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[00:00:00] Lee Brumbaugh: Great execution beats great ideas. As a CEO, as a visionary, we all have great ideas that we want to put in practice, but if I have 10 different ideas and none of them are being executed upon, then I’m going to miss the mark. There’s no silver bullet in sales, but on Sales Against the Odds, we’re here to give you the best shot at building a sales infrastructure that helps you scale. I’m your host, Lee Brumbaugh. Welcome everyone to another episode of Sales Against the Odds. My name is Lee Brumbaugh, host and CEO of Sales Xceleration. And for those of you that follow the show, the format today is going to be a little bit different. We just celebrated over 20 episodes, which means we’ve had 20 guests on that have been CEOs, business leaders that have all given us tangible and real world insights on how to grow your business.
[00:00:52] Lee Brumbaugh: So today what we’re going to focus, instead of having a guest join us, I’m going to walk through the key moments from our top 20 guests. So think about in terms of the aha moment. Now we know that each of our guests have brought a lot more depth to all of these topics, but what you find is that as we go through each of these episodes, and AI helped me synthesize this, another way to use AI and how you approach your business, but this given me some really good insights for each of our guests and they align to, again, kind of my aha moment. So again, under 20 minutes today, we’re going to give you 20 different tips, insights that you can use in your business going forward that were key takeaways from our guests. So let’s get started. One of our first guests was somebody that I know I really enjoyed the time with.
[00:01:39] Lee Brumbaugh: As I mentioned on the podcast, one of my favorite books, Building a Storybrand. But Donald Miller, CEO of StoryBrand joined us and talked a lot of different ways around your call to action, your marketing strategy, a really great episode to go back to if you don’t feel like your website really resonates with your customers. But what I took away was if your customer has to think you’ve already lost, clarity wins. So again, if you think about it, there’s so many of these times we sit in our sales meetings, it gets complicated, it gets convoluted. Go back to your website, go back to your sales team, look at your messaging. If your customer has to think about what’s your product or service does to make them better, then you’ve missed the ball. So great insights from Donald Miller. A second guest I want to highlight is Nick Friedman.
[00:02:30] Lee Brumbaugh: Nick, for those of you who listened to the episode, heard us talk about was on the very first episode of Shark Tank. If you ever want to go back, YouTube it, the first episode of Shark, you’ll see Nick and Omar turning down the sharks. But Nick, I’ve got to work with firsthand, is really good at building culture. And so the quote I wrote down from Nick is culture becomes a competitive advantage when you intentionally invest in it. So if you think about that, so many times we talk about culture, we say it’s important, but are you taking the time to prioritize it in your 90-day objectives, your annual objectives? Are you making sure that you’re really being intentional and how that culture permeates within your company? Another guest I want to highlight was Dave Parker. Dave was out in the Seattle area for years and has built hundreds of companies, helped guide and found them and really is a thought leader in the startup space.
[00:03:24] Lee Brumbaugh: Dave’s quote came to us from successful founders know when to stop selling everything to everyone. And that’s a big area as the sales guy that I will tell you I struggle with the most because I want to sell. I’ve got a new product, I’ve got a new service, and it’s that shiny object. We know our customer’s going to want it, but at the end of the day, we’ve got an ideal customer profile. We’ve got a value proposition tied to that and we need to find out what’s really important to our ICP and sell and focus there. So great perspective from Dave. John Hirsh, a Sales Xceleration Advisor, was on the first episode that we did. And really John does a great job of talking about how leading a sales team is more than just managing. It’s more than just looking at the KPIs and the numbers.
[00:04:11] Lee Brumbaugh: John’s quote was, “Elite sales leaders coached far more than they manage.” So if you think about it today, if you’re driving and working with your sales teams, you’re doing a pipeline review, looking at the KPIs, are you training them? Are you inspiring them? Are you coaching them on the best tactics to actually hit their numbers? So great perspective from John on how to manage, not just manage your teams, but how to coach them to success. Tim Van Mieghem, all things operations, profitability, great perspective that you can get from Tim and his companies. We work closely with Tim companies when it’s no more than just sales that’s struggling. It is the operations side. The quote insider wrote down from Tim is continuous improvement compounds over time. We all get excited about the shiny object, the silver bullet, but at the end of the day, investing the time and the little things that can make two to 3% improvements in operational efficiency and how you go to marketplace and how you interact with your customers.
[00:05:13] Lee Brumbaugh: Great tips from Tim on how these little things can really move the meter and hold. Casey Brown really brought a lot to us from a pricing perspective. Casey’s quote was, “Price is only an issue when value hasn’t been established.” So when you think about that, oftentimes a customer comes to us, it’s a $10,000 proposal and they say our competition was at $9,000. And oftentimes we’re tempted to just cut that price. The reality it is, that customer understands that we can present to them and bring 20, 30, 40% on ROI to their company, what’s that extra $1,000, $2,000, even $20,000? So the reality is when you are in that price interaction, make sure you’re going back to the value because if they understand that you’re the only one that can deliver that value that’s been mapped to them along that customer journey, you’re going to win that deal without having to cut your cost.
[00:06:08] Lee Brumbaugh: Bryan Cressey came to us from Cressey & Company, the only founder that I know of that’s founded three private equity firms in the healthcare space helping companies grow really from large healthcare companies to startup healthcare companies. Bryan’s done all in the Chicago marketplace. Bryan’s comment that I wrote down was buyers pay premiums for predictable growth, not just growth itself. Nobody knows more about buying companies and buying successful companies than Bryan Cressey. And he understands that you’re to drive a multiplier past just four, six or 10. It’s got to be about predictable growth and building an engine that can do it. Great perspective if you go back and listen to the podcast with Bryan. Sam Sharma came to us as an AI technology expert. Sam is really good at taking the AI perspective and making sure it’s something that you can actually embrace. The quote I wrote down from Sam is that AI should simplify human judgment, not replace it.
[00:07:04] Lee Brumbaugh: So if you think about it, we’re always looking for AI and how it’s going to be really interwoven into our business. It’s going to be the next thing that helps us be more efficient. But at the end of the day, it’s still going to be a human that’s taking all of this efficiency and making judgements around it. Great perspective from Sam. Kurt Schneiber here in the Houston Marketplace, a senior EOS expert, someone I’ve worked with firsthand, talks about really a lot of different ways that EOS can help business leaders grow their practice. Goes into very great detail, but the quote I gathered from Kurt was great execution beats great ideas. As a CEO, as a visionary, we all have great ideas that we want to put in practice, but if I have 10 different ideas and none of them are being executed upon, then I’m going to miss the mark.
[00:07:49] Lee Brumbaugh: And so what EOS does, and Kurt talks about really well, is set your rocks, set your 90-day objectives, set annual goals that are transparent across organization, and then go out and execute upon it. We had Mehdi that’s showing us from KnowledgeNet. He talked a lot about AI and how it’s really enhancing organizations. We’ve done a lot with KnowledgeNet and how they’ve helped us grow their business, but he talked about AI isn’t about replacing salespeople. It’s about making every salesperson smarter. And KnowledgeNet does a great job of that. Understanding where your buyer’s at in the ICP, going after the right ICP, understanding and engaging in a time of when it’s important to them. If that company just made a shift, if that company is out there advertising for what they’re looking for, KnowledgeNet can help you deliver and finding out where that customer is in the journey and making sure your message is resonating at a time that’s impactful to them.
[00:08:43] Lee Brumbaugh: We talked about with David Tramontana from FocusCFO really a lot about how transparency and scorecards drives right behaviors. But David’s quote was, “The best leaders create accountability through clarity.” So many times I see business owners that really want to be able to hold the purse strings. They understand the numbers, but it’s only certain members of the organization that get the transparency of the numbers. David’s point was that accountability creates transparency not only through the numbers, but the vision, the clarity of where that organization is going. And the better the leader can articulate it, the more successful that company will be. Scott Snider from the Exit Planning Institute, amazing journey that he’s had in building a family business and taking it from an idea to a nationally known brand. Scott’s quote was, “Long-term thinking usually beats short-term optimization.” If you want to go back and look at how do you really prepare your business to exit and exit successfully and do so in a way that doesn’t just look at reacting to the short-term, but looks at the future and where you’re heading from a long-term perspective.
[00:09:47] Lee Brumbaugh: The episode with Scott is a great one to go back and listen to. Joe Frost, all things marketing, great relationship with your CFO. Joe talked to us about relationships, open doors, but trust keep them in. Joe and their team have done a great job in partnering with Sales Xceleration, but really going to the marketplace and the fractional marketplace and establishing what you need when you’re looking for that support. You can’t have always a VP of marketing and VP of sales. And what Joe’s firm does really well is they open the door through education and insights, but they quickly adapt to what that customer needs and they build trust through it. And that’s really why Joe has been able to create a really solid client base that keeps coming back year after year. Karen Mozenter was our first guest in the nonprofit space. If you think selling is important in the nonprofit space, really take a listen to this episode.
[00:10:38] Lee Brumbaugh: The one thing I loved about it is so many different companies think about mapping relationships, but the nonprofit have to do it really well. Oftentimes, nonprofits may not have a true sales team, but they’ll have board members, they’ll have leaders, they’ll have others that are going to the marketplace that can influence. Karen’s done a great job of taking those people that are connected in the Columbus marketplace and using them to really open doors and relationships that grow the enterprise and grow their nonprofit Jewish Family Service. Quote I have from Karen is, “Emotional intelligence is often the hidden driver of sales success.” So she’s taking the board members she’s worked with. She’s using their emotional intelligence to position them with others in the community that can really help her grow. We have David Nielsen on that really is an entrepreneur, has built an amazing business where he uses outsourced employees to really fit into your business and he does it in a way that’s not transactional.
[00:11:34] Lee Brumbaugh: And David talked a lot about AI and technology a bit. The insight I actually took from him was cashflow gives you strategic options. Well, on the episode I asked David point blank, should you be hiring for one salesperson or four? And if you go back and listen to that episode, he really articulates why you want to make an investment. If you invest in one person, you’re pouring all those resources into an area that’s really oftentimes burdensome on the organization. David actually advocated for hiring multiple resources and making your strategic investment, albeit if in sales and marketing, where you need to be for the company to grow. Mark O’Donnell, our most recent guest, CEO and visionary of EOS. If you’re new to EOS, if you really want to uncover the gems behind how do you go from good to great in US, take a listen to the episode with Mark O’Donnell.
[00:12:24] Lee Brumbaugh: Mark talks about great organizations solve root causes instead of treating symptoms. So many times when you’re running an L10, you’ll think you’re at the root of the issue, but the root cause is only being scratched to the surface. Great organizations dig deeper. If your sales are off, it may not be a salesperson, a CRM issue. It’s something deeper. Does your value proposition align with your ICP? Do you have the right people in the right seat? So you’ve got to dig deeper. And I think Mark was a great resource in articulating on how to do that. Michael Wills spoke with Jason, a previous and current SX client of Michael’s. And really you got to see firsthand how Sales Xceleration works with the SMB space and the clients that we deliver upon. Michael’s quote was that teams mirror the behavior of the leaders. And it was really great because the leader of the organization, Jason, was actually on the podcast.
[00:13:19] Lee Brumbaugh: So you see a great interaction between Michael and Jason and really how they found that balance of bringing forward how a fractional VP of sales can focus on the right areas of the business to help drive the growth. That organizational leader really needs somebody who’s coming in looking at the sales structure, the sales process and really focusing there. And if you do that, you’re going to see the type of success that Michael and Jason describe in their engagement. We had Dr. Lance Black that joins us. I met Dr. Black through TMCI, the Texas Medical Center Acceleration Program. Shout out to them on the podcast. They do amazing things for startups in the healthcare and the digital space. But Dr. Black talked a lot about not only what he’s doing at TMCI, but what he’s doing in Texas A&M. And Lance has worked with a lot of companies that were at ground level.
[00:14:08] Lee Brumbaugh: They had to be resilient to make it in the healthcare space, whether it was developing champions, engaging new pilots. The quote I have from Lance is, “Resilience a competitive advantage.” So a great episode where Lance talks about how these companies have really grown from the ground up and resilience and grit has been a big part of it. The last guest that I want to highlight was Brent Robertson. Brent is amazing at really articulating on how you cast the vision. He talks a lot about how you can take people that are the ground level, take their ideas to fuel what comes up and bubbles up to the leadership team, but also empowering those at the front lines to make the right decision, to be able to adapt and adapt quickly. The quote that Brent had was, “The organizations willing to adapt fastest usually win.” So great perspective on how to be nimble, how to be adaptive, how to get the feedback from your team that can truly help you pivot to where the customer is today.
[00:15:09] Lee Brumbaugh: Over 20 episodes of Sales Against the Odds, thousands of downloads, hundreds of followers, very excited. Those of you that have reached out to me and said that we’re making a difference. If you have an idea for this show, we want to hear it. We want real world perspective on how to drive sales and drive growth. We’ll continue to have guests that come on that highlight these different areas in tangible ways, but so thankful for our first 20 guests, so thankful for the insights that they’ve given us and the perspectives that we’ll continue to build on Sales Against the Odds. Thank you everyone for joining us. I hope these 20 insights from our first 20 guests were helpful. You’ve been listening to Sales Against the Odds. Be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. And if you want more resources on scaling sales, check out our website at salesxceleration.com.
