The Right People. The Right Roles. Predictable Growth.

Many businesses today don't have just a people problem. They have a people and clarity problem.

In a rapidly changing market, organisations are often trying to achieve tomorrow's growth opportunities with yesterday's structures. The wrong people in critical roles can certainly hold a business back. But equally, good people can underperform when expectations are unclear, roles are poorly defined, processes are inconsistent, and success isn't properly measured.

The challenge for leaders is knowing the difference. Is it a people issue, a role issue, a leadership issue, or a combination of all three? Because when the right people are placed in clearly defined roles, supported by the right systems, technology and accountability, performance becomes far more predictable.

Episode Summary

Jason Howes explores one of the most overlooked drivers of business growth: clearly defining the role.

Drawing on Chapter 3 of Crystal Ball Recruiting, Jason challenges business leaders to rethink whether underperformance is truly a people problem, or whether the real issue lies in unclear expectations, outdated structures, and poorly defined responsibilities.

As markets evolve, customer buying behaviour changes, and technology continues to accelerate through AI and automation, many organisations are still operating with sales structures designed for a different era. The result is predictable: Business Development Managers become customer service representatives, Sales Managers become firefighters, and CEOs find themselves spending too much time managing sales activity instead of leading the business.

Through real-world examples, Jason explains how people naturally gravitate towards activities they are comfortable with when roles lack clarity. He shares the story of a client whose BDMs were spending most of their time handling administration and incoming enquiries instead of developing new business, highlighting the gap between job titles and actual behaviours.

The episode also explores how forward-thinking organisations are redesigning roles to support growth, including the introduction of Sales Development Representative (SDR) positions focused exclusively on prospecting, pipeline creation and opening new opportunities. By creating clear accountability and removing distractions, businesses are finding it easier to measure performance, improve productivity and generate sustainable growth.

Jason discusses the importance of defining role expectations around daily activities, customer engagement, new business development, pipeline creation and leading KPIs. He also explains why technology, CRM systems, AI and automation are no longer optional and how leaders must help their teams embrace change rather than resist it.

Looking ahead to the opportunities being created by Brisbane 2032 and the significant growth expected across infrastructure, manufacturing, construction, technology and professional services, Jason argues that the organisations that succeed won't necessarily be the biggest, they'll be the clearest.

This episode is a practical guide for business owners, CEOs, Sales Leaders and HR professionals who want to improve performance, create accountability, maximise productivity and build teams capable of capitalising on future growth opportunities.

Key Takeaway

Growth becomes predictable when the right people are doing the right activities in clearly defined roles, supported by the right systems, technology and leadership.

Because role definition isn't simply about writing a position description.

It's about creating clarity, accountability, career pathways and a framework that helps people succeed.

🎙️ Listen now to discover why your next breakthrough may not come from hiring more people, but from creating greater clarity around the people you already have. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to the sales trajectory podcast, where innovation meets execution in sales. I'm Jason Howes, your host, a 35-year sales veteran and lifelong student of the game. This podcast is for leaders and sales professionals with a growth mindset. You'll hear real sales stories about new products, motivating teams to prospect, and boost productivity. We dive deep into sales process, cutting edge tech, and recruiting top sales performers. Let's get started. Today's episode is about something we talk about daily in business, and that is clearly defining the role chapter three of Crystal Ball recruiting. It's about clarity, about leadership to challenge the way things have always been done. Because in today's market, many businesses don't just have a people problem, they have a clarity problem. The market has changed. Customers have changed. The way they buy has changed. Technology is evolving super fast with AI. And just around the corner, if you're in Southeast Queensland, the Brisbane Olympics are creating opportunities. Many of us will only see once in our lifetime. Yet many businesses are still structured for the market of five or ten years ago. People are busy. Teams are stretched. Everyone is working hard, but are they working in the right areas? But are they working on the right things? One of the biggest challenges we see is that business leaders are trying to achieve tomorrow's opportunities with yesterday's structures. Margins are tighter, competition is stronger, customers are more informed, and technology is moving faster than ever. Yet many sales teams are still operating under old role definitions. Many that haven't been reviewed or changed in years. A lot of it is because people don't know the next step to take. They've never been trained or taught how to move to that new level. That's why if you are typically hiring the same types of salespeople, well then they bring the same types of experience and strategic vision of where to go to next. That's why it's very important to have a diverse range of people you're recruiting and not hiring the same types of people. A salesperson becomes more customer service related. An account manager can become more operations related. A sales manager becomes a firefighter, a CEO becomes the sales manager in a smaller business. Everyone is busy, nobody is super focused, and growth can suffer. If you're still chasing last year's numbers or struggling to get those figures, some of the other clients we're working with that are gaining 20 to 30% sales growth. Next. Leadership today requires an open mind. It requires a willingness to challenge assumptions. And sometimes taking a risk and redesigning the way your business operates. I'll talk about a sales story from our book. One company we worked with years ago. The problem, the BDMs weren't developing business. They were sitting in the office, handling customer inquiries, doing comfortable administrative tasks, being busy, or what looked like being busy. And when I asked the management where their people were spending the time, the answer shocked me. The reality was simple. The role they thought they had wasn't the role that existed. The title said BDM, the behavior said customer service. That's when I learned once again that if a role isn't clearly defined, people naturally drift towards what's comfortable and what they understand or what they can do. Most don't wake up intending to avoid growth activities. They simply get consumed by what is in front of them. That moves us on to entering the territory of change. This is where leadership matters because change creates discomfort. Some leaders know the structure isn't working, but change is risky. What if that the team resists? What if the technology doesn't work? What if people don't want to use the technology? Or what if your team don't embrace the new process? What if we get it wrong? But here's the big question. What's the cost of your business? What happens if you do nothing? What opportunities are you missing? What market share are you giving away? Growth is passing by you. The risk of standing still is greater than the risk of moving forward. And that's why businesses need to create clear roles supported by systems, process, and technology. Simply not just keep replacing people or the bottom half of their sales team. Because potentially and typically, the top performers may have all the best customers if they've been there the longest. I'll talk about SDRs, sales development reps, designing for growth. We're currently working with businesses facing this exact problem. They've got good people, they've got great products, and they've got an amazing culture, but everyone is caught up in daily activity, customer service, administration, meetings, reports, and very little time is being spent on creating new opportunities. So we asked a simple question what activities actually create growth? The answer was clear new conversations, new prospects, new meetings, new opportunities in the pipeline. So we designed an SDR role that is purely focused on their ideal client profiles, prospecting, creating opportunities, building pipelines, opening doors, and feeding opportunities into the sales team. If you just come back a step here, we're removing all the daily noise and we are starting from scratch, a new position, internal base role, challenging or looking at what accounts are inactive, maybe have been missed by a busy team, doubling back, understanding why these clients aren't dealing with the business anymore, and looking at opportunities as to who looks like them as well. Suddenly, performance became easier to measure and improve. Not because people worked harder, because people had clarity. Yes, sure, we want people to be focused on what they're doing. These people have clarity on what is expected on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis for them in this position. What it also did was it took the pressure off the existing team that is focused on customer success to try and find time to prospect. It wasn't happening. So what we've done now is drawn the line in the sand of where each person needs to focus on on a daily basis. Ensure the sales role is defined. One of the most important sections of our book before hiring anyone or before moving someone into another position, ask yourself what is expected from this salesperson daily? Can they tell you exactly what a successful day looks like, or are they making it up as they go? I always say sometimes or you are about to go to market, just stop and pause and reflect as to why things aren't working. It's really important to understand what's working, what isn't, and what needs to change. Instead of running out there to recruit someone else desperately, sometimes you don't need people. We've had clients do that. They've dropped one or two people and they've redeployed people into different departments within the business to maximize the return on investment. Are your salespeople in the field three or four days per week? That's expected. If your growth strategy relies on face-to-face selling, are they actually spending time in front of customers? And not only spending time in front of customers, but the right customers and not just seeing ones that are comfortable because they're easy to talk with or you have a coffee or you know it's comfortable. Again, it's very easy not to see the ones who potentially bring you the most new business opportunities. How much of the role is retention? How much of the role is growth? Have you clearly defined the balance when we're talking to a new prospect? We talk about, well, what percentage of your time do you want this salesperson involved with existing business? And it might be 50%. Okay, so that's 50% of new business development. Yes, it is. Okay, well, let's put that into the requirements for the role and make sure that the person that accepts the job or is doing the job has a clear understanding of what that's like. So how many calls are they expected to make per day? Not hopes, not assumptions. What is the actual expectation? Is it five? Is it seven? We've had clients say 12 calls a day, which we push back on because if you're expecting someone to do more than they're capable of in a productive manner, well then you need to look at what's happening. This is where many businesses struggle. Everybody wants growth, but few roles define how much time needs to be invested in creating it. And what activities will drive new business opportunities? This is really critical. Not all activities are equal. What are the specific actions that create new pipeline opportunities? How many meetings with new prospects should be booked? Not just on the call plan to visit. How many meetings should be booked? Growth should be measurable, not accidental. How many opportunities should be sitting in the pipeline? A healthy business should know. A high performing sales team definitely knows. What accounts need to be reactivated? Growth doesn't happen by chasing everything. Growth comes from strategic focus. Maybe some clients that left you are not a good fit anymore. But also how many need to be one to be able to provide this salesperson or territory to achieve target? What leading KPIs will drive effectiveness? Revenue is a lag indicator. By the time revenue drops, the problem already exists. Leading indicators tell us what's coming. These are the activities that will create tomorrow's results. Understanding modern sales roles, things are changing. Accountability creates performance. Technology is no longer optional. AI, CRM automation, voice to text, sales process automation. These are all parts of modern day selling. But technology alone isn't enough. People need to embrace it. Leaders need to communicate why it matters. The team needs to understand why they're using it. In the past, we've worked with clients that have said, my team don't know how to use technology. Okay. Are they a good fit for your business in the future if they don't know how to use technology? Here's an example. If someone is moving towards retirement, they're not interested in using technology or they really struggle with it, all the more reason to work with that person to get out of their head on how they service their customers. A sales professional knows how to do it. What a business needs to do is get from what is in that person's head into a platform, into systems and process so that you can follow or you can onboard a new salesperson to understand what success looks like and utilize this person's experience. Instead of letting them walk out the door to retirement or unfortunately something happens, they're not well or they or they resign for a work-life balanced choice. You need to get that information and how they operate into systems that people can follow. That's where we're doing a lot of work at the moment because ownership of your data is critical. So don't just sit here and say once that person's gone, we're going to integrate the new technology. It's too late. Make them part of the experience. Just say, hey, look, I know you're not here for the long haul. We understand that you don't like tech, but we need to work with you or shadow you to be able to understand how you do it and how we can help the rest of our sales team to be able to sell as good as you can. Get them involved, make them being part of it. The team needs to understand what's changing and why it's changing, how it benefits them and what success looks like. A lot of systems are really difficult to use. They've never been trained how to use it. They don't do the training or then that they're not sure what to do, or it's not in enforced by the business. But if you select the right technology and your people like using it and they can see the value that it brings and you make their job easier, well then it's a much better option to promote why the benefits exist as to why they would want to embrace this. But again, from a sales leader in the future moving forward, it's not someone else's decision on what they use. If you've integrated it into your business and you're using it as a leader and your expectation is that people will use it, when you're clearly defining the role, a key component of the job is to use and embrace the technology. If you want to get paid, well then you need to use the technology. As Queensland moves towards Brisbane 2032, the Olympic Games, we're entering a major growth cycle. Here is an opportunity that a lot of people don't want to miss. Infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, professional services, technology. The opportunities are enormous. The work that is available here, you need your best team on the ground. You need a game plan. Everyone needs to know what their role is. Organizations that benefit from the next decade of opportunities won't necessarily be the biggest, but be the clearest. They'll have the right people in the right roles, doing the right activity supported by best practice of systems. Clearly defining the role, it's about helping people succeed. It's about clarity, it's about embracing change, leveraging technology, redesigning roles for the future, not protecting structures from the past. It's about removing confusion, banking productivity gains, maximizing performance, and creating a culture where every person knows who they are responsible to, what they need to achieve, how success is measured, and when activities need to happen. When you get the right people in the right roles doing the right activities, growth becomes far more predictable. And that's how businesses position themselves to capitalize of opportunity. Role definition. If you want to attract talent and you want to retain your top performers, then clearly defining the role and having a trajectory for growth is super important. I'll go back to crystalball recruiting. Attract, recruit, retain. All three pillars tick all those boxes. Right now we're working with multiple companies that have a clear success plan for performance. It could be starting off in internal sales, moving into an SDR sales development rep role. If you're performing, it could be moving into an account management or a hybrid role or a BDM role or a key account management or a sales leadership. It's very important to have a clear pathway that you can retain top talent because they see an opportunity for a career advancement. They see that if they perform, they will be rewarded. It makes it much easier and more effective to performance manage somebody if your role is clearly defined, if it reflects your PD, if it reflects the leading KPIs that are required to successfully do the job. I greatly appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us. Got a product that's struggling or launching something new? Reach out. We're inviting guests who want to make a real impact.