Sales and Cigars | Stephen Rhyne | Onboard, Train, and Retain Sales Reps | Episode 172

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Walter Crosby with HealExSalesDevelopment, your host of Sales and Cigars.

[00:00:04] Today's episode, my guest is Stephen Rine.

[00:00:07] He is a CEO of an organization called ConveyYour.

[00:00:10] So if you're looking to scale your sales department, especially if you're looking to do that with

[00:00:15] 1099 employees, his company has a great solution.

[00:00:19] But what he offers up here is a perspective on hiring younger people today and how to

[00:00:25] attract them, especially in the sales role and what's important to them.

[00:00:30] And I learned a couple of terms about being a normie or they're looking for optionality.

[00:00:40] So he's got a really cool perspective about how younger people can be a great fit for

[00:00:46] your sales organization if you onboard them well and you give them the right perspective

[00:00:53] about the job.

[00:00:54] So grab a cigar, grab a cocktail, strap in for another impactful episode of sales and

[00:01:00] cigars.

[00:01:23] So Stephen, welcome to Sales and Cigars.

[00:01:26] I appreciate you taking some time to have a chat.

[00:01:29] Thank you Walter.

[00:01:30] Thanks for having me man.

[00:01:31] I think this is going to be a fun conversation.

[00:01:35] I know the audience hears me say that a lot but I don't say things I don't

[00:01:40] mean.

[00:01:42] Let's kick off the way I usually do.

[00:01:46] Tell me about a book that you either read once or twice a year or reread or that you gift

[00:01:56] often in a business context.

[00:01:59] Well the new one that I'm gifting more and that I'm really about right now is this one,

[00:02:04] Simple Numbers 2.0.

[00:02:06] It's by Greg Crabtree.

[00:02:07] Are you familiar with Greg Crabtree?

[00:02:09] I've read that book.

[00:02:10] Yeah.

[00:02:12] It's kind of eye-opening.

[00:02:15] The reason I like it is because I found that a lot of indecisiveness in where to go in a

[00:02:24] business, how to scale it, everything, it really comes down to are you confident with

[00:02:29] how you're going to get a return on invested capital?

[00:02:33] Do you understand your thesis around why you're going to do it and what looks like

[00:02:38] a good bet?

[00:02:39] That's what I liked about the book.

[00:02:40] It actually added a lot of confidence in am I running a good business right now and what

[00:02:47] is a good bet and what's a bad bet?

[00:02:50] He breaks it down, it's been a little while since I read it but he breaks it down so

[00:02:55] that you're confident that you're looking at numbers that are real numbers not just

[00:03:02] some made up number that you understand the numbers as well.

[00:03:09] There's entrepreneurs have their product focused or sales focused or manufacturing

[00:03:16] focused and that finance thing might not be, they know they need to know it and they

[00:03:20] understand and can do the basics but it's not always their strength and that book helps

[00:03:27] with that too.

[00:03:28] Yeah.

[00:03:29] It's like the legs feed the beast.

[00:03:30] They talk about that in defense or basketball or whatever, any sport.

[00:03:36] In my business I meet a lot of people if I said, well, what's your cost per recruit?

[00:03:43] They just don't know their costs very well or the CRO or the CFO hasn't explained to

[00:03:50] them here's what it would look like for this recipe.

[00:03:53] We'd have to stop even if we were doing well.

[00:03:56] We'd have to stop at a base camp for a while to accrue enough dollars to go do

[00:04:01] it again.

[00:04:02] Those types of things if they understand that he calls it like the velocity on your balance sheet,

[00:04:08] you really understand if you've got room to grow sustainably or not.

[00:04:14] I saw last year where we do a lot of business in the solar industry and saw a lot of changes

[00:04:20] in solar, a lot of financing go away interest rates to go up and you saw a lot of people

[00:04:26] that were doing deals and growing, but they weren't growing sustainably and it affected their

[00:04:31] businesses.

[00:04:32] It actually got me thinking a lot about it is why I brought the book back up to be a

[00:04:37] student of it.

[00:04:40] I haven't had that book.

[00:04:44] Sometimes there's repeats.

[00:04:46] You see a lot of, but I haven't seen that one pop up when I've asked that question.

[00:04:54] I think it's a book that most CEOs could benefit, take something out of it.

[00:05:02] I wouldn't say it's a super easy read.

[00:05:05] You got to pay attention.

[00:05:07] It's not that type of book.

[00:05:09] That's why I like it.

[00:05:10] Yes, I love all of my self-help books, but this book was one of those guttie your broccoli

[00:05:21] books.

[00:05:23] It's chocolate broccoli, right?

[00:05:25] This is the broccoli.

[00:05:28] But it's kind of like The Rode Less Stupid.

[00:05:31] You read The Rode Less Stupid?

[00:05:32] Yep.

[00:05:33] Kind of like one of those books where it doesn't feel good when you're in there,

[00:05:37] but it really makes you start thinking and making changes.

[00:05:43] My wife's a CPA auditor, so she's numbers person.

[00:05:50] I'll ask her questions about things that were in that book and just in general.

[00:06:00] I don't know if I had to do what she does for a living.

[00:06:04] I think I'd shoot myself because it's important stuff, especially for larger organizations

[00:06:12] to truly understand is your cost structure, what you think your cost structure is,

[00:06:17] are you really making money?

[00:06:20] If you make that investment in that piece of equipment or that individual,

[00:06:26] what do they need to do to get a return on it?

[00:06:30] It's probably not surprising to you, but there's a lot of people that don't have

[00:06:34] any idea what their acquisition costs are or their onboarding costs are or any of that.

[00:06:41] Right.

[00:06:42] Well, the other thing is they don't really...

[00:06:47] If you don't know these as a leader, if you don't know your physics of your business,

[00:06:52] then you can't really go to your head, Chief Revenue Officer or your VP of Sales and say,

[00:06:58] I confidently say you should go out and do...

[00:07:01] I agree to the mission or the strategy you have because I can see how it aligns

[00:07:04] with the physics of the business.

[00:07:07] If you're not confident in that, then how are you going to vet their strategies

[00:07:15] beyond just the numbers that they're accountable for?

[00:07:18] Right.

[00:07:19] Well, there's another piece I talk about in my book that it's aligning what their vision

[00:07:26] is as the CEO, as the visionary.

[00:07:30] That vision is the strategy for the business with the strategies for each one of those

[00:07:35] departments.

[00:07:37] And making sure that those align, that's not on the department head or the director

[00:07:45] or the C-suite person.

[00:07:48] It's on that CEO.

[00:07:50] He or she really needs to, as you say, understand their numbers to say,

[00:07:54] I understand what you're trying to do but it isn't going to match up with what we

[00:08:01] need to do overall.

[00:08:03] If they can articulate that and that VP of Sales or CRO is competent,

[00:08:11] they should be able to say, all right, give me a minute.

[00:08:13] Let me go back and look at this again and come back to you with a different strategy.

[00:08:21] But it's really incumbent on the CEO to know the bottom line.

[00:08:26] That's right.

[00:08:26] Or what's going to have to change?

[00:08:28] I mean, if you say, hey, VP of Sales has an amazing opportunity that you

[00:08:31] have in brand new, I'm so glad that you've surfaced this.

[00:08:36] But based on that, I understand that this would have to give over here.

[00:08:40] We would have to raise money because we would not be able to grow sustainably.

[00:08:44] We wouldn't, our buyback period for the acquisition of that new customer would

[00:08:48] be too long.

[00:08:49] And I know those by understanding the business well enough.

[00:08:52] Then I know what has to change to make his strategy work.

[00:08:56] Well, yeah, that's the other side of that coin, right?

[00:09:00] And I've seen customers get all excited about a deal that's five times bigger

[00:09:08] than what they normally do.

[00:09:10] And it's with a company that they always wanted to do business with.

[00:09:14] And just things like the terms can put somebody out of business for having

[00:09:23] to carry that $300,000, $400,000 for six months when they're not capable

[00:09:29] of carrying it past two months.

[00:09:31] Right.

[00:09:32] So understanding that and then getting the right processes in place are critical.

[00:09:41] So again, a great recommendation.

[00:09:44] So talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.

[00:09:48] How did you get to where you are running this business?

[00:09:55] Well, starting in college, I went to University of Washington.

[00:09:59] I was a rower there, University of Washington, very much into sports.

[00:10:05] But I had no real direction in life beyond I just wanted to be a jock.

[00:10:10] And I didn't have a direction in terms of college.

[00:10:13] In fact, I dropped out of college back in my sophomore year.

[00:10:19] And I found Vector Cutco, so the Cutco 9th company.

[00:10:24] And that was the start of really my entrepreneurial journey

[00:10:29] because before becoming an entrepreneur, I learned how to hold myself accountable,

[00:10:34] how to manage my time, how to run my own business as a 1099 based sales rep, right?

[00:10:41] And get some independence there.

[00:10:42] And that really started everything.

[00:10:44] But the community really was my colleagues, like my college buddies

[00:10:49] is the community that I got there.

[00:10:51] And parlayed that after about five years,

[00:10:54] I hit Hall of Fame in the company in sales and was really into technology.

[00:10:59] I was married to young kids, moved back in with law, with the family,

[00:11:05] taught myself out of code and launched our first product,

[00:11:09] which is they're still using today, Vector Cutco,

[00:11:12] still using to manage their reps out in the field.

[00:11:15] So it's a rep relationship manager.

[00:11:17] And that really kicked everything off from there.

[00:11:19] We started building other applications and eventually launched Conveyor,

[00:11:24] which is my company now.

[00:11:26] And the ultimate goal, what I got so much value out of was I have a soft spot

[00:11:37] for people that maybe didn't kind of grow up in a broken family,

[00:11:41] a little bit of a tumultuous upbringing,

[00:11:48] don't have that kind of pedigree.

[00:11:49] They didn't go to a great college.

[00:11:52] But what I love is seeing those types of people get directed towards

[00:11:56] something that is clear to them, and especially a lot in these opportunity-based sales roles,

[00:12:05] where it's 100% commission, amazing community of people to learn from,

[00:12:11] share business concepts, growing their own businesses.

[00:12:15] I love that helping those types of people that are helping their communities,

[00:12:21] they're helping their own families, and they're kind of independent.

[00:12:24] And so that's what we built Conveyor for is to help that type of person.

[00:12:29] We do that through the companies that we help recruit those people.

[00:12:37] I get the soft spot, right?

[00:12:40] That makes sense.

[00:12:42] What do you look for in that person?

[00:12:46] You can see the disadvantage, but you see something.

[00:12:54] What are those things that give you the perspective that they might be able,

[00:13:03] with the right support, be able to go chase their passion?

[00:13:10] Is it their passion or is it something else?

[00:13:12] Honestly, what we found is really, it's this simple.

[00:13:17] What I've seen in all companies that are common,

[00:13:20] the commonalities of people that are successful in these roles,

[00:13:23] these really opportunity 1099-based roles where they...

[00:13:28] Yeah, 1099 Commission Rep.

[00:13:30] It's that they have context.

[00:13:34] They have something that they've done before that was hard,

[00:13:39] where they exhibited grit and they understand the value of hard work

[00:13:44] and they want something better for their life now.

[00:13:47] So even if it's just somebody, hey, I worked a graveyard shift

[00:13:50] and I worked hard at a restaurant or I worked as a sweeper

[00:13:54] or something like that in the organized shift

[00:13:57] or I had this other role and I worked very hard,

[00:14:02] I didn't excel or I didn't move up because of the limitations of the business.

[00:14:07] Those types of people tend to do very well because they have perspective.

[00:14:11] So it's really that simple in terms of entry level, looking for people.

[00:14:14] You're just looking for somebody who has exhibited hard work

[00:14:20] but understands what that looks like.

[00:14:24] They're not looking for a handout.

[00:14:26] They see themselves as the engine,

[00:14:30] not externalities.

[00:14:32] So it's very like a locus of control.

[00:14:34] They are just intrinsically somebody who's looking for a good opportunity

[00:14:41] but they've exhibited that once before.

[00:14:43] And if you can just find that out, they're likely going to be...

[00:14:47] I think that's the largest delta between somebody who would work out

[00:14:52] and not work out is just something in the past that they did hard

[00:14:56] that they can demonstrate.

[00:14:59] Is that something that you leverage through the process of getting them to understand

[00:15:05] the product, the steps that they need to do to be successful in the 1099 role

[00:15:11] that this is like what you did for those three years pushing a broom

[00:15:19] between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning or slinging coffee at...

[00:15:25] It is very much something that you leverage because you connect to...

[00:15:29] For example, right now in the space of direct sales,

[00:15:34] there are people positioning and even educating young people on the concept of outcome-based pay.

[00:15:40] It sounds like obvious for a seasoned salesperson

[00:15:45] to understand the idea of getting paid based on outcomes

[00:15:48] but just educating young people...

[00:15:51] Because we typically recruit non-boarding train a lot of younger folks.

[00:15:56] Just educating them on the idea like, hey, you worked really...

[00:16:00] Just in the way that you worked really, really hard in college baseball

[00:16:04] or really, really hard in this at your role in an outburger

[00:16:10] but didn't get paid anymore, you know?

[00:16:13] Or didn't get any more minutes or whatever.

[00:16:16] Come here and this is the container.

[00:16:18] Your work and your effort and your outcomes will be greater and bigger

[00:16:22] as a result of how much effort and grit you put in.

[00:16:25] You actually signal that to the people that you're potentially recruiting.

[00:16:28] So you actually put that out there so that you're signaling to the right people

[00:16:33] and then tracking the right people

[00:16:35] versus the people that want to hide in the organization.

[00:16:38] Yeah.

[00:16:39] And your finding is that that's becoming more popular,

[00:16:45] easier to find in the younger generation?

[00:16:49] I think it is.

[00:16:50] I think it generally is.

[00:16:52] You'd think it'd be counterintuitive to think that where, you know,

[00:16:59] say what you want to say about Gen Zers or whatever

[00:17:02] and say what you want to say about younger generations

[00:17:05] and their grit level and stuff.

[00:17:07] But I would actually argue that younger folks now are more open

[00:17:13] to alternative ways of...

[00:17:17] They're not the boomers, they're not my dad, you know,

[00:17:21] generation where he's like, hey, we're going to go to Boeing

[00:17:23] and work with 30 years.

[00:17:24] They're never going to expect that.

[00:17:26] They don't have that expectation that that's going to occur.

[00:17:28] They don't want it for their life honestly because optionality,

[00:17:31] optionality is I think a higher currency to them than stability.

[00:17:41] So...

[00:17:42] And did that start with the...

[00:17:46] I always get this wrong, Gen X.

[00:17:49] Yeah, maybe it starts with Gen X.

[00:17:52] Because they were always, you know,

[00:17:55] I think that's a generation, my friend who was at Gen X used to say,

[00:18:00] you know, we were heathens, we were just running around.

[00:18:04] We didn't have any supervision,

[00:18:05] we were just doing whatever we wanted to do.

[00:18:08] And so they had to figure things out for themselves.

[00:18:11] Which is different than...

[00:18:17] I guess I look at, I have a 21 year old daughter who I keep trying

[00:18:21] to help her understand like she's looking for,

[00:18:24] she's going to graduate in May and looking for a job.

[00:18:26] And I'm like your work ethic,

[00:18:29] your desire to earn money and do it in a way that you think

[00:18:35] is appropriate, ethical, right?

[00:18:39] She has her opinions on all of that.

[00:18:42] Hey thanks for being part of Sales and Cigars.

[00:18:44] I wanted to share a new project that we just launched.

[00:18:47] I wrote a new book called Scale Your Sales.

[00:18:50] It's written for the CEO.

[00:18:52] It's a short powerful book that explains the seven critical mistakes

[00:18:56] that CEOs make with their sales organization.

[00:18:59] It provides actionable steps that you can take

[00:19:02] to fix those problems in your business today.

[00:19:05] And it might even help you get out of the sales seat yourself.

[00:19:08] So, appreciate you listening to Sales and Cigars.

[00:19:12] You can find this book on Amazon or wherever you buy books.

[00:19:15] Thanks.

[00:19:16] You have a huge advantage.

[00:19:18] Because you've been working since you were 15 years old

[00:19:21] and you understand the value of that dollar

[00:19:25] and you like it, right?

[00:19:27] She definitely likes having resources.

[00:19:30] She doesn't like parting with it, but she likes having it.

[00:19:34] So, I kind of never thought of it like that.

[00:19:40] But I think that's there's...

[00:19:43] But it has to be positioned for them to see it.

[00:19:46] Yes.

[00:19:47] And tied back to the thing that they did.

[00:19:50] Like you did this hard thing.

[00:19:52] Maybe this thing would work because the payoff is really up to you.

[00:19:57] Yeah.

[00:19:58] And you don't always have to tie it.

[00:20:00] I have to be honest, like you don't have to tie it back

[00:20:02] because the people...

[00:20:06] So when these companies are in the recruiting process,

[00:20:10] they're actually...

[00:20:11] A lot of times they'll do a large Zoom recruiting experience

[00:20:15] where they have a lot of people on the Zoom

[00:20:17] or they'll do a pre-canned evergreen video

[00:20:20] that people watch before they move forward.

[00:20:22] And it's a lot of it is

[00:20:25] you are the type of person who wants...

[00:20:28] You don't want to be a normie.

[00:20:30] You don't want to do the normal thing.

[00:20:32] You want the effort that you're putting in to equate

[00:20:36] or more the result that you get.

[00:20:39] Just the fact that you're saying those things,

[00:20:41] like this is the type of people we're looking for.

[00:20:43] It's signaling to those people that are like,

[00:20:46] yes, I have had those previous experiences

[00:20:49] where I put a lot of work and they had...

[00:20:51] You've got the same amount of pay.

[00:20:52] And so some people watch that and they go,

[00:20:56] I was fine.

[00:20:57] I think what I made my effort equated to

[00:21:02] the result that I got out of it

[00:21:04] because truly their effort wasn't a strong effort, right?

[00:21:10] It was a mediocre effort.

[00:21:11] So they were fine with what they got paid.

[00:21:15] But what I'm seeing more and more is a generation

[00:21:22] that is more open to alternative ways

[00:21:27] of making income,

[00:21:29] especially that it's detached more and more

[00:21:32] from a regular schedule.

[00:21:34] Yeah, because you use two words

[00:21:36] that I hadn't heard before.

[00:21:38] Optionality.

[00:21:40] I don't know if that's vernacular that's unique

[00:21:44] to the generation that I'm not part of.

[00:21:49] But and Normie was the other one?

[00:21:53] Yeah, you know, just...

[00:21:56] Yeah, normal life.

[00:21:58] Yeah, so they're messaging...

[00:22:00] They're describing the situation

[00:22:02] and allowing these folks to sort of self-identify

[00:22:06] and then they gravitate too

[00:22:08] because of that connection, which is interesting.

[00:22:12] Because I teach a way to write a job posting

[00:22:16] for a traditional sales role

[00:22:19] where we attract the people that the candidates

[00:22:22] were looking for and repel the ones that were not

[00:22:27] simply by the language we're using.

[00:22:29] So if they read, like, that's me.

[00:22:32] Wow, I do that too.

[00:22:34] I'm pretty good at that.

[00:22:36] Wow.

[00:22:37] And the money seems to be in alignment.

[00:22:39] Maybe I should...

[00:22:40] It's the SNF test.

[00:22:41] That's the SNF test, right?

[00:22:43] Okay, yeah.

[00:22:45] I love it.

[00:22:46] That's...

[00:22:47] Part of the reason for doing this podcast

[00:22:50] is for me to learn from interesting people.

[00:22:54] So you helped me accomplish that.

[00:22:56] Same.

[00:22:57] So it's the same to you.

[00:22:59] So let's talk a little bit about, you know,

[00:23:02] specifically what convey you or what your mission is

[00:23:06] because you've explained the archive you got here

[00:23:09] and you explained some of the nuance

[00:23:12] of this 1099, these roles.

[00:23:15] So, you know, talk about who your customer really is.

[00:23:20] What, you know, if you're describing them to the audience

[00:23:24] can like, yeah, this is something that I should look into.

[00:23:28] Yeah.

[00:23:29] So what you'd subscribe.

[00:23:30] So convey your...

[00:23:32] We help companies with that want to grow

[00:23:35] and become a household name.

[00:23:37] A lot of consumer and home services types of businesses

[00:23:41] companies that want to recruit on board,

[00:23:44] train and retain a lot of people and scale.

[00:23:48] They're at that point where they need to scale.

[00:23:50] They have a good recipe, a good offer.

[00:23:53] They have a great product and they really want to go from say,

[00:23:58] you know, 100 reps to 500 reps.

[00:24:00] Okay?

[00:24:01] Or 1000 reps.

[00:24:02] We have companies doing 8,020, you know,

[00:24:06] one company doing 50,000 reps.

[00:24:08] And they need to do that quickly.

[00:24:11] And so what we do is we help them build what's kind of like

[00:24:15] a sales funnel for that process.

[00:24:18] So in the same way that you work with customers to attract them,

[00:24:24] on board, you get to sale and onboard them as a customer,

[00:24:28] train them on your product and get them to use it,

[00:24:31] especially with the software and then retain them as a customer

[00:24:34] through customer success and account management and everything

[00:24:37] like that.

[00:24:38] It's the same stuff for sales reps and for technicians and

[00:24:43] for gig, you know, and for workers, which is to recruit,

[00:24:46] aka sales, on board all the HR and the badging up of the

[00:24:52] wrap and getting them all wired up into all the different

[00:24:55] tools, training them so they can actually do the job

[00:24:59] and then retaining them.

[00:25:00] And so what our product does is all of that.

[00:25:05] It's basically like combining a applicant tracking system,

[00:25:10] a HR onboarding platform, a full LMS training platform and

[00:25:15] a text message platform to support the field and baking that

[00:25:19] together so they all work together for this business model

[00:25:23] of large amounts of sales reps and technicians.

[00:25:27] For that company that already has it baked,

[00:25:33] it's working and we now we need to, we just need to scale it.

[00:25:38] Yeah.

[00:25:39] So can you help me or describe the relationship?

[00:25:43] So, all right, Steven, I want to hire another 100 reps in

[00:25:48] the next six months, let's just say.

[00:25:51] I want to get them up to speed so our third and fourth

[00:25:54] quarters are killers for us.

[00:25:56] I need them out there in the streets.

[00:25:59] Are you hiring them?

[00:26:02] They become the 1099 with you or with the company?

[00:26:07] Oh, with the company.

[00:26:08] So we are the platform.

[00:26:10] We consult with the company to build out their systems.

[00:26:13] They own their system.

[00:26:14] And they own it and they run it.

[00:26:16] You teach them how to manage this.

[00:26:19] You support them.

[00:26:20] You probably come in with updates and teach them the new

[00:26:24] little things that you're doing.

[00:26:25] And you're teaching them how to go find these people or

[00:26:29] are you finding them for them?

[00:26:31] We don't find them for them.

[00:26:32] So we do work with some other sourcing partners,

[00:26:35] one called Allure out of Florida, Allure Creative.

[00:26:38] And they do sourcing.

[00:26:41] So to do target instead of Indeed,

[00:26:43] which is more like a net looking for anybody looking

[00:26:45] for a job, they do targeted social media recruiting

[00:26:49] to people that look like they're focused on a

[00:26:52] performance type of life.

[00:26:55] And so they're great for us because it's very symbiotic.

[00:26:58] They help find and source contacts.

[00:27:02] We help put them through a funnel that's way more

[00:27:05] efficient than a typical funnel.

[00:27:07] So one thing I like to, if people are going,

[00:27:09] well, hey, we have a recruiting arm.

[00:27:13] We have an onboarding arm.

[00:27:15] We've got HR.

[00:27:17] What is different about this?

[00:27:19] Well, how I like to describe or really help people

[00:27:22] really remind them is as you scale a company,

[00:27:27] every department, so you have a recruiting department,

[00:27:30] HR onboarding, trainers, maybe retention HR people

[00:27:35] or sales coaches, each one of them departmentalizes

[00:27:39] silos and they get more and more efficient

[00:27:44] for just their department.

[00:27:46] They don't actually get more efficient for the rep.

[00:27:48] They get more efficient for their department.

[00:27:50] They get more efficient for the members that they're

[00:27:53] accountable to all that.

[00:27:55] What actually sucks is the rep experience.

[00:27:58] Yeah.

[00:27:59] Okay, so the actual single thread experience of a rep

[00:28:03] going through that process is actually terrible.

[00:28:06] And customers experience this with large mega corpse,

[00:28:09] whether it be buying software from Oracle or IBM or whatever.

[00:28:12] You're talking to 16 different people in the life cycle

[00:28:16] of your sales process.

[00:28:19] And they say, let's flip that on its head.

[00:28:21] Let's make the experience of recruiting or learning about

[00:28:24] the opportunity, getting onboarded, getting trained,

[00:28:28] getting on the door or on the phone to make calls

[00:28:32] and then being retained.

[00:28:34] Let's make that feel like the very first time you used Uber

[00:28:37] where it was just like they thought of everything.

[00:28:39] It's smooth.

[00:28:40] It's slick.

[00:28:41] I don't have to think about when the car is going to get here.

[00:28:44] I get an alert when the car shows up.

[00:28:46] The tipping is automatic.

[00:28:47] I know the name of the person.

[00:28:49] This is like amazing because Uber knows that to get somebody

[00:28:53] to do it again, that experience needs to be like money,

[00:28:56] just perfect, right?

[00:28:58] And so if you think about what we're doing is we're adding,

[00:29:02] we're making the competitive advantage of a company,

[00:29:05] the cost of saying yes to a new recruit much,

[00:29:10] much, much lower and much, much more efficient.

[00:29:13] So you're increasing the retention as an outcome of that rep

[00:29:20] because they get up to speed.

[00:29:22] If they're a performer, they want to perform fast.

[00:29:26] They want to get there.

[00:29:28] So you're going to make that ride faster, more efficient.

[00:29:32] You're probably going to allow them to go as fast as they

[00:29:35] want to go to get there.

[00:29:39] Anybody from my generation who has interviewed with a big company,

[00:29:47] Fortune 500 company, that experience is awful.

[00:29:54] And I'm not talking about the 1099 gig.

[00:29:56] I'm talking about just to get an interview to understand

[00:30:02] what the next steps are.

[00:30:04] Just to get information.

[00:30:06] And I think about a young group of people.

[00:30:10] So the difference is especially younger folks,

[00:30:13] when I say young, I mean they're like any under 40.

[00:30:16] But younger folks are used to the way you purchase things.

[00:30:21] Information immediately, it's a text away,

[00:30:25] it's an Instagram click away.

[00:30:27] It's very quick to get information to see if I want to

[00:30:30] move forward and purchase the product.

[00:30:32] And then we've got these systems and these funnels

[00:30:37] for bringing people on, even if it's good talent,

[00:30:40] that is almost like a chip on the shoulder.

[00:30:42] So the whole process is you would be so fortunate

[00:30:46] to come work for my company.

[00:30:48] And we're going to put all of these very like stodgy

[00:30:51] barriers and slow timed lines to get you to be

[00:30:55] interested in our company because if you were to

[00:30:58] come on, you know, you would be blessed to work

[00:31:00] for us.

[00:31:01] That's kind of like the model that is the culture

[00:31:05] that I've seen in big companies, right?

[00:31:07] It makes for everything that you said before,

[00:31:09] it makes sense because of who you're going after

[00:31:12] and why you're going after it.

[00:31:14] So I mean, I just have another, I'm a sales guy,

[00:31:17] so I'm thinking about this sale that you make

[00:31:21] to a company, it can't be to an HRP person.

[00:31:26] It can't be to the sales people.

[00:31:29] Is it the CFO?

[00:31:31] Is it the CEO that has to, because they don't care

[00:31:34] that they're going to lose headcount in a department, right?

[00:31:37] They're going to see like I'm going to get rid

[00:31:39] of all these people and it's going to save me money

[00:31:42] and it's going to pay for this and I'll be

[00:31:44] efficient for a long time.

[00:31:47] You got to talk to the CEO.

[00:31:49] Yeah, so CFO or VP of sales are typically

[00:31:53] who we're talking to.

[00:31:55] That's who we sell to is someone

[00:31:58] who says hey, to hit our numbers is we're going to definitely

[00:32:01] have to have this many more reps,

[00:32:04] this many more inside sales people, outside sales people.

[00:32:08] So it's definitely a numbers game when it comes to just

[00:32:10] the sheer size of the field as well as say what can we do

[00:32:13] to increase the productivity of all the reps we currently have?

[00:32:18] So one thing I like to draw a correlation to is draw,

[00:32:24] think about your recruiting onboarding training process

[00:32:27] and then apply that to what it would look like to take that same

[00:32:30] process and give it to prospects, your prospects

[00:32:35] for your customers.

[00:32:36] Would it be good?

[00:32:38] If it was your prospects, if it was a customer experience,

[00:32:42] let's go through that, right?

[00:32:44] I go to a website and there's a form

[00:32:47] and I fill out my information and then

[00:32:51] ask me to upload like my previous times I've used a product

[00:32:54] like this, aka resume.

[00:32:56] And then I hear back from a person that's going to ask me

[00:33:00] if I'm a good fit.

[00:33:01] They're not going to tell me about the role.

[00:33:03] They're not going to really get me excited about the role.

[00:33:06] They're just going to or about the product.

[00:33:09] They're just going to ask me like, well,

[00:33:10] have you ever used a product like this before?

[00:33:12] How many years of experience do you have using a software

[00:33:15] product like ours?

[00:33:17] That's what we do is we immediately start trying to reject

[00:33:21] because we're so used to getting too many resumes.

[00:33:24] Okay?

[00:33:25] And so what we do is we actually get,

[00:33:27] we focus on positioning the opportunity early,

[00:33:32] educating that person on the opportunity,

[00:33:34] but even before we decide we want to keep them.

[00:33:38] All right.

[00:33:39] And then doing high volume kind of a sales pitch early

[00:33:43] and then deciding if we want to keep them later,

[00:33:47] if they're the right fit.

[00:33:49] So it's the reverse.

[00:33:50] It's a reverse.

[00:33:51] Yeah, it's backwards.

[00:33:53] I mean, it's the other way when you look at it from that

[00:33:56] perspective and that should actually help them realize

[00:33:59] that they could probably improve their customer

[00:34:01] experience as well as well as their,

[00:34:05] because most people don't even understand their

[00:34:07] onboarding process.

[00:34:09] You know, in the mid-market space,

[00:34:11] like how do you onboard somebody?

[00:34:14] What do you mean?

[00:34:15] We have them do a couple of ride-alongs,

[00:34:17] spend some time over here,

[00:34:19] go out with these guys and then they got to figure it out.

[00:34:23] Right?

[00:34:24] Yeah.

[00:34:25] It's like, you know, let's,

[00:34:26] if we could change that and get them up to speed

[00:34:28] so that they could go have, you know,

[00:34:30] intelligent conversations with the customer

[00:34:32] in a couple of days, wouldn't that be better?

[00:34:35] Yeah.

[00:34:36] And at least give them the understanding

[00:34:38] of what the questions are they should ask.

[00:34:40] So it's a really great explanation

[00:34:43] and there's some large companies out there

[00:34:48] that will have to have a separate conversation

[00:34:53] around that because I've seen some challenges there.

[00:34:57] So is there, you know, you said a bunch of things here

[00:35:02] that have been, you know, super interesting.

[00:35:06] What's the best place for somebody to reach out

[00:35:08] to learn more about what you're doing

[00:35:10] or ask you questions?

[00:35:12] Yeah, ask me questions.

[00:35:14] Honestly, checking out our website,

[00:35:16] I think is best.

[00:35:17] Check out conveyyour.com.

[00:35:19] You can, you know, book a demo with me

[00:35:23] or one of the other team members.

[00:35:26] Another way you could reach me is just on LinkedIn.

[00:35:28] So we can put the link me up there.

[00:35:31] Reach me through LinkedIn if you have any other questions

[00:35:34] or would just like to talk about what other companies

[00:35:37] are doing in the way of recruiting

[00:35:39] and onboarding and training,

[00:35:40] especially if they're growing quickly.

[00:35:42] So you're accessible to answer questions

[00:35:45] and have conversations with folks.

[00:35:48] So we have all of that in the show notes.

[00:35:50] People will be able to hit the website

[00:35:52] or go to your LinkedIn or to the company's LinkedIn.

[00:35:56] I think that's a, you could be a really great resource

[00:36:01] for folks to even if they're not ready to do it today.

[00:36:06] It's something that they're see that they're going

[00:36:08] to try to get to in the next six to 12 months.

[00:36:11] Now is the time to start thinking about that

[00:36:14] rather than, you know, after you've built a half ass siloed system.

[00:36:19] Yeah, my word to give a call to action.

[00:36:22] I mean, just, you know, think about,

[00:36:24] you could just go to your, your heads of, you know,

[00:36:27] your head regional managers or head regional sales and ask them

[00:36:31] if I added 100 more reps to your plate

[00:36:34] or 100 more people on your team,

[00:36:36] you know, some number is kind of large.

[00:36:39] What would happen and where would the pain be for you?

[00:36:43] And you'll get so many answers just from that one question.

[00:36:46] That's a great idea.

[00:36:48] Yeah, so nobody wants to grow into pain.

[00:36:50] And so no one's going to care about the business as much

[00:36:53] as the CEO, the BP of sales, you know,

[00:36:55] like the people that are really bought in and have ownership.

[00:36:58] And so yes, everybody else gets incentives,

[00:37:01] but it's just not the same.

[00:37:03] And so honestly what they care about is will my life,

[00:37:06] well, I have more meat on my plate or more plates to spin,

[00:37:09] spin and they should be spending their time building relationships

[00:37:15] and helping be sales coaches,

[00:37:17] not answering questions on how do I, you know,

[00:37:19] how do I ask questions around how commissions are ran

[00:37:22] or where do I go to get this customer unstuck.

[00:37:25] And it's all those painful little paper cuts that are

[00:37:28] may are giving you back pressure and having managers push back

[00:37:32] on your business.

[00:37:33] And so what can you do to take those things off their plate

[00:37:36] higher up in the fall?

[00:37:38] I mean, just if you think about it as a sales manager,

[00:37:41] regional or otherwise, like if you could get X number of new reps

[00:37:46] that are ready to roll and all you got to do is coach them

[00:37:49] and make sure that they're staying on track

[00:37:51] and they have what they need to.

[00:37:53] And you don't have to train them and you don't have

[00:37:57] to worry about them having the right habits.

[00:37:59] Yeah.

[00:38:00] Hello.

[00:38:01] Maybe life giving.

[00:38:03] Yeah.

[00:38:04] Yeah.

[00:38:05] Awesome.

[00:38:06] So that's great.

[00:38:08] Last question, Stephen, pastor, president,

[00:38:12] any relationship with cigars?

[00:38:14] Yes.

[00:38:15] Whenever I think of a cigar, I think about my dad.

[00:38:17] So it would be, it would be big coats, you know,

[00:38:21] a big, a big coat on a porch in the cold with cigar

[00:38:27] and scotch, you know, it would be and then long

[00:38:29] conversations.

[00:38:30] So whenever he comes and visits,

[00:38:32] he's pushing for a cigar.

[00:38:34] I'm not a cigar aficionado at all,

[00:38:37] but I do enjoy one or two a year with people I care about,

[00:38:43] whether it be a dad or a friend.

[00:38:45] And it's typically in the colder months.

[00:38:47] I don't know why.

[00:38:48] Maybe we just, it's both, it's Texas.

[00:38:50] So it's 98 degrees outside.

[00:38:52] It's not always my favorite cigar weather in the summer.

[00:38:56] So that's not a, you need a good shop to go to

[00:39:00] a good lounge to go to, to enjoy some air conditioning

[00:39:03] and cigars.

[00:39:04] I've had some great experiences, you know,

[00:39:08] with a little bit of heat dressed properly

[00:39:12] and getting out on the patio with a friend cigar

[00:39:19] and a little bit of brown doesn't hurt

[00:39:23] to help keep things lubricated.

[00:39:25] But those are, it's a very common answer.

[00:39:30] Meaningful relationships and conversations.

[00:39:34] That's a good story.

[00:39:37] I appreciate that.

[00:39:38] Again, I said I was looking forward to this.

[00:39:41] I think we had some big value to our audience.

[00:39:46] Thank you, man.

[00:39:47] Appreciate it.

[00:39:48] Thank you, Walter.

[00:39:49] Thanks for having me.

[00:39:50] Thanks for being part of another fun episode of sales

[00:39:52] and cigars.

[00:39:53] Let me ask you a question.

[00:39:54] Are you tired of struggling to hire sales talent

[00:39:57] that's going to move the needle for your company?

[00:40:00] Well, maybe you should attend my sales hiring secrets

[00:40:03] program and discover the number one mistake

[00:40:06] that business owners are making with hiring sales

[00:40:09] talent in their organization.

[00:40:11] The details are in the show notes.

[00:40:13] Click on the page.

[00:40:14] It gives you all the details.

[00:40:15] It gives you everything you need to know

[00:40:17] to solve the problem of sales talent on your team.

[00:40:21] Thanks.