1610 – Making Smart Moves with Smart Moves’ Barbara Spector

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now barb specter barb you are the ceo and president founder of smart moves you're found on the web at smartmovesinc.com barb thank you so much for joining us i'm so glad to see you josh all right and congratulations by the way on 26 years that's quite an accomplishment it's been quite a ride. It's been quite a ride. And part of why our company is called Smart Moves, a lot of times we get phone calls from people looking to see if we're going to move them from one location to another, or if we're doing something else that the term Smart Moves connotes to. But we named it Smart Moves because we really help companies make really, really educated decisions whenever it comes to dealing with any aspect of their employees, whether it's hiring them, developing them, keeping them, training them.

1:51So that's what we want them to make smart moves. Yeah. Well, you know, obviously, you know, doing what you do for as long as you have, obviously you've seen some, some trends. What are the trends that you're observing right now in on that side of things? Wow. Very interesting question. A lot, a lot of companies are firing people, not firing, laying people off. And there are some organizations that are also laying off some of their sales people. And that's the worst thing they can possibly do. That's the revenue generating arm of their company. The other thing that we've seen, there's been so many trends.

2:27First, we had, now we're at quiet. Are we at quiet quitting or quiet staying? I'm not sure which. And before that, we had the great resignation. I think things are finally calming down, but there's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace because we have a few days until the debt ceiling either gets raised or we're in deep poopoo. And so companies are very nervous. And what I'm finding is that the most important thing they can do right now is to take care of their people. And I mean that from the standpoint of really creating empathy. If they're working with a sales team, they really need to develop them.

3:10And we do a lot of work with sales teams. so I think the biggest thing is the uncertainty and understanding that if you have a growth mindset to start with and not a closed mindset or a fixed mindset as it's known as you can weather the storm you can find a way to pivot just like we had to pivot through the pandemic just like we had to pivot when we had the 2008 housing meltdown just like we had to pivot the 2000 and dot-com bust, right? It's just time to pivot, that's all. And if we keep our heads on straight, we can weather the storm. Yeah, and I've heard that advice given before where it's like, don't ever cut back on sales and marketing.

3:56But I would imagine there's some cases, right? When we're evaluating how something's performing and go, well, we don't want to do that. So let's, because that's clearly not been working over the past year. I mean, we want to always be analyzing and making sure that we're spending money in the right ways, of course. So when is it appropriate to make cutbacks? Are you talking about in a sales force? Yes. Yeah. So the first thing that you have to do is, the way I use an expression, if you can't measure it, you can't fix it. So there are means by which an organization can first determine who of their people stands, not only is going to succeed, but who should they keep on board because they have that strong potential, even if they have not been the star in the organization.

4:47And there's ways to determine that. But to do it just based on looking at a spreadsheet and who's brought in the most revenue and who's brought in the least amount is not the way to go about it. Because there's a lot of people who are like the B players who have tremendous potential, if you had the right tools to develop them. So there's ways to actually measure that to determine who should we really let go of regardless of what's going on in the economy. Yeah. And what trends are you seeing specifically in sales teams today? Be a little bit more specific when you say trends in sales teams, if you can.

5:29Right. So, again, there's a lot of technologies. I think there's a lot of, you know, obviously we're learning things, right? And I'd say that, you know, for thinking about maybe it's B2B sales and the sales team there, you know, are they, you know, are there just new best practices that you're seeing commonly that maybe, yep, I'm seeing lean sales teams do this, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. Got it. Got it. Okay, so one of the things that actually is, it isn't just now, it actually has been in place forever as a tremendous need, but it's more important than ever, and I call it a trend for today, is that salespeople don't know how to sell enough value and create enough urgency in their sales.

6:23So right now, because companies are concerned about, oh, they won't buy from us if we don't have the best price, that's a bad mindset. But you can't get over it. A salesperson can't get over it. And this is one of these trends. They have to be able to sell the value of the company, the value of the product, and the value of themselves. Because people buy from people they love and trust and like, never mind love. And more importantly, if we can't connect to people emotionally, they can't see the value of either the product or the service or the company. It's critically important. And it's more, as I call it a trend, because it's more important today than it's ever been.

7:07Why now? Yeah. Because, great question. Why now? Just let me think about that for a second. Sales actually changed dramatically after 2008. It used to be a salesperson could just show up and what I like to say sardonically, throw up. They could just make their presentation and more often than not, they could close as many deals as they needed to. But we have a much more sophisticated audience today. And it's more sophisticated because of social media. And social media demands that people build relationships, that we don't go off and just be salesy. so the the reason it's so important today is that it's what the market demands the market demands it people need relationship especially since so much of business is being done over zoom it's very easy to have a disconnect and if we do things the old-fashioned way the way it was done literally 20 years ago when i started in the business actually it was more than 20 years ago it doesn't work anymore.

8:13People feel detached. And so it's impossible to get the win rates in companies. You know that term win rates? Does that make sense to you? Or should I explain it? Sure. I mean, feel free. Yes. Yeah. So let's imagine that a company has, you know, 50 deals opportunities in their pipeline, right? But the amount that they close is considered what their win rate is. So we have been able to see that win rates are increased dramatically when an organization of salespeople knows how to sell value and they know how to create urgency. And the best way to do that is to really be a consultant to that prospect, not a salesperson.

8:57Yeah. What does that look like? what does that look like um well it's a conversation in which first of all i'm doing more listening than i'm talking i'm truly interested in helping you uncover whatever the problem is that you're experiencing and i ask a lot of questions to help you identify how much is that costing the company what does it mean to you if you don't get it fixed and what's it going to mean to you if you do? So a lot of salespeople are actually uncomfortable asking those kinds of questions. And as a result, their win rates are not so great. So we have to go through a, it's almost like being a unlicensed psychologist, you know, and taking that much care and that much interest in the person that we're talking to so that we're more interested in the buyer's cycle than the seller's cycle.

9:53Does that make sense, Josh? Yeah. So where does SmartMoves fit within this? So how are you engaging with your clients and what are you helping to manage or helping them to create? Great question. So we've talked a little bit about this unknown and the unknown that particularly a CEO, a CEO, he or she is usually two or three steps removed from the sales organization. So one of the things that we're able to do with them is to provide an actual diagnostic of the whole organization. We want to know where are the gaps in the salespeople? Where are they in the sales managers? Where are they in the sales leaders?

10:34Where are they even in their systems and their processes and their strategies? So if we can get a handle on those very scientifically, it creates an opportunity for the organization to really target the things they need to improve on and take the action that they need to take to grow revenue. And so your website, smartmovesinc.com, what resources would you recommend there? Someone's listening to our conversation and they want to learn more about what you do. Well, if they're interested on the sales side, there's actually a page called sales sales evaluations I believe if you go onto the site we've got a bunch of tabs up at the top there's a particular tab called assessments we and we do all types of assessments because again I am a firm believer if you can't measure it you can't fix it so if somebody is looking to improve their existing sales force we have something called a Salesforce evaluation.

11:37There's a link to that in my site. A lot of companies are interested. There's a lot of talk that hiring is slowing down. Well, we haven't experienced that. We're finding that throughout every industry from tech, believe it or not, which is where they're having a lot of layoffs, to manufacturing, to more blue collar jobs, they're hiring like crazy. And so on my site, there's a place where you can learn about assessments that help companies hire great people. And we also do interview training. We cover the whole gamut. It's the whole life cycle. And as it relates to talent management, except for benefits and compensation, I don't touch that.

12:21Awesome. All right. Again, Barb Spector, your website, smartmovesinc.com. Thank you again so much. Is there anything else that someone's listening to our conversation that kind of like your call to the world or what you would recommend business leaders pay attention to and focus on today? Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, we have a free gift for everybody. I spoke about mindset and how important that is, particularly in a sales organization, but actually anywhere. And so I have a special report that's available. And what it will do is it'll actually identify the nine hidden mindsets in most salespeople and four things you can do about it.

13:05And the link to that is to simply go to http, the guide.vip, not.com, but VIP, the guide.vip. And if somebody would like to talk to me, you'll see right by my name in my name right there on the link, on the Zoom link, VIPChatWithBarb.com, and we can set up a time to talk. All right. Barb Spector, again, thank you so much for joining us. Again, your website, SmartMovesInc.com. Thanks, Barb. My pleasure, Josh. So glad you had me on your call.

13:43Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love, even if you just stopped by to say hi, I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

14:27Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.