Sell With Dignity & Set Your Sales Team Up For Success

Kathy (host):
Welcome back to “Help! My Business is Growing!”, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina. Today we’re going to be talking about how to manage your salespeople and how to do it well. We’re gonna dive into the details of what’s in-house, and also what you should not be doing. We’re going to be highlighting the red flags that you need to be aware of when you’re hiring for that right salesperson. And how do you successfully avoid a bad hire? We’re also going to be talking about what are some of the strategies that you need to have in place in your business before you hire salespeople? And what are some of the daily activities that need to happen on your side as a manager of salespeople, and also on the side of the salesperson that you are managing? Because remember that these people need to deliver when you hire them for and they need managing and they need coaching. So we’re going to be talking about how do you do that and how do you do that well? We’re also going to be talking about the concept of selling with dignity, or what exactly it is, and how and why is it important to have that in your company’s culture? And how do you embed that within your sales organization, and with the new salespeople? 

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Kathy (host):
Today, I’m going to be joined by Harry Spaight. Harry Spaight is a keynote speaker, coach, and author of “Selling with Dignity – Your Formula For Life-changing Sales Results”. After spending several years of mission work, Harry has been succeeding in sales as an award-winning multimillion-dollar sales producer and sales leader for over two decades. His belief is that it’s not about being the best closer, or being the pushiest person to get people to buy. It’s about serving. He works with sales teams and executives to elevate their craft of selling and succeeding with dignity for the client, as well as the seller. So join me as Harry and I talk about how do you sell well, how do you manage the salespeople, and how do you have your organization and your business sell with dignity?

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Kathy (host):
Welcome to the show, Harry.

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Harry (guest): 
Hey, it’s great to be here, Kathy. I am thrilled to have this awesome conversation with you, the world-renowned Kathy Svetina.

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Kathy (host):
I love that. I love that introduction. Maybe I should have you do all the introductions for me?

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Harry (guest):
Yes, we all need like a little golf clap to start our day. So happy day. I’m not sure what day this is. But I’m happy to be here. 

Kathy (host):  
Awesome. Harry, you know, salespeople can do wonders for the growth of the company. But just like any other employees in the business, they need to be managed, and they need to be managed well. And I see a lot of business owners struggle with this piece. I’m sure you do, too. What are some of the mistakes that you’ve seen the business owners make with their salespeople? How does that actually reflect in the overall business?

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Harry (guest):  
Okay, so where do we start with that one. There are a few mistakes that are typically made. Like, let’s just go with a small business that hires their first salesperson. And they say, “Well, I need a salesperson, because I’m just too busy to sell blah, blah, blah”. They hire a person, and they don’t know how to manage, and they just want results. So their thought is “This person is going to bring into the business, I don’t really need to know anything other than fact, I’m going to count the money every month for this person bringing in the business, I only have to pay on commission. There’s no salary, it’s all going to be great.” Well, that’s not really the way it works, right? There are so many different ways that people think through this, but they feel that just hiring a hired gun that’s going to work straight commission is the best thing, someone experienced, and they’re off to the races. 

Harry (guest):
First of all, getting that new business is not easy, right? If you don’t have accounts where the person can go in and upsell and learn a bit about the business and your reputation, and get to own that to some degree, you have no idea what the challenge is to go out and start from scratch. If it was that easy, then the entrepreneur would be doing it right. 

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Kathy (host):
Yeah.

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Harry (guest):
I mean, it takes months and months, sometimes years to break people down to where they trust you. A few things come to mind. And I’ll try not to bore you but like an example is do they have expectations other than writing business? Yeah, everyone knows that they need to write business. But how about daily expectations? Most entrepreneurs are self-driven. A lot of salespeople are not. We need a little boost. In the backside sometimes that’s just the way we’re wired. And then we, you know, maybe slow-moving, but then we’re we get going. If we were entrepreneurial, we’d be entrepreneurs, many of us. 

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Harry (guest):
Sometimes salespeople need- I mean, they need management without question. And sometimes this morning call to help make sure that we’re on the right page, what do you get going on today? Where can I help you? Those types of calls, or it is literally a five-minute call. It’s not like give me all the details, it’s just a quick check-in to make sure they have everything they need. And then what kind of strategies? What are your thoughts about who are we targeting? Do we have a list to work with? Can I help create a list? These are the types of companies that do well, in our we do well, with all of this stuff? There’s details behind just hiring a salesperson.

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Kathy (host):  
Yeah, what I’m hearing here is there are two pieces to it. One is the overall strategy – who are you actually selling to, and having that repository of knowledge about your customers about your product, and having that readily available for your salespeople to be able to go in there and understand the business? And then the other piece is the daily activities of what needs to happen, how it needs to happen so that people can be accountable for it. 

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Harry (guest):
Exactly. 

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Kathy (host):
I’m curious. Because these are very two different things are happening in the business. But when it comes to the strategy, I see a lot of business owners really struggling with that. And they need help when it comes to developing the sales strategy. What would you recommend to a business owner? Should they have someone like a sales consultant in their business, develop the strategy so that they can implement it and teach their salespeople? How would that look like?

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Harry (guest):  
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. A lot of times, I think that people think and know what I know, on this. For me, it’s just looking at your current clients, what do they look like? Right? We all have heard about the ideal client or Avatar and so forth. But where do we excel? Right? If you excel in the construction space, then you want to spend more time in the construction space. And then you want to excel, you want to work with you want to understand what types of levels of titles are in the construction space. Are you dealing with the owner? Are you dealing with financial people, the CFO, VP of Finance? Are you dealing with marketing people? Looking back at what you have, will sometimes be a great clue as to how to propel your business going forward. 

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Harry (guest):
For example, let’s say you have out of your 10 clients, 20 clients, whatever the number is, you divide that up and say, “Okay, I’ve got a couple for manufacturing, got a couple of technology, got a few constructions.” Pick one, map it out, and then say, “Okay, how many construction companies are in my area, or my geographical area if I’m local, or in my state, or in the country”, but that will help to define a list. Just so you know, salespeople are not great at creating lists. That’s not what we’d like to do. Excel, numbers – the numbers we like to look at is on a check,  for our commission. But anything other than that, it’s we don’t want to be doing we want to be talking to people. Help your salesperson, you know, help them to have a list. Give them you know, here are some specific parameters by having conversations with them. Yes, we can definitely help with on the consulting side to say, “This is what good looks like.” But a lot of its common sense. If you just say, look, are there 20 or 30 accounts that are in the construction space that we can knock out? When I say knock out, have connections with them on LinkedIn, start an email campaign, start making phone calls, maybe direct mail, all of these different things and say, “Can we get from the 30 that are out there in my area, and start bringing some of these into a sales cycle?” I mean, does that kind of answer your question or just thought on that?

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Kathy (host):
Yeah, it does. And who would be the person that’s creating the list? Would that be the business owners? Would that be marketing? Well, that’d be a special salesperson that’s dedicated to that. Who would that be?

Harry (guest):  
Yeah, it’s probably, understanding the type of person that you’re working with, but unfortunately, salespeople are not always good. They’re not a jack of all trades. Sometimes you have to work with a marketing person to help with this prep work really is what it is. So again, the marketing person could probably help with an email drip campaign as well. Salespeople are not good at that. We’re not typically and I say we because I’ve come from 20 years+ working with salespeople. And knowing the strengths, the strengths are face to face being in front of a person. Everything else is secondary or tertiary. And that things that are valuable, salespeople like to say yes, because that’s again, how we’re wired. But the owner might be interviewing a person say, “Do you send out emails?” Of course, I send out emails, but do they do it with consistency? Do they do it like a drip campaign that everyone’s getting touched in a consistent manner? Absolutely not. That comes from marketing. 

Harry (guest):
Looking at the two, which is marketing and sales to help grow the business, the marketing person can help with creating lists, because that’s what they know about- lists. And they’re using whatever applications there are for that. Hover’s might be one, there’s a bunch of them, Zoominfo, you name it, and then give that list to the salesperson and say, “Okay, here’s a defined list of the construction companies. ” Salesperson makes the calls, reaches out on LinkedIn, makes contacts, gets some initial interest in conversations, and then drip campaigns. It’s a little back and forth would be ideal to help that, right. And it’s not expensive. Like having someone do a drip campaign for the salesperson to keep things moving, is really ideal, especially when people say, “This is great, but I’m not going to do anything for at least a year.”

 
Kathy (host):
Yeah.

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Harry (guest):
Right? And what happens, a salesperson is going to put that into CRM and not call again for a year, because the clients or the prospect said, “Don’t call for a year.” Well, that’s where marketing needs to nurture that lead.  By salespeople are not great about nurturing, we’re great about closing the business that is in front of us. But nurturing that’s a different aspect of selling that frequently marketing does.

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Kathy (host):  
In an ideal environment, what I’m hearing is, if you have a highly qualified lead that came through the marketing campaign, nurturing. However, they came through your business, a salesperson be the person that jumps on the call, or in a face-to-face meeting closes it and that is their touchpoint in that particular deal. Is that correct?

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Harry (guest):  
Yes, that’s really and that hopefully, they’re going to nurture the client enough post-sale, to grow the business with cross-selling or add-on capability that the company may have.

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Kathy (host):  
What is it that you would say, what are some of the characteristics of a good salesperson? When someone’s hiring salespeople, what is it that they should be looking at in terms of a character, in terms of how they’re interacting with people? What makes a good salesperson?

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Harry (guest):  
Number one is the ability to listen. Right? I think a lot of people who are newer to hiring salespeople, they get blown away by the person’s ability to speak, right? And in others, they’re sounding how awesome they are. They’re telling they’re sounding their own horn saying how great they are the things that they’ve done, so forth. Well, you got to take that with a grain of salt. Sometimes the best sale that a salesperson makes is getting the interview, right? Getting the job. 

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Harry (guest): 
And then after that, they may not be good at all. What you really want to look at is, I’ve been I would look at certain things like predictive index, I would look at DISC, I would look at something to give you another set of eyes when you’re interviewing someone. What are they are doing scientifically that’s without any emotion because salespeople will sell you. They’ll sell anything and you have to be very cautious of that. But what have they done? Ask them, “What is their day look like? What are some of the things they do?” And it’s got to be in today’s day and age. If people say things like, “Well, I’m not really good on socials because that doesn’t really matter.” Well, that’s a clue. Right? Or if they say things like, “When marketing gives me a good lead, then I close it.” 

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Harry (guest): 
Well, what happens if marketing is not giving me good leads? What happens if there is no marketing? Right? Are you generating your own leads? How are you generating your own leads? What does that look like? Are you networking, what kind of network groups are you involved with? And again, there’s going to be clues. How often do you attend? What makes you different? How do I know that this is you know, is there some proof of this right? Can I see you on LinkedIn, looking up the person on LinkedIn, and Facebook will give you some ideas as well. 

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Harry (guest): 
But there’s a lot of smoke in interviews, right? It’s got to be references that people, again, got to take all that with a grain of salt. But the references help looking on social help, the predictive assessment will help or DISC will help. Even with all of that, it’s still almost a little better than a coin flip. But at least you know going in, right?

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Kathy (host):  
True. And is there anything that a business owner can look for specifically when they’re looking at the predictive index or their DISC scores? Anything specifically that jumps out, I would say, “This would be a really great salesperson”.

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Harry (guest):  
I think knowing what you have there is helpful. There’s no test that’s perfect. But understanding is there something I’m missing? Is there another side of this person that I don’t know about? And again, we’re in an interview process, we want to believe everything a person tells us, but they may be, they may say something like, “I’m very good with using the CRM.” Well, their personality profile may be all about people, and nothing about details and data and tasks. Well, that’s a clue, right? 

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Kathy (host):
Yeah. 

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Harry (guest):
You’ve got to dig through that and say, “Look, if I’m gonna be a stickler for a CRM, and I want everything in there, and this person says they do that, but their test scores show they don’t”, you have to that conversation and say, “Well, what if. I mean, you sound great, and all, but what happens if we’re two weeks into this and the conversations are not being put into the CRM, then what are we supposed to do?” You’re asking for the person to kind of help manage themselves in that and you’re setting the table, that if you really like the person and you’re hiring them, then you know that there’s going to be an outcome if they promise something they don’t deliver. Right? 

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Harry (guest):
And I don’t know if that sounds too strict, but over the years, I’ve hired, I don’t know if I’ve hired hundreds, but it could be hundreds of people. It’s definitely dozens and lots of promises are made. But the best thing to do is to get people to commit to what they say they’re going to do. And if after 30 days or two weeks, this is not happening, what kind of outcome would you expect, right? And you’re just going back to that, and then you know, even a few days in I mean, literally a couple of days in, if there’s a huge red flag, it doesn’t go away, the red flags do not go away. The value of that is hearing it from someone else who has done this over and over and over again, if you see a big red flag, it’s best to say, “You know what instead of spending more time, I want to go a different direction here.” And you just cut the cord quickly. And things that come up might be the person’s late, right? They’re coming in late. I mean, that’s like, if you’re late coming into a new job, you’re late for meetings, and that’s not what is good for your reputation. So that’s one example. 

Harry (guest):
Another example is, they say, “Well, every day I’m going to put something in the CRM.” Well, three days in, you’ve got nothing and but you’ve talked to them each day. You’re going to put something in and after three days, they say, “Well, I’m going to.” That doesn’t go away. Right? So that’s what I mean by that.

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Kathy (host):  
Is there any other red flags that you have seen? Lateness is one of them, … ability to follow through like the CRM example. Anything else that would be a major red flag indicating issues down the road?

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Harry (guest):  
Call reluctance is the biggest one. People say, “I’m going to make a ton of calls, I have tons of contacts. You know, I’ve been in this area for years. I know a lot of people.” And then they’ll say things like, “Well, I’m still learning. I’m still learning. I got to get this down in my head before I can start making calls.” Well, no, that’s not. That’s a chord cutter for me. Because if you’re excited about a new opportunity, you can go out and make a preliminary call and say, “Look, I’ve joined this company, they’re amazing. You know, I’d like to have a conversation with you over the next few weeks is this can we set up something so I can better understand your business, see if we might be a fit because we’ve been doing business together for years.” Right? If you really have been doing business for years, they will want to follow you. And if there’s hesitancy there, there’s a reason for it. Either they may be fabricated or exaggerated a little bit about how many people they do business with or they just have major call reluctance which call reluctance is not conducive to sales.

Kathy (host):  
And we’re talking about call reluctance, talking to people calling people that they have previously worked with, or are we talking about the cold calling?

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Harry (guest):  
Well, in this stage, it’s like it’s calling friends and family almost, I mean this, this is not a cold call. If you’re in, if you’re hiring a salesperson, and I suggest you hire- Again, if you’re in a local business, you want to hire someone that’s local, that’s someone that’s ingrained in the community. That’s a huge help. As someone that has contacts, someone that says, “Oh, look, I don’t use LinkedIn, and they’ve got seven connections.” And there’s someone else there that has 3000 connections, go with the 3000, right? Because they’re actively working in-network, whereas the person was seven hasn’t even started yet. The one that has 3000 connections can call and email and direct message these people and say, “Look, I landed in this awesome company”. And now your message is going out to hundreds and hundreds of people versus calling cold. Someone that’s brand new to the area, new to sales, we’re gonna give it a try, all that stuff is, I mean, that you’re going to get the results of what you put into this. Right? 

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Harry (guest):
If you think that someone new is going to be successful in sales. No, it’s gonna take years to become successful. And so literally, if it’s anything shorter than two years, I’d be shocked where you’re starting to see halfway decent results. I have someone who’s brand new to sales, so you have someone that’s tenured, and has a network that maybe had their company was acquired, or they want to do something different, or your friends, you know, there’s value in that stuff, too, right. But there’s differences across the board, but you have to kind of weigh things out and say what’s good, what’s good for me and the company versus me trying to help someone in a new where I can have a low-cost investment, it’s pretty much-throwing money down the proverbial drain. 

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Harry (guest):
If you’re thinking you can train a new person to sell, that’s without the experience of selling. I mean, I’ve watched entrepreneurs say something’s pretty funny. It’s like, “Well, the person has been in operations their entire life, they want to get sales, so I’m going to help them.” What you know nothing about sales, they know nothing about sales. How does that work? Right? What does that look like? And it’s even to have someone a sales coach come in. It’s a big project. I mean, it’s not a three-month project, this is probably a year of investment that you could spend also on someone that’s got skills, right. But the skills is all about it’s what you need, not just someone that’s going to make some phone calls.

Kathy (host):  
Yeah, exactly. And then I’ve seen businesses struggle with that, too, is that they think that they can get immediate results. It doesn’t happen. When you’re hiring salespeople. It doesn’t happen when you hiring marketing people. It doesn’t happen when you hire financial people, like for me for the business, to really get the benefits of having the financial strategy, it takes about a year because especially if this is your first person that you’re hiring, you’ve never had someone like this before, you have to have that certain foundation. And if you don’t have him, you have to first put the foundation, then you build it. It’s sort of like a Lego block.

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Harry (guest):  
Yeah, that’s really a good analogy. You know, I think of some companies that have a reputation of hiring and firing salespeople every 90 days. I mean, literally, they will hire a team and fire the entire team. Over the course of a year, they can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on people that they don’t have anymore. Right? The key factor there is patience, right? After you’ve done your due diligence, you’ve vetted the person they seem to be a fit, then what kind of expectations do you have? I mean, do you expect that they’re going to get whatever your dollar amount target is per month? What do you think is the ramp and most recognize that it’s six months to a year to get started? 

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Harry (guest):
I mean, if you think you have a 90-day sales cycle, “Well, okay”. That means the first day on the job, you’re putting people in the funnel. If you’re thinking they’re going to buy within three months. If you make 100 calls a day, and you get four contacts. Out of those four contacts out of 100 calls a day, how many of those show interest for a follow-up call to eventually get into a sales funnel? I think not understanding the reality as to how long this takes. 

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Harry (guest):
A lot of people I’d say don’t hire a salesperson. If you’re not patient to pay the person for a year, then don’t hire a salesperson, outsource that work, right? Just their teams that will, you can outsource the outbound calls, and you as the entrepreneur, go out and close the business. But if you don’t have the patience to hire for the salesperson, and to develop that process, and after 90 days or, you know, six months, you’re gonna say, “Well, this is terrible. I’m gonna start all over.” That’s just a massive waste of money. In my opinion, what’s your thought of that?

Kathy (host):  
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I mean, that’s such a waste of resources of money, of time, of your sanity. 

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Harry (guest):
Yeah!

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Kathy (host):
Yeah. There’s better ways to do it. You know, I love your mantra of selling with dignity. And you even wrote a book about this, and I think this ties very much into what we’ve been talking about this in the past couple of minutes. How does the selling with dignity? First of all, what does it mean? And how does that look like in practice, not just for a salesperson, but also for a business owner as well? How does that look like?

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Harry (guest):  
Well, I think it really applies definitely to a business owner, first of all, is that what kind of business are they operating? How do they want to be viewed? How are they treating people? Right? If we were envisioning a brick-and-mortar business, let’s just say a restaurant, and people walked into the restaurant, how would you treat them? Right? Would you treat them with love? Would you thank them for coming in? Right? Would you kind of just nurture them and help them have a great experience? and made sure that they thoroughly enjoyed the time they had with you? Or would you just like, “Yep, come on, moving on, we’re moving people in an hour, 10 minutes?” Right? “Sit my bright red chair so you go blind and get the heck out of here.” Right? That’s not dignity, right? That’s fast food. 

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Harry (guest):
And in business, we can treat people the way they want to be treated. Someone just told me that it’s the Platinum rule, it’s better than the golden rule. Treat people the way you want to be treated, treat people the way they want to be treated. I love that. In business, if that’s what we’re doing, it should be the same way in sales. I’m going to go back to the restaurant when you’re at a fine restaurant, and a server comes by and asked if you want to take a look at the wine list. Do you get offended with that, Kathy? 

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Kathy (host):
No. 

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Harry (guest):
All right, if they ask you if you want an appetizer, are you bothered by that? 

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Kathy (host):
No. 

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Harry (guest):
Okay, if they tell you about the specials, and then there’s more to the menu and all these specials? Do we get irritated? 

Kathy (host):
No.

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Harry (guest):
No! Right? And so what is the server doing? 

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Kathy (host):
They’re essentially selling, or these are? 

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Harry (guest):
Yes, they are. They’re selling, but they’re doing it in such a way of serving. Most people don’t even pick up on it. Right? It’s all about serving to them. And so that mindset is that if we just help people get what they want, which is a great quote from Zig Ziglar then you’ll get more we’ll get more than what we want. Right? Helping others is what selling with dignity is. I look at with salespeople, it’s like, well, how do you contribute? How do you provide value to others? Right now, how do you just close the business? How are you providing value?

And they’ll say things like, “I never thought about that.” Right? And it’s just there’s no quick answer to that if you’re doing it, you’re gonna rattle it off. If you’re not doing it, guess what? It’s not part of your DNA, perhaps, right? Maybe you can be trained, but you can’t expect that type of person is going to really care about their clients post-sale right? But the ones who are providing value pre-sale will also take care of them post-sale and that’s really what the whole service mindset selling with dignity is.

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Kathy (host):  
And I also hear about that there’s a lot of developing the right culture in the company as well is as we’ve talked about, if you are expecting your salespeople to close the deals in the first 24 hours around the job, they’re not really selling with dignity because you are setting them up to be pushy to go and not sell with a server in mind but to go with an intention of just make a quick buck. Is that right?

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Harry (guest):  
Yeah. And like so an example of that you’re absolutely right is this commission only. Now I get like real estate is commission only totally understand why. Because that’s a survival of the fittest type business, right? There’s a million people that are hired, whatever percentage is the percentage that actually earns a living. But if you’re running a small business, and you want someone that’s quality, right, there should be some kind of ramp up, you can eventually go to commission only. But unless the person is sitting on some nest egg and just wants to, which is a whole another problem, right? About hunger, but unless there’s an understanding that the person is going to be set for six months, you should be contributing to their income, right, to take the pressure off, so that they can do the right things. 

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Harry (guest):
You know, where it comes down to the person, I’ll give you an example. A buyer may say, “Look, I, this October when we’re doing this, I can’t do anything until the first of the year.” You know, that means a salesperson is not going to get paid until February. If they do something in the first year. It’s October, right? That’s a four-month stretch. Well, if they really need the money, they’re going to cajole, and maybe,  cross the line where they start to put pressure on the person. And that’s, again, when you once you start putting pressure on people that removes you from the value, right, you’re no longer valued salesperson, you’re no longer value add. You become like everyone else in sales, which means it’s all about me, baby. It’s all about my commission. I know you can’t do anything for a few months, but I’m gonna put some pressure on you because I need to eat. Right. And that’s what does that non-dignified way of selling is, which is appalling to me. But that’s, you know, a lot of corporations kind of fit that mode, it’s all about the shareholders, and they don’t really care about the client at the end of the day.

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Kathy (host):  
And I see this absolutely making sense. And I can see this as such a huge benefit to the company. Because when you’re operating from that perspective, you’re putting your client, your customer first, and it builds your brand to build your reputation on the market. It builds a reputation on the salesperson as well, people are going to be much likely to pick up the phone to talk to that salesperson from that particular company. What are some of the other benefits that you can see from this set selling with dignity as well, in terms of like the financial aspects, too?

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Harry (guest):  
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. I mean, who is going to get higher price, someone that is selling a commodity, or someone that is selling value? Right? If you’re selling value, if you have a niche product, and someone can go online and find something comparable versus buying it from you. Well, what’s the differentiator, right? And it’s you, you’re the differentiator, and the same is true with a salesperson, they are the differentiator. If they can’t bring the value, they can ask for a higher price, they’re not going to get it. Right? But it’s when they asked for a higher price and people have said this, again, not patent.

But people I know that do this and sell with dignity, we’re being asked constantly, “Can we do a little better on the price”, right, because they’ve shopped us and someone else is much lower, and then we have a choice to make. But if we were always like, “Look, I can match the price, which we never have to match the price”. People just want to feel good about the decision. And they’re asking you because they trust you and it’s dignified, they’ll still ask to go a little bit lower doesn’t mean we can’t, and we shouldn’t be offended by that. 

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Harry (guest):
But the point is, we’ll be able to hold on to the profit because of the dignified approach. So just like going to a restaurant the other night, my wife and I went out to a restaurant. And I have a certain budget in mind. We blew it out of the water, right? It went off the charts, and a lot of it had to do with the server. The server was incredibly friendly, caring, not pushy, and just did the right thing. I said, “Well, how would I know this bottle of wine over that bottle of wine?” He says, “I know.” He says, “I’ll give you a sample of this bottle of wine. And if you want the more expensive one, then you know it’s going to be better. If it’s not. If the cheaper bottle is good, then stay with the cheaper bottle.”

And I just thought this was great. It’s like you don’t I was gonna buy the better one anyway, but he just made me prove that it was going to be better. And guess what it was and then so once you had this trust thing going on, says “Well how about this for dinner? Or how about this for dessert? And you know, it’s like, “Okay, this- You’re killing me. But yes, we’re, we’re going out for two dinners on this one.” But it’s all about the service. Guess what, I want to go back there and guess what I want as my server right? That person. 

Harry (guest):
And so you as a business owner, these are the types of relationships that your salespeople should be able to bring. And if you have red flags early on that they’re not going to provide that kind of experience for your prospects and clients don’t hire the person. It’s not about closing business anymore. It’s about that type of service where people say, “I want to do business with you because we’re everyone is pretty much the same.” And so they pick based on the representation of the company. If someone treats them well, that’s where they go. For all intents and purposes. Of course, there’s a few exceptions.

But if you buy as a commodity, everything as an owner, then don’t expect to be different, right? I mean, this is the other thing that cracks me up is like, if everything is cheap for you, you go the cheapest price, don’t expect to sell the profit. Right? Because it’s just not your nature, you’ve already shown the world that you’re the cheap guy, then don’t expect that you can be the expensive guy because you don’t know where the value is, and how to appreciate the value or sell the value. There’s a lot of moving parts in selling.

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Kathy (host):  
That’s a great point. If you’re trying to implement the selling with dignity, and have it be the forefront of your culture and your selling culture with your salespeople, what are some of the things that you can do to implement or there like three to five pieces that you should really have in your business so that they support this concept of selling with dignity? I know we talked about not having them on 100% commission at the beginning, having them grandpop, there’s this mindset of if you think of everything as a commodity, it’s going to be hard to implement that in your business. What are some of the other things that you should think about when you’re implementing this?

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Harry (guest):  
Well, I think it’s the way that you treat people, in general, right? Some salespeople say that work for a family-run business, and they’ll see that the family is just super generous. They’re involved in charities, they care about their people, someone is sick. … They’re sending flowers.

As a salesperson, it’s good to interview the company and find out what separates them, right? You’re in, it’s to me is dating, right? It’s they’re interviewing you, you should be interviewing them. What kind of culture is there, right? Can you give of yourself to these people? Are they always going to take advantage of you? Right? I’ve always looked at, “Am I raising the bar in this place? Or am I helping the bar, continue to get raised for the company.” Right? I don’t want to be the one that’s raised the bar, I bring credibility to a company. I want that bar to be so high that I have to work to stay at that level or be at that level, and maybe together we raise it further, right? Having that type of culture is huge …

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Harry (guest):
Like, where I was going with that is, some people don’t respect salespeople, right? Some entrepreneurs think that salespeople are a dime a dozen. That we’re all low lives, we only care about a commission. We talk about ourselves, and it’s just our nature, and you treat them bad, and you can fire them, if they don’t hit their number, just fire them and start all over. Well, guess what? That reputation is going to spread? And it’s just, it’s horrible. 

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Harry (guest):
Number one, it’s not humane, right? If I’ve been taught that if you hire someone, it’s like marriage, right? And so once you’re committed, get past those first few weeks that you’re good for each other, then you’re it’s all about love, right? It’s all about patience. And it’s not easy. But if that’s the way you treat your clients, and your clients come in and say, “Yeah, we got a problem here or whatever you don’t, don’t flip a switch and become a jerk.” Right? You treat the client with patience and your kind and you look for a resolution, that’s a win. The same is true of salespeople. I mean, you have to treat them with love, and nurture, the pats on the back, you’re doing a great job. I really appreciate you. That is encouraging. Right? 

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Harry (guest):
So an example that comes to mind is some will say, “Well, I’m not going to pay a salesperson to do this, because they brought us in, and I’m not going to pay him because the client now wants to work directly with me.” Well, that’s going to come back and bite you. The salesperson owns the relationship. They may go to you because of your title, but the salesperson owns that relationship. Now people may disagree with me. That’s okay. But think about it. Where would you be without the salespeople and then why knife that? Right? Why stick it to them when that relationship is so solid they brought them to you now that you have a loyal client? Why do you say, “I’m sorry, Mr. Salesperson, you go find more.” Right? 

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Harry (guest):
Well, the whole thing about selling is getting a little bit of commission little bit of it may not be a passive income stream, but at least a thank you something, right, and some kind of financial thank you. nd that’s really easy to do. That’s generosity, right? If you’re not going to be generous with people to help grow your business, then I recommend the salesperson go elsewhere. Right? I mean, it’s just a two-way street you want people to give to you, then you have to have a giving culture as well. It’s just, and I know it’s not ideal, but it’s the best way to live, in my opinion.

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Kathy (host):  
Yeah, you’re right. And I agree with that. And in one of our previous conversations, you said that if you’re not giving love to salespeople that will definitely not give love in return?

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Harry (guest):  
Yeah, I mean- 

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Kathy (host):
That stuck with me. 

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Harry (guest):
Yeah, I mean, it’s so true, though. But it’s just it’s like your kids, your spouse, right? It’s relationships, right? If you go around and you, you love your service department, you love your administrative department. And then when it comes to salespeople, you just treat them like, you know, they’re gonna turn over anyway, well, you’ve already laid that in the ground, right? It’s really, you got to look at the person. 

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Harry (guest):
Yes, salespeople are different. But we are people that have families, that we strive to do the right thing, that we work hard, we start every month at zero, we’re constantly under duress because we’re looking at our numbers, we’re starting with day one. Even after we have a great month, the first of the following month, whereas zero again, we don’t ride the wave, right. And it’s not an easy way to live.

And we know that we could go into a slump at any moment that people can just look at the news and say, “Oh, my God, the markets down and market crashes for a while.” And people don’t want to make a decision that impacts us in sales. The business may have constant residual income coming in sales, people are slumping because of whatever outside influence, not saying that’s an excuse, that’s the whole motor thing. But it’s reality. Right? And they have to deal with that reality and that stress on a daily basis. 

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Harry (guest):
And it’s way better because positivity breeds results. Right? The more positive we are, then the better it is for the salesperson, the more they feel good about what they’re doing, the more smiles they’re bringing to the prospects and clients, the more love they’re showing them. And then guess what the more business they bring in. You start off by saying, What are you selling today? What’s wrong with you? And that kind of whatever doesn’t have to be that tone. We started off with doubt, then they start to doubt, then they question, and then no one’s interested, and then nobody’s buying, and then you’ve got the downward spiral. There’s a ton of emotion that’s involved in this. 

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Harry (guest):
And that’s, again, not everyone can manage salespeople, and you’ve got to ask as an owner, “Are you capable of keeping a salesperson emotionally intact.” Right? Give them love, help encourage, right? Always be there as support even when they lose a big deal? Right? That’s not easy, right? It’s so challenging to watch someone lose a big deal, and then say, well, you should have listened to me. And they’ve already been crushed. There is nothing more crushing than losing a deal. And the last thing a salesperson needs is someone to say, you should listen to me. A great boss will say, “I’m what have you. This one hurts, I understand.” But it’s all you know, it’s not it doesn’t hurt me. It hurts you and I understand. And when you can do that, then you know salespeople are going to feel like, “Hey, I’m still respected.” Right? So there’s, again, we see how all this tied into emotional support. No, it’s but that’s life. Right? It’s emotional support when people are choosing your business or making the emotional decision first, right, that they look for the facts. And it’s same is true with the relationships in life and with our employees and with salespeople.

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Kathy (host):  
Yeah, I agree with that. And this has been such a great conversation, Harry. There’s so many great tips that you gave us on how to deal with salespeople, how to hire them, how to manage them well, how to sell with dignity, we covered a lot of ground, and I always have this one question. At the end for every single guest, and this is what is the next tangible step that a listener can take in the next week or in the next month in their business, to get them closer to the selling with dignity if that is to be their goal. One thing that they can do.

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Harry (guest):  
Practice providing value. Look for ways to provide value. Right? You will see a huge return on that. Whether that be a complete stranger, a prospect, or one of your clients, look for ways to provide value. Don’t be insincere “Is there anything I can do for you.” Figure out where the value is and do something. I mean, sometimes it’s as simple as providing a thank you card, giving a listening ear when someone’s stressed, and you don’t have time for it. I’m a huge believer that what goes around comes around. And if you have an opportunity to provide more value in life, then you’ll get more value in return. That’s the answer. There’s no magic pill, right? There’s no selling, selling super easy. Just start with providing value, and you’ll see good things happen. I’m totally convinced to that.

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Kathy (host):  
You love that, Harry, thank you. Where can our listeners get in touch with you?

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Harry (guest):  
If they want to find out more about Harry Spaight, all of my information is on sellingwithdignity.com. You can find me on LinkedIn from there, Twitter, you name it, but it’s sellingwithdignity.com

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Kathy (host):  
Thank you so much for being on the show, Harry. I really appreciate it. It’s been super fun. I just love this conversation. Thank you.

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Harry (guest):  
This has been fun. I hope it helps somebody.

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Kathy (host):  
I hope you enjoy this episode, and that it’s given you a lot of ideas of how to manage your salespeople, what to expect from them and how to really set them up for success. Because remember that their success is ultimately your success and the success of your business. You can find the link to Harry’s website and the link to his bookselling with dignity in the show notes. I encourage you to take a look at it. And while you’re at it, also take a peek at the blog post that goes along with this episode, and you can save it for future reference as well. Before I go, as always, I do have a favor to ask. If you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, if you could please go to the show, tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves. Because it really helps other entrepreneurs and business owners find it. Thanks so much. Until next time.