Measuring & Managing a Sales Team

In this episode of Torch Talk, Lindsey Chupp sits down with Jordan Mullet, sales leader and trainer with Sandler by the Ruby Group, for a practical and candid conversation about what it really takes to build a high-performing sales team.

Jordan breaks down why many business owners struggle with sales performance and where they often focus on the wrong metrics. He explains the difference between leading indicators and lagging indicators, why tracking behaviors matters more than obsessing over revenue, and how clarity around numbers creates accountability without creating chaos. The discussion walks through goal-setting strategies, including baseline and “brass ring” targets, and why salespeople must have ownership in setting their own numbers.

The conversation also dives into the emotional side of sales. Jordan emphasizes the importance of emotional maturity, self-regulation, and stability in both leaders and sales teams. He shares why sales can be “violently emotional,” how leaders set the tone for the team, and why emotional intelligence (EQ) often matters more than IQ in long-term performance.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• The difference between leading and lagging sales indicators
• How to set meaningful, behavior-based sales goals
• Why emotional maturity impacts revenue
• Building a repeatable sales process instead of relying on talent alone
• Practical steps for assessing and strengthening your sales system

This episode offers a direct, actionable look at sales leadership, especially for business owners ready to move beyond frustration and build systems that create consistent, measurable growth.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Because when you get introduced, I call it cheating. Um, it is the easiest thing. And when it's a quality introduction from somebody that knows you really well and they know the other person really well, it just opens doors that other doors, it's the easiest thing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to Torch Talk, the show where we spotlight bold leaders growing their businesses and communities with grit and purpose. Today's guest is Jordan Mollett, sales leader and trainer with Sandler. In this Torch Talk episode, we'll explore his Blaze Business Expo presentation and talk about how intentional sales strategy, strong communication, and disciplined execution help teams build trust, drive results, and create sustainable growth. Welcome to the show, Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Thank you, Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We're so happy to have you here today. It's always a joy to sit down and discuss with you more about a topic that I love so much, sales. And you love that too.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I do.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

You have to love it with what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I eat, breathe, and sleep sales.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I bet your family just loves that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Uh yeah, that could be determined.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Did your wife ever say, stop saying Loring me?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Uh they usually say it in different ways, but that's what they mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Have they started to apply those practices themselves?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Uh so my 20-year-old has been following me around for the last two years.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And his name's Elliot. Uh and it's interesting how much he's picking up and he recognizes now some of the concepts and what's happening and why I do what I do. And it's been interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

So for those listening who may not by some chance heard of Sandler, tell everybody a little bit about what you do and what Sandler is.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Um, so sales can be violently emotional. It can be hard. We help sales not be as hard. So we come in, work with your sales team, use assessments, and then work with the leadership to start building a system where you can kind of understand what is happening with sales, and then uh work on driving that revenue and getting it easier. And we take some of the chaos out of that sales and how to navigate, how to manage, how to lead salespeople, how to help them.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

And you do that through customized programs, coaching, training, boot camps, all of the things. So you go in and really partner with an organization to help them grow their sales team.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah. So working with each leader to figure out what makes sense for them, what they're facing, uh, what type of sale they're in, and then put a program together to help them grow.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Oh no, and then just start meeting with them. So we use training, boot camps, all kinds of different things, but really just helping them to understand people, understand their team, and then put a plan together and execute.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

So I you've been in this field for quite a while. So let's talk a little bit about some of the core challenges that you see um business owners facing when kind of trying to assess their sales team.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Okay, so most sales managers, sales leaders, owners, first thing they look at is overall revenue and they see if that's climbing, if it's hitting the way they want. Next thing they look at is different territories or product lines that they're trying to do. And again, they're looking at something called a lagging indicator, which is the sales. So they're trying to figure out our sales where we want them to do. What's frustrating is most times, once they know that sales are not where they want, then they turn around and they're looking at their salespeople and they're saying, hey, we need to do better here. They they have inklings of where that should be better, but they don't always know. So what we're trying to do is go in and look at what are the leading indicators that are affecting the lagging indicator. A leading indicator might be the number of times that they're talking to somebody new. It might be the number of business conversations that they're having with an existing customer. Um, it might be the number of initial meetings that they have with somebody new. So those leading indicators will tell you, you know, what's coming out of the bottom end. And most leaders are not analyzing the top end of the funnel and figuring out like how do we get things to move down through. So that's typically the first thing that we look at.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Do you have key ways to measure that or like a a way to do that? Yeah, it's hard. Most people, I know, don't really have a great tracking system for their sales. And a lot of our clients are not using like CRMs and things like that. Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yes, and be so it's difficult. Like if you don't if you're not used to tracking things, like all of a sudden paying attention and tracking something that you've been doing for a long time gets really difficult. So that's where we're working really hard to let's let's get them a paper form and let's get them to do chicken scratches, and let's let's and what they worry about is being precise. Well, I missed one or I missed two or I missed a day. Well, let's get accurate, and accurate's still better than than nothing. So, you know, if I'm 90% there, I still got numbers that I can use. So let's get them to commit, keep the paper with them every single day, and just start recording what needs to be recorded. Then once they start recording, then you have to help them figure out well, we're not actually recording that. You're showing that you've got 30 here, and it was really 10 because you're counting these other 20, that that's not what we're looking for. So then once they start tracking, then we're going to start getting them to narrow it down, define those exactly what each category is. And then once we can start getting numbers, and that usually takes 60, 90 days, then we help them start setting goals towards that. Where do we need to make the difference?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Do you have do you set those goals based off of the business owner's goals? Do you have maybe um numbers by industry based off of working with a lot of different people of what should be normal?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So what okay, when it comes to setting uh revenue goals for a salesperson, who do you think typically does that? The salesperson or the owner in most companies I work with.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

The owner.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

The owner. And why is that?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Because they want to hit a goal for the business.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yes. So how do you think a salesperson responds when they're given a number? What do you think they think in their head? Like, what's going through their head when boss gives me a number?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

It's too much.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

It's it's either that or it's too low, right? Or it's too low. They're never like, that is brilliant. I am so glad you picked that number. Like that is the smartest thing you've ever done. They might say that, they're never thinking it. Right? So it's either too low and it they're they're like, Well, I don't even know why we would shoot that low. That doesn't make any sense. I'm my goals are much higher. Or it's the other way, what you said, which is uh no, there's no way. I can't hit that.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I have had multiple situations because we do a fair amount of budgeting with clients, and and then we work closely with the sales teams because marketing and sales have to get along, um, where the business owner's overall annual revenue and then the individual sales goals really don't match at all. And then I'm very confused about what we're actually working towards. So there is usually a misalignment there. And if there's a commission involved with the salesperson, then they, yes, are probably motivated to set a different goal, depending on, or maybe the goal was way too high, and that's actually demotivating, I guess, sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

So there's a lot of guidelines when it comes to this, and this is actually one of the core things that we help people with because of how important this is. So, number one, it has to be tied to leading indicators. So we don't set goals until we have leading indicators, so that we know what behavior is, and then we can start looking at what close rates are, and then an average job sizes, and then you can start looking at well, what can you expect for a year? And then it's very important that it's the salesperson's number. The boss is not going to set the number, the employee needs to set it.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

What if it's off?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Now, the boss gets the right to push back.

SPEAKER_05 7:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Right? And then the other thing that happens is it's actually two numbers and not one. When you lock something down into one number, it gets really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Okay. So what if what about the activities? Do they get to set the numbers on the activities too?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So there, let's so let's say, let's just use a million dollars, right? So say somebody, and let's say that their average sale is fifty thousand dollars. Now I'm gonna have to do math in my head. Is that 20? I think you have to have 20 sales at$50,000. That sounds right. So to get to 20 sales, how many meetings do you have to have to get to that number of meetings? How many people do you need to talk to? So you can just once you start knowing your numbers, you can start calculating what does it take to get a million dollars in new business? And then because it's two numbers, right? We always have them set baseline and brass ring. Baseline is the number that they're guaranteeing that they're gonna bring in. They need that's a conservative number. Okay, you you don't want to not hit your baseline number. So that's the one that you put out there and it's confident. Brass ring is my stretch goal. That's what I want to bring in. That's what, if everything goes right, I hit the ball out of the park, that's the number I'm beating. That way it gives you the capability of two different numbers. It's a range.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

And if you're not hitting that minimum, then that's when you're moving into a performance conversation.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yes. And then that always goes back to we always look at leading indicators. So we're really looking at uh did you do anything, what we have control over, because we don't have 100% control over the lagging indicator. It's too difficult. That's why it with bosses, they tend to go, well, you're not hitting your revenue dollar, you need to do more, you need to be better, but there's no specifics. We want the specific levers that we can pull. So talking to a business owner today, and the way that they work is they have to initiate the conversation, his team does, and then that leads to meetings. Well, their meetings and their sales are dependent on how many times they reach out. Well, it's not rocket science. Reach out more times, right? But what's the last thing that they do? They they have eight different things they're responsible for, and the last thing they do is prospecting. So we have to then make that a big deal, prioritize it, and help them focus on what does it take to hit the numbers that you have to hit.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

What are some of your tried and true prospecting methods uh in today's like digital, fast-paced, low attention age?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

What are the best prospecting methods? Well, repeat and referral is always gonna be number one, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Introduction is So asking your network of people to introduce you to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yes, and being able to, because when you get introduced, I I call it cheating. Um, it is the easiest thing. And when it's a quality introduction from somebody that knows you really well and they know the other person really well, it just opens doors that other doors, it's the easiest thing in the world. Um, anything else that's cold is hard. And so we're always trying to figure out what is the easiest way in. Is there somebody I can find inside the company? Um, like I have one salesperson I was talking to today, goes to home shows, walks up to a booth that sells similar product, meets the salesperson that's in the booth, tells him what he's doing, and then just says, Who at your company uh is in charge of this? Writes down the name, writes down the salesperson's name, and says, you know, how do you suggest I reach out to him? Some of those salespeople in the booth will pick up the phone and call the guy in the company right away, and he'll open the door for him. Sometimes he has to go and he has to say, Hey, I'm at so-and-so at this home show, and I this is what I'm gonna do. But so many times it's some form of a reach out and some form of this is how I'm gonna get in there. People use LinkedIn, people use social media, people use email, people use text message. Like it, you're not limited on what method you do that. Um, it's just a matter of are you gonna initiate some form of a conversation, introduction, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So then are you measuring those types of things specifically? So how like you work with the salesperson to decide what activities you're going to do, and then you have them set goals around the actual activities. Yeah, because but you have to do it, like devise the methods with the salesperson first.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yes. So let me let me share this with you. So, and we'll go back to that. If if I need 20 sales a year to hit my million dollars, right? Uh divided by 12 months, I need one to two a month. Almost two a month, right? So that means that I'm only gonna get a win maybe two times a month. Maybe some months I get three wins, and some months I get zero or one. That is a lot of days, 20 days in a year in a month. That's a lot of days to work and not get any wins. Which, if you watch a salesperson, this is why it can be violently emotional, right? Because where's their they're putting all their emotions into whether or not they get a win. They might need to meet with 40 people to get to 20 wins. That's 20 no's. So they might get three no's in a month, no wins, and their confidence just starts going down, makes it very difficult. So, what we help them to do is let's start keeping score of the things we control. Let's control that we reached out, let's control that we went to the show, let's control how many people we went and talked to. Now we can count those as wins. Now I'm banking and putting my emotions into whether I did my behaviors today, and I'm actually doing what I'm supposed to be doing instead of the other way around. And the only time that I'm happy is if I get a win. And then as soon as that's over, it crashes and I got to go back to real life again. Focus on the behaviors, do the behaviors. So 98% of what we're doing with the salesperson, the sales leader, or whatever it is, is just helping them deal with all the emotions and all the different things that deal with to get their behavior going. If they do the behaviors, sales will come.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

What are there different areas of they might be doing some of the activities, but they're really like what happens if they're doing all of those activities but they're not getting appointments?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah. And that's that's a much better place to start because now that you've got, and I'll take that person any day over the person that's a really good salesperson and doesn't do any behaviors. Because the person that's doing behaviors can learn to win. They can learn to fail. Now you can start looking at their numbers, and we treat it like a funnel. If we're looking at attempts, conversations, meetings, sales, we can start looking at, okay, they are getting, they're making a lot of attempts, they're not getting conversations. Well, now we can coach towards that. Right? What are you saying? How are you reaching out? Where are you reaching out? And where are you getting results? Where are you not? We can start coaching. Now they're getting conversations, they're getting responses back, but they're not getting meetings. Now we're looking at who you're talking to. How are you saying it? Is it the right person? And then what's your messaging? Now you're getting conversations and you're getting meetings, but you're not getting sales, right? So now we're looking at who are you meeting with? Are you meeting the with the decision maker? Are you meeting high enough up? Are you meeting the right person? Uh, are you reading them at the right time? Uh, what are you have, what's happening in your meeting? Do you have your sales cycle laid out in the correct way? Are you running a two-call close and you should be running a three? Are you running a two-call close and you should be running a one? Then we can start looking at those meetings. And typically, when we start meeting with somebody that's willing to put behavior into it, we can coach them all the way down through to be able to help them look at each stage, to be able to help them eventually get to the point where sales start getting easy. Right. And they start understanding oh, if I do this, I get this in return. That's once somebody gets to that level, it's a whole different ballgame.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Until the market changes.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

I was gonna say that sounds like a dream. Yeah, didn't it?

unknown 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

That's so easy. Of course, that means everybody's gonna hire you because you're just gonna make all of the sales problems easy.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yes, yeah, and it's something I like to say is you give me five years, I'll be good at that. That's that's about right.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Okay, so any other um, like I guess if if a business owner is listening to this, they were at the expo, they're thinking about analyzing their business from a 360 view and they're looking at all the way around, any like the final things they they should be considering when it comes to sales?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Okay, so number one, we're just clarifying that they gotta know the numbers and they got to figure out how to start tracking and being able to look at their people through an objective viewpoint, which is the behaviors and numbers that they're doing. After that, there my next recommendation is to look at the emotional maturity of their team. How well does the team and each team member are they able to handle all the emotional events that happen with sales? So when they go out to meet somebody new, are they able to manage the nerves and to be able to emotionally handle all the things that go into meeting somebody new? Or are they shaken by those things? Are they able to handle shifts in the marketplace? Can they handle when there's a price increase? Um, can they handle when there's a change inside the company? And those emotional disruptions cost businesses a lot of money. And if you're familiar with EQ, it's emotional quotient. This is a new science that's come along in the last 10 years. They say that IQ gets you in the door, IQ gets you the job. EQ, emotional quotient, keeps you there. And a highly high performance salesperson and a high performance sales team is emotionally mature. Their ability to withstand emotional events is significant. So let me give you an example. If you've got a salesperson that is used to selling$20,000 deals and they're comfortable with it, they understand it, they've been running at this level for a long time, and then they get a$150,000 deal that comes in. Their emotional ability to still process and treat that deal the same as the$20,000 deal is going to tell you a lot about where they're at in maturity. Because if they start saying things like, that's a lot of money, or this one's huge, or we really got to get this one, all of sudden they're putting all this weight on the$150,000 deal. They can't step back on emotionally, and now they're sideways. Now they're their true skill set of connecting with people and being able to share with people and make other people comfortable is out the door because all they're worried about is themselves. How's this going to affect us? Am I enough? Does this happen? Can we sell this? Will the business be able to handle it? All those different things gets really difficult. So I think that's number two is looking at EQ and being able to assess that. Now, here's the here's the advantage. This is what I love about EQ. IQ is set. I think really the only way to grow IQ is they say if you increase your vocabulary. Um, that seems astute as far as I'm concerned. Um, but EQ, you can grow. You can you can come to maturity, you can grow your EQ, you can learn how to grow. So a large part of what we're doing with salespeople is we're having them journal and we're having them work through and find out all the emotions and the subconscious things that they're experiencing and trying to get those to the front of their brain and get them to be able to respond to that. So if you I said that I'll take a uh behavior-driven salesperson over a better salesperson, I'll take an emotionally stable salesperson over somebody that's a better state salesperson but unstable. I threw a lot at you.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

No, yeah, I like that. Okay. That's those are really great points. I'm sitting here thinking through.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I I thought I kind of had you back on your heels now.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Okay. Got it, Jordan. Okay, so I I'm assessing my business. I'm sure other people are when they're thinking about it. So you were kind of going back through the points again. So you said measure the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Measure the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Uh, what was the next step?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Emotionally stable team. Emotionally stable team. Here, here's here's what most leaders are going. I don't know if they're thinking this right now, but this is what they have to go first.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

They have to be emotionally stable first.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah. And truthfully, the numbers as well. They have to be willing and figure that out as well. Which a lot of business owners in our area, right, coming from the farming community, they're hard workers, they're hustlers. That's not an issue. But emotionally stable is a whole other ball game, right? So thinking through how your team deals with tough events, how they deal with low sales numbers, how they deal with when you lose a customer, all those different things matter. And the response of the group is dictated by the leader.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

100%. We're setting the tone for the environment. Yes. And if we're not also, we're also setting the example for the environment. So if we're going to flip out every time something good bad happens, but also over celebrate when something good happens, then that's going to set the tone for how things need to go.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah. I had a there recently, uh, Kukko Robb was running a sharpening event in our in Rice Spaces, our our office space. And one of the ladies that came along with him to to do the sharpening, she brought her kids along, they were homeschooling, they were having a blast. At one point they were outside, and they came inside and they brought their outdoor voices inside. And she looked at the I think the 11-year-old, and she just looked at him and said, You're inside, you need to calm yourself down, go sit over there, take a couple minutes, and then we're gonna switch gears. And like I I know I've said that stuff to my kids before. It was one of those moments, actually hearing it, witnessing it, because I was thinking he's being loud.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Like I was like, he, you know, he didn't tendency would be to snap in that moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And what she was doing was telling him, I need you to self regulate, right? I need you to go work through the emotions that you have, and you're capable of calming yourself down. Now she had to tell him the second time, but he did. He went over and sat down, he picked up a book, and he began to regulate and bring himself down. What happened? What happens is when emotional events happen, we tend to do the opposite. We'll just keep escalating. We'll even bring other people in to let us know what was taken from us or what the risk is or what the drama is. And we don't realize how much that affects our ability to work. And it it changes our my ability to show up and just be okay. Right? Salespeople who are, you know, they're making the difference for a company with millions of dollars, and they're the the source, it it is so important that they're able to show up and and be able to be emotionally stable. Because a lot of times they're dealing with customers and prospects that are on the other end as well, that are dealing with events and they're not stable. So a boss's ability to calm himself down or herself and then calm the team down and bring stability in there, that's it's worth a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

So know the numbers, emotional stability. What's after that? Or those the two main things.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Oh, I would say build a system. Okay. Right now we go down to the processes. And that is what I that's how I fell in love with Sandler back in 2011 is that Sandler has a system of this is how you go about being able to open a deal and close a deal, and there's steps and processes. So a simple thing that a sales leader can do is actually write down the four or five big picture steps that it takes to get a deal from when you first meet them to when you either close the file or close the sale. So closed won or closed lost. What are the four or five big picture steps that it takes to do that? Can you write those down? Turn around, go to your salespeople and ask them to do the same, and then compare the different processes that are there. Then it's your responsibility to help train them. And this is the way that we do things. This is the process that we do, that we do this then, and then starting to build things inside of each step and labeling all those things. So I love that as a third step of being able to narrow down that process.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I mean, really, there's a lot to figure out before you get there, but that's where people want to start, I think, first, naturally. Um, but I think that that's great advice. Make sure you know your numbers first, work through the emotional maturity and kind of assess yourself and your team, and then you can really start digging into processes and managing behaviors from there.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yes. And and really what'll happen over and over again as you're working through the third one, you're gonna get pulled back into number two and number one, right? And that's natural. It's okay. Like you just go back and you fix, and then you come back to three and you keep working on processes. I think what a lot of sales leaders do that is a mistake, and we found ourselves at time doing this when we're working with companies, is that we'll work on something and then think that it's permanent. Now that we worked on it, we talked about it. Everybody's doing that from now on, we move on to the next thing. And what we really have to do is come back and check, right? And make sure and inspect are you doing what we talked about? Are you actually putting in the process? And you start learning really quick, which one of your sales team that once you work on something and you put it in place, they got it, they stay there. And then how many of them actually, oh shoot, I for I'm not doing that anymore. Um, if you find the one that can put something in place and keep it, that's a rock star. That's very difficult. I would say 85 to 90 percent of your salespeople, you're gonna just have to go back. And it's amazing how many times you're just dealing with the foundations.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Well, it's skill building. You have to learn it and then you have to learn it again at a new level. We really should never stop growing in reality. So it's hard to master something the first time that you do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

But we our tendency is yep, we talked about that, checked it off, move on.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

And it really takes lots of time.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Okay. Well, thanks for giving us that kind of summary of everything a business owner should. It's not really everything. So if a business owner was listening to this or a sales leader and they say, I think I need Jordan's help, how would they find you, reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Uh, easiest way to reach out to me is 330-231-0998, start with a text. Uh I get a lot of people to do that, or they call in, leave me a message. And I'm also available on LinkedIn. We try to post helpful videos on there. Sandler by the Ruby Group is a good one to follow and connect with me on LinkedIn or grab me at the next networking event.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Well, we appreciate you so much. We have a great friendship and partnership together. Um, and we appreciate you being a part of the Blaze Expo. Hopefully, everybody has walked away from that feeling just rejuvenated and ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Thank you, Lindsay. Always a privilege.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Thanks for tuning in to Torch Talk. If today's show inspired something with you, share it with a future change maker, colleague, or friend. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and keep your fire burning.