How to Fix B2B Sales with Scott Marker

In today’s economy, changing markets, globalization, and evolving technology are outside of business & sales leaders’ control.  

But what about the elements of their companies they can control?

When you challenge your assumptions about sales, you might be surprised to learn there’s more in your power than you think. To get there, though, you have to think outside the box and overhaul the old school B2B methods you’re used to. 

On this episode of Evolved Sales LIVE, host Jonathan Fischer sits down with Scott Marker, executive sales trainer and business consultant, to teach you how to begin reimagining the B2B sales process in order to create a sustainable pipeline that will outlast economic changes for years to come. 

Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more engaging sales insights and discussions! Happy watching!

Meet Scott:

Scott Marker has a multi-decade career as a business consultant, executive trainer, and author, who's helped hundreds of companies, ranging from startups all the way up to Fortune 500 enterprises.

In his newest book, Broken: How to Fix B2B Sales, Drive Profitable Growth, and Win, Scott details what his personal research and years of experience reveal about the true state of B2B sales today and what he believes must be done to fix it.

Check out the transcription of this webinar episode below!

Jonathan Fischer: Welcome back to the Evolved Sales Leader, powered by Overpass. I'm Jonathan Fisher. Among business leaders today, much of the conversation centers around well changing market, global place factors, artificial intelligence and other outside elements that we don't necessarily control fully. But what about what's happening on the inside of our companies?

Well, today's guests insist that when it comes to B2B sales, we are overdue for a major overhaul. Scott Marker is a multi-decade career as a business consultant, adjunct professor and executive trainer who's helped hundreds of companies ranging from startups all the way up to Fortune 50 enterprises.

He's also a successful author and his latest book is called Broken. How to Fix B2B Sales, drive Profitable Growth, and Win In our conversation today. Scott will detail for us what his personal research and years of experience reveal about the true state of B2B sales today and what he believes must be done to fix it.

Scott, it's great to have you back on the Evolved Sales Leader. Welcome. 

Scott Marker: Hey, I'm glad to be back and I appreciate the opportunity. 

Jonathan Fischer: Yeah. Why don't you help our listener who may or may not be familiar or what what does your day-to-day work look like? What do you do to serve the business community?

Scott Marker: Actually, I have 2, 2, 2 main occupations. One, I own a franchise and I run local professional referral groups. So I have three groups that are local bus successful business owners, and we get together and brainstorm on ways to help each other's businesses grow. And then also referrals.

And then my other company, which is a B2B sales and marketing consultant. Basically a agency and ba I've done that since my first book in, in 2009. I set that up and I just help companies. A lot of times when they come to me, they talk about marketing and other things, but it changes real quickly to sales and that's where for years, and I'll also I've been in sales myself right outta college and BB sales for small companies and large companies.

So that's the two things I've. Consulting companies on B2B sales and marketing. And then also a franchise that I referral groups. 

Jonathan Fischer: Well, and you do have from your own experience in selling in your book, you share that you kind of had a trajectory of growth and a set of experiences that really kind of maybe made you a bit of a contrarian.

You know, there's a, an accepted conventional way of approaching things when it comes to training, compensating and otherwise managing our B2B sales outreach and especially the way we treat our people. You've got a very different angle on that than just about any other author that I know of out there in, in this day and age.

What is that story in short form? And maybe you could begin to tell us what, like, what made you really start to think, Hey, we're just doing this whole thing the wrong way. 

Scott Marker: R really, it, it's like, like I said, in 2009 was the first company I wrote my book was the first company I worked for. The owner brought me in, they were flat, 10 year old company, flat, had two salespeople, let them go, hired me.

And first time ever, someone just said, you know, I was the director of sales and marketing. Help us out, get us going again. And that's where I really started thinking back up all my past, you know, jobs and then interviewing lots of business owners and leaders and salespeople. So, I found out that a lot of my stories that I had in my past were sometimes either, either verified, you know, that I was validated, that I was correct.

You know, how terribly a lot of companies treat their sales professionals or even worse sometimes. And so that's really where I'm one of those people that like to Look at complex problems and then try to figure out simple solutions to fix 'em. And that's a challenge sometimes.

But that's really my secret sauce, is really, hey, like sales, the BB sales is there, there's so many things that are wrong with it broken, right? That where do you start? And so that's my brains trying to figure out like, okay, let's break this down and figure out how to, you know, fix this, you know, finally, so, 

Jonathan Fischer: Well, I think it's a good, it's a good message.

There's definitely a tendency to wanna look outside or maybe look how we could make subtle evolutionary change. And especially for people in business for a long time, you learn not to make too many radical changes all at once. But there are those moments where it's time to disrupt. It's time to really take a look at the foundations.

And when it comes to B2B selling you detail several key areas where it just seems like things need. A deeper look. Need a redo. Why don't you start us off with one of the most important areas, or you've got a set in the book of five or six of those. Yep. Why don't you hit us with one of them where you think that most B2B sales leaders are needing to change the way 

Scott Marker: they do things.

Yeah. And I even have my little cheat sheet here, right? On my book. Right. And as I mentioned before, the show is any complex problem. Anytime somebody says comprehensive, you know, solution is something. It's it's going to be very challenging. Change management. I got it in the book.

I can't remember the percentage of companies are change management. They just try to do too many things at once, and it just doesn't happen. So I break down things to some of the major problems, right? So the biggest problems are, and then we'll start with one, but our training and development, and then I joke and say LA or lack of it, right?

The dreaded c r m, the data entry nightmare. The compensation debacle. Unrealistic expectations and stretch goals prospecting and the dreaded cold calling and the sky high turnover. So we can talk about the, you know, start off with like training and development or the lack of it.

Jonathan Fischer: Definitely kick it off with that. I definitely, you know, there, there's a lot of different approaches to that ranging from what one of my mentors, Chet Holmes used to call the tribal method, which is just do what you see and here being done. Right. Go here. Tom's been here for a long time, hang out with Tom, and it's not really very well structured.

All No, you, that's full fledged like learning management systems, right? And everything in between is a lot out there. But what do you think is the overall trend and how should that be fixed? 

Scott Marker: Well, the funny thing is just like you just said, is a lot of times they have formal training that they send you to, but then they send you the, to spend time with one of the most successful, you know, sales, other sales professionals that works in the company.

And a lot of times I've been there that person will say that sales training, it's nice, but don't do that. Do this. And so companies spend thousands of hundreds of thousands of dollars on sales training. That doesn't, okay here's what I, that most people don't say is, doesn't cause them to be better at their jobs.

Okay. That, I mean, that's really the end, the goal. I say to look at it, always focus on the customer. It usually sales train's all about, you know, trying to make them better at knowing all the features and benefits, right? And then better at Overhanded, overcoming obje objections, right? Where I look at it like, shouldn't it be knowing your offerings?

Benefits to the customer. And the outcomes they give your customers. Right? So shouldn't I be better at understanding our offering? We have to be able to explain it. Look, first of all, listen to the customer's problems to train you on listening to their, be able to pick up on different things they say.

And from there, be able to offer, say yes. Oh yeah. Under from what you say, here's how our offering helps customers just like you. And that's what's missing in, in, in sales training right there. 

Jonathan Fischer: So is it that they aren't covering the right things in the training or is it maybe the content is there but it's not reinforced in the real world of selling as it's happening?

In real time in that company? Or is it some combination of those two 

Scott Marker: things? And I have lots of stats in my book, but it's funny when all you gotta do is they survey managers about sales training. If they think it works and you get like 85% say they think it works, right? And yeah, sales professionals, you know, after they get done taking it, right, what do they think?

And 85% say it doesn't work. I mean that right there is a red flag, right? So it's. It's going back and looking at what again, the end result is. What your goal is to help educate prospective customers. Understand first of all, listening to them to see, you know, see if you're, you know, understand what their challenges are, to see if.

Your solutions, your offerings can help them, right? Where most sales training is not about that. It's about too much about the features. The crm how you set up an account, how you know you schedule your follow-ups and all that, you know, tactical stuff it's all about you and the selling and not enough about the customer.

So I think that's overall. What's wrong with the sales training is too much about focus on the company and even learn how you're gonna make more, you know, how am I gonna make the most about most amount of money, right? Versus how am I gonna help the most amount of customers be successful?

Yeah, I would. And reverse engineer from, and then reverse engineer. How am I gonna make our existing customers and our prospective customers? I like to say, don't say buyers. Buyers are prospective customers. Right? It makes it keep it more customer centric, right? How am I gonna help them be more educated on our offerings and then work your way backwards, right?

And that's not, that's just not the way sales train's done today. No, that's 

Jonathan Fischer: very true. It is about the features, benefits, bells, whistles and how you can make more typically. Yeah very true. Maybe a little bit on the CO, on your own company's history, but even that's often missing and very little on competitors.

And almost nothing about the buyers in terms of formal training. I think you really are hitting on something there that could be a show all its own, but you have other areas where you think B2B sellers SA sales leaders rather need to take a second look. Right. You mentioned compensation. You call it the compensation debacle.

Yep. In your book. Those are strong words. Tell us what you mean 

Scott Marker: by that. 

Here's the deal. Let's take a quick case study. Everybody, not everybody, but some people will push back on me and say, Scott, you know, oh, it's nice to say what you're saying, but sales has always been the way it's been. Well, in the last three years.

Every major study. Say buyers, over half of buyers don't wanna have a salesperson involved in their purchasing. Gartner did one 800 right up millennials, up to 72%. Don't want a salesperson involved. Why is that? Because they know that KPIs, key performance indicators have everything to do about their pocketbook and not about helping them succeed.

So compensation. The problem, the debacle is it creates present day. It create many, at many companies. I would say most creates unethical behavior. And what people don't talk about is if you have somebody, a lot of the, especially SaaS companies, a lot of 'em will have like, like a low base.

And you have to even earn your way up to your you know, your base you know, your base. You're gonna get And then anyway, and then put high stretch goals and then pressure that if you don't meet those goals, you're gonna get, be in a pip, a performance improvement a plan, right.

And maybe get fired. Right? So that's what no one talks about. It's the combination of those that creates aneth ethical behavior. And I'll give you the case study. Anybody wants to disagree with me, I go, I won't. I'll give you real short here. Wells Fargo Bank, their c e o said EV sales, everyone's a salesperson.

We are gonna make every single person in our branch a salesperson. They gave them high goals every month, right? And they would look at 'em every week. Their KPIs and everything were identical to a salesperson. Well, Anybody mi miss what happened to them? It went viral. Hundreds of thousands of fake accounts got set up.

It was just, I mean, it's just a debacle. I mean, how bad it was. And so there's a case study on what's wrong with compensation and so that's one. There's a case study and guess what? Anymore buyers know that. And that's why more and more buyers are avoiding, they always say buyers are 72% or whatever it is through their journey before they talk to a salesperson.

A lot of times it's because they have to, not because they want to, it's because they get to the point where, oh, brother, now I need to, you know, I wanna really get to the nitty gritty and I wanna, you know, get talking to somebody. And they force you to talk to a salesperson. Yeah. Yeah. And then talk about compensation.

SDRs a lot of times are compensated and what. Meetings set up meetings and demos. Right, right. Yeah. So they'll set up people. This happens all the, it's happened to me. They'll set up meetings that, because they're compensating on it. Right. That. Really aren't a good fit for the AE anyway. So there it is.

I mean, just, it just, some of this stuff is so easy that you know, again if people disagree with me, look at Wells Fargo case study and then also look at study after study showing that buyers don't wanna talk to salespeople. That should be a hint that compensation needs to be changed.

Jonathan Fischer: What is the key change in compensation that you propose Mr. Scott? Marker. 

Scott Marker: Well, I think that compensation should be the same as any other position, right? Which I'll get to my, one of my other solutions, but I think they should have a full salary like any other person in the company. I think then they need to be bonused off of only bring in the right type of customers, right?

So, get bonus points, right? Not money. Where you get into trouble is when you reward somebody for each. Every time you get a new customer, that's where we get into trouble. Right? So get away from that. You wanna reward people for bringing in only the right type of customers. So how do you know that you survey customer service after they on, while they're onboarding the customer?

Wow. Jonathan, I cannot believe that was the easiest onboarding I ever did. They truly understood what we did and how it helped solve their problems. Right. And then from there, retention, ongoing, right? And bonus off of that. And ex, I say Upserve cross serve rather than, you know, you know, to be more a customer.

But how do you make help the customer succeed? Further down the line is that the sales professional is that, you know, a customer success teams All the above. I think you need to have everybody across, everybody in the company should be bone, have bonuses, cuz there's even in a minute way their product support, right?

Or product development, they might not have. And they should have you, you know, talking to existing customers. But even positions in the company that don't have a direct interaction with the customers, right? They should all. Get some type of bonuses off of the success of their customers.

That way it gives a whole company a a customer-centric mindset that we all succeed when the customers succeed. Where it is right now it's all about, I get a big bonus check if I close this new, didn't even say customer. A lot of times they hit the gong cuz they closed a new deal. Yeah. Right.

So I, and again, people disagree with me just look at the state right now of where we're at and the buyers don't wanna talk to you. So this is a perfect opportunity for a company that wants to disrupt. Right. And a real quick on this, you can't, when you do, anytime you do a change, especially at a big company doing what I recommend, make a big change to everybody.

No. If you have 10 salespeople, take two of 'em. And partner up with one marketing person, right? And do a pilot program. And they're all rewarded on exactly what I just talked about. And then compare that to the constant turnover, the other people. And pretty soon it won't take long for the company to switch everybody over to it, but doing a pilot program to prove the concept.

And then from there then from there on social media, you brag. We don't have commissioned salespeople. Our every position, our company are compensated on your success as a customer. 

Jonathan Fischer: Yeah, I think that's an interesting challenge. So, sales leaders who are listening maybe give that a trial, right?

Take a couple of folks and pair them up. See how the results may compare to the conventional approach. So compensation is another area that you say is in need of a tuneup. How about the way that we set expectations and try to call the team to improve performance with things like goal setting and so forth.

You, you mentioned that in your book as well. Yeah. 

Scott Marker: Yeah, I think what, right now what the challenge is when you have everybody talks about alignment between like marketing and sales. You can have alignment if you're not all on the same page. Meaning that if you're not all compensated the same, right?

So, when you set the expectations, there should be. There really should be one pipeline, right. For the whole fricking company. Right. And everybody's trying to contribute to it. Some people are gonna contribute more. Yes. Right. But putting realistic expectations into my book, I talk about it. I said in my first book, just like the martial arts, right, I was heavily in the martial arts and they don't say, okay, you're gonna come in here and work your butt off for 10, 12 years to get your black belt.

No, they have, they give you belts. In between. And each belt you get stripes. It's that small gratification. You get excited, you work harder for it rather than some big stretch goal that's out here, right? When you get, when you set expectations too high, you de you demotivate people. And that's really what where we're at here at the landscape is that you get somebody that You know, really crushes it one year and you set their goals so high they're pretty much deflated because they're like, there's no way I'll ever get this year.

I mean, it's just crazy. Why not? Set, set the goals that are, yes. You gotta get, push people a little bit. I'm not one of those people that say no, you know, just hope everybody does a good job. No. Everybody needs some type of goals they go for and shoot for. We just make sure that they're realistic goals.

Right. And when you get 'em, let's celebrate 'em, but make it smaller. You know, smaller goals and shorter amounts of times, and when you meet 'em as a company and individuals succeed versus right now in sales it's just all about we all know in sales that, you know, if you meet your goals especially for the year and you blow 'em outta the water, good luck trying to meet 'em next year because they're gonna make 'em so high you'll never get 'em.

And which demotivates people rather than motivates them. 

Jonathan Fischer: Yeah, for sure. It could be very demotivating when they're constantly cha, you know, raising that bar so it can feel like it's kind of an end, you know, you're Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill for, 

Scott Marker: yeah. And then real quick on this I've been saying the same thing for like 14 years since my first book.

And it's funny because Ryan Walsh, which has rep view and he puts out has, as he would not like this, but kind of the glass doors of SaaS companies and sales interviews existing and hundreds, maybe thousands of sales professionals. And he's finding out just what I said is that That they, a lot of times, you know, they don't sky's the limit.

They say, Hey, we want you to make big bucks. I guarantee you as soon as you start, in fact it, this has happened over and over again. And then he verified and I verified, backed me up, was that if a lot of companies, there's a big, I taught at Boise State, there's a classic case for I bm. The rep goes in, closes the big deal is gonna make 2.2 million.

Sky's the limit. Good job. Slap him on the back. What did they do? I knew what they did. Every comp plan has an asterisk. They actually changed his plan after it was done and they gave him 500 grand. Right? And he sued him and lost because that's what, so companies, that's another thing to do. Demotivate you other, as soon as you starts to start to re, if you do reach one of these, Goals they put way out there and say, you can make a big bunch of bucks once you make 'em.

They're gonna, they're gonna, they'll change 'em after the fact. So anyway, that's why again, just shows that the compensation's been broken and until a company changes it, they're gonna keep getting the same thing, which is demotivated salespeople. 

Jonathan Fischer: Well, we don't want demotivated salespeople. That is absolute fact.

And it's always a challenge to keep them firing on all cylinders. No doubt about that. So talk to us about the other big problem that you have put your finger on when it comes to B2B selling, and that is just the pretty horrible turnover rates. A lot of folks inside companies don't even seem to know what the true numbers are and certainly what the real costs are.

You've done some pretty good research on that. Why don't you share with us more on that topic? 

Scott Marker: This is probably one of the biggest things in my book that's a takeaway. And I recently had another guy that Ryan Walsh actually put up something in a spreadsheet that showed, really did a b I kept a basic one in my book showing the true cost of turnover and he does a lot better job and somebody else is gonna, a Sig Sigma, some fancy mathematician is gonna work with us to show even a better idea.

But the cost of. Turnover is, I say horrendous is really what it is. And for over a decade, the average turnover, and this is the honor system, so they survey managers on what your turnover is. And I ask 'em all the time I've asked hundreds of sales managers over the years to interview 'em.

Most of 'em don't know what it is, so it's, I think they're guessing. But anyway, let's go, let's say it's right, it's 14 to 18 months, so every year and a half you're having turnover, right? And, Two things. One, do managers give a shit. I'm gonna say give a shit about people, salespeople, or people with families.

And one of the number one problems with relationships or financial. So having, going from job to job, right? That what, that, that caught terrible. But what I found out is. Talking about my concerns over the years speaking and all this stuff that most business leaders don't seem to care.

So I thought, well, let's make a business case to care. So I came up with some formulas to show the true cost. Like for a real quick one is if your company, every salesperson, you say, oh, ours is about 18 months. Right? Okay. So you take what it costs to onboard 'em, subtract that from all the revenue they bring in, right?

Right. What, that's what for that rep made now, if you could. And then no one talks about what about if it takes you six weeks or two months to hire the next salesperson and no one's producing in that territory or that, where you gotta add that money in too, right? So now what happens, you as a company, you moved your tenure rate up to 24 months, do the same drill.

How much money does the average rep bring on, right. Minus what it costs or bring 'em on all that stuff. How much now your company has an average tenure of its sales professional of 36 months, 48 months. It goes on and on, and that's where I think. Businesses need to really look. They just go, oh yeah, turnover's really expensive.

We, we need to really sit down and someone needs to like, do an analysis on a company. And I really, I say it in my book, I think you gotta be careful as a sales manager if you do what I say on that, because you might get, I mean, if you're, your CEO looks at that and says, you know, sees it for the last six years, your turnover rate, you'll probably get fired.

So I think that most, most, so, Looking at the positive side, we're talking all gloom and doom. Here's the positive side, it's this is the opportunity for a company to. To compensate their people, right? Brag about it, you know, on social media, on LinkedIn, that you're compensating, right? And you can brag about it.

Hey, Mr. Buyer, Mr. Perspective, customer, right? When you talk to a customer, their average the average, you know, experience, you're gonna be talking to someone is 18 months with us. Our average sales, professional call. I wouldn't even call it sales professional. Right? Right. Solutions experts here, right, are paid for your success.

Not commissioned for your cell, but paid on your success. Right. And the, our average person has 60 months experience. Brag about it. I mean, I'm, as a buyer I wanna talk to that company over a competitor that a equal competitor. You know, of a, as a buyer too. One of the first things I'd ask I'm talking to a salesperson.

How long have you been there? And a lot of times it's gonna be, I've been here for six months. I, if you're buying a SaaS product that you're, I'm a A a chief marketing officer and my job's on the line if I get the wrong product. Right now, things are tough in the whole SaaS industry, right?

So I buy a solution that is gonna cost the company $8,000 a month, and I pick the wrong one. I can get fired, right? I don't wanna talk to someone that's been there for six months and it's under tremendous pressure to close me at the end of the month. 

Jonathan Fischer: Well, and I do like the idea of talking to somebody who I kind of get what you're saying, the whole angle of they're not com they're not paying on commission.

And I say that as a guy who's I'm pretty into sales. Yeah. And I might even I'm not even fully sold on your thesis that we shouldn't be saying selling with commission. But I kind of get it at the same time. And I I think it, it may differ based on what you're selling and how transactional it is but having somebody really knows their stuff.

And the real dollars, I mean, I was sharing, you and I were talking before we started the program from like 15 years ago. There was a Harvard Business Review study. It was showing the average cost was 60 grand per bad hire. That's, I mean, 15 years ago, that's 15 years ago. That'd be twice that now.

Right. That's factoring in, you know, a lot, you know, salary man hours to train 'em. Lost sales. Yep. 

Scott Marker: I tell that they do a poor job. They, they do a poor they look at really some of the hard costs. They don't look at all the soft costs, which add up tremendously. So it's so much more than that.

Yeah. And again, that's why the turnover, if you don't care about people, care about your bottom line. And I'm a person that says you should care about both, right? Yeah. So it's a win-win care about your people and have a bottom line. But I'm telling you if you have turnover in your company it's impacting your bottom line.

You, again, as my dad says, some companies make money and spite of themselves, right? Yeah. You can make a lot more money doing it. What I recommend and then your thing, I have a lot of people say, well, People are, you know, again, buyers don't wanna talk to sell people that are commissioned. So you can say, well, I think, you know, we gotta keep people on commission.

You can motivate 'em in other ways. Like, like, like again, shorter term goals. Like give 'em a goal but not on one sale. Make it on the retention, right? And again, make it on most sales professionals that I know. The only reason they get all excited about closing one deal is cuz it's worth a lot of money to 'em to buy a new car or something.

Or they're gonna save their job. Right. Right. But most of them are good people and really do wanna help out people. Right? Sure. So let's get away from the thing that's gonna get in front of 'em to be possibly unethical and let's just get 'em to focus on what's best for the customer. Yeah, 

Jonathan Fischer: I think the main note, so, so you're not against compensating in a financial way?

No. It just shouldn't be a direct one-to-one per sale. Fat cat commiss. Yep. Because the upfront transaction be, there's too much incentive to maybe, Bend the truth or lie outright and it's not focused on the customer. I think I'm sold on that man. I think we need to really put a lot of focus on putting the customer first, putting our people first.

I think you've sold a listener, and I think a lot of them, a lot of our individuals listening right now would love to go further with you. You've written this fantastic book. Is that perhaps a good place for them to start if they wanna go deeper on your 

Scott Marker: ideas? Yeah, I mean, it's on Amazon. You, I mean, if you like Kindle, you know, get it for Kindle cuz it's cheaper.

But yeah, like I said, I'm just it's really it's a, It's about sales and marketing, and it's really about the whole company turning the whole company into a com, a customer-centric company. It's the, right now, everybody's, the craze is rev ops right now, right? Everything is about rev ops.

I warn in the book changing everybody's title. What are they doing when they're turning everybody in the company into salespeople, right? Yeah. Where they're so focused on revenue, they're forgetting the customer, right? Yeah. A good customer buying experience, so, I say that you can have a whole company focus on the customer, so customer ops versus rev ops.

So I would, I every time I'll, anytime I'll have, you can have a lone wolf mentality against my, I'm against the whole team. So my whole team working together, rowing together, customer service, marketing, sales, proc, all of us rowing together for the customer against a bunch of. Sales loan walls, we're gonna beat you every long-term for sure.

We'll beat you every time. Love 

Jonathan Fischer: it. Well, it, I think most of our attendees, this is probably their one of their favorite things about our show is we have live q and a. We've already got some great questions lined up in the chat, ready to address. Awesome here, Scott, in our afterglow session. For listeners who still haven't posted, go ahead and take some time to do that.

We've got a few more minutes and we'll dive right in and get you some. Ask me anything, Tony, I love questions with our our expert on hand. So Scott, let me go grab a couple here. I've got in the chat section. We'll put 'em up here and talk about 'em. So let's see here. Here's just a comment. A LinkedIn user, they didn't identify by name, but like the true cost of not caring.

It's kind of, it's partially what you're, you think that's fair? You riff on that a little bit? 

Scott Marker: Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, I'm just taking it like not caring like I. I mean, if you're not caring about the customer, you know? Yeah, no, both. There's two, I say this, there's two customers, right? You have in intern internal customers and external customers.

If you're a CEO o running a company, that's, you need to look at both of those, right? Yeah. And there's too much focus on the shareholders, right? If you have shareholders, right, there's too much focus on revenue you need to focus on, right? Having your internal customers and external customers.

And again, if you focus on those revenue or follow. So I agree with the person. 

Jonathan Fischer: So I think Andrew Ellenberg has a good follow up question to that, Scott. He's asking what business performance metric should we be looking at to be more customer focused? You touched on a couple, maybe you could flesh that out further for us.

Scott Marker: Lemme see. Let, well, I mean, can you. Can you ask him fur further elaborate on that, or, well, I think so. 

Jonathan Fischer: Like other, so if our KPIs are not attuned correctly, what would be your 

Scott Marker: idealistic KPIs? Oh yeah. I mean, like, like I said and again, I lay this out in the book, is that, that the, and again, don't, you don't have to buy my book.

Follow me on LinkedIn Scott. Marker. This is my trademark blue spin trade trick. Scott, you're too 

Jonathan Fischer: modest. Everybody go buy Scott's book. 

Scott Marker: Okay. Idea. I'll give it all away for you. You know, I'll give it all away, right? But no, really what I say the KPIs are, is everybody in the company needs to have similar KPIs, right?

That keeps us all rowing together. Right? Now they're gonna be different depending on your situation. But the KPIs need to be razor focused on. And I don't get into this very much, but bear touch but product development. They need to talk to customers, marketing, talk to customers.

Don't be in your little white, you know, your little room with all your note sticks and the what the you know, ideal cus exact ideal customer looks like. You know how you can figure that out, get on call, not, and I love the recordings of calls, right? Re revenue intelligence, right. Calls and record him.

I love that. Right? But nothing's better than talking to a prospective customer or being in the meeting and having to. Answer questions for an existing customer, right? Will help you and as a whole company by being focused, listening more to the customers and what they want, and then what, when they succeed as they grow.

The, you get the company, everybody gets bonused off of that. And I'm really a big believer in. Not everybody gets bonuses in the company. Everybody. If the company's successful, there has to be a way to give every single, because I don't care what it is. There's, you're, whatever position you have in the company you're real quick.

I president, it was an embellished story, but the President Kennedy said he took a wrong term in nasa and he ran into a janitor and he asked the janitor, what do you do here in nasa? And then NASA said, I'm here to put a man on the moon. Now it's a woman on the moon. Right. But a man on the moon.

Right. Yeah. I love that. I love that. In a company, every position, your job is to make happy customers be successful. And if you get that culture, you're gonna, and so all the KPIs are all about how do we. Develop products and services and deliver 'em to make our customers more success, more successful and happier.

And make your KPIs on that and work your way back. Versus a lot of 'em right now are all about closing. Closing clo, nothing. They're really nothing to do with the customer success. Right, right. Especially long term. Especially long term. 

Jonathan Fischer: That's a really strong message. I think Ken Jenice brings in a good question here.

He's like, isn't it a fact though, since the company's taking really all the risk? That's the thing about commission, right? You're kind of sharing some of the risk with the sales professional, which allows the company to be in a position to give out more of their profit share. So in this scenario, isn't that gonna have sort of a downward just the economics of it, a downward pressure on overall pay?

What would you say to that? 

Scott Marker: Say it again. So like, can, 

Jonathan Fischer: so it, since the company's taken all the risk and the sales transaction, overall pay will have to go down, won't it? 

Scott Marker: Oh, I mean, it depends. I mean, I mean, if, like salespeople for example, they always brag that they're gonna be multimillionaires or that they, and guess what?

Once they get there, like I said before, case after case they change it, right? So, I think that overall again, if you stay in the same job for 10, 20 years, right? Even 10 years, even five years versus every year and a half, right, you're gonna make more money cuz of the, all the breaks and stuff like that.

And when you're talking about the company's taking all the risk and stuff like that well, I. Yeah. Guess what? I think they should take some of the risk, right? And again the main thing is the way, looking at it from the customer, the way it is right now, where they pay salespeople sometimes a hundred percent commission or almost no.

So they're taking all the risk, not the company, which I think is totally unethical, right? But again, if we don't care about the salesperson, it's all about the company. Buyers are telling the companies we're done with you the way you have your commission plans right now. We're done. What? The younger we get, the more we don't wanna talk to your salespeople cuz you're creating people that don't care about us.

Jonathan Fischer: Yeah. Yeah. I like it. So this is sort of a long one from Jay, Michael Martinez, but I think I can summarize it for us. He's wondering, do you have other, so if we want customer champions rather than salespeople, I, that's good language by the way, Michael. Yeah. I think you've sold us on that thesis Scott, for sure.

And it seems like Michael is asking for other creative ways that a customer champion can do their work and help get the perspective buyer excited about the solution 

Scott Marker: you're bringing to market. I'm not sure where he is going with that, but Yeah. Have a lot of ways, huh? Like he says, like for 

Jonathan Fischer: example, you know, using more video, giving free onsite visits, some, something, other suggestions like this that could.

Scott Marker: Yeah, I mean, gu customer champions, there's a lot of things you can do. If I'm understanding right about the videos and stuff like that, is I I think that sales professionals, right, they need to more and more If you're supposed to be experts at what you do, right? Not just salespeople, right?

What you do, you really need to make brag about stuff like that. So get active on LinkedIn, get in groups, get in your customer groups, learn what they do a lot. And then maybe you know, do. Do interviews with some of your customers, right? Get on there and some of your existing customers you know, do some interviews as yourself to show yourself as not a salesperson, right?

As basically like, I love you, like customer champion, right? So how? You brought on a customer, bring on one of your good, your good customers, right? And then, you know, a year later they're saying, you know, you know, Hey, Michael, man, you brought you, you've totally changed our company.

On and on. Hey, would you mind having a quick video and record that, you know just as a testimonial? Sure. Five minutes I'll give you. Right. And then interview them and have them tell. What, how, and then be ready to coach. I'm like, well, what about this too? Oh yeah, you guys did a great job on that.

And yeah, and then put that out on LinkedIn and other places. So, I mean, I'm a, but the challenge is by doing it that direction, you have to be careful always. Cuz if your company's in the tradition, in traditional traditional sales, right? Where it's all about pounding the phone, you have to be careful doing it, being more consultative because you're gonna be in, they're, it's so short term goals.

A lot of the companies are. They're not gonna give you a runway to do that, so they need to give you a little more of a runway. So it needs to be a balance is what I think is that they need to be more realistic on the expectations. To give you a little more time and maybe carve out, specifically carve out and some companies doing this right now, specifically, carve out a little bit of time during the week that you can get on social media and show your expertise.

Jonathan Fischer: Nice. I like that Jared Miller is asking, we say it is actually adding more, like, isn't it funny how companies don't focus on the customer's bottom line rather than their own? I'm sure certain you'll resonate with that. And do you have more suggestions as far as how we could maybe apply that to the discovery phase?

You know, do you have, because that could be awkward if it's not done the right way. What have you seen in your training and work with sales teams that can help you learn more what your customers goals are, prospects, goals, rather, before they become customers? 

Scott Marker: Well, two things. One, I have a saying, turn every product into a service.

Every service into a solution, every solution into a customer success story, right? And what I mean by that is, is when you get into a talking to a prospective customer, sometimes they don't even know their own problems, right? So if they're in a vertical market, you can come into them and say, Hey, we've helped out similar companies like you before, and the challenges we help them overcome is this, and here's, and they said they had a 40% increase in act, right?

Do you have those type of problems? And a lot of times, It's not always be, if you kind of. Give them kind of a hint of some stuff. You help companies like them, they'll say, holy smokes, how do you know us so well? Right? And then, yes, I'm a big believer in if you can, it's tough, but a lot of companies will say, oh, you've saved us tons of money.

Even if it's a ballpark, say, Hey, can you give us, you say a lot of money. What do you mean by that? Well, you saved us 40%. Really? What? Wait, what does that mean? Well, Isaac, could you come if you were to give a low estimate per month, Impact financially? What would you say? I mean, low, gimme a low estimate.

I, $8,000 a month. Perfect. Hey, do you, would you mind if I ever, you know, another customer like you came along, would you say we've had some people that have, had, have had, you know, up to $8,000. Oh sure. Right. Yeah. So I'm all about, cuz too many people say, oh, we help cut. You have to be specific on the outcomes.

And a lot of times it's dollar signs. So Yes. I mean that, yeah, that, that's always try to like, Customers, you have to again, say low, make it easy on, low figure. But at least that's nice to say. Eight grand say, hey, they say low figure is eight grand. They said it could be more.

But yeah, always. 

Jonathan Fischer: Well, I like that too, because now you've also resold that customer and they're even that much more excited that they're part of your part of your crew. So I love that. Well, Scott, the conversation's been full of value. You've had a ton, you dropped a ton of truth bombs, I think, on our audience today.

So thanks so much for. Coming back on the show and hey, it's an open invitation for you to come back yet again in the near future. 

Scott Marker: Hey I really thank you guys for you know, bringing me on for the opportunity. And as you can tell, I'm very passionate about this and I really, I'm for sales professionals and their families.

I really hope a few companies want a huge competitive edge to crush their competitors and follow some of my advice. 

Jonathan Fischer: Love it and Scott won't say it, but I will go buy his book. It's really good stuff. Hey, thanks Jonathan. Well, that, that's gonna wrap it up for this session. And by the way, if you our sponsor as always is overpass.com.

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Including the previous appearance of Scott Marker and other fantastic guests, and feel extra value into your workout or drive time. Well, it is gonna do it for today's episode. Thanks again, everybody, for being here, both live and listening after the fact. It's a privilege to be your host. I'll see you right here.

Same time, same station the next time. Take care everybody.