Hiring a Sales Superstar

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Video Transcript

" Welcome to this next hour with Jason myself, Jason Reavis and myself, Alex Rogers, we're again you, we're gonna chat a little bit about my favorite topic as salespeople. But first, I wanted to thank everybody for showing, we got a good showing here. And if you guys have noticed, we got a little different format than the typical webinars that we've done in the past, we've embedded everything within core. And moving forward, all of our webinars are going to be like this, we've been wanting to do this for so long. And we finally got the right, our development team, together with the right people on there, and man, it's gonna be so great, we got so many great things happening. For 2020, despite the rest of the nation's view on 2020, there's some really good stuff coming for char tech with core and everything else. You know, this last Virtual Academy that we had, Jason, you're a big part of it was very surprising. We had just, we had over 1300 1300 msps from you know, mostly the US but also all over the world. And some of the all the back questions that were coming there was this commonality of, you know, what it's time to hire, how do I hire. And I want us to, I wanted to spend some time on this. Specifically, because of a conversation I had with Jason, just passing by in the hallway. You know, it was funny, walking back and Jason's like, Man, you are not going to believe the amount of people we have coming in applying for sales positions, because as you guys know, we hire for our partners all over the nation. And it's it's a tough gig. But now with the recent furloughs and challenges that other businesses have had, not just in the MSP industry, right. But in all industries, it's it's ripe for the picking, would you say it is right now, it's such a unique time because many other industries, even outside of it, have had to react to this seaward environment, you know, and because of that, a lot of great talent is now thrust upon the marketplace. And what these individuals are looking for is steadiness, they need a way of continuing their way of life of being able to achieve their goals, and they're looking for an organization not to let them down. And this is the right opportunity to capitalize on that. Absolutely. So I'm like man, we need to get together and we need to do something get you guys educated first off to let you know that there's some neat stuff going on with with product on the market, so to speak. Okay, and I wanted to make sure that you know, people you guys don't go down the wrong road just because you you, you see a flashy resume come through or something like that. And you guys either that have been with us for a long time of see hear me talk about hiring and and also firing sales people and best practices and stuff. But it never ever hurts to hear this stuff repetitive to remind you get back on track. Because as you know, Jason, sales people are not one of the positions that we're consistently interviewing and hiring for. It's not like technicians. I mean, we run technicians all day long. We run admin all day long, we get tons of stuff, sales, people seem to be like this, this ghost of a position that comes up every so often, you know. So we're gonna chat a little bit about that. I want you guys to know, we're answering questions. So if you do have questions, you know, just type them in there. And then brandy sitting behind this behind the scenes and she's gonna text them to me as they come in. And then I'll, I'll pick up my phone, and I'll read the questions and answer them to the best that we that we can. Absolutely. Before we get going first off, just so you guys know, September 16 17th, and 18th Yep, that's the date. We're having another Virtual Academy. So it's going to be epic. And what's really nice about it is we're gonna split it up with there's going to be a whole session on sales and marketing and then another session on operations as well. Okay, so there'll be two two sessions going on at the same time. So you guys can divide and conquer. If You want to with your people in there. So anyways, so look at that go to get on the tragic site and get registered for that we're expecting another great showing. Um, I guess First off, I want to engage you, Jason a little bit on what you're seeing as far as the types of sales positions that are showing up. Because there are different types of we need as as, as companies, we need to understand what exactly are we hiring for. And right now, the big thing is, is that we all have the idea that we need to hire a sales guy, but to Alex's point, you need to know what type of sales guy you need. There is distinctions in the marketplace, and you didn't know these things to primarily, there are essentially two major types of sales pros out there. And I'm telling you, there's a bunch of different titles around it. But it comes around to basic structures, a hunter, that's your outside sales Pro, also called a sales executive, somebody who's actively looking for new deals outside of your existing client list in the field more than 75% of the time, actively hunting new deals, finding new deals, finding opportunities, presenting them closing the deal, and then passing it over to the team for onboarding, implementation and going right back out in the marketplace, finding another one not building the relationship once they come on board. That's right. It's very important this guy is hired to bring new deals, not talk to your current client and make sure they're warm and fuzzy and happy. And all that other bullshit. What kind of person is that? That ideal person is going to be if you look at the disc profiling, it's going to be a high D high I even ID. The idea is this is a person who has a sense of self has a certain ego about them, but not too not too bold or too overbearing, but has a good sense of self, but also knows how to be the master of inventing a new relationship with expediency, developing connection, being able to, to convey trust and being able to nurture that through to the close of a deal. But then being the master of the handshake, let me introduce you to my team, they're going to take care of you and then letting go of the of the prospect that they just closed. And then that next person is the farmer, the farmer, see the farmer is that inside sales person, you hear about it as an account manager or a corporate account manager, it's still a farmer, a farmer is an individual who is soliciting deals from your existing clientele, taking care of the client relationship. These are the individuals that are doing the TBR is a QB ours, they're they're absolutely mastering the existing client relationship, making sure that they take the handoff from the sales executive, the hunter and making sure that the client feels connected from the moment they sign the dotted line from the moment they take position to their new network. So if you look at this, that person is paid on rolling the account and retaining the account. Totally different requires a different personality, a more nurturing personality, right customer services, also that liaison between your knock or tech department. Right and, and the client as well, it's true, it's truly your account manager is so central to how multiple departments succeed. This is an individual, it's going to take some client concerns or complaints, take some some feedback. And we're going to need a direct connection to your department heads ahead of your service team, head of your sales team head over marketing, team operations, even leadership, this individual has to be the master of relationships, not only external to your clients, but internal to your team. Now, based on what we've been seeing this, this role of the farmer has really been evolving. Okay, it used to be the guy that would just Hey, how are things going? everybody happy? Okay, all you need a new monitor. Great. Let me get one down there to you. And they were it was a very reactive type of role that would just be there to take calls and do their little fun quote on the on Clozaril are quote works or sell or whatever the hell they call it shit now, okay. And they would make it look pretty, they give them a price and then they convert it to an order and they get it delivered. And then they call later say, Hey, did you get your monitor? Did you get your laptop, whatever. But now, okay, what we're wanting to see for that farmer role is somebody that can go in and actually have a discussion on on closing that gap of what they don't know that they don't know. Okay, so how can you what you want is you want that person that can understand the vertical market that they're in, whether it be dental, whether it be medical, whether it be engineering, legal, accounting, whatever that might be an understanding what those vertical market issues are, and then proactively bring solutions to that company to solve these problems that they have with better efficiencies or murder, productivity, productivity, or whatever that is. So the perfect farmer is somebody who knows a little bit about the business side of things. Oh, absolutely. Today's farmer has to be not only 50% farmer, but they also have to have this curiosity towards business, they should understand some basic financials, understand that the needs and demands of a business as a chief executive, you should be training your CEO or your account managers, what to look for, what are what are client challenges, what are they going to face, but they need to understand the verticals deeper, no longer No, I will never hire a passive account manager, again, haven't done it for years, because our camp managers here are held to a higher threshold, we have a platinum standard for account managers, you have to know your clients know what they need, respect what they need, but being able to have a deep business dialogue, those are all major components of how we expect performance each and every time you engage a client. Now, here's the problem. We just laid out the two major roles, right? You got your Hunter, you got your farmers, not all of us and most msps can't, don't have the resources, or maybe even the money to bring on one of each. Yeah. Okay, cuz once you start doing that, then we got to talk about managing and everything else. Now. So what happens is you bring one person on, okay, that that, you know, will be will be hunting, and then also farming some of the accounts. But eventually, depending on the personality, or the disc profile of that person you bring on, you're gonna start to see him Excel. Okay? or lack performance on either the hunting side or the farming side. Now, what do we do there? In those situations, you have to be very mindful, because he's absolutely right. We've seen it before you guys have seen it before. What not what you want to do is you always want to make sure that if the performance is trending a certain direction, and you may have, let's say, You hired a hunter that's doing a little bit of farming on the side, because he needs to. And then over a year's time, you start to notice while he's closing less net deals, but he's increasing my my satisfaction increasing the type of business I'm getting from my existing clients, and Hell, even clients are starting to like him, Well, what you need to do is need to sit and eat and eat with him and discuss how his role is going to necessarily change. Because we're seeing, we're already seeing a positive benefit from how we're retaining our clients and our customers. So we're not seeing attrition, so we're not seeing an issue there. So this person may have essentially worked themselves out of 100 position, and we can have the opportunity as owner saying, Well, perhaps you've worked yourself out of a position let's, let's see if this is time to bring in somebody to augment to hunt now. And it's the ideas sit need to need talk to your sales Pro and figure out if they've literally work themselves in a new environment, because their this may have changed their life. They also may have had an outlook perception change. And that's what we need to look at. Now why that's a major issue, if we, if we're not aware of it, or take care of it, is because when you hired him, his compensation plan may have been greatly influenced based on the new deals that he brings in. So what happens is he's excelling at growing accounts and farming and keeping clients happy. But he's not making any fucking money. freakin money. Okay. So what happens is now, you get this guy that is just like, man, do I like my job, but at the end of the day, I'm not I'm not achieving my dreams and goals and aspirations that I want as a salesperson. So it's very, very important that if this transition happens, you then have to revisit the compensation plan to reward him based on what you want more of or what you're doing, and then bring in that other position to fill in the gap that's going to be given up. Absolutely. Does that makes sense? It does, because your compensation plan may have started for a hunter going out finding unit deals, and he's getting paid a little bit for farming, but he's kicking ass doing farming doing that exceptionally well in incentivize that, move the needle in that direction, redefine the sales compensation plan, adjust his job description and get on with life. Let that person continue to do well for you. And then determine if you've got the revenue to hire that hunter that you desperately needed to begin with. And it may go the other way to him. Absolutely. He may bring on new stuff, but your current clients are being ignored. They're not growing or they're canceling and they're not feeling the love. So anyways, I don't want to dwell on it too much longer, but that's the big thing. The other thing I want to chat about you and I've had conversations about this is the maturity level of Your MSP and how it might relate to how you hire. Okay? Because let's face it, all right, there's some sales professionals out there that are top notch. And they require revenues at this level. Okay, they may want a little higher salary, but they want to, they also want to know that a commission plan is gonna net them a couple 100 grand or 300 grand a year. So then you got to take a step back and say, can I even afford the credit to buy that much equipment so he can make that much that much money in commissions? Or do I even have the resources to support sales like that? Okay, now, a big challenge that I've seen is mostly with the smaller and for the lack of a better word. immaterium SPS, okay is they bring on a salesperson at this level, but their company's only at this level, and then that salesman starts trying to run the show and do a bunch of stuff. And, and at the end of the day, you know, that the relationship doesn't work. So in those cases, sometimes it pays to look for the talent that is the new guy, the young, energetic kid gret first coming out of college or, or wanting to start his life, maybe he's not even married yet. Or maybe he just got married, right? He hasn't been in the industry for a long time. But he has the talent to get trained and be molded by you. Okay, so what you, you may lack the experience, but he's willing to learn and can learn. And his his money requirements aren't nearly as high as somebody that's, you know, more mature, been in the business and is expecting so much to get all his bills paid? Yep. You know, just just yesterday, I had heard from one of your members, that, you know, I interviewed a guy, and I want to make them an offer. And I talked about what I was looking at, he said, You know, I'm too developed for your training roadmap, what do you think I do, and it really dovetails into what Alex just said is, he's a seasoned professional, we all know what that's code for. But he's also been in the business for more than 15 years. Yeah, he's had our experiences selling for an MSP. But that tells me and I said, Look, you're in operation at a certain level certain distinction, it is possible to hire the wrong person for you right now. So maybe we should find somebody more junior more, somebody more at that entry level. That's not what it's about. It's about finding somebody who has a hunger that's not biased against its expectation. When you get somebody who is once a six figure salary needs five weeks of vacation on day one, once a car lease on day one, and you're a 10 person shop, barely eking out a million and a half in revenue, the juice doesn't match the squeeze there. And so that's where you guys get to reach out to us if you run into those obstacles hit us up. And we that's what we're there for. And for those members who get our assistance with recruiting, you already have that experience ready to go at a fingertip? Yeah, and that's the big challenge, man and I went down the road, many times went down the wrong way. I look at this resume, I talked to him, I'm like, Oh, my God, this guy's a superstar, I can't believe he's gonna bless us with his presence, and I get to pay him. And at the end of the day, you know, we just lack the resources, money and things that he needs to help make somebody like this successful. Maybe he belongs at Cisco, maybe he belongs at IBM, maybe he belongs somewhere else. But he doesn't belong here. And we're going to talk a little bit about that as well as it relates to bringing those types of, or looking at those types of resumes, you know. So the other thing I want to talk about, and a big mistake that we make is we we hire sales people up. And we've looked at how they can close we've looked at their talent in presenting we've looked at their charisma and everything just sends the captain, but they lock in the lead gen. Okay, and you got to think about this cold calling. Does it make sense to pay a season Hunter, these types of wages, and then let him spend half his day cold calling? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it requires a look because if he sucks at first off, okay, you're never going to get him to use the talent you hired him for because he's such that the cold call side of it. So maybe it makes sense to bring on either a third party company to do the cold calling or the leads, okay, or bring on a low lower hourly wage, cold collar to do nothing but set appointments up for that person. Yeah. And you can absolutely set a comp plan for somebody lower level like that. To all they do is set up set appointments, and they get paid off of that. And there's a lot of people they get paid on the appointments they get absolutely. And they make great money doing it. And they have a good existence doing it, because that's what they're focused. And that's where the talent is. And that's what we need. Yeah, totally. And, and and here's the other thing, you're like, Oh, well, don't worry about it, I got a great marketing team and this and that, hey, marketing is great, but I'll tell you, the biggest failure we see in the clients that we bring on in marketing is marketing generates a lead forum, but then that salesperson fails to do the necessary call downs that it requires. To turn that marketing lead into an actual opportunity. Somebody responding on Facebook or or requiring more information or wants to learn more. When that happens, marketing is done. Okay, they did their job. Now it's a salesperson that has to then call call again, send an email, send a voicemail, get back to calling and and and try to set that frickin appointment up. Some sales people can't do that. Some sales people. They can sell like a son of a bit, but they suck ass at getting the first appointment or actually turning in a lead into an opportunity. There's a big freakin difference. Okay, because let's face it very rare. Do we do marketing at any level, and we get people to call up and say, Hey, I saw your Facebook ad, you know, sign me up, I'm ready to sign this managed service agreement right freaking now here's a blank check. It still requires somebody to do that calling. Now here it charged like that. We figured that out. Now we have our you guys have dealt with our sales managers or sales executives before. But we have a team before that takes all the Marketing Leads, and does nothing but Call Call Call Call. And it doesn't matter how interested, the lead came in. And they're like, oh, man, this looks awesome. I need this product, you realize it still takes five to seven to 10 calls before they actually get online with the salesperson to move them forward to find out what they need. blows me away. Okay, so my point is, is sometimes we got to look for appointment setters for our sales people. Or maybe it's for you. Maybe what you're looking for is an appointment setter. And I'm not a salesperson. Yeah. You know, many times I've heard people say, like, all I need to do is you just get me in front of somebody, and I can handle the rest. I can close the rest. whether that's true or not. What they're saying is I suck at getting the appointment. You get me to the appointment, I got the rest handle. Okay, so So look at that. Anything else you want on that front? I hear it all the time. Is that why why should hunters cold call and why should this does marketing do that? I said to my marketing team, and I'll say to you guys, marketing puts the dots on the map sales connects the dots. That's how these two things interplay. If you can keep those things aligned, they'll do so much better by setting great expectations. And you know what you got to remember guys, we have a shift in the way sales are done. Let's go back 30 years cold calling was it? But now and you gotta remember cold calling was how do I get Betty to transfer the phone to the salesperson nowaday you're in get to talk to Betty. Okay, you're talking to voicemail? They're hiding behind technology and emails and everything else. It's it's a different ballgame. So if you're gonna spend and dedicate this big amount of money to a sales professional, are you paying them just to leave voicemails? Yeah, yeah, no. Okay, so I want to talk about some must haves before hiring. And we forget this especially the smaller msps we forget that when we're hiring a salesperson that we have to have some shit done. Okay, we can't hire them to say develop our products. I mean, sometimes we get a salesperson, we're like, okay, here's your desk, man. Good luck. And then we'll I'll be back in a month or two and collect all the checks that your money you've been making for us. Okay, it put this in perspective. Imagine if you just hired some technicians and you said okay, hey, by the way, whatever you want to do to manage your tickets just let me know what that means. You know, you know if you want to buy something or you got your own program to use to dispatch people out or to track your your success or failures with each you know, just let me know what you use. Some people use Outlook I got this program called Connect why some people use that some people I have another one they bought called auto test but they got to set it up themselves. It's the same thing. So must have you got to have a frickin product offering already designed. They need to know what the hell they are selling. Okay, and if you guys aren't Core, you can get that define the offering. And we can definitely guide you through. And you guys have probably seen that if your partners already, but more. So what's the sales process look like? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. Don't let your sales people define your sales process, train them on the sales process that you've created or used from us that is proven to move people down the line to get the check. Okay. And you got to remember, when you've seen this very rarely, Jason, do we when we're hiring a salesperson? Do we get somebody from another MSP? That's up on managed services? What are the percentages of that over the hundreds of salespeople we've hired? Literally, probably less than 3%? Yeah, less than 3%. And that's generous. So the sales process for an insurance sales guy is different than the sales process for a financial guy, or a real estate guy, or a computer guy. Okay, so you got to have that sales process defined and ready to go and, and don't put it up to them to create it? Because they don't know they've never been in managed services? How the hell are they gonna know what works or doesn't work? It's true, you know, I've told people this before is that if you expect a sales professional, to figure these things out, they're going to gamify the system for their own benefit to do it. And fundamentally, everything is backwards from day one. From day one, you should know what your product offering is, should know what your margins are, you know what you want to pay on. So that dovetails into the comp plan on what your expectations are. Because as owners and operators, you have expectations for performance to move the business along, and your new salesperson should not be a component of that other than just to bring in new checks? Absolutely. How do they present? Do you already have their slideshow Ready to go? Do they already have the stent the way your other salespeople are presenting? You have to stay very standardized, have that documentation already created? Okay. And then what's the training program look like? You got to have a training program ready to go to teach them about the product offering about the sales process? How do they present? How do they deliver their price? How do they demonstrate products? That's all part of that training program? Do not just work on the fly and winging it. Okay, winging it sucks, bad. And all it really does is it gets your sales person in this fricking sells depression and they spiral down over time. You know, because the first raise you get, remember they, they took this position with you because you sold them. As one of the only things you guys normally do sell, is you sell on how great it is to come work for this company, but then under deliver what it takes to make them successful. Okay, which is what I was just talking about? Absolutely. And I think the last one is you gotta be able to afford this salesperson for a number of months. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's, you want to make sure that you're putting yourself in a position, if you already look at it, from a perspective of what's this guy gonna cost me? Even I told Alex, he's asked, should we hire this guy? And I've told Alex before in the past, this is the sales Pro we need in six months, we need see if we can figure it out now. And he says no, let's talk about it. And so the idea is, you want to make sure that you have this taken care of because if you're going into deficit from day one, then you're expecting a sales Pro to blow it out of the water in the first 30 days when most the time they're still learning in the first 30 days. Yeah, now we're going to talk about how how we can spot somebody that is not going to be successful within the first 30 days. Okay, but put that aside for now. Don't think you're going to hire somebody and he's going to make enough sales to pay his way. You better have that money in the bank. Okay, very, very important. Let's talk about some red flags. Some red flags that we see. When we're actually interviewing and going through and hiring. Do you get a lot of this? I mean, I get a big one where they say, you know, what, commission isn't that important to me? Can you just shoot me a high salary? Do you see that still buy especially right now, which it's and I'm laughing because, you know, I'm, I could do that. But right now, because of the the deluge of talent on the marketplace, there's a lot of people who are pissed off because they got laid off furloughed or whatever, right? So they're looking for some other place to kind of take out that microaggression of I need to make my money in a way or another and I get that that's important. But they're starting to see this rise of people saying, you know, what, just bought my base salary 20%. And, you know, we'll just talk about commission and 2021, making it sound like they're doing their employer favor, and some employers are falling for it because they don't want to start guaranteeing commission. value, but instead it's really setting a bad expectation. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes, you'll see a lot of high salary stuff. It's basically, if I were to, if I were to translate it into their language, it'd be like, Listen, I don't know if I'm going to be with your company for that long. Okay, I'm gonna take it because I don't have any other options out. I'm really not that good at selling. And to be quite honest, I'm I'm I'm put my time in, I'm a lot lazier than I used to be. But I got three kids for car payments and the summer home and another house, I need to make the nut on. So if they need to be taken care of until they can find something else. Now, hey, here's and then on the other side of it. There are people that come off other jobs. And they had a moderate salary, they made a lot of money in commissions. But they know in their mind that starting a new job, they're going to be broke for four months or five months, because they have to run the sales process, and they got to get their funnels filled, and everything else. So all I'm saying is if there's if money is an issue, and they're just wanting that high salary, it's an alert that you need to pay attention to, and find out what the real reason is behind that, because there's nothing wrong with doing a ramp down. Okay, where they started this and then month two, they're at this and then at month three, they're this and at month four, they're this, and then they have their commissions. Okay, so just look at that. What's another red flag you've seen? Obviously, the big thing is, is a disc profile out of whack a person who has the wrong type of psychology for the job. And I mean, there were so much more smart about this. And we worried and 10 years ago, when we started this, which was now we're in the position where we can use data to really predict what type of person is going to perform. But we use talent and understanding sales strategy, disk behavior, we look at motives and driving forces. Predominantly, we can tell with a 15 minute assessment whether a person is going to be a superstar in the first six to nine months, or whether somebody is going to be a drain on your bank account. And it's all the way down to a damn near guarantee nowadays, and you know, you guys have all seen it when you're doing interviews. It's the biggest bullshit session ever. Yeah. You know, I've told you this and you told people this, you expect to be sold in an interview. That's not the issue. But you can tell when you're being bullshitter Yep, absolutely. Because it's not like you're gonna do an interview and they're gonna sit and talk about all their faults. Okay, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm actually the truth be told, you know, I'm applying for this sales interview because I have nothing else left to apply on. But I'm, you know, I'm really a good engineer, but you're not hiring for that. So let me just tell you about how great I am on sales. Okay, but if that disc profile doesn't show those common traits of performing sales people, okay. Yeah, I mean, you can pretty much guarantee that somes not good it's not gonna last and you know what, you've been down this road before you hire against the dis Norfolk every single time you hire get in? No, what happens is, some business owners get in the position of, well, I need it. I don't know. I don't care how I need it. I need what I can get. That's just a dangerous road to go down. I'll tell you what, guys, and we see this a lot, especially when they're paying us to hire them. Guys, when you're hiring us to hire your sales people. Our job is to protect your money and to make sure we don't get the wrong person. I'm not saying that. You know, we hire people and it just always works out because I'd be lying to you. Okay, but we've done everything that we can do to mitigate the risk of failure. So with that being said, Don't fall into this whole thing. I got to get somebody now you know what, he's not the guy I want but I don't know other choices. So you get them because what that means is you're gonna bring this guy on, you're gonna pay him for six months just to watch him quit or you're gonna fire him. And now all you did you still don't have any freakin sales. You burned a shitload of leads. Okay, maybe even painted your name a little bit, but you spent salary to do it. Oh, yeah. Okay, just cut him a check for six months a day one time to get the hell out. At least he didn't hurt your business at all. Um, you know what I've noticed Jason, where I've seen if somebody comes up and I don't like them in the first five minutes, Oh, okay. In the first five minutes and everyone he's like a dickhead. Okay, guess what your clients are gonna think he's addicted to would you not agree? Absolutely. Absolutely. Every every bit of that first impression translates to how your your ideal clients and customers who haven't signed with you're going to receive them. Because you know what, here's what you got to remember the interview. If he's being acting that way He's on his best behavior. Yeah. Okay, so if he's a dickhead on day one, imagine what day 30 looks like. Imagine what day 60 looks like, Okay, he's gonna cross over to douchebag. He's gonna cross over to Narcissus, asshole, whatever it might be. Okay, if he's that way on the first interview, oh, that's the honeymoon, that's when you should see he set the bar, this is the best I'll ever be, he will never be better than what you see that day. Right? And that's how he's gonna think about it. If you're interviewing with him, and you're the boss. If he's treating you this way, what happens the moment you leave the room, what happens when he's the only person in your office and he's taking out in your text, your your, your knock your engineers, your marketers, all the people trying to support this guy, he's beating the hell out of them every time the CEO leaves the room. Not a good fit. We're about to switch over, you get these guys that are more technical than sales. They know a lot about technology. Well, I know a lot about cars, but I shouldn't be a mechanic. I'll tell you that. Right? Because my passion isn't there. My education isn't there. And that's what I give business owners the same advices while the resume may look all technical, he's tech curious knows about all these languages and terminologies and acronyms. That's nice. But where is his education as an experience? Is it in meeting client expectations in closing new deals, because it's very easy for us again, this goes back to not hiring out of desperation, making hiring a strategy, when it's out of desperation, you'll take a technical person and make them a sales Pro, and then you'll fail miserably. Instead, look at it like is this the person that should be selling for me, not the person that I think can sell for me, don't get caught up because he's he's a Cisco certified guy, or he has a plus certifications or whatever. And he knows how to program computers, he knows how to set up networks and see if he wants a job in the technical department. Okay, because just because he knows all that shit does not mean he knows how to sell. It does not mean he can take no for an answer. It does not mean he has the consistency to call call, email, voicemail, email, voicemail, call call call, it does not mean that he can be in front of a CEO and their leaders presenting a million dollar project or a $10,000 a month managed service agreement. So just seek to understand a little more doesn't mean that they're not okay, but a lot of people, because you gotta remember, sometimes you guys will notice we do this for a living you you do this for other living technical technology. Some people have technology as a hobby. Oh, of course. And they want they can't believe that they're going to get to go work for a computer company or a technology company and actually get paid. Okay? But what will happen is if you hire somebody like that, you're gonna see them more in the tech room, you're gonna see a map more hanging out at Tech computer, or I mean, at their customers working on their servers doing shit. And it's not even getting documented in the PSA. It's not even calling the experts on and then they make more mistakes than normal. And they're not calling. They're there. They're not generating curiosity, but they love to work on computer shit. Okay, so just watch it. That's a big red flag. Right now, especially right now there are so many people trying to change career trajectories, because they got laid off for Terminator two, whatever. I'm seeing a lot of people who are technically minded, sales minded or technical minded engineers, who are trying to get into sales because sales is a place to make money, right. And so that's something to be mindful of, especially in today's marketplace. So okay, before I go on some of these other red flags, I got a couple questions that just got texted over. George, I don't really have many Marketing Leads coming in right now. Should I get a marketing program in place first, or, except, or expect the salesperson to drum up their own opportunity? Yeah, so that's a great question. You should always have some sort of marketing going on. Okay? Because what's cool about that is your salesperson First off, it takes a while to get marketing going. Okay, you got to get that momentum going, and you got to stay very consistent with it. And once you're consistent with your marketing program, or your your, your your, your marketing quarterly, shut him up for a loss for words. Like gets fired about marketing because you gotta remember, part of marketing's expectation is lead generation. Okay, right. You're doing it, I can't even think of it. Okay. You got to get your marketing program going. Okay, and then what's gonna what's cool about that is once that consistency happens, you're gonna see you're gonna see that salesperson have somebody to actually call down on. Now Meanwhile, if you if you already have Have a guy coming on, there's nothing wrong with him creating his own marketing, because here's the thing about bringing on a new salesperson. And I do this with all our sales guys get the low hanging fruit, who were his clients before he worked for you. Okay, there's tons of cold calling that he can do that's really not cold calling, but warm calling, okay? And warm call say, hey, guess what, you know what I am no longer with so and so. I am no, I am with this company. And this is what we do. Okay, so he can spend time doing that. And then, okay, meanwhile, you got your marketing going on. And you can start getting them to call down on people that are responding to Facebook posts, replying to emails, okay, or doing whatever you got going on there. Okay, campaigns, the your mark your quarterly marketing campaigns. Thanks, brandy. Could you use that a minute ago? Okay, so get your marketing campaigns going, there should always be something going for marketing campaigns. Okay, Sandy, what do you use to track commissions? Oh, my gosh. Okay, so first off, you got to be able to run a report from your accounting department to see what hardware sold and what the profitability is, and all of that. But if you get on core, we have a commission calculator on there based off of our best practices on paying commissions. In fact, Brandy, we should probably set up another webinar, okay, on paying commissions, and then we can go through that. But I will tell you, guys, this whole commission thing is so freakin important. All right, do not have fast do this. Because a salesperson is going to base his relationship with the company he works for on how well you guys can pay commissions. And does it make sense? companies all the time, just throw this bullshit commission thing together. And then they're paying off the salesperson salesperson is getting rich, the company's getting poor, because the commission structure doesn't make any sense. So then the company says, Oh, hold on, I told you, you had to do this and do this and you're doing it. But you know what, we're paying you too much. All of a sudden, that's, that's gonna, you're gonna start turning off your salespeople. But look at the commission structure that we have set in core, and it'll track them, it'll print reports, your sales, people can go in there and see where they're out on commissions. They can rate themselves. with everybody in the company, and soon with other sales people that are on core as well. It's gonna be epic. But first look at that, check that out. Okay. And what is the average quota for a cell center? Oh, that Sandy. Okay, quotas. Again, this is something we need to do on the commission webinar. But I will tell you every quota is different. Because first off, you got to understand, you can't just throw a number out of your pulled number out of your ass and say, Hey, you need to meet this. Because what if they need it? And you don't have the resources to support the quota that you're asking for? First, in order to come up with quotas? You have to you have to come up with what your budget is? What's the budget of the company? What are we expecting in revenues to meet that budget? And what's the second quarter third quarter fourth quarter look like? What have you set up a quota for $1,000 a month, and they need to meet that. But yeah, that doesn't even pay your bills. So it's a number for, that's different for every company. Now we can help you with that. If you need some help, and you want to meet with somebody, we can show you how we do that definitely reach out to us. But don't just come up with a number because my quarters might be different than your quotas. Okay. My operating costs are different your quota is based on on, you know, what's that nut you guys have to meet? Okay, I got another one here, Chuck. I have failed in the past trying to wear all the hats, including managing a salesperson. full transparency is I know, I'm not the best person to manage. But do you have a recommend sales manage courses to help out? Well, the good thing is, is that that's not an uncommon challenge to have, Chuck, we do hear that a lot. We've been hearing that more for the last several years. And what that tells me is is that you found yourself in a position of reaching out for help. That's good. There's a lot of executives and business owners that that fail infinitely. And they don't understand why and so we have a great amount of material inside of core. And so if your core user obviously check it out and but also reach out to us and let us know if you need more in depth help. We have helped businesses in the past and making sure that we can take the load for sales management off of you so you can get back to running a business. Absolutely. And you got to remember that first off, it makes zero sense for you to hire a sales manager if you just have one salesperson. Okay, it also makes zero sense to not manage them because they need to be held accountable. And you got to remember management is about 50% holding 50% accountability. 50% training, that's what management is about. So my recommendation to you, just like what you recommend to your clients, don't do your own it Mr. Client hire professionals like us, where we can do it for a lot cheaper than you hiring an IT guy. Well, guess what? char tech manages salespeople get in get involved find out about our premium membership where we meet with your sales people every week, we hold them accountable. We train them and and report back to you. It's it's epic. And the ones the customers that do that. are our partners that do that see much more success than trying to do it themselves. Think I have one more on here. Jim, do you recommend having a hunter and farmer or can I have someone to do both roles? I admit I talked about that in the beginning. And Jim, I don't know if you saw it, but it depends on eventually you need to get to a point where you got to have one of each because you'll get one person that will excel in one. Well, they'll do both, okay, until they start getting busy. Then they'll start favoring hunting, or they'll start favoring farming. Okay, and at that point in the game is when you have to make a decision. Is this guy a hunter, right? Or is this guy a farmer? Yep. Because I'll tell you this is that it is and I've recruited for companies who've said, You know what, I need a farmer who can hunt. And I totally get that I need a hunter who can farm but I also say, you know, I'm willing to find this person on the contingency that you monitor this after month, six and nine of the first year because they're going to tell you pretty quickly through performance, which one they really are. And then when they tell you listen to them. Yeah, totally. Another red flag. Any line during the resume any dishonesty on the resume or that you catch them in is a major red flag. You see that a lot? Oh, I see it every day. So resumes are like eHarmony profiles, you get to be anybody in them, right? And so Omar's laughing, but it's the truth. Anybody can be anybody they want to be in a resume. And I have seen amazing lies inside of resumes. And the biggest thing to look at, especially for salespeople, the best place to find salespeople to verify their information is their LinkedIn profile. And I'll tell you this, most of the time, the best salespeople have the same information on both the people are trying to get something over on you and you can tell they're trying to be dishonest, have two completely different lives from LinkedIn to their resume. And it shows you from the jump before even column that they're trying to trying to pull something over on. Yeah, absolutely. And if they're lying now just know they're gonna be lying to your customers are going to be lying to their managers. It's a bad deal all the way around, we actually get an immediate it's an immediate disqualification for us. Oh, we got another question. Susie, what are your top three things you look for in a resume? Why don't I turn that over to you? My top three things are probably going to be different than Jason's top three. Okay, me. I love talking to references that said, Oh my god, I wish I didn't have to. I wish this guy would still work for me. I really screwed up. I wish he didn't have to move. I wish he didn't. I wish we didn't have to lay him off. He was amazing. His quotas were met all the time. I mean, for me, that's freaking awesome. And then the second thing is, is he calls me he can walk me through his sales process, okay, of what he did for the current place that he worked. And he might say, what sales process? What are you talking about? He's an asshole. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay, but if they can walk me through their sales process, and then give me the answers. When I say Well, what do you say when a client says you cost too much too much money? or How did you give a demo? or How did you get appointments? If they have great answers to that you can really identify a true sales person. And you know, he's got to be open to getting trained because I got to tell you, when I do an interview, it really sucks. I'm a sales trainer. That sumbitch is getting judged from the minute we say hello, and I have yet to this day interviewed a salesperson that does things my way in the way I teach. Okay, so I already know right off the hand, he's gonna have a shitload of wrong, wrong answers. But I look at him is he trainable? Is this guy trainable? And is does is he open to doing things the way I want things about you? Well, the first thing that is especially in today's marketplace is unexplained gaps in the resume Oh sure. And even know and now we say that's a common thing when in fact it is but in sales professionals the best sales professionals go from one opportunity to the next to the next as sales professionals got to here's where the gap and he said they're going well bro I just had to find myself that's nice. Find yourself at the DMV, I'm not hiring you. So the other day big gaps in employment, okay, but they're saying what are the top three things you look for that's unexplained gaps and anomaly. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. So if there's none if there's no, okay. Okay, the other thing I look for is I need a constant acceleration up the ladder. If a person has been a dialer, and a dialer and a dialer, and they're looking for a sales executive position, except they've never had the experience of doing it, then they're trying to use my money, our money as it were to learn on the job. And if the opportunity fits that I'm interested, but if this is an opportunity that needs somebody to start within the first 60 days of performing and getting things done, it may not be a good fit. So I'm looking for experience matching the opportunity I have open. And the third thing I'm looking for, obviously, is self investment. If a sales professional is really not trying to invest, and they're just kind of rolling by the down the river checkout floating by, but they're kind of letting things happen to them. That's a clear indicator of how they're looking for their next employer to treat them. I need to see that person's reading that they're trying to take some Udemy courses, something show me that you're trying to make your way up your professional ladder without asking your employer to pay for it. Do yourself investment by doing that, you're telling me you're setting yourself apart from everybody else, which is something we expect salespeople to do set yourself apart from everybody else. And that shows me that they're willing to accept a different type of dialogue in the interview and also be treated differently in the workplace. Yeah, you know, those are all great. And if you think about this on the self investment, ask them say, hey, what are your reader? What's your favorite book? Yeah, come on. You know, if they say 50 Shades of Grey, you know, they're they they're not in tune to making themselves feel better. Okay, if they say, you know what, I really enjoy Dale Carnegie. I really like reading start with why Stephen Covey's a good guy. Ask them what their biggest ask him what their biggest takeaway is from the book. Okay, and hear the conversation you're having you can tell if somebody's bullshitting you or not, based on their answers on what they said they read, okay? Or maybe it's even education classes that they take. All right, if they've taken the chart tech sales lab, you hire that sumbitch especially if they got through us. Okay, cuz we don't graduate half as people. All right, um, we're running out of time. And you know what, Brandi I let me see, oh, unemployed, another red flag? Oh, yeah. I mean, understandably, if they're coming from a bout of unemployment, and I mean, unemployment, like they were released, it's been six months, and they can't find an opportunity, a great salesperson can find their way into another opportunity. But a bad salesperson is going to have a hell of a time convincing people to take a chance on them. And honestly, if they haven't been able to find a job in that amount of time, there's a damn good reason why. And if your competitors won't have them, listen to that. That's something big to listen to. Yeah, totally. And it. And there's guys, there's exceptions. Absolutely. For every rule, I mean, you know, he had to move to a different state because of health reasons, or his wife or his grandma, a big company does a major layoff or they went out of business for whatever bullshit reason, just seek to understand, you know why it is, but you got to remember in sales, man, there are sales guys out there that'll apply, and they figure they can bullshit you for three to six months before you figure out how worthless they are. And all they're doing is they're living on these salaries. And that's why Jason was saying if you see gaps, most of the time, the gaps aren't because they didn't work. The gaps are because they had five jobs in that year and a half or two years. And they know that looks like shit. So they don't, they said, Yeah, I had to find myself. Yeah, I'm sure you did. Okay, so there's always reasons just seek to understand. Because at the end of the day, think about your company, no matter how bad things are, would you let your best salesperson go? He would probably be the last one that you would let go. Okay, Brandy, here's what we need to do. We got to do a part two to this. Because Because I want to do this was part one, part two, I would love to do if you guys think if you don't want to listen to this shit, we don't have to, but I think it's gonna be great. Part Two on actually diving into the interview. Okay, and then maybe a part three on what do we do when they're hired? Okay, once you guys are hire somebody because that's where most of the failure happens. And it's not what the salesperson most of the failure happens when you hire somebody and then you fail what you need to continue doing to ensure his success and then part four let's do Commission's Yeah, that'd be a great idea. I think that would be epic and great. So guys, um, a couple of things I want to hit you on since I have your have your attention here. First off, I hope you enjoyed this. If you guys are interested in learning Jason and myself help with your next hiring venture have a salesperson. It's epic. Okay. We will do whatever we got. To do to protect your money, because not only will we hire them, but we'll hold them accountable, tell you when we need to fire them if they do need to be fired, and then put them through our entire training process, the entire training roadmap, and then bring them out to bigger scale for, for our sales lab and graduate them, and have them hit the ground running for you. Because what you don't want to do is go out this half ass, because you know, me and Jason, were talking about this earlier, the challenge with hiring a salesperson. Unlike a lot of other positions within your companies, it's very hard to find failure because they have to, you need to give them so much time to build their funnel and so forth. Like, for example, a technician, a technician comes into the interview and he says, I know how to do this, I've done this, I'm certified in this, I can set up this type of server, I know all about migrating to the cloud, the end of the day, that very next day, he works for you. You can tell if he's full of shit or not. He's either doing it or he isn't going to do it. salesperson can bullshit you prayed a long, long time and give you this false sense of hope that dollars in gold is going to fall out of the clouds for you at any moment. Oh, yeah. And the idea is, is that nowadays, there's no reason to do things the hard way anymore. There really isn't. Especially when you're partnered with companies just like us. Well, once we've set a platinum standard for hiring salespeople, nobody can touch. And we've gone a step further by telling you guys that we can help you with it. So there's no real reason to suffer or struggle in this process. When you've got us ready to go. I'll tell you what I've been I've had my MSP for a long time. 92 is when I started it. And char tech we started in 2010 became a corporation. So that's 10 years ago, but did it two years before that. I have been screwed over by the best of them in my time growing up and learning. Okay, I have seen it a lot of things. I've made a ton of mistakes. I have a lot of success. So there's no reason for you guys to feel that same pain. Okay, utilize us watch our videos on core, go through this stuff. Ask us questions. Bring us on outsources let us do some work for you. Because we will get you past that bullshit expensive as learning hump. Okay, and get you on the road to getting some more deals. Because Jason, I'll tell you, I mean, when Jason finds a good sales guy, he's like a little girl, he skips down the hallway. So excited, because there's nothing better than bringing somebody on. Okay, that can close deals and help that company get moved forward. And as an owner, I love it when I'm fishing or I'm doing something and I get a text that says Hey, boss just closed the deal. And I didn't even know who it was. I was like, Who was it? And they'll be like, Oh, so and so I'm like, Oh, I didn't know they were even in the pipe. Yeah, I've been working on for a few weeks now. How much was it? 5000 a month. I mean, that to me is epic. And if you can wash, rinse and repeat that. And that's, that's a neat feeling. And that's why you started your MSP is to help grow it in a way that above what you can do. by yourself. Oh, we got another question. No, just for the next. Oh, okay. So we're gonna do Part two is going to be Thursday, June 11. Okay. Oh, wait. Next Thursday at 10am is good or next. Which one is it? Thursday? Oh, okay. Yeah. Does she Okay, June 11. Thursday at 10am. We're gonna do part two. Okay. And then you can probably expect part three and Part Four to follow. I think that'd be really really good. Guys, I don't see any other questions. Brandy. Are we clear? man? Hey, guys, good luck. Let's capitalize on this whole challenge of all this help and resources that are out there for us to capture and maybe bring on and we can turn the second half of 2020 around and and and make it worth bragging about in 2021? Absolutely. This is your time to make the rest of this year count like the first black first half of the year didn't so this is what we get to do. Yeah, no shit. All right. Thanks, guys. Take care. See you soon. "