After surviving a near-death experience in his twenties and overcoming his opioid addiction, Scott Leese stopped caring about what other people thought of him. Instead, he went after what he wanted in life with gusto.
Scott Leese is a master at building trust and relationships. Scott says the market has changed. No one takes cold calls anymore.
Scott tells us how to navigate our new sales environment by building relationships, community, and trust.
He also shares tips on work-life balance, raising kids, and his favorite movie.
Highlights:
00:00 Intro to Scott Leese
06:00 Overcoming life-threatening illness, finding voice
07:01 Stop worrying about what other people think
10:13 People first vs. revenue first
13:18 Creating a safe environment: vulnerability encourages openness.
18:38 Helping others now can benefit you later.
22:00 Nobody uses voicemail anymore
23:34 Email overload, notifications, and behavioral shifts affect tactics.
25:11 Partnerships vs. sales
32:03 Use your network to sell
33:34 Partnerships can tap into existing networks.
39:11 Relevance is important; connections and visibility matter.
41:18 Avoid buying followers, engagement, or using pods to game the system. Build an authentic network.
48:17 Use others' networks for faster results.
53:45 Worked hard for better weekend enjoyment.
55:32 Advice for parents
58:11 Where does the movie Point Break rank?
After surviving a near-death experience in his twenties and overcoming his opioid addiction, Scott Leese stopped caring about what other people thought of him. Instead, he went after what he wanted in life with gusto.
Scott Leese is a master at building trust and relationships. Scott says the market has changed. No one takes cold calls anymore.
Scott tells us how to navigate our new sales environment by building relationships, community, and trust.
He also shares tips on work-life balance, raising kids, and his favorite movie.
Highlights:
00:00 Intro to Scott Leese
06:00 Overcoming life-threatening illness, finding voice
07:01 Stop worrying about what other people think
10:13 People first vs. revenue first
13:18 Creating a safe environment: vulnerability encourages openness.
18:38 Helping others now can benefit you later.
22:00 Nobody uses voicemail anymore
23:34 Email overload, notifications, and behavioral shifts affect tactics.
25:11 Partnerships vs. sales
32:03 Use your network to sell
33:34 Partnerships can tap into existing networks.
39:11 Relevance is important; connections and visibility matter.
41:18 Avoid buying followers, engagement, or using pods to game the system. Build an authentic network.
48:17 Use others' networks for faster results.
53:45 Worked hard for better weekend enjoyment.
55:32 Advice for parents
58:11 Where does the movie Point Break rank?
Hello, hello, hello, friends. We are back with our second week in a row of an intro. Uh, kind of fun doing these things. I like it. We just found out last night that we crossed the, uh, the 20 podcast mark. This was episode 21. What a special episode for 21. Whoop whoop! Does it feel like we've done 21? Less? More? Same?
Sam Yarborough:Feels about right. All, all lovely, all
Jason Yarborough:enjoyable. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, kind of feels like we've done, we just started, but also feels like we've done about 70. We've had a lot of really great conversations. We were just talking about the, which ones were the good, best, great, and I don't think any of them were bad. We've had a really great conversations. I hope
Sam Yarborough:not, for y'all's
Jason Yarborough:sake. True, true, but they've all been so fun and some really great conversations and I've got stacks of notes here from them all. So, who do we have today?
Sam Yarborough:Maybe there's a book coming. I don't know. Gotta publish those notes. Yeah,
Jason Yarborough:I can work on that.
Sam Yarborough:Well, I don't know. Today's was next level. Um, we just got a masterclass in networking. You and I talk about this all the time, how we feel like it comes as second nature to us, but I think we just got schooled. So.
Jason Yarborough:Yeah. So Scott Leis knows a thing or two about, about networking and building networks. And like you said, this was a masterclass. I've always thrived on a good network, great connections, circles, that sort of thing, but man, I feel like he just opened up a whole new world of how to not only build networks, but like purposefully build them, effectively build them, and you know, being able to monetize as well, like taking the whole partnership approach within community and networks. And I took some, took some notes, as you can see here on my desk, like, you know, making it educational, entertaining, How we connect with multiple people and making our circles bigger, but still keeping them relatively small.
Sam Yarborough:And even further than that, it's not just like building a network for the sake of building a network, but like what you do with that and how it benefits you as an individual, the company you work for, the people in your network. So basically, high level, if you don't have a network, start today, because...
Jason Yarborough:The spoils go to the networker. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it works. Should we get into it? Let's do it. Alright, without further ado, we've got Mr. Scott Lease. Uh, you guys may know him as a surfing sales guy, incredible consultant, six time VP of sales guy, that's a lot of six times, that's a lot of sales leading, uh, and he's got a few books that are out there. One little known fact is that he's got three and they're kind of a sequential order of books. It's a good little trilogy. Y'all should check it out. Here's Scott Lease. Mr. Scott Least, surf and sails. Welcome to the show, man. We're so honored to have you today.
Scott Leese:I'm very excited to be here. I was, uh, just thinking this is my first ever podcast with a husband and wife team and people from Montana. So you got two firsts in one. We're off to a good start.
Jason Yarborough:Yes, you hear that? Yeah, we're already off to a roaring start. This is gonna be some good stuff, man. We're excited to be talking to you today. I'm, uh, recently introduced to you via, uh, LinkedIn and our friends, Jared Fuller and Will Taylor and those guys. So, obviously, I've been living under some sort of damn LinkedIn rock. So, uh, it's really good to get connected and see all the content you're putting out there. It's really resonating with what we talk about here on the show. You know, which is why we're really excited to have you today.
Scott Leese:Appreciate that. Yeah.
Sam Yarborough:Okay, so I'm curious, Scott, for those of you that maybe don't interact with you from a business perspective, maybe they do, but how do Scott Lise's friends describe him?
Scott Leese:Um,
Sam Yarborough:Be honest.
Scott Leese:Yeah,
Jason Yarborough:come with the hard questions first.
Scott Leese:yeah, I'm definitely gonna be honest. Don't worry. Uh, Grouchy. Would be one word that comes to mind. Very, like, um, Larry David esque. You can't, I don't think you, I don't think you all can see it behind me, but I have a little poster that says pretty, pretty, pretty good. Um, so that would be one thing. Um, I think they would all say extremely motivated and competitive and, and, and driven. All those types of things. I think they would say very loyal. Um, and, and committed to the relationships that I, that I have and, and trying to better everybody and level everybody kind of up. Um, yeah, I'll stop there. Three things.
Jason Yarborough:very strong personality. Probably a very strong friend. Love that. Very, very motivated.
Scott Leese:Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that they would tell you that doesn't come across to people who know me in a business standpoint is, um, I'm pretty reserved and pretty shy actually, until you kind of get me going. Like the friends that I have that are my closest friends for, you know, my whole life, they're very outgoing, big, bold, loud kind of personalities. And I kind of just sit behind them a little bit in the shadow. So
Jason Yarborough:Just wait for your
Scott Leese:sort of amazed and surprised sometimes that I've said something or done something or put myself out there because they don't always see that side of me. So
Jason Yarborough:Okay, so.
Sam Yarborough:a different approach when it comes to work? Because as a... You know, VP of sales, as a sales leader, that's traditionally not the personality type.
Scott Leese:No, not at all. Not at all. Um, yeah, much more of a natural kind of introvert, but you know, I, I think I, I realized at least for me that, um, I had nothing to lose anymore by putting myself out there. I had to go through a miserable experience to, to get to that place. I, I got really sick in my early twenties and spent four years in the hospital fighting for my life and had nine surgeries, multiple life saving emergency surgeries. Got addicted to opioids in the process, had to kick off of dope. So I kind of emerged at 27 years old with no work experience, way behind compared to everybody else. And I kind of had this realization that, um, sort of staying quiet in a business setting was just not going to serve me. And I had to sort of put myself out there and it's like, what's the worst thing that can happen? I've just literally been through the worst experience hopefully that I'll ever go through in my whole entire life.
Jason Yarborough:Your bar is way higher than everybody
Scott Leese:yeah, like, am I, what am I worried about being embarrassed? I'm worried about somebody hanging up on me. I'm worried about you firing me. What the fuck do I care if you fire me? I just, I survived that. I think I can find a new job, right? And so, this kind of work persona started to, you know, take over. And, and I became a little more, you know, bold and, and outspoken and, and whatnot. It was always inside of me. You just kind of had to draw it out before and now I think I kind of, you know, know when to lead with it. But I don't, don't get it twisted. I fall back into sort of quiet, calm, introversion, uh, to kind of recharge
Jason Yarborough:Yeah. That's what he said. It's gotta be that recharge motion for those. What would that be? Like an extroverted introvert?
Scott Leese:An extroverted introvert. Yeah.
Jason Yarborough:you gotta.
Scott Leese:posturing as an extrovert, nine hours, ten hours a day.
Jason Yarborough:Yeah, a hundred percent. None. You know, I'm sure that that work persona or that work attitude kind of gives what carried over into LinkedIn. And it's kind of, what's giving you that, that personality, that following and that ability to speak directly to people now.
Scott Leese:Well, I hope so. You know, I, um, I think I very much am who I am. You know, I never, I might be more extroverted in a work sense sometimes, but I never change like my ethos or my philosophy. I've always spoke my mind. I've had no problem disagreeing with people, you know, above me that. You know, theoretically held more power than me and whatnot. I've always tried to fight for myself, my team members, and so forth. And so I think I just, I got to the point where my skills kind of matched my, you know, stubbornness or competitiveness or whatever. And so now I'm sort of like, Well, I'm just going to say what other people are afraid to say or, or they're worried about the consequences and I don't maybe have those consequences to worry about. So I think if you have some type of platform, you have a little bit of responsibility to try to make everybody else's, you know, experience in life a little bit better. And so I, I try to, I try to use that a little bit.
Jason Yarborough:love that. Love that. It's actually a good kind of transition to one of my first questions for you and like in your, in one of your books, uh, more than a number, you kind of emphasize the importance of value in salespeople as individuals, I guess really anybody on your team could be, you know, set for, but as individuals rather than just focusing on the performance metrics. Uh, that book was written a few years ago, but still feels very timely today. She also talked about like helping salespeople find greater purpose and satisfaction in their roles. And I've kind of gone this rant before on the podcast about like, you know, the B2B space right now in particular has made like a weird, unfortunate shift from being a people first culture to now being a totally revenue driven culture with overinflated valuations. Right? A, are you seeing that? But also B, like, how do you make that shift back and put people first? And are you encouraging teams to kind of go down that path?
Scott Leese:Well, I think it's very generous of you that. You have the view that it used to be people first. I'm not sure that I would share that view overall. Um, but there was a moment in time, specifically when the pandemic hit, that it seemed like all the power shifted to the employee. And then, you know, that, that gave everybody emboldened everybody to kind of. Like, speak up about things, advocate for themselves and others, be like, no, I'm not tolerating this thing anymore that I used to tolerate. And then as the pandemic, you know, wound down, you start to see the employer start to try to retake control. And the employee start to give some of that control back. And then, to your point, the economy went nuts and all the valuations were inflated. And, and now you got a lot of people operating from a place of fear, again. Where they're scared to speak up, they're okay with returning to the office because they feel like they don't have a choice and, and that type of, that type of thing. Um,
Jason Yarborough:Do you find the employees or employers kind of holding that fear over employees?
Scott Leese:yeah I do, I do.
Sam Yarborough:it's both, though. I mean, the employers are terrified because their numbers suck, and they can't... So it's fear on both sides, and so everybody's... No one's operating out of opportunity right now. Everybody's
Scott Leese:yeah, I fully agree with that. Um, I just always, I just always felt like, My job as a, as a leader was to help the people under me get to wherever it is they want to go next, period, whatever that meant, right? And so the only way for me to know that was to really get to know every single person on my team, which is not that hard if you have two or three people under you, but when you have 20, 50, 100, 250, It becomes increasingly difficult at scale. So, the only way to do it is to actually fuckin prioritize it. And make it part of your job.
Jason Yarborough:absolutely.
Scott Leese:So, that was how I saw my job. My job was to understand what was going on with Sam in her world, and what was going on with Jason in his world. Why are they here? Why are they willing to do now what they've never been willing to do previously? Why are they trying to get to this place? Right. And the more I understood these things about people, I knew how to motivate them, or I knew how to support them, or I knew how to coach them, or I knew how to coach my managers on how to coach them. And so I always just thought of it as I need to turn my team into better people. And better people will perform better. Right? And it was really that kind of simple for me. So I didn't do like, one on ones and OKRs and pipeline reviews and all this. I didn't do any of that shit. I would be like, Jason, let's go for a walk. And we would walk around the block. And I'd just be like, what's going on with the, your kids. And you'd start talking to me about your kids and I'm like, what's going on with, you know, your health, how you feeling? It's like, and people just unload on you when you have created a safe environment. And one of the ways to create a safe environment is to be vulnerable yourself, right? And so I have told my story a million times about my health struggles in the past, the health struggles I go through now, the injuries that I have, the therapies that I go to, all this kind of stuff. And so in my mind, at least I'm sort of setting the tone, like it's okay to talk about this stuff. It's okay to be human. Yes, we have goals that we have to hit and jobs to do and whatnot, but we have to feel safe and confident and steady first before we can really focus on those things. Um, and so that was how I, that was how I led and how I built my, my sales orgs.
Sam Yarborough:I
Jason Yarborough:Hey, where, where were you when I was getting started in my career?
Sam Yarborough:Well, you guys are, you be, be easy on yourself because I'm just going to call a parallel here. Like as partner professionals, we talk about this all the time on the podcast here, but like. One of the major ways that you have to be successful in your organization is doing exactly that, but with your whole internal team before you can even be successful on the outside. And so. It's not just with your team, it's with everybody, but it's also just like being a good human. It's with your network. It's, it's, point blank, it's building a network. Internally, externally, across the board, being a good human, and building trust. And...
Scott Leese:And when you put in that work and you help all these people solve challenges and problems at work. Um, at home, whatever, it breeds loyalty and these people will now run through a brick wall for you. They'll follow you from one job to the next. Hell yeah, they'll introduce you to this person that, you know, they know that you want to talk to and don't know yet. Hell yeah, they'll help you promote this thing or, or whatever, but right, like that's the kind of karmic circle that, um, it, it, it creates is it's. In No, in no world that I've experienced, is there a negative to operating from that? From that
Jason Yarborough:Not at all. And I think I could spend the rest of the podcast talking about this, because this is the kind of shit that I love. But, man, I've experienced that as well. It's like, even in starting new programs, like my first 30 days, any of the new partner leaders that I get the opportunity to coach now, it's like, spend your first 30 days getting to know your team, getting to know, you know, especially as Sam's talking about, we have to work with all these other teams. We've got to get their trust. We've got to be relatable to them. Like come in and be open and willing to share whatever it takes with them to get them on your side as well, you know, not from a, you know, a superficial standpoint or a fake standpoint, but really make it honest, open and really work on building that trust. I think that's really what's missed out on people's first 30, 60 days and starting new companies.
Scott Leese:Yeah.
Sam Yarborough:remembering Elliot's Con, um, Elliot Smith's conversation about how he did that. But he had so many direct reports. Scott, to your point, that he created a Google Doc to like, keep track of, like, Scott has two sons. Jason has two kids. They're married, they live in Montana. So that, like, that seems superficial, but it's real. And then you can, you know, you don't have to start from scratch every time you have
Scott Leese:real. I, I had, I, I had a roster basically, and this roster had notes just like a, if you were a scout for like a sports team or something, you'd be like, You know, Sam runs a 4 3 40, Jason
Sam Yarborough:God, I wish. Mm
Scott Leese:Jason benches 300 pounds, right? It'd be like, you know, Sam is dealing with this, Jason is dealing with this, Scott is trying to save money to put a down payment, so and so is trying to get married and needs to pay for a wedding, and so and so's got a health issue, and his partner is, you know, abusive. Like, whatever is going on, I've seen every scenario that there is. So I had a roster with notes, right? I didn't, I wasn't smart enough to have a Google sheet. It was all like written down on a, in pen and paper and whatnot. Um, but I, that's very relatable. Yeah.
Sam Yarborough:Everybody's got their poison.
Jason Yarborough:Yeah, I love that and we can move on from this, but I've kind of been doing the same. I've got to do these coffee chats to... Help people that have been recently laid off. And I use my notes app in my phone. I just put their name and where they're at and what they're looking for, what they're up against, what they're facing. And so I can come back to that and recall that, you know, anytime I'm messaging them, checking in on them and try to do a good job of following up and being present and aware enough to, to listen and take those notes and actually give a damn to the new people I'm talking to. Cause 70, 80 percent of these people that jump in these coffee chats on my calendar are people that I don't know. So it's a really good opportunity to. You know, really listen, and, and take the notes.
Scott Leese:and, and, you know, I've said before, you never really know who you're gonna be able to help or who might be able to help you.
Jason Yarborough:That's it.
Scott Leese:you know, a lot of people when you've been around for a while, You're, you're hyper conscious of how you spend your time, right? And you're like, Oh, I, I should only prioritize calls that are earning me revenue like now or whatever. And it's like, no, you actually need to prioritize helping other people out, having conversations that cost them nothing, earn you nothing right now, partially for good karma, but also who is that person going to become? what will they grow into? You take this call with a 22 year old s d r today just to give some advice. Well, what you don't know is they remember that they, you, they implemented your feedback. Now they go to your ski and sales event in 10 years, you're still connected to you following your content. In 10 years, they run their own startup and they're like, Hey. I would love to hire you to help get our sales org off the ground and, and now you've got yourself, you know, a consulting gig or whatever, right? Like these things stack upon themselves
Jason Yarborough:One hundred
Scott Leese:might be able to help you with something and you might be able to help them. You just don't know. So why
Sam Yarborough:long game.
Scott Leese:take some of those calls? Right? It's
Jason Yarborough:I've built my entire career on that game.
Scott Leese:Yeah.
Sam Yarborough:Okay, so speaking of career, um, I want to, I'm so curious on this and I've heard you speak on this a lot, but we, we have some, some questions for you about, um, some things you've said on other podcasts and, and on LinkedIn and whatnot. So you've been a VP of sales. Six times, plus or minus. Okay. So you're very familiar with the traditional sales motions, I think would be a fair assumption. Um, and as we just kind of talked about, you are super comfortable pushing those boundaries. Um, so you have said a few times that the traditional SDR motion is dying. Let's start there. Can you elaborate on that?
Scott Leese:Yeah. First of all, the data shows that pickup rates on the telephone has been declining for 10 years. And it also shows that open rates and positive response rates over email has been declining for years. We don't have the data on LinkedIn, but I assure you that's also declining, right? And part of the reason is we don't behave as humans the way that we used to. In terms of how we communicate. When the three of us were growing up, I think you're all about my age ish. Maybe not. I don't know. My age, at least. When the phone rang in my house, when the phone rang in my house, my brother and I sprinted to the
Sam Yarborough:Everything stopped.
Jason Yarborough:No, oh yeah, it was,
Scott Leese:And my mom would, like, not leave the house if she was expecting a phone call. It was, like, an event. And it was to be celebrated, right? We didn't look at it as a distraction back then. Now when the phone rings, we 100% look at it as a distraction. Who's bothering me from whatever I'm supposed to be doing? Somebody's trying to sell me something, somebody's spamming me to go vote. Somebody's
Jason Yarborough:it's, if it's not saved, it's not getting answered.
Scott Leese:because
Sam Yarborough:sometimes
Scott Leese:yeah, my phone, I don't know about y'all, but my phone is, the ringer is off 24 7.
Sam Yarborough:same text me, damn it.
Scott Leese:Exactly. My voicemail literally says, I do not check my voicemail. Text me if you want to talk to me. That's what my voicemail says. Right now, we generationally, if we're in our forties, let's say, we're sort of in this weird place where we remember what it was like to use the phone. But those of us who are kind of modernized, um, we would like rather text or we would rather communicate in other ways. If, if you're talking about our parents, my parents are in their mid to late seventies, they use the phone nonstop. I don't know if y'all have kids, but I have two teenagers.
Jason Yarborough:We got two.
Scott Leese:My teenagers do not talk on the phone. Do not. They have a device. They don't have a phone.
Jason Yarborough:They'll probably never know what a, what a home phone is.
Scott Leese:me back. I can barely get my kids to text me back. Okay,
Sam Yarborough:tock them.
Scott Leese:exactly, exactly. Exactly. So. Help me understand how the cold call, cold email function is going to survive when these teenagers become the founders of tomorrow and the executives of tomorrow. You cannot convince me that in five to ten years, when my boys are in their mid twenties and if they're an executive at a, at a tech company or whatever. that they're going to pick up the phone when you cold call them. You can't convince me of that. We have too many filters and caller IDs and spam things, and the same thing with email. Think about how many unread emails everybody has. Think about how many different places you're getting bombarded with notifications from all day long. I am not prioritizing responding to an email from a total stranger. It's just not going to happen. So, I don't see how the sort of tactics we've used for, you know, decades now are going to survive this behavioral shift. And then you add in AI and its capabilities on top of that, and you factor in bloated valuations have changed the market now to what's being glorified is what can you get done with as few human beings as possible. We're going to start to automate out
Jason Yarborough:That's
Scott Leese:all of these entry ish level, lower level kind of jobs. Those will be the first ones to go. Why would I pay an SDR 9 to 10k a month, all in, base, commission, expenses, insurance, taxes, all this kind of stuff, to pound the phone or blast out emails if nobody uses the phone and nobody uses email?
Jason Yarborough:that's it. I've actually got two companies I'm working with right now that are looking to doing away with the SDR function completely. And they're, you know, you know, to your point, trying to use AI. And within that, they're prioritizing all of their budget to technology and new resources to those that have an AI function to it. Wasn't expecting that this early, but I've got a couple of clients that are going down that path.
Sam Yarborough:I also think, I think we completely agree with you. Obviously we're both in partnership, so we know the value of, of, uh, you know, intros and, and whatnot. I think that the traditional SDR motion could be just moved a little bit with different metrics because twofold. I think that the. Skills that you learn there are invaluable. Um, you have to put yourself out there. You have to be able, you have to be hungry. You have to be able to take rejection, like all these things, you know, you don't have to hear it on this podcast, but it's a hard role and I think that it's, it does. Do a lot for somebody. I took, um, somebody, he was an, uh, SDR BDR at our Oregon. I moved him over to be a partner account manager and changed his metrics to all you do is network. That's it go out and meet every single Salesforce AE you possibly can. And he was so good at it because he was great as a BDR and his metrics were different. It wasn't like it was still the same concept. But because of that, he's matured tremendously. And our partner program is now the number one source of deals coming through the organization. So I think if you change the metrics, you've changed the mindset and I've heard you talk about this, but your goal is to network, that's it. Go meet as many new people as possible and you don't have to sell anything yet. Just be a good person and meet
Scott Leese:Yeah. But you change, but that person changed role.
Sam Yarborough:That's what I'm saying. Yes.
Scott Leese:one could argue the SDR role. Yes, the skill sets. Don't get me wrong. The skill set is still important to
Sam Yarborough:Yeah.
Scott Leese:But the role one could argue died and was reborn like a phoenix rising
Sam Yarborough:Out of the ashes.
Scott Leese:partner account manager kind of role. Right. That makes sense to me. But the traditional kind of SDR. Role, I don't see how that survives the next five to ten years. I really don't
Jason Yarborough:So, as Sam said, we're in partnerships. We kind of play that glorified BDR role to some extent, and I think some of what you're doing is kind of showing what the future of BDR, BDRing, if we can call it that, as well as partnerships. So talk to us a little bit about what you're, what you are building at GTM United. It, it seems really fascinating. We did some digging around in it last night and we're like, Oh shit, maybe we should sign up for this thing. It looks really cool. It sounds like a great concept. Tell us a bit more about it.
Scott Leese:Well, there's a few things that I'm trying to do with GTM United. So number one, it's a sales and revenue community for anybody Who's in any kind of revenue generating role? So it should be sales, could be CS, could be partnerships, could be founders, doesn't matter, could be marketing And it has the traditional stuff, right? Different channels and topics and you know connecting with jobs and all that all this kind of stuff But there's two things that are unique offerings Number one, I built and created what I believe is the first 100 percent AI Interactive sales training I've been posting these Clips from this movie that I made
Sam Yarborough:It's so good.
Scott Leese:Thank you. It's a it's a character called the sales Reaper And it talks about how he's got these five fatalities that he uses to kill all of salespeople's deals and whatnot. So the idea there is pushing the envelope of what is possible with sales training, and in utilizing AI, and just this notion, like, nobody wants to go to the fucking Marriott to listen to somebody give Sandler sales training in a, in a boring, sterile room. What
Sam Yarborough:might get a steak though.
Scott Leese:See if you're lucky. What people do want is to marry education and entertainment and go through these things at their own pace. So we offer this training program and we're doing SKOs with it and team trainings and whatnot. So that's one part that's kind of pushing the envelope. But the part I think that you're most interested in referring to is We've turned the community at GTM United into an on demand, um, referral team, partner team, go to network, near bound team, whatever you want to call it. I've been running this motion for years on my own where, um, you know, tech companies know me and they say, hey Scott, it looks like you know Sam, can you put me in touch with Sam? I put him in touch with Sam and then they close a deal and I get paid. I've been doing that on my own. For a long time. And what I realized was there was two big mistakes that were being made. The first mistake was on the company side. They would send me the name of one or two people they wanted to reach. And most of the time, if you just ask about one or two people, the answer is no. I don't know that person well enough to make an intro. So, the mistake was they weren't asking at scale. They should be sending me over a list of a hundred or two hundred different... Names and accounts. So I have a better opportunity to be helpful. My failure as the connector was if I didn't know this person's name, I stopped.
Jason Yarborough:Right.
Scott Leese:What I should have done is gone down network further. What I should have done is turned my community onto this and split the commission that I would earn with the community. So that's what I've done. I've created this income earning opportunity for GTM United members. I've been teaching them about partner selling, referral selling, near bound selling, go to network, all this kind of stuff. So, right now we have about a dozen design partners like Gong, and Oram, and Reggie, tech companies that a lot of people would have heard of. They submit to me a list of a couple hundred, um, accounts and contacts that they're trying to get a hold of. I put that list in front of the whole community, and the community raises their hand when they know somebody well enough to make an introduction. And then we make those introductions and the companies pay GTM United and I take, you know, half of what we get paid and give it over to the community member who, um, was able to make the introduction. And we're the first community that I'm aware of that is actively like creating opportunity both on the vendor side and for a community member side like this.
Sam Yarborough:Referrals at scale. I listened to a few podcasts in prep for our conversation today and heard you talk about this and I had to stop and rewind every time because I was like, this is brilliant. It's like, it's our job, but at scale,
Jason Yarborough:Following this call, there might be a second community that spins up real fast doing the same thing.
Scott Leese:Well, honestly, you know, I have been wondering why communities that are much larger than mine, uh, haven't put this into practice. And I don't know the answer. I, I, every single day I wait for one of them to do it. I'm sure it's inevitable, but you said the key word, Sam is like doing this at scale. been on this one off basis making these intros and whatnot, but we haven't found a way to do it at scale. Right? And that's what I'm trying to do. So if you think about this world where cold calling and cold emailing undeniably don't work as well as they used to, and you think about where we're headed and you think about, well, how am I going to open opportunities up in the future? This is how. You, your network. how you're going to open opportunities up. The trust is already there. When the trust is already there and you've got mutual opt in introductions, the sales cycle decreases. The average contract value increases, right? And I think you will pick up a phone call from me if we're friends. You will respond to an email from me if we're friends, right? And that's, I think, uh, where we're headed. And so I'm just trying to, you know, stay ahead of the curve and push the envelope a little bit and teach people. this motion and get them ready for what I believe is coming.
Jason Yarborough:Uh, and there's a huge lesson in this. I know, like yourself, there's a few others out there that are, you know, taking this partnership talk, the Nearbound track, outside of just traditional partnership models, because, you know, we've been doing this for a while, like, most people are just thinking the, you know, the ISV to ISV relationship, or ISV to SI relationship, and that's the network, so to say, but, you know, You know, anytime I've been in a role, I'm always encouraging people to like, let's look at my LinkedIn. Let me export my contacts, give it to you to begin, make an ask on. And, you know, the, I think the company that has partnerships most often is overlooking the fact that your team has this network and how to tap into it. You know, they overlook the fact that, look, I've got, you know, we'll call it 5, 000, you know, followers on LinkedIn. I can export that list out. We could begin to map that against the AEs in the accounts and see where I can make some introductions and help out. So, you know, companies just aren't naturally using that process
Scott Leese:Yeah. And I think they're not naturally using it for a couple reasons. Number one, I don't think they're aware of it. So that's where this education piece comes in. And the more people like us who are evangelizing this motion, the better. So the awareness kind of kicks in. The second part is you can't run this move. If you don't have a network,
Jason Yarborough:Exactly.
Scott Leese:done. Right? You have to be able to connect people, actually. And so, if you put two partner people side by side, and one has a million people in their network and one has a thousand people in their network, all other things being equal, I'm going to hire the person who's got a million followers every single time. Right? And so, everybody needs to be growing their network as a daily KPI. Right? And... So there's a lot of people who don't have a network, so companies can't mandate this motion, right? And the third thing is, they over complicate it and over engineer it. They're like, well, how do we do this, you know, in this, in the right way and all this? And I'm like, fuck, just put a hundred company names in a spreadsheet,
Jason Yarborough:That's it.
Scott Leese:put the contact name next to them and put their LinkedIn profile there, and send it out to your cap table, your employees. Your friends and family, your micro communities that you're a part of, your advisors, certain influencers in your space, and just see if any of them can make an intro. That takes no time at all for a potential ROI of, you know, whatever your average contract value is, right? It's risk free if you're only paying on closed revenue, right? There's no risk.
Jason Yarborough:That's it.
Scott Leese:They over engineer it, though. It's just like, dude, just start with the most simplistic way.
Jason Yarborough:yeah, just like build a new program. Start with two or three people. Start with two or three influencers. Test it out. Make sure they have the right, you know, network. The right match to your ICP. Test a few things out. See if it works. Add a couple more. You make it super narrow. Super simple. Super calibrated. You can build it. I do want to go back to like, you mentioned like the million versus a thousand network. You know, and my If my If my Thoughts and all this network talk outside of this conversation here is really picking the right network, right? You're a million to my thousand, my thousand may be way more engaged. Right? Versus a million. Now, let me give you this example. I used to do a lot of social media influencer work. And one of my brands was Kia. That I did a lot of work with. And I had a very small following on social media. Um, and they had others that were coming in that had millions of followers. And I straight up asked them, I was like, I'm a small, I'm your smallest guy you got here. Like, why are you working with me? And like, you're the best storyteller we've got. Like, you're what we call a micro influencer. And I was like, Oh, and they were like, you get, you get great storytelling, you get great engagement. Your engagement is real versus the millions of followers that are other people have on Instagram. It was, you know, a lot of bots and stuff like that. So where I'm going with this is like, how do you ensure that you're building the right network? You're building the right audience. And as the vendor, you're working with the person that's built that right audience.
Scott Leese:Well, in my example, I was assuming that we both had the same quality of audience, the same target. Totally, totally agree with your point. If it's not constructed the right way, then... It's no longer apples to apples. Um,
Jason Yarborough:Because there's a lot of people out there and like, Sam and I were talking about this last night that are just, you know, simply hitting the connect button for the sake of having, you know, millions of people out there instead of making sure that it's the right one that lines up to how you can actually scale your career via your network, right?
Scott Leese:I think I disagree with you two on this though. I think, you know, with LinkedIn in particular, um, you've got 30, 000 before they cut you off in terms of connections, right? And then once you hit 30, 000, it just moves into follower numbers, okay? So until you hit 30, 000, I actually don't think you need to be that curated. Now, I'm not going out there, I'm not telling people go connect with, you know, nurses and garbage men if, if you're, if you're, uh, you know, in sales, but if I'm in sales or in partnerships or whatever, I don't have to curate that much. Anybody who's in a revenue kind of role
Sam Yarborough:Mm
Scott Leese:SDR.
Jason Yarborough:Sure. Yeah. Likewise.
Scott Leese:Any account executive, any sales manager, any VP of sales, any founder. It's like anybody who I might work alongside one day or who might hire me one day or who I might hire one day is relevant. So for the first 30, 000 connections, I'm indiscriminate inside of those categories. Once I get Above 30, 000, now I can try to dig in and get a little bit more hyper focused potentially, right, in terms of who's the audience that I need to connect with the most in order to get more business, uh, for myself. But eyeballs and visibility are very, very important. you with 5, 000 followers and me with 106, 000 plus followers... We're relatively in similar spaces. You can't convince me that you know more people and can be more effective than I can, unless, to your point, unless I have no experience with the particular like product or industry, and I have, have completely ignored it. But if we, if, if my 106,000. and you're 5, 000 or all the same type of people and all the same category and whatnot, then the person who has more has a better opportunity, right? If you had 106, 000 of versions of the 5, 000 you have in terms of the same strength, you would be able to perform better, in my opinion, than you can right now. And that's the message that I'm trying to trying to get out there. So I actually think that the size of your your network, um, matters. And you don't need to be that picky in the beginning.
Jason Yarborough:Gotcha. No, and you've, you've actually got the experience to back that network up and to speak to that network and engage them as well. So like that level of being able, being able to create that engagement also matters. Right.
Scott Leese:Yeah. And, you know,
Jason Yarborough:saying, like, size matters
Scott Leese:yeah. And I'm, and you, you know, you have to you have to, you, you can't be stupid either. And, and succumb to the trap of like, I'm gonna buy a bunch of followers, or I'm gonna buy engagement. Or, you know, I'm going to create a pod, I mean, there was a whole controversy last week where somebody got exposed, who was a top 200 creator, got exposed for having a pod where they were texting like, not kidding, 2, 000 people their LinkedIn posts every day, trying, and it was like an inside agreement from everybody that everybody is supposed to or whatever. So you get like 2, 000 likes instantaneously and you're trying to game the system like that. That's not building an authentic network.
Jason Yarborough:Not at all.
Scott Leese:You
Jason Yarborough:Yeah. Completely agree with
Scott Leese:rush it. You can't rush it, is my point.
Sam Yarborough:so going back to like, you know, you sat in the seat VP of sales sales leader, um We have seen this firsthand Why is this network not one of the main tools in? A VP of sales tool belt, not only network, but like, this goes more into like a change management question. How can we make it be a part of their go to tool belt? Because it's a new motion. There is change management. Like where did this light bulb go off for you in that seat? And how can we as partner managers that happen for our sales and marketing teams?
Scott Leese:Yeah, there's a few questions in there
Sam Yarborough:Yeah. Sorry. I just rambled.
Scott Leese:So there's still a bunch of people who don't know about this motion. So that's why it's not being implemented. There's truckloads of sales leaders who have spent no time building a network. So how can they teach something that they can't execute themselves? So whether that's fear, or shame, or naivete, or whatever you want to call it, like... They can't, they can't teach their team this motion because they haven't actually done it. Then there's people who have built their entire career and brand on like, I'm the best cold caller ever, right? Well, this is a threat and an existential, you know, existential crisis for them, where their, their livelihood is at risk in a very real way. And when people feel backed into a corner, they come out claws sharped, sharpened, ready to, like, attack. So, I'm getting tons of hate mail behind the scenes. Y'all wouldn't
Jason Yarborough:I could only
Scott Leese:for evangelizing this. And it's from these people who, you know, again, their income, their livelihood, their reputation, their career is all about cold calling. And they haven't built a network. So. They're not going to teach people this thing that will make them obsolete, right?
Jason Yarborough:Right. And you'll get to that
Scott Leese:And the last thing I would say is, you know, because it's new, not enough people have seen the big ROI, the big, the big results yet, right? And there's a lot of people who are still getting good enough or some results from, from these traditional methodologies. And so they're not going to drop. Those traditional things until they stop working and I don't blame them for that. Where I do blame them is for not supplementing their cold call efforts and cold email efforts with this go to network referral kind of motion. So how do we help them? Number one, again, we have to continue to like, teach people what this motion means, how to execute it in a simple, you know, non threatening change management kind of way. Right? We have to start talking about the results and showing people the results. We have to start making network growth one of the daily KPIs that we tracked in the same way that back in the day, you know, we probably all had to make 100 calls a day and you know, he had a four and a half hours of talk time or whatever you had to have. You need to add, you know, 100 people a week as part of your kind of metric and KPI. Right? Um, and the light bulb moment for me, what was it? Okay. It happened actually, um, I ran this other community for three years called Thursday Night Sales. It was the largest virtual sales happy hour in the world. Phenomenal experience. When I shut it down and pivoted to GTM United, and I was talking to a couple people about, you know, how I had helped this one vendor close like a 300, 000 deal, and I got a 36, 000 check. And they were like, What the fuck? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, you know, I really didn't do anything other than make an introduction. I got paid 36 grand and for a lot of people, that's more than they make in variable compensation a year, right? Or that's certainly more off that one check than they make in one or two months worth of busting their ass. And they were like, how do you do this? Then I, then I thought, fuck, I could, should teach these people how to do this and I can make more by asking them for help. And why the fuck didn't I do this with Thursday night sales when I had 38,000 people in the community? What an idiot I am. Right? And then that's when it kind of hit me. Um, so I tried to answer all the questions that you asked there. Hopefully, I, I got most of'em.
Sam Yarborough:hmm. I'm super impressed at your recall because yes, you did well done.
Scott Leese:I'm impressed with
Jason Yarborough:What's your, what's your, what's been the response to coming in like from the Scott Lease consulting side of the business and you coming in and talking to us and training them, like what's the response from these sales leaders and RevOps leaders about you know, building these KPIs in and being able to track network growth.
Scott Leese:I think open ears, open minds, um, confusion and a little bit of resistance because so many of them are in dire need of revenue right now.
Sam Yarborough:Mm hmm.
Scott Leese:And they see this as taking, you know, a long time and specifically, I actually can't really argue with them sometimes because they have no freaking network. To really begin with. So it's very hard for them to, to conceptualize like, okay, I have, you know, 800 connections on LinkedIn. If I add a hundred a week for 52 weeks, okay, great, I'll have, you know, 6,000 in a, in a year, but what am I supposed to do between now and then?
Sam Yarborough:hmm.
Scott Leese:Right. So they struggle. They struggle with getting started because they feel like they're so far behind and it will take too long. For it to bear fruit, right? And so that's when I start to say, well, okay, don't use your network, use Sam's and use Jason's and use Scott's. And you've got these investors use theirs. And you know, you never know, like, just put it out there. I mean, we have one partner in GTM United that sells to universities and we opened up 980, 000 of pipeline for them on the first day.
Jason Yarborough:Okay.
Scott Leese:Here's how it happened. One guy in the community has two fraternity brothers who are in DM roles at two different universities. It has nothing to do with like, work, colleague, connection, whatever. He's just like, I went to school, I went to fraternity with these two dudes. Like, I can get you a conversation with them tomorrow. Right?
Jason Yarborough:That's
Scott Leese:So you, you kind of have to talk to people about, get outside of yourself. for help with some people who have done this before, and open your mind up to, like, it's all upside. Is it a long shot? Maybe. But, you know, ask. You never know. It could be a fraternity brothers of somebody.
Sam Yarborough:Well, and that's the thing what you you never know until you ask and you have to put yourself out there. What's the worst that could happen? No, I don't have an intro. Okay, move on to the next.
Scott Leese:Yeah, okay, no worries.
Sam Yarborough:Yeah, I think that's the biggest hurdle for a lot of people or like, you know, even I make a connection on LinkedIn, but I don't know what to say. I don't know. What value I have to like post about what no one's going to like my content. Like all of these hurdles we set in front of ourselves. We have a podcast called Friends with Benefits. Just start somewhere.
Jason Yarborough:start, just do something. Have fun with it. You know, find your, your voice. And I've, I've heard you talk about this and I remember a long time ago when I was trying to figure this thing out, I wrote down in my, my journal that you've got a voice. You just got to discipline it. Right. And you just got to sit down and do the work, you know, begin to reach out, begin to personalize, begin to talk about the things that, that light you up.
Scott Leese:And you don't have to do all of those things all at once, by the way.
Jason Yarborough:Right. Not at all.
Scott Leese:off by just saying, this was more or less how I grew my network back in the day. I would send both of you a connection request and I would say, Hey Sam, looking to connect with other people who are in sales. Let me know if I can ever be helpful to you. That's literally all I said. And then I'd get the connection. I wouldn't DM you. I wouldn't try to ask for a meeting. I wouldn't do anything. I just was like, okay, I've connected with this person. Let's see what happens. Who knows if I can ever be helpful from there, in terms of growing my network, I didn't know what to post. I didn't know how to create content. Right? So I just would watch what other people were doing. And then I would start to comment. And I started to find my voice by commenting on other people's content. Right? And then, from there, I got a little bit of confidence to like, Okay, let me try my own stuff. Let me write my own thing. So it's a progression. You don't have to show up today and be like, Oh my god, I have to be a LinkedIn influencer and write like 10 posts a week. You don't have to do that.
Jason Yarborough:Yeah. Don't succumb to that
Scott Leese:connect with people. And then, from there, you can progress to commenting on a few people's things per day. And build up to a place where you find your voice and write your own stuff.
Jason Yarborough:take the Austin McKeon approach and steal like an artist, right? Find what you like and start to, you know, make it your own. Write, like, write in your own voice what somebody else is posting. Nothing wrong with that. So, we'll, we'll bring this thing in for a landing here soon to be, cutting us out of time. Um, so, what? One of the questions I've got for you is we tried to book with you on a Friday, which we typically record on Fridays. And, uh, your, your schedule didn't allow that, which I love the reasoning why, uh, talk to us a little bit about your schedule and how you've gotten to this point to allow yourself such freedom.
Scott Leese:Well, my schedule more or less is I don't do anything on Fridays after 11 a. m. Work related. Um, I don't take meetings. I don't go to events. Really, I use Friday afternoon to just maybe do busy work if I've got a bunch of busy work and client work that I need to get done. Or, you know, tomorrow I'm going to play golf. And then I'm refereeing, and then I'm refereeing a soccer game. So, that's how I'm spending my Friday afternoon and early into the evening. So, my calendar actually says, Do not take calls. Because I am the type of person that will be tempted, Okay, to
Jason Yarborough:I've got a window here.
Scott Leese:Yes, to sneak one in and the one becomes ten. I am that person. So I block it out. And on Mondays, I don't, I don't take calls and meet with clients on Mondays either. I take a couple, I'll do like a couple calls with um, you know, prospects maybe, or something like that. Or maybe I record a podcast. But I don't do anything on Mondays really before noon. So, I basically slam Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I have no problem working my butt off hard three days in order to enjoy Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday a little bit more than other people do. How did I get there? I mean, I spent 15 years working 12 hours a day in the office, at home, going in on weekends, doing all of the hustle culture stuff. That everybody will cancel me for right now, but that's what I did. I didn't have, I didn't grow up in a sales environment where AI was everywhere and productivity tools were everywhere. I grew up in a world where I didn't have a CRM. I didn't have a lead list. I didn't have a fucking headset when I was making calls. All right. So I did what I had to
Jason Yarborough:On an office phone,
Scott Leese:work ethic brought me success. Brought me discipline, allowed me to start branching off into other things, writing books, creating a sales conference, building communities, doing consulting and whatnot. So, you know, I've been doing this stuff for 20 years now, right? And I'm not beholden to anyone. I work for myself. I partner with people, um, in a couple projects, not my consulting business, but you know, my community and my conference and whatnot. So. That's, that's kind of how I, I got there, you know, and for me, for right now, I've constructed, um, my work life balance, if you want to call it, that, uh, in a way that I enjoy and works best for me.
Sam Yarborough:Yeah, and you were articulate about getting there. Okay, so we like to finish the podcast with a question that has nothing to do with this conversation or work.
Scott Leese:Perfect.
Jason Yarborough:and work.
Scott Leese:Perfect.
Sam Yarborough:so we haven't talked about this really yet, but you have two boys that I've heard you talk about how it's really important for you to be available for all their games and you prioritize being there for them. Um, that's certainly something Jason and I talk about with our kids. So for a couple who has a two year old and a four year old, or for any people with kids listening, what advice do you have for parents?
Scott Leese:Oh, delay giving them a cell phone as long as humanly possible.
Sam Yarborough:I love it.
Jason Yarborough:Our kids already know how to open ours.
Scott Leese:delay. I lasted with both boys until, uh, the 8th grade.
Sam Yarborough:That's pretty good.
Scott Leese:Yeah, well, everything was good, and then they hit 8th grade, and everything goes to shit. Because now they have a phone, and, you know, my younger son used to be a voracious reader. I mean, he would crush, like, 4 or 5 books in a week. Now I can barely get him to read.
Jason Yarborough:No, it's just this the whole time.
Scott Leese:It's just that the whole time. You know, he's playing video games with his friend, or he's watching YouTube videos or whatever. So, delay that as long as humanly possible. Same thing with like the iPad addiction babysitter. Don't do that. Get them used to being bored, for lack of a better word, and finding ways to... entertain themselves because they're going to reach an age where it's actually impossible for them not to have a phone really to exist socially and communicate with you for safety reasons and all this kind of stuff. But just delay that as long as possible. So they get as much as possible of this like basic sort of skill sets. And social, socialization that we got when we were growing up. That's the best advice that I can give you because it really changes everything.
Sam Yarborough:I love it.
Jason Yarborough:I love it. They only get Nokia bricks until they're of a certain age. You can play Snake and that's it.
Scott Leese:it's painful. It's painful. I get it. I mean, I had to listen to so many things. I'm the only one in my school that doesn't have one. This, that, and the other, right? You go on long trips somewhere in the car. They're like, can I have the iPad? I'm like, no, you can read a book or, you know.
Jason Yarborough:Stare out the window and look
Scott Leese:Stay out the window or you can take a nap or
Sam Yarborough:Count the cows.
Scott Leese:Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Yarborough:This has been great. I do have one last one. I think you and I share a, uh, a similar love and passion outside of work. Um, I noticed your LinkedIn profile has a picture of Bodhi
Scott Leese:Oh yeah.
Jason Yarborough:Point Break. Where does Point Break rank in your all time favorite movies? Because it's pretty high for
Scott Leese:Number one. My favorite movie of all
Sam Yarborough:no question.
Jason Yarborough:It's top five for me.
Scott Leese:No question. A million relatable, uh, Relatable and applicable stories to like what we do for work. For example, go for the register, not the vault. Meaning once a prospect says yes to something, shut up, take the deal, stop trying to talk your way into a bigger deal and blow the whole thing, for
Jason Yarborough:Yeah. Get the money and run.
Scott Leese:Yeah. Also has surfing and sports involved and skydiving and, you know, bank robbery. Like, listen, let's be honest. If I could get away with it, I would love to rob banks
Jason Yarborough:Yeah.
Scott Leese:mean, that
Sam Yarborough:go surf.
Scott Leese:to be honest
Jason Yarborough:think we all thought about being a dead president at some point in Robin Banks after seeing that
Scott Leese:what could be better than that, you
Jason Yarborough:Exactly. Favorite line from the movie, Little Hen on the Clock, says it's time to rock. Which means it's time for us to
Scott Leese:Yeah, favorite movie. I have, um, three t shirts with Bodhi's face on it. You can see one of them on my LinkedIn profile, but I have three of them in different color. And, um, anybody who's, who's our age, who was there for that moment in time when the movie came out, always grabs me and is like, I fucking love that
Jason Yarborough:Love it. Yes, it caught my attention immediately. And Sam, I'm sure you know this, but I, I own one movie outside of our smart TV that I purchased via Amazon. And that's Point Break.
Scott Leese:Awesome. I love that.
Sam Yarborough:Ah, we own PAW Patrol now too, so.
Jason Yarborough:No, outside, outside of the
Scott Leese:count, Sam.
Sam Yarborough:Oh, okay. Scott,
Jason Yarborough:we'll, uh,
Sam Yarborough:so great. Thank you for your time. Um, we feel honored that you spent it with us. Um, as always, our network is yours, so thank you for everything and friends. I hope you learned a lot today. We certainly did. We'll see you next time.
Jason Yarborough:See y'all.