WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.800 when we're selecting for exceptional sales people. 2 00:00:02.800 --> 00:00:05.840 If you pay less, you have to talk to more people to find them, 3 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:07.680 and then you have to have low tolerance 4 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:09.840 in terms of how quickly they make a sale. 5 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.880 And I would say for us, if someone has done a full sales cycle 6 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:13.920 and they haven't closed the deal, 7 00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:15.120 I already know that they're not a killer. 8 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:20.240 Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff 9 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:23.200 to more people in more ways and build businesses worth owning. 10 00:00:23.200 --> 00:00:25.840 I'm trying to build a billion-dollar thing with acquisition.com. 11 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:28.800 I always wished pesos, musk and buffet had documented their journey, 12 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.000 so I'm doing it for the rest of us. 13 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:30.960 Please share and enjoy. 14 00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:38.560 I remember I was driving back home, and I got this text, 15 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:40.480 and it said, hey, we closed two sales today. 16 00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:44.480 And there had been four people who had walked into the business. 17 00:00:45.040 --> 00:00:47.120 And I had to pull over to the side of the road 18 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:49.520 because I got so emotional, I got teary, 19 00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:53.440 because it was the first time that someone else had ever sold something besides me. 20 00:00:53.440 --> 00:00:56.480 And so that was the first moment when I realized that, 21 00:00:56.480 --> 00:00:59.120 like, this could become a business that did not require me. 22 00:00:59.120 --> 00:01:02.320 I want to walk you through one of the most important steps, 23 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:05.520 which is how do you hire excellent salespeople? 24 00:01:05.520 --> 00:01:08.000 And how do you recognize great salespeople? 25 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.720 And so now I've built, I can't tell you the amount of teams, 26 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:12.800 like sales teams that we've now built up. 27 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:17.200 But I can tell you this is going to be specifically about recognizing talent. 28 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:20.240 And so a couple quick frameworks that I want to go through. 29 00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:22.960 Number one, when I started in this business, 30 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:24.560 I took every single sale, 31 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:26.800 and it was because I was so afraid that somebody would waste the opportunity. 32 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:29.360 So if you have that fear, I understand where you're coming from. 33 00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:33.840 Second, when I had my first sale that was not me, 34 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:35.840 I just had this emotional breakdown, 35 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:37.600 and I was like, oh my god, this could actually happen. 36 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:40.000 And I promise you, if you haven't had it happen yet, 37 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.720 you will when it does because you realize that this business can actually work 38 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:45.120 without you and other people can make it rain too. 39 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:47.600 Right? And then I'll tell you a quick story 40 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:49.280 that illustrated the next one that would make. 41 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.520 So as I hired some salespeople, 42 00:01:51.520 --> 00:01:52.800 now that that first salesperson, 43 00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:54.000 were they exceptional? No. 44 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.280 But they were able to get the job done. 45 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:59.520 Later on, I had my first kind of like killer. 46 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:01.120 And his name was Maura Negretti. 47 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:04.640 And he came in, I don't know, a year or two into the business, 48 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:05.440 a year into the business, 49 00:02:06.240 --> 00:02:07.760 I guess maybe less than that. 50 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:11.520 He so quickly was able to assume the sales role. 51 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:13.360 And to show you how laughable this is, 52 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:18.080 he started and I was about to start training him. 53 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.440 And some lady walked in the door and I was like, 54 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:23.280 hey man, like I can take you. He's like, no, I'm good. 55 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:24.080 He's like, go to your thing. 56 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.520 He's like, finish your tuition account about it. 57 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:26.480 I'll figure it out. 58 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:31.120 And he ended up closing this first lady who walks in the door for a paid and full. 59 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:34.320 And I remember walking in like completely dumpster. 60 00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:36.400 I was like, he didn't even know what the pitch was. 61 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:40.000 But she walked out giggling, happy, so excited to start. 62 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:46.320 And would that moment taught me was that it is good to train salespeople, 63 00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:51.040 but it's better to take great salespeople and then just point them in a direction. 64 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:56.080 And so this has informed a lot of the thinking that I have around talent in general. 65 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:58.640 And I'll tell you a couple frameworks that have informed this. 66 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:00.560 But like if you look at Harvard, 67 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:04.240 Harvard doesn't produce the smartest people. 68 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:06.960 They select the smartest people. 69 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:10.480 And then they put smart professors in front of them. 70 00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:15.360 But like the base level of intelligence of everyone who's at Harvard is already exceptionally high. 71 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:18.240 And so like even if the teachers at Harvard were not exceptional, 72 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:21.600 the students are and they would be successful independent of that 73 00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:23.680 because their selection is so ridiculous, right? 74 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.280 And so if we can think about our own companies that way, 75 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:28.880 especially if you're in the service business, 76 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:31.280 like look at the biggest service companies out there. 77 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.000 Like look at McKinsey, look at Bane, look at BCG, 78 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.960 look at basically a lot of the finance world or service-based businesses a lot of times, right? 79 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:44.720 And they're able to do that because they create such a pool to select from 80 00:03:44.720 --> 00:03:47.600 that they are able to skim for the best talent, right? 81 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:51.680 I heard this quote from Estria Kathy, who's the founder of Chick-fil-I, 82 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:52.960 is HR head said, 83 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:55.120 you win the championship in the draft. 84 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.840 And so it was such a belief that they had about picking the right people, 85 00:03:57.840 --> 00:03:59.200 even more so than training. 86 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:02.320 And I would say that I have moved in that direction 87 00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:07.040 of a little bit more nature than nurture when it comes to roles, 88 00:04:07.040 --> 00:04:09.760 specifically sales especially. 89 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:12.800 There are certain characteristics about building rapport, 90 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.600 about having certain dynamics or energy. 91 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:17.840 Whatever you want to say, that like Marna Grady, 92 00:04:17.840 --> 00:04:20.960 when he walked in, he had all of these things. 93 00:04:20.960 --> 00:04:22.560 And he didn't even know the pitch, 94 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:25.600 but he won that sale off of just pure rapport. 95 00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:31.280 And so if I'm going to allocate the same level of time to training somebody, 96 00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:34.640 I might as well start with somebody who has a much higher base, 97 00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:40.080 because I could spend 10 hours to take someone from a two to a four and a half, 98 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.000 or I could spend the same 10 hours taking someone from a six to a nine, 99 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:45.120 right? 100 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:49.200 And the thing is also going to get more bang for my buck in terms of my hours of training 101 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:53.840 with somebody who has matched a natural probability for selling compared to somebody who does not. 102 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:59.280 Real quick guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, 103 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:01.680 somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, 104 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:03.920 shared it on Instagram, or something like that. 105 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.400 The only way this grows is through word of mouth. 106 00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:09.680 And so I don't run ads, I don't do sponsorships, I don't sell anything. 107 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:12.000 My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward, 108 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.000 do whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the exact same thing. 109 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:19.120 So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, 110 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:21.760 it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good comment out there for another entrepreneur. 111 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:26.320 What's interesting about this, and this is just like my observation is that 112 00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:30.720 you just have to be willing to talk to more people in the recruiting process. 113 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:36.000 And I will say like from a recruiting standpoint, there's two kind of things to look out for. 114 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.600 If you cannot pay superhand suddenly based on your price points, 115 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:43.760 which you need to maybe fix later, but like if you can't pay super well for the sales person, 116 00:05:44.320 --> 00:05:47.600 then you need to look harder, and you'll need to interview more people, 117 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:50.160 and you'll need to probably run ads and use your network. 118 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:55.200 If you can pay well, the best salespeople are already employed. 119 00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:58.640 And so it comes down to recruiting those salespeople from other sales jobs, 120 00:05:58.640 --> 00:06:03.840 ideally, from companies just like yours, so that they already know a lot of the things coming 121 00:06:03.840 --> 00:06:05.920 into it. So it decreases the ramp up time for them, 122 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:10.320 because all we were really doing is swapping products, and the actual sales cycle, 123 00:06:10.320 --> 00:06:13.920 the type of sales that it transactional sales, and the long sales, and the software sales, 124 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.240 and a coaching program sell, whatever it is, right? 125 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:20.080 There's so few variables that we're changing that they can immediately jump and go, 126 00:06:20.080 --> 00:06:23.440 which also allows you to make a judgment on their proficiency faster. 127 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.760 And so as a quick side note to this, because this is something that I've given a lot of thought, 128 00:06:27.760 --> 00:06:32.000 if you look at the top salespeople and sales trainers, and this is going to drive home the point 129 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:37.280 that I was making earlier about it being much of it being born, all right? 130 00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:42.160 Is that if you look at the top people who are in the space, you look at Jordan Belford, 131 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:47.440 right? You look at Bradley, and some people would say me in term from a selling perspective. 132 00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:54.320 All the guys that I know who have taught sales were exceptional salespeople day one. 133 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:58.880 Bradley started selling cars when he was 18 years old and was the top salesman at 18 years old. 134 00:06:58.960 --> 00:07:02.240 When he started, and he was like, I just found something I was really good at. 135 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:05.200 Jordan Belford talks about how he didn't know how to train anybody in his book, 136 00:07:05.200 --> 00:07:07.200 and then all of a sudden, he, for the first time ever, 137 00:07:07.200 --> 00:07:10.240 wrote out a framework to explain the straight line sales system, 138 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:11.840 which became his book and all that kind of stuff. 139 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:15.760 But he up to that point, it was just what he naturally did, right? 140 00:07:15.760 --> 00:07:20.080 And I can tell you in my instance, as well, I already closed thousands of deals before I even 141 00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:26.880 consumed my first sales training. And so like, I do think that if we are selecting salespeople, 142 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:29.920 I think it's much more about selection than it is about training. 143 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:33.840 The training is to remind them how good they are, not necessarily to make them good. 144 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:36.400 All right, and this is something that has shifted over time for me specifically. 145 00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:41.120 Now, if you're like, well, I suck at sales, you can absolutely put way more time into yourself 146 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.840 than a business would recently put into an employee. 147 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:47.440 All right, like you have you all the time, so you can train you in all your off hours, 148 00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:49.600 and you're spending your own time to invest in yourself. 149 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:54.800 But from a return on investment perspective, the cost of finding a good salesperson, 150 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:59.840 compared to the cost of training a bad or mediocre salesperson, is significantly lower. 151 00:07:59.840 --> 00:08:04.000 It's much easier to find the right people than it is to take somebody and then make such a crazy 152 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:09.040 extensive training. Unless your entire model is, we just take on every single person who walks 153 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:13.040 in the door, like 24 hour fitness has this model, they take on anybody who has a pulse, 154 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:18.080 and then they put them through a ridiculous calling process, and then 10% of people make it in 155 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.640 the first 90 days, right? That's their process. And then those people know how to sell, right? 156 00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:26.160 And so they just make ridiculous requirements that almost no one can meet, except for exceptional 157 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:30.240 salespeople. And they let that, they have obviously training systems or whatnot. But for the most 158 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:35.120 part, it's teaching them about their process, and just having old salespeople explain a new sales 159 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:38.960 people, some of the tips and tricks that have just like made them better, rather than teaching 160 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:43.760 the fundamentals of selling. And so back to you, if you're somebody who's not good at sales, 161 00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:49.520 that's okay, you get there through practice and repetition. But in terms of like you have to get 162 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:54.560 good at it, because it is, it is core to running a business, especially a small business is learning 163 00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:59.280 how to close, right? And so if you take time to learn it, it's okay. It's a skill that you're 164 00:08:59.280 --> 00:09:02.960 going to add in your arsenal, and then it'll allow you to recognize good salespeople in the future. 165 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:08.560 But you can't spend a year trying to train somebody who's not good. You can spend a year trying 166 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:14.720 to train you, right? And that's the difference. And so when we're selecting for exceptional salespeople, 167 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:19.360 which is what I'm saying, selecting for exceptional salespeople, if you pay less, you have to talk 168 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:24.560 to more people to find them. And then you have to have low tolerance in terms of how quickly they 169 00:09:24.560 --> 00:09:29.120 make a sale. And I would say for us, if somebody doesn't close a deal in the first sales cycle, 170 00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:33.040 meaning like depending on the length of the transaction, like some people, you know, 171 00:09:33.040 --> 00:09:36.880 they're all transactional sales, some people might be a two week sales cycle or a one month sales 172 00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:40.800 cycle, depending what you're selling. If someone has done a full sales cycle and they haven't closed 173 00:09:40.800 --> 00:09:45.200 the deal, I already know that they're not a killer. Because every single killer I've ever had 174 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:50.720 closes deals in the first cycle, just like Martin, like I said earlier, like the killers come in 175 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:54.000 and start killing. And then they just get better at killing with the tweaks and the trainings 176 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.320 that we have, right? The guys who don't do that are the ones that are like, no, give me another shot. 177 00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:01.920 I like, I just got to learn like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And the thing is it's like, 178 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:06.960 it just drags on an inevitable consequence. And so right now if you have somebody in your team 179 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:11.520 and you've been in that, dragging it on and they're like just barely good enough to stay on the 180 00:10:11.520 --> 00:10:15.040 team in every single quarter, you're like, are we going to like go with this guy? I don't know. 181 00:10:15.040 --> 00:10:18.960 He's not like a winner, but like, I guess we kind of need him to keep putting some numbers up. 182 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:23.120 If you get rid of the people who are dragging the team down, the culture of the team will improve. 183 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:28.800 And I promise you, whenever you cut the bottom, the top moves up, right? And then it also will set 184 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:34.400 the new bar for the person who comes in. It's like, this is how a world class team operates. Are 185 00:10:34.400 --> 00:10:39.840 you up for this? And the thing is is the tighter and the higher that team is, the faster they'll point 186 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:44.960 the person out if they don't fit, or they'll immediately accept and glob in the person they'll 187 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:49.360 become part of the unit. So if you're looking for sales people and you're looking to scale the sales 188 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:54.800 team, the best sales people are born in my opinion, not made. We can select for those people, 189 00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:59.120 either through recruiting them directly from people who have very similar businesses to us, 190 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:04.000 or we have to interview many more people and the feeling you get in that tingle when you're like, 191 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.240 oh, God, I really have to have this guy. That's when you hire. Not when you're like, I mean, I guess 192 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:12.640 this guy could do the job. Can't do that. It's not going to work, right? And then on the flip side, 193 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:18.160 once that person is in, if they haven't closed the deal on that first cycle, like the longer I've 194 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:23.120 been doing business, the shorter my tolerance for somebody not being exceptional is because every 195 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:27.920 person that has been exceptional, I know immediately. And so I just have less and less time where I think 196 00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:32.000 maybe they'll turn it around, maybe some more training. We'll get them there when it's when a lot of 197 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:33.520 times you win the draft on the pick.