Being a top sales performer is a goal for all salespeople, regardless of their role or title. To improve sales results, having a sales team stacked with top performers is something all companies should work to achieve.
On the surface, it may seem like being a top sales performer solely revolves around bringing in the most revenue for the company – but is that really the case?
Who better to help us define what makes a top performer than sales training expert, Amy Hrehovcik.
On this episode of Evolved Sales Live, host Jonathan Fischer sits down with Amy, Launch Team Captain for The Sales Training Academy Selling School and host of Revenue Real podcast, to discuss the true attributes of a top sales performer and how all sales people can achieve the widely sought after status.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more engaging sales insights and discussions! Happy watching!
Meet Amy Hrehovcik:
With over a decade and a half of experience as a top performing sales executive, Amy has worked for notable companies such as ADP and Thomson Reuters. She’s the Launch Team Captain for the Sales Training Company Selling School where she teaches, trains, and coaches sales leaders across the world.
Check out the transcription of this webinar episode below!
Jonathan Fischer 0:04
It's time once again for evolved sales life. Welcome back. I'm Jonathan Fisher. When trying to improve sales results, much of the conversation revolves around marketing, the sales process your core skills and for good reason. But even if you have the very best sales engine on the planet, it can be argued that if you don't have top performers on your team, you'll still fall short. So what is a top performer? Well, our guest today is an expert in the subject, Amy Hrehovcik brings a decade and a half of experience as a top performing sales executive. For such notable companies as ADP, and Thomson Reuters and others. Today, she's the launch team captain for the sales training company selling school. And she's personally known as a sales enablement, pioneer, podcast host, corporate trainer and a highly regarded thought leader, and we're excited to have her with us on the show today. Amy, welcome.
Amy Hrehovcik 0:54
Thank you, Jonathan. It is a pleasure to be here.
Jonathan Fischer 0:58
Awesome, awesome. Well, we've already had some conversations, you and I, and I love the way you put things, you bring a lot of value to every conversation. Before we get into the topic for the day, which is what is a top performer give us a sentence or two on what keeps you busy every day?
Amy Hrehovcik 1:13
Well, we are in the process of a cohort right now with selling schools. So I am I'm getting my hands dirty and listening to calls, I'm coaching reps, I'm facilitating group coaching. And I'm designing training programs around like, how to make sure that you are understanding the buyer. So really, really testing my own capacity on, you know, both how many students I can help at any given time, and how creative I can get with new types of content.
Jonathan Fischer 1:43
Good to hear good to hear. Well, and just a side note, we'll edit out for the podcast episode later. But my producer is telling me that you are all good on volume. So we are five by five and ready to rumble. Awesome. So in a quick reminder, since I'm off on a sidebar to our audience, hey, we're here live. Don't forget, we want to have some q&a with you live while we're together. So go ahead and start sending those questions via the chat. When we get to the bottom of this half hour. We're going to open it up, get some q&a, get some Ask Me Anything time with our resident expert, Amy at the end of the show. So Amy, let me start off by asking you this question. What is the typical idea of a top performer out there as you see it? And you know, what's, where's that missed the mark? What's wrong with that notion?
Amy Hrehovcik 2:28
Yeah, okay. So it's a great question. I actually, I was thinking about how you ended up phrasing like the the subject for today. And, and I don't know, if it's like, what is the top performer? Or here's maybe an adjacent framework? What's the difference between quota attainment and win rate? And specifically, like, what is the average win rate right now for tech sales? And that number is like, it's, it's pretty bad. It's like 17%. And so when you think about that, like, okay, what are we We're actually so even if somebody is hitting their quota, chances are, you know, they're still winning way more, or way less times than then they're losing. And so that was that was kind of the gist, I think of the original conversation and how I think about, I think, the room for improvement that we have on on, you know, how we're defining top performance, and also how we're measuring it.
Jonathan Fischer 3:23
Well, there's there's a lot of conversation about what the key performance indicators really are. And I think for good reason, I think that there's there's a growing realization that maybe we've been measuring the wrong things, if there's not a real correlation to the end result we're aiming for is just a number. Right? So let's talk more about that. Where are people may be measuring the wrong thing. So you already posed one question, what are some other matrices that maybe need to be restructured or rethought?
Amy Hrehovcik 3:49
I mean, I think the big one is, and this is certainly not new, but I like activity versus results. And so there's there's just an over reliance on like that top line activity and very little correlation to the results that we're getting. And more specifically, I think, how to teaching reps, how to make smart decisions with the tactics that they're applying. And I think specifically of like the 8020 rule, right. So I think early on, especially making sure that our people know that the 20% activities that they're doing that are yielding 80% of the results. And so, again, it's an over reliance on on top line activity, and not enough incorporation of win rate. Specifically, should we fill up the pipeline? Or maybe should we focus on increasing our win rate by five or 10 points? What would the impact on on revenue be if if that was maybe a core a core proxy instead?
Jonathan Fischer 4:48
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So are there so the way that I was setting this up at the front of the of the show today? I think it's Billy. I have the belief that there certainly are some some maybe personality traits that are better suited, maybe some qualities that could even be, you could actually grow in people can definitely evolve and change that would make them a better top performer, versus maybe not getting the kind of results we're looking for. So what let's let's maybe do a comparison contrast. And by the way, do you agree with my thesis? Maybe maybe this is a bit of a debate here today. So what do you think about that? Is it could you pull plug anybody into a good system? If you have the right approach? Or does it really come down to a combination of the two?
Amy Hrehovcik 5:27
Yeah, it's a great question. I tend to shy away from personality as defined by like extrovert versus introvert, or like this person could sell ice to an Eskimo like that kind of outgoing. It's less about that, however, personally, like one of my favorite things to suss out during interview conversations, or even during coaching conversations for selling school, is how is this person coachable? And how much effort are they applying to learn? And if I have somebody that's willing to put in the work, to learn something new, to go through those four phases of learning the second or so it's I like the competency quadrant, right? unconscious incompetence, this is like ignorance is bliss, and it is a it is a beautiful place to be. Second one is is conscious incompetence. And it's hard to be operated in, in conscious incompetence. But I think that this, this, this character trait of, of willingness to work hard on learning, is, is so crucial, especially because like buying it buyers are always changing, buying is always changing, there's always going to be new things to learn. And we have to, you know, work very hard to, you know, limit our ego. And I know that the I know, that Gremlin. And with that I'm going to pause what what do you think Jonathan?
Jonathan Fischer 6:51
Well, I mean, I definitely think that some of the the notions of personality and how those correlate to sales are a little bit a little bit old school, right?
Amy Hrehovcik 6:58
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I was saying we have someone that said hello from Jamaica. So I said, Hi, Abigail.
Jonathan Fischer 7:03
Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, we'll get we'll get to that to the end. We'll say that to the conversation here first, and we'll do our best to they're coming in, we can see them live as they're coming in, which is exciting. But we'll definitely get to everybody here after we've had a little bit of content first. So yeah, so extrovert versus introvert. Gosh, I've known some really great top performers, who you definitely would not classify as an extrovert. They're much more the workman type of personality, you know, he or she just takes it on, they want a very well mapped out plan, a process to follow. And they get great results by just bringing a great work ethic and a great attitude. So I think I'm on board with that. And it's interesting, because you brought up something about trainability, or somebody who's willing to embrace the need to continue to grow, continue to train continue maintain a flexibility in their personal development. I guess that's not necessarily a personality thing. Is it? Maybe that's more of a personal choice? Maybe that's kind of, you know, what is the attitude and aptitude of somebody for learning? There's some ways you can measure that when you're building
Amy Hrehovcik 8:03
a character trait. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, hell, one of my favorite metrics, while seals enabling is the learning indicator, right. And so this is, there's a certain I've read the whole, like learning model, or whatever. But this is maybe a little bit off topic. But there are certainly ways to suss out the effort that someone is applying, and I would consider it maybe a character trait and less of a personality trait. But also like, and I want to touch back on something that you said, though, about process, right sales process. So I think part of focusing on when, right, right when you start to get into winrate, right, when i is that we're not, we've done ourselves a great disservice by trying to pigeonhole a 100% of our buyers into a linear sales process that serves the company, right, the value that the sales process delivers his internal it gives them predictability around revenue, which is important, right? That is a critical thing to know. However, the reality is, that's not how buyers buy, right? I can't was it a gardener that had the buyer like it was escape spaghetti map or something or whatever it was all over the place, there's different stages. And like so not only is, you know, us trying to push them through our linear process, self serving, therefore salesy and not as effective as it could be? It's also it doesn't honor that each buyer like, I hate to say it as a special snowflake. You know, we can talk to 20 different buyers in the same industry in the same geography in the same damn role. And they're each going to bring it a different nuance to whatever business problem it is that they're trying to solve, and how they go about doing it and who they choose to do it with, especially given how many people are on the buying team these days. And so part of I think, making this transition away from but not away from But like almost redefining what is the top performer? Where what is the value of winrate? In our like success metric, you know, repertoire? And also, what function does the sales process really serve today? And who says it can't be better? These are the types of questions that we need to be asking.
Jonathan Fischer 10:18
Well, so let's start to unpack some of that things. So when it comes to process, what are some of the keys to getting a higher winrate? If we're going to take a look at that, it seems like you've got some some core principles that can be applied. Let's talk about those.
Amy Hrehovcik 10:30
So I'm pulling now directly from the Andy Paul's latest book sell without selling out, and it is it's a game changer. And in that he breaks he's differentiates between the concept of persuasion versus influence, right. And most of us are like in sales fillers, or we're teaching our sellers how to persuade, which is an action that is universally despised by everyone. No one likes to be persuaded. No one likes to feel like they're being persuaded, and yet we persist. But anyway, this is a different thing than influence. And influence is obviously where, where, where the gold lives. Now, how does one pursue mastery around influence? Well, we take it, we teach it based on these four pillars again, and these are Andes. The first pillar is connection, right? How well are we able to connect with the person the human being that we're sitting across from, and they all build on each other? Number two, curiosity, number three, understanding number four, generosity. Now, good luck getting to a point where you're able to understand the most important thing to the buyer, when you haven't mastered curiosity, right, not just being curious and staying curious, leaving your agenda at the door, making no assumptions, challenging your own judgments like and your desired outcomes. Like you have to be able to let go of those things to truly apply curiosity in the places that matter to the buyer. And very rarely are those places the same that you no matter to the traditional sales boss?
Jonathan Fischer 12:07
Yeah, very true. So if we were to take those pillars, and just give a little bit on each of those, that could be really valuable to our audience, I think so if we're trying to be top performers or, or if we're engaging in any process of improving ourselves, with our top performers. So start with connection. I mean, there's, there's some approaches that probably will never change. If you can find common interests to discuss that's one way to connect. But what are some ways that maybe aren't so great? And what do you recommend on improving your ability to connect?
Amy Hrehovcik 12:34
So one of the I think that one of the places that's not so great, is the amount of preparation that we put into the connection. And specifically, like, I challenge reps, like, what is the point of doing this research, right? Are you looking for just like a point of common ground so you can move forward in that direction? That's the same thing that everybody's done, or are you being a little bit more intentional with, you know, how and where you're looking again, specifically trying to suss out the most important thing to the buyer, which is, if you you're hearing me repeat this, this is a core a core component to what we teach. So that's a big part of it. And I'm not proposing that we spend like hours and hours and hours and hours doing research, like I can blow through like the research in 10 minutes, but it's just, I think that's a big piece of it. A lot of times I see reps, and the training, right? Whether it's the boss of the sales enablement team that's teaching this, or teaching them to only research to look for some point of common ground that they can then take the conversation, and I think it just feels stale, and there's a lot of room for improvement. Another concept, I think that where people miss the mark on connection is this concept of shifting support, which I'll share in a moment, but I just want to frame this, I think connection is one of the hardest areas to teach these pillars. Because if you were to ask 10 sellers, like how good are you at connection? Guess what most of them are going to say? That I'm pretty great. This is why I'm in this profession. I'm remembering I think it was Salesforce did a study last year, it's like 89% of reps think that they are just exceptional a connection. Yet that same year LinkedIn, you know, buyer report or the state of buying that like something that's like 92% of buyers report feeling like a number. And so like we could go deep into that, but there's a ton of ways not shifting support. Not focusing on on asking, not telling things, engaging in a little bit of like rapport building small talk. We teach people to move through mice, which is a form of establishing trust making your trend or your motives transparent. Are you doing what you're saying? You're going to do integrity, whatever credibility, right personal credibility and skill, like the product based knowledge, whatever, are you establishing credibility, and whatever. So I'm gonna pause there, but I could do this all day friend, but those are some things we could do. differently with connection starting with recognize that there's room for improvement.
Jonathan Fischer 15:04
Yeah, and it sounds to me like there is, what I'm hearing in between the lines is this, that you can either quickly look to connect with that person out of self interest, or you can really take an interest in them. That's kind of how that's kind of I'm hearing about you, my reader that enter in my own point.
Amy Hrehovcik 15:19
Now, that's kind of the point the whole, it was it Zig Ziglar said I can. If you help other people get what they want out of life, then you'll get what you wanted to life or something like that. I'm paraphrasing,
Jonathan Fischer 15:33
enough other people get what they want, you can get whatever they want, you can have whatever you want, or something like that. I'm messing it up, too. We bought we did a great job, I think. Good old zyk. Some of his stuff definitely stands the test of time. I agree. Alright, so connection. So we need to do a better job of not out of pure self interest, but actually figure out who who are these humans we're dealing with? Right? The end of the day, if you're doing business, you're helping humans, hopefully. So who are the humans I'm trying to sell to? So I can make a real connection kind of maybe another way to put it would be from the heart, right, kind of really take an actual interest. And then the curiosity about unearthing the bias challenges their frustrations and goals. Let's talk about that. What, and maybe both in terms of the philosophy that should be behind that. But maybe you could give us some tactical help on that as well. How can we do a better job of asking the right questions in the right way? He'll help us out with curiosity.
Amy Hrehovcik 16:23
Gosh, where do you start? It's funny when we were working on this book, launch somebody like the chapter on curiosity, somebody like wrote in one of the Amazon reviews that this chapter should be required reading. There's so many places, I think we teach about different types of questions, impact questions, insight, questions, trade off questions, follow up questions. And I think I'm missing one group of them. But I think being more intentional with the types of questions that we're asking, and specifically let having them be less about it. Okay, let me let me say it this way, Jonathan, what is the purpose of asking a question during a sales call?
Jonathan Fischer 17:09
Well, I mean, the classic thing would be to uncover what are the needs, you know, maybe even deeper than that? What is the pain that the prospect is experiencing? With the hope that you are going to be able to solve that pain with your solution?
Amy Hrehovcik 17:22
What is the pain gathering information? I proposed a different reason, a different goal with asking questions. My goal with asking questions, is to get the buyer to think differently. I want them to think differently about their business problem, especially early on. And so I you know, this is a function of the question types, following up going deep enough, going wide enough. Slowing down like listen, like actually listen to what's being said, like, don't like seek first to understand, again, like trying to leave what you think that you know, or where you need to take the conversation next, and just like, actually ask them great questions about their business. But my goal with asking questions is to, again, get that bar to think differently. And you know, then we can kind of go from there. But something to consider when it comes to curiosity. Also, for the love of God, discovery is not a fate it doesn't, we should not stop being curious, just because some arbitrary three raise at the beginning of the sales process has wrapped and now we're just going to, you know, whatever, dump on people. And so you want to continue to be curious throughout the motion as well.
Jonathan Fischer 18:38
Right? There's overlap here. So yeah, it feels to if there's if the edges on these component parts of your process are too sharp, too hard. It's gonna feel you feel that jolt, right, it's gonna feel like it's okay, is this real? I thought this was a real authentic thing happening here. And all of a sudden, it feels like it's kind of prescribed, that could be an issue. I can see what you mean. What what are some of the additional keys you can give us on asking better questions? Can you give us some examples?
Amy Hrehovcik 19:06
Okay, I have a let's start with this. Listen to your calls. Listen to your calls, listen to your calls. Listen to your calls. I Jonathan I joke because it's like whenever when reps kind of push back on like I am and I understand why you don't want to do that it stings it hurts like but that sting like that's where the desire to grow lives like and so but I always do you think this is hard like to go back and listen to your calls? Try like listening to your podcast episodes right when you're getting started and like releasing them as even though you know them to be awful for the entire planet to like, have forever like that's hard. Listen to your damn calls. And so that's the first thing
Jonathan Fischer 19:45
you get into me here. Come on.
Amy Hrehovcik 19:49
Nobody, and I would also encourage others to like have other people listen to them as well. And then I'm going to say man read I would buy Andy's book like I know this is not about but in Read the chapter on curiosity and start to implement those teachings, starting with writing, like writing them all out, right? That was one of the homework assignments we put people through, I even put myself through it. Because I was working on something where, and I wait, you know, I really, it, I had to humble myself like whatever, but go through the process of writing out the question types and then practice using them. And then come to me, come hit me up on LinkedIn, and I'll help you take it from there.
Jonathan Fischer 20:31
Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, the thing is, you should, we should all if we're leaders, we should definitely be able to get down in the trenches. and lead by example, even we can't do it all the time. But we definitely should be able to do that at any time. I love that. So moving on to curiosity had those four pillars connection, curiosity, understanding and generosity. So understanding, committing to deeply understanding your buyer, What's that even mean? I mean, we've done a lot of work already at this point in the process. So what else is there we need to know?
Amy Hrehovcik 20:58
Well, so I understand. Okay, so it's like, this is another question, what is the purpose of a sales call? What's the goal of the sales call? What would you say, Jonathan?
Jonathan Fischer 21:14
Well, ideally, you're going to find if you've done your work up to that point, if you're talking about a closing call customers, which call how many calls you have in your process, let's but if we just
Amy Hrehovcik 21:24
let's first let's start with the first thing you're at the
Jonathan Fischer 21:27
mall is I'm trying to just decide who the who are the stakeholders. So they know what the decision making process on their end may look what that is going to look like, most likely get to know them a little bit, hopefully make that connection. That's, you know, build rapport is the terminology you have typically used for that. Where there's trust and respect, and uncover what the needs really are, you know, and if it's a good fit, then that should hopefully lead organically is something good, there may not be a good fit, hopefully, we have the integrity to be ready to part ways amicably if that's true, and not try to push a sale. Like I said, there's one conversation, isn't it?
Amy Hrehovcik 22:01
It is, yeah, that's that is I feel like that's a completely different conversation. Okay, so for me, it's to uncover the most important thing to the buyer. That is it, you're looking to uncover the most important thing, there was always one thing, and the first person to get to that the first person, like, let's say, Here, it's a competitive deal. There's other you know, tech and live in the ring. The first rep to get to understanding wins. And like you think about like, your like this week, we're talking about understanding in a very arbitrary manner. Let's flip it around. What does it feel like to be understood? How often does that feeling come our way, even in personal lives, too?
Jonathan Fischer 22:44
It's true. It's pretty rare that someone asked him and so and they really mean that. Right?
Amy Hrehovcik 22:51
That Well, that's on connection, right? Yeah, like that's, that's in connection. But understanding is a couple layers. That's like the 301 level. But now think about it from a different like, I always laugh at this concept of differentiation, because it's like, it doesn't take very, it's not very hard to differentiate when I'm giving the buyer the experience experience of feeling seen, validated and understood. And so my purpose, my goal with the sales call, is to uncover the most important thing to them, and then help them get it. And it is a very, very, very rare thing.
Jonathan Fischer 23:25
I like that I like how concise that is to uncover what is the most the what is the most important thing to the buyer against buyer focused, which that's probably the key element here is and that's where everything is going right? Instead of lead generation, we're talking about demand generation, reversing the polarity of our focus and even our marketing efforts and applies here to our sales effort. really committing
Amy Hrehovcik 23:47
to reverse it. Like I think there are a lot of people that have been selling that way this whole time we've been winning the like my win rate for the last three, four years of selling I was in 75% It's just a completely and like, don't get me wrong. We're teaching this to students right now I am full Lord, at how quickly these improvements and win rates are coming. I've been taught that win rate is a lagging indicator, usually do not use it for learning objects or learning initiatives because it's just, it's too long. There are too many factors. But I've got people now reporting like a 10 pin point increase in their win rate in like a matter of three, four weeks. It's insane how quickly the results come when the reps pivot to this framework. Insane. But again, that understand it's going through the pillars it is truly approaching these conversations very differently and that we haven't even gotten to generosity. I feel like that's just a crazy word that doesn't even come up in sales at all. But yeah, it's been it's been a blast, Jonathan, and you know what they say about I think it's called the learning pyramid. The base of the learning pyramid is teaching others which means you know, 90% of what you teach to others as the teacher gets retained. And so I, it has been incredible to be so close to this content to be teaching this content to be watching and celebrating with reps when they are having these massive wins and breakthroughs. And also, I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal or with my family. Because I've, you know, been able to take all these principles about how to be bring more humanity into how I'm selling, like, it's actually making me a better human being to well,
Jonathan Fischer 25:35
let's hear some examples of that says, let's, let's end on our content today with a noted view on generosity. What's that even mean, in the context of making a sale? I mean, hopefully, you're already doing a good service by selling a really great product or service. But this sounds like it's not that this is beyond that. So talk to us about it.
Amy Hrehovcik 25:52
Well, I so a lot of my my beliefs on generosity come from Adam grants, give and take, right, this is my favorite author, I actually recommend this book to even SDRs getting started because I want you to understand, like the concept, so the whole thing givers matchers. Takers. And this is like there's a lot of cool signs there on reciprocity, too. So if anybody's interested, I mean, it's just like, read his stuff, it's you cannot go wrong. There's gold in them hills, too. Okay, now that said, I think that generosity gets a bad rap, and rap and sales. And it's interesting, because it's almost like, there's a couple of versions of this, like, you know, people that give too much, or suckers you don't have time to give. Um, so there's a, there's a good giving, and there's a bad giving in that like some people just give, just to give and then completely deplete themselves and whatever. That said, if a person is to use generosity, effective ly, not only in the one deal, but across your pipeline, you have to have uncovered the most important thing. This is why the pillars build on top of one another. And so but once you do understand the most important thing, then you can start to get very creative with how to apply your generosity. And so one of the things we're teaching reps specifically is, you know, developing a generosity plan. And I like I in a million years, did you if you had asked me like last year, what do you think? What are the chances that you're teaching about how to create a generosity plan with selling? I think I would have laughed in your face. But anyway, I am just really grateful for the book and for the opportunity. But anyway, that's that's what I'll say about generosity.
Jonathan Fischer 27:38
Okay, well, very cool. So a top performer is somebody who's really great at connection, and building curiosity and understanding and exercises, generosity and the deal. Love that content. Amy, if folks want to go into the next level with today's conversation, what's the very best way they can do that?
Amy Hrehovcik 27:54
I can find me on LinkedIn. That is absolutely the best way we've got our second selling school cohort is starting in February 7. So working on the like updating the landing page with all of our new wins and success stories and feedback from reps. And yeah, that's happening in February. Also my show to write revenue real hotline, I'm ecstatic to engage with listeners over there as well.
Jonathan Fischer 28:21
Okay, so you there and you've got various types of trainings and offerings for people to up their game sounds like?
Amy Hrehovcik 28:26
That's correct. We've got the selling school for reps and for managers, so
Jonathan Fischer 28:32
well love it. Well, we're talking about having top performers, and it's no should be no surprise that we are powered by the wonderful platform for getting pre vetted talent known as overpass.com. It's free to go create your account. If you're a hiring manager, you can quickly take a look and see who are some of these great people all around the world? What are their skills, what's their background, you can click and hear a voice sample star, create a list, get them interview, get them hired in days, normally, it takes weeks and you'll be surprised at the low cost. You can absolutely impress your investors. If you're trying to get to that next level of growth for your SAS or b2b services company, check them out@overpass.com All right, well, this time, I see some folks are chomping at the bit to get into the q&a section today. So without further ado, let's take a look here. I'm gonna pull some of these out and we'll discuss them here. Amy, you got some really nice input from several people. So here's one from Jarrett's great question. I mean, what role does personal motivation in a company play and being the kind of top performer you're talking about? Motivation is a big topic it has been for decades now. At least maybe forever. What are your thoughts on that?
Amy Hrehovcik 29:42
I don't I think that motivation it's tricky, right? Because the challenge presents it's okay to have to be motivated to close a deal to okay to be motivated to generate revenue. It's okay to be motivated by getting to President's Club like fill in the blanks. I tie was there as well. I think the challenge with motivation is when we put our own motivation above that of the buyer. And so and I also think that reps get into trouble when they don't disclose what their motivation is. Right. So I think bringing way more transparency into motivation goes a really, really long way. And I will end with I don't know which habit it is, but I'm reminded of the what is it Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? One of the key pieces of motivation for me has always been Win Win or no deal. So I'm not motivated to pursue anything that doesn't benefit both of us.
Jonathan Fischer 30:43
Yeah, I love that win win. methodology and approach I ever you mentioned that I can hear Linda Wertheimer voice on NPR radio talking about the seven habits going back
Amy Hrehovcik 30:54
forever. The class, I guess, like a must read. Yeah, it's right, right. Yeah.
Jonathan Fischer 30:59
Yeah. I've got another one here from Ryan Becker. I'd like to quickly share he's wondering about the role that is common and tangible thing, right. But what role does a top performer have in terms of overall team performance? Is there a place for individual leadership? Can that be fostered? Let's talk about that a little bit.
Amy Hrehovcik 31:12
Yeah, okay. That's a great question. Ryan. I love this one. Okay, so I was just coaching somebody on the in the class last week, and they they're, they're new to the company, but their companies win rate is 11%. And at week four of selling school, his win rate is now 14%. He started at zero, right, because he was just coming off ramp. So already three clicks above the company average. And he was so very fascinated about the win rate of the entire team, right? He had been having these questions internally. And he had all of these numbers and one of the top guys on the team, like there was some like discrepancy, and I had to reel him back in and I was like, friend, I need you to focus on yourself right now. I need you to focus on your win rate. Right now. I need you to focus on making your win rate better and stronger with each deal. And I like I in fact, don't want you to mention win rate at all, to your company until somebody asks you about it. Right? How is it that you're pulling so far ahead. Now, I do think that there is a tremendous responsibility for AES that are working with STRS, right to really take advantage of that coaching, not take advantage. But you know, I'll even say I'm morally obligated you, it benefits everyone. It's a win win to make sure that your STRS are coached on maybe why you're not accepting deals or calls that they're sending through, and how to do it differently. Also, giving them a taste of what it's like to be an AE, right. And so I think that there's a big responsibility there. Okay, I'm asking these questions for this reason. And here's where we're going with this. And so that is very much a thing. Final one, I also do know that peers learn or sell. Sellers learn best from their peers, it's always been that way, it will continue to be this way. And when you think about again, that learning pyramid like the base of it. So with retention, it goes through all the different tactics that you can do then, and how much you retain what you learn based on doing that tactic. When you get to, if you're in a situation where you're maybe a rep that did something great and give them I don't know, 10 minutes spot for the weekly team meeting, and they teach the team what they've done. Right, they're gonna retain a lot. And so I think that there's an opportunity to gamify that as well. Hope that
Jonathan Fischer 33:34
putting people in position where they have to teach it, not only is the team benefiting by learning from a peer where their receptivity is probably higher, but now that reps locking it in, I love them. Here's a very tactical question from Jay Bentley. What do you do when the prospect says I don't have cycles to do this? So I assume this is about you know, factors that may not be under their immediate control? or what have you is
Amy Hrehovcik 33:59
what cycles mean? I'm not sure what we mean by the word cycles here.
Jonathan Fischer 34:04
Well, in other words, this isn't like their timeframe doesn't match up to yours you're making the deal so all this work you've done to build the connection curiosity what up what I'm hearing and J Bentley, you can correct me, what I'm hearing is that there's like, here's the momentum, and it's the moment and it's just not ready. Like it so it could kind of go stale. Do you have some tips and tricks about that? I've heard hanging on to these, you know, longer timeframe deals in your pipeline. Maybe that's what he's getting at? I'll let him answer here in the in the chat, but I think that's probably what it is. Okay,
Amy Hrehovcik 34:31
so Jay Bentley. Alright, yeah. Are you gonna? Are you still gonna have a quota in six months? How about 12 months from now? Yeah, right. We're still gonna have quotas. And so for me personally, I never like I was constantly asking about not just what their timeline is, but what are the priorities on your table right now I recognize as I know that most of us do, that. Everyone's got their own priorities. And just because they're talking about something maybe they were in like, Explore phase and Like, they're not ready to start a buying motion, maybe they've got like three other pressing things that they need to do. First one, I was going to find that early on, and I was going to honor it. I knew that they were coming to me for a particular reason. And so I was focused on making sure that I was giving them value, right at each stage at every single interaction. And value by the way, is is not defined by me value, then this would be completely pointless value is defined by them, but generally speaking, right, value equals progress. And so if when I uncovered that they weren't ready to buy in this cycle, that was totally okay with me, I still help them where they were gave them such an experience back to that understanding that I know they're going to come back to me when they're ready. Now the challenge is, obviously, with some sales bosses on this one, right, we can tend to feel a lot of pressure there to close at certain times. And I'm, I sold for a decade like I totally feel you. However, it gets easier. The more like once you start to have enough of these conversations where more people are coming back to you more regularly, right, so you feel less of a pinch there. So one of the things that I coach people on at the beginning is get more opportunities in the pipeline now, so you don't feel so pressured to shove these people through based on your timeline, not theirs.
Jonathan Fischer 36:28
That makes a lot of sense that also stays in your remaining Integris to this whole principle of finding out what's most important to them. What's most important to them, may not be to close that deal right now. So I definitely think there's some good tips and tricks there. Have one of the audience members asked for a repeat of those book titles that you mentioned earlier. So I do so the one is sell without selling out, right?
Amy Hrehovcik 36:51
Yeah, so this is I got it right here. I'll lift it up and sell without selling out went number one, like some of the 130 Amazon reviews in the first three weeks was massive. Give and Take by Adam Grant. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I think those are the only three we talked about so far. by Stephen Covey.
Jonathan Fischer 37:11
Yeah, that's a given man. That's a classic right there. So the author of the sell without selling out is Andy. Paul. Correct, Andy Paul. All right, I'm gonna put that here in the on the screen for you, all of you good people. So oops, that's not the right one. Here we go to read. Operator arrow. There we go. A couple of titles take those down. So sell without selling out by Andy Paul, give and take by Adam Grant. think everyone knows the seven habits by Stephen Covey. Hit me up on LinkedIn if you forget it. But good stuff. Let me get back to these other questions got one or two more here that we'll hit while we're together. See here,
Amy Hrehovcik 37:54
I'm noticing like my when it starts to get dark here like camera like it doesn't on this like tester computer. I may have to turn the light on. So I don't look like a blurry douchebag.
Jonathan Fischer 38:06
You know, look like whatever what you just said, I think we're safe. You're safe on that one? That's not on the list. So, so good stuff. I mean, are there other notes that you might say I've noticed more than one person asking that they were hoping for a little bit more on? On generosity, like Kenny Thompson said, she said that he was really curious about your take on generosity. And you mentioned that that was really a big change for you as well. Give us a little bit more on that. Would you please like what does that actually mean? Like if I'm actually, if I'm the guy, that's my deal, what am I doing that actually encompasses this concept of generosity that you're talking about?
Amy Hrehovcik 38:44
Okay, so this is a good question. So I again, I'm going to re restate generosity is a moot point, unless we are uncovering the most important thing to the buyer. One of the ways, like a lot of times with sellers, right, when we think of ROI, or a business case, right, we're gonna we're gonna be generous and help the buyer make the business case about the product, whatever. That's not so ROI is not an A versus B decision, right? It's which is how it tends to be framed. Should I buy this product or not? Should I renew this product or not? Like whatever that's, that's not accurate, right? Roi is an RA versus B, C, or D decision. And D generally equals do nothing. And so when you think about ROI, when you think about making a business case, the there's a way that sellers think about it, and sales managers think about it, and then there's the actual business case that the buyers need to make. And so one of the reps in the program right now is working on helping their buyer to make this business case about the monthly spend on all their software for this particular industry. It's something that's in the scope of what the business does, but they had never dreamed of In approaching the air quotes business case of the ROI from that perspective, I personally liked to help buyers, I sold information, right. And so I would information is one of those intangible things it's hard to see. And so I would hope people map out how information was moving in the current state based on the decisions and how good those decisions were. So that we can make and so essentially baseline the current state so that they could really, you know, make that business case afterwards. I, I think that there's a couple of ways like I could go deeper on like the six steps to like creating a generosity plan. But I feel like it's a little bit out of scope. But those are just two, two big examples. But again, with the knowledge of value equals progress, I'm trying to be generous with my ability to help them make progress again, wherever that is, and wherever they're at, including, like letting go of my agenda. So I hope that made sense.
Jonathan Fischer 41:03
All right. Well, lots of great content today. Amy, once again, want to put it out there. If you want to follow up with Amy online. Here is her information. Everybody. Check her out on her LinkedIn profile. She's got a lot of great things going on. In terms of training offerings, their assessments, there's a whole program that you can get a role to, and your starting point is to find her on LinkedIn. And I want to thank you once again, for being on the show with us today. Amy.
Amy Hrehovcik 41:28
It's my pleasure. Jonathan, thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Jonathan Fischer 41:32
Yes, it was indeed. And thanks also to our whole audience, for being with us as you come every single week. The show has been such a success because of you. So please keep on coming back. Bring a friend. We'll be back Same time, same station next week. And for the whole team here at Evolve sales. This is Jonathan Fisher signing off. Take care
