Sell Like A Leader – Episode 38
David Kreiger sits down with Tom Stearns and Peter Cleary for a rare two-guest episode inspired by their newly released book, Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook for Sales Leaders.
Together, they turned decades of real client work and hard-learned lessons into a sales book unlike any other.
In this episode, they cover:
- Why most sales leaders are misdiagnosing their biggest problem
- What a sales manager’s day actually looks like once a real playbook is in place
- How the “Hell No” list transforms SDR performance, protects AE time, and stops your team from chasing wrong leads
- The AI warning every revenue leader needs to hear: if your team can’t do it by hand, you’re not ready to automate it
- The evergreen fundamentals that have driven pipeline for decades and will still matter
If you’re a revenue leader who’s been putting out fires instead of building a system, this episode is for you.
And if you want to start applying these ideas right away, you don’t have to wait for the episode to sink in. You can actually get your hands on the material behind it.
Download the first two chapters of Graphic Sales for free, along with the templates and tools behind the book here:
And if you want to go a level deeper, there are also paid kits available. Use code PODCAST for 30% off.
About Tom Stearns
Tom has spent more than 30 years building, fixing, and scaling sales teams. He’s advised CEOs and CROs from early-stage startups all the way to Fortune 500 companies, and his work has contributed to eight successful exits.
About Peter Cleary
Peter started his career the hard way, selling door-to-door cable, which, as he’ll probably tell you, is exactly as fun as it sounds. From there, he worked his way up through sales management and eventually into enablement leadership.
Podcast Key Takeaways
- Leaders default to more activity (more dials, more AI tools) when the real fix is building the strategic foundation first.
- When the playbook exists, leaders stop firefighting and spend their time coaching, pipeline reviews, and strategic decisions.
- A “hell no list” is often easier for reps to act on than a complex ICP — especially for new SDRs learning the ropes.
- One of the most overlooked and evergreen fundamentals is understanding how your team actually spends their time and where tools slow them down.
Connects
Connect with Tom Stearns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomstearns/
Connect with Peter Cleary: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterecleary/
Connect with David Kreiger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkreiger
Subscribe to the podcast and follow our Podcast LinkedIn page so you don’t miss any episodes!
Transcript
David: Welcome back to another episode of the Sell Like a Leader podcast—the podcast for revenue leaders who are on a mission to cultivate a high-performing sales team within their organization. I'm your host, David Krieger, founder of SalesRoads, America's most trusted sales outsourcing and appointment setting firm, and today we have a really special episode.
We've got not one, but two incredible revenue leaders joining us: Tom Stearns and Peter Cleary. 10, 15... I don't know, we go way back now.
But Tom is just an amazing sales thinker and consultant. He is your go-to person when you need help building, fixing, or scaling sales teams at your organization. And he has advised countless CEOs and [00:01:00] CROs, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies. His work has contributed to eight successful exits. And his partner in crime—at least on their new endeavor—Peter Cleary, started his career what he calls "the hard way," selling door-to-door cable, which, as he'll probably tell you, is exactly as fun as it sounds. From those early days, he has worked his way through management and eventually into sales enablement leadership.
And the reason why we're here today: they just launched an amazing new book documenting their collective experience called Graphic Sales: How to Build a Prospecting Playbook for Sales Leaders, which takes just a really interesting perspective on sales leadership playbook importance—which we're going to dive into today—but does it in a fun and creative way that you've never seen a sales book do.
So, that was a very long intro, but [00:02:00] without further ado: Tom, Peter, so amazing to have you here.
Peter: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Tom: Yeah, thanks David. Great to be here.
David: So let's start with, I think, your bold claim in the book, which is that most sales leaders are misdiagnosing their issues. You feel that they think they have a prospecting problem, but they actually have a playbook problem. And so I'd love to start by just understanding from your guys' perspective why that distinction is so important, and what happens to a team that keeps trying to prospect their way out of what is really a playbook problem.
Peter: Yeah, I think first it’s understood, though, the reason why we stated that is 'cause we want them to buy something from us! So we're like, "Hey, we can sell you a playbook if we think there's a problem." But no, Tom, I think, is really good about this where he focuses his attention, but understanding the structure of what really is needed in sales is really important.
And I think, Tom, you do a really [00:03:00] good job at explaining how that playbook really drives—it creates a better overall sales environment.
Tom: Yeah, the playbook is the foundation, David, right? It's the thinking behind your Ideal Customer Profile, your personas, your value prop, your channels. And I think what we're getting at there is that a lot of leadership thinks, "We need more activity. We need to make more dials. We need to send more LinkedIn messages. We need to introduce AI."
They're looking at all of these tactics when they haven't really thought through all the important elements that are going to make all of that stuff you do more effective. And that's the essence of—you're building a playbook, but you're really forcing yourself to think through all of the foundational elements that your team needs to do their job well, to succeed, for AI to be good at it, right? [00:04:00] All those things start with the thinking, and that's what a playbook really is: building that foundation.
Peter: I think, Tom, a lot of salespeople go into jumping in the middle, right? They're basically like, "Okay, I've got my sales team and now I've got..." As Tom said, "How many phone calls do I have to make?" and they become that Excel jockey and the Salesforce management, and so forth. In reality, your job starts at the interview process: who are you going to hire? And how are you going to address the marketplace and the ICPs?
And then how do you build your whole team? It's a lot bigger. So, having the playbook lets you understand, break that into sections, and understand everything, because you can't just jump in and say, "Okay, I need this team to start hitting my number, so you've got to make 50 calls a day." I'm like, is that right? Do you have the right people for doing that? Are you really going to have the right amount of the customer base?
So the playbook helps you have control over the situation and understand what needs to be done. People get flustered and they tend to not hit their stride because they're overwhelmed. And this helps you understand what you need to do, so you're not getting overwhelmed. [00:05:00] Basically, now it just becomes tasks and areas you have to focus on, rather than getting hit in all directions and not understanding exactly where things need—where you need to focus your attention. So the playbook helps you with that.
David: Yeah, I think that's really important, and I think it breaks down in a few different ways. Like you guys said, I think CROs and VPs of Sales are super busy, super stressed, and feel like they need to deliver right away. And so there is a tendency to feel like, "Okay, let's just jump in, create action, do things." Also, if they get pitched all these amazing AI tools or SaaS tools that are just going to fix their pipeline problem or their sales problem, they're like, "Yeah, let's do that."
But what happens is there isn't enough thought around the fundamental strategy. And I also think it is because the pressure is so high on this role and people just feel like they need to jump in. [00:06:00] And so I think what you guys are arguing for is super important: you need to have a roadmap. You need to have a strategy. You need to think about where you're going to direct your attention and your effort.
And then the important thing is, a lot of times it will be wrong, but at least you have something to go back to and iterate on. Whereas if you're just throwing things at the wall and hoping they stick, you're not sure what's not sticking, what's sticking, and how to eventually get to the promised land, which is hitting your sales goal—and hopefully exceeding it.
Tom: Yeah, and I think also the playbook—or at least the way we approached it—was that foundational strategy, but also once you have it, all those details really matter. I don't know if you noticed in the book, David, but it took great pains to get very [00:07:00] tactical as well. Like real examples—exactly the elements your team needs. I pulled a lot of examples out of all the client work I've done, like real examples of, "Hey, what's a great question to ask here? What's a message?
How to present a statistic or a story on a cold call?" All the contextual elements. I think you get the foundation and then you have to start to layer in the very specific tactical information that your prospectors need to execute their job right on day one.
Peter: As we're talking about this, most of, if not all of the comics that are in there—the stories that we've written—are because in our life, we've learned because we didn't do that. And so these stories are because somebody we know or leaders... it's because a lot of those gaps existed or that misunderstanding existed that led to some of the funnier stories.
And I think it resonates with a lot of people. Yeah, we've all seen this. And then when you're a young salesperson—yep, [00:08:00] I did some of these stupid things because I just tried to jump in without understanding what I'm actually doing here or what my customer base is. So, a lot of these stories that we have introducing the lessons really are because they're lessons about what not to do.
David: Yeah, if you don't say so! But I would agree. So let's actually talk about one of the comics that sort of stuck out, because I think one of the beautiful things about your book is—first of all, like you just said, Peter—it comes from a place where these are things that you guys have learned. You've experienced either yourself or through the clients that you've been working with. And so it's real—it's not just fluff—and you bring it to life for people in a way that they can relate to.
And so one of the [00:09:00] comics early in your book is a sales manager with six arms getting bombarded with questions.
And you say that what we've just been talking about—how you've laid out a solid playbook—you are saying that sales managers should have this solid playbook because it will solve the anxiety of management. So, paint a picture for us for that VP of Sales, that CRO, who feels like they have six arms and they still can't keep up. What does a leader's day actually look like once that playbook is in place?
Tom: Yeah, I'm going to tackle that one. So, great timing with that, because I was reading Lauren Bailey's post today on the manager's playbook and what it should be. And that's exactly it. If you have a playbook, you have the structure in place, then you are not the "help desk," if you will—I think is what she called it—where everybody's coming up to you asking for all of these things just to get through the day. So if you have the playbook in place, your manager is now running like effective team meetings, huddles, and strategic discussions about the business.
There's time for coaching, there's time for the performance and the pipeline reviews. It opens up the space instead of being reactive with six arms trying to hand everybody the piece of information just to get out there and make a call or handle a deal. They're now using their time to improve the performance, to pay attention to the team, to coach people, and to help them.
That's what a manager's job should look like. They should have a structure that drives performance versus reacting to a bunch of needs that all the reps have on a minute-by-minute basis.
Peter: [00:10:00] The playbook is the original AI. "Did you check the playbook?" So if you build the playbook correctly, you're basically giving it to your whole team and saying, "Hey, check this first and then come to me."
And so if you build the playbook, they know what they're supposed to do on a day-to-day basis, and it cuts down on a lot of the noise and allows the sales leader to focus on what they need to do, which is then driving the revenue. Like, "The book's in place. You guys know what you need to do. Now let's focus on where are the places that you can—where you can push the levers to drive the revenue and the sales."
David: Yeah. And so I think it solves that feeling that most sales managers and heads of sales feel, which is that they just never can keep up. They never can catch up.
And what you guys are arguing is: if you set the foundations in the right way, it has so many downstream effects because it takes so much work off your plate. [00:11:00] It takes a lot of the day-to-day stresses and day-to-day questions, so that you can elevate yourself to really manage the process that you're sending out versus managing the details in the day-to-day that just come up inevitably if people don't have a roadmap and aren't trained on that roadmap. So, I'd love to talk more again about some of the other characters.
'Cause there's... people should realize you've got a sales book here that has so many nuggets of wisdom, but again, it just brings it to life through the characters in a way I don't think any other sales book has in the past. And so you have a character named Doug who keeps targeting the same industries the same way he has for the past 20 years, because that's how they've always done it.
And so what I'd love to hear from you guys is—I think this is something a lot of folks can... or they don't realize if they are Doug, that they should relate to it. [00:12:00] But how do you help a leadership team break out of that mindset or even realize that they're in that mindset and they need to change some of the processes and the way that they're doing things?
Peter: Yeah, that's a very good question and this is a true-life story, and I still have emotional anger when I think about this specific person. This is based off of... so with the way we ended the story, we didn't actually solve the problem of Doug. So it's a data-centric conversation. That's the way I try to attack it. So I had... I was working with multiple... this was the time when I was a Director of Engineering working with sales and working with multiple GMs on the Northeast—majority of them.
Once you started showing the data of the Target Account Profile, or ICP—I call it the Target Account Profile—but this is who we're going after. This is the type of person we want to hire, the type of customer we want to go after, what we want to sell to them, what's in it for them... and this leader was constantly like, "I do verticals. This is the way it's been. I've done it for 20 years and I'll continue this way. Your way won't give you enough opportunities. I'm going to go get more opportunities this way."
And no matter how much data I was showing them about the close ratios and the stuff, it didn't change the person's mind. And eventually they were [00:13:00] out of the business. And unfortunately, that's... so the lesson you try to give to the leaders is: if you don't look at the data and change with the times, you're going to fail. And it’s sales—it’s relatively easy to know if you’re failing.
Tom: Yeah, and I think you probably deal with this, David, in your business too, but when I deal with clients, I'm trying to teach them what they should be doing now. As a consultant, they're usually open to learning. That's why they hired us in the first place, or they work with your company. They want to know how business should be done and what you need from them.
And so on the inside, sometimes there's that frustration. If you work there, as a consultant, I'm trying to show them like, "Hey..." And the first chapter of our book tries to do this, right? This is how you build a real ICP, right? [00:14:00] Or Target Account Profile. It's data-driven, right? Here's the data. It's not verticals—you know the attributes that make them a great customer.
Yeah, maybe they align to a vertical, but they're not often the vertical—that's a firmographic or a demographic, right? It's more the attributes. What about the company? What are the four or five points that make it so for your solution to be appropriate to that business? So it's a bit of a... I have a bit of a teaching mindset. But yeah, like what Peter paints in that story is that if you don't, and you're on the inside, you're going to get fired at some point if you're not willing to change.
Peter: Yeah, you can't... that's why the data is so important and I'm just going to share it. What used to drive me crazy, this person used to tell me all the time, "Philadelphia is doing fantastic with healthcare, so we should be focusing on healthcare." I'm like, "That doesn't make any sense. Why are they...?"
Like, dig in a little bit deeper, find out the data around that. "Oh, we had fiber in every single one of those companies. We don't up here." That's the reason why we did so much business in Philadelphia, not up here. So you've got to get that data and be very data-centric. Tom and I have known each other from college, and I'm sure he'll attest to this, but when I was [00:15:00] young, I didn't care about data. All of a sudden I got into sales, I realized I needed that, and I became a process-data person because it made your life so much easier if you understood why something was happening.
David: Yeah, and I think as leaders, if you've got that sales leader—or if you are that sales leader and you just need to be introspective—I think what you just said, Peter, is asking that "why." Always challenge everything, right? Challenge your assumptions, challenge why are we doing it this way. We call it at SalesRoads "pattern bombing," and it's very problematic because you just get into this mindset. We now try to call each other out and say, "You know, I think you're pattern bombing." And so introducing some language and making sure people feel comfortable to challenge one another.
And at the end of the day, they do have to back it up, like you guys said, with data, not just because "we've always done it this way" or "it's working." Another tip that I got out of the book that I think is really important—and I'd love for you guys to talk a little bit about—and it's [00:16:00] the fundamental of really defining not just who to sell to, but who not to sell to.
And you call it the "Hell No" list. And so can you talk a little bit about how leaders should use that type of list to stop their team from chasing just anyone with a pulse on LinkedIn?
Peter: Tom will go into more detail, but I can tell you there's nothing more satisfying than walking away from somebody who's just not a fit and tends to be just wasting your time. And I have so many stories, probably comics come up, but I just... there's one customer who sat down with us, the salesperson really wanted the business and did an RFP.
And after asking a bunch of "why" questions to the prospect, it came out that he needed three people to have an RFP to go to his management to make the recommendation to stay with his existing carrier. So he basically just wanted to use us but put us through all kinds of stuff. And I'm like, "Yep, this is a 'hell no.' Let's just thank you very much for your time." [00:17:00] And he was very upset that we just walked out. I'm like, there's no point in doing this.
But yeah, it is gratifying when you get to that level of being able to say no. It just is something you should make sure you understand, and I think Tom will get into understanding that. But you should want to be able to be in a situation where you know who's going to buy from you and who's wasting your time.
Tom: Yeah. I would say when it comes to the... it's maybe the SDR role. Let's take that example and the practicality of a "Hell No" list. So if you are like a young person, you've joined the team and your job is to go book meetings. So in the front end, a lot of reps are given a lot of latitude to go target, and the ICP that they may be given is complex, right? "Hey, we need this..." a lot of attributes. It's a lot to wrap your head around.
So what I find, a great "Hell No" list is pretty effective in that context for [00:18:00] like the starter SDR—the new person to the job. Like these are the red flags, right? If you see this in a company description, that's a clear indication that they're not going to be appropriate to call on. If you learn this during the conversation—say you get past that layer and you hear this—this is a clear disqualifier.
So giving them that... the ease of understanding that for a brand new rep is really practical. So it's sometimes a better place to start. And when I'm training or working with a team of SDRs, it's, "Look, you hear any of these? You pass that meeting onto an AE, they're going to be pretty pissed, right? You just wasted their time."
So starting with the negative is sometimes just easier. And then as they gain experience, then the sophistication of the appropriate companies and the complexity of looking for those, asking those questions, or just screening with research gets a little bit easier to digest.
So there's a practicality to the "Hell No" list when you're in the SDR role. [00:19:00] And then it just continues. Like Peter said, as you get into the deal, you've got to be better—you're a trained veteran now, you've got to know, you've got to ask those questions and be able to walk away from it. That's a "hell no."
Peter: Sales, you always see that—the data speaks to it. When the salesperson starts advancing and becoming better at their job, they tend to have less appointments booked, but more close ratio—high close ratio.
So that's part of the understanding that "hell no." I'm like, "Alright, I don't need to have 15, 20 calls and appointments this week. I can have five and close high volume 'cause I've got the right person." So it makes your day and your life a lot easier because statistically, your data starts becoming better about the close ratio, which is ultimately the outcome you want—not just to have an appointment.
David: Yeah, I think it's so important, and I think there's even one more step. One is protecting people's time. Like you guys have said, if you don't qualify in the right way, you're wasting your time going after that person. You're wasting—if you're an SDR—the AE's time booking it potentially; you're bringing in other parties to help close that deal. And so if it's not qualified, you've just [00:20:00] wasted a whole bunch of sales time.
But potentially even worse—and we've worked on this a lot at SalesRoads—is sometimes worst-case scenario: you sell that "hell no" and you close it.
And now you've got almost a deeper problem, because now you're servicing a client that is not your best fit. They're not the best fit for you, you're not the best fit to help them, and now you've got a really difficult working relationship. And so that qualification process is super important. And to your point, Tom, it can be nebulous. It's not easy—it's not just BANT, right? You're really trying to go a little deeper here to really understand who's a good fit for your product or service.
And so I actually... we've worked on this. Every year we try to dust it off and we don't have a "Hell No"—I know who the "hell nos" are, but I'm going to put a "Hell No" because I do think it really crystallizes the process and allows people to have some easy wins for qualifications. And so I think that's a nice part of the qualification process and can be really helpful. [00:21:00] So, I think I would be remiss in any podcast on sales these days to not bring up AI.
So I bring up AI, and I think in the book you bring up a warning for sales leaders that I think is really important, and I think I really like the way that you frame it because it's an easy thing to follow. And I think a lot of times people are just deploying AI because they're supposed to deploy AI or they feel like they're supposed to deploy AI, but it can really backfire. And so you guys say: "Don't deploy AI for something your team can't already do by hand." Can you unpack that for me?
Peter: I think it's simple. Like Harry Potter: if you can't see the brain, don't trust it! What's it thinking about? Harry Potter fans out there... But yeah, it's that simple. If you can't figure out what information is going into it or why it's doing it, then why are you going to do this? I just wanted to throw in that Harry Potter.
Tom: Yeah, AI is going to speed things up, right? [00:22:00] And the ability to understand it as a person on your team doing a process and being able to do it... for one, it's like, what if the AI you bought, like your company decides not to pay for it anymore? Right? And you can't go back and do it yourself. It's like prospecting—like an AE who doesn't know how to prospect or forgot how to prospect. What happens if marketing goes away or you get no more leads or no more inbound?
Like, how are you going to feed yourself? With AI, it's: yeah, we can't just hand it over without understanding the details or we could destroy our brand. Right? Imagine that you're giving AI and you're letting it write your emails, and you're sending it at a target that you don't fully know how to pinpoint.
You don't know what attributes or pieces of data in their company profile or [00:23:00] their growth or hiring... these attributes that tell them they're your ICP. If you can't go and identify them yourself, then how do you know AI's going to figure it out properly? You may now be getting all these "hell nos" and you're having conversations with them. I think it's a "devil is in the details" sort of thing when it comes to AI.
You can get yourself in a lot of trouble by speeding things up. Powerful tools, powerful mistakes. We talk about that in the book too, from one of my personal experiences of sending out 30,000 emails and making a dumb mistake. AI's the same. You've got to be careful what you launch at something if you can't really understand it and think it through yourself. You're really going to point this incredibly powerful tool to do it for you? Maybe it'll work, but...
Peter: AI is a tool like anything else. And so if you're implementing a tool—and people do this with Salesforce.com, right?—they believe they go and buy Salesforce because it's going to solve a problem. Like, we've first got to understand the process. Who's going to use it? How are they going to use it? Where does it fit? And what outcome and efficiencies is it getting you?
So tools are there to gain efficiencies. So build the process—what you need to [00:24:00] do—and then use that tool to give you more efficiency. So the way I like this phrase that we use—if you can't do it by hand, that means you've thought about it. You actually can do this by hand, but the tool is making it easier.
So instead of you scraping and going and finding all your details from LinkedIn and all the other tools that you have, AI does that scraping and gives it back to you.
But now you understand what it's done for you and what the outcome is, because companies change. You merge with somebody—now your prospects, your ICP changes, and you're going after... you now need to know how to adjust your tool to fit in that new concept, that new ICP. So I think you've got to understand how to do it first without the tool, then figure out how the tool gives you the efficiency.
David: I think it's also really hard to deploy some of these tools. I know companies try to claim it's super easy—if you go on X, you're like, "Oh, three simple steps, leads are going to fall out of the sky." But it's really tough to do it well. I think the only way to know how to do it well is, like you guys are arguing, that you've done it yourself before.
And then even then, [00:25:00] you've got to really iterate and test it and try it and whatnot. And so if you're just picking something that you guys have never done before and you're going to try to create a new process out of nothing... first I would challenge: is that the right process to start with if nobody's doing it at your company?
Because also choosing the right thing to try to automate is maybe the most important decision you have to make. But secondly, are you going to be able to make it work? Because you obviously don't understand it that intimately yet if you can't do it by hand.
Peter: There's one thing I always used to tell when we roll out a new tool or a new something: the "unintended domino." And I'm like, if we don't truly understand everything here, you can roll something out and all of a sudden it made something else not work because you really didn't understand the whole impact of it.
So you always avoid that unintended domino of just, "Okay, we just knocked something over, just broke something down that we didn't even know it was going to do." That, especially the rate of people delivering AI—it's... I can see that happening a lot. It's just going to break. [00:26:00] It's going to take a while to understand what it broke, but it broke something.
David: And I think that's really important. I'm going to... Tom had an interesting LinkedIn post that I've thought a lot about that's sort of like this, which I'm seeing as the uber-unintended consequence of AI, and that's us not thinking as much.
And Tom, you talked about SDRs automating a process and then they're really not thinking through it and using their brain. And I actually think as managers, it's one of the things I really do try to think about. Because I have really tried at SalesRoads, where it makes sense, to make sure the team is using AI, but I see it myself—sometimes you're just outsourcing the thinking too.
And that's a big unintended consequence, not just for the immediate, because you're not going to have as good work because you're not thinking about it as deeply, but over time, I think it's going to atrophy our thinking capabilities as well.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, no question. That was really interesting... what I thought was amazing: we had outsourced the research for BDRs—which I love, I'm like, "I don't want [00:27:00] BDRs to have to be research assistants, we want them having conversations."
But I forgot a lesson of my own, right? I didn't think it through. I'm like, "Hey guys, you're getting fed the research data points," but they're being fed that data at the moment that the customer answers the phone call. What I used to teach reps is: like, when you do the research, you have to think critically about it and have a point of view. What does all that mean? Why are they relevant to us? How am I going to include that in my conversation opener?
And instead, they didn't have any confidence in the data, for one, and then they also didn't have enough time to think about it critically, so it backfired.
Peter: And I think... kind of a partnership to this, David, is: it's not just the critical thinking, but if you're making mistakes, that is the biggest way to learn lessons.
And if the tool itself is making a mistake or doing something, you're not... you're learning that the tool's making a mistake rather than falling into, "Oh, that... this mistake—I can learn from this." And a lot of times, the mistake leads you on to thinking about something [00:28:00] differently and takes you down a road that's going to lead to success.
So I've always tried to tell my teams, I'm like, "You know, when we do something, it's not wrong—it is looking at it differently because you should always be accepting of doing something that had an outcome that you weren't expecting, because it could lead to something better."
And I think there's all kinds of examples. But David, on one of your conversations we've had in the past, we had a friend on, John Holland, and they realized their ICP was completely different by making mistakes—by basically unintentionally finding why people were doing something a certain way, and then that led to great success for them. But if you're not thinking for yourself and trying different things, then you're not learning from it. And I think that's a big problem also.
David: Yeah. And so I worry that social media over the past 20 years has caused shorter attention spans, things like that. I worry AI... and we're going to be outsourcing our intelligence and our thinking, and that's going to atrophy. [00:29:00] We'll see where we go.
But with that, I'd love to actually wrap—before we get to our rapid-fire questions—I want to segue from this topic back to the fundamentals and the concept of building playbooks. And you guys have been in sales for several decades.
You've seen trends come and go. But if you had to strip those down to the fundamentals, I'm curious what your guys' thoughts are on the core principles of building a winning playbook that have always worked since you guys have come into this business and you believe will endure through the next three decades.
Peter: Yeah, I think bribery still is a big thing. I think it's always worked!
Tom: Yeah. So I think the fundamentals that never change—and I think, yeah, maybe the book, the chapters aren't ordered this way—but you have to understand your target customer first. That's the reason it's the first thing that we explore, is you really understand... and everyone thinks they know, right?
But [00:30:00] I work with a lot of companies that are boiling the ocean, or they're going after a new market. "We're going to go after North America now," and they'll even take a different strategy. "Hey, tell us what... how Americans want to buy or what they want to buy." I'm like, you have to study the market; it's probably the same as it is in Europe. So I think just really intense focus on who your customer is, then what value you provide to them, how those two relate—again, first and second chapters of our book.
A later part, which I think... I would say is never changed and is probably the most under-focused-on part by leaders, is the workflow.
No one pays attention to this. Do you know you want your team to be happy and effective, and yet you've given them all these tools and you're telling them to do all these things, and they never study how a rep uses their time and their tools? That's their workflow. And with most of the teams that I see, they need some help and guidance there. One rep is really efficient, another one's wasting their time.
So I know that one slips through the cracks, but I don't think it's ever changed, because we all [00:31:00] as individuals want to make the best use of our time in a day. And most companies are throwing muck into the gears and it's slowing people down. "You've got to learn this tech now, you've got to do this process, you've got to enter all this in your CRM." Study the workflow. I think those are evergreen.
They seem to have never changed—the tools and all that has changed, but I think those pieces of the playbook are evergreen.
Peter: Yeah, I just... quick thing there is, especially for the CROs and the VPs of Sales: hiring the right leader. Somebody who actually knows what a playbook is and understanding it.
So everything Tom walked through is a hundred percent right. But if you don't have a leader that understands that and the impact... that's one thing I've always done. I think everybody's here—we've all worked for sales leaders who just didn't understand what it took to sell the services you're trying to sell. I think a core understanding is [00:32:00] making sure the leader actually understands what the value of a playbook is and why they need it.
David: Well, great guys, this was an awesome conversation. What I would love to do, though, before we wrap—that I like to do for all my guests, but now I'm going to have to... you guys can alternate who wants to go first—I like to do a few rapid-fire questions just to get your perspective on a few things. So you guys ready?
Peter: I’ll take the odd, you take the even, Tom. How about that?
David: Alright, fair enough. What is one thing people don't give enough value or attention to in leadership?
Peter: How much a sales leader needs to drink!
David: Not how much they need to have in their budget to bribe every month to support their quota?
Peter: Exactly. They need their money! No, how much value or attention? Patience, really—it's just not overreacting. It's asking the "whys." It's having patience to really understand the situation. I think that's a value that's needed.
David: Love it. Tom, what is one skill you advise everyone in sales to master— [00:33:00] leaders or non-leaders?
Tom: I think it's a mindset that you always put your customer's needs before your own. I don't know if that's a skill... the skill might be listening to understand. If there's a skill you're going to develop, it's listening to understand. But I think it's a mindset that—don't focus on what you're selling, focus on the customer. That'll change every conversation. You'll feel it on the other end; the other person will know that you're not there to sell them something. Everyone hates being sold to.
So if your mindset is that "I'm always going to put you first," if you have that mindset, then you're always going to ask questions and listen to determine if you can really help that person. And that brings walls down, it opens people up, and now you've got a real relationship brewing, which is really what I think is the essence of good sales: helping people, not selling people.
David: Awesome. So this is a loaded [00:34:00] question. Peter, what is your favorite business, leadership, or sales book?
Peter: You know, I read a lot of Jack Welch, I read a lot of Bill Gates, but until recently... it was Graphic Sales. It is one of the best books I've ever read, bar none. It has changed my life.
David: That's such a surprising answer! All right.
Peter: Yes.
David: Tom, favorite quote, mantra, or saying that inspires you as a sales leader?
Tom: Trust the process. Trust the process.
Peter: What a huge dork!
Tom: Well, I mean, look—I'm a consultant and I'm trying to teach companies how to do things right and they want... "What's the revenue?" I'm like, "It's going to take some time. You're going to have to work." The reps need to live by this, right? It's like, "Hey, you know, things are up and down.
My connect rate's down, I'm not converting, I'm not closing." It's if you are given a playbook, you've been given a proper process on how to do your job. There are going to be ups and downs, but over time, [00:35:00] the market will yield to the pressure, right? Things will go your way. So "trust the process" is my... I guess that's my go-to, David.
David: Well, I'm going to let you both answer this, because now you have just completed a big project and goal, and congratulations to both of you guys. It is a fantastic book and I know you guys put a lot of your heart into it. Now that it is launched, what is your most important goal or project you're working on right now?
Peter: I'm really focused on getting through this. I think Tom and I really want to try to set up... we're focused on basically seeing, doing more with what we've put out there. I really do think we've got a unique way to resonate with people, right? Given the examples, using the comics... the way that Eli draws this is—it's... you can really feel the situation, put yourself into the situation.
So I think we want to expand on that. Look at different ways to just... how can we utilize what we've come up with, these different stories that we have, and help drive productivity out there for these salespeople? I've said before, this is [00:36:00] if you're doing this right, it's one of the... it's the easiest-hardest job out there.
So if you can get the playbook and you can get the mindset and the structure in place, it makes your life a bit... a little bit easier. And then also if we can give stories to light and like, "Hey, this stuff is going to happen—it's happened to us, but you still can have success. Don't get down."
Tom: Yeah, I would echo that. I guess my focus right now is promoting the book, but yeah, where does this lead? We've put... God, it's been a long time coming. We had nothing to model this after—we started writing these stories and publishing them monthly, and then it led to a book.
One, we hope it helps people, so I want to get the word out. And also, yeah—where can we take this from here? After being immersed in it for a while, what's the response? It's great to hear your response, David, that it's been helpful. And so, yeah, I think we're focused on "Okay, where do we go from here?" as an active conversation.
Peter: Once we sell those first million copies, anything we want!
David: [00:37:00] To that point, if people want to go grab a copy, where should they go? How do they go and fix their playbook problem, guys?
Tom: Yeah, it's available everywhere online. So Amazon is probably the easiest place globally—you can get it anywhere in the world. It's in all the other places: Barnes & Noble and wherever you buy digital books online. If you want to read the first couple chapters or you want to learn more about what's in the book, you can go to my website, stearns.io, and there's a little navigation item called "Book," and that page is just full of like PDFs.
So you can get a couple of chapters read, you can look—and we've got a video trailer, things like that. So if you want to dip your toe in the water, there's a lot more... there are stories that aren't in the book that you get access to via my website, or graphicsalesstories.com has a whole catalog of PDFs to read a bunch of stories.
David: Yeah, and we'll put that in the show notes for folks. And if they want to connect with you guys directly, how can they find you [00:38:00] and learn more about your work?
Tom: LinkedIn. I think probably the easiest place to find us.
Peter: Or your local pub here in Massachusetts!
David: That sounds good. We'll put a little pin in there for Peter's local pub, so if you want to connect with him over there... Well, thank you guys. Really appreciate you coming on the pod, sharing your perspective, and your wonderful work with this new book. So excited for both of you.
And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. You can always hit me up on LinkedIn with any questions or guests you want to have on. Always appreciate you guys and the time you spend with us here on a weekly basis. So thanks so much, Tom, Peter.
