The Exit Engine Podcast Episode 43: Meet Cory Bruscia

Welcome to the Exit Engine Podcast, episode 43. Good morning, John.

Good morning, Joe.

How are you today, man?

I'm great. And yourself?

Very, very, very good. We've got another great guest today.

Absolutely.

So we, we're going to— today we're going to talk to Corey Bruscia. And Corey is a kind of visionary behind CMB Sales Consulting. He is another one of our partners who does a great job in helping founders figure out their sales strategy, building a sales system that is scalable, and is really kind of a fractional sales management consultant. Right? So I'm really excited about this today because, as you know, John, we get a lot of people telling us when we're consulting with them that the first thing that they need, that they're having trouble with, is that they don't have a sales force, right?

Yeah, or they have some sort of cobbled-together sales force, or it's someone doing sales with 30% of their time, or 4 people doing sales with 10% of their time. I think what we've learned and we've guided and counseled these people is Having that type of salesperson or having a, you know, not fractional salesperson, but a percentage of the chief operation officer doing sales is not the way to do this.

Not an optimal thing, especially if you are moving towards some kind of exit, right? And so the ability to show a buyer or potential buyer that you've got this sales force intact, even if it's outsourced, frankly, Okay, is certainly better than nothing, um, is not actually— is, is something that's going to be an imperative for you as a, as a founder when you go to sell the company, right?

Absolutely, 100%.

So without further ado, let us introduce to you our friend, uh, and compatriot, uh, Corey Bruscia. Corey, it's great to meet you. Thank you for being on the Exit Engine podcast.

Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, John, for having me. I appreciate it.

Awesome. So Corey, let's start at the beginning. Let's go, let's just go, let's go back. Okay, so Give us your background. What got you into sales? Where, you know, where, what, and then kind of what led you up into CMV?

So what got me into sales originally was from childhood. My father was lifelong sales executive and, you know, from his first job all the way, you know, through till retirement. And at a very young age, you know, kind of seeing your father and what he does and going to work every day with a briefcase and a suit. And, you know, and then once I got old enough, you know, he would take me, you know, to work with him sometimes. And, you know, I just kind of— I don't know, the whole atmosphere of not necessarily going to an office and sitting from 9 to 5 and working in a cubicle and, you know, Leaving at five o'clock, coming back in the morning. When I saw kind of how he worked his day and the amount of people that he met and spoke with, and I was just like, wow! I'm like, this is like, this is really cool. And when I tell you, I was like, you know, seven or eight years old. So to to kind of pick up on that, right? So I just took that forward. And once you know, I went to school and college and. Went into marketing and management, and when I came out, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. And, you know, that launched my 30-year career as a sales executive. And, you know, what I wanted to do when I started CMB Sales Consulting is take everything that I learned and all my experience and all the years of, you know, resolving, you know, thousands and thousands of different, you know, problems within sales and, and leadership I wanted to take that to the small and medium-sized business because they don't necessarily have access to somebody like myself or somebody with that kind of background and experience. Because, you know, budgets are, you know, for a small, medium-sized company and what it would cost to have a full-time sales manager to come in and, you know, set up shop and get a sales team going. Is pretty pricey for a small business, right? So I figure if I, if I bring that same expertise and all my background that, you know, I've gained over all those years on a fractional basis and for a third of the cost of what it would cost a full-time equivalent, um, it's a home run, right? On both sides. So that's, uh, that's how I got here.

Yeah. Every— everybody wins, right? And again, obviously, obviously it's, it's in your blood, right? I mean, I think we all kind of grew up modeling our parents one way or the other. In some cases, maybe it's you follow in the footsteps, or sometimes you maybe go the opposite way as a result.

I was just going to say the same. Like, my dad was a salesperson, and I went to work with him at younger than 7 and realized, based on the amount of people he interacted with every day, I did not want to do that. So it's just funny that you went one way. Yeah.

But the funniest part, John, is that now you host a podcast that has thousands of people. But other than that—

There you go.

There you go. But also it was the lunch that, you know, we were able to go on.

Yeah.

And, and not only keep it to an hour, but, you know, go for a great lunch, big spread. I got all my favorites, of course, you know. So that was, uh, that's awesome.

I was just gonna ask you what stood out about that, those, that, to those time, that time you spent with him in that capacity. But I think we have our answer, right? It was the, you know, it's the free lunch.

Yeah. When you're 7. Yeah, definitely.

Exactly right. What, what, what else, uh, did you, did you pull out of that, uh, from him specifically, besides obviously just the general kind of being in sales thing? What was there anything that you pulled out from your time with him that you felt like was something that still sticks with you today?

Yeah, I would say it's because it's more of a natural, right? More of a natural thing. And for him especially, it was. And for me to see that he went to work and it wasn't, you know, there wasn't nervousness, there wasn't, oh, I got to do a presentation. Oh, you know, it's what he did, you know what I mean? That's what he knew best and what he did, and he loved it. So, and that's where, you know, growing up and even today, I'm, you know, a big proponent of, you know, uh, do what you love, right? Because then you're passionate about it and it just kind of comes naturally, right? So—

Well, you mentioned in one— in your first answer, Corey, you mentioned problem solving, right? You mentioned that that you view, or you, it appears, or that you view sales as problem solving. So talk a little bit about like throughout your career when you're getting, meeting with a client, like what do you view as sort of the problems that you need to solve along the path of selling a product or service to a company or a person?

Oh yeah, it's, that's the thing is, John, it's a whole myriad of There's so many different areas that could be. And that's even what's difficult about today and going into a small or medium-sized business. It's not like, okay, there's 6 or 7 main issues that— there is that, right? There is that part of it. And you can uncover that stuff pretty quickly. But it gets pretty in-depth in what salespeople should be doing every day and every month and every quarter and how it kind of all unwinds. I think I've always had the ability to, first of all, be a good listener, right? That's key. And that's something I was taught, you know, years and years and years ago was, you know, you got to listen 80% of the time and talk 20% of the time. And by teaching myself to be that inherent listener and, and note-taker, I would just be able to kind of ingest what, you know, I'm being told and You know, quickly kind of highlight the top 3 issues that I see in what, you know, somebody's telling me. And it's always pretty much spot on, you know, they're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do that. And yep, that goes wrong. And then, you know, they could kind of, you know, it's almost like I kind of lay it out for them and they're like, wow, you're right, you know.

Right.

So it's just, you know, But that's just one small piece again of, you know, how you need to interact, um, with a CEO or president or an owner founder of a small company. Um, but if you just really listen, um, and then you take all the experience, right, that I have in hearing this, you know, so many different ways and variations, you know, it, uh—

Right.

It's helpful.

What do you think are— so let's just, let's talk a little bit, a little bit more specifically. So what, what are some of the, what are the, what are the things that you would consider the most common kind of issues that you come across, you know, in these small— when you, when you come into a small business and you start your, start your engagement?

So one of the most common things, and that small and medium-sized businesses don't even know anything about, is At the, the first and foremost is following a sales process, okay, or some kind of process specific to their company, specific to what they sell, whether they sell services and a product, software, whatever it may be. And it's really just a lot of times, most of the time, you see that people are like, yeah, we're just They can get to a certain point and with doing it the way they're doing it, and then they plateau. And then that's when all this kind of starts to come out.

Sure.

Where they're like, we're just not able to grow. We can't move the needle on sales. And, and then I start digging in and figure out that everybody's doing something different. Uh, nobody's following any kind of process. That methodically takes you through and takes the client or prospect through a process that's gonna give you the most chance. All right. The highest percentage of winning that deal than any other way that you would approach it.

Yeah. And it's funny though, in my experience, the people who are really good at mapping and creating sales processes are oftentimes not the best closers.

Right.

All those times. So it's funny, you get people who do really well at sales process and get clients to a certain level, but then they can never close. And then you get the closers who get very few people to the closing table, but they close them, right? So it's that interesting dichotomy, I imagine.

Right, right, John. And it's interesting because when you follow, one of the things that helps you Right? Nobody's, you know, comes into sales and is a natural closer, right? That's one of the areas, just like when you tell somebody they gotta pick up the phone 50 times a day and be on it most of the time, right? Back in the day, that's another thing people aren't very comfortable with, right?

Mm-hmm.

So closing's always the, the area where, you know, I see that people get, they're like, uh, all right, now it comes down to asking the hard questions. Is what it comes down to, right? So that's where, you know, if you follow a process and you have all the information that you need, and you've even kind of dug in to make sure that you didn't miss anything, right? And everything is accurate. And, you know, now when you ask the hard question, it's almost like you know the answer you're going to get, right? But when you ask those hard questions, It's more of a natural thing because you've taken all the steps to get there.

Right.

When you don't follow a process and all of a sudden in one of the, you know, second or third calls, you're like, so what do you think? Are you guys ready to sign up today and join? And, you know, they're like, uh, right. They, they don't know half of what they need to know. So, you know, that's where another aspect of having a sales process It's just paramount. Right.

You don't ask for the sale too quickly. You don't ask for the sale too late. The process guides you through that plan to say, this is where we now ask them for the sale. Right.

You are now ready, right? You have, it's almost like you have the right.

Yeah.

That's a good way to phrase it.

Yeah. Somebody actually, you know, another sales executive taught me that a million years ago. They're like, listen, You know, when you have somebody on the phone or you're calling a CEO, or like, think about— not to get you nervous, but think about the level of person that you're calling and talking to. Number one, you better be prepared. Number two, you better know, you know, what you're talking about. And but you can't be afraid to, to talk to them. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else. And, you know, Right. You just, you can't be afraid to come out and ask the tough question.

You're on their level, right?

Yeah.

A really good sales training class that I took, probably the best one I've ever taken, was you have to, you have to be on their level. You're calling CEOs, you're calling senior vice presidents, you know, don't— oh, do you have 5 minutes? No, no, I only have 5 minutes, right? Hey, right, Corey, I only have 5 minutes. I want, you know, that, that's just one of the great tricks I learned, like, oh great, Put, put your, make your time as valuable as their time clearly is.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? You'd be surprised that when you do those things, and it's always good to ask feedback at certain points of when you have a CEO that you have a good relationship with or something, ask them, hey, you know, what is it that drew you to, you know, to come on board with us? You know, and you, you'll get, you gotta be able to take the honest feedback sometimes. Right. But for the most part, you'll get the feedback that they were like, well, you know, You were very— although you were persistent, you were very, very, um, patient and polite, and you never bugged me, and, you know, you're a wealth of knowledge. And then they start giving you all this, you know, great feedback, and you're like, all right, so this is why I should be doing this, because they appreciate it, actually.

So I think it's interesting. One of the biggest things that I learned too— and by the way, I've been, I've been, I've been involved in new business development for for a very large part of my career, and I've never felt comfortable in it, frankly. And I think part of the reason, again, I'm good with people. I'm a natural talker. You know, I've got that for me. I'm good on my feet. You know, I can think fast, right? And so those are good assets to have. And everybody's, you know, people that have known me for years are like, you know, Joe could sell ice to an Eskimo. But I've always felt like Yeah, myself, that I, that I wasn't great at it because my attitude in my head is what I come from a place, or, you know, I used to come from a place of, uh, inferiority, uh, to, you know, to what you said, like a place of like what I have is I'm bothering people. I, I was, I was too good at putting myself potentially maybe too, uh, uh, empathic in terms of, of, of putting myself in the position of somebody else. Who was gonna be annoyed by the phone call or the fact they were interrupted or whatever.

Right. And you bring up a, that's a good point, Joe. One of the things that, and I do this on a, on a personal level as well, is, you know, meet people where they are, right? First of all. Yep. And when you, you know, approach somebody, it can't be Trying to think of the term I was trying to— I was looking for, but it's, it's got to be natural, right? And like you said, thinking on your feet, right? It has to be because if you do get an odd response or something happens, or you can't just freeze and be like, well, what do I do now? Right? So that's why, you know, preparation for any presentation call, even if it's a short call, just, you know, you have to be prepared because it could take a turn at, you know, at any point. And, you know, it's, um, it's just something that, like I said, on a personal level was what I was thinking of. How do you like to be sold to?

Right, right.

So I, I look at that all the time. I go in a dealership to buy a car, Yeah. Okay. And, you know, I sit there and my wife is, you know, tapping me under the desk because, you know, sometimes I'm spinning these guys in circles because it's like, listen, you know, this is what I do.

Yeah.

For a living. Okay. So I know all the, you know, all the tricks and, you know, so it's how you want to be sold to. And that's the way you need to kind of turn that around and be like, well, Would I wanna be approached that way? Right. Or would I, you know, because I know when I get in the mail, you know, 7 times a week, something from Verizon Wireless or whoever it is about, you know, changing phones or whatever, like that's just not the way, you know, they go right in the garbage.

Well, I think of the way that when you talk about car dealerships, I think of the way that, that I bought my most recent car and the guy was so smooth and he wasn't a traditional salesperson by any stretch of the imagination.

Right.

He actually ended up talking me into a lower priced car. which was sort of amazing considering he's on commission. But he did such a good job of explaining, you know, why I would want the product. And I think he was concerned about me walking away, which is why he sort of downgraded me from a new car to a used car. And I just think of, like, because I've gone through so many sales training, you know, episodes or sales training events, that I think of what were the tactics he was using and they were just so effective. And I think of the opposite side of back when I was in corporate America and getting sold these massive systems and how these people would This guy just annoyed me. He had the best system, but he was the most annoying human being in the world, right? And he just—

he—

every— the exact way to get to not get on my good side was the way that he approached it. He'd call me early in the morning, like, yeah, he knew I was gonna be at my desk, but it's like, dude, don't call. Like, I've told you multiple times, don't call me early in the morning. And he continued to do it. Yeah, but, uh, it's just interesting how those— how those— those tactics You know, are really, you know, it's funny how some, some tactics work on people and sometimes you're not even sure of which tactics are working.

And quite honestly, John, you know where that comes from at the root, right? That's where, and you read it all over when you're on LinkedIn and all these different, anything, you know, that has sales-oriented material or content on it, that, that comes from the management, right? So that person probably in a million years did not want to call you. Okay, but their manager thought that I want phone calls at 8 AM every day, and if you don't make them, we're gonna fire you.

Interesting.

That's how that happens.

Yeah, good point.

It happens more than you would know.

So that's actually, that's an excellent thing to bring up because I think again that overall that speaks directly to the sales, to the process, the strategy, and the organization, right? And the fact is that, you know, you need to have the organization in place that's right for the product you're selling and the audience you're selling to, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I actually found that at a few meetings over the past month where, you know, people were, were struggling with the fact that they had bought salespeople on and they're just not working out, you know. And, you know, and we bought somebody else and then that didn't, that didn't work out either. And I kind of reversed it on them and was like, well, think about it from their perspective for a second. Right? So you're looking for that high-powered, really professional, good salesperson. And but what are you offering?

What are you giving him?

Right? Do you have a state-of-the-art CRM that they can track all their contacts and all their clients and prospects and everything, all their activity, right, to make it easy on them? Do you have that, right? No, right? Uh, do you, you know, when they onboard, when they come on into the company? Do you have a 6-week onboarding, right, that tells them everything about that organization and meet all the people within and what they do and what divisions they head up and, and all those different things, right? And a lot of them, nah, they don't do that, right? So the really strong salesperson that you probably interviewed at some point, but when they interviewed you back and figured out that, you know, they don't have a CRM, There's no formal onboarding process, right? You know, commission plan is kind of, you know, whatever the flavor of the month is. They're gonna say no, right? So you're not gonna get that person because of what you're offering. And they really were like, it was like a light bulb went off. But yeah.

And when you're looking for salespeople to hire, Corey, like right back in your, throughout your career, What are the, like, the top 2 or 3 things you're looking for in salespeople when you're bringing them into an organization?

It's, and it's changed, right, a lot over the years. But, you know, many years ago when they started with the assessments, right, because some people are very good at interviewing and very good at telling a good story and, you know, That it's hard to tell, is this really, you know, a salesperson from, you know, from childhood, or are they kind of just faking it a little bit? So then the assessments came in. I think it's really, even when you're just talking with them and interviewing them, it's knowing the areas to poke. And depending on the answers that they give, then you're like, okay, so this person's been around this is truly what they love to do, um, you know, and it just fits. But then it also smokes out the rest of the crowd where, you know, they don't necessarily have a good answer. So it's really having those key questions according to your business and how you work and whether they're going to fit within the dynamics and the framework of your business and that they're going to be able to thrive in selling, you know, whatever your business has as a product or service.

So let's talk a little bit about your process in terms of how you kind of engage with companies. I think one of the ways to, you know, potentially to start is, again, is that I know we come across companies that are in various stages of their growth, right? Many of them are at a crossroads where they are trying to figure out, you know, how to move forward, because they've reached a certain point where they've kind of reached the limits of their own abilities, right? And as a result, I think sales tends to be one of those kind of like, you know, what's the Rubicon? Like there's something about this ability to be able to— there's a territory here that I can't, I'm not going to go into, right, in some cases.

Right.

Whereas opposite-wise also exists, right, where Unfortunately, probably, and maybe to their detriment, that the founder is the chief sales guy and is really good at it and is the closer and all that stuff. So obviously those are 2 very disparate situations. So talk to us a little bit about how you engage in each of those and what is your process in terms of getting, you know, starting out and so forth.

So it really starts at, again, meeting them where they are right at that point. And, you know, through talking with them and having conversation with them, usually it does start out as, and admittedly from them, that, hey, you know, I'm the founder of this company, I'm the CEO, I helped develop this product, and I helped bring this product to market. Nobody can manage the sales team better than I can, right? So that was the initial thought. But then they get to that, you know, that point where they're like, okay, so we've kind of plateaued now. It's been a couple of years and we're not seeing the growth that, you know, we saw before, and the trajectory is certainly not there. And then that's where I would say a majority of them, Joe, they, they will say, yeah, I'm, you know, I did feel that way. And obviously I'm— but it just shows you that they're passionate about their company and their business and what they sell. and their products, right? So there's nothing wrong with that, but they realize at a point that, you know what, I can't— if I want to be— I'm a $10 million company today. If I want to be a $100 million company, there's no way I'm going to get there by doing this, right?

Right.

So that's where, you know, I start the process of, you know, going through and, you know, where do you want to be? And you know what, you'd be surprised, like some people aren't that you know, they don't want to be a $100 million company.

Right.

Like, you know what, we're kind of satisfied chugging along the way we are. And, uh, that's great, you know, as long as you're not losing money, you know, that's great. So not everybody is as ambitious as, you know, the next person might be. Um, but, you know, for most people, they're like, yeah, like, we want to get here Uh, here's the timeline. And obviously I'm taking this all in, and that they have it even laid out into dollars, into, you know, which goes along the part of putting a plan together, right?

Yeah.

Literally putting down on paper what you want to accomplish and your goals, right, and objectives. And when they could kind of lay that out very simply, um, then you know they already did that and they want to get to $100 million. They just don't know How to do it.

Right. And when you have a goal to reach, right, when you have a dollar goal to reach or some type of customer goal, right, it's much easier to reach that with a plan, right? With a, hey, you want to reach 1,000 customers, whatever it happens to be. That happens to be Joe and I's goal, Joe and mine's goal. But we reached 1,000 customers and here's the plan to get there. Okay, we're gonna need N number of salespeople over this time period to reach that customer goal, or it's a yearly goal. So it's interesting.

And then it's whole, and then it's looking at all the metrics right along the way. So if you say over the course of a year, this is where, you know, I want to be, you have to have a check-in with yourself every quarter to say, okay, we're progressing along, we're on track. We're tracking exactly that goal, right? A lot of people don't necessarily kind of put it together in a way where they're holding themselves accountable and they're looking at the numbers to make sure that they're on track. Because then when you get to the 3rd quarter and you finally look at all the numbers and you're like, oh geez, like I'm behind by 20%.

Right.

I gotta make that up now on top of what I said I would do for the 4th quarter. So then, you know, you get yourself in a situation. So yeah, a plan is always—

So you're— so again, as a fractional sales, you know, director, right? Okay, uh, right. You're basically coming in, you're obviously— you're gonna assess the situation, you're gonna look what their goals are, what they're trying to achieve, right? You're gonna understand— you yourself are gonna obviously go in and understand their products and their customer base and who they're selling to, who they think they're selling to, right? And I bet you oftentimes you'll come across a situation where they're even selling to the wrong wrong people, or they haven't thought maybe about even broadening the audience that they go after, uh, and things like that, right?

Yes, that's a big part of it is, you know, just the, the basics of when you think you have an opportunity and you're now trying to, you know, get a meeting, get your first meeting, you know, are you talking to the right person? Okay. And even if you're talking to the right person, Who else should be in that meeting that supports that decision, right? Or sometimes there's that person in the background that you don't necessarily know about and you never uncovered. And then when it comes time to sign a contract, they're like stalling and you're like, I don't know what happened. Like this guy said he wants to do this and yeah, but there's another person that you need to uncover, right?

Sarah, the unseen person who needs to sign off on this sale is not in any of the meetings.

Yeah. Yes. You know, so, and that happens, you know, a ton, especially when you don't follow a process, because when you follow a process, it's meant to kind of uncover all these hidden angles, right? That could knock your deal right out of the ring. Yeah.

That's like the discovery process, right? To, to, to make sure that, hey, are, you know, hey, hey, Joe, are you the only one that, you know, that needs to, that needs to be involved in this process? Or are there other people that need to, sign off on this deal. And obviously I'm not being very articulate about it, but discovering that Joe is a key part of this decision-making process and Joe hasn't been in any meetings, you rather get that uncovered sooner rather than later.

Yeah, and that's a big part of it. And that's where, you know, a lot of, you know, less experienced salespeople, or they could be experienced salespeople but never really followed You know, any kind of plan or process. And when you do put one in place and they do utilize it, it's literally like light bulbs go off because they're like, wow. They're like, what in the heck have I been doing for the past whatever amount of years? But like, this works, you know, and I'm closing more business, I'm having better conversations. And which is what I love about it. Like, that's where like little hearts pop out of my head. Because it's like, yeah, like, you know, I'm not going to try to force it down your throat. I'm not going to try to— all I'm going to do is, is tell you why it's important and why it works and what it can do right for you. And, you know, whether you want to try it or not, then that's up to you.

So you've got, so you've got this discovery thing, you've gone in and you've figured out, okay, this is the, this is the landscape, right? This is who we're dealing with. These are the people internally who have to sign off on things. This is the, this is The, the whatever internal processes, your operating procedure they have right now. This is the product, obviously, or the product set. The ability to be able to obviously understand who that audience is, and maybe you're making recommendations there about expanding audience or going into things because of your experience. You might say, you know, that there's a change that's there. So now you're in a situation where you say, OK, now I know who we're going after. And now it's— now we got to figure out what to say, right? We have to figure out what are the introductions, who are making the introductions, right? Who at the client, you know, are you— do you want to talk to? Is there a ladder up the ladder process that has to happen? Things like that, right?

Right, right. And that's all things that— and that's why, right, just in the very basics of having a sales process, One of the things is, you know, your first call, first meeting, okay? And what you want to accomplish. And that's one of the things that I do when I put a process together for a company specific to them. It's not just, you know, here's phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, phase 4, right? It's within each one of those phases, this is what you want to accomplish. Right. And why it's important. And the first call, it's important to, you know, you don't do any selling. Uh, you, you, again, you listen, right, intently. And, you know, you try to gather as much information as you can. And you ask, you know, shorter open-ended questions that are gonna get them talking and get multiple people talking. And, you know, it all starts there. Because, you know, if you get on a first call and you're like, well, let me show you, uh, that— I mean, that people are just like, you know, you're building rapport in that first call too, right?

You're gathering information, you're building rapport so that like when the number pops up on their caller ID the second time, you're not going to ding. It's like, oh, this is Corey. Okay, I'll pick this up, you know?

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Rapport is— let's face it, right? We said it before. You're going to buy from people that you like. Right. And that you trust. So it's the, the like, the trust, and that they, they took the time to build rapport with you. I even, you know, sometimes my, my first calls, we always had slotted as like a half hour, right?

Yep.

I don't think I ever, um, kept it to a half hour.

Yeah.

And if it was just a half hour, it probably wasn't a really good call. So That tells you again, like, yeah, they're going 35, 40 minutes and we're talking about personal things and families. And, you know, the other thing too is to show that, you know, you're human, right? Hey, I have a family too. I have kids. I live in a house. I got a dog, 2 dogs, you know, all the bills, right? Yeah. And all the bills that go along with it.

Well, you're empathetic, right? Yeah. Again, to your point, you're, you're a human. I'm a human. I, you have to have empathy and show empathy for people when they're, you know, They're very busy people. Oftentimes these people you're calling.

Right. But you know what though, John? You, you, you have to be that person though. You have to have that inside of you. Like, you have to be— I'm empathetic to a fault, right? Where I get, you know, people that kind of would walk over me almost because I was so empathetic. Right, right. Then it kind of tells them that, you know, they think— they take that as, you know, A weak spot. But yeah, you just have to be— but it shows them that, hey, this guy understands and he's been there, or he's seen it before. And that's the other thing too, is, you know, sharing stories about, hey, listen, you guys— and I can't tell you how many times I've said this to prospects— but you are not alone. When I tell you the amount of people I talk to in a day, they're telling me the same thing. So feel good about the fact that this is not just you. And your company. And, you know, they appreciate, they're like, yeah, wow, you know, thank you for that because I'm thinking like we're really screwed up.

Yeah.

And I'm like, no, this is like—

Every founder thinks they're the only ones that have ever gone through this problem, right? Right. Yeah, exactly right. It's the thing. So, so you got, you, we've talked about the process a little bit. We talked about, you know, obviously kind of like the, the, the, the, um, the discovery, the, the ability to be able to figure out, you know, and build a playbook, right? What about— there's obviously the sales part is one part of actually the pipeline you're building, right? Because that's, you know, obviously sometimes you're in direct sales, which is the way that you're recommending in a situation a company goes, look, we're not gonna do anything except directly call these people because we know who they are and we can get right at them and they're the decision makers, etc. But sometimes there's marketing involved. Right? And so how does the playbook and the sales playbook kind of interoperate with the marketing teams in your process and stuff like that?

And that's, that's another area. That's an excellent point, Joe. That's another area where, and I'll put this across the board, everybody does not put sales and marketing together like they should. Those are, you know, married entities there, and one feeds off of the other, okay? And they're supposed to be in lockstep. But you should be surprised when you go into companies that either they have a really strong marketing area but no real sales because they think marketing is so strong that it's just going to sell itself, or the opposite, you know, there's a really strong sales presence, but not really good marketing. So it's kind of figuring that out, that, you know, are you guys doing it in this fashion? Is it coming to content coming from marketing? Does it agree with what sales is seeing in the field? You know, or they could be completely off base, right?

Yeah, it's like that feedback loop you mentioned, right? Like salespeople are the ones talking to customers, And they feed back, they need to feed back that information to marketing to say, you know, we think the problem is Y, but actually the problem is X and our product solves both problems, but we're not speaking to the core problem that customers or the product's trying to solve.

Right. Right. And, you know, it's one of those things again where people, they get it once you kind of uncover it. Right. But, and when you start bringing marketing and sales together as they're supposed to be, Then it's, you know, they see immediate things can happen.

Yeah.

I mean, I wonder, I wonder, again, talk to me a little bit about building pipeline, you know, and the way in which the, again, as a fractional kind of sales director, are you often, are you, I'm imagining companies that we're talking to all the time that have none of this stuff. They are product people. Right? They've built a company, they've been able to know enough people out there, whatever, to be able to get their product in front of people, to be able to get people to onboard on it or whatever. And I think this happens a lot with technology companies where they're, again, they've built a cool product, but they've got no idea about how to build pipeline for it or anything else. And so in terms of what your process is, how do you, what do you do in those situations when you've got, yes, there's some sales involved, but we're gonna have to start some marketing To be able to build pipeline potentially for, you know, for either inbound or outbound salespeople to deal with.

Right. And yeah, you're absolutely spot on there because there's a lot of companies that they start out and, you know, develop the product, go to market with product, and once they wear through their connections and everybody that they can, you know, bring on as a client, right, to get them started. Now they want to scale. So that's usually the best time to kind of find, you know, those companies where they're like, all right, we're at, you know, an inflection point where we want to scale now. We can't really go any further. We kind of exhausted our connections and network. And I have people tell me that directly. They're like, yeah, we're kind of at the point where we, you know, exhausted those areas. And now, you know, we need to literally have, you know, boots on the ground, people selling and doing outreach and LinkedIn and all those things, connecting with people and building up a whole pipeline now.

Right, right. The future clients, right? To your point, Corey, you only have so many connections in life. You need a process that involves marketing, right? That often involves operations and other areas of the company that will that will generate your business? What do your current customers look like? How can you find lookalike companies that could potentially use that product or service in the future? And how do you make that a repeatable process so that salespeople are busy and they're on the phones and they're on their email contacting potentials and setting up meetings?

Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's also from a standpoint of kind of how they're getting to or how they're trying to scale. Before they sit down with, you know, people like yourselves, what you guys do from an exit strategy standpoint, to people like me that can help them scale and go forward. Yeah, they— there's a lot of pitfalls that they just don't, you know, they don't necessarily see. And, you know, when you fall into those pitfalls, then it just holds you back even further. From getting, you know, to where you want to be. So, yeah.

And what advice would you— I'm sorry, what advice would you give to business owners that are, that are, you know, other than, other than the stuff we already talked about? Is there anything that we haven't talked about already that, that, that you would give, um, advice to a business owner who's looking to grow his business and then eventually, uh, you know, not prepare it for an exit, but I guess grow their business and really make sure that their sales team is performing optimally?

Yeah, what I tell, you know, when I talk to CEOs and founders, what I tell them is, you know, you want to have, just like you have a plan overall for the business, and, you know, sales is a big part of that plan, but you should, there's nothing wrong with, you know, having a conversation with somebody like me or even you know, you guys to say, all right, here's where we're at today, right? Here's where we started. Here's where we came from. You know, here's our numbers and how we've grown. Um, but here's where we're at today. Here's where we want to be. That's where they get in the situation where they're like, I'm not necessarily sure the right path, right, to go that's going to be successful and ensure my success, right?

Sure.

So that's where They kind of have to have an outside consultant look at the business from the outside in and say, all right, here's where your gaps are. Here's what I see and here's why.

It's fresh eyes, right? It's the ability to be able to have somebody who isn't emotionally attached to what's happened so far, doesn't have the institutional baggage that obviously companies have, that all companies have at some point over time.

Mm-hmm.

You've got people, you've got, you've got every, you know, and if you've got multiple people at the top and different organizations with heavier structures or lighter, you know, sometimes there's people that are very heavy on top and sometimes there's organizations that are very light, you know, on top. They're quite the— my big question is, when it comes to the human, everybody you're dealing with is a human being.

Right.

And one of the things that kind of always matters to us a lot in what we do is the realization of that, that this is not just about, this is not about numbers all the time.

Right.

This can't always be about, you know, grow, just a 20% growth month over month or whatever the goals are or whatever, right? These, the clients aren't dollars, right? The clients are human beings. The salespeople are human beings. The people internally are, obviously the founder is a human being who is just trying to like make their way. What, what is it about that, that, that, that thing that you bring to the table in terms of, you know, that, you know, that understanding that, that we're talking about human beings and whether that's good, bad, or ugly?

Right. And one of the things that I do within my business is even though I'm specific to sales and marketing, Okay, and go into sales organizations and help, you know, them from whatever point they're at today to get to where they want to be. But you have to be able to look at the organization as a whole as well, and from a business standpoint.

Right.

Because sales tentacles over into operations and sales tentacles over into marketing.

Sure.

And finance, right? So it touches these other— so I, I don't just look within sales, um, and sales, you know, if they even— if they have sales leaders, I don't look just there. I go to finance, I talk with finance, I talk with marketing, I talk with operations, because if I come in And I put a program together and I put a process in place and, you know, everybody is on board, everybody gets it, everybody's utilizing it, right? And sales just start skyrocketing up. Okay.

If operations has issues and is falling down, right, you can't support the thing you're out there selling.

Right. So think about that from my perspective. Right. So something that I was wildly successful at getting this company from point A to point B could be completely squashed because they'll never make it through implementation or project management or whatever. Right. Because there's issues there too.

Yeah.

So it's being able to uncover those as well.

Yeah. We, I actually experienced that exact thing is our salespeople were too successful.

Right?

They were really—

and I shouldn't say too successful. They were selling a product that we didn't have, right? They were selling something that if we had it, it would have been awesome. But then when we get these people into implementation and we get them onboarded, they'd be so pissed off because what was sold to them was not actually, you know, they were sold a Ferrari and a Yugo was delivered to their house.

Right, exactly. But it was candy red, so it was worth, you know, But yeah, but no, I think that's an excellent point. And I think sales is a team sport.

Yes, very good point.

And I think that the idea is that it's, there's no, and by the way, this is true of the entire organization. And it's not a bad time, John, probably to bring this up, that whenever we are looking at our organization from the eyes of a buyer, OK, which is what we're apt to do, We are, what we are looking, what buyers are looking for, right, is looking for a well-run machine, right? Especially when this thing already exists. It's different when you're growing it from scratch. When you're growing it from scratch, you can do what you can do and you can get as far as you can go in a certain time period. And you've gotta kind of take things one step at a time in a lot of cases, right?

Right.

But when you are selling your company and it's already there and you're, you now have to change your, we talk about this all the time, you have to change your mindset from being just the, you know, from, from being, you know, the owner of the person who's running this company day to day to someone who's now setting a trajectory and trying to, to, to be able to reach, guide this company to a, to a place, uh, where, where you can meet, where you can create it and put it on the market as a product. Okay?

Yeah.

And that product has to have, has to look like it's a well-oiled machine and that there's, that sales And marketing and operations, right? And finance and the whole thing. All the, the, the, the more they are working together, the more they are singing from the same sheet music, the more, the more valuable and sellable your company is gonna be.

Right. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the other thing that even from a sales standpoint, a lot of people, a lot of salespeople don't They don't look that far into it, right? To say after they come out of a meeting, or even after they might close a deal, to say, why did I get this deal?

Right?

Like, or why am I here in the first couple of meetings? Like, it could be so many different reasons. It could be some of the most simplistic things that you're here because we're looking to get bought and we need to straighten out this area here. So we're more attractive than we are right now because we got some issues. So that's why you're here. And knowing that is everything.

And oftentimes it's serendipity in our business. It's like when we, when we are marketing and conducting marketing outside the company and looking for companies, it's oftentimes serendipity that, that they just got an offer from a firm to get bought, or they just had an issue where one of the 5 Ds that we talked about where they just had an issue that, that we happen to meet them right where they're meeting them. And that happens all the time in sales where they're having a problem with their learning management system. And I'll speak from my own experience, having a problem with the learning management system and someone calls them selling learning management systems. It's like, oh my goodness. Like, and that happens. Like, yeah, that's either really good marketing or it's serendipity or whatever it happens to be is the need, the problem that they've been dealing with for the last month. And again, I'll speak for me, has been solved by this random email that comes in or this random phone call that you get from, from, from seemingly from Timbuktu. And I, I've signed up for products like that. We got a cold email one time from some guy and it's like, okay, called him back and he was stunned that we called him back. We had a meeting next week and within like 3 months he had a signed deal. So it's, it's amazing.

The community, it's not a strategy though, is it?

Right. Well, really, like anybody will tell you from the days of, you know, when sales was first developed, um, it's timing.

Yes.

Timing is, you know, nobody ever wants to boil it down to, you know, well, come on, it's not just time. It is. That's a large part of it is timing, right? If it's not the right time to talk to that company, and there could be a myriad of reasons, right? It's not gonna move forward or progress. But if they were just having an issue and they were just Googling, how do I improve my learning management system? And you call the next day. That's why there's a lot of systems out there now with AI.

Yeah.

You could actually see what people are Googling.

Yeah, you're trying to create those opportunities, right? The serendipity, to Jo's point, that can't be part of a strategy. But making sure that you're staying on top of how your product or service does solve problems for people is, can be part of a strategy.

Yes. Yes. And that's how when you go through and, you know, you're sending out a bunch of LinkedIn connections or emails to a bunch of prospects, Um, that's why it's a numbers, right? It's, it's a numbers game, right?

You send out 100 emails, you get 50 to create that moment of serendipity, right?

Exactly, Joe.

X amount get opened, right? And then you get down to there's only maybe 2 that you end up having a conversation with and maybe selling your product to. But that's because for those 2 Out of that 100, the timing was right. Yeah, it's a great point.

I've got a question from my own experience, and this is just for me, but hopefully this will be valuable for everybody, right? So I am the one who does a lot of our new business calls, and I've had to learn a lot and get over myself a little bit as well to be decent at it. I don't know that I'm there yet, but one of the things that has helped is the knowledge of— and you touched on this a little bit before, and I'd like you to expand on it. The, when we, you know, again, we'll send, we'll have the outbound email, we'll have, you know, phone call, whatever it is, and I have an appointment set. And so now I'm, and again, we do the same thing. It's a, you know, I think this is this kind of standard thing. It's a 30-minute introductory phone call, kind of get to know you, right? And the idea, as I've been instructed, is you're asking about pain points, right? And so this obviously dovetails into what we were just talking about in terms of that serendipity moment. is most of the time what we see is happening is that people are responding because of this moment of, I'm at a crossroads. We've hit them, you know, again, the email or the phone calls arrived at the right time, right? On that phone call now, it's up to me to be able to kind of guide this thing, you know, down a path, right? And again, like most situations, you know, very rarely, I'm sure there are cases, but I mean, it's not often, right, that you have a one phone call close, right? I mean, that's, that's, that those days are kind of like long gone, right? Where the guy, you know, the traveling salesman walking around, you know, with the vacuum cleaners or whatever, is like, I'm gonna make this sale right now, right? Encyclopedias or whatever they were, right? But so obviously it's often more phone calls. And so my big question is, is that when you're, when you're doing calls like this and you are trying to get the pain points and the whole thing, how do you start? When is the— how is the right time to start pivoting towards, you know, this is that, uh, you know, the, the sale close, right?

Okay.

So, you know, you know, you know what I'm asking?

Yes, yes, exactly. It's— and you're not even, quite honestly, Joe, at that state, you're not even close, right, to the close, right? What that's getting you in that first 30-minute conversation, and, you know, you're jotting down You're like, all right, I got 3 major pain points here that they all agreed with, and they're definitely pain points, right? And here's how they're doing it now, and they're open to suggestions, right? Whatever. You're most likely gonna be at that 30 minutes, right? Pretty quickly, right? Like I was saying before, it never would—

Yeah.

Keep to 30 minutes, but that's how you're getting to the next stage. Of the sales process. So I end a call like that with, listen, you know, thanks for meeting with me. This was great conversation. And, you know, you basically— here's the 3 main things that I see just from this 30-minute call, right? But I know there's, there's probably more out there, but here's the main 3 things that you guys are looking to solve. You have budget, right? You guys are the ones making the decision, right, on this. So why don't we set up a next call and I wanna do a little deeper dive into what you guys are doing and do more of a discovery, and then we'll go from there. If you guys like what comes outta discovery, and discovery's gonna lead to a proposal, and then a proposal's gonna lead to, you know, reviewing a contract. How's that sound? Right. Yeah. Fantastic. Right. And that's just getting you to Your second call.

Right. And again, we've seen too in our business, you know, there's a, it's a, we use this kind of 7-touch rule, you know, as a general rule. There's about generally about 7 touches before we can get to a, even get to a close. And that's gonna include, you know, the email or the 3 or 4 emails are, you know, included in that. But the biggest thing too is also I think people struggle with, I knew I used to struggle with this too, is How do you get to the budget discussion? Because, you know, oftentimes, right, when you've got a product and you've kind of come into it and you're talking to somebody who you've never spoken before, how do you broach the budget question, the money question? Is it a direct— do you directly ask them? What is the, you know, how do you kind of bring up the money thing, which I think is one of the areas that people feel sensitive about?

Yeah, right. It's Just through that kind of natural questioning, um, and open-ended questions that you're asking, it, it rises to the top. It comes out.

Right.

Right. You don't even— you don't have to be as, you know, as brazen as saying, so, you know, what about budget? Can you guys afford this? Can you do this? You know, it— if you're asking the right questions and you're having a good conversation and they're being completely transparent with you, Because they do need help, right? And they, you know, potentially do need your product or service. It will come out because— and that's where the talk 20% and listen 80%, because if you're not talking and you're listening, they will just really tell you everything you want to know if you let them. Right, right. Rule comes in, and they'll come right. You know, yeah, we have a project coming up, and you know it's budgeted for it. But you know, we don't think that this is going to work with what we have today. And and there you go. There's your budget question. You know, and you can ask some questions around it to make sure that you know. I even sometimes off that second meeting where you're heading toward a proposal, and even sometimes. In the first meeting, I'll smoke it out and say, you know, just to give you an idea based on what you're talking about and based on what we may need to do, or, you know, are you guys comfortable with, you know, a $75,000 license fee?

Yeah, because that gets people in the ballpark, right? That's people understanding about what you're talking about so that if you drop the— this is going to be about $280,000 annually. Versus, well, I have $30,000 to buy, then those 2 things are not aligned. You get that, smoke that out, as you say, like earlier rather than later.

Right, right. And then, you know, also know from a business standpoint, right, even as a salesperson, I knew how companies operated, most of them, from a budget standpoint to, well, if we buy this under the capital expenditure budget, it's one way. But if we buy it under the recurring subscription budget, right, it gets viewed another way. So sometimes I would, you know, coach them on, well, here's how you want to present it to finance, because this way it's going to most likely get approved.

Well, it's so funny you bring up that because that was, that was a bane of my existence is having the capital budget on one side for investment purposes and the expense budget on the other side and being able to say, oh, no, no, this is going to be a, you know, getting this by the accountants to say, oh, no, this is going to be a capital expense that's going to be an asset for us long-term. And that was always like a light— that went on a light bulb in my head to say, oh, that's a way to get a lot more, you know, money for this budget if we get it in the capital budget because it's an asset we're able to, you know, and that's all the software rules around that. That's something to explore and talk about.

With the software and the technology stuff, you were able to do that a lot, right? I mean, when we were back in the day, way back in the, you know, early 2000s, we're building websites and stuff for people and things like that. I mean, those websites were considered potentially capital because they were— because of the whole thing. So we were exposing ourselves to large amounts of money that we would never have been able to get into in a regular marketing way.

At the company Joe and I happened to work at, work with a company— I worked there, he worked as a consultant About 5 years before me. So like, I think we're talking about sort of similar companies, which is kind of interesting.

So yeah.

Well, Corey, so what is the takeaway? What is it like from your perspective? Like from a— and if you could speak to our audience, like what should our listeners and what should people who are looking to build their business and improve their business and grow their business for sale, what are the 1, 2, or 3 things that they should do to their sales organization to make sure that it's, again, it's run optimally?

Yeah, it's a good point for them to have a finger on the pulse, right, continually of what's happening right within sales. And, you know, sometimes, which it brings up another good point, John, is they don't necessarily have The capability to cover all those areas that they should be, you know, to make sure sales is running optimally. One of them being, which I see the most, is holding their people accountable, right? So accountability is a huge thing. And they, that's where sometimes they'll get to me and they'll be like, yeah, we just can't because there's no process in place because, you know, there's no matrix, there's no goal, there's no— planned, or it's really hard. You can't hold people accountable. You, you honestly, you can't.

Yep.

So, you know, that's where it's like, listen, this is what's gonna enable you to hold them accountable. You could either put that all in place yourself, or you can bring somebody in like me that can do it for you and with you, and then, you know, take it forward with the sales team. But, you know, those are some of the things that most of the people that I talk with and for, you know, the CEOs and presidents out there is don't be afraid to pick the hood up and look under the hood and see what's really happening, you know, and don't suffer in silence, right?

Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with having a conversation with, you know, somebody like myself just to see where some of the gaps are and if they were addressed, that you could take the company, you know, 20-25% higher in revenue for the next year, like, why wouldn't you do that, right? Right, right, right, right.

And obviously having that scalable playbook, right, having the ability to be able to have the right people in place, be able to work and make sure that the sales staff is then now, you know, now that that's there, is now building or is now, sorry, you know, interoperating correctly with the rest of the organization, right? And that everybody's singing from the same sheet music and moving, rowing in the same direction. And then incorporating, and again, that playbook, I think, is we probably haven't talked about that enough right now. But I mean, obviously the repeatable process is really what's key, right? Because once you establish things that work, now you gotta stick with them and now you gotta blow them out into a thing. So it's one thing to scale the business, but scaling the sales organization is the first step.

Right, right. And the other thing I, I tell, you know, owners and founders as well is, you know, they'll come back and say, well, I tried doing this and I tried, you know, and my salespeople just don't, you know, they're just not getting it, or whatever it is. And I'm like, well, it's all in the, you know, because you're a CEO, which you should be doing all your CEO duties. Right? You're the visionary. You should be looking forward 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, not worrying about what some of your salespeople are doing. It's taken a lot of time and quite honestly, a lot of expertise away from the top level of the company. Yeah, great point. You know, and it's all the way— if you're not trying to encourage them or motivate them in the right way or train them or It's just, it's never, it's not gonna work.

You know, and it's gonna hurt. And ultimately, and ultimately it's gonna hurt your value and saleability, right? To get to a point where you're getting, so not even just your growth, but obviously that, that has a direct result on whether or not you can sell your company and how much you can sell it for. Right. So, hey, Corey, Vrusha, great talking with you today. Thank you so much, Corey.

Thank you.

Tell us where people can get in touch with you directly. Website, email, that kind of thing.

Email is Cory C O R Y at C M B Sales Consulting dot com, and the website is C M B Sales Consulting dot com.

And we can find you on LinkedIn as well.

Yes.

Excellent. Obviously, as usual, everybody, Cory again, thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate it. I'm sure we'll talk to you again. There's there's lots more potentially to unpack here about sales and sales process.

Yeah.

And fractional, you know, fractional sales organizations. So thank you so much, John. You know, look, man, this is, we keep coming kind of back to this, and this is, you know, Corey's not the first salesperson we've had on the show, right? And the reason is, is because there's so much, there's so much, so many different levels and so many kind of different needs out there that this is such an important thing because we are all about growth, right? We all are, are about that, setting that trajectory. And one of the biggest ways, obviously, that you're going to set this stuff is by making sure that you've got the right sales team in place with the right sales playbook and the right thing, right?

Yeah, I mean, the, you know, the thing that I, one of the things that I took from Korkut is that I learned a lot today. I'm not a salesperson, never pretended to be one. But like the importance of the sales process, right? The importance of a repeatable process that you can bring in with your great salespeople and train people on it and say, and you can almost create great salespeople, I think, or create good salespeople with a very good process. And that's sort of one of the things I learned from Corey is this, the importance of, of having that system. And I think of system and process in the same way of repeatable process that everyone knows that there are 7 steps to this or 8 steps or whatever it happens to be. And we're all rowing in the same direction and performing the same activities.

Absolutely. So, well, we'll leave it there today. John, thanks a lot. You've been listening to the Exit Edge podcast. I'm Joe Stapleton. That's John Kniff. Our guest today was Corey Bruscia. Again, you can find him at Corey, C-O-R-Y, at cmbconsulting.com.

And cmbsalesconsulting.com.

I'm sorry, say it one more time. What was it?

Cmbsalesconsulting.com.

Thank you, Corey. Join us next time as we continue to explore more strategies strategies that help you maximize your business's value and salability and ensure a successful exit. Thanks a lot for joining us today, John. Have a great day. Corey, thanks again. Really appreciate you being here.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. This was great. Thank you.