Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to b two b revenue acceleration, a podcast dedicated to helping software executives stay on the cutting edge of sales and marketing in their industry. Let's get into the show.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hi. Welcome to b two b revenue acceleration. My name is Arnie Matier, and I'm here today with Kevin Dorsey, SVP of sales and partnership at bench accounting and sales leadership coach. How you doing today, Kevin?
[00:00:24] Speaker A: I'm good, friend. I am good. It's a Monday morning, so. Already cranking away. So, ready to dive in? Let's do this.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. So today we'll be speaking about enabling self success with your sales leadership framework. Dipsy. B-I-P-S-Y. But before we get going, it'd be great if you could introduce yourself, Kevin, and also bench accounting, the company you represent, for sure.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: So I'm Kevin Dorsey. Everyone calls me kd at this point, unless I get in trouble. I am a father to two amazing daughters, Lily and Luisa. I am a husband to my wife, Jess. I am a son. I am a brother. I am a leader of people and a coach and a teacher. I am the SVP of sales and partnerships at bench accounting. So we help small businesses take care of their books, take care of their taxes. Right? Pay less in taxes, spend less time having to do it, and making sure they can make business information or business decisions from their finances. So I've been there coming up on a year, which has been fun and exciting, to step back into the game a bit. And, yeah, man, that's what I do. Good.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: And can you start by giving us maybe an overview of bipsi and what inspired you to create that leadership?
[00:01:37] Speaker A: You know, I guess the inspiration for it was, if you look across sales, there's all these sales methodologies, there's all these sales. You got challenger, Medic, Medpix, Spiced, spin, bant, command, the message. You got all these sales methodologies, and a methodology is in place to give repeatable results, to speak a common language, and to help drive results forward. Right. But then you go a layer above the sales methodology and go, well, where's the methodology for leadership? Where's our methodology? Where's our process to follow? Where is our system to follow in order to diagnose, in order to coach, in order to figure out what's actually going on? And so it really evolved over the years. It used to be started with just, like, the b and the p. Right, behaviors and process. Then it elevated to bps, which actually did heavily at pageant pop was bps. And then it evolved into bipsi. Right? The bi psy of like, that's the full spectrum, right. Any revenue problem that a leader is facing, you have to understand which letter it is in Bipsi in order to actually address it. So I'll pause there. But it's really just been an evolution over time of how I lead, how I diagnose, and what I want my managers looking for that eventually turned into Bipsi.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Very interesting. So behavior processes, what are.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll break this down. So the b is behaviors, right. So these are the things in a rep's control that they need to do to improve a metric. So the whole flow is you can't change a result without changing a metric. So you have to identify what's the number one metric you're trying to improve. And you can't improve a metric without improving something in bipsi. So for example, say we want more revenue. Okay, great. We need to identify the right metric. So maybe close rate is too low. So once I've identified close rate, then I'm going to run bipsie against close rate. So we start with the b. What are the behaviors in a rep's control that if they did, would lead to a higher close rate? So this means like 100% in their control. So things like follow up that is 100% in their control. Crafting of a proposal that's 100% in their control. Blocking calendar for XYZ activities, number of touches. Right. So the behaviors, is it behavioral? Are they doing the things in their control that would positively affect that metric? After the b, you get to the eye. The eye has two parts for it. It's the individual and it's issued diagnosis. So one on the individual. Like, how is the individual doing? Right. They might be doing all of the right things, but are they okay? How is their energy? How is their mood? How's their morale? Right? Like, have you checked in on them as an individual? If the result is not what you want it to be, have you checked in on them as an individual? How are they pacing to their goals? Do you know their goals? Right. So really focused on the individual. But then the other part of the eye is issue diagnosis. So if I talked to most leaders out there and I said, hey, someone's got a low close rate, what would you look for? They would give me like a list of things they would look for. The problem with that list is for most leaders lives, in their heads, in my orgs, it's documented for this metric. Here's our issue diagnosis checklist for this metric. Here's our issue diagnosis checklist right. Like what to look for in order to see what's causing the bad result. So then the p is process. So process is more so on the leadership side. Do we have good trainings anywhere? Do we have playbooks? Do we have the checklist right. Are there recordings anywhere showing what we are looking for? Can we build in prompts and reminders? Can we build it into the CRM or into our engagement tool? Like, do we have a good process in order to drive the behaviors that we're looking for? Then we get to the s, which is skill. What are the skills specific to that metric? Right. So if, again, we're talking close rate, what skills go into close rate? Well, discovery, but you need to go a layer deeper than that. It's not just what part of disco. There's specific parts of disco that lead to a better close rate. Or the demo? What parts of the demo? Objection. Handling which objections specifically are tied to our close rate. And then we get to the, why is you as the leader, are you doing the right things? Are you doing the right things? Have you coached them? Have you spoken to them? Have you shadowed them? Have you reviewed their calls? Have you done an issue diagnosis? Have you done bipsie? Have you been recognizing them? Have you been speaking to them about their goals? Even though it's bipsie? This has always been my gripe with a lot of methodologies, like medic, Medpic, even like spiced is because they're in order. People think that they go in order.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: So, like spice. Okay, the situation first, then pain, then impact, then critical event, then decision making. No, that's just how the word is spelled. They don't always come in that order. And so, same with bipsi? Yes, it's Bipsy, but the why is where the leader should always start. Are you, as the leader, doing the right things to drive the results? So that is bifsi in a nutshell.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: So, Kevin. Yeah, it's interesting because leadership always start with you in a way and ask you to be accountable and look at what you've been doing for your team. But what I'm really interested in is the eye, because I think, particularly at the moment, I think the eye is a very interesting concept in sales methodology where we look at the individual. So can you dig a little bit more into what you are looking for in the eye? Because that's a very difficult part. Let's say you've got a team of ten people. They may not be at the same level of psychology you mentioned in your introduction you've got two beautiful daughter. You seem to be an happy family man. Some other people may be going through stuff like divorce or whatever. It may be loss in their family. So how do you assess it and what are the best way to deal with it when it's the individual that is actually causing the issue? Yeah.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: So there's a few things. Right. So you're looking for external issues and internal issues when it comes to the individual. Right. So first as a leader, this is just checking in. This is asking the questions and meaning it. So not just saying, hey, Ray, how's it going today? And they say, fine. And you go, okay, great. And you move right along. No, how are you doing? How are things? I've noticed a change in behavior or energy. Is everything okay? I want to check in on you. Right. So it starts with just truly with intention, checking in on that individual. Right. What is happening outside of work? Are they doing things that bring them joy? Right. Funny enough, even in my issue diagnosis checklist, I have a checklist for mental health.
I have a checklist for morale of mental health where it's like, okay, how are they sleeping? Are they taking breaks?
How many hours are they working right now? Like really checking in first and foremost on how is that individual doing? Because also as leaders, too often we apply the averages to individuals. Right. Here's the average close rate. Here's the average. Right. We say, okay, Ray needs to improve revenue, but how for Ray it needs to be individual.
Is it close rate for Ray? Is it pipeline volume for Ray? Is it activity? It needs to be very specific. But the flip side is also true. Where does the individual lack a specific characteristic needed to succeed? Right. Because eventually it may be a role fit issue where they are getting the coaching, you as the leader are doing the right things. You do have what good looks like documented. You have been practicing with them, you've been giving them the feedback, and they are still just not either picking up the skills or the behaviors that they need. They may be lacking a certain characteristic needed to succeed. Right? Like, I am a very hard worker. I'll give myself average intelligence, but I really try to learn a lot. I don't have the attention to detail to be an engineer. That's a pretty specific characteristic that I lack that no matter how hard you teach me, I'm going to miss that colon, I'm going to miss that semicolon. I'm not going to even think to do it. So eventually it could be a role fit. So it's really making sure that we check in on the individual. And if we're doing all the other things, it may eventually get to a place where maybe it's not the right individual for the role because they're missing something that's important. So there's a lot that goes into it, but too many managers, they're not managing to the individual, they're managing to the number, and they wonder why they can't get their individuals to the number.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you. I think there is a nice parallel here between managing the number, caring less about the individual, so you end up churning the individual. But there is also, how do you work with your HR and your people team to bring the right people in your organization who have technically the right part of Bipsi? Because process, okay, you've got one, you've got to follow it. Your process may be very automated or not. And process may become more complicated when you go into very large deals, very enterprise, very complex, where you need to have a little bit more of a form of thought. But I guess my point here, and my question is, have you worked and are you working with your aid of HR, your recruitment team, to actually make sure that, first of all, you got the right people coming in? Because if you don't have the right people coming in, I guess your point was you can try whatever you want. You could have the best leader and the best manager, but with someone who just is missing the characteristic.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Well, and that's what's interesting. That's not the people's team's job to bring the right people in. It's my job. But the people team isn't offering people jobs. The people team might be recruiting, but who interviews them? Well, the manager is the director and VP is interviewing them. Right. So I go to the people team to say, these are the screening questions I want you to ask before they even get to a manager on my team. And then once they get to a manager on our team, we have clearly defined what are the characteristics we're looking for, what are the non negotiables, what are the questions we ask to explore those characteristics, what good answers sound like, what bad answers sound like in a scorecard. So we're going through interviews right now. Before I will even talk to a candidate, my managers have to sell me on why they are a fit based off the characteristics that they are looking for, period. Right. So the people team, they help recruit, but people team isn't hiring. That's not their job. That's our job as the leadership team. Right? To interview, make sure that they're the right. Fit and then people team helps with offers and everything else. So that's how I work with the people team.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Okay. But in terms of the characteristic, I like the fact you've got to scorecard. This is really good because you give them those questions to go through what you mentioned, the non negotiable in your case, what are they from your team, what are the non negotiable? Or the question, the characteristic that you are looking for? Are you looking at people that are similar to you? So hard worker, building a family, what is it that you are looking for?
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, actually I probably could. I mean, I could share my screen. I could show it to you. Right. So we look for grit, resilience, and the history of working hard through hard things. Right. Coachable, confident work ethic, curious, self aware self development. That's what we look for. And we have a scorecard. We've got the questions that we ask to do it and the easiest way. Most people drastically overcomplicate interviews drastically. They're asking weird questions that don't have good setups or anything else. We are very clear. We tell them this is what we're looking for, coachability. Now we define it, right. This is what we mean by coachability. Right. The ability to not only positively receive feedback, but the ability to apply it quickly as well. A fast learner and applyer. Ray, would you identify with our definition of coachable? First step. Right. I defined it. Do you identify with this? Second, can you give me an example? Can you give me an example of you living that characteristic? We get one, love it. Can you give me one more? Right. Everyone's got one. People trip up on number two. If someone's actually coachable, they have multiple examples. Multiple examples of being coachable. Right. Then we move on to the next characteristic. Then the next characteristic and the next characteristics. Right. So all that's there. So then it's scored. I can see. Right. Like whether or not someone passed based off our characteristics. And then we go from there.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: That's very interesting. So we've got coachability as well as one of the things that we look at, and we believe that my recruiter and my recruitment team. So you're right, the leader will make the last call, but we just want to make sure that we bring the right candidate to that leader. So it's kind of that two process. Most people love to say that they are coachable. This is one of the things where you won't have a lot of people just for an interview. They come to you and say, you know, what? Katie, I'm not coachable, man. I'm never going to make it into your team. They usually come because they want the job and we ask them, for example. But we also do some role play in the, hey, you know, if this interview is successful, we may do a little bit of a role play with the manager and see how we get on with that. And on purpose, we give them feedback and then we ask them to go again. But also we try to have two, three people in the interview process. So, for example, I say, you know what? With Katie, he's going to be the last guy and the guy making the decision around you. What? He loves that when you do the 30 minutes discovery call with him and introduce yourself, he'll ask you a few questions. I can't tell you what he will ask you. It depends on the mood of the day. But he loves people who follow up with an email. And if you can do it within a timely manner, I think that will go a long way for you to get in his good book. And then you watch how many people actually do it. The people who forget about it, do they really want the job, first of all? And then are they really coachable? And then again, it's about the people who are doing it because they want the job, but doesn't mean that they're coachable. They do it because they really understand the, what's in it for me right now versus I really love that concept. And the great resilience is also something that we, the other one, curiosity. I think you mentioned working hard and things like that. I think you can see that. But from what you mentioned, coachability, great resilience. And I think you said something about working hard on hard things or through tough times. That's equal.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Because if you go through this, I just led some training sessions for a company and first of all, just ask all the leaders. There were 30 some leaders in there. It's like, what characteristics are we looking for? And there wasn't even unified answers in that. Right? Of like, everyone's like. But then one of the ones like, grit showed up. I was like, all right, cool. Everyone write down your definition of grit. And everyone had a very different definition of what grit meant. And I said, so you all aren't even hiring for the same characteristic when you say grit, so it's important that you define it. When we say grit, resilience, that's what we mean. History of working hard through hard things, pushing through failures and challenges with enthusiasm, getting knocked down and getting back up again. That's what we mean by grit. Resilience. Now, when I ask you for an example, you know the bar that you are trying to meet where too often people say they're looking for grit, but they don't even know what it means. They haven't defined it and they haven't defined it to the candidate and go from there.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: It sounds good to speak about know one of our little technique, probably not teaching you anything new, but we also look at people who've had advanced sport careers, people who've been maybe know, but college football or in the US, college basketball, soccer in Europe or some other stuff. All those people who've got to a certain level of sport, individual or team sport, you can tell they must have the great. You can't get to a certain level without wanting to win, without waking up early in the morning, without going through injuries and not giving up. And I think lots of people will be defined right now with the great because right now is very difficult in companies, right? There is lots of headwinds, market is soft. There is not as much money in technology. And all that is kind of slowing down the rest of the market.
Interest rates are going up, things are being a little bit difficult for consumers, for businesses, and you will see a lot of salespeople giving up.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: All those people as, oh, yeah, I was made redundant during COVID three times over one year. I was made redundant in 2023 because the headwind and stuff like that think you can really define a team and you can really define yourself when you go through those tough moments. And what a story to tell, to go to the next interview and say, yeah, it was tough. We got hit by this, we got hit by that, but we rallied together. And as a team, this is what we want to deliver to our business. And that's really the story that we try to tell our people at the moment because it's not fun when we've got an olens. It's not like we're growing 60, 70% growth this year. Again, we're going to welcome another 100 friends into the family and there will be promotion right, left and center, and we're going to have a massive party to celebrate all that. People are like, why is the Christmas party, why is the summer party? Why are we doing small stuff now? Because we don't feel like celebrating sometimes.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: That's, I think, where people get defined and that's why we're trying to find if we can't. We had some great people that I think have been developed, their coachability, their grit, and resilience was developed through education, their family, what they went through as a kid, people moving from one country to another country, things like breaking their life, chip on their shoulder, usually good stuff. But yeah, I think these are probably the two with curiosity. The most important, because coachability, great. Resilience, and curiosity are not things that you can teach someone. I don't think you can teach someone to be curious. They either are it or they are not it, and you are it through your social interaction. Up until the point that you come to that interview, up until the point you come into that team. People who try to be curious will do it for one meeting and go back to that, being curious and caring about themselves very quickly. So that's super cool. I want to move to the process. Process is fun, but sometimes I find sales process too processy. And I'm speaking to a sales guy trying to sell me something and they just want to push that process on me. But I would like to bypass the process. I would like to do something different, and I'm the buyer. How can we ensure that a process is working efficiently? Because I guess you've got two parts of it. You've got the part of the end user, the clients, and you've got the part of the salesperson that may not believe in the process or believe that things could be done better, then do them better.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: So process is all about iiw iiw. I ask it to my leadership team all the time, iiw iiw, because iiw takes out all the BS, takes out all of the in between, takes out all the debate. Is it working? Is it working? Is your process getting the results that we expect? Period. Right. I want to do it this way. Is it working? Is it working? Is it getting you to the number that we need to get to? If it is, I'm going to let you be. If it's not, then you have to change it. So that's the key, right? Is like, is it working? This happened a couple of months ago where I dove in and I was.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Like, I'm going to steal that from you, Kevin.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: I like it all the time because it removes it, right? It's like, no, Kd, I did this. We did it. Did it work? Because now we're not debating whether you did it or not. We're debating whether or not it worked. No, we are following up on all the leads. Our conversion rate is still 7%. So is it working? Right? This happened a couple of months ago where our lead conversion was dropping and I dove in and I was like, yo, we are not handling these leads the right way. We are not making enough touches, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And some of the managers came back and said, no, we are. I said, okay, then let's operate from that being true. We are handling the leads the right way. So then what does that mean? Because it's still not working. So when you say you're handling them the right way, we're still having this conversion rate. That means it's not working. So we have to change what we're doing. Right. So it clears all of it out. So that's the first is like, define I pick my battles. If I have a rep that's blowing their number out, that's not my battle. They're blowing their number out. Because what I actually do is I try to figure out how can I processize. I don't know if that's a word, their process. Okay, you're my number one rep, right. And I do this in every. We do this almost every quarter. We call it studying greatness. It's like, okay, you're my top rep. I'm going to diagnose to the smallest detail what it is you do differently. I'm going to listen to all of your calls. I'm going to map my scorecard against it. I'm going to look at your follow up process, your emails, your proposals. Everything you do become the process. Too many sales leaders are, like, fighting their top performers over a process when really they should be creating the top performers process for everybody else. Right. So that's how I approach it. Right. And then from there, we define it kind of as a recipe where it's like, look, I'll use pizza as an example. In order for it to be a pizza, you have to have dough, sauce, and cheese. If you take away the dough, it's not a pizza. If you take away the sauce, it's not a pizza. Take away the cheese, it's not a pizza. Now, if you want to use red sauce and I want to use pesto, okay, still a pizza. It's just a different flavor. You like pepperoni and jalapenos. I like ham and pineapple. It's okay. It's still a pizza. So the rule when it comes to the process is you can add to, you cannot subtract.
We know these are the foundations of success. We know these work well. You want to add your flavor.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: I want you to add your flavor. Add your little spice to it. That's great. But you can't change the recipe, right? If all of a sudden you're taking away disco. All right, well, you just took away the dough. You no longer are making a pizza anymore. You've removed a foundational element. So that's the way process works in my world.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: I like it.
And the IW is definitely something that I'm going to use now. I think for me, the way I look at it is we've got processes, and as a growing organization, we bring more and more processes.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: And as we bring more and more processes, people. I mean, reluctance to change, number one, I think it's easier if you've got people coming in in a new process that is implemented and proven, because when you implement new processes, you may not get them right from the get go. And it's encouraging people to always have conversation about, oh, yeah, but that's broken. That's broken. And you made a good point about picking the battles. People can focus on a very small part of the process. Okay, we could fix, but does that really matter? Does that move?
[00:23:30] Speaker A: I talk about this with my team all the time, my leadership team, where we're trying to diagnose something, they'll be like, yeah, whatever. Let's say a couple of months ago, we saw a dip in conversion. I'm like, all right, what's going on? And it's like, yeah, we got to get way better with our follow up. Okay, but that's not a new problem. That's not a new problem. We needed to get better at follow up two months ago, too. So that's not what caused this drop. Do we need to get better at it? Yes, but something else in Bipsie caused the drop this month because we were bad at follow up the month before, too. So it's not a new problem. Right. And so people do. They'll get so in the weeds on something or fight over the things that don't actually matter. You got to pull it back and say, hold up. What actually is causing this right now? What can we do about this? To drive the results that we want?
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And Katie, I wanted to ask you something. As you may know, we recently got acquired by a company called Memory Blue. I had the opportunity to go to DC to meet with some of the top manager, and they call them managing directors, right? Managing director. They run an office. They've got almost their own little pnl and everything. It's pretty cool. They're all XSDR that have been promoted into the business.
So great people. But ask them one question, which is a question I ask every single person that I meet, and I want to ask it to you, difference from your perspective between a manager and a leader. Okay. And can you make a manager a leader?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So I mean, to me, very simple, you manage processes, you lead people. You manage processes, you lead people. That's the difference to me, there are a lot of leaders, and by the way, being a good leader is not enough. You need to also be a good manager. So you have a lot of leaders where they're good with people, but they're not good with process.
You can only raw and motivate people so much until there's a certain point where you need to install a certain type of process or system for people to follow to improve. Right. Then you have managers that don't know how to lead. We're like, yeah, they get the process and they understand the abcdefgs to go through things, but they're not able to connect with their people. They don't lead their people. So the way you could ping my managers, my directors, and ask them what their job is current, you could go back seven, eight years and ask any manager that's worked for me what is their job? And they will all respond back to you to make my people better.
To make my people better. And so then when you define it that way, that to me is the combination. Because in order to make your people better, you do need to manage a good process, and you need to lead the person, you need to lead the individual to get better. You can't do it with only one piece of that. That's why things like bibs are in place for the process, issue diagnosis for the process, call scorecards for the process, leadership, the coaching, the goal setting, the skill development. Right? Like the motivation, the recognition. That's how it all comes together.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got a slightly different definition for me, I would say, and I stole it from someone, I can't remember who it may have been. The seven habits of highly effective people. That book, it's very difficult to read that book. It takes you like three months to go through it.
But what I like as a definition is a manager is someone who does the things right. So follow processes, make sure they're implemented, and the leader is someone who does the right things. So it's outside of the processes. What are you doing outside of the processes? To support your team, to create a safe space, but then also with the individual.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: That's drucker, by the way. Peter Drucker.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: That's it. And I like that definition because I think it's relatively open and it's really, for me, a leader is someone I can think on their feet straight away, but also someone who's created this relationship with their team so we can discuss good news, bad news. I feel that sometimes the difference between my managers and my leaders is that there is no emotional connections with some managers and people where a leader must have. It goes beyond, I'm giving you a check at the end of the month.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: That's why I separate them. That's why I separate management is process. Leadership is people. Because even in Drucker's definition, right leadership is doing the right things. Can you do the right things poorly? You can do the right thing.
You can. Right. You can do the right thing. It might be to have a tough conversation, but you can do it the wrong way. Right. There's a lot of managers out there right now that truly believe they're doing the right things. They're just not doing it the right way. They're not either creating the process or they're not creating that individual and helping that individual be who they need to be in order to get there. Right. That's the key in all this. Leadership is hard, man. Leadership is hard, right? You have imperfect humans leading imperfect humans. It is an absolute mess. But as long as you are coming from a good place, it tends to work out.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: All right, look, spot on. I think if your art is in the right place, you're trying to manipulate people. You actually understand why you want to take them. You have a genuine. Not just because your boss is asking you, but you have a genuine willingness and will to make people better in your team to get them promoted. You are not scared to recruit people that are smarter than you in some aspect of where you are not strong because they are your go to people, they are your tea. Someone with a specialist of something, but got lots of knowledge around lots of other stuff.
It's critical. It's not something. Leadership is something that I think is very difficult to teach people because it's really situation, how you react to situation that are internal, external. And what I will say to you is that I think I thought of myself talking about coachability and stuff like that. I thought of myself of a great leader. And I think what's taught me my biggest lesson of leadership is having kids.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Right?
[00:29:28] Speaker B: So I've got three now. My last one is two weeks old, screaming downstairs. Yeah, that's why I've got those bags.
I think building a family the way it change you, what you've got to do, how you've got to be available, and then you see them growing they're getting to the age of five, six, the way they speak, that's a very important part that's teaching you almost that sort of a new dimension of EQ.
I'm not saying that you should manage. Your people like it, but what's great with kids is that their feelings are just. You see them, they react straight away to things you do. It's a mirror of who you are.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: And when you see them doing things that you don't like them doing, because they were a white canvas. So you made that. And I find that fascinating because it's all those things that you do with people. And for me, I think when I was struggling, not struggling with leadership, but I tried to have a process to become a better leader, which is kind of linking both in the middle. And one of my big thing was setting a goal with people. So I would meet with my guys once a quarter and say, let's work on your five key goals.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: They could be professional, not professional. You may want to have a six pack and look good when you're going to go to Cancun with your friends for the summer. Right. So how do I give you time? You can exercise. And also I make sure that I will slap your wrist if I see you coming with a domino's pizza for lunch, because you should not have that. Right. But we work together. We're going to achieve that together. Doing all those things I think are really important, because when you start achieve stuff with someone, little goals, little things, that's how the relationship built. And I think when you are working over something that is beyond the job, is beyond the check, that's where you can really ask people to give you more and they are more willing to give you more because you've got that sort of relationship that is just beyond doing the job and achieving your KPIs. And I think tougher conversation becomes easier. And you made a good point on the tough conversation. I think tough conversation is probably something that we need to train our leaders to do better. Right now at operatics Memory blue, people are either scared of it or they just go too hard in them. They just run away from them.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and that's where something you said, and this is kind of the mission I'm on, right. Is you said, I don't know if you can teach leadership, and I'm coming from a place of, like, have we ever actually tried? True. Like, how much training did you get as a leader, Ray? How much actual training did you get as a leader?
[00:31:52] Speaker B: My training as a leader was the same training as myself. Training. It's literally, here is a phone, here is a bunch of prospects. Call the slates, get there in front of them, speak to them. This is what you're trying to sell and leadership, quite frankly, I've been working with some great leaders that took me under their wing. So I saw them doing right and wrong. I saw them losing it, I saw them winning the team. I saw them leading people through tough time. And again, I want to make the difference. I think leading people when everything is rosy is very easy. Leading people when it's shitty out there. That's why you see the true leaders when you turn a situation around.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's kind of actually the point I'm making in all this though, too, right? Is like, there's also a difference between being taught and observing. Because when you're observing and trying to learn, it's a passive way to learn versus actually, you can teach people how to have tough conversations. You can teach people how to check in on their people and connect the dots. You can teach people on how to lead through challenging times. Three months ago, I led my whole leadership team of like, when things get uncertain, we did a whole 90 minutes workshop on how to lead through challenging times. Most companies just don't teach their managers. They don't teach their leaders. That's what I'm trying to teach and change right now, man, is like, there's all these sales training and coaching and all this out there, but it's the managers that you're just.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: We need to do that better. Katie, for me, it's the realization from talking to you, I think you've got a point, and I think you are right. And I guess the way I'm doing things at the moment, people either have it in them and I see it in them, because my interaction with them, on the interaction they've got with other people, or they don't have it in them. We need to be better at helping people to become leaders. And I'll look at what you've done in more details. I'll try to apply. Or maybe we can take some of that offline question for you. Also, another thing is what I call the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, right? So you are a sales rep. You crawl on the floor, you get yourself dirty every day to get business, and then, oh, you want to become a nice butterfly. You are CRO now. Okay? So you go from doing doer to leader. I also think that not everybody can go through that journey. I think you've got some specific characteristic in the bipsie of a good rep and some specific characteristic in a good leader. So I think you kind of covered the characteristic and what you're looking for for a good rep. When we spoke about the interview process, is there anything specific and outside of the things you already mentioned that you would be looking for? For someone that wants to become a leader in your organization? So they are already an employee. They're doing well. I'm going to give you a tough one. That's one of your top performer that wants to become a leader. At this stage, what would you be looking for? What's the journey like? Do you give them a time frame?
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Yes. Fun, right? So to me, this is actually very straightforward. One, they do need to express the want. Do they actually want to be a leader? Right. A lot of top performers, like, the actual top performers, don't even want to be a leader because they understand they're like, yo, I'm going to make my money. I'm going to do what I need to do and everything else, but let's say it's a top, top performer. First, I sit them down. I ask them three questions. Three questions. Hey, Katie, I think I want to get into management. I said, cool. Got three questions for you to start this off. First question, are you ready to put your paycheck in someone else's hands? First question, are you ready to put your paycheck in someone else's hands? Second question, are you ready for your paycheck to no longer be attached to your work ethic? You can work your way to a number in sales. You can't work your way to a number in management and leadership because you have to get it done through. Are you ready for your paycheck to no longer be attached to your work ethic? Then third question, are you ready for me to be upset with you because of what your team is doing? Are you ready to fall on that sword? Are you ready to stand up for your people and be the representative to me? So these are the first three questions, and I'm watching body language. I'm watching the responses. A lot of times they're like, oh, jeez, I hadn't thought about it that way. And so I say, okay, do you want to be a manager, or do you just want to be a leader? Because you can lead as a top performer and still not manage people. Once you're a manager, you're responsible for them, right? So I've had reps like that where they don't want to be a manager, but they still become leaders in my orgs, they're not responsible for individuals. So those are the first questions. Then from there, in terms of the characteristics, like truthfully within my orgs, dude, I already know. I already know whether or not you have the leadership characteristics because I would have been seeing it already. Leaders lead, you see it, it pops up. Right? So things I look for in leadership, right? So selflessness instead of coachability. I'm looking for coaching. Do you make people around you better? Issue diagnosis. Have you solved any problems? Are there places that you have stepped in and solved things and gone through it? Positive communication. Are you a positive communicator in all this consistency and follow through. Do you follow through on what you say to go through it? So then I map this out for them. I say, these are the things that I need to see. These are the things that I need to see. But then again, in my orgs, I'm sure you can see where this is going. Guess what? They start getting trained on six months before they ever become a manager. What do you think they're getting trained.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: On in six months? What do you think them through? That's a good question.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: I would say it's all of it, man. How to run a one on one, how to do hiring and interviewing, how to do issue diagnosis, how to be. I have 15 hours worth of recorded content with the scorecards, with the checklist. They go through all of that. They have to pass the certification to show that they even know what it means to be a manager. I start to give them one to two reps as a team lead before they become a full blown manager. This is a process, but I teach them how. I teach them how to do it right.
That's the key is too often you have sdrs go to AES and they're never taught how to actually be an AE. Then you have closers or sellers go to manager. They're never taught how to be a manager. Then even from there, my managers, I'm trying to prepare them to be a director. My directors, I'm trying to prepare them to be vps. Right? That's something that I look back in my career at this point that I'm most proud of is the mafia is spreading where my former managers, they are heads of sales, they are vps of sales, they are directors of sales, they are entrepreneurs now. They are business owners. Like that mafia is just spreading in terms of their impact at different orgs now, right? I'm going to try to create my directors into the best vps of the world. And my managers to be directors, but I teach them how. That's, I think the difference in my world compared to a lot of others is I teach them how to do those things.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: I was about to answer. Your question is you probably do an assessment and see because there is soft.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: And hard skills, right?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: So for example, emotional intelligence. We've got people who are great manager, but God, they're overpowering. You've got a problem, Katie. Well, let me tell you how to fix it. Right? You do that. Fix. Okay, good. We go. You're not coaching people. You're not teaching them to fish. You are giving them the fish. The day you're not here, the day you break your leg and you can't come for a week, people are like, oh, my God, I don't know. To think on my feet.
It's right for me to think on my feet because without KD kind of approving what I'm doing, can I actually do it? And that's one of the big things that we're trying to put on at the moment is like, wow, what about the soft skill? Because I believe that AI will help us with processes, will help us with all the things that are kind of less artful. But the soft skill of being able to stop yourself from fixing a problem, but coaching someone to fix the problem themselves, that's tough, particularly if you already have the solution. Right. But that sort of thing that we're trying to do, I love the fact that you've got all that training with scorecard. Is that your own thing that you've done? Do you put that into a platform? That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. We're trying to do that for ourselves and it's a ton of work, right. It's difficult. The scorecard, all that is.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: So hit me up. I've got it.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Hit me up.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: I've got it. If that's something you're interested. That's what I'm bringing to market right now. It's the leadership academy.
That's what I worked on with Snowflake and with HubSpot and personio. Right. Of like, I'm bringing this into companies so they have something for your managers because again, even like the example you gave, teaching them how to coach, giving them the situations, right. Like everything that a manager is supposed to do with their reps, a VP is supposed to do for their managers. So if you expect your managers to role play with reps, guess what the VP should be doing with the managers? Role playing with the managers. Same thing. Here's the situation? I'm a rep. I haven't hit my activity for three weeks. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's go through this.
We can teach people, we just don't. And then we wonder why they don't work out.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool. We kind of focus on the you now, the you of the leader. How much do you think? I'm hearing a lot about emotional intelligence. Being a big one, like being able to read people and stuff. I think it's one of them, because you need to be able to listen, you need to be able to diagnose, you need to be able to read the room in a way. But how big of a part does it place in the 100% of a leader? Do you think it's such an important part, or do you see people who actually don't have EQ, but you've been able to coach them to read the situation better?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Define EQ for me. When you say EQ, what do you mean?
[00:41:21] Speaker B: I like that you do that every time we speak about a new word. You want school. EQ for me is the capacity to understand situation without words. It's capacity to be. You mentioned about body language. You don't need to be, I can't remember what it's called, NLP or something like that, specialist. But body language, you can assess it is the ability to measure the words you are using when you are saying to someone. It's the ability to match the person you are speaking to. So if you've got someone with super quick fun wants to crack some jokes, maybe you want to match that a little bit. If you've got someone with more quiet, more reserved, maybe you don't want to overwhelm. So you add that a little bit. So the best way I would put it, if I was to summarize it, is to be able to read the room and adapt to what's happening socially. Being a social chameleon, in a way.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So depending on the level, I believe almost most things can be taught to an 80% competency. I feel there are very few things that cannot be taught to with an 80% competency. Meaning, let's say, as long as there's not a true internal blocker. Right. So, for example, and this is not in mockery, this is not in any sort of downput, but there are different levels of the spectrum in terms of where people fall. And there are people at certain levels on the spectrum that don't actually pick up on social cues as well. So it's actually a blocker. It's not like they just haven't been taught how. There's actually a blocker there where they don't read social cues the same way as everybody else. Right. But if there is not a blocker there, you can teach people to within 80% of most competencies. Now, you might be 100 percenter because you're natural at it. Right. Like, you've been good at it your whole life. It's part of who you are. So there's the 100%. I can't teach everyone to be 100%. I can't do that. But I do believe you can teach most people to be at that 80% competency level of like, hey, so when you ask a question, I need you to pause and listen. Now, what did you catch? What did you see when I did this?
You can teach people that now with someone who's natural. They're 90s, they're 100s, right. They're up there. But you can do 80%. I really do. Right. I challenge most people to actually try to teach people what it is you're looking for, because the characteristics, remember characteristics always display themselves in behaviors. So if you say someone has a high eq, how would that display in behaviors? Well, they read a room, they ask secondary questions. They tailor their tone to the people you're talking to. Well, you can teach those behaviors. Yeah. You can teach people how to do that. Right. So that's why the definition is so important. But then it is. You can teach people how to do it, but you have to be intentional with it. Too often we just tell people what we want them to do. Hey, Ray, I need you to really listen and tailor your messaging. How am I supposed to do that?
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Teach them. It's something that we used to do in the car on the way back from a meeting.
That's probably how I was actually taught. I remember all those journey back where the first question that your leader is asking you, how do you feel the meeting went?
How do you think that guy was receptive to stuff? And you say, well, and you didn't then discuss it. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Last question for you, Katie. Your biggest lesson ever in terms of leadership that you would like to share with us and something that you think has made a change for you or made you realize something.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: My biggest shift in leadership has been it's kind of a two parter, but it's one recognizing that your goal is not to create a bunch of views.
Not only is that not the goal, but it doesn't work. Right early in my leadership career. I pushed people to work like me, to sell like me. Why don't you do it the way that I did? I was a top performer and pushed people there. I have transitioned in my career now where I don't push anymore. I pull right, and I do focus more on who the people are that lead to results. Right. If my team was more confident, more energetic, more resilient, more happy, more positive, more creative, more disciplined, what would happen to the results? What happened? If my team was being those things, the results would improve.
So it's that shift as well. Too often we try to teach the external without addressing the internal, and I've made that shift over the years, too. We talk way more about mindset now, way more about fear, way more about resiliency and how to build that toughness. We do goal setting every other quarter, 90 minutes altogether of like, if I can get in that the head, then the results tend to take care of themselves. That'd be my biggest lesson.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Thanks for that, Kelly. Well, look, thank you so much for sharing your insights with you today. I probably should follow up offline with you because I have lots of good nuggets that I would like to either replicate or see how we could work together. But if anyone wants to follow up with you, discuss bipsi, see how you could potentially help them. What's the best way to get hold of you?
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Kevin? Hit me up on LinkedIn. Shoot me a message there, and we'll go for it.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: All right. Thanks again for being on the show, Kevin.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks, Ray.
You've been listening to B two B Rev, the new acceleration to ensure that you never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.
