Episode 146 – Process Beats Talent: Why Sales Execution Wins with Jonny Holsten

When the doubt gets loud, but answer that call, uh, vision ain't real to your grind at speed, so breathe in deep, then call the damn leads, call the damn leads. Hey, welcome back to call the damn leads, the show by sales professionals for sales professionals. I'm your host, Drew B. Wilson. With more than two decades in sales, I've seen it, been through it, heard about it. Now I'm bringing it to you, my favorite people in the world, the sales community. So let's be honest, this is the greatest show on earth. It doesn't matter where you come from, what background, what personality type, you're going to make an amazing life in sales. And today's guest, no stranger, someone I'm excited to be chatting with, Mr. Johnny Holson. Welcome to the show. Druby, thanks for having me, man. I'm happy to be here. And I just noticed you surpassed 100 episodes on Spotify. So big congrats. That's really, really, really cool. So wanted to start there. Hey, thank you so much for that. Yeah, we're very excited to have cracked 100 shows. It's one of those things where I think the statistic is most people give up after seven. So we're just crazy enough to keep this thing cranking, but it's only possible because we have amazing guests like yourself, man. So I want to jump right in. I want to hear your crazy story. Let's do it. Well, one that came to mind leading up to this chat was a client I'm working with, working with a sales team and helping them get some ducks in a row, right? And so every month we're working with the reps, we're working with leaders, we're analyzing calls. We're trying to figure out who needs to get better at what. And one sales rep who is just not great on the phones and tell yourself whatever you want to tell yourself about that situation. But someone who's just really was struggling, right? Like not having great conversations. And yet he was breaking the record. He broke the record for most deals closed in a month on a given month. And so me and my team and I'm talking to sales leaders. I'm just like, what is going on? Because we know sales is a sales is a complicated game, right? It's not always one plus one equals two. And so we're trying to figure out, most importantly, this guy had been a little bit resistant to some of the changes the company had wanted to make and to how they were doing their sales. So we're like, what is happening here? And as a coach in this situation, I pride myself on being like a confidant for everybody, whether it's the leaders or the reps. Like everyone can talk to me, share frustrations, and I'm going to harness it and output it in the right productive ways. And so I'm talking to this guy and he's like, hey, he mentions, I start asking him, like, well, fill me in on how your big month is going. He comes to tell me out of his own pocket, he'd hired a full time assistant working out of the office at his home, hammering follow ups, hammering the inbox, you know, doing everything, doing all the work. and so right like so you have two reactions to that people are like hell yeah that's my guy and then there's me on the front end like hold on like it doesn't have to be that complicated but you've got to give him some props right so that's a funny story that comes to mind and um i always joke that this guy was so uncoachable he had to he had to hire someone to be a full-time keeping up for all the extra work he had on his plate but at the same time you got to give him his flowers so there's a, there's a funny story for you. You know, I'd love that story for a number of reasons. One is listen, man, at the end of the day, making money is making money. And if the margin is there and you're like, listen, there's something, a part of this that I don't want to do. And you can afford to hire somebody to do it. And it turns an ROI, then like crank that machine as far as it will go. you know now granted there there's always a nuance to it right if there was like a legality thing or something goofy but i think this is a part of the sales process that so many sales professionals they're lacking in right they're they're great like hey i'll get on the phone and have a conversation but if they don't sign the line right there they're like oh that was a dumb lead that was yeah it's a dud it was a tire kicker it was whatever name you want to give them But the truth is that so many people are being advertised thousands and thousands of times a day right now that like it's hard for people to make a decision, which is why I believe follow up is the key to success in sales. But I would love your perspective on it because I know you said you had a little bit of a different reaction. So like what do you think was the secret there? Like where did you take that after that conversation? Well, I think that there's no lying when you say fortune is in the follow-up, follow-up is key. Even in our own sales, following up is what gets it done. In this specific case, which is so much more common than we expect, in this particular environment, it was high lead flow, call center type situation. So you've got inbound calls all day, every day. And so these guys were like shooting fish in a barrel. And marketing was dialed in, leads were coming out their ears. and our company does audits. We'll audit sales call execution really is what we're auditing. And for this specific rep, we had determined that on nearly 100% of his conversations, he wasn't asking for another follow-up call. So he wasn't even asking for the next conversation or trying to assign next steps. It was your scenario of like a buyer might say, well, this has been great info. Thank you for, thanks for your time. I'll let you know if we're interested. And the rep just says, Okay, sounds good. Call me back if you're ready to move forward. So there's a delicate dance there. And in this case, that's why it was a little bit infuriating because it was like, you know what, man, if you just add one sentence to the end of your calls, you'd probably save a ton of time and energy. But yeah, you're right. The fortune's in the follow-up because a lot of the times you'll set a follow-up and you get no right But at least there you really have to follow up So I in total agreement with what you said but of course case by case you got funky situations where there might be a problem Yeah But I think there something to be said too about like permission-based sales versus like in your face, one call closer mentality. And I'm a guy that I'd much rather build a strong relationship early on in the sales process than try to just muscle you into doing the thing that I want you to do? Because I'm trying to like lifetime value my clients, right? I don't need the one and done type deals. How do I build as much lifetime value as possible? Not just from them directly, but from the referrals that they send me from the introductions that they're making. And so what I would want to know a little bit more, like how did you even get into working with sales professionals and helping them figure this out? Like what made you make the shift from crushing it in sales to really coaching and leading in that aspect? Yeah, it's a bit of a funny story, but I think everyone has an interesting story for how they got into whatever field they're in. And so I actually started helping companies with their marketing messaging. So we do workshops and we do work on what are we saying to attract people in the door who want to buy? And it was really what can we do to generate the warmest possible lead for the sales team. And after some pretty big successes there, I would be asked, all right, Hey, you did this whole process with our marketing team on here's how to create a one-to-many message. How can we do a similar process with sales, but for how to make a one-to-one more unique message once that lead is now on the phone with our sales team. And so for a while I was, I was more so in the marketing space. And then it was sort of a two, two engine plane doing both and had some really fun wins. And I realized that pretty quickly, I think more my people are more the sales people that I am. I love marketing messaging, but I'm also, I'm not as much of a sensitive creative. I say this with love as the marketing folks are. So I really loved the way I vibe with some sales teams. And after a couple of big hits with sales departments, it was like, you know what, let's just lock in here. And so, um, that's what led to it. And it's been nothing but kind of unexpected momentum that started years ago. And that's how I ended up with where I am today. I love that. I have been saying for a long time that a sales guy who understands marketing can write their own paycheck. And a marketing guy that understands sales is the same thing. The marriage between these two things is so important for an individual to understand if they want to be successful in sales, especially, right? Like, listen, if you're in sales and you're shitting on your marketing department, you're making the wrong move. I promise you. Like there's leads or leads or leads, right? Don't get me wrong. Like a name and a contact point is a lead and I'm going to work the hell out of that thing. But there is a nuance of the messaging that they're using and understanding that from a sales perspective so that you can have the better conversation that's more in alignment with how they arrived at your doorstep. And so when you started bringing that perspective and having to help people see, you know, listen, you're going about this the wrong way. What was the number one thing that you were immediately like, hey, let's fix this. And they went, well, that's not broken. Well, I think it's interesting because you mentioned the link between marketing and sales. And where we start is we will listen to with our own ears. We use tech in all the beautiful ways you should use tech, but we really start by listening to tons of calls with our own ears. That's where we start with everybody. And so in that analyzing process, we can determine, all right, are the leads actually bad leads that your reps are saying are bad leads, or are they burning the leads because of the way they're handling the conversation? And typically what we find is one of two things, and they can both be solved by fixing the sales process. But if you have a marketing engine that's bringing in too many bad leads, you have to scale that up to get enough good leads. And when you scale up bad lead gen, that's a lot of pressure on a sales team. And that's where I'm saying things you already know, brother. So yeah, you end up with, now we have to do two steps. We have to have additional qualification layer or SDRs or whatever when we don't need that or some other scenario. And typically, though, actually, the thing that's hiding under most people's nose is actually many companies don't have a agreed upon defined series of topics or things they need to talk about in their sales calls that leadership decides and the salespeople abide by. Because that's the first thing that needs fixed. if you can decide we are going to talk about these five or six things or accomplish these five or six things, that's actually your first step to knowing, is this lead even good or not? And once you can decide what you need to talk about, then you can say, Hey, this wasn't a good fit. The nine out of our 10 leads weren't a good fit. So oftentimes it is some of those, it is the call flow, but it's not as much the call flow and the call strategy as much as it is, what are we choosing to fit into that to actually tell us a lot about our marketing and weed out the bad fit leads. And if you don't have that right, you end up in the situation where you're getting on second, third, fourth calls with people who should have been either never on a call in the first place or taken out of the sales process and call one. Or you have someone who's great and it takes two, three, four calls to close them when it should be one or two or whatever the number is for your sales process, it can be shrunk drastically by kind of settling on a few of those things. I love that. I always referred to it as the pre questions right It like hey what pieces of data do I need to ask every single person that I talk to or get from every person that I talk to to determine are we the right fit to help them solve their problem And are they the right fit for us as a customer? Because not all business is good business, right? Like you can be getting a ton of leads and selling a lot of stuff. But if you've got people that are asking for refunds or they're paying the butt to work with, like that's why I love the conversation between the sales team and the marketing team, because now there's synchronicity. Now you're like, okay, cool. Here's what we're seeing consistently on these calls. This is what's coming up when I asked this question eight out of 10 times. And now eight out of 10 times, we're finding if they answer it this way, that means that they're probably not going to buy from us. And so you can shift the marketing message to be more reflecting on pre handling that issue or just weeding them out through what you're having the conversation around it. So I love what you said about like, hey, here's the things that corporate decides are really important. And then here's where the sales team knows like if I don't ask these questions on the call, then it's not even technically a real sales call because I didn't complete the process. And that's where I also believe a lot of sales professionals, small business owners are dropping the ball is they don't have an actual process around it. And there's no metric around what that looks like. So I appreciate how you mentioned like, hey, man, we're watching, we're analyzing and we're using this data to make informed decisions because I have a friend of mine, Josh Coffey, that says marketing is a mathematical equation, not an emotional decision. And I think it's powerful because from a sales perspective, we're trying to get people to make very emotional decisions while using logic through the explanation process. And so what I'd be interested in on your perspective is at what point does a sales professional really have to 100% commit to that process in order to get where they want to go? Well, I think it's the same whether it's a small business or like a sales professional. And when we think of – there's a few analogies in our work that we throw out. And that is 68% of sales data points that we throw out. 68% of sales reps go into sales calls with zero plan strategy, like zero plan structure. And that's a number that'll make your stomach turn if you are good at selling, right? Because you know you have to go into the game plan. Yeah, it hurts. It hurts. But we like to use the analogy of it's like a sports team. And if you were looking at, you know, insert whatever professional sports team you like to listen, watch or root for, mine is the Denver Broncos. You might can't see the helmets behind me, but if the Denver Broncos were to go out to a game and they didn't have a planned strategy, then the expectation for that game is going to be very, very low. And so I just look at it and whether it's the rep we're talking about at the beginning of the show where it's a funny scenario, but he was probably creating 10x the work for himself outside of his calls because he wasn't executing right. The sooner you get a and bought in on what is your execution and that you're going to do 10 out of 10 every single time. There's obviously flexibility and wiggle room across it, but what are the five, six things you need to get done in every call? The sooner you know what those are and the sooner you commit to them, the better your close rates are going to be, the shorter your sales cycles will get. And then ultimately the less admin work and follow-up work you're going to have outside of conversations. And so I think whether it's a company saying we are going to decide what we're doing with our sales conversations, or whether it's just an individual contributor in a company that maybe doesn't have a whole lot of structure, it's the same thing. The sooner you make that decision, the sooner you can actually start to score yourself on the execution of that, which is when you mentioned metrics, we talk about in bridge selling here, the missing metric, which is the idea of not a lot of people score that exact execution that we're talking about. And so the sooner you decide what you're going to be doing, the sooner you can start to rate and score yourself on it, which means you can adjust your strategy as needed. But the sooner you get that feedback and the scoring, the sooner you can optimize that strategy and that game plan. So I say it's a day one thing. Even if you're not super dialed in, that's where you should start because it works back in informing marketing. It also works the other way in improving sales. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I think we're having the same thought process around it, right? The sooner you put those, even like microwave style directions, right? It doesn't have to be super crazy and dialed in at first. It's like, just get the simple stuff in there. The more repeatable the process becomes. And I think the more confident that salespeople get, like I think one of the issues I see a lot when I'm chatting with people, because Call the Damn Lead certainly speaks to a certain demographic of individuals that aren't doing the thing that they're all like, yeah, I need to be doing this. That's why I love it. And so where do you, you know, when you're working with these business owners and sales professionals, how often do you run into people just being unconfident and afraid to pick up the phones? Well, I think it's all the time, but most of it comes from a lack of confidence in either the product that they're selling or their ability to execute. and usually the hesitation to, and even though I work in this, like the cobbler's kids has no shoes. I've been in that boat myself where it's, I'm not afraid to pick up the phone and make a call. But once that phone call is picked up or once I get that at that, do I actually know what I'm going to do? And I think that's where a lot of the hesitation and frustration comes in because we work in situations where lead flow is so high People are and they not always great leads People are more used to the no than they are to the, yeah, tell me about what you've got. And so oftentimes that's the fear that I think, especially in your, the seas that you swim in is people, people are, they're really used to maybe pounding the phones. And then when they get that, yes, it's almost like they don't know what to do with it. And so that's where a lot of the stuff we've already talked about works. So to answer your question, I see it all the time. And I think the number one fix for it is, do you really believe in the product you're selling? If the answer is no, go do some soul searching. If the answer is yes, then you just know what are you going to do when you get that person that's ready to hear more. That way you don't swallow your tongue and waste that opportunity. Because if you're making a bunch of dials to get that at bat, you don't want to waste it. And it's important to know how you'll react. Yeah, absolutely, man. I appreciate you sharing that. It's such an interesting world that we live in with sales. And I'm going to shift gears because I do have one more question because I'd be curious your take on it. Right now, AI is all the buzz, right? And there's people that are talking about being AI agents to make the calls and take the calls. And what's your perspective around AI and the sales community? Well, I'm definitely like pro AI because I think it can clean up a ton of the admin work and some of the more straining parts of sales that maybe a human isn't built to do, to be honest. Maybe we're not built to sit at a desk and do certain things over and over and over again. And maybe delegating that towards AI will help elevate the identity of some of the work that we do, which I think is an opportunity. But I don't know that it'll quite be that dystopian future that everybody talks about. I think ultimately, people still want to feel, I think AI will shorten sales cycles, even for long B2B companies. I think it'll shorten sales cycles. And I think it'll actually make the more one-to-one human conversation more important, which is, it really goes into the marketing messaging conversation, which is now, if two or three years from now, a sales rep is hopping on the phone with the most pre-sold lead they've ever talked to, they just need to know how that product relates to them individually and personally, then that's going to become more important than ever. So I love all the things AI is doing. To be honest though, most of the AI stuff that I've heard of, it has been a hot pile of garbage. And so I don't know what it'll be. I don't think anybody knows, but I probably fall where you do. And it's hard to know. I'm hopeful that it'll work out well in the end, but it's just hard to tell. Like even the AI calling robots and the call scoring tool and all this stuff. It's like, what is it actually giving you that is of true value? Yep, we're on the same page, man. I think it's a fantastic tool to shortcut a lot of the busy work, right? Hey, if it can record a call and take a transcript and create a summary so I don't have to remember every single thing that I talked about during that eight hour day where I was back to back every 30 minutes for eight straight hours. Like, thank you, Lord Jesus. All day, baby. That's fantastic, I love that. Yeah, make my life easy. But I do believe what you said about the need for that one-to-one human connection. That's where folks who are willing to get on the phones and have real conversations and ask the hard questions, like you guys that are out there right now that are listening, you're going to be superstars over the next decade. Because there are so many people that are trying to hide behind the little digital robots and not have to actually speak to anyone that your ability to get on and have genuine conversations is going to be massive. And it's also why I think it's important to what, you know, Johnny's point, understanding the marketing message so that you're right in sync and in line with the people that you're communicating with. And so, Johnny, man, we could probably nerd out on this all day because I can already tell we're buds. We got the black shirts. We got the nerdiness around the marketing and the metrics, baby. But I want to be respectful of your time. How do we come find your follow you and check out more of your content, man, because I'm sure it's great. Yeah, all good, Drew. I could definitely kill another two hours with you, but we'll save it for another day. Um, bridge selling.com best way to learn about what we do. And then myself personally, Johnny Holston, Johnny with no H it'll, I'm sure it'll be in show title and all that on LinkedIn is a great way to connect with me. I'm, I'm chronically on LinkedIn a little more than I should be. So if you message me, I will see it and I will respond. So, uh, that's the best way to get in, get in touch. Love it, man. Thank you again for taking some time out of your day to be here with us. Listen, if you guys enjoyed the show, go share it over on LinkedIn, tag me, tag Johnny, let the world know you spent a little bit of time with us that you got some value out of this conversation. Um, you know, maybe, you know, somebody who sucks on the phones and they're like that guy that needs to just hire someone to do some follow-up for them. It's cool. Send them this episode. You don't have to tell them they suck at sales, but like send them the episode, but Hey, it made me think of you. I wanted to send this your way. I think you'll like it. Um, and, and do us a favor of helping us spread the movement, man. Cause that's what call the damn leads is all about us about helping you get dialed in and take your life and sales to the next step and uh if you have a great sales story maybe someone on your team did some wild stuff like hiring someone under their own pocket to make calls for them like i want to hear about that stuff that's what drives this whole show is the ability to have awesome conversations with folks like you so head over to call the damn leads.com forward slash podcast send us your details grab some swag while you're there. You guys know what to do next. Go pick up the phone. Call the damn leads. We'll see you next time.