The Sales Process & TRA Assessment - Part Two (#234)

In this week’s episode of "Maximize Business Value," Dave Casey continues his discussion about the sales process with Darren Williams. Tune in weekly to hear more from Mastery Partners and to receive relevant key content on your journey to maximizing your business value!

Listen to part one on YouTube here. 

#maximizebusinessvalue #maximizebusinessvalue #MBVPodcast #PodcastForEntrepreneurs

Learn More about Dave Casey
Dave Casey is a seasoned business owner with deep expertise in all aspects of organizational behavior and a passion for helping entrepreneurs reap the full rewards of building their companies. He understands that a truly valuable business isn’t just profitable—it’s secure, scalable, and transferable. In addition to his work with Mastery Partners, Dave actively gives back to the entrepreneurial community through leadership roles with organizations like Business Navigators, Biz Owners Ed, and Liberty Ministry. Whether advising on strategic growth or mentoring the next generation of business leaders, Dave brings clarity, integrity, and decades of real-world experience to every interaction. His mission goes beyond exit planning—he’s committed to helping owners build lasting legacies.

Learn More about Darren Williams
Darren Williams is a business value advisor with 30+ years of experience in leadership, operations, and sales. As a Certified Partner with Mastery Partners, he helps business owners grow value, boost profitability, and prepare for successful transitions. With a strong background in the construction industry, including leading a private equity-backed roofing firm, Darren excels at building sustainable structures and guiding strategic growth. He is recognized for transforming cultures, implementing accountability, and helping leadership teams achieve long-term success.

Mastery Partners

Elevating Businesses to Achieve The Business Owner’s Dream Exit
The unfortunate reality is that for every business that comes on the market (for whatever reason), only 17% of them achieve a successful exit. You read that right. 83% of attempted business transitions never reach the closing table. Mastery Partners is on a mission to change that. We ELEVATE businesses to achieve maximum value and reach that dream exit.

Our objectives are simple - understand where the business is today, identify opportunities for dramatic improvement, and offer solutions to enhance the business, making it more marketable and valuable. And that all starts with understanding the business owner’s definition of his or her dream exit.
Mastery has developed a 4-Step Process to help business owners achieve their dreams.

STEP 1: Transition Readiness Assessment
STEP 2: Roadmap for Value Acceleration
STEP 3: Relentless Execution
STEP 4: Decision: Now that desired results are achieved, the business is ready for the next step in the journey!

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Transcript

MAXIMIZE BUSINESS VALUE PODCAST - EPISODE 234 Transcript

(1s): Tom Bronson

Welcome to the Maximize Business Value Podcast, brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners like you, to maximize your business value and achieve the exit of your dreams, whatever that means to you. With insights gained from over a hundred business transactions, we share real world strategies, lessons, and expert advice to help you build long term sustainable value in your business. Each episode is hosted by one of our Mastery certified partners, their seasoned experts who've helped countless business owners navigate the complexities of growth, scaling, and building value.

(45s): Tom Bronson Cont. 

They bring firsthand experience, actionable insights, and a passion for helping you build a business that thrives. So, let's dive in.

(57s): Dave Casey

Hi, this is Dave Casey, and welcome to Maximize Business Value. This is a podcast for business leaders who are really passionate about growing their business and, and building long-term sustainable value in their business. So this show is really intended for business owners who are serious about this type of their, this aspect of their business and making their business future ready. So, my name is Dave Casey, and today we're pulling back the curtain on one of the, I would say, one of the most overlooked things in business values sales, and how it's evaluated in our transition readiness assessment or the TRA.

(1m 38s): Dave Casey

So, joining me today is one of our seasoned experts from Mastery Partners, Darren Williams, to walk through that, what makes a sales organization value rich or value risky, and how business owners can benchmark where they are today. So, welcome, Darren. So I'll ask you this next question and we'll, we'll probably both tackle this one, but it it, when you see a business that just is an amazing business, has a great product, great services and everything, but just has a very broken or totally undocumented sales process, what's your gut reaction when you when you get to that?

(2m 17s): Darren Williams

You know, I, and, and frankly, that happens a lot. So my first reaction is this isn't, this isn't scalable. And if I'm a buyer buying a business, I want something that I can grow and scale. I I I'm not buying something typically that's dependent off of one or two, you know, all star salespeople. Right? And, and a lot of, especially in smaller companies, what I find is what I describe as this, this sink or swim kind of, we're just gonna hire new people, throw 'em in, let 'em watch somebody, and then figure it out for themselves. Yeah. And you got this sink or swim kind of onboarding mentality, and that's really, really hard to scale.

(2m 59s): Darren Williams 

Right? So, so much of our advice comes back to systems and processes. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

(3m 8s): Dave Casey

Yeah. And we, we've even seen it internally at Mastery. I mean, we've tried to improve our systems and processes and, and, and it's, it's almost, it's a, it's almost that fatal mistake that you're gonna make. You say, well, we're only really gonna, you know, have seasoned people on our team. I mean, all of our, all of our consultants have been, been in business a long time. They've bought and sold companies. They've, they've run major, major companies. So we're thinking all as well, it's still important to document our processes. It's still important to really have it to the point where anyone could step in and be, have a, a level of success because we have such a good process.

(3m 48s): Dave Casey

I think the other thing when talking to business owners that I've run into is that I always quiz, you know, okay, here's your top, top 10 clients. What's been your personal involvement with those clients? Many times that business owner say, oh yeah, I sold, I sold a b, c company about 10 years ago. I was, I was, I was the guy that brought that one to the table, you know, and, and you know, and they started kind of bragging a little bit. I said, well, that's a weakness, you know, when somebody's buying them, and particularly if the owner's gonna ride off into the sunset and, and head for the beach, it's like, well, wait a minute. That relationship lies with you. What's our guarantee as a buyer that will have that company as a client going forward?

(4m 29s): Dave Casey

So, yeah, I I think that the, and you, you expressed it really well. I think there's a big difference between being good at sales and having a sales system that you can plug people into.

(4m 42s): Darren Williams

Yeah. So, so one of the things we talk about from time to time is this is the difference between your, your business relying on smart people showing up and making good decisions every day, right? Or do you have systems and processes where you can manage to the details? Yeah. You can onboard some new people, you can ramp them up to being successful pretty quickly, and then you can do it over and over again. Yeah. Right. One of those systems is far more valuable than the other. Yeah. One of those systems is scalable and one of those systems has predictable results versus just relying on smart people to show up and hopefully they do a good job that day.

(5m 20s): Dave Casey

Yeah. The other thing, and too is, and this, this is a, a trap. I certainly w was in with my company. I had the company over 20 years, built a great team, a, you know, love those people a lot. And had I, my top sales guy was with me for 24 years, right? So it's really easy to get into the, we kind of built this little ecosystem and a little, little, you know, family and, and it's hard for people to penetrate that. So even if you hire a really good person, they kind of feel like there's this, you know, this click, you know, that there, that's there because we haven't really, not everybody's held to the same standard, right?

(6m 4s): Dave Casey

And not everybody has to report the same way, or not everybody has to forecast the same way. So we, we ran into that. And then the other thing is, is it's, this is a, this really didn't happen much to me, but I've got a friend that had a company that they did mobile homes essentially, and scaled it big, I mean, 40 or 50 lots around several states. So it's a huge company. They had an incredibly detailed written sales process. Everything down to the first three words you say to people when they walk onto the showroom floor. I mean, it was that level of detail and everything through every type of sales scenario, closing techniques, ev you know, documentation, verbiage, role playing.

(6m 53s): Dave Casey

I mean, they had it down to a science. So literally anybody could be hired as a salesperson and get plugged into that system and have a, and have a level of success. The advantage of that was when somebody was not performing, they could have that conversation with them. And it wasn't a personal, you know, you're not performing 'cause you're lazy, you're not performing 'cause you're stupid. You're not performing because you forgot to come to work. No, you're not performing. 'cause you, maybe you didn't follow The Sales Process and they can step in and go through that sales process. What were the first three words you said to these people when you stepped in the door? I mean, right to that level of detail. So it was never a personal confrontation, it was just, are you following the process or not?

(7m 39s): Dave Casey

So it, it really took a lot of the drama out of the, out of that conversation.

(7m 44s): Darren Williams

Yeah. You know, what I really like about that is this idea of, and, and, and part of the coaching comes back to this idea of law, law of large numbers, right? Yeah. So when you have a successful process, then we can, we can apply this, this idea of law of large numbers. It's like, when I do a thousand of these, I know I get this. So you can really reverse engineering back into your numbers. Just like, what, what are your revenue goals? What's your budget this year? Yeah. What are you trying to accomplish? Well, here's how many of these things we need to do. Exactly right? We need to talk to this many clients and we know we're successful this many times. And then the, so you can, it allows when you have systems and processes like this, and to your point, you know, you're managing down to the details and even the scripts and, and the, the, the words we're saying and the questions we're asking.

(8m 30s): Dave Casey

Right? You can really dial that in and then, you know, nobody's gonna bat a thousand. Right? Nobody's gonna close a hundred percent. No. But, but boy, you'll, you'll raise those I on base percentages pretty, pretty quickly. Yeah, that's

(8m 41s):  Darren Williams

Right. And it becomes, and it becomes predictable. And that's really the goal is whatever the nu whether you have a 20% closing ratio or an 80% closing ratio, as long as it's predictable, then we can dial in those numbers and activities, and then we can start achieving goals.

(8m 55s): Dave Casey

Yeah. And I like to see organizations that really build that sales playbook and, and follow it. And that way you've, you've got that as a reference point. Even if your products and services change over time, the elements of sales really don't change. I mean, those, that interpersonal relationship is, is important. If it's not you're in a commodity business and you probably need to find another business, you know? But, but it's, yeah, it, even in the commodity businesses, I've seen that, that scalability because the process was so well tuned, you know, and what they could do there. So one of the terms that we've started using at mastery is called Future Ready. The whole reason that people will, will spend the time to do the transition readiness analysis and, and actually di dive deep into their company and look for all of these things that, that will inevitably, inevitably, inevitably, I can't speak this morning, show up in due diligence is, is really future proofing their company.

(9m 57s): Dave Casey

What, what, what kind of metrics have you seen or any kind of signal to look for, or even your systems that, that you've seen successful, whether they're C-R-A-C-R-M systems, like sales training regimens, you follow? What, what have you seen that that makes a company future ready?

(10m 19s): Darren Williams

You know, for me it starts with it, it can't be dependent on one person. So in our world, we talk a lot about the owner, right? So what's the opposite of that is having a good leadership team or a management team that understands the daily operations. The daily operations are not dependent on one person, right? And so, so maybe you have divisions or, or even departments in your company, right? And you have, you have people in control of those things and, and hopefully even layers, right? Several layers down where even in that department or that division, it's not relying on even one person or a department head, right?

(11m 2s): Dave Casey

And, and the concept of having an error apparent for every job. So if you've got a a key position, you've got an understudy for that position.

(11m 11s): Darren Williams 

Yeah. And depending on the size of the company, that may go 2, 3, 4, 5 layers deep Yeah. In each division or department, again, you know, adequate for the size of the company, right? Yeah. And then so people, right, so we talk a lot about right, people, right seats and, and then systems and processes, right? This idea of predictable decision making. So, so one of the things I ask owners from time to time, I was like, listen, I was like, if your people, if your people are walking around the, the office going, Hey, is is Darren in a good mood today? I need to tell him some stuff. It's like, man, you've got some work to do, right? Yeah. So, and may you gonna handle

(11m 49s): Dave Casey

This, you may never be in a good mood.

(11m 50s): Darren Williams 

Well, and, and, and frankly, are you gonna handle this customer complaint? You know, depending on your mood, right? That if that's the case, then it is impossible for your people to ever predict, well, is he in a good mood or not? Sometimes he does this, sometimes he does that. Yeah. So as much as possible is this idea of predictable decision making. When this happens, this is what we do because it aligns with our core values, it aligns with our commitments and aligns with who we're, so the more you can drill that down through your organization, the more future ready you're gonna be. So it's just, I'm just gonna keep coming back to this idea of predictable from systems and processes to results, to revenue, to decision making. Yeah. You know, all the above, the more predictable things are in your business, the more future ready you're gonna be.

(12m 35s): Dave Casey

Yeah. It's interesting. We did the very tail end of, when I had my company, we, we started doing, we had started doing net promoter score to figure out how our clients viewed us, but we started to do internal net promoter scoring as well, and just to figure out how do the employees feel about working with us. And, and of course, today, in the days of Glassdoor and everything else, a lot of times it's all out there. You know, how people feel about you as a manager, your, you as an owner and your company. But we found some interesting things, and that predictability was probably number one that they wanted to know. Sure. What would happen when, when, when adversity struck, you know, what would, what's gonna happen is are people gonna run around like crazy or do we have a system and a process to take care of that?

(13m 21s): Dave Casey Cont. 

And how quickly do we get back on track? And, and, and this could be like losing a key employee, it could be losing a key customer, it could be a, you know, a supplier goes out of business or gets purchased or whatever. So a lot of things external to your company can happen to you that, that you have to be ready for. And I think I lo I love that idea of predictability, what you're su what you're talking about, that that is the key to making that that thing work. So

(13m 48s): Darren Williams

Well, just, just a couple of points on that. So one of the questions we ask, we're talking about the TRA today, so one of the questions we ask is, do you do an annual employee survey? Yeah. And, and when it comes to employee engagement, you know, how do your people view working there? Right? Yeah. You know, one of the things, you know, I used to talk about in my business was, you know, hey, everyone here is smart and talented. You all have choices and it's not lost on me. Yeah. That you choose to come here and work with us. And, and I appreciate that very much. Right? And that was, that was my approach. And that's how it wasn't like, well, you have to, and I'm paying you and you should act a certain way. It was, and, and frankly, you know, one other point is this idea that at, at our core humans are are selfish.

(14m 33s): Darren Williams Cont. 

Right. We try not to be like, we try to pretend like we're not. Yeah. We, at our core, we're all selfish. We have our own reasons. Sure. And as leaders, I think we need to acknowledge that because whatever happens in your business, whether it's normal, ordinary, every day, whether something massive's happened, whatever it is, everybody views that situation through the lens first of what's in this for me? Or how, what does this mean for me?

(14m 58s): Dave Casey

How is this gonna affect me? Affect me? Yeah.

(15m 0s): Darren WIlliams 

Yeah. So, so my point to that is instead of fighting that and going, well, my people shouldn't feel that way, just to acknowledge it and then answer the question, here's what this means for you. Here's your piece in this, here's how and why I need your help moving forward. And here's, here's, here's the goal and here's where we're going. And it, once you can tackle that communication piece and address it as opposed to fighting it, that in my experience, that tends to smooth things out quite a bit.

(15m 29s): Dave Casey

Yeah. That's awesome. So we got just a couple more things and, and we'll, we'll wrap this up. So, you know, for the business owner that may be listening to this has got this far along in our, in our broadcast here, and, and, and just realizing, you know, I'm scoring pretty low on some of these things in sales, what's, what's the most practical first step you think they can take if they realize they have a sales problem?

(15m 56s): Darren Williams

You know, man, there, there's so many, there's so many things, but I, the one thing I would say is be decisive Yeah. Is I see, I see people, I engage with them with, you know, have, have coffee with a lot of folks and it's like they know something's not right. They know something's kind of broken, but they just can't quite decide. Right. And what happens, and I saw this in my own business, so back up 10, 10, 15 years ago, it's like I got frustrated and I woke up and I realized, man, this, this past year looked a whole lot like the year before that. Yeah.

(16m 30s): Dave Casey

Oh yeah. Oh, that,

(16m 31s): Darren Williams

Well, at some point, at some point you have to decide to do something different. So if it's specifically sales, you know, maybe it's in engaging a, a coach or a professional, maybe it's en engaging a sales trainer. Maybe it's finding a peer that you think is doing it right. Maybe they're in another market and they'll talk to you or maybe they're next door, I don't know. But, but my point is, is to reach out, find someone, read a book. I mean, that was, I mean, 10 or 15 years ago, that was a, a large part of my transition was a commitment to start reading. Previous to that I hadn't read a whole lot. And so whatever it is, I would just say be decisive, decide. Yeah, that's

(17m 11s): Dave Casey

Great advice. Decide to change, decide to do something different. Decide to do something better.

(17m 15s): Dave Casey

So that's great. So with that, I'll, I'll, I'll actually, I'll make this a call to action for the folks that are listening here. So, sales really isn't just about closing deals, it's about building predictable, transferable, an engine that can be transferred for growth. And if you're really not sure how your sales function stacks up, maybe a couple of things we talked about today have, have triggered something for you. And, you know, reach out to us at Mastery Partners and you know, we can do the readiness score for you. The TRA is, is a wonderful tool. Even if that's all you do with us is got that, that's just a superb tool and it really will help you on that journey to Maximize Business Value.

(17m 59s): Dave Casey

So this is the Maximize Business Value Podcast where we give practical advice to business owners how to build long-term sustainable value in their business. Be sure to tune in each week. We do this on a regular basis, subscribe to our channel. So you won't miss a simple, simple episode, single episode. How's that? So again, this is be simple too, Dave Casey and Darren Williams. Darren, thanks for coming and we really enjoyed the time today. Thanks Dave, appreciate your time. All right. See you all later.

(18m 41s): Tom Bronson

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Maximize Business Value Podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas on how you can continue driving value in your business. But remember, it's not just about listening, it's about taking massive action. Visit our website Mastery Partners dot com for more resources. Grab a copy of any of the books in the Maximize Business Value series on Amazon or via the links below. And don't hesitate to reach out if you want to know how to apply these concepts to your business.

(19m 22s): Tom Bronson Cont. 

So until next time, I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to relentlessly execute while you Maximize Business Value.