418 | Why Your Sales Team Is Failing: The Mental Gap | Scott Miller

Speaker A: I think investing in marketing, most people are too cheap. Most people think that they can do most of that on their self. And I'm not talking about hiring a marketing agency per se. I'm just saying marketing, overall lead generation, advertising, all these kinds of things, right? Because people have to know you to do business with you. You know what I mean? Like, if you call somebody up out of the blue and even if you have a great conversation with them, at the end of the conversation you ask them to invest $10,000 in a product, they're probably not going to do it, right? Because why? They don't have any idea who you are. So if they know who you are ahead of time, then, uh, they're more apt to invest in themselves.

Speaker B: The future doesn't wait for founders to feel ready. Markets shift, technology accelerates, teams evolve. The founders who win aren't the ones hoping for calm water. They're the ones who learn how to captain the ship no matter what the sea looks like. And that's exactly what we do here. Every week, without exception, we bring you the real conversations with founders who've been through the fire and the experts who know how to build what lasts. Founder stories every Tuesday, expert strategy every Thursday. The intelligence you need to build bold, scale, smart and stay future Proof. This is Future Proof Founder with your host, five time founder and globetrotting adventurer, Jeff Mains.

Speaker C: Welcome back to the Future Proof founder podcast. Where we'll fix the process later is the founding document of every company currently on fire. I'm Jeff Mains, five time founder and your guide for the messy, magnificent climb from startup to 30 million and well beyond. Here's what I believe. You can build a company that lasts and live a life worth remembering. Anyone who tells you to sacrifice one for the other, they're just selling something. Building a business of significance while living an epic, adventurous life. That is the whole game. So let's play full out. Here's something that'll probably sting a little bit. Most founders have a closing problem, not a leads problem. And you'd never know that in the initial conversations, is not that the pipeline is too small, the conversion rate is just quietly bleeding out. And the fix that everybody reaches for is more automation, more volume. We need more leads. We got to put more stuff in, we need more sequences, we need to get fancier, we need to change our offer. But the thing is, if you pour more water into a leaky bucket and call it growth, that's not growth at all. The founders who are actually winning right now are not the ones that are out automating everybody else. Hard to believe, right? It sure seems that way when they look online. But they're doing something else that feels almost embarrassingly simple, something that most sales teams have quietly forgotten how to do because the tools made it easy to skip. Today's conversation gets into what that actually looks like in practice, how to use technology for what it's genuinely good at and where you absolutely cannot let it replace you. There's a specific language shift we talk about that one of our listeners could implement today before lunch and likely see a difference. This week we'll also get into the gap. And you know exactly the gap I'm talking about, the one between the conference notes you took, the program you bought and the strategy you mapped out, and then what you've actually done with any of it. And, and there's a reframe in today's episode for why that gap exists that

Speaker A: I hadn't heard before.

Speaker C: It's not about discipline. It's not about mindset. It's something else entirely. So stay with us. My guest today is Scott Miller. Scott started in trucking. Not tech, not finance, not a prestigious MBA program. Trucking. It's pretty cool, right? When I was in third grade, I wanted to be a trucker. And his experience somewhere in between there and building multiple successful ventures, he figured out something most sales trainers never do, that the fundamentals haven't changed, but most people have just gotten lazy about those fundamentals. Scott is the founder of M M2 Wealth Ventures and his argument is one that might sting a little if you've been hiding behind your CRM. And that is that automation can find the leads, but automation can't close it. That's still a human job and most teams have forgotten how to do it. Today we'll get into exactly what separates the people who convert from the ones who just collect contacts or shuffle cards. Welcome someone who built his playbook in the real world, not in a classroom. Scott Miller. Hey Scott. Welcome to Future Proof founder.

Speaker A: Good morning.

Speaker C: We went from truck driver to top ranked salesperson in GE capital to running four businesses now after retirement that clearly didn't take. What is the thread that connects it all for you?

Speaker A: Look, I think hopefully everybody has a purpose in their life, right? And so my purpose has always been, and I didn't realize this until somewhere later on, but it's to help people. So even when I was in sales, my goal was always to help the client. Right. It wasn't necessarily to make a sale and make money. Yes, that was part of it, but the core of it was really to help other people. And I found that the more I helped people, the more money I made. Right. The more successful I became. So that's kind of the thread. Same thing with our businesses today. It's really not about money. I'm 68 years old. I don't mean hope this doesn't sound arrogant or goofy, but it's not like I need a whole bunch more money, but I just like working with people and figuring out problems and helping them solve those and things like that. Right.

Speaker C: So that's uh, when it gets to be really fun. Uh, when it's, you're really focused on the impact more than the finances behind it.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. It's when you, when your life changes from dollars and cents to uh, connection with people, communication, reality, affinity with other people, then I would call that probably the ultimate success.

Speaker C: Right. So yeah, you've earned the nickname Master of Sales. What is a sales lesson from the early days that still shapes how you train people today?

Speaker A: So, uh, that's a great question. And I, by the way, I gave myself that title and I bought web domain probably, I don't know, 30 years ago or something when nobody was on the web then that counts anyway, so. But it comes down to your craft. Whatever you're going to do in life, if you're going to be a stay at home mom, a pastor of a church, a CEO of a multinational company, an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, a dad or mom or whatever, it really comes down to mastering what you do in life and to the best of your ability. Right. You see so many people wildly successful in business and then their health is compromised or their relationships are compromised. Right? And I think, look, you get on your deathbed, most everybody would probably answer the question, hey, if I could give you 10 more years and you trade in everything you've got right now financially, would you do it? Well, heck yeah. Most people would say yes to that. Right? So some people might say no, I'm m out. Uh, but most people wouldn't.

Speaker C: So that makes a lot of sense. Sales has definitely changed over the last certainly five years, but I think even the last two, it has been significantly different. How are you training people different today than you did five or 10 years ago?

Speaker A: So interestingly enough, right now we've developed a system, I'll call it, to take people, mix new school with old school and kind of go back to some of the things that people used to do. The world has become so digitized and people's mindset in sales, marketing, really m anything is, hey, if I get enough volume, if I send out 10,000 emails, somebody's going to respond. Or if I have a bot make 150,000 phone calls in a week, somebody's going to pick up the phone. The challenge with that is a friend of mine was actually just at a conference and these are people that are all creators and very AI oriented and very digital young folks, right? And they talk about volume. Oh, get 50 million followers on social, or get all these people on an email list and things like that. Or on social media. He compared the. They did an experiment there. He had an email list of 1837 people, I think it was. And this other kid had a social media presence of about 20 million people across all his platforms. So they put out an identical message. The kid on the digital side got some response, but he got no conversions from that. The guy who sent out the emails, which is today would be considered old school, he got like 12 appointments and three sales right on the spot. So it proves that. And now that's a warm list, right? So he's not cold, you know, cold emailing people. But it goes back to relationship. Right? Right now we've got, uh, some of our clients where we're having them send out a mail piece in the mail with a stamp on to customers and then we follow up with an email a week later and then a phone call a week later after that. If they haven't responded, the response is off the charts. It's, it's crazy. It's. People want connection and one of the things. And look, I'm not bagging on the digital world. We're in a digital world. That's it, right? AI is here to stay. It's not going anywhere. Computers are here to stay. All these things, right? Uh, quantum computing is actually probably going to be the next thing that'll overtake our lives, I'll call it. But I think if people would go back to some old school stuff and mix it in. Now the challenge is some of the old cool school stuff requires work. A lot of people nowadays, they think, hey, I spend a thousand dollars on an AI bot or I do this and that and blah blah, blah. You know, I Invest, you know, $5,000 in some AI generated marketing program and magically my business grows by whatever. It doesn't work like that. It just doesn't work like that. Look, I think the pendulum on AI specifically is out here right now. It's going to come back to the middle, but if we can so to Answer your question. If we can mix old school and new school together, I think that would have. It serves two things. First of all, it's great connection with existing clients or warm contacts. And the second thing is it brings people back to the idea that you have to work a little bit to get a result. That's something, right?

Speaker C: So, yeah, I think that's really true. I love mixing in that. The old school, the human connection, that's one of the things can be so easily lost. I love digital as well. But it can be when you lose that human connection, that's really what sales is about. It's building the trust. It's building and depends on what you're selling a little bit too. But really building that trust and enough for them to say yes, I want to move forward with this. Last time we talked, you talked about lead generation or AI making lead generation easier, which it certainly has. But it's also exposed how bad most sales teams are closing. Let's talk a little bit about that gap. Why does it exist? Is it a skills problem, Is it a training problem, or is it something else?

Speaker A: I think it's a mental laziness problem. One of the things that AI in particular, but many of the digital world as it's matured over the years, right the start, when I was a kid, they sold Texas instrument pocket calculators for a hundred bucks. Now you can buy that same thing in the line at the grocery store for 299 or whatever, right? But it makes all these tools, which are fantastic, by the way. I'm not bagging on the advancement of society, but it's making us dumber. Like, no, and here's the problem with. Or the challenge, I'll call it with AI, and this is particular to the ability for people to close sales and things. If I give you a wrong preset, if I can get you to believe something that's true or not true, but you believe it, now I'm in control of you, right? And AI in my purview is dangerous in that way, right? Where if I can get somebody who doesn't know math to believe that 10 of 100 is 24, then I can control their world, you know, So I think the problem with, again, I'll, uh, call it new school versus old school is the new school way is, you know, companies invest a bunch of money in marketing. Most companies at this point have separated marketing and sales, right? When I came up in sales, you did all your own work, you sent out your own mailers. Major, you did everything you Went out. You spent first half of the day marketing, sending things out to people, whatever. And the second half of the day you'll be out knocking on doors looking for customers. Right. So those things have been largely separated in sep. In that separation, it's made salespeople a little bit lazy. Like they, I've, I interview people for sales all the time. The first question they always ask every single time, how many leads am I going to get every day?

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: That's the first question they ask. I'll give you as many leads as you want if you can show me that you can close those leads so they become. And again, I'm not picking on younger people or I'm not picking on the world today. I'm just saying that we need to be a little bit cognizant of that. And how do we mitigate the unforeseen challenges that come from advancement in technology and society? Right. So how do we mitigate that? So I don't know if that answered your question.

Speaker C: You predicted a kind of a renaissance of going back to old school businesses rebalance AI tools with human relationship building. What does that look like in, in that rebalance company when they're mixing those tactics together, what does it look like in practice? What's automated and then what stays human?

Speaker A: Yeah, look, I use automation in my business. I have an AI, three AI agents that do a lot of work inside of my business. One's the boss and he controls the other two. One's customer service, one sales oriented. And then we use different platforms. We use, I don't want to promote anybody, but we use some of the different data platforms out there and we scrape that data, have subscriptions to uh, plenty of these things and we scrape that data and then we sort it. So the great thing about technology is the AI can sort that very quickly. Same thing. As an example of spreadsheet. I love making spreadsheets. I can make a very complicated spreadsheet but it takes me three to four hours now. I could just load that right into Chat, GPT or Claude and say, hey, here's the data, here's a, here's the outcomes. I want. Give me a spreadsheet, boom, 45 seconds later, a minute later, I have this beautiful spreadsheet that works perfectly. So things like that, it great, it's great to use that technology. And part of this is even not a technology thing. Part of it is also born from uh, the COVID era where everybody started getting on zooms. They lose even like you and I are on this call I can tell you're a good person. However, I think if you and I ever met in person and sat down face to face and had a cup of coffee, we would get to know each other much better. Right. Because then there's a different vibe to. That's right. Get out and meet people. Go to events, go to industry events, go to the chamber of commerce if it's appropriate for your business. Go out and meet people, shake their hand. I go to these events. All the people now have the digital business card. It's great. But I still carry a pocket full of business cards and I hand them out to people, you know, because I want to force that. You touching your phone to my phone. There's no connection between you and I there other than we just exchange information. If I hand you my business card and you grab it and take it now there's a personal exchange that just happened. Right. There's a personal connection of sorts. Right. It seems. But I would submit it's very significant because now you and I have. I remember. Oh, yeah, I remember Jeff. Right. Uh, this is. This is something he said. And I always make a note on the back of their car.

Speaker C: I do as well.

Speaker A: They love dogs. Right? You have. I don't know if he's close by or if he's. Is he still. Is he still your dog?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Or is it.

Speaker C: Yes, for the moment. He's getting up there in age, but. Or is still around. It's his birthday. So. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker A: How old is he today?

Speaker C: 16.

Speaker A: No way. Wow, that's awesome. But there's a great example, right. Of, you know, now I'm going to make a note about that. And now I know today is Thor's birthday. I don't know your birthday, but I know Thor's.

Speaker C: You got the important one.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah. But if I send you a note and say, hey, is, you know, next year, hopefully Thor is celebrating his 17th birthday. And at that point you would say, oh, unfortunately, you know, I lost Thor. Or. Yeah, he's 17 and he's jumping around waiting for his birthday biscuit or whatever. Right. That's a. That's a way to communicate with people as far as I'm concerned. Right.

Speaker C: Yeah. That's real connection. Especially when you remember something like that. And I love to do that and make those notes and especially if there's something date related that's in the future and then to send them a message around that one that I actually remembered. And people are shocked that. And I don't do it as often as I'd like to. But they're really shocked because it stands out and it makes it really memorable, and it creates an instant connection with that person that they remember that you remembered and that you actually cared and that you reached out. And so that that small thing means so much.

Speaker A: By the way, you can use that as a marketing piece as well. If you're trying to get in touch with a tough prospect that won't get on the call, won't respond to your things, send them a birthday card. It doesn't matter if it's their birthday or not. Just send them a birthday card and say, hey, happy Birthday. And they'll respond and go, it's not my birthday. My birthday's on September 89th, 15th, or whatever. 19. Okay, now I know a. I know your birthday, and now I got you.

Speaker C: That's good. I like that. Yeah. Whether it's her birthday or not, send him a card.

Speaker A: That's it. That's it.

Speaker C: Uh, you have a digital marketing agency, one of the four businesses that you're building, and you build solutions in there for marketing sales. Gaps that you really saw across companies. What's the most common gap that you encounter and why does it keep showing up in every industry?

Speaker A: Yeah, the most. The biggest gap I see is between idea and execution. Everybody has great ideas. Everybody studies things all day long. You know, they know everything about everything. Not literally, but you know what I mean. Like, they learn all this stuff. They invest money, processes and ideas and products, and then you ask them, did you do the program? Oh, no, I haven't gotten to it yet. When did you buy it? I bought it last December. Or they go to a conference with great speakers, people that have great information, and you see them walking around your notebook. Oh, I don't have a notebook. What do you mean? You're at a conference, learning stuff. So the biggest gap is between knowing what to do and doing it. Right. I'll give you an example. If I want to lose weight, which I need to lose a few pounds, right? I go online, I can find somebody who has a great workout program. I can go and buy a thousand dollars worth of supplements. I can go down and join the gym and do all those things. But if I don't eat the supplements and eat a better diet and go to the gym, even though I invested in all those things, my intent was good, but there was no execution. And so what happens? I get no result, or I get a bad result. Instead of losing weight, I gain weight, Right? I start eating chocolate chip cookies instead of the supplements. And a healthy Diet instead of salad. And I have an opposite, uh, result. So that's the biggest gap I see. And this is going back to the salesperson comments is it's knowing what to do and doing it is two different things. They're related, but they're really two different things. They're two different actions. One is I learned it, and the other one is I went and did it, you know, and I see a lot of people that don't do that. And even our clients, our digital marketing agency is really not our primary business. It is by default, but our primary business is really our consulting. And then when we saw the need in the consulting business for this gap that you're talking, the question you just asked about is people want to know, what the heck do I do? Okay, well, you have to do this, that, and the other thing. Well, I don't know how to do that. Well, okay, so that's where our marketing agency was born. We can do it for you. And here's how much the investment is to do that. And I probably shouldn't say this since I have a marketing agency, but I would rather people try to do it on their own first and understand the complexities of it and the time suck and all that kind of stuff that goes with things that are not their primary, uh, responsibility every day. Right? Yes. It's your responsibility to bring business in, but get somebody else to do that work and then you manage the effect of that work. Right. So as the owner of the business

Speaker C: makes a lot of sense, one that they'll learn a lot in that process, but just the time that it takes, I think that makes them a lot less price sensitive about having somebody else do it because it actually takes significant time and it pulls them away from their core business when they're trying to do that. But really understanding the process and what's behind it is really valuable.

Speaker A: Yeah. And most business owners undervalue, um, their

Speaker C: time, without a doubt.

Speaker A: They don't understand that they're worth 500 or a thousand dollars an hour and they're doing 15, 20 and $30 an hour things. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker C: No doubt. And on that note, where do you see founders spending money that you'd immediately cut and where are they being too cheap?

Speaker A: I think investing in marketing, most people are too cheap. Most people think that they can do most of that on their self. And I'm not talking about hiring a marketing agency per se. I'm just saying marketing, overall lead generation, advertising, all these kinds of things. Right. Because you really have to be. People have to know you to do business with you. You know what I mean? Like, if you call somebody up out of the blue and even if you have a great conversation with them, at the end of the conversation you ask them to invest $10,000 in a product, they're probably not going to do it, right? Because why? They don't have any idea who you are. So if they know who you are ahead of time, then, uh, they're more apt to invest in themselves. You know, whatever your ask is, I don't like. One thing I never do is I don't ever lower my price on anything. People are like, can I do it for this or can I do. No, I don't do that. It's not the right time for you and I to be together. That's it. And I don't say don't. I hope I'm not arrogant to people when I just. It's not going to be worth their investment because they're probably not. I give you a great example. I was working with a guy, got his business from 4 million to 10 million. The whole, at, uh, $4 million. I told him, you have the wrong people in place, you've got the wrong team. They're good hard working people, but they don't have the skill set to get over 10 million bucks. And he wanted, he had this aspiration to go 25, $50 million. And we went around and around on this. Well, I got him from 4 to 10. He did the work, but my guidance, he, he grew more than a double. But then he got to 10 million and he imploded. Like right now he's dropped back down to about 7 million. And then, and then he says to me, I lost money. My revenue went down when I was working with you. And I'm like, no, your revenue went up. It's actually still a double. Right now you went from 4 million, you're at 7, so you're almost a double. We had you more than a double. And then what happened? The people you had in place resisted what you wanted to do. They didn't have the skill set to execute on things. And so I'm not, I'm not trying to say I don't have any responsibility, but in that example, the guy was just, I saw very clearly what his problem was. And the reason he went so quickly from four to 10 is because there was two or three things in his business that needed to be fixed right away. And as soon as he fixed them, they were, their revenue skyrocketed. Right. So the one thing was they were highest priced product was 15 grand. Their sales manager that they had was having people start at a $6,000 product and then try to up them from there, upsell them. And his mindset was the second sales easier than the first? Well, yeah, it is, but why don't you start at the 15 that fall back? So we took his average sale went from about a little under 4,000, about 3, 900 up to almost 10,000. It was about 92, 9,300 per sale. Right. So average. And so that's a signet, that's a, that's where the double in the revenue came without changing the people. But then to take it to the next level, he would have needed to switch out people and he was not willing to do that.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And that's a common thing amongst small business owners especially. They have control of the business and they feel like they're out of control if they're going to rely on a general manager or somebody else to execute while they're the visionary of the business.

Speaker C: That's absolutely true. And it's really difficult to replace team members that have been with you for a while. That got you from 0 to 4, 4 to 10. And some people can scale, some people can scale a lot and a lot of them can't. And that's sad. But it's a different phase of the business. I'm uh, curious in your own experience and what was the point in your career or maybe it's happened multiple times, but what was the point when you realized the thing that got you here was not going to be the thing that got you to that next level or that was now going to hold you back.

Speaker A: So the, one of the reasons why I've continued to have success is I've been a lifelong learner. So I've never got to a point and said, okay, this is, you know, I've got the skill now I'm going to go and continue to execute. I've continued to get skill and skill and skill and learn. I'm 68 years old, I'm still doing that today. I literally just hired a coach, I hired my own coach to, you know, help me grow my business to the next level as well. Yeah. And but as in my own personal, like in when I was in the corporate world, my skill set as I, I can manage an entire business process up to around $100 million. And after that I'm out of my skill set. I'm. That's. It takes a different, it takes a real CEO to Run a business over and for my example, over 100 million m now I can still run the sales piece very effectively, but I'm out of altitude at that point. Like my oxygen, I m need an oxygen mask at that point. So I think it's important for people to understand what are their limitations. Right. So at that point, if I'm going to try to make that work, try to push over that number into somebody's business, I'm probably going to cause chaos because I'm not going to be able to manage that properly.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So be a learner if you're. I love the stories of you see a 90 year old man or a 90 year old woman that graduated from college. I love those stories because. Why? Because these are people that were sitting around one day, probably they retired and then they sat in a rocking chair for a couple of weeks and then thought to themselves, uh, this is not for me.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Like I'm living life. Just because I retired from my job doesn't mean that I'm done. And the challenge, of course, with people, especially people that have high levels of education, is that often they think they're smarter than everybody else and many times they're not. I'm not taking anything away from their education. I'm just saying that you should continue to learn irrespective of what their quote unquote education credentials say. That where they are, Right.

Speaker C: Without a doubt. In your consulting business, you mentioned you've built operations both in the US and Vietnam. What was it that pushed you to look at Vietnam in the first place? And then what convinced you it was worth the investment versus a more familiar market?

Speaker A: Sure. That person right there, my lovely wife is Vietnamese. And so that's what.

Speaker C: It's a good connection.

Speaker A: It's a good connection. She speaks the language. Uh, I do not. I have. I could say three things in Vietnamese and apparently no Vietnamese people can understand what I'm saying. Say to people they do something nice and I'd say, come on. Which is supposedly thank you, right? And they look at me and they'd be like, they're very polite. So they're like. And then one day one of the people said to her, they're like, what is he saying? She's saying, oh, he's saying thank you. They're like, oh, thank you, thank you. But anyway, I, uh, got off on a tangent. But look, the great thing about is the people are eager to learn. They are. It's just last year became a second emerging market, right? Before that, it's a third world country, right? And in many respects it still is. You get out in the providences, provinces and third world country, poverty like you've never seen. Crazy, no running water, no bathrooms, things like that. Right. The cities of course, are very modern now. Ho Chi Minh and Kantao, Hanoi, Da Nang, these cities are very, um, modern. And a lot of people speak English now. But the thing about Vietnam that's great is the people want to learn. They want to, they're eager to succeed. And it's funny, when we go there, they flock to me because they're hungry for the knowledge that we as US business people have. They want that knowledge, right? And really great. They're great people and there's great opportunity there. Their GDP is probably going to be over 10% this year. Place is growing like wildfire. It's very, it's growing very quick.

Speaker C: It is definitely an emerging market. I love Asia. There's so many great things. The people by far are just absolutely fantastic. But it is really interesting there. And there's a number of other countries that are similar where you do have this dual economy. So in the cities you've got this really advanced technology and QR code, digital payments. And just outside of that in the provinces, it's very cash based, it's very rural. It's almost like two different worlds inside the same country.

Speaker A: It really is. And there's, even in the cities, there's a certain amount of money you can make in a business where you pay one tax and then over that you pay a much higher tax. So most of these business, a lot of people still use cash, right? We pay cash for everything. Basically, I don't. Or I use a credit card sometimes, but I don't use their digital. I don't have a bank account in Vietnam. I don't use their digital. But I mean, so a lot of it is still cash, right? And the challenge there from a consulting standpoint is I see people with great little family businesses and they're reluctant to grow because they don't want on their mind, oh, I'm gonna have to pay this extra tax if I make, uh, more money. Not. And I. First thing I have to do is sit down and say, hey guys, look, yes, you're gonna pay this tax, but what if Your net is 100 million dong per month versus 15 million dong per month, right. 15 million dong is about 400 bucks, right? It's the. And they have a hard time with that concept, right? So because of that, a lot of them are very small. As an example, you'll get somebody. I'll make up an example. But somebody will go buy a bunch of bananas, and they'll stand on the corner and they'll sell those bananas one at a time during the day. And when the bananas are gone, they pack up and go home. They've made the money for the day. Right. And then trying to get them to understand, hey, what if you got 20 people and they all stood on the corner under your company and sold bananas and you bought a whole truckload, so now you get the bananas at a cheaper price, and now you've got 20 salespeople out on the corners. Or you get into a store and you supply all their bananas at all their different stores, stores around town. What if you did that? You know, and the first thing they say, oh, the taxes. But who cares? I mean, you know, yeah, I want to pay as little taxes as possible as well. If my net to me is a million dollars versus $100,000, I'm going to take the million bucks, even if I got to pay more in taxes or expenses or whatever. Right. So that's the one challenge, doing business there. And then. And that's it. And there's a lot of people that have products there. We have a foods company right now. We're working on trying to, um, bring their product into the US and, you know, so we'll see how that goes. I think we're going to succeed at that. But when. That will make them wildly successful in Vietnam. And it'll make, you know, it'll help us, uh, here in the US as well.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So without a doubt. And we'll get to eat genuine fault instead of the stuff.

Speaker C: There is a difference.

Speaker A: There is a difference.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Big difference.

Speaker C: There are a number of other countries that are relocating to Vietnam. Get around tariffs. China is doing that a fair amount. Get around tariffs and regulation. How does that inbound shift? How is it changing the competitive and talent landscape for everybody else operating there? Has that affected you?

Speaker A: Not really, because we're still more in a consulting type role. So it's not. We don't have to specifically hire people, things like that. It does make some of the regulations there. With the advancement of the market, some of the regulations are becoming more burdensome than they ever were. It used to be kind of like the Wild West. You do whatever you want. Not advocating for that or it's not neither good nor bad, uh, as long as people are fair. So in that regard, it makes it a little tougher. Right. Because now there's some things that people are doing. Making good Money at and providing a valuable service. I'll give you an example. There's anybody that has a. Can speak English fluently, you can get a job over there teaching people how to speak English. And you used to be able to get it in schools and universities and companies and everywhere. Well, now you have to be accredited to go into a university or a, uh, school. I mean, you probably should be, but there would. That was never a rule before. So now all these people that have moved to Danang to live a laptop lifestyle on the beach, first of all, as the market advances, the prices go up. Uh, so it's still way cheaper than it is here, but in relation to what it was in Vietnam to what it is today, it's much more expensive. Now, the cities or the hot spots, I'll call them. Right. So right now, NHA Trang, Danang, Hu Hoi an, some of those central coast towns or cities are. They're growing like crazy from people from all over Korea, a lot of Koreans, a lot of Russians, a lot of Americans, a lot of Australians. Right. It's really growing. And as it becomes a melting pot, a little bit more needs to be managed. The other thing that's I'm a little discouraged about is that the government now is tightening controls on things like when you go there, where you go, they want to track everywhere you go. Right. Like when I go get my visa, I have to tell them where I'm going to be staying. Well, just July today, it goes into effect that everywhere you stay, the people where you stay. If so if it's a air that's not. They're not called airbnbs there, but essentially Airbnb hotels, anything like that, they have to report to the local authorities that you're there and how long you stay. It's still a communist country. Yeah. Ah, on top of everything. Right. So that part's a little bit discouraging. I hope they'll change that a little bit. But all in all, it's good. The people are good, the food is great, the opportunities are great all around Asia, but of course, in Vietnam for that. When we're over during the winter, when it gets cold in Chicago, we go to Vietnam.

Speaker C: That's a smart thing to do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: I think it's interesting looking at different markets, and like you mentioned Thailand, it's trailed off. The cost rose. People move toward Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. We've seen some of that in the Philippines. It's come and gone and come back. And I love the Philippines for a lot of reasons. Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, there's so many markets. But as a founder, when you're looking at this, what is the lesson? How do you balance chasing the next cheap market and avoid building a strategy around a place that's about to price itself out?

Speaker A: That's a great question by the way, because I think so many people build their businesses around the next great idea. Not too long ago, I say not too long ago. Within the last few years, you know, getting a VA from the Philippines has been the biggest thing since slow sliced bread and then it from the Philippines, then some people in Eastern Europe and then South America and Mexico all uh, kind of get on, on the game. As that happens. The prices go up but the control is not there. You know, I would say to people, unless you're literally going to have an international market as, as a business opportunity for yourself, I would say not avoid the international markets but thought focus on what you do. Make bicycles from scratch in your barn and you can make, you know, a thousand of those a year. Then do that and maybe hire somebody who's as good as you and learn how to do 2000 a year or whatever. Know what your limitations are. Or if you don't want to build the handmade bicycle and get a top dollar for it and you want to have manufacture.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Then you can go to a market like Vietnam or whatever. Take your blueprints by the way, they will steal your idea in China especially, but most Asian markets they'll steal your uh, idea. There's zero way for you to protect that. You can have all the patents and trademarks and register everything and planet Earth and you will not be able to defend that in court for yourself. You will lose your idea for usually um, but if you can find somebody that you can trust and they can build your product and then you can imported into the U.S. yeah, by all means do that. But you have to know what your business model is. If you're building a high end bicycle, hand crafted and hand put together, you know, hand assembled, don't go to uh, anywhere else except for where you are. You know, if you're going to mass produce that, you're going to take that bike, take two or three of the designs that you came up with, cheapen it down and mass produce it. Yeah, that. Then go to some other market and do that. But I think that people get waylaid with these wild ideas of grandeur of how they're going to make go from hey, I've got a business that does $250,000 a year and I'm going to make $250 million a year. I don't think they understand how hard it is to go from 250 to a million, let alone two fifth. 250 million. Right. So stay in your lane I would say. And I'm not saying don't have great ideas or don't try to expand what you're doing or your mind or your ideas. I'm just saying understand where you are. Right. So makes sense.

Speaker C: Um, if a founder, particularly like in a tech or a service based business could only pick one market to test first and make some hires in, how would you help them decide which one to test?

Speaker A: Look, that's where AI comes in. Right. So this is something where you can use AI effectively. You can take a very uh, detailed script prompt if you will, of what you're selling, what is the market, what is your price point, who's going to use it and throw that into AI. And AI will give you a great starting point of how to what is the avatar, you know, and the tighter you can get on an avatar is better, the better you are. Right. So if I'm selling diapers, there's only two people that need diapers. There's baby and then there's the adult who's at an advanced age and they're, those are the only two people. So if I'm trying to sell that to a 50 year old guy who's a health nut and, and he's in the greatest shape you've ever seen, I'm not going to be very successful at that unless he's helping grandma or he has a two year old at home. Right. That's not going to be successful of that. So you have to know your avatar and then know which markets are, you know, and there's plenty of things on uh, AI today where you can go. I think there's a site called Trends where you can go in there and actually dig down, get pinpointed on actual products of what's trending right now and then what is the life expectancy of that trend? Right, because trends, some trends are a couple of months and then some are, some are a couple years and then some last. They endure over time.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: The pet rock was pretty popular when I was a kid. I haven't seen any pet rocks for sale any lately. There's probably still out there. You could go to like a gift shop somewhere and that sells tchotchkes and they probably have a pet rock you can buy, but it's not something that's, you know, it's past Its trend. Right. But you can, and I'm not saying all only focus on trends, but know what's, what will sell and what won't. If you can have the greatest idea in the world and if nobody wants it, then it's, you're gonna die an ugly death with your idea.

Speaker C: Right. So a founder is sitting on a sales team that's generating leads. And maybe they're using AI, maybe they're doing old school or hybrid, but they're kind of weak at closing those leads. What's the first thing you tell them to fix this week?

Speaker A: I'd get them into training. Get them to train every day and get them into role playing. There's no, there's nothing that replaces actual, like role playing, closing techniques, training. There's nothing that replaces any of those things. Right. And um, like my team, every morning they have to role play and they, we have all the objections. We know what are the objections that we hear in our business. And then they role play those, you know, and they lob them back and forth. I don't have any time, I don't have any money. You're too expensive. All the things that everybody hears in their businesses. But then I guess what I would say is if you went and asked your salespeople those questions, what do you do when Mrs. Jones says, I don't have any money, you know, or somebody says it's too, too expensive.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: What does that mean compared to what? And the average salesperson will not know the answer to that. The average salesperson will go on to the next sale and hope that they can close the next one. I'm a big believer in the Pareto principle. Right. The 80, 20 rule. 20% of the sales and 20, 80% of the sales in your business are going to come from 20% of the people.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: So if you got a Sales force of 10 people, two of them are bringing home 80% of the goods, probably four of them are bringing home another 10% of the goods. 15% of the goods, and then the bottom 20% are bringing home 5%. Every once in a while they get lucky. Now you shouldn't just eliminate those people. Maybe some of them need to be eliminated. But give them an opportunity for not just, uh, for the training. And don't make it about you. Like, change your wording when you're talking to your sales team and even your customers for that matter. Get rid of the words I, we our. Anybody that starts off a, uh, presentation of I do this for businesses, we do this for business. I could outsell anybody on planet Earth using those words just by changing it to you and yours. People are interested.

Speaker C: They want to know, what problem are you going to solve for me, not

Speaker A: what you do exactly. You know, you go to Mrs. Jones and you say, we do this and that and the other thing. Or I go to Mrs. Jones and I say, what do you want from. What is the outcome you are looking for? Right. How can you be best served? What is your desire? Right. Use those words instead of, we do this and we do that and our company this and that, blah, blah, blah. Adopt those things and, you know, everybody in the company. As the leader of a company or a founder of a company, you should aspire to have everybody clamoring for the top spot. Make it, make competitions. And Napoleon said, men will die for ribbons. Now, uh, yes, the money is good. You can give a bonus or whatever, but if you give them a giant plaque to put in their office that says, I kicked everybody else's butt this year, forget about it. When I worked at ge, there was an unofficial award that went around all the Northeast region where I was. And it was. We called it the Stanley Cup. And it was a plaque that was just. It wasn't official one from ge. It was from one of the district managers, made it up years before and they put the top salesperson on it, right? But had, I think, 12 spots for the little, you know, top salesperson of the year and had to say their name and their year. Well, this thing got, uh. They put these runners on the bottom, like these chains where they kept adding. Everybody wanted that thing in their office. If you had that in your office, you were the king of the castle. Everybody was like. And so it became a fun thing, right? And that was much more important then the Rolex watch that they gave you or they put you up at the Phoenician down in Scottsdale. Beautiful casita. Thousand dollars a night, casita. Those things are all good. And yes, there, it's a little bit of a flex. Hey, I stayed in the Phoenician. Yeah, I got my Rollie, you know, whatever. But having that Stanley cup in your office where you say, I kicked everybody else's butt and there's proof right there and then keep that thing. So. So once you get it. So have little competitions like that in the company. Have people understand that you want a whole company of 20 percenters, without a doubt. Yeah. I don't have any desire to move somebody off the board. I really, truly don't. Especially if you go through the process of hiring somebody it's not easy to hire people and it's hard to keep good people. Right. Because everybody else out in the industry wants them. Figure out ways that you can make it a game. Life is a game. See, here's. I was just having this conversation with somebody last night. If you understand that it's a game and the joy is in playing the game as opposed to a goal and winning a prize. Because all the big goals I ever set for my life when I got there, I would look around, figuratively speaking, and be like, that's it exactly. Uh, that's all. Like, there was no this. There was a satisfaction in that. I reached a goal. But then there was this pressure on myself now to set a new goal and then go back to the grind of how am I going to reach the goal? As opposed to understanding in the journey is learning and success and defeat and disagreement and agreement and learning how to play that game. It's much more satisfied. That's what I do today. I play a game. Our business is a game to me. Like, I play it that way. I have just, hey, let's go have fun. And my wife and I say that every single morning. We get up, have our coffee, we go through whatever our AI sends the summary from yesterday. We go through the notes, look at whatever we have to achieve, tweak whatever we're doing, what's on the calendar, and then the last thing we say is, let's go have fun. And great way to start a day. Yeah, it's much more satisfying.

Speaker C: Where can people learn more about you online and connect?

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Can go. Check us out on our web, which is. Our main website is moza-bella.com. they can email me at scott@moza bell mosa-bel.com or they're free to call me. They can call me. My number, 732991, 3000. If I don't answer the phone, I'll call you back. I answer most every single phone call that comes in, whether it's spam or not spam. And because I never know which call is going to be the next one that's going to change my life or make a difference for other people as well. Right.

Speaker C: So there's the true master of sales right there.

Speaker A: Right there. I had a cell phone back when cell phones cost 70 bucks a month and 50 cents a minute. I had, um, a phone back then, and I gave that number out to every single one of my customers. And my. I worked at GE at the time, and they were like, you know, you don't have to do that. That's very expensive. I'm like, no, I don't have any problem doing that. So anyway, thank you for saying that.

Speaker C: I'll say we'll make sure and link that in the show notes. It's a great conversation. So thanks Scott for being on Future Proof Founder.

Speaker A: I really enjoyed myself. And uh, please wish Thor a very happy birthday and give him an extra biscuit for me if you would.

Speaker C: All right, thanks. Thanks again Scott for coming on the show and sharing your insights and resources. You can learn more about Scott and mazabella@mazamoza-bella b e l l a.com as always, all links, highlights, resources and full show notes are available@getfutureproof.com and be sure to check out our channel on YouTube as well. It's ChampionLeadership. We have full video episodes, training shorts, outtakes, lots more content over there for you on YouTube. And remember, that channel is ChampionLeadership. Thought leaders share Share this episode with the operator who built the boring system that quietly prevents the loud emergency. We love those people. Everyone who shares today gets one crisis that never happens. Here's today's future Proof takeaway Before your next sales call, do this. Go through your script and cut out every WE and R. Replace them with you and yours. It's not just a fancy word trick, it's a mirror to check for whether you're actually selling to the person in front of you or just a fancy way of talking about yourself. AI can sort your leads. It can score them, it can rank them. Um, it can tell you who to call first. It can't remember somebody's dog's birthday, and I'm sure somebody will message me and say yes, it can. Not the point. The founders who win aren't the ones with the biggest funnels. They're the ones who never stop treating the person on the other end like a person. Sell like the deal. The person, uh, the relationship is the only thing that matters. Nobody buys from a funnel. They buy from you. And that is my Future Proof takeaway. Next week on our Founder episode Before youe Touch AI Outbound or Paid Ads this go to Market Advisor says to fix the thing, everyone skips the offer itself. Our guest will be a two time CEO on why one live webinar landed 180,000 in pipeline with zero ad spend then coming up one week from today. He spent decades building data centers and AI infrastructure and now argues the machines are actually pointing us back toward being more human. A founder on Burnout Breakdown and the framework that came out the other side. See you next time. And as always, enjoy the journey.

Speaker B: Build bold scale smart. Stay Future Proof. This is Future Proof founder with Jeff Mainnes.