. So Billy McFarland from, what was the stupid Fyre Fest. So you know the guy that went to jail? 

[00:01:39] Hala Taha: Can that guy? 

[00:01:40] Scott D. Clary: So an example of pattern disruption is how he marketed Fyre Fest.

[00:01:43] So how he marketed Fyre Fest is he got all these influencers at the same time to put up an orange screen on their Instagram account. Like an orange square. So if anybody was scrolling through Instagram, all they saw was like Kim Kardashian and an orange square, and then they saw 50 cent in an orange square and [00:02:00] Ja Rule and an orange square.

[00:02:01] That's pattern disruption. That's the concept of pattern disruption. So this is you can use it for email, but you can literally use it for quite literally anything. If you are trying to apply pattern disruption to an actual email that goes out to somebody. You just want to make sure your subject line.

[00:02:17] It doesn't look like every other subject line. It's very simple. I've had good open rates with hey, and then the person's name like, Hey, Hala. Hey Scott. Hey John. Hey Sam. These are like, it just when you're looking through your inbox, that stands out. So things like that. Even putting people's celebrities names into your subject line, that's pattern disruption.

[00:02:40] It's stopping the person scrolling because there's something new and different that they're not used to expecting, cuz you get a lot of junk and a lot of garbage in your inbox, and in on your social feeds, whatever. So it's just about like finding a way to stand out from the pack. So if your email, send yourself a test email.

[00:02:56] If it looks like everything else, there's a good chance it's gonna be ignored, like everything else. [00:03:00] So you gotta find a way to make it stand out. 

[00:03:02] Hala Taha: Something that we do at YAP is we'll send emails with no subject lines. 

[00:03:05] Scott D. Clary: That's good actually. 

[00:03:07] Hala Taha: And then we'll also do emails that say it just says appropriate person question mark.

[00:03:12] Scott D. Clary: It makes it sound non-commercial. It makes it sound like it's coming from. 

[00:03:15] Hala Taha: Appropriate person. 

[00:03:16] Scott D. Clary: I love that. 

[00:03:17] Hala Taha: And then it's just wonder if you're the appropriate person to talk X, Y, Z, and then, they always respond because people wanna be helpful and they'll either say, no, here's the right contact, or No, I CC'd the right person.

[00:03:26] And it helps us get in contact or they'll be like, it's me. What do you, what's up? 

[00:03:30] Scott D. Clary: I've never said appropriate person in a subject line, but a sales strategy that you can actually use to get to a decision maker is in the actual body of the email. This is no longer pattern disruption because technically once they're in the email. Their pattern is not being disrupted per se, because it already has been if they've opened it.

[00:03:47] But what you can do is you can say, are you the correct person for such and such? Are you the correct person for making decisions about marketing spend or tech purchases? Whatever it is. And if you [00:04:00] phrase it as a question. Then the person will, similar to your experience, will say, no, I'm sorry. I'm not that person, but this person is CC'd.

[00:04:07] Or, please email this person. In a sales context, in a larger, say, B2B sales, you have to get to the decision maker. And this is a really good way to get to the decision maker. And it's not just because you can't find their email. Cause I said before you could find anyone's email online, but what it is the referral, which is stronger than you, just like laser beaming into somebody's inbox with no context.

[00:04:27] Hala Taha: I love that strategy. It really does help. So let's talk about LinkedIn's sales strategy, because I know you're huge on LinkedIn. You have 160,000 followers. A lot of people are trying to sell on LinkedIn. As you probably know, selling doesn't really work on the feed. You've really gotta sell in the dms.

[00:04:43] So I'd love to understand, what is your approach for selling on LinkedIn? Is it similar to email or how would you describe it? 

[00:04:49] Scott D. Clary: So when I run a sales campaign and my background is enterprise B2B tech. It was SaaS or Telco or hardware, but it was all tech. So the totality of the email or the [00:05:00] sales campaign was, it was actually called a one to few and a one to many.

[00:05:04] And what that means is you're a sales rep. And your one to few means you have your customer list that is most likely to buy. In sales, you have what's called an ideal customer profile, an icp and a buyer persona. I CCP can be like industry, company size, revenue size, something like that. And buyer persona can be like cmo, CRO, VP sales, VP Finance, the actual person within the company.

[00:05:28] So you have. Your ideal list, and that's your one to few where you're writing personalized emails and personalized LinkedIn outreach against that list. And then you have your one to many. And the one to many is automated, against people that were not the perfect fit for your product, but like they could be a good fit.

[00:05:47] And that's where I would use automated tools. So I'm gonna get to your question as to more specific for LinkedIn, but I'm just outlining the whole sales strategy. So if I was going to use this strategy, I would be personally as a sales rep, [00:06:00] emailing with a sales intelligence tool, some personalized emails to my one to few list, and then I'd be using tools like Apollo or We-Connect to automate my email Apollo as email automation and outreach and sequencing.

[00:06:13] And We-Connect is LinkedIn automation, outreach and sequencing. Now, what, I guess to wrap this up, cause I just wanna give people context for how they actually can sell quite easily, and this is like a very straightforward B2B sales process, that you could literally emulate right now. So again, Apollo, We-Connect.

[00:06:29] Plus then you're doing your outreach personally as well. And this type of strategy will work for literally any product as long as you identify your ICP and your buyer persona correctly. Now, LinkedIn in particular, if you have identified. Your ideal customer profile and your buyer persona. One strategy that, there's a million different strategies.

[00:06:47] The goal is to get a conversation started. One strategy that I do use in LinkedIn, which actually I've, I haven't used in a while obviously, cause I'm not selling B2B enterprise stuff, but it is a pattern disrupt, is actually to use video in dms on LinkedIn. And this [00:07:00] would be for my one to few, my one sales rep to my highest profile best fit for my product or service.

[00:07:08] Customer list. So I would be recording a 32nd video myself and that's my initial contact point of contact with them. It's not like the shit on LinkedIn, which is oh my God. It's four or five messages of like paragraphs of text and it's like, Hey, can I get a meeting? And then it's and you don't even answer then.

[00:07:26] And a week later it's like another paragraph of text ending with, can I get a meeting? That's no good. So if you're gonna personalize it. You have to stand out and you can stand out by referencing something that a machine wouldn't know, like for example, what their last tweet was and why it's so funny and relevant to you, and why you want to talk to them based on a problem that you've seen.

[00:07:45] For example, maybe you saw a news article about what their company's doing. You wanna unpack how your problem or your tech or your service can help solve that problem. You can do that with text, but if you do with video, it's just a little bit more impactful. I also used video and email, [00:08:00] but a lot of people are using video and enough people are using video and email now.

[00:08:03] Not a lot, but enough where you see those little videos of somebody using a screen record saying, I'm trying to sell you this product or service. In LinkedIn, it's still not used that much. And even myself, when I get a LinkedIn message, when I get a LinkedIn message at the video, I'll at least watch the video.

[00:08:18] When I get a LinkedIn message that is like four or five paragraphs of text, I delete it immediately. I don't even bother. So if your messaging is right, your ICP and your buyer persona are dialed in, you record a video, you make it relevant, meaningful, and it's not just boiler plate and it's going to the right person.

[00:08:33] There's a good chance that person will respond back, or at least that person will be aware of who you are. That's the objective, and then you can nurture them. But that would be my recommendation for selling like a high ticket item through LinkedIn. 

[00:08:44] Hala Taha: Love it. I love the video tip and the dm strategy.

[00:08:47] It's a really good one. So let's talk about ICP and buyer's persona really quick because having the right audience is really important. A lot of people choose an audience that's like finding a needle on the haystack. They don't know how to find their audience in [00:09:00] mass. A lot of people are just unclear about their target audience.

[00:09:03] So I'd love for you to like really break that down for us and then also give us your best advice in terms of understanding. If you've got it right or how to find out who your target persona is or buyer persona is. 

[00:09:15] Scott D. Clary: To find the ideal customer profile day one. You're making a lot of educated guesses.

[00:09:20] You can look to the market. You can look at and do competitive research to what your competitors are doing, and you can see who their targeting. But the ideal customer profile is and by the way, this does not have to be just a B2B enterprise thing. This is just again, to your point, the audience that you're selling to.

[00:09:34] So in enterprise sales, it can be the company. So the company size, the company industry, whether or not the company is in a certain geographical location. It could be the company is public or private. It could be government or private. It could be over a certain revenue threshold, a certain employee headcount.

[00:09:53] It's like any sort of differentiator. That can identify your company and you're [00:10:00] gonna immediately say Scott, like I'm just gonna sell to the biggest companies. But you have to think I'm selling a product or service. If I'm selling to a company that is public and has over 500 million in revenue, there's gonna be a longer procurement process.

[00:10:14] If I'm selling to government, I have to go to RFP. So maybe I know based on my data and my research and candidly, you literally can look at your last 50 customers. And from those last 50 customers, it's no longer guesswork. You can now find what your ICP is. Just a note on that. Funny enough, the company's Snowflake.

[00:10:32] Huge success story, unicorn. They built this process where every 50 customers, they would reevaluate their icp. So it was like a constant feedback that they built into their sales system. They would always reevaluate last 50 enterprise customers. But say you even do it once a quarter, look at your past 50 customers.

[00:10:49] You identify the common threads between the companies that you sold to, and that is your ideal customer profile that you have to sell to. And then within that company, then you look who is the person who made the decision [00:11:00] in that company, who's a decision maker. That's the buyer persona. Buyer persona is like quite literally the characteristics and the job title of the person who's buying, signing on that PO in that organization.

[00:11:11] So again, I mentioned before, but it can be any it could be anybody obviously, but it could be CMO, director of Marketing, CRO, CEO, VP Finance, director, finance, it doesn't matter, CTO. We have to identify who that is. And then once you have your ideal customer profile and your buyer persona, the literal individual is gonna make the buying decision. Then there's gonna be other things that you should think about, like decision influencers, not just the decision maker.

[00:11:35] Buyer persona is very similar to the decision maker, a decision influencer in a company. For example, say your buyer persona or decision maker is director of marketing. The decision influencer could be the CMO and the CEO and the CTO. So maybe the director of marketing is buying a technical marketing product.

[00:11:52] But they have to get sign off and budget from cmo, the CEO at small company that care, and the CTO OS to make sure there's no security issues. So you [00:12:00] have your decision maker and your decision influencers and what you can actually do to get alignment across your organization. You're creating these avatars and you put faces of people in a deck or in some sort of database, that represent these people in the different types of things. That you've noticed about these type of person.

[00:12:17] The education, the salary. Where are they most likely located? Doesn't really matter. There's things that you can understand. It's not everything you can figure out, but you can figure out enough to at least have an educated opinion of if you're going into a new company. That person looks pretty damn similar to the last.

[00:12:33] 40, 50, 60 buyers that I've actually dealt with. So I know that's probably the person that I want to be dealing with. And the reason why it's so important to know that, first of all, you have to make sure you're speaking to the right person, and you're not speaking to just a decision influencer. But if you are speaking to the buyer persona slash decision maker, and you want to increase what's called sales velocity. A technical term, meaning that you want to increase the time from when you make contact with the company to when the actual deal [00:13:00] closes.

[00:13:00] Which is what everybody wants to do. It's also called sales cycle. You wanna reduce your sales cycle. You start to educate that person on who else has to be involved in the deal, because that person doesn't always know. So new director of marketing say that's your buyer persona. They don't know that in the past 50 deals, you've also had to bring in CEO, CMO, CTO.

[00:13:16] They have no idea this is their first purchase. In the first call, you're gonna be educating them and you're gonna be saying, Hey, listen, in our past 50 deals, these three people had to be involved in this conversation. So to make your job easier, bring them to the next call so we can get alignment across the people that are the key decision influencers.

[00:13:33] And that just speeds up everything. And honestly, like I want people to understand that for the buyer that's not invasive and it's not threatening and it's not pushy, it's like very helpful because that person doesn't wanna screw up. That person doesn't wanna look like an idiot. Nobody wants to show up at work and look like an idiot.

[00:13:48] So the more you do to help them do their job and buying is part of their job. That's why you're talking to them. They have to buy something to improve something about what they're doing, or make money or do something. There's a reason why they're looking at your service or [00:14:00] your product. So help them buy your product and help them make the decision and help them involve the people that have to be involved, and help them understand why companies struggle to buy your product in the past.

[00:14:11] Switching costs, legal terms that are confusing, whatever it is. Sales is all about, we're dovetailing into the thesis of what sales should be, but sales is all about helping somebody buy. It's not about pushing a product. It's helping somebody buy better, helping somebody buy easier.

[00:14:24] You are truly the consultant, but it, I think that it's not just on the product. It's on the whole process, but you have to educate the individual. So when you identify your icp, your buyer persona, that's just getting the knowledge to target better, so you have the right conversations with the right people, and you have the right information that make their life easier.

[00:14:42] Hala Taha: Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. 

[00:14:46] What's up Young and Profiters? This episode of YAP is sponsored by LMNT. 

[00:14:51] YAP fam. Let's talk about electrolytes for a minute. Electrolyte deficiency or imbalances can cause things like headaches, cramps, [00:15:00] fatigue, and weakness. Everybody needs electrolytes, especially those of us that are on a low carb diet, keto diet, especially those of us that are extremely active.

[00:15:08] Chances are we have an electrolyte deficiency and we're not getting enough sodium, and that's really important. In terms of staying hydrated, everybody needs electrolytes and LMNT is the electrolyte of today. It's not like the old school sports strengths that we grew up on. There's no sugar, there's no artificial ingredients, no coloring, just all of the good stuff.

[00:15:28] There's even no gluten. And the hard truth is that most electrolyte products that we have in the grocery store, the deli, they're really bad for you. But LMNT is not. It's all the good stuff. Without the sugar is your enemy, not salt. And a lot of people get that wrong. In fact, I recently learned. A growing body of research reveals that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times government recommendations.

[00:15:52] So our beliefs around sodium and salt need to be reevaluated. And also not to mention, this stuff tastes great. My favorite [00:16:00] flavor is watermelon salt, and I also like raspberry, and it comes in these really cool packets. I stick them in my purse, I take them everywhere. I travel with them. I take 'em to the gym.

[00:16:10] And you put 'em in 32 ounces of water or 16 ounces of water, depending on how salty and fruity you like your drinks. And my favorite way to use almond is actually right before I work out, and I find that it gives me like a really big energy boost. And then I have less cramping and things after I work out.

[00:16:26] I haven't had a leg cramp or anything after working out. In a really long time, ever since I started on LMNT. And then another side benefit is it also cures hangover. So I actually love to take LMNT if I want drinking, I always make sure that I have LMNT the next day to make sure that I knock that hangover right outta my system.

[00:16:45] So I highly recommend you guys check out Element. If you guys have an active life, if you are on a keto diet, low-carb diet, intermittent fasting, LMNT is definitely gonna be a great product for you. And you guys can receive a free element sample pack with any order, when you order through [00:17:00] DrinkLMNT.com/YAP.

[00:17:02] And that's DrinkLMNT.com/YAP. Try totally risk free. If you don't like it, share it with one of your salty friends, give it to them instead, and LMNT will give you your money right back. So there's literally no risk. Just give it a try. I think you're gonna love it. Go to DrinkLMNT.com/YAP. Again, that's DrinkLMNT.com and let's get salty, Young and Profiters.

[00:17:25] That was like such like a rock solid explanation. So good. It's really good. You're so smart in sales. You need to put out a sales masterclass. If all these my wheels are spinning, I'm like, he needs to come present to my mastermind. 

[00:17:36] Scott D. Clary: I can talk sales all day, but yeah. 

[00:17:38] Hala Taha: Let's talk about the actual process conversation.

[00:17:41] So there's a few things that I wanna talk about. The first is the importance of questions. A lot of people think their job at a, as a salesperson, especially new salespeople or people who are just starting side hustles, everybody has to sell. Once you become an entrepreneur or have a side hustle, your job becomes sales, at least part of it.

[00:17:58] And so a lot of people make the [00:18:00] mistake that they think they have to be the one talking the most on their sales calls. When in fact you really should be listening and asking the right questions. So can you talk to us about the importance of asking the right questions, any of your philosophies around that?

[00:18:12] Scott D. Clary: Sure. So when you are going on a sales call, your objective should be to talk less. The person who talks more is always the customer, and there's even tools at a much larger level to gauge. This gong actually listens to calls and reports back on who talks more and talks less. Again, the sales rep should always be talking less.

[00:18:32] So you're asking questions. You are actively trying to either qualify or disqualify the customer and really trying to disqualify the customer because there are always more customers out there. So what I mean by that, And when you go into a sales call, you have the information that you have to get outta the customer.

[00:18:49] So there has to be boxes that customer has to check to move to the next stage in the sales cycle. Other things that you should have are little anecdotes and stories that you can [00:19:00] interject into the conversation, that in 30 seconds or less, Will very tangibly articulate how the product or service that you're selling has helped a similar customer in the past.

[00:19:12] So you interject these stories to make the things you're speaking about, a little more tangible. It sounds off the cuff, but these are all prepped. So you have your questions, your anecdotes, and your stories, and then you have your call to action. And that's really it. That's what you go into a discovery call with.

[00:19:27] And when you go into a discovery call with those questions. Again, you ask the questions, you want to qualify or disqualified. Disqualification is almost more important than qualifying in a sales process because if somebody is not qualified, meaning they don't have the budget. There's no meaningful event, meaning they don't want to buy it right now, but maybe they're gonna buy it in a year from now, they're not the right person.

[00:19:46] There's a million reasons to disqualify somebody. You have to focus on disqualifying because if you don't disqualify ruthlessly enough. That person is gonna F up your whole sales cycle and every single person that deals with them after you. [00:20:00] So everything from say it's like a cold caller, inside sales rep to the account manager to fulfillment and order processing and every single thing that person touches in your organization. If you have not qualified them or disqualified them properly. It's gonna screw everything up.

[00:20:14] It will truly mess everything up. 

[00:20:15] Hala Taha: And by the way, psychologically customers love to be disqualified. It makes them want, they want the product more. If people want what they can't have.

[00:20:23] Scott D. Clary: They'll work to qualify themselves. So if you say Hey, listen, like why are you looking at buying this tech right now or this service right now?

[00:20:29] Or do you have budget for it? And if you say why don't you come back to us in such and such? And they're like no, it is a priority actually. It is a priority. And then you're like, okay, so if we can confirm with decision maker that this is a priority at this point in time because of this reason. There's this meaningful event, then we'll have a conversation.

[00:20:44] But you have to say candidly, if you're not gonna make a decision for six months. I'm happy to give you all the information. Right now, this is not something that we want to take on. Like you have to push that person away because they will qualify, not rude. They understand too, there's only so many hours in a day for your sales team.

[00:20:59] They have to [00:21:00] focus on the people that will actually convert. I think that answers your question. And then the call to action is important. So qualified, disqualified, anecdotes and stories just help reinforce what you're trying to talk to them about. And then call to action, like on the call set expectations for next steps.

[00:21:13] I think just hanging up a call and not setting expectations is a big, it's a big issue. Don't just leave it to the email, after get verbal commitment and you can take it a step further. I don't like doing this. Some people do it, they like actually make you accept the calendar invite live on the call.

[00:21:27] Whatever. But at least set expectations so you can say, Hey, the next step in this would be to talk to an account manager or to give a demo, whatever it is. I wanna speak to you sometime next week. If you've qualified them properly and you've told these little stories throughout that reinforced why they should be buying it. It should not be like you're trying to force them to take a next call.

[00:21:46] They should be like, yes, actually a super priority right now. I wanna speak to you. Can you do like next Monday at I'm free from three to five Eastern, whatever. And then you say, okay, no problem. I'm gonna send you the invite after this call and I'll send you a summary of what we spoke about.

[00:21:56] Just make sure I'm on the same page and then you go from there. I wouldn't, I [00:22:00] personally don't like doing the live calendar thing, but the point is, you're setting expectations. You're getting verbal alignment on what next steps are, and then you follow up on that. 

[00:22:07] Hala Taha: Couple follow up questions. So in terms of the stories that you're telling throughout the call. I know that people retain information better with stories.

[00:22:14] This is how the brain works. Just throw out some examples, quick examples of how you can just have little stories. I had Donald Miller on the show and he was talking about. 

[00:22:23] Scott D. Clary: I love Don. He's good. He's very good. 

[00:22:25] Hala Taha: He's great. 

[00:22:26] He was talking about storytelling in sales, how important it is. But I'd love for you to just give any little example.

[00:22:31] So testimonials, I think is an obvious one. Help customer do X, Y, Z, they got these results. 

[00:22:37] Scott D. Clary: That would be probably the most important. I think what I'm alluding to is more testimonial style. It is pure testimonials. I don't need to tell stories outside of what the customer's trying to solve. So I'm literally thinking okay, so say my customer is, I'm gonna make up a customer.

[00:22:50] Say my customer is Walmart and they wanted to. It's a ridiculous example, but whatever. They wanna migrate their services from on-premise data [00:23:00] centers to cloud data centers. And my person on the call is Target, whatever. And I'm just, I'm literally walking through the process and the results they achieve by migrating their servers from on-prem to cloud and what that accomplished, and the efficiencies and the cost reductions and all the different like KPIs, that they achieved in literally like 20 seconds.

[00:23:23] It's just that it's not over complicating it and just having five or six of those lined up, ready to go, that's all you really need at this point. There's places for storytelling in sales, but this is like not meant to take over the call. It's meant to just think of the story as like a period at the end of the sentence, like you ask a question, they answer. You reinforce their answer with an exact case study in 15 seconds or less, or 30 seconds or less of a similar customer that accomplished exactly what they're trying to solve for.

[00:23:50] Hala Taha: By the way, this conversation is so engaging for the prospect because they're being asked questions. People love to talk about themselves. People love to talk, hear themselves talk. Then you're [00:24:00] telling them stories which keeps them engaged and entertained. They're highly engaged throughout the conversation and will remember everything that you said.

[00:24:06] Scott D. Clary: And they're starting to visualize what success looks like.

[00:24:09] If that buyer is trying to, same example, trying to migrate from on-prem data center to cloud. They have like costs in mind. There's they want to get rid of like a warehouse that's gonna save them like whatever, thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So like you walk through the results that were literally achieved by someone else that was trying to accomplish the exact same thing.

[00:24:26] It just realizes it materializes. They're like, oh my God, I'm not crazy. This is a great idea. Look at they've done this before and this is take an example that you do like you work with people that want to grow audiences. Like literally the story should be like, Hey, I worked with this person.

[00:24:39] We grew them from this to this. They closed this much business they got in this magazine. It's so easy to put these and plant these ideas because then it makes it real. Cuz in that person, the customer. Is gonna hear that story, it's gonna stick in their brains. There's a reason, and you can listen to another one of Hala's podcasts as to why stories stick, but there's gonna stick in their brain and they're gonna go look at it and they're like.

[00:24:59] They're [00:25:00] gonna look at one of Hala's clients and be like, look at what they've accomplished. They're gonna go check it. They're gonna be like, shit. She's the real deal.

[00:25:05] Hala Taha: And I love to do that. I do that all the time on my discovery calls. I will go look and see like, how can I find the, a person who's similar to them?

[00:25:13] And I'll have that top of mind to be like, this is a person who's a good example for this client because they have, they both started at 20,000 followers, or they both are speakers and authors and you go into that. So let's talk about pricing. At what point in the process, I personally do never give out pricing on the first call.

[00:25:31] What's your favorite strategy for pricing and giving out pricing? 

[00:25:34] Scott D. Clary: I would usually break any sort of sales process into a discovery and then a demo. And the demo can be, I've seen your demo. It's awesome where you walk through the actual process of what you do for clients. That's when I would discuss pricing.

[00:25:47] I would discuss pricing, but I would actually, I would make sure that person has an expectation of a certain budget that they'd like to commit to this project, but I wouldn't actually disclose pricing until I have a really good [00:26:00] understanding of what that person needs. And I would probably understand that a little bit better in a full demo.

[00:26:06] So you do have, and I mean if it's a smaller item, you can combine these things of course, but I like a two touch approach. So you have a very quick discovery so you don't waste too much time. Discovery can be 15 to 30 minutes. Where you, again, you have your qualifying disqualifying questions, and some of that could be budget conscious, but not going into the actual hard numbers because you need the information to quote accurately.

[00:26:27] The worst thing you can do is under quote or over quote, doesn't matter. It just sucks. You can't do it in the discovery call. That's when you can start talking pricing. You could psychologically anchor at a higher rate in your discovery call to prep them for a lower price. That's a psychological trick saying on average budget required is, I don't know, say a hundred K a year.

[00:26:47] Okay, but when you actually present the price, cuz you've anchored at a hundred K a year. It's actually gonna come in at 60k. And that's a little bit of a psychological trick. But still, I wouldn't quote them out until the second call and they understand everything that I'm doing for them. 

[00:26:59] Hala Taha: My [00:27:00] literal next question is, I love psychology and sales psychology.

[00:27:04] What are your favorite hacks in terms of sales, psychology and human behavior? 

[00:27:09] Scott D. Clary: That's a good question. We've alluded to many, a lot of the things that we spoke about, 

[00:27:14] Hala Taha: Stories .We talked about stories. I'll give out one while you're thinking. I'll give out one of my favorites. 

[00:27:19] Scott D. Clary: Go. 

[00:27:19] Hala Taha: Chris Voss taught me this and he always says prices at an odd number.

[00:27:25] So all he never does even numbers because odd numbers make people think that there was. Some cost analysis done behind it, whereas even numbers, people think you pulled it out of the sky. So always give an odd number for your pricing. 

[00:27:37] Scott D. Clary: So I'm gonna say something though. Every piece of advice that you get, you do have to take it with a grain of salt.

[00:27:43] I have a couple others I'm gonna mention, but the reason why is because for premium products. Whole round numbers convert better than fractional numbers. If I'm looking at a product that I think in my mind is premium a 99 or a 97, it seems budget. Think about [00:28:00] this. For example, you see a 45.00 on a website versus a 44.97 or a 44.99, 44.99 in my mind signals that there's a discount.

[00:28:11] What if it's a premium product? I don't want there to be a discount. I want this to be like the best of the best, and you'll actually notice the premium brands. Do not. They have whole numbers. They have round, even numbers that are like zero zero or 4.00, 45.00. They'll do increments of five or 10 or whatever, but they won't do discounts.

[00:28:27] I think it really depends on the market that you're serving and the precedent. Anyway, so we spoke about anchoring. We spoke about social proof. Stories are social proof. We spoke about a little bit of pricing strategy. Reciprocity. Reciprocity is a really good one. So reciprocity literally means you're giving somebody something and you're not expecting anything in return.

[00:28:47] But there is a human psychological condition that when you give something to someone, they want to give you something back in return. Content is reciprocity to a certain degree. White papers, YouTube, [00:29:00] videos, all of that is some level of reciprocity. Take it way back in my career, a very simple example.

[00:29:06] When I started working in Telco, like for the first year, was dealing with cell phones. Like it was, it started in a mall and then I moved into corporate. I worked my way up, but I started like selling cell phones in a mall, and the people that I convert and like close deals on were the ones that came in with a broken phone and they couldn't fix it.

[00:29:22] And then I fixed it, and then I still bought a new phone. It's so simple, like you fix the problem or you give them a solution, or you point them in the right direction, or you do as much as you can for free and then they'll always come back. For you, if I was gonna say, how do you incorporate reciprocity?

[00:29:37] I would give people free, like LinkedIn audits because you know you're not gonna do, they're not gonna do it themselves. You could literally give your LinkedIn masterclass for free and then you can say, listen, this is everything you gotta do. By the way, if you don't want to do it, here's my, here's my email, and you'd probably convert significant amount of clients because they trust you now.

[00:29:56] And they're like, I'm not doing this shit for myself. 

[00:29:59] Hala Taha: We'll be [00:30:00] right back after a quick break from our sponsors. 

[00:30:05] You hear that sound Young and Profiters. You should probably know that sound by now, but in case you don't, in case you're a new listener, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform, revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide.

[00:30:19] You can use Shopify for any business, whether you're selling homemade jewelry, cookbooks, or masterclass like me. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Shopify is packed with all these industry leading tools and integrations to ignite your growth.

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[00:30:52] You can manage orders, shipping payments. From anywhere, no matter where you are. Shopify covers every sales channel as well, so whether [00:31:00] it's an in-person POS system and you're selling something in person or an e-commerce platform. They even sell across social media like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

[00:31:09] And thanks to 24/7 help and an extensive business library course, Shopify is there to support your success every step of the way. So I actually personally used Shopify. I love Shopify. I've been using it for over six months now, and I launched my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass using the Shopify platform, and it was super easy to use.

[00:31:27] It took up just a couple days to turn out my website. We have a backend and a really nice looking front end. It was very easy to do, and we've already made $200,000, and I credit that to Shopify, because Shopify enables me to focus on my business, to focus on making sure I have the best course possible.

[00:31:44] To focus on my marketing plan to focus on generating leads for my funnel. I just focus on the marketing and getting people to the Shopify site, and Shopify just halt the rest. I don't have to worry about tracking anything. I don't have to worry about fulfillment. I don't have to worry about [00:32:00] conversion data and analytics.

[00:32:02] Shopify does that all for me. And by the way, they've got plug and play websites that make it look really nice and really easy to set up too. So I've really loved the fact that it just took me a couple days to set up and I was good to go. And we haven't really looked back. Shopify lets me focus on what I'm good at and Shopify does what it's good at and damn Shopify is really good at what it does.

[00:32:22] Shopify and logging onto Shopify is always the highlight of my day. I'm really not lying when I say this. I mean it a hundred percent. I'm addicted to going onto the Shopify platform because it's just so much fun. It's really easy to use. I can go in there. They have got like a chat bot. I can answer any messages if somebody chatted us.

[00:32:40] I can go see who signed up, how many orders I got, I can go see our conversion rates. How we're doing. I can see where the leads are coming from and what marketing channels need more help. I can also see a global view of where everybody's logged in from, like all the potential customers. Where they're logging in from, what part of the world, what stage of the buying journey they're in, and [00:33:00] I can actually see when people are about to check out.

[00:33:02] It is such a dopamine rush to see four or five people checking out at one time. And Shopify is so cool because if people don't end up closing out and not purchasing, and they just abandon their cart. Shopify will actually notify you and suggest that you send an abandoned cart email. Shopify gives you all these little tools and tricks to close more sales, and they're really by your side.

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[00:33:42] Go to shopify.com/profiting, all lowercase to take your business to the next level. Again, that's shopify.com/profiting. 

[00:33:53] Voice-over: How powerful is the Cox Network? So powerful that one day the internet will let your doctor perform [00:34:00] miracles from thousands of miles away. Connecting to remote operating room, giving a whole new meaning to the term house call, operation complete.

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[00:34:48] Today, Cox bringing us closer in Cox serviceable areas. Speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Cox terms apply. Other restrictions may apply.[00:35:00] 

[00:35:02] Hala Taha: It's interesting that you say that because when I do my discovery calls, I usually do the demo in the discovery call. The first 10 minutes, I'm doing discovery, then I go into the demo, then I do pricing on email. So very different, a little different than what you described. Would you consider that initial discovery call, which is basically all about the customer?

[00:35:22] A level of reciprocity that you're giving your time, just trying to figure out their problems and listening to them. Do you think that is reciprocity at all, or no? 

[00:35:32] Scott D. Clary: I think it really depends how you show up and what you actually give them. I think it can be if used properly. For sure. Anytime you give value, it's gonna be considered reciprocity.

[00:35:40] There's gonna be a reciprocity component to it. So I would say, how do you give value in that 15 to 30 minute call? Find a way to do that. I don't know what the answer is, but find a way to do that. Find a problem that your customer has that you can not complete, because you won't be able, if you're selling a service, you can't fix everything in a discovery.

[00:35:59] But[00:36:00] maybe you can point them in the right direction and help them educate themselves a little bit better. 

[00:36:03] Hala Taha: Totally. 

[00:36:04] Scott D. Clary: I would say, totally. Like any point where you can provide value, take it a thousand percent, this has actually helped me. When people use this on me, it helps me make a decision to go with them. When they tell me who their competition is and what I should be looking for in a good vendor.

[00:36:17] It's strange, but I always go back to the person that references that, cause I trust them the most. I can't speak. I'm speaking for an hour.

[00:36:24] Hala Taha: Reciprocity.

[00:36:24] Scott D. Clary: It's reciprocity mixed with like building rapport and trust and it's it's just like this compound effect, like talking about psychological tricks.

[00:36:31] These are all like not tricks. They're just like, these are things that just happen when you give to another person. People think they're tricks. They're not tricks. It's like when I'm giving to someone else as much as I possibly can, like things do come back. And I do believe, that's a great point.

[00:36:45] I've never thought about it like that, like explicitly, saying in this discovery call. It's an opportunity to give, but it totally is and you should take it. And I do like the only reason why, by the way, to your point why I like breaking up this sales process into one and [00:37:00] two is because if I do one right, my two is personalized.

[00:37:03] I cannot ever do one and done personalized as much as I would love to. And then you give overload of information if you don't do it personalized, because I'm just like, this is all I do. This is all I do. And then the person's gonna be like, okay, that's great, but like overwhelmed versus. Wedge strategy means you start with one product or service and expand wallet share, expand the amount of money over time the customer spends with you.

[00:37:26] Wedge strategy means you go in like super surgical, like super precision on like the thing they actually have to do right away for your exam for you, like maybe they have to grow their podcast. You don't talk about anything else. It's like a footnote. That's it. But you talk about the one thing they gotta solve for you close that deal and you then in three months. Then they're super happy with you.

[00:37:46] Then you're converting all the other services at a much higher rate. 

[00:37:48] Hala Taha: Totally. 

[00:37:49] Scott D. Clary: And I don't know your conversion numbers at all, but I'm just saying to me, that would make the most sense. 

[00:37:53] Hala Taha: I love these strategies. So I ask two questions at the end of my show to all my guests, Scott, and the first one is, what is one [00:38:00] actionable thing our Young and Profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

[00:38:04] Scott D. Clary: One thing that a Young and Profiter can do today, I would say learn about the concept of leverage. I am a big believer in leverage. Leverage money, leverage people ethically, leverage systems and processes, leverage technology, find a way to leverage it. Cause anyone that's ever built anything has leveraged and has not just done it themselves.

[00:38:27] And we spoke about many opportunities for leverage in this call right now. But everything that you do, you can leverage it to a degree and make your one input equal 10 output. So understand that concept and look for those opportunities. They're with talent, Upwork, Toptal, Fiverr, they're with even fractional talent in North America.

[00:38:47] Hiring somebody part-time as a gig economy worker to fulfill a certain role in your company. Leveraging money it. I don't love raising money, but if you have to leverage VC money, if you want to buy a business, we just touched on [00:39:00] that, why you could buy a business versus start one. You could leverage the bank's money and get something that's already built out and leverage that.

[00:39:06] Leverage tech, leverage AI, leverage automation tools. Leverage. There's even tech that allows you to build out SOPs that will allow you to deliver those SOPs to your workforce, that's based anywhere in the world that will allow you to leverage people. So look for leverageable opportunities. And I think that's like the number one trick that will really take whatever it is you're doing to the next level.

[00:39:28] Hala Taha: And then the last question is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can be beyond just financial profiting, however you wanna take it. 

[00:39:36] Scott D. Clary: It has to be beyond financial. I ask everybody what does success mean? And it's always freedom. And I think that, I do believe, maybe I've been indoctrinated with that answer cuz so many people have said it.

[00:39:46] But I think the goal should be to achieve freedom. I think that what freedom means is what you're doing, whatever you want to work on, and I think that's when you start profiting in life. When you start living life is when you are, when you [00:40:00] feel a certain amount of energy and excitement in everything that you do, and it's agnostic of what you're working on.

[00:40:06] It could be charity. It could be family. It could be building a business, like it doesn't matter if it's classified traditionally as work or not work. It's that you have freedom in whatever it is you do, and that's when you're profiting. 

[00:40:18] Hala Taha: Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. 

[00:40:20] Scott D. Clary: Thank you.

[00:40:26] Hala Taha: My, my what a great episode. I loved learning about sales from Scott. Sales, in my opinion, is one of the most important skills for entrepreneurs. Hands down. You need to learn how to sell if you wanna make it. That's why I love to talk about it on YAP. Every single chance that I get. And one of my favorite quotes from this episode was when Scott broke down what he believes to be the purpose of sales, and he said, sales is all about helping somebody buy.

[00:40:53] It's not about pushing a product. It's about helping somebody buy better, helping somebody buy easier. Some other [00:41:00] key takeaways I had from Scott regarding sales was to talk less and any sales conversation. You should be talking less than your potential customer. If you're talking more, there is a problem.

[00:41:11] When you're having these conversations, you should be asking questions that actively qualify or disqualify your customer. And again, you wanna make sure they're doing most of the talking because this makes people feel in control. It makes people like and trust you more because people love to hear themselves talk and feel important.

[00:41:29] And when you do talk, ask the right questions, use stories and anecdotes. I love that Scott's stressed to actively try and disqualify your customer in conversations. This is so important so that you don't waste time and cycles. And in fact, I have an upcoming sales episode with the world's number one negotiation expert, Chris Voss, and we talk about disqualifying your customers at length.

[00:41:52] So if you want more sales material and learning, make sure you stay tuned for that episode. It's a really great one. Young and [00:42:00] Profiters, this episode was jam-packed with tactical sales advice. I have no doubt this conversation is gonna help you close more deals and let me know if it does. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast.

[00:42:11] If you listen, learned and profited, be sure to share this episode with your friends and family and drop us a five star review on Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast platform. If you like watching your podcast videos, you guys can find us on YouTube and you can also find me on Instagram @yapwithhala or LinkedIn by searching my name.

[00:42:29] It's Hala Taha. But if you wanna reach out to me directly, I highly advise that you DM me on Instagram because my LinkedIn messages get pretty flooded and it's really hard for me to follow up. I wanna take a moment to thank my YAP media production team. You guys are doing awesome work. Really appreciate all that you do.

[00:42:47] This is your host, Hala Taha, aka a the podcast princess signing off.[00:43:00] 

[00:43:10] Voice-over: How powerful is the Cox Network? So powerful that one day the internet will let your doctor perform miracles from thousands of miles away. Connecting to remote operating room, giving a whole new meaning to the term house call operation complete. The Cox Network with gig speeds everywhere. It's internet built for tomorrow.

[00:43:30] Today, Cox bringing us closer. In Cox serviceable areas speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Cox terms apply. Other restrictions may apply.