How to Avoid Settling for Mediocre Sales Talent by Challenging Your Standards

Lucas Price: [: 00:00:00

My guest today is Chip Neal, the vice president of sales at Abacus technology. Chip started his career in sales at Pitney Bowes corporation. He had leadership positions for over 12 years. It icon Office Solutions in the southeast. He was at Boston Scientific Corporation for 20 years in multiple sales leadership roles.

Tip has been married to his wife, Beth, for 29 years and he has three adult daughters. He currently serves on the advisory board. For open sky health and on an advisory board for independent Presbyterian churches, golf, travel, and exercise are his hobbies. Chip, is there anything that I missed there that you'd like to add?

Chip Neal: No, because I think you got it all just happy to be here today. And thank you for this opportunity.

Lucas Price: Yeah. Thanks for being here as well. We're here to talk about. Building elite sales teams. Can you tell me what's your key advice? What's some of your key insights around the most important parts of building an elite sales team?

Chip Neal: [: 00:01:00

And I'm very distinct in exactly what I'm looking for when I'm looking for talent. 1st thing you want to do is find great exceptional talent. 2nd is you want to train them to. Your expectations and hold that accountability once you find that elite talent and have trained them up. And then I think the 3rd thing that's more important is you need to get out of the way and you got to let them do what you brought them on to do is to go find those opportunities, close those opportunities and help continue to build and drive your organization to the next level.

e looking for that indicates [: 00:02:00

Chip Neal: There's a number of things that are extremely important. First and foremost, you want to find somebody that is smarter than you, that fills a void that maybe you didn't necessarily know you needed, but because of Evaluating the talent on your team. You understand that you need that individual to fill that board, to round out your team.

nd them in order to help you [: 00:03:00

Lucas Price: it sounds like some of what you're saying correct me if I'm wrong, is you want to hire people who are better than you. You want to hire people that are good at the things that you're not good at. It's, it seems to me that requires a certain level of self awareness to be a top leader.

Chip Neal: Absolutely. Emotional intelligence is extremely important in the world of sales. So if you know when to do certain things, what to do in certain situations and how to accomplish it, you've gotten probably 85 percent of sales out of the way. And. I think so many times when you're evaluating sales talent, people forget to look at emotional intelligence.

ent through throughout their [: 00:04:00

Lucas Price: When you're evaluating a potential fit in your organization, What are some of the ways that you identify whether they have the emotional intelligence To grow and be the leaders and be the kind of person who could replace you and succeed in the meantime as well.

Chip Neal: I'd say the number one thing that I do is I prepare for the interview process and I set up individual questions for the candidate that I'm interviewing, and that's really important. You put them in scenario situations that can. Allow you to see how they're going to react, and that will help you determine exactly.

What they're going to do in certain situations that they give out, role playing is a lot of sales. People don't like to role play. I love to role play. I think role playing is helping you. It's practice. It's making you get better before the game. And if you have that same situation, when you set that up in an interview process and put them into a role play.

Scenario, [: 00:05:00

Lucas Price: Do you have a question or a scenario that you like during the interview process for emotional intelligence maybe just share one or two of them with us.

r, your integrity, it really [: 00:06:00

Lucas Price: that's a great one. I have a similar question that I sometimes use when I'm thinking about emotional intelligence, , just, to share some ideas with our listeners out there, which is tell me about a specific time. When you met someone and they initially seemed to not trust you.

So you're looking for, are they perceiving how other people are responding to them emotionally and then what do they do about it? How do they change the perception and how do they go about building relationships with those people? That's a question I like to use. Part of emotional intelligence is understanding your own emotions and the emotions in other people, and then coming up with a game plan around how to change the emotions when necessary.

Chip Neal: No, I love that. And thank you for sharing that because that, that brings the personal side, not just the professional side in. And I think we can all learn from that and use that both personally and professionally.

as Price: . A lot of the key [: 00:07:00

Why is that the most important item or one of the most important items? And how did you discover that was the thing that mattered?

Chip Neal: I think the number 1 reason why talent is so important. It's just like with anything else. It's sports teams, for instance, you can have a person who will work hard, who you can train him. Her on your plays all day long, but if they don't have the talent to be able to go out and execute those plays that you've given them or the tool that you've allowed them to use, unfortunately, in most cases, they're going to come up short.

dy's pure talent. I love the [: 00:08:00

Whether it's a coach or a leader in a business situation, they're looking for the most talented individual. And that talent sometimes is God given. Sometimes it's not, maybe it's talent because of the trials and tribulations that they've gone through that have allowed them to get more talented in their field because of the things that they've gone through.

So I think it's extremely important to have talent. And I think ultimately, when when you're trying to build your sales teams, you want the best individuals that are the most well rounded from a talent perspective as you can get on your team.

Lucas Price: Is that something that's always been part of your equation? how did you discover that this is what you're really looking for when you build a an elite sales organization?

p Neal: I like to tell folks [: 00:09:00

My heart strings with certain situations . I saw that individual had so much desire and they wanted to. Be successful, and I've really wanted to be there for them and I've tried in multiple cases and some people, yes, I've been able to coach up, but I don't think you can ever take away from if the individual has the right foundation.

imes to Lucas is we have the [: 00:10:00

And we owe it to the candidate as much as we owe it to our team, as much as we owe it to ourselves to help that individual find what's best for them. Because we ultimately want what's best for anybody that we have the honor to, to interview on any given day. Unfortunately I've had situations where I hired because I felt so strongly about an individual just because I liked them so much, but I was not doing them justice by putting them in a role that unfortunately they were going to fail in .

Lucas Price: I imagine in that situation, you're then trying to be the heroic manager and try doing everything you can to help them succeed. But really you're not helping them because you put them in a job where they're not well suited to. Sometimes the nice thing is to say no to someone, .

You're better off saying no to someone than giving them a role that's not going to be a good fit for them.

because it's not just on one [: 00:11:00

What I was setting up for. And I've had that situation. I've had those conversations with individuals and told them you are just too incredibly talented to be stepping into this role that I have right now, and I've tried to help them find the proper role for them. So it's not just the person that, Hey, thinks they want to be a salesperson and you're trying to.

Fit around peg in a square hole. It's also on the other side where people are exceptionally talented and your position is not right for them. You gotta let that bird fly. You gotta let them go as much as you want them on your team. You just are not doing yourself an injustice or the candidate in that perspective.

les leader or upcoming sales [: 00:12:00

Chip Neal: First off, they should challenge their standard. Okay, every day, I try to challenge the standard that I've set, whether it's recruiting, hiring, training, those expectations. Are they the best and the highest quality standards that we can set out? So I would challenge that whatever their standard is.

of open positions and oh, my [: 00:13:00

Do not allow yourself to do that. Do not settle. As I've said before, if it takes seven interviews to get to the right candidate, go the seven interviews, go eight. If you need to do not settle, continue to challenge yourself on that because that process, once you get out of the line of the process that you have set up, unfortunately, you're setting yourself up and your team up.

And great sales teams do not want to have people on their team that are not challenging them to be better than they are. You can't allow yourself to fall in the trap. The love, whatever you want to call it with a candidate, just because they have qualifications that are like you, if you're really looking to build an elite sales team, it should be made up of uniqueness in different areas.

ey're made up of individuals [: 00:14:00

And just hire that individual because they're a lot like you. Okay, you don't need a bunch of use on the team. You need a bunch of individuals on the team that are going to challenge you to be a better leader. And to challenge this team to fly higher than they've ever flown. So really seek out that unique talent.

ertain pedigree and I was so [: 00:15:00

Unbelievable different places you can have introverts that are great salespeople. You can have people that are extremely extroverted that maybe aren't necessarily great salespeople. You can have analytical people that are dynamic salespeople. There's just not that. Mold that great salespeople made out of.

So why are you accepting that? Seek out that uniqueness, challenge yourself to in your standards and your processes. And when you find those great people, they'll show themselves and you'll understand and you'll feel it in your gut. This is the right individual for my team.

maybe an enterprise position [: 00:16:00

It's a very common to get too specific around. The experience needed when you're looking at a profile for what an ideal candidate profile is, and not specific enough around the traits needed. Think traits, things like emotional intelligence that we talked about before, resourcefulness, coachability, adaptability.

I'm encouraging our customers to be a little bit more flexible on the experience and to be a little bit more strict on the traits. Is that consistent with what you're talking about as well?

Chip Neal: No, absolutely. Look, experience is fantastic. And if you have a individual that has a lot of experience and they have the success behind that experience, because realize there, you can have a lot of experience and not have the success that doesn't make for a great addition to your team, but experience is wonderful to have, but.

about some of those traits. [: 00:17:00

All of these things make up and of course you tie all those around Unbelievably positive attitude and you can find a very exceptional salesperson in those things. So there's different traits that make up great salespeople. I think that the thing that you said that really lands with me and I think your audience needs to understand is again.

Don't just hire that individual because you feel like they fit a mold that you've heard makes a great salesperson. Make sure it's the person that meets your standards that you've gone through your processes in that will help raise the bar on your team because they bring that uniqueness to your team.

s team one day, you're going [: 00:18:00

Lucas Price: You said something several minutes ago that I want to go back to. You talked about challenging your standard . Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What's an example of where you challenged your standard and it helped elevate your team?

Chip Neal: number one I had an individual that I hired in Louisiana many years back, and I had. I had set up my standard to be three to four interviews, and this individual, I just didn't feel that they were the right candidate after the fourth interview. And it would have been very easy at that time, Lucas, to say, you know what? Yeah, he's good. I'm okay with this. Everything's fine. We've gone through four interviews. Thank goodness he hung in there with me. Let's bring them on. But something deep down just said, you know what? There's still a few questions.

to ask. There's still a few [: 00:19:00

I was going to hire him. And it was funny, he finally said, Hey, we've been doing this now for seven times, you're going to offer me the job or not. And we laughed about it. And of course I offered him the job, Lucas, that gentleman. It's probably one of the greatest salespeople I ever was associated with.

to day training that you put [: 00:20:00

But more than that, I want to thank you because through your challenges of that interview process, you helped me find out a lot more about myself to dig deeper within myself to find out what I was capable of. And because of that, I've exceeded and excelled in this role. Because you, you brought things out of me in the interview process.

And frankly, I didn't know he said there were certain times during the process. I was mad. I was angry that we were still going through this, but I recognize that you were looking for a level of excellence that I felt like I had, but I needed you to pull that out of me through the interview process and that individual was not only an exceptional.

Individual talent, he was an exceptional leader and to this day, he's an exceptional leader in the organization that he's in. And I'm just grateful and honored that I had the opportunity to be part of that.

, it can be easy to convince [: 00:21:00

How do you know whether you're convincing yourself that you're not settling or you're truly not settling?

Chip Neal: That's a really fun question. I think it is easy to take the easy way out and to settle. I think you constantly have to go back to the notes. You have to constantly go back to the interviews that you've conducted. You have to constantly look at what your team needs and the way that you can.

Make sure that you're not settling issue. You may have to, as a leader, step on to the front line and go out and help take care of that business while that opening is going, if you ever really want to challenge yourself, be running the sales team and be the super sales person, all at the same time. When you're doing that, you build the confidence to know that, we're going to be okay.

ell. You first ask, not only [: 00:22:00

It takes us a month to get them in. Secondly, you've got to look at the process, you've got to make sure that you are, you're checking all the boxes that you're double checking every expectation that you have for that position.

You will feel it within your gut that this is the right individual.

Lucas Price: I think that's some great advice. One thing I'd add to it part of my check on am I settling is this someone that I would buy from? And if the answer is no, I wouldn't want to go through a sales process with this person where I'm the buyer, then my then I think I'm probably settling here and it's a bad idea.

e in deep and you really, in [: 00:23:00

And there are a lot of people that are just trying to get a job And I don't hire people that are just trying to get a job I want people that are wanting a career and they want to build a career Because those are the people that have a commitment level that is above and beyond the individual that's just looking to get a job.

So you need to make sure in that process that you're going through, you got to make sure that this individual is completely committed to the opportunity that's before him, because it's going to be tough. And as the coach of that team, you're going to challenge him, you're going to push him, you're going to make him better.

Then they've ever been before. Are they prepared for that opportunity?

Lucas Price: As our listeners are thinking about all right, I'm building an elite sales team. I'm really focusing on the talent. What advice would you give about avoiding mistakes?

Chip Neal:

t thing that they need to do [: 00:24:00

They have not. Put their best foot forward. Maybe there is a grammatical error in the resume. Maybe it's a comment that they made during the interview process. If any little detail. Doesn't sit right with you. You need to call a timeout. You need to really check yourself on this interview and check yourself with this individual, because if they don't have the wherewithal to have attention to detail, what makes you think when it really gets tough in the middle of a battle of a tough sales process and a long sales process that they're not going to skip a step.

around a certain situation, [: 00:25:00

And those are things that, that concern me. The other thing is too, when it comes back to the foundation that you're looking for Lucas, there are certain things that just are non negotiable. Character is non negotiable. Integrity is non negotiable. Trustworthiness is non negotiable.

ack to a lot of times people [: 00:26:00

Something doesn't smell right about this whole situation, but they gloss over it. Oh, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. It's not going to be fine. It's not. Don't allow yourself to get there. It's just like in situations where unfortunately as sales leaders, sometimes we have to make tough decisions.

You'll be a lot worse off having somebody on your team. That's not getting it done. That's causing certain situations to occur that you don't even know about. The team knows. And a lot of times they won't step up and tell you I told you so boss, you should have done that six months ago.

You have to make that decision. You are a leader for a reason and leaders make tough decisions, good, bad, or indifferent.

Lucas Price: Words of wisdom, Chip, thanks for joining us today. If our listeners want to find you online, where should they find you?

'd love to help in any way I [: 00:27:00

Lucas Price: Thanks, Chip.