• 50:16
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, sales, talk, core values, rules, years, selling, company, glenn, leverage, day, margins, sell, demo, lobby, brands, good, sit, meeting, learn
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Glenn Poulos
Damon Pistulka 00:00
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of business. I am your host, Damon pistulka, and I am excited for our guest today, because we have Glenn pulos With your with us today. He is a salesperson, extraordinary, extraordinary co founder of several companies currently with NWS, gap wire, formerly gap wireless. I believe you’re going to explain this a lot better with us though today, Glenn and we’re talking about effective sales and maximizing value during before and all the way through an exit. Glen for, thanks for being here today.
Glenn Poulos 00:45
Thanks for having me. Damon, it’s great to be
Damon Pistulka 00:49
here. Well, Glenn, you know, you, you got into this a little while ago, so I have to, I have to kind of ask, as we start out, yeah, let’s, let’s hear a little bit about your background and how you really decided that sales was your thing.
Glenn Poulos 01:09
Good, yeah, this, this is a good one. And it get, kind of gets asked a lot, and, but, and, you know, hopefully I always give the same answer, but the but I, the funny thing is, I started working for the Canadian government, and, yeah, I was a civil servant, and I went to school for electronics. They hired me at a school and worked on weather stations, and I was fixing electronic gizmos for them. And then I went to work at their Environment Canada and in Toronto, and my my boss, who was a former military guy who had retired and then got a job, he they have a funny name for it. When they, I think, like 20 and 20, they call it or something where they do get two sort of government pensions, and yeah. And he pulls me aside, he goes, dude, you’re not you gotta get out of the government. You’re in the wrong field. And, I mean, I was a kid, I was 20 something, right? And I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I actually took him at his word, and he said, You should go into sales and and so I got a job in technical sales, right? Selling, you know, high value electronic measuring instruments and things like that, and never looked back and been in sales ever since that was 1985 so coming up on 40 years,
Damon Pistulka 02:26
wow, wow. So what do you like most about this, being a sales professional?
Glenn Poulos 02:32
Well, the money, of course, right? That’s a good part. What else? Yeah, yeah. Well, the funny thing is, like people, I try to explain to people, especially, you know, I meet lots of people, young fellows and Well, girls as well. But I mean, where maybe, you know they’re not, you know, the they’re not destined for, you know, 15 year medical degree with, you know, and to become a surgeon or something, you know, that can make, you know, really good money. But I’m like, you can, you can get a 15 year head start on them in sales, if you learn your products, if you’re passionate about it, if you join the right company, you can be making what a surgeon makes in your, you know, a couple of years in, right? And you can, and you can always be at the cutting edge. You can always be learning new technology or new new whatever you’re selling, right? And so you’re not, you’re not selling yesterday’s stuff. And, and it’s the one of the only real careers that allows that, other than maybe professional sports or or entertainment or something where you know you’ve got some kind of a natural, God given talent. And, yeah. And so that’s what I like about it, is the what, what I was talking about and explain to people, is the power of leverage, right?
Damon Pistulka 03:50
Yep, yep. And as you’re, oh, did you freeze up there for a second? No, no. Okay, there you go. Yeah, yeah. So the power of leverage. Talk about that a little bit, the power, sure.
Glenn Poulos 04:01
So, so, so it’s easier, yeah, so what leverage isn’t it’s easier to explain. So, you know, like, you graduate with a, you know, business degree or something, and you go and work for, like, I don’t know, GE or someone, and you know, you get a job in their, one of their business departments, they paying you $55,000 a year. And then all of a sudden, you look at the pay scales, and you think, Well, geez, I can be a department manager in five years, and I’ll be at 60,000 then 62 and, you know, and basically you can, sort of, you can kind of map out where you’re going to go, and, yeah, one in a million might go to become the CEO of a public company. But, I mean, you know, you kind of go through the ranks and you know where you’re going to start, you kind of figure out where you’re going to end. And I mean, especially at the Canadian government, I knew, I knew exactly, like, yeah, for certain levels, there was a, you know, I was an El for when I went in. I knew that when I graduated, when I left, 20 years later, I probably be a six. The sevens were like, you know, there’s only a handful in K. Canada, so, yeah, well, six, right? And then the top of the six was X amount of dollars, whatever it was, and I would get my best three years out of the those. And that’s, that was my life, right? Yeah, we’ll leverage in that, right? But, but, I mean, you know, if, when I, when I went into sales, I realized, like, if I can sell more, if I can make more calls, I can, I can leverage, lever up my my earnings and my income, right? Yeah. And, you know, it’s kind of like a bit of a trick or, you know. And the other thing is that, you know sells, if you you know, as you plan your territory and your business in sales and the job that you’re in. You know, sales can occur when you’re maybe not present as well. There’s repeat sales. There’s, you know, recurring revenue, repeat revenue, you know, there’s, there’s the Hunter Killer stuff, where you get to eat what you kill. But, you know, so the, there’s the leverage that over time, like insurance is a perfect example, right? You start with nothing, but in the end, your book of business is, like, you know, very, very lucrative. And that’s why people go into selling insurance, right? Because people often wonder why you would want to, you know, you’d want to subject yourself to that, right? And because of the what happens over time, because those customers typically stick around for life, and you can, you can lever up. And then the final aspect is, what I learned five years into the business, was, if you can own the sales company, you can leverage yourself and everyone else selling in the business, and every time they sell, you get paid. Every time you sell, you get paid, right? Every time anyone sells, you get paid, and that’s the maximum, you know, sort of way of applying leverage.
Damon Pistulka 06:45
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. I’m glad you explained it, because the your first point is, if you sell more as a salesperson, you’re worth more. I mean, that’s the, you know, I can be a greatest engineer in the world, but I’m only worth so much. I could be the best whatever. I’m only worth so much, but if I, if I continue to sell more, I’m more valuable to that company. That’s right, yeah, that’s that is a good thing. And I with a with a spouse that’s was a 30 plus year salesperson, I understand that pretty well, and the drive behind it. So you’re, you’re out there, you’re doing these sales. You started, you’re, you’re in these companies, founded companies, but what really you you’ve made a little bit of switch, and you’re, you really are also a sales coach and author. I mean, in addition to being a business owner. What really drove you out to do that and and gave you that initiative? Go, well, it’s not enough that I’m trying to, you know, build a business. I need to do this other stuff too.
Glenn Poulos 07:52
Yeah. So the So, the the progression of how it occurred, was one, you know, I started as a salesperson, then I started my first company sold sold it 15 years later, started my next sales company, sold it 15 years later, but towards when I was preparing to sell the second business. It was the pandemic and but during those last 30 years before that, I had been learning lessons from all my mentors, and especially early on, when I was spending a lot of time making calls, you know, because as I became an owner of a business, I mean, I had more sales people than myself, but, and then I started learning really, really good rules, right? And so back in the 80s, early 90s, I started writing them down, and I would name them after people, and oftentimes they were rules, Do this, don’t do that, definitely don’t do that, right? And, and I would often, you know, you know, call it like the Tony factor, or whatever, right, something like that, right? It’s like, don’t do that, you know. And, or don’t do a Quigley on them. And, and these are all, these were all things that, once I explained these rules to people, they I could just say, Don’t do a Quigley. And they, they would all know exactly what I meant, yeah. I didn’t have to say anything else, right? Yeah. And so the people would still often laugh at some of these, right? They’re like, Oh my god, makes so much sense, or whatever. And because I was tying it to a funny story, giving in a name, you know, etc. So they would say, oh, you know, eventually it was like, Can you, can you come to my company and tell some of these funny stories at our next sales meeting, right? And so I would do that. And then they’re like, oh, you should write a book, right? And, of course, yeah, it’s too lazy to do that. And I never really did until the pandemic, and then I didn’t have anything else to do, because in Canada, we had a long lock. Yeah, right. And so I thought, You know what, I was going to give it the you know, that’s when I decided to give it the college try and and I had this book that I had kept where I just constantly writing them down, almost like the punchlines of the rules. And then. If there was a attribution or to someone or something, I would, I would write that down, and I they weren’t. It wasn’t the whole explanation of it. It was just sort of the the punchline or the lesson learned or whatever, right? And I was able to take them all and expand on them and come up with the book and the 57 tips on how to build a career and in sales and business and and that’s how the book sort of came about. And then the, you know, in the in the latter years, you know, I joined some leadership groups, and, you know, like the tech group and the EO and PEO. And, you know, people these often, like CEO groups or, yeah, or sales groups, right, where you kind of have, like, this group of mentors, you go every month, and you have these meetings and stuff, right? And, and often they would, I would hear these scenarios of problems and, and, of course, being the general manager of the business, not just the sales manager or salesman, right? I mean, I often reflect on many things, but where it really resonated was when they would talk to me about the structure of their sales team, the compensation, how they were measuring people, what they were putting up with, and, and then, you know, I basically started helping, you know, people, and I, you know, and, and so I’m not really selling any courses or anything like that, but, but just through word of mouth and associations, I’ve gone in to help people to restructure parts of their business and to, you know, clean it up in some cases because they’re selling the business, or in some cases, they just bought the business, or they’re just struggling. Or, yeah, and, and, and, these are just more because I have a day job, you know. These are just more part time, you know, point and shoot, kind of opportunities where I would help people for a while and, but it’s not, definitely not my day job. Yeah, it’s just a little passion project. And I get to talk about the rules, I get to talk about the book. I get to, you know, and I get to learn about some, you know, I’m typically, some of the businesses are kind of cool to me and, and fun to be around, right? And, and I’m actually amazed that some of the businesses, some of these people have built, and I’m, you know, you know, enamored by it. I’m sometimes a bit jealous and, or whatever, you know, and I’m thinking, wow, like you have done an amazing job of this or this, but I can help you with that, right? And,
Damon Pistulka 12:25
yeah, yeah. What’s the most interesting type of thing you’ve had to sell or help them sell? Well,
Glenn Poulos 12:33
yeah, that’s easy for me, because my, uh, my, my side passion is, I’m what I call a charity. DJ, okay, okay. I’ve been a DJ since I was 17. Yeah, and I’m super, super passionate about it. I love it. And I love it because I the I just enjoy the music and the time kind of flies by. But I also, I’m super geeky about electronic equipment, right? Especially audio gear and recording, professional sound recording. Oh, I’ve done, yeah, I’ve helped bands record CDs. I’ve done the front of house for bands to do their sound setups and stuff like that. And so I got to help a guy rebuild his whole sales team for a business that started as about 10 years ago, as a wedding DJ, which I’ve done plenty of that my day, although I quit that. That’s a whole other podcast. But he started as that, and what he grew into is a business that does sound and light and video for those giant conventions where there’s 20,000 people, like the Orlando Convention Center, and there’s, you know, 80 screens that are 100 feet wide. And, yeah, you know, and he’s grown it into a multi million dollar business. And, you know, I got to, you know, I got to see all the technology in the studio that he built for for to use, you know, in his building that you can rent, and all the equipment. And of course, you know, a lot of my fees came in the form of discount equipment for the shows that I do, yeah, and which, of course, are usually for some sort of a charity. So they’re for little or no pay, right? Yeah. And so the fact that I know this guy is handy, but that’s probably one of the, the funnest ones.
Damon Pistulka 14:21
That’s quite those, those shows like that are really incredible. Now, I was at, I’ve been at a few of them in the last last handful of years, and I was at one was the last summer I was at a Walmart, something e commerce thing, you know. And there had to be like, 10,000 people there at that show. And and when you go into the main the main stage speaking events. It’s like a concert. In fact, I think it was in one of the places I’ve actually been at a concert before, in, yeah, in in Vegas, and it that’s those are so incredible that putting those together. And now when you look at large corporations, they do those a lot for their They do, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. So, yeah, that was fun. Oh, no doubt, no doubt. That’s so that’s so awesome that you’re a DJ. So, well, we won’t go down the DJ road. We could, we could, but that’s so as you’re as you’re that. So you’re helping these people doing this, what are some of the the the coolest? So you’ve got these rules. Tell me the funniest name for your rules, or one that’s catchiest name.
Glenn Poulos 15:34
Well, so one of the catchiest names is the name of the book. Never sit in the lobby, right? Yep. And, you know, and the and sometimes people are a little perplexed by what I what I mean by that, right? And I’m like, Well, when you’re in the lobby, like, don’t sit down, right? Like, be standing up, right? And, like, one guy’s like, Oh, should I sit in my car? And I’m like, No, dude, like, you should show up on time and then stand when you get there, right? Yeah. And, and he’s like, Why? Why does it matter if I’m sitting or standing right? And, you know? And I said, Well, let me explain to you like, I said, you know, imagine that you’re me, and I’m only like, five, six, and I’m sitting down and I’m flipping through distracted, and some six foot four giant senior buyer guy walks out and and says, Are you Glenn? And I have to, like, look up at him from, you know, from this leather couch that I’m sitting on, and I’m distracted, and then I have to rise up. I can’t, and I only get part way up the guy, right? And then I, you know, he’s already a foot taller than me. And I’m like, it’s just better to be standing and waiting and not distracted, because you end up on your nowadays, you’re on your phone all the time, right? So you’re like texting the wife, oh yeah, I’ll get the bread milk on the way home, don’t worry. And blah, blah, blah, and I’ll pick up the kids, and I’ll do this, and I’ll do that, and it’s just not a good look, right? Yeah. And so all of my rules, and I’ll fire off a few more in a second, are about how to get act and stay in front of your customer and to be a pleasure to do business with always. That’s it. That’s what the book’s about, and that’s what all the rules are based on. So, so the first one with the catchy title just never sit in the lobby. So, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 17:14
that’s a good one. Yeah.
Glenn Poulos 17:16
So the the the one of the next ones, which is the and the way the book is, you can just flip to any page, and you can start reading rules. You don’t have to start at the beginning and go the way through. You can read them at any in any order, right? And so, but, but another one, which is again, and a lot of them have catchy names, is always ask for a mini tour, right? And, and people, what the hell are you talking about? Right? What’s a tour, right? What’s a mini tour? I go, it’s a tour that’s mini right? And meaning it doesn’t take four hours in the blazing heat on a bus with 40 other people, it’s a mini tour. And they’re like, What do you mean? And I’m like, you want to try to get behind the lobby door, right? And you want to, because that’s where you can see, especially if you’re selling equipment like I sold, I can see the competitor’s equipment, and I can also look on the desk, and I can see who’s coffee mug he’s got. What’s the mouse pad that his mouse is on? Yeah, what kind of swag is he wearing, carrying or otherwise prevailing, you know, and if I’m demonstrating, you know, some sort of, you know, acne accelerator or something. And then I realized, wait a minute, he’s already got accelerators from brand A, B or C. And why am I here, right? And I’m like, Oh, I’m probably just here to keep him honest. He is the one guy honest, right? And so you’re never going to learn that in the lobby, right? And so and again, oftentimes people are like, well, they’re not going to say yes to a tour all the time or whatever. And I’m like, No, most of the time you’re not going to ask. That’s why you’re not getting the tour. Yes, they’re not going to offer you the tour, but if you ask, 90% of the time, they will give you the tour. And if, and if they look kind of weird at you or whatever, you know, then you can give them a couple of my little snappy lines, like, Oh, don’t worry, I won’t sell any insurance while I’m in the building, right? Yeah, or any encyclopedias or something like that, right? The guy laughs, or whatever, and then, and then he agrees, okay, I’ll give you. And you’re basically saying, I want to see your new lab, your new building, your new production line, your new warehouse, your new office, your new whatever it is you sell wherever it goes. That’s all you want to see a mini tour. You don’t need the whole building. You don’t need the history of the company. Just show me where this stuff’s going so I can present in the best light, right? Yeah. And of course, while you’re walking down the hall to get to the place you’re going, you represent rule number three, which is, never forget a face. And you learn and that rule, you practice that before you get into the lobby, and you don’t want to waste time standing up and getting sore feet. So you are in your car, you pull out your phone and you go to that customer, and if you’ve ever called on them before, you bring up the name of every contact that you’ve ever met, Sally, Bob, Joe and Sam and. You re remember their face. Yep, you re remember their face. And if you can’t remember their face like snap, then you go to LinkedIn, and you remember their face. And you button while you’re really doing is bringing it from random access memory with a slow seek time to your front memory, right to your front, your front memory and and so that it’s instantaneous. It’s like, Hi Bob, hi Sam, Hi Sally. Because guess who’s going to walk by you on the way to the tour, right? 100% and this guy who’s maybe never met you before, he’s like, holy, this guy knows everybody, yeah. And everybody that’s walking by is going, Oh, my God, I haven’t seen that guy in two years, and he remembers Me. Oh, he’s such a pleasure to do business with. Yes,
Damon Pistulka 20:43
right? Dad is like golden advice. I can’t tell you. I used to early in my career. I sold molded products. We work for a family molder. We have multiple facilities across the US, and we would go into the big corporations, right? And, yeah, they’ve got the meeting room, the meeting room, little, little supplier meeting room. And you’re like, Well, we’re in the factory. Can we see where this is used? Exactly same thing. You go out and see, you out and see the factory. You go out and see the product. You look at the vouchers to see if they got a name, where they’re getting it from. Now, that helps you. You look at the how they’re using them. You talk to the people on the on the in our case, we would talk to the people on the production line go, Well, what kind of problems you have with these parts, or whatever they’re doing, because we were going to either against somebody else or build new tooling or whatever it was. It’s amazing what you can learn by that walkthrough. And your super gold advice is that being able to say hello to somebody, even one person, would be massive for you to be able to do that on your way in. If you’re talking with somebody that’s that doesn’t really know you that well,
Glenn Poulos 21:49
right? And I always reinforce it by saying, imagine, you know, like you show up at your kid’s soccer game and this lady comes out and says, Oh, hey, Glenn, and knows your wife’s name and whatever. And you’re like, oh shit, I can’t remember name, pardon my language, right? You know how it feels. And you know she knows you don’t remember her name, right? Yeah. And it’s the most weird, uncomfortable, awkward sort of moment, right? And it leaves a really negative thing. And remember, you’re always trying to be a pleasure to do business with, and that is not a pleasure, that is a pain, right? And so you’re trying to avoid the bad things and and jointly gravitate towards doing the things that enhance your, your your stature, with the person, with the customers, right? Yeah, you know. And the, you know. And so, yeah. So those are a couple three, you know, very good. Just come right off the tongue and just great,
Damon Pistulka 22:44
great advice. So as you’re, as you’re doing this now, the the thing that comes to mind is, you’re, you’re not the only sales person. I’m sure you’re doing some sales in your business yet, but how is your sales tactics? And I shouldn’t say tactics, not right, growth strategies. And the things you do evolved as you’re not only selling, but you got a sales team that’s working with you, that’s working doing their own stuff, helping them. How does that change? Yeah,
Glenn Poulos 23:18
so Well, the one thing you know if, if you’re a sales manager, is you have to, you have to realize that, you know, over time, some people won’t be the right people, and you will have to cycle them in and cycle them out, right? And it’s like, hire slowly, fire quickly, right? Yeah. People often ask me, Well, when do I know when to fire someone? You know, I’m having trouble with this guy, Bob. And God, I said, let me ask you a question. Have you ever, have you ever thought about parting ways with Bob and letting him go? And the guy’s like, yeah. And I’m like, well, when was the first time, right? Oh, well, you know, like, six months ago, we started out getting off the rails. Like, well, that was the day, yeah, that was the day you should have fired him, right? And it’s like, no, what are you talking about? And I said, Look, it never gets any better. It really never does, right? And so you have to, you have to continuously hone your team, and they have to practice the core values of your business. And so not everyone asks for a mini tour like I do. Not everyone never sits in the lobby, but they have lots of top sales guys that you know, that have worked for me and stuff like that, and they might do it similar, slightly different, or whatever, but overall, they have to meet the core values of the business, right? You know. So whether it’s you know people first, you know customer matter. You know results matter. You know, whatever, whatever the core values, you have to constantly be measuring your staff to the core values of the business. And if they’re not, you have to have a core value call out and then give them a chance to say, look, you know, we’ve got four core values. You’re you’re on track for three of them. But you know, you know, let’s say you know. Pleasantness or something. You’re kind of grouchy at times like, you know, and that’s a main core value. You have to be a you gotta get a positive check mark on that. It’s a non starter. You gotta bring it in line. And if you don’t, then what they end up doing is dragging down the rest of your team, right? And so you need to take a long time to figure out what your core values are and hire a professional to help you develop them, and do go on a one or two day retreat and come up with the whole, you know, get a large team to help develop them, and then you need to hire, fire, reward, motivate, and call out core values every minute of every day, right? Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 25:33
yeah. I mean, that’s huge. I mean, we that’s and it’s easy to overlook that, but it’s so critical, because your core values really transcend people or or business and everything else. It’s just and they’re so good. And, you know, you look at some of the, some of the people that have really worked on setting up like the Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, they talk about that to get it, want it, capacity, to do it. You know, we hire these people that have the capacity, but they don’t get it, or they don’t want it. And you just hit all three of those. When you look at, you know, how are you doing with your core values compared to the core values we’ve laid out for the company? And it a lot of times, it’s just they don’t. They’re not the same kind of people that you want to have in your organization. They
Glenn Poulos 26:24
don’t want that. Yeah, that’s simple, exactly, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 26:27
and it is. I like what you said earlier, though, is you got to hire slowly and fire quickly, because it doesn’t get any better. As you said, it doesn’t get any better if, if there’s a core value problem, unless at that first point, like you said, you have a core value meeting. You talk about it. You say, here’s where it’s got to change. And unless there’s an adjustment they make there, and it works, yeah, it’s the only way.
Glenn Poulos 26:51
And then, and then in a more, you know, more tactical sort of answer as well. Like, for instance, people are like, well, you know, do you sort of, like, enforce things in your book on your people or whatever, right? So one of my rules, it’s a funny one, right? It’s called never ship the shit or fax the facts, right? And so, of course, I made up the rule in 1986 when we got our first fax machine, right? Yeah. But, I mean, people are like, well, you don’t use faxes anymore. I’m like, dude, never email the the documents doesn’t flow off the tongue, like facts to facts, right? Yeah. And so, you know, the rule, the name of the rules change stays the same, but the but the medium of the message has changed, right? Yes. What I mean is, I often talk to these guys, right? And I’m like, oh, you know what’s going on with that? You know, the Acme accelerator deal, you know, at, at, you know, with the government, or whatever you’re working on? Oh, yeah, I’m working on that, right? And I’m like, What’s, what’s going on with it? Like, oh, well, yeah, we sent them a quote. And I said, Oh, I said, Did you drop it off? And they’re like, No. And I’m like, Well, how did you get them the quote? We’re like, well, you know, we emailed it to them, right? And I go, I go, and then did you follow up with them? And did? And I said, Well, yeah, I mean, I gave him a call, and I’m like, Well, what did they say? Like, well, they didn’t answer. I like to leave a voicemail, right? I’m like, Oh, okay. And then I go, and then what happened? Right? He goes, Well, yeah, we’re just waiting for the results, you know, and stuff like that. And I’m so, like, basically, so customer contacts us. We send him a quote. You email the quote, he doesn’t reply. You phone him, he doesn’t answer. You. Leave him a voicemail. He doesn’t call you back. And I said, like, how does that sound to you, right? You know? And I’m like, dude, like, when they say, Now, of course, obviously you might have a huge territory that’s not always possible, but whenever possible, always hand deliver everything. That’s the default. And you only deviate that because of time, distance or space, right? And you know. But if you can do it and the and because so the guy says, hey, you know, blah, blah, blah, we’re going out. We’re looking for these different things, you know and you know, but let’s say he gets to the point where he wants a quote, right? You say, Okay, well, fine, I can, I can drop off quote As matter of fact, I’m going to be in your area on Thursday, so why don’t I drop it off? The guy’s like, Oh, I’m really busy. And I’m like, Okay, well, why don’t I, I’ll just drop it off in the lobby for you. He’s like, okay, good. But I’m really busy. And I’m like, Okay, no problem. So then I know I’m going to be, you know, at whatever, Honeywell on Thursday morning. So I call everyone I know at Honeywell, and I say, Oh yeah, I’m meeting jack on Thursday. We got this great proposal. He’s just dying to have a look at our stuff. Can I get five minutes of your time? Oh, I’m really busy. Well, maybe you can just pop down to the lobby and see me when I’m there. Blah blah. Okay, fine, you know, blah blah, let me know when you’re in the lobby. Okay, then I call Sally, right. No, I’m too busy. I’m off that day. Okay, then I call Judy, right. And, and then now, all of a sudden, I got four people to see when I’m at Honeywell, right? I get to the lobby and the lady says. Me, is Jack expecting you. And, you know, and they always have that, like, yeah, phone, do it right, you like, and I’m like, yeah, he’s expecting me. And he asked for this quote. And she’s like, Oh, okay. And often I go on, and, you know, in the book about, you know, because I’m Canadian, right about donuts, and Tim Horton, donuts, yeah, if it’s before 1030 bring donuts. Never bring donuts after 1030 Why don’t you bring donuts after 1030 because you just end up ruining the guy’s lunch, then he gets mad at you instead of, yeah, you should have, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a 8am to 1030 thing. But if you show up at the bring some donuts, right? You know the warm smell of donuts hitting that receptionist face. She’s happy to get on the phone and get jack down the lobby to meet you or whatever. And Jack forgot that. He told you he was too busy, right? That was a week ago or three days ago, and he so he thinks the guy’s there, I’ll go and get the quote, right? And comes down to the lobby. You show him the quote, then you practice my next rule, always have something in your hand and something in your mind, right? And so in that day, I have the quote in my hand and my mind. I want to know, what does he think of the price, how does it look, you know, etcetera, etcetera. It might be a brochure I’m showing him. It might be swag I’m giving him. It depends on what. I always have something in my hand, yeah. I always have something in my mind that I want to talk to him about, right? Yeah. And so I gave him the quote. And then, you know, I said, Hey, you know, like, these acne accelerators, I mean, like, you know, these are, like, going, like, hotcakes. Like, is there any way I get a little mini tour where you’re going to set it up, right? And again, you know, we’re kind of busy, and I don’t want to bug the guys. And I’m like, hey, look, I won’t sell on any encyclopedias. I just want to have a quick look around see where it’s going to go. It’s like, okay, fine, right? Then I walked down. Never forget a face Sally Bob and George walked by, and he’s like, holy shit, right? And then I hit him up with the, by the way, I’ve got appointments with Sally Jack, Bob, Dave Sam and George after this, can you drop me off at the next one’s desk? Yeah, right. And then he says, like, it’s nine meetings while he’s here. Holy Who is this guy? Right? And then, but also some of the other rules that come into play. So I’ve, I’ve dropped off the quote, right? And then, then maybe he wants a demo, or maybe he wants some kind of follow up, or whatever. Well, then what I say is, well, that funny that you mentioned that, because guess where I’m going to be next Thursday. I’m back in your building visiting Judy, who’s on leave today, but said she could see me the following Thursday. Yeah. And so why don’t I follow up with you when I’m here? He goes, Oh, I’m really busy. I’m like, Well, look, I’ll give you a call from the lobby and we’ll see. And he forgets that he was busy. And he comes down, right? Yeah. And then, and again, same thing with the demo, right? They want to demo, and they’re like, just ship it to me. I go, No, It’s company policy. We’re not allowed, we’re not allowed to ship demos in. He’s like, why not go, we’ve got to make sure they’re set up properly, yeah. Gotta make sure that they’re connected, that the user knows what he’s doing. It’s all liability safety, you know, yeah, etc, right. Okay, fine. No problem. Next Thursday, bring the demo, set it up, blah, blah, blah, and of course, I’ve called all the other people that day afterwards. So I filled up. So I I’m never in my office trying to get meetings right, because I’m always setting them up in real time, right? I’m visiting everybody I can while I’m there. And while I’m there, all the follow ups are already pre scheduled, and because of those, I’ve got this like momentum for Hey, I’m going to be in that area on Wednesday. I’m going to be in that area on Thursday. Can I drop by and I just build on it so that I’m constantly moving everything through its cycle, right? But I drop off the demo, you know? And I set it up, and now I can see who’s the demos beside mine. What else is he looking at? Right? And then, and then I said, Okay, well, how long do you need it for? Right? And it doesn’t matter what he says, Whenever answer he gives me, I divide it by two, right? So he says, oh, I need it for at least a week. And I’m like, a week. I said, There’s no way this thing’s way too busy. I said, No, no, no, it’s scheduled right out. I can give you three days. That’s the best I can do. If he says two weeks, I’ll say, Look, you can have it for a week. I said, but if it’s here for a week. Look, I’m back on Monday. I’d like to check in with your team, make sure it’s going okay, and you’re getting good use of the unit, right? Because I’m not going to leave it for a week and find dust on the power knob, yeah. And I come back a week later, you know, to pick it up, right? Because I always come to pick it up too, right? And, you know, and then if, if, for instance, and there’s stories in the book about this where, you know, let’s say I come back three days later and they’re not using it, right? I just take the demo, I’m just going to remove it, yeah, yeah. And I’m going to go and find someone that wants to buy my shit,
Damon Pistulka 34:29
yeah, because it’s, it really is. I mean, there’s there, there is an awful lot of of buying, demoing, whatever, getting quotes. That is, just to make sure you got two or three units sitting there, two or three options
Glenn Poulos 34:46
so that, yeah. So that comes to my next rule, right, which is, I’d, I’d rather be last than second, right? Cuz second is just the first loser, right? Yeah. And so by being last, what I do is I. Say, Okay, I’m at whatever juncture of the sale, and I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt I’m not getting the order. I just know. And of course, you don’t, maybe you don’t even know that until the last minute of the day, of the quote of the whatever, but, but that’s not usually the way it works. Usually you know when you know that you’re actually not the right fit, the right product, the right price, the right whatever. And at that exact instant in time, I figure out a nice way, because I’m always a pleasure to do business with. Of pulling back all my resources, I need a demo. Oh, I’m sorry, my demo set up for a month. Well, we gotta make a decision that, okay, well, I can give you some information. I can show you of YouTube videos and whatever, but I don’t have a demo. I gotta get going. And by the way, I gotta go because I got a meeting down the street at a company that wants to buy my stuff, right? And I pull myself away from the sale. And I am, I know I’m struggling like a smart ass, but I actually, I’m very nice about it, yeah, but I stopped selling that guy, and what I do is I immediately race to the next possible customer, because the competitors are still there fighting over that deal. And I try to get to the next, newest guy, and I want to get in pole position on that.
Damon Pistulka 36:08
Yeah, that’s a great point. You utilize your time well
Glenn Poulos 36:12
exactly because, you know, it takes just as long to come in last as or second as it does, and first is the only one that gets paid. Yeah, right. And so you you need to value your time. And of course, you’re not doing them any favors by, you know, wait, you know, because a lot of people are like, oh, let’s fly some engineers in from the plant and give them a tour of the plant and find a Raleigh, North Carolina, so we can see the factory, you know. And the guy’s like, well, I’d love to go there and catch a ball game and, you know, whatever. But, yeah, no, like, we’re not doing that. We’re not wasting the money on people that aren’t going to buy, right? Those are for people that are buying, and we reward the behaviors with those kind of things and that amount of support, right? And so, yeah, yeah, that’s another,
Damon Pistulka 36:56
another. That’s good. That’s because, you know, you you’re given some great lessons here, and I love that you’re sharing this with us. And, wow, you’re running through a lot of the questions I have because some of this stuff you’re just naturally addressing, like, when you talk about common challenges that sales professionals face in the field, I mean, you’re hitting a lot of them here, like, what? What do you do? I mean, good, this last one was awesome. If you know you’re not winning, why are you wasting your time there anymore? Exactly someplace else, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re clearly got better stuff and figuring that out too, you’ve laid out a couple good tips there. You know, see what they’re testing, understanding, you know, what really they’re doing to make sure that you’re really good fit for something, because they may not know that you’re a great, great fit, or they may not know that you’re a marginal fit for something. So yeah, you may see it ahead of time and say, I can cut my losses now and make friends with everyone, and walk down the road and find somebody that I’m a really
Glenn Poulos 37:56
good fit for, yeah, and then I’m not getting mad at the end because I wasted resources, and I grumble and groan, and then the guy doesn’t want to give me a shot, because he’s embarrassed to see me again, right? Yeah, I want him wanting to call me back and to work with me. And, you know,
Damon Pistulka 38:10
yeah, because at that point, if you’re, if you are actually a salesperson in the field, they’re in there, they want to download your products. And even you’re talking about, you want to have this mini tour, and you suspect it. And then they continue, and they say, Okay, now we’d like to do the demo, and you’re walking to help them set up the stuff in the demo. And you go, I’m going to tell you that we probably not the best fit here. Yeah, exactly. How much respect would you have for that from that person, that you stopped it right there, and you wait, you stopped wasting your time, and you stop wasting their time. And you can say, and this is why not, and this is where we really are. But I’m going to tell you, you, you know, we, we don’t need to continue here unless I miss something. And that’s, that’s exactly right. That’s so awesome, because, like you said, I would have been down the street to somebody that does need the product
Glenn Poulos 39:01
Exactly, yeah, yeah. And the other you can’t be in two places at one time, right? Exactly. Your demo can’t be in two places at one time. You can’t, you know. So the other guy’s all, all there, he can’t be there, right? And a lot of times. And so one of the other rules I love sharing with salespeople as well, is, like, you know, at some point in time you go into sales, and before that, you were not in sales, right? And so there’s the before and the after, right? And so when you get into sales, you join a company and and you’re going to, early on, you’re going to have an epiphany, and you’re going to realize, hey, I work for the number three brand of whatever, right? Acne exasperators, you know what I mean. And so what do I do? Quit? You need to be working for number one or number two. Preferably number one. Why? Right? I’m like, because number one gets 80% of the business. Number two gets 80% of what’s left. And you are fighting over the last 4% of business with three, four and five, right? Yeah, you’re putting in all the. For you’re getting less than 4% of the business. Do not work for the these, these sub brands. There’s no leverage in it, even if it’s a higher commission, even if it’s a higher base. No, you want to be working with the best brands, because you can never replace when you’re 25 when you’re 2627 when those years are gone, they’re gone. Yeah, right. And so, why, you know? And, I mean, it’s the whole never got fired for buying HP, or for IBM or whatever the brand is, Xerox, and, yeah, you know, we’ve all heard that that kind of a thing, right? But the the thing is, is that you can still make bags of money working for those companies as a high producing salesperson, right? And you don’t have to sell the company, right? You could focus on selling the value in the what you’re selling. Most people like, I’ve never heard of Acme, who are you guys, and I you know, and, and so that’s the worst thing when you’re selling who you are as a business, before you can even talk about your product, right? That’s a
40:59
good point.
Glenn Poulos 41:00
That’s a great point. And I’ve just noticed that people that work for the bigger brands, the better brands, the better products, they do better, right? And it’s just my rule, and one that I always pass on, right? Yeah, so
Damon Pistulka 41:12
awesome advice. Work for number one or number two in your industry, because the sub brands are working on the little bit that’s left over after them, and it’s a little bit, yeah, that’s for sure. So as you’re you’re talking about now the title of show of maximizing value before an exit, during an exit, you obviously exit a couple businesses. You know, what really can the role of a sales in an organization? How can it help the exit?
Glenn Poulos 41:43
Okay, so there’s just so many ways to go with this, but I’ll just shout out some things, and you can ask me, or stop me, or, you know, so, so and some of this stuff’s not intuitive, right? Um, but so first of all, number one is, like people that are buying your business, they’re going to pay more for recurring revenue than they will for repeat revenue versus one off sales, right? Yeah. So that’s the order of priority, right? So it’s like, why do you hear about these billion dollar brands that get bought with hardly any revenue or whatever? Well, maybe they have 100,000 users or something like that, right? And they know the way it rolls out, it becomes an Instagram or something like that, yeah. And the value of those recurring revenue customers is so much more, right? So, you know, prioritize your revenue streams wherever possible, from recurring to repeat to, you know, one off, right? And so that’s always very, very important, right? The other thing, they will pay significantly more when the margins are higher, right? Like, you’d say, oh, $100 million company, right? What’s your gross margin? Well, we usually make between nine and 11% I’m like, Okay, well, that sucks, right? Yeah. And then you’ve got this other company, which is a $40 million company, and it’s a software business, and it’s 80% gross margin. Yeah, you go, and it’s all licensed recurring revenue, right? Yeah. And, you know, this guy’s going to be making out like a bandit, right? And so the if you can increase your gross margin, like, when you’re selling, like, equipment, stuff a lot of times you’re buying, you know, let’s say, or John Deere, you know, maybe you make 20 points or something on the stuff, but you’re not going to be making 40 or 50 40 or 50 points selling $100,000 tractors, right? And so if you’re selling in that world, you know 18, 22% something like that. But if you can take 22 and make it 25 it makes a huge difference, right? Yes, yes. You need to be spending all your time before the sale of the business, long before they show up increasing your margins, you need a history of improved margins,
Damon Pistulka 43:46
right? Yes, that is huge. A History of improved margins up to the sale is, is, is just a beautiful thing. Yeah, it is a beautiful thing, yeah. And then you said, you said a couple things too, before mark. The other thing is, Mark, buyers have great information now, and they have better information oftentimes than the person selling the business, because they’re having to loan, you know, take out loans or whatever, to buy these businesses, or they’ve got investors are going to do it, and they’ll spend a lot of money just understanding the industry beforehand. When you talk about margins, one of the things that we see is, hey, I can have a business that I make good money in, and I’m really happy, but the industry is making a higher margin than I am. That’s a huge thing to a buyer, and that’s a great thing that your sales team can help you work on up to that exit. And because if you’re not at least hitting industry standard, you gotta be, really need to be beating it. But if you’re not at least that industry standard, they’re going to see that right away, because they’re going to the bean counters, are going to look at and go, Oh, industry centered is 17.7% and you’re at 16.5 well, we need to discount the value, because it’s not as good a business as at it. That’s, I mean, it just happens. There’s nothing you can do about that. Nothing you can do about it. You got some awesome stuff here. Yeah, so there’s
Glenn Poulos 45:05
one golden nugget for because I don’t know which direction we’re going to go, I want to is this kind of golden nugget of the show for which is sort of what I call the lesson of operational efficiency and and so one would think, Okay, well, you know, we’ve been doing it the same way for 15 years. We’re going to be selling the business. Why don’t we upgrade all of our systems and get everything running like a Swiss watch, right? And one would think that that would be the most intuitive thing that one would want to do. But it turns out that in the history of the purchases and the businesses that I bought and bought and then been a part of the companies who bought me buying other businesses. That’s not what’s happened. It’s the exact opposite. And what happens is, it’s the businesses that are on the cusp of having the ability to have increased operational efficiencies just before the purchase that gets the higher leverage, higher multiple. And what I mean, it’s sort of in layman’s terms, is, instead of spending all that time increasing the computer system or whatever, demonstrate that the computer system can be put in and you can increase your margins by 3% and what ends up happening is the company realizes I can spend 100 grand after I buy the business, and I can show the investors that I increase the margins 3% boom. This guy gets some huge increase on his multiple. If you do the work first, they’re not going to pay you for it. You’re not getting your 100 grand back. You might get it as an ad back as on your EBITDA that year, or whatever, big deal. But you’re not going to get the benefit of a huge or higher multiple, because your margins will be 3% higher, demonstrate that you can improve the efficiencies when you buy the business easily. And then that’s done through, you know, automations that are on the custom of happening the you know, maybe you’ve maybe you spent time increasing the management team. Maybe you’ve developed intellectual property that’s getting ready to be unveiled, and things like that, right? But if you do it all up front and give them this beautiful, you know, wrapped and finished product or whatever, they’re like, Okay, well, it’s the X amount of margin. It’s this top line. It’s this EBITDA, you’re in this range, you get a five and a half times multiple. There’s your check, have a nice day. X amount of earn out X amount, you know, etc, etc. There’s the deal go, Bob’s your uncle, whereas if some of those things, you held back, and they can get these wins for their investor stack and the private equity, you get a higher multiple for Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 47:30
that’s a great point. It’s a great point. And some of our our clients, and we’re helping them, one of the things we do, if we’re building a client that can be a platform company, a smaller platform company, we will actually have acquisitions lined up with Lois just about ready to sign, so that the new owners can come in and step in and sign those Lois with those those acquisitions, and invest that money. Because, you know, you are so much more valuable because they can walk in, like you said, invest another x gazillion bucks behind it right after that first purchase, doing what they do best, and that’s deploy Council and let them make more money. So exactly, awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. Glenn, so much fun talking to you today. We are, we are getting to the point that we need to wind down, but I do want to ask you couple quick questions. One is, if someone wants to talk to you about your book, or where can they find your book? First of all, okay,
Glenn Poulos 48:32
so everywhere books are sold, Barnes and Noble Amazon, all the bookstores, it’s ebook, audiobook, Hardcover, softcover, which way never
Damon Pistulka 48:40
sit in the lobby. Awesome rule, awesome book. Go from there. And if someone wants to talk to you, more about sales coaching, about some sales question they might have, where’s a good place to talk to you
Glenn Poulos 48:52
or console. So you can definitely just my name.com, is go to my website, and you can reach out to me there, but you can also get me a lot of you know, easy on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. I post a lot of content. I’m a LinkedIn top voice. So I’m very, very active on LinkedIn, and happy to communicate with anyone that reaches out to me. So nice. Yeah, well,
Damon Pistulka 49:14
Glenn, thanks so much being here today. And you know, talking about effective sales. First of all, you had I’m gonna tell you, if you got into this thing late, you need to go back and listen to this entire thing, because Glenn just gave us a masterclass in about 49 minutes here on some of the best things you can do if you’re selling equipment or other things into into companies that that take a bit of thought all the way through the process. Thanks for doing that. You know, we’re talking about effective sales, maximizing the sale before during the exit, another group of golden nuggets here at the end, that really helps to think about what are the most valuable sales? How do you position your company better to get higher value? Just so many things in there. Thank you, Glenn, for being here today.
Glenn Poulos 49:59
You. Thanks for having me. Alright,
Damon Pistulka 50:01
okay, I just want to say thanks for everyone that was listening out there. If you want to go back to the beginning, you’re going to be thankful that you did, Glen, hang out for a moment. We’ll finish up offline. Awesome. You.