The Sales Advice Every Entrepreneur Needs to Hear | Trey Dunavant Ep. 18

17:37Chris Cruz:Now, walk me through now that you have a team of, you said before, roughly about nine on your side of it. Like, walk me through, if you were onboarding me and you're like, hey, I want to walk you through the sales process and how you would, like, what would you teach me as a new hire in the sales process? Like, walk me through it from your whole, like, take your time. I don't mind it if you go on a rant here for a little bit. I want to hear how you communicate to new hires or new sales reps, how you think and how you position them for success. Yeah. Well, we're a primarily inbound sales company.

18:12That's a pretty big differentiator. You have some, we talked a little bit earlier about outbound versus inbound. We are primarily inbound, meaning our marketing team through, you know, paid ads, through resources, through long form, through partnerships, we are bringing leads to the table, right? And that's a pretty common model in today's world, inbound sales. So in our world, we've got inbound leads coming at us every single month. and we round robbing those out. So you're coming in and you're saying, all right, I've got the opportunity to speak with someone. They're already interested, right?

18:46They've taken time to fill out a form, give us their information, even potentially book right onto a calendar. So we know they're interested, right? These are very, very warm leads. It's our job to show up, find out what they're looking for, the solution they're after. And yeah, is Belay a good fit or not? And so incoming to our team, some of the things we would look at first and foremost is like our sales methodology or process. Okay. And we are very much a consultative sale because it's very much an intangible. We offer a service, right? It's a real person and they're doing these supporting roles, but the results are intangible.

19:22And that is something to go off on a small tangent. That could be a hard transfer for some people, right? Oh, I've sold, you know, roofing systems. I've sold windows. I've sold a product, a widget, a vehicle, whatever. That is a, you need that thing, right? There is, on a day like today when it's raining, I don't want to walk a lot of places. So there is this demand that I want reliable transportation. Now, obviously, whether I pick a Honda, which is visually appealing, super rock solid and meets the price point, or a Jaguar, very big difference, right? But the need is there. With something like what we sell, it's more of an intangible.

20:00It's like I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed, I'm missing deadlines. Minds, you know, I'm feeling these things and I'm sensing these things, but the solution is, yeah, I want more peace in my life. I want, you know, more organization in my business. I just need support because I'm doing$10 tasks and I should be doing$10 ,000 tasks. Um, those types of things drive it. And so, um, that's one of the things we would talk about too, is just a sales process here. Here's how you typically have a conversation. This is what that conversation looks like.

20:30Chris Cruz:Do you give them scripts or you just teach them more about values? I'm, I'm not a big script person. Um, I love giving them, I call them bases. Like, Hey, we're on a field. These are bases. You're going to want to touch the order you do it in, how you do it. Hey, you're driving this thing. There's some empowerment and autonomy in that. Totally. Yeah. I want them to say it in their words, do it in their way. But like these are, we know these are important things that need to be covered within a given call. And so I try to set up those touch points, those bases, but give them the reign to, you know, do it how they want to do it.

21:00Chris Cruz:And in, in that, are you, are you going like, Hey, this is, these are some things to avoid. Are you like, like, I know that you have, you have this developer mindset. You can see it in how you approach things. It's like coaching mindset as well, where you can, you see the potential hurdles in people and you see how they can scale up. Like what's the things you're, you, maybe you're asking the, or maybe not the questions you're asking. What are the things you're pushing on to get them to avoid the wrong things or lean into the right things? Is it simply like what you said? Like, Like, hey, you're here at the bases?

21:31Chris Cruz:Or is there anything else? Do you do like, do you review calls? Do you, like, and if you do review calls, what's your process for that? Like, how do you look at that? Yeah. Yeah, we do review calls. I do a lot of call reviews as part of my role right now. Okay. So if you do call reviews, my one question, which gets into some of your culture and some of your quoting and all that stuff. I mean, some of your coaching and culture over quota stuff. How do you prepare somebody to be reviewed? because you're, you're, you're, that's, that feels pretty like, oh my gosh, like my boss is actually listening into my call that I had and going to give me input on my, how do you prepare them for that?

22:09It's, it's a team. It's a wee thing. Okay. It's always a wee thing there. I'm only successful in my role if they're successful in their role. And so the way I see it is we are collaborators in that way. Um, I hope to take input from anyone around me, whether that's quote unquote below me on an org chart or above me or across from me, I'm always trying to get better. I expect the same from them every single day. What is our 1 %? How are we getting better? And so call reviews are one of those things. And again, call reviews, not to like, oh, you didn't get these words just right. But like, Hey, are we, are we showing up in the way we should?

22:42Do we actually ask the questions to where we truly understand where this person is and where they want to go? And then do we clearly relay our bridge in that scenario? Cause there's always the future state island they're on. Uh, I mean, sorry, the, the, the island they're on right now, today's world. And then there's always the future state island and there's gotta be some kind of connect there. Right. And so a lot of times that's a pretty big chasm. And so clearly identifying and relaying and communicating what your bridge is and how you said something you said that I

23:11Chris Cruz:want to call out. I don't think, I think it's natural to you. I don't always think it's, and I think it's natural to potentially a lot of sales, um, minded or people who live in that world, I don't think it's always natural to a lot of you, but solopreneurs or entrepreneurs just starting and getting, is you said, did you ask the right questions? I see a lot, even in the service industry, they come in with their, it's not a tangible product. Like you said, it's a service. It's this intangible thing. And they, they start by talking about their product. Yeah. Like they start to go, this is why it's amazing.

23:42Chris Cruz:This is why it's X, Y, or Z. But it sounds like you have a little bit of a different take on that when you said, did you ask the right questions. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you think about, I'll relate it to like a, um, you go to a doctor appointment, you've got a pain, you go see a doctor. The doctor doesn't start by telling you about all the drugs he can prescribe or she can prescribe. So it doesn't talk about all right. We go straight to, Hey, why, what brings you into the office? Like, why are you here today? Something brought you in? It's no different in sales. You know, if you're selling truly from a service mindset, it's what, what brought you in?

24:11What pain has risen to the point where you're like, I'm going to take 90 seconds to fill out a form of interest. I'm going to go on a calendar, find time that works for me and this person, book a call, and then show up to that call. You're telling me there's pain somewhere. And another way to look at it, maybe it's not pain, maybe it's challenge, maybe it's just, again, there's so much of just, I want better. Maybe there isn't a pain, like I'm not limping, but I also know it could be better. And so, again, that motivator is enough for them to show up. And so, you know, back to really reviewing those, I'm looking for, can you, at the end of that call, at the end of that time, can my, we call them SC, solution consultant, truly tell me what this person came to us for?

24:50Chris Cruz:Wow. Very clearly. Like if we can't at the end of that say, I'm on the phone. This is why they showed up. This is the conversation we had. This is what they want. At the end of this, we've missed questions. Wow. That's an amazing metric. If you can say why they brought on the call, came to that call after that, you've done your job listening explicitly. Yeah. Specifically. Why is this person, why do they come to us? What do they want? And did I accurately relay how potentially we could help them get there? That's amazing. So that's one of the metrics you're really looking for in those sales calls.

25:22Chris Cruz:Can you do that? Yep. Okay. So if we, if we move forward from this, that's a self check. Sorry, just to double tap on that. That's a self check. If you're in a sales position, you're in a sales role. Can you, can you do that midway through an interaction with a person midway through a meeting, a sales meeting a sales conversation can you accurately say i understand what's bringing you here i can understand clearly and define clearly where you want to be and hopefully a time stamp future this is where i want to be in six months this is where i want to be in a year or whatever the case if you can't do that you're probably not asking the right questions so go back and find out what questions am i asking do i truly understand what the needs are so okay i want to i want to dive in here because i think that i experience this when i'm when our our work is getting like we're working with companies and brands, whether we're doing consulting stuff for on a strategy level, or we're doing visual identity work or web work, or we're doing content strategy for them, whatever it may be on a creative and brand level, we're getting, and they, they may say something like, I don't know.

26:17Chris Cruz:I just like, I just heard, I got recommended to you. Yeah. Yeah. Or, uh, uh, or they're, they, they can't articulate their problem or their pain quite well. Is there stuff you do or tactics or strategies or inputs that you have for going, let's get this out of them. They may not know how to say it, but like, what are your ways of getting to that? Because I think sometimes, honestly, I do think a lot of people struggle with the idea of going, how does my service really touch a pain point? They're like, it's a, you know, whether it's even say, for example, it's a photographer and they're like, I don't know how this hits a pain point.

26:51Chris Cruz:Or they're a, they're looking at it and they're like, there's the natural things. Like you said, plumbers, we know how to work when we have a plumbing problem. But when you build something like even belay solutions where you're like virtual assistants, they could probably go without it. They probably in their mind for a long time. They're like, I really could just do the competitor we face is doing nothing. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That is our largest competitors. I'll just keep doing it the way I'm doing it. And I'm miserable, but like that is a default, you know, that's awesome. I've never heard somebody say it like that.

27:19Chris Cruz:That is so good. So what do you do to help your team identify that like reason that they're on the call? If it's not explicit right away? Curiosity. Okay. That's a hard thing to teach. I've found some people are naturally more curious than others. I think that most curious people make the best salespeople because it's just this natural inborn intent of like, I'm curious. Like I'm just going to keep asking questions until I truly feel like at least I can understand where you're at. And so that means also I can relay whether we're a great solution or not. And so I think that curiosity is really important.

27:54You know, for those that aren't kind of naturally curious, sure. It's like, yeah, what questions can we be asking? I've found with particularly like less experienced salespeople, sometimes they'll even like start to ask the questions, but you can tell when they're asking the questions, they don't even understand why they're asking the question.

28:13Chris Cruz:Fascinating. And so it's like, okay, it's happening. It's coming out of your mouth, but do you even know why we're asking that question, right? So it's really helping them go a few layers deep of like, if we know this information, then we're, you know, if we can answer this question, we know this information. And so really helping them with that. And so I think curiosity. And then, yeah, I mean, I help my team with questions that they can be asking to help kind of spur that on. And then, I mean, as we always know, continuing to tap once or twice more on that. Why is that? You know, what have you tried already?

28:45Has there been other solutions that you've tested that haven't worked? if they didn't work why didn't it work do you think continuing that's so good because I love

28:54Chris Cruz:that you're saying continue to dive into that because I think sometimes we get I know myself and I've seen it in meetings when we get almost satisfied too early with that answer yep we're just like cool they gave us that and we just stopped inquiring check the box yeah we checked our box and we stopped getting deeper and deeper it's almost like you want them to feel like they're filling in so much for you like that you then can recite back to them. So it sounds like this is the pain and they're, and it's accurate. Yeah. I think you nailed it right there when you said we're just checking a box.

29:28Yeah. That can be the tendency is like, yep, I've got these series of questions that I want to ask specifically if you are in an organization that uses some kind of call flow or call script, Hey, I'm just going to script and ask these questions and then it's just a process, right? We're just literally moving down the process. And I think if you do that, I mean, you'll see quickly, it doesn't, it doesn't work.

29:46Chris Cruz:Yeah. You sense it when someone's going through that. Oh, totally. You feel it. And you feel like you're part of the 20 questions. You feel like it's an interrogation versus a conversation. It's like, oh yeah, this person's just literally listing off the questions that he or she is supposed to ask. Because again, someone probably above them told them they had to, right? Versus this is a genuine interest of really unpacking where I'm at today and where I want to go. And is there something here? Is there a there there? because this feels like this feels like the thing that keeps your team away from being just robotic absolutely like that and there's but there i heard somebody say vision and leadership i think it was john maxwell talks about it is and our team was talking about this the other day is when someone says when's the right time to continue talking about vision or when's the last time you talked about vision he's like if it wasn't yesterday it's too late yeah and it's the idea that like the balloon will always drop and you got to keep text.

30:40Yep.

30:41Chris Cruz:So when you're in, I love it. Vision leaks. It's so good. When I'm imagining you have to keep reminding, does that, how do you overcome the sense of feeling like you're cliche by reminding your team about these kinds of things over and over again? Cause I think some people get tired of it and they're like, I said this last week. Yeah. This is not new. I've said it last week and I'm, but I'm saying it, what are you, what are your own ways as this director of sales to handle that? Cause I know it's a real thing for us when we're like, all right, we're saying it again. Yeah. Oh man. Leadership. You'd be amazed at how much of leadership is just repetition is just like, so true.

31:20I mean, vision strategy, uh, you know, coaching, things like this. It's like, yeah, you feel a lot of times, like I've said this a thousand times, you know, but the reality is everyone's so busy, they may not even, you know, it's not explicit. Like, oh yeah, we just talked about this yesterday. It just doesn't hit the radar for a lot of people. And so, um, I think being also creative with it, approaching it from different angles, right? If I've said it one way and it's not catching on, especially in sales, if it's not yielding results, I'm probably going to approach it from a different direction.

31:47I use the same, uh, so much of what I do with my team is what I would do with the customer as well.

31:52Chris Cruz:Okay. Finding out what's motivating them. Like if we're not, if we're not getting where we want to go, if they're not seeing the results, how do you do that. You're like, again, you say these things that are, I don't think everybody does what you do, which is why you're so great at it. And why I wanted you on this show, because I'm like, there's an element of sales that I think you think about differently when you're going, I'm going to ask my employee what motivates them. I don't think a lot of directors do that. I think they're going, here's your job. Here's the clarity of what a win looks like.

32:21Yeah. Go do it. Go do run that way. And that's the expectations, right? We hired you for a reason. We're compensating you for that reason. And so you just need to do it. I think the reality is my goals, even the goals of Belay, I want them to be exciting and thrilling for our teammates, right? For our employees. That's just not always the case. And it's at least not the whole story, right? Maybe it is like, I totally connect with the impact that we're making at Belay. And I think every single one of my teammates would tell you they connect with that. The reason we exist, our mission, our values is very important, but it's not their whole life.

32:58And so I'm always like, how does this relate to you personally? Why is this important to you? Why is making quota this month to get the compensation associated with that? Why is that important to you? You have personal goals, you have life goals, you have family, you have interest, you have hobbies. The more you can connect that with what we're doing within the walls of Belay, the better success I'm going to because otherwise you only have half their heart or a quarter of their heart.

33:26Chris Cruz:It's a slower process. It is. It's like takes more attention, which is why so many leaders avoid this. They're like the relational dynamics of getting to sit with someone or hear them, whether it's through a call or through actual lunch, whatever it may be, taking that time to know them, to hear what, if they could say what motivates them. I mean, that, that leader is listening deeply in a way that's really meaningful. So I think that's, I think that's a game changer. I think it's a secret unlock that a lot, a lot of people are not doing. And it says a lot about you as a leader. And the crux of that is just like you're trying to help a customer, a potential customer get where they want to go.

34:02I want to help each of my employees get where they want to go. And so I'm going to have a season that I'm responsible for them, right, within Belay. But my impact and my hope is I'm helping them get in their life where they want to go. And so half of that, they're trying to unfold for themselves, right? They're still on that journey. And so it's like, what about this role is serving you today? And also what are your biggest dreams? Like, I want to hear those dreams because as much as I can promote you on that journey, that's value. Right. And so if that means you're with us for a season and we get you a certain distance and then you end up going somewhere else, Hey, the stewardship is ours during that time.

34:36And how can I help you get closer to your goals?

34:38Chris Cruz:When you say that there's our last interview with Carter Smith from pink's window service. He actually said this line that I was like, it's your, and you're saying it a whole other way, which was you've helped make me a lot of money to his employees. I want to make sure I'm helping you make money. I'm wanting to make sure I'm helping you with what you want to accomplish in life. And it's just recognizing this different mentality is emerging and it's not in small companies, like these, like a$90 million company pink's doing millions. I think they're doing, I North of 25 million, probably you're going, these are not like rare things where you're like, okay, that's an, just a kind of like an anomaly over here.

35:17Chris Cruz:You're seeing it repeatedly come up and it's happening because it's successful. It's holistic. You'll get so much more out of your employees and your bottom line will look totally different when you invest in that way. I believe. Yeah, I agree with you. And so let me ask you an interesting question that I don't really ask a lot of, of people, but I think it would be a fun one to hear your take. What would get someone fired? Like what's, what's the thing you're like, man, this is the thing I'm looking out and going, shoot. Cause you hate that moment. Like that moment sucks. Like there's no way around feeling like that moment is horrible.

35:51Chris Cruz:Absolutely. It's like, it's the roles of leaders that you're like, this sucks. Yeah. I hate this part of people stuff. It's always the hardest without a doubt. So sales makes that pretty easy. Okay. Um, and I say that because there is an expectation of output that is easily measured because it's attached to numbers. And so unlike roles that are, less attached to an actual number outcome. That is one thing benefit, I guess you could say to sales is it's like, yeah, lucky me. The problem is when it is underperforming as a leader, you know, you have to ask yourself, what, what is my contribution?

36:26And this person being short of this goal, right? Because am I equipping them and am I coaching them in the way that they need? Am I unlocking their superpower? Cause everybody holds these unique keys. And I think it's like a fingerprint. Everybody's got something unique that if you can unlock, especially in sales, help them leverage that. It's skills, but each of us, just because of our life, our life experiences shape us to be uniquely qualified or gifted or able to do certain things. And when you can, as a leader, see that and then leverage that, it makes a whole unlock and I think a realization and identity shift happens.

37:08So back to the numbers in sales, it makes it pretty easy. If someone's not hitting the number that's expected, especially in a world like ours.

37:16Chris Cruz:Is there a warning call? Is there like a, Hey, or is it usually? Yeah. Which I, some people don't even understand that. They're like, I haven't had any preliminary conversations to help get somebody somewhere. A lot of times we wait as leaders to the last minute. We just push it up because it's uncomfortable. Nobody wants to have those conversations. Correct. If they tell you they enjoy those conversations they're lying it's just not humanly comfortable to be having those conversations the more you have the easier it gets but the idea is um i love to bring it forward and when things are getting off track yeah again it's collaborative yeah i hope they feel and they should feel like we are linked arms yeah clarity's kind i'm just gonna be super clear hey we're missing the number yeah it's not just a month it's not it's now two months, anything over 30 days is a trend.

38:01You can have anomalies and that probably, and I say 30 days cause that's the sales cycle I'm thinking of. That's great. But there's a difference in anomaly or Hey, it's a bump. It's, it's just this random act versus looking at a trend. I love a three month rolling trend in our world with anything in the 30 day sales cycle kind of range. Three month trend is great. One bad month. It's like, okay, you know, check in what's going on. Is there something we're missing? Did something change? Right. We were doing something and do we shift. Um, 60 days is a trend. 90 is like, okay, you know, that's, there's decisions being made at 90 days.

38:34Chris Cruz:And so what I like doing is early on, really at the, between 30 and 60 days, having some kind of, I'm going to say emotional firing that, that might be too strong, but there needs to be an emotional, um, clarity moment where you're like, we can't keep going down this path. yeah something's got to change again this is a great time to unpack is there something personal happening right i see you maybe doing all the things you're doing in the past but it's not working is something else taking up brain space is your energy and emotion tied in something to understand again it's what's going yeah what is that thing oh yes come alongside them to help turn it around that i mean and i think you said again you said something that highlights your paradigm of leadership that I think makes you effective in what you do, which was, I'm going to ask myself, is there anything I'm missing?

39:25Chris Cruz:Is there anything I need to be asking or doing? And I was talking to someone the other day about this. When you see underperforming teams in sports, for example, in the NFL, the first thing they do is fire the coach. They like, so if a whole team is not doing well, it's like, Hey, go look at how the coaching is being done. It's not the whole team that gets fired. There may be a traded player here or there, but you're really looking at the responsibility to make a team hit an outcome on that coach. And so you're, as a healthy leader, you're not running away from that going, it's my team's fault.

39:55Chris Cruz:We're not hitting numbers. You're going, there's something I want to ask, make sure I'm doing my part in this, which again, I think it points to who you are as a leader and the ways that you look at things. You have talked about leading your future self. You mentioned to me about like this kind of paradigm about looking out into the distance. And I think this is a little bit of the game changer and how your kind of approach to life, leadership, sales, all the different things that have made you successful. Explain what you mean by leading from your future self. Yeah. I've noticed this a lot, even within the world of Belay, right?

40:28Because of so much of the work that we do is around delegation and really ensuring that you as an individual are focused on the right things at the right times and being important things. it actually stemmed from a book that came from a recommendation a good buddy Ian mentioned a book your future self now be your future self now I think it's what's called Benjamin Hardy great book phenomenal book and it really talks about its identity I mean I feel like it keeps coming

40:54Chris Cruz:around to that but so much of this is identity it's like who who do I see myself as and then how would that person operate right you look at anything whether you're going to pick up a new health routine or whatever until you identify as that thing, which fascinates me all together because you talk to people all the time that run multiple times a week and you ask, are you a runner? The typical answer is like, no, no, I'm not a runner. Yeah. Well, I saw you running like almost every day this week. Yeah. Yeah. I run every day, a couple of miles, but I'm not a runner. It's like Jonathan Payne. I always see him running out of your neighborhood.

41:24Chris Cruz:Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's totally that, but it's like, we don't identify as a runner. And so in any of those scenarios, once you identify as that person, everything's going to start changing as far as actions. And so similarly, you can apply that to a lot of areas of life. When you start to see yourself in the place that you want to be, the path to get there not only becomes clear in a lot of cases, but you start to adopt out of not obligation, but just inclination, the new habits and rituals and routines that you might want to take on to be that person. So, you know, you could apply that to your calendar.

41:55You could apply that in all areas of life as far as if this is who I need to be and need is a judgment word. But like, if I identify as this person, what needs to fall into place to allow me to,

42:06Chris Cruz:to kind of reverse engineering that person and going, what are the steps you just like you just said calendar. So if we ask you, when you look at your calendar, what's one thing that tells you, you've, I think you've mentioned this in the text with me of like that$10 million organization. If you're leading that in the future, what does your calendar look like so that you're not, that you're not doing as a$1 million manager? Like what's, what's the way that you're looking at your calendar differently between those two things? Like if you're, if you're going to nail that down on a calendar level.

42:36Yeah. I think depending on your role, so much of that needs to be more strategy and less in the weeds, right? When you're leading a team and you're an engaged leader, the tendency is going to be for you to be pulled into everything because you're engaged, right? Totally. I'm locking, I'm locking arms with you. So like the littlest thing I'm going to ping you.

42:55Chris Cruz:You feel a burden about it. You're like, I want, I want to, I want to help be in there. Yeah. And they expect you kind of to be in there because of the role that you're taking to say, Hey, I'm shoulder to shoulder. I'm here to help you. Like, what can I do to facilitate your success? That means, you know, there's this tendency of like, they're reaching out to you for anything and everything. So first thing you do is look at your calendar. The primary role of a sales leader, one of them is creating clarity. Clarity drives acceleration in every format. If you want to go faster, get clearer. And part of that clarity is for your team as well.

43:26And so if they're coming to you with the same things over and over, there's not clarity. Something's missing. Just like a confused buyer isn't going to buy, I would argue a confused salesperson will not be effective selling. And so really providing clarity for them. So what I do is I monitor on my calendar, I'll monitor what's rolling up to me. And if we're doing the same things over and over, if I'm having the same conversations over and over, it's assigned to me that I need to create a resource. I need to do some training. I need to provide even, you know, an SOP to ensure that this doesn't keep coming up.

43:56Chris Cruz:I still love how you're calling out the, your processes are so different than other people's because they're going to go, there's a problem. I got to get involved. You're going, I got to create a resource. I got to create an SOP. I got to create, which is a standard operating procedure for those that are like, never, ever, ever dive. They're like, well, he just said something. When you're, when you're doing that, you're again saying, I am not going to get back into the weeds. What I'm going to do is multiply my efforts by creating something that allows my leadership to be present without me being present.

44:24Chris Cruz:And that again, is that unlock that you see in all the themes and how you lead is like, I got to multiply myself. I can't just stay on me, which is fascinating. It's not the normal. It's not the normal. It's a great leaders do multiply themselves for sure. And I'm not putting myself in that category. I've still got a lot to learn, but the idea is, yeah, when you can multiply yourself, whether it's through, you know, a supporting role, like, you know, in my world today, I have an EA, her name is key. She's awesome. She does so much for me that I would typically have to do. Um, I've got a revenue enablement, uh, kind of like sales coordinator role, Beth, she does so much with the team that normally would fall onto me.

45:03Um, so that you can do that with roles. You can help support and multiply yourself with roles. Um, but you can also do it with automation. You can also do it with, you know, SOPs or, you know, documents that spell out certain things. You think about in the sales world, even having like a repository or an inventory of like, Hey, these are sales resources that we need all the time. If they're having, if your team is having to go and search for these things every time they're on a call and they get off a call and they're like, yeah, this person was in this space and this industry, we had a really good conversation about this.

45:31I want to send them that, you know, client video or testimony, or or maybe it's a blog post or whatever. I want to send that to them, and I've got to go find it every time. Creating those things where they can just quickly and easily and with clarity access them and deliver them makes a big, big difference. So, yeah, roles, systems and processes, and then self-governance, which is the hardest thing. It's like for me, I mean, you know, full transparency. I wanted to send you some information before this time, right? Oh, yes, yes. And I was like, yeah, you'll hear from my assistant. She'll get it over to you.

46:00Well, I raised my hand and said I'm going to take care of it, and I didn't even take care of it. So self-governing is the hardest thing, right? It's like, what am I doing within my own calendar, my own means to make sure I'm focused on the right things. Yeah.

46:09Chris Cruz:And that's that big rock mentality too, like versus the, I think Stephen Covey, right? The whole big rocks before small rocks. If I put those big rocks in there, people aren't familiar with that analogy. He's like, if you try to put all the little rocks into a glass jar first and then fit the big rocks and then try to put all the sand in, it doesn't work. But if you put the big rocks in, then all the sand will actually make its way into the, into the glass jar perfectly. I think that's where I have a full focus planner sitting right here. I've really enjoyed the full focus planner. It works on the analogy of big threes.

46:39So big three for your day, big three for your week. That rolls out to your quarter. Same thing. It's big rocks. And so really, again, as a leader, whether you're a sales leader or otherwise, identify what's truly important first. That's the big rock. And when you can get that front and center, you can fit the other stuff around it.

46:55Chris Cruz:There was one more thing that you said or underlying in what you said that I think is really critical for leaders of sales teams or leaders of any level of a team. You were again highlighting the idea that if there's a reoccurring problem in the team or there's something going on and you're trying to lead your future self, you're leading differently today, which means that future self doesn't get lost in the weeds, like you were saying, coming in and getting real tactical, again, solving problems because we're locked in linked arms. I think what I want to call out is what that ends up doing to your team if you keep doing that.

47:30Yeah.

47:31Chris Cruz:Like how it costs the development of your team and you don't have leaders anymore. Yep. What you do is you actually remove their ability to think like leaders because you consistently come in and rescue or you're not thinking it's rescuing. Right. You're thinking like I'm being supportive. I'm solving a problem. I'm solving a problem. And this team needs me to solve problems. But what you're doing is you're removing their leadership abilities. Yep. And you're like, how do you handle, and this is where we'll wrap up, how do you handle stepping away and letting your team have that autonomy and going like, what's the way that you do that?

48:04Chris Cruz:How do you allow yourself to go? I'm not going to dive into that. I'm not going to, what do you have to tell yourself? Man, I have to tell myself some problems don't need solving right away. Okay. Even though it feels like it. So it's back to that, like, um, it's a me thing, right? So much of leadership is a me thing, uh, in the fact that like I haven't developed myself enough. So there's certain problems that you see, um, that do need to be addressed. And that's just, you know, that's going to be something you acquire over time is, does this need to be addressed or not? Once you can start to get a feel for, Hey, that does need to address this one.

48:34Actually, it just needs to wait. It just needs to sit. Um, because one of two things can happen. Either the individual that brought that to you can get creative and figured out on their own. And that may be the development that they need is like, I'm sensing that this is a repetitive thing. So I need to start giving you more and more, um, you know, kind of like allegiance to take care of this yourself. Yeah. And so Jordan says, I like the chaos.

48:55Chris Cruz:Jordan's like, I'm going to let the chaos sit. Jordan's the president of Harvard Union and the AVP. I bet he's had, I mean, that may be a little bit natural for him. I don't know. But like, that's probably development. Oh, yeah. He's had to just like, I mean, because again, most leaders are like, I just want to like, we just need to solve it because there's so much more we need to be doing. Right. So I'm just going to jump in and rescue. I think that's the truth. They're like, there's so much other things. If I just come in and solve it real quick, we can keep moving. Exactly. It's progress, man.

49:18Yeah. It's progress and speed. Like I could get it done quicker and let's just get this out of the way. Yeah. it doesn't need to be done right now. And it's a learning opportunity for this person. Just make sure you loop back because there's always the after action review, right? Not only to make sure it went well, because like, you know, the worst thing in a leader's life is being surprised. Like we don't want to be surprised by anything, but make sure the lesson was learned because you can abdicate and that's not healthy. Right. So if you just like, I'm just going to turn to blind eye, they'll figure it out.

49:48Um, that doesn't go well either. So, you know, give them time to process and figure it out on their own, but then loop back. Hey, what did we learn, right? How are we going to do things different next time? Like making sure that it actually lands is kind of where my mind goes.

50:00Chris Cruz:I love it, man. Thanks so much. This is all so insightful. And I think any person leading a sales team or leading a team in general will gain a lot from this. So thanks for the time, man. Absolutely.