The Future of Sales Teams: Process, People and the Power of AI | TFOS E12

Unlock the secrets to building high-performing sales teams and staying ahead of the curve! In this episode of The Future of Selling, host Rick Smith welcomes Phil Hernandez, Global VP of Sales at Taskus, to discuss what it takes to lead winning teams in today's evolving sales landscape.

Phil shares practical insights from his 20+ years of experience — from creating strong sales cultures and developing leadership skills, to harnessing the power of AI to scale faster. Whether you're building a new sales team or leading an established one, this episode is packed with real-world strategies you can use today.

In this episode:

• Why culture is the foundation of sales success 
• How AI is reshaping sales enablement and customer engagement 
• Hiring strategies that go beyond the resume 
• Building resilience and learning through failure 
• The future mindset every sales leader needs

If you're ready to grow yourself, your team, and your results, this episode is for you.

👉 Like, subscribe, and hit the bell to catch every episode of The Future of Selling!

Connect with Phil Hernandez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hernandezphillip/
Learn more about Taskus: https://www.taskus.com/

Connect with Rick Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-smith-094b29b/
Learn more about Conquer: https://conquer.io/

#salesleadership #futureofsales #salesculture #AI #taskus #salescoaching #leadership

Creators and Guests

Host

Rick Smith

Chief Customer Officer at Conquer, Host of The Future of Selling Podcast, Eternal Student

What is The Future of Selling?

The Future of Selling is the go-to podcast for sales professionals looking to sharpen their skills and stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B sales. Each episode features expert interviews, real-world case studies, and actionable tips to help you navigate the complex B2B buyer's journey. Whether you're dealing with long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, or rapidly changing technologies, we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover the latest trends, best practices, and proven strategies for closing more deals and building lasting relationships in the B2B space. Perfect for sales leaders, account managers, and anyone aiming to master the art of B2B selling.

Future Of Selling (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Selling podcast. I appreciate you being on today. You know, in our podcast, we look at challenges and obstacles and kind of trends, anything that's impacting the sales landscape or the future of sales. And that's what we like to do. My name is Rick Smith. I'm your host today. Again, ⁓ just tons of gratitude for spending some time with us today and listening in.

I'm really excited about our guest that we have with us today. His name is Phil Hernandez. And we were talking just before the show began. I've never run into Phil any other place, for some reason, I feel this kinship with him. just by looking at his profile and ⁓ looking at his picture, I don't know. So I'm really excited about the conversation today. Phil has over two decades of experience building and transforming go-to-market strategies and leading teams to success.

That's really where we're going to lean in today. He's currently the global VP of sales at Taskus when I hear more about Taskus. And I love his LinkedIn heading, right? And I don't know if you wrote this or somebody else did, Phil, but culture builder, a master architect of organizational structure and revenue attainment. Man, that right there, when I read it, like, I'm in, I am in. I cannot wait to talk to Phil and hear the story. So Phil, welcome to the podcast and thanks for your time.

Phil Hernandez (01:24)
Hey, thanks, Rick. I share the same sentiments. woke I woke up today. It's sun shining bright. I looked out under my shed. I have some new house guests. I've got two baby foxes that I didn't know were there. So you know, spring is here. It's you know, time to get going, right?

Future Of Selling (01:34)
⁓ Hahaha! That's awesome!

Yeah, absolutely. Two baby foxes. My wife would love that. yeah. Oh, I bet. I bet. Well, we're probably going to talk about a lot of things today. I really want to focus in on building and keeping a great sales team, right? Because those are the things I think a lot about is growth and leadership and cultural development and organizational development. But before we do that, let's jump in and talk about

Phil Hernandez (01:45)
My wife's sleeping that up, I tell you what, yeah. ⁓

Future Of Selling (02:07)
⁓ Taskus, which is where you're currently serving as ⁓ the global VP. What is Taskus? What do they do? ⁓ Just kind of give us the high level view of what you guys are about and how you're trying to serve the world.

Phil Hernandez (02:21)
Yeah, Taskus is, ⁓ you know, an interesting company. We are about 16 years old, just went public back in 2021. And, ⁓ you know, we're kind of in the BPO space, but we've been a disruptor in that space. So we're still founder led, traditional BPO, as you can think back to like the 1990s kind of cube farms, you know, dial for dollar telemarketing. ⁓ I've got a funny story about doing that down in San Antonio for a summer job. you know, we

We saw that there was a great need for us to center that industry back on a people first mentality. And in the BPO space that's really taken root and we're proud to say we've disrupted that environment entirely focusing on things like culture and enablement down to the frontline level.

Future Of Selling (03:05)
Right.

Yeah, what kind of services do you guys offer? What positions are you outsourcing, things like that?

Phil Hernandez (03:14)
⁓ well, we continue to try to be a disruptor in the space. you know, traditionally, BPOs focus a lot on like tech support and customer support, and that's still very much bread and butter. We've really made a hard pivot over the last few years to do a lot more specialized services. So before OpenAI came and like broke AI into like a household conversation, right? We were busy training those models for various LLMs. We've been in the AI space for a long time. We just launched our agentic AI services to help build that ⁓

Future Of Selling (03:33)
Right.

Phil Hernandez (03:43)
that capability for a lot of different companies. ⁓ And also then we branched out into other things. ⁓ I'm actually formally leading the sales service line here at TASCA. So I get to help build a lot of teams for a lot of different industries across the world and help educate that this is a great solution ⁓ for go to market professionals to use.

Future Of Selling (04:03)
Right, So kind of geography wise, where do you guys pull from? Where your resources? they ⁓ Europe, ⁓ APAC, mean, just, or everywhere?

Phil Hernandez (04:15)
everywhere and growing. So, you know, it's a great job if you like travel. ⁓ We have some great centers of excellence in the Philippines, India, of course, but then emerging markets like Latin America, Greece, we're really excited about Cairo, Egypt and South Africa and some places like that. Malaysia, ⁓ you know, in a distributed environment where you can think globally now about sourcing your workforce. They're really interesting pockets of the world where you can actually build some great teams for a lot of different use cases.

Future Of Selling (04:45)
Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, I love that. I love what you guys are doing. And you've been there a little over a year now, correct? Is that the case? And you're leading the sales and service team. based on your background, you've got a lot, mean, it sounds like you're with a great company, but also just what you're doing, you're actually going in and trying to help other companies achieve their goals through providing your services. So that's got to...

Phil Hernandez (04:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (05:11)
It's kind of got to fit for you, right? mean, it sounds like that's a great sweet spot.

Phil Hernandez (05:17)
It is, I never would have thought I would have landed in this role, but it turns out like it's funny how the universe conspires against you. I may be getting a little woo woo in this conversation, right? But like, no woo woo. But ⁓ yeah, no yoga mats back here. Don't worry. ⁓ yeah, you know, it's funny. Like I've had this weird career journey where I've been the benefactor of having served a lot of different companies and a lot of different kinds of places across many different industries. I started my career with, you know, a co-

Future Of Selling (05:25)
I'm not about myself.

Phil Hernandez (05:46)
cola bottler and consumer packaged goods. Then I went to a startup and then I went to a media company and going through digital disruption in the 2010s. Then back to a startup then to, you now I'm at a global BPO where, you know, I don't come from outsourcing, but I've used it as a customer. And now I get to kind of build the thing that I would have wanted to buy on the customer side. So it's a fun role really is.

Future Of Selling (06:07)
Right, right. Yeah.

Well, and that's one of the reasons I thought was that thought that the conversation would be interesting today and specifically this topic of building and keeping a great sales team, right? Because I looked at your background and you do, you've got some stints where you've been at companies for six, seven years, right? And you got several of those, but you also have a other stints where they're shorter, they're 18 months or 12 months, 13, you know, what are, and so my thinking was, gosh, here's a guy who,

has got expertise in building cultures, building organizations, organizational sales teams, and he's had the chance to do it multiple times. So you've had the chance to sharpen the axe time and time again, which to me just means you're getting better and better at it, right? So that ⁓ really kind of got me inspired and thought, I definitely want to have this conversation.

Phil Hernandez (06:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. ⁓ You

looked at a lot, look at a lot of people on LinkedIn warriors. Sometimes you like brag about their exits and things like that. It's particularly with SASS, you know, I brag about some of my failures too. I think, you know, we can cut, can cover on some of that ground, but yeah, it's ⁓ been an interesting journey.

Future Of Selling (07:06)
Yeah.

Okay, good. Well, let me ask you this question. ⁓ What is it about leading a ⁓ sales team, developing a sales team, growing a sales team, and being in sales? What about that makes you come alive as a person?

Phil Hernandez (07:33)
Yeah, you know, I tell people a lot, you know, my wife is more of an ops person. So you can, she's a operations director. can kind of imagine what our dinner table conversations sound like. Being on the sales side is interesting. I kind of tell her, you know, look, uh, day to day, month, month, quarter quarter, you know, of course I'm focused on process and trying to drive pipeline and those traditional things that you think of as a revenue leader.

Future Of Selling (07:44)
Yep.

Yeah,

right.

Phil Hernandez (07:59)
But

really when you look back and you have the benefit of perspective, you know, that it might not have had when I was 27, 28 or early VP role, you know, you don't remember how you performed in Q2 of 2013 or 2014 or any of those things. You think about the people that you've gone on that journey with and the impact you've had materially on people's lives. And that's, that's really one of the greatest things about sales and go to market is

that variable component just is just enriching, right? Like if you can help somebody be really successful and see them grow and prosper in their careers, ⁓ that's where I now get my reward for like that. So now that's where I obsess, right? That's where I wanna create environments that foster that growth. And that means centering on all those humans, making sure they have a great process driven environment to which they can execute their work properly, eliminate noise and friction.

Future Of Selling (08:53)
Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (08:53)
both in

the customer side, but also ⁓ at the desktop level. So that, it's a lot of fun. I get a little passionate about it. Sometimes I get long-winded as you can tell, but ⁓ yeah, it's great work.

Future Of Selling (08:58)
Yeah.

We're good.

Yeah. So you love the sales side of the business, clearly, that's where you've been. But what really drives you is the people development, it sounds like, and making a difference for the team. And I'll just give you a real quick, I was in a couple of years ago, right, in a meeting and it was a sales kickoff, right, annual sales kickoff. And right before that, I had gone to a happy ⁓ hour.

with a bunch of my old colleagues from a company about 10 years ago. brings back to a point, you don't remember what you did in Q3 of 2014, but man, you remember the people. And the thing that struck me, and maybe this resonates with you a bit, is have you read that, at least part of that speech, the man in the arena speech, have you ever seen? And that's what you think about, right? It's the...

Phil Hernandez (09:54)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (09:58)
I don't know if it's a problem or if it's a blessing, but you don't realize it while you're going through it. But then when you're beyond it, you go, man, how much value that brought to you, the relationships that you built and things like that. So that sounds like that. That's really kind of what makes you come alive about being in this leadership role with me.

Phil Hernandez (10:17)
Yeah, it really is Rick. And I think about, you know, the man in arena a lot often, you know, cause there are days where quite frankly is if you're, you're the leader and kind of the buck stops with you. It's a lonely feeling sometimes like, right. Right. That's where, you know, really tapping in, I've gotten better at this over the last couple of years, really tapping into networks, ⁓ you know, getting into things like pavilion and things like that, ⁓ really helps keep you, ⁓ keep you centered because yeah.

Sometimes you're fighting a lot of headwinds, both internally and externally. yeah, it's staying calm in that storm is really critical.

Future Of Selling (10:54)
Yeah. You mentioned a minute ago that a lot of, think your expertise has come from failures you've experienced and you said, hey, we can talk about one if you want. Let's talk about one. What has been one of your biggest learning events or I guess events, call it a failure, call it whatever you want, challenge that kind of added to who you are today as a global sales leader?

Phil Hernandez (11:20)
Yeah, you know, I think back probably even most recently, two years ago, I joined a small startup and, ⁓ you know, I, I look back at where they were in growth and I assumed that we had a product market fit in hand, well in hand. ⁓ then you start talking to customers. So, ⁓ and then you got, you learn real quick that you don't. And you know what that meant for me. And you talked a lot about like some esoteric things, but you know, at the end of the day,

When I really get back down to work, you know, I get really tactical and very sales ops and rev ops focused. Um, I found that I had moved too fast, too hard for that Oregon where they were in their life cycle into process and methodology. And that wasn't wrong. It was just at the wrong time, right? Instead should have gotten way deeper into customer should have got way deeper into the trenches with my salespeople rolled up my sleeves and really gone back and.

talk to the org about like, we got to refine our product. We got to refine our message, find out what our ICP truly is and where we want to focus. If forced to reset, we ran out of funding. Well, there's a broader story about the UAW strike shuttles down, but that's over a beer, not over this one. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (12:28)
Ha ha ha.

Got it. Got it. Got it.

So, you know, there's a there's a saying that a guy like to read a lot, John Maxwell, he talks about, you know, experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. Right. So when we look at that, what was as you evaluated kind of that that that that situation, that failure, what did you take away from that? And what have you taken forward?

Phil Hernandez (12:55)
Yeah, just, you know, at that moment I thought I was walking in with the answers. I also had a mandate to move really fast anyway. I should have trusted my instincts versus just responding to that and aligning better internally. ⁓ you know, cause I knew academically all the right things. knew walking in, like I should do X, Y, and Z, but then you kind of look back after a four week span, you're like, shoot. Like I didn't actually like get any of that done. was busy solving like the problems of the day. So, you know,

I think it's important to write down what your plan is and stick to it and have an organized way about that and then have an accountability partner. That's probably a big thing that would have made a big impact for me at that moment. Sure.

Future Of Selling (13:34)
Okay.

Did you have an accountability partner now?

Phil Hernandez (13:38)
Yes, I do. You know, I took in a lot of my success to having a really good rev ops partner. think that's, I wouldn't say it's an emerging trend anymore, but I think it's finding its sea legs and becoming a little bit more commonplace in go-to-market. It is being backed up by a really strong sales rev ops team. So I look at some of the strongest leaders that probably came up from frontline management and really good sales coaches and things, but maybe are a little weaker.

on the operations side of the fence. If you can kind of find somebody to partner with you that can cover some of your, you know, not weaknesses, but just, you know, areas that, you know, you don't often think about, man, the sky's the limit for you at that point. So I'm lucky to have, that partner with me at this company now who I worked with in prior companies as well.

Future Of Selling (14:16)
Yes.

Got it, got it. And you know, I think about accountability partner. think about, okay, that's someone who I'm sharing my plans with and they're sharing their plans with me probably, right, about how we're going to execute. And then on a periodic basis, weekly, monthly, whatever, we're getting back and we're saying, hey, how are you doing? Where are you at? You know, and we're having, is that, that's kind of what you're doing, right? ⁓

Phil Hernandez (14:46)
100%. Like we've got

an entire like product, you know, roadmap ahead of us. It's services. So it's a little different, right? Like I'm building go to market teams on behalf of other companies over. Yeah. So it's a little, it's not like a thing or a subscription model, but we, nevertheless, we have a vision and we have a shared kind of goal and we challenge each other on certain aspects. Like I'll have a thought and be like, no, that's not, that wouldn't work for, he'll have a thought and be like, yeah, I can't sell that. Yeah. So,

Future Of Selling (14:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (15:13)
you know, it's really good to have that kind of back and forth and trust is really the bedrock of all

Future Of Selling (15:17)
Yeah, completely agree. I know for me in my career, I've always been at my best when I had that partner inside the business that you're right. I trusted, I felt like we had this connection and that we could bounce ideas off of, especially in leadership. Cause your point you said earlier, sometimes it gets a little bit lonely, right? You're out there and you're at the front of the pack and you're trying to make a difference, but you know, got to have somebody that, or at least I do, sounds like you do, somebody that you can actually.

bounce ideas off of and help you make those decisions and hold you accountable. So, let's say you've been in a couple of times, you've come into new companies. What's the first thing that you're looking at when building a high performing sales team from scratch? What comes to mind? are the top two, three, five, whatever it may be?

Phil Hernandez (16:10)
Yeah, let me give you a few then. ⁓ Cause I don't know what the order is more so it's a cacophony, right? Like it's hard to turn off when you're putting your head in the pillow when you're in build mode. But usually what I'm looking for is where's the friction, right? I'm looking at the customer journey. I'm looking at the process. I'm looking at gaps in talent and I'm asking, you know, where are the pain points? Where are the friction points that we can go solve for quickly, especially at the customer level. Typically when you kind of look at where you're

Future Of Selling (16:17)
Right, yeah.

Phil Hernandez (16:40)
your bow tie is, for instance, if you want to look at, you know, revenue architecture and those kinds of models from winning by design and whatnot. Typically it's at the front end of the pipeline ⁓ where you're trying to get a go to market message out there and you're talking about leads and how do you convert leads to meetings and things like that. Usually I find a lot of inefficiency there first. And really, I mean, when you think about it, that's your first impression to your ICP and your addressable market. You got to, you got to nail that really, really well.

And usually the conversion part is an outcome of having some really good, well-defined methodology around that. But then you have to solve for the other side too, really quickly. And that might not be so apparent when you're early stage and you've got a handful of customers and you have like this direct, like founder led sales motion sometimes. But when you to scale, you really got to get buttoned up around your customer success org, your account management org, and make sure you're delivering on that value.

Otherwise word in the streets going to get around and you've got to protect your rep. So yeah, so there's a big process in there. I have a framework for how I attack that, ⁓ you know, that I've developed that's built on a lot of these classic design models. and it really centers around people process, even the platforms that you use now, that's a real critical component in the tech enabled space because customers expect more. And then the, the,

Future Of Selling (17:52)
Okay.

Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (18:05)
really driving the productivity and the performance that you're expecting. Do you really have a clear crystal vision on what are the KPIs that matter? you have more star KPIs to find? Are you just looking at dashboards to look at dashboards and vanity looks right?

Future Of Selling (18:17)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You know, for me, in my past, I guess even now, right, I feel like if I've got a clear target, I clearly know what I'm trying to achieve, right? And I'm, you know, Chief Customer Officer at Conquer, right? So what I think about is, you know, gross retention, net retention, know, CSAT, NPS. But, you know, as long as I have to clearly define those targets and when I do,

I feel like I have the best chance for success. The worst thing is an unclear target and we're throwing effort at something and we don't know why we're trying to get there. I completely agree.

Phil Hernandez (18:58)
Yeah,

for work's sake, right? ⁓ Yeah.

Future Of Selling (19:00)
Yeah, yeah.

You mentioned one of the things you mentioned there and kind of things you look at is talent gap. tell me this, tell us about your hiring philosophy, going into a new situation. it maybe versus experienced? it specific competencies you're looking for? And also maybe what are some of the red flags that you're conscious of as you go through that hiring process?

Phil Hernandez (19:26)
Yeah, really critical in my day to day right now to take some of those learnings and bring them to task us too, because, know, for outsourcing, one of the key components that someone's looking at is, you have a really great recruiting framework? Do you have a really clear defined market that you can hire good people in? ⁓ And sometimes companies don't always have that rubric. So that's when I can kind of pull my consultant hat back on and like say, no, in my experience, you need someone, you know, who's done this before that before, sometimes it's industry knowledge, but not always.

There are some great tools out there that help you evaluate talent. ⁓ For us, have ⁓ Harvard, which allows us to look at language proficiencies, but it also allows you to track things ⁓ objectively in some of soft, what people would usually call soft skills like grit, ⁓ determination, what are their motivational purposes. I think it's really good to take a lot of time and sit around and hear who that human is, not just what they've done.

Future Of Selling (20:24)
Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (20:25)
You can look at a resume and get fooled really. Look, we're hiring salespeople. These are folks that are trained to tell you what you want to hear. So you've got to be good at digging in, right? And you can't just hire a resume. You've got to hire that human for that task that's going to execute properly and make sure they have clear lines of sight on what you expect from them before they even walk in that door.

Future Of Selling (20:31)
Yeah, right.

Okay, got it, got it. So I'm familiar with Harvard. Actually, back in the day, I used to work for a behavioral assessment company. And so I've got some familiarity with that. So it sounds like you're a big proponent ⁓ of using assessments, right, before hiring, just because you want to get to know the person, ⁓ which is great, not just the experience. ⁓ And then clear expectations. Okay, got it. What are the red flags you look for?

Phil Hernandez (21:02)
Yes.

Future Of Selling (21:12)
in making a hiring decision.

Phil Hernandez (21:15)
Yeah, I think the red flags appear once you go a layer deeper in your line of questioning, right? So typically your typical interviews are things you kind of Google your interview questions a little bit. You kind of have a list or two. Then you, when you really peel back and ask what they really contributed to that project, let's say they put on their resume that, you know, they, they, uh, you know, worked on a project and they generated $50 billion. Well, what was their role in that? Right.

Future Of Selling (21:21)
Okay.

Phil Hernandez (21:44)
Were they just there? Were they present? Did they just feel the calls or did they have like a driving purpose? Right. And there's no, depends on what you're hiring them for. I mean, it can be just fine if they just had a participatory participatory role, right? But if you're trying to find somebody who can drive a project or drive a task or can see something through. Yeah. You want to go and ask a little bit more in depth questions, not just take their word for it or the sales story that they've said, because they practice that interview line about five or six times.

Future Of Selling (22:13)
Right.

Phil Hernandez (22:14)
really get under this, really dive deeper into what their role was, find out if they had a real key role in that. That's a red flag that appears really quickly. ⁓ It's easy to do. You can kind of understand, is this person just talking the talk or can they walk the walk?

Future Of Selling (22:30)
Okay, gotcha. So I picked up three things out of that. Definitely look at experience. It's important, but it actually doesn't have to be in the same industry, right? Could be a different industry. Know the human, understand the human, use an assessment tool if you possibly can, and then make sure that for the red flag piece, just go deeper, right? And I've been in those interviews before and I've done them, right? Where I walked out of an interview and thought, man, I...

Phil Hernandez (22:35)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (22:56)
I took that surface answer instead of digging down and making sure there was actually some meat to that answer. So red flags, find them by just going deeper in the interview process. Got it.

Phil Hernandez (23:09)
Yes, yes.

I think the last thing I would do, I mean, there's a that's probably an hour long conversation of itself. But like the last thing I would say, make sure that person's excited for your job. Make sure that person's excited about your company and they really want it right. You can kind of tell if they're just kind of going through the motions and just hoping to get a job I want. I want somebody to really want this thing because if they come in the door, they're going to come in guns blazing and that that's the kind of spirit you can't manufacture.

Future Of Selling (23:19)
Yeah, yeah, good one.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so I'm glad you said that because the next thing I wanted to ask you about, so, and because it feeds into this, this idea of culture, right? Culture is so critical to the success of probably I think of any team, right? In any company, but I don't know, maybe it's even more so with the sales team because there's such an emotional piece that goes with that. So what's your approach to creating a cohesive culture and one in which people thrive and succeed?

Phil Hernandez (23:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think, you know, culture has to be the bedrock. said it really well. It has to be the bedrock by which you build things. And sometimes if you're a new leader, I mean, the existing leader, you have to take those, those moments with your team to form and make sure they are all aligned to the Y about what they're doing. Sometimes, you know, you walk into some go-to-market teams, especially large ones, right? They have scope creep and this is where silos come into play, right? Well, you're on the SDR team and then there's the AE team and there's customer success team, right? No.

You're all meant to serve the holistic view of that customer journey and that company's mission to serve those markets, right? But if you think about just your little segment of it, and you don't think about like, why am I doing this? Why am I asking these discovery questions? Why am I making sure I have good handoff notes to onboarding team, right? Like these are where things go off the rails really quickly. So really one core fundamental about building cultures, making sure everybody's aligned to the mission, right?

Future Of Selling (24:50)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah.

Phil Hernandez (25:04)
you have

to take time out to do that vision. And you might have to do that over and over and over and over again. Right. We, what I love about my company right now, and I haven't seen this in any other company, they always talk about values. Almost every company talks about their goals and their vision and their mission. This one's actually taking its work. Like every single meeting we talk about, we do core value nominations. And we talk about people who have helped us in the org and how that's aligned to things that we're trying to create for customer experience mission. Right. So like.

Future Of Selling (25:10)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (25:34)
Really live it, right? You have to take that seriously.

Future Of Selling (25:35)
Yeah,

I love that. In my team, we do ⁓ an exercise. It's a core values exercise, We have weekly staff meetings, right? One of those weekly staff meetings are dedicated to our company values. And it's a really simple exercise, But it's always fun because it's also an opportunity to highlight someone that they've done well. But we ask them to do two things. One, look at our company values and our team values.

and identify another person on the team and tell us what value you saw, you witnessed or observed them executing or living out in the past month and then tell us how it impacted you or impacted the team or impacted a client. And then that's number one. And then by the way, number two is now tell us what value you're working on this month and what you're going to do about that. ⁓

It sounds similar to what you guys are doing, but it's really, it's kind of a core process, right? Because you can, to your point, you can talk about values that can hang on a wall, you can talk about them once a year at the company meeting, but if you don't revisit those things on a consistent basis, they're not real, they don't live, you know? So, yeah, so anyway, that's cool, what you guys are doing. Anything else to think about on the culture side, other than just the emphasis on values?

Phil Hernandez (26:57)
Yeah, I think it's really important. yeah, I kind of, kind of, ⁓ to tie back to some other points earlier in the conversation, it's really important to take your work seriously in terms of building a good environment for them to work in too, because too often we kind of like hire a salesperson and hire some customer success teams and expect them to just kind of know and go figure it out. Right. ⁓ not the best approach, right? Like it's really important depending on the stage of growth in your company, but pretty early on.

Frankly, start building in some processes and some repeatable measurable practices. this is where rev ops can really help you a lot. Right. And and institute those and A B test and challenge and find out like from a data driven perspective, what's working, what messaging is going forward should be tie in marketing, get the whole go to market organization aligned to that and and and have those monthly meetings where it's like, here's what we learned.

You know, here's the things that are working really well, we wanna double down on, here's the things we need to stop doing and figure something else out, right? And invite all those players together and that helps centralize things in terms of, you know, it can't just be your ideas all the time, right?

Future Of Selling (28:13)
Right, right.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. So part of culture then for you guys is making sure that you're aligning across the entire go-to-market team on all things, all initiatives,

Phil Hernandez (28:26)
1000 % if you're you can do all these, you know, you can do the core value noms and all that stuff. But then you know, they then they have to go back to their desk. And if you're just kind of give them some sloppy tools and no training and no investment of your time and your coaching like all that it just strikes is hollow, right? So like the follow through is about all right, let's take these ideas and these these these foundational truths. Now let's live into them. And through the work, right live through the work into

your call, that next call with the customer is because you have an anchor for which to drive on, right? Be excited about that next call. I don't care if somebody told you no, next, right? Yeah.

Future Of Selling (29:02)
⁓ Let's go. Let's go.

Okay. So, talked about, ⁓ take it one step further. How do you, what's your approach to developing your team? You know, so, because I think that's where you're going, right? Talked about culture, talked about values, talked about process and making sure, you know, kind of the standards are in place, right? To guide that behavior and activity. But then how do you coach them? What's your approach to coaching and developing people?

Phil Hernandez (29:11)
You

Yeah, so much of it is just giving them the time, right? And taking your one-on-ones seriously and honor them. And, you know, there's a lot of playbooks for that, that you can go out there. A lot of books been written about this, but like you have to have it in your heart, right? You either believe in it or you don't, and it's going to define you as the leader, frankly, right? Those one-on-ones are not just like a go through the motion thing. Stop thinking of them that way. They are critical moments in the development of your people who are you or nothing without, right?

Future Of Selling (29:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (30:01)
Those are key moments for them to touch base with you, tell them what's, you know, have that safe space, tell them what hurts, learn from what the market's telling you through them, because you gotta be connected to the customer too, and hear the voice of the customer through them, through the lens. They're not always, be mindful, it's a lens, like they might be like, you know, our pricing is terrible. You go talk to a customer, isn't your price, it's like your sales rep didn't call. You know, gotta be wise.

about what you're hearing and how you use that information. Don't just take it as rote, right? But those key moments are really critical to nail, number one. Number two, make sure that you have ⁓ either money or something set aside to invest in their continual development, right? Now that might not just be sharpening the axe on their sales skills. Oftentimes that's a place to start, but you can invest in them as a human too. One of the, sorry if I'm going long-winded on this, but it's a,

Future Of Selling (30:58)
good.

Phil Hernandez (30:59)
It's critical. One of the things that I benefited from early in my career was with when I was with a bottler out in Utah and Coca-Cola is, and I fought this thing kicking and screaming because I don't like being, you know, psychiatry ⁓ blasted, but they would take their leadership and they put them down into a leadership development camp ⁓ down in Texas. And it had like literally no coursework devoted to business. It was all about

who you are and how you take responsibility, empowering you, understanding what you can do. If you really set your mind to something, how to work with teams. It was almost like a boot camp, like I broke you down for a couple days to build you up. And man, you come out of that thing transformed human and you understand that it's not just about your skillset and what you can put down on that resume. It's about who you are and who you are will define that. I looked down at that moment.

Future Of Selling (31:51)
Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (31:55)
in my past and I can see the wake that that left and kind of how I approach things from every step in my journey so far.

Future Of Selling (32:05)
Yeah, I love that. And I probably said I love that too many times, but I do. love that, right? Because it's, you're right. Here's the deal. Everything, everything rises and falls on leadership, period, right? If you've got poor leadership in place, guarantee you're gonna have poor outcomes. You've got great leadership in place, even with the challenges and obstacles of the economy or anything else.

Phil Hernandez (32:19)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (32:31)
You're going to get there eventually. Right. So everything rises and falls on leadership. And what, and what I love is the fact that, that the training you did, again, it wasn't just, it wasn't company specific, right. was a leadership specific and ⁓ such, such a difference, right. Right. There in such a difference maker. Was there anything like, was there, was there maybe one thing that you took from that? probably took a bunch of things, but you think about that training. What was the, what was maybe one thing that really stood out more than, than all the rest.

Phil Hernandez (33:01)
⁓ there is an I in team and you know, you, you can be a difference maker, ⁓ not just to yourself internally, but those around you. And it was kind of like, you know, on the, on the airplane where you have to take the oxygen mask down for yourself first before you can help others. ⁓ so really care about yourself, make sure you're putting yourself in a priority thing about what we talk about. It gets lonely. You gotta watch your mental health and watch that con check that conversation in your head when it's telling you like.

Future Of Selling (33:17)
Yeah

Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (33:29)
Maybe you're having a moment of like imposter syndrome, right? Like we've all had that. ⁓ maybe it's like, you know, I just don't have it in me today. You know what? Give yourself that allowance. Not every day is going to be a good day and have the wisdom and wherewithal to know when you should check out at 2pm and go for a walk and come back and reset. You do not have to go bell to bell in this world anymore. Right? Nobody's checking your punch card at the factory. You do. They are, maybe you get out of that environment.

Future Of Selling (33:56)
⁓ Great point. ⁓

The last question around the coaching development. Are you still in a growth mode yourself? mean, are you still, you know, how do you continue to develop yourself and grow yourself and become better at your craft?

Phil Hernandez (34:13)
Yeah, I think that's that's till the day I die. I better be right. You get, you know, Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite quotes from that movie, right? Is it get busy living or get busy dying? Right. So yeah, yeah, take the time and yourself invest. I, you know, I try to pick up new hobbies, learn guitar, learn to fly fish, learn to ski, learn to do this. Like, it's funny, the parallels you have when you're learning again, and then you can say,

Future Of Selling (34:22)
the

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (34:41)
You know, if I applied this to my day job, you know, I feel better about the journey I'm going through. So yeah.

Future Of Selling (34:44)
Right.

Yeah, got it.

Do you have any kind of specific leadership framework that you follow? You mentioned a couple of things or several things right now. Do you have a one through three or one through five, you know, here's what it means to be a leader or not?

Phil Hernandez (35:04)
Yeah, I mean, you first of all, you have to have compassion and empathy, right? So that's been a theme here in this conversation. But second of all, you actually do have to have some hard skills. So it can't just be all rah rah all the time. You've really got to be able to sharpen your ax about practical application. ⁓ So there's a lot of learning materials out there. ⁓ Shame on you if you're not right. Get back to it. Like go, go get certified, go get in those pavilion courses, go back to school, go.

Future Of Selling (35:07)
Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (35:33)
There was not a lot. mean, maybe I'm dating myself. I'm only a senior millennial, but there weren't a lot of sales schools out there giving you a degree in professional sales. But there are a lot of resources now that you can get into that are really good trainings. Also be careful of who you learn from. It's not enough to go on LinkedIn and read a bunch of posts and just take some notes from some gurus. Really get practical, really get tactical. Sit down and do the work. Make sure you have

One of my secret sauce was make sure you get a foot in the camp of rebops, of course, right? It's one thing to coach as a leader, but as you come up, you're going to have to pull on some different talents and some new skill sets, right? First time CROs can probably all relate like, ⁓ all of a you got to learn how to talk to a boardroom. Now you have to know some things about finance and running a P and L, right? These are skills that you can sharpen for yourself. So that will, will, you know, project you into that next echelon. If you're growth minded in your career, that's second thing. think the third thing is just make sure.

Future Of Selling (36:30)
Got it.

Phil Hernandez (36:33)
You learned to put a blade that Superman Cape and you're not, you're not a hero. Nobody's expecting you to be aligned with your leaders. You know, if you're a CRO, get with your CEO CEO often get with the chief product officer, make sure you are aligned with your CFO and you are being that voice of alignment together as a team. You said it earlier and look, I have 20 different sales teams for 20 different companies that I have to like, you know, kind of like give some oversight strategically too.

That's the most common theme. If you have a bad leader driving at any level of your organization, that thing will fail. Get good at leadership, ⁓ but it starts at the top down for sure. If you can't demonstrate that at your rank, how can you expect that to happen at the front line?

Future Of Selling (37:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, good point. Completely agree with you. ⁓ As you look forward, and we're kind getting close to the end of our time, but as you look forward into the future, do you see certain skill sets, certain mindset, maybe certain mindset beliefs or whatever ⁓ that are going to be needed to be a successful seller in the future? Anything changing there?

Phil Hernandez (37:46)
Yeah. Number one, think, you know, times are changing very fast. 25 years ago, all you had to really do in sales to like make a big difference and set yourself apart was get good at Excel. I can't tell you how many times I sat in front of an old sales team that's been there for 20 years doing it a certain way and like did some fancy Excel formulas and you know, all of a sudden like, Whoa, but now, Oh my God, the technology that's out there. You better be.

sharp about that and know what those things power because they're going to translate into the customer experience. ⁓ And the future buyers think about this. I'm almost 44. I'm a senior millennial. Generation generationally, there is a shift going on where now your buyers and decision makers are built from that technology ⁓ revolution that happened in the 90s. And they expect you to keep up with that and to give them solutions for their buyers journey that are different than just

Future Of Selling (38:16)
Yeah.

Okay.

Phil Hernandez (38:40)
having coffee or playing golf, right? I think there's places for that and that's all really well, great. I don't think that's dead by any stretch. In some ways you'd be antithetical. Keep up with technology, especially what's going on in AI, right? Nobody's got that figured out yet. I don't care. I'm sorry. That's still emerging, right? The dust will settle, we'll see where all of that lands.

Future Of Selling (39:00)
Right.

Phil Hernandez (39:04)
But get good at it. There are a lot of tools that are easy to use, easy to learn that will make you better, faster and smarter than your counterparts. And those reps are going to be the reps of the future that are going to lead future teams is those who can take advantage of those learnings now invest in themselves. Seven o'clock pour yourself a glass of wine, have a beer, take an AI course, and then start to use that practically and then teach others around you. That's another thing to look at leaders like yeah, influence, you know,

Future Of Selling (39:29)
Influence.

Phil Hernandez (39:32)
I can't tell you how many salespeople I promoted, not because of their KPIs, but because they made an impact around them on their teams. Those were leaders, right? And they are leaders that have learned technology and teaching other people, boy, you've got a shooting star on your hands.

Future Of Selling (39:38)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're done a couple of things there. So one, know the technology, stay up on the technology. Don't fall behind. We're just in a world where you can't do that. Right. Especially AI grow yourself, which kind of is a theme we've talked about, you know, for the last several minutes, right. Just continually in the process of becoming. And then, and then, and then third is just grow your influence, right. Teach others what you're learning.

And don't be afraid to kind of push yourself out there in the stretch zone, you know, and be maybe a little bit of vulnerability there, right? But if you're going to lead, you're always going to be vulnerable. You're always going to be in a place of, you know, well, vulnerability. I don't know what else to say other than that. OK, good deal. You mentioned AI. So talk, you know, and you're right, I agree with you. We don't know yet how it's going to turn out. But as you

What's the impact of it so far? What do you see in the future, the impact of AI specifically on leading teams, ⁓ growing teams, organizationally? How does that come into the whole ⁓ lead and grow a successful team?

Phil Hernandez (40:59)
Yeah, thanks. ⁓ it's an interesting

question. It's one we're all talking about. I I'm lucky to be at a company that has been at the forefront of this and has been using these tools for a bit. So I can provide a little bit of insight for a minute. ⁓ right now the tools that are available are everybody's talking about, it replace? Will it replace? Maybe I don't care about that right now. Right? What I care about is how can I uplift the people around me using those tools and making them more efficient? So for instance, when I'm launching a wave of

new hires right in the Philippines or Columbia, what have you, right? We've been using AI tools to do role play in training, you know, because it better mimics a customer engagement rather than having them cut their teeth on those leads that you've bought really hard for in marketing to do it right. So we've been using it from that perspective with great results helps shorten that ramp time. Every sales team I've ever led or built from scratch, certainly any new hire has a ramp time, right? ⁓

Future Of Selling (41:46)
Right. Yes.

Phil Hernandez (41:59)
you can shorten that and get them speed to proficiency. That's one great use of AI. The other great use of AI is help automate some of the task-driven stuff. ⁓ Before AI, we've had tools that are meant to do that, like sales sequencers, outreaches, and cons, and things of that nature. But in this new AI-driven world, it actually helps you

offload some of those things that are taking you away from the customer and helps you get in front of the customer more and looking you sharper and better and giving you it's almost like an accountability partner, right? Like I have Gemini tools, I've got zoom, everything's got AI pixie dust all over it right now. Get familiar with those. And then I'm jumping from like five different applications, right? And they all have an AI thing attached to it. If I can learn how to use their thing uniquely, I can get them more out of that tool.

Future Of Selling (42:29)
Okay.

Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (42:52)
makes me sharper, better, faster, and speed is your ally in go-to-market these days. Get into that market, get in those customer conversations as fast as you can. AI helps you with speed right now, and that's a huge, huge game changer for your go-to-market motion, for sure.

Future Of Selling (43:09)
Okay,

gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so I always like to end with a few takeaways, you because I put myself in the place of a listener and I listen to lot of podcasts and the ones I like always give me a couple of takeaways at the end of it, you know? ⁓ So let's think about what are three key takeaways if somebody's listening to this podcast today? They are a new sales leader or they're walking into a new situation. What are the top three things you'd say, think about this?

Think about that, do the other. And you've talked about a lot today, but if you can summarize it down into three key takeaways for someone in that situation.

Phil Hernandez (43:47)
Yeah. For a new sales leader, for sure. Look to see where you can partner to go faster and draw, get, get some alliances. Right. ⁓ if you just took a new job and you have two weeks till your start date, you start working now, right? You start making your phone calls. Now you start building your networks and you find out who are those companies and who are those resources that you can do to help you build pieces of your team faster? Because look, the average life cycle of a VP of sales, particularly new VPs of sales is like 18 months.

Future Of Selling (44:17)
Yeah. Yeah. I did go early.

Phil Hernandez (44:17)
You're out of time from the jump. Right.

Early, right? So you want to start putting points on the board really, really quickly, right? You don't have time to figure out where the bathrooms are. You want to get, get to work, send yourself around that customer. ⁓ so that's one, ⁓ so come in with a, you know, maybe that salespeople from your past, you're to pull through forward. That's always a sign of a good leader. If they've got people that are going to follow them. Right. ⁓

Future Of Selling (44:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Hernandez (44:46)
Number two, would say stay educated, right? Uh, it's so easy to get sucked into the day to day grind and today's firefighting drill and things like that. Carve out the time to learn, to experience, to take those demo calls from those SDRs. I got eight of them a day. can't take them all, but sometimes there's one that you ought to take an hour, put a block in your calendar and say on Friday at 8 AM, I am going to

set aside time every week to take a demo because I need to learn whether I do something with that or not. You know, I mean, look, it doesn't take any effort to ignore a phone call, but take time to learn number three, make sure you're aligned internally to get your goals done. Do not work in a silo, right? Externally. Yes. Lots of partners, lots of things you can use. Lots of people that you can ⁓ have to come with you, but internally you've got to make sure you're aligned and vision with your C-suite.

Future Of Selling (45:18)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Phil Hernandez (45:44)
You've got to make sure you're aligned in vision with your CRO and that you're working transparently too, right? Try not to build a loan. Try to be very in your face about everything you're doing and you'll start to get resources internally. You're not going to win if you're having an abrasive relationship with your marketing person or trying to fight for budget line items with your CFO. Like these are the worst situations that drag you away from the customer and create internal strife and ultimately sour your culture. And it's over before you know it. So.

Future Of Selling (46:08)
Yes.

Phil Hernandez (46:13)
Keep those three things. Those things are three critical areas I think new leaders have to be mindful of.

Future Of Selling (46:17)
Okay,

I'm going to repeat them. ⁓ partner and go faster, right? Where you can partner, partner to go faster. Man, I love that statement. Stay educated. And this, I think the idea, didn't, first I was thinking about stay educated about, you know, kind of your current situation, but you're saying stay educated, take calls, take demos from companies outside of your company.

Phil Hernandez (46:24)
Thank

Future Of Selling (46:45)
and just learn what they're doing in such a practical, hey, Friday at 2 p.m. or Friday at 10 p.m. or 10 a.m., I'm gonna take a call every week. Whatever it is, I'm just gonna set something up and watch a demo and get smarter. Right, that's great. And then align internally, don't work in a silo. So align with the C-suite, align with marketing and rev ops and you know. Everyone, but don't work.

alone, be transparent, don't work alone. So build that connection internally. That's what I took away. So ⁓ incredible. Phil, thank you so much for the time today. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your experience and I think a great conversation. So thanks a bunch.

Phil Hernandez (47:29)
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Rick. This was a lot of fun. I love talking about this stuff. ⁓ and you know, I'm pretty easy to find if anybody wants to connect me on LinkedIn. ⁓ you know, I will take a demo call every now and then.

Future Of Selling (47:43)
You may have just set yourself up, right? You may have just, yeah, and we'll make sure we get your link in and how to contact you in the share notes as well as ⁓ Taskus. So anyway, appreciate you being here and have a great rest of the day. And by the way, look forward to staying connected with you going forward.

Phil Hernandez (47:59)
100 % guarantee it Rick. So nice to meet you, man. Thank you.

Future Of Selling (48:02)
Yeah, you too. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.