Service Based Business Society Podcast

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Vaughn, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Vaughn:
My pleasure, thanks for having me, Tiffany Anne.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So, you know, I of course go through your, what I call the, you know, the typical bio, but tell us a little bit more about you, not the typical bio, but more, you know, how did you get into this space? How did this become your passion?

Vaughn:
Well, you know, I retired from the corporate world in about 10 years ago. And, but retirement as it's traditionally seen was not something that was ever in my future. I knew I wanted to go do something. I started thinking about the next chapter and the one thing I love the most.

was developing people's careers. It was what I was noted for. It's what built a very successful career for me is I developed a lot of people with me. I focused on that part. And I said, well, what the heck? I don't see, why don't I go see if I can't make some money off of that and build a business on it. So I started creating content, training courses for not only mid-level frontline managers but also on the sales management side.

That's another passion of mine as I, especially now that I'm out in the private world, I see where so many companies get that wrong. And I've got some very strong opinions on that. I got strong opinions on everything to the end, but this allows me a platform and I can share some of those. Yeah.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
gonna say, well, I can't wait to hear more about these because there's nothing I love more than a passionate opinion.

Vaughn:
So I was able, using that word passion, my passion, what I enjoyed the most, I was naturally gifted at. I started a business around and it's been about as much fun as I've ever had in my career.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
amazing. So about how long between your exit from corporate and really starting to get going again because I find that super interesting. How long because some people dive right in and other people it's kind of a little lull and then they decide hey I can't actually hang around and watch the clouds roll by I need to do something else. There you go. Okay.

Vaughn:
Well, you know.

Vaughn:
took 90 days off and then I started creating this business and you know that people do not ever tell you how hard starting a business is. I've been a corporate guy my entire life. I had no idea how hard it is. That's a that's a very well kept secret. So I you know I went through all the pains and paid all the stupid taxes and finally I started getting a little traction about a year later.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It was so funny that you say that because I left corporate as well, about two and a half years ago, started my own business, of course, and similar, kind of like, holy cow, this is really hard. And it's interesting because in my time in corporate, we started as a startup and we grew, like, you know what I mean? We were growing and moving and shaking and all of those things. But I think the key piece that was different for me,

was when we were doing it that way. So I was a partner in my previous organization. It didn't start that way, but there was three of us that were partners by about halfway through. And so we had our CEO, he was like this very charismatic leader who could really help lead the people. And then we had our sales guy, who was, I mean, he had VP of sales and whatnot in the end, but to start with was really, you know, the sales guy.

And then I did the ops and tech and finance. And so great little triangle. And now when you head out on your own and you don't have that charismatic leader to help lead the people, and you don't have the sales guy, and really you're the nerd that works in the basement, and you're like, hey, I'm here to start a business. It's like, holy crap, this is actually really hard.

Vaughn:
And it relies on a level of patience that I don't possess. So that added another layer of frustration and a lot of long hours trying to figure things out.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Hmm

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes, entrepreneurship is this time freedom piece. I say, yes, I'm free to work as all the hours I want. I can work them where I want. I can work them at what time I want. I truly have all the freedom. However, it's not any less work than I was doing in corporate. In fact, I would argue that I had a lot more business lunches in corporate than I have now.

Vaughn:
That's the freedom. Absolutely right.

Thank you.

Vaughn:
Well, and I can assuredly say that I work longer hours than I ever worked in my corporate life, but I don't ever mind it. You know, I never, I never get frustrated. I never resent it because well, obviously it's for me and the team I've been able to build and, you know, and I enjoy doing what I'm doing now much more than I ever did in the corporate world. I just didn't know. I didn't enjoy it as much back then.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
You know, we don't know what we don't know. This was a whole new world for me.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right?

Yes, yes, you never, that's the thing. You never, never really know. It's just whatever your normal is. So you get this business started and fast forward to today, it's obviously there's always some evolution there. So talk to me about who are you serving? What are the kinds of business owners you're serving and what are you offering them?

Vaughn:
So from an industry standpoint, I'm a little agnostic. I'm working with everything from architectural firms to distribution centers to manufacturing. It's a variety of things. But the focus really where I found my niche is working with sales management, A, and

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Vaughn:
primarily not so much the management side, but the leadership side. The biggest mistake I see most organizations make is, well, almost every organization make, is they take their best salesperson and make them the sales manager and expect that just to work. And it doesn't work. And here's the crazy thing is, is when it doesn't work,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Vaughn:
they don't blame it on the sales manager. He knows how to sell. It's all these sales people that are the problem. And that's not the problem. It is the sales manager. And they just do, they've just not been developed and trained on how to effectively lead a sales team. And I argue that a sales team is the single most complex, hard,

a hard-ass team to manage within any organization. And it's also pretty critical for most organizations too. And so what happens, and this was certainly not my design, is I can get into organizations, start working on their sales leadership, it starts getting pretty quick traction. And they say, hmm, this Vaughn guy, he might know a thing or two, how else can he help us?

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yay.

Vaughn:
And that's where I've got a set of programs for mid-level managers. I coach, executive coach, several CEOs. I scaled a $2 billion business. And so I know how to take something from nothing to very large. Now that was with a very big corporate pocketbook. But there is the same formula for almost every business.

And I can help a lot of CEOs do that, but 75% of my business is working with sales leadership, sales teams to build an effective sales process, sales approach, repeatable habits, making sure that we're keeping their motivations in place, making sure there's the right compensation in place. Compensation is the other thing that many organizations get wrong. They don't know how to

compensation with the behaviors and outputs they're looking for. And that's a bit of an art.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher (08:21.023)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. So I'm going to come back to a piece you talked about, and you were talking about sales specifically, but I see that also from the other side. You know, we serve service-based businesses, and as businesses are growing, you have the same instance where you have someone who's been really skilled at whatever service they're providing. Maybe it is, you know, counseling, maybe it's home organization, maybe, you know, all of these different things. And so you take your lead rock star.

who has made every client happy for the last six months, who's led these jobs and done an amazing job, and you put them into a management role where they are no longer using those same skills, and you are expecting them to, first of all, you're expecting them to have some kind of, the same level of passion in your business that you have.

And then you're also expecting them to have these skills in leadership that they have never used. And suddenly you have this group of people who have been left behind, who are now serving the clients and not doing as great a job. Your overhead costs have gone up and you're like, you know, six months down the road and you're like, what's going, you know, we're less profitable, people seem less happy. And so I think it's but it's this common piece where

you know, the person who's been there the longest or the person who knows the most, all of a sudden gets promoted to a leadership position. And it actually, for me, makes me think, I go back years, years. So when I was in like grade 11, I was working the graveyard shift at Tim Hortons, I'm from Canada, it's like our coffee, it's our Dunkin' Donuts.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And I was working the graveyard shift and they hired this manager. And at that time, so you've got all the, you know, the people who are serving the coffee and they bring in this manager who knows nothing about the coffee, but he's gonna be like the shift supervisor. And in that moment, 17 year old me is thinking, why on earth would you hire a manager that has never been on the floor? This is crazy. And now I think, oh, I understand exactly why you did that because that person is not supposed to know how to make the coffee.

supposed to know how to manage the people. But I think we are so many businesses, small businesses, new businesses, old businesses, they get it wrong.

Vaughn:
But they do, and it's, you know, to expand on that a little bit, it's created a, a really a, a pandemic, I'll use that term, within the business world of disengagement, poor productivity, 70 oversets of the Gallup's last survey. And I'm sure this would include Canadian companies as well.

73% of all surveyed employees, I think it was over 3 million employees, were at some level of disengagement. 50% would leave tomorrow if a better offer came along. And when asked why, it's because I'm being poorly led. Now, I don't think a single one of those managers that are out there leading these teams, to your point,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
are intentionally trying to be bad leaders. They just don't know how to be good leaders. And these companies spend more money training their forklift drivers than they do on the, once they've made this investment in a promotion of a very highly skilled individual, to teach them this new skill set that somehow there's this confusion about skill sets, to teach them this new skill set on how to manage and lead people. And

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
When they do invest in that and very few make that investment, that's kind of what keeps me in business. Once they make that investment, it is night and day very quickly. Within 90 days, you start seeing a very positive change in things. And you see a brighter. The manager all of a sudden realizes what they've been doing wrong or haven't been doing.

the employees all of a sudden start getting a little happier and engaged and wanting to work harder because, you know, people join companies, but they leave managers, right? That's, that's the standard. And, but people work for people. And as this, this manager blossoms starts to prosper and in confidence and knowledge, they bring your people with them. I call that the transformational triangle of change, you know,

You work on you, the leader that flows down to the employees. They get better, which in turn, the end of the triangle is the company. As a higher level of prosperity because of all of that, it's pretty simple. It makes a lot of sense. A lot of people have just not figured that what I think, and you know, is a very simple format.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I think because where it comes, you know, it sounds simple in application, or it's in principle, if you will, but then in application.

People learning how to people, if you will, is more difficult than any other. This is not a right or wrong answer. This is not something you can learn out of a book, off of a podcast. It requires that feedback loop. And that's why those people who are actually receiving coaching, who are understanding and seeing what's going on.

provide such a different level, a different speed of turnover of information, because you can see something that happens. You as a coach or another can say, hey, perhaps can we look at that a little differently? You're digging into situations, because it takes an incredible amount of self-awareness to be able to read out of a book.

and say, this applies to me, because most people, and I would say, if I come back to my original discussion about that charismatic leader, if we start to dig into different characteristics that make that person really great at leading, those are also similar characteristics that make that person not so self-aware to realize what they're not great at. And so you've got this, they're not getting a self-awareness feedback loop, because they require this feeling of, I'm great, and I keep going, because that's

that's not so great, not bog them down.

Vaughn:
Right, oh yeah, and very often that self-awareness is a protection of their self-esteem. It couldn't possibly be me. Gotta be somebody else. Until they get that other shift in their paradigm that they understand, oh, what I do influences others, sometimes very positively and often negatively.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Exactly.

Vaughn:
And again, I just didn't know how to do it. And so it's vital. It is creating this pandemic in the workplace today. And I can say at my age that the...

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
the generations that are in the workplace today are more difficult to work with because this need for soft skills, which is a common term, I think they're essential skills. These are essential skills that you have to have to understand people and that other people don't think like you do. You became a manager because you have a skill set, a drive, a work ethic, an initiative level that is unlike others.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Vaughn:
And for you to think that just everybody else is going to work with the same verb that you are and see things the way you are is probably where the first misstep comes from is that they just don't. And, you know, one of the big tools I use, and you've probably been exposed to these two is, is disc.

And that's where I start a disk assessment with every single new client in their entire team that we start with. And that really is like this first awakening that, oh, now I see.

why this person is introverted. Oh, now I see why they ask a lot of questions. Oh, now I see why they're passive aggressive. And it just opens this window to other people's souls and what drives them that now there's an interest. Now I understand where I need to start going. That takes time. That's the other thing that, you know, we talked about patience.

They're not going to learn it in a day to your point. They're not going to learn it out of a book. They're going to learn it with practice. They're going to learn it with the four tenets of teaching. You know, tell them, show them, have them do it, give them feedback. They've got to have that coach to your point, guiding them along the way and giving them some, some difficult feedback or positive reinforcement when it has to happen. But at the end of that, the more they practice, the more confidence they build, it works. But it...

You cannot send a management team to a weekend seminar, treat it like a car wash. You go in dirty, you come out clean. I'm all good. You know, it takes time and almost, you know, I'm meeting with a company right after this call today that they, they reached out to me and was referral.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Vaughn:
and say, listen, we've got this division that's really struggling. They're led by this VP that just has no self-awareness of how he's impacting people. He's rude, da da. How long you think it'll take you to fix him? 30, 60 days?

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
out loud, truly.

Vaughn:
Yeah. Um, and that's often, um, I have to disappoint them a little bit. And so it's probably going to be much like it's going to be a lifetime, honestly, but, uh, the rest of their lives, but it's, it's a lot of steady work.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It's really, you know, one salad will not replace a lifetime of burgers. Nothing against the burgers, but it's an analogy. You know, however, whatever health is to you these days. But you know, like one, one weekend workshop is not replaced someone's lifetime of personality and whatever else they got going on. And I think you can really start to see it.

how people, you know, their own, we don't, everyone's, you know, leave your personal life at the door, but the fact of the matter is your personal life has helped build who you are, in the good and the bad. And so it does factor in, especially in a leadership role, especially managing people, all those types of things. And I think, you know, the interesting piece of how that kind of applies to, you know, a more startup business or, you know, someone with a smaller team is that you are.

the sales person, you're the sales manager, you're the CEO, you're the team leader, you're the, and so you have all of these different roles and sometimes the advice is conflicting between those two. What works really well for sales doesn't necessarily work so well for operations and definitely doesn't make the finance team very happy, but when you are all of those people, you really have to start to separate out.

Okay, the pros and cons from this direction of my business and the pros and cons from this direction of my business and then saying, okay, now let's break down. You almost need to kind of figure out and sort out that information in your own head in terms of, okay, what part of my business is telling me that that's a bad idea and does a different part of my business have a valid argument for that and can we break that down? It's much easier to sit around a boardroom table and hash that out when that person from HR is always like, hey, we can't do that.

Vaughn:
the

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
And the person from sales says, no, let's figure out a way. And so, you know, but when you are that person that's doing all of those roles in your business, it can be more complicated because you think, like, I'm so confused. I don't really know the next step. Like, where do I go? And I want to do this, but maybe I shouldn't. And so it becomes this, this you are confused. But really, you know, if you take that business model and you make it much bigger, it makes sense that person is confused.

Vaughn (20:43.83)
So true, absolutely. But again, that requires a level of self-awareness that I think is often prevented by the pressures, the workload that so many entrepreneurs are placed with. And they're running as hard as they can. They want to do things as quickly and as easily as they can. And something, it's those people. It's, you know, it's.

It's, it's why are they so difficult to work with? And it's stopping and realizing that it's there, there's some input that's creating that output and that input is me and not intentional, but it's hard to realize. And it's a, it's a difficult realization that

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher (21:26.742)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Vaughn:
I've seen a lot of lot bulbs and aha moments occur from that. And I've seen some miraculous changes with leaders in organizations. Once they grasp and embrace and start practicing different approaches to things, they're much happier. Their people are much happier. You know, I worked with one aerospace company. I still work with them.

And the star of the show was the CEO. He is a very demanding, high D on the disk scale, literally no empathy for others, just mows through things as fast as he can mow through things. He met with me. We started with the disk. He quickly realized what his, and this is hard sometimes for people to realize what they've been doing that has been creating some of the problems. Long story short.

As I worked my way through the executive and leadership roles there, it was really driven the success. I think he doubled his business in the next year. The success was driven by him and how that cascaded down through the organization. And, you know, I'm going to circle back to the point you're making. These leaders often don't realize that others are feeding off of them.

They're setting the standards, they're setting the mood, they're setting how people feel every day. And if they're feeling stressed, and they're feeling overworked, and they're feeling rushed, everybody else feels the same way. And that's not always good for productivity, and happiness, and longevity retention, becoming a great place to work.

which I think everybody aspires to, they just don't realize the impact that they have.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah, I would say.

Well, in my experience anyways, pretty much everyone thinks that they're the best place to work, and very few are truly aware of what is being spoken about by the coffee maker, if you will. And so just preaching that you're the best place to work, just putting your well-thought out vision and values on the wall and doing those things doesn't actually deliver the results. And so, and to bring that shift, I mean, that's a very kind of corporate thing,

that are scaling. And so you see these businesses that have started small, they start growing, they're seeing some success, and then they start to go, well, what do I need to do to really level up? And then they look and they say, oh, well, some of these bigger businesses, this is what they're doing. They're having these management retreats, they're making sure their vision is on their website and on the office wall and all these types of things. And so you start to see this shift

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
and they're like, oh, this is what I have to do to level up. And I just want to say, no, that's not what you need to do to level up. You know, and some of those, a lot of that is very marketing.

It's interesting, one of the decisions in my time in corporate when I started, so we did technical trades, had a lot of service bands on the road. And so we scaled to over a million dollars a month, lots of growth between zero and those kind of sales figures. And one of the things, we started and we had white bands, they had this little tiny ducal on the back and it was fine.

And at one point we decided all of a sudden these vans were getting a full wrap, very splashy. And everyone's like, oh, you guys are really leveling up your marketing. You're bringing in some sales. And in actual fact, it had absolutely nothing to do with customers. We were business to business. Didn't and everything to do with bringing in the right team members and them seeing our vans, driving down the highway and being like, oh my gosh, I saw another one of their vans. Very splashy.

It had nothing to do with customers and everyone, all the feedback, oh yeah, it's great that you guys are finally investing in this marketing. And, you know, oh, you've made an investment in the website and the vans. And I thought it has our customers have probably never seen the website. It had nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with hiring the right team and bringing those people in and so that people knew that we were the cool place to work.

Vaughn:
Well, and you hit on another one of my particular passions is hiring the right people.

Most people do not know how to do that. They've never been formally trained on how to even design what a right person looks like. They hire based on experience. And that is another one of those huge mistakes companies make is they, because you did it someplace else, you're gonna be able to do it here. That is perceived as it's gonna save me time, you're gonna ramp up quicker, you're gonna be more successful, yada yada.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Hmm

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Vaughn:
And that rarely works out. Sometimes it does, but rarely. And what I teach people is to know, wait on that. That's secondary. We need to hire the right person, but let's talk about who that right person, that human is, before we worry about their experience. Let's look for that person. If they bring that experience with them, okay, that's a good combination, but what's important to you? What are the competencies, the untrainables?

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
that you must have in order for somebody to be successful with you as their leader and for you in the company. Work ethic, you know, honesty, initiative, customer focus, good communication skills. There's a list of dozens and dozens of them, but you need to make sure you're focused on what the right human looks like. Let's interview for those.

How do you do that? Well, it's, you know, I'm sure you know, it's a behavior-based interview approach that I'd say less than 5% of all companies utilize effectively, it may be more than that, but I don't come across it in private business ever. And, but once they start utilizing that, the thing you just talked about starts organically forming a better organization.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
You know, great people work around great people, breed great people in great environments. When I'm, you know, it feeds this level of standard that you have less firefighting, you get more done, critical thinking skills, they're solving their own problems. They're not, it's miraculous, but all you really did was find the right human to start with and then continue with that practice.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
So years ago, my aunt and uncle actually had this company and they had their financial controller all of a sudden leave very last minute and they were left kind of standing there like, oh my goodness, we don't know what to do. So at that point, I helped them get their payroll organized, like make sure that we made payroll and paid the people because they were like, I don't even know where to put the numbers, like I don't know how to do this. And so we got started and then the next piece of course was, okay, let's hire someone.

And so they said, you know, like, what is your list of questions? And I said, well, I don't necessarily always have. Like, I have a few questions I ask in every interview for almost every position that I've ever interviewed for, from, you know, journeyman trades person to an apprentice to a management level person. Like, there's a few questions that I ask everyone. But other than that, I don't. I don't have a standard list of questions. I see where the conversation takes me and I have a conversation with someone and learn more about them.

And so, remember I did the first round of interviews with these potential candidates for this controller position. And then the second round of interviews we did with them. And they were asking these controllers and whatnot, these very specific construction abbreviation codes and do you know this and do you know that? And I said, hold the phone. None of that really matters. Can...

Very intelligent person. I'm sure we can teach her what three letters mean on a page, but with zero context, I don't know what those three letters mean on that page. It doesn't matter. It makes no difference. And so when we focus on these very specific pieces that are either unique to your business, unique to your industry, like you said, it's about the person and their different attributes and how they can contribute to the organization. And if it's the right person, then you can teach them these very specific pieces that apply

your industry because chances are, if you're leading your industry, you have taken and made those unique for yourself anyway. So the fact that three of your competitors taught them something about whatever theory A is, well, you probably have a different take on it anyway and are gonna retrain it anyway.

Vaughn:
100% right, couldn't agree more. And that's, that's understanding the distinction between traits, untrainables and skills. And, you know, back to this same point, if I've got the right person, you made it very well. If I, if I've got the right person, I can teach them all these other, um, uh, catchwords and, and initials, I can get them through that. That, but again, in our rush to get the job filled.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
We think that is the fastest, most effective course to take. And it rarely is. Sometimes it is. It rarely is, long term. And the baggage, what happens after the aftermath of putting the wrong person in place is almost, you can't hardly measure it.

because there's so many intangibles that come from the wrong person. And by the time you realize that there's so much damage that's been done internally, maybe with your organization, but certainly with the people around them. And once you realize this is a bad person, this person is not a good fit. And you make the hard decision to pass them along. That damage is done and often it is permanent. And coming back from that is, is a tough hill to climb.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
So again, to this point, man, if you start with the right person, you're far less likely to have all this horrible aftermath or byproduct of putting the wrong person in place.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Absolutely, absolutely. It's kind of that, you know, the old expression, the bad apple in the bunch. And, you know, I mean, if you it's amazing how just, you know, people being in the proximity of others, you know, who fit culturally in your business and are doing and saying the right things, whether someone who is in a, you know, management position is watching or not, really can make that difference. And, you know, the conversations that are happening around the

if you think they're not happening in your business, they are. And so it's, you know, what is the, and are the right people? I mean, everyone's gonna have good days and bad days, but if you have a whole lot of disgruntled people, it's amazing the strength that they're.

uh you know their views can take when too many people are like yeah me too me too like let's go yeah you're right and so it really gets out of hand quite quickly so having the right people say hey no like let's you know let's get this sorted let's go talk to the right person let's work on a solution versus just negative um negativity breeds negativity.

Vaughn:
Well, and coupled with that, 100% right, these perceptions that get built through this gossip, these cross conversations that take place start taking on a life of their own. It's undermining the leadership of this individual, certainly the boss. And very often these problem managers, their life, their careers are extended because

someone does not want to go have the difficult conversation to course correct them. They put it off. They, I think, inwardly think, if I give it enough time, it's just going to fix itself. And it never fixes itself. And, but even that is a skill set that people need to learn how to do. There's a right way and a wrong way to have these conversations and have them come out product productively. And in fact, I did a workshop this week with.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
like 40 people on just having difficult conversations and the structure, the roadmap to doing that. In fact, I've got a book, a Roadmap to Difficult Conversations. You can find it on Amazon, but it's free. But that's another thing that can be taught to somebody, but they have to have a level of empathy to start with in order for that to be effective.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
But it's very often these ineffective, either employees or managers, have a much longer life than they should because of this procrastination of having the conversation needs to be. It's the rare employer that as soon as the smoke starts, they go in and put a stop to it. Very rare.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

So, you know, if a listener has their growing business and either they are starting to grow a sales team or they are kind of the centre of that sales team and narrowed out, you know, what are some things that they should be looking out for that might say, hey, maybe something's not quite right, maybe I do need to connect with Vaughan or, you know, need to start looking into expanding my knowledge in this area. What are those initial signs of smoke that on a self-actualization, you know, self-realization piece, what should they be?

noticing or looking for.

Vaughn:
Right, and not to make it overly simple, but if they're not hitting their goals, if you've got one big standout, you've got a bunch of average and a couple underperformers, which is very typical, they should all be above average. That's what we're looking for. If you don't have that, there's something you're doing wrong.

And that self-actualization comes from understanding that when you're managing salespeople, you're managing their attitudes, you're managing their motivation. And I use the visualization of a balloon. And if you keep their PSI of their balloon properly inflated, you're gonna be in good shape. You have to keep them motivated. Now,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
Very often people think that motivation is all rah, it's all positive. That's the furthest thing from the truth. It's giving them coaching, giving them direction, giving them the tools that they need, listening to them. That's a very difficult thing without getting into arguments because they can be very opinionated. But it's making sure you're paying attention to Covey's emotional bank account.

more critical than any other role because of the effect that they have on your business and the effect you have on their emotions. It's a very emotional job. There's three things that are facing salespeople that no other employee in the company faces. They're being paid a commission so their performance determines how much they make. Very few people do that. They face competition that

Most other employees don't, you know, they're fighting competition all day, every day, and they face rejection and think about, you know, in most sales organizations, you'll get a 10, maybe 20% close rate on all the conversations you have. So you're failing eight or nine, 10 times out of 10.

Imagine what that does to your psyche all day every day. And now I've got a boss that's, you need more, you need more, you need more. Numbers, numbers, numbers. And so I'm gonna put this in a bow. The numbers are the outcomes of behaviors. If you focus on the numbers, salespeople will give you those numbers, the number of phone calls, the number of emails, et cetera. They'll make your CRM look beautiful.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
but you will not get the results or the outcomes you want out of those numbers. Focus on the behaviors. You focus on behaviors. That's what drives the numbers, and you'll be much more successful. But you, as a business owner with a sales person or a sales team, you need to understand what those behaviors are. They might want to reach out to me. I've managed thousands of sales teams. I was in the business that

had many, many sales managers and sales teams. I was a student of the art and science of sales. I know what works and what doesn't work. I've not failed yet in getting people to realize that these behaviors, when we, to a previous part of this conversation, you have to hire people with these behaviors. Remember you're hiring salespeople.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Vaughn:
Right? So often they're saying, who's this guy that they did so well in the interview? They're no good. Hire the right person and then understand what competencies or traits or behaviors they must be able to execute day in and day out. And then you have to make sure the next level up that you're making deposits into this emotional bank account to keep their motivation, their, their encouragement.

inflated to the proper PSI knowing that I've got to take some out. I'm, I've got a course, correct. I've got to give them some negative feedback. There's going to be some tough discussions, but I can't deflate it. And too often all they hear is bad, bad. And now you just got this deflated salesperson that is never going to be able to be productive for you. So long answer to a very simple question, but I, again, you might detect some of my passion around that.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
It's it's

It is such a passionate topic because there's so many different ways of doing it. Some have been successful, some not successful. And I think that because around the topic of sales, you know, you kind of mentioned it there and is, is you have salespeople talking about it and, you know, in the interview, you're interviewing salespeople. Well, if they've got the job, they sold you, like they did a good job. Um, and so you kind of have to be mindful of that in the management style, in the

you know, he's, it's funny. So my, I have three kids and my middle son, he wants to be a pro sports player. And he has confidence like nothing I've ever seen. He's eight. He thinks he is truly just like, he's buying me a sports car. Like he's like, as soon as I get my pro, my pro contract, I'm buying a sports car. He plays lacrosse, I don't want to break it to him that it's probably like the, you know, he's not buying multiple sports cars, maybe one, and he'll probably want to keep it himself, but.

It's this tough balance because you're like, I don't wanna, I'm trying to teach them to be humble.

But at the same time, it's like a kind of like confident, it's like kind of a cheeky game. And so it's like, he needs the confidence. And so it's this like inner parent struggle for me that I'm like, ooh, like humble, but like, I don't wanna break the spirit. And I don't know how it's like trying to like coach and guide without breaking the spirit. And so it's kind of the same thing with a salesperson almost where you're like, I need, you know, you need to shape the outcome, but.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
You know, just coming down hard on people all the time. You're not meeting sales. It doesn't, that doesn't help them at all.

Vaughn:
Not even a little bit, yeah. And it helps you. You know, I got it off my chest. I'm doing what I need to do, but it's not helping them.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Because at the end of the day is, you know, whatever we're tracking. So, you know, like we, I have a method called the data driven method. And, you know, we talk a lot about setting targets and KPIs and all these pieces. But one of the key things is that when we track the wrong metrics.

and we focus on them, oftentimes we end up switching to like a quantity over quality thing. So if you've said to someone, any person on your team, you must get 20 of these done. And it's really outside of their ability, whether that's capacity or training or whatever, they may, because they want to please you and get the 20 done, they may get 20 out the door. But I can tell you that those probably, if you went and looked at them, although they've checked the box, those 20 would not be.

of the quality that you want. And so it was a waste. And so oftentimes people will say, oh, well, we got all our numbers in the right spots. We're good. Meanwhile, you've got people who are, they're frustrated. The quality is terrible. That it's like, well, my email box got to zero. I didn't actually respond to people correctly, but I got to zero.

And so those are, you know, you see it in every part of business where it's like, when we focus, I mean, I'm, I'm a numbers nerd. I'm the data driven method. I love the numbers and the metrics and whatnot. But when we focus on them in the wrong way and forget about the people who are a part of those equations, unfortunately, it really has a counterproductive effect.

Vaughn:
truly does and you know the baked into all that is we talked previously about a great place to work you're forcing them to just hit a number push a number out the quality is not there what sense of pride are you in stealing right it's they're not going to be prideful of what they're putting out

your customers certainly aren't going to like it. That's going to create a whole new set of problems for you. And to this quality versus quantity, here's one that's very common. Oh, that guy goes home at 5 o'clock every day. He comes in on time, leaves on time. I want my salespeople or I want my team to work harder than that. And I'll sometimes say, well,

Are they hitting the numbers? Are they getting things done? Yeah, the business is great. What are you complaining about? Right, it's this self-inflicted kind of standard that may or may not be necessary. And ours worked as a KPI, right Tiffany Anne? It's, but whether you're working with a production team,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.

Vaughn:
Are you working with a architectural group? We all have KPIs, we all have numbers, but it's getting the work right and knowing that the more they can get it right, they may be slower, but if I get it right, they're gonna take a sense of pride, your customers are gonna love you, you can be proud of what they do. And in time, they get faster.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Vaughn:
But if you're forcing to your point them to just get faster before their quality is there, for their competence is there, that's not going to create retention and happiness.

Tiffany-Ann Bottche:
Someone said to me a long time ago and I thought, you know what, it's like, okay, so businesses like McDonald's focus on, you know, like penny differences in time and in resources for their cheeseburger. But if the McDonald's cheeseburger sat on its own as its unique item without any of the McDonald's branding, without any of the history, without any of anything, would anyone truly buy the McDonald's cheeseburger?

Like if it was at a roadside stand, this would not be some people would not drive to go buy this cheeseburger because it's not it's a mass produced quick whatever. There's so much that goes into that being successful that has nothing to do with the actual cheeseburger. And so when we try to take our businesses too soon.

and it's a newer business and we try to, you know, pumping out these cheeseburgers, it's, it's rarely that, you know, long-term success is not built on that cheeseburger without all of the sex success up first like that. It's such a different model and knowing where you are in a product and business life cycle to understand, am I just creating, am I just supposed to do this faster? But if you don't have it mastered yet, then you can't just do it faster. Like it's not just, you know, like, oh, we, you know, we were successful if we did 20 a week. So now if we want more,

we just need to take the same team and do 40 a week and that's sure to guarantee success. It just never works that way.

Vaughn:
Well, and I just recently watched an interview with the founder of Paul Mitchell Hair Products and who I didn't know also founded Patron Tequila. And he had a lot. Did you know that? Didn't either. He has a great story. It's very inspirational. But he had a he had a line that really resonated with me is. You're not trying to create product.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
I had no idea. No, I didn't know.

Vaughn:
you're trying to create reorders. That's how you scale a business. And so back to this whole quantity quality thing, you can put a lot out, but you're going to have to get reorders. And so whether you're an accountant or making airline parts or creating a package chewing gum,

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yeah.

Vaughn:
You've got to put a product out there that people can come back for. Now, somehow through the mystique of McDonald's, through convenience and price, there's a value proposition to McDonald's that through scale, location, a lot of science, that most small entrepreneurs are not going to be able to build into their model for some time.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Right, right. Yeah, it's, um, and realizing those differences and not focusing on just faster and more bigger, better, more faster doesn't always guarantee profit in the same direction. So where can people connect with you, Vaughn? Where can they, you know, you mentioned a book that's available on Amazon. Where else can they connect with you, learn more, gain some of your wisdom, resources, et cetera?

Vaughn:
Well, I, please follow me on LinkedIn, Vaughn's SIGMA. And it's also results driven leadership has its page on LinkedIn. We post a lot there. I put a lot of content out there.

I've got my own podcast, the business mechanic show. They want to come. And that's a lot of free advice that comes out every week. And, uh, I've got a, uh, a blog page on medium and flip board and other places. And certainly come to my website, rdltraining.com results driven leadership or rdltraining.com. And all of that is captured right there. We'd love to have you consume all this great work that we put out.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
That sounds fantastic. I know I will for sure be checking it out. I want to also download that book, the, was it the pathway to what was that title again?

Vaughn:
a road map to difficult conversations.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
the roadmaps to full conversations. You know, that applies to, I mean, so many scenarios. I see great value, I'm gonna check it out. So if a business owner had, you know, you had the ability to give them one tip, one tangible tip that they could implement right away in their business, what would that be for you?

Vaughn:
Lead with your ears. Learn to listen. Learn to ask questions. Don't make assumptions. Don't get into arguments. Ask a lot of questions. And very often what you think is the intention or the situation, very often with enough questions, you'll find that the situation that you perceive is not the situation that is true. So lead with your ears. You'll be better off always.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
What a valuable, valuable tip to every business owner, every manager, every leader in every position, truly. Well, thank you so much for being here, Vaughn. It's been a pleasure.

Vaughn:
Tiffany and it's been a true fun time for me. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon.

Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:
Yes.