How to Build a Strong Sales Infrastructure

Kathy (host):

Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina.

Kathy (host):

Having a sales infrastructure in place is crucial to a growing business. But building one requires consideration and planning. So in this episode, we are going to explore what are the critical pieces needed to build a tailor-fit-to-your-needs sales infrastructure that will set up your business for success.

Kathy (host):

And before we go into this episode, I want to give you a quick reminder that all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics that we discuss. Each one has its own blog post as well. You can find all the links and the detailed topics in this episode’s show notes.

Kathy (host):

My guest today is Eric Balis. He is a Fractional VP of sales and the founder of Top Tier Sales Advisors. He helps owners of companies realize the maximum value of the company by accelerating the revenue production and helping their sales team achieve excellent and repeatable results. He also concentrates on helping small and mid-sized companies optimize their sales strategy, their process, and education. He helps companies transform their sales culture, implement sales processes and procedures, and instill best practices. He focuses not just on the strategic level but also on a tactical level to help companies achieve record-breaking sales results.

Kathy (host):

This is going to be an excellent conversation. So please join us.

Kathy (host):  

Welcome to the show, Eric.

Eric (guest):

I appreciate it. Kathy, thank you for letting me be part of the show today.

Kathy (host):  

Well, thanks so much for being here. We’re going to talk about something that’s really important for growing businesses: sales infrastructure. Because building the right sales infrastructure is crucial for a business that’s looking to drive growth. And an effective sales infrastructure includes a combination of many things. We’re going to be discussing what the key considerations are and what the best practices are for building a strong sales infrastructure. But before we go into that, let’s first talk about what it really means to have a sales infrastructure built into the business. How does that look like?

Eric (guest):  

So, a sales infrastructure and the proper structure are two different things. One aspect is having the right sales process, which is important. For instance, starting from when you get a lead, a hand raise, or a contact, to actually reaching out to them, it’s crucial to have a touch plan in place. This includes determining how you will contact them, whether through phone, email, text, or social media, and being able to record those conversations at every step. It also involves setting a cadence for contacting them, determining when and by what means you will reach out.

Eric (guest):  

Additionally, it’s important to consider what information you will provide them with because it’s all part of the education process. In today’s sales process, it’s not just about selling, but rather about educating. You need to focus on educating your prospects because if you’re just selling, you’re already at a disadvantage compared to your competitors who are out there selling. By educating and explaining exactly how your product or service solves a problem, you can position yourself ahead.

Eric (guest):  

There are three primary types of problems: adding revenue, decreasing costs, or improving operational efficiencies. Your solution should address at least one, if not all three, of these problems. The salesperson’s role is to educate the buyer on how and why your solution is different. At the beginning of the sales process, there is one essential question to answer: What is your “why”? Why is your product better? Why is your company better? Why do you do what you do? Why should someone choose your product or service over someone else’s?

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, we were talking about educating the buyers, which is really important. I think this is very important in the service-based businesses like our business. And it almost goes hand in hand with marketing as well. And what I’ve noticed on the market, especially, I follow a lot of people on LinkedIn that are in sales and in marketing, and there’s this push with marketing and sales really have to work hand in hand these days to educate the buyer before they even come to you. So there’s a lot of importance given these days to content marketing. So let’s talk about this. How do you see content marketing and sales? How do they fit together?

Eric (guest):  

So I think you can’t have one without the other. And it’s got to be effective. It’s got to be effective, or the messaging is getting out to the market and really creating that first level of education to get hand raised in the process. So demand generation or market creation would first seed the market. I call it a seed-harvest-a-lock, you know, kind of strategy where you first go out and you see the market and you educate the market on what the capabilities and what problems your product or service is trying to solve. And once you have the foundation laid down, you’ll be able to then effectively outbound reach to people, outbound outreach to people, to get them in the process. It’s going to take anywhere between eight and 12 touches before you get a hand raised and I’m interested or even interested in this product or service. So I think it’s the more content that you can provide them that’s educational and value, not just marketing type material, it’s educational and value that goes over why your product or solution answers a fundamental problem.

Kathy (host):  

And I see that also that you do get feedback from the market as you’re having those conversations where your buyers, you know exactly what problems they have. And those problems are feeding into the content. It’s almost like a feedback loop by itself. And the best way, what I have noticed, is that creating content that directly answers those types of questions that you are getting from the buyers, just being helpful as much as you can, it’s almost like the content by itself becomes a full-time salesperson in your business. And then by the time it gets to the salespeople or to you, if you’re doing the sales, you’re really just filling in that tiny little gap that pushes them over to buy. Correct?

Eric (guest):  

Right. So it’s a very good example that you brought up. So if you lay down the right foundation with education, once they come to you as a kind of a hand raise, your job is to really establish a relationship and establish credibility on why your product or service is superior to somebody else’s, and why they should do business with your company. And why would they choose this product? And really, you know, answer the questions that they may have around some features and functions. But what does this actually mean for their business?

Kathy (host):  

And you know, being a finance person, obviously, I always relate that into finance. Like, yeah, this is all great and fine and dandy with the marketing and sales. But what does that really do for the business? And that is really how you create the growth for the business and the high-quality revenue. Because you’re getting in the door customers that are high-quality customers. Because I always say, not every single revenue is good revenue. Like, not every sale is a good sale. So let’s talk a little bit about if you can give us an example where the businesses that you’ve helped with, if you can have an example of someone that has done this exceptionally well.

Eric (guest):  

So I worked with a finance company where their messaging was really not correct in the beginning. It was something that they needed to define. So I went in and we defined their ideal client profile first of all because it can’t be everybody across everybody. We defined their ideal client profile down to their target market where they started to target more effectively. They were doing about a million dollars in sales. The first year after I went in, we increased about 27% the first year.

Eric (guest):  

So where they needed to be was to get more hand raises. Once you identify your target market, the next thing was more hand raises. So they couldn’t do it with the exact staff they had in place. I helped them hire their next salesperson and really took the time on why would this person be successful within the company. We took six weeks to hire this person and put them on a 360-day onboarding plan. The importance of that is you know where they are all the time because in every sales position, it takes time to ramp up.

Eric (guest):  

The average ramp-up time is six months in any sales position. So for the first six months, you want to make sure that they’re getting the education they need, the support they need, the resources they need so they can hit the ground running sometime before six months. But effectively after six months, they are fully trained and fully able to go out and market the solution, prospect, and sell value. That’s the challenge for small businesses, the ramp-up time. And you’re trying to get it done quicker, but you have to give that person the right information. You really have to give them the right resources. And you really have to spend the time.

Eric (guest):  

I tell people time is good and bad. You have less time today to spend with people, but you need to spend that time so they get to the right outcomes. They’re able to hit the ground running, they’re fully trained or up to speed real quick.

Kathy (host):  

So it’s an investment today that pays off in the future. 

Eric (guest):  

Yeah, I mean, it’s more investing today because sales, in general, has changed from just outbound to more inbound and educational. It’s a different framework of change, and it goes across generations. This isn’t just one generation. But I think the younger millennials and Gen Z have challenges amongst themselves, communicational challenges that my generation didn’t have. I mean, my generation didn’t have a computer growing up. We didn’t have a cell phone. We didn’t have those things. You know, we had to talk to people. And you know, it’s the game of sales. You’re still not going to get it done without the use of a phone. Calling out and outbound calling people is still an art in sales. It’s an art, you know, people don’t want to do it, and people don’t want to prospect. They don’t tell you. It’s not the most glamorous part of the position, and they need to do it. You need to do it. You may not get a person on the phone. You may leave them a message. And it’s that multiple touches of somebody that creates the awareness and that they know who, when, what your company does.

Kathy (host):  

Going back to this company that you have, what was it about their messaging that they changed that helped facilitate the sales process?

Eric (guest):  

Sure, they went to a more finite message, a more granular message as to why and how they helped companies in their market or a service-based business. So, how they help certain companies, when we went to market on a touch plane, we developed a three by three campaign where there are three different voicemails that we leave in three different email follow-ups. And within those, there are examples of how they’ve helped certain companies. They weren’t doing that. It was just, you know, calling up on from a certain company and you should take my call. That doesn’t work. That, you know, that doesn’t work anymore. There’s a fundamental change. That doesn’t work. So, it’s really changing the messaging of why they’re calling. Here’s how we’ve helped and contact me here, and then constant follow-up with the educational information you discussed earlier. That’s so important.

Kathy (host):  

What I’m hearing is, so messaging, but there was a lot of structure that happened.

Eric (guest):  

Yeah, it was foundational. It was really to get them to use their CRM more effectively. They weren’t sending emails out through their CRM, so they didn’t have a grasp on who would actually open an email. It’s important to see how many people actually open your email to see if it’s effective or not, you know? It’s important to assess if the message is reaching the market. In the first month, we did it, they were at, like, 11% open rate. Now, after a year, they’re at like a 31% open rate. So we’ve increased the open rate, which increases awareness and their ability to contact people.

Kathy (host):  

Is there a standard of what is considered to be a good open rate and average open rate or low? 

Eric (guest):  

Yeah, I think if you’re in the 20% to 25% range, that’s a very good open rate, depending on what you’re sending out. But generally, that’s an accepted open rate.

Kathy (host):  

We talked about the sales infrastructure, so we started talking about having a good messaging. It all started with a good messaging. And I would say positioning of the company, correct?

Eric (guest):

Correct. Yes! Once you have that, it’s the foundation. It’s kind of like it’s the piping of a house. It’s the pipes in a house that you always want it to work. Nobody walks into a house and goes, “Those are nice-looking pipes.” They notice other things, you know? It’s just things that need to work. They just need to work, and they need to work all the time. And it needs to work when you turn it on and when you turn it off. You know that regardless of who you put in place, it’s going to work. I use the analogy of a sports team, a football team like the New England Patriots. They have a system, and everybody works the system. You could put different people within the system, and they’ve been successful. They were real successful for a long time, but they had a lot of times took different people and put them in different positions to work the system to be successful. Yeah, and that way, you know, businesses aren’t relying on one person or two people. One on account to accounts for all their revenue, you spread the risk across your foundation and your people and your customers.

Kathy (host):

So the foundational piece, it’s the messaging and the positioning. So it all starts with air. So that would be your pipes of the house. And then the next thing is, what else do you have to put in the structure? Let’s say that now you have the messaging, the positioning done, and you know that it’s working, you have seen it work, and you want to ramp up your sales activities. So I would guess the next thing would be to have a good CRM system.

Eric (guest):

Correct. You have a good CRM that people are going to adopt and use and not just have one to have one. Yeah, and it can’t be punitive. It can’t be punitive. Because all salespeople, at some point, that gets punitive. It’s not, I mean, it’s there to use as a tool to know that you’re going down the right path. Next is the evaluation of your people. Do you have the right people in place? It goes across departments, as you see it in finance? Do you have the right people in place? I mean, you have people that are tactical, you have people that are more strategic, you have people that are thought leaders. It’s do have these people in place, the right people in place to be successful? In a lot of sales positions that I’ve recruited for, you kind of look at the two A’s: attitude and aptitude. If someone has the proper attitude, that’s one thing, and aptitude can they grasp what you’re trying to sell or kind of what you’re trying to market? Your solution is? Can they go out and effectively talk about a problem from a business standpoint? It’s not a feature function anymore. It’s how does this affect the business?

Kathy (host):

Have you noticed that there’s anything in terms of people’s attitude or personality that make them exceptionally good salespeople?

Eric (guest):  

Yeah, some people that are competitive that don’t want to lose this, and I’ve been doing it a while, I think people ask me, “Do you like winning or hate losing?” I just hate losing. Because you know, you can’t do anything about losing, winning, it’s fine, you can celebrate a win. And it’s done. It’s like, it’s done, but losing, it hurts, and it should hurt. And you have to learn from it. When I get involved with sales teams, I always say it’s always great to win and celebrate it for that moment. But then there’s always the next one, you got to always move on to the next one and grow the business. But we have to learn from our losses and do a loss review. It’s called a win-loss review. And the losses are actually more important than the wins at times, because you find out what you did right and what you did wrong, so you can improve on that.

Eric (guest): 

I mean, it’s all about improvement, and, you know, improving the cycle and not doing the same thing over and over again. If you do the same thing over and over again, that’s the classical definition of insanity. You know, you just keep on doing the same thing and think it’s gonna change, you think it’s gonna change the result. That’s not your diagnose kind of where you went wrong in the process and a sales process that you lay out, whether that’s a five or six-step sales process, you kind of know where you are in those, those cycles in those steps, whether it’s kind of in a prospect stage, next qualified stage in a negotiating stage or in the closing stages, you kind of know exactly where somebody stands. And there’s questions that need to be asked all along the way.

Eric (guest): 

And I think the problem is, is some folks try to circumvent the process, go from one step to the other real quick and think it’s gonna get done. It’s not, it’s not. I think if you follow the process through, you’re going to have a more effective sales closure rate. And the quality of revenue will be better. The more I dig into some of the losses with folks, it was about skipping steps and being sloppy, and people didn’t listen to people in the process. They didn’t listen to what somebody needed. When you listen to people and take that pause, and then come back with a suggestion, make sure it’s the right suggestion that somebody asked for, not just what you want to hear. Like, so people just want to tell what they want to hear. And that’s where people go wrong.

Eric (guest): 

I think, you know, salespeople have to be quick thinkers, but you also have to be a little reserved in your thinking. Think before you speak.

Kathy (host):  

And it’s interesting that you talk about this process. There’s a lot of active listening that I have seen. I’ve talked to a lot of salespeople, and one of the things that I’ve noticed personally, and I’m very curious if you agree with those two, is what separates a good salesperson from an exceptional salesperson is that ability to actively listen and really get deep into an actually asking those probing questions. Because I’ve noticed, even when I have been on sales conversations myself for my own business or for the customers’ businesses, the ones that I felt the immediate “Oh, they can help me” is the ones that one that haven’t talked much, and to was the ones that really listened and they were asking these really insightful questions. And to get to that, you really need to be able to do that. But my question is, is this innate? Just a specific type of personality would have? Or can you actually train someone to do that? How hard is it to train someone to do that?

Eric (guest):  

You could train people on question-based selling; you can train on that. Personalities can’t train on that. You can coach them. Coaching is different than training; you can coach them on this is what you should do. And can you adapt to that?

Eric (guest):  

I think the expression that I learned early on is, “You have two ears and one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you speak.” Yeah, that came from my high school English teacher. She was great to me, you know, the whole bit, but she said if you listen twice as much as you spoke, you’d be excellent at this. And I said, “Okay, I’ll try it” because I could talk. And I started to do that. And like, it does click in, especially in the business world. These things click in like because you’ll be able to listen better, like you listen to and pick up on people’s body languages, people’s tone. It’s not always what they say. It’s how they say it, how people say it. And you can’t get that from an email. I don’t care what anybody says. You can’t get that from an email because it’s in print. It’s a print, unless somebody uses caps, big font bold, then you can get it, then you really know what’s happening. But you can’t get that from an effective if you’re able to have a conversation that’s two ways, and you’re able to get as much as you give. That’s a successful conversation.

Eric (guest):  

You know, you talk about having successful conversation. I’ve had conversations where I’ve said very little, and it’s been very successful because somebody’s been able to say, “These are the problems that I’ve had.” And when I go in and work with a business owner, I’m doing probably 20% of the talking; they’re doing 80%. I consider it like I’m there to listen, to help them. I just can’t help them; I can’t go in and say, “I’m here to help you” because I don’t know what you actually need. It’s kind of like going to a surgeon. The surgeon can’t just look at some X-rays and just go, “I’m doing a surgery,” you know, they’re gonna, “I’m gonna operate now” unless you’re really, really bad. But they need to tell you why they have the surgery, what you’re experiencing, what you could experience with the surgery, what complications, what the rehab is going to be, and all these other things. That’s what I do when I work with small businesses, lay it out.

Eric (guest):  

But I want to hear from, you know, an owner or a CEO, where they’re at today and where they want to go because their goals are important. I need to have those goals in place when I go in to set up the right process. Because I want to be aligned with their goals, with their company goals. And everybody has to share in those goals and work towards those goals, you know, on a monthly quarterly basis.

Kathy (host):  

So the businesses that you go to, obviously, they have done something right since they do have sales and they have revenue, and they usually grow. What do you think that is, that tipping point where you really feel the pain of not having a sales process versus just kind of muddling through?

Eric (guest):  

It’s when you’re not growing, and you’re not growing at a rate that is either in your industry or you need to get to the next level in the business. So maybe year over year, you grew at 5% one year, and then 3% the next year, and then 1%, and it’s going downward. But your revenue, like we discussed in the beginning, is still going up. And what you need in place is that driver, and that driver is the sales process. That driver is having that foundation that’s able to sustain more growth. Growth takes a lot of things out of people. It’s not just, you know, “I’ll just sell more,” you know, that doesn’t work to sell more. I’ll get more people if that doesn’t work because you’ll just be spending money. And you know, I think you see it from the financial side, those companies that are more successful get the most out of their investments.

Kathy (host):  

I think the keyword is being intentional and deliberate. Where are you spending time, where you’re spending energy, and where you’re spending money on? And I’m always interested to hear this. What are some of the common mistakes that businesses do when they’re trying to do this on their own versus having someone in and help them with it? Because I see a lot of businesses trying to, you know, “We’re going to save some money and we’re not going to pay a consultant or someone. I’m just gonna go try to do this on my own.” And it always makes me very, very nervous because I know every time I hear that, it’s like, “Oh, this is probably gonna take twice as long and be three times more costly.” But okay, so it tried to influence that you should really hire someone to do that, someone who comes in, does their thing in and out. They’re done, and you don’t have to worry about the extra cost, and you have things done right. But let’s talk about what are some of the common mistakes that you see businesses making when they’re trying to do this on their own.

Eric (guest):  

So, they don’t know what they don’t know. Like, they don’t know what they don’t know because they’re so insulated in their own environment. They don’t have somebody that’s coming in kind of fresh to this that can ask the questions that you said before, you know, the questions to really cause them to think, to cause them to think of what they really need. Having an internal person do it fine, you could or hiring somebody from the outside on a full-time basis. Yet, some companies or some small businesses don’t need a full-time sales leader. They don’t, when the cost can’t carry that, and the investment shouldn’t be there. So when you look at having somebody come in from the outside, you’ve got to find out first why and what your goals are. And those people that make the common mistakes are trying something from a book, trying something from a book and not having a roadmap, not having a roadmap at least to work on. Before I even work with a company, I give them a roadmap. They can do it on their own. It’s kind of like when I was growing up as a kid, we’d go on road trips, and my dad would put the map out on the dashboard, the old school, no Google Maps in this house.

Kathy (host): 

Remember those days. 

Eric (guest):  

She put the map back on the dashboard, and you could go, and we’d circle where we’re going. We would go this road to this road to this road, we would put the pen on it. And inevitably, you could get there, but you would get lost, and you would have to stop. We would stop at a gas station, “Are we on the right path?” We’d stop at a Burger King, “Are we on the right path?” and McDonald’s, “Are we on the right path?” And you always had to ask directions, you always have to ask directions, as opposed to bringing somebody in with the proper roadmap to say, “I’ve seen this before,” and guide you in the process. And they’re there to guide you and coach you in the process to be successful and use their experience.

Eric (guest): 

It’s their experience that you can’t create internally, you just can’t create that internally. Somebody that has experienced many small businesses, you know, these are not highlights in my hair, you know, this is from years and years of experience of doing this. You could probably fix a sink in your house or something small. Yeah, you could do that. I’ve done it, I’ve put a faucet in my house. But if I’m going to remodel my bathroom, I’m not doing that on my own. I’m going to bring in an experienced plumber and experienced contractor that has been there, done that, as you said, it could cost twice as much doing it internally.

Eric (guest): 

I’ve seen people go over a two-year period that if they called me in two years before, would have saved half the money. Even with my time, even with me and my time, I’m like, you know, because there’s opportunity costs, there’s cost on your people, there’s missed opportunity that persists when you go through.

Kathy (host):  

Yeah, and I really like that analogy of a map and comparing an old-school map to Google Maps because it’s very painful when you have that stop-and-go and you’re constantly moving around. Are we going in the right direction? Do we need to bring someone in now? No, we’re going to continue doing that. I mean, there’s a lot of uncertainty. So, I can definitely relate to that. So, Eric, what is it that, like, let’s say that someone was listening to this. They know that they need a sales infrastructure, and they have some pieces already. They have a CRM system, they think they have messaging already. But now they have to figure out how do I actually train the salespeople? Like, I need the infrastructure. What is one thing that they can do in the next month or so to get them closer to having this more developed in their business?

Eric (guest):  

So I think it’s find out and diagnose, and work on one area at a time. That’s what I do when I go in with a client. We work on area by area. And if it’s training somebody, you know, get somebody to train or have them go to a training. Now, there’s a lot of great online trainings, there are a lot of great online training companies to use for salespeople. But for me, have somebody from the outside look at that, just give them an independent view. Whether that’s an advisor, whether that’s themselves or a third-party person to come in and help. They would do the same thing in areas of finance, they would do that in HR. It’s just sales and marketing. This is really the driver of the business. This is going to be able to fuel other investments. So I believe it’s an important investment. It’s not a cost. It’s really an investment that’s going to pay off in the long run.

Kathy (host):  

And I gotta ask this: you said that there’s a lot of good online trainings. Is there anything particularly that you would recommend?

Eric (guest):  

No, I mean, there’s not one over another. There are a bunch of companies that do it now, and you can subscribe to a library. They have 27 modules. But I’m kind of agnostic when it comes to that. When I work with a client, I’ll give them some suggestions on sales training. There’s not one right answer. But if somebody would like, they can always contact me or you and get in touch with me. I’m here to help.

Kathy (host): 

Speaking of where can people contact you, Eric, where they can find you? 

Eric (guest):  

Contact me on LinkedIn. Kathy has my contact information, but they can also email me at ebalis@salesacceleration.com. Here to help, I always have conversations in advance. One thing that I do offer is a 10-point assessment in advance. It’s complimentary. We’re able to give people sort of that roadmap, the old-school roadmap. And if they want to engage, that’s fine. If not, I’ll give them something of value that they could potentially use.

Kathy (host):  

Awesome, Eric! I’m going to put all of these in the show notes, so you’ll see Eric’s email address, his LinkedIn profile, and the website. It’s going to be all in the show notes. So if you’re interested, go take a look there. Eric, thank you so much!

Eric (guest): 

Appreciate your time. And this was a great session. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Kathy (host):  

Thanks so much for joining us today, and I hope that today’s episode has inspired you to start building your sales infrastructure in your business if you don’t have one or maybe even revamp the one that you currently have. Also, if you loved this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, links, and more on the website: newcastlefinance.us/podcast.

Kathy (host):  

And before I go, I have a favor to ask. If you enjoyed this episode and if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts, could you please go to the show and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves? This helps the algorithm so that other people can find it and benefit from it as well. Thanks so much, and until next time!