The Strategy Troy Hipolito Uses to Close Deals

You're now watching B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast hosted by Allen Kopelman, powered by Nationwide Payment Systems, the number one solution for payment processing.

Good morning or good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast, where we talk about business, entrepreneurship, and cool stuff that business owners need to know about. At least I think they need to know about. And today we're joined by Troy Hipólito. I hope I didn't butcher your last name.

No, no, it's actually how Filipinos say it. So I'm half Filipino, and I usually say the American way, saying Hipólito, and then Tagalog is, uh, Hipólito. But whatever, it's whatever, whatever. Okay, so only half, so I'll go either way.

All right, so we're here today with Troy from the Troy Agency, and he has a really cool product called Scoop, and you can find it at scoopapp.com. And we're going to talk today about Scoop. We're going to talk about LinkedIn, and that's what we're going to talk about today on the podcast. And we're going to dig into it because I think a lot of business owners get on LinkedIn, and then, you know, what do you do on LinkedIn? And I've been using his product now for a little bit., and I really like it, and that's why I invited him on the podcast, because I thought it was cool, and I think that, you know, price-wise, it's pretty affordable. So let's dive in. Troy, tell us a little bit about this, what, why you created the Skoop app.

Yeah, so, uh, Skoop, I had to spell it with a K, so it's skoopapp.com, because of course I couldn't get the best domain name, so I had to throw a throw a K in there. But, uh, my background is in development. Many years ago, I had a gamification company, and, uh, we were doing pretty well. You know, our best year was under a million. This was like 15, 17 years ago, something like that. We loved what we did. It was just really bad business model because, uh, once you train people up, they go somewhere else and get paid a lot more. So we, uh, we had a small agency, um, Yeah, it was, it was really interesting. High ceilings, industrial style. The developer and the designers worked together and it was really hunky-dory for a little bit until it wasn't. And so a lot of the agencies that we got, we did a lot of Fortune 500 work. Coca-Cola Enterprises website before the merger. A Singler back in the day, multimedia stuff, a lot of Coca-Cola type products. We did a Dasani water meter type desktop app. We also did a ton of, you know, virtual worlds. We did a Harry Potter fan-based virtual world. So it was really a fun environment. But the agencies blocked us because a lot of the companies there in Atlanta, Georgia at the time were cannibalizing the teams and they're more corporate. So they were taking the teams in-house. And so they didn't want us to talk to any of the, any of the, the, the actual companies. And so they pretty much blocked us from work and we had to figure out what to do. And that's where LinkedIn came in. So we were told that you need to go to LinkedIn to get clients. I'm like, what do you, what is this, this resume place? We didn't really know, you know, it was what it was really about.

Yeah, because that's like the big confusion is like, what's going on on LinkedIn? You know, LinkedIn used to be very transactional, and when it first started, it was like, oh, a place for you to have your, like, your resume. Who is Allen? Who is Troy? Right?

Yeah.

And it started out like that, right? But then it was— it became very— it became very, you know, it became very transactional. People actually talk to each other. Right.

Yeah. And then it was really designed to afterwards to build relationships.

Right.

And so it's a big difference between transactional and relationship type of communities and things like that. And it still has a lot of that kind of spammy things that people don't know how to communicate well. And we were actually one of those people that didn't know how to communicate well. It's like dating in real life. Um, the best dating advice if you want a serious relationship is to slow date, not to find the most beautiful woman, or if you're a woman, the most handsome guy, you know, is not always the best for you. So a long-term relationship is really getting to know if you're equally yoked, uh, if you can support each other, you know, if you have honest intentions, if you can actually help each other out. And a lot of times just listening And so slow dating for real life is very similar to slow dating for business. So you have to think that these people haven't met you in person and they're going to give you $50,000, $100,000, $1 million, whatever the case may be. Right.

Even if it's $50.

Yeah, well, the lower transaction stuff is a lot easier, but you need more volume. And we'll get into that. But, um, but, uh, yeah, so we had to figure out how to slow date. Really good at systems, so we combined the slow dating method with multi-channel systems, and we created a value structure underneath that. And so, um, so the main consulting business was born out of that. So we have a consulting package that we develop 5 to 7 different channels We work with your brand. We, we work with the people in your team. If you don't have a team, we help you with the VAs and create a kind of an atmosphere of not a selling atmosphere, but a buying atmosphere, which is much different. And so if people hear about you from a friend, if they see a LinkedIn post, if they get a message, if they see you on these multiple channels, you become more trustworthy. And the more that they know, like, and trust you, the, the easier it is to convert to business, you know, if they have a budget. And so we went along those lines and developed these systems. We noticed there were issues, and this is where Scoop comes in. On the link, there's two places to generate money on LinkedIn, and they derive from the content the posts and the direct messages. Now, there are a lot of different channels, but all— most of those channels derive from those two places, you know. And so once you realize that, you look at it, it's like, well, where are the bottlenecks, right? Well, sometimes people don't know how to sell, they need a salesperson. Uh, people, you know, they, they're very good at the pictures and taking pictures. They're— they have systems that automate messages. Now they have AI stuff that kind of changes the messages so they're kind of unique per person.

Yeah, one of the things, one of the things with that is, is that LinkedIn is definitely actively blocking any messaging bots. And I'll tell you, because my incoming messages have slowed down tremendously, and I would tell you, like, from the beginning of the year to now, it's like at a debt.

It—

I am not getting spammed the way I was last year.

Yeah, they're definitely cracking down. And if they can detect an algorithm, you know, and so a lot of automations are lazy. And so LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, and they're just kind of putting a, um, uh, you know, just dropping the hammer on this because there's so much spam. Right. And so let's think about that. If you're a legitimate B2B individual, you know, profession or professional or an organization, you know, consultant, coach, IT company, you name it, service-based provider in some way, you want to be distinguished away from the spam. And so we have to define what spam is. Well, spam is anything that you send that people don't want. So if you really think about it, so if you constantly send me stuff that I'm not interested in, of course you want to opt out or let them know so they don't do that, because they may not know. They may think you're interested in a conversation about this or whatever, and we get that. But what I really dislike is when you reply to them and they ignore your reply and they send you a different message. That means they didn't even read it and they're just sending you stuff, right? That's why you know it's a system. You know, you also can smell systems a mile away for the most part. And I'm not saying not to use a system. You know, it is against the TOS rules to have automation, but automation is different than having a system. System is having a way of doing things, you know. And so we looked at it. I said, well, The biggest opportunity we have to help convert conversations into business is on the direct message because of all the spam. It is actually open opportunity to distinguish yourself from everyone else. And we looked at it. The first idea was, you know what, if we send a video, the conversion rate's higher, but how can we even boost that even more? People say video gets 2 to 3 times, uh, the conversion rate, but I said, but what if we want to maximize that ability to convert by spending the least amount of time? And we came up with Scoop because it's on the fly and it does 3 things. Um, it stores text where 80% of your conversations are reusable. Excuse me. So anytime you reply to somebody, there's an 80% chance that you have that knowledge base somewhere else and you would reuse it, right?

Yeah.

So let's think about a welcome message. If someone connected with you, you can have a standard welcome message, right? And then you can— we have a bit ability to click a button to drop 2 or 3 lines of text. And that's important. Not a lot of information. There's very short information. Do a 30-second video on the fly and then title the video on the bottom with their name on it. And that's what we call a sandwich. So let's think about the psychological, um, process on that. Say, Allen, you and I connected, right? Say, uh, I connected with you. I typically wait a few days. I know that you are into a B2B podcast. I actually want to be on your podcast, right? But who wouldn't, right? I'm a B2B person. I'm a B2B person. I have a SaaS product. I wanted to get it out there. So the more podcasts I do, the better I'll get content, yada yada. There's a lot of benefits for having that. So we connect and I send you a welcome message. The reason why I send 2 or 3 lines of text before the video is for context. People are really wary of just clicking on stuff, right?

Yeah, I think sometimes when people send— like, I had a guy recently send me a message and it said, oh, would you like to, you know, hop on a, you know, would you like to get together, you know, and talk sometime? So whatever, I go, sure, fine, sounds good. Then the guy messaged me again, and then I sent him my meeting link. And then the guy gets mad at me because he goes and looks at my, you know, he looks at the meeting. He says, he goes, oh, you're trying to pitch me. And I was like, where did you get an idea that I'm trying to pitch you? You're the one who said you want to get to know me and have a meeting. I'm sending you my meeting link.

Like, oh, the fact that you have to explain that kind of blows your mind, right?

Right. Because the guy's using some kind of automated message. Right, that he's— that he didn't even think about what he's sending. And I screenshotted it and sent it back to him, and I was like, yeah, no reason for you to get like upset at me. Yeah, what's the whole big deal? He's like, oh, you— and he sent me a whole long message.

Yeah, those are kind of people you don't want to do business with anyway.

Yeah, exactly.

But, um, people are a little sensitive, right? And so even if— even with the methods I do 1 out of 100 people say I'm pitching them, and I said no, it's a thank you for connecting, right? There's not really a pitch in there, right? And so, so let me break down the, the, the thought process.

Well, they just see your meeting link and immediately they think it's a pitch when it's not a pitch, you know?

Yeah, and maybe you shouldn't send the meeting link unless they ask for it. That's how I think of you You know, in your case, they did ask for a meeting, you know, but, but a lot of times it's just people don't know etiquette, right?

So we're, we're—

there a lot of different countries around the world, and there's certain countries that are known as buying countries and certain countries known as selling countries, right? And, and so you, you tend to want to avoid the, the selling countries because they just don't— they're on, they're on one path and they don't want two-way communication. And that's fine for certain industries and stuff, but for LinkedIn in general, it's not, not the best idea. And so if you send 3 lines of text, it provides context, it provides ability for them to understand what the heck is this about, right? Without getting into details. Don't send them a novel. Don't send them bullet points unless they ask for it. Don't send them a lot of details because they get, they get, I get over 100 DMs a day, right, on my one account. And I actually turn down off all my systems just so I can catch up, or if I have a client or have to work, I don't want to take on more work. So I have multiple revenue streams, but I— my time is finite, and so I want to concentrate on where, where the money is. And so those 3 lines, uh, that you click on for the welcome message, you click a button that drops it in there And you do a 30-second to 60-second video. And in the video, you say, thank you for connecting, Allen. You know, I know that you have a, a podcast on called the B2B Vault. Sounds very interesting. I don't have a podcast. I have a show. I have a LinkedIn Live show. But it's totally different than the podcast. I like what you're doing there. And I do A, B, and C, not saying that's any interest to you. But one thing I do have is I have a very robust network. So, Allen, if you have a chance and only if you have time, take a quick look at my LinkedIn profile. If you see anything there we're talking about, feel free to send me your booking link and then I will schedule on your— I'm always open for a meeting. That's a type of message. There is ask though, and the ask has to be equal to the current relationship. People forget that. People don't know the tones where you're at in the relationship cycle. So I asked you if you had a moment, take a look at my LinkedIn profile. And I didn't say, here's my booking link. I said, if you want, send me yours and then I'll schedule on you. So what that does—

that's a great idea. I like that.

Yeah, it just— and then do it based on micro decisions. So we connected. There's something in the back of your brain says, I know this guy. I think I connected with him. Oh, that's nice. He sent me a, a welcome message for connecting. Okay. Put some effort into it. Did he make a video? And Scoop purposely makes the video where the preview of the video looks raw. It looks like it's just made. It's not high polished because the people don't like the corporate high polished look. They want to know. This looks like a video. It looked like he just made the video. Did he make the video for me? That's another micro decision, right? And then they scroll down and they look at the title. I know he made it for me because it has my name on it. And so you increase your conversion rate. And so I did a test on my account and I noticed that half the people look at the video. Half. Now that's 50% of every single message.

That's really good.

Well, that's not the conversion rate yet though. And so my average conversion rate before, even though I'm fairly popular on LinkedIn, I'm kind of a little micro influencer or whatever you want to call it. I only had a 3% conversion rate to a vetted book meeting on a single message, not the whole system, not everything on that one message. And when I say 3%, I'm saying that they actually booked a meeting to talk to me about a particular subject. They pre-vet it themselves, right? And they want to talk to me because they needed something, right? I moved that 3% to 21%. That means I increased it by 6 times, right? Think about this. If you have an average person, if you have your systems in place, can get about 10 connections a day. That means if you're 5 connections out, 5 connections in. And most of those people are in your ICP, your ideal client profile, right? They're prospects, in other words.

Correct.

Or partners or potential partners or whatever. And so out of 10, if I have 21% conversion rate to a vetted book meeting, that's at least 2 meetings, sometimes 3 a day.

Right.

So let's just use 2 on the lower end. That means you get an extra 40 meetings that are vetted a month by spending 2 minutes, uh, 2 minutes on a single video. That means if you spend 30 minutes a day, you can convert into that. And so that's the best use of your time, because the question comes down to, if you're in the B2B market, how much is one client average worth? A lot of—

exactly. Client, you know, you have to look at, you know, the value of each client, their their monthly, yearly, you know, what's, you know, your lifetime value. Yeah, it's a lifetime value of a customer. You know, the other thing that I really like about your— the app that you have is you can go to like articles on LinkedIn and posts. So let's say you follow somebody like Gary Vee or Mr. Wonderful, right? These people have millions of followers, or Mark Cuban. You can pull up one of their posts and leave a comment. And I started doing that with your, uh, with Scoop. Oh yeah, right. Then people will like the comment, right? So you see like, oh, 5 people like this comment that you made, right? And you don't have to spend a ton of time reading these articles, right? Because Scoop reads it for you and then makes a little thing. And then usually I add something on the bottom. And then those people are potential, you know, people who would have never known anything about you. You just happen to be following the same person, and then you can connect with those people.

Isn't it crazy that, uh, I'll get on average maybe about 80 likes and 80 comments or whatever on a post, right? Uh, it may take a day or two to get to that, right? That's, that's pretty decent. It's not I'm not one of these people that have millions of followers, but it's pretty good. It ends up being about 30,000 views a month or a week. 30,000 a week. Yeah. And so that's actually really good. But if you make a comment on someone else's, that's much more popular. I saw a comment saying, um, you have 20,000 views on your comment at this other person. So a single comment gets more views than my entire post, a comment from someone else on someone else's post.

Yeah, I noticed that it start— like, I did that the other day. I made a comment on somebody's post. I'm really— I think— and then all of a sudden, like, 20 or 30 people liked my comment. And then I reached out and I, you know, sent them— I viewed their profile. Some of them connected to me, and then I connected to people who didn't connect with me.

Well, think about that, what you just said there. Um, if someone else is, say, very popular in a certain area they have a certain clientele, right? By you commenting on that, you're pulling potential partners, customers that wouldn't necessarily fit his ICP. So not even hurting him, right? And so you're gaining, you're gaining interest because you're engaging, right? And so that's pretty powerful. And you can do that with a single button click. Scoop also creates posts. And it does that based on your personality. And so there's a button to actually absorb all the information on your LinkedIn profile, excuse me, and it absorbs your knowledge base on your last 10 or 20 posts. And then every 30 days it refreshes it. And so you can create a post with a single button click that sounds like you. Now, is it exactly like you? No, but it has your knowledge base., then you can go there and fix your hook, make adjustments. So instead of spending an hour, hour and a half writing it out, you spend 5 minutes making adjustments. So Scoop at the heart is a video sales and relationship tool. And, so we talked about content, we talked about direct videos. It can also help you on the CRM side. If you don't have anything, it can give you reminders of when you've got to email someone or when you need to talk to someone. And this year we're expanding that. We're creating a visual element on that where they can visually see what's happening this week and, and, or that particular day, who's the most important person to deal with. And we're doing that with a visual with your picture in the middle and whoever's the next most important people right around you, and the ones that are a little less important on the outer side of the circle. That way it's a very visual method. We're going to plug in email sequences where it can use someone and take their information and send them a nurturing campaign. We're setting up with text. We're also setting up with— what was that, uh, the application, WhatsApp application, right? And we're going to tie it in to go HighLevel. And so those people have that visual component as well. So there's a lot of cool stuff, but they all are kind of encased in how do I build a really better relationship with a lot less time? And so when you create a video for the DMs, they said, well, he actually spent time on this, right? People really appreciate that. People want to work with someone that puts in a little bit of effort.

Let me, let me ask you a quick question about that. So there's been a lot of discussion, you know, about promotion. You know, how do you promote your product and your business? Like, how do you do that today in 2026 versus whatever the past, right? So there's been a debate of Oh, do I promote my company or do I promote my own personal brand?

So that's an easy, that's an easy answer.

I'm going to tell you, I did an experiment at the office and I said, we're going to stop promoting stuff on the Nationwide Payment Systems page and the B2B Vault page. We're going to only promote out on the Allen Kopelman page, right? Well, the Allen Kopelman page blew up. And I got like 10,000 more followers and like, I don't even know, a few, 2 or 3 months. I like literally picked up tons of followers and those people aren't necessarily connected, but they are following me, right? Because that's 2 things on LinkedIn. You have some people are connected to you, other people are just following your content, right? So I definitely think, you know, I tell people all the time, you have to build your personal brand. Because people are more interested in you than they are in your company. And you have to show some personal stuff, like post stuff about your dog, post stuff about other stuff that's not just business. So people see like the human side of you.

Exactly. Um, it, because that helps the trust factor. Um, even when I do events, I had a post today and yesterday about events, right? And creating online events. And, you know, this is kind of an online event as well. It's very similar in some ways because it's a podcast, but I do things like LinkedIn Lives and stuff like that. And so I run conversions on that. And so I was able to, you know, develop a channel on that through the personal brand. But I also know that one thing doesn't work well. So I introduced multichannel interaction. So when you're running a podcast, I don't know the math on it, but I know the math on a LinkedIn Live. It could have some similarities. So how do I get people to register for it? Well, there's a system for that, you know, and you have— and it doesn't cost money. And some of the systems that you run will reach out and invite people. Once they're on the event, if you have like, if it's an interview, it's one thing. But if you have a product that you're selling or a service that you're selling, you want to take that personal approach. So the same thing you're talking about in being very personable, you're being human, you know, working on your brand. You got to do that very quickly on an event. So I talk about I was in the United States Army, you know, I'm a single father. I used to be a developer. You know, I had these challenges and that sort of thing. And I want to be relatable as possible and pass that so-called litmus test. And that litmus test is like, could I hang out with this person, you know, and have a beer at a high-end restaurant? You know, think, think about that. Well, I don't drink beer, I drink liquor. But the point is, If they're going to take time out mentally and saying, I can hang out with this person, that means they're going to open to tell you their secrets. It could be personal, it could be business. They want to build a relationship with you. If they want to build a relationship with you, that's much higher probability of them doing business. And the LinkedIn Live events sometimes are the same way. You got to get— got to introduce the guest speakers first. You got to talk about them as people, and then you, then you talk about yourself, and then you, you be a little more relatable. I have to do it because I barely have a personality, you know, so I'm not really a funny guy, right? So they got to really get to know me. And then you get into, most of the time, transformation. And that's what people are looking for. You get into, you're at point A and you need to be at point B. You're there to help transform them to get to point B. And that's one purpose of having Scoop. They needed more vetted book calls. And that's what— that's where the business comes from. Even after event, talking about systems, you could scrub the list, you know, enrich it for emails, and then add that to your opt-in list as, you know, one of the ways of doing it, and then send out 5 emails after the event. Now we looked at the conversion rate. So during the event we had 2 booked meetings. Now I have a high— for my high-end program, right? And so we had only 2 booked meetings. We had 300 people register, 47 people showed up, and only 2 booked meetings. The chances of me closing 2 deals, pretty low because there's a high ticket. If it was a low ticket, it'd be pretty easy, right? But you wouldn't get as much money. The emails, on the other hand, had 37 people interested and 5 people booked. So I almost had 3 times as many people book from the email that didn't even show up to the event than the people who showed up. And so that's an example of using these systems and tools together. And Scoop is one of those systems, you know, so, so I appreciate you using Scoop. Uh, I just launched it not too long ago. Got our first 300 paid users.

Well, congratulations.

Growing it now.

So, so tell everybody, where can they find you? People want to find Troy, you can find him on LinkedIn. We'll put the link in the post. And if you want to find out more about Scoop, we'll put a link in the, uh, show notes about where to find Scoop so that you can, uh, get a demo, look at it, find out about it. And, uh, that's what you can do. Any last words for people? Give people 3 actionable things they could do on LinkedIn with or without Scoop.

Okay. All right. So number 1, the first thing half the people look at when they connect with you is your profile. Your profile probably sucks. So, so, uh, um, get someone to redo your profile where you talk about what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for. Um, in multiple places starting from your banner. And so you want to be super clear, uh, on the information title underneath your name, uh, well, it's a subject. You want to add a lot of the same information in different words, uh, and then you want to add it throughout your profile. So it's like telling them, telling them again, tell them again, and tell them again. And by having that pattern of clarity, you have pushed away people that may not be interested and brought in people that are more aligned with your ICP. So that's tip number 1. Take an audit of your LinkedIn profile so it's aligned with your ICP. Number 2, find a way to personalize your interaction on the most important steps. So Scoopa is a good example. If you want higher conversion rates, spend— block out time in the day to do personal stuff. And doesn't have to be Scoop. It could be a personal letter. It could be personal gifts. Whatever you're doing, people want to feel that you are engaging with them in particular. And by spending a little bit of time, that converts. They— people want to be seen. They don't want to be a number. They want to be a human to a human. So people like working with other people. Um, if I had to give a, a third item, I would say understand your value structure. So if you're developing systems, of course develop it on multi-channels. That's what we do for our clients. But as far as branding, uh, bring them in when they're ready to bring in. So when I say a multi-tier structure, I'm talking about your value structure. So tier number 1 is free. What can you give free with your content, your meetings, a quick how to do this to solve their immediate problems without charging them money? Tier number 2 is a low-cost solution. I have 2. One is Scoop. It's a very low-cost monthly subscription, well worth it because If you have a client that's worth $10,000, $100,000 for LTV, I think spending 2 minutes doing an action is well worth getting that client. It blows my mind that people don't want to do any work at all, and that's the wrong attitude. My other offer is I have like a 4-hour consultation for like $800 or something, and they can get into it. The third tier is my high-end service that I build out all the channels, train the teams, and, uh, provide what's needed. And wherever they come in, they may not, uh, increase the next, but if someone gives you a dollar, they're paying a dollar's worth of attention. So people pay to pay attention, and that is why you create a multi-tier structure that's valuable to them. Those are my three 3 bits of advice there.

All right. I always tell people whenever I talk to salespeople, business owners, I'm like, you need to section off 30 minutes to an hour every day to do some social media. You know, post on your Facebook, post on your LinkedIn. If it's X that you like, wherever you think you should be, you know, section off a little bit of time for that. It'll be well worth it because today when people are looking to do business with you, they're going to go, they're going to just put your name in Google or ChatGPT and they want to find out about you. And that's how they're going to find out about you. You know, put your name in some kind of Claude, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Copilot. I mean, the list is endless today, right? So I want to thank everybody for listening in today on B2B Vault and learning more about Scoop.it and LinkedIn. I want to thank Troy for coming on the show, and I appreciate your time today, Troy, and I appreciate his software. It's really cool. I like it a lot. And thank you for joining B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast, where we provide educational information for business owners to learn about entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, and all kinds of different things, financial related and unfinancial related. And check out nationwidepaymentsystems.com to find out more about us. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and you can connect with Troy on LinkedIn. And we're going to post some links in the show notes so you can look at all these great new, you know, look at his product and check it out and learn more about LinkedIn. So thanks for joining us today, Troy.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Alright.