Sales Therapy, Part II: The Art + Science of a Great Sales Process with Chris Stilwell
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack?
Intro:Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge. Never fear, hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub Heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers.
Intro:Before we begin, we need to disclose that Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin during the show are that of his own and in no way represent those of his employer.
Liz Moorhead:And that's it? You did it again, George. This is the second week in a row you've done this to me, and I am not ready. I promise. Why do you do that?
George B. Thomas:I I promise next week, I'll play it the full way. Devin, you know what that meant. It meant that I didn't wanna get laughed at for Max now working at HubSpot, and so I just shut her down because
Max Cohen:Devin Listen. Works
Liz Moorhead:You know what? HubSpot. George?
George B. Thomas:It's it's do client work or it's fix the, RodeCaster two button to an m p three file. Like, I need I need somebody out there.
Liz Moorhead:Max, don't worry. I know where you'll work.
George B. Thomas:Can I get an assistant? Oh, yeah. He works for Play Doh, Taco Bell.
Liz Moorhead:Speaking of Taco Bell, welcome back to another well organized episode of hub heroes. I am apparently your delinquent hub heroes wrangler, Liz Morehead, as well as our resident content strategist, joined as always by George, Max, and Devon. And, guys, I am so freaking stoked for today
Max Cohen:Let's go.
Liz Moorhead:Because we are back with another deeply needed cathartic sales therapy session with our guy, Chris Stilwell from TSSG. Just as a reminder for folks who missed our first session yes. That's right. For those of you who missed our first session of sales therapy, I highly recommend you go back and check out the episode buying has changed, but sales hasn't, which was the first time Chris was able to join us. Let's talk about sales processes this week.
Liz Moorhead:That's what we're digging into. And, George, I know this was a topic that you were particularly psyched to get into.
George B. Thomas:Listen. Listen. I'm super excited about this, and I'll be completely honest. I was Liz, you reached out, and you're like, what do you wanna talk about? And I I usually over index on what I believe the listeners need to hear.
George B. Thomas:But I'm gonna be honest. This time, I was completely selfish. I was like, man, Chris freaking blew my brain the first time. So, like, let's dive into some other stuff that me as a business owner, and the guy who actually has to do sales in the organization, like, let's have that conversation. Then I realized, Liz, I actually wasn't being selfish.
George B. Thomas:I was actually just being like every other hub hero out there and realizing I had some additional questions. So that's why I'm excited.
Liz Moorhead:So, Chris, welcome back. We're so glad you're here. Clearly, we need help. Lots of help. We're ready to dig in?
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Alright.
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:I'm taking head nods. Yes. Yeah.
Chris Stilwell:I I yeah. I don't have the best connection, but let's hope it works out really well.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, don't worry. Your smarts transcend technology.
George B. Thomas:I know. I I I I'm telling you, like, last time I was jealous, I'm now jealous again.
Chris Stilwell:If you guys can hear me, that's good. As long as
George B. Thomas:I can hear you. We got you.
Liz Moorhead:Okay. So first question y'all. Why is having a clear, consistent sales process that's followed by all so hard to attain for most sales teams?
Chris Stilwell:Oh, I mean, well, that's it's a good question. I I think I don't know if that's the goal that most people are looking for necessarily. I don't know if most sales teams are absolutely interested, in having a process in place. So I think that that would be the first thing is realizing that it's necessary. But then, I mean, pretty much just just looking at it and saying, like, is everybody doing their own thing?
Chris Stilwell:Do people have processes and procedures in place at all? Or does they're like a method to the madness. I usually look for, like, a leader in the clubhouse, somebody who's, like, the best on the staff and the best salesperson and ask them. So, I mean, that's usually where I start.
George B. Thomas:So here's my question for you, Chris. And and it comes down to, like, that thing that you said, which I think a lot of organizations deal with. And it's this idea of is everybody doing their own thing. When you when you diagnose that everybody is doing their own thing because their own thing is the easiest thing for them, how in the world do you capture that, change it, and actually get an organization to do that consistent, clear sales process moving forward?
Devyn Bellamy:And and and can I can I just piggyback on that question just just an addendum?
George B. Thomas:Just a little tiny bit?
Devyn Bellamy:Yeah. Just Yeah. To that question. So not just, like, how do you but but what happens when the sales leadership is okay with the status quo and everybody doing their own thing? Like, how how do you how do you deal with that?
Chris Stilwell:Well, that's the first big issue, right, as it comes down to sales leadership. Now that's an issue that exists in most organizations. Most most organizations don't really have, sales leadership. It's actually funny. One of the last sales jobs I had, I was interviewed, by the sales manager.
Chris Stilwell:And at the end of the interview, he he actually said to me, he said, you know, I'm gonna tell you I can't really help you with any sales or sales related activities because I've never sold before, but I've managed a lot of people. And I I thought that was a really interesting person, to be running the department. It it'd be like somebody, you know, coaching a baseball team that had never played baseball before. I'm sure maybe they could do an okay job, but I don't think they're gonna go out there and win a World Series. So I think when you look at this, you need to look at it from a leadership standpoint.
Chris Stilwell:Right? And say, how does leadership view the current boat that we're on? How do they view the current crew? What you're gonna find is this. You're gonna find most people who get into sales management are really bad at sales.
Chris Stilwell:That's why they got in the mail. Oh my god. It's it's like coming out from behind the bar and becoming a manager of a restaurant. What are you going from making $500 a night down to 560 a week? You know?
Chris Stilwell:Like, it doesn't make sense. So what you find is the best salespeople don't wanna leave sales jobs. Because what what happens is what am I gonna now get a salary, sit in the office, listen to how much time you need off and the problems you're having with your customers when I could just be out there working fifteen hours a week closing deals and making $200 a year? Why would I possibly wanna make that change? So what you wanna look at is is do you have the right people in a leadership role?
Chris Stilwell:Is your leadership role incentivized correctly? And, you know, are your guys underneath that leader able to kind of follow the path that they're putting out there? Most sales guys hate the sales leader. They hate the culture at the business. They just wanna get their check and get out.
Chris Stilwell:When you get successful teams is when you build that up like a sports team and you look at it as we have a great coach who was probably a really good athlete back in his day, Then we have a great organization that pays the people correctly, make sure they're happy, make sure they're doing the work that they need to be doing. And then finally, do we have an enablement structure that's designed throughout the business to actually train them, help them execute, and then help them overcome when they run into problems in the future. So, like, those are the aspects that I look at when it comes to leadership and change.
Liz Moorhead:So, Chris, I wanna dig a little bit more deeply here into this idea of, you know, where you see pain points, where you see friction, because I can guarantee you've encountered sales organizations that are like, yeah. We've got a sales process. Yeah. We've got a great sales process. This is awesome.
Liz Moorhead:But one peek under the hood, and you can see that's not the case. So can you talk to us a bit about what a great sales process doesn't look like even in well meaning sales organizations?
Chris Stilwell:Yeah. Okay. So so so what a great sales process doesn't look like is everybody doing their own thing. If for instance, we had heart surgeries. Right?
Chris Stilwell:And you went to a heart surgeon and you said, this is the surgery, but I I do it my own way. I'd be like, well, why don't you just do it the way that everyone does it to have the successful surgeries? I don't wanna have the guy with his own flare and his own, you know, personality in every single heart surgery. So I wouldn't do the the same thing if I was installing electrical generators. Same thing if I was if I was doing anything inside of someone's home, I would have a structured specific way to do it.
Chris Stilwell:So when I talk to salespeople and I talk to to, different sales organizations and they tell me every sales different, we all do it our own way. This industry is different than every other industry, by the way, which is what you hear those same three things from all these salespeople. Ultimately, what it comes down to is that they just haven't been exposed to process. They're not looking at it like a professional, like a lawyer or a doctor or even electrician will look at doing their job. They're looking at it like they wanna be a unique individual snowflake.
Chris Stilwell:So that's where I see the worst sales processes are what you could identify as, well, he does it his way, he does it that way, she does it this way, she likes to do it like that. There's no real
George B. Thomas:So it's interesting. I wanna jump in here real quick. I used to downhill ski, so I like a good snowflake every now and then. But my my curiosity actually goes, yes, Max. I went there, and I did that.
George B. Thomas:My curiosity, what where I'm gonna go with this is how do you paint the picture of the great divide or the gap of the money lost or the extra time spent, by not making the change from what is this, you know Yeah. Not a good sales process to actually having what we talked about in the first question, this kind of streamlined, consistent sales process. Like, what's the what's the gap? What are people losing out on most times in organizations?
Chris Stilwell:So I don't the the thing is is that I'm kinda past the point of trying to get people to see the gap. Right? Like, if you don't see it, that's on you. It's like me trying to explain to you're an alcoholic. Right?
Chris Stilwell:Like, yeah. Okay. You're not getting anybody in like, you have to admit it for yourself. Right? Like, that's step number one.
Chris Stilwell:So I think what's easy is to talk to people and say, in the kind of the way that my process works, which is is is talk to them and find out, like, are you happy with how things are now? And if you are, that's great. But if there was something you could change, what would it be? Now what happens most of the time is, when people talk to somebody, they will say, what are you unhappy with? With?
Chris Stilwell:Right? So let's say, like, you were looking to switch advertising agencies, and I somebody came to me and tried to sell me advertising. Normally, what they would say is, like, so why are you guys looking around? What do you not like about that agency? Well, what I do is is I actually look at it differently.
Chris Stilwell:I wanna find out what you like about it. Right? Talk about the positives. But then I wanna find out what you would change if you could. And I think that that's what I try to talk to most, you know, people in business about, which is what do you think you could change today that would make a difference for you, and what's kinda holding you back?
Chris Stilwell:And I'll tell you the truth, George. The number one thing that's holding people back is either lack of resource or inability to see the future that they want. Most people haven't even taken the time to think, well, if I'm closing at 40% today and all of a sudden I start closing at 60%, how much different does my income look there? Right? Because in their head, they're thinking I'm the best that I could be.
Chris Stilwell:I'm number one. I'm really good at this. I close all the time. 40% is higher than the national average. People are crushing because no matter how everybody anybody's closing, and I talk to them, they're always higher than the national average.
Chris Stilwell:So it's, like, it's very interesting to me. So I think that the biggest thing is is you kinda gotta look at it from a self diagnosis standpoint, which is if you're a business, right, and you shop your insurance every year, that's smart. If you go out and make sure that you shop your benefits package for your employees every year, that's smart. You should probably shop your cable every year and make sure that that's working. Same thing with any of your OSHA trainings.
Chris Stilwell:Why not the same thing with sales training? Why not make sure that the income driving part of your business is being consistently looked at, fed, worked on, and brought up to the the the newest modernization and standards possible so that you're producing the most income you can.
George B. Thomas:Max, I see you shaking your head. What's going through your cranium there?
Max Cohen:Oh, I'm just just agreeing. I think the big thing that I'm also trying to, like, wrap my head around here is, like, we keep talking about, like, sales process, and I'm sure I'm unsure how we're defining that. Right? Because, like, when I think of process, it's like, you know, hey. Hey, sales guy.
Max Cohen:This is how you're gonna sell to them. Or it's also like, hey. This is the experience that our customers go through, or here's the steps that, like That's interesting. When I think process, like, I'm thinking, like, you know, I always bring it back to what I know, which is HubSpot, and I'm thinking, like, you know, the deal stages and the milestones. But I that's very different than, like, the tactics and the, frameworks and, you know, whatever sort of skills that the hard skills that you're you're, you know, you're teaching your sales rep.
Max Cohen:So, like, I don't know. George, I know that a lot of these questions were kinda prompted by you. So, like, when you're asking process, like, how are you defining it, I guess? And then, Chris, we can kinda dive a little bit deeper into it too.
Chris Stilwell:First of
George B. Thomas:all, I love that you're asking me the questions because I had the original questions, which is always like, I feel like I'm in the question matrix right now. But I think it's all of the above, Max, and I love that you're diving into that. The idea of there's actually probably two, if not three different what we could call processes. Right? There is the tactical moving of a deal, stage, you know, all of that stuff.
Max Cohen:But there's the philosophy of how to be a good human or the
George B. Thomas:process of being a human or the process of being a good human in the sales process as well. And so I'll I'll just ask the question because, Max, you don't realize it, but you were literally teeing up the next thing that I wanted to ask, and that is, what does a great sales process look like? And with that, what I mean by that is steps, parts, pieces, philosophies. Sure. How how unpack that for us.
Chris Stilwell:Sure. I mean and I can actually it it's actually pretty simple. It's really basic, to tell you the truth. There's two sides to every gate great sales process. There's the structure, and there's the skills.
Chris Stilwell:Mhmm. Alright? So what you gotta look at is is you have to look at not only how are you structuring your team, how are you structuring your day, how are you structuring your conversations with customers. So you wanna look at the structure of literally everything you do, but you also wanna look at what skills do you have to accompany that structure. So most salespeople are built very heavily in usually one side or the other if they've found success.
Chris Stilwell:You're gonna find a lot of guys who can talk fast, have quick responses, and they're gonna close and get a lot of money, but they're the least structured person you've ever met. Right? They're they're working all night. They're constantly doing quotes. They're telling you how busy they are and how much work they put in, but they're drinking at noon on a Tuesday, and they're golfing on a Thursday morning, and they're on a boat all weekend somewhere.
Chris Stilwell:And you're like, wait. How hard are you actually working? So there's that aspect of that guy. Then you have the other guy who could be just extremely structured, somebody who has a great sequence for every customer they talk to, somebody who has a great follow-up process, somebody who schedules really well, somebody who calls 400 leads a day. Right?
Chris Stilwell:Dialing and smiling. That's a great structure. Now what you wanna do is take that great structure and teach that guy the great sales skills. But most people feel like sales skills are inherited. It's really interesting.
Chris Stilwell:People will say something like, oh, you're a great natural salesperson. Okay. That could be true. But if even if let's say I'm a great natural runner. If I've never been to a track and never had a running coach, I could be a great runner, but I'm probably not gonna win the Olympics.
Chris Stilwell:Do I have the potential to? Absolutely. So what they're actually saying is you have latent potential that seems like it could be good at this. But what most people do then is go, well, I've been told my whole life I'd be great at sales, so that's why I got into selling. I say, okay.
Chris Stilwell:So how much time and energy have you taken to speak to experts in the field to gain additional skills that can make you better at your job? And they usually laugh in my face. And it's because there's this individual snowflake mentality inside of most salespeople that that's why they got into sales. Right? Is they maybe weren't good at blueprints or they didn't do great in college, but they can hustle and they wanna make money.
Chris Stilwell:So for me, like, realistically, if you can look at the structure side of things and identify that that exists, it needs to exist. And if you have a tool like HubSpot, dude, that's I get, like, 90% of my customers to at least get the starter version of HubSpot because I tell them, like, if you can at least start structuring things a little bit better, know where your leads are, know basic deal stages, have an ability to send one or two emails in a snippet or a sequence to somebody, like, make your life a little easier, that will help you. But, additionally, if you don't have the skills to be able to take a person through a step by step sales process that's scripted with your ability to overcome objections, close a person on the spot, and know how to move on to the next steps so you can get paid in your organization works, you don't have a sales process.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I so, something I wanna I wanna get your your thoughts on. Right? I I think, in a lot of the the the work that I've done in HubSpot, the the wants and needs and desires of what the tool is gonna do seems to always be coming from leadership, from a place of, like, I wanna be able to see where the deals are, and I wanna be able to run these reports and see, you know, where things are getting held up and do all this stuff. Right?
Max Cohen:And it's always like, leadership wants this. Leadership wants this. Leadership wants this. And I feel like, you know, oftentimes, the CRM is is just kind of, like, looked at as the tool that the leadership and the non sellers use to just see what the heck the salespeople are doing. Right?
Max Cohen:And they wanna make sure they're, like, doing their job. Right? Yeah. Big brother. Right?
Max Cohen:And I feel like, you know, the the one thing that we always hear over and over and over and over again is why aren't my salespeople adopting our CRM? Like, why aren't they you know? And they're asking them. They're like, why aren't they using this, like, basically, you know, just intense level of surveillance thing to prove they're doing their job. Right?
Max Cohen:And, like, working in a way that may not be natural to them. Right? But, you know, I I know what HubSpot does. I've been a seller. I've sold I mean, I still sell in the current role that I'm in.
Max Cohen:Right, even though it's not a sales role per se. But that was my last role at HubSpot. I did it at Apple for four years. I've been a seller. I know as a seller, I can get a lot out of a CRM in terms of value for me to help me do my job.
Max Cohen:Right? But I'm also, like, a bit of, like, a technology nerd too as well as way too obsessed with a CRM system. So I'm very different than a lot of other sales reps. Right? So I see it.
Max Cohen:I get it. You've been a seller for a long time. Can we educate people listening to this? What their salespeople actually want and need, and what would actually be useful for them, and what might encourage them a little bit more to actually wanna use the system versus it being, oh, I have to. It's no.
Max Cohen:No. No. This helps me. Right? Like, what should folks going out, setting up a HubSpot, setting up a sales, setting up a whatever CRM.
Max Cohen:This is I don't think this is a HubSpot conversation. What what what should people setting up the CRM for their sales reps be thinking or knowing that the sales reps actually want out of it? What's gonna make it useful and, like, desirable for them to wanna work out of it? If they're not, like, a CRM nerd like me.
Chris Stilwell:HubSpot conversation and Sure. Sure.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna be saying, like, what value do they get out of CRM?
Chris Stilwell:Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I mean, if you if if you wanna look at it from perspective of, like, say, a HubSpot Gold member like myself who happened to achieve that in less than six months as being a partner. I I think that the way that you can look at it is is by saying looking at the tool for adoption purposes.
Chris Stilwell:So I I know I go back to sports a lot. And what you're talking about is analytics. And it's it's actually become a huge, huge part of sports. It's become a huge part of life. And the analytics is great to have there, the big brother, the, you know, how many did we do last month, how much money, all this stuff.
Chris Stilwell:But it cannot replace working with your people and teaching your people. And and, you know, every time you say leadership, I get the grossest feeling in my stomach because I personally feel like every business should only be two layer. Right? If you have a business that's more than two layer, you've got problems right off the rip. Get rid of the guy that you brought in there that told you that's necessary.
Chris Stilwell:Get rid of your middle level managers. Get rid of all of that. You should have employees. You should have managers. That should be it.
Chris Stilwell:If you have more levels than that, you're screwing up, and it's just gonna get worse and worse. By the way, your payroll's fat and heavy, and the people who are doing the work aren't getting the cash. It's the people in the middle. So what you have to do is stop avoiding the, you know, corporate buy in, the manager buy in, and you have to actually enable the staff. Now what does HubSpot say?
Chris Stilwell:Right? That you're supposed to align, enable, transform. But most people don't you guys hear me. I'm I'm drinking the Kool Aid. Trust me.
Chris Stilwell:I I I think the thing what it comes down to is most of these dealers and most people you work with don't know how to do that. So just for instance, I sold a HubSpot package to a guy six months ago. Right? He gave me $4,000 to set it up for him. I that $4,000 went in about two weeks.
Chris Stilwell:K? So I go back to him, go, okay. Well, now I gotta bill you for the rest of the time. He says, actually, I'm gonna have my daughter do it. Good luck with your with your company.
Chris Stilwell:I said, great. Well, I know the guy who's the lead sales guy there. They still don't have HubSpot set up, but the version of HubSpot that they have set up takes him twenty minutes extra on each customer he deals with. Now I have other businesses that have since bought that package from me, but fully integrated and gone all the way through with the process, and their quoting has dropped down from sixty minutes per call to twenty five minutes per call. Because they're getting so much pre information through forms, emails, and data aggregation, and they're also additionally adding in things like, you know, social, Facebook feedback, all that stuff, it's creating less of ability to have to communicate with the customer overwhelmingly, and you're able to actually focus on just the sales process.
Chris Stilwell:And when I'm saying sales process, I mean, just what solution are you looking for, and can I help you get that? Yeah. Not what product do you need, not what can I push on you, but what solution? So so by modernizing the process and and fully embracing a software like HubSpot, you will get success. But if you use 30% of it, you're probably just gonna cause yourself more problems and more headaches and then complain that it's not working later on.
Max Cohen:Yeah. So I think something that I heard oh, go
George B. Thomas:Go ahead, Max.
Max Cohen:One thing I wanted to hit on that I heard there and that I thought was, like, super interesting is you talked about having, like, all that information, like, ahead of time, like, the through the form fills, the emails, the this thing and that thing. I think it's like, you know, you're I think when you're when you're when your CRM enables your sales reps to have better conversations with people, and there's actually valuable information in there that can either kick start the conversation, give you something else to talk about, or a reason to get into a certain topic, or, you know, eliminate the need to ask a bunch of boring questions, you know, for for you know, and and stick to the good stuff. Like, to me, that's gonna give your folks a reason to wanna use it, to wanna adopt it. Right? It's like because there's information in there.
Max Cohen:Yep. There's information in there that I can't get anywhere else. Right? That I didn't have to go and scour the Internet for or whatever it may be. It's right at my fingertips.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, so I'm just I'm hoping when people are listening to this, it's like, dude, like, you should be building like, when you get your CRM, step one shouldn't be, I just need to see what my sales reps are doing. It should be, I need to create something useful for my sales reps to use so they're using it in the first place, and then you can watch what they're doing. Right? You can't watch what they're doing if they're not doing it in there already.
Max Cohen:Right? And you're not giving them a reason to wanna do it in there. Right? So, you know, everyone listening to this. Like, think of that for like, solve for the adoption and the value it adds back to your employees day to day in a meaningful way before you start trying to extracting all the freaking, you know, crazy vanity metrics and whatever it is that you wanna see out of it.
Max Cohen:You know what I mean? So
George B. Thomas:So, Max, are you saying that you need to focus on the The human? And you need to solve the internal Human. Problems for them to actually adopt the system? That's absolutely amazing. Now I wanna dive into a couple things that are are happening here.
George B. Thomas:One, Chris, I hope you asked this gentleman if he also let his daughter play with dynamite in her spare time because that's about how effective that's gonna go down with the CRM too.
Chris Stilwell:That's what happened. The other
George B. Thomas:piece of this, though, I I can't let go of it. I've tried to let go of it. I know we've kind of moved forward. But you talked about structure and skills. And I said, okay.
George B. Thomas:I'm down with it. The structure, CRM, deal stages, pipeline, skills. I actually know how to communicate. I'm a good human. I'm servanthood mentality.
George B. Thomas:I got you. But you slip this other piece in, bro, where I was like, wait a second. You said structure your day. And I was like, what the does he mean by that? Like, are there certain Okay.
George B. Thomas:You, Max, with a beep. Are there certain things that I should be doing in the morning, while I'm eating lunch at, like,
Chris Stilwell:like right?
George B. Thomas:Like, what what what the freak did he mean when he said structure your day in conjunction with skills and structure? Exactly.
Chris Stilwell:So I wanna get into this. Now I'm just gonna give you guys a little insight into me, get a little heavy here. I used to be a pretty hardcore drug addict. One of the crazy things about being in sales is that you have constant access to a whole lot of money really quickly if you're really good at it. So ever since I was literally in high school and selling door to door, I've been using heavy cocaine, heroin, meth, the good stuff for years and years.
Chris Stilwell:Right? And it was bad. It was, like, it was so bad. But what it taught me, and I'll teach you, all guys, is now great. I forgot a lot of time.
Chris Stilwell:I've been doing really good. But the last seven, eight years have been great. And I I'll tell you, the the one thing it teaches you is you gotta get high every day. Right? So I gotta hustle.
Chris Stilwell:I gotta build a process. I gotta build a procedure to make sure with even nothing, sometimes homeless, I still gotta get high. And that's how I look at sales. I look at it like if I can look at tomorrow and say, okay. If I'm up at five, I'm in the shower by 05:30, I'm out the door by 06:15, I finish at the gym by 07:30, I'm changed and ready to go by eight.
Chris Stilwell:I've already accomplished more in the morning by 08:00 than 90% of people I'm gonna deal with for that day. Right? So I'm already way ahead of all of you. So where you're thinking about, I gotta get to the gym. I gotta do all this other stuff.
Chris Stilwell:It's 08:00. You're not even ready for work. I'm already halfway done with my day. Then I gotta think about how I'm gonna use my day for work. So this is what I'm trying to tell you.
Chris Stilwell:Do not put yourself in a situation where your calendar is available all the time. You should have specific slotted things that you're able to do at certain times. Right? And what I'm saying is is this needs to be a daily activity. Like I said, the drug addict thing, you gotta get high every day.
Chris Stilwell:Right? You can't really take days off. Those aren't the greatest days. I don't know if you guys know anybody, but it's not a good time. Right?
Chris Stilwell:So my mentality always is I have to think about how I'm gonna get that tomorrow. So what I do is I sit down every night, and I plan out my next day. Now I am the least structured person you ever met in your life, except for I have to structure myself artificially. I have to create an artificial framework for myself that I have to follow because, man, I'm a light switch. I'm either on or off.
Chris Stilwell:It's either a % structure or zero structure. So first thing I always say is start your day early, get up, get your shit done that you would be thinking about for the rest of the day. Oh, I get out of work. I gotta go to the gym. I gotta go to the store.
Chris Stilwell:I gotta do these things. No. Those are weighing you down. Get those things done in the morning. Clear your day up, and then push through the rest of the day through a structured style.
Chris Stilwell:Now I just talked to a gentleman. One of my clients, Cody, great guy, works in Texas. He sells generators. Dude, he'll he'll take an appointment anytime you could give him one, which is great. But then when are you calling back your appointments from yesterday?
Chris Stilwell:When are you calling your new appointments for tomorrow? When are you sitting down and looking through your emails to make sure you didn't miss anything? When are your follow-up calls scheduled with other customers? When are you doing your permits and your GIS maps? And his thing back to me is, oh, I I do that all when I get time.
Chris Stilwell:Now this is the difference between a structured person. Now you can tell why he's taking my courses. Right? It's because what I'm trying to teach him is, hey. Look, man.
Chris Stilwell:You have all the skills in the world, and you can crush it. But that time that you spend task switching back and forth throughout the day of putting on a different hat of, I'm the guy who does the installs. I'm the guy who does the sales. I'm the guy who answers the phone. I'm the one who takes your check.
Chris Stilwell:I'm the one who schedules your appointment. How how can you do all that stuff? Right? So I I I think that that's where, like, we we find the the biggest disconnect and the biggest problem with structure is people thinking they're structured but not realizing they're actually planning nothing out. You know?
Chris Stilwell:So if you wanna go after that bag every day, if you wanna go after that cash every day, you should be spending every single night, fifteen to twenty minutes, looking at your next day and literally planning out step by step what you're gonna do. Oh, eight to 9AM, I'm gonna follow-up on emails from yesterday. Now nine to twelve, those are income producing times. I'm making outgoing calls. I've got two appointments scheduled.
Chris Stilwell:I'm shutting my Facebook off. My phone's on do not disturb. I'm making money. Twelve to one, I got lunch, but it's a lunch out with somebody else. So I know you know?
Chris Stilwell:Like, it's it's that kinda it's that kinda thing. Not for one day, not for two days, but literally every single day and get consistent with it, you'll see an absolute change. %.
George B. Thomas:It's so interesting. So first of all, before we keep just rolling on through like we would on a normal podcast, I wanna say, Chris, first of all, thank you for sharing your story. Because as soon as you started to go into that, I was like, man, homeboy's being vulnerable. And by the way, you can't have a testimony if you haven't had a test. And so taking those life lessons and moving forward with that is absolutely freaking amazing.
George B. Thomas:And and where I go to is the other thing that came to my brain is, man, Chris is really preaching. You you have to know yourself. The fact that you realize you're a light switch all the way on or all the way off and even the way that you were talking about Cody Yes. And when his kind of pitfalls, downfalls, it's like, listen. If you're a sales rep and you're listening to this, take some time, sit at the base of a tree, and get to know yourself and what you need to put in your day.
George B. Thomas:And I think that's why that structure your day tickled my fancy so much as I I'm like, we gotta dig into that bad boy. But you also mentioned another piece, and and, Max, Devin, both of you are very digital savvy, definitely in the digital space. I'm curious on your thoughts on this too because what I what I wanna dive into is you even mentioned social. Right? And earlier, you mentioned, Chris, this, dial and smile, which is like there there's like that one way.
George B. Thomas:And by the way, we'll talk about old school out of date sales tactics. Here, that's one of the questions we're gonna get to. But I wanna dive into this, sure, structure, skill. This is what a good sales process looks like. How the freak do you do how do you, Chris?
George B. Thomas:How do you, Devin? How do you, Max? All of us are kind of in these roles or have been in these roles. How do you do this on social? How do you do social selling or think about social selling, from a digital social standpoint or even from, like, a networking out in other places social?
George B. Thomas:I don't care which direction you go. Well, I kinda do because I'm talking about, like, the virtual digital version of this. Like, talk
Max Cohen:me through
George B. Thomas:that and how that doesn't come across as, like, this, oh, he was just trying to sell me some ish.
Chris Stilwell:Well, I think the first thing is you you have to realize that most people that you're selling to wanna know one thing. They wanna know a price. They wanna price qualify you before they can talk to you. Why? Because most people who are selling a product are are pretty sure that their product is gonna work.
Chris Stilwell:They wanna push their product. So the first thing you have to do is pump the brakes. Find out if the person you're talking to, if it can even work for them. Are you gonna figure out if it might even help them? I don't wanna sell you HubSpot if if you already have Jobber.
Chris Stilwell:You know? Why? Just because it does emails and the other one doesn't? Alright. Cool.
Chris Stilwell:But is that gonna help you? No. That's how I wanna look at it. So I I I I'm kind of I'm kind of torn because, you know, the way I I always wanna look at these kind of things is, like, how how am I being helpful towards myself, and and kinda towards towards the whole structure. I mean, for you, how do you handle it, George, on a daily basis?
George B. Thomas:I mean, I ask the question because for me, this is a little bit of a I I sometimes feel like I love how I just got thrown on the therapy couch like that.
Max Cohen:Uno reverse.
George B. Thomas:I yeah. It's like But I'm good. Here. Draw four cards. Anyway, so here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:I feel like many times, I lean very much on the it's time for me not to sell and time for me to serve, I feel like I'd land there. And sometimes I am looking at myself going, dang on it. Like, you just missed an opportunity, or should you have been in sales mode? And I just battle with that when it comes to, you know, somebody hits you up on LinkedIn. It's a very valuable question.
George B. Thomas:You know you know the answer. Do you go into servant mode and just give them the answer and say, yes. Schedule fifteen minutes with me and go, Or do you kick it into sales mode and say, yeah. You could buy some consulting hours over here. Two totally different paths.
George B. Thomas:Actually, those paths might lead to the same place, but it's a conundrum in my freaking brain that I can't let go of. And that's why, Chris, the question was to you and to the guys, like, what the what? Nah. What did my brain do here?
Chris Stilwell:Yeah. Well,
Devyn Bellamy:let me jump into that one real quick if I can. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Cool.
Devyn Bellamy:Because because that's that's my happy place, is, is is social selling. For me, I do both. So the whole time we're having a conversation, I'm listening for opportunities. I'm listening for places, and then I'm asking questions. I will spend the first at least half of whatever engagement I'm having doing a combination of letting you taste the sauce, but then also finding out what you're hungry for.
Devyn Bellamy:And then what I'm gonna do is I'm a be like, okay. Well, it sounds like you need this, this, that, and this. We could talk about it more and then just go from there. But for me, it's it's it's about just having a conversation with the mindset that I'm gonna help, but also that, the game is sold not told. So I'm going to help you.
Devyn Bellamy:And then and then in other ways, I'm gonna educate you in a manner that you understand that you are not the person who needs to fix this problem. I can teach someone can teach me enough about my car to know that hell no I ain't gonna fix it. Like, do I know how to run brake lines? Do do I know all the parts of a brake system? Absolutely.
Devyn Bellamy:Am I gonna do it? Absolutely not. Because after all that time I spent on YouTube learning how to bend copper tubes and then run them through the hell no. No. No.
Devyn Bellamy:Shut up and take my money. So when I'm having those conversations, that's that's that's part of it. Like like, when I was doing HubSpot onboarding, one of the things I would do is, like, yeah. I'm a teach you the tool. But the whole time I'm teaching you the tool, I'm also learning about you.
Devyn Bellamy:I'm learning about your organization. I'm learning about your cats. I'm learning about everything. Because what I wanna do is I want to not only get to know you on a personal level so we have a connection and we have that trust, but I wanna know what's keeping you up at night. I wanna know what the problem behind the problem is, what you're really trying to solve for.
Devyn Bellamy:And then it's like, you know, we talked about this, this, that, and this. I think this is some of the things that could help, and I can break it down for you all you want. But, like, I I've had, like, two different, onboardings where I'm teaching them, and then halfway through, it's like, you know what? I don't wanna do this ish. I don't I'm not the person.
Devyn Bellamy:Can you do it? Mhmm. It's like, yeah. Let's wrap up this thirteen week, thing, and then I'm allowed to talk to you about it. But, yeah, let's just sit in the back of the head.
Devyn Bellamy:Yeah. But, yeah, when it comes to social selling and then that and and then this is when it comes to the true. If you are hardcore servant, when you are talking to someone about a problem they have and you are not the person that can solve it for them, I will immediately connect them with someone who can. Unless I know enough about the problem to hire the person that can fix it, and then I could just make my little thing and you'd be the project manager and all that. But either way, it's like one of the things that I do is, like, with with me, it's not just social selling, but I I will definitely feed other people and and shoot them like, yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:And then people shoot me stuff. Like, some of my biggest contracts have been from a friend of a friend who know I can get down and do what they need me to do.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I got it.
Chris Stilwell:I love that. I'll tell you, I built my business a % on networking. So far, my business is built a % on networking. I have all of my initial clients I met at BNI groups. When I first started my business, the first thing I did is join the BNI group, and I also took one of my partners and put him in a BNI group too.
Chris Stilwell:And we started networking. Now as far as social's concerned, George, I get where you're coming from. You're kinda trying to figure out is this a sales conversation, is it not? But go back to what I said before, help and what Devon was saying, help. That's the number one thing.
Chris Stilwell:Right? Now we say it you'll say it to your clients about creating content, won't you? Oh, get out there. Be a thought leader. Help people.
Chris Stilwell:Make them think differently. Now once it gets to sales, all of a sudden it has to become transactional. No. And now, ultimately, this is gonna answer Max's question from earlier. This is where you need an actual sales process.
Chris Stilwell:So
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Chris Stilwell:If you guys were to become, like, a client with TSSG, what you would learn is one thing that we teach is called our five step accelerator. And what that basically does is teaches you how to have a conversation with a person, just a conversation. Some of you guys might call it a sales call. But it's a conversation with a person where you figure out some information about them to build gravity around their situation so they can understand the problems they're actually going through and how your possible solution could get them to the results they want in the future. So just to give you a quick rundown, and people can use this in every conversation you have with somebody.
Chris Stilwell:You could use it on a date. You could use it to get a job. You could use it to order your food. Right? First thing I wanna do is I wanna establish my expertise.
Chris Stilwell:Real quick, I wanna make sure you understand, hey. I know what I'm talking about. I don't have to do it by reading you my resume or telling you my background, but I wanna do it by the way I handle myself, by the way I present myself. Right? Be an expert.
Chris Stilwell:Be a human. That's number one. Second thing you wanna do with every person is engage them and understand them. Flip every conversation around. Now it's gonna be tough to do.
Chris Stilwell:I know people love talking about themselves. God knows I do. I'm an absolute narcissist. I would drown in a pond instantly. But what I'm trying to say is that if you're in a situation with a customer or even another human, you wanna switch it to them.
Chris Stilwell:I wanna engage you. I wanna understand you. Then once I found out a little bit about what your real situation is, I want to talk about your issues and how those issues impact you. It's one thing to find out that you guys are having problems with your marketing. It's a whole another thing to find out that the problems with your marketing have caused a decrease in the show rates to your appointments, which are actually overall hurting the company when it comes to the sales structure.
Chris Stilwell:And we might have to look at cutting back over the next year because we're not gonna hit our projected goals. And some of the people they're gonna let go, I worked with since day one. Wow. That's more than just a problem with marketing, isn't it? But how would I find that out if I don't really have the skills to probe deep enough to have someone give me that?
Chris Stilwell:Now, guys, that's three steps. Now it gets easy from here. Once I find out what your problems are, what do you think a solution would be? Alright? Like, what do you want to fix this?
Chris Stilwell:And if you do fix this, what does success look like for you? I mean, it's one thing to talk like, yeah. I want my car fixed. Okay. Great.
Chris Stilwell:But does that mean that the brakes still squeal and it handles kind of funny? Or does that mean that the whole thing is riding brand new? I have to figure out what's gonna make you leave the lot happy. And finally, before I talk product at all, before I even say that my solution actually can help you, I need to figure out what's been holding you back. And the fifth step, the most important step in my entire process is called igniting urgency.
Chris Stilwell:Basically, learning how to talk with people and saying to them, there is a consequence if you don't move forward with this. What do you think those consequences are, and are you willing to deal with them? And most people really aren't. But the problem with most sales processes, they're so focused and based on the product or logical that they don't actually have a conversation with a customer. So what I like to teach is just basic conversation skills that you can translate into a sales process through five easy questions, and you'll understand everything a customer's going through.
George B. Thomas:I love that's maybe a rewind point. Alright. Time flies when you're having fun. We're gonna do rapid fire. And what I wanna end with is the most outdated sales tactics that you've been part of or seen happen to you and that you're you just wanna get on your pedestal and say, stop it.
George B. Thomas:Stop it. So the dev is already getting excited. So let's go ahead and do this rapid fire, and then we'll let the, hub heroes get back to their regularly scheduled day. So who wants to go first?
Devyn Bellamy:I'm going first. I'm going first. Stop saying my name in every other sentence. This is not 1990. You are not the wolf of Wall Street.
Devyn Bellamy:Stop saying, well, Devin. Listen, Devin. Here's the thing, Devin. I know my name. I know we're we're we're having a conversation.
Devyn Bellamy:Ain't nobody else in this damn room. I need you to remind me what my damn name is, or you tell me what my no. We're we're not this is not a a a cold sales call from from, dot Roto shut up. Just stop. I'm oh my god.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh. That's oh, that burns me, man. I will never forget, man, this dude from this accounting company whose name I I will say all I'll say is that accounting is in their name, and it may be a phone number. But check this out. This dude, he kept like, he called me, didn't care what I needed, and then kept saying my name over and over again, and then said, okay.
Devyn Bellamy:What we'll need to do is we'll just need to take a credit card to hold your position. Not telling me that he's gonna be authorizing a thousand dollars, 12 hundred dollars, but that didn't annoy me as much as him saying my goddamn name over and over again. Oh my god. Stop it. Stop it.
Devyn Bellamy:Stop it.
Chris Stilwell:I
George B. Thomas:love that so much. So, Devin, how are you doing, Devin? Are you are you calm down now, Devin?
Devyn Bellamy:I feel like this this mane right here, just little I'm I'm trying to bring it back in. Trying to bring it back in.
Max Cohen:I need a cigarette. Man.
George B. Thomas:I was waiting for Max's, that's hot. Like, just show up.
Max Cohen:There it is.
George B. Thomas:Alright. Who's next?
Max Cohen:Oh, man. Devin screaming at me just, like, erased my brain. I think the outdated dude, I I don't know. I'm I I'm I right now, I'm I'm just going back to this time at HubSpot when,
Devyn Bellamy:you know,
Max Cohen:economy was a little tough and sales leadership was getting freaked out and scared about hitting numbers and this and that. And, like, the answer is, just you must make x amount of calls per day, and you gotta just drift through them and just go through. And it's just like and just qual the quantity of calls to me just never seems like the answer. Right? And just making calls just to make calls, I I get that there's gonna be a lot of people out there that disagree with me.
Max Cohen:Right? But it's just like, you know, you you get some dude to pick up the phone 45 times and you talk to somebody once. Is it really worth all that effort? Could there have been something else they could have been doing that would have been better with their a better use of their time that wasn't grinding them into dust and just making them hate their soul, and potentially annoying a shitload of people that just never should have got on the phone with you in the first place. There's always gotta be a better way.
Max Cohen:So it's just, you know, a whole call blitzing or artificial, like, numbers to to make up for or I get I don't know. It's just it is yeah. It's just it just it's way too many calls and just making too many calls just to make the calls is just I don't know. It's silly.
Chris Stilwell:I agree with it, Max. To tell you the truth, that's that's when you get that old school saying people say sales is a numbers game. Yeah. Sales is a numbers game to people who are bad at it. Exactly.
Chris Stilwell:You know what I mean? Yeah. But if you're good at it, it's absolutely not a numbers game. It's a skills game. Yeah.
Chris Stilwell:So so I'll tell you, George. My and people are gonna absolutely hate this. I'm telling you. I'm gonna have so many so many haters on this. But the the lamest, most disgusting, and despicable sales tactic that exists is building rapport.
Chris Stilwell:I hear that phrase, and I get disgusted. Finding out, oh, hey. You like the Mets too? I also love the Mets. Oh, I heard you guys go on vacation in Aruba.
Chris Stilwell:I'm heading to Aruba this summer. Oh, your mom's from Vermont? I love Vermont. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen done. I went to a sales call with a guy one time.
Chris Stilwell:Within three minutes, he loved Chevys, the Mets, and the same high school that that guy's wife went to. A guy he didn't drive a Chevy. He was a Yankees fan, and I don't even think he graduated middle school. All it comes down to is it's a bad tactic that people who don't have the correct structure or skills use. I love this.
Chris Stilwell:I have guys tell me all the time, people buy from me because they like me. Wow. So you're saying that you're closing at 40%. Sixty % of people don't like you? Because if people are only buying from you because they like you, that means they're only not buying from you because they don't like you.
Chris Stilwell:So building rapport or as I call it conning people isn't something that I'm a huge fan of. I'm more of a fan of having a sales process in place in being an expert in something that I could help somebody solve their problems through my possible solution. That's a sales process. Faking that I like the Mets just so that you'll like me, that's not a process. Stat.
Devyn Bellamy:Is in stat trying to raise my blood pressure,
Max Cohen:man. Yeah. I think report report should be a byproduct of building trust.
Chris Stilwell:Well, of
Max Cohen:being yeah. Think that yeah. Dude, like That's fine.
Chris Stilwell:Yeah. Yeah. Artificially building rapport based upon similarities isn't gonna get you.
Max Cohen:Rapport should have been something that you both have built together.
George B. Thomas:Yes.
Max Cohen:Right? You don't build a house by yourself. Right? You don't build a rapport by yourself. Right?
Max Cohen:Yeah. You can you can make an active effort to build trust with someone, and that would a a good step in that direction is not saying you like the Mets when you actually don't like the Mets. Right? Exactly. Exactly.
Max Cohen:Like, if they like the Mets, you tell them you hate the Mets if you're not a Mets fan. That's fine. Be honest with them. Build some trust. Right?
Max Cohen:Like, you don't need to, you know well, I see that we both breathe air. I figured I'd reach out so we can share some collaboration opportunities.
Devyn Bellamy:It's one thing when you're nerding out together about something, but it like, if someone's from the Bay Area and they just move there, and then I talk about I've lived in the Bay Area. I grew up in the Bay Area. Do you wanna come back? Heck no. And I will I will all day, we we can have a conversation where we're genuinely nerding out about something we actually care about.
Devyn Bellamy:And even if there's friction and hilarity there, that's great. But if I just I just wanna be your friend and and, like like Chad said, hi, Devin. I love video editing, Devin. You you love video editing. That's great.
Devyn Bellamy:And it's like, no. You you you you can go to hell.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Stilwell:Just tell me on the Yeah.
Max Cohen:I just got this I just got this DM that says, I'm impressed by your profile and our shared interest in sales. Let's explore potential collaboration opportunities. Excited to exchange insights with you. No. You're not.
Max Cohen:You. No. You're not, dude. Lock him on.
George B. Thomas:So this is this is a great segue into mine, and then I'll close this out. The the most outdated tactic that I see is sales are trying to sell with blinders on. Meaning, they don't understand me. They don't understand my inbox. They don't understand the things that I'm going through.
George B. Thomas:Because I can tell you there are at least 27 salespeople that have put me in a sequence of four emails around the fact that they can help people who are agency owners get more leads into their pipeline. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't need more leads. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't need more pipeline. My problem is that I need more people to help me do the work that we're already closing. And the fact that I'm in a four email sequence for 27 different sales reps that can give me a thing that I don't need and all of them sound the same, they listen to some guru tell them that this is the way to do it.
George B. Thomas:And it's like, oh, I know that your other email, you might have missed it because you're so busy. No. I ignored it because you pissed me off. Like, that's like so take off the blinders, and it does come all back down to conversation, building trust, being human. Like, that's the way to move forward with the process, with the skills, with the structure, with everything that we've talked about today.
Max Cohen:George, before we end before we end, real quick
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Max Cohen:Can I can I I didn't I didn't chime in on the social selling thing? Yeah. But I think it's like this is like a a you know, we just talked about don't create this, like, artificial conversations with people who don't wanna have them. Right? The social selling side of stuff, right, You may you may have those moments when you're in these sales calls and you guys are, you know, you find a really, really great fit between the problem that the person has and something that your product does.
Max Cohen:And it's this magical moment where it's like, oh, I understand what you said your challenge was. Here's this really cool way that you can solve it. Here it works. They go, oh, that's great. That's awesome.
Max Cohen:And, like, maybe they buy or maybe they don't, but you probably sit there with yourself saying, man, I really wish I could have a lot more conversations like this. Well, dude, social selling is literally just going out and having those conversations with the world. And the people that actually wanna continue the conversation with you, they'll get in touch with you. Right? When I was outgoing in, like, I was a sales engineer.
Max Cohen:Right? And I realized this. I'm like, man, this is, like, a really cool thing we did on, like, a sales call. And then I would go out and just make a video about it or, like, give some advice about it, and I would just sit there saying, this is why this HubSpot thing is so freaking cool. I'm not trying to sell you something.
Max Cohen:I'm just showing you why I think this shit is awesome. But I was talking about some problem that somebody had. Right? And what happened is when I put that content out there, guess what? People with the same problem saw it, and then they would DM me being like, oh, I wanna buy that.
Max Cohen:Who can I talk to you? And I go, no. You talk to salespeople, and I would get them in touch with the salespeople. But, dude, I had people coming to me every day, and I constantly have to be, like, reaching out to managers and being like, do you is this your territory? Do you guys do the?
Max Cohen:Who's supposed to handle it? And I would just be sending people all over the place. Dude, and all I was doing was going out there and having the conversations I wish I was having on the phone with customers with myself showing people how cool my shit is. Right? Dude, social selling is not that difficult.
Max Cohen:If you're not having the conversations you wanna have with customers over the phone, go do it with yourself, record it on a loom or something, and go put it on LinkedIn. And the people that watch it, guess what? They're having that conversation with you. Right? And the people who wanna continue it, they'll hit you up.
George B. Thomas:Interesting. As we close out, my simple brain says what I just heard is create content that starts conversations so that you can help humans do the thing that they're trying to do anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, we're out. See you next week. Okay, hub heroes.
George B. Thomas:We've reached the end of another episode. Will lord lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes. FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox, and they come with some hidden power up potential as well.
George B. Thomas:Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag, hashtag hub euros podcast, on any of the socials, and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and, of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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