Why $$ Isn’t Everything….. Culture is King
Matt Ryder discusses managing sales teams effectively, arguing that culture matters more than just paying commissions. He covers fair commission structures, supporting salespeople through slumps, and building loyalty instead of treating them as disposable.
All right, guys, welcome to another episode of Coffee is for Closers. Today, it's me, Matt, and James.
How are you guys?
Outstanding. Outstanding. Yes. Today, what we're going to talk about is that money is not everything. How to manage salespeople effectively and keep them over the long term.
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 list. 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.
Really important topics for anyone here that's listening that runs a sales team or is involved as a member of a sales team. And White House is better. What we did to make our staff love us and want to work their asses off every day for one, for themselves and two, for the company.
Exactly. It's weird, right? Because we sort of just. I don't know if we stumbled backwards into a good culture or if we developed it very intentionally. I feel like we just did what we felt was right.
Yeah.
At every stage. And then made sure that if we have a good commodity like a salesperson, that we make sure that we keep them when we do it. I would want to be done because there are a few ways that I hate being treated.
Yeah. Well, it was really more of a let's do what it seems like none of the other big sales reps doing and actually care for our employees and treat them as friends as opposed to just know the numbers. And it's the whole path of building a culture that supports them and using that whole, you know, Richard Branson philosophy. Teach them so well that they can go elsewhere and make more money, but treat them well enough.
That's where they don't want to work.
Exactly. Right. They don't want to because they want to be involved in the culture. And that's what we've built.
I asked Ryan Serhant about how he's managed to build a team of 70 plus agents, and he just said, the important thing is to remember that nobody works for you. Everybody works with you.
Absolutely.
So the word for is no longer in the vocabulary it's with. And the goal is to build people up so much that eventually. Eventually they leave you.
Yeah.
And if that's what you're trying to do then. And they know that, then chances are people want to stick around because they want to be along for the ride. And not everybody wants to be the guy at the top. I have an unfortunate need to be that person. Whether it's an ego thing or just the fact that I'm terrible at taking direction. But not, but not everybody wants that because there's a tremendous amount of insecurity that comes with the, the title of King of the Ring.
Yeah, totally. You, you're getting a lot better at taking that direction now. You're basically my.
How dare you.
No, no, it's. Yeah, you're right. People want that security and people want to go along for the ride. We've got employees that can get paid better elsewhere.
Triple.
But don't want to because they want to see where we, we are in five years and they believe in what we're doing as a company and enjoy that. Everything that we're giving them as, as colleagues to make them want to be with us and build something together.
I agree, but let's stop jerking our own dicks and let's just start talking about the probably. Like let's just say the three things that you're probably doing wrong and we'll make these up on the fly. But the three. A few of the things that I see that, that, that business owners do do very poorly which cause salespeople to leave. Number one is that you allow the comms to be paid out as the cash is collected. That's a big mistake. Although I see from a financial standpoint it makes total sense. And I don't think that. I think you'd be much better off paying the person a higher upfront amount and a lower total amount and then relying on the fact that you need to be good at your job to deliver. And there's a couple of psychological reasons behind that. First of all, creating a monthly recurring revenue is not even that big a salespeople don't give a shit. They just. They don't. They want the most amount of commission per sale they can possibly get. That's what they want. So if you do have some sort of monthly recurring revenue, that's fine. But I would try and give them much more on the front end and know like have a no bullshit look at how long you actually keep people and then base your comm structures on how long you actually keep them. And then if they stay long that then you can pay a bonus or something. But if you have a 12 month program and it's three grand a month, so it's a $36,000 program but you only keep people for six months, then you don't have a $36,000 program. You have an $18,000 program, even though they're selling into a 12. Really, you should almost be paying comms on the 18 from a business standpoint. But what we don't want to do, and the way that people tend to correct for that is they bring in this cash is collected. But the problem with that is that now your salespeople are seeing what's happening on your back delivery, and you're probably not having conversations to them around what actually happens within a coaching business or a consulting business or a fitness business or whatever. So they're not seeing. All they're seeing is that people stop paying at a certain point. And because most sales people are not business people. I get that. I always got that. And I was like, yeah, sweet. So when someone was like, I'll pay you 1500 bucks for a 30k sale, I was like, okay, it's fine. That's totally fine. People are like, I want 20% because I'm the best. Whatever, mate. Are you going to nurture them every single month to make sure that they. And if I ask the salesperson that go, okay, cool, man, I pay you 20%. You have to have a monthly meeting with them to make sure that they renew. Are you cool with that? They'd be like, no, fuck that. I'm a closer. Okay, mate, whatever you say. So the two sides are not talking to each other. So. And by paying them monthly, as the money comes in, they're going to see there's a delivery problem, or what they perceive to be a delivery problem, that's going to cause them to lose faith in the product and make it harder for them to sell. So a salesperson needs to be fully sheltered from the rest of the business. They should never hear a bad thing. They should never see a customer complaint. They should never see when somebody stops paying. They should. Nothing but unicorns and rainbows and testimonials coming out. And even so far as the fact that once someone's become a client, block them from being able to speak to the salesperson. Because if it's a poor delivery team, then they're going to go back to the salesperson who they see as the authority. Because they've had a good experience with the salesperson, they'll try and get the salesperson to fix it, and that's going to fuck it up for everybody. Because salespeople should not be doing delivery. They should not be doing coaching calls, and they should not be doing saving calls.
Most importantly, saving calls.
Yeah, Never get them to do saving calls. So if You're a business owner out there, and you're getting your guys to do saving calls, and you're paying them as the cash is collected. You're making some big mistakes. And I would bet to say that you're not keeping people for longer than six months. And you have that constant, I don't know what's happening. So with my guys, I have the conversations. They know what my cut is like, they know. They know why I get my cut, and it's pretty significant. And they know that because I set up and I make life super easy for them. And I negotiate commissions that are fair, and I negotiate good payment terms so our guys don't get paid as much as a closer who just closes for themselves. But they don't have to fucking do anything to be fair. Like, they're sheltered. They never have to speak to a client. They never have to worry about it. They're not. Like, they don't have to deal with the processing. They don't have to do anything. It's just make the call. That's it. And a lot of the time, it's triage. Yeah. All you literally have to do is hop on a phone call and get paid a thousand bucks. It's a gravy train. And then we give them multiple accounts, which is why they stay. So they have a security of income, which we can talk about later on, is how to give them a security of income. There's a couple different methodologies that you can do with that, but that's really the biggest thing. The next thing that people do wrong is that they start to treat their commission on the sales rep like employees. And that is probably the fastest way to lose a sales rep. And so what ends up happening all the time, and I see it all the time, is that business owners, through no malicious fault of their own, they take tiny little steps and they go, hey, man, would you just mind doing this? Hey, man, would you just mind doing this? But you don't ever offer to pay them for that, ever. You don't go like, hey, I need you to be on a weekly meeting, okay? Hey, I need you to run a weekly sales training for our guys, okay? Hey, I need you just to do a quick half an hour with this dude. Quick half an hour, this dude. Hey, can you just make sure that all the data analytics filled out correctly? Hey, can you just start making sure that all the setters are hitting their targets? Hey, can you just make sure that this. And all of a sudden, the guy is doing 15 hours a week of shit that you have never even offered to pay him for talking at your intensives. That paid for, hey, I'll pay a thousand bucks a day. Is that fair? All right, cool. All my guys, when. When we had that Eli Wild event that we were going to be doing, which obviously got canceled because of COVID I said, I'll fly out and I'll pay. If you. I'll pay them for the time. I go, if you. If you're not presenting, I don't need you there. If you want to come, you can come. I'm not going to pay for it, but you don't have to come. But if you want to, you can. But the guys who I need to be there, I will pay you for it. Didn't even give them the option. Right. I was like, no, no, no. I really want you there. I'm gonna pay this amount per day. I'll fly you out. I'll pay for your accommodation. You should not. If someone's on salary, like with Marco, he's on salary. I didn't have to say that. I was like, hey, we're gonna be here for a week. He's like, yeah, cool. He's on salary, gets paid no matter what. That's just part of the job. But taking and taking and taking and having an employee mentality for a commission. Only guy I signed up, which I won't talk about. But they were like, okay, so what's your base? And I was like, I don't want a base. What do you mean? I was like, no, I want comps. I want comps on everything. Everything.
The moment you give me a base is when you expect me to do other things.
Exactly. And I said that. I said, the moment you put me on a base, then all of a sudden you're going to have to cap my commission somewhere or you're going to lower my commissions because that's the only way it's fair. Or you're going to ask me to do stuff, and you're asking me to be at a certain time in a certain place, which I don't want to do. And that was one of the reasons why I quit one of my previous accounts, but I was crushing it for. Is because I kept getting asked to do things I didn't want to do.
Yeah.
And then I was never offered compensation. I demanded it. I said like, oh, what are you paying me? Oh, what do you mean? I was like, well, you want me to spend like three days doing something? I was like, that's crazy, Towns. I was like, that's like three, six. That's like 6,000 bucks I'm missing out on because I'm not selling.
You don't fit in the culture.
Yeah, and I didn't. That's totally fair play. The.
Yeah, but you play the culture card when you're not willing to do things for free.
Sometimes. Yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes. Yeah. So. But, I mean, that's just the way it is. And that's the difference between someone who's ready, who's good for in house, which is why I think some businesses, they require in house salespeople. Some businesses, external salespeople are better. But if you have someone on comms only, you cannot treat them like an employee. So if you have someone on commissions only, you cannot treat them like an employee, because they are not. And technically, it's kind of against the law to do it.
Third one.
The third one. Yeah. They treat their salespeople as transactional. So the moment somebody has a slump, they're just fucking, what the fuck's going on? You need to fix this. They're like, what are you doing? Like, man, like, people forget that salespeople are human beings and they're emotional creatures. It'd be like this. The same thing is like if you had a basketball player who had two bad games and the coach coming up to them going, like, you suck. What is wrong with you? Put the ball on the hoop. How hard is it? Well, the other guys are trying to make me not do it, so you can't do that. It's just going to break them. It's going to extend the slump. It has to be a supportive environment. When our guys go through slumps, they get more love, they get more support. We have to help them through it. Every now and then, you got to kick them in the ass and go, guys, come on. But it's from a supportive angle. It's like, we need to get this done. This is our job. What can we do to separate you from what's going on in your life right now to ensure that you can still make money? Because if this continues, it's only going to stress you out more.
Every single one of our team members that has had a slump, we have put the extra effort in to nurture that and figure out what the main issue was and fix it. And they have all come out of the other side significantly better. Salespeople.
Yeah. And like, let's say, let's take money, for example. I'll take what happened last week. I knew that one of the guys, he was on a couple of new accounts. He'd been stuffed around. There'd been a lot of lag time in between things starting. And I was like, okay, he must be short on cash. He must be, because before joining us, there was like four or five months of him trying to do it on his own in terms of getting that. So I spoke to his manager, because we have managers. And I was like, how's he going? He's like, I think he's just for cash. I was like, okay, well, just do this. Let's prepay him. 5,000 bucks for the commissions. Would that take the stress off him? And they're like, yes. I was like, okay, perfect. That's so fucking easy to do. And then because I was like, well, I don't want him to feel like he's getting charity. I just called him and I was like, hey, what I'm going to do is prepay you five grand worth of comms. But I've got a guy that I just sold sales coaching to for 12 months for, like 15 grand. I'm going to pay you three grand to then help me coach that guy over the next three months. And I'll pay you up front. That way I'm only paying you 2k in extra comms, and I'm going to pay you 3k to help me. Is that cool? He's like, yeah, sweet. And then he'd already made a sale, so that was another thousand. So we only ended up actually get really extending his credit by a thousand bucks. So. And, like, you know, it helps me because that guy, that guy that I'm now coaching is going to get a better result. That means that I'll be able to do less coaching with him, which saves me time, and it works for everybody. And then he feels like he's doing something really helpful, which he is, and then he can get cash. So he sent me the invoice, I paid it immediately, and now he's less stressed. I'm less stressed because I know that he's not stressing. Because as you'll know, probably the thing that I stress about most is that are our guys making enough money? Like, I have that conversation all the time. Like, we had it about one of the guys today, you know, I was like, is he making enough money? Is he okay? You're like, yeah, he's making this. I was like, ah, sweet, man. That's good. I don't have to worry about that anymore because I genuinely do worry about every. I worry about everyone but Marco because I fucking know how much money he makes and will, too.
It's it's funny, A lot of our sales guys probably make more than what we do, but, I mean, we're in a. We're in it for the long game because we're not paying ourselves.
The.
The stupid commissions is what these guys get because we have a company to run and we're focused on the long term.
Well, look at me. I mean, I make, like, I probably collect 60,000 in cash a month for this business collected, and I take none of it except for my salary.
Yeah.
If I was. If I was just running my own rock show, I'd be making like 800 grand a year.
Yeah. Close to mil.
Yeah. I want to make 10 mil. So the mil in the short term, I want to make 10 mil over the long term. So.
Speaking of that. Well, not specifically internship.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, like, by the time the guys hear this, they'll be halfway through.
It probably, but I don't care. Let's talk about it. It goes well to do. Talk about sales coaching.
Reach out.
Sales. Sales management.
Once you hear this podcast, if you're interested in internship, reach out because we'll open up more spots and do a second.
Well, I think what. I think what I might do is a sales manager internship. Paid, though. So right now we're extending the sales sniper team. Right now. How many sales reps do we have? Like nine, 10?
It'd be between 10 and 12.
So we just. We just added, what, 12 or 13 more interns. By interns, I mean, they're all pretty good closers because we listen to their calls and stuff. Some of them are. Some of them are a bit average, but they got good culture fits. That's another thing, too. Hire on culture, don't hire on skill. If someone's garbage, don't hire them. But if someone's a great culture fit and you have the time and the abundance and the patience to pay the long game with it, make way more money in the long term. Because, as we know, I've hired some salespeople who were pretty good, but they were shit culture fits. And they last, like six weeks because they just can't take the amount of. I don't want to say criticism that I give out, because that's probably not the right way. But you have to be willing to.
Kind of the amount of feedback and be willing to change.
Yeah, exactly. Because we give a lot of feedback and it's all in front of groups, so. And, like, I welcome feedback. I put my sales calls in there, and it's like, hey, tell me what I Could have done better. Like I'm not the fucking guru swami of all things, you know, hey, you should have done this better. I was like, okay, that's good. I know, I know that for next time. That's one of the annoying things about being in the position that I'm in is it's very difficult to get feedback on stuff because people don't want to.
Tell you, yeah, yeah, try and create.
An environment where they can.
The biggest things that I see is like people that are managing and making is setting unrealistic KPIs and targets.
That's the worst.
And not knowing where that information comes into. And I'll explain that a little bit more in a moment.
Just, you know, just one thing on a side note is the worst thing you can do is when somebody hits a PB or they have a really, really good week, you say, that's the new normal.
Yeah, that's.
I hate that. I really hate that. Like, that's the new normal. Like Marco made 10 sales last week at like 20, 30 grand a sale. So he did nearly half a million dollars contract value last week or not. Sorry, like I think it was 350 or some shit. And the temptation is to go like, okay, awesome, man. That's every week. It's like, well, it's not every week because you have to have the opportunity to do that.
And, and here's why, right? You're not always taking those 12 sales calls that week. 11, 10 sales calls that week. So half of them would have been triage the week before booked to a sales call for the following week. Plus they would have been triages taken early in the week that take the sales calls later in the week. So you get cross match between the weeks. Now that averages out over the space of three weeks. But there's always going to be one high week, one low week and one high week.
And then you've got follow ups that are closing that week too. So like when I sold 11 in one week, which is my record, which was, it's actually not that many sales when I think about it. But like for the opportunity that I, that I was given and I was told, well that's the new normal, and I was like, okay, well then give me, give me four times the leads that I normally get because it was three, four of them were follow up sales and then like three of them or four of them were from sales that sales calls that I'd booked that week, which is rare to book sales calls in for the same week and the other ones were booked the week before. So I ended up with like a 180% close rate.
Yeah.
Because I made like 11 sales from seven calls booked.
Yep.
So I was like, sweet, man. If you can figure out a way to make that the new normal, let's make it the new normal.
Like, it doesn't, doesn't make sense.
Yeah. And then the next week's always going to be quiet and then people, hey, what happened where people mistake that for a mindset slump and go. No, it's just a logistical fact. If you have a really big week, like an out of the ordinary big week, the next week is always going to be quieter because you've had people, you've cultivated your pipeline to where a bunch of people have sold at the same time. So now your pipeline is significantly reduced. Plus you booked in a lot of the good candidates from the last week during that same week. So now really you've only going to have a minimal spattering of salespeople and then it will be a low week and then it will normalize the week after. So that's generally what happens. And a lot of people mistake that for mindset.
But I mean, that week of it, it is also a mindset. Right. Because you're early in the week, you're on track to break a record. So instead of booking people for next week, you want to get it done this week to boost numbers to get that mad record. So you book them in earlier, make.
The time, make it happen end of month. And if you get comms monthly. Yeah, so if you get comms monthly, I would always, I would push people to excel that week. So if it was because I knew otherwise, if they have a 14 day payment term, so. And I send the invoice and I knew I was six weeks away from getting paid for that client.
Yep. So you push them, push and push them.
So I just, I just push them all. Sweet. Hey man, like I got some spots tomorrow, like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. On the last week of the month, I would do back to backs all day. Like I would just, I would just book it out because I knew I just wanted to get them in so I'd get paid. And so then the next week was always quiet because I just, I just how I did it. So which is why again, and one of the things I like weekly payment because it stops that because people know they can just farm them. Whereas when you do monthly payments, or at least every two weeks, like pay people every two weeks, Salespeople are not very good at budgeting. They're Just not. They're feast famine creatures. So if you can like to get them out of feast famine, like I guarantee you the last week of every month those guys are hurting for cash and they're, they get commission breath and they start to need it and want it more and it's just, it's, it's just no good. So I think if you can space it out over every two weeks, it makes a lot of sense.
And that's something that we put in in place knowing that sales guys are not that great at budgeting. Plus things fluctuate very heavily. Right. So. And that's what helps build the culture because we have trust in our guys. So we essentially have in like a commission loan system, whereas people can draw on us as essentially a credit card bank, you know, where we'll prepay commissions. Obviously we're not doing that for a newbie that comes in, but someone that's got accounts they could have like a marketing could get shut off. Therefore they don't have any sales lined up because that is, they could have had a huge week the week before. Marketing's not there, they've got less calls. So we actually will lend them the money, prepay their commissions so that they can have a consistent income and can budget effectively. When you have no set budget, you're relying on commissions and that one takes away the, the insecurity that you have when you are a commission only. And that's why people take jobs, not become entrepreneurial, because they want that extra security. So if we can still give that level of security, the guys aren't going to become desperate to a point where it affects their mindset and they always have that little bit of stability to keep their head in the right place so they can close what's in front of them.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And we back out guys and try.
And manufacture some consistency. Yeah. And then back them. If you get someone who's good, you know they're hurting for cash, just pay them five grand and say, hey, I'm going to give you a five grand advance. Honestly, like you'll get that back in a week because the guy will be so much happier. He'll know that somebody believes in him. It's like when one of our guys was struggling and we offered to send him on a holiday for two weeks. We pay for the whole thing and to be honest, we were barely in a position to be able to do that.
Yeah. But we backed him and now he's like one of our best sales guys and just having that support from your team gives you the chops to want to work hard for them and to.
Pay them back, you know, and doing stuff like that. If you, if you're listening to this podcast and you're a business owner and you think some of the stuff that we're talking about is fucking batshit lunacy, you're like, you're the problem. You know, you're the reason why you salespeople leaving. We, you know, our sales guys are role play for an hour to two hours a day. And I've given one of our sales, I've given two of our sales or had two head sales guys, Will and Marco. They now have teams that work under them. And so all I have to do is manage them and then they manage their little teams and then their little team is a little cohesive unit where they do their own role plays and they do everything. So. And they're starting to kill it and then we just develop them and then we can put more people under them. And it's, it's a great structure, but people feel like they're growing. The guys who have come in and they're relatively new because a lot of our guys are relatively new a couple of months tops. They've come from some pretty shitty sales backgrounds. So for them to know that there's a pathway out for them and a pathway up where they can do selling, but also then make money from other people and they can have teams under them. That's where I want it. Because what I want is I want like 50 sales guys where there's like five teams of 10, but just a bunch of fucking killers.
And they compete.
Yeah, and they compete, compete in the right way and from the right metrics. Because I tell you what, they won't be competing with is offers made. Check out a. Yeah, I went in a rant about. So offers made in contract value are just. I don't think that they're really valid metrics. I think cash collection and close rate from calls that show up is what you want to track.
Yeah. In hitting back on the point that I made up, which is, you know what I find the biggest mistake is those unrealistic KPIs and bonus structures. Right. So as a business owner, you need to know your numbers right? Now if you're, you know, using KPIs as offers made or, or close rate from leads, it's, it's stupid because it makes it impossible for your sales rep to hit those targets if you're not giving them the quality of leads. Right. They could close it. You know, 70% of people that are a good fit, not closable, but if you're giving them a whole bunch of shit leads and then they're closing it at 40% and you say that's not good enough, you are demotivating the shit out of them because they're getting too many and they physically can't get the bonuses that they want. And they're matched up against these numbers that are just unrealistic and are completely above the average. You need to set like KPIs that are achievable, difficult so that they have something to reach for and motivate them. And here's something that, where I think people fuck up is paying bonuses. You know what I mean? Everyone goes, all right, you get a bonus of X dollars or X whatever. I think it's stupid. It, it's not motivating unless you purely motivated by money, which in 90% of the cases isn't realistic, right? So what I found is most guys, especially when you're entrepreneurial, have somewhat of a scarcity mindset. And what they spend their money on at home, you know, if you're an employee, you're trying to buy a house, typically if you hit a bonus and you make two grand on the bonus, you're putting that towards your house, but you really want something else. So as like a leader and a manager in an organization, you owe it to your sales, your reps, your employees or whoever to be that leader and find out what the fuck they actually want, what makes them happy, what's going to drive them for success and get them the thing that they wouldn't spend the money on. You know, if you're in that scarcity mindset, you're not going to spend the money on a brand new pair of shoes, a new course, whatever, right? But if I, and I don't set cash bonus targets or cash bonuses, I find out what guys want and give them that as a bonus, right? So let's say in that instance, it's a brand new $3,000 pair of shoes that you can't justify spending the money on. Get them and that's what they love, that's what they want. Buy them that for hitting that bonus as opposed to giving them the cash, they'll work harder for you. They're now motivated to reach something because they get what they want. As opposed to chipping away at their mortgage, putting a little bit more into savings, it becomes meaningful. And when that goal becomes meaningful and you're the one that provides them that, meaning they're going to work so much harder for you to achieve that result because it has a tangible effect attached to making their life better.
Also, little things like if they do want the money to buy a house, then set together a goal and plan with them so you can help them through that process. I had a sales coaching session today with one of the guys and I just talked to them about debt management. That was it. Like, I really want to buy a house. I was like, okay, well, how much money, Devin? Savings? Like, this much? And I was like, okay, and how much that you need? Like, oh, this much? And I was like, okay, well what kind of house do you want to buy? Where is it? And I was like, okay, well, that's not enough money. I was like, you actually need this much money? She was like, fuck. I was like, okay, so how do we. You know. But she was getting a lot of money objections, and she was just wearing them because she was in a scarcity mindset. But then I kind of broke down her bills for her and I let her realize she had four months of total bills, cash in bank. So I was like, hey, listen, you're fine. You're in a better position than 99% of people. You have four months. If you lost everything for four months, you'd be fine. You wouldn't have to change your lifestyle. Lifestyle. I was like, so don't stress. She's like, oh, my God, I never thought of it that way. So that's good. So now she's on the scarcity mindset. But then we put together a plan for her where she can save her money the right way and chip away at the right things and feel like she's making progress without feeling like she's being a scrooge and hoarding her cash.
So.
So those things are important. Like, you need to understand what your salespeople want. And I just think a lot of their. A lot of business owners out there just treat their salespeople as fucking transactional. They want an end state from them and they don't give a fuck about the person. And it's abundantly clear in the way in which salespeople are managed and fired immediately if they don't produce. And almost never, very rarely, does the business owner have the forethought and the introspection to look at themselves and go, okay, am I providing this person with what they need? Is my marketing actually good enough? Because just getting leads doesn't mean you have good marketing. I know nothing about marketing. I can get leads.
Yeah, yeah, I've gotten Leads and sold them for myself. You know what I mean? It's not that difficult.
Yeah. And you just gotta. You really need to have a look because there's three things that are gonna affect your sales. The first is the marketing. The second is the process they go through once they know about you to how they get on a call. And the third thing is what the salesperson does and says. And all three of them play pretty much an equal role. And so if you're struggling with sales, it might not be the sales guy. It might be the process or it might be the marketing. And volume is not a metric that works. It's really not. You have to have a look. And that's why having objective ways of measuring leads is really important, because you have to be able to have the conversations. And I just find a lot of. It's just a. It's a whodunit. Whenever I go into the back end of like, oh, the sales guys are. Oh, the marketing guys are. The leads are. The sales are. The people are pulling out the delivery. No, but they're just. They're selling the wrong people. Well, we're selling the wrong people because we don't have enough opportunities. So the right people, because the marketing's crap. It's just like, guys, we're just same team, no concurrency, same team. And it's frustrating because a lot of time we step into that and we have to fix it, and it's hard. It is hard. We, you know, we do a pretty good job of it, to be fair, I think, because giving the data and I think that's where, like, having someone like me and you put our foot down and speak with authority on the subject. Like, no, we know more than all of you about this. This is what's happening.
Yeah. And typically when we talk on that, people shut the up and listen.
That's why paying. That's why giving people big bills is important. Like, the guys that pay me a hundred grand to fix their shit, they listen to everything I say.
I bet.
Yeah. It's gospel.
They paid 10 grand. They wouldn't.
100%.
Also wouldn't spend my time for 10 grand to do that.
I had one of the guys. She's been the sales manager for this company for like a year, and she's like, I've settled this stuff. Why didn't they do it? Because they didn't. You didn't send them as big a bill as I did.
Yeah.
And I was like, that's literally it. I sent them a really big bill and I told Them exactly what you told me. Because it all made sense. And they were like, okay, let's do it. It's just a frame. It's just a different frame.
Okay.
Yeah.
So let's talk. What are the key things that we did to build culture in our company?
I think it's. It's hard. It's, it's, you know, culture is a. Is a very individual thing. And I think the culture that we built is genuinely the most important thing to us is the well being of the salesper.
Mm.
It's the most important thing. I'll fire clients. I don't give a shit. I know, like, people say that, but we really don't care. If a client is being rude to a salesperson, they are immediately fired.
Oh, I've fired clients on calls with the salesperson because of the way they talk to them.
Yeah. Like that one incident that we had where the guy was rude over messenger and I had not said a thing in that thread ever. And then he said something rude. And I go, you watched your fucking tone with my sales reps. And then it was I fired the next day.
Yep. Yeah.
Like, go on. See you later. Bye. I've got no time for that now. If you're giving constructive feedback, that's totally fine. Like, we need to take that on board. But if you're being an. You're out. And the guys know that. And then the guys know that I will quickly replace that income.
Yep.
Because I see it as my responsibility to ensure that everybody's making enough money. Yeah. It's my responsibility to give them the opportunity and also. And then from there make them. Give them the best chance to convert those opportunities.
Is that person ever going to want to work for the guy that's being an asshole? Definitely not. Which means we're not getting the best out of them and we're not providing the service that we hold to our expectations. Because the sales rep hates that client.
Yeah. And just I think it's really important. And if you have an internal sales team, sales is like, it's the lifeblood of your business. And if you have a good salesperson, you need to realize that they are probably more important than you are because that person can walk away and your marketing person can walk away and you can continue to run the same ads until you find somebody else. That salesperson walks away and they're a savage. Like a total savage. You ain't got a fucking leg to stand on.
There goes all your cash.
Yeah.
And how long?
Like, when we've less businesses or When I have less businesses, we've seen a huge drop in their, in their revenue. And it's because like, well, salespeople are like a good one is like a unicorn. And, and we happen to be a bit of a unicorn factory, so. We do. But like, that's why it's so important that we do things our way. Like when people are like, no, you need to do this and you do.
This, it's like, no, absolutely not.
We do it our way. You can't talk to the sales rep. You can't. Unless it's like there's a specific reason because you're just going to fuck it up. Nobody understands how to manage sales reps very well. So like, the less interaction you have, the better. Because I know how to speak to them, I know how to do it. Let us do it our way. It works really, really well.
Yeah. Unless they have specific questions about the product and need understanding.
Oh yeah, then I'm all about it. Like, let's have a Slack channel. Everyone can chat. If you guys need to book in a call, you book in a call. If you ever even jokingly offer my guy a position, you're fired immediately. So that's, that's a, that's a, that's a no brainer. But yeah, it's just people fuck it up. And I think, I think the coaching and consulting space is a difficult one because it is such a hard thing to get right from the sales, the marketing delivery, the front end. And I've done videos on this where I've talked about salespeople need to fucking realize how difficult it is to get people into a call with you. So this podcast is really one sided, but I'm not one sided. And that's why our business works really well. Because I tell the salespeople why they're not getting $3,000 a sale and I break it down to them in real numbers. I go, you're not selling a $30,000 product, you're selling a fucking $15,000 product and you're only taking the first month. So as far as I'm concerned, you're selling two and a half, three grand. That's it. Now you're going to get commissions based on more than that, but all we can guarantee is that person pays the first bill. That's it. So unless you become a paid in full guru or you're going to follow that person up every single month, it's difficult to be able to command those long term commissions because they're not going to get it. And then they have. They're going to have a delivery thing. Plus they have to spend the money to get the people on those calls. So I can't have a business owner waiting four months to break even. It doesn't work.
Jesus. The dog just farted and it's horrible.
You didn't have to tell anyone, man. It's okay.
It's just like, oh, they'll probably be able to tell.
Yeah. So, yeah, so in saying that, like, you need to have those real conversations with your sales staff where it's just like, hey, this is really what's going on. But you don't need to tell them in a doom and gloom way. They need to understand when they sell something what they're actually selling versus what they say they're selling. They're not selling a 12 month program. They're selling a monthly membership that people can opt out of and ghost. That's the truth. So unless you get. You should, you should definitely request more for a paid in full. So you should say, hey, listen, I want three and a half grand for a paid in full.
And you should be paying your sales reps significantly more for a paid in full because cash is in the bank.
But a payment plan is, you know, it's a payment plan. So we usually get nearly double for a paid in full.
What some the biggest takeaway that you could give to a manager, business owner to get that team functioning on just absolutely killing it.
Find out on a personal level what your salespeople really want to achieve and then create a pathway within your organization to allow them to realize it.
Well, thank you. You just stole my one. But whatever. That's what I was gonna say.
Well, that's, that's the thing we have to do. So I don't think you need to really touch on anything else. Don't be a dick.
Yeah.
You people listening to this?
People don't care about dicks. You need to have.
There's three types of people in this world. There's dicks and. And now dicks. But they also. But assholes. Just on everyone. I love that movie.
I gotta watch it this weekend. I was talking about it actually over the weekend. My missus has never seen it. I'm like, we gotta change that.
All right. That's a good way to finish dicks, pussies and assholes.
See you guys. Enjoy.
That was your nickname in high school, I'm pretty sure. All right, see you guys. Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closers only.
