[575] Building Your First Sales Team

Jason [00:00:00]: You. This is the authentic persuasion show. Welcome to episode 575 of the Authentic Persuasion show. So glad that you're here. Recently published my fourth ebook in the a sales Consultants Guide series, which is the official title and it's called building your first sales team. Now, I think there's some important things that I want to share, some parts that I hope you can get from that. Whether you're in sales, you're a sales leader, sales manager, or maybe you are that person who's building your first sales team, or maybe you even tried to build a sales team in the past. It failed. Jason [00:00:40]: You had to remove everyone. And then now you're looking at doing it again, or you're afraid of doing it again because it didn't work. It's like touching the stove and it hurt and you don't want to do that again, but you know, you need salespeople. So here's the biggest things that I see. And again, if you're in sales, this could also apply to you and give you some valuable lessons from your side because you're in that role, you're the one that they need and or you're a part of that team. Or maybe if you want to go work for that, be on the lookout for that person who's building their first team. And then this way you're prepared for it and you could be a valuable asset instead of a drain on the sales team. So the biggest thing when building your first sales team and building a successful scalable sales team is to remember the goal is to build a successful scalable sales team. Jason [00:01:29]: The common thing that I see is that owners, who are generally technical founders. And that means in the terms of Michael Gerber's e myth revisited, he talks about there's three types of founders. There's a technician, there's a manager, and there's a visionary. The visionary is obviously the one with all the ideas. The manager is the one who manages things. They don't create things. They're not a visionary. They just like managing. Jason [00:01:53]: They like pulling levers, they like managing. And then there's the technician. The technician is the doer. Most small businesses fail because, and this is Michael Gerber's assessment, which I completely agree, and I've seen this so many times, most small businesses fail because a technician has, as Michael Gerber calls it, a entrepreneurial spasm, where they say, I am great at building websites, let me go out on my own instead of working for the man, and let me start my own business making websites for people because I do it so well, let me just make all the money myself, because this will be great, because I'm so great at it. Right? And you can apply that to anybody. Replace the word, build websites with anything else. Create a platform. Shampoo, carpets, detail cars. Jason [00:02:44]: Do taxes, do people's taxes. You could replace that with anything where there is a thing, like it's a widget making thing or a service or a product, whatever that is. It's something that the technician does. So what happens is that person has an entrepreneurial spasm. They start a business and say, hey, I was so great as an employee. Let me go do it on my own. Not that that's the issue, because usually they're so skilled, but as Michael Gerber talks about is there's so many other hats that need to be worn. That person usually only likes doing the technical part of it, not everything else. Jason [00:03:20]: Or maybe they're good at one or two of them, and then everything else is stressful, is neglected, or just burns them out, right? That person just wants to make websites. They don't want to be in charge of marketing. They don't want to talk to people and have to sell them because they were never trained on sales. They don't like salespeople, think salespeople are terrible. They don't want to do that to other people. They want people to hire them, but they don't want to sell, and they don't have a process. They don't know how to sell. They just think sales is boiler room wolf of Wall street, used car sales, short sleeve button up shirt person, guy at the furniture store. Jason [00:03:53]: That's what they think sales is. And they don't want to do that to other people. They also have to be in charge of accounting, bookkeeping, business licenses. If they have a retail place like all of that, there's a lot to it. And so what happens is that person gets to a certain point where they need to make more revenue happen, or they want to replace themselves as the chief salesperson. So they go out there and they want to hire salespeople. Here's the problem, is that most of those people are not trained or skilled in building sales operations. They're trained and skilled in what they do. Jason [00:04:26]: Even visionaries, they're great. They have visions, they have things. They're coming up with new ideas all the time. Executing them is totally different. As Gary Vee says, ideas are shit, right? Execution is the part. That's why, you know, the people who hold their ideas and they think, oh, I have this one idea, and it's the most important thing. And if anyone finds out they're going to copy me. Doesn't matter. Jason [00:04:49]: It's all about who executes it best anyway, right? It's all about execution. So that visionary isn't necessarily great at executing everything that it takes to do the thing. And I see that all the time in sales where a founder, visionary or technician, or a combination of both then tries to start a sales team and it doesn't work. The key is you have to understand where you're at, who you are, and that your goal is to build a scalable sales team. Do not just hire some salespeople who have lots of experience and sell you on how amazing they are during the interview process and then put them on the team and then let them go. Once you've given them some product training and think they're going to sell and be effective, it just doesn't work. If they were that amazing, they would have their own business and they would be selling for themselves and not for you. Please do not abdicate your sales and revenue needs and targets to just hoping they will do what they should be doing. Jason [00:05:51]: Do not think that anyone else will sell the way that you sell. If you're a founder, CEO, chief, technical, whatever, you will always sell more than other people, even without much of a sales process because you're doing it on the back of experience, the reason why you created your product or service and then the passion you have for nurturing and growing this thing from birth, right? You will always be able to convince people that your baby is the cutest one because you're living and breathing it and you're passionate about it. Other people don't have your title. Other people don't have your experience, they don't have your passion, they don't have your drive. They didn't create it. And it's a job to them. Like truly it's a job. At some point they may take on more of a role and more of a passion, but it's a job. Jason [00:06:37]: So they'll never be able to sell the way that you do. With the angle they do. They'll never have your title on the business card. And that alone changes the conversations. I've had so many clients where I watch what the CEO does, I watch what the account executive does, and I'm like, there's no way you can ever say the things that the CEO says, things that they do. You can't offer the things that they can offer, only they can do that. So the key is how do you build the sales process and that's what I outlined. I'm not going to go through all the steps. Jason [00:07:05]: That's the point of the ebook. So you can go through that and see the most important categories. The key is ultimately your goal is to build a scalable sales operation. What does that mean? Well, that means you have systems and you have processes in place that will get you predictable and reliable and exponentially greater results than the inputs. Right. So you're putting in marketing and you're getting out sales. You're putting in salespeople and marketing and then you're getting even more sales. And here is the big thing is that this is without hiring and filling your sales team with superstars. Jason [00:07:43]: A lot of people think, let me just get a bunch of superstars and let me let them loose because they will be amazing and they're just going to hit their numbers and it's going to be great. A superstars are good. They have slumps like everyone else. They are human like everyone else. A lot of times they are high maintenance. Sometimes they can be dramatic. Sometimes. I've seen some really amazing people in sales who also have really wide swings emotionally. Jason [00:08:14]: They're either really up or really down. When they're really, really up, it's great. When they're really down, it's like, this is rough. And how do you get them out of that slump or out of that emotional spot? That deal falls apart. They didn't hit their numbers for the quarter and it's like, oh my gosh. And then it's just this spiral. And so if we look at in the sports world, I love talking about basketball when we talk about this part of it here is that no basketball team has ever been successful by filling a twelve person roster with superstars. And in fact, no one's ever even tried. Jason [00:08:50]: It's just not possible. Eight, you don't have the budget for it. The basketball team doesn't have the budget for twelve superstars. You can't afford twelve leBrons. Even LeBron discount where he's like, I'm going to take less so that other people can take more. He's doing that because he wants to have other great people around him and he knows that if he's the only superstar, they can't win. When LeBron, if you're a current recent sports NBA history fan, then, you know, like he was in Cleveland trying to do it all himself, didn't win, left, went to Miami, became the big three. It was the first time that was really an official thing where it was him and Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch, and they were the big three because they were three superstars and they won some championships, but then they lost and it melted down. Jason [00:09:37]: Three out of twelve was too many superstars and it literally didn't work as great as it's going to work, right? You running a sales team, trying to fill your team with superstars will never work. You can have a few, but you can never have enough because it just doesn't work. You can't sustain it, you can't afford it, you can't manage it, you can't handle those personalities. It's not going to work. So what you have to do instead is you have to build systems and processes and get the right people who are cultural fits for your company on board. Right? As Jim Collins said in good to know, get the right people on the bus and get them in the right seats. And then you're right, like, that's what great companies do. You're not expecting them to be superstars, but what you want to do is create leverage. Jason [00:10:22]: You want to bring someone in who's good, someone who has some experience. Depends on what kind of person you want to hire. And I talk about that in the book. There's actually three people, three different types of salespeople that you can hire. And I don't mean like this person. There's three different modes of salesperson, three different levels of experience and kind of activity levels that you have to be aware of and then choose wisely or you will fail. And I've seen so many CEO founders fail as well when they aren't aware of the three types, and then they don't choose wisely and then they don't do their part correctly. So make sure to check out the ebook for that where I go into much more detail. Jason [00:11:02]: The key is that you want to bring people in. You want to give them systems, tools, processes. You want to help good people who are a good fit for your company create better results. Some will create amazing results, some will create great results, some will just create better. And again, I'm not the guy who's going to tell you like, oh, it's all going to be elite salespeople on your team. And everyone's like, that's not how humans work. The Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule always applies. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your people, and 20% of your results will come from 80% of your people. Jason [00:11:36]: My goal for you is how do you have some a players? How do you have some B players? How do you have some C players. How do you move your D players into C players or move them out? How do you move your c into B players? How do you help your B players become b plus players where they're b plus players all the time? That's how you win championships. That's how you create dynasties, right? In the sports world, if you look at the sports dynasties out there, it's one or two superstars, and then it's a whole bunch of b and c players who know their role and they just do it really well. And then some supporting cast around that, and not too many people who are just terrible and don't show up at all. And that's how you win. I'm from California, grew up in the Bay Area. Golden State warriors weren't great when I was a kid, and then when I was in the state, 2010, 2011, they started doing well. They were a bunch of nobodies at the time. Jason [00:12:31]: Now people know who they are, right? The Splash brothers, Steph Curry and Clay Thompson. At the time, nobody knew who they were. They were a group of nothing. When they won their first championship in the 2010 era, they were a bunch of nobodies. Nobody knew who a Steph Curry was. He wasn't a superstar. No one knew who a Clay Thompson was. He was not a superstar. Jason [00:12:52]: No one knew who Draymond Green was. He wasn't a superstar. A bunch of people who weren't on the radar because they weren't big names, but they came together because everyone did their part, and then they dominated. They dominated the teams who were relying on and leveraging the big names, right, the LeBron James and Dwayne Wade's. And not to make this a sports podcast because it's very limited, I can't hold much of a conversation, but I do know some things about building teams on the backs of what works and what doesn't work. So that describes you. If you're running a team now and you need scalable results and you've put all your eggs on your team, knowing what to do, please check out the ebook. If you're building your first sales team, if you have tried it before and failed and had to let everyone go and you want to start again, but you're afraid on how to do it, check it out. Jason [00:13:37]: It's called a sales consultant's guide to building your first sales team. It is available on Amazon Kindle. You can pick it up there. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it's free. Otherwise it's $0.99. If you email me jason@cutterconsultinggroup.com and just mention the podcast and the ebook. I'll happily send you the PDF. I have no desire goals to get rich off of the limited royalties on 99 cent ebooks. Jason [00:14:04]: It's just I have to put it on there for something, but I would rather send it to you directly. So email me now. I also mentioned if you're in sales, why I would want you to listen to this, if you're still at this point, is I think it's important if you want to be successful in sales. I talked about it on the show a bunch is that you want to understand your customer and you want to understand what they're going through. You want to be empathetic and then you want to help them get to a better place. Everything in life is sales. I say this all the time. When you're an employee at a company, you're a salesperson working for your boss as a part of the company. Jason [00:14:40]: You want to do the same thing for them. There's another term for it is entrepreneur, right? You're not an entrepreneur. It's not your business. But you're an entrepreneur. You're in control of your job. If you suck at sales, you're going to get fired. It's like your business failing. You have your own micro business. Jason [00:14:54]: If it's successful, especially in sales, you should have a good comp plan that will reward you and it's fantastic. As an entrepreneur, remember, you have the clients that you're selling, the customers you're going after. But your client, your main client as an employee is the company. It is your boss, it is your manager, it is the founder, it's the CEO, it's stakeholders, it's shareholders, it's all of those things, right? And so when you do that, then you read an ebook like this one that I'm talking about and the other ones that I put out, but read it from the business perspective and say, oh, this is what they need. This is what they need from me. This is what I can do. This is my part. Stop fighting scripts, stop fighting accountability, stop fighting the CRM, stop fighting the tools and technology, the things that they're asking you to do, the changes that they have to make, the way that they have to adapt and pivot in the marketplace, stop being that person who just stomps their feet like a two year old who doesn't want to do anything right. Jason [00:15:49]: Like literally, it's so frustrating from the top down when people literally are so stuck and they don't want to change if you want to be amazing in sales and you want to be valued by a company and you want to be a rock star in all areas, that's up to you, right? Do that. So that's my final thoughts here. Make sure to check out the ebook again. A sales consultant's guide to building your first sales team. Hopefully you can pick that up. Hopefully it'll provide value. And of course, if you do need help with your team, if you do go through that and you're like, this is great, but I need help. That's what I do. Jason [00:16:24]: That's what I'm here for. That's what I have gotten really good at because I know how to create operations even more than I know sales. And I would be happy to help. So if that's you, whether you check out the book or not, if you're like, listening to this, we're 16 minutes in, you're like, no, I know I need help. Please reach out to me. I love helping founders. I love helping small businesses build their sales teams, get their systems in place, train and coach, build all the scalable parts of the scalable sales success iceberg. I love doing that. Jason [00:16:55]: Reach out to me, jason@cutterconsultinggroup.com. You can go to the website. You can find me just number one ranked Jason Cutter on google. So you can find me there. And I look forward to speaking with you soon. If there's any way I can help.