How do you improve your sales reps without turning them into product-pitch robots?
In this episode of Entry & Exit, hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble (Alarm Masters, Houston) break down the core philosophy behind consultative selling: better discovery, better questions, and better qualification. Fresh off their sales kickoff (SKO), they share the frameworks and drills they use to help reps uncover budget, reach decision-makers (authority), find the compelling event, and confidently ask for the business—without overpromising or losing integrity.
If you’re running a security, alarm, life safety, or service business, this is a practical playbook for building a sales team that closes more of the opportunities they pursue.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Discovery vs. demos: why great reps win with questions, not features
- Consultative selling: listening, probing, and guiding the process
- Budget conversations: anchor pricing and avoiding surprise objections
- The compelling event: “Why now?” and how urgency impacts deals
- Sales training that sticks: role plays, Watch–Do–Teach, and coaching
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Stephen Olmon — https://x.com/stephenolmon
Collin Trimble — https://x.com/TXAlarmGuy
More Entry & Exit — https://www.entryandexit.co/
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EE 17
[00:00:00] Today we're gonna focus more on the kind of pure philosophy of sales selling on the product versus learning about how to be better at sales.
If you are so product focused, it can feel very forced and rehearsed and cold, ask
good questions. So if you have more information about their budget, the solution, who the players are, et cetera, you are likely gonna be the person that's gonna win that deal.
Also, why I want to do that in person, there's a lot of body language in those responses.
Agreed.
Oh, I don't want to be pushy. Yes you do.
You need to be asking for the business.
Intentionality wins. You're gonna have to do the hard work. Be intentional. Train your sales team isn't gonna like magically improve.
Welcome to Entry and Exit. My name is Steven Oman and this is Colin Trimble. My less handsome, better half. We run Alarm Masters in Houston, Texas, and we also run this podcast where we try to give you practical, tactical advice on how to scale your [00:01:00] security or life safety business.
We're gonna get back into the theme of sales today, Steven.
We're gonna talk. About, you know, and the reason why is because we just had our sales kickoff, our SKO, if you will, um, for our business this week, literally just three days ago. And so this was sort of top of mind for, hey, what did we talk about? And what was the focus of the S-K-S-K-O? And um, really for us it's about enabling our reps and giving them training, um, upskilling our existing reps.
And so that's gonna be the theme of today's episode, is we are gonna talk about how do we enable and improve our sales reps. And we have talked about how do you need to hire great sales reps to align with, uh, your goals and the role they're filling, you know, a hunter versus farmer that we've talked about that we have not talked about.
How do we improve our existing sales team? We've both worked in organizations, [00:02:00] right, where it's like, hey, we spend a lot of time doing sales training. And so we spent a lot of time here at Alarm Masters training. Our existing salespeople always be training, if you will,
always be training. Yeah. Yeah.
There's actually a song about this. Let's talk about sales baby. Let's,
yeah. Yeah. That wasn't, didn't, no, didn't, didn't land. Um, it's an
innuendo.
Yeah. So the first thing that I think I want to chat with you about, 'cause I think that you would appreciate this, is. You've gotta differentiate between your training for are we training on product and how to sell a given product or features and benefits and how to like position the product or are you training on sales ability, like true sales ability, scale, uh, how to ask great questions, et cetera.
And I think that today we're gonna focus more [00:03:00] on. The kind of pure philosophy of sales and like how to ask better questions and kind of some things that we really focus on with our team. But would, do you, would you put those into two categories like that? Like how do you think about that in terms of selling versus selling on the product versus learning about how to be better at sales?
Right.
The, the people that I've seen that I've like, oh, I want to emulate those people, like when I was coming up in my own sales career and like people that I want to be on our team are less. Deep product knowledge and like super nerd, alert, beep, beep, beep. Like you can always bring in a, you know, that's what you did@salesforce.com.
Like you can always bring a, like, SME, but the, the real like talent is in the discovery and the question asking and the. Rapport building, all of like kind of bringing someone through a process. That in and of itself is a skill. The products of selling a product is not, uh, [00:04:00] that's kind of secondary and I just value it less.
Right.
Yeah, no, I agree. It's interesting to like. Think about how the industry is set up today, because today the industry is set up such that the manufacturers come in and do sales training on their product.
Yes,
I was that person and I would come in and say, Hey, here's how you sell this product. I think that's incredibly valuable, but that's not what we're talking about, right?
Like what we're, we're talking that's, that's separate. Like you should do that. It's both and I think, don't you like it's both and it's
both. I, I'm saying it's, it's, um. The selling the product is not as hard. That's a little more rote. It's a little more like, can be rehearsed and memorized and like just good point.
Product knowledge. Like a lot of people can come in just like. Nerd out and like know a product. Yeah. I mean, I did a bajillion sales demos in my sales career. Mm-hmm. I would dream, like in my sleep, I would like [00:05:00] dream sales demos. Yeah. And it's just like the same dream, you know? Yeah. Because I said the same stuff all the time, like so you can do that.
I think the problem with that is like. If you are so product focused, it can feel very forced and rehearsed and cold.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it doesn't necessarily, if you're like a big, big product sales person, like you can make buyers feel like you're just transactional.
Yeah. I think there's, I think that the, the thing that we both heard.
In the tech sales world is be consultative, which I think a lot of people have heard that like be a consultative seller. And so, uh, as a consultant, former consultant yourself, Steven, what is the most important skill that you think that that person needs to have if they're gonna be a consultative salesperson?
Listen.
Yeah.
Yeah. Like the most important skillset is to be able to listen, like, to, to be able to ask really. Clear questions that are gonna draw out the [00:06:00] things that need to be stated that are gonna Dr. You know, kind of lead you to understanding what the best solution for them is. Yeah. Um, so you have to be able to, probably like both Anne question, listen, um, the response is really just following the path of whatever what they've shared kind of is leading you to suggest or consult them to buy or implement.
Yeah.
But the real skill and the most important part is more on the. The question asking and the listening.
Yeah, I agree. I think that the one thing that I spend the most amount outta my time outside of product focused selling with my team is around how to. Ask good questions and how to rebuttal objections with questions.
Yep. And how to use questions to further give you information. I think that the person, as a general rule. You, you can tell me if you disagree. So, general rule, the person that has the most amount of information [00:07:00] about the customer is probably the one that's gonna win, right? So if you have more information about their budget and blah, blah, blah, like the, the solution, who the players are, et cetera, you are likely gonna be the person that's gonna win that deal.
Um, that might mean, you know, Hey, I, you know, I know their budget is X. So if I know that, then I just need to get to. That number and then I can win that deal or whatever. So, and that's hard, that's hard go hand in hand with like, asking great questions. It's, it's hard to do that. Sometimes you get really excited because they're describing a problem that you can home, run, hit out of the park.
And so I think salespeople are quick to try to solve problems.
I, I'm excited to ask a question. Um, why is the bill of your hat so flat? Yeah.
Because it's, it's yelling at me right now. Oh, well, it's yelling at me across the screen. It's like, it needs help. Like, I don't know, like I [00:08:00] feel, I feel like someone needs to lay hands on the hat to like help, help it. But right now, anyways, that's my question. Is what's going on over there, but I'll, I'll, I'll pick it up.
While you're gathering yourself, you're
derailing us.
Well, look, these are important questions. If you're not watching Collin's hat is flattered than the ground. Um, anyways, uh, no. It's style. It's style. It's cool. Um, I don't know. I'm not that cool. Yeah. Um, so. Uh, in order to be able to ask the right questions, you have to intimately understand their business.
You have to understand the solutions that you are able to offer. Uh, quick side note. Um. Salespeople or training salespeople, like you have to make sure that people aren't like selling vaporware selling stuff that we actually don't wanna sell. Um, you get into like overpromising stuff, like because you're a sales guy or you're, you want to teach your salespeople to really, it's in [00:09:00] this industry too.
It's like. We want to sell the right solutions and have integrity. We also wanna think about gross margins. Yeah. Who are the manufacturers that we, you know, uh, our technicians, you know, might, uh, have the most skill set in whatever. So like, yeah, there's a bunch of things there. You can get into trouble real quick.
Uh, being a little, little over aggressive, but Yeah. Point being on the, on the question side, you have to understand. Your solutions, what you want to be selling, what they need, and like even getting into like their industry, um, and being thoughtful. Yes. Their business, you talked about what budget Yeah. You know, bant type stuff, but like,
yeah,
even just spending the time to understand the reality of.
Their business, their work environment, whatever. Um, it takes patience.
I think that this kind of is a good segue into what are the four most important pieces of information you need to understand. And these are not four questions you're gonna ask one single time and get the answer to them. And I wanna spend a little bit of time on this, and then [00:10:00] I want to kind of go a little deeper because there's gonna be some nuance to each of these.
So the first que thing you need to understand in every deal. Is what is their budget? And I think that most salespeople that have been doing this are asking, Hey, Mr. Customer, what is your budget? And Steve, what do you think they say most often? Like if I say, you're the customer, I go, Hey Steve, what's your budget?
I, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a budget. You tell me.
Yeah, I have a
budget. I'm
not sure I how much this
costs.
I don't know that that's even like a, I don't, I mean, I think sometimes they're being like, uh. Uh, they're being guarded on, on purpose, but sometimes I genuinely think they don't know.
They just don't dunno. Yeah.
Like we, yeah. At Alarm Masters, it's like we're, we, were, we're doing this accounting stuff, uh, where we're trying to upgrade our accounting and I did not know how much this software was gonna cost. So the guy, I was like, what's your budget? And I'm like, I, I, I don't. Have a budget.
I don't [00:11:00] know yet. Like you're gonna five, can you gimme some anchor pricing? Yeah. Yeah. 5, 5, 5. What? Yeah, just five. And so I think sometimes, and that's where I think anchor pricing comes in. So what, what do you think is a great way to, because I'll say this, let's think the end of mind. I want, I tell my sales reps that by the time they get to the proposal presentation, which is this last step of our sales process, they should.
No, they're gonna get the deal. There should be no surprises at the pricing presentation. So when somebody says that, I don't know, or I don't have a budget, that's a perfectly reasonable response. And so what do you think are some of my good ways to overcome that? Or what are some questions you've asked in the past to like unlock that?
On the budget side, I typically. Um, trying to, you know. Get them to talk about the problem. Um, [00:12:00] because a lot of times pain opens up, opens up wallets, and kinda like softens that conversation. So you also have to read the room, like is there immediate hesitancy around spending any money on this? And like,
yeah,
you know, some champion.
Actually has no sway in the room. Yeah. And everyone else is annoyed. They're there. Like, is that the situation, right? Or is it, man, this is a huge like point of frustration. You gotta get them talking and as they start talking, well, if they're explaining certain pain or dynamics to me. Now I'm starting to do the mental math of how to frame up like, well, this is a big problem for you guys.
Yeah.
You know, and, and starting to kind of tease that out from a Yeah. A budget, you know, availability perspective.
Yeah. I think that's great. I totally agree. And I think it starts with asking a bunch of questions. Typically when a customer says to me, I don't know my budget, I would say something like this.
I would say, Hey, I, I can sell you. If I was a car dealer, I could sell you everything from a Camry to a Ferrari. Yeah. But you [00:13:00] may not need a Ferrari, and you may need something a little bit more than a Camry. And so my job is to figure out what features and what your use case is and to fit within your budget.
So I'm gonna provide you some anchor pricing, just very basic budgetary pricing on what I think that something like this is gonna cost. So we don't both. Kind of waste our time trying to figure out something, if it all comes down to price at the end. So, you know, if you're doing a single door of access control, we're looking at, you know, whatever, three to $4,000 a door and you know, 20 bucks a month.
Does that fit sort of, if, if we could hit all the technical validation points you need, does that sort of fit your, within your budget? Now you're gonna get some type of reaction, right? Like at that point they're gonna say, oh shoot, I thought that was gonna be 300 to $400. I had no clue that it was 3000 to $4,000 a door to, you know, do all that.
You know, like I feel like that sort of pops the bubble of now I don't know what my budget is. Well, you, you've got something in mind you just didn't know. [00:14:00]
You give him something to respond to. Also why I wanna do that in person, um, ideally, or over video. Like there's a lot of body language in those responses.
Oh, agreed. Totally. Very dangerous to give, throw out the pricing on, you know, phone.
Yeah.
Um,
or God
forbid, email. Not a win or email. Oh, yeah. Dangerous. Um, so yeah, that's actually good. Like actually, um. Worst would be delivering initial pricing over an email.
Yeah.
Tempting don't do it. Second would be a phone if they refuse to get on video or meet in person.
Yeah.
But I would fight. I would fight, you know, against that.
Yeah.
You, you at least want to be on video because there's a lot of body language, you know? Yeah. Tied up in that, but really want to be in the room with him when we're talking. Yeah. You know, and getting that initial response.
Yeah, I agree. We could spend a lot more time on budget.
I think that this is probably one of the most important things. If you're going in and your customer says that this is too expensive, then you didn't do a great job just doing discovery because you, you really should say something [00:15:00] like, Hey, when I said it was three to $4,000, but I actually came in and it was $3,100.
What about this is too exp like where what, what changed? Sounds like now you have a budget. Why don't you give me what your budget now is? And so now I can 'cause like I'm not gonna negotiate 'em against myself. Um, so I think budget's just, I think it's one of the most important things I do use. You know, you referenced early using bant, which is budget, authority, need timeline.
I kind of combine a need and timeline into a single bullet, which is what's the compelling event?
Yeah.
Why? You know, that's the other question I, we we ask a lot is, why are you doing this now? Why didn't you do this six months ago? Why aren't you doing this six months from now? Why is it important that we do this?
Great question
today.
Yeah,
right.
One other thing, back on budget really quick, which this is something I think in molding salespeople, sometimes salespeople are like. [00:16:00] We have a couple former collegiate athletes. They're like competitive people, but they maybe some of your sales team, maybe you're, you know, hiring a first salesperson or even I'm one of the
athletes.
Yeah, that's right. Clearly, obviously. Yeah. Um,
in real
volleyball champion
2011.
But
anyway.
Wow. Um, I mean that, you've got the baseball hat thing going, so it's good. Yeah. Um, so, uh. You need to help salespeople start to become more like business savvy if they aren't Yeah.
Business
acumen and understand business acumen, how businesses actually work.
Mm-hmm. Guess what? Especially the more upmarket and enterprise you go, the budget might be derived from two different departments.
Yeah, no, no doubt.
Like, so you've got, you know, uh. It. And like there's just, there's different scenarios mm-hmm. Where you're gonna have to play two different stakeholders, two different groups, two different budgets to get to, you know, [00:17:00] um, uh, enough dollars to kind of cover that solution that they really do need.
So that's a very nuance. I'm kind of going deep, I'll come back up, but like, that's a really specific point that I've seen play out several times. Alarm masters even in the past. And so. That's, that's for yourself, that's for training people. Just something to keep in mind. Yeah. Um, there might be a reality, typically not like.
Some small deal.
Yeah. Right.
But lar, larger ops
totally agree. Business acumen, especially around asking budgetary questions, super important. Have the, the key, the rule of thumb is there have a, uh, budget, have anchor pricing or budgetary pricing available for your sales team. So I think that this is the, one of the, probably I think, the most overlooked reason in all of sales, which is why are you doing this?
And understanding their. Time pressure and their reasoning is going to motivate and help you understand how to do the deal better. Like, is this because you have an insurance, you've got a lightning strike? Well, that's an [00:18:00] interesting data point, right? It's like, well, we gotta get this claim closed by this amount of time.
Budget is less important than reliability. I mean, you know, speed, whatever. Like,
I'm gonna say a lightning strike is a compelling event.
Yeah.
You know?
I agree. I'm
breaking That's a, that's a big one. An
audit
for that. Yeah.
You have any other good compelling events? I took three.
I'm still stuck on the lightning, but um,
yeah,
like I know that we actually have a scenario with one of our customers where that's the case.
It just, that may might not be the very first thing, you know, I'd lead with, but like, you know, lightning strikes happen all
the time. Dude, we, we get lightning strikes is probably the most common reason why our panels are like, I don't, and I just wanted to say this, for all the operational folks out there, these are not.
Existing customers that don't have properly grounded systems, okay?
Mm-hmm.
This is the systems that other people have installed. Lightning struck it blew the system. Yep. Okay. Not all alarm Master's fault, just wanna say doesn't speak to the quality of our work. Uh, but [00:19:00] yeah, so I think that the compelling, it's a big thing.
'cause I think it's gonna inform, I mean, I don't know, you tell me, but to me it seems like that's gonna inform some of how you're gonna go about solutioning for the deal and also how you're gonna position. Your service to the customer. Right?
Yeah. And the greater the compelling event, you know, that's also gonna give you some pricing leverage and all sorts of fun stuff.
Yeah. And by the way, compelling event isn't the same thing as urgency. Customers kind of always want pricing as fast as possible. Uh, and I, and I think that that's wise to get to a pricing stage quickly. But, um. Their urgency doesn't dictate your sales cycle. Just saying that.
So pause, pause for a second.
So
yeah, like.
How do you handle a lack of urgency or a lack of a compelling event when you're going through your process? Way to go, Mr. Salesperson, and like, you know, we just think it's kinda like a good thing to [00:20:00] do, you know? Yeah. I think it's good to upgrade, you know, kind. It's. You know, stay updated with the times, you know?
Ho hum. Yeah. We probably have some budget, but you know, it's just kinda like mediocre, right? Oh man.
Mm-hmm.
What, what are you gonna press to try to show them why they should feel more compelled, more urgent? Or are you typically gonna back away from that deal and not invest time in it 'cause you think it won't close?
Yeah, I'm gonna take one or two routes and it's all gonna come from one thing. This is what I talk to my sales about all this. My sales team all the time. If they don't have a compelling event, then what you need to say is, okay. Sounds like this is sort of a nice to have. So, back to budget, it's, I gave you an anchor price of th 3,500, you know, three, 3000 to $4,000 a door.
We've got two doors. So if I come back with a budget tomorrow, or sorry, a proposal fully locked in, that is $8,000, will you sign it within 48 hours? So I'm going to say, I'm gonna fine. I'll do the work to get you a [00:21:00] proposal. Are you gonna give me the commitment that you're gonna execute on that proposal?
And if you don't feel comfortable that you can do that, then I'm not gonna be in a rush to get you the proposal and I'm probably gonna disqualify the opportunity and move on nicely. Hey, I understand that. Listen, we work with a lot of different customers. We are really focused on trying to help the customers that have established budget.
And obviously there's a real cost involved in us putting together this proposal and doing site walks and giving you all the estimation that you need for this. So when you guys have the budget set aside and it's been approved and you're ready to make a decision, like we'll be here and I promise you we'll be within plus or minus 10% of that budgetary pricing and that's how I would handle it.
Yeah, I think you have to be willing to walk away. So if they're not gonna kind of commit, kind of dig in, then you start to lean out.
Yeah. Yeah. Which leads me to the next point, which is [00:22:00] power authority. Bant, BA A is authority. You're probably not getting the deal done if the decision maker, quote unquote, that, that you're working with is the receptionist.
And it is so prevalent in this industry that folks do not get. Access to power.
Yeah.
They interact with receptionists, BEC or, or whoever, the office manager. I'm using that as a like stereotype, by the way. Um, hey,
shout out all receptionists listening. You're awesome.
You are. Couldn't do it without you. They have a tough job.
Um, but they're not the ones signing the check. The check on on a real budget. Like if you were selling, I'm gonna wash your windows. Maybe you could run that cycle through Sheila. Yeah. But like, um, which Sheila is our fictitious, what we call gatekeeper. Yeah. Um, well Sheila, we used
to have a Sheila, we used to have a Sheila long time ago.
We did.
She was great.
We did. She was great. Shout
out to [00:23:00] Sheila.
Um, but anyway, so I think that you've gotta get access to power and that's super uncomfortable for most people to like. Ask the question of, Hey Steven, in addition to you making this decision, who else is gonna be involved in this decision?
Who on the payables team is gonna be the one to approve the expense? And who's gonna be the one that's gonna sign our contract? Yeah. Be direct me. Me. Okay. Yeah. So you're gonna be the one to cut the check and and send the approval, and sign the proposal and all that. That sounds perfect. So can I go ahead and send you that contract now for you to review all the terms and just, you don't have to sign the contract.
Obviously we don't have one, but could you just tell me that this is good and that there's no changes that are required? That's like a great first step of, and you have to do that delicately because you really don't want that person to feel like you're trying to go around them or you're trying to diminish their value.
Because gatekeepers have a lot of value and, and influencers have a lot of [00:24:00] value. And even for me, like I'll tell my team, Hey, y'all go buy something. And I'm ultimately the decision maker, but these guys are really kind of the front line. And so if somebody tries to go around them and come straight to me without working through them, that's annoying to me.
So I want them to kind of work within the team. What do you think, Steve, like what are some other ways folks can try to get access to power?
S sometimes if you have enough knowledge of, uh, I used to do this in a former life, if you have enough knowledge of that person's business, you can ask questions that only the owner or the person authority is going to have the answer to.
Yeah.
Um, and that's situational, circumstantial, but if you can, uh, kind of figure out. What that might be. There's probably some patterns and things, and I don't know if anything comes to your mind right now, but like, just ways that you can, um, position questions where inevitably they're gonna have to go bring it up to their boss.
Mm-hmm. Um, kinda pushes that [00:25:00] towards, you know, that authority and they're gonna have to at least bring that back from them so they're getting them involved, you know? Yeah. Worst case. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm also trying to pull people in like, I guess not so subtly or subtly. So if it's a demo and say, Hey, who during the discovery process, I'll ask the question, who else is gonna be using this system on a day-to-day basis?
So if it's an access control system or if it's a video system, who is gonna be watching this video, recording it, downloading the clips, et cetera. If y'all have a a insurance event, who's gonna download that interface with insurance? And I ask them to write those, like I write those names down. I ask that in the discovery meeting and then we do a site walk and then before we schedule the demo, I'll say, okay, hey, I really think we need to invite these people if they're gonna be involved in the decision, they need to, you know, if they're gonna be doing these things, they're obviously gonna have some influence on you wanna make sure it's easy to use so they get it.
So I really feel like it'd be worth their time to come into this 15 minute meeting. So I think that's another way to get multi-threaded, which ultimately can help you get access to power. Yeah, but you just have to like, it's [00:26:00] hard. It's probably the hardest part of all this, like asking for compelling event, asking for budget.
You know, that's kind of table stakes in terms of like what people expect a salesperson to ask. But
yeah,
getting access to power is so sensitive.
It is. I, but as we talk through all this, I'm thinking about us selling. Our prior careers in selling also being sold to, we get sold to a lot.
Yeah.
I'm kind of at the point personally putting myself in kind of the authority seat.
I just want it direct.
Yeah.
Like I want clear. So I think, um. You want to train people, you wanna build a sales team that isn't scared to like say the thing, make the ask. Yeah. Yeah. Don't dance around it. Mm-hmm. Be really clear, like,
yeah,
people want, you know, it's kind of the people wanna be led sort of idea.
Mm-hmm. Like people wanna be led through a process. Hey, here's how this works. Here's what we're doing, here's what we're doing now, here's what we're doing next. [00:27:00] Like, here's who's involved, blah, blah, blah. And if you're gonna get pushback, then you can start to objection. Handle in that process. Yeah. Great.
But, um. I think a lot of salespeople just kind of fly by the seat of their pants and it's, you know, real loose and a lot of times they don't wanna be, oh, I don't want to be pushy.
Yeah.
Yes you do. Yes, you do. You wanna be, you need to be asking for
the business.
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, tell me I'm pretty okay.
Yeah.
So, um. I'm going, I'm, I'm wanting to go back and kind of think about, uh, growing that sales team and training them. And as we're talking about all this, like, you have to have, like if you're gonna have a killer sales team, that sales team's gonna be clear communicators who are direct, that are not afraid.
Yeah. Of awkward, like awkward, you know, what's awkward? Not hitting my quota. Yeah. That's awkward.[00:28:00]
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's awkward. Um, I, I totally agree. I think that's a really great. I think that's a great tip that we work spent a ton of time on, um, in our latest sales kickoff, which is having the hard conversations and asking the hard questions and getting comfortable with that. And I think that a good way to do that is to practice this in inhouse.
So we always use, uh, the thing we always use, not just in sales but across the company, is, uh, watch do teach. So watch someone do something. Do it yourself and then teach somebody else how to do it, um, is the best way to become proficient at that. So, uh, we try to, during S-K-S-K-O, we did a role play a, a lot of role playing.
Then I had them go and try, uh, these last few days to go and try and do it on smaller accounts. So go on accounts that have lower, you know, we're talking two or 3000 or $4,000 deals, not a, a [00:29:00] 50, a hundred thousand dollars deal. And, and then to go refine their approach a little bit and then go and teach.
And go watch some of their, their peers do it. Um, and, and like teach them and provide them feedback. And I think that that's a really great point. Is it, it can be uncomfortable even. I'm a pretty direct guy. Steven can tell you confirm direct. I, I even struggle a little bit. I get a little squirmy sometimes.
I'm like, ah, I don't like, I really like this person. I don't want 'em to make, I don't want 'em to make 'em feel a certain way. And it's like, no, you've, you've, you're right. Steven's Point is really valid. It's like, Hey, we, we need to lead the folks into, Hey, if I'm gonna do this, will you do this? 'cause here's the simple truth.
Let's just put it on the table. That customer owes you nothing. Like how many times have you busted your butt and the customer just disappears and goes with your biggest competitor? That's awkward. Yeah, that makes you feel awkward and and frustrated. So you have every right to ask questions to determine if this is the right cycle.
This is, [00:30:00] I think one of the biggest things is missing in this industry is folks do not qualify deals enough, and they spend so much selling time on deals that do not close. They're ecstatic. If they're at a 25% hit rate, one out of four. We need to be at 50%, we need to be at 75%. You need to know what's your
ratio, what's your ratio of though, like, just to 50% of what?
Right? Like, um, not initial lead. Right? So you're saying qualified lead, like,
just
to be clear
and opportunity. So that kind of goes back to our, our definition lead is something that hasn't been qualified yet. So I would say once something has been qualified, it's an opportunity. So we have some line of sight to budget, authority, need, timeline.
Once it's been qualified, then I'm gonna say, Hey, 50% of those are opportunities, right? And so, or sorry, 50% of those opportunities should close is my point. Should close. Yeah. So yeah, I think that [00:31:00] we, I mean we covered a lot of ground today and we wanted to really keep today's episode extremely consumable.
I think. Um. I'll go back and do a quick couple, quick recap, and then Steven, if you wanna recap a couple points for everybody, like a summary. The, the summary? Yeah.
No. One thing I wanted really quick though is because I loved it from the sales kickoff, um, really quick as like a, like a fun thing to do.
Yeah.
With your sales team is, uh, what we did on like the 45 minute calling window. Oh yeah. Full of competition.
Yeah.
Like, run through that really quick because. Yeah. This doesn't have to be boring. Yeah. And it also doesn't have to be all theoretical. Yeah. Like you can live, train, and be productive mm-hmm. While you're training.
Yeah. So run, run through that and then we'll go into homework and stuff.
Yeah. So the, what we did was, uh, we set a 45 minute window and we gave all of our guys, um. To go into a separate conference room and we said, Hey, you have 45 minutes to make as many set as many appointments as you can set. And you can set them from [00:32:00] existing customers or new customers.
Uh, but it can't be like, it has to be, it has to be a customer that you haven't like just closed the deal with. It's not just like, go to see your favorite customer. And so what we did was we gave it, we said, whoever can set the most appointments gets a hundred dollars gift card. And we made a competition.
You had to stand up at the end and talk about. The customers that you set and why you picked to them. So the quality mattered as much as the quantity. 'cause in fact, we had two guys that hit four appointments each. And another guy that had one, but the guy that had the one had a hot deal, like literally they were like, Hey, I'm so glad you called me our fire system.
Like we need to upgrade it, blah, blah, blah. Lightning strike. Actually.
Okay.
Thank you. Point glad I brought that back up. Point. Yeah.
Point taken.
Um, the other four had some mix of like, uh, it was mostly like account management calls and some of 'em, you know, whatever. So the point was is they, it was a competition and then we also went and the sales manager and I went and listened to, to each of their rooms as they were making calls and just kind of provided some feedback and coaching and.
That was super easy. And another [00:33:00] exercise we're gonna do next month is we have a bunch of businesses around us in this business park that are all small businesses. I mean, these are like a thousand, 1500 square feet. Uh, we're gonna have our guys go out and see who can generate the most amount of pipeline, and they're gonna go exercise some of this ban like discovery, asking questions to see who can go generate leads.
And they're gonna say, you know, who's access to power and what's your compelling event, blah, blah, blah. And they're just gonna go door to door and just PR. And we're gonna do another little competition. 'cause it's good like exercise to watch 'em and, and be able to provide feedback.
Yeah. It's like where you can make it fun, make it engaging and productive and not just all like theory, right?
They did, you know, did some of that, but then move into practice and, and being productive. Train the trainer. Like, that's one other thing that you mentioned, you know, kind of the train the trainer type of mentality and um, I think we're. On a good path towards that. Um, so, alright, next step.
Yeah, so I wanna just cover, you know, we talked about, you know, budget [00:34:00] and authority and need slash timeline a lot.
We spent a lot of time on that. We talked about separating out sales training versus product and feature training, and we talked about the importance of that discovery and asking lots of really good questions. So I would say, uh, if you have it today. I would write down, you know, your budget authority need slash timeline, and I would write that a piece of paper and I'd have your salespeople write down what is what, what is the goal you're trying to figure out as a result of that.
And then what are the questions and the objection you're gonna get? And the question and the, you know, objection you're gonna get to try to get to that in goal. And I would role play that with your salesperson. And it's probably gonna be awkward, especially if you've never done this or thought about it, but just like free flow it and it like spend the time on it, spend it.
45 minutes to an hour, just kind of talking through it. Um, and I think that that will be extremely, extremely fruitful. It has been for our team at least. Any last minute thoughts aside from the brim of my hat?
Yeah. Uh, last thing we've said this before in other episodes, is like, [00:35:00] intentionality wins. Like, what do you expect?
Like, you know, the, what is the definition of insanity is not doing anything different expecting a different result.
Yeah.
Your, your sales team isn't gonna like magically improve. Yeah. Um, and, and so you're gonna have to do the hard work, be intentional train. And it's not like one little, like two hour long training you do
Right.
Once and you never come back to that. Right. This is like building in a habit and a discipline and a practice within your team. Onboarding net new hires, like all of that. You, you really have to kind of. Invest in this area if you want to see a notable shift in results.
Yeah, we ask this every episode. We would love it if you would.
Engage with our podcast like and subscribe the episode and then comment as well. But here's my ask, if you're still here listening to us, my ask is that you will comment on the video or short whose hat you like better. [00:36:00] You can just say Colin or Steven will tally up the votes. Um, and obviously I'll win and um.
Then we will, we will recap it on the next episode. Who won the contest? So,
oh, well re recap. That's a good dad
we've had enough of you. Uh, thanks everybody that is listening, we appreciate it. We hope you have a great week. Thanks.
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