In this episode, we break down one of the highest-performing emails ever sent with Kyle Scott, SVP of Partnerships, Brand & Community at Luxury Presence and co-founder of Sell It with Ryan Serhant. Kyle spent nearly a decade as an NBC News producer before transitioning into luxury real estate marketing and digital media. We dissect the anatomy of an email invitation to a $250 million penthouse event that sold out in a single send, exploring how voice, tone, specificity, and strategic storytelling combine to create desire, exclusivity, and action. This is a masterclass in intentional copywriting—not theory, but real decision-making from someone who's proven it works at scale.
The foundation of this episode rests on a critical distinction that most marketers blur together: **voice versus tone**. Kyle explains that voice is your written personality—it stays consistent across all channels and contexts. Tone, by contrast, is how you inflect that personality based on the situation. Think James Bond: he's always Bond, but his tone shifts when he's with a love interest versus facing a villain. For B2B teams, this means your brand voice should be recognizable everywhere—email, website, social, support—but the tone can adapt to urgency, celebration, education, or crisis. The practical implication? Don't let different team members rewrite your voice. Align on the character first, then let tone flex.
Kyle didn't learn to write in Ryan Serhant's voice through copywriting school or brand guidelines. He learned through **listening**—watching Million Dollar Listing, reading his book, listening to his podcast, working alongside him. He absorbed cadence, word choice, energy, and personality through immersion. His advice: if you're writing for a person or personal brand, listen to them speak. If you're writing for a business, find real-world personalities who embody your brand's values and listen to how they talk. Then internalize it. This is more effective than any document because it's about osmosis, not rules. The email breakdown reveals why: Kyle didn't follow a template. He wrote like he was having a conversation with someone he knew.
The email itself is a masterclass in **specificity**. Instead of "high up above the skyscrapers," Kyle wrote "1,416 feet in the air." Instead of "luxury listing," he said "$250 million triplex" at "Central Park Tower," the "most expensive listing ever in the United States." Each specific detail makes the reader *feel* the exclusivity. It's not marketing fluff—it's world-building. The specificity creates a mental image that makes the offer feel real and tangible. For B2B: replace "enterprise-grade" with "handles 10M+ transactions per day." Replace "easy to use" with "onboards in under 5 minutes." Specificity is credibility.
But Kyle thinks five steps ahead. The email isn't just selling tickets—it's constructing a world of exclusivity around the event. Every element reinforces that world: "Early Access" in the subject line signals insider status. "Since you're on the mastermind wait list" reminds people they're part of a curated group. The Wall Street Journal link (with its paywall) signals prestige—hitting the paywall *reinforces* that this is exclusive. "All showing agents are vetted" means you can't just show up; you have to be approved. "Once it's sold, it'll be forever closed" creates scarcity and finality. This isn't manipulation. It's intentional storytelling. And it matters because the story you tell internally (we sold out in one email) becomes the story you tell externally (everyone wants in now).
Kyle also reveals a tactical choice that most marketers miss: he sent the email through HubSpot but made it *look* like a personal email from Outlook. No fancy header. No marketing template. Just "Hi there" and conversational language. Why? Because personal emails get higher open rates, higher engagement, and feel more authentic. When you're selling a $7,000 ticket, you can afford to spend 3–4 hours replying to people personally. That human touch is worth it. The trade-off: you can't use a signup page. You have to be willing to handle the volume of replies. But for high-ticket offers, this is a no-brainer.
The bigger picture Kyle emphasizes is this: **in an age where AI can replicate your software in seconds, brand and community are your only defensible advantages**. And brand is built on point of view. Not politics or religion—but a clear stance on where your industry is going and what your customers need to succeed. Perplexity has a POV on AI research. Claude has a POV on safety and privacy. Open AI is more generalist—which is why specialists are carving out niches. For B2B SaaS: if you're not prescriptive about what your customers should do, you're invisible. Tell them what to do. Make it the easy path. Customers are lazy—they want an expert to guide them, not a generic platform.
Whether you're a B2B SaaS marketer building brand voice, a copywriter learning the mechanics of persuasive writing, a founder building a personal brand, or a product marketer learning how to position and communicate value, this episode offers practical frameworks for building messaging that cuts through noise and creates desire. Kyle's breakdown of how he constructed exclusivity through language and storytelling is worth a listen—and worth applying to your own work.
Enjoy!