This week marks a first for SalesTV.live. This is our first SalesTV Spotlight Week, and the topic for this spotlight is Women in Sales. We have programming and guest hosts lined up each day this week to celebrate.

Taking the helm as guest host for Thursday, March 7 is Gretchen Gordon, author of "The Happy Sales Manager". Joining her is John Pattison, Chief Operating Officer at Objective Management Group and a master of leveraging technology for business growth. Together, they will explore the science behind sales stagnation.

Topics we’ll uncover include:

* Effective Sales Processes

* Improving Performance and Measuring Sales Success

* Leadership Challenges and Overcoming Them

* The Future of Sales Technology

Gretchen brings her extensive experience in transforming sales teams and leadership, alongside her insightful approach from her latest book. John will share his expertise in utilizing technology to not just compete but lead in today's fast-paced market. Together, they offer a unique blend of strategic and technological insights, empowering attendees to unlock new levels of performance and navigate the complexities of modern sales environments with confidence

Join us and be a part of the conversation.

Facts, the latest thinking, chat, and laughter about the world of sales.

Today we were joined by our Guest Host -

• Gretchen Gordon, Partner at Braveheart Sales Performance and author of "Top Down Culture: Revolutionizing Leadership to Drive Results"

Joining our Guest Host was -

• John Pattison, Chief Operating Officer at Objective Management Group

Transcript of SalesTV.live Spotlight Week - Women in Sales 2024-03-07

Gretchen Gordon [00:00:01]:

Hello. So happy to have everybody here today, on salestv.live. I'm Gretchen Gordon, and I am an author of the best selling book, The Happy Sales Manager, and a speaker, and, president of a sales consulting firm, Braveheart Sales Performance. And I am super excited to have John Pattison joining me today. So, John, would you mind introducing yourself?

John Pattison [00:00:34]:

Sure. I'm John Pattison. I'm COO of Objective Management Gray. And we provide, various assessments for sales organizations for both assessing incoming talent and selecting Alex, and also evaluating, existing talent in a sales team.

Gretchen Gordon [00:00:52]:

Perfect. So the reason that, I asked John to, participate with me today is because, we use, OMG or objective management group, evaluations and assessments with our clients. And I'm always fascinated by the vast amount of data that is accessible. And it, we tap into it quite a bit to, think about ways that we can help our clients, you know, execute at a higher level. And so in particular today, I asked, John to pull some together some information, and, we're gonna talk about a few things as it relates to some of the topics in my book, The Happy Sales Manager. So I guess a couple things. John, can you just give us, like, the overview of the scope of the data that you have? You know, like, how many folks Andy and because we're gonna quote some, statistics, and I want everyone to have a feel for where this information is coming

John Pattison [00:02:03]:

from. Sure. Absolutely. So we assess about 75,000 individuals a year at objective management Gray. And those are a combination of salespeople, sales managers, people who are responsible for man directly managing salespeople, and sales leaders, those being people who are kind of 2 degrees of separation from the actual revenue, producers. OMG was found in 1990, so we have, 34 years of information going back here, to be able to identify various trends going on, and and things have changed. Andy, certainly, what we measure has changed over that time as well, but there are a lot of aspects of selling that haven't really changed over that time. We have information from just about every major industry and global information as well.

John Pattison [00:02:53]:

And some of the unique data we have is tying together, managers with the salespeople that they report to, and we'll go through some of that today. That's really interesting to see how a manager's abilities, can impact the abilities of salespeople reporting to them.

Gretchen Gordon [00:03:09]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And actually, you bring up a really good point because, I kinda have this belief, and the reason I wrote the book, is because it frequently salespeople get blamed for all that goes wrong in not, you know, achieving sales growth in an organization. But frequently, what we've found, and I think we'll probably support this with some data, is that the sales manager, is often at the at the heart of the problem, Abbott it's actually not generally their fault. Most sales managers get to that spot because they were promoted from sales, And, unfortunately, they don't get, you know, they they don't get, analyzed for the skill sets and the mindset that is necessary to be successful as a sales manager. They only, you know, get evaluated, let's say, or picked, you know, to become the sales manager because they were a top producing salesperson Andy, you know, leadership just wants them to teach all of the salespeople how to do what they did. And, but unfortunately, there are different skill sets that are required and, different talents that are required, different traits that are required. And they typically, you know, what we see, you know, in the in the vast number of, companies that we work with that, you know, primarily are in the middle market, is that the resources just aren't there to train and teach sales managers, how to shift from being a salesperson to a sales manager.

Gretchen Gordon [00:04:58]:

So it's not really their fault. They're doing the best they can, but they just don't know, what they don't know. So when I talk about needing different skill sets to be effective as a sales manager, sales leader as opposed to a salesperson, you know, to make the distinction. For instance, you know, sellers, salespeople may need to hunt. They may need to be effective prospecting. They may need to be good at qualifying accounts. They might even need to be good at, as an account manager, depending on, you know, their particular role. But sales managers don't necessarily need to hunt themselves, may not need to really be in the weeds on the qualifying, and they they shouldn't be managing, you know, like an account manager.

Gretchen Gordon [00:05:53]:

So they need a whole batch of different skill sets. You know, the I I feel really passionate, I guess I would say, about 4 in particular, the ability to motivate or inspire their team members, the ability to hold the individuals on their team accountable, the skill to coach those people to be the best they can be, you know, to be better than they would be if the manager weren't there, and to hire effectively and efficiently. So those are completely different skill sets that are needed by managers as opposed to, salespeople. So those are really the 4 that I kind of like to to focus on. So let's talk about those, if you don't mind, John. So, the first one, motivating or, you know, motivation. I have found that an awful lot of leaders and, you know, business owners, leaders, managers think that salespeople are money motivated. That's why they are in, the sales arena.

Gretchen Gordon [00:07:10]:

Andy there's there's 2 different things that pop into my head. You know, the the, managers think that they're money motivated because the salespeople probably tell them, yeah. I wanna make as much money as I can. And maybe they think they're supposed to be money motivated because there's, you know, a commission component that comes along with the position. But just saying, I want to make more money or wanting to make more money doesn't make someone money motivated. So I know that, you know, OMG breaks down the different motivate motivating, elements into 3 buckets. Right? So do you wanna talk about that for a second, John, about what those look like?

John Pattison [00:08:00]:

Absolutely. So, yeah, it's interesting. If we go back to, OMG's first, 20 years, like you said, the main aspect of motivation that people recognize was financial motivation. Right? That wanting to earn more money. But then when 2,008 came around, a funny thing happened. People started to be you know, everybody felt like, gee, my sales people aren't motivated. Well, it wasn't that they weren't motivated. It's just when there are all these layoffs happening in the company, people weren't gonna Gray, like, I you know, John needs more money because they felt bad about it or they felt like they weren't being a team player doing that.

John Pattison [00:08:43]:

And then with other shifts as well, what we saw was there was more of a shift to this intrinsic motivation. Right? If you think about, people just entering the workforce today, yes, they want to achieve financial success, but there are other factors as well. They wanna feel good about their work, what they're doing. They wanna feel successful. And so we saw a big shift, in the 2000 tens towards that intrinsic motivation, more of that intrinsic motivation. Additionally, so that's extrinsic and intrinsic, and then we measure 1 third type, which is altruistic motivation. This is a little less common, but that's people who are really motivated by helping others. And that's what drives them.

John Pattison [00:09:27]:

Now, you know, there's some obvious things about motivation, like you wanna be able to match your comp plan to what motivates people. Abbott really, it's it comes down to understanding that people might not be driven the same way you are. And if you're not meeting them with that same driver, the minute if a manager doesn't recognize the style of motivation that a salesperson has, then they're not going to be able to get that traction extrinsic motivation. If we look at the past 5 years or so, we've been seeing that trend increase again.

Gretchen Gordon [00:10:07]:

And the funny thing is is that I think about it because we have kind of short memories. You know, we did see a big, dip in extrinsic or money motivation, you know, huge, around the you know, right around that 2008, 2009, the, you know, the Gray time period. And you're right. I think people felt guilty. They also felt, like, you know, wanting to earn more money was a bad thing. We got into this, you know, whole work life Alex, at least I have a job, that kind of thing. But what I find fascinating is so when we say, Gray, we we've made a shift or not made a shift. We're making a shift.

Gretchen Gordon [00:10:47]:

We're seeing more and more people being extrinsically motivated or or potentially money motivated if you just wanna, you know, call it money, material, rewards, you know, that kind of thing. The funny thing is is that it's still only, 37% are fully extrinsically motivated. There might be some balance in there. And so I know when I speak to groups of leaders, they either don't believe or don't want to believe that that means 63% of the salespeople out there, the vast majority, almost 2 2 thirds, right, are not fully, extrinsically motivated. And and I think they don't wanna believe it because they were probably money motivated. Right? You know, they were salespeople back in the day, and that's why people get into sales. So you're right. We have to, we really have to, think about how we're approaching this subject.

Gretchen Gordon [00:11:52]:

And my goal is that leaders and manager sales managers understand that the workforce has changed Andy it's, you know, it's not the workforce of coffees just for closers anymore, right? You You know, it it there there is a the workforce has changed, and so the managers have to change with it. We could probably talk about, we could probably talk about this subject for, hours, John, but we probably should move on. So the second you know, so we talked about motivation first or motivating. The second is holding, team members accountable. And I have, this, you know, kind of simplistic view of why salespeople don't succeed. And, the first reason is that they don't do enough of the right stuff. And, this is, at its core, accountability. It's being it's being the accountability partner.

Gretchen Gordon [00:13:01]:

I know that an awful lot of people think when we talk about accountability and holding, individuals, you know, kind of feet to the fire on their plan and what they said they would do to produce enough business. A lot of people think that that means micromanagement, and it's actually the opposite of that. Micromanagement is having to tell someone what to do every single day. Accountability is just being a partner and helping the other individual do what they said they were gonna do or live, you know, live up to their commitments. Do you have, statistics on, the percentage of of salespeople who are proficient or I'm sorry, sales managers who are proficient holding salespeople accountable?

John Pattison [00:13:55]:

Yeah. So our data show that about 39% of managers is not holding, not measuring KPIs for their salespeople. And, of course, holding salespeople accountable, it feels good to be held accountable. Right? You know what your expectations are. And measuring by some type of numbers makes it easier for salespeople to understand what those, what those measurements are Andy whether they'll be viewed as, as a success. Nobody wants to be surprised by whether somebody thinks they're doing a good job. And then, additionally, there's a general problem with managers accepting mediocrity from salespeople. And, that can come from a numb a number of different underlying reasons that cause that acceptance of mediocrity.

John Pattison [00:14:49]:

But really, our view is the byproduct of accountability is salespeople taking responsibility. And the salesperson who's held accountable will take responsibility because they understand those expectations.

Gretchen Gordon [00:15:05]:

Yeah. That makes total sense. So, if I heard you correctly, 39% of sales managers are proficient at holding salespeople accountable. So that's, you know, less than half the sales managers that we have this, you know, access to this data on. My guess is that it's because sales managers equate that accountability with micromanagement and, you know, they don't wanna do that. So it really starts with, it actually starts back with motivation Andy what are, the goals that the individual has and how can I tap into those? And then how can we hold them accountable to the activities that they need to perform, you know, the behaviors that they need to exhibit to produce the outcomes that they want. One other quick thing that I want to touch on in this regard is that, if there are sales managers listening to this Andy they have a, you know, heightened need to be liked by their salespeople or a need for approval, that can make it more difficult to hold people, you know, accountable for what they said they were going to do. I think, John, you had some you had a a a statistic, with regard to, sales managers that exhibit a strong need to be liked or strong need for approval from their

John Pattison [00:16:35]:

sales Yeah. Andy that would be 11% by our measurements. 11% of sales managers really exhibit that strong need for approval, specifically from their salespeople. It's very common for salespeople to have issues with need for approval from prospects. Of course, that gets in the way of asking tough questions and uncovering compelling reasons to buy. But, kind of an often overlooked aspect of that need for approval is specifically from the salespeople. And if you wanna be liked and loved by your salespeople, you're not gonna be able to hold them accountable, because, you know, you won't ask the same reason with prospects. Right? You're not gonna ask those tough questions and challenge people.

Gretchen Gordon [00:17:19]:

Exactly. No. That's that's, that's good that's good to what they said they were gonna do. So there are ways to get through that. We help we help, sales teams all the time with that and sales leaders. So we talked about motivating. We talked about holding people accountable. Our 3rd, you know, kinda core component, that we wanted to address was coaching.

Gretchen Gordon [00:17:51]:

And I said that there were two reasons why salespeople fail. The first is that they don't do enough of the right stuff, and we address that with accountability. The second reason that salespeople fail is they might be doing enough of the right stuff, but they're not very good at it or they're not very, skilled. They're not expert at it. They haven't, you know, they haven't, developed that muscle, so to speak. So if that's the case so that's why I kinda go in this progression. We gotta know why they're working and how we can get them to do what we need them to do and what they need to do to accomplish their goals. So we need to know their goals.

Gretchen Gordon [00:18:31]:

We need to hold their feet to the fire to make sure they do the activities and the behaviors so we know that they're doing enough of the right stuff first. And then if they're still not meeting expectations or, you know, quotas aren't being met or goals aren't being met, that's when we can jump in, and that's when the manager really needs to, you know, put on their coaching hat. Now you shared some stats with us about sales managers. You know, 39% are good at holding people accountable. I find, and I think you're probably going to, support my assumption that we we sales managers are lacking in some coaching areas as well. Right? Because, there's a lot of, measurement of what goes on from a coaching perspective. Would you mind talking a little bit about some of the data that you've collected on managers' ability to coach?

John Pattison [00:19:36]:

Absolutely. So our data show that only about 18% of sales managers are proficient at coaching. And like you said

Gretchen Gordon [00:19:44]:

No. Wait a minute. Hold on. There's right there.

John Pattison [00:19:46]:

Coaches. Right? That's what they're supposed to do.

Gretchen Gordon [00:19:51]:

And Oh, man. 18%. Holy moly.

John Pattison [00:19:56]:

Are truly proficient at coaching. And, you know, these are our measurements, but you see these reflected as well. Like, when we were talking about the managers being 39% of them being, effective at accountability. Well, coincidentally, 40 only 41% of salespeople take responsibility. And you see the same thing here with coaching. Coaching deficiencies are directly reflected by poor tactical skills of salespeople, and those cause a lot of the problems that, the companies have in their sales cycle. Of course, like you touched on, one of the big problems is not spending enough time. On average, managers report spending only 19% of their time coaching.

John Pattison [00:20:39]:

Now a lot of them probably think, like, that's a lot. That's one day a week that I'm spending coaching. Our benchmark Andy a lot of experts agree that should be closer to 50%. This is the most important aspect of the job of a sales manager is to coach people. We also ask salespeople how frequently they're coached. Only 3 of them report that they're coached daily. Andy 8% say multiple times per week, and only 21% say that they're coached weekly. So, managers are reporting they're not spending much Tim, and the salespeople agree that there's not getting enough time.

John Pattison [00:21:14]:

Also the types of coaching. You know, a lot of people, when you mentioned coaching, they think it's, you know, letting the salesperson ride along on a call. And, of course, that's not coaching. That's just passive listening. So only 14% of salespeople report receiving opportunity specific coaching. Only 12% re report that they receive coaching that helps them make them a better salesperson. So definitely, salespeople recognize that they're not getting enough coaching or the right types of coaching, and, and managers report the same thing that they're just not spending the time on coaching that they should.

Gretchen Gordon [00:21:51]:

Yeah. It, has always struck me about the the data regarding coaching and time spent you know, coaching proficiency, let's say, and time spent coaching is that, you know, I've you and I have talked about some of this data that if a sales manager is actually effective at coaching, and we know that that's a small percentage. Right? Gray, 18% of sales managers are effective or proficient at it. If they are effective at coaching, the salespeople that report to them will be about 16% more effective, which means, you know, they're gonna close, you know, maybe 16% more business. If they spend 50% of their time coaching, if the manager spends 50% of their time coaching, the salespeople will actually be 28% more effective, those that report to them. And if you do both, you know, you can increase effectiveness by 49%. But what this says to me is that even if it's not perfect, you gotta do more of it. Right? So, even if even if, certainly, you know, being proficient at coaching, we'd like managers to become better coaches, not just telling people not just telling salespeople what to do.

Gretchen Gordon [00:23:11]:

But there's really not enough true coaching going on, and there's not even enough attempts at coaching. So that would be the moral of the coaching story, And we've gotta continue to move on, so we'll move to the to the final, you know, key component, which is hiring. And I wish that I had known earlier in my career the importance of using a systematic, repeatable process, not just trusting my gut to select, sales people, because it's just, you know, it's just soul crushing to have ineffective salespeople on the team. And, you know, some experts tell me that, if you, you know, if you are hiring salespeople that aren't effective, that they can be, they can be costing your company, you know, somewhere between 3 and 5 times their, pay. So if you're paying a salesperson $100,000 and they're not effective, it's actually costing your company $500,000 in, you know, time, energy, frustration, and in opportunity cost. So just real quick, John, can you tell us what percentage of sales managers are actually good at, recruiting new salespeople?

John Pattison [00:24:52]:

Yeah. So the good thing is it's better than coaching. Our numbers show 45% of managers are proficient at recruiting onto their team, which Tim disappointing, to not

Gretchen Gordon [00:25:05]:

see that number higher. Yeah. And one of the things that sales managers can do from the get go is teach them a repeatable sales process. And sadly, less than 50% of sales managers are proficient at at that as well. Right? Yeah. Consistent and repeatable sales process. So we're, our time is ending here. This has been a blast for me.

Gretchen Gordon [00:25:34]:

John, how can people find out about objective management group? You know, what's the best way for them to just do some scout around? Absolutely. And then I'll give my contact

John Pattison [00:25:46]:

Our website is objective management.com. We have lots of information on there. We have a research blog with that dives into more details as well, and we have some really exciting studies coming out on there. So, go to the research blog, subscribe to the blog. We have lots more, exciting information coming out soon.

Gretchen Gordon [00:26:07]:

Awesome. And, again, I'm Gretchen Gordon, and my company is Braveheart Sales Performance. Andy, probably as a probably should have a disclaimer here, we're a platinum partner of objective management group, and we feel privileged to be so. We've used them with our we've used their tools, consistently with our clients for about 15 years now, believe it or not, and the data continues to improve. So, anyways, we can be found at braveheartsales.com. You can find my book there, or you can go to the happy sales manager.com. And please feel free to hook up with me on LinkedIn as well. I'd, I'd welcome any connections of anybody who reaches out.

Gretchen Gordon [00:27:01]:

Thanks a lot. It's been a blast. John, it's been great talking to you. Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah. Hope everybody has a good rest of your day.

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