The State of Sales Performance Management, with Pat Rodgers [Episode 773]

Pat Rodgers, founder and CEO of Loupe, joins me to discuss the value of data-driven coaching. Listen in as we review the key findings of Loupe’s industry research report, The State of Sales Performance Management, and learn how to close the gap between managers’ intent to coach sellers and their actual performance.

Episode Transcript

Alec Paul: Pat. Welcome to the show.

Pat Rodgers: Andy. Thanks for having me.

Alec Paul: It’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure. So you’re joining us from where today?

Pat Rodgers: Indianapolis. The racecar state, so to speak.

Alec Paul: I’s taken over from the Hoosier state?

Pat Rodgers: Yeah. Right. I’m a Hoosier at heart. So-

Alec Paul: Okay. You’re born and raised.

Pat Rodgers: Half of my life. So a Texas born, Dad got out of the military, moved us up to Indianapolis and other than a stint in Chicago I’ve been here ever since.

Alec Paul: Okay. Alright. Back home. I was, I haven’t been to Indiannapolis that much. I mean, I don’t know why my business travels. I got to, West Lafayette a lot, but not for some reason people, I knew him, Purdue and conferences I went to and so on, but all right, well, we’re going to talk today about, the study that, that your company has done on the State of Sales Performance Management.

Now, this is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because I think it’s one of the things that managers do least well is manage performance.

Pat Rodgers: Couldn’t agree more. It, it’s something that I’ve seen throughout my career, both as a leader in companies that are focused on this topic and something that we just have overlooked over the years.

Alec Paul: Well, I just, I draw the distinction between performance and doing your job. I mean, to me, performance implies not just being good, but being, you know, better than just good.

Pat Rodgers: Absolutely. I think that’s, that’s definitely the, you know, we seem to find managers coaching pretty often on here’s what I need you to do, not what you can do to be better. And I think that’s, that’s kind of one of the other distinctions that I tend to make. And in thinking about performance versus, you know, why you get your paycheck.

Alec Paul: Well, yeah, well, so I want to go through the report and some of the key findings you had in there, because quite honestly, I found someone kind of shocking, but, but before starting with that is. Is one of the things that I think we just haven’t done well enough in sales is, is that, are we, are we managing sales properly just in general, right?

I mean, you look at the sales itself, we’ve had these, you know, I don’t call them revolutions. We’ve had this, you know, this steady evolution of the sales role itself, where certainly for a lot of companies now who are more virtual mode, but even those that were more virtual before the COVID shutdown, Yeah, we’ve got more specialized sales roles, SDRs, AEs customer success, BDRs, yada, yada, yada.

Okay. And yet from a management standpoint, and I’ve made this point a lot on the show. So people I’m sure, maybe tired of hearing it, but we haven’t changed a thing in terms of how we manage sales fundamentally. I mean, it’s, it’s still somewhat the same as it’s been for a hundred years. So how do we change that?

I mean, to me, that’s really the key to changing how we manage for performance. I mean, I draw the analogy to, big sport I follow soccer, no mystery of people listening to the show. And you look at the management staff, if you will, on a professional soccer team and it’s all about performance. You only, have generally they have two or three people at the title performance in their title or other it’s, you know, data analytics or it’s, you know, fit physical fitness performance, or it’s, you know, skills performance.

And yet we have none of that in sales. We still expect that frontline manager and the VP to be know it alls that know all about all these different aspects of elevating performance.

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, it even goes back a little bit further. Not only have we not changed the way we manage, but we haven’t even then, or now ,invested in teaching those who are managing how to manage. So we kind of focus all of our investment across the board on, Hey, reps need these things, reps can do these things, even rep training, but it’s very hard to find true manager training anywhere. And so even, even at the know at all level, we’re still not investing in them to make that level better. So we’re even further behind than we could be.

Alec Paul: Right. Well, and so two questions in there. One is why do companies still take sales for granted? Which I, that’s how I, I term it. Right. That was just sort of like, yeah, we’re going to put a bunch of money into sales, but we’re not really, we don’t really care about performance, quite frankly, if we just get enough, right.

We, we hit our goal growth targets, even though so much we’re leaving on the table. Yeah. We’re okay. Right. Which is minimal investment. We’ll make something happen. As opposed to wow. We could really take a modern approach to sales management because as we claim, we’re doing a modern approach to the selling and we don’t, and it’s like, where are the attitudes have to change?

I mean, obviously it’s start changing at the top and say, look there- but also I think VPs of sales and others have to have the courage quite frankly to say, yeah, if we really want to optimize performance, I feel comfortable saying to you, Mr. CEO, I don’t know. I’m not, you know, optimal to, and I haven’t been training on how to train people in these skills, or how to train people on these mindsets, or trained people, you know, in these proficiencies, let’s say in business acumen or whatever yet it’s our start with them. Cause I think that whole, there’s the upper level of fear at the senior management level to admit that they don’t know everything.

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, I definitely agree on that front. And I think the biggest challenge that we’ve always faced is that the answer has traditionally been, let’s just throw more bodies at it and our conversion will continue to rise. And it’s just a numbers game, instead of taking a step back and saying, okay, Why did the numbers, why are the numbers doing what they’re doing and how do we actually pick those apart to find those opportunities to change the storyline, change the way that we engage, not only with our sellers, but also our buyers.

And so I think that’s one of the biggest challenges we’ve seen. So we ended up with a manager that has, you know, eight to 10 reps underneath them. how are they going to get anything done? And so it’s the, the numbers game has kind of proliferated this well, if we can just manage by the conversion rate, then we’ll be okay.

And I think that that’s something that, you know, overall we think about modern, we should be able to do more with less if we’re actually paying attention to the right things.

Alec Paul: Right. Well, and that speaks to this issue of just you brought up is yeah. If we just throw more crap into the top of the funnel and play the numbers game, you know, the way with the levers, we pull our more investment top of the funnel and more bodies to the call, the leads that come in, or the leads it’s him calling on our better list that we have in our proactive outbound. But yeah, but it’s not fundamentally changing levels of performance. And, and so one thing that really sort of caught my eye in the report relatively early on is this whole idea of what you call data-driven coaching. And this, the stat that jumped out at me, it was, that was in the report, is that 75% of sellers say they rarely receive coaching with supporting data.

And I’m like, Oh, what are they talking about? What, you know, if you have a meeting with your coach and he’s saying, look, I listened to your call, and you know, here’s a suggestion, you know, when you get into this situation, try try this approach with the buyer. And based on what that data’s telling me as well. Yeah. Unless you have data to back the seller saying to the manager, unless you have data to back that up, did that approach really works. It’s not credible. And that seems like a huge issue.

Pat Rodgers: Definitely. And I think that’s the, you know, we, we force reps to input information or we buy tools to help find all this data. And we’re using all these things to collect information. I’m saying, Hey, it’s your job to actually put this data in, but then we’re never using that data to actually come back and say, this is why, this is, this is how you get better.

This is why, if you can take these steps, we’re going to see this type of change. And that’s really the most interesting thing. And what we’ve found and talked about over time, you kind of see it. So it’s, you have a lot of frontline managers that were sellers for two years, and maybe that that’s their whole experience is, you know, two years of, of, you know, real life.

And then they’re thrown into not only managing sellers, which are a personality all to their own, but it’s also their first management gig. And we’re saying, Hey, just go, just go get it done. And so you end up with people that have no idea how to read the data in the first place actually use it. And I think that’s what we found as being one of the biggest gaps is that frontline sales managers aren’t data analysts and they don’t have the right information to actually bring to the rep. And even if they knew what to look for spending the time to go find that on a rep by rep basis and even on week by week basis to measure improvement, right. It’s just not possible. They just don’t have that time or know how to do it. And so I think that’s where we see a big gap overall.

Alec Paul: Yeah, but I interpreted this different though. A little bit differently, which was that it was almost like, the sellers were saying, look, I need a proven recipe. And the data tells me that this is the recipe where if the coach says, look. Well, they have a ton of experience or not is, yeah. Hey, have you thought about this?

Have you thought about this? You know, when you’re in this situation, what would you do? Where people problem solve for themselves. Yeah. Cause that’s what sales is. Sales is a big experiment. It should be right. And I think this is, this is the gap is that you learn how to sell by experimentation, not by somebody giving you a recipe and saying this works and how it seems like reps have to get comfortable with this idea that there is no recipe.

Right. They’re going to go out and call on one of seven and a half billion people in this world have their own unique personality. They’re not going to be just like anybody else. And how do you adapt to that situation?

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, I think that’s a, that’s a fair point. You know, there, there is a lot of ambiguity in, in selling and how you’re going to adapt to your buyers. I mean, I think that’s definitely one of the challenges that, reps are going to face, especially. going forward is how do we align to what our buyer needs today and how do we help them navigate what they’re, you know, decision-makers internally need and so on and so forth.

And I think the, the big thing that we. So, and a lot of the comments and additional factors was I’d like to see how so and so is doing it. And it’s not necessarily, I guess, the recipe, but they’re definitely doing it better than I am, and I’d love to learn or be able to, borrow and yeah, exactly. And. emulate those folks around me.

And I think that that is, you know, when we talk to leaders and things of that nature, it’s it’s how do we show, what was that model? And maybe it’s not a recipe, but what’s the model that a top rep is doing. What are the inputs they’re doing? And you, you’re never going to replicate somebody’s personality, right?

But are there certain things that we can make, become scalable and leverage the data to identify those things, and then compare me to those things so that I can start to get closer to what that model should be.

Alec Paul: Right. And, and if you have a conversation with one of those top reps and, and it’s like, Oh, okay. They do that. Hmm. How would I do that? As opposed to younger, just do exactly what they did. It’s it’s thought should be, Oh, because to your point there are different than I am. I mean, that’s how I, one of the ways I learned how to sell was, was obviously through peers and through people with more experience, picking their brain, seeing what they did, watching them on a call.

And saying, Oh, Hmm, next time I got in the similar situation, I might try something like that, but it’s, it’s, it’s like this demand for data, for me, speaks to people being unwilling to develop and trust their instinct and their intuition.

Pat Rodgers: yeah.

Alec Paul: if you don’t have experience on online sales, you would have experienced as a human.

And this is a human business you’re dealing with other humans. Is, you have to get so bound up and saying, Oh, this is what I’m going to do in this situation, based on this data. And so on, you’ll become so ponderous in the way you sell that it will be painful for you and the buyer.

Pat Rodgers: Definitely. And I think, you know, the, the, aspect of creativity is so necessary to not only feel comfortable saying something, you know, when I, when we talk about training reps and things we’ve done in the past, it’s about creating a flexible framework. Here are the things that we need, how you decide to get them and how you feel most comfortable doing that is going to be the best result. I think when I, when I think more about the kind of, coaching with data, the way that I look at the, the conversation is a little more of, Hey, I need you to. Get up to this level, whatever that level might be. And we both can agree that if we do these things that we get there.

And I think that the, the gap that I see in a lot of those conversations between manager and rep, and this might be with the reps are asking for is how do they move and measure those incremental steps? How do I measure those steps to get better? Whether it be leading indicators, a better conversion rate at a certain stage, whatever that choke point is for that seller.

They’re out there just doing the same thing over and over and not having anybody come in and say, Hey, let’s change this. Or know that, that is the broken thing. I think that’s where we see a lot of that gap in terms of coaching, without data. Where it’s like, Hey, just try harder. And that, and that’s really not an answer anymore.

And so it’s, how do you use that information to say, Hey, if we did something different in stage two or in your second meeting or your demos are where people are falling off and have that supporting information. Now we can actually guide a rep to find that opportunity to be creative, find that opportunity to try something new.

Otherwise they just keep doing the same thing and we don’t see any, any gains or any results there.

Alec Paul: Okay. So the next thing that was in the report was talking about the sales coaching gap, where, and this is, gosh, time immemorial is it has been going on as the managers say, yeah, coaching’s important. We got to do coaching. We got to do coaching. they don’t right. And you saw, certainly saw this where, you know, high, high, high fraction of, of sales leaders and frontline managers say coaching’s really important. And yet barely a quarter of the individual reps are saying that they receive ongoing coaching.

Pat Rodgers: Absolutely. And I think that this one is one that, you know, we see time and time again, and it’s in my viewpoint, there are two big gaps that make this, something that just hasn’t gone away. And on one side you have training of managers. And I think this is something that without that investment, you know, we could have a multiplier effect of training a manager means that you’re going to get, you know, however many reps, let’s say it’s eight on average, that’s an improvement across eight people. The manager is the lever, but we’re not training at that level. So then you have somebody coming in, really doesn’t know fundamentally, how the coach, because they probably didn’t get coached when they were a rep.

And so it’s just this constant flow that happens. And the second piece that we see a lot is that the separation between the job as we talked about earlier of here is, you know, putting in your forecast and doing deal reviews, and that is not coaching in terms of performance. That is just the day to day reporting.

And a lot of companies haven’t taken the step of separating the two. And understanding that those two things, by separating them will actually have a lever to increase productivity and increase results, which then make every deal review and every forecast more accurate and better and better. And so I think it’s a combination of both the, we need to invest more in our managers from the get go, because they’re the ones that are going to be the accountability layer and a performance improvement layer to our reps.

As well as then being able to understand that they do need to separate the things that are a part of their job.

Alec Paul: Yeah, I think if you were to ask a frontline manager, how do you improve someone’s performance? Is they only think about it in context of, well, how do I help this person hit quota as opposed to, how do I elevate this person as an individual? Whether it’s skills, mindset, business acumen, whatever the levers are that we potentially pull in order to help them get better.

So it’s not just a matter of hitting quota it’s as you know, they, they just become better all the way around. Yes, they will probably hit quota. They’d probably go crush quota. but it’s, it’s not look at- we’re such shortsighted. I mean, I think part of this has to do too with managers these days just not understanding how to allocate their time. And you sort of alluded to that earlier, is we don’t train managers, as you said, which is absolutely true. You know, there’s been some research that there make quotes that saying, you know, if you want to get a 19% uplift in sales, train your frontline managers. Fantastic. But what are you training them in? And I think one of the key things is where do they spend their time?

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, time management, for, you know, most frontline managers is what’s the loudset fire that I think I need to put out today, right? It’s the chasing our tails and saying, you know, which rep is the loudest and what do I have to do today versus understanding that there is a, an order of operations that you can apply. And by taking control back on your day, you’ll actually achieve significantly more.

I think the other piece that ends up happening is yeah, we’ve, we’ve started to see, and obviously you guys, you guys talk about this a lot. We have a lot of opportunities now with enablement, and I think the managers, then see that as Well I don’t have to do that. And I think that’s a huge gap too, where what we really you need to be doing is taking what enablement is giving us and make sure that that’s being applied and that those areas are continuing to be enhanced. And so we kind of invest around managers and then they trickle off and don’t say, I need to go do that now.

I think the other piece around time management is being number one. And then number two is being able to identify what is going well and what is going poorly on an individual basis. I think in a lot of cases, we take a, a one size fits all and that’s because we don’t have the ability to identify individual weak points or areas of opportunity.

And that’s the other big area that I see as a, an opportunity to train managers on is how do we find those gaps and help fill them in no matter what the rep’s personality is, be that utility player and feeling and those gaps so that you can lift them up and help them overall.

Alec Paul: Yeah. So I want to get to that. Cause that’s sort of what’s next on my list to talk about, but sort of anothge thing that, that your data sort of, talked about is, is, that, I think it’s in their quota is, 28% of individual contributors state that they receive ongoing coaching with actionable next steps. And it’s sort of interesting. I don’t know if that was an artifact, how you rephrase the question so on, but you know, the role of coaching is not to provide the answers to what the next steps are. It’s to help the rep understand how to ask the questions and really problem solve for themselves. And, and this, this is why for me, it sort of aligned with another thing about why they wanted coaching, you know, coaching with data support, supportive data is like, again, Hey, no, one’s here to give you the answers.

You have to figure this out. We don’t give you the tools to help you figure out the answer. To help you go out and become more successful. But it’s not by saying, yeah, here’s step one, step two, step three. If you’re working on opportunity, if you’re doing a good job coaching, you’re not being directive. That’s like going out and doing the selling yourself. How are you helping that person evaluate the situation and come to a good conclusion about what they should do next?

Pat Rodgers: Yeah,  it might be on, on how the, the question is phrase. I think when we’ve looked at this and maybe this is a bias that I interpreted, this was kind of the follow on of coaching. I think there’s, you know, plenty of conversations that you have and a manager gives, gives either a tip or a, an ask or, Hey, I think if we try it, let’s go try this on this deal.

See what happens or what do you think about trying these two options? And then there ends up not being a follow through on that. And when I, when I think about coaching overall, it’s the, you know, follow through those, the, you know, come back to say that the soccer team, the, you know, if I do my mile this week and I’m supposed to shave some time on it, you bet they’re going to come back and check did I shave some time on it?

And so I think it’s, it’s that follow through that a lot of managers miss on. If, if we’re going to have something that we’re all going to work on and we’re all going to push on, the worst thing we can, you can do as managers is not dig into that again, not ask about that again.

If a rep has the problem, come back to that and say, Hey, is that getting better? Are we seeing those in terms of results on, on deals or movement on deals and, and being able to follow through on those things and stay on them rather than talk about it once or twice. And it falls by the wayside. I think that’s really the big gap that I see around that topic of follow through with reps. Nobody likes to just get bounced around and have suggestions that, you know, don’t lead anywhere. And so I, I, I envisioned that role being, you know, if we’re really coaching at a high level, what we’re able to do is say, here are the things that I think you can go improve upon.

Here are two, two different directions, you know, especially if, if you want to give them the opportunity to decide what’s their best motion. And then make sure we follow through. Track that say, did we, did we see the result that you wanted mr. or mrs. rep? Did we see the lift that we were hoping for? And if not, let’s continue to iterate there.

Alec Paul: Okay. I mean, along the same lines is another sort of key finding in your report was that only 9% of managers said that it’s easy to proactively spot problems. And again, that’s another one that sort of flabbergasted me, quite frankly. And I’m not picking on you because you’re just reporting the data, but it’s, it’s, one of the reasons given is that, you know, they had all these different dashboards to go to, to look at. And it’s like, well, yeah, not to put too fine a point on it. But you know, people were selling for a hundred years before we had these, the tools that we use now, is if the tools didn’t exist, you’d find a way to spot problems. So our, have we become again, so reliant on the technology that we’re forgetting that this is a human business we’re in. And yeah, managers have to act like humans and go talk to people and find out what the problems are.

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely a, a good point. I think you have the piece that I, I wonder too, is, is kind of the same light of the numbers game. So we, we ended up having, so much, either given to us or automated today with all, with a lot of technology, tools that surround, individual contributors that how do we go in and really analyze what’s working, what’s not. And so I think that’s one piece of that puzzle. And also how, how, how do we expect the manager that has, 8-10 reps to really be on each of those calls and hear and see what’s going on. And so I think that it’s the combination of, you know, Teaching them how to go find those things, potentially the point you’re eliminating all the places that they can go to, really dive in because you can get lost in data and especially if you don’t know what you’re doing with that data, you can make it say whatever you want and spend way too much time. And, and so keeping managers focused on, either being with reps, spending more time with them and in front of clients so that you can see where things are going well and where things are going poorly is definitely a big component of that.

And it also comes back to the training piece that they know what to be looking for. They don’t have to rely on data and dashboards. They can go in and actually look for those things. But I think all of that still comes back to do they know what to be looking for. And that starts with the training and understanding, that a lot of them are lacking or it isn’t being given by their senior leadership. If senior leaders are only talking about the numbers and only reading off results. Your managers are going to emulate that, and then they’re going to waste time in those dashboards.

Alec Paul: Well but I also think that if you’re a first time manager in sales, you have to keep in mind, is that I’m assuming you were in sales yourself is your first frame of reference is what you went through your own experience. So if you’re looking at wow, yeah, Sarah seems to be struggling. Well, when I was in that position and I had a deal like this, what was I going through? Right. And use that, use that human connection, that empathy to start with. I mean, I firmly believe that the frontline man, or should it be spending 20% of their time in one-on-ones with their team. And if you’re spending that much time with them, what you should be, then you’re going to know that something’s off.

Right? You can use the data to help drill down, but you, if you have those conversations, if you’re in touch with your people like that, You may have better insight and sort of the macro reasons that are driving the problems instead of just serve, Hey, there’s emotion. We’re not doing on this particular deal because oftentimes the problems are not deal related, they’re people related. They start with the person.

Pat Rodgers: Definitely. The personalities as well. Right. And I think that’s the big thing that. Always struck me as a sales manager is, is when you do spend that time, how do you uncover with each seller, what makes them tick? And what are the things that you can identify with them? I think the challenge that you can run into, relying too much on your past experiences, that you’re going to have such a variance of approaches across your sales team in terms of how they take on deals, how they win deals. You know, everybody, if they really are being creative and learning the right way is going to find their own path. And so the big, the one caution I always give with a new manager is, if you’re going to, you know, really lean in, make sure that you’re open to what is working for them today and enhance that, support that and be open to what can help them fill in their own gaps without putting too much of your, your own, either personality or experience on it. Just because that may not work for somebody else.

And being open to that opportunity is really where you start to see a lot of trust built, right with your sellers. They’re going to come back and say, you know, I tried this and, and let them know that it’s okay if it doesn’t work out and we’ll try something new, is going to build that Cohesity where they actually come back and communicate with you on that. And I think that that’s also another piece of that follow through where if you do give that advice make sure you’re coming back and digging in with them, because it’s going to be different for every seller.

Alec Paul: Well, and that’s a critical point. That was sort of what I was getting at is that, that is, that too often, we default to our process. We default to a method. We default to playbook. There’s this implicit pressure that every seller needs to be like every other seller. And do your point is they’re not, and they never will be. So as a frontline manager, what are you doing to encourage people to become the best version of themselves within the process that you have? Right? Cause they are going to react differently to every situation. They’re going to react because they are their own individual personality. And that to me is a real element of personal performance management.

That, if you think the answer is always in the data you’re going to miss the human aspect of it, which has to work with the data to help people improve.

Pat Rodgers: For sure. Yeah. I think that’s, that’s spot on because we always talk about, you know, the, the flexible framework that you should set up the processes is there to spot big problems. The process is there to, ensure that, you know, we can look at it, bigger outcomes, but the frontline is really about how do we help this individual’s outcomes. And if they are following the process and we’re still seeing gaps, that’s really where that individual performance piece comes in. So you can follow a process all day long and get nowhere and sell nothing. And that’s the big challenge. And that’s where, you know, by having that individual one-on-one spotting that performance gap.

The other big piece there is, is that across the, the overall team is this manager somebody that’s not able to elevate their team because that’s also a big challenge that we face today. Is having the wrong people in the wrong seats. And so I think when you look at that data side of it, it’s, what’s the macro view of overall performance for a team. And to your point, that’s not going to be the same data you’re using or even should be using to go down and say, how do I help you as a, as an individual seller, improve your craft?

Alec Paul: Yeah. Well, I think part of that ties to the fact that that too, is that you take these relatively inexperienced sellers and make them managers. I mean, that certainly was the case in my career. I was, well I don’t know, 18 months in my career, when I got promoted to management, as managing 12 people. And it was like, Yeah.

I mean, some of these people hadd been working in sales for 20 years, that I suddenly was managing. Is that you can’t  approach this with the attitude that you know everything and that’s okay. You gotta be gotta be comfortable in knowing that you don’t know everything, but that you can help people find the answers.

Right. And that’s, I think that’s, that’s really the approach to take. And if you can help them by spotting something in the process that shows through in the data that, you know, they’re doing something at the wrong time or the wrong thing in the wrong place consistently then yeah. Helps, help spot the answers, help them sort of say, okay, well maybe I should be doing this differently at this point in time and just be, it’s okay to be, I don’t know, personality wise doesn’t work for a lot of sellers, but it’s okay to be vulnerable.

Pat Rodgers: Right, right. Well I, I’ve always had a rule that you’re really never going to get a seller to change or, do something until they’ve, they’ve tried themselves and either not had success or all of a sudden feel like it’s their idea, right? So that, that repition and coaching is how do I give you a couple options, but step back and let you see if they work and if we don’t do that, then, you know, that, that forceful mentality just doesn’t work for salespeople. It’s just not how we’re wired  and so you’ve gotta be both transparent, open to different choices and then let them go out and see what happens and have them come back. And now we can talk about what we do different next time.

But it’s always, you know, giving them that opportunity to go out and figuring out for themselves what’s gonna work, but helping to be there and, and kind of catch and, and fill in where you can, because it’s not always gonna work out.

Alec Paul: Yeah. Well, the same thing is true for that, to your point, for managers, as well as sellers, we’re experimenting our whole career. I mean, I like to say sales is one of these things like golf, you know, you never perfect golf. Right. You just hope to get better and you keep working at it and practicing and so on. Sales is the same way. You could be selling for 40 years, if you’ve got an open mind and you still want to improve, yeah, every day you’re trying to learn that little thing. That’ll help you get better. and I think for a lot of frontline managers, you’re sort of have to imagine you’re sort of like the school teacher that feels like every day, he or she’s working hard just to stay one step ahead of their students

Pat Rodgers: Definitely.

Alec Paul: And that’s okay. I mean, being pressured by the people that work for you to get better, nothing better.

Pat Rodgers: And your, your success on that level, you know, I think the, the big thing too, that managers may not always think about is you’re a hero, whether you were involved in every deal or not, if your team is seeing success. If each of your reps is being successful, it has no regard for how much you were involved in each of their deals.

And I think that’s the big thing that, the best managers learn is that step back. Yeah. The areas that reps can do really well in. And can you, you can learn from them. Yeah. Let them run it and learn and, and, and do those things. The time to step in is, is when you know that this isn’t a reps strong suit, you know, some reps are great at closing. Other reps are really poor at the relationship side and knowing where you can be that, you know, in addition to the conversation or, or help out is where you really kind of put your own ego in check and allow those folks to excel in those areas and sit back and be, you know, watch them succeed. And so I think that’s the other big thing that a lot of young managers don’t realize is the superhero mentality doesn’t last, you know. You’re either going to run your best reps out of the business, or you’re going to get burned out and get moved back down to rep and that’s okay if that’s where you need to be. But, you know, being the superhero is really not the best way to success. It’s, it’s being the utility player that is, filling in and teaching where you can on those gaps and letting them be really successful in the areas that they’re strong.

Alec Paul: That’s perfect. All right. Well, Pat, we’ve run out of time, but, enjoy the conversation. So how can people, so find out more about this report or find out more and connect with you.

Pat Rodgers: Yeah, absolutely. So, the report can be found at loupe.co. And, the, probably the most information about me is on LinkedIn. So my, Linkedin.com forward slash P R O D G is a, how do you find me on LinkedIn?

Alec Paul: Alright, perfect Pat. Thanks a lot. We’ll look forward to it again.

Pat Rodgers: Absolutely. Thanks a lot, Andy.