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Welcome to the Sales Transformation Podcast, the definitive stop for leaders driving change in the sales world. Hosted by Collin Mitchell, we dive deep into the minds of Founders, CEOs, VPs of Sales, and Sales Development Leaders from trailblazing startups to industry-leading public companies.
Our mission is simple: to illuminate the path to extraordinary sales leadership. We explore a broad spectrum of sales territories, from the intricacies of Founder Led Sales and Outbound Sales to the transformative potential of Technology in Sales and Social Selling. Whether it's mastering your CRM, optimizing conversions, scaling sales teams, or engineering a complete Sales Transformation, our conversations are set to challenge the status quo and redefine sales success.
With a new content every day of the week, we bring you unfiltered interviews with the luminaries of sales, people who have not just succeeded but transformed the way we think about sales. Collin Mitchell also shares sharp, tactical sales tips every week, packing decades of sales wisdom into bite-sized insights.
So, if you're ready to rewrite the sales rulebook and learn from the best in the business, the Sales Transformation Podcast is your ticket. Write us a review, share the show, and join us on this journey of sales evolution. Let's transform the way we sell, together!
What's up salespeople? Welcome to sales transformation brought to you by Leadium, the podcast that helps you transform the way you sell. I'm your host, Colin Mitchell, And each week, I'll bring you new episodes every day with top sales experts so you can learn from the best. Join us daily for our short, impactful, and tactical episodes to level up all areas of your sales game. And I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Collin Mitchell:Now something that you said you wanted to talk about today is, you know, that sales management is the x factor. And so tell me, what does that mean? And I wanna dig into some of your thoughts around it.
Mark Cox:Yeah. Well, as we talked about, you know, it it's such a tough job. I have a lot of empathy and sympathy for sales leaders today because their job is so difficult. And Colin, I know you're an expert in this space, and we've seen the stats come out from Gartner and others that say the CROs 10 years, about 18 months these days. So incredibly difficult job, but also the tenure on salespeople is diminishing.
Mark Cox:And my my concern with with our industry today is salespeople aren't getting effective coaching. And so when you think of the 3 things a sales leader needs to do, they do have to manage or inspect. They've got to motivate, but they have to coach. And if you or I think of the best sales leaders we ever had, we look back, and they are the best sales leaders we ever had because they were great coaches. Unfortunately, it looks like coaching is the one thing out of those 3 that keeps falling off because that sales leader is so overwhelmed with what they have to do every day.
Mark Cox:And and so I'm hoping everybody listening today thinks about that, and and sets up coaching environments where they're blocking coaching and leading and developing their team as almost as important as anything else they do as a sales leader because your job is to influence the future behavior of the sales team in a positive way. The best way of doing that is by coaching. But you gotta block that into the calendar or else it'll never happen.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. And I I definitely know that this is a huge problem, and you're right. Sales leaders are overwhelmed. Don't make it a priority. Don't put it in the calendar.
Collin Mitchell:How do they change in order to realize, hey. This is way more important than than I'm than I am, you know, realizing. And how do they I mean, I think change is hard for a lot of sales leaders.
Mark Cox:And Yeah. Sure. It is.
Collin Mitchell:Tend to be pretty stubborn. I I I happen to know that. You know? And I think this goes back to what we were originally talking about. Right?
Collin Mitchell:Is learn it all and not know it all. Right? So you've gotta shift that mindset to be open to the fact that, like, hey. This this is a real problem, and I need to fix it.
Mark Cox:Yeah. It's such a great point, Colin. And one of one of the things I'd I'd ask sales leaders right now to think about is where do they get the joy in their job? Because we talked about the challenges of being a sales leader. It's probably not super fun for many today.
Mark Cox:And the reality of it is if you're in the right job as a sales leader, the joy actually comes from developing your people. And so where we would start would be to say, am I actually booking in opportunities to coach my team, specific opportunities to coach and develop my team. So I think a lot of sales leaders think, hey. I coach automatically in a 1 on 1, or I'm coaching when I tell my salesperson how to close that opportunity. Oh.
Mark Cox:They're gonna come in. Do you know why I tell them?
Collin Mitchell:I see what you did there. I see what you did there, Mark.
Mark Cox:And you know you know why I tell them? Because I'm sweating because it's coming to the end of the quarter. So I'm gonna tell them exactly what to do to close the deal because I need the deal as a sales leader. I mean, I I get the challenge, but it's all this short term thinking that doesn't really help us elevate the performance of the team. So I I like to book in coaching and, situations in terms of my calendar.
Mark Cox:And if I've got if it's an inside team I'm coaching, I'm gonna just send somebody a note, say, I'm gonna spend the morning with you a week Thursday. And spending the morning with you just means I'm gonna be sitting beside you. As we make some calls. We do outbound demand generation. We're going to work together on everything you're doing.
Mark Cox:Hopefully, we're going to have a couple of live calls where I can observe and we'll talk about what's going to happen before the call, and then the call will take place. And then after the call, we're going to do a post review. One of the things I'd encourage is just to have each party say, okay, let's go get a coffee. We've had a great sales call for 25 minutes. Let's sit down over a coffee, write down a couple of things you really liked about what took place, a couple of things you might do differently and and share with each other.
Mark Cox:So have the actual sales rep do that first and share and then share what your thoughts are. Okay. Then as long as we've written them down, we've captured them. Now we're thinking about what we're doing rather than just doing it. And then we'll say, okay.
Mark Cox:How are we gonna apply this to the next preplanned sales call that we've got? You know, we do the same thing when we're we're in the field with outside reps. So I might just let somebody know. Okay. I'm gonna be in Chicago, a week from Thursday.
Mark Cox:Keep me busy between 8 and noon. And then, you know, a few days before that that event, I'm gonna say, send me the calendar, and let's plan for these meetings. Same thing. A little bit of time before, a little bit of time after to make sure we capture some learning. But they need to know and I need to know it's a coaching event, which means if we're in front of a client and we're talking about things as the leader, I'm not just going to jump in and take over the sales call.
Mark Cox:Okay I'm gonna let them go let them do what they're gonna do that's how we have to help somebody develop and learn now if it's a new rep, we might say, okay. Let's book 4 meetings, and I'll do 1, then you do 1, then I'll do 1, then you do 1. Let's do the same post review. But it's really having these intentional coaching moments, Colin. And for those who haven't taken a read lately, I'd really encourage, read The Coaching Habit by Michael Bunge Stanier.
Mark Cox:Okay? No tie to it. It's not my book. Love the book. Mhmm.
Mark Cox:Fantastic book. And you're smiling. I'm sure you've read it. You're so well versed in this topic.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. It's it's a good one. But I've got, like, several questions I want. I'm just
Mark Cox:Please fire away.
Collin Mitchell:To here. The first thing I wanna go into is you said something, to the sales leaders to ask yourself, where are you finding joy in your role? But I would almost argue that there's a different question you may wanna ask yourself first, which is, are you finding joy in your role?
Mark Cox:Yeah.
Collin Mitchell:Because there's a lot of sales leaders that frankly shouldn't be sales leaders.
Mark Cox:Yes.
Collin Mitchell:And so because when you when you when you said that question, you followed it up with, it should be in coaching your people.
Mark Cox:Right? Yes.
Collin Mitchell:And if that's not something you find joy in, then do yourself and your team a service and go get a different role. Yes. That's a hard pill to swallow, I think, for a lot of people. But if you don't find joy in that, that is the definition of the most important thing of a sales leader is developing your people, coaching your people. And I was just sitting here listening to how you were describing how a sales leader should be coaching their people today.
Collin Mitchell:And to me, it sounds like such basic stuff. You know? Not to you know? But it's like it's basics. These are basic things that used to be very mandatory as this is how you would coach a rep.
Collin Mitchell:And somewhere, you know, as you were talking about that, I was thinking, how did we get away from this? Yeah. And I can't help but think technology has ruined this a bit. Right? Because the sitting with your people has sort of like, well, hey.
Collin Mitchell:All calls are recorded. They're in Gong. They're in Chorus. They're in Wingman. The problem is if you ask a lot of sales leaders how much time they actually spend listening to those calls, they don't.
Collin Mitchell:Most of them don't. So you have to be intentional like you mentioned, Mark. You gotta schedule it. You gotta say, hey. I'm gonna sit with you.
Collin Mitchell:We're gonna, you know, review these calls, and then we're gonna break them down. And we're gonna I'm gonna ask you some questions, not tell you some things. And then I love how you described, you know, if you're on a sales call with your one of your people, whether that's virtually, whether that's in person, don't jump in. Don't try to do it for them. You gotta see how it plays out.
Collin Mitchell:And I think that's hard for a lot of sales leaders because they wanna, especially if they're, you know, full coach and not player anymore. Right? Because we've got these hybrid sales leaders that are part player, part coach. And for them, it's hard because they're like, hey, am I player or my coach? You know?
Collin Mitchell:What am I supposed to be here? So understanding that is a challenge, but then you've got the sales leaders that are full coach and not player, but they miss being a player.
Mark Cox:Yes. And they got promoted to being a coach because they were the greatest player on the team. Right. And and I will tell you very quickly, my first sales team that I ran, you know, long time ago now, 20 years ago now, after having been, we use the hockey analogy again, kind of one of the better players, maybe the Wayne Gretzky of the sales team. Nobody will know that analogy.
Mark Cox:Now I'm in the sales management job. Within 6 months, everybody on my team was miserable, and I was extraordinarily miserable because it wasn't positioned right. I didn't go into that role because I wanted to develop people. For some reason, it just seemed to be the progression. But I kept telling everybody what to do, and they hated that.
Mark Cox:And they couldn't do what I was telling them to do my way. They wanted to do it their way, and I hated that. And all of us were miserable. And as will happen with large companies, the worst managers get promoted. And I was the worst manager and I got promoted again.
Mark Cox:And now I became in charge of a division where I knew nothing about the business. So when people were coming to me saying, what should I do? I had no alternative except to say, you know, I don't know. What do you think you should do? And so suddenly they got to grow and develop.
Mark Cox:And suddenly, I realized how much I liked seeing them grow and develop. And frankly, it took all the pressure off me because I didn't have to have all the answers because I had none of the answers. And it just be it became fantastic.
Collin Mitchell:That's too funny. Yeah. Like, it, you know, it was not by design, but it worked out well.
Mark Cox:Not by design at all, but but worked out super well. And then that's where I really found this joy in leadership and remembered about all those great coaches that I'd had. Mhmm. You know, the funny thing about being an athlete, calling many of the folks listening, and I played a little bit of hockey in, you know, back in my day at prep school and so forth. The
Collin Mitchell:coaches that. Could've guessed that.
Mark Cox:Yeah. That's why my face looks this way, by the way, unfortunately. But, the coaches on a hockey team can't do it for you. They're not gonna come in and play net for you. So they've got to get the best out of you.
Mark Cox:There is no confusion there. And I think we get a little confused in terms of sales leadership today where we're not really sure. You talked about the player coach. We're not really sure what we're doing. And and folks need a coach.
Mark Cox:They don't need another player in the field. We need to make them the star of the story, not us.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. Yeah. Well, Mark, it's been great having you on. Really appreciate this topic. As we wrap things up, any final thoughts?
Mark Cox:Well, first of all, Colin, thank you so much for having me on the show. What a great conversation. So nice to meet you finally. Final thoughts out there would be, I think we all have to be on this mission to elevate this profession to the profession it really is. And so I'd encourage everybody to think about what you're doing in professional sales today.
Mark Cox:And is this something that is a profession, or are we doing things from yesteryear and treating it like a trade? And sales leaders out there, I'd encourage you to take a look at your team, identify 1 or 2 things you think you might be able to help them with, and then ask them where they think they need help. Make it your mission to elevate your team. You'll feel better about what you do every day. I guarantee it.
Mark Cox:Thank you, Colin.
Collin Mitchell:And where is the best place for for people to get into your world, Mark, if they wanted to connect with you and learn more about what it is that you do.
Mark Cox:Oh, wonderful. So so LinkedIn is always the best place. It's Mark Cox at LinkedIn, and and that's in the funnel is the name of our company, our coaching and training company. And we've got a podcast, Paul Colin, as well called the selling well podcast, the selling well podcast, and we'd be delighted to have you as a guest anytime.
Collin Mitchell:Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you enjoyed it and that you didn't forget to subscribe and share so that we can help more people transform the way they sell.