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is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is
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[Music] foreign
up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems Trace Blackmore here cwt and I am so happy to bring you a
brand new episode of scaling up H2O and folks I want to thank everybody out
there that if you have ever come up to me and said you’ve enjoyed this podcast
I want to let you know how much that means to me because there is so much
that happens on the back end with this podcast if we did not know who we were
doing this for and what it meant to so many people out there it might not be as
fun but because you let me know what this podcast means to you you’ve let me
know that you’ve shared this with other industrial water traders that you know it means so much and it makes it fun for
myself and my wonderful staff here at scaling up H2O to put these podcasts and
all the other things that we’re doing within scaling up H2O together because
of your feedback so thank you so much for that by the way something else you
can do and this helps us with people being able to find us is go ahead and
give us a review in your favorite podcast player and that actually elevates our status and makes it easier
for future scaling up Nation members to find us so if you want to do something
to help us out that would be great and I am going to thank you in advance for
that of course it wouldn’t be an episode if I’m not asking for ideas and guess so
if there is an idea you have for a show if there’s a question that you have for us if there is a guess that you have for
us you want us to interview on this very podcast well we have made it so easy for
you you can go to scalingup h2o.com go over to our show ideas page and you can
tell us all about that also you will get a pop-up that will allow you to record your voice a lot of times we use your
voice on this podcast to answer the question that you have feel free to let
us know anything and folks that is how we make sure that we get the right
information to you Nation one of the things we like to do is keep you
informed of all the things that are going on in our industry and I’m trying
to get people to use our events page more because I know sometimes we talk
about things pretty quickly on this podcast and then you got to figure out what show it was on and you want to go
to a particular location a particular event and you can’t remember where I
spoke about it well I’ve already talked about the great staff that we have on scaling up H2O well they have put
together an events page that makes it oh so easy for you to find anything that
we’re talking about and even some things that we don’t talk about so you can
learn about them you can read about them you can go straight to their website from our website and even put a calendar
invite right in your calendar so let’s talk about a few today well first off we
have the water and wastewater equipment treatment and transport show that’s
taking place February 20th through 23rd in Indianapolis Indiana this is actually
called the wet show spelled with two W’s and two T’s it’s about water and waste
water equipment so if you have anything to do with water and waste water
equipment this might be an event that you want to check out now one of the
things that I cannot be happier to talk about not that I’m not happy to talk
about the other stuff but I am involved in this training it’s one of my favorite
things to do and I would love it if you came to it what am I talking about I’m
talking about the Technical Training Seminars the awt the association of
water Technologies has Technical Training seminars where you can get foundational water treatment knowledge
you can get a intermediate water treatment knowledge you can get waste
water knowledge you can get a Legionella asse twelve thousand eighty knowledge
you can get r o and ultra filtration knowledge and you can even get sales
knowledge oh my gosh there’s so much going on Within These trainings and
you’ve got two opportunities for that so in San Diego California February 21st
through 24th and then again in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania March 29th through April 1st we’ll have
all of that information all of the different classes when they’re offering what where they’re offering what all of
that will be available at scaling up h2o.com on our events page also the
association of Metropolitan water agencies is having their virtual
Symposium to discuss inorganic contaminants in the water that’s taking
place March 14th through 16th in Boston Massachusetts and there’s also a heavy
virtual component to that so check that out on our events page and then finally wqa’s water quality associations
Convention and Expo is April 18th through 20th in Las Vegas Nevada always
a very fun show to attend it is a large show to attend and if you are involved
in a host of different water treatment Industries this is probably the show that you want to check out we’ll have
information for that on our show notes page and something for you I said show
notes page I meant our show events page I know you the scale up Nation knew exactly what I was trying to say
something I want you to put on your calendars March 22nd is World water day
now we have industrial water week which it’s celebrating our jobs the things
that we do but this is celebrating what we do this is celebrating water so we’ll
of course first do something special on the scaling up H2O podcast to help you
get in the world water day mood but go ahead and put that on your calendar and
the people you work with go ahead and figure out what you’re going to do there’s so much that we do that is wash
rinse repeat and this job if you’re not careful can get very mundane and my dad
always told me if that happened to me I’m doing it wrong because this job should never be boring there’s always
something new to learn there’s always another way to do something that you’ve
been doing time and time again and now there’s always something to celebrate
with all these different holidays to take us out of the day-to-day so we can celebrate each and every day what we do
and this is an opportunity for that again March 22nd something that I love
to celebrate are all the installments that our friend James McDonald gives us
each and every week so here is a brand new periodic water table with James
hello and welcome to the periodic water table with James where we think and
learn about water chemistry drop by drop please use your week to search online ask your colleagues or even pick up a
book to learn more about each week’s periodic water table topic if you do at
the end of the year you’ll be 52 water chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of
knowledge together and get started today’s topic is
glued her out of hide what is this nefarious sounding chemistry what is
glutaraldehyde used for does it have an optimal PH range and is
it a narrow or broad range what are typical dosages for glutaraldehyde how quickly does it do
its job what is it effective against will anything cause glutaraldehyde to degrade
if deactivated what impact could this have on a closed-loop system can gluteraldehyde be tested for in the
field or in the lab is it fed continuously or intermittently [Music]
remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a
force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag water
table23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look forward to learning more from you
James as always thank you for that scaling up Nation here is the reason
that you tune in here is our interview
my lab partner today is returning guest Adam Shapiro of sales reform school I
love that name Adam welcome back to the scaling up H2O podcast it’s been a
minute hasn’t it it has been a while I think you and I spoke over the pandemic
if I recall yeah it’s pretty early in the pandemic I believe it was April May of 2020. I I think that sounds right and
the question back then which is still probably the question today is is how do you sell in The New Normal and you were
helping us out with that and then also bringing like an EOS style to the sales
process yeah it just come off I think presenting at EOS worldwide on what the
heck does sales do with the OS I think it resonated with a lot of people I’ve had a lot of EOS folks or companies who
are on EOS say yeah we haven’t really figured out how to talk to the sales people which you know we can be a special breed for the listeners out
there the acronym EOS is the entrepreneur operating system it’s from the book by Gino Wickman called traction
and Adam works his company off of EOS and he helps a lot of other EOS
companies as well and uh and then you you actually did a seminar for how to
bring it into sales tell us about that sure whether you use EOS or any other
management system or any other way that an executive Team figures out how to work together and then drive process and
accountability down there’s this group over here on the side that generates Revenue called sales and they need to
have their own their own goals understand differentiators understand stories understand the market and things
like that but what happens too often is the lessons that you’re trying to drive as a
company such as what are differentiators what’s our company culture what we’re trying to accomplish don’t get filtered
through to the conversations that sellers are having every day with their prospects so one of the things that I do
is I bring in a building blocks if you will uh Workshop where we can come up
with okay how do we make that differentiator into a story to tell how do we Define our ideal client profile at
our Market so that when people ask us well who do you guys help we can do that in a clear
and convincing and confident Manner and that’s just a small amount of those things uh and then of course proven
process every company has a way that they go about bringing about positive results for their customers your sellers
need to be able to describe that succinctly and confidently within say two minutes or less so let’s talk about
that for a second because if we had an accounts receivable in our company we
would have a process for that accounts payable we have a process for that there’s a process for just about
everything but it seems like when we look at the sales department it’s the wild west why is that I think it’s
coming around it’s not as bad as it was 18 years ago when I started this business and as my own
um uh boss if you will we tend to think that sales people are born not made so
it’s like just let them do what they can do we also tend to um and I agree with this by the way don’t mess with a streak
so if business is good and whatever those people are doing over there let them continue doing it when it starts
not doing so well such as the last three months as we were we’re teetering on whether we haven’t or
don’t have a recession four months ago five months ago this whole supply chain issue being able to get product all that
you start figuring out okay do we even have a process that we can analyze to see where what’s going on
with their errors or omissions that we can troubleshoot how can you fix
something if you don’t know what you’re doing to begin with so that’s where uh good operations will
say okay let’s attack like you’re saying this with the same sincerity and
thoughtfulness on accounts receivable accounts payable business process manufacturing all that you know how do
we even go about getting business so let’s document that and then figure out if we’re actually doing that within our
opportunities and with our prospects from first initiation through closing so in manufacturing we have lean
processes where how do we make the fewest amount of moves the fewest amount
of effort to make the end product does that translate over in sales it would worry me if someone used that
terminology fewest amount of steps to get the result because what hap what I find is after my engagements with
companies it’s very much a J curve so you realize that you were cutting cutting out process steps and while that
was getting to proposals you weren’t actually closing more business so by slowing down and actually doing
more work you will actually increase your probability of success so skipping steps is never a good move
just like build you know cooking or making or using a recipe for a manufacturing process you don’t want to skip important steps
now in sales you may get lucky and and you may have a buyer who’s just motivated to buy
and they don’t need all the things that you that you have in your toolbox to be successful but what I found is when
companies are losing to no decision or losing to a name competitor when you start spreading out the accordion of
your sales process you’ll see where the gaps are so what do you do you go into a company
and you just have a magic wand and everything gets better right I only wish
um I hope you’re not coming from a place that’s saying uh sales is easy let’s just let’s just throw throw bodies at it
we’ll make things happen there are companies that do that and if it was easy everybody would do it
um oftentimes reminded when when people say wow sales is hard yeah that’s why the payoff can be so good what do I do
there’s really a couple things first of all let’s figure out what the problem is well I shouldn’t even say a problem
what’s the objective let’s start out with our primary aim are we are we at a spot where we’re doing really well and
we need to expand but by expansion there’s no way we can be everywhere on every sales call how do
we enable these new sellers that are a company to do well to perform to succeed other
times it’s like we’re not doing well we’ve got sales people we have no idea what’s going on can you fix us I’m like
well I don’t know but let’s see what’s going on let’s document your process that you want to repeat over and over again let’s build
your first Playbook enable your sales people to succeed so I I’ve described two different objectives but by and
large is really a diagnosis first there are no Magic Bullets in sales all you can do is ratchet up the probability
of success and we know in every Walk of Life if you put together a process and a
methodology and of course iterate on it to make sure it’s it’s optimized will succeed we’re more likely to
succeed than not when we raise our children we say and let’s say they’re at school and they’re not getting good
grades now let’s put aside uh the possibility there’s a learning disability let’s just
put that aside let’s assume there’s no learning disability there’s really only two reasons why kids don’t get good grades in school either they’re not
working hard enough or they don’t understand the material so one of the first things I will do in working with Co with my clients is I’m like all right
let’s figure out which one it is I’m also assuming there’s a good product Market fit so assume product Market fit
are your sales people are they enabled do they understand what it is you have what problems it solves and how to
deliver on it and how to sell it or do they understand all that they’re just not working hard enough
which one is it so oftentimes that’s my first level of uh engagement
I will say it’s usually not the latter it’s usually um executive team hasn’t slowed down
enough to enable their sellers to be successful which is sad to me you recently
celebrated your 18th birthday of course not your 18th birthday but the 18th
birthday of your company I bet you’ve seen quite a bit what is one of your
greatest success stories within that 18th year I’m not gonna I’m gonna change the names
to protect the innocent sure yeah um young seller at one of my clients
let’s call him bill bill was born with a birth deformity on his hand he’s got a I
think it’s called a cleft palate where you know his mouth and face isn’t really developed well
great speaker um Earnest wanted to work hard had no idea how to do sales his company was
growing and he said you know I’d like to try it okay and um very Progressive uh
company and like they’re like they don’t have any preconceived notions of what a seller should be an early SAS company uh
in their industry and they said you know most of these sales are gonna be over to phone anyway this is pre-zoom let’s give
let’s give Bill a try Bill had no idea what he was doing I’m happy to say that now probably 10 years later bill can
walk into any technology company and make 250 to 450 right now wow did they I
mean I’m confident he could do that uh his his growth personally and professionally and I check in with him
every now and then it’s just been off the charts this is someone who went from
I want to do it I don’t know how to do it I hope it’s only on the phone to being confident to go to trade shows
and talk to people he’d never met about their his company’s offerings
what are some things that he did to get from there to here well interestingly the the biggest thing
is he he recognized that he needed to be coachable so he’s like I want to do this I don’t know how to do this so he took
to coaching second is fearless so he’s like yeah in order for me to be successful like these other people that
I know are successful in sales I’ve got to be willing to put myself out there to call up strangers as a 20 I think at
the time 28 year old be able to talk to 45 55 year old Executives Financial
Executives even um so he’s Fearless we had a great product Market fit with this client of
mine so he was confident in the product’s ability to to deliver on the
capabilities they had so rejection wasn’t a problem for him to be able to take rejection and deep down
he was smart enough to understand how the map capabilities to goals objectives challenges and issues once he did that
he was like I’m gonna follow this process and then it became the Fearless part of asking the hard questions not
accepting vague answers things like that just started becoming natural to him but it took a lot of practice
so that leads to a question on a comment you made earlier are sales people born
or are they made I wrote a blog post it’s in my on my website under my lessons tab about can
she sell this is during a time and actually we might be there now maybe more so maybe six months ago where
you’re trying to find sales people and it’s like all right why should so-and-so successful salesperson leave their
company to come work for me well that’s really hard to do I’ve got someone here on my team who says they want to do
sales can she sell and go back to some of the themes I was just talking about a couple minutes ago
are they Fearless are they competitive do they have enough intelligence to be
able to relate what it is you sell to the market and to individuals and how it
can help them tailoring those conversations to what they have and are they coachable
so if you’ve got that within your company and they want to do sales uh I would say even if they want to do
sales ahead of whether you believe them to be an extrovert or an introvert is most important so that’s what I’m
looking for so I do think they are made but they gotta but the innate part has got to be the want to
you saw on my post about my 18th uh anniversary being in business one of those things is I know for sales people
to be successful they have to be willing to ask those hard questions so if you’re a manager or an owner of a
water treatment company like your audience the person who wants to get in sales are they willing to put themselves out there
and ask hard questions knowing they might not get the answer they want and if you can figure that out
um that’s a good good first step in figuring out yeah this person could be successful so that’s good for somebody who is well
let’s just talk about that so somebody’s thinking they want to get into sales what is a reality check that they need
to have what are some qualities that they need to have in order to be successful in this industry
so give me an example in your life where something wasn’t right and instead of
backing away you asked the hard question whatever it was doesn’t matter where you are what role What scenario just give me
an example of that you know the other thing that um I’ve been hitting on lately that we want to look for in these
people is are they able to pattern recognize what I mean by that is if they’re internal at your company
are they constantly looking at problems within a customer base or at customers and realizing hey we have we solved that
for somebody else we can do that here can they recognize the patterns of goals challenges issues
objectives that others have that map to what we’ve already been successful at
so the questions to ask are you know where examples of where you’ve you’ve applied problem solving to
situations based on your experience now if somebody was looking to hire a
salesperson what should they be looking for and how do they know when they found
it well if it’s someone who’s never sold before and they’re and they’re applying for a job you want to understand are
they uh do they have that grit someone say that EQ that create a saying I don’t
care if I get nine doors slammed on me I’m still gonna Gonna Knock on the 10th and I want examples of hard work
I have another success story by the way I’m actually going to use his name um Isaac Isaac was 25 26 years old he was
referred to me by a colleague and said you know this guy wants to get into technology sales
he’s only been doing real estate but I think he’s smart he’s a hard worker would you talk to him sure I’ll talk to
him and I had a client actually that was looking to hire and they had we had put together already
our onboarding process for a new hire so I wasn’t worried about that the important thing about new hires new to
sales is ask them about any of their jobs in the past can they describe clearly
okay so who is your Market who’s your ideal client profile can you they describe their offering to
them what is it you would do for them and then can you describe how they do it what is that what would that look like as far as you servicing them or serving
them and if they can clearly describe all those all right they’re smart enough for the job all right can you give me an
indication of hard work and what that means is what would it take to build your book of business if
you’re doing real estate sales for example give me give me make me confident that if you get 50 leads you’ll be
you’ll follow up on them if you don’t get 50 leads you’ll go out and work the market yourself so let’s let’s figure
that out do they have that grit to um go after their business and then once they
get in front of people will have the confidence to be able to describe what they know already about their business
Adam I want to talk about the salesperson sales manager relationship
and so many times a sales manager is a previous sales person is that always how
that works is that should how that works oh that that’s a really good question you’re absolutely right the usual career
move is to go from excellent sales rep take them out of the field make them a sales manager is that the best move no
it works sometimes it also doesn’t work a lot by the way one of my offerings is
an advisory offering where hey I just made this guy to a manager he’s never managed before can you help him like
absolutely especially now if now this person he or she has a new team so when we go about
working with a new manager I’m saying to her all right on your team set aside
your top performers anyone who has uneven performance or negative performance is this a know-how issue or
is it a effort issue an effort issue let’s figure that out first well how do I do that especially nowadays where
we’re not in the same office together we’re all on these Zoom calls right I don’t know if you’ve played a lot of
sports in your life Trace but I always found that the coaches who started out strict and disciplined could then loosen
up later but the ones who started out Loose never could tighten up later it’s all about
discipline you come into a new role as a sales manager and like look I got to know what’s going on here BCC me on
every correspondence flood me with emails it’s amazing what you’ll learn
from that some people will say we’ll send you like 10 20 30 emails a day at your BCC down
with their prospects and you’ll be able to troubleshoot okay here’s what’s going on in these emails I can see you had a
good call here not good call here you should have asked to miss that we need to find out more information here others
are like I’m getting like two or three emails a day or 10 a week and I’m like that’s a problem so we can judge whether
it’s a sales enablement issue or or an effort issue the second thing I want to teach a new manager or a new VP
especially if they’ve been a salesperson to begin with is how do you debrief a call so this happens a lot nowadays it would
be on Zoom right you get a note hey I just had a fantastic call with a New Prospect inexperienced
manager with no coaching will say great what’s our next step I’m going to get him a proposal fantastic proposal goes
out nothing happens instead I’d like them have a checklist you had a great call fantastic I’m very excited for you
I can see you’re very excited let’s see what happened on that call and then that checklist would include things like
who’s a prospect what do they do what are they trying to accomplish how do they come to us what capabilities do we
position what’s the value of those capabilities to them the second thing a sales manager especially a new one needs
to master quickly is this scenario sales rep has a great
call nowadays it’s probably through Zoom or through text hey I had a great call
okay let’s talk about it manager and sales rep get together normally where I should say usually I
expect this is what happens had a great call they love us they think we’re great they’ve heard about us they want our
proposal I’m going to send them a proposal great send that proposal let me know what they say and I’m like no instead what I’d like
you to say is fantastic you’re I’m so excited you’re excited about this opportunity
tell me about it who is this Prospect what do they do for a living where are they located how did they find us
what capabilities did you position about ours that made them go oh yeah I like that
what’s the value of these capabilities to them and are they qualified to be able to pay us who do we want to involve
on our ends to make sure they understand what it is to be one of our clients and who else from their team do we want to
include in this Buy sell process to make sure it happens by the way nowadays nearly all sales that go on where
there’s a sales rep involved in a B2B world are what I would call complex sales
multiple decision makers who are involved in the sale multiple conversations so we know it’s not going to be a one
call close so who else on their end do we expect we need to talk to and are we getting
conversations with them that was the second thing uh the third thing is do your reps know
your company’s sales process to where when you talk about these opportunities they can tell you here’s
where I am in my in our process and here’s what and if they want to skip steps why that’s a
good thing why it’s necessary or why it’s appropriate if they want to skip steps
and as a sales manager like this doesn’t usually work when we do that are you sure we don’t need this that or the
other oftentimes that’s a cost benefit analysis a business case things like that or involving other people so can a
manager take the sales process document a sales process and then apply it to
each individual opportunity yeah it’s interesting normally people get rewarded because they do a
particular job well they can sell but they’ve had absolutely no experience at
all at managing and I don’t I don’t know what the success rate is I imagine it’s
probably in the middle what what is it is terrible I think the last statistic I
saw was something like new heads of sales whether you’re calling the sales manager or sales VP only lasts 18 months
and usually it’s because the executive team hasn’t properly enabled them to
succeed whether it’s through coaching or giving them a process or or something like that they just expect them to know
how to do it and that’s just wrong it’s really sad I think what does sales
coaching look like well it’s like any other coaching I know I know you provide a lot of coaching but
you’ve got to build your agenda first why are we here what’s the most important thing that’s going on in your
life right now professionally that we should talk about and usually they say something and then
it’s like well that’s not really it it’s really this maybe you’ve had that experience and then we get to the heart
of the matter what they’re nervous about or what has to happen for newer managers
that get the need coaching or advisory you really want to put together that plan and I think EOS even covers this on
a 30-60-90 sort of thing what do we need to accomplish in the next four weeks what are we looking to get in place for
60 days and then quarter over quarter what are we looking to do and notice I didn’t say achieve what do we need to do
so we can start building tasks that we can start knocking off and getting some success
and then the other part is of course like I mentioned before building up their skill set to be able to debrief
and Coach their people on their own instead of just being the babysitter so a lot of a lot of reps present the the
sales managers babysitter who’s just says okay what are you working on what’s going to close great go get them that
didn’t close why not okay let’s get them to the next thing it’s just a useless conversation
well that’s typically the conversation that’s had somebody that’s listening and maybe
that’s the type of sales manager they have or maybe that’s the type of sales manager they are how do they move to
being more proactive let’s assume that you’ve got some sort of CRM system maybe it’s even a shared
spreadsheet that lists out your reps opportunities
that are open that are not yet closed you want to start with that the sales
manager has to either be confident that the sales rep’s doing all the right things or has to be able to keep all
these in their head or understand what’s going on with each of them with them when you look at each individual
opportunity within a sales reps pipeline are the next steps appropriate so when they say hey I’ll give an example this
this happens a lot had a great conversation we mentioned this earlier had a great conversation they want our
proposal well you’re really sure they’re ready for a proposal or have you asked them fantastic I’m excited you on a
proposal is that the last step in your evaluation process well what do you mean no we’ll have to have this that or the
other okay so now a sales manager can say to a sales rep they’re asking for a proposal
are you sure they’re ready for it let’s ask that hard question so the sales rep the sales manager one-on-one if you will
should be about what’s going on in a pipeline and then when the each opportunity if they know it what’s going
well what’s not going well what roadblocks can I clear out for you so it has to be managed the sales
manager must see what activity is taking place and it doesn’t seem like you have
to use the CRM obviously that will automate some things but if somebody’s just using an Excel spreadsheet what’s
the bare minimum that the sales manager needs to know like we’re talking business to business realm let’s assume it’s a your
opportunities are opportunities with private Enterprise or a government where
there’s not a defined RFP process okay so let’s assume that that sort of scenario most sales processes are 70 or
80 exactly the same there’s a first initiation there’s a first meaningful interaction then you have other
meaningful interactions with other people involved in the decision that the prospect then there’s some sort of evaluation process which could include a
demonstration references business case implementation discrete description proposal contract things like that
verbal and close so as a sales manager you want to have
everyone understanding that what I just described if that’s it is our sales process
so if someone wants to jump from I had one call and they want a proposal whoa
how do we know there’s not other people we need to meet within the account that have a perspective and an input on making this decision and are you sure
proposal and then signing are the only steps in their buying process that we need to understand and appreciate
if the sales rep hems and Haws at all they’re going to go back and have that evaluation conversation so at a minimum
like you said with a spreadsheet you could have just a b c d across the top
in that or outbound meaningful interaction key players evaluation process
steps that we know they’re going to take in that evaluation process could be the next two or three proposal verbal closed
at a minimum we should start with that at a basic level of sophistication
and if you’re not doing that how do you report to your executive team what’s going to close and why you think it’s
going to close if I’m on an executive team as a CEO oftentimes it’s a CFO they’ll say I I
hear you got four or five deals in your pipeline you think you’re going to close this quarter why
why do you think and this is this happens every day in executive team meetings hey sales VP tell me why you think these
are going to close because I’ve got a budget off this and if they come back with well
Jody said they really want a proposal and they’re excited yeah and that’s for sure that’s
enough so everyone on the executive team should know the sales process as well well was there a joint work plan that that shows
their evaluation process uh no he skipped that step I’m not gonna put a
high percentage of that this is going to close this quarter yes we work through the entire evaluation process there at the end we
put together a joint work plan and now we’re at the stage where they’re ready for a proposal with all the terms and
conditions we’re going to get this closed now more confident it’s going to close I find a lot of departments don’t have a
Common Language and here’s my example of this uh somebody might think they have an 80 chance of closing where somebody
else might put that as a 60 so how do we make sure that the numbers of prediction
actually mean something let’s assume we have a company where we have some success we’ve been in business
for 5 10 20 years whatever it is we have an intuitive understanding that when we
get to a certain stage with a prospect How likely it is to close
now a small a new company a startup if you will I don’t even like to do that I
just want to close deals right I want to under forecast and over deliver but with existing companies who have built up
some sort of experience if you will calluses are on sales they know when we give a proposal it’s
rock solid we’re like 75 sure that closes like one out of four doesn’t close okay fine we’ll we’ll do that
others will say you know it’s clear that only like half there or 30 of their
proposals closed I know that’s then because they’re proposing too early proposals should end up with a higher
percentage um so to answer your question um each company is different in that
respect based on your experience going into a new market you may want to
ratchet down the kpis the key performance indicators and let’s just start getting some success and some
knowledge about what’s going on within this new market a company that I won’t say over the air
but I know there’s lots of companies that that do this one of their metrics
is and they reward on this is how they’re converting from one part of the
cycle to the next part of the cycle so in listening to what you’re saying now
we might be falsely promoting to the next side of the cycle uh and and
they’re congratulating on that but we’re just getting no sales at the end of that
pipeline so how should that be looked at so we want people to advance through the cycle but we want to make sure it’s done
effectively how do we do that again one of the things that I’m a stickler on I insist on it with my
clients is if you’re not documenting your sales calls in the form of an email
back to your prospects to where that’s the start of your next conversation is what did you think of my
email recap you’re doing it Rock so every meaningful conversation deserves a recap of that conversation
and it’s a way for a salesperson to take control of the sales cycle now when I hear that we’re doing well
moving things through the pipeline stage to stage stage one stage two stage three but then we’re not closing deals there’s
a quality issue within those stages that we need to address where are they
where is it going wrong you may have defined a process step and you’re just doing it but it really
doesn’t deserve it what’s the exit criteria for one stage to get to the next so with most of my clients I’ll
create a slide if you will that shows the sales methodology and there’s what
you’re going to do in that process the process step what’s the key areas of understanding and what are the exit
criteria you don’t let a sales rep move something from stage one to stage two unless
they’ve met that exit criteria it’s usually a a one or two things
that’s all it is so we’re not making it too difficult now if they
um insist on it they’ve got to justify it why are you skipping this career ever
understanding now tracing in the water treatment industry are there times where there’s a sales rep who then has to
bring in an expert to explain things later in the sales cycle but before it’s closed absolutely
yeah I had a feeling so the same thing with a lot of software sales same thing a lot of technology companies even
Consulting companies will have that you call it a solution engineer a solution consultant things like that
what I found is sometimes these two groups are loggerheads so the sales rep
is constantly bringing in the expert and the experts like what a waste of my time it’s way too early
they don’t even know who we are or what we do and I’m sitting here having to do the salesperson’s job
and this is a problem so I have some companies who have a uh
basically a an SLA a service level agreement between sales and the experts that says here’s the criteria for you
asking for this resource and they match to moving through that sales process
and everyone loves it it’s like now I have a clear understanding of when to bring in this expert the experts like
I’m not gonna have to do their job of explaining who we are I can do the other stuff that I’m working on
more appropriate and some higher better use of my time and that’s just one example of how you
have a key area of understanding that then feeds into an exit criteria to move people from left to right on your sales
process move opportunities left right that’s brilliant could you do the same thing for proposal writing
well anytime a sales manager hears a rep say I’m ready to write a proposal okay
are all the key areas of understanding and all the extra criteria already filled out a proposal should be defined
within any every company as the prospect will learn nothing new from it it’s just
a culmination of all the conversations and process steps we’ve done before put into writing including the terms and
conditions so that we can get get signature if you define a proposal that way the
sales rep knows yeah it’s too early for me to put together a proposal Adam I don’t think I’ve ever heard that
describe so succinctly before that is the gold from this interview that was that that’s awesome you need to have a
t-shirt or something made up it only took me about two hours so well that’s fantastic uh there’s so
much more we could talk about uh I do want to scale an up Nation to be able to reach out to you if they have questions
of their own how can they do that there’s a few a few ways to do it you
can call or text me at 404-798-8397 you can drop me an email at
Adam salesreformschool.com you can hit that same uh domain salesreformschool.com and
fill out a contact me thing I’ll offer all of you all of your audience a 30
minute chat I do that I regularly send out my calendly to strangers I believe two years ago I had one of your uh fans
from Saudi Arabia call me we talk sales for a half hour it was great how about that it was terrific and there have been
others from across the country from this H2O podcasts that have uh reached out to me call text find me on LinkedIn I am
not the CFO Adam Shapiro I am the sales reform school Adam Shapiro so you can find me there on LinkedIn as well might
be a totally different conversation with the CFO one he’s a good guy I know him
actually all right Adam always enjoy having you on uh and just a heads up you will be on
again because we’ve got so much more to talk about but let’s go ahead and transition to the lightning round
question so are you ready for those I’ll let everybody know I had a preview of these but these are hard to go through
well these are level two lightning round questions since you’ve already answered
the first one so the the point value is doubled so they are a little harder the first question is what would you say
your superpower is can I answer personally and professionally sure why not okay I would
say professionally and I’ve been told this before uh I get right to the heart of the matter so there’s not a lot of BS
with me when we have an engagement we have time scheduled to talk we’re going to get right to the heart what objective
we need to reach or what challenge we need to overcome and I’ll and I’ll get to it personally I am the leftover King
Friday we have a refrigerator full of leftovers I will make a gourmet meal out of that impressive
give us an example of that okay we’ve got some veggies over here we got some sort of protein over here I
know I have uh stir-fry spices and herbs and and sauces I can make it into a stir
fry we’ll expect some recipes for uh for the show notes page well if you go to my
lessons tab on my website salesreformschool.com I usually have every lesson will end with food for
thought and then extracurricular every now and then I’ll put a recipe in there there you go there you go little hack
for the website there what would you say your biggest accomplishment is this is a
tough question because it makes your you’re making me brag on purpose it’s okay
Trace I have an incredible 31 year marriage and I have three fantastic children
two of whom I’ll say are fully fledged and out there in the real world one is a third year at Georgia Tech my family
life is my greatest accomplishment great answer so if you had a magic wand
that can change anything in the world what would you change am I right that you’re a Trekkie that
that might be correct yes yeah I am as well and one of the themes especially older I’m a little older than you are I
don’t know if my audience knows that but they do now okay I want to end racism and bigotry of all of all kinds so you
know the reason I brought Star Trek is is the that ideal is present in pretty
much every one of their their shows and movies from the first really really William Shatner all the way up to
Discovery yeah great answer last question when
Atlanta right in the center of downtown they erect your statue what does your
plaque say well on the serious side I think you would say um he was a big believer in
human potential so as a coach at heart I think everyone can be coached maybe I’ll joke also that
his wife said he was right once [Laughter] well once that’s good well Adam it’s
always fun having you on the podcast uh one last question if you just want to
make sure there is one underlying message one final thought one big
thought that you get across to our audience today what do you want that to be
wow um your audience the the first blog post I ever wrote is
called what your dirty dozen what I meant by that first of all the movie’s incredible that’s what it refers to
everyone who thinks they’re in sales where everyone who runs a company needs to know what are the dirty dozen
12 problems or challenges that your Market has that you can help
solve or take care of once you have those written down everyone you know should know this
So eventually Trace is talking to somebody and you know my dirty dozen or
at least a few of them and you go you know you should call Adam so that’s my that’s the one thing I wish everybody
knew is get your list your dirty dozen put together and then tell everybody so when they’re out there in the in the
world they think of you it’s great advice Adam thanks once again for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast
anytime it’s always fun visiting with you [Music]
stay on up Nation you hear me say all the time how do you know what you don’t know
well another way to look at that is how do you meet who you haven’t met yet
because who has information that you need and maybe you don’t know that you need it and one of the things that I’ve
always tried to do and I’ve tried to do it because somebody told me I needed to do it I didn’t know I needed to do it is
to put myself into an environment where I am learning another way of putting
that and you probably have heard you never want to be the smartest person in the room well that’s not hard for me but
I always want to make sure I’m in a room where people are speaking about things
that I may not know that I didn’t know and that’s where I met Adam Adam and I
were a member of a group called vistage and that’s where I met my mentor Tim
Fulton I believe I spoke about him last week and Tim’s been on this podcast a
couple of times and I alluded last week that Tim and I are working on a project together that I cannot wait to tell all
of you about but it’s not quite ready yet so you’re gonna have to wait
Adam and I met in a group called vistage and vistage is a mastermind it’s where
people get together and they discuss what’s going on in their lives and then
we take a particular issue and we process that and the cool thing that
happens when we do that is we can learn from others experiences
we can learn from others failures without experiencing the failure
ourselves so if we put ourselves in a room that we are able to share what
we’re having problems with we get all of this feedback from people and we can
either do that advice or maybe we don’t but more often than not before that
conversation we were starting on the very first step after this conversation we get so much
advice we might be starting on the second step or maybe the fifth step or
maybe even the 10th step and now we have all of this new vision that we didn’t
have before because people told us about similar issues that they were having and
all of the different things that were going on in the periphery and maybe even some failures that we now don’t need to
experience because they’ve told us about them they told us what not to do some
people are going to tell us what to do some people are are going to tell us what not to do some people might
actually introduce us to somebody new who might have some information that we
don’t have folks the point is if you do not have a room of people like this
I truly believe you’re working too hard not that life will ever be easy with
whatever you do but if you seek out opportunities for people to help you and
the reason that you can get people to help you is because your number one goal is for you to help them
it changes everything and that’s why I’ve been part of a mastermind for well
over a decade and that’s why I started the rising tide Mastermind so if you’re
out there and you’re thinking that this sounds like something that you want to
explore I would love for you to explore go to scalingup h2o.com forward slash
Mastermind you can read about the rising tide Mastermind and if it sounds like
something you want to learn more about I would love to talk to you one on one to
see if the rising tide Mastermind is right for you now there are a lot of
people where the rising tide Mastermind is not right for them but you’re thinking about what group should I join
go find one that is life is way too
complicated to do it alone I truly believe believe if you’re doing life alone you’re doing it incorrectly
there’s so many references that I can make but I think everybody gets it so
it’s my hope that you do a little research and figure out how you can get
in a group of people that their sole motivation is to help each other
Nation I hope that this podcast has helped you I will tell you that by you
listening to this podcast you have helped me I am so happy to have this
amazing job as your host of the scaling up H2O podcast and the only way I can do
that is for you to listen so thank you for listening and I can’t wait to come
at you next week with a brand new episode until then have a great week folks
foreign do you wish you had your own private
tutor to help you study for the certified water technologist examination well now you do so many of you have
asked me to help you with the mock cwt examination and I’ve done that very
thing if you go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash cwt prep
again that’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash cwt prep you will see that I’ve created
a course and I tell you everything I know about each one of those mock
questions it’s my hope that that helps give you the confidence you need to sign
up to get certified today
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