203: Stephen Oommen on The Referral Effect, Reputation as Revenue, and Founder-Led Selling

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Nooks. Nooks is the agent workspace for intelligent outbound. For more, just go to nooks.ai. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Stephen Oommen. Stephen, this is a little bit of a departure from, from the regular Sales Success Stories structure where I exclusively interview number 1 and top 1% individual contributors. Stephen has 25 years of go-to-market experience, has worked with Microsoft, ADP, Outreach, incredible career and story. And he's got a YouTube video that is absolutely blowing up of his TED Talk about a month ago. We're at like 700,000 views about a month in. The reason this came to bear, and we'll get into the story of how we got connected, because I think it's a whole theme in this. A lot has been happening lately. Dots kind of connect in my world and they tend to do this, especially in the run-up to the summit, because I'm listening really, really hard.

1:28 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:29 Scott Ingram: To understand what's going on and what's resonating with people as we get ready to build that experience. And the first thought was somebody reached out to me and said, hey Scott, I've started listening to the podcast. I love this. I'm a founder. What episode do I listen to? I don't have that. And it dawned on me that this whole founder-led sales motion is a very unique kind of selling. Right. And when I backtested this idea, because I'd been thinking about this, really noodling on it, Stephen and I got connected. I was like, man, I gotta figure out a way to bring Stephen onto the podcast, get him onto the stage at the summit. And because this topic that he's working on is so important. And when I looked back at, it was more than 200 interviews, a few people I've done multiple times. About 20% of them are now founders. I'm like, okay, that, that's a sign, right? There's, there's a lot of people that are in this place of, I've had a successful run in sales. Maybe I want to take this entrepreneurial path. So how do I serve that audience? So to be honest, this is a little bit of an experiment. Um, I may or may not keep doing this. Um, but, but it's, it's very compelling to me. I think this idea of finding very successful founders who are running that founder-led motion. That is the way that you have to start, right? And you have to lead by example. And there's not a lot of content on the topic. So again, opening the aperture here a little bit and exploring this and just really excited to dig into what's possible here. The other piece of this, that is a big element of literally connecting dots is, as I, the way that I'm sort of seeing the market right now is AI is more or less eating outbound. It is making outbound very difficult, very expensive. And what I have, am seeing, and in fact, Jack Wilson is going to be doing a talk at the Sales Success Summit. He just bought the Cinch IT franchise. Like the franchisor, right, was, grew up working within a franchise and ended up buying the whole thing. He said, as soon as I switched my title to CEO, my email is unusable. My LinkedIn is unusable. So he is going to do a presentation called Luke, I Am Your Buyer and talk about the, that perspective of now being the buyer, now being that senior leader that everybody is trying to get in front of. And so anyway, what I'm seeing though is What is really continuing to work is events and referrals. And so this idea of go-to-network and connecting the dots, whether you're meeting people in person at an event, one of the things that we're going to change, or again, opening the aperture, adjusting our trajectory a little bit with the summit this year is I'm looking to create an event that where we're connecting the connectors. What I have found in my career is that people are wired for it or they're not, right? This is a DNA-level thing. And somebody that refers me once is 20, maybe 50 times more likely to do it again. And so how do you serve those people in your network? And again, if they're wired for that, not only are they willing to help me, they're willing to help other people. And so that's the way that I'm looking to continue to build The Sales Success Community, because we need each other right now. Like the world and everything is changing so much. Anyway, I digress. The purpose of this session and the adjustment, I'm good. I've adjusted sort of my traditional line of thinking to adjust for kind of this founder-led perspective that Stephen's going to share with us in addition to the go-to network and referrals and connections. And that is part of what you're working on. Uh, I think is, is so key and so important. So just super excited to, to dig into this. So with that way too long preamble, because I, those who listen to the show know I love to just jump in with some immediate value and here we are multiple minutes in and you don't have value yet, nor have you heard Stephen's voice. So let's fix this. Stephen, when you think about the, the top 3 success factors as, as a founder running this founder-led sales motion.

6:06 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

6:07 Scott Ingram: What are those?

6:08 Stephen Oommen: Well, first and foremost, thank you for having me. I will tell you, uh, no pressure on me at all because you did say that you may not keep doing these. So we'll see if it works, but, uh, that's no pressure at all. But right off the bat, if I were to say the top 3 things for me, and this is very specific because I think entrepreneurship, being a founder, can be for everyone. But every path is so unique. So you look at people, try to learn as much as possible. Here are the big 3 things that have worked for me. And I will have to give some background later on for this to make sense. But the first thing is when I went out on my own this last time, I got a DM on LinkedIn after I announced that I was leaving corporate America, starting my own thing. And I got this DM and this person says, what gave you the courage? And I had a one-word answer and I was semi being facetious, but I was being very serious. And I said, money. Now it's not what people think if you're listening right now. Not that I was going after money. What gave me the courage, because I told him, I go, I have zero courage. I'm a big baby. I'm a scaredy cat. It's because I had years and I had learned a hard lesson financially. So money, meaning financial stability, whether I made a dime in the next year, 2 years, 5 years, I was going to be fine financially, which freed up the mental capacity for innovation, creativity, risk-taking, all of that, because I wasn't worried about house and home. We can talk later on in the episode about what I did to get to that state. Everybody's financial situation is different. Everybody's view on money is different. So that's number one for me was financial stability. So that's number one. Number 2, I would say is confidence, but not because confidence for the confidence sake, it's because of experience. And when people venture out and want to go out and do something, For me, I had to do something I had confidence in because I had done it. So the experience and something I always tell everyone, and even my coaching clients, I have failed way more than I've succeeded, way more. But in those failures, you have learnings. You can bring that for the next person. You can help them understand how to avoid things. And I told one of my clients recently, because he was struggling with A little bit of confidence and insecurity and whatnot. I said, how many successes do you have to have to be called a success? And we've all heard this before. And he thought about it and he goes, well, I guess just one. That's the point. You can have 99 failures. All you really need is that one success and you're off to the races. So number 2 would be confidence. And then number 3 is the network. There's actually 5 to 6 of them, but I put it in this order because I figure I'd end, and the top 3 to me are in no particular order. Uh, I just ended with network because it's a good segue of everything that I do. But I am a big believer that the value of this world is in people. I can't help anyone if they hate people. I'll just tell you that right now. Like, I'm not your guy, right? I'm an introvert by nature. But I love people. And so the, you truly believe, if you truly believe that every human being has value and you think about it from a network perspective, whether you believe in the 6 degrees of separation or not, you never know what someone knows and who someone knows. And so as soon as I left, I made calls to a few people I knew. I had revenue coming in within about a month. And most people say they struggle with the first couple of years. Am I where I want to be? Am I making tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars? No, not yet. I'm about, what, a year and a half, 2 years into this. But that network to me is always my saving grace. And if I weren't doing so well, I'd pick up the phone and call everybody I know. And I just know and believe. That somebody has my back. It's not about me.

10:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So much, so much good stuff. I think the, the story to tell here is the way that we got connected because it is basically all of those things kind of coming together. So, and what's, what's interesting is I was reflecting on this driving over here was that it went both ways almost at the same time, right? You connected with Alex Smith. You were on Alex's podcast. Alex recommended you to me, and then I'm catching up with my, our friend, DeJuan Brown. And what's really funny, what's hilarious about this, because it was truly a connecting the dots moment. Um, after you had spoken with Alex, we hadn't connected yet. You had sent me a LinkedIn connection request and in your LinkedIn profile is a basketball.

11:19 Stephen Oommen: Yes.

11:20 Scott Ingram: In the, in the, in the link. So I'm talking with DeJuan. And out of the blue, we were talking about Go To Network and we're talking, you know, I told him, I said, look, here's what I'm trying to do with Summit this year. Like, we really need to address this topic because it is so important and it's going to continue to get more and more and more important for all of us. And he drops in the link to your LinkedIn profile and in the link is the basketball. I'm like, I recognize, I didn't know your name, right? But I recognized that. I was like, hang on a minute.

11:49 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

11:50 Scott Ingram: And I pull you up and I'm looking at this and, you know, your, your TED Talk had just released and was, was starting its whole hockey stick move. And I was like, okay, this is fascinating. And I called you, I think immediately. I think I, you know, I don't know what I did. I sent you a DM on, on LinkedIn. We got on text.

12:06 Stephen Oommen: Or did, what was it? DeJuan, I think, did he connect us via text and say, you two need to talk? Or maybe you did just DM me. I can't even remember.

12:12 Scott Ingram: I think it was, I think it was like, oh, he texted me. This is way too…

12:16 Stephen Oommen: yeah.

12:18 Scott Ingram: There are no coincidences at this level. Like, we obviously need to start talking. And we did, right? Found time to connect and it's been a blast. Like, I think we've had a lot of fun getting to know each other, explore this whole founder-led idea and kind of come to this point. Appreciate you committing and jumping up to speak at the summit. And what's amazing is all of these people will be there. Alex will be there. DeJuan will be there. It's going to be such a great experience. Why don't we contextualize this?

12:50 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

12:51 Scott Ingram: What is your company? What are you doing? What are you selling? Who are you selling to?

12:54 Stephen Oommen: I'll, I'll do it in reverse like a typical seller should. Let me dig into the problem that I solve, right? Uh, Sales 101. But ultimately what I've been realizing, um, and I'll go backwards. When I left corporate, it was actually to be a full-time father. So that was what had actually happened. I was an executive. I was working 70, 80 hours a week, and I was an absentee father, absentee husband. That was actually why I decided to leave. But again, going back to the money aspect, I was able to leave because of the financial stability. But 2 weeks into that, I swear I almost had a mental breakdown because I was so bored and I realized why people continued to work.

13:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

13:41 Stephen Oommen: From an experiential standpoint. I always got it conceptually, but at this point I was like, oh my gosh, like I have to feel productive. So essentially I talked to my coach and I was like, I gotta do something. What's going on with me? That sort of thing. And she asked me a question and she goes, what are you good at? And I said, well, I thought about it. I said, well, I suck at a lot of things. There's really only 3 things I can think of that God gifted me at.

14:09 Scott Ingram: Hmm.

14:09 Stephen Oommen: So she laughs and she just says, what is that? And I said, onstage public speaking, sales, and leadership/encapture. And she kind of giggled. I said, what's so funny? She goes, all 3 of those are very monetizable. What problem do you solve? What have you done? How have you generated revenue? And it really got me thinking about my own business and career. And fast forward, I came to the realization that almost all of my revenue in my entire career was generated through relationships and warm referrals. And I estimate around 98%. And I started thinking about that in enterprise sales, my mid-market sales, when I was an entrepreneur before and I was just getting started, all these sorts of things. And in all 3 areas, from small all the way to big strategic corporate, it was all relationship-based. But no one was teaching a structured warm outbound process. And what I was seeing with technology and AI is that technology is great. Do it, use it, use AI. It creates reach, it creates visibility, but yet people still were not getting access. Every single deal review, every single one where a seller would come in and say, we are stuck, we're struggling. The one question that always comes up, bar none, ask any executive, any leader, who do we know? Who are we talking to? Does anyone on the leadership team, does anyone on the board, who can they connect us with? It always goes back to relationship. And I'm like, well, why is AI not… now I'm being facetious, but it's, why is AI not fixing that for you? Because that's not what it's there for. So trusted access is what I help any company on the planet do. And I do it through 3 services, right? Keynote speaking, workshops, one-on-one leadership or sales coaching. That's the basic 3 services, right? But it's, I make this statement and I genuinely believe it. I believe I can help you or anyone on the planet meet with any person that they could possibly want to. Love it.

16:28 Scott Ingram: Love it. Now's the fun part is let's put your results in perspective. And we have talked about this a lot and I have agonized over this a lot because in the Scott criteria of sales success, number 1, top 1%, that it is documented, very clear. Um, in this case, and I've been, I've had this conversation so much, I'm like, What does a top 1% founder even look like? And what the decision I've come to is you wouldn't believe the amount of inbound, like garbage inbound that I get because everybody wants to be on the podcast.

17:06 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

17:06 Scott Ingram: And clearly you've never listened to the show because you realize you're not qualified to be here. And I want to keep that wall up with that in mind. And your circumstance is kind of interesting. Like you're framing of success is pretty cool.

17:21 Stephen Oommen: Yeah. So there, there's 2 to 3 ways that I look at this top 1%. If you look at it in terms of money, I have never once published my income results online because I actually am not motivated by money. But if I, I'm not going to share exactly what those numbers are here, but I will tell you in the first year it was multiple 6 figures. I did not break the $7 million mark, but even If you look at any company on the planet to generate a profit in your first year is like less than 1% of 1%. But again, the way that I did it is because I could just pick up the phone and go just get business, right? So that, that's one thing.

18:03 Scott Ingram: Did you catch that? Stephen Oommen, founder of The Referral Effect, who just said that 98% of his business comes from referrals, just said I could just pick up the phone. Now, Stephen and I had a great conversation after this interview about the difference between warm outbound, which is what he just described, and cold outbound. Either way, you've got to talk to people. You need to do outbound, and that's where Nooks might just be that force multiplier you need with their intelligent outbound approach. Whether you're doing cold outbound or warm outbound, Nooks has got you covered with their AI dialer and their AI sequencing capabilities across multiple channels. Check them out at nooks.ai. And now back to Stephen.

18:51 Stephen Oommen: I did not break the $7 million mark, but even if you look at any company on the planet, to generate a profit in your first year is like less than 1% of 1%. But again, the way that I did it is because I could just pick up the phone and go just get business, right? So that, that's one thing. The other way that I look at it is time. So for me, if you look at my per hour, I'm probably in the 1% of 1% of 1%. Because remember, the reason I left was for time with the family, but you still have life. So I understand the necessity for an income. And so I actually didn't work hardly at all that first year in the sense of 40-hour work. I don't think I've ever put in a… no, I have never put in a 40-hour work week since I've started. True, like 40 hours, right? Like 5 days a week, that sort of thing. I put in some long days because of travel, things of that nature. And it always depended on how people look and define what Um, but those are the 2 different ways that I look at the 1% is time, which to me is number one. And then you could utilize it as from a financial perspective as well. Also, when I even think about the TED Talk, like how, like that message must be resonating because how many, you know, TEDx's get to over, like, again, I still think it's growing. So I think that's in the top already 1% of all TEDx already as well. So there's a lot of different ways. And that's the cool thing about being a founder is you get to decide what does success look like for you? Super cool place to be.

20:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

20:43 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

20:43 Scott Ingram: We were, we were comparing notes this morning. We worked in the same division at ADP once upon a long time ago for both of us. Um, what is the difference? So you come from a sales background and a sales leadership background. How do you see the difference between Selling for somebody else, selling within a large organization compared to the way that you're selling now and that, that founder-led motion. Yes.

21:10 Stephen Oommen: It's deeply psychological. That's where the difference is. And here's where I came up against a wall because it wasn't right out the gate. I did have a little bit of success right out the gate. So there was this pop and then this lull and then this growth. For me, that's how it worked that, that first year. And it was because when you move out of selling for someone else, you sell a service or a product and you are backed by an organization, an entity. It's not fully, truly yourself. We do say that in sales, you're really selling yourself. Somebody's buying you, right? That totally makes sense. But at a tactical level, they're still buying someone else's product or service.

21:52 Scott Ingram: Sure.

21:52 Stephen Oommen: So what I find as one of the major differences between selling for someone else versus selling for ourselves is when you actually sell in a corporation, in a company, like you said, you have that badge on your chest. We, we say that, hey, you know what? It's people buy you and you're selling yourself, but you really are selling another product. What I found for me, and it wasn't all cupcakes and big dogs. I had a little pop as soon as I first started, then I had a lull because it's deeply psychological, right? And so what do I mean by that? I say it's deeply psychological because when you are a founder, every rejection, every no, you feel it deep in your soul. They're saying no to you. But I also think it depends on what you're selling as well. What I've found is I am the service.

22:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

22:46 Stephen Oommen: If you're saying no to my keynote, yes, you might be saying no to the content, no to whatnot, but like in my world of coaching workshops, I am doing the delivering. So I feel that rejection exponentially compared to how I felt when I sold for ADP or Microsoft or any other product or service. That's one of the things I found out very quickly this time around is that it's deeply psychological from that perspective. Yeah.

23:19 Scott Ingram: Talk us through specifically kind of that peak in that valley. Where, where did the first sale or the first sales come from? And then, then what was that? What was that progression?

23:28 Stephen Oommen: Oh, that's awesome. So, uh, ultimately I had to pick up the phone and I started calling everybody that I know and I said, hey, here's what I'm thinking about doing. And I ended up getting an audition with this agency to be able to also sell on their behalf because there's different services and products. I asked the first service that I had was almost speaking for hire, training for hire, facilitation, things of that nature. So I would take someone else's content, run it through the talent that is me, because that's the way I looked at it, is I'm the product, I'm the service, and I was able to deliver that. Now, in order to sign up for that, what ended up happening is I got a referral. It was someone else who was doing the same thing. That person said, hey, you should really talked to Stephen. I literally went into a scenario where I had to audition, do a speech of my own, and I had a panel that was grading how I did in front of an audience. But that was within 3 weeks is how fast that came to be. And I had my first gig shortly after that. So it was fairly quick.

24:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And then what is the continuation? Like, at what point do you feel like you got Meaningful traction, like that one deal. Cool. Yep.

24:42 Stephen Oommen: So after that, what I had to start doing is think about breaking down my experience because what is it that somebody else would want to buy? And so that's where the referral effect came from, is I broke down everything that I had done, put those into frameworks and started calling individuals, sales leaders, and said, hey, This is the issue that I'm seeing. Every seller out there can blast into the market. They can get visibility. We have email spam cannons, as a good friend of mine, uh, that we know, Scott Leese, calls it spam cannons. You can pick up the phone. I'm a big believer in cold calls. I've done it myself. But when you get to the door, so I use this analogy of AI and technology gets us to the door. How often is someone opening?

25:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

25:31 Stephen Oommen: And they said, we still struggle with that. So I said, who's opening the door for you and how do you get trusted access? When I got to the messaging clarity, all of a sudden I got my first pure referral effect client. And it was because they understood that specific problem. I walked through it. And so I had called, and this is one thing I believe in. Don't do it on your own. So I called her up and I said, how should I price this? And I called a whole bunch of people and I said, what should I charge? And so that's actually how I came up with my pricing model is I had 4 or 5 individuals who were in the space that were willing to speak to me and say, this is what you should charge. Got my first client within about 60 days.

26:15 Scott Ingram: There's, there's a phrase running around in my head a lot based on just a couple of your last statements. And it's this idea of If you ask for money, you'll get advice. If you ask for advice, you'll get money.

26:29 Stephen Oommen: Ooh, that is very well said. Whether you said it correctly or not, I like the way you said it. And I totally understood that, which made me just think about something about how I actually got my first client. The very tactical thing that I did, I started texting everyone and saying, hey, I've left corporate. I'm looking at doing something new. I'd love to get your advice. And feedback on what I am trying to do. Now, who do you think I picked up the phone and texted? My ICP, which was sales leaders, people I knew in the industry, very, very tactical. And I just flat out asked them. Now, I was genuine, but I also know in the back of my head, if this is something that resonates, what are they going to naturally respond and say? Yeah.

27:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

27:17 Stephen Oommen: Hey, can you come do that? For me.

27:20 Scott Ingram: Exactly. Exactly.

27:22 Stephen Oommen: And there you go.

27:22 Scott Ingram: And when I say like, it's not money in this case, right? Like the output of that asking for advice is often referrals, right? Here's, here's another thing that's kind of a corollary to that same idea is if you ask for a referral, it's an amazing indirect way to ask for business.

27:40 Stephen Oommen: That is so true. Hey, do you know anyone who would benefit from X, Y, or Z, knowing that that person may or may not have the same problem, especially if they are naturally in your ICP. A lot of times they'll be like, no, I've had a bunch of those, right? Yeah, totally fine. But now they are very clear. This is what I do. This is the problem that I solve. Here's who I help.

28:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

28:06 Stephen Oommen: There is no shortage of people who need to know that for a founder. So that is the first thing that I tell every founder to do is get out there and test it. See if people even want it. Pick up the phone, call everyone you know.

28:21 Scott Ingram: And I think it's also, it's a test of trust, right? If somebody is willing to refer you, if they're willing to put their reputation on the line, that is a sign that you're headed in a good direction. If they're not, something is wrong. Now, that's not Binary. It's not you are the something that is wrong. It could be going back to this idea of, again, my own experience. This is basically binary wiring. You are wired to refer people. And I find this with people that are good at partner selling also. They're, because I've been in those roles where I've had to sell with partners and they're either set to do that and they understand the game or they don't. And I can chase the ones who don't all day long. It's never going to work. And so I just, I learned that and understood you just have to prioritize around these ways.

29:11 Stephen Oommen: That brings up something of one of the biggest learnings that I've had with building this business. So the clarity in my messaging and understanding when I go to sales leaders and walk them through this, everyone gets it, but here's what this taught me. Early on, everyone, and people still do, when they hear my name, the one word that comes up is referrals. Most sales leaders actually believe that their teams are generating referrals. And if you look at it, this is what I learned. If you look at it from a board level down, no board is going out there telling their CEO, what's your warm referral strategy? What is your warm outbound strategy? Even maybe what's your partner strategy? What they are saying is, what's your AI strategy? Now, while I don't always agree with that, that's reality. So I finally had to wisen up because I realized that even the content that I was putting out there, I use AI. 80% of my business is run by AI. Now it's tactical things, research, all that kind of stuff. And I had to stop saying things like, I am not anti-AI. There's little nuances because when you say that, you're bringing to the essence, right? What do people hear? You're anti-AI. That not doesn't register. And so I created a new messaging and it's really the same thing I've always actually done, which is I partner AI in relationships. And now I call it real AI-ationships because it's both. Let AI and technology get you to the door like it's done for me, right? Finding the right places, Signalbase, all that kind of stuff. Use the relationship to open the door, but I would have never really figured that out unless I was sitting there asking people for advice, asking for feedback. And again, can you find one sales leader on the planet that would dare say, oh yeah, like Relationships. We don't need relationships. No one says that. And so those are the things that happen in, in, in those advice conversations or feedback conversations that you start to pick up on and learn, um, is you might have the perfect product. It might work, but something for me was my messaging was off. It sounded too basic and they didn't understand what I actually did for full organizations. It was both actually. Yeah.

31:47 Scott Ingram: 2 threads for us to pull on. One is, um, I think that most organizations are not structured to make referrals work, especially in larger organizations, meaning that I'm inside a big organization. I ask my customer for a referral. They connect me with somebody that's not in my territory.

32:06 Stephen Oommen: Right?

32:07 Scott Ingram: So that's one idea. The other idea, more relevant for our core listeners, right? Those, those of us that are in sales is in a lot of cases, particularly enterprise sales, the way I'm thinking about referrals is internal. That how do I continue to work inside of that organization so that I'm moving from conversation to conversation to conversation? I'm opening many doors, like forget about one door. How do I open lots of doors, have lots of conversations to gain a deep level of perspective? So what, Those are your 2 threads. Which one do you want to pull?

32:38 Stephen Oommen: Uh, we could do both. Let's start with the multithreading because I think that's a big one for especially enterprise sellers, mid-market sellers, anything of that nature. Because what is it, 21 people on the buying committee now between influencers? It's massive, right? And in the TED Talk, you, I hit on something that you just said, which is the reputation. It is literally a signal if someone is not willing to put their name on the line and introduce you to someone else. So that's why I tell people, ask all the time because you are getting the initial feedback. Because why would somebody not introduce you to somebody in finance? Why would they not introduce you to their boss? Hmm. Take a step back because what is it about them? What is it about you that you're showing up that they would not be super excited to put your name in front of the next person? The first part is the mindset. So we have to get our sellers to change their mindset, to understand the heart and mind of why psychologically we do something. That will create a different behavior. When they start having those different behaviors, it creates a repetitive skill. So now you got the skill, you turn it into a process, and you overlay that with technology. I, I use that as the backdrop because if you just start asking and then using that signal, now you'd be transparent and say, Hey Scott, I can tell and I see that you might be hesitant to put me in front of X, Y, or Z. Typically, if someone's not willing to put my name forward, either I have done something where they might be afraid to put me in front of them. Maybe there's something on your side that, you know, transparently you may not be willing to share with me right now, but there could be something I don't know and it's creating an obstacle. I'd love to have some transparency on a vault. If you could share, or maybe you don't believe in something we're doing, right? There's always the 3 beliefs. They don't believe in you. They don't believe in your product, or they don't believe in themselves. It's those big 3 things, but being able to just be transparent and have that conversation, call it, call it what it is and see if you can get a vulnerable conversation and get that feedback. Yeah.

34:51 Scott Ingram: You've mentioned the AI piece a couple of times. The way I've been thinking about exactly that is I call it the AI bullet, right? And the idea is basically let's put the AI in back, right? So that the human can be in front. And to me, I think, you know, that's, that's how we differentiate, right? Like we, how do you be human, but absolutely use the tools, right? And the best example of this, the easiest example of this that I've been using for years is call recording, right?

35:22 Stephen Oommen: Mm-hmm.

35:22 Scott Ingram: Pre-call recording. I'm taking all kinds of notes that are kind of garbage. Like my notes aren't very useful. And, and I'm probably spending 20% of, of my attention, maybe 30% of my attention taking those notes that's come away from the conversation that I'm in. Now with call recording, like I trust that the notes are there. Hell, I can go back and pull the exact quote. And now it's just you and me. We, we get to be here. I get to be more human. That's the human in front, right? So that, that's a lot of the way that I've been thinking about it is, you know, let's, I think we're over-AI-ing too much, right?

36:03 Stephen Oommen: Yeah, I, I absolutely agree. So when I say that I use quite a bit of AI in, in my business, uh, part of it is targeting, right? It's like, where is every association? Where is every Um, event, what types of companies, what types of industries. I do a lot of backend research that makes sense for what I'm doing, right? What are possibly some areas that most people are not attacking that really would benefit from a relationship-structured network-based approach? So that's one area. Um, I have loaded in all of my podcasts. I've loaded in A lot of my calls, like almost every call recording, uh, I speak to AI. I have it like have all my thoughts. I've loaded my framework. So I've created a GPT of myself that I can converse back and forth with. So even people will say, oh, use AI to write. I've only started actually in the last 3 months using AI to give me a first draft of posts, but it's all my own stuff. It is taking years and years of my brain. That's where I utilize it because time is what I need, but I want it to be authentically me. That's an example right there. Um, I think I don't use it for reachouts because I haven't made the switch in my brain between my brand of relationship-based referral, that sort of thing. And how do I do it in a way that's still authentic to me? So I have not crossed that yet. I'm not against it because I'm a big believer that you need 8 to 12 channels, like as a founder and an entrepreneur. Back in 2007, when I started another company back then, that was always the thing I learned. 8 lead sources, 8 channels. That was the minimum. I always had 12. That's why I had a successful company back then as well. Same thing here. The reason I bring that up, do cold outbound. And this is another messaging thing that I've learned. And I need to probably change this on my LinkedIn headline too. Right now it says warm outbound. greater than cold outbound. True statement. I still believe that, but I think people misinterpret it to say that I'm anti-cold outbound and I'm not. But very few people are actually good at that. So like maybe 20%, if that. The rest of the 80% are just annoying. They're just spamming people. Um, but if you are good at cold outbound, it can be refreshing. If I pick up a call and I meet somebody that I'm genuinely interested in speaking with, it's a kind of cool experience. It can actually brighten up your day. Yeah.

38:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You said 8 to 10, up to 12 referrals, or what did you say? Lead sources?

38:44 Stephen Oommen: Lead sources, uh, ways that you're going to market.

38:48 Scott Ingram: Define that. What are examples of those?

38:50 Stephen Oommen: Uh, okay. So it could be truly like picking up the phone and texting. Like I spend a certain amount of time every single week. Nurturing my network, right? So it could be, uh, we'll call it passive lead sources. If you want to think about nurtured network, LinkedIn could be one if you're doing DMs. Phone calls could be another. Um, associations for me, applications for speaking events is, is another. Um, using, you know, any of these tools, whether you're talking about these targeting tools, think about, um, sales leaders that Uh, have switched in the last 3 months? When are people… and targeting… when are people's SKOs? Like, I like to say, hey, this is… we're 6 months out, they're probably in their planning period. So these are examples. If you think about outlets, um, you think about communities, it's another big part of my lead source, right? What communities do I need to be a part of that naturally would know my ICP and be able to get me referrals? Um, But yeah, there's, there's a ton of different ones out there and it's different for every type of company. Uh, email, obviously, right? You have the Vencible and the email from that sort of thing.

39:59 Scott Ingram: Yep. Let's go back to the first thread. And, and I think in, again, smaller organization, it's easy. I get referred, I go to the leadership. I'm like, hey, I got this opportunity. Geographically, it's, it's not aligned, but I have some relationship here. Usually not a problem. big enterprise where I know you, you've done a lot of work, you've got a lot of opportunities you're, you're actively working on there. What do you tell them? How, how do we solve this problem? Because I, I think in a lot of ways we've disincentivized the opportunity.

40:26 Stephen Oommen: You are so spot on. And there's not an easy answer. So let me be very clear. You and I happen to come from a company that literally is based on, if I find a, uh, deal, I can split 50/50. You remember that? It was the best. And people don't realize. How awesome. There's, there are many companies that still do that today. It's a lead pass system or you work the deal together. Now you think about these massive companies, that's usually where you start to see the difference. So let me be also very clear. Let's say you're in a massive multi, multi-billion dollar company. No, you may not have a monetary incentive. If, let's say I'm breaking, let's use industry-based as an example.

41:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

41:11 Stephen Oommen: Let's use financial services. Um, let's say Bank of America is my account. I'm breaking into Bank of America. That Bank of America CTO or CMO came from Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo's not my account, right? That's what we were talking about earlier.

41:26 Scott Ingram: Yep.

41:27 Stephen Oommen: But man, that person has all these relationships. There's 2 ways you could look at this. If you're only looking at the world through a monetary, self-serving, does This impact me right now. I will tell you right now, I can't help you. I wouldn't want to help you because, and I'm just being honest, right? That's not the type of person that I want to help succeed. I want to change your mindset and say, who do you want to be known to within your organization? Now, most individual sellers typically want either a level bump in bigger organizations. If you don't want to be a leader, you want level bumps in your organization. In most organizations, what they do is they look at how you're impacting the company. So if you're helping your sellers and you document it, right? Because in your performance review, you can say, hey, I've helped create an additional $20, $30, $40, $50 million in pipeline because I helped this person get into this account, this person to get into that account. That goes on your performance review. Obviously, you're, if you're in a smaller company, it's what you and I said. You can go to the organization, Ojas, and say, hey, I have a way to get into this company. Can I work this deal? Because I can get a direct in. Why would the company say no?

42:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think there are a couple of just insanely missed opportunities, uh, in, in, again, in this environment, I think the, not the pace of, I guess it's the pace of career changes, like We, it's rare that you find somebody that's like, I've been with this organization for the last 20, 25, 30 years, right? You find that movement. That movement has benefited me so much in my career because if you bought from me over here and I was able to serve you and support you in that role, well, not only did you move to another organization, there's a decent chance you gained some power, right? Like, oh, I, I, not only did I make a ladder, I moved to another organization, but, but now I have a larger team. I have a larger span of control. I have more influence. And you've got a lot more, uh, uh, influence, especially in those early days. So I love being able to either keep in touch with people as they're making those transitions because maybe there's an opportunity to serve them again. Or, and I know you do this a lot too, and this might be a good transition, uh, conversation for us around this career conversation.

44:00 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

44:01 Scott Ingram: Is helping people in those transitions. This literally yesterday, I had a lot of things happen yesterday. Literally yesterday, um, I had a conversation with a client of mine. We had some great success. Things changed in his organization and he's like, Scott, things are sideways here. Um, I need to, I need to make a move. Okay. And you mentioned Scott Leese. Who did I connecting with? He has an incredible track record as a CRO.

44:27 Stephen Oommen: Mm-hmm.

44:28 Scott Ingram: He's got his own team that'll follow him anywhere he wants to go. I'm like, this guy's got a ready-made pod of people that are, that are ready to go. And again, when you can serve people in that way, that's, that's not a percentage of somebody's quota. That's their all, that's 100% of their personal revenue.

44:46 Stephen Oommen: So I just got a call yesterday that my client, uh, or one of my clients, I should say, um, but this specific one. Just got the job offer because I connected him with someone I knew at a company. He was trying to break into a new industry. And because of that, and so I'm going to take a step back before we go into this transition, because he said something and I'm going to give something super tactical for every seller if they want. And normally I do this in a workshop and I get paid a lot of money to, so whoever's listening to this, you're getting this for free, but I'm going to go ahead and drop some. Uh, tactical knowledge, but it's the 5 influential networks that I teach people to tap into. And if you are a seller, it doesn't matter if you're in a big organization or a small organization, but it also will allow you to transition to being a founder if you invest in these 5 networks as much as possible. And they're all around us. I call them the 5 coins because what I've found is that Most people, what they're doing is they are going out and they are doing this proverbial slot machine with cold outbound. Again, do it against visibility and they don't know what's gonna come back and they're just, you know, they're just pulling out the slot machine, slot machine. So I created this framework around this analogy. So if you deposit these 5 coins or invest in these 5 influential networks, you will go undefeated. Here's the first one, and I'll just do it in, in this order. Centers of influence. So C-O-I-N, center of influence network. So you got centers, connectors, communities, coaches, and customers. I'll walk through them. What is a center of influence? I defined it as gravity. We know those people that it, they can be CEOs, they could be celebrities, they could be athletes. We understand those type of people. But we've all met those individuals in our day-to-day life that everyone wants to be around. They're highly influential people. We need to either become those people in our own life. And so that's my whole thing around reputation to revenue, or we need to have those people in our life. Where do those people reside? How do you go find them? Connectors of influence. Everybody has a choice to do this. If you want to become a center of influence. First, be a connector of influence. What did you do? You found somebody with a problem. You found the center of influence in the, in Scott Lees, and you connected. And so problem solution, you just elevated your ability and your influence because you focused on solving somebody else's problem, even though you may not have done it yourself. Everybody can do this. So being a connector of influence, everyone does that all day, every day. Yeah.

47:34 Scott Ingram: One, one quick interruption.

47:35 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

47:36 Scott Ingram: Right. I, I have. Been a student of, of all this networking stuff for, for years. Yeah. What, what a lot of people don't realize is how powerful it is because in those types of scenarios, when you are connecting to people that there's a really good fit, you're serving 2 people with one action. Yes.

47:53 Stephen Oommen: Spot on. And so because everybody has a choice, you can find other connectors, but then all of a sudden you now become the center of influence as well. Right? How did Juan introduce you to me? In that instance, he's the connector. I'm the center, but at the end of the day, I'm also a connector. You can be all these things.

48:14 Scott Ingram: Yep.

48:14 Stephen Oommen: The next one is communities. To me, this is one of the ones that is most slept on because people don't want to pay. People say, oh, everyone's just creating these communities. Join every community that you can possibly afford that allows you to be part of your ICP. Because think about the psychology. Growing up, whether you talk about AAU leagues, whether you talk about fraternities, sororities, what is it about when you join a team, you can see 2 people who are enemies, they're on the same football team or basketball team, they're dapping each other because there is something about being in the same community. There's a loyalty.

48:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. There's shared identity.

48:49 Stephen Oommen: Shared identity. And so all of a sudden, and this is how when I took over as an executive at a different firm, I was called in to be into it, to sell into an industry, run a North American organization in an industry I had zero connections in. Why the heck would you hire me into this? And I actually told the team, I was like, I don't have the relationships. I'd never done it. 2 weeks in, I called one of the communities I was a part of and I said, hey, I have zero contacts in this industry. I've got a nationwide team. I need to, you know, first 90 days. Show that I'm bringing value. Who do we know that's in this industry? I got connected to one person in the community within 2 weeks. I had 6 executive relationships. I was on the, uh, on with a board member of one firm, the CMO of another. These are massive brands that you would know within a couple of weeks because of the community. Now, here's the thing. Most people don't define community broad enough. What's… I'm just curious, what's your definition of community? Ooh.

49:52 Scott Ingram: Well, you can give me a hint that I'm not defining it as retail now.

49:55 Stephen Oommen: So try to be as broad as you possibly can.

49:58 Scott Ingram: I'd say it's any shared group, right? Oh, it'd be dull in a profession. Dull, right?

50:03 Stephen Oommen: So group of people. Where can you find a group of people?

50:08 Scott Ingram: Anywhere there are people.

50:10 Stephen Oommen: So if you think about what we're doing right now, the producer, what we're doing with Event Shark, this is now a community. This, your podcast is a community. LinkedIn is a community. If you go to an event, the summit, that is a community. Those are people that will be alumni of that event. Your employee base is a community. Your ex-employee base, your alumni community. A community is anywhere that you can pull and tap on, but most people don't do that enough and then they don't nurture it, right? The, that 4th one, coaches. Now here's the thing.

50:41 Scott Ingram: Mm-hmm.

50:42 Stephen Oommen: What I didn't tell you is that when I left corporate, it was actually my coach. So when I hire coaches, again, I spend money. Most people don't realize how much money I've spent on investing in myself over the years. It's near 7 figures, if not broken 7 figures by now, over 25 years. There's a reason why I have confidence in myself, because I am very, you know, I have insecurity issues like everyone else, and I've always had great coaches. Life coaches, leadership coaches, keynote coaches, like you name it. It was actually this coach that made the connection because I don't actually hire coaches only for their knowledge. I hire them for their network. I look at who their ICP is. Who do they train? Who do they connect with? Because if I want to connect with those individuals, or if I want to be like them, that's why I hire them. That's actually why this individual that I helped get the job with yesterday, that's why he hired me.

51:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

51:36 Stephen Oommen: I told him the same thing and I knew he wanted to get a different type of role. He knew I had the connections and it panned out, right? And that last one, customers. What is it? 92% of customers say they would refer their seller, but only 11% of sellers ever, ever ask.

51:51 Scott Ingram: Yep.

51:51 Stephen Oommen: And this is why one of my clients went from 0% referrals to 53% of their customers now refer, and they have a 71% close rate on those referrals. So, yeah, happy customers. We don't ask enough. And it's to what you were saying earlier. So from a tactical perspective, you used the word influence earlier. This is how you very quickly can go from 0 to 1,000.

52:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Love it. Love it. You mentioned mindset. You've talked about a lot of tactics.

52:25 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

52:25 Scott Ingram: I know that you have a particular perspective on, on tactics. How, how do you, how do you sort of think about that?

52:32 Stephen Oommen: Uh, I'll, I'll give you 2 different things, 'cause I'll tell you something that I'd never said publicly about how I used to do performance reviews. Now I gotta think about, um, how I said the statement, but let me tell you the statement that I am quoted to say. Principles scale, tactics don't. I was talking with a major firm, right? Actually, the call that I had right before this.

52:54 Scott Ingram: That was like on the truck.

52:56 Stephen Oommen: In the truck where I was waving my hands, right? Uh, the person was talking about how they spent this last year trying to templatize things. All for it. I'm not against it. But one of the things I was explaining is if, why is it 2 people can do the exact same thing, exact same tactics, get wildly different results? Because I'm sorry, we're not the same. I can never do what Scott Ingram does.

53:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

53:24 Stephen Oommen: Because I'm not Scott Ingram. There's a lot of things you cannot get away with because you are not me. I can get away with a lot of things other people, and vice versa. So lead into the principle. For example, I'll use a really, really ridiculous one. Do you think if I'm a jerk to you, I'm going to get better results than if I was kind to you? No, like obviously very basic. A, a 5-year-old understands that, but for some reason we forget some of that stuff as we get older. But principles scale, tactics don't. And so the other part of it, and I'm gonna speak outta the other side of my mouth, is strategy versus tactics.

54:08 Scott Ingram: Mm-hmm.

54:08 Stephen Oommen: Okay? Because I am a big believer in the fundamentals. This is why both are so important. I'm always a yes and person. And here's something I would say in my performance reviews is that trying to, trying to become a master in strategy without first mastering the tactics or without mastering the tactics is a recipe for mediocrity. Some people are all strategy. And no tactics, and they don't execute, right? Sometimes you have to get into that nitty-gritty. You have to do these things, which is why the templates and all those things matter. So it's very much a yes and, but if you're not the right person, if you don't have the right heart, the right mindset, because let me ask you something. I think we've talked about this before. What is the difference between manipulation and persuasion?

55:05 Scott Ingram: We haven't talked about this.

55:06 Stephen Oommen: Oh my God. What do you think it is?

55:08 Scott Ingram: Intent.

55:10 Stephen Oommen: Boom. If you write out the tactics of manipulation and the tactics of persuasion, they're identical.

55:20 Scott Ingram: Identical.

55:21 Stephen Oommen: Which is why I get so weirded out if people ask me, how do you do things? The how, right? Without understanding the who, because it would sound like sales. This is exactly why the world Has now poo-pooed on sales and they think of it as used car sales. And we have to shift the mindset of the community, the world around who salespeople really are, because there's been too many people who have been manipulative. And if you teach sales through just tactics, which, which is why I want to transform this world, because I don't think we explain this enough. We don't give people the words to understand this. If you just teach the tactics, it sounds like the devil wrote it, right? And at the end of the day, we know that it's not because they're two sides of the same coin and your intent, your heart, do you want to serve? Do you want to help solve this problem? But if you have the wrong intent, manipulation. If you have the right intent, people are grateful for you. Yeah. So persuasion versus manipulation. That's something that we need to get people fixated on.

56:29 Scott Ingram: That, that right there was probably the biggest, um, wrong stereotype that I had in my head starting this podcast and having come from sales. Like I'd been in sales for, I don't even know how long it is, a decade or so at that point. And I thought when I started the podcast that I was going to find a lot of high ego people that were at the top of their game and Who, who are basically, I mean, said another way, I don't usually talk about it this way, but who were manipulators, right? Who would sell out their mother to close that deal. And what I have found is incredibly consistent. The top performers are the persuaders because their intent is, I mean, DeJuan Brown, servant leadership. Like the intent is, how do I serve my customer? When I do that well, All of the sales, all of my commissions, everything else takes care of itself.

57:25 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

57:26 Scott Ingram: And it is sustainable, right? You can be super successful and be a manipulator, but not for a really long time.

57:34 Stephen Oommen: Yes.

57:35 Scott Ingram: At some point, at some point, the world's gonna catch up with you.

57:38 Stephen Oommen: Yes. I love that, the, the catch-up, because we have all seen this in organizations. You take on a territory that a certain type, the manipulative top performer, just left. No, they just got A lot, like it is possible to win that way.

57:52 Scott Ingram: Yep.

57:52 Stephen Oommen: So sure, you talk about consistency over time. And so nobody wants to get into that territory because they basically bled it dry. They went off to another territory, whatever. And now you've gotta fix the culture of that territory. But what's interesting is this, this is why I say everything rises and falls on leadership because, and it's hard. I'm not, I'm not saying this is easy 'cause you know where I'm probably going with this. An executive with a spreadsheet at the top, been there, done that. So I am not passing judgment. I'm saying it's hard because I've been there. And you now look at, you have these 3 territories. Well, it was performing before. Now this other seller gets in there and all of a sudden it's not performing, but you don't know the story. You don't know what happened. You don't know the who.

58:40 Scott Ingram: Yep.

58:40 Stephen Oommen: And this is why the game of sales, especially the higher you go enterprise sales, it's so difficult. Because we don't know all the stories of every territory, the variability, those sorts of things. And the top sellers understand this and they have the high EQ and IQ. And when they go, even before, this is something else I've seen about top sellers. They really interview hard before taking a territory. They want to know who was there before. What would, like, it is, it is fascinating over the last, you know, couple decades watching what I've seen. Um, well, yeah, go ahead.

59:18 Scott Ingram: You want to hear a fun story? Let's hear it. Yesterday, there are so many things that happened yesterday or just in the last, in the last couple of days. Um, I guess I'll go public with this in this environment. I'm, I'm working on, uh, making a, a change of role. So I'm having some, some conversations. And so obviously got referred in. That's the only path. Got referred into the organization, talked to the recruiter, recruiter conversation. I'm able to kind of get the lay of the land in terms of Why is this territory exist? Oh, well, we promoted this person to another role. I'm like, okay, that's great. Tells me a lot about the company, about the culture, all kinds of different things. Um, tells me about the hiring manager, all the, all the different things. I go back to my referrer, now champion, like, okay, cool. Your job is to have this conversation with the, with the hiring manager. I need to understand these couple of things to help you prep. Okay. So that's happened. But the real coup was. I asked him, who was that person that got promoted? And within, within 30 minutes, so live on the phone, he's slacking him, asking, hey, would it be okay if I connected you with Scott? Within 30 minutes, and then he asks, hey, what's the best way? And he's like, oh, just, you know, have him text me. Here's his number. Cool. So I text him. He's like, we're trying to, we're jockeying, going back and forth, trying to find time. He's like, you know, I'm free now. I just hit the full call button.

1:00:38 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:00:38 Scott Ingram: And now I'm talking to the guy that sat in that territory and I get all kinds of information. I learn about what is it like working with this manager? What is their style? How are they thinking about it? What's the reality of this territory?

1:00:54 Stephen Oommen: Yes.

1:00:55 Scott Ingram: What is the real, what is real? What's up? Is there upside or not? And he wasn't in it very long because he wanted to, to move up and hadn't the opportunity. Right? So best of all the worlds.

1:01:05 Stephen Oommen: Ah, the referral effect in all its…

1:01:08 Scott Ingram: All, all the ways.

1:01:09 Stephen Oommen: People don't realize that all the backchanneling, all the things that happen. And you were talking about 2 things. So we'll go back to that. This was a lot. Hopefully people are getting the value because of what we just talked about. But your original question was around transitioning. You think about promotions. I think that was where that, that original question came from. But what you just said, That's exactly the chess game that top performers play because they have these relationships. And sometimes people are on the outside looking in thinking that things are accidents. Example, oh, this influencer over here is getting all these impressions, or this person is getting all this inbound. No, there is so much happening, happening below the surface. It's not as easy as people think.

1:01:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:01:55 Stephen Oommen: think, and it's through the relationships. It's how every one of my promotions, every one of my roles, the only role that I ever got because of a resume, for example, was the very first job that I got, uh, at Fidelity Investments. And it was through a contracting thing, Coberitude. That was it. Every single one since then is because I knew someone that knew someone, like, That's it. And I had the job before I even got the job, basically.

1:02:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, it's no diff… I mean, I tell people this all the time, like when it comes to your, you're looking for a job, it's duck on water. And that's literally what I try to do with this show is can we look under the water and look at the legs?

1:02:42 Stephen Oommen: Really?

1:02:43 Scott Ingram: Right? Those feet are paddling like crazy and there's so much that you don't see, right? It just looks like, oh, he came in, he came out of nowhere. And, and here it is like, no, you don't understand. I had half a dozen conversations to understand the organization, the opportunity. And again, this, this applies whether you're trying to land a new role or you're trying to expand a client relationship.

1:03:09 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:03:10 Scott Ingram: I mean, Trong Nguyen, one of, one of the earliest people I ever talked to, probably the most successful salesperson I'd ever talked to. Like number one at Dell, then number one at Microsoft. And his whole method was he would talk to, he called it the parlay. He would talk to a gajillion end users and take those insights and bring them to the managers. And he would talk to a gajillion managers and take those insights and take them to the directors. And he, he would just keep going until he got to the C-level.

1:03:41 Stephen Oommen: Okay.

1:03:42 Scott Ingram: And when he got there, he knew more about their business than they did.

1:03:47 Stephen Oommen: Yes.

1:03:48 Scott Ingram: And it's so valuable. And so now how do you think once you, once you climb that ladder, how easy is it then to work with, with what you've built that, that you've, you talk buying community being large. What is that footprint? 100%, right? And, and that's how you do 8-figure deals and break into new industries and Yeah. So shout out to Trong. Go back to that episode back in the day, because that's super influential for me, right? It's, it's how do you, how do you learn more about an organization than they do? And so here's the last piece of that, of that puzzle. So as I'm working that conversation, I talked to the person that was in the territory before. I then ask him, who's he? And he keeps the door open.

1:04:31 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:04:31 Scott Ingram: He's in the loop, all the things. Of course. Absolutely. So great. I've got another champion to help me continue to work through the process. But then I ask him, who's the next person on that team that's still on that team that I should talk to to get perspective? Here's who he is. Here's how to, here's how to reach out to him. Here's what he's going to respond to.

1:04:49 Stephen Oommen: So with that, I'm going to take it completely different because this is an awesome episode, by the way. Like you are a great, ridiculously great host, the way that you ask questions, get someone to think. I always think about the term metacognition, think about how you're thinking. I always say I'm an expert in metacognition plus. I think about how I'm thinking about how I'm thinking, right? But the way you just explained that is the same thing that I share with people about if you're an introvert like me, I actually am so exhausted when I'm in a group of people. I'm terrible.

1:05:22 Scott Ingram: You and I are both the same.

1:05:23 Stephen Oommen: Yeah. Community events, networking thing. I'm I, I actually, I get very scared and I'm like, okay, what if I don't know anybody? That sort of thing. So what you just said that he does, I will just try to meet one person. Walk up to someone. And when I say walk up to someone, I don't care if it's at one of those like, uh, well, the networking tables or whatever. Um, find at least one person.

1:05:45 Scott Ingram: Yep.

1:05:46 Stephen Oommen: Or figure out if you're there at the beginning, who's running the event and, and just ask them, hey, do you know who's running this event? Or who is that person? You should know, you know, before you come, that sort of thing. But anyways, here's the point. As soon as you get that one, ask the question, hey, who here has impressed you in their conversation? Or who else here do you think I should meet? Blah, blah, blah. Who else do you recommend? Do you know anyone else here? And now all of a sudden you just keep doing that from one person to one person to one person. So for introverts like me, it just allows you to be able to go meet impressive people.

1:06:21 Scott Ingram: Yep.

1:06:22 Stephen Oommen: Because it's the same thing that I do. In virtual networking or anybody, I ask the magic question, but I'll give you the condensed version, which is, who's the most influential person that knows you well that you highly respect? Now I get a little context to that when I'm speaking to the person, but that's how I meet so many amazing human beings. It's basically like, who do you know that I should know?

1:06:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:06:50 Stephen Oommen: I have a few adjectives in there, but same sort of thing. So it sounds like that's very similar to what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah.

1:06:56 Scott Ingram: So, so 2 hacks. Again, this has been, this has been a wild week aligned with all the stories. I know that you asked that question. So I was like, I don't know who, because frequently I've seen you kind of put people on the spot. Like, well, who is that person? I'm like, oh geez, I don't, I don't know who that is. As I was thinking about it, I'm like, you know what? It might be, it might be Mark Schaefer. So do you know Mark?

1:07:16 Stephen Oommen: I don't.

1:07:17 Scott Ingram: So, so Mark is, uh, Has written a ton of really amazing books. One that you should read that's highly connected to this is called Known. And it's this idea of being known. So, so Mark is pretty prolific as a writer. I'm going to connect a whole bunch of dots because you talked about coaches. The way I first connected with Mark, and I don't remember why, I don't know what was going on at the time that I did this, but on his website, he has like a hire me for an hour.

1:07:45 Stephen Oommen: Boom.

1:07:46 Scott Ingram: I'm like, I want to get, I didn't have anything I really needed from Mark. I just wanted to get to know Mark. And, and so I booked, I paid to spend an hour with Mark. This now comes full circle. You know, we became friends over the years and we talked and we had a number of different places that, that we collided. And one of the things I know that you also talk about is reputation.

1:08:09 Stephen Oommen: Yes.

1:08:11 Scott Ingram: So this person who, who also these, these collided, I'm like, what's my answer to that? I'm like, actually, I think it might be Mark. Well, here's what happened with Mark at this meeting. He connected me with a founder, um, who's, who's working on a, on sales challenge. And so I'm like, he's like, Scott, would you be willing to talk with this person? I'm like, Mark, of course, for you. I'm happy to. I'm happy to do that. He makes this connection. I did on the call with, with this founder and his, he says, uh, Mark has spoken so highly of you. And this is a quote from the transcript. He said, he said, I've got to introduce you to the man I most trust when it comes to questions about sales. That's you. And I was like, okay, not only do I have that person, but here's what he says about me. And I was blown away. I had no idea that Mark thought that highly of me. I mean, I'm honored by, by that, but it like, it's, it's incredible and it's so easy. Like one other thing that I'll, I'll say, as, as that shared, I call myself an extrovert introvert.

1:09:06 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:09:06 Scott Ingram: Right. My hack for events, for, for getting to know people and what's fun, really funny. I ran this at the Outbound conference one year. What happens, and this happens with you, before you speak, nobody knows who you are. After you speak, you're famous. There's a line of people. It's impossible to get time with you. So I will figure out who the speakers are. I will go and find them and have a conversation before. And I will actually try and find, is there some kind of, I'm, I know what you're going to talk about. I know who this audience is. I'm a member of this audience community. Is there some story that I can tell you that will help you as the speaker connect with this audience, with this community? What happens? I get name dropped from the stage 90% of the time because they want to make that connection. I add value. They're nobody going in. I become memorable in a way that nobody else after they speak can.

1:10:13 Stephen Oommen: Exactly. I love that. I don't even know where to go with that. I was just, that was just beautiful. Uh, I will steal that tactic. Please do.

1:10:23 Scott Ingram: That's why I'm sharing it with all of you.

1:10:25 Stephen Oommen: I was like, now some people will, this is the thing about life. Some people will take that and go do something with it. And you talk about founders and talk about this transition. The reason most fail, and I'm guilty of this too, I've had a lot of businesses that have failed for a variety of reasons. But in, in my experience of talking to so many individuals, it really just boils down to execution. We say that's foundational, right? They just don't go and do it. There's a lot, there's a few other reasons, but Uh, it's, it's the anything in life, like consistency over time. Will they actually go and do it? And that's part of the reputation. I have a question for you. Um, I'm going to reverse this for a second because, all right, I want to ask you something. Talk about reputation. I try to get every single person that I coach to come up with a few words for 2 different areas. One is their personal life. What's their profession? You probably have done this exercise. What are the 1 to 3 words, personal and professional?

1:11:30 Scott Ingram: What are yours? So this has been pretty consistent for, for me when, when I turned the tables, Jeff Bajorek came on and interviewed me on this podcast. So back to, back to episode 62. Um, I, I talk about this idea of, I call it inspiration squared.

1:11:49 Stephen Oommen: Hmm.

1:11:49 Scott Ingram: Like, I want to inspire other people by what I do. Yeah. Right. So, and that, that's the basis of reputation. Reputation is what are you known for that people have seen you do? At the same time, I love to be inspired. I love to be around greatness. I love to just learn. It's why I do this show. It's why, I mean, I'm, we're 10 years into this. Next month, 10 years. It allows me to surround myself with great people. I love to be inspired. Don't we all love to be inspired? Like, it's, if I can get one idea out of a conversation, and I find inspiration everywhere.

1:12:29 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:12:30 Scott Ingram: Everybody I talk to is my mentor because they'll tell me something. Oh, that's really interesting. Right? And so I would say, I hope, I don't know if this is the way that I've always seen, but I would say on both sides, like, I would hope that I inspire my family and the people that are my friends. I'm inspired by them. You know, my daughter just started her freshman year at LMU and just the stuff she is doing, like, I'm so proud. You know, the way that in… she's 3… 5 days in, she's finishing her first week of college. She's made 2 class changes in recognizing herself and what she needs and how she's gonna be successful. The connections she's, she's, she's extroverted.

1:13:22 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:13:22 Scott Ingram: She, the, the stuff she's doing, it's, it's inspiring.

1:13:25 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:13:26 Scott Ingram: Right. And again, in my professional life, the same thing. I want that at every level. I want to, I wanna have that feeling With my clients, with my team, with, um, with my, my peers, with, with other people in, in my, in my community. And so that, it all boils down to that for me.

1:13:46 Stephen Oommen: So the word is inspiration.

1:13:48 Scott Ingram: Inspiration.

1:13:48 Stephen Oommen: Inspiration. Now, on the professional side, what's the word if you think about somebody, and I, I think about through the terms of what would they hire you for, that sort of thing, or it could be character traits, whatever, but professionally, what's the word? Or words. I have 4 for me, so.

1:14:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think about it in terms of superpowers.

1:14:09 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:14:10 Scott Ingram: And I am, I think it's like wildly strategic and creative. Like I just love to figure stuff out.

1:14:22 Stephen Oommen: Strategic, creative.

1:14:23 Scott Ingram: Yep. And then I'm stupefyingly productive. Like, I have a system, like, I, my, my process that allows me to do all the credits that I need to do.

1:14:32 Stephen Oommen: You're like non-ADD, or is the process because, because like, I'm off the gun?

1:14:35 Scott Ingram: Um, I, I, I, I don't, I think we all fight ADD, right? Like the, the, the world creates ADD. Um, so I constantly, my battle is how do you, how do you maintain focus? How do you, how do you, Limit distraction so that you don't fight the squirrels. Yeah.

1:15:00 Stephen Oommen: So I've thought about this over the course of my life, and it's interesting because three words I'm trying to teach my sons this right? Like who are we as right? So now I'm giving them the words right now, and then they'll pick their own as like they get older that sort of thing. But like our words or my words that I'm now giving them, and hoping I can. trained in this way personally is kindness, generosity, and laughter. And so in my mind, every conversation, even especially the first one, right? It's a pattern interrupt. If you don't walk away from a conversation with me and you don't feel that level of kindness from me, you don't think I would bend over backwards for you and generous for you. And if I don't make you laugh, then I honestly feel like I suck at life.

1:15:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:15:46 Stephen Oommen: So like, I have to get you to laugh. Which is also why it parlayed into professional world. And with sales, I think it did really well because you could have the most curmudgeonly prospects or buyer or whatnot. And people would always be like, Stephen, how do you do that? You're like the velvet hammer, or you can tell someone to go to hell and then look forward to the trip. And I'm like, it's because that's who I want to be. Kindness, you know, kind, generous, and You gotta make someone smile or laugh. Laughter is the best medicine. On the professional side, it's funny because this is another learning lesson as a founder. There's a lot of talk out there that you need to niche down and you have this word that people know you by. And we could, I could probably name some names and you'd probably know exactly what they're known for in my space, right? I don't know that I can pick just one, but I do know right now the word that people think of me right now is referrals. Like that's, that word. Sure, sure. But even the referral effect, the word referral is simply a signal beneath that. So I have this, uh, equation. It goes for reputational revenue. Starts with your reputation. So how do you build a great reputation? The signal is you'll get a referral based upon that. That referral gets you to another relationship.

1:17:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:17:05 Stephen Oommen: And that relationship can help drive more revenue. And if you do it correctly, that revenue moves to have a better reputation and it's this loop. So that's why I call it a reputational revenue system. Referral, all that is is signal. Are you willing to refer? Yep. Or they're not. Yep. But those are my like 4 Rs. So I was just curious because of what you were talking about. You said reputation, like what are your words that you live by and why? But I could totally see that, like inspiration. You inspire me, man. You literally think about this. I drove down and for those that don't, like, I don't pay to be here. We don't pay for that. Like, like in the sense of like, this isn't a monetary exchange. I, I literally restructured and created a family vacation around it just because you inspired me to drive down and do this live. Couple hours, granted, you know, it's Dallas versus Austin. It's, you know, 2 and a half, 3 hours.

1:18:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah. But that's really cool. You drive really fast, dude.

1:18:04 Stephen Oommen: I do.

1:18:05 Scott Ingram: 3 and a half hours for us normal humans that drive 80.

1:18:08 Stephen Oommen: I mean, what's the point of having a Raptor if you're not gonna go 107 miles an hour with the limiter? You know, all that kind of stuff. I'm kidding. I drive the speed limit at 70 miles an hour. There was just no traffic. Um, but point being is, like, that's really cool to think about that you can inspire slash persuade And they'd have having someone want to spend time. Is there a lot of podcasts that people will ask me beyond that? I don't know that I would actually just taste a weekend. Labor Day weekend.

1:18:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:18:42 Stephen Oommen: I was right.

1:18:43 Scott Ingram: Okay.

1:18:43 Stephen Oommen: I always forget what Labor Day is, which sounds really cool, man. I totally see it. Very fit.

1:18:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:18:49 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:18:50 Scott Ingram: You've talked about failure a lot.

1:18:52 Stephen Oommen: Oh yeah.

1:18:54 Scott Ingram: What's your favorite? Let's, like, what's the biggest, baddest failure story you got?

1:18:58 Stephen Oommen: You really want to know this?

1:18:59 Scott Ingram: I want to know this.

1:19:00 Stephen Oommen: So if I cry, please, people don't. Uh, man, look, as soon as you said it, I, I knew it. I knew where I was going with this. So I'm gonna give you maybe 2 because one isn't really failure, but it's hardships that drive success. And we're on that today. So let me just tell you one and then we'll go backwards. So 2007, I win President's Club at Cintiq. I'm like, there's like 3,000+ sellers bought this. So to get that is very, very difficult, right? I was super proud, all that type of stuff. And a realtor that was, you know, feeding me business and helping me on some other stuff was like, you need to go start your own mortgage company and mortgage business, man. You're so good at this stuff. You could talk to anybody. I blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. stuff, you could make even more money. And I, in my 20s, I'm very money hungry because I grew up poor, all that sort of stuff. 2007, I step out on my own and I try to start a mortgage business. You know where this is going. By the end of that…

1:20:01 Scott Ingram: I remember the timeline.

1:20:02 Stephen Oommen: Yes. By the end of that year, I was living out of my car, showering out in 24/7 Fitness in order to start a new business. So I was moving from the, uh, retail side of mortgages. I went into, uh, more real estate and now into the investing side. Well, how do you start investing in real estate when you have no money? Again, I didn't have financial intelligence and I still had a good credit score. The only way I pulled out of that though was because I had a good credit score. I did all these no-doc type of loans. I took out hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal debt. I would never recommend anyone do this, but let me just tell you.

1:20:42 Scott Ingram: That was the time.

1:20:43 Stephen Oommen: Yeah, I did all that. So I was able to pull myself out. I'll give you an example of one where I took a class at UCLA Extension. It was a $40 class. I was able to get a $40,000 student loan. Uh, today I sit debt-free. I don't believe in debt. I don't, never really have. This is all technically business debt, but it was all through my personal name. And I ended up paying every single penny off. I went through a time where I literally had an apartment and an air mattress to pay everything off. The only thing that I would spend maybe once a month was a $1 Redbox. Do you guys remember what Redbox is? For those that don't know, Gen Z, like, yes, you would have to go to these kiosks, pay a dollar to rent a movie.

1:21:32 Scott Ingram: DVD vending machine. DVD vending machine. That's what it was.

1:21:37 Stephen Oommen: And I remember that and looking around and I barely have food. I don't have any furniture. And people don't realize that grind. Like they see things now, and I don't talk about this a lot, right? But like what gave me that ability that like living out of my car, showering at 24 Hour Fitness is embarrassing for the community that I came from. So growing up, and to me, this is what genuinely drove me.

1:22:01 Scott Ingram: Wow.

1:22:02 Stephen Oommen: Like positive and negative. That's how you use them. Growing up, I grew up in, in, in Oklahoma. In my school, I was one of the few minorities in the entire school. In my entire life, I was ridiculed for the color of my skin. And it's for 2 reasons at that time. So by the way that I look, this actually will go into why I even started writing The Referral Effect, but the original title of the book was called the chameleon effect. So by the color of my skin and the way that I look, most people think I am African American. 99% of human beings that interact with me think that I'm African American. Uh, I'm actually from Indian descent, from India, from South India. My parents immigrated, you know, came here. So we're in Oklahoma and I grew up, grew up in an elementary school. Hmm. I remember one day my, my mom put me in My traditional Indian garb in kindergarten. I show up to school and everyone's like, oh, look at that girl. Like I'm in a traditional sort of, whatever you call it, juba. And I just remember them saying my pencil holder was, uh, my purse. And again, I just still remember that. But growing up through the wars, through like the Kuwait War, I remember getting beat up. I was thrown in a trash can. I was spit on, like all these Point being is we did not expect this. Um, but when you grow up during that time, like we grew up poor, we didn't have anything. So I didn't have friends. The Indian community, because I was born in America, shunned me because Guess what? I didn't have the accent and I had a different language, all that sort of thing. So it was very isolating. So trying to figure out like, who can I be? What can I do? Like, how am I going to become something? It was actually, that's what really made me want to earn money and do something. And that's what kind of gave me that, that drive. But what it also did is it forced me to adapt and try to fit into any culture, any room, because when it came to sports, I tried to act like the Black kid. When it came to the Caucasian community, I tried to change my diction and speak and sound like that. It doesn't matter if it was Hispanic, it didn't matter what racial culture or anything, I would try to fit in. And while at that time, I do believe like you can't be all things to all people, It created this superpower in me where I started to learn about people and how they operate. And so fast forward, I look back and I realize that because of that, I am able to adapt and I'm sort of a chameleon now. But it, at that time it was a defense mechanism. Now what it is, is I genuinely am curious about people's stories. Yeah.

1:25:07 Scott Ingram: And then after it's a, it's a superpower.

1:25:08 Stephen Oommen: It's a superpower. So I step into their world and I can, I actually feel like I can get along with any human on the planet because of that experience. And at the end of the day, that is why I feel like I get the referrals, the reputation, it all comes, comes to fruition.

1:25:27 Scott Ingram: I'm just, I'm thinking about the chameleon thing, right? Obviously that's like a biological thing, but the only way it would work is First, you have to deeply understand the environment in order to then look, sound like, you know, all of, all of the things. So the, the level of empathy is another level, right?

1:25:48 Stephen Oommen: That right there, you hit the nail on the head because that was the whole ethos. It was to take back the word chameleon because most, it was to hide. At the end of the day, it used to be a defense mechanism for me and I was trying to hide, but Taking back that word, one of the chapters in the book is called The Chameleon Effect. And I do have a keynote titled The Chameleon Effect because it's about how to show up in someone else's world, deeply understand them, have the empathy. And so they see you as one of them. How do you get their guard down? Again, persuasion, not manipulation, because you actually give a [expletive] about another human being, which is why I'm very clear with people that I can and cannot help. If you do not care about another person, I cannot help you. If you are selfish, I can help you because you might have the intent and you're like, 'cause I used to be very selfish, but I felt guilty for life. I wanted to be a better person. We have a lot of folks in life that are that way. But man, if you're just pure evil, I'll pray for you. But that, that's the big thing is you've gotta actually Love another human being, care about another human being, which is very different than being an extrovert. I want to be very clear to those listening. Absolutely. Absolutely. But Stephen, I don't like being around people. That's very different. That's an energy thing. That's not an actually, I don't care about people. Yeah. Yeah.

1:27:18 Scott Ingram: Let's, let's dispense some advice.

1:27:22 Stephen Oommen: Okay.

1:27:23 Scott Ingram: Um, for the founders or, or those who are considering this, right? I think that's the other dynamic here is, you know, I, I, I talked to a lot of people in this community and, and my observation is in sales, there are so many things that we don't control. I don't control the macroeconomic environment, the political environment. I don't control what my territory is. I don't control The, the leader that I now report to, that may be good, bad, or possibly ugly. Um, and, and I think that there is, I see a lot of desire of, of folks to take back some of that control and consider the, the entrepreneurial path. And obviously it's happening, right? But for 20% to have made that change.

1:28:11 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:28:11 Scott Ingram: So I don't know if the answer is different, but what would you tell that the, the, the starting founder or maybe somebody that's considering the Yeah.

1:28:21 Stephen Oommen: I have very different advice than I think others would give.

1:28:25 Scott Ingram: Good. Right?

1:28:25 Stephen Oommen: So, uh, and I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying this is what I share with people and you have to take… I saw a video the other day where, uh, somebody said something similar, but it was like 5 different pieces of advice that they had heard that were very different about the same thing. And it was around entrepreneurship. But the first thing that I tell people when they come and say, I think I think I'm wanting to start something else, go out on my own. First question I ask is why, right? What is it about being an entrepreneur that you really want? If the first answer is one of these 3 and it's their main driver, I say there are other ways to do it.

1:29:06 Scott Ingram: Mm-hmm.

1:29:07 Stephen Oommen: Probably should not, but let's dig deeper because there's always a, there's always an exception. So if they say, Money, time, like flexibility of time. You're getting, you know where I'm going with this. Or I don't want to work for someone else. If it's any of those 3, and that's really it, I personally think that you're, they're in for a world of hurt and they probably are not going to be a great entrepreneur. You can be good. I just don't think you're going to be great. Why is that? We all know. That it's hard to make money as an entrepreneur. It can be. Doesn't have to be, but it can be. And there's a lot of grind before you make it big. I do think I'm an anomaly. I know I'm an anomaly, but I didn't actually come outta corporate and go into startup mode. People don't see the 25 years of what that startup looked like before this next one. But guess what? In 2007, I failed. I've paid a lot of dos and I've gone through the school of hard knocks. So this time around it was very different, right? So one thing is money. Time, you and I both know this. If you're really starting and you haven't built a foundation, you're working 70, 80 hours a week. That's how it was in previous companies for me. This time around, I get it differently, right? And then again, if it's an ego thing because you can't work for someone else, There's a personality thing there. You may want to get that checked out. And you can't work for anyone else.

1:30:38 Scott Ingram: Well, like, the irony of the role is you work for everyone. Yes.

1:30:43 Stephen Oommen: And it's like customers become your, like, everything happens. And it's just, I would just check your heart out before you do it. Right? So those are, those are the big 3 things. Now, why should you start? If you fundamentally see a problem. That no one else is solving and you want to actually go solve that problem and you would go sunup till sundown. That's a pretty good reason. Now, some people will say, do what you're passionate about. Yes and no. Even, even Kobe said that. And I said, uh, maybe like, let's unpack it a bit. I'm a big believer in 3 things. Figure out your strengths, figure out if it's monetizable, and then can you be passionate about it?

1:31:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:31:22 Stephen Oommen: Because there's going to be grinds and grunt work and all that kind of stuff. But all 3 of those need to be present to be able, in my opinion, to have the highest probability of success. Does that make sense? Yeah.

1:31:36 Scott Ingram: I like it. I like it. Where else?

1:31:44 Stephen Oommen: In terms of being a founder, there's something I was thinking about. specifically around this, especially in my world. And I don't know what made me think about it this week in the world of like coaches, because some, you know, we'll call it coaches, workshops, because a lot of people in sales, one of the big things to go do right now, because obviously that's the majority of the audience, is advisors, coaches, fractionals, anything of that nature.

1:32:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:32:14 Stephen Oommen: And people are like, oh, the reason they're doing that is because they couldn't hack it in corporate. Have you heard this before? I'm sure. Okay. Yes and no.

1:32:23 Scott Ingram: Yep.

1:32:24 Stephen Oommen: There's good and bad, and that is an absolute true statement in some instances. But I was actually just thinking about it in my own life, and I was like, okay, well, I'm doing some fractional work. I'm doing the coaching thing, and I'm making more per hour than I have Ever in my life where we actually could talk from that perspective. And I've had massive salaries as an executive and whatnot. So why is that? Uh, so I really started to dissect this. And when I go back to what you asked in the first question, top 3 things, that second one, experience, that Bought me the ticket to be able to charge more once I move into this. I have something of value now to offer, and therefore I can charge more. When you are in a corporate environment, you have a little bit of a box. Now you can do things on the side, and now you see more what I, 'cause I call myself an entreploi.

1:33:28 Scott Ingram: Mm-hmm.

1:33:28 Stephen Oommen: I've been an employee, I've been an entrepreneur. I went back to being an employee. I'm back to being an entrepreneur. I actually did a, a few More times in between that, I feel like I have the ability to succeed as long as those first, you know, of the 3 things are there. I'm passionate, strength, you know, environment, all that kind of stuff. But here's the point. As a general rule, you're in this box and you're developing a skill in this box called a corporation. You develop, you develop, you go to multiple corporations, you move, you move, you move. Now what happens is when you are a founder, as long as you can provide those skills and now multiply yourself and those skills into another company, you have 10 companies, 20 companies that you're advising or whatnot. That's why, because you've actually taken the box off. So yes, absolutely, they should get paid more because they're multiplying themselves. But I, again, I'm very big on getting people the words because I'm an orator, I'm a speaker. I want to give people the words to understand the argument effectively. I have never heard anyone explain it that way. They just kind of shrugged their shoulders and said, okay. But that's why I think fundamentally it makes sense when you got to a certain level of experience and have the network, all these things to be true, that people enjoy doing it because you can now do it at a broader spectrum. If that makes sense.

1:34:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot in there. You know, I'm thinking about, and it's also, it's sort of dawning on me when I, when I think founder, I think I'm frequently thinking of, oh, I'm, I'm building some sort of a startup. I'm building some sort of a product. But to your point, the more common path is I'm going to coach. I'm going to consult. I'm going to, I'm going to frack. I'm going to whatever those, whatever those things are. And And then I think the definitions of success are kind of all over the place, right? So, so looking at, um, how much time do you control? And, and I, Matt Du Pont, who, who came into our community and has been, uh, super regular, unfortunately isn't going to be able to make it this, this year. He kind of introduced us to this idea of the, your, your time per hour in, in your traditional sales role.

1:35:47 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:35:48 Scott Ingram: Right. And I, I think that there's really something to that. I think that that is a really good metric to think about because $400,000 working 80 hours a week is totally different than $300,000 working 20 hours a week.

1:36:04 Stephen Oommen: Was it me and you that had that exact conversation this week?

1:36:06 Scott Ingram: I don't think so, no.

1:36:07 Stephen Oommen: Oh, that is eerie because I literally, those are almost identical numbers. Well, it makes sense if If I was having a similar conversation, that those would be the numbers, because that is what an AE or somebody in that… and it was, it was who I was talking to because they were asking about the 12-month span and what people… and I was very transparent with this person. I said, you have to understand, I'm choosing my life. I did not work all of April. I took the summer off. I did maybe one gig in June. And then I'm doing now, we're in September. So I took almost all of August off because that's our birthday month. All my entire family's birthdays, our anniversary is September. So like my next gig on purpose is September, and I usually take December off. And if people knew how much I made in just that amount of time, that, that's one thing that I was, uh, take…

1:36:55 Scott Ingram: taking.

1:36:55 Stephen Oommen: And I was explaining to him, going back to what I was saying before, the amount of revenue you get to impact. That's the other reason why on the fractional slash coaching side, it's, you can actually make more and why people would pay you as a coach. Because I get very irritated.

1:37:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:37:13 Stephen Oommen: I think it's an unfair claim to say those that cannot do teach.

1:37:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:37:18 Stephen Oommen: No, because if I'm only impacting revenue for this org, this territory, this organization, North America, that sort of thing, that's what I'm getting paid to impact. But let's say I'm sitting on the outside again of the barriers of that wall and I impact not only that organization, this other organization, this organization, and all of a sudden I can multiply. That's why We get paid for that type of result and that type of impact. And again, I don't think people actually think about it through that lens. They think about it as, again, those that can't do teach. No, you're actually scaling your impact and you're doing more. And oh, by the way, let's go, let's unpack one thing as well. Those are 2 very different functions as well.

1:38:03 Scott Ingram: Mm-hmm.

1:38:04 Stephen Oommen: I teach it to sales managers and salespeople. A sales manager has nothing in common with a salesperson except for the word sales, the functions of what they do. And that's what most organizations get wrong. Same thing with a coach. And so I asked someone this, this weekend, um, to drive this point home. You a basketball fan?

1:38:22 Scott Ingram: Uh, yeah.

1:38:24 Stephen Oommen: Let's make it easy.

1:38:26 Scott Ingram: Dude, I grew up, I grew up with the Lakers in the '80s. I peaked really, really early and kind of faded away.

1:38:31 Stephen Oommen: Who's, okay, so what's it like? What's your favorite sport?

1:38:33 Scott Ingram: What game are we playing?

1:38:37 Stephen Oommen: Let's use basketball. All right. Who's the best basketball player of all time?

1:38:42 Scott Ingram: Kobe Bryant.

1:38:42 Stephen Oommen: Okay, perfect. Uh, I don't actually like, he's my favorite. I don't believe in the GOAT.

1:38:46 Scott Ingram: I know what your background looks like on Zoom, so this will do.

1:38:49 Stephen Oommen: We'll just use Kobe.

1:38:50 Scott Ingram: Explain to the audience.

1:38:51 Stephen Oommen: Uh, yeah, most people would say Jordan, LeBron, Kobe. Those are probably your top 3 that people would say. Okay. Who's the best basketball coach of all time?

1:39:00 Scott Ingram: Phil Knight.

1:39:00 Stephen Oommen: Or Phil, yeah. Uh, Bobby Knight, Phil Jackson.

1:39:04 Scott Ingram: Phil Jackson.

1:39:04 Stephen Oommen: Or, or, or Red Auerbach.

1:39:05 Scott Ingram: That's a pretty good point.

1:39:06 Stephen Oommen: Or, or, or, uh, John Wooden. Those are probably the 4 names that typically come up, uh, more often than not.

1:39:14 Scott Ingram: All right.

1:39:16 Stephen Oommen: Why are those not the same? Why did we not say Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron James? Now people would say, well, they're not at that place yet. But why was, but we'll do it in reverse. Why was Phil Jackson not known as the best player of all time? But he's always in the top of the best coach of all time. Yeah. You know, Gregg Popovich, I gotta put him in there for, 'cause we're down in Austin, San Antonio, and I, I can't believe we didn't say him. Sorry, y'all. Um, anyways, the thing is, but you get the point is let people do their job that they're signing up to do, because if they get the results, the trillion-dollar coach is a great example. Very few of us, we talk about the, the 1 percenters, have won Pico, have built a company that's been massively successful. Like, that is actually, yeah, rarer than anything else. That's why it's called 1%.

1:40:10 Scott Ingram: I mean, I think the reality is, I mean, point one, they're different roles. Yes. And as, as you were talking about your examples before and, and the whole idea of, oh, those who can't do teach. Well, teaching and doing are 2 different things. And there are good salespeople and there are bad salespeople. And there's good sales managers and there's bad sales managers. There's good consultants and there's bad consultants. So it's kind of irrelevant.

1:40:31 Stephen Oommen: Previous success or failures is not indicative of future success. Variables are different. Situations are different. You might be going from being an AE to starting a Tech company, something in the go-to-market space. It still goes back to everything we talked about. It's the network. One thing we did not talk about is the curiosity.

1:40:57 Scott Ingram: Let's, let's go. 'Cause I was just gonna ask you like, what's the thing we didn't talk about? Yeah. That we still need to touch on before we wrap it up.

1:41:02 Stephen Oommen: If you do not want to learn consistently, I mean, and it's hard, like if you're not curious, if you have an ego and you're like, well, I was good, I can go do this, look at me, that sort of thing. And I speak from the struggles that I've had. Uh, this isn't an indictment, this is a confession. This is a struggle I had early on because I'm like, I'm this person, this whatever, and I didn't reach out to enough people. And I forgot that I'm no longer an executive. I'm an individual contributor. If you actually think about it.

1:41:39 Scott Ingram: For sure.

1:41:40 Stephen Oommen: And it is a hard pill. It was a hard pill for me as well. You know, the biggest thing I would've changed if I were to start all over again?

1:41:49 Scott Ingram: What else?

1:41:50 Stephen Oommen: I would've built in public. I didn't want to admit that I was starting at the bottom again. And I wish I would've documented the journey. Now that was the trend. So I fought it because it was the trend there. And I didn't want to be one of those trend individuals, but like, if it was day one, I would've posted more on LinkedIn. Hey guys, I'm starting all over. I've seen a lot of founders do it and they say, I'm going out on my own. I'm looking for business and people genuinely want to see me succeed.

1:42:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:42:19 Stephen Oommen: There's obviously haters, but those 2 things, so that's humility and curiosity. I just, there's a lot, a lot of other things I probably would have done differently, but that's probably one of the biggest ones is I would have right off the bat told everyone I'm starting, I have nothing, I'm going to document this journey and here's what I'd like to do. Does anyone have A problem like this that I can help solve and just started documenting all of them.

1:42:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Although the flip side of that is you and I have had this conversation a lot about, and I think you've, you've proactively gone out, talked to a lot of these influencers and asked how much, how much inbound are you getting from all of this activity? So tell that story. Yeah.

1:43:04 Stephen Oommen: Um, it's very, very rare. I will tell everyone. To this day, like I do a lot on LinkedIn and I don't get it. And again, I'm not a big, you know, influencer in my mind. Some people are like, oh, I'd love to be where you're at. I have gotten… where's the camera that we should use? Zero. I have gotten zero LinkedIn inbound as an example. And we were talking about it right before we started recording. Sometimes it could be based on the type of product. Yeah. That we sell could be because like a VetShark is a great example where they get a lot of inbound, right? It could be my content's terrible. Some people say like, it's amazing and I watch your content and it's super helpful and all this stuff. Doesn't inspire people to pick up the phone and call me or DM me, should I say. Now, when I pick up the phone in outbound and call people that I know, they say, oh, I see you're on LinkedIn. Yes, let's talk, that sort of thing. So it is a credibility going, but inbound, zero, like literal zero. I think actually I'd gotten 2 DMs, one that I wrote a post, they said, hey, I'm interested, but we never got on a call. And actually after 700,000 views on my TED Talk, one person, you know, DM'd me and said they watched it. Like that sort of thing that I did not know.

1:44:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:44:24 Stephen Oommen: Very different than people I already know, by the way. Um, and I reverse Uno'd and said, hey, why don't you have me come talk to your sales team? That sort of thing. But they were just saying, hey, I want to connect. I really enjoyed your talk. That was great. And it was like, oh yeah, I could like actually tell you to come help train. Uh, and it, and so here's my statement, especially for anyone that wants to be a founder.

1:44:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:44:52 Stephen Oommen: If you're not willing to go back, if you're in a, if you are in a role where you are not used to doing outbound and you don't want to do outbound, being a founder might be a little bit of a shock because you 1,000% have to do outbound. And I was, you know, I just didn't want to do that early on. And it was a lesson learned. Right? And it's a consistent thing. You have to do it. I would think about it like breathing every single day. And by outbound, I don't mean just cold outbound. I mean, I pick up the phone, calling everybody.

1:45:29 Scott Ingram: I was just gonna, I was just gonna call you out on that definition, right? Because a lot of that outbound could be, especially as a founder, it's not just outbound looking for new customers. It's how do I do, how do I price this? What is my market? What are my channels? What, there is so much that you're going to need to learn. And again, if you've never been an entrepreneur, you've never had a company, you got all kinds of stuff that new things you're going to need to think about. And so reaching out to people and finding new vendors to shore up those gaps are just an absolutely huge, huge thing.

1:46:02 Stephen Oommen: Like pricing is a big one. I was just on the phone, I was, uh, with a fractional CRO and he has just moved from being an executive into this world of fractional. I was walking him through how to price. And I said, no, you're not pricing enough here. What do you have to think about? We've had this many exits, blah, blah, blah. So like, I actually believe the reason I'm so good at coaching, speaking, and giving workshops is because I have failed more than probably anybody that I possibly know. The amount of money that I have lost in my career, and I've done very well for myself, right? We've talked about that. It is fascinating, which is why I also believe, and I'm not money motivated, because money comes and money goes.

1:46:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:46:44 Stephen Oommen: And at the end of my life, I'm not going to look back and say, I wish I would have earned more. I genuinely believe that at the end of my life, I'm going to wish 2 things always. I wish I would have spent more time with my family, and I wish I would have impacted more people and relationships.

1:47:02 Scott Ingram: Yep.

1:47:02 Stephen Oommen: That's it.

1:47:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:47:03 Stephen Oommen: I genuinely want 10,000 people at my funeral or whatever. That's, that's, that's what would make me happy, that I truly changed that many lives.

1:47:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:47:14 Stephen Oommen: That they would want to come and say goodbye. Not because like I'm anti-fame, by the way, like I have zero desire for fame, but if I could meet every person on the planet and do this and it was physically possible, Absolutely.

1:47:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah. One, one quick story and then we'll, we'll wrap up with, with the advice, the actionable advice that then you would give to our, our, our listener. Um, I'm recognizing that I have a founder story. When I was 20 years old, when I started my very first company, my very first client, it sort of connects some of those, those dots. So, um, I've gotten my, I think I'm a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. I, did you watch Breaking Bad? I have not.

1:47:55 Stephen Oommen: Okay.

1:47:55 Scott Ingram: For those who know Breaking Bad, the name of my first company was Gray Matter Technologies, which is like the fictional company that Walter White comes from. Um, this happened all before that. So I had, I had no rights, uh, when it, when it came back around. Uh, but my very first client, I, I was referred in by, um, a, a friend of mine that I knew from, from band. Like she was one of the moms of one of my, one of my friends. And I was, you know, very tied into this, this local community in Orange County. And, uh, she worked for the elementary school district that I had attended. And, you know, she found out what I was working on. She says, oh, well, I think we need some help. Let me connect you with the, with our director of IT. And so I don't remember, I don't know if I had a call with him or I met with him the first time. I think it was a call. And, you know, he, he told me a little bit about what he was looking for and I told him some of my background, what I was, what I was working on. He goes, okay, great. How much do you charge? And I think I told him $25 an hour. And, uh, and what he said was, um, ask, ask for it if you want, uh, what, what is it?

1:49:01 Stephen Oommen: If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.

1:49:05 Scott Ingram: So I asked for money. It turned into advice. And he's, he basically says, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Why don't you and I go to lunch? So he takes me out to lunch and he had just come from consulting before landing this, this job leading, leading IT for the school district. And he's like, look, you have to factor in self-employment tax, like all this other stuff that you are not thinking about. Like, this is not a W-2 job, like dumb kid.

1:49:29 Stephen Oommen: Yeah.

1:49:29 Scott Ingram: And I'm like, oh, so $75 an hour? And he's like, yes, you're hired. That was my very first, I don't know, freaking idea what I was doing, but that's how it works. Like, it's a relationship. You build these mentoring relationships and You know, conversation to conversation to conversation to conversation, how it flows.

1:49:50 Stephen Oommen: Oh, I love it.

1:49:52 Scott Ingram: Stephen, let's, let's tie a big giant bow on this thing. What is the advice that you would give to our listener right now? What should they do over the next week or 2 to improve themselves, improve their results on whatever path that they're on?

1:50:07 Stephen Oommen: In every conversation moving forward, There's a deeper thing to this that we will not have time to explain, but do your best to ask the following question. It's the magic question. Who is the most influential person that knows you well, whom you highly respect? If you ask that question to every person that you meet, your life will change. Obviously the follow-up question for those listening, for those that can't think past that, I'm letting it be very obvious. Ask for an introduction to that person. And if they don't want to introduce you, there you go. There's your signal. Be open to a conversation because now you can get some feedback. I'm curious, why would you not want to introduce me? And say, hey, safe space. I want to become better. I want to be that That if you ask that question, then 20% of the people will introduce you to the most influential person that they can think of. What's going to happen to your life? Just saying.

1:51:17 Scott Ingram: Love it.

1:51:19 Stephen Oommen: So good.

1:51:19 Scott Ingram: So good. This is episode 203. So if you go to top1.fm/203, we'll have all the links. We'll have theoretically the video. We'll have everything for you. And then we're going to spend 2 days together in Austin, here in Austin, October 12th and 13th. We'll be supported by the Event Shark team yet again. And I can't wait. It is, I built this for the introverts. Like intimacy is there for a reason, right? We'll probably be 100 people this year. It's going to be like just the right size. If you're one of us, you want to hang out, With Stephen and Jack and DeJuan and Alex and all these, all these absolutely amazing folks. Uh, come in, come and join us and, and we'll, we'll be hearing more. Stephen's gonna take the stage. Uh, now that he's been on the podcast, he, he meets the criteria. I appreciate it. And we'll, uh, we'll keep it going. Thanks for listening.

1:52:16 Stephen Oommen: Thanks for having me, Scott.

1:52:24 Scott Ingram: For more on this episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.