Authentic Persuasion Show

[E50] Q&A Week: Sales Manager related questions – Round 2

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Another round of Sales Management questions. In this

episode, I answer:

  • How transparent should I be with the business
numbers? (challenge can be that employees will see the top line number and
think they should be paid more, but they don’t realize all the costs – staff,
overhead, marketing)
  • Should I cap the commission of my salespeople so
they don’t unfairly earn more than my other workers?
  • Marketing is sending us leads that we can’t
close. I talked to the owner about it but he doesn’t believe me. What should I
do? My team is getting upset.

If you have any sales or mindset related questions, send

me a message through the contact page
or via LinkedIn.

Episode 50 – Transcript

In

this episode I answer more sales manager related questions to try to help out
the people listening who are leading sales teams, as well as give insight to
sales reps into what their managers might be thinking.

Welcome

to Episode 50 of The Sales Experience Podcast. I’m super excited, because 50 is
kind of a milestone number no matter what you’re doing, big 50. I had
originally started this podcast with the goal no matter what, no matter how it
goes, no matter if anybody listens, or no one listens, my goal was to do 100
episodes.

And

just see from there, if I was enjoying the process, if it was fun for me, if
the feedback was good, if it was making any kind of impact with any sales
people, or any managers or any businesses listening. And I’m halfway to that
goal, I’m having a blast, I’m having fun. Hopefully, you are as well. I’m
really enjoying these question and answer style formats, because it’s letting
me talk.

Now,

the one downside, and I apologize for everyone who’s expecting 10 minutes or
less, which is my expectation that I is that sometimes I get on a roll like
yesterday, literally eight and a half minutes, I think it was to answer one
question. And so sometimes I’m getting over the 10 minute going to 11ish
minutes. And for that, I semi-apologize, hopefully, it’s still valuable.

If

you’re like me, you listen at the podcast at one and a half speed anyway. And
it’s only taken me five-ish minutes to get through it and so it’s really not
that bad.

But

I’m going to try to keep it shorter if I can, and keep giving these podcasts
all the tension, value, effort that I can, and hopefully you’re appreciating it
back. So, let’s jump into some questions and see how many I can get through
today. So this is sales manager related.

The

first one, which I’ve seen a lot is how transparent should I be with the
business numbers?

Like

how much should I share with my sales reps, with my staff? It could be non
sales related, how much do you share with them, how much you share with
everybody? And I think there is a tough balance.

Because

if you know me, if you’ve listened to these episodes, you know me, I’m all
about transparency, full disclosure, full honesty. But it’s tough from a
business perspective because if you go full disclosure and honesty with all of
the business numbers, unless you’re a public company, and you’ve got to share
it.

One

of the challenges is that a lot of employees, a lot of sales reps, and some of
your sales reps listen to this might have seen this before, felt this come up,
is you look at the top line number that a business or management or ownership
is sharing and you look at that big number and you go, I should be making more,
we should be making more.

Why

aren’t we making more? Why are we getting more commissions? Why aren’t there
more bonuses? Why aren’t we taking more trips? Why aren’t there free food in
the dining room for lunch? Why aren’t we getting fed all the time?

And

the thing is, is that a lot of people don’t realize all the expenses, all the
costs, the overhead, you know, the rent, the healthcare, and then there’s the
staff cost, then there’s marketing. If you’re in the sales team, and you’re
enjoying your nice, luxurious inbound calls, from some source, there was money
that was spent to generate that.

And

so when it comes to this question, from a business side, how much should you
share, I think it’s important to share it as long as the culture of the company
understands everything that’s involved and/or you show them that accounting, so
they understand at the end of the day.

Now,

that may not make sense and so really, what’s important is show the
transparency of what the sales team is doing, everything that’s involved and
how they’re doing it. Because here’s the fundamental thing, the smart people in
your group, the people who can do the math, and run some Excel formulas are
already calculating and figuring out how much the business makes because they
know how much they’re selling, they know how much everyone else is selling and
they can do the numbers.

So

you might as well be transparent, have a conversation with them, share whatever
you can that make sense, and helps everyone see when it’s going well, and when
it’s not going well. And then also, hopefully, you also believe in sharing that
with the people. So, sharing some of that winning with everyone such that they
are winning when the company’s winning by some fractions.

Now,

the thing is, is that as a business owner or a sales manager, you know that the
risk is on the company side and you can’t share it all. But I believe in a fair
amount of disclosure and the right people who want to stay, the right people
who want to win, and the right people will know that they’re getting paid well
as they’re winning and it will do well.

If

you have the wrong people or it’s more of a commodity sale or it’s a commodity
sales team or people just come and go a lot, then it’s probably a lot less
transparency because it’s not such a long term thing for the people you have in
play.

All

right, next question which I’ve seen this one in play. I’ve only seen a few
people ever ask it, but I’ve seen this play out, which is should I cap the
commission of my salespeople, so they don’t unfairly earn more than my other
workers?

And

this is always one of those battles. Salespeople end up being some of the
highest paid people within an organization. And it can be a struggle sometimes
when customer service or processing or collections or somebody else isn’t
making as much, and they don’t feel that’s fair.

Now,

the argument to that always is, hey, if you want to get on the phone, and you
want to sell go ahead, and most of those other people realize they would rather
do anything in the world than to get on the phone and sell and they’re usually
okay with it.

Now,

should you cap your sales people? That really depends on your product, on your
service, on your on your fee structure, what that looks like. I think it’s
always important to make sure that your sales people don’t hit a ceiling or a
limit or they stop working. If you cap commissions, then there could be a point
where your top reps are then just cruising.

They’re

on cruise control, because they’ve hit the ceiling and there’s no real reason
for them to keep busting their ass, and trying harder because whatever it is in
that day, in that week, in that month, the quarter, whatever it is, they’ve hit
that ceiling in that period. And there’s no reason to do any extra work short
of sandbagging and lining things up for the next period where they can
instantly win, and then they’ll go into cruise control again. So, it’s
important not to cap it.

Now,

obviously, you want to make it relative, you want to make sure the company’s
still winning. But if you’ve got someone at a LeBron James, Steph Curry, Tom
Brady caliber player who can win and keep winning and keep on winning, there’s
no reason to cap what they’re earning if they’re still giving the company
value.

All

right. Question number three, marketing is sending us leads, we can’t close. I
talked to the owner about it and he doesn’t believe me, what do I do? My team
is getting upset.

So,

good question from a sales manager who’s in that constant struggle that you see
a lot in organizations, where it’s sales versus marketing, sales versus ops,
sales versus somebody else it always seems like. And really what can you do in
this situation?

The

key is with this is you want to make sure there’s a strong relationship between
sales and marketing. Both of them need each other, both of them will tend to
point the finger at the other group for any failures that are taking place. And
it’s really upon ownership and top level leadership to bridge that gap, to
bring both parties together, put them in alignment, and have them both working
towards the same goals instead of different goals.

And

of course, one side will always think the other one can’t function without
them. “Well, marketing needs us because we’re sales. And if we don’t close
their deals, then they don’t have anything. And then marketing is saying,
“Well, if sales didn’t have our leads, they wouldn’t have anything to close so
they need us.”

So,

everyone always feels self centered, like the other group, other party needs
them. However, for things to grow, for groups to be successful, for teams to
win, for the company to win; it is important to settle that aside and play on
the same team.

Instead

of its marketing versus sales, its sales and marketing versus the world. That’s
really what it’s about. Upper level leadership, ownership needs to bring those
two groups together. And my suggestion always is that somewhere in the org
chart, at the top of the sales and marketing pyramid, is somebody who’s in
charge of both and not just the owner.

The

owners in charge of everything, and is busy with everything depending on the
size of the organization. But somebody needs to be a VP of Sales and Marketing,
or the CMO who’s also in charge of sales. Wherever it is, there needs to be
somebody who’s bridging that gap, the one person in charge of both, and then
they can bring everyone together.

Because

unfortunately, if that’s not the case, it will always be the VP of Sales versus
the VP of Marketing, unless it falls under one person. If that’s the case, it’s
just going to be a constant battle for the whole time that you’re in that
organization.

Now,

does that mean you should stop? Does that mean you should quit? No, you just
have to keep that in mind and always be able to have the data and the facts to
back up everything you say. Here’s the challenge with salespeople, salespeople,
and again, if you’re a sales leader listening to this, you already know this or
you might not know this because this might apply to you.

Sales

reps, you know this as well, but salespeople sales managers who used to be
sales reps, they’re really good at selling. They’re really good at explaining
things, talking about things and their goal is to persuade the other party,
whether they have data or not.

I’ve

had a lot of sales managers who have worked for me, I’ve seen a lot of sales
managers at organizations who just want to get their way and want to sell
management, sell the owner on why it’s not their fault, or why it’s somebody
else’s fault, or why it’s not their responsibility, or they’re not accountable.
And it’s all about sales, but not the data to back it up.

So,

my number one tip to sales manager, sales leaders out there is make sure you
have the data. If marketing is sending you 100 leads, and you can’t close any
of them, have the data and not just they sent us 100 and we can’t close any of
them and pointing the finger. But here’s the 100, here’s the breakdown, here’s
the qualifications for each one, here’s why they weren’t a pre-qualified lead,
or a market qualified, a sales qualified lead. Like here’s what was missing
from all those 100 people. And here’s why this doesn’t work and here what we
need instead.

So,

instead of pointing the finger, blaming, and trying to sell your way out of why
it’s all your fault, have the data to back it up, and then have solutions or
adjustments of what could be done and what would help.

And

when you dive into that data, you’re going to find times where you look at it
and you go, “Wait a second, they send us 100 leads, my reps only called 50 of
them. The other 50 they never even called back, they never even got in touch
with they didn’t follow up with.” That’s not marketing’s fault. That’s my
fault. That’s our responsibility as a sales team.

And

so you may find as you’re diving through the data, it’s partially marketing,
partially sales. That will really bridge the gap too if you can step back from
the sales tendency, the ego side that everyone has, where it’s like, “Hey, I’m
not at fault here.” And you can look at the numbers and you can present that
clearly to the people above you. Whether it’s your responsibility or not, that
will really help, that will go a long way because you can’t dispute the facts.

You

can’t dispute what happened with the marketing, what happened with the leads,
what did the sales reps do with it, and whatever story that shows whatever
picture that paints, that will be the truth, and then upper level ownership,
they can make decisions from there and that’s the best way to bridge that gap.

Just

bring the truth, bring the data. Don’t bring stories, don’t bring sales, don’t
bring persuasion, don’t bring excuses, just bring the facts and then go from
there remembering that the goal is to work together as a team and help the
company win and be successful.

That’s

it for another episode. Episode 50 is in the books. It’s done, finishes out
another week. This is week nine of the sales experience podcast. Again, make
sure to subscribe, rate review, send me comments, send me feedback. I love
hearing from people and as always remember that everything in life is sales and
people will remember the experience you gave them.

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Authentic Persuasion ShowBy Jason Cutter
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