Brad Leggett - High Performance Sales Teams - How to Build, Lead and Retain Yours (D0918)

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Welcome to the Exit Coach radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on. Exit Coachradio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach, Bill Black. Welcome and thanks for listening. This segment of the show is brought to you by JK Murphy Associates and features Brad Leggett, who's joining us from the Leggit sales, the Group, excuse me, and Brad has been a guest on our show before. Brad, welcome back. Thanks. Glad to have you here today. Pleasure to have you back. If you haven't listened to Brad's prior interview, go to Exaoachradio.com and type in Legget, L E G G E T T in the index and you'll find his earlier profile. Today we're going to talk a little bit about uh high performance sales teams, how to build, lead and retain yours. So Brad, if you will just give us a quick background on your business and what you do, and then we'll get into the topic. OK, thanks, Bill. We work with entrepreneurs, CEOs, vice presidents of sales to help them build, lead, and retain high performance sales teams. And when I talk about a high performance sales team, I'm speaking about one that meets or beats its sales target every year. And this is a real issue in corporate America. In study after study, I've seen less than half of all sales teams meet their sales target year in and year out. So there's a lot of room for improvement in the sales teams out there. And also we often work with companies that have not had a sales team before and are looking at how to put one together, who to hire, how to lead them. And the main reason, if you could diagnose it, that they don't meet those sales teams is it management's fault for not setting proper goals or motivating the key employee or the sales. Employees or what would you pin it on? Well, first of all, when we come in and work with a company, we take a strategic approach and look at where they fit in the market, where they're positioned, what their products are, who their competition is, and then work with them to really drill down from there. We have an 11 point checklist we do that gives us a real clear assessment of where it is. Time after time, the number one issue we see come up is they don't have a clear view of who belongs in the sales job, of who belongs in the sales job by skill set and background and attitude. Many companies don't have a lot of experience in hiring sales teams, putting them together who belongs on them, and we'll see the classic job description which may go on for 2 or 3 pages, have 15 or 20 delivery. in it somewhere tucked in there is make sales plan. And to me that's like the number one thing that needs to be in a sales job description, and we don't work with job descriptions, we work with something called a performance profile and rather than focus on all the other aspects of a job description, the legal parts and things that need to be there, we focus on the 3 to 5 key deliverables that have to be in that job for someone to be successful and then what Actions do they need to take to achieve those goals? When we get there, then we can have a good idea who belongs in the sales team, assess current people. Do they, are they the right people in the job, how to coach them for increased performance? And as important, then what questions to ask in an interview process to screen people in and screen people out. When I talk about 3 to 5 deliverables, an example of that is a software company I worked with here in Orange County. Early stage company, only a couple of million dollars a year in revenue. They were selling a product that sold for under $100,000 in instance or sale. And they were selling the school districts, so this is a product or service. That had a long sale cycle, had multiple decision makers in it, and this is a small entrepreneurial company without a strong lead generation effort, so they needed somebody to probably generate their own leads. The key things we profiled in that job that the person need to deliver, first of all, of course, makes sales target. But equally important, you had to have leads or opportunities to work. This needed to be somebody with a background in generating their own leads. That's a second item we look for. All right. Third, we were looking for somebody that had A background in large account sales. They could get in and work that complex sale where 456 people are touching and influencing the decision, could build relationships with them, had the political savvy to understand what's going on in that deal, and felt comfortable working a larger account. Fourth, they could operate in a team sales environment it's a software product. Salesperson doesn't necessarily have all the technical depth to carry the sale all the way through. So they need to be comfortable working with somebody who could do demos, ask technical questions, respond to them as part of the sales process. And finally, this was selling in the K-12 world, that school districts, you know, junior, middle school, elementary school, sure. That's a very tight community, and you need to be of the community if you're gonna be successful selling into the community. So someone who had a background in joining associations, getting on boards, different things like that, it could do what we call affiliation marketing. So we went out to staff that job. We looked at those 5 key deliverables and made sure our candidates had those to be screened in and considered for the job. So the skills and relationships are very, very important, um, depending on what you're looking for. So here's what you're saying is, first of all, if you don't have the right people, you're, you're, you're gonna have problems right from the beginning. I mean, I talk about this, and if you get the right people on the team, you can do a lot of things, maybe even wrong, certainly not as well as you should, and you're probably going to have success. If we don't have the right people on the team, no matter how much we coach them, provide them training, do the other things for them, we have very little chance of success. So getting the right people on there is essential, and the right people is really two aspects. attitude, or excuse me, the aptitude they have, the skills they bring to the table. But you know, sales is a job where 90% rejection rate's pretty normal. How many other jobs do you know when you fail 90% of the time it is considered a success. And that's sales. And so somebody that has that attitude that they can overcome rejection and setbacks, snap right back up and keep going. The guy I work with has a great saying, when somebody tells him no, he says, no, just equals next. What's the next call I need to make? What's the next thing I need to do with this account to take another shot at it? Yeah, it really takes a special person to to deliver that. Now some people say that if you have the right people, then the next thing you really need to worry about is the the the CRM, the information, the the distilling or the mining of that information. What Do you think, would you say that that's very important to the overall process? CRM is a good tool to support a lot of things. The underlying part of it, if you're going to use CRM, establish a good set of manual processes before you attempt to implement a CRM. I've coached several clients through that. I understand where you're going. And they need to have, you know, what's my sales process? What are the 5 to 7 steps, maybe 10 steps in that sales process? That is clearly understood, understand the information you need to collect, then you can implement a CRM and it can be a powerful tool for the organization. And if you're gonna implement a CRM, it's essential you do good training with the sales team so they know how to use it. I was gonna say, as a firm like yours would have, you could come in and say some really distill it down and help them create those routines that go into this because a lot of CRMs have a lot of things you can use, but if you don't know what you're looking for, you might not put the right things in and it's just a bunch of information floating around. Bill, you nailed it. Yeah, if you're not clear about what you want the system to do the business objectives, the information that belongs in it, and how you're gonna use it on a day in day out basis, you're gonna spend a lot of money implementing one. Not going to have a successful implementation, nor you're gonna get a return on your investment. So it needs to be a tool the sales team's comfortable using. Management knows what it wants to get from it. We do a lot of work with companies to help establish those processes and goals. There's clarity around that. I'm talking with Brad Leggett of the Leggitt Group, and we're going to take a short break and come right back and talk about tips, ideas, and precautions you can use. So please stay with us. We'll be right back. You're listening to Exit Coachradio.com, the show for age 50 plus business owners. We're interviewing over 250 professional advisors for their tips, ideas and precautions so you can be well planned. We upload new 20 minute interviews and 1 minute highlights every day at exitcoachradio.com. Come listen for a minute. Hey everybody, it's Bill Black, the exit coach. Hey, let me ask you a question about your patents, your trademarks, your copyrights, your licensing agreements, and your trade secrets, you know, your intellectual property. What are you doing to protect all of those important assets of your company? If you're not talking to experts, you're really putting your company at risk. So what I want you to do is call Hankin patent. Law, they're experts. They've been doing this for 20 years. They ask the right questions so you can protect what you have in mind. Call Mark Hankin at 310-979-3600 for a free consultation. That's 310-979-3600. Give him a call today and find out what you can do to protect your intellectual property. Welcome back friends. Just a reminder that we've interviewed dozens of advisors on a wide variety of topics. You'll find all of their interviews and highlights online at exitoachradio.com or on iTunes at iTunes.exitcoachradio.com. And I'm talking with Brad Leggett of the Leggitt Group. We're talking about. The importance of getting your people right in your sales team and then making sure you have the right routines and systems in place to help them to do the best job that they can. And Brad, uh, we talked a little bit about CRMs and the importance for finding, going out and actually becoming artificial intelligence to go out and find um. Uh, new leads for a sales team, but it doesn't do any good if you don't have the right routine built into it. So your sales process is critical there, right? Very much so. If you want to have a CRM in place and functional and helpful for your team, you need to build on a good, well established sales process. And the sales process is simply one of the steps from, I've got an initial lead and I'm beginning to qualify them until I've got a closed order in here. And some companies may have a simple 2 or 3 step process. If you're out selling goods on a repeated basis, it's gonna be a pretty straightforward process. If you're selling, as I mentioned, this company $100,000 software to a school district, they had about a 9-step process in there to get from initial lead to closed deal. And having that clear process, yes, is essential for CRM. It also clearly helps management and the sales team understand where they stand in the process, and the process would not only be the steps in it, but the underlying questions to ask to see if you can move to the next stage. Stage 3 might be full qualification, qualification not only would of course be budget, but it could be who's your decision makers inside this company, what's the process you're gonna use. And what are the three essential elements that need to be in any solution for it to be acceptable to you as examples? And if I don't get all of those questions answered and I'm in stage 3, I can't move this deal to stage 4. Why is this important? And if you're a CEO, the following thing I'm fixing say is probably really gonna resonate with you. How many times have you sat down with a sales guy, particularly in a large deal, and he says, Bill, I'm gonna bring that deal in next month, slam dunk, it'll be here, 90% chance. And that, that month is March. March comes and goes, get. Ready for April, Bill comes to the guy and says, how we doing with that company? He says, slipped a little bit. It'll be in in April. No problem, Bill. I'll have the deal locked in for you. Comes May about May 7th, he comes in very sheepishly says, boss, got some bad news for you. We lost that deal. Bill, you go, what? How did that happen? And the guy says, I was one of 3 guys on the deal and one of the other two went out on it. Well, how Could we be at a 90% probability on a deal when we're one of 3 competitors still left in the running. That's no better than a 1 in 3 shot, not a 90% shot. And I think many people listening to this will that will resonate with them. They've been in a similar situation. This is a key reason of why to have a sales process, how to put one together, but it's the steps and the essential questions or actions that need to take place to move that deal along and to know where it stands. When we do that, several things happen amongst them, it's a great coaching tool. I can work with the sales guy and say, hey, have you asked this question, let's get to it. Secondly, it gives me clarity about the depth of my pipeline and the accuracy of it. Are these deals really gonna come in or not? And you know, one of the problems out there is that most people in sales are a bit of uh entrepreneurial, maybe a little renegade kind of type, right? I mean, a lot of people are of that mindset. I'd rather ask for if you obey all the rules in life, you will not be successful in sales. The challenge is they do that inside the company too. OK, so a company goes to all the trouble to hire someone like you and work with the sales team and develop those routines and questions, and the sales guy doesn't use them, skip steps, and is that a reason you can point to why some of these routines don't work, these some of these failure to reach goals, reasons would be is that people just They don't appreciate the amount of work that's gone into developing these routines and systems, and they don't use them as much. Well, first of all, they need to be part of the process in developing them so they buy into them and believe them, or at least part of your team. And the team needs, you need to do this a collaborative effort with your sales team. If you develop and hand them to the sales team, I can pretty well guarantee you they're not gonna use them, they're gonna reject them. And part of it, because somebody else did it, part of it because there's validity to it. So bring them in and have them be part of the development process. So if you've got 3 guys on the sales team, they should all be part of the sales process. If you got 20 people, pick 4 or 5, a junior guy, some other senior guys help you develop it and have them help pitch that to the sales force and why to use them and how to use them. You can have a lot better shot at adoption with them. The other part is consistency. You know, sit down in 101s weekly with each sales team member. How are you doing on a deal? Take one apart. How's this step going? When you're sales meetings, take one or two examples and step through them. Here's how we're doing, how we're doing it, to show them how it works and show them when you don't do it, or it comes back to bite you in the tail. So it means something to them and they get why and we'll do it. How often should business owners readdress these routines, um, uh, and say, you know, what was working then is we, we've tweaked it or we need to change it or what else is working for you guys out there now? How often do you think they should recheck in on that? I would want to go back and revisit them manually, see what's going on. That could be a brief, maybe one hour meeting to go through. Also, if the salesforce begins to have consistent significant pushback, listen to it, take a look at it and see if you should change it. Is there a blueprint for a successful and productive sales meeting? There are some key rules to one, OK? First and foremost, well, first of all, sales guys don't like sales meetings. OK? Their idea of a sales meeting is you would call them on the phone for 3 minutes, hang up, be done, they consider it good. OK, so you've got that to fight. Let's just get that on the table. Beyond that, there are some basics to have productive sales meetings that are helpful to the sales team. First and foremost, provide value to the people sitting in the seats. We're taking them out of their job where we're asking to make sales calls, bring in orders, that's time away from that. Let's give them value that they can have tools, knowledge, other things to go use in the field when they leave that sales meeting. Valuable things. Do a session where everybody brings in a challenging opportunity and you do a roundtable on it. Sales teams react well to that and they learn from one another. Secondly, let's do some training on skills. Maybe they got new people in sales team, they're not that good in their telephone skills. Let's bring in someone to coach them in telephone skills for an hour during the meeting. Third, let's do some practice sessions or role plays. Let's take a customer scenario and have everybody make a sales call or presentation against it, critique themselves and get feedback from others. And better yet, take out your iPhone or iPad and record it and let the person listen to it. That's a very valuable, strong coaching tool, and these are all valuable things to the sales team. Beyond that, simple rule, always publish your agenda in advance so people know what's going on and what's expected of them. And one of the other things is a sales team leader, bring others in and have them involved in helping deliver that sales meeting. Maybe you're gonna do a training on a new product, and you've got somebody that hadn't had a lot of strength in that product. Have them be the one to train on it. Now, back them up with somebody who's really good about it, but have them learn it and pitch it, because if you want somebody to get better at something, put them on the spot where they've got to teach about it. All great tips, Brad. It's just a wealth of information. Our time goes by way too fast. We're gonna have to have you come back because I do want to dig in deeper into some of these issues that we've talked about, and I want to thank you for joining us today. How do people get in touch with you? Two ways to reach me. Website is Leggett sales. That's L E G G E T T sales.com. Leggett sales.com, or phone 949. 388-6910. If our listeners give you a call, would you spend a few minutes with them on the phone to find out what their issues are? I'd be delighted to spend a half hour on the phone if they'll mention they were listening to me on this. I can't imagine why anybody would want to not or would not want to take up Brad on that. He is a wealth of information. I've known him for some time and he's he's well thought of in the circles that I run in. And Brad, you do a great job explaining all this. Thanks very much for joining us. Bill, thank you for having me back. I've been talking with Brad Leggett, and we're going to be right back after this short break, so please stay tuned. You're listening to Exit Coachradio.com, the information station for age 50 plus business owners, where we're interviewing over 250 top advisors for their best tips, ideas, and precautions so you can be well planned. We upload new one minute tips every day. Exitcoachradio.com. Come listen for a minute. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. Hey friend, I know how this feels. Waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in, everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze. Less urged to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, clinically tested, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Uses directed individual results may vary.