Dennis Collins:
Welcome to another edition of Connect and Convert, the sales accelerator podcast where small business owners learn insider tips on how to grow their sales faster than ever. This is an interesting topic today. I’m Dennis, by the way, and my partner is, as always, Leah. Hi, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:
Hi from Canada. How are you doing, Dennis?

Dennis Collins:
I’m well. I hope you are.

Leah Bumphrey:
Absolutely.

Dennis Collins:
We’ve got an interesting topic today. Every small business owner I have ever talked to, including when I was running a business, hates the onboarding process. Why is this such a mystery? Why is onboarding new salespeople so nasty?

It’s the good, the bad, the ugly.

Leah Bumphrey:
It should be fun. It reminds me of decades ago when I was really intent on wanting to get into a sales career. My training had not been specific to sales. It took me a long time to find someone who was willing to take a chance on a young person who was excited about people and excited about doing things.

I knew I had the ability just from other things I’d done, but finally, it was an office equipment company and great training. But they onboarded and hired half a dozen salespeople at a time. The city that I lived in at the time, it was under 300,000 people.

This was a territory-driven sales company. We were all sitting in the boardroom, and I was excited, I was pumped because I finally got the chance here. The trainer, among other things, one thing he said, okay, look around the room. There are six of you. In six months, there will be two, and in a year, there will be one.

Dennis Collins:
Wow.

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? When he said that, talk about onboarding, because we all kind of looked at each other. There’s one woman there with tons of experience, and then a couple like me, and no, I’m here. I am going to be one of those two, and I’m definitely going to be one of those one, but I’d never experienced onboarding like that because it was a challenge. It was, hey, you sink or swim.

Dennis Collins:
Wow. That’s a great story. Reminds me of back in the Dark Ages. Dinosaurs still roamed the earth when I broke into the space. Here’s my onboarding story. I’m working at an ad agency. I’m writing copy. I’m producing radio and TV spots. I’m doing some PR work. I’m loving it. I really am. All the radio stations were calling on me because I bought radio advertising, so I got to know all the radio reps and one of the sales managers said, you need to come over and sell for us.

I said, why? I love what I’m doing. He said, “Come over to the radio station one day, and I’ll show you why,” and guess what? He convinced me, so I left the agency. Here’s my onboarding. I walked in Monday morning, my first day.

They had a cubicle for me and a phone. They said, here, this is your desk. This is your phone. Here is a copy of the Yellow Page phone book, and they don’t even do that anymore. Here’s the Yellow Page phone book. Here’s a rate card, and at that time, I sold two radio stations and a TV station.

Here’s a rate card for each of the stations. Here’s a stack of brochures. Good luck.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, my goodness, and you’re thinking, why did I leave my cozy chair at the other place?

Dennis Collins:
I was having a ball at the ad agency. No coaching, no guidance, no structure, not even an expectation. I guess there was an expectation. Go out and sell something. Just get out there and sell something, and this was a major company.

This was a company that was very formidable in the broadcast business, so why? There’s no need to do that, Leah, is there?

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, absolutely not, but I’ve worked at places where a new person starts, and the senior people say, “I’m not even going to bother learning their name until they’ve been here a few months.” What does that do?

Dennis Collins:
They did send me to sales school eventually. They sent me to the Big Apple, up to New York City, and I was there for a week in a sales school with about 10 other people from all over the country. My teacher was Mr. Brown. I remember Mr. Brown quite well.

I came back from that week in New York and had a great time. I loved New York City. I loved the class, and at the end of the class, the test to pass was you had to stand in front of the other participants and do a sales presentation, and then Mr. Brown would grade it. He doesn’t tell you at that point, but they call your boss and tell them. I got back Monday morning, and my sales manager called me in, and he said, “I talked to Mr. Brown.” I said, “Oh, yes?” He said “You may be one of the least likely to succeed of anybody he’s ever had in his class.”

Leah Bumphrey:
That’s beautiful.

Dennis Collins:
So just like you, Ms. Leah, I said – first of all, the guy’s name was Ray. “Ray, should I resign, or what do you want me to do?” He said, “No. I believe in you. I know who you are, and I know you’re going to figure this out.”

From that day forward and to this day, I have never stopped studying something new about sales every day in honor of Ray, because he stuck by me. He stood by me, and in his honor, I continue to study everything there is to know about sales.

Leah Bumphrey:
And honestly, look at the people that you have inspired and taught and hired and businesses you have helped. That’s just amazing to me because that could have easily gone another way.

Dennis Collins:
Very easily. And again, let’s get mercenary for a second. Let’s look at the money. What are you losing when you don’t onboard properly? With no strategic engagement or no onboarding program, you’re two times more likely to have turnover. Duh. Do you know what turnover cost me when I was in the radio station business?

I estimated it was 50% of an annual salary. 50% annual salary is what I had to spend to hire a new person. If you have onboarding, nerd alert, 58% more likely to still be there in three years. 58%! The nerdmeister. And 91% retention in the first year.

So let’s talk for a minute about what we should be doing. What are the good things that we should be doing to onboard people? I’m going to talk about one in particular, and that’s called clear expectations. For God’s sake, set some type of performance.

That doesn’t mean a sales goal. Say make 10 calls today. Make 10 solid prospecting calls today. That’s an expectation. 

Leah Bumphrey:
And that way the person that you’re onboarding can feel good about what they’re doing. They haven’t sold anything, but they called 10 people. Pretty easy to feel good about doing it.

Dennis Collins:
Set them up to win. Don’t set them up to fail.

I had no chance of selling anything in the first six months to a year. I had zero chance, Leah. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. So give me some expectations. They did give me training, thankfully. I didn’t do too well. But I decided I was going to make this work.

And I did. The mentorship and coaching. I am such a fan of this. Sales managers wear a lot of different hats. The best sales managers I’ve ever known are coaches. There’s a whole other podcast. What’s the difference between a manager, a leader, and a coach?

Leah Bumphrey:
Yeah. We’ll come back to that. Make note of that, Paul.

Dennis Collins:
Producer Boomer. We’ll make a note of that. What is the difference between a leader, a manager, and a coach? I’m talking with a client right now about that.

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? Mentorship is so important because if it’s the wrong mentor, if you get your young guy to go out with someone who’s jaded and grumpy and not inspiring, holy… that wrecks your opportunity with this new person.

Dennis Collins:
The other thing you got to watch out for as a sales manager is – there’s a tradition in sales training that you ride along with one of the more experienced people, right? You go out and shadow them. Be careful, sales managers. Be careful who you let shadow who.

What do I mean? Sometimes they’re baking in some bad habits that you’re not aware of.  Their spin on the sales process may be somewhat different than what you would like, and they’re teaching that to the new people. That’s not going to work out too well for you.

If that person that you’re trusting to “train” or help train the new people is toxic. If they have unrealistic expectations, if they have a negativity bias, guess what? They’re poisoning the new people that you just onboarded. Did you ever see that happen?

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, yeah. It was a standing joke in one spot. One of the senior gals took someone out, and the afternoon was spent getting done, popping in at a salon where there were some purchases made, maybe going for coffee. But it was all social.

There was nothing that was trained. So the new person had this idea that this is fantastic. I’m basically shopping. I’m basically going to visit with people. That has nothing to do with sales when you’re learning.

Dennis Collins:
What a great job. 

Leah Bumphrey:
This is fantastic, and I’m getting paid. Only not so much.

Dennis Collins:
I love the concept of shadowing, but I don’t like the reality of it sometimes. Be careful how you do it. But I have a redemption story to tell before we end today. Out of every bad thing, a good thing arises, or at least the seed of a good thing.

Here’s what I was able to do. As a result of my abysmal onboarding and the fact that I flunked my sales class, when I took over as a sales manager and as a general manager, you know what we did, Leah? We created our own internal training academy.

We created the curriculum. It was a three-month program. It offered not only sales training, social styles training. You know I’m a big believer in social styles. Meetings with each department head and the radio station. What is it that you do, what’s your function, and how does this all fit together?

I wanted them to see how everything worked. They did ride-along with experienced salespeople that I had vetted to make sure that they were going to train them in the right way. They attended what we call our president’s lunches. We invited every week a leader of one of our clients, the owner, manager, CEO, whatever title, and we catered a president’s lunch in our conference room where we did not sell anything.

All we did was ask questions. How can we help you? How is this working? What are your thoughts about this? And we put our rookies in there so they could see how to do some recovery and how to do some real great questions when they’re out there with a real client.

So out of something awful sprang something good. From that little program, I know of at least seven, I think maybe eight people who “graduated” from that program, who went on to be great in the radio business. They have now left the radio business and are doing excellent work in other fields.

So again, I hope we help them just a little bit in their career.

Leah Bumphrey:
What I love about that is you knew what it was you needed your new people to learn. There was the practical, the nerdy stuff that you have to know. There’s also the emotional stuff, those connections with teams, connections with clients, and it was consistent.

So everyone had that same opportunity. You’re talking to everyone in a language that they’re going to be able to at some point relate to and take home, take to heart.

Dennis Collins:
Absolutely. The other thing that I learned in this whole process is a lot of managers train in what I call the hard skills, the product knowledge, you’ve got to know the product, you have to know about your business model and how that works.

You’ve got to have knowledge of your marketplace, there’s a lot of technical stuff, there’s a lot of product knowledge. But what about those soft skills? Don’t forget the soft skills, focusing solely on technical knowledge, neglecting the development of soft skills such as effective communication and empathy.

We’ve done an episode on empathy. Without the proper use of empathy, you’re going to go nowhere. Don’t neglect the soft skills.

I almost forgot we’ve got to answer a question.

Leah Bumphrey:
This was very specific because it was from a commission salesperson. When you’re on commission, and you and I’ve lived that life, you’re paid on what you sell. So this person is on commission and is finding it all confusing because he keeps hearing the best close is a great opening.

What does that mean when it comes to selling stuff?

Dennis Collins:
Wow, that’s a great question because it sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? It sounds like doublespeak. Your best close is a good opening. Hey, here’s the deal. Nerd alert, please.

I’m going to get nerdy here for a second. Brain science. The way that you open any conversation, particularly a sales conversation, in the first seven, eight, nine, or 10 minutes determines what’s gonna happen during the rest of the conversation.

That’s not good old buddy Dennis here talking. That’s brain science. We set the table to prove that we are trustworthy, that we are here to help and not to sell. Of course, everyone knows we’re there to sell, but don’t wear that as a big sign in front of your face.

So the more a customer says, “Yeah, Leah’s here to help me. Leah really asks great questions that nobody else asks.” That’s what I mean by opening the sale. Most sales, by the way, again, brain science, don’t stay open long enough to close. They don’t stay.

In other words, the customer has mentally shut you out long before there’s any opportunity to close. 

Leah Bumphrey:
What’s interesting is it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to sell. I mean, you and I both have a radio background. We have a marketing background. We’ve got tangible selling skills when it comes to product, but it doesn’t matter what – I think for the person answering the question, people can sniff out if you’re full of BS right at the beginning.

Dennis Collins:
As producer Paul likes to point out to us, sales is simply the transfer of confidence.  How can you transfer confidence? How can you show that prospect, that customer that you have confidence in yourself, in your product, without having a conversation, an opening, a dialogue?

That’s how we prove confidence, trust, believability, likeability, all those things. If you want to be a great closer, master the opening. The sale is won or lost, in my opinion, in what I call the uncovery or discovery portion of the sale, which should be the beginning, where there are no sales pitches, no trying to sell anything, trying to gain information to help that customer.

They can spot it if you do it, and they know if you don’t do it, and that determines whether you’re going to get a closure. Does that answer that question?

Leah Bumphrey:
Answers it for me. I thought it was very specific, which is why I wanted to read it, but you nailed it.

You and I both had some interesting onboarding stories and as we’re talking about them, I’m thinking of a whole bunch of other ones where either myself or something other salespeople have told other professionals or I have. I think everybody has to take a little bit of time this week before they join us again to think of their own onboarding story, what influenced them to keep going, or what may have caused them not to.

Dennis Collins:
That’s a great point. If you had a sketchy onboarding situation, did you stay or did you go? In my situation, I stayed, but I made a commitment to myself. Maybe I’d love to hear others write us, call us, and get in touch. Tell us why you stayed. Why did you stay and not go?

Leah Bumphrey:
And how did you make it? I think that there’s an interesting podcast there with maybe even a book, Dennis.

Dennis Collins:
We’re gonna have to talk about this. We just keep doing that, don’t we, Leah? We just keep coming up with new concepts. I really enjoy our talks. I hope our listeners and our viewers enjoy it as much as I enjoy doing it, and I know you do too, but we must go.

This episode has got to come to an end. So until next time, this is Dennis and Leah saying goodbye from Connect and Convert.

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