May 2, 2022 • 20 mins
Glenn Poulos is the Co-Founder, Vice President, and General Manager of Gap Wireless Inc. He has 30 plus years of experience in sales and has started and sold two successful companies. He has also just published his first book 'Never Sit in the Lobby: 57 Winning Sales Factors to Grow Business and Build a Career Selling.' In this episode, Glenn and Leon discuss the book-writing process and go through three of his sales factors: sitting is not selling, don’t confuse marketing with selling, and you only get forever to make another impression.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leon Goren (00:00):
Special thanks to Vaughn Metropolitan Centre for
(00:02):
helping us bring you today's PEOleadership snippet podcast.
Welcome to our snippets Podcast.
I'm Leon Goren, CEO andPresident of PEO leadership,
North America's premier peer topeer network and leadership
advisory firm. Today, I'm veryexcited to welcome Glenn Poulos,
(00:22):
the co founder, Vice President,General Manager of gap wireless
Inc, a leading distributor forthe mobile broadband wireless
and test and measurementequipment markets. Gap wireless
Inc, was recently acquired bynetwork wireless solutions.
Glenn recently joined PEOleadership and as a member of
Pat 11, led by Tina Young. Iknow he's been an awesome
addition to their group, fromwhat I hear, and I hear a lot.
(00:45):
And this past year, Glenn wroteand published his first book,
'Never Sit in the Lobby (00:49):
57 Winning Sales Factors to Grow
Business and Build a CareerSelling.' Glenn, it's great to
have you with us today.
Glenn Poulos (00:59):
Thanks, Leon.
Happy to be here.
Leon Goren (01:01):
Thanks so much.
Yeah. So I thought we'd startoff with, you're still working?
And I'm just curious, whatprompted you to write this book?
Glenn Poulos (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, not- well. So the idea came a long
time ago. So I started sellingin 1985. And early on in my
career, I started noticing,like, repeat behaviors and
trends and things right, andsort of, so I started jotting
them down, and I, and a lot oftimes a few of them as it will
(01:34):
become apparent to anyone thatdoes read the book that a lot of
them are like mistakes to avoid,not habits to copy, right. And
so, you know, you know, don't dothis, I did this, don't do that
kind of thing. And so a lot oftimes, and I would also end, but
whenever I learned a lesson ortechnique, or something not to
do, I would sort of name itafter the person that was
(01:54):
exhibiting the behavior. And,you know, and I would call it
factor at the end, you know, sothe Bob factor, right. And, and,
of course, in the book, Ichanged all the names to present
the, to protect the guilty,right. But, so those are all
made up names, but the, and soafter a while, then I would
start repeating them. And, youknow, and then ultimately, I'd
(02:17):
share them with some peopleoutside of my company. And then
I got asked to speak at somesales meetings and sales
conferences and things back,back then. And people started
saying, oh, you should, youknow, and a lot of them are can
be humorous when you tell them,you know, sort of face to face
and a lot of people like, oh,you should write a book. And so
years ago, I did actually havingcompiled many of the 57 factors,
(02:38):
right? I took a stab at it. AndI don't know how many words I
got down. But nowhere nearenough for a book. And I kind of
shelved it, put it away. And youknow, and I basically added it
to the lot that list of I'mgoing to be doing, you know, in
quotation marks, right? I'mgoing to be doing this. And I'm
going to be doing that andsailing around the world and
writing a book, right, and allthat right. And so, when the
(03:00):
pandemic came in 2020, Ithought, no better time than the
present. And so I basicallylooked to see, you know, I
basically Googled how to write abook, and a list of all podcasts
and things came up, I sort ofclicked on the first one. And
unfortunately, I can't creditthe guy. But you know, he had
great advice. And he basicallysaid, look, I mean, writing
(03:23):
books, not that complicated. Hesaid, just commit to writing.
And he said, 500 words everyday, without fail, right? That
was his method. And I. So Ithought, well, I already have
things I do Monday to Friday inthe morning, and I don't have
time to write 500 words. And Isaid, but on the weekends, I
don't really do anything, per sein the morning. So I can commit
to doing 2000 words, on theweekend. And so I said, I'm
(03:46):
going to commit to doing the2000 words, either both days, or
at least one day on eachweekend. And within a few
months, I had 70 75,000 wordswritten. And of course, the
first editor that I sent thebook to when she removed the F
word from the book, and then Idropped to 71,000 words. And she
said, Dude, you can't swear thatmany times in a book. And he
(04:10):
said, she said, you get threeF's, you know, in a couple of
dams, right? And then that's it.
Right? So it's about 71,000words, and that and, and I just,
I just decided that was the timeto do it. I mean, we were kind
of locked up at home. Yeah,couldn't really go anywhere. And
so it was no time like thepresent. Right?
Leon Goren (04:28):
Yeah. Well, congratulations. And so many of
us talked about writing in thebook. And it's not easy. So I
mean, you have focus and youhave resilience to do it every
weekend to be able to write 2000words is fantastic, and to get
it done so. So in this book,because I think it's highly
relevant today, you know,sitting in different groups and
(04:49):
and everyone's talking aboutgrowth, you know, the challenges
obviously, with inflation,different things, but their
challenge with their teams aswell and around salespeople, and
that's really a lot Have whatyou cover in the book. And we're
not going to get a chance to gothrough all these different
points. But if you had threethings that you could share with
our executives and thesepresidents and leaders around
(05:10):
making their salespeople moreeffective, making their
development teams moreeffective, what would they be
like your top three.
Glenn Poulos (05:17):
All right, so the probably the first, the first
thing that I would point out issort of both a tough point, but
also a difference betweencertain types of selling. So my
book really appeals to the typeof salesman sales person that
expects to do the job face toface. And, you know, my company,
you know, it's not important togo into the heavy technical
(05:39):
details of what we sell, butwe're selling high end
technology products, instrumentsthat engineers use, and then we
sell products to the mobilewireless to the cellular
industry. So all the stuff up onthe towers and stuff. And that
stuff doesn't get bought online.
I mean, like, you know, we have,we have an online store to buy
widgets, and, you know, in smallpieces and stuff, but we can't
(05:59):
sell effectively unless we visitour customers. And so a lot of
my rules have appealed to thesales person that's going to be
visiting customers. And so the,you know, my first rule is that,
you know, you have to figure outwhich which business you're in,
if you're in software as aservice or something like that,
you might have a differentmodel. And I mean, I'm not
(06:21):
really coaching to that sort ofstrategy, I'm coaching to the
person that needs to get up andneeds to make between, you know,
10, and 1520 calls a week,right? They're not making 10
calls a day, but they're makinghigh value calls. And, you know,
and it provides a series ofstrategies and techniques on how
you can keep your, your callbook full so that you're not,
(06:43):
you know, you don't have toprospect, you know, spend hours
and hours prospecting but the,the first lesson and rule is
that, you know, sitting is notselling, right. And so, so many
of you all, you know, I'm, I'myou know, I'm planning and I'm,
you know, well, salespeople,one, they're always happiest
when they're in front ofcustomers. And, but sometimes
(07:04):
they get struggled to get infront of those customers, but
when they get there, they'reactually happiest, that's when
they're the happiest, right?
And, and, you know, they're,they're singing the song of the
products they sell, and, youknow, and they're, they're
visiting people and, you know,it's, it's what motivates them
and, and, but sometimes they getstuck in this pattern of, you
(07:26):
know, oh, Mondays, I'm in theoffice doing my this and
Fridays, I'm in my officeplanning and, and so, but I
always had this thing, and I dogo on about it in the book, a
fair bit about that sitting isnot selling, right, like your
job as a salesperson is reallyto be in front of the customer.
And anything that's getting inthe way of that, plus or minus
(07:46):
some small amount ofadministration, that's expected
in any business, you know, asalesman has certain amount of
administrivia, that's required,is not you're you're just you're
just pretending to be working.
And, and so that's kind of likea little rule that I have, you
know, a little rule I call itsitting is not selling, if
you're sitting in your chair,and if you come to our office,
(08:07):
it's like where are thesalesman's desk there, we don't
have any, right. Like, we have alittle we have a little huddle
room for salespeople, we havephones and desks, they could
borrow and, but none of themhave like a cubicle with their
name on it. You know, some ofour salesmen work from home and
in the regions where we don'thave an office, but, but again,
we're expecting them to be infront of customers, you know,
(08:28):
around proximately, four to fourand a half days a week, right?
And not not withstanding anyrestrictions from COVID, which
are now most of our customersare allowing us to visit them
now. But I mean, it was a veryspecial case, from March 2020.
Until today, but but most of ourcustomers now and our salesmen
(08:49):
are all you know, back in frontof customers and more happy than
they've ever been. Right.
Leon Goren (08:55):
I think you described it as I picked up
seeing the white there there thewhite of their eyes. Yeah. In
one in your book, right. Yeah,to be able to do on that first
point is it has COVID in thewhole digitization, change that
a little bit like when you'redealing with your salespeople
today, you know, everybody'sfighting the hybrid worker,
(09:16):
we're not even talking aboutthat. But the idea of zoom
versus getting up going to theirplace of business now which is
open, would you change anythingfrom an efficiency perspective?
Would it change your yourthinking today,
Glenn Poulos (09:30):
it would be nice if like, I would love to be able
to say yes to that sort ofthing, but I don't I'm not a
zoom only takes only really Ishow finds value when you're
doing for instance, a webinar ortraining session of some sort or
another where the technicalresources are in Germany or you
know, France or something in theUnited States and you know, it's
(09:53):
in it's in convenient to flyeverybody in right now and what
have you, but not for like salescalls or What have you it's as a
matter of fact, like most of ourcustomers, were almost like we
called zoomed out, right? Where,because what happened was our
salesmen were face to face salesguys, and I always talked about
dropping off donuts, somethingin your hand, something in your
(10:14):
mind, right? When you're showingup at customers, and all of a
sudden, bang, they're locked upat home for, you know, 18 months
or whatever, you know, whateverit's been, and I guess two years
almost in some cases, but thecustomer is very quickly tired
of these looks. Everyone's likeeveryone's doing a webinar, like
you know, and in the beginningthat people, the customers, the
engineers and our contacts atthese these high technology
(10:37):
companies, they're probablystruggling figuring out what to
do at home, and how do I do myjob. So they were saying yes to
a lot of these webinars and feltbusy, but in short order, they
were dropping off, they'returning off their cameras, they
were tuning out, and therewasn't a lot of it just wasn't
producing any results for us.
And so we of course, maintaineddoing them in what have you in
(10:57):
the absence of any, but westruggled to keep the attendance
levels up over time. Andhonestly, a lot of them just
weren't effective. And so while
Leon Goren (11:10):
-certainly doesn't let you walk around their floor,
it-the facility is a mini tour. I
can't get that mini tour yet.
You talked about sort of opensyour eyes to their business.
Glenn Poulos (11:21):
Oh, yeah. And you see, that's where you see that
he's actually buying yourcompetitors product. And he just
hasn't told you right? To go ona mini tour. Right? And, yeah,
yeah,
Leon Goren (11:33):
would there be another point that you would
Glenn Poulos (11:33):
Sure. So the one that I like to always point out
share with everybody?
is, and a lot of people scratchtheir head sometimes and is, I'm
like, don't confuse marketingwith selling. Right. So the way
I break it down, and of course,I don't have I don't have a PhD
in marketing, and I don't have aPhD in selling, right, I just, I
just have 30 years ofexperience. And so I'm making,
(11:59):
you know, gross, I'm making sortof gross assumptions here. And
these are like in the streetcomments of what I've learned,
you know, in the trenches,right. And what I mean by don't
confuse marketing with sellingis I, for me, I break it down
simply, when you're face to facewith the customer, you're
selling, everything else ismarketing, all that nonsense on
LinkedIn, and all I'm digitalsocial selling, that's not
(12:20):
selling, that's not selling,selling is done face to face
with the customer. The rest ofit, is lead generation
marketing. It's, it's, and ifyou're doing it as the
salesperson, you're not doingyour job, your job, the
salesman's job is to sell themarketing job is to bring those
customers and the sales peopletogether. Right. And that can be
(12:43):
done through a wide variety ofelectronic methods and mediums.
And people will argue with me,and I just I, I don't enter into
like debate, I just don't agreelike that. Because a lot of
people, some people can justsell all their product online,
it's digital ordering, and it'sclick, funnel this and click
funnel that and I mean, we'reselling $100,000 instruments,
(13:05):
people don't buy it throughClick Funnels, like I mean, they
want to look at it, touch it,try it, you know, et cetera,
make sure it works, I bring theboss down from upstairs and show
him what he's spending $100,000on, you know, and I mean, I'm
appealing to anyone thatformerly sold face to face. And
you know, and is expecting to goback to face to face selling now
after the pandemic. And not toconfuse all I do it all, again,
(13:27):
you know, LinkedIn, this andLinkedIn that the marketing
people should be doing that. Youwant to be involved in sales
groups and other things onLinkedIn, maintain your
professional career. But whenyou're doing that, you're
actually marketing yourself andyour marketing. You're still not
selling though, right? Andthat's so that's just a golden
rule for me, is don't confusethe marketing with selling and,
(13:50):
and don't let the you know, inmanagement sometimes thinks, oh,
well, yeah, he's doing all thiscool LinkedIn stuff. And we're
getting all these leads, andwhatever. But I mean, you could
hire lead generation companiesto do that you get the marketing
team to do that the salespersonis the only one that can get out
of his chair, get in his car,drive to the customer and sell
the product, right. And that's agolden rule for me. And
Leon Goren (14:14):
that kind of resonates with me, thanks for
that one, Glenn. Like marketing,it's maybe my comfort zone, I
should be out there. So
Glenn Poulos (14:21):
never the first rule sitting is not selling,
right. And marketing is done inyour seat. So they tend to think
that the rules all flow togetherfrom the book and, you know,
like, and, you know, becauseonce I start talking about the
rules in the book, the rules,like seven or eight rules are
just flow right all at once,because they're all
interconnected. Yeah. Right.
And, you know, so the, it'sgreat. And the other the other
(14:45):
third, sort of, you asked me forsort of three highlights or
something like that was the, youknow, this is not quite to do
with with selling, you know, perse, like being a salesperson,
but actually it's just Being ina functional company, with a
boss and with customers and, andthat is that you only get
forever to make anotherimpression, you know what I
(15:06):
would call it like it's a goldenrule of mine. And people are
like, What the hell are youtalking about, you only get
forever to make anotherimpression. They're like, I
thought it was like, firstimpressions matter or something
like that. I'm like, dude,you've been working here five
years, you've been making a lotmore than first impression, do
you make an impression, everytime I walked by your desk, and
I see you all tab from Facebook,back to your contact your CRM,
(15:28):
that's an impression, right. Andso I use these, you know, like,
kind of, you know, boldexamples, like where I say,
like, you know, when you hearthe sound of the owners car, you
know, he had made as a nice car,he pulls in with his Jaguar, and
you can hear that some will,that rumble of that engine, hit
(15:48):
in the parking lot out front, oryou hear his car door, you will
hear that what is fierce feet,you immediately want to be
looking like the most importantperson in the building, doing
the most work every single time,right? Like, because it because
every time you make animpression, you're making an
impression. And so, withcustomers, with your, with your
(16:10):
boss, with your coworkers,everything, every interaction is
an opportunity to make animpression, why not take every
opportunity to make a goodimpression every single time,
right. That's why I have all therules about never sit in the
lobby, always have something inyour hand something in your
mind, you know, you know, etc,in order to, you know, in order
to make wise use of the time.
(16:33):
And, you know, for instance,like meeting sales meetings,
things like that don't show upto these things without a, you
know, a personal like an agendaand a reason for being there. If
you're not needed in themeeting, then decline the
meeting, they'll go, you know,asked to be taken off and, and
when you go make a goodimpression, you know, and, and
so, it's just a career advicething that I give people and a
(16:57):
lot of people sort of the, thekind of like sloughing off, in a
way, it's like, guys, you know,whatever, you're just being
dramatic. And I'm like, well,that's fine. But I've actually
own two companies that rentcompanies for 30 years. And I
can assure you that every time Isee you, you're making an
impression. So yeah, you know,if you're working for someone
(17:19):
else, you're definitely makingan impression on that person,
too. Right. So, you know, it'syours kind of take it for what
it's worth, but,
Leon Goren (17:29):
but I think it's a really, really important point.
And it pertains to actuallyleadership as well as leader,
right? You're making animpression all the time on the
people that work with you.
Glenn Poulos (17:38):
Yeah, I actually quote General Schwarzkopf in the
book write about leadership,right? And it's like, when he,
when he was brought in forDesert Shield to in early 90s,
or whatever. And they asked him,like, how do you lead 100,000?
Troops? Like, how do you be aleader of that many people? And
he says, Well, when you're whenyou're put in a leadership
(18:01):
position, take charge and, andlead, like, you know, you know,
you have to be there, you haveto lead, you have to make
decisions, right. That's what aleaders job is. And it's not to
do the all the work and, youknow, drive the tank, but it's
to lead all the people in allthe teams and be that person and
be that rock that's required.
And so
Leon Goren (18:23):
that's great. Yeah.
Well, glad I got you to sharethose three things. I'm not
getting to the other point,because I know I'm trying to
hold this to 12 minutes or 15.
Yeah, till we're over the 12.
That's okay. But, you know, justfor the audience, as well, just
Glen has sold two businesses.
And my other question to himwas, you know, the lessons
(18:44):
learned between the first andsecond business that you sold,
most of us are lucky enough tojust sell one business. We've
done it twice. And so we willget to that, but hopefully,
we'll get to that and othertime. Sure. The other thing
we're very fortunate to have youas part of PA leadership and I
know members that are listeningto this either around that
selling the business and oraround the book on the selling
techniques and stuff, pleasefeel free to reach out to Glenn
(19:06):
pick up his book as well. And Iasked him, would you drop into
one of our groups and he said,Okay, so I'm holding him to that
he has no idea what he justagreed to do. So that's awesome.
So Glenn, thank you so much forjoining us today and sharing
your insights. Thanks, Leon. Andfor those of you listening if
you're interested in our livewebcast, the way forward live
(19:27):
and any any other snippets,please take a moment and visit
us at pl leadership.com. You'llfind on our site various pre
recorded webcasts which includeguests such as Morgan Housel,
Professor Kenneth Stein,Harvard's Rosabeth Kantor,
Michael Beer, Rob chestnut, Dr.
Greg Wells, the list goes on. Aswe cover such topics as mental
health leadership, the newworld, and a host of others.
(19:50):
Thank you for joining us todayand we look forward to seeing
you again shortly.
Special thanks to Vaughn Metropolitan Centre for
(00:02):
helping us bring you today's PEOleadership snippet podcast.
Welcome to our snippets Podcast.
I'm Leon Goren, CEO andPresident of PEO leadership,
North America's premier peer topeer network and leadership
advisory firm. Today, I'm veryexcited to welcome Glenn Poulos,
(00:22):
the co founder, Vice President,General Manager of gap wireless
Inc, a leading distributor forthe mobile broadband wireless
and test and measurementequipment markets. Gap wireless
Inc, was recently acquired bynetwork wireless solutions.
Glenn recently joined PEOleadership and as a member of
Pat 11, led by Tina Young. Iknow he's been an awesome
addition to their group, fromwhat I hear, and I hear a lot.
(00:45):
And this past year, Glenn wroteand published his first book,
'Never Sit in the Lobby (00:49):
57 Winning Sales Factors to Grow
Business and Build a CareerSelling.' Glenn, it's great to
have you with us today.
Glenn Poulos (00:59):
Thanks, Leon.
Happy to be here.
Leon Goren (01:01):
Thanks so much.
Yeah. So I thought we'd startoff with, you're still working?
And I'm just curious, whatprompted you to write this book?
Glenn Poulos (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, not- well. So the idea came a long
time ago. So I started sellingin 1985. And early on in my
career, I started noticing,like, repeat behaviors and
trends and things right, andsort of, so I started jotting
them down, and I, and a lot oftimes a few of them as it will
(01:34):
become apparent to anyone thatdoes read the book that a lot of
them are like mistakes to avoid,not habits to copy, right. And
so, you know, you know, don't dothis, I did this, don't do that
kind of thing. And so a lot oftimes, and I would also end, but
whenever I learned a lesson ortechnique, or something not to
do, I would sort of name itafter the person that was
(01:54):
exhibiting the behavior. And,you know, and I would call it
factor at the end, you know, sothe Bob factor, right. And, and,
of course, in the book, Ichanged all the names to present
the, to protect the guilty,right. But, so those are all
made up names, but the, and soafter a while, then I would
start repeating them. And, youknow, and then ultimately, I'd
(02:17):
share them with some peopleoutside of my company. And then
I got asked to speak at somesales meetings and sales
conferences and things back,back then. And people started
saying, oh, you should, youknow, and a lot of them are can
be humorous when you tell them,you know, sort of face to face
and a lot of people like, oh,you should write a book. And so
years ago, I did actually havingcompiled many of the 57 factors,
(02:38):
right? I took a stab at it. AndI don't know how many words I
got down. But nowhere nearenough for a book. And I kind of
shelved it, put it away. And youknow, and I basically added it
to the lot that list of I'mgoing to be doing, you know, in
quotation marks, right? I'mgoing to be doing this. And I'm
going to be doing that andsailing around the world and
writing a book, right, and allthat right. And so, when the
(03:00):
pandemic came in 2020, Ithought, no better time than the
present. And so I basicallylooked to see, you know, I
basically Googled how to write abook, and a list of all podcasts
and things came up, I sort ofclicked on the first one. And
unfortunately, I can't creditthe guy. But you know, he had
great advice. And he basicallysaid, look, I mean, writing
(03:23):
books, not that complicated. Hesaid, just commit to writing.
And he said, 500 words everyday, without fail, right? That
was his method. And I. So Ithought, well, I already have
things I do Monday to Friday inthe morning, and I don't have
time to write 500 words. And Isaid, but on the weekends, I
don't really do anything, per sein the morning. So I can commit
to doing 2000 words, on theweekend. And so I said, I'm
(03:46):
going to commit to doing the2000 words, either both days, or
at least one day on eachweekend. And within a few
months, I had 70 75,000 wordswritten. And of course, the
first editor that I sent thebook to when she removed the F
word from the book, and then Idropped to 71,000 words. And she
said, Dude, you can't swear thatmany times in a book. And he
(04:10):
said, she said, you get threeF's, you know, in a couple of
dams, right? And then that's it.
Right? So it's about 71,000words, and that and, and I just,
I just decided that was the timeto do it. I mean, we were kind
of locked up at home. Yeah,couldn't really go anywhere. And
so it was no time like thepresent. Right?
Leon Goren (04:28):
Yeah. Well, congratulations. And so many of
us talked about writing in thebook. And it's not easy. So I
mean, you have focus and youhave resilience to do it every
weekend to be able to write 2000words is fantastic, and to get
it done so. So in this book,because I think it's highly
relevant today, you know,sitting in different groups and
(04:49):
and everyone's talking aboutgrowth, you know, the challenges
obviously, with inflation,different things, but their
challenge with their teams aswell and around salespeople, and
that's really a lot Have whatyou cover in the book. And we're
not going to get a chance to gothrough all these different
points. But if you had threethings that you could share with
our executives and thesepresidents and leaders around
(05:10):
making their salespeople moreeffective, making their
development teams moreeffective, what would they be
like your top three.
Glenn Poulos (05:17):
All right, so the probably the first, the first
thing that I would point out issort of both a tough point, but
also a difference betweencertain types of selling. So my
book really appeals to the typeof salesman sales person that
expects to do the job face toface. And, you know, my company,
you know, it's not important togo into the heavy technical
(05:39):
details of what we sell, butwe're selling high end
technology products, instrumentsthat engineers use, and then we
sell products to the mobilewireless to the cellular
industry. So all the stuff up onthe towers and stuff. And that
stuff doesn't get bought online.
I mean, like, you know, we have,we have an online store to buy
widgets, and, you know, in smallpieces and stuff, but we can't
(05:59):
sell effectively unless we visitour customers. And so a lot of
my rules have appealed to thesales person that's going to be
visiting customers. And so the,you know, my first rule is that,
you know, you have to figure outwhich which business you're in,
if you're in software as aservice or something like that,
you might have a differentmodel. And I mean, I'm not
(06:21):
really coaching to that sort ofstrategy, I'm coaching to the
person that needs to get up andneeds to make between, you know,
10, and 1520 calls a week,right? They're not making 10
calls a day, but they're makinghigh value calls. And, you know,
and it provides a series ofstrategies and techniques on how
you can keep your, your callbook full so that you're not,
(06:43):
you know, you don't have toprospect, you know, spend hours
and hours prospecting but the,the first lesson and rule is
that, you know, sitting is notselling, right. And so, so many
of you all, you know, I'm, I'myou know, I'm planning and I'm,
you know, well, salespeople,one, they're always happiest
when they're in front ofcustomers. And, but sometimes
(07:04):
they get struggled to get infront of those customers, but
when they get there, they'reactually happiest, that's when
they're the happiest, right?
And, and, you know, they're,they're singing the song of the
products they sell, and, youknow, and they're, they're
visiting people and, you know,it's, it's what motivates them
and, and, but sometimes they getstuck in this pattern of, you
(07:26):
know, oh, Mondays, I'm in theoffice doing my this and
Fridays, I'm in my officeplanning and, and so, but I
always had this thing, and I dogo on about it in the book, a
fair bit about that sitting isnot selling, right, like your
job as a salesperson is reallyto be in front of the customer.
And anything that's getting inthe way of that, plus or minus
(07:46):
some small amount ofadministration, that's expected
in any business, you know, asalesman has certain amount of
administrivia, that's required,is not you're you're just you're
just pretending to be working.
And, and so that's kind of likea little rule that I have, you
know, a little rule I call itsitting is not selling, if
you're sitting in your chair,and if you come to our office,
(08:07):
it's like where are thesalesman's desk there, we don't
have any, right. Like, we have alittle we have a little huddle
room for salespeople, we havephones and desks, they could
borrow and, but none of themhave like a cubicle with their
name on it. You know, some ofour salesmen work from home and
in the regions where we don'thave an office, but, but again,
we're expecting them to be infront of customers, you know,
(08:28):
around proximately, four to fourand a half days a week, right?
And not not withstanding anyrestrictions from COVID, which
are now most of our customersare allowing us to visit them
now. But I mean, it was a veryspecial case, from March 2020.
Until today, but but most of ourcustomers now and our salesmen
(08:49):
are all you know, back in frontof customers and more happy than
they've ever been. Right.
Leon Goren (08:55):
I think you described it as I picked up
seeing the white there there thewhite of their eyes. Yeah. In
one in your book, right. Yeah,to be able to do on that first
point is it has COVID in thewhole digitization, change that
a little bit like when you'redealing with your salespeople
today, you know, everybody'sfighting the hybrid worker,
(09:16):
we're not even talking aboutthat. But the idea of zoom
versus getting up going to theirplace of business now which is
open, would you change anythingfrom an efficiency perspective?
Would it change your yourthinking today,
Glenn Poulos (09:30):
it would be nice if like, I would love to be able
to say yes to that sort ofthing, but I don't I'm not a
zoom only takes only really Ishow finds value when you're
doing for instance, a webinar ortraining session of some sort or
another where the technicalresources are in Germany or you
know, France or something in theUnited States and you know, it's
(09:53):
in it's in convenient to flyeverybody in right now and what
have you, but not for like salescalls or What have you it's as a
matter of fact, like most of ourcustomers, were almost like we
called zoomed out, right? Where,because what happened was our
salesmen were face to face salesguys, and I always talked about
dropping off donuts, somethingin your hand, something in your
(10:14):
mind, right? When you're showingup at customers, and all of a
sudden, bang, they're locked upat home for, you know, 18 months
or whatever, you know, whateverit's been, and I guess two years
almost in some cases, but thecustomer is very quickly tired
of these looks. Everyone's likeeveryone's doing a webinar, like
you know, and in the beginningthat people, the customers, the
engineers and our contacts atthese these high technology
(10:37):
companies, they're probablystruggling figuring out what to
do at home, and how do I do myjob. So they were saying yes to
a lot of these webinars and feltbusy, but in short order, they
were dropping off, they'returning off their cameras, they
were tuning out, and therewasn't a lot of it just wasn't
producing any results for us.
And so we of course, maintaineddoing them in what have you in
(10:57):
the absence of any, but westruggled to keep the attendance
levels up over time. Andhonestly, a lot of them just
weren't effective. And so while
Leon Goren (11:10):
-certainly doesn't let you walk around their floor,
it-the facility is a mini tour. I
can't get that mini tour yet.
You talked about sort of opensyour eyes to their business.
Glenn Poulos (11:21):
Oh, yeah. And you see, that's where you see that
he's actually buying yourcompetitors product. And he just
hasn't told you right? To go ona mini tour. Right? And, yeah,
yeah,
Leon Goren (11:33):
would there be another point that you would
Glenn Poulos (11:33):
Sure. So the one that I like to always point out
share with everybody?
is, and a lot of people scratchtheir head sometimes and is, I'm
like, don't confuse marketingwith selling. Right. So the way
I break it down, and of course,I don't have I don't have a PhD
in marketing, and I don't have aPhD in selling, right, I just, I
just have 30 years ofexperience. And so I'm making,
(11:59):
you know, gross, I'm making sortof gross assumptions here. And
these are like in the streetcomments of what I've learned,
you know, in the trenches,right. And what I mean by don't
confuse marketing with sellingis I, for me, I break it down
simply, when you're face to facewith the customer, you're
selling, everything else ismarketing, all that nonsense on
LinkedIn, and all I'm digitalsocial selling, that's not
(12:20):
selling, that's not selling,selling is done face to face
with the customer. The rest ofit, is lead generation
marketing. It's, it's, and ifyou're doing it as the
salesperson, you're not doingyour job, your job, the
salesman's job is to sell themarketing job is to bring those
customers and the sales peopletogether. Right. And that can be
(12:43):
done through a wide variety ofelectronic methods and mediums.
And people will argue with me,and I just I, I don't enter into
like debate, I just don't agreelike that. Because a lot of
people, some people can justsell all their product online,
it's digital ordering, and it'sclick, funnel this and click
funnel that and I mean, we'reselling $100,000 instruments,
(13:05):
people don't buy it throughClick Funnels, like I mean, they
want to look at it, touch it,try it, you know, et cetera,
make sure it works, I bring theboss down from upstairs and show
him what he's spending $100,000on, you know, and I mean, I'm
appealing to anyone thatformerly sold face to face. And
you know, and is expecting to goback to face to face selling now
after the pandemic. And not toconfuse all I do it all, again,
(13:27):
you know, LinkedIn, this andLinkedIn that the marketing
people should be doing that. Youwant to be involved in sales
groups and other things onLinkedIn, maintain your
professional career. But whenyou're doing that, you're
actually marketing yourself andyour marketing. You're still not
selling though, right? Andthat's so that's just a golden
rule for me, is don't confusethe marketing with selling and,
(13:50):
and don't let the you know, inmanagement sometimes thinks, oh,
well, yeah, he's doing all thiscool LinkedIn stuff. And we're
getting all these leads, andwhatever. But I mean, you could
hire lead generation companiesto do that you get the marketing
team to do that the salespersonis the only one that can get out
of his chair, get in his car,drive to the customer and sell
the product, right. And that's agolden rule for me. And
Leon Goren (14:14):
that kind of resonates with me, thanks for
that one, Glenn. Like marketing,it's maybe my comfort zone, I
should be out there. So
Glenn Poulos (14:21):
never the first rule sitting is not selling,
right. And marketing is done inyour seat. So they tend to think
that the rules all flow togetherfrom the book and, you know,
like, and, you know, becauseonce I start talking about the
rules in the book, the rules,like seven or eight rules are
just flow right all at once,because they're all
interconnected. Yeah. Right.
And, you know, so the, it'sgreat. And the other the other
(14:45):
third, sort of, you asked me forsort of three highlights or
something like that was the, youknow, this is not quite to do
with with selling, you know, perse, like being a salesperson,
but actually it's just Being ina functional company, with a
boss and with customers and, andthat is that you only get
forever to make anotherimpression, you know what I
(15:06):
would call it like it's a goldenrule of mine. And people are
like, What the hell are youtalking about, you only get
forever to make anotherimpression. They're like, I
thought it was like, firstimpressions matter or something
like that. I'm like, dude,you've been working here five
years, you've been making a lotmore than first impression, do
you make an impression, everytime I walked by your desk, and
I see you all tab from Facebook,back to your contact your CRM,
(15:28):
that's an impression, right. Andso I use these, you know, like,
kind of, you know, boldexamples, like where I say,
like, you know, when you hearthe sound of the owners car, you
know, he had made as a nice car,he pulls in with his Jaguar, and
you can hear that some will,that rumble of that engine, hit
(15:48):
in the parking lot out front, oryou hear his car door, you will
hear that what is fierce feet,you immediately want to be
looking like the most importantperson in the building, doing
the most work every single time,right? Like, because it because
every time you make animpression, you're making an
impression. And so, withcustomers, with your, with your
(16:10):
boss, with your coworkers,everything, every interaction is
an opportunity to make animpression, why not take every
opportunity to make a goodimpression every single time,
right. That's why I have all therules about never sit in the
lobby, always have something inyour hand something in your
mind, you know, you know, etc,in order to, you know, in order
to make wise use of the time.
(16:33):
And, you know, for instance,like meeting sales meetings,
things like that don't show upto these things without a, you
know, a personal like an agendaand a reason for being there. If
you're not needed in themeeting, then decline the
meeting, they'll go, you know,asked to be taken off and, and
when you go make a goodimpression, you know, and, and
so, it's just a career advicething that I give people and a
(16:57):
lot of people sort of the, thekind of like sloughing off, in a
way, it's like, guys, you know,whatever, you're just being
dramatic. And I'm like, well,that's fine. But I've actually
own two companies that rentcompanies for 30 years. And I
can assure you that every time Isee you, you're making an
impression. So yeah, you know,if you're working for someone
(17:19):
else, you're definitely makingan impression on that person,
too. Right. So, you know, it'syours kind of take it for what
it's worth, but,
Leon Goren (17:29):
but I think it's a really, really important point.
And it pertains to actuallyleadership as well as leader,
right? You're making animpression all the time on the
people that work with you.
Glenn Poulos (17:38):
Yeah, I actually quote General Schwarzkopf in the
book write about leadership,right? And it's like, when he,
when he was brought in forDesert Shield to in early 90s,
or whatever. And they asked him,like, how do you lead 100,000?
Troops? Like, how do you be aleader of that many people? And
he says, Well, when you're whenyou're put in a leadership
(18:01):
position, take charge and, andlead, like, you know, you know,
you have to be there, you haveto lead, you have to make
decisions, right. That's what aleaders job is. And it's not to
do the all the work and, youknow, drive the tank, but it's
to lead all the people in allthe teams and be that person and
be that rock that's required.
And so
Leon Goren (18:23):
that's great. Yeah.
Well, glad I got you to sharethose three things. I'm not
getting to the other point,because I know I'm trying to
hold this to 12 minutes or 15.
Yeah, till we're over the 12.
That's okay. But, you know, justfor the audience, as well, just
Glen has sold two businesses.
And my other question to himwas, you know, the lessons
(18:44):
learned between the first andsecond business that you sold,
most of us are lucky enough tojust sell one business. We've
done it twice. And so we willget to that, but hopefully,
we'll get to that and othertime. Sure. The other thing
we're very fortunate to have youas part of PA leadership and I
know members that are listeningto this either around that
selling the business and oraround the book on the selling
techniques and stuff, pleasefeel free to reach out to Glenn
(19:06):
pick up his book as well. And Iasked him, would you drop into
one of our groups and he said,Okay, so I'm holding him to that
he has no idea what he justagreed to do. So that's awesome.
So Glenn, thank you so much forjoining us today and sharing
your insights. Thanks, Leon. Andfor those of you listening if
you're interested in our livewebcast, the way forward live
(19:27):
and any any other snippets,please take a moment and visit
us at pl leadership.com. You'llfind on our site various pre
recorded webcasts which includeguests such as Morgan Housel,
Professor Kenneth Stein,Harvard's Rosabeth Kantor,
Michael Beer, Rob chestnut, Dr.
Greg Wells, the list goes on. Aswe cover such topics as mental
health leadership, the newworld, and a host of others.
(19:50):
Thank you for joining us todayand we look forward to seeing
you again shortly.
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