Derek Shebby, Founder of Modern Sales Training | INSIGHT FROM BUSINESS + SK subtitles

[Music] okay hello derek uh thank you for joining uh today inside from business podcast and uh i'm very glad that you find some time in your busy schedule because i think uh you can really give some good advices to many people who are looking for uh to grow their their sales or to improve their sales sales people so maybe maybe just to to help a bit how you have you started and what you are doing uh right now yeah sure well first first of all luba i appreciate you having me on it's my pleasure thanks so much for uh giving me this uh this platform to share with your uh your audience and and to help more sales people around the world i think that's um you know at this time of the year it's it's something that obviously is uh really big in and who i am and what i'm all about and this is i'm excited for this for this today um so a little bit about me uh um i i actually i'm from uh california so for wherever you're watching this all over the world um actually san diego california so it's sunny right now and it's it's uh it is in the winter time and it's probably going to be 70 degrees today not to not to brag but it's yeah that's that's pretty crazy where we live right now um but yeah i i uh i'm born and raised in california and um i i started working for xerox out of college so um i've been i worked there for 17 years and um you know it was my first first job outside of college and i stayed there for my my whole sales career and that's where i learned how to sell and i basically earned my stripes along the way um but during that process i was that was the number one sales rep for xerox and you know for the full year um and then i was i i eventually moved into sales leadership but before i did that my my senior vice president told me that the only way that i could do that is if i was if i became a trainer first and i i thought that was strange lubo because a lot of times i'm sure you've seen this too in your consulting business organizations might put a uh a sales person that quits into a sales management role just to save them which is insane and i'm sure you see that and correct that all the time um but i was thinking okay well i'm the top and they're making me become a trainer i don't even understand this and and so um i did that but the reason why they wanted me to do that was so i could learn how to coach and you know i'm sure as you know too it's it's one thing to to know something it's another thing to try to help someone else become good at it it's not easy um and i've got two boys i'm learning it all over again teaching them how to become learn how to do everything um but anyway so that did that for a year and in that one year in in the commodity xerox world where there's tons and tons and tons of competitors and and everyone's fighting for the lowest price and xerox is the most expensive um i was responsible for over um a million dollars with a profit for new hires and so we you know brought in a ton of i brought in a ton of business as i was teaching them and a lot of these people that i trained back then are now ceos of companies and vice presidents of sales of other organizations and and uh i ended up going into management from there and i was a top sales manager and again i you know i reached a huge level of success there in xerox and and then i thought what's next for me and something that was big for me lubo was um i wanted kids and uh i was married i just got married and my wife's oldest is the oldest of eight and so she she raised a lot of her siblings and uh and so she said well i'm not in any hurry because she feels like she's had kids already with her with her brothers and sisters and she's she said well if you want kids then we need to travel and i said sure like any sales person i thought let's just make it a three-day weekend maybe take an extra day off make it a four-day weekend and she said no i'm talking about like two weeks off let's go to europe you know and and uh and i said how how is that going to work i've got a sales team i've got this big sales team and she's like i don't know well i'm not in a hurry have kids and for me that was the next big quest and like any sales person nubo you find a way right you find a way and so i uh worked it out with my local uh president to to uh still be a producer for him but um he gave me all these all these roles so i had to he he wanted to deploy me to different sales teams that were struggling to work side by side with the manager to help him get his underperforming reps performing and then also if there's a you know basically side by side showing them how to do it and then even um with new hires that wanted me to help out that and then help out with sales manager development leadership development all that stuff so i had to do all that but i still had to carry a quota still to bring in business he said if you do that i'll let you take time off no problem and so i did that and we uh we had a great time traveling and and i thought it was gonna be a short thing lubo i thought i thought i was gonna be back to running the sales team but i you know i got used to traveling and doing and seeing the world and i thought that was amazing and just taking the time to enjoy life and and i got i got comfortable in that role of training people and helping people become better and producing and getting getting in the trenches and actually closing deals for them showing them how to do it when they were struggling managers and reps along alike and so then uh basically in 2017 after doing that for a while and helping our company grow we we grew from 40 million to when i left it was about there were about 200 million but um and i was responsible for the development of the people um and and uh and in 2017 i said you know what maybe i could do this at a larger scale and this is how you found me but i said maybe you know i could maybe i could make some general courses that are all about teaching people how to sell and and if i did that maybe i could help more people around the world and and i thought that i wanted to give it a shot and you know what's interesting is like if you take you you lubo and you know the companies that you consult for when you do something over and over again you you eventually get a process down in a program to how to do it right and and um obviously someone as successful as you and the companies that you that you work for it's you know you you get a good system that works and so for me my systems were all around how to develop sales people and how and how to make sure and how to teach them how to become top sales performers and even top selling managers things everything like that and when you do something over and over and over again for years and that was your your all you think about is going how can i unlock the potential inside of these people and just make them incredible and that's your focus you come out with some good you come out with some good well-refined curriculum so i made these courses uh while i was working at xerox and uh i put them on udemy and that's how you found me and they instantly became the best seller on udemy which was crazy because udemy's got thousands of people teaching you how to sell but um i think i mentioned this to you as well that i think the reason why mine became so popular was because uh my my my um ideas i wanted to be i wanted it to be like i just got back from work doing it myself being in the field and i'm rolling up my sleeves and you're coming over to my house and i'm just helping you get better at this one sales skill and each course is about one sales skill because i mean that's how it happens lubo right you you you teach something one thing at a time you don't you don't go through let me teach you all of this stuff at once you find out what's one area that someone needs to improve and that's what you gear in on right there and so um my courses became best sellers and they now at this point i've got over 15 000 students around the world and i mean udemy themselves uses my courses to teach their sales people and i get messages every week from large organizations that i had no idea that were taking my courses that these sales people are saying thanks thanks so much i learned i learned so much i'm a top s i've been crushing it because of your stuff and i just i just recently took all my courses off except for a couple rebranded them as sales in 21 days and i got some other courses too and i put them on my own platform and i went full time right before covid started you know the pandemic luckily and uh and i've been and i've been doing that um that consulting and live workshops for my business so so i think that's the long story about who i am and what i've been doing but i'm really passionate about unlocking you know people's potential and um and helping people see what what needs what do they need to do to to win the commodity sale that that world that they think that you know the lowest price wins and how do you win against competition how do you separate yourself uh and how do you do it with more value and and more profit than everyone else so so you can feel confident what you do and that's that's what i do for for a living now thank you derek uh maybe if you if you think about the sales people in general uh what do you think are the people are more struggling with or or scared of in terms of uh sales you know sales is is um i think i think the things people struggle with in sales and in my you could say based upon my course is one of the most popular courses but but the most popular courses that i have are cold calling related so i would say that's an area that people struggle but sales people i think where they really struggle is mindset and because what happens is there's so many things that happen that can cause you to think negatively about you know yourself as a person right you know or your your position your opportunity in a certain sale or things that are going on in a company and there's all this negative thinking and and that's typically the end of a salesperson and just like you mentioned you know about what you do and how companies bring you in to see if to do assessments on their on on their own sales people yep yeah what what typically what happens is if they do a good job and they they do a good job on the a recruiting standpoint they find the right people they can come in and the idea of you you hire for attitude train for skill you bring people in sales and they've got the right attitude they got they got every all the all the all the right pieces that could become someone great and then and then the sales organizations the one that lets them down um but if they don't if they don't turn around they don't get saved they don't get they don't get nurtured before the end their mindset goes to a place where they can't come back from and i'm sure in your assessments that you that you where you check to see their how these people are a lot of times if their attitude and the way that they look at sales isn't in the right place i mean they're not going to make it no matter what it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what you find about how good they are in a skill if they're if they've lost it um if they look at things negatively uh if they look at their position and their outlook in life and and where in their organization in the wrong way they're past the point of no return and i think that that's the area that um that's why there's so many books out there for salespeople about just the way you think and uh and and it's critical because when you master that and you start looking at things in a more positive way then you find the the the little wins in every situation and those are little wins that help you get through cold calling and help you get through objections and help you get through all those things because you've got to find what's the you know what's the silver lining in this and and uh that's where i would say that's where people struggle in sales because if they can't master their mind in the way they think it's usually a short a short career for them and that's when they think they doubt themselves and they go to something else that's what i would say for that one yeah so if you if if somebody uh set up uh his or her mind uh in a right way uh in terms of uh sales uh what's the what's the second step how you can help afterwards so well well what i would say there is that's a good question you know i the last the last course that i made and i don't just do courses but i i think about courses when i think about courses i think how can i help the most people at once you know and of course i do consulting where i work with people who are totally focused and tailored but i think how can i help the most people at once and the last course that i made for my sales and 21 days program was a course on was a course on um was of course on me looking back and thinking about what would i tell myself as a new salesperson you know how would i help myself kind of like your your time machine question if you went back and did it again yep right what would you do and and i have a course and it's actually four hours long and it's called the top performer's guide to long long term sales success and and the course is really all about at the core of it thinking about thinking long term about your career i mean even for yourself lubo if you look back and said five years ago what would you tell yourself about what you're doing right now and you probably would have there's probably a lot in there about about you you thinking about you doing things today that you know would impact you in five years and and what would those things be because you know that it would compound you'd be building this exponential growth platform for yourself and and so that's why it's the last course that i made for my sales and 21 days program because i i really wanted to think about it and go if i were starting over what would be the critical components of how i'd look at things and the things that i would do and how i would run my day and how i would use my time and how i would you know deal with adversity and how i would plan for the long term uh because that's that's what happens a lot of people start sales thinking that i'm just going to do this for a few years and see what happens right they start out that way but what happens they're in it for two years they blink and then they're in it for five years and then they say shoot i probably should have done things a little bit differently you know for me right now that would have helped me so so uh so with mindset you know once that's one of those things that you always work on i mean you got people like tony robbins that are so popular and they're all they're all they talk about is how you think and and that's it's one of those things you never stop working on so mindset never goes away but once you have the right foundation then i would say the things that you should work on are you need to teach yourself how to sell you need to learn how to sell i think that's where companies typically miss they miss that aspect of of uh development and things get mixed up with this is what our product is and they teach people about the product and once they learn about the product they say okay now you can go sell it but what's missing is the actual how to sell and um and i think that's what you need to learn once you get your mind right you really gotta dedicate yourself to learning you know how to become a good salesperson and listen and and really get connect with your customers and and do that and it's there's a lot to it but um does that answer your question lubo yeah yeah uh i i think so um maybe just to move it up move it a bit uh forward if you if you can uh think of any uh examples like uh how it can be done properly or what can be what can be achieved if if if you do it right what can such as sales teams uh achieve can you think of an example from from your past so when you get your mind right you mean yeah if everything goes right because because you mentioned this example that some companies say uh get to know us get to know our products and then go out and sell it and that's it right but if it's if it's done in in the right way no what do you think how how they how those teams or companies differentiate each other yeah you know i probably can give you an example for myself um so yeah because so when i when i was uh growing up my career you know at xerox and i think what this is one of the challenges with mindset is that sometimes it's confused with overconfidence and um and just i guess being really having a big ego and a lot of times sales people do they have their egos a little bit too big and they're not thinking about um they're not thinking about being confident versus being having a big ego and so for me i started off having a really big ego lubo and i i you know you could you could think that was confidence but it really but it really wasn't it wasn't my it was the wrong mindset and i actually started off this is crazy that i did hear but i i went to all the top sales reps at xerox and i told them that by the time i was there as long as them i would be smoking their numbers i told them that and uh this was like this is like my first week on the job here lubo and so so basically i after after three months i didn't sell anything it's and you're supposed to sell you're supposed to sell three deals a month at xerox typically that's what the expectations are and so and so basically um i was pulled into my vp's office and they slid a paper across the desk to me and it said if you don't if you don't perform this month we're terminating you and i saw this and i was just like what am i going to do wait i'm being let go me and and yeah i couldn't believe it and and they said he said do you want to work here and i said yeah and i couldn't imagine going to all those people that i told i was working in sales that i had already been let go and um and so basically what ended up happening is he said okay if you want to work here then uh we're on the hook to make you successful so he's checking to see if i was on board and i was and so he said okay we're going to help you and and so what happened then is i had all these managers working with me to get a deal and i was then wrong mindset i was thinking how could i watch them and see what they're doing so then i can beat them lubo i wanted to be better than them and i found that they were asking questions they're asking more questions but they all seem to know a lot more about the product and uh and i was just like okay i need to learn about the product if i learn about the product i could be better than them and so you know i i did okay like end up getting it we end up getting a deal but obviously they they did everything back then but i but then i i dedicated myself to learning the product and and so what happened is is i then became a know-it-all and i think this is this is the normal progression of a salesperson by the way they come in they have a lot of confidence they think i can do it i'm born to sell which is silly when you think about it i mean it's you know it's you everyone has to learn everything that we do um but they come i i was like i was born to do this and and uh i i started learning the product i said if i just learned the product then i'll be great and so then once i finished that i realized that i wasn't selling more i was still very average very it was more like below average and but i was getting a deal in here and there but what was happening is i was just waiting for my chance to speak and to show the customers how much i knew and that's what happens with product training and so when you hear companies that are all always complaining which is a normal thing that they're sales people all they do is they just talk all the time and they don't listen well they talk all the time don't listen is because all the company does to teach them is about the product they teach them about the products and then when they learn about the product they want to show the customer that they know all this stuff so when they do that they don't they don't actually sell they just talk and so i wasn't doing well and i finally came to the point where i realized you know what i needed help because i was i guess i was starting to doubt myself saying i thought i was great i wasn't then i thought i needed to learn the product because i saw them doing it and i'd be successful and that didn't work so then i i asked my uh my manager at the time i said hey can you help me i i something's just not clicking and um and he said yeah you know i'll help you he says but you've got to be at my office in my office at 5 00 a.m every day it was one of those things and so i got up early and i couldn't believe it because i was i mean i'm in the early 20s lubo it's like i was going out every night sort of thing you know yeah like 5 a.m what and so but i did it and so i got up at 5am i got up i was there by 5am and we worked for every every day for for it was for weeks and all we did in those sessions is we worked on how to sell and we and we and and that's when i actually transitioned from the the mindset which was going all over the place so the product training which wasn't working to then learning actually how do you how do you how do you learn from how do you how do you learn with the cus what's important the customer how do you what questions do you ask how do you prepare for meetings how do you role play how do you uh what what are the numbers that you should be measuring your success off of you know everything from how how do you actually cold call how do you do that like what's the science in it what how do you practice that you know how do you get past the gatekeeper all those sort of things i we worked on every single morning and we drilled on it like it was role play role play role play role play role play and then those sessions just from those sessions my success immediately went to the top and i ended up becoming year over year number one rep in the company and but it wasn't until i i stopped and learned how to sell and i think so so that's i mean that's my that's my story but it's the same thing wherever you go you know when people when an organization has a sales force and they they teach the sales force i just i literally talked about this in my most recent podcast and i have a blog post about it but typically when people onboard a sales employee it doesn't matter what company you're in there's there's the way that they teach someone to sell is they teach them first about the company culture like here's our management process here's what our company's all about here's what we believe in you know here's where we fit in the landscape you know of everything and here's here's one we're going to be meeting you know here's your comp plan here's here's your here's your structured day here's our company expectations you know for performance and for activity and then they say okay now let's teach you the product and they teach them the product and they and with the product goes along with the pricing tools and the and the crm and the how do you submit an order and who to contact and all of the things about how to do the job with the product and then they say go out and sell and and where company what companies get wrong they're lubo and you probably see this all the time too is that they it gets blended the product training and teaching people how to use the tools with the products companies think that's sales training they think that's how to sell but how to sell is its own thing you got to learn how to sell and so so to go back to what i do is i i my courses are should be a good supplement for any organization in b2b that does full cycle sales because it teaches it solves that third component because you still your com every company still has to teach the product sales teach the culture but they need to teach how to sell and that's and that's if they if they have those three together that's when you start creating someone that's amazing and um and so the mindset's typically there with the culture that's when you get fired up about who you're working for and excited um but uh you need to have a blend of all three to develop a sales person the right way and typically the how to sell components just very very very poor um and that's yeah so that's how you really take it to the next level it's a great a great story and very honest um thank you for that derek uh but and if if if you think about your uh your uh company or your education platform where are you where are you going what what are your goals or future plans in in next uh years to come yeah you know what what i would like and i think what i love the most is i really love i love i love deals i love people winning i love i love um i love the art of sales basically i i i'm not a big fan of being in the classroom i'm not a big fan of teaching of having people just just take courses and that's it like i really want to get on the ground floor and i think the more and more that i work with you know from my consulting side you know large and small companies but the more and more i work with them the more i realize that the areas of opportunity are really tactical and they're really how do we take all this information like for you you know behind you you've got books and books and books and books books which is fantastic and the big thing is is how do you apply them and how are you actually taking that and using it and there's different types of people in in sales that just like to learn and um and that's it and they they become know-it-alls just like if you were to learn all about a product they become know-it-alls about this is what the book says to do and i think what's what's missing is even you know even as i was finishing up with xerox i was still out there in the field i was still out there closing deals i'm still out there meeting with large clients and winning new business and you know cold calling and doing all that kind of stuff and i think those books are good to an extent but you really have to get in there and make it happen and and when you're making it happen there's you're not sitting there going like what did chapter five of this book tell me to do you don't do that you get in there and it's just you it's just you and the customer and you trying to find a way to make it happen and be a resource and make it make it close for next step and so so for me um i think the the where where i look at where i fit in this whole mess is i really you know this whole sales world that we're in where i fit is i really i'm really passionate about finding ways to take sales theory and just clean it all up so it's gone and just say this is practical this works and here's techniques you can actually use to do something today and and that's where a lot of my material is and i'll give you an example of of one of them you know i've got a client that i've got a few clients in the agricultural space so they sell to farmers and one of the clients i was meeting with the top sales rep for their company and and the top sales rep and these guys these guys are manufacturers so they sell to distributors that sell to the farm and so um i was you know obviously i was contracted um at the top of the company to work with all their to improve their sales and so um part of it was me meeting with their their people one-on-one and and so i meet with the top sales person and the salesperson says says to me say derek you know i'm the top i'm i make the most i sell the most here by far but i'm not making the most money you know just the money isn't coming with it and you know i mean obviously we're in sales to make money that's what we're doing it here for for dubo that's there's no other reason right and there's a lot we put we put up with and if you're if you're performing you should be performing and making money and so i i asked him i said what's going on and and he says well you know it's i'm just you know it's always coming down to price like well you're still winning more than everybody else and he says yeah but you know it's just i i feel like this is just it's just the everyday thing i you know we're not gonna i'm not con i'm paid off of margin obviously i got to have some gross profit in there to make some actual money and i said well let's let me and so what what i did is i did something very practical that you know people do in sales that you know that happens all the time and i put them in a role play and i said okay let's just say i'm that customer that you're that you presented a proposal to and you're up against competition and i say hey so i you know you know thanks for your proposal and uh everything looks good and and um you know i'm just curious you know why should we go with your product versus the other ones and ask them the question right there on the spot and so he immediately goes to all the reasons why he's the best he's the best he's basically he's the reason why they should go with them and so he's like well you know i'm always there if you have any questions and and uh you know i'm you know i'll give you my cell phone and all the typical things that that a lot of companies train their sales people to say where it's i'm the reason i'm the difference you know i'm the value add right and and so he goes into this and he and he and he sounded great by the way lubo it's not like yeah i had no nothing i could i could help him with there but the big picture issue there is that when you're selling in the commodity world you have to fight for differentiation you've got to fight for that you've got to fight for people to see that there is a reason why people choose you versus everyone else and that's the world that i came with came in from xerox where we were the most expensive vendor in a world of you know in the in the commodity space copiers you know i imagine you've got a printer in your office or you know wherever you are right now lubo and you look at it you're like i don't even know what type of printer it is like whatever it's just you know i gotta get some toner for it whenever you know it's like whatever well that's what i was selling and i was selling saying this is why you should spend twice as much for mine and and what happens is is is because this sales person when i was asking him why i should choose his product versus someone else he was going direct he was he was bypassing the product and going straight to himself and he was just talking about him and and that's not bad but the problem with that is he's by him not talking about why his product is different he's he's telling the customer that it's the same as everything else he's literally saying the products are equal and the only difference there is him and so then as any consumer i mean you even if you or me were to buy something lubo like that we would say okay well i like you more and if they're all the same then if you give me a better deal i'll go with you and that's what happens and what happens is that is that if you give me a better deal i'll go with you that means a lower price and and so basically we spent time working on that and i spent time working with his leadership team on how do we change that company wide because that in in in that sort of world it's all about finding finding ways to fight for differentiation and that's going to that's common across the board in sales and knowing what to say and how to say it i mean that's not something you're literally going to find in a book um but uh but so so what's next for me i know this is a big picture but i like working so basically i like working with i like working with companies because i'm able to take these large conceptual things that they might listen to or even my courses themselves and i and i help them take it and make make a dramatic impact and tactical and practical application you know for their own company and i really like that a lot um and uh long term i've got um the one thing that keeps coming up um and this is something that is coming up for me too uh but one thing that keeps coming up is qualifying lubo qualifying is number one it seems like with everybody how do i find the right customers how do i get involved in more opportunities how do i get fall how do i get involved in more of the ride opportunities and even how do i get involved with companies before they reach out to vendors because when they reach out to vendors they're typically already through their buying process they've figured out what they want and they just want people for a quote and so i have i have a book that i'm writing called the qualifying formula which which which will help companies of all sizes really get really get ahead of that and get involved with their customers before they realize they have a problem and also help them get involved with more of the right customers so so they can work the same amount of effort every single day but end up making more money because they're working on better accounts and i'm pretty far down the the process of this book but but the reason why i'm writing that is because all my clients they have the same challenges and it's all about qualifying and and qualifying um the right opportunities at the right time um and many times it's that's before they go out to bid and realize that they have a problem so so i think long term i'd love to uh once i got that book out i want to consult with more companies to help them do that but i'm obviously there's so there's so much to do in the world in the sales world and if i can help one person then it's um then i feel like it's uh it was a success and can you give us just just uh one example how this qualifying the prospect or the client how it can work uh in practice yeah yeah totally yeah so an example um i have a i had a colleague at xerox that um that you know i i mentioned earlier that every every month we as sales people would would need to be bringing in three deals a month and so if you have a sales team that's of 10 people you need to be bringing in 30 deals as an example um and and three deals a month was would hit your budget and that typically would give you make you about seventy to a hundred thousand dollars um us you know a month i mean i'm a hundred thousand a year excuse me that would put you you know 100 a plan and get you that amount of range of money um but i had this one person that a colleague of mine on the other on the other side of the of the nation so he was in florida and i was in san diego so i was in a much bigger city than he was and he was in miami i think and miami's very very small compared to where i'm at so the offer you think smaller smaller place less opportunity um not as bent many big clients um and what would happen though is he uh he he never went into uh management he stayed as a salesperson and so you know obviously you know do this guy for a long time because we're around we're in the industry of the same amount of time and he ended up becoming very very um very detailed around information he'd collect about companies and that information that he'd collect would would let him know um we'll let him know what what at the right time would be to contact them to sell them something and so here's here's the most easiest example let's say he lost a deal and he lost a deal and he would find out you know what was the contract that they signed what was the amount that they signed for who are the main decision makers you know what what were their reasons to make for making the decision and a lot of times we we get that information as salespeople and we go okay it's good to know i'll know that for next time but you don't always record it so he would record it from years ago and he would record it down this is how much they signed for literally this is the term of the contract here's the reasons why they just made the decision here's how early it was when they signed in the contract you know when they renewed um and here's uh here's the person who signed all that information and then what he started doing is he started making methodical touches to those people over the next few years had very detailed calendar reminders about when they probably would be in the right window again and and so he would then be right there ready for him when they were ready to look again and he knew all the right people all the right contacts he knew exactly how to price his solution knew the right things to to touch on and uh and then what would happen is he would win the deal the second time and but the bigger but the bigger picture here is he would go from closing three deals a month that everyone was doing in the country as a as a sales rep and he was averaging 15 to 20 deals a month and so that's what he was averaging but it's because he was qualifying these accounts the right way throughout the process having the right information collected put in the right place and when everyone else when the other top reps were making anywhere from one one to two hundred thousand a year us he was making close to seven to eight hundred thousand dollars a year us and he was working the same hard as everybody else but because he had a different system of qualifying the accounts and staying in touch he put himself in the right place at the right time with the right message and was able to uh was able to exponentially make more money than everyone else and he's not even considered in the conversation of top reps because he's so much of an outlier doesn't make any sense so that's that's one example but the point there lubo is there are certain things that sales people just aren't doing every single day that they could be and if they do that and they collect the right qualifying type information they can be playing in more opportunities of the ride opportunities using the same amount of energy as they were before but as a result real exponentially increasing the amount of money that they're making and this applies for any organization as long as the organization from its core which is what i've been working with sea levels with you know and you know owners of owners of companies is when they when they structure their organization the right way up front they can make sure their sales people are capturing the right data and getting involved in the right conversations at the right time and that's that's that's uh an example for it does that make sense yeah thank you derek and uh uh this uh qualifying data it's very interesting stuff and uh i can even think of uh many situations in in my career where it really helped a lot it's better to win it next year and we need five years afterwards each year so yeah i mean it makes it makes sense but um from your experience and from your clients uh what do you think are the biggest uh mistakes uh the companies are doing you mentioned some of them already but if you should sum up or to choose the the biggest one in in the sales departments what would you add you know i'll give two because these are two that are that i've been that keep coming up for me over and over again with clients that i work with um the first one is the first one is is is customers are i mean what i'm saying customers the sales people are way too reactive and this is all this is if the organization is one where leads are fed to them as an example or if they're um if they're a manufacturer and they and they they field questions from from people they're trying to sell their products what happens is they get very reactive and their day starts and and basically whoever rings whoever calls them on the phone dictates where their day is going to go and their attention and their time and their and their support goes to you know the squeaky wheel gets the oil as they say and you know with uh you know in life so the people that are asking are that are asking the most to get the most support and most attention and what happens is sales people if you're in that type of business you get really you get very used to uh just having people run your day and i think the problem with that with that it fundamentally is is you're probably working with accounts that are too small and you're probably working with accounts that aren't the right customers it's not like you don't want to help them lubo i mean you still you want to help them but you you're better off going after the accounts that you know would be the best for you and for your company i used to say to uh to to clients that their territory that they have if if they have a sales team and and they have certain accounts a lot of time those those accounts are accounts that they inherited if they inherited certain customers you know that's kind of like they don't get a chance to choose their own friends you know they're just stuck with these companies not like it's bad but some of these companies could be small and can and and they can take a lot of their attention and uh and won't really help them grow and they need to make sure that they're spending their energy on the right opportunities and so so what i would say is one thing that i constantly see all over the place is the fact that sales people don't go into their day and they don't go into um their strategy for how they're going to get a cl get accounts and clients they don't go into it with the thought of who are the clients that are the best opportunities for us and and then once you find out what those best opportunities are thinking strategically how can they put themselves in front of them more whether it's just prospecting or having another touch with them in some sort of some sort of fashion but they need to be strategic about that and i think that that's that's one thing that i constantly see is missing people are sales people are way too reactive that's that's the first thing and not strategic about their time the second thing that i would say is that it's constantly all over the place that i see that's pro that's a challenge in sales is sales people and sales organizations in general they need to get very clear on what activity is and what's productive activity because what happens is and this this is just in general especially as an entrepreneur and you know and you you might feel like you're doing things that are making progress you feel like you're you're doing something that's effective but in reality it's it's not really positive action you might be taking like you might be crawling instead of running you know and i'll give you an example like uh you can make if you're doing outreach so if your organization does cold calling as an example there's a lot of companies that that spend more time cold emailing than cold calling and they'll think i want to write the perfect email and i write the perfect email and because of that that's gonna be the best use of my time and uh and and that's it but what happens is there's no perfect email i mean i don't know about you lubo i get tons of emails and i don't even like reading them i don't like reading these emails yeah i can't stand it i can't stand it and and at the same time you go sales people are thinking they're so they're worried about they're they're so afraid to do something wrong that they're just spending all their energy doing something that feels like they're doing something but they're really not and the thing is at that time they should they probably should have made 20 or 30 phone calls instead of crafting the the perfect email that might even go to spam off the off the bat the the person they're contacting might not even still be working there right now you know based on the pandemic you know they they uh they might not um that might not be their method of communication there's all these different things but you can just call someone and you call someone and that and that's i would say that's productive activity you know getting right in front of it going after it um another another activity that people do a lot that they they feel like they're doing something is linkedin and i know we connect on linkedin which i'm glad we did lubo but there's a lot of people on there that spend all day on it and all the day all they're doing all day is they're just messaging people and and typing typing posts and they're commenting on posts and liking posts and you know what they're gonna feel really good like they're doing something but it's not productive activity the the sales people that are actually selling they don't do that they don't have time to do that like i mentioned my you know my friend that uh that is crushing it at xerox still selling way more everyone else he does zero on linkedin zero he's never on there because he's doing productive activity and i think that that's the other that's the other challenge that i see the two that's the second challenge i see is companies need to get really clear about what is productive activity for their sales teams and if they're working on the right things like that then they're going to see a better result and if you're a salesperson watching this and you're thinking you know what is your typical day look like well you should stop and think what would you say is what what would you categorize as the activities that you do that have the biggest chance of speaking to a client speaking to them talking to them or literally communicating with them what are the what are the best things that you can be doing and then how once you figure out those things are how can you do the most of those activities every single day and if you do that you're going to get the best results so i i gave you two i knew yes for one but it's like those are two that are constantly putting up for me with my clients and it's uh you know it's it's an easy tweak it's practical but um when you when you're working on the right things you can get uh you can get the better uh the results look much faster yeah exactly i totally agree i mean uh i can give you one example we're just working in about one client then we we just ask sales reps to do 10 cold calls a day that's it start with this and see what happens and sometimes magic can happen with the small simple things just actions yeah yeah totally but the right actions yeah and if you told if you if you told them to have their sales people you know spend four hours just i don't know just reading books they wouldn't get anything done i mean they'd be they'd just be reading all day and they'd feel like they're learning they'd feel like they're doing something but it's not actually moving any needle and and i think that that's sometimes you just got to get very very tactical and say what's the biggest what has the biggest impact and yeah i'm right there with you yeah and um maybe maybe two uh tools to success point of view if you imagine any of your past lines or or clients in in your consulting business so how this how such a process can look like like how how quickly you can get results i mean it probably depends how big is how large is the company but if we are talking about the let's say medium company or small medium company so you jump in and how it can how it can look uh your program or or your consulting service oh so if people worked with me how that would look yeah yeah for example if you if i'm a medium company and you're starting tomorrow with my sales reps like 10 people uh if you can give us some some tips how such a program can can look so it would be great for your prospects and our clients too yeah yeah i think i think the first thing that you always do before you get into the sales team is you need to have a clear understanding of what the objectives are from the from the person running the company right and i think that that's where things get missed and i'm working with one client as an example uh that that's bringing me in because he has all these sales people doing things and and they're very reactive and um like i mentioned and so as a as a result of being reactive their time's not being focused on the right things and uh they're still bringing in business i mean money's the money's coming in because their phones ring and on the other end it's a sale and so they're doing that all day long uh but the but the ceo of the company is saying you know we're just not growing fast enough and and can i help and so you know and so in this situation it's like well let's figure out why aren't we growing fast enough and and really diving into you know i had to learn first and in this situation i ended up doing a um you know i met with each of each of the sales is sales people to understand what they're doing and and how the days were going and the challenges that they were facing along the way and that sort of thing on that sort of buy-in only happens when you have the the top buy-in to have that meeting because they're thinking i've got other stuff to do right so in doing that i learned that they were being they were just being reactive to their day which is like i also mentioned it's a common thing that i see out there and so and so the next step just from understanding because the see in this situation the sea the sea level wasn't exactly sure what was happening why it wasn't going as well um the next step for this situation uh because sometimes c level might know uh the next thing was well what what what are the right things that we want them to do what are those what are the productive activities the right activities we think that would make the biggest impact for what they sell and for um and and so for any client that i'd work with it would be that because if we're going to be putting becoming really tactical because that's what it is it's like you make you know you eat an elephant one bite at a time and you you make these these little tweaks that have these big these big these big impacts well we need to know what are the what so what's our goal here and so what in this one situation we found out as well we needed to see how can their sales people have uh become more proactive but what would that be what would that look like where were they what areas would we want them to be doing focusing on and how could we make sure that they're doing things strategically that would get them there faster and so this sort the engagement really changes into you know you're visioning out the end result and and looking working back saying what are the ways we can get there and so with this one client as an example we came out with came up with four different ways four different things that they could be doing every single day and every single month that we knew would help them get to a better result and and and and give them tools basically along the way to help them not be so reactive but strategically be more proactive and so from there once we came up with the the strategies that we knew that they needed to be working on to have productive tab more productive activity every single day and month which would which would result in these bigger goals for the company then it comes down to how do we start teaching their salespeople that because in sales like i'm sure you see all the time all over the place lubo the sales people are in a sense you could in a lot of ways they're like they're the ceo of their own territory and so you can't just just be teach people say this is what you do you've gotta you've gotta get them to learn and realize themselves as you're coaching them along the way to think differently about the way that they work and the way that they do business and to see the the reason why they're doing it because you have to give people the autonomy to make changes and make adjustments in their own business um but as long as they're doing it within the the structure that fits the organization and so so what comes so you got these strategic strategic goals for the company that they want then you have the the productive activities you see that that you think that they need to be doing to get them there and this is something that you work collaboratively you know in a collaboration with the senior team senior leadership team and then it comes down to how can you get the sales force to learn how to do those sort of things so become second nature and them to understand how to feel comfortable themselves and the way to do it and i think the last thing i'll say about that that's so important is for me and i don't know if it's the same thing for you lubo but whenever i whenever i try something new i'm super slow at it and i don't know maybe it's just something about me but if if it's a new tool or a new system i'm like i'm looking at it i'm going how do i do this and then sometimes you're looking on youtube videos for like how to do this and you're looking at blog posts like how to do this and then there's like the gifs showing people you know where do you push what's the button you click there you know what do you do there and sometimes you're going like i just wish someone was right here just just watching me just telling me how to do it and i'm thinking i'm not i'm not dumb why is this why am i like this and i think what happens is as as human beings lubo we need that person there with us in the beginning to work with however it is that we learn so we can get how to do a certain thing and so that's the that's the thing so that's that's the part where i get deployed also to work with the sales force and sales you know sales teams because we've got this vision we know we've identified the challenge with the organization we got this vision we've got the strategic product productive activities that'll help them get to get them there then it comes down to how do we get the sales force to understand how to do those things right the best way and how do we teach them so they can it could become second nature and then they can start doing it their own way to get to that result and so so i get deployed there too and sometimes they got they they do that themselves and sometimes they have me work with them side by side so they know how to get their sales team to do that but at the end of the day you know and i know i mentioned this inside of my podcast um there's success habits there's habits that are guaranteed if you do them every single day you'll get huge results and so how do you teach people those habits and and you've got to really make it really simple for them and clear and those those habits should result in the in these larger expectations and results for the company and so um that's an example of of how i you know go about working with with clients to get these these large impacts derek uh amazing uh would you be so kind and just to share maybe just uh one or a few uh habits you you teach your students or your clients yeah you know i think i think um if you go you make it as most as tactical as as you possibly can be because i you know like i mentioned earlier i'm very practical um i really like i i really love the competitive sale and i love the um i love the how do you sell your product for more value than everyone else and one of the habits that i always bring up that i just absolutely love is stacking deals in your favor and so and that's something that just constantly comes up and it's something i've always seen working with my sit my own sales teams and people along the way and and here's here's how it works so when you when you work with a customer uh when you work with a new client they come in and and they're you're in a bid process so you're up against competition and you're that you're the company um or you're you know you're the rep doesn't matter who it is that but you're trying to win this business well typically what happens is when you're a new sales person you do the best you can and then you win some and you lose some and then you start determining what your skill what your skill level is and you start determining what your win ratios are and and all those sort of things and and um and then what happens is you start working on larger deals and uh and these larger deals are ones that if you close them it's like your whole year's quota you know in one deal and they're massive and what happens is you try extra hard for those because you really you really want to win those lubo and then what happens is you lose those and when you get battle tested losing really big deals that's when you actually start learning to say shoot what could i have done differently because you it hurts losing big contracts and big deals hurts and you go man that when that one is going to sting for a while but that's the moment when you stop and you really ask yourself what could i have done differently what could i've done better and what happens there is the best sales people they really embrace that moment and they write down all the things they could have done differently and there could be like 20 things you know i could have introduced them to some of our current my current customers and showed them that as a resource up front so they heard what other people get from me i could have i could have introduced them to these other parts of people in my company that their organization will be interacting with um i could have connected our ceos together to have a conversation about or you know or that or i could have you know i could have um done a done a demo for them or i could have done a demo for all the different people involved or i could have brought our product on site for them to use there or whatever that you come up with this huge massive list and when and in those moments when you're looking back saying what could have done differently everything's an idea and and you don't know what can work and what couldn't and you literally come out of it saying yeah i it would have hurt for me to try that too it would have hurt me to try that too i lost you never know and so you come out of it with this list of all of these things and then what happens is the is when i call stacking the deal in your favor the idea is any opportunity that you're in you look at it and you say how can i go down this list of things that i would do if i lost if i look back and say man if i just wish i would end that and how do i strategically find a way to do every single one of those before i get to the proposal because when you do that you end up stacking this deal in your favor and you come out of it you go man i did all of these things and then what typically what happens in the process lubo is the customer the person you're trying to win over they are so blown away with how much value your organization provides and how much different your company is that you start you start separating yourself very early from everyone else involved and the customer sees you as being the premium because you have so much more that you offer and then that premium comes with a price so what happens when you deliver this stack the deal in your favor you end up building your own confidence saying you know what i i should be higher price i've shown all the reasons why i should be there and so you stack that deal in your favor and then typically the customer comes back at the end and they say man i love also if you got but everyone else is is this price and then you get into whole price objections and and how do you handle that right and that's basically where you where you quantify the value you've built and um and you end up finding a way to still win and you still win with profit you still win with um with that value so i call that stacking the deals in your favor right and and i think that that's one success habit that you know that's what i call it but it's it's um it's not a new concept none of this stuff is new sales is not new but it's a concept that comes from losing big deals that sting that you that you literally say i'm never gonna have it happen to me again lubo ever never and so i'm gonna make sure i do all this stuff up front and then what happens is those top sales people and top performing teams they just know that that becomes their process we do all of these things that's what we do and um because it's our habits it's our way of doing things and so that um that's that's one of my favorite success habits uh that i go through with clients great one thank you uh okay so uh if you don't mind i would uh ask this time machine question at the end anyway and if this podcast is going back time and uh your younger self would have a chance to see it to listen to it what would you what would you send back okay yeah this was a fun one for me to think about you know when i was when i was preparing but i think looking back on my on my own career and if i was watching this and and i was and i was just uh and i was i i got to see this and and change the trajectory of what i was doing what i would tell myself is to try to enjoy yourself a little bit more along the way and uh and and for me i've been so dedicated to be to be the best and to really and to really help as much as i can and to just i'm just passionate about making that impact that sometimes when you get so f

2020-12-28 10:01

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