Meeting Title: Brainforge SOW Draft Review Date: 2026-01-28 Meeting participants: Luke Scorziell, Clarence Stone
WEBVTT
1 00:00:07.290 ⇒ 00:00:08.580 Clarence Stone: What’s up?
2 00:00:08.760 ⇒ 00:00:10.630 Luke Scorziell: Hey, Clarence, how’s it going?
3 00:00:10.990 ⇒ 00:00:13.709 Clarence Stone: It’s going. It’s been a busy week.
4 00:00:14.030 ⇒ 00:00:15.820 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I know, it’s picking up.
5 00:00:16.160 ⇒ 00:00:16.950 Luke Scorziell: Which is a good thing.
6 00:00:17.030 ⇒ 00:00:17.949 Clarence Stone: How are you?
7 00:00:18.780 ⇒ 00:00:23.429 Luke Scorziell: Good! Yeah, I was just… sorry, I went out too late, I was like…
8 00:00:23.930 ⇒ 00:00:37.419 Luke Scorziell: building a… I go to GTM Hub for myself and Notion, and I like… so I can, like, kind of get sucked into that stuff, which is good, because it’s… once I have the system set up, it’s super helpful, but yeah, it’s…
9 00:00:37.550 ⇒ 00:00:40.300 Luke Scorziell: Still, like, designing some stuff, so.
10 00:00:40.880 ⇒ 00:00:41.950 Clarence Stone: Yeah. But…
11 00:00:42.420 ⇒ 00:00:47.709 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, doing good. Settling in, I think. I feel like each week, I’m… feel more, like.
12 00:00:48.370 ⇒ 00:00:52.730 Luke Scorziell: Confident, and like, we’re making progress, so…
13 00:00:52.940 ⇒ 00:01:00.019 Clarence Stone: Cool. Is there any areas where you think you’re still lacking in knowledge or skills or experience?
14 00:01:00.810 ⇒ 00:01:07.680 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think my knowledge of, like, or just confidence in talking about the services is growing.
15 00:01:07.930 ⇒ 00:01:14.719 Luke Scorziell: line, like, Just understanding, like, the go-to-market motion is growing.
16 00:01:14.940 ⇒ 00:01:16.150 Luke Scorziell: I think I’m…
17 00:01:17.610 ⇒ 00:01:24.679 Luke Scorziell: I’m starting to kind of figure out, like, the ICP thing is clicking to me in the context of how we work with Brainforge, of, like.
18 00:01:25.030 ⇒ 00:01:30.509 Luke Scorziell: We might just have one ICP per campaign. It’s not just that we have one ICP, like, overall.
19 00:01:33.200 ⇒ 00:01:38.779 Luke Scorziell: I guess I’m probably lacking the gaps that I… I think, like, a big area of learning this week was just, like.
20 00:01:40.150 ⇒ 00:01:43.980 Luke Scorziell: You just gotta, like, make time to send messages.
21 00:01:44.490 ⇒ 00:01:48.690 Luke Scorziell: And, like, do the stuff that you don’t want to do. Or, like, the non-glamorous stuff.
22 00:01:49.000 ⇒ 00:01:49.930 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
23 00:01:50.080 ⇒ 00:01:56.330 Luke Scorziell: So… so that’s… yeah, I just set aside, like, a time, like, an hour for Ryan and I to just sit down and, like.
24 00:01:56.740 ⇒ 00:02:04.030 Luke Scorziell: reply out of people’s LinkedIn comments, send LinkedIn comments to new people, send out campaign things, and then…
25 00:02:04.670 ⇒ 00:02:10.610 Luke Scorziell: So, it’s been, yeah, it’s been good. I think, lacking, like.
26 00:02:11.430 ⇒ 00:02:16.180 Luke Scorziell: I think I want to learn more about partnerships still,
27 00:02:16.790 ⇒ 00:02:19.140 Luke Scorziell: I mean, I’m sure there’s, like, yeah, there’s probably a lot, but I…
28 00:02:19.140 ⇒ 00:02:21.309 Clarence Stone: That world goes deep, Luke.
29 00:02:21.310 ⇒ 00:02:22.340 Luke Scorziell: What’d you say?
30 00:02:22.340 ⇒ 00:02:23.800 Clarence Stone: That partnership world.
31 00:02:23.800 ⇒ 00:02:26.730 Luke Scorziell: Oh, yeah, I know, I’m like, it’s… but it seems to be…
32 00:02:27.230 ⇒ 00:02:32.000 Luke Scorziell: like, in some way, the driver of everything that we’re doing, so…
33 00:02:32.000 ⇒ 00:02:35.820 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, it is a massive channel,
34 00:02:38.780 ⇒ 00:02:42.119 Clarence Stone: I… I think it’s gonna get disrupted soon enough.
35 00:02:43.060 ⇒ 00:02:43.829 Luke Scorziell: Oh, right.
36 00:02:43.830 ⇒ 00:02:46.180 Clarence Stone: Cause it, to me, it… it… so…
37 00:02:48.430 ⇒ 00:02:57.060 Clarence Stone: let’s, like, macroeconomics. But, by the way, like, I have this weird learning pattern where I do pattern matching across topics that
38 00:02:57.620 ⇒ 00:03:07.309 Clarence Stone: So, long story short, you know, if every market is about reducing inefficiencies, right, because, like.
39 00:03:08.310 ⇒ 00:03:11.409 Clarence Stone: You’re gonna capitalize on an inefficiency if it exists.
40 00:03:11.910 ⇒ 00:03:12.730 Clarence Stone: Right.
41 00:03:13.100 ⇒ 00:03:14.080 Clarence Stone: if…
42 00:03:14.290 ⇒ 00:03:29.060 Clarence Stone: You know, they’re… basically, the relationship is, you know, somebody providing the service, the person who wants to get the service, and now you have a middleman that is, like, somehow connected in those things because they’re the vendor procurement system for doing that.
43 00:03:29.500 ⇒ 00:03:37.590 Clarence Stone: You know, in all outcomes, what will happen eventually is that person in the middle is going to be rendered, you know, useless.
44 00:03:37.590 ⇒ 00:03:38.120 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
45 00:03:38.430 ⇒ 00:03:42.710 Clarence Stone: Right, yeah. The person in the middle takes over for that, you know, tail end.
46 00:03:42.880 ⇒ 00:03:43.440 Clarence Stone: Right.
47 00:03:43.920 ⇒ 00:03:46.940 Clarence Stone: It means all of it, or a person in the middle is not gonna exist.
48 00:03:47.900 ⇒ 00:03:48.980 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, thanks.
49 00:03:49.380 ⇒ 00:03:55.850 Luke Scorziell: I mean, I was… I was just listening to a podcast on, my water engine.
50 00:03:56.360 ⇒ 00:04:01.339 Luke Scorziell: Whenever I, you know, sat down, and then I’m like, but .
51 00:04:01.340 ⇒ 00:04:05.919 Clarence Stone: You can go for water, no big deal. This is my end of the day meeting.
52 00:04:05.920 ⇒ 00:04:10.239 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, just that Snowflake is building, like, BI.
53 00:04:10.420 ⇒ 00:04:18.709 Luke Scorziell: Inside of their platform, and so the… basically the question was, like,
54 00:04:20.250 ⇒ 00:04:28.379 Luke Scorziell: what’s… why would someone want to partner with Snowflake anymore? Or, like, are… basically, like, are all the people that you’re quote-unquote, like, friendly with right now?
55 00:04:28.600 ⇒ 00:04:37.730 Luke Scorziell: going to become, like… like, are you just gonna eat them? And the guy, like, didn’t… he didn’t really answer, so… which is, like, obviously, I guess that’s what’s gonna happen if they don’t eat them.
56 00:04:37.730 ⇒ 00:04:44.899 Clarence Stone: Yes. One of the new policies that we have on the current Stope Lake implementation projects I’m on
57 00:04:45.120 ⇒ 00:04:48.940 Clarence Stone: is, to use only native Snowflake features.
58 00:04:50.840 ⇒ 00:05:03.999 Clarence Stone: So, ML features like anomaly detection, or pattern matching, like, Snowflake finally delivered all of those automated models. Like, why would I use anything else, then?
59 00:05:05.550 ⇒ 00:05:06.290 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
60 00:05:07.180 ⇒ 00:05:20.180 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, I guess my whole point with the vendor stuff is, like, this is a temporary inefficiency, maximize and benefit from it, but I don’t think this will last very long. The more these,
61 00:05:20.260 ⇒ 00:05:32.960 Clarence Stone: system vendors are trying to push the proliferation of their services, the less likely these companies are willing to continue to pay for these things. Like, a lot of companies are fed up with
62 00:05:33.250 ⇒ 00:05:44.159 Clarence Stone: Workday, Salesforce, SAP integrations, right? And the new hot topic that I hear in most boardrooms these days is, why do we keep paying them this.
63 00:05:45.720 ⇒ 00:05:46.280 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
64 00:05:46.680 ⇒ 00:06:04.590 Clarence Stone: And, you know, you move… you move AI, like, another 2-3 years ahead, where somebody goes, hey, I need a platform to help me manage my sales pipeline, track the funnel, and this is how I want it to work. I mean, future Lou can probably just single-shot an application in a system that works for him.
65 00:06:06.220 ⇒ 00:06:13.320 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, I’ve already… that’s what I would do on Notion, and I mean, Notion is, like, a very light version of that, but, like, obviously there’s, like, lovable and…
66 00:06:14.020 ⇒ 00:06:17.790 Luke Scorziell: I guess whatever level of expertise you have, you can…
67 00:06:18.020 ⇒ 00:06:21.649 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Could… could deep into that, but… Huh.
68 00:06:21.960 ⇒ 00:06:28.839 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, that’s interesting, man. I mean, I guess for now, yeah, probably won’t abandon the partnership play, but…
69 00:06:28.840 ⇒ 00:06:29.360 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean…
70 00:06:29.360 ⇒ 00:06:31.990 Luke Scorziell: That’d be good for future, future thinking.
71 00:06:32.060 ⇒ 00:06:39.140 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it’s good to just know how the systems are working today, because I think a lot of them will change. That’s my belief, though.
72 00:06:39.140 ⇒ 00:06:44.900 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Well, what are you… so, what are you working on? I’m kind of curious. And then I’d love to talk to you about, like, the stuff that you saw on
73 00:06:45.930 ⇒ 00:06:47.280 Luke Scorziell: Sandrous proposal, too.
74 00:06:47.520 ⇒ 00:06:52.689 Clarence Stone: I have two of my own clients, well, three, technically. I have,
75 00:06:53.220 ⇒ 00:06:57.079 Clarence Stone: 5 different projects at EY that I’m advising on.
76 00:06:58.040 ⇒ 00:07:04.269 Clarence Stone: there’s a company called Casper Companies, out of… Shiner, Texas.
77 00:07:04.630 ⇒ 00:07:17.059 Clarence Stone: They’re like the most Texas, Texas company. They make truck beds, ammo, they do gold trading and storage. They have a gold ETF coming out.
78 00:07:17.920 ⇒ 00:07:37.329 Clarence Stone: they make horse saddles, right? Billion-dollar, family-owned PE conglomerate. They just invested in creating a team of 8 AI professionals that they brought in, to transform that organization entirely. So that’s one of the other clients, and they did a whole
79 00:07:37.630 ⇒ 00:07:46.449 Clarence Stone: planning meeting for next year, so I assigned most of that today, and then client 3 is, like, a…
80 00:07:46.860 ⇒ 00:07:55.679 Clarence Stone: like, medium-sized regional law firm here in Texas that’s been using, you know, my core technologies when I first started building them out, so those two.
81 00:07:55.680 ⇒ 00:07:56.310 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
82 00:07:56.310 ⇒ 00:08:02.720 Clarence Stone: or kind of been on the back burner that… that I kind of rotate around, and back to… to bring Forge on, yeah.
83 00:08:03.030 ⇒ 00:08:06.970 Luke Scorziell: Oh, that’s cool. And are you doing Snowflake implementations, or what is the… how are you…
84 00:08:07.270 ⇒ 00:08:24.970 Clarence Stone: So for UI, like, most of my work with them is data analytics and AI. And so if you’re talking about Snowflake at the enterprise level for, wealth asset management, so, like, private equity and hedge funds, that’s my category.
85 00:08:24.970 ⇒ 00:08:25.680 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
86 00:08:26.020 ⇒ 00:08:35.969 Clarence Stone: And so, so, they never got this splash of technology. It was always given to the marketing teams, the sales teams, and stuff like that.
87 00:08:36.049 ⇒ 00:08:56.020 Clarence Stone: Yeah. What they’re using it for now is kind of crazy, Luke. So, they’ve never consolidated deal data, they’ve never consolidated fund data, right? And now, if a hedge fund is saying, hey, I want to stand up this, technology investment fund, I want to find investors, right?
88 00:08:56.020 ⇒ 00:08:56.580 Luke Scorziell: Hmm.
89 00:08:57.190 ⇒ 00:09:10.860 Clarence Stone: For the clients that we worked on that have their data consolidated in Snowflake, we can actually run a prediction analysis on all the investments that their existing clients have made, and their likelihood of investing in this new fund.
90 00:09:12.530 ⇒ 00:09:21.529 Clarence Stone: Right, and say, like, hey, here’s a thousand investors, here’s the top 100 most likely to invest, this is how much they typically have invested in categories like this.
91 00:09:22.140 ⇒ 00:09:22.970 Luke Scorziell: Oh, wow.
92 00:09:22.970 ⇒ 00:09:23.890 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
93 00:09:23.890 ⇒ 00:09:28.479 Luke Scorziell: So then they can go with, like, a much more custom, personalized, like, outreach or something, too?
94 00:09:28.480 ⇒ 00:09:42.890 Clarence Stone: Exactly, exactly. So they can put together that deal portfolio way quicker, right? Like, they can probably hit, like, 60% of their funding, like, within a month or two, instead of, like, looking for those investors wining and dining and all that nonsense.
95 00:09:43.230 ⇒ 00:09:44.170 Luke Scorziell: Wow.
96 00:09:44.170 ⇒ 00:09:59.860 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it gets even cooler, because now we can do tax modeling, so what we’re working on next for, like, the clients that are paying out the nose for this is, you know all of these tax or tariff regulations that keep changing by the day, the minute, whatever?
97 00:09:59.860 ⇒ 00:10:00.630 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
98 00:10:00.630 ⇒ 00:10:14.139 Clarence Stone: like, we use Snowflake as the backbone, because everything is related, right? So, like, a finance professional could say, if we sell this, you know, soccer stadium we have in Amsterdam.
99 00:10:14.180 ⇒ 00:10:20.670 Clarence Stone: How will it impact our tax returns for our Cayman entity that technically owns it?
100 00:10:21.940 ⇒ 00:10:31.189 Clarence Stone: Right? Oh, well, you know, good European laws, blah blah blah blah blah, right? It gives you all of that, but the coolest thing that this tool has been doing is saying, like, hey.
101 00:10:31.610 ⇒ 00:10:40.149 Clarence Stone: you are, you know, 30 days out from making this a long-term holding. If you hold this asset for another 30 days, you’ll save 15% in taxes.
102 00:10:41.450 ⇒ 00:10:42.190 Luke Scorziell: Oh, wow.
103 00:10:42.190 ⇒ 00:11:00.030 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so they’re like, yeah, this stuff works, this stuff is amazing, it’s giving us insights into decision-making and deals, so now they’re creating data feeds on a daily basis for all the investments that their hedge fund teams are making. So we’re doing day-to-day tax impact projections on
104 00:11:00.030 ⇒ 00:11:02.450 Clarence Stone: The trades of the… from the day before.
105 00:11:03.570 ⇒ 00:11:04.200 Luke Scorziell: Wow.
106 00:11:04.610 ⇒ 00:11:05.240 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
107 00:11:05.530 ⇒ 00:11:06.820 Luke Scorziell: That’s crazy. Heh.
108 00:11:07.540 ⇒ 00:11:21.750 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, yeah, stuff like projects that we were working on, and that’s gonna proliferate across the board, like, into legal documentation, to, you know, standing up new investment vehicles and stuff like that. Alright, I think it’s gonna be big.
109 00:11:22.660 ⇒ 00:11:25.319 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of insane.
110 00:11:28.480 ⇒ 00:11:35.409 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, just, I mean, I just… I’m thinking more philosophically about the… how AI is gonna just drive more…
111 00:11:35.700 ⇒ 00:11:37.860 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, money into the…
112 00:11:37.990 ⇒ 00:11:44.010 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, I mean… I mean, it… it certainly is. Like…
113 00:11:44.310 ⇒ 00:11:47.960 Clarence Stone: I don’t feel good about the fact that, like.
114 00:11:48.110 ⇒ 00:11:51.610 Clarence Stone: the organizations or teams that I’ve worked with
115 00:11:51.910 ⇒ 00:11:55.699 Clarence Stone: Only have, like, a decreasing number of employees.
116 00:11:56.390 ⇒ 00:11:57.040 Clarence Stone: Like…
117 00:11:58.300 ⇒ 00:11:59.859 Clarence Stone: You know…
118 00:12:00.200 ⇒ 00:12:08.850 Clarence Stone: there’s a client in Texas that I know very well, and, like, I’ve worked with them since I’ve joined EY, and, like, their tax team is 3 people now.
119 00:12:09.520 ⇒ 00:12:10.349 Luke Scorziell: Oh, wow.
120 00:12:10.350 ⇒ 00:12:12.660 Clarence Stone: We automated everybody.
121 00:12:13.880 ⇒ 00:12:14.580 Luke Scorziell: Cheers.
122 00:12:14.740 ⇒ 00:12:29.750 Clarence Stone: Yeah, EY will come and take your tax returns and do it for you, EY will do your analysis for you, EY will set up your finance dashboards and displays, like, all you really have is 3 people to, you know, like, directly talk to related to company things now.
123 00:12:31.200 ⇒ 00:12:35.349 Clarence Stone: Speaking of managed services, we have managed the service away from them.
124 00:12:36.490 ⇒ 00:12:44.620 Luke Scorziell: yeah, that’s interesting. And is that, like, typical of most consulting firms, or is that… I mean, EY kind of has, like, the financial side
125 00:12:44.750 ⇒ 00:12:46.320 Luke Scorziell: More, maybe, than, like…
126 00:12:46.710 ⇒ 00:12:47.090 Clarence Stone: Hmm.
127 00:12:47.090 ⇒ 00:12:51.889 Luke Scorziell: Alright, I would assume that, like, Bain, BCG, McKinsey.
128 00:12:52.310 ⇒ 00:12:53.220 Clarence Stone: So…
129 00:12:53.850 ⇒ 00:12:55.910 Luke Scorziell: But, yeah, because Eli’s, like, the accounting…
130 00:12:56.280 ⇒ 00:12:56.899 Clarence Stone: Fair enough.
131 00:12:57.300 ⇒ 00:12:59.740 Clarence Stone: So, MKC and…
132 00:13:00.720 ⇒ 00:13:09.409 Clarence Stone: MBB’s strategy is a little bit different. They… they always, for the longest time, up until last year, they were like, we don’t do implementations.
133 00:13:10.050 ⇒ 00:13:11.450 Clarence Stone: We just do strut.
134 00:13:11.760 ⇒ 00:13:14.669 Clarence Stone: So they’ll come and build you a slide deck and say, this is what you should do.
135 00:13:16.090 ⇒ 00:13:17.890 Clarence Stone: I’m charging out the notes for it.
136 00:13:18.050 ⇒ 00:13:21.059 Clarence Stone: And then connect you to somebody like Accenture to do the work.
137 00:13:22.510 ⇒ 00:13:23.070 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
138 00:13:24.000 ⇒ 00:13:28.759 Clarence Stone: McKinsey is… is already implementing forward-deployed consultants.
139 00:13:29.160 ⇒ 00:13:34.689 Clarence Stone: To literally sit in offices and help directly, you know, support roles, so…
140 00:13:35.160 ⇒ 00:13:50.860 Clarence Stone: their perspective is changing a lot. It’s definitely eating into the margins of Big Four, because Big Four used to be, you know, that tier that would do the end-to-end delivery. Like, we’ll come in, we’ll give you advice, but you can also buy all of that from us, too. You just let us do it.
141 00:13:51.240 ⇒ 00:13:51.810 Clarence Stone: Right.
142 00:13:51.810 ⇒ 00:13:52.440 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
143 00:13:52.440 ⇒ 00:13:57.610 Clarence Stone: that’s the business that MBB kind of lost out on, but they’re picking up the pieces on it.
144 00:13:58.040 ⇒ 00:13:59.280 Clarence Stone: And,
145 00:13:59.940 ⇒ 00:14:10.780 Clarence Stone: It’s unfortunate, because the market overall is just getting smaller, because, you know, Fortune 500, not necessarily making, gangbusters, levels of profit anymore, so…
146 00:14:11.610 ⇒ 00:14:12.190 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
147 00:14:12.360 ⇒ 00:14:12.840 Luke Scorziell: Gotcha.
148 00:14:12.840 ⇒ 00:14:14.000 Clarence Stone: using Dynamics.
149 00:14:14.310 ⇒ 00:14:22.169 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, everything’s changing. Well, I could… I could ask questions about all this stuff all day, but I want to share your thoughts, too, on that,
150 00:14:22.530 ⇒ 00:14:25.829 Luke Scorziell: On the SOW, because it’s the first one, it’s the first one I’ve written.
151 00:14:26.190 ⇒ 00:14:28.160 Luke Scorziell: Which I, like, sort of wrote.
152 00:14:28.550 ⇒ 00:14:36.680 Luke Scorziell: sort of… I mean, I used cursor, and then prompted it, because I’ve… I guess I’ve… maybe at first I under-accredited myself a little bit with, like.
153 00:14:38.780 ⇒ 00:14:45.730 Luke Scorziell: I don’t understand how any of this stuff works. Like, the engineers need to do all of it for me. And now I’m like, okay, like, it’s not, like, so…
154 00:14:46.200 ⇒ 00:14:52.130 Luke Scorziell: Or it’s, like, I’m starting to understand more, but I don’t… this… maybe this is an area that I probably need to learn in, is, like.
155 00:14:53.140 ⇒ 00:15:09.250 Luke Scorziell: like, what are our… what are things that are, like, possible that we can do? How do I, like, pitch clients, be on the phone with people, and, like, be able to communicate? Like, I think I can communicate kind of the high-level value, but in terms of, like.
156 00:15:09.380 ⇒ 00:15:13.819 Luke Scorziell: like, riding the SOW. I mean, I’m not a CSO, so it’s like…
157 00:15:13.820 ⇒ 00:15:14.310 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
158 00:15:14.390 ⇒ 00:15:18.930 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know how much of that is even in my purview, or if I should just be handing it off to someone else to write.
159 00:15:18.930 ⇒ 00:15:37.680 Clarence Stone: Luke, right off the bat, your document was very good. I’m not at all just looking at it, saying, like, what the hell is this? It looks great. I mean, I would have followed up on that SOW if somebody sent that to me, and, you know, I would have given you the same comments for adjustments that I’m about to give you now, but, like, it was a good work product, so…
160 00:15:37.680 ⇒ 00:15:41.169 Clarence Stone: Like, hats off. Don’t worry about it and stuff.
161 00:15:42.760 ⇒ 00:15:53.149 Clarence Stone: But, yeah, for a first swag, amazing. Amazing for, you know, your first swing. I kind of want to give you the tactical pieces instead of directly telling you what to do.
162 00:15:53.150 ⇒ 00:15:53.860 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, that’s fine.
163 00:15:54.140 ⇒ 00:16:00.419 Clarence Stone: The overarching theme or recommendation I have is don’t promise precise things.
164 00:16:00.630 ⇒ 00:16:05.579 Clarence Stone: Because the whole point of an SOW is supposed to be an agreement of how we’re gonna work.
165 00:16:07.470 ⇒ 00:16:08.379 Luke Scorziell: Oh, huh.
166 00:16:08.520 ⇒ 00:16:26.640 Clarence Stone: So, like, I like to bring things to a personal level, because what you’re doing is fundamentally relationships. Like, you can remove the AI data topic out of everything, and then just say, like, fundamentally, what are you doing here with the statement of work? Well, you’re talking to whoever over there is at Sam Ash, saying, like, hey.
167 00:16:26.820 ⇒ 00:16:36.609 Clarence Stone: This is what we want to offer you, this is how we can work with you, this is what we would give you, but in order for us to give you this, you have to give us this.
168 00:16:37.460 ⇒ 00:16:44.440 Clarence Stone: Right? And, you know, if these circumstances happen, this is how we will deal with it. That’s what an SOW is.
169 00:16:45.690 ⇒ 00:16:46.360 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
170 00:16:46.360 ⇒ 00:16:46.890 Clarence Stone: Right.
171 00:16:47.210 ⇒ 00:16:58.290 Clarence Stone: And in that way, like, you’ll make some edits to this right now, but you will technically be building out based on the comments and feedback of the person you’re presenting this to.
172 00:16:59.590 ⇒ 00:17:00.300 Clarence Stone: Right.
173 00:17:00.300 ⇒ 00:17:00.940 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
174 00:17:00.940 ⇒ 00:17:11.390 Clarence Stone: Like, hey, it says here, like, you want to meet weekly, but, like, dude, we’re so busy, Luke. Like, can you just do, like, bi-weekly check-ins? Send us a status report every week. Cool! Update it.
175 00:17:11.970 ⇒ 00:17:12.520 Clarence Stone: Right.
176 00:17:12.520 ⇒ 00:17:13.220 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
177 00:17:13.220 ⇒ 00:17:22.299 Clarence Stone: So it’s gonna be a conversation, so, like, to position it as a conversation starter, if it’s the first SOW that you… that they’re seeing, is totally fine.
178 00:17:23.280 ⇒ 00:17:23.670 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
179 00:17:23.750 ⇒ 00:17:37.940 Clarence Stone: hey, you know, here’s the, you know, the standard set of ways that we like to work with our clients, but, you know, every SOW is a conversation on how you want to work with us. So, want to hear what you think about this document.
180 00:17:39.320 ⇒ 00:17:40.100 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
181 00:17:40.100 ⇒ 00:17:40.610 Clarence Stone: Right.
182 00:17:40.610 ⇒ 00:17:46.200 Luke Scorziell: So, okay, so that… well, that’s an interesting framing then, because it’s less of, like.
183 00:17:47.300 ⇒ 00:17:54.370 Luke Scorziell: Like, this is something that’s in process, that it’s just kind of getting the first… I don’t know if my video’s a little freezing, but, like, it’s getting the…
184 00:17:56.070 ⇒ 00:17:58.770 Luke Scorziell: Look, it’s getting the conversation started versus…
185 00:17:59.510 ⇒ 00:18:02.540 Luke Scorziell: Like, this is, like, the final… thing that’s…
186 00:18:02.540 ⇒ 00:18:20.379 Clarence Stone: By the time you sign the SOW, it would have formed as a finalized conversation where both parties go… both parties go, I agree to the terms, I agree to the terms, right? But, like, I just wanted to, like, this is what I put in the write-up for, Greg as well, is like.
187 00:18:20.780 ⇒ 00:18:34.000 Clarence Stone: like, use your first SOW as a conversation opener, that everything is up for play, that everything can be, you know, like, changed or adopted to whatever they need as a customer, as long as the ask is reasonable, right?
188 00:18:34.000 ⇒ 00:18:34.360 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
189 00:18:34.840 ⇒ 00:18:49.219 Clarence Stone: And then, like, build it together with them. Saying, like, oh, you know, we still… like, maybe they say, like, we only want bi-weekly check-ins. Well, you can go back and say, we prefer it if we just send you an email of what we’re working on every week, at least.
190 00:18:50.000 ⇒ 00:18:56.580 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, no client’s ever gonna be mad about that. Like, alright, fine, like, keep it then, right?
191 00:18:56.580 ⇒ 00:18:57.430 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah.
192 00:18:57.920 ⇒ 00:19:16.629 Clarence Stone: So, I think the skill set you’re gonna hone is, like, how do I kickstart that conversation, and then how do I keep that conversation alive long enough so that, you know, their aspirations for wanting to buy this doesn’t dwindle by the time, you know, it gets finalized?
193 00:19:18.490 ⇒ 00:19:29.070 Clarence Stone: Right. I’m trying to think about, like, other life purchase decisions that have a long-tail decision-making process. There’s something like buying a car, right? Like, if somebody, like.
194 00:19:29.380 ⇒ 00:19:34.020 Clarence Stone: if the sales guy at the car dealership is like, Luke, this is the deal.
195 00:19:34.300 ⇒ 00:19:38.029 Clarence Stone: We’re not gonna change it. There’s no free formats here.
196 00:19:38.530 ⇒ 00:19:47.609 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Like, how would you react? You go, well, I wasn’t thinking about buying a car today, I was just wondering what the price was, and now you just made me not want to buy it.
197 00:19:48.870 ⇒ 00:19:49.690 Clarence Stone: Right.
198 00:19:50.130 ⇒ 00:19:55.460 Clarence Stone: Whereas, you go, oh, I’m not looking to buy, but this is a cool car, thanks for the test drive, and he goes, hey.
199 00:19:56.360 ⇒ 00:20:00.160 Clarence Stone: Luke, like… What about this car did you like?
200 00:20:01.260 ⇒ 00:20:13.820 Clarence Stone: Right. And then, okay, what about the things that you don’t like about it? Okay, well, how about this car instead? It’s 5 grand cheaper and has all the top-line features that you wanted. Do you want to take a look at what that comes out to as a bottom-line price?
201 00:20:14.180 ⇒ 00:20:21.549 Clarence Stone: Well, essentially, he has… has started a conversation with you to say, what does a good deal look like to you?
202 00:20:22.790 ⇒ 00:20:26.279 Luke Scorziell: Right? And now it becomes a back-and-forth exchange of.
203 00:20:26.420 ⇒ 00:20:29.430 Clarence Stone: I’m interested, right, for as long as.
204 00:20:29.430 ⇒ 00:20:29.770 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
205 00:20:29.770 ⇒ 00:20:36.410 Clarence Stone: keep making the deal better for me on my side, but I know that I have to concede certain things, too.
206 00:20:39.200 ⇒ 00:20:48.689 Luke Scorziell: And that… because, like, then what they give back, obviously, is, like, the money and… or, like, what they pay, I guess? Maybe there’s more, too, but then, like, do you…
207 00:20:49.330 ⇒ 00:20:54.780 Luke Scorziell: Would that typically go in to… The SOW?
208 00:20:55.040 ⇒ 00:20:59.630 Luke Scorziell: At first, or is it kind of like, here’s what we would maybe expect, but then…
209 00:20:59.880 ⇒ 00:21:00.959 Luke Scorziell: I guess we have it.
210 00:21:01.450 ⇒ 00:21:04.019 Luke Scorziell: Here of, like, the 60,000.
211 00:21:04.190 ⇒ 00:21:11.329 Clarence Stone: The way I open up every pricing conversation is, this is our standardized pricing for this type of work.
212 00:21:11.750 ⇒ 00:21:19.430 Clarence Stone: Like, I dissociate the fact that, like, it’s about you. Like, no, like, I represent Brainforge.
213 00:21:19.760 ⇒ 00:21:22.600 Clarence Stone: At Brainforge, we charge this much for this.
214 00:21:25.100 ⇒ 00:21:34.090 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Like, they could come back, though, and say, like, oh, we were hoping to get it within our budget at this price. You go, oh, got it!
215 00:21:34.280 ⇒ 00:21:38.050 Clarence Stone: Well, let’s take a look at what the Brainforge team can do for you within that price.
216 00:21:39.540 ⇒ 00:21:40.240 Clarence Stone: Right.
217 00:21:40.290 ⇒ 00:21:57.489 Clarence Stone: like, hey, I can’t get you, you know, 2X ROAS, 4X ROAS, but I can get you to, like, 3X, which is already exceeding, you know, industry standards, you know, for your price. And, you know, if you wanted to continue that work with us, we can give you a discounted rate to continue.
218 00:21:57.520 ⇒ 00:22:12.519 Clarence Stone: to push towards your goal, right? Like, that’s the back and forth that happens. So, like, the takeaway I want you to get from that, though, is you don’t want to be overly specific in terms of, like, saying this task is going to take us this amount of weeks.
219 00:22:14.740 ⇒ 00:22:20.479 Clarence Stone: Right, because then there’s no room for, like, maneuvering.
220 00:22:22.330 ⇒ 00:22:30.559 Clarence Stone: Right, because that person is going to come back, when you reduce the prices, you’re gonna reduce hours, and you’re gonna be like, oh, this is gonna take the team twice as long now.
221 00:22:30.730 ⇒ 00:22:32.370 Clarence Stone: To get it into their budget.
222 00:22:32.520 ⇒ 00:22:39.020 Clarence Stone: They’re gonna come back and say, but Luke, last time you showed us this, you said it was gonna be done in a month, now you’re giving us a two-month timeline.
223 00:22:40.370 ⇒ 00:22:47.649 Clarence Stone: Right? Throughout this whole time, you never had to tell them what the timeline was. It’s like, hey, this is what the cost is.
224 00:22:47.910 ⇒ 00:22:57.449 Clarence Stone: Right? And then, if they ask for a breakdown, then you can give it to them, but I don’t like to offer specifics unless it’s what drives the deal closing.
225 00:23:01.170 ⇒ 00:23:09.819 Clarence Stone: Because I think that’s… that’s where you’re kind of gonna run into that technical skill set limitation, where you just go, I don’t… I know what needs to be done, like.
226 00:23:09.820 ⇒ 00:23:10.340 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
227 00:23:10.340 ⇒ 00:23:20.799 Clarence Stone: years, but I don’t know how long that takes, right? And I don’t even know what Sam Ash’s data looks like. So, like, am I out of bounds by saying this will take 2 weeks? I don’t know.
228 00:23:20.940 ⇒ 00:23:22.970 Clarence Stone: Right? And you won’t know that.
229 00:23:24.390 ⇒ 00:23:28.550 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and, like, I pro- like, some of this stuff is just, like, I’m only gonna get so…
230 00:23:29.140 ⇒ 00:23:35.380 Luke Scorziell: I mean, obviously, I can study and, like, listen in on calls and whatnot, but I’m, you know, to some degree…
231 00:23:35.690 ⇒ 00:23:38.109 Luke Scorziell: There will always be a separation.
232 00:23:38.700 ⇒ 00:23:41.089 Luke Scorziell: Between what I know and what the engineers…
233 00:23:41.270 ⇒ 00:23:44.779 Luke Scorziell: are doing, and, you know, on a daily basis. But even with the.
234 00:23:44.780 ⇒ 00:23:48.819 Clarence Stone: But it also doesn’t mean that they’re always right, by the way, Luke.
235 00:23:49.020 ⇒ 00:24:00.900 Clarence Stone: So, that’s another topic, but yeah, I mean, like, I just don’t think you have to go into that level of fidelity. So, when you broke it down into, like, week 1 to 3, we’re gonna do this. No, just like, say phase one is this.
236 00:24:01.390 ⇒ 00:24:20.910 Clarence Stone: And we will exit phase one knowing, you know, exactly what we need to do to raise your OAS, or get you the sales numbers you want, or whatever it is, right? This step ends when we have a solid approach on, you know, the technical things, the data updates, you know, whatever click optimization we need to do to get you to your goal.
237 00:24:20.910 ⇒ 00:24:29.699 Clarence Stone: Right, and then phase two, we’re gonna actually implement it and test it. You’re… when we test it, you’re gonna get reports that look like this. That includes these data points.
238 00:24:30.410 ⇒ 00:24:30.890 Clarence Stone: Right?
239 00:24:30.890 ⇒ 00:24:31.510 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
240 00:24:31.660 ⇒ 00:24:47.579 Clarence Stone: Now, like, the business owner is getting exactly all they need, right? Because they understand, like, if we’re going to go back to the car analogy, like, they know how far the car drives, they know if it has CarPlay, they know, you know, if it’s gonna have an emergency kit, they’re happy.
241 00:24:49.270 ⇒ 00:24:49.820 Clarence Stone: Alright, so…
242 00:24:49.820 ⇒ 00:24:50.390 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
243 00:24:50.650 ⇒ 00:25:00.190 Clarence Stone: Like, keep it high level, unless, like, again, that company is like, no, I really need a commitment on dates. Okay, then cool, let’s go to that level.
244 00:25:01.540 ⇒ 00:25:09.289 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay. So that’s a sh… so it’s more of, like, we’re gonna do this, and when we finish with that, then we’ll move on to this.
245 00:25:09.430 ⇒ 00:25:11.809 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, when X condition is true.
246 00:25:12.140 ⇒ 00:25:12.740 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
247 00:25:12.860 ⇒ 00:25:17.979 Luke Scorziell: then you’ll have… or, I mean, maybe not exactly, maybe that’s still too detailed, but…
248 00:25:19.410 ⇒ 00:25:29.139 Clarence Stone: So, I wish I was allowed to share EYSOWs with you, but, like, the last one I wrote for a prior client was pretty straight up, saying, like, hey.
249 00:25:29.140 ⇒ 00:25:41.359 Clarence Stone: Your Snowflake implementation is going to happen in three phases. In phase one, we’re gonna actually do a full assessment of all the data that needs to go into that transmission. We’re gonna map it, we’re gonna create a taxonomy for you, we’re gonna standardize it.
250 00:25:41.520 ⇒ 00:25:42.030 Clarence Stone: This video?
251 00:25:42.030 ⇒ 00:25:42.480 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
252 00:25:42.480 ⇒ 00:25:48.639 Clarence Stone: And when all the data from your 5 different source systems is consolidated in one place in a relational database.
253 00:25:49.840 ⇒ 00:26:00.569 Clarence Stone: Okay, phase two. Now that we have a relational database, we can give you reporting insights, risk analytics, and pipe that data to, you know, your workflow systems.
254 00:26:00.770 ⇒ 00:26:05.570 Clarence Stone: This phase ends when you have reports that provide you this insight, these insights.
255 00:26:05.730 ⇒ 00:26:13.520 Clarence Stone: Right, and, when your workflow systems can transmit data back and forth through the Snowflake instance.
256 00:26:14.450 ⇒ 00:26:15.120 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
257 00:26:15.520 ⇒ 00:26:16.190 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
258 00:26:16.190 ⇒ 00:26:16.680 Clarence Stone: Right.
259 00:26:17.330 ⇒ 00:26:20.450 Luke Scorziell: And so… so we’re pricing… I mean, we’re…
260 00:26:21.350 ⇒ 00:26:25.430 Luke Scorziell: Like, when we’re thinking about pricing, it’s not even really in terms of time.
261 00:26:25.710 ⇒ 00:26:29.419 Luke Scorziell: Is it just in terms of the value, or what? Because it’s like…
262 00:26:29.420 ⇒ 00:26:47.809 Clarence Stone: So, there’s a lot of different conversations that we’ve been having, like me, Utam, and Robert recently on, like, pricing models. Like, for you guys, it’s been fixed pricing, monthly fees, and for all of your SOW generation, I would keep it that way, right? Like, you guys are doing fixed pricing, monthly fees.
263 00:26:49.510 ⇒ 00:26:54.160 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m still learning and everything, too, but I think that’s what I’ve been doing.
264 00:26:54.160 ⇒ 00:26:58.559 Clarence Stone: You can say ballpark timing, like, hey, Phase 1 typically takes us a month.
265 00:27:00.050 ⇒ 00:27:12.219 Clarence Stone: Right? But if they start pushing and saying, like, we need an exact date on when it’s gonna be done, well, then you can say, hey, I need to see your data, so, you know, Awage can take a look at it and say, he can do it in a month.
266 00:27:13.380 ⇒ 00:27:14.290 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
267 00:27:14.290 ⇒ 00:27:21.779 Clarence Stone: There isn’t another way for you to make that kind of guarantee, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that when you’re writing these documents.
268 00:27:22.450 ⇒ 00:27:23.170 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
269 00:27:23.520 ⇒ 00:27:24.380 Clarence Stone: Right. Yeah.
270 00:27:25.700 ⇒ 00:27:26.550 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
271 00:27:30.880 ⇒ 00:27:37.869 Luke Scorziell: No, that makes sense. And then I think, because Robert was telling me that, like, some of the stuff that we’re thinking about doing is, like, more performance-driven, but that might be more for,
272 00:27:38.770 ⇒ 00:27:41.230 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, true.
273 00:27:41.230 ⇒ 00:27:47.010 Clarence Stone: So there’s these three pricing models, just so you… you’re aware, because it’s very relevant to your role.
274 00:27:47.200 ⇒ 00:27:55.079 Clarence Stone: is, so it’s that fixed fee, monthly run rate, like 1020K, these are the deals that BringForge has been built on.
275 00:27:55.200 ⇒ 00:27:56.010 Clarence Stone: The.
276 00:27:56.010 ⇒ 00:27:56.580 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
277 00:27:56.580 ⇒ 00:28:04.370 Clarence Stone: set of deals. There’s, I think, one or two of them that are out there that are, entirely based on upside, like ABC Andy.
278 00:28:04.990 ⇒ 00:28:13.570 Clarence Stone: like, Utah made a guarantee that, hey, you know, you will have X amount of adoption, X amount of usage, X amount of results, and, you know, payment is driven by that.
279 00:28:13.930 ⇒ 00:28:20.660 Clarence Stone: Option 3, how I construct my SOWs, which I think, like.
280 00:28:21.020 ⇒ 00:28:35.719 Clarence Stone: in some client cases, it makes a lot of sense, is I have been fortunate to fall into clients that have been long-lasting at the organization. My job was always to grow those accounts to be more permanent, right?
281 00:28:35.720 ⇒ 00:28:45.390 Clarence Stone: I come in with a ton of intelligence on, like, how they like to operate, who their leaders are, and all those good things, but from there, I establish a foothold by saying.
282 00:28:45.500 ⇒ 00:28:49.490 Clarence Stone: I want you to guarantee me an X amount of your frickin’ finance spending.
283 00:28:49.690 ⇒ 00:28:56.089 Clarence Stone: And we will evaluate every quarter what we should build for you to get you those results.
284 00:28:57.110 ⇒ 00:29:20.669 Clarence Stone: And what I will show, like, when I do that, is we normally charge, like, $150K for this thing called an assessment. I’ll do a full digital assessment and come up with a laundry list of all the things that they should do. I’ll say, like, these are immediate fixes you should do, this is, like, things that you can get for a high amount of ROI that you should absolutely do, and these are long-term strategic plays that you need to be doing to keep up with your competitors.
285 00:29:20.830 ⇒ 00:29:31.300 Clarence Stone: Right. And what we’re gonna do with your fixed, you know, spending is we’re gonna use up all that budget, building exactly what you decide from this menu.
286 00:29:32.050 ⇒ 00:29:33.019 Clarence Stone: And we’ll reevaluate.
287 00:29:33.020 ⇒ 00:29:33.790 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
288 00:29:35.370 ⇒ 00:29:46.259 Clarence Stone: So, it’s awesome, because once you get into that relationship with a client, they have stopped thinking about the run rate, because it already is just… it’s like a subscription at this point.
289 00:29:46.800 ⇒ 00:30:04.370 Clarence Stone: Right. They now come to you with new problems that you haven’t even talked about in the past, and, you know, you might get two new projects that you haven’t talked about yet, which is, like, a new problem that they ran into, and then you’ll pick from your previous menu of all the shit that you wish you could do for them, right? And say.
290 00:30:04.370 ⇒ 00:30:04.870 Luke Scorziell: Okay.
291 00:30:04.870 ⇒ 00:30:06.289 Clarence Stone: What we’re gonna give you this quarter.
292 00:30:07.690 ⇒ 00:30:08.510 Luke Scorziell: Right?
293 00:30:08.510 ⇒ 00:30:20.999 Clarence Stone: Why I like that modeling is it makes income really predictable. Like, you just know that this company is going to give us, you know, a fixed fee of 50K, 100K, whatever it is, every month.
294 00:30:21.840 ⇒ 00:30:22.550 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
295 00:30:22.550 ⇒ 00:30:40.120 Clarence Stone: Right? So, whereas Robert’s approach, or Utam’s approach of, you know, selling the upside, well, dude, if something, like, pops off, if Magic Spoon pops off because of an ad, dude, like, we break it in. We win huge, too.
296 00:30:41.080 ⇒ 00:30:41.400 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
297 00:30:41.400 ⇒ 00:30:44.410 Clarence Stone: Upside is even higher on some of those deals.
298 00:30:45.880 ⇒ 00:30:48.299 Clarence Stone: It doesn’t create regularity in your books.
299 00:30:49.610 ⇒ 00:30:51.180 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
300 00:30:51.180 ⇒ 00:31:02.749 Clarence Stone: So, there’s an up and down to it, and then, like, you know, your monthly fixed fee, I mean, like, that is just about maintaining that client, which sucks, because, like, you have to be like, oh, are they gonna renew? Right?
301 00:31:04.030 ⇒ 00:31:04.750 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
302 00:31:04.750 ⇒ 00:31:05.120 Clarence Stone: So…
303 00:31:05.120 ⇒ 00:31:08.599 Luke Scorziell: And then it’s kind of a constant, like, showing that you’re adding value, and you’re…
304 00:31:08.600 ⇒ 00:31:08.930 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
305 00:31:08.930 ⇒ 00:31:10.570 Luke Scorziell: Like, yeah.
306 00:31:10.800 ⇒ 00:31:27.960 Clarence Stone: So for ABC, like, we essentially have one of two major strategic options. One is, because there’s so much upside in marketing results we can give them, we say, hey, let’s actually, you know, go for a contract where we get some of that revenue increase we give them.
307 00:31:28.620 ⇒ 00:31:41.609 Clarence Stone: Right? That’s really great. But on the flip side, ABC doesn’t even have a data team, right? So, like, if we were able to get all the work that a data team would perform.
308 00:31:42.180 ⇒ 00:31:46.739 Clarence Stone: And we did a fixed fee managed service for all the data services.
309 00:31:46.860 ⇒ 00:31:49.050 Clarence Stone: They literally can’t leave us.
310 00:31:51.030 ⇒ 00:31:51.680 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
311 00:31:51.680 ⇒ 00:31:57.710 Clarence Stone: Right? Like… It would be that Brainforge is where they go to get any of their analytics dashboards.
312 00:31:58.550 ⇒ 00:31:59.250 Luke Scorziell: In…
313 00:31:59.250 ⇒ 00:32:00.840 Clarence Stone: They’re beholden now.
314 00:32:01.070 ⇒ 00:32:17.600 Clarence Stone: So, like, it depends on, you know, how you want to build out that relationship, and I think that’s something you need to think about when you’re talking with clients, is like, what kind of deal would this person go for? This is a kind of, like, a person who would just buy this car in cash? Would they, finance it?
315 00:32:17.750 ⇒ 00:32:29.449 Clarence Stone: Would they lease it? Will they finance it with their own creditor? Because, you know, our rates suck, right? Like, those pieces of intel are really great on figuring out how you position your SOW.
316 00:32:30.770 ⇒ 00:32:31.679 Clarence Stone: Right, because.
317 00:32:31.680 ⇒ 00:32:32.020 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
318 00:32:32.020 ⇒ 00:32:43.399 Clarence Stone: like, like, hey, Luke, we are one of those organizations where you get to eat what you kill, and they’re, like, all rah-rah like that. Oh, they will go for your upside deal, right? Hey, we have a fixed.
319 00:32:43.800 ⇒ 00:32:51.999 Clarence Stone: and you’re gonna give us, like, 50% of your upside beyond this price. Like, it’s like a Mr. Wonderful kind of deal, right? They love… Yeah, yeah.
320 00:32:52.410 ⇒ 00:33:00.129 Clarence Stone: Right, so… but then, you know, you may have more conservative companies where they just go, we just want to know that we can count on you to deliver this.
321 00:33:00.660 ⇒ 00:33:01.300 Clarence Stone: Well.
322 00:33:01.300 ⇒ 00:33:01.780 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
323 00:33:01.780 ⇒ 00:33:04.369 Clarence Stone: A long-term, you know, managed service contract.
324 00:33:05.350 ⇒ 00:33:09.379 Luke Scorziell: And how difficult is it to track the upside, also? Like, is that…
325 00:33:10.160 ⇒ 00:33:21.829 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so that’s… that’s the thing. I think the biggest challenge with the deal construction, and then… I think you should be part of these calls, by the way, like, this was Monday, but I… I was sitting in there going.
326 00:33:21.830 ⇒ 00:33:23.020 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I would love to hop in.
327 00:33:23.020 ⇒ 00:33:30.260 Clarence Stone: this. Like, just be a part of, like, you know, the discussion related to it, because, like, that was exactly what I talked about. I said, hey.
328 00:33:31.190 ⇒ 00:33:33.680 Clarence Stone: If you go upside, like.
329 00:33:33.990 ⇒ 00:33:41.219 Clarence Stone: You have to make it clear what projects are going to be billed based on results, and what projects won’t be.
330 00:33:41.440 ⇒ 00:33:45.420 Clarence Stone: Because I don’t want you to end up doing a ton of free work.
331 00:33:45.710 ⇒ 00:33:52.039 Clarence Stone: just to unlock the capability to improve their marketing, just to get paid out, right? You’re just adding a new.
332 00:33:52.040 ⇒ 00:33:52.750 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
333 00:33:54.080 ⇒ 00:33:54.470 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
334 00:33:55.870 ⇒ 00:34:04.549 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, cause I mean, like… The flip side of that is, like, there are a lot of variables with…
335 00:34:05.090 ⇒ 00:34:08.319 Luke Scorziell: That are somewhat, essentially, out of your control.
336 00:34:08.460 ⇒ 00:34:18.910 Luke Scorziell: When you do it, so it’s like, you could still do a lot of work, but then it ends up being that, like, doesn’t… doesn’t go off for whatever reason, and then you’ve done a lot of work, and you’re not getting paid.
337 00:34:19.300 ⇒ 00:34:19.920 Clarence Stone: Like, exactly.
338 00:34:19.929 ⇒ 00:34:21.729 Luke Scorziell: what you should.
339 00:34:22.349 ⇒ 00:34:33.509 Luke Scorziell: And, like, because these are the types of things that, like, when I’m… when I’m on the phone with clients or prospects, which I would like to do more, so far, the pipeline’s still building up.
340 00:34:35.569 ⇒ 00:34:40.999 Luke Scorziell: It’s just, like, thinking about the structure of their business, what they’re offering, or what we can offer them.
341 00:34:41.399 ⇒ 00:34:47.299 Luke Scorziell: And… like, how the price model would fit into that. So, like, with
342 00:34:47.729 ⇒ 00:34:52.189 Luke Scorziell: Like, with a data warehousing thing where we’re just building them a data warehouse?
343 00:34:52.309 ⇒ 00:34:55.819 Luke Scorziell: That’s more of, like, this is just gonna be, like, a fixed…
344 00:34:56.099 ⇒ 00:35:08.449 Luke Scorziell: Like, that might just be, like, the part of the… that would be, like, the first part of the roadmap, where it’s like, if you don’t have a data warehouse, then that’s what we’re gonna build for you, and it will get everything into one place, but then over time, we’ll be able to do, like, edge…
345 00:35:08.619 ⇒ 00:35:21.099 Luke Scorziell: tracking, so we can, like, get better analytics for you, and attribution, and then, like, just, like, thinking about it almost like that, of, like, what are the sequence of things, because that’s what the Sam Ash proposal is, like.
346 00:35:22.069 ⇒ 00:35:23.189 Luke Scorziell: There’s a lot of things we can’t.
347 00:35:23.190 ⇒ 00:35:41.839 Clarence Stone: Eden is in that position. Robert actually reflected on that on Monday on the ABC call and said, we should have flopped them to an incentive-type contract already. That we are already out of the hole on doing, like, regular technical deliveries, and we’re doing, like, things that are improving their margin, and we should have flopped to it.
348 00:35:42.560 ⇒ 00:35:45.140 Clarence Stone: Driven thing, so…
349 00:35:45.250 ⇒ 00:35:54.789 Clarence Stone: I think that timing on when you do it and what services are covered is something critical to think about, for sure. So you’re making really good points.
350 00:35:55.700 ⇒ 00:35:59.670 Clarence Stone: like… It’s gonna be different for every client, I think.
351 00:36:00.700 ⇒ 00:36:04.759 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, well, because I’m thinking with Sam Ash, they…
352 00:36:06.970 ⇒ 00:36:13.479 Luke Scorziell: like, I mean, he was… I don’t know how much decision-making power he had, he was a CMIO, but it seemed like
353 00:36:13.630 ⇒ 00:36:18.200 Luke Scorziell: he’s, like, the grandson of the founder of his InstairCash, so, like, I don’t know if he’s, like.
354 00:36:18.480 ⇒ 00:36:22.279 Luke Scorziell: It seemed like he had sway in the organization, but he was like, yeah, it seems like
355 00:36:22.680 ⇒ 00:36:27.880 Luke Scorziell: The… operationally, there’s, like, things…
356 00:36:28.210 ⇒ 00:36:43.140 Luke Scorziell: that need to be done. So then in my mind, I’m thinking, okay, strategically, then, like, we should try to fix some operational issues that they have first, they can, like, see the value, and then move on to some other things. But if we’re going, like, sequentially of, like, what makes the most sense, at least as I understand things.
357 00:36:43.570 ⇒ 00:36:51.599 Luke Scorziell: and maybe, I guess I put this in first, is the data warehouse, because once we have that built, then we can do, like, custom,
358 00:36:52.090 ⇒ 00:36:58.369 Luke Scorziell: like, product recommendations within their website, and then, like, that’s something where I would imagine, like.
359 00:36:59.160 ⇒ 00:37:05.090 Luke Scorziell: we might get paid on performance, I don’t really know how that would work, but if it’s, like, our algorithm is…
360 00:37:05.390 ⇒ 00:37:09.979 Luke Scorziell: able to, like, source this and this and this so that it recommended to these customers.
361 00:37:10.090 ⇒ 00:37:11.990 Luke Scorziell: Which you didn’t have before, like.
362 00:37:11.990 ⇒ 00:37:20.780 Clarence Stone: We’re gonna use a format that leverages an MSA on top of SOWs, so that you will have that flexibility from now on.
363 00:37:21.110 ⇒ 00:37:32.679 Clarence Stone: So, basically, an MSA is the Master Services Agreement. It’s, like, the overall rules on how you’re gonna work together. So, it’s like, hey, Brainforge will bill you at the top of the month.
364 00:37:32.750 ⇒ 00:37:49.920 Clarence Stone: Right? Out of, net 30, billable. You know, like, here’s the data retention policies of Brainforce. Like, all of those general information on how any SOW should work, and then, for clients with MSAs, you can just tack on new SOWs.
365 00:37:51.900 ⇒ 00:38:10.270 Clarence Stone: So you do one master service contract, and you just go, hey, we’re gonna fix your platform first, here’s the SOW for that. And by the way, you know, we’re getting close to finishing that platform fix. We’re ready to, you know, give you click analytics features that’ll get you, you know, 30% increase in ROI.
366 00:38:10.480 ⇒ 00:38:14.640 Clarence Stone: Cool. Like, this SOW’s gonna have a different fee structure.
367 00:38:15.450 ⇒ 00:38:16.679 Luke Scorziell: Right.
368 00:38:16.680 ⇒ 00:38:29.769 Clarence Stone: It gives you the flexibility to change the projects, as well as the fee structure, as well as the arrangement. But it keeps all the other things that you don’t specify in SOW the same, because it just reverts back to your master service agreement.
369 00:38:30.540 ⇒ 00:38:34.859 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I’m like, there are all these different things, like, I don’t…
370 00:38:35.190 ⇒ 00:38:38.019 Luke Scorziell: What is not what is… what is flat.
371 00:38:38.300 ⇒ 00:38:40.999 Luke Scorziell: Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
372 00:38:41.850 ⇒ 00:38:49.409 Luke Scorziell: Well, I guess I can just… I mean, maybe what I needed was just, like, some kind of confidence boost of, like, I’m going in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, so…
373 00:38:49.410 ⇒ 00:39:05.160 Clarence Stone: Well, I’m glad I pinged you about it then, because, like, you’re doing great work. I think the SOW looks good. I would just, like, loosen it up a little bit, right? Not being overly prescriptive on, you know, the timing of… Yeah.
374 00:39:05.290 ⇒ 00:39:08.670 Clarence Stone: And then, there, there’s…
375 00:39:09.170 ⇒ 00:39:15.499 Clarence Stone: the two tips and tricks I was gonna give you, I remember that. Oh, yeah. The two tips. One is, like.
376 00:39:16.240 ⇒ 00:39:21.620 Clarence Stone: It’s an unfortunate reality. Most of the time, no one’s gonna really read this past the first page.
377 00:39:22.490 ⇒ 00:39:24.149 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, I… yeah.
378 00:39:24.150 ⇒ 00:39:34.320 Clarence Stone: They’re gonna be like, this looks coherent, whatever. You know, if Bobby wants us to buy this, we’ll buy it. It’s not my money, right? It’s corporate money, right?
379 00:39:34.320 ⇒ 00:39:35.180 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
380 00:39:35.240 ⇒ 00:39:44.599 Clarence Stone: And so, so, like… there’s an aspect to it where, like, your first three paragraphs in SOW really matter.
381 00:39:45.200 ⇒ 00:39:50.329 Clarence Stone: Right. You should be super attention-driving, you should be straight to the point, it should be,
382 00:39:50.690 ⇒ 00:40:01.180 Clarence Stone: what I like to call, like, elevator update ready, right? Because if I want something from a partner, right, I will bother them about it, in passing.
383 00:40:01.240 ⇒ 00:40:18.410 Clarence Stone: I’ll be like, hey, did you review that SOW yet? I need those, you know, I need that team member, I need that group to help me with a project, right? Yeah. And then, you know, I’ll put myself in the seat of that same executive, and I’ll just be like, say what what, what document?
384 00:40:19.550 ⇒ 00:40:34.810 Clarence Stone: Right, and if the person goes on to, like, well, let’s say analytics, improvement, they’re doing our core infrastructure, they’re doing this, they’re doing that, and it’s, like, fuzzy and not straight to the point and easy to understand, then the exec’s gonna be like, yeah, I’ll check it later.
385 00:40:36.210 ⇒ 00:40:38.879 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, but if it’s, like, painting the picture for them…
386 00:40:39.140 ⇒ 00:40:39.540 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
387 00:40:39.540 ⇒ 00:40:40.720 Luke Scorziell: what we’re gonna do.
388 00:40:40.720 ⇒ 00:40:48.459 Clarence Stone: That’s a W4? Well, it’s Brainforge’s plan to get us up to speed on being competitive on e-commerce marketing.
389 00:40:49.340 ⇒ 00:40:52.990 Luke Scorziell: Well, that’s what I’m… yeah, that’s why I got hyped about this proposal, is because I’m like.
390 00:40:53.350 ⇒ 00:41:02.400 Luke Scorziell: The dude is literally sitting there saying, like, no one else is doing this in this space, like, there’s a huge opportunity for someone to do this. And then he’s, like, talking about it as though it’s not possible for him.
391 00:41:02.650 ⇒ 00:41:09.130 Luke Scorziell: But then I was like, well, why did… why wouldn’t we just do that for you? Like, that was… that was why I was confused. So it’s like…
392 00:41:09.620 ⇒ 00:41:14.969 Luke Scorziell: Basically, we could just… get you set up so that you are, like, the Amazon of…
393 00:41:15.250 ⇒ 00:41:35.899 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Okay, so I love that you remember, like, direct comments that people are saying, because those things are what are going to add to your credibility and strength of your responses. So, now that you gave me that piece of information, the way I would format my first email when I send the SOW along with it is going to be something like.
394 00:41:36.240 ⇒ 00:41:55.950 Clarence Stone: you know, thanks so much for that conversation. Like, everything you wanted, I hope I was able to translate it into this SOW. So this SOW is no longer a catalog of something Luke wrote, or that represents Brainforges Services. It is that dude’s imagination on how he could advance his company.
395 00:41:56.280 ⇒ 00:42:01.509 Clarence Stone: I would just throw it back, like, these are your words I summarized. If I got it wrong, let’s work together to straighten it out.
396 00:42:02.500 ⇒ 00:42:04.549 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, that’s powerful.
397 00:42:04.910 ⇒ 00:42:09.119 Clarence Stone: Yeah, like, what are you gonna do now? You’re not gonna say this document sucks.
398 00:42:10.010 ⇒ 00:42:15.489 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, because it’s, like, literally what you said. I mean, that was the thing, is it’s all just what you said, so then I was like, oh, okay, well…
399 00:42:15.490 ⇒ 00:42:16.139 Clarence Stone: It’s all…
400 00:42:16.140 ⇒ 00:42:16.780 Luke Scorziell: privilege to that.
401 00:42:16.780 ⇒ 00:42:40.699 Clarence Stone: wordplay and, like, you know, communicating effectively, saying the things, you know, quietly out loud, I guess. It’s weird, but, you know, that’s great intel. So, yeah, I would say something like that, like, hey, I hope I’ve done a good, good, you know, job cataloging everything that, you know, your aspirations for success or marketing, or something to that tune, like, and if I missed anything, let’s hop on a call and talk about it.
402 00:42:40.750 ⇒ 00:42:41.930 Clarence Stone: What did I miss?
403 00:42:43.140 ⇒ 00:42:43.620 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
404 00:42:44.160 ⇒ 00:43:04.079 Clarence Stone: And, oh, you know, some other things that you might not have thought about, you know, the team is also able to do X, Y, and Z. It’s important because it’s gonna, you know, result in, you know, A, B, and C. Those cereal companies, man, they’re doing it, and you guys can too. Like, that would be how I would write it.
405 00:43:04.250 ⇒ 00:43:04.900 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
406 00:43:06.180 ⇒ 00:43:08.239 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, it’s… it’s…
407 00:43:09.180 ⇒ 00:43:13.329 Luke Scorziell: Like, that sounds like a real great up… I mean, there’s… you said they have thousands of products.
408 00:43:13.490 ⇒ 00:43:22.820 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. In their catalogs, and so it’s, like, you know, different color guitars, and it’s… other than that, people visit, and you could send, like, personalized emails, and, you know, it’s like…
409 00:43:23.260 ⇒ 00:43:28.589 Luke Scorziell: kind of what Robert was saying after we got off that call is, like, the whole reason you would go to a reseller
410 00:43:28.900 ⇒ 00:43:32.880 Luke Scorziell: Or, I guess they’re not… I don’t know if they’re a reseller.
411 00:43:33.500 ⇒ 00:43:40.929 Luke Scorziell: like, they’re selling other people’s stuff, so I guess they’re a resellers. So then it’s like, the reason you would go to them is because they give you good recommendations.
412 00:43:40.990 ⇒ 00:43:42.330 Clarence Stone: So…
413 00:43:42.400 ⇒ 00:43:48.720 Luke Scorziell: If they’re not in person anymore, then hopefully they would still be able to give you good recommendations online, or you would just go.
414 00:43:48.920 ⇒ 00:43:49.760 Luke Scorziell: M2…
415 00:43:49.760 ⇒ 00:43:52.320 Clarence Stone: Sort of like a consignment thing.
416 00:43:52.320 ⇒ 00:44:00.119 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, they’re, like, guitar… they’re, like, basically the equivalent of the Guitar Center, but maybe a little smaller, where it’s, like, they get different brands that come in there.
417 00:44:00.340 ⇒ 00:44:03.320 Luke Scorziell: I have, like, guitar and drum and different instruments and microphones.
418 00:44:03.320 ⇒ 00:44:07.510 Clarence Stone: I’m familiar with them. There was a Sam Ash in Jersey where I grew up.
419 00:44:07.970 ⇒ 00:44:08.520 Luke Scorziell: Oh, really?
420 00:44:08.520 ⇒ 00:44:12.179 Clarence Stone: I didn’t know they were getting rid of locations. That’s sad. That’s sad.
421 00:44:12.180 ⇒ 00:44:14.039 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, they just got rid of all of them, I think.
422 00:44:14.040 ⇒ 00:44:14.900 Clarence Stone: Oh, that sucks.
423 00:44:14.900 ⇒ 00:44:21.020 Luke Scorziell: Two years ago, and it was, like, a huge digital transformation, and a lot of people haven’t been very happy with it.
424 00:44:21.500 ⇒ 00:44:26.759 Luke Scorziell: And so… Yeah, from… so then, from my perspective, it’s like, well…
425 00:44:27.250 ⇒ 00:44:34.889 Luke Scorziell: they’re probably butchering the digital transformation. I mean, yes, it’s unfortunate that, like, people are probably always going to be pissed off when stores close down.
426 00:44:35.420 ⇒ 00:44:40.580 Luke Scorziell: But there’s a lot of opportunity to do the digital thing right, especially with AI.
427 00:44:40.780 ⇒ 00:44:41.600 Luke Scorziell: Hmm.
428 00:44:41.600 ⇒ 00:44:54.959 Clarence Stone: Have you… have you ran into Drummio on, on socials? Dude, it’s sick. They take really famous drummers from, like, okay, a drummer from Red Hot Chili Peppers.
429 00:44:55.170 ⇒ 00:44:55.990 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
430 00:44:56.340 ⇒ 00:45:01.849 Clarence Stone: They’ll drop him into the studio and play a Dua Lipa song without drums.
431 00:45:02.620 ⇒ 00:45:05.300 Clarence Stone: And be like, yo man, make the drums.
432 00:45:06.580 ⇒ 00:45:18.459 Clarence Stone: That’s so funny. And you see someone who’s frickin’ talented just figure it out on the spot. Like, by the third recording loop, they just did a version of that song that’s way better. Like, just totally different.
433 00:45:19.310 ⇒ 00:45:33.809 Clarence Stone: And Drumio is this service that’s, like, teaching people how to play drums, right? Why is Sam Ash not partnering with a company like that, saying, okay, you want to start drums? Here’s where you buy your drum kit before you get started on Drummium.
434 00:45:35.300 ⇒ 00:45:36.090 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
435 00:45:36.540 ⇒ 00:45:44.759 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, huh. And that, yeah, so… yeah, and I’m like…
436 00:45:45.720 ⇒ 00:45:55.149 Clarence Stone: I mean, I get excited about all this stuff, and then it’s, like, hard to close the client sometimes. So my thing is keep that excitement high, transfer that excitement to them.
437 00:45:55.370 ⇒ 00:45:56.750 Clarence Stone: Get them hyped.
438 00:45:56.870 ⇒ 00:45:58.650 Clarence Stone: Right? Like…
439 00:45:59.290 ⇒ 00:46:07.379 Clarence Stone: And then, like, continue to work on it. It’s like, say, hey, we’re gonna… we’re gonna tune this SOW to the point where, you know, it makes sense for you.
440 00:46:07.690 ⇒ 00:46:17.430 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, I want your thoughts, want to hop on the call, and you tell me if I missed anything here. Right? Let them feel like they’re driving this.
441 00:46:18.400 ⇒ 00:46:24.430 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Second’s high, so don’t, don’t let this moment go to waste. That’s my recommendation.
442 00:46:24.830 ⇒ 00:46:25.809 Luke Scorziell: Huh,
443 00:46:26.260 ⇒ 00:46:31.549 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, and that’s kind of where I’ve, like… so the call we had was about…
444 00:46:32.000 ⇒ 00:46:39.119 Luke Scorziell: Two weeks ago now, he was out last week at a conference in Anaheim, so my goal was to get it to him.
445 00:46:39.350 ⇒ 00:46:44.150 Luke Scorziell: Like, I guess earlier this week would have been better, but maybe… maybe Thursday or Friday is okay.
446 00:46:44.150 ⇒ 00:46:44.580 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it’s.
447 00:46:44.650 ⇒ 00:46:46.199 Luke Scorziell: It’ll probably be a little slower.
448 00:46:46.200 ⇒ 00:47:09.480 Clarence Stone: Robert and you, Tom, at this point, like, if you’re getting to a time-critical spot, just say, like, hey, last day, I want to send this out tomorrow, we’re two weeks out from the last time we talked, I don’t want this conversation to die. So please, please, like, just approve, you know, whether or not I can send this. This is going to be a starting point for the SOW, we’re going to have follow-on conversations around it, just want to know what you guys think is this, you know, starting point.
449 00:47:10.250 ⇒ 00:47:11.420 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Okay.
450 00:47:11.420 ⇒ 00:47:12.070 Clarence Stone: The time was…
451 00:47:12.590 ⇒ 00:47:16.850 Clarence Stone: I just go, I’m about to do this if you don’t stop me in the next, like, 24 hours.
452 00:47:18.090 ⇒ 00:47:24.110 Clarence Stone: here’s my plan, here’s my work products, it’s gonna happen. So… Just say something.
453 00:47:24.110 ⇒ 00:47:25.060 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay.
454 00:47:26.010 ⇒ 00:47:31.690 Luke Scorziell: Cool. And I, I mean, like, this is an interesting conversation, to me, too, because, like.
455 00:47:32.490 ⇒ 00:47:35.199 Luke Scorziell: Obviously, I’m doing go-to-market.
456 00:47:36.360 ⇒ 00:47:43.009 Luke Scorziell: But then, like, at what… like, it seems like the lines get blurred between… I mean, I guess you… like, if I bring in a client.
457 00:47:43.170 ⇒ 00:47:48.960 Luke Scorziell: Is that, like, the… like, then I just pass them along to… or I guess, yeah, I would pass them along to the CSO?
458 00:47:49.220 ⇒ 00:47:53.829 Luke Scorziell: So I wouldn’t… I would not need to be the one that is, like.
459 00:47:54.700 ⇒ 00:47:58.529 Clarence Stone: Continuing to mute. I’m just bringing… yeah, okay, I think I just explained that.
460 00:47:58.530 ⇒ 00:48:15.900 Clarence Stone: And that’s fine, like, so if you think this is going to transfer over to us, like, it is, so you can start even just approaching a CSO with, like, 30 minutes of their time, saying, like, hey, this is going to be the first draft, I’m about to send this out, is there any glaring, like, technical issues, or am I making promises that aren’t possible?
461 00:48:16.280 ⇒ 00:48:31.449 Clarence Stone: Right, and get them up to speed on the relationship with Sam Ash and, you know, what their perspectives are. You know, that’s a good gut check. And it makes sense, because that CSO will eventually fall into, you know, that project.
462 00:48:32.430 ⇒ 00:48:38.749 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay, nice. Okay, yeah, this has been fun. I mean, this is, like, super cool.
463 00:48:38.910 ⇒ 00:48:41.929 Luke Scorziell: It’s kind of, realigned.
464 00:48:41.930 ⇒ 00:48:48.140 Clarence Stone: You got this. Like, this is a great first draft. My SOWs were way worse than this when I first started.
465 00:48:48.140 ⇒ 00:48:52.449 Luke Scorziell: I can’t take all the credit, I mean, it’s like the cursor thing, but
466 00:48:52.630 ⇒ 00:48:55.959 Luke Scorziell: I’m… I’ll… I’ll go back through it and,
467 00:48:56.360 ⇒ 00:49:02.499 Luke Scorziell: and massage it a little bit, and I like writing anyway, so it’s… yeah, I can just write the first few paragraphs, and then…
468 00:49:02.800 ⇒ 00:49:04.220 Luke Scorziell: Leave the rest, so…
469 00:49:04.650 ⇒ 00:49:06.079 Clarence Stone: And eventually, like.
470 00:49:06.320 ⇒ 00:49:19.930 Clarence Stone: you want this person to be your best friend, so continue to add value to their lives, right? Like, you know, it’s just a personal habit that I’ve made for myself to, just ask questions that’ll get people to talk.
471 00:49:19.930 ⇒ 00:49:29.839 Clarence Stone: And you’ll find what those are, you know, in each of the moments, and I think you were able to get them to talk a ton already, so just keep that going, like, keep that conversation going.
472 00:49:29.890 ⇒ 00:49:30.690 Clarence Stone: Right.
473 00:49:32.440 ⇒ 00:49:44.430 Clarence Stone: there could be a day where they feel, like, down and hesitant, and you just feel like, hey, what’s going on? Is, you know, is there… how are things going? Is there something that, you know, we can help look into for you? Things like that, right? Like,
474 00:49:44.710 ⇒ 00:49:54.030 Clarence Stone: for you, actually, earlier on this call, I was like, hey, what are some of the areas that you feel like you don’t know enough about? And you just told me all those things.
475 00:49:54.690 ⇒ 00:49:55.220 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
476 00:49:55.220 ⇒ 00:49:55.860 Clarence Stone: Right.
477 00:49:55.860 ⇒ 00:49:56.470 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
478 00:49:56.470 ⇒ 00:50:00.500 Clarence Stone: And you flip that around to a sales call, like, those are all the things that we need to sell them.
479 00:50:01.540 ⇒ 00:50:02.179 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
480 00:50:02.270 ⇒ 00:50:03.080 Clarence Stone: Right.
481 00:50:03.080 ⇒ 00:50:03.600 Luke Scorziell: Huh.
482 00:50:03.730 ⇒ 00:50:04.640 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
483 00:50:05.140 ⇒ 00:50:06.390 Luke Scorziell: Interesting.
484 00:50:07.620 ⇒ 00:50:08.450 Luke Scorziell: Okay.
485 00:50:10.340 ⇒ 00:50:12.680 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, it was fun. I don’t…
486 00:50:13.160 ⇒ 00:50:14.979 Luke Scorziell: I… I think I, like, half…
487 00:50:15.210 ⇒ 00:50:20.700 Luke Scorziell: or understood that Brainforge was doing consulting a bit before I got in, but I was like, oh, that’s so far off from…
488 00:50:21.290 ⇒ 00:50:22.609 Luke Scorziell: what I would do.
489 00:50:22.900 ⇒ 00:50:26.379 Luke Scorziell: practice, but it’s, I don’t know, it’s, like, pretty fun, because I think this is what I…
490 00:50:26.720 ⇒ 00:50:29.210 Luke Scorziell: what I really like to do, so,
491 00:50:30.740 ⇒ 00:50:36.329 Luke Scorziell: Okay. Well, thanks for your time. I have another meeting, and I’ll probably hop off and get water and walk around.
492 00:50:36.330 ⇒ 00:50:36.910 Clarence Stone: for us.
493 00:50:37.580 ⇒ 00:50:39.990 Luke Scorziell: But, yeah, anything else I could, like…
494 00:50:39.990 ⇒ 00:50:51.009 Clarence Stone: Keep them alive. Like, keep them… keep them alive. And I think, like, whatever you do to formalize your notion or whatever, like, should have some sort of funnel and SLAs for next point of contact.
495 00:50:51.990 ⇒ 00:50:54.870 Luke Scorziell: What is an SLA of being… what is that?
496 00:50:55.040 ⇒ 00:50:55.529 Clarence Stone: I’ve heard.
497 00:50:55.530 ⇒ 00:50:56.620 Luke Scorziell: But it’s.
498 00:50:56.620 ⇒ 00:51:10.050 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so for example, like, you should make a commitment to yourself that if you have a client that you’ve gauged as interested, and you’ve already identified the service for them, like, you should follow up with them, like, at least once a week.
499 00:51:10.500 ⇒ 00:51:11.010 Clarence Stone: Right.
500 00:51:11.720 ⇒ 00:51:30.360 Clarence Stone: client that showed interest, but you’re not sure what you’re going to sell to them, maybe you want to follow up every other week to see if you can get some more time with them, right? So that is, like, service level agreement for yourself, to say, I will make sure that if I categorize this client as this part of the sales funnel, I’ll follow up, you know, at this cadence.
501 00:51:31.310 ⇒ 00:51:33.269 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay.
502 00:51:34.840 ⇒ 00:51:40.640 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and I don’t know, this conversation’s also making me think, like, maybe I’ll just send him an email tonight, and just be like.
503 00:51:41.170 ⇒ 00:51:49.220 Luke Scorziell: Hey, just hope your conference went well, still thinking about our conversation, and really excited to keep the conversation going, and I can send them the SMW by Friday.
504 00:51:49.640 ⇒ 00:51:50.450 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.
505 00:51:51.070 ⇒ 00:51:56.069 Luke Scorziell: So… so then it’s not just, like, he gets a big email from me with, like, all the stuff that I think he should do.
506 00:51:56.070 ⇒ 00:51:59.089 Clarence Stone: They frickin’ send him Drummio, man.
507 00:51:59.090 ⇒ 00:52:00.780 Luke Scorziell: Oh, yeah, yeah.
508 00:52:00.780 ⇒ 00:52:01.280 Clarence Stone: Honestly.
509 00:52:01.280 ⇒ 00:52:03.210 Luke Scorziell: Sorry, babe. I’ll just do right.
510 00:52:03.210 ⇒ 00:52:14.379 Clarence Stone: That whole company, they’re making this thing called Guitario now, where it teaches you how to play guitar, and there was a moment I thought about buying a new Strat.
511 00:52:15.870 ⇒ 00:52:19.349 Clarence Stone: I used to play guitar, I miss my guitar, like, I don’t want to buy a guitar.
512 00:52:20.310 ⇒ 00:52:20.940 Clarence Stone: So…
513 00:52:20.940 ⇒ 00:52:25.560 Luke Scorziell: So… so are they on… is it YouTube that they do their stuff on, or .
514 00:52:25.740 ⇒ 00:52:38.659 Clarence Stone: I ran into it on, like, a Instagram Reel, but I think their full videos are on YouTube. Like, the one where Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer is, you know, playing Dua Lipa, like, that’s all on YouTube.
515 00:52:39.340 ⇒ 00:52:41.489 Luke Scorziell: Oh, cool. Okay, yeah, I’ll… I’ll…
516 00:52:41.680 ⇒ 00:52:48.619 Clarence Stone: grab that and send it over to him. Thanks for the recommendation. No worries, no worries. Alright, dude, let me know how it goes.
517 00:52:48.810 ⇒ 00:52:53.280 Luke Scorziell: I will. Yeah, thanks for your time, I really appreciate it. Yeah, enjoy the rest of your day.
518 00:52:53.430 ⇒ 00:52:54.720 Clarence Stone: Cool, you too. Adios!
519 00:52:54.720 ⇒ 00:52:55.280 Luke Scorziell: I have.