How to Make the Sales Training Stick?- Celeste Berke

I thought if I wasn't in sales by the time I was 30, nobody would take me seriously. That's what I told myself. 76% of salespeople have to ask for coaching. Leadership doesn't understand what they're coaching to. I can show the company that I've made my mark here.

How would they make the training stick? What will you tell your younger self if you're starting in sales today? Our guest today is Celeste Burke, a seasoned sales growth strategist and host of the Sales Edge podcast. With over 21 years in both nonprofit and for profit sectors, she has led team to significant achievements including managing $105 million in annual sales. Celeste is a certified Gap selling training partner and has been recognized among the top 15 LinkedIn experts in Denver. She brings a wealth of experience in sales, strategy and team development. Without further ado, let's welcome Celeste. I've been very excited to, you know, looking forward to this episode for multiple reasons. Number one, Kenan was my hero. You know, I mean, it's still my hero. When I was in sdr, I remember reading his first book called Not Taught and I wrote an article about it. He posted about it. I actually asked him, hey, can I write about it? Would you comment? Would you like to take a take? And he did. He was really nice and I think I follow him on Instagram too. I think the shape he's in, I think that's a kind of shape I plan to stay in. I can't do the skiing he does with his kids, but yeah, he's really a model. And then I've seen you and I do have a couple of questions I wanted to first of all ask you. Can we go beyond 15 minutes for a couple of more minutes or are we down for 15 only?

I just need like a 5 minute buffer before the 30 minutes because I have to.

Yeah, we can, we can wrap by 12:25. Yeah.

Okay. That's okay.

Thank you so much. Yeah. Then I looked at you because you have been into hospitality sales training and I was in hospitality sales for a very brief and I did my hospitality management. I. My first gig was back in the day in 2008. I used to be in Fort Worth, Darrison, Fort Worth, South Texas. And I remember, you know, we never had a training and if he did, it was like all recorded, you know, we did not have those sessions. It was more on the customer care, you know, how you greet the customers and all that. But yeah, never around the sale. So tell us, I'm curious to, you know, thank you so much for coming here again, Celeste. Please tell us a little bit about you. I know I've already done some research. I'm excited to ask you a lot of questions. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

For sure. So, hello, my name is Celeste Burke Nicely. I'm in Denver, Colorado. So we're gearing up for snow season here. Very interesting background. I stumbled into sales because I thought if I wasn't in sales by the time I was 30, nobody would take me seriously. That's what I told myself. So I had come up through nonprofit association management of hotels and decided to pursue a master's and also try to get a job in sales. So my first sales sales job was not even as an individual contributor contributor. It was a quota carrying director. I had five employees. I'd never managed anybody. I'd never been in hospitality sales. I couldn't even tell you the first thing. But I think what stuck out is just my ability, like the grittiness of I'll figure it out, I'll find mentors, I'll research. At that time, obviously, you know, this was like 2007. So a lot of the tech that exist today did not exist then and the industry had turned. So a lot of people were used to getting phone calls and not sure how to go outbound. And so I had to learn all of that kind of from day one. So I was in and around hospitality sales for a while, eventually went up to the corporate level and then started traveling, overseeing a region coast to coast. I exited with 19 hotels, roughly 50 salespeople on my team, and over 100 million in assets that I oversaw. And as a result of COVID I left the hospitality industry not by choice, but it was decimated and really had a fork in the road at the time. A decision to make on what do I do with my life. I'm 40 years old at that time. I have a 11 month old. Do I go out on my own and really double down on this training piece that I'm very good at or do I continue down the path that I knew and I decided to bet on myself and here we are four years later. Ironically, when I was first selling into hospitality on my own, I was selling a lot of LinkedIn training and I felt like it was very early on for an industry that is behind the times in tech and also relies heavily on RFPs so they don't do a lot of like outbound. There isn't that initiative to build a pipeline and someone told me to read Gap selling and I did. And I thought, ooh, I'm starting to question my 20 year sales career. Perhaps I approach Keenan and his team about coming on as a partner. So I am now in a licensing agreement, a partnership agreement with Keenan and the sales growth, the Gap selling. Gap Selling is our product and I'm my own business. I build pipeline. I'm an active seller and trainer, and that's where we are today. So right in the thick of trying to figure everything out just like everybody else. But I certified in the Gap selling methodology. I practice it every single day. And I am also Keenan's active seller. So anytime there's a hand raiser or a form fill, it comes to me. But I'm also building pipeline on the side.

Wow, that's, that's quite a journey, I must say. And yeah, and I saw that you've been in sales for now 23 years.

I know. I'm 45. I can't believe it. Yes, a long time. And I, you know, I never consider myself a salesperson. I consider myself a problem solver. Like, let me find the information, let me connect people, let me try to figure out what's going on. And so it really lends itself well to the state that we're in right now, where sellers truly have to be detectives and problem solvers because that's what our customers are demanding these days.

I have no doubt. I mean, I remember when I started my career with chargebee. I'm not sure if you heard of the company though. We, irrespective of the title of salespeople, we all were given Gap Selling by default. And it was probably the VP's decision, but I think I carried on the legacy and I did the same thing when I would hire my SDRs, and I still do, but now it's a mix of Gap Selling plus some other books. But yeah, Gap Selling has always been, I think everybody's favorite. I mean, if you ask anybody who's in the closing role, they would always say, you know, read the Gap Selling second is obviously Challenger sale. But yeah, it always goes hand in hand is what I've seen. Since you have been, you know, coaching for a while. And I had a question on the coaching because I looked at one of the report published by Sales Growth Company, I think a while ago, a couple of years ago. And I think that's the only coaching report I could find because I was, I'm building a product around that. So I'm like, I want to, I want to look at some stats and I looked at those stats and some of the stats were astounding. You know how companies claim they are actually spending a lot of time on the training and coaching, but that's not really not the case. What are some of the trends you see in coaching nowadays? Whether it's due to hospitality or some of the trainings you take care of?

Yeah, so I like to separate it when I sell them to hospitality because they're an RFP based business. It's a, it's different gap. Selling is, is tough if It's a blind RFP. So when I focus on tech SaaS, you name it, manufacturing, I mean every single one of our clients is different. We really look at what is happening internally and you don't know that unless you do a proper discovery and you figure out what it's stemming from. Now I will say that we have a great partner with Replicate labs that did put out an amazing style study this past year that something around like 76% of salespeople have to ask for coaching. And I will say in, in most the conversations I get into, there is a lack of coaching cadence because leadership doesn't understand what they're coaching to. So if you don't have a methodology in place, there's nothing to coach to. You don't have a framework in place, there's nothing to coach to. Are you coaching the behavior at the skills level or are you coaching to KPIs? Like they're. Those are two different things. So typically we look at coaching behavior at the skills development layer and how that ties through opportunity, management, forecast management. But I will say there is a complete lack of coaching which is why people will say sales training never works. Well, it doesn't work because it doesn't become sticky. It's one thing to train people on like how the theory, the concepts, what we do is stick around and make ourselves very sticky where we, for 13 weeks, sometimes longer, we do role play in the active environment. So they're role playing with an icp. We're doing call coaching based on an actual discovery call that they had. We're doing deal review with actual opportunities that are in their CRM to coach to the behavior, to coach to the methodology. That's where it gets sticky. So I don't have like stats. Keenan was working, he's working on another book. He just did a huge buyer survey. But that's the problem is that you're asking a middle management leadership piece to coach to something they don't even understand themselves. So coaching typically is like very surface level. Plus it's Time intensive and then people end up not doing it and now everybody's all over the place. So we see it every day sadly. And sales leadership has to say, I understand this is going to be difficult but if you're not coaching and reinforcing, it's like it's even got more difficult down the, down the line.

That's a great insight. I have two questions based on what you just said. Okay, number one, when do companies realize, okay, now is the time. Usually like you said, you know, they don't know what should they be training to whether it's a behavior or a skill. When do companies realize, okay, you know what, now is the time? I don't think so. We are capable of training. Either we need to bring in somebody like you who are experts or we need to now focus on training so that you know, we don't remain, we don't get into the same soup as we are right now. That's number one.

Typically comes when the situation becomes untenable or intolerable. Like the win rates are so low that the board, investors, people are starting to take notice. They have, they don't have enough in their pipeline forecast is so horrifically off every single month that something, somebody is starting to be held accountable or you have a leader that realizes we can't continue this, go in this direction. We are going to miss milestones. So typically it's those leaders who are self aware that we've got to get out in front of this. You know, I hear it, they can't raise funds, they're not going to meet their exit goal. You know, they've had change in turnover staff, those that are not problem aware, it's a little bit more difficult because you have to tie in like hey, here's the problem. This is what it's stemming from. This is the impact, this is the cost of inaction. Obviously that's harder for a salesperson to do. That's where I spend a lot of my, my time. But I would say for those that are aware it's because the situation has become intolerable. They're either going to lose their job, they're not going to make funding, they're going to miss a major milestone on their plan. Would be a couple of reasons why someone would reach out and you know, change in leadership. A lot of leaders will come in and be like we're checklist selling here. We got to change something up. So I can, I can show the company that I've made my mark here.

Yeah, I hear you and I can Totally relate to some of the stuff you said. Another question I have is you mentioned that you know how, of course, a company like yours probably stick for 13 weeks, but that's predominantly not the case with, let's say, other trainers or other training companies or if they're doing something in house. What are some of the ways where, you know, companies can do to make sure their training sticks? So let's say they don't bring you. They bring somebody else who comes for a week or 10 days or whatever, you know, goes and goes away. How would they make the training stick?

So you have to figure out, we have a great resource for this. As you start to build out, what does that stickiness look like? It's called our speed model. There's metrics that you can determine, like, do I have a certification in process? What does the coaching cadence look like? Am I coaching to the framework and the methodology? I think you have to figure out fundamentally before you bring training in, what metrics am I trying to move and what behavior am I trying to change? And then figure out, how am I going to measure if one or two of those happened? If you don't know that, don't buy. But for those that do, you have to put something, gamification, some type of leaderboard, some type of way you're going to measure a rubric that you're going to measure, did behavior change? Did metrics move? And I think that's where a lot falls short. They don't figure out, how am I going to measure change? Which is why a lot of AI tools have come into place in the coaching and reinforcement space that do provide that gamification dashboards where you can actually see, see, are we seeing metrics move? Are we seeing pipeline move like gong, right? Are we seeing calls being had with stuff that's in the pipeline? But you got to be looking at that and you've got to get ahead of it to understand what am I going to measure? And then back into, okay, what am I going to do to reinforce that? Or else don't spend the money, your training won't stick.

And what's your view on these AI tools, for example, the one that allows you to, let's say, do these role plays? Because like you said, in order for the training to stick, you have to have a plan. While all of you just said, I think makes a lot of sense. But I'm sure they would have to have sort of role plays manager as leaders, you know, would not have time because their content focus will be on, hey, how Do I maximize my revenue at the end of the day? And you mentioned AI tools like gong. I'm sure there have done ton of more.

Whatever is your, it's popping up every day as you know, you know AI is this double edged sword. Whereas trainers, we love it for like account research and getting information this speed that you can collect information on a potential prospect or a call. I typically use AI for like a call pre call planning. So I'm pinging chatgpt to find out information about a company's website that is like gobbledygook and I don't understand what they do and I want to find out like is it fifth? At a fifth grade level what did they do? So I understand what problems they solve. So I love that for pre call planning and obviously a lot of sellers are using those types of of tools where I would say you have to have caution with AI when it comes to your methodology is does the AI understand like a human would, what it is the information that you're seeking. So we've been hard pressed to find tools that can discern between a business problem. So if anybody's read Gap style and you understand there's business problems and then there's technical problems, broken process, missing tool and a lot of sellers. I had a call today, a seller. When I say what problem do you solve? They start off the bat with we help. And then they go into all the technical A reg visibility optimization. Nobody really buys because of that and it's very hard to make a case for that at the C suite level if you can't figure out how that impacts the business. At a business level AI also has a hard time if you ask AI hey, tell me the business problems, it'll definitely go to inefficiencies, inability, no visibility. Now if you're training your reps to go into an AI tool and they're being told that's okay, like you have proficiency in this role play and they're staying at that certain at that surface level you're most likely not going to see pipeline progression or deals progress because it's not in line with the methodology. So I would say with caution. Medic. It's probably amazing, right? Checklist. Did I get all this information? Yes. Did you make the case for change? AI may not be at a place where it understands that yet. So that is my word of caution. Love it with caution.

I like that when you said love it with caution, man. I mean we all keep thinking and by the way, I am building a product which is the I role play myself. Yeah, of course we're gonna dive into something else eventually. But, yes, that's one of the product we've been building because it's closer to what we've been doing for a while. And I wanted to hear your views on. While whatever you said, it makes sense. Because right now, and I, let's say practice with AI, it's going to act like delusional sometimes. It's going to throw the same problems over and again because it understands the context only to an extent. We are, of course, talking about one or two years in the future where I would put in Celeste's LinkedIn profile. It's going to adapt Celeste's style. It's going to understand how long the experience she had. You know, what is she like? She's in Denver. She has a kid, she has a husband. You know, it's about to snow right in Colorado. Everything, you know, imagine, you know, if. If that. That would be the state. Do you think that will that actually make a considerable difference in the way we practice today? Because like you right now, you said, you know, you have five minutes, you're going to practice. But of course, you. You are. You are. You're somebody with 23 years of experience. Not everybody would be, oh, totally.

I, again, I think this is where senior leadership has to have an understanding of, like, what is the purpose of AI. So there's a lot of great, you know, someone that we are closely connected with that has an AI tool for business acumen. So allowing that seller to really hone in on understanding the language of the person of the ICP that they're selling into, the Persona that they're selling into when they're, you know, 23 years old and out of college and not able to understand it. And then they can ask questions back to that ICP in a safe place to really get an understanding of, like, what's happening, what has shifted in the market, like, what happened yesterday, now, today, Today, as we know, priorities shift. So I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I do know that this has been a hot topic internally. And Keenan's idea is almost that we have to train AI as if it was a human. So stop looking for AI to train us, so to speak. How do we train AI to then be training? It's like a circle. So I think more is going to be coming from that as we learn to build out. And not we. I'm not building an AI tool, but you. How do we make. How do we not Lose the human aspect of AI. How do we use it as a tool for practice? But ensuring that that AI is learning and adapting and not losing that human piece is definitely going to be the key. Because yes, I do believe that sales training, the gap lies within the AI for sales training to actually stick within an organization because sales leadership won't, can't, whatever, this is where AI is going to come in. But the AI has got to be spot on in order to support whatever it is that they're building. And as you know, I mean there's a lot of methodologies, frameworks, checklists, whatever. As long as you can get the sign off of like yes, 100%, then go for it. If there's question, we have to keep training that AI to truly understand. And I don't think we're there yet, but I do agree in a couple of years.

No, that's, that's, that's definitely spot on. Thank you. I do have tons of questions, but I'm gonna stick to the last question, I promise. I saw your comment recently, which you made I think on one of the posts. I'm forgetting the post, but I do remember the comment. Anyways, my question after I saw your comment was what will you tell your younger self if you're starting in sales today?

Yeah. So I think two things. One, build a personal brand. Nobody can take it away from you the amount and not even a personal brand, Marie, just putting information out there by yourself. But truly almost like this bank and network of people that you can constantly learn from and LinkedIn allows you to do that. So if I were to go back, I would have done that way earlier in my career versus using it as a tool just to find people to hire is how I started to use LinkedIn. That would be number one. Number two would be to constantly invest in yourself to set aside money regardless of how much you make, to be chipping away at that business acumen. But in a place of what else is out there that I don't know that I can consume information. It helps you be more well rounded, you understand your buyer's environment more, but it also sets you up for random conversations along the way that you won't feel like a fish out of water when it comes to the business acumen piece. So if I were to go back, I think I was. And I find this with so many sellers, especially in hospitality, they go to their job and they're like in their job every day and they're so oblivious to everything else that's going on. We have to figure out how to bring that all in, because always comes full circle. And those that are doubling down on understanding AI self, you know, teaching themselves, reading books, getting information, are edging. Edging away from others that aren't.

This was awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Celeste. Yeah, I did have more questions.

I'm excited to support you and I love talking. I think we're at this precipice of everybody really hates AI. Not everybody. There's a lot of people that hate AI because they think, like, oh, it's taking jobs and all that. And I think we're in this place of, like, how do we use tools and technology to support and help us find information faster so we can make quicker decisions, but also so that we can learn from and enhance our own skill sets and deficits. So I'm super excited to continue to learn from you, and you have an awesome presence online, so I'm here for it. Build the future of, like, how do we help everybody in the next couple of years?

Totally. Yeah. I think feature is very bright from where I see, and I'm pretty sure that that's something that you also echoed just now. So thank you so much once again, Celeste, I'm going to let you know as soon as this goes live, but I think you have a great presence. I think better than I could ever have. I want to ask you who is doing your thumbnail for the YouTube because they are phenomenal. I just sent my editor the same that, hey, I want to say I want to have the same quality.

I can share their name. They're. They're called, like, Ninja Edit, I think. So I can give you his name if you want. They do my video, like, my short videos for YouTube, because I just can't do that anymore in the style. But I can send you their name if you want.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do have a couple of freelancer editors who work with me, but, yeah, none of them actually gives me the same quality. So I'm kind of envious but inspired at the same time.

All right, take care. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right, bye.

Thank you so much. Have a good one. Good luck. Bye.