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Hey, Joe. Welcome back to the Coffee with Sales Table. How are you doing? I love it.

It's good. This is always one of my favorite times of the week.

Yeah, exactly. This time, Joe, what we are thinking is a lot of salespeople that we are talking these days, they have 2 distinct problems, right? One is they are either growing their teams, especially now we are thinking about the Q2 And they're planning for, hey, you know what, we've learned something in the Q1 based on the performance, the quota attainment, the close rates and all that. And based on that, we might need to increase the capacity, for example. And in which case they're actually now trying to bring new sales reps on board. And that's one problem that we are seeing. And the second problem is As an organization, they are not getting net new headcount, but they are to say, with the current people that I have, how do I improve efficiency? How do I increase the quota attainment rates, overall performance from each and every sales rep that I have? So with that as a context, you have tons of experience in coaching and then as in the accountability coaching. That's really where I want to spend some time. in discussing with you on how are you seeing these days on how do you onboard these new people versus how do we kind of really increase the efficiency?

Yeah, I, I think so.

I—

this is an important question for any organization. You're always looking to streamline that which you're doing, and whether that's onboarding new people or upskilling people who you already are working with or already part of your team, And I think the main thing that I'd say is just pay attention to the data. The data will, you can connect the dots when you look at the data, whether it's in onboarding, which is gonna be different metrics that you might be measuring than a more senior salesperson. But the theme, I think the theme is you're always looking for improvement. Everyone on your sales team should be looking to improve that which they're doing. And there's a saying that goes, what gets measured gets managed. And so if you're measuring a lot of these in the data points, the data will lead you to some of these what will become very obvious things. And so in the onboarding process, pay attention to the data that you're collecting in the onboarding process. Like how long does it take for a rep to complete their training? How long does it take them to pass certain criteria that you've set as here's when you're ready to go to the market? So pay attention to those things and record those things that way later. When you have senior reps who have succeeded, you can go back to their onboarding process and identify, oh, they got to point A within X amount of time, they got to point B within Y amount of time. So I think you can reverse engineer and see that trajectory now with those reps, with that data from before. Now you can see the pattern begin to come forth with your new reps as they come on. Oh, Sally just came on and she looks a lot like Johnny's onboarding process. But if you don't have that data recorded somewhere, then you're not gonna really know what it is. It's just gonna be like Johnny felt really good going through, and so does Sally as she comes through. Have the data because that will tell you a lot. I love, I love watching F1, Formula 1 racing. And there's this, there's a Netflix series that follows these drivers. I don't know how many seasons they have, but I love how obsessed they are with the data. Like you've got all the engineers and they're working on the frame of the car and the engine and the transmission and all the little upgrades that they make, but it's all data informed, whatever that might look like. And so I think we can think of our organizations a little bit like an F1 car. How can I make these subtle improvements? And you can see when they make these upgrades, all of a sudden they go from finishing in 10th place or 15th place to winning races until the other teams figure out what they need to do to upgrade their car. So I think that's the process that we have on the sales side is how can we be measuring and collecting data so that we can make informed decisions down the road? And candidly, it doesn't look any different for the seasoned reps. It's how are they going to refine what they're doing? Pay attention to all those minute numbers that are coming in anywhere you can collect data, collect that data because then you can measure it and analyze it later. So I think that's just the The main thing is to be aware and begin noticing those areas where you can collect that data, analyze that data, and use it to your benefit and to your team's benefit.

Gotcha. Thanks for saying that, Joe, because one of the things that we strongly believed on SalesTable side is whenever we are going through the onboarding and training pieces, you know, multiple modules within the training, one of the leading indicators that we see is How enthusiastically salespeople are going through these trainings. What I mean by that is, let's say out of 5 salespeople that you are onboarding, there is 1 salesperson who completed in 1 day, even though it is, let's say, 5 hours or 10 hours of content versus there are 2 salespeople who took all the 5 days to complete 5 hours of content. Right. That's one thing that you probably are thinking. Why is those 2 salespeople taking one full week to finish 5 hours of content?

Mm-hmm.

That's one aspect. The second one is when we provide the training, it is also a leading indicator as to say, are they finishing up all the trainings that we provided? And then are they completing the assessments? And then even within the assessments, how deep are those assessments? Because we always believe in this quality quantitative assessments, and they both are very critical ones for sales leaders to look at them and say, hey, you know what? The success of some of these salespeople really relies in how they are doing in that first 30 days of onboarding and training. Does that make sense? How have we seen something like that before?

Yeah, and begin to notice that. So when people are following a pattern of— I'll call it a pattern of failure— so begin to follow those reps when they come through and notice. And by the way, that's a good illustration, like how quickly they might be getting through the training, but there's so much more that could be there. So what are they doing in those non-5 hours of training? Perhaps those are the people who succeed. Maybe they take 2 weeks to go through 5 hours of training, but they're doing other things. So taking the holistic picture of who this person is and see how they're integrating on a whole because you don't want to make like in the world of marketing, they call it last click attribution. So you can make mistakes in marketing because you attribute the success of what you're doing to the very last click. So then the idea is, okay, cool, let's just pour everything into that last click, whatever got them there, not recognizing that it was a pattern of things that led up to the last click and that was just the culminating moment.

Right.

Same thing with salespeople. Notice the whole journey, the full spectrum of their onboarding. And if you start to see those patterns where, oh, when a person comes in and follows pattern A, B, and C, they always fail. Okay, fine. You don't need to wait 3 months to terminate that. Follow the pattern and make an informed decision sooner, costing, by the way, that's a gift to the salesperson to get them out of a position that's ultimately not gonna work for them. That's a gift to them. A lot of people don't see that. They're like, oh, I want to give them a shot and maybe they'll turn it around. Maybe they will. But the pattern suggests that you're not. So if you have enough data points that you've collected to know with a certain degree of confidence, that's what's going to happen. Feel free to make that decision sooner. That was one of the gifts that we get that I've given to a lot of people as I've helped them build their sales teams is release these people back to the market sooner than you naturally would have as a sales leader. You want to give them a shot. Sometimes, by the way, Suresh, and this is really important to pay attention to, is the sales leader is often the person who hired that person. So having to let them go is a judgment on their character, their ability to judge people. So sometimes they hold on to people too long because they don't want to have— they don't want to quote unquote admit that they were wrong in the hire. No, be fast to hire and fast to fire when those data points align.

Right. So, uh, let's say one of the hot topics these days has to say, clearly there are unfortunately a lot of layoffs happening, whether it is due to the demand or due to the lack of performance from the people, whatnot. But you bring in a very important topic, which is if I hire somebody, then it is naturally a lot of emotions are coming through. And then I'm like, hey, you know what? I don't want to look bad in front of my management to let them go because that reflects on me. Right. Ultimately. But at the same time, if I keep them longer, their non-performance is also reflecting on me.

And only costing you more money, more headaches, more time. It's expensive to keep that wrong decision going.

Going back to one thing that you said, Joe, you talked about, hey, you know what, always look at the data and look at what they are doing. Initially, when people join in, How do we really think about the performance metrics where the— I know everything depends based on the organization, the state, and everything, but what is the framework that we should be thinking about as to say, is it 2 months that they should be producing results? Is it 3 months? Is it next 6 months? How should we be thinking about that angle as to say, hey, you know what, this is the deadline, this is a soft deadline, this is a hard deadline beyond which I cannot let you go any longer.

Yes. So one, you need to be at a position where you're confident in what those numbers are. If you're a seasoned company that has a sales pathway that has been proven and other people are following that pathway and succeeding or failing, then somebody who is perhaps hiring their first team or their first few salespeople, for those people, you have to figure it out together and you're not going to have data-informed decisions. It's going to be more a feeling. And do I believe that they're, they're working hard and saying the right things? Do they understand our company? Are they saying the right things? That's your only judgment that you get. For those who are more seasoned, you should have the pathway carved out. You should know by day 35, they should have done X, Y, and Z, whatever those, whatever, you know what those things are. I can tell in my world, when I hire a salesperson, by the end of their first day of training, they will have sent out their first 10 prospecting messages. That's my goal. By the end of your first day, you will actively be prospecting. I love that as a goal because it tells people like, hey, it's not going to be perfect. I don't expect it to be perfect. I do expect it to be done though. And so I think for you in your company, thinking about where are we at as an organization, do we have a path to follow? So know what those leading indicators are that are designed or are determining what success looks like and then what the lagging indicators of success look like. So leading indicators might be how many prospecting messages did you make? How many appointments did you set? Lagging indicator might be post-sale, which is did you find the right people? How many refunds are we having to issue?

Right.

How many contracts are we like getting ourselves out of because it was a bad fit? So leading and lagging indicators are really important around the sale itself because all of this has— you could have somebody who comes in and they start, quote unquote, crushing sales. And then all of a sudden you find on the back end it wasn't a right fit, it wasn't the right time, whatever it might be. So just because they were great at the leading indicators doesn't necessarily mean that they're great for the company overall as measured by lagging indicators. So I think that's something you've got to pay attention to is what are those metrics? And you need to determine as the sales leader, by day X, they should have accomplished Y. By day A, they should be at point Z. Whatever it might be, that's where I know this is a little bit different of a topic, but I think it's important to keep in mind because it's in the theme of what we're talking about: performance improvement plans. And I'm going to state something that might be controversial, but I believe every salesperson should be on a performance improvement plan. Who doesn't want to improve performance? Like it's shocking to me that people don't that sales leaders don't issue performance improvement plans for every salesperson in their. Under their watch. You should always be looking to improve. So let's remove the stigma of the negativity of a performance improvement plan and let's make it a positive thing. So everyone who you are overseeing should have that plan in place, including your brand new people, along with especially underperformers. What are the consequences of not hitting those objectives in their performance improvement plan?

To your point, it's really, it doesn't really matter if I am exceeding my quota or not, everybody should be finding those opportunities to improve their performance. And when people hear about PIP, it's not just because I'm going through the PIP program because I'm a bad performer, but even if I'm doing the best of it, there are always opportunities that I improve my performance, right? That's really the spirit.

And I think a lot of the stuff that we get to talk about, Suresh, and I wish people could hear like the whole context of our conversations cuz you share so much wisdom in all this, but Even looking at AI and how AI is entering our world at a very rapid pace. I heard most people are probably familiar with a guy named Alex Hormozi. And Alex Hormozi talked about a challenge that he issued to his team. And he said, I want you to come up with a plan to replace yourself with AI. What would that look like? And so I think if we are not intentionally seeking out how we can improve, which might include elements of AI, But anything, if you don't do that, some other team is. Go back to the F1 analogy. Lewis Hamilton racing for Mercedes, he had 7 world championships. I know he's going, he wants to get another one. We'll see if he gets there. But 7 world champions, they were just, they couldn't be beaten.

Yeah.

Until all of a sudden now you've got Red Bull and the Red Bull team who now they're dominating everything, almost untouchable because they're always seeking that performance improvement. So if the moment you decide not to improve your performance is the moment you begin dying, it just isn't going to show up until later in the world. And by that time, you're going to be too far behind and now you've got to really catch up. I would just be encouraging people to be thinking about this element. How do we incorporate elements of AI into that which we're doing as a salesperson or a sales team to accelerate and increase our performance?

Absolutely. With that in mind, I think the second part of it I want to touch upon, Joey, is let's say I have this team that is grounded. There is a sales process that is all laid out and all that is great. But then what I'm really thinking to do is, hey, you know what? I have Q2, Q3, Q4 for the quarters. And then how do I really make sure that every single person is actually going above and beyond to the quota attainment?

So unfortunately, I feel like this is a little bit of a moving target. Because there's more things at play than just what your assumptions are. There are world economic events that could be happening. There's market shifts. There are big things at play that will certainly weigh what's happening.

Yeah.

So what felt like a very attainable quota 2 years ago maybe feels impossible to attain today. So I think some of it, for those of us who are sales leaders, we do want to incentivize and motivate people to achieve their quota. That's why a lot of bonuses are scheduled and put in place. Sometimes I feel like it's very anecdotal and people are just coming up with these quotas based on, I feel like this is what should happen. So again, see the previous conversation where we were talking about data. Are you making data-informed decisions? If you have quotas that you put in place that are purely aspirational quotas, you are going to run the risk of having your team be constantly deflated. They're always going to feel like they're failing. And if that's your company culture, that's okay. There are some teams that operate like on this, I'll call it, I'm going to call it negative energy. It's, it's the beating shall continue until morale improves. Some teams function on that and you see very high producing, high performance cultures that are built around that ethos. If your ethos is more positive reinforcement and I'll call it like California surfer vibes, then it's, you need to just be intentional with what you're doing.

Yeah.

So if you have purely aspirational quotas, you need to be aware of like how your sales team is feeling. Remember, although you're making data-informed decisions, you're dealing still with human beings.

Right.

Things are highly emotive. We're like embodied emotions walking around. And so you've gotta remember those emotions show up with that person every single day when they show up to work, whether it's remote or in the office, they're a bundle of emotions. And if all they're feeling is this negative getting beat up over and I can never get past 70% of quota or whatever it might be for a high performance person that can feel really deflating if they're unaware that this is an aspirational quota rather than a data driven quota that can really crush their spirit and that's gonna that's gonna impact their sales in a negative way. So I would just say make data informed decisions so that here's what we're doing. Is this an aspirational quota or is this an ex Expected quota.

Thanks for saying that because the one thing to extend on that one, especially I think what we have seen with some of our customers with SalesDevOps, Joe, is I know you, you talk a lot about the inputs and the outputs, right? A lot of sales leaders really talk about the outputs, but it is very critical to really understand what the inputs are, right? That's really the core of it. What I mean by that is What's your outbound or inbound process going to look like? What is that funnel look like? Whatever methodology that you use doesn't really matter. We need to be aware of those conversion factors.

Yes.

What I mean by that is how many, let's say whether it is the emails or LinkedIn messages or whatever, how are they converting into meetings? How are the meetings converting into the demos? How are the demos converting into the next contract? Let's say how many of those are getting converted into sign-offs?

Mm-hmm.

And now when you know the conversion factors on a team averages and then on a person averages, then you have data as to say, hey, there is high-performing sales rep is actually doing some X percentage of conversions, whereas others are not. If that is so, then how do we really look into, for example, if there are challenges going from Demo scheduled to the contracts, then there is something probably that the best of the sales reps are doing to follow up with value, to show value beforehand. There might be some things that we actually say, hey, you know what, replicate what the behavior from these rock stars that we are seeing and then apply that to other people.

Right.

Right. And that's exactly where we strongly believe in that whole aspect of measuring those conversion rates on the funnel because they're essentially your inputs at the end of the day, right?

Right.

And that's where, again, to your point, quarter to quarter, a lot of data might change because there is only some things that we can control that are internal. If there are external factors that we control, that anyway doesn't happen. That's really where I think to your point, the data-based decision makings and then having the right processes and tools on your side. Combine those things together is actually more power to sales managers.

And the beauty of those numbers and the data is it does tell a story and it's, it numbers, it's difficult for numbers to lie. If people are accurate in their input of the numbers, especially like in SalesTable, it's a tool that we use all the time is let's look at the output for the week and does that match how you felt like your inputs were for the week? So let's look at the data and just Are you satisfied with the result of what happened there? If no, great. How do we course correct and do something different next week? But otherwise, you just get to the end of the week and you're like, I felt like it was a great week. I worked really hard. Okay, great. What was the data to support that? A feeling is not helpful in this scenario. And then some of the decision-making that this can help, and this is the hard decision-making, is if somebody's not hitting quota, it becomes a formulaic answer. Are they paying for their, for themselves to be there? If no, how long are you willing to continue for them not to be pulling their weight? How much more are you willing to invest and what's your belief on their outcome if you do continue to do that? So the data is going to be the best supporter of that, not your feelings.

Completely with you. With that, Joe, I know we've come to the end of this episode, but thanks a lot for the time. Until next time we meet with another great topic. Thank you.

Thanks, Suresh.