Transcript
Intro:
Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast, where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate, and keep together highly effective sales teams…teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits.
Along the journey, we also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive you is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious Sales Leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, Stronger Sales Teams is right where you need to be.
Ben Wright:
Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Well, we have a lady on board today who I had to have a couple of goes at pronouncing her surname, Robyn Djelassi, we have on board. And I think I got that right, but you can tell me in a moment. Robyn, already I can see one of the more interesting and creative people we've had across our 120 odd episodes. And it would surprise you to know that this is person who is an HR leader. Not always the people we see flair and pizazz and that real unique personality from. Because I mean, my experience certainly in people and culture and HR is that they're very, very process driven. Very much caring about those that they work with, but very process driven. Well, Robyn's got about 20 years or so of experience in the HR industry and certainly for me, she understands the link between individual performance and organisational performance. Has had a long career. Vino Mofo was a brand that she worked with most recently and now she's obviously into her own business and own enterprise. That no doubt we'll hear a little bit about as we go through today. She's also got some cross industry experience across things like banking, finance, gaming, entertainment. Right. Really, really different type of industries. E-commerce, management and technology, consulting. So, I like that. Robyn's got a really broad background. She's strategically focused, tactically minded, but also you can see that she's quite hands on. So, we're gonna talk a little bit today around people and culture and developing our people. But before we do that, Robyn, welcome to the show today.
Robyn Djelassi:
Hey, Ben, great to be here and well done. Djelassi, you pronounced it correctly. Good start, my friend.
Ben Wright:
It's a big thing for me just being able to slow down and pronounce someone's name. I mean, it should make sense being 25 odd years now in sales, but having the respect to say I'm going to take a moment to learn your name is really important. To be frank, I don't understand why more people don't do it. Don't just slow down to do those little things because they often make all the difference.
Robyn Djelassi:
Yeah, it always brings an interesting story. When I tell people how to pronounce the name. It was previously Blanche, which is very easy to pronounce and spell, but then I married a man from Tunisia and so I became Djelassi.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, well, I have two one syllable names, Ben Wright, so there ain't nothing interesting about that. And when you pair it with these low dulcet tones, it can be very much, very straight down the line. But Robyn, enough about me, more about you. Tell. Do what makes you tick. And what do you do?
Robyn Djelassi:
Well, you're right, I'm in HR, Ben, correct. I am a little bit of the anti-HR of HR. Work with a business called Impact People Solutions and we work with businesses across Australia providing HR support. Again, you're correct. We are not necessarily process driven and neither am I. I like to work with humans, real humans, doing really great work that's always bespoke and specific. And we do everything from onboarding new employees right through to exiting and everything in between. So, it's tactical strategic leadership, management coaching. We do it all.
Ben Wright:
Awesome. Well, who better to talk to than about developing people, teams, leaders and everything in between? So that's going to be our topic today. I haven't had a people and culture person on the show before, but I'm really glad we're doing this because it provides just a slightly different angle, particularly for leaders listening to who you would normally hear from about leadership. So, Robyn, let's get straight into it. Can you tell me when we're looking at sales leaders and they're building out teams, whether they're growing them from scratch or they're growing them from a nice base, what are some of the key mistakes that you see leaders make when they're looking to grow out their teams?
Robyn Djelassi:
When they're looking to build a team, they're probably the same mistakes that I see most other leaders make when building teams. We tend to hire in our own image. I'm not saying the word narcissism, Ben. I did not say that out loud. But we do tend to gravitate towards people we like and that's not always the right person to be working with our customers and our clients in a sales role, everybody's different. And the golden rule of treating others as you wish to be treated isn't necessarily always the way to go. We have diverse client base and we need a diversity of sales leaders and salespeople in our businesses to meet the needs of that diverse client base.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Wow. So, look, it's so true. I remember across all of my high performing teams, not just those that I've built myself, but also those that I've worked with, they often have a real diversity of people in there. It might be simply their age, it might be their experiences, it might be their sex, it might be where they live. Right. For me, even where people live can bring diversity. And I think that's really, really important in building teams that learn from each other. And certainly, you know that temptation to go and bring in a clone. Right. Because you've done it yourself and you've succeeded and you want to find someone similar that's really there and ever present. Okay, so if we're trying to make sure that we don't hire clones of ourselves, let's look at it the other way. What are some tips that you'd give sales leaders when they're looking to build out teams?
Robyn Djelassi:
Yeah, sure. The one, I guess, key factor that all of your teams should have in common is that they care about the product and they really believe in what it is that they're selling. Caring about yourself and hitting a number. We've all met that salesperson previously. We want somebody who cares about the product enough to know that it's going to be great for your business or for you personally. And so, when I talk about diversity, we talk about diversity of thought, experiences, backgrounds, and what they can bring to the table. But the one commonality is what do you know about product? Why is it important to you? And why would people buy it? Why would somebody sign up to a service or whatever it is that you happen to be selling if there's a residence there? That is the one key tip that I would have for sales leaders growing their team. They need to care. Sounds simple, not always easy to find.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, absolutely. And so, I'm taking. That doesn't necessarily mean they've gotta have experience with your exact product or your exact service, but they've gotta show their care. And any tips around when you're actually zeroing in on building your team and when you're meeting with candidates, how you can actually assess whether or not they do care?
Robyn Djelassi:
Yeah, absolutely. I think as salespeople, we, tend again, to gravitate towards those that we really like. Ask the hard questions. Don't be afraid to ask the hard questions. We all want to be liked, but ask them, what do you know? What's important to you? And at the risk of sounding like every other boring HR person in the world, ask them what their values are. Ask the tough questions. What's important to you? What gets you up in the morning? If it's money, you'll spot it straight away. If it's the thrill of the chase, that's okay, too. But we want to know that you care deeply about the product and the service and the customers, and that you've done your research into that, understand what makes them tick, and you're on the right track.
Ben Wright:
Okay, so there's a couple of angles there, actually, just to explore a little bit. So, the first one is, I think for new sales leaders, that's something you need to hear right as you're hiring people, don't skip out on the values piece. Don't just jump straight into the technical elements. Spend the time on the values. But for experienced sales leaders, and I talk a lot with sales teams around, forgetting a lot of what you've learned and needing to make sure that you continuously remind yourself about some of those basics. Right. I do sales process training with a lot of businesses. I have never, ever, in the hundreds and hundreds of people that I've put through corporate or enterprise level training, I have never, ever had even the most experience of sales leaders say they didn't pick something up from it. And that's because we often forget about some of the basics we were taught. Right as we're learning to be leaders. And for me, I think I was absolutely taught to make sure you spend time on values that people have and what gets them up in the morning and where they want to be. But the longer I got in my career and the more people I interviewed, I decided that I had a radar that could just pick this up without asking the question. So, it's a really nice reminder to say, hey, don't forget to do these basics. The other angle you touched on there was that we really need to make sure they care about customers. That's not something I've heard in a little while, but I really like that angle. So, have you got any tips you can suggest around how making sure that people you're meeting or you're interviewing actually can prove or show some evidence that they care about customers?
Robyn Djelassi:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the key things we can do is to ask salespeople and sales leaders to describe sales to us. What does it mean to you? It's not about a used car salesperson down the road wearing a sweaty shirt and a bad comb over which some people, you know, still think of sales as being. It's a highly commercial role. And if the person you're talking to can explain their values and we don't ask people anymore, it's a given. We feel it's a barrier to entry. Ask the question, put them on the spot. It'll give you so much information, but also delve into how that person views sales. It's a commercial role. It's about connecting a product or a service with a business for great results. And if they can't explain that to you, if it's about revenue generation purely for themselves or the business they're working for and not about a meeting of the minds and really understanding the problems that you're solving, they're probably not going to be the long-term hires that you want them to be. Because we're getting smarter these days. And as humans, we generally have pretty good EQ and we know when somebody's interested in us, interested in our business and really wants to help as opposed to meet a quota. And so, while it seems really simple, a little bit cliché to ask the human questions first before we dive into the technical, I think it's really important you're hiring an individual, not a robot.
Ben Wright:
Yeah. Well, for salespeople who want to continue to have jobs across the coming decade, I think you actually really do need to be able to have that meeting of the minds, as you called it. I look more along a framework called the three Ds, deliverables, decision makers and deadlines. And under the deliverables piece, it's all about working out where you can solve a problem or where you can help a customer capitalise on an opportunity. So absolutely, fundamentally agree with you on that one, Rowan. Okay, so let's change the pace a little bit. So, you've hired that team, you've got some diversity in there. You haven't got a whole lot of mini me's. There's no. I mean, imagine if I was running a team and they were all mini bends. It would be absolute chaos. But you've hired that team, it's diverse. And how do you go about then getting the best out of that? Whether it be diverse in experience or diverse in location, how do you get the best out of that team?
Robyn Djelassi:
Same way you do with your clients and your prospects. Exactly the same way we all are. Different and different things make us tick. So again, this is not exclusive to sales leaders or sales professionals. I work with businesses every day and talk to them about how to get the best out of their people. It's as simple as a discussion, right? And so, if you're talking to an individual and you think, okay, we need to ramp this up a bit, I'm not sure they understand exactly what's required. Sit down, have a conversation. We tend to think that people are coin operated and the way to get the best out of people is to throw more money at them. I've met a lot of CEOs and leaders who believe that and I can tell you in my experience, it's simply not true. People are unique. And if we sit down with high performers or even low performers and those in the middle and ask, what is it that gets you up in the morning? What do you need more of or less of? What can I do to help you? You'll often get some really interesting answers along the lines of, boss, I need to knock off at 4:30 on a Friday, Billy's got soccer or my mum's really sick and I need to take her to the hospital every Monday, whatever it might be. It might be a request for some flexibility. It might be that I just need a new monitor, I don't know. But if you ask those questions, you very rarely get. I need a pay rise to perform better. So, I don't believe in weekly one on ones with my team or with anybody's team. I believe in getting to know them, understanding what makes them tick and personalizing the experience. Just as you would do for a client.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, absolutely. For me, I've worked with, what would I say, close to 100 sales leaders over the last few years and I don't think I've ever met one who didn't want to get to know their team better and help their team whenever they could. So certainly, I think the intent with almost every sales leader I've worked with is there. However, the execution of it is where I see leaders fall down. Right. And that's creating the regimented space where they can have these conversations. Right. And to hear your point around the one to ones, I'm the reverse of that. I'm a big believer of regular one to ones and not so much to be monitoring performance, but I'm a big believer because it creates the space to have those conversations. Right. You know, the start of those one to ones. The first question is, how are you? So, I'm very process driven. So, I like setting that up that we know that at least every week or every second week we're going to be able to have that conversation. But that doesn't mean it's the only way. Right. I hear your point around, you know, not having structured ones can often allow you to have more relaxed conversations. Right. So that there's benefits to both. But I think the key message is saying is you got to get to know someone. And for me, if you don't create that environment, it's not going to happen. And then when it comes to the money piece, yeah, I really like the approach there. No one's ever said, boss, I need a pay rise to perform better. And I think once we have people to a certain level of wage or remuneration, once they're past that point of what they need to survive. Right. For some people, you know, you've got to get to this amount of money just to be able to survive and feed your family. But once you're beyond that, money does become a short-term motivator because you provide that uplift. Their lifestyle increases with it. It becomes the new baseline and they want the next one. And then lifestyle lifts and then again, again, I think we're all prone to that. So yeah, really like that piece around how you can look after your team.
So, let's look at this from the other angle. Your team's grown, but at the moment we're in a pretty tough environment economic situation and there are more restructures happening than probably the last few years beforehand. And often it's because businesses are getting more efficient so they don't need as many field facing salespeople. Right? Wrong, doesn't matter. Right. Let's look at those situations where restructures happen. What do you see as a really effective way as a sales leader to manage that through, to look after those who are leaving but also keep your existing team happy and motivated.
Robyn Djelassi:
It's really tough out there at the moment then I've been spending a lot of my time doing the work that we hate, which is restructured. Redundancies are rife and have been for the last couple of years. You're correct. A sales leader, as any leader, it starts with communication and authentic communication. I have recently undertaken a pretty large process with a business and many of this business's salespeople were impacted. Sales leaders are emotional beasts and tend to care very deeply about their people. As humans, we all love to give the good news, nobody loves to give the bad news. And so, communication up front is key. I think as a sales Leader to let people know as soon as possible that change is in the wind. We know that the markets are shifting and changing. Poor sales results aren't always necessarily a case of poor performance. It can just be that markets are slowing, people aren't buying, we're holding onto our budgets, whatever the case might be. And so, as a leader, my advice is always communicate quick, communicate early. Let people know what changes are likely to happen and how it might impact them. Just treat adults like adults, but have those honest conversations. They can be really hard. And if you don't have the answers immediately, that's okay. Get them and come back and be honest about it. Let your team know. Hey, I don't know. That's a really great question. It's important that I get it right for you. I'm going to come back to you and make sure you follow through with that. Because these are people's lives we're dealing with. It's their livelihood, their career and their families. Many families depend on these roles. So, communication and empathy is key. And do it early.
Ben Wright:
Yeah, okay. Treat people as humans. I think it's been a pretty common theme for me as we've been going through today. And look, there are probably times when leaning on your people and culture or your HR team is really important. I know that when I've been a sales leader of teams, particularly larger teams, I haven't leaned on the people and culture sides of our business enough. What advice would you have for leaders or sales leaders in particular, around how they can build really effective relationships with their people and culture or HR departments?
Robyn Djelassi:
Yeah, it turns out we're just people. Really strange people are terrified of HR. Look, I don't always love HR either. I gotta be honest. I've also been burnt. But if you have a great HR function or people and culture function, they are just people. Absolutely. I've heard the rhetoric people of culture or HR is not your friend. Don't disagree. They're not always. But neither is finance, neither is marketing, neither is tech. Right. Sales. Generally, sales are. But HRs not paid to be your friend. Join a book club if that's what you're into. But where people talk to us. Get the advice you need and double check before you say or do anything that you might be nervous about as well. So, if you're not sure, ask the question before you release information to employees or you take disciplinary action, whatever the concern might be, ask the question. Understand we're human as well and that our role is to assist you, not necessarily to do the job for you. I always like to with hard discussions and sales leaders and other leaders say you get the first one for free. The second one, I'm going to watch you do it. The third one, you're on your own. So, we're also great coaches, generally just have a conversation. We're always there to help.
Ben Wright:
I really like that approach to many things as leaders, actually. The first one, you get a free hit. The second one, I'm going to watch you do it. And the third one, you're on your own. Love it. I'm going to use that across more than just whether or not I have to deal with HR. Thank you, Robyn. That's been fantastic. Can you please share with people what's the best way they can get in touch with you? You're obviously a fractional HR person now. You have broader services across your business. If people like the real practical approach you had today, what's the best way they can get in touch with you?
Robyn Djelassi:
Sure, they can drop us a line anytime at hell@cpoconnect. That's chief people officer, connect.com, or just check out our website, cpoconnect.com.au
Ben Wright:
Excellent. Well, thank you, Robyn. Before we finish up today, I'll give an update on the road to Cairns. It's a series that we've been following and took a little bit of a rough turn over the weekend. In fact, by the time this goes live, I hopefully have made it to the start line and even more hopefully have made it to the finish line. But I was riding Saturday morning. It was just early. Light had just come up. I'm traveling north along a country road and. And bang, I got hit by a bus at 80km an hour. So, a pretty savage start to Saturday morning. But I'm pleased to report that the bus came off worse than me. It lost its mirror. There were bits of plastic and metal and glass on the ground and I managed to hang on. So, it was a... it was a good day to know I can still take a hit. But if anyone sees a bus floating around the Sunshine Coast without a mirror, let me know. Because he decided not to stop on this occasion. But that is my third hit. In the preparation for this race. I've had the bike crash, I've got my torn calf and I've had the bus crash. So, I'm hopeful that that's it and I get to the line. But I'll keep everyone posted. It's a great challenge. It's really helping me learn or remember how to deal with a little bit of adversity. So, fingers crossed I get there in a couple of weeks’ time. But Robyn, thank you very much for today and everyone else, please keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now.
Real People Development For Real Sales Leaders with Robyn Djelassi
