Episode 201
What would it be like to have a sales and marketing team that thrives in the niche industry landscape? Join us as we explore this question with Ted Fluck, a seasoned expert in the field of sales and marketing team building. We dissect the elements that contribute to a successful, dynamic sales team, delve into the significance of understanding company culture, and discuss the traits of an alpha hunter, an individual who is relentless in their sales approach.
In our conversation, we also pivot to the role of listening skills in the world of sales. Ted enlightens us on how to foster trust with clients swiftly, underlining the importance of asking the right questions and equipping yourself for skepticism. We explore where to find salespeople, the untapped potential of semi-retired individuals and mothers who can work from home, and the critical part that compensation plays in aligning a team.
As we round off our insightful discussion, we venture into the realm of AI and its impact on sales and marketing. Ted shares his predictions on how AI could revolutionize the industry landscape in a few years, touching on potential obstacles posed by AI and strategies to navigate them. We wrap up by discussing the imperative qualities of successful entrepreneurs and the resilience required in the face of adversity. This episode is brimming with invaluable insights for anyone aiming to build a robust sales and marketing team. Tune in and equip yourself with the knowledge to breed success in your sales and marketing efforts.
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00;00;24;04 – 00;00;53;14
Unknown
Welcome, everyone to the Firing the podcast. On today’s episode, we have the pleasure to interview Ted Flook. Ted is a sales and marketing team building expert as well as a bestselling author. Ted enjoys hosting monthly LinkedIn live presentations to hundreds of listeners and in-person presentations to CEO peer groups. Ted’s aim is to make sure leaders are better equipped with knowledge and tools to build a dynamic sales team and drive exceptional sales sales results.
00;00;53;15 – 00;01;23;08
Unknown
Welcome to the show, Ted. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here. Absolutely. So to start things off, please share with our listeners a little bit about your background and your path to becoming a sales and marketing building expert. Door I kind of fell into sales. For what it’s worth. I got out of college joining the military as a captain in the Army for five years and was excited about building the financial services industry and excited to get into sales to try something new from there, but really found for me it was a passion and a skill set and really enjoyed the work and loved the quality of life that they
00;01;23;08 – 00;01;41;07
Unknown
could bring to me and my to my family. And from there it was just kind of took off. Stayed in the financial services industry, moved through a few companies that way, moved into the medical device industry I capital equipment sales. The medical industry worked for some laboratories and built some fantastic teams that moved up into management and national sales managers.
00;01;41;07 – 00;02;01;18
Unknown
And then I also I worked in the education space working for some consulting firms and professional development companies in the education space, running their sales and marketing organizations. So 25 years of building teams and selling things, it’s been great. Awesome. Well, thanks for your service, Ted. The first question that I have is something that David and I did last year, which we’ll learn from this as well.
00;02;01;18 – 00;02;19;13
Unknown
But can you share with the listeners what are the most common hiring mistakes when a leadership team is hiring for salespeople? Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, Ken, I find too often organizations don’t really know what they’re looking for. And what I mean by that is that they truly don’t understand their own culture and what that would mean to their clients.
00;02;19;13 – 00;02;42;19
Unknown
And the best example I can, given that is kind of everyone always says they want this alpha hunter or I want somebody to go out there and just kick down doors and make 100 calls and just get me a client. And that’s great. And like, clearly there’s no judgment about anybody like that. But I would say probably only 15, maybe 20% of the companies out there really want that because they will freak out once they get that person into the company culture who’s tear.
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00;02;42;21 – 00;03;13;04
Unknown
Right. Seeing their teams and their clients and the clients will will likely get upset from time to time about people who typically have that, you know, tick down the doors mentality. Now, with that being said, with training, with maturity, those alpha hunters out there can be great people can be very, very dynamic. But often times people make the mistake of getting a little bit too aggressive in who they’re hiring for their sales teams, essentially saying you need to do like a culture fad or you need to figure out like or that or be prepared to bring someone like that in and have them tamed down over over a period of time.
00;03;13;04 – 00;03;35;07
Unknown
Or. Yeah, well, it’s going to be they’re going to be hard to tame, but you buy what you what I would say kind of is this is if you’re going to have that be prepared to have the support systems and the structures in place you have that they’re going to need a very strong, mature manager and they’re also going to need some assistance and some team around them which can which can, you know, just jump when they need to jump and provide that person what they need to provide because they’re going to be demanding things right away, all for the right reasons.
00;03;35;07 – 00;03;56;20
Unknown
They’re closing deals, They’re selling, and they’re going to be moving on to the next target. If you’re a sales company, if you’re somebody that you have to be ready to, you have to be ready for, That really is what it comes down to. And Ken, again, this goes back to understanding your culture. A lot of companies really can get great growth with good salespeople, but they may not will be the salespeople who are like this, like Alpha Hunter that’s out there.
00;03;56;20 – 00;04;10;24
Unknown
You can do a lot of prospecting, a lot of hunting, and you can be very aggressive up until you meet the client. And that’s what I always try to tell people. You want somebody who’s tenacious up until their first contact, and then when they make contact with the client, they settle down, they back in their passion for the results.
00;04;10;24 – 00;04;27;21
Unknown
But they’re they’re very diligent in the work that they do to get there and making sure that they continue to contact the customer as a client. For a lot of the listeners, you know, we’re in e-commerce, physical products based businesses, so we sell on Amazon, Walmart or on websites, you know, and the size of company maybe maybe two and a half million in revenue, maybe 5 million in revenue.
00;04;27;21 – 00;04;47;12
Unknown
And we kind of maybe we want to go into wholesale or maybe dabble in retail or boutique. And so and there’s like kind of like to I guess two approaches. One is like lead generation where you have and like a business development person generate leads. And another one is like what you said, an alpha where you’re just turning them loose and going into two to close deals, right?
00;04;47;12 – 00;05;06;08
Unknown
And so on the business development side, do you think that needs to be a specialized hire or can you use a VA with a with a with an SOP standard as well? What are your thoughts there? So I think there’s there’s a lot of thoughts about there. There’s a lot of change. There’s been an explosion lately, Ken. And I say there’s a lot of companies have done that very well and very successfully.
00;05;06;08 – 00;05;21;23
Unknown
They also get about 15 companies a day asking if I need lead generations and guaranteed results. And so that’s one of the that’s again, that’s not a bad thing out there. But I would suggest people really need to do their diligence in their homework and they need to find companies that allow them to test, run them a little bit.
00;05;21;23 – 00;05;38;28
Unknown
And here’s a really long lost art. I’m being a little bit sarcastic about getting some referrals before you jump in with those people and talking to some of the people who work with those companies because there’s a lot out there. And particularly as technology increases and the Internet and international borders break down, you have to make sure you know what you’re getting on the other end.
00;05;38;28 – 00;06;01;15
Unknown
So I think builders and stars are fantastic. Again, trained and I love what you said written good. So PS things are a thought through because that’s your representation of the company and that’s the first impression of what you’re doing there. Ken So if you’re going to go down that route, which I say is probably a very good route for many people, to go down that route to get more leads, to get appointments scheduled, just know what you’re getting and do your homework.
00;06;01;15 – 00;06;19;22
Unknown
I mean, don’t don’t be so rushed to get into the deal where you have it sorted out and plan it out very nicely. I want to spend a little bit more time here on maybe where to find these people for end of the podcast sells a product on Amazon that is a big hit. Their customer avatar seems to be women in that 55 to 75 age range.
00;06;19;22 – 00;06;40;06
Unknown
And so they talked about trying to identify nursing homes as potential clients, which is kind of a niche or industry specific. And so what advice would you give to this person on identifying the right salesperson to address this niche that they’re going after? That’s an excellent question, and it goes back to really knowing your target market. And yeah, I love it, right?
00;06;40;06 – 00;06;58;04
Unknown
That that really is developing your culture and understanding your cultures, understanding your clients and what you’re going to do that clearly that somebody is going to be patient, you know, on on the call or something like that. You’re probably looking for somebody in that area who’s probably very much appear or maybe a little bit younger perhaps. I hate to say that and don’t want to get into that too much here.
00;06;58;08 – 00;07;16;17
Unknown
You may want to edit that out. When he looked to me as somebody that can speak their language and understand and speak with empathy and patience for somebody who’s in that situation and is probably a very good listener. Not typical sales targets of sales, actually not typical traits of salespeople, but listening skills in that type of situation be exceptionally important.
00;07;16;17 – 00;07;30;21
Unknown
When you going to ask a few questions, you got to really want to listen for the answers and listen for the responses. You got to be prepared for skepticism, and then you’re going to be able to build some trust very quickly with them by listening. So that would just be like, here are some off the cuff, quick advice without knowing too much about that.
00;07;30;21 – 00;07;48;12
Unknown
But that’s exactly what you want to start doing and exactly what, you know, good sales managers and good leaders and organizations and good talent. People have experience of sales. Want to ask organization those questions and dig a little bit deeper to find out exactly where you’re getting at. What is that client persona? What is this? What is the product you’re selling?
00;07;48;12 – 00;08;07;24
Unknown
Is it a commodity product? Is it a long term sales cycle product? And depending on those types of things is really the amount of trust you’re going to need to establish a build and how quickly you’re going to be able to transition that client to a purchase. If I were to sit down at my computer tomorrow and in my singular task for the day was to try to identify that salesperson, where would I go?
00;08;07;25 – 00;08;27;00
Unknown
Where do salespeople hang out? Where should people be looking? I prefer LinkedIn for most of what I do professionally speaking when it comes to recruiting. The other thing is that if you’re going to have a recruiter, you’d be surprised that not all recruiters charge you a fortune for things like this. You’d be surprised how many out there can find talent and no talent.
00;08;27;01 – 00;08;45;15
Unknown
There’s really the best the best ways to find salespeople are, in my opinion, are LinkedIn. But the number one way to find salespeople is through other salespeople. They’re just constantly moving, constantly moving other organizations every 3 to 5 years, where somewhere else typically build good relationships with friends and have a long list of people who are dialed into the areas.
00;08;45;16 – 00;09;01;03
Unknown
And so that’s how recruiters build their networks and and continue to recruit and grow. And it’s also how where I would look to for salespeople, too. So if you’re trying to pinpoint people down, I would look towards salespeople to find more salespeople. As silly as it sounds, that’s true. I makes sense. Yeah. The answer to the questions are so simple, right?
00;09;01;03 – 00;09;26;22
Unknown
We don’t think of them all the time. So if you ever want to go more poignantly back to that particular role, you were talking back before, I would say again with the with salespeople being able to work from home now more than ever, with people not having to travel as much as they do, you don’t miss out on the opportunity for people who are either in a semi-retired state or don’t miss out on people who are perhaps moms working from home but don’t want to work a 40 hour week anymore because maybe they have new children in the house or something along those lines.
00;09;26;22 – 00;09;52;04
Unknown
Huge opportunities. They’re super talent. But just a different lifestyle that they’re looking for right now. So, again, if you’re one of these smaller people out there, if you’re growing your sales team, you could find really exceptional talent. I got to tell you, I could do some experiences lately in the past two years with women that I’ve worked for in the sales force who have had children who or who have had to transition and they couldn’t find jobs and the people who did snag them up, they want a gold mine.
00;09;52;04 – 00;10;10;05
Unknown
There is a really interesting way to kind of go about that and be flexible, if that’s possible, within your company, too. I’ve got one more I want to squeeze out before we move on. Once you find that person, what is the typical compensation method? Is it commission only? Is it is it a salary plus a commission? How does that typically work?
00;10;10;09 – 00;10;25;18
Unknown
The commission only is to find the right word for it. This commission only is going to be much more difficult. Let’s just say that now, almost like borderline dangerous in that you’re just people just going to go to these days. I have to I hate to say it like that Again, it goes back to this referrals, do your homework type of situation.
00;10;25;20 – 00;10;41;00
Unknown
You don’t want to go in and put in training and things like that for people. Again, I have worked with people do this. Yeah, I’m ready to start tomorrow. Where do you start tomorrow? You get ghosted or you start to go to training. They disappear. You need to have a level of commitment from that person that you want to train and you want to put effort and time into.
00;10;41;01 – 00;10;56;22
Unknown
And I firmly believe that you need to put some of that back into them with some type of steady compensation, be a salary or a drill or something along those lines. But I would work it out that way, depending on the levels of organizations. And this could go all over the place. There can be different splits, and I always think of my percentage splits here as a 50%.
00;10;56;26 – 00;11;13;23
Unknown
If you had a target earnings for a target goal, 50% salary, 50% commission for some people is is pretty traditional. If you go much lower than that, you’re going to have to really it might go in any way as part time situations which is okay lower than that as far as to me, as far as the salary goes, you might be looking at part time situation.
00;11;13;23 – 00;11;29;04
Unknown
That’s okay. But for growing organizations which are which, you know, may find it hard to have in the budget that salary, it’s got to be worth its weight in gold if you can if you can muster that up for a few months and get you, could you start to get a return on those dollars very quickly? I think nothing gives your money back fast and a good salesperson.
00;11;29;04 – 00;11;48;16
Unknown
So it’s a challenging question because there’s so many ways salespeople get compensated depending on where where they are. I mean, eventually you’ll get up in the, you know, med device sales where you’re paid massive commissions that you’re paid bonus compensation, you know. Yeah. Then it’s all other, all others different types of structure. But I would look more to those percentage splits and do what you do, what you can afford to do.
00;11;48;16 – 00;12;14;06
Unknown
And you have to remember that it isn’t. It’s that you’re expecting an investment from them to take your product seriously and to represent your company well, you have to give that investment back. My next question here is as a common thing that we always experience on our team, it’s how do you align? So once you hire that, that well, whether you get an alpha sales or or whoever sales person you get what you bring someone on, you know, on the team and then you’ve got your email marketing, you got your social media, you have your ads team.
00;12;14;06 – 00;12;30;23
Unknown
And so how do you synchronize your sales, your new salesperson with these other teams and make sure they function in the ecosystem properly? I don’t know if you guys are branded too much or not if I’m jumping in, but throwing out from HubSpot because marketing, sales and marketing, working together type of type of thing, and I subscribe to that fully.
00;12;30;23 – 00;12;47;20
Unknown
If you have separate sales managers and separate marketing directors, they have to get along. They have to be on the same page and they have to have the same mission. Oftentimes you’re finding there’s the separation is usually going away to find if one type of leadership there. And that’s very, very common these days because of all the work that has to get done.
00;12;47;20 – 00;13;05;15
Unknown
Can when you’re talking about that, you’re exactly right. The marketing team job is to take those marketing qualified leads. All of the prospects that are out there, all of that information that they that they’ve gathered up, they’re getting all that bringing that information and they’re getting an inbound process coming in or whatever it may be. They’re hitting the website, they’re filling out the landing page information, the data.
00;13;05;15 – 00;13;24;23
Unknown
But now what? And is that just handed over to the sales team? And there’s a sales team gracious for that. Is there a feedback loop about the quality of that and how we can improve that? They have to work together as far as that goes. Can you need a robust sales team these days, particularly in multi channels because you got to hit people so many different places.
00;13;24;23 – 00;13;44;06
Unknown
Then to even begin to recognize your name and your brand before it turns over to the sales team. But one of the biggest things I’ve always tried to influence my sales and marketing team was just understanding each other’s responsibilities and being gracious and grateful for for what was brought to your way. Marketing team has to be enthusiastic. When sales teams make the clothes, and sales teams have to be gracious for everything.
00;13;44;06 – 00;14;01;16
Unknown
The marketing teams working hard on working together and the more they work together that way in an environment and give each other great feedback on what’s working and what’s not. And I think the teams really can come together that way. I like that. I like marketing. That’s a new that’s a new series for me, but I can’t say it’s mine, but I use it 24/7, so I’d have to throw it out there.
00;14;01;18 – 00;14;16;18
Unknown
But yeah, it’s I mean, you had to think of it that way. I mean, of all of the, the, the team of all of the groups within an organization, I mean, it’s one of the, one of the two groups in one or two divisions or parts of the company that need to work seamlessly together. It’s just so vital not to.
00;14;16;18 – 00;14;33;08
Unknown
And sometimes you just find this like false, not even false. It’s just usually the ego gets involved between people and not getting what they want or not not good enough and blah, blah, blah. But easily you need to have good leadership and good management. Push that aside. Get everybody on the same page quickly. Very nice. Very nice. This next one is a two part question.
00;14;33;08 – 00;14;54;15
Unknown
First part, how do you deconstruct an old sales process? And the second piece of this is how do you build dynamic sales organizations? All right, I’ll go back in time a little bit here. When I was I was a combat engineer in the Army, and our Latin motto was constructive at destructor. So construction and destruction. So that kind of always resonates with me in the back of my mind.
00;14;54;15 – 00;15;14;26
Unknown
So where we where we bring that into the real world, where there where that applies in particularly in the sales, sales teams can get stagnant and sales teams can get old. And as we talked a little bit about before, there’s typically decent transition within sales organizations, but not always. And you have to really look at what your goals are and what you’re getting out of your sales organization.
00;15;14;26 – 00;15;30;27
Unknown
And if just if you’re still achieving your goals and if you’re not was, pull back and say, okay, why aren’t why aren’t we so many? There’s so many layers to this question where I talk about deconstruction and sales team, but really you’re looking at who’s accountable to what goals and have you set meaningful goals for growth within your organization.
00;15;30;28 – 00;15;48;10
Unknown
If you’re a territory manager, if you’re you know, there’s a lot of titles about vice president of a region or whatever it may be, and you’ve been there a long time, the odds are typically you’re not bringing new accounts in or what they would call like bringing in new logos, right? You’re growing a mature market, you’re growing your current clients.
00;15;48;10 – 00;16;14;18
Unknown
Hopefully your upselling and your continue to upsell your organization into a particular account. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what happens is you fail to continue to grow the market share and we have to identify ways when we deconstruct old sales processes. Are old sales missed? Is this not saying that that person’s not doing their job, but what your expectations may be are more accounts and getting more accounts into the company and growing your footprint within a geographic region.
00;16;14;19 – 00;16;31;14
Unknown
If that’s the case, then we have to break down some of those barriers. We may need to deconstruct geographies, territories. We may need to find different roles for people who have good skill sets but aren’t going out and knocking on doors anymore and finding new people to bring in and growing the brand. But what they’re doing is they’re providing excellent account management.
00;16;31;16 – 00;16;52;20
Unknown
So we talk about deconstructing those things. We talk about working that way, deconstructing old dogma, the things that everybody hates, you know, Oh, we’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work or oh, is not that way anymore. Oh, my client doesn’t do that. Or oh, this client doesn’t prefer that. I can tell you true stories of where I didn’t have good relations or I may not have had a good relationship in a certain hospital system, one reason or another.
00;16;52;20 – 00;17;10;18
Unknown
And that’s okay if I didn’t have a good relationship within a hospital system and then somebody came in and backfilled me because I maybe I moved on or moved to a different area and within six months they sold this huge deal. I’ll say, Whoa, what happened here? That was all my work wasn’t, you know, despite the fact you’re good at what you do, you’re not a perfect match for every account.
00;17;10;18 – 00;17;27;24
Unknown
So getting fresh blood in there can also be a good thing for the organization as well. And other people have opportunities to excel that way. So deconstructing that, that old dogma is really important thing to do. It can get dangerous when you start to do that because again, just look around, where were we five years ago when it comes to social media, Where are we ten years ago when it comes to Internet?
00;17;27;24 – 00;17;47;29
Unknown
You know, we weren’t doing anything online. We didn’t have meetings. Podcasts weren’t really that big of a deal five, ten years ago. And now I have to be ones constantly listening to them everywhere they go. As the market does change, people buy in different patterns in different ways. If you’re not ready to deconstruct those old myths, you’re going to sell on a lot of gross gross goals that you had been offered.
00;17;47;29 – 00;18;08;07
Unknown
So and the reconstruction, the long question, I’m sorry, it it’s too long of an answer. But when we look at reconstructing or rebuilding or constructing an organization, hiring, rehiring into some of those positions, that those first few hires you make are absolutely essential to absolutely get right. And I always say that people you absolutely have to get those first those first new sales hires right.
00;18;08;07 – 00;18;26;25
Unknown
When you have a like a large or an embedded sales organization because they’re going to be the ones setting a new example for new growth. Very, very often if you can eliminate the old dogma or eliminate any expectations of what successes at the old level have people come in and just do great work and make your KPIs be very, very diligent is gone.
00;18;26;25 – 00;18;47;15
Unknown
They’re going to achieve a level of success that sets a new bar and that level of success, that’s a new standard for the team, and that’s how we reconstruct that old dog and that’s how we reconstruct the sales team by bringing new people in. You really do set new expectations and new growth and you see this everywhere. You see it every time there’s a great new quarterback that comes into an NFL team and all of a sudden the whole bar rises and everybody the team starts playing better.
00;18;47;21 – 00;19;05;01
Unknown
And you can see that also in organizations too. That was good at high level strategy. I’m breaking it down. But yeah, it definitely makes sense. I mean, to reanalyze things, you know, over and over again and to try to figure out a new way next question. It kind of it kind of goes into taking a step back when we’re talking about sales reps bringing someone in.
00;19;05;01 – 00;19;26;13
Unknown
Now, as a business owner, you know, as a leader, we’re going to expect an, you know, an ROI on that hire. And so we’re essentially we’re investing in them. What should the be? And then also what are some, I guess, KPIs or ways to measure the success of this this new sales rep? An excellent question. I get asked that a lot and that really does depend on the products are selling.
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00;19;26;13 – 00;19;50;19
Unknown
There’s some really high margin products out there where you get a much higher ROI. There’s a shortened sales cycle and a longer sales cycle, but so that’s going to vary. But let me let me say it this way is the you should more importantly than what the ROI is, if you’re looking for them to bring in twice, they there’s a lot of times we look at saying, look, if you hire a new sales person within two years, they’re going to bring in three times the amount of money they’re costing you.
00;19;50;20 – 00;20;10;10
Unknown
So when you throw in their salary and their commissions and all of those other types of things, they’re going to be three times the top line revenue within a year. I would typically say 18 months do within eight X and you would within within that first year, they’re going to be observing one and a half times their their salary, which is or the salary and the commissions is what your targets should be.
00;20;10;14 – 00;20;35;11
Unknown
So it varies a little bit, but I like to look at it like time line that that way some products have a much longer sales cycle and they’re a much higher ticket item. So that may vary a little bit. But going back to your original question, as we’re talking about before knowing those KPIs and at least knowing what those targets are, that’s a reasonably set of reasonable expectations that they’re not going to, you know, go gangbusters right out of the gate and have like the all of a sudden be able to cover all these things.
00;20;35;13 – 00;20;55;11
Unknown
They very well, very well may be realistically within 90 days, though, to start to be able to come up a little bit and then start to cover the money that you’ve invested in them. The key, though, is, is to know your math, to know your own margins, to know what it costs, to have the salesperson in the sales marketing team, or what the cost of acquisition is for a new client and to backing your expectations that way.
00;20;55;11 – 00;21;11;00
Unknown
How long is it going to take me to recover this investment? What can I expect for six months, a year and then two, three years down the line? And that’s again, that’s how you start. That’s how a reasonable organization set KPIs. It’s how they set their commissions plan and comp plans every year. And it’s how it’s how they set their growth goals as well.
00;21;11;01 – 00;21;29;29
Unknown
Did you know that cost a little bit. So if I’m if I’m a seasoned sales rep, I’ve been with a couple of different companies. I sign on with David and Ken and I go out and I sell $100,000 worth of merchandise. What would they And I know it depends on the product in the industry lifecycle, but like generally, what amount would I be expecting in return?
00;21;29;29 – 00;21;54;15
Unknown
Is there a general percentage? And as a salesperson like in commission, is that a super? Yeah, I’ll throw out some numbers out there. I mean I would if it’s a large do they do $100,000 of sales, but it was one sale. They’re probably expecting a ten or 15% commission if it was $100,000 of sales. But, but the sales can be there was 100 sales or $1,000, maybe they’re only getting a fraction that maybe they’re only getting five, six, seven, 8% for each one because it comes more easily.
00;21;54;15 – 00;22;18;13
Unknown
So looking back back at that, though, I would I would suggest and also would go into if you are paying them a salary, look at that split. So it comes into that cost of goods. And I hate to give you a nebulous answers to that. I’m sorry for that, but it really is that total thing, right? So if I’m a 100% commission and we can just say then that, you know, if you break down and do the reverse math on a monthly basis and they need ten sales a month, then well, okay, I want to pay 30% all that out, 15%.
00;22;18;14 – 00;22;34;14
Unknown
They throw that total out, half of that went to the salary. The other half, we bring commission different ways to kind of look through that. But those are some examples I can get you through. But in most companies, something around 20%, give or take, is what you want to be spending on your sales and marketing as a whole.
00;22;34;16 – 00;22;50;12
Unknown
So depending again, what type of product you have. So if you can start to look at that as well, what’s that whole budget look like and where can that money go in to that and more, more of that going into marketing these days because it needs so many different needs for marketing, different channels of marketing and marketing specialization.
00;22;50;12 – 00;23;07;11
Unknown
But that was still hold hold should you only grow out the sales. And one of the good things about paying commissions are you’re only paying for what they’re selling. So that’s usually a very good thing and that’s where you can never really shy away from that because, you know, and good companies, big, big companies or people don’t leave and they love working in that are very profitable.
00;23;07;11 – 00;23;26;02
Unknown
I mean, big companies like Siemens Medica or the Council, Siemens Healthineers here in the U.S., companies like that, they have extremely aggressive compensation plans after they’ve made certain targets to like. This is where we’re expecting you to make in the CEO, and that’s the number that you’ve been given. If you go over that, let’s just say you had a 10% commission to get there.
00;23;26;02 – 00;23;40;10
Unknown
All of a sudden you go a little bit over that you’re going to get paid 20% commission, you go farther than that, go higher target, you going to get 30%. They heavily incentivize you to go past their goals. That has the organization’s goals. And that’s the type of sales culture that can that people absolutely love to be part of.
00;23;40;10 – 00;23;56;01
Unknown
And once they, you know, really get into rhythm, they’re they can make great, great amounts of money and they’re bringing in great money for the company, too. So it works both ways as far as the revenue model works out. Very nice. I really appreciate that answer. And no, no worries. On giving nebulous or general answers. A little background on that question.
00;23;56;01 – 00;24;13;29
Unknown
So for a lot of people that sell on Amazon, they’re going to take a 15% referral fee and then in order to sell on Amazon, you need to pay to have pay per click advertising, which generally runs 10 to 15%. And so right out of the gate you’re looking at a 30% haircut. And so when people are thinking of brick and mortar, what would it cost?
00;24;14;00 – 00;24;32;08
Unknown
That’s a really helpful data because you would not have that referral fee or the PPC cost, not not in brick and mortar, you wouldn’t, but certainly and that’s you got to pay to play with Amazon, right? That’s what it comes out. I mean, I mean, to be part of the ticket sales distribution engine in the world, they’re going to take their, their part of it as well.
00;24;32;08 – 00;24;46;08
Unknown
And that’s, that’s part of it. It’s, you know, it’s almost like it’s a franchise fee if you are in a franchise model as well. It’s very similar to something like that. You’re going to pay them to use their networks and use their systems to, you know, that’s shouldn’t come out of the salesperson’s pocket, though. I mean, so it’s like it’s just a cost of the cost of goods.
00;24;46;11 – 00;25;06;25
Unknown
It’s an expense. It seems like every podcast we do nowadays covers some type of AI because it’s here, it’s coming, it’s going to, you know, take over and all, everything. And so, Ted, how is I going to impact and improve sales and marketing over the next 3 to 5 years if we get that far? As I just I said crystal ball, sorry.
00;25;06;26 – 00;25;22;27
Unknown
Oh, crystal ball. Yeah. I guarantee this is exactly what’s going to happen with that. Look, it’s already impacted marketing in a big way when it comes to marketing copy and when it comes to sales copy and writing and producing. I’ve seen it and I use it tremendously on my own social media and social media persons and the speed to which you can do that.
00;25;22;29 – 00;25;37;23
Unknown
What a I will do in the next and continue to do what it’s already done. We’re going to continue to do as more and more people embrace it. It is going to eliminate a lot of barriers to entry that certain people had to hold on. So all of a sudden everybody’s game is going to have to step up a little bit.
00;25;37;23 – 00;25;57;09
Unknown
Now, the step up a little bit more, right. It’s going to increase a lot more noise. And I always there is chatter and there’s noise and I say, you know, if you ever hear an orchestra before, they all come before the conductor stands up, it’s just a racket, it’s a bunch of noise. Everybody’s doing their own thing. And that’s kind of where I feel it’s going to be like with I on social media platforms.
00;25;57;09 – 00;26;17;18
Unknown
This is going to be you’re going to be bombarded now if you can pull your personal brand and if you can pull your own marketing strategy together and have a very complementary where you’re sending you’re doing your emails, you’re doing a direct messaging, you’re working through your video, you’re on podcast, you’re doing everything you can for your personal brand, and you’re doing that in sync and you’re using AI to target the right markets and the right people.
00;26;17;18 – 00;26;42;23
Unknown
And that AI is generated well, where it’s a constructed message, where you’re on brand, you’re on point and you’re increasing your influence that way when all of a sudden it becomes it becomes a symphony, it works very, very well. So it will help people who are doing things correctly. It will help professionals rise to the top. And it’s going to be it’s got to even more difficult for people who are getting started unless they really continue to invest in themselves and put more effort into it.
- Andrei, Peter (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 289 Pages - 05/29/2020 (Publication Date) - Independently published (Publisher)
00;26;42;23 – 00;26;59;11
Unknown
And I’m here to stay. I don’t know if you’ve seen the the real or whatever where this and not sure which company it is, but where they’re actually doing a phone call. And the guy is they’re speaking to somebody who’s taking the information in and the voice is actually doing the sales. And, you know, thank you for the response.
00;26;59;11 – 00;27;23;20
Unknown
Thank you, David. I appreciate the fact that you’re in that situation. Tell me more. And you’re like, oh, man, Yeah, but we’re in this. We’re this close. I think that entry level stuff there can for sure is is going to be a major issue. However, human beings are going to become more skeptical and they’re going to like demand more human beings, human to human contact, just like, you know, everybody was virtual and then everybody wanted to hang out at the office a little bit, too, because they wanted to see their friends.
00;27;23;20 – 00;27;39;19
Unknown
So like anything else, the pendulum will shift. But there is no doubt in my mind that there will be a healthy amount of skepticism out there when people are still making purchase decisions and they’re going to still want to do that with people. The AI bots on the phone are going to replace the the cold callers. They may they will probably do that again.
00;27;39;20 – 00;27;59;04
Unknown
At what level, Right. They will probably do cold calling for sure. I there’d be no doubt. I would suggest that they may replace borders in a few years and that the entry level sales positions just like they would replace and like Chatbots and Jasper and all the other names that are out there probably starting to replace people who are trying to do some of the lower level copy and are doing very sophisticated writing.
00;27;59;06 – 00;28;19;23
Unknown
They can’t not going to replace a closer, though, that’s for sure. No, I mean, they’re not they’re not going to and they’re not going to go back and replace personality. They’re not going to replace connection. They’re not going to place empathy in and replace trust. And those are all exceptionally important things to have when you’re when you’re selling and when you’re building your brand and when your brand is you, when you’re producing things.
00;28;19;25 – 00;28;40;22
Unknown
But it’s going to there’s going to be a change. This is exactly what happened to the auto industry when robots came out. This is no different than that on a different level, but it’s the exact same thing. It didn’t it was painful that certain organizations functioned much more effectively. I’m talking about this is like we’re going through labor union strikes in the automobile industry as well.
00;28;40;22 – 00;28;59;03
Unknown
You know, it did it changed the technology change the auto industry, right. It’ll be the same thing here. And it’s going to change the marketing and the sales industry for a while, but people will embrace it. Let’s talk about a pro for it. Maybe, maybe I can hire ten salespeople now who are all I instead of want, you know, and in lieu of one.
00;28;59;03 – 00;29;17;02
Unknown
And now I have much more reach, much more authority get in that space. And so I can transition those leads over to a to a person on the other end. It’s going to be it’ll be very, very interesting to say the least. I agree A recently helps someone else buy a car. And you know, you can really tell a good sales closure from someone who’s just trying to make money like that.
00;29;17;02 – 00;29;33;08
Unknown
They they build that. They try to build that connection as quick as possible. They try to listen and like and drill in. Yeah, I just it would be scary to have I do that. I mean, maybe it can, maybe it can’t. But there’s like emotion. There’s lots of stuff going on there that, that, that high level salesperson is doing.
00;29;33;11 – 00;29;51;03
Unknown
And so yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds. But it will be. It will be. And you know what I love? I might just talk about your point a little bit more and a little bit maybe less on I. But to that end, when you go into you’re talking about the car sales and when you go into a great car dealership, one that’s run very well, one is successful, the salespeople are fantastic.
00;29;51;03 – 00;30;13;04
Unknown
And you just know this is a different culture and that the sales dealership because you know that they’re either being there, they either aren’t being pressured the same way as other places. They maybe have different incentives or, you know, they just know that their teams expect different things. And as a consumer going in there, you’re going to feel that when you’re asking questions about the type of car as that person are really listening to you, are they judging you?
00;30;13;04 – 00;30;27;09
Unknown
Are they trying to upsell you out of the gate? It’s like that’s what you know, I couldn’t like, you know, I couldn’t get their wrap there through my board after you did the I need a slightly less model, you know, That’s great. I love it. But there’s not going to happen right now, you know, So, you know, were they listening to those types of things?
00;30;27;09 – 00;30;44;19
Unknown
And that’s I think, again, going back to that, I going back to that culture, you know, that company culture, really going to embrace that. And really, really we’re going to have interesting technology and I’m sure it’s going to be effective, but it’s going to be interesting to see how technology really does help make people feel and actually feel that they’re being listened to and heard.
00;30;44;19 – 00;31;02;05
Unknown
Very nice. Now, Ted, what is a fractional CEO and what value could somebody expect if they were to hire? One great question. So a fractional chief revenue officer. So a fractional zero is really it means you dig it’s a it’s a chief revenue officer, but you’re not going to get them full time is the way I like to say it.
00;31;02;05 – 00;31;22;07
Unknown
So do what you want to do is think about a chief revenue officer is really somebody who comes into the organization and handles and manages and understands the entire revenue cycle. So where that dollar is, even before that, that person becomes a lead and they understand what money you’re spending and what that lead cost is all the way through the marketing process are market qualified.
00;31;22;07 – 00;31;56;29
Unknown
These are sales qualified leads. What they’re paying sales team, the marketing team, how that dollar works. And then once they become a customer, what you’re doing, once they’re on board, are we upselling that customer? What’s the lifetime value of that customer? How long do they stay with your organization? How many more times they continue to buy? Really, truly understanding that revenue cycle throughout the entire lifetime of any type of client or customer that you bring on board and helping the marketing team continue to dial in, helping the account managers or perhaps the service support teams really dial in to any type of cues and indicators where somebody may be ready to buy or may be
00;31;56;29 – 00;32;22;06
Unknown
leaving the organization or leaving your services before they say no goodbye. You’re looking at all that types of things. As a chief Revenue officer and the work that people do on a fractional basis, though, that’s very typically a 2530 year veteran in sales and marketing, and that can be quite expensive, a full time CRO. But a lot of people can come on board on a factual basis, either a fractional chief revenue officer or fractional sales director who really only handles their sales and the things.
00;32;22;06 – 00;32;36;20
Unknown
But either way, you’re getting a lot of that experience, a lot of that talent, a lot of insight, guidance, and you’re bringing it to a level where it’s just not a 40 hour workweek to them. You may work 8 to 12 hours a week with one particular company or something along those lines to provide them the value they need.
- Andrei, Peter (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 289 Pages - 05/29/2020 (Publication Date) - Independently published (Publisher)
00;32;36;20 – 00;32;52;11
Unknown
Another way to think of it is a fractional crowe where a fractional director of sales think of it as a consultant who’s with the company for 6 to 12 months at a minimum. But they’re responsible for the results. They’re not just giving you a plan and saying, okay, we’ve done our evaluation, here’s what you need to do, and walking away where you execute it.
00;32;52;11 – 00;33;06;18
Unknown
This person is on board. This person is part of your team. This person is going to help you get those results and is and truly responsible for the outcome of that assessment and of what your organization needs. And that’s where the benefits of going fractional versus just doing just doing work with a consultant, which can be valuable too.
00;33;06;18 – 00;33;22;00
Unknown
And there’s a lot of places for that. But a lot of times people are actually looking for the results. They want accountability more than they want to be told what they need to do. So it works well that way. Excellent. So before we get into the fire around, do you offer for the listeners to like free consultation call or if anybody is looking for annual services?
00;33;22;01 – 00;33;46;16
Unknown
Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes, I’ll talk to anybody. I always say, Hey, let’s chat. I mean, your app that’s going to tell us, find out where you are right now. Let’s talk about it. I love talking about companies and people. And I don’t care if you’re brand new and you know, you’re really checking your bank account every day to see if you have money to get to the next month or you’re somebody who’s been around for a long time and does a multimillion dollar multibillion dollar private or, you know, public company, it doesn’t matter.
00;33;46;16 – 00;34;05;00
Unknown
I love talking about things that they go to my website at WW W dot dynamics sales teams e-comm they’ll find a place right there we’re just like let’s chat jump on boys schedule and let’s let’s find out where you are right now. Let’s talk about some things I’m sure you’ll guarantee you’ll get some takeaways that’ll come your way and, and that’s the least I can do to have a good conversation with somebody so awesome.
00;34;05;01 – 00;34;20;00
Unknown
Well, I appreciate that offer, Ted, for all the listeners. And if you’re if you’re driving right now, which I do a lot when I listen to a podcast, don’t write that down. We’re going to have all those links in the show notes, and so it’ll be there waiting for you. So Dana, Ted, anything we want to cover, anything we left off do we want to cover before we get into the fire around?
00;34;20;00 – 00;34;34;11
Unknown
Not that I am I and this has been a fantastic interview and and looking forward to the fire today. Are you ready? I think so. We sent all of our guests through what we call the fire around for easy questions and we just rapid fire them. All right. First one, what is your favorite book? Band of Brothers. Nice.
00;34;34;11 – 00;34;56;11
Unknown
What are your hobbies? Outdoors. Anything outdoors? Hunting, fishing, kayaking, hiking, being with my kids and sports events. Yeah. Anything else? Sorry. Very cool. What is one thing that you do not miss about working for the man? I can’t narrow that down to just one thing that’s actually hard to do. One of the things I do not miss working for the man is leadership is difficult in an organization for sure.
00;34;56;11 – 00;35;15;16
Unknown
I really love being able to create my own vision and get my own results, what I want to do and really construct in my own life here. Okay. Yeah, that’s a great one. Also last one, what do you think sets apart successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started? Perseverance and grit. Same thing that make up great salespeople and same thing that make, you know, makeup.
00;35;15;16 – 00;35;28;17
Unknown
Just good character for anybody doing anything. It’s not just in sales and marketing. It’s not just business owners, but you’ve you’ve got to hit a few failures along the way and you’ve got to see them as life lessons and you’ve got to continue to adjust and work hard and persevere. There’s just, you know, there’s no way about it.
00;35;28;17 – 00;35;42;29
Unknown
Just keep hammering and you’re going to be fine. But make sure that, you know, as long as you’re moving on a good plan and you adjust the plan accordingly as needed, but you just have to persevere. That’s just all there is to it, because it’s not always going to be rainbows and sunshine. Excellent answer till I agree, Ted.
00;35;42;29 – 00;35;56;17
Unknown
If people are interested in getting in touch with you or checking out your book, what would be the best way, best way is on the website. So I know we’re not writing it down, but it would definitely be just dynamic sales teams, e-com. And yeah, I’d love to be able to meet with you. You can find my books on there.
00;35;56;17 – 00;36;13;24
Unknown
You’ll find time to schedule with me, just a, just a chat or learn a little bit more about the products and the offerings that I give to people on different sales teams. And I’m really excited to meet more people and find out more about organizations that are out there and talk about what they’re going through and help them increase that revenue and and do some great things for the companies long term.
00;36;13;26 – 00;36;23;17
Unknown
Well, very nice, Ted. It’s been an absolute pleasure chatting you. Thank you for being a guest on the Firing the Man podcast and we’re looking forward to staying in touch. All right. Thank you very much, David. Thank you, Ken.
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