by Nancy Calabrese | Apr 5, 2021 | Podcast
Our special guest on this week’s episode of Conversational Selling is Meshell Baker, the Owner of Meshell Baker Enterprises and SuperFan Solutions. Meshell is an award-winning Keynote Speaker, Sales Coach, and Mentor who works with sales leaders and individuals to inspire and ignite confidence, and influence conversations that cultivate client relationships and new business opportunities. With over 25 years of successful corporate experience in sales, she is on a mission to change the way sales is perceived.
We chat with Meshell about adaptability and mastery, as well as:
- The keys to generating more confidence
- How to quit self-sabotaging and activate your genius
- Shedding your excuses
- Overcoming the struggle with your inner voice and eliminating imposter syndrome
- And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hello, it’s Nancy Calabrese and yes, it’s time for Conversational Selling the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Joining us today is the fabulous Meshell Baker, the owner of SuperFan Solutions and Meshell Baker Enterprises. She works with conscious non traditional businesses, sales leaders and individuals to inspire and ignite confidence and influence conversations that cultivate win-win client relationships and new business opportunities.
With over 25 years of successful corporate experience in sales, she is on a mission to change the way sales is perceived. She believes by incorporating confidence as the core tenant, it becomes transformative for both buyers and sellers. She is also an international keynote speaker, a sales and competence coach and a success strategist. So I think everybody can agree that confidence is, you know, a major requirement in sales. And believing in yourself is so important in achieving goals. I have so many questions for you, Meshell, welcome to the show. And let’s get started.
Meshell Baker: Absolutely glad. Glad to be here. Nancy, truly excited to have this time with you.
Nancy: And ditto here. So I’ve heard you say people first and profits follow. Tell us more about that?
Meshell: Well, great question. And the reason I believe in people first profits follow is when you really look at the companies that have done an incredible job of staying and thriving. When you look at the Amazons, or even the Nikes, and the Googles, and like, we can go to Merck, or Johnson and Johnson, the companies who are asked, changes have come because that’s the one thing in business is changes and evitable. But the ones who’ve been able to adapt and grow with their client base and expand their client base, they’ve made it their business to hire and attract the people who actually build their business. Right? It’s so interesting that business has become so focused on making money, when they forget that the people who make the money or the money makers are the people.
Nancy: Right.
Meshell: So how do I create more money? I actually attract or and or cultivate a team of valuable people? Because that’s what attracts the opportunity are the people who work for you.
Nancy: Yeah. And you know, when I think of you, I think of confidence, right? Meshell confidence. Meshell confidence. Speak, you speak about your gift in igniting that. We don’t all have that gift. So how do you do it and talk to us about that, too.
Meshell: Well, I love confidence. Because what I’ve seen time and time again, is when we place our belief in something external to us, it will always fail us because nothing stays the same. The only thing that stays the same is us. And we still change you know, we adapt over time. And everywhere you go, there you are. So when you can believe in yourself, everywhere you go, you’re looking through the lens of your eyes and the belief that no matter where what you face, no matter what comes your way you’re equipped and prepared. And that’s confidence.
Confidence is simply the habit of believing in yourself. And when you have especially sales reps, who are able to do that. So when the comp plan changes when their territory changes, when the customer says no, when the deal you’ve been working on for a year falls through when anything happens external, they are able and equipped to adapt. Without that confidence when it’s simply competence in a strategy, well when the strategy falls apart, they fall apart.
Nancy: Right so you know, I think all of us from time to time, some more than others, struggle with our inner voice. You know, we beat ourselves up, get stuck trying to understand why. And I know you speak of this. At One of a Kind sales we call it head trash. Right? We’re all victim to it from time to time. What are your recommendations to get rid of it? And really keep that minimal?
Meshell: Yes. So Well, one of the biggest things that causes people to have head trash is that they’re focused on a goalpost. So they’re looking at getting somewhere they’re acquiring something external to them, not realizing that you have this beautiful, brilliant brain, we’re all born with 100 billion neurons. Right? So we’re all born genius. Our genius is only activated in the midst of discovery, curiosity, problem solving innovation, that’s when you actually start to realize how smart you are how much you know how much you remember, that’s when you actually start to believe in yourself.
Now, having said that, on the reverse, then, what most people do is wait for the other shoe to drop. Look at what could go wrong. Remember what went wrong? Remember what someone said. So most people are using those 100 billion neurons against themselves, because your unconscious mind is always working that chatter, right, the critic is always working. So your job in your role is to have a critic work on your behalf. And that requires absolute non negotiable more morning routine. As soon as you wake up, it’s a new day. And when you make it’s your standard to calibrate your GPS, your brain to look in the direction of things working in your favor and make that your habit and standard.
You will wake up one day and and pleasantly go, oh my god, it is working in my favor. Oh my goodness. Oh, my. That’s, and the thing is, you don’t know when that’s gonna happen. And that’s the challenge. With most of society, they want to know exactly when because they’ve been promised when so many times not realizing that the promises never actually came through. They keep looking for somebody to tell them when instead of just going, I don’t know when, w h e n, and I’m not going to stop until I win, w i n.
Nancy: Right. You know, I know. I’m a big believer in vision boards. When I was first asked to pull them together, I thought it was stupid. And now we make it a routine here at the company, everybody does it. I love it. I have it on my screen, you know, I have it posted all over the place. And it really helps give me a dose of Yay let’s get going. I think you agree with that too, don’t you?
Meshell: I am a proponent of vision boards. Every the work I do with any organization, individual or team always requires creating a vision, what is the vision of what you want to create? And yes, I absolutely believe because that gives those 100 million brain cells a target, and that’s the why. So in the midst of what’s happening, when you can calibrate your mind to the why, that’s when your innovation and your genius comes, comes into play.
Nancy: I love it. And so I’m going to stick with numbers. While we’re talking about it, I watched your podcast on infinite imagination versus fear of rejection or failure. And the number that jumped out to me was 10,000 tries. Tell us what, you mean by that? Let my audience know.
Meshell: Yes. So there’s this adage that mastery comes about when your expertise, true expertise comes about when you’ve done 10,000 hours or 10,000 tries. Now, it could be sooner or later than that. So the goal is just to stick with a 10,000. And know that repetition is the mother of skill and success. what generally happens is when people are struggling, or when people are complaining about a situation that didn’t go their way or not getting the results, the ROI that they are wanting. You generally ask them well, how many times have you made an attempt.
You’ll be absolutely baffled at how few people haven’t even made it to a dozen, and they’ve already given up. So when you can set your sights on 10,000, right? If I have not done this 10,000 times, then I have no right to complain. If there’s an infinite possibility of outcome, then just focus on the fact that again, as long as I keep going, I will succeed. And what happens is that success is the opposite. If you flip a coin, we’re in this heads or tails. Or if you flip the coin of success on the other side is failure, setbacks, miles delay. So again, your willingness to keep going to just keep getting up till you hit 10,000.
If you mark it on your calendar somewhere, you’ll be amazed that before you know it, you’re not thinking about the failures, what you’re what you’re doing is learning from the setbacks and the mistakes and the failure. And you’re getting smarter and stronger, more confident, more resilient, more resourceful. And that’s what you focus on is just going towards the desire in instead of stopping and looking at what’s happening now.
Nancy: You’re making me think of, Okay, we have a Fitbit. Now we need a sales bit, right?
Meshell: Wouldn’t that be awesome?!
Nancy: Yeah, well, 10,000 is a daunting number, right? So I think the message here is just don’t quit, just keep on keeping on, keep on keeping on. And we’ll eventually master it.
Meshell: Yeah. And so just going back to what you just said, keeping on keeping on, that goes back to the vision, right, of something that is meaningful to you, when it’s not meaningful to you, you won’t keep on excuses will overtake you, your reasons must outweigh your results. Because when the rubbish don’t outweigh the results, you will give up every time. But when the reason or when that when the pendulum swings, or when the scale shifts, you will get up and you will remember your why. And you’ll dust yourself off.
And even if you take a day off a week off a month off that reason that why will not let you go. It’s embedded in your heart. And you’ll start to see it like it will try to act like you don’t even remember it. But you’ll read a magazine and there’s a phrase, you’ll watch a commercial and there it is right, it will find you.
Nancy: Yeah, I want to go back to another statement that you publish, that you work with conscious non traditional businesses. What does that mean?
Meshell: I love. So my joy is working with people who love what they love their customers, they love what they do. And they hate the sales process. They hate the marketing process that you’ll hear them they hate, like social media, and to help them to marry the two to merge the two so that they’re there’s no disconnect in how their day goes so that they’re attracting more of their ideal clients. People forget that people buy for emotional reasons and justify with logic. Right behind every sale is a human being and humans are all emotional. So having said that, when you hate the whole sales process, your your communication is 55% physiology, your body language, your eye contact and 38% tonality, that’s 93% of how you communicate is unconscious. If you hate selling, there’s no way you can hide it.
Not unless, you’re a con artist, right snake oil salesmen, so there’s no way you can hide it. So finding what you love, and helping someone to transfer that in their communication, and confidently connect with those ideal buyers and clients so that they’re there. They’re creating those raving fans who do you know, recommendations, repeat business, and referrals is what I love to do. And when I say non traditional, it’s the conscious entrepreneurs who have a heart, right. So when you talk about money, it makes them uncomfortable, because they’re about purpose. They’re about humanity.
They’re about changing lives and transformation. So teaching them to make so many calls. So you can get so many leads and follow up this, it does not equate to them, then it has to be in a in the foundation of it has a meaning and it’s something that matters to them. And yeah, I’ve worked with companies like roto routers, I work with massage organizations, I’ve worked with, you know, nonprofit organizations, just any type of organization that really has a love for their, the people that they serve, and they have a forward facing team could be a sales team or just individuals who are looking to increase their engagement and convert more and convert more conversations to clients.
Nancy: Yeah. So do you have a story? The audience would find interesting?
Meshell: Yeah, so I actually recall working with a lawncare company here in Austin area and it was all done virtually so never had to go out and that’s what I love. My programs are eight weeks or 90 days, but it was a lawncare company and we looked at they wanted an upsell. So here are the people who are actually going out doing the physical work. And the owner knew that there was these opportunities because they expanded their offerings, they had, you know, upgraded their services, and most of their client base did not know about it, we know you and I Nancy understand, right, it’s always easier to engage in upselling existing clients in a creative way.
So having said that, our whole program was about changing their mindset, really equipping them to understand what a sales was, what that transaction look like, and why it would benefit them, why it would benefit their client, why would benefit their company, to actually have these conversations and do it in a way that was more authentic to who they were. And it was absolutely incredible to see the success to see the increase in sales that started to happen. So it’s it, like I said, it’s an eight week program.
And so generally around that second or third week, once they you know, once we get over the hump and the hurdle, you start to see an increase in return on investment and sales results pretty quick there, and you and it’s lasting. So what you’ll see is camaraderie, and the unintentional result when I do teams and small companies, is your culture will change because that’s one of the things that I really impart in the weekly calls is engaging people and understanding that everything you need exists, where you are and how to utilize your team members, and to strategize in a way that’s empowering, encouraging and formative to everyone as participating.
Nancy: Yeah. What is the fear of imposter syndrome?
Meshell: So, fear of imposter syndrome is something that pretty much any most successful people experience at some point. And that’s when you are, you are either in a job role that you’ve always wanted, and you feel things like you’re not doing a good job. So perfectionism is one of the things that greatly creates fear of imposter syndrome. So there’s a comparison I’m not good enough, I could have done it better, or I should have done it better. So I tell people that we’re sure it will create a lot of anxiety in your life.
And it’s one of the driving factors around imposter syndrome. And some people will get promoted really quick or sooner than they anticipated that was in their plan or expect expected or get opportunities quicker than they thought. And they’re like, oh my God, if this person knows, right, so they say fake it till you make it. Well, that creates imposter syndrome. So instead of focusing on being an imposter is going into the state state of I Am, right? I this is who this is the identity of who I’m becoming. So in order to become that person, I must start to speak think and act as if I’m already there.
Nancy: Interesting. I never really thought of it that way imposter. Fake it til you make it is a term that we’ve all heard out there. So wow. You, you know, you’ve got so many talents, and I want to be able to spotlight something that’s really important for you right now. So what would that be?
Meshell: So what’s really been important for me is helping business leaders or business owners and sales leaders to create happy human workplaces is what I’m calling them. The HHW. And that’s really taking their team as a leadership team. I’m actually doing a presentation with a CEO on the board this coming week, and it’s about how to engage them and create that space where they understand they have they are well equipped and able to adapt to any outcome.
And it’s all around how do you champion confidence in your workplace. And that’s what that’s what I’m really passionate about. And that still it still translates into that sales. And, and it translates into helping people to feel good about the work they’re doing. When they get to work. What you find is most of our society goes to a job they hate scared to lose the job to buy stuff for people that they want to impress that they don’t even like. Right? So when you really think about it,
Nancy: You’re right, but it’s sad.
Meshell: It’s really sad, right? So how do we help the one actually create a vision of what success looks like? Not just fail success, but success. And the offshoot is you’ll have the one who is going to succeed in sales. But you also have someone who is becomes a well rounded person is valuable to themselves to me and Zappos has done an incredible job if you ever want to read and look at them, they’ve done an incredible job. So think about it like this. How do you create? Why is it important to create a happy human workplace? Well, how do you attract talent? Your employees go, and they live a life.
Now, if your employees are sitting at happy hour sitting around the barbecue at the picnic, and everybody’s complaining about their job, wouldn’t you want your employee to be the one to go? Oh, my God, I love where I work. Guess what is the next? What is the next question? Oh, my God, where are you working? Are they hiring? That’s how companies don’t you don’t even have that’s the bus. So you want your clients to recommend and refer you. You also want your employees to do the same thing.
Nancy: Yep. And that goes back to my first question. What are statement people first then profits follow?
Meshell: People first and profits follow.
Nancy: Yeah. So what is something that you completely believe in that’s true and almost no one agrees with you on?
Meshell: That question. When you first word it, wrote it. It’s one of the interesting questions that telling people they have to, I believe is absolutely counterproductive. And I know that no one believes that this is a rarity. Because when I listen to how most people speak, they say you have to, and we don’t like my question, when someone tells me I have to I go, Why? Yeah, why do I have to? You’ll be amazed at how many people can’t even answer the question. The order to actually follow up with say, you have to again, what I’m looking for is to inspire me. Right?
When we again, we go back to what I said, Everybody has genius, we have 100 billion neurons, how we activate that genius is we must ignite are all curiosity and creativity and thought, when you tell someone they have to, it’s about you. You just you’ve just given them a list, and they look at one thing, because you’re just generally telling them, they have to do one thing, or you listing a bunch of things. So that’s all about you. When you ask someone a question, what do you want to do? Why does that matter to you? Why is it important? You have actually invoke their critical thinking. That’s the gift that most of the world is not giving each other?
Nancy: Well, and you said again, earlier, you should do or have two, those are the two that
Meshell: Oh, my God, don’t should on me and I won’t should on you. I call them nosy words. Because when you think about it, so how I’ve got worked around, I have to it was very difficult at first because most of society speaks that way. I mean, it was like three decades of me speaking that way before I actually became cognizant that I no longer wanted to speak that way. So it really required me to stop and pause to restate to make a lot of mistakes to 10,000. And I knew my mission was to eliminate that language from my vocabulary.
And I still slip up here and there. Because like I said, three and a half decades, you’re not magically going to stop 100%. And I knew that I wanted to speak because I couldn’t figure out why I hated it when people told me I have to. So I started instead of like being judgmental of them. And I just started asking myself the question like why do I not like this? What what is the what? What is it about this term that is bothering me so much?
Nancy: Interesting. So we’re coming to the end of our show, which has been fabulous. And I want the audience to at least have one takeaway from you, and, you know, share a thought or a document that you think would empower them. Make their day better.
Meshell: Yes, I actually offer a download, and I call it The Bank Vault vision board. The goal is to open up into abundance. So when people think about you walk into a bank vault, and you could just take everything in there, that would just be an abundant overflow, right in a bank vault there just really isn’t like you’d be able to do whatever you want in life. And it’s the same principle. When we create the grandest, greatest vision possible. You actually are expanding abundance to come to you because the thing is shoot for the moon, you’ll land in the stars.
And what people don’t understand is when your dream is big, you actually inspire someone else to dream big. If you dream of a mansion you’ve actually now created and put into our universe world, whatever you want to call it. The idea that someone else all of a sudden goes hmm, I want to be a stonemason. I don’t know why I have a desire. This is how we have the belief that we have more than enough and we can create whatever we want is what will empower us to have the happy human workplace, because most people need to work and that’s how we’ve changed the world.
Nancy: Awesome. Most important, how can my audience find you, Meshell?
Meshell: Well, you can just email me at Meshell, it’s m e s h e l l Baker, b a k e r. So it’s my first name meshell@meshellbaker.com. Or you can also follow me on social media and on social media. So all of my social media channels, have my middle initial, so it’s at Meshell R Baker, and I’m on any channel at that handle.
Nancy: Well, another awesome conversation with a fabulous expert. Thank you all for listening in. Thank you, Meshell, for joining us and to everyone out there, have a fantastic and confident sales day and start counting your 10,000.
Voiceover: The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough leads or your sales team complains that they just don’t have enough time to prospect, we can help. To work with Nancy and her team one on one to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process and create more bottom line results, email her now at Nancy@oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution at oneofakindsales.com/book.
by Nancy Calabrese | Mar 29, 2021 | Podcast
Our special guest on this week’s episode of Conversational Selling is Mary Lombardo, CEO and Founder of the Sales Impact Group. They offer virtual sales solutions that save businesses the time and expense of hiring, training, and managing. As someone who has personally generated more than $50 million in sales, Mary helps SMEs drive sales growth through diagnostic and prescriptive sales training and outsource sales management. She is also a national speaker, a two-time winner of Salesperson of the Year, and is a member of The Million Dollar Club.
We chat about effective virtual sales practices, as well as:
- Sales training with diagnostic and prescriptive methods
- Coaching timelines for practicing new methods learned in training
- Offering outsourced sales management to help start-ups transition into market
- How and when to reevaluate why you received a “no”
- And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hello this is Nancy Calabrese and it’s time for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Joining us today is the fabulous Mary Lombardo, CEO and Founder of the Sales Impact Group, offering virtual sales solutions from outsourced sales management, sales training and coaching.
Her company saves businesses the time and expense of hiring and training, managing. And as someone who has personally generated more than 50 million in sales, Mary helps SMEs drive sales growth through diagnostic and prescriptive sales training and outsource sales management. She is also a national speaker, a two time winner of sales person of the year and of the million dollar club. Listen, folks simply put, she knows sales from the ground up. And you know, Mary, we we’ve had a chance to speak earlier and the world is really pivoted to virtual these days. And we’re always looking for leadership to guide us through these crazy times. So let’s get started. And welcome to the show.
Mary Lombardo: Hi, Nancy, thank you so much for having me.
Nancy: I’m excited. And folks, if anybody is passionate, her name is Mary Lombardo. So stick with us here. I want to start with companies have had to adapt to selling virtual in today’s world, you know, and my question is, do you think virtual selling is so much different from face to face? I kind of feel that many people believe it can’t be done effectively. I’d like to know your thoughts.
Mary: Right. I certainly think that sales can be done effectively, virtually. My own company has had to make quite a few pivots to sell virtually, and make sure that we are getting in front of people virtually the way we onboard our clients need needed to pivot to virtual. And as someone who’s done a ton of sales training, all of our sales training has now pivoted to being done virtually just given the the life that we’re living right now, the situation we’re all going through right now. I certainly think it can be done effectively with some minor, some minor tweaks and changes. I mean, clearly we’re not in front of someone, we can’t shake someone’s hand.
Nancy: Right.
Mary: But we can certainly make a connection virtually it just takes a little bit of tweaking.
Nancy: Yeah, but why are there so many naysayers about it? Honestly, it’s baffling to me, because that’s the only way I’ve ever done business.
Mary: Right. Right. Well, you know, I think it’s just human nature that sometimes people are resistant to change. And, you know, webinars and podcasts and zoom meetings, and people that really aren’t technologically adept can just be afraid of, of the technology. But many of my clients have had to interact with technology in a way that they haven’t before. And so I think it’s just fear of change, or being averse to trying something new, quite frankly.
Nancy: Yeah. So you know, what was caught my attention is your diagnostic and prescriptive sales training program. Tell us more about it.
Mary: Sure. So, you know, I’ve been in sales for 25 years at a variety of different roles. And so, I have sat through my fair share of trainings, and I’ve also delivered my fair share of trainings. And what I’ve discovered over the years is just like with any other type of learning, Nancy, it, there’s not a one size fits all, you know, it really depends on where the particular salesperson is at in their career and their experience. And so what we do is we, we have an assessment, that’s a very comprehensive process that pinpoints the exact skill gaps of a salesperson and their sales skills.
And then we create curriculum to remediate those gaps. And we group people together with the same types of strengths and weakness. says so that we’re teaching them something that’s relevant to them. And most importantly, is going to change their behavior. Because the bottom line is companies hire salespeople to increase sales. And so they need to be equipped with their own specific toolbox in ways of interacting to close the sale. And you know, there’s a place for generalized types of sales training, like getting past the gatekeeper or overcoming objections.
And but that would not be an appropriate curriculum for somebody who has been selling for 15 years. That would be, you know, something that would be much more appropriate for an entry level sales person. So right, the, the diagnostic and prescriptive is to really pinpoint the skill gaps of every individual sales person and teach to those gaps.
Nancy: So you know, everybody has a different learning curve, right? Some people pick things up quickly. In your experience is there an average time span that you have seen for behaviors to change?
Mary: It typically takes three to six months, because as they, you know, once the independent practice happens, so there is a guided practice and independent practice, and then checking for mastery, but then those folks have to go out in the field, and actually practice what they’ve learned to integrate change. And so we then are out in the field with them.
Right now we’re not, but we’re a company now, virtually, to offer coaching in real time, just like any other professional would have a coach, you know, we always use a sports figure as an example of, you know, Tiger Woods didn’t get to be worried that without a coach, so we, we are with them to assist them on sales, negotiations, sales, discovery, meetings, sales, closing meetings, and just offer observation. And so, again, it takes about three to six months to make that happen, because they have to have time to go out and practice the new skills that they have learned with coaching.
Nancy: Yep. And then what happens after that period? I mean, from a coaching point of view. Do you believe in the ongoing sales training as just part of daily activity?
Mary: I do. The thing is that the coaching has to change in to meet where the rep is that I think the coaching needs to happen, ongoing, because our skills change, situations change. And so the coaching needs to change along with those, those individual players.
Nancy: Yeah, yeah.
Mary: And I also think, really importantly, is that the manager and leadership needs to be involved in that as well.
Nancy: Yeah, you know, it’s really interesting. I just got out of another meeting about predictive performance. And there’s so many tools out there nowadays that leaders and managers can rely on to help become a more effective leader, a manager, and every individual is different, right? You can’t it’s not a one stop fits all. So yeah, yeah. And you know, I also know that you publish an E book 20 questions to audit your sales team.
Mary: Yeah.
Nancy: Which is really important. Why do you feel that auditing is important?
Mary: Well, because I think in general, you know, we all do the best that we can every day. And we all certainly I believe, think we’re doing the right thing by our business, or whatever we might be responsible for. But oftentimes, we don’t take the time to really reflect because we’re so busy in the doing. And it’s a good idea to pause and kind of self reflect and make modifications along the way. And I think that’s a good skill set for any business owner, for anybody in leadership. I know I don’t have all the right answers at all.
I think the point is this point in my life, I have more questions than I have answers. So it was created for as a spot check to really offer some reflection points on where salespeople are at where sales leaders are at different components and pieces and parts of a sales process that they might want to take a look at. Just their offer just as a self reflection point that then they can use as a tool to move forward in any areas that they think that that assessment shows that they might have a need.
Nancy: Yeah. I want to talk now about your outsource sales management, is that a separate program in and of itself? And how do you do that virtually?
Mary: Sure, yes. So it is a separate offering. So the two things that we do at Sales Impact Group are two verticals. So outsourced sales managing, and the second is diagnostic and prescriptive sales training. Now we can do the sales training as part of the outsourced sales management. But outsourced sales management is a standalone offering. And so what that is, oftentimes, our customers are people that are companies that are in a startup phase, they are very brilliant minds behind having created a product or a service, but they really do not have the capacity or the knowledge to be able to go to market.
So they have all these really great ideas and plans and finances in place, but they do not know how to take it to market. So what we do is we come in, and we provide people so vetted, experienced sales people, territory, quotas, commission, create a marketing calendar, and a go to market strategy. And we’re with that client. So we act as a turnkey sales division, and manage that process for approximately 18 months. When they are able and ready when we’ve met the financial goal, we can then transition by helping them hire sales people and train those people so that they will then be able to manage their own internal sales division.
Nancy: You know, I talk to so many business owners, and these are also businesses that might be established. And the owner is the brainchild of whatever service or product they’re offering. And they don’t consider themselves as selves as sales people. And I’m thinking that any business owner has to be responsible for sales. What do you say to that?
Mary: Oh, my goodness, yes, yeah, everybody should be selling, you know, that. Everybody should be selling that A B, as always be selling. And, and yes, I come across that often times with an owner, who is the CEO that is selling and managing and you know, their bandwidth is very, very stretched, but they do not consider themselves a salesperson. And there’s no real formalized sales process in place.
Nancy: Yeah.
Mary: But you know, they have to be selling. So we all we all have to be selling.
Nancy: Well, selling is really communication, right? First, engaging with initially a stranger, to determine if this stranger and you could have some kind of interaction that would be beneficial for both parties, right? Yeah. Why don’t we, you know, I always like to bring up stories. And everybody who’s been in business for any period of time has one or two stories that I know, is appreciated by the audience to hear. Is there anything that jumps out to you?
Mary: Oh my goodness, Nancy, there are so many.
Nancy: I love it.
Mary: The first one that came to mind is I crossed a picket line to make a sale. And, and I will never forget it because it was on my birthday, which is February 21st, in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. So it was a rigid, frigid, frigid cold. And I went there because I was working for an edtech company at the time, and our contract was going to the board for approval that evening. And unbeknownst to me, the teachers union was having a strike at the school district. And there was a picket line.
And these teachers were not happy at all. And so I just, I was in the car and I was thinking well, now what do I do? The board meeting was going on regardless of the angst of the teachers and the strike and my contract was on that agenda. So I sat in the car and just took a deep breath I put on my mittens and and I walked across the picket line. And those people were not happy at all. And so I went in and the contract was passed unanimously, and I called my office from inside. And I said, you guys really owe me one for this. I’m taking my life in my hands to make sure that this contract gets closed.
Nancy: Wow. And you got out safely? You got out safely?
Mary: I did get out safely.
Nancy: Awesome. Did they pay you more commission for that deal?
Mary: No, absolutely not.
Nancy: Well, they should have.
Mary: I agree. I agree. Yeah.
Nancy: So tell me something, share something with us that is true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Mary: I think this is a really polarizing topic. And I think that in sales, for me, the word no, doesn’t mean no, it means not now. And you know, there are people that are on both sides of the fence that, you know, if if somebody says, no, that’s it, leave him alone, you’re going to become a bother. And I vehemently disagree with that. I believe that no means I haven’t done my job well enough, that I need to go back and review what I did what I said, who I met with who the decision makers are. What didn’t I. What did I miss that got them to no?
Now, clearly, there are times and I can share another story with you, Nancy, where, you know, there really there are times when no really is no. But for me, it’s rare. So for example, another story is while I was working at the same edtech company, I went to the district because I needed to get a contract signed by the superintendent, who was being walked out of the office in handcuffs, by the police, because he was under indictment for misappropriation of funds to the tune of $2 million. Goldman. So that was really a big No. Well, that’s an extreme case. So I really believe that, for me, sales is 100% my responsibility, and every interaction that I have, that I make, if I get to know I have missed a step, and oftentimes people will vehemently disagree with me on that.
Nancy: Yeah. Well, you know, the only I agree with you, here at OOAKS, it’s always a no means not now. Not now. And I don’t want to badger a prospect. And I think it really has to look at what you did, what you could have been improved on, and then you recycle it for a period of time and get back in front. But wouldn’t you say that there are legitimate no’s that a person or a company can be perfectly happy with the current service?
Mary: Not if they’re not at their goal, you know, read their right, you know what I mean? Like, so if they’re not getting what it is that they were talking to me about, that could be complacency, fear of change somebody’s jobs on the line. If I make this decision, oh, my gosh, that means I’m responsible. If it doesn’t work, I’ll get fired, like people go into that headspace of fear. But again, if I haven’t cultivated the relationship and demonstrated that I am a subject matter expert, and I have flipped the perception from salesperson to trusted advisor, then I had to earn that business and I haven’t earned the right to make that to compel them to make the change.
Nancy: Yeah, very well put. So what is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Mary: Do what you love, and I love sales. And so sales. To me, it’s a calling, but it is a lot of work. Sometimes it’s a grind. But for me, honestly, it is the calling of my life. It is I have been blessed by the ability to meet so many different people and help so many different industries. And it’s an art and a science. And I guess I would leave it with, hone your craft and give a damn.
Nancy: Hone your craft and give a damn. I told you folks, we had a little bit of passion on the phone with us today. And I’m right up right there with you. Thank you so much, Mary. Now before we leave, how can my audience get in touch with you?
Mary: They can go to my website, www.salesimpact.group, and they can reach out to me there any time. They can also find me on LinkedIn.
Nancy: Awesome. And, you know, for all of the people listening out there, there’s always a passion that should be included, I guess in your day, and I encourage you all to believe in what you’re doing. Be persistent in what you’re doing. And look at what you’ve done well each and every day and you will, you will thrive so thank you all for listening. And Mary, thank you for being on the show.
Mary: My pleasure, Nancy.
Voiceover: The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough leads or your sales team complains that they just don’t have enough time to prospect, we can help. To work with Nancy and her team one on one to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process and create more bottom line results, email her now at Nancy@oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution at oneofakindsales.com/book.
by Nancy Calabrese | Mar 22, 2021 | Podcast
Our special guest on this week’s episode of Conversational Selling is Andrea Waltz, the Co-Founder of Courage Crafters, Inc. and co-author of the best selling book, Go for No!: Yes Is the Destination, No Is How You Get There. Andrea is a keynote speaker who’s known around the world as an expert on the topic of “No” and teaches through her online training and coaching course. She has also been featured as a sales influencer on lists curated by HubSpot, Salesforce, and Market Circle.
We chat about getting more comfortable with rejection, as well as:
- Moving past the fear of failure in order to reach bigger clients
- Implementing “no” goals and keeping momentum if you receive a “yes”
- How to follow up with someone who says “no”
- Adapting your language for success; turning “failures” into mere “setbacks”
- And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hello, everyone, it’s Nancy Calabrese. And it’s time for The Conversational Selling Podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Joining me today is Andrea Waltz, the Co-Founder of Courage Crafters, Inc. and co author of the best selling book Go for No! Andrea is known around the world as an expert on the topic of No, she’s trained and spoken with audiences in every corner of the globe on how to go for no and why it’s so important to having successful sales conversations. She is a keynote speaker and also teaches through her online training and coaching course. And she’s been featured as a sales influencer on lists curated by HubSpot, Salesforce.com, market circle, and many, many others. So this is going to be a great program, Andrea. No, I so believe that every no in a sales conversation represents, We’re just getting closer to that. Yes. So welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you on.
Andrea Waltz: Thank you so much, Nancy, it’s great to get to chat with you.
Nancy: Yeah, yeah. And then. So for those of you out there I’ve known of Andrea for two years. Persistence pays off. She’s here with us today. And you know, I want to start with the obvious to so many sales people and people in general, hate to hear the no word, right? They just don’t want a yes or no. So why is that?
Andrea: Yeah, well, I think we’ve got a few things going on one. We’re just all biologically wired to not want to be rejected. So we’re fighting, like what is inherently built into our DNA? To You know, I think as salespeople we look for validation in those yeses, and those noes three, I think there’s a big part of us. And this is certainly kind of where I came from, which is, I want people to like me, and you know, when you get that, no, you feel like, oh, I’ve done something wrong. So I think there’s this tendency to feel like if you if you get that know that you’ve somehow crossed the line into pushy, aggressive sales you salesperson territory. And of course, we don’t want to we don’t want to be seen that way. So we stay kind of far away from that. So that that doesn’t happen.
Nancy: Yeah, I really can’t wait to get into you know more about the philosophy. Why no is such an important part of everyone’s success. Start by talking about your unique idea that is different, and what you really believe sets you apart.
Andrea: Yeah, so it is the go for no philosophy. And I say that’s a philosophy because it’s kind of it’s a it’s a principle from which you can operate as a salesperson. And that is that the key to success in sales, in our opinion, is being willing to fail and hear the word no more often. And so the unique idea is really not to avoid rejection, but to seek it out to seek hearing no more often that if you as a salesperson, go home on any given day or even week and you think back to all of your communications and you’ve never heard the word no, then you’re not operating, you’re not performing to your full potential. And so we’re you know, what were our advices hey, you’ve got to talk to more people and be telling your story more often. Because you’re if you’re not hearing knows, then it means you’re something’s something’s not right.
Nancy: Right. Right. I mean, is there anyone out there that can say I always get yeses? I don’t think so.
Andrea: No, no, no, although, although it’s kind of funny, I mean, you’d like when you look at some marketing, sometimes you think that there’s some kind of magical mystery strategy out there where it’s like, you never have to get rejected. You never have to hear the word. No. It’s only get Yes. And of course, that’s impossible. And if that’s happening, then you’re probably shooting way too low, then and then at that point, that’s where we say, Okay, then why don’t you go after bigger clients if you know it easy. yeses produce little successes as we like to say. So that means that you’re not Shooting high enough?
Nancy: Yeah, you know, and I know that part of the go for no message is taking risks, right and not making the classic assumptions like, well, we’re not big enough for that client, so I won’t even contact them, or we haven’t done enough work with that a client like them. Can you expand on that?
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a huge piece of it is just making those assumptions and not being willing to take a chance and get a big rejection. In fact, that’s what my husband and I did. When we launched our company. We, we had this I mean, it was just the two of us. We literally were working out of our home office before that was a thing, which is now a thing these days, right? Yes. But I remember the first tradeshow we went to it was for the American Society of training and development, and all of the biggest competitors, our competitors were there. It was like more training and development and Harry Friedman, they were a big retraining in the retail industry. And it’s funny, I call them competitors. We weren’t even like a competitor. I was like, we were not their competitor at all. These people had, you know, full color brochures, and they had a booth at the tradeshow with carpet and a chair. And we had nothing. I mean, we literally showed up at this thing. And we were our goal is to network and meet people and have conversations. And that’s exactly what we did. But, you know, we were talking to people at fortune 500 retail organizations. And so that’s, that is going after, you know, a big client a big No. And sometimes I think what we do is because we fear like messing up and we fear, sometimes, you know, failure, of course, then we say, well, we’re not ready for that client, we’re not ready to talk to them. We’re not ready to try it. And sometimes it takes a long time to get your foot in the door. So of course you want it you’ve got to start going after those big deals.
Nancy: Hey, it took me two years to get you. Right, right.
Andrea: I suppose you can say that. But you I was probably going to say yes, much earlier.
Nancy: Okay, well, you see, I just learned something to talk about the background, how did you come up with the go for no book?
Andrea: So Go for No, it was something that my husband had been teaching for a long time. And it actually is based on a kind of funny story that happened to him when he was working at a men’s wear clothing store for a living. And he had this great sale, the sales manager, the district manager came in and saw him have this great sales like $1100. And then asked my husband, you know, at that time, he said, What did that customer say no to? Because he had had this fantastic sale and the customer Actually, my husband, Richard had to admit that the customer didn’t say no to anything that everything he laid out in front of that man he purchased. And then the district manager said, well, then how did you know he was done. And it’s kind of like this funny story of Wow, you oftentimes we assume people are done, we, we don’t hear the word known, we shut things down, we shut the sale down. And so that was one of the things that when we launched our business, we were teaching to retail organizations, and we were teaching them how to implement go for no, and all of the kind of nuances and there’s a lot of psychology behind it as well. And we decided that we should write a book, you know, we should write a short, a short fable.
Because people love stories and engage them. And that was really kind of the beginning of us starting to say, and it took them by the way, go for no forever to find a foothold in the marketplace. From a book standpoint, that really took it took forever. In fact, when we published it, it was in 2000. And we hit Amazon sales and selling list in 2010. So it was we joke, it’s like a 10 year overnight success. You know, the book really communicates the philosophy and the strategy of how to do it. And so that’s kind of why we decided to go with the book, somebody reads it, then they they usually get the concept really fast and easily.
Nancy: Yeah. So would you say that this applies to those of us in sales, selling B to B? Could it also apply? To B to C?
Andrea: Yeah, it really applies to anyone who has what we call like a gopher, no moment. So if you are b2b, and you’re just literally prospecting and you’re appointment setting, or you’re just trying to get to have a meeting with somebody to do a demo or something like that. You know, that’s your classic b2b. If it’s b2c, then obviously you’re face to face and you’re literally trying to sell this product right? Now it’s not about following up with them in six months, it’s about here and now having that sales conversion and and having to ask so the gopher emote, no moments kind of changed. So sometimes it’s more long term and multiple knows what the same person and getting creative and finding different ways to approach them. And then in the consumer setting, it’s really having that courage to say, Okay, well, based on everything you told me, here’s the product I recommend, would you like to buy it? And if they say no, it’s, you know, okay, how do we deal with that objection and get around that. So it really kind of applies to whatever go for moments happen to be for you. In fact, it can be like an actor going on an audition, or a writer sending in a submission for their work, right, they’re gonna get rejected, too. So everybody has that moment where they can get rejected. And so from a gopher note standpoint, it’s definitely ask like, take the risk, take the chance and make the ask.
Nancy: So make the ask and I know you developed a go for no strategy, that might be something people need to employ in their day to day lives, can you describe it to the audience.
Andrea: So the strategy is really to create a know awareness and think about and be mindful of the nose that you aren’t getting, or are getting. And then to set a no goal that that’s like the main tactic that we talk about in terms of implementation is set a goal for the number of nodes that you’re going to hear. So to use the kind of to use the writer example. And actually, my husband and I, when we were in Hollywood years and years ago, our dream was to be screenwriters. And so we decided that we needed to have an agent. So we were willing to send out we said, we’ll send out 200 letters and try to get 200 rejections. And that’s the kind of no goal that we’re talking about. So salesperson could have a no goal of say, getting five noes to appointments. But in pursuit of the no goal, what happens is that you Those are where you find those yeses, and oftentimes when we’re just focused on getting Yes, when we’re just focused on, on that, we tend to limit our performance. Because when we get that, yes, then we slow down and we’re done.
Nancy: Right? So you know, I know, at our company, one of a kind sales, we believe that a no just means not now, and we play into the B2B audience. So somebody gives you a No. How do you get permission to follow up after a No, do you have any, you know, words you can share that we might be able to use? right away?
Andrea: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think first of all, it’s First off, it is really having the mindset, that it’s not the end. I think a lot of people, you know, they get that no, and they go like, Okay, great, thanks. Bye, you know, whether they exactly handle it that way or not, and they feel like they failed, and they feel kind of like, oh, that didn’t go well. It’s in that moment, it’s really having that mindset of, I’m, like, still in the game. This is just about moving the ball down the field, I just need to keep the door open. So how can I metaphorically speaking, kind of put my foot in the door, wait a minute, like, let’s, let’s figure this out. So there’s a couple of things that you can do. And I think it really has to do with your comfort level with the person that you’re that you’ve been working with, that you’ve been talking with. If it’s someone in my experience, what I have what I’ve done, what I recommend is, me if you haven’t been dealing with this person for long, and you’re still just trying to you’re kind of in that beginning stage, at that point, I think the best kind of language is Oh, totally understand, like, really maintain that positivity.
So they feel good about you and say, totally understand. But hey, do you mind if I check back with you in eight weeks, 12 weeks next quarter just to see if anything’s changed. And I love that line. Because the the anything’s changed thing, like we all know, changes ubiquitous, it’s gonna happen. Like, no matter what we know that, that that’s just a part of life. It’s another go for no moment. It’s another go for no opportunity. And if they say at that point, yeah, I really do. Like, don’t contact me again. Great. Now you can take them off your list. But if they say no, Sure, go ahead. The doors open. Now, if you happen working with someone, though, and you feel like you’re kind of at a different comfort level with them, then you might take it a different direction and say, oh, I’ve actually kind of surprised you said that, because when we talked last time, you said you were really kind of tired of the supplier and they were you know, you had had some problems. So I’m really surprised that you didn’t want to go ahead and you know, start with XYZ product or start the service. Now, when I ask why, you know, and so it’s kind of that two pronged path where you have that decision to But it all starts with that mindset of Hey, it’s not over, like keep figure out how to keep the door open and what your next move is.
Nancy: Yep. It’s all about the human conversation, keeping it going. Right?
Andrea: Exactly. And try not to make it. Try not to, like my whole methodology in my mind is just keep it simple and keep it honest. Like, don’t go into a long thing. You don’t have to have a bunch of plans. Just it’s almost like when you get to know from your significant other or your friend who’s like, you know, hey, do you want to go to have Mexican food? And they go like, no, and you go like, Oh, is it because you like hate that restaurant or you’re just not in the mood for Mexican food? Like you, you kind of want to dig in and figure out what’s the why behind the No. So just yeah, simple like that.
Nancy: Oh, cool. I like that. the why behind the No, that’s very interesting. So what I’m taking away from you right now is everybody should know their no number. Is that correct?
Andrea: Yes, absolutely. Everybody should. And this is to kind of fun to Nancy’s, we have a no quotient quiz, we even do so people can kind of find out what their mindset is around failure or rejection hearing the word No, but everybody should set a no goal. And it doesn’t even have to be something crazy. I mean, you could start with saying, I’m going to try to get one note a day. And can you imagine what that would be? Like if every work day? You got one? One? No.
Nancy: That’s all my business, we get it every hour. And we really look at that as the opportunity to move forward. And really get that yes, I guess you know, here’s another thing that’s just come to mind. You know, Andrea, every business is different. Right? So how do you notice set a realistic? nogo? Do you go back? And do you look at stats to see you know, what you’ve trended? What would you recommend?
Andrea: Yeah, that’s a great question. And it really depends on and I liked that you were saying you said that’s all one. No, because you see, I deal with so many different people. And sometimes when this concept is new to them, they think I’m crazy. Like they think, you know, 10 knows a day 100 like Richard and I, when we were setting no goals. It was like, okay, calling them companies was like 100 a month. So yeah, so that one a day thing? Sounds, uh, sounds aggressive to some people like, wow, that would be really hard. Because sometimes it is hard to get a no and their production is not, you know, their activity and their production is really low. So for you guys, you guys are in there, you’re producing, you’re at a high level. So you can back into it. Like you can say, you know, I’ve analyzed, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at the nose that I get now and I get about three a day. My Yes, goals is to get three appointments, so and you can kind of cross reference that and figure out, Okay, why my no goal should be about 15 a week. And then if I want to get four appointments, instead, it may be up to 18 a week. So you just figure out what your comfort level is. But that’s why I was saying, hey, if this is like new and and seems scary to some people just start with no start with one, see what happens.
Nancy: Start with one and see where it goes. Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Andrea: Well, you know, I get a lot of pushback on using the word failure. In fact, I actually somebody messaged me today, and they were like, I really think that maybe that you should consider using and so failure, like just call it a setback. It’s really funny because we actually believe that failure should not be like this four letter F word. Right? That, that that we should actually take away the its power. And so we talk so much about about failure in the book, and go for No. And so don’t like think of failure as this horrible, embarrassing, shameful thing. It’s just part of the process. And so that’s why we use the word I don’t want to change it into some softer word and say, Oh, we can’t use the word failure, because it’s so horrible. And it’s so embarrassing. And we should be you know, we should run from it. That just gives it more power.
Nancy: Yeah, you know, it’s so funny. You’re You’re saying that I’m looking at my wall and I’ve got I don’t know if it’s a poem, but it says don’t be afraid to fail and what it really focuses on like, I’ll give you an example you you fell down the first time you tried to walk you almost drowned the first time you tried to swim and it gives further examples. And one last one would be Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat? At the end worried about the chances you missed when you don’t even try? Don’t worry about the failure and so Again I’m in your record with that for sure. And I you know, just finally because we’re coming to the end of the program and I could stay on for a long time. But what is the takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Andrea: What’s the big takeaway Nancy is just it really comes down to having the courage to ask and I kind of define courageous selling is putting your desire to not get a no on the you know, backburner and putting the customer’s need to hear your information and hear your story first, without letting your fear and desire to not have to hear no come in between that so that’s it’s really about having that courage to ask and then executing in those go for know moments and practicing it not only in the sales world but practicing it in your personal life too. When you get the opportunity. Yeah, wow.
Nancy: I think you’re terrific. How can my audience get in touch with you?
Andrea: Oh, it’s easy. I’m well branded so I figured that out thank God I’m doing this for Tony here so goforno.com or on all the social media platforms Twitter I’m at go for no go for no on Facebook. So it’s really hard to not find me.
Nancy: Well, I think in summary, everyone no is a good word. It’s a good word. And I encourage that everyone know what they are. No is and thanks so much, Andrea, and I hope you’ll come back and we can talk more about knows.
Andrea: Absolutely. Nancy, there’s plenty to talk about. So I will be back.
Nancy: Awesome. Thanks. And to everybody else out there. Happy hunting.
Voiceover: The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough leads or your sales team complains that they just don’t have enough time to prospect, we can help. To work with Nancy and her team one on one to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process and create more bottom line results, email her now at Nancy@oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution at oneofakindsales.com/book.
by Nancy Calabrese | Mar 15, 2021 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we speak with Deb Calvert, the President of People First Productivity Solutions and the Host of The Monday Morning Sales Rally on The Sales Experts Channel. Deb also leads the Stop Selling and Start Leading Movement. She is certified as an Executive Sales Coach, is a certified Master of the Leadership Challenge, and her bestseller, DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected, has recently been named by HubSpot as one of the 20 most highly-rated sales books of all time.
We chat about putting people first, as well as:
- The global need for sales content and the creation of The Sales Expert Channel
- Why questions are critical to any type of relationship
- DISCOVER— the eight reasons to ask quality questions
- Ennobling your customers by engaging them
- And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hello, it’s Nancy Calabrese and it’s time for Conversational Selling the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Joining us today is Deb Calvert. She is the president of People First Productivity Solutions. From sales, training, coaching and leadership development programs, Deb leads the stop selling and start leading movement and founded The Sales Experts Channel. She is certified as an executive and sales coach. And is a certified master of the leadership challenge. Her best seller DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected, has recently been named by HubSpot as one of the 20 most highly rated sales books of all time, which is amazing. You know, putting people first and profits will follow is so true. And I I think most of us, or at least many of us know that good leaders are hard to find. So this will be an enlightening conversation. I’m so excited to have you here today. Deb, welcome to the show.
Deb Calvert: Thank you, Nancy, I bet I’m more excited than you are about being here. I’ve been a listener for a little while, and I’ve been looking forward to spending some time with you. So thank you.
Nancy: Oh, my goodness, and what you folks don’t know, we’re both wearing red glasses today. So we really match up dancing through the audio. So let me start by asking, stop selling and start leading movement? What is it about and what inspired you to create it?
Deb: Well, you know, I work in these two realms, selling and leading. And for the longest time, they were, in my mind, completely different. I’d have days when I was doing leadership development. And then the next morning, I’d wake up and I’d be doing sales training. And I never let those two paths cross until I realized, you know, sellers, the stereotypical behaviors of selling, the perceptions that business owners and others have about the ickyness of selling and they don’t really want to do it.
I saw all of that happening. And I also saw these behaviors of leaders that they inspire people and that that mobilize people and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if selling could feel that way about the work they do. And that led to a big research project. And it became a movement because it’s about not doing those stereotypical wolf of Wallstreet things, but instead, using behaviors that make leaders effective because they also make sellers more effective.
Nancy: Interesting. And you know, you’re you also have another amazing creation, The Sales Experts Channel, what an awesome resource for all of us. What was the inspiration for that and tell us more about it?
Deb: Well, The Sales Experts channel is now in its fifth year. And there are about 73,000 subscribers, lots of other people view, but for whatever reason, don’t subscribe. And then there are a few 100 people around the world like you have people who are experts, people who have podcasts, or they’ve written books, or they’ve done research and they’re thought leaders in the global sales community. They are their presenters on the channel. I did this because years ago, I had a podcast when blogtalkradio was new going way back.
And I had a coaching show on Saturdays for hours every Saturday at first, and people would call me up Nancy and they’d be like, yeah, yeah, don’t don’t, don’t say my name. And they’d be disguising their voice. And, and I realized, you know, it’s true people who are in sales, management, whatever level it might be, they don’t always feel like they can be vulnerable and admit what they don’t know and ask for help. And they need a resource for that. So anyways, flash forward now several years, I still had that very, very strong desire, I might even say calling to try to give something back to the global sales community.
But you know, having matured a little while since then, a little bit since then, I realized that what I can give back is puny compared to what all these these experts in a community can give back. So we now have about 1000 pieces of content all free, all available on demand. All indexed topically so people can find exactly what they need. Stuff for business owners and marketing professionals and and entrepreneurs and salespeople and managers at every level. It’s all there.
Nancy: Yeah. You know, you just said something that it always shocks me how some people are hesitant about admitting that they need help. And especially in the selling world, there are so many moving parts, I don’t know where I would be without the resources, people I could call or, you know, even though I’ve been doing it for I don’t want to say how many years, I’m always looking for another trick of the trade. It’s just shocking to me that people would be reluctant to admit they don’t like doing this, or they’re not good at this. What what what are your thoughts on that?
Deb: Well, you said two things there. So one is I don’t like doing this, because they think that doing sales is you have to get a personality transplant and be some fake version of yourself like that nobody.
Nancy: Right.
Deb: And then the other part is I’m not good at it. Well, why would you be until you’ve had training and read books and tried on different approaches to selling? It’s so different from other careers where there are degree programs, and there are specific metrics that and tests and, and certifications that qualify you as a professional.
Nancy: Right.
Deb: Selling, we have that giant stone around our necks that holds us down? And those are the stereotypes and perceptions. We have to break out all that to feel good.
Nancy: Yeah, you made me stop and think when I was an undergrad, there were no sales courses out there. And I’m happy to know that now. And I don’t know how many universities are putting in sales as a major.
Deb: Yeah, more and more every year. And there are now a couple of 100. We’re not to the point yet where I think we’re getting closer. But there’s not a common standard yet. If you’re a CPA, everybody knows exactly what that is. And every place you go to get that that credential is teaching you toward the same thing. Not so in sales?
Nancy: Yeah. You know, here at One of a Kind Sales, we are all about asking questions and listening. So your book, DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected, totally resonates with me. And I’m sure most of the listeners out there. Tell us more about the book and why questions is so critical in any, any kind of relationship.
Deb: The book is born out of sort of that same desire, it is based, like stop selling, and start leading on research with buyers. And it gives some ideas about different kinds of questions in selling that you can ask to accelerate the sell and to have a deeper richer conversation efficiently. Turns out there are only eight reasons people ever ask questions. I’m not talking just sales. I’m talking everywhere. So that makes an acronym. Yeah, DISCOVER is that acronym. Eight purposes for asking questions.
Nancy: Really? Okay. Oh, it is the app. Oh, okay. Really cool. And how did you uncover that or learn that?
Deb: Well, it took about 20 years of field research, logging sales calls, I was, at one point working at Northwestern University with the Salesforce advisory board. So we had people in many different industries helping to contribute to the research, and it was observing, cataloguing questions, interviewing buyers, how did they feel about the question, seeing how the question would unlock greater conversation and accelerate the sale. So quite a bit of research behind it. And the idea of of categorizing questions to make him because SPIN Selling was so helpful to me when I first started selling, but I started saying, well, wait a minute, this is a good question, but it doesn’t fit. What is this question?
Nancy: Right. Questions are critical. By asking the right questions, the buyer is going to educate you on how to sell them. Wouldn’t you agree?
Deb: Absolutely. They’re also going to sell themself.
Nancy: Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. So why don’t you share your unique idea that is different and really sets you apart?
Deb: Well, I think there is a lot of talk over the last seven years or so about sales enablement, a lot of work to define what that is, and to heightened how people see it and how important it is. And I don’t mean to take anything away at all from that. But my unique approach is that instead of focusing on sales enablement, because I do believe that’s, that’s covered by people who know it better than I do. I focus instead on sales ennoblement, a little known word, it’s a real one. I didn’t make it up. Oh, yeah.
To ennoble, it’s the opposite of ignoble, right? When you have something ignoble, it’s lowly and not important. But when you add noble, you’re showing the worth, the value, the importance of something. And I want sellers, including business owners, anybody who sells to think of that as a worthy endeavor, and to see how important the work that they’re doing to help the buyer really is.
Nancy: Wow. So it sounds like it really focuses on mindset first, right? Really feeling good about your profession and your skills.
Deb: Absolutely. And so to discard those things that feel bad, to liberate yourself from those stereotypes, and tap into the potential that you have as a leader, an ennobled seller who can do good for others.
Nancy: Love it. I love storytelling. And I know you have a story that we would all find interesting, let us know what it is.
Deb: I could tell stories all day. So I know that I’ll tell the one I started which is, you know, working in two different worlds. Am I in leadership today? Or am I in sales. And the moment when I was standing in front of a group of people, I was doing sales training, and it was large company, Dole, the produce company. And literally I was when the idea hit me, I was gobsmacked. I couldn’t speak for a full minute, I think I just the idea hit me.
And the idea was, why wouldn’t salespeople use those 30 behaviors of leaders that are proven to make leaders more effective? What would happen if they did? How would buyers react? And I think we should explore this. So I took the idea to two colleagues of mine. They’re very well known in leadership development, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. And they said, well, interesting, why don’t we research that? So we launched a big research project through Santa Clara University. And sure enough, it was so true that the behaviors that are proven 30 plus years of evidence to back it up those behaviors that make people leaders also make sellers more effective.
Nancy: So can you give us a taste of what some of those behaviors are? And the relevance one to the other? Examples?
Deb: Yeah, let me just give you a couple of examples. Some of them are really, really obvious, like, the seller treats people with dignity and respect. And buyers commented a lot on that one, saying things like, hey, you know, if they aren’t nice to the receptionist, or the person who they call a gatekeeper, then I don’t want anything to do with them. Right. So the value of behaviors that are that obvious. A really big one for buyers, is that the seller follows through on promises and commitments that he or she makes.
In other words, they do WYSIWYG. They do what they say they will do. Yeah, and, and, and because of stereotypes, buyers are harsh. They’re hard on sellers, if you said you were calling at [8:30], and you don’t call till [8:35], I can’t trust you. I mean, it’s that’s dramatic. But I’ll tell you one of the biggest ones, and, you know, I, I had to very much check myself do I have a bias here. But one of my favorite behaviors of buyers, was the seller engages me in a two way dialogue, meaning they asked me great questions. So me with my questions book already under my belt. I’m like, yeah, validation. And then I’m like, oh, I just want to make sure I’m not seeing what I want to see.
Nancy: Right, right. Well, you know, a lot of it really boils down to common sense. When I think about selling and hat leadership. I think about it’s all about conversation, right? But you said something about behavior that sticks with me. And I learned lessons a long time ago. Judge people by what they do not by what they say. I really think that’s an important virtue, right? If you say you’re going to do something, and you’re in the buying process or the selling process, you better do it, right? Because that’s are they judging you all the way until you get their business and then once you get it, they’re still going to evaluate? Are you true to your word?
Deb: What you’re talking about Nancy is credibility and the root word of credibility. It is just like the root word of credit. Am I going to give you credit? Am I going to trust you? It’s going to be dependent upon your actions.
Nancy: Yeah. Okay, so moving on. What would you like me to spotlight. You’ve got so many great products and ideas. What do you want to share with us?
Deb: Well, oh, right now I’m on a crusade. So I am. I like people to think about selling and the profession of selling in this way that’s ennobling. So I’m trying to get into mainstream dictionaries. I’ve got it into a lot of the smaller ones already. But I’m literally on a crusade to get the word sellership in place as a replacement for salesmanship. I mean, that, to me, salesman, first of all, there’s a gender, right? Word in there. And then, more importantly, the word salesmen. The word salesmanship has the baggage of stereotypes we’ve been talking about. We can just use the more accurate word, fellowship to represent all sellers. And we can use that opportunity to say this is a heightened professional standard as well.
Nancy: Well, I love it. I’m writing it down, by the way, so I don’t forget it. And as you were saying, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but if you need any help getting it into the dictionary, let me know.
Deb: Well thanks. You know, dictionaries, the bigger ones they look, they look out online to see how many times the word’s used. So I’m just telling everybody, put it in your blogs, put it in your dialogue and let it be out there.
Nancy: Oh, definitely. I always ask this. And I’m curious to know, what is something that you believe is true almost nobody agrees with you on?
Deb: When I say people don’t ask enough questions, especially sales people disagree with me. Now, if I can get them thinking instead about how many quality questions they ask, yeah, that becomes a little different thing. But they everybody thinks they ask enough questions. And I usually find that’s not true, or at least not the right questions.
Nancy: Yeah.
Deb: So more efficient.
Nancy: I’m always, you know, we all evaluate our own performance. And it said, we’re our own worst critic. I’m always looking for another question that’ll change it. So questions, like you say, are really quite critical in developing credibility, and trust. We’re kind of coming to the end of the program. So I want you to leave us with one takeaway. If they remember anything, what would this be?
Deb: It’s that word ennoblement. Because it’s a game changer. Ennoble your customers as they come into your business, ennoble the people who sell your products, make them feel worthy and important. Give them enough information. As you are selling, ennoble the people who are going to support the work you’re doing make them feel worthy and important behind the scenes. That’s how you engage people. That’s how you get things done.
Nancy: Well, so how can we find you out there?
Deb: Well go to thesalesexpertschannel.com to find all those great pieces of content I mentioned. And to find me, connect with me on LinkedIn or come to my website, the website for my own company is peoplefirstps, short for people first productivity solutions, but the first two words are spelled out.
Nancy: Very good. I told you this was going to be enlightening. Deb you have to come back so we can spend more time in each of these areas of, you know, what you do so well. And I want to thank everybody out there for listening in. Have a fantastic and confident sales day. Successful sales day. And again, Deb thanks for a great conversation.
Deb: Thank you, Nancy. I appreciate the time.
Voiceover: The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough leads or your sales team complains that they just don’t have enough time to prospect, we can help. To work with Nancy and her team one on one to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process and create more bottom line results, email her now at Nancy@oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution at oneofakindsales.com/book.
by Nancy Calabrese | Mar 8, 2021 | Podcast
On this week’s episode of Conversational Selling, we speak with Kristie Jones, the Principal at Sales Acceleration Group. She is an expert in the Midwest that helps SaaS startups build and scale their sales and customer success teams, also helping with sales processes, strategy, hiring, and implementation. Her 19 plus years as a sales leader in the SaaS space fuels her passion for helping business owners increase revenue and retain customers.
We chat about communicating clearly with our teams, as well as:
- The objective ways we measure goals
- Creating a culture of accountability
- The requirement for managers to set the expectations and targets
- Growing up in a family-owned business, and her “kitchen table education”
- Learning the hard way that culture is critical
- And more
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hello. It’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time for Conversational Selling the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today, and it always starts with the human conversation. Joining me today is Kristie Jones, Principal at Sales Acceleration Group.
She is the go to expert in the Midwest that helps SaaS startups build and scale their sales and customer success teams. Her 19 plus years as a sales leader in the SaaS space, fuels her passion for helping bootstrapped and PE funded founders increase revenue and retain customers. Her willingness to get her hands dirty and take no prisoners approach when helping companies everything from sales processes, strategy, hiring and implementation is what makes her so valuable to her clients. You know, boy, I’m really looking to get started and getting down and dirty with you, Kristie, welcome to the show.
Kristie Jones: Nancy, thank you so much for having me on. I too am looking forward to our conversation today.
Nancy: Yeah, so before the show, we talked briefly about the word accountability. I know you’re really big on it, especially on building the sales accountability culture, but the thing, and this is a real, especially of interest to me, I know you specialize in the SaaS community. But I think this is important in all sales sectors. Why is it so important to have a culture based on that?
Kristie: You know, that I always say that sales, leading a sales team should be the easiest management job on the planet, because everything is objective, right? I mean, we measure everything by numbers, activity level, quotas, you know, number of appointments booked. And yet it yet it seems to be one of the hardest teams to manage. And so after having managed my own teams throughout the years, both net new and customer success team, I realized that, you know, it’s a it’s a unique breed of individuals that you’re managing.
So, you know, extroverts super ambitious, you know, money motivated. And you think that you think a lot of times that those people would also be independent. But that is not always the case. And so, you know, really, I think, a lot of the reasons that, you know, I mean, we’ve all heard the statistics, it’s frustrating, right? Somewhere between 60 and 80%, hitting quota, you know, getting only to 60 to 80%, of quota, you know, only 70% of reps or 60% reps even making, you know, getting anywhere near quota. And I mean, so either, you know, a you can say, yes, maybe the quotas aren’t right, but I don’t think that’s the case in every situation.
I think there’s a lot of sales teams out there that don’t have a culture of accountability and sales reps who are not being held accountable to everything from activity through quota. And you know, what I say to sales leaders who kind of wince when I have started to have this conversation, I said, I actually am here to make your life easier with this concept. Like, it really should make your life easier, not harder. This isn’t a dirty word.
Nancy: Yeah. Let’s start with the obvious so many sales, people just hate accountability. And they feel like there’s a noose around their neck, but yet I see it as a tool to help them achieve their goals, you know, a positive thing. What about you?
Kristie: I completely agree. You know, I’m, I’m a, probably a little more direct about it. And I say, Hey, listen, like you’re getting a base salary was that base salary comes expectations. And so you know, your boss, and the company needs to know that in exchange for your base salary, you’re going to be willing to be held accountable to the following expectations. So I was talking to a client yesterday, and he has an at risk employee from the standpoint of she’s not performing. And he said, he said to me, she said, like, if you’re gonna let me go, please just give me 30 days notice, and I said, What? I go, she doesn’t get this. She doesn’t get to tell you how you fire her. I go, this is I go, this is insanity.
You know, and honestly, he had never thought of it that way. He goes, Oh, and I said, Yeah, I go, it doesn’t work that way. I said, she’s been not producing for 12 months. And so you know, there, there are things that we can talk about, but we sure are not going to let the rep tell us how we’re going to manage it. But But if that happens, right, in fairness, that does happen. I think a couple of reasons. One, and I’m not a proponent of this, a lot of sales leaders came up through the ranks, right? So I call it peer to boss. Right.
So you know, you’re still going out for a beer, you know, you still have met their family and their children and knew about their vacations and you know, All of those things. So we have a lot of peer to boss going on in our industry, which I do disagree with. But the fact the matter is it is what it is. And so I think that’s one of the reasons why accountability is a challenge for sales leaders. You know, and I think the other, you know, the other reason is we are we are dealing with very extroverted, gregarious, strong personalities, and right, you know, and even, and even to a sales leader that can be intimidating from time to time.
Nancy: Yeah, you know, you said something earlier, and it really, it’s so true. So few sales reps hit their quota. Yeah. And, you know, you just described a personality, that is it would sound they would be a driver and out there and focused. Honestly, why do you think so much of that exists?
Kristie: I do think it’s a couple of reasons in my world, particularly when when you’re dealing with a funded company, there’s an extreme amount of pressure, right. And so I believe that sales leaders aren’t comfortable having those conversations with board members and saying, that’s not a realistic number. And so, you know, a, it is part of just the beast, have you borrowed, you know, you’ve borrowed money, people are looking for a return. But even even in privately, I mean, I’ve worked for privately held bootstrap companies as well. And I help those type of companies too. And you get like, you can call it the halo effect, or the rose colored glasses effect, right? Like, right, you always think you know, you can you always I’m all about the BHAG right. I’m all about the big, hairy, audacious goal.
But I think it has to be realistic. So here’s the thing people don’t do when I sit down with a founder to plan out 2021. Let’s say, I go the board, like I just had this happen. The board wanted a million dollars in net new revenue. I said, Okay, and we had two AEs, like, let’s not a lot of room for error. Right? Right. So in the average, there was $16,000. I mean, that’s a lot of deals. And so I said, let’s do the reverse math. Let’s do the reverse sales math and see what that would really require. And the bottom line is, there was no way that the two sales reps would be able to manage the pipeline as large as would be required at a 5x in order to hit that number. And so we had to go back to the board and say, and, you know, these are just conversations, but I don’t think people are running the numbers.
And so we went back to the board and said, we’ll get you your million, but we need more people. So we need to spend more money on payroll. And we ran the numbers with them. And they said, fine, hire another person, you know, another BDR, and another AE. And so now all of a sudden, this feels more realistic, more doable. And but I sat down with each of the the reps and made them put their own business plan together for the year. And then I went over that with that they presented that to myself and the founder. And then I also had them hold a separate accountability meeting and expectations meeting.
So even after they had even after they had presented their business case, we sat down and said everything, Nancy, from, you know, again, this, we’re still in pandemic, so what can we expect from you from a work schedule perspective? You know, it’s fine. If you’re homeschooling, it’s fine. If your kids are home, it’s fine that these things happen. But we want to if you’re going to be offline, every day between [2:00] and [3:30], I just need to know you’re gonna be offline between [2:00] and [3:30]. We can work around that that’s not a problem. But I need like I have, you know, like, it’s just communication situation.
And everything from how do you want to be communicated with, you know, a lot of the clients I work with a lot of these reps are millennials, and they have a Slack addiction, as I call it. And so, you know, what’s your favorite form of communication? And they go Slack, and I go, okay, and I go ask me mine. And they go, what’s yours? I said, phone.
Nancy: Phone. Oh, you know what, you know, that word resonates with me, right? Human conversation over technology. So all kinds of talk about activities, right? And I’m a big believer in activities, because activities, get us where we want to go. Do you have any suggestions or tools when you work with your customers? How do you recommend that they go about creating an activity chart or a workbook? How do they keep track? If they’re on target?
Kristie: Yeah, so for account executives, I, you know, I mean, they’ve earned the right to some extent to not be held accountable to a number of, you know, emails and calls and social media touches that those type of things. So I tell them very upfront, I’m going to hold you accountable to results, but two ways. One, pipeline growth. So how many new deals are so and I’m a big, big proponent of self sourcing deals. So I expect all AEs to self source a certain percentage of their pipeline.
So you know, God love them, if they have BDRs, great if marketing providing decent inbound leads, even better, but I believe that they have to self source. So every month they’re going to have a self source goal at a minimum, and then and then I call it the water level, right? So again, if you need to sell 10 deals, you know, throughout the year at 5x because you have a 20% close rate, then you have to keep 50 deals in your pipeline rolling at all time. And so I say to people, whether it’s closed won or close lost, it’s out of your pipeline. How are you replacing that?
Nancy: Right.
Kristie: So we get all excited when we close a deal. And yeah, so something, I go and I go great, let’s take it, you know, let’s take a half a day and celebrate, and then tell me how you’re going to replace them. My son called me I call myself a realist, he called me dream killer.
Nancy: All right, so basically, um, maybe your son should be on the program. But what makes you different and sets you apart?
Kristie: I think it’s my direct communication style and kind of no nonsense situation, I grew up in a family owned business. Okay, so I tell people, I said, I got my business degree around the kitchen table. Because my parents every I mean, you know, in the event, both my parents were home for dinner, which was not always the case, because we owned a real estate company, you know, that, like, I knew exactly what was going on what houses were being listed and sold, and what commission’s were being paid out, and whether my dad was taking a salary or not as the, you know, owner-broker of the organization.
And so, I think, you know, I mean, like, in really growing up, I didn’t really understand until I got older, probably into my 30s how, what an education that my brother and I received around the I call the Kitchen Table Talk, and what an education we received. And so I think the other thing that makes me different is that I am empathetic to the small business owner, if you will, or to the, you know, founder starting out, because I knew when my dad wasn’t taking a salary so that he could make payroll, you know, when the real estate market is up and down, right.
So I mean, I knew there were times when, when he said, I’m not taking I’m not taking salary right now. And so I’m super sensitive to that. And so I have a little bit of lack of tolerance for employees who don’t really understand and I said, Hey, listen, like, if you want to complain about the situation, then why don’t we try putting your mortgage up against this business?
Nancy: Right.
Kristie: Yeah. And I just don’t think people under you know, I just I come from, I think, a different perspective. And, you know, it’s not that I’m not here to support the sales reps. I am. I mean, I’ve been a sales leader, I’ve managed teams directly before I started my own consulting business. But at the end of the day, I’m really tied to the owner and the founder and the goals of that individual. And I, I tell those individuals, I’m here to make sure that you retire the way you want to retire. This is your retirement. This is your retirement plan, and I’m here to help you get there.
Nancy: Yeah. Well, I am certain you must have a story that my audience would find interesting. Share it!
Kristie: Yeah. So the reason why I’m so passionate about accountability goes back about 15 years, to I was the VP of sales at a small privately owned bootstrapped company, somewhere around six or 7 million. And I had about eight or nine sales reps. And over time, I had three women that kind of rose to the top of the food chain, and really started making some demands of the company and started kind of setting their own priorities and setting their own activities and, and kind of going rogue if you will. And so I really, you know, I was a little taken back in, I mean, these were my top three reps. And over time, finally, the owner of the company pulled me into his office one day and said, You’re being held hostage by them, like, you’re allowing that revenue to hold you hostage, like you’re no longer managing these individuals.
Nancy: Right.
Kristie: And I just like it was a real slap in the face. I mean, it was a lot of cold water, right? And I was just like, I was just stunned. And he goes, I need you to think about this and come back tomorrow. And so I came back tomorrow. And he’s like, what’s the plan? And I said, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure how to get back control of the, you know, of the inmates. Look at your right, like, I have lost control the, like, the inmates are running the asylum, and I don’t know what to do.
Nancy: Right.
Kristie: And so I did sit down with who I thought was potentially the ringleader of the group, and had a conversation and suggested to her that maybe that, you know, maybe this wasn’t a good fit anymore. You know, I tried to help her self select, if you will. And she refused. She was like, nope. Love it here. I mean, life had gotten a lot easier for them, right? They weren’t working super hard. Like I say, if you can stick it out in a new sales role for three years, life gets a lot easier at year 4. The first three years, if you put in the work and do everything you need to do, year four gets a lot easier. And so you know, they were at that point, right? There was a four and five year mark each of them.
But I went back to the you know, the owner, I just sat there and he said, I think we need to to cut bait. And I was just I mean, this is his This was his retirement plan. Right. And so I was just shocked. And I just said to him, like, I gotta sleep on that again. So she went the next day and I said, Okay, I’m in. And so literally the next morning, we picked them off one by one as they came in the door and terminated them. And I and I mean it was the worst feeling Nancy, it was it was just like the feeling in your stomach was so sickening. And you were so upset, I was so upset. And I went back to my office after that and I thought I will never ever ever do this again.
First off, I first up I completely disagree with terminating anyone without notice unless they’ve done something unethical. Like that is not in my DNA and I have ever done that since. But it was it was the hardest lesson learned. And I mean, I’m like, as you know, I’m still talking about it today. And honestly, I’m grateful. I, I’ve gone back to the owner since then, because I worked for him for 10 years. And I went back after that, and I said, Why didn’t you fire me? Right? I mean, thinking back on it now,
Nancy: You know, what a great question. Great question.
Kristie: Yeah. And he said, I believed in you. And I believe that you would learn from the experience, and that it would never happen again. And I mean, I’m grateful. Because when I look back on it now being at the age I am now versus the age I was then, I’d have fired me.
Nancy: You know, what, I don’t know what I would have done. But you know, to your point, it’s very hard to have to terminate anyone, especially, you know, if their revenue makers, but yeah, you know, you learned, you’re, you’re known now as the accountable queen. And, you know, you’re passionate because it worked. And I’m just curious, going back to that company, after you terminated them, what happened to the rest of the sales team? Did you hire additional people?
Kristie: We did. We did hire, we did replace, we did hire additional people, but it changed the complete the complete culture and dynamic of the team. Right. And I call it addition by subtraction. And it wasn’t and again, you know, I’ve had this happen a couple times over my sales leadership career. And it’s, it’s also the worst feeling when you terminate somebody and one of your other like, great reps, walks in and closes your door and looks at you and says, it’s about time.
Nancy: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, as sales leaders, your staff evaluates your ability to aha culture. Right. copacetic, if you would, and, you know, our motto here is there are no cancers in the company, right? It doesn’t matter how good somebody is, if there’s any kind of attitude shift, it doesn’t fit here.
Kristie: Yep. Correct. And yeah, it’s embarrassing when it’s embarrassing when an employee walks in and says that to you. But as I was referencing a client yesterday, who’s a little bit being held hostage about how he gets to terminate someone, I, you know, I said to him, I said, You’re always the last to know, right. I mean, like, like that, nobody comes to you and says, like, hey, like so and so is like, sales, management’s always the last to know, but we need to figure out how to how to at least be like the second to the last to know what’s going on.
But you have reached your point, I have a responsibility to the entire team and to the company. I mean, we are helping make payroll, right, the sales team, you know, it without the sales team, there’s no payroll. And so I have a responsibility to the team and to the company, to bring the right, like, in everybody’s replaceable, right. I mean, I truly, I’ve always believed that I believe I’m replaceable, I believe other people are replaceable. And so you can replace people with people who have a better attitude, who are going to mentor new people who are going to bring ideas to the table who are going to support each other who are going to be you know, create a supportive environment, instead of a competitive environment, or, you know, a toxic environment.
So I can I can replace that revenue with someone who’s better fits the culture. And you know, and really, I, you know, I call it I don’t call it cultural fit anymore. I call it cultural add. Okay, so I’m looking for people who add to the culture who don’t just fit the culture, but who add to the culture.
Nancy: Yep, culture makes or breaks a dream team. You know, in order to build a dream team, you need to have the right characteristics in the staff that buys into what the company is trying to achieve, right? How many times and we’ve all been there, we just make bad hiring decisions. And so I want to spotlight something on your behalf. What would you like me to spotlight?
Kristie: You know what, because accountability is my passion topic, along with with my day job, if you will. I’m also an expert on the Sales Experts Channel. Okay, hosted by BrightTALK. And so I’m starting a four part series on accountability. The first part is going to drop on February is going to be on February the 11th at 1pm Central time, so your listeners can go out and then there’ll be three others I’m doing them about three weeks apart. So we’re going to run into April will be the last won’t be in in April, but your listeners can go out to BrightTALK and they can search for me, Kristie:, K R I S T I E, and those series that those four webinars will come up and they can register it’s free.
So you know, I I’m really excited to do this, I’m really going to break it down into kind of, you know, digestible steps. So creating a sales accountability culture, we’re going to take, you know, two or three steps every webinar until we’re through all eight of them and, and I’m hoping again, I’m hoping for some some nice discussion, like you said, like, you know, we have an interactive platform so I can take q&a throughout. So I’m looking forward to sharing my philosophy on accountability, but really hearing other how other people are doing things is one of the things I want to do is spread best practices, right? I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t have all the best practices. So I love it when sales leaders come to webinars like this and share ideas with each other.
Nancy: Yeah, and accountability is such a hot topic, and I’m going to be there. So somebody else join me.
Kristie: Nice. Nice.
Nancy: Yeah, tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Kristie: I honestly, like I think a lot of people agree with me, but don’t want to execute. Okay, sometimes, sometimes I find, sometimes I find that’s the case. You know, one of the things, particularly in my world that’s super popular is the concept of player-coach. And again, it’s because of a limited amount of resources. And they’re trying to, you know, get the best bang for their buck. So somebody can, you know, have a quota and manage a team of three or four. And I truly believe that from a DNA perspective, those are completely different individuals, someone who is a leader, manager, and someone who has an individual contributor and hunter. And so I wrote a blog post a while back that said, if player-coach was such a great idea, then why isn’t the NFL doing it?
Nancy: Yeah. Good point.
Kristie: Oh, yeah. It’s not super popular with the board members and the VCs, for sure. They don’t like they don’t like me speaking up about that.
Nancy: Oh, okay. So we promised not to tell anybody you spoke about it, okay? We’ll keep it between us.
Kristie: Sounds great.
Nancy: No, I can go on and on. But we do have to wrap things up. And what is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Kristie: You know, I think the story that I shared, I hope will never happen to anyone else. So I share that story openly, to help prevent that from happening, because it really was probably the worst day in my sales leadership career. But I never want anybody to go through that. But But I would say not holding people accountable will truly be harder than holding them accountable.
Nancy: Yeah. And I guess if you back into it, it’s really identifying those people that buy into the accountability system. Right, that that makes it so much easier. So I know you shared we can find you on the Sales Expert Channel by BrightTALK. But how can my audience get in touch with you?
Kristie: I would love for people to connect with me on LinkedIn. So I’m, I’m easy to find on LinkedIn. I’m out of St. Louis, Missouri. So if you send me a connection request with a quick note that you found me during the podcast and tell me, I would also love to know what your one takeaway was. So I’m always curious, as I share best practices and advice, what really resonates?
Nancy: Sounds great. You know, you are fun, and I really hope that you’ll come back and we’ll continue our discussion about accountability because I know it’s a topic that won’t go away and shouldn’t go away at all. I thank you so much for being on the show. And we’ll talk before you know it again Kristie.
Kristie: Sounds great, Nancy, thanks for having me on.
Nancy: Yes, and everyone jot down Kristie’s information. Happy selling. Until the next time.
Voiceover: The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you’re frustrated that you don’t have enough leads, or your sales team complains that they just don’t have enough time to prospect, we can help. To work with Nancy and her team one on one to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process and create more bottom line results, email her now at Nancy@oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution at oneofakindsales.com/book.
