Guaranteed Way to Becoming a Better Seller with Andy Paul

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:00

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:03

performance of your team, and you're praised when they do

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well. But one thing that you've not been able to figure out is

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how to get everyone on your team consistently hitting quota every

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single month. On the Snack size sales podcast, we discuss the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:22

science of selling stem sales leadership in the science,

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technology, engineering and manufacturing fields is

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difficult. You will learn from sales managers just like you

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that will give you actionable insights and tips on how to

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develop as a leader and achieve your revenue targets every

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single month. So pop your headphones in and get ready to

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listen to my guests today. They will give you information and

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inspiration to ensure that you have actionable insights that

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you can put into place today. Hello, and welcome to another

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episode of the science of selling stem today. I am so

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excited. I feel like I am in the presence of royalty like I'm

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interviewing a podcaster that has been podcasting since before

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:14

I even knew what a podcast was. Andy Paul, how are you today?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:19

I'm fine. Thank you for having me.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:23

Let me tell you guys. I mean, like when you're in the presence

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of royalty, you have to let them know right and podcasting. As we

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:34

both know, it is a labor of love. So you have been doing it

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:39

for a long time. Seven years. Let me tell you guys a little

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:43

bit about Andy. He has a hit podcast accelerates your sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:48

and it was acquired by ring DNA in 2020. It has since been

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:52

renamed as sales enablement with Andy Paul, this show continues

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:56

to inspire 1000s of sales professionals each week. Andy

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has also written two award winning books zero time selling

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an amp up your sales, he is ranked number eight on LinkedIn

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is list of top 50 global sales experts. And he's consulted with

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some of the biggest businesses in the world, including square

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:14

Philips GrubHub and more making him one of the leading voices in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:18

the sales industry today. And I think this must have been

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:21

submitted before your latest book came out. But we'll get

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:23

into that later.

Andy Paul: 00:02:25

Yes, a third, a third book. Yes.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:27

Book. So how did you start your career and become

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:34

so amazing that a giant company wanted to buy your podcast?

Andy Paul: 00:02:41

Well, they're actually kind of a smaller

Andy Paul: 00:02:43

company. But still, nonetheless, they wanted to buy it. Yes.

Andy Paul: 00:02:46

Gotcha started my computer in Texas, or I screwed my career in

Andy Paul: 00:02:49

tech sales, selling computer systems to you know, at the time

Andy Paul: 00:02:52

when computer systems were rooms full of equipment

Andy Paul: 00:02:56

back in the day, and did that get promoted to management

Andy Paul: 00:03:01

fairly quickly doing that and enjoyed that, though, you know,

Andy Paul: 00:03:06

sort of under enabled as most managers are in the first jobs,

Andy Paul: 00:03:10

but then had sort of this adventure in Silicon Valley,

Andy Paul: 00:03:12

where I went to work for Apple in very early days of Apple. And

Andy Paul: 00:03:15

that's a variety of other startups and eventually found

Andy Paul: 00:03:18

myself in the satellite communications business where

Andy Paul: 00:03:21

we're selling large, complex satellite communication systems

Andy Paul: 00:03:24

to some of the world's largest companies working for startups,

Andy Paul: 00:03:27

you know, for small companies. So as the challenge was how do

Andy Paul: 00:03:30

we as a small company, go compete for 789 figure deals

Andy Paul: 00:03:34

against really large tech companies and when so that sir,

Andy Paul: 00:03:38

became my specialty that start my own company in 2000. And

Andy Paul: 00:03:41

which was designed to help small companies learn how to compete

Andy Paul: 00:03:44

for big deals with against a big competitors did that until about

Andy Paul: 00:03:49

10 years ago. And so I started writing my books and Sir, down

Andy Paul: 00:03:53

this path of being sort of sales thought leader, quote, unquote,

Andy Paul: 00:03:56

started my podcast in 2015, as you said, as Stephen initially

Andy Paul: 00:03:59

called Accelerate, and then acquired in 2020, and we renamed

Andy Paul: 00:04:03

it to sales enablement with Andy Paul. And now with 1043

Andy Paul: 00:04:07

episodes, I think as of this week, we're still going strong.

Andy Paul: 00:04:10

And yes, just published my my third book sell without selling

Andy Paul: 00:04:12

out.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:13

Wow. So I want to kind of go all the way back

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to the beginning. And you said something that I think a lot of

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people, they don't quite understand what the term means.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:23

So you said you move it from being an individual contributor

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to being a sales manager, but you weren't quite enabled. So

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:31

help us understand what that means to be enabled as a sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:37

manager?

Andy Paul: 00:04:38

Well, it's a great question, because I don't think

Andy Paul: 00:04:40

any of them really are, unfortunately is, you know, we

Andy Paul: 00:04:44

move people into roles of authority and positions of

Andy Paul: 00:04:46

authority and responsibility without educating them and just

Andy Paul: 00:04:50

some of the basics. Yeah, no one taught me how to coach somebody,

Andy Paul: 00:04:54

right. I mean, I think I became pretty good at it, but it's just

Andy Paul: 00:04:57

through trial and error, right? I wasn't throwing a call

Andy Paul: 00:05:00

teaching me how to do it or training me how to do it. We're

Andy Paul: 00:05:02

in a performance business and sales, right? It's like

Andy Paul: 00:05:05

athletics to some degree or professional sports. When do we

Andy Paul: 00:05:08

ever train sales managers how to help people perform better,

Andy Paul: 00:05:12

right? We tend to say, oh, go make more calls and more emails,

Andy Paul: 00:05:16

so on. But you know, we in this performance business, and we

Andy Paul: 00:05:19

don't teach managers anything about performance improvement,

Andy Paul: 00:05:22

and I serve it on the list. So it's sort of left to fend for

Andy Paul: 00:05:25

yourself. And some people are fortunate, I think I worked for

Andy Paul: 00:05:30

good bosses at several points in my career that, you know, I

Andy Paul: 00:05:34

could see what they did. And, you know, they sort of modeled

Andy Paul: 00:05:36

it for the behavior that I thought was good. So I could

Andy Paul: 00:05:39

take examples from them. But even to this day, we under

Andy Paul: 00:05:42

invest in managers, and it's their really, yes, I've done

Andy Paul: 00:05:47

this couple months, we've polled salespeople said, so where do

Andy Paul: 00:05:51

you learn how to sell? And the biggest influence is not

Andy Paul: 00:05:54

training that's actually on the list of things is relatively low

Andy Paul: 00:05:56

down the list? It's it's their managers, it's their peers?

Andy Paul: 00:05:59

Well, if that's the case, if the managers are the most

Andy Paul: 00:06:02

influential people, oftentimes in a young seller's life and new

Andy Paul: 00:06:04

sellers life, why aren't we helping those managers get

Andy Paul: 00:06:07

better.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:09

And like, you're singing my song. I literally,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:14

I'm these days, I'm so irritated on LinkedIn, I see all these

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:19

people, and they are appealing directly to the seller, like,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:22

I'm gonna teach you how to cold call, I'm gonna teach you how to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:24

write emails, I'm gonna teach you how to do this, this and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:26

that. I'm like, you're talking to the wrong people. We need to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:29

fix the managers, right? We fix the managers, we fix the team.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:33

And so when we talk about enabling sales managers, giving

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:37

them the playbook or the toolbox, I think that is such a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:40

huge gap in our current market space.

Andy Paul: 00:06:44

Oh, absolutely. So I make the case. And this is

Andy Paul: 00:06:48

really not hyperbole, I'm actually serious about this is

Andy Paul: 00:06:51

that you we spend, I think the last estimate, I saw from

Andy Paul: 00:06:54

LinkedIn, May $15 billion a year in sales training in the United

Andy Paul: 00:06:57

States, of which let's just say 90% of it, it's probably more

Andy Paul: 00:07:01

but 90% of it spent on individual contributors, and 10%

Andy Paul: 00:07:05

on managers. And I would advocate that we reverse those

Andy Paul: 00:07:08

percentages, and that if we actually spent 90%, not that we

Andy Paul: 00:07:12

necessarily could on the number of sales managers spend 90% of

Andy Paul: 00:07:15

money on sales managers would actually end up with better

Andy Paul: 00:07:18

results.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:19

I 100%. Agree. And I think that when even when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:23

you have those sales trainings, right, what did the managers do?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:26

They sit in the back of the room, and they're on their

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:28

computer, they're not even paying attention. And then

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:31

during the breaks, they're like, oh, yeah, hey, what about this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:34

deal? What I mean, and so it is such a huge problem. But you're

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:38

right, if we spent more, even if we split that in half, and did

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:42

5050, the industry wouldn't like it, because they wouldn't make

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:49

as much money, right? Because once you enable those sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:52

managers, then the teams follow right along.

Andy Paul: 00:07:55

Right, great. You're 100%? I think, yeah, that

Andy Paul: 00:07:58

doesn't have to be, you know, 90% spent on managers, but a

Andy Paul: 00:08:00

higher fraction, but we just have this cultural issue in

Andy Paul: 00:08:02

sales, which is this assumption that we give somebody a title,

Andy Paul: 00:08:06

they know what they're talking about, which is so unfair to

Andy Paul: 00:08:10

those people in those roles. I feel bad for frontline sales

Andy Paul: 00:08:13

managers in today's environment, because there's so much pressure

Andy Paul: 00:08:15

on them. They have their sales team, especially in the tech

Andy Paul: 00:08:17

business, they've got their AES churning every year, they've got

Andy Paul: 00:08:22

the CROs are only lasting 12 to 15 months, these days. So their

Andy Paul: 00:08:26

supervisors are turning quickly. It's like, let's help them

Andy Paul: 00:08:29

because these are the I think, the most important people in the

Andy Paul: 00:08:32

chain. I mean, yes, the individual contributors do the

Andy Paul: 00:08:34

actual selling for the most part, but these are the people

Andy Paul: 00:08:37

that make the whole thing work to your point.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:39

Yes. So when you started your business in 2000,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:43

what was your mindset? Why did you say, You know what, I've

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:47

done the corporate thing. Now I want to transition and start my

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:50

own business.

Andy Paul: 00:08:51

It was two things one is was very personal, which was

Andy Paul: 00:08:55

I've been the previous 15 years, I've been traveling extensively

Andy Paul: 00:09:00

over quarter million miles a year type of thing, and a lot of

Andy Paul: 00:09:02

it overseas. And I had missed my daughter's birthday. And I said,

Andy Paul: 00:09:10

Well, that's not me. I don't want to do that. So start my own

Andy Paul: 00:09:14

businesses way to sort of step off the hamster wheel, if you

Andy Paul: 00:09:18

will. And I wanted to be the dad who was there. So having my own

Andy Paul: 00:09:24

business or gaming that flexibility and for at that

Andy Paul: 00:09:26

point, my kids were 12 and 10 is for the next eight years. I was

Andy Paul: 00:09:31

that dad every single lacrosse game soccer game theater

Andy Paul: 00:09:35

performance dance performance. I think people started to take

Andy Paul: 00:09:39

pity on me because like, save a life because he's always here.

Andy Paul: 00:09:43

But I had that flexibility and used it in building my business.

Andy Paul: 00:09:47

I was able to sort of control the schedule to a large degree

Andy Paul: 00:09:51

and so I just didn't miss a thing. And for me that was

Andy Paul: 00:09:54

really important at that time. And yeah, I'm sure I sacrifice

Andy Paul: 00:09:58

income and some other things in life. short term, but yeah, I

Andy Paul: 00:10:02

would never, never regret that at all. So that was one reason.

Andy Paul: 00:10:07

Another reason was just yeah, I'd been in one business for 15

Andy Paul: 00:10:10

years and satellite communications business, and I

Andy Paul: 00:10:13

was ready for a new challenge.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:15

Yeah, the quality of life, right. I think

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:18

a lot of times as salespeople and sales leaders, we, we think

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:23

that this, it just comes with the territory. And I can

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:25

remember doing the same thing, I would literally get their

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:29

calendars the beginning of the school year and put all their

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:31

stuff on and had to be traveling around it. And sometimes I would

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:34

like fly in the morning for something that was happening at

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:36

noon, right? Because I was like, I want to be there. And what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:39

that did to me was, I would just be so exhausted, right? And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:42

like, You're half one foot in and one foot out. And so like

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:45

that quality of life, and that balance that when you start your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:49

own business, you kind of get that back. But yeah, do you lose

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:53

the opportunity of making as much money as a fortune 100?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:57

company can. But I think that people have to make that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:00

decision. What is more important right now in my life?

Andy Paul: 00:11:03

Yeah. And it was temporary, to some degree. But

Andy Paul: 00:11:06

again, I never give those moments back. And quite frankly,

Andy Paul: 00:11:09

missed them. You know, and I don't know how old your kids

Andy Paul: 00:11:12

are. But I mean, it's like, you know, when my son had been very

Andy Paul: 00:11:16

involved in the sport of lacrosse all the way through

Andy Paul: 00:11:18

college, you know, we get to his last game of college, it's like,

Andy Paul: 00:11:21

he was done with it. His mom and I were both like, we're gonna

Andy Paul: 00:11:25

miss this. I mean, you miss the opportunity to see your kids do

Andy Paul: 00:11:30

things. And so yeah, being able to arrange things. So I could do

Andy Paul: 00:11:33

that. I was very fortunate. But it was intentional.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:37

And so your business? Was it sales house?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:41

was is that the

Andy Paul: 00:11:42

No. So my consulting company called zero time

Andy Paul: 00:11:44

selling, which is the name of my first book. And yeah, so work I

Andy Paul: 00:11:48

did was work primarily with companies that in the early

Andy Paul: 00:11:51

days, the companies that had sort of call mature startups,

Andy Paul: 00:11:56

they had reached a certain point, and then their growth

Andy Paul: 00:11:58

stalled, and oftentimes their serve at a loss to figure out

Andy Paul: 00:12:02

why why they'd lost the recipe, why they've been able to grow

Andy Paul: 00:12:05

successfully for five years or 15 years in some cases. And so

Andy Paul: 00:12:09

yeah, I would come in and analyze the situation and work

Andy Paul: 00:12:13

with the CEO and the sales leadership to turn things

Andy Paul: 00:12:16

around. Hmm.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:17

Okay. So very strategic in nature, really

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:20

diagnosing and understanding what specifically is going on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:24

within the organization? Well, and

Andy Paul: 00:12:26

then getting very tactical from an execution

Andy Paul: 00:12:28

standpoint. So that's, for me, the view that actually was with

Andy Paul: 00:12:32

the strategic The second is just the tactical execution on making

Andy Paul: 00:12:36

deals happen. And that's, I love that part. And so I still do

Andy Paul: 00:12:40

that work today, I do it both with companies that deal with

Andy Paul: 00:12:43

individuals, you know, high performing individuals that I

Andy Paul: 00:12:46

coach on a one on one basis that, yeah, this, you're looking

Andy Paul: 00:12:50

for the outside there make a ton of money, and they're hitting

Andy Paul: 00:12:53

their numbers. But you know, these people that want to take

Andy Paul: 00:12:55

it to the next level do even better. Mm hmm.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:58

That's awesome. Because, you know, they're, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:01

think that the guys that people always think about when they

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:05

think about sales consultants, and you know, people in our

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:08

world is that your sales have to be low, or you have to be like a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:13:12

low performer. But that's not always the thing, right?

Andy Paul: 00:13:16

Exactly. Yeah. Somebody asked me once, you

Andy Paul: 00:13:18

know, how did I, what sort of the profile of the companies

Andy Paul: 00:13:21

that I had worked with? And I'd say, well, by and large, they're

Andy Paul: 00:13:23

all pretty successful. Be like, What do you mean? So yeah, those

Andy Paul: 00:13:28

are the best clients, because they're the ones that say, I

Andy Paul: 00:13:30

know, we can do even better. I had one client, I worked with

Andy Paul: 00:13:33

who he was serial entrepreneur, and I was working with him, I

Andy Paul: 00:13:36

think, on his third company, and he just did that every year. He

Andy Paul: 00:13:39

said, I bring in a consultant, right, as I know that, I don't

Andy Paul: 00:13:43

know everything. And yeah, we're doing pretty well. But I know

Andy Paul: 00:13:46

that I, as a CEO need to get smarter. So I bring people in to

Andy Paul: 00:13:50

help me. And, you know, that's a great perspective to have.

Andy Paul: 00:13:54

Another time somebody asked me, you know, how did you How could

Andy Paul: 00:13:57

you serve, qualify your, your customers, potential clients?

Andy Paul: 00:14:00

And I'd say, Well, this is go and meet them in person. Before

Andy Paul: 00:14:04

we sign the deal. I said, I look at the size, how big of a stack

Andy Paul: 00:14:08

of books they had on their desk. They had a big stack of books.

Andy Paul: 00:14:14

They were my person. If they didn't have books, they weren't

Andy Paul: 00:14:17

going to be my person. And so yeah, I mean, I do think it's

Andy Paul: 00:14:22

funny, but yeah, as a consultant, I've worked with

Andy Paul: 00:14:24

successful companies.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:26

That's good. It's not sometimes I used to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:30

tell people Oh, I like working with the hot mess. You know, the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:33

company gets really messed up, but ya know, it's way too much

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:37

work. Right. It's a lot of work.

Andy Paul: 00:14:40

Yeah. And you serve if you're in the consulting

Andy Paul: 00:14:42

business, you're listening to your thing about okay, yeah, the

Andy Paul: 00:14:44

temptation is to say, Yeah, I need to look for companies that

Andy Paul: 00:14:46

are really screwed up. And the hot mess isn't, it's like, not

Andy Paul: 00:14:50

really. I mean, you want the people who are dedicated

Andy Paul: 00:14:52

learners. Yeah. Other things. I look for a CEO. So we're members

Andy Paul: 00:14:56

of YPO or e o or Vista. Should I mean they were again, people

Andy Paul: 00:15:01

committed to learning. And so if they were doing that, then

Andy Paul: 00:15:05

again, that was another great for me another great indicator

Andy Paul: 00:15:07

that Yeah, we had a chance of making that successful.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:11

So you have written three books thus far.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:15

Yeah. Tell me about what was your inspiration for that very

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:18

first book,

Andy Paul: 00:15:19

I just said, felt like I had a book inside me for

Andy Paul: 00:15:22

a while. And I'd wanted to write one for a long time. And I just

Andy Paul: 00:15:25

hadn't. And, yeah, 2010 I got married for a second time. And

Andy Paul: 00:15:32

yeah, my wife was just incredibly supportive and urged

Andy Paul: 00:15:35

me to do it knew I had wanted to do it. And yeah, I think she

Andy Paul: 00:15:39

inspired me to invest the time and effort to do it. And like a

Andy Paul: 00:15:43

lot of surf consultants who write books, service calling

Andy Paul: 00:15:45

cards, right, this is a statement of who I am excusing

Andy Paul: 00:15:49

is. Yeah, it sort of caught on though that was unexpected. I

Andy Paul: 00:15:53

didn't think anybody would pay attention to it, quite frankly.

Andy Paul: 00:15:56

And yeah, became so popular and less a one on one Ward, and so

Andy Paul: 00:16:00

on. So it's like, oh, wow, people maybe do want to hear

Andy Paul: 00:16:03

what I have to say. And that sort of started on this path.

Andy Paul: 00:16:07

Now three books and 1043 podcast episodes.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:11

So tell us more about because there's so many

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:14

people who are like, I want to write a book, maybe is it going

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:17

to be successful? Tell us about some of the tips that you would

Wesleyne Greer: 00:16:22

give some a new author how to make a book successful,

Andy Paul: 00:16:26

still learning that I think, gotten better over the

Andy Paul: 00:16:29

course of three books, I think. So one thing is, there's lots of

Andy Paul: 00:16:32

different publishing options these days. But the one thing

Andy Paul: 00:16:35

everybody needs is everybody needs a really good editor, you

Andy Paul: 00:16:37

whether you are self published, or they work with a hybrid

Andy Paul: 00:16:39

publisher, whether you want to try to do a conventional

Andy Paul: 00:16:42

publisher, a traditional publisher is in terms of making

Andy Paul: 00:16:45

a good product, which is really what you're doing is you need

Andy Paul: 00:16:49

that outside perspective, that's really going to challenge you

Andy Paul: 00:16:52

and and work with you. And and I was really fortunate the

Andy Paul: 00:16:55

unfortunate my first book, I had hired an editor who was okay,

Andy Paul: 00:17:00

but was more sort of following my leads. And then second book

Andy Paul: 00:17:04

with a traditional publisher editor was not very good at all,

Andy Paul: 00:17:07

and didn't really help. But this this book, sell without selling

Andy Paul: 00:17:10

out that just published, our just fantastic editor she worked

Andy Paul: 00:17:13

for the publishers were hand in hand with me for better or four

Andy Paul: 00:17:17

months on the book, maybe even a little bit longer. And it just

Andy Paul: 00:17:20

made all the difference in the world. So in books are really

Andy Paul: 00:17:23

collaborative. And that's the lesson learned after the first

Andy Paul: 00:17:27

two that I actually the first one was that, yeah, it's a

Andy Paul: 00:17:30

collaborative effort. It's the editor, just a big part of it if

Andy Paul: 00:17:33

you find the right person, if the publisher has the right

Andy Paul: 00:17:35

person. So that's one bit advice. The other piece of

Andy Paul: 00:17:38

advice is that if you plan on writing a book, investing the

Andy Paul: 00:17:42

effort, then plan on selling some. And well, you laugh, but I

Andy Paul: 00:17:48

mean, I have a lot of people on my show that want to be guests.

Andy Paul: 00:17:52

And this I've written this book or research the book, and I'll

Andy Paul: 00:17:55

look at and say, Okay, it's been published, you know, it's been

Andy Paul: 00:17:57

on the market for two years and has 20 reviews on Amazon. And

Andy Paul: 00:18:02

it's like, yeah, what are you trying to do to market the book

Andy Paul: 00:18:04

or you went to all this effort. So what I encourage authors, and

Andy Paul: 00:18:08

I actually run a mastermind group for aspiring sales

Andy Paul: 00:18:11

authors, is really invest time to build your platform, right?

Andy Paul: 00:18:17

Build your audience before you sell before you write the book.

Andy Paul: 00:18:21

Because it makes it easier to find an audience for the book.

Andy Paul: 00:18:23

So invest the time, if you want to be a thought leader, which if

Andy Paul: 00:18:27

you want to write a book, clearly you do is invest the

Andy Paul: 00:18:29

time on primarily LinkedIn to build a following to express

Andy Paul: 00:18:34

yourself out there. So even test your material a fuel source, I

Andy Paul: 00:18:37

often use the analogy of LinkedIn or being like the out

Andy Paul: 00:18:41

of town comedy club for a comic that wants to try out their new

Andy Paul: 00:18:44

material. Yeah, that's what LinkedIn is for. It's it's

Andy Paul: 00:18:47

there, it's public. But you're there served to figure out what

Andy Paul: 00:18:50

you think and what you believe in what resonates with an

Andy Paul: 00:18:53

audience. So you're sort of doing market research to some

Andy Paul: 00:18:55

degree. So it's really important if you're thinking about

Andy Paul: 00:18:58

building a book. So I've long are writing a book series, I

Andy Paul: 00:19:00

sort of have a little longer term plan and say, yeah, how am

Andy Paul: 00:19:03

I going to prepare myself for that? Because also, you make

Andy Paul: 00:19:06

yourself more attractive to publishers, if you have an

Andy Paul: 00:19:09

established audience on LinkedIn as well.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:12

So one thing that I find so so amazing about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:16

the advice that you gave on writing a book, I feel like it's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:19

the same thing that you you preach, and you talk about when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:24

you say that, hey, yep, you want to be a good sales manager. You

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:27

want to be a good leader, you need help, right? Your editor

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:30

that's kind of like your coach, and then you're like, Okay, on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:34

LinkedIn, sometimes it might booth sometimes it might not,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:37

but you got to try. Right? You got to put yourself out there to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:40

at least get moving.

Andy Paul: 00:19:43

Yeah. Well, I think people that I mean, it's you do

Andy Paul: 00:19:46

you feel about the podcast. I know. I do, too, is like when

Andy Paul: 00:19:48

you first started it's like sort of afraid to put yourself out

Andy Paul: 00:19:51

there right? Because you're afraid someone might say

Andy Paul: 00:19:54

something about a negative or whatever. I mean, I remember

Andy Paul: 00:19:56

when I first started doing paid speaking in public I come back

Andy Paul: 00:20:00

from a speaking event, my wife would say, Well, how did it go?

Andy Paul: 00:20:03

I'd say, Well, no one stood up and called me an idiot. So I

Andy Paul: 00:20:06

think it was okay. And that was sort of my bar, right? It's just

Andy Paul: 00:20:10

because you have that fear, when you first start putting yourself

Andy Paul: 00:20:12

out there, you write a book, you put the book out there, it's,

Andy Paul: 00:20:15

you know, even the third book, there's still sort of this

Andy Paul: 00:20:17

trepidation about, you know, somebody's gonna like it. So, in

Andy Paul: 00:20:22

building your audience, in advance of writing a book, you

Andy Paul: 00:20:24

sort of have to conquer that fear to some degree and get

Andy Paul: 00:20:27

accustomed to putting your opinions out there. And for me,

Andy Paul: 00:20:30

the great thing about LinkedIn is not necessarily the quality

Andy Paul: 00:20:34

of what's put out there, because it's on uneven quality, that's

Andy Paul: 00:20:38

fine. But the fact that people are doing it, because I don't

Andy Paul: 00:20:42

know, we don't know where the next great insights is going to

Andy Paul: 00:20:44

come from, and the next great idea is going to come from and I

Andy Paul: 00:20:46

don't think it has to be, yeah, somebody like me, that's been in

Andy Paul: 00:20:49

the business forever. I think how somebody, you know, two

Andy Paul: 00:20:52

years in their career, if they've got this insight about,

Andy Paul: 00:20:54

yeah, there's different way we could do this aspect of selling,

Andy Paul: 00:20:57

put it out there. Let's socialize it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:00

So when you think about thought leadership,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:01

what are some of the things that you find most important, because

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:05

you said, Hey, build your your tribe, your community have a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:09

engaging group of people that you almost can kind of drop

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:13

into, you know, a book launch or whatever you're doing? So when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:17

you think about thought leadership, what are some of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:20

things that have not gotten so good for you? And some of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:22

things that you're like, Oh, this is great.

Andy Paul: 00:21:25

Well, you know, the things that are great, it's

Andy Paul: 00:21:28

just, you know, sometimes you write things that people don't

Andy Paul: 00:21:30

like, and that's fine. But it's, it's the consistency is really

Andy Paul: 00:21:34

the key, you just have to commit to doing it and doing it on a

Andy Paul: 00:21:37

frequent basis. And just having a point of view. For me, that's

Andy Paul: 00:21:42

really the important that I think if you're even if you're

Andy Paul: 00:21:43

not a thought leader, as a profession, but you're in sales,

Andy Paul: 00:21:48

you have this increasing obligation to have thought

Andy Paul: 00:21:50

leadership, as part of what you do is we know that buyers

Andy Paul: 00:21:55

current study from RAIN Group two year but two years ago, 82%

Andy Paul: 00:21:58

of buyers look at a seller's LinkedIn profile before they

Andy Paul: 00:22:02

speak with them for the first time, what are they looking for?

Andy Paul: 00:22:04

They're looking for, are you worth investing their time in

Andy Paul: 00:22:07

you? Right? So what do you stand for? What do you believe? Does

Andy Paul: 00:22:10

anybody know? Can they find out by looking at your LinkedIn

Andy Paul: 00:22:12

profile? What separates you from the next salesperson? Because at

Andy Paul: 00:22:17

the end of the day, we know that in the overwhelming majority of

Andy Paul: 00:22:21

cases, the decision, the buyer makes the difference between you

Andy Paul: 00:22:24

and another vendor? Is you the seller. So you know, what's that

Andy Paul: 00:22:28

impression you're creating on the buyer? And when do you start

Andy Paul: 00:22:30

creating that impression? I think it starts if they're

Andy Paul: 00:22:32

looking at your LinkedIn profile, that's gonna be their

Andy Paul: 00:22:34

first impression of you, oftentimes, so what should they

Andy Paul: 00:22:39

find there? And so I think sellers that don't spend some

Andy Paul: 00:22:42

amount of time and we're in this profession is expressing and

Andy Paul: 00:22:46

having an opinion about selling about their customers about

Andy Paul: 00:22:50

their market, their customers, or in so on, it doesn't, you're

Andy Paul: 00:22:53

doing yourself a disservice. And it's so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:55

you have this amazing new book sell without

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:58

selling out, right. And a lot of times, I know that authors

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:05

thought leaders typically come up with ideas for books based on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:09

things that annoy them, it means that they're seeing in the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:12

marketplace, or they're like, Okay, you guys are getting it

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:15

wrong. What was your inspiration for this latest book that you've

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:18

written?

Andy Paul: 00:23:18

Well, yes, sir. What you said is, is that we're just

Andy Paul: 00:23:23

not and we in b2b selling, we're just not getting better at it.

Andy Paul: 00:23:28

Right? Ms. We've had over a little such over the last 1015

Andy Paul: 00:23:30

years, we've had this little gold rush of incredible

Andy Paul: 00:23:34

technology, marketing, automation, sales, automation,

Andy Paul: 00:23:36

sales technology. And yet you look at the results that

Andy Paul: 00:23:40

companies are achieving, or individual sellers are

Andy Paul: 00:23:42

achieving. And you look at some of the research that's done. And

Andy Paul: 00:23:45

we see all see the research of a percentage of sales reps

Andy Paul: 00:23:48

setting, quotas dropping when rates are dropping, sellers are

Andy Paul: 00:23:52

turning more frequently with all these data points of saying,

Andy Paul: 00:23:56

Hmm, what's going wrong here? Why aren't we able to take

Andy Paul: 00:24:00

advantage of this technology and do better and do better in the

Andy Paul: 00:24:04

sense of creating better experiences for the buyer? And

Andy Paul: 00:24:07

that's really the bottom line. Right? And so, yeah, just over

Andy Paul: 00:24:12

the course of all the conversations on my podcast, and

Andy Paul: 00:24:15

in my own work with companies, that was just clear that there

Andy Paul: 00:24:18

was sort of this impediment. And I think a lot of the impediment

Andy Paul: 00:24:21

is just how we perceive what our job is as sellers. And yet

Andy Paul: 00:24:25

there's plenty of counter examples. And I just want to

Andy Paul: 00:24:28

draw those out in the book and say, yeah, here's a different

Andy Paul: 00:24:30

path that more focused on the buyer and the experiences the

Andy Paul: 00:24:35

buyer has that to some people may say, Well, gee, seems a

Andy Paul: 00:24:38

little counter to what we're doing seems a little soft,

Andy Paul: 00:24:41

maybe. But the fact is, it's actually a faster path to an

Andy Paul: 00:24:45

order faster path to increasing your win rates. Then sort of the

Andy Paul: 00:24:49

stereotypical salesy behavior that sellers are known for, and

Andy Paul: 00:24:54

that's sellers. Many make buyers cringe when sellers do it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:24:58

Yes, it's a very, very unfortunate when, as

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:02

a seller, you're just so in your mind and you're like, This is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:05

how things have to go. And I really don't care about you. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:08

I'm just talking, talking and I'm vomiting product

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:11

information. I'm doing this and I'm doing and it's like, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:14

lost a sale before you even started, like five minutes in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:16

the cell was already lost.

Andy Paul: 00:25:18

Oh, yeah, probably 10 seconds? Well, it's as we know

Andy Paul: 00:25:23

that, again, I wrote about this in my second book is this

Andy Paul: 00:25:26

there's this body of science about how people form

Andy Paul: 00:25:29

perceptions of other people. And but one of the things that

Andy Paul: 00:25:31

always stuck in my mind was, we do that within a quarter of a

Andy Paul: 00:25:35

second. So I can figure in the example they use. And so the

Andy Paul: 00:25:38

study was people meeting people, let's say, in a social setting,

Andy Paul: 00:25:41

or a bar man and a woman or potential romantic partner, you

Andy Paul: 00:25:45

make an perception like this. And if you think your buyers

Andy Paul: 00:25:48

aren't doing the same thing about you is you're mistaken

Andy Paul: 00:25:51

they are. And what we know about against from the science of

Andy Paul: 00:25:54

perception is that once a buyer forms a perception of you in

Andy Paul: 00:25:57

their mind, it's very hard for them to change it, even when

Andy Paul: 00:26:00

they're given evidence that directly contradicts that

Andy Paul: 00:26:03

perception. And the example I like to give is, if you imagine

Andy Paul: 00:26:06

that you live on some suburban street somewhere and the police

Andy Paul: 00:26:10

show up at your neighbor's home and drag the guy out of bed and

Andy Paul: 00:26:14

walk away in handcuffs and all the neighbors are out. Looking

Andy Paul: 00:26:16

at what's going on. Now, the day later, police out mistaken

Andy Paul: 00:26:20

identity, not the person at all. Nevermind, what is everything

Andy Paul: 00:26:23

about the neighbor? He's a crook? Something wrong as bad

Andy Paul: 00:26:27

person, even though it's nothing at all right? And the well, this

Andy Paul: 00:26:30

is this is so what happens is if you show up, and yeah, one of my

Andy Paul: 00:26:35

favorites, is you act too familiar too quickly with a

Andy Paul: 00:26:38

buyer, for instance. Yeah, I hate it when mail sellers

Andy Paul: 00:26:42

presumed early in the relationship, they can call a

Andy Paul: 00:26:44

guy buddy or PAL, right? It's just it's off putting to a lot

Andy Paul: 00:26:48

of people, right? You have to earn the right to be able to

Andy Paul: 00:26:50

call somebody that. Well, they formed that perception of you

Andy Paul: 00:26:53

little lazy, doesn't think things through, you know,

Andy Paul: 00:26:56

presumes makes presumptions that shouldn't. Yeah, what's the

Andy Paul: 00:27:00

person would be like to work with going through this process?

Andy Paul: 00:27:03

Maybe not right? Just from that little thing, just like that. So

Andy Paul: 00:27:08

in sales, we have to be incredibly intentional about the

Andy Paul: 00:27:12

impressions we create at all times. And it may seem like a

Andy Paul: 00:27:15

small thing, but it's like saying sales are no small

Andy Paul: 00:27:18

things.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:18

No, there aren't. And you know, the old

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:21

cliche, first impressions. Last is it's true, because I've had

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:25

people who are like, hey, Wes, I'm like, Excuse me, who gave

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:28

you permission to call me West? Right? Like, who are you? Like?

Andy Paul: 00:27:35

Right? I mean, you're it affects how you interact with

Andy Paul: 00:27:37

that person. Right? Yeah, I want to post about that on LinkedIn I

Andy Paul: 00:27:42

posted about a couple of times is is young, mostly young male

Andy Paul: 00:27:46

sellers, really hate that, that I call them out on because they

Andy Paul: 00:27:49

think, yeah, we're just we're being ourselves. That's like,

Andy Paul: 00:27:52

No, I I encourage people to be yourself, but you earn the right

Andy Paul: 00:27:56

also, to do certain things. Yeah, much like you earn the

Andy Paul: 00:27:59

right through building trust with the buyer to ask them more

Andy Paul: 00:28:02

detailed questions that force them to reveal information that

Andy Paul: 00:28:05

wouldn't normally reveal. They don't have to just because

Andy Paul: 00:28:08

you're asking a question. They don't have to answer it

Andy Paul: 00:28:10

completely, or fully or truthfully, you earn the right

Andy Paul: 00:28:14

to get that. Yeah. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:15

you know, I think that so many times when we

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:19

have these, I like to say outside of the box ideas in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:23

sales, there are a lot of pushback, right? Because it's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:25

like, well, we've been doing this for 15 or 20 years, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:27

it's been working. And you're like, Okay, let's look at the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:30

data. Who was it actually working for? Oh, there's top two

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:33

or three salespeople? Well, what about everyone else? Right? And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:37

when you're saying, hey, less people are hitting quota, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:41

maybe the company is still hitting their targets. But if

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:44

you look at the spread, you only have a small percentage of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:47

team that's doing it right. And so it's like, but we have to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:51

give a framework we have to help everyone understand the why and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:55

the how don't just give them scripts and tell them to go do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:58

it

Andy Paul: 00:28:58

exactly. Couldn't have said it better. Rarely do

Andy Paul: 00:29:02

we give people the why behind the how. And so people have sort

Andy Paul: 00:29:07

of the sin robotic approach to selling and so on. It's one

Andy Paul: 00:29:09

things I tried to accomplish in the book, with my four pillars

Andy Paul: 00:29:12

of selling in is getting the detail about the why behind the

Andy Paul: 00:29:16

how and then provide the high was well, because people need

Andy Paul: 00:29:19

context for why they should act a certain way to your point to

Andy Paul: 00:29:23

about the top two 3%. I would say in most companies, the top

Andy Paul: 00:29:26

performers, they do sell in versus sell out. But they've

Andy Paul: 00:29:30

developed their own style over time. Right. And it's something

Andy Paul: 00:29:33

that's unique to them is why I tried to make it a book is you

Andy Paul: 00:29:35

know, sales managers basically want everybody to comply to a

Andy Paul: 00:29:38

process except you people who are really good. You do what you

Andy Paul: 00:29:41

do. Right? Why is they need to act that way with everybody to

Andy Paul: 00:29:44

help. They've helped those people get to where they were

Andy Paul: 00:29:46

hopefully sales managers. So do it for the rest of the company.

Andy Paul: 00:29:50

The rest of the team is yeah, I always find it very interesting

Andy Paul: 00:29:55

to and I just saw this a couple weeks ago on a post somewhere.

Andy Paul: 00:29:58

Someone was making the camera button Well, you know, sales

Andy Paul: 00:30:01

managers could do a better job. But thing is they spent so much

Andy Paul: 00:30:03

time with the mid to low performers that they just don't

Andy Paul: 00:30:07

have time. I'm like, actually, that's not my experience working

Andy Paul: 00:30:11

with companies as ever, is actually sales managers spend a

Andy Paul: 00:30:15

disproportionate amount of time with their top performers,

Andy Paul: 00:30:17

because they think that's where they're going to achieve their

Andy Paul: 00:30:19

success. And what happens is the middle tier, and the lower tiers

Andy Paul: 00:30:23

get ignored. And that's a huge problem. So, yes, we need to

Andy Paul: 00:30:28

lift all people in the profession and in a specific

Andy Paul: 00:30:33

team. And I think one of the ways to do that is you you

Andy Paul: 00:30:36

enable people to become the best version of themselves as a sales

Andy Paul: 00:30:39

manager. So what I lay out in the book, I said, these four

Andy Paul: 00:30:42

pillars of selling in connection, curiosity,

Andy Paul: 00:30:44

understanding generosity, is these are, these are attributes

Andy Paul: 00:30:48

we all have as human beings to some greater or lesser degree,

Andy Paul: 00:30:51

we need to develop those as managers, because this is how

Andy Paul: 00:30:54

they were naturally in, in a more human way interact with

Andy Paul: 00:30:57

buyers, and enable more likely outcome for them than they would

Andy Paul: 00:31:03

acting somewhere else. Other way. So yeah, managers need to

Andy Paul: 00:31:06

spend more time with those people and let them experiment.

Andy Paul: 00:31:10

Yeah, this is a part that, again, is one of my pet peeves

Andy Paul: 00:31:12

that drives me nuts is managers with middle and lower tiers,

Andy Paul: 00:31:17

they want them to be more compliant to their sales process

Andy Paul: 00:31:20

a little more rigidly managed in terms of activity, I understand

Andy Paul: 00:31:23

you're a little nervous about it. But the path forward with

Andy Paul: 00:31:27

those people is to enable them to build on their unique

Andy Paul: 00:31:30

strengths, because I believe they all have, we all do. And

Andy Paul: 00:31:34

yeah, sort of follow the path I've laid out on the book and

Andy Paul: 00:31:36

that word,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:38

I'm so mesmerized, because I've

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:40

literally just sitting here, and I'm thinking about, you know,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:43

there's a popular sales methodology, and I won't call

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:47

any names, but they try to get everyone to act a certain way.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:53

Or if you're not this kind of salesperson, you're not going to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:56

be successful. So get everybody on the team to be this kind of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:31:59

salesperson and do it exactly this way. And I advocate for

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:03

individualized coaching plans, right, every single person on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:07

the team is a different person. And if you can level that middle

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:11

tier up just 10%. And then with the bottom tier 10%, right, your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:17

top two, they're going to do what they need to do, they don't

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:19

need as much of your time, you need to focus on what you can do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:24

to let me level them up. Let me level that person up. And once

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:27

you start looking at each salesperson as a human being not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:32

just a block on your revenue spreadsheet, and say, This

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:36

person needs to be better here. Let me help them in our coaching

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:40

sessions do this that is the way that we can sell without selling

Wesleyne Greer: 00:32:45

out. Oh, absolutely.

Andy Paul: 00:32:47

I tell people what I write in the book is that the

Andy Paul: 00:32:50

job of a salesperson, it's not to persuade somebody to buy your

Andy Paul: 00:32:54

product, your job as a salesperson is to go out and

Andy Paul: 00:32:56

listen to your buyer, understand what the most important things

Andy Paul: 00:32:59

to them both in terms of the challenges they face and the

Andy Paul: 00:33:02

outcomes they want to achieve. And then help them get that,

Andy Paul: 00:33:06

right. That's our job as sellers. That's our job as a

Andy Paul: 00:33:08

salesperson, as a sales manager. Your job is not to force people

Andy Paul: 00:33:13

to comply to a process your job is to it's gonna sound very

Andy Paul: 00:33:16

familiar, it's to listen to your salespeople, understand what are

Andy Paul: 00:33:19

the most important things to them in terms of you may the

Andy Paul: 00:33:23

skills they need to upskill or maybe the things that the goals

Andy Paul: 00:33:27

they want to achieve in their life, the outcomes they want to

Andy Paul: 00:33:28

achieve in their career, and then help them get that that's

Andy Paul: 00:33:31

your job. Your job is to help your people get the things that

Andy Paul: 00:33:34

are most important to them. And if you think it's anything else,

Andy Paul: 00:33:36

but that then you're missing it, because the path to your own

Andy Paul: 00:33:41

success as a sales manager is doing just these things,

Andy Paul: 00:33:44

understand what's important to your sellers, help them achieve

Andy Paul: 00:33:46

them.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:47

Yeah, I like to say if your sales team is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:50

failing, you're failing, right? And so if you can't help them

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:56

get to where they need to go, then you are failing as a sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:33:59

manager. And it's not about you being up there getting your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:34:02

award and getting a pat on the back and like Yeah, you did so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:34:05

good this quarter. No, it is about knowing that all 510 20

Wesleyne Greer: 00:34:10

people on your team can be up on the podium and you can sit back

Wesleyne Greer: 00:34:13

and say that is a reflection of me. My team is a reflection of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:34:17

me.

Andy Paul: 00:34:17

Well, absolutely. And to that point, right. As we all

Andy Paul: 00:34:20

seen the reports from CSO insights and from bravado just

Andy Paul: 00:34:25

came out with a report. Majority of sales sellers are not hitting

Andy Paul: 00:34:30

their quotas. So whose responsibility is that? It's

Andy Paul: 00:34:33

just what you said it is the managers responsibility. And too

Andy Paul: 00:34:38

many one offs are pointing fingers at the sellers and

Andy Paul: 00:34:41

saying well, they're not doing the work and so on. Well, okay,

Andy Paul: 00:34:44

well, that's still your responsibility is and I think

Andy Paul: 00:34:47

the way that managers need to look at it is assume that you

Andy Paul: 00:34:51

are a manager of a manufacturing plant, and you're making a

Andy Paul: 00:34:55

product. So if 52% of the product coming off here assembly

Andy Paul: 00:35:00

line didn't work to specification, how long would

Andy Paul: 00:35:03

you hold your job? Not long, right? Yeah, that's really what

Andy Paul: 00:35:07

this is, is the sellers, I don't make turn sellers into, you

Andy Paul: 00:35:11

know, a number or something, but they are your product, you are

Andy Paul: 00:35:15

shaping those people. They're your responsibility. So if

Andy Paul: 00:35:19

you're allowing salespeople, either virtually or physically

Andy Paul: 00:35:23

to go out and have conversations with customers that are so

Andy Paul: 00:35:27

ineffective that such a few percentage of them a low

Andy Paul: 00:35:29

percentage of them actually attain quota, that's your

Andy Paul: 00:35:31

responsibility. And now, as we said earlier, we don't

Andy Paul: 00:35:36

necessarily enable sell sales managers to help their people

Andy Paul: 00:35:39

the way they need to in that regard. So it's yeah, we've got

Andy Paul: 00:35:41

multiple steps in this. But yeah, we need to start looking

Andy Paul: 00:35:45

at sales managers is really take it personally, if people that

Andy Paul: 00:35:49

were responsible for aren't hitting their numbers.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:52

And you know, a lot of times when we go in, and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:54

we're working with companies within our consulting practice,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:35:58

you know, I'll say, Hey, this is where your salespeople are, this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:01

is what they need. And a lot of times leadership be like, oh,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:04

let's just get rid of them. They're all bad. Let's just

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:06

replace them. And not doing this and not doing that. And so I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:08

just said, Look, each and every person in the eye, whether I'm

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:11

on Zoom, or in person, and I say, have you given each and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:15

every person on this screen 100% of what they need to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:20

successful. And 100% of the time, they say no, so I'm like,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:24

you have to give them something before you say go away. If this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:27

is your fault, right? And we can talk about this all day, Andy,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:30

because this is actually like, this is my heart. I talk about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:34

this all the time, sales management enablement, right,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:36:38

and why they're the nucleus of the organization

Andy Paul: 00:36:41

Well, right. But we can't set people up for failure.

Andy Paul: 00:36:44

And this is my concern is so ripe for the pandemic, I spoke

Andy Paul: 00:36:48

to a group of CEOs, they were CEOs of portfolio company of

Andy Paul: 00:36:52

this private equity firm. And as presenting to them, and I went,

Andy Paul: 00:36:55

I said, Well, let me ask you all the questions. Yeah. Whose this

Andy Paul: 00:36:58

was toward the end of 2019? I said, So, who here on the table

Andy Paul: 00:37:01

is going to raise quotas this year? Well, they all raise their

Andy Paul: 00:37:04

hand. Okay. Got it. I said, so, you know, how much we serve,

Andy Paul: 00:37:08

established over baseline was like 12 13%, on average. I said,

Andy Paul: 00:37:12

Great. Okay. So raise your hand, if you've invested sufficiently

Andy Paul: 00:37:17

this year, and your sellers that, you know, their

Andy Paul: 00:37:20

productivity has improved by 13%. Hmm. That sounds

Wesleyne Greer: 00:37:25

like,

Andy Paul: 00:37:28

huh, wow. That's like, we don't tie the ends

Andy Paul: 00:37:32

together. It's like, sure you want to grow, but you have to

Andy Paul: 00:37:35

provide people something to be able to enable them to grow,

Andy Paul: 00:37:38

right? It's how are you adding to their skills? How you're

Andy Paul: 00:37:41

adding to their experience? How are you improving the level of

Andy Paul: 00:37:44

coaching and management they get that can help them achieve at

Andy Paul: 00:37:46

higher levels? Whatever that dimension is? What are you

Andy Paul: 00:37:49

doing, and too often that we just raise the quotas,

Andy Paul: 00:37:54

regardless of those things. And then we wonder why people get

Andy Paul: 00:37:56

frustrated, why they quit, why they turn over quickly. You

Andy Paul: 00:38:00

know, it's a situation that that management leadership is

Andy Paul: 00:38:02

oftentimes creating. So you have to look at the whole the whole

Andy Paul: 00:38:05

picture.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:07

Wow, we've had an amazing conversation. And I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:12

do want to wrap up and ask you something, what's the thing that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:17

you're most excited about accomplishing personally, or

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:20

professionally, you talked about your kids and books and this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:22

amazing consulting practice. So I don't know how you're gonna

Wesleyne Greer: 00:38:25

get just one. But give me the one.

Andy Paul: 00:38:27

You know, at this point in time, it's fun. I mean,

Andy Paul: 00:38:30

the podcast and the books, I think, but also, you know, my

Andy Paul: 00:38:34

partner in creating the podcast, and in my business has been my

Andy Paul: 00:38:38

son. So, again, as a parent, having the opportunity to watch

Andy Paul: 00:38:44

your kids grow and mature and to have the opportunity to interact

Andy Paul: 00:38:47

with them frequently. Daily as because we're working together.

Andy Paul: 00:38:52

It was Yeah, unexpected. Pleasure and bonus for

Andy Paul: 00:38:56

everything I've done. And yeah, I just remember we're down a

Andy Paul: 00:38:58

similar age, and I sunsets mid 30s. But yeah, I want to talk to

Andy Paul: 00:39:03

my parents once a week, right. And they really have no idea

Andy Paul: 00:39:05

what I was up to in my life in terms of understanding my

Andy Paul: 00:39:08

profession and what I was doing, because at odds what they had

Andy Paul: 00:39:11

done, yeah, good chance to share this with, uh, not my daughter

Andy Paul: 00:39:14

works for me as well. So that's a lot of fun.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:18

That is amazing. I would say that is an amazing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:21

thing to be able to hang your hat on, right? Both of your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:24

kids, they've done their thing and now they've come back and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:28

they're working in the business with you. That's awesome. Yeah.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:30

And so far,

Andy Paul: 00:39:31

they don't hate me for

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:35

Awesome, awesome. Awesome. So Andy, what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:39

is the one best way that people can get in contact with you if

Wesleyne Greer: 00:39:42

they want to chat with you or engage with you or

Andy Paul: 00:39:45

LinkedIn? So you can follow me on LinkedIn connect

Andy Paul: 00:39:48

with me please connect with me. That'd be great. message me on

Andy Paul: 00:39:52

LinkedIn as well. That's funny. Like many people, it's two

Andy Paul: 00:39:55

inboxes both my my email and LinkedIn but LinkedIn is

Andy Paul: 00:39:59

probably The easiest, most direct way at this point.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:01

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:04

an amazing conversation. Thank you for having me. And I would

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:08

encourage anyone, please pick up a copy of Andy's book. I've read

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:12

it. It is an amazing book. And I know that your leadership if

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:18

you're an individual contributor, wherever you fall

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:20

within the sales organization, it's going to help you to become

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:24

a better seller. So thanks again for your time and talent and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:27

expertise. Andy? Well, thank you for having me. It's been a lot

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:30

of fun. And that was another episode of the science of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:33

selling stem and remember and all that you do transform your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:38

sales until next time. Thank you for joining us today on the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:42

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Wesleyne Greer: 00:40:47

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