IAM387- Founder Helps Small Teams and Entrepreneurs Make Sales Repeatable

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on my show today, I have John Hill of Adapted Growth. John awesome to have you on the show.

John Hill 0:37

Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about John. So you hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And after helping build a website design agency with a partner, he went out on his own to start Adapting Growth. They help small teams and entrepreneurs use technology and processes to make sales repeatable. He is also one of the hosts on a new sales podcast called sales throwdown. They talk about how to get passionate nature to be more successful in sales. And he also has a business called Clutch Closer. John, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

John Hill 1:11

I am

Gresham Harkless 1:12

Awesome. Let's do it. So they kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your businesses.

John Hill 1:20

So I got pretty lucky, I've been in sales for a very long time. And a friend of mine gave me a shot in a B2B world, which was brand new to me, who's selling medical devices. And it was hard, it was really, really hard. I mean, it's one of the most competitive industries on the planet. And that led to me actually talking a lot of business with my business partner at the website design company. So when I decided to leave medical devices, because kind of burnt out, you know, doctors are hard to maintain relationships with, he invited me to come in and help him grow this website design company. And those two guys taking shots on me really set me on this path that I'm on. Now, if it wasn't for those two guys, that would not be even capable of thinking about running a business or starting down that path. So truly up to those two guys and taking shots on me, which I'm incredibly thankful for.

Gresham Harkless 2:14

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And a lot of times we you know, you just need those doors, that kind of peek open a little bit, and then allows us the opportunity to kind of run through them. And then it's funny, you were just mentioning about how hard it was, I feel like and definitely correct me if I'm wrong, that sometimes when you have those difficult jobs or difficult experiences, whatever that might be, it sets you up to where everything else that follows it is not as difficult. So it becomes a lot easier to kind of manage those things, because you've done some of the harder things in the forefront.

John Hill 2:42

Yeah, I agree that if I hadn't gone through that period of, you know, struggle, I would not have ever gotten coachable around being a sales guy, right? Because like, that's mostly what I do, like all my stuff was around sales, I think it's one of the most important skills you can have. And I know that many people struggle with it. So if I hadn't had those struggles, I wouldn't have gotten to that level of like, I gotta fix this, like it can't continue this way. And that's what led me to seeking out, you know, help and coaches and certain books and really putting in the work, you know, to get to that 10,000 hours.

Gresham Harkless 3:17

Absolutely and Malcolm Gladwell would definitely be proud of that. And then I think that, you know, I appreciate you not just learning, you know how to get past that, but also helping you reach and help other people get past that, you know, with your podcasts and everything that you're doing. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about that. Can you tell us about you know, everything you're doing to help these people develop those sales skills in Quebec? You know, one of the hardest things that sometimes people have to work on?

John Hill 3:40

Yeah, you know, the, podcast is just really mostly about there's different personality types, right? There's kind of four corners, you know, depending upon what kind of assessment you're using. One of the ones three popular in sales is called DISC. So I'm a super high C, we have a high D high I and a high S. And it came about because we were at a sales conference, and I was trying to roleplay a conversation with my friend who's the D. And it wasn't working. He's like, man, you can't say that to me. I was like, What do you mean, this works? And he's like, not, not to people like me. And sure enough, the I who was also there as part of that conversation was like, I don't see any problem with that. And we got to have this really cool conversation about you got to meet people in the middle, right? I mean, sales is about building rapport building trust. And if you can't do that, with your prospect, it's going to be a lot harder. So know who yourself is, right? Because that's the first thing. And then you can start to slide towards the other people that you're talking to, right? Are the detail oriented, or the people oriented, right really got driven on the factor of knowing that kind of stuff allows you to pivot very, very easily or easier in a sales conversation. And then, so that's the podcast with with Adaptive Gowth we're trying to put process behind this thing. Many, many, many salespeople winging it, right. They just fling it against the wall and hope it sticks and hope it ends up with some revenue. And like that's not repeatable. And when you look at sales teams like Salesforce Send the big names and tech, all their people are saying the same things on the on the first call, second call. And they're using that to make it a data based problem, right? Because if you got 15, people all saying the same things, you got a lot of numbers and big sample sizes, and then you can look through and see what's working and make small changes. It's not that far from digital marketing honest, like, so we're trying to get people process, we customized CRMs to match that process. So that way, you know, less ramp up time, less gaps between producers. And for the entrepreneur who hasn't really hired any person, anybody has the ability to take what's in your head that instinctual thing that you're doing in your sales conversations, but you're not really sure how to pass that on to someone else, we just drag that out and put it into a process that way, when you're ready to hire, it's a little bit easier.

Gresham Harkless 5:46

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Because I think when you peel back the onion, everything's, you know, there's repeatable processes and tasks. And sometimes when you're able to do that, you can start to make better decisions, because you have a whole team.

John Hill 5:56

Yeah, if you're not selling, then you don't have clients coming in. And so, you know, customer service can't help them. There's no one to invoice, right? Like, like, this is the frontline of this thing. And when you're the entrepreneur, like Make no mistake, you are in a sales role until you hire someone else to do it. And even then, you still have to convince and sell those salespeople that they need to go sell. Right? It never ever stops, right? So there's a great book, it's called To Sell Is Human by Dan Pink and he talks about this topic that most people don't want to be in a sales role. But most people admit that their role requires them to persuade and influence people to do something that they don't want to do. That's all sales is man, if I'm being really honest about it. So how can we do the best job of that? How can we take it away from our gut? And to where, you know, if you get seven nose in a row? You're kind of expecting that a no. Right? So how do you get past that? How do you fix your mindset, so that way, you still want to go have those conversations. So that's a lot of what we talked about on the podcast itself. And then Adaptive Growth is about giving people a process and that way they can follow, you know, you need to qualify for, you know, how they want to work and how much they want to pay. And you know what a good working relationship is and cover those in every single conversation. You don't have to make it up as you go.

Gresham Harkless 7:08

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And like you said, you know, sales is definitely everywhere they say, you know, I think there's a story where it goes, if you don't believe that sales is anywhere near like son or daughter to go to bed earlier and realize

John Hill 7:17

Literally, and I hear that all the time. And you know, she comes in, and I have to set expectations with her just like I would

Gresham Harkless 7:29

Let her be so much better too sometimes.

John Hill 7:31

Homework before you get the cookie, why are you in here asking for the cookie?

So it's a couple of things, if I'm being really honest. One of them is accountability, right? I have two accountability calls per week with different people. And one of them is around Adaptive growth stuff. And just making sure that I'm on I'm on my path about doing my behaviors and following up and bringing in new clients and doing all that stuff. And then the other accountability call is just like me as like a person on my self development path, you know, am I doing the things that I know were necessary for me to be in a good headspace, right? Am I getting good sleep? Am I working out? You know, am I doing these things so that way, I'm in the best position possible to like do the deep work that is required to be successful and move things forward. So accountability is the first one. And accountability is gonna come from someone who you share accountability with, because I share accountability with these other people. And we're genuinely concerned about making sure the other one succeeds. It's not lording over each other, it's I want to see you crush this thing, man. In the middle of the process, which is super boring to the other four corners of the people that I like talk to normally. But if you put it into a process, then it's just this thing that you're doing, you don't have to create it as you're going along. And that gives you brain power for other hard decisions later on. You know, we talked about Steve Jobs and how he wore the uniform because that's one less decision you had to make. You're running processes all day, every day. That's not those aren't decisions you have to make in crunch time. You're just running the process. And that gives you brain power for the other stuff that is hard to do. So process on accountability. Can't talk about it enough.

Gresham Harkless 9:18

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And I think you know, definitely what you talked about, you know, with Steve Jobs. And I think there's seems to be like an increase in the number of decisions we have to make. Because we have so many options to do literally anything we can kind of want to do that you do want to make sure that you're directing that brainpower towards whatever is, I guess in alignment with your goal. So to not make sure you're trying to figure out what shirt to wear that day versus whether or not you want to make this decision on that decision with your company.

John Hill 9:43

Absolutely. For sure. My daughter is going to a new school this year and they have uniforms. And I'm excited about trying to talk to her about Steve Jobs when she's seven years old and isn't really very long later on, but we'll see what happens.

Gresham Harkless 10:00

All right, John, thank you so much. And what I wanted to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hacks. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have. But it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

John Hill 10:11

So to that I have that would, I wouldn't be efficient at all about these things, and you're talking about a lot, but the first one is live and die by your calendar. Everything goes on my calendar, like even stuff for my household, right. So things with my daughter and things with my partner, it's all on the calendar. The other one is being super on board with using some kind of To Do app, you know, I used to do is like a lot of different categories for the different businesses and podcasts and for the household as well, if I get chores or have to go to the store. So it took me a while because I love to be able to hold all that stuff in my head. And I got a lot of personal gratification around Oh, I can remember everything. But it was making me nervous and anxious. And my sleep was terrible and things like this. And the minute I started saying, everything goes in here, I don't care how simple it is, if it's, you know, I gotta run a check to, you know, the store or, you know, something along those lines, even menial tests get added in there. So, those two things really kind of keep me above board.

Gresham Harkless 11:08

Absolutely, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. And so now when it asks you for what I call it a CEO nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

John Hill 11:19

Slow down, right and enjoy it. I get very, I don't like change a lot. It's part of my personality type. And so in moments where like things feel chaotic, I go back to who I am, right, which is like, what's the process? What are the rules? How do I get through this thing, and to give myself some advice, it would be to slow down and just realize that like, nothing is built in a day, you know, you look at these companies that have got huge amounts of marketing and great inbound leads and everything else. And you see that you're like, oh, I want that I want to right now. They didn't have it, when they start. It's a process. So you know, work the process, trust in it, and then adjust as necessary to make sure that it's leading you to where you want it to go.

Gresham Harkless 11:58

So that would have asked you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So John, what does being a CEO mean to you?

John Hill 12:08

For me, personally, this recently changed. So I was sitting at a sales conference a couple of years ago, or I'm sorry, a couple of months ago, and they had the Zig Ziglar quote up on the screen. And it says you can be anything you want. If you help enough other people be what they want, or you can have anything you want. And in that moment is very, very weird. And I'll never forget it, I'm sitting there. Because before that I was just going to run a very small consulting company on these things. And then all of a sudden, I see that quote, and I'm thinking about it and thinking about these two guys who took pretty big shots on me. And in that moment, I decided, you know, I want to be able to do that for other people, like I want, I want people to come in and want you to have a side hustle, but come work for me, I can help you, like, let's get you on that path. And then my genuine goal is that you come in and a couple years and be like, You know what, I'm making way more money doing this, that I'm working with you, I need to go do that. Like, I want to help build people to that place. So anyone who works for me, it's mandatory, you gotta have a side hustle, and I want you to talk to me about it, I can probably help. And like, I just want to put people on that path. And, to me, like, that's why I'm doing these things

Gresham Harkless 13:12

That makes perfect sense. And a lot of times when you are in alignment with who you are just as you said, you start to attract the right people, the people that want to, you know, have a side hustle and do want to work with somebody else. A lot of times you're like, Oh, I can't do this at this company or that company. But then all of a sudden, you know, there's a great opportunity that aligns perfectly with what they're doing. So I think that's goes back to like, what you've been saying is just making sure you're in alignment with who you are, and staying true to that as a whole. Alright, John, thank you so much for your time, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you.

John Hill 13:43

Awesome. Yeah. First thing is the podcast, you know, this should be out at about the same time that we're going to be launching. So follow us on social media, @socialadsalesaredown on pretty much all the platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, the site is being built, you should be able to get to the mailing list, we're gonna have some really cool giveaways around some of the books that have helped us get to where we are and some other things. So that is one for Adapted Growth, if you're struggling with gaps in your sales team are frustrated with not being able to forecast the future of your business through your sales pipeline. Or if you just want to have a little bit more oversight, give your reps more than you know, reach out to me we can we can have a conversation, see if it makes sense to move forward from there. Adapted Growth adaptedgrowth.com Pretty much all over the place.

Gresham Harkless 14:31

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, John. I truly appreciate you appreciate your time. And we'll have those links in the show notes as well. And I hope you have a great rest of the day.

John Hill 14:39

Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Outro 14:42

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

Gresham Harkless 7:39

Exactly, exactly. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you or for your businesses and your podcasts. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Speaker 4 15:19

Issue of government signup or power has ROP a CD apne wallet Miss Holly super Winford Juki India ca Clodagh gaming exchange John Malta instant bonus Bina Kisi conditions good cricket team party roulette just 30 Plus live skill games per jeeto inom register corrode WWW dot super wind dot coper for Pele deposit but poutines are purchased the T shirts for instant donors. Orca your bonuses is a Sciacca per Winco now super win, please kill me to come to some partner Sharmila Olinsky looks at me joking by killing

Transcribed by https://otter.ai