Summary/Abstract
Harry hosts Walter Crosby on the Sales Made Easy podcast. Walter is an expert on helping CEOs, entrepreneurs, and senior executives to scale their business, and also wrote a book on Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make with Their Sales Organization that Stop the Company from Scaling. Walter explains that although people in Michigan are enjoying the warm weather, activities like snowmobiling and ice fishing are not possible due to the high temperatures. Harry and Walter have some light-hearted conversation about ice fishing and global warming, before getting down to discussing sales.
Walter and the speaker discuss mistakes that CEOs make and how to avoid them. Walter suggests that hiring salespeople should be done differently than other roles, because salespeople are better at interviewing and selling than the hiring manager. He suggests taking away the biases and resumes, and making sure the salesperson is familiar with the product they are selling. He also recommends his book for CEOs to get more information on how to avoid mistakes, as they are ultimately responsible for everything in the organization.
The interviewer and interviewee discussed how to approach the hiring process for salespeople differently. The interviewee suggested that the company should change the way they write job postings, evaluate candidates, and score them. They should treat them more like prospects, asking complicated questions to understand how they think and assess whether they can follow a process. The interviewee also suggested that the company should wait until the end of the process to sell the job and company to a candidate, spending time to understand how they might fit into the culture and team. Finally, they discussed the importance of writing job postings that accurately describe the desired skills and competencies needed to be successful in the role.
The conversation is about how to write ads for sales roles in a way that attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones. The speaker explains that ads should describe the situation, the type of person they are looking for, and speak directly to that person. This way, the reader will think that they are qualified and want to apply. The speaker also recommends that the ad should be honest about the skill sets and competencies needed to be successful in the role. Finally, they Stress the importance of setting the right expectations and taking the time to get the right hire, as the cost of hiring someone who is not a good fit can be expensive.
Timestamps
0:00:00
Interview with Walter Crosby: Discussing Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make with Their Sales Organization
0:02:34
Conversation between Walter and CEO on Common Mistakes CEOs Make
0:05:24
“Evaluating Sales Candidates in the Hiring Process”
0:08:01
“The Benefits of Writing a Shackleford-Style Ad for Sales Candidates”
0:12:46
Heading: The Impact of Financial Incentives on Sales Performance
0:20:54
Conversation on the Benefits of Being Selfish with Time and Team Culture
0:23:13
Heading: The Benefits of Team Selling and the Challenges of Being an SDR
0:27:22
Conversation on Salesperson Management and Accountability
0:32:19
Heading: Accountability in Sales Management: A Discussion on Keeping Positive Framing and Coaching Salespeople
0:35:08
Heading: Coaching Salespeople on Pre-Call Planning and Debriefing
0:36:47
Interview with Walter Crosby: How to Avoid the Seven Critical Mistakes in Hiring and Retention
Highlights
So I think we can keep accountability in a positive frame. And we don’t have to micromanage people. And if somebody’s not performing, they’re not going to appreciate that accountability and they’re probably going to self select out of the situation after three or four months of not hitting their numbers because we’ve agreed to do the numbers. That’s where the expectations come in. So I think that’s a way for a CEO to spend a very controlled amount of time just focusing on that accountability piece and really getting people to focus on it. And if the CEO can’t do it, and they don’t have a sales manager, the CFO, or the controller, that Finance person, they Love accountability, they love adding stuff up and they love making sure everything those are the guys that are looking at our expense reports.
And we need to give them the tools that they need, got to meet them where they are. And then if they’re not performing, there’s reasons for that. And that’s where we do the coaching. And the less they perform, the greater the insight that must be gathered. Right? So if they hit their revenue number and they didn’t break any rules and they’re a team player, okay, they’re doing their job. Let’s take a quick look at your pipeline. Looks like you’re going to do it again.
Yeah. Okay. So we were talking about some of the mistakes that CEOs make. We talked about the compensation, having the right job description. What about once the person is on board? CEOs are pretty busy running their business, doing what they need to do to work on the business. They’re the go to person, typically for a smaller company, like you described, for a lot of things. Now the salesperson, or salespeople you mentioned, three to five, are flying under the radar.
The reward for many in sales is they go through an entire month and look at 5 hours out of the month where they’re writing business and say I had an awesome month. Right. Because they look at whatever they’re typically not looking at how they fill their pipeline, they’re looking at the outcome at the end of the month as they look back at the business they wrote that’s where a lot of people get the rush, the adrenaline are in the moment. Right.
Attention and some help and it’s a lot more than most salespeople would need. Yes, it’s a different animal, different character, different type of persona. But yes, if you’re thinking of going that route and you’re not around the person as the leader, then it’s subject to fail. And especially if there’s not another person where there’s that camaraderie bouncing ideas dealing with the no or just the fact that very few people pick up the phone and so forth.Thank you for checking out the Sales Made Easy podcast brought to you by Selling With Dignity.
I’m your host Harry Spaight and bring to you some 25+ years of sales and sales leadership experience in the hyper-competitive arena of office Technology sales. I will be chatting with business owners and sales leaders that share their insights about growing their businesses and topics that will be of value. I will sprinkle in a little humor where we can fit it in because life is too short not to have a few laughs along the way.
Look for me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryspaight/ and you can download a few chapters of Selling With Dignity here: https://sellingwithdignity.com/the-book/
