Latest / Profit With A Plan / EP311 Building a Sales Team That Sells: Hiring Right and Messaging Smart with Walter Crosby

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EP311 Building a Sales Team That Sells: Hiring Right and Messaging Smart with Walter Crosby · Profit With A Plan

• 0:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hey? Are you thinking? Let's try that again.
• 0:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Think your next hire needs to be. Have a great sales resume. Well, think again on this episode of profit with a plan. My guest, Walter Crosby, of Helix Sales development shares. Why most companies hire salespeople exactly wrong.
• 0:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: and what to do instead, so discover why industry experience can actually backfire, and how to craft sales messages that win that win. Trust. Fast. My goodness, let me get my mouth to start again. This is terrible.
• 0:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I should do mouth exercises right?
• 0:48
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: All right. Here we go.
• 0:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Think your next hire needs a great sales resume. Well, think again in this episode of profit with a plan Walter Crosby of Helix sales development shares. Why most companies hire salespeople exactly wrong, and what to do instead
• 1:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: discover why industry, experience can actually backfire, and how to craft sales, messages that win trust fast, and why aligning your sales and marketing story is a mission critical for scaling 2 to 3 times. So if you're ready to stop wasting payroll on the wrong reps and start building a sales machine that performs this one's for you.
• 1:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: hey? Entrepreneurs? Are you working too hard for too little profit? Well, welcome to profit, with a plan podcast where we help you scale smarter increase profitability and build a business worth more whether you keep it or sell it.
• 1:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm Marcia Reiner, business growth strategist and profit booster behind infinite profit. I've helped countless entrepreneurs to turn their businesses into highly profitable and sale ready assets.
• 1:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So they enjoy more income now, and a bigger payday later on.
• 2:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So join me for practical strategies, expert insights and proven steps to make your business more profitable, more valuable, and built to last.
• 2:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Today's episode is sponsored by infinite profit where we don't just talk profit, we deliver it.
• 2:18
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• 3:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: All right, let's jump into today's episode. Our guest today is Walter Crosby, CEO of Helix sales development and the host of sales and cigars. Podcast Walter helps growth-minded Ceos build high performance sales teams with repeatable processes and reliable revenue forecasting
• 3:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: with decades of b 2 b sales experience and his no fluff approach. Walter has created helix sales hiring process where 91% of his recommended hires land in the top half of their teams within just one year.
• 3:58
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: He's here to challenge you on how you think about hiring your messages, messaging, and what it really takes to scale a sales organization that performs well. Welcome, Walter, to profit with a plan. My mouth just doesn't want to work today. It's 1 of those days that I'm all tongue tied so hopefully. You're going to carry the show.
• 4:19
  Walter Crosby: Happens to be a Monday. That's a normal thing.
• 4:22
  Walter Crosby: I appreciate you having me on.
• 4:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Absolutely. I love it as a fellow, Podcaster. I know we both value each other, and the insights that you can bring to our joint audiences. But let me ask you a question. You know some people grew up with like sales in their blood. Was that you, or did you have any other aspirations before you got in the sales side.
• 4:43
  Walter Crosby: You know, to be honest with you
• 4:46
  Walter Crosby: the the bulk of salespeople fall backwards into sales wasn't really wasn't their intent. I graduated from college, and
• 4:55
  Walter Crosby: I remember I was sitting at the the Vanderbilt Club in New York, and an older gentleman was like, What are you gonna do?
• 5:03
  Walter Crosby: And I'm like, I have no idea, like I really don't know.
• 5:07
  Walter Crosby: And he's like, Well, have you thought about sales? And I'm like, no.
• 5:12
  Walter Crosby: So we we talked a little bit about what you needed to do. He gave me a high, high, level sort of approach. What was attractive was
• 5:22
  Walter Crosby: that you?
• 5:24
  Walter Crosby: You? You get to perform. You get to eat what you kill, so to speak. It was the way it was explained to me, so there's no cap right? You could be super successful based on your desire and commitment to do what was necessary, and I was a dumb 24 year old at the time. So
• 5:45
  Walter Crosby: I signed up for sales.
• 5:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You got it hooked with the money?
• 5:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow! And and so was that older gentleman at the club. Was that really the the foundation of your sales? Methodology?
• 6:02
  Walter Crosby: You know it was the foundation of like, Go that direction. Because I really had no direction. I graduated from school. Nobody in my family had done that before, so I really didn't have any any guidance. And it it was it just it. I'd always been successful in the sales roles that I had talking like paper routes and retail sales, and and that kind of thing. So I could talk to people. I I understood that
• 6:31
  Walter Crosby: it was about a big part of sales is is
• 6:34
  Walter Crosby: doing what you say you're gonna do in the timeframe that you said you're gonna do it.
• 6:39
  Walter Crosby: So it just the idea intrigued me. Something just clicked. And it there's no great plan. I mean my 1st job
• 6:48
  Walter Crosby: the 1st the 1st job I got in New York.
• 6:52
  Walter Crosby: I walked out of the interview
• 6:54
  Walter Crosby: or started to walk out of the interview. So there! I had no plan. It was just. It was just things that were that were happening, that
• 7:04
  Walter Crosby: We're fortunate. I just worked hard, but it was. It was.
• 7:09
  Walter Crosby: There wasn't a great plan to go. Be a great sales, Guy. It was just something that's developed over time.
• 7:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it, and I love the idea that you know most people fall into the sales role because either it was a backdoor or something, or they dangled that money carrot, and said, You know the world's your oyster. Go grab it right? You know those are. Those are always the sales people talking to you about getting a sales job.
• 7:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But I think there's like this like crazy skill you have to have. And this, like, you know, alligator thick skin that says that you can go conquer the world, but it's not necessarily like that, is it?
• 7:48
  Walter Crosby: You know. There, there's a couple of things I think you have to have. People talk about a thick skin. I kind of position that as our need to be liked.
• 8:00
  Walter Crosby: so all of us are human, and we all need to be be part of some group, right? It's how we survived hundreds of thousands of years ago. We have family, we have friends, right? So we want to be part of a group and be liked and and not be ostracized from the group.
• 8:18
  Walter Crosby: but in sales.
• 8:21
  Walter Crosby: Our need to be liked by our buyers, by our customers, by our prospects.
• 8:27
  Walter Crosby: gets in our way of being successful. So if we need them to like us.
• 8:32
  Walter Crosby: if we need them to love us.
• 8:35
  Walter Crosby: we're going to have trouble asking
• 8:37
  Walter Crosby: the tough questions, and we're gonna have trouble asking some of the basic questions that you need to do as a salesperson. So I'm not saying we we need to be likable.
• 8:48
  Walter Crosby: We need to be able to build rapport and eventually build trust. But if if I'm talking to you and I like, I need you to like me, otherwise I'm gonna fall apart as a person. Then I'm gonna have a hard time saying, Do you have a budget that you've thought about to solve this big, huge problem that you're telling me about right? And because we got to go do the stuff that we're told not to do as a kid
• 9:12
  Walter Crosby: right? Go talk to strangers.
• 9:14
  Walter Crosby: talk about money, ask tough questions, ask a lot of questions, I mean, as a kid.
• 9:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That was what we were told not to do, and then up and sit down.
• 9:24
  Walter Crosby: Yeah. And if we don't ask those kinds of questions as a salesperson, we're gonna fail.
• 9:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Nice.
• 9:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So I love it so your process sounds like it's it's. It is very simple, right, and very natural, that if we just are curious, and we want to solve a problem. And we're comfortable
• 9:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: kind of making the other person uncomfortable a little bit at times. Then you're going to succeed with that right, and not that weird uncomfortableness like you've got them back in the corner of the wall, and they're, you know, they're burying their teeth. But it's like that
• 9:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that you've made them think about something. And and you've touched a couple of points that really trigger the emotions that are involved with making making decisions.
• 10:09
  Walter Crosby: Absolutely we. We want to be comfortable with them, being uncomfortable, them being the prospect and the buyer.
• 10:19
  Walter Crosby: We want to be able to take them there. We want them to think differently about their problem.
• 10:27
  Walter Crosby: And sometimes they don't even realize what their problem is. They think the symptom is the problem
• 10:35
  Walter Crosby: when the problem is really over here that they've they've messed up this very beginning part.
• 10:42
  Walter Crosby: So it's a.
• 10:44
  Walter Crosby: it's more of a methodology. And it's kind of simple. I mean, we have a sales process that we follow. But if if we think about a methodology that salesperson really needs to be curious.
• 10:55
  Walter Crosby: They need to be curious about why somebody's doing something, why they continue to do it. What? What's important? What do they tried to fix this? You know that curiosity is going to be a really effective tool, then we should be a little skeptical
• 11:12
  Walter Crosby: of of the silly answers we get from a buyer. We should be able to push back a little bit when they say something that doesn't jive with something else that they've said.
• 11:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So that's.
• 11:23
  Walter Crosby: Skepticism right? You can't be a jerk about it, but we.
• 11:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: No.
• 11:27
  Walter Crosby: We should be able to be skeptical.
• 11:30
  Walter Crosby: And I and I think the the other 2 things are really actively listening to what somebody is saying
• 11:37
  Walter Crosby: and and addressing the question that they're asking
• 11:42
  Walter Crosby: listening to the answer that you get and making sure that they that there's a connection between what what we think we heard and what they actually said. Right, that's a there's a big gap there usually.
• 11:57
  Walter Crosby: And then when you get really good at sales.
• 12:00
  Walter Crosby: Whatever the system is that you follow.
• 12:03
  Walter Crosby: you can't use it as a weapon. You really have to be empathetic
• 12:08
  Walter Crosby: to that buyer. If you don't care that they got a problem. If you don't care that it's costing them a lot of money. And you don't demonstrate that desire to.
• 12:19
  Walter Crosby: you know, just
• 12:20
  Walter Crosby: really understand? Right? It's like, yeah, we can solve your problem. That's a different issue. But really understanding and being empathetic of somebody's situation, you're going to bring them in, and that's where you start to build the trust. And if you just if you just roll over it and and try to close for the sake of closing.
• 12:39
  Walter Crosby: You're gonna sound like that old style salesperson that everybody hates.
• 12:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, you mean, what can I do to get you into this green card today? Mr. Smith?
• 12:48
  Walter Crosby: Yeah, those those are the. So when you think of salespeople, that's what people think of the plaid coat, the the clip on. Tie, the short sleeve shirt right? And and you know, if pressed really hard, because the 3rd copy is yours like that that's gone.
• 13:02
  Walter Crosby: We don't.
• 13:03
  Walter Crosby: Salespeople are.
• 13:05
  Walter Crosby: The buyers are coming into the sales cycle much later than they were even 10 years ago.
• 13:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And there's more or much more aware and knowledgeable of what they want.
• 13:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And and I'm thinking to myself, you know, when buyers today they've trolled you. They've gone through. They've done all their research, most people right, and they're coming in to make their final buying decision between you and somebody else, or or a 3rd person. And so now they're just looking at. Okay, what are the minor nuances that they want? Right? I mean, because if you're talking to someone that hasn't done the research. It's going to be a longer sales cycle, a lot longer.
• 13:45
  Walter Crosby: Well. But even when they think they know what they want.
• 13:49
  Walter Crosby: right? They might have it they might have it wrong, they might be off
• 13:54
  Walter Crosby: and we gotta make sure that what they think is the problem
• 13:59
  Walter Crosby: is really the problem. And that's where that skepticism comes into play. I had somebody call me
• 14:06
  Walter Crosby: It's a few months ago, and he wanted, okay, can you help me with closing teaching my salespeople how to close?
• 14:13
  Walter Crosby: Yeah, sure. Why do you think they have a close problem? Well, we were closing at 43%. Now, we're closing at at 30%. Okay. But but why do you think it's them not knowing how to close same people? Right? Same product? Nothing changed.
• 14:27
  Walter Crosby: Well, no. Okay. Something changed. What changed? So 20 min later we figured out
• 14:33
  Walter Crosby: that they changed their formula for what went into their pipeline.
• 14:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Walter Crosby: So it was inevitable that the closing would go down because of all the crap that they were putting in their pipeline.
• 14:44
  Walter Crosby: So the the easy thing would have been to sell them closing training
• 14:49
  Walter Crosby: right? Because he would have got what he wanted.
• 14:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 14:51
  Walter Crosby: Right.
• 14:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wouldn't have solved the problem, though.
• 14:54
  Walter Crosby: And he would ultimately been upset.
• 14:56
  Walter Crosby: So instead of instead of wasting the time and resources.
• 15:01
  Walter Crosby: it's really about fixing the underlying problem usually. So it it, you know. That's not always the case. Sometimes they have it figured out, and then we have to, you know, work through about why? Why would they work with us opposed to somebody else? But
• 15:16
  Walter Crosby: often you have to really look at what they're what they're asking for is that alignment with with what their real issues are.
• 15:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Nice.
• 15:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So do you think that? Do you think the problem with hiring your your sales team and the people that you bring on is more in what they were trained previously, or they don't have the mindset to be curious and skeptical with the conversation that they're having.
• 15:43
  Walter Crosby: I think it's
• 15:45
  Walter Crosby: it's a little even a little bit more simple than that. They're hiring salespeople the same way they hire all of their other employees.
• 15:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Good.
• 15:53
  Walter Crosby: Right. And and anybody that stops and thinks about salespeople.
• 15:57
  Walter Crosby: we're different. We're weird. We're an aberrant bunch.
• 16:03
  Walter Crosby: And often the salesperson is better at interviewing.
• 16:09
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Than the hiring manager.
• 16:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hmm! Isn't that funny?
• 16:13
  Walter Crosby: And you know but it we should be able to sell something that we're familiar with right ourselves.
• 16:19
  Walter Crosby: So they can take that that interview in a different direction.
• 16:24
  Walter Crosby: So I think, fundamentally, you have to switch
• 16:29
  Walter Crosby: your your approach to hiring salespeople, and it's not a hundred 80 degrees.
• 16:36
  Walter Crosby: but it is different, and I can give you an example.
• 16:40
  Walter Crosby: Stop selling your company and the job
• 16:44
  Walter Crosby: to the salesperson before you decided that this is the right salesperson.
• 16:49
  Walter Crosby: Everybody's excited about our culture, and everybody's excited about how much money you can make in the job.
• 16:55
  Walter Crosby: Let's let's figure out if we have a candidate that's qualified to do the job.
• 17:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 17:01
  Walter Crosby: So fundamentally, that's a big shift for people.
• 17:05
  Walter Crosby: How do we? How do we do that? Well, we take a couple of steps back
• 17:10
  Walter Crosby: and think about, not what the accountabilities and responsibilities are of the role.
• 17:16
  Walter Crosby: But what do we need them to be good at.
• 17:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Skill sets.
• 17:20
  Walter Crosby: Skill sets and mindsets. And and to what end? Right? Because
• 17:25
  Walter Crosby: sometimes we have a sales job, which is a a combination of business development account management.
• 17:32
  Walter Crosby: Sometimes we have a pure business development job where you just go out and try to find new Logos and new business
• 17:39
  Walter Crosby: and and account management is a different role.
• 17:42
  Walter Crosby: Like we're gonna have.
• 17:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Service.
• 17:44
  Walter Crosby: Customer service. But we're gonna have to sell within the one organization or 10 organizations depending upon how big the accounts are. So we want to grab share of wallet
• 17:54
  Walter Crosby: as opposed to new P. New business. So it's a slightly different approach, and it's a slightly different skill set than going out prospecting for new stuff, doing cold work, so.
• 18:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's great!
• 18:08
  Walter Crosby: Getting that straight first, st what is it we're looking for?
• 18:11
  Walter Crosby: And then, if we know what we're what we're looking for, then we can dial in the skill sets and the mindset that we need to to be successful. So it's really, really going back
• 18:23
  Walter Crosby: and think about this person needs to be great at selling value. This person needs to be great at asking questions. This person needs to be great at going and and opening up new accounts.
• 18:33
  Walter Crosby: And it's a it's a different skill set. So.
• 18:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it, and I didn't think about I didn't think about going back to the interview process and really asking those kind of questions or looking at those kind of skill sets. Because, you know, you're right. When you look at a resume they've built themselves up to be. You know, all this great stuff right? And oh, I've done this, and I've done that, and I look really great right. But in reality do they have the ability to do the tasks that you need them to do, because I think that that's you know
• 19:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: again, in that liking story that we we talked about earlier, you know. Oh, I may like you, Walter, and I want to have you on my team because I'm really excited about it. But
• 19:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: you know you may not have that skill set I'm looking for, or you may not be able to handle the emotional rejection of going out cold, calling all the time and getting brand new accounts rather than where I would feel more comfortable in my safety. Spot would be working, existing counts, and deepening that relationship. So we have 2 different skill sets that we would thrive better in.
• 19:38
  Walter Crosby: So you're you're setting that person up for failure is is a way to look at it. You're and you're gonna waste a ton of your time and resources as a as an entrepreneur, hiring people that aren't a good fit. So.
• 19:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Makes total.
• 19:50
  Walter Crosby: If we, if we flip that and really think about what needs to be good, what what they need to be good at, it will, it will change that perspective. And the other thing that you mentioned earlier that's really important
• 20:03
  Walter Crosby: is.
• 20:05
  Walter Crosby: you know, you gotta have experience. Our business is unique. We do this something that nobody else does. They have to have to have worked in our industry before. And it's just like a resume
• 20:16
  Walter Crosby: that's
• 20:17
  Walter Crosby: crap we. It's not true. You you need somebody that is really good at sales. You need somebody that's really good at talking to the buyer.
• 20:27
  Walter Crosby: So what it what I. What I mean by that is, if you're selling a a product that a
• 20:35
  Walter Crosby: safety manager in a manufacturing facility would buy. Right? So you you know who your buyer is, and you know you can dial that in very specific. Who else calls on them?
• 20:48
  Walter Crosby: And they might be selling something completely different. But if they're calling on that buyer, they know what that buyer cares about. They know what that buyer, the language that they use. They understand how to navigate that organization and get to that particular buyer. So it's less about your product. It's more about, can this new salesperson? Can this candidate talk to
• 21:12
  Walter Crosby: our buyer? Can they relate to them? And maybe they have. I'll date myself here. Maybe they have a rolodex
• 21:20
  Walter Crosby: of people that are already in that space. So it's less about
• 21:26
  Walter Crosby: knowing your product. I mean, there's exceptions, right? If somebody's a a rocket scientist and they gotta do.
• 21:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Be learned. That's a skill set that can be learned about my product and my features and benefits, and the solutions that I provide. But that other skill set that you said navigating how to get into that place. That's something that you know takes a lot longer to learn.
• 21:50
  Walter Crosby: If you don't have to teach that, and all you have to do is teach them what questions to ask that buyer to get them to understand your product is a better fit, right features and benefits. Last thing we should teach somebody. What are the questions that that buyer needs to be asked to help them see that we have a better mousetrap.
• 22:07
  Walter Crosby: So it's it's navigating that buyer and usually those 2 things help somebody understand. Wow! We don't do that, and it sounds like it might help us get better candidates
• 22:20
  Walter Crosby: right? There's other things in terms of our process. But those 2 fundamental things. If if anybody that's listening to that, if you just go out and challenge your current system of hiring and add those 2 components, you will elevate the candidates that you bring on
• 22:38
  Walter Crosby: just through that, through that exercise of of those those 2 things, and every resume
• 22:46
  Walter Crosby: from a sales perspective has crap in it a little Bs.
• 22:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: There's a lot of Bs.
• 22:53
  Walter Crosby: Being kind, I mean.
• 22:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So that's that's actually really interesting. Because when you think about it, it's like you want, you want somebody that that's, you know, charismatic. And you know, you're thinking that they're going to have all these connections. And they're gonna know people and know how to schmooze. And you know. But that's not necessarily what you want from somebody you want that
• 23:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that caring individual that's going to be empathetic, that's going to be able to be curious and ask those questions and find ways to to solve their problems.
• 23:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And then, like you said, the last thing is the features and benefits and the price point, because that really shouldn't matter at all, because we're not. We're not offering something. That's so.
• 23:38
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: you know, unusual that it's not, you know, that somebody else hasn't. You don't have a competitor. Right? It's you're right there.
• 23:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But yeah, it's really interesting how we look at that differently. And then it's no longer about your brand messaging and and all those crazy things that we want to say. It's about the connection that you can make.
• 23:59
  Walter Crosby: Yeah it.
• 24:00
  Walter Crosby: If if you're hiring somebody, because they've got a great personality and they're fun to talk to, and they're charismatic. Put them in a marketing role that are going to go out and do networking right? Because if you go out and grade in a room and network with people. And that's
• 24:16
  Walter Crosby: that's all you're good at. Are you? Gonna show up on Monday and and call those people, are you gonna cold call people
• 24:22
  Walter Crosby: right? They're different skill sets, and what we found in the last 10 years is that intrinsically motivated people.
• 24:33
  Walter Crosby: as opposed to extrinsically so extrinsically, are motivated by money and things intrinsically are motivated by wanting to be part of something bigger than them, wanting to do good works, wanting to learn and grow there as a professional so. And those people are typically a little more shy.
• 24:54
  Walter Crosby: So good.
• 24:56
  Walter Crosby: 2 of the best salespeople I know. And I consider myself in in this idea that they're really shy.
• 25:04
  Walter Crosby: We'd rather not be on stage. We'd rather not be in a room full of people. It's just
• 25:13
  Walter Crosby: we have to go out and do a job in a role. So we turn it on.
• 25:17
  Walter Crosby: And we can. We can. Do, you know, we can be energetic, we can be excited, and we could be happy to have this conversation right. But when in reality we'd rather be back. Home.
• 25:29
  Walter Crosby: You know, reading a book or doing something on a computer, right? That. So that that's there's a difference there. But somebody has to be able to turn that role on and fill this. So we look at
• 25:42
  Walter Crosby: you're a salesperson is one role in your life.
• 25:45
  Walter Crosby: You could be a son.
• 25:47
  Walter Crosby: you could be a daughter, you could be an aunt, you could be an uncle. You could be great on the barbecue. You could be a wonderful brother.
• 25:55
  Walter Crosby: But we're talking about one role in your life.
• 25:58
  Walter Crosby: and that that's in sales. So what are they gonna perform in that one role? Right? We don't want them to be a
• 26:06
  Walter Crosby: you know criminal. We want them to have ethics and integrity. We want them to fit into our culture. Those are all important things, but if they're if they can go out and and and be comfortable. Networking in a. It doesn't necessarily make them a great salesperson because they have to go out and
• 26:25
  Walter Crosby: be much more effective and dig much more deep
• 26:28
  Walter Crosby: than you know in a sales call, doing great discovery.
• 26:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's a really really good point, because many smaller companies will hire one person or or a couple of people as their sales team, and they'll ask them to market.
• 26:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: and then they'll ask them to close the deal, and then they'll ask them to follow up and deliver kind of the not deliver the service or product, but stay engaged with them. Throughout. Those are 3 distinct different roles that take
• 27:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: many times 3 completely different personalities, as you just described.
• 27:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So in my mind to hire correctly for that sales role, you need someone that is really, truly knows how to
• 27:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: have that conversation and close the deal versus developing a
• 27:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: business marketing plan to get awareness for the company and then the opposite or the follow up end of, you know, keeping the client engaged, you know, through more relationships. I think those are different personalities. Am I wrong.
• 27:39
  Walter Crosby: No, you're you're they're different personalities. Usually they're different skill sets. But when you have a small company and you're trying to build a sales team. Right? You're you're asking everybody to wear multiple hats.
• 27:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Because.
• 27:50
  Walter Crosby: As the entrepreneur. You're wearing 12 different hats in the course of a day, so do we expect our people to do the same thing, and to a certain extent that's fair. If we've told them that if we've explained it to them and we give them the right tools. So here's another common mistake that we have along with what you just said
• 28:10
  Walter Crosby: is that we hire somebody that's a really competent salesperson.
• 28:15
  Walter Crosby: and then we want them to figure out how to talk to our buyers.
• 28:18
  Walter Crosby: And that's that's the role of the company. We need to tell our salespeople
• 28:24
  Walter Crosby: what that messaging is. We need to give them the right words, because our message
• 28:31
  Walter Crosby: in our marketing materials and our messaging from our salespeople, they need to fit together, they need to be congruent.
• 28:39
  Walter Crosby: And if if we just leave that up to our salesperson.
• 28:42
  Walter Crosby: we don't know what they're going to say.
• 28:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 28:45
  Walter Crosby: So we want to give them those bullet points we want to give them that story that they need to work with. I like to couch it as a piece of sheet music.
• 28:54
  Walter Crosby: Right? Here's here's the notes you play. You play them in this order.
• 28:59
  Walter Crosby: Got to play in the right key, and you got to play all the notes, but play them with your instrument, do it your way. But here's what you have to what you have to go through
• 29:08
  Walter Crosby: if we give them that guidance. A competent salesperson is like, All right. I know what I need to do, and they'll go. They'll go do it. But if they got to figure that out, it's not going to be exactly what that entrepreneur wants, because the entrepreneur has been out there probably selling it themselves. And they they know this. So somehow, we got to get that out of their head
• 29:29
  Walter Crosby: onto paper so we can translate it to a salesperson.
• 29:33
  Walter Crosby: and if it's in your head it's hard to get out on your own.
• 29:38
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And and for the business owner to accept the fact that I want them to play it on their own instrument. Right? You may have been playing it with a violin, and this guy may be playing it with a trumpet, but it's still the same message, and it should have the same results. If your customer likes to hear trumpets.
• 29:56
  Walter Crosby: Well, yeah, we have to. Really, as a salesperson, we have to be able to modulate to our buyer
• 30:01
  Walter Crosby: exactly
• 30:02
  Walter Crosby: but we need the words to do that. And yeah, it's it's that sometimes that entrepreneurs like, well, that's not how I said it. Well.
• 30:10
  Walter Crosby: that we we need to. We need to work on
• 30:13
  Walter Crosby: the end result, those messages, the questions that we need to ask.
• 30:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hmm.
• 30:17
  Walter Crosby: And then trust the process that is in place. And that's another challenge for for entrepreneurs is to have that process that we take that buyer through, but we can't leave it up to the salesperson.
• 30:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know exactly. And I think that's the leadership problem that that
• 30:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: the misconnect with their sales team is, they're like, well, you said you're good at sales. I need you to close this number each month for this dollar amount. Why aren't you doing it right? They don't have the tools. You didn't give them the information that you needed to to be able to make that work out which is interesting because like you said, it's all stuck up here.
• 31:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And it's this is, it's just natural for me to, you know. Go out and talk to people about my product that I created. And now I'm asking a person over here that's never had that product to go out and act like me.
• 31:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Not a not a very, not a very good path for success in my mind.
• 31:20
  Walter Crosby: It's it's not. And you got to give them a fighting chance. So it's just a process to get that out. Think about why people buy, and to put those into the right context for the salesperson to go have the right conversations with the right buyers.
• 31:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it. So when you develop systems like this, which I assume you do in your company, you know you develop the systems, you get the questioning and the training, and you like you mentioned in the original story. You know you don't just work on the closing process, but you work on the questioning. You understand the whole system that you're going through
• 31:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that creates a success right? I mean, you have to have a system or a plan to sell your product just as you did to run your business, or you know, market your company. You have to have the plan.
• 32:08
  Walter Crosby: If you want to grow, and you want to invite other people to the party and for them to execute the way you want them to. You need to have
• 32:17
  Walter Crosby: the structure. I I often call it infrastructure. But you know. So there's there's messages. There's a sales process. There's a methodology which we've we've talked about. You gotta hire the right people and then you have to manage them. And you need to have somebody that understands sales management
• 32:37
  Walter Crosby: isn't about keeping their head buried in a Crm.
• 32:41
  Walter Crosby: It isn't about going out and closing business for salespeople.
• 32:45
  Walter Crosby: It's it's about coaching and getting your current staff to get better, to to grow.
• 32:53
  Walter Crosby: And you know most sales managers have haven't had a great model to
• 33:02
  Walter Crosby: to to model themselves after, to to be a good sales manager, entrepreneurs, or you know, they think. Oh, this this person's a great sales salesperson. They sell the most so they should be able to manage the rest of these people.
• 33:16
  Walter Crosby: Huge mistake.
• 33:18
  Walter Crosby: Never promote your top salesperson to sales management.
• 33:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, shit.
• 33:22
  Walter Crosby: Because it's it's a disaster waiting to happen. Different skill sets.
• 33:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly, and they are different skill sets. And there's so many different moving parts that need to be part of the sales of your product and service.
• 33:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And I think that's the again the missing piece is they're expecting someone to come in that that, like you said, that's their top salesperson. And now you're asking them to lead people and coach them. That's not their skill set.
• 33:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: or or you know, now you're expecting the salesperson to come over here and design. You know, a trade show booth or a graphic that's going to come out and present their. It's just a different skill set. So yeah, I think entrepreneurs. You know, our people need to wear different hats, but we have to.
• 34:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Sales is so important because it feeds everybody else. Why don't you work on that piece 1st and then backfill the other pieces along the way. I think, as you're building your team. But yeah, I'm a fan of not necessarily crossing the salesperson with other roles.
• 34:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Is that wrong?
• 34:29
  Walter Crosby: So. No, no, I, as I said in a small company, it's hard. It's it's hard to hire all of those people initially, but I think there's things that we can do if we're conscious of that, we're asking our salesperson to be a marketer as well as a salesperson. And then customer service. Something's going to give right. So if we want them to be a salesperson.
• 34:53
  Walter Crosby: but often it is because
• 34:55
  Walter Crosby: the other things might be a little bit easier for them. It might be safer to go, have some marketing conversations with people. It might be safer to go talk to an existing customer as opposed to go out and talk to that that new logo. So you know, you really got to find that balance. If you have limited resources, you really want to make sure that you're giving that salesperson the best chance to be successful
• 35:19
  Walter Crosby: by having them focus on the thing that you need them to focus on, and it goes back to what we said earlier about having clarity about what they need to be good at. And if we didn't say they needed to be great at marketing. Then
• 35:33
  Walter Crosby: they shouldn't be doing marketing.
• 35:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it. Love it all right, Walter. This has been a great conversation, and I know there's so many little nuances that business owners today really need to have on their sales team, especially when they're hiring somebody, you know, in an early phase of their company. Where can listeners find out more about you and helix sales development so that they can really gather what they need to make their sales team successful.
• 36:01
  Walter Crosby: The
• 36:02
  Walter Crosby: I I'm fairly active on Linkedin. It's a great place to go just to kind of get a sense as to who I am. But I I do a weekly email
• 36:12
  Walter Crosby: that I call sales velocity. It's free.
• 36:16
  Walter Crosby: And the topic is, here's something that I screwed up a mistake that I made over my 40 years.
• 36:23
  Walter Crosby: Don't do this, love it.
• 36:25
  Walter Crosby: So there's a there's an explanation of like what I thought, and then what I did, and then the outcome. And then here's what you should do.
• 36:32
  Walter Crosby: So it's a it's a really easy way of
• 36:37
  Walter Crosby: reading. It takes you like 3 min to read something, and the goal is to get you to think differently about a problem.
• 36:45
  Walter Crosby: I don't do pitching in there. It's really just like here's some help and if you want to engage with me, this is the best way to.
• 36:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Where can they find it?
• 36:55
  Walter Crosby: They can find that at my at my website, and it's just called Join sales velocity.
• 37:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay. Awesome.
• 37:01
  Walter Crosby: It's also it's also on Linkedin. They can click on that and but it's right off the website. Helix Sales Developmentcom.
• 37:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it perfect, perfect. Thank you.
• 37:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow, yeah, I'm definitely going to grab that, too, because you know, as as an entrepreneur and and a marketer and the salesperson, you know. I mean, it's like there's a lot to have. So to have that skill set and those little what did you think, or, you know, have you thought about it? This way will always help. Because if we're a constant learner, then this is going to be the way that we can get things rolling so awesome.
• 37:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Alright. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope you picked up some valuable insight and actionable ideas that will help you make your business more profitable.
• 37:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: and you know profitability starts with sales. So why not learn to be a better salesperson and hire a better sales team?
• 37:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: All right. If you're ready to simplify your marketing and get better results. Go grab a free 30 day trial of the profit booster marketing Hub. No credit card required, and no headaches, no tech headaches, no just smart streamlined marketing that works head over to profitboosterbiz and get started today.
• 38:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Don't forget to subscribe. You don't want to miss future shows. You can always find profit with a plan on any of your favorite podcast platforms. And we're looking forward to more great profitable information on next week's show. So until then make your plans and profit with them. Thanks so much, Walter. This was great.
• 38:31
  Walter Crosby: Appreciate it. Thank you.