Why Every Sales Stage Needs Proof from the Prospect

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Joshua Kornitsky: Hey, welcome back to High Velocity Radio. I’m Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer and your host here today. And I’ve got a wonderful guest on the line that I can’t wait to introduce you to. I’d like to for you to meet Glenn Nixon. Glenn’s a fractional sales leader with Blue water sales advisors. He helps companies build sales organizations that can operate beyond the founder or one exceptional sales person. Coming from a technical background, Glenn has spent more than 30 years working in and around complex sales, particularly for configurable products and services. He brings analytical precision and creativity to the work of turning sales knowledge into a disciplined system for a team to use. Welcome, Glenn. I’m so happy to have you today.

Glenn Nixon: Thank you very much, Joshua. Happy to be with you.

Joshua Kornitsky: So we got a lot to talk about. Let me start by asking you a little bit about your background and what brought you into this part of your universe and this part of your life.

Glenn Nixon: Sure. Yeah. So, um, my beginnings were, uh, in a technical background. Um, went to school to be an electrical engineer. Okay. And, uh, shortly after getting into the engineering work. I discovered, uh, through a mentor of mine that I really enjoyed being out and about. And, uh, I was doing some, uh, engineering services kind of work, and he encouraged me, uh, as one of the, the people that, uh, that really impacted my impacted my life and my career. And he says, uh, you know, you ought to go out and talk to the people once in a while that, that you’re, that you’re doing the work for. And I said, well, that sounds like that’s probably a good idea. So. So I started doing that, discovered how much fun it was to get out and about and, and meet people and understand better the, the challenges they were facing and how what I was doing, what me and my team were doing were impacting them. And learned a lot and said, well, I kind of like this. I got my first.

Joshua Kornitsky: Bit by the bug.

Glenn Nixon: Yeah. Got my first bag carrying sales job in 1990 with a company in Minnesota, uh, technical. They built test equipment, uh, physical test equipment for automotive and heavy equipment. And, uh, we went through a period of, you know, blind panic, uh, trying to making the transition from being an engineer to being a professional sales person. Um, I was blessed to have people around me that had a lot of patience, helped me quite a bit in the transition. Um, can’t say it was comfortable. Uh, so it was, uh, it was a challenge for them also. They, they tolerated me. I had an interesting experience with, uh, with it actually was the top guy in the office. Please tell us. Yeah, the name’s Gail. And I started working, started getting my feet under me, and I couldn’t figure out why. Gail was kind of ignoring me. And, uh, it was just kind of really uncomfortable. Fast forward a couple years later, Gail says, hey, Glenn, come on out to lunch with me. It’s like, oh, this is different. And so I went out to lunch with Gail and got to know him a lot better. And I thought, man, this is kind of interesting. I wonder, I wonder why earlier he was like, really kind of giving me the cold shoulder. So one time I asked him, I says, uh, so what gives? When I first started, You were really not very interested in talking to me. And he says, Glenn, uh, you were so bad at what you were doing. You were so clueless that anything that I would be able to tell you and explain to you would be so far above your understanding that it wouldn’t help anyway, he said. And I said, oh, well, does that mean now that you’re talking to me, that I’m getting better at it? And he says, well, you’re on your way. So that was.

Joshua Kornitsky: That was an interesting lesson. Uh, well, it’s it’s been a few years. How’s it going?

Glenn Nixon: Listen, I look back, I, I look back on the early days, you know, and my blind panic and the transition into, you know, getting my first big fat commission check. And after that, it was I just fell in love with the profession. I said, there’s nothing else I’m going to do ever, in my life, uh, was able to provide for my family, I was able to be have flexibility in my schedule. I was able to, um, work with very intelligent and smart people in, uh, in automotive and related and absolutely fell in love with it. Like I said, never looked back after that. Really have really enjoyed, uh, being involved in the sales profession ever since.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so it sounds like you had some pretty formative experiences early on that probably shaped the way you work with folks because it can be very, very intimidating, uh, particularly for a newer sales rep, but that I don’t get the impression while that’s within your toolbox, that’s not your main focus. When you work with organizations, what do you primarily help them do from a sales perspective?

Glenn Nixon: So what I noticed when I started working with small medium businesses about seven years ago, I noticed a pattern, and then related it to things that I learned as I was growing up in sales, so to speak. Um, in, in the technical area. So this goes back to, and most people that are knowledgeable about sales process in enterprise companies know this is sort of second nature to them. Um, I was talking to a friend of mine that was, uh, that worked for GE selling, uh, uh, capital equipment for GE. Okay. And I started describing this thing where, and I was again, blessed to grow up in this environment where you have a sales organization with salespeople who are the primary relationship owner with the, with the market, with the, with prospective customers. And they’re focused on business ROI and deep relationships with business decision makers. And then you have technical people and this is people that have worked in automotive and other technical fields know this. There are technical decision makers, engineers, right. Since I was educated as an engineer, I understood this very well. Very risk averse. The idea is if you’re going to change something first, we have to make sure you’re not going to break something in the process.

Glenn Nixon: And so over and over, I would see the situation where the technical there was a technical decision maker that had to. So you had to pass muster with them. You had to basically get them to not say no to what you were proposing to do, the change that you were proposing to make. And, and then once you achieve that, then you, then the sales person would be able to go talk about the business ROI. And those roles were split. And I was talking to my buddy at GE and he said, oh yeah, we call those pursuit teams. And what I recognized after talking to more people that it’s a very common construct in large companies. Right. And the challenge about how do you go about selling a complex engineered to order configurable, everything’s a special kind of product or service, right? You have that same challenge. And as a small medium business, many times the owner doesn’t recognize what’s happening, but they’re playing both roles in during different parts of the sales process. Right?

Joshua Kornitsky: That makes sense to me that, that they’re just, if you’re that one sales rep, that is the owner, you’re just kind of pivoting to deal with the next issue. Whereas other organizations that’s handled by multiple people, right?

Glenn Nixon: Yeah. In a, in a bigger organization. So what I, so the pattern that I noticed was, uh, business owners that were still the key salesperson, or had one had only one salesperson that was available to go to go build business for them. And not recognizing that over time they became unconsciously competent business owner was they start operating on muscle memory, and they’re actually managing that process with their prospects, where they first gain credibility and trust in the match between the thing that they’re offering to, to, to solve the problem, to solve the prospect’s problem. And then once the prospect says, okay, got it, this is not going to break things and we’re going to be able to move forward. If then they switch kind of switch.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s right.

Glenn Nixon: If you know the investment in the change is going to make my life better. And what I was noticing is the pattern I was noticing is that the, the, the, the need for the founder of the company or the owner to, to, to do those two roles, as you know, combined into one person ended up them being the bottleneck.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. That I mean, that makes perfect sense because everything’s hanging on, on them.

Glenn Nixon: That’s right. The nothing can move forward until they convince the technical decision maker to not say no, and then switch over to proposing the business ROI to the business decision maker. Right. So I said, I recognize this, the need for these, the actually, there’s two roles in one person and saying, okay, The Mr. business owner Mr. and Mrs. business owner. If you want to scale your company, if you want some of your time back, if you want to be able to bring on a sales person and have them do the business development work for you, there’s a couple things that needs to happen. First, you need to recognize that this is the dynamic. Then you need to adopt a mindset, which is, let’s get all of that knowledge, that tribal knowledge, organizational knowledge out of their head and onto paper and, uh, outlined as a process so that somebody else can follow it. That’s absolutely prerequisite. Prerequisite.

Joshua Kornitsky: And I imagine that it. Well, let me ask rather than, than imagine, do you see that lack of process in a lot of companies, even successful companies almost always.

Glenn Nixon: Really? Almost always. Yes. Um, I have occasion to keep in contact with some of the, some of the, um the, the enterprise companies that I worked with and for in the past and you know, over, over discussions, they will say, yeah, you know, we still have that problem where not every salesperson is following the process in the same way. Even with large sales teams. Right. It’s a very common problem. The, the, the, the shame of it is in a small medium business. First of all, the owner typically is not aware of why, you know, they’re having to work 50 or 60 hours a week and later on even more time if they want to sell more, more of their product. Sure.

Joshua Kornitsky: Because they’re they’ve got a finite capacity. There’s only so many hours they’ve got to give it, particularly if they’re doing everything else.

Glenn Nixon: Exactly, exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so I think that that side of it, recognizing that pattern speaks to to the precision part. That’s the electrical engineer part. But let’s talk about the creativity part and how you bring that to bear and, and how it impacts what you do.

Glenn Nixon: Right? So one of the things that, um, many times is a block blocker to, um, bringing the infrastructure, the process discipline, getting the right people in the seats, getting the process on paper, implementing it into systems so that we can measure success and support salespeople. Um, it, it’s very often, um, multiple pathways to doing that. Right. So first of all, you need the precision in the measurement and also the mindset of, again, the mindset of the owner in many cases, the owner. And I see this quite a lot, is under the impression that sales is more art than science, and they will they will tolerate unbelievable circumstances from their sales function. Sure. Based on that, that mindset, based on that myth. Right.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, in that, in that delicious revenue that misaligned individual may be bringing in is hard to say no to, even though, you know, it probably is harming them badly, you know, it’s harming them. They may not recognize that.

Glenn Nixon: Absolutely. And in the case of underperforming salespeople, they, they will tolerate like, if you take a look at their, on the operational side, on the, let’s say it’s a main specialty manufacturing company that owner will focus, you know, laser focus on what is that machine capable of doing? What’s the, what’s the capacity of that machine? And is that, are we fully utilizing the capacity of that machine and measure it down to, you know, to, to very a very fine to very fine detail.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: And if that, if it drops below 90% of its capacity, there’s all kinds of things that they will immediately put in place to improve that. Unbelievably, when it comes to salespeople, they will tolerate the salesperson missing.

Joshua Kornitsky: Funny, but it’s not because it’s a precision device that’s failing to execute at its bare minimum.

Glenn Nixon: Yeah. And they will and they will tolerate underperformance in many cases. They’ll say, well, they’re a really good salesperson. That’s okay. Well, what are you using as a measure? You know, What are you. What are how how are you objectively deciding that they’re a good salesperson? Let’s say, well, when we go to, you know, when we go to.

Joshua Kornitsky: Everybody loves that guy.

Glenn Nixon: And we go to a trade show. And when you look down the aisle, the my sales guy is the one that everybody’s crowded around him listening. And he’s great. He’s great at building relationships. Okay, well, where’s he or she? Where are they at in terms of their their achievement against their quota at this time of the year? Oh, well, they’re they’re, they’re working on it. Right. They’re, they’re, they’re working really hard. Okay. Well, they’re doing a great job reducing the relationship tension in, in their conversations. Sure. And now you have lots of friends and an empty pipeline.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. I mean, if, if your pursuit team includes everybody’s pal put him out there, but otherwise that guy or that girl is going to just create smoke. And if there was a piece of equipment on a production floor just billowing smoke out, nobody would be like, oh, but old number seven, it’s the best machine here. They take it out back and shoot it.

Glenn Nixon: Exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: And I’m not advocating that that there that it’s that binary. Right. But in that type of an example. So so how do you work? I mean, clearly this is the definition of a complex sale. When you’re talking about this type of a transaction that’s both highly technical but also still a sales transaction. And I don’t mean to to say that it’s only sales that has its own complexities. So, you know, what are some of the things that that you’ve seen? What are some of the ways that you’ve helped organizations move through this? Because ultimately, are you trying to stay there and be sales guru forever, or are you trying to help them become self-sufficient.

Glenn Nixon: Yeah. My job is to install the right people, implement the right processes, implement a proven process, and get systems in place that both support the sales people in making their numbers and tell us whether we’re winning. So the talk a little bit about the process piece. The other piece is the accountability piece, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: So, um, tool sets are very important. Um, I’m always harping on, uh, CRM, customer relationship management. Sure. As an opportunity management, primarily an opportunity management tool. And the reason that I say that that’s so important. Many CRMs do a great job of, okay, what is the communication back and forth with or market. The really important part is, as the salesperson is bringing in opportunities and working opportunities through the sales process. How is the customer relationship management tool assisting them in managing the opportunity through those stops?

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s got to be a huge area of opportunity. Now as as those systems become smarter and smarter and more and more capable. You know, monitoring phone calls, all sorts of enhancements to make that sale. I don’t want to say easier, but clearer, you know, understanding how to get there.

Glenn Nixon: Absolutely. Yeah. Clarifying the clarifying the process steps. And I have something I refer to as a stage gate. The sales process should be stage gate, right. You should be able to you need to. It’s critical that for each stage in the sales process, you specify very in a very detailed way. Who is responsible or accountable in that step? What is the goal of the step? What are the actions that are required to move from that step to the next step? And what are the objective, the observable right data points that need to be collected in that step to move to the next step. And those data points must always be something that you receive, that the salesperson receives back from the prospect, as in telephone, conversation, email, text, whatever, whatever communication protocol, whatever communication method you’re using. But it must be objectively observable.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m smiling because having spent 20 years in sales myself, um, there have been many situations where I felt the deal was this close and the customer apparently didn’t get that memo.

Glenn Nixon: They didn’t. Yeah they didn’t they didn’t quite agree. And it’s interesting that you point that out because one of the things that I that I really emphasize, when you see a deal that’s gone off track, it’s you almost always can trace it back to the detail discovery stage. So if you talk about, you know, you first you need to check fit and fit goes both directions, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: I agree completely.

Glenn Nixon: Yep. Is what I have for a solution going to address your problem? And is your problem something that’s painful enough that you’re going to spend money to solve it? Right? Once we arrive at that and we get the, we can unlock the next stage by getting confirmed communication back from the prospect, then move to the. The detail discovery Stage. One of the things in detail discovery, especially in a complex sale. Who all is involved in the decision process here? Right. And what are the kind of hidden kinds of requirements that could be outside of the people, the people that you’re talking to currently? What are some things that impact the other parts of the customer’s process? Right. If you skip any of those steps and you find an when you say, I was, I was sure I was this close.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely.

Glenn Nixon: And in, in many cases, it’s. Oh, and we’re going to need to check with Joe over here in this department to make sure that if we change this, it’s not going to break his. It’s like, oh, good. All right. So now we’re on. Now we backtracked, right? Because we didn’t do a great job of the detailed discovery at that step.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I’m asking this question not not trying to, to lead you, um, whether you’re talking about a specific niche of, of custom manufacturing or you’re talking about sales in general, the level of complexity you just explained is that across the board? I mean, ah, I’m sure there are small businesses where a single decision maker is the, is the only thing. And yes, we’re going to move forward with you. But more often than not, isn’t there some form of, of trusted advisor that that the customer works with their own side of people? Uh, a dear friend of mine, um, David Samson has, has, uh, who does mergers and acquisitions. David had said that, you know, they bring a team, you got to bring a team to. Yes. Uh, they’re they’re not just making a decision in a vacuum, are they?

Glenn Nixon: No. And that’s a great question. And one of the things that people ask me once in a while. Okay. Well, so this only applies to a very narrow description of a business, right? And I said, okay, well, let me give you an example of way on the one end of the spectrum, which is also actually, uh, business to consumer example. And it’s, it’s, it’s my own example. So my wife and I were very blessed to be able to invest in putting a pool in our backyard here in, down in southwest Florida. So I’m looking at different options, different, different, um, outfit construction companies that are capable of doing this. And I, I do my research and figure out who, who is recommended and so on. So the designer came in and started talking about, I don’t know, the control. Something about the controller.

Joshua Kornitsky: Which.

Glenn Nixon: You.

Joshua Kornitsky: Secretly know about, but not why you’re.

Glenn Nixon: And I would not let him talk about the design, the. Like the configuration, the design and colors and flooring types. And until he helped me understand. How about the darn controller? So in that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Case, know your customer.

Glenn Nixon: I was the, I was, I was a technical decision maker that would not let the conversation proceed until my need to understand that thing was satisfied. So that is just an illustration of.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s a perfect illustration because in, you know, using just that example, he probably has a pamphlet in there about the panel when he goes to meet a customer, and he might know 2 or 3 things about it, but that’s unless he himself is technically, uh, centered or motivated. I’m sure you threw him a few questions that got you, and I’ll have to let you know.

Glenn Nixon: Yeah, and then they kind of made me feel dumb, too. In the meantime. But that’s a whole that’s a whole different podcast. Yeah. Story. But so, so, so really, to get back to your original question about, and I, the term I use is buying center. You have to assume, you have to assume, you have to know and realize that there is a buying center with any kind of complex, configurable, engineered order. There is, there are always. And, and the more mature these. The business processes become over time with the availability of an AI using AI to research things, there are more and more opportunities for other people besides just the business owner or the key executive making a decision. It does. It does happen.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: And what I train is it’ll it’s it’s just accept the fact that it’s very rare. If you run into it, then. Bless you. You’re you you, you, you lucked out or not? Because if you’re not successful, there’s no option for, you know, coming back and and and making another try at it.

Joshua Kornitsky: Can’t ring the bell next year.

Glenn Nixon: Right. But I would but I would but I always harp on the people that I’m working with. You know, make sure that you understand the decision, the decision making process and make sure that you understand the terminology. I got caught one time I was selling to Ford Motor Company, early stages of my career, and the person that I was working with said, um, yeah, I placed the order. I said, okay, all right. Well, um, when is that, you know. Well, it’s being reviewed. It’s going to be a couple weeks, right? A couple of weeks went by. So what’s going on with that order? Long story short, he was using the words I place the order and what has happened? What was happening in reality is that he submitted a requisition to his manager, and his manager took that requisition, along with 20 others, and put it on a.

Joshua Kornitsky: Spreadsheet.

Glenn Nixon: And put it on a spreadsheet and prioritize them, and then put a high water mark. That’s a common right.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. In an organization like that, I’m sure that there were 11 more steps after the approval there. But.

Glenn Nixon: Right. And what I learned was my solution fell at number 12 and the high water mark was at number ten.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: So the whole time I’m forecasting the deal.

Joshua Kornitsky: And you were dead in the water and.

Glenn Nixon: I was dead. I was dead in the water. And so that was a hard lesson. Going back to one of your original questions, I bet you had some hard knocks. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: But those are the things that really help you help others because, you know, I always equate it in anything that I do. If you have children, you know, you wish you could give the mistakes you’ve made to them so they don’t have to go through whatever it is. Exactly. But without the heartbreak, without the, the, the pet dying, without all of those little silly things, they don’t learn. Right. And you’ve learned the hard way and, and hopefully you’re able to help the organizations you work with avoid some of those bigger pitfalls. Because I do think, at least in regards to sales, the beginning of wisdom is learning from someone else’s mistake. When you learn from your mistake, that’s great. When I can learn from somebody else’s mistake, that’s insightful.

Glenn Nixon: So yeah. Yeah. I wish, yeah, I wish I had captured a quote that I ran across it and I should have written it down. And so I had the correct attribution. But the, the idea was, you always want to be looking for the person that can come in and say, I see the problem, I recognize it, I’ve seen it before. Right. And I did all the things before that don’t work to solve that problem. So, uh, we, we don’t have to spend a lot of time trying out the things that I already know don’t work. And so now we can work together to get this thing solved by doing the things that I know because of past experience and weeding out the things that don’t work and go directly to the things that do work. And to answer a question you asked a little while back, my goal always is to work myself out of a job. Perfect. My my goal is to leave the organization better than I found it, and be able to walk away and know that the right people are in place. They’ve got a process that they follow that and the everyone in the organization follows it. And it’s a winning process. And we have the systems in place to both support the people executing the process and measure that we’re winning because sales needs to be an objective process as well.

Joshua Kornitsky: So you’ve just defined for me what my mentor always says, which is understand the definition of success before you begin. Right. So you define success and and that’s where we’re headed. I have one other question that that came to me as we were talking during the introduction. I had said, uh, from our previous conversation around helping build sales organizations that, get away from the founder or the one exceptional salesperson. And I originally was going to ask you, but it’s it’s abundantly clear you don’t have a cookie cutter process because you’ve got to extract the individual information about how that exceptional individual is functioning. But how do you build a repeatable system out of that? And obviously high level, I’m not asking for the magic pill or the silver bullet, but how do you what’s the that? You seem very process driven. How is that process at a high level executing?

Glenn Nixon: So that’s really the crux of it. So you want to be able to, as in my business, I want to be able to have a repeatable process. The truth is that every company is different with a handful of very common problems. The crux of the situation, the crux of the problem in terms of addressing those and solving those and the approach to use, it tends it turns out to be unique almost every time. So the part about that you pointed out about the creativity and the precision. Mhm. Is, is, is an important part of the value that I bring. So I’m, I’m really, I’m, I can quickly say, okay, here are a number of different pathways to the outcome that we want. I can quickly kind of sort out which ones again, because I’ve seen it before. Uh, which one, which.

Joshua Kornitsky: Way not to make the light bulb. Right.

Glenn Nixon: And here are the remaining that are likely to be solutions where the, where the, uh, uh, outliers edge cases, however you want to put it where they typically pop up is, is everything that’s people oriented. So example is family business. The older sister has become the business owner. Father has bequeathed the business to the to the oldest daughter as their oldest daughter, the sister. As a salesperson, I commend sisters, not a salesperson. Sisters never going to be a salesperson. But the family says we’re not moving her to a different role. She wants to be this. So these are the kind of things also the problem of continuing to throw good money after bad, you know, bringing a salesperson absolutely convinced that that salesperson is going to be successful. It’s been too long. Handwriting’s on the wall. It’s demonstrably not the case.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: Um, I sometimes commit to things like, let me work with them to see if I can get them up to up to speed if I can upskill that person. And I’m very brutally honest. You know, I’m going to be able to tell you within a month as I attempt to upscale whether this person’s going to make it or not. Um, one thing that was that, that hit me very early on in, in doing this on my own. I had a, um, a, uh, a couple that’s, uh, husband and wife team that owned the business and was talking them through my perspective on what I heard in terms of their problems and the things that the gaps that they had and kind of walk them through my general approach. Because again, it’s not cookie cutter. And they asked me a question and the answer escaped my mouth before I even thought about whether I should say it or not.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Glenn Nixon: And they asked me what could go wrong. And I said, the only thing that could go wrong is you don’t do what I tell you to do. And it’s like I immediately thought, either I’m going to get either they’re gonna bring me on board, or they’re going to throw me out of the office. And they looked at each other and said, okay, let’s start on Monday.

Joshua Kornitsky: Look, I see it all the time where, where I, I bring to bear a proven process and people will spend more time trying to outthink what works than any of the effort they put into making what’s known to work execute well. I think it’s human nature at some level, particularly with an entrepreneurial mindset, right? They they want to they want to find the magic door that that cuts those 16 weeks of work out so that they can jump to the end. But you, you said something and I want to just touch back on it. Um, with regards to that time you spend sort of evaluating a salesperson. What occurs to me, and I think this echoes through a lot of what we’ve discussed, is whether or not that person is the the missing piece, right? Doesn’t that also come back to the clarity they have in the role that you’re going to help them dial in on? Because if they don’t know what that success looks like.

Glenn Nixon: Yeah, that’s absolutely an element of it. So excuse me, one of the things I always watch for is, uh, clarity, both, uh, leader and, and salesperson, right? So it goes both ways. The leader sales leader needs to be absolutely clear on their expectations, absolutely clear on what’s involved to successfully fulfill the role and be successful in achieving the goals. And the salesperson needs to be absolutely clear with the leader on the having the right tools, having the right coaching, having the support, right, those that clarity needs to absolutely be there. And if it’s not there, I, I install that. That’s one of the first things we need to do. We need to be on the same page. Um, and then work through how are we going to, you know, what are the pathways to achieving the goal? Skill skills, abilities, knowledge, um, needs, needs to be assessed. And the one thing that’s absolutely needed is something called intrinsic motivation, which is the absolute need to win. And if that’s missing, and there are very few assessments, and I do have a partner that has an assessment that keys in on that. And that’s absolutely for a long term for longevity, for staying power a salesperson in order to be successful in the role long term absolutely has to have that that intrinsic motivation, which is the need to win and need is the important word. Not want to win, not like to win, need to win.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. And and I know exactly what you mean when you don’t have that, you end up with a lifestyle business that may stay afloat, may do okay. But if you’re if your goal is growth, I would say that you put your finger right on it. Um, it’s a lot, a lot to think about, but I think you’ve brought a lot of clarity to it. Uh, a couple quick questions just because if anybody’s listening right now that, um, that’s hearing all of this and hearing what you offer, I, I want to ask this the right way. How normal is that misalignment? How normal is that lack of clarity? Are they outliers or is this something you see often?

Glenn Nixon: It’s a great question. Let’s see how to answer that. Um. So I almost always find that the clarity can be clarity can be improved. The many times the missing link is what is the consequence of not achieving the goal. What is the consequence of, of um, having the accountability system in place and not use it, for example, to correct upscale or um, upskill, improve process, document the process. Right. The, the question you’re asking kind of at a certain point, um, kind of devolves into how are all these things interrelated? Right. So and the answer is yes, they, they are interrelated. Sure. Um, lack of clarity will cause all kinds of very stressful issues and can, in many cases can be the root of the problem when it comes to, um, why, why am I, why am I not successful sales person asked why, why am I, why ask themselves? Why am I not being successful? And if they start to think about the leadership that they’re getting, and they might say, okay, well, and I’ve been in this position before, so it resonates with me. Seems like I bring deals into the company and kind of my leader kind of is lukewarm about it. Um, so what, what does that mean? Does that mean they were not happy that I brought in the deal? Or is it the wrong kind of deal or the wrong kind of customer or the right and, and so forcing them to, uh, putting them in a position to guess, to be a mind reader. It kills, it kills motivation, right? Kills companies. Absolutely.

Joshua Kornitsky: You can’t expect any part of your staff to be able to read your mind. Exactly.

Glenn Nixon: Yes. And so the clarity around target market, uh, ideal customer profile. I do a lot of work with ideal customer profile and focusing and being disciplined in applying the ideal customer profile as a filter for the kind of work that we are pursuing and, and being disciplined about it. If you have a really good when you have a really good salesperson. They will test the edges, you know. They’ll bring the edge cases. Believe me. They’re going to look for every single every single opportunity to bring a deal to make the quota. Right. If the leadership, it allows those edge cases and allows to bleed outside of that ideal customer profile. Pretty soon what you really have is energy leakage. And I do a lot with this, right? If you are spending an hour on a non-target market opportunity, that’s an hour that you’re not spending on pursuing a target market opportunity and helping the salesperson understand why is that target market? Many times it’s, it’s technology fit capacity, uh, capability, um, could be margin contribution, right? Could and helping them to understand the why, why is that deal better than this deal? Why is this kind of customer better than this kind of customer? Right. Is critically important. So that’s that’s all all part of it. All part of, uh, building the right infrastructure.

Joshua Kornitsky: So last two questions. Question number one, what size organizations are you best suited to work with?

Glenn Nixon: I love working with the OS companies. I worked with a tremendous number of US companies. Um, I’ve got some detail about that on my website. If you want to go look at that. The really important part about working with those companies, the organization has already crossed that bridge where they’ve said, we need accountability systems, we need core processes, we need process discipline, we need scorecards, we need, you know, we need regular processing of issues. And so when I start talking about, okay, we need to build in, you know, we need a, we need a CRM so that we can measure, you know, the things that we’re doing and put it on a scorecard that immediately that locks into place.

Joshua Kornitsky: Makes sense because yeah, you don’t have to fight that fight and get them to review the way they’re selling.

Glenn Nixon: Exactly. Right. Yeah. So it works really well. I can slide right into the sales leader seat in the case when I’m doing, doing a fractional sales leader kind of engagement. Uh, and also even if I’m even if I’m doing an infrastructure project there, they completely understand, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m working on a rock, for example, 90 day project to get these infrastructure pieces put in place, build a sales team scorecard, get the processes documented. That language already is something that they fully understand and practice every day. So it makes it very easy for us to communicate. And also on board into the organization to help them out.

Joshua Kornitsky: So big fan of US companies myself. The last question is how do people get in touch with you and any links we will publish, but just so that people know how to reach you.

Glenn Nixon: Right. So my email address is G Nixon. So that’s my first initial and my first name and Nixon and IXON and it’s at B as in boy, W as in William sales advisors.com. And that stands for Bluewater W Bluewater Sales Advisors. Um, and my phone number is 810 9225448. And I’d love, I love to get telephone calls because I’m just, uh, part of the way I’m wired. I just love talking to new people and learning about new, interesting business businesses and attacking interesting, complicated Opportunities.

Joshua Kornitsky: I love your your blend of highly specific from your engineering background, yet creative in human from the fact that you bring all this experience to bear. Thank you Glenn. I learned a lot and I’m excited to see how you continue to grow and help others because I think it’s clear that’s your passion.

Glenn Nixon: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to share my knowledge and my experience. And I love the love the profession, love working with small medium businesses. They, um, I find I’m able to move the needle for them, um, in a, in a much more impactful way than when I was in a corporate world and absolutely love it. So looking forward to helping more.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s awesome. Well, again, my guest today has been Glenn Nixon. He’s a fractional sales leader with Blue Water sales advisors who helps companies build sales organizations that can operate beyond that founder or one exceptional salesperson. And he told us a lot about that today. Coming from a technical background as an electrical engineer, Glenn has spent more than 30 years working in and around this type of complex sale, particularly around configurable products and services. He brings analytical precision and creativity to the work of turning sales knowledge into a disciplined system. A team can use. And Glenn, you you literally it was like a checklist. You get. You hit every one of those. So thank you again. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I am a professional implementer of the of the entrepreneurial operating system, also known as EOS. I’m also your host here on High Velocity Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll see you next time.