In this vibrant episode, Michelle Page, Founder and Principal Consultant of SalesChasers, shares how she guided sales organizations to greater productivity and profitability for over thirty years by distinguishing this difference, building teams, training skills, and growing revenue.

You will discover:

– Why your sales problem probably isn’t a sales problem
– How each leadership style helps and hurts scaling your sales
– How to approach sales if your want to achieve Predictable Success

Episode Transcript

Scott Ritzheimer

Hello Hello and welcome welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach and that is Michelle Page and Michelle knows what it takes to lead a winning team her experience has been honed by working with court furniture costar group, Bluefin payment systems leapfrog online fleetcor technologies and WW Granger just to name a few of the top companies. She has also earned her Bachelor’s in Business Administration from John Carroll University and a master’s of business administration from the University of Georgia Go Dawgs. Her expertise ranges from solopreneur to Fortune 500. And across industries with an emphasis on SAS and pass technology, FinTech banking services, payments, healthcare, business and professional services. And don’t forget manufacturing. And it’s not all fluff. Michelle is the real deal. She’s also a fellow Georgian. A fellow Gwinnettian, and we’re both in the same company here. If that’s what you call people from Gwinnett? I don’t know. But Michelle, it feels like it’s been forever getting to this point. Now I wanted to have you on for a long time scheduling finally allowed us to do that. Welcome to the show. Before we kind of jump into just how you help your clients and, and even tying that in a cool way to the predictable success model. I’d love to just start with your story. What were you doing before starting sales chasers? And why did you ultimately make the leap?

Michelle Page

Thank you, Scott. It’s so exciting to be here. The backstory is about two decades of doing exactly what I’m doing today. That’s making revenue out of chaos. So I started in sales very young age, and realized I just had had an inherent Knack word, inherent talent. I realized very early in my career, that selling by phone is far easier than you know, in and out of the car, door to door and whatnot. So my entire career has been based on connecting with individuals who live companies and finding out their knees finding a solution and selling by phone leading teams, building teams, and creating revenue for companies. And then of course, I said, revenue out of chaos, a lot of that is taking nothing and creating entire organizations.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah, that’s super cool. So if we kind of jump into your world today, what would you say some of the most important work you’re doing for your clients?

Michelle Page

A lot of the clients I work with are at an inflection point, either a startup or a scale up. Maybe they’ve hit a growth plateau, and they just can’t seem to get beyond it. They’re preparing for an IPO, a sale a merger and acquisition. And they have a need for more revenue. They have a need to look at their business and find out what’s going wrong. A lot of times it’s not they need more sales, they need to look at the underlying problem. What’s what’s causing this. So that’s what I do. It is more of a holistic approach. So I kind of ask the question behind the question, and help uncover what is it that we can do together to make your company operate better to fill those gaps? And what value can I provide doesn’t have to be in this this development. It was packed meat and sale was never in revenue growth. But that’s the crux of it. It’s a holistic approach.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. And I’ve had a number of sales professionals and coaches on the show have, you know, gotten LinkedIn invites from about 1000 of them. But I can’t think of any that have said that sales might not be your problem, right? It’s one of those things like for and we all have this to a certain extent, but you know, a hammer, everything is a nail. And one of the things that fascinates me about you and this is just one example of it is that it’s not just one thing, it’s not just a simple patch on tack on kind of a thing. Well, it but if it’s not sales, what is it? What are some examples of things that maybe clients have come to you and thought they had a sales problem, but they really had a fill in the blank problem?

Michelle Page

Well, there’s so many functional areas that contributes to sales to marketing to operations, no functional area, that company should or can operate in silos. They’re all interconnected. They need to be involved and cross functional communications, cross functional goal setting and cross functional execution of those goals. And as both strategic and tactical goals. So when somebody is not read Seeing those revenue goals, or their team is underperforming, we need to look at all aspects are they getting the support they need from marketing? Is technology and data giving them the data that they need the prospect? Do they have the right tech stacks? A lot of the things that I’ve found is they had tech stocks, but they’re not using them properly. And they’re under utilizing them. They’ve never really been trained on them. So let’s see what you’ve got. Let’s look at your current state. Let’s look at your desired state. What’s the past to get there? Yeah, it’s not necessarily the straight line of I need more sales. Yeah, it’s probably a long and winding road. So let’s walk that route together.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. Yeah, it’s fascinating. And you’ve had a chance to kind of dabble in a study some of the predictable success model. And one of the things in the whitewater stage that we talk about a lot, and folks that follow us will know this, you really can’t sell your way out of Whitewater. And a trap that a lot of us fall into is, you know, we’ve we’ve basically played the revenue game for a while, right, the more you sell in a relatively simple environment, the more you keep, and then White waters where those start to separate, where you might be selling more, but you’re not keeping any more and, and there are other things that need to change it and you’ve nailed that. It’s this idea of kind of bringing the organization together working cross functionally, bringing in systems and processes. And I know that’s a big part of what you do with teams, is help them especially from a revenue standpoint, but across the board start bringing in system and process. Well, why why do you think that’s so hard for teams to do? And what are some examples of bringing system in process and how they can help, especially from a revenue standpoint?

Michelle Page

Well, what I find a lot of times is an organization will call me and say, I want you to coach in this area, we’ve identified this problem. And when we talk further, we realize that they don’t have those systems and processes. And the problem extends further than that. Let me give you an example. So an organization that I’m speaking with actually, they’re hearing what I county they’re looking at their their one STR and they think that is where they need to focus. So after quite a few conversations, and I hate to call them discovery conversations they are there, their strategy sessions is what they are, we actually changed focus. And they don’t want to coach that one lead generator. They decided to go back and look at their CRM, make sure it had all the fields. They wanted to go back and look at their marketing materials, make sure that they were marketing with the right message. They wanted to go back and look at their data source. They want me to help them evaluate, do we have the right source? Do we have the right value? And they also want to involve the entire leadership tool in coaching. Yeah. So it’s, it’s got to be a coordinated effort. Yeah. And it’s, it’s not until you actually have those conversations with all the stakeholders to bring it to their attention. It’s not a problem in one area, you have to, again, holistically look at, you know, one person can’t drive to the solution. Everybody’s got to be in the boat rowing in the same direction.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. And you bring up this really big point, because one of the things that I’ve found is, as an executive team, there’s so many things that are kind of clamoring for your attention. And there’s this constant temptation to kind of push things out, right, I you go deal with it, you go deal with it, and to an extent, that’s appropriate delegation, et cetera, et cetera. But when you don’t have the the base level of understanding that you need, when you don’t have the right mind set around it, you can’t delegate it, and hope that it just solves itself. And so one of the big things that we’re constantly looking at, especially in that predictable success stage is the involvement of senior leadership team, it has to start and take root there before it goes elsewhere. And one of the places I’ve seen this violated the most is sales. Right? Especially as companies begin to grow, and you kind of get away from the founder being the chief sales leader kind of idea. And you have a dedicated sales team, dedicated executive team, those two start to split. What’s the cost of allowing those two to really migrate away from each other?

Michelle Page

Well, first and foremost, the founder generally, in my honest opinion, should not be in charge of sales. In fact, I did a podcast. Oh gosh, about two months ago. And it was focused on the founders dilemma. You’ve created a great honor to service now how do you sell it? The founder is an expert. And their product or service, they’re the ones that created it. They’re not an expert in sales. They’re their time and attention is best spent on running your company, and proving their product or service and expanding the company. Get an expert in sales, get an expert in finance, you’re probably not a finance experts. Get an expert when the time is appropriate. And HR. Yeah, get an expert in operations, if that’s not your strong suit. So as an executive team, you need to make sure all this functional areas are covered by someone who knows them best. So if you do that there should not be a great decline.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah, yeah, that’s excellent. So one of the things that you mentioned, as we were kind of discussing ahead of time, you were talking about the different styles and working with them, and some of the challenges that those styles have in in adopting what you do. So oh, just kind of walk us through so visionaries, right. We know the visionary founder, 1000 ideas type of person, what, what are some of the strengths and challenges that they bring to building a sales team?

Michelle Page

That I’ve worked with a lot of visionaries, they’re fun to work with, they really are, because they have this fantastic vision of where they want to be. So when we have that current state desired state discussion, we’re both on board. We’re excited. We want to jump right out. The challenge is that path to get there. So when you are trying to set expectations, it’s the Okay, well, this is not a today’s the current state, tomorrow’s the desired state. It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint, yeah, it’s gonna take some time, there is no instant gratification. So it’s setting that expectation, managing those expectations. And getting them to see it through completion. visionaries have great ideas that you’re I discussed this previously, a lot of times they’ll implement and then you know, there’s another bright shiny object, so things will get half implemented. And all that time effort. Yeah. investment. It doesn’t come to fruition.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. And how about our operators, so our kind of ruthless finishers get stuff done, you know, point me in a direction, stay out of my way type you? What are some of the strengths and maybe disadvantages that they bring to a sales process?

Michelle Page

I love operators. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t best work with an operator, if there’s someone that’s a little bit visionary working with them. Because the operators a lot of times are very cost oriented. They want to be efficient, they want to be effective. But a lot of times they don’t want to look at all the creative options. They then want a great path from A to B and then want it to work. They want to work fairly fast. But they may not be open to as many creative ideas.

Scott Ritzheimer

Yeah. It’s a such a great point. Because you could argue that many operators kind of quintessential salespeople, right that they want to, they want to they want to know what to do and be left alone on how to do it that they’re initiators. They’re go getters, they make it happen. But yeah, you’re right, they need to have a great visionary to follow to inspire them to get them thinking outside of their current reference point. And as just such a practical example of that, that you brought up. So we’ll kind of move through these quickly. The next one here is processors, right? So they think in terms of system and process, very linear can be a little slow compared to the other styles, but they bring a strength to a team environment. I’d love to hear from a sales perspective and even your experience. How do processors help and hurt sales processes?

Michelle Page

Processors have a very special place in my heart. I absolutely love processes, procedures, best practices. And of course, you’ve got to document them. That the best opportunity for success for repeatable, scalable success. What was that predictable success would be to have a strong foundation. You cannot Band Aid and duct tape your way to success. So processes. Absolutely. But that can’t be the only solution. So if You can give me a little bit of quick wins of that visionary, but the urgency of the operator and the thought ik gotta habit just so the the processor. I’m a happy coach.

Scott Ritzheimer

And I think that’s that’s kind of a thing is like, to an extent, you have some people that are kind of wired that way, but a lot of us if we were to be that way, we’d have split personality disorder, right like that. And the value of what you do in building teams and bringing them together is your ability to communicate with all three of these, bring them daily could because the way that you get all three is, is having a team of people come together, and building a team around all of these different strengths, you know, mitigating some of the risks on the weaknesses and pulling through and, and so one of the places that this is hard is in the kind of hard charging sales environment, you can get some folks who might be invested in the freedom that they used to have under the old system and struggle to kind of adopt a more systematic approach, or, or struggle to go in and check all the boxes in the CRM. So what is it that that makes it worth the leap for them? Right? You have the salespersons out there, they used to just kind of running and gunning, and now you’re trying to build a team and consistency and scalability? How do you bring them with you?

Michelle Page

Well, that gets to the heart of coaching. So my coaching style, very collaborative, I need to understand what’s important to them, how do they communicate? How do they think? Because if I understand all those factors, then I can speak in their language. I can relate why to why for them. So everybody in sales says with what’s in it for me, they have got to understand what’s in it for them. If they follow the procedures, what’s in it for them, if they use the CRM and document things? Why is it going to make their job easier? Why are they going to prospect better? Where are they going to close more? But I’ve got to make them understand. We’re equals as a coach. I’m not talking down I’m talking with, right.

Scott Ritzheimer

Right. So good. So we’ve kind of put me on this idea of moving toward coaching and how you’re helping folks. So an easy segment as a question, I like to ask all of my guests, and it’s this, what’s the biggest secret that you wish just wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening or watching today knew?

Michelle Page

I think so. First thing as it relates to sales. So often, the first thing is what you’ve got to help this person do better. You’ve got to coach her. It’s, it’s a bigger issue than that. Everybody in sales looks at again, that that newest, bright, shiny thing, they put their investment in tech stocks. They’re not putting their investment in the l&d part of sales and learning. That’s where your investment pays off. That’s when your people teach them, train them, coach that develop your people. If they don’t have the support they need, it doesn’t matter how cool your tech stack is. They don’t know how to use it. It’s a waste of your money, it’s a waste of your talent. You’re gonna lose your people, you’re not gonna be able to retain them, you’re not going to maximize their talents and their results. Because you didn’t coach.

Scott Ritzheimer

Right. Yeah, so good. So another question that I have for you. And then I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you. Because I know that there’s some folks listening is like, we need this in a big way. So but before we get there, I’m gonna have you take off your coach hat for a moment, put on your CEO hat and talk to what’s the next stage of growth look like for you and your business and what challenge we have to overcome to get there.

Michelle Page

The next stage of my business is actually just getting to reach as many people as possible as many businesses as possible. I always say sales is one to one, marketing is one to many. So I want to reach a lot more people. So I’ve got to take a little bit of marketing approach. I’m doing more podcasts, more webinars, increasing engagement on LinkedIn, I want to help people McCoach I’m a giver. One of my greatest satisfactions professionally, is developing others, unnecessarily clients because I love helping clients. But when I’ve been a sales leader, I want to bring up the skill set the knowledge of theirs. I’m working with you So that means I need to reach more people. I need, I’m looking at productization. Not to sell, but to give away. I’m creating value that I can share. So that’s that’s the, the initiative I’m working on right now. We’re actually one of my valued colleagues. She is also a fractional leader. She and I are launching a podcast here in a few weeks. It’s not finalized yet as far as launch date, but I’m very excited when that goes live. And it’s going to be a coaching podcast, we’re going to be coaching, business leaders, business owners.

Scott Ritzheimer

That’s fantastic. Well, when you when you get it out there, let us know. And we’ll get it out to our audience as well. Michelle, it’s just an absolute pleasure having you here. folks want to find more out about the work that you do, how can we get in touch with you?

Michelle Page

Well, as you see my contact information there. The best, the easiest way is probably saleschasers.com, there’s one word and it’s with an s on the end. You can also find me on LinkedIn, I have a sales tracers page, as well as my personal page. And are you can contact me on LinkedIn, by email by phone number. I’d love to talk to you

Scott Ritzheimer

Fantastic one of the things that I absolutely love and it is such a gem, from industry to industry is when you have someone with the technical expertise to take you far, but the strategic ability to take a step back and also say, Hey, you’re actually going after the wrong thing. So that’s really, really special about the way that Michelle works. And you can tell it’s instantly obvious from conversation number one, so go to saleschasers.com Find her on LinkedIn and you won’t regret it. And again, Michelle, thank you so much for being here. It’s such an honor and privilege to have you and for those who are listening you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.

Contact Michelle Page

Michelle Page knows what it takes to lead a winning team. Her experience has been honed by working with CORT Furniture, CoStar Group, Bluefin Payment Systems, Leapfrog Online, FleetCor Technologies, and W.W. Grainger, to name a few top companies. She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from John Carroll University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Georgia. Her expertise ranges from solopreneur to Fortune 500 and across industries with an emphasis on SaaS/ PaaS, technology, fintech/ banking services/ payments, healthcare, business and professional services and manufacturing.

Want to learn more about Michelle Page’s work at SalesChasers? Check out her website at https://saleschasers.com/

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