[E132] Culture Driven Teams with John Waid – Part 2 of 3

Jason: Welcome to the sales experience podcast. My name is Jason Cutter and you are joining part two of my conversation with John Waid, where we’re talking about corporate culture, business and sales and how all those come together. Make sure that you check out yesterday’s episode, which was part one and again if you want to find John’s links as well as a transcript of this conversation, go to cutterconsultinggroup.com/podcast or find the button for podcasts on the homepage. Find this episode and you can download everything from there. Now here is part two enjoy.

John: If you just do the values and behaviors. Now you have things that you can hold people accountable for. Right now, everybody, the prisoners are running the prison and it’s because the warden hasn’t set the values and behaviors. He wants it as prison and if you set the values and behaviors, you can hold people accountable and if you hold people accountable, then you’ve got the very basic level of the management level. Then you can be curious, ask them questions so they can grow and get better. That’s the coaching, that’s the how level. And then guess what, you can be good to people because they’ve, they’re doing, they’re being accountable, they’re learning, they’re growing and now you can treat them as human beings and you can be and everybody can have fun together in a Salesforce because you’ve got great people skills and people are helping and supporting each other and that’s your leadership value that people value. So again, not only do you have to have values, you need to be aligned in three different buckets. One is your what bucket? The manager. Bucket two is your how bucket or your growth bucket. The coach bucket. The third one is the leader bucket and that’s your inspirational bucket and that’s the one that works on culture.

Jason: And here’s what I already hear people saying, so I’m just going to say it for them. The owners, the managers out there is their salespeople and they get paid to sell and that’s enough and should be enough and I don’t understand why they’re not working harder so that they can sell more and make more. Why do I need to have a culture and values and all of these things in place? Because they’re salespeople. So that’s what they should be doing, right?

John: Right. The thing is, why do you have to have values with your kids? 

Jason: I mean, you know, if you want them to, to grow up a certain way, right? 

John: And behave a certain way, you have to teach them how to behave. And if these salespeople are behaving as they want, Hey, I quit at two o’clock because that’s, nobody’s told me not to quit at two o’clock but he’s told me to finish my route. Nobody’s told me to finish my calls, nobody told me. So if I don’t get, if I’m not held accountable, if I don’t grow and get better, and if I don’t get inspired at my work because the leader doesn’t hold me accountable to that, I’m going to behave as I want. I’m going to go out and sell how much I want. I’m going to quit on Friday when I want. I’m going to do whatever I want and if I do whatever I want, guess what? And that may not be what you want. So if you’re not providing the behavior, guess what? You can’t even do the sales process.

Jason: No. And I think that’s the punchline for this, right? Because I’ve heard so many owners say that same thing that I said, which is their sales salespeople. I have a commission. It’s uncapped. They could make as much money as they want. I don’t understand why aren’t they working hard? Why don’t they get it? And when you don’t have the framework, the culture, the why, the values in place, then you, as you said, you’re leaving it up to them, the sales team to decide. And if you’re listening to this and you’re a salesperson, then you know that situation probably as well as where you’ve been in an organization and it’s not super clear and you’re just on your own. And some people will be intrinsically motivated, they’ll have a reason, they’ll have a drive to have a purpose, whether it’s money or success or whatever that looks like for them. And they will drive themselves through that brick wall no matter what. And just keep running and literally never stop. And then there are others who they will go to their level and you know, kind of perform. At what they think is acceptable to them.

John: So that first type of salesperson, that’s a very accountable salesperson, right? The one that the second type of salesperson needs to grow more, right? So they need to get better. So they need, you know, obviously that second they need that first value of curiosity. I want to get better, I want to get better, I want to get better, I want to know more, I want to learn more, I want to grow more, I want to do that. And then the third level is the, Hey, I love the people I love, I don’t sell, I help people buy. In the book we talk about the difference between people that sell and people that help others by selling is not an act. A friend of mindset. I sold $2 million worth of engines to an airline manufacturer. I said you didn’t sell anything. Somebody bought $2 million. The act is buying. How do we help people to buy? And we need to, if we’ve got great salespeople, it’s because they have great behaviors and values.

Jason: Doing it intentionally such that, like I said because you know, when an owner is just assuming that you throw enough money out there, you’re going to get the right people. It is possible, but it’s very hard to have a full team of everyone who’s intrinsically motivated at the level that you expect versus being intentional and creating that through the type of values you’re talking about through having some Y through having a mission or vision and all of those different parts where you are driving everybody in the same direction that the company is envisioning and wanting it to all go.

John: Right. And you bring up a good point, which is the purpose, right? Salespeople have to have a purpose other than just making money, right? It needs to be something like, I uh, work with a lot of medical device companies and I had a sales director that said, the reason that I want to work in the infection prevention business is because my sister died of an infection that could have been prevented inside a hospital. She died at 20 something and I am going to devote the rest of my life to making sure that I sell infection prevention to every hospital and every person so that people don’t have to needlessly than I liked my sister did. That’s somebody who’s got a purpose that’s you want on your team.

John: And that’s somebody who, and she’s the best at that. Her company, she’s one of the best, she’s a great manager, she’s also great in sales. So she’s, she’s also a great leader. So it’s a, you want people that are purpose-driven, you want people to have curiosity, accountability, and people skills and you need to hire for that because if you don’t have the values and the purpose well defined and your sales organization, guess what, you’ll hire anybody. 

Jason: Yup. Yup. And the interesting part, and I’ve talked about this before on the show and just, in general, is you’re hiring for salespeople, a good salesperson, whether they’re a good fit for you or not. If they’re worth any bit of their sales skills or you know, kind of the reputation they’re going to sell you really well during the interview because that’s all they do is sell.

Jason: Just kind of like your example of, you know, Ralph having issues and fights with the manager. Sales reps will always be selling everyone else why it’s not their fault or why they’re the best. And in the interview process you always have to be careful as a manager, as a hiring manager, HR, as a leader to be careful not to be overly sold by that candidate about how great they are, but really look for the fit. You know, some of it is more of the fit is important than sometimes all of the skills necessary because you can teach some skills if somebody is the right fit. Kind of like Jim Collins says, right? First, make sure you got the right people on the bus, then you can put them in the right seats, but you get somebody on the bus, then that’s worth a lot. Right?

John: And that’s the thing. And good, the great it’s, you know, it’s all about making sure that you have the right people in the right seats and you have a good leader driving the bus. 

Jason: Yep. And that, and driving that bus, kind of wrapping it around to where we started. And really where your focus is with a lot of this is you need to have the culture in place because without a culture, you know, driven by values and mission, purpose, all of that as an organization, then you don’t have a bus, you have a gang, and then you don’t know where that bus should be going either, right? Like it’s just a group of people doing some stuff, but you don’t have a vehicle, a bus, a boat that’s now going someplace unless you have those things in, in hand. 

John: Right. So my say to all the smart people that are listening to this, and I’m sure everybody that’s listening to this, this is smart. 

Jason: I only have the best, I have a few only hands best on iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify. I have it only under the category of smart salespeople and leaders. 

John: Yeah. That’s because you’re awesome. 

Jason: Yeah. Well, thank you. 

John: So, uh, the idea here is, you know, it took me about 15 years to figure this culture-thing out because it’s not easy. A lot of people think that culture is a fuzzy, you know, softy thing. 

Jason: It’s not a woo hippy circle, hug drums. 

John: Concealing Birkenstocks and… Yeah. 

Jason: We don’t care about feelings as a sales organization. Just go out there and make money. 

John: It’s all about peace and love, you know? So anyway, it’s a, it’s not, you need a business aspect to this. That’s the accountability piece. You need a growth aspect to this. This is the curiosity piece is what helps us get better. And you need a people part to this as the leader part. So this is the people skills and caring about people. If you have your values nicely aligned in those three buckets, the performance or the operational bucket, the growth bucket and the aspirational bucket, then you have an overriding purpose of why you’re selling this product. You know, I believe in saving lives. I believe in infection control. I believe in and safe airplanes. I believe in, you know, a healthy fish, whatever it is that you sell, you can believe in something that’s transcendent that inspires you to come to work. You know, I used to sell chewing gum and I used to say, you know, when I was 21 straight out of college, I sold Trident denting Rolaids halls and I said, you know, I helped people not, you know, drink more and then not have acid come up.

John: You know, I help people have fun blowing bubbles with bubble licious right? I help people with halls when they’re coughing, get some relief in their throat. So I’m helping with relief. So, because you know what, anything you sell has a transcendent purpose. Something that you can be proud to get up in the morning. What I do today. My daughter gave me my purpose and she said, unprompted when she was five or six, they said, what’s your dad do? And she said, my daddy, helps people be better. So that’s the purpose of our company, corporate culture consulting is we help people and companies be better through training, coaching, consulting, and development. And we start with values and we build behaviors. And if you’re not doing values in your family, you know, think about it because that’s all you can leave your kids some good values and some good behaviors.

John: I’m teaching my daughter to drive right now. Safety and fun are two. So I said, be safe in the car so you can have fun when you get there. And we’ve had those values and the other one is, is read the whole F and book. Do your work grow, get better. That’s another value I have with my only daughter. And I know that I’m not going to be worth her when she’s driving. I’m not going to be there the first time. She’s, you know, she does a lot of things. I’m not going to be there. Those values and those behaviors are going to help. The country of the United States works really, really well because they also have balanced values. They have life. That’s your operational value. They have Liberty. That’s her growth value. That’s what helps you get better. Cause if you don’t have Liberty, you can’t get better, right?

John: You can’t grow and learn. And they have the pursuit of happiness, which is your inspirational value and the whole constitution of the United States. And the reason why we live in such a great country is that all our constitution is built on those three fundamental values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That’s what we believe in. That’s what we value. And that’s what our whole country’s based on. So if you don’t think that these values are worth them, guess what? We live in one of the best countries on the planet because of these values that we have. So start with building your constitution. You know, Ralph went on to be a very successful person based on some work done in the book and the bookstore, uh, read the book. Like I tell my daughter when she told me she only read half the book in high school, I stopped the car and I said, you’ll finish the whole F and book because that’s what you have to do. That’s what you have to do to be successful. That’s accountability. You need to read the book, so…

Jason: And finish what you started.

John: And finish what you started. That’s right. 

Jason: Thanks again for tuning in to part two of the conversation with John Waid. Made sure to come back tomorrow for part three where we wrap this up and kind of tie in everything from culture to sales. As always, remember that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.