Making Change Happen with Sales Teams, featuring Doug Davidoff

This week, we're joined by the man, the myth, the legend ... Doug Davidoff! He's an inbound icon, a sales maestro, and the author of The Revenue Acceleration Framework. He joins us this week discuss the challenges of implementing change within sales teams. Together, we explore the resistance to change that is often associated with salespeople and the stereotypes that exist. We also discuss the current macroeconomic environment and how it impacts sales teams.

In this completely mind-blowing conversation, Doug emphasizes the importance of understanding the context and motivations of salespeople when trying to implement change. He challenges the notion that salespeople are resistant to change and suggests that change initiatives should focus on providing clarity and addressing gaps rather than seeking buy-in. 

💥 Related HubHeroes Podcast Episodes:

• Why Go HubSpot Sales Hub?
• Buying Has Changed, Sales Hasn't — Now What?

Doug also shares insights on how to drive change and buy-in within sales organizations. He underscores the importance of understanding what's working for salespeople and building on that foundation, as well as the need for ongoing training and continuous improvement, rather than a one-time fix.

He highlights the value of listening to salespeople and involving them in the process of change. The conversation touches on the challenges of implementing CRM systems and the importance of focusing on the human aspect of sales. Overall, the key takeaway is to rethink traditional approaches to sales and prioritize the individual needs and experiences of salespeople.

Keywords

sales teams, change management, resistance to change, stereotypes, macroeconomic environment, context, motivation, buy-in, sales, change management, buy-in, training, CRM systems, continuous improvement

Key Takeaways

• Salespeople are not unique in their resistance to change; it is a common challenge across various departments and industries.
• Change initiatives should provide clarity and address gaps rather than seeking buy-in.
• Understanding the context and motivations of salespeople is crucial when implementing change.
• The current macroeconomic environment has created significant disruption and uncertainty, which impacts sales teams.
• Salespeople are not solely motivated by quotas; they are driven by various factors, including confidence and outcomes. Understand what's working for salespeople and build on that foundation.
• Focus on ongoing training and continuous improvement, rather than a one-time fix.
• Listen to salespeople and involve them in the process of change.
• Prioritize the individual needs and experiences of salespeople.
• Rethink traditional approaches to sales and embrace a human-centered approach.

And so much more ... 

Additional Resources

• Why Go HubSpot? Your Free Ultimate Business Growth Guide
• Why Go HubSpot Service Hub?
• What Is Customer Delight + Who Is Responsible?
• How Have Inbound + HubSpot Changed?

Episode Transcript

George B. Thomas: Nope. Nope. Nope. Not doing that. There's no need for that. Devin is not here. Heck

Liz Moorehead: We've been abandoned.

George B. Thomas: abandoned by Devin. We miss him. We love you, bro. We can't wait till you're back. Max will be probably joining us partway through this because life be lifing.

But I'm super excited because my friend is here. Ladies and gentlemen. Make sure you gather around as we welcome a true maestro of business growth to the hub heroes podcast today. We're thrilled to introduce Doug Davidoff, the brilliant mind behind lift enablement with over two decades of experience, Doug has been the guiding force for countless companies, helping them scale to new heights and achieve.

Phenomenal success. He's an acclaimed author, a sought after advisor. Heck he's even been an inbound speaker side by side with me as we battled it out. And of course, Doug, you know, I won and dynamic thought leader in the world of business enablement, get ready for an insightful conversation today, packed with wisdom from one of us.

We'll figure out how this goes and actionable strategies, ladies and gentlemen, please join us in welcoming Doug David up Doug, how the heck you doing? Brother.

Doug Davidoff: I, I am good. I'm good. I'm psyched to be here. Um, you're the introduction. I was looking around for who the guest was yet. You had me

George B. Thomas: my dude.

Liz Moorehead: It's me actually. Just, you know,

Doug Davidoff: I was going to say, Liz, that's where the wisdom is definitely coming from. There's no question about that. And I'm glad to

Liz Moorehead: you everywhere. It's true.

Doug Davidoff: I'm glad to see that my reputation and, and mannerism continues to stand up.

If you want to clear the room, just bring Doug on. Cause you see, we got no Max. We got no Devon. My work here is done.

Liz Moorehead: I love it. You know, George, you know what else I love about that? I love how you took my line in the outline of George intro Doug here and just like, man, you are, you are stellar at stage direction. I really

George B. Thomas: Listen, I may or may not have done some emceeing along the way at some events, and so as soon as I saw Intro Dope Human 2 Podcast, I knew exactly what to do, Liz. Exactly.

Doug Davidoff: Well, I just want to know, do you ever remember the movie along came Polly and you had Philip Seymour Hoffman with the E entertainment crew following him, et cetera. I'm like, George, could you just like accompany me before I go anywhere and just like let people know before I walk into the room that, that I I'm

George B. Thomas: I'll be the guy with, like, the big trumpet. Ladies and gentlemen!

Liz Moorehead: I'll just be the personality hire here wrangling people. That's just

George B. Thomas: There you go. There you

Liz Moorehead: Professional wrangler. In, in fact, speaking of wrangling, gentlemen, I want to get down to business because Doug, we don't just have you here because we love you, although that is a big reason, plus again, the aforementioned cap.

We have very specific topic we need to discuss today, and that is, uh, Making change happen within sales teams. So I'm going to read a few quotes that I want to throw out here that may or may not be inspired by true events. Getting our sales team to change anything about what they do is like pulling teeth.

Good luck trying to get sales on board with that new initiative of yours. Look, the sales team, they're just setting their ways. Don't just, just don't get, don't get your hopes up. I know I'm not the only one who's overheard folks in marketing or on other teams talk like this about sales teams. There's this stereotype that paints people in sales as these resistant little buttheads who are.

Anti progress, anti teamwork, anti forward movement, like anytime you want to do something fun with technology or like trying to innovate, sales, no, it's the worst. And I will, I'm not saying this pointing fingers because I used to be one of these people many moons ago. So one day when I was still working at impact, I had been the content strategist on the marketing team.

The VP of sales at the time, Tom DeCipio said, Liz, you've been doing such an incredible job. I'm like, yay. Thank you. That's awesome. He says, so we'd like you to come be the dedicated sales, uh, content strategist for the sales team. And George, as you know, I'm really good at keeping my filter on my mouth, Tom will validate this story.

If you know him, he will validate it. I blurted out without thinking, am I being punished? And that was probably the most transformative nine months of my entire career. It changed completely how I think about sales and how I think about sales teams and kind of understanding where they're coming from. So what we're going to be talking about today is digging into this.

Are these stereotypes true? Or is there a deeper and more nuanced story here? What's actually happening? Actually happening between sales and other teams. And what are the changes we should all be looking at together now to start off this conversation, Doug, I actually want to call back to, I want you to take us to the 80, 000 foot view of what's happening right now with Uber.

All of us before we get into the sales specific piece, because when you and I spoke in preparation for this episode, you painted an incredibly vivid picture of the challenges all teams are facing within organizations right now with everything that's happening, whether that's economic or technology and why it matters to this conversation.

So can you start us there? Paint that picture for us.

Doug Davidoff: Yeah. I just wanted to say something before I get into it, which is if you think. What you said that marketers say about salespeople is bad. You should hear what salespeople say about

Liz Moorehead: They said it back to my face, so I got it right back to me.

Doug Davidoff: Well, I'm not talking about what salespeople say to marketers. I'm talking about what salespeople, that's what I am talking about, Max.

That is what right

Liz Moorehead: Look who's here.

George B. Thomas: got the I've had no time to read it yet, but it's on my desk every day! What's up, 

Go ahead, Doug.

Doug Davidoff: Um, well, and that's just brought up my favorite

George B. Thomas: Your book?

Doug Davidoff: That's right. Exactly. Um,

yeah, so,

so, you know, if, if we take a step back and we think about what's going on in the world today, um, I don't know about you all, but I'm tired. Just standing around is just exhausting. Um, you know, I, I, I had a coach early in my career who, who taught me.

He said, Doug, every decision somebody makes is the representation of their prediction of the future, right? It's, it's their bet on the future. Um, so when I feel good. I make decisions, I'm moving forward, I buy a new car, buy a new boat, whatever it might be, I'm feeling good, things are going on, right? And, and, and so that's how I know I'm confident and that's why consumer confidence, you know, is, is, is so crucially important.

And even though, you know, we, we live primarily in a B2B world. You tell me what's going on with the consumer. I can tell you a lot about what else is happening. And, and the difficulty is, I think it was, um, Gary Vaynerchuk, he's gotten credited for, um, if,

if content

if content is King, then context is God.

And, if we think about context, 

there is none today, the, the, the proverbial

checkerboard has been taken up and thrown in, into, you know, the sky, and we're all trying to figure out what are the rules. Um, you, you see this in a lot of places. Um, first off, we've had at least three once in a generation

events in the, last 20 years.

Right. and and, and the last four 

years, I have never

seen a transformation of the world we live in, like we've seen in the last four years, we went from a pandemic that was supposed to wipe out everything that ended up creating massive amounts of

demand. I don't mean to get overly geeky here, but put massive money into the market.

We saw, you know. the world quote unquote changed. I don't know if you guys look at

any of these economic charts, but, but literally if, if you're offline, you can, you know, exactly when the pandemic started, cause there was a drop down,

but now,

you know, roughly four years later, we're back to the place we were in

terms of what the trend was going.

By the way, if you were

online, you know, what day the pandemic started, because there was a massive 

uptick. And we're back

down to those trends. So like all 

this changes that happen, we've seen a reversion to the mean, but the thing that doesn't get enough credit

for, for why we're in this

place where, and we call it the macroeconomic environment and what's happening, et cetera, is we went from money literally being free, zero

interest rate policies that basically meant if you were a business and

you weren't spending money, you were being foolish.

You had to spend money to now money 

costs something, which has radically changed how our businesses

valued what's happening. So

whether you're a public company, a private company, whether you're seeking funding, you don't know what winning is anymore, and that's, that's impacting 

you. In whatever company you're in, what's the game that they're playing?

Where are you

going? And even more

so what's happening with your customer. I have never

seen a market and I've been selling for 30 years. I have never seen a market

that is as disrupted and difficult as this market. The great

recession was hard. It was 

bad. Everything was bad. We're not really, I mean, if you 

look at the economy, we're not in a bad economy, but it's operating very much like a

bad economy. And when you're the 

salesperson, it's your responsibility to make sense of that 

And it's really hard to do that. So, so you're, you're already in

this, environment of just massive, massive disruption. and I think that's, what's, what's kind of taking that. and

and by the way, the person that that impacts more than anybody

else is, is the salesperson and impacts their comp, it impacts their vacation schedule, it impacts their self image, all of those

things are going on because they're dealing at the individual conversation by conversation by conversation.

Liz Moorehead: George talked to me a bit. What are it? Cause you spend a lot of time with

organizations, whether you're, we're especially in

a training capacity and onboarding capacity, not just now, obviously is the owner of sidekick strategies, but

this is something you've been doing for, for over a decade. Have you

been hearing or seeing what Doug is talking about mirrored in the interactions you're having with sales teams

George B. Thomas: I mean, I have to say, without a doubt, it definitely has been very interesting to watch how, uh, the humans have been acting over, uh, the last four years. But even I would say there's, there's light indications before. but stronger indications during the time that Doug's talking about where it almost feels like I'll use the word scrambling.

And I think they're scrambling to figure out what's going to work. They're scrambling to understand what tools to use. They're scrambling to keep up with the knowledge of everything that's changing. I mean, what's amazing is Doug did that entire section and we didn't even talk about AI and what that is actually doing inside of sales teams and inside of organizations and, and the next level of like, and again, not to get weird or funky or political, but let's keep them confused.

Let's keep like, let's get them on their hamster wheel. And so what's fun when we engage with sales teams is we usually find one of

two things are happening. There's usually a 60 to 70%,

uh, of the sales team that is bought in

ready to rock and roll wants to learn because they're

like Doug said, tired of the rat race and the scrambling and the like constant, like, ah, like feel in their

life.

And so they're like heads down, bought in, and we're training them on HubSpot,

the tools, how to buy back their time, how to optimize, um, what it's going to do to help them sell more, because by the way, if they sell more, more of that money's in their pocket. If more of that money's in their pocket, their family's blessed.

If their family's blessed, they're not stressed. And a lot of what Doug talks about kind of changes and goes away. But there's, there's this portion that, and I can't wait for Doug to talk about this, there's this portion that we've always found that for some unknown reason, and it's hard for me because I'm a, I'm a person who loves to pivot.

I've been called a transition specialist through my career, but there's this portion of the sales team or the humans. Who have their heels in the dirt and they're holding on to cement weighted ropes and they're like, I love my spreadsheet. I like the old system. Can we build the old system

Liz Moorehead: literally have a client who talks to us on a regular basis about that spreadsheet he will never

George B. Thomas: I'm like,

Liz Moorehead: go of. He's so proud of it. It's so aggressively

George B. Thomas: I'm like, please help me right now. I'm like, I'm good. And I don't, you know, I don't, that's part of this conversation. I want to understand, like, how do we, how do we help that? Portion of the sales team move forward. Is it worth it? Doug, Doug always surprises me with his answers. Um, I'll never forget one time we're having a conversation about sales and marketing alignment.

He's like, they shouldn't be aligned. Shut up. And I'm like, wait, what? So, so I, so I can't 

Max Cohen: I remember 

George B. Thomas: like, you remember that max on the 

Max Cohen: Yeah, I remember that. That 

George B. Thomas: I don't know if you know that. Doug and I, uh, and Remington and then Julie for awhile did a podcast together when I was back at Impulse Creative. So it's not the

Liz Moorehead: refuse to accept that there was podcasting before me, but sure. Okay. In that imaginary

George B. Thomas: So this is the thing, like, I want to know how to impact that 40 percent to get them moving. And I want to really be able to understand that 60 percent that is bought in. Is are there things that we are the listeners could be doing to even expedite their buy in and accelerate where they're headed faster and almost use them as the ability to entice the folks who have their feet in the ground.

But that's historically, that's what we've been seeing. I

Liz Moorehead: Max, what about you? I know you have sales team thoughts.

George B. Thomas: he came in with a book dang gone.

Liz Moorehead: Yeah, dude, you came in with the book Rev Ops God.

Doug Davidoff: Aren't you Closed 

Max Cohen: One actually. 

Doug Davidoff: that your hat, Max? I thought you'd be coming in with Closed One

George B. Thomas: Where can people get those 

Max Cohen: another one of the many closed1city. com. And, uh, I believe a little someone just sent something to you 

Doug Davidoff: do you like the reciprocal, um, endorsement there?

Max Cohen: I love it. It's 

Liz Moorehead: I didn't get that. Wait, I'll go get a hat. I only have one hat, but it's Hold on. I'll

George B. Thomas: is it 

Max Cohen: Look at your hat. 

George B. Thomas: I can't wait to see what happens here.

Liz Moorehead: It's actually, it's just

George B. Thomas: But, but Liz, before you go get your hat, what should we be talking about as the resident

Liz Moorehead: I just asked.

George B. Thomas: Oh, 

Max Cohen: Yeah, I missed the, I missed the, I missed, Well, I just, I just, I just what about you? I don't know what the question was that prompted these two guys going 

Doug Davidoff: That's never stopped you from having a take before, Max.

Liz Moorehead: No, I was, so I wanted to get your take based on your experience with sales teams, what you're seeing in terms of their resistance and whether or not you're hearing what Doug is talking about with them.

Max Cohen: Well, resistance. I mean resistance to, to what? To change? Hmm. Hmm. I don't know. I mean, my, my sales, my experience on sales teams has been so weird. And I think my ability to perceive what's going on with them is also very weird. Because in all the sales roles that I've been in, I can't quite tell that if I've been that I can't quite tell if I've ever been able to like, put myself in the shoes of someone who really You know, uh cares about a quota and thinks very tactically about selling because for any of the selling roles i've ever been in it's always it's always been because like I love the product so much and I just love talking about it and I wish everyone would get it and it was never through the guise of someone who not the guys through the through the lens of someone who's like Doing it, you know for a job for the quota for the this for the that I tend to get very invested Emotionally in the companies that I work for so I think it kind of like it puts blinders on me I think to be able to get into the shoes of a salesperson um, you know to kind of understand why they'd be so resistant to change I think I have a I mean to be honest with you like I Why would you want to change? You If what you've been doing is working, or at least you're perceiving that it's been working, right. Especially for someone who's been doing sales for a long time, right. And they have their process down and they have their, you know, they, they have what works for them. whether it's their tools or their tactics, their strategies, or their, their technology that they like to use or don't like to use for that matter.

Right. Um, you know, you gotta, you gotta remember all that stuff has kind of contributed to their. Livelihood for that long. And like, why change it if it's going to shake that up or put that at risk? Right. So I can empathize with salespeople that, you know, I, I had a coaching client that was like, Oh, you know, we've got this, this sales guide.

He's kind of old school. And he doesn't really like, you know, using the CRM and this and that. And I'm just like, well, I mean, can you, can you blame him for like wanting to do the job the way he wants to do the job, right? Like you don't have to force stuff on him. You know what I mean? Um, so I have a lot of empathy for folks because again You know, I mean when you're when you're in sales and you've you've you've figured out something that works for you Why would you want to change it unless you see a big reason to need to change it?

right, but I don't know. It's it's hard for me to yeah, it's hard for me to really get inside of their uh, you know get inside their brains because I Look at sales I think in a you know, a more a lofty, uh, you know, uh You A weirder way that. I don't think I ever got quite in this right mindset of like a seller, you know, I don't know 

George B. Thomas: okay. So we'll get back to Doug in a second, but I'm about to lose my dang mind right now. Cause, cause here's the, cause here's the deal when I hear Max and I love you, bro, you know, I love you to like the core of my heart, but when I hear you or some other people saying, why would he want to change? Like I live so much in this 1 percent better each and every day mentality and realizing why would I rest on my laurels?

Why would I think yesterday was the best day ever when tomorrow can be even better and like, and I think this is why I have such an issue with that 40 percent that I was talking about because it's like guy, gal, whoever the heck you are. Like sure, you sold 50, 000 last month. Guess what next month you might sell 150, 000, but you're going to have to make some change because to get to where you want to go, you got to do different things than what got you where you're at.

And, oh, okay. I'm going to just shut up. Let's go back to

Liz Moorehead: Max. Max, you made, you made inbound dad mad.

George B. Thomas: I'm not mad. I'm just passionate.

Liz Moorehead: just disappointed. You're just disappointed.

George B. Thomas: I'm not 

Max Cohen: i'm i'm saying i'm saying but but george what I'm

saying is is Is is I would think that? someone who's resistant to change Might not have that same motivation because maybe they've been doing it for a while and they're comfortable You 

Liz Moorehead: Here's Doug. He's coming 

Max Cohen: don't know. I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out on my own I'm trying to figure it out on my own. I have no clue 

Doug Davidoff: We're talking like Sales being resistant to change is is an unusual Is a not normal thing in a business um Show me an operations team Show me a finance team show me I mean, there's a whole world I mean if you think if you think branding strives to make the world complicated to justify high advisory fees You

should take a look at the change management industry, right?

So so let's not Let's not put salespeople in

this bucket of they're somehow

this unique set of resistors to, to, to what's going on. Um, and, and, and actually let's, let's also acknowledge that what we, that what the vast majority of businesses do is they throw salespeople out into the world with no maps, no process, no clarity.

I mean, it's, it's much through management, right? Throw them in the dark and from time to time, pour some shit on them and let's see how they grow. Right. I mean, that, that, that's how far too many, I mean, if we ran our manufacturing process, the way we run sales processes, the way we run sales organizations, no business would

succeed at doing anything. So, so let's just, I mean, I just want to balance this out. That, that, that change is hard yet. Yet at the same time, here's what I hear. I hear constantly salespeople are resisting to change. And then right after that, I hear they never do the same thing twice. Everything's always different. Right. I'm, I'm, I'm listening to this podcast about lost, about the show lost.

George B. Thomas: love that

Doug Davidoff: about how, how, how Damon, uh, Lindelof

Liz Moorehead: Lindelof and Carlton Cues. Yep.

Doug Davidoff: but how Damon Lindelof was like being asked, you know, on one hand, they were like, do you have a plan for this? It's like, every fan wants us to say, yes, we have an absolute plan. We know exactly where this is going, except right after that.

They say, well, wait, are you listening to what we're saying? Are you, are you taking our suggestions? So it's like, when you get asked that question, you're damned. If you do, you're damned if you don't. Right. So, so when we talk about change, what we're really saying, and let me just ask you what we're really saying is salespeople are resistant to changing the way we want them to change.

George B. Thomas: Interesting. First of all, before we let's take a hot break from this, uh, note to self, never put Doug and Liz on a podcast together because it'll be movie and TV names and trivia being thrown amongst the entire

Liz Moorehead: So Doug is our new cohost.

George B. Thomas: Oh, 

Max Cohen: God, God forbid. God forbid we make the 

Liz Moorehead: talk about the Nats. Doug. Doug. 

Max Cohen: George 

George B. Thomas: Oh, there we go.

Liz Moorehead: Let's talk about Let Teddy Win. That was a great campaign. It was a great campaign. That's right. George, you all right, bud? I'm, is that hissing noise your

George B. Thomas: No, I, I was, I was just breathing. Like, slow breathing, I'm good.

Liz Moorehead: Speaking of breathing, let's bring it back to sales for a moment, shall we?

Doug Davidoff: let me ask you a question.

Um, anybody, I 

do not do This but any, any, anybody like to work with tools, carpenters, 

Liz Moorehead: I would, I would probably, that's a hazard. I'm a hazard without tools.

Doug Davidoff: How, how would 

your carpenter who's got his favorite hammer or her favorite hand, how would, how would they react if I say here, I got a, I got a new hammer for it. I got to, you got to give me your, give me your favorite tool. 

George B. Thomas: well, but

here's the

Doug Davidoff: We'd probably be

George B. Thomas: Yeah, well, well, but wait, because if it was the guy who was swinging a hammer At the same time that they came out with the air hammer and he knew that he could save his elbow and he knew that he could save his shoulder, but he was resistant to use that new hammer that actually did the job easier for him, AKA a CRM, AKA a process, AKA automation.

Then I would ask you like. Why are you doing the same old thing with the hammer when there is a new hammer that you could be using that saves your body and saves you time?

Doug Davidoff: So do you think this is the first time that sales rep that you're claiming to be resistant to change? Do you think this is the first time they've been told that here's this new technology that will solve your problems that we'll take care of? What, what, what happened to the sales

George B. Thomas: That might be

Doug Davidoff: What, what

George B. Thomas: no, it probably isn't.

Doug Davidoff: Right. And, and, and, and by the way, here, here's something else that I can tell you. Like, if you want to get down to it, and I will say that that sales people are not anywhere near as motivated by quota as we think they are motivated by quote. And if we have time, I'll, I'll, I'll get into that. But nobody goes on P club and nobody goes on presidents.

I'm sorry. Nobody goes on P club and nobody gets fired because of their adoption or lack of adoption utilization or lack of utilization of the CRF. They do go to P club or get fired based on how much business did they close. So, so when you talk to me, see what I would say, George is you, you took it in the wrong order. You said, here's this new machine with this automation, with this process, with this, and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's all about you talk to me about where's my gap. Help me understand why am I not getting the outcomes that I need to get? Why are we changing to begin with? How is the world changed? Like we all live in the world of change.

And, and, and by the way, we're unique because we thrive in the world of change, right? Humans aren't designed, I'm sorry, I don't have that sound effect for human, but humans aren't designed to thrive and change, right? We're, we're biologically programmed. We're biochemically programmed to seek what we're like.

We seek tribes. By the way, Max, the interesting thing about what you said is I actually think you got it. In reverse, the greater the confidence, the more willing you'll see the change.

George B. Thomas: Hmm.

Doug Davidoff: The willingness to change is a sign of confidence. So the, the sales rep who is confident in what is, in what is working, the sales rep who understands how am I achieving you, show me a hitter who studies the science of hitting.

I will show you someone who is constantly tweaking and adjusting their swing. Because of what you talked about, you show me someone who's worried about hitting quota. You, someone, you show me someone who, who doesn't understand, but by the way, in sales, and I've lived this for 30 years. I mean, and I love it every month.

You start off at zero every year. You start off at zero. I have a ritual that I've done for 25 years. My last day of production, I print my, my report and my first day of production, I print my report. Here's what I did. And I go back to zero, but man, that's also scary. Accountants don't go back to zero.

Right. And so we're in this environment that at any moment. Change the interest rates. Everything changed

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Doug Davidoff: things completely outside of my control change. You show me somebody who is worried about the future. I'll show you somebody who resists change. So I don't think it's 64. I don't think there's that much difference between the 60 and the 40.

I think there's a difference in, in perspective and the context. So spend less time talking about the thing, spend less time talking about the solution and spend more time facilitating an understanding of the context. Change my context. You'll change my behavior.

George B. Thomas: I love it. Liz, do you see why I was like, immediately? Uh, we have to have Doug on for this episode.

Liz Moorehead: a hundred percent. But before we move off of this, George, I've been watching you just kind of absorb and take in everything that Doug has been saying. I want to get your 

Max Cohen: I love it. I love absorbing dog. it's

the best 

Liz Moorehead: Wait, we're live on YouTube. You can't say things like that now, Max.

Max Cohen: We're live on 

George B. Thomas: and

Liz Moorehead: And LinkedIn.

Max Cohen: shit. 

George B. Thomas: But, 

Max Cohen: shit. 

George B. Thomas: but, 

Liz Moorehead: Dude, you're sweating. Dude, you have

George B. Thomas: get us cancelled!

Liz Moorehead: the, let it be known. Let it be known. You know what? No, hold on. We need to, we need to note this for the

record. The first person to swear on this pod when we are live. Is not Liz. Now, will I say something wildly inappropriate later? 90 percent chance, 90%, but let's keep going. Let's keep going.

Thanks, Max.

George B. Thomas: well, and you can thank Riverside because they gave me new toys and I wanted to play and test because I'm a marketer, but there you

Doug Davidoff: I do, I do think I'm a, I do think this is the first time I've been on a live stream.

George B. Thomas: All right. Well, there you go. There you go. You're killing it, brother. You're killing it. So it's funny though, but let's talk about like, 

Max Cohen: I almost just 

George B. Thomas: yeah, let's be careful, Max. So here's the thing. Um, cause I do it. I was literally sitting there absorbing what Doug was saying because I. I,

Liz Moorehead: talk about absorbing

George B. Thomas: passionately and actively want to know how to get better at this, because I know that if I can communicate and interact with sales teams in a way that it is manufactured to get the most out of them and get them in a, what we feel.

Better direction or believe even is a better word is a better direction for them and for the organization and we can get past the hurdles of like everybody's changed it like every two years because nobody knows what the heck they're doing. Um, and so I literally was just sitting there intently listening, tried to put the pieces of the matrix together in my own brain, which, by the way.

This is usually what happens, Liz, when I'm with Doug. Like, literally, there was a conversation I had with Doug at a previous InBound where he broke my brain for about 14 days after the conversation that I had to try to unpack and put back together. So,

Liz Moorehead: Doug, teach me your ways.

George B. Thomas: No, do not. She's not allowed to know the dark side.

Liz Moorehead: I'll just ask you about your feelings, George. That's my

George B. Thomas: Oh, geez. Moving on, back to sales.

Liz Moorehead: moving on. Moving on. Okay. So I want to throw this question out to the group. No one in particular. What does getting buy in from sales teams look like today?

Doug Davidoff: Skip buy in. Buy in is the wrong place to go.

It's See, that's the kind of 

It's why every change 

Max Cohen: this is why I fucking love, sorry. Love having Doug on the podcast. This 

Liz Moorehead: making me look so good. I look like an angel right now. Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you just turning in, I am an angel and Max is awful. 

Max Cohen: Well, no, cause when you say buy in, my brain's just going, oh, buy in for what? And then Doug goes, skip it. And I'm like, holy shit. This is good. Operating on a completely different level than I am. And I just want to 

Liz Moorehead: Unless it's buy in for sandwiches, in which case

George B. Thomas: Oh, I'm bought in, if it's, if it's Subway.

Liz Moorehead: If it's a panini, I'm

George B. Thomas: Jersey

Doug Davidoff: I, I was on vac

George B. Thomas: Fireside.

Doug Davidoff: on vacation, I was on vacation when I was younger. And I was it was when I was still golfing and I decided hey, you know what? I'll i'll let's do a golf lesson before I play around in golf. So take some swings. I'm like, aren't you gonna give me some tips? Which is like no, let me just see you.

Let me just see you hit a hit a few balls So I take out my seven iron. It was the only iron that I could hit halfway decent and I started Started hitting the ball and I thought oh wow He's gonna think i'm better than I am because I was hit. I felt like I was hitting the ball Well, i'm probably I probably hit 10 balls and the process to me goes I see what your problem is i'm like That's pretty presumptive.

I only hit 10 balls and i'm hitting them What do you mean what my problem is? He said the problem is you're trying to hit the ball I looked at him like There might be something wrong here. 'cause I said to him, I'm

George B. Thomas: Mm. Mm. Mm.

Doug Davidoff: I mean, call me crazy, but I thought that was the point of this game. And he said, no, no.

See, see the problem is you think because you're trying, because you're aiming at the ball. Basically he said, you think that your swing ends when you hit the ball, right? What? What you need to do is you need to let the ball interrupt your swing. When I coach kids in baseball, first thing I did was I put him in the cage.

Don't talk to me about what you do. Just just go out. Swing, swing. Okay. Let's look at this. Here's what I want you to do. Let's do this. See, I want you to take an action. Sales is a participation sport. Sales is an action sport. I want you to do, by the way, this applies to non sales too. I want you to do something with an expectation.

So by the way, when I get resistance, when someone says, well, this is all well and good, but it doesn't work in my industry. It doesn't work with my customers. I'm like, okay, great. Awesome. Here's what I need you to do. I need you to prove to me that it doesn't work, prove to me. It doesn't work. Do this a hundred times and come back because here's the thing, by the way, I'm, sometimes I might even go, you know what I'm at, I'm, I'm with you.

I'm not, but you gotta understand. I'm like, I got to do this. I need you to demonstrate to me. It doesn't work. So we take an action. We get a result. The result is either what we expected or something different than we expected. Now we've got experience. Now we can learn. Why did we get that result? What happened?

What was different? We then apply that to the next action. When we talk about buy in, what we're doing is we're, we're throwing theory out. We're throwing opinions out. We're throwing, we're saying, um, take my advice. I mean, please don't take this the wrong way. George, you're advising a sales team, the 40 percent of salespeople.

They're trying to figure this stuff out. They've been doing it for, for 10, 20 years, five years, two years, whatever the number might be. And remember the thing that's different about sales is it's Every interaction is different. So they live in a world where every interaction is different. No, don't get me wrong.

Every interaction is 80 to 90 percent the same, but that's not what you, that's not where you get paid. That's not where you live in a sales world. So you come in and you're going to tell me how I need to change. And, and I'm, if I have any self worth at all, I'm going to, I'm going to push back. What do you mean?

Right. So, so let's just skip that. Let's, let's, let's create the context. Here's the issue. Here's what we're seeing. Here's why we're doing this. By the way, one of the things to do is be really clear. What's staying the same? Because you've identified that there's something that's not working. There's something that's broken.

We're going to change what's broken. But what they hear is you're going to change everything. Okay.

What, what are the things that are working for me? Make it clear to me that the things that work for me will continue to work for me. And this is how we're going to address the things that aren't working so that I can have confidence.

Cause remember every decision I make is a statement of my confidence about the future. My confidence is built on repetitions. Of what I believe as cause and effect. So help me have that confidence, define it more by what isn't changing than what is changing. And, and you'll see less resistance and by the way, resistance is okay.

I'm not looking for followers, 

Max Cohen: Mm hmm. 

Doug Davidoff: right? I'm, I'm, I'm not looking for you to convert. I'm looking to help optimize a business process, which, which by the way, there is no one right way to do it. So that's the other thing that sells people here all the time is I'm supposed to do it the way Bill does it the way jill does it it's like no Show me where I get to be me 

at the end of the day, I'm the one that's putting my name on the promise How can I have confidence in it? 

Max Cohen: Yeah, and if you don't have resistance, you don't get any feedback as to why something's not working from the people who are boots on the ground doing the thing, 

Doug Davidoff: And by the way george and max and liz who who have the best advocates in your life been On on the ideas that you've put forth I will bet you that a good percentage of them came from the people that were the most resistant initially You

Liz Moorehead: George, I need to know what's going on behind that thinking face. Like I absolutely have to

George B. Thomas: Yeah. No, it, it's, um. So, first of all, I'm, I'm a child. So, uh, I can't hear the word resistance without saying, you know, resistance is futile. So there's that. Um, but anyway, uh, hopefully 

Doug Davidoff: by the way, George, if you want a salesperson to change something, just tell them they're not allowed to,

George B. Thomas: oh, well, there you go. Podcast is

Doug Davidoff: and then they'll 

George B. Thomas: Fun. 

Liz Moorehead: that's a hundred percent true because salespeople, it sounds like are just basically only children, which is what I am, which is like, would you like me to not do something? Tell me to do it. Would you like me to do something? Tell me not to do it. Like that's Liz one Oh one

George B. Thomas: So, so it's interesting though, because where my brain was gone when, when Doug was talking, it's funny because. What I think Doug does well is he, he's really good at making what you might have thought was complex, really simple. And, and what's funny is when we do have most of these conversations, it's like, um, and here's all these cool things that you can do these cool things with.

And here's how they're going to make your life easier and save you time. Um, but the fact when Doug was like, so, so start, start, start, start By what's working for them. And I was like, Oh, I feel stupid right now because I don't know if I've ever asked a sales team so, or started with the question. So tell me what's working for you in the sales process and just shut up and listen.

I don't think I've ever done that. Um, now I want to do that immediately with like the next sales team that I talked to and start there because what's interesting out of that is I should be able to diagnose what's not working. Cause I understand what you need. I understand like how the engine works, you know, and so I can, Oh, the, their carburetors broke and the starter needs replaced.

Okay. They need these, these two or three things, strategies or tools. And if I can just get them to plug that into the 80 or 90 percent that we can now say is working, and we're just going to mirror that, then. Then we get somewhere special pretty dang quick.

Doug Davidoff: so, so George, the conversation where I broke your brain at inbound, if you think about that, you can, you, you can apply that to sales teams because the danger with what you said. 99 percent of the time, I wouldn't even comment on this, but because of this, the topic of this show, when you talked about a car, that's where you, that's where you lose sales organizations and you lose connecting with those resistors and

George B. Thomas: Metaphors and analogies?

Doug Davidoff: well, a car is a closed system.

A car is complicated, it is not complex. If I, if I take this out and I fix this and I put it in. You know, when I change the carburetor, it doesn't change everything else. When you're selling, you're at the center of a, of a series of complex ecosystems. You are in a system of systems. When you change one thing, you change everything.

And, and that's what a salesperson understands subconsciously. That's where you see the fear. That's where you see the resistance. And that's why calling out an understanding of what is working. Right. And, and, and by the way, also show the place where, when we talk about process language, when we use process language, we talk about it in a very constraining manner, this, then this, then this, then this, anyone that spent a second in a conversation, let alone a sales conversation knows doesn't happen like that.

Right. A, the process isn't linear. It's it's a pinball machine and i've got my way of doing it like like george. You're ex You're extraordinarily successful at being george

George B. Thomas: Why

Doug Davidoff: I don't think you would be I don't think you would be anywhere near as successful at being doug

George B. Thomas: No. I, I, I, I don't even come close to reading the amount of books that you

Liz Moorehead: wrong name for starters. The labeling's all off.

George B. Thomas: Pfft.

Doug Davidoff: But i'm just saying i'm just forget forget the reading and everything else I'm, just saying the style the approach and and I like to think i'm pretty good at being doug

I would do I would be really ineffective at being

George B. Thomas: Mmm.

Doug Davidoff: So the other thing that we have to do is, is, is communicate how a strong centralized system frees the individual out the individuality by understanding the key milestone, by understanding the key points in, in a process you're free in between.

Even more free to be yourself. And, and, and what salespeople are hearing is the opposite, right? That's what they're afraid

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Doug Davidoff: Cause by the way, most salespeople have been told most of their life, what's wrong with them.

George B. Thomas: Oh, see, now that statement right there immediately makes me, like, sad. And, and actually my, I, I don't want to swear. Like other people on this podcast, but, but,

Liz Moorehead: Shots

George B. Thomas: but, but, but, but immediately I was like, well, that's a sucky place to live in. that realization that you just stated. I'm like, Ooh, I just got a bad feeling.

Like, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to be being told that I'm always doing something wrong. 

Doug Davidoff: sales. You get rejected 90 percent of the time. If you can, if you can get rejected 90 percent of the time, you're in the hall of fame. mean, we think baseball's hard baseball. You only have, you fail 70 percent of the time. You're in the hall of fame. You, you, you live, you hear all the pushback.

You, you don't, you don't get the testimonial letters. Marketing gets the testimonial.

You're you're

Liz Moorehead: like content. Content I see the same thing. I had to tell a client the other day because they were nervous about giving me feedback. I'm like, do you realize this is what I do all day, every day? I have never, ever, except maybe with George, like once or twice, have I ever, ever, ever given a piece of content to somebody and they're like, perfect.

No notes. There's always a Maybe one or two things that needs to get tweaked now, maybe down the line, we get to that point, right? We get to that point of trust we get but it's that's that's it's rejection station, man

Doug Davidoff: Liz, I'm curious when, when, when you get the no notes back, like I always think I want the no notes, but then someone says, Oh, it looks fine. I'm like, you didn't even look at it. Did you?

Liz Moorehead: So I so I get very anxious when somebody says no notes and George has been on a couple of calls with me Where somebody to say yeah, it's great. I'm like, so you're saying it's great But your face is saying an entirely different story. There are times where I get to a level of trust with a couple of clients where yes, I will trust what they're saying.

What I've often found is that if people are giving me a no that quickly, they either do not know how to articulate what's actually wrong. It's just a gut feeling. They do know how to articulate what's wrong, but they don't want to hurt my feelings because they think that I take it as a personal attack on my client.

on my work and my credibility. And I'm like, no, we're just working toward the end goal of getting good content out the door. But you know, that's

usually what it's like.

Doug Davidoff: You misunderstand, I said no notes,

so they just say, yes, they just say, yeah, this is fine. Oh, okay.

Liz Moorehead: if they say no notes, I start wondering what's actually wrong because in most cases, I'm like, you're not telling me something.

You don't know what, how to tell me, or you know what it is, but you don't want to hurt my fee fees. Like it could be a range of reasons.

Doug Davidoff: So, so here's something else to understand about salespeople if you want to break through to them. Um, are you familiar with the book, The E Myth?

So, so, so the E Myth is a book

about small business and, and the E Myth is the entrepreneur myth. The myth is most businesses are started by entrepreneurs. It's written by a guy named Michael

Gerber and his thesis, the thesis of the book is most businesses are not started by entrepreneurs.

They're started by technicians who experienced an entrepreneurial seizure. His words, not mine. So they're, they're basically businesses are started by people who do what the business does. They look and they say, I can do this better. I can, I want to be my own boss, whatever the case may be. So, What, what the book talks about is there's three types of people.

There's the entrepreneur, all vision lives out in the world of risk change, et cetera. There's the manager.

Who's got some son of a bitch to him. Very process oriented, very disciplined, very, the world is dominated by technicians. That's why I, that's why I picked on the carpenter and the hammer. I have my way of doing something right.

I've come to understand my way. I know that my way is not the best way. But realize people are not motivated for the best way. What they're motivated for is the way that is least likely to not be the worst. Right. That's, that's how, by the way, that's what drives buying decisions. That's what drives. And so what you're dealing with, because salespeople speak the language of risk because they're paid variable compensation.

We think, Oh, they're risk takers. We say on, we say they're entrepreneurial. Some of them are. Yeah. What what the vast majority of them are is they're technicians They have a way of doing something. They have not documented their way. They have not they have not Tangiblized their way, but they have a way of doing something.

It's ambiguous you come in and you say we're gonna change how you're doing it And I go, huh, best thing you can do document the sales process forget without the CRM. But this is the first thing we do with companies is we go through and we map. What's the flow of conversations from how do they gain interest to.

They want us on to the bottom line. It has nothing to do with technology. There's no tech in it. We understand how do you do what you do? Okay, here's where the breakdown occurs. Here's where the breakdown occurs. Hey, it looks like a lot of time is spent here. It doesn't seem like a lot of value there.

Wouldn't you like to be able to spend more time here? Yeah. Okay. Here's how we can help make that happen. And then the last thing that I would say is when you're dealing, when, when, when you're doing CRM, every company in the world should be launching their CRM two to four times per year. The other thing that we talk about, we look at CRM and we look at launching CRM as the finish line.

And so we stuff it all in. We're we're, we're like the parent at the baseball field saying, keep your weight back, keep your elbow up, head in. Hey, we're, we're, we're barking five instructions at one time. So we come in and we identify everything that's wrong. We're going to fix it.

You can't fix more than 

one thing at a time. If you try to fix more than one thing at a time, you're overwhelming people and that's why

We're gonna we're gonna operate on

this We so the clients that we work with we're typically

launching three to four times per year, by the way That's the

single best thing for adoption. It's like hey, we've got some new toys

for you, but it also means we're never done

And that means we launched this.

Some of what we do work, some of what we doesn't, doesn't do

work. It feeds into that next piece in, in, in, in, and

I, we work with larger organizations. That's why four times per year, you're never more than 90 days away from, from an overall

fix. and And now, because, because remember as the, sales rep, it's the next 90 days that matter for me.

We call that the performance zone. I need to hit

my number. What you want to do. I

had, I had somebody who was

funded. Early in early

in, in, in Lyft, imagine his career.

He said, I

got 

fired because he loved my

ideas. And what he said to me, he said, Doug, here's the thing I

love. I agree with you a hundred percent.

We need to do this. the problem is you're solving the

problem that I have 18 months from now.

If I don't get to this revenue

in six months, I don't get my

next tranche of money. If I don't get my next tranche of money, I don't have oxygen. I am

dead. I realized that what I'm going to be doing for

the next six months.

Puts me in a weaker position for where I need to be

in 18 months. But if I do, but if I, if I

solved 

my 18 month problem, I'm dead in six months. That timescale taught me, Whoa,

I can't fix

everything at one time. I

like a lot of times we're trying to come in and fix something. They don't even have the foundation.

Let's bring in the

foundation. Then let's add the next piece. Then we add the next piece. Then we add the next piece and we're in an ongoing, continuous loop. And that's where transformations occur. Transformations occur when you look back and realize you transformed. Not when you go in saying, Hey, we're going to transform it.

Liz Moorehead: Hear that, B2B website copywriters? No more transforming in your headlines, just like you can't call yourself a thought leader in your own bio. Okay. Before I take us into, yeah, George, I wanted to ask you if you

George B. Thomas: Well, no, I just want, is it the E Myth Revisited? Is that the book that you,

Doug Davidoff: Same thing. That's the rewrite. That's the updated 

George B. Thomas: Okay. Uh, cause by the way, uh,

E Myth Revisited, E Myth Enterprise, E Myth Mastery, E Myth for HVAC, E Myth for Real Estate Agents, E Myth for, holy crap, it keeps on going.

Anyway, but the, the original book to get is the E Myth Revisited. Okay.

Doug Davidoff: And it's really the first third of the book where all the value is. Everything else is franchise your business and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's.

Liz Moorehead: Well, Doug, let me stay with you for a moment. Are there any other, we know that you are an avid reader, resource consumer. Are there any other books specifically or other resources you would recommend? Yeah. There was, is it

George B. Thomas: you go. It's that book right

Liz Moorehead: Is it that

George B. Thomas: Max

Doug Davidoff: It really, I 

Liz Moorehead: Max. Maximus Vanna White.

Doug Davidoff: I talk in the book about the three zones of execution, right? We, we always look at everything. It's the next 90 days, 90 days to 12 months, 12 months to 36 months, the 12 to 36 months, that's the transformation zone. That's the company and the sales organization we want to be. Um, the next 90 days is the performance zone.

We live by a mantra there. Don't mess with the performance zone That's not actually our mantra, right? But we're live so I can't tell you what a real mantra is Um, and then and then george where we live We live in the enablement zone We're in that 90 day to 12 month zone. That's enabling you to perform better as I, when we show that to people, they now understand, okay, this is how things are connected.

This 

is where that, that works. And suddenly this change isn't so threatening. Um, the, another book that I would recommend on, on the idea behind this is team of teams by Stanley

Liz Moorehead: Oh, that's a great book.

I love 

Doug Davidoff: Cause we live in a system of systems.

Liz Moorehead: George, while you're 

Max Cohen: when George starts buying stuff on Amazon during the, during 

Liz Moorehead: you can always tell it's a good episode and he's like, wait, hold on. I understand we need to drive the conversation

forward, but could you speak closer to the mic, Doug? So I could type this into Amazon.

Max Cohen: Add to cart. 

George B. Thomas: My my Audible account is just It's ignorant. But, whatever.

Liz Moorehead: this is why, can I just point out by the way, if you aren't watching this live on YouTube or in the community or on LinkedIn right now, you are missing the sweetest little baby puppy angel. Who

is that?

Max Cohen: Four months. 

George B. Thomas: Oh, boy. 

Max Cohen: It's got 

George B. Thomas: What a journey ahead of ya. 

Max Cohen: Toe beans. Teepees. 

George B. Thomas: Oh! Well. Yep. Not happy. NOT HAPPY!

Max Cohen: You hate me. 

Liz Moorehead: Wait, is that the same dog who was wreaking havoc last week,

George B. Thomas: Oh, yeah.

Liz Moorehead: but we love her

George B. Thomas: one that ate a tin can? 

Max Cohen: her. 

Liz Moorehead: That's fine. It's fine. You know what if they if you know what if they weren't supposed to be edible Why do you make it food shaped? I'm just saying George. Why don't you take us out? What are some of the big things you want people remembering from today's?

Conversation other than what books should be in everybody's shopping cart.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Well, first of all, get the resources and definitely get Doug's book, uh, cause he just need to get Doug's book. And so the Liz, it's funny because like, you know, me, I like to be a little bit honest and a little bit transparent and I'm not willing to put myself out there, but I don't know if people are going to listen to this and be like me or be like, you know, have the same thoughts as me.

But my big takeaway for this for me as man, I need to rethink. Almost everything that I'm doing from a communication standpoint to get sales teams to really, um, change the things that they need to change to get the impact that they need to get versus what might be a, um. Well, this works for everybody scenario that I might have not on purpose created in this HubSpot inbound, uh, echo chamber that I live in.

So that like rethink everything is one thing that I'll say that you may want to think of the, the other thing too, is amazingly, as I'm listening to Doug, I feel like I broke my Cardinal rule. In this area, because the more I heard Doug talk and the more I heard how Doug was communicating and the more I heard Doug's focus is I realized Doug is focused on the human

Liz Moorehead: There we go

George B. Thomas: A sales rep.

And we've kind of jokingly said things like butthead and other things, but we have to remember that they're just like us. They are humans, not sales reps, not robots, not people who do things perfect, but they, they

are, they're humans.

Liz Moorehead: So your one

takeaway for everybody today is when you think of this just rethink

George B. Thomas: Rethink everything.

Liz Moorehead: So all of

George B. Thomas: All of it. Yeah. 

Doug Davidoff: I can. I can simplify that

to bite size. I think if, if, if I were to take one thing from this is spend more time and make sure whether you're a manager or an implementer, whatever the case may be, make sure you're 

asking each salesperson at least once a quarter, preferably once a month, what's working. 

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I really like that part When like, starting with that. Yeah. Yeah. That. what Doug said. Do that. 

Max Cohen: is Wait. I know we're supposed to end the episode. Is that We We We So I, I, whatever I would do, because it's so tough because like when we talk about like the buy in thing, you got to remember I'm so HubSpot product brained that, like all of my experience, like getting buy in from a sales team has been because my job. was to get people to use this piece of software, Right? So a lot of the times when I would go in, To these, like you know, they'd set it up, be like, all Right? um, we're going to get the sales team, you know, on the, on a call and you're going to teach them how to use this thing. Right. I hated being the guy that would come in and be like, all right, guys, here's how you're going to use this. CRM.

And I would always try to come in with the, uh, You know, on their side of the table and It's just like. Hey, everybody have this awesome CRM thing that I think is like super great.

But I want to frame this up in a way that is going to make it actually useful for you. and the way that I would always lead is I would say, what sucks about doing your job right now?

And I would try to hone in on those things that I knew the product could help with, Right, and go from that angle of like what's not working right? From a technology enablement standpoint, right? Um, But like that's kind of always how I would go. It's just like, what's Not working for you and what's something that? I can get you to see that Oh, this thing is actually going to be helpful for me.

But I don't know, how to tell you what's helpful unless I know, that you have some kind of pain. Right. So I guess my question is when you say, ask him what's working, is that juxtaposed to asking what's not working? Is there a

reason you wouldn't ask that? Or is that part of the same thing you're getting at?

Or I don't know. 

Doug Davidoff: So something has to be broken to change, right? The only, the only reason that

people change is because. Not changing is more painful than 

Max Cohen: Hey, keep running into a wall. Yeah. 

Doug Davidoff: so now, now the thing is when it comes to change initiatives and especially change initiatives with sales organizations, the, what is screwed up? What sucks about right now?

Like we've got that covered. We do that. We do that well. So I'm not, and, and, and what you're doing max, at least what I'm hearing is you're, you're coming in for an event. And what I mean by event is it's, it's a one off thing. You're, you're introduce your, it's either getting a conversation started or a, you know, here's this, that then is going to lead

into the ongoing 

Max Cohen: the CRM. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. 

Doug Davidoff: And, and so what I'm saying is what you've got to do though, is don't just show me how you're going to fix what's broken, right? Cause when I, when that's all I hear, that gets me going, right? But when that's all I hear, then what I worry about is, well, wait, you're going to change the stuff that I'm comfortable with.

You know, this isn't a conscious thing. 

Max Cohen: Yeah 

Doug Davidoff: Right, but but that's where the fear and that resistance comes from what what you're what you're really saying is, look, we're gonna take the parts that suck. We're gonna fix those. We're gonna make it easier for you to do the things that you like to do. So you can do more of the things that you like to do.

Max Cohen: Mm hmm. Mm 

Doug Davidoff: In, in our change, when we get in, when, when, when George is halfway into the configuration and getting ready to launch, like we've already covered that. Right. So we forget to talk about it. And then on an ongoing basis, we're really good at saying, Oh, well, you should have done this, right? Cause that's the beautiful thing about.

About analyzing sales calls, by the way, remember we're being told every day that AI is going to take our job. Um, and then we're saying here, we're listening to this call. See you zagged when you should have zigged and you know, that whole 2020 vision spend more time on an ongoing basis. Like if you were working with them regularly, Hey, help me understand what's working so I understand that in balance to what's not working.

Max Cohen: Mm hmm. 

Doug Davidoff: And that's where you'll get. And by the way, a rep that is resistant, spend more time with them. Say, Hey, you know what? Let's talk about what's working for you. Let's talk about what are the untouchables for you? Cause, cause remember there's a hundred ways we can get this thing done, 

Max Cohen: Yeah, 

Doug Davidoff: You don't have to do it this way.

We just need this. We just need this to be the out. 

Max Cohen: yeah, I think I always tried to be like, you know, how can you use this thing? You To enable the way you like to work better because who am I to come in here And, tell you? How you should like to work, right? 

Doug Davidoff: and, and so when, when we train, so we turned to our trainers, they get a business process briefing before they get. CRM configuration briefing. So they understand here's how the organization works. And then the other thing I'll share too, is we train in user stories. So we do here's user story one, here's the situation, right?

And, and, and it's a full complete process for whatever we're doing. We're typically gonna, we typically roll out. Three to five user stories at a time. And now, and now as we bring the different features together, it's not this random feature and this random feature and, and this cool thing and this cool thing.

It's here's, here's the problem that we had. Here's where it broke down. Here's how this is addressing it. And, and, and, because if I have to think about how to use my CRM, my CRM is probably not configured correctly.

Liz Moorehead: George, I've been watching you make so many happy faces. I even saw a fist pump there for a moment. So I, before we wrap this up, I got to know what was going on there because it like, that's the first time I haven't been watching your brain slowly collapse throughout this conversation. So I figure it's

George B. Thomas: yeah, I'm glad Max asked the question. One, um, because, 

Max Cohen: You're welcome 

George B. Thomas: got Doug to a really cool place. And the fist bump was when Doug was talking about, um, have conversations with the human. Like, take time to actually conversate, which means take time to listen, which means take time to understand, and then have the road move forward from a place of understanding and listening and knowing.

Like, I, so I think of empathy, and I think, like, you know, like, you're, you're, I think of partnership, like, and, and I know he didn't say all of that, but that's where my brain, but like, fist bump. And, and, and I love this idea, uh, that Doug went into about these buyer journeys and it's less about the tool and more about the process.

And there is just some good stuff that I hope people hit the rewind button. And like, are we doing that at our organization? Like do our managers do that at our organization? Like, do we pay attention? Is the partner we're using, did they do that when we onboarded? Like, That's yeah, that's where my brain was going and it was very a very happy place.

Liz Moorehead: Can I take you to a

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Oh,

Liz Moorehead: Max, do you have something you want to add?

Max Cohen: It kind of resonates with the way I like to think about like feedback and stuff like that. Like I think, um, you know, I'm someone that I'm trying to like, I feel like people like often just focus, like I get frustrated when people just focus on feedback being like a negative thing and only sharing like constructive feedback that's, you know, uh, specific versus, you know, oftentimes when you're sharing like positive feedback, which I hate.

I hate even making this distinction between positive and constructive feedback. It just makes it seem like constructive feedback is a negative thing. Um, but like, oftentimes people will like, will always tell you what's not working. When they do tell you what is working, oftentimes they don't tell you why it's working.

They just do that, hey, great job. Right? And it's like, that doesn't really help anybody. Kind of like how you were talking about the no notes thing. Right? And, you know, there's a piece to me. I'm trying to figure out like where I was going with this. It's like. I wish people focused more on saying like, or like when people gave like positive feedback more so to say like This was great.

But this was why it was great and you should keep doing this because of this Right, and that really kind of helped me switch around like why is it, you know important to say what's working because you want to be able to Amplify what's working a whole lot more, not just ask what sucks. Cause like I was always the person who was going saying what sucks, how can we fix it.

Not what's going well. How can we do more of that? Right. And it's funny because I'm the one that says, why don't we just focus on the negative and not, you know, try to reinforce the, the, the positive side of the feedback or, you know, noticing when something's going well. Right. And I think I just took a dose of my own medicine there thing, listening to Doug. 

George B. Thomas: love it. 

Max Cohen: appreciate you, Doug. Yeah. 

Liz Moorehead: Well, I have a little treat for everybody. After weeks, nay, months of complaints.

George B. Thomas: we go.

Liz Moorehead: We will be ending today's episode with the finest poetry chat GBT could offer on this topic.

George B. Thomas: What's gonna happen here?

Liz Moorehead: You'd be so proud of me. It's G rated because I'm not Max and I'm an angel and I've never done anything ever to get us

George B. Thomas: There you go.

Liz Moorehead: Ever.

George B. Thomas: I don't

Liz Moorehead: In the old days of,

George B. Thomas: but yeah, I'll stop. Yeah.

Liz Moorehead: Oh, is Zoe here for me? Yes.

Max Cohen: I'm just reminding you that you did things, did do things to get us 

Liz Moorehead: Can we not? Oh my God.

George B. Thomas: anyway, so now I'll read that poetry after that thought. So,

Liz Moorehead: You know what? I have no idea what you're talking about, Max. Zoe is an angel. Thank you for showing her to me 

Max Cohen: She is an angel. Fervency 

Liz Moorehead: to door with clipboards and samples. They'd roam and explore, but the times they are a change in it's clear to see we're modernizing sales with great fervency.

No more door to door. It's the digital age with smartphones and tablets. We take center stage, but remember the heart of the sale, lest we air tis the people we serve and the trust that we share.

George B. Thomas: okay, okay, that's good. Doug,

Liz Moorehead: That last part was

George B. Thomas: Thanks tons. 

Max Cohen: is a 

George B. Thomas: gonna have to get you back on pretty soon. Peace out. Bye.

Doug Davidoff: he's up.