[00:00:00] welcome back to another episode of the Energize with Bram podcast. Today I have invited a guest who resides in Victoria, Australia. His name is Darren Mitchell. Darren, welcome to the show. Thanks, Bram. Great to be here, mate. Good to see you again.
Likewise, we got introduced by another podcast of someone else who brought us together and, I was really enjoying our chat back then that I thought I'm gonna plug you in here and I'm glad you accepted. So I really appreciate your time for coming in and, looking forward to having you share your insights about the exceptional sales leader.
So before we get into it, tell us a little bit more about your background, in a nutshell, you're an engineer, but then somehow turn into sales, which is uncommon. So tell us a little bit more about that.
Well it is. Thanks Bram. It is a little bit of an interesting background 'cause both my wife and I had visions when we were a lot younger of being architects. We both missed out on getting into architecture at RMIT in Melbourne [00:01:00] by a couple of spots. We both landed in what was called then a building engineering degree, which was a combination of multiple different disciplines of engineering, including building, construction and a little bit of design.
So that's where my wife and I met. Both of us completed that degree. We graduated last century. Both worked in the building industry for a short amount of time, but there was a recession that Australia had back in the late eighties, early nineties. That's when interest rates were through the roof and 17%, 18% interest rates on mortgages. The companies I worked with in the building industry went bankrupt. I was left trying to work with an organization and restart. It got to the point where I said, this is ridiculous. I've gotta find another job. So my dad knew the incoming founding HR director at a company called Optus.
And long story short, I got a job at Optus and started in telemarketing, doing cold calls to residential customers and small business customers. And that was my very first introduction into sales. Although at [00:02:00] the time I didn't think it was sales. So I've gone from being qualified as an engineer, doing four years of university to now smiling and dialing on a telephone.
I did that for a short amount of time. And then I started working with some sales people within the Optus Enterprise business and I thought, these guys are pretty sharp. They're driving nice cars, wearing nice suits. They seem to be having some pretty long lunches, and they get to play a bit of golf.
I wonder how I get a bit of that action. So I thought, how do I position myself to do that? Spent a bit of time, did some ridealongs, did some secondments. Really enjoyed it and I thought, I'm actually pretty good at this. I'm naturally introverted as an individual, so it was a bit of a challenge but I got into sales and absolutely loved it. Got some mentoring. Went from a junior account manager to a senior account director in a pretty short space of time but I wasn't satisfied with that. So then I jumped into sales leadership 'cause I wanted to provide more value and I thought I could lead people, mentor people, coach people, and develop [00:03:00] people.
I started out as a construction person in engineering and ended up in telecommunications in selling. I've really not looked back since. My whole career, I've moved up and changed direction a few times but, absolutely love selling and I think it's one of the best, most fulfilling professions.
Funnily enough, one of the most ethical professions out there. There's also some, un ethical people out there that perhaps give sales a bad wrap but I've loved it. Since 2015, I've been coaching, mentoring, running sales programs, working with sales leaders and helping them become exceptional, but also helping their teams become exceptional at what they do.
So that's, that's in a nutshell my history.
That's great. And so obviously you mentioned, Optus, but you also worked with Telstra for a while and then, did all sorts of programs after. What a ride and how you accidentally fell into it all. Just gotta clarify, when you were on the phone what did you call it?
Smiling and dialing or something?
and dialing.
When you were on the phone, was that mainly to businesses or was it a mixture of residential as in, B2C as well as B2B?
Yeah. [00:04:00] it started out just B2C, so we were calling, and if you think back then, this is 1993.
1993 was the time where the telecommunications industry had been deregulated. Optus was the second carrier in Australia that was given a telecommunications license. Telstra. Was then known as Telecom Australia. They were the big government monopoly and weren't known for great customer service.
This new kid on the block called Optus, was a breath of fresh air. Our role, in the first six months at least, was just to call, residences right People and saying, Hey, I'm Darren from Optus, so I just wanted to let you know that we're a new carrier. Do you do many outbound calls? Do you call overseas?
It was just literally an awareness campaign. Then it evolved into calling businesses as well when the selling skills had to start to come into it. But again, it was a bit of an awareness thing. Selling back then was relatively easy because it was a new kid on the block.
There was a fresh [00:05:00] approach. It was new. People were interested but I didn't like it. I liked the human interaction. I wanted to be in a selling perspective. I really appreciate and like the nose to nose, the toe to toe human interaction.
Yeah. And that's what gave me the impetus, to move more into a business to business selling role. I had to go and meet customers, go and meet people and, do the network and not just do it on the phone.
What were your high highs and your low lows in a sales role before you became a leader?
Well, I look back on my time at Optus and my first introduction to sales I was lucky to be given a position on an account that was a big iconic brand at the time. I worked with a senior salesperson who'd been in the industry for quite a few years, so he was almost like my unofficial mentor.
Mm-hmm. and so I got access to a lot of thinking, a lot of strategies, different people that I would not have got access to. Had I just been jumping into a sales role myself, because I worked hand in hand with him, we developed some great relationships and had [00:06:00] some phenomenal wins with that particular account, it was a company called Pacific Dunlop, which back in the day was a really large, iconic Australian organization.
Bonds, Dunlop tires. Those sort of brands were part of it. Repco at the time was part of the Pacific Dunlop Group. It was great. We did some multimillion dollar deals and I was actually reflecting yesterday talking to a group that I was running a program for. We were talking about how in sales the old days, it used to be you can go out and play golf, have some really long lunches, and it was before the days of fringe benefits tax.
And I remember we did a deal with Pacific Dunlop and the whole account team, including some of the customers, celebrated and it was the longest lunch I've ever experienced. The lunch went for 12 hours. So we started just before midday, and we finished just before midnight at the same place.
It was a big day, but those days are long gone. We don't do that. There was lots of highlights, and I won't specifically give you, revenue numbers, but they were significant. On the flip side. There's also down times, right? It's [00:07:00] experiencing loss and losing accounts that you invested in my case, four years into an account.
Being told they'd gone a different direction was like a knife through the heart because you take it personally. Sometimes you don't realize this until you look back on it. For every up you have, there's also a corresponding down. It's the law of polarity.
You can't have up without down. It's what you learn from those losses in terms of, well, was it me? And you go through that analysis of what did I do? What could I have done differently? There was multimillion dollars worth of business that had literally gone to a competitor.
The lesson I learned from that is you've gotta continue to have a strategy, back yourself, build the networks, do whatever you can, and keep things within your control. But also understand that sometimes things are outta your control, but it's how you deal with that when things don't go your way, which is the most important thing, which really taught me a great lesson when I became a sales leader because I had to deal with a lot more loss.
I was now responsible for a [00:08:00] number of account managers, not just myself. I had to help coach people through times when they weren't getting the deals they thought they were gonna get, or they had customers that were complaining, or for one reason or another, the customers decided, we don't wanna do business with you anymore. We've gone in a completely different direction, and it's not personal, That's what business is about. So it taught me a lot of resilience.
You slack off at the time with that customer? Didn't they feel enough love or did you take 'em for granted?
It's a really interesting. I did some detailed analysis of myself and some self-reflection and I, and you asked those sort of questions, what could have I done differently? What did I miss? And there were probably things that I did miss, but I don't think I took them for granted.
I was always a person of how do I be of best service? I was always planting seeds for the future. Sometimes you just have competitors who happened to be at the right place at the right time. They happen to have a piece of technology or an offer that just happens to peak the interest of the customer at that particular time.
In some relationships, they just run their natural course. We'd come to the end [00:09:00] of, what they considered to be a relationship period, and they were looking for a different direction and a fresh voice. Sometimes that just happens and you don't have to necessarily agree with it.
You don't necessarily have to accept it. But you've gotta accept it with a little bit of grace and not go into blame mode and certainly not go and say, why did this happen to me? It's just happened, right? What you've now gotta do is have a choice in terms of what you choose to do moving forward.
What are you gonna do now? And that's what I did.
Great stuff. So You became a senior person looking after a team of sales reps. I remember you saying on the other podcast that.
From being on the tools and doing the work yourself, then suddenly being promoted and having to guide other people on making the sales work. That transition is not always an easy one. From your perspective, what is worth sharing with other people that might be going through exactly the same thing?
They were really great on the tools, the subject matter expert, the sales rep, the BDM, and it's only, oh. Here, you're the leader now.
Go and do [00:10:00] it.
Well, it's a really interesting dynamic, because, I chose to be a sales leader. Two years before I got the opportunity to run that team, I started to build a philosophy about what would I do and how would I act and behave around sales leadership.
So for two years I was building a portfolio of my core leadership philosophy. So every email, every conversation, every proposal, literally every meeting was through the lens of how would a sales leader think, how would a sales leader act? I was almost becoming the sales leader before I was given the title of Sales Leader.
So for me, it made it a little bit easier to make the transition, but it still doesn't prepare you for the expectation, the reality of you're now responsible for not just yourself, but a team of people who are account managers who all are trying to strive and achieve for themselves. And one of the things I did realize, and I've since seen this happen over and over again is a lot of the time sales leaders are placed in the position because they've been a great individual sales [00:11:00] contributor, and the business looks upon them and says, well, Bram, you've been a great contributor.
You are one of the top five salespeople. We are gonna put you into a leadership position. And we want you to lead the team and create a team of mini mes. But here's what we're not gonna do. We're not gonna give you the transition plan. We're not gonna give you a blueprint.
We're not gonna give you, in many cases, training, coaching, mentoring. Just go and teach your team. Just go and get the results. Just go and deliver the number. 'cause that's all we want.
Thrown in the deep end and wave your magic.
Yes. So I often say leaders get thrown into the rules and they're not given the transition plan.
One of the things that I've always tried to do since I left corporate was to help sales leaders who are making the transition, and sometimes sales leaders who have been in that role a little while, start to grow what is their blueprint? What is their transition plan? What is the support network they have to have?
What are some of the characteristics and behaviors that they need to [00:12:00] instill to give them the opportunity of building a sustainable sales leadership career? Because it's not for everybody. And what a lot of companies don't necessarily realize is when they take a sales person who is a great sales person and put them into a sales leadership role, you can't expect them to all of a sudden turn from an individual sales star.
Into an individual sales leader because their natural tendency is they're gonna want to continue to do the sale. The skillset is quite different because you've gone from being responsible for your own target and achievement, to being responsible for the target and achievement of multiple people, which means you can't be the super salesperson.
You've now gotta become a leader to create an environment that inspires the people to be great performers. And that's not easy for people.
I think what you're tapping on here, as you call it, the transition plan and the support plan and the likes, it really prompts me to think in terms of psychology, which is my background. The identity of a great sales gun is [00:13:00] suddenly asked to completely shift from doing the work and being the hero and getting the claps to stepping back and creating other people that will then do that for you. And they have to basically be in the background.
Yeah.
Very different challenge on their self identity. I definitely relate to that and I've been on that journey myself, and I do remember that I wanted to still be the hero myself too, as I was a sales leader.
Yeah. I don't think sales leaders are doing this out of ego. There might be a few that do but I think they truly want to be of service. They truly wanna do the right thing, but they haven't been able to make the distinction or create the detachment from being the super sales star to now being the super sales leader of sales stars.
And what sometimes complicates this even further is there are some companies that will create almost like a hybrid role. Where you as the sales leader will also carry an individual sales target, and sometimes that's based on the size of the enterprise and the size of the business, and so they want to [00:14:00] have some personal accountability bestowed upon the sales leader as well as all the sales leadership responsibility in terms of people management and so forth.
How does that work? What it does breed is competition that says, well, Do I now prioritize my time on my deal 'cause I've gotta hit my target? Or do I now prioritize my time on my team and help them become the best versions of themselves to hit the team target?
And sometimes there's this grappling between which avenue do I go, which can cause some overwhelm, confusion, and we all know confused buyers never buy. Well, confused sales leaders don't inspire.
So am I hearing you say that you recommended pathway is one where a sales leader creates the mini mes and inspires them, guides them, and trains them?
My personal view is that a sales leader is not there to sell. A sales leader is there to inspire the team for them to sell, right? So you don't want a sales leader doing all the selling.
You are a sales leader creating an environment and [00:15:00] enabling the sales team to sell. Unfortunately because they're not given the transition plan, and the blueprint to make that transition from individual to sales leader, they default to what they know, and that is we've gotta get the number.
So whatever it takes now. If that means me as a sales leader, because I might have a relationship or the track record, I'm gonna come in. And again, it's not being done by malice. They're doing it purely because they wanna get the deal and from the right framework and mindset.
But in the process, often they disintermediate the sales team in front of the customers, which says to the customer, Hey, if you want stuff done, go to Bram. Don't go to Darren 'cause Darren doesn't have any decision making capability. And that creates a rod for your back because now you become the conduit rather than the facilitator or the orchestra leader.
While you initially wanted to delegate sales ability to your team as a sales leader, you're basically taking the responsibility back, disempowering the team. It's called reverse delegation, not a [00:16:00] great strategy.
Absolutely. People who are listening to this, might say, well, I'm a sales leader and I'm ultimately responsible for the number. And yes, that's true, but at what cost? So what happens when you're not there?
Can you take two weeks a month and have your sales team continue to thrive and flourish? Or are they sitting there waiting to be told what to do because you've been the super salesperson? Can your customers ring up any one of your account team and get the answers they need because they know how to facilitate that?
Or do they have to come through you? One of the biggest things I say to sales leaders, and I do some work with non-sales leaders as well, I said, your ultimate role is to make yourself redundant. And I'll never forget my very first day as a sales leader. My manager at the time, Danny, sat me down and said two things.
One, congratulations. You're a sales leader. Now welcome to the bottom rung of the ladder. It starts [00:17:00] again. And number two, he said, who is your likely successor? This was morning one. I hadn't even got my feet under the desk, and he is asking me who my likely successor was, and I'll never forget that. And I'll always be grateful for him doing that because what it started to do, he wanted me to start to think about, Hey, you are a temporary custodian of this team.
Your team is not there to make you look good. Your role is to identify people, help them, coach them, develop them so that in many cases they go past you and that's okay because now you'll be needed in other parts of the business.
Or you moved up and all moved up.
Yeah, that's exactly right. And I've gotta say. Danny was right.
Because you don't wanna be the bottleneck and you don't wanna have a team around you that makes you look good. There are a lot of sales leaders out there who have teams that they want to ring fence and keep in the environment because [00:18:00] that sales team makes that sales leader look good.
You can be a bottleneck or you can be an enabler. Ideally speaking, you're obviously the enabler.
Get outta the way. It's not about you. Never has been, never will be. right? I've got to coach, I've got to mentor. I've gotta create the frameworks.
I've gotta create the ecosystem and the environment that is inspirational. One thing I did learn is I don't want to create. Codependency within my team and codependency is dangerous, and it's a recipe for disaster. What I want to create is independent thinking within my team so that I can teach my team resourcefulness, not continue to give them the resources.
A great leader in any industry is a leader that has a team that chooses to follow them. They don't follow because they're told to based on the hierarchy of the company. They think for themselves, they challenge, we have robust conversations. They make decisions. Yes, we have [00:19:00] feedback conversations.
Yes, we have coaching conversations, but I'm not there to tell them what to do, and I'm not there to expect them to ask me for permission to do things. I want them to think right. You don't need me to make a decision, I'll be a sounding board. But what I'm trying to instill in them is if you can think for yourself, if you can think through a different strategy, and you might have different perspectives, that's perfectly okay, but is there a consistent framework we can use that if you arrive at a decision, you can articulate that decision.
You've got resourcefulness. You're not relying on me to give you the answer. That's the biggest thing I've learned and what I try to instill in teams and leaders: make yourself redundant as quickly as possible and get your team to start thinking for themselves and not always be reliant on you. That is a recipe for disaster.
Great stuff. I'd like to take a step back here now, and so in the case that somebody who's never been a sales leader before but has been a gun as a business development manager. Now they're being offered the role [00:20:00] and there is no blueprint, no support plan, no transition plan. Suddenly the star salesperson who brought in a lot of business is not doing the work anymore. It potentially might hurt the bottom line for a while. What do you suggest organizations do in that case?
The first thing is to make a decision in terms of do you want the ongoing revenue or do you want a sales leader, and why do you want the sales leader? And are you prepared to, if you really want this ideal superstar salesperson to make the transition into sales leadership, then in many cases, you're gonna have to be prepared for a short term hit if that person has been the superstar that has brought in a lot of the underlying revenue, EBITDA and profitability and all that sort of stuff, right?
So there has to be a transition phase. Are you prepared to invest in that person so that the company is gonna grow? There might be a bit of a plateau. We might actually see a bit [00:21:00] of a dip. So are you prepared to do that? And can you forecast that?
Is that part of your strategic plan? If that's the case, then set the sales leader up for success. Give them the training, give them the mentoring. Bring somebody in who can help coach them and mentor them to give them every opportunity to make that transition as smooth as possible.
For the sales person who's been given that opportunity, the first question I'm gonna ask them is, why do you wanna be a sales leader? What is it about sales leadership that might be enticing or attractive to you? Whatever that answer is might indicate in terms of how easy or difficult will that transition be.
Because sometimes, and I've seen it happen a lot of the times, people say, if I get the sales leadership role, then I get the title, the corner office, the real plant, not the rubber plant and a nice car spot.
But what they don't necessarily realize is with sales leadership comes great responsibility. If you start thinking about what your hourly rate is, you're probably better off staying as a sales person because your hourly rate's [00:22:00] gonna be higher because the sales leadership responsibility is significantly more, which requires more effort, and more time.
So are you prepared for that? With that might come more headaches. More internal stuff. Be very clear if you're given the opportunity. I always ask this question, why do you wanna be a sales leader? What is it about sales?
What would you ideally hear from a great sales leader?
From a great sales leader you'll hear stuff like: you know what? I wanna serve, I wanna pour back into the team. I wanna help develop teams. I wanna actually be able to mentor and have more impact on more people. Almost leave a legacy, right?
So I wanna be able to leave a sales team in a better position than I found. Very rarely do I see an exceptional sales leader say: I wanna be able to buy another Audi or a Ferrari or get a second or third investment property. It's never about them on the material possessions.
It's all about, I wanna be able to create an ecosystem [00:23:00] and pour into people and develop people so I can teach them resourcefulness and enable them to take more control over their own destiny.
I love to be devil's advocate. Now, let's just say that you've been giving a task to help an upcoming or an emergent sales leader. Your client is paying you for the gig, so they're asking for you to provide the transition plan, the support plan, the training, the coaching, the whole thing. Then the first thing you do is, ask them, so why do you want to be a sales leader? And they say, oh, I want the plant. I want the car.
I want this to that. And you hear all the wrong reasons to be there. Now you're in a pickle. What do you say to your customer?
What do I say to the customer? As in the sales leader or to the organization?
The organization that invested in your services.
Well, the conversation's gonna be, I can work with this person.
Just so you know, this person and I can see it from a mile away, this person's not necessarily gonna be successful unless they change their thinking, right? 'cause they're [00:24:00] potentially doing it for the wrong reasons, or there's a level of ignorance there that they don't know what they're about to get into.
So this is where the benefit of coaching and mentoring comes into it, because often our long path can become people's shortcut to say, these are some of the roadblocks. These are some of the things you need to be conscious of, and these are some of the traps you need to be aware of that if you can probably avoid them, that would be a good thing.
And the first thing I'd be saying to the business is, do you know what the characteristics are that you want in an ideal leader, sales leader, executive leader, et cetera? If you're not clear on that, then I can't create miracles.
Are you prepared to invest in this person, or do you need to take stock and say, are we clear on the characteristics? And is this person who we have selected to become a sales leader, do they meet the characteristics or the criteria that we want in an ideal sales leader for this organization?
And if that doesn't meet, then you know what [00:25:00] a decision has to be made. I'll say to them, Hey. We can't create miracles. I can help them make that transition plan, but I can't do it for them. I can set them up for success. I can give them all the thinking, all the patterns, all the behavior stuff, all the psychology that comes with it, but I can't do it for 'em.
That comes from their own desire and what they're wanting to achieve and who they wanna become. So get clear on that 'cause it may not work.
Brilliant message. I love it. If I could talk specifics. For example, on the revenue front, you say the organization should be okay for a while to take a hit in order for this person to move from being a sales hero into a sales leadership role.
How long would that time typically take to do it well, and what will be the support plan specifically for somebody who is an emerging lead sales leader?
It's a really interesting question. My answer is it depends, Because it depends on industry, depends on situations.
We can't go from [00:26:00] zero to hero in a short period of time. You can change anything in say, a quarter, in three months. But you're not necessarily gonna see the results come through until perhaps the month, the quarter after that, or the quarter after that.
So I often say to organizations, are you prepared to, not so much weather the storm, but are you prepared to invest in this person over 12 months? We can sit down and put a plan together so there's no surprises. Hmm. So when the senior executive starts to look at the numbers, they don't have a panic attack and go into reactionary mode and say "throw everything out. Just get the numbers."
It has to be a clearly articulated and understood plan that we now start to measure and put some milestones in to say, are we making progress? Because there'll be also a lag effect. There'll be a lag effect in terms of you're taking a sales star out of the business, so there's a bit of a vacuum there.
That vacuum has to be filled. So if you bring in a sales person, the same thing's gonna happen. It's [00:27:00] gonna take that person time to get up to rhythm. You are gonna take a sales leader who's also created a vacuum to now try to fill that as well. So depending on the company, you'd have to sit down and say, what is tolerable?
What is the long-term investment we want to make? Which then comes back to: is this the right person for this role for our business moving forward? And are we prepared to invest in the long term? Now, when I say long term, we're not talking 20 years. We are talking, Hey, if we can get things set up in the next 12 months, we believe there's gonna be an exponential uplift based on the work we're doing, where that revenue, that profitability will be recouped and expanded and developed and leveraged.
So it doesn't always mean though, that there's gonna be a big hit to revenue. And I wanna make that really clear. Yeah. Because most businesses say, hang on, we can't afford to take a revenue hit. We've gotta continue on the upward trajectory because we have to continue to report to the marketplace, our shareholders, and so on.
So this is why planning is really important, and this is why [00:28:00] sometimes organizations try to create that hybrid role where they try to have the best of both worlds, but they become the master of neither.
That's definitely what I've seen as well.
Let's agree on the plan, let's agree on what the metrics are gonna be. Let's agree on what the milestones are gonna be, and you've gotta continue to check in. On top of that, you've gotta give as many resources you possibly can so that we can give this sales person and this sales leader every opportunity to excel.
And that's where the resourcefulness comes into it, right? So set 'em up for success.
And what would that look like? Let's say, if you think of training and coaching for a sales leader specifically that hasn't been a sales leader before. Let's talk some specifics. What does it look like, the sort of guidance that they would need to be able to make the transition in their mindset as well as the skills?
Yeah. Well it's not a one day sales training course. It's not a one day sales leadership course. Good organizations will allocate a coach or maybe a couple of coaches. That could be a sales strategy coach. A sales leadership coach. It could be a pitching coach. It could be a psychology coach, [00:29:00] right?
You've also got some potential mentors in there. So it's almost like a training program or development program specifically designed for that person.
In a smaller organization, that's pretty easy to do because it's all customized. When you get into a larger organization and you've got a lot of this happening, it's harder to actually do that customized training program.
But I would still say as an organization, you wanna be able to set 'em up for success. So there'll have to be some professional development plan. I will also put the owners back on the individual sales leader to come up with their own individual development plan.
On top of what the company is gonna sponsor, what are you gonna do as an individual sales leader and how are you gonna take responsibility for your own development?
So are you gonna search for a mentor in a different industry, or someone you can refer to and soundboard of? What sort of books are you gonna do? What sort of podcast are you gonna listen to? What sort of extracurricular courses are you gonna do? What sort of seminars are you gonna attend?
Because there's no excuse now, right? There is [00:30:00] absolutely no excuse not to get access to information. It's what you do with, it's the most important thing. So there needs to be responsibility on the two ends.
One is from the company setting the person up for success. But also the individual themselves and taking personal responsibility for their own development 'cause ultimately nobody can do it for them, right? Yeah.
So if you are invested, you're more likely to do stuff. And we always say, and you probably heard this a lot: people who pay for mentors, coaches, training programs, they pay more attention, right?
Skin in the game is a big game changer.
Absolutely.
You pay and you will pay attention, right? Because you've got skin in the game versus, oh, we're just gonna soundboard if I can have a cup of coffee and all that sort of stuff. I won't say it's worthless because, a lot of people do take free advice and do something with it.
But, if there's a regimented or structured program that has financial implications or investment, then there's a higher probability that a level of seriousness will be applied to it. Action will be applied [00:31:00] to it. Accountability will now be driven. It increases in many cases, the opportunity for success.
I always love either a salesperson or a leader who's willing to invest in themselves. To me, that is a key sign that they're serious and very much committed. As opposed to those that always think the organization has to invest in me. Very different mindset.
Totally. it's really interesting.
I remember years ago when I first started coaching, sitting down with some of my now ex colleagues at Telstra who were interested in taking me on as a coach. I would give them the investment and it's like, what do you mean? I thought this was gonna be like 50 bucks a month.
You're saying at the time it was like a thousand bucks a month or $1,500 a month. But these are the same people that have no issues throwing thousands of dollars at things that are completely irrelevant and have no linkage whatsoever to their career.
It's just the interesting thing is that [00:32:00] what is the value? What are you trying to achieve? What are you comparing it to? When you get objections, what are you comparing this to, right? Oh, you're really expensive. Well, compared to what? How much is your sales leadership career?
How much is your team worth to you? What are you prepared to do to get the things you say you want?
Well, how much do you expect to make as a sales leader if you do it really well? More than what you're doing before that time.
Well, isn't that worth x percent upfront? Once off so that you actually get some value.
Yeah.
Anyway. I'd like to go on a slightly different track. Family business. Second, third, fourth generation. We know those, they're around. Whether here in Australia or offshore in other countries.
Suddenly, whoever started the business has their son or daughter stepping in, and obviously they'll always like to give him some good opportunities. At best, they might've said, Hey, I want you to work the whole floor and get really familiar with all the roles in our business.
But sometimes [00:33:00] they very easily get promoted into a leadership role that there are completely not ready for, and sometimes questionable, have the right personality for it. Hmm. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that particular topic, Darren.
Just because you're a family member doesn't automatically mean that you qualify for a leadership position, or that you, are expected to take over the family business. It's almost like It's my right. My right of passage, right?
I just have to turn up every single day and I'm just gonna be given this. No, you've gotta earn it, right? What are you there to do? Any family business is there to hopefully outlive the family. So it needs to be sustainable. Are you the right person for the role? I see a lot of family businesses that have people within it.
As you rightly said, they get them to do multiple different roles. But good family businesses that have good leaders almost make it more difficult for the family member to earn the right to lead the team. It just doesn't come because you have [00:34:00] the surname or you have the lineage or the hereditary linkages.
Treat it as a business and separate family from business. What I'm looking for is characteristics. If you don't fill those characteristics and you perhaps know don't have potential to fill those characteristics, then me putting you into that leadership role is gonna set up this business to potentially go backwards and I'm not gonna do that.
Maybe there's a different role. It's a business decision. Separate the person from the business. They often say don't work with your partners or don't work with your family but it can work as long as you put some really strong foundations in place in terms of what are the principles, rules, guidelines, policies?
Know that we're still gonna love each other 'cause we're family, but I don't think you're right for this role and here's why. And you should be able to have the more robust conversation with a family member.
Mm.
Because you care about them. So I'm not gonna put you in that role. It'd be unfair on the company. It'd be [00:35:00] unfair on the customers. But mostly it'd be unfair on you.
It's important that they're happy doing something they love doing rather than that they've been given to that is completely not like them. And setting them up for failure at the detriment of the business.
The team, great people, don't put up with mediocrity at senior level. They like to be inspired and want to work for somebody they enjoy working with and learning from.
What I have seen happen is I have seen a say a CEO or an owner of a family business say, I think there's potential there, but I don't think this particular family member has the type of experience they will need to take this business forward into the future.
So sometimes what they do say is right, I want you to go and work in a completely different organization and get a completely different perspective and a different set of experiences so that you now have more of a breadth of experience when you do come back. You now have something that you can actually provide because you're no longer [00:36:00] just working and growing up in this business, you now have more worldly views and that helps you become a well-rounded business person when you come back and add more value there.
I've seen businesses do that and say, you're not gonna just automatically grow and get elevated up into the top echelons of the family business. You'd to go out and do your own thing and then at the right time we're gonna bring you back.
It might be that the CEO role or the sales director role is not the right cut for that person because of their attributes and potentially even their desire to do something else, but another job somewhere else in the business might be the right fit.
A hundred percent.
Another one, in the more personal sphere of influence. I just had a coaching call with one of our clients whose husband has a business and he employed a friend, a family friend, into a BDM role. Now that can also get really hairy. I looked up this person, I looked up their profile, and I could tell straight off the bat of their resume that [00:37:00] this would never be a BDM that I would've hired.
Being too close to them personally and liking the person on a subjective level has muddled the waters and created a certain decision that now three years later proves wrong.
Has the relationship been soured by that experience on both parties?
There's a good relationship between the people themselves, but they're not happy with the outcomes that the individual has delivered for the business. And so now they're obviously in a pickle, but it was perfectly predictable just by doing the objective analysis upfront.
Well, and that's the thing. Are we bringing somebody in because they're a family friend? They're a family member. We want to help 'em out. Have we got really clear at the beginning in terms of what are the characteristics of the ideal person we want in that particular role? What the expectation we're gonna place upon them.
What are the responsibilities we're gonna bestow upon them? In most cases it should be with family members and family friends, you would [00:38:00] think that you could be more open, more authentic, more direct, because they're family, right? And yet we see this over and over again. I brought in Johnny because he's a good friend. Maybe he's a little bit down on his luck. I'm gonna give him a leg up and hope that he comes through.
And maybe because there's that personal connection, we go a little bit less hard on them, become a little bit softer. The danger with that is, particularly when you have non-family members in the business, and this particular family member is not performing to the level that we expect, there may be some consequences that are unwritten ground rules
Old made over there is not performing, but there's no consequence. Nobody's actually having a performance conversation, which now has an impact on the culture.
So I'm not against bringing people in who are family members or friends, but you've gotta get really crystal clear at the beginning before you do anything in terms of what's the role entail, what are the responsibilities, what are the frameworks, what are the rules of [00:39:00] engagement?
What are the ethics and the values and the standards that we expect? And they need to know that I'll be ruthless and uncompromising in maintaining those standards and any conversation we have, you've gotta know that's not personal. It's not about you, right? So you do that upfront and you literally set the framework for how the relationship's gonna look, so there's no surprises.
Because if we don't do it, Darren, am I hearing you say that, if you set two different standards, one for the people that are close to us, whether they're family or friends, versus the staff that are independent, it disrupts the culture, right? It takes away from, and it creates an us and them mentality?
It will disrupt the culture because what you start to see is we'll have values and vision statements and all that sort of stuff, and they're up on the boards and everyone's loving those. But we have the unwritten ground rules. So this is what we say happens. This is what actually happens.
And so whether we like it or not, there's this bias that starts to come in because we've got that personal connection with this [00:40:00] individual. Like it or not, people are gonna see that behavior and make their own determinations and assumptions based on how we interact with that person.
I would even contend to say, if I'm bringing in a friend and bringing in a family member. I'm probably gonna be harsher on them upfront because I don't want anybody to be saying, oh, you're going easy on Bram because he's a mate of yours. Right?
There seems to be one rule for family connections and friends, and then one rule for the rest of us. You don't want that. You wanna say, this is a meritocracy and we treat everybody equal irrespective of who you are. And if you don't perform, then we're gonna have a conversation. If you can do that, there's no reason why you can't bring people in who are friends, family members, et cetera.
But a lot of people don't have that. They don't have that framework. 'cause I think, oh, this person's a good person. It'll work out. And so they hope it will work out and they just go Pray. Please make sure it's okay. Please don't make me have a conversation that I don't wanna have.
Exactly. I think this happens day in, day out, especially in small business, but even in some medium [00:41:00] sized businesses.
Yeah, I've definitely seen it happen. Darren, would you believe that we're already 50 minutes into this podcast and I've got so many more questions, but I'm realizing that we'll probably need to end this one and do another one in the future on different topics.
This has been great so far. Just in a nutshell, you, are the host of a podcast. The podcast in five years has produced no less than 850 episodes which means you are a prolific content provider. Love that by the way. What's the name of that podcast, Darren?
It's called the Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast.
And should people want to reach out to you, connect to you or learn more about you, what websites or places could they go to?
Firstly, LinkedIn is the best place. Look up my name or type in sales leadership coach, and it'll come up with my profile.
Exceptional sales leader.com is the website. With things like chat, GPT and Google, if you just put my name in, but make sure you add sales leader [00:42:00] to it. Otherwise, you might get Darren Mitchell, line Dancer or Darren Mitchell, photographer.
Excellent. So the engineer who turned sales guy and then sales leader, and now obviously podcaster.
It's been a great journey with you today so far, Darren, I really appreciate you contributing. You're a very generous, person sharing your insights, experiences and thoughts. And I like that. And you always got this beautiful balance of looking at it from different angles, not just a very subjective slant. Very well balanced. I love that.
So mate, thank you so much for joining in. What else is on your schedule?
Thanks Bram. As I said before we pressed record. I'd already recorded two podcasts this morning before this one. I've got another one about to happen in about 24 minutes, and then I've got a client call a little bit later as well.
And then I've got programs for next week I've gotta prepare for. Eventually I'll get to sit back and have a bit of a relax, but yeah, no, can't complain. It's been good.
Proactive. Love it. Once again, thanks very much. I wish you all the best and we'll look forward to the next episode.
Thanks, [00:43:00] Bram. It's been a great conversation.
