Larry

00:00 - 00:03

The biggest mistake is not being impatient. I think.

Chris

00:03 - 00:04

you have impatient?

Larry

00:04 - 00:06

Yeah. I think you have to be impatient.

Chris

00:06 - 00:19

When you're in the middle of a transformation, what are the early signs that your current teams may be not built for what's next?

Larry

00:19 - 00:23

Well, you know, it's let me say this upfront that.

Chris

00:23 - 00:24

Yeah.

Larry

00:24 - 01:12

Building a team or transforming a team is probably one of the most difficult things that a sales leader has to has to do in a business. I mean, you can build teams from the ground up.

You can inherit teams and try to accelerate the growth of those teams. Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you have to cut cost, and so you have to increase productivity.

All of those things, you know, you you can follow some real tight rules. But when you're in the middle of having to transform a team from doing one thing to doing something that's very different.

Maybe it's not completely different, but it's very different from what they're doing today.

Chris

01:12 - 01:12

Yeah.

Larry

01:12 - 01:27

That's probably one of the most difficult things you're gonna have to do when you're in business. And so some of the early signs and I haven't done I haven't done this a few times and not always been successful at it, by the way.

Chris

01:27 - 01:53

It's a very to your point, Larry, it's very difficult, but this is such a unique topic because I with with AI coming into the fold, really distancing ourselves from the pandemic and and moving forward, a lot of things have changed to help business is done. And I do see a lot of companies that you and I support going through those transformations, and it is it's tough.

Right. A 100.

Larry

01:53 - 04:01

Right. So so the early sounds you know, getting back to your question, the early sounds that, it's gonna be difficult is when, the the leaders that you have that are closest to your sellers are having a difficult time buying it.

So, you know, when you're transforming team, it's all about buying first. And if you can get the leaders who are closest to the sellers to buy in early on, that's a good sign, a good sign.

But if there's a lot of pushback, from the people that are closest to the sellers, you're gonna you're gonna struggle because, if they're good sales leaders, their teams are really dependent on them, you know, to help them understand what you're trying to get accomplished. So if you're battling with the that layer of sales management, that first layer of source management, that's an early sound that this is gonna be hard because you're gonna have to make some really tough decisions on people who probably have been driving your success and the company's success for a long period of time.

So, you know, in in in many cases, what that means is that you may have to retire or move away from people who are not low performers. They're actually pretty high performers if they don't buy in to where the company needs to go to be successful.

So those are the early sides. If in fact they do buy in, then you move into how successful they they are at helping to communicate that message to the sellers.

And if they're good sales leaders, they usually can do it. And then you have a smoother route.

It doesn't mean that everybody's gonna be able to survive this transformation, but it does mean that it will be a little smoother, as you go forward.

Chris

04:01 - 04:39

What is interesting, you say something. So, I think this is where I mean, I've never been through this, so I I couldn't speak to this.

But I know one of the biggest things for leaders in all all sizes, c levels, small businesses is when they're making this transition, they don't wanna lose the really good talent they have. But what's interesting what you just said is sometimes you do have to let your top go because they're not a fit for your new direction or what you're about to embark on at me.

So I'm a business owner. I find that interesting.

What do you mean, I guess, more specifically? Because I would have a tough time with that. Right?

Larry

04:39 - 05:00

Yeah. It's it's more than interesting.

It's it's it's really, really hard. It's really, really tough because these are the people that brought you here.

And now you're you're suggesting to them that they have to do some things differently. So that might not be their skill set or they might just not buy it.

Chris

05:00 - 05:18

How often would you see leaders that you either had to, hey. This isn't working out or, you know, they left because on their own accord.

How often does that happen during transformation? And then companies don't have, like, a succession plan for the people they bring it in.

Larry

05:18 - 05:21

Oh, probably 90% of them now.

Chris

05:21 - 05:22

Oh, that high?

Larry

05:22 - 08:33

Yeah. I mean, you you're you're so focused on the transformation.

The idea that you're thinking about a succession plan as part of my hiring process, I I think it gets left out of you know, I'm 90% is what I say, but I would because I think if I'm being a 100% honest, when companies are transforming, you know, maybe 25% are successful with the first go round. I don't think the trans transformation I don't think the transformations go well the majority of talent.

You know, I I think that companies can get there, but I think they get there through a lot of heartache. You end up losing a significant portion of your existing staff during that process.

But I think they get there with a lot of heartache or they don't get there at all, and then they're they're out of, you know, they're out of business. Sometimes companies decide they need to transform their Salesforce to do things differently, and they're just too earning.

And so the company may have realized and some of the senior c level folks in the company have realized that this thing is happening. But maybe the sales organization and the customers that they deal with haven't sent those messages back to the sellers.

So what you end up with is the disconnect. I I may not just buy in or I may not just or maybe I don't buy in because I know that that's not my skill set.

And so yeah. It's, that's a difficult challenge because you're you know, you could do the performance management thing.

Okay? But that's gonna take too long, and it's gonna take too long because, you know, they're not gonna start failing suddenly. They're not gonna start performing badly.

You need them to start shifting what they're doing. And if they're not performing badly at what they're doing, they're not gonna shift.

I would say be patient, but in fact, what you're gonna have to be is impatient with them not following the direction that you think the company needs to go with. One of the things that you can do is usually when you're transforming a company to do something different, you fix the compensation plan.

And so if you fix the compensation form to drive the behavior that you want those sellers to take, and it's now very different than what they've used to doing, chances are that their income is gonna start to fall. Some other strategic priorities, and that's where I'm gonna focus the comp plan on, and that's how I'm gonna pay you versus what you're doing today.

So to give you an exam give you an example, if you're a hardware a hardware company and your company's been selling hardware for a long amount of time and being very successful at it, but you see that the shift is going to services. Mhmm.

Chris

08:33 - 08:33

Yeah.

Larry

08:33 - 09:27

A lot of times hardware sellers, you know, don't make great services sellers. But you see this shift going to services because the margins are coming down on hardware, and so the profits that you used to enjoy, you don't enjoy anymore.

So now you want them selling services. Well, now you're gonna have to shift the comp plan so that the heavier payout to the services side of the business, alright, and that the the quota the quota relief is on the services side of the business as opposed to on the hard side.

So some of your some very good salespeople will start you know, if they don't buy in, we'll start to see their income decline. So in in fact, a lot of those folks will just trip out of your business and go find, you know, somewhere else to work.

Chris

09:27 - 09:33

What advice would you give to founders or executives right now going through a transformation?

Larry

09:33 - 10:08

Be impatient. Build a personal box, and then, you know, be very aggressive at communicable.

Skip level, over communicating, getting out in front of the teams. You know, increase your your activity in front of the teams, you know, 50%.

50 to 60. That's a lot.

Making sure your first line sales windows have bought in. But if they haven't, be impatient.

Chris

10:08 - 10:16

Man, this is great, Larry. Yeah.

No. I appreciate you taking time on this one, as we've had many discussions.

So thank you for taking the time.

Larry

10:16 - 10:17

Thank you Chris.