Fireside Chat: Do You Have the Right Sales Talent to Execute Your Strategy?

Michelle Richardson, thank you for joining us. And our focus today is do you have the right sales talent to execute your strategy? Michelle, thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me really excited for our conversation this morning.

So what I'm excited about it is that you did assessments of over 18 salespeople. So you bring science backed research that to the question that every sales leader is asking do I have the right people on the bus? Are they in the right roles and how do I develop them to execute our strategy? So in order to explore the critical connection between sales talent and sales strategy, I like to start with the big picture. Many sales leaders have ambitious strategies but strategy without execution turns into a struggle. How can sales leaders assess whether their team skills actually align with their strategic goals?

Great question. And you are right in that the sales strategy is so very, very important and organizations really need to make sure that their talent is aligned if they want to have the greatest chance of success. And so first and foremost obviously they need to define that strategy and have a clear picture of what that is and what's that end goal look like. Are they trying to.

Win new accounts in a very complex environment with committee based buying is a more transactional sale, that kind of thing. And so by defining what that strategy is and then assessing their team and again you mentioned it, objective data based decisions, that's what I certainly advocate for with the Brooks Group advocates for. You want to assess your team members using a multi science tool that gives you the big picture of what your teams skills are, their knowledge as well as other capabilities and attributes, the hardwired kind of attributes versus and in addition to the trainable skills that they have.

So you're talking about skills and of course I'm thinking of skill scap.

What skills gaps have the biggest impact on, on performance and revenue growth.

Yeah, so there's two aspects of that. First of all you mentioned skills. What we have found in our research is that from a sales skills perspective, teams start out with a very strong product focus. They come into a sales conversation, they're very strong at building the relationships, meeting the customer, getting them, you know, small talk, kind of introducing themselves, kind of building some rapport, talking about product and maybe doing a demo, managing objections, that kind of thing. Where they lack skill is in the early stages of the sale, things like pre call planning, positioning themselves as a trusted advisor, qualifying the opportunities, asking good questions to really be able to make that value connection for the customer and then closing. So those are the lowest points, the largest skill gaps that we have Found in our research from those 18,000 assessments that they're very strong in meeting the customer, talking about product. But the gaps are in really understanding what the customer needs and wants and then actually closing the business. The other skill gaps or the other gaps that we find are often they're not so much skill based as they are attributes. So the things that are hardwired, maybe they are not motivated by the compensation plan or what the job rewards. Maybe behaviorally they are not wired to.

Prospect for new business or they are more likely to focus on existing relationships or people that they like and know already and not necessarily looking out into the looking to expand. So those aspects can also impact.

An organization's success with their sales strategy and their revenue attainment.

So what I'm hearing is that one of the biggest gaps is not understanding the customer. Can you give us a little bit more of a flavor what.

Gaps there are within that gap?

Absolutely, absolutely. So not understanding the customer. Some of that is in qualifying. Is this customer, this opportunity that the salesperson is pursuing, is it even a viable opportunity for the organization? Is it something that, is there a sense of urgency around it? Do they actually have a need? Are they aware of a need for what it is that your sellers sell?

Have they, Are they setting call objectives and really thinking through how they're going to move this opportunity forward, assuming it is qualified? They are not necessarily asking deeper questions that really help the salesperson understand why the customer will buy. What's that kind of deeper reason beyond kind of what they need to spec a solution? Oftentimes what we find, our sellers focus on the information they need to know to be able to recommend or kind of give, give a customer a quote or a price without going deeper. So what they might miss are questions around the buying process. Who's involved? What criteria is going to go into making that decision? Are there opportunities for a bigger sale than maybe what they originally thought? How can they build value, really understand why a customer will buy? So they miss all of that by just asking those surface questions. And so then when it comes time to ask for the business, they run into objections that they didn't anticipate. They miss the buying process altogether. The deals get stalled and you know, again, it's, it's a waste of time. They, they run into two more difficulties. So really understanding that a seller should be spending 70% of their time in the understanding the customer, building the relationship, building trust, getting to really understand the needs and wants of the customer before.

Presenting their solution, that is really interesting. And it sort of dovetails with what Michael Phelan just texted us, Discovery meetings are down 30% in 2025, which reminds me of Woody Allen saying that 80% of success is showing up and having that meeting.

Right, right. Showing up, having the meeting, sending an agenda beforehand, treating it like a business meeting, Focusing on the customer and what they want to accomplish, not what the salesperson wants to accomplish. So yeah, showing up is half the battle. The rest of it is having that professional conversation.

So let's shift back to the right people on the bus. It sounds simple, but it is deceptively hard. And I'd like to know from you is what factors should leaders evaluate to determine if someone is truly positioned for success or quietly failing in a role that doesn't fit?

Right, right, Great question. They need to look at several factors. Number one, they first and foremost need to objectively understand what the job requires. And so taking top performers out of it, taking people out of it to be successful in the job. What is required for success? From a behavioral characteristics, from motivational characteristics, from competencies as well as skills. So things like.

A sense of urgency or competitiveness, someone who is what we call resourceful, motivated by commission, someone that is motivated by having influence over other people, someone who is well developed in resiliency, the ability to be customer focused, influence, influence, others. So these types of characteristics. So first and foremost identify what the job requires and then evaluate your team against those characteristics. And they need to look again at behavioral characteristics. How does somebody perform their job? Why do they perform their job? What motivation and rewards do they seek? Are they going to be comfortable asking for the business having influence over other people? Will they follow a sales process if you have one? Again, are they motivated by by commission or are they likely to give away margin and discount over a sense of empathy with the customer? So they need to understand all of those things, plus again those competencies and skill set that's required for success. So it gives you a holistic picture. We can also look at mindset, whether someone's coachable, whether they can read and people, well, pick up on those.

Kind of body language, that kind of thing, form a good relationship with the customer, think strategically, that sort of thing. So that gives you the whole picture of your salesperson. And that will kind of also, when you compare that against what the job requires, give you a sense of fit to the role.

Do you have a test for mindset?

Yes, yes we do.

And what are some of the things that you measure?

We measure basically how they view the world around them and how they make decisions around again relationships with people. Do they focus on the right activities? Do they have the capacity to focus on the right activities from a practical nature? Can they see the big picture, think strategically conceptually and make good decisions in that way? We also look at their own sense of self, how they view themselves and their level of self confidence and capabilities as well as their future orientation. How well you know, what's their goal orientation, how well do they see the future, you know, what is their three to five year plan? So that kind of we look at again how they see the outside world versus the themselves and their capacity to execute skills and make good judgments in those areas.

Somebody wants to know, do you have a collective list of these behavioral characteristics that you just mentioned?

We do. Again it's measured by.

We have our own assessments, the Brooks Talent Index. These are characteristics and attributes that the Brooks Talent Index measures. We look at each sales role in each organization separately. So we would not say that there is one profile that everyone in an outside sales role, that is a new business development role, should follow. There are similarities and there's commonalities, but what might be makes someone successful in one organization might be different than what would make someone successful in another organization.

Michelle, how do you transform that the results of the assessment into an effective coaching plan?

Great question. So what we do is we look at it in two ways. We look at it from.

The whole team and then we look at it at the individual level. So once you assess your team and understand kind of their baseline characteristics where those skill gaps are, from there we can design a learning plan, a coaching plan. We look at the commonalities across the team and that helps us determine where. If you're looking at.

Some group wide training and coaching, where do we need to focus? Do we need to focus on questioning skills? Do we need to focus on pre call planning, prospecting, closing that kind of thing? At an individual level we can work with managers to help them identify how to pinpoint where those specific gaps are at the individual level level. So it allows you to address the common gaps across the team but then also focus in at the individual level.

So let's shift to creating a learning culture. And we do have an expert today. Satin Raja talks about corporate culture and how to make everybody feel empowered.

What is your secret sauce at the Brooks group for creating that culture where learning is not a one time event but an ongoing process that people are able to maintain and follow and like yeah, great question.

First of all, you know, we believe that learning and the development kind of Experience is holistic. So a big portion of our methodology and our training is using these assessments. So we're talking about using assessments for diagnosing skill gaps. We incorporate these into training as well so that each participant gets their own results and there's a level of self awareness there where they can see where their own strengths and weaknesses may be. That really helps to make the learning experience.

More personalized.

You know, throughout the training as well. Our, our facilitators, if it's live instructor led training, our facilitators use this information as well to be able to really focus and tailor the training experience to the dynamics of the room. From there we also have reinforcement and so there's micro learning and AI powered coaching. We have group coaching that also kind of helps to continue that learning. The other big thing is of course managers and managers really are probably the most important component to keeping that learning culture going and making sure that learning stays in the forefront for their team. And so it's really important for managers to be involved to understand how to coach to keep that learning going and sustain it. And they're really important in building kind of that ongoing learning culture as well.

Aren't these communicating an interesting idea? And, and he says that.

The gap that is really addressed explicitly is between pre sales and sales working together seamlessly. And.

This is also in my opinion, a sales management and sales leadership issue that needs to be addressed. How do you address it at the Brooks group?

So I totally agree that having that, that collaboration and being able to work together is extremely important. So number one, if you are training the entire, you're training your group, I would train them all together and incorporate that relationship as part of the training so that it becomes part of the sales process, part of that, the sales culture and you're, you're building that relationship together. The other thing, and I go back, you'll see to assessments quite a bit and just how people are wired because I think that is so important in the dynamics of that relationship is sharing. And even something like team dynamics could be extremely important for helping those, those teams work more closely together. We see that in organizations, whether it's presale and sales, whether it's sales engineers or customer service and sales, where groups have to work together, sometimes how they are wired to communicate especially is different and that causes some natural conflict there. So having a team dynamics type rollout training can help build that collaboration and then also just kind of bringing the teams together to make sure that they are part of the sales process together, whether it's Training, again, from a management perspective, holding people accountable for working together.

So let's shift to hiring, onboarding and retaining top talent. When you look at newly hired salespeople, what behaviors do you look at and traits that are most reliable for predicting long term success?

So it depends on the organization and the role that they're hiring for because again, what's going to drive success in one role, in a particular role in an organization is going to be different than what might drive success in another. So you want to make sure that you've defined what is.

What does that profile look like for success in your organization, in your role, and get as close of a match as possible. A couple of areas though, that in general I would say are extremely important would be making sure that the motivators of the candidate align with what rewards the job offers. So are you, do you have the right compensation structure for what this candidate is looking for? Is this candidate looking for the right compensation structure for the job? So you want that motivator match because that's the drive. That's what gets somebody up out of bed every morning and gets them to perform. The other thing I go to, Mindset, is this person coachable?

And that is something that we can tell from the assessment. So is this person going to accept feedback? Do they believe that they have room to develop? Can they align with the organization, follow the processes, do what needs to be done in order to be successful? So I also look at that Mindset piece as well. I think that's incredibly important for success.

Michelle, is it a good idea to hire a star performer from a competitor and then automatically lift your sales?

Well, I would say not necessarily. I think that is a huge mistake. It's one of the biggest mistakes that I see organizations make is they hire that top performer from their competitor and expect them to come over and blow it out of the water, bring all their customers and it's going to solve all their problems. But what makes somebody successful at your competitor may not be the same thing that will make them successful in your organization. You may have completely different cultures. You may be a startup and your competitor is much more well established. This person may not have the skills that you need to.

To penetrate new accounts and that kind of thing. So you cannot assume that what makes somebody successful somewhere else is going to transfer over to your organization.

So let's look at the most successful salespeople on your team right now. What are the most effective strategies that you know for keeping those top performers engaged, challenged and committed to staying?

Yeah, invest in development Whether you know you're. You're developing them, whether you hire a third party, whether you.

Offer training internally, that kind of thing. But.

Professional development is one of those things that employees appreciate and will. It drives retention. So that's number one. Number two, again, understand how they like to be communicated with, understand what motivates them and tap into that. So really personalize your coaching approach to your employees, to your individual employees. Do not treat everybody with the same kind of broad brush, because people are different. Offer coaching, offer them opportunities to develop, pay attention to them, look at their.

Capabilities, their strengths, what is that kind of ongoing career development plan look like? And work with them to develop that.

So when you look at your research, is there a relationship between the quality of your training program and employee loyalty?

Oh, I think so. I mean, I'm not. I can't give you a specific statistic on that. I know general research is that I believe I saw somewhere that employees, 94% of employees will stay with an organization that offers them development opportunities. So absolutely, you know, and we see that even in.

Feedback on our surveys and that kind of thing, where organizations or employees are just really appreciate the opportunity to learn, to continue to develop their skills and be more successful.

So how do you know as a sales enablement or revenue enablement manager that you are actually teaching the right skills that move the needle?

So I go back to the data and I go back to objectivity. So when you conduct a needs analysis, when you do an assessment of your team using tools like this, whether it's ours or someone else's, really understand especially, you know, those, those behaviors, those motivations and the skills. So assessing sales skills particularly will show you where those gaps are, and that will show you where you need to focus your training. So the data doesn't lie. Oftentimes, it's. It confirms what people suspect. But that really gives you a roadmap for more, a more effective and targeted training initiative.

So how do you capture the attention of everybody on the sales team? And let's assume it's a third, a third and a third, a third new ones, third, middle and third, all the salespeople. How do you design training that appeals to all three groups?

So, great question.

Part of our strategy is we do customization, discovery calls, that kind of thing. So we get different team members involved in that process and the implementation process because we buy into what we help create. So when they have a say, when they have the opportunity to contribute, they are more likely to buy in. In the training experience itself. Having mixed groups can Be very, very effective. Because everybody has something to learn. We always position it as we're not coming in to change what's already working. What we want to do is kind of improve in the areas everybody can, you know, just improve maybe 1% across the board. So having that mixed group gives the opportunity for sharing among peers. Peer coaching, peer learning is one of the most effective ways for people to learn. So the newer salespeople can learn from the more experienced salespeople. Some of the more experienced salespeople maybe can learn a few new things from, from the newer folks. Again, especially if they're a different generation. So having them work together, they actually learn from each other just as much as they're learning from an instructor.

So we're down to the last four minutes, and there are some audience questions that really worth.

Spending time with.

One is marketing. What percentage of companies, when they do the Brooks Group sales training, actually invite marketing people to their training class?

I would. Quite a few do. I don't know an exact number, but we do have quite a few organizations that will invite either marketing team members, the marketing leader in, to participate as well. I think it's a great idea because marketing and sales work so closely together. And it's really important for marketing to understand how sellers are being trained to sell. Especially if you're implementing a sales process, what does that process look like? What kind of questions should the sellers be asking? How does that affect lead generation or product positioning and that kind of thing? I think it's a great idea.

Another question is, can you share one idea to immediately improve a sales manager's coaching effectiveness?

I would say personalization.

And so for a sales manager to spend some time at an individual level understanding how somebody wants to be communicated with, adjusting their communication style, and I think that will build better rapport with their sales team and with their individual sellers.

And I will also. I'll give you one more. I know he asked for, asked for one. I'll give you one more, and that is.

Let your sellers fail.

If you're on a joint call and the instinct is to swoop in and help, give them that teachable moment, let them, let them learn and then coach them afterwards.

So let's focus on AI, which is reshaping everything about sales and business. Where do you see it making the biggest impact on assessment, coaching and talent development?

Yeah, I think right now the biggest impact that we're seeing is in coaching because AI can be a very powerful, powerful tool for roleplay and coaching feedback. So we use it in that way Sellers can practice scenarios. The AI grades. That scenario feeds it back to the manager and gives the manager additional data for coaching. I think that is.

One of the best tools and one of the most effective ways that AI can be leveraged right now.

So when you look at next few years, what shifts do you see on the horizon that sales leaders should be prepared for?

Yeah, I think from a sales perspective obviously we're seeing more complex buying situations, more.

Team oriented buying processes, longer sales cycles and I think managers need to be prepared to coach to that. It's certainly going to affect how we hire, how we train the skills that we need to for sellers to be more effective. I also think on a learning perspective.

You know, with generational changes, peer coaching is becoming a much better, bigger, much more effective, I think learning tool that I think is underutilized and that is putting your team members together, letting them coach each other. It scales the managers time and effort. It helps them learn from each other. It's a great way to get generations together and build trust between team members as well.

I think that's a really great idea. Final, final question. What is the single most important.

First step towards aligning talent with strategy?

Assess your team. Know it. Know what you have on your team in terms of skills, capabilities, talents.

How can people get in touch with you?

You can email me directly at Mrichardsonbrooksgroup or visit the Brooks Group's website brooksgroup.com.

Go to brooksgroup.com thank you Michelle.

Thank you so much.