Walter Crosby Chats Sales and His Book Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make With Their Sales Organization

[00:00:00] Are you looking to improve your sales skills without compromising your values? Welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast for business and personal growth. Join Harry Spate, author of Selling With Dignity, your Formula for Life-Changing Sales Results as he hosts sales experts and business owners who share their journeys of personal growth and business success without resorting to pushy sales tactics.

[00:00:27] Now, here's your host, Harry.

[00:00:29] Harry: Hey everyone, what is the good word? Today we have a special guest that is going to talk to us about what sales, yes, we're chatting sales on the Sales Made Easy podcast, and with me is Walter Crosby. I don't know if there's any relation to Bing, but we're not gonna ask Walter to sing White Christmas today.

[00:00:51] Harry: So what does Walter do? He helps CEOs, entrepreneurs and senior executives achieve their vision of scaling [00:01:00] their business. Well, that sounds great, but Walter also wrote a book called Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make with their Sales Organization that Stop the Company from Scaling. So there's the challenge, and I think Walter is the problem solve.

[00:01:17] Harry: So, Walter, welcome to the Sales Made Easy podcast. What's the good word, sir?

[00:01:22] Walter Crosby: The good word is we have sun and warm weather in February in Michigan. That's the good word. That

[00:01:28] Harry: is indeed a good word. So are people snowmobiling on lakes up there in Michigan these days?

[00:01:36] Walter Crosby: Not these days. They, they would need a canoe or some sort of boat.

[00:01:42] Walter Crosby: There's, there's a group of people up here that enjoy ice fishing. Which, which is, I don't know, they go stand on ice and patrol hellos and, and drop lines in the water. I, I don't understand it. Some places they [00:02:00] get pretty ornate with little houses and buildings and build fires. It's craziness, but no, none of that's happening cuz it's all water.

[00:02:07] Walter Crosby: We've got 50 degrees and sunny.

[00:02:09] Harry: Yeah, well you know it may be global warming but we appreciate when we're around the cold, we appreciate the warmth and yes, I used to be one that iced iced fished. And I was a kid and we had more fun with hockey sticks than catching fish. But nonetheless, we were out there in the freezing cold roasting burgers over fire and following in water and all kinds of fun stuff.

[00:02:34] Harry: Yeah, sounds like fun. It's a blast. It's a blast. All right, so we're talking critical mistakes that CEOs make. Walter you have a phenomenal roadmap. Of things to avoid in business and I really gotta you know, First of all, I really like how you structured it so it's easy read, and then there's questions to help you think through it.

[00:02:58] Harry: And you [00:03:00] know, these are pretty common questions that people have or common challenges. So where, what would you say is a good place to start with a challenge that CEOs face and think that everything is going great and they don't even know what's, what's happening underneath? That's a

[00:03:18] Walter Crosby: really good question.

[00:03:20] Walter Crosby: I appreciate the compliment. I, I tried to write a book that, that A C E O could read, get to the point, get to understanding the issue, relate to it, and then help, help him or her understand what they needed to do to, to correct it. And ultimately, they're responsible for everything in the organization.

[00:03:45] Walter Crosby: It comes back. That individual. So it's, it, it, it's, it's things that they can delegate sometimes, depending upon the size of their organization. I deal a lot of, of organizations that are [00:04:00] three to five salespeople and three to 5 million a year. And, you know, they're, they're trying to be a sales manager and a CEO at the same time, so, You know, this book can help them understand those issues.

[00:04:14] Walter Crosby: So I think one of the big ones that CEOs do and most organizations will do, and they don't realize that they're creating a problem is, is how they hire salespeople. Hmm. And what I mean by that is if, if you're hiring salespeople the same way you hire an admin, an engineer, Somebody in manufacturing you're probably going to make a mistake.

[00:04:46] Walter Crosby: Take all the biases out of it. Take all the BS that are in resumes. Salespeople are usually better at interviewing than the hiring manager. They're better at at, at selling, and they [00:05:00] should be fairly familiar with the product they're selling in this case themselves. So it. The, the trick, right? That's the problem.

[00:05:10] Walter Crosby: And then the solution is to flip that, that process on its ear and start to to treat sales candidates in your hiring process differently from the very beginning. Change how we write an ad change, how we evaluate them, how we score them. Treat them more like a prospect will treat. Look for answers to complicated problems to understand how they think about sales.

[00:05:42] Walter Crosby: Ask them questions about are they able to follow a process? Follow a process like you might have challenge them, like a prospect might do it all professionally and politely, but I, I think that's completely different than how most people hire a sales. [00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Harry: Oh, sure. I, I would agree with you. It seems like when you ask someone how the interview went they said it was great person's really nice.

[00:06:13] Harry: And you ask a couple of questions and you found out that the interviewer did pretty much all of the talking

[00:06:21] Walter Crosby: were, were they were probably selling the company. Right? Right. Yeah, yeah. And selling the job. And, and what, what we try to do is get a company to change that process. Don't sell the job, don't sell the company until you have a candidate that you think is worthy that you, you might wanna hire.

[00:06:43] Walter Crosby: Wait till the end and then really work through that. Spend the time with somebody to, to understand. How they might fit into your culture, how they, what fit into your team? Do they have the skills and competencies that are required [00:07:00] to be successful in the role? It starts with the job posting too, right? We wanna, yes.

[00:07:07] Walter Crosby: Describe who we want. Talk to me about that. So if we look at Indeed or LinkedIn job postings, the traditional way of doing that is listing out. A little description of the company, how wonderful it is, and then accountabilities and responsibilities for the role, which is a job description. Mm-hmm. And they become, people just kind of scan through it and we, they don't really, they don't know if they relate to it.

[00:07:38] Walter Crosby: So what, what we do is write more of a shackleford style ad, and there's a specific kind of ad where you're describing the situ. You're describing the type of person that you're looking for, and you're actually speaking to that person so that if they read the ad, they're thinking, oh, [00:08:00] wow, I do that. I'm pretty good at doing those things.

[00:08:04] Walter Crosby: I, I'm also really good at that. Maybe I should apply to this position. And we're kind of attracting them and at the same time, we're repelling those folks that might not. A good fit because we really want to be honest with what we want them to do. Right. If that might be a hunting role, it might be a inbound role, whatever that is.

[00:08:30] Walter Crosby: We, we need to, to describe the skillsets that they have, that they need to have to be successful, and we should be honest

[00:08:37] Harry: about it. Yeah, absolutely. Because clearly they're going to find out shortly afterwards. Right. And it reminds me of speaking to people about trying to understand their ideal client or their avatar.

[00:08:51] Harry: Hmm. And going in, you know, knowing the types of people that you want to do business with, and who fits [00:09:00] that avatar persona. Well, the same is true in sales, right? You could say. Something along the lines of, well, this person is just so nice and fun and such a go-getter. I'm willing to sacrifice. The fact that the person is terrible with technology and we have a c R M that I want data in, or whatever else, right?

[00:09:26] Harry: So they'll look at something and say, well, this is better than the last person. And then, you know, what happens after that is you, you know the drill, but tell me what's wrong with that thought process.

[00:09:40] Walter Crosby: We, we, you haven't set the. That we're, we're trying to get to. And, and if you have said it, it's, it's too low.

[00:09:47] Walter Crosby: Hmm. So what, what is the ideal? So you, you, you talk about the ideal client profile, the avatar, some, the dot, whatever we want to call that. We need to know who we're [00:10:00] looking for as a, as a salesperson, who are our targets. How do we know if we hit that? If, if we don't know what it looks like and what it sounds like, same thing applies.

[00:10:11] Walter Crosby: It's a, it's a perfect analogy. It's a exactly what we're trying to do with, with a sales candidate. We wanna, we wanna know that they have the right competencies, the right mindset, and the right grit. And if, if they don't, doesn't mean they're a bad person. It doesn't mean that they're, they're not competent at other things or that they might not be successful in another role.

[00:10:38] Walter Crosby: It just means that they're not a good fit for that particular piece and you're, you're you, if you really want to help somebody, you, you, you can tell them, no, this isn't the right fit. Even though they might want it, it it, if you know that it's the wrong fit, it's just gonna be aggravation resources, time.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Walter Crosby: And it's expensive. The hard cost and the soft cost of hiring somebody and it failing is you know, there's ballpark numbers of three to five times the p the the, your salary. But at the end of the day, you're affecting your customers. You're affecting your team, you're affecting your, your sales management, the resources that are spent to bring somebody up to speed.

[00:11:23] Walter Crosby: All of these things add up. And, and then you've, you're back. You're not back to square one, you're back a. From where you were because you've wasted all of that time. It's a it, it's better to go slow and get it right than it is to go super fast. Hire five people, and I mean, some industries are good with that.

[00:11:46] Walter Crosby: They hire 200 people and they know that they'll be three people standing in two years and they're okay with it. Yeah. I don't know. Most, most small businesses I work with that associate with [00:12:00] don't have that luxury of wasting money.

[00:12:05] Harry: Yeah. I mean, it's just there's like a larger business. I, we used to work for one where there was pressure on headcount.

[00:12:17] Harry: Right. So if you had empty seats in the bullpen, you were constantly measured on headcount. In fact, it was part of the bonus plan. Mm-hmm. And you know, it's like, well, what do you do? You're gonna get paid. Based on the seats being filled. You know, you just can't, I mean, I totally agree. You cannot rush that.

[00:12:40] Harry: And if you go in with the wrong intentions in a situation like that, that's one challenge. The other one is you know, you mentioned something along the lines about taking your time and what's your feeling about an empty seat versus a filled seat [00:13:00] with not the right person.

[00:13:02] Walter Crosby: Which is better, without a doubt, an empty seat.

[00:13:05] Walter Crosby: Yeah. In the scenario you described in the corporate world, right, the headcount. Okay. I I get it. It's a measurement. Somebody thought it was valid. Mm-hmm. It's not unlike compensating your salesperson or giving out quotes. Right? Yeah. Because you're not making any money. It actually costs you money to do a.

[00:13:29] Walter Crosby: And, and we're competency, they can go do a bunch of quotes that doesn't bring in any revenue. So that's really not a good, and it's the same, it's the same thing. Headcount. I mean, there, there might be a reason for it in a large organization because of that attrition component that they're, they're managing that attrition.

[00:13:49] Walter Crosby: But we could argue that if we reduce our attrition, And we hire people that are gonna stick around, be successful and [00:14:00] last longer. We, we we're gonna win that. We're gonna win that battle. But if the comp plan is structured the other way, we're gonna play the game the way the rules

[00:14:09] Harry: are. Yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:14:12] Harry: I think what, what you just said is anyone who's in sales, myself included, I have played the comp plan. Like, once you know how the comp plan works, you do what the comp plan says to do. I mean, isn't that the case?

[00:14:30] Walter Crosby: Oh in the middle of my career I, I figured out that after a certain point, the diminishing returns on the revenue I brought in it, it was there.

[00:14:42] Walter Crosby: I, if I had a million dollar goal and I got to 1,000,003, my comp went up. But after 1,000,003, it flattened. So I just, I would get to that number and that usually happened in late October. I enjoyed [00:15:00] November and December. Mm-hmm. And the boss would be like, what? You know, how come you're like coasting? Like, because of the way you bring the game.

[00:15:10] Walter Crosby: If you, if you gave me a bigger piece of the pie after I exceeded my goal by 20% or 30%, I'd be killing it. I'm just setting it up for next year. Yeah.

[00:15:23] Harry: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Sorry. You go, but

[00:15:25] Walter Crosby: it, but it's what you said it, it's like you play the game the way it's played. You play by the rules and sometimes the rules are dumb, but you.

[00:15:36] Harry: That's why you're around to kinda help someone to get rid of the dumbness. But, you know I was just thinking about that challenge right there. Right. So we started off, I know we're talking about hiring the right people, but that what you just said on financial incentives. [00:16:00] Where they can level out.

[00:16:01] Harry: And sometimes owners might feel like, well, I'm paying enough already, right? This person, I mean, whatever the number is, they say, and sometimes they'll feel like, well, salespeople don't work that hard. You know, they're hanging out at the golf course, having long lunches, you know, they're sleeping in until 10 o'clock in the morning, whatever they may say.

[00:16:24] Harry: Right? They don't understand the 24 7 mindset that most salespeople that are good, the performance constantly, right? Yep. So, What would you suggest about to an owner that says, well, my salespeople make enough money, and they, they cap out at a certain number and they're leaving additional revenue on the table because of that.

[00:16:51] Harry: What's your thought? I'm,

[00:16:54] Walter Crosby: I'm sort of a, a, a misplaced New Yorker, so I would simply tell [00:17:00] them that they're making a huge mistake. Hmm. There's not a lot of. Softening dancing around. It it, yes, a good performing salesperson is going to make a lot of money. So set up your sales, sales comp plan so that individual makes a, a great living.

[00:17:24] Walter Crosby: They get paid super well and do it in such a way that they win. Your customer wins and the company win. If you have that mindset where everybody's gonna win, then that salesperson's gonna go the extra mile to make sure that customer experience is great. They're gonna make sure that the rest of the team is doing what they need to do.

[00:17:46] Walter Crosby: They're gonna sell at a high margin and the company's gonna do great. So, so organize it that way. I mean, that's sort of the rule of thumb. Make it aligned where everything is. Everybody's working in the same, [00:18:00] the same direction. When. We try to get selfish and try to make sure, oh, I don't want 'em to make more than 150.

[00:18:08] Walter Crosby: Why? Right. Because if they're, if they've made 150, you just told me that you're bringing in 3 million if they're making $150,000. Mm-hmm. So what would you make if they brought in 200,000? Like, help me understand. And if they can't wrap their head around that, frankly they might not be a great can. For me to work with because that's a, a mindset that is a real, is a real block that eventually will come back and cause that individual to lose high performers.

[00:18:43] Walter Crosby: That'll cause that individual sales culture to take a nose dive, right? We want everybody to be working as hard as they can in the right direction, everybody. Yeah,

[00:18:55] Harry: so true. I mean, the, the whole thing about culture is that if someone [00:19:00] gets in their head that they get capped out and then they start playing to complan, they do not keep that quiet.

[00:19:08] Harry: You know, it's right that that travels pretty quickly, you know, the sandbagging, it's like, wow, the end of the quarter, and now the first day of the month, you've already got, you know, three, two times your quota for the month. Why didn't you write that last month when I really needed it? It's like, well, because the incentive is, you know, you, you've made it where it's not valuable last month, so I'm gonna do what makes sense Right.

[00:19:34] Harry: For me financially. So,

[00:19:36] Walter Crosby: yeah. And there's, there's so many little ways that a comp plan can have little aspects of it that the, the c e o or that, that owner's thinking that they're, they're being cute and they're being smart, and I'm gonna mm-hmm. Outsmart these guys. Give 'em the incentive to do the right thing and the top performers are gonna do the right thing, and the people that are gonna try to [00:20:00] do get something for nothing, get rid of them.

[00:20:02] Walter Crosby: Hmm. We don't, we don't need people that aren't team players. Right. I, I think so. I think great salespeople need to have a little bit of selfishness in, in them in terms of how they think about their. I want them to be focused on generating business. I don't want them volunteering to put the company Christmas party together.

[00:20:26] Walter Crosby: Right. Right. They should attend and be fun and energetic and appreciative, but they don't need to organize that. Other people can do that. They need to be focused on their role, but this, so they should be selfish with their time. But. If, if there's a way to create a win, a performer's going to figure out a way to earn, earn that revenue.

[00:20:47] Walter Crosby: And if you're gonna put a, a governor on their revenue stream, they'll figure a way around it. We

[00:20:53] Harry: always do. Yeah, absolutely. So you just mentioned an interesting point about the you know, being [00:21:00] selfish with the time. I was curious as to where you're going to go on that, and I'm, I'm wondering what you're thinking.

[00:21:09] Harry: The generation that now wants everything to be team. I mean, I can go back in time, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, where we were all instructed, I was in, I was a, a sales rep at the time. I was not in leadership. We were basically all told, go out in your territory, your piece of the pie, go talk to people, prospect, whatever.

[00:21:37] Harry: Everything was solo today. And even shortly after 25 years ago, I started seeing some trends happening that People, just the younger kids did, younger kids, early twenties did, they wanted to do stuff together and people [00:22:00] that, when I was kind of making that available where people could pair up.

[00:22:06] Harry: Some were saying, well, you're getting, now it's, I'm getting 50% of the effort versus a hundred percent of two. I'm getting 50% of two. You're following the logic there. Yeah. Wasting time. Yeah. Yeah. So what, what do you, what's your thought on that? Especially these days where everybody wants to be part of, not everybody, but a lot of people wanna be part of a team and team culture and so forth.

[00:22:33] Walter Crosby: Well that's an interesting question and I, I'll answer it two ways. I think salespeople need to be team players in that they should be thinking about what they're doing, how it affects other people. They should, they should help understand what they do, can either help somebody be effective in their role or not, but we should get that aligned.

[00:22:58] Walter Crosby: That's just what [00:23:00] humans should do, is be good to other humans. But in terms of the idea of a team, I, I, I don't know. I've always had this mindset as a, in a sales, sales room, right? We had a sales meeting. There was this familial brothers and sisters sort of attitude where I did better than you, right? Or I'm gonna get you next month cuz you got me this.

[00:23:29] Walter Crosby: There was this competition friendly. But it, it was sort of like that, that family, the dinner, the dinner table. And I, I think of an Italian family I used to have dinner with. Every once in a while I'd be invited to their house on a Sunday for Sunday dinner, and it was like, they were arguing and throwing food and it was like craziness.

[00:23:50] Walter Crosby: But as soon as somebody from the outside tried to do something with the family, like the whole, the whole family lined up like they were a. They [00:24:00] didn't, you know, you can't pick on, I can pick on her, but you can't pick on her. You can pick on my little brother. You can't pick on her, but I can pick on her.

[00:24:07] Walter Crosby: So I, I think there's that aspect of a sales team and a sales culture, but they still gotta play nice with everybody else. We gotta figure that out. And it should be easier for us as salespeople to do that. But I also think that the folks that are have that, that mindset that they don't wanna. Quite as hard.

[00:24:27] Walter Crosby: They want some more balance, that it's so much easier today for somebody who's willing to do the right things and to work hard to be successful. It's, it's just you can, you can put forth the proper amount of effort. I'm not talking about 80, 90 hours a week. I'm talking 55, 60 hours a week doing what you need to do to be successful.

[00:24:52] Walter Crosby: You can. And sales with that mindset right now. So intrinsically motivated. People want to be part of a [00:25:00] team. They want to learn, they want to be part of something bigger them. Nothing wrong with that. And they can be really successful salespeople, but the whole idea of team selling to me stops at you take a salesperson who can get in front of the right people, and then we bring in the smart guy, as I would call him, the technic.

[00:25:21] Walter Crosby: Person mm-hmm. To help explain like, hey, bring your technical person and he can talk to my technical person and they'll do their thing and we will, they'll figure out if it's gonna work. Right. I like that. But two salespeople I don't think

[00:25:36] Harry: so. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to just mention like some s like, so if I, I've talked to a few who do S D R work and you know, I've looked at that in the past and I've come to the conclusion that you cannot have a single SDR in a company you'd.[00:26:00]

[00:26:00] Harry: Because they need the camaraderie. And it's like, that's, that's a challenging job for people who are, you know, working alone. And while everyone else on the sales team. So I kind of believe in the sense that if you're gonna have one, you should have two for longevity, unless the one is super special.

[00:26:21] Harry: But I, I typically don't see those last. Right. So I think there's some changes going on in that role. But I don't wanna get caught up at it. It just, I was curious about your opinion on that.

[00:26:35] Walter Crosby: Yeah. I think SDRs in, in, in the space that I work with, the smaller organizations, they, they don't have enough inbound and they don't have enough salespeople that, that can support that.

[00:26:51] Walter Crosby: Mm-hmm. I, I think that's, that's a next level type of thing, but I, it's an interesting thought I hadn't really considered. It's a lonely [00:27:00] job in sdr. And it's it's sometimes thankless. Yeah, right. Because they, they kick up what they think is good qualified meetings and somebody doesn't close it. And it may not have been their fault having that comradery or at least having some sales manager that can really is good at coaching that can engage with them.

[00:27:22] Walter Crosby: I think, I think you're right. They need, they need some attention and some help.

[00:27:26] Harry: And it's, it's, it's a lot more than most salespeople would need. Yes, it's a different animal, different character, different type of persona. But yes, if you're thinking of going that route and you're not around the person as the, as the leader, then.

[00:27:44] Harry: You know, it's subject to fail, and especially if there's not another person where there's that camaraderie, bouncing ideas, dealing with a no, or just the fact that very few people pick up the phone and so forth. It's. [00:28:00] The reward for many in sales is they go through an entire month and look at, you know, five hours out of the month where they're writing business and say, I had an awesome month.

[00:28:11] Harry: Right? Because they look at whatever they're, they're typically not looking at how they fill their pipeline. They're looking at the outcome at the end of the month as they look back at the, the business they wrote. That's where a lot of people get the, the rush, the adrenaline. Sure. During the moment, right.

[00:28:28] Harry: So SDRs typically don't get that. And so they're, they get an appointment, right, which is thrilling, a net new appointment. But then, you know, frequently it's out of their hands and they're not part of it anymore. And you know, so where's the. Where's the rush that they're getting? It's just not, in my opinion, it's not quite the same.

[00:28:49] Harry: Yeah,

[00:28:49] Walter Crosby: it's different cuz they, they can get excited cuz somebody actually spoke to them and then, then they actually got through their process to get a meeting. It's different. And it, and it's, I [00:29:00] think it's a much more lonely challenging, challenging role. It's a different profile that's for.

[00:29:08] Harry: Yeah. Yep.

[00:29:10] Harry: Okay. So we were talking about some of the mistakes that CEOs make. You know, we talked about the compensation, you know, hiring the, having the right job description. What about, you know, once the person is on board, You know, CEOs are pretty busy running their business, doing what they need to do to work on the business.

[00:29:34] Harry: You know, they're, they're the go-to person typically for a, a smaller company like you described for a lot of things. Now, the salesperson or salespeople you've mentioned, three to five are fly under the radar. That could be good or typically not though. But typically what, what's your experience to show you there?[00:30:00]

[00:30:01] Walter Crosby: They're not, they're not managed well. The expectations aren't set and there's very little accountability. Hmm. So when you have that situation where you said they're flying under the radar cuz the CEO is not giving them attention You know, somebody's responsibility to manage salespeople. Right.

[00:30:25] Walter Crosby: Because it's, we're, we're, we're a little crazy. We're a lot like children, right? Or cats. We we're difficult to wrangle. Mm-hmm. Especially when we don't tell them what we expect of them. So I think that starts in the interview. Right. So I'm going back to the sales piece, the hiring piece of this. We tell the candidates when we get to a certain level, let me tell you how we create accountability here.

[00:30:57] Walter Crosby: We try to make it positive, right? And we [00:31:00] do this, and I teach people to have accountability in, in about 15 minutes a month. Mm-hmm. We can, we can 15 to 20 minutes, we can build accountability up. But we have to tell them what we want them to do, and then we have to make sure that they're doing it and we need to coach them in between.

[00:31:17] Walter Crosby: And we need to, to, to give them the tools that they need, gotta meet 'em where they are. And then if they're not performing, there's reasons for that. And we, that's where we do the coaching. And the less they perform, the, the greater the, the, the insight that must be gathered. Right. So if they hit their revenue number and they didn't break any rules, and they're not, they're a team player, okay?

[00:31:45] Walter Crosby: They're doing their. So, you know, look at, let's take a quick look at your pipeline. Looks like you're gonna do it again. Keep up, keep after it, and we can be done quickly. But if they missed their number, then we gotta go look at the pipeline with detail. What's new? What did you [00:32:00] add? What did you move? And if that's looks terrible and we gotta look at what are they doing, Hmm.

[00:32:08] Walter Crosby: Are they doing something that's effective? Are they, and if they have the right activity level, are they, are they doing it well? Are they doing it? Are they, they messaging things properly? Are they missing steps? So I think we can keep accountability in a positive frame and we don't have to micromanage people.

[00:32:29] Walter Crosby: And if, if somebody's not performing, they're not going to appreciate that accountability and they're probably gonna self-select out of the, the situation after three or four months of, you know, not hitting their, hitting their numbers because we've agreed to do the numbers. That's where the expectations come in.

[00:32:49] Walter Crosby: So I think, I think that's a a a w a way for a c e O to spend a very. [00:33:00] Controlled amount of time. Just focusing on that accountability piece and really getting people to, to focus on it. And if the c e o can't do it, there's a, and they don't have a sales manager, the c f or the controller, that finance person.

[00:33:22] Walter Crosby: They love accountability. They love adding stuff up and they love making sure everything. Those are the guys that are looking at our expense reports. Yeah. So if we teach them how to do this and how to do it without being a jerk mm-hmm. We can, we can have them help create the accountability. They won't be able to coach.

[00:33:39] Walter Crosby: Right. But they can have those accountability meetings and that will give back that c e o some time. But around that five, six salesperson size. They should consider bringing in fractional sales management or, you know, start to be starting that process of looking for a

[00:33:58] Harry: sales manager. [00:34:00] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:01] Harry: And you know those, that's a great idea. There's a number of those out there that do a great job and keep the pricing where it's a decent investment, millions of dollars, and you give the, your sales people, you know, periodic coaching if. That's something that's not, it's valuable, right? I mean I, I know of sales organizations that never really coach, they just expect numbers and sales people do.

[00:34:29] Harry: All right. But how much more beneficial would be for some periodic coaching or development?

[00:34:35] Walter Crosby: Oh, I, I really, I think a sales manager's. 50% of the time that they're there. It should be coaching salespeople. Yeah. And you know, 10% of it should be administrative bs. And then, you know, some of the rest of it is out on calls and maybe they carry a number or reporting up, but 50 to 60% of their time should be pre-call [00:35:00] planning and debriefing with their salespeople.

[00:35:02] Walter Crosby: Yeah. Coaching 'em on their pipelines. Yeah. And not, and not just talking about pricing, actually moving deals.

[00:35:08] Harry: Yeah. And this whole thing on coaching, I mean, I remember years ago I thought it was a good sales manager and I would answer every question that came to me. I gave the answer. Hmm. And then I learned a little bit about what coaching meant.

[00:35:24] Harry: Oh.

[00:35:26] Walter Crosby: If I help them figure it out, they won't come to me for every time

[00:35:29] Harry: I a question and Right. We realize that we are training them to not ever have to think. Right. Right. So, I mean, I still see that today where people are just asking, I mean, it is like, have we asked Google any of this? Right? I mean, is your sales manager the brochure?

[00:35:48] Harry: I mean, these are, you know, awesome.

[00:35:50] Walter Crosby: Yeah. Right. Yeah. A, a tip for your listen. If you have salespeople come to you, or anybody come to you and ask you a question that you [00:36:00] think they should understand or need to understand, ask them five questions before you give them the answer. And they, and maybe they will uncover that answer for themselves, but regardless, they'll get closer to understanding it.

[00:36:17] Walter Crosby: And they might just walk away thinking, oh, I got this. And then they don't think of you as the. Shell answer, man. Are you old enough to remember the shell answer, man? The

[00:36:29] Harry: shell an I should, but yeah, we were talking earlier in the green room about old skits from Saturday Night Live in the seventies. So I probably, and since I'm older than you, I should know the shell answer, man.

[00:36:41] Harry: But

[00:36:41] Walter Crosby: it was the guy that everybody went to, to get the answers and didn't do the work themselves. The Google back in the day, huh? There you go. There you go.

[00:36:51] Harry: Walter, this is super helpful. What's your, Thought here as far as you have the floor, I want you to [00:37:00] share what you wanna share to listeners and CEOs that may hear this.

[00:37:04] Harry: What is it that may need to be doing that you could help them with in a couple of minutes here? What's your thought?

[00:37:11] Walter Crosby: I, I think I, I think the best way, I mean the, to read the book, it, it, you can read the book in less than an hour, right? So most people can spend an. At some point reading it, but the chapters are broken out into the ideas that it solves.

[00:37:29] Walter Crosby: If they have a particular problem with in one area, they could start there and we describe it. For your listeners, if if somebody pings me on LinkedIn and said, I heard you and Harry talking and I'd, I'd love a copy of the book. I'm happy to send them a copy of the. If they're interested in, in reading it, if they're serious about trying to correct their problems.

[00:37:57] Walter Crosby: I appreciate that that [00:38:00] opportunity. But the, the seven critical mistakes.com is a place they can go and grab it. And it's I, it's priced so that I'm not making any money on the book. It's really just to help people understand how I. And to maybe go out and solve some of their own problems. If nothing else, at least understand what's really causing the problem.

[00:38:25] Walter Crosby: Yeah, it's

[00:38:26] Harry: great stuff. I mean, you do a great job. I mean, I love what you're, you talk about as far as the hiring process. You know, starting right from the way the job is posting, you know, and then the types of questions that are being asked. And, you know, just, just that chapter alone is so helpful. But there's so much more in such a jam-packed hour read.

[00:38:48] Harry: So I highly recommend it. And have a conversation with Walter. He knows his stuff. So, Walter, thank you for joining me. And so the place to go for the listener. [00:39:00] Seven critical mistakes.com. Is

[00:39:02] Walter Crosby: that it? Yep. Or, or ping me on LinkedIn. One or the other Walter Crosby on LinkedIn. Okay. And we'll

[00:39:07] Harry: put that, both of those in the show notes.

[00:39:09] Harry: So Walter, thanks a lot for joining me. Appreciate the conversation and the chuckles. And I will hopefully see the shell answer man some more in my life. And I'm gonna call you the shell answer man right now. So thanks again for joining me. Appreciate it,

[00:39:26] thank you for listening to Sales Made Easy. If you found value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal is to provide practical strategies for growing your business while staying true to your values. Remember, six. Success in sales is about serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will follow.

[00:39:52] We'll be back soon with more insights and inspiration. Until then, keep serving and providing value to others. Good things will happen.