Leadership Enablement Through Communication and Connection with Shawn Buxton

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What up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is your host, Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd. And today we are talking about leadership development. We're going to talk about manager development because if you look across the SaaS, industry sales training still isn't anywhere near where it needs to be to level up our sellers. But then when you go another level up to manager development, it's like a black hole. The people that are responsible for these sellers, the people that are responsible for making the sellers better, the people responsible for helping the sellers get to their number, get next to no training coaching at all. Which is why I'm so excited to have Sean Buxton on the show with me today. He's the director of sales enablement at Syrian Labs, but he has been in enablement for years and what I love about his background is he's done manager enablement, leadership enablement. And so we are going to be talking today about how to better enable our leaders on the team. Sean, my man, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, kd. Excited to talk about this subject. It is bizarre, isn't it? This is like the, it's really almost the only profession on the planet where we put somebody in this position of leadership and entrust them with our most precious resources, the sales force that's expected to drive revenue with almost zero preparation. Other than basically, you know, some platitudes like, hey man, hustle, grind, you know, that kind of bullshit and we expect them to be successful. It's a very bizarre, it's always struck me as very odd what I've talked about.

Even like with my own managers, I was like, if you were to describe it to a stranger, no one would say that's a good idea. It doesn't matter if they have any industry background whatsoever. If I bumped into a stranger at a bar tonight and I said, hey, you know what? What do you do for a living? And they say, oh, look, I'm a teacher. I'm like, cool, can I run an idea by you? I have this idea that we should take people and put them in leadership position, but not teach them how to do it. What do you think about that? Yeah, anybody would be like, that's a horrible idea. But it still occurs. And so I've been asked this question a lot. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. Why do you think that is? What is the underlying issue or the underlying thought process here that allows this to continue? Because I do think if you ask anybody if it's a good idea, they say no.

Right.

But then all companies do this. Why do you think that is?

I think it's a combination of two things. Number one, I think the senior sales leaders didn't get any training and they learned the hard way, and they feel like they did okay. You know, that it wasn't easy, but they, hey, I'm a. I'm a CRO now, so I must be doing something right.

Right.

So they didn't get any. So why should the new frontline sales manager get any? So I think that's one. And I don't really blame them for thinking like that because I get it. I do get there's some kind of honor or pride in the fact, like, oh, I learned it the hard way. You know, I was just thrown in the fire and, you know, thrown to the wolves. And like, there's some. I think a lot of us as humans, we take pride when. When we're abused, maybe, or not well prepared for a situation, and we somehow succeed in that situation. And I think the second. The second reason is that not only do they think that they didn't need it, but I think it's a desire for results. Like today, like right now, they. They want people to hit the ground running right now. And so we immediately go into, let's talk about forecasts, let's talk about deals. I need your expertise. And the expectation, too. Let me add a third one, too, is I don't think that they understand the complexity of the role. I think that organizations think that the. The salesperson that's a top performer, that's usually the one that's promoted, is just going to go into that role and teach everybody how they did it right? Just reveal the secrets. And the truth of the matter is, most of the time, there are no secrets. It's a lot of intentionality and hard work. You know, there are some. There are some strategies and tactics as you teach and I've taught in the past. But the truth of the matter is there's not any silver bullet to it. And. And the idea that you're gonna go in there and basically replicate yourself in these seven to 10 people with strong, usually A type, personalities, that they're just gonna give up their whole vibe and you're gonna just recreate yourself. It's pretty naive when you think about it, but I would say those are the three reasons they're not justified, but I get it.

Yeah. No, and I work with a coach. We talk about this a lot. Right. Of like, nothing's right or wrong. Right? Like, people do what they believe to be best based off their existence and their experience in life. There may be better ways to do it because it's true. Like, people identify with the struggle. I didn't get training, so neither do you. How backwards is that? It's just backwards of, like, well, I didn't get it. So you don't get it. You got to figure this out. But what we forget at the top is there's not as many CROs. We are the best of the best of the best. Just because we made it through doesn't mean everybody can make it through. Right. You have to support people through. Through this. And so then let's talk about how to do this. Right. Because that's what I loved. Looking in your background, right? Like manager enablement. You don't see that title very often. Right. Leadership enablement. So if you think about building out a sales leadership enablement program, what should that include? What should be in it? What, like, actually, let's come back. What do you believe manager enablement is? Let's just start there.

Okay, well, first of all, I differentiate between management and leadership. I get a lot of grief about this. And admittedly, it may be semantics. I'd be splitting hairs. But I'm really big on defining terms because I feel like the more specific we can be about the definition of these terms, the more specific action we can take with them. I think we have lots of good managers. And if you think of management as the role is measuring and monitoring, reporting, then yeah, and it's pretty easy to be a good manager if that's all you're thinking it is. The leadership component is the hard component, because leadership, the way I define it, is helping people get somewhere they could never get on their own. Not taking them there, not dragging them there, but helping them. So it's a partnership. So it requires a lot of soft skills. It requires a lot of nuance. That you don't need as a manager. Now, I've also found, especially in SAS too, that when you talk about sales leadership, people automatically think of like a VP of sales or CRO. And I don't think like that. I think as soon as you take over a team, you're in leadership. So when I talk about sales leadership and in my context, I'm thinking anybody that manages a team so that frontline manager has the potential and the opportunity rather to become a leader. And they should if they want to be ultimately successful. So I define a difference between manager and leader. So I would also say that there's lots of great sales managers, but they're not a lot of great sales leaders. And every great sales leader I've ever known was a great sales manager. But not every great sales manager is a great sales leader. Truth?

Absolutely. I love that call out. I always. My buckets were responsible for managers responsible for like people and the results. Right. Leaders develop their team. Right. So it does both develop and is responsible. Right. But then also a manager. Interesting enough, funny enough, I actually don't think you know my opinion. Working with thousands of managers at this point, I actually don't even think most managers even that good at what you talked about measuring and monitoring.

Like, actually, you're probably right, actually not.

That good at the measuring what's happening and monitoring what's causing it. They're not that good at it.

Yeah, I guess, I guess maybe I should clarify that. Like, that's the easier part to me, right? Because your CRO or VP or whoever you're reporting to is going to basically say, hey, Katie, I want, I want this report on my, in my inbox every Monday morning or this is the way I want you to forecast. Don't be putting deals in this, in this category before this, you know, like, and that's the measuring, the monitoring. And again, it's important. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying when you give me the reports and the things I'm supposed to measure, basically all I got to do is go into my dashboards and fill out the report and send it to you. In theory, it's a pretty simple role. But when I have to figure out how do I coach this top performer who's a jackass on the team, is destroying the culture, yet I really need his number. That's sales leadership. Right? And how do I have that tough conversation still hold to my values and my vision, my mission that I set for the team? Like, to me, that's leadership and That's a lot harder to learn.

Then let's keep going down this path. So when you look at an enablement program for leadership, how much of is it focused on the manager skills? Monitoring, measuring, interviewing, you know, one on ones, things like that. And then how much of it is split into the leadership side in terms of like developing call like the leadership skills. Right. How to develop people, how to coach people, how to get more out of people than they can. Like break that down for me.

Well, with my programs there is a certain assumption whether I'm doing it for a company in my role or whether I'm doing one on one coaching. There's a certain assumption that you've already, you already know what reports and things you're supposed to be running and the dashboards and you know how to get the numbers, the data. Right. And there's a little blur between the roles, of course. So in a leadership program though, I would classify the one on ones and the coaching and all that as part of the leadership role using the information from management. So if I think about, I'll just say my leadership program that I do, I call it the sales leader trident. And it's three specific areas of expertise and it's based on the 400 or 500 or so sales leaders I've worked with over my career. The, the best practices, the common threads I saw, and the ones that were really, really good. You know, it's funny, and you know this as, as being in leadership and training a ton of people throughout your career is that a lot of times you end up working with just the pretty good ones that in, in leadership because they come to you and they want to get better and better. The ones that are way too smart for guys like me and you. You know, hey, I'm, I don't need this dude. I've been managing people for like almost two years, right? Like I'm a, I'm a seasoned vet.

I'm glad that part of you took it because it's so true. It was like, yeah, I've been doing this for a while.

Shut up.

No, no you haven't.

So you don't end up spending much time with them. And I say that to say that out of those leaders, most of them were pretty good and I learned from them. And so what I did was I kind of crystallized down the three areas, the three buckets that I saw them paying attention to. So it's not to say that you're not going to do the management stuff. Of course, it's essential. And Part of your job. But what I saw with these individuals is that as soon as they could, they would get back to doing the leadership stuff. So they go do the management stuff. They run the reports, right? They grab the data and they take that data over to the leadership side and they like, how do I make these people better? How do I coach them to proficiency? How do I get them ready for the next role and develop them? So the three areas, if you'd like me go over them, I'll hit them real quick for you. The first one is culture and building. I call it building and protecting your culture. And the idea that there's two ways to build culture. You can build it on purpose or on accident. Culture is going to happen every time you get people together. Whether you like it or not, it's going to. It's going to happen. And so as a sales leader, frontline manager, you can either take control of that and be an architect of that culture, or you can let it happen and cross your fingers and hope you got some good people. Now you know it's happened, right? There's been some good accidental cultures, but I don't believe that you hit high levels of performance consistently on accident. And so we talk about in step one of the program is I talk about building and protecting that culture. Getting real intentional about your vision, mission, values, what you want it to be. And I'm not talking about the company vision. Obviously yours has to plug up into that. But that's not enough for salespeople. It needs to be more around, you know, the, the values of a company don't necessarily really resonate with a sales team of seven people that are remote all over the country. Like, that doesn't bring them together. What brings them together is when my sales manager says, hey, guys, to be on team Dorsey, this is what it means, right? Our values are our grit, drive, self motivation, innovation, consultative, selling, you know, whatever, right? And you come up with those values. So I challenge my leaders that I work with. They create their own vision, mission values that plug up into the company one, because I need to create a team identity, right? And then the building and the protecting is the part where we have to have those tough conversations where it may be time for somebody to leave. Maybe they can't be successful in my culture because they don't align with the values or they're not on board with the mission or they don't see the vision. That's okay. It doesn't make them a bad person. Just means they can't be on my team. Anymore. And so that's the protecting the culture component. And of course, hiring. Right. And interviewing and all that. That's all part of that. Part one.

I love that because it's true. My org hat so we had company values and team virtues. So the values, right? Like, it sounds like you may have read the book. Have you read what yout Do Is who youo Are by Ben Horowitz? Because he talks about. Okay, he.

Check it out.

Because it's literally that first point. He's like, there's a quote in there that he has. It's like, if you are not intentionally and proactively building your culture, it happens on accident.

Yep.

Right. So he talks about accidental culture as well. But what he also breaks down is the difference between values and virtues. Think values are what you believe. Virtues are how you behave.

Okay?

So values, right there generally should be company values. This is what we believe as a company. Right. Org or team virtues. How sales behaves is different than how CS behaves. Like, what are the behaviors? And so we had our virtues for the org, right? Like, take care of the person in salesperson, Own your shit plan and prepare to win ecm. Every conversation matters. Help yt help yourself team and prospect. Right? Celebrate the process.

Right?

Like, these were our Seek perpetual growth. Those were our virtues. And then we defined all those. And I love that because also, all my teams had names. We had the inside sales org, but every manager, there was a team name. There was a team identity. Like, what does it mean to be a part of your team? And so I love that as the foundation. I love it because also the values. I do this when I'm. I speak to CEOs all the time. Like, could I ping your team right now and they'd get 100% of the values, right?

Nope.

If I hit up your team right now, no warning, and said, give me all the values, what percentage you think could do it? And every time, they're always like, probably not a lot. And like, can we just sit in that for a second? Yeah, for a second. Your company values. Your sales team couldn't even tell me right now.

Yeah, I had one CEO. I had one CEO. I was working with that when I was proposing the sales leadership training we were going to do. He wanted to see it. Of course, I was showing it to him. And we got this vision, mission, values thing and the team identity. And he's like, well, hold on a second. He goes like, I don't want them to get confused. We have company values already. I don't know why they need team. I don't want them to get confused. I said, dude, bro, they don't know your value. Company values. And they don't give a about them anyway because they don't resonate. They don't resonate with the salesperson most of the time. They're, they're good ideas, they're good values, you know, like, you know, we work together and stuff. They're fine. Nothing wrong with them. But to your point, I love the differentiation between virtues and values because those virtues really again, help you take action and build it like at a local level, it's important.

And that was a part of that. And so moving to that next level, like how are we going to behave? And we recognize that we called it out, right? Every shot had something to do with one of the virtues. We had like the virtue recognition on the weekly meetings and the all hands of like who's living like the virtues that we are looking for. And then once you define the virtues, you can hire and fire by them.

That's right.

I can hire. If I'm looking for people that live my culture. And one of my virtues is seek perpetual growth. I can ask interview questions about seeking perpetual growth. I can ask interview questions about plan and play to win. I can ask interview questions about own your shit. I can ask specific questions to realize whether this person lives the way that we want them to live, right? To be a part of this team. So I love that. That's the foundation of it. I didn't know that was where you're going to go. That's perfect. That's step one. Okay, so we got our culture right? To build and protect. Then what?

Then part two is coaching. And that bleeds over. I always say, hey guys, we got to do the first things first. That bleeds over into the coaching because the same way it affects the interviewing. The fact that you've taken the time to come up with these virtues and values. And you know what? I would say the vision and the mission, it definitely bleeds over to the coaching. Because then when I do have somebody that's a top performer and they're saying, hey dude, I'm hitting my number, I'm like, yeah, but that's not your whole job. Part of your job too, being on on Team Dorsey is, is invest in the team. That's one of our virtues or that's one of our values, right? And you're a total lone wolf and I've asked you several times to participate. Sometimes you don't even show up for team meetings, right? So it becomes part of the coaching and it has something to do point back to. If you don't have that, then leaders resort to coaching in ways like, hey, sell more, do better, work harder, grind, hustle, right? And then we wonder why that doesn't resonate with the salespeople. And they're like, man, Sean, I'm coaching my guys and they're just not listening. Like, there's. I don't see any changes. I'm like, well, what are you coaching? Well, tell them, man, they just need to hustle more, you know, they need to make more calls. I'm like, come on, man. For why so in their mind, why so you can do better as a leader. Like. And so in that coaching component, we. We get together and when we build that vision, mission, values, part of it is, is sussing that out one on one and having people tie their own personal goals to the vision and seeing what their role is in it. That way, when we get to the coaching component, then I'm always able to tie it back to what, what are we trying to accomplish for you? And I look at three ways. Listen, you have goals, and I want to recognize those goals. I have goals as an individual, and then the company has goals. So my job is to help us all meet these goals, you know, and it is possible, it's very possible for all three of us to walk away from this high fiving. So how do we do? I say coaching, then development. And this is a great example of what I was alluding to early in the conversation of my obsession with definitions. I define coaching as getting people good at their current role. So proficiency not good enough that they don't go on a pip or something, but really proficient, like getting them good, because that's what we want. We don't want a team of people barely. Barely hitting their number. We want a people, you know, a team of people that are. Are good. Development, I define as getting people ready for their next job. And the reason I differentiated between the two is because I would hear all the time, you know, Sean needs coaching and development. And I started thinking about them like, okay, what's the difference between them? And I had managers coming to me and saying, hey, Sean, I don't have time to do all this. I said, well, what do you mean? Well, you know, Kevin, he's been here a couple months, and he aspires to be a sales manager. And so I need to be developing him in that area and helping him, you know, build those. Those talents and those abilities, those skills to be a sales Manager. And I got. I got Brooke over here, and she. She wants to be a director of marketing someday. So I'm trying to pair her up and have marketing discussions. I said, well, hold on a second. Let's say we got 10 people on your team. How many of these people are hitting their number? And they're like three. And I said, okay, then the other seven are in coaching mode, getting them good at the current job we hired them to do. Why the hell would I spend resources and time developing somebody for their next role when they're not even applying themselves and being successful in the role I hired me. Now, if that's not a good fit for them and we need to release them to go after we try to coach them and, you know, get them get their will, they figure out, oh, man, sales is just not for me, and they go somewhere else like marketing or somewhere, that's fine. But basically, the gist of it is this is like I put them in two different boxes, and of course, there's some overlap, but I put them in the two different boxes to help sales leaders figure out where their attention and time should be and be very strategic. So if you decide that for your team, you got to hit numbers 3/4 in a row before I consider you proficient in your role or two years or, you know, six cores, whatever it is for you, but set some kind of goal, some kind of finish line, it's okay at that point. I think Katie's proficient as role. And now you're expressing that you want to be a sales manager. Now you and I can start. I can start letting you lead team meetings, and we can do some stretch assignments and stuff like that, and we can start focus on the development. But the best way for you to get promoted, man, is for you to crush it at the role we hired you to do. And what I found is that makes it really clear for the seller as to what they should be focused on instead of trying to, you know, do these other things outside of the role and so they can be more successful, and it helps the sales leader be really focused on how I can help them right now. Now, HR doesn't like it when I say that, because in their mind, they're thinking, I'm saying, I'm not going to develop you. And that's not the case. I would say. I'd say, hey, Katie, the best way for you to get promoted is to crush at your current role. But since you're interested in that, go read, you know, this book over here about leadership. You know, go watch this video, go start listening to this podcast and they can self develop and I'm happy to make recommendations, but I'm not going to give somebody that can't even hit their number a team lead role. Right. Or have them coach the rest of the team on something and give them stretch assignments. But what do you think about that?

Yeah, no, I love it. I think my distinction in language is different, but the concept is the same, Right. To me, you coach to develop people, right? So I don't see them as separate. It's like coaching is how you develop someone. Right? If you want to develop someone, you got to coach them. My definition of coaching is doing with feedback. That's where I'm a big stickler is call feedback is not coaching. That is feedback.

Right?

Telling someone that they need to like improve in an area is not coaching. That is telling. Coaching is the practicing of that skill with feedback. So that's my definition there, right? Because a lot of managers don't do that. They sit down with a rep, they review a deal or they review a call and they say, hey, this is where we need to improve. Or here's areas opportunities and the rep goes, oh cool. Thank you. That's not coaching. That was telling. Maybe teaching. That's not coaching. You wouldn't call yourself a coach if your team never practiced. Yeah, that's my definition is the coaching is the practice. So we identify that. Objection. We're going to do it real quick together. We're going to do that two or three times with the feedback. So you're actually developing the skill. So that's how I look at it, is your coaching is the practice to develop. But I do love the call out on if you're not doing your current job, you don't get the next one. Right. And that's why I'm such a behavioral based leader. There are differences in skills. You might just be better than me and that's fine. Right? But behaviors, the things that are in our control, are we doing those things? If you are doing the things in your control, maybe you're just not good enough yet. And that's fine. I will try to develop that skill and if the skill can't be developed, then I'll try to find you a different role. But if you're not doing the right things, I got no time. I got no time. I'm very patient with skill. I'm very impatient with will. If you're not willing to do the job, nothing I can do for you there.

One of the VPs, I love that too. And thank you for that. I'm going to think about that. I think you're right, too. You know, I think we're on the same page. Maybe we're saying it a different way, but I really love the way that you're saying it. But I had a VP of sales that taught me. He's like, hey. And it is basically the skill versus will. But he put it in a much more blunt way. He said, hey, there's only two reasons people don't perform at a high level. They don't know how or they don't want to. So they don't know how to do the skill. They need the coaching, they need the feedback. They need to try it on. They need to practice. You know, they need the guidance. Or after we do that as leaders, they're still not doing it. Then they just don't want to, dude. And that doesn't make them a bad person. But they can't stay here.

Yeah. No. I think that that's the key. And I do think for me, for a lot of people, and this was a mistake I made early in my career, is I think sometimes we confuse will for skill, meaning we're like, oh, this person's not willing to do the job. Right. Like, they don't want to. But what I'll look at is like, were they ever really taught how?

Right.

A lot of will issues are skill issues in disguise. If I was good at this thing you were asking me to do, I might be more willing to do it. But because we don't focus on skill development enough, we have a lot of people that are getting put into the will bucket where they were never taught the skill. So of course they're not going to do it. It doesn't feel good. It feels awkward. It's not working yet. So that's why I focus skillful first. Because if I know you're getting the skill development and you're still not willing deuces. That's everything I need to know right there. Because a lot of will issues are skill issues in disguise. And I said this with my managers all the time. Talking to someone about their work ethic is lazy leadership. Work harder. Get out of here like that. That's what's going to make the difference. It's just going to tell someone to work harder. If that's all it took, I wouldn't need managers. I can wake up every day, huddle up with my team and say, hey, y', all, go work hard. That would be it, right? So, okay, so keep building here and like, let's see, you got one more C for me. Here we go. In the three Cs we keep in the alliteration. We got culture.

Come on, man, I'm enablement guy. You know me.

Come on, bring it home.

And communication, obviously, there it is. The communication though, the way I tackle it is I, I basically start with the premise. And there's lots of stuff too. At eq we go through that. You know, just like in the coaching thing, we talk about one on ones, we talk about habits of high performance coaches. The three times to coach, when you see good performance, when you receive poor performance, when it becomes problem performance. So each one of these has, you know, several layers, but the last one is communication. And the core of that is there's three levels of communication. As I see it. There's making contact, there's having a conversation, and there's true connection. And the problem is not that one is necessarily better than the other. The problem is, is that most sales managers I see, they are making contact or having a conversation, but expecting connection level results. And the big difference between the connection and the contact and the conversation is trust. There's no trust there. Because you and I can have a tough conversation and hey, I might even be frustrated. But if you trust me, then you're less. You're like, hey, Sean's just frustrated. And I get it, I'm frustrated too. Or you know, you pop off to me. But we have trust. There's. Then I don't hold that against you, right? But when the trust isn't there, then I'm like, man, what's this guy's motive? Like, is he trying to make me look bad? Is he trying to blame this quarter all on me? Is this, you know, is he trying to save his own ass? Like that trust isn't there and the trust is built. You know, trust is one of these buzzwords where I ask people like, what do you think is the foundation of a relationship? Oh, trust, trust, trust. Okay, great. How do you build trust?

That was going to be my next question. So you're already getting deal.

No, but nobody talks about that. Right? And the way that I, that I teach my managers to build trust is it's all around belief. It's like a sale that you're making every day. You know, customers buy when they believe, when they have certainty. It's not that they're scared to make money or scared to spend money. It's scared they're to make a mistake with their money. And sellers are the same way. They're scared to make a mistake with their trust. So you have to build belief and certainty. So how do you build that? Well, they have to believe that you can, that you're a competent leader and I'm going to mess up your alliteration thing here. They have to believe that you can, that you're a competent leader, that you know what you're doing, that you care, that they're not just another number in your forecast and that you will mean that you'll follow through on the things that you promise to do, whether it's support them.

Complete. We got to turn that to complete, not look complete.

I know. I, I almost like it. I like it as a W because it throws people out. But yeah, you're right. You're right, man. So anyway, so that's how you build trust. Of course you do that over time. We all know that it can be destroyed in a matter of one conversation. But as you do that, then you're able to build that connection level of communication and get the greater results. You know, contact. When I say contact, that could be a slack message, it could be an email. Hey, hey Katie. Make sure you follow up on this deal, right? And sometimes that's all the level you need of communication. It's. You don't have to have this meaningful trust moment every time we interact with their sellers, but it's being conscious of that and the things that affect that are hot buttons and being self aware of your, of what bothers you and what fires you up and reacting versus responding and all the things that go into eq. And so we talk about that in that third component there.

I love that. And what I'm really enjoying about this framework that I hope people are catching is this also is speaking to leaders, how you lead your managers. Yeah, same thing. Like everything we're talking about right now is to help managers get more from their people. Leaders. You have to do the same things for your managers. Does your management team have a strong culture? Are your managers getting regular coaching? How are you communicating with your managers? This is top down too because that's the one area that I think also doesn't get talked about enough. And I see this every day now because I'm just coaching managers at this point. I do a lot, I don't do a lot of sales training anymore. I'm just doing management training. Well, you know who's not in that management training often the vp, the CRO. So I'm teaching the managers how to do this thing. But then when they walk out on the floor the next day they're getting that ping from the vp. Yo, where's our forecast at? What happened with XYZ deal? That was a commit. They're not being led this way either. Which then up, down through it. So let's go one more level up here. We're already at 30. I was like, dang it, we could go on this for 30 days. Let's talk about how then you roll this out to your management team, right? Like how to. Like if I'm a VP of sales and I don't have someone like you, right, I don't have someone like you on enablement that the team can go to or understands the language of trust. Because that's also a gap often in sales management. If all there is is an enablement team, they're kind of like, well, what is this enablement person going to teach me about managing a team of 10 salespeople?

Right?

There's a gap there. So, like, how, how do you start to roll something like this out from a leadership level?

Well, the beauty of that is guys like me and you, you know, have done it. So I'm a sales guy first, enablement guy second. So you know, I've sold everything from door to door sales in Guatemala City with really bad Spanish, all the way to enterprise deals, you know, millions. So I'm a seller first. So. And I know you are too. So I never, I never take that one. Like, they give me that objection, like, well, you're talking to the wrong guy then. Because I'm a seller. You want to role play? Let's go. We'll role play right now. I'm ready. And I love it. I love it. But I also love helping people, right? And so that's why I do enablement as well. That being said to your original point, Yes, I see that all the time. The CRO is not there, the VP is not there. I'll tell you, the best results I've gotten is when the CRO is coming to every meeting as well with and he requires his VPs to be there and the frontline managers, and that's when organizations get it. Now, it doesn't happen very often, but the good news for me is that usually when I come into an organization to help them with something like this, I'm talking to the CRO about this. I'm talking to the VP of sales. And then I tell them, listen, do you feel like it makes sense for you to send your managers to this but not know what I'm teaching them? Like, you want to take that risk. Maybe I'm crazy, dude. You know, like, you want to take that risk? What about the follow through? We all know that the training is just the beginning of the discussion. It's just the beginning of the learning. It's not like I have a magic wand. So there's going to have to be follow through. How are you going to follow through on the things that I'm teaching them? He's like, oh, well, I guess I need to be there. I'm like, yeah. She's like, yeah, I guess I need to follow. Yeah, you're right. I do want to be there. I do want to be there. And I tell them, listen, they're looking to you the level of commitment that you apply to. This is the level of commitment they're going to apply to it. If you make it. Hey, you cannot miss these sessions. It's mandatory. You got to be there because this is too important. Then they'll be there. If you say, if you start taking bullshit excuses like, oh, I got a customer meeting, can't make it right. No. So it really. I just always start at the top with it. And if a organization doesn't want to do it, then I'm like, okay, well, you should probably find somebody else to help you then.

Yeah, I've definitely, I've turned people down. Like, no, I just want you to work with them.

No. Yeah.

No. Wait, what do you mean no? Like, they really need it. It's like, no. Like if you're not there and you're not reading, unless you are going to put me on a hefty retainer to stick around. Yeah, right. To stick around and reinforce this. It's not going to land. So it's up to you. Either you can show up and we can do these sessions and you can reinforce it, or you're cutting me a large check to stay on board for the next three to six months because otherwise it's literally a waste of money.

Well, and this is why I, like, this is why for my, my coaching, one on one that I do, I really target, you know, I've done it for like a staples. I've done it for like a log me in where that's, you know, the, it's a, it's a larger organization, but I've also done with smaller ones and I found I really enjoy doing with the smaller ones more because I'll have a CEO or a founder that's been trying to lead the sales team and either I coach them to get them through the next stage and then we work Together to hire a sales manager or to promote one of their sellers to sales manager. And then I take them through the same process. Like I'm doing that right now with the CEO or I come in, they say, hey, listen, I don't even want to do any of this. Like I've got a guy, he's going to be the guy he's going to grow into or she's going to grow into that. My VP of sales, because it's a smaller organization, then we don't have to deal with all those layers. And they're also much more open to, hey, let's build it right the first time we're creating something. You know, Greg Graeffner is a perfect example of that. I know you know Greg over abstract. And so Greg and I have talked about that before. Like, you know, he gets it. You gotta build it right the first time. Like, and these founders and these CEOs that are building something, they realize if we don't set up this framework of leadership and recognizing our sales managers need to be leaders too, then we're going to miss out on the high growth opportunities and that's what they need.

No, it's, it's so true. And it is, it's like that top down leadership, it's missing because of Ben. Full circle. What we opened with that CRO never got coaching and training on how to actually lead managers. And then the managers never got training on how to be managers. And so then the reps that are getting managed by these managers, that's what they're learning from. And then just like life, if you have a manager, one of two things happens when you become a manager. Either you do exactly what they did or you do the complete opposite. Where you're like, okay, I like how Sean led me so that lead to. Or I couldn't stand Sean, my manager, he was awful. So you do the complete opposite.

Yeah.

Which also isn't good.

Right.

There's no direction to that. And so I think the more we can educate managers, this is why I teach the Pavilion frontline manager school. I don't teach the exec school, I don't teach the CRO school, I teach the manager school because to me those are the future directors, VPs and CROs. And if I can teach them now, when they become a director, vp, CRO, they've got the right things instilled. Whereas trying to teach the CROs now how to change everything they've ever done, I'm not trying to fight that battle managers up where they become those Leaders, and then they lead the right way.

Yeah, yeah, I'm totally with you. It sounds like we view it very similar.

So then let's wrap on this, man. Because the last question I always ask people, because the name of this podcast is Live Better Sell Better, and I think even for this episode, it'd be Live Better Lead Better. Right. I have this weird idea that if we took better care of ourselves, if we had more energy, more joy, more fulfillment in life, that the leadership would also improve, that the sales would also improve. Right. What would your live Better advice be to people listening?

Oh, wow. The live better advice. Well, I would say that you have to. You have to have a relationship with something greater than yourself. You know, I think it's easy in sales because usually we have big egos. Right. And if you're successful in sales, you know, even when we try to, like, act like we have some humility, we still, inside, we still think we're pretty. Pretty killer. So I think knowing that there's something bigger than yourself, whatever that is for you, you know, I'm a Christian, and so for me, it's my relationship with God. You know, that's how I live better. And I'm not very good at it, but I guess that's what keeps me humble is like, knowing that there's something much bigger than myself. And at the end of the day, you know, this is fun, and we're helping people provide for their families and accomplish their goals and their dreams. But if we lose this deal today, there's gonna be another deal. Right. The only reason we gotta get upset about that is if we got nothing left in the pipeline. But, you know, it's. It's putting things in perspective, I guess, and understanding there's a higher power than myself helps me keep things in perspective. So that's how I live better.

I love it. I love it, man. Right. Like, it's attachment to something grander. Right. And it's been ingrained in us as a species forever. It's like there's. There's something bigger out there.

Right.

That deal you're stressing over right now. Yes. It feels like a big deal now in the grand scheme of things, it's not. And if we're not living to those values, if we're not living to the things that we believe in, it all doesn't matter. Right?

Right.

You can go and break all the rules, but then you're not going to be living the way that you need to. So I love this, Sean. This was what I was hoping would be and I got some alliteration out of this, you know, I should have anticipated coming from enable me to package this well. But I love it. The culture, the coaching, the communication, the connect, the conversation, right? Contact, conversation, connection with some completion. We got all the Cs. Where can people get more of you? Where are you putting out content? Where can they find you? Where can they get more of what you're putting out?

I'm on LinkedIn. That's where I'm hanging out mostly. So I'm always posting there and so I always invite people to DM me. If you have questions, I'm happy to help with that. If you want to take the next level, get really serious about creating an intentional sales culture and hitting new levels of performance then. I work with people one on one. I don't work with very many people, you know, because I do have a full time gig and also I like to give one on one, you know, attention so they can reach out to me there and do that. But it's pretty much on LinkedIn. You can go to SeanBuckston.com but it's probably going to just redirect you back to my content on LinkedIn.

There you go. Love it. We'll give him a follow, y'. All. Jump on his content. He's putting great things out there. Shot, my man. Thank you so much for the time, energy and insights today, man.

It's really good, kd. Thanks for having me, man. Big fan of all your work. So this is really cool for me to hang out with you. Appreciate the time.

Let's go.