S2:E21 - When Sales Leadership Becomes the Bottleneck

In this episode of Pursuit of Value, Marcus Hamaker sits down with Anthony Nicks, owner of Transformative Sales Systems, to talk about what happens when a company outgrows owner-led sales.

Anthony shares his path from mechanical engineer to sales leader and explains how that background shaped his process-driven approach to selling. The conversation then turns to a challenge many small and midsized companies face: sales growth starts to stall, leaders get stretched too thin, and the sales team operates without enough structure, accountability, or coaching.

Anthony breaks down what fractional sales leadership really means, when it makes sense for a business, and the warning signs that sales efforts are not as organized as leadership thinks. He also explains why clean pipeline management, consistent meeting cadence, coaching, and CRM discipline are essential for predictable revenue and long-term growth.

This episode is especially relevant for business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams trying to scale revenue without yet being ready for a full-time sales executive.

Key topics in this episode:

• Anthony’s journey from engineering to sales leadership
• Why process helped drive individual sales success
• The gap between owner-led sales and a scalable sales organization
• How sales becomes an orphan inside growing businesses
• What good sales leadership actually looks like
• Why meeting cadence and accountability matter
• When a company should consider fractional sales leadership
• The warning signs of an unstructured sales effort
• How CRM discipline affects revenue predictability

https://transformativesalessystems.com/sales-leadership/

Learn more by visiting our website.

https://transformativesalessystems.com/

If this episode hit home reach out, share it with another CEO or business owner who’s tired of repeating the same sales problems every quarter.

Straight talk for CEOs and business owners who want a sales engine that works.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to the Pursuit of Value Podcast. I'm your host, Marcus Hameker. There's a lot of noise out there in the business world. There's a lot of advice and a lot of theory. But at the end of the day, business is built on people, decisions, and how well you can actually execute. My guest today is Anthony Nix, owner of Transformative Sales Systems. Anthony works directly with companies navigating growth, especially when they're not quite ready for a full-time sales leader, but can't keep operating without one. We'll start by getting to know Anthony today and his background, and then get into when fractional leadership actually makes sense for a company and why most sales plans fall apart without structure and accountability. Anthony, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Oh, thank you. Appreciate uh the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, absolutely. So let's just jump in. And for those who may not know you, just give me a little bit about your background, your history, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, so I am a um uh mechanical engineer by by schooling um and an accidental salesperson. So what I mean by that is I I came out of out of school and went to work in manufacturing um and in quality assurance and operations, those types of things. And I did that for you know about 10 years, and then I got an opportunity to work on the commercial side and uh uh started working down in uh Mexico. This is not long after NAFTA uh was was uh uh signed and and uh uh that giant sucking sound that uh was predicted happened, and you know, all of these uh facilities popped up, you know, along the border, right? The McKiladoras. And so I started my sales career down there working uh with those folks and decided that I found that much more interesting and fun to do, and um and made my move over into the commercial world and and then spent the next uh so this was around ear late 90s, early 2000s, and that's what I've been doing since. And uh uh in the last three years, I've taken all of that experience and and uh stuff that I gained, processes I created and things that I learned, and started uh my company, Transformative Sales Systems. So, what industry was that did you start in? Um, so I started off in uh powdered metal technology. So literally taking powdered iron, nickel, chromium, whatever the elemental mix was, and under pressure pushing it into a specific shape, might be a gear or something like that, yeah, high temp centered, and then you end up with a fully uh a metal component that started off as powder, and uh, and that was that was kind of where I launched my career, a very interesting technology.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So uh mechanical engineer sales, those those typically aren't hand in hand. I I've in in the world that I live in, I deal a lot with mechanical engineers, and yeah, and I would say that the stretch from mechanical engineer to a really good salesman is a is a big stretch. So what what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

It it absolutely can be. And and I'll tell you where I think for me, I took the right exit or off-ramp and and was able to be successful. And it was mostly because of, you know, as a as a as an engineer, you think about things in steps and in processes and in you know, this linear progression of of things happening in steps. And when I went into the sales side, um I didn't realize it at the time. It took me a few years before I understood why I was as successful as I was as an individual contributor, but it was because of that. It was because I would establish a process for myself with kind of uh I call them now stage gates, right? And milestones I needed to reach as I pushed through a particular opportunity or or working with a client on a project. And uh ultimately, you know, that that was what my success was. Now, is every engineer capable of going and doing that? Well, they could if they really wanted to. Um but some of it also has to do with um, you know, I I look a lot at assessing salespeople when I'm working with clients, and there's just some internal makeup, there's uh mindset, self-limiting beliefs, all of these different things that either can personality help or hurt a person. And luckily, I just seem to have the right combination back in those days to be reasonably successful.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Sure, sure. Yeah, and you're talking about sales process, which guys that are typically uh natural sales, um not engineers, sales process can be hard for them. So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's uh absolutely true. And and the way they're built, right? The the hunter, especially the hunters, um process, detail, things like that just drive them crazy, right? And uh um, and so that's where uh a guy like me or someone from you know my company kind of helps bridge that divide because we do understand the way a person like that's wired, right? And that how can we make the system as um non-ownerous as possible so that that hunter can be really successful, but yet give management the things they need and get them to follow a process.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah, man, that that's in in my world, I I deal with stuff like that all the time. There's always that friction, that tension. In fact, just this week I've been I've been dealing with it just over sale, just over expense reports. So funny. Um goodness, yeah. Well, they hate filling those out too. They do, they do. What do you mean I gotta tell you where I was? Look at my calendar. Okay. Um, so just describe for me or how how would you describe what you do today? So with your business, uh give me a one or two sentence what you do today.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

So we help small and medium-sized businesses bridge the gap between an owner-led sales team or you know, someone in leadership that's supposed to be taking care of the sales team, but also has six other things they're doing. Right. And uh we kind of slide in between there. And so we're we're in between the owner or leadership or the CEO, maybe it's been put in place, and the sales team. Uh, we develop and understand what their goals are. Is this are we simply a lifestyle business and we just want to spin off a certain amount of cash? Or are we at you know, the high end, we're trying to get the uh the uh business ready for potentially a PE acquisition or some kind of a sale, and now we're trying to build value and and those types of things. So it can be you know anywhere in between, but it's just when there is a gap between top-end management, the the C-suite, if you will, and a sales team, and really helping to put in the processes and systems, cadences that need to be there for a sales team to really be effective and successful.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

You know, this is since you're talking about it, but it might be a little off topic. What I found is that the difference between a lifestyle business and a growth business is exactly what you're talking about, and putting in those processes, making sure that there's there's a continuity. If one employee leaves, how does another one step in to take over that sales role? And what's what's ironic is there's a lot of companies out there that are really good companies that believe that they're not a lifestyle business. Like in their mind, they're a growth business, and they're gonna they're gonna sell it for you know 10x and all this stuff. And then you look internally at the processes and you're like, eh, well, maybe maybe not. I think there's some work to do here. So that's really cool because a lot of people not only don't understand the difference between the two, but they don't understand how to go from a lifestyle to a growth business. And it's the growth businesses that get sold for multiples upon multiples.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, I just had lunch yesterday with uh a gentleman that is in that space helping those businesses, you know, get ready for or execute uh a sale. And we were just talking about um waiting, you know, his comment was I need to come into the business five or 10 years before to help get them ready, right? It's kind of the same thing for what we do, getting those processes in place, getting a pipeline built, getting continuity in that process to get it ready for a sale instead of waiting, you know, 12 months before I'd like to exit and take my millions and go and and enjoy uh uh an island somewhere. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, that's I I could talk for days on this. I've met some business owners that from the onset, they realized it's like one day I want to sell this. So therefore, today I'm gonna have audited financials, I'm gonna set up process, I'm going to build an org chart that is solid and firm and that is I can, you know, take an ad to it. And so from the very beginning, they built this blueprint to scale because one day in the future they saw that they were gonna sell it. And then there's other guys that are just like, you know what, I'm not even I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna work, you know. And the the the companies that actually sold for millions upon millions, it's because they they had the vision in the beginning, and it wasn't a pain in the rear for them to do the process or to set up things. It was they knew that that day would come one day, or they could pass it down or sell it to a private equity, whatever. So those people listening, those business owners listening, take heed because it makes a difference, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

It does for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Right on. Um, so next question. You've worked with owner-led companies. What is the biggest blind spot you see when founders try to lead sales themselves?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Well, I I don't know if it if it's a blind spot per se. So in those situations, and in in where you've got that CEO-led uh or owner leader um business, they were probably an excellent salesperson, right? They were probably the first salesperson in that organization. And you know, the the business grew, the responsibilities continued to increase because of their efforts, right? They were landing business and and doing really well. And at some point they decided, oh, you know, if we're gonna keep this up, I need to add some more salespeople. And uh so they add those salespeople. But the problem that they had was they didn't think through the I don't have a sales process because it's all in my head. Um, I don't have an onboarding program to bring new salespeople in, get them trained on the sales process and all of that. It it tends to be, depending on whether it's a product or a service, they hire somebody, they bring them in, and give them some technical training on the products and services that they may provide. And then they kind of just let these people flounder a bit. Um, don't give them any really good direction. Um, and uh, and unfortunately, then it just becomes uh almost a state of chaos because now we're adding other people. And then the thing that tends to happen is there's gonna be some success. You're gonna find some hero salespeople that are gonna do really well, they're gonna help grow the business even farther. Now that owners' responsibilities uh become even more diluted because of other things that they need to be taken care of in that business. And sales kind of becomes a um almost an afterthought. It's kind of like the last thing I'll mess with. I'm gonna take care of finance, I'm gonna take care of stuff that's going on in HR or operations or whatever it is. And sales kind of just it kind of becomes an orphan within an organization that doesn't get the attention that it should, um, until somebody looks at a financial statement and goes, Oh, crud, where's where's revenue? Um okay, sales, doggone it. You all messed up, you know, whatever. However, that conversation ends up going. Right. Um, but that's kind of the biggest issue.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah. There's a whole strategy that should be accounted for, I believe, in in in most companies, specifically when it comes to sales, when it comes to transfer of knowledge. Because the the point that you're talking about, you you've got a guy that started the company, that's leading the company, that has everything in his mind. How do you get that out of his mind and then transfer that knowledge into somebody else that can go and essentially duplicate what the owner did? And that's really, really hard. So, you know, if if if I'm an owner, my thought should be how do I duplicate myself in sales? How do I duplicate myself in operations, in in finance? Because that's how you can scale, right? And in it's in it's in that process that I think a lot of owners go through this revelation process of, you know what, this is really uncomfortable for me. I don't not only do I not know how to transfer knowledge, but I don't trust that person because it's not me. Yeah, that's right. So that's right. So interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I have uh I have a client right now that I'm working with that uh um same thing. It's a it's a generational succession situation's going on. And I really wish I had a machine that would allow me to take this owner and stick him inside, close the door, and be able to extract all of this stuff from him, right? And to be able to then put it on paper so then I can show this huge sales team that exists now. Here's here's a blueprint, at least for how it was successful in the in the past. Now we tweak and we do some things to it, but you know, here's a way that uh uh has been successful in the past.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So yeah, it's you know, I was I was talking to a another company last week, and and they're a very large company, foreign-owned, and they have an operation in the US, and same thing. It's like, how do I how do I tap into the knowledge base that is in Europe where I can effectively train and prosper here in the US? So there's a huge strategic initiative that that needs to be addressed, I think in most companies in terms of transfer of knowledge. But absolutely anyway. All right. So what does a good sales what does good sales leadership actually look like inside a growing industrial company? Well, that's actively growing.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah, so there's there's a few basic things, um, but it comes down to uh an ability to uh to coach and train, mentor your salespeople, to be able to hold them accountable to whatever's been established as KPIs or metrics or goals or uh whatever term they're using in the organization, and to be able to identify where help's needed, to be able to say, um, okay, you know, we're seeing this particular thing repeat over and over in some of your opportunities, and be able to diagnose that and then be able to provide a solution to that, to be able to coach through that and help improve that salesperson. Um, creating cadences, um, super, super critical. And and I mean, when I do weekly team meetings, when I do one-to-ones, these are recurring appointments on our calendars. They are on the same day, same time. All I mean, it's just an expectation, right? So that salesperson doesn't because too many times uh sales managers that maybe I'm working with, you know, they'll be like, oh, you know, I know what's going on, you know, uh what so-and-so's got going on, and I'm just gonna cancel this meeting because I I got something else I want to do. And man, that kills momentum, motivation, morale quicker than anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I love that because I and I've told this to people before that you don't have a meeting just to have a meeting, but there's a lot of value in just taking 15 minutes to sit down, and you may know everything that's going on, but let's still have that dialogue that that we know that we're on the same page, and let's just review because, like you said, it keeps the momentum going. And to me, it it kind of centers the whole process. It's like, okay, this is this non-negotiable time, we're gonna meet together. Yeah, we know everything, but you know what? We're still gonna come together and talk about it. And it's just this repetition and it keeps it forefront. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Well, and I'm even uh an absolute huge proponent that um so for a weekly team meeting, there's a set agenda with a very um laid out set of steps that we're going to go through so that it doesn't, you know, what can happen like in in a group team meeting, and this can even happen in one-to-ones, salespeople love to tell stories, right? And if you just give them the opportunity to say, hey, what's going on? 45 minutes later, you really didn't learn anything, unfortunately. Right. Um, and but yet a great story got told, and the salesperson you know feels good about what they were able to say. But if you really want to get to the truth of what's going on in your sales process and in your pipeline, you have to have kind of a set uh agenda that walks you through it, um, picking out the the closest opportunities that we could get closed and brainstorming those, um, talking about the ones that maybe there's an issue with, what can we do there? Um, and keeping the pipeline clean, right? So um I've got uh these three opportunities, and they haven't moved in in 90 days. I can't get a phone call answered or anything else, you know. Why are they even in the pipeline now? Right. Um, these these should be gone. And those are the things that you're conversing about while you're having both the weeklies and the one-to-ones. Uh and it just keeps everything tight, clean, and we know what we're working on.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So what is the uh so let's say some a company hires you, what is the first thing that you do? Do you just interview employees? I mean, what what is the what is the first thing that that your company would do with a new a new customer?

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, so for a new client onboarding, uh for us, it's it's there's kind of a questionnaire of things that I ask about, which has to do with you know average deal size, average cycle time, margins, you know, just trying to get a uh an understanding of what's going on within the company financially, and and and then just for being able to do sales math, those are things I need to know and understand. Um, I want to uh get into the sales pipeline, get into their CRM, poke around a little bit, see what I see. Um, is it being used? Or are there notes in here, you know, understand how well they're actually using the system. And then there's uh assessments that I use with it can be leadership, sales management, salespeople. Um one of them is a very sales-specific assessment that looks at just sales-related uh characteristics, ways of thinking, that kind of thing. And then I also use some personality behavioral stuff to pull all, oh, and interviewing. And then I pull all that together to to generate a uh kind of an overview of of the organization, its process, its people, its team as a whole. And that's that's the way an engagement would kick off.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Wow. Yeah. So let's let's jump into the the fractional. You know, uh this term, I think, just in the last five or six years has really become a a thing. And so you're a fractional VP of sales, sales leader. Uh so describe for the audience, like what does it mean by fractional?

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So fractional just is is saying that not all of my time is devoted to a particular single entity. It's it's saying for that client on their side, they would perceive this as being able to get you know high level sales leadership, professional sales leadership without. Paying. So if we're talking about a sales manager, um, you know, you could pay$150,000 a year for that person, um, plus benefits, plus you know, any bumps, bonuses, things like that that you might do. And it's pretty expensive. But fractional can come in, um, diagnose what's going on in the organization, set up the systems and processes, and do it for a fraction of the amount of time that it would take for uh having a uh a full-time staff member. Now that works within a window, right? An organization that's somewhere between maybe five and fifty million, a hundred million, it depends on their product and what the average sale price is and things like that, how many people are on their sales team. But what ultimately does happen in a fractional engagement, or at least the way that transformative structures them, is we get started, we figure out what we're gonna do, we get it implemented, we run it for you until we get to some point where hiring a full-time VP of sales or sales manager director uh makes sense. And then what we do is then help you go find that person, go through the same kinds of assessments and things like that to make sure we get a person that matches the culture, matches the way of thinking, the way that this, you know, this consultative B2B sales process that's been put together, um, help you make that hiring decision. And then once that person's hired, then we sit down with them and we transfer everything over to them. So that person doesn't have to come in and reinvent the entire wheel. They literally can come in, pick up the processes, the cadence, the, and we just transfer it over. So it becomes pretty transparent, or it should for leadership. They shouldn't see a ton of difference, just maybe a different face that's that's doing the activities, running the cadence. Um, and then we exit out, move on to our uh to help our next client.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

So are you actually in this fractional role? Are you customer facing to the company? Meaning you're interacting with their customers doing business development, or you're helping those within the company do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Okay, so typically you're providing the structure. Yeah, we don't typically get involved. I have had clients that have asked me to step into a role in a limited basis on maybe some really big deal they were working on, or something like that. And I'm happy to uh to help do that. But no, typically we're working internally, we're not talking to customers, to our clients' customers. We are just helping them make uh really good choices, think through, create strategy. Um, we'll sit down and we'll do pre-call planning, which is uh another integral part, I think, of a good sales process to really think through a meeting before you have it. So we'll help them create those pre-call plans before a salesperson goes uh to complete you know some meeting. And then we deal debrief afterwards and talk about what happened to that meeting. What did we learn? Did we get our questions answered? Uh, did we uncover something that we weren't expecting and what do we need to do with that? Um, and so we just we're just sitting in the shadows trying to help guide and and uh you know coach and mentor uh that sales team.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah. Really, you you're building the infrastructure for the sales department, really is what you're doing. So it can scale later. And so you can bring in that that uh key person. So that's good stuff. So what is the typical stage where a company should start considering fractional sales leadership? Like what what what would you tell is like the if you get to this point, you need to start looking at that, or does it just depend per company?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

It kind of depends, but here's here's some general rules of thumb. So um let's say revenue has started to decline, or you've plateaued, you know, your your uh goals are to continue growing, but now sales have come and plateaued off, or it's you know, it's uh it's sliding down. Um you've got salespeople like a lot of turnover uh in your sales organization could be an indication that there's something going on that needs to be potentially addressed. Um, and sometimes CEOs literally just they enjoy doing the sales function, but um they they're working 60, 70, 80 hours a week to get all of the things that they need to get done, done. And they just need us to come in and give them back, you know, 10 hours a week or whatever, so that they can kind of step away and then just sit, you know, if we're if we're talking like an from an EOS standpoint, um, you know, they're sitting up on a leadership uh L10 somewhere, and they're able to just see the metrics roll up and they understand that what's going on in that organization is healthy and working and doing what it's supposed to without them being you know in the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Right. Hmm. So what what are the warning signs that uh that the current sales effort is not structured enough? Like what what do you see?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Well, it would be uh so if you ever try to sit down and have a conversation with with sales folks and you start asking questions, uh let's say let's pick a deal. Let's say that they uh they're looking into their CRM or however they're tracking opportunities, and they start asking questions, and that salesperson can't honestly give good answers, or you hear things like, you know, oh, we're just we're waiting for them to decide timing, or um, I'm uh they really like us, and I got a good feeling about this. Things like that's telling you you do not have a robust sales process, right? You're not qualifying, you're just you know, it's it's all based on hopium, right? And um, and it's easy to get addicted to hopium and and um and try to run your organization, your sales organization that way. But if you want to have consistent, predictable revenue and understand where you're going, you've got to get rid of the addiction to hopium and get everybody running and following a process. So as you ask specific questions and you start seeing you know holes in the answers, not specifics. Uh, another great one would be you know, salespeople saying, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is gonna be a great deal. Uh, they love us. And you ask the question, well, what's the next step and when is it? My expectation is they're gonna say, um, our next conversation is to go over the proposal, and it is set for uh March the third at noon. Right. And you get an answer that says, Well, we don't have anything on the calendar yet. All right, well, there's a sign maybe there's a problem that we need to address. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah. So you touched on something that uh, you know, I've I've been a consultant for what, 15 years now. I've I've run companies, been a CEO. And one of the biggest issues I've always run into is the CRM. And it and it's it could be that the company doesn't have a CRM. It could be that um they have a CRM but they don't use it, or it could be they have a CRM, they got a new employee, they didn't train it, they didn't train the new employee on the CRM, or there's just resistance to the CRM. Like, you know, you ask the salesman, you know, is the CRM updated? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go in and you see the closing dates four months in the past. Yes. Yes, absolutely. What what's your take on CRMs and how to use them effectively?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yeah, a CRM is a fabulous tool when it's used properly. Um, the sales process should be completely integrated into whatever CRM you're using. So whatever your stage gates are, whatever your qualification steps are, those should be baked into that CRM. This gives a salesperson a roadmap, right, that they can follow. I I uh have qualified or at least got a lead that I've put into the system. Now I'm walking through qualifications. Here are the qualifications for this step. Okay, I can advance, you know. So you've got entrance and exit criteria that um describe how an opportunity should go through. But unfortunately, you know, CRMs get used for a few different things. They they are either kind of a filing cabinet where an opportunity comes in, we shove it in there, we put the contacts name in there. If we're lucky, a phone number and an email might actually get loaded in. And then they just arbitrarily uh kind of move it through, put a close date, and then ultimately someday it'll probably get marked closed lost. But the ones that are closed one, I mean, they are in there in a New York minute, and they you know move those right over to closed one. Um, but it just it just sits there. And and and I blame sales managers or uh a leader in a business or an owner for not really taking that tool and making it everything it could be. And then it's it's about accountability, it's about an expectation, a non-negotiable expectation that these are the things that you've got to do, right? Yeah, um, and you know, salespeople, oh, it just takes too much time. And no, it really doesn't, if it's been designed well. Now, yeah, I've seen so I I had one client that had gotten uh Salesforce, yeah, and they just out-of-the-box version of it. And and I don't know if you've paid attention to it.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Very much, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

My goodness, the load of things that are there is overwhelming. Very um, and if somebody doesn't go through and customize and pull out all the garbage that we don't need and and build it around the process, then it's not going to get used because it just it becomes overwhelming and it's confusing. It is very it the sales force is quite yeah, confusing in terms of just the I mean the things you can I'm not knocking Salesforce, I used it in my company, but it's highly customized. It's sure it's built for what I need, or I've created it that way. Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

I I really think with with the sales forces of the world, the Hub Spots, they're they're missing a component of just give me a simple CRM for small companies that can expand over time as the company grows. They tend to throw so much at you that makes it unusable, and to your point, it makes it overwhelming. So salespeople don't want to do it. But you know, I've I've told my salespeople before, how great would it be that you get to work in the morning, you pull up your dashboard, and everything is current and it's right in front of you. You can see the phone calls, the tasks, you can see the the weighted pipeline, what stage is where. Right. Like, wouldn't that be you know, just just like a cockpit in an airplane? It's just all right in front of you. But um, it's been my experience that more people than not just kind of give it the the Heisman. They just eh, I don't I don't want to deal with it, but yeah, unfortunate because it is a great tool. So some owners hesitate because they think part-time equals temporary. We're talking about the fractional part. Yeah. How do you explain the real value of fractional leadership to it to an owner that might be like, eh, I I really need a full-time person? You know, how how do you distinguish that for them?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Well, we go through a conversation and we talk about what their expectations are. Uh, what what do you think this full-time person would be doing in this organization? Um, and kind of help them understand that sometimes the things that you think they're going to be doing, they're not really doing the the core important things that need to happen is that establishment and training and introduction of that sales process, and then getting the weekly meetings and that agenda and that cadence in, uh, salespeople's one-to-ones, establishing some set of scoreboard or metrics for that salesperson to be able to uh hold them accountable to, and that that just doesn't take uh 40 hours a week to do. It just really doesn't. Unless there's you know a hundred salespeople, then okay, yeah. Uh, but even one sales manager never just handles a hundred salespeople. Right. Um, so it's it's it comes down to you're just at a size that doesn't make sense to bring in that uh additional overhead because there honestly isn't uh the the need for that much. And then the opposite to that is well, maybe I'll bring in somebody that can do that and this. Like, no, I don't think you want to do that either. Because what happens in those situations are people gravitate to what they enjoy doing most. So let's say, let's say we bring in a guy or a gal and we're gonna make them the sales manager and the marketing person. Right. Okay. And their background actually is more in marketing than it is for sales. Uh a lot of people will tell you they can marketing people will um act um as if they can run a sales group, but uh unfortunately those are are unique people. Yeah. Um, but they come into the organization and now they're gonna help with getting sales going and they're gonna take care of marketing. Their background's primarily marketing, and that's what they enjoy doing the most. What do you think they're gonna go do? Yeah, they absolutely gravitate towards that. Yep. They're gonna do marketing. And then there's gonna be some set of metrics and quotas that that person has on the marketing side, right? And they're gonna work to get those. Now, they should have some of the same things on the sales side, but they're still gonna gravitate to what is comfortable, what they know, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so that's kind of how we go through it. And then sometimes people just don't, they just like, oh, I gotta have a full-time person here. All right, well, that's fine. The expectation is that you're gonna spend this much money to do that. And if you engage us to do what needs to be done, that's it. What needs to be done, you're half to a third to a half the cost per year. So no, and no uh no benefits, no uh health care, none of those other things play in. And the way we structure things, they're in short increments. So if we get to a point that um it doesn't make sense for an owner, then it's like, all right, uh we're we're at the end of the engagement and we're gonna wind this down, and they're not stuck with a year-long contract or all of these other things that could be involved. Uh, where okay, I hired this this sales manager and it isn't quite working out, and I'm gonna have to let him go. Now I got unemployment, you know, all of those other things uh that are just costly.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Yeah. That's a great point. So, Anthony, we're getting towards the end here. Um, one darn yeah, two, two, two questions. I know it went fast. So, what what realistically can a fractional you know sales leader accomplish within 90 days? Like, what is if you're to lay out a 90-day plan for a customer, like what what's the realistic um items that you can get accomplished in that first 90 days?

SPEAKER_00 37:57

By the end of 90 days, I fully expect to see a a cadence in place, right? Okay, we've done the assessments, uh, we've potentially started some kind of a training program. I have a uh an online uh sales academy that I use for training of salespeople. That's been implemented and started. Uh, we're starting to do our one-to-ones, uh, the uh all of the meeting agendas are set, all of this is scheduled. We're already having those meetings, scorecards are in place. So at the end of 90 days, what we should see is roughly 90% of what that sales process system is gonna look like and how it's gonna operate. Now, you've always got to be looking and thinking and uh wondering about what tweaks should we make to fix this or fix that or issues that we see. So you make some adjustments. But at the end of 90 days, you should see you know 90% of the sales process in place and running. Now, uh, does that mean revenue is doubled? No. Uh, but does that mean we're seeing uh more highly qualified opportunities into the pipeline and things like that? Absolutely. There should be some set of measurables that you can look at and go, oh yeah, all right. I can see the you know, the the swell in the ocean starting to move towards land, and uh and now we're just pushing to get it there.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah. And and I would I would add to that that with bringing somebody in like you, you're actually putting the company in a position where it can practically and actually grow. And I could the reason I say that is because there's a lot of businesses out there that they really think that, you know, let's say they're doing, you know, three million dollars a year. Well, the jump from three million to five million is significant. That's not just something that can just happen. And if you don't have a structure, an infrastructure in place to scale, you're never gonna get it, no matter how hard you work, no matter how many salespeople you hire, because it's gonna crumble upon itself. And so what I hear you saying is that you position the company where it can actually physically, mentally, emotionally grow. Yeah. You're that's absolutely it.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

I mean, that's my ultimate goal at the end is when I leave an organization, I want it to be in a stable position that is capable of scaling if that's what they're choosing to do. Not everybody does. I mean, some are just happy, you know, doing what they're doing and being able to continue to just tread that water. And, you know, that's fine. Um, but when I leave, that is exactly uh where that company is. They're in a position that they can build upon what we've helped them create and uh and continue to grow.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

Yeah, that's good stuff. Anthony, thank you for your time. This went by really fast.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

I I'm I am shocked that it's already over, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Um, yeah, we're we're 40 minutes in already. So, where can listeners find out more about you and your services?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

All right. Well, if uh if folks are interested, they can go to the website, uh, transformative sales systems.com, all together, one word. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn, Anthony Nix. Um, also you can find the company uh there as well. Um if you're interested in uh some of our our content we put out. I have uh a uh uh podcast called the Selling Point Podcast. You can find that on Apple, iHeart, you know, Spotify, most platforms carry that. Um, or you can just give me a call. If you're okay, I'll give my phone number. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you can call the office here at 812 924 7085, and uh we'd be happy and and privileged to have a conversation.