How To Build A 7 Figure Sales Team with Mark Evans

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Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo.

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Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

Alright, welcome back to the show. This is Brad and hope you've been enjoying the various episodes that we've been releasing here lately. I know we've been covering a lot of different topics and today one of the topics I want to talk about is something that really is the lifeblood of companies business and that is sales. I mean that's pretty obvious, right? But there's a lot of ways to do sales and one of them is, you know, through general digital marketing and generating sales online without ever having to talk to a human being if you would. But there is a much more effective way to do this and it's one of the oldest professions, not that one, but it is sales. It is literally building sales teams and recruiting effective salespeople to help move the needle in your business. And this, this is a, there's a very wide topic here because there's anything from just individually like how to Sell which we've done a lot of episodes on before. But today I wanted to bring a guest on who is going to talk about really how you can build a seven figure sales team and really scale your business by putting the right people in the right place. So this is not just going to be about how to convince people to buy stuff from you. That's why I invited Mark Evans who is the founder of Standard Sales Company on the show. Now he's helped multiple companies build seven figure sales teams and even individuals help them reach the 7 figure sales mark and beyond. And he is launching his new book I believe this November called Raise youe Standards the Definitive guide to Building seven figure sales teams. Mark, welcome to Bacon Wrap business.

Hey Brad, thanks for having me on. Excited to be here.

Yeah, excited to have you. So sales, your thoughts?

Just.

Just throwing it out there, right?

Yeah, just. So sales talk now I wanted to hear a little bit more about, you know, your sales background and experience and kind of how you got into working with companies and helping them grow sales teams. Because this can be, this can really make or break a company if you do it right or wrong, right. Especially depending on the type of company it is, it is so critical to get it right. And salespeople are some of the good salespeople are some of the hardest ones to really recruit because they're in high demand. So let's back up. And tell me a little bit about your sales journey and what brought you to the point where you're, you know, able to help other companies do the same.

Yeah, I'd be happy to. Well, Brad, my story really starts back when I was about 4 years old or so. My dad was an entrepreneur, and he had always been in business with his family. And so they owned, in western Illinois, a variety of, you know, local small newspapers and printing facilities and things like that. And my dad had this itch that him and my mom always wanted to start their own. Right. While these business partnerships worked out decently with family, it was never his own deal. So I think in the back of some magazine, he found this. I mean, rundown is probably inadequate thing to say, but this business that had just been neglected for a while. It was a small print shop in my hometown that now my hometown, where there was one old employee. I think he was like 149 at the time. His name was Dewey, and he was probably the meanest man I've ever met at that time. He was just terrible. But my parents, you know, they risked it all. They put all their chips in the. In the center of the table. They mortgaged their house, and they moved several hours away from all the family, all the friends and everybody that they had known to a small town where they knew no one. And they had this small business and four kids to really try to provide for. So I think while I didn't start professionally selling until a couple years later, that really sticks out of my mind. You know, crossing the Illinois to Wisconsin border, which doesn't seem like a big move. But at that time, it might as well have been an entirely different country just because we didn't know anybody. And so that's really where my entrepreneurial journey started and through high school, like I'm sure a lot of your guests. I really struggled hard in high school, was not a great student, but knew that I always wanted to be a businessman. There was several people in my community that were just really successful. They drove the nice cars, they golfed at the country club. You know, if it was cool, they had it pretty much. And I knew that one common denominator prevailed. They were either in business or they were in sales. So I said, you know what? That's what I want to do, right? Where do I sign up with that? And so throughout college, I held a variety of sales roles, whether it's working for my university as a telemarketer, trying to raise funds. I always think that's funny, right? You go to college and families will shell out or individuals will shell out, tens of thousands to send their kids to school. And then you get a call, like from a guy from me or a guy like me on a Sunday night saying, hey, can you send just a little bit more? Right? We want to build this new building or something like that. So that's one of the areas where I cut my teeth. But I really started, where my real professional sales education started was in the competitive field of staffing and recruiting here in the Milwaukee area. And in this area, Brad, we build a lot of stuff, right? So Milwaukee is known for, you know, not only beers, brats, brewers and packers, but is really known for building, welding, constructing heavy metal, heavy equipment stuff. And so I got into the industry of, you know, staffing, recruiting, which is a very, very competitive market here in Milwaukee. And up until that time, I had just really struggled with sales as well. I had done okay, but it was always I would do well and then I would get pretty distracted or I, you know, go try to chase some other shiny pen. And it wasn't until I found a mentor named Pete, who unfortunately passed away a couple years ago due to stage four liver cancer, where things really started clicking for me. You know, he was one of those guys. And I'm not sure, Brad, if you've ever had a mentor like this that just pounded you into the ground at times and could make you feel so good but also so difficult, absolutely would really hold you to task. And Pete was the guy that really introduced me to a lot of personal development, a lot of professional development, and just really turned my sales career around. And so I was fortunate enough to really kind of jump on this rocket ship of sales at that time, help successfully build that company into an Inca 5000 company and a Fast50 award winner in this Milwaukee area, which is a pretty great designation. And then joined forces and was recruited to another company to really help build a rapidly growing direct response marketing type of company to build their sales force out and to build their customer service teams out. And we were able to successfully do that and grew a sales team. I think at any time we started around, you know, five to 12 people and grew that to 50 to 60, and they're still growing now.

Nice.

Yeah, it was really cool.

At what point did you. Did you turn to consulting with companies to take it, like kind of getting out of just selling and selling for other people and decide that, look, I've actually kind of got this figured out and helping companies to build teams and to do this more effectively than others. How long has that been?

Yeah, that's been going on for about the past year and a half, two years or so, where I've been able to hang my own shingle and to go out for business on my own. I'd always admired a lot of entrepreneurs that were doing this. And as I was working for these other fast growing companies, I started to really look at, all right, so what separates a company that's growing? Right. You've heard the old adage, Brad, of companies and people are either growing or dying. And I started to take that really serious and say, all right, so what are the commonalities? What are the characteristics of these companies that are growing and dying? And one of the things that really came known to me is that these companies that are growing, they don't do sales by accident and they don't do sales building by accident. Right. It's a very intentional purpose for how they're going to build a sales team. So it was about 18 months ago or so when I said, hey, you know, I'm seeing the commonalities and I know that a lot of companies could really benefit from this. And with my heart, in small and medium sized businesses, I thought, hey, if I can put this structure, if I can create this playbook and this set of rules and this set of, you know, like, yeah, playbook to follow, these companies can have some great success. So that's where I started. And one turned into two and two turned into four. And I was still working for a company at that time and just thought, you know, if I don't, if I don't do this now, if I have worked up all this courage, if I don't do this now, I may never. So that's why I took the jump about 18 plus months ago.

Nice. So.

With kind of the small, medium sized business owners in mind, who may have one or two salespeople, but they're really looking to start to build that up. And they don't have like a seasoned sales manager and team already going, but they're like, yeah, this is an area that we need to kind of COVID What? Well, I guess first of all, what are some of the just more common pitfalls that some of them make when they're starting a sales team? Because it can be very intimidating to just go out there and say, I just want to hire somebody to go sell my stuff.

Yeah, totally. And I think that's the biggest, you know, potential pitfall is right, like, hey, we just need somebody. Give me anybody, give me A warm body that can just make these calls and follow up and do those things. And I think the big pitfall is that most owners don't start with, they don't engineer for the future, right? Of what kind of salesperson do I really want? What kind of sales culture do I really want? And so that's where I really urge business owners and CEOs to really think about, alright, so what kind of sales culture do you want to put in place like Brad? Do you want, you know, a group of Wolf of Wall street killer billers, boiler room types that are just smiling and dialing? Or do you need someone that's more in a consultative approach? Right. That's maybe a more, maybe not heavy handed. And so I think there's a big opportunity for most owners to just spend some time really thinking about, all right, what kind of sales team do I want? Because as I found when it comes to recruiting those salespeople, whatever you put out in the world, you're gonna find, right? And, and it's like a magnet, right? It will attract those that really jive with that sort of culture that you want and it will repel those that don't want anything to do with that culture. So that's always the first place is really understand, hey, what do you want out of this sales team? What's the culture that you, you want to create?

Okay, is there anything else that they typically.

Do incorrectly that ends up costing them a lot down the road?

Yeah, definitely. And I think it's, it's just like in sales, right, where if you're not filling your pipeline with new, fresh, hot leads every single day, right, you're, you're setting yourself up from failure. And I really think that there's a huge opportunity. Especially now, as you alluded to Brad, you know, finding a good top notch salesperson is very difficult and is only, in my opinion, going to get a lot tougher. I think we're going to be coming into just a real difficult time of trying to find great salespeople.

They almost never need a job.

They never need a job.

Yeah, you almost have to almost always have to poach them.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the big opportunity for a lot of owners, right, is that life happens to people and life happens to your business. Right? Like what happened if your top salesperson came in today and gave you notice, right. For most owners, man, they'd be pulling their hair out of their head or you know, they honestly, they'd be up the creek without the paddle. And so they need to always be recruiting. So I try to teach companies and business owners that you need to treat your recruiting pipeline just like you do with your business pipeline, right? So you hear the old adage of always be closing. We also got to always be recruiting, right? You never know who's in your, you know, circle of influence or who's in your friend's circle of influence. That could be your next top salesperson that's just a phone call or two away from you bringing them on board. And if you're not opening yourself up to always be recruiting for them, you're never going to find that person. They're not just going to dump into your lap, right?

So do you have any recommendations that people should start to do when they like, let's say they've set up the culture, they know what they want, they kind of built that foundation and they want to start to find the. Some of the best salespeople and systems for this. Like, what's some of the early stage advice you give them?

Oh yeah, you bet. And here's an easy one and a free one. And so a lot of people are using LinkedIn right now for sales, right? And they're. And maybe you've gotten these connection requests where you connect with somebody and then it seems like a day or two later you get a pitch, right? Like, Brad, I can do your lead gen or I can or whatever, you know, whatever that service email to be. But there's another way that you can use LinkedIn really effectively and that so few are doing it. I think it's a huge opportunity. And so if you're a CEO or business owner, what I'd want you to do is start connecting with 15 to 20 people every single month that are in your realm, right, that are salespeople that are in your industry or in a like industry or could have translatable skills. So this is an easy free one. It just takes some time and it just takes some consistent effort on your part. And so what you do is you connect with them. You wait a week, you know, you wait a couple days, you thank them for connecting and then two, three weeks later, right, you send them just a nice message of saying, hey, if you're ever open to an opportunity that could be stronger than the one you're currently in, let me know. Or you ask him for coffee because you want to share, you know, market intelligence or something like that. If you plant, you know, 15 or 20 of these seeds every single month, not to mention if you do even more, you'll obviously gain more Results, man. You will have a pipeline of candidates of potential candidates that are really good, that aren't looking. But when life happens to them or to their business, you'll be ready and they'll be the first person you're thinking, thinking of.

Nice.

In kind of the show prep and questionnaire, when I was asking you about some of the stuff that you could talk about, you also mentioned something that kind of caught my attention, which is how to capture this low hanging fruit that 90% of all sales teams in business miss that increases profits. What you talking about there?

Yeah, well that's an easy one here. So you know Brad, I don't know if you have kids. Do you have kids? No, I don't. Okay, well, I've got two of them. I've got an eight year old and a five year old. And so I think the biggest opportunity is like really hit me. When I was watching my kids eat a week or so ago and one of my daughters is notorious for this. She like fills up her plate, right? And she eats a little bit of it and then like the rest of it, right, she runs off and plays. And so the rest of it is just hanging out there. And it really hit me that that's what a lot of sales teams and a lot of businesses are doing with their leads, right? We may be the low hanging fruit is that most companies and people, they'll reach out once, maybe tw, maybe three times to a good lead, right? By email via phone call. But that's not enough, right. I recently read a story or an article I think it was, where most sales and connections don't happen until the seventh or eighth connection attempt. And in that same study, most salespeople usually give up after two or three connections or after two or three.

Yeah, the fortune's definitely in the follow up.

Yeah, there's huge ones that follow up. And so a real easy one that companies can start implementing right away is a cadence. And so I call a cadence as the how and the how and the when you're going to follow up with someone. So any company can do this, it's free. There's a lot of software out there that will help, but you don't need that to get started. All you need is a spreadsheet, a list of prospects and then start thinking about all the ways that you can connect with someone. So you know, you get a lead and I want you to send a phone call, email, there's video email now and you've got to do that 15, 20 touches over the span of a month in order to actually reach out and really connect with that someone. So that's the really big, low hanging fruit that a lot of businesses are missing right now. They're just not putting the effort in, they're not putting the systems into it. Really follow up effectively with those hot prospects and hot leads.

Fantastic. Now what about, what about.

You know, other places to find.

You mentioned, you mentioned LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And what about finding other stuff? Like, do you, do you recommend that people try to.

Recruit from their competition, like in the industry to where like it's direct competition to stay away from that? Is there any.

Yeah, I mean, I'm all about it. Right. Like, I think that you should be as aggressive in your follow up and recruiting with people as you should be with, with, with your business. Right. And so, yeah, that's direct competition. If they're a good fit and if they're gonna be a good cultural fit, great, by all means. But I also think some of the best salespeople that I've ever recruited or helped companies recruit or the best salespeople that I can think of at the different companies I work with, many of them have.

Typical sales background. Right. I'm thinking of one or two people that came from the nonprofit space or came from the public sector, or one who was a stay at home mom for several years. But what they had that really stood out was this competitive drive. And maybe not competitive with other people per se, but competitive within themselves. Right. That they, that as soon as we met with a man, I remember thinking like, oh, this person will do whatever it takes to try to better themselves, to improve their efforts, to improve their sales. And that's what you want, right? I mean, and I don't know about you, Brad, but I feel like you can kind of see that as someone who, you know, is active in business. I feel like, man, you can just kind of sense or feel that energy sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely. Are there any things typically when you're recruiting a salesperson that you're. Besides that, that you're either looking for, That's a big red flag.

Yeah. Red flags to me is when someone is always talking about like, and this just happened, and this is why I'm thinking of it. The pet over the past couple weeks in some recruiting that I'm helping a company with is really that they're focused on. Right. So the answer that the candidate usually responds with is, well, I can't wait. This is really gonna help my career. This is really gonna help, you know? Yeah, it's like, well, in business Right. In sales, as you know, it's all about what's in it for me. Right. That's the main radio station that everybody's tuned into. Yet in the interview, you're telling me all about what's in it for you. Like, I don't really care. You know, I just want. I want you to help meet me with my goals and my dreams. And so that's the big. You know, that's a big red flag for most candidate or for most salespeople. And then I would also say, too, is not interviewing enough people. Right. Being forced in a position to say, like, oh, well, he or she is. They're good enough. Right. They're okay. They're fine. All right. I guess we should hire a man. That is just a recipe for disaster. I think for me and for my clients, it's got to be a hell, yeah, or it's got to be a no. If it's not a absolute, like, fist pump, like, this is our candidate, then walk away. It's not worth it. It's not worth it.

Yeah. You know, and I've made that mistake not. Not in salespeople. I've actually never personally hired a salesperson for my businesses, but I've done that in other roles. And I think that is, for both of them, is just. Sometimes I just get so tired of the recruiting process that I just say yes. And it's. You know, it's almost like dating. You know, you just get tired of being single and going to the bars and trying to meet girls or guys or whatever. You're just like, all right, I'm just gonna take the first halfway decent one that comes along, and then you end up settling.

That's good. I hope your wife doesn't think that story is not told at the dinner table. Right.

Exactly. But, I mean, there's a lot of truth to that. Is it like, if it's not a. If it's not a hell yet, like, keep interviewing because the cost of hiring the wrong person is huge.

What about when it comes to incentives? Early on? Incentives. I know that can sometimes be kind of tricky because you want to incentivize the heck out of the person, but you also, you know, you're. You're kind of testing them out. Are there any frameworks, tricks of the trade stories, anything that kind of illustrates.

Something unique there?

Yeah. You know, I would say I've got a couple rules when it comes to compensation. So before I hire anybody, I try to work with them as much as possible. And now it's a Little easier from like a marketing standpoint or from some other roles. But really, I really try to, you know, I want to invite this person into the office. I want to see them actually communicate with some prospects or some people on the phone. I'd like to actually get a real feel like, hey, am I going to feel this person out? Right? I think that that's, you know, that's first thing is really make sure you know who you're, who you're getting, what kind of their stylist. But then when it comes to compensation, I got a couple of rules when it comes down to it, because, man, when it comes to sales compensation, there's so many thoughts out there. There's so many different dogmas. You know, it's all about what's going to be right for you. And so one of my first rules is, you know, sales compensation has to align with the core values, the company and the culture of the organization. And it's got to drive the behaviors that you're looking to perform. So, you know, if you really want to drive, you know, I closed deals. Well, make sure you're incentivizing closed deals. And as silly as it sounds, there's a lot of companies out there that they'll say, like, hey, salesperson, I need you to do X, but they incentivize on Y. And you and I both know that people are going to go to the path of where they're gonna get paid for. So I'd make sure that that's the first thing. Make sure it drives the compensation, and then next, make sure it's simple, right? Like, you know, most salespeople, they've got to go home to a spouse and they've got to try to explain this, right? And I always try to make a sales compensation package as simple as can be, so that you can sketch it on the back of a cocktail napkin or that it can be explained to someone else in one or two minutes. Because if people don't understand how they're going to get paid, then you're just. It's going to get lost in the minutia, right? And you're not going to get the result that you wanted. So those are my big three right there.

No, I think that's great. The.

Sales culture thing is there. Are there any specific ways, kind of going back to that, that you train people to start to really think about that and.

Lay out the groundwork? So if somebody really hasn't, you know, if they've got salespeople or they're thinking about this Something they can walk away from this episode and really chew on.

Yeah. You know, I think the. It's really powerful to establish a sales culture, because when it works for you, it's like running downhill. Everything can become easier. Right. Your results can just compound. But, man, if you don't have a good sales culture or it's fighting against you, it's like rolling that rock uphill, and it never gets easier. So, as you know, if I'm talking to a leader or a business owner. Right. It all starts with you as a sales leader. Right. And so a sales team rarely surpasses their leader's capabilities. So if you have a sales team that's not performing up to their expectations, honestly, it's your fault. Like, if you haven't established those expectations or if those expectations are cloudy in any way, well, then that's on you as a leader. But I would say there's two things that can really help just about any organization. And the first is having a ironclad, super visible scorecard where every single week, it's updated every single week, the entire sales team knows exactly where they stand. That's one of the great things about a sales career, is that you know exactly where you stand. Like, there's no guessing. Like, am I a good salesperson or am I not? No, you're in, like, last place. And you have been for the past 12 months. Like, no, you're not a good salesperson, or no, you're not in this company. And so that's one of the few things that makes it different from, like, you know, an accountant. Like, how do you know your accountant's good? But I don't know. We haven't been arrested yet or, like, we haven't committed fraud or anything like that. So that's a plus. So have a great scorecard that's trackable and that the team has a lot of confidence in. And then the next is, you know, I've got a what I call my four sales meeting protocol, and that really has been found to really create awesome sales teams that creates a high level of clarity, high level of visibility, and just drives results. And that comes down to having a daily standup, having a weekly rhythm meeting where you basically review those scorecard results, Having a monthly assessment, which is really to give, you know, personal and professional feedback and set some goals, and then have a quarterly review. Look at what worked, what didn't work, and how do you improve on that. And so those are the two big things to establish some great performance. Right. Have a scorecard, and then have some structured sales meetings that you're delivering not only tactical feedback, but real professional and personal development.

Right. In switching over to kind of your career in working with companies right now, like, obviously there's probably a lot of different types of companies you can work with, et cetera. But who are the companies you're really or individuals or whatnot that you're really looking to connect with and work with more?

So, yeah, the companies and people I'm really looking to work with and connect with, for one, the industries I operate the Most in are SaaS products, professional services from realtors, managed service IT companies, realtors, personal and commercial, and then, yeah, a variety of other industries as well. But the owner that I tend to vibe with best or work with the best and get the most results for is someone that believes in that statement before that. I said, you know, businesses and people are either growing or dying, and they're frustrated and fed up with being in this rat race of trying to do all the things, trying to be the CEO, the head salesperson, the janitor. Right. All those things. And they want to break free. Right. And they really want to grow their company. That's where I've been able to help the most amount of people and the most companies.

What's that look like if.

If a client typically hires you, is this. Do you come on site? Is it virtual? What does that look like?

You know, I could invite people up to beautiful Wisconsin in January where I think temperatures get, you know, to negative fart, but I'd much rather, you know, be located in San Diego where you are. Brad. You know, I work virtual most of the time. I have met clients on site for a couple of times, but for the most part, yeah, work all virtually, and we're able to get some great results that way. Now with things like Zoom and Slack and other trello boards and things like that. It makes it so easy. And the great part about a lot of sales teams is all of their sales scoreboards and scorecards and things are all on the cloud or on different SaaS platforms. Makes it really easy to work with.

Yeah, it really does. That's awesome. So are there any nuts you're trying to crack right now? And by that I mean people you're trying to meet, skills you're trying to learn, things you're trying to accomplish that have kind of just been a, you know, kind of a hard nut to crack. And this is where myself and any of my audience members, you might be able to jog our opportunity to add value to you.

Yeah, you Bet you know, I'm really focused on working with anybody in the direct response marketing world. I've worked the past couple days I was at. We really helped build some effective sales teams to really complement direct response marketing firms where you know, traditionally, let's say 80, 90% of all their business has come through direct response marketing and they want to grow and add just a different level. Right. Have some, just some different elements of their business. So I've worked really effectively with that, but really working to connect with owners that want to grow a sales team. Don't really know where to start and need some help in doing so.

Fantastic. And then Standard sales is standard sales company. That's the name of your business. What's the, what's the best way for people to reach you if they want to find out more and see if that you might be able to help them either get started with a sales team or take their sales team to the next level?

Yeah, you bet. So my website is www.standardsalesco.com but one free gift for the listeners out there if you go to 90daysalesblueprint.com that's 90daysalesblueprint.comthat's where I have 15 sales team activators. So from some of the things we talked about today and others and some more advice on how to really activate aggressive, productive, quota crushing sales team, that is a great way to do so. And that's a free resource there. And then.

You said.

Right, that's correct. Yep. 90daysalesblueprint.com Great.

I'll make sure that's in the show notes. Well, man, Mark, I really appreciate this. This is definitely a topic that, you know, talked about sales and the.

Kind of ways to be more persuasive individually as if you are the salesperson. But this isn't a topic we've really covered and I think it's one that really important because you know, CEOs and a lot of the folks who are listening to this, they, they really should be building sales teams instead of trying to do it all themselves. And it sounds like this is one of the areas that you really help people with. So I want to thank you for sharing some of your wisdom on this. And if anybody has any questions, obviously you can hit up mark@standSalesCo.com and Mark, I just want to really thank you for being a guest on Bacon Wrap Business.

Thank you, Brad. It's my pleasure to be on a podcast with the likes of Mitch Russo and Brian Kurtz. Man, it really means a lot to me. So thank you very much for having me and keep up the work with the great show.

It's my pleasure. Okay, this episode is almost done, but our time together doesn't have to end. At least not yet. Subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode and head on over to baconratbusiness.com where you can find more bonus material. And you can leave me a voice message with your question. If it's good, I'll read it on the air. And if you have a business problem you'd like my brain on, send me an email to ask Bradbacon Wrapped business dot com. Tell me more and I might be able to give you a second opinion on what's keeping you stuck. See you on the next episode.