Latest / I Used To Be Crap At Sales / Building and Scaling Successful Sales Teams | EP17 | Richard Bounds

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Building and Scaling Successful Sales Teams | EP17 | Richard Bounds · I Used To Be Crap At Sales

• 0:00
  We're going to focus on the lessons for sales leaders and aspiring leaders as well, emphasizing on growth resilience and creating a lasting impact. The former regional vice
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  president for UK and I for open text, former sales leader for companies like software, AG, box, it and IBM, did you used to be crap at sales? But to be on the podcast, I have
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  to say, Yes, I think I was and how crap were we talking on a scale of one to 10, I think four. But even as a salesperson, I didn't know anything else other than just rig. More
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  people, speak to more people, work harder. I've done well in IBM, for example, I had a couple of promotions in five or six years. Had a massive multi million target selling, sort
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  of 15, 20 million type deals. Let's talk about fractional leadership. How do you ensure that you're gonna have a long term impact as a fractional sales leader? So you've got to
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  balance having a short term impact and getting results quickly. It's a mix of being very, very hands on, particularly the role at box it was where I did that. How
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  quickly for you, when you've hired someone, can you work out if you've made a mistake or not month. In those cases, they're not adding to the team those people, and they're not
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  driving the team forward. If you feel it after a month that it's wrong, put some tests in place, put some measures in place that you can monitor it more closely. I think there's
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  been a bit of a shift away from training and like a one size fits all. I don't think it's moving the needle, they'll forget 90% of it within a fortnight. What do you think the
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  biggest misconception companies, sales leaders have around coaching, that it's a bit wooly and theoretical. They're doing it already. 90% of sales leaders think that they coach
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  their teams regularly, and only 38% of sellers get regular coaching. What's the biggest mistake you see first time sales leaders making, and how can they avoid it? So I think,
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  hello and welcome to another episode of the ISP craft that sales podcast. I'm your host, Mark Akers, the co founder and Head of Sales here at my sales coach. We call the podcast
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  that, because it's true, and all of our guests say the same. Today, I'm joined by the founder of leaps and a fractional sales leader for many organizations, the former regional
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  vice president for UK and I for open text, former sales leader for companies like software, AG, box, it and IBM and a my sales coach, coach whose mission is to help improve
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  sales performance for both individuals and teams. My guest today is Richard bounds. This episode is going to dive into Richard's extensive experience in building scaling and
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  leading sales teams. We're going to look at his insights into fractional leadership and his philosophy on coaching as key to sustainable sales success. We're going to focus on
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  the lessons for sales leaders and aspiring leaders as well, emphasizing on growth, resilience and creating a lasting impact. Richard, there is your introduction. Great to have
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  you in the city of Newcastle and on the podcast. Welcome. Thank you very much. Thanks for the hospitality and great to be in in Newcastle, and amazing introduction as well. Yeah,
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  thank you. Guests always say that that's a good intro, but it's just like, this is just who you're LinkedIn, that's always slightly beefed up anyway, isn't it? But it's
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  fantastic. You tell me, Richard, I understand you've been to Newcastle a number of times. I have. I came here as a kid to watch Newcastle play football, and then my stepdaughter went
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  to uni in Newcastle, so I must have been here like five or six times. You're right below, beside the street of all the bars, aren't you, so I know that street better than this
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  street, yeah, yeah. Well, it's great to have you here. In terms of the podcast today, we always start with an opening question, right? Richard. Let's just get straight into it.
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  Did you used to be crap at sales? Well, to be on the podcast, I have to say yes. I think I was Yes. And how crap are we talking on a scale of one to 10, one being my god, I
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  was so bad. What would you score yourself? I think four. Okay, it's not, it's not a terrible number. When I realized I was crap, I'd been selling for about four or five years,
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  and I'd actually done quite well, it was only when I moved up to a sales management position, and the market changed, certain other things changed, and I realized it was tough.
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  It wasn't just about working harder. I'd always been sort of brave, had good attitude, would ring anybody, and wasn't an idiot, I don't think, and people seemed to quite like me,
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  but I kind of realized there was a lot more to it than that, when things just became a bit more complicated. And that's the moment, I suppose. Let's start there. It sounds like you
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  had a moment when you realized you were crap. You've been in sales for you, say, four years. At that point, what happened for you to realize I'm crap at sales? I joined an apple
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  dealership. So it was when they were called Apple centers, and we were primarily selling to corporates. I was much younger than anybody else they'd taken on before, so they
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  took a bit of a leap of faith with me. Joined at 21 they asked me at 24 to be the sales manager. I was the youngest in the team of about 11. And then the market just changed
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  completely. Overnight, anybody and everybody could sell Max, and the margin went from high 20s to sort of low teens. The commissions scream. Had to change dramatically. People were
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  quite disgruntled. Deals were.
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  Harder to come by. It's very, very competitive, and I think all I just told people to do is just work harder, make more calls, speak to more people. And there's just bit more to it
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  than that. And that's when I realized that I had more to learn. That feels like that's you saying you were crap at sales management, not sales, I suppose so, yes, but even as
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  a salesperson, I didn't know anything else other than just ring more people, speak to more people, work harder. That's obviously been my, a big ethic of mine anyway, throughout my
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  career, is that, you know, the harder the work, the lucky you get, and things of that sort. I think that is true for a lot of people that have been successful in sales up until
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  the point are those that work the hardest. They say, like people say sales in the numbers game. But equally, if you make $1,000 compare someone that makes 10 numbers will come
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  in, come into your favor being prior to the age of 24 being the youngest person on the team as well. That's really interesting. Why do you think they picked you to be the
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  manager at that age? It was interesting one because I think we were a company. We had maybe 12 sales people, 50 employees, something of that type, two or three of the
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  better sales guys went to corporate computers, a big corporate reseller that had got their rights to sell, sell Max, and I was the top performer. So I was getting the best
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  results as an individual. There was a couple other people who wanted the role. There was a lady who owned the business, and she just came to me and asked if I would like
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  to do it. And I just said, yes, it's interesting. So it feels like it was more than just the fact you're a good sales person. She clearly identified some traits in you that
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  she felt would make for a good manager, because they're obviously very different, and top performers get promoted, but it doesn't make them a good manager. But as I say, seems
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  like she found some good characteristics in you as well that she felt would make you a leader. Yeah, and I suppose to your your point was I good a crap sales person or a crap
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  sales manager? I do think that I was a pretty average sales manager at that point, because I didn't really understand the sales process. Didn't necessarily know how people tick.
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  For example, someone wasn't performing, and this was a quite a while ago. I was told to just put their stuff in a box and meet them in the car park, and that's basically what I did,
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  the change in margins with the commission schemes and so on. So we had to change from, I'd say, almost a commission only scheme, to part basic part Commission, which I negotiated
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  with with her, but it was reducing people's salaries dramatically. I think she suggested I just stand on a chair and communicate it to the sales team in that way. And that's
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  what I did. And I look back now and think that's a terrible way of dealing with that, that situation. Do you think part of that was so I mean, at the age of 24 How are you know any
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  better? I just took her, her and the MDS guidance while they shut the door, to be fair to it, just literally left you to it. Yes, yeah. It feels really unfair. It probably was, when
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  you think about it. They wanted to know the feedback and so on. But I think they wanted me to deal with it. They did pick up some of the pieces. So some people had been working
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  there for 10 years plus in sales, and then they warranted them, if that's the right phrase, you know, a conversation on why it happened, and they gave those people rightfully
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  the time of day, because they given a lot of time and effort to growing the business, and they deserved to have that opportunity to speak to the owners, not just a 24 or 25 year
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  old sales manager. How old was the team that you said you were the youngest? What was the age range that team probably 28 to about 54 so quite diverse. The guy that was 54 really
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  good guy. And there was another guy who was in his 40s. I kind of worked with them as mini deputies, if you like. And I really took their guidance on things from a very early
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  stage. I asked them team manage four or five guys, each one of them set up a new division as well. We were trying to expand in terms of PCs, servers and other other things as
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  well. So I felt that I tried to help them grow and develop. And I really listened to what they had to say as well. So yeah, it feels like you really started with batteries on a
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  fire in your management career. 2425 learning certainly the hard way. I always like to ask for a howl. I want you to kind of maybe separate from that, because we've heard that
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  story. When you look back over your sales career, it could be as an individual contributor, could be as a manager somewhere else, but everyone's got a funny story where they
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  just think, Oh, really, muck that up. Have you got a story that springs to mind? Probably at the time, wasn't that funny, but actually open text as maybe seven or eight years
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  ago, so I couldn't say it now, but the national grid network operating center was almost evacuated because we were doing these little videos in a box, and you open them up and it's
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  an animated video explaining what we did. Our marketing Time Team sort of sent them everywhere. Blitzed, that's probably the wrong term. Actually sent them everywhere to lots of
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  different companies. Our National Grid thought it was a suspicious device. After realizing it wasn't, they contacted us at quite a senior level, made quite a big fuss about it,
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  and I guess funny a bit was the lady of marketing was on a short term contract, so she went pretty soon after that, but her leaving gift was a video in a box that one of the team
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  did for her in the kind of the style of the office. And they asked if I do a bit of a David Brent thing. I didn't do it very well, but it was a really funny little video.
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  And we put that in a box and gave it to her, and it opened up and just played. It's quite cool. She take it well. She really took it quite well. Yeah, she liked it, I think,
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  yeah, it was five minute long. And the guy that did it does drone videos. And it was, it was actually quite funny. Can you do a good day of brain depression? No, I get the feeling
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  where to ask in terms of your career beginnings. You've been in sales over 35 years. How did you first get into sales? Was it by choice or chance? Well, I guess when I realized
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  about 10 I wasn't good enough to be a professional footballer, I went to a careers advisor at 13. And I actually, I think this is quite unusual for other people.
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  I've heard on this and other podcasts. I said I wanted to sell second hand cars, and she said that I should set my goals a little bit higher, and that perhaps I should be a PE
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  teacher. So not exclusively because of that, but I was planning to become a PE teacher. I had a place at Nottingham poly and so on, and I was going to go and do that. And then
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  during Sixth Form, I got a Saturday job selling TVs and videos in Debenhams. I really enjoyed it. You'd queue at the till at the end of the day, see who'd sold the most. And you
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  know, I was a spotty 16 year old coming in just for the Saturday, and I was selling as much as their top performer, Steve Gregory. I remember him really well to this this day.
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  I just really enjoyed that environment. The manager, he got me on a commission scheme, which is unusual for a Saturday boy. There's only a pound for every extended guarantee that
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  I sold, but it added up, considering I was probably on a very, very small hourly rate and and I realized then that I just wanted to be in in sales. So out of interest, why do
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  you feel like Stephen Gregory has remained in your mind? Was there a moment where he was really helpful to you? He was a really good guy. I'd actually met him because he used to
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  work at Dixon's, and I used to go into Dixon's on my lunch break, which is going to make me sound quite sad, just to look at what they had for sale, maybe listen a bit to how
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  they sold stuff. And I ended up speaking to him. He was known to be a top dog at Dixon's, and the bosses at Debenhams were keen to get him to come across. He came
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  across, and I still sold more than him nearly every Saturday. And as I say, as a spotty kid, I mean, someone was looking at a TV or video, I'd say, I'd go and see if we got
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  it in stock, and I'd come round of a big grin in the box and just take them to the till. And that was my closing technique. What I picked up already just in two stories you
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  shared with me is how you've embraced someone that's kind of had what you want, achieved what you want. So we've got the two older sales people in your previous job. You sort of
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  harness those other managers. Might have looked at those older people and thought, they're gonna be trouble, they're gonna be difficult to manage, but you actually brought them
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  in. I can learn from you. Teach me. Stephen Gregory works next door. You're going next door. What is he doing? What is he saying? Can we actually bring him into the organization
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  as well? Which is great, is that something you've always done, like trying to learn from older people, it is a bit to be fair, even at the Apple dealership, there was a guy who
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  was the most successful sales guy. And my very first day, they sat me in the corner of a copy of Mac user. I noticed this guy, Mark was the top sales guy. I asked if I could go
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  out with him. I had a really good day. I remember we went to see elf in Knightsbridge and General Electric in Hammersmith. He took me to Harrods for as much coffee as you
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  could drink for like five pounds, because we were a bit of a bit of a weight. And then he took me to his local for a few beers. And, I mean, if it is, he just told me and taught me
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  quite a lot about the importance of relationships, because he'd sold contracts for this customer, and just made sure they got what they wanted. And he really looked after that,
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  that customer, and you mentioned your dad was in sales as well. Yes, I got massive respect for my dad. He sold typewriters door to door and calculators door to door. That
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  was how he started, and then he ended up running quite a successful sales training company, and was, you know, as a good role model, as a father, but as a kind of sales person
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  and someone with great credibility. And, you know, people have only got nice things to say about him as well. So he had his own sales training business. Did you ever think
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  about working with him in partnership? No, why not. My dad's style of sales training is probably different to what I would feel more comfortable with anyway, and obviously he
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  finished that quite a few years ago, but he did sort of classic classroom training, two week, intense courses, three, five days, intense courses. And he's probably more of
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  a performer, I'd say, than I am, and he's a good speaker, right? Okay, well, I'm hopefully not that bad, but he is a good, good speaker, and how, where is he of what you're
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  doing now, like to talk about it a lot. To give you an advice. It's funny when if I was playing tennis over my dad ever when I was young, if he gave me any advice, as soon as
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  he would walk in the net, I'd go, here we go. And I wouldn't really listen to him. But when I first started in sales, he gave me a couple of real nuggets of advice that I would that
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  helped me massively, and I'd probably less give pass for advice now, but I do still go to him as a sounding board, certainly, and he knows I'm doing this and I.
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  Yeah, I expect you to listen, so I probably need to be even a bit nicer than what I've just said. What's his name? John. John, if you're listening, drop us a message. You say you
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  give you a couple of golden nugget pieces of advice I can't ask. What were they? People tell you you can't do things that's nonsense. Just crack ahead. There'll be negative
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  noise, and just focus on the positives. One I mentioned to him the other day was, if someone leaves, be around their desk, and I it always makes me smile as a sales leader, if
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  someone's left, I'll get a couple of sales people in the team to open text. I couldn't. I'm not going to name the names, but I know which ones will contact me within fewer
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  few minutes or an hour of somebody leaving saying, what's happening with this account, what's happening with that account, or I think I might be able to help you here. And it
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  just makes me smile, because that was the same advice my dad gave me years ago in terms of, then your career. So you've built and led some impressive sales teams, including, at one
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  point, you had over 30 AES reporting to you. What's the biggest lessons you've learned about scaling sales teams? Effectively, a big lesson is not rushing it, especially in
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  larger companies. You have maybe a limited time window when head count is available, it might disappear. But I think it's really critical just to get that the higher, right? The
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  person's got to add to what you've got already in the team and improve it, not and make it worse. And when hiring, particularly in a scale up mode, what's more critical hiring
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  for skill or cultural fit? I'd say cultural fit because, and I would have said that's changed over my career. I think in the past, I maybe would have looked more for for skill, for
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  track record, for experience or something similar. Whereas now I think I'd be much keener. Some of these things would be things I'd have hired for always. But enthusiasm drive
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  inquisitive. I've always looked for people that I'd buy off myself, so people that are authentic and credible as well. So I think some of the experience can be taught and
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  developed if the person's got the right attitude. How do you assess all of that in an interview? Because the one thing even crappy sales people are good at doing is selling
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  themselves in an interview. What's your method for trying to weed people out in an interview process? I can't say that. I've got this perfectly, but I think we I've got a tradition
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  of doing it quite well, and that's getting people to give real life examples of where they've sold, to go through the process in really fine detail and go through that as if it
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  were, you know, a one hour deal review, and really focus on that in depth, you can see how they think About the selling process, they actually understand why that customer brought
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  what they've said that's made a difference and and, you know, maybe how it started, whether they've built a business case, whether they understood the value of the deal, I think
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  that's really pretty imperative. And also getting other people's perspectives as well. What percent of candidates slip up at that stage in the interview? 40 ish, so I'd say
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  just less than half, a good chunk of people, though, yeah, at that point drop out. So as a very experienced sales leader and a fractional sales leader for lots of companies,
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  you'd have seen lots of sales leaders try and scale sales teams. What's one of the what's one of the biggest mistakes you see sales leaders make when trying to scout sales teams.
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  Well, I have seen people it feels like rushing the process a little bit, particularly with what I was saying around head count, perhaps disappearing, maybe concerns about candidates
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  disappearing. I think the hiring market is a little bit easier now there's more choice and more people available, so I think there is time to get it right. You know, I can think
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  of a couple of instances recently, I've also taken referrals, which has always, for me, been a really sound place to hire against, but a couple of those maybe didn't
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  feel quite right. I have hired a couple that didn't feel right. I've tested my theory about maybe, were they quite authentic enough? Would I buy from them? Because I wasn't
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  convinced that I actually would, and other people kind of gave some reassurances. I'm not blaming other people, because I've still got to make the decision, how quickly for
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  you, when you've hired someone, can you work out if you've made a mistake or not? Month a month, I reckon, yeah. And how long do you let it play out for? Probably too long, but
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  three, three to six, which is too long, I think, actually, isn't it, when you know after a month. And I think the mistake I perhaps made, I could see it now, is in those
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  cases, they're not adding to the team, those people, and they're not driving the team forward. And I think, you know, teams can be obviously, the old adage, isn't there as weak
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  as strong as its weakest link? And if you've got weak links in the team, I feel they can bring the team down. And I know that we've in that particular example, we've replaced with
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  new high energy individuals, and it's brought a new dynamism to those teams, and results have improved as well. It's a really interesting mindset. I've always believed that the
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  traits or behaviors or mindset of your weakest salesperson, yeah.
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  Is basically the benchmark for everybody. Here's the thing that I'm struggling with that I think a lot of people will be, is, you might realize a month in, but how much of that
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  is? Got to give them a bit more time. Ramp time, you know, is anywhere between 612, maybe 18 months. Or some organizations, and, you know, in some companies, be even
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  longer. But how do you cope with that, because people can't let people go after a month. Can they three to six even that's awkward, because they're your person. You've hired
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  them. Like, what would your advice be to someone that perhaps, this is podcast now they've got someone relatively new in C and in their gut, they just think they're wrong.
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  Like, what advice would you give to them? It's going to sound a bit harsh this, but I think I'd act on it earlier, which I know doesn't necessarily always give the person the
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  opportunity. I think if you feel it after a month, that it's wrong, put some tests in place, put some measures in place that you can monitor it more closely and maybe not be
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  emotive about it and be completely logical. Yes, we all make mistakes. I'd review it after that to you know, one or two extra months, you have to give people a chance to prove
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  yourself. Right? Should you tell that person, after a month or two months that you think you might have made a mistake? You see how they react? Yeah, I'm not saying I have always
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  done that, but I actually moving forward and over the last couple of years, I would do, yeah, how those conversations normally play out, because surely, then, straight away
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  they're going to start looking for other jobs or start acting differently if they are determined to prove you wrong, and maybe they have got the right attitude, and
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  they're they do have that capability and desire then that they'll prove you wrong. And that's a good thing, isn't it? So I think the key then is you're what you're saying is, if
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  you feel they've hired the wrong person, don't drag it on. Have a conversation with them. Put some stuff in place, like, what? What kind of things can they put into place to
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  try and measure and track this? Well, I wouldn't necessarily put them on a pip, but I think using kind of the structure of some sort of plan that's got some measurable objectives,
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  whether it be number of meetings, dialogs with customers, do some even some simple internal tasks, do a presentation back to me or others of what the business proposition is and why
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  people should buy and make a positive impression on others in the business. Because normally, if I'm thinking that other people will be commenting that or seeing the same
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  themselves. Really valuable advice there. Richard, I think a lot of people can be listening to that and have that feeling about someone in their team and maybe not acting acting upon
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  it. You've obviously spent a lot of time in startups, scale ups, major organizations as well, IBM, software, AG, etc. How have you seen leadership in sales differ between those
• 22:40
  environments, I think in the bigger the company, probably the more time managing up than the smaller companies, and the smaller companies I feel you can make as a sales leader,
• 22:53
  a bigger impact. You can make more change, and you can get a bit more just done in the business. So what do you prefer then? Well, I've done well in corporate world, but I think I
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  prefer the smaller, more dynamic organizations again, where just where you can have a big impact. You can see the progress you're working with founders, you're making changes
• 23:14
  in the business and really driving things forward, looking to unlock your team's full potential. At my sales coach, we pair individuals and teams with expert coaches for
• 23:24
  personalized one to one and group coaching sessions. Our platform makes booking seamless. It tracks progress and delivers real results. Studies show expert coaching
• 23:33
  increases win rates by 30% and revenue by 7% whether you're an individual or a team leader. We provide coaching that sticks and delivers. Visit my sales coach.com, using the
• 23:43
  link in the bio, and start achieving your goals today. When you say you've done quite well, what are you what are you referring to? When you say, I've done quite well in
• 23:50
  corporate? What's your metric there? Well, I guess that I've progressed my career. Well, I've
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  I've done well in IBM, for example, I had a couple of promotions in five or six years. Selling, you know, had a massive multi million target selling, sort of 15, 20 million
• 24:08
  type deals. So I focused on IBM because I was less inclined to be a manager there to focusing more on bigger deals and bigger customer engagements. And then box it software, ag
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  and open text in each of those companies. I've been been promoted in my time there, so I've obviously got to be doing some things right, and I've done well against targets. So I
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  suppose they're the the obvious measure in sales, aren't they? Absolutely? Yeah, some would say it's the only one, the only one that counts on it, yeah, um, got to ask, what's
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  the biggest deal you've closed? Personally, the biggest one personally, whereas in a IBM was 16 million right
• 24:49
  annual up front? No, that was, to be fair,
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  probably would have been about four year deal. Over four years, yeah, what percent commission we won?
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  Do you know? I honestly don't know. I can't remember, but I Yeah, that would have been a big year. Yeah, how would you have celebrated with a big payday like that? Do you know,
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  probably quite boringly, maybe a curry and a few beers.
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  That's quite disappointing.
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  I think maybe IBM there was a culture of sometimes doing a few beers with with friends and stuff after work, but it wasn't ever riotous or anything. You've also had a lot of VC
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  experience out on the board of VC backed companies as well. How's that really that exposure to being part of a board for VC backed companies sort of changed your perception on what
• 25:45
  companies should be doing when it comes to growing and scaling their teams, particularly the role at box it was where I did that and we had a VC and lady that was on the
• 25:54
  board there was excellent. She really helped with clarity of vision for the business. I think the the chairman and chief exec were really creative. Had lots of ideas, but we were
• 26:06
  probably chasing too many things. And the VC was very supportive of me trying to steer the company in a direction of having several go to market plays with business cases
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  against them, and aligning the business behind that. And she backed that fully, as to be fair, did the other board members. And they gave me remit to write a blueprint for the
• 26:26
  business, and we moved the for the business forward. On that perspective the owners gave me, well, I'm not a marketing person or have particular marketing expertise, but they gave
• 26:35
  me the rights to rebrand. We did the website completely. I was sat at home in the evenings, rewriting the website. But really good opportunity to get involved in lots of different
• 26:47
  things, not just the kind of the deals and sales part. Let's talk about fractional leadership. Fractional leadership becoming really popular lots of networking events. When I
• 26:56
  meet people, they tell me they're fractional, fractional CRO, fractional CFO, etc. What's the value? Value you've seen in the fractional model, especially for startups and
• 27:07
  scale ups. I think of it if you're buying anything, and I think this is customers who are buying complex, technical solutions. Of as an individual, you want least risk, best
• 27:16
  value for money, and you want some degree of flexibility, and you want the best, really good service. And I genuinely think, well through be anyway, but that's what fractional
• 27:27
  leadership can give you. And other fractional leaders I'm seeing, they can give scale ups and startups that expertise. They can bring that experience. And a lot of those
• 27:36
  organizations aren't quite ready for full time CRO VP of sales, you know, they just need help with direction, with strategy, go to market, messaging, unblocking the pipeline,
• 27:48
  and things of that ilk that maybe relatively new AES can't deliver for them. And they need those AES to be coached and developed and pointed in the right direction. And that's
• 27:58
  where I think a fractional can can help when you're parachuted in in a fractional sales leadership role, what is the most common problem that you're seeing straight away on
• 28:07
  day one? The priorities like a little bit of a lack of priorities focus. What's the uniques? And I would probably Hone think people down on, what's the one thing you know,
• 28:20
  there's also one thing that's going to make the biggest impact. And make sure we get that right. And that's, I think, a key from a a buying point of view. Are you a good
• 28:30
  person for for sales people to prospect? And what I mean by that is, if I was an SDR or an A and I was prospecting, would I want to be selling to someone in a fractional role,
• 28:42
  and I see it as one of two things. One is they're not really gonna make any decisions. They're only there part time. They're really focusing on steadying the shit they don't
• 28:52
  wanna buy. The other side of the coin is no they're there to get shit done. They will buy and they will implement, particularly if your solution can propel that business.
• 29:00
  Should SDRs and AES be targeting fractional leaders, or should they not? I think if they're, if they're in situ within companies, then to your point exactly, you're there
• 29:09
  to get stuff done, make an impact and make a difference. And certainly I one of the things I wanted to do at the beginning was have some relationships with whether it's
• 29:17
  technology or service companies that I know, that I can trust, and I can bring in and make improvements within companies that I'm working with. So I think, yes, there's
• 29:25
  merit in that. Definitely. STRS days, they reach out and prospect you not all to me personally, because I don't have that much time each day. But yes, but to fractional leaders,
• 29:34
  yeah, I think so. But you don't get hit up too much, though. I do a bit, actually, not half the time. They still think I work for open text, so they're trying to sell, maybe
• 29:42
  something to do, to do with that, but
• 29:45
  I do get quite a few See, I mean, but that's, that's annoying, right? Because, really, that's just sloppy. You can see on LinkedIn, you've moved from that role, yeah. But
• 29:54
  anyone that is doing a little bit of research on you can see that you're in a fractional role for certain.
• 30:00
  Companies, and what you're saying is you don't get loads of outreach compared to what you might have done as a sales dealer at open reach, open tech. Sorry, yeah, I might have
• 30:09
  said is probably half what I get and half of what I get still think I work for open text and that those I'm actually quite responsive to people, because we've all been there.
• 30:18
  And I think if you're a company that's got sales people, and you're, you're, you're, you're making calls to prospective customers. I think you should give people that 30 seconds
• 30:29
  that they asked for. And if it's interesting, take it further from there. That's to be fair. How my relationship with my sales coach started? Can you remember who gave you
• 30:37
  the cold call? He told me, Noah, Yeah, I
• 30:40
  bet he did, and it was a good cold call, to be fair as well. He's well coached. It's interesting. Basically, what I'm taking from that is that the fractional role, if people
• 30:49
  aren't prospecting into that, they should be, but they should take more care to make sure they prospect them at the right place, not getting them at their previous company.
• 30:57
  What's the hardest part do you feel for stepping into a fractional leadership role, I think it's probably like joining a new company or a new role. There is some
• 31:05
  established dynamics, and you've got to quickly get your way around those dynamics, particularly if it's a smaller business and you're working directly with the founders,
• 31:13
  they've got established ways of working. And some of those you've got to support and get behind. And some of those, you'll want to make an impact and change.
• 31:25
  And with your time being so limited with organizations, what's the average amount of time you spend a company every every month as a fractional leader? So I've got like two at
• 31:34
  the moment. One would be like one to one and a half days a month, and the other is pretty much two at the moment, and we're doing that till the end of January. I'm not sure it's
• 31:44
  the best way for me and my business, but the way I like to do it is, I'll do it short term, check the fit is right for both of us, and then we can look at something longer term.
• 31:55
  And with such a limited amount of time, how do you ensure that you're going to have a long term impact as a fractional sales leader was a tricky one, because you've got to balance
• 32:03
  having a short term impact and getting results quickly. So it's a mix of being very, very hands on with even supporting. I'll probably do more selling than I've done for
• 32:17
  the last 10 or 15 years. So getting hands on with deals, supporting deals, whether it's the founders or AES that are conducting them, but also putting in place better processes
• 32:30
  practices for the future. And if, for example, what a common thing might be, the value based messaging isn't quite right, that that becomes that questioning around that becomes
• 32:40
  intrinsic once you've left. So it's improving those behaviors, similar to some of the coaching principles. What is the most rewarding success story you've experienced in a
• 32:49
  fractional leadership role? I think the work I'm doing with curvo, and I can say it because I've you know they know I'm doing this as well. It is just being involved with them in
• 33:00
  hands on deals, tweaking slightly the messaging that they're giving and the approach to proof of concepts and the sales process, seeing them adopt some of those and actually having
• 33:11
  wins and successes. And we'll do more than maybe a quiet curry and a few beers if we get something when we get the next one, it sounds like you're doing a lot of coaching for
• 33:19
  them as well. Yeah. Reasonable. Let's talk about the role of coaching in sales. And as I picked up it earlier on, although you're saying, Well, I've not done that
• 33:29
  intentionally, it feels like you've always looked for people that have walked in your shoes, had the success that you want, and you've sort of embraced that. And what about
• 33:38
  yourself? Have you have Have you ever had an actual coach, and coaching relationship with someone coaching you, yes, so actually, can I go back like a tiny bit? So when I was at
• 33:47
  the Apple dealership, we get there in the company ended up getting acquired. I knew at that point I wanted to leave and go and work in an environment where I could be could learn
• 33:59
  value based selling, learn more complex deals. I went to a couple of companies for interviews. I was offered a role at Compuware that, at the time they had a real coaching
• 34:09
  culture. I mean properly, old school coaching culture. And, you know, my boss sent me home for my shoes not being polished once, you know, and I don't know what you think I'm
• 34:20
  wearing the trainers or whatever today, so he would not be happy, but it was a very different environment. But we do have a forecast deal reviews would last an hour on one
• 34:31
  single deal. All completely new to me, but I kind of understood the sales process and how that followed. He was very, very focused on coaching. Not much empathy, but he was
• 34:42
  very, very focused on coaching. He was excellent. I've always looked for managers that will coach as well. Can you give us a few examples where you have been a sales leader
• 34:51
  for a number of years, but you've had a situation where, actually, I want a sounding board, I want to go to someone else, like, can you give us an example of where you've had
• 34:59
  to do.
• 35:00
  That and how the coach has helped you. This wasn't the formal coach, but when I was offered the European role at open text, I did go to somebody had been my previous manager
• 35:10
  and who'd been a really good coach for me, and I wanted to use them as a sounding board as to, is this the right thing for me to do? And similarly, with my own coach that I've
• 35:22
  been using when I was looking to set up leaps and work with you guys,
• 35:28
  he was very good, just for giving me that bit of extra confidence that it would be a success. When you talk about hiring managers, you were saying you always look for
• 35:37
  managers that are coaches. Tell me, how are you looking for that? What is your way in which you identify if a manager would be a good coach interested beyond the short term? I
• 35:45
  think invented some of the questions they might ask during the interview. The fact that they talk about coaching. Talking about coaching is probably something that's come in
• 35:54
  more in the last 1010, years, and like everybody I'm speaking to, is talking about coaching at the moment, not really because I'm doing coaching, but even say, open text
• 36:03
  and other big companies, they are in trying to induce coaching culture beyond deal reviews. Why do you think that's changed over the last 10 years? I think there's been
• 36:12
  a bit of a shift away from training and like a one size fits all you know, if you look at most sales teams, they've got a wide range of skills and experience, and I think a singular
• 36:24
  training course on one topic isn't going to work for everyone in the room, and I think that coaching gives more focus on the individual and exactly their needs. Why do so
• 36:35
  many businesses still pick for that singular everyone in one room option? Then I think they think it's good for morale. I don't mean I think sometimes it can be a good team building
• 36:46
  exercise, but I don't think it's moving the needle stuff. I think people will, well, there's all the data, isn't there? People will go, they'll listen to it. They'll forget, I
• 36:56
  can't remember the exact percentage, but they'll forget 90% of it within a fortnight, and there'll just be those one or two snippets that they they take with them. I think
• 37:05
  coaching, especially if you lead the person to the answer, is lot longer lasting, and it's proven to be let's talk about like, maybe coaching and where managers you've seen
• 37:16
  get it right, get it wrong. When you're seeing Managers Coach when you're experiencing what coaching looks like in the companies that you're working for, what do you think the
• 37:25
  biggest misconception companies sales leaders have around coaching that it's a bit wooly and theoretical, and that they're doing it already, and I love there was a piece of
• 37:40
  data from the research that you guys did. And I guess being sales leader you we all like numbers, don't we, but I remember it was 90% of sales leaders think that they coach
• 37:50
  their teams regularly, and only 38% of sellers get regular coaching. And there's obviously a massive Mitch match there somewhere. Isn't there? And I think that's really the hub of
• 38:01
  the question. I mean, yeah, you remember that data really well, like, just for the record? Yeah, I think, I think right. I think you're right. 38% of reps claim they rarely
• 38:10
  get coaching. Yeah, yet, 90% of sales leaders claim they coach at least once a month. Let's expand on your answer. Why do you think there is such a disconnect there? Well,
• 38:19
  there's a couple of reasons. One would be
• 38:22
  sales leaders would often, and perhaps I've done this as well in the past, think that a deal review is coaching. And I think a deal review could be coaching if it's a if it's a
• 38:34
  trend or something that's going to impact other deals, and you're actually even calling out what you're you're spotting. I think that's probably the number one reason. And
• 38:43
  the second is people are just looking at in quarter situations, or maybe total pipeline as a whole. Doing coaching as we do it myself coach, and I'm involved in now.
• 38:55
  I get to I get more time so I do it properly. I can analyze meetings. I can sit in on recordings. I can give very constructive feedback, and you have dedicated sessions with
• 39:09
  no distractions and nothing else. It's just there for coaching where even sort of a one to one, I think, you know, a lot of people would consider that to be part of their
• 39:19
  coaching, but it's only coaching. If you're coaching during that one to one, obviously you're you'll appreciate the sentiment of sales leaders being busy, right? And you think
• 39:27
  of all the things that sales leaders have to do, and that can be on any given day, but recruiting, onboarding, training, coaching, one to ones, deal, reviews, forecasting,
• 39:39
  internal meetings. What do you believe is the main thing sales leader can do to help their people achieve their goals? To be involved, to get involved in deals, to be very
• 39:50
  hands on, supportive, to demonstrate you're in it together. I think is a really powerful attribute. I.
• 40:00
  Think if things within the business need to change, that actually you're steering the business to make changes. Your sales has got to have a voice with product, with marketing,
• 40:11
  so that you're you're demonstrating leadership, not just managing the forecast and managing upwards. You're having an impact on making change whilst you're doing that, you know,
• 40:21
  coaching people for the long term, not just for what do you need to say to get this deal done? When you talk about all the things they can do, it feels like a big part of what
• 40:31
  you're saying. There was like, you know, get, get involved. Be be on the sales calls. Be listening to what's going on. And you obviously can listen to cool recordings or Listen
• 40:39
  Live, etc. How do you avoid the challenge that comes with being on live calls where you just take over, because that's not going to help the rep long term, that can be a tricky
• 40:52
  one. I mean, I would always set the roles quite clearly at the beginning, and I think the role of a leader is to be secondary on those calls. I've had some leaders that that
• 41:04
  they're saying, Well, I'm the I'm the leader. I'm going to lead the core. I don't, personally, I'm not on that camp. I think you're the kind of the co pilot. You're there to
• 41:14
  demonstrate leadership support. Maybe answer some specific questions that might be a little bit more strategic, but I think that, you know, real key for me would be just having
• 41:24
  clarity of roles at the beginning. You know, you'll do the intros, you'll do the agenda setting, clarify the objectives. I'll probably pick up this, this and this
• 41:34
  question, but let them take the lead. And I wouldn't really expect, you know, if you're, if it's an A sales director. I'd expect the AE to be doing 75 80% and the sales director
• 41:44
  20 25%
• 41:45
  I'm sure it might be somebody listening who say I didn't do that, but I think I've done that throughout my career. Here's a situation that I see play out, and this happens to
• 41:54
  me as well. But you say all that you do the intros, you ask these questions, but when the prospect realizes who who's power, who's at power, power goes to power. And I can see in
• 42:10
  calls I listen to where that dynamics there, the sales leader, there's the the ICS there, or calls that I've been on where I'm the Manager, you can see that the prospect just
• 42:19
  wants to talk to you because you're the senior leader on the call, and I've got a few ways in which I can push it back to the to the to the IC, but how do you do deal with that?
• 42:30
  Yeah, definitely seen that as well. And I would maybe be taking one or two questions on and then take, you know, so that actually I am working with that customer, delivering a
• 42:40
  little bit what they want, so that I'm actually answering and being engaged fully, but I would tend to deflect it back to the individual contributor. So I'm not saying to this
• 42:48
  every time, but my normal routine, I think, for that situation, would be, want to answer the one or two questions, make some points, but also then deflect it back
• 42:56
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• 43:05
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• 43:16
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• 43:26
  Empower your team to perform to their best visit mysalescoach.com to get started. The link is in the description. A lot of people that listen to the podcast
• 43:35
  Richard are sales leaders, but we also got a lot of aspiring sales leaders, unless someone's got 30 years experience in this realm of sales and sales leadership. What's the biggest
• 43:44
  mistake you see first time sales leaders making, and how can they avoid it? Yeah, thank you for pointing that out again. So I think for first time sales leaders, I think one of the
• 43:53
  biggest challenges is trying to demonstrate, you know, all the answers straight away. And I think you've got to listen to your team. You've got to give them chance to shine and
• 44:04
  collaborate and work on things together. And I think that's probably the number one, and the number two might be following the noise. So it might be, you might have a very
• 44:15
  noisy AE who wants lots of help, and it's easy to then just respond to everything he or she is asking, whereas that might not be the best use of your time, I think you've got
• 44:26
  to treat it like a territory, maybe build a bit of a plan and apportion your time in a more structured way when we talk about, like your length of time as a sales leader.
• 44:35
  Thanks. I want
• 44:36
  how it's changed, and let me, I suppose, give you a more focused question, but you've experienced at 24 meeting someone the car park with a box of stuff saying, you know,
• 44:47
  thanks, but it's over to being a fractional sales leader now working with sales leaders. What? What skills have you seen come into the game that modern sales leaders need now they
• 44:59
  didn't.
• 45:00
  Used to need and and how can they learn those skills? I mean, it's way it's way more inclusive. Now I actually do feel sales is considered, is not there yet, but more as a
• 45:10
  profession is very much more long term customer thinking. And, you know, really exceeding and delivering on expectations is is very much more critical now than it
• 45:23
  perhaps was at the beginning of my career. I think data and AI is having an impact, as the you say, about call recordings using, you know, AI intelligence and things could
• 45:36
  is very, very powerful. And data reporting is, is, is key as well. And I think it may be, if you I think of sales sometimes a bit of kind of somewhere between an art and a
• 45:46
  science. And there's obviously debate, is it an art? Is it a science? I think it's moving slightly more to the science end of that spectrum over the time that I've been in my
• 45:56
  career. When you say it's moving more towards a science, what are do you think is being lost? I don't think it's necessarily being lost, because I think with even some of
• 46:05
  the like the technology I've been looking at more recently, shows things like key moments in a call so and it's sharing that with other people. And how do those key moments
• 46:15
  determined, whereas you didn't used to have that, it might just be want you to go on a meeting with a good sales guy, a new old girl, then you can just see and hear how they they
• 46:24
  operated. So I think some of that science is is used to enable others with, you know, to get that art right. And I think that sometimes there's too much emphasis on, are we
• 46:36
  got a playbook for that? We got a playbook for this. You know, people need to understand how you know, how to determine value, how to dig into problems and pains and and
• 46:45
  that piece, I don't think, is getting lost, but the amount of people that I'm coaching that I'm needing to go into the importance of that, and they're not necessarily as aware of
• 46:56
  it as I would have expected. That's probably a bit of a surprise. I think one of the things that I'm seeing, and you're right about conversation, intelligence, right space,
• 47:03
  I know really would, yeah,
• 47:07
  I feel like the art is still there, but the art is taking the science and making it look like an art. And what I mean by that is you now have, like, a repeatable talk track that
• 47:21
  you know is scientifically proven. Yeah, you know the best questions to ask. You know when to ask them, how to ask them, because you've got hundreds, if not 1000s of core
• 47:30
  recordings that show you from your team ask this question. This works. Have this many stakeholders at this power deals should last this long, this value, and I think it's you have
• 47:40
  all this science, but where you got to be is kind of like how you describe your dad. You've got to be that performer that can make that feel like this is a natural conversation
• 47:48
  where two people are engaging. They're looking to buy. All you're doing is there to help them. And actually, everything you do is extremely calculated from a science point of view,
• 47:58
  but the art is making it feel really natural. And I think it's, it's that flipping it where it's, is it an art or science? It's both, but the art is wrapping the science up
• 48:07
  into it, into a performance. I like that answer. Can I not have that answer in terms of your legacy? I'm not trying to make it sound like you're about to go anywhere, but
• 48:18
  obviously you you've now set up leaps, and you're working as a coach at my sales coach. And you know your your mission is to help salespeople. The reason I asked you when I, when I,
• 48:27
  when I called out, when you said, I've done quite well in previous roles is, how do you measure that today, versus then, when? How do you measure success now? Is the question
• 48:39
  really versus when you were IBM doing, you know, 4 million pound a year, four year deals. Do you measure it the same way? Or is it different? It is definitely different. So I
• 48:47
  think when I first started and when I was selling,
• 48:52
  I'm very competitive, but probably much more so than it. I've been told loads of times I'm much more competitive than it perhaps comes across. I think I sort of feel people feel
• 49:00
  I'm quite calm, quite quietly spoken, but I'm massively competitive with myself. I've constantly striving to kind of prove myself in everything that I would do. So I think in
• 49:10
  the beginning it would just be around winning competition, and they were my key drivers. I think I loving being able to help people. I mean, obviously I'm not a charity or
• 49:23
  anything, so I'm still doing it for commercial drivers, but I love having the opportunity to impact businesses, help individuals and see them improve. It's really powerful. It
• 49:34
  does feel like a totally different measure of success. Yeah, I get you're doing that commercial game, but so is everybody Right? Exactly? Yeah, I'd say lots of people listen to this
• 49:42
  Iris sounds. Are a sales leader or aspiring sales leaders. Let's say you're going to start coaching someone that wants to become a great sales leader. What would you say are the
• 49:51
  non negotiables that they need to have as principles to become a great sales leader? Integrity, I think, is massively important. You've got to be.
• 50:00
  Fair. You gotta be equitable with everybody. I think open and honest as well is critical, just in terms of everyday dealings, but also your feedback. If you're you know, I've
• 50:12
  perhaps been guilty of being too polite in the past, but I'm too English. But I think if I've definitely feel like I've really come on leaps and bounds in terms of being very open
• 50:24
  and direct with with feedback and passion. You gotta love what you're doing and the environment you're in. Richard, we're official one final question, but let's imagine you're
• 50:35
  about to start coaching someone that's been in sales for four years, right? Okay, yeah, they say,
• 50:43
  I think I'm crap. It's ours. I don't know what to do. What would your advice be? Well, it takes me back a long time that you've reminded me of that several times, but if that,
• 50:50
  if that was me in that situation, and what I'd do differently is I'd want to understand the root cause why I think that's the case, I would speak directly and honestly
• 51:00
  with my own manager, but I think more importantly, I'd call you me and get some help and do something about it. I'm here whenever they want to give me a call. Likewise,
• 51:10
  Richard, thanks for coming on, coming up to Newcastle. It's great to Great to have you in the studio. Great to have you in the office and spend some time with you. Thank you. It's
• 51:17
  been fantastic. Thank you for hospitality and the conversation. Welcome.