In the future, will there be Sales People?: How Salespeople Must Evolve to Remain Relevant! Diagnostic Question Whisperer, Bill Stinnett has an interesting perspective.

    In this engaging episode of The Wireless Way, host Chris Whitaker connects with repeat guest Bill Stinnett to discuss the evolving landscape of sales, particularly focusing on digital selling. They dive into topics like the necessity of continuous training, the impact of AI on sales roles, and the importance of diagnostic questioning. Bill shares his insights on the shifting dynamics of the sales profession, the role of technology in modern selling, and his upcoming book on leadership through change. Whether you're a seasoned sales professional or just starting out, this episode offers valuable advice on staying relevant and effective in a rapidly changing industry.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:46 The Importance of Continuous Training

02:11 Digital Selling Handbook and Its Impact

04:56 Trends in Digital Selling

06:22 The Role of Technology in Sales

07:48 Generational Differences in Sales Approaches

09:26 The Trusted Advisor Concept

12:35 Diagnostic Questioning in Sales

16:40 Future of Sales Professionals

31:32 Navigating Organizational Changes

36:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

BUY HIS BOOK

LEARN MORE ABOUT BILL

Transcript

Chris: 0:05

Hey, welcome to another episode of the wireless way. I'm your host, Chris Whitaker and man. Yeah, I'm sorry. As always, I'm grateful that you're listening today. And I'm also grateful for my friend and man, whether he knows it or not, mentor in a lot of ways, bills to net joining us today. And he is a repeat guest. He's been with me before. I highly recommend check the show notes. I'll have a link to the previous episode, but instead of reading his bio and going into what's not in the bio, something a little different, cause we've already been down that road with bill. I'm asking you, bill, first of all thank you for being here. I'm glad you're here. Thrilled to be here, my

Bill: 0:43

man. Appreciate the invite back.

Chris: 0:46

Thank you. Yeah, man. It's been in my mind a lot lately. We were referencing pre-show LinkedIn survey, which we know how scientific those are. But Hey, it's still people responding. We'll

Bill: 0:55

take it, right? Yeah,

Chris: 0:56

we'll take it, man. It's still growing. It's still up by the way. And it's I think 30 or 40 people, but asking what kind of training is important to an organization. And now I've actually been having some conversation with some friends in technology, recruiting and stuff. And, a lot of them talking about how every employer wants to hire these rock stars. Because they don't want to train them. They want them to come already pre trained, but they don't realize that you still got to sharpen the saw, as they say. And and the world's changing. And if you've been in sales for 20 plus years, what got you, what made you successful 20 years ago may not be as relevant today. So you still got to stay on that training train, if you will. And that's what led me to reach out to you going, Hey, you know what? We need an update. We need to update that episode. And also I'd like to get an update from you because it was June 2nd, 2022. Wow. That's when we did the interview. So it's been a while. It's been, we've got some water under that bridge, if you will.

Bill: 1:50

Man, that seems like a lifetime ago. Seriously. It

Chris: 1:53

does. Doesn't it? You've written a book.

Bill: 1:55

Because you've

Chris: 1:56

had a lot.

Bill: 1:57

Yeah, it's been a, it's been a long time. That's been a long couple of years, or I guess it was probably two and a half years now, isn't it? And the reason why, as I looked at that date and I realized that you were saying in your email, what have you been doing since then? I can sum it up real quick. In October, I guess it was of 22. Is when this book digital selling handbook finally released after working on that for over a year And so that was what we're trying to do is to get that book wrapped up and out the door but since then this has been just non stop trying to respond and Support all of the interest that we've had around this topic of digital selling I knew it was going to be popular, but I had no idea just exactly how much demand there would be from this You Because as you said there in your intro if we're not, let's say upgrading our skill set with the times will probably ultimately be left behind in the course. If we're still prospecting the way we were prospecting back in 2019 we're probably not going to get even any responses these days. People just don't respond to outbound emails the way they used to. We have to continually be sharpening the saw and updating our skill set because what we did to find opportunities, sales opportunities, just even a couple of years ago, it's very different than what customers respond to today. I find salespeople all the time trying to prospect the same way they did back in 2019, and they're getting nothing in the way of response. The random response here and there. And digital selling has become, it seems like the only way to get anybody's attention anymore.

Chris: 3:39

No, absolutely. And just being able to pivot and change. So not only you didn't just write the book on it. You went on a whole tour of doing in person trainings, right? Approximately how many sessions would you think you did over that time?

Bill: 3:53

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I do a strictly corporate training So I don't do like public events where people come to or anything But what's interesting about this is I thought and of course hoped, you know I'm going to sell a million copies of this book The book didn't sell all that well at the bookstore I don't know what all the reasons for that are but it opened the door to so many corporate projects and so i've been just You Going nonstop. I've probably done, I would say 50 or 60 in person workshops, which is about Two to three I suppose every month bouncing here to there all over the U. S. internationally for my clients, but that's just the in person stuff. We've also just slammed solid with video conferences on the topic and created a whole library of prerecorded videos on the topic. And so there's just a lot of, there's quite an appetite for this as a topic, but that's not the only thing that there's a lot of appetite for right about now, which I'm sure we'll get to in a few minutes.

Chris: 4:56

Quick question on those corporate in person sessions or even the virtual sessions. Is there any trend of what vertical or what type of businesses have been most interested in digital selling?

Bill: 5:09

So I work almost entirely with technology companies of some kind. And so what I'm saying is that. I don't usually work with like insurance or banks or real estate or that type of thing. My clients are complex sellers, meaning they're selling business to business. A lot of times big ticket kinds of solutions that cost 20 000 or in some cases, multimillion dollar kinds of transactions. So if there is demand, let's say at a more a small shop kind of level, Or insurance or real estate or what have you. I don't know about that because that's not the market that I serve. But the kind of clients that I'm working with, technology, telecom is a really strong space for us. But anything in the way of software or professional services and even sales of manufacturing companies, especially those that sell highly technical solutions to a kind of in a business to business setting. That's the market that I serve.

Chris: 6:11

That's interesting. What are some of your takeaways from doing these digital selling sessions? Is there any other key takeaways you can share with us that listeners might find beneficial?

Bill: 6:22

Key takeaways, I guess one of the main things is to just recognize how much most of us that have been doing this for any length of time, how much we're not leveraging in terms of what technology is available to us. A lot of what we talk about in the very front end of the workshop is how to leverage LinkedIn, not only for just brand building, but also building relationships with people you don't know, prospecting and getting, let's say, establishing a market for what it is that you sell and creating those connections and so forth. Very underutilized. Even those who have a profile and maybe post something once in a while Really aren't leveraging best practices to grow their network and to gain the kind of attention and exposure and credibility online that they could be. But beyond that, I'm seeing incredible lack of adoption in the things like video prospecting. Shocking to me how many salespeople are not using video, pre recorded short videos in their prospecting efforts. AI is another area. How few salespeople are really using AI chat platforms well to not only help them with the writing, but where I really see a deficiency is the, what can be done in terms of research using AI chat. Most salespeople just aren't doing that well. And I think they're leaving some of their best tools unused, which is a pretty sad thing to see.

Chris: 7:48

Do you see any correlation with, we both have gray hair, is it generational? Is it, like the sales professionals say over, I don't know, 45 maybe or less likely, but, cause I, in my organization, I, a lot of our younger sales professionals that are in their twenties, early thirties, They live on that stuff. So is that makes sense? Is there any

Bill: 8:07

There's some generational to it for sure. And it's just a matter of what you grew up with I came up in a time and I know you did too I think i'm a little older than you but I came up in a time when I was first started selling Nobody had email So it was a telephone call and we got their number out of the yellow pages for goodness sake And that was where I started out. So there was no such thing as worldwide web. There was no such thing as Linkedin and different kind of platforms back then So yeah, I think a lot of us have stayed back in those days that we think If we're going to approach a prospect, let's pick up the phone and call them which is fine You And I'm not opposed to that. And I do it all the time, but we find that today to lead with a telephone call is not nearly as effective than if you build some rapport and engage with that person via some of these other technology platforms first, before the telephone call, it's much more likely to get somewhere. And Just a matter of employing things that are available to us that a lot of times we're stuck in this is the way i've always done it. I hear that a lot of times from people my age or so i've always done it this way and my thinking is I know we're not talking about the way you always did it. We need to do it today. And what's going to be necessary going forward.

Chris: 9:25

Man, that is so true. We were also talking earlier, I was telling you my industry, we've coined the phrase trusted advisor, like that, that, that's a more, new age wave, say I'm a sales person, but obviously the words trusted advisor, they have meaning. Trusted means you've earned, that means you have had to earn the trust somehow. So that implies as a relationship and advisor, obviously, Hey, I'm giving you advice. I'm guiding you through a process. And, to, I think, more complex sales. That's not order taking you can't eat in a complex. So as an order taker is, Hey, I'm selling dictionaries. I'm sending these encyclopedias. It's a yes or no. Do you want them car sales? That, that could be complex, but generally I need a car. You have a car. We're going to do the transaction. We're done. But yeah, going into complex sales and being that trusted advisor. What is, what's been your observations and working with all these different salespeople? Um, any observations there in terms of the caliber of salespeople out there, what's the state of sales today?

Bill: 10:27

That's a good question. Let's break apart and unpack that term the trusted advisor So first of all, if you're going to offer some advice It means you have to know something that the person you're advising doesn't know That is a challenge for many salespeople today because they come to work for XYZ Corporation and here's the product set that we have and that's fine. I can know the product set and even the features and functions thereof, but I find that what's lacking in a lot of sales environments is knowledge of the customer's business, their marketplace, how they go to market. The way that our business operates, et cetera. Being able to connect the dots between the technical specifications of what I've got for sale and how that impacts my customer's organization in terms of measures and metrics that matter to them. That's the skill set that's missing for a lot of people today, especially people that are coming in new to this profession. And if you've been around this thing 25 years and you're making a half a million bucks a year, that this doesn't apply to you, but the rank and file of people that are out on the street now, not everybody's been doing this 25 years. So what's happening here is we're missing the knowledge of the customer's industry and the business challenges they're trying to overcome. Therefore, we're not, we're left to simply talk about us, ourselves, our company, our products and services and what they do. So we're just shooting a scatter gun, into the air, hoping that we hit something. That's not a trusted advisor. A trusted advisor has to know enough about the customer's business. They could ask good diagnostic questions about that business, and when they reveal that there's some kind of a need, or challenge, or pain, or issue, or concern the customer has, Now I can apply what I might have for sale here as a solution to that problem. But until you have that knowledge of their business, how could you possibly have advice? And secondly, if I don't know how to connect the dots, then they're not going to trust anything I say. Nobody earns trust based on what I say. Trust is earned in questions that we ask. And so this is probably the biggest missing link I see today for a lot of salespeople.

Chris: 12:35

I'm glad you use that phrase diagnostic questioning. I've told you many times, probably my most favorite I guess you call it module of your curriculum. I love it. I've told many people about it. Cause I, cause you're right. As a salesperson myself, that challenges me. I still feel like I'm a student of that concept. I haven't mastered it yet. Cause it's just this, my natural inclination is I just want to tell you how great my product is and you should buy it. I know you need it it's a beautiful thing when you have good, you thought about your questions and again, I tell people all the time, you don't come up with these questions on the fly initially. Maybe as you get, gifted and experienced with it, maybe, but yeah, days or week before the meeting, come up with these questions, do your research, know your client base, know the customer, know that industry's challenges. Yeah. So that's so important. In these sessions of digital selling, is there a correlation of diagnostic questions and digital selling?

Bill: 13:28

Yeah, good question. So I do, in fact, in the last module of our program, and every engagement we do is custom. And so we rearrange modules or add or subtract based on what our clients need and want. But in most of these that I do, the last module of this, I refer to it as converting engagement into meetings and opportunities. And it's one thing to get somebody's attention, maybe have that initial telephone call, but now turning it into a deal in the pipeline and turning that into closed business, that, that's another thing, isn't it? So converting to meetings and converting to opportunities, that's where this diagnostic question really comes into play. So I did incorporate that chunk, which I've been teaching for gosh, over 20 years now. Into the digital selling program as well because I think it's just that important people misunderstand what I'm referring to when I say digital selling I think they think that it's just the kind of the patty cake that we might do with posting a few things on linkedin Etc. We call it digital selling but frankly, this is prospecting for 2024 2025 is what it is And so there's a lot more to it than just using linkedin or putting up a post or firing off seven emails in a row Or something And one of those pieces is Helping the customer conclude that it's worth having a live conversation with us and that's not an easy thing to do these days People are so busy. They just don't have enough time to meet with everybody who'd like to have their time and so Persuading them that there it's worth 30 minutes of their time to talk to us is it's getting more and more challenging every year.

Chris: 15:03

No, I agree with you that that's true. Yeah. I'm thinking about myself, even, a lot of my roles I've had every day, you got two or three unsolicited, sales pitches in my inbox, whether it be on LinkedIn or at my actual email inbox, and sometimes I feel bad. My dude, I wish I was your guy, but I'm not your guy, and I'm trying to get better about at least given the courtesy of replying, going, Hey, Thanks for the note, but no, thanks. I'm not interested or I'm not your guy. And I find a lot of most people are, that's okay. Cause if you don't do it, then you're gonna get three more emails. Just moving this to the top of your inbox. I'm like, no, I saw it. I just ignored it.

Bill: 15:39

Isn't that the truth? Yeah, I think I've become a little bit jaded in my old age here. So when people approach me and I think they do it well and they do it with some authenticity and I can see that they're trying, I actually take time and help to coach them and offer suggestions about how they can find the right prospect they're looking for or get back to them in some way. But when I'm approached in these juvenile kind of ridiculous ways, or I can tell that I'm being approached in some automated machine format, I'm not very friendly with them anymore.

Chris: 16:14

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

Bill: 16:17

Because I really, I just am sick of being prospected by machines, right? Show me that you're a human being and I'll do anything I can to help you, but I don't like getting prospected by a computer.

Chris: 16:28

No, I respect that. And speaking of computers, there's a lot of talk, even in my industry of an online marketplace, the Amazon approach, amazon. com approach and yeah, AI machine learning. And pull out your crystal ball. What's the future of sales professionals look like? Will we have jobs next year? What are your thoughts on the going back to the state of sales? What must we do to stay relevant? And, I don't know. I got my opinion on, I'd love to hear yours first though. What do you think?

Bill: 16:57

Yeah, this is a good question, Chris. So I'm going to just tell you what I really believe, frankly. And and this might be you might be surprised to hear me say some of that, make some of these comments or others who who I've worked with in the past to hear some of these comments that I'm going to make, but you're asking me a question and I like to answer straight up and tell you the truth, and so here's what I believe, That the future of this profession will look a little different than it's looked in the past and here's why Because a lot of companies that I am working with right now And I have a chance to engage with a lot of senior executives at a lot of large companies and what I do Leaders of large companies are trying to figure out how to not employ salespeople. So this is a an active initiative How can we do away with the salesperson? And I understand it. And by the way, anybody that hears that and suddenly gets offended and is mad at these corporate executives for doing that, let's just analyze. If you're a stockholder in any corporation Then you want that stock to grow in value and you want it to produce dividends Which means you want the company whose stock you hold to be as profitable as you can So we're not mad at a major corporation for eliminating people that are unneeded on let's say a production line Or people that are not necessary and in some sort of another Aspect of the business whether it be accounting or manufacturing or what have you So why should we be surprised that a corporation would try to cut sales people out of the equation when they're not? Absolutely necessary So now that being said a lot of large companies are trying to figure out How can I make it possible for my customer to place an order without ever talking to a salesperson? And that's A legitimate undertaking. I can understand why they'd want to do that. In fact, if I could set up an online portal and people could buy stuff from me without talking to a salesperson, I'd be all for it. So that being said, the future of sales, I think we need to focus more on the consultative End of this profession and less on the up front making the connection now That's going to sound as a surprise to a lot of people that I work with because wait a second bill You said we have to get up to speed on digital selling so that we can go out and find all these opportunities And I absolutely will support that. That's I agree with that, but the longevity in this business is not on the front end in the prospecting. It's on the backend and the consultative piece of this. It's engaging with those clients who do want to be talked to helping persuade them why they would want to work with us as opposed to somebody else. Working through objections, helping them work through their buying process, bringing closure to business. That's the piece that's still going to be here because companies are figuring out every way they possibly can to siphon off that top 10 or 20 percent of the customers that are ready to buy now and not put them through this big long sales process. And coincidentally, you and I would probably like that too. If I want to go buy something, And I've already determined I'm ready to purchase this. I really don't want to sit down with a salesperson and go through the discovery and then go through the qualifying questions. And I had somebody asked me recently, are you the sole decision maker on this as if I didn't have the right to make the decision? I'm sitting, I'm thinking, dude, you don't have to sell me. Just place the order. Would you, I want to buy this. So there's 10 or 20 percent of the people that want to buy right now. Why put them through the hassle? Let's figure out a way that they can just make a purchase and move on. But for the others. That need that personal touch. That's the part of the business where I don't think we'll ever do away with a human being until Ai gets so sophisticated That it can sit there and have a conversation about your favorite sports team and talk about your daughter in the third grade And oh, yeah, I have a daughter in third grade, too Until a computer can have a human conversation that piece is still going to be important So what i'm trying to say to you ladies and gentlemen is get prepared for a future when prospecting Is not where we make our money Hey And I've already got many clients that are right now have this so well let's say fine tuned that the salesperson themselves are just getting buried in quote unquote leads. Now you and I know sometimes those leads are nothing more than a name and a number. It's just a name, but they've got lots of leads. The key is now when I engage, how do I help them draw the conclusion they need to buy from me? And so that's the piece of this business that's trying to, I think is going to go away. Bye bye. Is this upfront piece where we're out reaching out to people? I wished it weren't. I made a living here for the last 35 years. But I think the future of sales is going to be less about prospecting and more about this consultative sale and closing. That's my opinion.

Chris: 22:00

Yeah. It makes me wonder, I think I don't know, maybe 15 years ago attending some training when I was at a large cable company and that solution selling is what they called it, and it was the precursor to what you described, because the whole idea was, yeah, you can't just go in and throw up all the features and benefits and present a contract. You need to. Have a solution and have a solution. You need to understand what the problem is. And once you understand the problem, what will this fit, that whole your ABC or your ACB approach of diagnostic questioning. But so what I hear you say is yes, there will be a sales profession. It's just going to look a lot different and maybe fewer of them. And you had also mentioned that some of the companies you're working with are trying to figure out a way to, automate this, whatever. Is anyone doing that today? Or is it at this still early stages? Trying to figure it out.

Bill: 22:50

Yeah, there are a number of companies that are doing this and doing it quite well. You called it a digital marketplace but AI enables a company to analyze data where they can look at purchasing behavior of let's say a client and they see that they've bought this and they've been to our website to explore that and they've attended such and such. And they can look at behavior patterns, know what kind of a special offer to send to them on what they might be interested in buying next. And so a lot of things can be automated. AI does the analysis, and then we can then create automated systems that do the outreach or present up the solution, present up the proposal, if you will, to that potential buyer. And it's surprisingly effective. Really surprisingly effective. But that's in the case, of course, of somebody who, as I said, they know what they want to buy. They're following a path and following a track where the art of this business, the art of the business is going to be a take a customer who doesn't know yet what their problem even is. Or what they might need to solve that problem or if they did solve the problem what the benefit to them might be in The end there's still a lot of art in all of that But because there's so much availability of information to people on websites linkedin youtube, etc A lot of people like me if I can buy something without engaging a salesperson I'm all for it if I can get what I need and want Real quick, place an order, go on amazon. com, place the order and it's on my doorstep at 4 a. m. I love it! That's great. As that's possible, that's gonna happen. And a lot of sales jobs will be replaced by automation. It's only natural.

Chris: 24:40

Yeah, I want to go back a little bit on an earlier point that I didn't there was a string I should have pulled on a little bit. I didn't, I wanted to get your thoughts on all the corporate clients you have. Typically who do you engage with at these companies? Who are you working with? who's your point of contact?

Bill: 24:55

And so I will tell you just a little bit about this I tend to do well or better when I engage with the sale field sales leadership and i'll tell you why Because field sales leadership are the ones that are feeling the pain And so if I can find those folks and understand what's not working in their business Or kind of what I call their current state or point a and the desired future C and we can figure out a way to get them from here to there. I offer a B that brings them from point A to B and then onto the C they want to achieve. So that's ultimately my customer, if you will, the ones that we're here to serve. And I break it down very simply and say, what do you want people to be able to do different or think differently after they're done here? What different result do you want to see? Your sales team achieving or accomplishing after you invested some time and effort and money in them. We can get definition around that. We can have a lot of success. Alternatively, in some cases I'll be approached by or I'll end up engaging with people that are in the training side of the business. So this could be sales operations or HR learning to develop and what have you. But the training side of the business, they don't have their finger on the pulse of what the real problem is in the field. And a lot of times what we ended up doing, and I'm not proud of this because it's just the way the nature of it. We tend to go at the sales team saying, Hey, would you like training on this? Would you like training on that? Let's propose such and such kind of training And we're pushing the solution on the customer as opposed to listening to what the customer's problem is And then bringing a solution to the problem that they have so I actually do a little bit better when I can engage with the senior sales leadership Because then we can really craft something that's going to fit perfectly And if i'm engaging with sales with learning development and sales operations I try to persuade them to take the same approach. Let's go to our customer and figure out what they need. This idea of just let's throw this course out of, let's throw that course at them. Not only does it not hit the bullseye, but secondly, most sales leaders these days have no time to pull people out of the field to sit in a training class. So it better be doggone good and it better be to the point and effective and get me the result I want. Otherwise, I don't want anything to do with it. So I think that's, for me, I'm always better off if I can get senior sales leadership involved in the definition and the the goal setting.

Chris: 27:23

Have you had moments where you had a reluctant sales leader or a company that's yeah, we know we need help, but we can't pull them out of the field every reason in the world. Hey, most of my average tenured sales guy has been here for 10 years. They're, most of my team is hitting numbers. I don't really need it. And then after, in the conversation like, okay, great, let's go ahead and book a session. What happens, is it a matter of, again, educating them or exposing, their misconceptions of maybe, made their team as good as they are. When they get an my company, the sales quota just went up 20%. What are you going to do to make your Salesforce 20 percent better or more efficient? How does that work? Do you have any reluctant leaders that kind of eventually go, you know what? Yeah, let's do it.

Bill: 28:06

Sure. Just about any of us would be resistant to things. We don't think we need. So you find a sales leader that is hitting their numbers. Most of their people are doing fine. They've got, as you said, good tenure on the team. Maybe they're retaining a lot of their talent. Why would they need to do anything differently than they're doing? So as I perceive it, nobody does anything because it's a good idea. They do things when they have to. When they have an existing problem, I like to call it a hole in the boat when they've got a hole in the boat and the water's pouring in or when they've got a Some sort of a goal objective or something's driving them to reach the other shoreline as fast as they can possibly get there That's when they'll look at solutions to change and do things differently So I have lots of customers or perspective customers, I should say That just don't perceive a need at this moment. But I would say only Chris, let me just throw this out. I think that just as many of the companies that I'm working with right now actually do perceive a need. They're just distracted. And let me explain what I mean. It's really easy to get distracted, especially at large companies these days with Operational problems and organizational restructuring. I had, Oh, probably a dozen conversations with current clients, past clients, perspective clients, just in the past week and a half or so here, I'm teeing up for some new opportunities to work on some new projects after the first of the year. And I, almost everyone I talked to said, Hey Bill, man, we'd love to do some more training. But we're going through a big reorg right now, or we're getting acquired in February or they've got some sort of massive organizational change going on and they really can't do it. So I would say that's just as common today is it's not that they don't recognize a need for or a desire to make their team 20 percent more efficient. As you've said, they just may not have the bandwidth to do it. Too many other moving parts, too many different kinds of distractions in a lot of cases.

Chris: 30:09

Wow. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with that problem. I'm not even, I'm trying to sell solutions. And I'm like, I'm looking at these prospects going, this makes so much sense. Why am I missing here? But then you start once, again, once the relationship is there, they're like, they'll tell you, Hey, look, man, here's the deal. And we got a new CFO coming on. And we, they wanted him to make this decision, but that's not for another 60 days. There's always, there's usually some reason we just don't like it. It's those people because it's like, why are you kicking this can down the road when you know you need it?

Bill: 30:39

Comment real quick, Chris back in the day, we used to shake things up. And these large companies, we used to shake things up about once a year, sometimes the first of the year, they would change reporting structures, maybe get a new comp plan in place. They'd have a new. New charter, if you will. Now, those changes tend to take place at least twice a year. And in some organizations I'm seeing it take place as many as three times of the year where we're just gutting the whole thing and starting over. And I wonder to myself, how many times a year can you start over exactly? What's it going to, when we get to four or five times, six times a year, when do we run out of time to actually do the work? In between changes. So that concerns me a little bit too, for a lot of companies that are going through these massive major changes, which brings us to the topic that I was sharing with you, I think is the future. One of the future topics for our company, which is how do you navigate. With all of these incredible changes happening almost constant in these large corporations.

Chris: 31:42

Do you have any sense of what's driving those rapid changes? Why? It seems counterintuitive to me going, You're not even letting the last change bake fully before you're going away and starting over.

Bill: 31:53

Yeah, I got to tell you one of my clients that I've worked with for a number of years just announced planned new restructuring at the early part of next year. So they're not even wait until then to announce it. They already announced now we're planning some restructuring in the early part of next year. They just restructured in July. So we just put a new plan in place people didn't know whose boss was who whose who was who boss till probably august or september And now we're already announcing in november that we're planning to change things up again early next year I mean at some point I think people get a little discouraged They don't know who their boss is and they don't know what their comp plan is and they don't know what their territory is and it just gets a little bit disheartening and I really would love to see that not be the pattern but you said what is driving that. I think that changes in technology drive it but I believe more than anything I think what drives it is fear. Fear in some cases almost like FOMO, fear of missing out. You know the other company they're restructuring that they're going to this sort of a model. We need to try that too. And it just seems like we're trying things so often in these companies that I work with And we try it for six months if that doesn't work. We try it a different way And I would love to see a little bit more consistency and congruently Congruency between year to year honestly.

Chris: 33:22

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. That's disappointing. That employee morale is infected, I'm sure even stakeholders are concerned like, Hey, what's going on over there? There's no consistency. Customer experience is going to be impacted the more you, you rock that boat. One of the questions I want to hit on before we run out of time today the profile of a typical student in your class, in your sessions you If you had to break them up into, two or three categories, what's the typical student look like or attendee of your sessions? Do you see trends there?

Bill: 33:54

I appreciate you saying that, I've really been fortunate over these years, I've been doing this 24 years. And so I just realized it's been a long time. I've been really fortunate that I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of people that have been They have a lot of tenure in this business What's I think is funny is that the longer somebody has been in this profession the more value they find in the programs That we do now that seems counterintuitive You'd think somebody's been around for so so long that they'd be tired of training, etc But somehow the way that we do it We challenge people to think differently. And I think there was a lot of those folks that have had a lot of success or some of the first ones to want to embrace new ways of thinking And and embrace some of these ideas that we teach. So that being said, work with a lot of people with a lot of tenure and have been around the game for a long time. But that also, some of those folks then are reaching end of life, right? And retirement. And so they're being replaced by some younger folks. So I would say it probably breaks down into maybe half people that are been around quite a while and quite tenured. Another quarter of them are somewhere mid And then we of course always have some brand new people that are, we're just coming up and coming into the profession and I love working with those people too, because they don't have some of the same jaded attitudes that you find from some of the people that have been around. But I think that anybody who wants to remain relevant, especially in the world that we're in today, needs to behave a brand new person. I try to approach every single day as if I don't know anything and I'm here to learn because as soon as I think I got it all figured out, I think is the day that I'll be absolutely obsolete. So I'm proud of the people who've been doing this for 10 years, but still are looking for how can I get better? Cause you made a good point. Numbers go up 20%. That tells us something. You're either going to have to work 20 percent longer, which I don't want to do that. Yeah. Or you better work 20 percent smarter, 20 percent better. So if you're going to work 20 percent better, it's going to change. It's going to require some kind of change. And that's the ones I really like to work with are the ones that have had some experience, but they realize that it's important to get better. I don't know. That's the sweet spot, for me.

Chris: 36:05

No, thanks for sharing that. And man, a lot of nuggets, a lot of good info here. And as we wrap up, yeah, two part question. I'll let you, I'll let you run with it. What's next for Bill Stinnett and sales excellence. And is there any of the last words or anything we didn't cover you want to hit on?

Bill: 36:20

What's next for me? I shared with you before we started today that I really feel like that the rate of change in organizations is becoming very tiresome for a lot of us. And even though a lot of my training has been around frontline sellers, I'm seeing that the many of the companies that I work with have a need now, probably maybe even more than frontline seller skills or just as much just frontline seller skills is. Frontline managers, frontline sales managers overseeing individual contributors have to get a lot better at inspiring and empowering people to do their jobs and do them effectively. And looking at spreadsheets and beating people up over a forecast is not all there is to that job. People get discouraged as you, as we talked about earlier, it's harder to get ahold of people than it ever has. And that job of leading from that front line is crucial and so we're going to be doing a lot more with leadership culture and working with sales teams leading through a constant state of change because If we are changing org structures and comp plans and so forth as many as two or three times a year How do you keep your people focused? And so a lot of what the work that we're doing now is around that I'm going to be publishing a new book on that topic here probably next year And so a lot of our work will be there now you said in terms of wrap up I guess this would be my only advice is that guys we're not done yet This profession will never go away, but we're going to have to focus on the real value add aspects of this And it's inspiring, encouraging. If you're a sales manager, it's leading from the front line, showing modeling behavior and really engaging with people one on one in terms of leadership. And as a seller, it's not just, it's not going to just be about who can ring the phone enough times. We're going to have to get a lot better at when we. Do engage with someone. How do we turn it into a conversation and opportunity in that idea of diagnostic questioning? And i've been recalling it lately deal creation. That's where we're going to make the big money going forward It's that will never quite go away How can we turn a customer that's confused into somebody that clearly understands the direction to go? That's where we'll make our money going forward. And so if you're going to invest some time, I'll just offer this advice, invest some time at getting better in 2025, get better at the customer's business, get better at their marketplace, get better at their competition, get better at asking questions. So you can position what you have to sell as a mechanism or a means to help them get where they want to go. So that's all I got for you today.

Chris: 38:59

Yeah, that's a lot. And I got it. Fantastic stuff. Bill, as always, it's such a pleasure, man. I've iron sharpens iron. We've both said that in the past on previous calls and definitely have the sense of of motivation and inspiration every time I talk to you. Thank you. And I hope if you're listening out there you're inspired and motivated. I love that last word, man. Hey, we got to get better in 2025. Maybe I get better every day to be competitive. There's no rest for the weary. They say, man thank you so much, Bill. I appreciate your time today. Anything else?

Bill: 39:29

Good. Appreciate you. Thanks a lot for inviting me.

Chris: 39:32

Oh man, you are so welcome. Thanks for coming. I know getting both of us, our schedules are so crazy to get together. We, I'm glad we got this done and look forward to maybe this time next year, having another update, see how things are going especially that's an important topic of leadership. Yeah I'll I'm looking forward to that because I always felt as a sales professional, you have to be a leader to lead the prospect through the process. And that takes leadership skills. And a lot of folks don't realize that so much, but but that's the truth. So there you go, folks, a, another episode of the wireless way, as always, if you heard anything that kind of hit home, anything that you think a colleague or a friend would like to hear, please share this episode with them. I think it's just important that as we grow and get better, that we share that with others. So the whole world gets a little better. So on that note, have a great remainder of your day and we'll see you next time on the wireless way.