The Key to Hiring Great Sales People

Fletcher Wimbush:
I'm excited to have everybody on The Hire Talent Podcast today, optimizing the hiring process. I've got a really great guest, Deb Venable. She's a 27 year veteran as an entrepreneur, and now, for the last couple of years, she's been teaching people her secrets to sales as a sales extraordinary coach. I thought this is really interesting. We ran into each other the other day, we haven't had anybody on who is such a specialized guru with salespeople. This is such a common issue that comes up, hiring great salespeople is hard. Right? We've all been there, we've all been frustrated, we've probably all failed in this department once or twice in our lives, so I thought it was a great topic. I'm really glad to have you on, Deb.

Deb Venable:
Thank you. Thank you for letting me come today.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So, I guess, a little bit about your background. So, currently running a B2B sales coaching, really, business. So you're a leader in sales strategy, sales coaching, sales training, you have an amazing passion for people and helping them progress in their work and helping businesses progress in their sales efforts to make a significant impact on the predictable and sustainable growth year-over-year, something I think we are all striving for. Even if we've got it, we want to do better at it.

Fletcher Wimbush:
She has a background. For 27 years, ran a trade show business, so helping people get the equipment and the stuff they need to make an impactful presentation at trade shows. I'm sure dealing with a lot of salespeople and doing a lot of sales yourself have really refined this process on how to get the most out of your sales efforts through that. So that's a really great experience to be able to share with everybody. Especially up and coming entrepreneurs, you do a lot of work with those folks, and that's very admirable. As we're young in our entrepreneurial lives, we definitely need to figure this out to be successful. So, awesome. So how did this come about? I understand you had this business for a long time, but how'd you decide to become a coach?

Deb Venable:
So, trade shows; 25 years, I did that. Designed them, sold them, built them and serviced them, and it was a fantastic run, even though during all those 25 years of running the business I always gravitated towards the sales side, I always gravitated towards wanting to communicate with clients, wanting to help my internal salespeople grow and do awesome things. One of my top salespeople, she was our receptionist turned into sales extraordinaire. So I always had this passion for ii and...

Deb Venable:
Luckily, I had great partnership for 25 years with my partners and decided that I wanted to kind of take my life in a different direction and came up with a great exit strategy and said, I'm going to go off and do my own thing now, and learned a lot in those 25 years. That's why I am very passionate and very connected to my clients, because a lot of them I've lived their life, and I know how hard it is to hire salespeople, to train them, to keep them, to know how much to pay them, all those kinds of things. So it's been very invigorating for me now to go into companies and help them build their sales teams.

Fletcher Wimbush:
In our world, with assessments and helping assess people and really try to figure out who the best person is, I think we have a lot of conversations with people. They come to us and they want to hire a different kind of salesperson than they had before, or their first salesperson, or their sales system isn't working. We try to spend a lot of time with them, just trying to understand the foundational stuff. So we find that they sort of lack a little direction. They like hire a salesperson, kind of throw them out there, but there's no real plan in place or understanding of what the job really is. So if you're a company, I think... I always believe this is step one; set this foundation, this plan. If you're a company and trying to prepare, how do you do this effectively, so that it actually works?

Deb Venable:
Really, at the end of the day, the sales person is going to succeed or fail a lot because of what you've given them to start off with. You can't just blindly throw somebody into a sales position and say, "Go sell." Right?

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yeah.

Deb Venable:
You as a company, just like you need to have your kind of mission and your core values figured out, you really need to have your sales roadmap, your playbook, your strategy, whatever it is, mapped out, where you truly know who your clients are, who your competitors are, things like that. So in building any kind of sales team, the team needs to know what they're going after. I'm going to stress very heavily though, that it has to be documented. You really need to have a document that says, "Okay, where is this written down? Our process, is it one email or three emails, four phone calls? What does it look like?"

Deb Venable:
I day that, because once you've written something down and then you go back and you realize, "Okay, things are changing..." During these days of COVID, everybody just had to go back and revamp their sales program. But if they never had it documented in the first place, then they're just all shooting at the hip. So definitely the lack of direction when you're trying to hire salespeople starts with, make sure you don't have a lack of direction in the company and where you're going, which problem you're solving for your clients and things like that, because that's really the first step, is to have this kind of foundation, as you were describing it.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So you start with that company vision and strategy and mission, and if that's done well, then that trickles down to the salespeople, and that really allows really understanding who that customer is, who needs this service or product.

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
I see that a lot. And then it plays into all these other factors, where like, how do I get in contact [inaudible 00:06:41]. If I don't know who I need to go to, I don't necessarily know which channel is the best. And then a lot of times I see people giving salespeople like administrative and marketing-oriented tasks, like data mining. In a lot of ways, that's not really... The job should be so clear to me that, here's your target, here's the information you need to get in touch with them, here's the message that you need to deliver, and then here's the solution that you need to help them solve. It's got to be clear. I love the going back piece. Because as you realize maybe it breaks down certain parts of the process, then you can go back and clearly revise it. That's really good. This kind of plays into the similar question, but what kind of sales person do you need? Right?

Deb Venable:
Yeah. Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
I see this a lot, like when you... People are like, "Well, should I hire somebody who's in my industry, who knows my business, who..." I want to hire a competitor, basically. Right?

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Or, do you hire an entry level person and teach them, or do you hire somebody outside of your sector, but maybe has relatable experiences?

Deb Venable:
Sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
How do we figure that out?

Deb Venable:
So just like you were talking a little bit about the foundation and I was kind of seconding that program, I also would say to figure out what kind of sales person you need. Once you've figured out what your sales process is, you'll start to understand, has my marketing really pushed to sales, or my salespeople just need to be continuing the conversation and pushing it down the line, or is it, my salespeople are the ones who are going to be breaking down doors, knocking over pillars to get to people?

Deb Venable:
So there's all sorts of different salespeople. It could be a technical sale, like an engineering firm, it could be a very consultative sale, kind of like I had in the trade show world, where you showed up with a blank piece of paper and said, "We're going to draw you a beautiful booth." Financial services, that's a different sale too, because-

Fletcher Wimbush:
The relationship [inaudible 00:08:49].

Deb Venable:
Yeah. You're really selling a relationship, not just a product. I'm not just selling this pen kind of thing. So what I would say about what kind of salesperson is, it flows with what kind of sales process do you have? Just like you were saying, that you've got some great assessment tools when it comes to recruiting, that is very key, very key in trying to figure out what kind of sales person. Because if you need that hunter, or that relationship person, you know that. Because sometimes the best customer service people that you think would be amazing at sales don't like to ask for money and don't like to be the ones that have to ask the tougher questions that sometimes salespeople do have to ask, "I need to know your budget."

Deb Venable:
Customer service people just want to fix the problem and make it happy. So if you know your sales process, you'll kind of know, do I need heavy account managers? Do I need heavy outbound salespeople, inbound salespeople? And then yes, you can run assessments on these people to kind of know where they naturally gravitate towards, because that'll help [inaudible 00:09:56].

Fletcher Wimbush:
Position them in the right place. So that roadmap is key to deciding, what's the makeup of the team, the mixture from marketing and sales, or which activities. Many times you see a lot more mature companies have multiple different types of sales people, as you were-

Deb Venable:
Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... mentioning there. Yeah, that's an important thing to discover. I think this is all the foundational stuff that really got to think about. The biggest thing that drives me crazy if somebody is like, "I want to hire the top performing guy from-

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... my competitor." So this is somebody who's got probably like a big book of business, but yet I want them to sit down and make a hundred cold calls every day. That top performing person with a big book of business isn't making a hundred cold calls a day and doesn't want to do that, and they're making a lot of money. So in order to attract them, you're going to have to pay them more than they're worth to make a bunch of cold calls. Right? And-

Deb Venable:
Yep. Often, they have strings attached, often, there're non-competes or some legal issues that might arise if they do come over to you, for sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So, tell me about the hiring process that you recommend to your clients. I didn't throw this on our pre-script, but I just realized-

Deb Venable:
Okay.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... we probably should talk about this before we talk about the next question. So if you had to design a hiring process for salespeople, what's that kind of ideal roadmap for you?

Deb Venable:
Right. So, the idea of roadmap definitely is, number one, have that foundation, know what you're selling, know what your sales process is. That'll lead into you defining what kind of sales person? What's the real key metrics that they have to have from an HR standpoint? And then yes, it could be working with someone like you to say, we need to have these key elements, go and recruit those kinds of people. If you have an internal system that does that alone... But it really does go out, matching the skills to what you're trying to sell. So am I a proponent of hiring somebody that has experience? Yes. But again, if they are experienced and their skills match up what you are, as a company, what you guys are selling...

Deb Venable:
So the process though, still has to be, have the plan, know the person you're looking for. And then that key element though, is to make sure that you can pick from a pool of good people, and that is really screening out a lot-

Fletcher Wimbush:
So third step is getting... build that pool of relevant people. And then we see that a lot, where they build a great pool of people, but they're... These are account managers and you're looking for hunters. Right?

Deb Venable:
Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush:
We don't really realize that we have the wrong people in the pool. Even though they might be attractive people-

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... they might be very successful, but it just doesn't match the jobs the job description-

Deb Venable:
And then it's interesting too, because sometimes you get those referrals, right?

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yeah.

Deb Venable:
"Well, I've got a friend of a friend." That could work, because people that... birds of a feather flock together kind of thing. But you do have-

Fletcher Wimbush:
Sure.

Deb Venable:
... to be careful that there's no nepotism or kind of special treatment in front of those people. So sometimes I even try to stay away from that a little bit. Again, you need to look at more just the skills, and are they trainable? Are they open to being able to learn [crosstalk 00:13:24].

Fletcher Wimbush:
A referral is simply putting somebody into the pool. So just like running an ad is, or using a recruiter... The first job of a recruiter is just build the pool. Right?

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Ideally, if they're bringing in people that could be potentially good matches, then that's what you're looking for, and the same thing with that referral. So you have to then screen your pool to narrow it down so that-

Deb Venable:
Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... it's relevant. What have you guys done in the past when you've got all these things? Exactly, you maybe have a great referral, maybe this person's fantastic, but how do you... So you need to put them through the same process, as opposed to-

Deb Venable:
We believe a lot in assessment tools. We really do. There's a lot of assessment tools out there. You have some, too. I do believe in the assessment tools, because I do believe they gave you that kind of unbiased, just very kind of a natural look into who they really are as a person, and I think-

Fletcher Wimbush:
No emotions.

Deb Venable:
Right. I think you and I have talked about this before, where sometimes you just really like somebody, you just really have like a great chemistry with them, which is fantastic. But again, who are they deep down inside naturally? So I am a big believer in the assessment tools to just really get to know somebody deep down inside and kind of weed out others that maybe are putting on a good show, but then when they get in... They were putting on a good show for you during that sales interview, but now that they're in the mix, they hate cold calling, they can't stand it, and it's just something that they're not going to bite on. So definitely, the screening side and [crosstalk 00:15:16].

Fletcher Wimbush:
They don't like having to confront people and ask the hard questions, right?

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Like, are you ready to buy? And then have to deal with the no, and then have to-

Deb Venable:
Sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... deal with the next question in sales. I tell my sales people, "Hey, go for the no."

Deb Venable:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). [crosstalk 00:15:37].

Fletcher Wimbush:
I want to hear a no. If, look, this isn't the right fit, then I want to hear the no, and then I want to understand why, and so let me help solve that problem. Maybe I didn't really understand your problem, to begin with, so let's go back. A lot of times in the sales process, you got to open and close those doors and revisit things, because maybe the buyer didn't open up, we didn't dig deep enough earlier.

Deb Venable:
The other thing I would bring up is that when you ask about hiring somebody that's brand new that I can train or that has experience that I don't have to train, that's a misconception. You should always hire people that are trainable, always. So from a recruiting standpoint, that is big, big, big red flag that you should look for, is, does this person truly have the ability to be trainable? Because I don't care if you're right out of school, or you have 30 years experience in some kind of industry, you should always be learning, you should always be open-minded to what's the next thing, what's the next sales process, the next technique, whatever it might be. So I always believed that I wanted to hire people that were truly trainable.

Deb Venable:
Our receptionist that went to being one of our top sales people, the reason she was like that is because she was very open-minded, very much eager to just always be learning. So sometimes you have to be careful that if you do hire somebody who has the book of business, they know what they're doing, they're going to be shut off and not want to necessarily listen to maybe new ideas, new methods, new ways to make sales happen. So-

Fletcher Wimbush:
They're not going to like it when you give them a new system or put them into Salesforce, all of a sudden, and they were using Zoho or whatever, right? And now-

Deb Venable:
Yep.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... you have to train them how to do that, and they don't want to do it, and they don't feel like they need to, because some ways they don't, but you do, because the company needs the data in order to make decisions. So you run into these issues. Really good salespeople are notorious for what we call being problem generators. I'm sure you've experienced a few of these. They might be amazing, but they like... They might be amazing at sales, but they're like just causing problems everywhere else, leaving a trail of like chaos behind them. Right?

Deb Venable:
Yeah. Yeah. You need to look for that team player, that trainable, that good attitude, all that kind of stuff, for sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So how do you assess people? Aside from testing, that's obviously great. Depending on your situation, you use it earlier, at mid, or towards the end of a process. But what is the other steps? You're going to do some interviews, how many? Do you do anything else? What else are you recommending people do to determine whether they've got a high quality candidate that actually might be able to do the job?

Deb Venable:
Sure. So, obviously, we do a lot of checking up on referrals and things like that. I know that can be sensitive if somebody's-

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yeah, references.

Deb Venable:
... trying to do the job and they're not able to. But we do try to look for that credibility. Right? So-

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yeah.

Deb Venable:
... we do look at their LinkedIn. We will take a look and see where they posted, where they're engaging, whether they're not. We'll look and see who's recommended them. We do ask them for references and referral, but we try to ask them also for references and referrals to clients that they've worked with.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Hmm. [crosstalk 00:19:13].

Deb Venable:
Right?

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yup.

Deb Venable:
And really try to say like, "Who have you worked with that you'd feel comfortable?" Good salespeople have very personal relationships with a lot of these clients, that it shouldn't matter if it's a sticky situation or not, a lot of times you're able to call on them. Also, it's interesting. I've seen a lot of resumes that say, "Oh, I was the top sales person for so many years in a row." Well, those are the kinds of things... It's a free world out there. Right? So sometimes we'll Google those and be like, "Okay, if they were at JPMorgan and they did have the top sales, a lot of times you'll see those in like press releases or whatever." And then I start to go, "Okay, this guy's telling the truth, and it's there."

Deb Venable:
But if we start kind of poking around and looking and saying, some of these dots are connecting, it doesn't help. And then yes, we do try to have them meet and interview with a lot of different people. It shouldn't be a surprise that we're going to check references. So we always say, "When we call your references, what will they say about you?" Things like that.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Some [inaudible 00:20:20] moves, right?

Deb Venable:
Yep. Yep. Yep. So I think one of the things you have to recognize is though, if you're not good at this, then don't do it. So-

Fletcher Wimbush:
In sales. You have a lot of sales people who are not successful and they're jumping from sales job to sales job, they're living off their base, and maybe they make a little bit of commission along the way, but they're really not all that great at it. Right?

Deb Venable:
Yeah. But then also, on the flip side is, if you are not great at hiring people... So if you're the business owner or you're the HR... HR should be good at it. Kind of piggybacking off of what you guys do for a living, I say that too, it's like, okay, if you are not good at evaluating people and asking people questions and really judging them, then don't do it. So some of my clients are really good at it, they have a really good system, they're just good at knowing how to pick up. But then I had a lot of clients that are very impatient. So when you want to talk about trying to find and hire good salespeople, you should be doing it every single day. It should be that waitress that you thought gave you a great service, it should be somebody that you sat next to on a train that you struck up a conversation with.

Deb Venable:
You should have this Rolodex going on all times of just good people that you've met and connected with. It shouldn't be, oh, I need a salesperson, I run an ad, I pick one. Because if you do it that way, it's too impatient, and you end up just firing from the hip and you're done.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Well-

Deb Venable:
So if you don't have the patience to really hire the right people, and then again, really train them and really spend the time with them, then you shouldn't be doing it, you should be outsourcing all of it, then.

Fletcher Wimbush:
No, it makes a lot of sense. It's like, if you're not a good accountant, don't do your own books. Right?

Deb Venable:
No. Exactly, exactly. That's exactly right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
It'll be disaster, guaranteed. No. And-

Deb Venable:
Because I hate how many times people have said, "Oh, I just have a good gut feeling about this person." And it's like, you could, and I'm not saying that your gut doesn't tell you the truth, but if that gut has failed you three times in a row, then stop listening to your gut and go get some help.

Fletcher Wimbush:
The gut is more of a disqualifier for me. It's like, look, if I just can't stand the person, then that probably is never going to change for me. Right? Like, I'm always just-

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... not going to like them, for whatever reason. That may be right or wrong, but that, to me, is more of a disqualifier than... But if I really liked this person, that's a red flag for me to slow down, to even-

Deb Venable:
Sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... dig deeper, to follow a more objective process, to not skip steps, and to really dig deep. Because those rose-colored glasses, you see the salespeople all the time. They're telling me the things I want to hear, but then you forget to ask those probing questions to really figure out what their real problem is. You get to the end, you ask for the business, they say no. It kind of goes back to what we were talking about before, you're got to start all over again, if you can, at that point.

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Right?

Deb Venable:
Right.

Fletcher Wimbush:
If the door's not completely shut on you, yeah. We do a coaching program for people who want to be better at hiring, and I love it, because I think it really... it's very synergistic with sales training-

Deb Venable:
Absolutely.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... because the key for sales training... So references, you talked about, and I'm a huge fan of references. In fact, we're co-authoring a study with Bowling Green State University, number one assessment, the academic think tank in the country. We looked at the impact of references, and we definitely found that previous supervisors provide the most constructive feedback above and beyond any other references, and it's absolutely critical. A lot of times we get a lot of objections and we allow those objections to stop us from speaking to those people. And-

Deb Venable:
Sure.

Fletcher Wimbush:
... I love talking to clients and colleagues. It can be very important. Depending on the type of role, it can tell you a lot. So we have references. I'm so glad you brought that up, because... Obviously, I'm an assessment guy, but from an interviewing strategy, there is nothing more powerful than the conversation and the actual collecting in speaking to references. So I think it's so critical. But that's where sales starts. You go in with a credibility statements, which is a reference, and then the art of being a great salesperson ultimately is being curious. Right?

Deb Venable:
Yes. [crosstalk 00:24:53].

Fletcher Wimbush:
That's the same skill that you use as an interviewer, is you're really, really curious, then you'll peel that onion back and get to the truth. Sometimes it's hard to do when you have butterflies about the person, because you'll-

Deb Venable:
Exactly.

Fletcher Wimbush:
I love it. I love it. Okay. This is kind of your cup of tea. I've seen this time and time again in all sorts of roles, but you hire somebody who's great, everything checks out; track record of success, previous supervisors are like glowing reviews, assessments seem to indicate that they're really well-aligned for the role that they're at... I recommend working interviews, I've done a working interview, that went well. And then we hire them, and this is often where things just fall apart. So what are you recommending? How do we train and onboard people more effectively?

Deb Venable:
Okay. So this is where you have to put on the patient's hat, and you do have to make sure that you've got an actual legitimate program. It does take weeks, if not months, for people to form new habits. Whether it's a customer service role or if it's a true hunter role, or whatever it is in between, yes, I understand that that's in the sales capacity, but it doesn't mean that they know you, your rhythm, your systems, your everything.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Where the water cooler's at.

Deb Venable:
Yeah. So I would say that most companies don't really, truly take the time, slow down, have process, have that training. So again, you can't just tell somebody, "Here's the playbook, go read it, go do it." It is the role-playing, it is the checking in on them, it is making them shadow other people, it is kind of testing them along the way, it is really being involved with them. Again, I recommend 12 weeks. I truly say that it's about a 12 week ramp up for you to really, really be able to get in with somebody that you know is going to work.

Deb Venable:
I say that, because we all know, as sad as it sounds, that when they're in the interview, they're going to be like at their absolute best, like, okay, they've got every... they're all buttoned up. And then as life goes on and you start to get to know them and get to know them and get to know them... During that 12 weeks, you'll start to see if, okay, maybe in the interview they did say, "Yep, I have no problem asking for budgets." But then you watch them and you see that they are struggling. Then, if everything else is lining up and maybe that one little thing isn't, that's a red flag for you to just coach them and train them a little bit more.

Deb Venable:
So, again, product, service, whatever it might be, it doesn't matter. You've got to just keep training them. I really do say 12 weeks of solid repetition. That's often something that a sales manager has momentum on, and then they lose it. They'll do like a couple of weeks, and then-

Fletcher Wimbush:
So what's like a good cadence? How would you structure those 12 weeks? I mean-

Deb Venable:
Right. So how I would structure them is the first couple of weeks is truly nothing but who you are. It's got to be them drinking from your water cooler, it's got to be them knowing your mission statement, your core values to really understand you as a business. So, again, not knowing you at all, it's talking to the key leadership people, it's talking to some of the employees. So I do recommend a lot of shadowing, a lot of like entrenchment into that. One of the fun things I used to do is basically their first week of work, we used to always say, "Okay, who's taking Susie, our new person, out for lunch today?" Right?

Fletcher Wimbush:
Yeah.

Deb Venable:
It's those kinds of things, to just really get them to be part of the team, and then a lot of shadowing. Okay. If I'm supposed to be making phone calls, I'm going to sit in on the top sales person's office and I'm going to hear them make calls. So slowly doing the shadowing and taking notes on how that works and then going into, okay, now that you've heard how it works, let's do some-playing. Okay. Then you start making your own calls with me in the room, and the next thing you know, you could be making your own calls. Ride along, same thing. Okay, I have an opportunity for sale, I watch you do the sale. Now then we're doing the sale together, next thing you know, you're backing away and letting me do the sale. So, it's got to be that deliberate, repetitive kind easing in and easing out.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So my father always said it's a see one, do one, teach one, and sometimes we can replace... The teach one could be role-playing, it could be me just explaining to you how to do it, or it could be even a little bit of that execution piece, but absorbing the information to the point that you can now show somebody else how to do it, right? Piece.

Deb Venable:
Exactly.

Fletcher Wimbush:
That takes time. Right? So-

Deb Venable:
Yep.

Fletcher Wimbush:
I love it. So a lot of shadowing, and then a lot of structured check-ins on a regular basis. I think for a sales manager, and I've led sales teams, it was always difficult if I didn't, myself, have a routine in how I was going to do this. Because I'm all over the place, I don't remember that... May not be the most enjoyable activity to have to do role play with somebody. I don't want to do that, but you got to do it. Right?

Deb Venable:
Yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush:
It was part of your job.

Deb Venable:
It's a deliberate, deliberate practice. Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush:
So about three months to really get somebody from hired to sort of in a rhythm where they're performing at some level. Do you think at three months that... I'm sure in some roles that they could be performing at their forever expectation, but do you think even at three months, most people are really hitting their kind of top level of achievement?

Deb Venable:
No. Really, at the end of the day, depends on how long your sales cycle is and a lot of those kinds of factors, but no. I've always said, after the three months, you'll kind of know if the person has the will and the capacity to kind of keep moving forward. Because unfortunately-

Fletcher Wimbush:
It could be indications of success, but it's not going to be like a hundred percent of quota or something. Right?

Deb Venable:
Right. Because I would rather see you spend 12 weeks of deliberate practice, repetition training on somebody and realize after 12 weeks, this person's not going to cut it, versus, you spending 12 months, because after week four, they say, "Well, I don't understand this." After week eight, "I still don't understand this." And then what happens is you almost feel like, "Oh, I didn't train them enough. I'm going just going to keep hanging on to them and keep helping them along the way." And then 12 months later, you realize, they never really had it from the beginning.

Deb Venable:
So I believe if you really put that person under a microscope and really train them for the 12 weeks, you'll kind of have a better indication if they're going to go forward or not. But then after that, no, absolutely not. My sales team, I used to meet with them weekly, one-on-one, for the check-ins, what are we doing, how's pipeline, that kind of thing. Then we used to have group sales meetings once a month, which is when we all would experience, share, we would all talk with one another. And then quarterly, we'd have an outside speaker or some kind of motivational just difference that would come in and [inaudible 00:32:46]. And then of course, we always had our big yearly kind of kickoff. So you've got to always be in touch with the sales team.

Fletcher Wimbush:
I love the piece, if let it drag on for 12 months, there's some emotional connection, you feel bad. Letting somebody go is the most emotionally painful thing for any leader, I think. I have to guess that most people agonize over it for weeks, if not months, before they actually do it. They're not doing anybody a favor in that case. They're not doing that person a favor. Again, it takes... I think it takes a year for people to become proficient, and I think it takes three to five years to become good or excellent at something. In most cases, some lower level jobs, that timeline has shrunk a little bit, but if we're talking professional level positions, it's a long timeframe to become the expert. So if you hang on to them too long, you're delaying their ability to find a role where they can act truly grow roots and become excellent and successful over the longterm, because short-term success doesn't really get anybody very far. Right?

Deb Venable:
Maybe you're doing a lot of damage to your company and your reputation [crosstalk 00:34:09].

Fletcher Wimbush:
But it goes both ways.

Deb Venable:
[crosstalk 00:34:12] credibility.

Fletcher Wimbush:
Great. Well, this has been a great conversation. Definitely hope everybody watches this. I think we'll learn a lot about hiring sales people and just people in general. But I always like to leave everybody with three things that you can just begin doing tomorrow that are pretty easy. Deb, just recap three things that you think that anybody can take away and start executing on tomorrow.

Deb Venable:
The first thing is just had that playbook. Maybe that's not something you can do tomorrow, but you can certainly have an outline of it. [crosstalk 00:34:45]. So, got to have that playbook, you got to hire the right people, you got to have that supportive team, but I would say that what you could do tomorrow would be to just really start with that just kind of simple outline of does that playbook look like, and then what skills match what needs to execute that playbook?

Fletcher Wimbush:
Good. So for anybody who's interested in creating a playbook or learning how to train and onboard and just identify better salespeople, how do we get in touch with you?

Deb Venable:
So you can call me, 312 296 2818. I live off my phone-

Fletcher Wimbush:
All right. The Deb hotline.

Deb Venable:
Exactly. And then just email, and even LinkedIn. So Deb Venable is my LinkedIn, email at DebV@myb2bcoach.com. So yeah, simple-

Fletcher Wimbush:
All right. Great.

Deb Venable:
... things like that.

Fletcher Wimbush:
All of that'll be on the podcast page, so people can find you. So if you didn't catch that, go check that out. It was a great pleasure, thank you for being here.

Deb Venable:
Thank you for having me. It was fantastic, and best of luck to you guys, too.