How I Built 110 Sales Org [Culture-Building Process]

hi everybody I have Marcus here with me he's a sales coach author business leader influencer I'm so honored to have you here so Marcus thank you for being here hey Bob it's my absolute pleasure I'm excited to be here all right the first question I always ask everyone is who do you help super simple so I'll help people who are like BB sales professionals who are out there in the trenches making cold calls working with prospects and helping change lives every single day I love it and I'm curious you know your why do you have

a motivation for that do you do you thrive on you know do your team growing then you know being super successful because I think your impact the scope of your impact is actually pretty great no I appreciate that and uh yeah thank you so much so you know I'll say you know early on I probably wasn't really clear my why as time has gone on I think as I have taken more action and done more things it's become more and more clear over time and probably about seven or eight years ago I really was able

to boil down my why to probably three simple words right so number one is Legacy so whatever I leave behind people say hey I had a positive impact on them which is important to me number two is influence and I don't mean like a influencer type of way but the people I've interacted with it will say Marcus positively impacted he helped me whether it is directly or in record with his family friends or someone who came across my content that out there positively impacted number three I would say is love and love in terms of

whatever I do I do with care focus and attention so people know I truly care and that's probably how we got to talk to begin with because when you messaged me I didn't just give you some canned response I was actually intentional and thoughtful how to respond because I truly do care I want to help you even though we didn't know each other at the time yeah so for context people out there I basically reached out cold uh via LinkedIn to to Marcus and just with one question about company culture he gave me the most

thorough greatest response like with his voice with his approach what he does I then asked how do you fix it and he was he he went beyond and he even explained it to me me being still a stranger I'm somehow weird we're not anymore but that's how much you know you care you had that conversation with a stranger held without asking for anything in return that's how this happened so it's just an example of how you know how you can achieve things exactly so great now I wanted to go to untackle company culture here the

very first question that comes to mind is you know you're you have a pretty established Network you have a good reputation and um you know you're a leader so what do you think out there what do you think is the biggest challenge teams face today when it comes to company culture so I think the the issue I see pretty commonly across the board and this is whether it's even today or even 5 10 15 years ago is culture has become like a buzzword and I feel many companies the actions they take go towards building a

superficial culture and culture is really created by the people and by the leadership and I think just in the last especially in the last decade plus especially a lot of you know a lot of companies in the Silicon Valley it's very much been focused on ping pong tables beer kegs and you know partying and that's like the culture of what they think is going to keep people there but I think in today's time people want more than that and they realize how that's quite superficial and it's actually truthful fulfillment in working for a company yeah

I always tell that those perks I mean those are great but they I tied them back to just like feature uh like you shouldn't feature dump like for those who are not in sales it's just basically don't focus on you know the how but the why behind you know the situation whatever and so I see those hurts as you know nice to haves but culture is is basically how like it's way deeper so what I'm hearing gonna say is maybe nope not focusing entirely on you know those superficial nice halves but also going deep yeah

so when I think about this is when you're building culture what what do you want how do you want people to describe the culture how do you want employees describe the culture and when they only focus on superficial things that's what you end up getting but what do people truly want what makes them stay around and typically things that can are easily copied like ping pong tables pool tables and having kegs those are very easily copied that's not real culture but it's really what goes beyond how you describe how they feel about the company because

I think early on if you're you know relatively young into working a a business or incorporation those things are very attractive it's very cool but then as you have a little more experience and you realize those things actually don't make you happy they're nice to have and it's cool to have it but there's things are so much deeper that actually make you want to stay there work hard and do the things for the company that's beyond the scope of your role and so that that's great on paper I wanted to bring a practical examples here

let's say you have a sales team you do have a sales but let's say someone out there is in a sales team and I'm crucial from a leader sales leadership perspective how to increase that engagement from the team how do you make them actually feel that connection with the team or with the company or Vision that they actually go the extra mile perform the and not only because they have to because it's their job but they actually want to great question so I think what's it's important to understand is um the first piece of building

culture or creating culture or just taking to the next level is how you hire how are you higher it's probably one of the most important things so bringing the right people in that kind of already aligned to with a true deep sea the values of the company property are are within there but also with it or within also the leadership as well now I'm gonna get all your credit where credits do but some of the principles I'm gonna outline here to do increased engagement are from a book like I read a long time ago called

carrots and sticks who don't work and it's by Paul Marcy on a fantastic book and when he talks about inside there is the respect model and respect is also an acronym but also it's something very very interesting where it's about how there should be mutual respect across the board from employed employer to from you know employee to the leader employed in the company so it should go both away and when you think about any time in life where you are most upset with someone or something you know someone or some company is usually because you

feel disrespected that's usually why you you aren't happy with the company maybe your boss tree you balance you don't feel like they care for you or maybe the company and put a new policy it makes it feel like that you're not important anymore you're just a number and respect is one of those things where we don't talk about enough but that's definitely part of it but when you go deeper there's components within respect as a model that really determine how do you truly effectively build engagement so let's go and go step by step so the

first like the r stands for recognition so in general people are gonna they first start they're gonna do do the work usually but if they aren't going to recognize for the behaviors that they're doing the work they're producing and this is in any role over time they're just not going to want to keep doing it so that that recognition of the resp of what they're doing is really really important this could be verbal this could be written this could be in many different ways so it doesn't have to be like oh good job here's a

raise sometimes the mere fact of having your boss tell you that you're doing a great job of something is really really important but that's like the r that's the respect then there is empowerment so giving the employees a team the training the resources the support to actually be able to make an impact so not just do what I say it's they actually have power you Empower them to be successful that's wildly important because you can give them plenty of recognition but if you're not empowering to do their job well eventually they're probably gonna Peter out

and then you go into the next the S supportive feedback are you constantly giving them some not just you know critical feedback to improve but also supportive feedback are you recognizing the behaviors you want to continue to see then there's P partnering which is like are you treating them like Partners or is it like a you know a boss employed relationship do you treat them like they're equal regardless of title do they feel comfortable having a conversation with you so they actually want to work together and they feel you are helping them as well to

be successful it's a better part of the organization and then e expectations is it really clear what the expectations of them are this is something I see that is quite often missed that people are not clear what's expected of me and how can I be successful right then see consideration do people feel like they're being like a human do you feel like that you actually care for them or are you just another number and this is what we've seen a lot especially you know in a recession or a tough time suddenly considerations out the window

it's just a buzzword it was never there right and then the last one was trust right like it does a company does the leadership does the team the cease they follow through with their commitment is there a mutual trust that goes both ways and when you're able to hit all these buckets right there then that leads to just a very empowered employee when you're the right person in place and then if you decide to other superficial things like the ping pong tables the beer the beer fries or whatever that's just extra stuff on top but

what you can get the foundation dialed like this this will just reduce your turnover and make it a make it a better working environment for your people oh you hit the nail I mean that's great I haven't thought about it that way I have to you know go get that book like right after this call but what I know people will think is well sounds like a lot sounds like a you know I have to do so many things but guess what churn and turn over and just losing great talent is is impacting more the

business versus doing these things that costs you quote unquote nothing in in terms of money just they're willing to have the respect acronym there so I know some people out there will be like well the math is like yeah you know take this effort what's the output and so but you were so clear about like the last part which is like you know if you want a high performance team more revenue or better performance if you want to have like less charge learn and more happiness quote unquote happiness at work then this is the way

yeah 100 and it's is it hard to do yes right but it's even harder to be understaffed and it's even harder to miss your number so either way it's going to be hard but if you can hire the right people and you utilize this model as a framework and no one's perfect but you just do your best you'll retain more people and just sort of drastically I mean I took over an organization that had 40 50 60 turnover reduces down to 17 and it wasn't because I was perfect because they're still gonna have some turnover

but if you're able to reduce and minimize the casualties and you actually help people become best version of themselves suddenly you don't just have employees you actually truly have a team of people that actually want to work who want to show up and want to perform at a high level for you and for everyone else yeah that's the space best case study right there so I was about to ask like based on your experience like what actionable takeaways one two three activities or you know things people can do today but based on the respect approach

I think it's like I don't know five there but I'm sure you know do you have something else that you love to to just you know talk to people about company culture how to increase it what to look how to hire or yeah something that's out there that you want well here's here's how I think about it right so when you think look at a molecular respect model which you have to think about is like okay that sounds cool in theory but what are the specific tactical things that you can do consistently is going to

drive towards those behaviors like there's simple ones like trust which is I don't say simple but it's it's simple as when you make a promise to follow through that seems relatively easy but that's just about being a personal good character that's hopefully is relatively easy now but when I think about one's like you know empowerment right you can you want when you think about each of those those bullet points what are specific things you can do to empower your people and you have to build systems around that to help Empower so let me give some

specific examples so when I was running a massive sales or I knew once I brought someone in one of the most important things was how well I effectively trained in onboard the first 90 days so as part of my empowerment was making sure literally every day was planned and I was refined over time every day was planned out with clear specific objectives every single day they could accomplish and things to measure and ways to measure their progress as it progresses through so that's a the first piece of it that's like one system okay but the

reality is is you can't just bring someone in train them really well for 90 days I'm like good luck that's just not how it works so it has to be ongoing so in addition to that I also made sure that's for new employees but also for all my for my whole team every single week is part of the simple system was a one-on-one with them nothing crazy but I simply had it on my calendar I made sure I showed up and they were very clear what we would cover we would make sure that we remove

any obstacles they had we made sure they watched we know exactly what to do next to get a desired objective we made sure they felt heard and having every single week again that's a system all right I also inquiry systems like having a weekly training meeting again nothing crazy it's just a weekly trade with every single week in addition to the one-on-ones or training as a team to improve every single week again we're empowering them and then if they're really in extra help we even bought some extra like role play session on Friday so again

to empower them even more so you are we put these things in place which are nothing crazy but there's a simple system that you put in place that you just consistently do it and you do it well which will make your team better so sometimes people think about oh man it's this whole thing no it really doesn't have to be all you need to do is find simple some ways to support let me give you another example so in terms of supportive feedback it's really really important that I also got I gave the feedback but

also wanting to get feedback myself which also help with trust and also make me a better leader as well now I'll definitely do things like you know obviously ask them for feedback directly you know 101 but also I would do every six months I would do Anonymous surveys to my team my company didn't have to do I just did it myself it was like hey how'd you rate this what do you want to see more nuggets makes an enormous service I get all this feedback so I can really constantly improve and then on top of

that I'll appear okay out of the blue just call them every quarter for even 10 minutes just kind of check in when they're out of the office just to see what's going on how can I support them again I'm not calling them to talk about numbers I'm not calling them to reprimand them and it's gone how's everything going so when you start inserting these type of things it shows it adds up to your employee that you actually care because you do because you're so consistent and you can have everything's in place but if you only

do it once it means nothing but if you are consistent over time they will see it in this because they see everything they will see the behaviors consistently happening and they'll build trust and make them be more empowered to become better version themselves no I think that's great that's great I wish I had that earlier in my in my career especially starting out for context I work in sale and the Salesforce sales world this is very like fast paced everybody knows this no one really wants to be in sales someone draga's there and we then

fall in love with it but having that even you mentioned partnership having that partner next to you being your Your Leader ads trust adds everything we covered so I think that's a great way to end it uh so my final question is always like where do we find you online you have the pub you have the coaching well I guess LinkedIn would be one of those you know places but yeah where can people find you online yeah super easy so you know find me on linked to look up Marcus Chan if you want a free

company on my Wall Street Journal bestselling book six figure sales Seekers head to close with chan.com and you get a copy the book for free as well just cover shipping and handling there you go to make sure to to go there I'll add the links in the in the show notes Marcus thank you so much for the knowledge thank you for what you do Lucky the people that work with you and lucky myself that I got to to have this this conversation with you thanks so much for having me on appreciate it have a great

day bye