May 19, 2025 • 23 mins
Katherine Martín-Fisher introduces Don Lazzari, who shares insights into his company's mission and team structure. Don discusses the challenges he has faced in business and the valuable insights gained from clients. He delves into techniques for recruiting effective salespeople and emphasizes the importance of training sales teams and marketing. The conversation highlights the significance of building a customer-centric organization, offering final advice on avoiding micromanagement. The episode wraps up with closing remarks and provides Don's contact information for further engagement.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
I am Katherine Martín-Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in 90 days.
And this allows them to reignite the passionand that big dream that they started with.
(00:28):
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Katherine, your host of The BeyondBusiness Podcast.
And we have Don Lazzari with us here today, andI am so excited to introduce you to him.
(00:54):
He is president of Delivering Value, a salesperformance consulting company that focuses on
helping entrepreneurs and their companies sellmore effectively and build high-performance
sales teams.
Since February 2010, Don has worked closelywith a wide variety of organizations in
(01:15):
software and technology, advanced analytics,manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, and
health care.
And so he also has his book with us,Entrepreneurs, Sales Secrets Revealed.
And I am so happy to welcome you here with ustoday.
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here for certain.
(01:37):
So Don, tell me a little bit about what you doand how you serve the world.
Sure.
Well, what the company does, and, name thecompany Delivering Value not to be clever, but
to use it as a brand promise.
Right?
What we are doing is working closely with theCEOs and leadership teams of small to
(01:59):
medium-sized companies, helping them get betterperformance out of their sales teams.
And we do this through hands-on consulting,through a few different frameworks, through an
approach we have called Sales Vital Signs,which is part three of the book.
And that with the end goal of helping thecompany to grow, helping them have a stronger
(02:19):
sales team, and sometimes to hire replacements.
Now so when you say we, then you have a teamthat goes in and actually as you're consulting
with them, you're all working together?
Well, I don't have employees, and that was onpurpose.
But I do have a network of affiliates, so I'mnormally the lead in an engagement, and then I
(02:42):
will pull in other folks that are part of mynetwork to participate.
Okay.
Alright.
I just wanted to unfold that.
So let me ask you, what would you say is achallenge that you find most business owners
have when you first come in and consult withthem?
One of the big challenges that I typically seewith business owners when I first get involved
(03:04):
is underestimating how risky their product isin the eyes of the buyer.
Especially if you're a new product or you're anew company, you've got to realize that when
you're going in that your risk factor is high,and you've got to try to offset that,
especially, as I said, if you've got somethingnew.
I love to point out a quote from Jeff Bezosthat he uses, which is, we are pioneers, and
(03:29):
the history of pioneers is not that good.
So you've got to try to keep that in mind whenyou have a new product.
You can't underestimate that.
So do you find that people do?
They think that, wow, this is the best thing inthe market, and, you know, is that one of the
biggest challenges?
If it's a tech product, definitely.
(03:49):
There's certainly this belief that this productis superior.
And even if it's not a tech product, because wedo deal with some dealers, some medical imaging
dealers, so it's a little different for them.
But if it's a product that's been invented bythe founder, almost certainly.
There is just like anyone with their children,we all have rosy views of, you know, our
(04:12):
children and their capabilities, and I see thata lot with folks.
Sometimes it's to an extreme where it's justlike, I can't believe we're not selling more.
Isn't it obvious?
And the answer to that is, yes.
It's not obvious.
That's so interesting.
So could you give me an example maybe of aclient that you walked in and you were able to
(04:35):
start to work with them, and then there was amoment where it's like, wow, I just didn't know
what I didn't know.
Well,
When I start working with clients and they comeacross a moment, sometimes that's not unusual.
Let me give you a specific example, though,where this goes back quite a ways, actually, to
(04:59):
a company that I worked with called ReadyLearning, and they were an e-learning company.
Smaller company, young, very bright, drivenCEO.
And when I came in, I came in just to do aworkshop for them on basically sales vital
signs.
And when we got halfway through that with histeam, he pulled me aside and just said, I had
(05:20):
no idea what we were missing.
So it was definitely to him a moment.
Another great moment just happened recently.
And it's sometimes it's not a big thing, butsometimes it's a little thing.
So I have a client that's in Houston.
They're a medical imaging company calledNational Imaging Solutions, and we were looking
(05:41):
to recruit a few folks.
We were going through the hiring process.
And one of the things that I recommend to myclients and I used when I was still working
full time is an approach when you get tofinalists called the hot seat interview.
And what you do is you bring this person in orhave them on Zoom with the interview team, and
they get 15 minutes to pitch you on why they'rea good fit for the job.
(06:04):
No more than 15 minutes, it stops at 15, thenyou get a little break, and then they get 15
minutes to pitch you on the company to produce,to basically deliver an overview presentation
from what they can find on the Internet.
So the CEO of this company was skeptical, and Imentioned it a few times, and then finally he
(06:27):
said, okay.
Fine.
We'll do it.
And so we had two candidates.
The candidate that he felt was our leadingcandidate, and I did as well, but I'm always
skeptical until I see this part, came in anddid not perform well.
And then the other candidate who we thought,well, solid hitter, but probably not as
(06:48):
impressive as the other, really shined.
Wow.
I've used that technique for quite some timeand recommended it to my clients, and that's
one where they do get moments where afterwardshe said to me, I see what you mean now.
So how what how do you differentiate versus howthe CEO was differentiating the different You
(07:12):
know what?
I I just think that it's it's just likeanything else.
It's one thing to so, you know, let's let's usea sports example.
It's one thing to sit and talk and tell someonehow good you are at golf.
It's another thing to swing the golf club andactually deliver.
And that's that's what that technique does.
Salespeople are charming and persuasive,typically by nature, but, you know, you it's
(07:36):
it's easy to make a not so good hire if youreally don't put them through their paces.
Give us an example of what you would do ifyou're hiring somebody.
What are some of the things that you would lookfor?
One of the first things I look for when I'mhiring someone is something that you cannot
train, and that's
(07:57):
drive.
That's
The best and the brightest are the ones thatevery morning when they get up, they want to be
number one, and they'll go the extra mile.
There's a book that was written by a gentlemanby the name of Dr.
Chris Croner back in, I guess, it was around2006, and I was introduced to him and that's
(08:17):
his fundamental principle.
The intrinsic need to achieve is what separatesthe great from the good.
So I look for that first.
Secondarily, another thing that I look for whenI'm interviewing people is can they give me
good details on deals that they've won and tellme why they won.
(08:40):
And then I mean chapter, verse, and footnotes,and the good ones will do that.
And I also ask conversely, so tell me about aloss that still stings, and walk me through it.
And why do you think you lost?
And the very good ones will always say becauseI missed something or because I didn't make a
(09:00):
connection with a certain individual that waspart of the decision-making team.
They always take responsibility for themselves.
And those are the folks that excel.
It's a really good share for our audience.
In most businesses, you know, I find that themost authentic people are the ones who are
(09:21):
gonna tell the truth about something.
I love that you shared that.
So what would you say through your journey?
What would you say is the number one mistakethat you've seen or a pretty important mistake
that you've seen a business owner make thatcould have gone a different way had they not
had you there?
(09:42):
Well, if a business owner had not been involvedwith let's put it this way.
If a business owner had not been able tobenefit from some of the insight I get from
working with so many other business owners,because that's really what consultants like me
bring to the table.
We see what a wide variety of companies do.
That's true.
One of the fundamental things that I see whenit comes to sales is many CEOs treat sales as a
(10:08):
commodity.
I just need someone to come in and make callsand go out and knock on doors.
And that's a misconception.
Sales is not a commodity.
The good ones are hard to find.
When you find one, if you can afford it, paythem and keep them as long as you can because
you only get to keep them for so long.
(10:31):
That's one thing.
Two, as I already mentioned, another thing thatbusiness owners do that's a fundamental mistake
is overestimating the value of their product inthe eyes of the buyer.
A quote that I love to use and, you know, theygo in, well, let me back up.
One real fundamental mistake that I see is notbeing able to effectively deliver a compelling
(10:51):
message.
So I've always advocated to my clients over thelast it'll be 15 years when we roll into
February.
You've got to shrink all of your stuff down tojust three main points.
Most people can only remember three.
And if you look at memory, most folks onlyremember headlines after just a few days after
(11:13):
your presentation.
So a mistake I see business owners make isgoing in and just flooding people with
capabilities and features.
There's a quote that I love.
I'm big on quotes.
There's a quote that I love to use from a guythat wrote a book called "The Chasm Companion."
His name was Paul Wiefels.
And he says in that book, do not confuse yourcompelling reason to sell with the customer's
(11:39):
compelling reason to buy.
And I see that really, really frequently.
And that you get moments with that too.
So how do you help an organization really traintheir salespeople?
So we're talking about sales and how, you know,that's an important, you know, factor in a
business.
Right?
(11:59):
So then how would you help them to be able tomake their sales force better?
Well, first of all, in order to make your salesteam better, you need to measure metric and
measure how they're performing.
Right?
The old classic, what gets measured getsimproved.
So you have to start there.
You have to start with the fundamentals.
Are they creating enough interest?
(12:22):
Is your marketing department, if you havemarketing, creating enough interest at the
front end?
Mhmm.
And is that enough interest to really driveaction into the pipeline?
And then does that create enough pipelinepressure to drive things through to the other
side?
So that's the first thing that you've got to dois put that in place.
(12:44):
Secondly, you've got to ask insightfulquestions.
So we are sales process agnostic.
So if someone likes SPIN Selling or ChallengerSale or whatever, at the end of the day, all of
the sales approaches come down to understandingwhy the client wants to buy and attaching what
(13:07):
you do persuasively to those needs.
So we'll go in and really train people on howto best basically interview, how to ask
insightful questions and keep asking untilyou've pretty much run out of questions to ask,
because then you're really driving into themain reason someone wants to buy or the main
(13:31):
one or two reasons.
Because it always comes down to one or tworeasons.
And then you attach your benefits to that.
Oh, okay.
Teach a sales process, so to speak.
We'll recommend them, but we don't really teachit.
So well, you know, do you find that a lot ofcompanies don't have the marketing, like, the
(13:52):
blow-up kind of marketing to get known in theindustry?
I see many companies who understaff marketingand really think that all salespeople need to
do is prospect, and that's not true.
You have to have a dialogue with the market.
There's gotta be even a contractor, one personwho every morning when they get up, they're
(14:13):
thinking about generating new content for you.
Because these days, it's pretty easy to get itout there.
Put it out on LinkedIn.
Put it out on your website.
Do cross-linking.
Do all the sorts of things that folks can do,but you have to have someone that is
evangelizing that.
And that is really communicating with themarket because otherwise, you're making
(14:37):
prospecting as difficult as it could possiblybe for that sales team.
Grant Cardone is a great example of thisbecause he actually, his quote from him is, if
they don't know you, they don't flow you.
And that's one of the areas that a lot ofcompanies are just, they're under notice.
Like, nobody knows them.
(14:57):
They're omnipresent.
You have to be omnipresent.
You cannot be in obscurity.
You have to stay top of mind.
And that's not just marketing's responsibility.
Sales has to do that too.
You know, they have to figure out reasons toreach out to their customers beyond just
selling them a product.
Right.
(15:17):
Send them something interesting.
Send them something that's business usable, butcreate a dialogue.
I had a woman that worked for me back in themid-2000s, and she was a superstar, and she's
gone on to do great things.
And she always used to say, you need contrivedreasons to reach out.
And she's right.
(15:39):
She's right.
You have to keep that heartbeat going.
And marketing does that.
Sales does that.
But right.
One thing that we espouse extremely andemphatically, I think is the word.
One thing that we espouse emphatically is itreally takes a village to be successful in
sales.
(15:59):
Your marketing department needs to be on board.
Your CEO needs to be on board.
Your CFO needs to be on board.
And then your people post-sale need to be onboard.
And if you have that organization that iscustomer-centric and sales-driven, that's the
key to success.
You can have some excellent salespeople, but ifyou don't have a good supporting cast, they're
(16:21):
gonna be less than successful.
I like that you say that it takes a villagebecause it is true.
Every aspect of the company, if you have theperfect components together, everybody is a
piece of the success of that company, and itjust drives success.
Yes.
So tell us a little bit about if somebodywanted, let's say they read your book.
(16:46):
They're like, wow.
You know, I wanna get in touch with them.
What would be the first steps for them to workwith you?
The phone and call me.
Phone call.
I'm out on LinkedIn.
I'm out on the website deliveringvalue.com.
Reach out, and I encourage folks to do that.
I would, you know, love to talk to peoplewho've read the book who need some help, even
(17:08):
if they just want to, and I just did thisrecently with a woman from the West Coast.
Even if they just wanna have a discussion.
Mhmm.
And, you know, that's all part of this.
I love that.
But I'm easy to reach.
You can definitely find me on LinkedIn.
I'm posting there with regularity.
Yes.
It appears my camera's misbehaving here.
(17:29):
I don't know why it's taking me out of focus.
It'll fix itself.
So with that, I would love for you to, if therewere anything you wanted to leave our audience
with, what would that be?
Well, a couple of things.
One thing that I would leave as a lessonlearned is if you want to be a successful
(17:52):
company, it's about building a team of peoplethat are better at stuff than you.
And sometimes I think that's very hard forentrepreneurs.
I do a kind of a lunch and learn, which is the10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it
comes to sales and marketing.
It's very brief.
Actually ran a couple of months ago onLinkedIn, and the number when we do the
(18:14):
countdown from 10 to number one, and we have aroom full of entrepreneurs, when I get to
number one, I say the number one mistake is noone can do this better than me.
And the CEOs who are successful realize thatthey're good at some things, and they need to
bring other people in.
To me, that's the key to success.
(18:36):
That is so true.
My father-in-law wrote a book, Driven.
He was of Amish descent, and he literally, withan eighth-grade education, grew a company.
And I would have many times we'd have theseconversations whether we'd be driving or having
a cup of coffee together.
One of the things I said, what would you saywas the number one reason that you were so
(18:59):
successful in business, you know, in the steelindustry?
And he said, I always hired people that werebetter than me.
I let them do their thing, but they had to beaccountable to me.
And I thought that in all successfulbusinesses, that's the thing: always hiring
people that are better than you.
(19:22):
But then they do have to be accountable to you.
So yes.
Yeah.
And you know what?
Turn them loose and remove barriers for them.
That's right.
Doing sales leadership coaching, that's whatI'll tell people.
Your number one job is to remove barriers.
Because if you do that, your high performerswill perform for you.
Just get stuff out of their way.
(19:43):
So, and I'm gonna ask you one last questionbecause I do find this to be, and even on
LinkedIn, you see lots of comments about thisparticular thing.
What about, how do you help a CEO when theyhave an ego in their company that they're
micromanaging?
How do you help them navigate that?
Well, I think that you have to have a veryfrank conversation.
(20:05):
Mhmm.
You'd be like, look.
You know what?
That one-size-fits-all is not the way to managesalespeople.
Even if you're the sales leader, everyone has adifferent style.
But the one thing your high performers do notlike is to be micromanaged because frankly,
they probably know how to do it better than youdo.
(20:25):
That's really good.
And it makes them crazy.
It's almost like, stop nagging me.
I know what I'm doing.
Stop nagging me.
You know, that's one thing.
You've got to, you know, there's nothing wrong.
And this is, you know, we started this earlierin our discussion.
When you're managing sales folks, the best wayto manage them is to look at their sales vital
(20:48):
signs and see how they're performing when itcomes to creating interest, converting interest
into action, and converting action into deals.
If you do that, then the rest of this kindatakes care of itself.
Because the way that they deliver on that canbe very different.
You know, I always, I always tell my clientswith multiple folks on their team, listen,
(21:10):
there's more than one path to the top of themountain.
And just because your best does it this way,doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be
what it's going to get this other person therebecause they have a different style.
They have a different relationship style.
So you've got to be open-minded and enablepeople and remove barriers and not tell them
(21:33):
how to go about
it.
That's super good.
Well, Don, I just thank you so much for beingwith us today and for all of the, just, you
know, teachables that you were able to give us.
And what a wealth of information becausebusiness owners need to have this information.
I would love for them to reach out to you.
Now, best way is on LinkedIn, you said?
(21:53):
LinkedIn?
Go to the website.
My phone number's on the website.
Feel free
to pick
up the phone and call me.
And then make sure that you mention thatwebsite one more time for us.
Sure.
It's deliveringvalue.com, d e l i v e r i n g,value.
Great.
Well, thank you so much for your time today,Don.
(22:14):
We really appreciate it.
Thanks.
Appreciate you having me.
And again, this is Katherine, your host withThe Beyond Business Podcast.
Just so excited to have had Don with us heretoday.
And thank you for listening in.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
(22:36):
And I just want to thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify, and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
(22:57):
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or on RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for an all-new episode.
I am Katherine Martín-Fisher, and I helpbusiness owners who have lost their vision
because they're struggling with cash flow,sales, marketing, which also affects their
company culture by showing them to implementproven systems that increase their revenue by
30% in 90 days.
And this allows them to reignite the passionand that big dream that they started with.
(00:28):
So the reason that I started this podcast wasto celebrate businesses who have overcome
adversity and have come out on the other sideof it.
And I want you to know that you are not alone.
Good afternoon.
This is Katherine, your host of The BeyondBusiness Podcast.
And we have Don Lazzari with us here today, andI am so excited to introduce you to him.
(00:54):
He is president of Delivering Value, a salesperformance consulting company that focuses on
helping entrepreneurs and their companies sellmore effectively and build high-performance
sales teams.
Since February 2010, Don has worked closelywith a wide variety of organizations in
(01:15):
software and technology, advanced analytics,manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, and
health care.
And so he also has his book with us,Entrepreneurs, Sales Secrets Revealed.
And I am so happy to welcome you here with ustoday.
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here for certain.
(01:37):
So Don, tell me a little bit about what you doand how you serve the world.
Sure.
Well, what the company does, and, name thecompany Delivering Value not to be clever, but
to use it as a brand promise.
Right?
What we are doing is working closely with theCEOs and leadership teams of small to
(01:59):
medium-sized companies, helping them get betterperformance out of their sales teams.
And we do this through hands-on consulting,through a few different frameworks, through an
approach we have called Sales Vital Signs,which is part three of the book.
And that with the end goal of helping thecompany to grow, helping them have a stronger
(02:19):
sales team, and sometimes to hire replacements.
Now so when you say we, then you have a teamthat goes in and actually as you're consulting
with them, you're all working together?
Well, I don't have employees, and that was onpurpose.
But I do have a network of affiliates, so I'mnormally the lead in an engagement, and then I
(02:42):
will pull in other folks that are part of mynetwork to participate.
Okay.
Alright.
I just wanted to unfold that.
So let me ask you, what would you say is achallenge that you find most business owners
have when you first come in and consult withthem?
One of the big challenges that I typically seewith business owners when I first get involved
(03:04):
is underestimating how risky their product isin the eyes of the buyer.
Especially if you're a new product or you're anew company, you've got to realize that when
you're going in that your risk factor is high,and you've got to try to offset that,
especially, as I said, if you've got somethingnew.
I love to point out a quote from Jeff Bezosthat he uses, which is, we are pioneers, and
(03:29):
the history of pioneers is not that good.
So you've got to try to keep that in mind whenyou have a new product.
You can't underestimate that.
So do you find that people do?
They think that, wow, this is the best thing inthe market, and, you know, is that one of the
biggest challenges?
If it's a tech product, definitely.
(03:49):
There's certainly this belief that this productis superior.
And even if it's not a tech product, because wedo deal with some dealers, some medical imaging
dealers, so it's a little different for them.
But if it's a product that's been invented bythe founder, almost certainly.
There is just like anyone with their children,we all have rosy views of, you know, our
(04:12):
children and their capabilities, and I see thata lot with folks.
Sometimes it's to an extreme where it's justlike, I can't believe we're not selling more.
Isn't it obvious?
And the answer to that is, yes.
It's not obvious.
That's so interesting.
So could you give me an example maybe of aclient that you walked in and you were able to
(04:35):
start to work with them, and then there was amoment where it's like, wow, I just didn't know
what I didn't know.
Well,
When I start working with clients and they comeacross a moment, sometimes that's not unusual.
Let me give you a specific example, though,where this goes back quite a ways, actually, to
(04:59):
a company that I worked with called ReadyLearning, and they were an e-learning company.
Smaller company, young, very bright, drivenCEO.
And when I came in, I came in just to do aworkshop for them on basically sales vital
signs.
And when we got halfway through that with histeam, he pulled me aside and just said, I had
(05:20):
no idea what we were missing.
So it was definitely to him a moment.
Another great moment just happened recently.
And it's sometimes it's not a big thing, butsometimes it's a little thing.
So I have a client that's in Houston.
They're a medical imaging company calledNational Imaging Solutions, and we were looking
(05:41):
to recruit a few folks.
We were going through the hiring process.
And one of the things that I recommend to myclients and I used when I was still working
full time is an approach when you get tofinalists called the hot seat interview.
And what you do is you bring this person in orhave them on Zoom with the interview team, and
they get 15 minutes to pitch you on why they'rea good fit for the job.
(06:04):
No more than 15 minutes, it stops at 15, thenyou get a little break, and then they get 15
minutes to pitch you on the company to produce,to basically deliver an overview presentation
from what they can find on the Internet.
So the CEO of this company was skeptical, and Imentioned it a few times, and then finally he
(06:27):
said, okay.
Fine.
We'll do it.
And so we had two candidates.
The candidate that he felt was our leadingcandidate, and I did as well, but I'm always
skeptical until I see this part, came in anddid not perform well.
And then the other candidate who we thought,well, solid hitter, but probably not as
(06:48):
impressive as the other, really shined.
Wow.
I've used that technique for quite some timeand recommended it to my clients, and that's
one where they do get moments where afterwardshe said to me, I see what you mean now.
So how what how do you differentiate versus howthe CEO was differentiating the different You
(07:12):
know what?
I I just think that it's it's just likeanything else.
It's one thing to so, you know, let's let's usea sports example.
It's one thing to sit and talk and tell someonehow good you are at golf.
It's another thing to swing the golf club andactually deliver.
And that's that's what that technique does.
Salespeople are charming and persuasive,typically by nature, but, you know, you it's
(07:36):
it's easy to make a not so good hire if youreally don't put them through their paces.
Give us an example of what you would do ifyou're hiring somebody.
What are some of the things that you would lookfor?
One of the first things I look for when I'mhiring someone is something that you cannot
train, and that's
(07:57):
drive.
That's
The best and the brightest are the ones thatevery morning when they get up, they want to be
number one, and they'll go the extra mile.
There's a book that was written by a gentlemanby the name of Dr.
Chris Croner back in, I guess, it was around2006, and I was introduced to him and that's
(08:17):
his fundamental principle.
The intrinsic need to achieve is what separatesthe great from the good.
So I look for that first.
Secondarily, another thing that I look for whenI'm interviewing people is can they give me
good details on deals that they've won and tellme why they won.
(08:40):
And then I mean chapter, verse, and footnotes,and the good ones will do that.
And I also ask conversely, so tell me about aloss that still stings, and walk me through it.
And why do you think you lost?
And the very good ones will always say becauseI missed something or because I didn't make a
(09:00):
connection with a certain individual that waspart of the decision-making team.
They always take responsibility for themselves.
And those are the folks that excel.
It's a really good share for our audience.
In most businesses, you know, I find that themost authentic people are the ones who are
(09:21):
gonna tell the truth about something.
I love that you shared that.
So what would you say through your journey?
What would you say is the number one mistakethat you've seen or a pretty important mistake
that you've seen a business owner make thatcould have gone a different way had they not
had you there?
(09:42):
Well, if a business owner had not been involvedwith let's put it this way.
If a business owner had not been able tobenefit from some of the insight I get from
working with so many other business owners,because that's really what consultants like me
bring to the table.
We see what a wide variety of companies do.
That's true.
One of the fundamental things that I see whenit comes to sales is many CEOs treat sales as a
(10:08):
commodity.
I just need someone to come in and make callsand go out and knock on doors.
And that's a misconception.
Sales is not a commodity.
The good ones are hard to find.
When you find one, if you can afford it, paythem and keep them as long as you can because
you only get to keep them for so long.
(10:31):
That's one thing.
Two, as I already mentioned, another thing thatbusiness owners do that's a fundamental mistake
is overestimating the value of their product inthe eyes of the buyer.
A quote that I love to use and, you know, theygo in, well, let me back up.
One real fundamental mistake that I see is notbeing able to effectively deliver a compelling
(10:51):
message.
So I've always advocated to my clients over thelast it'll be 15 years when we roll into
February.
You've got to shrink all of your stuff down tojust three main points.
Most people can only remember three.
And if you look at memory, most folks onlyremember headlines after just a few days after
(11:13):
your presentation.
So a mistake I see business owners make isgoing in and just flooding people with
capabilities and features.
There's a quote that I love.
I'm big on quotes.
There's a quote that I love to use from a guythat wrote a book called "The Chasm Companion."
His name was Paul Wiefels.
And he says in that book, do not confuse yourcompelling reason to sell with the customer's
(11:39):
compelling reason to buy.
And I see that really, really frequently.
And that you get moments with that too.
So how do you help an organization really traintheir salespeople?
So we're talking about sales and how, you know,that's an important, you know, factor in a
business.
Right?
(11:59):
So then how would you help them to be able tomake their sales force better?
Well, first of all, in order to make your salesteam better, you need to measure metric and
measure how they're performing.
Right?
The old classic, what gets measured getsimproved.
So you have to start there.
You have to start with the fundamentals.
Are they creating enough interest?
(12:22):
Is your marketing department, if you havemarketing, creating enough interest at the
front end?
Mhmm.
And is that enough interest to really driveaction into the pipeline?
And then does that create enough pipelinepressure to drive things through to the other
side?
So that's the first thing that you've got to dois put that in place.
(12:44):
Secondly, you've got to ask insightfulquestions.
So we are sales process agnostic.
So if someone likes SPIN Selling or ChallengerSale or whatever, at the end of the day, all of
the sales approaches come down to understandingwhy the client wants to buy and attaching what
(13:07):
you do persuasively to those needs.
So we'll go in and really train people on howto best basically interview, how to ask
insightful questions and keep asking untilyou've pretty much run out of questions to ask,
because then you're really driving into themain reason someone wants to buy or the main
(13:31):
one or two reasons.
Because it always comes down to one or tworeasons.
And then you attach your benefits to that.
Oh, okay.
Teach a sales process, so to speak.
We'll recommend them, but we don't really teachit.
So well, you know, do you find that a lot ofcompanies don't have the marketing, like, the
(13:52):
blow-up kind of marketing to get known in theindustry?
I see many companies who understaff marketingand really think that all salespeople need to
do is prospect, and that's not true.
You have to have a dialogue with the market.
There's gotta be even a contractor, one personwho every morning when they get up, they're
(14:13):
thinking about generating new content for you.
Because these days, it's pretty easy to get itout there.
Put it out on LinkedIn.
Put it out on your website.
Do cross-linking.
Do all the sorts of things that folks can do,but you have to have someone that is
evangelizing that.
And that is really communicating with themarket because otherwise, you're making
(14:37):
prospecting as difficult as it could possiblybe for that sales team.
Grant Cardone is a great example of thisbecause he actually, his quote from him is, if
they don't know you, they don't flow you.
And that's one of the areas that a lot ofcompanies are just, they're under notice.
Like, nobody knows them.
(14:57):
They're omnipresent.
You have to be omnipresent.
You cannot be in obscurity.
You have to stay top of mind.
And that's not just marketing's responsibility.
Sales has to do that too.
You know, they have to figure out reasons toreach out to their customers beyond just
selling them a product.
Right.
(15:17):
Send them something interesting.
Send them something that's business usable, butcreate a dialogue.
I had a woman that worked for me back in themid-2000s, and she was a superstar, and she's
gone on to do great things.
And she always used to say, you need contrivedreasons to reach out.
And she's right.
(15:39):
She's right.
You have to keep that heartbeat going.
And marketing does that.
Sales does that.
But right.
One thing that we espouse extremely andemphatically, I think is the word.
One thing that we espouse emphatically is itreally takes a village to be successful in
sales.
(15:59):
Your marketing department needs to be on board.
Your CEO needs to be on board.
Your CFO needs to be on board.
And then your people post-sale need to be onboard.
And if you have that organization that iscustomer-centric and sales-driven, that's the
key to success.
You can have some excellent salespeople, but ifyou don't have a good supporting cast, they're
(16:21):
gonna be less than successful.
I like that you say that it takes a villagebecause it is true.
Every aspect of the company, if you have theperfect components together, everybody is a
piece of the success of that company, and itjust drives success.
Yes.
So tell us a little bit about if somebodywanted, let's say they read your book.
(16:46):
They're like, wow.
You know, I wanna get in touch with them.
What would be the first steps for them to workwith you?
The phone and call me.
Phone call.
I'm out on LinkedIn.
I'm out on the website deliveringvalue.com.
Reach out, and I encourage folks to do that.
I would, you know, love to talk to peoplewho've read the book who need some help, even
(17:08):
if they just want to, and I just did thisrecently with a woman from the West Coast.
Even if they just wanna have a discussion.
Mhmm.
And, you know, that's all part of this.
I love that.
But I'm easy to reach.
You can definitely find me on LinkedIn.
I'm posting there with regularity.
Yes.
It appears my camera's misbehaving here.
(17:29):
I don't know why it's taking me out of focus.
It'll fix itself.
So with that, I would love for you to, if therewere anything you wanted to leave our audience
with, what would that be?
Well, a couple of things.
One thing that I would leave as a lessonlearned is if you want to be a successful
(17:52):
company, it's about building a team of peoplethat are better at stuff than you.
And sometimes I think that's very hard forentrepreneurs.
I do a kind of a lunch and learn, which is the10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it
comes to sales and marketing.
It's very brief.
Actually ran a couple of months ago onLinkedIn, and the number when we do the
(18:14):
countdown from 10 to number one, and we have aroom full of entrepreneurs, when I get to
number one, I say the number one mistake is noone can do this better than me.
And the CEOs who are successful realize thatthey're good at some things, and they need to
bring other people in.
To me, that's the key to success.
(18:36):
That is so true.
My father-in-law wrote a book, Driven.
He was of Amish descent, and he literally, withan eighth-grade education, grew a company.
And I would have many times we'd have theseconversations whether we'd be driving or having
a cup of coffee together.
One of the things I said, what would you saywas the number one reason that you were so
(18:59):
successful in business, you know, in the steelindustry?
And he said, I always hired people that werebetter than me.
I let them do their thing, but they had to beaccountable to me.
And I thought that in all successfulbusinesses, that's the thing: always hiring
people that are better than you.
(19:22):
But then they do have to be accountable to you.
So yes.
Yeah.
And you know what?
Turn them loose and remove barriers for them.
That's right.
Doing sales leadership coaching, that's whatI'll tell people.
Your number one job is to remove barriers.
Because if you do that, your high performerswill perform for you.
Just get stuff out of their way.
(19:43):
So, and I'm gonna ask you one last questionbecause I do find this to be, and even on
LinkedIn, you see lots of comments about thisparticular thing.
What about, how do you help a CEO when theyhave an ego in their company that they're
micromanaging?
How do you help them navigate that?
Well, I think that you have to have a veryfrank conversation.
(20:05):
Mhmm.
You'd be like, look.
You know what?
That one-size-fits-all is not the way to managesalespeople.
Even if you're the sales leader, everyone has adifferent style.
But the one thing your high performers do notlike is to be micromanaged because frankly,
they probably know how to do it better than youdo.
(20:25):
That's really good.
And it makes them crazy.
It's almost like, stop nagging me.
I know what I'm doing.
Stop nagging me.
You know, that's one thing.
You've got to, you know, there's nothing wrong.
And this is, you know, we started this earlierin our discussion.
When you're managing sales folks, the best wayto manage them is to look at their sales vital
(20:48):
signs and see how they're performing when itcomes to creating interest, converting interest
into action, and converting action into deals.
If you do that, then the rest of this kindatakes care of itself.
Because the way that they deliver on that canbe very different.
You know, I always, I always tell my clientswith multiple folks on their team, listen,
(21:10):
there's more than one path to the top of themountain.
And just because your best does it this way,doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be
what it's going to get this other person therebecause they have a different style.
They have a different relationship style.
So you've got to be open-minded and enablepeople and remove barriers and not tell them
(21:33):
how to go about
it.
That's super good.
Well, Don, I just thank you so much for beingwith us today and for all of the, just, you
know, teachables that you were able to give us.
And what a wealth of information becausebusiness owners need to have this information.
I would love for them to reach out to you.
Now, best way is on LinkedIn, you said?
(21:53):
LinkedIn?
Go to the website.
My phone number's on the website.
Feel free
to pick
up the phone and call me.
And then make sure that you mention thatwebsite one more time for us.
Sure.
It's deliveringvalue.com, d e l i v e r i n g,value.
Great.
Well, thank you so much for your time today,Don.
(22:14):
We really appreciate it.
Thanks.
Appreciate you having me.
And again, this is Katherine, your host withThe Beyond Business Podcast.
Just so excited to have had Don with us heretoday.
And thank you for listening in.
Well, if you made it to this point, then youmade it to the end, and you are my star.
(22:36):
And I just want to thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
I hope that you enjoyed the conversation withtoday's guest.
And if you did, please leave us a review onApple Podcasts and Spotify, and share this
episode with others who may be interested inthis topic.
Also, please feel free to let us know whattopics you'd like to see covered in future
(22:57):
episodes.
Get in touch in the comments or on RocketGrowth social media platforms.
To have conversations with me, my booking linkis in the comments.
See you next week for an all-new episode.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.