What Makes A Successful Sales Team? 3 Tips to Nurturing Your Team.

Rob  00:09

Welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch. And I see Lane and I see also Veronica, so everybody, let’s say hi, to Lane first, Lane, How you doing?

Lane  00:17

Fantastic. Rob, how are you?

Rob  00:18

Yeah, I’m doing. I’m doing well. And Veronica is joining us today, Veronica, how are you doing?

Veronica  00:24

I’m doing better than Lane. Step it up.

Rob  00:26

Oh. Wow.

Lane  00:27

What’s better than fantastic.

Veronica  00:30

Marvelous,

Rob  00:32

Marvelous. So before we get too far, let’s find out what Veronica does. And why she’s joining us

Veronica  00:39

…and why she’s so feisty. Yeah, I am Veronica Romney, nice to meet all your listeners. I am a Dream Team Architect. I basically help people architect their teams in order for them to scale from seven figures to eight. And I also have a program called The Rainmaker Residency, which is specifically designed to develop and train marketing leaders so that my CEOs don’t have to be the marketer for their own companies anymore.

Rob  01:02

Wait, so CEOs shouldn’t be doing the marketing?

Veronica  01:04

They should not…at some point, you need to let it go. Yeah,

Rob  01:08

Yeah. So all right, so let’s dive into this. So I think lane, do you understand who we’re talking to here? This is like a big deal.

Lane  01:15

This is huge. This is huge.

Rob  01:17

This is very huge. Yeah, I don’t know if everybody understands how big of a deal this is that we got Veronica on our show. I can’t believe this. Alright. So Veronica, one of the things that you and I had spoken about a little while back was the importance of a team that works together, and functions as one to support each other. Can you do you remember that conversation a little bit,

Veronica  01:40

I plead the fifth? Okay.

Rob  01:41

All right. Good call. So, too soon? Can you give us a little bit of understanding why we had that conversation and what we were talking about?

Veronica  01:51

Yeah. So Rob, and I have known each other for a while now. And we have had conversations, because you know, marketing and sales. So like when I think about the people that I trained there, their job is to oversee the content production, the marketing, promotions, and launches, but also the sales activity, because everything centers around converting that prospect into a customer for the first time. And I want people to play nice. And so oftentimes, if you have a sales team that separated from the marketers that separated from any bit like there tends to be some tension between these players. And I think that’s, that’s silly, but it happens all the time. And that can happen in a corporate environment, or it can happen even in amongst entrepreneur, entrepreneur led businesses, so to speak. So we can talk about that.

Rob  02:33

So size companies that you typically deal with, just so we’re on the same page, what does that look like?

Veronica  02:38

I mostly work with online entrepreneurs at this point. And they’re usually $70 to $80,000, gross revenue a month all the way up to $200 to $300,000, if not more a month. So yeah, we’re in the millions range for sure.

Rob  02:50

Yeah. And that’s about the right range for people that are business owners that have got they’ll start to let stuff go in are like, I can’t let that go. I’m really good at that. So how do you get first of all, how do you get people to recognize I need to let go?

Veronica  03:06

They’ve already recognized that I literally was talking to a colleague of ours, Donald Kelly, who is another very have a greatpodcast as well, but

Rob  03:13

He’s coming up by another podcast.

Veronica  03:15

And I asked him kind of same question. Like, when was the time for you to expand your team? He’s like, because I was burned the freak out. So it’s not so much. They’re like, I’m, I’m ready. I’m frolicking through sunflowers, I’m ready to let go. No, it’s because they are so crispy. They’re so burnt out. And they’re like, either I bring people to this party to like dump on or I’m going to be dumping the business it gets it can get that bad, that dark pretty quickly.

Rob  03:40

There at that point, it’s pretty simple to just say, Hey, let you guys go. And let me take it over. Okay. And what’s the sort of pain that they’re having, if you will, like, if you’re, you’re going through this process, the pain that they’re having is…?

Veronica  03:53

They have a real company that has real problems. And they’re the only firefighter on site. Like they’re literally the only one playing whack a mole and the whack a mole game is 24/7, Monday through Sunday, and it’s like, they just need somebody else to do the strategic thinking there. The decision fatigue is out of control. They’re done making, they’re just tired, tired, doing everything. I’m tired of being the dancing monkey that has to sell the thing that I have to fulfill the thing that I have to count the money, my like, they’re just everywhere doing all the things and they’re tired.

Rob  04:24

Okay, so if you’re in the room, and you’re getting ready to sell somebody and you know that these are the things what questions just for the sales side? What questions do you ask to get that information out of them?

Veronica  04:37

I mean, most of the time, the rooms that I’m in, it’s been one number one, let’s start with like being in the right room. So it’s not hard when you’re in mastermind settings or networking groups or networking opportunities where you’ll start to hear that dialogue. In my particular industry. It is very launch heavy and launch centric. There’s a lot of lunching and so I often hear my CEOs is complaining lament about either the launch not performing well, or the launch burnout, or the fact that they caught the fact that their sales page URL was broken two hours after the cart opened on their webinar? Like it’s not. So you’ll hear a lot of crazy stories like that.

Rob  05:15

Interesting. Okay. And so the more stories that they tell you like that, do you get into the numbers of how is that impacting numbers wise? Or

Veronica  05:23

Yeah, it’s interesting how intimidating the numbers are for a lot of entrepreneurs that don’t come from a more corporate background, where we just talked all the time to talk about budgets, which I mean, just constantly, kind of annoying, right. But a lot of entrepreneurs, they don’t really talk about their numbers, because it’s probably the most naked they can be is to disclose their lifestyle business numbers, and they’re not going to do that. Or they very rarely do that with anybody in the organization period. So it’s not so much that that that there, they’re talking about what I know right away, though, is Team turnover. Like I’ve hired a marketer, how many have you gone through in the last 12 months? Well, like three like, well, so they so we’ll talk about team turnover, we’ll talk about turnover rate, that’s something that you’ll hear often. And then we’ll talk about like, Okay, how did that set you back? Or what, what thing Have you been wanting to do that you haven’t been able to do? So they’ll, they’ll process the bleed in aspiration not met more than financial consequences in a number format?

Rob  06:22

That’s interesting. So it’s different than so. Alright, that makes sense. Before we get Yeah, I think so. But when you get too far, and I don’t want to get too far into the sales process, because to me, that’s, you know, we talk about that a lot on the show of like, how do you get into those pain questions to understand how much does this cost to you? Like, is it costing them time? Is this costing them money? So you recognize that because you’ve had conversations with enough people, and you dig in, you start finding that information out? Once you have that information? How, what are the what are the other? Are there packages? Are there things that you go through to say, here’s some of the options that you have in terms of what you can do for that, right.

Veronica  06:59

I know what you’re saying, too, because like, I’ve done Sandler Training, and I’ve done the science of selling and like, there’s tons of really great sales models and my husband’s in corporate sales. So he’s always talking about our GPAs. And this and that all these acronyms like aren’t but he comes down. But like ultimately, what you’re trying to assess is like, you know, how, how big is the carrot of their aspiration? How painful is the stick that is hitting them in the process? Like those are usually where I go in a really simplistic way, like, what do you what, how far is your ambition telling you to go and how bad is the frustration that you’re not there yet? That’s usually what it is. It’s like they, they as a visionary, like, I know this company, we haven’t even begun we we haven’t even started cold out we can you imagine when we really turn on the fire hydrant? I mean, start like, you’ll hear a lot of that language, like we got to this hockey stick level of success just by word of mouth, or just by my social media presence, like can you imagine we actually try than they actually try by having people around them and it doesn’t go well, the execution is poorly done. And like, ah, like, so it’s it. That’s the dialogue that I tend to have. And then when I kind of come in, it’s like baby steps here. I like I and Dave Ramsey talks about this too, in his like, I think there was like a podcast I was listening to about like the financial, what does he call it Financial Peace University, where he talks about like, one of the first big steps in his seven part process or whatever is like, just save $1,000. Now he’s working with people that have like hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt, but like, the first step is just like, can we put $1,000 in a savings account in your in your bank, I kind of approach even when I think about my value ladder of offers or services myself, I kind of do the same thing. So like, at the most basic or entry level spot with me, it’s just an hour, literally an hour. Like before, we think about a day together or an entire quarter together or an entire 12 month program together. Let’s just talk about an hour together. And we are very definitive, like what do you want to get out of the hour? And for some of them, it’s like, well, I just want to know, if the org chart that I had is crap. I’m like, okay, for an hour, I’m going to tell you whether or not this org chart is crap, and who’s missing and who I would be hiring or firing first or next. Right. So like, they’ll have like a really specific thing where like, can you just look under the hood? And it’s almost like, can you just give me a quick win? Like, yeah, I can give you a quick win. And then so then I give them that insight, like, oh my gosh, and then some of them are empowered, and they can go execute that by themselves. Some of them like I have, there’s no way in hell, I’m gonna be able to do this by myself. Can you help me further and then you keep going in that way, but you got to give him a quick win. You got to get a little truffle on the pillow.

Rob  09:26

All right. Let’s dig into dig. Let’s Yeah, let’s dig into the process of getting people to understand how to make their business function as a team, all silos are gone. And that functions work with functions work with functions naturally. How do we do that?

Veronica  09:44

Well, as a mother of two children, it starts with me. Right? So same thing, it’s really interesting whether you’re talking about even from a parenting standpoint in your personal home or you’re thinking about it from a team perspective, not your employees or your children, but kind of like the You are responsible for their well being, you are also responsible for their output and success and course correction just like you would be at home. So for me whether I have a little siloed off content team, I have a lot of silos, you know, sales function or a little siloed off, like marketing kind of promotion team, you know, it really starts with me, and very intentional, tactical, tangible efforts to bring people on the same page. And that usually starts with like, Hey, friends, I know it’s been like this before, but I’m going to introduce you to the 2.0 version that we’re embracing for the next six months to 12 months, can I invite you to partake of this new flavor, or this new vision that we have for our team? Or if it’s for the whole company, could be a whole 2.0 version? And as you know, initiative for the company?

Rob  10:42

Is there a fight or a pushback from the people that are working there? Oh, yeah. What is that? Like? What does that look past that

Veronica  10:49

When you can work with anybody, you literally talk to anybody, whether it’s the Michael Hyatt, or any or any of these kinds of coaches that work with business owners, when you come into instant, like initiate a new objective, or a new a new wave where things are getting tightened, or things are being like or any of that any of that change management that starts to come in, you can almost predict that you’re gonna lose one or two people almost every time. And it’s a process. And I hate to say it, but like, if you look at the stats, it’s guaranteed that people will self eject, there are the people that have grown accustomed to this level of output. And so when you’re like, well, we need to double our output. They’re like, No, no, I like this complacency level just fine. You know. And so when the whole team starts running a four minute mile, unfortunately, people that can only run five minutes or six minute miles, just they will naturally selfie jack. So there’s always that tension, or early loss of people that are just not bought into the new way of being. And then what’s really exciting when I get more, I don’t get deflated by that, because I sometimes I’ll even like set them up on a different path. Okay, I see your talent. And it’s not going to be for this 2.0 version. But I think you could actually be a really great fit here. So if I can build a bridge for them elsewhere, I try to do that. And I’m going to Goodwill, but what I get really excited about is the eight players who know that they’ve been operating under their potential. So then when you come in, you’re like, listen, peeps, we’re going to run faster like Hell yeah, I’ve been waiting this whole time. That’s the people that I get real excited for. Because they’ve been itching. They’re ready. They know that they’ve been under under utilized this whole time.

Rob  12:12

Yeah. And I like how you call it self eject, I like to call them transition them to be a client, whichever way you like, it doesn’t matter to me, I like it. But that is the way that it. But that is the way that it is is you have that that structure of people. And I know you know GE has a process and all these different company. They’re all there’s all these out there. Right? Before I go too far. I should ask what questions Lane might have. He always has a thousand questions…

Lane  12:36

Oh, goodness. So you talked about these founders or entrepreneurs or whatever you want to call them they’ve tried working with, you know, they’ve tried bringing other people to work for them. In the past, it hasn’t worked out what tends to be the biggest reason why that doesn’t has not worked for them.

Veronica  12:51

So number one, they’re inviting people to the party too late, meaning they themselves are not in a good place. Mentally, they’re burnt out, they’re impatient, they’re tired. Have you ever had a dialogue with your spouse when you’re burnt out and tired? At the end of the day? It’s usually not a good idea, right? So same idea. So like, they’re usually bringing people on. But by the time the pain is really great, not only do the people come and they’re not getting the best version of the leader, and that’s just what happens. Then on top of that, the leader goes, Oh, finally, and then they dump, they don’t pace it. And they don’t also then onboard or define the success criteria. They’re like, you’re in charge of emails now. Okay, what does that mean? Like I have tech, I have tactical skills. I know how to push, send, and I know how to write words. But how what what’s your form of emailing? What do you think subjectively is a good email? Like, everybody has a different preference? It’s you’re talking about design? Well, I like abstract. Well, I don’t like abstract I, like, you know, like a fancy toilet. It’s worth $50,000. What? Right? Like, everybody has their preferences. But unfortunately, these founders, especially if they are the primary marketer, and they’re the ones that have defined the brand voice, they don’t, they haven’t taken the time to then put that on a piece of paper that makes sense to anybody else besides them, but they expect that person to read their mind or to figure it out on their own, and it doesn’t happen very well. Even some of the best candidates get hired get turned out because they haven’t been set up for success.

Lane  14:17

That’s interesting. Okay, I would have just me thinking I would have thought it would be more, they just have a hard time letting go of something they’ve been working with.

Veronica  14:24

Oh, no…they like go too fast, too soon, too ferociously, interesting, Fast and Furious.

Rob  14:29

Alright. The other question. Another question that I have is transitioning a team is one thing as a sales manager who’s got to manage a group of people to fit in with this new process in this new way, which then also integrates marketing and all the other components? How do you get that manager to make that change? Because that’s really where the stopper would be. Right? That’s where you’re gonna run into problems more than anything.

Veronica  14:52

Yeah, sales teams in particular. I mean, think about the nature of a person to even be on a sales team like these are naturally competitive. People they are incentivized by comp plans that not every personality in the world is incentivized by carrots. Some people are not some people were trying to avoid pain costs and just want consistency and something instability. Salespeople, like, Nope, I want no ceiling to my compensation. If I’m hungry, I want to chase after it like they are entrepreneurial in spirit, but you’re trying to like channel that passion energy on behalf of the organization as one of those entre intro right? Entrepreneurs. So not to play politics. But yes, you almost for me, when I know that I’m getting on a team that has lots of personality, like that’s really what you’re talking about. You have big personalities, big players, a players they know themselves to be a players, they wouldn’t be successful in sales, if there wasn’t a strong sense of ego, which then the negative side can be the pride. So what I try to do is I try to convert them one by one. So it is very common for me to have very quickly. Even before I communicate the new vision to all I will actually do kind of what politicians do, where you’ll have the meeting with just a senator at lunch, Can I count on your vote? And then you go to like the House of Representatives and like you don’t I mean, then you go to the main floor, I do the same thing where I will go and connect emotionally with big personalities, I accept them for who they are. My job is not to change you from the narcissist that you are that’s that was on your parents not mean, right? I accept them for who they are. And my job is just to work with them. Now, do I have any tolerance for them becoming locker room lawyers and trying to poison the well I don’t have tolerance for that. Right? So if I can identify somebody who is toxic? And who is going to taint the well then no, we’re not going to have tolerance for that. But I will very much try to sit with them individually, one by one. So they get to know me, I’m not a threat I succeed when you succeed, what do you need to be successful? Oh, really, this is what I need to be successful? Can we both agree, great shake, and then present it to the team so that you have some internal champions for you first. So same thing when you’re right, when you’re selling an external client, you try to get your internal champion with them. It’s the same concept, but you do amongst the team that’s already established.

Rob  17:12

Yeah. And I was going to actually, once you were done describing that scenario, I was actually just gonna say, this is the exact same thing as when you’re selling. And you know, you have an advocate on the inside, and you pull them aside and you get what do I need to do? What, what’s this person? Like? You’ve start to find out, okay, this person is really going to make the decision, are they what kind of personality do they have? Are they you know, are they very direct? Are they high level? Are they low level, they want the details, all that information, you can start to gather that and they will tell you that because they want it just as bad as anybody else, versus somebody that’s against you, you got to find those people to write and find out well, why are you against me here.

Veronica  17:49

And that’s happened to me before where I came onto a team and I was the new externally hired director. And what I learned very quickly, when they hired me was like, oh, yeah, and by the way, by the way, this guy who is now your direct report, yeah, he actually applied for your job, and we chose you over him. So that might present an issue. And like, I think it happens, it happens. And I’m grateful that HR had given me that heads up. Sometimes we don’t get the heads up, I think that puts a manager to look stupid, but it’s gonna happen, you’re gonna have big personalities, there’s gonna be people that wanted your job. Like, it’s, that’s all part of the game. The biggest thing that I can say, and I try and like this is like a rule that I apply in my romantic personal relationships, as well as my professionals focus on feelings, not behaviors. So if you can just connect with somebody on their feelings and how they feel and what they want and what they aspire for, and what’s standing in their way, and then they see you as an advocate to help them get those roadblocks out of the way and they tend to be a little bit softer with you. Yeah,

Rob  18:49

Yeah. Lane’s tried to tell me that a lot too. And he’s always talking about his feelings with me and I see

Lane  18:54

Rob just doesn’t listen. He’s not a listener.

Veronica  18:57

He’s like your behavior sucks as I was feeling I don’t care

Rob  19:04

Yeah, pretty much Lane… What other questions do you have?

Veronica  19:06

I think he’s scared of me.

Rob  19:12

Lane. I want you to guess what DiSC Profile Veronica has? Oh, goodness. Do you need some time because we’ll continue the interview a little longer and then we’ll get into

Veronica  19:24

Can we take into account my Cuban heritage or…?

Lane  19:30

Oh, gosh, definitely not a C definitely not a C

Rob  19:35

No, no, you’re correct.

Lane  19:38

I don’t think she’s I don’t think you’re an ass either. I don’t know process of elimination. I’m gonna go with the D.

Rob  19:44

That would be my guess as well.

Veronica  19:46

But it’s self aware D Hold on. Because you know there I’m an anagram “A” I’m a high achiever and Myers Briggs. I’ve taken all the assessments and I know what I know. But I would like to add the asterisk that I’m a very self aware, self aware balanced healthy, “D.”

Rob  20:07

I would say I don’t know, a single D that’s that’s not self aware. But balanced is never in the equation. Yeah. I mean, there’s if there are high D, and they’re not anything else, and I know you have other traits I know you do. But what if you have a very high D, and that’s really their only trait they don’t? There’s no balance. It’s like my way or the highway. Oh, I do remember. Yes. So, alright, so back back to just some of the basic some of the things about about teams and so forth. When you’re dealing with a sales team, and you have high performers and low performers, obviously, you’re going to try to get rid of the low performers, or is there? Is there another process to it? Because I know, that’s part of the part at all. It’s managing people. It’s it’s leading people, it’s doing all the right functional things that you should be doing as a leader. What do you do to identify those, besides the fact that they’re not selling as much as everybody else? How do you identify what their issue is and where they need to come along to be able to stay on board?

Veronica  21:04

Yeah. so I, you saw me like shake my head really is. I believe that good leaders should be helping their people to do self evaluations, if I’m bringing something to your attention that you didn’t realize about yourself, I have failed as a true leader in my personal definition. What I mean by that is like, for example, let’s say I’m doing a employee one on one, right, so we’re doing regular one on ones, you’re not finding out that you suck in the annual performance review, when you don’t get your bonus, that’s not good. But let’s say we’re doing one on ones and we play on them either every two weeks, or every three weeks of a cadence, I always have the team member do an assessment first. So they start the conversation by saying here, this is what I’m doing well, and this is what I’m not doing well, or could be doing better in and this is what I need to be more successful, then and only then will I then a manager and say the same thing. Well, this is what I think you’re succeeding in. So I’ll either validate what they said, or I’ll add to the pile. This is where I also to see that you need area of improvement. So I will confirm and validate what they’ve done in their own assess a self assessment, or I will add to and then I will either commit right to the thing that they need that they’re asking for help, or I will challenge you to say like, I don’t think that’s what’s actually going to help you. I think there are other obstacles that we’re not being honest about, can I would you, you know, permit the Dale Carnegie? Can I Can I have your permission to share my honest feelings? So I’m having these conversations on a frequent basis. So there should never be a point where somebody doesn’t know that they’re performing. My preference would be to have somebody selfie Jack before I have to eject them for them. It’s better for the company on a whole bunch of levels. But it’s also better for the employee to be like, Yeah, I’m not doing the best that I can. And I would like to and then usually there’s a conversation like I think you and I both know, this isn’t fitting, but how much do you How much do you want to coast on this? Or do you want me to help you find a different place? Yeah, that’s usually the level of conversations I’m having.

Rob  22:53

Yeah. And I’m trying to think of the name of the book. I think it’s of like, Fierce Conversations.

Veronica  22:58

Have you ever known I think I live it right.

Rob  23:01

Yeah, you sounds like you pretty much live that because it’s having that conversation that’s difficult to have with somebody that’s not performing. But it’s also having a realistic conversation with somebody that you’re working with. That is not on the same page as you and being able to have a very meaningful conversation, a productive conversation, but one that doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t go down to like name calling. And I’m not talking to you again, right. It’s very, it’s matter of fact, this is the way this is in what are we going to do about it? And let’s work through this together. And I think that kind of conversation as a sales leader is really important. I think the follow up would be how do you identify when somebody is lagging, because somebody can be lagging, but still getting the sale? Right? So they can still get sales, but they’re not there where they really should be? Whether it’s soft skills or other other skills? How do you identify that and what do you do?

Veronica  23:54

Well, I think there’s multiple ways of growth. I mean, they’re, for example, they’re salespeople that should never be a people manager, I’ll be real honest with you, like you should never you should not be responsible for other humans, you’re barely responsible for yourself. And I say that lovingly. But it’s true. Like there there is more than one way for you to be successful or have advancement that is not just straight into people management, there is total, especially in sales, you can be an individual contributor for a really long time making really good money and having less headache, let’s be very clear. Other people could actually be really not the top performing individual contribution, like they’re not the top sales guy. But if you put them in a function to like, nurture, and cultivate and grow other people, they thrive. Yeah. And I think your job is to see who’s good at what some people are good at just dropping the like dropping those threes, right, and then other people are actually really good at like motivating the troops when we’re down and we’re having a bad quarter. And I think there’s place for everyone.

Rob  24:48

For any sales leaders that are listening…those are the critical components that you know if but if you’re a salesperson and you’re on a team, and you’re not sure where you sit, you should ask and find out right I mean, I think there’s nothing better From somebody that’s employed by another company and saying, Well, where am I sitting compared to everybody else? There’s nothing wrong with that. I know it’s kind of a weird question.

Veronica  25:07

I’m laughing because I remember my my big last big corporate stop before entrepreneurship. For myself, I worked at a company called trata. And I remember going to the CEO, who was my manager, John Lee, John, you have a whole bunch of directors as a director, there’s like seven of us on the team or something like rank us, who’s number one, he’s like, are you serious? I’m like, I’m dead serious. And he did. And I wasn’t number one. And I was like, Oh, hold on, and I grabbed my piece of paper, my pen, I’m like, Alright, shut up. What do you tell me why I’m number one, you tell me right now, I’m not number one. And I like row all the things as to why I wasn’t overwhelming. Alright, I’ll talk to you in six months. So like, but that’s what I’m saying. I, but that’s my, as you identify a D, like I have a certain personality, and I wanted to know where I stacked up, I think, you know, that’s one way of doing it. I think you can flip it, you’re the leader like, Hey, can I make a big team? And it’s clear by where everybody’s numbers are where you guys ranked? But would you like me to tell you where I think you rank in a different capacity in a leadership capacity or in a team? Component capacity? Like, I think you can have that dialogue and invite them to it, some people will take it well, like I did, and write all the things to like, prove them wrong. Definitely. And then somebody else will be like, that just crushed my soul. You know, it just depends.

Rob  26:17

Yeah. And I think the other thing to know, if you’re on a team, and you’re an employee, or a, an hourly, or just somebody that’s like, I don’t care what if you fit into a team in any way, shape, or form, you have to think of yourself and say, Alright, what are the expectations of the company, and then that that line, if you just follow that, like, if that was a line of expectations, or standards, or whatever, that line, whatever line that is, you may perform above or below that. But then over time, that line can shift up or down, their standards could go up, and you won’t even know it, and suddenly, you’re below it. And that’s why it’s really important to ask those questions. Because if you don’t ask, you won’t know, hey, I’m sure of what’s expected here. Without realizing it. Listen, if they come back and sit down with you, like you do, Veronica, where they will sit down with somebody say, Okay, here’s the new standard, that’s what you would do. Because that’s, I know, that’s how you would do it. But a lot of companies, a lot of business owners won’t do that, because it’s an uncomfortable conversation. And it shouldn’t be. But it is.

Veronica  27:12

yeah, there’s another great book that is called Crucial Conversations. That’s another like corporate classic, where people like how do you have a crucial conversation? How can you be forthright, and that’s the thing about being a leader, you have to be forthright and diplomatic. But you also have to be stern, and have course correction conversations if necessary. But again, I just, I think, on a really fundamental level, regardless of where you are in a company, whether you’re just starting out and you’re in, you know, at the at the bottom, or you’re at the very top, or regardless of what level you find yourself to be an organization, I think, fundamentally, everybody really wants to feel psychologically safe in their place of employment. And part of feeling safe is just knowing where the lines of your playground are. And I never really understood that until I came back from my maternity leave. So I had a whole male team, and I was pregnant, and I was going on maternity leave. And so I hired this manager to like, kind of run hold space for everybody, like, just be the manager while I was gone for eight weeks. And when I came back, way too fast, but when I came back, I remember my my team, my employee, Patrick, he’s like, I’m so glad you’re back. I’m like, oh, yeah, why would you love me? He’s like, Hold on. No. He was like, because with you, I know where I stand. And I this is what he said word for word. I know the walls of my playground. And I never heard that before. And he does not have kids. So I was like, What in the world? Are you saying to me? It was because the manager that I had put in my absence was more of a buddies manager. Like we’re buddies. You know, like, we’re just, you know, that friendly manager type the, you know, Steve Carell, whatever, what’s his name? Michael Scott kind. And not that I wasn’t friendly, and I wasn’t kind and charming, and all the things that you I’m sure you’ve gathered from this podcast, but I was also just clear, and I was transparent. And I and I had one course changes or correction needed to happen. And so that was meant he was commenting with you. I know where I stand. And I like that. And I was like, wow, fascinating.

Rob  29:08

I feel like that’s honestly, the number one thing any employee wants, is totally Oh, know where they stand. Yeah. Right. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to know where you stand? And it’s the same in any relationship. I mean, that’s at home. That’s N word. Doesn’t really matter. You want to know. Yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s even even if you are insecure or not insecure. Doesn’t matter. You kind of want to know that. And that’s always helpful. So Veronica, if somebody ever listened to this, that I wish I could talk to Veronica. Because she knows how to do this. And I don’t know how to do this. How would they get a hold of you?

Veronica  29:44

People aren’t scared of me at this point. No, I’m just kidding. I promise you I’m very lovely. I just, it’s like Friday afternoon. I’m just a little sassy. Right? It’s the end of the day, the work week, but and I also just love Rob to pieces and he knows I can do this with Rob. I can just kind of like you know, anyway, It’s difficult. I know Yes. But I am, I am everywhere as myself. So you can find me on VeronicaRomney.com, or on social media, I am known as “V” Romney. And most people call me “V”. So there you go.

Rob  30:12

Veronica, I appreciate you coming on the show. It’s the insights that you brought, which I felt like are outside of what we normally talk about. And the reason I wanted you to come on was because you have a broader picture of, it’s not just sales, sales is one component. So if you’re a salesperson listening, you’re one component of a bigger cog that makes the business go, if you’re selling for yourself, that’s a different issue. But it’s still one component and how you manage a business, how sales affects the business and how the business manages and affects sales. It all goes hand in hand. And so you have to understand if you feel like as a salesperson, I don’t like where I’m working because of x, y, and z in this business. something’s not quite right, maybe maybe Veronica can help. But this is one of those situations where you have to understand you’re part of a bigger process. And so maybe asking some questions that say, Okay, why are we doing it that way and start to figure out and problem solve with the business owners or other managers or whatever you need to do. That’s why I really wanted you to come on. So I appreciate you coming on. Thank you for your time. I love everybody. Till next time, don’t forget to slow down and close more. Thanks.

V/O  31:16

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Do you have a question about sales? Call or text your question at (608) 709-SLOW that (608) 708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com Slow Down and Close More?

Rob  32:07

Thanks as always for listening today. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at The Slow Pitch. We were mixed today as always by Johnny Polakis. And we were produced by High Gravity Studios. Music credits and other notes are in the show notes section on TheSlowPitch.com And we’ll be back with another episode soon.