Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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I think three quarters of organizations will
openly tell you that the fundamental role of
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a sales manager is to coach and
improve that team. On that basis,
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why is the most important function of
a sales manager not getting the priority that
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it deserves? You were listening to
bb revenue acceleration, a podcast dedicated to
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helping software executives stay on the cutting
edge of sales and marketing in their industry.
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Let's get into the show. Hi, welcome to be to beewer of
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a new acceleration. My name is
already in with you and I'm yet today
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with Richards. Me Go from done
ed of sense as refracts. How are
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you today, Richards? I'm very
well, reliant and yeah, really appreciate
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you having me on your show.
Very much looking forward to the discussion,
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and me too, and me do
because it's about seals, couching and I
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love since cotching. Lots of different
methodology, also different way to go about
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it, but so as an interesting
topic. But before we go into theaters
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of the conversation, Richard, would
you manage producing yourself in a little bit
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more details, as well as giving
an idea of what your company, refract
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does for your clients. Yeah,
certainly so. Yeah, I'm the one
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of the CO founders in the the
head of sales here at refract, where
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a UK technology company based in Newcastle. I've been in sales personally for about
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ten years. Started off as an
stare straight out of university, really with
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in a situation like I think most
people find themselves are not really knowing where
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what I wanted to do with my
career and seemingly felt that my kind of
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behaviors and personality and kind of career
desires we're nicely aligned with the profession of
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sales. So I worked in the
Software Rena all of my career so far.
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As I said, started as a
nest all, literally picking the phone
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up, booking appointments for sales people
of kind of progress and develop really doing
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almost all parts of the sales process
since then and now of a very grateful
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to have been founded a company and
had the chance to build out my own
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sales organization here. I guess that
the reason why we built refractor was all
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through my own personal experiences of trying
to figure out this whole sales thing along
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the way. The challenge that I
had early on in my career is is
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actually a challenge that I think is
more universal. I seriously believe that my
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success in sales has been very significantly
hammered by the lack of coaching and development
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that I received early on in my
career. How much of my early part
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of my career was was was really
about, as I said, kind of
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figuring it, figuring all out by
myself, making the mistakes and really not
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benefiting from that continuous, important feedback
and mentorship from sales leadership on on how
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I can improve. I think there's
lots of lots of challenges as to why
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that didn't take place, which I'm
sure we're going to we're going to get
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into that on the show. But
this problem of sales people not regularly being
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improved and not having the coaching that
that's going to set them up for successes
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is a is a problem being faced
across the world and I think is a
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is a cause of many sales people
not hit in quote Nott, not staying
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around at their companies for as long
as they should and, ultimately, the
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the impact that has on the bottom
line for any, any business out there.
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Yeah, okay, that makes sense. So refract he's basically what he's
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is it the company it does,
since coutch or themation. What would you
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give the exactly? Yeah, sure
so, in a nutshell, refract analyzers
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conversations that sellers are having with their
prospects and customers and really unlocks the black
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box of those conversations and surface molliple
in sights to sales leadership, but maybe
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even wider across the organization, about
what's happening in those conversations, the topics
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that are being discussed, the competitors
that are being mentioned, the questions and
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objections that seals people are facing,
and really surfacing that data and making that
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more accessible for sales leadership so they
can have a tighter grasp about which conversations
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they should be paying most attention to. But also leads sales leadership to coaching
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opportunities by pinpointing where those defining moments
in those conversations are taking place and really
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taking the heavy lifting out of what
has been perceived as quite a time consuming
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task in sales managers. Really a
coaching and improving those conversations to have more
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successful outcomes make sense. So I'm
recently came across one of your article,
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Richard, and and that's probably state
that sends people will own coach. Our
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twenty seven person more likely to meet
for that. So that's kind of a
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quarter or smaller sells than the one
that I'm being coushed. So why do
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you think companies still don't see the
value investing sales coach? It's a great
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question and I think the key point
they're really in the keyword that you use
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phrases don't see the value. And
it's interesting because when I speak, I
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spend my days speaking with sales leaders
and sales managers and I very rarely come
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across anybody who says that they don't
see the value and coaching. Everybody,
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everybody talks very openly about that.
They they know that coaching is very valuable,
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that they should be doing it,
they should be doing more of it,
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and that the problem is is that
there's one thing about seeing something and
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there's another thing about actually doing it. And the reality is is that most
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companies will point to the fact that
coaching is such a valuable activity that they
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know that it really moves the need
in their business, but when you actually
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look behind the scenes, the reality
is that it's still not happening or isn't
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happening as much or it's not as
effective as it should be. So there's
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this big sort of dichotomy between what
people are saying, what companies are saying,
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versus what's actually happening. And we're
actually we're actually seeing this happen on
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the sales rep level as well,
where most sales people say they don't receive
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any coaching whatsoever, yet their sales
management are saying the opposite, that they're
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saying that they coach regularly. So
I think actually a lot of it is
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the fact that sales management, what
they believe they're doing is coaching, is
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not being is not being seen as
that by the actual sales that their sales
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people. There's a big disparity there
and I think the reasons why coaching is
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maybe not taking places is, if
I'm going to be brutally honest, it
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it comes down to excuses. I'm
not saying those excuses are all non valid,
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but you know people who will say
that the it's a time consuming exercise,
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they don't know how to coach,
they don't know where to get started
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and ultimately all these things, I
think, are these things should be fixed.
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These are these excuses which can be
addressed and I think when you when
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you actually consider the the the revenue
impact that good, effective, quality coaching
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can have, then it's company should
be should be really using less of those
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excuses and pay more attention to it. That makes sense. That makes sense.
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And another push I want you to
to twist. He's around the managers.
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Actually, you spoke about them,
manager, and and and we when
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you manager said is think you've got
to manage a number. You've got to
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manage the people with both you.
You've got to manage the people on the
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side of you see to work with
your bus, you to work your CEO,
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CFO, you've got to walk with
marketing, you what need to walk
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this finance, but you also have
to manage your team and manage down number.
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So you know experience one of the
main reasons why manager of cars or
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don't want to coach. Yeah,
it's a big question to ask and I
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think from what I see it falls
into two book it's first of all,
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it's it's a perceived lack of time
that they see it as a time consuming
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exercise, and the other is that
actually the majority of sales managers get to
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that position because they were just actually
really good sales people. That they were
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high performers and by nature of them
being high performers they were promoted to being
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sales managers. But actually the best, the best professionals don't always become the
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best, the best coaches. You
know, we see this in the will
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in the world of football all the
time. There's been some world class coutball,
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world class footballers that have been at
the top of their game that when
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they have given their chance, their
armor football management, they fail spectacularly.
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And because it's it's not because they
were actually that they were actually poor footballers,
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that that wasn't the case. It
was just that they didn't have the
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skills and capabilities to be able to
lead a team. And they're very two,
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two very separate skills. And if
I just address both of those individually,
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so that the time aspect, this
one really frustrates me because it's not
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about a lack of time. It
should actually say it's actually a lack of
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prioritization that I think three quarters of
organizations will openly tell you that the fundamental
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role of a sales manager is to
coach and improve their team. On that
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basis, why is the most important
function of a sales manager not getting the
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priority that it deserves and we have
to look at what are all the tasks
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that are managers doing that's actually stopping
them all that, that is taking up
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their time, which is preventing them
from doing that really crucial activity. And
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the realities that managers are spending too
much time looking at boards, they're looking
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at CRMS, they're looking at activity
metrics, they're in meetings, you name
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it, but they're being good and
down with all is essentially admin which is
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taking them away from actually doing the
things which is which are really going to
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improve the performance and move the needle. You know, I most managers will
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spend coateless amounts of time looking at
stats and dashboards and talking about those metrics
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to their sales people. Yeah,
they don't need to do that because those
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metrics are actually openly available for sales
people to to see anyway. You know,
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I don't need to be told what
my activity metrics will last week because
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I can just log into the crm
and actually see them. I don't need
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my manager tell me tell me those
things. What I what I want for
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my manager is I want my manager
to say, okay, you know,
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you those less deals last week.
Are You boot less meetings last week.
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Then then your peers. You actually
you actually made a similar amount of calls
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or you know, you you've got
a similarmount of pipeline and I want to
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understand, well, how come this
person over there is actually what? What
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is he doing differently in his conversations
and what is he what is what the
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behaviors that he has that that's making
him more successful? And this is what
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coaching should be. It should be
analyzing the why versus the actual, the
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actual outcome. So I think ultimate
is about with prioritization, I think,
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and I think that stems from the
top down as well, or Allian I
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think. I think I'm talking about
the seat the C suite here and activity
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which drives the needles so significantly as
coaching. They should be the top down
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should be actually telling their managers,
you need a fine time and your calendars
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to to be to Ti to coaching
and we're going to make sure that's prioritized.
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So that's that's kind of covers off
book at Number One. I means
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that the second book it was around
managers not knowing how to coach, and
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this is maybe a bigger issue in
a very much more real issue and real
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excuse, because coaching is not a
skill that everybody just learns overnight. You
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have to be trained how to coat, you have to learn how to give
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feedback in the right way. You
need to know who you should be spending
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most time coaching in your sales team. And again, I think a lot
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of managers are just promoted to those
positions and they're just told Okay, go
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ahead and coaching improve your team,
but they don't know where to begin.
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And I think companies need to take
more seriously about enabling their managers, giving
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them the tools and the the education
on how to actually coach their reps.
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and I think when we do that, managers get more confident about coaching and
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they get more serious about what to
do it too. Yeah, that makes
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sense. And for the first for
the first element of your young something your
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previous question. I would you think
the use of technology is actually changing the
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seals, couching, the management of
resources? Do you think it's actually confusing
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things? Do you think it's something, because there is always at that saying
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of either even fish to a man
every day and you will come back the
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day a dozen the day after to
have a fish. You know from you
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or teaching out to fish and you
will become a Fisher Manu you can go
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when they will be. So do
you think technology can actually help you to
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not just give you the numbers and
give you that, but also give you
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the fundamental as to the why you
could change, what needs to be done,
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what needs to be cush so basically
doing the end then he's in the
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number of really on dust on the
areas of improvements. All is that the
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GLOGIA actually do that. And you
think the ends and do think that being
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deployed sufficiently to support to support sens
leaders? Yeah, it's a good question.
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I think before we look at the
technology we have to just make sure
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that the culture is right in a
business because if the culture isn't right,
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the technology is just not going to
be valued as not going to be used.
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So companies have to make sure that
they've actually got that culture of coaching,
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that they've got people in the business
who want a coach, who wants
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to improve. People are sales people
and they have to also have a culture
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again, from the top down,
understands the the value of coaching. You
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know, if we dedicate serious time
at this, then we've seen the the
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impact on quote retainment. We've seen
the impact on staff retention. We've seen
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the impact on, you know,
keep keeping a hold of our top performers.
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So once you've got that, that
that culture, then technology just becomes
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the enabler in helping make that an
effective process. And coming back to the
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challenge of time reliant is to probably
one of the the number one factor is
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too why I year sales sales managers
aren't coaching and I'm not seeing that people
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don't have time. Sales managers are
some of the busiest people out there and
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we have to be finding ways to
actually well, if we need to,
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for them to see that coaching is
is not an audious process, and technology
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can help with that. So when
we look at how tools like refracted being
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utilized, you know we're telling sales
leaders which are the conversations that they should
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be pay most attention to. He
is a thousand sales conversations over the past
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two weeks. Out of those conversations, which are the ones where there is
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the most coaching opportunity? Where the
missed opportunities? Where are the conversations that
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that managers should be spending and making
the most of their coaching time? So
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and in that regard, where technology
is helping managers understand where they should be
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applying their their limited coaching time.
But there's also benefits here, not just
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young I'm talking a lot about managers
here. The Benefits of coaching can actually
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be seen on the REP level,
and what I mean by that is we're
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seeing a huge trend of things like
peer to peer coaching, where and sales
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people are actually can become even more
effective at giving their peers feedback and helping
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to support their peers then as much
as their managers can. So you know,
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as in a sales team, we're
all having the same sales conversations,
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were all facing the same objections,
we're all dealing with the same situations every
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single day and oftentimes just being able
to give embrace peer to peer feedback give
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our colleagues the chance to give a
secondary perspective. We're seeing that that approach
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being used more and more in businesses
and it's actually taking a lot of the
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responsibility a way from from managers,
and technology is just becoming a way to
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make that process easier for for sales
people to give each other feedback, to
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to get insights and what the conversations
that their peers are having. So and
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the other key thing about why technology
is helpful in driving that culture is one
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of the Big Fall Downs of coaching
is that coaching isn't tracked as not measured.
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If it's not if it's not measured, then it's not going to be
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effective, and technology has the ability
to actually track outcomes of coaching sessions and
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gives very real metro tricks about is
the is the sales person actually changing their
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behaviors? One of the things the
salesperson is to work on, and how
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can we actually make that a measurable
activity? So yeah, I think fundamentally
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it's about culture, but then secondly, the technology is there to really drive
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that change and really make that processes
as simple as possible. And speaking about
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culture, because I think it's kind
of my last question is probably wide brought
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upon question, but I think when
your sales manager and sometimes individual many difficult
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to kind of clean that from the
so if you go to them and say
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hey, you're managing a team,
can you get them to do that?
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Why are you not them boring to
do that? And you can be called
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in. Everyone ability to manage team's
very easy to be called from the outside
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and particular if you've got a bit
of experience, is also very difficult,
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I think, for the individual managers
and and particularly they being promoted from with
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it, which is something that you
mentioned only on. You know, a
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good footballer or Good Soccer Playoff or
American audience may not be a good coach.
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You know, they may be a
great individual and the May have front
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the stick skills, but they conty
don't have the people management skills. And
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and unfortunately we all have to deal
with that, you know, and we
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all love the promotion from within,
because that's is building a culture from a
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perspective. Now, sometimes it's difficult
to get people to change and it's difficult
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to get people to realize that,
you know, they are babies are in
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a way, so which is a
which is which we should seven things true
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and and and the quish that I
wanted to rescue is based on that.
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So we see, it's kind of
an open native question, I think.
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Would ask you, do you think
he's better to get this as coaching done
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internity or getting done externally and basically
having it does up all ways, which
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isn't young internal team who get what
you're doing, when power people and eventually
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direction is to what you should do. Yeah, great, great question.
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I think when we look at some
of the big challenges that companies have in
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creating coaches in their in their team, it's because they are not they're not
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arming their managers with the actual skills
and capabilities to be effective coaches and oftentimes
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businesses they don't even have the expertise
and house to be able to teach to
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coach managers to be better coaches.
And in those situations I'm an advocate of
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looking for outside support, for finding
people who can actually develop the skills of
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managers. And I do believe they're
and we work with organizations who are essentially
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there. They're providing coaching as a
service. And you know what, we
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partner with about a hundred sales coaches
and consultancies who are doing that coaching as
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a service on behalf of clients who
don't have the resources or the time or
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capacity capacity to be able to do
that coaching on a regular on a regular
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basis and actually the that that's that's
I believe that's a really great solution for
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companies who just don't have the infrastructure, the the persona's internally to be able
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to do that themselves. That being
said, I don't think businesses can grow
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just being reliant on external providers to
do that. I think, I think
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companies it's a great way to start
and I think over time to become selves
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to sustainable, they have to at
some point, you know, create that
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coaching culture because it's going to be
more cost effective as an overhead in the
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in the long run, but it's
also going to I think, when we
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when we when we make our own
people better coaches, that builds better relationships
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with the sales reps. and when
we have better relationships with the sales reps,
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they're typically going to be bet more
motivated, they're going to be more
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driven and that has huge impact on
on staff retention. So yeah, I
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think I think there's a place for
both. But I think I'm a,
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you know, big believer in looking
at for outside support if you don't feel
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like you have those capabilities internally,
even at a senior level. And I
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think we're seeing a real big strend
in the market of companies investing in things
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like coaching as a service without outsource
providers. But I think for long gevity,
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like with anything else, they need
to they need to create that coaching
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culture, because that's the thing that's
you know, they're going to become more
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sustainable in the long run. Yeah, and I'm going to get carried away
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another so this is this is my
last question, but that this one is
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definitely my last one. You know, I'm a big believer in self coaching.
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I've been promoting code a few few
people in my teams of other as
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few years and and I've always looked
at people who can who can adapt,
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you know, that chameleon in the
team, someone that will rate somewhere,
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will listen someonees, will get into
a podcast like the one who are recording
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just now and try to get some
perspective from the outside and adapt that in
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that day to day walk. I'm
a big BILLIV in self coaching and I've
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got a lots of respect for people
actually take a good look at themselves in
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the mirror every day, try to
on those more the gap in their skills
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are and go and try to get
the information themselves that just wait for the
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manager to give it to them because, yeah, I don't think I's felt
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if you know you what your your
issues are and what you need to walk
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on because you've been told you should
do whatever I text to go and get
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that information. You should do whatever
I text to go and develop that skip
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that. That's why perspective on fact. Now, how do you get people
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to do? I guess it's too
to side the question, but how do
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you get them, first of all, to realize what the other gap induskill
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seties without without without upsetting them in
a way? And also how you encourage
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people to go and self teach themselves, because there is lots of resources out
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there. You got all your books, you've got methodology, you've got lots
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of podcasts likely to be a rover, you acceleration, that you can listen
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to. But how do you actually
get people to get auto motivate them to
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adapt a time to go and sell
coachself? Yeah, so, you know,
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you said it yourself, a reli
and being a big believer in self
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coaching, and actually I completely echoed
up, because sometimes the best, best
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coaches are actually ourselves, and I'll
give a great example of this. I
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see it frequently in businesses and I've
had this myself with a we do you
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know weekly coaching sessions here a refract
and I do want the one coaching sessions.
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What I'll do is I'll get one
of my sales people for examples.
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Example, let's just take an SD
on this. This happened very recently and
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they had a had a sales call
and they felt they had that had a
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good conversation with the prospect. The
conversation was about six minutes long, but
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the conversation didn't convert with an appointment
under the the SDR kind of came off
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the course. I don't know what
happened, just it all seemed to be
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going so well, had a good
conversation, but the prospect was completely noncommittal.
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They didn't want to they didn't want
to get demo. Can you listen?
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Can you listen to the call and
tell me what what I could have
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done differently? And I said,
okay, before I do that, why
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don't you just listen back to that
conversation yourself and I want you to tell
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me what you think you could have
done differently in that situation. So they
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said okay, so they listened back
to the conversation and learn behold, they
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came back to me and said,
rich is, here's four five things in
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the conversation I think I could have
done differently in that situation and you know,
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they picked out points where they did
missed out some key signals from the
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prospect which they could have picked up
on. They identified they've just been talking
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a bit too much on the on
the sales call. They felt that they
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closed the try to go for the
close too late. All of these things
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were absolutely bang on the money.
Like these are that these are the same
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things that I personally would have given
feedback on. But the the yes,
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you are actually had identified those things
themselves without me having to even point them
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out. And it's amazing what happens
that when we self reflect, when we
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listen back, when we take a
look at ourselves, it's amazing how much
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we can actually identify and course,
correct our ourself. So I think any
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company could should be embracing that of
don't just get managers to give all the
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answers, because that's not always the
most effective way of coaching. Often get
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get sales people to just try and
figure out the answers themselves. In ninety
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percent of the time they'll be able
to bill be able to figure it out.
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And how can we encourage that more
to happen in organizations? I think
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key part of this is is still
ash share what what top performers do differently,
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being able to share conversations or opportunities
or experiences or stories from our top
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sales people. What are those conversations
sound like? But why is this person
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who's constantly top with the leaderboard?
What are they doing differently? What are
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they saying? What are the questions
they're asking? How do they handle objections?
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Start to expose that more across the
business because, guess what, sales
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people are the very competitive that they
want to they want to know why they're
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not top of the leaderboard. They
want to know why this person who sits
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across the room or in another office
gets so much better results than they do.
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So that's just just let's start exposing
that and sharing that and let's start
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trying to take those take those examples
of what those are doing and starting to
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learn off others. And I think
when you get that culture of collaboration where
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you're sharing what, just simply what
the top performance are doing differently than sales
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people are going to start to ask
and start to seek out that information more
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and more and I think that's where
we see again that that culture of coaching
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and a culture of self improvement really
building and businesses. Yeah, completely agree
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with you. We thank you very
much for us, Richard. So at
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the age of the conversation, because
we need to close up, always as
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a question to to our guests,
which is, if someone wants to carry
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on the conversation with you, take
it of fly, but actually look at
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at what's refract could do for their
business. Because, let's say, see
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the reason why we speak, it's
because we look at freefract as a solution
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for varieties and we think it could
be a great and for us, and
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I think you years of actually done
a great job in the in the approach,
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in the demon creation or that.
So I the believe that your since
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training is on point. But if
anyone wants to want to follow up with
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you, get in touch, go
through the conversation, speak about what freefract
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could do for their business. What's
the best way to get rid of your
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richards? Yeah, the the best
way really and is just to connect with
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you on Linkedin. I'm quite active
there a I'm even if somebody just wants
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to have a conversation about coaching,
know about refract. I'm you know,
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I feel like I've learned a few
things along the way I'm by no means
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a coaching expert, but I have
you to share any ideas, success stories,
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best practices of what we see working. If you are, you know,
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looking to build that culture, you
feel like you're the something missing in
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Your Business, which is which you
think, or you just feel like you
371
00:26:06.619 --> 00:26:08.420
could be doing a better job as
a sales monitor, all sales leader,
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you know, just just drop me
a message. I'll be happy to have
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a very informal chat. And,
yeah, Linkedin Richard Smith refract, you'll
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be able to find me as the
best way to contact me. The stuff
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what we twas great to Agin the
short reach out. Thank you very much,
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floming today. Yeah, appreciate thanks
very much. You. ratant.
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00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:32.849
operatics has redefined the meaning of revenue
generation for technology companies worldwide. While the
378
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.640
traditional concepts of building and managing inside
sales teams inhouse has existed for many years,
379
00:26:38.039 --> 00:26:42.880
companies are struggling with a lack of
focus, agility and scale required in
380
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:49.190
today's fast and complex world of enterprise
technology sales. See How operatics can help
381
00:26:49.230 --> 00:26:56.150
your company accelerate pipeline at operatics dotnet. You've been listening. To be to
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be revenue acceleration, to ensure that
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383
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the show in your favorite podcast player. Thank you so much for listening.
384
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Until next time,
