Never take cuttings with scissors. Don't even cut dead flowers with scissors. Use the sharpest knife you got or a scalpel. With scissors you destroy cells all over the place, instead of a clean cut that a sharp blade does.
If you take a cut with scissors, always re-cut it at an angle with a sharp blade before you put it into the cloner. You will have much better results.
Also, use powder cloning aid. Much better than the gel in soil. And usually cheaper, too.
Clones taken from plants that are in the vegetation cycle will have best chances of growing roots. Some plants will throw roots faster if you use a diluted micronutrient fertiliser in the soil/cloner water.
I broke a branch off one of my pepper plants in the early summer.. I put it into some potting soil, placed a plastic bag over it, left it for 3-4 weeks in a window that got a little pm sun, n when I went to add water, it had already rooted... at that point I took off the bag, and its now in my sun room for the winter- I am not sure what pepper it is , as have 7-8 diff ones growing... but it def rooted and is growing...I was surprised how easy it was to root..