Jeff Schneider on Sales Cookbooks, Manager Accountability, and LinkedIn Referrals

Transcript

0:04 All right. Well, today we have uh Jeff on. Jeff is actually the first Handler trainer I ever met. I was a competitor

0:11 of his actually at the time. I was working at Force Management. Um but definitely learned a ton when we were at a COCCC event, which is a college here

0:20 in Bend. Um and learned a ton. Thought, you know what, we're we're learning about how to do outbound and all that kind of stuff. We should have Jeff come

0:28 teach us, give us some more wisdom. So Jeff, anything else I missed in that intro you want to cover?

0:34 No, that's great. I am uh a principal consult consultant at OMP these days.

0:40 OMP is the Oregon manufacturing extension partnership, which is a mouthful, but it's a consulting firm in

0:47 Portland that helps manufacturers be able to improve their efficiency.

0:51 Traditionally, they have done this on the operation side. They're all NBAs and lean and six sigma and all of that good

0:58 stuff, but they've noticed that many manufacturers need help with revenue and so they bought a Sandler franchise and recently hired me.

1:07 Yeah. Did you they give you a specific reason that they picked you or did you come and like reach out to them out of the cold and be like, "Hey, by the way,

1:14 just in case you need like an expert?" Well, both actually. So, so they they bought a Sandler franchise two years ago because they had been through Sandler

1:23 sales training and realized that um although they aren't salespeople, this was a process and they're process people

1:30 and they could follow this process. So, they started trying to share some of the principles with their clients, but it dawned on them that if they were really

1:39 going to be effective at helping their manufacturing clients um figure out how to sell better, that they probably should buy a franchise. And so I

1:47 approached them and with my background of 18 years as a Sandler trainer, they said, "Oh yeah, we'd love to work with you." It makes sense, right? Why why try to

1:55 struggle through something when they can just bring on an expert to over that process? Yeah. Yeah.

2:00 It's uh it's interesting that you say like they're very processoriented Lean Six Sigma MBA. That's actually my background. I'm black belt Lean Six

2:07 Sigma. I got my MBA. Uh, I do not call myself a seller yet, although I like to believe that I'm in that process of

2:14 becoming becoming one and like like learning how to train the muscle and, you know, going through like, hey, this is what I do every single day to make

2:22 sure that I continue to get better at this knowing it's going to be a while.

2:25 Um, how are you finding like the process working with this company? They bought a franchise. Now you're having to work with these processoriented people. uh

2:34 you know like do you mind expanding like what the experience has been like so far with them?

2:38 Yeah. So so you know in terms of them being able to understand Sandler it wasn't that difficult. They're smart people. Yeah.

2:46 And they're processoriented and Sandler is a process. It's a sevenstep process.

2:52 Um sequential in nature for qualifying and disqualifying opportunities. Uh, Sandler was designed to help prospects

3:00 and sellers get to yes or no outcomes where no is perfectly okay. So, they like that because they don't want to be

3:06 high pressure salespeople. Who does? Um, and and they they found the techniques

3:13 to be usable, you know. So for instance, upfront contracts, it just struck them as rational that at the start of a meeting, we should probably have a

3:21 conversation about what we're doing here, what the goal is, and what my agenda is, and what your agenda, how much time do we have today, and when we get to the end, what kind of decisions

3:30 might we make? That just seemed perfectly logical to them. It got a little bit trickier when they started trying to train people and they would

3:38 get asked questions like, "Yeah, I tried that. It didn't work because of this.

3:41 Now what do I do?" and and that's where just there there's nothing like experience having been in sales, having trained

3:48 Sandler, you know, that that experience is is super helpful. But yeah, there they were able to adopt it at least to a

3:57 a moderate level because they're smart and it's a process and they can follow process.

4:03 Yeah. And so with gaining that experience, at least in my experience with it, is there's a lot of like setting the right mindset to continue to

4:11 follow through because it's not going to be it's not an overnight thing and it's the gaining the experience to be able to get better at that. What are some of like

4:19 the like pieces of advice you have around like the behavior or like the mindset that someone needs to have and adopt as they're going through this process of becoming an actual seller?

4:29 Yeah. Yeah. So you know we we teach something called the success triangle Austin and the success triangle if you can visualize a triangle the top corner

4:38 is attitude the bottom lefthand corner is behavior bottom right hand corner is technique and so all three of these are

4:45 necessary to be successful in sales business manufacturing sports you know playing the violin you have to have the

4:53 right mindset you have to engage in the right activities and you have to employ the right tactics so attitude food

5:00 behavior technique. Um the the behavior part is important because well for a lot

5:07 of different reasons but you know without doing the right behavior the training is going to fall flat. I mean why why learn a selling process if you

5:15 don't intend to actually go out and use it?

5:17 So from a business development standpoint for instance um a lot of sales people are getting ready to get ready but they aren't actually doing the

5:26 activities. So, one of the first things that I like to do when I'm working with a new client is to get with their

5:33 leadership team and to roll out the Sandler process, make sure they buy into it, and kind of give them a a head

5:40 start, but then to coach them on how to manage their people because what we want

5:46 to do is send a message right away that um the behaviors and techniques we're going to be teaching you are mandatory.

5:56 and and there's a certain amount of them that you need to do whatever behavior it is that you uh decide is going to be a

6:03 part of your plan. It's mandatory to do this. So, I'd like to say that I get tremendous results from my clients because I'm such an amazing trainer. I transform their lives, right?

6:14 Yeah.

6:15 probably it's just this piece right here where we say, "Hey, sales manager and sales leaders, are you prepared to have

6:22 a weekly one-on-one with your people where the two of you get into agreement on the types of behaviors you're going to be doing and you're going to hold

6:30 them accountable to that behavior? Is that something you're currently doing?

6:33 And if not, um, are you committed to doing it?" And when they do that, we see a 15 to 20% boost in behavior that's

6:40 sustainable and nothing but good things happen after that.

6:45 Is there like a a particular leverage point or like secret sauce or like certain thing like that should be part of that upfront contract that you've

6:53 noticed that like hey if you have this conversation as a manager to the people and have the expectations for the behaviors

7:00 make sure you hit these three points or this has to be part of the contract or just is there anything that like kind of anchors in success and like that actual

7:07 follow through. I don't know if there's anything in particular that is a, you know, a real key in terms of the upfront

7:16 contract other than the seller and the manager need to um get together and develop this plan.

7:24 It's it's what we call a cookbook, right? This this is a phrase we've used for a long time in Sandler cookbook and David Sandler, our founder, called it a

7:32 cookbook because he said a cookbook contains recipes. recipes include ingredients and amounts and time. Um,

7:41 and he said, "Every salesperson needs this." And so, for instance, a cookbook might just be a written document that

7:50 says, "Every week I will make 50 telephone calls. I will send out 50 emails. I will send out 10 new uh

8:00 invites on LinkedIn. I will go to one networking meeting and capture at least three business cards. I will post

8:09 content three times on LinkedIn. I will comment on uh my my ideal clients uh

8:16 postings at least five times and I will ask one person for a referral or introduction. That's that's what we mean

8:23 by a cookbook. It's a set of activities with numbers. Uh, and I I would call it minimum weekly behaviors. And and so

8:32 from a managerial standpoint, if you're my salesperson, we start there. And either you develop it and you submit it

8:39 to me and I look at it and I say, "Okay, let's let's do it." Or if you don't know what to do because you're brand new, I

8:48 give it to you and I say, "Here's what I need you to do. Are you good with it?" That's the upfront contract right there, by the way.

8:55 Here's what I need you to do. Are you good with it? Or you submit it to me and I go, I'm good with it. Let's put it into play. Now, once we put it into play

9:04 from the managerial standpoint, it's very important that they um have accountability around the person doing this behavior

9:12 that that if what they hear is excuses that they have to be able to say to the salesperson, okay, is was this too much?

9:21 And if it is, what is your plan to be able to hit your goal? Because I need you to come up with a plan to hit your goal. But until we start getting that

9:29 minimum behavior, there's not much the manager can do other than to hold their feet to the fire, inspect what they expect. But the idea is once the sales,

9:37 assuming that the salesperson is doing the behavior, then we can look at ratios because we have expectations. If if you

9:45 make 50 dials, you aren't just making $50 for the heck of it. We're making an assumption you're going to set up three appointments or four appointments,

9:52 right? Or or an intermediate step might be 10 conversations and then once you make 50 dials a week

9:59 for four weeks, we just see if you're having 10 conversations and if not, then we have to do some some adjustments.

10:06 Yeah. I mean, is it fair to say that like step one most important thing is just start building behavior and then

10:14 afterwards start worrying about whether or not it's paying off in terms of book meetings or you know downline revenue.

10:21 And so as long as the behavior is started then you can start adjusting and building from there. And then yes, have you noticed any trends on like

10:29 is it better if you can have the salesperson propose their cookbook and then work from there or Yeah. Does it matter? That's a good

10:36 question. I I think the sales manager has to size up their saleserson and ask themselves, do I believe this person is

10:44 capable of coming up with their own plan? And if so, I'm going to let them do it because that is the best practice.

10:51 But if they kind of look at their person and say, "I think they're entirely too new and frankly ignorant of what it's

10:59 going to take to be successful, then it's probably not best to say come up with a plan because the counter plan I'm going to have to give them is going to

11:07 be so radically different that it might be off-putting." So, so if if you're a senior rep and you've done this sort of thing before,

11:15 I'm going to let you come up with the plan. Otherwise, I'm probably going to suggest what the plan looks like, try and gain agreement on it, and then get

11:24 that behavior coming in. To your first question, Austin, yes, we need to simply

11:31 do the behavior without worrying too much about the results right out of the gate. And a good sales manager always

11:39 has the results in mind, but they're encouraging their person, just do it.

11:44 Just do it. And let's go create some data. Okay, that that's the way I like to think about it. It's just data because we want to be as unemotional as

11:52 we possibly can be when we're making phone calls, sending out emails, sending out LinkedIn invitations, all that stuff. You're going to experience a lot of ghosting and rejection. That's okay.

12:03 That's part and parcel of what we're doing. You know that, right?

12:06 Yep. Um, but we want to do the behavior, get the data so we can start to look at ratios because this is where the sales

12:14 manager, the skill really comes in is being able to look at, again, hypothetically, 50 dials. We're

12:23 presupposing 10 conversations, but you only get two.

12:27 Okay. What happened? That this is where the good sales manager doesn't get angry, doesn't get judgmental, but just says, "What's going on?" Yeah.

12:35 Right. Are you getting screened by gatekeepers? Yeah, I am. What are you saying to them? Or um are you just

12:41 getting voicemail? Is it just going straight through to voicemail? Yeah.

12:46 What are you doing in terms of voicemail? Right.

12:49 So when the salesperson is doing the behavior but falling short on results,

12:56 the manager has a couple of options. The first one is to try and coach the quality of the behavior, right? Is there a better way to do it? The second one is to look at the quantity of behavior.

13:07 Maybe we need to do 75 or 100 instead of 50. And then finally, the manager may start to question the behavior itself

13:15 and say maybe the phone isn't the way to go and we have to walk in or we have to go to trade shows. Yeah.

13:21 So for somebody who doesn't have access to like a skilled manager on a daily basis aka me a founder who's doing founder le sales

13:29 you know looking at my own data and trying to do a self assessment on okay is this a I just need to do more I just

13:38 need to do it better or I just need to do something different like what recommendations would you have in terms of going through that process of

13:45 selfcorrecting when I don't necessarily have access on a regular basis to somebody who can come with experience 19 years experience to then say, "Hey, this

13:52 is a better problem or this is a different problem." Selfishly, hire a sales coach like me so I can help you with all this.

14:00 That is probably the best answer.

14:02 Aside from that, um try and be your own best uh sales manager and do what a sales manager would do. Have a weekly one-on-one with yourself where you and

14:09 you look at the data. you try and assess as if you know when I say data if you can record the calls

14:17 that's ideal because then you can listen to it critically and and try and gauge what it is that you're doing differently

14:24 always be in the process of growing and learning so again if you're in a sales training program like the ones that we offer that's ideal if not be reading

14:32 books be um running things through chat GPT right if if if you can toss the transcripts of some of your calls into

14:40 chat at GPT and explain what you're trying to do versus what's you're experiencing. You might get some coaching there. Um, that's that's the

14:49 best idea. But somehow we have to not just do behavior and hope it works, but the behavior should cause us to get

14:58 better. So, if I'm a baseball player and I hit fast balls well, but I struggle with curve balls, um, it doesn't help me

15:06 to just swing at more fast balls. I need to get a whole bunch of curve balls thrown at my head in order to figure out how to hit a curveball. Yeah.

15:13 So again, behavior is the best shortcut to success. But particularly when it's coupled with some kind of coaching.

15:22 Yeah. I I mean I've noticed even like through my own journey of being on a cold call and like going through the

15:28 process just by purely getting reps, it makes me more comfortable. I become more confident. I don't stumble as much.

15:36 I mean, I'm not perfect by any means, but purely just like reps. We're getting you stronger.

15:42 Um, and then, you know, then the question has really for me been like I think then that means sure the technique

15:51 continues to be refined, but then I think like all right, so this is a time to do something different then.

15:56 Yeah. either a different ICP or a different approach to the same ICP because I can feel myself getting better

16:03 like I would say like objectively just because my mediums booked have got increased but not at the rate I'd like um and then it's like oh I'll continue

16:11 to get better if I keep getting these reps. So the real lever to do here is maybe do more or maybe do different and then even a combination of both because

16:19 turning both those dials up just gets me more exposure to more data.

16:23 That's right. The other thing you you mentioned ICP. Let's talk about that for a minute. Your ideal client profile.

16:29 It's a very very important concept and I preach it to all my clients that you know the traits of your ideal client. I like to think of it in terms of a

16:37 bullseye with concentric circles. So you start off with the lowhanging fruit with people that you know and then you're

16:44 slowly moving out to referrals and people that you can get into a conversation because of connections. But eventually it gets cold. Um, and that

16:53 that's where the technique is really at a premium. But if you're burning out, getting depressed, starting to doubt yourself on those cold calls, go back to

17:00 some of the warmer uh opportunities and try and refresh there because you you you can learn from from not only the

17:10 cold calls, but the warmer calls. And ideally, I don't even get to the cold calls, but I'm working referrals and introductions as much as possible. In

17:19 fact, before you ever make a cold call, if you're using LinkedIn properly, go out to that person's LinkedIn profile

17:27 and see if you have any connections in common. And if so, call one of those people and ask them about that person.

17:33 Ask them how you should reach out to them. Or even if you should, maybe there's somebody else in the organization you should be reaching out to. Or better yet, ask them to introduce you to them.

17:43 Yeah. Yeah. So, how would you argue that that like LinkedIn is used correctly?

17:49 Because I think it's and I would even throw myself in there as somebody who maybe doesn't use it correctly or even definitely doesn't use it correctly. I

17:57 think I see a lot of people not using it correctly. Yeah.

17:59 Um but it seems like part of your cookbook should be LinkedIn and then there's a technique around that. It may be your entire cookbook.

18:06 Yeah. you know, you you you may be solely using LinkedIn because when you identify somebody you want to reach out

18:14 to, like me for instance, I've got 11,000 connections. And if I were to do a search on VP of sales in the Portland

18:21 metro area, I would say at least nine out of 10 of them I'm either connected with or I've got at least 10 common

18:30 connections with them. And and so I should never make a cold call to a VP of sales in Portland metro area. I should

18:38 always reach out to somebody that I know that knows them and to say, "Hey, how well do you know him? I was going to call him about this. Do do you think I

18:45 should or do you know him well enough to make an introduction?" So that when I say correctly using LinkedIn, LinkedIn is the world's

18:52 largest referral network and that's not the way most people think of it. But the more connections that you have within your ICP, the more ability you have to

19:01 not make cold outreaches, but to actually tap into the the leverage that's already established, the trust

19:10 that's already built and you'd mentioned though earlier with like the cookbook like your example had a ton of variety in that. And is that

19:18 because at the beginning you should have variety to get data and then start honing based on you know the data coming in and then potentially reducing or even

19:26 maintaining. What would be the best way to get to the point where you can just pull up your LinkedIn and basically have a rolodex and go great this I'm going to get my warm referral right now.

19:34 Right. Right. Um I always say strive for five in order to thrive five different activities. And it's just because if you're fishing there is no pond or river

19:43 that contains all the fish that you want. So, it's wise to have different fishing poles with different bait that you're putting into different lakes and ponds and streams.

19:52 And um eventually you're going to find what works best for you. Particularly once you have clients who are happy with

20:01 what you're doing. Once you have one client that's happy with what you're doing, you're going to want to ask them for referrals and introductions. Once

20:09 you have a hundred clients who are happy with the results, you're probably not cold calling anymore. You're you're mining the referrals and introductions

20:18 from your clients because that is the most efficient way for you to scale.

20:23 Yeah. I mean, nothing beats a warm intro.

20:25 That's right. That's right. Abs. So, so that everything that we're doing is angling towards that and and the the

20:32 people who are best able to introduce us are people who who are using our services and happy with them.

20:41 Yeah. And then so and I think I understood correctly which would be continue to use five but that five evolves over a period of time.

20:48 Yeah. Yeah.

20:50 Yeah. I mean that that five may turn into all things on LinkedIn. I'm reaching out to existing clients to see how happy they are and asking them for

20:58 introductions. I am identifying through searches on LinkedIn um people that match my ICB ICP and seeing who I know

21:08 that they know. I'm posting. I'm reaching out to the people who are second and third connections who are

21:15 liking my stuff and um you know inviting them to connect and I'm commenting on my

21:22 targets uh posts. There's five activities right there just off the cuff.

21:27 What would you think? What would you consider to be um some more creative activities that you would still consider cookbook? Like my brain goes to cold

21:36 call, email, send a LinkedIn message, go to a networking event. Yeah.

21:41 But I mean, is that pretty solid for the universe or would you say, "Hey, you're missing out on a bunch of other ideas that you should be thinking about more regularly." Well, there there's so many ideas and I

21:50 I want to be careful because it it you know, is it a good idea? It depends upon the individual and their ICP and their product. But for instance, establishing

21:59 strategic alliances. Th this can be a dynamite um activity for certain types of

22:06 businesses. A strategic alliance is a um a person that sells to your ICP. Uh but

22:14 they're not a competitor. They they sell complimentary services and products. So to build these relationships and to

22:20 partner with these people, um, when you find one or two of these that really are a match and and they're like-minded, now

22:28 all of a sudden I'm saying, you know, Austin, if you're a strategic alliance of mine, hey, we ought to do a free talk at uh, you know, local trade

22:36 associations and chambers of commerce, and we ought to do a webinar together, and maybe we should feature each other on our websites and in each other's

22:43 email marketing, and maybe we should write a white paper together, and Maybe we should start a panel discussion and maybe we should have a beer and tequila

22:52 tasting event in which we invite CEO, you know, it's endless at that.

22:57 So, so really like I think I was coming from a very restricted point of view what a cookbook should should involve

23:04 even not just like could but right to not think about all of those different avenues and possibilities is to leave a ton on the table. Yeah.

23:12 To really be missing out on a more effective approach.

23:15 Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we we talk a lot about cold calling. Some people say it's dead. I don't think it's dead.

23:21 Uh, and for some people, it's really the only way or the most logical way to start, but it should go away eventually.

23:30 Eventually, you shouldn't be doing much cold outreach at all because you cultivated a good enough client base and

23:37 strategic alliances and LinkedIn connections that you can get more creative and have more fun, frankly. Yeah. But you've got to earn that one.

23:45 That's right.

23:46 So like for us like specifically like that sounds awesome, but we haven't earned that right yet. So we need to continue to do still got to grind the muscle.

23:55 Yeah. Yeah. Still got to grind.

23:57 No, it it's a fun grind as soon as you start getting used to it and you get the right mindset and the behavior continues to pay off. Um but I I mean it's not

24:06 that far away where I just dreaded having to make the first call and I'm like, "Yeah, this is great. My first call today. Had a great conversation.

24:13 Booked a meeting. First call. first dial of the week was, you know, that makes it really exciting to be like, hey, this is there's a win on the other side of this.

24:21 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to like make you don't have to like making cold calls. David Sandler said you just have to make them. But if you realize that

24:29 they make you money, Yeah. you may actually like them.

24:31 Yeah. Exactly. All right. We had an upfront contract. We are actually a minute past that upfront contract.

24:36 Jeeoff, I really appreciate you taking the time joining us on the podcast, sharing some wisdom. Uh any final thoughts or parting words before we uh sign off?

24:45 Yeah. Um another Sandal rule is it's not how you feel that determines how you act. It's how you act that determines

24:52 how you feel. So put together a plan for actions and uh do it whether you feel like it or not. And eventually you're just going to be happy.

25:01 That's perfect final words. I appreciate it, Jeeoff. Thanks, Austin.