Scaling Your Business for Success by Shifting the Culture of Your Team with Dr. Nadia Brown

As an entrepreneur or small business owner, you know that scaling your business and reaching success is not an easy task. You want to make sure that you are taking the right steps to ensure your business is growing in the most efficient way. So you might be asking yourself, how can entrepreneurs best build and scale their businesses? My hope is that this episode will provide entrepreneurs with the insight and guidance needed to take their business to the next level.

00:00:02

Building and growing and scaling a business is not for the faint of heart, let me tell you. When we work with our clients, we are working with them to help them build teams, to help them grow their teams. Sometimes they are starting from scratch and they're building a whole brand new in-house team. It's a lot of fun and it's a lot of work. But one of the things that we found is that often there is a step that is missed as you're making that shift from being the sole salesperson in your organization to now distributing the sales responsibilities throughout different roles.

00:00:40

And that can look different. So one way, obviously, is, hey, let's just build a sales team, bring in the people, build a team and let them handle all of the sales tasks. Obviously, you can outsource sales and have an outsource team come in and support you and your organization or you can also look at your existing team. And that's what I want to talk about today, is that oftentimes what I have found in our work with clients is that you don't necessarily have to go straight to one of those other options. Building an in house sales team.

00:01:15

Fabulous. We love helping with that, outsourced sales, we've done that for many years and supporting clients in that. But one of the things that has often helped clients kind of bridge the gap because as you know, those are big steps, right? So in order to bridge the gap, let's look at your existing team. Within your existing team, there are opportunities for the team members to take on sales responsibilities.

00:01:47

Now, how you roll this out is definitely key because oftentimes your non sales people don't want to do sales stuff, right? And so when you position it that way and we call it sales and all of that, it really can be intimidating. And so you have to be clear on what that will look like and consistent in how you start to talk about it and how you encompass it in their roles. So one of the things that we found is that this often will require a deeper step of let's, or not even necessarily deeper. I would say broader, a broader step in terms of let's

00:02:29

Look at the company's culture, because one of the things that needs to shift is the team as a whole or the company as a whole. Because often these companies have fewer than 100 employees. A lot of times it's fewer than 50, right? So they're small teams, micro organizations. In many instances there's not a lot of people, but that doesn't mean they can't have a huge impact.

00:02:54

And so in that, it's important to really look at how we're going to shift the culture because people often are on that team and they're doing their role and they're only thinking about it kind of in a silo. So part of the role or your role as the founder in making this shift as you are starting to distribute these responsibilities, is to clearly communicate that, but be clear on a few things in order to really make that shift. And one thing I will caution is that this takes time. This is not a 90 minutes training that's going to just have someone come in, do a training and all as well. This is a process that takes time and something you have to commit to in order to really see the desired results.

00:03:40

When done well, it can be a game changer. We worked with a client some years ago who this is exactly what we did. She had a small team. I think there were four or five total, including her. And initially it was like, I just need to increase my close ratio.

00:03:58

But then we found out that there were deeper opportunities and great opportunities for the team to come in and really support her in that role because at the time, she was the sole salesperson. And so in that process, identifying the tasks that the team has, thankfully her team is really excited and on board and oh my gosh, because there wasn't a lot of resistance to work through. But that's not always the case. We have other clients where team members are very resistant. That is not it.

00:04:29

Thankfully, this was not the case for her. So we come in, we work with the team. They understood how they could best support her in their current roles. And in many cases, it didn't require them to do anything extra. It just required them to look at what they were already doing through a different lens.

00:04:48

So it's not like we were adding a whole bunch of additional responsibilities, but it did require them to have a deeper understanding of what was going on in their company. In one instance, one person was like, I didn't even know we did all this. So it was really that transparency, that openness and then being able to kind of shift and say, okay, let's get your role. And in your role, what are some of the things that you can do to best support her and making sure that she's only talking to the most qualified people, right? Or whatever the case may be.

00:05:15

And so with that, that actually carried her for about two or three years without her having to bring on or feel like she needed to jump right into building a sales team. And then after that, she's able to bring in other people, build her sales team, really start to take a lot of that off her plate and also grow her team. But the cool thing is, within that, you now have a culture of people that understand that even in my role that's not a sales role, that I'm looking at my role through the lens of sales and how what? I do does contribute to the bottom line, either directly and when that person or prospects get on the phone with a salesperson, or there are other things even in the marketing or the languaging or whatever it is that I'm doing, But I am thinking about company's bottom line and not just completing tasks in my day to day role. Got it.

00:06:07

All right. So as you're thinking about this and really starting to embrace this culture shift, as you're thinking like, oh, my goodness, I've done a lot to build my business to where it is now. But in order for me to go to that next level, I know at some point I'm going to have to relinquish some of the sales responsibilities, if not all of the sales responsibilities, and that's probably freaking you out. Totally get it. So let's talk about that.

00:06:31

So first, I want you to get clear on your values and your why. Get clear on your values and your why. So if you don't already have your company values written down, communicated, probably some posters are put up, sent to all of your team members. Do it. It is important that your team members, people on your team, understand the company's values, your values, and why you all do the work that you do.

00:07:06

It has to go beyond, I'm clocking in, I'm completing some tasks, I'm going home. There has to be this deeper understanding and buy in. We'll talk about that in another session of the company values and your why. A warning if you haven't already done this, this may impact some team members. So I want you to be prepared.

00:07:32

I don't want you to expect it. That's actually point number two, already written it down. Don't assume your team will resist because often not always, naturally, a lot of times our inclination is that people are just going to automatically resist, and that's not always the case. However, I do want you to be prepared that not everyone may be on board, and so that may require some changes to seats on the bus. Let's just be honest, there may be some people that may not make it throughout this transition.

00:08:09

And so I want you to just kind of be prepared for that because you don't want disruptions in business continuity. However, you don't want to not do this because this is going to shift. So just be prepared, put together your contingency plan and move forward. But I don't want you to automatically assume that there will be resistance. Go into it being excited, because this is so life changing and game changing for you, when you can build an organization where basically everyone understands that no matter what my title is, no matter what it is that I'm doing in this role, all of us are part of the sales team.

00:08:41

Everyone in this company is part of the sales team, no matter what your job title is. And this is especially true when you have a small team and you have a small company. You don't really have the luxury of building the silos that a lot of larger organizations do. When you have 100,000 employees, then you can probably build some silos and people don't talk to this person, to that. But that doesn't work as well.

00:09:05

And it's often detrimental when you have a small team. So you want to commit to this and just be prepared, but don't allow the potential resistance to prevent you from moving forward. So just put together your contingency plan and keep things moving because it's so worth it in the end. So as you're getting clear on your values and your why, and you're starting to really, if you haven't already documented, then you also want to look at your hiring process. Because now you can work backwards and say, any new people coming on board?

00:09:40

We may not have done this with the existing team, but any new people need to understand that. Again, no matter what their title is, they're part of the sales team in this organization. It's seven of us here, right? It's ten of us. It's 27, it's 35, it's three, right?

00:09:55

Whatever it decides, again, we don't have the luxury to have these silos. We all need to work together and think about how what we do and how we do it ultimately contributes to the bottom line, contributes to sales, contributes to revenue. And I know a lot of times we don't like to talk about it, we don't like to talk about the numbers. We have a lot of emotions around that. But that's also part of the culture shift, and it's also part of why this is not going to happen overnight.

00:10:19

And so the last thing I want to talk about today as it relates to this, and I'll probably do some multiple parts to this, is commit to continued communication. Again, this isn't a one and done kind of thing. It's going to be continued conversation as a whole. So in your team meetings, but also sometimes in your one on one to really help people understand, understand the shift, understand why you're making this shift so that you can get the buy in. And again, it has to often go deeper than I just want us to make a lot of money, right?

00:10:51

And I don't want you to position it though, to be threatening. That's why I was like in terms of when I say threatening, get on the bus or get on board or quit, right? That's not necessarily the attitude that might work in your organization. That's like, I'll get down, but that's not necessarily how we roll over here. But I do want you to really look at opportunities to position it more aspirationally, right?

00:11:14

Like, how can people aspire to really get excited and get behind what it is that you all do at your company and how it is that you serve all of your clients. And you may even look at adjusting the compensation plan that may be appropriate it may not be something to definitely consider as you are communicating these changes and as you are adjusting the roles. Because, again, as I mentioned before, my one client, Sandy and her team, everyone was excited, everyone was on board. We didn't necessarily have to go through that, thank God, right? But in other teams, there were significant adjustments.

00:11:53

The other thing I also want to say about Sandy, again, in her organization, I would say with the exception of one person, their actual jobs really didn't change, right? It was, again, just kind of shifting how they saw what they did and how they approached their work. But it wasn't like we added a whole bunch of new tasks or responsibilities. One person volunteered to take on new tasks and new responsibilities. And so with that, obviously there were some adjustments with her compensation.

00:12:20

However, we have another client where there are some significant things going on with certain roles. And so there are adjustments to compensation based on that. And then everything that we're putting together in terms of training and rolling out communications will reflect that. So, again, it really depends on the role, it depends on the organization, but it's something to definitely consider. But you really want to start.

00:12:40

My suggestion is starting. We're really just getting that emotional buy in, that values buy in. That why buy in. Like, really, here's why we do the work that we do. We want to hire and have a team that's really excited about beyond just collecting a paycheck and really building a culture of service, of being excited, of delivering exceptional value.

00:13:00

And then, of course, obviously, we need to make money because everyone likes to get paid, right? So no one wants you to call them and say, we don't have money to pay, but that's not what we want to lead. We understand that. That's part of the conversation, right? But it doesn't have to lead.

00:13:12

And you don't necessarily have to say that. But you do want to create this culture where people really understand, and they understand a deeper why behind just money. Because anybody can go out and make money somewhere and get a job. You want people that are really beyond that and really have that buy in. It reduces turnover and team turnover, which, again, we all know, because when we lose a team member, it can be disruptive.

00:13:37

It reduces a lot of that. In many cases, it eliminates that and you build loyalty. There's so many good things that can come from this. But again, as you're considering, Nadia, I can't do this anymore, right? I'm building this.

00:13:49

We're already at half a million, a million plus whatever that number is in terms of sales and revenue. And you're like, I've got us here. But in order for us to go to that next level, I need and want support, then this is a way to do it without you making that a big, big leap. To just say, okay, let's just go out and hire all new sales team and build, because it's a process, it can be done, but it's a big leap, and you just may not have the capacity to make that leap in this moment. So things to think about.

00:14:20

To be continued. I definitely want to do a part two at least on this to continue the conversation. So whatever questions you have, please email us, comment below if you're watching it's on YouTube, if you want to email us at the email address is hello@the doyenagency.com. What questions do you have? What more do you want me to really talk about as it relates to this topic, as you're thinking about?

00:14:44

Okay. I need to start to distribute or get this piece off my plate without the business going under, because that's always the concern if I'm not doing sales and who is doing sales and how is the business going to move forward? Right. So think about it. Write down your questions, reach out to us.

00:14:58

We would love to hear from you. And if you're already at that point, like, girl, I need help. And I would love to have a conversation with you and your team Dr. Nadia, on how we can start to make the shifts, move me out of this role eventually, and how to really get the team on board if they're not already on board, get them engaged and really make those shifts. We would love the opportunity to do that.

00:15:22

So you can either use that same email address at hello@the doyenagency.com, or you can go to our website and schedule time to chat. There's a link on there that you can go ahead and get right on our calendar, and we can go ahead and speak with you about what it is you're up to and how we can best support you. And we will be honored to do that because I know for a fact this is such a massive game changer when you're able to do this, and it's definitely going to take your business to the next level. All right, so this was another episode of Straight Talk About Sales with Dr. Nadia.

00:15:57

Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you again real soon. Bye.