How to vent:

❌ To who you report to
❌ To who reports to you
✅ To your peers (but tread cautiously)

To clarify, venting is different from emotional dumping.

Venting = Two willing participants
Emotional Dumping (complaining) = One willing participant

Venting in moderation is healthy. Emotional dumping is not.

Why should you care about this?

When you vent to the wrong person—you create a reputation for being incredibly hard to work with.

You'll get passed up on promotions. Your employees will talk behind your back.

Avoid doing this at all costs:

❌ Venting to your boss

A classic mistake: venting to a person (unintentionally) about said person.

Your boss was a big part of devising the new sales approach, but it's not working for your team. You vent to him/her about it in your meeting.

It's an easy mistake to make. But this puts a tremendous emotional burden on your boss.

And you build a reputation of being the one they dread meeting with. Word about that spreads quickly.

Don't like the new comp. plan? Don't like the new territory assignments for your team?

Power in numbers: Talk to a few of your peers and approach your boss as a team with a proposed solution.

❌ Venting to your employees

Imagine if your mom vented to you about your dad.

The effect? A weird power dynamic where your employees are forced to listen to you vent. But they can't say anything because you're their boss.

Don't complain about your boss or org-related stuff to your team. When they vent to you—empathize, but don't add to it.

Talk about that stuff with your peers.

~~~

Be consistent with this and it'll help you build a great reputation within the sales org.

Agree or disagree?

How sales orgs. cause unnecessary turnover

👇

The Bridge Group's latest data shows:

30% = median annual AE turnover

50% = median annual SDR turnover

Sales is about as Darwinian as it gets.

But when you dig deeper into turnover, "voluntary" turnover is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the annual turnover.

Reps are choosing to leave their organization by the hundreds and thousands in the last two years. And I don't believe that's because they're looking for greener grass.

In the last 12 months, I've worked with dozens of sales teams.

Here are the mistakes I saw that drove reps away from the company:

❌ Too many internal meetings

I'm not sh*tting you—I've seen many sales orgs. that require reps to sit in 7-10 hours of meetings every week. Enablement sessions, product training, all hands calls, 1on1s with their managers, etc.

Ask this question: "How does this meeting improve the ROI of our sellers?"

If it doesn't, with rare exceptions, don't require those meetings.

❌ Lack of training

I see this mostly with outbound. Reps have mandatory outbound activity targets. But get ZERO training or coaching on how to outbound.

Don't expect reps to stick around if you don't provide messaging, talk tracks, emails, a playbook, etc.

❌ Too many changes (structure, compensation, etc.)

One client of mine changed their entire org. from segmentation by industry to segmentation by geographic region. An enterprise rep went from working on F500 retail accounts to now working retail, banking, fintech, ecomm, SaaS, etc. Then they changed the comp. plan. All in a 90-day period.

Changes are necessary but sequence them. Don't change too much at once.

❌ Riffs between senior leaders

Another client of mine had a CRO who didn't get along with the SVP of Sales. They weren't on the same page, which affected the entire sales organization. I often see this between SDRs and sales leaders.

Senior leaders: Don't let this fester. Work it out or get rid of bad-fit leaders.

❌ Terrible comp. plans

One sales team punished their Account Managers when accounts were downgraded. Imagine this—you inherit 50 customer accounts. Then, due to circumstances outside of your control (like product changes), several of those customers decide downgrade.

Example:

- Rep quota is $1M

- A customer downgrades $100k

- Reps now needs to close $1.1M to hit quota

You can't punish reps in this way for downgrades.

What would you add to this list? 

 

Check out the show notes, more free content, and get coaching at https://outboundsquad.com

 

 

 

 

 

"Our biggest gap is tactical 'how to do the job' outbound training"

👆

Sales leaders tell me this constantly.

They've adopted a sales methodology. They're using a common messaging framework. And there's great enablement for "how to sell."

But what's missing:

1) The sales methodology doesn't translate to outbound

2) The messaging framework hasn't been translated into cold call talk tracks and cold email templates

3) There's little to no enablement for tactical outbound execution (e.g. what to say after the prospect picks up a cold call and says, "Hello?")

The best way to tackle this problem is with front-line leaders.

✅ Standardize and create a common language around what good outbound looks like

- Build a bank of cold call recordings and cold emails that landed meetings, handled objections properly, etc.

- Create a scorecard for cold calls and cold emails so everyone's on the same page with what good vs. bad looks like

- Document everything your best reps do

✅ Have front-line leaders rub shoulders with reps

Big mistake: front-line leaders haven't made a cold call in years. They should be in the pit every week with reps showing them that they can still do the job.

✅ Create a coaching culture

- In order to get coaching, reps must attempt to coach themselves. This creates a self-reliant sales culture.

- Have every rep pick 1 cold call to work through in every 1on1 meeting with their leader. They use the scorecard to rate themselves, then the leader grades them.

~~~

This won't completely solve the problem, but this is a killer start in the right direction to making outbound more tactical at your organization.

What would you add to the list?

"Our SDRs are fresh out of college and I'm an old fart—they don't really listen to me"

Literally what a senior SDR leader shared with me last week 😂

This can be a major culture problem if not addressed.

SDRs are typically in their first or second job out of college. Then they move on to another company or into an AE role in about 1-2 years.

The SDRs stay the same age at the company because they turn over so often. And the leaders continue getting older.

And the age gap continues growing.

I experienced something very similar when I was a sales leader.

This could create a parent/child dynamic that must be avoided. Where reps start to rebel just like children do because they feel like you don't understand them.

Here's how I stay relevant with the newest generation of sellers fresh out of college:

✅ Keep up with pop culture

My wife does a good of making sure I don't sound like an old fart. She's in the know on what GenZ cares about.

Keep up with what young adults are into these days. Consume news, social media, etc.

✅ Play songs from their generation

I like to play music for the first 1-2 minutes of training sessions. I purposefully play music that's popular right now vs. what I grew up on.

If it's a big team call, put on modern and upbeat music your team would like.

✅ Use references that resonate

I made a Super Troopers reference in a call recently and it did not land. It was a group of SDRs in their mid-20s who didn't grow up on those movies. I've since adjusted a few of the analogies and movie references I use.

Use references and stories from recent TV shows, movies, personal experiences, etc.

✅ Don't act like their parents

This one's tough. I'm not even a parent yet, but I slip into this mode with younger reps sometimes. I subconsciously speak down to them because I have 15+ years of sales experience to their 6 months.

Bring it back to when you were a first-time rep. Not the "I dialed out of a phone book" stuff. Focus on how you felt when you didn't know what they were doing.

~~~

How do you keep it fresh with the new generation of sellers at your org?