How to Create an Environment for Sales Success
Matt Ryder, Marco, and Steve discuss how office design and team dynamics drive sales success. They cover why in-person collaboration boosts productivity, how to structure sales training, and what company culture looks like when you're scaling a sales organization.
Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. Me and James in the office today getting the setup a little bit nicer.
They won't hear it right as the vacuum cleaners come on. So I hope you guys can't hear that in the background, but they won't be able to. That is the new office, right?
Yeah, exactly. All right, so what today's episode is about is, I guess, team environments, workspaces, all that kind of good stuff. I actually did some reading on team environments.
You did?
So I found out.
Hard to believe. Yeah, I don't really actually.
Yeah.
All right, so cue the intro.
If you listen to this podcast, you will make your first million within three years. I'm going to repeat that. You will make a million dollars within three years of the first episode. You listen to. We don't want pikers. We're not here to save the manatees. We're here to make podcasts. You really want this, you listen and review.
Put that coffee down.
All right, so this, this week is the first week where we've had a decent amount of people in the office.
Yep.
We've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So there's eight people.
There's us two, there's Ben. On Mondays we have the accountants. Bookkeepers come in. Then we've got Cameron, Marco, Dan and Steve and Luke all in at once, which is very new to us. And if I've realized anything, we probably need more offices. So there you go.
Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, it's really interesting. So a lot of the studies have found that for ideal team environments for the highest functioning teams, there's like an operating space of around one person per 1.6 meters of office.
Interesting.
1.6 meters squared. So the optimal is like, if you're too close, then you feel like you're on top of each other. But like, remote teams will never function as high as, as their like non remote counterparts, I suppose, which I thought was really interesting because, like, we have a very high functioning team as it is. And so like, hearing that, I was like, well, reading that, I was like, okay, that, that's sort of pretty cool.
Yeah.
And it just goes to show, like, and, and you know, Marco, this is the first week that he's been in the office. He was like, man, this is so much more productive, like, because we're able to answer things so much faster and get feedback on things and we're not having to wait for phone calls and zooms and daily meetings. Weekly meetings. Like we can just get done and it's like a really enjoyable environment to be in.
It's funny because like we were both semi of the opinion that maybe with all the toys and whatnot in the office that you might be less productive because you know, you might play a game of pool here and there, you might sit down at the bar, eat, talk with people that are around, be on the arcade machines and you know, whatever else. But I found that we can still do that and we're still significantly more productive because you can do that whilst you're taking calls, having the meetings with people.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Where?
And it's far more productive. And let's say even if you do spend time doing activities that are quite fun, it's made up for it by the amount of immediate action that you can take with people being there and being able to facilitate things.
Yeah.
But like I was having lunch, then I was like, I'll just shoot a quick camera pool like after my lunch.
Yeah.
And I was answering questions. I've done sales.
Yeah.
Like I was doing sales training whilst I was playing pool. And then like, you know, yesterday me and Marco were on a live sales call. Like five people sat in to listen.
Yeah.
And then ask questions afterwards. There was a live sales call that Marco was on today which he cold called off a follow up because he had the time. And then I sat in and I gave him feedback, direct feedback.
Yeah.
On the call as to what I think he could have done to get the deal faster. He still sold them but like I was like this is what I think you could have done to do it faster.
And previously he'd have to record that, upload it, send it, you'd have to download it, listen to it.
Yeah.
When who the has the time, you can just do it.
I sat there listening to the call live while I was doing my emails and I was like in and out, in and out and now. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? And just like I texted him every now and then with a little bit of like, hey, just ask this.
Yeah.
You know, and you know, it's just, it's very, it's really interesting because like, and then the guy is like, so he's new guys like Cameron and Dan and Steve. These guys can come in and listen to these calls. That's a great environment to be in. It's very motivating environment. You know. This morning me and Marco hopped on the phone with a guy and closed an $80,000 deal. You know, and it's $80,000 for a two hour and 15 minute speaking package.
Yeah.
And a young kid gets to experience that by standing on the other side of this door out of frame or.
Even just right there on the couch.
Yeah.
That you can't see. You don't know. But there could be four people in here listening to us do this podcast live.
They're not, right.
Yeah.
Because it's boring.
Yeah.
And it's funny, like, last night I was probably. I've been staying later than what I usually would.
Right.
Because we finished work and me and Marco work on a couple of things together and he sit here. He's basically taken this whole space as his office and he's come and says, like, I can't leave, like I can't leave now. Like this is it. Like it being here makes it so much easier for me to do my job. And he feels more powerful, he feels more productive purely because the environment.
Right.
It's crazy.
I'd say it's the first time I've felt like a proper boss can think that that's fine.
No, no, you're right. It's. You can even see like just walking around and like, it's quite a large complex here where we probably have the coolest office and everyone's like, oh, what's that? And me just like walking around. You can see the level of respect people give you compared to if I was to just walk up the street after I've been in my home office for ages.
Yeah.
It makes a big difference, right?
Yeah, it does. I think, like, you know, creating a cool work environment, I think is important. I mean, you know, it's. It's hard to debate the fact when you've got Google, Apple, like all these crushing Amazon, all these amazing companies creating their corporate headquarters to be extraordinarily creative and productive spaces with cool stuff. Because like, when you. It's almost like when you have the ability to do the things, like you don't even need to do them. Like we have an arcade machine. No one played it today.
Nope, I haven't. I've played it once.
Yeah, I played it more than anyone.
Yeah, for sure.
Because I need to be Marco and NBA Jam.
But you can do it on the phone. And still I've taken heaps of zoom.
Meetings while playing NBA Jam.
Yeah.
Like, because there's that. I don't. I'm just there to listen and then understand what's happening.
And you don't do it if you're leading.
Yeah.
No, no.
Yeah.
And like, even today, like, we had a meeting where it was, like, Guy was selling us. Or it was like, kind of the final proposal stage of him selling us into something of which we'd sold him into something on his second call.
Which is great.
Which kind of cost.
Yeah.
And I just kind of came in and out because I wasn't required for a lot of it. I was doing stuff in between, but I just came in. Okay. This is what I think.
And the good thing for employees, like, our guys. And I feel almost obliged to. Whereas at home, I could go sit on the couch for 20 minutes, relax, take a break. Here you. There comes an inherent obligation that you need to be working because you don't want to get caught sitting on the couch around. You know, so our guys won't do that. They'll be working the whole time because you can see them. They don't want to be seen not being productive in front of colleagues.
Yeah.
They just lock them in those little booths and.
Yeah.
Who knows what in there.
But yeah. So it's. It's been super interesting. Like, it's obviously. I mean, it's totally foreign for me. Like, I mean, at the gyms, but, like, the gyms is really different because it's a very, very, like, utilitarian space.
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess it's almost like. It's like working in a warehouse. Right. This is the first time that we've had a space that an actual office is an office.
Yeah.
Where it's like, this is purely. And, you know, like, it's more of a marketing. I think we've explained this is more of a marketing play than anything else. Like.
Yeah.
We dropped 200 G's cash on this place. Like, this table was 8,000 bucks.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's nice.
You know, and we need to make it bigger.
It's too small for the small.
We got it. We're like, oh, it's too small. So we're gonna cover it in about 3,000 bucks with a resin to make it bigger. But anyway, that's a whole different thing that we have to do. But, yeah. So, like, it's really just about. This office for us was about, like, I think, initially, like, how do we separate ourselves from the competition? Because, like, we have sales calls now and meetings. Like, we are in the best office by far.
Oh, yeah.
Like. Because we're all sitting around this table.
Yeah.
With that background. And it'll only get better. And as. As we sort of. This is, funny enough, the most used room that has the least amount of stuff done to it.
Oh, yeah.
I would say because we're always in here doing stuff. I prefer being in here than my own office.
I like being in here because we can all get around here and instead of taking me like having four people in a meeting in different little individual offices, we all just sit here and it's easier to communicate and talk and look people in the eye when you're having a conversation.
I should have a great idea.
What's that?
We get rid of these arms and we just have.
What is the desk that.
The dismounted ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That could work better than having these arms.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, ideally, if we can get that conference speaker that's good enough quality for the podcast, then sold.
Right.
They might not exist, but here, you.
Know, maybe they do, maybe they don't.
We'll find out.
We're always trying to like do new stuff to make everything more efficient.
Yeah.
If you guys comment like in the YouTube video or whatever, like if you have ideas that would look cool in the office as a background for the podcast or generalities, like, let us know because I'm open to making it look cooler if it's more visually background.
The other day, I think it looks cool.
Like 20 minutes.
Yeah, I think it looks good on camera.
Yeah, they just stick on. Convenient.
Just go to the other side now.
It looks on the other side for now.
Yeah.
But yeah, so like, I think, I think it's really productive. Like we want not everybody, but nearly everybody in Australia who works here to be out of the office. Especially like the sales staff. I think, like creating a sales floor.
Yep.
I think like, that's also like, we'll never lose anybody because, like, no one's going to be able to replicate what we do. The culture and the stuff that we can provide people.
Culture or the space.
Yeah.
And it's just really cool that we are going to have to figure out how we can create more people in.
Here because, like, I mean, if you look at it now, if a competition decides to do the office decides to do all of our cool ideas, like they're going to be just seen as you guys just copied sales sniper. It's like, haha, trademark, weird.
Trademark. Having an office.
Yeah.
You can't do that if you're another sales organization. Yeah.
You know, I'd have an office, you know.
Yeah.
We claim it.
That's our thing. No, but you know, I really, really think it is like having a. And it's difficult to create over like a, like a zoom environment.
Yeah.
I think we managed to do it relatively well. I think, like, the bigger it gets, the more diluted it gets. But we are putting measures in place to stop that.
Yeah.
And we are aggressively hiring talent.
100 applicants.
This, but also, like, this sort of the key operational players.
Yeah.
You know, like one of our key hires, Anthony.
Yeah.
Really, really good sales guy who's only ever sold one thing, but he has tremendous potential and in the next three months, he'll be an incredible sales guy.
Yeah.
Like, he's very, very good, but learning how to sell other products in different ways. Will Hinkinson as well is now come on board for us. He's an ex marsoc, which is US Marine sf, so me and him get along really well.
Yeah.
Our operations manager as well here is XSF in the same unit as me. So, like, that there's a good, like, ship there.
Yeah.
And.
Yeah.
And like dynamic, but also, like, really, really good sales guy. He was the head of sales for Dan Bolton.
Yeah.
We also have, like, Cali, who is the head of sales for Dan Henry. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Yeah. Yeah.
We have Will again, you know, Will Odoms, who is, you know, one of the head guys for Dan Locke there for a long time. And I think he was on Jason Capitals that camp. Yes, he was.
Yeah, he was quite early on.
Yeah. Like, we have Sean Ray is coming on. Shout out to Sean. He's coming on with us pretty soon to head up a department which we haven't announced yet.
We got Jeremy doing sales for us. Jeremy for some things.
Which is Jeremy crazy, right on board doing some sales. Yeah, he's selling BK's.
Yeah. Stuff.
Yeah.
So, yeah, like the. I think, like the talent pool of people that we have around us right now in terms of, like, senior people who are stepping into those management roles, especially with the expansion of services that we're about to announce pretty soon, which by the time it's now, we're always so far behind on this. By the time this comes out, it won't be announced.
It'll probably come out tomorrow.
But yeah. So, like, I think we have like a crazy good core team. A crazy good. And like, that is so key. And I think one of the reasons why businesses fail to scale, if I'm going into, like a business coaching thing is like. And this is just something that I think it's important that if you're a closer, like, you need to be able to see this.
Right.
Because one of the guys who does a little bit of work for us, who I won't mention his name like, he was really disenfranchised when he saw how aggressive our business is and how aggressively we go after growth and stuff like that. When he looked at what he was doing with his. The business owner that he was looking for, he was just like, oh, like, this is not where I want to be. So, like, you need to show your guys, your sales guys that you are hungry to pursue growth, but because sales guys, like, they look at you as like, okay, like, I'll. I'll be the guy with the oars in hand that facilitates facilitating this. But like, if you're not steering, if we're just going in circles, like, this is boring.
There's.
You can have your best talent rowing, but if you're not rowing the boat on the other side, you're not going straight. Right?
Yeah.
And with that, it's not even just like that leader of that company that's growing. It's like the reason why people want to get behind someone when they grow, because they get the opportunity to grow with them in whichever role that is. So if you do plan on having massive expansion, you need plans. Like, I had a good chat with Steve about what he wants long term today. And if you don't give your stuff a clear indication of where they're at now, understand where they want to be, and then put in a solid strategy on what they need to achieve in order to be given an opportunity to move to that next level, then they leave. Because there's no personal or professional growth for them.
Yeah.
And that's why, like, that's why people don't retain salespeople, because they pigeonholed them in a sales role. Because it, it's a tremendous. Like, that person produces a lot of money.
Yeah. Right.
So, like, but if you have someone who produces you a lot of money and you pitch and hold their career, they will just go and produce money for somebody else.
Precisely.
So, like, you're better off keeping that person in your organization, taking them out of a sales world to have them develop other people to be just as good at them in sales. Like, that's, that's what you do. Like, we even had this conversation with Marco because, like, we're having someone come in, shout out to Spencer. We're having someone come in and sort of put all of the roles that we have on paper so we can sort of like. So we don't have a linchpin with any one individual. So, like, everyone's roles and responsibilities, processes, systems. Yeah, we're all there to be taken over by someone.
Yeah.
Heaven Forbid Marco, you know, doesn't get sick or want to have a breakdown or want to spend six months overseas feeling better about himself. Monastery or something, you know?
But. But it's also more like, you know, what if. Like I said, what if Marco breaks his jaw?
Yeah.
What if I. What if I.
That.
What if you're. That would have been. What if something happened?
Someone chops their thumb off.
Yeah, exactly. It's like, we need to have a redundancy strategy to. To move on certain responsibilities. But also, doing that process, it gives you the ability to see what you're doing that is unnecessary because, like, you hit a point where, like, okay, that task is not worth your time.
Absolutely.
You know, like, Marco costs us, like, 30,000amonth as a salary.
Yeah.
And it's like, okay, if we're paying that much, then every hour is worth X, Y.
So he can't be.
Every hour is worth. After tax is worth $170,000. 170 grand. $170. Sorry.
That task, like, he can't be cleaning a desk. He can't be exactly. Just doing things that aren't worth the $2,000 an hour price tag. Which we pay.
Yeah, exactly. And so, like, what we have to figure out is then, like, okay, like, that's a really good thing. And as sales guys, that's a great thing to do. It's like, what are you doing? Because if you're a mad producer, like, get things out of your way, you know, in order to be able to just handle more sales calls. And if you have someone who's on your team, is a mad producer, get things out of their way by doing that kind of process.
But.
But also, it's like, you know, the reason why I sort of talked about Marco is because, like, I was explaining to him today, I was like, no, no. The reason isn't so that you can be replaced. The reason is so you can replace yourself.
Yeah, yeah.
So you can step out into whatever. The next iteration of his role. Just use him because he's like our number three. You know what I mean?
He's.
Yeah.
So it's just like, you know, but you can do it with anybody. It's like, what is your role? And then how. How do you train someone to replace yourself so you can move on to the next thing?
It's. It's funny because, like, you know, we give some of our sales guys our own individual setups, and I had this conversation with Steve. He wants to earn X amount of dollars, And I go, that's not achievable. Like, you can't earn that doing what you're doing.
Right.
Like, it's physically impossible with the amount you get paid per sale, the amount of volume you can take on your close rate. So we can either get to there via one increasing the volume unrealistic based on your time zone. Unless you want to work from 3am every day. We can put a triage person to take all those triages and only book two sales calls. We can get your close rate up. You're already at a very good level. That is very diminishing returns. And based on, like the. The KPIs, the ROI that we have, we can't really increase the cost per sale much because we would have to get more and we'd have to negotiate that. So in order for me to put a triage person in, I need you to achieve X close rate. I need you to bring in X amount of cash, and that needs to be consistent for two months. And if you hit those targets, we'll give you that triage person because the ROI is there for us to make that worthwhile.
Yeah.
Okay. But that still doesn't get you to your goal. So you need to hit this financial goal first. Then you need to put X away, Then you need to start investing it. And if you want to achieve that end goal, you need to figure out what the ROI on that is per year. And then it might take you based on the cap at which you can earn money from your sales career. It might take you another six years to get to that position where your residual income is adding on top of the 40,000 you're currently making to the additional 40,000 you want to get.
Must be a big number.
Yeah, it wasn't my K a month. That's not gonna happen. Not with what you're currently doing. Like, it's unrealistic, which it. It is when you do the math. But it's not unrealistic to achieve that when you add in other streams of income.
Yeah.
Because like when you take a. A salaried role.
Yeah.
You take a higher floor with a lower ceiling.
Yeah, yeah.
So if you go, I'll go off salary.
Yeah.
It's like, all right. But like, you don't make a sale, you don't get paid anything.
Exactly.
Also, no sick leave, no holidays.
Exactly.
So it's like, it's a funny one because people don't take that into account because, like, let's say you took a week off. Say you took two weeks off in the year because you were sick. Well, That's a few grand right there. Plus the four weeks paid holiday. If you're averaging $2,000 a week, that means that's like 10 to $15,000. That like just by being employed that you've added. Because you get paid the whole time. So like you know, it's, it's a very, it's an interesting one. Like you. So if you're earning 500 a sale, you know, 30 sales.
Yeah.
Over the course of a year, not an insignificant amount, you know. And so like not to mention the fact that like you don't get paid anything while you're not. So like you end up seeing holiday as opportunity cost.
Yeah.
When you work as commission only. So like you know, and we're in a position to where. Because these guys are in Australia and if you're in the States, I did the same thing. I would say you can take contractor role only or you can, or you can take employment. You will earn less commissions if you take employment but you have a guaranteed salary bank slip, superannuation, which is 401k for those of you in the States.
Right.
I didn't know that.
Sick leave, all that kind of stuff.
Right.
Plus you can take a bank slip to the bank and go I make this much money.
Yeah.
And you don't have to withhold. You all your taxes are withheld for you. Everything's paid, you don't have to do anything. Right. And so like that reduced admin plus this security means that you have a cap on your income. But it's like that's gotta be a cost benefit.
Yeah.
And like he's had roles where I.
Choose to employ myself.
Yeah.
He was earning 200, 300k roller managing brokerages and owning the brokerages and whatnot. And he doesn't want to wage. So I was like, okay then like you want to buy X house, you want X this. It's like well you better wake up with your company, start paying yourself a wage from that for your pure living expenses and then use the rest to invest in whatnot. Because whilst you're a commission only, even if you're earning upwards of that 80k a month, 40k a month or whatever that is that you, you want to get to doesn't mean without employment. So the banks are not going to be overly happy because that could cut off. Whereas with employment.
Yeah, I'll just clarify. It's different in the States, in Australia. So just so you guys know, obviously banking in Australia like they will lend money to somebody on an 80k salary more than they will lend someone $160,000. Contractor.
Right.
So, like, that's just kind of the way it is.
Right.
Well, security of income.
Yeah.
So banks over here don't like much, which is why, like, I chose to employ myself and accountants. Like. No, no, no. I was like. No, no, no.
It.
It provides me with a level of, like, mobility that I feel I like.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, for me personally, it's less of an advantage because I'm also the director.
Yeah.
So, like, it ends up being a bit of a game anyway. But for pretty much everybody else, it works out to be a much easier scenario.
Yeah.
I mean, we don't need to get into that.
It's more risk for us.
Technical and boring.
Yeah.
Yes and no. If you want to know how I think in business and how you think and.
Sure.
Then that's.
Maybe we could do a episode at one stage.
I think we are.
Yeah.
We've gone so far away from where we started, didn't we? It's a team environment, right.
Yeah.
I guess it all kind of flows together, though, because it's like, we've chosen to create the team in a very specific way.
Yeah.
And, like, my goal was, like, if we employ everybody, then, like, I have 100% of everybody's attention.
And also, it's usually within the best interest of the guys for tax mitigation strategies and a whole bunch of other things for security of that future.
Yeah.
Which is important when you listen to someone, when you know that they are securing your future in a good way.
Yeah, exactly. And I just, like, I think one of the biggest problems with the industry at the moment is that sales reps are being commoditized.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're being considered as products to be placed or, like, just people to be thrown around. And, like, listen, I'm sure that we're guilty of it from time to time.
No doubt. Absolutely no doubt.
I really don't want to be. And I want to. I want to be the guys who are known for, like, treating sales reps as people.
Yeah.
And as respect and actually caring about their career and their, like, progression.
Yeah.
Which is, like, we got to a stage, like, with growth and everything where, you know, we'll bring in so many people on that we didn't know who they are. So now we have mandatory meetings with every single person that comes on because. Because I. It's our job to develop our guys. And how can I develop someone if I don't know where they're at and what they want?
Right.
It's impossible. Or know who they are. Can't offer someone an opportunity if we don't know what they're looking for. So we have mandatory one on one meetings with everyone for the pure sake of understanding who works for us and being able to give them what they need and what they want and what their ambitions are.
Right.
Which I think is super important because I never want to be sitting in a meeting where someone brings up stats and it says Steve's killing it. And I sit there and go, the is Steve, what does he do for us?
Yeah.
Like I think like it's an inevitability.
At larger scale, but for the time being it's not.
Yeah.
So like it's an interesting one. Like I think team dynamics is. Is difficult to get right. I think especially in sales. I think the key is to have a healthy level of competition without it being overly competitive.
Competition. Okay, what's that?
Like it's a collaborative competition.
Yeah, right.
Oh, sorry.
Like you want everyone to see. You want everyone to win, but you also want to be the most winning or winner.
Yeah, Yeah.
I was thinking of competition from elsewhere. I was like, really?
Yeah.
That's competition?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Because like there's inside joke.
There's like sales, you know, like I want everyone to want to be the best sales guy.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I want everyone to understand that you can't all be the best sales guy. And that's okay.
Yeah.
We like there's no room for big fish, little pond. It's like you, you're all medium sized fish until someone can come in and eat the rest. Then they get moved into a different pond.
Yeah. And it's funny like we've watched someone like a bill would just come in and be a killer like that.
Right.
You know, absolute savage.
He's a piranha, not a fish. Okay.
Yeah.
It's a shock. And then you got like Ryan again, another guy.
Yeah.
Just really, really quick development cycles.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, so it's interesting and I think that being able to do it. I don't know. I don't know really. I don't truly know how we've managed to do it over the multitude of countries and time zones that we've done it. But I just have to bring it down to like everybody being under a unified. Like this is a cool place to work. It's seats and we have standards.
Seats on a train. And the standards and values.
Right.
When, when you set up the standards, when you set up the values.
Right.
And you connect that to the outcome that someone wants in terms of their career and development. Everyone takes their seat on the train and they don't stand in front of it and they do whatever they need to do to reach the destination where the train is gone as collaboratively.
If you don't want to be in front of the train.
Yeah, no one wants to be in front of the train.
And on that note, I think we're done.
Thanks, guys.
All right, guys, thanks for everything. If you did like this podcast, what's wrong with you? Second thing is, if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you like, subscribe, hit notification. But all that kind of good stuff. We really appreciate any positive feedback. We don't appreciate any negative feedback whatsoever. I won't pay attention to it. And if you want to check us out, closing code, that's the Facebook group. You can go in there. There's heaps of live role plays, sales, training, or all that kind of good stuff. And if you do want to flicker some cash, it's 50 Aussie dollary dues a week and you get access to six role plays a week with a coach at all different time zones. If you can't make at least two of them, if you don't value $25 to be coached for an hour with a bunch of other people and role plays, then I don't know, you're not going to be very good salesperson.
Yeah.
Or you're extremely good and you don't need it.
Yeah.
In which case you're wrong.
All right, see ya.
Bye. Put that coffee down.
Coffee's for closers only.
