Making Change Happen with Sales Teams, featuring Doug Davidoff
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? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack? Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge.
Intro: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. Before we begin, we Nope.
George B. Thomas:Nope. Nope. Not doing that. There's no need for that. Devin is not here.
Max Cohen:Heck, Max
Liz Moorhead:We've been abandoned.
George B. Thomas:We've been abandoned by Devin. We miss him. We love you, bro. We can't wait till you're back. Max will be probably joining us partway through this because life be lifing.
George B. Thomas:But I'm super excited because my friend is here. Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you gather around as we welcome a true maestro of business growth to the Hub Heroes podcast. Today, we're thrilled to introduce Doug Davidoff, the brilliant mind behind lift enablement. With over two decades of experience, Doug has been the guiding force for countless companies, helping them scale to new heights and achieve phenomenal success. He's an acclaimed author, a sought after adviser.
George B. Thomas:Heck, he's even been an inbound speaker side by side with me as we battled it out. And, of course, Doug, you know I won, and dynamic thought leader in the world of business enablement. Get ready for an insightful conversation today packed with wisdom from one of us. We'll figure out how this goes and actionable strategies. Ladies and gentlemen, please join us in welcoming Doug David up.
George B. Thomas:Doug, how the heck are you doing, brother?
Doug Davidoff:I I am good. I'm good. I'm psyched to be here. Your you the introduction, I was looking around for who the guest was.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's you, my dude.
Liz Moorhead:It's me, actually. Just Yeah. Oh, I
Doug Davidoff:was gonna say, Liz, that's where the wisdom is definitely coming from. There's no question about that. And I'm glad
Liz Moorhead:to see everywhere.
Doug Davidoff:I'm glad to see that my reputation and and mannerism continues to stand up. If you wanna clear the room, just bring Doug on because, you see, we got no Max. We got no Devon. My work here is done.
Liz Moorhead:I love it. You know, George, you know what else I love about that? I love how you took my line in the, outline of George intro Doug here. Yeah. And just like man, you are Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:You are stellar at stage direction. I really appreciate that.
George B. Thomas:Listen. I may or may not have done some MCing along the way at some events. And so as soon as I saw intro Dope Human two podcast, I knew exactly what to do, Liz. Exactly.
Doug Davidoff:Well, I just wanna know. Do you ever do you remember the movie along came Polly, and you had Philip Seymour Hoffman with the E Entertainment crew following him, etcetera? I'm like, George, could you just, like, accompany me before I go anywhere and and just, like, let people know before I walk into the room, that that I I'm ready.
George B. Thomas:I'll be the guy with, like, the big trumpet. Ladies and gentlemen.
Liz Moorhead:I'll just be the personality hire here wrangling people. That's just my job.
George B. Thomas:You go.
Liz Moorhead:That's what I do.
George B. Thomas:There you go.
Liz Moorhead:Professional wrangler. In in fact, speaking of wrangling, gentlemen, I wanna get down to business because, Doug, we don't just have you here because we love you, although that is a big reason. Plus, again, the aforementioned cap. We have very specific topic we need to discuss today, and that is making change happen within sales teams. So I'm gonna read a few quotes that I wanna throw out here that may or may not be inspired by true events.
Liz Moorhead:Getting our sales team to change anything about what they do is like pulling teeth. Good luck trying to get sales on board with that new initiative of yours. Look. The sales team, they're just set in their ways. Don't just just don't get don't get your hopes up.
Liz Moorhead:I know I'm not the only one who's overheard folks in marketing or on other teams talk like this about sales teams. There's this stereotype that paints people in sales as these resistant little buttheads who are anti progress, anti teamwork, anti forward movement. Like, anytime you wanna do something fun with technology or, like, trying to innovate, sales that no. It's the worst. And I will I I I'm not saying this pointing fingers because I used to be one of these people many moons ago.
Liz Moorhead:So one day when I was still working at Impact, I had been the content strategist on the marketing team. The VP of sales at the time, Tom Decipio, said, Liz, you've been doing such an incredible job. I'm like, yay. Thank you. That's awesome.
Liz Moorhead:He says, so we'd like you to come be the dedicated sales, content strategist for the sales team. And George, as you know, I'm really good at keeping my filter on my mouth. And Tom will validate this story. If you know him, he will validate it. I blurted out without thinking, am I being punished?
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Liz Moorhead:And that was probably the most transformative nine months of my entire career. It changed completely how I think about sales and how I think about sales teams and kind of understanding where they're coming from. So what we're gonna be talking about today is digging into this. Are these stereotypes true, or is there a deeper and more nuanced story here? What's actually happening between sales and other teams, and what are the changes we should all be looking at together?
Liz Moorhead:Now to start off this conversation, Doug, I actually want to call back to I want you to take us to the 80,000 foot view of what's happening right now with all of us before we get into the sales specific piece. Because when you and I spoke in preparation for this episode, you painted an incredibly vivid picture of the challenges all teams are facing within organizations right now with everything that's happening, whether that's economic or technology and why it matters to this conversation. So can you start us there, paint that picture for us?
Doug Davidoff:Yeah. I just wanted to say something before I get into it, which is if if you think what you said that marketers say about salespeople's bag, you should hear what salespeople say about salespeople.
Liz Moorhead:They said it back to my face, so I got it right back to me.
Doug Davidoff:Well, I'm not talking about what salespeople say to marketers. I'm talking about what salespeople. That's what I am talking about, Max. That is what I right there.
George B. Thomas:Look who's got He's got the I've had those in
Doug Davidoff:January Yeah. But it's on my desk every day.
Max Cohen:What's up, baby?
George B. Thomas:Go ahead, Doug.
Doug Davidoff:Well and that's just brought up my favorite topic.
Intro:Your book?
Doug Davidoff:That's right. Exactly. Yeah. So so, you know, if if we take a step back and we think about what's going on in the world today, I don't know about you all, but I'm tired. Just just standing around is just exhausting.
Doug Davidoff:You know, I I I had a coach early in my career who who taught me. He said, Doug, every decision somebody makes is the representation of their prediction of the future. Right? It's it's their bet on the future. So when I feel good, I make decisions.
Doug Davidoff:I'm I'm moving forward. I buy a new car, buy a new boat. What whatever it might be, I'm feeling good things are going on. Right? And and and so that's how I know I'm confident.
Doug Davidoff:That's why consumer confidence, you know, is is is so crucially important. And and even though, you know, we we live primarily in a b to b world, you tell me what's going on with the consumer, I can tell you a lot about what else is happening. And and the difficulty is I think it was, Gary Vaynerchuk who's gotten credited for, if if content if content is king, then context is God. And if we think about context, there is none today. The the the proverbial checkerboard has been taken up and thrown in into, you know, the sky, and we're all trying to figure out what are the rule.
Doug Davidoff:You you see this in a lot of places. First off, we've had at least three once in a generation events in the last twenty years. Right? And and and the last four years, I have never seen a transformation of the world we live in like we've seen in the last four years. We went from a pandemic that was supposed to wipe out everything that ended up creating massive amounts of demand.
Doug Davidoff:I don't mean to get overly geeky here, but put massive money into the market. We saw, you know, the world, quote, unquote, changed. It I don't know if you guys look at any of these economic charts. But but literally, if if you're offline, you can you you know exactly when the pandemic started because there was a drop down. But now, you know, roughly four years later, we're back to the place we were in terms of what the trend was going.
Doug Davidoff:By the way, if you were online, you know what day the pandemic started because there was a massive uptick, and we're back down to those trends. So, like, all these changes that happen, we've seen a reversion to the mean. But the thing that doesn't get enough credit for for why we're in this place where and we we call it the macroeconomic environment and what's happening, etcetera, is we went from money literally being free, zero interest rate policies that that basically meant if you were a business and you weren't spending money, you were being foolish. You had to spend money. To now, money costs something, which has radically changed how our business is valued, what's happening.
Doug Davidoff:So whether you're a public company, a private company, whether you're seeking funding, you don't know what winning is anymore, and that's that's impacting you in whatever company you're in. What's the game that they're playing? Where are you going? And even more so, what's happening with your customer. I have never seen a market, and I've been selling for thirty years.
Doug Davidoff:I have never seen a market that is as disrupted and difficult as this market. The great recession was hard. It was bad. Everything was bad. We're not really I mean, if you look at the economy, we're not in a bad economy, but it's operating very much like a bad economy.
Doug Davidoff:And when you're the salesperson, it's your responsibility to make sense of that, and it's really hard to do that. So so you're you're already in this environment of just massive, massive disruption. And I think that's what's what's kind of taking that that and and by the way, the person that that impacts more than anybody else is is the salesperson. It impacts their comp. It impacts their vacation schedule.
Doug Davidoff:It impacts their self image. All of those things are going on because they're dealing at the individual conversation by conversation by conversation.
Liz Moorhead:George, talk to me a bit. What are because you spend a lot of time with organizations, whether you're we're especially in a training capacity, an onboarding capacity, not just now, obviously, as the owner of psychic strategies, but this is something you've been doing for for over a decade. Yeah. Have you been hearing or seeing what Doug is talking about mirrored in the interactions you are having with sales teams currently?
George B. Thomas:I mean, I have to say without a doubt, it definitely has been very interesting to watch how, the Humans. Have been acting over, the last four years, but even I would say there's there's light indications before, but stronger indications during the time that Doug's talking about where it it almost feels like I'll use the word scrambling. And and I think they're scrambling to figure out what's gonna work. They're scrambling to understand what tools to use. They're scrambling to, keep up with the knowledge of everything that's changing.
George B. Thomas:I mean, what's amazing is Doug did that entire section, and we didn't even talk about AI and what that is actually doing inside of sales teams and inside of organizations. And and the next level of, like and, again, not to get weird or funky or political, but let's keep them confused. Let's keep like, let's get them on their hamster wheel. And so what's fun when we engage with sales teams is we usually find one of two things are happening. There's usually a 60 to 70%, of the sales team that is bought in, ready to rock and roll, wants to learn because they're, like Doug said, tired of the rat race and the scrambling and the, like, constant, like, like, feel in their life.
George B. Thomas:And so they're, like, heads down, body in, and we're training them on HubSpot, the tools, how to buy back their time, how to optimize, what it's gonna do to help them sell more. Because, by the way, if they sell more and more of that money is in their pocket, if more of that money is in their pocket, their family's blessed. If their family's best blessed, they're not stressed. And a lot of what Doug talks about kind of changes and goes away. But there's there's this portion that and I can't wait for Doug to talk about this.
George B. Thomas:There's this portion that we've always found that for some unknown reason and and it's hard for me because I'm a I'm a person who loves to pivot. I've been called a transition specialist through my career, but there's this portion of the sales team or the humans who have their heels in the dirt, and they're holding on to cement weighted ropes, and they're like, I love my spreadsheet. I like the old system. Can we build the old system in house class?
Liz Moorhead:A client who talks to us on a regular basis about that spreadsheet. He will never
George B. Thomas:I'm like
Liz Moorhead:let go of. He's so proud of it. It's so aggressively colored.
George B. Thomas:I'm like, please help me right now. I'm like, I'm good. And and I don't, you know, I don't that's part of this conversation. I wanna understand, like, how do we how do we help that portion of the sales team move forward? Is it worth it?
George B. Thomas:Doug Doug always surprises me with his answers. I'll never forget. One time we're having a conversation about sales and marketing alignment. He's like, they shouldn't be aligned. Shut up.
George B. Thomas:And I'm like, wait. What? So so I so I can't wait to hear. Like, you remember that, Max? On on the see, by the way, Liz, I don't know if you know that Max, Doug, and I, and Remington, and then Julie for a while did a podcast together when I was back at Impulse Creative.
George B. Thomas:So it's not the
Liz Moorhead:first refuse to accept that there was podcasting before me. There was sure there was not imaginary world.
George B. Thomas:So this is the thing. Like, I wanna know how to impact that 40% to get them moving, and I wanna really be able to understand that 60% that is bought in is are there things that we or the listeners could be doing to even expedite their buy in and accelerate where they're headed faster, and almost use them as the ability to entice the folks who have their feet in the ground. But that's historically, that's what we've been seeing.
Liz Moorhead:Max, what about you? I know you have sales team thoughts.
George B. Thomas:I mean, he came in with a book. Dang, gone.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. Dude, you came in with a book Revox. God.
Max Cohen:Aren't aren't you close one city?
Doug Davidoff:Isn't that your hat, Max? I think we'll be coming in with closed one city.
George B. Thomas:Where can people get those hats there?
Max Cohen:This is just another one of the, many beautiful items we have available on closed1city.com. And, I believe a little someone just sent some to YouTube.com.
Doug Davidoff:Like the reciprocal, go get
Liz Moorhead:a hat?
George B. Thomas:I love it.
Max Cohen:It's amazing. I didn't
Liz Moorhead:get that wait. I'll go get a hat. I only have one hat, but it's hold on. I'll go
George B. Thomas:get a hat.
Max Cohen:We could try it.
George B. Thomas:I can't wait to see what happens here.
Liz Moorhead:It's actually it's just a
George B. Thomas:But but, Liz, before you go get your hat, what should we be talking about as the resident captain?
Max Cohen:Asked Oh. Oh, I missed fast fast fast fast. The I missed well, I just I I just I just heard what about you? I don't know what the question was that prompted these two guys going off before I got here because I got here late.
Doug Davidoff:From having a take before, Mac.
Liz Moorhead:No. I was so I wanted to get your take based on your experience with sales teams, what you're seeing in terms of their resistance and whether or not you're hearing what Doug is talking about with them. Well, resistance that thinky face.
Max Cohen:I mean, resistance to to what? To change?
Liz Moorhead:Yes.
Max Cohen:I don't know. I mean, my my sales ex my experience on sales teams has been so weird. And I think my ability to perceive what's going on with them is also very weird because in all the sales roles that I've been in, I can't quite tell that if I've that I can't quite tell if I've ever been able to, like, put myself in the shoes of someone who really, you know, cares about a quota and thinks very tactically about selling because for any of the selling roles I've ever been in, it's always it's always been because, like, I love the product so much, and I just love talking about it, and I wish everyone would get it. And it was never through the guys of someone who not the guys. Through the through the lens of someone who's, like, doing it, you know, for a job, for the quota, for the this, for the that.
Max Cohen:I tend to get very invested emotionally in the companies that I work for. So I think it kind of, like it puts blinders on me, I think, to be able to get into the shoes of a salesperson, you know, to kinda understand why they'd be so resistant to change. I think I have a I mean, to be honest with you, like, why would you wanna change if what you've been doing is working or at least you're perceiving that it's been working. Right? Especially for someone who's been doing sales for a long time.
Max Cohen:Right? And they have their process down, they have their, you know, they they have what works for them, whether it's their tools or their tactics, their strategies, or their their technology that they like to use or don't like to use for that matter. Right? You know, you gotta you gotta remember all that stuff has kinda contributed to their livelihood for that long. And, like, why change it if it's gonna shake that up or put that at risk?
Max Cohen:Right? So I can empathize with salespeople that, you know I I I had a coaching client that was like, oh, you know, we've got this this sales guy, and he's kinda old school. He doesn't really like, you know, using the CRM and this and that. And I'm just like, well, I mean, can you can you blame him for, like, wanting to do the job you the way he wants to do the job? Right?
Max Cohen:Like, you don't have to force stuff on him. You know what I mean? So I have a lot of empathy for folks because, again, you know, I mean, when you're when you're in sales and you've you've you've figured out something that works for you, why would you wanna change it unless you see a big reason to need to change it? Right? But
George B. Thomas:Whale. I don't know.
Max Cohen:It's it's hard for me to
George B. Thomas:Whale. Yeah.
Max Cohen:It's hard for me to really get inside of their, you know, get inside their brands because I look at sales, I think, in a, you know, a a more lofty, you know, a weirder way that I don't think I ever got quite in this right mindset of, like, a seller. You know? I don't know.
George B. Thomas:Okay. So we'll get back to Doug in a second. But I'm about to lose my dang mind right now. Because because here's the because here's the deal. When I hear Max, and I love you, bro.
George B. Thomas:You know I love you to, like, the core of my heart. But when I hear you or some other people saying, why would you wanna change? Like, I live so much in this 1% better each and every day mentality and realizing why would I rest on my laurels? Why would I think yesterday was the best day ever when tomorrow can be even better? And and, like and I I think this is why I have such an issue with that 40% that I was talking about because it's like, guy, gal, whoever the heck you are.
George B. Thomas:Like, sure. You sold $50,000 last month. Guess what? Next month, you might sell a hundred and $50,000, but you're gonna have to make some change because to get to where you wanna go, you gotta do different things than what got you where you're at. And and oh, okay.
George B. Thomas:I'm gonna just shut up. Let's let's go back to Doug.
Liz Moorhead:Max Max, you made you made inbound dad mad.
George B. Thomas:I'm not mad.
Liz Moorhead:He's gonna I'm just passing. He's just disappointed. You're just disappointed. I'm not disappointed. Saying
Max Cohen:but but, George, what I'm saying is is is is I would think that someone who's resistant to change might not have that same motivation because maybe they've been doing it for a while, and they're comfortable.
Liz Moorhead:Here's Doug. He's coming in. I don't know.
Doug Davidoff:I don't know. I'm trying
Max Cohen:to figure it out on
Liz Moorhead:my own. I'm trying to
Max Cohen:figure it out my own. I have no clue.
Doug Davidoff:We're we're we're talking like sales being resistant to change is is an unusual is a not normal thing in a business. Show me an operations team. Show me a finance team. Show me I mean, there's a whole world. I mean, if if you think if you think branding strives to make the world complicated to justify high advisory fees, you should take a look at the change management industry.
Doug Davidoff:Right? So so so let's not let's not put salespeople in this bucket of they're somehow this unique set of resistors to to to what's going on. And and and, actually, let's let's also acknowledge that what we that what the vast majority of businesses do is they throw salespeople out into the world with no maps, no process, no clarity. I mean, it's it's much through management. Right?
Doug Davidoff:Throw them in the dark and from time to time, pour some shit on them, and let's see how they grow. Right? I mean, that that that's how far too many I mean, if we ran our manufacturing process, the way we run sales processes, the way we run sales organizations, no business would succeed at doing anything. So so let's just I mean, I just wanna balance this out that that that change is hard. Yet yet at the same time, here's what I hear.
Doug Davidoff:I hear constantly salespeople are resistant to change. And then right after that, I hear they never do the same thing twice. Everything's always different. Right? I'm I'm I'm listening to this podcast about lost, about the show lost.
Doug Davidoff:Oh, I love that show. About how how how Damon, Lindelof
Liz Moorhead:Lindelof and Carlton Hughes. Yep.
Doug Davidoff:Yeah. But how Damon Lindelof was, like, being asked, you know, on one end, they were like, do you have a plan for this? It's like every fan wants us to say, yes. We have an absolute plan. We know exactly where this is going.
Doug Davidoff:Except right after that, they say, well, wait. Are you listening to what we're saying? Are you are you taking our suggestions? So it's like when you get asked that question, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Right?
Doug Davidoff:So so when we talk about change, what we're really saying and let me just ask you. What we're really saying is salespeople are resistant to changing the way we want them to change.
George B. Thomas:Interesting. First of all, before we let's take a hot break from this. Note to self, never put Doug and Liz on a podcast together because it'll be movie and TV names and trivia being thrown amongst the entire
Liz Moorhead:episode. Doug is our new cohost. Doug, thank you. Welcome.
Max Cohen:God forbid. God forbid we make the content more relatable, George.
Liz Moorhead:That's right, baby.
Doug Davidoff:Don't worry. I'll get some baseball metaphors in. Oh, there we go.
Liz Moorhead:Let's talk about let Teddy win. That was a great campaign. It was a great campaign. That's right. George, you alright, bud?
Liz Moorhead:I've is that hissing noise your soul is slowly escaping from your body?
George B. Thomas:I was just breathing. Like, slow breathing. I'm good.
Liz Moorhead:Speaking of breathing, let's bring it back to sales for a moment, shall we?
Doug Davidoff:Let me ask you a question. Anybody I I do not do this. Would any anybody like to work with tools, carpenters?
Liz Moorhead:I would I would probably that's a hazard. I'm a hazard without tools.
Doug Davidoff:How how would your carpenter, who's got his favorite hammer or her favorite ham how would how would they react if I say, here, I got a I got a new hammer for you. I gotta you gotta give me your give me your favorite tool.
George B. Thomas:Well, but here's the thing. We'd probably be Well well but wait. Because if it was the guy who was swinging a hammer at the same time that they came out with the air hammer, and he knew that he could save his elbow, and he knew that he could save his shoulder, but he was resistant to use that new hammer that actually did the job easier for him, AKA a CRM, AKA a process, AKA automation, then I would ask you, like, why are you doing the same old thing with the hammer when there is a new hammer that you could be using that saves your body and saves you time.
Doug Davidoff:So do you think this is the first time that sales rep that that that you're claiming to be resistant to change? Do you think this is the first time they've been told that here's this new technology that will solve your problems, that we'll take care of? What what happened to the sales team
George B. Thomas:That might be the problem because, no, it probably isn't.
Doug Davidoff:Right? And and and and by the way, here here's something else that I can tell you. Like, if you wanna get down to it and and I I will say that that salespeople are not anywhere near as motivated by quota as we think they are motivated by quota. And if we have time, I'll I'll I'll get into that.
George B. Thomas:Okay.
Doug Davidoff:But but nobody goes on p club, and nobody goes on presidents I'm I'm sorry. Nobody goes on p club, and nobody gets fired because of their adoption or lack of adoption, utilization, or lack of utilization of the CRM. They do go to p club or get fired based on how much business did they close. So so when you talk to me see, what I would say, George, is you you took it in the wrong order. You said, here's this new machine with this automation, with this process, with this and it's like, woah.
Doug Davidoff:Woah. Woah. That's all about you. Talk to me about where's my gap. Help me understand why am I not getting the outcomes that I need to get.
Doug Davidoff:Why are we changing to begin with? How is the world changed? Like, we all live in the world of change. And and and by the way, we're unique because we thrive in the world of change.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:Right? Humans aren't designed I'm sorry. I don't have that sound effect for you. Yeah. Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:But humans aren't designed to thrive and change. Right? We're we're biologically programmed. We're biochemically programmed to seek what we're like. We seek tribes.
Doug Davidoff:By the way, Max, the interesting thing about what you said is I actually think you got it in reverse. The greater the confidence, the more willing you'll see the change. The willingness to change is a sign of confidence. So the the sales rep who is confident in what it in what is working, the sales rep who understands how am I achieving quota. You you show me a hitter who studies the science of hitting.
Doug Davidoff:I will show you someone who is constantly tweaking and adjusting their swing because of what you talked about. You show me someone who's worried about hitting quota. You someone you show me someone who who doesn't understand. But by the way, in sales and I've lived this for thirty years. I mean and I love it.
Doug Davidoff:Every month, you start off at zero. Every year, you start off at zero. I I have a ritual that I've done for twenty five years. My last day of production, I print my my report, and my first day of production, I print my report. Here's what I did, and I go back to zero.
Doug Davidoff:But, man, that's also scary. Accountants don't go back to zero. Right? And and so worrying this environment that at any moment change the interest rates, everything changes.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:Right? Things completely outside of my control change. You show me somebody who is worried about the future. I'll show you somebody who resists change. So I don't think it's sixty forty.
Doug Davidoff:I I I don't think there's that much difference between the 60 and the 40. I think there's a difference in in perspective and the context. So spend less time talking about the thing, spend less time talking about the solution, and spend more time facilitating an understanding of the context. Change my context. You'll change my behavior.
George B. Thomas:I love it. Liz, do you see why I was like, immediately, we have to have Doug on from this episode.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, a %. But before we move off of this, George, I've been watching you just kind of absorbed Yeah. And taken everything that Doug has been saying.
Doug Davidoff:I wanna get your reaction. I love absorbing Doug.
George B. Thomas:It's the best.
Liz Moorhead:It's okay. Wait. We're live on YouTube. You can't say things like that. No.
Liz Moorhead:You can't. Facts.
Max Cohen:You We're live on
George B. Thomas:YouTube? And LinkedIn.
Doug Davidoff:And LinkedIn.
Liz Moorhead:And LinkedIn. By the way.
George B. Thomas:But Oh, shit. But
Liz Moorhead:Dude, you're sweating.
Max Cohen:Dude, you're
George B. Thomas:gonna get
Doug Davidoff:us canceled.
Max Cohen:You guys are
Liz Moorhead:Let it be known. Let it be known. You know what? No. Hold on.
Liz Moorhead:We need to we need to note this for the record. The first person to swear on this pod when we go live is not lit. Now will I say something wildly inappropriate later?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:90% chance.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's 90%. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:But let's keep going. Let's keep going. Thanks, Max.
George B. Thomas:Well, and you can thank Riverside because they gave me new toys, and I wanted to play and test because I'm a marketer. But there you go.
Doug Davidoff:I do I do think I'm a I do think this is the first time I've been on a livestream.
George B. Thomas:Alright. Well, there you go. There you go.
Liz Moorhead:It does.
George B. Thomas:You're killing it, brother. You're killing so it's it's funny, though, but let's talk about, like Oh.
Max Cohen:I almost just Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Let's be careful, Max. So here's the thing. Because I do it I was literally sitting there absorbing what Doug was saying because I I Can
Liz Moorhead:we not talk about absorbing anyone?
George B. Thomas:Passionately and actively wanna know how to get better at this because I know that if I can communicate and interact with sales teams in a way that it is manufactured to get the most out of them and get them in a what we feel better direction or believe even is a better word, is a better direction for them and for the organization. And we can get past the hurdles of, like, everybody's changed it, like, every two years because nobody knows what the heck they're doing. And so I literally was just sitting there intently listening, try to put the pieces of the matrix together in my own brain, which, by the way, this is usually what happens, Liz, when I'm with Doug. Like, literally, there was a conversation I had with Doug at a previous inbound where he broke my brain for about fourteen days after the conversation that I had to try to unpack and put back together. So
Liz Moorhead:Doug, teach me her ways.
George B. Thomas:No. Do not. She's not allowed to know the dark side.
Liz Moorhead:I'll just ask you about your feelings, George. That's my way. Oh, jeez.
George B. Thomas:Moving on. I know. Back to sales.
Liz Moorhead:Moving on. Moving on. Okay. So I wanna throw this question out to the group. No one in particular.
Liz Moorhead:What does getting buy in from sales teams look like today?
Doug Davidoff:Skip buy in. Buying's the wrong place to go.
Liz Moorhead:It's the
Max Cohen:wrong place to go.
George B. Thomas:See, that's the kind of stuff I'm
Liz Moorhead:This is
Doug Davidoff:why everything This is
George B. Thomas:why this is what I'm
Max Cohen:talking about right here. Sorry. Love having Doug on the podcast.
Liz Moorhead:You're making me look so good. I look like an angel right now. Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you just turning in, I am an angel. Max is is awful.
Max Cohen:What no. Because because when you say buying, my brain's just going, oh, buying for what? And then Doug goes skip it, and I'm like, holy shit. This is on a comp operating on a completely different level than I am, and I just wanna listen.
Liz Moorhead:Unless it's buying for sandwiches, in which case, I'm buying.
George B. Thomas:Bought in. If it's if it's Subway's
Liz Moorhead:If it's a panini, I'm there.
George B. Thomas:Jersey Mike's I was on Big Fireside.
Doug Davidoff:I was on vacation I was on vacation when I was younger, and I was it was when I was still golfing. And I decided, hey. You know what? I'll I'll let's do a golf lesson before I play around in golf. So take some swings.
Doug Davidoff:I'm like, aren't you gonna give me some tips? He was just like, no. Let me just see you. Let me just see you. Hit a hit a few balls.
Doug Davidoff:So I take out my seven iron. It was the only iron that I could hit halfway decent. And I started started hitting the ball, and I thought, oh, wow. He's gonna think I'm better than I am because I was hit. I I felt like I was hitting the ball well.
Doug Davidoff:I'm probably I probably hit 10 balls, and the pro says to me goes, I see what your problem is. I'm like, that's pretty presumptive. I only hit 10 balls, and I'm hitting them. What? What do you mean what my problem is?
Doug Davidoff:He said the problem is you're trying to hit the ball. I looked at him like there might be something wrong here because I said to him, like, I mean, call me crazy, but I thought that was the point of this game. Oh, man.
Liz Moorhead:And he
Doug Davidoff:said, no. No. See see the problem is you think because you're try because you're aiming at the ball, basically. He said you think that your swing ends when you hit the ball. Right?
Doug Davidoff:What what you need to do is you need to let the ball interrupt your swing. When I coach kids in baseball, first thing I did was I put them in the cage. Don't talk to me about what you do. Just just go out. Swing.
Doug Davidoff:Swing. Okay. Let's look at this. Here's what I want you to do. Let's do this.
Doug Davidoff:See, I want you to take an action. Sales is a participation sport. Sales is an action sport. I want you to do by the way, this applies to non sales too. Too.
Doug Davidoff:I want you to do something with an expectation. So by the way, when I get resistance, when someone says, well, this is all well and good, but it doesn't work in mind or she doesn't work with my customers. I'm like, okay. Great. Awesome.
Doug Davidoff:Here's what I need you to do. I need you to prove to me that it doesn't work. Prove to me it doesn't work. Do this a hundred times and come back. Because here's the thing.
Doug Davidoff:By the way, I'm sometimes I might even go, you know what? I'm at I'm I'm with you. I'm not but you gotta understand. I'm, like, I gotta do this. I need you to demonstrate to me it doesn't work.
Doug Davidoff:So we take an action. We get a result. The result is either what we expected or something different than we expected. Now we've got experience. Now we can learn.
Doug Davidoff:Why did we get that result? What happened? What was different? We then apply that to the next action. When we talk about buy in, what we're doing is we're we're throwing theory out.
Doug Davidoff:We're throwing opinions out. We're throwing we're saying, take my advice. I mean, please don't take this the wrong way, George. You're advising a sales team, the 40% of salespeople. They're trying to figure this stuff out.
Doug Davidoff:They've been doing it for for ten, twenty years, five years, two years, whatever the number might be. And and remember, the thing that's different about sales is every interaction is different. So they live in a world where every interaction is different. Now don't get me wrong. Every interaction is 80 to 90% the same, but that's not what you that's not where you get paid.
Doug Davidoff:That's not where you live in a in a sales world. So you come in, and you're gonna tell me how I need to change. And and I'm and if I have any self worth at all, I'm gonna I'm gonna push back. What do you mean? Right?
Doug Davidoff:So so let's just skip that. Let's let's let's create the context. Here's the issue. Here's what we're seeing. Here's why we're doing this.
Doug Davidoff:By the way, one of the things to do is be really clear what's staying the same. Because you've identified that there's something that's not working. There's something that's broken. We're gonna change what's broken. But what they hear is you're gonna change everything.
Doug Davidoff:What what are the things that are working for me? Make it clear to me that the things that work for me will continue to work for me. And this is how we're gonna address the things that aren't working so that I can have confidence. Because remember, every decision I make is a statement of my confidence about the future. My confidence is built on repetitions of what I believe is cause and effect, so help me have that confidence.
Doug Davidoff:Define it more by what isn't changing than what is changing, and and you'll see less resistance. And and by the way, resistance is okay. I'm not looking for followers.
Liz Moorhead:Mhmm.
Doug Davidoff:Right? I'm I'm I'm not looking for you to convert. I'm looking to help optimize a business process, which which, by the way, there is no one right way to do it. So that's the other thing that salespeople hear all the time is I'm supposed to do it the way Bill does it, the way Jill does it. It's like, no.
Doug Davidoff:Show me where I get to be me. At the end of the day, I'm the one that's putting my name on the promise. How can I have confidence in that?
Max Cohen:Yeah. And if you don't have resistance, you don't get any feedback as to why something's not working from the people who are boots on the ground doing the thing. Right?
Liz Moorhead:And by
Doug Davidoff:the way, George, who and Max and Liz, who who have the best advocates in your life been on on the ideas that you've put forth? I will bet you that a good percentage of them came from the people that were the most resistant initially.
Liz Moorhead:George, I need to know what's going on behind that thinking face. Like, I absolutely have to know.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. No. It it's, so first of all, I'm I'm a child. So, I can't hear the word resistance without saying, you know, resistance is futile. So there's that.
George B. Thomas:But, anyway, hopefully, somebody
Doug Davidoff:By the way, Georgia, if you want a salesperson to change something, just tell them they're not allowed to.
George B. Thomas:Oh, well, there you go. Podcast is over.
Doug Davidoff:And then they'll change.
Liz Moorhead:That's a % true because salespeople, it sounds like, are just basically only children, which is what I am, which is like, would you like me to not do something? Tell me to do it. Would you like me to do something? Tell me not to do it. Like, that's Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Liz one zero one.
George B. Thomas:So so it's interesting, though, because where my brain was going when when Doug was talking, it it's funny because what I think Doug does well is he he's really good at making what you might have thought was complex really simple. And and what's funny is when we do have most of these conversations, it's like, and here's all these cool things that you can do these cool things with, and here's how they're gonna make your life easier and save you time. But the fact when Doug was like, so so start by what's working for them. And I was like, oh, I feel stupid right now because I don't know if I've ever asked a sales team so or started with the question. So tell me what's working for you in the sales process and just shut up and listen.
George B. Thomas:I don't think I've ever done that. Now I wanna do that immediately with, like, the next sales team that I talk to and start there because what's interesting out of that is I should be able to diagnose what's not working because I understand what you need. I understand, like, how the engine works. You know? And so I can, oh, the their carburetor's broke and the starter needs replaced.
George B. Thomas:Okay. They need these these two or three things, strategies or tools. And if I can just get them to plug that into the 80 or 90% that we can now say is working and we're just gonna mirror that, then then we get somewhere special pretty dang quick.
Doug Davidoff:So so, George, the conversation where I broke your brain at inbound, if if you think about that, you can you you can apply that to sales teams because the danger with what you said 99% of the time, I wouldn't even comment on this, but because of this the topic of the show. When you talked about a car, that's where you that's where you lose sales organizations, and you lose connecting with those resistors. And and and here's the
George B. Thomas:Metaphors and analogies?
Doug Davidoff:Well, a car is a closed system. A car is complicated. It is not complex.
Max Cohen:Oh.
Doug Davidoff:If I if I take this out and I fix this and I put it in, you know, when I change the carburetor, it doesn't change everything else. When you're selling, you're at the center of a of a series of complex ecosystems. You are in a system of system. When you change one thing, you change everything, and and that's what a salesperson understands subconsciously. That's where you see the fear.
Doug Davidoff:That's where you see the resistance. And that's why calling out an understanding of what is working. Right? And and and, by the way, also show the the the place where when we talk about process language, when we use process language, we talk about it in a very constraining manner. This, then this, then this, then this.
Doug Davidoff:Anyone that spent a second in a conversation, let alone a sales conversation, knows doesn't happen like that. Right? A, the the process isn't linear. It's it's a pinball machine, and I've got my way of doing it. Like like, George, you're ex you're extraordinarily successful at being George.
George B. Thomas:Why, thanks, Doug.
Doug Davidoff:Think you would be I don't think you would be anywhere near as successful at being Doug.
George B. Thomas:No. I I I I don't even come close to reading the amount of books that you read.
Liz Moorhead:Wrong name for starters. I mean, the labeling is all off.
Doug Davidoff:But I'm just saying I'm just forget forget the reading and everything else. I'm just saying the style, the approach. Right? And and I like to think I'm pretty good at being Doug.
George B. Thomas:Oh, you're great at being
Doug Davidoff:I would do I would be really ineffective at being George. So the other thing that we have to do is is is communicate how a strong centralized system frees the individual out the individuality by understanding the key milestone, by understanding the key points in in a process. You're free in between. As a matter of fact, you're even more free to be yourself. And and and what salespeople are hearing is the opposite.
Doug Davidoff:Right? That's what they're afraid of. Yeah. Because, by the way, most salespeople have been told most of their life what's wrong with them.
George B. Thomas:Oh, see. Now that statement right there immediately makes me, like, sad. And and, actually, my I I don't wanna swear like other people on this podcast. But but
Liz Moorhead:Shots fired.
George B. Thomas:But but but immediately, I was like, well, that's a sucky place to live in. That realization that you just stated, I'm like, oh, I I just got a bad feeling. Like, I wouldn't wanna I wouldn't wanna be being told that I'm always doing something wrong.
Doug Davidoff:Sales, you get rejected 90% of the if you can if you can get rejected 90% of the time, you're in the hall of fame. I mean, we think baseball's hard. Baseball, you only have you you fail 70% of the time. You're in the hall of fame. You you you live.
Doug Davidoff:You hear all the pushback. You you don't you don't get the testimonial letters. Marketing gets the testimonial letters.
Liz Moorhead:You're you're in, like, content. Content, I see the same thing. I had to tell a client the other day because they were nervous about giving me feedback. I'm like, do you realize this is what I do all day, every day? I have never ever except maybe with George, like, once or twice, have I ever ever ever given a piece of content to somebody and they're like, perfect.
Liz Moorhead:No notes. There's always maybe one or two things that needs to get tweaked. Now maybe down the line, we get to that point. Why we get to that point of trust. We get but it's that's that's it's rejection station, man.
Doug Davidoff:Liz, I'm curious. When when when you get the no notes back, like, I always think I want the no notes. But then someone says, oh, it looks fine. I'm like, you didn't even look at it, did you?
Liz Moorhead:So I so I get very anxious when somebody says no notes. And George has been on a couple of calls with me where somebody would say, yeah. It's great. I'm like, so you're saying it's great, but your face is saying an entirely different story. There are times where I get to a level of trust with a couple of clients where, yes, I will trust what they're saying.
Liz Moorhead:What I've often found is that if people are giving me a no that quickly, they either do not know how to articulate what's actually wrong. It's just a gut feeling. They do know how to articulate what's wrong, but they don't wanna hurt my feelings because they think that I take it as a personal attack on my work and my credibility. And I'm like, no. We're just working toward the end goal of getting good content out the door.
Liz Moorhead:But, you know, that's what it's like.
Doug Davidoff:You misunderstood I I said no notes. No. That's what say yes. You just say yes. This is fine.
Liz Moorhead:That's what I'm saying. Like, if they say no notes, I start wondering what's actually wrong because Right. In most cases, I'm like, you're not telling me something. You don't know what how to tell me or you know what it is, but you don't wanna hurt my fee fees. Like, it could be a range of reasons.
Max Cohen:So So
Doug Davidoff:so so here's something else to understand about salespeople if you want a breakthrough to them. Are you familiar with the book, The E Myth? So so so The E Myth is a book about small business, and and The E Myth is the entrepreneur myth. The myth is most businesses are started by entrepreneurs. It's written by a guy named Michael Gerber, and and and his thesis the thesis of the book is most businesses are not started by entrepreneurs.
Doug Davidoff:They're started by technicians who experienced an entrepreneurial seizure. His words, not mine. So they're they're basically businesses are started by people who do what the business does. They look and they say, I can do this better. I can I wanna be my own boss, whatever the case may be?
Doug Davidoff:So what what the book talks about is there's three types of people. There's the entrepreneur, all vision, lives out in the world of risk, change, etcetera. There's the manager who's got some son of a bitch to him. Very process oriented, very disciplined, very the world is dominated by technicians. That's why I that's why I picked on the carpenter and the hammer.
Doug Davidoff:I have my way of doing something. Right? I've come to understand my way. I know that my way is not the best way, but realize people are not motivated for the best way. What they're motivated for is the way that is least likely to not be the worst.
Doug Davidoff:Right? That's that's how by the way, that's what drives buying decisions. That's what drives and and so what you're dealing with because salespeople speak the language of risk. Because they're paid variable compensation, we think, oh, they're risk takers. We say on we say they're entrepreneurial.
Doug Davidoff:Some of them are. What what the vast majority of them are is they're technicians. They have a way of doing something. They have not documented their way. They have not they have not cannibalized their way, but they have a way of doing something.
Doug Davidoff:It's ambiguous. You come in and you say, we're gonna change how you're doing it. And I go, Best thing you can do, document the sales process. Forget without the CRM. But this is the first thing we do with companies is we go through and we map what's the flow of conversations from how do they gain interest to they want us onto the bottom line.
Doug Davidoff:It has nothing to do with technology. There's no tech in it. We understand how do you do what you do. Okay. Here's where the breakdown occurs.
Doug Davidoff:Here's where the breakdown occurs. Hey. It looks like a lot of time is spent here. Doesn't seem like a lot of value there. Wouldn't you like to be able to spend more time here?
Doug Davidoff:Yeah. Okay. Here's how we can help make that happen. And then the last thing that I would say is when you're dealing when when when you're doing CRM, every company in the world should be launching their CRM two to four times per year. The other thing that we talk about, we look at CRM and we look at launching CRM as the finish line, and so we stuff it all in.
Doug Davidoff:We're we're we're like the parent at the baseball field saying, keep your weight back. Keep your elbow up. Head in. Hey. We're we're we're barking five instructions at one time.
Doug Davidoff:So we come in and and we identify everything that's wrong. We're gonna fix it. You can't fix more than one thing at a time. If you try to fix more than one thing at a time, you're overwhelming people, and that's why we're gonna we're gonna operate on this. We so the clients that we work with, we're typically launching three to four times per year.
Doug Davidoff:By the way, that's the single best thing for adoption. It's like, hey. We've got some new toys for you. But it also means we're never done, and that means we launch this. Some of what we do works.
Doug Davidoff:Some of what we doesn't doesn't do work. It feeds into that next piece in in a in a night. We work with larger organizations. That's why four times per year. You're never more than ninety days away from from an overall fix.
Doug Davidoff:And and now because because remember, as the sales rep, it's the next ninety days that matter for me. We call that the performance zone. I need to hit my number. What you wanna do I had I had somebody who was funded early in early in in in a in Lyft Imagine's career. He said, I got fired because he loved my ideas.
Doug Davidoff:And what he said to me, he said, Doug, here's the thing I love. I agree with you a %. We need to do this. The problem is you're solving the problem that I have eighteen months from now. If I don't get to this revenue in six months, I don't get my next tranche of money.
Doug Davidoff:If I don't get my next tranche of money, I don't have oxygen. I am dead. I realized that what I'm gonna be doing for the next six months puts me in a weaker position for where I need to be in eighteen months. But if I do but if I if I solve my eighteen month problem, I'm dead in six months. Right?
Doug Davidoff:That time scale taught me, woah. I can't fix everything at one time. I like, a lot of times, we're trying to come in and fix something. They don't even have the foundation. Let's bring in the foundation, then let's add the next piece, then we add the next piece, then we add the next piece, and we're in a ongoing continuous loop.
Doug Davidoff:And that's where transformations occur. Transformations occur when you look back and realize you transformed, not when you go in saying, hey. We're gonna transform it.
Liz Moorhead:Hear that b to b website copywriters? No more transforming in your headline. Just like you can't call yourself a thought leader in your own bio. Okay. Before I take us into Hang
George B. Thomas:on one second, Doug.
Liz Moorhead:George, I wanted to ask if you had any
George B. Thomas:other question. I just want is it the E Myth revisited? Is that the book that you
Doug Davidoff:Same thing. Yeah. That's the rewrite. That's
George B. Thomas:the standard version. Yeah. Because by the way, E Myth Revisited, E Myth Enterprise, E Myth Mastery, E Myth for HVAC, E Myth for real estate agents, E Myth for holy crap. It keeps on going. Anyway, but the the original book to get is the e myth revisited.
George B. Thomas:Okay.
Doug Davidoff:And it's really the first third of the book where all the value is everything else is franchise your business and blah blah blah blah. Yeah. It's
Liz Moorhead:Well, Doug, let me stay with you for a moment. Are there any other we know that you are an avid reader, resource consumer. Are there any other books specifically or other resources you would recommend? Yeah. There was is it that book?
Liz Moorhead:It's
George B. Thomas:that book right there.
Liz Moorhead:Is it
George B. Thomas:that book? Max talks
Max Cohen:about what you mean to.
Liz Moorhead:Maximus Dan and White?
Doug Davidoff:I I I I talk in the book about the three zones of execution. Right? We we always look at everything. It's the next ninety days, ninety days to twelve months, twelve months to thirty six months. The twelve to thirty six month, that's the transformation zone.
Doug Davidoff:That's the company and the sales organization we wanna be. The next ninety days is the performance zone. We live by a a mantra there. Don't mess with the performance zone. That's not actually our mantra.
Doug Davidoff:Right? But we're live, so I can't tell you what a real mantra is. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then, George, where we live, we live in the enablement zone.
Doug Davidoff:We're in that ninety day to twelve month zone that's enabling you to perform better. As I when we show that to people, they now understand, okay. This is how things are connected. This is where that that works, and suddenly, this change isn't so threatening. The another book that I would recommend on on the idea behind this is Team of Teams.
Doug Davidoff:Oh, that's a great book. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, that's the name
Doug Davidoff:of the system of systems.
Liz Moorhead:George, while you're sorry
Max Cohen:starts buying stuff on Amazon very very very
Liz Moorhead:You can always tell it's a good episode. He's like, wait. Hold on. I understand we need to drive the conversation forward, but could you speak closer to the mic, Doug, so I could type this into Amazon?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Add to cart?
George B. Thomas:My my Audible account is just it's ignorant, but whatever.
Liz Moorhead:This is why can I just point out, by the way, if you aren't watching us live on YouTube or in the community or on LinkedIn right now, you are missing the sweetest little baby puppy angel?
Max Cohen:How how old is that? Four months.
George B. Thomas:Oh, boy. What a journey ahead of you. Pill beads. Okay. Well, yep.
George B. Thomas:Not happy. Not happy. Wait.
Liz Moorhead:Is that the same dog who was wreaking havoc last week?
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah. The
Doug Davidoff:But we love her.
George B. Thomas:The one that ate a tin can? Dove.
Liz Moorhead:That's fine. It's fine. You know what? If they if you know what? If they weren't supposed to be edible, why do you make it food shaped?
Liz Moorhead:I'm just saying. Oh, wow.
George B. Thomas:George. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Why don't you take us out? What are some of the big things you want people remembering from today's conversation other than what book should be in everybody's shopping cart?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Well, first of all, get the resources and definitely get Doug's book, because you just need to get Doug's book. And so the Liz, it's funny because, like, you know me. I like to be a little bit honest and a little bit transparent, and I'm not willing to put myself out there. But I don't know if people are gonna listen to this and be like me or be like you know, have the same thoughts as me.
George B. Thomas:But my big takeaway for this for me is, man, I need to rethink almost everything that I'm doing from a communication standpoint to get sales teams to really, change the things that they need to change to get the impact that they need to get versus what might be a, well, this works for everybody scenario that I might have not on purpose created in this HubSpot inbound echo chamber that I live in. So that like, rethink everything is one thing that I'll say that you may want to think of. The the other thing too is, amazingly, as I'm listening to Doug, I feel like I broke my cardinal rule in this area because the more I heard Doug talk and the more I heard how Doug was communicating and the more I heard Doug's focus is I realized Doug is focused on the human.
Liz Moorhead:There we go.
George B. Thomas:A sales rep. And we've kind of jokingly said things like butthead and other things, but we have to remember that they're just like us. They are humans, not sales reps, not robots, not people who do things perfect, but they they are they're they're they're humans.
Liz Moorhead:So your one takeaway for everybody today is when you think of this, just rethink everything.
George B. Thomas:Rethink everything.
Liz Moorhead:So all of it.
George B. Thomas:All of it.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. I can Doug.
Doug Davidoff:I can simplify that to bite size. I I think if if if I were to take one thing from this is spend more time and make sure whether you're a manager or an implementer, whatever the case may be, make sure you're asking each salesperson at least once a quarter, preferably once a month, what's working.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Because I really like that part when like, starting with that. Yeah. Yeah. That, what Doug said. Do that.
Max Cohen:Is wait. I know we're supposed to end the episode.
Liz Moorhead:It's okay, bro.
Max Cohen:Is that we would so I I whatever I would do because it's so tough. Because, like, when we talk about, like, the buy in thing, you gotta remember, I'm so HubSpot product brained that, like, all of my experience, like, getting buy in from a sales team has been because my job was to get people to use this piece of software. Right? So a lot of the times when I would go in to these, like you know, they'd set it up. Be like, alright.
Max Cohen:We're gonna get the sales team, you know, on the on a call, and you're gonna teach them how to use this thing. Right? I hated being the guy that would come in and be like, alright, guys. Here's how you're gonna use this CRM. And I would always try to come in with the, you know, on their side of the table, and it's just like, hey, everybody.
Max Cohen:You have this awesome CRM thing that I think is, like, super great. But I wanna frame this up in a way that is gonna make it actually useful for you. And the way that I would always lead is I would say, what sucks about doing your job right now? And I would try to hone in on those things that I knew the product could help with. Right?
Max Cohen:And go from that angle of, like, what's not working, right, from a technology enablement standpoint. Right? But, like, that's kinda always how I would go. It's just like, what's not working for you and what's something that I can get you to see that, oh, this thing is actually gonna be helpful for me. But I don't know how to tell you it's helpful unless I know that you have some kind of pain.
Max Cohen:Right? So I guess my question is when you say ask them what's working, is that juxtaposed to asking what's not working? Is there a reason you wouldn't ask that, or is that part of the same thing you're getting at? Or I I don't know.
Doug Davidoff:Yeah. No. So something has to be broken to change. Right? The only the only reason that people change is because not changing is more painful than change.
Max Cohen:They keep running into a wall.
Doug Davidoff:Yeah. So so now now the thing is when it comes to change initiatives and especially change initiatives with sales organizations, the what is screwed up, what sucks about right now. Like, we've got that covered. We do that we do that well. So I'm not and and and what you're doing, Max, at least what I'm hearing, is you're you're coming in for an event.
Doug Davidoff:And what I mean by event is it it's it's a one off thing. You're you're you're it's either getting a conversation started or a, you know, here's this that then is gonna lead into
Max Cohen:Get them to adopt the CRM. Right. Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:Right. Yep.
Max Cohen:Yep. Yep.
Doug Davidoff:And and so what I'm saying is what you've gotta do, though, is don't just show me how you're gonna fix what's broken. Right? Because when I when that's all I hear, that gets me going.
Max Cohen:Right? Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:But when that's all I hear, then what I worry about is, well, wait. You're gonna change the stuff that I'm comfortable with. You know? This isn't a conscious thing. Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:Right? But it but that's where the fear and that resistance comes from. What what you're what you're really saying is, look. We're gonna take the parts that suck. We're gonna fix those.
Doug Davidoff:We're gonna make it easier for you to do the things that you like to do so you can do more of the things that you like to do. Mhmm. Right? In in our change, when we get in when when when George is halfway into the configuration and getting ready to launch, like, we've already covered that. Right?
Doug Davidoff:So we forget to talk about it. And then on an ongoing basis, we're really good at saying, oh, well, you should've done this. Right? Because that's the beautiful thing about about analyzing sales calls.
Liz Moorhead:By the
Doug Davidoff:way, remember, we're being told every day that AI is gonna take our job. And then we're saying here, we're listening to this call. See you zag when you should have zigged and, like, you know, that whole 2020 vision. Spend more time on an ongoing basis. Like, if you were working with them regularly, hey.
Doug Davidoff:Help me understand what's working so I understand that imbalance to what's not working.
Liz Moorhead:Mhmm.
Doug Davidoff:And that's where you'll get and by the way, a rep that is resistant, spend more time with them. Say, hey. You know what? Let's talk about what's working for you. Let's talk about what are the untouchables for you.
Doug Davidoff:Because because remember, there's a hundred ways we can get this thing done. Yeah. Right? You don't have to do it this way. We just need this we just need this to be the output.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I think I always tried to be like, you know, how how can you use this thing to enable the way you like to work better? Because who am I to come in here and tell you how you should like to work? Right.
Doug Davidoff:And And and so Yeah. When when we train so we turn to our trainers. They get a business process briefing before they get CRM configuration briefing.
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Doug Davidoff:So they understand here's how the organization works. And then the other thing I'll share too is we train in user stories. So we do here's user story one. Here's the situation. Right?
Doug Davidoff:And and and it's a full complete process for whatever we're doing. We're typically gonna we typically roll out three to five user stories at a time. Mhmm. And now and now as we bring the different features together, it's not this random feature and this random feature and and this cool thing and this cool thing. It's here's here's the problem that we had.
Doug Davidoff:Here's where it broke down. Here's how this is addressing it. And and and but because if I have to think about how to use my CRM, my CRM is probably not configured correctly.
Liz Moorhead:George, I've been watching you make so many happy faces. I even saw a fist pump there for a moment. So I I before we wrap this up, I gotta know what was going on there because it like, that's the first time I haven't been watching your brain slowly collapse throughout this conversation.
Doug Davidoff:Well, I'm
Liz Moorhead:just So I figured it's notable.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I'm glad Max asked the question, one. Me too. Because, like, it just got Doug to a really cool place. And and I the fist bump was when Doug was talking about, have conversations with the human.
George B. Thomas:Like, take time to actually conversate, which means take time to listen, which means take time to understand, and then have the road move forward from a place of understanding and listening and knowing. Like, I I so I think of empathy, and I think like, you know, like, you're you're I think of partnership. Like and and I know he didn't say all of that, but that's where my brain, like, fist bump. And and and I love this idea, that Doug went into about these buyer journeys, and it's less about the tool and more about the process. And there is just some good stuff that I hope people hit the rewind button.
George B. Thomas:And, like, are we doing that at our organization? Like, do our managers do that at our organization? Like, do we pay attention is the partner we're using did they do that when we onboarded? Like, that's, yeah, that's where my brain was going. And it was very I had a very happy place.
Liz Moorhead:Can I take you to a different Yeah?
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:But wait, Max. Do you have something you wanna add?
Max Cohen:It it kinda resonates with the way I like to think about, like, feedback and stuff like that. Like, I think, you know, I'm someone that I'm trying to, like, think I feel like people, like, often just focus like, I get frustrated when people just focus on feedback being, like, a negative thing and only sharing, like, constructive feedback that's, you know, specific versus, you know, oftentimes when you're sharing, like, positive feedback, which I hate I hate even making this thing distinction between positive and constructive feedback because then it just makes it seem like constructive feedback is a negative thing. But, like, oftentimes, people will, like, will always tell you what's not working. When they do tell you what is working, oftentimes, they don't tell you why it's working. They just do that.
Max Cohen:Hey. Great job. Right? And it's like, that doesn't really help anybody. Kinda like how you were talking about the no notes thing.
Max Cohen:Right? And, you know, there's a piece to me I'm trying to figure out, like, where I was going with this. It's like, I I wish people focused more on saying, like or or, like, when people gave, like, positive feedback, more so to say, like, this was great, but this was why it was great, and you should keep doing this because of this. Right? And that really kinda helped me switch around, like, why is it, you know, important to say what's working?
Max Cohen:Because you wanna be able to amplify what's working a whole lot more, not just ask what sucks. Because, like, I was always the person who was going saying, what sucks? How can we fix it? Not what's going well? How can we do more of that?
Max Cohen:Right? And it's funny because I'm the one that says, why do we just focus on the negative and not, you know, try to reinforce the the the positive side of the feedback or or, you know, noticing when something's going well. Right? And I think I just took a dose of my own medicine there thing listening to Doug. So I
George B. Thomas:love that.
Liz Moorhead:I love it.
Max Cohen:Appreciate you, Doug. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Well, I have a little treat for everybody. After weeks, nay, months of complaints
George B. Thomas:Here we go.
Liz Moorhead:We will be ending today's episode with the finest poetry chat GBT could offer on this topic.
George B. Thomas:Curious what's gonna happen here.
Liz Moorhead:You'd be you'd be so happy. It's g rated.
George B. Thomas:Oh, that's good.
Liz Moorhead:Not max, and I'm an angel, and I've never done anything ever to get us canceled. You go. Ever.
George B. Thomas:I don't know about that.
Liz Moorhead:Old days of But yeah. Ma'am?
George B. Thomas:I'll stop.
Liz Moorhead:Okay. Oh, is Zoey here for me?
Max Cohen:Yes. Just reminding you that you did things did do things and things again.
Liz Moorhead:Can we not? Yeah.
George B. Thomas:So now read that poetry after that thought. So
Liz Moorhead:You know what? I have no idea what you're talking about, Max. Zoey's an angel. Thank you for showing her to me again.
Max Cohen:She is an angel.
Liz Moorhead:In the old days of sales, it was all door to door with clipboards and samples. They'd roam and explore. But the times they are a change in, it's clear to see, we're modernizing sales with great fervency. No more door to door. It's the digital age with smartphones and tablets.
Liz Moorhead:We take center stage. But remember, the heart of the sale, lest we 'tis the people we serve and the trust that we share.
George B. Thomas:Okay.
Liz Moorhead:Boom, baby. Okay. That's good.
George B. Thomas:Doug, appreciate you. With me. Thanks a ton.
Max Cohen:Bourbon c is over. We're out
Liz Moorhead:to get
George B. Thomas:you back on pretty soon. Peace out.
Doug Davidoff:Peace out. Bye. Peace out.
George B. Thomas:Okay. Hub heroes, 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.
George B. Thomas: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. 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 heroes 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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