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What sets this podcast apart? We believe in the power of meaningful marketing—a holistic approach that prioritises authenticity, connection, and purpose, whilst still turning a profit.
Chantal Gerardy is an International Award Winning Marketing Strategist who empowers purpose-led businesses to revolutionise their online marketing approach and create a brand that resonates deeply with their online audience. If you're tired of cookie-cutter marketing advice, and seek strategies that truly make a difference, this podcast is for you.
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Social media, Google, email marketing, systems, website traffic, and the endless content creation that comes with marketing. It's overwhelming, right? Say goodbye to endless stress and hello to clarity with the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. In this podcast, I will share with you fast and free practical methods to help you manage, monetize, and market your business, all infused with a healthy dose of motivation.
Let's do this
hey, and welcome to another episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Chantal Gerardy, and today I'm super excited to have Sarah Niss here with me. Today we're gonna be talking about behind the scenes when it comes to developing or creating a sales team or a salesperson in your business.
Um, so I'm seriously looking forward to this one today. We have already had her hubby on here before, Greg. So if you go back and look at the previous episode, you'll find that, uh, there's one called More Leads Won't Fix Weak Sales, so be sure to check in on that one as well. But now for the woman behind the man.
Hey, Sarah. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good.
Awesome. So Sarah has 18 years experience in international business development as a top performer in sales, um, and is the director of Sales L- LP. Um, and I'm so excited 'cause I've been down this road, down the road of first I need to invest in myself as a salesperson because sales was yucky, didn't wanna do it, but realized if I get leads without sales, if I can't close them, then that's an issue.
So I had to get better at sales. I had to invest in myself. So just like technology, which I hate, something I had to do, I just did it, right? Put on your big girl panties, just do what you need to do to grow a business. And then from there you get to a time where it's like, okay, I need to get a CRM, I need someone managing the CRM.
And then it's like, okay, now I need to get myself out of sales- Mm ... so I can have more consulting time. I've now gotta get a salesperson. So I've been on this journey. We've had all these discussions, and I'm so excited today that you get to share your juice and glitter with us.
Thank you. Oh, that's so good.
That's so good. I'm excited.
So we also have something else to say. She is a virgin. It is her first podcast. And if you're watching on YouTube, um, if you're listening in, great, but if you can, jump onto YouTube and check us out as well, um, because then you'll get to check her breaking her virginity. Right.
So as a first time podcast, which is un- insane, absolutely insane- ... 'cause she's gonna completely nail this today.
Oh, buddy. Yeah. It's, it's funny 'cause I spend so much time in front of clients or behind the scenes of the company, I... And one of the things that we've talked with you about is we have this unique company position where we've been around for 12 years, we love what we do, we love who we work with, and we've really never done marketing.
We've never talked about it. And so I'm just... I feel like the sky's the limit when we think, you know, where could this go? And, and to have a special unique way to deliver that message because- Most of the people that we work with don't readily wanna say, "Hey, we're doing sales coaching and training." You know?
Making our people better at, you know, closing you and finding what you need and want. So we have to think of interesting ways to get our name out there.
Yeah, that's... It's so true. It's a really weird thing. It's the same as in marketing. People are often nervous to share their marketing company with someone else.
Yeah. It's really weird. Although, this morning I did have somebody write an amazing post in a group just saying how amazing it is to work with me, and I was like, "How epic! We need more people like that in the world, right?"
Yeah. I f- Yeah ... I do think there'll be a vulnerability about being open to what you don't know and what you're learning, and I think we look to work for people like that, you know?
They know that s- sales has value, they know that there's a problem, they just don't know how to fix it. Yeah. And I think a lot of people struggle with how to fix it.
Yeah, so true. So true. Um, so your sales journey started- ... by your dad, who pimped you out- Oh ... as a child to go and find other children. That sounds terrible.
You better tell the story much better than I have.
Well, I never really realized this until we were just chatting before the podcast, but I thought my sales journey started when I was working at a desk, and I looked around at who's doing what, um, what jobs, and thinking, "Why are we getting paid the same?
Uh, my output is so much more productive. It's so much more beneficial to the company." And I knew right away I gotta get out of that. Like, I... It has to be performance based. So sales was, like, right for me. But you're right. My dad was a TV producer in his heyday in LA, and, um, to save a buck or a lot of bucks, he would ask me and my brother and sister to do voiceover work or hand modeling work or extra work in the back of the TV shows.
And I know that's nepotism and, um, but the pitch he made to us was, "You know, we could pay these kids in Toys R Us money, and they're gonna have so much fun, and let's do that." So I would go to school, and I had some recipe of what we needed, three girls, four guys. And, um, uh, I, I knew it was weird to say, "Come do voiceover work."
Like, who am I? But the benefit to them was free cookie dough in the kitchen. There were Cheetos everywhere. It was unlimited food. So if you're talking go to school and then after school spend two hours at a play date where you're in a TV studio, I basically ran around, picked my favorite people and said, "Hey, do you wanna come over to my dad's work for a play?
We're gonna do some voiceover work, and there's free food, free candy, and we're gonna get 20 bucks in Toys R Us money." And, like, it wasn't a hard sell, but I realize now my dad couldn't sell and, and I could sell.
I'm glad we were able to find that hero story for you today.
Such- I think it's now gonna live on the internet.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's
now gonna live on the internet, yeah. Share this with Da- Dad. This
is the first time. No one has ever heard that story. My siblings will laugh hearing that. They've never thought about it that way.
Okay, so let's talk about some of the children's objections. Yeah. And how did you deal with that?
Okay. They're
the same, right? An eight-year-old in a grown-up body.
Yeah. 100%, you know. What's in it for me?
Yes, yes.
So good. So we wanna talk today about, you know, behind the scenes in sales. Yes. Okay, so the first thing is how do you think a person would determine that they're ready to step out of sales themselves and find a salesperson?
So for me, I was just running out of time, right? Yeah. I was running out of consulting time. We get lots of clients coming in. I started to lose, lose my follow-up because I just literally couldn't get on the phone, follow up with people, meet them for appointments, 'cause I was busy consulting or traveling, and it was becoming a thing.
Yeah. And I was like, "Okay, something has to change." I probably still delayed it for another year of hell. Yeah. Should've done a lot sooner, but at some point I was like, "Okay, I need to make this decision." So what are some of the signs that it is time for the business owner to get out of sales and to actually get somebody in?
Oh, okay, great question. It is gonna depend on the size of the company. Yeah. But if we're talking about solopreneur in a small business looking to hire their first salesperson is what it sounds like. Sales fixes everything, right? Revenue coming in fixes everything. So if you're the business owner and you're selling or you're the founder and you're selling, the timing that you need a salesperson is well before you want to do the work to get them.
So if you as the founder are not finding time to make calls and close business, which is the whole fundamentals of your company continuing, you need a salesperson. Now, if you... There are qualifiers. There's a woman I was speaking with, and she's just started the company. She's uncomfortable with sales.
She's not yet at 250, $300,000 of revenue annually. So to hire a full-time or part-time salesperson could be out of the realm. But once you're a company where you are doing too much, and as the founder, you're ready to manage the business or the logistics, it is, you need to think ahead. It takes at least two weeks to put out an ad and find somebody, interview a couple of times, vet them, um, have a sales assessment, check their background, give them a homework assignment before you hire them to make sure they're capable.
And then they're onboarded. And once they're onboarded, if you're a new company, they probably need some teaching and training. That's gonna have some ramp-up time. So at the moment that you think, "Oh my gosh, we need a salesperson," it's too late. Yeah.
I say that with marketing as well. It's, it's exactly the same.
Yeah.
Everybody waits too late. Like it's-
Yeah. But I- you gave us some really good advice about marketing, and that was don't start paying for ads until you know what's working. So- If, if I were talking with a founder who most often they can sell, they're passionate about their company, they're energetic, they're contagious, but they have not thought of a what is the process and the reason behind people's purchases, why are they buying from me, why not the competitor, and there's no system.
So the fall over happens when a founder goes, "I'll hire someone who says they can do sales or is excited about learning." They look for personality traits that are different than theirs, and there's an assumption. Gregarious, easy to talk with, you know, water off a duck's back if they hear no, and like will go in for a handshake.
That confidence is presumed to be someone who's good at sales.
Yeah.
Oh, okay. And that is not true. S-
s- there's so much here. Okay, whoo. Let's get into this. We might, we might be here all day. So there's a couple of things, because again, it happens with the marketing when you're trying to outsource marketing to someone.
So there's two things you said, and firstly, they're the people that just don't like doing it- Yes ... or just don't want to do it, or just will not put it in their diary to do it because they don't like doing it or they've got better things to do. Um, that is not the time to get a salesperson. No. Okay? And then there's the second person who is ready to get a salesperson but doesn't have a system, hasn't actually put their process in place, hasn't actually looked at the job role description, hasn't actually fully defined the role or how that's actually gonna look in the system, or put a CRM in place or the automations in place to be able to service that person.
That is also a fundamentally you're not quite ready yet for the salesperson.
Mm-hmm.
Because you need those things. Like, you need all of that. Yeah. Because else you'll bring someone on, just like in the marketing. Now you've got an underutilized person, and you've set them up to fail, not to succeed. They're now not gonna be making sales.
It's not gonna be working. They're gonna be underutilized, and they're not making sales. Mm. So now you've got an expense. You've not got an income, right? And guys, I've been down this road, so I know it, right?
Mm. And what I would say most commonly happens is when the founder's ready to have a, a salesperson come in, th- that's obvious.
They're like, "Okay, how soon, how fast, and how can I not get into a hole where I hire somebody who can't do what they said they could do?" But on the flip side, a company that has a small sales team, three to five, five to eight, and they're, they're growing- A lot of times they're wanting more from salespeople, and they're looking at them going, "How do we increase revenue?
Well, can we get more out of the people that we're with, or do we need to hire another person?" And there's a lot of data behind that. First, in that we usually over-stimulate and, um, put too many expectations on the existing sales team. That is very, very common, where they're putting in notes. You're not taking an account metrically of how many hours they're spending on each activity.
They're required to go to conferences and events and do new business and account management and client servicing, um, all the reports. And if the scope is so big, there's a perception of, well, why aren't they just making 10 new business calls a day, 10 before 10? And why aren't they having three to five client meetings a week or a day, depending on the industry?
And if you really look down on their hours, you're probably putting too much on the people that can be selling, and there's, there could be an opportunity to redistribute that, have some account managers, like in-house salespeople, and then allow your new businesspeople to just do new business. Find their skills, hone in on their skills, and then if all of that is being done and the time allocation is correct, then you already want to get ahead of the sales projections and recruiting and hiring and training the next person, because As a business owner, you almost always need to be ready that someone's not fully bought into your company.
You, you need to be ready with some sort of backup that someone internally could grow into that role or someone's training and someone else isn't gonna perform, th- uh, especially right now. June, July, August, be prepared for people to leave. People are, people are burned out or they could be done.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Okay, let's get into this. So I call it the four Ps, all right? So before, and I love this, 'cause people go, "Oh, I just need to get another virtual assistant when it comes to marketing," right? "We'll just get another VA to do the marketing." And I'm like, "Well, hold on a sec. Let's actually look at what they're actually doing."
So the first one is the P for plan. Do they actually have a plan like- Yeah ... of action or they're just winging it, right? Um, and then the other thing is do they have a process for that? So actually a system, you know, like the time audit. We do a time audit and actually look at is their time being utilized efficiently.
Mm.
Right? Um, and then we look at the performance as well. So actually do they have the capabilities or do we actually have to increase the skills that they've got? People, plan, process... What's my other one? Performance. Oh, data. Looking at the data.
Mm.
So having a look at the data and going, "Is that actually true?"
Mm.
Right? Um, and, and is the person in the right seat? Is it actually the right person? Mm. Because a lot of the time when people hire people, and you're hiring a salesperson, they can sell to you.
Oh, yeah.
When I was interviewing salespeople I'm like, "I know what you're doing." Yeah. You're a salesperson. But just 'cause they can sell to me doesn't mean they're gonna be able to sell what it is that I'm actually selling, right?
Yeah. And I would... The reverse works well too. When I'm looking at putting my name behind a company, 'cause I'm a, I'm a top salesperson, top salespeople will have different conversations when interviewing than entry-level sales. Entry-level salespeople really want the job. They wanna make a lot of money, they're excited about the idea of sales, they've heard other people in sales, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, like, travel, sales, airplanes.
This is gonna be great." High level f- high performing salespeople are gonna ask questions like, "What do you see in your business? Why are you winning in this area?" And they're going to want to extract how, what do you know about your company's unique value proposition in order to have a competitive edge?
What are the flaws you've seen in salespeople in the past? And, and I would want you to know that. We've heard it's too expensive. We've heard, you know, um, there's no urgency in buying. We don't understand the pain point. If you know that, then as a high functioning salesperson, I'm gonna go in and go, "Okay, well those are all objections.
I know I can handle that. No big deal. I'm gonna smash this." But if a, if a high performing salesperson's coming in and you as the founder haven't looked at that data, you have no plan, I'll be asking questions like, "Do you have a CRM?" Because I don't wanna work in Excel. I, I don't wanna keep documents in Excel.
Um, and you'd be surprised how many companies are big and don't have a CRM or an organized way. Because if I'm bringing, if I'm responsible and compensated for new business, I wanna know how quickly I can get the message out, communicate with a client, and close the deal to earn my reward. And every step in that plan or process that is not there, you don't understand the market, we don't have a target, you don't have a plan, we don't understand our value proposition, um, or you don't have the structures in place for me to succeed, is all gonna hold me back from getting what I want and need.
So as the business owner, I would be looking for people who are asking questions about how your operation works so that I can succeed And that's a different playing field than the entry level person going, "Well, so, you know, how do you wanna grow?" And you're like, "Who cares?" Let's talk about how you're gonna help me win the on target earnings you just talked about.
Yeah, so I love this because Greg and Sarah are both, uh... They also recruit for s- for salespeople as well, so... And I recruit for marketing people, right?
Yeah.
And it's exactly the same. When, when we're interviewing, you have to be able to interview and be able to work out who's gonna be the best fit for this job.
Mm. And, um, I mean, I've had some business owners where it's like they just wanted a good-looking person. I've had somebody- Yeah ... who just wanted somebody who was, like, fun and personable. And I'm like, that's great, but we've also gotta look at things like their personality profile. We've also gotta look at, you know, how they're gonna actually fit into the actual job role that, that you've got and also complement you as well.
Mm.
Right? Um, not necessarily be like you, but complement you, and I think that that's so important. Um, and that's why it's good to have people like us on those interviews because business owners just don't know. They're just looking for a quick fix. Yeah. Most of the time they just want, "Get me more sales," or marketing it's, "Get me more leads."
Mm.
You know? And they don't really look at what are the characteristics, the skills, the attributes of that person gonna actually be.
Well, and as the business owner, you could let your own self-limiting beliefs get in the way. So if I'm a tech company owner, and I'm slightly more reserved and very logical and practical, I might be put off by a gregarious salesperson- Um, and say no.
Or if the person is very logical and practical, I might just automatically say yes, because people like who they are like. And you wanna be able to remove that bias and think about who they're selling to, and then what is that person going to receive well? And does the person that you're interviewing have the s- the wherewithal to amend their, um, characteristics in a way that allow them to be heard?
Not changing who you are, and not manipulating, but playing it down, turning up the volume and turning down the volume, right? If I'm loud and very, um, gregarious, I'm probably gonna put off an academic who's researched and focused. And similar if you're in a packaging industry and someone's just a straight shooter, and you come in and you're like, "How was your weekend?"
They're not gonna like that. So you need to be able to hone in on that quickly, and I would look for that if I were a business owner. Does this person have self-awareness? Am I getting in my own way of who I'm looking for to hire? Um, and, and how could this person succeed with the person who is the decision-maker of the client base that we're going after?
Oh, so good. Yeah, so I mean, we look at, you know, just personality profiling, um, and then having done NLP as well, we always look at... And like you said, it's not changing yourself, but it's just like if somebody talks slower, then it's talking slower. If somebody's faster, you talk faster, mirroring. And it's not to trick them into that.
Mm. It's just showing respect for the way that they communicate.
Yeah.
Um, so that self-awareness is so important. And I know for myself, one of the reasons I knew I was the, it was time for me to get out of sales was because I was so busy and I was going into sales calls, and I'm a D personality type, I'm literally like, "Are we gonna do this thing?"
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas people, you know, they need to build that rapport, they need to do it. So for me, it was like I knew bringing on somebody like Jo, who's different to me, um, she's a lot calmer, takes the time. She's not rushing. She's not rushing from consultancy to, to travel to appointments. She can spend the time actually having those conversations and talk to them as well.
But myself, as a business owner, I had to learn to respect her process. Mm-hmm. And her process is different to mine.
Yeah.
She takes time.
Yeah.
And I'm, I'm grateful for that, because she still, like, closes the right clients for us, and I'm actually grateful that she... I'm like, "They sh- you should've closed that person in two calls" and she's like, "More like three or four."
And that's okay, you know? Yeah. The client's happy, she's happy, and I'm just like, "Jo, I trust you." Yeah.
I'll, I'll tell you a story about a behind-the-scenes. This is when I was selling, and um, it's something that business owners could observe to see if their salespeople are doing this. So when you're trying to figure out, is this person going to succeed in this industry, you want to watch them with your clients.
So back in, um, selling academia and, and going to, um, universities, you would work really hard to get a meeting with the provost or the vice chancellor, um, of education. Um- And in that meeting, you only had a certain amount of time. And sometimes I needed to bring experts, our publishing expert, our tech expert, our digital platform expert.
Um, and when I would bring these guests, they usually allocated time for the meeting, and there were multiple stakeholders. You'd have the data sci- cybersecurity privacy person, you'd have the learning person, you'd have the student representative, all these groups of people. And when I would go into the meeting, I would always ask for access to the boardroom early because I wanted to see what it felt like.
I didn't want to be caught off guard. I wanted to set up the room in a way that made sense for collaboration as opposed to exchange and, um, negotiation. And so I would, I would minimize the chairs always to exactly how many people were there, so the room never felt empty. Um, and I would put my binder opposite of my colleagues so that we were already mixing and matching next to each other.
It wasn't like someone was gonna whisper, you know, and be like, "Ugh, this is so annoying. I can't believe we're here," you know? Um, and my colleagues would often ask, you know, "Why are we, why are we putting ourselves in this way? This seems very, um, contrived." But in my mind, I thought, I'm building the greatest level of comfort for everyone in the room.
There's water, the tech works, and when we get here, everyone's on, and we're gonna focus on that, and we're gonna achieve the outcome. And if you notice that you have a salesperson who's looking at their pipeline like it's their business, they're gonna do well. They're gonna care about the way they show up.
They're gonna care about your clients because they want whatever that bonus or compensation is for them. But they're looking at it like, "I'm here, and this is my reputation outside of whatever I'm currently selling, and I value the way I'm putting myself forward." And I think so often we ignore these small things.
People just show up for a meeting. People just accept whatever's placed there, and they're like, "Oh, but they can always close," or, "They can always do this." And I would just say that people are who they are all the time. They can hide it for a little while, but when we pick up these, um tiny examples of behavior, you can generally extrapolate that to how it's gonna be moving forward.
Prepared, respected, cares about getting the work done, cares how they show up, cares how they represent the company, um, and they're gonna treat your clients and your pipeline like that.
Oh, it's so good. I mean, so for me, for example, I've got Jo. She's in South Africa, so she starts work at 5:00 AM in South Africa.
So I interviewed her at 5:00 AM. Beautifully dressed, makeup, she looks like a model. Yeah. I'm like, "You're putting the rest of us to shame, Jo." Like, she just looks amazing, and she's like that every morning at 5:00 AM. She's like that. She's awake. She's receptive to the clients, you know? Mm. And it, it, it's just epic.
It's just awesome. So absolutely love that. Can I
say one thing about women that I find really interesting? Yeah. Like, because we've now touched on it a couple of times with just how we show up and our looks, that we're not gonna get around fact or perception that people who present themselves well do well.
And also, there's this over-swing of the pendulum in my mind where women have to be sexy or- Mm ... presented in a way that is so glamorous or put together and they'll be able to sell. And I'm not saying that that's not relevant for some industries, that the looks will get you in, but we, we worked with these beautiful young Gen Z's last year, um, and they're in insurance.
Insurance is not a fun, sexy sell. It's... Nobody wants to answer the phone to talk to an insurance broker. A- and so this company hired these two beautiful women, and when we were talking in the training, I wanted to make sure that they knew the content, that they could answer the questions, and that in the relevant circumstances they could tone down the beauty card because it might get you in the door.
It does matter that you feel comfortable in the way you're presenting yourself, but- Salespeople don't have to look a certain way, and we don't have to be so polished and put together because that also rubs people the wrong way. And I think it's understated to be a woman and say comfortably and confidently when you know your stuff, when you have a calm and a confidence about it, and you know that you know more about this deck of cards because nobody cares about that deck of cards, but you've mastered it.
You don't have to get the filler, have the thing, do the nails. You're going to come across capable and confident and competent.
Oh. I am gonna give a shout-out to my daughter, Hannah, 'cause she's 18 years old and she's learning sales. Ooh. She was doing a gap year, got bored, got an opportunity, and now she's doing sales, and she's learning the thing.
She loves, though, to wear the nice outfits Yeah ... and do herself up much more than me. Um, so shout-out to my daughter, Hannah. I love you. Um, no, it's so true. I think intellect wins, wins all the time, right? So let's talk about, um, you know, how do you get the best out of your sales team? So for myself- Mm-hmm
personally, I knew that when I brought on a salesperson, I knew the commitment that would be involved in it, right? Because I'd, I'd do it for marketing, so I knew it would be the same.
Mm.
So I committed for three months that I would be able to spend, you know, four to five hours a week with the salesperson building the systems, listening in on the recordings, having them come and do my recordings with me.
Um, we use training trackers, so allocating training tasks to them. Um, and I committed that for three months. I knew if I'm doing this, this is what I need to do Um, but a lot of people think, "We'll just hire the salesperson and we've just, just like a marketing person, we'll just hire them." Yeah. "We won't see them again, and they'll just perform," right?
Yeah.
So how do we get the best out of sales teams?
Well, I, I would start with people do hire salespeople, and there is no certification. There's no certification for being a good salesperson. We vet them. Every company would vet them with what's your work history, um, do you know your numbers, what did you find difficult?
You know, there's all these questions that can help identify if they will be successful, but because there's no training certification that will say, "We can 100% certify that this person knows this tech platform," like a coder, do you know? "Here's, you know, this system, and they definitely have the certification to know it."
You cannot underestimate the opportunity for professional development. If I were starting any company and thinking about supporting my salesperson, I would just go in with less expectations that I've hired this BDM from our com- We've heard people who've worked in a company, gone to the competition, right, scoped out that best salesperson, and then they go, "Yep, well, they've done, um, labels and printing labels for so long, we're gonna put them into this company, and they will be s- therefore equals success."
"We've got them from a competitor, therefore this will equal success." No. They have to learn so much about your client, your product, your tech, your unique offer to the companies. Um- And so we throw them in and we go, "Okay, well call them. Call all the leads." The, the way I would say you wanna support your sales team is assume that they would love more training.
And if they go at that as, I already know it all, I've been successful, I have nothing to learn or gain-
Mm ...
I would say that's a prob- That's gonna be a flag.
Yeah. That's
gonna be a problem.
100%. Yeah, willingness to learn. Yeah. Uh, in, when, when I'm hiring for marketing and for sales, 100% willingness to learn.
Yeah. Yeah. So you could try that in a way that says, bring someone on, let them go for three months where you're teaching them all about your company, the inner workings, the process, everything. After three months, if you feel like they're learning, they're absorbing, they're asking great questions, they have a hold on the industry, they're comfortable talking to clients, I would think about investing in their professional development right around three months within that first year, and see how much better it gets.
Everybody gets better with coaching. E- sport, swimming. I mean, I'll tell you a funny example. So I've been swimming my whole life, and since I moved to Australia 12 years ago, I started ocean swimming, something I would never do in California. It's way too cold, I can't see the bottom, and I'll definitely die from a shark attack.
And so I found a group here, the Saltwater Swimmers on the Gold Coast, hey. Um, and the Saltwater Swimmers swim in a group, and they have coaches. And here I am doing my swim. I've taught swim team, I've been a coach, everything. And this coach goes, "You know, you're doing the '80s pull." "The '80s S." I was like, "What is the '80s S?"
And he says, "Your stroke goes to the side like when we taught kids in the '80s, and what I want you to do is, um, go down and then swim over the barrel." My stroke got so much stronger, and I haven't had any coach say anything about my stroke in decades. But this one tiny refinement meant that I could then take it to the next level.
And I don't wanna be so arrogant to say, like, "I'm doing the Olympics. I'm not a triathlete." "I just enjoy swimming." So getting that feedback is so underestimated, and everybody can increase that 1% is- Mm ... by n- by far, the number one way to support people. Ask them if they want some more professional development.
Well, this is it, right? So if you're a business owner and you're not investing in your skills of your team, whether or not it's marketing or sales, you're seriously doing them a disservice. If you are thinking that just because you're paying them money and you've hired them, that they should be 100% profic- proficient in that activity and that they don't need to learn anything, I'm sorry, you get a swipe left from me.
So it's like- Yeah ... it happens all the time. They're like, "I got a VA. I paid them. They must know everything." I'm like, "Are you insane?" Yeah. I do a skills, like, analysis, and I look at where the deficit is, and then we just... As long as they've got the, the basic level skills and experience, and they've got the attributes and the willing to learn- Mm
the willingness to learn, go fill the gaps.
Yeah.
If they, if they need more support, like, you know, for us it was, like, closing, need more support in closing, in CRM management, whatever that is, just go and get, go and get some help with that, for goodness sake. Mm. Rather than hire, fire, re- you know, hire, fire, rehire cycle and, you know, it's ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous. Drives me nuts.
The other thing I would say in terms of supporting your team, like, if you were thinking a new person onboarding, any new person on your team- You cannot underestimate people's lack of familiarity with their own finances. I have had more calls from women, I'll, I'll just say women because I, I love helping women who are selling and women who are in business, and also we support everybody.
But this woman calls me, and she's been in the role for six months, and she says, "I don't know. I'm just- things are going well." I'm sorry, she's been in the role for a year.
Mm.
Okay? So she's well past probation. She's happy. She's gonna stay. But she's- calls and she says, "I'm just not feeling great about this job."
And I said, "Really? You, you went in guns blazing. You were so excited. You know the industry. What's going on?" And she goes, "Oh, I'm just- I thought I would be earning more." So I said, "Well, let's talk about your commission. Send me the contract. Let's look at the contract." So we review her contract, and we dissect the are- the industry she's selling in and then what comes out of that, what- how much of the deal, and then she's got three different industries to sell to.
And I said, "Well, y- all your sales are coming over here, and your biggest incentive is over here, so you're not performing in a way that you're earning the most money that you can. The company, by default, is saying, 'We want sales over here. This is your biggest incentive.'" And I said, "Why are you selling over here?"
And she goes, "I don't know. It's easy, and I g- get these quick wins. I feel happy." Mm. "I feel successful." And I'm like, "You feel successful short-term, but you are not earning the money that you wanted." I said, "Have you asked the company any questions about the incentive or clarifying where the commissions are coming from?"
And she goes, "No, and now it, I feel like it's been too long, that if I ask, I'm gonna look like-" Mm ... "unprepared and unprofessional." And I said, "You're probably right." Because if you don't ask questions about your commission and your compensation and the bonuses early on, every time in the first year that you get a jo- that you win a deal and you're new to sales and you don't understand, the company's operating on the idea that they like it, they, they're excited by it, they're gonna perform for it, and this is totally doable.
They didn't have any questions. So that misalignment, you can imagine played out, leads your salesperson to go, "I'm not excited. I'm not earning. This is yucky. I'm gonna look for other jobs on the idea that I'll make more," when really you're one year into a great pipeline and all you gotta do is turn a little bit and you could be smashing it.
But as the business owner, my advice would be over-check in. So-
Yeah, they should've. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I would've said that too. I would've said, "They should've been checking it." Yeah. Why... Like, they should've been saying if the, the highest commission's there, then they should've... That's obviously where they want sales.
Yeah. So 100%.
So if you, if you don't ass- But the, the business owner goes, "Well, I don't wanna tell them how to suck eggs." Yeah. They, you know? But as the business owner, you go, "Hey, great job. You won your first deal. I'm so excited. Here's what it would look like at the end of the year if you had 100 of those deals, which is your target.
It hits, gets you to the million or whatever you're supposed to earn, and this is the percentage of commission." And just give them the grace, like, "Hey, I already know you probably know this. I just want you to know how our compensation works. And oh, by the way, it gets paid quarterly or twice a year or annually."
And then they have so much more opportunity to ask questions back and go, "Oh." I thought I was gonna earn 10% on the total sale." "No, actually you earn 10% on the profit, and this is our profit margin, and blah blah blah blah blah." So- Yeah ... "I thought I earn every time I write a proposal." "No, you earn once we get the invoice, once the invoice is paid."
All those metrics a salesperson wants to know, but may not wanna ask. And as the business owner, if they don't know and you assume they know, they could get disillusioned and leave.
Oh, I love my check-ins. Checking in for me, maybe it's my sense of control. I love control without micromanagement. Like, I love to just know what's going on, and I always have that.
Yeah. Um, and it's even checking in, for example, with mindset. Yeah. Like, what is your mindset around that? Like, we had an epic conversation the one time with my team, and it was like, how is... 'Cause, 'cause my team is multicultural, right? Yeah. And because I'm from South Africa, I acknowledge that there's different mindset that comes from a South African to an Australian.
And it's around having that conversation about the money, and it's like, how does that f- money feel for you? And when you have those open conversations, I was like, "How's that affecting the way that you actually deal with customers?" And they're like, "Oh, actually, like, I'm scared to talk about that," or, "I'm nervous to talk about that, 'cause it, it feels like a lot of money, you know?"
Mm. And I'm like, "Whoa." Yeah. "But did you know that by them doing that, they can actually do, like, a $23,000 email campaign?"
Yeah.
Which... And they're like, "Oh. Oh, we didn't even think about that," you know? Yeah. That, so that, like, pays for our service with you. Yeah. One email campaign is, like, the service that we provide.
Yeah. And she was like, "Oh, okay." So it's about having those conversations, but I must say I love having those conversations.
Most people don't. Yeah. Most people are like, "Well, they did it. Yay, we'll celebrate them." Yeah. But, and you wanna have that any time something changes. So another woman called me, and she goes, "I am so angry."
And I was like, "What?" And she goes, "This was gonna be the best year of my sales career. I, uh, uh, our competitor went under. I was tasked, um, with all the new business development. Was s- the time spent for new business development was to be reallocated going after competitors..." Um, sorry, our competitor's clients, because the competitor just said, "We're out of Australia.
We're done." So all these clients like and trust that service, and now her role became negotiate, which can be arguably harder, because you have clients with a preconceived idea of what they're gonna get, and all those expectations, and then different with your company. So you still have to hunt, you still have to build relationships, you still have to g- negotiate, you still have to close.
And she got it. She mopped up business, only to find out at the end of the year there was not a commission like her original commission on all the new business brought in, because the company decided it doesn't count as new business Because they already use our product or service from someone else.
Ooh.
So she ended up getting a bonus. Now I, I, I empathize with her, because a company has the right, they leave ambiguities in contracts on purpose- Mm-hmm ... which makes sense, and you have to look after your company. Um, and in this instance, there are two pieces of ownership on that. The salesperson should feel comfortable going to management and saying, "Great, I understand there's a redirect.
Can I confirm in writing that my commission is gonna maintain the same and/or how does it change?" And the company also should have put something in writing that says, "We understand you're going to change and pivot here. This is how the commissions change based on this new direction." And then you don't wind up at the end of the year, the company mopped up all the money, and she's out, she's gone.
Now, they don't care. They got the business. It's fine. She cares. Yeah. And she's never gonna refer their business to anybody else again. But I would say the company has an opportunity to maintain a resource that was very profitable for them by simply having this conversation about Every time something changes, let me help my salesperson know what's in it for them.
Yeah. This is gonna benefit the company, we're gonna benefit you, or the bonus is uncapped because who cares? We're gonna make a ton of money.
Yeah, so good. I think that relationship between the business owner, it, it, there has to be that relationship between them. As I said, I love that relationship Yeah ... so I have no issue with that.
Um, but I think as well what I've seen is a lot of the time people will whip salespeople. So, "I just want more sales, I just want more sales, I just want more sales", but not- Yeah ... actually doing anything like upskilling them or supporting them in a way that does it. And then that affects the way that the salesperson actually then sells.
Yes. Because now they've got this external pressure of, "I've gotta sell, I've gotta sell," so now they're not respecting the process. They're not respecting the person that they're speaking to. They're not focused on selling the, in the way that they can sell authentically, but rather an, "I just need to get sales."
Mm. Which can affect their whole energy and everything else. So, um, for me, I, I tested my salesperson. So after we did, like, the three months of training, I got a, I think, what do you call it? A phantom shopper. Is that what you call it? Oh,
okay. Yeah. Yeah Like a hidden, a customer-
Yeah ... review
person.
Yeah, yeah.
So I, uh, my first person, I was like, is, was my best friend Rachel. Hey, Rachel. Um, and Rachel is like... Sorry, she's an Aries. Rachel's fiery, right? I was gonna use another word. Thank God I didn't, didn't. Um, but she can be quite, like, a hard task master, and I said to Rachel, "Right, can I, you know, get Jo to give you a call and that?"
She's like, "Sure." So I said, "I need you to go over all the products, question her, check for relevancy," 'cause Rachel knows everything about my business, and she did the call, and I was like afterwards I was like, "Rachel, how was she?" And she went, "Oh my gosh, she was lovely, she was friendly, she was personable.
She took time with me. She went over everything." And I went, "This is great." And now I thought, "Now I've gotta go to Jo, and I've gotta say to Jo that actually that wasn't a lead."
Mm. "
That was, like, a test." And I thought, "This is actually also gonna show me something about her character." And Jo was like, "Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity for me to have that experience."
And I was like, "This is a team player." Like, this is like- Yeah, yeah ... 'cause it could've gone the other way, right? Well,
and I think you, what you're reminding me of is the, the central theme of clarity is kindness. I don't think it should be out of the question that we're checking on the productivity of salespeople, and arguably when I've been on teams and you are performing and there are people who are underperforming, it demotivates you, and it hel- it makes it that you lose respect for the business owner because they're not holding the team accountable for better results.
Now- I do think clarity is kindness in the idea of the expectations being put forward. Hey, look, once a quarter we slip in, uh, a phantom client so that we can objectively assess how we're doing in terms of our delivery and our sales methodology. I think that's totally reasonable. I think it could backfire with the wrong person if they feel like they're micromanaged or checked in.
Yeah.
Even though we record everything now, even though it's on, you know, whatever system, um, of AI and note takers, um, all of that just exists. We should assume that we're probably being recorded all the time. Um, but it does help people know ahead of time, oh, hey, this quarter you were selected and this was the call, and go over with it privately.
'Cause some people who will feel shame and criticism and judgment will be like, "Wah." Yeah. They'll never come back , you know?
No. So for us, uh, we record everything. Yeah. So we use OBM Hub, which is like a high level product, so it actually records all the calls. Uh, we've also got the transcript as well, which we can put through AI as well- Yeah
which is epic. Um, so it really does help us to evaluate where they're at. They listen back on their calls as well. I listen in with them as well, and I also have to accept the fact it's never gonna be in the way that I would do it, but it's definitely gotta be in a way that works . So-
Yeah ...
um, that was h- that was one of the biggest things for me, so
Yeah.
Um, well thank you so much for joining us today. It has been so good. We certainly have gone behind the scenes with sales today, and I'm glad we got to pop your cherry on the podcast as well.
Yeah, I think you just love saying that.
Oh, of course I do. And, um, I'm so glad that we were able to share your, your story as well with your dad, so that's so good.
Um, if you would like to connect with Sarah, um, how can people connect with you?
Um, well we're all over the internet on our website, Sales and Leadership Performance, and my husband and I are both on LinkedIn, and w- every Wednesday we do a LinkedIn live where we answer questions from business owners about anything that needs to be helped with sales.
Oh, they are short, they are juicy. Um, I've been checking in. They, they really are cool, so definitely have a look at that. Um, this has been another episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. I thank you, Sarah, so much for joining us today.
Yeah, thank you.
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