Who Sets The Standard: You Or The Lowest Behaviour You Allow? - Angie Dunn

We dig into the real levers of a high-performing sales culture: personal leadership, structure, and standards that don’t bend under pressure. Angie Dunn shares how to stop being the bottleneck, build resilient teams, and close the confidence gap that holds talent back.

• setting weekly operating systems for prospecting and follow-ups
• choosing consistency over hacks for stable numbers
• building process before hiring and enabling team autonomy
• clarifying standards, accountability and consequences
• preventing burnout with personal anchors and boundaries
• cutting negativity loops and protecting team energy
• nurturing succession and addressing the confidence gap
• pairing proven sales systems with mindset and culture work

Call Angie: 0403-598-428
Email: Angie@agilesalesmgt.com

Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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Transcript

Welcome And Conference Setup

Angie’s Path To Performance Coaching

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, your coach and host, and the author of the Complete Salesperson Course. Separate to the Complete Salesperson course, we also do the Complete Leader Conference. And that's when we get some of our very best speaking talent once a year comes together. And we talk about all things people, recruitment, coaching, marketing, you name it, it is on the table. And each year we have to put a specialist lineup together to make sure we reach that level that we love to have for our principals, managers, and future managers of this industry. And this year, speaking for us on a return visit is Angie Dunn. Angie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Lee. Before we get into what you're chatting about at Leader, which is an amazing topic, take us into what you do on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Oh, well, I have the pleasure of working with many, many different types of business owners and high performers around the world now, Lee, which is pretty cool. So I work some crazy hours, but I get to help them see through the busyness of their fast growing businesses most commonly, or you know, fast-changing businesses are the two main themes and help them navigate those market conditions in the best way possible. So yeah, very lucky to work with the broad range of industries too. So it gives me lots of learnings from what different people are doing and technology, how they're utilizing those things so that they can keep running fast.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

And how did you arrive at that gig? What was your skills involved to be in the space of coaching and directing and helping others?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

I had a very, very rewarding career in lots of different businesses, but a lot of them, probably the best way to summarize them were a lot of them were legacy brands like Google, Census, News Corp, amazing systems and processes and training. And then also I've worked in quite a few startups too. So that combination over 20 years has just given me an incredibly broad list of tools, I guess, of what is good to use and what moment. And having a majority sales and commercial background in those roles, it's meant that, you know, lots of different go-to-market strategies and how you brand yourself, brand your team. I had a series of events, Lee, that I'll I'll be going into on the day that led me into a different direction of moving more into helping people and using the skills that I'd had developed and trained my teams to do to help people navigate their own businesses and their own goals. So now I um have shifted gears into that and I think coming up to our fifth year, which has been amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And you know, when I first met you, Ange, you were right in the thick of driving big sales team on a national and international level. So just for our listener, you've been hands-on right at the coal face where that selling moment, all the corporates chasing you for a metric on your where we're going. So it's an important part of the interview that for all our sales professionals understand you've been in the thick of that trench.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yes. I think that's the main thing. I've lived the pressure. And I think when you live the pressure, it's easier for you then to be able to train how to how to handle it and what to do in it because there's no shortage of things that we could do when we're feeling really pressured. The challenge is knowing which one is the right next step.

Why Salespeople Get Stuck

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Well, let's jump into that. Ange, you're helping a lot of real estate sales businesses to get the most out of their teams. What gets people locked? I'm not allowed to swear on here, Ange, so I'm going to use the word locked. When people seize up and they're not doing the numbers they should do and they don't know what it is, and you're the you're the lady that goes in and does those one-on-ones with those. They might come back pumped from the complete salesperson course. Yeah. And then people end up locked. Why does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I think they lose that they definitely lose focus on the thing that they know they're meant to be doing. So that we get distracted, we get busy being busy. And I often say to my clients, as many of us have heard before, an unimportant task done well doesn't make it important. So I think regardless of what the role is that they're responsible for or their teams are responsible for, they take their eye off that ball and they get focused on other things. Uh, and they're not all created equal. So I talk a lot about juggling different balls. Some bounce, some don't, some shatter. And I think most salespeople in particular, they they drop the things that really matter, like the basic core things of prospecting or warming their database, like all those things that we just all know, they they still are the main thing that people say, I'm just not doing that thing. Yeah, I think that is probably the most common thing that I find.

Structure, Routines And Avoiding Burnout

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Do you know this is so interesting? Today's a different day for me. I was meant to be somewhere, and that's been moved, which means I had my day come available. And it's the most terrifying moment in my world when I've got a whole day available because I live a life by being booked. I've got a I was at the Harris Kickstart yesterday, I know all the events I've got to do next week. And when I'm booked, I'm locked in, I know what I'm doing, I don't have to think, and I just do that particular work. But even as a residential real estate salesperson, I had to work to patterns in my week, otherwise I could get to the end of the week and I've done nothing versus Wednesday's when I call all the buyers, Mondays when I get back to all the owners, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays my six big appraisals I've got to find. Friday's my try and hold myself together before Saturday starts, and then Sunday I'm going missing. But if I didn't have those patterns to the week, and I saw it in the office, people would just be spinning tops and then the going home late at night because they just never were effective during the day. Do you see that a lot?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Oh, yes, a hundred percent. Uh, one of the things we do quite often is we help people set their structures. And you you can have one as a team, but everyone needs to tweak theirs individually to what works for them to make sure that all those non-negotiables are factored in. And and also importantly, Lee, it's not just the the role-based ones, but it's the personal ones too. Because I do think, you know, you've got your health, your family and relationships and your work. And really to have a brilliant life, you have to have all three mastered. Quite often people go into hustle mode for too long, and that's where we see burnout occur. But yes, knowing that that system is there is one thing, but actually having the discipline and the conviction to follow it is another thing. And I heard an amazing statement this week, which I've just loved, which is it's the choices, not the chances that matter. Every day, those cho those choices to not do those calls or to ignore that time block that we had, the ones that make the difference between what your numbers are, whether they're up and down all year, or if they start to be more consistent.

Consistency Over Hype

Process Before People And Team Autonomy

SPEAKER_00 6:45

How interesting. I was on an audio with the incredible Matt Stomade. Everyone always asked me about Matt, how does he do it and so forth? And it's really hard to explain this, but Matt's perfectly boring in what he does. He does the same things the same way. He's not looking for an app to fix it or a TikTok to the top moment. He just does this in real estate, in his other personal fitness stuff, that's completely different. But in his real estate world, he's just kept to the same sequence. I think a lot of people don't understand that sometimes to be successful, you have to know how to be boring at the same time. Like I know myself, yesterday I'm on a big stage, 300 people in the room, and then other days I'm in a dark room taking ums and ahs out of audio, which is also part of what I do. And people think, Oh, I didn't think you'd have to do that. Yeah, I do. I I I do it all the time. And yeah, I have to clean up the studio and wrap all the cables up. And half my time I'm doing what you see visually, but behind the scenes, there's the stuff you've got to do. Everyone thinks it's just, I just want that last minute of the 10 minutes of the auction where I'm a superstar. But what about the call that's gonna get the 18-month roll on to warm up the data to even be at the auction? You've got to you've got to be okay at being good at that part.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I think the other thing, Lee, that people get stuck on is they get in the way of their team. So for those that have teams, if you know, as you when you get to the stage where they uh decide to put on another person or they're working in a group, they get in each other's way. They become a bottleneck instead of just trusting. You really need to be able to trust that they can do it 80% as good as you and then get out of their way. And if you if they can't, then you need to build a process for them to be able to do that. I think so many people throw a person at a problem thinking that they'll solve it and don't do those process pieces so that then they can manage them easy. Like if you build a good process, managing people is easy. But people always say to me, Oh, I don't know, having a team is so much work. It's only work if you're not having if you don't have a process for everyone to go by. And I know Matt would definitely have his teams in a good process. Then everyone can be autonomous and, you know, run run fast and and enjoy themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And actually, as I listen to you on air, lovely Angie, I've also seen firm Angie in the middle of that sales team making sure we get our numbers this month. And you can be very firm when you need to be. You can't do that without the the commitment list of the people of what they said they were going to do.

Standards, Accountability And Consequences

SPEAKER_01 9:15

No, I call it tickle tickle punchly. Apparently that's my that's my style. You know, if you're if you're clear with what needs to happen, it doesn't need to be an uncomfortable conversation. I think so many leaders feel awkward about having a conversation about performance. And the reason is because we weren't clear about it in the start. You know, this is the process that we're gonna follow. If you can't follow it, that's cool. It'll just mean that we probably can't, you know, work together. Or you might not be the right fit for the team, but if you can, we're gonna have a great time. So that's a pretty tickly kind of conversation, a little bit firm, but you know, tickle, then the the first time they get a slip-up, it's like, hey, remember we had that conversation, don't forget that's this is a real non-negotiable for how we work. These are the reasons why. And then, you know, if you let that continue, um, then the behavior of the whole team drops. But they say that the standard of the of a team is as low as the behaviour that the leader will accept. So if you continue it in there, that's where the punch needs to happen, which personally I think hire slow, fire fast. And if you're doing a good job of being a great leader, people don't leave you, so you don't need to hire that often. Like it's all a big system, and once you see it, it's it's pretty easy.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

No one thing happens in isolation.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

And, you know, I just had a flashback then many, many years ago, because I know some of the girls are listening to this particular podcast. But Angela, I rocked into the academy, the real estate academy, and something had gone really wrong, and it just wasn't to standard. And in my world, when someone's paying a thousand dollars for a seminar seat, there should be no error in everything that goes on with that, including my delivery and performance and so forth. Anyway, something did go wrong, and I had to pull all the girls in and say, let's discuss this. Firstly, when was the last time all of you went to a concert? And they all said their festivals or concerts or wherever they've been, and how much was your ticket cost? I paid$110. Imagine paying a thousand and the artist didn't show up or it wasn't in a venue that you thought or the sound wasn't right, how would you feel? Okay, so we're on the same page, and then I love these girls, but I need them to make a commitment to their commitment list, and if that if they can't make that commitment, I will need to find someone who can do that commitment. And I remember saying to the girls that day, this won't happen again. I will remove every one of you and find people, train again, so it never happens again, but I will replace everyone if we can't keep the commitment. And it's not a threat, it's an expectation of this is what we're here for. And if you don't want to do it, oh good. We used to do our annual meetings and say we're gonna offer a$5,000 bonus for anyone who'll resign today. And some think, well, that's a pretty good bonus. But what we were trying to do is who doesn't want to be here? Because it's too hard. Some of them should have taken.

Choice, Energy And Culture

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I had a I agree. I had a conversation with someone yesterday. Um, and you know, you I do you remember my story last conference about the pit and how you know it's quite common in real estate offices, we find them a lot because it's a it's a high pressure environment, there's a lot of rejection, so it's easy to slip into the pit where you just sit and have a bit of a bitch about things. Sorry for saying that. This guy was a pit dweller, right? I'd coached him for a few years, so I knew his tendency, but we by working together regularly, he was conscious of it. Anyway, I could just hear he was well back down in this pit. And all I just kept saying to him, why are you still there? Like if it's so terrible, why are you still there? And he gave me all these reasons why I didn't want to leave. I was like, then stop it. Like, you know, you but you can't, I actually look at that and think, how can you allow that behavior inside your team? So I think it's a very good point, Lee. Sometimes we have to really hone in on those behavioral attitudes issues and just snip it in the butt because we do it impacts everyone, every single person around the energy that they they bring.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And in this wonderful world of performance, for everyone listening to this audio, inclusive of ourselves, you get to wake up every day and make a decision. Am I whinging or winning? The fork in the road every day.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

It's a wonderful thing to be able to help people have amazing lives. And as leaders, that's our job. You know, my job has always been to leave people better than I find them. I think every single leader that comes to the conference, that should be their goal of how they can take what they learn together in that room and see how that they can build a better teams and better individuals.

Leading Yourself And Preventing Burnout

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Take us into what you'll be speaking at at the complete leader conference.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So the focus I'm going to be talking through is how we lead our own lives as leaders, because you know, there's a saying that you can only drink the people around you can only drink from the cup that when there's water in it. And I think quite often we give so much of ourselves, especially if we're also selling at the as well as running businesses, it's very easy for that cup to get very depleted. So the most important leadership skill that we need to constantly master is how we lead ourselves, because that dictates the choices that we choose. And then as a result, the environments that we create around us. And I'm going to be sharing some of the learnings from my earliest leadership lessons from, you know, good leaders and bad leaders, right back to our childhoods and where that, where those behaviors are either instilled in us or we choose to it can go the opposite way. And I think sometimes we find ourselves doing repeating the same mistakes. We know deep down we shouldn't be. My goal will be to move everyone into more productive, proactive, sustainable leadership styles of how they work on themselves. So preventing burnout, giving themselves those structures that we're talking about so that they can live a brilliant life.

Leadership Beyond Titles

SPEAKER_00 15:02

What a wonderful, brilliant topic. And you've got such a great audience there that some of them have 60 salespeople. Where it was yesterday, there's 250 salespeople. So the leadership teams and people that but it doesn't matter if you're looking after two. The same thing applies in the leadership styles. And Ange, I think a lot of people think leadership's about being a CEO or or it's it's not. I've always had a 22 to 25 year old person doing the onboarding for me. Well, that's a leadership role. And it it's an important part of a business. But sometimes, and maybe you can explain this to me so I don't go offline here. A lot of females don't step up to that leadership chance due to the confidence gap, which is not my words, it's an international term.

The Confidence Gap And Succession

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Why does that happen? Well, it's a long conversation. I think this is a whole nother a whole nother podcast chat, to be honest, because it's something I'm very passionate about. I think it is a combination, it it's it's environment driven for sure. There's actually data that shows that. Women are less likely to speak up, 40% less likely to speak up, especially when there's a senior leader in their midsts, um, if they don't have all the facts in front of them. Whereas men are way more likely to just say it without the without the facts, even though the accuracy of the of the outcomes are always equal, which means that when women are in male-dominated environments, their communication tendencies uh they hold them back quite often. And this is a general generalization. It's a lot more women are a lot more likely to experience uh imposter syndrome, even though men experience it as well. Quite often, if they've started in the industry young, they haven't had role models to look up to. So it's hard to be able to picture yourself in a role, you know, when you haven't had that modeled for you. And as a strong female leader, I'm very passionate about changing that. In the interest of leaving people better than we find them, I think every leader that has great potential women and men in their teams needs to take that into consideration when because succession planning is such a core part, isn't it, Lee? We've talked about it so many times. How important when you're a founder of a business to know how to do great succession planning. Quite often there's great people there, but they're just not nurturing them the way they should, so that they can be the future leaders of the business. And I became a leader when I was 20. My first team was five males that were all older than me. So it was a baptism of fire. I think that's probably why I'm so comfortable in male-dominated industries.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

But that's where firm Angie came from, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Oh, she did, yes. Well, but you know, when you're a female leader of men, you do need to be able to do a bit of the gentle, gentle, then punch because they don't like they don't get received well if they're too firm and too, you know, we get painted with all these brushes, Lee, that men just don't get. So um, you know, you I think women need to be able to find their own style and not feel like they have to change it for the audience that they have too much.

Sales Systems Vs. Mindset Transformation

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Now, Angie, just for our listener, you and I are on a couple of assignments together where I'm doing the real estate sales training system sequences, words, and so forth. How do we differ? And what's the work you do out there for anyone who wants to get in contact with you?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

I I think the the what I would say is you have an incredible, a credible, incredible wealth of information and process and system that it's people follow it and and make those choices, the success comes, right? Proven, tested. Where I come in is information doesn't necessarily leave to lead to transformation. And I focus in on the mindset, behavioral, attitude kind of culture piece. And if you don't have the right culture, the information, no matter how good the information is, people don't pick it up and use it sometimes because we love getting in our own way as people, especially salespeople. So I think that that probably is a nice way of explaining how the two marry so nicely together. Um if if people uh have got the information, but uh something's stopping them from actually doing it, then you probably need a performance coach to give you a bit of a shake.

Women Stepping Up And Speaking

SPEAKER_00 19:13

That was so well explained. As you were speaking, then I just had a flashback to last year at Complete Leader. And this connects to the confidence gap. I search high and low to get female speakers because when I announce my speaker lineup, I quite often get people say things about my speaker lineup saying, What where's the women? And how come there's so many blokes? And I'm stoked you're coming back, Angie, because it's one in my court. There's a lot of ladies that I approach and they won't speak. They and they've got such great skills, they've done such wonderful things, but unfortunately that confident confidence gap kicks in. And I'm I'm saying this on air today for any of those wonderful, brilliant females listening to this, please step up and speak.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yes, or call me and we'll talk about why what's holding you back from wanting to do it. Because, you know, things always feel scary until they don't. And, you know, Lee, you've been a big part of my transition from old world ange to new world ange. And it's not, it's it's only with those mentors and people that are in your corner and believe in you that we can overcome those confidence gaps sometimes. Women well, all of us, we can't just wait for those opportunities. We have to seek them out. You can't achieve much on your own. Everyone that's achieved great things has always got a pick a group of people around them that has done that. So yeah, I I think it's a very good point, Lee. And um, I do encourage all the women in your beautiful network to to speak up a bit more.

How To Contact Angie Dunn

SPEAKER_00 20:43

And I had such a later on this year, I've got the complete public speaking course, which has got enough to rule estate. It's purely to do with communicating, but actually presenting in front of a group. There is things that you can learn. It makes a significant difference. But I've actually had a lot of females register for that, which I'm really, really happy with. They all had one common question, actually the exact same question, before registering for the course. The question was this will I have to speak? And I said, No, you won't need to get up on stage and speak in front of everyone because they rank that next to death. I said, But I I will be sharing with you what you do when you get in front of people and how you how you control equipment, how you control a crowd, they become very, very important parts of what it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Oh, that's good. I I'm glad to hear that that's something that you're uh sharing out there because I think all of the wealth of knowledge and experience you've got is is so powerful to be able to share.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Well, Angie Dunn, but anyone who needs to get hold of you after this wonderful interview, how do they get hold of you?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

They can call me or they can email me. Uh, do you want me to give you the details here or do you know give it to us live? Perfect. Well, I always love a Chat with anyone about these topics. So feel free to call me on the mobile 0403-598-428. Or if um you want to email instead, it's Angie at agile salesmgt.com.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Angie Dunn, we're so excited to have you at Complete Leader, and thank you for joining us on We Are Selling.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Thank you, Lee.