Uncovering Hidden Gaps - The Recruitment and Training Pitfall

Okay, another great day. Welcome everyone. This is Suresh and we are here doing Coffee Time with Sales Table. By the way, this is another great episode that we are having with Robin Singh. And for those of you attending this week, Robin is a great mentor. He's a business owner as well as a Sandler trainer. And in the first episode, we really talked about blind spots for business owners in terms of running the business, running the sales. And there are a bunch of jumps that we took. If you haven't really watched that one, please do go rewatch that or watch that one. And today the focus really is 2 topics. One is really about What are the blind spots for CEOs, especially in the startups, SMBs, where the company is not really big, you may not really have a huge team, and it's really about what are those blind spots. That's really the one aspect of it. The second one is there is a lot of emphasis and criticality that is associated with hiring the right people, especially in sales. And that's what we are going to talk about. Without further ado, Robin, welcome.

Hey, Suresh, thanks again. Thanks for having me. And I look forward to this session today. As you mentioned, the last session we covered the 13 blind spots that we see within organizations, both from a selling perspective and then from an organizational perspective. And the last session, if you recall, we covered some of the blind spots for Sales leaders and sales leadership. I think what I'd like to suggest is we kind of look at the blind spots for CEOs and businesses. What are they seeing? And then, how do they fix those things, right? And then, we move to one of my favorite topics, right? Hiring and making sure we hire the right people and onboard them, etc. Why don't we kick that off? And if you, if you don't mind, we've got the first slide I have from last week. If you have those available.

Yeah, just let me do one thing.

Yeah. Right. And pretty much as you're doing that, there are, you know, when we, when we look at business owners, CEOs from, you know, small to midsize organizations, they kind of fall into 4 categories. You know, they're at risk. And I'll give you the details on what that— the definition of that. They're an average, you know, average-run company. They're a well-managed company. And then they're a company that runs on excellence. And we only— we see maybe about 5% of companies really at the excellence level. And once we I'll share the definitions with you so you'll understand what those look like. And the question is, as always, you know, how do I get from, how do I get from, you know, if I am, if I am at-risk company or I'm an average company, how do I go from at-risk to average? Or how do I go from average to well-managed? Or how do I get from well-managed to excellence? So we want to chat about it. I'll cover that today. And then the question is, how do I know where I am? Okay.

Right.

How do I know if I'm average or how do I know if I'm well managed?

Right?

And so, we, you know, I think I gave you this. We have a tool that people can use to say, you know, rank themselves, rank the organization. And we look at 6 Ps. Okay? And I'll cover those. And that's going to kind of tell you where you are. And then how do we get there? And from our perspective, it's, you know, we give you the what, but, but, but most— but we don't stop there at the what. This is what you have to do, right? And most, most companies say, here's what you have to do. From our perspective, we look at here's what you have to do. And here's the how. Right.

So I have the Let me share right now.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. Yes.

So, yeah. So if you go to at risk, which is the first slide, yeah. Right. And there you go, at risk. I'm not going to read all of it. But at risk, this is where the leaders, they most of the time, they make all the decisions. And they spend roughly 90% of the time in their business. And if they try to leave or take time off, they can't because they're so involved in it. They're actually working in the business as we say, right? And then, you look at the average. The next one is average.

Yeah.

So average, this business is run in a reactive manner.

Got it.

And the leader spends maybe 30% to 50% of the time in the business again. They're a doer, right? Cash flow is average, which is interesting. Okay? And then, you have the well-managed. Yeah, well-managed. Yeah, well-managed. And here, they're kind of respected in the industry. And likely, they're in the top 25 of businesses measured in terms of what we call professional leadership. Right? These are— but nevertheless, they're still vulnerable to change if they just probably sit back a little or their eyes are not on the ball.

Right.

They can fall back to average. Okay? And then excellence. And excellence, this is where professional leadership is really a reality, a daily reality. And these companies are improving on an ongoing basis. And they're always looking. They're always forward-thinking, forward-looking. Good leaders in this organization know when things are going to happen. And so, they're reactive. They're proactive versus reactive. And excellence is a way of life for business leaders. Okay? So, those are the 4 categories that we find business owners are in. And these are the blind spots that can cause these things. To get them from, you know, if they're at risk, these are because they've got probably 13 blind spots. Excellence, they may not have all 13 blind spots. They may have 1 or 2.

Right.

But they are proactive in it and they're constantly changing. The next slide is really how we get there. How do we make excellence a reality? And this is what we call the 6 Ps, right? We're planning. What does that look like? Position. So, as an example, from a planning perspective, what is our vision? What is our mission? What are our top priorities? What does the organization— what does the org chart look like a year from now, 2 years from now, 3 years from now?

Right.

And then we look at the positions. How do we get from average or well-managed to excellence? But what are the positions that's required for us to get there? If we're a growing organization, positions, there are new positions coming up. Do we wait for that to happen? Are we planning ahead? Good leadership plans ahead for these things.

Okay.

So now, we have a blank org chart of what we, where we are today. And what are the open positions that we could have based on growth? Okay. Once we understand the positions there, then we look at the people. Okay, what are the people required for these open positions? Do we have them internally, or do we have to bring them from an external position? Okay, so now we look at the positions to fill those. And then the next one, once we have all those, what are the processes that we have to put in place, right, for that? So if you can pull that up a little so people— so we could get a bit— so there's the processes. Okay. No, go back one more. Sorry, go back one more. Sorry.

This is the one. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, there's processes, which is the 4th one, right? What are the processes that I have to put in place, right, so that my organization is in this excellent state of running? Any, as you know, right, Suresh, if I don't have processes, right, what happens?

Right.

And then if I put processes in place, I've got, I've got to measure it. So what is the, what are those performance metrics that I'm using to measure the processes to make sure that they're KPIs as an example, right? That we're measuring these KPIs that we've put in place. And then, the last one is passion. And we say to leaders, if you're not passionate about your business, even if you're not passionate about where you're going, if you're not passionate about the industry, the marketplace, you know what? Your team is— how's your team going to be passionate?

Right.

Right? So those are the 6 Ps. And these are the— this is what we call the heart of the leadership model. And then this is the what. And then the how is really the next slide. And in the how, these are the 24 steps that you've got to take to get there. And as an example, in planning, there's 12 steps. Well, in the planning piece, right? I'm not gonna go into details on it. And then from a position perspective, there's 3, right? From a people perspective, there's 4, right? And then from a process perspective, there's 1, right? And these are all models, modules that we teach in this stuff. And then in the metrics, there's 5, right? And passion. Passion is just about you, right? It's a leader. Right? And we go from there. So I wanted to cover this off so that, you know, as from a CEO perspective, you know, he understands, you know, from his organization where the blind spots are and how using a model like this we can overcome the blind spots. Now what happens is, what we see is most companies come in and they will go through the 24 steps, but that doesn't mean that they fix it. Because they could move from— by implementing this, they could move from at risk to average. Okay? Or they can implement, and then from here, they might come back next year and say, well, you know, I've done all this, but I've got to implement 4 more, 5 more.

Right.

All right? And the cycle goes on. Okay? So by the time they get to excellence, right, they may have to start again. But it's only 1 or 2 things now they're working on. Not 24. Right. And that's the lifecycle of it. Right. So, and this is where we say, right, it's a daily reality. They're always improving their present situation.

It's a continuous process.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. So I wanted to kind of wrap that up. So we understand, you know, how it all entails now to the leadership side. CEO-level leadership side of the business, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I mean, uh, without any hesitation, I would say, um, I've run startups and, uh, previously, I think, you know, any startup that really goes from 0 to 1, I would say I've always started at risk.

Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

And sometimes I think the biggest challenge between at-risk and average is really, I would say, the biggest challenge that happens, Robin, because at the end of the day, at-risk time that we are, the phase that we are in, you know what you are doing. You know you are the seller, you are the founder-led sales and the growth machine that you built in.

Mm-hmm.

You are taking care of the product. you are taking care of everything. But the transformation as to say, how do I kind of take help from other leaders to delegate some of these critical tasks that I have on a daily basis? I think that's really where I think of it as crossing the chasm, right?

Yes.

Because if I don't do that, then I'm just constantly in that kind of cycle of just doing the same thing again and again. Yes, I think, you know, probably for some personalities of the people that might actually work really well, but it is just that they cannot grow the business after some point of time, right?

Yeah.

So Robin, I mean, this is actually a good segue for me because about 2 weeks back, I actually spoke with one of the, CEO, and they have this kind of not a unique problem, by the way, right? So he was describing the challenges as he was like, hey, Suresh, I have built this sales machine. And then I brought in 2 salespeople.

Mm-hmm.

And one of them are senior salesperson. And then the second one is Probably he's thinking of them more as the SDR kind of person. I'm like, hey, that's great. You were able to bring in additional help. How are the sales? How are you thinking through? Then he chuckled and he said, hey, you know what? I don't think it's really working out. Then I'm like, okay, tell me more. He's like, hey, it's been about a year that we brought them in and then I don't really see any growth or the revenue that we are expecting. There is no aggressive action in terms of what should be accomplished. Because I brought them in, I'm probably not in that seat of sales anymore.

Yeah.

I'm actually getting really nervous because my board is really asking me to take next steps. The reason why I'm sharing that is that situation is not unique. I'm sure a lot of leaders, especially in that stage, it is a very common thing. But when we really look into what he mentioned, that's really where I wanted to discuss with you today, which is he brought them in, he wasn't really sure if he was supposed to bring in a VP of Sales or a sales rep. Or even if you say a sales rep, what are those skill sets that I really need to look into this person to really help me? That's actually a very valid, genuine problem that a lot of CEOs have. As to say, yes, I've done this for so long, I brought in revenue for whatever time. And now when I'm looking for that help, what kind of help should I really need? I think is really the first question that everybody asks. And that's something that I would love to get your thoughts on. How should somebody really think about that problem? Yeah.

So, from my personal opinion, my personal experience, if you're going to— 2 things to think about. Are you going to transition the sales responsibility over? Or are you going to be managing the sales? So, let's assume that you are managing. You decide you want to manage the sales.

Okay.

Okay? So, if you're going to manage the sales, hopefully, you know how to coach. You know how to train. Okay? You got to run your business. Okay? And so, you've got all these hats that you're wearing. Okay? At the same time, you've got to motivate, manage your sales teams. You've probably got to go out on joint sales calls with them. You got to make sure that you define what the ideal client profile is for them. So, you can guide them. Okay? You've got to make sure that your sales system and your selling process is consistent. So, you've got a playbook that you can hand to them. Say, okay, here you go. Okay? That's your responsibility if you want to become that leader. Or you say, you know what? I don't want to do that. Right?

Right.

Let me bring somebody in, okay, that has got that experience. That's where I bring a VP of Sales in. And I make sure the VP of Sales has got all the skill sets and the requirements that I require to make sure I can hire properly. I know how to train, I know how to coach, I know how to mentor my teams, I know how to supervise them. Okay. That's the decision they make. If they make the, I want to manage the team, that's, that's okay. Hopefully, you can do all of this stuff. Most times, it probably don't work. Okay? Because they still got to run their business. They should be worrying about, hey, you know, let me work on the business versus trying to work in it. And then, it becomes cash flow also, right? And they look at it from a cash flow perspective. I got to pay a VP of Sales, what, $150,000 in the US average? I'm not sure what that is there. Right? Yeah. So, they may look at that number, right? And say, I don't sure I want to do that. But then look at the long term. Okay? Think about, think about the, you know, the person you were just referring to, right? One year later, what is that costing him on average, right? We see about 5x on a poor hire. Okay? So, 2 guys, let's say you buy them, you pay them You know, in the Bay Area, probably $80,000-$90,000, I think.

Right.

So, 12 months times $90,000. Okay, that's the hard dollars, plus the soft dollars. Okay. So again, right, depends on what you want to do. And look at it from that perspective. And if you ask me, I would say, you know what, that's not your job. Go find a good VP of Sales, And let him come in, let him do the right hires, and hold him accountable to hiring the right team and growing the revenues.

Right, right, right. So you said it right, which is for a lot of CEOs and the business owners, it's really the question of, hey, I've been doing all this outbounds or inbounds or outreaches, I've set up a little bit of motion in terms of the sales. And the one of the biggest challenges that I see, Robin, is they really think of the new leader who is coming in to exactly do what they are doing, right? Which is a completely wrong thing because for you as a founder-led sales or somebody who is probably not a sales leader, you don't have that craft. You don't have that vision into what that could look like. So that's one of the things that I will always hear from in the founder community and my kind of colleagues and friends where—

Right.

They kind of set them up for failure, unfortunately, right? Because at the end of the day, when you bring in a sales leader, you are bringing them up because they really know the craft. They have been there, done that, or even if not, they have the right attitude to actually take on this new goal and challenge that you have. So instead of doing that, they are so attached to the process that they are doing, they want the new leader to replicate the process. And that's not a great thing. And I would love to kind of, you know, get your thoughts on how that in your experience transpired.

So am I— so, so the question becomes, am I micromanaging my VP?

Right, right, right, right.

If I'm micromanaging my VP, it ain't gonna work, right? If you're gonna hire me to run your sales, right, then you got to trust me. And if you can't trust your VP of Sales, then you probably got the wrong person sitting on this. First off, you may probably made a— first off, it's a mindset. I think you got to change your mindset, right? The mindset as a CEO says, I'm going to hire VP of Sales, who knows the business, knows the selling business, knows how to hire, knows how to motivate a team, knows how to manage numbers. You know, and numbers, funnel management is a— it takes a lot from a VP perspective to understand funnel management, right? And how to manage your teams from that perspective. It takes a lot for a VP of Sales to understand how to coach his team, right? There are skill sets that's required there. Hiring. What's the right type? You know, some VPs of Sales, they've got a good team that they can bring with them that work with them. You know, those are things that you may want to look for, right? But yeah, if you're going to hire me to micromanage me and tell me how to run them, then it's not probably going to work.

Yeah.

You got to make sure you hire the right guy. You have trust in him, right? You know what you're looking for. You interview and make sure you've got the right skill sets and everything else that goes along with what's required. And just let him loose. Let him loose. Yeah, right. Now, you should have an onboarding process which says, what are we going to measure? What do you measure in 30 days? What do we measure in 60 days? What do you measure in 90 days? Even at the VP level, and that should be his job.

Right, right.

He gets onboarded properly. Now sitting with him and saying, okay, what are we measuring? Okay, what are we measuring? And let's define that. Because if you bring me on, I'm gonna say, okay, what do you want me to accomplish in the first 30 days? What do you want me to accomplish in the first 60 days? What do you want to accomplish in the first 90 days? Okay. And now I know, and now we're on the same page.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Robin, just to dig deeper over there, when we think about the KPI setting for the sales leaders who have come in. The one aspect of it is to say, yes, the 30, 60, 90-day goal-setting process. One of the, I would say, a bit of a controversial topic out there is, should you actually attach the quota within the first 30, 60, 90 days, or should it take longer time for that person to actually deliver? And what, what is your thought on that?

So I don't know how you can attach a quota in 30 days, right, or a revenue target in 30 days. Unless you're selling something that is really, really consumable related, right? Well, let's think about IT from a different perspective, right? If I've got to sell this you know, application that's X number of dollars. Okay. What's the cycle? What's the sales cycle for that? We need to understand what that is. Is it a 3-month sales cycle? Is it a 10-week sales cycle? So we understand the sales cycle, then we go, okay, what is the ramp-up? How well do I need to be trained to really understand the application? Are you bringing me in with experience?

Right.

Which says I know how to sell an ERP application, or I know how to sell a hosted application. I still need to understand what I'm selling unless it's competitive in nature. Then there's still going to be some differentiators. So depending on what it is that I'm selling, what's the sell cycle? What's the training involved to get me ramped up before I could say, here's quota? So every situation is different. Right. And we just got to figure out what is the situation and we apply that onboarding piece to it.

Right.

That makes sense, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the reason why I say that is, at the end of the day, a lot of CEOs and founders don't know how much time should you give to the VP of Sales or the sales team until you know that it's not working out? Because that's the biggest challenge. Is it going to be 1 quarter, 2 quarters, or is it 1 year? Because again, in the specific case that I mentioned about my friend, he's been through the 1 complete year but without any output on the revenue cycle. Now he is really thinking, What was that right time that I should have said, you know what, things are not working out?

Yeah. So, so let's use your— let's use your friend as an example. Right? Let's use— then we're not— we don't need names. But what do you think? What's the average? You know what the average price of his product is?

It's about $100,000 per year.

All right. So $100,000. Okay. And so if you think about $100,000, if we say, What's the average sales cycle on $100,000 in his world? 6 months?

So, yeah, probably.

Yeah. 6 months. Okay. So, now we go, okay, it's 6 months. Now, I'm managing. Let's say I'm managing the team, right? So, I go, okay, okay, Mr. CEO, you tell me it's 6 months. Okay. So now, in the first 6 months, right? Let's say it takes me 3 months to really understand what's going on. The next 3 months, I should have— I should be making some calls. I should have some meetings set up. I should have some conversations going on.

Okay.

And hopefully, I want to have at least one presentation going to proposal.

Okay.

Right. So, at least if I close one deal in 6 months, guess what? There we go.

Okay.

So, now I'm the CEO. I go, okay, let's assume we follow that. Okay. I go, okay. So, we had 3 months of ramp. Okay? Let's look at, we call them leading indicators. Okay? How many calls were made? How many conversations we had?

Right.

All right? And I measure, start measuring the leading indicators. Okay? And if the leading indicators aren't there, the lagging indicators ain't gonna happen, which is the results. Okay? So, that's whether you have that methodology thinking or not. I don't know. But I'm using that as a simple example to say, hey, if the sales cycle is 6 months, what is the leading indicators that leading up to that one sale in the first 6 months? What is the expectations? So, if I was a CEO, I would say, if I was the VP of sales or the sales guy, I would go, okay, what do you expect from me in the first 6 months?

Right.

One sale. All right, let me tell you what's gonna happen in one. Now I start managing him. Okay, here's what needs to happen to get the one sale. All right, 3 months of training, got you done. You got, you got 3 months now, you got 90 days to go knock on doors. Okay, cold calling, prospecting, emailing, whatever that is. And each of those should lead to something.

Right, right, right.

So now I'm managing my teams.

Okay.

But, you know, as a CEO, maybe, maybe I'm running, running, doing so many other things, right, that I'm not focused on this piece. And so the ball gets dropped. And then 12 months later, we go like, Jesus, okay. I don't know if that's the situation, but I'm saying—

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, completely. I mean, so the net-net—

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I think it's really a bit of a framework as to think about what's your sales cycle, what does it really mean for you, what's the ramp time that you have, and then factor the ramp time, factor the sales cycle, and then on the top of it, define really the activity that you expect them to do.

You got it.

And the outcomes, right? Yes, I mean, the outcome definitely is the revenue, that is clear. But to get to the revenue, what are those at least some indicators as to say, okay, what is the pipeline that we created at this point of time? How many demos did we do? I mean, who is showing the interest, right? If none of these leading indicators are there, it doesn't really matter if the target is $1 million or $500,000. we are still not going to achieve because there is nothing in the pipeline or the funnel as such.

Right, exactly. So as a good leader, right, I'm managing my team, and I'm looking at my leading indicators. I can't manage my numbers, I got to manage the leading indicators. By the time I manage the numbers, it's too late. Right? The results, it's too late, right? So good leaders will manage those leading indicators that that's required for different organizations.

Glad that you talked about the leading indicators and then not— we don't directly control the numbers per se. That's one point, especially with Sales Table, Robin. That's exactly our belief, which is, yes, the upskilling and training is very important, but at the same time, the inputs of what your salespeople are doing on a day-to-day basis are so important that those are the ones that you want to understand, that you want to be able to coach, and not really about the $1 million quota that you ask them to bring in.

Yeah, right. Yeah. And on top of that, Suresh, Sales Table, I think, will help, you know, even if it's young CEOs, that doesn't want to hire us yet. Use Sales Table to say, okay, I've got a team in here. Okay, are they attending training? Okay. And Sales Table will help me with that, right? Are they doing the leading indicators? Guess what are those leading indicators? Define what that could be, right? It could be prospecting, cold calling. It could be LinkedIn connections.

Oh, LinkedIn.

It could be email, whatever that is, right, in their world. Sales Table, plug it in there. Manage it. You meet with your team at the beginning, you know, every Friday or every Monday and says, okay, what do you, you know, what are your activities this week? At the end. So Friday, what are you doing? Monday, what are you doing this week? Friday, what'd you accomplish? Bring up sales table. Let's see what happened. Okay, boom. Okay.

Absolutely. I mean, the one thing, again, I know you hit on it, right, Robin, which is by the time you know that whether somebody hit the quota or not, it's too late. By the time all that we are doing is the rearview mirror to really look back and then say, oh, you know what, as a sales rep or as an inside salesperson or whatever, whoever that person is, you should have done more.

Yeah.

But unfortunately, that doesn't work that way. That's really when I think there is definitely a lot of industry leaders that are coming in support of saying, yes, I think the quotas are important, the numbers are important, but we also need to manage the inputs. And that is going to be very, very important, right? So, Robin, I know—

And one last piece, that's the difference between a good VP of Sales and a not so good VP of Sales, if I may say that. Okay.

Okay.

Well, and as a CEO, and as a CEO, if I could define and understand From a VP of sales, you know how you're measuring success, how are you measuring your team, right? Then that'll help me make a good, you know decision on, you know hiring a good VP. And we've got to we'll talk about that later on. How do we do that, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. So Robin, I mean just taking the same thought forward as to say let's say now I realize that. Probably the people that I have, I may need to redo, bring in new talent, and whether it is from the leadership point of view or the sales reps point of view. Let's say once I decide that hiring itself is a major challenge, not many CEOs or even great VP of Sales doesn't understand completely. From your standpoint of view, I know you worked with hundreds of leaders out there. How do you really think about the entire sales hiring process on its own? Because at the end of the day, it is one thing to say, oh, you know what, I'll just bring in the salespeople, hire and fire approach. But unfortunately, what many don't understand is, yes, you can absolutely do that as a leader. You might have that authority to do that. But once you fire somebody or once you let go of somebody, your morale is decreasing within the teams, number one. Number 2, you are spending incredible amount of time on recruiting time, ramp-up time once the new person comes in. During this, which is typically about almost 6 months or so, you are actually losing the revenue because there is nobody trying to bring in that revenue that this person would have brought in.

Right.

That's really the negative side of that thought process as to say, oh, you know what, I can just bring in people and then if they don't work out, I'll fire. Instead, I think you talked about the reactive hiring versus the proactive hiring. Let's say if I'm really cognizant of these negative effects of not hiring good people, how should I be really thinking about it? Are there any frameworks that can help me?

Yeah, no, great question. Great question. First off, let's remember, and from Sandler's research, it's 5 to 8 times Right? That's hard dollars, the cost of a mis-hire.

Oh, wow.

And that doesn't include soft dollars. So let's keep that frame. Let's keep that in mind as a start, starting framework right now. If you think about the typical hiring process that takes place, me and you chatted about this earlier, right? It's like, you know, you're interviewing me for a sales position, I come in, right? I do a really, really Good sell job on you. And you go, Robin, you know what? My gut says I like him. I like this guy. The next person that interviews me in your department does the same thing. Interview me, probably ask me a bunch of different questions, right? And comes back and says, yeah, I kind of like him. You know, gut feel says he's going to make it.

Right?

I did a great sell job on both members of your team. And then you hire me on. And you're expecting great things of me. And 3 months later, you go like, hang on a second. I hired Tom Cruise here and I got Mickey Mouse. Okay? Right? Where did we go wrong? Okay, where did we go wrong? Okay. Typically, we, right? I mean, we've seen some of this, right? So— So, You know, is there a framework for this? Yes, there is. And everybody's got to do it differently. Some companies depend on recruiting firms. In a past life, I depended on recruiting firms. And they brought me some pretty good people. And they brought me some lousy people.

Yeah.

So, that's one that's still around today. I still got clients. Some of my clients, they still depend on recruiters. to help them find people because they don't have the time to go out and post and search and all the good stuff, right? So, some people do recruiters. All right. So, now I get a recruiter and recruiter says, here is your guy. Okay. All right. So, what did you— how did you define the candidate profile? That's the first thing we got to look at. Okay. So, if you just say to a recruiter, go find this guy for me, Right. And I want 5 years of experience in sales, or in technology, and you should have this and this background, etc. You could probably go find the same thing. But there's 2 things that we look for that we recommend. One is, we call them a research model.

Gotcha.

And if you pull that up, then I can walk you through what that looks like from— yep, we recommend or use with our clients. Okay, now it's not going to work for everybody, but the next is page 6 on that one. There you go, there you go, right, there you go. So if you could bring that up a little, right, so we can— yeah, so I've got what, 20 minutes on this? Okay, so if you look at the research model, right, R, right, stands, right, and Suresh, I don't know if you can read that better than I can, right? But research says, right, what are the outcomes needed for the person and the role that we're going to hire?

Right.

The E stands for what are essential job functions, right? Functions that are one of his responsibilities. It could be territory management as an example, right? Results needed could be hitting quota 100%. Yeah.

Right?

In one year. Skills, right? What are some of the specific capabilities, right? And, and, you know, technical or not, and non-technical skills that's required for the position? What does that look like? Okay. What are, what are some of the experiences that's required? Attitude is a big one. Attitude. Results. What are the results needed? And I can't— right. So yeah, results. Competence and skills. What are competence and skills? The ability to kind of overcome any type of obstacles that he may be faced with in this role.

Right.

Through problem-solving and learning, right? And then, you know, the habits, those behaviors and tasks, right, that needs to be done on a regular basis that will kind of lead to results, right? So, we kind of recommend taking something like this, completing it out, and say, here's the guy. Here's somebody that I'm looking for. So now, when we interview collectively, as a team, we're all preaching from the same book. We're all looking for the same things, well-defined. And it's not gut feel. It's not gut feel.

Yeah.

Now, I can reinforce this now with assessments. I've got all this stuff now. And as a third optional, just reinforce my hiring thoughts. I can run assessments on the individual, on the behaviours and the competencies that's required for the position to reinforce this. Okay? And depending on the assessments you use, they've got some good interview questions in there. And they've got some good training techniques or training tips that they recommend when hiring because nobody's perfect, right?

Yeah, yeah.

If you're looking for that perfect person, you're gonna find them, right? I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong. But I'm not perfect. Okay. So, so let's assume that we've got somebody that's got 90% of what we're looking for, 80% of what we're looking for. So then, yeah, there's got to be some training required. And depending on the areas that comes out from a competency or assessment perspective, Right. And then we make that, we make that offer. But this, this to me is a lot better than saying, hey, you know what, that my gut feel says he's gonna cut it.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's one aspect of it. And the biggest thing that I'm thinking through is, As we hire other people, let's say, I mean, probably this month I hired one person, and then in the next 2 months, I'm hiring 2 more people. Let's say, if there is no standardized way to evaluate candidates that I am talking to, then I just can't compare my process.

Yeah.

Right. So today, yes, it is my gut feeling. Next month, it could be a couple of other colleagues' gut feeling. But there is nothing like I can compare in the past and say, hey, you know what, based on the framework that we have, here is where we brought in somebody, didn't work out. Looks like that is the same pattern happening.

Yeah, exactly. Right. And remember, remember the blind spot. that we spoke about not having a process for hiring. There's a blind spot. Right? So how do we solve that blind spot?

Boom.

Here's an example. I'm saying this is it. But I'm saying, you know, have something, have a model, whatever it is in your world to take care of that blind spot.

Completely. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, Robin, just to make sure that we do this well, I mean, where I'm really thinking through is, for example, example, a lot of it, it's easy to say we need somebody who's been there, done that. I mean, I think, you know, that's one thing a lot of leaders do. But it might be that, you know, maybe you are a startup, you are a small business, and you don't have— you are not able to attract the talent that you think that you want. Let's say if that is the case. But at the same time, with the right attitude and the cognitive skills that people have, I think there is something to be talked about where it could be young talent or somebody who hasn't really done that before. But if they have the right attitude, I've seen in cases where they would come in, they would kill the quota or whatever role that they are in, just because they are not really afraid of doing things. They own the stuff. And they are really looking towards saying, yes, you know, I don't know this, I will go figure it out.

Right, right, exactly. Right. And yeah, I mean, we've seen you talked about CEOs, you know, bringing people that's got the experience, And yeah, I've seen situations where you bring them in with great experience. But God, the attitude, right?

Yeah.

Attitude, it affects the entire organization, right? So, and I see this, believe it or not, I see this sometimes on a regular— too regularly, you know. But I can't get rid of him because he's driving numbers. But he's affecting the morale of the team.

Right, right, right, right, right.

I've seen that. In fact, I've seen that right now going on in one situation. But anyway, so yeah, so when— so if I only do— if I only bring in and they say, I just want experience, but I don't look at the other aspects of, you know, cognitive skills or habits or attitude or, you know, am I gonna miss it? You know, I'm gonna have the right person sitting on the right seat on the bus.

Right, right.

You know, so, you know, let's be, let's be wary that that's not just only experience. I think there's a whole bunch of other things that go along with it that we really need to do a deep dive on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, with all these things, one thing that I am really thinking through is the way this research model has very nicely laid out, I think, quantitative and qualitative metrics is what— how I'm thinking through, Robin, because the results needed and the experience probably is more of a quantitative angle as to say, for example, a candidate has 15 years of experience, 20 years of experience, and they brought in whatever, $10 million, $100 million worth of the quota. Then from the results needed, yes, when we talk to the candidate, it felt like they are the right people to get to these quota attainment and whatnot.

Yeah.

But the rest of the ones are so qualitative in nature. I think a lot of CEOs and founders actually miss out on these things because Yes, I think, you know, we really keep thinking about the attitude and the skills. But it's very difficult to kind of assess them during a half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hour interview process.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So, so, you know, you touched a good point on experience. And it's not just about the years. But also, you know, it's, you know, what is, what is the type of clients that they've called on? Right? What are, you know, how is it, how relevant it is to the role that I'm hiring for, right? So those are other things that we need to consider, right? So yeah, I just love that research model piece. I mean, I'm not saying it's the all end-all for, you know, it's the all end. But if you think about My hiring, the hiring mistakes that, you know, the right 5 to 10 times. And what happens if I can use a model that, that can lower, that can lower my hiring mistakes by whatever percentage?

Right, right, right.

And then the assessments to go with the assessments, we're gonna touch assessments. The assessments are another critical part of anything that we do that we recommend also, right? Because that really, that really is the MRI. And depending on the assessment you use, right, it really is the MRI.

Oh, so you talked about a nice thing, which is the assessments. Would you think of assessments during the hiring process? Or how do you think about that? Because the reason why I ask is, for example, I know I've been in the technology and the product for long enough, For example, when we're hiring engineers, there is a very standardized way to say, you know, think about the algorithms, write some coding, and you would typically understand how they are from the engineering point of view. And the same thing is with the product management. You give them a problem, they will solve it, or you ask them to design a feature, they design it, and you know exactly at least how they are thinking. But from the sales hire point of view, as you rightly said, a lot of whether it is SDRs or reps or sales leaders, they're very good at selling, which means they're also very good at selling that role to you, right? So if that is the case, how should we be thinking about understanding this nuanced approach of assessments, to really understand, are they the right people that they're talking about?

Yeah. So I mean, we— that's another conversation, by the way, another session. Okay. Because I'm looking at the clock, and I know we're out of time. But here's an example of— I'll give you one example. Okay. You— we— one of the things you look for in a salesperson is resiliency.

Okay.

How often he's got to make calls? And is he resilient enough to get rejected and rejected and rejected and still pick the phone up and go again? Okay, so we look for those things. We look for goals, goal setting. Is he goal-driven?

Right.

Because I want somebody, you know, we want somebody that is very goal-driven. They want to get from A to B, B to C in their life, in their career, in their personal life. They've got to be goal-driven from a personal perspective. Okay? So, those are, you know, examples of 2 things. I mean, there's about 15 or 16 things we look at from a competency behavior perspective. that we evaluate from a sales perspective, right? Are they process-oriented? In other words, can they follow a process in any type of selling system? Because remember the blind spot?

Yeah.

No sales system process. Well, if I'm going to put a system and process in place, I want to make sure that my guy that I'm hiring can follow a process.

Right?

And sometimes, you know, they're, they're not able to do that just because of their, you know, behavioral competency style, right? Right. So there's another example of things that we look for.

Right, right, right. I mean, that's a pretty insightful view for me. And I'm sure, you know, for the viewers as well. Robin, I know, For me, the net-net, I think today to sum it up everything, it's really about, I think from the business owner's point of view, really trying to understand how much of time that somebody is spending in the business. Then what are the ways that we can probably bring in help, delegate some of these strategic items so that you can really think about the scaling aspect of it, whether it is fundraise for you or product for you. Doesn't really matter. But what is that critical thing only you can do? And delegate the rest of important things to other leaders. I think that's really one theme that we talked about. And then from the hiring standpoint of view, it's really about the research model, which is basically to say, on a quantitative and qualitative basis, think about what kind of people that you want, and then Keep that as a scorecard for you as you go through your hiring process, just so you can compare, contrast the people that you have and really make those uniform decisions rather than— yes, gut feeling, definitely at the end of the day, yes, that is important. But you also have to have the gut-based decisions on data. That's what this model really provides, I guess. That's really where for me the takeaways are. Robin, I mean, yeah, any last thoughts, please?

And then we kind of reinforce that with our assessments and we take care of the blind spot of not having a process for hiring.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, Robin, I mean, this is wonderful insights and I'm really looking forward for the next 2, by the way. And we will again meet in next 2 weeks then. Robin, thanks a lot for your time.

Thanks, Suresh, and I appreciate it. Take care. Okay, bye-bye.