[Leadership] How to build a winning sales culture where reps can thrive with Gajen Raj

Everyone has their own way of achieving their targets, basically, and it's not necessary. My way is the right way.

I definitely, I definitely see that like as a trend. It's like people that first get into management, their first step is to be like, do as I do. And you try and like clone, clone you. Right, because you've got, you were successful. So it's like, well, I know what I'm doing. You should just do it just like me. And then you're going to be successful. But it doesn't really work that way. So I like how you've transitioned into, okay, let's give them like the guardrails, which is like, these are the things that we're driving towards. This is what we need to achieve. And so now, you know, you just got to take the steps kind of, you know, your way. But also I'll help guide you and coach you along the way as well. Right?

Yeah. I'm always there to support them if they need it. And that's, that's what, that's my management style now is just I make the expectations quite clear and if we have newbies, I teach them the fundamentals. I think the easier option would be to kind of impose my way of doing things to the entire team, like my way of report writing, my way of managing. And I think that can be successful up to a point. But what happens when you have those difficult years, what you will have. And if you do it that way, you'll end up with a team that's kind of reliant on one person's ideas and you won't have that creativity.

Before we get into today's show, I wanted to tell you a little bit about what we have going on over here at Succession. So Succession is a life science sales membership that includes on demand courses to uplevel your sales skills, resources to plan and execute your sales process, a community for peer to peer networking and learning, and live workshops delivered by experts twice a month. You can get access to all of this as an individual for just $79 a month. Or you can uplevel your entire sales team with courses and customized learning designed for each individual rep. Come and join us over at Succession Bio. Okay, let's dive back into the show. Hey, welcome to another episode of the Sales DNA podcast. We have a great one for you here today with Gajan Raj. He is the head of direct sales for EMEA over at Takara Biome and we talk all about sales management in this one. So why he got into sales management, what it takes to Build a team culture of creativity and excellence, how you can leverage on the job training, all sorts of different tips and tricks. So if you're thinking about getting into management or you're already managing a team, this going to be a great episode for you and there's going to be a lot of great tactical takeaways that you can take from it. So with that, let's dive on in. I know we don't have Nick with us here today, so you're stuck just with me. But, you know, we did prep you ahead of time. So you know the question we ask every guest up front, What's a crazy or funny story that's happening in your career?

Yeah, I'm in two minds. I have two types of stories. I have the cringy ones or they're kind of acceptable. So I'm going to go with the acceptable ones. So I'll go back to my kind of student days and I guess it will also answer the question why I quit the lab to join sales as well. So, yeah, back in the day, I was basically training to move into forensic science and I was doing an intercalated master's and PhD project. And the project involved, it was about estimating time since death for homicide cases, murder cases and stuff. And that involved, long story short, burying pigs in the middle of the countryside, collecting maggots and then measuring them and doing DNA sequencing for. I can't remember the reason why we had to DNA sequence, but we basically used the maggots to kind of estimate time till death. Because the human, the human body is similar to a pig's, apparently. So. So, yeah, so this was my project. And as you can imagine, so the lab that I was based in, it was the building, it was several floors, so there's one lab on top of another. And as you can imagine, my lab, because we had all of these maggots and rotten flesh, it stank cold place up. And the smell would sometimes go upstairs and downstairs, would basically infiltrate the entire building. And it caused a lot of problems. So, like every day I would have like confrontations with like various PIs or PhD students or, you know, complaining about the smell. And it was like, it is ongoing. I used to dread having to come into the lab and having to deal with this kind of problem. But, you know, it is what it was. It was a project funded by the police and we needed to get it done. And anyway, long story short, I finished and after that I just thought sales is not for me. I mean, sorry, not sales.

You took the wrong path.

Then I should have stuck with the maggots. I thought, yeah, scientific research or forensics wasn't for me. So I kind of moved into sales and Takara fortunately came and rescued me. And yeah, long story short, I think within a few months of me joining Takaro, we had an exhibition at the same institute where I did my project. And I was just standing at the exhibition stand and I was just like waiting and waiting for people. And I hear from the background, oi, maggot boy. Basically I just turned around and basically this one PI who always had a big problem with me, yeah, walking up to me and he goes, So I, I used. Are you trying. You know, he's just. He had a bit of banter, you know, certain maggots and all of that stuff. And long story short, it turned out that he did use some of our Takara products.

Yeah.

And he was asking for like, or could you get me a discount? And stuff like that. But then I kind of remembered all the grief he gave me and I said, unfortunately, we don't have anything going at this present time. So you don't have any promotion? I can't.

Maybe if you were nicer to me.

If he was nice to me, I might have given you an extra 5% off. But, yeah, I guess that's my kind of funny story.

That's. That's pretty good. You never got used to the smell, huh?

I got used to it after a while. It just became the norm. But, yeah, it's something I couldn't do. Yeah, well, it wasn't. Yeah, it was just. It was a starting point. I had a whole plan to enter forensics, but then he had just realized it wasn't me.

Yeah, well, you found sales, and so that's. That's always great. And I guess how did you determine that sales was the, the path? Because I know a lot of people, you know, it's not always the, you know, front role to, to take, even if you decide to. To not go into the lab.

Sure, I guess. You know, when I was a student, I did. I worked in a call center. I guess many people have the same story. I was selling insurance policies to their customers of various banks and stuff. And I was pretty good at it. And they kind of moved me into the retention team. So anyone who took out an insurance policy was calling to cancel it. I had to convince them to keep on to it. And I was very. I had an 80% retention rate and I was earning some decent side money for my, you know, as a student. And I really enjoyed it, and I guess it's the usual cliched reasons why we enter sales is that I think going into scientific sales, it gave me the opportunity to keep the science part and also have this kind of sales part that I enjoyed as well.

That's awesome. Yeah. And then you also decided to make the trip into management. Not everybody makes that. I think a lot of people think they want to get into management. I think we're going to talk a little bit about. About that journey. But, yeah, I would love to hear kind of, you're in sales, you did it for a while. How did you decide or how did you know, like, management was the right path for you?

To be honest, it wasn't in my plan. So I was enjoying sales. I liked being that kind of, what's the word for an individual contributor, kind of like a lone wolf, just preoccupied with my own territory. So I guess I wasn't. I was just focused on my Toshi rather than. I had ambitions to kind of move into more B2B. That's why I was angling towards and I was, you know, getting experience in that direction. But then, you know, things happen. Fate. Suddenly, my boss at the time resigned and I guess the senior management, they contacted me saying, you know, do you mind? Because I think they kind of knew that, oh, I wanted to go into B2B, but they needed someone to kind of hold the reins until they kind of figured out what to do. So they offered it to me and it came with a small pay rise as well.

So I thought, you know, I thought, it's nice.

Yeah, I'll take it. And. And yeah, lo and behold, that first year, the pandemic happened, we went into lockdown.

Oh, man. Yeah.

So, yeah, so my first year as management, whilst they were looking for this, my previous boss's replacement was the. The pandemic. And I think the problem that we had is that our business at the time was very reliant on academia. So we had little or no footprint in the kind of private sector, hospitals, governmental organizations, basically the only people who were working in terms of science during this period. So, you know, a large chunk of our revenue kind of disappeared and we had to really kind of grind it out and open doors during this period. So, you know, we had to put in a plan so that we can start, you know, penetrating a lot of these hospitals, governmental organizations, you know, private sector organizations that were doing these private testing at the time. And we were quite successful. And, you know, we managed to kind of open doors and develop relationships with some key players. At the time. And I guess the senior management liked what I did. And I was always kind of waiting for that phone call to say, okay, we found someone, and you can kind of go back to what you enjoy. But I guess they never did. I'm assuming that they gave you the call.

They gave you the call, you found somebody. It's you.

Yeah, it's you. They just kind of kept going. And then I kind of thought. And then I started to enjoy it as well. I think initially I didn't really enjoy it, to be honest. I was kind of focused on my territory, my needs and all of that stuff. And then when you become a manager, it's all about everyone's problems become your problem. You have to support everyone and stuff like that. And I think initially it was difficult to kind of get into that mindset because I was just focused on my territory because I still had to manage my territory at the time as well, in addition to supporting my colleagues. But eventually I started, you know, collaborating and started really enjoying it, like mentoring people. We had a lot of newbies as well because we lost a lot of our experience. We lost a lot of our experience people as well now around that time. So we had to bring in some newbies. And yeah, I just enjoyed the process of, you know, the whole, you know, training up people, getting them up to scratch and yeah, opening new doors and I started enjoying it as well. So I didn't question the senior management as to why I found a replacement. And yeah, I think it's. Yeah, we've been pretty good, the UK team and yeah, it's been a fun ride.

Yeah, it's funny, you always hear different stories about how people. You kind of get into the management side. You got the stories like you have where you kind of just fell into it. It's like, hey, we need you to cover while somebody's out or somebody. None of. But then you also have stories of people who are like, I know I want to get into management, or they think they want to get into management. Yeah. And then they get into it and they're like, wow, this is like completely different than, you know, it's completely different skill set.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely, definitely.

I mean, what would you say? I mean, you mentioned one piece, which is, you know, now you're responsible for everybody's problems. Right. Not just your own. And what are some other sort of like wake up calls that people, you know, or maybe that you have yourself?

I think the biggest one, as I said, I was, I kind of was a bit of A lone wolf. And I had my way of doing things and managing territories and finding business. And I guess the initial struggle I had was everyone does it differently and sometimes when you meet another colleague who's managing their territory in a different way, I think I initially, I did struggle to be honest, like, you know, this doesn't make sense what you're doing. I guess I started maybe kind of, you know, telling them what to do. But then I kind of eventually learned, yeah, you got to let people do, but their own, you know, give them the freedom to do, do it their own way. You know, you give them the basic highlight the expectations. You know, these are our targets, this is what we need to be doing. But then you got to give them the flexibility to do that. And I think that was the biggest wake up call is that, you know, accepting that everyone has their own way of achieving their targets basically. And it's, and it's not necessary. My way is the right way.

I definitely, I definitely see that like as a trend. It's like people that first get into management, their first step is to be like, do as I do. And you try and like clone, clone you. Right. Because you've got, you were successful. So it's like, well, I know what I'm doing, you should just do it just like me and then you're going to be successful. But it doesn't really work that way. So I like how you've transitioned into, okay, let's give them like the guardrail, the guardrails, which is like, these are the things that we're driving towards. This is what we need to achieve. And so now, you know, you just gotta take the steps and kind of, you know, your way while also I'll help guide you and coach you on the way as well. Right?

Yeah, yeah. I'm always there to support them if they need it. And that's, that's what, that's my management style now is just to, I make the expectations quite clear. And if we have newbies, I teach them the fundamentals of how to manage your territory. You know, you know, I won't go through it, but you know, to be focused, you know, you can't sell to everyone. You can't sell everything. No, we sell, we're in the kits and reagents market, so we have thousands of products, we cater to thousands of different types of customers. And the reality is, is that you can't sell everything and you can't sell to everyone.

Yeah.

So, you know, tell the team to be focused and strategic and I, you Know, I give them the fundamentals, but then how they execute it, I kind of, I encourage them to be creative and learn from their mistakes. I'm always there in the background watching and supporting them and stepping in if needed. But I like the idea of people to kind of be creative, learn from their mistakes. I think long term that's a lot more effective. It builds a more effective sales team because I think the easier option would be to kind of impose my way of doing things to the entire team, like my way of report writing, my way of managing. And I think that can be successful up to a point. But what happens when you have those difficult years, what you will have, and if you do it that way, you will end up with a team that's kind of reliant on one person's ideas and you won't have that creativity during those difficult years. You need a team of 6, 7 individuals with their own ideas. And that's the only way you're going to get out of these difficult holes. Sometimes if you have a team of kind of independent leaders. And this is what I kind of aim for.

Yeah, I really like that mindset of fostering the creativity. I used to think of it as like critical thinking ability. Whereas, like, if you're doing what you're told, you're not thinking critically to come up with solutions. And so, yeah, it's like your ability to come up with creative and or, you know, thinking, create, Thinking critically around different challenges that you might face is like, I think a huge skill. And that is what's going to separate the people that are like average from the best. Right? The best.

And yeah, that's my goal is just, you know, that's why I told the people that, you know, I recruit newbies and I, I told them this is what I want you to learn. You know, these are the fundamentals, these are the basics that you need to do. But how you actually just make mistakes, be creative, make mistakes, but learn from them. Yeah, you know, what's that saying? Is it Einstein? The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So, you know, I kind of, that's my mantra. I tell them to always, if it's not working, try something different next time and just learn constantly and the progress is slow that way. I sometimes I do wonder if I did impose my ways, maybe we can get there quicker, but I think long term it's better basically because I start and you know, I've had people, you know, people who have been part of my team now for two, three years. These guys are really contributing to my team now because I've given them that freedom to be creative. And these are, you know, it's also about succession planning as well. You know, at the end of the day I'm ambitious. I want to kind of move on and I can't move on unless I have someone ready to kind of step into my shoes as well. Otherwise the senior management is just going to keep me where I am because there's no one else.

So a couple of things in there that are really interesting that you said, which is like your succession planning, which is if you're in, even if you're in a regular rep role or in like a frontline manager role, is like if you want to make that next step, you need to groom the next set of people to take over for you because otherwise like they can't just, you know, promote somebody and then not have anybody to replace them with. So you have to, you almost have to like be preparing to, you know, have somebody take over your role, have them be better than you at your role. So that way you can move up. Right. It's like, yeah, yeah, no, that's what.

I told my team. Like, you know, they want to be, want to be managers. You know, I ask them, after one year of joining, I always have this sit down meeting when I ask them, you know, where do you see yourself? You know, three, four years? Some want to go down the specialist route, some want to go into management. And then, you know, I start giving them additional responsibilities to kind of learn those skill sets. And it keeps them mentally stimulated as well. It keeps them loyal. You know, it allows you to kind of keep. It's difficult. It's a competitive market. There's always someone that's offering you X amount more. So it's really challenging. But I think one way you can do that is by keeping giving your team like extra responsibilities, normal experiences to learn and stuff like that. And hopefully they stay as well.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And do you leverage those people to sort of like train the newbies that come in as well? Right. It's like, hey, it's one thing if you tell them what to do, but if they're listening to a top performer tell, like give them ideas and things, way more likely to implement it and use it. Right, Absolutely.

So this is why I exclusively only recruit newbies now when I have a team because it kind of creates this hierarchy in this team. So first of all, you know, I think in the past when I was part of sales teams, when someone new joined and you know, you're not meant to talk about salaries, but all reps talk about salaries.

The reason. Yeah, they all talk. Yeah, exactly.

You will find out. Everybody knows what happens. It causes instability when this new guy or girl has joined the team and they're on X amount more than you and they're not giving the results, delivering the results and it causes instability and you start harassing your manager. You know, how come I'm not paid X amount? So what I've done with this new system that we have, these newbie systems, everyone that's already in the team knows if someone joins the team, they know what they're on. They have to kind of earn it to go up the pay scale. And also the other advantage that he creates, this kind of, I guess I call it the Jedi Padawan kind of dynamic as well. So we have the kind of experienced ones and learn from them as well. I always pair them up for events and stuff like that. So it kind of creates this nice pipeline of newbies, experienced and, and so forth. And it creates a stable team as well.

It makes a lot of sense because you hire new people in, you start to train them up, right. They then become experienced. Experienced ones are then going to move on, move to a different type of role, move into management, and then you can funnel them in with the newbies and you kind of just like create this, I'm going to call it an assembly line because it's probably, it is kind of like that though, right? It's like build them up, train them, get them to the next step and then back to those positions.

Right, exactly. And I think based on this, for the kits and reagents market, and, you know, this is only based on six years of being a manager. I, I, you know, I've recruited experienced people in the past and I've experienced, you know, recruited newbies. And I, I personally, I'm not saying it's correct. I personally don't see a difference in terms of the return for your investment. In terms of now after that initial training period, I don't see a difference. You know, I look for people who are, it's the mindset of the individual that I look for when I'm recruiting people. You know, things like likability and as silly as it sounds, because the best deal, you know, most of the deals you win deals because A, you've positioned the product in a way that the customer understands how it benefits them and secondly, the customer, it's also friendship as well. The customer likes you and that helps as well. It makes things easier, it makes deals go through quicker. The rep is likable and has that ability to build relationships.

Especially if you have like a, especially if you have a big portfolio. Right. So it's like, you know, you're going to have this like existing long term relationship with them. Whereas it might be different if you're selling some like one time transaction. Exactly. You may not need to have that sort of like relationship sale. Whereas if you've got a big portfolio, you're going to be coming back over and over and over. And you want to have that trust between rep and customer. Right?

Yeah.

No, that's good. What are some other things that you look for from a hiring perspective? Because these people aren't going to have sales experience. How do you test them to be like, okay, can you actually handle the pressure of sales?

Yeah, I'm quite transparent about the reality of sales. I tell them from the off like what the expectations are and you know, the consequences as well. You know, if you don't consistently hit your targets and you know, I tell them and I've had people, candidates drop out saying there's too many targets, too many expectations. You know, I had one guy say, told the recruiter, I can't work for this man, he's expecting too much. Because I remember he had some. I asked him, how would you, you're, you're following up on a lead or something on an opportunity. And he said, you know, how would you go about managing this opportunity? And he goes, oh, I'll send the client an email. And I said, okay, say if the client doesn't respond, what would you do? I'll send another email and stuff like that. So he kept saying things like that and I just said, look, if you're going to hide behind emails, that'll be a massive problem and fails. You got to be able to pick up that phone and contact people or you know, have that kind of direct interactions. And he kind of nodded. And then straight after the interview he told the agent, I can't work through. But then he filters out, gives them the reality and he kind of filters out the ones with the, you know, the wrong mindset. And I think many people enter scientific cells for the wrong reasons as well because you know, they, a lot of ex PhD postdocs, you know, because they haven't got funding, so they're looking for another job and they enter it for the wrong reasons and it always never works out. It's important.

I think a lot of there's A. Because there's a lot of unknown about what is sales. And so I think there's a lot of. You know, I was telling somebody this the other day, which was you. When you go into software sales, like, out of school, like, one of the first things you do is you go into sales. Like, you become a sales development rep and you're in sales. Whereas for scientists, a lot of them go into, you know, master's, a PhD program. They go into the lab for a period of time. It's like your first professional experience is not in sales, where you're not, like, around people that are doing it. Like, you're not in a. If you're in a lab, academics, you're not around a company that has salespeople, that has marketing people. Right. So you're not familiar with it. And so people get this idea of like, oh, I would love to do sales, but then think it. Think it's good in theory. But then when they actually get into it, it's like, oh, this is completely different than what I thought. You mean I have to prospect every single day? Like, what do you mean? I have to pick up the phone and make all these calls. Yeah, I gotta chase down all these POS and, you know, negotiate with procurement. Right. So it's.

It's not easy. And yeah, I think that's why I tried my best to do is kind of explain the realities to a lot of these. That's good newbie candidates. And. Yeah, yeah, I think for someone, you know, just I. I look for people who are resilient. I ask questions like, you know, how do you deal? You know, give me an example of, you know, when you're working towards something and some external factor outside of your control affected your results, basically, and how did you react to it? How did you respond to it and stuff like, you know, those examples, because that is sales. So sometimes you. You do everything you can as a salesperson, but then some external factor, I, you know, I won't name them, but that could impact your, you know, your quarterly results. And I think sometimes, you know, you need to kind of get on with it eventually. Sometimes is not that these problems are not serious and they will be addressed by sales. You need to kind of just focus on what you need to do and just crack on and just. I think that what is own your success, basically. I think in sales, it's very easy to kind of get into that kind of victim mindset of blaming, oh, I never achieved my targets because of this product wasn't shipped within this time. Or we don't have enough marketing literature, or we don't have, you know, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately you have enough in your arsenal to get to do something.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And you just try your best, work to your maximum capacity, get what you achieve what you can, and then we can talk about all of that stuff later once you've achieved the results, basically. I think too many sales reps sometimes just invest too much time moaning about stuff like that, to be honest, in my opinion, and this is why I encourage my team, look, just get on with it.

Yeah.

And we'll address it at the end. I'm not going to ignore it, but we'll address it.

It's. It's never the sales rep's fault when they lose a deal. Right. They couldn't have done anything better at all in order to help win that deal. It's always external. But when you win a deal, it's because of you. Yeah. That's all the worst. You're the best sales rep out there. Right. That's why.

But I think now to be a bit, you know, sometimes you have to know I was a tol manager and I do empathize sometimes, but I always said, look, some things are just simply out of our control. It's the time that we're sitting here complaining about whatever that's happened is time away from our customers and finding opportunities. It is what it is. You know, we're not going to ignore it, but let's do what we can and then we will address it. And this is what I encourage my team basically, just to be pragmatic and. And just crack on.

Yeah. I think if you know what the things are that you can control and you focus on what you can control and you do the activities required that are in your control, you know that you've done everything you can to be successful. Right. And it's just like, you know, then it's things happen. Right. Not everybody is ready to buy something at this given moment. Things come up, budgets move. Right. Timing is off, other projects get prioritized over, you know, the current one that you're talking about. Right. So things happen, but you just have to make sure that you're doing enough of the right activities on a regular basis to, you know, ultimately hit your target.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when you think about onboarding new folks, so you were talking, you bring in newbies, you kind of teach them some of the basics. How do you think you can, like, organize and structure that training for them?

So if we can, if you have the Budget, we'll get organized, health trainings, them. But sometimes I, I kind of like they learn on the job. So I always pair them up with an experienced person. So, so first of all, initially they kind of sit down with me and we kind of go through their territory. So how we're structured, we have reps managing territories and each of those territories have academics, pharma, biotech. So it's a whole range of different type of customers saying we kind of sit down. First of all, we go through their territory, identify the key accounts and so I give them the basics. Basically the idea of, you know, being focused and you know, certainly you have to make sacrifices. You can't sell everything, you can't sell to everyone. So you've got to focus on the, the accounts, the customers and the products that are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Basically the ones are going to help you achieve your target as quick as possible. So that's the kind of strategic, basic kind of overview I give them and then the rest is kind of like on the job learning. So I always pair them up and then we kind of go through how to prospect, how to find, how to contact people, the whole kind of, you know, the idea of, you know, what's in it for me. So when you call a customer or when you email them, that cold call or that email must answer the question, what's in it for them to meet you.

Yeah, exactly.

You need to always answer that, otherwise you must, it won't speak to you. You need to only where you're going to improve your chances. I think the rest of it is just on the job training, you know, and as I said, I kind of give them the freedom to be creative, to think of new ways of doing things because my way might not be the right way. They come up with new ideas, new email templates, new cold calling techniques or whatever. And yeah, try it. If it doesn't work, learn from your mistakes, try a different way and keep rinsing and repeating until you find, until you hit that sweet spot and keep doing it until it doesn't work anymore and then refine it again. It's this ongoing process, but we have like these metrics in the background to make sure that they're doing the kind of bare minimum expectations.

Makes sense. And how do you collect those learnings? Cause I know that's a hard part is you've got reps out in the field. They're, you know, let's say they're doing, you know, things slightly differently. They're Trying new things or testing stuff out, using their creativity. How do you collect those learnings to say what is working and then have the rest of the team like you know, get, you know, motivation or inspiration from those?

Sure, sure. So we have these weekly get togethers, teams course where we kind of share success stories like techniques, you know, what's worked. So like a rep would share his or her success story like how they found this lead. So we have focus product areas per week, like maybe NGS one week and we'll have one rep telling the story of how he or she found this opportunity, how they developed it, what techniques they use, what email did they use, what cold calling technique they used, how they kind of drove that business to close. So every week we share success stories and then people have that kind of option to kind of pinch ideas from everyone else and adapt it to their own basically. So this is what we have these kind of weekly success story sharing.

Yeah, those are great. Are those separate from your team meetings or are they in the same meeting?

So we have it for the. So now I used to be the UK manager, now I'm the EMEA manager now. So now if you've brought it to the kind of. So in the past we had it just for the UK team, but now it's kind of being introduced now EMEA wide as well. So you have these weekly. So it's organized by our sales team and the market team. It's like a collaboration.

Oh great, so it's a separate meeting then.

Yeah, yeah, it's a separate meeting. And yeah, so all of our colleagues in Germany, France, the Nordics, they will all have an opportunity to share a success story and you know, we can all learn from each other because every market is different and every rep is different as well and they have their own kind of techniques and stuff. And you know, this is the kind of model that we have now I.

Think that's highly underrated, like it's such an easy meeting to include and I don't think there's, there's so many crappy internal meetings that, you know, reps get thrown into that leadership gets thrown into. But if there's like one meeting that you could do that's going to probably well, one, everybody's going to pay attention to it and two, they're going to get the most from it. It's going to be these internal weekly learning sessions with other reps around what's working and what's not. And so I just think that that is fantastic that you are going extra meeting Just for that. To make that happen.

I think in the past, like when I was a rep, you know, our sales meetings were basically just each rep had to present their results for the territory, which you kind of like, you kind of switch off when you talk that someone else is talking about their results.

100% manager.

I kind of dropped it and I kind of. I asked each rep to kind of. We have a focused product, and each of them will present a success story and how they did it. And we also share success stories of how they, like, for example, how they analyze sales data and find, you know, like, nuggets of how they can use the sales data to find new opportunities, for example, and stuff like that. And each rep gets to share their kind of experiences and how they do things out. Yeah. So most of my sales meetings are based around this, and I. I think it's more interesting. Oh, yeah. Sitting there talking about number. So I. I did a boring numbers poll, and then the reps, I let them share their kind of success stories.

Well, it also helps you as a manager. You don't have to be responsible for all of the teaching and all of the learning.

Absolutely.

You don't have. Yeah. You don't have to be the one facilitating it or coming up with all the content because you're busy, too. Or you let the team do it and they're going to be more likely to listen to the other teammates anyway, probably more than you, to be honest. Right. They're going to listen to each other.

No, that's. Yeah. So most of my team now, they weren't around when I was a territory manager. Who is this?

I don't know what to do.

It's like in the. It's in. Is part of myth now. Takara Myth.

Yeah, exactly.

Wants a territory manager. They don't care. So I can say anything. So I always get the ones who are doing the job now to kind of share the experiences with everyone else, with each of us. And it is very effective. They do learn from each other a lot. And for me as well, this is why I have this kind of environment in my team where they are kind of constantly being creative and evolving. Because for me, nothing is more terrifying than me being considered the ideas man in a team. Basically, the fact that seven, eight people relying on me for ideas, I'm sure I have good ideas, but I also know from experience that 40% of them could be terrible. I want seven, eight creatives in my team that can basically counter me and question, make me think. And this is what I encourage you Know, I don't want people sitting there in silence and just nodding, especially if they don't agree with me. I want them to kind of share their thoughts. You know, it doesn't have to be a better idea. Just share your ideas because it might make me think and, you know, reevaluate the way I'm doing things as well. So this is what I encourage.

I love having like that transparent culture of sales because I think a lot of the time, uh, you get sort of. I don't want to call like an oppressive culture in sales, but it's like you kind of do what you're told. This is, you know, the path go and you know, execute.

Now, easiest option is the easiest option. And that's why many people go down that path. And I do understand, and I think in my initial few months I was veering down that path, but I think I was fortunate. I guess the team that I inherited were a lot of my mates. We were kind of territory managers together. I was kind of forced to be empathetic and say point of view because. And it kind of. I realized, okay, this is actually a lot better encourage you and. Yeah, but I think it is the easiest option. And that's the reason why many managers go down this path of. Yeah, they just. Basically they have a team full of many versions of themselves, basically. And for me, long term, that is not successful. It causes a lot of problems as well.

100 agree. Well, we're coming right up on time. Lots of good content here so far. But one last question for you. So if you had any advice to give any aspiring reps that want to move into management, into leadership, what might you tell them?

Yeah, it's a difficult. I think the important one, I think what helped me in my transition was that I had credibility with the team. So reps, you know, they know the manager that they're reporting to has done their job.

Yeah.

You understand that they will know. And this is the reality, is that this is why many senior management, they need to realize is that you need to recruit from the ranks basically when you, when you. Because reps, I think they only listen to people who have done the job that they've done. They've kind of gone through the difficulties and all the successes. And so I think what's important is that you need to, if you want to go into management, you need to make sure that you develop your credibility. So when you become a manager, it's not just about selling the best reps don't necessarily make the best managers as well. And it's about, you know, when you become a manager, it's not just about selling, it's also about, you know, getting these boring parts as well, like getting your team to update their CRM, making sure the pipeline is on point. So if you are a rep who never did any of that.

Yeah.

Remember this. And if you suddenly, when you become a manager, you are obligated to make them do it. If you, if you were, if you never did that as a rep, your team are going to remember and they're not going to take you seriously. So, so if you have ambitions of being a rep, make sure you develop your credibility. That means you are on point for everything that you, you know, you are asked to do by your manager. So your product knowledge needs to be on point. You need to be active in the field. You need to be a rep because you're going to be asking your team to be, you know, meetings need, your pipeline needs to be on point, your CRM needs to be on point. Because otherwise you're going to find it very difficult to motivate the team to do it. Especially if the team that remember you as a sales rep, and I think the next one is empathy as well, is, you know, once you become a manager, don't forget what it was like.

To be about the little people now. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, don't, don't forget because sometimes you can get, you know, I fall into that trap as well. You know, when you're under the pressure, they kind of hit targets. You kind of put pressure on your team to kind of close those deals quickly. And sometimes you just, the customers will buy in their own timeline. You know, you can't force it through, you can't do anything. And you just need to be empathetic as well. And also, you know, remember that, you know, these reps are traveling up and down the country. You know, sometimes they, you know, they're away from their families for like one or two nights and.

Yeah.

And you know, the last thing they want, I remember, you know, I was gone for overnight and come back and see an email from a manager saying, oh, you haven't updated your salesforce.

Exactly.

Yeah. So you got to be empathetic and be a bit kind of flexible and understanding if you wanted, your team has been traveling, be a bit flexible and don't put, you know, be accommodating a bit as much as you can, basically, and stuff like that. So empathy and credibility, that's my only.

I love that. Those are two great, great pieces of advice but yeah, this was awesome. Thank you for coming on the show. It's pleasure.

Thank you.

I learned a lot from you as well on this episode, so that's great.

Why exactly did you learn?

Huh. I think honestly the, a lot of the stuff related to like you have to build that connection point across the whole team of like how are they learning and how are they developing and like we would do this but I think what you built is, what's really interesting is you've built the natural culture to also like be transparent and push back around different topics and to teach each other. And I think this concept of putting people out in the field and learning trial by fire almost right is that's not something that I kind of would approach it the opposite way, which was I would kind of try and get people going through a training program first and then go get them out into the field. But I think there's something to, there's something to this. Like I'm going to learn by doing this thing and then I'm going to be able to kind of come at this from a first principles perspective. Like I don't, I don't have a, I don't have any sort of like bad, listen, what's the right word? A bad, bad technique. So I don't have any bad habits. And so you can also sort of create these things from scratch and being able to like pair up them with a experienced person in the field and then creating this whole culture of learning everybody up levels themselves. And so I think that like it's not just like one thing that you've mentioned, it's this combination of like three or four things that really say this is how you can create a, like a great, thriving, creative, you know, culture for sales team which is very different from a lot of like activity driven organizations which was like make 10 calls, you'll send 100 emails and like just like go, go, go. So I really like that the progress.

Is, you know, as I said the other way you can, it depends on what your goals are. For me, the long term goal is to build like a sustainable team of creative thinkers and long term revenue. And this is the only way to do it. Kind of give them that flexibility to be creative. The easiest option would have been just to kind of impose my way and get it done and I would maybe get nice big, you know, maybe an extra 5, 10% growth, maybe extra. But I, you what I think the UK team, what we've done is we've been consistent and you know, over very difficult periods and you know. Yeah, I think, I think long term you will benefit and, yeah, I strongly believe it. But I can understand why some other managers don't go there.

I think you're also building to. You're building the future management levels, but you're, you're building the future people that are going to take the same things that you've taught them and then use them going forward. So you're building not only the culture of the team today, but like the potential future cultures of many different sales teams. Because these people are going to take these learnings of like, wow, I really enjoy working with this team and this is how it was structured and so I'm going to, like, take that and use it, you know where I go as well.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think, yeah, trial by fire is probably the best. That's how I learned as a TM and that's how I learned as a temporary manager and that's how I learned as a manager. I don't think I've ever had a mentor in any of my phases. So when I joined sales, I remember I had one week of training in our Paris office and then my manager at the time, he goes, here's your mobile phone, here's your laptop and off you go. And I saw him maybe like once every quarter he will come down to the UK and I'll have a chat. And then as a manager as well, we never really had. Yeah, I think it's the best way to learn.

Yeah, agreed.

Awesome. But, yeah, training is always good as well. So if you can get it for sure, you can supplement.

Yeah. Kind of like a combination of the two. Right. It's like, hey, you got on in the field training plus sort of the in the classroom type of training too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. It's been a great episode.

Sam.