Understanding AI’s Role in Ecommerce Sales and Marketing with Expert Ted Fluck

And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson .

Ted's aim is to make sure leaders are better equipped with knowledge and tools to build a dynamic sales team and drive exceptional sales sales results . Welcome to the show , ted , thank you . Thank you for having us . I'm glad to be here , absolutely .

So , to start things off , please share with our listeners a little bit about your background and your path to becoming a sales and marketing building expert .

I was a captain in the army for five years and was excited about being in the financial services industry and excited to get into sales , to try something new from there , but really found for me it was a passion and a skill set and really enjoyed the work and loved the quality of life that it could bring to me and to my family .

And from there it was just kind of took off , stayed in the financial services industry , moved through a few companies that way , moved into the medical device industry , capital equipment sales and medical industry , worked for some laboratories and built some fantastic teams as I moved up into management , national sales managers .

And then I also have worked in the education space , working for some consulting firms and professional development companies in the education space , running their sales and marketing organization . So 25 years of building teams and selling things has been great , awesome , well , thanks for your service , ted .

Right , I want somebody to go out there and just kick down doors and make 100 calls and just get me clients and that's great and like clearly there's no judgment about anybody like that .

But I would say probably only 15 to maybe 20% of the companies out there really want that because they will freak out once they get that person into their company culture who's terrorizing their teams and their clients . And their clients will likely get it upset from time to time and talking about people who typically have that kick down the doors mentality .

Now , with that being said , with training , with maturity , those alpha hunters out there can be great people , can be very , very dynamic , but oftentimes people make the mistake of getting a little bit too aggressive in who they're hiring for their sales teams .

They're going to need a very strong , mature manager and they're also going to need some assistance and some team around them which can which can you know just jump when they need to jump and provide that person what they need to provide , because they're going to be demanding things right away , all for the right reasons .

They're closing deals , they're selling and they're going to be moving on to the next target . If you're a sales company , if you're somebody that you have to be ready to , you have to be ready for that really is what it comes down to . And , ken , again , this goes back to understanding your culture .

A lot of companies really can get great growth with good salespeople , but they may not be the salespeople who , again , are like this alpha hunter that's out there .

You can do a lot of prospecting , a lot of hunting and you can be very aggressive up until you meet the client , and that's why I always try to tell people you want somebody who's tenacious up until their first contact and then when they make contact with the client , they settle down , they back in .

They're patient for the results but they're very diligent in the work that they do to get there , making sure that they continue to contact the customers and clients .

One is lead generation , where you have a business development person generate leads , and another one is what you said in Alpha , where you're just turning them loose and going into closed deals . And so , on the business development side , do you think that needs to be a specialized hire or can you use a VA with an SOP , a standard SOP ?

What are your thoughts there ?

Again , that's not a bad thing out there , but I would suggest people really need to do their diligence and their homework and they need to find companies that will allow them to test run them a little bit . And here's a really long lost arc that I'm being a little bit sarcastic about getting some referrals .

Before you jump in with those people and talking to some of the people who work with those companies , because there's a lot out there and particularly as technology increases and the international borders break down , you have to make sure you know what you're getting on the other end .

So I think BDRs and SDRs are fantastic Again , trained , and I love what you said written good SOPs , things that are thought through , because that's your representation of the company and that's the first impression of what you're doing there , ken .

So if you're going to go down that route , which I say is probably a very good route for many people to go down that route to get more leads to get appointments scheduled . Just know what you're getting and do your homework . I mean don't be so rushed to get into the deal where you have it sorted out and plan it out well .

Their customer avatar seems to be women in that 55 to 75 age range , and so they had talked about trying to identify nursing homes as potential clients , which is kind of a niche or industry specific , and so what advice would you give to this person on identifying the right salesperson to address this niche that they're going after ?

and understanding your culture , understanding your clients and what you want to do . That Clearly , that somebody's going to be patient on the call or something like that . You're probably looking for somebody in that area who's probably very much a peer or maybe a little bit younger perhaps . I hate to say that and I don't want to get into that too much here .

You may want to edit that out , sorry . You're looking at somebody that could speak the language and understand and speak with empathy and patience for somebody who's in that situation and it's probably a very good listener . Not typical sales of sales , actually not difficult traits of salespeople , but listening skills and that type of situation be exceptionally important .

When you're going to ask a few questions , you got to really want to listen for the answers and listen for the responses . You're going to be prepared for skepticism and then you're going to be able to build some trust very quickly with them by listening . So that would just be like you know some off the cuff quick advice without knowing too much about that .

But that's exactly what you want to start doing and exactly what you know . Good sales managers and good leaders and organizations and good talent . People have experienced the sales want to ask organizations those questions and dig a little bit deeper to find out exactly where you're getting at . What is that client persona ? What is the product you're selling ?

Is it a commodity product ? Is it a long-term sales cycle product ? And depending on those types of things , is really the amount of trust you're going to need to establish and build and how quickly you're going to need to be able to transition that client to a purchase .

There's really the best ways to find salespeople are , in my opinion , are linked in , but the number one way to find sales people is through other salespeople . I just we constantly move . We're constantly moving other organizations .

Every three to five years we're somewhere else , typically build good relationships with friends and have a long list of people who are dialed into the areas . That's how recruiters build their networks and continue to recruit and grow . It's also where I would look , too , for salespeople too .

If you're trying to pinpoint people down , I would look towards sales people to find more salespeople . It's silly as a sound , that's true that makes sense .

even want to go more pointedly back to that particular role you were talking about before , I would say again , with salespeople being able to work from home now more than ever , with people not having to travel as much as it did , you don't miss out on the opportunity for people who are either in a semi-retired state or don't miss out on people who are perhaps

moms working from home but don't want to work a 40-hour a week anymore because maybe they have new children in the house or something along those lines . Huge opportunities there , super talent , but just a different lifestyle that they're looking for right now .

Again , if you're one of these smaller people out there , if you're a growing your sales team , you could find really exceptional talent . I got to tell you , I've been through some experiences lately , in the past two years , with women that I've worked for in the sales force who have had children or who have had to transition and they couldn't find jobs .

The people who did snag them up . They want to go mind-match . It's a really interesting way to go about that and be flexible , if that's possible , within your company too .

You don't want to go in and put in training and things like that for people . Again , I have worked with people that say , yeah , I'm ready to start tomorrow , Ready to start tomorrow , and then you get ghosted or you start to go through training and they disappear .

You need to have a level of commitment from that person that you want to train and you want to put effort and time into . I firmly believe that you need to put some of that back into them with some type of steady compensation , be it a salary or a drill or something on those lines . I would work it out that way .

Depending on the levels of organizations , this can go all over the place . There can be different splits . I always think of percentage splits . If you have a target earnings for a target goal , 50% salary , 50% commission for some people is pretty traditional . If you go much lower than that , you're going to have to .

Really it might go in any way as part-time situations , which is okay , lower than that . As far as the salary goes , you might be looking at part-time situation . That's okay .

But for growing organizations which may find it hard to have in the budget that salary , it's going to be worth its weight in gold if you can muster that up for a few months and you could just start to get a return on those dollars very quickly . Nothing gives you money back fast than a good salesperson .

It's a challenging question because there's just so many ways sales people get compensated , depending on where they are . Eventually you'll get up into med device sales where you're paid massive commissions , then you pay bonus compensations , then it's all other different types of structure . I would look more to those percentage splits and do what you can afford to do .

You have to remember that you're expecting an investment from them to take your product seriously and to represent your company well . You have to give that investment back .

So , once you hire that , that well , whether you get an alpha sales or whatever salesperson you get , you bring someone on on the team and then you've got your email marketing , you've got your social media , you have your ads team , and so how do you synchronize your sales , your new salesperson , with these other teams and make sure they function in the ecosystem

properly ?

thing , and I subscribe to that fully . If you have separate sales managers and separate marketing directors , they have to get along , they have to be on the same page and they have to have the same mission . Oftentimes you're finding this separation as to usually going away to fall or any one type of leadership there .

That's very , very common these days because of all the work that has to get done . Ken , when you're talking about that , you're exactly right . The marketing's team job is to take those market qualified leads , all of the prospects that are out there , all of that information that they've gathered up . They're bringing that information in .

They're getting an inbound process coming in or whatever . Maybe they're hitting the website . They're filling out the landing page information of data , but now what Is that just handed over to the sales team ? There's a sales team gracious for that . Is there a feedback loop about the quality of that and how we can improve ? They have to work together .

As far as that goes , ken , you need a robust sales team . These days , particularly in multi-channels , you've got to hit people so many different places then to even begin to recognize your name and your brand before it turns over to the sales team .

One of the biggest things I've always tried to influence my sales and marketing team was just understanding each other's responsibilities and being gracious and grateful for what was brought to your way .

A marketing team has to be enthusiastic when sales teams make the clothes and the sales teams have to be gracious for everything the marketing team is working hard on and working together . The more they work together that way in an environment and give each other great feedback on what's working and what's not , I think the teams really can come together that way .

Sometimes you just find it's like false , not even false , it's just usually just ego gets involved between people and not getting what they want or not good enough , and blah , blah , blah . You need to have good leadership and good management . Push that aside and get everybody on the same page quickly .

Where we bring that into the real world and where that applies particularly into sales , sales teams can get stagnant and sales teams can get old , as we talked a little bit about before . There's typically decent transition within sales organizations , but not always . You have to really look at what your goals are and what you're getting out of your sales organization .

If you're still achieving your goals and if you're not , let's pull back and say , okay , why aren't we ? There's so many layers to this question when I talk about deconstruction and sales team , but really you're looking at who's accountable to what goals and have you set meaningful goals for growth within your organization ?

If you're a territory manager , if you're there's a lot of titles for that vice president of a region or whatever it may be , and you've been there a long time , the odds are typically you're not bringing new accounts in , or what they would call bringing in new logos . You're growing a mature market . You're growing your current clients .

Hopefully you're upselling and you're continuing to upsell your organization into a particular account . There is absolutely nothing wrong with that , but what happens is you fail to continue to grow the market share . We have to identify ways when we deconstruct old sales processes or old sales myths . Is this not saying that that person's not doing their job ?

But what your expectations may be are more accounts and getting more accounts into the company and growing your footprint within a geographic region . If that's the case , then we have to break down some of those barriers . We may need to deconstruct geographies , territories .

We may need to find different roles for people who have good skill sets but aren't going out and knocking on doors anymore and finding new people to bring in and growing the brand , but what they're doing is they're providing excellent account management . So we talk about deconstructing those things .

We talk about working that way , deconstructing old dogma , the things that everybody hates . Oh , we've tried that before . It doesn't work . Or oh , it's not that way anymore . Or oh , my client doesn't do that , or oh , this client doesn't prefer that . I can tell you true stories of where I didn't have good relation .

Or I may not have had a good relationship in a certain hospital system One reason or another , and that's okay . If I didn't have a good relationship with a hospital system and then somebody came in and backfilled me because maybe I moved on or moved to a different area and within six months they sold this huge deal , I was like whoa , whoa , whoa .

What happened here ? That was all my work . Well , it wasn't . Despite the fact you're good at what you do , you're not a perfect match for every account . So getting fresh blood in there can also be a good thing for the organization as well , and other people have opportunities to excel that way . So deconstructing that old dogma is really important to do .

It can get dangerous when you start to do that Because , again , just look around , where were we five years ago when it comes to social media ? Where were we 10 years ago when it comes to internet ? We weren't doing anything online . We didn't have meetings .

Podcasts weren't really that big of a deal five , 10 years ago , and now I have three ones constantly listening to them everywhere they go . As the market does change , people buy in different patterns , in different ways . If you're not ready to deconstruct those old myths , you're going to fail on a lot of gross goals that you have to afford .

And the reconstruction , the long question . I'm sorry if it's too long of an answer , but when we look at reconstructing or rebuilding or constructing an organization , hiring , rehiring into some of those positions that those first few hires you make are absolutely essential to absolutely get right .

And I always say that to people you absolutely have to get those first new sales hires right when you have a large or embedded sales organization , because they're going to be the ones studying a new example for new growth .

Very , very often , if you can eliminate the old dogma or eliminate any expectations of what success is at the old level , have people come in and just do great work and hit your KPIs , be very , very diligent , they're going to achieve a level of success . It sets a new bar and that level of success sets a new standard for the team .

And that's how we reconstruct that old dogma , that's how we reconstruct the sales team by bringing new people in who really do set new expectations and new growth . You see this everywhere . You see it every time . There's a great new quarterback that comes into an NFL team and all of a sudden a whole bar rises and everybody on the team starts playing better .

And you can see that also in organizations too .

The next question it kind of goes into taking a step back when we're talking about sales reps bringing someone in Now , as a business owner or as a leader , we're going to expect an ROI on that hire and so essentially we're investing in them . What should the ROI be ?

And then also what are some , I guess , kpis or ways to measure the success of this new sales rep ? An excellent question .

But let me say it this way Is that you should , more importantly than what the ROI is , if you're looking for them to bring in twice . A lot of times we look at it and say , look , if you hire a new salesperson within two years they're going to bring in three times the amount of money they're costing you .

So when you throw in their salary and their commissions and all of those other types of things , they're going to be in three times the top line revenue Within a year I would typically say 18 months . Within that first year they're going to be a burden one and a half times their salary , which is the salary and the commissions is what your targets should be .

So it varies a little bit , but I like to look at it timeline . That way Some products have a much longer sales cycle and they're much higher ticket items . So that may vary a little bit . But going back to your original questions , as we're talking about before knowing those KPIs and at least knowing what those targets are .

That's a reasonably set , reasonable expectations that they're not going to build gangbusters right out of the gate and have , all of a sudden be able to cover all these things . They very well may be realistically within 90 days , though , to start to be able to come up a little bit and start to cover the money that you've invested in them .

The key , though , is to know your math , to know your own margins , to know what it costs to have the salesperson and sales marketing team or what the cost of acquisition

is for a new client , and to back in your expectations that way . How long is it going to take me to recover this investment ? What can I expect for ? Six months a year , and like two , three years down the line , and that's again . That's how you start .

That's how a reasonable organization set KPIs , and it's how they set their commissions , plan and comp plans every year , and it's how they set their growth goals as well .

Is there a general percentage ?

If it was $100,000 of sales but the sales companies that was $100 sales or $1,000 , maybe they're only getting a fraction , maybe they're already getting five , six , seven , eight percent for each one , because it comes more easily .

So , looking back at that though , I would suggest and also would go into , if you are paying them a salary , look at that split so it comes into that cost of goods . I hate to give you an endless answer but I'm sorry for that , but it really is that total thing .

So if I'm a 100% commission and we can just say then that if you break down and do the reverse math on a monthly basis and they need 10 sales a month , then look , I want to pay 30% , total that out , 15% , total out . Half of that went to the salary , the other half we paying commission Different ways to kind of look through that .

But those are some examples I can get you through . But in most companies something around a 20% give or take is what you want to be spending on for your sales and marketing as a whole . So depending again , what type of product you have . So if you can start to look at that as well , what's that whole budget look like and where can that money go into ?

And more of that's going into marketing these days because it needs so many different needs for marketing , different channels of marketing and marketing specialization . But that would still hold Trudyoni . Grow out the sales . And one of the good things about paying commissions are you're only paying for what they're selling .

So that's usually a very good thing and that's where you can never really shy away from that . And good companies big , big companies where people don't leave and they love working and they're very profitable . I mean big companies like Siemens Medic or they call themselves Siemens Healthineers here in the US . Companies like that .

They have extremely aggressive compensation plans after they've made certain targets too , like this is where we're expecting you to make and that's the number that you've been given . If you go over that let's just say you had a 10% commission to get there All of a sudden you go a little bit over that , you're going to get paid 20% commission .

You go farther than that and on a higher target you're going to get 30% .

They heavily incentivize you to go past their goals and past their organization goals , and that's the type of sales culture that people absolutely love to be part of , and once they really get into rhythm there , they can make great amounts of money , and they're bringing in great money for the company too .

So it works both ways as far as the revenue model works that way .

So for a lot of people that sell on Amazon , they're going to take a 15% referral fee and then in order to sell on Amazon , you need to have pay-per-click advertising , which generally runs 10% to 15% , and so right out of the gate you're looking at a 30% haircut and so when people are thinking of brick and mortar , what would it cost ?

That's a really helpful data , because you would not have that referral fee or the PPC cost .

If you were in a franchise model as well , it's very similar to something like that . You're going to have to pay them to use their networks and use their systems too . Yeah , that shouldn't come out of the sales person's pocket , though , I mean . So it's just a cost of goods , that's an expense .

rule everything . And so , ted , how is AI going to impact and improve sales and marketing over the next three to five years , if we get ?

I've seen it and I use it tremendously on my own social media and social media postings . And the speed to which you can do that , what AI will do in the next and continue to do what it's already done and what it's going to continue to do , is more and more people embrace it .

It is going to eliminate a lot of barriers to entry that certain people had the hold on . So , all of a sudden , everybody's game is going to have to step up a little bit more . It's going to increase a lot more noise , and I always do this chatter and there's noise , and I say you know , have you ever hear an orchestra ?

Before they all come , the conductor stands up . It's just a racket , it's a bunch of noise . Everybody's doing their own thing , and that's kind of what I feel it's going to be like with AI on social media platforms .

It's just going to be you're going to be bombarded Now , if you can pull your personal brand and if you can pull your own marketing strategy together and have a very complimentary where you're sending , you're doing your emails , you're doing your direct messaging , you're working through your video , your own podcast , you're doing everything you can for your personal brand

and you're doing that in sync and you're using AI to target the right markets and the right people . And that AI is generated well , where it's a constructed message , where your own brand , your own point and you're increasing your influence that way , well , all of a sudden it becomes a symphony and it works very , very well .

So it will help people who are doing things correctly , it'll help professionals rise to the top , and it's going to be it's going to be even more difficult for people who are getting started unless they really continue to invest in themselves and put more effort into it . And AI is here to stay .

We I don't know if you've seen the real or whatever where there's not sure which company it is , but where they're actually doing a phone call and the AI is there , speaking to somebody , is taking the information in and the voice is actually doing the sales and you know . Thank you for the response . Thank you , david .

I appreciate the fact that you're in that situation . Tell me more . And you're like oh man , you know , but you were this , we're this close . I think the entry level stuff there can for sure is is going to be a major issue . However , human beings are going to become more skeptical and they're going to like demand more human beings , of human to human contact .

Just like everybody was virtual , and then everybody wanted to hang out at the office a little bit too because they wanted to see their friends , so it'll like anything else , the pendulum will shift , but there's no doubt in my mind that there will be a healthy amount of skepticism out there when people are still making purchase decisions and they're going to still

want to do that with people , the AI bots on the phone are going to replace the cold colors . They may they will probably do the only . Again , at what level ? Right they will probably do cold calling for sure . I there'd be no doubt .

I would suggest that they may replace BDRs in a few years and the entry level sales positions , just like they would replace and like chat , gpt and Jasper and all the other names are out there , probably starting to replace people who are trying to do some of the lower level copy and are doing very sophisticated writing .

They're not going to replace personality , they're not going to replace connection , they're not going to place empathy and I can replace trust , and those are all exceptionally important things to have when you're when you're selling and when you're building your brand and when your brand is you , when you're producing things .

But it's going to , it's going to be a change . This is exactly what happened to the auto industry when robots came in . This is no different than that on a different level , but it's the exact same thing . It didn't . It was painful . The certain organizations functioned much more effectively .

I'm talking about this as like we're going through labor union strikes and the bad , and I hate for auto industry as well . Yeah , it did . It change the technology , change the auto industry , right ? Well , it'll be the same thing here and it's going to change the marketing and the sales industry for a while , but people will embrace it .

Let's talk about a pro for it . Maybe , maybe I can hire 10 sales people now who are all AI instead of one . You know , then in the in lieu of one , and now I have much more reach , much more authority to get on that space and so I can transition those leads over to a person on the other end . It's going to be .

It's going to be very , very interesting , to say the least .

I mean , maybe it can , maybe it can't , but if there's like emotion , there's lots of stuff going on there that that that high level salesperson is doing , and so , yeah , it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds , but it will be it will be , and you know what I love .

When you go into a great car dealership , when it's run very well , when it's successful , the salespeople are fantastic and you just know there's just a different culture in that sales dealership because you know that they're either being there they either are or aren't being pressured the same way as other places .

They maybe have different incentives or you know , they just know that their teams expect different things . And as a consumer going in there , you're going to feel that when you're asking questions about the type of car , is that person really listening to you ? Are they judging you ? Are they trying to upsell you out of the gates , like that's what they know ?

I couldn't , like you know I couldn't get the wrap there for my Ford F-250 . I need a slightly less model . You know that's great , I love it , but there's not going to happen right now , you know . So you know , were they listening to those types of things ? And that's , I think , again going back to that AI , going back to that culture .

You know that company culture really going to embrace that , really , really . We're going to have interesting technology and I'm sure it's going to be effective . But it's going to be interesting to see how technology really does help make people feel and feel that they're being listened to and heard .

So what you want to do is think about a chief revenue officer as really somebody who comes in the organization and handles and manages and understands the entire revenue cycle , so where that dollar is , even before that person becomes a lead and they understand what money you're spending and what that lead cost is , all the way through the marketing process or market

qualified leads , the sales qualified leads , what they're paying sales team , the marketing team , how that dollar works , and then , once they become a customer , what you're doing . Once they're on board , are we upselling that customer ? What's the lifetime value of that customer ? How long do they stay with the organization ? How many more times do they continue to buy ?

Really truly understanding that revenue cycle throughout the entire lifetime of any type of client or customer that you bring on board , and helping the marketing team continue to dial in , helping the account managers or perhaps the service support teams really dial in to any type of cues and indicators where somebody may be ready to buy or maybe leaving the organization

or leaving your services before they say no goodbye . You're looking at all of that types of things as a chief revenue officer and the work that people do on a fractional basis , though that's very typically a 25 , 30 year veteran in sales and marketing and that can be quite expensive though a full time CRO .

But a lot of people can come on board on a fractional basis , either a fractional chief revenue officer or a fractional sales director who really only handles that sales and the things .

But either way , you're getting a lot of that experience , a lot of that talent , a lot of that insight , guidance , and you're bringing it to a level where it's just not a 40 hour work week to them . You may work eight to 12 hours a week with one particular company or something along those lines , to provide them the value they need .

Another way to think of it is a fractional CRO or a fractional director of sales . Think of it as a consultant who's with the company for six to 12 months at a minimum , but they're responsible for the results . They're not just giving you a plan and saying , okay , we've done our evaluation , here's what you need to do , and walking away where you execute it .

This person's on board , this person's part of your team . This person's going to help you get those results and truly responsible for the outcome of that assessment and of what your organization needs .

That's what the benefits of going fractional versus just doing work with a consultant which can be valuable too , and there's a lot of places for that but a lot of times people are actually looking for the results . They want accountability more than they want to be told what they need to do . So it works well that way .

I love talking about companies and people and I don't care if you're brand new and you're really checking your bank , got every day to see if you have money to get through the next month , or you're somebody who's been around for a long time and is a multi-million dollar , multi-billion dollar Private or public company , it doesn't matter , I love talking about things .

So if they go to my website at wwwdynamicsalesteamscom , they'll find a place right there . We're just like , let's chat , jump on board schedule and let's find out where you are right now . Let's talk about some things .

I'm sure you'll guarantee you'll get some takeaways that'll come your way , and that's the least I can do to have a good conversation with somebody . So awesome .

So , David or Ted , anything we want to cover , anything we left off Do we want to cover before we get into the fire round .

miss about working for the man ?

But you've got to hit a few failures along the way and you've got to see them as life lessons and you've got to continue to adjust and work hard and persevere . There's just , you know there's no way about it , just keep hammering and you're going to be fine .

But make sure that you know , as long as you're moving on a good plan and you adjust the plan accordingly as needed , you just have to persevere . That's just all there is to it , because it's not always going to be rainbows and sunshine . Excellent answer , totally agree .

You'll find time to schedule with me just to chat or learn a little bit more about the products and the offerings that I give to these people on different sales teams .

And I'm really excited to meet more people and find out more about organizations that are out there and talk about what they're going through and help them increase that revenue and do some great things for the company's long term .