SOTR: The Evolution of a Sales Operation

Mar 4, 2022

If there’s one area of business that most founders are great at, it’s saying what they want. But the reality is that most agencies are dumbfounded because they can’t fill their pipeline with new leads and deals. They may say they have a sales operation, but their people, processes, and systems are all over the place. In this podcast, Joey and JJ discuss having a solid sales knowledge base, commission structures for referral partners, the slicing pie business model, and the evolution of a sales operation.

What’s in Joey’s glass: Elmer T Lee Single Barrel Mash

This Cast Covers:

  • How to respond to the objection “This just doesn’t fit our timeline/Now is not the right time to invest”: Should you let it slide or dig in deeper? (07:49)
  • What’s a sales knowledge base, what’s in it, and why it’s essential to build one for your agency (13:00)
  • The protocol when it comes to updating your sales knowledge base (17:30)
  • Is hiring nine new salespeople in a year too aggressive? (19:29)
  • What commission structures look like for referral partners (25:13)
  • Why Joey would pay a referral partner more than he pays his salesperson (26:39) 
  • Is there a way you can impact churn positively throughout the sales process?  (30:31)
  • What to do when a company is founded by a handful of people who collectively shared all of the responsibilities (35:21)
  • The slicing pie model is an extremely fair way of identifying what your slice of pie is worth (37:54)
  • Should co-founders stick around in a sales leadership or biz dev role or have them all removed from day-to-day leadership positions? (48:05)
  • The difference between seller discretionary earnings and EBITA-based businesses (48:48)
  • The evolution of a sales operation (21:02)
  • What to do when you miss a sales call appointment – can you still salvage a deal like that? (54:33)

Additional Resources:

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