James Godfrey’s Post

This infuriates me too Brandon Fluharty 🐝. Just another example of how leaders are losing touch in remote and hybrid work environments. When leaders lack intimacy with their team and the work they do, they revert back to reactively managing by spreadsheets/reports/KPIs. The universal infatuation with AI, Automation and "Activity, activity, activity!!!" (akin to the SNL "I need more cowbell" skit) is a big part of this. There is a new leadership playbook required for remote/hybrid work teams. Organizations that develop these NEW leadership skills are winning the talent battle. The good news is the rep who was at 61% of quota and 329% of their activity target just got promoted to Sales Director. ✌️

Sales leaders need to put an end to this MADNESS. Here's a strategic seller who was put on a PIP after hitting 166% of his $1.2M quota because he didn't hit the required "activity metrics.” There’s a better way to lead: It's simple... Stop treating knowledge professionals like factory workers. Specialized knowledge, building networks, and embracing tech innovation are more important growth levers than measuring activity inputs. This is especially true for strategic sellers. If you're leading sellers who have to engage with multiple executives at large companies and you're scrutinizing their "activity metrics,” I suggest you do an audit of your management style. Here are 3 great places to start: 1. WHO DO YOU WORK FOR? The average tenure of a VP of Sales is 17 months (down from 26 mos in 2010, per Gong). You’re in a high-pressure position, so it’s a good time to think about who you *truly* work for if this trend has any chance to reverse. Instead of thinking of your board and C-Suite as your bosses, what if you flipped the model on its head? This is known as Inversion Thinking. Instead of: “What do I need to show people at the top to keep my job?” Ask: “What can I do to help the people below me reach their full potential?” 2. WHAT IS THE MEASURE OF SUCCESS? Is the team you lead given a revenue quota or something else? Businesses need revenue to survive and grow… Not more meetings on the calendar. So why over-index on activity inputs if the important outcomes are being surpassed? This is known as Linearity Bias, the assumption that a change in one quantity produces a proportional change in another. More calls, emails, and meetings ≠ more revenue. Instead of chastising reps who are over quota but under activity, try deconstructing their unique approach and giving them a platform to share it with the rest of the team. Viewing sellers like this as “lucky” will limit your growth and tenure. 3. HOW MUCH TRUST DO YOU HAVE? “We had 2 reps put in their notice this week, and I know 2 more who are about to resign.” This was verbatim from a Strategic Account AE I spoke with last week at a Series D startup. Why? Because their senior sales team must participate in 2 cold call blitzes each week in addition to 80 outbound outreaches. “We feel like glorified SDRs. 1,000 calls have produced 10 meetings, a 1% return.” They’re fed up and burned out…so they’re leaving. If a tenured seller leaves tomorrow, what’s the cost of finding, vetting, onboarding, and training a new seller? What's the cost of lost momentum with existing pipeline? If you’re leading with activity and not strategy, I guarantee you don’t have trust in your sales team. As we enter the 2nd half of 2024, I encourage you to think differently. The era of 17 months tenure, <40% quota attainment, and 63% of sellers experiencing burnout doesn’t have to continue. You can be the change. 🐝 Strategic sellers, there's a better way: https://buff.ly/3noPjbn

I couldn’t agree with this more. I’ve had a sales leader that was 100% activity driven rather than results driven. It created a snowball effect where the sales team kept missing quota quarter after quarter and nobody wanted to dig deep enough to pinpoint the cause. As a sales leader, look at closed business and who is able to do that the quickest and easiest, secondly, look to those who qualify their prospects best, moving pipeline the smoothest. Don’t be that leader that bases KPI’s on who is adding the most meetings on a calendar.

Looking to raise the quota game? Deep sales skills are where it's at.💡💼 Here's how sales leaders can embed this winning strategy into their teams: 1️⃣ Shift the Coaching Paradigm: Swap out pipeline interrogation for impact interrogation. Direct conversations to customer-centric questions such as, "How does this sale elevate the client's operations?" 🤝 This nudges your team to delve into the value they're genuinely offering, fostering meaningful customer interactions over simple transactions. 2️⃣ Embrace Long-term Account Vision: It's about quality, not just the quarter ahead. Encourage strategic account selections that promise high potential. 🎯 Dive into dialogue about indicators of a promising account, like swift hiring or a network brimming with warm leads. This long view cements a deep selling mindset that prioritizes relationship building. 3️⃣ Prioritize Industry Insight: Cultivate a culture of market-savvy sellers. Regularly prompt discussions on industry trends and customer challenges. 🌐 By understanding the terrain their customers navigate, your team can converse with relevance and authority, forging trust and urgency in dealings. Remember, deep sellers don't just meet their quotas, they often surpass them while enriching their customer relationships. 🚀 For more insights, nab a copy of 'Deep Sales: The B2B Sales Playbook to Boost Revenue in 2024' and propel your team to winning habits. Eager to discuss more on deep sales techniques or offer up your thoughts? Let's start the chat below! 🗨️💬 #DeepSales #SalesStrategy #CustomerValue

Something I developed nearly 14 years ago and just recently realized that I haven't done a very good job of sharing with the community at large but has been critical to my ability to hire high-performing sales people. Early in my sales management career two things had become obvious to me: 1) hiring the right sales people was the key to this working, and 2) I had no idea how to do that. Turns out, most people, no matter how experienced, are in a similar boat - the best get it right maybe 50% of the time. Around that time there was a book released by the Sales Research Institute called The Challenger Sale. I'm an analytical, data-driven guy and the methodology of this book spoke to me - rather than pretending that they had the answer and filling 200 pages with justification (as many business books do, as we all well know), they started instead with a question..."are there common behaviors that all successful sales people have in common?" It turns out the answer to that question is yes (well...it's more complicated than that and I would definitely recommend giving the book a quick read). Essentially, for OEM-style solutions sales, there are a defined set of behaviors that successful sales people share and for transactional, distributor-type sales there are another, completely different set of behaviors that work. As luck would have it, the company I was working for was onboarding Predictive Index at the time and eventually something clicked in my mind... The Sales Research Institute just spend 8 years, studying 7,000 sales professionals and created a list of behaviors that lead to success. PI is a tool that identifies job-related behaviors... 6 months later, after working hand-in-hand with the PI group, we had a template of what a PI profile for a successful Challenger sales person would look like. Long story short, I was a bit skeptical - I thought maybe we could go from a 50% hit rate to 60% or 65% (and that would have been a big win for us). 14 years later and over 20 hires on and that model has NEVER FAILED TO PRODUCE AN A PLAYER in the sales market. I am still pinching myself, and somehow continue to bat 1.000 at something I never thought was possible. For me, having always worked for small to mid-sized companies, this is the key to success. Perhaps, GM can afford to miss now and again but we often have sales teams of one or two people - we cannot get it wrong. And now we don't! If you're interested in learning more about this, just reach out to me - I'm always happy to share what I've learned. Final word of caution, and hopefully this makes sense, not all great sales people are Challengers...but all Challengers are great sales people.

Got a sales dud? Want a sales superstar?🌟 That’s the dream - hire a star performer and sit back and watch the magic🪄 Guess what? It doesn’t work like that. The reality is more like - hire a sales superstar and leave them to fail in your business. Want to stop making that mistake? Want to turn that frown upside down? “Ask me how” (who remembers those bumper stickers?) Here’s your situation: - You can sell. You want to grow. - You hire a rep - now you’re selling and managing a rep. - A little hiring and firing and you get one that sort of works. - You lost revenue through that process as you got distracted. - You hire another - now you are selling and managing 2 reps. - You end up with a team that are not star performers. - You’re still selling and now managing a team. - You are frustrated and don't know how to fix it. Something’s gotta give. - Here’s a case study and one key action you can take immediately. What we did👇 Step 1 - Diagnosis of where the sales team is at - everything they do as a sales team Step 2 - Comparison to a benchmark of attributes of a high performance sales team Step 3 - Workshops to fast track closing the biggest gaps to the benchmark Step 4 - Entrench the new way of working & mentor the reps Step 5 - Enjoy the benefits of a team of star performers. - Here's three truths, one action and three rules 👇 Truth 1 - Unmanaged sales reps will create their own way of working.  Truth 2 - You must take ownership of how the sales team functions. Truth 3 - Most sales meetings are a rabble and just go around the table. Action 1 - Run better sales meetings ✅ Three rules for better sales meetings Rule 1 - Take control of time and content Rule 2 - Only give air time to facts and actions that shift the dial Rule 3 - Focus on the wins. Focus on facts. Stop talking about who they had coffee with during the week. Our preferred sales meeting agenda that focuses on the stars not the flops is in the comments📌 P.S. What do you hate most about sales meetings? P.P.S. Can you remember the brand that had those bumper stickers?.

Sales Leader: “Here’s your laptop, your quota, your territory. Excited to have you onboard” Sales Leader 7 months later: “You’re fired” ✌️ Not all ramp times should be created equal A sales rep starting in Minnesota should not have the same expectation as the rep starting in NY. The rep starting in an emerging territory with 5 existing customers should not have the same expectations as a new rep starting in a developed territory with 50 existing customers. And yet this is pretty common at tech startups. The developed territory rep has 45 more chances to cross/upsell right from the jump. Unfortunately at most companies, a new rep starting is compared to every other new rep. “How’s Jonny doing?” Typical question you’ll get about someone who started a few months ago. A tycial response is “They’re doing ok from what I can see. Still early. We’ll have a better idea around the 6 month mark.” That leader then starts to look at Johnny from Minnesota a little closer. Then starts to compare Johnny to Stacy who started her role in NY around the same time. Then compares Johnny to Chris in San Fran who started 4 months ago. Seems like Johnny isn’t doing as well as the others who started the same time as Johnny. The tune quickly changes to “I’m not sure if Johnny is going to make it here” A little while later - Next thing you know - bye bye Johnny. Unfortunately, Johnny could have been doing great for his territory and was about to start contributing meaningful revenue. You could be letting go TOP talent because of unrealistic or ambiguous expectations. They may not be selling as much as your main market reps but could be well ahead of schedule for that specific territory. So how do you create ramped quotas across your team that gives you a better idea of how well new reps are really ramping up? Here are a 3 things to consider: 1. Define Emerging and Developed territories based on data. It can be under X existing customers, average tenure in their territory, average deals per Q, etc 2. Now look at historical data to determine the average amount sold within the first 90 days in an Emerging Territory. Do the same for Developed Territories. Do the same for the second 90 days. 3. Repeat step 2 for pipeline, F2F meetings, etc Now you have a more realistic benchmark of where Johhny should be after 90 and 180 days. If Johnny is behind the 90 day plan - that’s the time to get him some more help. Much better than waiting 180 days to realize Johnny is far behind and probably wont work out. Help ensure Johnny works out. He’s a good dude that just happens to live in Minnesota. I’m sure Minnesota is great. It’s just not New York. So don’t expect it to be. #TOP #sales #territories

Perspective is key.

If you're in sales, here's how to save yourself a decade of pain. The first decade of my career looked like this: - Age 22: College dropout as a socially anxious introvert - Age 26: Constantly hustled (day job as an Account Manager and a 2nd job at night as a DJ just to pay the rent in NYC) - Age 28: Filed for bankruptcy - Age 32: Landed in the hospital with a mini-stroke I was constantly reacting to my circumstances and then grinding away to play catch up. Over time, however, I slowly learned to unsubscribe from the hustle culture that was so pervasive in SaaS sales (you know, the “rise and grind” mentality) and adopted a more human-centered approach to my work. At the heart of it was embracing design thinking, which helped me make more purposeful decisions and connect the dots between my long-term ambitions and the small actions I needed to take each day. And what an impact it made in the 2nd half of my corporate sales career: - Age 38: Paid off my house in full - Age 39: Reached the 7-figure earners club for the first time (and repeated 3x in a row) - Age 41: Able to purchase a 2nd place in downtown Chicago - Age 42: Retired from the corporate world to become a digital creator Today, I stay connected to the “frontlines” by working closely with a handful of enterprise and strategic tech sellers. Sadly, through their experiences, I haven’t seen much improvement in sales environments over the past few years. In fact, in many ways, the industry is moving in the wrong direction. I’ve been vocal on LinkedIn about these issues facing most strategic SaaS sales teams today, but unfortunately, a lot of leaders refuse to let go of their tight grip on operating the “old way.” My observations have concluded that this is based on 3 main culprits: 1/ FEAR. Constant pressure from the top doesn’t allow leaders to experiment with alternative approaches. 2/ DATA. ”Activity” metrics are easier to measure and create incentives around than “impact” metrics (which require a bit more patience and going deeper with prospects and customers). 3/ OVERWHELM. A lot of leaders are simply ill-equipped to manage high-performance teams and revert to old ways of thinking when there’s simply too much on their plate. Design thinking, however, puts the human at the center of everything (whether it is the customer or the individual seller), and it improves the experience in every regard. It’s the basis for developing a strong personal operating system. I share this better way here: https://buff.ly/3R6dus1 🐝 P.S. Be sure to subscribe while you’re there and new tips drop every Wednesday morning.