Sales is the lifeblood of any business, and having the right sales skills can make or break an enterprise. Luis Baez, an enterprise sales executive who has worked with big names such as LinkedIn, Google, Uber, and Tesla, knows a thing or two about sales success. Recently, he was interviewed by Olivia Clare, host of The Crystal Vision Podcast, and shared some of his Sales Secrets.
Baez's journey to becoming a successful sales executive is nothing short of inspiring. He dropped out of law school and stumbled upon sales when a friend suggested he had what it takes to thrive in the field. Baez then interviewed for a sales job, which confirmed his capacity to sell himself. He worked at BBC in their North American headquarters for a few years and then moved to California to rub shoulders with the right people in Silicon Valley. After optimizing his LinkedIn profile and engaging with people, someone at LinkedIn tapped his shoulder and offered him a job teaching others how to succeed on the platform. Baez was then recruited at Google, Uber, and Tesla, where he had his first sales leadership experience as a sales manager. He worked on the marketing side of business, selling multimillion-dollar deals and strategies in ad sales and ad tech.
Baez has since gone on to coach executives within his own business, and he has some great advice for entrepreneurs looking to overcome challenges and build a successful business. His first piece of advice is to keep receipts and quantify your performance. This will help you shut down criticism from people who doubt your capabilities. Baez also suggests celebrating small successes to fuel your growth in the business. He stresses the importance of being comfortable in being uncomfortable and having the right energy and mindset to drive success.
When it comes to scaling a business from six figures or multi-six figures to that seven-figure mark, Baez has three top tips. Firstly, he advises business owners to have a system of business operations, introducing a business order of operations, and focusing on the core product, process of selling, and operations (in that order). Secondly, he warns business owners not to get bogged down in marketing, but instead prioritize sales first before cranking up marketing. Lastly, he suggests selling a product that fits a need, fulfilling the customer's expectation, and designing a sales experience that meets the customer's preference.
Baez believes that the skills required to sell a $10,000 deal are the same as those required to sell a $50,000 or $5 million deal. The process of the sale will change, but the phases of the sale are the same. The shift happens within, and it is necessary to ask the tough questions, ask for what you want and deserve, and trust the process. The real success comes in retrospect, after going through repeated rejections and failures.
Baez is also passionate about writing and storytelling. He is on a journey to becoming a motivational speaker and hopes to be a philanthropist in the future. Luis emphasizes the importance of taking a chance on oneself and not being afraid to be vulnerable in the process. He believes that one can never lose when they bet on themselves, as the things needed will always be available when required.
In summary, Luis Baez's Sales Secrets include celebrating small successes, being comfortable in being uncomfortable, having the right energy and mindset, focusing on sales before marketing, and betting on oneself. These tips can help entrepreneurs overcome challenges and build a successful business.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Intro: Hello and welcome to the Crystal Vision Podcast, where we dive deep into the strategies and energetics of business money and mindset mastery, so as to create the next generation of wildly wealthy. My name is Olivia Claire, and I'm a serial entrepreneur who is obsessed with giving you all of the tools that you need to create your crystal clear vision of success.
Each week, you will hone in on your unique zone of genius and embody the highest version of yourself to reverse engineer your way to your dream life. If you're ready to let go of the hustle and effortlessly call in more money, more growth, and more fulfillment, stay tuned.
[00:00:50] Olivia Clare: Would you like Sales Secrets from someone who has closed over 600 million?
Uh, I know I do. I'm Olivia Claire, your host of the Crystal Vision Podcast, and today we have Louis Bayers joining us. Louis is a Bronx born proud gay Puerto Rican American, and an enterprise sales executive that has worked with countless Silicon Valley C-Suite professionals. We're talking Tesla, Uber, Google, LinkedIn, just to name.
What I love about Lewis is his focus on building businesses by people first, which he dives very deep into within this episode. And his dual passion for helping smaller businesses scale whilst also enjoying his life success and the little moments too. Please welcome Luis Baez.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Crystal Vision Podcast. We are here with none other than now. We ju I just practiced with him to get his name correctly, so we're gonna try again. Louis Bayers. Is that okay? How are you doing today?
[00:02:04] Luis Baez: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Anna, my friend. I, I really appreciate this opportunity to hang out with you and hang out with your audience and, and talk a little bit about something that I, I really enjoyed talking about, which is sales.
[00:02:16] Olivia Clare: Me too. I, we're gonna be on here forever, hopefully. Um, yeah. I'm so excited to have you on as well. I can just tell the audience is gonna get so much insight out of our conversation today, so I can't wait. I wanna jump right in so you. The sales guy, right? You are an enter, you were an enterprise sales executive that worked with Silicon Valley C Suite professionals, so we're not talking, you know, door to door knocking, which for some reason whenever we talk sales, like why do I always picture people selling computers door to door knocking, and what's the thing. Back in 1983. Yeah, exactly. You have got some huge names under your belt. We're talking LinkedIn, Google, Uber, Tesla. Tell me, how did you even get started in business and how did you end up all the way there?
[00:03:10] Luis Baez: Wow. Uh, wow. That's a moment of pause. So I, um, am the first person in my family to ever, uh, pursue an education, go to college, university, and, uh, you know, and, and have like a corporate career, right?
And, um,
[00:03:26] Olivia Clare: before that I congrats. By the way, that's not an easy thing.
[00:03:31] Luis Baez: The first. It sure isn't. It sure isn't. Um, I didn't have any playbooks or examples or anything to follow, but we're here and you know, after ruling out that I didn't want to be a doctor, I didn't want to be a lawyer, you know, all these sort of like traditional careers that are known to make good money and have prestige socially.
Right. Um, I ended up in business after dropping out of law school because I had a friend who was working at WebMD at the time in the marketing department. And, uh, she looked at me and she said, you know, I, I think you have what it takes to thrive in sales. Like, you've got that magnetism, you're good with the words, you've got the baritone voice.
I think you could make something happen for yourself. And so I, uh, on a whim, interviewed for a job, knew nothing about sales or the tech world or online advertising or. And eight rounds of interviews later, I was offered a job, which confirmed for me, if nothing else, my capacity to sell myself. Right? And so from there on, it's just been like a, a wild ride.
I ended up being, uh, recruited over at the bbc. I was with them in their North American headquarters for a few years, moved to California on a whim. I've been living in New York City my whole life, and I. Knew that all the moving and shaking was happening in Silicon Valley, and I, I wanted to be there and rub shoulders with, you know, the, the right people, so to speak.
And so, um, I showed up not knowing anyone in California, not having a network or any sort of like, job or anything lined up. So I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, like really trying to optimize the profile, engaging with people, you know, dropping messages left and right. And then someone at LinkedIn tapped my shoulder and said, Um, you seem to know something about our platform, so why don't you come work for us and teach other people how to see success here.
Yeah, it was amazing and it was, you know, a turning point in my career after that, recruited at Google, recruited at Uber, and then I was recruited at Tesla and that's when I had my first, um, Sales leadership experience where I was a sales manager for an entire territory across North America. Um, but before that I'd been doing individual contributor sales, meaning I was an executive.
I had a list of accounts, a list of, you know, clients that I had to work with. And it was my job to build relationships all the way up to the CEO and the C level, you know, Sodo suite, um, and making sure that I was a strategic partner. Selling through multimillion dollar sort of deals and, and strategies to, um, mostly on the marketing side of business.
So I worked in ad sales and then ad tech and selling sort of ad and marketing software as well.
[00:06:16] Olivia Clare: Wow. That's a big Wow. I'm just like letting that all absorb. That's such a huge journey, and I'm sure you look back and you think, oh my gosh, how did I even end up. There's a question that I have.
[00:06:31] Luis Baez: I didn't, I, why am I still here is actually the question at this point. We can't say I'm an adrenaline junkie.
[00:06:40] Olivia Clare: There's, yeah, there's a question I have for you because I, I hear a couple things coming out from what you were saying, and it's sort of like this idea of magnetism. Like you, you said someone reached out to you and said, I think you'd be good at sales. You were on LinkedIn and, and you were recruited and then you were recruited into Tesla.
So I'm curious what, I mean, what do you have to say about there? Is there a particular quality that you think people can embody when it comes to being able to magnetically attract, you know, potential opportunities and things like that? I, I want that, I want your magic secret. Like, give me a potion. I'll drink it tonight.
[00:07:25] Luis Baez: Three Ns and, uh, under the full moon. No, just kidding. Uh, some context, right? Because I, I did not know what I was getting myself into. It's not, There was a sales course that I took in college or, um, you know, and or some sort of CER certification or something that I went through. I learned everything as I went along.
Um, but I think at the core of it, if we have to go back to like, what is that magnetism about, um, it comes from a sense of fearlessness that I developed after repeat. Uh, rejection, discrimination, bullying, whatever throughout my life, right? I am someone who is an out gay man. Um, uh, I'm thick all over. I'm a chubby guy.
Very proud of it now. But when I was younger, that was something I was bullied for, right? And, and these are things that I, throughout my life was up against. And the only advocate I had was myself. No one was ever going to give me what I wanted, right? And you only ever get what you ask. And you only ever receive when you show up.
And so that's what's really guided me. It's like, okay, I can either look this customer in the face and ask for a million dollars, or I can continue eating ramen noodles for dinner, or I can continue to decline invitations to people's, you know, destination weddings and other things that I wanted to participate in in my life.
Right? And, and that's what really drove. Me to just ask for what I want and ask for what I deserve. It took a lot of conditioning in my personal life to show up with no folks given in my professional life. Um, it, it, it is, it's not something that happened overnight.
[00:09:13] Olivia Clare: Truly. Wow. I love that. Uh, you cannot receive anything if you don't first ask for it.
That's so important and I feel like something that, I don't know, it just kind of gets forgotten nowadays, we think cuz everything, potentially, everything is accessible to us social media. We have instant gratification that we forget sometimes the. Hardest thing to do. The bravest thing we can do is just ask for what we want.
And the worst that's gonna happen is we get a no. Or we, we could have our whole lives changed, you know, overnight. So I love, I love that. I'm gonna take what you said, you know, put it on a. A four piece of paper, stick it up on my wall. Cause I feel like that was just a good little riff in and of itself.
[00:09:59] Luis Baez: If you wanna, if you want like a quotable thing to walk away with, something that I always say, and I coach other people to say that themselves, is I have been rejected by people more important than you.
Right? So I can sit here, I can try to sell you something, and you can say no to me. But that hurts a lot less than the fact. Jason maoa still hasn't responded to my dms on Instagram. That really true, right? I have been rejected by more important people than you, honey. Let's go.
[00:10:30] Olivia Clare: I love it. Yes. Okay, so. I wanna talk now a little bit about you and your own business and sort of the, this world of entrepreneurship.
What would you say the difference is between, you are working with C-level execs, right? Really big people, like you said, talking multi-million dollar deals versus starting your own business and being an entrepreneur.
[00:10:53] Luis Baez: I think the first apple that fell on my head was the realization that I was an entrepreneur, which meant that I had already developed a capacity.
Through my career in sales to step in and build something out of nothing. Right? I've been given a list of customers that never spent a dime with a business, and I was told, go introduce our product. Go build these relationships and go sell. Um, and it was that kind of realization of, okay, well I've been doing this all along.
It is just a matter of now taking on more accountability. So when you shift into entrepreneurship, you're doing your own marketing, you're covering your own operational costs, you know, upfront, you know, sort of expenses, legal expenses, all of these things they're coming out of. Or they're coming from an investment or a loan or something, right?
There's a seed sort of investment that needs to happen to get a business going and to sustain it through profitability, right? Because you'll start a business and you'll make money, but you might not be profitable for a while until you fine tune things, right? You might be breaking even, or you might be in the red for the first eight months of your business, right?
We've all experienced that as we've. But I think that's the real sort of shift for me was my willingness to, you know, be more of an adrenaline junkie and step away from, you know, that corporate cushion of having all these things taken care of for me and instead really betting on myself. And going off on my own right.
And I started side hustling while I was working at places like Google and Uber and Tesla. I had my full-time job, but then I had other people asking me, you know, business advice and things outside of what I was doing. And you know, when I got very busy, I learned how to charge for that advice. And then I learned how to provide additional services and things like that, that really complimented that advice. And, um, I leaned into entrepreneurship when I had experiences of being discriminated against in the workplace. Really toxic work environments that I had to step away from, and I had to find a way to continue living and I had to bet on myself and my capacity to hustle just as hard for me as I did for the big.
And a friend of mine who was just a few steps ahead of me, she had left corporate maybe six or eight months prior and, um, had gone off and consulted and, uh, locked down a few really amazing contracts. She said to me, you never lose when you bet on yourself. And that was the shift for me. It's like, I, I got this, I got me, and everyone around me has got.
And that that was also part of the shift. One was the realization that I got the skills. The second was the realization that I can do this for myself. I can take care of me.
[00:14:04] Olivia Clare: Yeah. I got me. Yeah. That's beautiful. And it's, it's hard, and I don't want anyone listening to this thinking that it's an overnight process because anyone who's been in it knows it takes a lot of work, a lot of decondition.
A lot of getting used to, I guess, the version of yourself that you're gonna become. But I love what you said about entrepreneurship as well, and I think sometimes we put these really big ideas around being an entrepreneur and really as a human being. We are all, you know, entrepreneurs. We all like to create things.
It's part of who we are as people. So there is an innate entrepreneur in all of us that we just have to tap. So what did then those environments, I know you touched a little bit about, um, your toxic workplace and I, I'm so sorry to hear that and I hate that it's a common story that comes out of environments like that.
Um, what did you know your experiences in the corporate world teach you about running your own business?
[00:15:09] Luis Baez: I think first and foremost, I learned how to keep receipts, right? My biggest defense against.
[00:15:14] Olivia Clare: Oh, I like that.
[00:15:15] Luis Baez: Oh, yes. Oh yes. Listen, my biggest defense against people who wanted to tear me down questioned my capability, my intelligence, or, you know, were entirely too fixated on, you know, what I did with my personal life or whatever.
The only way I could shut them down was to point to the job description. In one column and then point to my impact in the other column and quantify the ways that I exceeded performance. Right? Because you can sit there and try to pick at me cuz I'm gay, cuz I'm chubby, cuz I'm urban, because I'm confident and you're jealous or whatever.
I don't care. You're gonna look at these numbers, you're gonna look at these receipts, check out these emails, check out these screenshots. You will not come for me. So that sort of conditioning as I went into, like starting my own business, had me like really hyper focused on. Measuring the things that I was doing so that I could very strategically make the right investments in the right places in my business.
But also I developed a habit of celebrating the small things. Ooh. Oh yeah. Because, Yeah, right. Like I think we are so fixated on that million dollar revenue goal and that magical, you know, party that comes with the launch and all these things, and it's like, yeah, but like today you learned a new piece of software.
Celebrate that you know, tomorrow you're making your first hire. Celebrate that right next week you put together your very first like real operational plan. Celebrate that, right? You close your first big deal at your new pricing, right? Like that kind of energy that you fuel like will fuel you through each stage of growth in the business.
Because listen, I can sit here all day long and give you the, the formula. Start here, then there, then there. Spend this much. Don't spend that much all day long, right? But the business is built by. And by the energy that you bring to the work that you do.
[00:17:22] Olivia Clare: Mm, I love that. I'm all about spirituality and I can hear little bits of that coming out and what you're saying about energy and, oh, it's so important, isn't it?
I think having your own business. I say this all the time. Or, you know, being an entrepreneur is the quickest personal development journey you could ever take because how much you can grow in your business is a reflection of how comfortable you are in that growth. And in being uncomfortable, being comfortable and being uncomfortable is so important.
So I a hundred percent agree. And I wanna ta like dive into this a little bit more because I know you say, That you are committed to building the business person first. And I feel like this might tie in, but I'm, I would love if you could define that a little bit more for us and explain what you mean by that.
[00:18:11] Luis Baez: Yeah. I do this exercise a lot. Um, when I do executive coaching with business owners and C-level executives, I also, you know, in my sort of full-time world, um, I'm a revenue enablement director at Deputy and I work with executives, so we're constantly visualizing their. It's a success and looking at, you know, their, their better version of themselves.
And so something that I always remind folks, it's like we all have this persona that that drives us, right? We all have our inner. Beyonce or inner Tim Cook or whatever. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? There's always, there's always like something and, and we admire, you know, especially in business, we admire executives of a certain caliber or business models that might make an impact.
Right. Maybe there's like a, a social impact component to your model. Thinking of companies like, you know, Tom Shoes. Buy a pair. Give a pair, right? So you have to think about like what inspires you in the first place. There's some north star, some latent feeling or person or business that's really deep inside of you that maybe you're a little bit scared to admit out loud, but hold on to that for a second and think about the person you admire.
Think about the conditioning they went through, the things that. Learned how they spend the first hour of their day, right? What they say no to, who they hang out with, the kinds of foods they put in their body to sustain their creativity and their energy, right? You have to look at the totality of that outcome, and you have to really be honest with yourself and saying, Am I doing things and living with integrity?
Meaning are the things that I think aligned with the things that I say and aligned with the things that I do. That's, that is the turning point. That's where the real kinetic shift happens, where you start to unlock that. Fire in your stomach that gets you through those hurdles to breaking through a hundred thousand revenue, breaking through the next a hundred thousand, breaking through that million, you know, ceiling, et cetera.
[00:20:30] Olivia Clare: Mm. That's so important. Integrity is such an interesting concept in the business world because it's been shown through studies that if. Use integrity as one of your core company principles. Productivity skyrockets because integrity is doing as you say, that you are going to do, which when you are building your own business, having that trust in yourself.
Is going to be the number one thing that, like you said, has that fire in you and keeps you going because when you set a goal, you know that you are going to get there because you are the type of person that does the things that you say you are going to do. So that idea of radical responsibility being is so difficult when you first get started, I suppose in this world because you're like, why can't I blame everyone else for my problems?
Then I don't have to deal with. But when you choose to have radical responsibility, it means saying, wow, I get to create anything that I want. And that means I also have to accept that the problems in my life, the things that I don't like are also my fault, but I get to change something about it.
[00:21:40] Luis Baez: There is a deeper level of accountability. I always remind entrepreneurs, you know, there are two things that you're accountable for, generating revenue and creating. And, and you're accountable for all the hands and all the processes, tools, policies, everything involved in generating revenue and creating jobs. And so, yeah, it is important to think about who you need to become to get there and be cognizant of your willingness to assume that response.
Because I think everyone wants that. You know, I want to be the entrepreneur. I want pretty pictures on Instagram and LinkedIn, and I want to publish my book and all these things. Great. Awesome. Yeah. If you don't develop that capacity for nurturing the people around you, no one's gonna be there to take your photos or edit your book or applaud at your talk period.
[00:22:34] Olivia Clare: True. Yes. Yeah. And please don't go into this world thinking that you are just gonna write this book on your own. Or you know, you can't grow a company to seven figures on your own. It's impossible. So at some point you have to. I find I made such a big shift and quantum leap in my own business when I finally just let go and started delegating and hired someone before, you know, I wouldn't say before I was ready, I had obviously the income available to hire someone.
But you know, it's that point where you're like, okay, I can either keep going and I can pocket the money myself, or I can reinvest it in someone else doing the work for me in order to grow. And so for a while you'll be like, well, when the fuck do I get paid? But it will pay off because there's no way you're gonna get to that seven figure mark on your own.
You cannot edit those photos, edit the podcast, post everything. And I think we forget that when we look at entrepreneurs who have millions of followers and millions of dollars generated from their business, and we're out here starting from step one, we think. Wow. They must wake up at 3:00 AM every day in order to get all this done.
But what they have is, like you said, those systems in place. Those teams in place, and they get it done for them. And that's what you wanna do. That's what you wanna build.
[00:23:51] Luis Baez: Exactly, exactly. And recognize that until you become the person who can translate your vision into like methodical steps for someone else to take to help you, um, you know, you can, you can hire all day.
Right, and, and you can be a terrible leader and lose all the people that you hire, right? There's, there's more than just a check that you need to cut. There's some skin in the game for real, but it's not impossible. It's been done, and there's certainly, you know, places you can turn to for inspiration, like this podcast, you know, to get you through those moments of self-doubt and needing validation, needing, you know, the gut check confirmation, you're headed on the right path, et cetera.
Um, but yeah, there we, you, you cannot see success until you commit to the kind of person that you need to be when you arrive at that moment.
[00:24:48] Olivia Clare: Yes, so, so powerful. Okay, I am dying to hear what you have to say about scaling. This is what I'm in the process of doing at the moment, because in my own business it was like, okay, nothing's working, nothing's working, nothing's working.
Keep testing, keep trying, keep failing. Oh my goodness, something worked. How do I get more of it? How do I do this over and over again and build it? So it's like once we get over that hump of. Testing a product until it works. Then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now I'm in the scaling process. How do I start there?
So what are your top three tips for businesses that are trying to scale from six figures or multi six figures to that seven figure mark?
[00:25:33] Luis Baez: Yeah, I think first and foremost, figure out your some system of business, operat. You have to have some sort of method, approach, or framework that will help everyone else in your business make decisions confidently, right?
While also maintaining confidence that they're headed towards the right targets. And when you're thinking about a business that is in that sort of six figure threshold, trying to break over to seven figures, you don't need to overcomplicate this. This isn't a Fortune 500 company with a thousand departments.
Let's just keep it all the way real, right? I think that, um, I like to just keep it really simple and, and I introduce a business order of operations. I call it my boo. You know, I love up on my boo. My boo and I are in constant communication, right? I really try to personify my business plan because otherwise I'm not gonna have an emotional attachment to it.
And so the business order of operations begins right where you started this question, which was around. You've gotta have something to sell. You've gotta have something that absolutely fits a market, fits a need, you know, uh, fulfills a desire, helps someone achieve or see something, helps a business transform.
Whatever that is, that's gotta be dialed in to your point, through research and, you know, engagement and optimization and recommitting. But then beyond that, this is where you've got to learn how to become hyper-focused because there are a million approaches, shiny objects everywhere. But you've gotta remember that the minute you have something to sell, your first responsibility is to sell, right?
So if I have to prioritize and look at like where am I spending my time? How do I structure my day? How do I structure my week, my quarter, my business plan? The first thing I wanna make sure. The product is good. The core is safe, right? There are no threats to my product, like increase in pricing for, you know, another tertiary service or something that compliments or whatever, right?
You've gotta protect the core. Then you've gotta look at your process for selling. Do I shake hands? Do virtual calls, knock on doors? What's the first conversation? What's the second conversation? How many conversations until we close the. Right. There's a myth, sort of methodical approach to your selling that meets the customer's expectation.
So, and what I mean by that is, for example, if I were selling you a vehicle, You would expect the opportunity to test drive that vehicle, right? You wouldn't expect someone to ask you to spend thousands of dollars without giving you that chance to hold the keys in your hand, feel the steering wheel, adjust the mirrors, make sure the sound system has the right base, you know, whatever, right?
You're not gonna spend that money. So if someone really tried to sell you a vehicle without offering that as part of the experience, you're not gonna. And that's something you have to be cognizant of when you're designing your sales experience. Are you meeting the customer's expectation and selling to them the way that they prefer to buy?
So you have something to sell. You have a way of selling it. Then we focus on your operations, your tools, your processes, your SLAs, all that fancy jargon. That's all in the vein of helping your sales. When your operations are in order, that means that you have the capacity to fulfill. Invoice. You have all the legal protections and compliance in your business, right?
But you don't have the money to invest in these things until you sell, and you won't be selling until you have something to sell. That's why there's a logical way to prioritize. When you're thinking about scaling and breaking through from that six figure to that seven figure threshold as an online business or a smaller business, right?
It's about not getting bogged down with marketing first, cuz that's where people start. But that's actually the last step in my boo, right? You have something to sell, you have a way of selling it. You have everything you need to fulfill the sales right now, when you've got that dialed in, crank up the marketing and go tell the whole.
Right. Invest in the ads and the webinars and the placements and email and newsletters and, you know, funny memes on other people's channels, however, it is that you attract your audience, right? Um, but that you could do that all day long and make zero sales. And I see this all the time, I think people get bogged down with this compulsion of like, I need a thousand followers now.
I need 10,000 followers. My business isn't a real business if my grid doesn't look pretty. If I don't post every day, no one will ever think that I'm, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I know businesses that literally have no social media accounts and make. Right? Yeah. They've dialed it.
[00:30:39] Olivia Clare: Oh, big money.
[00:30:43] Luis Baez: Big money. Which is all the evidence that like, you know, having the pretty grid on Instagram and having the daily posts on LinkedIn, that's not what keeps a business thriving, which is why contrary to what everyone will have you think. I insist that marketing is the last piece of all of it.
[00:31:01] Olivia Clare: I totally agree with you. I see this all the time as well, where people are focusing on, let me do a webinar, let me make sure I'm using the right hashtags.
And they don't have clients, like if they're in a service-based business. I always say, work with people first. The followers don't matter if you're not making any money. And it's just, it's, it's frustrating when you're on the other side. But I was there like, I was like, okay, yep. Need to have like a good looking feed and that's what's gonna make me the money.
And it's, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Let's slow down. You need the clients first and then you can dial up the marketing. So I love that. And I think the way that you laid that out was so methodical. I had a. Even just as you were talking, because I like that you made the distinction that operationally what we are focusing on is the sales piece, right?
So I have a service-based business in my own business. I had, you know, the product and now I'm like, okay, woo. Okay, we gotta make sure that fulfillment and the clients are happy. And I've been thinking, okay, how can I operationalize the fulfillment piece so that it's better and better? But I like that you sort of like, what if we slow that down and we make.
More people are actually coming in so that then we can invest that money in making the fulfillment better. So I think it's a really good approach. So I I, I love that you shared that. Thank you for the shift. I, I'm like, oh, okay. So excited.
[00:32:31] Luis Baez: Now, um, it almost feels too simple, right? At times I hear that feedback as well, but it, it really should be right, like if you are sitting.
Shiny object syndrome and you know, 50 competing priorities. It's like you've gotta start somewhere and there has to be like justification for what, why you start here versus there. And so I really just offer this framework as just a way a rubrics, if you will, to help prioritize. Like this question has come up or this request has come.
This is an operational thing. Does it have revenue impact today or immediately? No. Therefore I'm not prioritizing it today. I'm prioritizing it for Friday or Monday, right there there's, there has to be a methodical way that you go and account for the things that need to be done without driving yourself mad from trying to do it all at once and driving yourself to total depression and defeat because you didn't sequence things the right way and it didn't pan out after all the work you put in.
[00:33:35] Olivia Clare: Yeah. And I think it's something that I, I just am obsessed with the way that you laid that out. And I'll say, because the other thing I see a lot of people do is when they have, when they finally get to that place where they have a product that works.
Then they try and fix it or they try and make it better. And my advice is always to not try and fix something that's not broken. And you, what you wanna do is see how many times you can repeat that process and that repetition is the sales process. Can you do it again and again and again? And yet it's gonna be boring, but business should be boring.
The blood of business is profit. So are you focusing on getting more profits and making more sales, or are you focused on, and you know the product? Obviously the product and fulfillment is important because customer success will drive more sales. Obviously, but we can get so caught up with, with shiny object syndrome, like you said, and this new tech piece is gonna make it better.
And you know, people really love the course, so I should add an extra three modules and it's like, no, no, no, no. They love the course, don't touch it. Just leave it. Just sell it to someone else so you can help more people that way. So. Oh, such a good conversation.
[00:34:54] Luis Baez: Yeah. I think, you know, my philosophy around like product development.
You're always going to have requests for more things, right? As long as you don't lose sight of what the core offer is, and you know that the, the things that you're adding on just enhance someone's capacity for seeing that result, either faster, more exponentially impactful or whatever, right? If there's a way that it enhances the outcome, then that is something to.
But otherwise, no. I think that it becomes a lot more difficult to sell something that is constantly evolving, that the only thing that really should evolve is your sales process. You know, as you learn and you hear from the customer, I want it this way, I want it on this day instead of that one, I wish that it included this.
I wish, you know that that kind of, you know, feedback helps you then introduce the product, the right. You mentioned this, not that you say it does this really well without overlooking that it does that as well, right? Like this is the way that you start to enhance some of the emails that you'll write, some of the content that you'll put in front of customers or some of the case studies that you might use, or stories you might use in your process.
[00:36:14] Olivia Clare: Ah, amazing. Everyone bookmark this the last 15 minutes of episode. So powerful. Let's talk. The number 600 million because that is the revenue impact that you have had to date. Oh my gosh. Like round of applause. That is amazing. I'm so impressed. How in the world did you get to that number? Is there any sort of knowledge you can impart or even just take us through the journey because you know, That's a huge number to celebrate.
[00:36:44] Luis Baez: It is. So, I, I'm aware of my revenue impact because like I mentioned earlier, I kept all my receipts throughout my career.
[00:36:53] Olivia Clare: Yes, you do. You know, and I certainly, love it.
[00:36:54] Luis Baez: Oh yes. Oh yes. No, whatever getaway with saying that I didn't do my job, um, I, uh, it happened over a long period of time. I've been in sales for almost in corporate sales business to business sales for almost two decades.
And when I got my start, I was, you know, frying smaller fish. You know, we're talking about deals in the hundreds of thousands. And as I advanced my career and moved to other companies, I just started working on bigger and bigger businesses. And I went from having, you know, a 2 million sales quota per year to having a hundred million sales quota.
Right. And so over time, you know, is when I, I started to stack that revenue impact across selling advertising, selling software, um, selling luxury vehicles at Tesla, right? Like there's, there's, um, it's a compounded number from my entire career. Um, but you know, the thing that I will say is I don't want anyone listening to this to be intimidated, cuz the thing that I will say is that the skills.
That are required to sell 10,000 or the same as 50,000 are the same as 5 million. The process will change. There might be more steps in the process as you work on bigger deals. There are more cooks in the kitchen, more approvals required, more testing and piloting and all of that. Um, but the phases of the sale are the same.
Hello? You don't know me now. You know me. Look at what I offer now. You know what I offer you, like what I offer. You want what I offer. I give you what I offer. That's the general framework of a sales. Right. Um, and we can jazz it up and complicate any which way. But I say this because the real shift between selling 50,000 deals and selling 5 million deals, the shift happens with you.
It happens with your capacity to trust again, the trust of process and the framework to ask the tough questions and to ask for what you want and deserve, Throughout that sales process, that evolution happens within, and that comes after repeated rejection.
After, you know, a a thousand failed attempts, right? You might land the one.
Good attempt that gets you a 10 million deal, right? You have to be willing to, at times, tough it out and eat shit until you get the right deal. Come across the table, right? You might have to make 10 dials before someone finally picks up the phone. You might have to send 12 emails before someone finally responds and said, you know, I've been so busy.
Thank you for following up. Yes, let's take this call.
[00:39:51] Olivia Clare: Yeah. I love that you share that because again, we can sometimes look at people's, oh, I mean, you probably hear this all the time, like, oh my God, 600 million. And you're like, you know what? No one was saying that to me when it was 50,000 and I had a million, it felt, it feels like millions of people not answering my calls or all the nos and all the failures.
And that's what we, I mean, you find when you get started in business is, holy shit, I have to fail like 10 million times before I hit a success. And then everyone's gonna call me an overnight success. And you're like, what the fuck is that? But it's how it works. You know? We, we live in an announcement culture.
Where we, you know, push all that to the front and we don't tell anyone about anything that's happening behind the scenes. So I'm, I'm glad you sort of made, made that distinction for us.
[00:40:42] Luis Baez: Oh yes. Oh yes. And I think, you know, the thing with sales that sometimes is quite intimidating for people is that, you know, I just mentioned you've gotta, you know, make a bunch of dials before you have a successful one.
In marketing, in operations and legal or any other sort of function within a business. It's like, here's the. The project is complete. The project is done well because it looks pretty, it made money, it works. The buttons all click, whatever, right? It is difficult to measure success when you're bombarded by failure upfront, right?
It's always in the retrospect that you really start to feel your success in sales when you go, gosh, you know what? I put my head down for this last month. I said I wasn't gonna go out without a good. Wow. Look at how many meetings I've had. Wow.
Look at how, how many sales I've had. I had more sales in the last month, right?
Like, it felt really shitty on the 15th of the month, but wow, here I am on the 29th of the month and I'm, I'm laughing all the way to the bank, right? Like that is, that's, that's what it takes. That's what it takes. It's just. Putting your head down and And trusting the process.
[00:41:50] Olivia Clare: Yes. Trusting the process. Talking about trusting the process, what is the biggest challenge you have had to overcome professionally?
[00:42:02] Luis Baez: Feelings of not enoughness or not being smart enough, call it imposter syndrome or what have you. And, you know, we grapple with it all the time. But what I will say is, as someone who has sat down with seed level executives of Fortune 500 companies, as someone who has, you know, had a seat at the table with tech and startup founders of really influential companies, no one's got it figured out.
No one's ever smart enough, no one's read enough books, taken enough online courses. It's just a matter of. Am I willing to assume the responsibility, right? Am I willing to take on this work and do it, and am I also willing to be humble enough to ask for help when I need it? Because I think, you know, to your point, you were talking about this sort of performative culture of everyone displaying results and displaying success.
I'll be the first one to tell you, like I, there's spinach. The spinach between all my. Right. There's, you know, every thread in my beard is out of place. Whatever, like, come tell me what it's that I need to do. Right? I can very much, you know, humble myself up as needed. I don't care to be the smartest person in the room.
Um, you know, maybe I might care to be the prettiest one in the room if someone else is really attractive, but otherwise I'm not really concerned with, you know, being buttoned up and being a perfectionist.
[00:43:31] Olivia Clare: Ah, it's so powerful. I really needed to hear that. I feel a lot of. Imposter syndrome as well sometimes, or you know, questions of, oh my God, things are working, something's not right.
You know, you're sort of looking around waiting for someone to jump out and tell you. It's all a joke. But I think that's so powerful and I just had this image then of, you know, a bunch of really, really famous, influential people sitting at a table and all feeling. I haven't read enough books. I should have listened to this podcast before I came in.
Or you know, just that feeling of, I don't know, humanity, we're all in it together. No one's better than anyone else. We're all just confused and trying to figure it out. So, ah, what a relief.
[00:44:13] Luis Baez: Yeah, and I think, you know, there's also a way to think of imposter syndrome as like a superpower. Right. Because I think that when you really slow down to examine what's triggering your imposter syndrome, it's, you know, either you don't have a skill, you don't have knowledge, or you don't have a resource or you don't have help.
So that's your cue to get what you need, right? So rather than succumbing to the feelings of not enoughness, channel that into. So get yourself out of that.
[00:44:41] Olivia Clare: Very powerful. Let's celebrate Louis. What is the biggest milestone that you are proud of and what did you have to learn in order to get there?
[00:44:52] Luis Baez: Gosh, I know I'm gonna sound all the way corny, but I feel like this very moment is, I love it.
Milestone. I can't wait. Yeah. Oh, this moment is a milestone. So as, as we're recording this, I am presently. Um, on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and I have been here for a few weeks. The stumps? Yeah, it's been, uh, this is sort of the culmination of some like real deep work that I've been doing to up-level myself as a professional and as a person.
Um, and admitting that, you know, I needed a moment to myself admitting that I needed to let go of projects. Um, I'm saying no, I'm setting boundaries. I am fine tuning what it means to be an overachiever without burning myself out. Um, and I am just thankful for the self-awareness and that I, that I'm going through this and, and for my willingness to do something about it and, and, and take care of.
I think that's a huge milestone because we've talked about all the things that I've accomplished, but I can't tell you how many times I've cut myself on the sword or I've had to like, you know, I've overextended myself trying to be the good employee, the good boy, the good recruit, right? And. For what?
Right. I, I, I hurt myself in some instances and so, um, yeah. This for me is a huge milestone in, in like recognizing and, and practicing taking care of myself to make my success sustainable.
[00:46:27] Olivia Clare: Oh my goodness. I love that. I am channeling that. I want that, that is so, so powerful. Yeah. The, the best part about business is. Your life can be so much more than it, right? It's like, wow, I'm a whole human being with other interests and family and friends to love and places I wanna see. And you know, being able to have that freedom and flexibility is really powerful. So I'm so thankful that you shared that. Um, Nowadays. With that in mind, what are a few of your daily rituals that you find most important to sort of nurture all the different parts of yourself that exist so that, that work ethic and that drive, and also that, you know, willingness to slow down and be at peace.
[00:47:14] Luis Baez: Yeah, I think something that I do is I, I, I call it paying myself. In the day, right? So the day will be busy. I've got priorities. I've got responsibilities and things to do. Um, and we can talk about the workout. I didn't do the breakfast, I didn't prepare the, you know, the stretching and the things I right.
I do that upfront now. And so before I. I'm online before I hit that, you know, do not disturb button on my phone and let people know I'm available again. I am spending time in my body, stretching, hydrating. I spend time in my mind journaling, expressing gratitude, visualizing what's next, right? I think that's really important.
You don't know where you're headed if you can't see it in your mind. If you can't conceive it, and that is not something that just falls. You know, the apple doesn't just fall on your. You have to create that quality of mind, right? Con being a conjure or a manifestor, whatever you wanna call yourself, that's a practice and it's intentional.
And so that's how I start my days. Um, and then I think the other thing is I try to break up my, my work days, right? Like I. Am human. I am not AI powered like everything else that's going on online right now. Right, right. I need, I need bathroom breaks, occasional naps, meals. Um, I need fresh air. I've gotta get outdoors.
I've gotta call mom. Right? Being connected to my loved ones is important to me, and I, I prioritize those things throughout the day, and it doesn't have to be this. Parade of like, oh, this is me time. Now we're doing a self-care routine and you know, batten down the hatches, but it's like, oh, I've got 15 minutes between now and my next meeting.
Laptop down. Right. Stretch it out, call mom, do the things I've gotta do, but doing it guilt free, cuz there's always that compulsion of going, Ooh, there's 15 minutes, I could get one more thing done. No, you can. Not if you're coming off of a four hour zoom marathon, you actually really desperately need those 15 minutes.
[00:49:23] Olivia Clare: Gosh, so powerful. I love that. I, yeah, I'm just thinking about ways I can incorporate that into my own life. I love having, I love morning time. I also love having an extended lunch break. So if I can, when I'm by the ocean, I'll go for a walk and go for a swim and it's just feels so luxurious to have just that time in the middle of your day because you know, as soon as you sit back down, you're gonna get into the flow.
You're gonna wanna tick as many things off as possible. So, Creating that time versus thinking it's just gonna appear is so powerful and intentional. So I am so grateful that you shared that. Now I wanna talk about you. What is it that you are currently passionate about, whether it is in business or in life?
[00:50:08] Luis Baez: Gosh. Um, something that I'm really passionate about right now in this moment is writing. I. Um, for a very long time I've been a Biblio file, so I've got my Amazon Kindle and I've got all my eBooks and you know, I'm just like consuming, you know, books like I consume candy bars. Next, next, next, next, next. Um, But my new thing now is, you know, I've got all these words in my brain.
I've got stories to tell, I've got experiences to share. I've developed my voice through podcasting and guesting on shows like yours. And, um, and I'm trying to figure out how to bottle that, some of that secret sauce. Um, so that's something that I've, you know, and currently, uh, obsessed with is like listening and reading other people's memoirs and trying to figure out like the best sort of storytelling techniques.
[00:50:58] Olivia Clare: That is so exciting. Ah. And what is it that you are currently working on? So what's your big sort of project other than writing at the moment?
[00:51:09] Luis Baez: Yeah, I, I want to. Become a very serious speaker. Well, not a serious speaker. I wanna be a fun speaker, but I want to take speaker seriously in my own business and, um, and think about what it takes to position myself as, you know, a sought-after paid motivational speaker.
Um, and so I am on the very, you know, beginning of that journey, connecting with other people who are ahead of me, um, trying to also figure out like, Reading books on the, the perfect, you know, TED Talk formula and all these sort of things and trying to figure out what do the people want. So I'm at the beginning of that journey.
[00:51:50] Olivia Clare: That is very exciting. You've got amazing potential. Like I said, I already had a breakthrough in our podcast so far, so I can only imagine what you would do on a Ted Talk stage. It would be life changing. Uh, what is your crystal vision for the future? So without revealing too much, what is it that you're working towards so that in a few years time we'll be able to listen back and go, yes, you manifested it.
[00:52:17] Luis Baez: You know, I am presently an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur, but my vision is to be a philanthropist. I want to create businesses or some sort of big money engine, not because, you know, I want to spend it all on myself, but because I want to cut million dollar checks for schools and libraries and children's hospital.
Um, and nonprofits and politicians that are doing work that, that really matters to me. Um, and so I want to be in that position of influence. And so that's, that's my North Star is. I want to be a philanthropist, not an entrepreneur.
[00:53:01] Olivia Clare: So powerful. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that. I can see it already. We're all manifesting together, so it's on its way. Is there anything that I didn't ask you or any sort of downloads coming through that you wanna share with our audience today before we finish up the podcast?
[00:53:19] Luis Baez: Gosh. Um, you know, I just want to just punctuate something that I said earlier. I, I hope this resonates with at least one person listening to this.
Again, you will never, ever lose when you bet on yourself, when you take that chance, when you stretch yourself to the max, you will always have the things that you need when you need them. You never see it in the moment. It's always in the retrospect when you go, man, if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be here today.
And so keep moving my friend. Keep building, be vulnerable, be beautiful along the way, but don't be afraid to bet on yourself.
[00:54:05] Olivia Clare: Ah, thank you so much. Louis. Tell us where can people find you? Where can they stay updated? Work with you all? Stole Cute. That's what I call it. That's what I'll be doing.
[00:54:19] Luis Baez: Okay. So I, you know, selling is is something that's very important to me, but I always like to invite people to think about how you sell.
And I'm someone that doesn't like sleazy emails and sales presentations and things like that. I'm someone that actually really likes engaging with people over video.
Creating funding perky sort of sales videos. And so I use a tool in my business called Video Ask. I absolutely love it. You can create short form videos that pop up on people's screens and they can click on the video and immediately respond to you.
The engagement is beautiful. My clients love it. It's how I attract people, it's how I serve people and connect with people. If this sounds appealing to you, then I invite you to head over to Luis Baez dot. Forward slash video. And I'm gonna hook you up with the step by step for setting up the app on your phone.
And I'm also gonna give you your first video sales script. I'm just gonna lay it all out for you. You fill in the blank and you start seeing the magic right away.
[00:55:21] Olivia Clare: Hell yeah. The link will be in the podcast description. Everyone go. I mean, I'm in a, I would love a video sales script, so you'll see my name somewhere in your leads. Um, thank you so much for everything that you've shared today. Um, I'll have to have you on again because I'm so curious to hear how your sort of journey and story is gonna play out. And I will buy a copy of your auto autobiography, all of the jazz. Uh, I'm so thankful that you've taken the time to be here with us today and onwards and upwards. You don't even need, I can just feel your energy. It's like just going out there and going up and just building.
[00:56:05] Luis Baez: Thank you, Olivia. I appreciate you my friend, and I thank everyone tuning in and, uh, appreciate everyone's time.
[00:56:10] Olivia Clare: Thanks guys. See you next week.