The Importance of Accountability in Building High-Performing Sales Teams

Lucas Price: [: 00:00:00

Brian has been a sales leader for over seven years, leading SMB, mid market and enterprise sales teams and customer success. Martech and cyber security spaces. Brian, what else should our listeners know about you?

Brian W: Oh, there's so much. I'll start by saying I am a father of two, two, two beautiful children, a two and a four year old. And then, yeah, most recently I was actually part of a pretty large scaling effort, actually took over and scaled a team up to about 50 AEs and had five regional directors reporting to me.

So obviously a lot of that will come into play in our conversation today around how I kept those principles intact, but happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

ll us, Brian, when you think [: 00:01:00

Brian W: Yeah, I think first and foremost, it's going to start and end with the people. You cannot build a strong team. You can't scale it. You surely can't implement change and process, et cetera, if you don't have the right people. And so for me as a leader, I think something that I've just always believed in outside of just sales as a whole is.

You need to invest in your people, need to treat them like people and support them. And so throughout my career cause surely there's no manual for how to be a good leader. You learn by doing and by watching the people around you. I always try to look at it from the other side when I was, an individual contributor or how I've been managed in the past.

ership role, it started with,[: 00:02:00

And I think I've tried to build on that throughout my leadership career.

Lucas Price: When I think of people, I think of kind of two parts of it is how do I get the right people on my team? And then how do I enable them to succeed? And so let's talk about both of those. But the first part. Is making sure you have the right people on your team. What are some of the things that you think about in terms of making sure that you get the right people on your team?

Brian W: Yeah, I think from the very beginning, as a leader, especially if you're hiring one or a hundred and understanding of what good looks like, what are you looking for? I think there's so many experience I've had and also just heard from other people in our space and other leaders where, I'm moving so fast.

We're just hiring like crazy. And what ends up happening is you spend a ton of time bringing people on. It's a huge investment. And ultimately they don't work out for a variety of different reasons. For me, I think that there's a very baseline understanding of, this is the job description and getting a full understanding of what that looks like and what it entails and what's important to you as a leader.

Are we a heavily [: 00:03:00

I think it's about if there's a pre existing team. For me, when I've come into organizations. Understanding what they've done that works, what doesn't taking the best of the best. So if there's an embedded sales team, surely you don't need to come in and reinvent the wheel, but you need to understand what's working and how can you replicate that?

Obviously, that helps you from a scaling perspective. so I think it starts with understanding how and what you're looking for. And I think across the board, it comes down to communication, working with your recruiting team, making sure that you've articulated those pieces clearly to them so that you're not spinning your wheels on bringing people in that don't fit that criteria.

you're selling to, the type [: 00:04:00

Lucas Price: I love that. I think that a lot of times the reality is that most of the job descriptions out there are too generic to really understand exactly what you need in a candidate. And one of the ways that I like to try to help bring clarity to that process is to think about what are the goals of this role and how are they going to accomplish those goals and get that written down for the people that are part of the hiring team so that like a little thought experiment, like a year from now, two years from now, what would make me say this was a successful hire or conversely, what would make me say that it was not a successful hire?

And so to go deeper, get more specific than the job description so that, which I think is, speaks to what you're talking about in terms of getting a lot clearer on what you're actually looking for.

r question, which is, what's [: 00:05:00

So there's can theoretically be an evolution of what the role entails. So I think pieces for me, because in my career, I've been many opportunities where I've been really working with, 10 years vets seasoned, they just need someone to help remove obstacles and guide. I've typically worked with.

Earlier career sellers that, have the right personality traits, but need that guidance and support. And so for me it's intellectual curiosity. You need to have someone that has a thirst for knowledge. They're always trying to learn. You don't need to be an expert, but you need someone that's going to come in, especially, and you can usually tell us in the first 30 days who those people are.

But. I need to learn. I want to absorb as much as possible because I want to be able to explain and be an expert in this field. Proactivity is really important. If someone's coming to you and just constantly asking you, tell me the answer. I want someone that's going to go look and find and turn over some stones before they come to me.

[: 00:06:00

That's It's a lot of work recruiting, hiring, interviewing, and then not that, but just the investment in onboarding and getting them up to speed.

Lucas Price: Tell me if I have this right. Intellectual curiosity. Pro proactive coach ability. Those are three that you're looking for in basically every sales role. Those are going to be three traits that you're looking for. Do I have that right?

Brian W: I, yeah, I believe so.

evaluate whether a candidate [: 00:07:00

Brian W: So that's the tougher question, right? And I think that there's a couple of different ways to approach it. I think where I've been fortunate where I've worked in organizations where creating a career path and career pathing is been a big priority for the organization. So I think in that type of instance.

You can actually evaluate those pieces while they're in SDR as an example and understand, how they're, taking on those pieces. But I think going back to what I said around some of the criteria, I think the more objective you can create a more objective process you can create around identifying those pieces.

We've had a rubric in one of my prior organizations where talk to me about something new you've taught yourself in the last 30 days. We need to get real life examples. I think that. Of course, interviewing an external person for a role, people are really well trained on how to interview at this date in this day and age as a wealth material.

et's bring someone in that's [: 00:08:00

And I think when it may be too late once you brought them into the organization, but those pieces I spoke about come through very clearly as you begin to interact with them, either as a front or second line manager, and you see how they operate in those first 30 days. Cause that's really where you can get your gut check on if this is a good hire or not.

Lucas Price: Good reminder when you're building your organization and you think like, all right. We're trying to find top performers, we're trying to find consistent performers and a certain percentage of them are going to come, be developed internally.

And and you always should keep in mind, Hey, I don't have to find everyone if we have the right development program, if we're building the right kind of bench.

ding processes around how an [: 00:09:00

So they get a sense of what the role looks like. And then you're filling in the gaps. Once they get promoted, if they've demonstrate those capabilities versus. iNterview as best you can. And then there's somewhat of an unknown quantity when they come in the door. So to your point, yes, you want to have a balance of both.

I think always, because at the same time, external experience in that perspective, when you think about the overarching team is invaluable to the growth of the organization, to the team itself, how it operates. Being in another sales org and understanding what's worked there can surely help impact it.

But, strictly from a hiring perspective, I think if you're looking for probability of success, I would say if you've got the right framework around it, my preference would be towards internal promotion and growing from there.

Lucas Price: Can you try to give our listeners really tactical, practical advice about how to think about that in terms of when is someone eligible for promotion? How do you consider, if you have a couple of people eligible for promotion and one role, how do you decide which one to promote into that?

What's some of the practical advice that you'd give?

ng, having as much objective [: 00:10:00

You want to be able to promote the best person or individual depending on the type of business you're in. I think the key metrics that are typically important, you talk about, overall work ethic and how you define that is that just number of meetings booked opportunities created the quality of the meetings.

I would surely be speaking with their frontline manager, or if, if you run that team or someone else, understanding. Organization skills, time management, going back to actually some of the things we just spoke about a few minutes ago, that JD or that objective criteria you're going to be communicating with your recruiting team should be a real guiding light for you in building those pieces out.

rt in certain areas. I think [: 00:11:00

I think that's always a telling factor when you have someone that's reaching out to you before they're even eligible or reaching out to other AEs, tell me what worked for you and getting that feedback from them. I think you have to do your due diligence around those areas. And then I think the second part, it's clearly communicating what those expectations are.

This has to be objective. You can't be wishy washy around it because what ultimately will end up happening in your example if you don't have a very clear and concise criteria and timeline around what that looks like, you actually run the risk of really alienating one of the employees that could be potentially eligible.

And then not only are they not getting promoted, but it actually may impact their work overall. It's not always that black and white and that easy. But I think the more upfront work you do around those key pieces and building out a really strong piece there and process and some of that takes your question, I think tenure and time and seed is really important.

promote your top performing [: 00:12:00

And if you're looking for a promotion, which of your salespeople are actually a fit for management . If we take that same analogy. do We automatically promote our top performing SDR into the open AE position or what are the things that would make us say, Hey, no, actually this, our third best performing SDR is most fitted to be an account executive rather than our best performing SDR,

Brian W: obviously there's going to be some nuances that are specific to the business itself. If outbound as an example, and you're not getting a lot of inbound, you don't have a lot of top of funnel inbound coming in the door.

You need someone that's adept on the phone, has had a ton of success there, then maybe in that circumstance, you are waiting performance there because it directly translates into the responsibilities of the role. But it goes back to, again, what type of AE are you looking for? Are you looking for, are you in a more technical sale that's going to require a higher level of aptitude and less prospecting?

Lucas Price: Performance is heavily weighted. It sounds like.

Brian W: I [: 00:13:00

I've surely been pushed into scenarios like that in the past where you have, you almost have to hire the top performer because what, how does that look? But I think that's where, as a leader, you have to sometimes stick to your guns and why doing that background work beforehand is really important to justify why that's the case and then having those conversations with them individually afterwards.

Lucas Price: when thinking about, promoting from within building a program, we're going to promote from within. And we're going to build top performers that way. What are mistakes that people should watch out for to avoid?

Brian W: I touched on at the beginning, surely just not really having any framework or process around it. I think if you're just flying by the seat of your pants, then you're not going to really be able to do that.

Lucas Price: So is part of that framework and process that even if it's going to be an internal hire, you're still going to put people through an interview process

: If we're using the example [: 00:14:00

You're not inquisitive and trying to understand what's important. You haven't done your research and preparation. That doesn't, that's not a great look for someone that's looking to be promoted either. So to your, to go back to what you asked before, I think that performance. In that situation can make or break you.

So I think that nothing's guaranteed by any way, shape or form. It starts with that. And yeah, I do think, I think it's just as much the experience for the individual interviewing as it is for me trying to find the person. If you're going to build that culture. And create that environment where if you come to work and you put your best foot forward and you're engaged and involved and you're doing what's asked of you, then I think you have it.

to the table. I think that's [: 00:15:00

And I think on the other side of that, regardless of how those interviews go, taking the time to then sit down with each of those individuals that interviewed with you and give them actual feedback, especially when you're early in your career. You need to be able to give that guidance and move that along so that when an actual next opportunity does arise.

They're ready for it and they can jump at it.

Lucas Price: I totally agree. I'll say this is a mistake that I've made in the past before where I was like, okay, I have this role. I know who I want to fill it. They're on the current team. I'm just going to put them in it. And I think I'm grateful that I had other people that came up to me and said, Hey, Lucas, you did this wrong.

It was unfair to us that I didn't know that this position was open. I didn't get to have an opportunity to apply for it, to interview for it. And so I learned that lesson the hard way, and I'm grateful that I had people on the team that were able to point out to me that I made that mistake.

We've been [: 00:16:00

Can you tell us a little bit about what some of your guiding principles are for how to do that there?

Brian W: You just gave that example. I think is an important one. Everyone has a voice. You're fortunate where you can be in a place where people on the team feel comfortable coming to you and saying, hey, this didn't work and this is why, and be able to share that feedback.

I think for one, it starts with just creating that open, inclusive environment where people feel like they can contribute and share their thoughts and their viewpoint. Some of the best ideas that I've executed on have come from feedback from the team and not partially because we give them the venue to do it and the opportunity to share.

But also because I asked, I think a lot of times it's lost on leaders come in and just sit in their throne and say, Hey, this is what we're going to do. But, it means a lot actually to just ask the question. You don't have to do it, but just to ask. So people feel like their thoughts and their viewpoints value.

t's really important is, for [: 00:17:00

If I'm clear and concise and transparent about what we're doing, why we're doing it and how we're doing it, and I'm clear about those expectations, then as a leader, I need to be able to hold you accountable to that. And that's accountable to the effort side to, Hey, this, I heard you do this on the call.

I would have done this differently. This is what we've talked about in the past. And then I think transparency around decisions that are made, why we're making them. I'm doing it this way. This is how I'm asking of you. It all comes back to, in some way, shape or form, some variation of communication and how we operate in that overall framework.

When the team feels comfortable and supported and you're invested in them. It's a lot easier for you to be honest and open and ask for that support by because of that, if you're more comfortable sharing thoughts and viewpoints with you and you've created that environment there and then around all of those thoughts and whatever we're executing on being accountable to the good and the bad.

let's prop people up, let's [: 00:18:00

So we all get better as a team and the team feeling comfortable and supportive where they can do that and operate in that way.

Lucas Price: A lot of leaders. Are either naturally more comfortable with the, let's call it the EQ side, the relating to people, the building strong relationships or the accountability side. If you're better at one as a leader, you probably have to get better at the one that's less natural to you.

tell me more about the accountability in terms of what are the things that you do to hold people accountable in this environment?

Like just by test, they know [: 00:19:00

I think for me, it took a long time to find that balance of, frankly, seeking to understand, it's about, Hey, I've set, as long as you're comfortable that you've set those clear expectations. I think for me, what was a little tougher and what I had to grow into is. How do you ensure that the individual understands and is going to make that change from there forward around that sort of accountable to whatever x item they're supposed to be doing or should be doing?

But doing it in such a way where you're not really coming down on them, but you're coming in with an, I'm trying to understand like why, Hey, you were aware you were supposed to do this, but you made a conscious decision not to what's going on with you. What's challenging right now? Is there an obstacle I need to remove?

So I think trying to come in with the mindset of not that they did something wrong because they. Didn't do the thing they were supposed to do, but a, what can I do to help you? And more importantly, is there something that's standing in your way? That's inhibiting you from meeting those expectations?

Because I think more often [: 00:20:00

And I think there might be something that's bothering them outside of work that was an issue there, or we need to take a more personal approach with that person. But I think that's been where I've grown as a leader and how I've tried to improve those pieces. And I think at the same time to publicly holding everyone at the same level, I think that you hear a lot about my top performer that they're a lone wolf, they can do whatever they want.

Maybe that's a conversation behind the scenes and my interaction with that individual is different, but from a team perspective, regardless of the size. I want to hold everyone accountable to the same expectations because it just becomes too complicated. If you're doing it differently for everyone, you got to keep track of all that.

But consistency and that level of being even keel as a leader, I think plays really well with the team overall.

what happens to the culture [: 00:21:00

accountable.

Brian W: When you're a very early lead, like even my early days, you're their friend, which, you're, I think from an EQ perspective your instinct is to like, let me be their best friend and then they'll work for me and they'll do more for me, but there's like that line there.

So I think when you don't hold people at that level, I think everyone has a different view and an expectation of what a success looks like and what they should and shouldn't be doing. And I think that spreads you thinner as a leader. I think when you, depending on the levels of leadership in between you and the team, whether frontline, second, third, et cetera.

It's that consistency, especially when you're scaling that allows for success and creates that framework. And I think you can't have almost I hate using, but like a dissension in the ranks. I think when you have that, it actually builds bad blood and there can be more resentment from a team perspective and maybe towards you or that individual.

of the team, that supportive [: 00:22:00

I think we can all learn Hey, we can still win without it, but this is why it's important. I think it goes back to the why behind a lot of it as well.

Lucas Price: That's a I think a key point to remember is that. Like the greater damage is maybe not even to the person that you don't hold accountable. It's to everyone else seeing that, and everyone else will see that you, you didn't hold this person accountable. There's going to be various reactions to that.

Some of it is going to be, he didn't hold that person accountable. He's not going to hold me accountable. And other people are going to say Hey, I signed up to work here in a high performance culture. And our leadership isn't holding people accountable, and it's going to be a hit to their morale.

, [: 00:23:00

Just like anything, leading teams and managing teams and building these environments, especially when you're, in a leadership position, you're balancing both sides of it, you're getting pressure and you have to report up around where you're at as a team and you have to drive that performance, but can't really drive the performance. With the team that feels beaten down and not abused, but you're coming down and really hard. It's important to note that like you have to run the race and you run the race because you've done the training.

You've worked really hard to prepare for that race and you need to let it play out and it's towards the end of it and you get to the end of the fiscal year or, the end of your quarter, potentially where you're going to push a little harder, I think goes back to that EQ is you have to know your team.

You can't know your team, though, if you don't know the people that make up the team. If you don't have the framework around that team to set those values and culture, then you're just like walking around in the dark as a leader because you don't really know what buttons to push to have success.

as Price: Thanks for sharing [: 00:24:00

Any mistakes that our listeners should watch out for.

Brian W: I don't think I've ever regretted caring too much for my team or the people that are there. I think I'll start with that. Look, sales is a tough job. There's a tons of highs and lows. It's a roller coaster ride. And then you factor in just the current climate we're in and the environment that we're selling in.

It is tough sledding out there regardless of how good your product is. So investing in your people, knowing that getting to know them, taking the time to understand what drives them that I have very few regrets in doing that in my career where I think people can make mistakes. And again, this is just my personal opinion.

e doing and really just push [: 00:25:00

Entering into an organization and let the organization dictate how my team should be run and not allowing myself and my personality and the type of person I am to come through and put my fingerprints on the team. I think I learned that the hard way. I think you've got to be who you are. And going back to your question from a little bit ago look, if you're not an EQ guy and you're an accountability guy and you got it or girl you got to live that way and you've got to learn, but you've got to hone that other side and build that other muscle.

Be true to yourself. That authenticity really comes through when you're leading. I think it's really easy to see through that if you're not authentic. And so just being who you are, living, what's important to you and your values and trying to apply that to the team are always going to work out.

You stray away from that. You get caught up in the sort of all of the intensity of an organizational culture and from, top down, I think that's where you can lose yourself and frankly lose the team at the same time.

an. Thanks for being with us [: 00:26:00

Brian W: Where can you find me online? Check me out on LinkedIn. Brian Wiener.

Lucas Price: All right. Thanks for being with us today.