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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
You you think about what makes salespeople let me rephrase that. High achieving salespeople good at their job is their ability to get their way. Mhmm. Like, if you wanna boil it down to its most basic essential element, it's their ability to get their way. Well, then they come to our building and they wanna get their way with the sales manager.
Randy Anderson:They wanna get their way with the data entry people. They wanna get their way with accounting. They want their stuff pushed to the front. And so I think one of the challenges is how do we direct that without squelching that? Like, without without beating down their spirit or changing who they are, and in an effort to gain compliance, we lose some of their effectiveness.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow, rate, and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at good morning hr.com.
Mike Coffey:I'm joined today by Randy Anderson. Randy is an entrepreneur, a dynamic trainer, and an extremely popular speaker at HR conferences across the country. His work focuses on helping people become more engaged in their work, better equipped to do it, and empowered to live a more fulfilling and influential life. Randy is cofounder of E3 Professional Trainers, a training firm that provides workplace and life training for individuals, teams, and companies. And like me, Randy will be a speaker at the HR Southwest Conference from October 13th through 16th right here in Fort Worth.
Mike Coffey:You can register for my favorite conference of the year athrsouthwest.com. Welcome back to Good Morning HR, Randy.
Randy Anderson:Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much, Mike.
Mike Coffey:So I'm having you on today to talk about managing sales teams because I think there's there's in in the organization, there are few departments that are more the bane of the existence of HR people than the sales team.
Randy Anderson:I would agree.
Mike Coffey:And in a lot of the the organizations I've worked with over the years, the sales team seems to operate so differently than the more operational transactional groups.
Randy Anderson:Right.
Mike Coffey:So what makes managing a sales team so different than an accounting or a service delivery team?
Randy Anderson:Yeah. So let me let me start by saying let me throw myself into the guilty pile. So I was a salesperson. I was a sales manager. So I did not come up.
Randy Anderson:A lot of people come up into the training world through HR. I came up through sales, sales management. Before I left that world, I was doing a tremendous amount of training within our organization, which is what led me to doing what I'm doing now. So everything I'll say, I'm I'm not the guy who's standing on the outside, you know, saying everybody else is wrong. I'm one of the perpetrators.
Randy Anderson:Okay? So Yeah.
Mike Coffey:So you're just not throwing stones.
Randy Anderson:Right. And I just you know, I feel like it's probably important to look at it that way because I know firsthand how we can be, and I know firsthand how hard it can be to manage those folks. And, yeah, I do think it is often managed differently, you know, especially if you've got people who are straight commission or some variation thereof that they kinda come and go as they please. People don't know if they're taking long lunches or playing golf. They don't know if they had a breakfast or if they just got up late.
Randy Anderson:And so I think that there's a lot of frustration that can come with that, and the metrics are very cut and dried in sales. You either made the sale or you didn't. In other departments, there's a whole lot more ambiguity. And I hate that that's probably not the right word, but there's a whole lot more subjectivity to judging whether somebody did their job correctly or not. And so I do think that it is often managed differently.
Randy Anderson:I think it's sometimes the excuses come around differently, and therefore, the accountability can appear different to people who are in other departments. I I fully agree with you on that.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. I mean, accounting, you know, payroll goes out on time.
Randy Anderson:Right.
Mike Coffey:AR, you know, what's their days to receive and things like that versus sales. Well, if the customer is always about to make the decision. Right? It's always you know, you can always kick that road down a little bit. Yeah.
Mike Coffey:Can down the road a little bit.
Randy Anderson:Yeah. And, you know, and I look at it, and I I, you know, people who are not in sales sometimes don't understand the sales cycle that, okay, I'm in a building time as opposed to a reaping time. You know, I'm in a we're in a slow time of the year where we're building for annual contracts for next year. We're at a end of the year cycle where we're just trying to get as much, you know I used to have, I I adamantly disagreed with this philosophy, but he would do fire sales, you know, the last few days of the month, just throw it all on a huge discount. And and so I'm managing against my manager on that sense and trying to you know, my people want me to cut the price because it makes it easier to sell.
Randy Anderson:And so there's just a lot of dynamics that people in other areas. And and at the end of my time in sales management, I was not only managing salespeople, I had data entry, I had engineering, I had marketing, I had the creative department, I had the receptionist, I had the accounting. And so I saw all of those personalities in the same melting pot. And and it it can you know, you think it's challenging to to parent siblings, it's very similar. And you've got different personalities and different stages of life depending on their ages, but nobody wants to take anybody else's peripheral factors into consideration.
Randy Anderson:They you know, it's I do a lot of time management training. You know that. And and I talk about a lot. You don't look as busy as I feel. So you don't look like you're having to work as hard as I'm working in my in my cubicle because you're gone all the time.
Randy Anderson:Well, yeah, follow me around all day and watch me get my teeth kicked in by frustrated, you know, clients or by people who don't wanna buy for me, and they feel like I'm bothering them until they actually do decide to buy and see if my job looks so easy. But it looks glamorous because we get the lunches and the golf and the swag and the, you know, we get invited to the client's Christmas party and, you know, accounting's not getting that. Right.
Mike Coffey:Well and you said their main metric is that revenue number, and I think that's right. But I think one of the things in some organizations, because they don't have great sales management that's integrated with the rest of what the organization is trying to do, Sometimes sales gets a a bad rap because somebody on the team makes promises to clients that operations can't deliver.
Randy Anderson:Oh, that's
Mike Coffey:just the other big management.
Randy Anderson:Crazy talk. Nobody would ever do that.
Mike Coffey:No. No. Of course not. Yeah. So what you know, when you're talking about sales management, what's really involved?
Mike Coffey:I mean, you know, is it just looking at those revenue numbers, or what else does this well, you know, if I'm looking at a sales manager, what am I really looking at?
Randy Anderson:Yeah. So let me answer from what I did. And I'm saying this for the sake of my credibility, not for the sake of my ego. Okay? I never managed an operation that didn't have significant gains.
Randy Anderson:And so I was managing for growth, not managing to maintain and and several all but trying to make sure I'm saying an accurate statement there. All but 2 of the things that I managed were at a point in that organization's maturation or that organization's existence where they were poised for growth. I had 2 that were they were not gonna have that kind of exponential growth. It's just the way that they were. And so, you know, a couple of things about that is, number 1, I managed I almost always had a developmental team member.
Randy Anderson:They were new. They were developing new accounts. They weren't gonna get the existing, the the easy, the low hanging fruit. And so I'm managing that person for a longer term strategic approach as opposed to a transactional approach. I wanted it to be more relational.
Randy Anderson:Building a relationship takes time, especially when you're building a relationship asking people to spend money, asking people to entrust you with a a part of their business, whatever it is you're selling, you're you're you know, if it's a business to business, you're asking them to entrust you with a portion or a part of their operation. So there's there's a lot of trust building that goes in there. Another thing is you you think about what makes salespeople let me rephrase that. High achieving salespeople good at their job is their ability to get their way. Like, if you wanna boil it down to its most basic essential element, it's their ability to get their way.
Randy Anderson:Well, then they come to our building and they wanna get their way with the sales manager. They wanna get their way with the data entry people. They wanna get their way with accounting. They want their stuff pushed to the front. And so I think one of the challenges is, how do we direct that without squelching that?
Randy Anderson:Like, without without beating down their spirit or changing who they are, And in an effort to gain compliance, we lose some of their effectiveness. And I think great sales managers, that's part of the what they do well is to get them to buy into quote, unquote the program, whether that be a system or a process or policies and procedures or accounting system or whatever it is, deadlines, thoroughness, accuracy, all those things that salespeople get frustrated by to to get them to understand, we wanna help you sell. We are not here to make your life worse. And if we're if we're going at it all the time, then that can end up being the big problem instead of a problem. It becomes the problem.
Randy Anderson:And so an effective sales manager, I think, can kinda draw other departments around to really truly be a support staff and not be an adversarial relationship there.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. It's interesting because I see it from both sides. I have friends who have been in sales their entire career, and some of them change jobs fairly frequently. They're always chasing the next dollar and but they're always complaining about how much paperwork this company is putting on. Oh, they're making me fill out the CRM every time I talk to a client, and they're making me do all, you know, keep all these notes and do all this.
Mike Coffey:And I've got my paper and pen system that I use, and that's what works. They're killing me over here. And then I talked to my entrepreneur friends who own their businesses, and they're pulling their hair out because they can't get theirs. You know? So they a prospect calls in that they somebody's been talking to, and they go into CRM, and there's nothing there.
Mike Coffey:And they they're they're mad because now I can't help this client because I don't have the information.
Randy Anderson:Well, and and then and then suddenly, I've got 2 salespeople in my office fighting for the account, the one who had it written on paper and the one who entered it into the system. Mhmm. And I've had that and again, they all wanna get their way. When they leave my office, no matter what I decide, one of them is mad at me.
Mike Coffey:That's yeah. You can't and you just yeah. It's there's gotta be a system, but you've gotta kind of, I guess, make that system work.
Randy Anderson:Well, and I So,
Mike Coffey:you know, for the person you're hiring hiring. Right?
Randy Anderson:I think the sales manager has gotta sell that mindset to the salespeople. They've gotta sell that mentality of look. Number 1 and this is a hard thing for sales. They hate this even more than paperwork. This is not your account.
Randy Anderson:This is our organization's account that you have stewardship over right now. And if for whatever reason, you win the lottery, you get run over by a train, or, you know, your cousin in law starts a business and hires you, we still are gonna need that information about that customer in order for us to be able to serve that customer effectively. And there may be times when you have COVID or you're out of the country on a cruise and we can't reach you, and we need to do something for the customer. If you haven't left us a trail of bread crumbs, we don't know where to follow that. And so I think sales managers, again, to some often, you know, to some degree, I'm not gonna say most of the time, but I will say often, they try to cram the CRM down their throat instead of letting them see why it can be a tool.
Randy Anderson:It becomes a restrictive necessity. And I'm like, why not convince why did you spend all this money? Well, we think it's gonna help our sales grow. We think it's okay. Sell them on that.
Randy Anderson:Don't just say, by god, you're not getting your mileage check if you don't fill out your CRM information.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And I think that's I think salespeople most sales profiles, you know, seem to be really highly motivated by incentive and immediate reward and that money and, you know, or whatever it is that, you know, the that they that they're looking for. And so if you can incentivize what they're asking for, you know, you can get what you want out of them as as a way of helping them see how it's gonna help them get what they want. That would be the way to do it.
Randy Anderson:Yeah. I think, again, I I look at it and I'm like, you know, okay. So are we looking at transactional? Are we looking at the next 20 or 30 minutes? Are we looking at the next 20 or 30 months?
Randy Anderson:Because if I'm looking at the next 20 or 30 minutes, well, I could go out and make a sales call. Right? Okay. I'm not gonna argue with you about that. You're you're exactly right.
Randy Anderson:But I look at it and I think, okay. But 20 or 30 months from now, when you've gathered all this data and you're remembering to send a birthday card and you're remembering to send an anniversary card and you're remembering to say, happy first anniversary of when you first did business with us, and we know what their preferences are, and we remember what we've pitched to them that they didn't like, but I've done 40 other pitches on that same topic and I couldn't remember if I showed this to them or not, that's when they'll begin to see how this is gonna help them build their own business and grow their own commission. It's just like everything. I gotta show what's in it for them. Right?
Randy Anderson:This can't just be about compliance, or we're gonna get a halfhearted effort at best. So
Mike Coffey:what does a sales manager look like? I mean, we always you know, it's almost a drinking game on on the show here because we have somebody who's really good at a certain role, and so we make them a manager.
Randy Anderson:Right.
Mike Coffey:And, so but it seems like the the attention to detail, the process orientation, those things that you want a sales manager to implement, in many times are contrary to what your your really good salespeople naturally do.
Randy Anderson:Can be. I mean yeah. I mean, I I could argue both sides of that deal, really. And and I you know, it kinda depends on, if you're in a very transactional industry, people are gonna buy something today whether they buy
Mike Coffey:it from you or somebody else. Commodity type business.
Randy Anderson:Versus I'm looking who I wanna enter into a relationship with for a long period of time. Mhmm. I dropped my car off earlier to get worked on because my battery was dead this morning. I jumped it, started it. An hour later.
Randy Anderson:It didn't start again, so I got something bigger than just the light was on. I trust them completely. I've been going to them for 15 years. It's different than I need to go buy a pack of gum. Right.
Randy Anderson:And so if I've got a sales manager who's in a wrong fit, it may not be a personality mismatch, and it may not be a it might not even be a a business philosophy mindset as much as it is just a methodology mindset. And I used to work for a guy, when I first got when I say I first got out, it was probably my 3rd real job out of college. I was mid twenties. He he would come in at, like, 5:5:15 in the morning. And on paper, we didn't open until 8:30.
Randy Anderson:Well, I was lucky to get there at 8:29. My brain doesn't work till 10, so I would do paperwork and stuff early. And then when my brain woke up, I'd go out and make sales calls. It drove him nuts. He wanted me to meet people in the parking lot when they were unlocking the door.
Randy Anderson:And when he finally left me alone, when my numbers went up. Right. So he had to realize what was a personal preference for him was not necessarily a best practice for the industry. And so I would resist the statement that you made that started this portion of the conversation because I think we can adapt to that. I just think we've got a and I think there's times you put somebody in a manager or roll over a group that's maybe already been there or they went from one of the group to the manager.
Randy Anderson:Those same people who have been there may not be there 2 years from now. I mean, and that's a little bit like a coaching staff change or a, you know, a a staff you know, a pastor changes at a church and maybe the same ministers aren't there a few years from now. I think to some degree, there's gotta be some level of consistency in how we view how to build this business and how we're gonna go about that.
Mike Coffey:And I think I think a big part of that is okay. So we've got to say excellent salesperson who we're gonna move into the sales management realm because that's what maybe that's what they want. Yeah. Hopefully, that's the only reason we're gonna do it.
Randy Anderson:We're not gonna we're not
Mike Coffey:gonna force somebody in and hold the gun in their head.
Randy Anderson:Right.
Mike Coffey:But then we gotta do training, and and I think sales management training is probably very different than sales training. I know it is, and and it's a different kind of management than your frontline operations management. So, you know, I know, you guys do a lot of sales training, but I think it's not a it's not gonna be a training function that most companies have already built into their organization unless they've got a big sales organization.
Randy Anderson:Right. I would agree that. Yeah. And and I would almost say it's a subset in there. I mean, they need the management training and the coaching training and the how to do effective performance appraisals and how to do, you know, full engagement, employee engagement.
Randy Anderson:But then they also need, how do we do tracking and account development and and sales rep development, sales training, stuff like that? So I would say they have to have additional training, not necessarily different training. They've gotta have additional training that maybe some others don't need to have. And, you know, it took me, you know, I've been in the business world a long time. It took me a long time to figure out there's more than one way to do accounting.
Randy Anderson:You know, there's different accounting philosophies the same way there are different sales management philosophies. And so, you know, I see I understand exactly what you're talking about. In my presentation at HR Southwest is gonna be managing high maintenance, high performers. Well, I can have a high performing sales manager that is high maintenance. It's not just high it's not just high maintenance salespeople, it may be high maintenance sales managers who are convinced the whole rest of the organization revolves around sales.
Randy Anderson:And while that to some degree, may be true because nothing starts until a sale is made, you know, you hear that adage before. Right. But if everybody's already ticked off at the sales department or the sales manager when the sale is made, they can sure put a grinding halt on things after that. And I I always say that to sell y'all go into an organization, they'll say, we've got a 100 employees. I said, okay.
Randy Anderson:How many salespeople do you have? 8. I said, okay. You got 8 people that can go find business, but you've got a 100 that can lose it for you. And we've just gotta understand that how we are our internal customer service is gonna have a whole lot to do with how they treat the sales department and how they help in the sales process, which is you know, it's back end stuff.
Randy Anderson:I understand that. We're not the the accounting department is not what's making the customer say yes. But I've had customers say I'm not doing business with you anymore because you keep sending me a wrong statement every month.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Randy Anderson:It's a pretty minute thing, but they just drove them crazy. And they said, if you do it one more time, we're not doing business. Sure enough. Next month, the esteemed statement goes out with that credit from 2 years ago that was supposed to go away and, you know, whatever it is. So
Mike Coffey:Well, you you mentioned your presentation at HR Southwest about man you know, managing high high maintenance high performers. With regard to sales or just generally what you know give us the high points of that what what are the what's the secret that you see to managing those high maintenance people you need them to produce and either they're prima donnas or they're just bulls in a China shop, and Again,
Randy Anderson:that would never happen, would it? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And, again, I can have a bull in a China shop who's in accounting.
Randy Anderson:I can have a bull in a China shop who's in marketing. I can have a bull in a China shop who's in engineering. So, yeah. I mean, and this is something I deal with a lot with my clients to try to help them with. You know, when you when you look at this, I think my company is E3 Professional Trainers.
Randy Anderson:And as you said in the introduction, that's engaging, equipping, and empowering employees. But 19 years ago when I started this, that was teaching the essential elements of excellence for work and life. And so I would boil it down to the most think about PowerPoint for dummies, Microsoft for dummies, Excel for dummies, anything that in in my world that has e three of fill in the blank, essential elements of effective coaching, essential elements of effective leadership, essential elements of effective communication, I think we've gotta boil it down to its most base part. So number 1, is it a personality deal, or is this really a person who's difficult to get along with? I didn't know until this morning.
Randy Anderson:I was trying to think of a way to package this very simply for your show. You know the word perpetrator, so you would think there would be a perpetration, But perpetration is not a word, but I'm gonna make up a word. On HR Southwest, we're gonna make up a word here. What is the perpetration? Is it just that they're grumpy?
Randy Anderson:Is it that they're not doing policies and procedures? I gotta know what that is. Number 2, what are they what's their production? I mean, are they producing something that we could not easily replace? How do their peers feel about them?
Randy Anderson:So the other people in their immediate team, and then what is the peripheral damage? You know, what are they doing at other parts of the organization? And so we're gonna talk about that in my presentation and kinda see, we can't just look at this and say, oh, it's gonna be easy. We can have a conversation with them and tell them what they're doing wrong and that's gonna fix it. This is gonna be a process where we're trying to help somebody either add tools to their toolbox or, you know, get the vinegar out of the cookies, whatever it is.
Randy Anderson:Hey. You're doing great, but, you know, it doesn't take very much vinegar and chocolate chip cookies to ruin that recipe. And so that's kinda where we're gonna focus on in in my presentation that day.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And and I've encountered it, and I I in my presentation talking about values as an organizational accountability tool, you know, I use the example of that high performing salesperson who brings in the the bacon, who, you know, makes the revenue, but is a is a bull in a china shop the rest of the time. And if that person with that behavior continues to be incentivized to do that behavior
Randy Anderson:Right.
Mike Coffey:And is rewarded for that behavior, it seems like they're rewarded for that behavior because nobody's stopping them and they're succeeding, then what does it tell the rest of the organization about the values of you know, you can see what the company values. The company values revenue over everything else in this case. Yeah.
Randy Anderson:I would I would agree, but I just wanna make sure everybody understands in my presentation, we're not gonna just talk about sales because I've seen Mhmm. I've seen extraordinary Yeah. Extraordinarily creative people in marketing that thinks they can do no wrong. I have we I've worked with a business manager one time who we we referred to their office as the business prevention office because they made it so hard. This can be in any area.
Randy Anderson:Oh, sure. And, you know, I think but I but what I do think is the the contributors, not the symptoms, but the contributors to it are pretty similar, whether they're in sales or accounting or engineering or marketing or whatever the case may be. And so somebody may say, well, you know, I'm in a nonprofit. Okay. Just because you don't have a sales department doesn't mean you may not have a high maintenance, high performer.
Randy Anderson:And in my presentation, it's gonna be delivered in a way where, whether it's a salesperson or somewhere else, they could apply those strategies to address this in an effective way. Again, with that, I don't wanna I don't wanna, you know, step on the person. I don't need to beat them down to get them to do what I want them to do. I just gotta help them to see the benefit of playing well in the sandbox internally, as well as externally. Because they're not gonna treat their best clients that way.
Randy Anderson:You know? Right. You know they have the ability to play well in a sandbox because they're not gonna treat external people that way.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is brought to you by Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for 1 half hour of recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit goodmorninghr.com and click on research credits, Then select episode 165 and enter the keyword sales.
Mike Coffey:That's s a l e s. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, on September 18th, I'll be hosting a free webinar entitled increasing productivity with generative AI. In this 1 hour presentation, I'll demonstrate my favorite generative AI tools, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Perplexity, and others with practical examples of how business leaders can prudently implement them to increase productivity. This free webinar is preapproved for 1 hour of recertification credit from HRCI and SHRM. You can register for this webinar, or if you're listening after September 18th, watch the recording for credit at comparativeinfo.com/webinars.
Mike Coffey:And now back to my conversation with Randy Anderson. Let's talk about a few more things that HR may not really understand about sales in general. K. Most organizations have some sort of sales playbook, and I think when that topic comes up, you see a lot of glazed eyes in other parts of the organization. Yeah.
Mike Coffey:What's the sales playbook and and, you know or, you know, whatever you wanna whatever you call it in your model? And how do you hire somebody's, you know, candidates? How do you match their style to your organization's style of sales?
Randy Anderson:Well, I I think it's important. Number 1, go and look and see what they've sold. Go and look and see where they've sold. Go and see, you know, if you can, without putting them in a bad situation, talk to some of their clients and just see, you know, how they go about that. I think it's important to have really well thought out questions.
Randy Anderson:Because if I say, hey, Mike. Do you believe in pushing a hard sell approach? I mean, because we really have a short timeline, then you're gonna nod your head and say, yes, absolutely. Right. But if I say, tell me kinda how you like to develop business and what's your where your greatest strength lies, And if they say it's in a transactional approach and you know you want a relational approach, they may be a great salesman, but may not be a great fit for your organization.
Mike Coffey:Right. Selling commodities is is is, you know, often fast, hard, you know, best price, let's get it out the door, versus a technical sale
Randy Anderson:Yeah.
Mike Coffey:Or an HR selling in HR. I've done it, and you've done it. You know, I've done it my my most of my career now and just because I've gotten so old. But, the reality is is that's a relationship sale. Right.
Mike Coffey:We're usually the most expensive background screening option our clients have. I mean, I I think we're the best, but it's not until they trust me that they're gonna, you know, even have a conversation with me about spending more money on their background checks.
Randy Anderson:And that was where I always leaned in the way that I did business, in the way that I wanted to teach my people how to do business. So to find somebody like that, it may take a little longer, and it may take, you know, I need a pulse in this chair right now, but do I really wanna be looking for a new pulse 3 or 6 months from now?
Mike Coffey:And spend all the time and money managing that other pulse out.
Randy Anderson:Managing it and then training the new person, onboarding, and and all that. And so, you know, I probably was not good at the the hire slow, fire fast. I I, you know, I was I pro I I hired very slow, but I also fired even slower. I was convinced I could train anybody into success and there's just some people in the wrong job. But I do think that that finding somebody who will approach business in a way that parallels with what your business philosophy is is gonna create a much less contentious relationship internally.
Randy Anderson:And probably, long term, is gonna make other people in your organization wanna help make them successful rather than to become a roadblock for them.
Mike Coffey:So let's talk about that last piece of HR that ever always comes up, comp. How how do you think the best way to use compensation to incentivize a salesperson is?
Randy Anderson:Well, I mean, it it's hard to get away from straight commission. Now how you decide the commission is different, and there's gotta be a consideration on cost of sales. You know, we can't afford to pay more than x percent of our revenue out in sales. And the bigger the ticket item, the more you can pay on that kind of thing. If you've got salespeople you know, I've had people before who were, on some sort of a base salary, and it is amazing how content people can get.
Randy Anderson:Let me rephrase that. It is amazing how complacent they can become. And, you know, so if if if I put them on a straight commission sit system, number 1, they know at the end of every sales call. They know at the end of every day how much money they just made. And, you know, if I've got them on a base of some sort, that the only time I would lean toward that direction is if they've got some amount of other duties.
Randy Anderson:So let's say that they're mentoring a new salesperson or we're asking them to to take on let's say we've got a a member of our sales team and they're gonna specialize in cultivating new business. Well, number 1, we know that's gonna take longer. Number 2, we know they're probably not gonna spend as much money as an existing account that's been built up over time. So maybe, you know, maybe I supplement them a little bit with with that. You know, I've never been big on a draw and, you know, reverse draws, and I've seen everything in the world.
Randy Anderson:And to me, that just gets convoluted. I just I I used to love it when I got to the end of the day and thought, okay. I made this much money today. I could go home and tell my my wife takes care. I always laugh for our we've been married 30 years 2 weeks ago, and I've always laughed that that I'm responsible for revenue and she's responsible for expenses.
Randy Anderson:She does all the bill paying and all the everything. And any given day, I could go home and go, here's how much money we made today. You know, here's here's where we are.
Mike Coffey:And I think that's I agree with you about the direct, you know, that's you know straight commission stuff, but finding you know, how often do you find salespeople who are really willing to do that? My argument's always been if they're not willing to do it and maybe like you said we spend time letting them ramp up learn the product, learn the you know build some relationships but at some point if they're not willing to let it really let it ride you know I'm I'm willing to you know suffer or benefit based on my success Yeah. Then then I I've always want questioned, you know, is this really somebody in it? Because you see salespeople out there asking a 100, a 150,000 a year, plus a commission, and I'm like, you're gonna have to pull in so much money to make that happen.
Randy Anderson:Yeah. And and, you know, it I I lost money in my sales career because I was so risk averse, and I was on a ramp up deal. And their deal was whenever you decide you wanna switch over to commission, switch over. Well, I was so pessimistic, and I was so risk averse. I'd be like, oh, let's just go one more month.
Randy Anderson:Let's just go one more month. And I made the mistake after I finally switched over of going back and figuring up how much money I lost by waiting, and I'll I promised I would never do that again because I did lose quite a bit of money because of my my need for security, my scarcity mentality. I'm very self aware. I mean, this doesn't it it sounds a little surprising for a guy who does some motivational speaking. I don't do a lot, but I do some beyond training, and I do have a scarcity mentality.
Randy Anderson:I know that I'm a realist leaning toward pessimism. My wife says I'm a pessimist just trying to make myself feel better. You know, I know I want that security. But, you know, if I got somebody who is confident in their ability to sell and and believes in their product, we're not gonna have any problem making them some money. I may have to help them with organization.
Randy Anderson:I may have to help them with time management. I may have to help them with PowerPoint so that they can do a more effective presentation, but I'm not gonna have to help them with initiative and hunger. You know, what is the Patrick Guincione deal? Hungry, humble, and what's the third on the Yeah. Hiring the ideal team member.
Randy Anderson:If you got a salesperson that's hungry, the commission won't scare them.
Mike Coffey:Interesting. And good luck finding a salesperson who's humble, but yeah. Yeah.
Randy Anderson:I have known a few. I have known a few.
Mike Coffey:Well, hey, man. I really appreciate you joining us today, Randy.
Randy Anderson:I look forward to seeing you at HR Southwest. It's like you said, I hesitate to say this in case somebody from somewhere else gets their feelings here, but it is probably my favorite conference that I speak at every year, and I'm looking forward being there this year.
Mike Coffey:And you can catch Randy and dozens of other amazing speakers at HR Southwest right here in beautiful Fort Worth on October 13th through 16th. More information is available at hrsouthwest.com. And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast.
Mike Coffey:Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time. And I'm Mike Coffey. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week.
Mike Coffey:And until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.