Luis Baez- Moonlighting for Good: Building a Business to Give Back

Welcome to the Real People Real Business Show. My name is Stephanie Hayes, and I'm a business strategist that helps mature entrepreneurs design their wealthy exits. Whether that means building an asset-based business model for an eventual sale, or simply taking yourself out of your business while enjoying its continued growth. I love to speak with like-minded entrepreneurs who share their real stories and the gritty details on how they've navigated their own way through. On this show, you won't hear about the glamorized entrepreneurship journeys that you see online. You won't be told how to make six figures in six weeks. Instead, you can expect to hear real vulnerable and inspiring stories that you could relate to that have helped build the foundation for each of our guests businesses today. I'm so excited to welcome Luis Baez. Luis is a sales enablement strategist and coach dedicated to online business owners and B2B professionals, a Bronx born proud gay Puerto Rican American, and former Silicon Valley C-Suite professional. Luis is dedicated to empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs, including women Bipoc and LGBTQIA A communities through online sales coaching in 2017, after years of working in some of the biggest Silicon Valley startups, Think LinkedIn, Google, Uber, Tesla, and more. Luis began to teach impassioned online business owners how to scale their revenues and impact by creating and selling high-end offers. Today Luis is the Global Director of Revenue Enablement at Deputy, not to mention a published author through the Internationally Recognized Made Craft organization, which includes the incredibly popular LinkedIn learning course taken by over 11,000 people today. Welcome to the show, Luis, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. I am super, super excited to connect with you and then share my story with your audience. So we probably could have used the entire show just reading out your credentials. So let's like, let's dig into it. Tell me from the beginning, like how did this all, that's a lot. It's. It's been a busy, busy time. I am someone that will grab the bull by the horns and just see where it goes, even if it like plops me off to the side. But the very long story short is I am the first person in my family to ever pursue an education. So I was the first to finish high school. First to go to college. And in the process I thought I wanted to be a doctor. That didn't quite work out. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, dropped outta law school, and so I then pursued a career in sales very accidentally. I was talking to a best friend of mine who was in the marketing department at WebMD. She said, you know, you, you don't realize it, but you've got this gift. You've got this magnetic just like personality, and you have a way of just commanding attention. So I wonder if sales might be for. So I stepped in through eight rounds of interviews, knowing nothing about sales or advertising or anything tech related. I just threw myself in and I walked away with my first sales job, The rest has been history, just as you read off. I've been quite busy since then. Just climbing that ladder and, and finding myself in the process. I mean, you could basically just read me the phone book and I'd be like, yep, yes, whatever you want. Just take it . That's fine. . So you have this baritone voice and this beautiful, and there, like that's a whole other part of your life, isn't it? Yeah, it's, I think it's funny that you bring that up because I, I always tell people I like to show up and serve a beard in baritone. I have a beard that I've grown up for some time, and the baritone voice can, I've told, I've been told, has been very commanding. And I've also been told I should think about being like a jazz radio host at some point in my career, , oh, I could totally see it. And then this one back in 1952, . I can't do it. I don't, I can't pull it off. I don't have the beard either, but the beard is, is magnificent . So you jumped into sales, and sales was just, came naturally because you're engaging, you're, you know, you've got that, that read of people and as you grew you were, you know, working with different organizations and now you're serving entrepreneurs one-on-one. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. So how did that evolve? Yeah, that was all an accident. So I reached a point in my career where I was you know, cog in a machine and, you know, waiting forever and ever for that big opportunity to be that VP of sales and move up and rank. I wanted just something, I was hungry for something just intellectually and, and just wanting to jump at something else. And a friend of mine, Started tapping my shoulder and saying, Hey you've had a lot of success in attracting these really amazing companies to recruit you. How did you do it? Can you teach me? So I started helping one friend optimize their LinkedIn profile, and then I got recommendation from another friend referral to help them out as well. And then after helping a few people I gotta tap on the shoulder and it's like, Hey, how, how do you manage to side hustle while holding down a full-time job? And so then I started teaching that. I started teaching how it is that I side hustle, how I structure my time and all that jazz and, and even my own sales process. And then I just went down this rabbit hole and I ended up looking at all these ways to expand my influence and my impact. Moving away from doing one-on-one work, doing online courses and online group coaching experiences and designing all these ways that people can learn how to start and manage their own business and develop their own confidence in selling. I find that there's a lot of people that enter the online business space in particular. They're very impassioned about what they do, and they learn a lot of marketing strategies from online gurus and such. But a lot of these programs are designed around your aversion to having direct conversation with people, putting yourself out there. They'll teach you all the automations, all the copywriting tricks and everything, but they don't teach you how to speak up for yourself or how to advocate for a customer or how to, you know, get other people to pick up what you've put down. So I saw this glaring gap in the industry and I said, this is where I pour in. I bring the experience that I've. To the table, to the people that need it most. You know, it's, I mean, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and , it is the number one challenge that they all have. And you know, it's so wonderful that we finally have all these people coming forward with their skills and their creativity and their unique perspectives on the world. And it's absolutely critical. And I think entrepreneurship is gonna save us as humanity. But that's a whole other topic of another show. But they, they struggle so much with the sales piece, like it's number hands. It's, it's the, the biggest, you know, roadblock for a lot of these entrepreneurs because they still perceive it as smarmy or, you know, women especially, we have been told to not ask for things, and we've been told that we're not nice if we ask for things and we shouldn't be selfish. And if we die. The nicest thing people could say about us is that we were nice. And so there's this huge cultural roadblock that we have. From a sales perspective, particularly around women entrepreneurs, and I don't know if you've had that same experience. I sure have. I sure have. And I think that there's a huge emotional mindset shift that happens when people go down this path of building their own business and pursuing entrepreneurship. Where I sort of empathize and sympathize is that I am someone that as an urban Puerto Rican that grew up in poverty, an out gay man, I have literally had to be the squeaky wheel that squeaks for the oil at every phase of my life and every phase of my career. And the way that I teach sales is to actually take the lens or the, the, the light away from yourself and think about the customer instead. Right. Like I have always spoken up on my own behalf or my own need sort of out of survival and, and a desire for growth and a better life. But then I reached a point, particularly in my career, where it just wasn't about me, right? The, the way that I saw success was holding that spotlight on the customer and literally walking with them or attempting to walk in their shoes. And so for anyone that is up against, The sort of hesitation, the cultural and social norms and you know, you're afraid of being disobedient or disregarded or all the way unsuccessful. I implore you, I implore you to stand up for the customer. They're counting on you, right? I understand what you're up against. I also want to exemplify so many people for you that inspired you along the way to even step up into entrepreneurship. You have that fire in you, right? And I'm just asking you to redirect it away from yourself and not make it about you. That's where the mindset shift starts when you remove the anxiety. By taking the spotlight off of yourself and making the preoccupation about the people that you serve. One of the things that I've always, that has always resonated with my clients who have been particularly resistant to selling. as is that, you know, selling is an act of service, right? I, I remember, you know, I got diagnosed with this, you know, respiratory thing and, and it was quite rare and I could, you know, our healthcare professionals didn't wanna, or didn't know what to do about it. And I finally found this lady down in Florida who had created a course around how to, you know, get your, your respiratory system working again and around this particular issue. And if she hadn't been out there, You know, posting ads and what have you, I would never have been able to fix something, right. Or, or get the help that I needed. And so when you reframe it like that, that selling, like making your, your unique skills available to the rest of the world is a service to them. If you really believe that what you're doing is helping Yeah, then not letting people know or not telling people that it's available to them is actually. Making it harder on them, isn't it? Absolutely. And I think not only do you want to, you know, put yourself out there and let it be known and create visibility around what you do. But I think to go a step further, think about the impact that you can make by reaching out to someone and tapping their shoulder. If you see someone actively, you know, going through something, struggling with something stuck on something. And your witness to it on social media, in person, at a conference. However it is that you move through your day and your business. That person will just remain where they are until someone like you steps in to help them be the hero in the narrative and tap their shoulder and say, I've, I've got the magic potion, right? Come rub this genie over here. I got you. I got you. . I guess it depends on what Yeah. . But I think, you know, I think this is especially true for people who are building personal brands, and I think the, the, the rub there, we're talking about rubbing a lot, but the, the challenge there is that, you know, when you're building a personal brand, you think it has to be all about you, right? Yeah, you do take it very personally, whether you succeed or don't or how it is that you're perceived in every aspect of your personal brand, and that's why I implore you to take the spotlight off of yourself, right? The brand exists to attract the right people who need your services and our fit or your product, you know, and are the fit for it. But beyond being that sort of magnetic pull, After someone's in your gravitational pool, you've gotta really love up on them, right? It has to be, not so much about how mocked up your photos are, but really how it is that you help someone see those results. Yeah. Everybody wants to believe in their story, and I think it's the same reason that on the flip side, a lot of people are able to sell things that actually don't have a lot of impact, but they've learned how to tell a story and how to help their customers. Envision themselves having those results. And sometimes, you know, you know that those results aren't gonna happen, but people are. People are driven by hope, and all they need is the tiniest, tiniest little bit of hope that just, maybe that could be my story too, even if the chances of that happening are very slim. And so you, this is where I, I get into the rub around, it's the rub again. See, what have you done, ? This is where I get into all the, the challenge that I have with a lot of these kind of online marketers and online programs and, and the substance that we're seeing emerge from them are not mm-hmm. So the online business world is a, is an interesting place to be. And I know that you have spent a lot of time in, in startups and in high growth businesses. So what's the, what's, what are you taking from those experiences in helping these online entrepreneurs develop? Yeah. So in thinking about the ways that I've moved in my career and even now, my position working in revenue enablement training and coaching other sales reps to sell through products and services, I, I take that sort of secret sauce from tech from Silicon Valley and thinking about how do we implement a sales culture that is not traditional or a sales process that is non-conventional and. Magical experiences for customers that help you stand out from the rest of your competitors. And so borrowing from some of the ways that, for example, we prospect in B2B sales, the ways that we pursue customers and the way we pursue new, new relationships with businesses. The hot thing is personalized video, right? Af especially accelerated after the. And so it used to be that if you brought up the phone book earlier, you'd go down the phone book and you'd start dialing a couple of 800 numbers and click, you know, one to be transferred over, and then two or three or four until you finally reach the, you know, someone and you'd persuade that person to give you some intelligence about, you know, who do I talk to next? Or where do I go from here? Or, who's in charge of that? Right. Now we have greater intelligence. We have LinkedIn and everything that we can Google and everything that exists on a company's website. Everything about their, you know, about page profiles of their leaders, all of these things, right? You have so much more intelligence to work with when you're going to make your approach, but then you also have to reconcile the fact. It's a noisy world. It's a very noisy world, and especially in at the time of this recording, all the murmurs and the realities of a global recession, right? You have people who are trying even harder to sell and to get your attention and to get through and to demonstrate value. How do you cut through that noise when you work with people for, who are selling high ticket programs, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I, I do too, and I. I think one of the big realizations that a lot of my clients have made is that you don't need to sell a hundred people. Like you're not looking for a hundred clients. You're looking for like, A handful. I have a client who will always, you know, I've been working with her for like four or five years and every time she gets to, you know, a stage where things are a little bit uncertain, she's like, oh, I gotta do all these things. I'm like, no, no you don't. You just need to go and connect with a couple of people. And then she always gets a client, right? So she doesn't need 500 clients. She needs like one. So sure. It really, you know, whatever your strategy is, I think really affects whatever tactics you're taking around, you know, sales and business development. Yeah, it's a, it's, when I think about what it means to sell something high ticket, I as a consumer, right, as a buyer, I am not going to hand over 2, 3, 5, $10,000. To a checkout page without having some interaction with a human being. I've got questions. I, you know, if I were shoe shopping, I'd like to see this in 11, 11 and a half. Can I see it in blue? Can I see it in yellow? I'm gonna just try shoes on until I get the right fit. Same thing when I'm making a purchase online, whether it's a program or product or service, I'm not gonna hand over a chunk of cash until I've had some kind of attention. . I also recognize as my experience that I've had as a solopreneur side hustler, it's really hard to be available to people at scale and to be available to, you know, answer questions. And yes, we can pull the lever of webinars and we can pull the lever of like pulling people together in Facebook groups and all these things, but people still crave that personalized and individualized attention. They want to try on the right shoe for. . So how do you cut through that as an online business owner, as someone that's selling high ticket? Leveraging personalized video, sending a video to someone using a tool like video Ask, which you can drop a video in an email, you can embed video on your sales page. There are a number of ways that you can create dialogue with that customer without going through that process of Gimme your Calendly link and let's set, you know, half hour aside and, oh, you're gonna ghost me anyway. This is a waste of my time. I'm frustrated, et cetera. I've got so many things going on, right. That's how you solve for that frustration without leaving that person hanging is that you invite them to an asynchronous conversation with you, to talk to you on their terms, on their time. I love that and I, I know I started using Bonjuro when it first came out and I was like, this is fantastic. And just when I signed up, I remember the c e o sent me a video. Yeah. And he said, and he's like, Hey, and it wasn't canned. It was for me. And the, the whole thing is that you're making people feel special and they'll remember that someone makes them feel special and that somebody actually took an interest in them. And I think that's super critical for high ticket sales. And we can't adopt the same still strategy that we learn in all of the scale up your business and sell a membership and blah, blah, blah. Most of it's irrelevant. For, for selling one-on-one. And this is all about relationship development and all about how you make somebody feel. Yeah. And it's also at this point, with the market being as, as saturated as it is, it also becomes like such a predictable experience. Like, I'm gonna enter my email, you're gonna hit me with like a couple of automated messages, and then you're gonna push me through the next landing page, et cetera. If you can deliver an experience that interrupts that expectation, that's when you create differentiations. Like, whoa, I, I didn't expect a human being to be present in my buying journey. That's, Yeah. What do you, okay, I have to ask you this. What do you think of this, this new sort of trend for these mystery offers? I mean, this is really just a sales tactic, right? And you see a lot of these sort of high ticket coaches who are Launching these mystery offers and something about the intrigue is making people buy them. I'm not sure I would shell out 10 grand for something. I didn't know what I was getting, but that's all because they trust and have developed a relationship with that person. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. You can only get away with selling something on a mystery basis if you have a strong following, if you've developed a strong relationship and added a lot of value there, or if you've got repeat customers, right, that's the more likely outcome for someone to sort of, you know, invest with you without knowing what they're getting into, but, I am someone that is really big on transparency, right? Like, I don't like to create false urgency. I know that you can smell sleeziness, and I'm very sensitive to that. As someone who teaches sales, it's like I don't actually practice any sharky or sleazy method. And the way that I've been able to grow and stand out in my career is the fact that I'm not pushing something right. I, I walk into a conversation, I go. Stephanie talk to me like, what's, what's keeping you up at night? How do I make you the hero when you walk into the next meeting with someone? What do you need? What can I build for you? Right. That is unexpected. People are usually expecting me to pull out a menu of options and say, well, if you buy this now before the end of this call, I'll throw in these other three things for free. Right? Like that's, that's just not my methodology. That's not what I. No, and I think you have to, I think it really resonates. I, it depends on who you are, but I know I've had client or potential clients who have come back to me after a sales call and said, I really wanna tell you how much I appreciate the fact that there was never a push, there was never like this false urgency. Because I know, and I know that they know that whether they decide to do something now or in three months from now, it's not gonna you. Live or die, they're not gonna live or die by it. Right? And so I, I don't wanna take somebody on who feels uncomfortable or feels like they've been pushed into something. So high ticket sales is very, it's, it's fragile, right? And the more you can get someone talking about themselves, I think the better the chance of you. Progressing that conversation, right? Absolutely. Because you have to be able to advise that person, not only like whether what you have to offer is the fit, but also how to make it work, right? You have to personalize the experience for them and you know, that is where you really develop the trust. It's not about stacking extra things and extra features. It's about assuring that person and validating that they're making the right choice, the right investment at the right time, and also spelling out for them all the ways they're gonna be supported all the way till the end. If you can make that the focal point versus like upselling right away, then you'll get that person over that hurdle and that anxiety of making a significant investment with. Yeah, they just wanna, they wanna be able to envision what it's gonna look like and what they, and, and believe that they can do it. I think a lot of people come into sales conversations and their, their big objection is that they, they, they don't believe that they can have the results. And that's up to you, right? That's your job to, to fix that, right? Absolutely. You have to assume the right role. I actually encourage people to stop. You're the coach, you're the consultant, you're the advisor, you're the business bestie, like wear any other hat, but the salesperson's hat. I don't, I don't know. I could do business bestie, but I could , I could certainly do coach and mentor. So tell me a little bit more about your business. So who are you selling to? Yeah, I work with individuals, entrepreneurs, B2B sales professionals who are really focused on developing their confidence, their aptitude and their, their core competencies around sales. So I'll work with individuals who work in B2B sales who are reps right now. That are struggling to hit their numbers given where the economy is. So I'll look at their entire sales process. We'll look at optimizing the way that they show up with business owners. I remind entrepreneurs you are always going to be salesperson number one in your business. and the, the sooner you develop that capacity and that confidence, the sooner you can pass the torch on to your first sales hire and the rest of the sales team that you might build. And so with online business owners, I help them step into that seat as salesperson. Number one, I help them hire, recruit the right sales leader for their organization. I also help them adopt and implement a sales playbook. All the right tools, all the right processes designed for their customer experience. Awesome. I love it. Well, you, you said processes and so I was like, I'm there. , . I come from the tech world and I come from years in, in software and technology and technology development. And so for me, processes and systems are like, I. Yes. Necessary, even in a very creative business. Right? Even, and I think what you know, to your point, as a c e o of a business, even if it's grown past it being just you, you are still selling. Even if you are not the one selling to customers, you're selling to investors, you're selling to the the community that wants to support you. You're selling to your peers. And so that skillset of selling. I think it's not just about landing a customer, but it's about creating influence, isn't it? Precisely, precisely. Creating that influence and that impact. It's all about being that persuasive energy behind a vision. So do you work with your clients at all on kind of the other stuff outside of just the sales conversation and the, and the conversion process? Because that all needs to be supported by the brand building, by the marketing, by all of the, the showing up in different ways. Is that sort of part of your scope? Yeah, so I look at the ways that like the marketing engine speaks to the sales engine, also speaking to the customer success engine. So it's not just about finding the customer and closing the sale, it's about ensuring their success. Once they've made the investment with you, that's the, the relationship just doesn't end because of a credit card swipe. And so I look at really the full scope of how do we find customers attract them? What kind of experience do we create for them when we engage in conversations with them? And then what is the onboarding experience like after they decide to invest? How do we ensure that success beyond? So we look at the full scope of that customer experience where we're looking at a, a businesses. And you kind of have to, right? Because I would imagine that if that's not integrated and aligned, then you have a, a much more difficult time being successful in your sales conversations. Yeah. And all of these functions within a business need to share intelligence, right? Like marketing will always understand the psychology of the customer when they're coming in the door, which influences the sales process and the way that you design the buying experience. But then that also translates to their expect. They do sign and that needs to be communicated. Or you know, if they're having trouble beyond making the investment and seeing success wear the hiccups because we also have to avoid over-promising things or selling things that we can't fulfill. So all of these functions have to have communication within a business. And h for how long will you typically work with a. Yeah, minimum three months if we wanna see any sort of impact and, and if we're working in that sort of short term basis, we're really focused on strategy and aligning all the right resources around execution. When I work with the business for six months plus, that's when we're in that execution mode. That's when I'm stepping in, having the calls with the vendors, lining up the tools, putting together the content around the sales playbook, and making sure that everyone that steps into the business understands exactly. How to get what they need to move customers through the process. And you're still working, you know, you're working with another organization now, right? Yeah, I have a full-time job. I am a global director of revenue enablement at a startup. That's my, my, my gig. I don't ever want to give up my career. I love, love, love what I do. I love teaching and coaching and training. And so that's my full-time. And then I continue to run my, my, my business on the side. So I moonlight as a consultant. , you're a side hustler I like it all the way through. Yeah. And, and I, I think that I think it's important for people like us coaches, consultants, people who are helping other business owners to have that kind of experience and to be able to pull from your experience. Inside of a job, a j o B, because I think that you can translate the things that you learn in a, in a larger skilled organization into something really helpful and useful for smaller businesses and small entrepreneurs. It just, you know, it just needs to be repackaged a little bit. Yeah, and I invite people to consider like building the business on your terms and building the business of your dreams. I am not someone that has this vision of owning a Fortune 500 company someday that, that nothing about that appeals to me. I have had the experience of working as a leader in a Fortune 500 company. Thankful for it. Thankful for the way that it molded me into the professional that I am. Certainly not my aspiration as an entrepreneur. I actually don't even care to be an entrepreneur. My ultimate goal is to be a philanthropist, right? I'm trying to figure out a way to build a money-making engine that then puts me in a position to invest in the right organizations, politicians, local businesses, and all the things in the communities that matter to me. That's the position I ultimately wanna step. So entrepreneurship is enabling you to become a change maker. I love it. Yes. Yes. Love it. That's the ultimate goal. So we'll figure out what that money engine looks like. We, we are building it as we go, and I've enjoyed the experience and the process along the way. I'm so happy that you said that too, because I think a lot of people, we just talked about this in the last interview as well, but I think a lot of people think that. You know, the business Bible tells you that you need to go for it and, and build this big thing, and that was never interesting to me. Like I, I, I could and I. You know, would do okay. Being a you know, a c e o of a big company, but it was never interesting to me. I just like that lifestyle and I know how much I would be sacrificing if that were the case. And so I, I think it's okay. Like it's normalizing the fact that we don't wanna, you know, we don't wanna build some big, you know, industry leader, right? That's for other people, and that's fine. But as long as you build your business to be aligned with what you want from your life, Exactly. I think that's the critical piece. Absolutely. I'm also not one of these people that's like, you know, so tied to being the founder and the c e o of something. I am okay with being the founder, passing the torch to someone else that really wants that c e o title while I focus again on the philanthropic work that comes from the money engine. Right. I am okay with that. I don't need to be the end all, be all face of everything. I have, I have other. I love it. I have a question that I ask everyone who is on the show, and you know, this show is about, you know, getting into sort of the nitty gritty and the real stories. What is the difference between what we see out there in the online business world and the business world in general, and what's real about being an entrepreneur? Ooh, wow. I think the biggest lesson that I've learned is that it is not all on me. I think that we often sell this image of, you know, the personal brand, the bootstrapping experience. I created this one magical Google Doc that helped me generate my first a hundred thousand in online revenue that I reinvested into this other engine, et cetera, et cetera. I walked down this path and I'm burnt out, and I started really not liking my business or the work that I was doing, and it showed and, and the quality of the work that I was producing, right? I think that the reality of building a successful business means that you have to let other people in. You've got to take investment, you've got to take advice, you've got to take coaching, right? It's not all on you. We're not impressed. You know, by it all being on, you we're more impressed by you embracing that part of your job as an entrepreneur is creating jobs. It's creating opportunities, it's bringing other people on the journey with you. And if I had to start all over again, I would start with cash in hand or with an investor running with me, right? I would not be struggling as much as I did to get started. I would invest in some core, you know, operational things from the start, hire the certain people, you know, that I, I neglected to hire for a really long time. That would be the way that I would start. I would flip the narrative on its head, and I would say that start with cash in. Hold on to that full-time job. Start that extra little savings account. Start with cash in hand. I love it. I'm, I mean, that is one of the best answers I've had yet, . That's great. Awesome. Okay, well, we're coming up on time. I wanna thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Can you tell our listeners how they can find you? Yeah. Not only do I want you to hang out with me, but I want to actually teach you, I'm a teacher, I'm a trainer and a coach at heart, and today I've talked about how to personalize the way that you show up for your customers and how to completely flip your, your sales narrative on its head. So I invite you to head on over to luisbaez.com/videoask. I'm gonna walk you through step by step how to use personalized video. Less than five minutes right from your smartphone so you can start seeing results, right. Oh, I love it. I'm gonna go there right after this interview and I'm gonna go check it out myself, cuz I love video Ask. I love uro. I love the the level that it took our sales conversations to. Awesome. Okay, well we're gonna wrap it up and I'm so happy that we had the opportunity to chat with Luis today to hear more about how his business came to be, his experiences along the way and what the future of the business entails. And thank you for tuning into this episode of The Real People Real Business Show, where we get the real entrepreneurial stories and journeys that you can relate to.. Two, the show notes, resources, and links from this episode are available on my website and social media platforms. If you've enjoyed today's content, I'd love for you to give us a review on a whatever platform you are on to help us share these genuine stories with an even bigger audience. Until next time, keep building, keep dreaming and keep being real.