Sales & Cigars | Learn to Love Selling with Mark Cox | Episode 222

[00:00:08] Hello and welcome to Sales and Cigars, a sales podcast where the only smoke we blow is cigar smoke. I'm your host Walter Crosby, smoking a staple from my humidor today called the Hoya de Monterey Excalibur. I'm abstaining from the bourbon because it's still Passover, but today my guest, we're talking to Mark Cox about his book, Learn to Love Selling. I was anticipating a great conversation with Mark because I did his podcast a few weeks ago, the Selling Well podcast.

[00:00:35] He's had a lot of fun. He's really a sales guy at heart. He's really an empathetic guy who wants to help people get better at sales. There's a ton of value in here for everybody, CEOs, sales leaders, sales producers. So go grab a cigar, grab a cocktail, strap in for another exciting episode of Sales and Cigars. Thanks. Well Mark, I really appreciate you taking some time to jump on my podcast.

[00:01:02] You and I chatted on yours a couple of weeks ago, which was fun. So I'm looking forward to another fun conversation. Well, thanks for having me, Walter. It was great chatting with you on the Selling Well podcast and excited to speak to you today. Cool. Let's give the audience a little bit of a, who's Mark? Give us a little bit of your journey to be where you doing what you're doing now. Sure. I ran sales organizations for most of my career, Walter, really starting pretty soon after university.

[00:01:33] And they were in technology companies or outsourcing businesses. And then about 12 years ago, I was in between gigs. I'd left a pretty significant job where I said I didn't want to travel quite so much anymore. So I thought it was going to take about a year before I found my next adventure. And before I knew it, I ended up sort of consulting for three companies that had all come through personal connections. I was enjoying it.

[00:01:59] I was still interviewing for a kind of major job for a U.S. tech player for leading their Canadian group. And I just had one of those moments where one day I was consulting with one of these clients. I left that meeting. I went to a third or fourth interview to take over the team for this very large technology organization. And right in the middle of the meeting, I had this epiphany that said,

[00:02:22] I would rather go back and help that mid-sized company than actually take over this major organization. And so that was about 12 years ago. We started in the funnel then, started consulting for small and medium businesses primarily back then. And today we've probably done that a hundred times where we've gone in and helped companies build their sales playbook.

[00:02:45] And we've also trained somewhere in the area of six, 7,000 people because we built a sales training company along that journey as well for leaders, salespeople in BDRs and SDRs. So you got bit by sort of the entrepreneurial bug. But isn't it, some people see it as a risk, right? That we're going and doing our own thing. But when it happened to me, because my story is a little different, but similar.

[00:03:14] And that you just, there's a certain joy in being able to help a business owner get to that next level and then watch the salespeople who care to grow. I mean, there's just a joy there that you don't necessarily see in a corporate world. Well, first of all, it's a massive joy. I was absolutely bit by the entrepreneurial bug. I like the speed of those organizations as well.

[00:03:39] And the importance of growing revenue or sales on their company is massive. There's also very little politics typically in a mid-sized enterprise. You know, if it's, you know, kind of under 100 employees because they just care about growth. So I was really attracted to all of it. I think also, Walter, being honest, I think I'm an entrepreneur at heart. And so I like the idea of going out on my own and starting that business.

[00:04:07] And I like, you know, the degree of control that I sort of took over in terms of my life without. It's a much different perspective for me when I'm working for a client who needs help. I can do almost anything required. I think I was getting to a point in my career where reporting up to people, maybe I was getting a little judgmental about the people I was reporting up to. It was just great timing for me to try this. And it's been pure joy ever since, frankly. Yeah.

[00:04:35] And to me, those are all the right reasons for doing what we do. We're in the same space. We have a little different approach, but in the same space. And the other thing that comes out of all that is we're basically unemployable at this point in our career, right? We couldn't go work for somebody at this point. It's true. Yeah. But we really do work for clients. And those are technically our boss, if you will.

[00:05:03] But we're guiding them along the way and walking this journey with them. And that just feels better for me. Yeah, it just felt right to me. And by the way, I'm always inspired by these entrepreneurs that I work with. So in the corporate world, you're exposed to a certain type of individual who's going to be attracted to that corporate world. And some really great people and smart people, you're exposed to these processes that have been refined over years and are very good processes. A lot of opportunity to learn.

[00:05:33] But I'm really inspired by these entrepreneurs with their drive, their vision, you know, the never say die in many cases, the energy, the enthusiasm. We've had just a number of just completely amazing entrepreneurs. And frankly, it continues my learning journey because, you know, I get to learn about the things that they're doing, how they approach business. So we may be pretty strong in this one discipline with sales and go to market.

[00:06:00] But when you think about innovation or growth or vision, a lot of these things, I've just learned so much from the companies that we work with. Frankly, I learn from every company we work with, which is part of the joy of it. Yeah. When we stop being open to learning, then we're kind of going in the wrong direction. So I appreciate that. And that was one of the things I picked up on when we had our first talk was there's a certain level. We kind of have the same passion for learning and helping.

[00:06:30] And it requires being humble and having some passion to keep just trying to get a little bit better on a regular basis. You know, if there's anybody listening today in business or in sales, Walter, that's not humble, they're in for an awakening. Because frankly, even for, you know, folks like you or I who are really focused in the space and each of us get the pleasure of reading lots of books on B2B sales as we interview guests for our podcasts. There's a lot changing. It's tough to stay current.

[00:07:00] And everybody's got something to offer. That's why I really love, you know, running our podcast. Because I get a chance to read your book, scale your sales, avoid the seven critical mistakes CEOs make. And I'm learning from that when I'm reading it. So as I prepare for the podcast. So, you know, the one thing that might be helpful for everybody listening, you can trigger growth orientation. Pick up the book, read HBR.

[00:07:26] Follow some of what's being published by people like McKinsey and Gardner on sales just to stay current. Because you've already got great capabilities, but it's nice to try and improve 5-10% every quarter. Even if you learn something that you already knew, right? And it's just review. Or you hear something that's like, that doesn't make sense. I don't agree with that. Right? But it's the mind that's willing to take something in, process it, and say yes or no. Right?

[00:07:53] If you're not open to that process, then you're not learning. But speaking of books, right? I picked up this little. Thank you. I've seen that. You can see I've got some tabs in here. Thank you for that. I don't say this very often. I mean, some really, really good stuff in here. And this is the feeling I got that you wrote this for the guy or the gal who's sitting at the helm of the company.

[00:08:20] The CEO, that founder, that they may have some sales capability. They may not. But you wrote this for them. Is that right? I did, Walter. And thank you for the kind words, by the way. It means a ton coming from you. And I really appreciate reading the book and sort of highlighting those things. That's awesome. What we tried to do, as the book mentions, I'm just fans of so many of the methodologies and ideas out there. There's some great sales authors out there, like yourself, and we reference a lot of them in the book.

[00:08:49] But what we were trying to put together to build on some of the great stuff already out there was a full framework, a simple framework, for converting any business capability, as long as it's B2B, into revenue. So what are all of the things we need to think of at a high level to convert our business capability into revenue? And we challenged ourselves kind of, Walter, to do two things.

[00:09:17] It had to work at the sales leader level. So the playbook has to make sense if you're the CEO running the sales team or a sales leader. And the playbook has to make sense if I'm in a territory as a salesperson trying to convert the capability into revenue. So it took a while to get there. And, you know, some of the training we've done over the last five or seven years has been really helpful as we've refined it. But that's what we tried to do.

[00:09:44] We were pretty close to subtitling the book, The Entrepreneur's Sales Playbook. I think we titled it, well, we did. We titled it The Universal B2B Sales Playbook, but we're pretty close to titling it The Entrepreneur's Sales Playbook. Either of those obviously would work. What's interesting is that when I was reading this, I could read it from any one of the three lenses that you're talking about.

[00:10:09] And if you're approaching it from a producer, you know, salesperson on the street, there's like the frameworks there. What do I need to do with Legion? You have it souped to nuts. But if I'm a CEO reading this, it helps them understand the entire process, what it's supposed to look like, how it could be implemented. What do we need to do to make sure that we're doing it well and the metrics that are part of it?

[00:10:35] And then that sales leader who's got to do kind of like both aspects of that, right? To like make sure that it's being executed, make sure that it's implemented well. Because if we don't implement it and get the buy-in, we're going to have trouble. So that, my book was nothing compared to this. It's a short little piece for the CEO. I appreciate it. Great book. Really great book. I enjoyed it. But it was written for that CEO.

[00:11:02] So my question, just out of my own curiosity, just for Walter, how long did this take you? I mean, I know it's your whole experience. Yeah. But when you sat down with the quill and the piece of paper or whatever you used in Toronto to write with you. We have computers up here too in Canada. We've got a couple. We share them. So, but, you know, but we do have a couple. That's funny. But I mean, I started mine with pen and paper.

[00:11:31] The guy that I had helped me re-edit, he's like, what's the matter with you? Like, I'm not reading this. Yeah. You need to put it in, you know, type it in. But for my brain, there's something that connects my brain to my hand, right? It works for me. Yeah. And seriously, though, I know your whole life informed you on this, but years, months, weeks, days? Yeah. Great question. Because, you know, a lot of people we talk to on our podcast, they go, hey, I went to my cabin for three months and wrote the book and I'm flabbergasted.

[00:12:00] I'll say two things. So from the time we started writing, it was over two years. So it was two and a half years, two and three quarters years. You and I are both busy. You know, we're doing consulting for clients. We also are a fractional CRO in some cases. We do sales training. But the truth of it is, Walter, I was always frustrated when I was kind of writing the book. It always felt to me like it was taking too long because we already had the playbook.

[00:12:27] Like, we've had the playbook for six years, seven years in that format because that's what we teach in the class. I was always thinking this needs to be faster. I should be zipping through this. But it took the time it took. We went through a lot of learning options. You know, there were some great experiences to learn along the path. The next book. So this book really is called Learn to Love Selling. And although it works at the management level, it's really built for the direct contributor.

[00:12:57] The next book is going to be called Learn to Love Leading. And it's purely for the sales leader. And so I'm really hoping that I can chop it down to about 18 months, 12 to 18 months, given, you know, we've got editors now. We've got our designers now. We've got a process now. It took more than almost three years for me to write this. And it started in the heart of COVID. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

[00:13:23] And, you know, even the illustrations, you know, make the point. So I got a bunch of tabs here. But, like, if we've got a CEO who's trying to go from $10 million to $20 million, they have a sales team that they're not in love with, but they're doing okay. But they know that they're not the people that are going to get them to the next level. Yeah. Where do they, I mean, they read the whole book, right? You got to do that.

[00:13:53] But, like, what in here do you think speaks to that issue of scale and getting your organization, your sales organization tuned up to start to head to that next 10? Well, it's such a great example, Walter, because, you know, almost every client you and I work with want to do that. They say, hey, we've hit a plateau. We're trying to break through this ceiling of complexity. The book's kind of broken into three sections. One, build the playbook.

[00:14:21] Second section's build the team, which is about recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding salespeople. And then the third section's lead the team. So what's that sales management cadence to keep them on track? But the first step's kind of build that playbook. Look at what you're doing today and think about the business along kind of four elements. And in our view, to convert your core capability into revenue, you need to think about four things, and they're serial and linear. You got to think of them in order.

[00:14:50] You have to think of your value proposition to your market first. And value proposition is really capturing how you expect to compete and win. You define what do you do? How does what you do tie to a desired outcome of your client? And then you need to be able to identify competitive differentiation, all in your value proposition. Start there. If I know my value prop, then I go, okay, how do I prioritize the pursuit of my target market?

[00:15:19] That's called territory management. So first, part of that is identify our ideal client profile. Who do I want as a client? Size, scale, business problem. How they value our services. And how do I build sell cycles for those? A, with my current clients, if I can sell them more. Share of wallet. And then new logos. But in each case, I have to prioritize the pursuit of the market because nobody's big enough to cover a whole market. Right.

[00:15:48] If I know those two things, I know my value prop. I know who I'm going to prioritize in terms of the market. I got to go and do it. Third element is my game plan for demand generation. Or this is what they would have called cold calling 35 years ago when I had a beautiful head of hair. I was doing cold calling and I had a beautiful head of hair. Love going to the market. Could be. Could be. Nice call. That's exactly what happened. Now that I think of it, it was those couple of years. So the third element, create demand.

[00:16:17] You've got to get out there. Intentional, professional, current demand generation. And those first three elements will create a qualified sell cycle for this business. Then we need to think about execution. Sales execution. That's sales process. Steps to complete a sale. Sales strategy. My game plan for progressing along those steps successfully. And then pipeline management.

[00:16:43] So what's the volume and velocity of deals I need to work to actually get to my goals? If you're a CEO, start by building the playbook. And then think about the structure of the sales team to execute, the people you want in those seats. And the process is you're going to leverage from the playbook to enable them. That includes technology. And that's a beautiful, simple, manageable way to approach it. And one of the things you were talking about when you were talking about recruitment,

[00:17:13] you included something that often is left off. And that's the onboarding piece. Yeah. Right. Because if you don't get the people, you know, if you get the great salesperson, it's the right fit for culture and has the right desire and commitment to go do the work. And you don't give them the tools that they need in a timely fashion. They're going to leave. You're not going to retain them. And the onboarding part is so critical to the retention piece of it.

[00:17:39] But I think the other thing that kind of comes out of what we're talking about is that CEO that may not have the sales background that you have, that I have. They sometimes turn their keys and they'll give the keys over and give the control to a sales leader that may not have it all figured out and may not have all of the pieces. They might have a couple of things that they're really good at and they don't have it all put together.

[00:18:08] So by looking at a book like this and studying it, I think is the right terminology that they should really understand what it is we're trying to do. They don't have to be the expert. They don't have to go execute it. They don't have to role play and scrimmage with the salespeople. But if they don't have a clear picture of what's being built, they're never going to know if it's right. Yeah. Delete gen piece of this, right? You map that out.

[00:18:36] I mean, you don't even have to read the chapter. Your graphic is so good with the cadence, the little arrows there. Yeah, thanks. I'm trying to find that tab. I mean, read the book. But the lead engagement sequence, it's not overly aggressive. There's a process to it and it involves the telephone. Please call. No, I make the joke all the time about this device has, you know, an annoying little app on it called a phone. Right? We should use it.

[00:19:05] Well, first of all, Walter, shout out to our buddy, Kevin Winters. So he's been our long, long-term designer. And these were all the images we used in training for years. And we just put them in the book from him where he created them and put them for the book. So you're right. They're great. They're great graphics that he created from my awful chicken scratches. You touch on such an interesting point that I think is really important for the folks listening to your podcast,

[00:19:32] because I know it's really popular with CEOs of midsize enterprises. We get called in frequently, I'll say, when a CEO has tried to absolve themselves of any accountability really for sales outside of hiring the chief revenue officer or the VP of sales. And they try it multiple times and it doesn't work out. And then they go, I got to get into this. And then they actually come to people like us.

[00:20:00] So one of the things I'd encourage everybody out there to listen, you know, listening to this is you do have to understand it. Because if you're going to grow and scale your business, you know, it's not like accounting or finance or in some cases, even operations where you can kind of turn a blind eye and let somebody else handle it. As long as we're staying, you know, legal. This is something the CEO, if you're going to grow, people want to see the leader of the organization, particularly of midsize organizations.

[00:20:30] They want to understand the vision for the company. They want to understand the product roadmap. They want to understand the character of the individual. They don't want to commit to companies that aren't going to be around in the long term. So I think understanding, getting deep in terms of what's going on in sales doesn't mean you have to be picking up the phone yourself. But you do have to be in a one-on-one with somebody on your sales team on a reasonably regular basis to understand what they're doing, what's working,

[00:20:59] and also making sure you're hearing through them what's going on with our customer base. So, you know, if nothing else, I'd encourage every CEO out there to be traveling with salespeople just to understand what's going on in their market, because you need to be close to your customers. You need to be close to your clients. And so I think this framework gives them a way of understanding enough that, A, they might be able to hire the right sales leader.

[00:21:29] And we talked a little bit about hiring people. They'll be better at hiring the sales team. You might also do an assessment of your current go-to-market plan based on what's in the playbook and figure out where you're dropping the ball. If we don't have a value proposition that resonates to the market, we can't expect a new hire salesperson to figure that out and create it. That does have to come from the CEO and from the sales leader to help them.

[00:21:58] This is why we think we can compete and win in the market. Yeah, I think that's critical, right? Because there's a couple of things there I think we can highlight. Getting out in the field. I mean, you don't have to do it every week. But if you've got reps that are going to see some larger accounts or it might help them get to a C-suite person, you're going to hear things without interpretation, without filter, right? Yes.

[00:22:24] I remember I was in a frontline sales job and I was selling the technology thing. I sat in a meeting with engineers and the research guys and the CEO and I said, this is what they're telling me. And they're like, no, that's not what they're telling me. And I'm like, were you in the meeting with me? And so we went back and forth and I just pointed at the CEO. I've got a meeting tomorrow with the exact people that we're talking about. You come with me.

[00:22:52] Well, he should go. And I'm like, no, he's not talking to any of my customers. Yeah. Right? You. You're coming with me and we're going to go out and you can hear for yourself and you can ask them all the questions. Right? We'll have an hour. And he walked away from that meeting, not being able to argue with the customer, although he tried, but he heard it from the horse's mouth, as they say. So, I mean, that's really, really important.

[00:23:18] But I think the other thing that the CEO can do is show up unannounced at a sales meeting. Absolutely. If it's the monthly, if it's the quarterly, it doesn't matter. Just say, hey, guys, I'm here to listen. I'm here to learn. Let's talk and then ask questions. Right? Show like you care about the sales team and what they're doing. That will give you information just like you're talking about.

[00:23:43] Those are so, I think, so important and often missed because, you know, I don't understand what they're doing. It's a, you know, a black bag of magic that they're just doing things. No, not if they're doing it well. Everybody's singing the same song. Should be. Walter, those CEOs, in many cases, are really unconsciously competent in sales. They started the company. They built the company. They earned the first bunch of clients in many cases.

[00:24:11] When issues or challenges came up, they worked with the clients to get through them. So they have so much value to provide to the sales organization as long as everybody goes into it in the right mindset.

[00:25:23] Then they're just going to make stuff up. And their default is to go out and pitch. And that's just awful. Well, that's another thing I love. You know, when you bring a CEO out to a meeting, we've seen this so many times with the great companies we work with. They don't get in pitching product. They get in and they start asking, you know, that buyer on the other side of the table, how's business? How are you competing and winning in marketplace today? What's working? What isn't? What are the top trends affecting your industry?

[00:25:50] And what are you doing to try and exploit them for your benefit? They're talking about business at the strategic level. You get this engagement. And I think that's a really great thing to show and to teach and to coach your sales organization on. Get out in the field, show we actually care, be a customer first. It's so easy to say these things. We had one great client we were working with where the executive team had a goal, an objective of a certain percentage of their week.

[00:26:20] They just had to be in front of clients. And there's so many different ways you can do that. But we love this idea. It's in the book, you know, a health check meeting. At this time of year, just say, hey, listen, Walter, as a matter of course, we like to initiate health check meetings with our most important clients. I was hoping to get one on the calendar with you and the Crosby Corporation in the next two weeks. We're going to talk about four things if it's okay. Number one, how are we doing? How are we doing as a partner to you?

[00:26:49] Number two, what are the top strategic priorities for you in the business for the next 12 to 18 months? Sub bullet, how are you doing against them? Point number three, we'll give you a little bit of an update on in the funnel in terms of what's going on. Point number four, we'll talk about next steps. And then my note on that would say, by the way, Walter, my boss, Sandra D'Souza, asked to join this meeting because she wants to meet all of our most important clients like you.

[00:27:19] Is there anybody else you'd like to include in the meeting on your side? Simple, smooth, just needs to be executed. Right. Right. And most organizations, like if you want to do it next week, they might not be able to do it next week, but they want to do it. They want to talk about business. There's one thing that I add to that. We do like account reviews and orderly look forward and look back and you do everything you talked about.

[00:27:44] But it's like we want to share with you something that we've learned specific to your industry that might be a value to you. So in other words, you know, here's a look around the corner. May not be something that they're worried about. It might be something, but they don't have that. They're getting something for the meeting as well as the health check. Right. The CEO, the leader can be in those meetings.

[00:28:10] Their business acuum is so much stronger than the salespeople typically. I got a client who they were telling me, I was at one of their leadership things. They were telling me that they have this course that they provide to their team about business acuum. I'm like, what? You're teaching? Yeah, we teach anybody who wants to join. It doesn't matter if they're a designer. Great idea. Or they're a designer. You know, they teach them how to look at a P&L. They teach them to understand about taxes, about margin.

[00:28:40] They teach them about a sales cycle. They teach, I mean, they just give them these basic. Great idea. Yeah. It really is. And it's something that if more people thought about it, it doesn't take a lot of time. The business owner can just sit down and give them a topic and they can go. And it could be more formalized than that, obviously. But, and if you open it up to everybody beyond the salespeople, your whole team is getting better. They stick around longer. It's awesome. So there's a ton of value with what you've shared here today.

[00:29:10] You got to go get this book. I don't care. Producer, manager, leader, CEO, go get it. So where do you want them to get it? Well, Amazon. Yeah. It's best on Amazon, Walter, today. And by the way, thank you. It's been such a pleasure joining you today. Thanks for great discussion. Where else can they go find if they want more, Mark? Where do they go? LinkedIn's the best way, team, to connect in with me.

[00:29:37] It's Mark Cox at inthefunnel.com, but Mark Cox on LinkedIn. Please connect with me. We accept all the connection requests. If you've got a question, that's a great place to go. You can always pop to our website too, inthefunnel.com. Sales funnel, think of, inthefunnel.com. Walter, hey, thanks a million for having me on the show. How great to chat with you. All of those things will be in the show notes, folks. Go click on them. Lots of resources there.

[00:30:05] Thank you for everything that you should. I mean, we could have 20 of these and still just scratch the surface of all my little tabs up here. Last question. My audience gets mad if I don't ask this. Past or present, any relationship with cigars, Mark? No, Walter. Not really. Now, I've got a lot of pals who love them. And I'll say, I'm a drummer and I go to a drum lesson, you know, down the street from our house every Wednesday night.

[00:30:35] And where I park, a public park, is in front of a cigar shop. And I'll tell you, there's a group of 10, 12 people out there Wednesday nights chatting, smoking. They look so happy. I've got to go. And I see them every time. I see the same people every time. And I've got one or two buddies that join that kind of group, but they're just out there enjoying life. So, boy, it's been compelling to take a look at it, but I haven't made the leap and sat down with them at this point.

[00:31:05] What's cool about it, and there's nothing wrong with that, cigars aren't for everybody, but what you described, you can walk into just about any cigar shop, cigar lounge, and what always happens for me is everybody turns their head and looks at you. And as soon as you grab a cigar or you walk into the humidor, like you're a brother of the leaf. You're in. It's a group, right? I mean, for music, right?

[00:31:35] It's, you know, if you can get out with sticks and beat on some drums and carve out a beat that everybody can get into, and somebody can pick up another instrument and join in, like you're a brother in that band, right? Yeah. It's just a cool experience. And a friend of mine who passed recently, he used to refer to it as a group of guys getting together, talking smart, and solving the world's problems. And I don't know if any of that was true, but that's what it felt like.

[00:32:03] Everybody was talking smart and trying to solve the world's problems. Great to have a community. Yeah, exactly. That's it. That's a great way to describe it. Thanks again, man. I really appreciate it. Go grab the book, Learn to Love Selling, Amazon. Really good stuff. Something to study. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me, Walter. Great to see you again. Thanks so much for listening to Sales and Cigars. If you like what you heard or you want to share your two cents about the show,

[00:32:31] please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love to hear from you. Now, if listening made you realize you need a little extra sales help, you can check out helixsalesdevelopment.com, where you can find free sales tools, blog posts, and an opportunity to reach out and optimize your sales team. If you really want to get inside my head, you're in luck because I wrote a book.

[00:32:56] Check out the link in the show notes to snag a copy of Scale Your Sales, Avoid the Seven Critical Mistakes CEOs Make. It's compact. It gets to the point, and you can read it over a cigar and two or three cups of coffee. I'm not unbiased, but I highly recommend it. Sales and Cigars is executive produced by me, Walter Crosby, and it's produced by Courtney Blomquist. Editing and further production support is done by my team at Resonate Recordings. Thanks for listening.