The Morning Upgrade Podcast with Ryan Cote

#45 - Setting High Goals with Scott Dailey

June 13, 2021 Ryan Cote Episode 45
The Morning Upgrade Podcast with Ryan Cote
#45 - Setting High Goals with Scott Dailey
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Scott Dailey about recognizing your expertise, business and careers, setting high goals, happiness and more. 

Ryan 

Hey guys, it's Ryan real quick. So my mission with the Morning Upgrade blog and podcast is to raise the awareness of morning routines and personal development. And I now have two products that are also helped me with this mission. The first product helps you start a 20 minute morning routine. And the second product is a book that outlines how to use personal development to upgrade your life and business. You can get full details on both products over at morningupgrade.com. Thanks for letting me share. And now on to the show.


Announcer  

Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.


Ryan  

Hey, Scott, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you?


Scott 

Terrific, Ryan, thank you for having me.


Ryan  

So why don't we start off by you telling everyone you know who you are, what you do, and what your interests are?


Scott  

My name is Scott Daly. I am the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for a mid-market mechanical cable manufacturer located in North Jersey town Riverdale, and I spearhead the company's marketing and sales communications initiatives. Excellent. What are your interests? The Hustle comes to mind right away. I love getting people to say yes, I love putting marketing messaging in front of people that persuades them to take the actions I seek from them. And on the more personal side, I love being a dad. And ideally, traveling the world whenever we're allowed to resume doing.


Ryan  

That's a big thing for me to travel, like when I get back to normal, but it's nice to see different parts of the world meet different people, and just see different cultures. So you'll be on the same page there. I've known Scott for a couple of years now because of Sava, they are a client of Ballantine. So I've had the pleasure of working with Scott for the last couple of years. I like your answer about the hustle and getting people to say yes, because I know half of your job, at least in sales. And that's the same with me. So similar interests there. Yeah. Scott, let's talk about your morning routine. What does that look like? I know you've got a very long commute which kind of ironically dovetails into personal development in terms of like a commute in your classroom and your commute. But what is your morning routine look like? Well, can you share with us?


Scott  

Sure, I'm pretty spring-loaded. So I have an 80-mile commute. So you got to take that seriously just in terms of staying alert on such a long drive. So yeah, I pretty ritualistically go to bed at a reasonable hour. I actually like to shut the world. It's funny, you call it a morning ritual, I actually will turn my phone off one hour before I plan to go to bed. So I could slow my brain down. So I could stop thinking about the things that keep me passionate all day long. And, and perhaps this is true of others in the marketing and sales arena. But I constantly think about how to please customers. So it's always on my mind. So I have learned the hard way like most things are taught to turn off my phone and shut out the world for about 60 minutes before I want to close my eyes so that I have uninterrupted sleep. Otherwise, I'll be busy trying to solve the world's problems with one eye open while I'm lying in my bed. The same is true in the morning, when I wake up in the morning, I'm pretty spring-loaded, I pop right back right up and 15 minutes from the moment I wake up, I'm out the door, meaning I do everything the night before. And I try to get in about 90 minutes early to the office so that I can read. So I don't have a ritual where I run in the morning or things like that I don't really have the time I'm up at five o'clock in the morning, I'm at the office by five 630. And that's about 90 minutes before anybody starts showing up here, somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes. And I read I actually read up on the things I don't know well enough like marketing trends and sales trends. Maybe it's tools that are becoming falling into fashion or out of fashion. Maybe it's just behavior that I can learn new behaviors above that a demand generation buyer is beginning to exhibit that maybe five or 10 years ago they were not exhibiting so I scour the internet for reputable sources of information on how my buyers want to hear from me and how they want me to talk to them so that when that clock strikes, you know a 39 and I'm ready to go ahead and try to find them whether it's a passive digital campaign or literally knocking on a door I'm equipped with the latest greatest information on how best to persuade them.


Ryan  

So it sounds like your morning routine normally starts at the office with the self-education and the reading unless you listen to things in the car too. Well, what do you do on the long commute?


Scott  

Usually, I listen to talk radio, although very recently I have I haven't done nearly enough audiobooks as I could and very recently I've decided to go back to what I have. I have done that a little bit. But more recently decided I'm going to go back to it because it is an enormous amount of time and I usually listen to talk radio sent usually pretty light stuff because once I'm at my desk I'm pretty heady. And so I think of that drive as sort of reprieve sort of a break from how busy my mind gets while I'm at my desk, but more recently, I have come back to some, some reading.


Ryan  

I see. Yes, if you've got a long commute and if you if it was all business in the car, then when you got into the office, it's all business it might, it might be too much. Maybe there's a happy medium, like half of the time is an audible book. And then half the time is to talk radio where you kind of let your mind rest. I see what you're saying there. Yeah, there used to be some elements of rest, for sure. But in terms of like marketing and sales, because I do have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast, any books you could recommend with the marketing sales?


Scott  

Oh yeah, sure. I mean, the Bible is How to Win Friends by Dale Carnegie. It probably seems a bit trite to say that, right? Like I'm reaching for the lowest hanging fruit. But there's a reason that I'm reaching for the lowest hanging fruit because it really is brilliant. It's a brilliant read about how to get things out of your buyer. There's are so many incredible stories in that book. But that little comes to mind. Neil Rackham. SPIN Selling is a data-based argument on how to sell both in large sales and another with large consultative sales like you might sell. or physical sales. Like me, I'm in a manufacturing category or even small sales, but SPIN Selling, which is an acronym, does a beautiful job of explaining to you with data. What gets you closer to yeses. And another book that I've really grown fond of is Selling the Invisible. That book is terrific because it literally speaks to selling something that's amorphous and intangible. And because so much of what we do outside the actual ultimate Yes, is selling concepts and in themes, and even part of your personality, which is entirely invisible. I found that book instrumental in helping me deliver the stagecraft component to any pitch.


Ryan 

I love how strategic you are with the books that you read and the takeaways, the lessons that you're taking away from each book, and the way you set up your day. Let's stay on the topic of business right now. So let's pivot to challenges though. What challenges have you had to get? Maybe there's one that pops to the top of the front of your mind? What is one challenge you've had to get through in business? And how have you done it?


Scott 

Many years ago, it's been some time, but I see the problem how it manifested in me first many, many years ago, as I said a moment ago, we generally don't learn anything to we're painted into a corner and we're forced to learn that's usually adversity is, you know, sort of the place from which we all grow. Many, many years ago, when I was still a greenhorn, selling anything or marketing anything. I didn't perceive myself as an expert or a specialist at all, I didn't think of communications as a specialty, not because it isn't one. But because I didn't perceive myself as possessing a specialization. I thought, if you have a mouth, then you can communicate and you can communicate while then you know how to do sales or marketing. Same way, if you have a cell phone and Instagram account, you think of yourself as an Ansel Adams, you think of yourself as somebody who can take beautiful photographs of Yosemite and call yourself a photographer, photographers would probably take issue with that, however. So similarly, when I was young, I didn't think I had an expertise. So I'd never obligated myself to learn one because I didn't think I thought that, by virtue of speaking, I possessed that expertise. And it wasn't until many years later and many screw-ups later and many noses and many doors slamming on my face, and many embarrassments that I realized that marketing, communications, sales communications are all under the communications umbrella, and it is an expertise. And now that I am sort of time tested, I'm a pretty proven leader in my category. I'm humbly proud to say, I will say that the challenge that I face to answer your question is helping people around me or in my periphery, support my goals, helping them realize that they actually can be contributors that they're not just punches of time clocks, but they actually have the rare skills to build upon to become extraordinary communicators of messaging and information. So the challenge I find is not necessarily finding talent, but helping that talent realize that their moment is now at the moment they've been waiting for to shine, is sitting underneath their chins, and they just didn't know it because they never really fancied themselves, particularly groundbreaking on their own, they never perceived themselves as true change agents or force multipliers. So I think my challenge today and day to day is helping the people around me realize I actually can be extraordinary, be of extraordinary help, if only they perceive themselves as experts.


Ryan  

I think you're touching on leadership and how hard it is to lead people and motivate people, especially this like you mentioned. The other thing you mentioned that you touched upon was the imposter syndrome like feeling like you're you don't know enough you're not good enough. self-limiting beliefs we all have that we have that ourselves and in the people, you're trying to lead. Have a to a degree as well. And so yeah, that just all that combined adds to the complexity of, of leadership, motivating others. I think leadership now is such an important skill. And it's crucial now. And it's only going to get better, more and more.


Scott 

You know, it's funny, I don't want to belabor the point, but not even that long. I'd say maybe, you know, 5-10 years ago, I made the mistake of answering the question you just asked by saying, finding talent, that's very, very hard. That's my big challenge, finding talent. I've revised that to not finding talent, but helping a talent realize their potential because sometimes we don't think that we're doing it, we do our own potential, we think, you know, we're just a doer, we're just sort of a doer of tasks. And there's this concept known as self-perception theory, which, in broad strokes, suggests and dictates that the thing you perceive yourself as being every day, is what you become every day. Pretty simple. And so I've grown fond of revising what my biggest challenge is, from saying finding talent to helping talent realize that they are talented.


Ryan  

Makes total sense. Any strategies, any one or two strategies that you've used to make that a reality for the people that you manage?


Scott 

I'm a big storyteller, which probably just lends to the career choice I've made many years ago. But I believe that you know, I use analogies and metaphors a lot to help people see the things they're not seeing. So I generally like to tell people what I believe they're not seeing about themselves so that they can change what they see in the mirror. And you know, and I don't want to get sappy or over saccharin about any of this or to bleeding heart about it. But I've seen way too many times people perceive themselves as possessing jobs, they have a job, they don't have a career, they don't have a purpose. And there's no mission in their day-to-day, it's just a job. So what I like to do is point out to them, what would they do if they had a career telling you what a career would look like to you? And they end up describing the thing that they themselves are in the way of it's fascinating to me, how many times when you ask someone to describe a career, they're describing the things that they actually have the power to do every day, but they don't perceive themselves as having the power to do. So. I like to ask people, What would you like to be when you grow up? I don't care if you're 16? Are you 16? When they describe it, then you can describe to them the tests. They're there. They're in charge of every day that actually would lend to that career ambition of theirs. So introspection, I don't know if that's necessarily a tactic or a strategy. But I do like to ask people, What would be a perfect day for you? What's a great eight-hour day? What did it comprise? What did it involve? Sure enough, the things they think a great hour, eight hour day comprises right in their pants.


Ryan  

I think the answer here is you're asking them thought-provoking questions that get them to think and to clarify, I think that's the answer right there. Right?


Scott  

It's amazing to me how motivated people are if you remind them how special they are. It's amazing to me how people just spring up and they even straighten their spines, little in their chair, when you tell them how special they're capable of being. It's like, it's almost like they forgot. You know, I mean, I guess if you come in every day, and you sit at your cubicle, sure, you could lose sight of it. But Ryan, I mean, I came from absolutely nothing. So I had to either fake I mean, literally nothing. So I had to figure out whether or not I had a skill or, you know, an ability to contribute to this world around me. So perhaps it has made me a leader that is keenly sensitive to people who may perceive themselves as just doers who have tasks. So yes, I think I do ask them to look inward. And I'm always amazed at how inspired people can become just by asking them to take a little bit deeper look at what they're contributing and how actually important their contributions are.


Ryan 

That's a great insight. I've got one more question for you, Scott. And we'll wrap up with you telling everyone how they can learn more about you. Sure more about Sabah. Share some websites with us whatever you want. My last question for you is, what is your definition and or approach to happiness?


Scott  

I consider myself very fortunate. I take it. I'm pretty humble about how fortunate I am, that I wake up and do what I love doing every day. I know how scarcely found that is in someone's day-to-day life. So I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to enjoy what I do every day. Happiness, it's funny, you know, I turned I recently turned 50 And it didn't come without its revelations. I would say that you know if you want to be the happy answer to you. Set an extraordinarily high standard for your output and then chase that even if you fall short of it every day be in pursuit of it. And please yourself, make sure that you are happy because time is fleeting and wasting your time. trying to please other people, or meet other people's standards I have learned in 50 years of living is a complete and utter waste of time.


Ryan  

Your first answer made me think of a book I'm reading right now called The Four Agreements to Personal Freedom. And one of the agreements you have to make with yourself is always doing your best. Is that your first answer, isn't it that made me think of that. So Well, thanks for sharing. Scott. This is great. This conversation flew by. What's the best way someone can connect with you or learn more about you? Where should they go?


Scott 

Yeah, I'm pretty easily found. If you Google Scott Dailey, you can find me on LinkedIn using Scott Dailey or Scott Patrick Dailey. I've grown to use both over the years. I'm very easily found on the internet because I've been doing marketing for so long, so it's not hard to find something that I've said or published. My company is savacable.com. Not particularly related to this topic, but you can find me on LinkedIn, probably the best and fastest way.


Ryan  

Well, Thanks, Scott. Thanks for your time. And thanks, everyone, for listening.


Ryan  

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