For most B2B companies, sales teams are at the forefront of revenue growth. Unfortunately, top-notch salespeople can be hard for businesses to find and even harder to keep around.
What can companies do to reduce churn and retain their highest quality sales professionals?
Scott Marker, motivational entrepreneur, sales trainer, and soon to be two-time author, is diving into the nitty gritty of it all.
In this episode of Evolved Sales Live, host Jonathan Fischer sits down with Scott to discuss how successful companies are keeping their best producers around for the long haul and the impact doing the same could have on your bottom line.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more engaging sales insights and discussions! Happy watching!
Meet Scott:
Scott Marker is a highly sought after motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and soon to be two-time author, who focuses on helping business leaders retain and gain more customers through proven B2B strategies. His upcoming book, "BROKEN - How To Fix B2B Sales, Drive Profitable Growth & Win" will be out in August.
Check out the transcription of this webinar episode below!
Jonathan Fischer 0:05
All right, well, it's time for another evolved sales life. Welcome back. I'm Jonathan Fisher. For most b2b companies, when it comes to revenue growth, your sales team is the tip of the spear. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to hire good quality salespeople, and even harder still to keep them around for the long term. So how bad is the turnaround in most businesses? Really? What are the key ways successful companies retain their best producers? And how much of an impact would it make to your bottom line, if you can improve this important metric? Well, we have an fantastic guest with us today to talk about it. Mr. Scott marker, leveraging nearly a quarter century of experience, Scott is a highly motivational entrepreneur, business owner sales trainer, and soon to be two time author. He's a fantastic community builder and speaker. And Scott is noted for the high energy positivity he brings to everything that he does his next book broken, how to fix b2b sales, drive profitable growth and win. We'll be out in August, and we are stoked to have him with us today. Scott, welcome.
Scott Marker 1:04
Hey, welcome. Thanks for having me on, Jonathan.
Jonathan Fischer 1:07
Absolutely. So just by way of introduction, could you share a little more with our audience, you know, how you got into doing the kind of work that you do every day? And
Scott Marker 1:15
yeah, they I've heard another podcast always asking how to get into sales, you know, and almost always, it's by act. It's not on purpose. Yeah, it's by accident. So when I was younger, I was assistant general manager of two restaurants more than 12 lines a week and got out of college. And I thought the wages overall at the first couple of interviews were weak. And so to my customers, one of them worked at Warner Lambert fortune ad company at the time, and said, You need to be in sales. I said, well bring it on. Sure enough, next summer manager was in town, interviewed me in the restaurant, interviewed me again, and called me and said, When can you start? So that's how I got into sales. And there was a whirlwind. So I'm from Boise, Portland for a year, Seattle for two and a half years or so. And then back to Boise. So nice. That's how I got involved in the sales.
Jonathan Fischer 2:02
So you've probably seen a lot in that career. So today, you work a lot as a trainer and a speaker and an author. So have you transitioned more into this kind of consultant role that you're in today?
Scott Marker 2:13
It was actually, for years, I I've done it on the side for all, I've always had like a work for somebody. And when I wrote my first book, I worked for a company and it was the most freedom I ever had attorney just said, marketing sales, customer service, what do we do, you know, and so that's the and I, I, we we did very well at that company. And so I worked for other people. And then I just got to a point where a couple companies and friends I work for companies were sold on right from underneath me, I thought, you know, I'm going to control my own destiny. And so I bought a franchise and run a couple run three groups and professional networking group that's kind of local, and then always in the side have been done b2b consulting on sales. And that got me into speaking at Boise State University speak, and then in teaching their marketing, sales, and then from there just sit down here in the Treasure Valley. It's a small world and people just through through word of mouth, they just, you know, talk, you know, hey, you wrote a book on sales. Hey, we love talking about in sales. And sometimes it goes from coffee to Hey, how'd you like to do our kickoff for the year or training some of our salespeople, usually their short engagements, I kind of teach people how to teach themselves.
Jonathan Fischer 3:30
That's great. I love that. Well, and you see it an awful lot, you were talking with me offline about all the different companies that you've worked with. And you have a systematic process of asking really key questions. And you have a lot to say on this issue of employee churn, turnaround rates, how often we're really losing our people. And I too, have actually interacted with many sales managers over the years. And I resonate with something you said, and that is absorb us as a question. Do you feel that most sales managers and business leaders are even aware of what their churn rate is?
Scott Marker 4:03
Now? I've done hundreds of interviews for my second book. And I've asked that question. So many times, not one of one out of out of yours, one person who was a operation regional manager of a multimillion dollar company, we were out at a networking thing, and he pulled out $20 and said, I'll give anybody $20 If they can, because that's one of my initiatives I've been tasked with because it's a problem in our company. Sales. What's the turnover rate? 3040 some ad, right. He said 156%. I had to ask my dad who's an engineer. What's that mean? inducement, hey, they can't hire him fast enough. They're, they're losing faster than they're hiring them. So, so absolutely not. Most, most managers, sales managers and leaders don't have a clue of their turnover rate. And they usually if they, they do have it. It's almost always in their mind. They say Oh, it's another bad hire, you know, like, like it's the salespersons fault for so that, you know, 10 time in two years.
Jonathan Fischer 5:03
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, and you'll hear single digit Turner turnover rates of companies, a lot of them are very proud of that. But that may or may not be true. What in terms of percentage? What are some of the true turnaround rates going on in companies, according to you the research that you've been doing,
Scott Marker 5:21
you know, that's, my book got too big. So I stripped out a chapter, it was on how how, how weak, a lot of these studies are, right? A lot, because I was involved in some when I was running two companies, and the Director of Sales and Marketing, and they send it to you, and it's an honor system. So they ask all these questions about your your sales and your marketing. And so what what's your what's your, you know, person? I don't know the exact details, but it's, it's what, you know, if they did ask specifically, what your turnover rate, people guess. And just think about it now, as a sales leader, if are you gonna say, you know, oh, it's horrendous, it's terrible, you know, your if anything, even though if you know, it's bad, you're gonna go, you're gonna guess, right? So all I know, is, is the one thing that's been consistent for 10 years on the honor system, right, is that the average tenure in the United States of America, for the average, b2b, that's the b2b business to business sales professional, and they don't split them up very good. Str AR, just overall, is for 14 to 18 months, consistently for a decade. That's the best case scenario. So we're, that's why I say months, months, yes, average tenure. And that's why I said that's some of the big, big fridge big one big was that, yeah, that's the average. And so that's why I'm very passionate about it, as you can tell, is it. I think it's a crisis. And I think that it's been ignored long enough. And that's part of the reason why I'm on a show like this to talk about it. awareness to it.
Jonathan Fischer 6:49
I love it. Yeah. And I resonate with what you're saying. I think a lot of organizations are not aware. And what about the organizations that seem almost built to just work with that not even try to change it just do it kind of a turn and burn approach? They don't even make any bones about it. You know, that? Do you feel like that raises some ethical considerations?
Scott Marker 7:10
One thing I found out, through all the interviews I've done is, if so, let's keep it on the positive side, the leaders are in denial, right? Or delusional. Right. But but, I mean, I've heard people say that in like SAS startups, that they'll hire a whole bunch of STRS, knowing they're gonna lay half a moth, they're just trying to burn, get some things going, right, and then just going to, you know, hire 10, they're going to slash five and six months or hire 20, they're going to get rid of 10. So I mean, they're just like, it. They're not like people, just like, you know, churn and burn. And so yeah, it is. And again, that's why I say it's a crisis that it's, it is just and again, I've interviewed, and it's amazing how honest people are, and I never would throw anybody under the bus. But it's, it's, I'll be talking to a small startup to a, you know, a billion dollar startup. And the VP of sales will go, oh, Scott, you're so right. We are challenged with that. Or they'll say it's a problem, not that big a problem. And I go to glass door, right. And they have pages and pages of of STRS or AES saying, don't don't become friends with any of your fellow STRS or fellow A's because they won't be there in six weeks.
Jonathan Fischer 8:32
Yeah. Yeah. So So what do you think the rule of thumb would be take whatever you think your current churn rate is, and maybe double that, and you still probably fall short of what the real numbers are? Because yeah, another way they fudge it is just by going over the course of the year and only taking fully. Maybe they'll only take people that were there three months or longer. Yeah. But it's, you know, that's probably not a fully accurate picture, correct?
Scott Marker 8:56
Yeah. Right. And that's, that that's, that's one of the challenges. And that's what I'm talking about today is that everybody knows that churn among employees is bad. I mean, I just got off the phone right before this, I mentioned to you to kind of prep for this, and this is this is hot off the printing press folks, this is something I'm adding my book is done. I'm adding this piece to it, about building a case, how to how to sell that turnovers. A problem is and I talked to fractional hrs, bankers, staffing companies, and they all admit that not only is there a problem, but nobody really has the true numbers at where they're at. They try to figure out but most molsey says swag, it's about company culture, we're going to get a better company culture. And but that being said, I just just talked to a fractional CFO for excuse me, fractional HR lady who's working with a SAS startup. And she said a trend is starting is that they're holding leaders accountable. If they do have churn in there, that that they're like bringing that up in meetings like hey, what's The deal, that's good, which they should have been doing that for a decade
Jonathan Fischer 10:03
should have been done a long Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, and just to take another look at the at the issue, you know, what is the real cost of that, you know, it is a lot more expensive to replace an employee than most realize. I saw one study, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, there's nothing that on average cost anywhere from six to nine months of that employee's salary to replace them. So if you're taking a look at sales, I mean, what would that be? It's going to be what 30 To even $60,000 maybe more than that, depending on what the base and the compensation plan looks like. That's not pocket change. I don't care what company you're in. Right.
Scott Marker 10:39
And on that, and you let me know, because I want to make sure I don't jump the gun here. But that yeah, that that. That right, there is something that that is Interac accurate to on on that, that that amount of costs, because which I'll get into there's there's a lot of soft costs that no one talks about, and there's all that unknown costs. Sure, that are that are from the turnover that the companies don't don't until I I started getting into this and ask him, Where are people and getting to I'm going holy smokes this is this is again, it's not just a promise, a crisis, a lot of companies because they do not understand how much and I got to saying my dad told me years ago I love a lot of companies are profitable, and they make money in spite of themselves.
Jonathan Fischer 11:24
Yeah, I think it's very true. Yeah. Well, and yeah, I think my understanding of the way that that study was done is those are pretty much the hard costs associated. So that would be the posting of your ads, and the HR hours spent on doing the interviewing, and the training, and the onboarding, and so forth. That's not talking about possible lost opportunity, expenses. There's just sales not being done. And so forth, like you saying, some of the soft costs can definitely add up could be 100, grand, easier to replace a good high level AE. So how, how are they you know, missing this? Like, why do you think has been a problem for so long? And what do you remember or recommend on the broad level, to begin to grapple with this?
Scott Marker 12:05
Again, it's beyond me how people have I blame it on leaders. And I think a lot of them. If somebody came in and audited them on the true costs, and really dug into it, like I'm starting to, I think you'd see a lot of sales leaders kicked out. Because when you see the number, the true number, right, or even a true guesstimated number, there's a low low fudge, they'd be canned. Right. So going forward, what would be an overall reviewing right is? One, first of all, understand the costs. That's the first thing, right? The C suite people, here's, here's the, here's the cost, and we never talked about kind of list off some things that they so they kind of go Oh, wow. Oh, we never thought about that. Yeah, we we've done low guests miss on this, here's the total costs. So the first thing is for the problem is you got the leaders, and it isn't just the sales leaders, they're guilty. It's the CEOs, CFOs, where they've been asleep at the wheel, right. So the the broad scope is bring before them, the the the, you know, the overall scope of the problem, right? And how big it is. And then from there, right, start implementing a new way. Because right now, I mean, the way sales is being done that turn and burn with the with the, you know, the sales and stuff, it's not working, right. So I challenge people, why would you want to test something different? Right, yeah. And so, on the broad stroke? Well, one of the big things is, is changing the way that sales is the KPIs is really one of the biggest things, the key performance indicators on the big level right now. For salespeople have nothing to do with a good customer experience. Right? Yeah. And a lot of people, salespeople under pressure don't really want to do their jobs, when they're calling people have to call hunt bug 100 people a day. So changing the KPIs so that each is so they start to turn to where they're their customer says buyer, first of all buyer centric, meaning that you're getting compensated, not on each sale, but on like interviewing that customer. What your sales person told you is that when now you've been with us for three months, is that what you expected? Right? And then looking downstream, a little bit further retention costs of your customers, right, and giving bonuses for the whole team, not just sales. But So changing the KPIs so that salespeople aren't the the exception because everybody else in the company KPIs and compensation, that's the two biggest things you got to change for sales and make a difference because right now, what's the KPIs are doing right now, which are all about making money for the sales rep off of each opportunity? How many calls you do how many meetings you set up and how many closes where there's anything buyer century? There's not? Right so there's the book so Look, sales training. Yeah,
Jonathan Fischer 15:00
just coming at it from the sales leaders viewpoint, a lot of times they may feel they don't know what they can do. And so what I'm hearing what you're saying, Scott is there's kind of a, I would call this a legacy approach, because obviously we need change now. But this is this goes way back, that the key performance indicators that we're measuring, are too focused on just the bottom line. And what I'm hearing you say is that can be counterproductive. Can you unpack for me? Why would that be? Why is that a challenge in retaining people when you put all that focus on the wrong KPIs?
Scott Marker 15:31
Well, most salespeople, and all the time you hear about you know, people talking about sales well, but there's I got a stack of books behind me, oh, salespeople need to be compassionate. The problem isn't the salespeople overall, you're always gonna have bad apples in every position, every every everything right. But it's the KPIs that force people to do unethical behavior, the case study won't get into it. The case study is Wells Fargo Bank, right? It went viral. Yeah, I did research on that. And the CEO, made it basically to the whole company said every person in this company is going to be going to be a salesperson, they all had strict KPIs on how many checks and counseling opened up how many credit cards they did, da da, da, da dot right. And they brought tremendous pressure threaten a firearm just like they do salespeople if they don't meet their, their, their, you know, monthly quarterly quotas. What happened? Tons of unethical behavior happen.
Jonathan Fischer 16:24
Yeah, which was recapping to just just for audience, I mean, that was a case. What's that been? It'd be three years ago. Now, something in that range? Just before COVID Is I recall that they were literally opening up fraudulent bank accounts for clients on authorized to keep their jobs, what sounds like what you're telling me,
Scott Marker 16:41
it really really was a lot of them were scared to death. I mean, they that and it been going on for years. But the thing that people don't know about that is that people are so mortified when that went is that's common with sales. Yeah, high pressure, honey habit, right. So it's, it's a, you have to change the way and again, yes, it's still you, we got to make money and bottom line, but retention of employees, there's a huge cost and having a good retention. There's a huge benefit, right, lots of money and stuff for tenured people, standard salespeople, and also the same with customers. We seem to all know it, but we don't the companies don't put things in place to make sure that happens.
Jonathan Fischer 17:20
Sure. So measuring different KPIs indicators that are more buyer centric. Help us out with that a little bit, Scott, if you would, and I'm gonna pause right here. Okay, to our audience, I didn't say at the beginning. But I want to remind you all now, send us your questions. We're here live. And let's take full advantage of the opportunity. We'll get to the end of the half hour here. We're going to then have a little bonus time afterwards. Good 10 to 15 minutes to open it wide up open. So share with us your questions. And we'll get live answers from our guests today. Scott marker. So Scott, what would be some additional ways we could shift that? So if I'm a sales leader, and I don't want to over emphasize, you know, how many closes how many dials I mean, I still may need to measure those to some degree, if I'm hearing you correctly, a lot of it's just like where my energy is, and how much I accentuates my focus on some of those indicators. It's not that I don't look at them or talk about them. But I need maybe add some additional key indicators. Could you list a few more for us? What should I be adding?
Scott Marker 18:21
In and kind of keeping a broad because we can go way down rabbit hole on this right. But overall, it starts with the whole team. Right? So marketing, has an There's Chris Walker, who's fantastic. He's, he's done what I'm trying to do for the sales industry. He did it for the marketing industry. He disrupted it big time. And I was on his podcast. And he said, Now you mentioned Scott, that's the problem with marketing. For years, we've had the wrong KPIs. They were on Mark MQL. Right Mark marketing qualified leads and guess what they were not compensated on if they were worth a crap. They were compensated on numbers volume, right? Yeah. So that same mentality is on sales, right? If you start flipping it to where now, we're going to focus on KPIs like on you still have to and then marketing do the job, then you got to do less outbound, right. Or if you're doing it, you're going to do it as a team effort. Or if you do it, it's not going to be such a number game is going to be going after the right ABM Account Based Marketing kind of focusing on rather than the big, big call and 100 people today focusing on the right type of target accounts, right. And then getting everybody together including customer service, right, so now your KPIs are you still going to have to like you know, have meetings and stuff like that, but what you're compensated on are the right type of customers that you bring on. Because a huge cost to a company is a bad customer. And I'm telling you most the time you get a bad customer is because some sales person is under tremendous pressure is going to make a lot of money are going to get fired or all the above and brings them on even the back of the mind in the notes. There's red flags everywhere they bring them on and then customer service gets just Round, because it's such a terrible customer, and then there's churn. There's a huge costs. So if you get the KPIs, whoever was on the same team, marketing, sales and customer service, we're here to not only bring the right type of customers on, right, and talk to the right type of buyers up front. But yeah, we're there all to make sure they're successful. And we're going to get rewarded for bringing on the right type of customers and less churn. And we're all going to be bonus off that. I'm not going to if I if I, there's advertises all over the radio all the time here locally about our salespeople aren't commission off of it. Why would you have to do that? Because people know the words out. Right, right. So let it translate pressure
Jonathan Fischer 20:39
people's Yes, obviously, no. So if I say there's non commissioned, then you feel a little more relaxed, it's going to be a blue shirt at Best Buy or something like that. Right?
Scott Marker 20:48
Yeah. So exactly. So it's those type of mindset and KPIs. Now, still, it's just like any other position in the company? Do they have to be under the gun and pressured you know, heavy pressure and make money off of everything they do? There's a funny guy that's on LinkedIn that that, that does a little skit making, treating HR operations, like sales. And it's hilarious, because when you apply what you do on sales, to regular other departments, it's idiotic, we're going to cut your your base salary to HR in half, but we're going to going up your commissions and give you a bigger, bigger bonus at the end of the year. And anyway, it's just ridiculous. So it's a whole mindset shift changed. Yes, people are still going to have to, you know, hit some markers, but again, at their positions, they don't have to have like a carrot wave in front of them. They every time they, you know, close a new customer. So it's gonna be a mindset change. And again, sure, for the companies that do it, right. monday.com is one of the fastest if not the fastest growing SaaS company in the history of SAS. And their founders were on a couple months ago, interviewed, and they said, when we started, we, we just didn't want self people because we wanted people helping people. Yeah, well, that says
Jonathan Fischer 22:04
a lot, doesn't it? Right? I mean, the whole philosophy of sales, sales is service if it's done the right way. Yeah, you're right. You're an expert that's available to help somebody make a great decision for their benefit, right, you're there to serve. I mean, by definition.
Scott Marker 22:18
And that's what everybody talks about. But then it's this, again, it's the system that most companies that traditional sales, we need to dump it, it's broken. And again, it's, it's, it's causing a high turnover, because salespeople most people are good people, and they do want to help people. But guess what happens when they get in the system? Just like Wells Fargo, the pressure gets on there, you're at the end of the month, they're threatening to put you in a PPP performance improvement, or dock your pay or something? Are you going to do the right thing for the customer? Right, the potential buyer is always going to be questioned.
Jonathan Fischer 22:49
I think it's an important message, Scott, because, you know, at its worst this this dynamic is, is putting people in a position where they have to choose whether they can keep their soul or keep their house. Exactly right. Not enough of us have the the fortitude to choose the right way, you know, you got to eat. You got to keep a roof. That sounds extreme. But it's this is a real thing. And of course, there's there's variations on this theme. I mean, you may have a company that's kind of good. But could you improve the culture? Yeah, ways Exactly. But we got my my creative juices flowing, I can think about taking a closer look, having some meetings together with maybe the customer service team, I think it's always really wise. If you can to have a good separate team that all they're all there about is delivery, you know, and making sure that's really good that they're not salespeople. But obviously there's an overlap, and have a conversation about what they're looking for. And yeah, have some fun kind of spiffs and rewards and other kinds of, of ways to compensate. That could be a fun element, I think, to bring in great clients maybe even celebrated as clients for being great clients, right? And yes, it really energy,
Scott Marker 23:53
it's all for it, but you we have to take about each customer and you're going to make money off of that sale, because the pressure is wrong once you get rid of that, and you make it about the company's success and the company's success is the is a customer success. Right? That's where the end make that fun. It's a whole culture change whole, but what happens is sometimes I've found companies that have that in pieces of their company, but in their sales department, they're still the same old pain, low commission, right? I mean, you know, low base pay high commission and keep raising their their their goals up sometimes unachievable because they think that's going to miraculously make somebody, you know, be a superstar, because now they have a goal, which actually, I won't get into it. But there's been tons of studies that when you get goals that are like, like stretch goals, which are just, I've had them before to a company at sales, right? Everyone's having trouble bringing in eight new accounts a month, right? So all of a sudden, they you know, the sales here will come in and say, oh, let's go for 15. Now let's do any D mode beat D motivates people. Right, you know, right? Yeah. So achievable goals.
Jonathan Fischer 24:57
achievable. Goals are super, super important. SMART goals. Yeah. To say, yeah, so we have to snorkel more minutes together here, Scott, I'd love to get you to then share, what would you recommend as some actual action steps for listening audience? How can they implement what you've been talking about? Wherever they are in the role, especially to our leaders, though, if you're a sales manager, a business development officer, somebody that's running a team, what are some steps that those individuals could take to begin to shift this focus that we've been recommending?
Scott Marker 25:25
The first thing is what you will find interesting is I would go back to the very beginning, and I would start going, Okay, we're gonna we're going to, we're going to get the truth, try to get guesstimate of how bad this situation is. Because, again, we I've seen so many of these before everybody agrees Oh, yeah, we're gonna make a change, they go back to the same old thing. So we got to, we got to get $1 figure in front of the front of their face. So we got to go, Okay, how much is a true turnover cost? Get somebody to come in to come your HR bring in an expert, and go, Okay, how much is that the true cost? And then get into the fact of, okay, what are the soft costs to that we're like, every time we get a new person, they meet the, the interrupts everybody's, because they, they introduce them to the, the, you know, the owner of the company, or the founder of the company that happens over and over and over again, right? All these soft costs, try to try to lowball those right? And then things that I don't hear talked about is going to go okay, now, let's take one of our three year reps and our five year sales reps, and see how much money they make. And now let's see, okay, we keep having all this churn? What happens if half of them? How much money are we losing by continually having people leave it? 1415 months, right? So start looking at the opportunity costs, you're losing by by bringing up things like that, like saying, and then I bet you, what's the retention of a new rep versus a rep that's been there a long time on customers, I guarantee the longer reps are higher retention rates are so so starting to you have to you have to build a business case, and I got a gotta get a good good bad credit. Right, Chris? He can CEO of Nuff said. He's the guy that that came on. And did this for customer service. And how much customer service and SaaS companies evaluations, is it come in a couple of points, a couple points, projections and increasing cost cuts, not not not cells, but just customer retention. VCs are given hundreds of 1000s and millions dollars of extra evaluations for increasing in customer retention. So how did he get the C suite to care? You got to bring the numbers and so then you do all the rest of the stuff about the KPIs. So first thing I do is you got to put a case together, showing the real guy to get him sold out. Because nothing's going to happen. It's been going on for 10 ever but for 10 years, I've been following it. So bring a business case and show him the numbers. Yeah, the money.
Jonathan Fischer 27:44
Yeah, yeah, show me the money. Well, Scott, I know for sure a lot of audience members would love to go deeper into your insights on these and other topics related how can they best contact you?
Scott Marker 27:54
The best ways and LinkedIn Scott marker, I wear a shirt at this kind of my brand where a lot of spin stretchers like this have glasses on Vimy Scott marker SCO TT ma RK er.Best way to get ahold me. Okay, fantastic. And just a quick reminder, you know, you let me know how you found me on this show. Yeah, so you're not a salesperson.
Jonathan Fischer 28:19
Right, here we go. And one more reminder that Scott, you've got a book coming out here in just about a month or so. Right? So we'll have to keep an eye out for that. And yeah, a couple of months aware of when the book lands so you can go pick up your copy? Well, just a quick reminder that today's show is sponsored by overpass.com. Are you looking to hire a team of ready to work remote sales professionals fast? There are 1000s of highly qualified sales reps are waiting for you on overpasses talent marketplace, as the world's leading solution for hiring pre vetted talent. Overpass makes building an unstoppable Sales Team quick and easy. Filter by industry and experience, interview, hire and begin your onboarding process in as little as two days. create your free account today@overpass.com. All right. Well, Scott, I know it's been a fantastic conversation for our audience members. I've personally enjoyed it. Thanks so much for being on the show. And being a guest here on evolve sales. Appreciate you. Alright, so we're going to do a little overflow. Now we're going to move over to q&a. And I've got to lead out with the initial question that we've got here. And so inflation Yeah, that's an interesting topic. So we have Patrick asking, can you talk about how inflation is affecting the sales game? Do you have recommendations like so I'm the way I'm hearing that is as it's a sort of a variation on a price objection, right. People may be, especially in b2b, to get a base or spend on budget, maybe with prices changing. They're trying to push things off down the road. And Patrick, let us know in the comments if I'm off track, that sounds like where your question is coming from. What are your recommendations Scott?
Scott Marker 29:57
He type of like yeah, prices become more of an object objection. So you have to be better, you know, addressing that, and some of the things ours is make it easy to buy. That's one thing, you might think it's easy, but it's not right with companies and stuff because they pricing going on your make pricing stuff to get, getting to meet a meeting setup is tough to do. So that's the first thing. And the next thing is, is have arm your your sales professionals with two big things. One is Don't overcomplicate things for customers, right, good, better, I always say good, better, best old thing I say, platinum, gold and silver, give them less options, right. And then the next thing is, is a huge problem in companies is a is I have a saying turn every product into a service every service into a solution, every solution into a customer success story. So now you're talking about outcomes of what your company and your services done, and try to put $1 value on those. So then that's how you can overcome price a lot more versus spending too much time talking about your company or your company's been at the all the benefits of your product. Yeah, that sounds like the outcomes and the dollar value, the outcomes and what that equates to in dollars the best. And in that way price becomes it's always gonna be an issue but less of an issue.
Jonathan Fischer 31:17
Right. Right. Well, and I can see turned around backwards as well. I mean, if it's going to be more expensive down the road, then that's a reason to take action earlier. Right? Let's let's, let's buy it with today's money before it loses value. It's a today's dollar is has more value than tomorrow's dollar. So let's let's get you a great deal. So another great question that we have here is what this is from Michael, what do you want to know your opinion about Twitter? And what's been going on there? Just just a broad open question there.
Scott Marker 31:46
I don't personally use Twitter. I know a lot of marketing people that use Twitter. And they seem to like it for them on the and I'm not sure what exactly talking about on Twitter. But for what I've seen, and I haven't seen anybody on the sales who have been on what I've seen, which could be done the same, but I've seen marketers do successfully is they'll do something a tweet that gets a lot of, you know, engagement, and actually do a screenshot of that and then repost it on a post on LinkedIn. And then it gets great engagement. So they get double the bang.
Jonathan Fischer 32:15
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know for certain what Michael was referring to at Twitter, but I if I haven't had a lot going on with the possible acquisition by a certain air. And and the issue of is there has there been some high jinks going on with certain accounts being blocked for political reasons? And is there a cultural issue going on there? Twitter? I think that may be where Michael was coming from. Okay. Thoughts on that?
Scott Marker 32:41
You know, I, I don't that. I think that that's one of the things I don't worry that much about? I mean, for the most part, I lean more to the freedom of the press type of a thing. I've always been that way than most so that that probably my take on that is that, you know, not as long as it's not to overtop hateful speech that we don't like a lot of speech, but it should most of us should still be free.
Jonathan Fischer 33:06
Yeah, should have a bias toward opening it up. And if someone you know, someone's has really rotten things to say, maybe it's better, you know, they're saying them right, and then try to shut it up altogether. And
Scott Marker 33:15
sometimes when you showcase people like that, not always, but sometimes it shows that they're how how, you know, incorrect they are. Yeah.
Jonathan Fischer 33:23
Plus Jordan Peterson mentioned something that we everyone's forgetting is that a lot of us have to think out loud. I mean, most societal change comes with people thinking out loud. You know, that's what a marketplace of ideas is about. You're trying it out. And maybe it's not spot on. But maybe there's a little kernel and someone else has something it's not spot on. But there's a good kernel. And we that's how we collaborate. And when we try from a place of an agenda, to squelch certain voices in favor of others. That process is hindered. You know, the old had Galleon dialectic, if you squeeze out one side, you're not truly going to progress. So I think it's a pretty strong argument for a strong bias for free speech. And free speech also needs to include the ability to offend, but I'm not gonna get on my own soapbox, forgive me. I'll stop myself right there. We got other good questions for you, Scott. Let me take a look here. So Andrew is actually asking a great question. What do you recommend that as a comp structure for sales teams, so you kind of gave us a few high points? Maybe you want to get out? You can flesh that out a bit more? That's
Scott Marker 34:19
absolutely. I think it should be similar to marketing. Right? Okay. I mean, what why is it some freaky, you know, anomaly over here? And I've talked it I've questioned a very successful president of a very successful company. And she I asked her I said, Well, what why? Why, if if I said, she paid like 50% base 50%. Commission, right. And I went, why wouldn't you pay them like marketing? Right? Oh, we lose them all. Well, they all leave. I wouldn't really I wouldn't have any salespeople. I said that. Your marketing people say to me, how long have they been around? They're they're in What What, what? So it's crazy. I think they need to have good salaries right basis. Right. So they're not desperate. And again, this is this ties right into the whole churn and how much that cost? Right? Yeah. So now give the salespeople a decent salary, do not pay him commissions, bonuses, given bonuses on things, but team bonuses right individual bonuses to you, but not on any one sale, but make them you know, like celebrations of good customers and repeat business and all that type of stuff. So that's the way it is that you can make your money so it's not. So I'm for a decent salary with bonuses, but just the same as marketing. So there's, and I'd even say that would roll into customer service. I think customer service is just like, Chris Hagen was saying they're kind of the the left out of the picture a lot of times, I think they're probably for how good a job they do with retention. They probably should be included more into those bonuses.
Jonathan Fischer 36:00
That's an interesting angle. I'm gonna I'm gonna straight up.
Scott Marker 36:03
Not certainly are we a team or not team? Well,
Jonathan Fischer 36:05
I'm with you as far as the cultural thing, but I'd be open to looking at an experiment. I've been looking at an AV test on that because I do wonder what we really not want to have any compensation tied to a close. That's a pretty dramatic. Yeah, position that you have. You could be right. I'm not yet sold. I'll just tell you that. But it is interesting. It definitely Okay.
Scott Marker 36:25
Going. Okay, gonna get rid of this. A recent study by Gartner came by Gartner of 785 buyers, right? 72% say they want a salesperson free buying experience. Why? Because a lack of experience and not not having their best interest. Yeah, I mean, the words out right? So sure when so you Why is it every other position in the company, you don't have to pay him some money to do their job and his sales. You gotta you gotta you gotta hang this carrot of money to make him do the job marketing has if if marketing doesn't do their job, which, by the way marketing turnovers, went up here in the last couple of years. Significant. Why? Because people are starting to hold them accountable for bringing in revenue. Right? Yeah.
Jonathan Fischer 37:13
I guess the only challenge for salespeople? Yeah,
Scott Marker 37:16
I have a company yet. Well, I say I'd love to have a company. Oh, like one of the most successful companies in sas money.com.
Jonathan Fischer 37:24
I mean, there's one there you have one key a key A case in point could quite possibly be, I guess the challenge I would see is looking at many different kinds of sales, you need a little extra motivation to help your prospect get out of his or her own way. You know, there is there is that point in the conversation. And it may vary depending on what you're selling. You know what I mean? Like this may be a model that will work in certain companies and not work as well. And others. That's probably fair to assume just our priori, right. But I definitely have seen, especially b2b, when there's a longer cycle, that if you don't have someone that's got a little, a little additional skin on the bone, they can go and chase and get, they're not gonna make that extra phone call, they're not gonna actually make that extra email. And I don't think that's a bad thing. That's just a little extra incentive for them to do that important additional work to motivate the prospect to take action in their own best interest. So I think and that crypto, sorry, that's where we're thinking we are. And 100% alignment is the cultural thing has been way out of whack for so long. And that's unfortunate. But if you do it from the right heart to have a little extra reward for doing, I don't know, like, if you're a salesperson, and you're doing okay, having that little extra, you're already competitive, probably you already are looking to beat you're more ambitious than average, you're willing to kind of kill what you eat to some extent. I don't know if I want to leave that particular model out entirely. In all circumstances. I don't know. But that's just that's just food for thought. I like what you're bringing to the table, though. And the model
Scott Marker 38:47
is, things are so terrible right now in the sales world. I would challenge any company like like to say, okay, look, let me let me have if you have 10, salespeople give me two, right? And let me copy them, right and copy them and do a team approach with marketing customer service. Let's run it. Let's run it for a year. And we'll do it by quarter. And I'm betting that Well, I guarantee you one thing, part of your 10 won't won't be here. My two will still be here by the end of the year.
Jonathan Fischer 39:13
Okay. Well, let's look at all the numbers. I love it man. Get it set. Maybe I'll maybe I'll bet your steak on it. Let's let's Yeah, or a bottle of wine or whatever you want. I'll bet whatever you want to bet on it. Let's let's take a closer look at that when you get some research going. I'm very fascinated for sure to see how that goes. A few more questions for you. So taking a look here. What would you just say are best practices in the hiring piece as Dennis is asking, which we didn't really talk much about that. So we talked about like we're just assuming we have people coming on. But what about that piece? Like are there steps we can take right up at the front to help us retain them longer?
Scott Marker 39:51
I think how you're gonna retain them longer and be Meghan Bowen ce o of refine labs love her. I She, she has a term called Talent designation. And their company is stealing the best employees, including salespeople from all the other companies, right. And they're doing that by by a by culture. So I think could be changed the mindset of the sales. So it's not such a churn turnover and stuff like that and say, Hey, we're here and having a kind of a culture thing, I think that's going to attract better people to hire, right? That you're going to steal some of the best people from other people that they get sick of. Every time they get to a point, all of a sudden, their comps cut down again, and they change their compensation again, because they, you know, oh, the sky's the limit. I worked at companies before and I've outside, talk to people that a lot of companies every time, the sky's the limit, and you start making too much money that salesperson, they change your comp comp plan. So if you're that company that pays a good salary, and you can make good money here, right, and guess what I'm gonna love Come on my job every day, because I'm not having to, you know, talk to customers who don't want to buy and try to force him to buy, I'm talking to interested buyers, that really, I can help out. And that's a whole that and that whole culture, you're going to track, you're going to steal customers from your customers, you're going to steal some of the best salespeople from others that are tired. I talked to all our salespeople, and they're the best seven gets sick. They're their top salesperson in the company two years in a row, right? I like 700 reps. And they're going to quit the company because they're making them travel too much. They're changing their comp plan for the you know, the second time in one year. So anyway, I think the way to help you better bring people on is to talk to him about the new culture you have that we're sales, we're going to turn into not we're not selling people, we're helping people and hear how we're doing it by changing the way we compensate you and changing your mentality where we want you to invest in their long term with the customer, the company.
Jonathan Fischer 41:48
I love Scott. Well, I think you're a really important voice in the conversation for sure. And I really appreciate what you bring to the table on that I we're in agreement, we want to have a fantastic company culture, where service is our first goal. No question about that while running good, profitable businesses, right? The economy, right, doing the one should lead to the other if you do it well. So well, once again, has been a great conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the show Scott. And on behalf of the whole team and our whole audience. Thanks for being here, Scott. Hey,
Scott Marker 42:18
I really appreciate the opportunity. All right, well,
Jonathan Fischer 42:20
that will conclude remote or evolved sales live. I can't talk today. That concludes, evolve sales live. We've had a great engagement from our audience today. Thanks so much for being here. And we'll see you next week. Same time, same station. Goodbye, everybody.
