Cultivating Accountability and Coaching to Improve Team Performance

Okay, again, uh, welcome back everyone. Um, this is, uh, Suresh from Sales Table and we have, uh, today joined by Robin Singh and he's a leadership trainer, sales trainer, and a Sandler coach as well. And today we are in this 4-part series and today is the 3rd one that we have. So the first time around we actually looked into the 13 leadership blind spots, especially for the sales teams. And then the second one, we actually looked into more of the recruitment funnel. I mean, what is the kind of ways that we can bring in the right set of people and even think about who do we need to recruit, right? And Robin, today we have this great topic, which is really to say, what does it really mean by the accountability coaching, and how do we really bring in the mentorship within the sales teams? So without further ado, I'm really excited about this particular topic because a lot of sales leaders that we talk to every single day go through these challenges. So I'm really looking forward to hear some of these insights from you, Robin. Welcome.

Suresh, thanks again. Thanks again for having me and good morning, good afternoon, depending on where everybody is. I am also excited to be here today. 2 very interesting topics that we have kind of identified when we look at the 13 blind spots, right? One is accountability. How do we hold our people accountable? And then the second one is coaching. How do I coach my teams so that they're successful? So those are 2 things I think we can cover. And we've got about 30, 35 minutes for this.

Yeah, completely. So I'm just kind of showing this one, Robin, because I think the 13 blind spots is actually a great framework for all of us to think through. And one of the things that we see is, for example, not creating a culture of accountability is one of the blind spots. Combine that with the aspect of failing to train and coach management staff, as well as not knowing how to coach. So, I mean, these are like pretty strong blind spots that can actually be that linchpin for a success or the failure of a sales organization as companies grow. And without further ado, Um, first things first, Robin, what's the difference between coaching and mentoring? Because a lot of people actually use them in an interchangeable way, and I'm sure there is a difference, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

So I think the, the, the difference is not— I will leave mentoring out, but I think coaching and training is where we see the biggest problem, not as— not so much as mentoring. And if you look at the difference between coaching and training, okay, coaching is really— is where— is how we apply, um, what we want them to do in their offices or their workplace. And training is where we teach people how to do their jobs. Okay, that's where we have the 2 biggest mistakes, the 2 biggest errors we see. Okay, and, and, and the reason I didn't touch mentoring, because if you think about the leadership hats, right, we believe that There are 4 hats that we wear as leaders. Supervising, coaching, training, and mentoring. And we believe that 80% of our time should be spent in coaching, training, and supervising. 30 to 40% of our time should be spent coaching, believe it or not.

I see. Wow.

Right. Yeah. Um, coaching, mentoring really is, is if you think about it, I mean, mentoring, I've got a number of mentors in my world, right? And these are the guys I look up towards, look up for guidance and directions on. Okay. It, it could be, it plays a small part from a leadership perspective. depending on who, you know, who I'm working with in my teams and in the expertise we have in our teams. Okay. Um, so, but I think if we focus in on the training coaching piece, that's where we see the biggest blind spots. Okay. Now we can talk about in greater detail if you want now or later on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, just to double-click on that, Robin, uh, I think one of the challenges that we see is The— as the sales teams grow, definitely, I mean, you have— you will have a mix of senior sales reps and then junior sales reps and the middle managers and whatnot. And clearly, there is an expectation on the performance, there is an expectation on the outcomes on each and every one of them. And one of the biggest challenges that we see is when we talk about the accountability, how do we ensure that we're actually looking at the performance of the people without getting too detailed into the nitty-gritties every single day, or probably even what we call micromanagement? I think that's really the balance that a lot of sales leaders struggle with, because you don't want it to be either too in somebody's face as to say, what are you doing on a daily basis, versus at the same time, you want to make sure and bring in that culture of accountability and outcomes. How do you think about that?

Yeah. So, you know, accountability starts at the top. If I'm the leader, I have to set the— I have to set the examples. If I'm going to call a meeting, and I'm 15 minutes late for the meeting, right there, that's right. If that's what I'm setting, then that becomes a challenge. That becomes an issue. So it really starts with me as a true leader of me setting, you know, what it is that I want people to be held accountable for and me doing it. Okay. So that's the first thing that we need to look at. And if we're failing there, right, then I've got to Look, I've got to look in the mirror. Now, remember when we did the last time we talked about hiring and we use a search model?

Yeah.

In our hiring, we're looking for cognitive skills, looking for habits as part of it. So if I'm going to hire somebody and I said, hey, let's assume that I abide by everything, I set the right examples. But one of the biggest things I hear is, you know, my sales guys aren't updating the CRM on an ongoing basis, right? Me and you hear that a lot, right?

Exactly, yeah.

Okay. But that comes back to hiring. That comes back to, you know, did I hire right? Did I hire with the right skill sets? Did I hire the right habits that was required? Okay. you know, attendance. Okay, how often am I— I know we work remotely today, but at the same time, how often am I coming into meetings? You know, those are some of the habits, things that we look for when we're hiring. Okay. So, I think from an accountability perspective, it really starts with me. And it starts with me setting the guidelines and then making sure that if I'm doing it, my teams are doing it, how well am I managing my teams to make sure that, you know, we don't have a bad apple in the group? Because if we allow one person to get away with it and 3 others see it, okay, there we go. We create, we create, you know, that, we create that unequal stature, right?

Yeah.

Well, he can do it, why can't I do it, right? And then I'm not disciplining, I'm not training, I'm not coaching. I'm not supervising whatever that is from a leadership perspective.

Robin, I think just from that angle of it starts from the top, which is, I think, is a great thing from the culture building and accountability standpoint for sure. I'm sure probably there are instances where sometimes the top management, the sales leadership is not aware of what their not doing as well, right? Because as a sales leader, they might be thinking, I'm doing everything right, and then, you know, my people are not really supporting me. And in many cases, it's really the question of how well the feedback comes from bottom up and then top down as well, right? You know, what I mean by that is, are sales leaders getting enough feedback, and are they open to receive feedback from their reps managers and whatnot. Because at the end of the day, as a leader, I might be thinking, you know, I'm doing everything right, I'm doing everything fine. But I may not be even aware of that, because I'm not trying to really get the feedback from my kind of team as such, right?

Yeah.

Is that fair in the sales teams where we need to kind of really build in the culture of 360-degree view of the feedback?

So that's a great question, Suresh. And I think, you know, it starts, it really starts with the relationship that I have with my teams. And how am I building that rapport? Right? Am I building that rapport whereby the, you know, the title of my, my business card says I'm up here, and everybody else down here? And I've got all this power because I've got this title on me, right?

Right.

And so, I don't create that rapport building that is required with my teams, right? If I kind of remove that title thing and I come down to the level with my teams and I still earn their respect, okay? Then I think that takes it. That could happen. But I've got to earn it. I can't demand it. And sometimes if we earn it, we build that trust. We build that rapport with our teams. We understand our teams. We understand what are their personal goals. We understand their family stuff. Whatever it is that's required to build that trust and that rapport. But at the same time, still keep the level of authority that I have. Okay, then it happens. But if I have that level of authority whereby it's so autocratic, right, then, you know, I, I'm not going to come to you because I fear, right, right, I fear, okay, I can't communicate with you, I can't, or I try to see the doors closed, or whatever that is, right, um, then it's not gonna happen, right? Okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna come to you with any Hey, hey, boss, let me, you know, I know, you know, we've got good rapport. Can I suggest something to you? Sure, Robin, go ahead. Right? I mean, yeah, without feeling that fear of, you know, who the hell are you to tell me whatever that is, right? So yeah, I mean, right.

Correct, correct, correct. So you touched upon one important topic, Robin, which is, as the teams grow, I think that whole aspect of earning the trust, I think becomes really important.

Yeah.

And in some instances, unfortunately, the sales leaders may not really have the time and bandwidth to actually bring in that trust for themselves. What I mean by that is in very high growth organizations, somebody joins as SDR or inside sales rep, and then they quickly become AE, and then they are doing really great as a, Account executive, and then they all of a sudden become director of sales, and then they have ten of these SDRs or two AEs and whatnot. And then all of a sudden they are like, okay, I have done something that really gave me that growth of SDR to AE, AE to director of sales or VP of sales, whatever that is. But unfortunately, because they are growing so fast, they didn't really get the proper training as to say. What does it really mean to build a sales organization? For example, what does it really mean by coaching and mentoring your team to really bring them up to their level? Because as a rockstar AE, I know how to go into the meetings, how to close the meetings, and then how to close the deals and everything. But you can't be doing that for the rest of your 10 SDRs that are out there. You need to bring these SDRs to the similar level of what worked for you. If that is the case, how do we typically think about these young sales leaders who are really on the fast-track mode? And how should they be thinking about really bringing in that culture of coaching and accountability?

Well, here's what we see. We see failure. When that happens, when that happens, we see failure. You have taken a young, a good, very prominent, very promising person, done a great job in his sales career, put him up into management without providing any type of training and ask him. And now you're asking him to manage a team. Okay, he's gonna fail. We've seen it. Well, he's gonna fail. Okay, so and and I mean that's why it's a blind spot. He's gonna fail. Now maybe one percent, maybe ten percent might succeed. I don't I don't I don't doubt that. But I I I I do I bet that there is going to be a larger percentage will fail.

Yeah.

Okay. And and then and and they fail because we You know, we're not focused. We, we're just focused on this growth perspective, right?

Right.

And we forget the other pieces of the puzzle. If we don't have that solid foundation within, within the growth of the organization, you know, it's going to struggle. It's going to struggle. And people, believe it or not, people, people grow our organizations. People, that's the key. And if we don't treat them right, train them properly, give them the right tools, the right support, Right? The organization is going to struggle. And, you know, we see this on an ongoing basis, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Robin, I think that's actually a very important part that you talked about, because especially in the last couple of years, we see a lot of CROs under pressure. They're just kind of, you know, quite quitting or leaving the roles because they are not able to handle the pressure anymore. Because again, during the pandemic demand, there is, of course, a lot of growth. There is high demand for everything that anybody is doing. There is not much of that preemptive thought as to say, how should we build our sales organization? What training is needed? What coaching is needed?

Yes.

What people do we really need as part of that growth organization, and then it was really like grow, grow, grow. Yes, you grew to an extent, but now beyond a certain point, there are these physical economic limits that every company gets into. And now they are like, yes, the management is actually asking for more, but you are not able to deliver more, right?

Right.

I mean, I would love to kind of get your thoughts on what you see in the industry, and especially at that level of CRO, VP of Sales, and how they are getting pressurized because of the current situations.

Yeah, yeah. So one other piece that I, that I should mention, and that is, you know, when we take a, when we take a salesperson and we look to promote him up, right, in it, and we do it, the other piece that's important, and we talked about this last week, is the assessments, right? Let's run some, let's run some assessments on this guy to make sure he's got the the skill sets to be a proper manager, just, just, you know, the right mindset to be that manager, right? So I think that's, that's a critical part, making sure that we assess the people that we want to, that we want to move up. Planning is another critical point. You talked about planning, right? How well are we planning as we grow the organization? And if I am working in the business as a CEO, then I'm not planning because I'm so engrossed in the business. I don't have time to do the planning. And that's why we said it's important for CEOs to be working on the business. And that's where, if I'm working on the business, that's where the mindset comes into play, which says, you know what, I've got to think about, you know, what is, what is the growth, what's the growth scenario of my company? What are the future positions that's required? Who are those people that's required? Do I have them internally or do I have to look externally? What does that blank org chart look like a year from now? 2 years from now? If we're not doing that, then we're going to hit these blind spots, which is what happens.

Yeah.

Message to the CEOs, you've got to be working on your business. not in your business. And you've got to be, you've got to be that visionary guy that's, that's a year out, 2 years out, 3 years out. What is my org chart? What does my organization look like a year from now? Right? What does that org chart look like a year from now? What are the positions, key positions as we're growing that should be there? Leave it blank.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And then say, okay, who within my organization can fill that? If I don't, Right, then I gotta go outside. So yeah, I mean, that's the planning piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Robin, at this point of time, I think, you know, when we talk about the coaching and training aspect itself and the accountability, yeah, I know a lot of sales leaders who are like, you know what, I would love to support my team, but at the same time, I need somebody to support me which is basically to say, I need my own mentors and advisors as well, right? Because it's not just about, I need to kind of provide the support to my team, but I also need to gather all the net new trends. Hey, how can I improve myself in a way?

Mm-hmm.

And what is your advice to a lot of, the sales leadership teams, whether they are senior, junior, doesn't really matter. But how do you think about having external coaches for themselves?

So, so here's a perfect example. And I'm, I'm not selling here. I'm just giving you an example of how leaders work. So within our management program, okay, when we teach, when we teach and teach our, you know, clients in the sales management program. They're in rooms with their fellow managers, fellow VP of sales.

Okay.

We put them in a breakout room. They're learning from each other and they're connecting with each other offsite, offline, right? So, that's one method that we use that we find clients tell us that it's for them, it's the most value being in that breakout room. With my fellow peers, learning and understanding from them how to better something, how to better a process, how to better coach, whatever that is that we're teaching. That's one example that we see happen in our world. When it comes to external coaches, well, you've got to be open to it first off. You have to have that that mindset that says, I can be trained, I can be coached. Okay? If you have the mindset that says, I've got 20 years of this, I don't need help, or I don't need coaching, then that ain't gonna work. And the other thing too to remember is everything changes. You know, the industry we're in changes. COVID has a major impact. on how our prospects and clients buy today. As managers, as VP of Sales, whatever it is, we need to understand what's going on in the industry. And so, yeah, I may have been able to— I was a good leader 5 years ago, 10 years ago. Has it changed today? Right?

Yeah, yeah.

And if it has, Yeah, let's look at the teams that we're coaching, training. These are Zs, okay? Younger folks coming in. How do they behave? What are their styles? Different from when I was around, okay? And so I need to understand those guys, the Z generation.

Right.

We need to understand them. How do we coach, train them? Okay, it's different. Okay, so yeah, I you know I I better I I better understand that part and I better go find out external coaches who understand this generation depending on what I have in my teams. What that look like, right? You know, and we need we need help for that, right? So that's the that's the that's the important part, Suresh, is this generation, the Z generation. They're the ones in that— if you look at the employment stats, and you look at where the biggest employment is taking place now, is in that generation. And they're different from me and you. Okay. Well, not to you, not you, but from me for sure. Yeah.

So, Robin, I think that that's actually a great point, which is to say, I heard bunch of on the my LinkedIn connects that they're actually having Zen Z as their coaches because these are like very senior people in the organizations. And now it's really about what is your working style? How what do you how do you think about work? I mean, how do you think about sales? And then what does it really mean for you on the motivation side of it? Because for somebody, money could be motivation, travel could be a motivation, or the ability to have the freedom could be a motivation in terms of the work. So what does it really mean? And then the colloquial language of Gen Z, for example, I mean, somebody has to understand that to be able to translate when somebody is working in your organization. So that's actually a nice way where I think we want to kind of learn from each other. That way.

Yeah.

That's a real problem that we have, that we got to have these different multi-generational folks that we are actually working with and then really learn from each other. Because on one level, it's not about the differences, but it is really about what is motivating them and how can we really support everyone in the organization to do their best. And that's really the point out there.

Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, the other thing to remember is we've had at Sandler, we've had to change some of our training methodology to adjust to the Z clientele that's coming in. Wow.

Okay. Okay.

Right. We've developed new content just for that group because of the training style that they have, right?

So yeah, yeah, that's amazing to know. Because the one aspect I think, probably when we talk about the accountability and the coaching, Robin, is to say, let's say, if I have 10 reps in my organization, the first things first for me is probably after, let's say, if I just started everything today, after a couple of quarters or in a year, I need to know what a good sales rep looks like. What I mean by that is, what does it really mean by what do they do? What is working for them? What are their behaviors that is actually taking them to get to the quota or exceed the quota? Then when I know what that good salesperson looks like, it is relatively easy for me to take what is working and then apply that to, for example, the rest of the team who probably needs help, right?

Yeah.

Which is essentially to say, yes, for me, the outcomes and the targets are important, which is basically to reach the quota or to exceed the quota. But the things that you do to get to the quota are also important.

Yeah.

The reason why I say that is a lot of sales leaders actually get stuck, unfortunately, at that place where they say, oh, you know what, I have these rockstar salespeople, they're doing what they need to do, and they're always bringing the quota. So I don't want to touch them. I don't want to ask any questions. It is okay if they don't follow the process. It is okay that they don't update the CRM. But then coming back to the culture aspect that we talked about, that is exactly what the rest of the team is actually looking at. And then they are like, hey, why is it that that salesperson is not questioned, whereas we are being questioned?

Right.

So that really brings in that whole aspect of the breaking of trust between— within the teams. And then also with the management and the team. So can you kind of give some insights onto how do we kind of really even understand the situation and fix it?

Yeah. Wow, fix it. Remember, remember, remember I said when we start, remember I said it starts at the top? Right? Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. So that to me, that's the first thing, it starts at the top. If the top guy allows, I call him favoritism, or you guys are great, so I'm not going to touch you. There's my favorite guys, right? And doesn't reinforce the fact that I don't care who you are. This is the system. This is the process. This is what needs to get done. If you don't do it, guess what? There's consequences. Okay? So you got to have consequences. So at the top, you got to say, this is what it is. I don't care who you are. If you don't do it, consequences. Whatever those consequences are. That's how you instill that. Okay? Second thing is what are the top— when you say things that they do, we call that behaviors. Okay? What are the top 10 behaviors that a good leader should be looking to coach, train his sales guys on? Okay? Things like lead generation. Things like building good rapport with their clients, right? Things like presentation and closing techniques. What does that look like? Now, things like servicing my clients, things like territory management. Okay. A good sales methodology, whatever that looks like. In my world, it's Sandler, right? I'm sorry, I'm being favored here, right? So yeah, those are the top 10 things that we look at and say, okay, sales leaders, Here's the top thing, top 10 things that you should be working with your teams on. Okay, uh, and, and if you make sure those happen, right, then that's fine. Then you look at leading— we talked about this last time— leading indicators, lagging indicators. Okay, what are the leading indicators that my guys are working on? Okay, are they prospecting? What is their prospecting methodology? Email, whatever that is, right? What are those leading indicators that they should be doing? Okay, and then and then coaching training for those things, and not not worried about lagging indicators.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, as good leaders, right? First off, it starts at the top. Okay, you've gotta you've gotta. I don't care who you are, whether they're favoritism or not. You can't have that in place. Okay, and then and then you have to have consequences, and and it should be fair. Whatever the consequences are within the organization, that's up to you to decide. But you got to have the consequences if you don't do it. And then from a coaching— from how do I make sure, you know, what are the— you know, how do I make sure that I coach my guys when they're falling apart? Right? Why is it one group is doing well and one group isn't? Okay, then that's a reflection of me as a leader. Okay, what am I looking at? What are the leading indicators they're working on? What are the top 10 behaviors that I'm training coaching on? I have to have those things to say, okay, as a leader, I know where I'm going. Okay? And that's how I want to help my teams. Last thing that's important. A good leader will know what the personal goals are of every salesperson he's got in his organization.

Wow. Okay. Okay.

And he understands what the personal goals are and he helps them accomplish the personal goals. Believe it or not, the business goals get accomplished. Keep that in mind.

Thanks for highlighting that. The reason why I'm really excited about the personal goals is everybody thinks about, hey, what are salespeople excited about? I think the easy answer is money. Yes, I think definitely the money is very important. But talking to a lot of sales leaders and then now you are actually confirming it, which is to say, It's really about personal motivations. Yes, I think, you know, probably money is definitely important, but everybody has their own intrinsic motivation as to say why I should meet or exceed quota.

Yes.

Money is absolutely important, but there is much more than that. I mean, there are personal stories, there is business stories, or there are these professional accomplishments that I want to personally reach to. And as long as the leader knows that's exactly where there is a lot of commonality and the consensus that you can bring in to say, hey, and of course, based on that, leaders can also change and make use of the different styles of coaching. Because if the motivation is different for different people, we can't apply the same kind of discussions, right?

Right, exactly. Right. But yeah, right. So That's a good leader when he understands that. And that's where that trust now comes into play. Okay. And the relationship that I now build with my team, that will have a huge impact on how well I work with my teams and I build my teams and I help my teams. Because if my teams hit their numbers, the company is going to hit their numbers. And believe it or not, the VP of Sales is going to hit bonus. Right. And then he's going to look like a hero.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, uh, which is great. So that, that's the number one thing. Uh, the second aspect, uh, probably, um, Robin, um, what happens when, um, we talk about the transparency for sure, uh, but at the same time we've seen some of the organizations, not to name them, um, they are so strong about the culture that they brought up in and then the process point of view. I've heard in the recent times that organizations are letting go of people even when they met the quota, but they're not following the processes. What they are really thinking through as managers is to say, hey, you know what? Yes, it's great that you met the quota, but then For us, the culture is about, you know, there is a set of practices that we are supposed to follow and we want the entire organization to respect it. When somebody doesn't, then unfortunately, yes, even though you are generating the revenue, you are exceeding the quota probably, but you are still not a great fit. The reason why I'm giving that example is that actually is a great signal of a very strong culture. Yes, Somebody might like it, somebody may not like it because somebody might say, oh, you know what, as long as the quota is met, I don't care. Versus, yes, you know, quota is met, but you need to respect the culture.

Right.

I mean, the question probably for me, Robin, in those kinds of situations is, do you think that kind of culture better fits with the matured organizations versus not? Because What I'm really thinking through is, for example, in startups, for example, the culture is actually getting set. It's not as though that there is actually a great culture to start with in the startups. As they are finding to get into this culture mode, there are not too many examples, there are not too many behaviors that somebody can identify versus in the big companies, you probably have a pattern that has worked and that is working, and that's what you want to set. I just want to hear your thoughts on where do you see these kind of strong cultures as a fit.

Yeah, you know, so from a personal— from a— I'll give you my personal opinion, okay? Um, I think it's— I think, you know, as a startup, it's really hard, uh, to kind of define what my exact culture could look like today versus tomorrow. Today I know what my culture is going to be. Tomorrow I can tell you it may be different because as I grow, as I grow the organization, the cultural aspect of it changes at different stages of growth within the organization. Right. And it's very difficult for me to say at growth Okay, here's my culture. I need to have certain things in place, right? So at at at ground level, and that's okay. We're supposed to have that.

Right, right.

But as I grow, I should be able to say, you know what? As a leader, yeah, I had this here. But as I'm growing, things are changing. And as things change, I need to change. I need to have the mindset of. of change taking place as I plan out the growth of my organization and where it's going to be today versus 5 years from now. So, I think it's important for organizations to say, I have certain cultures here. That culture is going to be different 5 years from now. I don't think it can be the same. It cannot be the same. Right. Cannot be the same. Right now, what happens when I start here at the ground level? Okay, ground level. I start ground level, and I have certain cultures that are not as not as it's not as tightly built as it should be. Right? But as my organization grows, there's certain processes and metrics that's got to be in place. Right? For me to reach the growth stage.

Okay.

At that point, I've got to be pretty stringent about who follows what. Because if certain— if we break certain chains in it, guess what happens, right? The whole thing falls apart. And then I have inconsistencies and I have flaws in my organization, right? So, yeah, right. I mean, we've got to— that's my— that's how I see it. And that's what I believe in. Now, when we look at organizations of excellence, think about where we started. We started at risk. I'm in the business. I'm in the business. As I move out and go from at risk to average to above to excellence, that's the gap difference. And when I'm at excellence, the business owner, they're working on the business. And they're, they're, they're seeing what's going on. They're, they're proactively ahead of anything that's happening. They know what's going to happen, you know, changes that will come will take place. They know if there's a flaw in a certain process, they know it before it happens, so they're ready to fix it. Okay, so I don't know if that answers all of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, uh, because, uh, the, the reason why this is, uh, fascinating us to even discuss, Robin, is there is no easy fix. I think the reason why I said, you know, even though I said fix, is at the end of the day, it's really about understanding, realizing what is the problem, and understanding the culture and the state of art at that point of time, and then see what best fits you at that point of time in that organization. And there is nothing like a magic bullet or a silver bullet at the end of the day. Just because something has worked for a different organization at a different time, we can't just take some of those examples and then apply to your situation, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one thing, the one thing that I will say is that in, in growth organizations, when we're startups, we've got to be, you know, I know we're revenue, we're revenue generation focused, but we've got to be careful not to damage your credibility, right? We still need to be credible in the marketplace. We need to make sure that our salespeople are credible. There's integrity, that's a key part, right? Honesty, right? Those are all critical parts as we start to build and not just, you know what, I'll do anything to get the revenue and I lose credibility, right? I lose integrity within the organization, I lose credibility with the sales guy, whatever that needs to happen. We need to be very wary of that, uh, from a, from a growth perspective, right? Maintain that culture of honesty, credibility, and integrity, right? I think that's a critical part in the early growth stages, right?

Absolutely. So Robin, one, uh, follow-up and then probably the final, uh, question for today. is when we think about the culture building, one of the aspects is to really understand the team. I think we talked about, we need to know their personal motivations and everything. But what would be a kind of much more tactical framework? Or how should we think about when I need to understand the strengths of my team? or a particular member, and I need to understand their— what are the areas that that person have to improve? Because if we don't know what their strengths are and where they can improve, then essentially I can't necessarily provide them with good coaching or even some recommendations, right? Even if I need to bring in an outside coach, I really don't know what somebody should be coached on. So how should I be thinking about that? I mean, you know, the, probably some of the easy answers is to say, hey, you know what, you know, one-on-one discussions on a weekly basis or whatever. But I'd love to kind of, you know, get your thoughts on what have you seen with your customers and then your own experience.

So we look at it from different angles, right? The first one is, if I'm hiring, let's assume that I'm hiring, right? Assessments help us from that perspective. We run the type of assessments. It will tell us the type of coaching that's required for the individual that we're bringing in. It will tell us the type of training that we should be putting them through, right? And the assessments we use provide all of those information that's necessary or required when I'm looking to hire a possible person. Nobody's perfect. You know, so again, using, again, you know, using the research model, the search model that we talked about, if we have those guidelines for hiring and then we supplement that with assessment tools, that helps us from a coaching perspective, you know, what to coach, how to train them to bring them up to that particular level.

Yeah.

So that's new. Now let's assume I have a new team or we have a team and I don't know where to go. I've got my teams. That's where I'd say it doesn't hurt to find a company that can help you really assess what I have within my teams. What are their strengths? What are the areas we need to work on? Also, do I want to make sure I have the right people? sitting on the right seat on the bus. Okay. So, you know, whatever the positions are, if I'm looking for farmers, do I have farmers? If I'm looking for hunters, do I have hunters? Okay. Or do I have a combination of hunters and farmers where I really need hunters? Whatever that is in their world, right? When you really need to understand our people, and I think assessments is one of the things that I highly recommend. In really trying to understand who I've got on my teams, how I should coach them, and what are the type of training I need to help them, you know, to get them from A to B. You know, the other thing too is my managers, right? How well is my— how well am I trained as a manager to actually coach my teams? Okay. If I If I don't know how to coach or train my teams, right, then no use me doing anything from that perspective. So it's a third piece that could be— that can hinder growth of my teams. Okay. It's how well am I, you know, how well do I know to coach? Right. So hopefully that answers that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Robin, I think today I know we discussed a lot about the accountability and coaching, The net-net, the one takeaway really for me I would think of is it really starts at the top and really building that culture, having that accountability mindset is really about I need to do the right things, I need to set an example for my team, and that's really when the magic happens in a way. This is amazing. So again, for those of viewers who are looking at this one, so we actually had our first episode really talking about some of these 13 blind spots. I mean, if you haven't really seen, I would highly encourage you to actually check it out because those are the blind spots that not just in the sales teams, but in general, any leadership teams actually miss out on a lot of those things. So that's number one. And in the previous episode, we actually looked into very deep on what are really the ways that you need to identify the talent that you need for your sales team? How do we really think about recruiting the sales teams and then really kind of onboarding and everything come together? And Robin, today, I mean, we had these great insights really on the coaching and accountability for sure. And for those of you, we're actually topping all this with our last episode that will be on July 10th, 10th, by the way. And that is really about as organizations grow, everybody has a vision, everybody has some kind of process orientation. But the idea really is how do you really bring in the vision and the process orientation together in your organization and make it successful for everybody? So that, that's the topic that we are going to discuss and really to build a high-performance sales team. And watch out and do come in for July 10th episode. And until then, Robin, thanks a lot for your time today and really appreciate all the insights. And I'm definitely looking forward to the next time.

Yeah, Suresh, again, thanks for having me. I really appreciate being here. Hopefully we got some golden nuggets. If you got one or two golden nuggets from today's session, tell you what, that's value for me then.

Absolutely.

Thanks again.

Robin, thank you so much.