BONUS: HOW A GREAT CRO LEAD THEIR TEAM TO SUCCESS IN B2B SALES

Hey, today I've got a bonus episode for you that I think you might be interested in. I've got a great CRO, Chief Revenue Officer, Ken, who's going to share how he leads his team, how he leads the revenue operations at his company. I'm posting it here on this Brutal Truth feed so that you get to know this. You get to see what great sales leadership looks like. It is posted on the Sales Leadership Show, which is a separate podcast that I have that focuses exclusively on revenue leadership issues where I interview the world's best sales leaders. You may be interested in those topics, you may not be. If you want to get into leadership, it's a great listen to learn from the very best before you even start in that role. If you're already a sales leader and you want to hear how other people are doing it and handling the same stresses that you are. And we cover the biggest one today, the board. The board overassigns quota.

It happens.

I've been in those meetings. And you sit there and these people who have no clue what it is like to sell the product or service for that company are coming up with numbers, goals. Uh, Quotas, uh, rep hires. All these people are thinking in just conventional logic with zero experience doing it, and they don't understand the impact it has on those people and the contributions that those people have made to the company, and without them will not be there this year. We cover this topic today in this interview, and it's one that you should hear how leadership handles this. And it's just great to hear a great sales leader.

Let's get into the interview.

And did I make you aware that we're now offering Start the Conversation and Get the Meeting on-premise, customized to your company's particular needs? So if you have a team of, say, 10 or more that you want to train on how to start conversations and get meetings or prevent those deals from being stalled stalled and slipped and starting all over, go to b2brevenue.com and check it out. Send me a note, let me know. We'll have somebody call you and talk it through with you.

Here we go. Hey Ken, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Absolutely. No, thanks, Brian. I appreciate the opportunity today. Ken Ferguson, located here in Northeast Ohio. I have been in the software industry for 24 years. I have managed a software career out of Northeast Ohio, which isn't an easy thing to do. We can even talk about the challenges of being a Midwest guy in a very coastal business, but have traveled across multiple different parts of the enterprise software world from an individual contributor to running small teams, running large teams. across, you know, ERP, analytics, AI, lots of different landscapes and learned a lot on that journey as a salesperson and as a leader. And, you know, love to pour into the next generation too as they come up and teach them some of the things that the old codgers like ourselves have been selling for a while.

Oh, speak for yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Speak for myself. I picked up along the way. And so that's the obviously a super exciting thing to do as well as, you know, teach as well as, you know, perform yourself. So that's me in a nutshell. Love music and other things on the side, but that kind of fuels the, fuels the, you know, the day-to-day sales world.

So what got you into sales?

Great story. I was in college and I was actually, you know, as a musician in a band and Some business person came alongside me, put his arms around me, arm around my shoulder and said, have you ever thought about sales? And I said, no, but someone told me you're always selling. What are we selling? And he said, would you like to come to the music store and sell grand pianos to doctors and lawyers who have too much money to spend on disposable income items? And so, I actually started selling pianos when I was in college. And then when I graduated from the University of Akron, I had a mentor who would become a mentor of mine, Pat Barr from NCR Teradata. I came to the college and said, you know, we'd love to have you come join us as a first-year intern. And my sales background in selling $100,000 pianos kind of played to my strength as they were looking at other, you know, graduates who had no sales experience. So just kind of crazy how something as simple as somebody teaching me how to sell musical instruments led to, you know, selling large-scale enterprise software.

And did it feel at home from day one, or was there a huge adjustment?

Immediately. It was like, uh, like a hand in glove, an old pair of shoes, whatever analogy you want to use, where, um, I love the idea of people coming in, uh, to see you in that sense, or more importantly, kind of presenting an opportunity or a problem in front of you and you helping them solve it. That immediate connection, uh, the fun of kind of getting a yes and having somebody walk away feeling happy about what they'd done. And then, you know, hopefully later You know, uh, you know, they come back and they're super excited about it. And that, that has never left me. Uh, that's always been there. That, that feeling of solving a problem is— I think people forget that part about sales. It's not always about, you know, about the execution of, of a sales process. It's, uh, knowing that you like move the ball for somebody. And, uh, that's always been a huge driver for me on the just enjoying it as a, as a profession.

And what was the motivation to get into leadership?

It's crazy. I had a sales leader who told me, you know, asked me one day, I probably never thought of leadership. He never thought of leadership. And I was like, you know, I have. But I asked what I think now is a great question. I said, well, how do I know when I'm ready? And he said 2 things. Are you willing to work twice as hard for half the money? And are you more interested in that individual on your team's success than you are about your own success? If you can answer yes to both of those, then that means you're at least ready to dig in. And so there was a day in the fall of a certain year where I decided I could say yes to both of those things and I wouldn't look back for sure. But, you know, you never stop selling, right? You just, you're just starting to, uh, be a part of the team, a different part of the team. But, uh, it was interesting, uh, those 2 questions. I've probably flipped that on other people because everybody thinks they want to be in leadership until, you know, until you kind of tell them what it really looks like.

Yeah. And was he right?

He was spot on. Uh, he was spot on, uh, especially on the second one. The second one, uh, it is odd. I never thought I would get there, uh, where you're— I get now more excited about seeing one of my team members close a deal. than I ever think I felt when I did it myself. And, you know, that, that, that was cool to see that come true. And I think it's, it's a good— I think it's just a good marker for most people. I mean, you know, keep selling until you're really more interested in helping other people. And at that point, you know, you're maybe going to— that's a good transition point for you to go, you know, make other people successful.

And did you ever go back and forth or was it you went and that was it?

No, I I have went and that was it. But what's funny is my, I think my strength as a sales leader is being able to help sell. So, I don't think I ever really, I don't really feel like I've ever left selling. I feel like my part of the sales cycle has changed. So, where I come in, where I'm helpful, where I exit, where I take my hands off the wheel and just let the salesperson do their job. has changed, but I actually don't really see it as anything really has changed. I think you get into a really probably an unhealthy place where you, you're in sales leadership, but you're not selling. So it's just a position, right? I mean, some days I kind of dream about maybe going back and picking up a bag and just doing it myself again because it was a lot of fun. But there's also some, some benefit to being a part of a team.

Yeah. And what do you see as the critical characteristics when you're looking to hire a salesperson?

It's a great question. I think grit and tenacity are the things you're looking for. You're looking for somebody who has a unique life experience. Doesn't matter what that life experience is that you can kind of ground on to say this person doesn't really give up. And I don't mean don't give up like stubborn doesn't give up, but doesn't give up meaning like they don't, they don't take obstacles and opposition as a reason to stop. Actually, it's probably a reason to lean in. I had a great sales leader tell me once, if the deal's not messy, there's no deal.

Right.

Right. It's pretty, pretty, you know, it's gonna be a little messy, right? So you're looking for that grit, you're looking for that tenacity because you can go through all the skills, you can tell me about all the experiences you've had. But I think we all know those days when nothing's going your way, people aren't returning calls, you're getting a lot of nos, a lot of rejection, maybe even just economic headwinds, things you can't control. If you can't just keep your head in the game and just keep pushing through all of that, you might have pockets of success, but you won't long-term be successful. It's the grit that keeps you in the game. It's the grit that makes somebody, I think, successful. And, you know, mantra I've always played is I work, I try, I work like my work is the only reason I'm going to win. And then I hope to outsmart them on the back end, right? So you can't just try to, you can't just try and be lazy and outsmart somebody. You have to be willing to be gritty and work and push, but hopefully you can outsmart them and you can beat your competition by doing smarter things. But if not, I'll just outwork you. Right. And it's not gonna— yeah. And, and I'm looking for that because if you can do that, you know, I've, I hired a guy, uh, a former professional athlete who didn't know the space, but he had that it, right? Where you just say this person is gonna be successful no matter where we put him. Uh, he was smart and he knew all the things, but he had no experience in what I needed him to do. But I anchored on that part and I was willing to, I had to be willing to invest. So you can't just hire gritty people. You have to be willing to invest time, right? But it worked out, right? And so that's to me the number one. There's other things I think that are important. Obviously you can get on the skills piece and kind of zero in on that stuff. But if you can find that DNA, the sales DNA is way more important than, you know, any, any rubric that you're gonna pull together on, you know, HR, you know, kind of points. Those, those to me, those are just like, those will show up someplace in the process. I just try to anchor on those other things.

And does something highlight that on a resume that says, I want to talk to this person?

You know, that's a great question. I don't think anybody asked that before. I don't think you can pick it up necessarily on a resume. You might be able to find something about the types of experiences they've had where you can kind of— you see a through line, right, in their experience. But that's why I don't really get hung up on resumes, right? I'll do a quick pass through on a resume. I'll look at a LinkedIn profile. I'm more looking at who they're connected to, what they liked and clicked on, like what their interests are. And that might be the real reason why I might talk to you versus just, oh, look, they were XYZ company for 5 years and they moved on to the next one and changed jerseys. So I don't think you can pick that up on a resume. I think the resume is just a great way to get on the phone with somebody, but it's really getting to understand how they respond to adversity. And if you can't really see that on a resume, right? You just, you can't.

Well, you see like the sports thing.

Yep.

You see the music thing because if you play music in front of an audience, you get feedback, right?

Yeah. Immediate feedback, right? Immediate. I mean, it's crazy. It's funny you say that because, yeah, as a performing musician, It's no different than selling. A lot of times you get that immediate feedback and you can see the joy on somebody's face and see them enjoying themselves. You can also see the opposite. But then, as you know, if you've ever been up on a big, you know, a big pitch before in front of a big group of people, sometimes the room is engaged, but they don't look engaged. And you've gotta be able to look for those cues, those things that are happening. Am I connecting with this person that aren't natural? It may not be a smile or a frown. It might be, you know, you know, something completely different. And it is very much the same. There is a, it's a dance, a performance, whatever you wanna say, for sure.

And how about the very best salespeople that you've either managed, observed, competed against? What have you seen other than grit being the differentiator?

Not to be poetic, but know thyself, right? I, you know, I, I really do believe the best salespeople, he or she knows themselves really well. They know what they're good at, they know what they're poor at, and they spend a lot more time, uh, at least my observation is they spend more time on what they're good at and leaning into the, that, because everybody's really good at 2, maybe 3 things. Everything else you're just average at. And everybody's trying to do all the things. The best salespeople I've ever managed or competed against, They knew their lane, they stayed in it, and they, they really highlighted their strengths instead of kind of COVID for their weaknesses. These other people do that. So I, I, I don't know if you've had this experience, but for me, every organization I've been in, if you look to the top performer, it's not always the guy or gal that like checked all the boxes and did all the things that everybody wanted them to do. They're, they're usually a little quirky in some aspect and they've got something they're hyper good at. And they know it and they just lean in hard and they, they, and then it's hopefully my job as a sales leader to come alongside and like, hey, you know, you forgot A, B, and C, right? Like, let's, let's go, let's go help you do that. And then you just stay over there, keep doing what you're doing. I'm gonna come behind you and clean up the mess a little bit. And I, I, I think I appreciated the first 10 years of my career, the, some of the kind of the older school mentality of sales and before a lot of the digital stuff that came along because those are some of the things that got embedded in me early. what were more the people skills, the soft skills of the technology and the process. That's great. And we need to do that stuff. And it's what makes larger scale companies more successful. But on that front end, the talent side of it, like, how do I take this unbelievably talented person who's probably good at 1 or 2 things and make them great at 4 or 5 by surrounding them with other people, which is where team selling and enterprise selling really takes its, its hold, is, is, uh, um, finding that person that really knows themself. And they also know what they're not good at. And I just talked to one yesterday from probably 10 years back in my career, probably the best, one of the best salespeople I've ever worked with. And, you know, I don't know that he ever cracked open a CRM system, right? Because the guy was out there just closing deals and doing things right, right? But, but, uh, he had people helping him do those things like sorting through it. And, and to me, if you're not willing to do those things, uh, you know, Long term, you know, you might have some great performance, but, uh, oh, you know, maybe here and there, but consistent performance, I think, comes from knowing the people around you and just leaning in and trying to empower them to be the best version of themselves and then covering for all the stuff they're not gonna do well. Because I've never found a high performer that's good at everything. They're usually hyper good at one or two things.

Because most sales leaders, they want all 10 reps to be clones. Instead of let them be who they are and let them work it out.

Yeah, it's the rep profile thing. I think it's good for an organization to have a, maybe a, a overview, overall rep profile that this is what a good rep looks like. So you've got some things to judge against. But I think when you get to the first line manager, that first line manager has to be exactly like, I always like, using the analogy of the Avengers, right? It's like the Avengers are like the perfect, the, you know, the Marvel Avengers are like the perfect example of a team where you've got these unique skills that each of them can do when they work together, they're unbeatable. But it takes a really good first line manager to go in and manage these probably unique individuals. And that's how you scale. You, you, as long as that rep profile, you're in the same general direction, you're directionally accurate with that. You're never gonna find these clones that are gonna work really well.

Right.

It's gonna, it's gonna be a lot of average, not above average.

And what was it like that first time you managed managers versus managing reps?

That's hard because you, everybody, if you're in management, you're probably good at managing up, probably a skill set, right? And telling the boss what he wants to hear.

She wants For sure. Just where I got the last— Yeah.

And so, you know, that first year I remember thinking, is what that person told me accurate right now? I don't mean like they were hiding something or anything, but is— am I getting— being able to ascertain very quickly where somebody is trying to be nice or kind or protect a rep or protect the deal, or am I getting, you know, are they missing part of it? And it might not even be because they're purposely doing it. They might not even know what to ask. And so I learned the art of asking specific probing questions that didn't seem like so micromanagey, but the what else question of, okay, that's great, but what else? What else? And eventually what I started to learn is they'll uncover the ugly if you just let them talk long enough. You know, if you just get into a conversation and just not ask, when's it gonna close? What's the forecast to date? What's the amount? And get into, okay, well, tell me, how'd that last meeting go? You know, Hey, did that influencer for that, did they show up? Tell me a little bit about that. Like, how did it feel? And then all of a sudden I started to learn. I'm able to kind of go a layer below where I have visibility by asking more different questions. But that first year, you know, you miss it, you might miss a turn, something crazy happens you didn't see coming, and it was on me. It's not on them. I wasn't asking the right questions.

Well, it's a great point because they probably don't even want to admit it to themselves, never mind you.

Yeah. And they're working a lot of times, you know, I give the benefit of the doubt to the team. They're, they're working the parts that they think are gonna close the deal. My job is to get, bring in a different vantage point to maybe see around a corner they're not even trying to see around. And I don't like, hey, So and so, you made a mistake here. It's more of, hey, did you think about? And if they did, great. If they didn't, you know, maybe that's my job. I don't need to ask the same. I call them no-duh questions. Like, you know, no kidding. Like, that doesn't value add to ask when is it gonna close? Is it gonna close Tuesday, Wednesday? No, it's strategically, are we doing the right thing so that the outcome lands in a relatively predictable manner? And that's, it's an art more than it is a science to some extent. The science happens after that phone call, right? It's like, let's get to the root science. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Before that, it was kind of detective work.

It's like, what do we, what are we missing to close this deal?

And do we really have to wait till the last day of the quarter to find out what we're missing?

That's, that's right. I mean, honestly, my, my biggest challenge has always been ignoring the standard questions and spending more time on the unobvious things because those are the things that are gonna trip you up. I mean, it's great if the manager or the salesperson understands who the buyer is, how much budget they have, all the BANT, you know, old school BANT questions. Like, that's great. Put that in Salesforce. I wanna know, What's going to go off the rails? Are we seeing around the corner of what's going to happen in the next 2, 3 weeks that could throw us into a tizzy on what we think is going to happen? Is somebody asking those questions and getting in front of it, being strategic? And you're hoping the manager is checking all the little boxes, you know, of all the little things. And, you know, you're going to have to ask those questions for sure. Every once in a while, you're going to have to do a standard forecast call. But, you know, I always appreciated leadership that added value and not just asked questions. And value for me was always tell me what I don't see. Is my shirttail hanging out? Like what, what's happening here that I'm missing? Because it's going to cost my family money on the back end from a lost commission check. And I'm okay with you calling that out. What I was less excited about was, you know, the standard forecast questions that had no value. And so, you know, I always get that right. I definitely don't always get that right. But you're always trying to think of what if I'm the rep, What's she or he thinking about or not thinking about that I can bring forward in a very, you know, disarming way to make them tell me things that they would never tell me. And, you know, hopefully my team, you know, isn't listening at the moment, but like, I get, I get people to tell me things that they don't, maybe wouldn't tell their boss typically because they feel like it's a safe place, that it's not a judgmental thing. Like, you don't know what you're doing. It's No, no, we all wanna win. Like, let's not do things that are gonna cause us not to win, guys. Let's, let's do the right things. Let's do 'em over and over again. So it's definitely, that's been the most fun part of that job is learning how to be a manager that helps.

And one of the typical things that people overlook that, you know, because there's the, what they call Solomon's paradox. Where somebody who's not emotionally attached to the problem can easily see the solution.

Yeah, it's not your little golden egg, right? You know, where a lot of times the reps got their little golden egg. Don't say anything bad about my deal. Don't, don't, you know, or I don't want to admit that this is happening because this is all I've got. And somebody that can come in and say, hey, you realize the emperor's got no clothes, right? Like, you realize that this is going on and that's going on. I'm not judging you for it. Let's just admit it's real and let's spend the rest of the time, how are we gonna fix it? And that's, yeah, you're exactly right that you, many times they just can't see it. They're too close to the problem.

And how about when a rep asks you what they have to do to get into leadership? Do you just ask the same 2 questions or do you?

No, I always offer A little advice, which is, you know, take a little bit of time and decide, you know, look at your— look at the version of yourself 5 years from now, 7 years from now. What's that look like? And if they can't articulate, you know, what that looks like for them, they're probably not ready. It's not— it's— they're looking at it as a position or role. And then I never, actually never, I almost never don't offer some help like, hey, can we spend something? That's great. Maybe you're not ready for it now, or there's no role for you, whatever. Can we check in like once a month, once a quarter, or whatever the cadence is? And let's just have the same conversation until you just can't not do this. That's how I know, you know, you're kind of ready and just try and challenge them a little bit. But it's not even just challenging them with those, those 2, you know, kind of magic questions. It's Put people on a path, especially if you're trying to grow your team. If you really want them to stay in the organization, you see them as a— like, you have to lean in and you have to invest. And if you don't, as a leader, they're gonna go someplace else and they're, they're gonna— you're gonna naturally gravitate some towards somebody who cares about your— has nothing to do with your current performance, but cares about your growth as a, as a professional. And I ask, how can I help? That's— it's a silly question. Sounds super simple, but it's crazy when you say, how can I help? Many times they haven't even thought about that and they don't even realize that somebody is willing to help. And, you know, the secret cheat code here is very few people get into leadership on their own. They have a sponsor or somebody that cares about their trajectory. They see that in them and they go in and reach and pull it out. And I just encourage anybody that's leading people, don't, don't be, don't get defensive or, you know, I've seen that move before where it's like this guy or gal is killing it in their role and I don't want them to, you know, ascend too quickly or, you know, all the things that might creep in if we're all being honest with ourselves. Nah, it's just the opposite. It's look out for their, you know, validate them, validate them, validate them, validate them, ask some probing questions and offer help.

And what's the hardest part of the CRO job?

Focus. There's too many things going on at one time. And so, you know, depend if you're really truly doing the full gamut, you probably got sales, pre-sales, marketing, operations, CS, partners, and then all of the, your overlords over you, boards and CEOs that have things they need from you, rightfully so, on performance. How do you give the right time to the right things and how do you delegate and how do you make the main thing the main thing? That's the hardest thing. When I was just doing sales, it's, I wouldn't say it's easier, it's just different, but you can focus. It's all deals all the time. The CRO role is really hard because if you don't give, if you give too much focus to the wrong things, you can be operationally efficient, And, and not perform it, right? It's, and it's a juggling act, right? And, and the board or the, you know, the C-suite doesn't really care that you're busy, right? They, they need you to, they need you, you know, hey boss, I'm really busy.

Great. Good.

Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you're busy. We figured you would be. So how, how do you give the balance to it? And, and anybody that either A is stepping into that role or B, is in that role and feeling like you're drowning, um, the most important thing you can do is be situationally aware. Like, go back to first principles. What are the things that if I don't do well, the company is going to suffer, or my role in the company is going to be diminished to the point where I'm not useful? And focus there first and work your way out. Don't try and do all the things. I've made the mistake early, you know, of, uh, you know, trying to do all the things.

Yeah.

And there's just not, there's never enough time. You'll never catch up.

And does being remote help you with that or hurt?

I think it's, I think it can be helpful in 2 ways. Hurtful in one way is, and it, you can't walk the halls or go grab coffee and—

Coffee and—

Yeah. Yeah. It's helpful in one way. I can, I can, you can step away from it if you have to, to just kind of go for a walk or whatever you need to do to kind of separate yourself from it and to think differently. The challenge is, is you're never off. For me, my office is at the front of the house away from everything. It's a really nice space, but, you know, man, I can, and I, I'm a kind of a, I, I go for it. So like I can do an 18-hour day in my sleep, man. Like it's not, that's not a, that's not smart. I wouldn't recommend it, but if I have to, I can. And you can't do that in the office. So remote, I think, helps with managing work-life balance from being able to be around your family and putting in a long day at the same time. But where it's not helpful is you get, you can get yourself spun out. You can go to diminishing returns.

Yep.

And just move the rocks from one side of the driveway to the other side of the driveway as an effort of, look, we did something, but not actually do anything of importance. And so just, I think finding those, you know, green, red, and yellow zones of your day of where you're most effect— efficient and effective, putting all your strong necessary items in the green zone where you've got energy and pushing your tasks to parts of the day where you maybe you're a little more tired. Remote work allows you to do that a little easier than being in the office. And energy management is probably like the most important thing for a remote worker regardless of your role is just doing the important things when you're fresh.

And how about managing expectations up, especially this time of year when you're looking at the classic Q1, you're setting quotas, goals, plans for the whole year. Everyone's super optimistic at the board level. It's easy to say 2x, 10x, 20x, right?

Exactly.

But you're the one that has to pay the bill.

It's exactly right. And, you know, this, this is another cheat code. I think that on, on just whether, excuse me, works for you short term, long term or not, I think it's a good way to look at it. And that's being able to give leadership scenarios of like, oh yeah, we can do, let's just say it's 100% growth. We can do 100% growth. And here's the plan to do that. You know, if you're given an unrealistic goal or expectation, You know, okay, we can do that as well. Let me show you what that looks like. And usually it's something they're not willing to do from an investment perspective or a risk they're not willing to take. But I think it's giving people options rather than arguing about the number and just saying that number is not doable. You just look like you're defensive and you're, you're, you're just, you're kind of scamming a little bit, trying to just keep the numbers low.

Yeah.

Handbagging and doing the whole thing. Have a reasonable conversation. I think people respect that where you're giving, you know, okay, let's, let's create these as options and then working through the options and then you can kind of negotiate your way to something that's doable versus this, you know, here's your number. Now, some boards are that way or some CEOs are that way. They'll just drop a number on your desk and say, this is the number and you don't have a choice. But usually not. I mean, most that I've worked around, you know, have all been pretty reasonable people, but they're looking for you to They're looking for you to show leadership. And because it's not good for the company, for the CRO to say we can take the hill every time. Sometimes it's better for the CRO to say this is bad for the company and let me explain to you why and work your way into a growth scenario that's healthy. It's gonna feel awkward because it's gonna feel like you are sandbagging. But if you know it's not possible with even the more investment, more people, whatever, You're better off to call timeout and work through the options and struggle together than to just adversarially say yes or no to a number. And, and that's kind of more of an old school mentality. I think the yes, no thing where they just pitch a number over the fence and say, you go figure it out. Most boards are looking for efficient growth now. They're not looking for growth at all costs. So if you can scare them into seeing this will not be efficient growth, this will be, you know, likely a very expensive endeavor. You can usually back them into something that's reasonable that then, you know, I always go back to if the reps aren't happy. So go down into the organization. If they're not seeing a path to their number and they're not seeing a path to to making money and they're not seeing that you're looking out for their family, you're gonna have a different issue. You're gonna sign up for a number. You're gonna have attrition. You're gonna have to backfill all these people anyway. So, you know, it is a little bit of you know you just manage up a little bit. The CRO has to be able to. live in both tensions and honestly talk to the board about the people, right? That's interesting when they don't think that way. They're, and it's not because they're not thinking about them. That's not their role. So bring them into the problem you're trying to solve too. Like I'm trying to do, build a company, make a number and get a multiple and all those things have to be right together and we can't do that without the people. So you just gotta live in the tension and be okay with it. And that, Took me 2, 3 years to get a little better at that because you're gonna feel forced into doing things that aren't natural.

And that's it. And what they don't understand is the good people are the first to leave, not the bad. Not that there's bad people, but less effective people.

People with less options.

Yes.

Yeah, no, it's right. And, and I, I just believe good leadership is all about looking at the whole and the whole is, yeah, the board, the senior leadership team, your team right below you and the first line people. You have to just, you have to take inventory of all of it and you might have to make decisions that are hard. So it's never, you can't be altruistic all the time. Sometimes you just have to make a hard business decision to make the company go forward. But you know what, I don't believe That's very often, I think that's a, if you're thoughtful and I, I just, you know, whether it gets me in trouble long term in my career, I don't really care. I, I think our job is to do well by the people and that's all of the people. And so if you can't take the time, just a little time to look for solutions to those types of problems, because that's like the common sales leadership issue. It's like, you know, to get the growth, you end up, somebody has to take the punch to the face, right? And And, you know, it should be an equal thing. It shouldn't all come back to, you know, first line quota and compensation. There's other places, there's other places you can make amends for that.

Yeah. Cool. Hey, Ken, I really appreciate your time. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Yeah, easiest places are LinkedIn for sure is easy as well as I hang out on all the other platforms as well, more, you know, from a personal perspective, but LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to connect. And I just, I really appreciate the opportunity to just chat a little bit. And I've gotten great value from each one of these podcasts that I've listened to, Brian. So just keep doing them. And I love that you keep it real. And it's been a pleasure to be with you today.

If you like that interview, you'll like the other interviews that I have on the Sales Leadership Show. I talk about all the great topics today— how they got into leadership, why, what works, how to hire great salespeople, how to lead them, how to work with them through territory and quota changes, how to connect with them, how to deal coach, forecast— all those hot issues that we like about sales leadership. Check it out, The Sales Leadership Show. If you're a rep and you have sales questions, I've got brutally honest answers. It's the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers podcast. Check that out as well. And if you're a leader and you want your team to crush it this year in sales, the 2 courses you need are Start the Conversation and Get the Meeting, as well as Closing the Complex Sale. Just think back a few weeks ago at the end of the quarter. Didn't that forecast tend to melt? You find out that something that's supposed to be in procurement hasn't even entered into the online procurement system. Nobody knows about it. Still in the inbox. This happens a lot. Reps aren't taught how to do this. They don't understand how companies buy, both administratively, Politically and from a leadership standpoint. Until they understand that, they're reacting. They're a black box. The deal— they have no visibility. They're typically talking to only one person at the account, and that person has zero budget authority. Do they even understand how budget authority works? Sign-offs, legal, procurement. All of this stuff is part of the complex sale, but people don't talk about it. All we talk about is what to say. I bet your reps know what to say, but what do they say when the order doesn't come in? We teach you how to prevent that because sales is a prevention profession. Just think of how hard it is to repair a stalled deal, a slipped deal, a deal that starts Possible? Yes. Easy? Never. It's a lot of work.

But guess what?

Preventing all of those things is about 1/100th the effort. But it takes skill, discipline, and awareness of where you're walking into, what the issues are, and how it gets trapped. That's what we teach in Closing the Complex Sale. And And we'll customize it to your exact sale so that when we leave, your reps will have an exact map of how the customer is buying, how to put in little acid tests to determine how serious they are, and ferret out those false positives before the end of the quarter, before that last day at 5 PM where you're refreshing your email and going, where the hell that order and it's not even entered in the procurement system. This is what we solve. If you're interested, go to b2brevenue.com or send me an email at info@b2brevenue.com, or just connect up with me on LinkedIn and give me a little shout out. I'll have somebody get in touch with you. Thanks for listening.