Join us for a deep dive into the world of sales management with Alan Versteeg, a former engineer turned sales expert and Global Chief Revenue Officer at Growth Matters. Alan shares his unique insights on the importance of mindset, pipeline management, and coaching for sales success.

In this episode, you’ll learn how a growth mindset can transform your sales team’s performance, the essential factors for a healthy sales pipeline, and how to effectively coach your sales team for optimal results.

Tune in to discover how Alan’s unique blend of engineering and sales expertise can help you elevate your sales team to new heights!

Conquer Local is presented by Vendasta. We have proudly served 5.5+ million local businesses through 60,000+ channel partners, agencies, and enterprise-level organizations. Learn more about Vendasta, and we can help your organization or learn more about Vendasta’s Affiliate Program and how our listeners (like yourself) make up to $10,000 off referrals.

Are you an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer? Then, keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Why Your Sales Team Needs a Mindset Shift

Introduction

Jeff Tomlin: I’m Jeff Tomlin and on this episode, we’re pleased to welcome Alan Versteeg.

Alan, a former engineer turned sales management expert, brings a fresh perspective to the world of sales. With over 20 years of experience, Alan has helped thousands of sales managers across the globe achieve their goals. Known for his candid and light-hearted approach, Alan brings a passion for the sales profession, sharing wisdom, expertise, and plenty of memorable one-liners.

Get ready Conquerors for Alan Versteeg coming up next on this week’s episode of the Conquer Local Podcast.

Mindset is Key for Sales Managers to Develop Successful Teams.

Jeff Tomlin: Alan Versteeg, welcome to the Conquer Local Podcast. Hey, thanks for joining us. How are you doing today?

Alan Versteeg: I’m great, man. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jeff Tomlin: Coming to us all the way from South Africa. It’s the beginning of the day for me over in Canada. It’s the end of the day for him over in South Africa. I appreciate people working to our schedules and making sure that we connect. We get all sorts of interesting people from around the world doing that. Hey, another sales guy. I love the sales guys on this show. I want to jump right in. One of the things that you talk about quite a bit is mindset. I think it’s incredibly important. Talk a little bit about the importance of mindset in sales. If you don’t mind, what is the role that you see the managers play in developing and managing, making sure the teams have the proper mindset?

Alan Versteeg: Yeah. I think the key thing, we know the importance of mindset. We speak about the importance of mindset. But I don’t think we give it the acknowledgement it needs in the profession. It’s something you’ve got to consciously shift. And specifically, when you move from an individual contributor where the mindset is, “I can achieve, I can manage myself, I can hit the quota.” Then you become a sales manager, it’s a fundamentally different mindset.

The best way I can position it is to realize that your job is no longer to grow sales, but it’s to grow salespeople who grow sales. Many times, what we do is you see managers shift into the role of a sales manager, but still playing far more as an individual contributor or the player-coach, as opposed to coaching the mindset of their team.

Salespeople need a Professional Mindset and Focus on Developing their Teams.

Jeff Tomlin: I find that in all sorts of different professions. I’m a sports guy. I always think of sports analogies. If you look at the best players in the world, the best teams in the world, no matter what sports that you’re looking at, everyone’s got a coach. At the highest levels of any sport, mindset is always something that people talk about, that you need in order to become the best in the world. You said something in our pre-talk about starting to approach sales as a profession. I think that probably gets people thinking about mastering your skillsets and developing that. Do you agree on that?

Alan Versteeg: 100%. I was an engineer, an electronic engineer. It wasn’t my fault. I watched Airwolf, Night Rider, and MacGyver. I thought that’s what I was going to be doing. But I didn’t enjoy it. I then went to sales. I was pretty useless. Hopefully not everyone drops off now. But a manager literally changed my life. He says to me, “Al, how hard did you study to be an engineer?” I said, “I studied really hard.” He said, “Okay. How hard did you study to be a sales professional?” You know, the penny dropped. He says, “You understand something, sales is the world’s worst paying lazy job and the world’s best-paying hard-working job. Treat it like a profession and you’ll go far. Understand the psychology of people, study psychology. Get excited about human beings and you’ll be wonderful at this job.” It was that mindset change that worked for me as a salesperson. Harder when I stepped into sales leadership because when you’re hitting your quota, and you’re knocking the number out the park, and you’re getting all the accolades, your mindset has to shift to, “My job is to grow the people.” What we find in our business, the real great sales leaders and sports coaches are those that get glory from watching others unlock their potential. As opposed to being the hero of the story, they become the Mr. Miyagi.

Engineer Background Shaped Alan’s approach to Sales as a Profession.

Jeff Tomlin: That’s amazing and there is a lot to unpack there. I want to go back a little bit to your engineering background. By the way, you’re not the first sales expert that I’ve met that had an engineering background. I always find them the most interesting talks. Tell me a little bit about making that shift. How did your engineering background shape the way that you approach sales? What can other people in sales take away from that?

Alan Versteeg: I think the big thing for me was, as an engineer, we definitely see the world as cause and effect. I don’t think you come of out a womb and someone can call you a salesperson. I think that was the myth that I was dealing with back then. You can understand, my family was very proud that I was an engineer and didn’t want me to go into sales, because it’s dull and it has a bit of swear word connotation to it. When I realized that it was a profession and I could treat it like a profession, then everything changed. It was always those small bites of advice that stuck with me. One manager said to me, “Alan, selling will help, but helping will sell.” When I realized it was a service orientated role, where I’m trying to educate customers. I don’t say this to them, but educate them on their own ignorance and what the problem is, offer them a solution they didn’t know they needed. Everything changed. It could be those soundbites, those one-offs, that just shift your thinking. If you’re a sales professional listening, the big shift to me is realize that this is a profession. It’s a noble profession. The only reason a business exists is to sell something. Without us, economies don’t move. Just take pride in what you’re doing and treat this as a profession. I’ll tell you, you’ll go very far with sales.

Coaching is Overlooked but Crucial for Sales Team Success.

Jeff Tomlin: Talking about our sports analogies and going down that road. I find that the job of coaching is often overlooked in sales. I’ve seen a lot of teams with a lot of focus on data, but there’s not enough focus on coaching. What are your thoughts on that?

Alan Versteeg: It is ironic and crazy. We did a massive research paper on this. It is the number one thing every business owner says, is the most important thing we’ve got to do is coach our salespeople. Yet it’s the first meeting cancelled and the last metric measured. People aren’t paying attention to it. Ironically, Jeff, if we go pre-CRM, the days of the frontline manager being a coach was a very successful part of their role. I feel what’s happened today, that we’ve become so loyal to optics, we’ve ignored impact. I would say that managers, you’ve got to do the things that actually, you have in control. As opposed to doing the things that make you feel like you’re in control. I’ll share a little bit of wisdom. I know it’s profound, but I’ve never seen a human behaviour change when I’ve changed a field in a CRM system or an Excel spreadsheet.

Jeff Tomlin: Right.

Alan Versteeg: If we want to unlock people’s mindset, we’ve got to coach their thinking.

Healthy Sales Pipeline Requires Value, Volume, Velocity, and Shape.

Jeff Tomlin: I don’t have a pen with me, but I wish I was writing down all of the quick one-line pieces of wisdom that you’re dropping on this call. I’m going to have to dissect this conversation when we get done. A couple of things. Okay, let’s chat about pipeline a little bit. There’s all sorts of things I want to pull out of your brain here. When it comes to pipeline, there’s the issue of quantity, and there’s an issue of quality, and you need both. Talk a little bit about your approach. How can managers ensure that they’ve got a pipeline of sales that are actually going to close? Because oftentimes, we get caught up in the numbers and quantity starts taking over. But at the end of the day, we need to ring the bell.

Alan Versteeg: Jeff, I think you’ve just asked the most important question every sales leader should be asking. Because your predictability lies in your pipeline if you understand what health looks like. The challenge of most businesses is a healthy pipeline is considered a certain amount of value cover. We call it value. If you’ve got a target of three million, you need 2.5 times cover, so you’ve got seven-and-a-half million in your pipeline. The challenge, Jeff, is we’re creating behaviours in salespeople that they’re not sanitizing their pipeline because the metric says it’s got to be two-times cover. Now, you can hit a $1 million target if you’ve got 500,000 in your pipeline, that’s obvious. But the same thing, you also need not just value. You need volume, so you need enough deals so you’ve got a contingency. Because what I see happening a lot, Jeff, is the forecast view just becomes, “Alan, can you promise this is going to land now?” Then I promise, then it doesn’t land now, and you go, “But you told me it’s going to land.” I’m saying, “But, Jeff, you pushed me. I don’t know.” So you need the volume and the value. But then, you also need velocity and that’s what you’re speaking about. Being in control of your pipeline is being in control of the deals that matter. If they’re not moving, if they’re not progressing over time, you’re actually not in control of the deals. The complexity, Jeff, is we don’t make sales anymore. Many times, we pull sales. They’re complex, they take time, there’s multiple stakeholders. Unless we get consciously aware, in our pipeline, of that deal velocity, we don’t actually have health. We’ve got a lot in there, but it’s not moving. It’s stagnant. Then the last metric we look at is shape. Do you have a healthy volume and value in the early, mid, and late stages so you have more predictable sales results? Because as salespeople, we like to ring the bell. But, Jeff, what I will tell you is the biggest fear of ringing the bell is looking back at your pipeline and there’s nothing in there. I actually learned as a sales professional that my confidence came from a healthy pipeline. I could say no and I could ring the bell with pride because I knew there was something else coming up. But early days was the one hit wonder. Chase that one big deal, I’m going to land it. Man, just come through and hit the number, and luckily not getting fired again from my sales job. I realized it was taxing because the discipline is what actually would get you to ring the bell. If you practice the disciplines, you honour the disciplines, you get to that moment. The pipeline, for a sales manager, is the number one thing we need to look at. I tend to say it’s glazed over as, “Do you have enough coverage, Jeff? Great.” As opposed to, “Do you have the volume, and the velocity, the value, and the shape?” When you focus on that, you move from what I call triage management to health. Because now, you’re looking at the actual factors that matter. It’s like the scale, Jeff. If you look at the scale, it’s one metric of your health. It’s not the whole metric. If I want to lose 10 kilograms, I can chop off my right leg and I’ve met the metric. But it’s not the best way to go about doing it.

Measure Pipeline Health with Volume, Velocity, Value, and Shape.

Jeff Tomlin: Yeah. Talk a little bit about some of the metrics there that you’re measuring, when you’re breaking down that pipeline. You got your velocity, you got the value, you got the health. Go through those critical factors that you just mentioned, and talk about what are the key indicators that make sure that you’re on track.

Alan Versteeg: Spot on. We just do, so the audience can remember, it’s V3S, so three Vs and an S. Volume, velocity, value, and shape. Value and volume are pretty much your contingency play. You need enough value in your pipeline. Do I have three times, four times, whatever cover you need? That should be informed by a bit more data than just the …. Some salespeople are very prolific closers, they know how to chase the right deals. They don’t need four times cover. They don’t need a whole bunch of opportunities in their pipeline they’re not going to win. You got to figure out what that looks like for the individual. Volume is the number of deals. Because if you’ve only got one deal and it’s swayed incorrectly, you don’t have contingency when it comes to hitting your number for the quarter. Then the important one is velocity. Velocity we unpack in a deal review where we actually score an opportunity, and we watch that score improve through the lifecycle of the deal to show evidence that it’s moving forward. Because the challenge, Jeff, is that if I have a 60% chance of winning a deal just because the deal is 60% away through the sales process, my metrics are off. As an engineer, you can’t look at it that way. You got to understand that 60% is just where they are in the deal, it doesn’t mean they’re only speaking to you. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it themselves. It doesn’t mean they found the budget. There’s all these metrics we look at to look at that movement. Then, shape. I don’t complicate it. Just do you have enough volume and value in the early, mid, and late stages? The challenge, Jeff, is most managers are looking at the current quarter. They’re coaching deals in the current quarter, when we have the least influence on them. We ought to be coaching early and mid-stage deals if we really want an influence on it.

Use Customer-Verifiable Data and Subjective Scoring for Accurate Pipeline Management.

Jeff Tomlin: In that probability-to-close metric, I see all too often that people use too many objective measures instead of customer verifiable outcomes to move things from one stage to another stage. And customer verifiable data to increase your score, as you close. It’s so important.

Alan Versteeg: Spot on. Solution selling really made that strong, with really understanding the verifiable outcomes from the client. But it’s also an understanding in complex deals, you can be going back and forth in different stages, depending on whose getting involved when.

We just landed a large international client. But the sale has just started is what I’ll tell you, because now we got the internal stakeholders, selling to the internal stakeholders, getting buy-in from the regions. You’ve got to know what to do next. In complex sales, it’s not always obvious. By having that scoring system, I know I’ve got to get more influence in the deal. Or is it that I’ve got to help them focus their budget on where I want them to spend it? There’s all those different variables we have to move forward. I think if we get more subjective, it’s important.

Jeff, without belabouring the point, let me just say this. We hire salespeople to be optimistic because that’s a trait that we know makes a great sales professional, Seligman did all that research into that. But then we ask them to discuss the binary truth and they don’t know how. They’re optimistic by nature. We have to give them the measurement to actually score that more subjectively, so they can just see the next action. Because they’re always going to air on the side of optimism, and are pretty certain that they got the deal in the bag.

Scientific Sales Process Reduces Stress and Improves Forecasting Accuracy.

Jeff Tomlin: Don’t you find, that when you apply the science to the sales process, it helps relieve stress? When you don’t have a very scientific process of managing a pipeline and managing your sales team, there can be a lot of stress when people don’t know exactly why things are slowed down. They don’t know exactly what’s going to close coming up. To me at least, it seems to relieve a lot of stress when we’re on top of the science around it.

Alan Versteeg: 100%. That’s what I hear from the sellers that adopt an ideal scoring mechanism because they get a sense of comfort in what they can do next, and actually know where they’re at. We worked with companies that say, “I don’t know how we land what we say we’re going to land on the forecast.” I said, “Yes. But did you land the deals you said you were going to land?” The challenge, Jeff, is forecast accuracy is still sitting at a global average of just over 50%. You might as well flip a coin and just hope to get it. You can get that to above 90% if you’re scoring deals more subjectively. And the point is not to audit the salesperson, but to help them identify the next action in the deal. That’s where they get the win and they love science of it. I suppose, that’s where my engineering and my sales roles are colliding. If I can look at a number, I can move a number, if I’m looking at the right number.

Focus on Listening and Coaching for Effective Sales Leadership.

Jeff Tomlin: That’s a little bit around the science of things. Also, super, super important to make sure that, at the end of the day, the sales team is paying attention to the people on the other end of the phone, or face-to-face if that’s how you’re conducting your sales, and making sure that we’re listening to people. And understanding the needs of the people that are across the table.

Maybe talk a little bit about that human aspect of making sure that we’re listening, and that job number one is the person that we’re working with.

Alan Versteeg: 100% right. As I said, our job is not to grow sales, but to grow salespeople who grow sales. Jeff, the challenge I’m seeing is we are elevating efficiency over effectiveness. Managers are getting through meetings and not thinking about the person on the other side.

I’ll give you an example. One of the questions in the deal scoring sheets is, “What specifically in the client’s business will change as a result of them working with us?” Now that question, asked often enough, rewires the brain. Now when, we’re sitting with a client and we think, “What specifically in your business are you hoping to change as a result of working with us?” What happens is we start to codify, we programmatize what we’re trying to do in a behaviour change.

I tend to see a lot of Captain Obvious. Guys that say, “Oh, you’ve got to be customer-centric, you’ve got to listen to your customers. You got to focus.” That’s a wonderful thought. But you shift your behaviour will shift your thinking. I also tell my managers this. It’s easier to change people’s thinking than it is to change their behaviour. I can’t make you pick up that mug right now, but I can make you think about a white polar bear, just by asking a simple question. Don’t think about the white polar bear and What’s your thoughts? We’ve lost the science of coaching and the importance of listening to our people. We’re telling them to listen to their customers, but we don’t demonstrate it. We’re so busy telling and talking to the numbers, not to the value we’re driving.

Prioritize Coaching Time in your Calendar for Effective Leadership.

Jeff Tomlin: Love it. If you had a top-level takeaway that you wanted to leave the audience with, what would that be today?

Alan Versteeg: Your calendar is the report card of your productivity and it’s the advertisement of your availability. If you don’t have time protected in your calendar for coaching, don’t expect it to happen. It’s not going to happen. You have to protect it as your number one priority. Because everyone’s fighting for your calendar, but you keep telling them you’re available, and your people are losing out. One takeaway is get back into coach. It’s the number one needle moving any sales management role.

Focus on Changing Thinking to Influence Behaviour.

Jeff Tomlin: You can change someone’s thinking, you can’t necessarily change their behaviour. I love all the one-liners that we get to unpack out of here and the amazing bits of wisdom packaged perfectly. Hey, Alan, I want to thank you a lot for joining us on the podcast. I’d love to have you back sometime, where we can continue the conversation and dig into more of the specifics. I find you’re a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much. If people wanted to continue the conversation with you, how do they get a hold of you?

Alan Versteeg: Yeah. I’m the only surname in the world. I think there’s one other Versteeg. You just find me on LinkedIn, Alan Versteeg, and you’ll find me there and everything I’m doing.

Jeff Tomlin: Alan, it’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Take care, my friend. Look forward to chatting again in the future.

Alan Versteeg: Great. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Jeff.

Conclusion

Jeff Tomlin: What a great conversation! 

The first takeaway is that Mindset is Crucial for Sales Success: Alan emphasizes the importance of mindset in achieving sales success. He highlights that many salespeople focus  on hitting quotas and managing their own performance, but neglect the importance of cultivating a winning mindset. By developing a growth mindset and understanding the psychology of sales, salespeople can significantly improve their results.

Another takeaway is about Prioritizing Pipeline Management for Predictable Sales: Alan stresses the significance of pipeline management as a predictor of sales success. He introduces the “3 V’s and 1 S” framework: Volume, Velocity, Value, and Shape. By ensuring significant volume and value in the early and mid-stages of the pipeline, and maintaining a healthy pipeline shape, sales managers can achieve more predictable results and elevate their teams’ performance.

If you’ve enjoyed Alan’s episode about Mindset and Pipeline Management for Sales Success, keep the conversation going and revisit some of the older episodes from the archives: Check out Episode 734: Sales Scientist REVEALS how Sales Leadership has CHANGED with David Priemer or Episode 729: Creating a Winning Sales Culture with Hamish Knox.

Until next time, I’m Jeff Tomlin get out there and be awesome!