Latest / Books4Guys / Sales Leadership, Prospecting, and Building a Profit Generating Pipeline with Leslie Venetz

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Sales Leadership, Prospecting, and Building a Profit Generating Pipeline with Leslie Venetz · Books4Guys

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Before we jump into today's episode, I want to thank our executive development partner, Standard Pursuit.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Founded by Hunter Didrickson, Standard Pursuit is a coaching community built for founders, entrepreneurs, and high performers who are ready to step into the next version of themselves.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Through one-on-one coaching and the Standard Training Club, Hunter helps people strengthen both their physical and mental operating systems so they can think more clearly, lead more effectively, and perform at a higher level.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I appreciate most about what Hunter is building is that he understands success isn't just about business.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's about health, mindset, discipline, leadership, and becoming the type of person capable of achieving the goals you set for yourself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you're looking to sharpen your performance, improve your habits, and operate at a higher level, both personally and professionally, I encourage you to check out StandardPursuit at standardpursuit.com.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's get to today's episode Chicago.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not where you're originally from, though, correct?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I am a native Montanan.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I saw.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get to Chicago?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna make me sound a little bit crazy, but I built an Excel document where I put all of the cities I thought I would want to live in on one access, and they had to be over 250,000 and like not the places where everybody else was going.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't put like a, you know, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, sort of sort of places on there and a few international spots.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the top axis, I put all of the things that were most important to me as the criteria, but then I assigned them weighted point values depending on how important they were to me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally went through the document and just filled in the points.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Chicago had the most points.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I sold my car to be able to afford first and last month's rent, and then I moved here without a job.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I haven't heard anyone break it down quite like that as far as like criteria to move to a place.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think everybody should go and live different places and experience different cities.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I did something similar.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've been San Antonio, Atlanta, Nashville now, and uh every place kind of holds a special place in your heart for different reasons.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so and I have friends that moved to Chicago and they love it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's super cool that you were like broke it down that way.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, let's figure out like where is the ideal spot for me.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I think.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, best guess.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in my in my head at the time, Chris, I thought maybe I'd stay here for three to five years.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think I sort of assumed I would go live internationally for a while, or at least live somewhere else in the States.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I fell deeply, desperately in love with Chicago.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Still now I've lived here over 15 years, and there are these moments where I'm like, you know, coming back from the airport and you you turn on the highway and you can see the full cityscape, or like coming in from the south side, and it's the same thing.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it is like it still makes me emotional, and I feel so grateful to get to call this place home.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, you know what?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just happened to nail it on my first try.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Leslie, another cool, cool fact here is you are my first guest from Chicago.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll uh tab that up as a a W as you're the first guest on the Books for Guys podcast from from Illinois in general, Chicago specifically, but super excited to have you on to talk today because I I don't know, I don't know how I came across your profile, but I came across it on LinkedIn.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I started researching, I saw your book, and I was like, yeah, and I'm in sales too, so I was like, okay, we're gonna talk sales, we're gonna talk book.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta get Leslie on the podcast, and the timing worked out perfectly.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and super excited to talk with you.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to mention your book before we get started Profit Generating Pipeline, a proven formula to earn trust and drive revenue.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you've got it there.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of the best sellers.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it's crushing sales in different categories, and super proud and excited for you.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: That leads me to my first question because I was, like I said, I was looking at your profile and I was like, okay, let's go see what all Leslie does.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I started scrolling, and then I kept scrolling, and then I kept scrolling, and I was like, the last six or seven years, Leslie has been doing like unthinkable, unimaginable things.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just curious to know how do you balance everything?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're a part of so much.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: You speak, you've written a book, you're on boards, you're teaching people how to sell, consulting, all this stuff.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, just give us a breakdown on what all that looks like and how you, I don't know, just how you attack it all.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I am busy.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually in studio all week this week recording my audiobook.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But so that that was really fun.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to be able to share that with people.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, frankly, I procrastinated way too long on it because I have been so busy, but I knew I wanted to make sure that I had the audio bit published to align with already the one year anniversary of my hardcover book debuting as a bestseller.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's crazy time flies, Chris.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have I have been really busy.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a couple of things has have happened for me.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like during my entire career, as I reflect on it, like I was always working 60 to 80, maybe like 100 hour weeks.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I think I kind of set a pace or a tempo for myself where I was working very, very long hours.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say I regret it because I mean, I I pretty much got like 25 years of work experience done in 15 years, and that's very much set me up to be able to trend like transfer to to entrepreneurship successfully.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it was exhausting.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I did burn out more than once.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I think it put me in a mental state where kind of this like frenetic pace was the norm.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say that that while I have been especially busy over the next like the last six to seven years leaving corporate, but still doing my like side business while I was in corporate, but then bootstrapping my my own business that I run now.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've been so, so, so careful about is how I protect my time with really like freedom of time and freedom of movement as my number one metric for how I am building my life and building my business.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's been a real transition for me.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I still am a very hard worker, but I am better now than I've ever been at delegating, at automating things.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's been a huge save for me.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think just getting really clear on my boundaries so that I understand what I have to say no to to make space to say yes to the best and right things for me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it kind of leads me to another, as you were talking about that, I'm curious I'm curious to know like where did the drive come from and the motivation?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm thinking of specifically like sales, like especially early on, like it's just part of the lifestyle, the job.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it it no matter how much you phrase balance, like you've got to hustle, you've got to have grit, you gotta want it, you gotta put in the time, you gotta build the relationships, you gotta learn the skills.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And why do you think that was your path?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why was sales something that you, number one, how did you get into it?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, where did you find that enjoyment of it to be so successful at it?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And and how did that progress?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sales was definitely not my path.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I thought sales was gross.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was saying right before we went live that I moved to Chicago without a job because I had built this Excel matrix and Chicago had the most points, and I thought, well, let's give the big city a try.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved from my hometown in Montana or my college town at that time, but like a town of 60,000 to this city of 6 million without a job.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I needed a job.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was applying for like jobs, management jobs, stuff in nonprofits, kind of laboring under this delusion that I would use my college degrees.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they were all paying like 25 to 30 K a year.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was doing the math of what it costs to live even frugally in Chicago.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, that no, that's not sort of like that's not survivable.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took a sales job at this global business intelligence company because it still checked a lot of my boxes.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like it truly was global.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: There would be opportunities for travel.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in my head, I thought I'll do this gross icky sales job that I'm sort of ashamed of, sort of embarrassed about until a better job opens up and then I'll just transfer.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris, it was like maybe two weeks into the job that I had a moment of thinking, oh no, I'm like really good at this and it comes really naturally to me.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like I very much accidentally fell into this calling of sales as a profession.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But looking back, I'd been in varsity policy debate.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'd done model United Nations and Model Arab League for years.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was in student body, I had, you know, been the president of various nonprofits.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd had this career, pre-professional career of practicing rhetoric, building relationships, fundraising, which is sales.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd I'd sort of accidentally been practicing for a career I didn't know I wanted the whole time.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I love that point you make because I'm thinking about this.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: I wish, I wish more maybe school districts and colleges maybe approached sales and taught it a little bit differently because I was very similar.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And my university actually has a sales program now.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: They call it sales, and you can graduate with a degree or minor in the practice.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: But similar to you, I was like, I love talking to people, I love deals, I love making money, you know.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: If I can like help people create solutions, make a good living, and talk to people all the time, that sounds great.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: But like, what is that?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was like, oh, sales, you know, and there and every industry has it.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can go down so many paths to being in it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's interesting of your story of like you're good at all these things, you don't really know it's sales, but then you're like, yeah, it's sales and I'm good at it, and then you crushed it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's so true.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And even like I really think a lot of the media that we grew up with did a huge disservice to our conception of sales.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you think about all these movies like Glenn Glary, Glenn Ross, or like Wall Street.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, ew, like, why would I ever want to do that?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's like, I don't want to lie to people.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to manipulate or deceive people.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I would never, or you hear this like really tired narrative of like the used car salesman.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But never did I ever think about B2B sales.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's a really big distinction, is that and that's so cool that your your university now has a sales program, but like never at any point through all of my years of schooling did every did anybody ever say, Hey, B2C and B2B are very different types of selling motions and introduced me to B2B as a concept.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like you had to go through like a marketing program to kind of get introduced to that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I did, I got a degree in marketing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Same.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And even then, like everything was everything was very consumer focused.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's interesting.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: I I love thinking about that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: But no, Leslie, your book, Profit Generating Pipeline.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious to know.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously, crushed it in sales.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're doing amazing things, then all of a sudden you break off and you're, again, building your own entrepreneur path.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious to know what did you uncover that led you to say, hey, like, I know there's all these other sales books out there, but what I'm discovering and what I'm wanting to write about is different.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what was and what is different about your book?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: And what did you discover that really pushed you over the edge to say, like, I need to put this out there because no one else is really phrasing it this way or or pushing the message the way I want to do it?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of things.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I guess I've always wanted to write a book, but in my head, I thought it might be like a fiction book or cookbook or something.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never imagined that I would write a nonfiction book.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually really struggled with the idea that people would care, that my voice mattered.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very lucky to have a mentor, a guy called Andy Paul, who's a three-time bestselling author himself, that was like, what are you doing?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what stories are you telling yourself that are untrue?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your voice matters because you have, because you have a set of experiences that literally nobody else does, because nobody else has your same career and your same view and perspective on those experiences.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And also, like, in many ways, I I was a bit of a unicorn being a woman in sales, that was an enterprise seller, that was a senior sales leader.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's still, even now, years later, aren't that many like VPs of sales and CROs that that are women?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like all of those thoughts were sort of running through my head, but I didn't feel compelled to write like a women in sales book.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted to write a book that was like core to my expertise as a seller and a sales leader.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that led me to start toying with the concept of what if I put the things that I'm teaching my clients into this book.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been over years developing the nine-step proven formula, which is like the the the bulk, the core of the book.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of just hit an inflection point where I was getting a lot of inbound from people that couldn't afford me while I was simultaneously seeing how big of an impact sharing free knowledge on LinkedIn and TikTok and YouTube was making.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it, yeah, it kind of like became a catalyst of years of like thinking and overcoming these like doubts and imposter syndrome and feeling really called to share my knowledge in a way that was super accessible to the average person at a you know$20 or$30 price point.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much everybody can afford a book, or soon the audiobook will be on Libby, and then you can just get it from your local library for free.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's a couple of things I'm thinking about as you were talking about that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm lucky because I had some female leaders that I got exposed to, and they were the best sales leaders I've ever had.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they were luckily like national account leaders, VPs, and they were.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Anything they told me to do, it was just different.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Yep, yes, ma'am, I'll do it.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're you're the boss.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like, and they were just they had just, I don't know, the the aura to them, the the style they had, the way they approached sales, the way they taught.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was super.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I was receptive to it.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I could see where you're you're very similar.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: I could assume if you were coaching me, I'd be like, yep, whatever Leslie says, she's done it, she's done it at a high level.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing whatever she does.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really cool.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're right.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's not, I haven't really had a ton of sales leaders that are that are female since then, but they were the best.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, we probably we need more of them.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I love that you share that too.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: And no, so your book, and I love that you talk about this too, because I I've had a lot of people who are consultants, founders, they've written books, and it's it's really cool how they talk about that because as a salesperson, you're thinking revenue, money, and you don't think about uh, you know, you're talking about helping clients, and that's how you get paid.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you're kind of thinking, you know, you can't really help the people who can't afford you, you don't really worry about them, but just how actually rewarding it is to be able to help that many people with your book at a price point and just probably how much more you got from it than you ever expected.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And again, you probably don't until you're to that level, you don't really understand what that's like.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's cool to point that out that you were like, hey, I'm I can work one-on-one, but I'm to a level now, like, how do I help more people?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, a book.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: The people like I can't help a thousand people one-on-one, but if they can read my book, then I'm reaching an audience I never would have had the chance to meet with or influence before.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't want you to undersell that because I think that is people who are afraid to write a book, everyone has their own story, everyone has their own experiences, everyone can learn from it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's a blueprint you can take from it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's extremely important that you sat down to write your book.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also very cool to see how how amazing it's doing and how receptive it is.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean it's a it's a bestseller.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people are buying it and and digesting it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure even you, you're probably pinching yourself some days, like, whoa, how did this happen?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty, it's it's very it's very special.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It does feel very special.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I have had the the gift of being able to travel around the country and even went to London and did some some like book signings and watching people walk in with the book, and it's full of like highlighting and notes in the columns and like the little tabs, and to hear their stories of what it's meant to them.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because throughout the book, I also share a lot of my own experiences, especially my experiences as a sales leader, getting things very, very wrong as I was trying to figure out how to get things right.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I realized, Chris, when I was writing the book, how much that would mean to people, because I was very focused on like the dissemination of information of this nine-step proven formula to profit generating pipeline.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But part one is six chapters where I share a lot of my own leadership journey.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And like so many sales leaders, I was just kind of the top performer that got pushed into management and I didn't get coaching or training or a playbook or support.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we I made mistakes and I got things wrong.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And being very vulnerable about what I got wrong and then how I figured out a better way and what it meant to me as a leader and to my team.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's resonated with people as much as putting the actual like strategy and the formula into place.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, and let's talk about that for a second, because one of the messages I promote with Books for Guys is the importance of reading so that you can learn from other people's mistakes and maybe that helps you become successful a little bit quicker or avoid those potholes that that person before you hit, and maybe you can, you know, avoid that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: What are some things in your book, just just high level, if like one or two points that somebody like myself, obviously, like, hey, I'm gonna read Leslie's book because I wanna, I wanna know how she got to where she got.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: What what can I learn from her that maybe helps me take a step up quicker than if I didn't read your book?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: What are some of those like foundational things you talk about that helps people be a successful salesperson, especially early on as they're trying to figure it out?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a bit of a a trick question.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll answer it, but it's also a bit of a trick question because the clients I serve are large corporations.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I serve corporate clients.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do like one-on-one coaching or or training with sales reps or or really even sales leaders.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the book is very much designed as a strategy blueprint.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would I would say though, that two things that people really feed back to me is one, that the book is not like tricks and tactics.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we so often, I mean, we see that in books, but gosh, we like really see that over social media that here's this one trick and this one tactic, and it's all about some silver bullet and this thing that's gonna work for a couple of weeks before we start getting ignored because our buyers are smart.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say one big takeaway that's a thread is sales as a craft, which means it takes time to become truly exceptional at it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to chase these like silver bullet tricks and tactics, they may get you some limited short-term success, but they will not allow you to build a successful, like durable career in sales.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's one.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing that you see throughout the book is my philosophy to leadership and to sales, which is earn the right.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I talk in the first part of the book very much about the importance of earning the right to ask your team to trust your vision and your strategy and your processes.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the second half of the book, I talk about how it is our responsibility as sales professionals to earn the right to our buyers' attention, to their time, to their consideration, to their business.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that philosophy, that litmus test is an approach to how to interact with, you know, with colleagues, with employees, with clients is really a guiding force for me.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad you pointed that out.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: I should have used strategy and processes because that's what I was thinking.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you're right.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, a ton, I mean, a ton of sellers have read it, probably probably more sellers than sales leaders, if I'm being honest.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're right that there is valuable information in it for everybody.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I also don't like, you know, I I want to be transparent with folks about what they would expect to get out of it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, and it's and it's good for sales reps to read it as they potentially progress into leadership and strategy.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's one of those things you can add to your tool belt.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And as you get those opportunities.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Opportunities, this is good to know.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I could see where it's beneficial to both sides.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: You talk a lot about like earning the right.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I'm thinking specifically of like building those relationships with clients and buyers, and just sometimes that takes a long time.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking of, you know, we see layoffs happening at like Salesforce and big organizations.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like sales reps now, and and I I would just more curious on your opinion.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you come in and you've got a book and you've got to sell and you've got to hit these numbers.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: How do you work and find that balance with leadership on, hey, obviously we got to grow here, but there is a process to this that does take a little bit of time.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: We can't just be so transactional that we, you know, we don't build the long-term future with these clients as well.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do you coach and work through that with companies?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because especially you're talking enterprise level, they have to find that balance of making shareholders happy, but also like long-term gain as well.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that's that's a very fine line to have to balance.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I talk a lot about balancing quality and quantity, which like anybody that's ever done any type of sales in any role knows that that is a question that plagues us.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I come back to a couple of things, Chris.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: One is just a constant reminder that more is not a strategy.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think especially as we come out of, you know, the years where we were kind of in the growth at all costs and money was sort of free, I saw a lot of organizations unfortunately just continue to add headcount.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're in this situation where quota achievements at like 50, that our win rates are at 18, and those numbers have sort of become normalized, which is gross and unacceptable.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So just constantly reminding people that like throwing more reps, throwing more quota numbers at the problem, throwing more dials emails at the problem isn't an answer.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a strategy.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: We really need to look at effectiveness of our skills and our outreach.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: We need to look at conversion rates at every single step.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing that I focus on a lot.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's an interesting question because I'm so confident in the balance of quantity and quality that I have struck throughout my career, that that is a lot of the basis of this nine-step proven formula.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I think of personalization at scale, I feel like that is really the question I'm answering.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because we, and like I fall into these traps when I was an individual contributor as well, that I'm spending like an hour researching a contact before I start my outreach, only to find out that they're like retired last month or just got a new role, right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've all fallen into this trap of too much quality.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And often like one of the things that that came up in my research for the book is that the average annualized contract value of like four sales reps in the US is 22K to 44K.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it like, you know, 20 to 40k, a strictly quality approach doesn't make sense.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you wouldn't be able to get the quantity of outreach that you would need to scale to have a a reasonable like cost of customer acquisition.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the other side, good God, people are still out there spamming.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I'm not quite sure why it happened still, but there became this narrative, this like false dichotomy that that sales teams either took a quantity approach or they took a quality approach.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And people kind of stopped trying to figure out what the balance was, what the middle ground was.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so when I think about indexing very, very heavily on relevance and figuring out what is most relevant to your buyers by going through an in-depth process of segmentation, that's the path to personalization at scale that allows us to find that balance between quantity and quality.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking like, yeah, you got to find that balance of preparation and action and how have those two kind of correlate together properly to get to maximize the result that you're wanting.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure, is it tough sometimes going into an organization and basically asking them to kind of pause a little bit to look at what they're doing so that you can say, hey, either we're gonna go off the rails here if you're continuing down this path, and it's you know, it's not gonna end well if we don't stop now and kind of reevaluate where things are so that you can see some of the processes that need to be maybe tweaked a little bit, fixed, just so you can maximize, you know, your team's performance.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is that tough sometimes to get clients to slow down just enough so that they can make some corrections?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is super tough.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's super tough for two reasons.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: One, I think it's really easy to underestimate how much of my job is actually just change management.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are like I'm having to win hearts and minds as much as I am building strategies and processes and doing enablement.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many folks out there that are like, well, I can come in and work with your team, and in 45 days, they're gonna be at 187% of quota.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're all these big promises, and we are all under so much pressure.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And particularly if I think about my ICP, like a VP of sales or a CRO, like these folks are getting fired and fired fast.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Their span is not long anymore.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I think it's this, this uh I like it's a it's a unique situation where they have to give the strategy and the process time to be built and time to start working.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: But there also needs to be an element where I am building in opportunities for quick wins, because that's an essential part of the change management, where I am gaining their trust and I'm starting the momentum so that there's it it feels like there's some traction happening while I am asking them to kind of like change the wills of the bus while it's driving, to the extent that I actually just took quite a quite a bit of time where I rebuilt my Done With You advisory product.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the big changes that I made, well, I I shortened it.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it was 12 months and now it's 10 months.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: So getting, I mean, to to that point, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like even though 10 months is quite a bit of time, like still trying to get there a little bit faster.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I changed the onboarding process.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just this onboarding orientation process where I'm figuring out what is fit for purpose for your organization, because what I will never do is like a playbook drag and drop, but I'm dedicating a ton of time to doing audits to uncover quick wins so that they can start capitalizing on the quick wins while we're doing the deeper, more strategic work that does take time.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's always more to it than just you know what the job kind of looks like.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure each client's different too, and they each have their own struggles and positives that you, you know, are open to.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie, just two more quick questions for you.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: First off, you know, I hate let's say uh VPs and chief revenue officers, chief sales officers, they're reading your book.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: If they only take one thing away from it, what do you hope that one nugget of information is that they do take from reading your book?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be earn the right.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think if they walk away with that subtle mindset shift, that it is our responsibility as sales professionals to constantly ask, what have I done to earn the right to my prospects' attention when I put this email in their inbox?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: How have I prepared for this discovery call in a way that allows me to earn the right to their time and their attention?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: How have I enabled my champion or, you know, diagnosed this deal to earn the right to ask for their revenue, to ask for their social capital being expended getting a deal done?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: If if a sales leader can take just that mindset shift away and not even any of the strategy, I am still so confident that would make an incredible positive impact in their org.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: I hear a lot of uh personal accountability in that as a as a leader and others to portray that too.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Leslie, final question for you.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Ask everyone who comes on the podcast this question.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm always just curious.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know our listeners and viewers are too.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always curious to know what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally, and what's a book that you love to recommend to others?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love books.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love books.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, one of your tags on your LinkedIn, read more books, pet more dogs.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: That definitely caught my attention.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I predominantly read fiction.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I read like 70% fiction, 30% nonfiction.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want fiction recommendations for like litfic, historical fiction, high fantasy, DM me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: I will talk books with you all day.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if we think about non-fiction books, a couple that have made a really tremendous impact on me.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my favorite sales book is probably The Challenger Customer.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Most folks are only familiar with Challenger Sale, which is fine, but Challenger Customer is a truly incredible book because it is like a very clear representation of what buyer centricity looks like.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that one.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's another guy from Chicago called Todd Capone, and he just released his third book.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: All of his, all of his books are good.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love everything he puts out, but his first book called Transparency Sale.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: It that was like a really fundamental book in helping me like synthesize or crystallize some of my own thinking things I knew, but I didn't quite have the words from them.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that I recommend all the time.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: But more broadly, I have actually found that non-sales books have impacted my success as a seller just as much as sales books.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like the sales books are great for the specific techniques, which is really important, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: But sales is a look at buyer psychology, at behavioral science.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if I think it of some of my like favorite books, they are like behavioral psychology books.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I love that too.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love learning how people click and just the way people think and react and just interest.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I find that fascinating as well.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: But no, great recommendations.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, the the two books you recommended, no one else has ever recommended before.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: So amazing job, Leslie.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but no, Leslie, thank you so much for doing this.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we're proud to spotlight your book and your work.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Can't wait to see all that you continue to accomplish.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoy your long break coming up.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: That is it is much and well earned.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully you can uh turn some things off for a little bit and recharge and come back.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure, you know, if we look back in five more years and be like, holy cow, she's still crushing it and doing 100x more things than I than before.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So do the good work, Leslie.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Again, very proud to spotlight your book, and thank you for taking the time to come on the Books for Guys podcast today.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: It means a lot.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for this conversation and wishing you many rounds of par golf.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: I need that good luck.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Leslie.