True Confessions of a Sales Leader

In this episode of “True Confessions of a Sales Leader,” we explore how to create a successful sales team and scale it to grow and perform within the company. 

We’re excited with this episode’s guest, Henry Schuck co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of ZoomInfo. Henry joins Scott Olsen, founder of the Olsen Group, and Gary Brashear, managing partner of the Olsen Group. 

If you don’t know the story behind ZoomInfo, it’s a great success story. Henry co-founded the company (formerly DiscoverOrg) in 2007 in his law school dorm and has been growing the successful company ever since. Last summer, ZoomInfo became a Nasdaq-listed company and is one of the dominant players in the sales enablement technology space.

Listen in to find out how Henry got on the path to build his sales teams and how he continues to do so today. 

In our first episode of the new season, we tackle a growing problem not only facing sales organizations but entire companies—keeping your team intact.

Our guest is Scott Campbell, Senior VP at Sales at Docker, who has been responsible for ramping up a new sales team in 2021. Scott joins (our own) Scott Olsen, founder of the Olsen Group, and Gary Brashear, managing partner of the Olsen Group. 

You’ve read the headlines about the mass exodus of employees or perhaps you’re struggling to keep or attract a talented sales team. Hired just over a year ago, Scott has been responsible for building a new sales team —90% of the team are new hires. So, how do you attract new talent like this? Listen in as we discuss what Scott has accomplished and how to implement your own changes to recruit sales rock stars. 

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our seventh segment focuses on how buyers are going through a period of change, and sales people need to adapt to this change. Now more then ever, circumstances are often out of a salesperson's control that cause a deal not to close. But sometimes having inaction during these times is the cause, and should be remedied by having a explicit conversation with the client on customer at the right time, before it's too late.

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our sixth segment focuses on the power of listening in the sales process. The best sales people talk less, and spend time trying to understand the customer's problems and issues first. It's important that sales people and the customer have the same vision of the problem before jumping in with any type of dialogue about a solution.

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our fifth segment focuses on what it means to sell "value". Selling isn't about pitching products, it's about you and the customer finding a shared vision for what the value of the product is for the customer. In this segment, Dr. Ruff discusses two ways that help you and your customer find this shared vision.

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our fourth segment focuses on why focusing on your salesperson's strengths are the perfect gateway to  coaching their deficiencies. By providing compliments and acknowledging the persons strengths, it makes critical remarks palatable, and more importantly increases the chances that the coaching direction is actually heard and implemented by your salespeople.

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our third segment focuses on why you should be careful when providing negative feedback or direct coaching tips to your sales team. Naturally it seems to make sense to just give someone bullet by bullet feedback, but often you won't get the improvement you're looking for from your sales person. Coaching is about being patient, and taking the time to persuade someone that they should be doing something differently, versus just telling them they are doing it poorly and should be doing it differently. 

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our second segment focuses on why you shouldn't be vague when you coach your sales team. Instead of using generic statements like "you should be selling value." Sharpen up the coaching and be specific with your sales team. Focus on coaching the exact skills, like how to ask better questions, versus using nebulous statements like "selling value".

Welcome to our new segment, Sales Leader Q&A with Dr. Ruff. 

These are short, 5 to 10 minutes segments with our sales coaching expert, Dr. Richard Ruff, where we provide quick and actionable tips that you can take and implement with your sales team right away.

Our first segment focuses on why you shouldn't be comparing your sales team members when coaching your team, but instead, focus on always coaching to a set of best practices. 

In this episode of “True Confessions of a Sales Leader,” we look at how being vulnerable and building self-awareness can make better sales leaders and ultimately sales teams with our guest, Mike Porter, chief sales officer at NAVEX Global. 

Here are four key takeaways:

1. Bring your experience as a salesperson 

Many great sales leaders were also great salespeople but all not great salespeople  make great sales leaders. When they move from an individual contributing role to a leading role, many leaders tend to go back to what made them successful, like being a solid dealmaker. Bring your skills, of course, but also tune into what your team brings and how to get the most out of them from your background. Coach them on confidence, on closing a deal, or even prospecting. All things you excelled at. 

2. Use self-awareness to grow 

You may think (and rightfully so!) you’ve built a solid team, have motivated them, helped them understand cross-group coordination. However, one day, feedback, whether it’s negative or positive, from a team member might prove otherwise. It’s important to keep having those ah-ha moments. For example, maybe you’re intense, focused on the numbers. Add some levity and make sure you come across as approachable. Self-awareness exists in every single one of us and forces us to look at our own challenges but also teaches how to improve ourselves. 

3. You can’t avoid the (in)famous flight risk

You’re an amazing sales coach. You’ve built a great team but now some of them have defected to the competition or a better role elsewhere. Coaching people because they need it or because they have career aspirations, then building their skills, and then having them leave can happen. It’s hard to lose a top performer to that next step in their career. The benefit? Most of your team wants to stay because you’ve built credibility and you’re helping them grow. That matters, too. 

4. Develop an 80/20 document 

This is a great tool and can be as simple as a one-pager. Communicate 80% of the document on how you work with a sales team, what excites you, things you’re passionate about, your strengths, or even what triggers you. The other 20%? There will be time to work that out, time spent working together will reveal that. Don’t make your team members guess how to work with you. Have new team members do their own 80/20 document, too. It helps provide self awareness and a way to teach new team members how to treat you—and vice versa.