666 | “Just Sell More.” The Fastest Way to Lose a Great Salesperson.

Most sales problems aren't about effort. They're about leadership.

If your sales team feels blamed, unsupported, or confused, no amount of pressure will fix that. In this episode, we're showing you how to lead salespeople the right way. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show, where we discuss leadership and life... and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today we are joined by a very, very, very special guest, the one and only Joel Fortner.

Hey, glad to be back. It has been forever since. It has been a long time. Long time.

We're literally sitting there going, geez, it's been way too long since you've been on the show. But Joel is our president of our company, is also our in house expert on sales leadership.

So here's the thing. If you've ever felt like your sales team just isn't delivering or like your top salesperson has checked out or even walked out, then this one's for you.

Joel and I are unpacking the root issues that frustrate business both sides and helping you become the kind of sales leader who builds results without building burnout. So some things we're going to hit today.

One, why the comment: "just sell more" leads to misalignment and turnover. The three--

That doesn't solve it. Chris. It doesn't. It doesn't actually solve it. It's never just sell more. Hey, just do this, dude. Do that some more.

Yeah, I don't. I don't know of a single time in all of history. Well, I mean, I guess maybe if your life was on the line, that might help out. But no, no, that doesn't work.

Also, we're going to hit the three sales challenges owners complain about most. Also, what your salespeople wish you understood as well as well as Joel's leadership framework for coaching a healthy sales team.

So let's just get right started on get right started. I don't even know that is. That's. I'm creating new phraseology as I go.

Let's get right. Let's get started. Let's do something.

Maybe we could turn that into a rap song.

Pressure vs. Leadership (00:02:31)

Pressure versus leadership.

Now, when leaders just say, well, my sales team just needs to sell more. And this is not an uncommon thing. This is. This is something that many sales team leaders, many business owners, they get in this place of thinking, if I could just get them to sell more.

What's usually happening underneath that pressure? Like why does pushing harder often make performance worse instead of better?

Well, in these situations, you know, the sales leader is stressed.

Usually they're stressed and they're worried and so they communicate with stress and they push harder and they don't coach and they don't lead and they just want to push harder and say things like, hey, we've just got to do this better.

And that stress becomes the sales team members stress. And how well do people operate when they're under stress?

Sales is already a stressful enough job as it is, especially if you really are trying to do a decent job. And if your sales leader is coming down on you and cracking the whip and applying pressure, you know, it's like we say, when you freak, you freeze.

It's like no one sells well when they're under stress. So it's just the bottom line is just understanding, like we lead people and as leaders, unfortunately we have to be able to manage ourselves more effectively and not pass down that stress to our teams.

You know, we use the old analogy from time to time of the the couple that's house is about to get foreclosed on.

And this guy is going to this last sales call and it's the, it's the last possible sales call he could have to make a commission to keep his house and how stressed out he has got to be and how desperate he's got to be driving to that sales call.

And then his wife calls and says, honey, you're never going to believe this, but I had an uncle I didn't even know existed who died and left us money. We're good.

We're actually going to be able to pay off the house. You don't even have to go to that sales call. And the husband goes, man, that is fantastic. That's amazing. But I'm still going to go to the sales call.

The difference of trying to get people to understand this, the difference of the desperation ahead of time equates to that pressure you're talking about.

Just because, you know, putting pressure on me doesn't make me better, it makes me desperate. But when I'm in a situation of confidence, oh my gosh, I don't even technically have to have this sale.

Then it's a sell of fun, enjoyment. It's now I can focus on the client instead of the desperate need.

Right. Do you quite those the same?

I do because it's the it. You know, I teach in coach salespeople all the time on are you attached or are you detached?

And when you're attached to the outcome of I've got to get this, I've got to get this, I've got to get this. You communicate differently with who you're trying to sell to.

And your stress, your eagerness, your controlling style communication, or your very people-pleasing passive style communication ends up causing you to not sell well.

Because people pick up on your tone, your words, how you're communicating, and it erodes trust and it breaks down confidence.

So why would I buy from you when you sound either overly controlling or insecure on how you're communicating with me? It puts you in a totally messed up mindset and I don't seem like the important thing to you at all.

And because people will make assumptions about what they're hearing either way, it breaks down their trust and confidence in you. And as a salesperson, you're the ambassador for the company.

You're the only person they sometimes even know. And if they don't like you, trust you, feel confident in you for whatever reason, they're never going to buy from you.

Yeah, that is, that is one thing. For me, I've always been as. I, if somebody is trying to sell me, I'm not a difficult person to sell.

But if I see that I don't matter to you, if you're just indifferent about me as an, as an individual, I'm probably walking away from unless it's something that just doesn't matter and I just still need the thing and I just want to get it go.

If it's something that has value. I'm an incredibly loyal person to businesses that care about me. And I, I think that's why we have folks that have stayed with us forever. Yeah, I, if I see that you don't care, then I just don't care.

Motivation Myth (00:07:08)

Now this takes me into another area which is the motivation myth.

And so I kind of need to load this up a little bit because there are certain personality styles, especially high Ds and some very high I's that have D where motivation can help them to sell well.

And many times it's, you know, an owner or a sales team leader just thinks, oh my, salespeople just aren't hungry enough. And there are some of the craziest books on the planet.

Now listen, that works for an incredibly small percentage. But even the caveat here is even the motivation for a small percentage can still create an indifferent salesperson and sales situation.

So as I say this, there may be some people out there that are going, well, Chris, that worked for me.

Well, you may just be that person, but the percentage is incredibly small.

So taking that into consideration and still recognizing that motivating, even a person who's still indifferent to the potential client, that matters immensely.

But let's take a look at the rest of the people you have. You've been coaching companies and teams and forever on how to sell well, and you see a lot of this stuff. Right.

So when you're looking at somebody who's coaching a sales team, how often is it that motivation is the issue versus a leadership process or process issue? It's rarely the issue. It's rarely the issue.

The issue is typically they don't know what to do. Expectations are misaligned. They don't have the skill set. They're not as good of a communicator as they need to be. They don't have clarity on what they're supposed to do or what selling well looks like.

They're not set up for success. Or in extreme cases, it's just the wrong person in the wrong role. They shouldn't even be doing this role. But it is typically not a motivation issue.

And this is where leaders have to be careful about diagnosing problems that just because it smells like a motivation issue doesn't mean it is a motivation issue. We actually need to ask questions and find out from the person who.

What's hanging you up? What do you need? What's holding you back? What do you need from me? What information am I not sharing with you?

All the things that you may not be doing as a leader, if I can be so bold and communicate directly that way, I'm not trying to be offensive, but we've got to be able to own and see what am I not doing to set my people up for success?

Or what do I not know that I need to know from my team so I can better lead them to be successful in their role. Yeah. And it's not, you know, there is a small percentage of the time where motivation is the issue, but it's so minuscule.

Yep. And it's. It's literally, you know, individual. But how do people tackle that motivation? The same way that they would motivate a high D.

You know, just get them excited, get them pumped up, all that kind of stuff.

And it doesn't mean that that's the motivation that's going to motivate, you know, and, you know, on this, sometimes it's like a salesperson who's had a really trying week, it gets to Friday, and they slack off a little bit.

And. But rather than just being like, hey, and yell at them or just do this, just do that.

We have to also acknowledge, like how much energy it takes to be in a full time sales role. Grinding through all your tasks, all your calls, all your meetings, trying to keep up with everything and just staying on top of all that is, takes a lot of energy.

So I'm going to look at, okay, well, how do I better balance their load? What's a better expectation of what their sales activity needs to be?

Are they taking breaks? How's their diet, how's their water consumption, how's their balance through the week so they don't get to Friday and they just completely burn out?

I'm going to look to try to solve those kinds of things before I just go to start trying to apply pressure or chalk it up to a motivation issue. Yeah. And if you are motivating, then for me, you know, getting in and finding out where they are not motivated usually.

And again, this is the, the reason why I'm pushing on this so hard is because there are people out there that make tons of money doing these motivational events and, you know, getting people all hyped up and then 30 days later it's just crashed down to nothing. Right.

But they've made their money and they've moved on. The concept of motivating a salesperson for me is going to be more probably based in how are you handling rejection?

And the craziest thing is an unanswered phone call can be rejection and helping somebody to overcome rejection, not get them pumped up, you know, yelling like Braveheart.

Because that doesn't, that isn't necessarily the thing that they need. And I think that's where that myth comes in, is you just got to get them pumped up, jacked up, everybody's excited.

You know, people have watched those movies where they get salespeople.

Oh, what was that one movie? Oh, gosh, I can't even remember.

But I had a sales guy decades ago who was so pumped up by this one movie and then he just upset people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're too, you're too motivated, you're too pumped up. Let's, let's demotivate some of that.

Clarity and Expectations (00:12:52)

What about clarity when it comes to like expectations? Right.

So if a sales team is like missing numbers, we know that that can be a very frustrating thing for a sales team leader or a business owner.

How can they tell whether it's a people problem? You know, are they even considering, you know, you've dealt with a ton of sales coaches and sales team leaders, do they even consider that it's a clarity problem or an expectation problem?

Well, sometimes a person legitimately doesn't see that that is a problem and they see it as a people problem. And they. Sometimes we have to learn and realize like, well, where have I not communicated clearly what the expectations are?

But this is. But communicating clearly what they are. How are we supposed to sell here? What are we measuring and how are we doing attaining what we're measuring?

Not just close percentage, but those lead measures that lead to a solid close percentage. And what are we doing to help people improve quality conversations?

What are we doing to help people actually improve their sales activity? What are we doing to help people learn to ask better skilled questions and improve their communication ability with prospects?

What are we doing to help them stay organized? All these things that help lead to more sales, it's all got to be communicated.

And then when we know like, okay, we measure this, this, this, this, and this, how are we doing against those measurements?

And then you work with someone long enough and you realize, okay, this is a people person or this is a people problem. Right. But it's not.

We can't just chalk it up to it's a person problem. Quickly, before we say, do they even know what success looks like and what I even expect of them and why I expect those things and what's all behind that? That's how.

But setting that stuff up again is how we determine do we have a person problem. Yeah. And for me, again, I keep saying that because I'm. I'm different than a lot of folks.

There's a lot of metrics that people throw out and a lot of them are fantastic and must be for, for our company, sales metrics are huge. We want to know what's going on, what's happening.

Activity does mean a lot. It is one portion of what makes a great salesperson. As we're going through today, these things that you're explaining is there's way more than just the numbers.

But talk to me about the difference of managing metrics, because some folks are like, well, it's just the metrics.

All I do is look at the numbers all day long and then, you know, pound my people. Because, well, you didn't get enough of this and you didn't get enough of that.

Coaching vs. Managing Metrics (00:15:37)

So what's the difference between managing sales metrics and actually coaching a salesperson to succeed at selling?

Yeah. A person is not a metric. A person achieves metrics. And I say that and it sounds so obvious. Right?

But we have to, as leaders, we have, if we're managing metrics, and we love numbers. It's, we can't just expect it, we actually have to lead it.

We have to get in there and find out what makes people tick, what do they need? What do you need to be successful? To hit the metric. And we can't just hire people and just be like, well, you were great at this company, why aren't you being great here?

That's exactly what we have to find out rather than just expect it. Because it's, am I setting up my people for success? How do I communicate with them? Do they get enough information from me?

Again, do they know what's expected? It's all that coaching style, leader that's so important that we live in this. So it's just what we think all the time. Right?

And sometimes it's, but sometimes it's like that's the, that's the aha! moment that a leader has to have is shooting.

I have to be less of a metric manager. I really need to become more of a coach that communicates clearly what metrics are important and what am I going to do to actually help you get to those metrics.

Because most salespeople, it's like it's not that they want to fail, it's most people on teams, they don't want to fail. They actually want to do a good job in their role.

But that doesn't mean they always know how. And that's the door that opens for the leader. And I think that is the profound piece that a leader needs to learn.

Pushing somebody to do metrics doesn't make them know how to sell. I can get you a great number of calls every day. I can even get a certain number of conversations, I can do a number of follow ups.

But if I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to be saying, how to read people, how to search, serve, which is such a massive part of this, then the metrics just don't matter.

And it's, it's one of those things that again, metrics, let me say it this way, metrics become profound when somebody knows how to sell before that. Metrics may create activity, but they may never move the needle.

Or all they're doing is they're, they're measuring and they're telling you that my guy doesn't know what they're doing yet.

Exactly. That's what they're telling you or that's what they should be telling you rather than you're failing and let me expect you to get there or push you to get there.

When they simply do not know how to do it.

That's why, like in the salespeople I work with, you know, all through the month, it's, it's equipping them to know how to do it better, to communicate more effectively, to stay more organized so they can finally hit those metrics that they also want to hit as well.

Yeah, I think what you just said, I'm going to rephrase it. And the metric of metrics tells you how well your people know what they're doing. Right.

I mean, if you will take a look at your metrics in that, that fashion right there, metrics should be used to tell me if my person or people actually know what they're doing. And if they are not succeeding, that should be the first place I look.

But even when they are succeeding, and this is tough for people to understand, just because one person is killing it at specific metrics you have in place doesn't mean everybody's going to approach those the same way.

Leading Different Personality Styles in Sales (00:19:26)

So talk about the difference in personality styles. Like if you've got a D that's killing it on the phone, you could have a high C that's going to suck out loud, right?

What does that look like when you're trying to hold people to a specific set of universal metrics instead of looking at the personality styles?

Well, when it comes to personality styles and building your sales team, you're going to have inside sales and you're going to have outbound.

First of all, you got to hire the right person. You got to get the right person into the seat. But here's the thing is, like, there's a lot of personality styles that have a lot of S and C.

So if you're new to disc and you're listening to this, the S is that introverted, passive, take care of people. But people stress them out.

They don't want to disappoint people, but they want to take care of them. It's what makes them so great at customer service.

But if you're a C personality, you're very analytical, you're detailed many days, you don't even like talking to people or living with people on the Earth.

And you just want to do your own thing, right? But there are S & C's that actually are great in sales, that are more inside sales.

Leads come to them and they can just take care of those people. They can answer questions and there's a role for that.

But then you, if you've got people that need to actually go prospect, be aggressive, lots of energy, go after stuff and make things, you know, call, call, call, call, call, call, call, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings.

That there's simply the greater ability to go do that job. Not just this week, but next week and the week after and the week after and the week after.

And then you align compensation plans for these roles and for these personality styles. It's all tailored to what you need to be successful and when you're building your team.

So first of all with personality styles, I would take a step back and look at what are they on the team that I have.

Because then you're going to properly align expectations to the role and who is in the role. And then you're. Then you just know better what to expect. Yeah.

And I think again, this is why it's so important to recognize coaching people, individuals to success.

You know, about 20 years ago we had a sales team that had a just a champion high D, high I would crank out conversat-- quality conversations like nobody's business.

I mean, just did such a great job, was always leading the room. And then a high C with about probably a mid D got hired, but super high C and was put in the sales position and would not reach the number of phone calls.

And it was funny because the sales team leader over this group would come to that C and go, you're not doing enough phone calls.

You're not doing enough phone calls. You're not doing enough phone calls. And finally this hire C turned and said, I'm winning the room half the time.

Why do I need to be doing all of these phone calls? Have you looked at my process? It was amazing because the sales team leader was still pretty, you know, green at understanding personality styles at that time. But it's like, hey, he's right, what do I do?

And it's like you're trying to force him to go about his sales process a way that is not natural to him.

He's the kind of guy who gets on the phone, has a two minute phone call, not a 30 minute and goes, hey, can I send you some information?

And then can sell somebody all day long through email. And if you looked at his emails, I mean it was just amazing.

And he, they would swap back and forth. Those two salespeople in a room of I think at that time was probably 20, 20 salespeople maybe. And they would swap back and forth who was winning, who was leading the room.

Two different styles, Two different personality styles.

And if, if I'm going to force those metrics on this high C, you know, again he was a mid D, so he had enough in there to make the initial phone calls, but he handled everything through email as much as he possibly could.

And if I force the metrics on him, I could lose or even fire if I don't recognize how talented he is at his style of selling and then coaching up that style to make it even better, which is the direction they finally went to.

But I could totally lose a killer salesperson because again, it's all about the metric and it's got to be exactly what I say the metric is.

Yeah. I'm working with a team right now and I've worked with them for over a year and obviously it's a team of five different salespeople, all different personality styles.

Their top salesperson is a high S and C. And the reason he sells so well is he does have tons of quality conversations on the phone. And they're helpful, they're kind, they answer information, but they're nothing fancy and nothing flashy.

What he's so good at is he's a workhorse. The time he puts into his work, how organized he stays. He never misses a follow up. If he says he's going to call you, he's going to call you.

He's so organized and so administrative. He consistently is the top performing salesperson and it works so incredibly well. But then you have other people on the team.

They're not as organized, they're not as tidy, they aren't consistent every single day of maximizing every single hour of productivity.

They don't sell as well, but they're more skilled in other areas and they sell at a really good level. And so that team just proves your point, Chris?

Yeah, absolutely.

The Follow-Up Problem (00:25:10)

You just hit something that I think we can never pound home enough, which is the follow through. Right.

We have what this is probably one of the biggest. I don't know if it's one of the biggest, but it's a big complaint that we hear from owners is, you know, hey, they're not following up.

You know, my team's not following up. So we know one, the statistic, I believe is still solid. 80% of sales happen after the sixth follow up, which is huge. Which means that you're leaving money on the table.

So from your perspective, what's usually behind inconsistent follow up? Why are they not doing it? How should we lead people? What does that look like?

There's a couple things. One is the assumption that people just aren't interested anymore.

That's a big problem. Like from the first or second contact. Exactly. Oh, if they were interested, they'd buy. Yeah, that is. But sales leaders and salespeople can think that all the time.

If they were interested, they'd buy because they're struggling to get things over the finish line and they have so many new leads coming in and lead volume coming in that they want to work with the hot lead, the new lead.

And they can get enough of those over the finish line to sell well enough. But what they're missing is actually they've got to just work on their sales skills, their communication abilities, which is where so many sales are won or lost.

It's you, salesperson. It's like no one's born with advanced communication skills. We have to learn them. We have to learn them. And that's what sales is all about.

So it's about, it's becoming a more effective communicator and a better leader as you're leading people, prospects you're working with and maybe we can get to that a little later on.

The second thing is just task overload. So many salespeople, leads are coming in all the time. Companies that are really successful with marketing are generating leads consistently and they can't keep up. And so there's so many leads.

And then a sales manager is organizing leads and organizing and checking in on follow up. And how's this salesperson doing and are they staying on top of their tasks?

And then it's a, well, they're not staying on top of their tasks. Then the salespeople are like, I can't keep up. I can't follow up with all these people, work the new leads. It's all overwhelming. Our CRM sucks. It's not organized enough.

I don't even know how to really use most of it and I can't keep up with what I'm doing. But what I do know is I'm going to get back to these new leads because they just inquired and I've got to get back to those people.

But Chris, who checked in two weeks ago, it's like I'm never going to get back to him. And then here's the, here's the worst part is sales leaders end up getting in, into a sales role sometimes.

Like, I'll get in there and I'll start finding out what's going on and I'm going to start talking to people, people and they'll learn things like, oh, well, I never got back.

You guys never got back to me, so I'm not interested anymore. Or I already went with somebody else. Exactly. And it's not just one person. It's 31 people. Right. And then that's infuriating.

And that's where we reach places of wanting to place blame as a leader of, well, if you'd only follow up and do what I said, then this wouldn't be happening.

Sales leaders, hear me. It's a bigger problem than just that. There's a larger system issue that's going on that's actually creating the environment to where your salespeople can't follow up.

Assuming that they don't suffer from that mindset I said before of, well, they'd buy if they were interested. And I don't want to hassle people or hound people. Yeah.

And you're asking them to handle all of these new leads at the same time that are flooding in.

And a lot of companies, a lot of companies, maybe you don't have leads flooding in, but there is a-- the times that we see this, many times, it's because they're overloaded with leads.

And like you said, and then they have all these tasks, things. So couple things to understand. One is if you trained your people well or had your team trained well to understand how to do follow up.

Follow up isn't just, hey, Joel, calling you back, you ready for that sale? I mean, it's not. You have to actually be trained and skilled at doing quality follow up where you.

You waste that time as well. If your team understands how to do quality follow up, they will get easier sales because you've done the heavy lifting on the front side. And I'll use me as an example.

I'm an 88 S. I hate regret. I hate regret. So sometimes Now I'm a mid D, I'm about a 50 D, so I can make decisions. There's no problem there. But I run everything through my highest filter.

And so if you talk to me once about something, I'm probably gonna wanna do a little bit more research.

I'm gonna ask some people some questions because I don't want to make that purchase and then instantly regret it because I'm also the person who's not gonna usually turn that back in, hey, listen, this was a mistake.

Give me my money back. Right? That's just not who I am. So I hate regret. So if you will give me a little bit of time to think.

And you're, you are Joel Fortner. You're a master at having these conversations of getting somebody the ability to, hey, would you like to just take some time and process? Yes, Yes, I would. Thank you.

And then follow back up and see how my processing is doing. Where am I? Did I get enough information? Which by the way, 40% of the population are high Ss, 25% of the population are high Cs which the high Cs need an insane amount of details.

Even if you give it, they're probably going to research even more. So that's 65% of the potential people you're talking to. So if you are skilled at the follow up, not just making the phone call but actually, you know, getting with me and seeing what else I need.

Do I need any other questions answered? Do I need anything else done? Is there anything else I'm, I'm missing?

Then there is a massive chance that I'm going to make that purchase with you. If I don't get that follow up then you mentioned this before, I'm probably just going to go find somebody else who's going to do it that has the information. Right.

So that's one thing is to understand that if you follow up well, it's an easier sell.

The second thing is if you have leads flooding in, the more sales somebody gets by doing quality follow through increases your available leads, which increases your potential for more salespeople, which increases your potential for more sales.

So when all you do is run through lead after lead after lead, with one touch, maybe two max, you are leaving tons of money on the table. I've got to make sure my salespeople have all the right leads.

Nope, you need to make sure your salespeople are trained on the front side of the sale and throughout the follow through because you are leaving money on the table when all you do is throw leads at them and they only touch them once or twice.

You agree with that thoughts on that?

Totally, totally.

And good sales leaders reach a point of having to make hard calls sometimes of just turning off new leads for certain salespeople because if they're in measuring the activity of their salespeople, they'll see my guys are not keeping up and they've, they will make calls like I'm not giving you any new leads right now.

Salespeople hate that. It's tough.

But these are leadership decisions that we have to, we have to make at times that are hard decisions. Just like the hard, the hard decision of let me hire a new salesperson.

Sales teams tend to not like that because it's well, that's more money that's now going to go to somebody else. But guys, these are the hard leadership calls that we have to make simply when we have better perspective on what we're trying to achieve.

Here in the business. And you pointed out earlier that, you know, many times people have just cruddy CRMs.

If you had a good enough CRM, it doesn't have to be top line, but if you had a good enough CRM, you could actually see a lot of this activity. Exactly. Precisely.

Building Ownership Instead of Compliance (00:33:38)

How does a sales team leader or, or a business owner, how do you take somebody who's a salesperson from just doing what they're told, because that's what happens a lot, to a place where they actually take ownership of their own pipeline and results?

Like this, this conversation right here. You know, I, I see a, the expectation a lot is, well, I've got to get those new leads turned, therefore I'm going to own the new leads coming in and not like the pipeline and the results coming from the pipeline.

How do you, how do you guide them?

Well, this is where leaders have to realize what's their responsibility and what's not their responsibility.

Because you've got to let a salespeople, if you want them to own something, a person has to feel like they own it, that it's mine, not a job that I'm doing for my leader.

Own implies I view it as mine.

And that's a goal that leaders need to have. Is, am I in my training and setting people up for success and empowering them and in hiring them and onboarding them successfully from the very beginning of the relationship that this is yours.

These are your responsibilities. This is what I expect of you. This is what I'm going to do to lead you and train you and set you up for success and give you resources.

And these are what our meetings are going to look like. But all of it is meant to set you up for success so that it can be yours. I don't want you to feel like it's all mine and you're just doing these things for me.

I want you to be successful and I want you to follow, feel successful. That's the mindset and the posture a leader needs to have. And everything they do needs to be aimed at.

How is my person doing?

But where leaders get when, when, when the rubber meets the road and things get crazy and struggling in a business and on a sales team, a sales leader sometimes will freak out and they will go to fear and they will go to, oh my gosh, my guys aren't doing this.

And all the stuff we've talked about already, and this is when a leader sometimes can become overly controlling and they start trying to drive stuff, control stuff.

And they're so attached to their own outcomes that they start shutting their team down, frustrating their team, demoralizing their team. And I see this stuff, and the leader has to get their head right to be able to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm freaking out. I'm afraid so I'm going into this control mode. And then it makes everything worse. And then the blame continues to go to the sales team. That there's "Joel, they're still not doing what they need to do."

And I'm like, because you're creating the environment that's stressing everyone out. And now if you don't correct this, you're going to lose your team.

Yeah. And you lose trust, you lose loyalty.

And I think. I don't think. I mean, we've. We've both seen this forever. Salespeople feel blamed. It's your fault. Right. And it doesn't mean that there aren't a percentage of time that it might be.

But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the time that freak out, that process of trying to make people do something translates into, hey, this is your fault and you're not doing well enough and you suck and yada, yada, yada.

What happens? Like, they tend to shut down in that process, right?

Yes. Because blame never inspires anyone. It doesn't make me want to be so much better. Oh, geez.

Trust and Psychological Safety (00:37:26)

So what can we do to help? What can we do in a coaching aspect?

Obviously, awareness is the number one thing, but what can we do in a coaching aspect to help this process, to create a kind of trust where salespeople actually want coaching?

Because that's not. Obviously we would not say that that was coaching. It's crappy coaching. It's not quality coaching. How do we get to the place where salespeople want coaching?

It starts first with the relationship between the salesperson. If you're talking about coaching from a sales leader, it starts in the relationship.

Because any relationship that has accountability involved, there has to be trust. And so you first have got to be the person that your people trust.

Then if you can establish that and then you can set clear expectations that they can own and that are theirs and they understand, they know what they're aiming for.

Now, we can coach a person to get to know how to achieve those things. And your mindset now is, I'm just going to coach you, but the outcomes are not mine to own. They're yours to own. This is your job.

And this is where a lot of I and S style leaders have to be able to differentiate emotionally, mentally, what are they responsible for?

What is their team member responsible for on the sales team? Your job is not my job. My job is to lead you to be successful with what we're on the same page with now.

If trust is built, I can coach you to actually achieve what. What you need to achieve in your job, not mine.

Yeah. So this brings me to the thought of the sales. Let's. Let's move this trust issue up a little bit, because there is a ton of sales team leaders, sales team managers, that it's the owner that treats them that way.

And there's this broken trust. There's this, you know, you're not getting the team to do enough and yada, yada.

And there's this pressure. How do you coach that either that sales team leader or that owner in this situation to fix that type of broken trust?

First is they've got to really become aware of where they're contributing to conflict and just where they're the problem. And that's where sometimes, just as, you know, leaders will come to us with a problem.

And like, this is the thing I'm dealing with, and this is what I'm seeing in my sales team member. And we start doing what we do for a living and asking questions.

And then all of a sudden, a person realizes, darn, I have blind spots. I did not even realize what I was doing to break trust. That it's now obvious once it's pointed out.

But sales leaders, managers, owners listening to this, we all have blind spots that this isn't about shame. It's about, like, you know what I do, I make mistakes.

None of us are perfect. We have to learn and grow in our own stuff that we bring to these relationships, our own emotional struggles that we bring to our work.

And then there's triggers that happen, and fear and insecurity and control struggles, and welcome to humanity. Right? And it comes to work with us, and then it spills out. That's the stuff that we have to go to work on.

That's the kind of personal growth and personal development that's so important, is it starts with us.

And then if we need to go back and apologize to somebody for the way we've communicated or with them or treated them, that's what we have to do.

We have to be able to swallow our pride. That's the beginning of really powerful change. Yeah. Awareness is first, you have to be aware of what you are doing, what you're bringing to the table, and then taking Responsibility.

You know, we teach this so much in Next-Level Life of you think you can't go and apologize because it looks like weakness or people aren't going to have, you know, they're not going to respect you.

And the truth is, is that it creates so much respect when somebody sees you as a leader taking responsibility. You know what? I've messed up. I've been too harsh. I've been too stressed out.

I've been bringing my stress to the, to the, to the business and yada, yada, whatever it is. Exactly. That is, that is a must. So for the leaders.

And again, I don't think we've pounded it enough yet today. But if we were to say pressure isn't going to get you the sales that you want, that's, that's a big piece of this puzzle.

But for the leader that, that realizes that their sales culture is tense, it's, it's discouraged, it's demotivated, it's inconsistent, whatever it is.

Fixing a Struggling Sales Culture (00:42:20)

What are the first two or three moves they could do like starting this month to reset things?

One of the things they've got to do is they need to go have a conversation with their team or with their salespeople and get some feedback on their leadership that your sales team already sees your flaws.

They already see the stuff they don't like about you. They are, they already see.

But, but if you're that-- the thing is, is that if we don't communicate well and depending on how we behave as a leader, it creates fear and then people aren't going to come and tell you those things.

But you've got to start trying to get feedback on how are you leading and communicating and starting to ask more questions of your team about what they need to be successful.

And the whole coaching mindset has to start being developed. But you've got to get feedback first.

If you feel like it's too vulnerable to get feedback from your team, man, find somebody to start getting some feedback from. Just start learning where your blind spots are and then starting to grow as a leader.

Then you start to become again that coaching style leader that you can start to take responsibility for things.

But some people, it's like they don't even know what they need to take responsibility for yet. But this is where we start to change the culture of a sales team. Because you're starting to change yourself. Yeah.

The Persuasive-Servant Selling Leadership Shift (00:43:44)

Now you lead our Persuasive-Servant Selling, which is just stunning and having such great responses from folks for leaders who are listening.

And maybe they're realizing that maybe they've been leading with pressure instead of serving service or, you know, they're, they're starting to recognize maybe they're not doing this all the best they possibly can.

What does it practically look like to start leading their sales team with a Persuasive-Servant Selling mindset? Well, it's just all about helping your team get the skills they need.

Just because you're in a leadership role or a manager role, it doesn't mean that you know everything, nor should you have to know know everything.

But this program is, it's for your sales people that sales leaders are able to get into, into the, the hub, the online hub of the program for free.

So they can stay aware and they can stay very aware of what their people are learning. They can watch recordings of the training sessions that I do with them.

But it's about, am I setting my team up for success and getting them the skills that they need?

Because it's, it's every, every time we do a call, we're walking through new skills and new ways to handle objections and new ways to begin sales calls and sales meetings and starting to grow those advanced communication skills.

And it's always so insightful to salespeople. It's so eye opening to a point where it's like, where has this kind of training been?

Because this is so helpful, because they're growing as a communicator rather than just being, for instance, a helpful or kind salesperson.

But that doesn't know how to lead a sales call though, because when you say that, it's like, I don't even know what that means, Joel.

Because they have to be taught the difference between what they do now versus, you know, what they've done forever.

And so it's just ensuring are you getting your people the skills, the training, the coaching, the accountability that comes alongside anything that you may be doing as a leader and complements what you're doing or helps you level up how you're actually leading your people.

That's the focus, is not being like, you know what, there's more capacity here within my team.

There's more capacity I need to improve their skills and their abilities. And let's see what our sales results are then, as opposed to let's just hire more salespeople, let's set up who we have for success first. Right?

Reflection (00:46:18)

And so this concept of "Just sell more", which, you know, there's many other mindsets that folks have that fail when it comes to leading salespeople, but this is one of those ones that just absolutely backfires.

We've been talking about this now for quite a while.

The real results and the productivity and the profitability and the phenomenal metrics come when you take on this concept of leading well and coaching well.

And our Persuasive-Servant Selling framework gives you the tools to do that. And you can start that right now.

The issues that I see so often, and you see this all the time, is, you know, some salespeople like, well, I don't want some new coaching on this.

I'm good. You know, there's this fear of, well, what am I going to find out?

And then when they get it, it's stunning how much they appreciate it. So getting your team there to this place of, of recognizing this is a blessing. That's powerful.

Action Items (00:47:19)

So here's some actions you can take this week, folks.

First thing you need to do is clarify your expectations. Get away from the, the process that you've been doing.

It doesn't mean that your process is bad. It means that we need to actually get some other things built up first.

One of the things you could do starting right now is just write out what a successful start sales week looks like. What does that look like? And then share it with your team and ask for feedback.

Second thing you can do is ask instead of assume. Use one coaching style question from Persuasive Selling in your next one on one, like, where are you getting stuck in the process?

Ask that one question. Ask that one question and be blown away by people's responses when they, if they can be honest, if they feel like they can be honest with you, you'll be stuck, stunned at their responses.

And the third thing you can do starting right now is support the person, not just the pipeline.

So identify one way to serve your salesperson this week. What can you do that builds trust, that encourages, that delivers clarity, because for the love, that's a must.

Or maybe even remove an obstacle from their process.

Persuasive-Servant Selling Program (00:48:35)

So here's the deal. Joel helps business owners lead sales the way buyers and salespeople actually respond to by serving first, clarifying the process and coaching instead of pressuring.

So Joel, kind of explain what this looks like.

So Persuasive-Servant Selling. Let me take a step back. It's like your number two action item there. I love it. That effective sales communication is about being an effective influencer.

So you take that question you laid out. Where are you stuck this week? That's a sales question. That's what that is.

It's a Persuasive-Servant sales question. That's actually curiosity based and it's inquisitive and it's focused on the other person because it's about effective influence.

And that's what great salespeople do is they know how to effectively influence someone to go from point point A to point B to where they choose to do business with you.

That's what leadership looks like. That's what you're trying to do.

So inside Persuasive-Servant Selling, it's a year long program and salespeople come to it and it's all about improving their skills, their confidence, giving them more advanced language to be able to sell more effectively.

And it's done. Bite size because to your point about fear and discomfort of a leader saying going and finding out information from a team member, that's where a lot of times we'll start when we start working with someone is on that very issue.

Because coaching does push you out of your comfort zone. It's about I have to be able to know that you know what, I'm going to be pushed out of my comfort zone because I'm in a coaching program. That's okay.

I told people this week, I said hey, if you're going to practice this new thing we covered this week, if you start to feel uncomfortable, good, that means you're growing.

That means you're doing something different. That's why you're in the program rather than just accepting the status quo.

So we got to get uncomfortable. So the program walks a salesperson for a year, bite size by bite size. Milestone or take a skill by skill by skill by skill.

Slowly I'll use the word installing that into their arsenal as a salesperson and as a communicator. And we go from mindset to objections to what I call the five stages of persuasive service selling which is how do you connect with someone?

What are your discovery questions look like? How do you transition to the close? How do you properly present and then how do you properly close a deal? There is an art to that.

It's not to say oh you should just know how to do that right that I have in this program we've got people that are brand new to sales, to people that are very seasoned and everyone is learning and everyone's improving as they're walking through this, walking through milestone to milestone to milestone.

So I've gone on long enough about it but if anybody wants to check it out, you can go to chrislocurto.com/servantsales.

Again chrislocurto.com/servantsales, hey, that's you brother, chrislocurto.com/servantsales and you can learn a lot more information.

If you want to learn a little bit more about it, check in through the page. I think one of the most powerful things is seeing what other people say that they've learned and how they, you know, the testimonies that have come from this are just stunning.

Conclusion (00:51:52)

Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for today on this episode.

Joel, thanks again for joining me. We're going to have you back in next week to talk more about how people can win better.

So thanks again, brother. Appreciate it.

Yep, glad to be here.

As always, folks, don't lose great people to poor leadership. You can lead better, you can lead deeper and you can build the sales culture that your business absolutely needs.

As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.