[SPEAKER_00]: This is the sales gravy podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, bestselling author, fanatical prospecting objection, sales EQ, and ink. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the sales gravy podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Wisdom Wednesday where you drive the agenda, because on this segment of the sales gravy podcast, you bring your biggest sales challenges and Jeb Blunt delivers his best answers. [SPEAKER_01]: And those answers, they come straight from the trenches because Jeb's not just teaching sales, he's out there prospecting, closing and leading sales teams every single day. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's take that next caller.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Tim. [SPEAKER_01]: Next up, we have Zach Mo field or Zach with the solar rack. [SPEAKER_01]: And he is from greater or Wayne, Indiana. [SPEAKER_03]: All right, is that Zach with a solar rack? [SPEAKER_03]: That's right, that's right. [SPEAKER_03]: You're gonna see you guys again. [SPEAKER_03]: Nice to have you back on Zach. [SPEAKER_03]: Nice jacket. [SPEAKER_03]: Got your Georgia Bulldog colors on. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know about that part, but we're here.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, tell me what's going on, Zach. [SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate the time again. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've had quite the change here and in the career lately with going through a merger and acquisition and I thought, you know what? [SPEAKER_02]: Who better to ask than Jeb who's got a ton of experience? [SPEAKER_02]: So [SPEAKER_02]: appreciate the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my question is, you know, with this merger and acquisition, I'm in an individual contributor type role, but also being asked to do kind of director level type stuff, which I'm very grateful for and happy about doing, but I just wanted to know maybe some advice on, you know, trying to make sure we're doing, you know, that prospecting every day, every day, right, but then also still help stand up the part of the business that they're asked to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the first thing that I would recommend you do in your director level role with all your influences bring your entire team to the outbound conference this year. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that would be so cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Like Zach and team. [SPEAKER_03]: We awesome. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's a great question. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's an age-old problem in sales, right? [SPEAKER_03]: We have a player coach.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the player coach role is really, really hard as you're figuring it out, right? [SPEAKER_03]: It's tough because you're almost gets a friend it. [SPEAKER_03]: In one moment, you've got to take care of yourself and your income and the other, you got to take care of other people. [SPEAKER_03]: And those two things don't always mix very well together. [SPEAKER_03]: First the answer is, that's not a great role to be in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you want to be in a director role, you've got to keep pushing your organization to split the two roles. [SPEAKER_03]: But for a lot of companies, [SPEAKER_03]: There's not the option.
[SPEAKER_03]: They just can't afford to have someone who is a leader only or a salesperson only, they need both people and they're telling you that you're smart enough and you've got this experience and we trust you and you've got the ability to influence and motivate people that we want to tap into that for you, but it's really, really hard. [SPEAKER_03]: Are you getting additional compensation for the direct level work or is that just a, can you just do this for [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great question. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's basically the role is compensation-wise. [SPEAKER_02]: It is really set up like an individual contributor type competition plan. [SPEAKER_03]: You're not getting paid for anything anybody else does. [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right now it's just me getting paid on, you know, base salary plus whatever I go hunt, drag, kill, bring back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the base salary then, so they're given you a base salary and then that's what they're asking you to use for the director level stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: You want to start having regular ongoing conversations with your leaders. [SPEAKER_03]: and say I'm happy to help out. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a team player. [SPEAKER_03]: I want to do this, but these two things are not always working out because I get paid for my individual work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where I'm going to spend my time first. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to spend my time there. [SPEAKER_03]: You don't have a choice. [SPEAKER_03]: You've got to feed your family. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm spending my time in that place. [SPEAKER_03]: So we need to think about how we structure this so that I'm not torn and I know that part of this is being a team player, I get it and I am and I'm going to be there for you. [SPEAKER_03]: We just need to understand the reality this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So no threats, no ultimatums just had the conversation a lot with them because so many sells people get stuck in these situations where they're trying to do both. [SPEAKER_03]: And they're not having those conversations because they're kind of hoping that something's going to happen don't hope something's going to happen force it to happen in a nice way. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, in the meantime, let me ask you, how many salespeople are you responsible for at the director level?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm right now, we don't have anyone underneath me, but we're getting these plans set up to then eventually either move towards having people underneath, or [SPEAKER_02]: You have me staying the individual contributor role where it's a new division of the company basically that we're standing up. [SPEAKER_03]: The pull for you right now is there have been meetings and they're asking your opinion and you're getting pulled into planning that type of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to make sure that in those meetings you're having conversations about if we start standing people up. [SPEAKER_03]: I know that there's a transition where you can't afford to lose my individual sales in order to make the transition over, but we need to have a clear path so that once we get enough people on, I'm no longer responsible for individual sales, I'm responsible for leading people.
[SPEAKER_03]: The part that should be, you know, this year we're having a full leadership conference at Outbound, they should pay for you to come to the leadership conference at Outbound. [SPEAKER_03]: So that you can go to the individual role and you can come there and learn how to be a leader. [SPEAKER_03]: I wouldn't make that like part of the plan. [SPEAKER_03]: I would write that down. [SPEAKER_03]: I love it. [SPEAKER_03]: I actually have already asked if we could go.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what you want to do right now is the people that are doing the planning at working with you, don't understand the prospecting and individual contributor part of your job. [SPEAKER_03]: So what you need to do is explain to them that they cannot have meetings during your prospecting time.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's no eight o'clock in the morning meetings I'm prospecting or if you're prospecting like if you're doing a residential solar my prospecting is this time during the day there's no meetings during this period of time you have to like draw that line and you have to do that assertively and respectfully but assertively and say [SPEAKER_03]: If we don't have my individual sales, we don't have a division and you cannot have my individual sales.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're schedule and meetings in the middle of the time when I'm doing my most selling. [SPEAKER_03]: If you're doing prospecting or demos or you know, you're growing out on sales calls, that time needs to be scheduled and sacred and you need to put on your calendar that says, Zach selling time and say, if you schedule a meeting in here, I'm not showing up to the meeting. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm selling.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you want me to show up to the meeting, you need to change the way your [SPEAKER_03]: Because the only way you're going to be able to maintain that balance is to maintain the balance. [SPEAKER_03]: I know that sounds kind of obvious, right? [SPEAKER_03]: You have to say that and you have to set those boundaries and you have to do it clean. [SPEAKER_03]: And then you have to do it yourself, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you're also super interested and building up this division, you're excited about your passion about your enthusiasm about it, and you're like sitting up at night, thinking about it, and the weekends you're thinking about it, and you're like, all these things you're going to your head.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so you're probably a lot like me, once you start working on a project like that, [SPEAKER_03]: Everything else disappears and that's the only thing you want to focus on, and it's hard for you to make the transition to, oh, I got to go back to selling, and away from being strategic.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're going to have to sit that boundary with yourself too and say, during this period of time, I'm, you know, Zach Moffield, you know, the Solar Maniac, I'm selling, and during this time, I'm Zach Moffield building out of the vision of a company, and those two characters don't meet each other. [SPEAKER_02]: Does that make sense? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely, no, that's great because I think you had a lot of the same thoughts that I have, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, hey, you're excited and want to help and be the team player and do that. [SPEAKER_02]: But then on the other side, it's almost like this cognitive dissonance of like, why I need to go, I need to go, go sell sell sell sell sell. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, let's do this. [SPEAKER_02]: So now that that's a great way to think about that internally. [SPEAKER_02]: Hard. [SPEAKER_03]: But it's not as hard as I thought it was.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I first thought you were managing people. [SPEAKER_03]: So not managing people makes it a lot easier. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's a pretty clean cut, but. [SPEAKER_03]: He might vice, while you're doing this, eyeball and eyeball, folks, we need a path as we build this out, the point where I'm done with this and I'm moving on the leadership because me doing both of those things is no bueno. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Very true. [SPEAKER_02]: Very true.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I appreciate it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to always speak with you because I had some of these thoughts, obviously not not all of those there, but it's great to get feedback. [SPEAKER_03]: It's everything that you already know. [SPEAKER_03]: It's good to talk about it. [SPEAKER_03]: It's been some time with it. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a cool problem to have. [SPEAKER_03]: I love watching all the things you're doing on LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_03]: You're having a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, keep apricot. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, likewise, and yeah, I can't wait to hopefully try and get up there now about to slip their number tier. [SPEAKER_02]: It would be very sad to not have you in Las Vegas with us. [SPEAKER_03]: All right. [SPEAKER_03]: See you later, Zach. [SPEAKER_01]: The player coach role is one of the hardest positions in all of sales, and the number one reason that people fail in it is because they never draw the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: They fail to create boundaries. [SPEAKER_01]: They try to be everything to everyone, and eventually they're just not good enough at anything to justify the load. [SPEAKER_01]: Your selling time has to be non-negotiable. [SPEAKER_01]: You have to put it on your calendar, label it, and defend it the same way you would when you're in a meeting with your best customer. [SPEAKER_01]: No one gets to take away your golden hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you really are delivering director level value on top of your quota, that needs to be recognized in your compensation structure. [SPEAKER_01]: And you need to be the one who keeps putting it on the table, clearly and professionally until it's resolved. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't let the role drift. [SPEAKER_01]: Own it or change it, but do not let it own you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've got a question for the show, and you want to be on the salesgiri podcast, go to salesgiri.com forward slash ask. [SPEAKER_01]: That salesgiri.com forward slash ask. [SPEAKER_01]: And remember, when you're tired and out of energy and ready to go home, always push through and make one more call. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jebel and Junior, and we'll catch you next time on the salesgiri podcast. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.