Finding Your WHY in Sales with Rick Barnett

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:00

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

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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

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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 guest 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 have Mr.

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Rick Barnett. How are you, Rick? Awesome. Thank you. Mr. Barnett,

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currently serves as founder of rep light. He's responsible for

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spearheading a strategic development process that allows

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manufacturers to experience maximize potential with limited

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resources, Mr. Burnett has initiated and instituted his

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process to allow several manufacturers to experience

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exponential growth within the division that it was applied.

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Okay, growth manufactured. Tell us about how did you start your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:39

career? And how did you come to have this amazing company?

Rick Barnett: 00:01:43

Yeah, well, thank you first, for having me, I

Rick Barnett: 00:01:45

appreciate it. So as you can tell, I've got a lot of tenure

Rick Barnett: 00:01:49

and experience. So my career's a long journey, I really started

Rick Barnett: 00:01:53

in sales, believe it or not in insurance sales. And did that

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for a little bit. And then just decided that there was something

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else in life that I wanted to do so went back and ended up

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becoming a first assistant in surgery. So I've switched into a

Rick Barnett: 00:02:09

clinical role did that for a few years. And then really, because

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of the way that technology was evolving, a sign made for

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basically people to help support technology in and around the

Rick Barnett: 00:02:21

operating room. So I created that inside of a hospital. That

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was a team within the the LR, and I had one of my clients

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actually come to me and say, you know, when we sell things into

Rick Barnett: 00:02:33

this hospital, we sell our technology into it, things just

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work. And we're not having to send a rep in, we're not having

Rick Barnett: 00:02:39

to support it. And they're like, so how was this happening here?

Rick Barnett: 00:02:43

So I explained to them what I had seen and the need that I

Rick Barnett: 00:02:46

had, and they said, Well, can you come to the industry and do

Rick Barnett: 00:02:48

it with us. So that was many years ago, I went to work for

Rick Barnett: 00:02:51

Stryker, I was employed one on one, and Stryker has a huge

Rick Barnett: 00:02:54

medical device company. And we were basically in charge of

Rick Barnett: 00:02:57

building a junior sales team, if you will. And so started there.

Rick Barnett: 00:03:03

If you fast forward, then about 14 years later, there's about

Rick Barnett: 00:03:07

800 of us. So grew it from one to 100. I was recruited by

Rick Barnett: 00:03:11

another medical device company called Intuitive Surgical

Rick Barnett: 00:03:15

intuitives, known for their DaVinci Robot. They had kind of

Rick Barnett: 00:03:18

seen what happened at Stryker, they said, Hey, we've got

Rick Barnett: 00:03:20

disruptive technology that's in the LR, we spent a lot of time

Rick Barnett: 00:03:24

supporting it. Do you think that it's applicable for us to put a

Rick Barnett: 00:03:29

junior rep program together and really the the junior rep

Rick Barnett: 00:03:32

programs kind of look like a minor league baseball team to

Rick Barnett: 00:03:36

their Major League affiliate? Right. So we started that

Rick Barnett: 00:03:39

intuitive, I did that for four or five years, grew that from

Rick Barnett: 00:03:42

employee, one to one to about 120. And then just decided that

Rick Barnett: 00:03:46

what we were doing for those companies, we could really

Rick Barnett: 00:03:49

expand out and go to many different companies. So about

Rick Barnett: 00:03:52

eight years ago, obviously saw a need, and we started reply. And

Rick Barnett: 00:03:56

basically what we do is we create modeling teams for our

Rick Barnett: 00:04:01

clients. We're a contract sales service company. And so we

Rick Barnett: 00:04:05

primarily play in the medical space, medical devices,

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pharmaceuticals, although we do some work in the business, the

Rick Barnett: 00:04:11

business, just plan out there. Anyway. So that's about a 30

Rick Barnett: 00:04:15

year journey.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:16

Wow. So I really want to kind of rewind and go

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back to going from one to 800. Because there are a lot of

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people that are in either that beginning stage or the middle

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stage. Right. And I think that the beginning, I'm not gonna say

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it's easy, but it's like, okay, we see a vision, we see growth,

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but then you start getting these people and the growing pains,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:40

right? So it's like when you get from 50 to 100 or 100 to 300.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:44

Right. So talk to us about those growing pains when you guys were

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:49

experiencing that rapid growth and really, what things did you

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do to ensure that the team everybody who came on was on

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boarded the same way that you had the team camaraderie that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:04:59

you needed? to really help sustain the culture?

Rick Barnett: 00:05:01

Yeah, it's a great question I would tell you that

Rick Barnett: 00:05:04

Stryker as an organization has, has a great culture. I mean,

Rick Barnett: 00:05:07

it's they pride themselves on. I think for us early on, as we

Rick Barnett: 00:05:11

started the growth of ethic, you're right, when you got a new

Rick Barnett: 00:05:13

concept grows kind of easy. It's, you know, you, I will tell

Rick Barnett: 00:05:17

you, the first 75, people are probably fairly easy. But when

Rick Barnett: 00:05:22

you do start to scale, there are some complexities. And I think

Rick Barnett: 00:05:26

the key takeaway for me was, and still is, you know, I think a

Rick Barnett: 00:05:30

lot of people talk about servant leadership. But I do think that

Rick Barnett: 00:05:33

if you're leading an organization, or you're about to

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grow, or skill and organization, we certainly believe in here

Rick Barnett: 00:05:39

that the folks that you work with, your job is to serve not

Rick Barnett: 00:05:43

only your client, but also the people that you work with. And I

Rick Barnett: 00:05:47

think if you go about it, in the mind frame of, you know, my job

Rick Barnett: 00:05:51

is to serve the people that work here with a set rep life, that

Rick Barnett: 00:05:54

is why I come to work every morning to do and that's what I

Rick Barnett: 00:05:56

leave here every evening intending to do is to basically,

Rick Barnett: 00:05:59

I want my body of work to be so that I am setting people up to

Rick Barnett: 00:06:06

be able to thrive and have success. And that's just kind of

Rick Barnett: 00:06:10

the nature that I took in the mid 90s. And it still seems to

Rick Barnett: 00:06:13

be a good method for success.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:15

So how do you really help the internal

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:20

stakeholders understand that, hey, customers are important,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:25

but your colleagues are also important. We're here to serve

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:28

each other. If I asked you to expedite this is not just

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:31

because I want to do it for my health. It's because there's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:06:34

somebody else down the chain that actually may need that.

Rick Barnett: 00:06:37

Yeah, I think it's about being bought into the

Rick Barnett: 00:06:39

mission, right? You know, there's times that we talk about

Rick Barnett: 00:06:42

the why, okay, and I'm gonna give you an illustration, so

Rick Barnett: 00:06:45

let's just use a medical device company, okay? If they create,

Rick Barnett: 00:06:49

you know, a new device, right, they've got this great new pen.

Rick Barnett: 00:06:52

And, you know, they put that out to the Salesforce and say, Hey,

Rick Barnett: 00:06:56

this pens really cool. Go sell a lot of them. I think that only

Rick Barnett: 00:07:00

drives those cells to a certain point. I think if you take that

Rick Barnett: 00:07:05

new device, we'll call it our PN as an example. And you really

Rick Barnett: 00:07:09

articulate to the team, how this pins going to improve the lives

Rick Barnett: 00:07:13

of patients that are actually you this pins is used for, I

Rick Barnett: 00:07:18

think that sets a different tone through the organization. So

Rick Barnett: 00:07:22

it's not a product and trying to hit a number hit your quota and

Rick Barnett: 00:07:25

grow the revenue. It's why are we doing what we're doing? And

Rick Barnett: 00:07:29

how, what's the outcome of that? So you kind of you know, I hate

Rick Barnett: 00:07:32

to say, use a cliche, you know, start with the end in mind. But

Rick Barnett: 00:07:35

you certainly need to know the why behind your daily activity.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:39

The why I love that, how do you as the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:44

president, the CEO of the company, define the why.

Rick Barnett: 00:07:49

So here, you know, when we start an engagement with

Rick Barnett: 00:07:54

the client, and they tell us their needs, you know, they want

Rick Barnett: 00:07:58

to build a sales team, or they want to grow a different

Rick Barnett: 00:08:00

division of their sales team, we kind of take a deeper dive and

Rick Barnett: 00:08:04

ask, what are they trying to accomplish with this? Right? Is

Rick Barnett: 00:08:08

it launching a new product? Is it support for a different

Rick Barnett: 00:08:12

division? Or, you know, what is it because I think for us, we

Rick Barnett: 00:08:16

need to get an alignment with what they're wanting. So that

Rick Barnett: 00:08:19

helps us build that why, for each particular client, because

Rick Barnett: 00:08:23

every clients different, and their Why is different, what we

Rick Barnett: 00:08:26

really don't waver on here, we have a couple just pillars of

Rick Barnett: 00:08:30

things that that we just, we look for people who have strong

Rick Barnett: 00:08:34

moral compass or have integrity, they have to have that they

Rick Barnett: 00:08:38

certainly have to have energy. And they have to have bandwidth

Rick Barnett: 00:08:41

or intelligence because, you know, in the medical space, or

Rick Barnett: 00:08:45

whatever space we're in, we feel like those three things are just

Rick Barnett: 00:08:48

core pillars that they need before we can move forward. And

Rick Barnett: 00:08:52

I think what happens when you find people like that, if it had

Rick Barnett: 00:08:55

those three things, then it it really brings the chasm of

Rick Barnett: 00:08:58

alignment really tight. So you can really start to build that

Rick Barnett: 00:09:02

why and that culture around what you're trying to accomplish.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:09:06

How has understanding your Why are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:09:09

really developing this? Why how has that helped you see this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:09:13

tremendous growth that you've talked about throughout your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:09:15

career?

Rick Barnett: 00:09:16

I think it goes back to the fact that, you know,

Rick Barnett: 00:09:20

I believe that the work that I get to do, you know, I love the

Rick Barnett: 00:09:24

statement, find what you love to do and call it work. Right? I

Rick Barnett: 00:09:28

love that statement. And I think it's it goes back to what I said

Rick Barnett: 00:09:31

earlier, if you really go about your your body of work with a

Rick Barnett: 00:09:36

servant mentality, I think is when I would use I mean, you can

Rick Barnett: 00:09:40

call it whatever you want. But really, I think I'm serving the

Rick Barnett: 00:09:44

why. Right? And that means whether it's people technology

Rick Barnett: 00:09:48

processes, my job is to serve and support the why of the

Rick Barnett: 00:09:52

organization, whether it's our client or its rep life, either

Rick Barnett: 00:09:55

one.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:09:56

So I love this. I'm serving the why and I think

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:00

that so often when people within our field, these technical

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:05

fields of STEM sales, they're so focused on the tactical aspects,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:09

right? They forget the human element of sales of selling of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:14

business. So how are you able to really bridge that gap? Because

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:20

to be successful in this field, you have to be doing some of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:22

tactical stuff. But you're so focused on that human element?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:26

How can you really bring those together?

Rick Barnett: 00:10:29

Well, it's, I think, you know, I'm sounding

Rick Barnett: 00:10:32

redundant here. But I think, you know, again, if there are

Rick Barnett: 00:10:36

things, you know, let's just use technical sales, right? There's,

Rick Barnett: 00:10:40

there's aspects of things that that you have to know and be

Rick Barnett: 00:10:43

knowledgeable on, right. And those, you have to know your

Rick Barnett: 00:10:45

product, you have to know the industry or whatever it is. But

Rick Barnett: 00:10:49

I think it goes back to that les bond, a common mission

Rick Barnett: 00:10:53

statement, let's find what we're trying to do that really

Rick Barnett: 00:10:57

resonates with people, because those technical things, I think,

Rick Barnett: 00:11:00

are a part of learning. I think that if you take someone who has

Rick Barnett: 00:11:04

a strong desire to succeed, and is willing to apply themselves,

Rick Barnett: 00:11:08

we can teach them, the technical aspects of it. But the thing

Rick Barnett: 00:11:11

that I can't, I can't really teach is the motivation to go,

Rick Barnett: 00:11:16

you know, for whatever you're wanting, I can't teach you that

Rick Barnett: 00:11:19

motivation, there has to be internal. But if you have that

Rick Barnett: 00:11:23

internal motivation for success, and you have a desire, and we

Rick Barnett: 00:11:28

marry that with the why, and educate, then you've got a

Rick Barnett: 00:11:31

pretty good recipe for success.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:34

Hmm, I love that. I just don't understand

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:37

why everybody wants they, I love calling them the competitors

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:41

rejects. And they won't just find the strong salespeople. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:44

what you just defined was really a recipe to identify a strong

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:49

sales person, teach them the technology, help them to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:53

propelled, and then really allow them to take off. And when you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:59

started red light, I feel like you there was something in the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:03

industry that you said something is broken, and I want to fix it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:06

How did you really even decide eight years ago to start the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:09

company? So

Rick Barnett: 00:12:11

I'm going to be a little bit corny here and go

Rick Barnett: 00:12:14

back to a sports analogy, right. So if you look at major league

Rick Barnett: 00:12:19

baseball, okay, Major League Baseball, which I got to put in

Rick Barnett: 00:12:22

a plug, we're in Atlanta, so Go Braves just have to put that

Rick Barnett: 00:12:25

plug in their

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:27

revenue in revenue.

Rick Barnett: 00:12:30

It's been a long time since we've been to the

Rick Barnett: 00:12:32

show. So we have a 26 year drought thing. But here's what I

Rick Barnett: 00:12:36

know about baseball, and this may be a hell. So if you look at

Rick Barnett: 00:12:40

the this past World Series, both teams had players that were

Rick Barnett: 00:12:44

called from the minor leagues and actually got the start or

Rick Barnett: 00:12:48

play in the World Series. That's only because they had modeling

Rick Barnett: 00:12:52

teams that are affiliated with each organization. So if you

Rick Barnett: 00:12:55

think about naming the company, or whatever, but look at a major

Rick Barnett: 00:12:59

league organization, so all these major league teams, they

Rick Barnett: 00:13:01

have these modeling affiliates in these little small towns

Rick Barnett: 00:13:03

around the US, right? If a player gets hurt, or something

Rick Barnett: 00:13:08

happens to a player, they can have a replacement player within

Rick Barnett: 00:13:12

a day on that major league team. Now, it's truly for the most

Rick Barnett: 00:13:17

part, a plug and play player, because they've been in the

Rick Barnett: 00:13:20

organization. They know the playbook. They know the offense.

Rick Barnett: 00:13:22

They know the strategy, because they've been in a part of the

Rick Barnett: 00:13:24

organization. The thing that I noticed that years ago is is

Rick Barnett: 00:13:27

that in, especially in the medical and the pharmaceutical,

Rick Barnett: 00:13:30

we don't have a modeling team. And when I started socializing

Rick Barnett: 00:13:35

this and asking why the two things that are hard most often

Rick Barnett: 00:13:38

was, well, we can't afford a second layer. And then I would

Rick Barnett: 00:13:42

hear something like, we need people to be provide value or

Rick Barnett: 00:13:46

provide revenue. So again, let's go back to this modeling concept

Rick Barnett: 00:13:51

in Major League Baseball. All of those minor league teams are

Rick Barnett: 00:13:55

developing players day in and day out, they're getting ready

Rick Barnett: 00:13:58

for that major league opportunity. They are supporting

Rick Barnett: 00:14:02

local communities with entertainment and revenue. So

Rick Barnett: 00:14:05

it's no different in sales. If you don't have a junior sales

Rick Barnett: 00:14:09

program that you are nurturing, developing. Anytime you lose a

Rick Barnett: 00:14:14

rep, a rep quits, a rep gets fired, you've got a vacant

Rick Barnett: 00:14:17

territory, for however long it takes you to field. And I can

Rick Barnett: 00:14:21

tell you in our field, depending on the product segment, we say

Rick Barnett: 00:14:26

that an empty territory, cost anywhere from 150,000 to

Rick Barnett: 00:14:30

500,000. Just an open territory. So I don't know how you can not

Rick Barnett: 00:14:36

afford to be developing a modeling team for your

Rick Barnett: 00:14:39

organization.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:40

This I mean when I heard about what you did, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:44

was like oh my goodness, it's genius. Because the problem is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:49

and I'm not sure if it is the same in your industry, but in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:53

industries that I touched manufacturing petrochemical, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:56

know those heavy industrial size the workforce is aging. So it's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:00

not even that somebody is gonna quit, they're gonna retire. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:03

once they retire, they taking 1015 20 years of product

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:07

knowledge, customer knowledge with them. And you don't start

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:11

to think about the replacement until the person says, Oh, I'm

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:14

retiring at the end of the year, and you're like, oh, it's June

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:17

or July, it's gonna take me three months to find somebody.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:19

And then I only have three months of overlap. And like you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:22

said, the problem is that the empty territory is not

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:27

producing, right, so you run out the pipeline. But after the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:31

pipeline is run out, there's nobody backfilling it, and it

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:33

takes people time to learn. And so really having that I love the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:37

analogy, even though you had to rub them raise my face, I'll

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:41

accept it. Because when the Astros won the World Series, we

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:44

celebrated that probably for like two or five years, we've

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:46

just not even stopped celebrating. Yeah, right. So I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:50

get that tells me with this minor league sales team that you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:55

guys work with and develop in half are your customers, how has

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:59

that help them?

Rick Barnett: 00:16:01

So I'll give you an example. So we have a client

Rick Barnett: 00:16:04

that's in the cardiac space, and medical devices, and they were

Rick Barnett: 00:16:09

experiencing, and when, when a rep leaves, it's not only the

Rick Barnett: 00:16:13

loss of productivity in the sales, right, but it's

Rick Barnett: 00:16:15

competitive threats, it's employs around that territory,

Rick Barnett: 00:16:20

they're having to pitch and so it's burnout, there's a lot of

Rick Barnett: 00:16:22

things that go into when a rep either retires, or, or leaves or

Rick Barnett: 00:16:26

whatever. And what they were experiencing was, you know, it's

Rick Barnett: 00:16:30

our current client, when a rep left, HR then got engaged, it

Rick Barnett: 00:16:35

took them anywhere from three to six months to find a candidate,

Rick Barnett: 00:16:38

which that's normal, and especially in today's job

Rick Barnett: 00:16:41

market, right. But the problem is, is they had $250,000, of

Rick Barnett: 00:16:46

missed opportunity during that timeframe. So when they engaged

Rick Barnett: 00:16:49

us three or four years ago, the VP of sales is like, Okay, we

Rick Barnett: 00:16:55

need to stop this bleeding, this revenue, you know, even if you

Rick Barnett: 00:16:58

have a normal rate of attrition, right, call it 10 to 15%, which

Rick Barnett: 00:17:03

is kind of normal out out in the space you're talking about, it

Rick Barnett: 00:17:07

comes up into the millions of dollars every year that you're

Rick Barnett: 00:17:09

losing. So what they did is they engaged us, and we basically put

Rick Barnett: 00:17:14

25 territory associates around the country, these territory

Rick Barnett: 00:17:17

associates, young, bright professionals with no knowledge

Rick Barnett: 00:17:22

of cardiac equipment, but they bring them in and they attach

Rick Barnett: 00:17:26

them to a senior rep. And so they're developing these people.

Rick Barnett: 00:17:30

And what happens is, our program says our model says that anytime

Rick Barnett: 00:17:35

after 12 months in our engagement, you can take a

Rick Barnett: 00:17:38

person directly, right. So that's part of our value

Rick Barnett: 00:17:40

proposition. So what happens now is, when they lose a rep, they

Rick Barnett: 00:17:44

refill it within days, because they call me and say, Hey,

Rick Barnett: 00:17:48

you're employed this working on contract with us, your territory

Rick Barnett: 00:17:50

associate has been with us on contract for 18 months, they're

Rick Barnett: 00:17:55

knowledgeable, they understand the process, they've been with a

Rick Barnett: 00:17:57

really good senior rep. So bam, they plug the position in days,

Rick Barnett: 00:18:03

not weeks, not months.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:05

I love that. And while we're on this topic, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:08

would really like you to help me dispel this, I would have a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:12

misnomer from the audience. Because people have a very

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:16

unrealistic view of what it takes, or how long it takes for

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:22

a new technical sales rep to really become autonomous. Give

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:27

me some stats based on what your experience is for them to really

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:32

understand and learn the business and be able to do it on

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:36

their own.

Rick Barnett: 00:18:38

I think the fastest out there is probably 90

Rick Barnett: 00:18:41

days. And I think that's an exception, I think you're

Rick Barnett: 00:18:44

probably looking at more like 180 days to 12 months. And now

Rick Barnett: 00:18:50

I'm saying that's when they are, you know, as autonomous as that

Rick Barnett: 00:18:54

can be from an organizational standpoint. But it's rare that

Rick Barnett: 00:18:58

anyone in a highly technical field can produce on their own,

Rick Barnett: 00:19:05

I would say six months to a year.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:07

I love it. It's right on target with what I tell

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:10

people I say six to 18 months, right? Because sometimes you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:14

have these really complex products, and it takes a little

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:18

bit longer, but six to 18 months. So you cannot expect a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:22

person that you hire to come in and get rid of them in 60 days

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:26

because they haven't closed the deal. I mean, come on people.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:28

Let's give people a chance to learn the business. And the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:32

thing is, even if they come from a similar industry, or your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:36

competitor, your products are a little bit different. Your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:39

processes are a little bit different. Your customers are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:42

different. We have to allow people to learn

Rick Barnett: 00:19:45

and whoa, you know, if we don't sell it rep

Rick Barnett: 00:19:47

like we don't need either, right like but here's what I will tell

Rick Barnett: 00:19:50

you. I think as leaders, we need to not forget the development

Rick Barnett: 00:19:55

piece for people. Every person needs to be developed and you

Rick Barnett: 00:19:59

can't expect someone to be Mr. Magic Man or girl, right? It's

Rick Barnett: 00:20:04

just it man or lady. It's just not there. So that's the reason

Rick Barnett: 00:20:07

I use this baseball analogy. So Well, every night in the summer,

Rick Barnett: 00:20:11

the Houston Astros is the Atlanta Braves and some small

Rick Barnett: 00:20:14

town are developing their future all stars. And I think as

Rick Barnett: 00:20:19

important as hitting revenue is as important as you know,

Rick Barnett: 00:20:22

hitting your quota or whatever your KPIs are, what your KPIs

Rick Barnett: 00:20:26

should be certainly developing the next gen. But just I think

Rick Barnett: 00:20:30

you're missing a few not.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:31

So if there's someone and they're like, Okay,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:35

I think I want to get started, I want to dabble my toe in this,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:38

what is the first thing that they need to do to start

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:41

developing their minor league team internally?

Rick Barnett: 00:20:43

Oh, call us.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:48

Okay, okay, we will let since you're such an

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:51

excellent salesperson, tell me why they would call you instead

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:55

of trying to do it themselves? Well,

Rick Barnett: 00:20:57

that's, and thank you for that question. Because

Rick Barnett: 00:20:59

that's a question I get asked all the time. And it's lovely to

Rick Barnett: 00:21:02

have it. So one of the things that companies can do when

Rick Barnett: 00:21:06

trying to embark on this is you can really drown your resources.

Rick Barnett: 00:21:10

I mean, you're asking HR to take on a whole new thing. You're

Rick Barnett: 00:21:14

asking your talent acquisition people, you're asking your field

Rick Barnett: 00:21:17

management to really take on, call it a separate division, if

Rick Barnett: 00:21:21

you will. I mean, that's not really what it is. And you're

Rick Barnett: 00:21:24

asking them to do that with a current workload. So it's not

Rick Barnett: 00:21:27

like they're just sitting around named stuff to do, they're

Rick Barnett: 00:21:29

blasted, you know, 60 hours a week already. So why would you

Rick Barnett: 00:21:34

not get the best of both worlds when you can have a partner like

Rick Barnett: 00:21:37

us, we go through all the interview process, we do all of

Rick Barnett: 00:21:40

that. We hand them to our client for one final interview, they

Rick Barnett: 00:21:45

say, yep, we like them. We onboard them. And then the day

Rick Barnett: 00:21:49

that they're supposed to start, they show up ready to go. So I

Rick Barnett: 00:21:52

think it's having a trusted partner that has done it has

Rick Barnett: 00:21:55

done it with, you know, fortune 50 companies down to the two

Rick Barnett: 00:21:59

guys in a garage or two girls garage, right? I mean, it's

Rick Barnett: 00:22:02

we've done it with all kinds. And so I think it's about

Rick Barnett: 00:22:04

efficiency, it's about de risking, too, one of the things

Rick Barnett: 00:22:08

that we tell people all the time is, when you go to build a

Rick Barnett: 00:22:11

junior Salesforce or you go to build a Salesforce, there's a

Rick Barnett: 00:22:13

ton of risk in that, right? It cost a lot of money. And you

Rick Barnett: 00:22:17

hope that everyone works out with us, we removed that risk

Rick Barnett: 00:22:21

for you, because it's up to us to make sure that they work out,

Rick Barnett: 00:22:23

it's up to us to make sure that we hire good people. So I would

Rick Barnett: 00:22:26

say anytime you start a new venture like that, you try to

Rick Barnett: 00:22:29

find a partner that can remove as much risk to your business as

Rick Barnett: 00:22:34

you can.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:34

I love it. You know, I like to say I tell

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:37

people, you're an expert at what you do, you might be an expert

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:40

at Field Sales, outside sales, whatever you want to call it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:43

But when you're doing something like this, the amount of time

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:47

research effort is going to take for you to figure it out when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:51

you don't have to be I like to say no need to be a jack of all

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:54

trades and the Master of None find someone a trusted resource

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:57

that you can really use to help feel this somebody who's done

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:02

it. And like Rick said, you know, hey, they have done it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:06

They do it all the time. And they have great success with it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:09

So I guess the first step is to, I would say the first step I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:13

would recommend would be to do an inventory of your internal

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:16

resources. And once you realize that you don't have the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:20

bandwidth for this, but you choleric

Rick Barnett: 00:23:23

That's good advice. But I would I think that

Rick Barnett: 00:23:26

the folks who are listening to this will probably do in that

Rick Barnett: 00:23:30

interview interview process or the internal review, I don't

Rick Barnett: 00:23:34

think many of them are going to find that they've got the

Rick Barnett: 00:23:35

resources to do it. Because everyone's running hard and run

Rick Barnett: 00:23:38

it fast right now. Absolutely. It's, that's that's the reason

Rick Barnett: 00:23:42

we're in business.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:43

So tell us about give us a success story, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:46

gave us some little nuggets of some things that have happened

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:49

throughout your career, but give us something that you're really

Wesleyne Greer: 00:23:52

proud of accomplishing.

Rick Barnett: 00:23:54

You know, it's kind of a humbling thing. But I

Rick Barnett: 00:23:57

think from a professional standpoint, obviously from a

Rick Barnett: 00:24:00

personal, you know, my family, my faith, that's what I'm really

Rick Barnett: 00:24:04

proud of. But from a professional standpoint, I think

Rick Barnett: 00:24:07

the thing that that really motivates me is there's people

Rick Barnett: 00:24:12

that I have hired 25 plus years ago, that I still speak with

Rick Barnett: 00:24:17

weekly on the phone, and they are either CEOs or VPs of sales

Rick Barnett: 00:24:23

and a higher demand and a entry level junior position. And I

Rick Barnett: 00:24:27

still communicate with so many of those folks, right? And

Rick Barnett: 00:24:31

people asked me so you know what gets you fired up when we hire a

Rick Barnett: 00:24:36

young professional or when we extend an offer to a young

Rick Barnett: 00:24:39

professional and they sign our offer letter. That's when I feel

Rick Barnett: 00:24:42

success. Because I know if they apply themselves they're going

Rick Barnett: 00:24:46

to have that long 10 year run have been successful you know

Rick Barnett: 00:24:50

it'd been fruitful being good for their family and their

Rick Barnett: 00:24:52

lives. So it sounds a little maybe a little cheeky ish but I

Rick Barnett: 00:24:55

love when someone signs an OP letter from us because it I know

Rick Barnett: 00:24:59

what the I know what's gonna happen,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:01

huh? That's good. And I love that what you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:04

said you're most proud of, it's not you know, the big sales that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:08

you've won, or the big teams that you've created. It's each

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:11

person's life that you're impacting, because we know how a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:15

career in sales can really change your trajectory of your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:19

life, change your family history, change your legacy. And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:22

so really, like he said, that first signature on a paper or

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:26

knowing that somebody who you hired in an entry level, you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:29

know, Grant sales person is now a VP of sales or a CEO.

Rick Barnett: 00:25:33

So I do want to give you one example of this.

Rick Barnett: 00:25:36

And I think this just illustrates it, and it doesn't

Rick Barnett: 00:25:39

happen with everyone. But we hired a young lady into one of

Rick Barnett: 00:25:43

these territories. So she had roles, you know, low entry

Rick Barnett: 00:25:46

level, so let's say 60,000, a year, right compensation. And

Rick Barnett: 00:25:52

she got in with one of our clients, and she just, she done

Rick Barnett: 00:25:55

things that were asked for a ride, she learned, she, you

Rick Barnett: 00:25:59

know, worked hard, fast forward about 19 months, and our client

Rick Barnett: 00:26:05

took her own directly, because she had gotten to the point you

Rick Barnett: 00:26:07

and I talked about, right where she was, she knew what to do.

Rick Barnett: 00:26:10

Fast forward about two months after that, she calls me and

Rick Barnett: 00:26:13

she's in tears. And he's like, Oh, my gosh, what's going on,

Rick Barnett: 00:26:17

and she goes, I'm gonna make over $250,000 this year, and

Rick Barnett: 00:26:21

you've, you've changed my life, and my family's life. And

Rick Barnett: 00:26:24

that's, that's our wife. But that's what we do what we do,

Rick Barnett: 00:26:28

because we give people that opportunity, really cool,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:31

awesome, amazing in two years to go from 60,000

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:35

to 250. And you know, there are so many people that are scared

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:40

of sales, or they think sales is this or that. But really, sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:45

is one of the only careers that the amount of effort you put in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:50

directly impacts the output, the sales, your commission, how much

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:54

money you make, right. And so that is one of the most exciting

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:59

things about a career in sales.

Rick Barnett: 00:27:00

That's the only profession I know that you're in

Rick Barnett: 00:27:03

charge your raises.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:04

Absolutely. I like to say you work as hard or

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:07

as little as you want to, and your income, your output is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:11

directly correlated to that if you work 100 hours a week, that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:16

means you're gonna close more sales if you're doing the right

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:18

thing. Now. If you're doing the right thing, you're gonna close

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:21

more sales, like you said, one of the only careers that you can

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:26

actually control how much money you make you control your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:29

income, you control your destiny. Yeah, that's true. So

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:33

Rick, this conversation has been amazing. I am curious, I know

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:38

that there are going to be people who are going to be like,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:39

Okay, well, I listened to what Wesleyne says, and she said, do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:43

my inventory. Alright, so what is the best way for people to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:46

get in contact with you?

Rick Barnett: 00:27:48

I mean, obviously come to our website, it's RP

Rick Barnett: 00:27:51

hyphen, li te so rep hyphen lytx.com. You can also send an

Rick Barnett: 00:27:56

email at info inf o at rep rip hyphen Li te.com I think those

Rick Barnett: 00:28:02

are probably the two of the easiest ways to get in touch

Rick Barnett: 00:28:04

with us. If you go to the website, there's a contact form

Rick Barnett: 00:28:06

you can fill it out, you will be responded to in under 24 hours.

Rick Barnett: 00:28:10

Unless you do it on Saturday night at 10 o'clock then it

Rick Barnett: 00:28:13

might be Monday but for the most part you will be responded to

Rick Barnett: 00:28:15

within 24 hours but we look any of your audience we'd love to

Rick Barnett: 00:28:19

help them if what we talked about today is something that

Rick Barnett: 00:28:22

they believe could serve you know their customers well, we'd

Rick Barnett: 00:28:25

love to be a part of their their journey.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:27

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I thank you so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:29

much for providing your insight on how you're really able to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:34

help companies grow those minor league sales teams and really

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:40

expand and show how you started from one person to 100 person

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:46

team I mean if nothing else that kind of shows your experience.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:49

So thank you so much again for joining me today.

Rick Barnett: 00:28:52

You're so welcome. Thank you for having me again. I

Rick Barnett: 00:28:54

really appreciate it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:55

And guys, that was a another episode of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:28:58

science of selling stem please leave us a review drop me a note

Wesleyne Greer: 00:29:04

W Greer at transform sales comm let me know how do you like the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:29:08

guest? Is this resonating with you and remember in all that you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:29:13

do transform your sales. Until next time.

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