How to Prospect and Lead at the Same Time (Ask Jeb)

This is the sales gravy podcast.

Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, guest-selling author of

fanatical, prospecting, objection,

sales EQ and ink.

And I'm here to help you open more doors,

close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.

Welcome back to the sales gravy podcast.

It's a wisdom Wednesday where you drive the agenda

because on this segment of the sales gravy podcast,

you bring your biggest sales challenges

and Jeb Blunt delivers his best answers.

And those answers, they come straight from the trenches

because Jeb's not just teaching sales.

He's out there prospecting, closing,

and leading sales teams every single day.

Let's take that next caller.

All right, Tim.

Next up, we have Zach Mofield or Zach

with the Solar Rack.

And he is from Greater Fort Wayne, Indiana.

All right.

Is that Zach with a Solar Rack?

That's right.

That's right.

Good to see you guys again.

Nice to be back on Zach.

Nice jacket.

Got your Georgia Bulldog colors on.

I don't know about that part, but we're here.

All right.

Tell me what's going on, Zach.

I appreciate the time again.

You know, we've had quite the change here

and in the career lately

with going through a merger and acquisition.

And I thought, you know what?

Who better to ask than Jeb,

who's got a ton of experience.

So I appreciate the time.

So my question is, you know,

with this merger and acquisition,

I'm in an individual contributor type role

but also being asked to do kind of

director level type stuff,

which I'm very grateful for and happy about doing.

But I just wanted to know maybe some advice

on, you know, trying to make sure we're doing,

you know, that prospecting every day, every day, every day, right?

But then also still help stand up

the part of the business that they're asked to do.

Well, the first thing that I would recommend you do

in your director level role with all your influences

bring your entire team to the Albalt Conference this year.

I mean, that would be so cool.

Like Zach and team, we awesome.

So it's a great question and it's an age-old problem in sales, right?

We have a player coach and the player coach role

is really, really hard as you're figuring it out, right?

It's tough because you're almost schizophrenic.

In one moment, you got to take care of yourself

and your income and the other,

you got to take care of other people.

And those two things don't always mix very well together.

First, the answer is that's not a great role to be in.

And if you want to be in a director role,

keep pushing your organization to split the two roles.

But for a lot of companies, there's not the option, right?

They just can't afford to have someone

who is a leader only or a salesperson only.

They need both people and they're telling you

that you're smart enough and you've got this experience

and we trust you and you know,

you've got the ability to influence and motivate people

that we want to tap into that for you.

But it's really, really hard.

Are you getting additional compensation

for the director level work?

Or is that just a...

Can you just do this for us?

Help us out with it.

Yeah, great, great question.

So it's basically the role is compensation-wise,

it's really set up like an individual contributor type

compensation plan.

You're not getting paid for anything anybody else does.

It's correct.

Yep, yep, right now it's just me getting paid on,

you know, base salary plus whatever I go hunt,

drag, kill, bring back.

Well, the base salary then.

So they're giving you a base salary

and then that's what they're asking you

to use for the director level stuff.

You want to start having regular ongoing conversations

with your leaders and say,

I'm happy to help out.

I'm a team player.

I want to do this.

But these two things are not always working out

because I get paid for my individual work

and that's where I'm going to spend my time first

and I'm going to spend my time there.

You don't have a choice.

Like you've got to feed your family.

I'm spending my time in that place.

So we need to think about how we structure this

so that I'm not torn.

And I know that part of this is being a team player.

I get it and I am and I'm going to be there for you.

We just need to understand the reality of this.

So no threats, no ultimatums.

Just had the conversation a lot with them

because so many salespeople get stuck in these situations

where they're trying to do both

and they're not having those conversations

because they're kind of hoping that something's going to happen.

Don't hope something's going to happen.

Force it to happen in a nice way.

Now in the meantime, let me ask you

how many salespeople are you

responsible for at the director level?

So right now we don't have anyone underneath me

but we're getting these plans set up

to then eventually either move towards having people underneath

or have me stay in the individual contributor role.

It's a new division of the company

basically that we're standing up.

The poll for you right now

is there having meetings and they're asking your opinion

and you're getting pulled into planning that type of thing.

You want to make sure that in those meetings

you're having conversations about

if we start standing people up,

I know that there's a transition

where you can't afford to lose my individual sales

in order to make the transition over

but we need to have a clear path

so that once we get enough people on

I'm no longer responsible for individual sales.

I'm responsible for leading people.

The part of that should be

this year we're having a full leadership conference at Outbound.

They should pay for you to come to the leadership conference at Outbound

so that you can go to the individual role

and you can come there and learn how to be a leader.

I wouldn't make that like part of the plan.

I would write that down.

I love it.

I actually have already asked if we could go.

So what you want to do right now is

the people that are doing the planning

and working with you don't understand

the prospecting

and individual contributor part of your job.

So what you need to do is

explain to them that they cannot have meetings

during your prospecting time.

So there's no eight o'clock in the morning meetings.

I'm prospecting or if you're prospecting

like if you're doing a residential solar

my prospecting is this time during the day

there's no meetings during this period of time.

You have to like draw that line

and you have to do that assertively

and respectfully but assertively and say

if we don't have my individual sales

we don't have a division

and you cannot have my individual sales

if you're schedule and meetings

in the middle of the time when I'm doing my most selling.

If you're doing prospecting or demos

or you know you're going out on sales calls

that time needs to be scheduled and sacred

and you need to put it on your calendar

that says Zach Selling Time

and say if you schedule a meeting in here

I'm not showing up to the meeting I'm selling.

And if you want me to show up to the meeting

you need to change the way you're compensating me

because this isn't fair.

I'd be straight up with that

because the only way you're going to be able

to maintain that balance is to maintain the balance.

I know that sounds kind of obvious, right?

You have to say that

and you have to set those boundaries

and you have to do it clean

and then you have to do it with yourself, right?

Because you're also super interested

in building up this division

you're excited about your passion

about your enthusiasm about it

and you're like sitting up at night

thinking about it and the weekends

you're thinking about it

and you're like all these things going to your head.

And so you're probably a lot like me

once you start working on a project like that

everything else disappears

and that's the only thing you want to focus on

and it's hard for you to make the transition

to oh I got to go back to selling

and away from being strategic

so you're going to have to set that boundary

with yourself too and say

during this period of time

I'm you know Zach Moffield

you know the Solar Maniac I'm selling

and during this time

I'm Zach Moffield building out of the vision of a company

and those two characters don't meet each other

does that make sense?

Yeah absolutely no that's great

because yeah I think you had a lot

a lot of the same thoughts that I have right

it's like hey you're excited and want to help

and be the team player and do that

but then on the other side

it's almost like this cognitive dissonance

I was like wow I need to go

I need to go sell sell sell sell

okay let's do this

so no that's a great way to think about that internally

hard but it's not as hard as I thought it was

and at first I thought you were managing

people so not managing people makes it a lot easier

so it's a pretty clean cut

but he'd my advice

while you're doing this

eyeball and eyeball folks we need a path

as we build this out the point where

I'm done with this and I'm moving on the leadership

because me doing both of those things is no bueno

yeah yeah very true very true

no I appreciate it's great to always speak with you

because I had some of these thoughts obviously

not not all of those there

but it's great to get feedback

it's everything that you already know

it's good to talk about it spend some time with it

it's a cool problem to have

I love watching all the things you're doing on LinkedIn

you're having a lot of fun you know

keep after it

yeah it likewise and yeah can't wait to

hopefully try and get out there to outbound

to slip their number to you

it would be very sad to not have you

in Las Vegas with us

all right see you later Zach

the player coach role is one of the hardest positions

in all of sales

and the number one reason that people fail in it

is because they never draw the line

they fail to create boundaries

they try to be everything to everyone

and eventually they're just not good enough

at anything to justify the load

your selling time has to be non-negotiable

you have to put it on your calendar

label it and defend it the same way you would

when you're in a meeting with your best customer

no one gets to take away your golden hours

if you really are delivering

director level value on top of your quota

that needs to be recognized in your compensation structure

and you need to be the one who keeps putting it on the table

clearly and professionally until it's resolved

don't let the role drift

own it or change it but do not let it own you

and if you've got a question for the show

and you want to be on the sales gravy podcast

go to salesgravy.com forward slash ask

that salesgravy.com forward slash ask

and remember when you're tired and out of energy

and ready to go home

always push through and make one more call

i'm jubilant jr and we'll catch you next time

on the salesgravy podcast