Acting on Accountability - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 024

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be. Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy. Today's guests is training and coaching sales and customer success reps and teams all over the country. She has over 20 years of experience in the SaaS industry. She's principal at Sales Acceleration Group. Welcome, Christy Jones. Welcome, Christy.

Joseph, thank you so much for having me on. I'm looking forward to sharing some wisdom with your audience.

Yeah, wisdom from St. Louis. I'm excited to have you here. Yeah. Well, let's start with, with a quick focused question on the C-suite. From your perspective, what do you see as an opportunity at the C-suite level that maybe other C-suite members aren't seeing or also have seen as well?

Yeah, as a consultant that spends most of my time in SaaS and startup environment, one of the things that I think is missing is a culture of accountability. And so I spend a lot of time— I affectionately, or not so much— say that I assume your check will clear. So I'm grateful for that because I have a child with out-of-state tuition. But after that, my whole business is built on referrals and, and people connecting people to me. And so I can do a lot of great things with my clients and helping them build out a lot of great processes, procedures, and strategies and help them improve their people. But if they don't have a culture of accountability, it's most likely all of the work I will do will probably be dead in the water and gone within somewhere between 6 and 9 months. If a culture of accountability does not exist. And so, again, grateful for the out-of-state tuition help, but probably not going to get your money's worth.

So I'm curious, when you go into an engagement, do you assess that culture, whether it has accountability or not, before accepting the opportunity?

I do. And it's not necessarily just even assessing, although I do some of that. Frankly, I can usually tell during— I usually do a couple of discovery calls. I on two different days. As I— my theory is the more time you talk to somebody, the more comfortable they get, the more likely they are to let their guard down. And so at some point, if I'm picking up on that, I normally say, hey, I just give them the speech I just gave you. Thanks again for the, you know, for the opportunity to help me pay out-of-state tuition. But I'm concerned that you do not have a culture of accountability. Am I, you know, am I on target? And most people will say, yes, you're correct. And I said, well, here's the deal. Like, I can either help you create that first, or we can create that as we're flying the plane and building some of the other parts. But, you know, and I try to explain to them, I think some people think culture of accountability equals micromanagement, and that, you know, employees don't like that. So I have to spend some time even educating people on what I mean by that. And that you can't hold people accountable to things that they didn't know you were expecting. And at the end of the day, a culture of accountability is supposed to make everyone's life easier, not harder. Just like I say to sales reps, I know you think that the CRM system is punishment, but it's not. We bought it as an added benefit to help you be more successful.

Yes. So where do you think accountability starts in an organization? At the top?

It does. Yeah. And I say to leaders, like, first and foremost, you've got to be willing to look in the mirror, because if you're unwilling to be held accountable by the employees— and that means maybe not even direct reports, but all the way down to the bottom— so if you're not walking your talk, if you're not doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it, um, you know, the hypocrisy of asking someone else Well, obviously, you know, create a culture of distrust and inauthenticness. And so, you know, because I think culture of accountability is a two-way street, not a one-way street. So while I'm— while I am responsible as a leader for sharing with my direct reports and others that I, you know, engage with in an organization what I expect out of them, I also have to be willing to let them know what they can expect from me and the willingness to hold me accountable.

Yeah. So how long does it take to establish a culture of accountability when, when maybe that culture doesn't exist?

Yeah, it's definitely not an overnight success strategy. It does take some work. I think you have to be comfortable with a few things. You have to be comfortable with the fact that you're going to have turnover, right? Because you've probably employed and hired people who are unwilling to be held accountable. And so I always say, I just had this happen the other day and I said, you know, this employee is no longer, is not willing to be held accountable. And I think we all know that. So before we put a culture of accountability in place, do you wanna go ahead and hire somebody else so that we have a backup plan? Do you wanna hedge your risk, right? You wanna reduce your risk and hedge your bet. And so, because you can't potentially be without this one individual, this one individual is sort of a pillar within the organization that is helping maintain the structure.. And so we probably better hire a backup plan initially so that we don't go without. And so I think there's some, there's some things that you have to come to terms with, and that's why it's not an overnight solution because you're going to lose a certain percentage of the population if you've not hired for that, which by the way is completely doable. And if, and you may have middle management that is not willing to be held accountable. And really it's a cultural shift, right? So again, if the inmates, I mean, everything from right, have the inmates been running the asylum? Up into like, well, everyone's heart's in the right place. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So it's interesting, you're coming into an opportunity with an organization with a sales lens that they're looking to talk to you about some sales work, which is a heavily accountable portion of almost any organization. It's maybe the most. And you're stepping back and say, hey, before I can do my job, we need to work on this culture issue. So then do you bring a team in to help you with that? Or are you running and leading some of that work on your own?

I'm mostly running it on my own. So I think one of the things I do say to them is, is sales is an objective sport. And so it is the easiest place to hold accountability. But I regularly walk into organizations where either there's no quota, there's a quota that no one's being held accountable to. And there's no, you know, day-to-day accountability. There's no consequences for missing quota. And so it just depends on where we're at, right? And so when I say to them, you know, do you have a culture of accountability? Sometimes they say, what does that mean? And I said, does everybody have written and measurable objectives? They're like, oh yeah, we got that. I go, great, that's awesome. What percentage of people are hitting those measurable and written objectives? And then there's where the silence comes in, right? And then I said, okay, so congratulations, like, expectation setting is awesome. But I said, it's just like when you have a small child and you say to them, you're not going to get ice cream until your room is clean, and now it's 8 o'clock at night and they pitch a tantrum And so you give them ice cream because it makes your life easier. And now you've just taught them that nothing that you say is really what you mean, right? And now we've just started to mistrain them. Yeah. And so there's, there's a, there's a variety of different ways that people— because people do think that, you know, I would say, I would say there is about a third of clients I walk into where there is no, um, like firm quota. Right? Like, just here, like, even I think like just hit last year's number is not really a firm quota. And there's no business plan behind that. There's no sales math behind that. So everybody thinks that if you just give somebody a number, that that's— you create a culture of accountability. And that's just not the case. The other thing is, if we create a culture of accountability in the sales organization, which I do, you know, dig in and spend a lot of time helping people do, because it is my primary focus is sales. I say though, to the highest level leader I can get my hands on, hey, listen, like, this is going to be awesome for the sales department, but they're going to get real frustrated with your other departments. Because, because the ultimate goal is that the employees hold themselves and each other accountable, and that management no longer needs to do that. Right? Like, that's when you've really created a culture of accountability, when people are— when people understand how to have tension-filled conversations perhaps about people, let you know, you let me down by you not doing this. This was the outcome of this and having those real honest and authentic conversations. And I said, you know, the sales department is going to get real frustrated with finance and operations and marketing when those people in those departments say that they'll do something and they get— and you know, we know how to hold people accountable now because I've taught them that. So Hey, Joseph, that's great. Thank you so much. When do you think you can have that to me by? Right. And you say Monday. And then Monday comes and goes and I don't have it. And then I reach out to you on Tuesday and I said, hey, Joseph, I was, you know, I thought we'd agreed that I would have that by tomorrow, you know, by Monday. And now it's Tuesday. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, some things got piled up. I'm definitely totally going to get that to you soon. Right. And I said, so you can't— it's almost like it's almost an all or nothing proposition. Right? Because if you just do it in 1 or 2 or 3 departments, then those employees who are having a grand time in their own department with people who are being held accountable are going to be very disappointed with the other departments and wondering why they're broken.

Right. Interesting. So I would have— I would normally say that the C-suite's a pretty accountable group of people. Do you see that not the case, or maybe that they're accountable to themselves, but that the organization lacks the culture of accountability?

I think yes. And remember that I work with smaller organizations, right? Mostly privately companies, VC, PE-backed. And so I may walk— I mean, a lot of times I walk into a company of 20, and here's the problem: we're a family.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, does that mean that crazy Uncle Joe gets to continue to come to Thanksgiving drunk every year? Because we're— because he's family. And so I get a lot of that, right? Like, well, I can't, I can't, I can't run Susan off. Like, Susan's employee number 4. Like, yeah, she's been with me from the beginning. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Like, that's great. Okay, well, so, so really, like, so you're okay with not growing at 17% this year? Well, no, I didn't say that. And I'm like, well, yeah, you kind of did, right? Yeah. So, so I would say in general, here's what I would say. I would agree with you in the following ways. The C-suite is normally self-accountable, to your point, right? And if they're self-accountable, they probably potentially hired that next level. Like, let's just say 9 out of 10 of that next level down is probably self-accountable. But it may be that we haven't taught how to interview for that, and that certain people have a— we as humans are conflict-averse.. And holding people accountable until you gain the culture, like creating that is, you know, has some conflict associated with it, has some tough conversations, turnover may happen. And those things are just disagreeable. And so in some cases it's easier just to let Susan slip by, you know, every so often, you know, dropping balls. Um, I recently was having this conversation with a founder. Who I am playing fractional sales leader for. And he said, hey, can I ask you something like completely off topic? And I was like, yeah, sure. And he was having trouble with another C-level employee. And he said, like, I'm not sure what's going on. Like, he used to be completely reliable and this, that, and the other, and now he's dropping balls and I can't count on him. And that the work that is coming in is subpar. And like, you know, you know, I don't know, I'm, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm afraid to have this conversation. And I said, well, people are patterns and the pattern has changed. So it could actually be something in his personal life. You have to like assume that it's not necessarily that he's bored with the work or whatever. I said, I would suspect that it's something in his personal life that's dragging into his professional life. And I said, so I think there's lots of ways we can start this conversation in a compassionate way, assuming that that may be the case. And so, but even Again, like even I have this conversation with founders occasionally who are completely self-accountable, but even are struggling to have a conversation with someone who again is at a high level that they also have a, when you get to that kind of level, a lot of the, you have personal relationships with these people as well, right? So I mean, it's just conflict is hard and it's disagreeable and these are hard conversations to have. So, but as I started out by saying at the beginning with you, We are doing this to make everyone's life easier, but you're going to have to go through, I mean, again, like, you know, you can't just drop 20 pounds without altering your diet, adding some cardio, maybe cutting the alcohol out, right? Getting 8 hours of sleep. So you can't expect to get to where you want to get without making some changes that may be a little bit painful in the moment.

Yeah. So when you walk into an organization that is full, that is, you know, has a culture of accountability? How do you—

how does that look and feel? People like— people are open to deadlines. People ask you for deadlines if you forget, you know, the quality of work is appropriate. People are able to, you know, people able to have that authentic conversation around, you know, hey, like, this really didn't— this, you know, this project didn't really turn out as well as I thought. I had the good fortune of working for a CEO at one point who sent out a letter to the employees every Sunday night through Salesforce Chatter. And one of the— he, he held himself accountable and others in the following way. He said, hey, like, so here are my top 5 priorities for the coming week. Here are the top 5 things that I said I was going to do last week and where I land with those. Um, I always— he, um, always committed to having 5 conversations with existing clients a week. So here are the 5 clients I'm going to have. And then he said, and here's my compassionate criticism for the week. And he would never call an individual out, but he had no problem calling a department out and saying, as a result of this happening, this is what the— like, this was the consequence. So I always say, like, you know, no matter what your decision is or what your behavior is, there are consequences for everything, good and bad.. And so he called them compassionate criticisms. And, you know, that, like, that I lived that culture of accountability on a day-to-day basis there. And where people were able, because he, because he taught us, for those who didn't know how to do that, he taught us how to have those conversations in a way with, like, that had compassion included in there. And, you know, and so, but he, but, you know, it made us better, right? And I think that's when when you have a culture like that, you're going to get A players and your A players are going to stay. And so as we're currently talking about the great resignation, and I just wrote a blog post on the connection between the great resignation and inflation, and being proactive, and if you need to keep— if you're worried about or you need A players, that certain A players in your organization that won't leave, how you have to be proactively approaching them about this money problem that's causing all kinds of grief.. And so, but when you have a culture like that, I guarantee you that his turnover in the last 2 years is lower than the average. Right. I mean, I just, and here's like, here's a, here's an interesting example. Cause I just, I just participated in this 2 weeks ago. Former employees that work for the company, obviously I'm one of those cause I own my own business now. They have an alumni organization. And so the CEO came to St. Louis. And held an alumni event for lunch, or took us to the cool barbecue place in the cool part of town. But, you know, you know, we got the private room in the back. And the current St. Louis employees that are at management level and above came and joined us, those of us who are alumni. That's amazing. That's amazing, right? And so, and he does this twice a year. We have, we have offices, they have offices in San Francisco, Phoenix, St. Louis, and then overseas in India. And so we get in, you know, and, and when they are looking for certain levels of people, the alumni, the alumni get an email saying, hey, don't know if you know of anybody, but we're, you know, we're hiring for this higher level position. And we're looking for somebody and, you know, our best leads come from people like you that have already worked here. Because if you've worked here, you know who will be—

who will fit the culture. Yeah, what a great idea.

How long has that been going on? Uh, like as long as I've been there, I mean, I've been gone for 6 years and I was there for 2 years. Um, and it was in place when I got there and, and it just feels different, right? When you leave, it doesn't feel like even if you were terminated, right? I mean, every, all kinds. I mean, I literally sat next to a guy that, that I had terminated.

So you're, you're welcome as a terminated employee. Also, you're an alumni. Interesting.

That's, that's, that's very intriguing. That is very intriguing. That's why obviously that's one of the best cultures I've ever worked in. Um, but they attract the best of the best as a result of that. Like, that, that was not by happenstance, and that was top-down. Um, that's a VC— that was a VC-backed, um, uh, venture, and now it's a PE-backed. Um, same CEO is still in place. Uh, but they were the first unicorn in their space, a billion-dollar company. And almost all of the mid-level or higher-level managers that I worked with are still there for the most part. All the people and all of the mid-level managers in the St. Louis office are still there 6 years after I left.

So you're— that was a SaaS company, you work primarily with SaaS businesses. Yeah. SaaS businesses are relatively new and they're unique because there's so much margin in them. Yes, there is a lot of margin. It's crazy. As a marketer, I look at SaaS businesses, like those are nice businesses, but they have their own things that are difficult. Where would you see some of the challenges and opportunities that come with being inside of a SaaS business?

The opportunities are like, it's not super complicated. I think one of the reasons why I stay in SaaS is, you know, if you want to add a feature, it's like, how many developers do we want to throw at it? So to create sense of— like, sense of urgency is always there, and it moves at such a fast pace because it really is. I mean, it makes it sound simplified, right? You obviously have to have money for developers. Um, but I did a 10-month stint, which was my, my one professional mistake. I always am very honest about— I joined a VC-backed holistic pet food company, and I was, I was so excited. It was VC-backed, and I was going to run Canada and the inside sales team, and I'd like— and the the CEO and the COO had just come from turning around Breyers Ice Cream and saving that company. And I was like, awesome, like smart people and whatever. Yeah, pet food's not sexy, first off, and there is nothing fast about new product development, right? Right, no kidding. Nothing fast. And I— and like, CPG is— so I, I mean, I felt, I felt a little guilty because I was like so excited and I got in there and I'm like You know, like products were delayed because we couldn't get ingredients. I mean, there's all kinds of problems. I was just like, and I was just, I was, I felt so naive because I was like, in the past I'm like, well, we just need to add a dashboard. So like, how long do you think you'll add a dashboard? And they're like, well, I don't know, when do you need it? I'm like, 5 weeks. They're like, okay, well, we just need 20 developers working 12 hours a day or whatever. I'm like, 5 weeks later we have a dashboard. I'm like, this is awesome. So this is one of the things I love about SaaS, right? Is is the speed at which you can do things. If you have, again, most of the clients I work with, like I said, are funded. And so it really is, I mean, when you get funding, it's people and product, right? That's where money gets thrown, people and product, and mostly sales and marketing people and product people. So I think that, you know, it moves at a fast pace and really like you have to be on top of your stuff, right? I mean, like the net, I mean, features are popping up, like SaaS doesn't stay not a commodity for very long. Right? Like, if you have the best idea on the planet, it ain't gonna take any time for somebody else to get, you know, grab their 20 developers and go, hey. And if you put out your next new feature that's super cool, it ain't gonna be long before the competitor puts out that new cool feature, right? So it— you like the pace at which things work and the way that you— the way that you have to think to stay ahead and your differentiators, right? Like, in SaaS, like, I get frustrated with people like, well, we're providing a better level of service. I was like, really? So I mean, you know, that would be, I think, part of the challenges is trying to find differentiators in a SaaS business when really all it does take is, you know, bodies, you know, to keep, to keep up with the competitors with each other is, is bodies. And I think, you know, the, I think the other thing that is challenging about SaaS is that, you know, you can very quickly, you know, fall into the selling on price and feature. You know, trap as opposed to selling on value. Because I think sometimes it does get hard to find the value, the value differentiators. Um, you know, one of the things I, I try to talk to my clients about is not boiling the ocean and, you know, really having a go-to-market strategy when you only have X number of salespeople. I mean, my clients don't have 250 salespeople across the globe, right? And most times don't even have 20 salespeople. And so what do we want to own? Right? Like, you're, I think, close to the age of myself. So I may or may not be able to use the Rockefeller habit concept of the hedgehog, but find your hedgehog, right? Like, the hedgehog does— has one job and does one thing better than any other creature, you know, in the animal planet. And they use that to their advantage. So it's like, where do— what do you want to own? Right? And, and really, what I encourage a lot of people to do is to own the SMB market. Because it's the biggest pond to play in. Like, you know, when people say like, like, we should go after enterprise, I'm like, you really want to go after the Fortune 2000? Because there's 2,000, right? There's just 2,000. Do you know how many small and mid-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees there are? Like, it's endless, and they're coming, they're popping up every day. So, you know, I think, you know, there's— I love SaaS because of the speed. But it— but the challenge is everybody, like, it's just like, how much money do you want to throw at a feature set problem to fix it? And you're not going to own that cool new feature for long. Yeah.

What do you work on?

B2B SaaS or B2C, or what are your specialties? Mostly B— well, my specialty is definitely B2B, but sometimes I get sucked into the B2B2C world. Yeah, but mostly, yeah, B2C is definitely not my forte. Um, I, I I get— I try really hard. This is one thing I try to drink my own Kool-Aid. So I try to stay in my swim lane of where I think I can have the most effect and impact on my clients. So I—

we work a lot with companies, and our marketing approach is very much how do we align marketing and sales to get them to work together, get the same— everybody in the same direction, because there's so much that needs to happen together. In a SaaS environment, where do you delineate where marketing leaves off and where sales takes over?

Yeah, good question. And there are cases where I walk into companies that don't have a marketing department. So that's always entertaining as well. But I— this is how I describe marketing jobs. So first off, this goes back to sort of the culture of accountability. If marketing doesn't think that they own lead gen, then I already know we've got a problem, right? Right. So, um, again, unless you're Coca-Cola or Nike or something of that sort, brand doesn't matter. So I don't need a brand agency. I don't need some cutesy little developer, you know, who wants to, you know, redesign the website on a weekly basis. I need someone who understands, you know, social media, lead, um, uh, digital marketing. Content marketing, event marketing, right? Depending on, depending on any combination of those, depending on where we're going to lean heavy, right? But, but you, you know, marketing has to own lead gen, and that should be their primary focus. So I'd say it's marketing's job to warm them up, it's our job to cook them, and if, and if during the cooking process the oven, you know, breaks down and they're only half baked Then we cook, we send, we kick them back to marketing to keep them warm. So I got a lot of food analogies. So, you know, I'm like, I go, we never want anything that we've warmed up to go back to frozen pizza. I say, yeah, okay, so we always want it to be at least like, you know, you can eat cold, we can eat cold pizza, but no one wants to eat frozen pizza. So by God, if it gets hot, if it, you know, we, it comes into marketing frozen, they warm it up, you know, we get it to bubbling, we get it to 400 degrees. But if it sits out too long on the counter, we got to make sure that marketing picks it back up and puts it in the fridge at least so it, so it never goes back to frozen. I like that.

I like that delineation. Marketing owns leads, sales cooks them. How do you focus on customer retention?

Where does sales get involved in that? I would prefer sales not be involved in that. I, again, as a big proponent of customer success and someone who's run that department as well, I want, I want my hunters hunting. So I truly believe that from a personality trait or a trait standpoint, hunters— and this is, I got more, I got more Christie-isms for this one. So hunters want— hunters will be happy to procreate, carry the baby for 9 months and give birth, but they don't want to raise the baby. Right. And the farmers are like, why would I want to go through that kind of pain when I can be the one to celebrate all of the milestones? I want to take the training wheels off and I want to drop them off at their first day of kindergarten. And I want to be there at high school graduation. I want to walk them down the aisle. And so I think, I think you're setting people up to fail if you ask, if you're asking them to do both of those jobs. And so I want the people who want the unlimited income, no cap, super ambitious. Like I want, I don't like, I do not want to get the password reset call. I don't want to get the— this isn't working like I thought it was going to work, yet it's working as designed, but that was a problem. So I love the hunter handoff to customer success. And again, I do delineate between, you know, if you've sold one division of a company, should the hunter continue to try to gather the other, like the land and expand strategies, I always think are hunter strategies, right? So if you've sold one department, one division, one location, go get the rest. But then please hand them off to customer success so that they can nurture that relationship.

And then upsell and renew. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love your analogy, your Christie-isms.

Those are fun.

I got, I got lots of those. So another topic that I like to talk about on the podcast is leadership. And everyone has a slightly different definition of what makes a good leader. I'd be curious to think, what are some of the characteristics that you find in good leaders?

A good question. I delineate even within leadership. So when I'm working, I do, I executive coach as well. And when I'm first meeting with a new executive coaching client, I say to them, I need us to work through understanding the difference between leading, managing, coaching, mentoring. And so I think first and foremost, you have to have the ability to— you have to not only have the ability to do all those as a top-notch leader, but you have to understand when you need to do each of those, right? When we need to coach, when we need a mentor, when we're just managing the numbers and the activity, and then really when we're leading and trying to take people to another level. And I think all of those come into play at different times and stages as you're interacting with employees. I also think, you know, more and more now, and it really is, as I called— here's another Christyism— I like, I just call them the Zillennials. I blended the Z and the Millennials together. I just call them the Zillennials. So like, the Zillennials want collaboration, right? They want to be included. Like, we used to call it buy-in, but it's not. It's more that the Zillennials don't just want to buy in, they want to like be in. Right. And so, you know, I, as I, again, I'm fortunate enough to work with a lot of younger founders that are in potentially their 30s, early 40s type thing. And so they're not as far removed from the millennials as I am. I have a millennial in my life. And so, you know, in really trying to understand where they're coming from and what they're looking for, I think, you know, some of those millennials got the bad rap and they were like, you know, they want 3 months later, they want the corner office and they're not willing to put in the work. And, you know, there's no, they're not gritty. They all got the trophy. And there's for sure, there's some of that, right? But I think, you know, right now, I think leaders need to know how to inspire. And, you know, the millennials, and I delineate motivate versus inspire, and I use that word intentionally, because I don't think you can motivate the unmotivated. I can only inspire the people who are already self-motivated. And so, but this group that's coming in, that's going to take over, you have to understand how to communicate with them, you have to understand how to inspire them, you have to understand how to, how to get them. So You know, good leaders have followers, right, just organically. And so you can't lead through title, you can't lead through fear, you can't lead through intimidation. You have to— and I think part of that just comes from just like being honest and authentic. And, you know, saying I don't know, or I'm not sure. I mean, we, like I said, you know, the pandemic was hard for everyone, but it actually wasn't as hard for my startup clients because we live in uncertainty every day. Right? We live in pivot, uncertainty, new messaging, new go-to-market strategies, new verticals. Like, this is where we live. And so like the pandemic was built for us. And most of my— and I didn't have any clients who didn't survive that as a result of that. And so, you know, but you have to remember, like, you know, I think the other thing is, is this group that's coming in is living through different things than we've lived through as older individuals. And so You know, like people want, you know, kids coming out of college these days, and I have a graduating senior, thank God. I won't have to use the out-of-state tuition problem anymore as my excuse. I'll have to come up with a new one. But, but, you know, he can't— I mean, he— it was interesting. He really struggled with remote school. In fact, I— he asked to take a semester off after the pandemic hit. He finished off the pandemic semester, as we called it. But he wanted to take the next semester off because he really didn't enjoy it. And so unlike most people coming out of college, he doesn't want remote work. At a minimum, he wants hybrid. And he knows, like, he's self-aware. Like, we've had this conversation since he was younger, and he knew that he couldn't skip class. Like, he doesn't self-teach. He has to be in the seat. And he says, you know, I need to be near my boss, or this kind of thing. I need that, I need that accountability. I need to run into people in the hallway and know that I owe them stuff. And so I said, well, that's an interesting thing because you actually may have a harder time finding a job than other people, right? Because there's very few companies that are 100% back in the office. And I said, you're probably looking for a 3-day in, 2-day out kind of hybrid situation. So I think just kind of understanding where, where, you know, what we've all been through, I think we're all still a little, you know, you got a little PTSD and shell shock. But it is going to change how we lead and manage going forward. And if you're unwilling to make that, make that change, then I think you're not going to get the best employees and you won't get the best out of your employees.

I agree. I agree. That's an interesting story about your son. When you get back to leadership characteristics, so inspiring is one that came, came up from what you talked about. Are there other key characteristics that you see inside of a good leader?

I mean, trust, right? And that's that walking your talk, right? People are, you know, you have to be a trustworthy individual, you know, you have to be, and you have to be someone that seems competent, right? I mean, I talked a couple of times, I think already on here, that I've had the pleasure of working for some really smart people and people that you want to learn from and you want to follow. And I, so I think, you know, you have to be competent, you have to be confident, you know, you have to, you know, people have to know that even if you make a mistake that like you'll fix it or you'll figure out how to fix it. Or even if we make a mistake, if we pivot and we pivot wrong, that someone's going to figure that out and we're going to fix that. You know, and I think the ability to help them grow, the millennials are desperate for that, right? They want, you know, they want someone to make them better. Um, you know, P.S., they're probably only going to stick around 18 to 36 months, but in that period of time, they're going to want to see growth. Yeah. And so I, I think one of the other things that I'm struggling with with my clients right now is career pathing and professional development. Um, my executive coaching business has blown up. I was not executive coaching anyone pre-pandemic, no one.. And now I have 5 executive coaching clients and the company is like, I think I could put whatever price tag I wanted on that. Like I literally sent out a contract yesterday at a price that I was like, I have a little supply and demand issue going on right now. So when that happens, you know, my prices go up. Um, and so I sent out a contract that I was like, like I may get some pushback on this. And I had it back in 30 minutes signed. And it was a very, it was a sign that, and they said like, CEO was like, CEO signed off on it immediately and said, we are so grateful that you're willing to come in and help us. You know, there's so much, there's so much to do and, you know, they need support and even from outside the company, right? And so, you know, the ability to provide that professional development opportunity, and even if that means, and even with a lot of my clients that I'm executive coaching, I encourage them to get an outside mentor outside of me, outside of the company And I said, I want you to find someone who is like 2 steps above where you're at, but where you're headed.

Someone who's already paved the path. I like that. I was going to ask you that question then. So what— how do you define the difference between mentoring and coaching?

Yeah, I think mentoring is somebody who's been there ahead of time, who's already sort of, you know, taken that path, and they can help guide you and they can save you some pitfalls. That you may otherwise have. You know, the coaching— like, most of the clients that I'm coaching, although they're all sales leaders, they're in industries I've not been in before, they're in organizations that I don't live in, and so I don't necessarily understand the culture as well as I would if I was living there. Um, I don't understand— and none of them are doing, again, like, the exact same role that potentially I have done. Um, you know, some of them are managing outside sales reps, which I don't have a big extensive background on. But I'm spending more time with them coaching them on how to coach their employees. A lot of them are brand new leaders. And so I said, like, do we have a one-on-one agenda every week? What happens when somebody shows up and the agenda is not filled out? You get— you gave them a quota, but did you sit down and do the sales map with them and help them figure out what their— do they know their average sale and their close rate? Do they know how— what their sales cycle is? Do they have a mini plan for every month? Did they break that down into monthly things? So I'm spending more time coaching them to coach others, teaching them how to coach, you know, their employees, and then dealing with obviously some internal, you know, there's always internal politics problems and those types of things. And, but I teach them how to manage up, manage laterally, and coach down. Um, I spend a lot of time on the coaching piece, but I want them like, from a mentorship perspective, I think a lot of times with mentors, your personal life comes into that, right? And there are some personal, there are always personal things that sometimes are in the way of where you want to be.. And although, although sometimes my executive coaching clients share that things with me, I think because the organization pays me, I like them having that outside mentor where, you know, there's no chance. And I'm, you know, and I have a pretty strict confidentiality clause with companies that, that do pay me. And basically my agreement is if there's something unethical going on or something that will land you in court, you can expect to hear from me. But otherwise I have to, like, they have to have, I have to be able to build some trust with them. So I get, they get the best out of me and I get the best out of them. But in a mentorship situation, it could be like, hey, like I've got some things going on at home and I'm struggling with how to balance that out. Right. They might not be comfortable having that conversation with me, but they might be happy to have that conversation with someone who again, doesn't work in the organization, isn't, you know, isn't paid by the organization. So, you know, I, the mentors that I built in my life, are people that I kind of, I go to with big life decisions and changes, or, you know, I'm really struggling with this situation. Have you had this, you know, situation in the past?

And sometimes these are quick calls, and sometimes these are like 3 hours over wine.

Yeah.

So you said earlier that a leader is a good developer of people, or understands that development's part of their job as a leader, but they don't necessarily have to be the coach. They just need to understand how to the value of that and put the right people in place, like the leaders that you're working with are bringing you in as the coach, not doing all the coaching themselves or expected to do all the coaching themselves.

Yeah, the CRO, I was working with an individual there, and when they, when the company hired a CRO, so she was a VP, they hired a CRO. I met him as a result of working with her, and, you know, 4 weeks later he called me and said, you know, I've got 2 others of these. And, you know, and we all live and, you know, he lives in— everybody lives in a different state. And so everything is virtual. And again, I don't live in their state either, by the way. But he said, like, I think I could use some help. And, you know, I see what you've done with this person. And would you be willing to work with the other two? And I said, well, I'd like to meet them first, because again, I'd like buy-in. I don't want them to feel like this has been thrust upon them. I had that situation happen with another employee at that organization who was on the operations side.. And the CEO insisted that she work with me. It worked out fine, but it put me in an awful position initially, and it put her in an awful position. And it took us a long time to get to a trust, to a level of trust. But I think that's one of the things I love most about the world that I live in is the people that I tend to work with tend to know what they don't know. And whether that's because they're younger, because this is their first entrepreneurial venture, because this is their first startup, because it's their first whatever.. And so I love, love, love working with those individuals. Because then I get to come in and do what I do best. And I try it, like I said, try to stay in my swim lane. And I don't take on more, like I don't do marketing. I partner with marketing. I love to partner with marketing. But I don't, but I don't have a digital marketing background. Content marketing is probably the closest thing that I have. I don't have social media and I don't have events. So, you know, I think just like, I think knowing, I think that here's another trait that just came to me. Knowing what you don't know and knowing when to ask for help. Right? The best leaders know what they don't know, and they know when they need to get outside help.

Yep. Yep. So as a fractional professional, or somebody that's coming in as not full-time, what are some of the differences between leading as a fractional versus leading as a full-time employee?

Yeah, I have to maximize the opportunities when I can find them. So I spend most of my time as a fractional leader coaching. Because I think that's where I can have the greatest impact. Of course, I put the numbers together. Of course, I help them build their business plan at the beginning of the year. But then I want to listen to call recordings. I want to sit on demos. I want to be in the negotiation call. I jumped on a call this morning to try to save a customer, which we didn't do, in full disclosure. But the, but the rep is new, and she's— the customer success rep is only about 6 weeks new. I woke up this morning, my fractional client happens to be in Romania, So I wake up to problems. So I woke up this morning, she's like, hey, I don't know if you're available at 9 o'clock your time, but, um, I just got an email from a renewal call I had today saying that they were not going to renew. They were willing to take the call. And I was like, absolutely. Right. So I pushed my other 9:00 AM Romania meeting to 9:30 and jumped on that call with her. And I think those are the ways, like, if I'm only going to be able to spend 10 or 15 hours a week, um, with those individuals, then I think coaching is where I can add the best. I'm a process-driven person, so I'm going to take care of the process. You know, I'll do that on the side, so to speak. I don't have to interact with the people to fix the process or to improve the process. So I will do the process part and, you know, do the process training part. But as far as how can I impact a company quickly and in a sustained way, it's continuing to make the people better, improving their skill set. And doing that by showing sometimes. But, you know, today I said to her— and this is what I normally do— is I said, hey, since this is the first time we've done this, I want to tell you like how this is going to roll. I said, we're doing our pre-call planning, so I don't— I won't get on a call unless we've done some pre-call planning call. So I said, we're having our pre-call planning call now. We've been into HubSpot, I've seen whatever, we've seen the— you know, I've seen the usage. You've given me a little background about the personality of this individual. And I said, but I'm really here to support you And so if you want me to jump in because something happens and you are uncomfortable as a brand new employee handling it, then I just need you to say, hey, Christy, you're probably a better person to take that. Right. And then I will jump in and save you, but it, but then we can coach afterwards on it. But I said, really, I want to be here just to support you in case something comes up that you aren't familiar with. But I think that's, I mean, that's where I think any fractional employee, you know, any fractional leader, particularly in the sales world, This is where, you know, this is the piece. The reason my founders hire me to do fractional is because they're not doing any of that call coaching. They're not sitting in on demos.

They're not giving that kind of sales skill feedback. Yep, absolutely. How hard is it to plug into the culture in general, not just culture accountability, as a fractional versus a full-time employee?

Harder, for sure. Here, I don't— for the most part, the majority of my fractional clients started as what I call project clients. So like in the current case that I just gave, I was in there for 8 weeks helping that. So I did a 4-week evaluation, then I spent 4 to 6 weeks putting the pieces of the process together that were missing. And so then I was starting to have a feel for, you know, feel for how that goes. I, um, with almost all of the clients, I can't think of any exceptions, of all the clients I've done fractional sales leadership for, and I, and I always run at least one fractional sales client at any given time. So Over 6 years, I probably had 15 of them, because initially I did a lot more the early— in my early stages of my company and career there. But I try to get— I'd like to spend time in person. So it's— so I, in the first, you know, if I'm doing that, if I'm doing— whether it's— if I'm doing an evaluation, I want to be on site for at least 2 or 3 days, and I want to sit in the middle of everything, you know, and I want to go to happy hour afterwards, and I want to go have lunch with somebody. I think like it'll never be perfect, but I try to immerse myself as quickly as possible. Again, because I stay in my swim lane, a lot of my clients have similar cultures, um, as a result of either being funded by the same VC or this founder recommended me to this founder and that there's some similarities there. So, you know, when all my business comes from referral, it's more likely that the cultures are, you know, more similar than dissimilar. But, you know, it's never gonna—

it's definitely never gonna be perfect. When you— if you were to give some guidance to a company looking to hire not just a fractional salesperson or sales coach, but a fractional leader, what are 2 or 3 criteria that that person should look for specific to fractional?

I think you need someone who's been there and done that. Right. I mean, you're not— there's like, if you need to solve X problem, that person better have solved X problem somewhere else and knows how to do that. So you need people— need somebody's going to come in and hit the ground running. You need somebody who's got a partner mentality, and you need to kind of outline the expectations, right? And so because I'm fractional, although my contract states that when I'm not like in a meeting or holding, you know, official office hours, so to speak, that I'm available by, you know, Slack, text, phone, email. There's always— I have to have a backup. So when I'm not available because I'm with another client, because I run 4 or 5 clients at any given time, not fractionally, but in general, I do a lot of hiring for companies. I do— I call it hiring help. I project manage the hiring process for people because a lot of founders don't have any idea how to hire a hunter. So when I'm doing a hiring project, I mean, you know, I just I just put a job description out for a director of sales and got 250 resumes and did 20 phone screens. So when I'm on a phone screen, and I did all of those in one week, and so like when I've got 10 hours worth of phone screens in a week, I can't be available right in the moment. And so I need, you know, you need to know that who am I partnering with, and is that the owner, is that the CEO, is that the founder, is that another C-level at the organization who's had some, you know, had some interaction with the sales team. So I think you gotta— you definitely gotta outline those. And then, you know, I have to have regular check-ins. So I always, if I'm fractional, I've got a one-on-one every week with the founder. And that doesn't mean that I'm the owner, that doesn't mean I'm not in other constant communication, you know, through other methods. But we have a sit-down every week. And I think the one big thing I think you've got to hammer out is where, where is the line in what their responsibilities are? I think it's almost impossible for a fractional sales leader to be held accountable for revenue. Because I'm only there 10 or 15 hours. So you have to be realistic about, you know, like, in fairness, I refuse to be held accountable to a revenue number, right? I hope to impact that revenue number, but none of my compensation is tied to that. Because for 10 or 15 hours a week, I can't make the impact that I can make at 40. Which is also why I know I don't take on any more than 4 sales reps at any given time. Anything over 4, I volunteer to help them hire a director of sales. Because I don't think it's fair, right? Like, I can only truly handle 4. Normally, normally 2 BDRs and 2 AEs, or a BDR, 2 AEs, and a customer success person. But I, but I figured out over time that I cannot do justice to anything more than 4. And so, you know, you've got to have those discussions too. So I hired that director of sales, by the way, to replace myself. So all of a sudden, we were going to be at 5. And I said, like it's not fair to them. I mean, I can probably make it work to some extent, but they're going to need more, they're going to need more support than I can give. And so it's not fair to them. So and it's time, it's time to hire a 40-hour person.

Yeah, yeah. Those are great. Those are great criteria. I think the expectations are key. You have to have that clear expectation going in as a fractional, because You know, let's see, the, the company is looking for all of you even though they're getting a fractional leave. So you have to be very clear, like, this is how much you get. And, um, that's hard to do sometimes, but once it's, once it's figured out and everybody's okay with it, it works really well.

Yeah, I mean, I tell them it's a Band-Aid. The other thing I don't do is I don't stay longer than 6 months, um, because normally it— again, if it's 1 or 2 people, yes, But, but if it's 4, I expect in 6 months we've gotten to a place where we need more. Yeah, right. And so in general, I have stayed longer, but normally I set up the expectation that I won't— I can't handle more than 4 and I won't stay longer than 6 months. I want people to understand that this is— I'm like, I'm fractional, but I'm truly interim, right? Like, I want them to be thinking— I mean, because of the type of companies I work for, growth is the goal because the VCs want their money back. So if we have not grown this situation in 6 to 8 months where I, where we were gonna have to replace me because we got, we accomplished the goal.

Well, then we've all, then I failed and we failed as a group. Right.

So switching gears, what do you like to do for fun? Oh, I like to do lots of things. I'm a, I'm a tennis player. So I'm, I play on a women's USTA tennis team. So that takes up a decent amount of time every week. We're fairly competitive. So we normally end up at districts and sectionals every year. So gotta keep our game sharp. I'm a— I'm just kind of a cardio junkie. I manage my emotions through exercise, as I say, and occasional— and an occasional glass or two of wine, perhaps. I'm a big outdoor girl. My— I— we grew up on a lake, and so I'm a big water girl. Um, love— like, in the summertime, I want to be in water, around water, on the boat, in the boat, you know, and that kind of thing. So there are lots of things. Yeah, I really I have, I just got my love for outdoors because we were a boating family growing up. My dad owned his first boat when he was in college. And so we just grew up, I have a brother who's in sales, is an individual sales contributor. And we grew up on water and that's where we are most at home and most at peace. Do you go down to the Ozarks? Actually, my brother keeps a place at Stockton Lake, which is a Corps of Engineers lake in southern Missouri. I have personal opinions about the Ozarks that most people don't want to hear, but it's not— it's a— it's— it's— the water's just— I won't even get in the water. It's disgusting. Um, we— wait, we run the Ozarks by not keeping it a Corps of Engineers lake. And so now we're very picky. Um, Stockton Lake is this— again, the— when the— when the summer crew is not there, the town is 1,300. Okay. The lake is gorgeous. It's a Corps of Engineers lake, and it's near Table Rock Lake, which is also another gorgeous lake that you're not allowed to— they've not— they have not allowed to take to the craziness of the Ozarks.

Yeah, the Ozarks is a crazy place. Table Rock is a great place. Table Rock's nice. I've not been to Stockton Lake.

So it's near Table Rock? Yeah, it's super near Table Rock. It's actually one of the top 10 sailboat lakes in the country as the way— the way it's positioned. Yeah. So, so yeah, I mean, again, it's just—

it's just—

it's beautiful. It's pristine. They've got 3 or 4 campgrounds. My brother owns a house there, but it's not on the water. It's off the water. We drive to the marina to get on the boat, but it's so nice to have all the sailboats. And, and it really is just a— yeah, it's kind of a special place. But I think just in general, just how we've grown up, they're special places. But we love Table— we found Table Rock. We were going to Table Rock 30 years ago. And then he stumbled onto Stockton by— there was a core group. He lives in Kansas City. There was a core group that was going to a lake near Kansas City.

And somebody stumbled onto Stockton, and 2 years later, they, uh, 8 of them had built cabins. Oh wow, okay. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

Uh, so Stockton, is it, is it between, is it near Branson, or like where is it? Yeah, so you're gonna head down, you're gonna head down Interstate 44 like you're going to Springfield and Branson and that group, um, and then you're gonna, and then literally you're gonna like, you're just gonna, you're gonna exit before you get to Spring, like pretty decently before you get to Springfield. Fort Leonard Wood, we have an Army base there, Fort Leonard Wood. It's a little— just, it's just a smidge past that. And then you're going to kind of wind your way back to the middle of the, of the southern part of the state. Okay. Um, yeah, so yeah, nearest—

we say nearest hospital by helicopter is Springfield.

Yeah. Okay.

In the event we have a boating accident, I can picture where that is generally now. Thanks. Yeah, I spent some time in St. Louis and Kansas City, and I went to University of Tulsa in and a lot of my friends were from— for whatever reason, a lot of my friends were from St. Louis.

So I got to know a lot of St. Louisans. Well, we spent a lot of time in Grand Lake for a while too. Yeah, that's a nice lake. Yeah, when the Ozarks— we started out in the Ozarks before my parents built or had a house on the lake. We vacationed in the Ozarks until like our, you know, 26-foot boat was getting the hell— we were— we all, by the time we got to the COVID had a headache and it wasn't fun anymore. And then we— our family switched and we started going to Grand Lake. And we did that for 3 or 4 years, and then we got a house on the lake, um, in Kansas where my family's from.

Now I do love the show The Ozarks.

That's— oh my gosh, great show. It is a great show.

Yes, we love The Ozarks for a variety of reasons, even though it is not filmed in the Ozarks. No, but it's a great show. I mean, you see the, like, the lake in the background, like, that's not the Ozarks. But I love that show.

It's been fun to watch. It has been fun to watch. Yeah, that's one of my— yeah, that's one of my favorites.

Um, Succession is our new My son and I—

I've heard about that. I've not seen it. Yeah. My son, again, is a college student. He has a lot more Netflix time than I do. So he knows what I like and what I don't like.

So he vets things for me and then just says, this is your next Netflix show. That's good. Well, good. Well, I've really enjoyed talking to you, Kristi. This has been great. Thank you. If someone wants to reach out to you, and I actually, I think I might have a referral for you, but if someone wants to reach out to you and learn more more, what's the best way?

Yeah, LinkedIn is the best way. So it's Christie, K-R-I-S-T-I-E Jones. Obviously, I'm in St. Louis. You can also visit my website, salesaccelerationgroup.com. But more when I do podcasts, I love people connecting with me on LinkedIn. And, and I love to ask you, what's the one thing you took away?

So you can just like tell me that in the comments when you, when you connect with me. Perfect. Well, we'll have all that stuff in the show notes. So if anybody wants to reach out, they can reach out and tell you the one insight that they took away or one aha they took away from you. I took away so many. I think the, the, the one that, you know, that's going to resonate with me for a while is just how important it is to have that culture of accountability. And, and, you know, I know it starts at the top, but it really is a culture. It's not just a metrics, you know, looking at the numbers on a weekly basis. It's It's the peer-to-peer accountability that's— when it's there, it's no longer a manager's job or leader's job. It's, it's the peer's job. And that's the, that's the insight that I'll, I'll take away for sure. That's right. That's when you know you've arrived. Exactly. Well, great. Well, thanks again. And I look forward to— I'll follow up with you on a potential opportunity for you for a client I know that's in the SaaS space that's looking for some coaching.

It sounds like you might be a really nice fit. Awesome.

Thank you so much.

It was a pleasure.

Yep.

Thank you.

Have a good evening. You too. Bye-bye. And that's a wrap. There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-Suite Retreat. See our show notes and more episodes at fractionalcsuitretreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by YorCmo, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at yorcmo.com.

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