EntreLeadership - How to Lead and Scale Your Sales Team with Brian Buffini

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

If you want your small business to scale, you have to master the art of growing and developing a sales team. But the question is: How do you do that? In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with real estate legend Brian Buffini. His business, Buffini & Company, has been teaching people the discipline of sales for 25 years. We get to hear his story of emigrating from Ireland to America, and how he built his business from scratch using his unique sales system. Then George Kamel chats with EntreLeadership Director of Sales Jason Williams to talk about the traits you should look for when hiring a new sales team leader.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Brian Buffini's website Buffini & Company’s website The Emigrant Edge by Brian Buffini Download The EntreLeader's Guide to Hiring. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: EntreLeadership Summit | EntreLeadership Master Series   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: Elite | Advisory Groups | Executive Coaching | Workshops | Weekly Report Tool   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY | Gravy | Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a small business owner, you know that if you want to stay in business, you have to drive sales. And when you're first starting out, you are the salesperson. You take all the calls, send all the quotes, and close all the deals. But eventually, if you want to scale your business, you have to learn how to lead a sales team. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Campbell, and today's episode is all about how to lead a sales team. team, which connects to our business driver of people. Our first guest today is Brian Bafini.

He's the founder and chairman of Bafini and company, the largest training and coaching company in North America. I sat down with Brian to unpack his story of going from immigrating to America to becoming one of the top producing real estate agents in the nation, to becoming a sales team leader, to later founding Bafini and company. Our second conversation is with Ramsey leader Jason Williams, and we talk all about what it takes to lead a successful sales team. At first, we've got my conversation with Brian. Brian, it's so good to have you back on the Entree Leadership podcast. How you been?

Thanks for having me, George. It's good to be here. Not a lot going on the last 18, 19 months for you. Not in much. Just let's see, sent 300 employees home to work from home, try to manage staff that 40 of them moved out of state. Yeah, and COVID, no events. Other than that, not much going on. I feel like you needed a challenge. Yeah, right. Well, I got one. You got one. Just like everybody else did, by the way. Yeah. Well, you have an amazing story, and you shared with our entire Ramsey staff this morning, but tell me the story of you coming to America and really starting out your career here.

So I came to America on a holiday, and I had no intention to move here. I was a few months in the country doing, you know, I was selling T-shirts at the beach, you know, off a cart for a guy. I was doing all kinds of stuff, mostly just kind of experiencing something. California. And 1986, Ireland was a very poor country at the time. We would have been classified as a third world country at the time. We really were struggling. You come to America, come to San Diego, California. It was like landing on the moon. It couldn't have been any different. And then my transportation was a little motorbike that someone had loaned me. And I got in a pretty serious motorcycle accident. And so I'm 19 years old. I'm 7,000 miles from home.

and I'm in a hospital and they're telling me you got gangrene. We're going to amputate your leg. And they end up not taking the leg, thank God, but they put rods and screws and all kinds of stuff in it. And they were like, well, we need to do a lot more surgery. So I was stuck. Now, you know, don't cry for me. Sandy was not a terrible place to get stuck.

But I was $252,000 in debt as a 20-year-old kid. You know, my family didn't have any money. And so, you know, that's where I started. and I started from a tough spot. But, you know, this is a great country. And if you have a bit of juice and if you can, you have a bit of entrepreneurship and you get after it, you can turn things around.

And I was, you know, debt free within a few years and a millionaire a few years after that and built a business that we then were able to systemize and teach people all over the world how to grow their businesses. So that's what we've been doing for the past 25 years, Bafining Company. We've coached hundreds of thousands of small business owners. My background's in real estate, so it's real estate lending, but we have 47 businesses

not in real estate that we coach today. Kind of how to generate referrals, how to do business the right way, you know, and then like you guys, we talked to them about having a budget and creating the surface and building a plan and doing all those things. So yeah, it started out not as a good situation, but it turned out to be a good situation. Yeah, quite the rags, the richest story, going from $250,000 in debt to a super successful business owner. What do you would tribute as part of that to being an immigrant because I feel like there's a lot of listeners out there who have that immigrant story and there's there's something a resilience and this especially when it comes to being in America.

Well, anything is possible. No, look, I wrote a book about it called The Immigrant Edge. What happened was I was on a panel and it was held by Harvard University and they shared the study that 50% of millennials thought that the American dream was gone. And it just so staggered me that people would even think that, especially here. year. There's more fortunes to be made in the next 25 years and they're in the last 25 years, by far. And so I not only went through my own journey, what I ended up doing was I interviewed over a hundred hugely successful immigrants, people who came here with nothing. You know,

a guy from the Bahamas who came here who became a billionaire, building, you know, one of the biggest bakeries in the world. And, you know, just all kinds of people, Nito Cobain, who's the president of High Point University and became one of the most prolific speakers and business owners. came from Lebanon with nothing. We're all, I have 92 bucks, and this guy said, I'd have $44, and I have $108, and oh, you were rich. I had $16, and all these people came with nothing. Many of them in more situations in me, I had a motorcycle accent,

but I at least spoke the language, or a version of the language. Many of these people don't speak the language, don't know the situation, they come here, and what they see is the opportunity, and they see the opportunity, and if you can make yourself good at something, be willing to learn, right? And that's why I love what you guys do at Andre Leadership.

The people listen to this program are people who are trying to grow and learn. And, you know, to me, your ability to earn is directly related to your ability to learn and not scholastically. You know, I mean, I learned more from my soccer coaches in Ireland about how to be successful in business than I did the business professor in college, you know. So your ability to earn, grow, work hard, put the head down. And then delayed gratification, I think, is something we immigrants excel at. And I think that's one of the ways I would say we have a. unfair advantage over your typical American is we don't need it now. You know, I remember having people coming over my house and I had a real nice house at the time and I had a couple of rooms

with no furniture in it. And people were like, is everything okay? And I'm like, yeah, the furniture is not going to appear right now, you know, because I'm investing in things and do that enough, you know, and that's, you know, Dave Ramsey, right? So I think the delayed gratification is a big one, growing yourself is a big one. And then ultimately, you're given a gift. You have such a point of reference of where you came from and how much better this is. So just having that spirit of gratitude and realizing what you have is so great. And, you know, like right now, it's very tough. Everybody's telling everybody how terrible America is and how terrible this is and how terrible business is and how terrible small business is and then you have the COVID stuff that's

hit a lot of people apart. And you get into that and it's easy to believe it, even though it's not true. It's not true, George. So there's no entitlement and there's a very healthy perspective on how things could be, how things were, and the opportunity ahead that just drives that. It's fascinating. Never forget where you come from, but use it as a learning. You know, because I've also met some immigrants that they lived as if it was all going to be taken away. Scarcity mentality. Right, because they came from a place, you know.

I mean, I have a friend from Northern Iraq. And, you know, his family had a 900-person company for years and years and years. And next thing you know, there's a change in leadership over there. They get blown out. And this guy went on to build a very successful company in San Diego. we became friends, like good friends, to the point that I could have the chat with them. And I'm like, here's the thing.

The buggy man's not coming back. You know, you need to relax a little bit. You're squeezing your kid's too tight. This is where the budgeting becomes overly done. It's paranoia. Yeah, and it's like, hey, hang on a second. Live it up a little bit. You know what?

Go to the restaurant. You know what? The car doesn't have to be falling apart for your kid to drive it. You know what I mean? And so you've got to have that balance a little bit, but it can't be motivated by the fear. But I think one of the things for an immigrant,

we come from, you know, you're the son of immigrants. Yeah. And your parents have a perspective of where they came from. And they have a perspective of this country that'll never go away. And sometimes it's hard to translate it to the next generation, although you're a working man. You seem to have you have the immigrant edge yourself. Not scared of work, that's for sure. So what did your soccer coach teach you?

You mentioned that you learned more from the soccer coach than the business professor, which I love. What were some of those lessons? That's a great question. His name was Slim Carlin. He was about 300 pounds. We call him Slim. And Slim, his first principle was put your best people down. the middle. And in soccer, you have 11 people on the field, if you, from the goalkeeper to the

center back, to the midfield, to the center forward, you put your very best athletes and your very best players down the middle. Well, that's the same with the company. And that is, you put your very best people at the most vital operations of the organization. You know, you don't want somebody who's learning as the head of sales. You don't want somebody who's your operations person, you know, to be, they're kind of okay. No? I want the superstar down the center. And I can live with taking a risk with somebody or seeing if someone can make it on the outside positions. Does that make sense? Yeah. So that's an example there. The other example, Slim Carlin would say, is that when you get ahead, stay ahead. And one of the reasons I see that

in business is you make some momentum, you're having some profits. You get ahead, you stay ahead. And it's important. What I believe that test, especially with a small business owner, is sometimes I'll see, have people in our coach, my own coach, I have my best year ever. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Can't believe it. I say, you keep saying, I can't believe it. One of these days you won't believe it because you've got a nose bleed. You're up too high. And the real deal is you have to get used to this. You have to wrap your head around this and you have to become comfortable with winning. And okay, great. And what you did last year, scratch it clear and start over. And that's where there's that tension, right? You got to create that. And so that's another great example there. When you get ahead, stay ahead. You know, there's a lot of people right now.

It depends on what your businesses and what your industry is. Certain industry, have flourished during and post-COVID, and some have gotten hammered. No matter what your circumstances are, you've got to wipe the slate clean here, go into the new year. Whether you won or lost, you've got to go and try to win next year. And that'd be very much slim carol and stuff. Oh, yeah. And I've met a lot of our entree leadership event attendees in the past year, and some of them have struggled. And a lot of them say, we've had our best year ever, like you're saying.

And they're going, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. So that's perfect to hit that. So we're talking about sales today, which you are a master of. And at one point, you were one of the top producing real estate agents in the nation. And at some point, you said, I'm going to help other people get better at this thing. So how do you take that step from being the best in the game at sales and go, I'm going to lead a sales team? Yeah.

So the key, and it's going to be your boring answer, is systemization. If it's no one can sell like you, Brian, no one can negotiate like you, Brian. This is what people used to say. No one communicates like you do, Brian. Well, it's very flattering, but that means there's no scale. There's no scale available. Oh, it's just me. Tell me how else it's great I am.

And people buy into that. Also, as leaders sometimes, nobody can do it like me. And I used to say that about even administrative work. And then I found out not only could somebody do it like me, someone could do it better, you know, certainly in a lot of roles. That's all your pride there. Yeah. But I really think it gets down to breaking it down. You know, I'll give you a really odd example.

and it's, do you know who the Blue Man Group is? Oh, yeah. Great. So you've seen them. Do you know which ones you saw? No. Do you know how many Blue Man groups there are? I imagine thousands.

Maybe not thousands, but there's dozens and dozens and dozens of them. They're well over $100 million business. Wow. And what happened was, you had three original guys wearing blue masks. They're very entertaining. They're very engaging. They're very skilled. And they do their routine.

Then what happened is they took the time to write everything they do down. an SOP, standard operating procedure. Here's how we put our makeup on. Here's how we address the audience. Here's how we interact. Here's how we create humor. Here's how we do this routine. Here's how we do this juggling event.

They broke everything they did. It was laborious. This is painful. I've done this stuff many times in Bill and Training programs. It's gruesome. But what comes out the other side? They had a manual of how the Blue Man group works. Then here's what they did.

Each one of them formed a team. So you take your three best guys and they each form a team. So now we have three teams. You bring in two guys and you see who has it and who has it and who has it. You train them, you're training them, and you're training. Sometimes people make it. Sometimes people don't. And within six months, they had three Blue Man groups.

That went out for six months. Then what do you think they did? Grew it again. They took each person off the, now they had nine teams. And then they had, you know, 18 teams. And they grew and they grew and they grew and they grew and now they're all over the world. And something that was a performance act. And as you well known, you know, I was in Nashville here.

There's a lot of performers who were great. You know, they're in their senior. 60s still trying to make a living because it's just them. And then there's people who systemized and scaled. And that's the key component. And I think for anybody who's in a business, you have to look at what's systemizable and what's scalable. And if it's not, it's not.

You know, you can't make something happen that's not there. But most businesses I found can be systemized, can be scaled. If the Blue Man Group can do it, any of us can do it. Yeah. So what were some of those systems that you started to put in place to teach other salespeople how to do this well. So I kind of break down everything I did. So I break down, here's how I, first of all,

here's what I do in a day as a successful salesperson. Then I break down, you know, for me, I broke it into three categories, the lead generation stuff, and which I don't care. You know, it's entree leadership, and people love the idea, leadership, leadership, leadership.

Let me say this. Dave Ramsey thinks this way. I think this way. Doesn't matter how big the organization is. Dave Ramsey, he's the lead salesman of this organization. I'm the lead salesman in my organization. Still, I don't do much of the salon anymore, but I'm still responsible for the mantle of it.

How do you generate a lead? How do you generate a customer? What's the optimal way to serve that customer? What's the experience that customer has, the customer experience from the time they first interact with you? I don't care if it's online, at a store, reaching out to you by a referral, whatever source. How do you handle that lead?

How do you bring it through the chain? How do you interact with them? how do you set expectations, who handles the leads, where does that go? So you go from lead generation into the sales process, from sales into service, and service into the keep them connected and stay in touch. You know, in my business, in the real estate space, they did a survey, the National Association of Realtors, but 1.5 million member trade organization. And they surveyed everyone who bought a home in a calendar year, giant, you know,

five million transactions. and what they found is that people who were thoroughly satisfied with their agent within 12 months, couldn't remember their name. Wow. Only thoroughly satisfied clients. Like they thought their agent was great. Only 28%. So part of what I do is, you know, the lead generation is to keep in touch with my customers,

keep in touch with my past customers, right? So someone sells a house. They might not be selling for five years. They may never sell. That doesn't mean they're not a great. of referrals. My best ever client actually never bought a house with me. But she was an advocate of mine and I stayed in touch with her. So for me, what we develop is what we call items of value. So let's say, George, I sell you a home. Every month for eternity, you're going to hear from me.

And I'm going to send you information, cool stuff. Like, hey, here's how to save money on taxes. Here's how to protect you and your family from identity theft. On top of that, I'd write personal notes. And so at least every 90 days, you just get a personal handwritten note. And you open up your mail, it's sometimes just nice to say, hey, hey, George, how you doing? I would do a thing called Popeyes, where I would, my very best clients, I would go and see them, bring them a little gift. Okay, here it is, it's Halloween, here's a little something for the kids, right? And I would do this. It's funny. Now, here's a great example. I remember I was delivering flowers for Mother's Day. And I'm talking about, I had hundreds of clients. So I'm going down to farmer's market, loading up an SUV with flowers.

to the office. Now, this is a classic. And I won't mention this gal's name, but she walks up to him, she goes, Brian, I know you're an immigrant and whatever else, but you know, in America, we have services that'll do this for you. They'll deliver the flowers for you. Now, this gal was selling about six homes a year. I was selling about 120 homes a year. Okay? And she's given me advice, as the little immigrant, you know, we have services here that can deliver for you. Because she didn't understand, I wanted to go see to people. Now, I was too busy to do it. But as the primary lead generator from my real estate business, even though I had a big team, I needed to go see the people, shake hands. I'm delivering flowers. And I did it. I'd go from eight in the morning until 12, four or five days, the week of Mother's Day.

I'd see all these gals in my database. I'd go into offices. Now imagine walking in here to the company. I walk in the office, open bullpen. And next thing I might have two or three gals in there. They're clients of mine. Next thing you know, I'm delivering flowers, delivering flowers. Now these heads start popping up like moles. Like, who is that guy? And all the ladies start coming out of the cubicle. Who is this guy? Like, who is this guy? And, oh, he's our realtor.

He's Brian. Oh, he does stuff like this all the time. And then they'd all look to the door because they're waiting for their realtor to come. And their realtor ain't showing up. And their realtor they might have been very happy with. But they're not going back to him. And here's the thing.

I was top of mind. So when I'm letting him out, just so you know, and I didn't high pressure, I'd say, George, just so you know, I'm never too busy for your referrals. and I got referral after referral, after referral, after referral, 35 to 40 referrals a month as a sales agent. So I systemize what I said, what I did, how I did it. And I taught it to my team.

That team became so successful that then I would be asked to speak at conferences because I had very low advertising expenses and very high margins. I had a very high average sales price. And so, you know, you're 26 years of age and you're making a million dollars a year in real estate in the early 90s. They're like, well, how are you doing this? So then I would start sharing, and I found out I could share the systems from stage. And then people say, okay, no, but I want the systems. So then the very systems I trained my own team on, I then packaged and trained for people at the events.

And that then led to what's now a befini company, which, you know, one out of every eight homes in America sold through our training and coaching. Wow. One out of every seven in Canada. You get your license in South Africa. You're going to go through the Befini training program. It's all over the Czechoslovak. You name it. We're in 41 countries.

So it started by me systemizing what I did for my team. And then because I systemized it in such detail, the team did well. And then I was able to teach other people. So there's the, you know, it led to double opportunity for me. Yeah. And it takes a level of humility to go, hey, I may be the best salesperson here, but I've got to kind of unpack my secrets so that other people can do this and so that our company can grow. Yeah.

And here's what I found. Most secrets are just skills. and all skills can be learned. There's gifts. Some people are more gifted than others, right? But all skills can be learned. And so what I found was a lot of the stuff I did kind of naturally was actually a skill.

And then when I layered it out for people, you realize that people can be trained skills, people can be improved in skills, and people can be measured in their skill development. And so that's hopeful for everybody. You know, like for example, there are people and we've had them, you guys have had them.

I have clients that are not very good with money naturally who can become extremely skilled with money. You learn how to budget, you learn how to create the surplus, you learn how to invest, you set the structures in place. And the next thing, someone who naturally was bad with money as a person

becomes good because they've developed the skills and the structures to keep them in track. And that's hope for everybody. That's hope for all the people who are listening, all the people who go to your conferences, all the people involved in your programs, you can get better, you can develop, you can be better. I think as an entrepreneur, it's the lifeblood of entrepreneurship is to grow.

Yeah, that's amazing, very encouraging. So as in America, what happens a lot here, and I'm sure it happens other places, is the top salesperson gets promoted to lead the salespeople. Is that ever the wrong move? Because they may be terrible at leading people, and they were really great at sales, and you took them away from that. Most salespeople are lousy sales leaders. Most great salespeople are lousy sales leaders.

It's just the fact. It's the Peter principle. We promote people to the next level of incompetency. Let me give an example. Magic Johnson, who I've had a chance to have at our events and on our show and a podcast and everything else, he's fantastic. And one of the great human beings, and by the way, a phenomenal businessman, phenomenal businessman. And Magic Johnson couldn't coach. Magic Johnson's career with the Lakers lasted 13 games, I believe.

Because he couldn't tell somebody, go down the court, look left, look right, throw up between your legs to the guy coming behind you. He couldn't teach somebody like that. Michael Jordan, he's an executive, but he's not a coach. He can't teach people to do what he did. In fact, you'll find the great ones usually can't. So it's really about finding someone who's, you know, if you're looking for a sales leader. Now, if they don't have some kind of sales in their background, they won't be respected by the team

because salespeople are just more red meat eating and you can't have a vegetarian, you know what I'm saying? You've got to have someone who's come from sales. But what you're really looking for is real leadership skills. Tremendous emotional intelligence. Tremendous. They can't just be, you know, you said you were going to do these numbers.

You didn't do your numbers, you're an idiot. You know, that's, and especially now. In the world we live in today and how to motivate people, it has changed a little bit. And so for me, they have to be someone who can help somebody set goals, help somebody hold them accountable to their goals, the organization's goals, and then help them in the area of the skills they need to develop

and hold their feet to the fire in an encouraging but firm way and then also be willing to make the tough decision. You know, for me, when I have someone who's worked for me, and I've employed over 4,000 people in my career, but the most gracious thing I've done on many occasions is let somebody go. Because someone who's a square pegging around hole is miserable. every day of their life they're miserable every day they come to work now they might be coming to work

because they have to have a job and they they have to make the money but you know in today's world I let people go sometimes when the employment market wasn't so hot and that's a tough thing to do but having someone who's doing something they're not designed to do is not courtesy or grace in this market two things one there's a ton of work out there for people we have 11 million open jobs and number two you need to come from that place to be able to recruit people. I mean, in the last five years, Bafini Company's won the award for the best place to work in San Diego. So we have no problem bringing people in and recruiting them.

The staff love our company. They love working there. We treat people well, we pay them well. But I'll tell you this, in the last 12 months, we've had to work harder retaining our staff than we've ever had to work. We've lost some people because people are coming along and they've, oh, well, I see you have this here and there, and you only have to work four days a week to work for our company.

So let me say this. I think in leading a company today and leading a team today, you better make sure that you get a person who's kind of designed for that role. And just because they're a great salesperson doesn't make them a great sales leader, it's rare. It's rare. Some can do it. I've done it.

I'll tell you, it was hard for me because a lot of times I'll do the old Darth Vader leadership. I'll do it myself, right? I'll do it myself. And I had to really work myself out of that. And as the Bafini and Company became a big, big organization, I mean, you kill yourself trying to do that. So I think systemization, structure, when you appoint people into roles of leadership,

they've got to have some emotional intelligence, and they've got to have some juice in that regard. What were some of those mistakes you made in the early days of Bafinian Company when you were trying to build and scale and create these systems and get people to do things the way you wanted it done? I actually wrote a book. I actually should give people a link to it. I actually give it away now.

It's called Taking Care of Business. And in the intro to the book, I list the 10 biggest clangers I ever made in business. Clangers, I love that. Well, because here's the thing. Everybody writes a book and, you know, rags to riches and a guy that never put a foot wrong. And here's my top 10 worst decisions I made in business.

And I wanted to lead off that way because, first of all, failure is not final. Every entrepreneur has swung and missed. I mean, if you haven't missed as an entrepreneur, you're not an entrepreneur. You're an employee. If you are an entrepreneur who's never tried a product that didn't bomb, that hired somebody that didn't work out, that had a season where maybe you had to write a personal check to make payroll, I mean, those are the badges of honor of being an entrepreneur. And so for me, the key is to learn from those things one time. I'll go through the 10 as best I have,

right? So one of the things I said in the book is I bought a company that had a product that said it sold itself. Well, it turned out no product sells itself. And I learned out one the hard way. I started a business one time where I just hired family and friends. That didn't work out so good. I've started businesses where I didn't have

all the finances in place to get the ball rolling, and I'm going to fund it as we go. You know, you make these mistakes. You go through it, and then you go, okay, never doing that again. You know, never doing that again. And here's what I'm going to do differently. So, if this would encourage people, I was at a board meeting, and Dave and I have chuckle about this all the time

because Dave and I always, when we have dinner, will say, you know, when we were broke, no one wanted to talk to us. You know what I mean? And we both felt we were just as wise when we were broke as we are now. The same person. Yeah, but you make a lot of money,

you do well over an extended period of time, you get invited to be on a lot of boards and a lot of charities and meaningful organizations and so and so forth. So I was at a board meeting about a year ago and there were billionaires and millionaires. It's a veritable who's who in San Diego business. And the chairman of the board is one of the most respected business leaders in the world.

So there's a guy sitting at the end of the table, and finally he kind of, it's almost like he just confesses to the group. He said, I've got to be honest with you. I just don't belong here. I just don't belong here. He goes, I really haven't talked about, but I had a business a couple of years ago. It was just a giant failure. And he says, I'm at this board meeting, and all you guys are super successful. And I just feel like I'm a phone.

and the guy at the end of the table, who's the billionaire, who's in his late 70s, this genius guy, just starts laughing. And this guy, there was a moment of uncomfortableness because I think this guy felt he was being mocked. And he says to him, I won't say his name, but he goes, so-and-so, just so you know, we've all been there. We've all been there. There's nobody at this table without it. And he goes one by one, and he asks every person at the board meeting to tell their biggest business failure. and we all had a lot to choose from. And this guy is sitting and he goes,

we've all been there. This is the badge of honor. This is what it means. Churchill said, go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. That's what an entrepreneur is. Now, the goal is you don't want to be fatal mistakes. You don't want to make the same mistake twice.

And you don't have to go as a loan. You know, get all the advice, get the input. But, you know, you have to do that. And everybody makes mistakes. And everybody makes decisions that weren't great decisions. and it's part of it. And so that was a great example. That was a hugely successful board

where it was a board of people who'd all had their chapters of failure, but books of success. For anyone listening, I hope it encourages that. That's why I know when people come to like the Entry Leadership event, they get to network and brainstorm

with other small business owners. It's one of the best things that happens because you find out, oh, this guy, and this gal, they put their pants on like I do. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not crazy.

and oh by the way what they usually find out I'm actually on the way to being more successful than I realized I'm actually in the midst of a success path that just doesn't feel like it. Yeah. So as we wrap here, what's really grinding your gears in the sales world as you try to coach people?

What are people doing wrong in that industry where you go, guys, stop, stop. Well, I mean, I'm going to try not to be the old man who does the get-off my lawn rant. But I will say this following statement. customer service is dead in America. And it does not take much to be successful anymore. That's actually probably my biggest disappointment.

It is easier to be successful right now than ever before. If you're in a construction business, if you say you'll show up at Monday at 9 o'clock, and you show up on Monday at 9 o'clock, you are already in the top 15, 20%. If you say I want to start the job on the following Friday and you start, you're in the top 10%. If you finish the job when you say you're going to finish the job,

you're in the top 5%. and you will get referrals up the wazoo. The dynamic is, and we're going through it, it is post-COVID, we're going through it culturally, but, you know, I contact the basics, customer service, actually being in a dynamic where I'm interested in serving, and sales is service. Like if you sell something, you can't sell the dream and someone else services the nightmare. If you make a sale, you make a transaction and you get paid. when you serve, you turn that client into an advocate.

And that's the difference. So salespeople get paid. People who create advocates make fortunes. And I believe, so the upside, it's easier right now to succeed than ever before. It's easier to stand out from your competition than ever before. But you've got to be maniacal and you've got to train and teach your people. And you've got to let them know. You know, we've got to take care of the customer.

We've got to find out what the need is. We've got to over-communicate with them. We've got to let them know they're important to us. We've got to thank them for their business. And then we've got to follow up and let them know we'd appreciate their referrals. The service industry is suffering mightily and the sales is deeply connected to it. So I would say, don't just sell, serve and create advocates. That's really the hot button for me.

The upside, easier to succeed than ever before in America. The downside, I hate to see the standards fall. Yeah, some bad and a lot of good there. A lot of hope for sure. So for the small business owner who maybe they have a small team, maybe they're still doing the sales, maybe they have one sales guy, how do they start this week to start implementing some systems and really scale this thing to where they can see their business grow and flourish? Well, let me say this. The first key to management is self-management. And the one thing I think that happens for a small business owner is we become chief dog and bottle washer. And you can have your to-do list, I'll check off at the end of the day. doesn't mean you're one. It's what's on the to-do list. So for me, the key is a prioritized daily

to-do list. I prioritize things, A, B, and C, and A's, B's and C's, let me say this, let me put my chips on the table. They're all directly related to what generates revenue. The biggest lead generation, income generation activities are the A-A-activities. And then I prioritize them A-1, A-2, A-3. So I would rather come home and have a to-do list that I started with 10 items and then finished with 12. You got one done, but it was an A1. That's a good day. And the more successful you become, the longer the list has become. And that's when you need a team to take those things off your list that other people can do.

For you, if you're an entrepreneur, you have to focus on that. Because here's what happens. Oh, the copy machine goes down and the next thing you know you're spending all day with the copy machine. So-and-so has a problem here. The delivery truck has a flat tar. And you're in doing that stuff. And then you go home and you go, what happened today? Or what did I get done today?

it's the worst feeling in the world. So if you're going to lead, if you're going to lead the revenue from the top line, you need to make sure you have a prioritized thing to do list. Sure, the truck tire still needs to get fixed. It's just not going to get fixed first. Sure, the copy machine needs to get fixed. It's just not getting fixed first.

I'm going to go do the most important things first. And for me, I always believe I need to win early. That's probably the third principle, Slim Carlin. You know, he always wanted us to score right off the bat. Attack, like come out of the blocks, attack. and get a lead early. And for me, I want to do this. I want to get up in the morning.

I want to have my time with God. I want to have my time at my bride. And I want to have some time at myself, and I want to work out. And then I want to hammer my to do list, the first hour of the day. It's 10 o'clock, and at the day ended now, I had a good day.

And I think that is the key ingredient. You listen to a lot of shows and podcasts and so on and so forth. And there's always, hey, what's your morning routine and so and so forth? It's a very common interview question, probably too common. But I do think it's important.

And I think for an entrepreneur, how you start your day is critical. And I think prioritized to-do list with income-generating activities at the top of the list, you're winning. You're winning. That's huge. Well, Brian, you are an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, and we are honored to have you back on the Entree Leadership podcast to encourage our listeners. We're excited for what you're doing, coaching other business owners to grow and scale and flourish in the market. Well, thanks for having me, George. You're killing it out here in Entree Leadership.

and wish you guys nothing but the best. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Brian, for a great conversation. What an incredible story. And who doesn't love a good Irish accent? As Brian talked about, you've got to be intentional while leading your sales team.

If you've ever wondered how we do that at Ramsey Solutions, you're about to find out because I talked with Jason Williams, our director of sales for entree leadership. You'll hear that conversation right after this. All right, in our second conversation, I sat down with Jason Williams,

our Director of Sales for Entree Leadership. And we talked all about how to effectively lead a sales team. Jason, it's so good to have you on the Entree Leadership podcast for the first time. Yes, absolutely first time. Thanks, George. Momentous occasion. It is. For me, I've been listening to this for years, so I'm excited.

And your role is Director of Sales for Entree Leadership specifically. How long have you been in that role? Just over a year. Just past my one-year anniversary and started last August. Congrats. Yeah. Well, I know the team loves having you as a leader here, and you've been great to work with, love your spirit, your work ethic, your talent, it's all fantastic. So I want to find out how you got

into sales. Most people, it's not a straight line. No. This is my second career. I came out of college as an athlete trainer. Most people would know that's the person that runs on the field and scoops up an injured athlete, brings them off the field, helps get them ready to play next time. I did that in the NFL on college football for about 10 years. And then just wanted to make a career change. wanted to do something different. I was in the operating room a lot for my last job. And it was really neat. I saw these people that were selling to these doctors and teaching them how to do the surgery or techniques and things. And it just was a really natural transition. People always said, you can talk, you can be in sales. So I just took the jump. That's awesome. It was fun.

So you've been in sales for several years now. What have you found to be the characteristics of a good salesperson? Well, they have to be motivated by something. All of us are motivated by something. A lot of salespeople get the idea or they're going to make a ton of money. And that is true. But that's not necessarily every salesperson's motivation. Money is a huge factor. You can kind of skies the limit in sales. So I have to be internally motivated by something,

whether you're passionate about the product, maybe you're motivated by money. That is something that is important. Just the kind of residual can-do attitude, like you're going to get a lot of nose in sales. And so when you start as a salesperson, just know that you're going to get a lot of nose. And you have to be that person that can bounce back.

It's kind of like a closer in baseball. Like you give up a home run that night. The next day you're going to have to come out. They're going to give you the ball again. You've got to go perform. So just that never quit attitude and I can persevere through anything. And then it also takes time to care about people. Sales is about people.

You want to help somebody figure out their problems. And we're talking about how to lead a sales team in this episode. So what was your experience like transitioning from salesman to sales manager for the first time? Yeah, I got a phone call from a guy. I was a salesperson. My next two leaders called me out of the blue one day and just said, hey, you're now the director of sales for this company I worked for a long time. And I was totally shocked. I hadn't really not done any preparation for that.

Looking back on it, they had given me opportunities to grow my leadership. But it was just a phone call. They saw something in me. And so I just started leading a sales team at the time. It was 12 people based in Georgia and Tennessee and grew to 25 people. I had great mentors. So I didn't know that I had the skills when I got promoted into that role. but I had been given opportunities to watch somebody else lead really well.

Most people in sales, if they get promoted from sales to sales leadership, there's two things that happened. Either they're taking over a team that is in total turmoil because the person got fired and it's a train wreck, or they are taking over because someone got promoted. I was in that second camp. So it's really nice to be able to take over a team that was really well-functioning and just kind of hone them in.

The latter sounds ideal. It is definitely ideal. But sometimes the bar is really low. if you're taking over for a sales leader that is not doing their job, the bar is relatively low. If you just get people aligned and start a move in the right direction, you'll look like a hero. If you're just a warm body, you're winning. Yeah, it's great. Show up.

It's a little harder than that, but it sounds easy. So we were talking to Brian Bafini earlier about how sales teams, they tend to promote the best salesperson into a sales leadership role, and sometimes it can end with some frustration when that person maybe doesn't deliver similar results in leadership. So why do you think, on occasion, effective salespeople, aren't? aren't necessarily the best sales leaders. Yeah, it's an interesting dilemma. I've been confronted with that a few times in my career

where a really good salesperson, sometimes the best salesperson in that team really wants to be in leadership. There's a certain set of skills that a salesperson needs to have, and there's a different set of skills that a people leader needs to have. And if those two things are not in the same person, it's going to be really difficult. So salespeople, you know, a lot of us, and I'm a salesperson, our world stops at the end of our nose.

We're most concerned about what's going to benefit me, In people leadership, you never think about yourself. You shouldn't if you're doing it right. It's really about focusing on other people. And so good salespeople, high quality, high-octane salespeople that are going to go out and kick doors in. Sometimes they're honestly a little bit too selfish in their normal day-to-day activity. If you put them in a people leadership role, they're going to think everybody should do it their way, everybody should do it the way that I did it. And that's going to become a really big problem for your business.

Yeah, you can kind of let ego get in the way when you go, well, I'm the man. I was the top salesperson. So you better listen to me. Yeah, do it like I do it. Why can't these people do it like you did? Well, you have a specific personality. You have a specific set of skills. They may not have that set of skills.

They may not have that personality. They can still be successful. You just have to figure out the way to motivate them to be successful, give them the tools to do it. That's a really difficult transition for somebody that has been about me producing for a long time. Yeah. And I wasn't the best person on my old team. I can tell you that. There were lots of people that were better.

Was that a tough transition where you had to really figure out the people side and go, how do I invest in people the right way? Yeah, it definitely, I think the stuff like the Entry Leadership Podcasts, when I didn't work here was a huge help for me because this is where I was getting my leadership training through things like this and through the books that you all introduced me to. So you can do investment on your own

to make sure you're ready for that step, but once you get that slam transition and get that phone call that, hey, you're now the director of sales, it's time to figure it out. And at that point, you were really trying to learn how do I motivate other people instead of just motivating myself. That's good.

So what is the role of a sales leader? We know the role of a salesperson is to sell. That's pretty clear. But sales leader, that can be a little trickier. Yeah, there's two different sides to that. Number one is understanding the goals of the business. So as a sales leader, you have to understand where the business wants to go

and how does sales help with that. So having constant conversations with your leadership or your owner, if you're in a small business, is really important because you need to understand where are we trying to go so that you can turn around and change that message and package that message for a salesperson to listen to. Because as business owners, you have one objective and you may speak in one way.

But unless it's articulated in a way that a salesperson will actually make a sense in their mind, it's not going to hit them where it needs to hit. So the sales manager is kind of a translator from business needs down to the salesperson's ears. So that's one of the roles. Some of the other stuff that sales leaders do is figure out ways to motivate individuals. So you have a sales team if it's two people, if it's one person, if it's five people, you have different things that motivate people different ways. Understanding how each of your people work is really important because you can ring a shiny bell and say, hey, everybody gets this trinket, but there are going to be some people who are not motivated by trinkets. It doesn't help those three people who are like, I'm just here for the money.

So you have to understand what motivates each of them. Yeah, and you do that really well on the Entree leadership team. What are some of those practical ways that maybe you've seen that work to motivate your team? Yeah, we have sales contests. We've got a group of people that we've got a couple of associate directors on the entree team. And their job is to really figure out a way to motivate the team every month. So we have different objectives. So we set different goals. I mean, the comp plan of a salesperson is really should be the primary motivator of that salesperson because that's what moves them toward the business objectives. But then you have different contests. Salespeople in general are competitive. So you can have contests, whether it's about getting to wear a championship belt. We have a wrestling championship belt upstairs. that sometimes we give out and it's to the best salesperson. So that's one thing. Sometimes it's a drawing, so they maybe do something that we want them to do to help promote the business, and it gives them a chance to put their name into a hat, and at the end of

the month we draw that out for something cool and fun. It's just trying to have competitiveness come through every single month, and really every day. So we have different things that happen every day that really try to motivate our sales team. So it's not necessarily about the dollar amount, because I'm thinking about the small business owner listening going, well, I don't know. have $1,000 to give away this month, but it can be a $25 gift card to a restaurant nearby. There are salespeople who will fight for something of no value. So mean.

I mean, you can bring in an old hat and have that be the champion's hat, yes. It does not have to be something that's really expensive. Yes, if you have the way to motivate people monetarily, that's great. But something to motivate them. And some of the biggest things that we've done in our past really cost us nothing. And it's just creative ways. I mean, they might get to have a different parking spot. Doesn't it cost you anything.

They might get to be a person that leads something. They might get to have a special seat at a table at a dinner that you're already going to have. And those are things that don't cost you anything more, but just get creative. As a small business owner, if money is the factor, don't let that be the reason why you don't do things to motivate your team because there's ways to do it. Yeah, that's so good. So what are the keys to leading a team here at Ramsey's Solutions? It may be different than other businesses, other industries, but what have you found are the keys to winning here? There are a lot of similarities to my previous business, and the differences are we're very missional.

So talking every day about the mission is really important. Connecting your salespeople to the bigger why of why your organization is trying to make a difference in the world is hugely important. Now, we did that on my old organization, but I was part of an organization that was a $6 billion a year company. It's a little bit harder to connect the why. But when you're in a small business, you're trying to make a specific dent in a sales. specific economy, whether it's your specific area or in an industry. And connecting the why of your organization to that salesperson makes a huge difference, especially to the younger generation. Salespeople, younger salespeople today that I've found, they want to understand what kind of a difference

they're making. Their motivation is about the impact they're having and less about the money. So those are the things that I've observed. Yeah. So during the week, are there rhythms, habits, things that you do to effectively lead the team? So we have a couple different things. Sales training is really important. Sales training is something that is we try to work on our craft. It is truly training. So if you're a physically fit person, you're not going to stay physically fit unless you're pushing yourself. And so sales training is really important. It's something that we believe in here. And that can be simple as just reviewing phone calls. We have a recording system that records our phone calls. And it's really good to go back and listen to the game tape. Listen to the game tape

in front of all of your peers. So in the NFL, they would watch game tape and the entire defense would be in there. And if one player made a mistake, the rest of the defense would give them a time. That's exactly what we do in sales. We have a daily stand-up where we talk about daily objectives. What are we trying to do? What was activity like the day before? Let's review the numbers because sales is very scoreboard driven. It's not the entire story, but it is a very important part of the story. And so reviewing things like that is something that we do on a regular basis. So for the small business owner listening, they may still be doing the sales. They may be on that treadmill operator. They may have one salesperson or they may have a small team. They may

I didn't have a sales leader yet. So depending on the phase, this could look very different for how you start to step into this. But what should a small business owner hiring for their first sales leader be looking for during that interview process? I had this conversation with one of our business owners at Master Series last year. They were the sole producer. They had a couple of their salespeople, and they were looking to bring in a sales leader. We had a great conversation. I think the first thing that's important is to find somebody that has been there and done that. Like, you know, if you bring in somebody who's never done sales to lead a sales team, that's a group of sharks that, that will eat that person alive.

That's not a good experience for that person. It's not going to be a good experience for your team. So finding somebody that has been a good salesperson, maybe not a great salesperson, and then find somebody with the character to lead people. It is all about people leadership. Like they need to have the ability to sell, but it is about being able to read the room

and being able to motivate people and to really care about their team. So if you can find somebody that can do those things, they've been in sales, they are a person that can motivate and lead people and they can read the room, you're going to be in good shape. That's good. So they've got to have the sales experience, but they have to have this relational, empathy-driven type personality to where they really care about people just as much they care about the scoreboard.

Yeah, I say it all the time. A sales leader is really a kindergarten teacher for a bunch of high-paid kindergartners. I am one of those kindergartners, and so we're very emotional. Salespeople, we're very emotional. We have highs and lows, and you need somebody that's going to be able to love on them and challenge them and kick them in the rear end if it needs to happen. I love that. What a great analogy to end off with. Well, Jason, I love the way you have led our Entree Leadership Sales team, how much you care about people. And I'm grateful for your time being on the podcast today. Thanks, George. It's been fun. As Jason and Brian both talked about, it is crucial to have the right sales team in place. And if you don't have that team yet, you've got some hiring to do. And if you need some help with this hiring process, you can download the Entree Leaders Guide to Hiring. To get this free guide, just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And we want to hear what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like,

and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder.

I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Ontario Trade Leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Ramsey Show. We want you to take control of your life and money once and for all. I'm Dave Ramsey, and along with my co-hosts on The Ramsey Show,

we'll give you straight talk on everything from budgets to career to relationships. Join us as callers from all walks of life, learn how to get out of debt, and start building for the future and how you can too. Listen to the Ramsey Show, wherever you listen to podcasts.