How Full Funnel Freedom Creates Trust Across Your Organization

[0:04] This is the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast, supporting sales leaders and managers to improve their sales funnels from people to prospects. I'm Hamish Knox. In this show, you'll learn how you can improve your results, lead a great team, and hit more targets with Full Funnel Freedom.

[0:22] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Hamish Knox. Today, I am delighted to have my dear friend, Rebecca Wood, National Director of Sales at Masterbuilt Hotels, sharing ideas and insights with us around creating full funnel freedom. The Full Funnel Freedom Podcast is brought to you by Sandler in Calgary. Most consultants will only tell you what you need to do in order to scale your sales team. Sandler will help you with the what and will also help you with the how. For more details, go to hamish.sandler.com forward slash how to Sandler for more details and to book an introductory call. So our guest today, Rebecca, has coached and mentored dozens of leaders, sales professionals, and managers across Canada and the United States. Her career experience includes for-profit companies, not-for-profit organizations, and government. She won the coveted Sandler Sales Manager of the Year Award in 2017 the only Canadian ever to do so. After launching her own company, Romeo Whiskey Consulting, and teaching leadership skills to a variety of business leaders, Rebecca has recently returned to sales leadership for Masterbuilt Hotels. She's currently the National Director of Sales, leading a remote and bilingual team across Canada. Rebecca, welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom podcast.

[1:43] Thanks, Hamish. I'm really excited to be here and to chat with you today day about full frontal freedom and all things Sandler and career. Yes, I'm delighted. We have known each other for a very, very long time, and I am delighted that we get to share your story and celebrate you with the audience and also support them in some of your insights around creating full frontal freedom. So I gave the audience the super high level about Rebecca. Take us deeper in. Tell me about you and what prompted you to get back into a sales leadership role with Masterbuilt and expand on that introduction, if you would. Yes, you bet. So I've got a long career in sales. I think I've been in sales pretty much my whole life.

[2:31] And yeah, I think everybody's in sales, actually. That's my mindset, no matter what you do. But yeah, I would say recently I was doing consulting and I was doing leadership coaching, which I absolutely love working with CEOs, owners of companies, division leaders. And I really, I really did enjoy that. But one of the things that I found with consulting was I got a little bit lonely and I missed having a team. And it was interesting. I was actually back in November, I was up at the Bounce Springs Hotel, where oddly enough, my career started in hospitality and in hotels. And that was a really long time ago, because I did it while I was in university and then just after university.

[3:23] And I really missed hospitality. And so when I came back to the city, I looked around for some opportunities and along came Masterbuilt. And this opportunity was a national opportunity to lead a team across Canada in hospitality, because here at Masterbuilt, we build hotels, we franchise hotels, and we manage hotels.

[3:47] And it's a company that is headquartered in Calgary, and it is growing wildly, which is super exciting for me. And yeah and to be able to lead a team right across Canada is also exciting because it's broadening my horizons as a leader especially with people who are multilingual so I am taking French lessons they start this week so I'm super excited about that as well but yeah so I basically I really wanted to get back to leading people I feel like that's one of my sweet spots and something that I truly enjoy. And so that's what kind of brought me full circle back to hospitality and back into sales leadership. Love it. Thank you very much for sharing that all with us. Super excited to join a rapidly growing company. And of course, you're now stretching your skills, learning another language. And, you know, it's all well and good to say, you know, cafe au lait, si vous play. But when you're actually trying to hold someone accountable or do a coaching session, you know, there's a little bit more complexity that you need to have having the language fair. Oh, totally fair. Totally fair. And okay. So now you're freaking me out a little bit about where I need to get to.

[5:02] Unintended, unintended. So this may be an unfair question, given that you've recently joined and are leading the team, but all of our guests and myself as well are struggling in some way. As leaders, there's usually something that we're working on. We've got multiple levers we need to pull. So where right now are you struggling to keep the funnel consistently reliably full? So what I'm struggling with, because I am in a new role in a company that is growing really, really quickly is actually putting those processes in place for the growth, thinking bigger picture, and also understanding what makes our sales team so great. So, you know, having this long history with Sandler and all the tools and resources that you have in place to really define that for people, it's serving me well in this new role. And even just connecting with the team, because I I think at times they think they know what they're doing that is making them succeed and be so great, but it's hard to articulate that, not only to themselves or amongst themselves, but then again to our leadership and executive team.

[6:14] So I think that that's what I'm struggling with. It's really just feeding from the fire hose right now and learning all of that and then putting that process in place so that as we do continue to grow, we can actually have a definition of what great looks like so we can give that roadmap to the new people that we'll eventually be bringing on so that they can be successful as well. Yeah, absolutely. We often say put the pressure on the process, not the person. And I know from my own experience, even going back to when I was a sales rep, if my leader couldn't clearly define what it was that they wanted from me, I just did what I thought they wanted. And unfortunately, sometimes that was the complete opposite of what they wanted to do. And sometimes we happen to be aligned, which was serendipitous, but also not necessarily repeatable. So as you think back in your, in your career and you're starting to work towards this with, uh, with Masterbuilt, when your funnel is consistently reliably full, what sort of freedom does that give to not only you as a leader, but also your team and then by extension, the organization as a whole? Oh, totally. So for me personally, it gives me confidence and that is huge. Yeah. Yeah, confidence, because I can speak with a surety that I understand what we've done to get to that full funnel or if we're not there.

[7:37] And it helps me also be able to make those informed decisions to change and pivot in those moments when we do need to pull different levers to make things happen. Totally. And I think for the team, it gives them control and it gives them control over their actions, their decisions and the outcomes, because then they know, OK, if I do more of this, I will get this outcome. And yeah, so I think that that's really helpful. And then for the company, overall, it gives clarity. So I can give the company or executive the data that they need to make those future decisions so that they can grow. And overall, for all of those three moving parts, I think it also builds trust. Okay, dive into that bit more. How does this build trust? That's really, really cool. Okay. So I think it builds trust because you can back up your information and you have an answer to how come we're here or how come we're there. And if things are going, even if things are going well, people want to know why, if things are going poorly and you can give an example, back up the data, they trust you that you're going to fix it or that you're going to do something different in order to get the results that are needed.

[8:55] So, you know, I've been in organizations before where if there's no trust with the sales team and they can't back up their data, well, everybody's got an opinion and an idea of how you can make those sales and what you should be doing. And so they start driving outside their own lanes and want to fix it for So I think by having that data and that process in place and being able to purposely fill your funnel relieves that anxiety or stress from the rest of the organization that, okay, you've got this, you've got this, I know you're going to move it forward. And I think that that's huge in organizations and because sales is the revenue generator. And if there's no revenue coming in, there's people that depend on that, that growth for their own livelihood. So it's it is a lot of stress and pressure.

[9:51] But when you've got those things in place, like I said, that confidence comes, that control comes and the clarity. Absolutely. I think some of the audience just started. Twitching a little bit when you mentioned that lots of people have opinions about what the sales team should do when things are not going so well, even though they maybe have never even had a conversation with a client, much less a prospect. So audience, please just pull to the side of the road or go stand up, take a walk and come back and listen to the rest of the episode. You are certainly not alone in that fact of lots of opinions when people think sales is not doing what sales is supposed to do, even though sales is supporting the entire organization, as Rebecca just said.

[10:34] Rebecca, you also made a comment about control for the sales team, and I'd love to hear more about that because as sales leaders, we don't want to be micromanagers. We don't want to be telling our people, do this, do this, do this. We want to give them the freedom to control their own book of business and their own funnels, but we're ultimately accountable for it. So give us a bit more detail on that idea of control for the salespeople and why that's beneficial for us as leaders. Oh, definitely. So this was a lesson too that I learned a while ago, but I still have to keep reminding myself because I can come up with a whole bunch of different ideas about what they should be doing as well as their leader, things that I've tried or in my experience.

[11:18] Certainly I could tell them that they should be doing this, but that doesn't create buy-in. It doesn't create the confidence in themselves that they can do it. So when they actually can see that path and make the connection between, okay, if I make these calls, yes, I'm going to get some no's, but I will get a yes. And it's going to lead me to the end result of where it's going to impact me and my own ability to generate revenue. Then they have a choice And they can choose to do that activity and dial it up and be in control of their own earnings and their own success, or they can choose not to do that and see what that end result is as well. And so... Although I may have ideas or I might want to get them there faster, it works better for everyone if they can take themselves down that path and I can be their guide and then support them when they fail and also celebrate them when they have those wins. So, yeah, I think putting the control in the salesperson's hands so that they're in the driver's seat and they can make those decisions, then they're accountable, right, to themselves. Theoretically? Theoretically, yes.

[12:39] Theoretically. Yeah, I guess, sorry, on that note then with accountability. Yeah, and their accountability partner, right, to help them, to guide them and to see what's working and what's not working. But I think it's really important because, yeah, that micromanaging piece. Let's say I've never been in an interview when someone has said, I really like somebody to micromanage me.

[13:04] They always bring up micromanagement is their biggest pet peeve. So defining what that is for them and what that looks like can also be another conversation with this guiding them to being in control of their own destiny is, you know, I'm not micromanaging you. This is you taking charge of you. Absolutely. Absolutely. My dear friend and colleague, Mike Crandall at Oklahoma City talked about at the recent Sandler Summit where accountability is typically seen as a negative thing, right? It's that micromanager, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas if we understand our individual team members' personal goals and.

[13:43] And we are holding them accountable to achieving their personal goals. Well, that becomes a positive thing because if one of our team members is trying to buy their first house and they need to hit their sales target in order to make the commission to buy their first house, well, we're not saying, hey, Rebecca, hit your sales target. It's Rebecca, I'd love to celebrate getting you that first house this year. How do we get you to your sales target?

[14:05] Totally. So I've been doing vision boards and you turned me on to this about, I don't know, seven, eight years ago. So I've been, yeah. So I've been doing them every year and I've introduced them to the various teams that I have coached and led. And it's interesting because initially I remember the first time I did it, I got a lot of pushback from people. It was mixed. Some people embraced it. Some people were like, this is silly. But when they actually put down what their their personal goals were and then visualized it and then put it up in their offices for their team to just check in and see how things were going it was incredible the result and to just understand too what's important to different people in what they do want to achieve um so yeah that's one of my favorite exercises and actually in my new office i have i framed my vision board this year and I put it up in my office. So it reminds me every day why I'm here and what I'm trying to achieve.

[15:14] I love it. That's so, so cool. Yeah, vision boards are an exercise I love doing with leaders and then supporting a leader and doing it with their team. It is an incredible bonding exercise and love, love, love vision boards and love to hear that that's been a really successful exercise for you. So you also mentioned that salespeople have a choice and they can choose to be in control or they can choose to not be in control. So from your experience, what are some of those early warning signs that a salesperson funnel is maybe going on a bit of a crash diet? Yes. So I've seen this before. So it starts with a bit of defensiveness. I'd say in my experience, people get defensive when you start asking questions about what's going on or how things are going. There's a lot of blame that starts to come up. Blame? Blame, yes, on external factors that they can't necessarily control. So it could be, I've heard, oh, well, marketing isn't doing this, or the person isn't calling me back, or, you know, things that they can't control. And also, yeah, so I guess it's basically just focusing on those excuses that are outside of their control.

[16:32] So it's really about when I start to hear those things and finger pointing in different directions, then I start to help them focus on the activities that they can control. So what is it that they can do in this moment that can move the needle forward just a little bit? Fair enough. I always like to ask the question when someone says, well, Rebecca's not calling me back. Like, well, what reason are you giving her to call you back? Good point. Yeah. Because our prospects are busy. Our clients are busy. No one wants to talk to a salesperson, but they do want to talk to salespeople who they believe might actually support them in solving a challenge that they're having. So whenever I've been coaching salespeople or leaders who are saying, hey, my people are saying they're not calling me back. The question I give them is exactly that. What reason are you giving your client to call you back aside from the fact that you exist? I love it. I love talking with you because you always give me a nugget every time we speak. So thanks for the refresher and the reminder on that one. I got to write that one down.

[17:36] Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. Well, and both of us have an improv background, so it also helps that we could just sort of improv off of where the conversation goes. So let's say that that doesn't work. So yes, we externalize and that's a really good yellow flag that maybe the salesperson's got some other things going on. That's not a fire conversation because we're going to give them a chance. We hired him for a reason. But what are the consequences? So let's say that the diet continues and the funnel is now starting to look more like a pencil instead of a funnel. What have you seen salespeople say do when they're in that situation? I got to close something or I'm never going to close something again, headspace. Yeah. So desperation kicks in for sure. And I think clients can smell that a mile away.

[18:24] Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And, and like everything just starts to unravel, right? There's a lack of trust between the salesperson and the potential client or future client. They realize that that conversation is is not in the client's best interest. It's in the salesperson's best interest. So that, again, focuses back on trust. There's a lot of negative self-talk that comes about as well with the salesperson. And the other thing on a bigger picture scale is they'll start to just grasp at any market or any piece of business. And it may not be the right piece of business for the organization.

[19:06] It's definitely not the target. They start going into, you know, discounting or, which, you know, when you do that, it just, it's a race to the bottom and you have a longer term impact on the organization because now you're not bringing in the right business. You're leaving your colleagues to up to servicing that business and that, yeah, it can just definitely spiral. So those would be some of the things that I've seen are the consequences of just going further and further into a skinny funnel. Totally. And you've talked a lot about trust and you made a great point that I want to highlight for the audience of the salesperson gets desperate. So they're looking for any business instead of the right business. But I've been in sales since I was 19. I forked that over the fence to my implementation team. And I'm like, see you later.

[19:58] And then the implementation team is the one who's got to deal with it, as you said. And now where's the trust between sales and customer service implementation operations? Well, the answer is it's nowhere because they're like, why are you bringing me all this bad business? I don't want to deal with you at all, much less, you know, any of this business you're going to bring me. Totally. Yep. Nope. Totally. I, and then that breaks down right within the organization and, and also the client is not a winner in this situation or scenario either, which can cause challenges because they're going to be speaking to all of their network about their experiences. And yeah, it's just an all around, not a winning situation. Well, and in hospitality, like this is restaurants, not necessarily hotels, but I've heard phrase in the restaurant world, where if you have a great meal at a great restaurant, you'll tell three people. If you have a bad meal at a great restaurant, a supposedly great restaurant, you'll tell 30 people. Oh, you betcha.

[20:56] And then here's the other side of that though, is so you're bringing in all these frogs, right? The salesperson's bringing in all these frogs. And then one day they bring in a prince, they bring in an ideal sale, but the customer service team's so beat up by servicing all these frogs that the prince gets bad service to. And now we're into a cycle of nonsense. All started because the salesperson, to your point, Rebecca, did not take control of their own full funnel freedom and to do the right behaviors. And they ended up getting desperate. So let's shift this to the positive. So we've kind of gone to the dark side. Let's bring this back up. So when you're working with your teams, I'm a very big believer in mindset, right? If you don't, you know, Henry Ford, if you think you can, think you can't, you're right. So very big believer in the right mindsets, but then also, you know, proactive activities, right? If we're being proactive, we're not just aggressively waiting for the phone to ring, way easier for our funnels to stay full. So Rebecca, in your experience, and then also with your current team, what are the mindsets that you're coaching them to have? And then what are the activities that you're asking them to do proactively to keep that funnel full?

[22:08] Awesome. So yeah, I also too believe in that mindset. And there's some of the concepts that I've learned from Sandler too, just to mention that is the IR theory. So what you, your identity, where you see yourself and who you are as that person versus your role. And so coaching people on, you know, that they're great individuals, you know, how did they show up today? Did they perform their role as the best that they can? And maybe they were having an off day, that's okay because overall they're, they are good people. So coaching, I think in that frame to keep them whole as that person, because we have to deal with no a lot. One of the things I did once with a person who was just really struggling with getting their funnel full was we went for the no. So I said, I want you to just go out there and get as many no's as you can. And we're going to celebrate those no's. And she looked at me like, are you insane? Are you kidding me?

[23:14] You know, you got to go through so many no's to get to the yes. And so that was a really fun exercise for us. And it did turn her around because, you know, we celebrated the negative, but there was definitely a positive out there. Of course. So I'd say that's one of the things that I coach on the mindset. And what was the second part of your question? So it was the proactive activities, but want to highlight the fact that you asked your salesperson to go out and seek the thing that they were probably going to get anyways. Now I'm going to guess though, they probably messed up sometimes and got a yes. Is that an accurate statement? They actually did the opposite of what you wanted. is that fair that's accurate yes yes they did which was which was fantastic because it definitely turned them around so but you know those are the types of fun things I think we can do as leaders right and support people in making the things that they're maybe afraid of or scared of or just just done with hearing no's make it a fun thing and flip it right into that positive, Totally. Well, it's taking it away. Like I coach the leaders I work with to coach their salespeople to take things away from the prospect. If the prospect is going to say, well, you're a startup company, you don't have a lot of experience. Well, great, lead with that.

[24:32] Hey, we're a startup company. We don't have a lot of experience in the industry. If that's a deal breaker, you know, let's just end the conversation and give you some time back in your day. And so what you did is you took away the pressure and the anxiety from your salesperson around, oh, I'm going to get another no. And Rebecca is going to be disappointed in me. It's like, no, no, no. Rebecca is going to celebrate you getting that no, which is a mind flip. And it obviously worked with them and they got better results. You pulled them out of the spiral eye roll and you made their funnel full again. Totally. So proactive activities, what are the proactive activities that, that you are coaching your people to do on a weekly, daily, monthly basis in order to keep that fill in the top of the funnel. So the funnel keeps looking like a funnel. So I have a team of hunters and they're out there searching for new business. And so proactive behaviors is definitely making those calls. And it's the number one thing they have to reach out to prospective clients and just pick up the phone.

[25:34] So that's definitely a number one. We also have a really solid base of existing business. And so putting together plans on how to reach out and continue to build those relationships, even when there isn't maybe a piece of business to discuss or on the table, it's keeping top of mind. And so how can we let those clients know what's new? and also just to find out what's happening in their business in the moment. We've always got things new happening as we are a growing company. And even this morning, I was on a call talking about a brand new lobby bar that's opening in one of our hotels. So it's a great opportunity to go back out to our corporate clients.

[26:17] Them, no, we've got a new service that we're offering at this hotel and we'd like to welcome them back. So those are some of the proactive activities to both new clients or future clients and existing clients that I've been coaching the team on. Very cool. And especially like, you know, in hospitality, your corporate clients are not literally going to have an event every day or every week. And there's lots of industries where our clients do not buy from us literally all the time. So that idea of staying top in mind, checking in what's going on in their world, becoming that trusted advisor, I would imagine there's a component of asking for introductions in that as well, because if they love you, there's probably someone else in their network who would also love you. Is that another part of the plan that you're working on? Totally fair. And it is totally part of the plan. And I'm not quite there yet.

[27:05] But it is on my list for sure. Introductions are so important. They certainly are. And something else that I've been coaching a lot of my clients on recently is the idea of alumni. So we're all connected on LinkedIn. My colleague, Jody Williamson, talked about at the Sandler Summit that through our phone, we can be connected with something like 800,000 people, which is the number of people on LinkedIn, like instantly, and those alumni. So if someone is a corporate event planner at company A and we're connected to them on LinkedIn and they move to company B, well, first of all, we probably get a notice or they post the, hey, I'm celebrating, I'm at a new company.

[27:39] We get to reach out to them and say, Rebecca, congratulations on the new role, loved working with you when you were at company A, would you be open to a conversation about possibly working together at your new organization once you've got settled in the role? And for our clients who are looking to grow their business without making as many cold calls as they might have done in the past, they're really finding that alumni touchpoint to be really, really powerful. I love that point. And again, another reminder of where we can connect with people because Because right now, people are moving around so much within their careers to different locations. So you're right. Absolutely. The relationship we had at one place can be continued into the next. And actually, one of my sales members who is based out east is doing just that on a day-to-day basis.

[28:26] Amazing. It's incredible reaching back into her network and who she has worked in in the past. And she is just making so many strides in her career just by reaching out to those that she's worked in the past. And it's not a cold call, right? No. She actually doesn't call them cold calls. She's like, can we not put that in our CRM? I want to call it like a revenue call. I'm like, okay. I like you. That sounds great. Yes. Whatever you want to call it to get the job done, you just do it. I tell my clients, Google and LinkedIn killed the cold call anyways. There's no cold calls. It's a prospecting call. But again, no one likes to talk to a salesperson. So whether they worked with them before and they loved us or it's pure, I've never spoken with this person before, there is that, I'm talking to a salesperson moment whenever they pick up the phone. So yeah, revenue calls, call it whatever you need. Just make the call, keep the funnel full.

[29:19] Rebecca, you and I could chat all day and we certainly have on occasions. So as we're wrapping up, I've got two quick questions for you. The first one is going back to the past. You get to go visit with younger Rebecca and give her some guidance to make the path to where you are today a little bit smoother, a little bit faster, however you want to frame it. But what advice would you give your younger yourself as a leader? So I would say have a process, do the behaviors. And I would say to like having the support of Sandler at the start of my first big leadership role was huge because I was struggling with the accountability and ownership as a leader, which is, was a switch from sales and being that individual producer. True. So one of the things I remember, which leads back to that process and behaviors, was being introduced to the cookbook of actions that I could control. And this is helpful in both roles. It was really freeing for myself. And I was able to provide the answers that I needed to, to both the CEO, the board of directors, what we were doing. So I would say that would be what I would tell my younger self, embrace that and, uh.

[30:42] Yeah, that really helped with my transition. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. Yeah. Put the pressure on the process, not the person. And that's what a cookbook is. The cookbook is a, how much of what proactive do I need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to be successful? And like you said, it can apply to any role that you might have, but especially for leaders and salespeople, it really keeps us focused and on track. So last question, you are very focused on your own professional and personal development. I've, I've known that about you ever ever since we first got introduced. What are you reading, listening to, watching today that is supporting your development personally and professionally? Well, right now I am working through the book, The First 90 Days. The First 90 Days. You bet. Because I'm in it. I'm in The First 90 Days. That's true. I was introduced to this book by a leader of mine, gosh, 10 years ago or more. And I've read it a few times when I've begun new adventures.

[31:40] And I think it can apply at any time that you're starting something new. And it's really helped me with my onboarding experience here, making it more smoother, less stressful. And I feel really in control and prepared. That book, I can't recommend it enough to anyone who is starting a new venture. It's been really helpful. Love it. We'll certainly put a link to that book in the show notes. So today we have been getting ideas and insights from Rebecca Wood, National Director of Sales at Masterbuilt Hotels, around how Full Funnel Freedom creates trust across the organization and it gives our salespeople control over their own destinies. So Rebecca, thank you so much for being our guest today on Full Funnel Freedom. Thank you, Hamish, for having me. It was fantastic. Really appreciate it. You've been listening to the Full Funnel Freedom podcast. I've been your host, Hamish Knox, the Full Funnel Freedom podcast is brought to you by Sandler in Calgary, where most consultants will only tell you what to do to scale your business. Sandler helps you with not only the what, but the how to do it. Go to hamish.sandler.com slash how to Sandler for more details. Thanks for listening. Give us a rating and a review. Check us out on Instagram, Sandler underscore YYC. And until we connect with you on the next episode, go create full funnel freedom. Thank you for listening to Full Funnel Freedom with Hamish Knox. If you want to increase your sales with ease, go to fullfunnelfreedom.com.

[33:09] Music.