The Happy Sales Manager: Insights from Gretchen Gordon's Business Journey

Wayne Herring
00:00:01 - 00:00:45
Business builders, today, we're joined by Gretchen Gordon. Gretchen is the founder of Braveheart Sales Performance. She's based in Ohio, and her company helps companies to grow their sales operations, their sales department. She does sales training, sales coaching. She's the author of a book called The Happy Sales Manager. Today, she tells us about her business builder journey, how she started her business, how she got her first first client, how she grew that business, how she had a bit of a failure or perhaps a lesson learned when it came to trying to transition via direct partnership and how she and that partner had a good operating agreement. And so they were able to get out of that, and she was able to find herself again, which took some time. So she's vulnerable.
Wayne Herring
00:00:45 - 00:01:31
She's honest. I met Gretchen when I was a partner of objective management group who analyzes sales teams, sales candidates, and salespeople. Gretchen was one of the top performers there. She helped me get started in my coaching consulting practice by giving up her time for 3 or 4, 1 hour sessions, which I was really grateful for because she was like the lead. She was one of the key, producers for that organization, and she was giving me her time so that I could get started, which which I'm grateful for. Gretchen also talks today about coaching. How much do you coach your salespeople? How much is necessary? And this is a prelude to a book study that we're going to do as part of business builders in the fall of 2024. So we're going to read her book, the happy sales manager.
Wayne Herring
00:01:31 - 00:01:47
She's going to come join us and do a session where she teaches about how to be a happy sales manager, how to be a business owner. That's also a sales manager. Gretchen, knows her stuff. She's got a great business builder journey. And so here you go. Enjoy. Hey, Gretchen. So good to have this conversation with you today.
Wayne Herring
00:01:47 - 00:01:48
Thanks for being here.
Gretchen Gordon
00:01:49 - 00:01:51
Happy to be here. I appreciate the invitation.
Wayne Herring
00:01:53 - 00:02:27
Good. So, Gretchen, on the Business Builder Way, we tell business builder stories, and we hear about the journey of of how you started this entrepreneurial venture that you've been at for some time. And, also, uniquely today, you're an expert in sales and sales operations and sales management. You've written a book, which is over your shoulder for those people that are seeing video. So we'll spend some time talking about that too, and I'm really looking forward to that. So can you tell us how Braveheart is in the the name of your company, which is great name? And you didn't show up with your blue face paint, but I get it. I'm imagining it. Yeah.
Wayne Herring
00:02:27 - 00:02:30
Tell us a bit about how Braveheart started and what Braveheart is.
Gretchen Gordon
00:02:30 - 00:03:16
So I started the company in 2009, which people might say, well, that was people that can remember that was on the heels of the great recession. And, you know, like, why that's not a great time to start a business. Although it ended up being a great time to start a sales consulting practice because so many companies were, experiencing a slowdown in their business, and they thought they had sales talent, and what they really had were order takers. So we're fortunate that things kinda kicked off right then. But I started the business be I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad had been an entrepreneur forever. My mom actually owned a company. My siblings were doing their own thing as well.
Gretchen Gordon
00:03:16 - 00:04:25
And I was in corporate America and always wanted to have my own business, but never had the great brilliant idea other than I was working in sales, and I was working in sales management, and I've been in sales for quite a while, and so I started to kinda think maybe there's a business here. And I kinda wanted out of corporate America because I just felt like there were a lot of people aspiring to the corner office and not actually changing the way things are done or making things better. Mhmm. And I got my wish, maybe not exactly when I wanted it, because I was working in the financial sector when the recession hit. So I was working for a commercial finance company in business development and leading a particular group doing that. And we ran out of money to lend to companies. And all of a sudden, we were all turned into account managers and problem solvers and things like that, not generating business. So I started thinking about what my next thing was gonna be.
Gretchen Gordon
00:04:25 - 00:05:05
And, fortunately, I had an incredible boss who I asked, should I just go get a job because I should get a job now? And he said, no. Hang on. So I hung on for about 9 months and put my business plan together and then waited for the package, and our whole, you know, department got wiped out. So I was ready to go, to start Braveheart. I didn't have a name, so I had a proposal I had to put out. So we just started brainstorming names, and I kinda have a Scottish heritage, and my husband does too. And I didn't wanna use my name, so we just that's how it came about. So, anyway, I I wanted to have my own business.
Gretchen Gordon
00:05:05 - 00:05:55
But had I not been jettisoned from corporate America when I was. I don't know if I actually ever would have taken the leap on my own. So I was kind of forced into it, and I did get a a nice little payday, you know, as a severance package that helped. But from the moment I started, until now, 15 years later, I kind of had the attitude that there is no plan b, that I'm not going back to corporate America. I'm gonna bet on myself. And, initially, it was just me, myself, and I. And then as I had limitations, I added people to the team. So that's what I think happened that was fortunate.
Gretchen Gordon
00:05:55 - 00:06:45
2 things. Number 1, I got eliminated from my job, and number 2, I chose to believe that there was no other choice. I was gonna make it work. And I think that that sometimes people have issues with, like, you know, 1 foot in, 1 foot out. And I was all in, and I was gonna make it work. So that's how Braveheart came about. And, you know, really, our objective has always been to help sales teams execute at a higher level with a combination of skills and mindset. Because if you go back to the beginning of my career, I was a pretty scared salesperson when I first started, and I didn't realize it it wasn't because of the skills.
Gretchen Gordon
00:06:45 - 00:07:16
It was because of my mindset. I started my sales career at Procter and Gamble, and so great sales training, you know, very specific. You know, they they they videotaped us, you know, everything. But I still had issues because of what was going on up here inside my head, and that always stuck with me when I finally figured out what the problem was. And so when I started Braveheart Sales, it was with the commitment to address both skill sets and mindset.
Wayne Herring
00:07:17 - 00:07:56
Got it. And we met because at the time, we were both partners of objective management group. You still are, I believe. Right? That's still very core to your business. I've decided to move on from that. But I do remember you were, like, kicking butt and winning awards, and they would always play the song from Braveheart when you would come out. It was very cool. Also, I just wanna acknowledge that because I don't know that I've ever said this to you, but you were very gracious and spent time with me on the phone as I got started helping for no reason other than just to be helpful and just to answer questions and help somebody else who was going down that path.
Wayne Herring
00:07:56 - 00:08:09
And I did have a plan b at the time, which was farming, but, ultimately, coaching, consulting, building a community like I've worked on has become plan a, but I'm very grateful for that. And I'm
Gretchen Gordon
00:08:09 - 00:08:10
glad I could help.
Wayne Herring
00:08:10 - 00:08:31
Yeah. I can remember a particular conversation exactly where I was sitting, as we talked through it. And that's always, cool when there's people that have helped along the way like that. So in this business of sales performance and as you started Braveheart and went out into the world to do that, how did you find your first client? What did that look like? How did you start with an engagement with somebody?
Gretchen Gordon
00:08:32 - 00:09:18
Yeah. So I went back to every person in my network, basically, and just got together with them and said, how are you doing? Here's what I'm doing. This is how we're doing it or how we're. It was me at the time. This is how I'm doing it, and it just kinda snowballed from there. So it was really very much a networking focus and a referral gathering. So I spent a lot of emphasis on my contacts who might have clients of theirs that might benefit from, what we did. And I think there's this idea of being genuine and authentic, and it's not just him trying to sell you something.
Gretchen Gordon
00:09:18 - 00:09:42
It's like, this is what we do. And if it's a fit, I wanna help you. If you need this, I wanna help you. And that was really always the positioning, but it was a whole bunch of networking in the beginning. And, actually, I I remember this so distinctly because I didn't have any money. I mean, I didn't have any revenue coming in. Right? So I would meet people, not for lunch, not for breakfast, but for coffee. Yeah.
Gretchen Gordon
00:09:43 - 00:09:55
And made them for coffee, and I'd always get there first and I'd get my coffee. And then when they showed up, I'd say, oh, can I get you coffee? And they'd always say, no. No. No. I'll get it. You know, we'd meet at Panera or something like that.
Wayne Herring
00:09:55 - 00:09:56
Sure. Sure.
Gretchen Gordon
00:09:56 - 00:10:00
So I did it on the cheap, total on the cheap, and it worked.
Wayne Herring
00:10:01 - 00:10:14
Right. Well done. So what does the engagement look like? What is typical I know there's no typical, but in general, you're working with companies, salesmen, or salespeople. How's that evolve? What is the work you're doing right now?
Gretchen Gordon
00:10:14 - 00:11:16
Yeah. So we're very focused on designing solutions that are tailored to the specific company. So you you mentioned objective management group. So we always start with that, you know, diagnostic approach of, okay, you're seeing symptoms of, oh, my people aren't selling enough, or I'm not sure about my sales manager, or, you know, whatever it is. What we always do is we start with, well, let's drill down to the root cause of the symptoms that you're seeing, and we use objective management group tools for that. Once that's done, then we can make very specific recommendations about what will help this particular company and the individuals on that team become the best they can be. And and it's generally one of 3 things or 2 of 3 things or all three things. 1 is training sales teams and coaching their managers, so in a holistic way.
Gretchen Gordon
00:11:16 - 00:12:26
So individually coaching managers and collectively coaching the team or, you know, training the team on skill set and mindset. 2nd is frequently what's needed are are playbooks or processes, ways to make the sales team more efficient and to make it more repeatable and scalable. And that's something that anyone who's building a business that they don't wanna be completely dependent on themselves need to have the processes and the systems, the repeatability, in place so that you can scale. So we, create those tools for clients. And then the third is if they're gonna grow, help them hire more efficiently and more effectively. We don't do recruiting, but we put a process in place for them. Or if they've just not been able to do a great job of repeating that process, we put that process in place for them so that they can continue to grow and expand or not make mistakes by hiring the wrong folks. So those are the three areas that we focus on primarily.
Wayne Herring
00:12:26 - 00:12:47
And in your firm, as you deliver that initial diagnostic and then those solutions and your firm has grown, like, what does your company look like now? Who is there? What roles do you have in your company? Maybe how many people, but paint a picture, if you would, of this collective of smart people that you get to agree with every
Gretchen Gordon
00:12:47 - 00:13:17
day. Yeah. So I get to be the person who dreams up all the things that we should be doing differently and were better. And then I also manage some of the larger, long standing clients. So we have some clients that have been around for 4 or 5 years. And then my daughter is in the business and is the, you know, succession plan for the business. And she is primarily in charge of sales and growing the business. She sits on our leadership.
Gretchen Gordon
00:13:17 - 00:14:26
You know, we have a leadership meeting every week, and so is a valuable insight. She's 30 years younger than I am, so it's really an an interesting dynamic of how I've always done things and how she sees the world. And she's amazing from a sales perspective and also is a part time lacrosse coach of a girl's high school lacrosse team. So she just has this innate coaching ability, and that will become really important as we grow the sales team. Then we have 4 sales coaches, consultants that do training and work with the clients on the hiring and put together the playbooks and stuff, and then operational kind of in the back office operational. We're actually testing something right now. We were gonna hire a a sales development rep because it's super hard. You know, everything we do is pretty custom designed, and there's a lot to learn about the objective management group tools and how to, you know, make recommendations off of those.
Gretchen Gordon
00:14:26 - 00:15:08
So we've seen other companies in our same boat struggle with hiring salespeople. So we were gonna hire a a sales development rep, someone who their whole job is to get appointments for us to, yeah, to talk. And we've struggled with trying to find someone that would fit the bill. I mean, we've really struggled because we wanted them here, because we wanted them to hear our conversations. If they were an employee. So so that's a brand new thing. They're gonna start calling at the beginning of the next month, so we'll see how it goes.
Wayne Herring
00:15:09 - 00:15:52
Before I hit record, one of the things we've I said was experiments never fail, which is the title of a book, and I had to do with something you mentioned, which I'm going to ask you about momentarily, but here you are with this SDR outside firm and you're experimenting, watching, measuring. So not only are you helping your clients grow sales and look at things like this, but you're actively doing it. So it's not like you did all this years ago, and now you're just speaking theory. You're experimenting, innovating all the time as you go to be able to serve others, which I think is is really cool. The other experiment fun part. Yeah. Being in the lab being in the laboratory. So you mentioned Kendall, your daughter's transition plan.
Wayne Herring
00:15:52 - 00:16:06
And before you started, you said you'd be comfortable talking about you did have an experiment, and you went down a path for a couple of years where you were had a different transition plan, a different partnership. And so could you speak about that on your business builder journey?
Gretchen Gordon
00:16:06 - 00:16:23
Yeah. Absolutely. Because as you know, it can be lonely building a business, and there are many points. Even though in the beginning, I didn't have a plan b, there are points in my last 15 years where it's crept into my head. Man, it'd be a lot easier if I just went and get a job.
Wayne Herring
00:16:24 - 00:16:29
I've never thought that, and I'm lying. Right? Yeah. Sure. For sure
Gretchen Gordon
00:16:29 - 00:17:09
that problem. Be like, why am I doing this to myself? Well, I've gotten to the point where I hadn't built out the team as well as we hadn't systematized things as well as they are now. Kendall, my daughter, was not in the business, and she'd been in the business previously and then gone off and done other things. So she was gone from the business, and I didn't have a good number 2, I guess, I would say. I had a great number 2 from a a purely administrative standpoint, but not from a leadership standpoint. So an acquaintance of mine who we had been in, like, a peer group thing together, but we weren't terribly close in terms of friends. It's not like that we were best friends.
Wayne Herring
00:17:09 - 00:17:09
Yeah.
Gretchen Gordon
00:17:09 - 00:17:43
She had a very different business model than I had. She would go speak to, like, Vistage groups and then all over the country, and then, people would hire her for her pricing expertise. So she has this very specific kind of expertise. And I don't know. We'd talked for years about, like, hey. We should share clients and things like that. So I was at a point where I was frustrated. I felt like I was running on the hamster wheel, and I felt like I couldn't even take a breath to figure out, like, okay.
Gretchen Gordon
00:17:43 - 00:18:22
What do I need? Do I need to hire someone to do this? I just didn't even have the ability to think like that. And so it just came about at a time and place where I was like, I need help. And she was at a a point in her life where she didn't wanna travel so much and have that be the one way she got clients was going around and speaking to groups all over the country. So we said, let's just do a little joint venture. So we we tried with a couple prior clients. Mhmm. We brought these concepts together, and it worked really well. And we had fun because all of a sudden, there's this shared burden of, like, it's not all up to me.
Gretchen Gordon
00:18:22 - 00:19:11
So we decided to do what we thought was the inevitable, which was let's dump our our companies and, you know, make a new company. And, actually, it turns out to be good that we did it that way because, you know, we kept our former companies. We weren't doing business out of them. We did business jointly. And so fast forward, we had these grand plans to grow it and build something that we wouldn't necessarily be operating on a daily basis. You know, we probably made some mistakes. We hired a couple people that we probably shouldn't have hired with the anticipation of growing. You know, I was accustomed to for 13 years, 12 years, whatever, of making the decisions.
Gretchen Gordon
00:19:11 - 00:19:44
Now that's a huge burden, but it's also like we go, okay. We're gonna do this, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that. And then all of a sudden, you've got a partner. And, of course, we made all the mistakes you can make. Like, we were equal partners, which I know they tell you never do that. We did have a good plan in place for the breakup. So we had a good operating agreement that would allow us to break up, fortunately. But I found that I was being too what would the word be? I was being kind of submissive, which is not really my high skill.
Wayne Herring
00:19:45 - 00:19:47
So you wouldn't describe me as that. Right?
Gretchen Gordon
00:19:47 - 00:20:41
I was trying not to make waves. I was trying to make it all get along, trying to make everything work, and so we didn't have healthy disagreements like we probably should have about direction to go and things like that. I was just happy to have to bounce things off of, but some frustrations grew on both parts with regard to, I think, the things that are unspoken. Those are always the things that get you in trouble. Right? So you grow stressed about this, and I grow stressed about this. She grows stressed about that. There were some things that were I was unaware that this is how she would have reacted in a stress situation, and I probably acted in a way that she didn't expect me to act in a stress situation. And we had very different business models, and we were trying to kinda smoosh them together, and we had very different targets.
Gretchen Gordon
00:20:42 - 00:21:23
And it it just didn't work for a lot of reasons, but probably primarily because I'll take the blame. I chose to do it on my part for probably the wrong reasons. I was running away from something. I was running away from the loneliness of being a solo owner to instead of running toward something better. And so that's a a lesson. And I I guess I would say I I doubted myself. I mean, I would say that I started to doubt myself about what I did. You know, I had built a very successful business, and then all of a sudden, you're in this mess, and you start doubting yourself.
Gretchen Gordon
00:21:23 - 00:22:03
When I was in the partnership, I I started really losing my confidence. And so when we separated, it's been, you know, almost a year and a half now. It takes time to get your brand back and get things going again, but I'm in a much better place. And I learned a lot of lessons that I won't make those mistakes again. And as painful as it was, I got my daughter back in the business. She wanted to come back in the business, and so she came back in actually when we were a partnership. And unbeknownst to me, she was thinking like, what have I gotten myself into? I gotta get out of here. And I was thinking, I gotta get out of here.
Gretchen Gordon
00:22:03 - 00:22:12
I my own business, and I'm thinking, this is horrible. I can't stand it anymore. So before, you know, we did that, we rescued the business.
Wayne Herring
00:22:13 - 00:22:55
Well and there could be a whole long conversation about a lot of what you hit on the surface there. So thank you. I feel like that was really vulnerable, and I I think we all have that stuff going through our mind, like escape or feeling like I don't wanna do it on my own. I need somebody else. And that makes total sense to me that out of good intentions, because there really can only be 1, like alpha person running, making decisions. So you start to say, well, that was normally me, but I guess I'll step back. And then it almost becomes like a, I don't know, a sickness kind of thing that then you have to work your way back from that makes total sense. And thanks for sharing that.
Wayne Herring
00:22:55 - 00:23:29
How have you and how are you being intentional in a different way with, So it's there there's a model. I don't know if you've seen this, but one of my clients is a guy named Tom Garrity, and they've got this company, Compass Point Consultants. They work with family owned businesses. So you're definitely now big time family owned business. Yep. And there's a model that those people all lean back on a Venn diagram where it's you can be a family member, you can be a key employee in the business, and you can be an owner. Like, Kendall could be one of the well, she is one of those. She's a family member right off the bat.
Wayne Herring
00:23:29 - 00:23:54
You have a son who's a family member. Your son doesn't work in the business, so therefore he is only in one of those circles. But you and you're in all 3. You're a family member. You work in the business. Clearly, you manage clients, and you're owner. So being conscious of that, which circle which hat are we wearing right now or which role are we in? Is this family or is this business? How how are you being intentional about that with Kendall? It's probably a journey.
Gretchen Gordon
00:23:54 - 00:24:15
Very we are very aware of that because when she worked in the company before she left and came back, We were actually at an objective management group conference, and I can't even remember what the circumstances were. But she said, are you I can't tell. Are you talking to me, like, my employer or my mother? And
Wayne Herring
00:24:15 - 00:24:15
Yeah.
Gretchen Gordon
00:24:15 - 00:24:31
And so that has always stuck with me. And you're exactly right. You almost have to put a different hat on. This is my hat. This is my hat. So we try to be very intentional. We have we are on we have a a fractional marketing director, actually. Mhmm.
Gretchen Gordon
00:24:31 - 00:25:25
So she sits in on our leadership meeting once a week, and our head of ops does, and Kendall and I both do. And we'll have debate and conversation because we all care, and we expect each other to challenge each other. We care about the future of the business and where we're headed. But then Kendall and I also have a separate monthly meeting that is like an owner's meeting, and it's really to make sure that we're in lockstep. And we go to lunch once a week just to shoot the shit and be not so business oriented because there is this thing of like, oh, well, we're talking all the time at work, but we're not necessarily having just mother daughter conversations. So we try to be intentional about it. It's not perfect.
Wayne Herring
00:25:25 - 00:25:35
But Sure. But you're yeah. Try try to be intentional is that's better than, oh, we're just kinda, like, leaving it to whatever happens. Yeah. So it's like
Gretchen Gordon
00:25:35 - 00:25:44
And I love your, diagram of you're in 3 different buckets, and you have to think about where are you. And sometimes there's the overlap of all 3.
Wayne Herring
00:25:45 - 00:26:29
Yeah. And I'll get that reference for you of family business because it's the three circle model of the family business system. I'll I'll I just Googled it kinda in the background, and I'll send it back to you. It came from Harvard b the Harvard Business School to Gurey and Davis. I also wanted to talk about you are the author of the book, the happy sales manager it's over your right shoulder. As I look at you on the screen. And, I've got this community of entrepreneurs, which we call business builders. And when I got started coaching, I had been coming out of a family business where I had learned about sales management kind of the hard way by making lots of mistakes and asking lots of questions and being around a lot of old experience.
Wayne Herring
00:26:30 - 00:27:28
Let's say industrial sales managers were some of the people we had on staff who were then leading our little teams, and I inherited that, got thrown into it. In a family business, it was my dad's son. Wouldn't have been in that spot if it weren't for the fact that it was family because I was a civil engineer coming into this thing. But when I left that and started doing the work I do now, I saw quickly that there's a whole lot of smaller business owners who have a few salespeople and really they need to be the sales manager. And that can be difficult because they're also busy and they have all these other things going on, and we know that it takes sales management as a full time job. Right? So that I that's kind of that person who I I work with a lot and who's a member of our our community. Just yesterday, I was with a guy, locally here who has an insurance agency, and he's doing a little bit of a different model with offering retirement plans, 401 k plans. And he had brought in a candidate to interview, and it's just one of my first interactions with him.
Wayne Herring
00:27:28 - 00:28:01
And he said, could you come in and help interview this guy? And now I don't even know what the role is, and I'm not even sure that he's figured it out, and I'm not sure he has a process. So it was interesting to sit there and I was kinda interviewing the candidate who I don't have any data on. Like, you do data, you help people make better hiring decisions. We didn't have any of that. Just had this young man, and then I had the owner. And so it's almost like I'm interviewing both of them trying to understand what is the role that we're even trying to fit in. So that would be something that you know a lot about. This is the kind of person that you'd be speaking to.
Wayne Herring
00:28:01 - 00:28:07
So what does the happy sales manager offer to the business builder I'm describing or this person that I worked with yesterday?
Gretchen Gordon
00:28:08 - 00:28:40
Yeah. No. I appreciate that lead in the background. So I wrote the book because when I was promoted from sales to sales management, I mean, I I really wasn't a natural born salesperson. I had a lot of insecurities, I guess, I would say. Figured it out and then got was successful in sales. So, of course, I got promoted to sales management, and I stunk at it. I was horrible because I had this perception that everyone was just like I was driven, highly motivated.
Gretchen Gordon
00:28:40 - 00:30:06
You know, they want the same things I do and why don't they just go do it? So the book started because of that, and it it's a, you know, part and parcel to the the work that we do. And I think that it's very applicable to business owners who are also managing the sales team because, like you said, they're very busy doing lots of different things. And if it's one thing that I've seen over and over again is that entrepreneurs are even worse at sales management typically than full time sales managers because they are the type of people who just, you know, are driven and are gonna figure it out. And they don't understand just telling somebody to do something doesn't mean that they're going to be able to do it. So the book really breaks down into 3 areas. The first area being, you know, maybe the core things that a sales manager, someone who's operating as the leader of the sales team, needs to embrace, which are, you know, understanding that different people are motivated by different things, not what I'm motivated by necessarily. And salespeople are not all money motivated. And then understanding how to hold folks accountable to a plan so that they can accomplish goals and that you're not micromanaging when you're holding people accountable.
Gretchen Gordon
00:30:06 - 00:30:40
It's actually the opposite. You're just being their accountability partner. And then knowing that you need to coach them to be better. So I think about a leader's role in sales as being someone who will help the individual be better than they would be if the coach weren't there, the manager weren't there. So it's not about doing it for them. It's not about going on every sales call. It's not about being the answer person. It's helping people get to a different level than they are now.
Gretchen Gordon
00:30:40 - 00:31:28
And then the 4th is hiring and onboarding. And you can spend a lot of time spinning your wheels if you hire the wrong folks and you go back to to ground 0. So that's the beginning that people have to embrace. And then the next section is really kind of the tactical things of, like, how to run a sales meeting. There how to manage a pipeline, how to go through a pipeline review, some very specific things. The book is designed to be a easy read for people with short attention spans. And then the third section is really all about the individual themselves and their mindset and helping them understand that they've got to embrace their role as the leader of the team. And if they aren't interested in helping the team members be the best they can be, they might not be the right person for the job, frankly.
Gretchen Gordon
00:31:29 - 00:31:58
So the book was designed with 2 types of folks in mind. Number 1, people well, really 3, I should say. People who are brand new to sales management and have not done it before and might just be shooting from the hip. It gives them a manual for that. Number 2 would be business owners who are managing the sales team. And then the 3rd category is sales managers who might have been doing the job for a while, but are just super frustrated, stressed out, aren't having fun anymore.
Wayne Herring
00:31:58 - 00:31:59
Not happy.
Gretchen Gordon
00:31:59 - 00:32:04
Not happy. Exactly. And I know that because I was that person.
Wayne Herring
00:32:05 - 00:32:21
Okay. And that's good to know. And that's partially where it comes from is that you weren't happy, and you wanna wanna help people to be happy. Quick question on that. This is one I get asked all the time. So you mentioned coaching, that somebody needs to coach these salespeople. Really important. I believe that too.
Wayne Herring
00:32:21 - 00:32:24
I always get asked, how much time do I have to spend with these people?
Gretchen Gordon
00:32:25 - 00:33:01
So the real answer is it depends. But the because it's as much time as it takes. That's the real answer. We have some data that would suggest, even if you are not good at coaching sales people, if you just spend more time doing it, the salespeople will be more successful will be incredibly more successful. So do it and do it some more. And there's different types of coaching. Right? There's formal coaching, which I'm a big believer in. We're gonna meet every week, and 1 on 1, I'm gonna help you with, you know, where you're stumbling.
Gretchen Gordon
00:33:01 - 00:33:31
Let's let's listen to some phone calls if you're making phone calls. Let's let me go out in the field with you and just observe. And then there's also the informal coaching, which is just like, you know, what should I do here? And my rote answer is always, what do you think I would tell you? What do you think you should do? And then they'll say, I don't know. That's why I'm coming to you. Well, what do you think I would tell you to do? Because then you get the salesperson to think, and that's really the goal of the coach. It's like the batter batting coach. Right?
Wayne Herring
00:33:32 - 00:33:32
Right.
Gretchen Gordon
00:33:32 - 00:33:36
Batting coach doesn't step into the batter's box and do it for him.
Wayne Herring
00:33:36 - 00:33:43
But the answer is definitely not, like, 1 hour, one time a month. That's probably not gonna do it.
Gretchen Gordon
00:33:44 - 00:34:16
That won't do it won't do it whether they're new or tenured. It just won't do it. If the goal of a manager, leader, coach is to get the person to be better, it's probably if you have someone who is executing well and is tenured, you could get away with it maybe once every 2 weeks. But I'm a bigger fan of formal, once a week, and informal as the opportunity arises. But it doesn't mean just it's not in a group. It's 1 on 1.
Wayne Herring
00:34:16 - 00:34:17
Right.
Gretchen Gordon
00:34:17 - 00:34:43
And it doesn't mean telling them what to do and strategizing about an opportunity. It's really helping them build their skills, which probably includes a little bit of practice. So, you know, asking so you got this meeting coming up. What are you gonna say if, you know, mister Brown says x? What are you gonna say? And getting them to actually practice the words.
Wayne Herring
00:34:43 - 00:35:20
Right. Awesome. So I look forward to we're gonna read the book as part of our business builder camp calendar coming up, and then we'll have you come and and speak to the group, which we appreciate very much. Last question I wanna ask you is this isn't really possible, and we probably wouldn't do it. We we shouldn't do it even if we could. But if you were to think back, if you were to go back and talk to Gretchen in 2009 and say, this is Gretchen coming from 2024, and, oh my gosh, like, you're never gonna believe, or I want you to know this. What do you think you would say to Gretchen 2,009?
Gretchen Gordon
00:35:21 - 00:35:30
I would say 2 things. I would say trust your gut and go with, you know I love what you said, Wayne, about experiments never
Wayne Herring
00:35:30 - 00:35:34
what'd you say? Experiments never failed. Yep. Experiments never failed. Good
Gretchen Gordon
00:35:34 - 00:35:53
book. Never failed. So just go. And then the second thing would be to be fearless, I guess I would say. Just go do it, and don't believe that everybody else has all the answers. And then the second thing would be use resources. You don't have to do everything yourself. You don't have to be the expert in everything.
Gretchen Gordon
00:35:53 - 00:36:05

While you need to be the everything reliant on you. So those two things.

Wayne Herring
00:36:06 - 00:36:13

Well, thanks again for joining us today. We appreciate you spending your time with all of us and look forward to connecting with you again in the fall for book club.

Gretchen Gordon
00:36:13 - 00:36:16

Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks a lot, Wayne.

Wayne Herring
00:36:16 - 00:36:17

Yeah.

00:00 Gretchen is honest and helps with coaching.

03:16 Desire for own business, disillusionment with corporate.

07:17 Former colleague commends partner's expertise and character.

11:16 Coaching, processes, and efficient hiring for growth.

13:17 Diverse leadership insights and coaching dynamics.

17:43 Collaboration with partner lightened the workload.

19:47 Struggling to align, sparking unspoken frustrations.

25:45 Referencing Harvard model, happy sales manager, entrepreneurs.

28:40 Book explores sales management for business owners.

30:40 Hiring, onboarding, tactics, mindset, leadership, team development.

34:43 Excited about reading book, future advice for self.

1. How does the three-circle model of family business influence the challenges of sales management for family businesses, as discussed in the episode?
2. What are the key insights that Gretchen Gordon shares about transitioning from sales to sales management and the challenges she faced?
3. In what ways does Gretchen Gordon's book, "The Happy Sales Manager," address the needs of new sales managers, business owners managing sales teams, and frustrated or stressed-out sales managers?
4. How does the amount of time spent coaching salespeople impact their success, and why does Gretchen emphasize the importance of formal and informal coaching?
5. What are the key takeaways from Gretchen Gordon's discussion on providing feedback to employees and the importance of formal and informal one-on-one discussions?
6. How do Gretchen Gordon's reflections on her past experiences in business partnerships provide valuable insights into building and managing a successful business?
7. In what ways did Gretchen Gordon's personal experiences with her business and family dynamics contribute to her understanding of balancing family and business roles, and how can this insight be applied to other family businesses?
8. What are the factors that led to the establishment of Braveheart Sales Performance, and how does Gretchen's background as an entrepreneur and her expertise in sales influence the company's approach to helping clients grow their sales operations?
9. How does Gretchen Gordon's approach to networking, resource management, and cost-effective business growth serve as a valuable model for entrepreneurs and small business owners?
10. What lessons can entrepreneurs and business owners draw from Gretchen Gordon's experiences in building a company, tackling challenges, and envisioning a succession plan for the future of her business?