"On a personal note however, the pandemic reinforced my personal opinion that to be a professional in 2022, is to not rely on a single job, but instead to diversify."
Scott D. Clary is the CEO of OnMi Patch, a venture-backed health tech & wellness company, host of the Success Story podcast (part of the Hubspot Podcast network) where he interviews inspirational people, mentors and leaders, and the founder of a weekly business newsletter with over 50,000 subscribers.
A career sales and marketing executive. Scott re-writes the playbook on sales, marketing, brand and take to market strategy. From startups to enterprise, Scott’s worked with execs and entrepreneurs to 10x their businesses.
He’s sold and marketed to the most iconic F500 / F100 brands throughout his career. His work has been featured in over 100+ news sites and publications. He speaks globally at industry conferences and has had articles and insights featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Hackernoon, The Startup and others.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Scott D. Clary: Well firstly, thank you so much for having me today. I always appreciate the opportunity to dive into my background, and hopefully it will give the readers some helpful tips for their own personal and professional journey. I currently do a few things, but the most important focus for me at the moment is my company OnMi Patch and my podcast, Success Story.
I am currently the CEO and Co-Founder of OnMi Patch. We’re a venture backed, health tech and wellness company. We are disrupting the vitamin and supplement industry with a new delivery system for any pill, powder or supplement you take with transdermal vitamin patches. This facilitates improved delivery, 100% ingredient
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Scott D. Clary: The pandemic was hyper disruptive to businesses, as I personally saw (and navigated) all the difficulties businesses experienced. I was part of organization and worked with organizations throughout the pandemic.
On a personal note however, the pandemic reinforced my personal opinion that to be a professional in 2022, is to not rely on a single job, but instead to diversify. I think the “safety” of a job was a facade which was exposed throughout the pandemic, as employees with incredible amounts of tenure were furloughed or laid off en masse.
This pandemic taught all of us that there is a need to constantly up-skill yourself, diversify your income and assets, build things which can support you when your main income stream (salary), gets cut off (whether that’s a personal brand, investment portfolio etc), and never be complacent.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Scott D. Clary: One of the main things businesses discovered throughout the pandemic was that they needed to be flexible and innovative. This mentality permeates all aspects of a business or organization. Whether or not it was letting employees work remote (and supply them with the tech to do so), focusing on an empathetic approach to sales and marketing, diversifying product lines or focusing on more sustainable and predictable revenue streams, all components of a business, seemingly were disrupted overnight.
So the question becomes, how do we future-proof against similar disruptive events in the future.
My answer would be, dedicate time to understanding new trends and technologies, put people first (both customers and employees), and do whatever you can to eliminate bloat and move quicker because complacency will kill you, and no organization is too big to fall.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Scott D. Clary: I’ve been extremely fortunate that the pandemic has not seriously impacted anything I’m working on. I led a software sales and marketing team, and we focused on SaaS solutions for broadcast, so we maintained and exceeded projected revenue. Also, for my podcast or personal brand, the pandemic slightly helped as more people spent time-consuming content, which helps any content creator.
Although we were in an industry that was not directly impacted by the pandemic, I did have to be cognizant of our sales and marketing strategy because some of our customers felt the effects of the pandemic. This meant being empathetic to our customers and focusing on customer-centric marketing and sales strategies, that meant prioritizing relationships over revenue when the pandemic was at its worst and people were getting furloughed and budgets were getting cut.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Scott D. Clary: I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have advice that I wished I had heard before the pandemic, but in general I wish I had started building my own personal brand much earlier on in life, and this lesson and effort will continue well past the end of the pandemic and well past 2022.
The leverage that you can get with simply adhering to a consistent posting schedule is incredible. The reach, network and opportunities you can get from leveraging the growth of a personal digital footprint are absolutely incredible, which is why I always suggest any individual in any role, should start “building” their own brand as soon as possible, regardless of job title, experience, position or industry.
Build now so that anything you ever want to do, in the future (start a businesses, excel at a job, land speaking engagements etc) will be exponentially easier because you just started posting, today. And I mention this because having a community and audience, is the single most important tool you can leverage (whether you’re working for a business, or building your own business), that will make everything you do, much easier, at scale.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Scott D. Clary: My expectations for the future of work in general will be hybrid. We will not go 100% remote as the value you can get from in person interactions cannot be fully replicated in a virtual environment. We will use technology to make our general working conditions more amicable. We do not need to be in the same city as our peers, but we do need to meet them (in person) to form bonds & have meaningful interactions on a less regular cadence.
Regular work (for industries that support it) will be will be work from home/remote, with travel and in person meetings being reserved for onboarding, quarterly meetings, high value conversations etc.We will cherish our in person interactions a lot more, because they will not happen as often, but will still be incredibly important for real human connection, trust building and accountability.
In terms of non-work online activities, I also believe that the same attitude towards virtual/in person will permeate personal lives. Routine activities will take place online but high value interactions will still need to (if possible) take place in person.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Scott D. Clary: I’m a big fan of work life integration because it allows me to do the work I need to do, when I want to do it. That being said, I probably spend about 7-8 hours actively in front of a screen working. I try and do as many in-person meetings as possible now that the pandemic is subsiding. When I was in full blown pandemic / wfh mode, I was probably in front of a computer for 10-12 hours a day.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Scott D. Clary: One of the most important and powerful ways to communicate anything is through stories. That includes both customers and peers.
I’ve always found that a strong company culture and company story (which one could argue, are synonymous) incorporates the employees in telling that story, and building that culture.
To extrapolate on that, a strong company culture and story needs to be more of what people in the organization actually live, breath and “do” vs. a vague set of principles they put on their website or paint on a wall in a lunchroom.
So with that in mind, the ultimate way to tell a story, to communicate a story and to build a culture is to hire the people that live, breath, and act out that story every day, but then also add to it, augment it and become part of it.
This may sound high level, but there’s tactical benefits to telling your story, both internally and externally through your employees, and the best way to ensure that a story is evangelized and communicated the same way across the organization (both internally and externally) is to hire people who’s values are aligned, but who’s opinions experiences and backgrounds are different. This ensures that the core values the company lives and breaths permeate the organization, but the story, and the culture, is improved and added onto, to with every new hire.
This makes for an incredibly strong, diverse and value aligned company that communicates the story effectively, because in theory, they’re the ones that created it (not just the Founder/CEO).
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Scott D. Clary: Coping up with sudden market transformations is definitely among the biggest challenges businesses are facing today. Take digitization, for example, it has become a necessity instead of a choice, and this was in part of the COVID pandemic. Since the pandemic-induced lockdowns were announced globally, businesses had only two options, either digitize or go bust. This notion was also corroborated by the World Economic Forum report in 2020.
Also, 68% of American businesses closed their offices and asked their employees to work remotely amid the pandemic, and the companies that weren’t ready to accept the new reality had no other option than to wind up their operations. The next large market transformation is likely to be caused by robotics and AI-assisted solutions, and the businesses that do not adapt as per market circumstances will face the heat. Hence, entrepreneurs must adapt to the circumstances created by the market transformation, as there’s no way around it.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Scott D. Clary: Crypto and the NFT space seem particularly interesting to me and the way these ecosystems have grown in recent years is commendable. I believe that in the coming days, the crypto space will grow even further, and in the process, it will create boundless opportunities for people who have the necessary skills required to thrive in this ever-growing space. So, crypto is something that I am definitely interested in exploring.
As for the NFTs, their sales have even stumped its biggest critics, as touching $25 billion in sales in 2021 is no joke. Despite what critics say, NFTs aren’t one-time wonders, as it will continue to gain momentum for a long time. It will no doubt suffer from some slowdowns on the way, which is natural for an industry growing as fast as the NFT. When it comes to the thing that truly interests me in NFT is its underlying technology and concept, as its use case is not only limited to the art world. It is already making its way into real estate, domain trading, and more.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Scott D. Clary: Leaders do see the data, and many feel that it paints the picture of some OTHER company and not theirs. Maybe they are true, or maybe, they are not, as that differs in terms of their leadership styles. But the fact is that the current job market is no longer the employer-dominated space, as almost every industry is reeling under the effect of skill-crunch, which was previously ignored as a made-up crisis by industry experts. Thus, leaders must bring their A-game to retain their employees and put an end to the great resignation.
To bring real change, leaders must take cognizance of the work atmosphere within the company and ensure that their employees feel valued in the organization. Leaders must see employees as an important force within the organization and not just another cog in the wheel. It is equally crucial to invest in upskilling your workforce, which, in turn, will further reinforce that the company cares about its employees. In short, be empathetic and compassionate, and that will go a long way.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Scott D. Clary: Telepathy for sure! If I had superpowers like that of Dr. Charles Xavier from the iconic series of X-Men, it would be a game-changer for me. It would also be equally fun, as it would be quite amusing to read people’s minds and obviously it would be incredibly useful as a business leader.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Scott D. Clary: This is a question that I actually ask all of my guests at the end of each podcast episode I record with them. And the most popular answer I get, and the one that resonates with me the most, is freedom.
Success is freedom to do what you want, when you want and not feel the need to do anything, but have the ability to do everything.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Scott D. Clary for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Scott D. Clary or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
