Karla Nelson: Talk to us a bit about management attitudes and the impact that they have on a sales team's ability to actually perform at the level that we want them to.

Jason Cutter: When we're talking about kind of the theme of this and the naysayers and, staying in the comfort zone and that fear, right?

Like you had early on, I'm guessing you had to make a decision. What's the fear of the unknown and the rejection if you call that prospect and they say no or they yell at you or they hang up and what that does to your ego who wants to stay safe versus what's going to happen with your manager when you don't do it or you get a no or you get hung up on and which one's worse and which one would you rather deal with?

And it's funny how people would rather deal with the one that they know, which is the manager who might be mad at them, but that's still safer because they can weather that versus the unknown. And from a management perspective, I think, some of the biggest things is understanding what is really driving salespeople to act or not act, why they want to be successful in sales.

Like I tell everybody. What would you put on a vision board or to actually create a vision board at your desk so that like why you're there, why you get out of bed every day, why you want to be successful. So that's the positive side. The managers should focus on. And then the other part is just understanding behavior and understanding if that person's not picking up the phone, it's not necessarily intentional.

It's just some subconscious deeper level stuff. And so you really want to make sure it's a very safe environment. So that they know hey, make these calls, it's not going to be the end of the world, if they hang up on you, it's also not personal, right? Always remember, it's the other person, if they're mad, or they're yelling at you, or they're swearing at you, that's stuff they're going through, right?

As long as your intentions are good, it's nothing you did wrong.

Karla Nelson: At my end, I had no fear of what the people on the other end of the phone were going to say. I was fearful of having to go back to the boss and say that I had failed. Against his measure, and I thought that was really bad.

He made an interesting point about, what the vision board and trying to understand what people really want. Because again, this is going way back, man. I'm, I haven't had a boss for 32 years. Hallelujah. But in those days, it was the companies that were trying to create division boards for us.

It was, you want this awards trip, you want this status, you want this recognition, all of these kinds of things. And I will admit to falling under that spell. For a period of time, but when you do wake up one day and you realize that crap, I'm starting to base everything I want in life based on goals that other people are setting for me.

It leaves you with this empty feeling, and that's, I think, one of the reasons that, propelled me out the door. Is that still the prevalent approach, or are people trying to understand that there's different ways of motivating people?

Jason Cutter: It is the prevalent one as far as what I've seen with a lot of organizations.

Both direct to consumer, business to business, a lot of companies still go by the carrot and the stick model. So it's the watch, then it's the trip, then it's the vacation. It's the TV, the stick is do this or else. And then you're going to be fired. The challenge is that when it's extrinsically motivating, so it's something on the outside of you, then it always has to become.

Bigger or better or more pressure or worse, right? So you give somebody a watch and they say, okay, now what are you going to do for me to get me motivated next month, right? Now it's got to be a TV, then it's got to be a trip to the Caribbean, then it's got to be a trip to the moon. And then like, where else do you go from there?

And so it loses its effectiveness because you always have to one up that. Cause people are gonna be like, okay, I don't want another TV or, what do you do? And then same thing with the stick. That's the challenge, which is penalizing or meetings or conversations. People just get desensitized to it on both sides.

Karla Nelson: The other observation that I, that I had when you, I loved the way you pointed out, let's like when they're extrinsic or the motivation is external. What certainly happened to us is when, like all of us, we're living through a really big downturn right now, but every business and economy goes through cycles.

And so in my case, when our business hit a down cycle and it became really clear to all of us that we weren't going to make those numbers, that what we did the last year, plus 20%, five years in a row, it was like double what we had started with.

Jason Cutter: It's not sustainable, right? Even in a good market.

Karla Nelson: And I really felt Jason, as if they were actually thought of us as consumable. We'll just burn them out. We'll take them as long as we can. And then we'll throw them out. Check somebody else into the bottom end and go through it because you don't have any word if you're not turning inward for your motivation.

You got nothing to turn to. A goal has to be out there and scary as hell, but it doesn't, if it's so scary that ever all your body tells you that it isn't going to happen, it create a very bad work environment. Everybody was just feeding off everybody else's negative energy. And, anyway.

Jason Cutter: And what happens is the people who. No, go ahead. I was gonna say the challenge is that the people who are winning and they're doing well. And then everyone else who's not gets demotivated and demoralized and they don't even wanna try. And then they see the revolving door like you're talking about.

Yeah. Which is probably gonna be on my way out because John's not there anymore either.

Karla Nelson: Yeah. So let's get onto the positive stuff. So obviously, you've been at it for how many years now. You've been, when did you say you started.

Jason Cutter: I've been in sales and sales leadership now for over 17 years.

Karla Nelson: All right. What is the right approach right now? John's got good Jason, cause we've got so many solopreneurs, small businesses. They're, we're all doing, it's either incoming calls or as a result of us spending money to try and get those leads or people reaching out. And it's a really tough time right now because you almost.

I think it was Jeremy Ryan Slate said to me the other day, he's a good, another fellow podcaster, a great guy, but for the services that he sells, they've had to discern whether the resistance to money is, which is a typical thing that we salespeople are used to dealing with. Is it just the usual objection that says there's something we haven't, some objection or some benefit that we haven't fully explained that we need to push a little further?

Or is the person at the end of the line really saying I haven't got the money, in which case the push for it seems really, insensitive. How do you sort stuff like that out today?

Jason Cutter: I think the first thing is to always Obviously, you're going to go through a process of asking questions, understanding the market fit, the need fit of what you're offering, whether it's a consultant or a salesperson, a product, a service, an idea, you're raising money for a venture, whatever that is is it a good fit?

Is it something you can solve for that other person? You can provide that solution. And then what's the value, what's the return on investment, which sometimes is easy to calculate, right? It's I'm going to help you with this marketing platform and here's what it's going to generate. And that makes sense.

And then there's, ones that are harder to calculate an actual ROI, but make a big difference, right? So if you're coaching somebody individually, like what's the ROI on that, unless there's some goals and then you can tie it to that, but fundamentally, you've got to figure out what it is that they really want and need.

And then can you solve that? And are you solving it at a deep enough level where there's so much value that the money side doesn't matter? I think even in times like this, even when the market's down, it's up, whatever it's doing, if there's not enough value, it won't ever matter. If you know what the price is in the dollar amount.

Now there is times when whether it's the economy or a customer, they just can't for it. They just not in a place where it makes sense. You're selling a software platform and the company is brand new and they have two employees and they don't have the budget and they're overwhelmed and overloaded.

Like you'd be empathetic. You put that in your pipeline, you play the long game and you have some of that for sure. And I think it's just really knowing that difference and is there value versus just taking the no money excuse.

Karla Nelson: Yeah. I love what you, the point you made though, that when you said, if there's not enough value, it won't ever matter.

And one of my experiences in, in, I'm old enough to have lived through at least four major economic downturns, maybe five, if you count the. com, crash, and it's really easy. To say that it's not my, the value I'm providing, it's not my offer, it's not what I'm doing, it's the environment, it's the economy, it's all these external things and, and I really feel that people, now more than ever is a time to be really honest with yourself.

And say what was really happening before this came along? Was I just killing it? Was I just so zoned in that everybody was saying, man, you got it figured out? Or was I struggling like hell? Cause if we were struggling like heck and just getting by before this happened no wonder people are finding themselves in dire straits.

Jason Cutter: And I think what's interesting too is was I killing it before economy turned or the market turned or that industry turned, whatever it might be? Was I killing it because I was doing a really good job of persuading people and moving people forward as a sales professional? Or was it just a bunch of lay downs and easy deals and I'm just basically taking orders and that's why I was successful and I can't handle any.

True objections. And I see that a lot where some salespeople have a run where they're very successful, but literally it was just people with cash in hand, ready to go. And they did very little persuading. They took orders, but they did very little persuading. And the biggest thing I'm telling people these days.

Is the first thing to assess is do you actually help your customers with something of value or are you the 14th software company that's selling a certain platform that nobody even uses the one that they have and they don't know they need something better or are you actually one that You know, almost are you really changing lives in some way and impacting people?

That's it for another episode of the sales experience podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you find yourself on iTunes, can you leave the show a rating and a review? It helps other salespeople and sales leaders find the show and please subscribe to the show and share episodes you find valuable with anyone you know in sales.

Help me on my mission of changing the way. Sales is done. And if you're ready to work together, go to Jason cutter. com. Again, that's Jason cutter. com to find out how I can help you or your company create scalable sales success. I will see you on the next sales experience podcast episode, and keep in mind that everything in life is sales and people will remember the experience you gave them.