Entrepreneurial Fears with Scott Finkelstein

Josh
 Hey, good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout on today's show. We're going to have a conversation with Mr. Scott, and he's gonna share his background and have a few chats about sales Scott. Welcome to the show. 

 Scott
 Thanks. Josh was great to be here. I'm excited to talk to the audience and dive into the things I love sales and all that good stuff. 

 Josh
 Cool, man. Why don't you tell us about who you are and what are you up to? 

 Scott
 Absolutely. Thank you. What w who I am is it's about helping others. I've had great mentors and coaches in my life. That's how I try to raise my kids and teach them how we can give back to the world and also understand that there's always people around to help us and, starting my wall street, career investment banking way back in 92, 93 guy, I'm that old and just having great mentors that helped me grow in my career. And, you know, I always laugh. People always say, Hey, what stock should I buy? As back then, I, I have no idea I'm on the sales side. I've always been in sales, created over $6 billion in sales throughout my career. I've been able to work throughout the world. After a decade investment banking and hedge funds moved over more into some own thing, some businesses on my own and failed miserably because I didn't have a coach and then eventually got into the last decade or so the technology side and working with companies and helping build them up to wealth events, worked with a big company, trying to, and help them go public. 

 Scott
 Another company people, facts I worked with and grew them quickly where the private equity firm, who I reported to every day, whether the numbers were good or bad. And so all you people are listening. If you've got private equity behind you, they want to know why the numbers are what they are, no matter what. We're able to help them in 18 months go from eight to 20 million and then be able to have a, a wealthy advent for that company as well. 

 Josh
 Yeah. When you say wealth event, are you talking about an exit or another FA funding round? Like what do you call a wealth event. 

 Scott
 For Tri-Net? It was an IPO, a very successful IPO for people, facts. It was, they were acquired by another company. 

 Josh
 Okay. Acquisitions or going public or some type of major event. Got your start in wall street, investment banking, hedge funds, private equity. Talk to us about why you got into that field, like how did you get into there and why? 

 Scott
 Well, growing up in Stanford, Connecticut, it's a 40 minute train ride into New York city. It's, you know, it's wall street, right. And I'm a numbers guy. I love numbers. Everyone's the stock market, you name it. I wanted a job in that, and that was always my goal. Somehow I landed a job with a small fund to funds in Greenwich, Connecticut. I didn't have to commute in the city and put a suit on every day. It was like I said, it was a godsend in that role in it's funny, you think about wall street, I'm going to invest. I'm going to do everything. Like I said, a few minutes ago, I ended up on the sales side of it. All, not thinking that's where I was going to be, but I love it. I'm a relationship guy. I, people have said, wow, how to be stressful. 

 Scott
 I said, no, it was exciting. Screaming at each other, going with, I had hair back then, I guess it was on fire too much. And it was just, it's fun. It's energetic. I, I thrive on that. I admittedly I miss it to this day. I miss it. Not going back there. I love what I do now as a coach and helping others. Anytime I talked to someone, who's an investment banking guy, my eyes light up and I they'll they kind of have to say, I gotta go, Scott. I gotta go. Like, no, wait, what? Talk more? 

 Josh
 What, so what, on a day-to-day basis, when you were doing that, what did the day to day job look like? 

 Scott
 You were, you were just on the phone, back then, we'd literally, I had to phone receivers. You have one like this while you're dialing the other one. Because everything's going a mile a minute, in the U S house, this market doesn't stop. Even though again, I was on the sales side, it was selling certain products that we had, that they needed to go do their trades that day. It was screaming at each other, not taking it personal with some of the brightest minds in the world. That's what I love about it too. Miss is just people, you're in the rooms with some of the biggest investors in the world, tiger management back in the nineties. Long-term capital was a big client of mine before they blew up and almost blew up the whole world back in was that 98, 99 off the top of my head. 

 Scott
 Long-term capital, which had what, two or three Nobel prize winning economists. They said everything had to go wrong, which was a 0.0, zero 1% chance. Well guess what that happened? It was 1998 and they were big client of mine. We had some exposure to that. That's when Goldman and credit Swiss all came in and had to buy up their assets in, save the economy can go back and Google out back, like I said, about 9 19 98, 99. So, but again, smartest Nobel laureates. And they still messed it up. The conversations you have and the energy, and that was when I was in Tokyo, I've been on that mountain behind me, Mount Fuji. And it's just fun. It's exciting. And yeah, you get rewarded. Well, if you do well and you get fired quickly, if you don't. 

 Josh
 All right. As you're going through these different roles, wall street, investment banking, hedge funds, private equity, right? Like we're talking backwards first before we, talk about some of the things you're working on now, out of all those, which model, which business model, what kind of deals did you like the best? Business model and the types of deals, do you like the best? 

 Scott
 Wow. Our, so a lot of what we sold my piece was equity, finance and prime brokerage. It was more on the financing side of it all. We did a lot of swap arrangements back with, again, the hedge funds, because that's who our client base was. I first started on the hedge fund side, and then I flipped over to the investment banking side of the equation. That's the guys that gave me a dollar. I'll give you 10 back to the hedge funds. We did a lot of swap transaction was the main way we did it way back then. Admittedly, I don't know if that's a term they use anymore. I've been so far removed from it, but it was again, sitting down, looking at it was all numbers. Here are the numbers. How does this make sense for us as the investment bank? How does it make sense for the hedge fund to leverage their capital app at interest rates that made sense? 

 Josh
 You said you took your, you took your swing at some startups yourself, and you said you've had some big, pretty big failures. What happened there? Tell us about that. We look at learning from other people's mistakes, right? That's that's the purpose of this shows we can learn collectively, right? 

 Scott
 Absolutely. And, and, just a quick background. What got me there was, moved back to New York city in 2000, lived a block, lived 10 blocks from the world trade center and worked block from the world trade center. On nine 11 had a front row seat, literally of first plane on nine 11 flew 100 feet outside my office window to the first tower. The second one hit ran home, got a wife and four month old baby at the time. And, ran from falling buildings, you name it, everything. In my wife at the time was from Hawaii. We finally got to my parents' house in Connecticut at 10 o'clock that night, we lived down in battery park on the tip, mazing life, loving it down there. She looked at me, she goes, I know we talked retirement. Why? But Tokyo New York, I had enough. I go, me too. 

 Scott
 I had just taken a job with Japanese bank, guaranteed, six figure bonus, and all that walked away from it, move the family to Hawaii and filed it for a lot. In my career, worked with Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor, raised 20 million assets when everyone else was losing it. After that and bouncing around, I said, let me try some things on my own. A friend of mine was in the insurance world. So we said, let's partner together. Pete Scott, people with money, he could wrap insurance products around certain things, started reaching out to people, started to try to create some deal flow. Say, let me be a VC type of guy. Right? No one would take me serious because I lived in Hawaii and I was there for six years, but helped him build the business. My piece of it just, I wasn't focused on it. 

 Scott
 Admittedly in knowing the lesson is you've gotta be focused as an entrepreneur. And went through a lot. I've probably nine 11, put my career on a tenure spin. Our heads were spinning for about 10 years until 2011 and just didn't have enough vision. Didn't have enough looking back as a coach now and how I coach you. I didn't have a written plan. I just said, I go do this. I start picking up the phone and making phone calls, people know me and didn't have any direction at all. As you're starting your own business, you don't have a written plan more than just on a paper napkin. That's a good start. You don't really understand where point B is. There's like to say in planning, know what point B is and work your way back to point a where you are today. If you don't know that, my favorite quote is from Alison Wonderland. 

 Scott
 If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. I went down a lot of wrong of the wrong roads that didn't get me anywhere and eventually took a job, got back into working for a company in 2008. Yeah, 2008. When I moved to California from Hawaii and got into in 2011, got into the PEO space, which is kind of co-employment and HR technology. Tried to start my own business again on the side, this was I'm going to go, I can say it now because I don't work for tryna anymore. Broker PEO, world business and stuff that they wouldn't write had great connections. Again, I didn't have a written plan. I didn't have an exact understanding of where to point my compass and go again. I'm a relationship guys. My relationships will get me wherever I want. They get you in the door. 

 Scott
 If you don't know who you are as a company and I didn't, it was work comp for less was the name of the company. I don't know if the website's still out there, but I went into meetings just I'm going to build relationships and you have to learn, yes, relationships are important, but either has to be sustenance behind it. Why are you, why is this relationship important? What can you bring to me? Those were the reasons, again, that felt miserably in those two offerings. I stayed in the corporate world and eventually, obviously now I run my own coaching business and what I teach my sales people over the years too. Thinking about how did I create $6 billion? I wasn't doing the things that I did in my own business. I was doing it. I did for the big corporations, which has relationships with sustenance. 

 Scott
 Obviously that's a big thing I coach on. It's a big thing. I've written the first draft of my first book, which will hopefully be out by the end of this year. It will not, hopefully never use the word, hopefully by the way, it will be out by the end of this year. You got to have something behind it. It's you can't just be a handshake and a bro hug. And Hey, we like each other, 

 Josh
 Right. 

 Scott
 What else can you do for me? 

 Josh
 Well, man, it's true. Right? So I'm a super connected guy. I have a really solid network and I went broke. I thought, someone told me once, Josh, if you can figure out a way to monetize your network, the relationships, you'd be a billionaire. I, I had to show a podcast show back in the day that hits iTunes, top of charts. I had some of the most incredible people on the show and it looked like, from the outside peering in there, like, holy moly, you're crushing it. I went broke bankrupt building that. Absolutely. I didn't have any sustenance subs, sustenance, 

 Scott
 Subsistence, and substance. 

 Josh
 Yeah. That I didn't have that. People would get finished with the interview and they'd go, Hey, what can we do together? I'm like, I had no business model behind my relationships. Now we've adjusted. I had to fail miserably before it clicked. Oh yeah. You need to have a business model. You have to have an offer. You have to have stuff you're actually doing for people. What are you going to do for me? I like you now, what are we going to do together? So it's it. I love the fact that, like you're sharing this and thank you for doing that, man. That's super cool. How did those failures project you and move you forward. 

 Scott
 The gray, they move you forward because again, and it's my, I had this conversation with my son. Who's 20 years old, he's playing baseball in college. Last night, were texting as I was flying. We all have our ups and downs and the old saying, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. But it makes you stronger. Not because you learn from it in act differently, going forward. There's always going to be new experiences that we got to learn from and new mistakes we're going to make, but you learn. So you don't make the same mistake. I know everyone's like probably, yeah, we've heard that great. But are you doing it? Coaching's not difficult for me. It's easy one. I love it. But two, it's not rocket science. It's reminding the people I work with. Yes. You know that, but how are you acting on it? 

 Scott
 How are you doing it? How are you putting into your daily routine? How are you making sure you see that pitfall before you go around that corner again? And that's what I do with mistakes. It's learned from it. Great opportunity. What I love about being here with you guys today is I get to share some of my mistakes and hopefully people learn. Why do I listen to podcasts? I want to hear mistakes. I don't want to hear success stories as much, but I want to hear it millennia. First. I want to hear mistakes that they turned into. Well, here's why I am today. I did fail. I went bankrupt. I lost my house, whatever it is. Now here's where I'm at because of that. Here's how I got from there to here. When you can do that with your mistakes, you're going to be stronger and better for it. 

 Scott
 And you will have that success. You just, as with mistakes, especially you going through tough financial times. Part of that 10 years, went through, I short sold a house, a lot of credit card debt. I couldn't pay credit score dropped. I don't know how low it went, but negative something, all that. 

 Josh
 Yeah, 

 Scott
 You can let that beat you up or you can learn from it and say, Hey, I don't want to be here anymore. So how do I get going? Where's their help for me? That's a big part of coaching too, is I didn't realize the coaches I had back then that I didn't reach out to. If I did, I probably would have been successful in at least the second business of what I did and work comp for less, I would have been successful in that. I just didn't reach out to the people who are always willing. You've got relationships. I bet in your role that Rolodex that's are using an old word in your being your list of all those relationships. When you were struggling, if you reached out and said, Hey, can you help me? Nine out of 10 would have said, heck yeah, Josh, what do you need? 

 Scott
 Let's sit down. 

 Josh
 Yeah. And this is the struggle. We have, I have a few podcast shows. One of them is a show for men. I could just speak for men here because I'm a professional dude. I've been it for 40 years. I've learned how to be a dude is I have a hard time reaching out to people. I have a hard time asking for help. I want to be the shoulder that people lean on. I don't want to be the leaner. Right. And that's hard for me. I had to be humbled to the point where I had asked for help. That's when I got traction, like in my own life and my business and such, I had to go, Hey dude, I need help. People would be like, oh, sure. What do you need? Really? I need some capital cool put together a plan, show it to me. 

 Josh
 You know? Like what all I had to do is ask. Yes, yes. All you have to do is ask. They'll tell you what, how to get what you need if they don't have it. What did the turnaround, what was the pivot point where you say, I need to get out of this tenure slump. Right? What, what was the turning point for you and how did you get out? 

 Scott
 The turning point was that God's a big part of my life. I'm not a religious guy, but I'm very spiritual. The job with trying to, honestly, I was still, I was in a place. I didn't know where I was going. I just got the job because I said, I got to get a job. And I put myself out there. Part of me is I do believe that he will lead us if we're willing to let go of the rope and enlist and just follow. I heard Jason Pauline, who was the guy who hired me, someone I'm still friends with. He was a mentor of mine. I said to him, I go, y'all understand the whole, you took me out of what that job. And he just also very spiritual man. Just, I don't know what he saw in me, but he just said, go, you got this and kept pushing me. 

 Scott
 If I walked out, I remember I'd walked into his office. Sometimes when I ask for something new, he's like, if I don't have these three things, when I asked for underwriting to get me up, it was insurance world. He goes, get the F outta here because when you got what you needed, he goes, and it was teaching me discipline and not to just being what we talked about. Hey, I got relationships. Let's go, no, you got to get disciplined. You got to work. You gotta do the steps it takes to get you there. I didn't know it, but I just was, at that point, I think I was so beat up. I was open to whatever. 

 Josh
 Yeah. So good. I had to hit rock bottom emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially, especially before I was open to receive right. Open to receive wisdom and advice growing up. When I was building my tech company or whatever, I would ask advice because that's what the books told me to do. I'd ask advice and they would tell me, and I'd be like, okay, cool. I'd put it up on the shelf, but I would never really receive their advice. Or I was asking the wrong people, the, the wrong questions. So, yeah, man. You said you were open to it and someone believed in you so step into let's, let's parlay that into coaching. Someone believed in, you hired, you worked with, you, took you out of a slump now you're crushing it, right? Like that believing in you. Why is that important for someone to believe in you? 

 Scott
 Because life is tough. No matter what, you can look at LeBron James and think his life is, I mean, we know his background now, his life is easy because he's worth almost a billion dollars NBA, superstar, blah, blah. We all have difficulties. We don't know. We don't know what happened in his home before he left for work that day. We need someone to believe in us that today can be a good debt that, it's my always laughed at me growing up. He goes, you always say hi to everyone and smile. He goes, you're so fake. I go, no, I go, I want to set an intention for good energy around me. That means I'm going to lift others up. I do that by when I walk into the seven 11 to get my diet Coke and just like, Hey, how are you? How's your day going? 

 Scott
 As I'm checking out, he goes, you don't care how their day is. I go, I go, I do care. I go, do I want their whole life story? No, but I want to put a smile on their face. Cause that's going to help put a smile on my face, selfishly. You believe in someone, they can raise you up to. As a coaching is a very intimate business. As I like to say, and we cry. We, I've had CEOs on the zoom call and we're crying. Because again, just because someone makes a million dollars, a billion dollars, 10,000, it doesn't matter. Life. We all have tough days. You need someone to believe in you to say, Hey, today will be a better day. Hey, you can solve this problem. Hey, you're doing great. Let's keep going. Don't let off the gas. As I like to say, my coach does a great job of giving me a hug when I need it and putting his foot as far cause ass as he can when I need it. 

 Scott
 And sometimes the combination. 

 Josh
 Yeah, it's so true, man. I've worked with coaches, therapists, counselors, and having someone. This was the weirdest thing. I know this is a show called the deal scout. Here's what I find. This is little tip or something explaining, why I call it the deal scout. I look for deals, but I do it with and through other people, right? So the deal scout, I find deals. Cause I'm a network guy. I'm a relationship builder. Everything I do is syndication. That's why we call it the deal scout because I am looking for deals with and through other people. What I love about this show and having this venue is I get to know like, and trust. I can build relationships with people via podcasts. Nine times out of 10, after the interview, we wind up doing a deal together. That's just how the structure is. I love hearing these kinds of stories and your advice because I take a crap ton of notes and then I adjust and I tweak all the way through. 

 Josh
 Scott, this is super important, especially for a fellow networker. I've got a ton of people that I know who are similar to us relationships. It's all about relationships and the old school Rolodex, right? Like, yeah, but that has to have relationships plus X for it to bring fruit for you. Otherwise you just have a bunch of buddies, right? How do you as a coach, how do you help people? Us find out what that X is to relationships plus sustenance. 

 Scott
 It's simple. You can put it under this umbrella is don't be selfish in that connection. 

 Josh
 Okay. 

 Scott
 All right. How often do you get people reach out and they're asking you for referrals all day long, but do they ever offer? And that's the biggest thing. It's, I, I work with a lot of salespeople who are, that insurance guy who's out there, the CPA, you name it, the realtor. I go, and I look at their posts on Facebook and Instagram, you name it where they're, they do a lot of their stuff. I go, your posts are all about you. Offer me something. If you offer me something, I'm going to refer to you just because I get to know and like, know like, and trust you, like you said, so that's the beginning of that X. Under that, there can be more detailed understanding who am I meeting with? What does Josh need that I can help him with? If you look at it always as what does this person need that I can help them with. 

 Scott
 They'll end up helping you if they're able to. That's where, if they can't, who cares again, it's, a belief in world abundance. If we keep helping each other, we're it's going to come back to us. You just don't always know when. 

 Josh
 Yeah. All right. I reach out to you for some type of help. Right? Why are people reaching out to you and what kind of businesses do you typically work with? 

 Scott
 Yeah, it depends. We talked earlier, I've got, I do sales scalers, which is one of my businesses under my coaching and the other one, which is all sales related. The next one is next leader in which we just launched, which is coaching that next leader to become the CEO, the CFO, et cetera. So, it depends typically it's on the sales side, Hey, I'm a small business owner of micro business in, they don't always realize they wear a sales hat too. It's helping them put a sales plan together so they can grow their business to levels. The statistic out there is, I think, less than Moten. Those about 98% of small businesses make less than $75,000. 

 Josh
 Oh, wow. 

 Scott
 Right. 

 Josh
 In the U S or in the. 

 Scott
 U S in the U S. 

 Josh
 Say that stat again, 

 Scott
 About nine 98% of small businesses make less than $75,000. 

 Josh
 The whole company. 

 Scott
 Yup. 

 Josh
 Wow. 

 Scott
 Now a lot of small businesses are still entrepreneurs. My dad growing up, he was a sole entrepreneur. People like that have a few different side houses. The guys selling life insurance, you name it. They what's great is I can come in through sales scalers in a 90 day program, put in place some basic sales stuff, sales isn't complicated, by the way, I love it because sales is tough. No, it's not. It's got it's relationships. You got to have something that make an offer that they need, understand who your target is and help them. An example, a small day spa. I started coaching last year and I've coached them for an entire year. We grew them in the last 12 months from $2,500 a month to over $9,000 a month. Not her and her partner quit their jobs as paramedics in now only run the day, smile. 

 Scott
 Wow, couldn't be happier. They're not working these three day shifts. They're not, they actually see each other every day. There's obviously the larger companies that I can come in and Hey, you've got a sales team of five to 25 people. What's your go to market strategy ops would have done. How do I grow? People factor me to 20 million. We built a team from six to 21 people and all the things that go in behind and go to market strategy. So, 

 Josh
 With sales, right, you said, sales is not complicated. Break it down. I'm a new sales guy, green as can be right. Never done it before. And, and we're, we have to do some prospecting, right? What are some things that you look for? That I might be thinking about sales the wrong way, or some ways that I can improve and you could grow me as a sales guy. 

 Scott
 Absolutely. It all starts with what's your plan. You know, who are we're prospecting today? Does that mean we're gonna make a hundred phone calls or you go knock on doors. Now that the world's back open again, what are we doing? Are we doing LinkedIn messaging? Right? What's our plan. Understand who our target is. Hopefully if you're getting, if your company, if that's a small entrepreneurial entrepreneur, we're going to talk about who truly is your target, your ideal client. If it's a big corporation, if you're getting hired, typically they know who it is. You would hope. And then it's, what are you? What's your offer in? What's your, what's your 32nd elevator pitch. You know, this is cold calling. You got 30 seconds to buy yourself two minutes to book an appointment. Yeah. And that's the other thing, understand? What are you selling when your prospect believe it or not? 

 Scott
 I'm not selling. When I go to a networking event, I'm not selling a 90 day contract for coaching. I'm selling this. Josh want to have a coffee with me, sit down and let's talk about how coaching can help his business. Then in that meeting, guess what? Now I know what I'm focused on. I'm trying to get, show you how I can help you. And here's the programs. Which one do you want? That's the biggest mistake. New reps make and prospecting. They think they're signing a contract when they meet, you. 

 Josh
 Know, 

 Scott
 We we've got to build up. I got it. I've got to earn the right to ask you out. Right? In dating terms, I gotta earn the right to ask you out for coffee, for dinner, whatever it may be. You got to court them as the, back in the old days. So that's, and that's where most go. They don't have a plan and they don't understand what am I selling in this one, interaction, each interaction you're selling something different, 

 Josh
 The selling to the next step, right? The, the, the cold call is to, how do I get, how do I sell 30 seconds? How do I get, five seconds, that 30 seconds. Right? What's the step that the process, the sales process is. Some tape, sometimes people call and they'll just go blue the little, and they try to throw the whole sales pitch. I'm just like, click hang up, right. By the way, if you guys call me and start that way, I will hang up on you. I love you, but I'm going to hang up on you. 

 Scott
 The whole book they send you on LinkedIn. It's like, 

 Josh
 Yeah, 

 Scott
 I'm not reading that. 

 Josh
 I know that you copied and pasted that LinkedIn message. And you're trying to go from zero. I'd never met you to try to sell me something that I don't like. You didn't even do your research. You don't even know that. That's what I want. So, as you're doing this, I, I love talking about sales because, I had to do cold call prospecting, call a hundred companies a day, B2B sales. I had to knock on doors, door to door sales, hated it. Right. So I'm in sales. What are, what's your favorite way to sell? Like, what's your favorite venue or your favorite vehicle or channel for sales? 

 Scott
 Well, I always said I hate cold calling. It's a necessary evil, but it's how I created my business, my art, my $6 billion, excuse me. You've got it. It's, it's the fastest way to get a prospect in your sales phone. Excuse me. That being said, it had to be around 2011 or so. A friend of mine said to me, Hey, we're going to this. We're going to this event on Saturday. We're going to learn LinkedIn and Facebook go, what the hell I go? I go, I'm barely on him. He goes, no, we're going to learn how to use them for business. It's like fine. I walked out of there and I started using LinkedIn and I can say any job I got in the next 10 years and all the business, I personally wrote. 90% of it came through LinkedIn. 

 Josh
 Totally. What are LinkedIn by the. 

 Scott
 Way that so cold calling is not dead by the way, but a proper short LinkedIn message to warm it up, where when they get your call is a great connection. Again, you got to understand what, there's not one marketing thing you're going to do. You've got to do a few of them in concert and how they work together and understand this cold calling is not sales cold. Calling is marketing. Anything that puts a lead into your funnel is marketing. 

 Josh
 All right. Explain the difference between cold column being sales versus cold column being marketing. That's a paradigm shift I haven't heard before. 

 Scott
 Cold calling being sales is what we've talked about earlier. I'm trying to sell you the deal on a cold calling, being marketing. As I'm trying to put a carrot in front of you to say, yes, I want to meet with you or your team become in your sales funnel. 

 Josh
 So, yeah, that's, I think that's interesting because the, the cold call is a way to just get the conversation going. You're calling, in the B2B world, you're calling busy entrepreneurs or business leaders, and they don't have the time to just, be interrupted and then blah, blah, it's to get the next step in it. You help you go to an organization like this, the day spa from 2,500 a month to nine grand a month. That's, that's a life changer for that, for that group, right? Like, how did you do it? Like, what are some of the things that you put into place for them? 

 Scott
 There's a lot of things we got to put in place one, they had to learn to be business owners. Part of them was some business coaching too, but we only really focused on what's our plan. You've got you as my clients. I go, I know you didn't get tired of this, but here's the drum plan plan plan. What's our plan for today for the next week, for the next 90 days. I don't really go on beyond the 90 day plan because you can't control what goes on that. Now, do we know our goals for one in five years? Yes. We got to break it down into daily, weekly and 90 day segments of the plan. It's understanding for them. They had to understand who is our true target market? Who are we going after? They had some, they have some specialties. They're not just a day spa of let's go have the fluffy day spot. 

 Scott
 They, they work with people who have injuries, who, had surgeries, things like that. Athletes who need to recover so great. Now we kind of know who our target is, where do we find them? Where are they? Who can introduce us to them? We had to build their entire go to market, everything that's involved. The next thing, which is probably the most phenomenal stuff was easy. Here's the hard part. They had to believe they were salespeople. Even today, when I talk to them, they're like, we're not salespeople. I go, you went from 2,500 to 9,000. You don't think you're a sales person. You, you sell out your appointments every day. Now you are a salesperson till we also set it up to where they know what they're going to say. When someone calls where they're about to hire a receptionist, you will just answer the phone and guess what? 

 Scott
 We'll teach that person. What to say. We, everything in my life is scripted. People laugh. I can do a three hour presentation. Guess what? I scripted it. Now I review and practice it over and over again so that I'm not literally reading the script while I'm in front of 50 people, But I script it. So I know cause I'm prepared. She goes to a networking event and I do this too in my car before, when we now we're back to networking events, again, I read over my script, my 32nd speech in my car, five times before I go into that venue to go start shaking hands and see if someone will meet with me. Those were all the things we got to put in a place that's a lot, but we had to put a lot because they had nothing. 

 Josh
 Yeah. This is so cool because most entrepreneurs, right? They, I can't say most in this situation, right. They have their craft right there, day spa, or, the massage therapist or this guy makes wood tables or whatever the case may be. We get into the business cause we're like, I like doing this craft. I'm I'm good at this craft. We get all set up, we get our camera set up or whatever we do. We're like, all right, customers, I'm ready for you. And then crickets. Right? We're like, oh shoot, I got to go get customers. They're like figuring out how to be a business owner, how to improve in their craft and how to sell it. Right. You come in and you have with the coaching of business owners, like, Hey, here's some business fundamentals. Here's where I screwed up. Here's how not to screw up. 

 Josh
 Here's the, let's create a plan. You help them coach on how to get more people to say yes, essentially. What is the biggest hurdle people have when you're having a conversation with them and they go, yes, I need that. What's the biggest hurdle from getting them to go, yes, I need that. And then let's do it. 

 Scott
 It's a couple of things. It can be a mindset that they don't believe they're supposed to be successful in life. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Scott
 It's called what I call. I stole it from somewhere else, but I've done a few podcasts and in blogs on it, the law of deservedness, that's the biggest one. They don't believe, oh my God, Scott, you can grow me from $75,000 a year to $200,000 a year, ? And you don't do it in heat. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to get there, of course. But do they believe it? The biggest fear, we all have a success, not failure. I can dance with the devil. I know I struggled to pay my bills, every now and then I can go out for a nice meal. Here's how life works, but it becomes comfortable. I'm used to it. I've got to break them from that habit and help them take the blinders off that they deserve Mon deserve success and that they actually are able to go have success. 

 Josh
 All right. I got to challenge you on this. The biggest fear. All right. Let's take away, in business, right? Let's let's remove anything, I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of all the stuff in the business world. You're saying the biggest fear entrepreneurs have is the fear of success. Not failure, not bankruptcy, not getting sued. Not any of that. You're saying that the greatest fear in your experience, 

 Scott
 When you dive into it, we think it's everything you said, but when you dive into it, why didn't you make that extra phone call before you left today? 

 Josh
 Fear of rejection. Maybe. 

 Scott
 There is rejection in that. What if I said, yes, do I have to work more? What happens if I have 10 new clients? Oh, I'm going to get really busy. Can I handle that? Well, yeah, you can't and we'll figure out how to handle it. We'll go hire new people. We'll add to your team. We'll grow the business. 

 Josh
 You're saying, all right, let me just, let me try to wrap my brain around this. Right? If success, the fear of success is let's just say, that's my greatest fear. I'm going to do everything I can to potentially avoid that fear and that pain that comes that's associated with it. And I self-sabotage the actual success. Yep. All right. 

 Scott
 I know a lot of people get, I get the same reaction and when I coach them, I go, let's dive into it. Why didn't you do this? Or why did you do that? When you knew you weren't supposed to? 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now I'm a risky guy, right? Like I've been in venture capital, private equity. I built tech companies. I cashed out government pension when all in to entrepreneurship, I built spec homes and starting in oh five to, you got burnt in for me late end of 2006. Right? Like, so fear for me, not afraid of failure at all. Not afraid of, giving it a shot, but I'm trying to be introspective here. Was I afraid of the actual success? And did I self-sabotage it, that's interesting. Never really thought of that. Am I afraid of winning? I've been surprised that I won a few times. 

 Scott
 Sure. Huh. Also Josh, you and I wouldn't be talking here today. If you weren't part of more of that 1%, who does everything you just said, we're talking about the largest group as a whole. 

 Josh
 I think you're onto something, man. I think, I think you're right. Like I could apply this to myself because I'm not afraid, like I've had enough failures at first. Like the, the, the pain of failure really hurts and I'm sad and lost all my money ready to, but you do that a few times and you get a few failures on your belt. You're like, oh, I'll try something else. And you pivot faster. You, you build faster, you build stronger. In all sorts of cool things happen, based on past experiences, but the fear of failure, I think, or the fear of success, Scott, this is really challenging to me because I think that that might be a stumbling block. Let's just say, you and I are working together. I'm going to get some free coaching here. All right. And the, 

 Scott
 There were sessions always complimentary. We, then we go into the investment. 

 Josh
 Yeah. There you go. Perfect. I like how you set that up. With w with, when you experience someone who had a story like yours, right? Like went out there, blew it out of the water, 6 billion in sales and crushing it. I could step in any company build it. You had some failures and a ten-year slump. The next step is you got to get back on your feet, get someone to believe in you and get a coach all moving forward. You have to, the next major hurdle, people have to get over as they to build and grow. They'll hit a ceiling. It sounds like the next step is getting over the fear of success that the law of deservedness, what does that look like? How do you know that you're working through that? 

 Scott
 It's all of a sudden you look back, you're like, oh, wait, that's where I was. I, I, I can barely see that anymore. When you're kind of, you're in the ocean, you're swimming . You don't realize how far away from the beach you just got. It's that, but in a good way. You're like, oh crap, wait, I'm now at $125,000 a year, not 75 or as a sales rep for a big company. Wait, you mean it's June. I'm about to hit my number and win president's club. Oh, wow. You mean the CEO is calling me to check in. If I need his help. You just, it happens. There's not that moment where you feel yourself climbing over that proverbial wall. It just, all of a sudden you look back and you didn't realize how far had you already gone and you, it can be an emotional thing. 

 Scott
 I know for me, it has been where it's like, you just, you almost dropped your knees and you're crying. Like, oh my God, wow. I always believed in myself, but I always also held myself back. I can see that now. 

 Josh
 Definitely holding myself back 100%. Right. That's I mean, I work with coaches. I have these shows and I've worked with, like I said, therapists, I, 

 Scott
 I am not a therapist by the way, make sure I was listening. I am not a therapist. 

 Josh
 No, but this is super cool, Scott. Like, that's something that I really need to, and I want to encourage our deal-makers in the audience, like, especially on the sales side makers, right? Like one more phone call, one more. This one more that hidden our goals had in our metrics. Right? Like we're very driven individuals. Like, let me just speak for us. Let me challenge you guys. Gals dealmakers are, do you have, is your greatest fear of the fear of success? Have you self-sabotage look back in the patterns of your life. Wow. This is super cool. I'm going to, I'm going to have to really chew on this, Scott. I really appreciate you. You sharing this. As you're building this, right, I, I see that you're really invested in helping build and work with scaling businesses. It looks like, some stuff with accelerators and board of directors and all these cool things that you're doing. 

 Josh
 What's, what's winning look like for you. Where, where do you want to see yourself go? 

 Scott
 Winning for me is keynote speaking a lot more? That's something I want to get out there where I can reach a broader audience. When I started my coaching journey in August of 2019, I set a goal. I want to positively influence a million lives in the next 10 years. So obviously that's my big measurement. I know, I know my metric. It's that one metric and people like, how do you measure it? You go, well, I'm on a podcast. How many viewers do we have? I don't assume I influence everyone. Who's going to watch this podcast, but there's a number in there. I ran a training yesterday, 10 sales reps. They have families when I influenced positively one person that affects their family. That's what to me is how do I get more exposure, right? That's why I love the opportunity to do things like this. 

 Scott
 I want more exposure so that I can help more people. The next big target is to be able to fund my own foundation in the next two years, that will give back. As I said to you earlier, before we got on camera, the name of my business that owned, my LLC that owns everything to do is Shinji G2, which is Japanese for belief in the bit, the foundation would be the foundation, which is our belief causing to go to sales, scalers. That's to us as in the middle.com, you'll see our why and everything. You'll see we list we believe in, and it goes through a whole bunch of stuff in that foundation will be to just very simply, it's not about curing cancer. Our world hunger will do everything. It's. We want to make our local community here in Austin better. The more we build the foundation, we start branching out to Texas and the rest of the world's. 

 Josh
 Super cool, man, during this interview, I want to ask you one of these questions from these cards. Tell me when to stop and I'll read you a question off a card. All right. This is your question, sir. Are you ready? 

 Scott
 Yes. Oh, this is great. 

 Josh
 Given the chance, what would your worst enemy want to tattoo on your back? Nothing to do with your, with deals or whatever, but given the chance, what would your worst enemy you want to tattoo on your back? Huh? That is a weird question. So you can say next for, 

 Scott
 My enemy is, I know it was one of my two kids are 20 and 28. They'd want to tattoo something very girly on my back and A butterfly that's pink and everything so that everyone sees it. That would be my, especially my not be both of my boys. 

 Josh
 The, okay, so the next time we see you, we're going to ask to see the tattoo. Yeah. Scott, like one of the things, that we chat about the show, I always like to add some crazy question that pops out of these things, but that's an interesting one. I haven't read one yet. As you've experienced these worlds from wall street, investment bank and hedge fund PE, you built some cool companies and, put 6 billion in sales and raised 20 million over here and done that. What would you look back and say, that was my greatest accomplishment in business. 

 Scott
 That's easy. Cause when you have your interview to get asked a similar question in 2013, I believe it was give or take a year. Everyone on my team at Tri-Net as of March 1st was on president's club. We celebrated in a room on a beach, every single one of them. That was about eight of them. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 Scott
 It's never about me. It's they all had that success. We created an environment for them to be successful and try not to do a great job. You bring your family or your spouse, whoever. And, you can sit back at yes, the Ritz Carlton with a nice cocktail in hand and see your team with their Significant other just being celebrated and all that. I remember sitting there, just tears in my eyes and like, this is why I do what I do. 

 Josh
 With, with what you're doing. Coaching people on sales and scaling their business and adding some business coaching. There's, well, what's a good place for people to connect with you and do a deal with you. 

 Scott
 Yeah. Great place. Scott at sales, scalers.com and that's to S as in the middle sales, plural, scalers.com. Obviously you can always find me on LinkedIn as well, but that's a great place. Happy to, as I said earlier, we do complimentary coaching call. You want to talk about sales? You want to talk about leadership. You want to talk about your business. You want to just a lot of the great, I love all the questions. Say, Josh, we got into a lot of mindset. A lot of that falls under mindset of performance. Let's talk, let's figure out where you want to get to. If we can help you, we're happy to, if not, we recommend some great people too, or, every interaction is about making the world a better place. Even if it's a 30 minute call, there's going to be something that you get to take away with and just go make life better for yourself. 

 Josh
 Super cool. I have found that where the head goes, the body follows. I learned this in wrestling and in jujitsu and such like that. That's the same, that's a martial arts skill. You, you want someone to move somewhere. You grab them by their, and where their head goes, the body follows. That's also true in mindset where the head is, the body follows. If you have that fear, if you have self-sabotage, if you have the, I don't feel like I deserve this, then man, I'll tell you will blow it apart. I've done it. I've done it multiple times. Sounds like you've had some adventures there too. Yeah. One more piece of advice that you have for entrepreneurs who are looking to, maybe a resource, obviously they could reach out and connect with you, but what's a resource that people can go that you appreciate that helps improve their mindset to have a healthier mindset. 

 Scott
 Mindset's a tough one, resources, a lot of books. I got to tell you, that's where I start. High performance habits limitless by Jim quick, the infant, depending what your role is, the infinite game by Simon Sinek. I learned a lot from that one. If you're a leader multipliers by Liz Weisman books, there's so many books, amazing podcasts. Like you're putting out here, Josh, that's the first place to go to start getting some thoughts in your head. And then it's go find a coach. You connect with, like I said, coaching's an intimate relationship. I don't lose opportunities because someone doesn't think I can coach them. It's just, we didn't connect on an intimate level that we can be fully open and transparent with each other, ? And, but find your coach who can get you where you're trying to get to. Like tiger woods every other year. 

 Scott
 Sometimes you switch coaches, right? Mary's at the top of his game. He switched his coach, why he wanted to get to the next level. Yeah, those, and obviously there's, there's great incubators out there with some great mentors, new chip, who I worked with myself here in Texas, he got, was it capital factory is another one, in your local community. There's so many incubators. If you're at that level of where you're going after, and they're going to set you up with mentors who can help you with some of this stuff too. 

 Josh
 Super cool. What's the question I should've asked you that I screwed up and didn't ask, 

 Scott
 That's a good one. I wasn't expecting that one. What's most important leadership. 

 Josh
 Go for it, 

 Scott
 Influence in communication. If you can communicate and talk in their language, not yours, you can influence anyone obviously in the right way. Of course, but communication. I'm a certified disc practitioner, disc. Myers-Briggs, all that stuff. Communication is not what I say. It's what you hear. You've got to learn to be able to read people and understand for disc, are they a D and I S C and talk in their language to pull them to center. You guys can now understand each other. 

 Josh
 Totally. Oh, that just hit me. The other day. I took my daughter on a 5k run, Turkey trot back in Thanksgiving. I just, this and I'll end with this. We had, I thought it was a great event. You know, she was tired. She's nine years old. She, what she remembered was that I, I popped her hand because she was holding on the stroller and I'm pushing into other kids. She remembered that out of all the, and it's not what I had to, like, I was praying about that this morning. I was just like, that's what she remembered from this. I was like, I need to make sure that I'm communicating. I need to make sure that I'm doing things and how are they receiving it, not how I perceive that I'm doing it. So, yeah, man, that's aligned and I'm trying to lead my kids and then figure out how to lead a team over here too. 

 Josh
 I'm super cool chat, Scott, and you've challenged me on multiple fronts. Like, I love it when I have a guest that does that for me and my audience. Thank you so much, fellow deal-makers in the audience as always reach out to our guests and say, thank you. If what they say resonates with you, if you need help with mindset, if you need help with some coaching in your business or sales, like reach out to Scott and just have a chat and see if it would be a fit for you. If you're working on a deal or you're a deal maker, and you want to come chat on the show, head on over to the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next till then talk to you all on the next episode. Bye. Bye.