🎙️ Transcript: Should I Even Try to Hit Quota?

Sales Strategy & Enablement Podcast
"Should I Even Try to Hit Quota?"
Andy Paul, Ralph Barsi
February 14, 2023

Ralph Barsi:
You have to make sure when you set out to do something in sales or life, that you're squarely facing the outcome you're after or at least the direction you want to go, and you're kind of, you're on your way.

Andy Paul:
Hi friends. Welcome to the Sales Enablement podcast. I'm your host, Andy Paul. Now, that was my friend, Ralph Barsi. Ralph is Vice President, Global Inside Sales at Tray.io, and he is, as I've said often on the show, he is one of my favorite people in the entire sales profession and in life in general.

And as always, when Ralph is on the show, we start off by talking about the books we've read.

And then for that, we're going to tackle some big topics, including what's the purpose of having quotas if so few sellers actually meet or exceed them, and what's the point of continuing to raise quotas in the absence of appropriate investments in sales training, management, training, and enablement?

We also dig into whether we should go about onboarding people differently, and are we doing it the right way, and why the way we're currently doing it perpetuate some of these problems we're talking about in terms of quota attainment.

And we explore whether there's a better way to compensate sales managers that would ensure that more sellers hit their numbers. So get into all this and much, much more.

But before we get to Ralph, I want to remind you to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So let's jump into it.

Ralph Barsi, welcome back to the show.

Ralph:
Thanks, Andy. How are you today?

Andy:
Not too bad. Not too bad. We're recording on Halloween, just so people know. And Ralph, you have your, what looks like your prison jumpsuit on - your bright orange shirt.

Ralph:
Yes. And a full head of hair as well. Full head of hair.

Andy:
Well, that's right. Have you been out picking up trash by the side of the road or something? It looks like a...

Ralph:
Rough morning.

Andy:
Rough morning. Right, right. So if people pay attention to every time you come on the show, we always start by talking about books. Books we're reading. That's right. And not necessarily even sales books though, that can be sales related. So what's, what have you been reading that's got you excited?

Ralph:
Well, I hope I don't butcher the title of it, but it's called Ichibun, and I've been following, I can't remember the name of the account, but I've been following an account - a couple actually - on Instagram that highlight books.

Very nerdy, but I love it. I love it. And I found out about Ichibun through one of these Insta accounts, and the subtitle is "The Secrets of Japanese Precision: Managing Daily Crises, the Japanese Way By Understanding the Science Behind Human Factors and Resilience Engineering."

It's authored by Kosuke Sendo, who I believe is or was an airline pilot. It's kind of a rule book-guidebook that pilots use that, of course, contain rules and principles and processes that translate to life...and sales, of course. And I've found it, it's fascinating so far. I'm about, I don't know, 85% of the way through.

Andy:
So it sounds a little bit maybe in theory, similar to Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto.

Ralph:
A favorite of mine.

Andy:
Of mine as well.

Ralph:
Yes. Yeah, it's a lot like that. It's less dense, but nonetheless still has just a bunch of value nuggets throughout it.

Andy:
Yeah, I really like The Checklist Manifesto. I think it's just such a, for sales in particular, as a big advocate, we also come up with our own processes for how we sell, but a checklist is a good way to check if you're doing the things you think you should be doing or you think you are doing. And yeah, I use 'em quite a bit.

Ralph:
Same. Yeah, that book is and was a game changer for me. What I love about just the whole concept of having a checklist is being able to line check that checklist.

So if you're not getting the results or outcomes that you expect, you've got to go back to see where the kink in the chain is, so to speak. And you can't do that if you don't have a set list to follow.

Andy:
Right.

Ralph:
So, big fan.

Andy:
Yeah. Yeah.

So, okay, two recommendations for people to check out:

Ichibun, I-C-H-I-B-U-N. Ichiban in Japanese means Number One, I'm not sure what ichibun means, but yeah, check that out.

Check out The Checklist Manifesto.

Now I just got through reading and interviewed for the show, Matt Dixon, who was one of the co-authors of Challenger Sale and his new co-author, Ted McKenna, wrote a book called The Jolt Effect, about what really is driving customer decision making.

And yeah, very interesting book and sort of the premise being that customer indecision is really the big roadblock, the big challenge, and how do you deal with indecision?

So yeah, great book, good perspectives. They did tremendous amount of research, gosh, analyzing millions of calls through this technology company, Tethr, and a lot of books.

I think that it's important for sellers to read. Not that you necessarily say, oh, hey, this is the Bible. Everything is, you got to factor in with your own experiences, but it's another perspective that may be different than what you're thinking to take into when you're actually dealing with your buyers.

Ralph:
I love it. It's the whole "seek first to understand before being understood" approach, at least it sounds like that.

And Andy does Jolt, is that an acronym for something?

Andy:
It is. See, let me, give me two seconds. I'll look it up here.

Ralph:
Another great book with Jolt in the title is from my friend Larry Long, Jr. Do you know Larry?

Andy:
I know Larry, yes.

Ralph:
Oh, it's just a great, great motivational, inspirational book. Larry gets...

Andy:
I'm sorry, go ahead.

Ralph:
...I was just going to say he gets personal in. It talks a lot about his role models in life, but also, of course, relates it to the reader. Just outstanding read.

Andy:
Yeah. And Larry's a great follow on social. Get a chance to hear him speak, as you said, he is very inspirational.

Yeah. I met him at a conference about four or five years ago for the first time, and yeah, had him on the show and yeah, really enjoyed speaking with him. Yeah, it makes me feel like I'm not doing nearly enough with my life.

Ralph:
Same. Yeah, we got to step it up. We

Andy Paul (07:06):
Have to step it up. Why haven't slacking all this time? Yeah. It's like talking to my friend Jeb Blount is like, what, you've written your fourth book this year.

Ralph Barsi (07:18):
C'mon, man. I'm pick it up!

Andy:
Pick it up. Okay, so Jolt, just so we know is...

...J is judging a decision...
...O is offer your recommendation. What they're saying is rather than ask confused customers what they want, tell them instead what they should buy. Three...
...Limit exploration because you got to constrain number of choices perhaps that the buyers are looking at, and then one that's perhaps most relevant to their thesis as you take risk off the table.

Ralph:
Oh, of course. Love that.

Andy:
A creative, already imagined customer fears about making a decision. So that was Jolt Effect. What's on your list to read? What's coming up?

Ralph:
Ooh, what's coming up? Well, I have a couple that I've cracked open but have not plowed through yet. So they're in the queue.

One that I started that I'm really enjoying, it relates to golf, but I also think relates to sales and life. It's called Every Shot Must Have a Purpose.

And of course I'm going to have to look up the author, but it comes from the coaches, the coaching staff that coached LPGA, golfer, Annika Sörenstam.

And one of my favorite concepts so far, again, I just cracked it open, is this notion of you've got your "Thinking Box" and your "Decision Box."

So as it relates to golf, as you're standing at the tee box, staring down the fairway, assessing the path ahead or potential path ahead, you are in your Thinking Box.

But then when you step to the ball, address the ball with your club, you are in the Decision Box, which implies thinking stops.

You've stepped over the threshold, you're now in the Decision Box. And I just know that that translates to so many things in life where I know I'm guilty of overthinking / over-complicating decisions rather than just stepping figuratively into my Decision Box and executing.

Andy:
Just make sure the club faces square on impact. Right.

Ralph:
Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty simple. Otherwise, everything else is extra...

Andy:
That's right. Yeah. Well, I think that relates to selling quite a bit, right? Is yeah, every interaction with the buyer, you want to deepen your connection, deepen your curiosity, deepen your understanding of the buyer, deepen your sense or deepen the value. Provide them, yeah.

How you get there doesn't really matter. Does that happen? Right? Yeah. To me, I look at sales same way as everybody wants to define these tightly prescribed processes for how you get to those points. It's like, nah, it's necessarily different for everybody who cares, right?

I mean, I don't care if you swing the club like Tiger Woods, or Jim Furyk, with his convoluted backswing, work for Furyk. I mean, how many majors did he win?

Ralph:
Couple.

Andy:
Yeah,

Ralph:
Wonky swing. But he would square that club face up. And it's funny you bring that up. That's what, of course, the cover of the book is, and I'm now looking at it.

It's by Pia Nielsen and Lynn Marriott. But there's the club face right there on the cover, nice and square.

And yeah, you have to make sure when you set out to do something in sales or life that you're squarely facing the outcome you're after or at least the direction you want to go and you're on your way.

Andy:
Yeah. I'm more successful at that in life than I'm in golf.

Ralph:
Same.

Andy:
Same. Yeah. Well, one that's on my list. I've heard the author interviewed and read an interview with her, and I was fascinated by it.

The book is called Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends, author is Marisa Franco, and just so much wisdom in there about...I've just only looked at the first issue...but based on interviews I've read with her about just how do we connect with people?

And this is, as you know, is a big thing with me. The importance of being able to connect with your buyers at just a human level as prerequisite for being able to do business with them or successfully do business with them.

And yeah, she brings up some things that I'd seen in other books like Cialdini's book, Pre-Suasion, his book after "persuasion."

There's people out there in the sales ecosystem saying, your buyer doesn't care about connection with you.

In fact, you don't even need to be friendly to 'em. They don't care about that, which is such incredibly wrongheaded thinking and BS.

But Franco talks about studies, Cialdini talked about these, for instance, that buyers are more predisposed to want to do business with people who they think like them.

We know the whole, "Hey, we buy from people we trust." Actually, there's a little extra step there. It's not "who they like" necessarily. It's put those in air quotes, but is people that "think like them."

So this idea that somehow you can be completely business oriented, let's not connect, no rapport, people don't care. We're just in this to solve a problem. It's like, it's just not the way people in the world works as much as you may want it to think. It does, it doesn't.

Ralph:
Do you think that happens more? At least that mindset and approach happens more in the transactional world?

Andy:
I think it does, but you're seeing it more and more in people advocating this in the B2B world and more complex sales, and it's just like, it's

Ralph:
Hard for me to subscribe to.

Andy:
The funny thing that's interesting is without naming names, people are, some of the biggest advocates of this are hugely personable and...

Ralph:
...Go figure...

Andy:
And they connect with people for the same reason that they claim people don't want to connect with you is because of who they are as humans.

So anyway, Platonic, Marisa Franco, that's another one that's on my list that that's it. I've just started, just according to Kindle, I'm less than 5% on the way in.

Ralph:
Okay. That was a question I had: How you consume the copy? Do you listen? Do you read and highlight and scribble through the pages? Or is it Kindle, which you could also highlight?

Andy:
I highlight extensively on Kindle and the things that I like. I take out ideas I put into my note system.

I use Evernote, partly is for things I want to write about. So yeah, for the most part, gave up physical books. Just I've got so many I want to read, and I serve multiple books simultaneously, so I've got a novel going, got a couple of nonfiction books going and so on. So yeah, be impossible to carry that around physically.

Ralph:
Andy, on that note, how have readers been consuming your most recent book?

Andy:
Sell Without Selling Out?

Ralph:
Yeah. Do you know how they've been?

Andy:
Yeah, I mean, it's exact percentages I haven't had a chance to calculate yet. Anecdotally, what I know is that surprising number of people purchase both the audio and physical books.

Well, audio and plus a digital or physical book copy. So they're reading and listening to it, which I thought, well, that's interesting. That's awesome. I wonder if that's a larger trend as well. Is that one book by in two different versions?

Ralph:
Well, I've actually, I don't do it often, but I've tried that approach where I'm actually listening to the audiobook while reading the hard copy.

Andy:
Oh, while reading it. Okay.

Ralph:
Yeah, and it's actually helped me just stay reigned into the words on the page. So often my mind will start drifting because I'll have a thought based on what I just read, but my eyes will continue to go through the page, but I'm still at the top of the page in my head because I've drifted.

However, when I'm listening to somebody actually read it to me while I'm reading, I stay kind of tethered to the page.

Andy:
Interesting.

Ralph:
Yeah. Not that good at it. I don't do it consistently, but I have done it and I've found it to be effective.

Andy:
I could see that for a couple books that I've gone through before.

Ralph:
Perhaps that's what we're seeing with some calling out...

Andy:
Or just dying to hear my voice.

Ralph:
Yes, yes, of course.

Andy:
Don't get enough on the podcast. I listen to you for four hours and are uninterrupted.

Alright, so let's talk some sales stuff. We're going to talk about quota. I mean, you're saying you're sitting on a panel here shortly to talk about quota, and I'm on record as saying I'm not sure quota has a purpose anymore.

Ralph:
Yeah, you and I have actually, we've broached this topic in previous episodes. We haven't gone too deep on it, but I guess the unfortunate thing is it's still a problem. So that's because it still exists.

Andy:
Yeah. Does it need to?

Ralph:
Yeah, I think I have the same question.

Andy:
Well, I mean, I look at it this way is if so few people are attaining it from a percentage standpoint, then it doesn't have value anymore.

Ralph:
Maybe I also think about, well, there's a lot of factors I think about when I think about the word "quota."

But in the setting of quota and how ambitious businesses are, or VCs are, whoever it is you want to point your fingers at, maybe there's the concept of "aim high, miss high," knowing that it's unattainable to a degree, but if quota is missed within a certain parameter, we're still going to kind of hit what we're after.

But then other factors include, look, if you're going to be lifting quota, you also assume you're going to be lifting training and lifting enablement and what? Lifting your recruiting.

Andy:
I can't remember if I told you a story right before the start of the pandemic. I was talking to the CEOs of a portfolio company, this one private equity company, and I asked the question, I said, "Oh, okay. We're here in November, who's going to raise quota next year?"

And they all uniformly raised their hand. So we didn't know the pandemic was on the horizon...a normal typical year at the end of 2019, I said, "okay, well yeah, let's survey the room. What's going to be the average?"

And it came out to like 12%, a double digit increase.

I said, "okay, well let me ask a question. So raise your hand. How many of you have invested or have confidence that you've invested in your team to raise their capabilities 12%?" Crickets, no hands raised. No hands raised at all. And they looked at me like....

Ralph:
...what are you talking about?

Andy:
Exactly, they're looking at me, "What the hell are you talking about?" And it's like, sure, let's just keep raising quotas, being completely unmindful of the fact that you got people that are being impacted by this, not just from an income perspective, but also from a personal point of view is, and this is going to tie to another topic where we want to talk about which just win rates.

But I contend that if you're a salesperson and you're never hitting quota, it doesn't mean necessarily that you're bad at what you do because the way quotas are set are so random.

There's so little logic to it.

And I think, isn't there a benefit, instead of running a whole profession, whole profession built on the assumption that the majority of people are not going to achieve their goals? Why don't we change it around so that three quarters of people do hit their goals?

Because what you're doing is you teach people confidence. What I found in my career is when I took over teams and started teams, startups and so on, is I wanted everybody to hit their number.

I wanted everybody to feel confident that they could achieve what they needed to achieve. And then, my experience has been, is that once people are consistently hitting quota, what's the last thing they don't want to have happen?

They don't want to not ever hit their quota. So then you're in position to say, "okay, well how do we rationally, and so on, raise quotas in order to hit our goals and have as high a fraction of people achieve theirs?"

And what you do is, you start at the beginning, is you make people confident they can hit their goals.

They have been hitting their goals. And sometimes even in cases where it's more established companies, it was, you weren't changed the quota path, if you will, for people that are new.

So I'm sure that through the first year, year and a half, maybe even two years, they're rock solid. They're on target, they have the confidence knowing they can achieve what's been put in front of them as opposed to from day one, feeling like they're under the gun, they got the knife hanging over the back of their neck.

It's like we can breed people that are more confident. Why aren't we doing that?

Ralph:
Absolutely. Yeah. It speaks to retention. It speaks to employee engagement. It also speaks to personal accountability and responsibility, planning your work, working your plan, ensuring that that groundswell continues among the whole team.

And it speaks to better service in general, first class service to the customers and prospects. I mean, it is truly a win-win when you can create that type of environment.

Andy:
And you touched on this before, there's a lot of these factors in terms of who the investors are and so on that play into some of this.

But one of my current bugaboos, if you will, is, and I mean this is, you tell me because you're directly involved in this, is this whole idea about we got to onboard people in 90 days..."Our SDRs onboard in 90 days. If we don't, there's all this lost productivity."

Ralph:
It's...

Andy:
Like, well, first of all, this concept lost productivity is not real. And secondly, has anyone ever tracked the data to say, look, because I assume SDRs, let's say most of 'em progress on don't want to be AEs and so on, is have we ever done the data that said, yeah, those SDRs who onboard more predictably within a 90 day period go on to become more productive AEs?

Ralph:
Not that I can recall.

Andy:
We have this idea is that what we're doing is now is, we're doing this random sort of selection of people who can adapt more quickly in this early position, has nothing to do with the future and their long-term career.

Ralph:
That is so true.

Andy:
And so any endeavor, we see this in athletics all the time, in sports, is some kid is the number one draft choice in football. And everybody thinks, well, God, the guy really sucks this first year or two.

But then suddenly the third year, he is an all-star because it took a long time. It just took longer for him, for it to all make sense for the game to slow down or whatever the terms they use is to suddenly get acclimated to the environment and start being able to bring his best self to that game or her best self to that game.

It's like we've stopped allowing that to happen in many cases, it seems like in sales.

Ralph:
Yeah. We've talked about this book,I think, The First 90 Days. Mike Watkins wrote it years ago. Great book actually.

But I think I'd have to ask Mike himself, but maybe he would modify that title today to The First 180 Days versus First 90.

But there's just been this stamp imprinted on so many of our brains that you only have this 90-day window to become a contributor of value and meet that Breakeven Point he talks about versus the consumer of value.

But I do think it's realistic to kind of expand that timeframe. To your point, I can count 'em on both hands, a number of situations where I've had either sales reps or sales development reps just slow to the take.

If you're watching their progression, it's like molasses when they first get there, they're trying to figure out where everything is, find their legs, get an understanding of customer problems, et cetera, and it takes a minute to incubate.

Andy:
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean about, I remember my first sales job, which was out making cold calls in the field. That was our life making cold calls in the field. I hated. It's just introvert, a little bit shy, didn't like it.

But yeah, there were a couple of people that came in that were just seemingly rock stars. Nothing phased them. They both were gone within a couple of years. I think one was out of sales altogether. I mean, it's just like this idea.

I think that's increasingly difficult these days, especially with onboarding new SDRs, for instance, people new to sales is there's so much We're going to put 'em on a phone. Okay, great. We're going to put 'em phones.

How many minutes have they actually spent on a phone actually talking to someone up to that point in their life? It was different. You and I, we came of age in a different generation.

We didn't have texting. We didn't have any of the asynchronous messaging, social media, whatever they exists today. So if we wanted to talk to 'em, we actually had to talk to 'em.

But now it's really unfair to expect kids without that base of experience to come in and just say, Hey, let's throw 'em to the wolves. You know how to talk to someone on phone, don't you?

Ralph:
Yeah, go get 'em.

Andy:
Go get 'em. And it's like, well, no, it doesn't mean they're bad people. It's just not the way the world works these days. That's right.

So why aren't we spending more time, which takes more than 90 days to help people just learn how to connect with another human being in person or in person, but on a phone actually talking to 'em or on a Zoom call?

Ralph:
We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.

Andy:
I like that. Did you come up with that?

Ralph:
I wish. No, it is an old quote from Archilochus.

Andy:
So we're going to have to look up Archilochus. This like a Greek philosopher?

Ralph:
Yeah, I think it is.

Andy:
Oh, wow.

Ralph:
Okay. And I'm being serious, I think it is. But it's A-R-C-H-I-L-O-C-H-U-S.

Andy:
Alright.

Ralph:
So we're going to have to look up Archilochus was a Greek poet born in 680 BC.

Andy:
Smart people back there.

Ralph:
Yeah. That's a pretty hardcore quote to have lasted this long.

Andy:
Yeah. Well, I was just, last week I was quoting Aristotle because I was doing a slow burn about, again, some of these people out there that say, you don't need a connection with your buyers.

You don't need a relationship with your buyers. They don't want to be your friends. And I'm like, "well, of course they don't want to be your friends. That's not what I'm talking about."

Ralph:
Yeah, exactly.

Andy:
Who wants to be your friends? But you have to be connected with them. Of course. Look up the definition of the word "relationship."

It's the way two or more things or people are connected or work together. So if you're selling to someone and they're buying from you, you are connected, and therefore you have a relationship.

It's not a friendship. But anyway, to that point, Aristotle talked about this. He said, well, yeah, what you're describing, these are what he called friendships of utility, meaning you basically had a friendship that lasted the duration of the transaction.

And then when the transaction was done, the friendship was done.

Ralph:
Interesting.

Andy:
2,500 years ago, Aristotle's able to have these insights in a much less commercial world, I would think we could have this cognitive dissonance that we can hold these two opposing thoughts on the mind at the same time.

One is that we can be connected with someone, and B, not be their friend.

Ralph:
Right. Well, I also think about, as a seller, I don't know, I dunno about you, but I like testimonials. I like referrals.

I like repeat business or expansion opportunities right now. If I cut it off at the pass after the transaction, all that goes out the window.

Andy:
Well, yeah. Or going back to the point I was making with Aristotle is, if you assume that you can be brusque and yeah, people don't care. There's no relationship there.

There's no connection there. I can just, it's all about solving their problems. That's all they care about. That's, I said, continues driving me nuts because I think what those people advocate that point of view are doing are trying to talk to an audience that is most uncomfortable with this idea of connecting with someone else.

And just by saying it's not important, doesn't make the need for it go away, it's still there. You're doing business with someone. You have a connection with them.

You have a de facto relationship with them. It's not a friendship, but it is a relationship and their experience of you as a human being according to research from CEB and The Challenger and so on, that is the single most important thing factor in their decision.

Ralph:
Go figure.

Andy:
Yeah. So

Ralph:
Yeah, I mean, I would argue it directly informs the win rate topic you just mentioned.

Andy:
Of course it does.

Ralph:
Of course it does.

Andy:
Of course it does.

Ralph:
Yeah. Win rates.

Andy:
Sometimes I feel like, and I'm writing more about this and talking more people about it, because in the SaaS world in general, I don't want to pick on them, but win rates are pretty low and 20% fairly typical.

And this is not purely a software thing.

There was a book that came out earlier this year authored Jennifer Kmo, which one of the co-authors book called Strikingly Different Selling, but they had commissioned this research firm to talk to, I dunno, 14,000 companies around the world.

And what the results were is that on deals $100K and higher, which are not big deals, average win rate, 17%.

Ralph:
$100K and lower? Or $100K and higher?

Andy:
$100K and higher.

Ralph:
Really?

Andy:
Now, my experience to the bulk of my career selling 6, 7, 8, even one nine figure deal was about 63%.

Ralph:
Very north of $100K.

Andy:
Yeah. Well, they're all very north of $100K. But still, if you're selling to someone, if you're investing your time and your attention as a seller, and you've been on the show and talked about time management, it's like, this is how you're managing your time?

Who am I selling to? But instead of the broad swath, what we've seen certainly in the software world is like if we just get enough deal flow going, and if we're sort of halfway decent, we'll be able to pick off 20%.

And we've turned selling into a casino game, we're playing the odds at that point. And as a seller, I never want to play the odds. I wanted to have control over my destiny.

Ralph:
A hundred percent. Yeah.

Andy:
So how do we change the mindset on this? I have conversations with CROs of public and private companies, and yeah, I get vacant stares often when I ask, well, "what are you doing to improve your win rate?"

Or more precisely, "tell me, what would the impact be on revenue with each 1% increase in your win rate?"

Ralph:
Yeah, that'll light 'em up.

Andy:
Yeah. They can't answer.

Ralph:
What are you hearing? Are they responding at all to that?

Andy:
They don't have the answer to that.

Ralph:
They're looking to you for the answer.

Andy:
I don't think they've been thinking about win rate for the most part.

Ralph:
Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, I make a lot of assumptions, but I'd be keen to know if their top three initiatives, if win rate even represents one of them...

Andy:
Well, I can recall one conversation...

Ralph:
...one of them.

Andy:
I can recall a conversation from, again, predates the pandemic at a conference, but CRO, very well known SaaS company, publicly traded, just looked at a blank stare.

It's like I posted it to, I said, asked what growth plans were, and it was all about top of funnel, lead gen, top of funnel.

And we get that going. We've got this finely tuned engine. We'll hire more SDRs, we'll produce more. I'm like, "so wouldn't it be cheaper and faster to revenue..."

Ralph:
Yeah. Yeah. You're all...

Andy:
...Stay with me here for a sec..."increase your win rate? Let's just say 5% this year?" But the way he responded was, it wasn't even on his list of things to look at.

Ralph:
Interesting.

Andy:
And this gets back to the quota conversation, because I would bring this up with you is that I don't care if you're a rep hitting quota, but your win rate's at 20%, it sounds like a horrible place to be, right?

I mean, yeah, you may be making some dollars, but basically you're dealing in a world of defeat...

Ralph:
A lot of heavy lifting to no avail.

Andy:
Right? And I like to say, phrase it this way to people who have low win rates, I said, "so if practice makes perfect, and your win rate is let's say it's 20%, what are you practicing?"

You're practicing losing, getting really good at it. Wow. But why I am asking you as a sales leader, senior sales leader, why aren't more companies, more sales leaders focused on saying, yeah, this is something called, cited to me recently.

This is the Mac Daddy of all sales metrics, because this is the customer's ultimate referendum on how well you're doing.

Ralph:
Yeah, no question. I think about what the deterrents are to not putting that metric in the spotlight more.

So maybe there's this thought that it's just going to take too much time and headcount maybe, and collective bandwidth to actually drive down into producing higher win rates in terms of training, enablement, maybe rollouts of new methodologies, certifications internally.

Maybe it's seen as like, "man, we don't have time for that." You know what I mean? We've got numbers to hit yesterday, and maybe that's what's veering a lot of businesses away from using that as a key metric.

Andy:
But isn't it the same mindset you just described that is condemning us to serve repetitive failure of reps to hit quota, right?

Ralph:
It is, ironically.

Andy:
"We're just so busy." I mean, I've heard that on a few occasions from people that say, senior sales leaders read my book and said, oh, so good.

But I'm saying, but what I've got a number to hit. It's like, so what you're saying is the only way you can hit your number is to be super salesy, is that what you're saying?

And it's just like at some point we have to address these issues and, yeah, I'd argue maybe it doesn't have to be that expensive, because part of, I think is also a, it's a culture thing, right?

Ralph:
No question. Keep in mind too, for lack of a better term, that a lot of sales leaders feel their heads are on the chopping block.

Andy:
Sure. All the time. Well, understandably so. Right? We look at the data...

Ralph:
That they'll be replaced like that if we're not hitting...

Andy:
Also an issue, right? Because yeah, we bring in CROs, what's the average tenure of CROs are..?

Ralph:
18 months, maybe.

Andy:
18 months or less these days.

Ralph:
Yeah.

Andy:
How can you come in and implement your program? I mean, it's such a disincentive to change. It's a disincentive to innovate a disincentive.

Unless there's a particular CEO and senior leadership team that says, look, this isn't happening. We're going to have to bite the bullet for a couple quarters and say, look, we got to turn this ship here, because yeah, we're not going anywhere with this type of performance.

Ralph:
So perhaps you make it a sequential change. You dip your toe in the water in Q1, and you at least get talking about it culturally about what's to come over the next four quarters or so.

Andy:
I have some solutions. By the way, you want to hear a couple?

Ralph:
Absolutely.

Andy:
Right. So here, these are, you're with...

Ralph:
Me though.

Andy:
These are minor, but lemme run this one by you. I don't think we've talked about this.

Ralph:
Yeah.

Andy:
So let's say we change sales manager and sales leader compensation. Is that some of it? The variable comp, right, is say, look, a major chunk of your variable comp is be based on not the percentage of your sellers that hit quota, but the number that hit quota.

Because what we're going to do is we're going to pay you a flat fee for every seller that hits their number...

Ralph:
Versus a cohort that hit...

Andy:
Versus a cohort that hits or whatever. So your job now as a manager is to ensure that everybody crosses the line because you get a flat fee for everyone that crosses the line.

So you're not getting override on percentage of sales anymore. It's just no, the major chunk of your compensation is, look, you got 10 sellers, we're going to give you 10 grand for everyone that comes across the finish line.

And I guarantee you, you'd start seeing a much higher fraction of sellers hit quota, or the conversations within management about how quotas are set would change instantly as well. One and or both of those would take place...

Ralph:
For the better...

Andy:
For the better.

Ralph:
Do you know any of these comp plans that are in place yet?

Andy:
No. I mean, I've started telling people I think this would be a way to go. And it's shocked silence for most of 'em because yeah, they try to get by an aggregate, and it's like, well, no, our job is not just to have three or four people succeed.

Your job as a sales leader is everybody that you can succeed to get in the boat of success with you. You want to have everybody feeling confident they can contribute to the extent possible.

We know by numbers, not everybody's going to do it, but if you knew as a sales manager that you had a hundred, let's say a $100K bonus, that was based on the number of people that hit their numbers, I guarantee a much higher fraction of would overnight.

Ralph:
I don't doubt it, Andy. I think in theory, it sounds like the ideal situation.

It really does. Practically, the way I'm thinking about it, in terms of risks, would be if that is how my comp plan was adjusted.

For example, I think one of my number one concerns would be micromanaging of the individual contributors, because I'm responsible now for every single head versus the cohort.

And so now I'm going to be skip-leveling all the time, which is very healthy in many respects. But there's a lot of leaders out there that I have worked for myself who they'll press on and press on and kind of disrupt and get in your way, and it's not always healthy.

Andy:
I agree. That's the danger. Absolutely.

Ralph:
Now, I don't know if that's a major danger or a major risk, but it's just one thing I'd be thinking about when I get to the practical level.

Andy:
But I also think for a practical level as a sales leader, you'd say, well, what are we missing in the way we're training and enabling these people just to be able to make this so that it gives you a greater sense of confidence that you can work with people who have a better chance of making it happen.

And I think it has to go back to hiring obviously, as well, and who are we getting the right people in? But I brought this up before, I just are a big believer in this idea, is that the way you breed people within an organization to be successful is you let them taste success and experience success, and then they want to keep succeeding. And you're not going to get a hundred percent of the people to do it.

We know that. But we clearly could have a higher fraction of people doing it than we are today just hitting their number, and then they feel good about themselves.

I mean, knowing in sales from the crushed survey last year that what 75% of sellers B2B sellers are feeling the stress and some level of mental unease about what's happening.

It's like, sure, we're not tough performance-based profession. Sure.

It shouldn't be that percentage of people that are feeling the way they do about it...no, no. I mean, so we just create this environment that I said, I think just, yeah, counterproductive.

Ralph:
Well, it's discussions like this. That'll get the wheels turning. We just got to make sure that we share this episode with a lot of sales leaders.

Andy:
We will. Let's go on the road. Well, we'll do this live.

Ralph:
That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy:
Alright. Well, Ralph, unfortunately, we've run out of time, but look forward to having you back and as always, such a pleasure.

Ralph:
Feeling's mutual. Thanks for having me on, Andy. I love chatting with you.

Andy:
Likewise. And so before we go, you got to tell us a little about the band.

Ralph:
Sure.

Andy:
Long member of this band for how many years now?

Ralph:
Yeah. Well, we started in early 1994.

Andy:
Wow. So almost 30 years.

Ralph:
Yeah. Still cranking. A few iterations personnel wise, but core members are still part of the band. But we're a rock band.

We're called Segue, S-E-G-U-E. You could find us on all the well-known platforms from Apple Music to Spotify, to Pandora, et cetera.

The most recent record we released is called Yer Ebb. Two words, Y-E-R-E-B-B.

A lot of us are from Pacifica, California, which is a surf town. Back in the day, the slang "you're ebb" meant "you're jealous."

So we produced this record. It's a mix of originals and a couple covers, and we felt that kind of swagger when we released it. You know what, you're ebb.

Andy:
Well. I've listened to it. I like it. And at the core of the core is the drummer, obviously in a rock band, which is...

Ralph:
Ralph.

Andy:
Ralph Barsi. Then you can find some video of Ralph - older video - some that I've seen was a little older. Rocking out.

Ralph:
Rocking out. Yeah. I love playing the drums. Good release. And I encourage everybody out there who's even thought about picking up a pair of drumsticks to go for it.

Andy:
Yeah.

Ralph:
Rock n roll.

Andy:
And how many billions of downloads on Spotify?

Ralph:
Well, I think we've just, just shy of 1 billion. Yeah, emphasis on the term "just shy."

Andy:
Just shy. Right. All right. Well...

Ralph:
Thanks though, Andy,

Andy:
I think you can go to on your personal website, do you have a tour schedule?

Ralph:
Not a tour schedule. I wish we were on tour, but yeah, ralphbarsi.com/segue - S-E-G-U-E. And you'll learn a little bit more about us.

You'll get to hear some of the tracks and records I'm talking about, and we'd love to see you at a live performance someday. Come up and say hello.

Andy:
Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to it.

Ralph:
Yeah, we got to get to San Diego. Andy.

Andy:
Get to San Diego. Yeah, you got family there. Everything. Okay. We'll make that happen. Alright, Ralph. Thank you.

Ralph:
Thank you. Happy Halloween.

Andy:
Hey, Happy Halloween.

Ralph:
Alright, cheers.

Andy:
Okay, friends, that's it for this episode. First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to listen.

I'm so grateful for your support of the show, and I want to thank our guest, Ralph Barsi, for sharing his insights with us today.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast, "Sales Enablement with Andy Paul" on iTunes, Spotify, or we every listening podcast.

So thank you for your help with that. And as always, thank you so much for investing your time with me today. Until next time, I'm your host, Andy Paul. Good selling everyone.